#and the truly the kindest thing is eternal rest. at last.

[nikoisme]

Nothing like a story where the happy ending is death aaghh

[fatuismooches]

amandus est videri.

synopsis: Your birthday rolls around again, and you expect it to be a nice, relaxed day as always. But your illness hasn’t been the kindest to you lately, so Dottore decides to spoil you, as best as a man like him knows how to anyway.

includes: dottore w/ gn! reader

notes: Just a fluff, self-indulgent fic of Dottore being soft for you on your birthday. Fragile reader. He comforts you a lot at the end. Last year's fic.

Birthdays were a special thing, no doubt.

It was a day that many looked forward to. It represented another year of growing older, a joyful celebration with the ones you loved as you looked forward to the future. At least, that was the case for some people. For others, they simply didn’t care. Your husband was a good example. If you didn’t remind Dottore every year and present him with a gift, you were sure the day would pass like any other, whether he remembered it was his birthday or not.

You, on the other hand, were probably in the middle of these two feelings. Yes, you did look forward to the day, but you supposed it had lost some of the charm it should have. It had been so many years since you’d woken up from your almost eternal rest, and even longer since you had been plagued with this sickness. Therefore all of your birthdays have been spent with the same lingering feeling in the back of your mind - when will you spend your special day in good health, free to feel and think and act in the way you truly want to? At this point, the only reason you continued to ask for a large cake was to indulge the segments’ sweets cravings.

Still, your birthday did make you happy, whether it was from the lavishing affection from your lovers or the gifts you received (how you survived without your beloved Headcircles for so long was beyond you.) This year would be no different. But it was obvious to the others that you had become more withdrawn and closed off than your normal self, which had come as a result of your stagnant condition. 

Of course, Dottore himself had become more than aware of this. He was an observant man after all, even on the days he didn’t see you or speak to you. He knew you, inside and out. Even now, he could understand the downcast look that sometimes sunk into your face when you thought no one was watching. 

Which was no doubt surprising to the average person, considering the severe lack of ethical practice and empathy from the Doctor. Of course, being a scholar first and foremost, results came first, regardless of what needed to happen to obtain them. But in truth, when it came to you, he was a genuine doctor, and you were his only genuine patient, to which he had the genuine goal of treating and curing you, unlike his other subjects. 

Therefore, due to this sincerity, it was simple for him to understand how you were affected by your illness. However, you refused to ever approach him about it first, which often led to a flood of tears later down the line, when he finally got you to stop holding back. Still, there was only so much he could do. He wasn’t made to comfort, his specialty was the opposite. He wasn’t a natural at producing soft words, and his hands didn’t know where to go to make it all better.

Nowadays, it wasn’t hard for him to admit to himself that he missed your lively and vibrant self. The person who would constantly tease and banter with him, unafraid to debate with him or be loud in their declarations with a once familiar wide smile, laying their hands all over him as they thought of the most minuscule thing to bother him with. Needless to say, Il Dottore didn’t appreciate interruptions during his work…

But he missed yours. 

However, he saw the approaching date of your birthday as a good opportunity to hopefully help that person come forth once more. Of course, he was never one to really care about birthdays, until you came along. It was all those years ago when he decided that the effort you put into it was worth reciprocating even just a bit. Good work should be rewarded after all. Though this gift was certainly much bigger than his previous ones, he believed it was well deserved.

—

The day was just like any other. You had started it by watching the endless snow continue to form in heaps as the segments conducted their daily prodding at your body for checkups, and then made yourself cozy in bed in the comfort of your room. A lot of your days had been spent like this lately, too tired to walk around or entertain yourself with the segments. 

That was okay - they still visited you from time to time. But a visit that you did not expect was from Dottore himself. You hadn’t even heard him come in, only realizing his presence when his deep voice tickled your ear, making you jump and scramble to sit up properly. The fox creature that had peacefully nested near your feet was also awoken by the sudden intrusion, glaring at the man who paid it no attention.

“That seems to be quite an absorbing book you’re reading.” He had no reaction to how he caused you a great fright.

“I keep telling you not to scare me like that,” you huffed, heart still racing from his sudden appearance and also his close proximity. He cocked his head to the side with a smile, feigning innocence, while you pouted at his response, slumping back into the sheets. Foxttore also crawled up to your side and made himself comfy there once more.

“I did knock. Multiple times, in fact,” he commented, moving to stand over you. You probably have not changed your position much since this morning. “You didn’t hear me, so I simply took matters into my own hands.” The unamused glint in your eyes managed to bring a familiar feeling into his chest.

“Regardless, while I would inquire into the contents of the literature that has you so engrossed,” he hummed, moving away from you to observe any recent additions to your room, “I have something more important to share.”

“Is that so? Have you come to tell me the update of the experiment you last spoke about?” You asked, returning your attention to your book. In reality, you already knew the answer was no - whenever it had to do with his research you could always tell whether it was from his face or tone or body language. Either he was greatly pleased, perhaps even excited when he made a breakthrough, or he was sour and annoyed if the result was the opposite.

“No, but this is far more interesting.” The smile on his face gave you a feeling he was up to something.

“More interesting? I doubt anything could be more interesting than your research, Dottore,” you replied, but his statement intrigued you.

“I have decided to take you somewhere.” That response made your eyes widen, perking up in surprise. The times you had been able to leave the lab were far in between due to your illness, so you treasured each time you were able to witness the glory of the chilly snowfall. This had to have something to do with your birthday, and you were already grateful. Even if your body didn’t want to cooperate, well… you’d just force it to (hopefully.)

“Where? Tell me where!” You swung your feet over the edge of your bed, thrilled, your pet once again whining at the loss of your warmth. “Wait, actually, let me guess!” You didn’t notice how pleased he was with your sudden return to life, a smile on your face as you thought about all the possibilities, longing to get away from this place.

“Hmm… are we going to visit that delicious bakery again? And scare the townsfolk once more?” You tapped your cheek as you reminisced at the mix of petrified and curious expressions from when you two were there. It was still amusing to think about the Harbinger in such a place with you.

“No, somewhere farther away.”

“The theater, then? Oh, is a new play coming out? Are we gonna watch it? But I don’t want to hear you complain about the plot the whole time again…” Dottore merely watched, entertained by your deep in thought expression.

“No, not that either.” 

“Then where? Tell me,” you gave up on guessing, trying not to kick your legs in excitement.

“We are going to Sumeru together.” His words caused the room to go silent afterward as you blinked at him, trying to process his words. Your lips parted and then closed as you repeated what he said back in your mind, while Dottore only stared at you as if what he said was the most normal thing ever.

“... Huh? I- what?” After a bit, you couldn’t help but giggle a bit at the sheer absurdity of that sentence. “Hey, I know a certain segment of yours likes to joke around, but not you so much. Now tell me, where are we really going?” But Dottore didn’t look phased at your denial, casually brushing his fingers against your numerous books on the shelves, only perking up once he recognized one on Khaenri’ahn machinery.

“We are going to Sumeru,” he repeated. “Once we’re there, we can go anywhere you like. We will leave a week from today, first thing in the morning, and get there the night before your birthday. And there is no need to pack, everything will be taken care of.” Once again, you were shocked into silence, your heart rate increasing to a pace that probably wasn’t the best for you.

“... You’re serious. You’re actually serious,” you spoke in disbelief, words coming out in a half-whisper. You stumbled to your feet until you were pressed against him, your hands gripping his shirt as you beckoned him for answers. “But why? I mean- how? I thought I couldn’t- we couldn’t because of all of those things and- well, are you sure? I… I don’t want to bother you or your work or cause any unnecessary problems or-” Your flustered self stopped talking when a large hand rested on top of your head.

“Am I not allowed to spoil my spouse?”

“S-Spoil… well…” The words felt so foreign coming from his lips - he could be very direct with his verbal affection if he was in the mood, but this… was more than what you had expected. Although you could feel your face heating up, you still couldn’t help but feel you were putting an extra burden on him, and your expression made it easy for him to guess so. Dottore’s hand moved to stroke your cheek instead, forcing you to look up at him.

“If you’re still not convinced… then think of it as repayment, if that suits you. You’ve always satisfied my needs, I am merely satisfying yours as well. Or perhaps… think of it as me taking a vacation. You’ve always asked me to take one, no?” His voice managed to quell your worries a bit as you nodded, reaching to your cheek to squeeze his hand. 

You still had a lot of questions - if you could even handle the whole trip with your illness - but you were sure he had already come up with all the solutions to all the problems in advance. As for how he managed to get time off… perhaps working as a Harbinger without taking any sort of break for centuries ended up having its usefulness in the end… You could just imagine the expression on Pierro’s face.

“Thank you… thank you! I love you!” You couldn’t help but hug him as tightly as you could, now knowing that you were truly leaving this place to not just anywhere but your homeland, the place you missed so much. It really did sound too good to be true… Dottore only chuckled at your reaction, having expected this from the moment he planned the whole trip. He held you back, smoothing your hair until you pulled away again, suddenly deep in thought once again.

“Oh Zandik, I need to make a list! There are so much things I need to do and see… how will I have time for them all? And I need to get a nice outfit ready… gotta get new filters for my Kamera too… I have to take a lot of pictures… And souvenirs for all the segments! And Bina and Panta and Childe-” In a flash, you were suddenly digging through your room in order to prepare for the things you just mentioned, as well as whatever was running through that mind of you. The abomination of a creature had waddled his way over to you, discontent that his cuddles were over, but still interested in your activities. 

Dottore only watched in amusement, simply glad to see you smiling again in a way that was wholly you, before he left you to attend to his own business.

—

To say you were restless was an understatement. You think that Dottore shouldn’t have told you about the trip this early because now you were constantly dreaming about what you’d do in Sumeru. It wasn’t only about Sumeru either, this was a long-awaited opportunity to spend genuine time with your husband. Although you hadn’t been feeling up to much lately, the whole situation made your spirits rise. 

But soon enough, the journey was underway. However, a small problem was that you had not been on a boat in hundreds of years. It was admittedly daunting at first - but wow, had the design of boats changed a lot over the centuries… you could have never thought a boat could be so fancy. Of course, Dottore was keeping his eye on you the whole time, making sure you could handle the change in environment.

“Staying out here too long won’t be good for you,” the sudden voice to the side of you made you jump a bit, before you quickly relaxed, realizing it was just Dottore. You had been just standing here every day for a while.

“The breeze is nicer than I’d thought it would be. And the sea… it’s very pretty.” You smiled, looking back at the view. Even though only boring water surrounded you two for miles, it was still a fascinating sight. You had already taken a lot of pictures, but they couldn’t compare to the real thing. “I wish to continue to look at it,” you added because you already knew he’d try to pull you away and into the warmth of the cabin. He was silent at your response, and you thought you’d won him over when suddenly something heavy slipped around you.

His coat, which was much larger than you, pooled on the floor of the deck. It really wasn’t necessary, considering you were already wearing your own, but who were you to decline his kind offer?

“Don’t stay too long,” was his only warning, and you couldn’t help but giggle as you stepped closer to him, squeezing his hand when you suddenly remembered something important.

“Hey… speaking of, are you still motion sick, Zandik? Will you be okay?”

“I never had such a thing,” he clicked his tongue in annoyance, trying not to remember certain… events at the Akademiya that you still made fun of to this day.

The Fatui agents pretended not to hear your cackles and their Harbinger’s disgruntled responses the whole trip.

—

You had refused to go to sleep for hours now. Why? Because you would reach the docks of Sumeru by tonight, and you would not miss the moment for anything, even though your body was loudly protesting to get some rest. Surprisingly, Dottore didn’t object too much. Obviously, he’d expected this. You were grateful that he was being lenient for once. Anxiously, you continued to wait with bated breath, tapping the edge of the boat.

And then Port Ormos came into view. 

You were still quite a distance away but… you thought it was beautiful. There were boats that were even more large and luxurious, and you could hear the hustle and bustle of people still filling the port even though the moon had begun to settle in. But the lights around the port glowed magnificently, so familiar to what you remembered all those years ago. Oh, but the layout was certainly different… it was the same and yet it was not, change was evident but there were things that still reminded you of the past. Of… better times.

“Dottore, do you-” As you turned around to look for him, you found that he was already next to you, watching the port come into view as well. You immediately hooked your arm around his, pulling him closer as you practically jumped up and down in excitement. 

“Thank you again, Dottore. I am truly so happy…” You nuzzled your face into his arm, hoping he could feel how thankful you were. He stroked your hair with his free hand in response. 

“Just don’t stray too far tonight. You can do that tomorrow.”

When you finally got off the boat and set foot on not just any land but in Sumeru, you just wanted to go everywhere. You wanted to see everything, the new places and the old - most importantly, the ones you shared with Zandik. But you paid mind to his request and stayed in one place (mostly), instead pacing around in awe while he handled business with the agents. Besides, you didn’t want to draw too much attention to yourself anyway, not with all these people here.

The house you were staying at was a distance away from the city, not too far but it also gave you two a sense of peacefulness and quiet away from all the noise. It was perfect and you loved it, as it somewhat reminded you of living in the dorms with Zandik, although the architecture had changed since then. But you were still a bit… unsatisfied.

“Are you sure we can’t just stay up and do something…?” You asked drowsily, fighting off the very obvious sleepiness in your voice, while Dottore pulled the blankets over you. Although you were energetic a few moments ago from the thrill of it all, tiredness had quickly settled into your body after it was over. Still, it just felt a bit annoying to waste this precious time sleeping, and you looked at your husband with pleading eyes. He seemed to think about it, before answering you.

“If you can stay awake for ten more minutes, then we can,” Dottore indulged your request, knowing full well that you would be knocked out by then. But you seemed more than ready to take on this challenge.

“I… I can do that! Alright, talk to me, Zandik,” you urged him, hoping a conversation with him would help you fight the sleepiness.

“You said that you created a list for tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I did!” You tugged on his arm, pulling him closer as he was only sitting on the edge of the bed rather than lying next to you. Knowing him, he was probably going to try doing some work… somehow, despite being miles away from Snezhnaya. “I want to walk around the city first… oh, but we need to eat first. You know the good places, right? I know the segments have been here many times… they told you, right?” You continued to prattle on, forcing back your yawns.

“Naturally.”

“Good, good… we need to go into as many stores as possible. I have a lot of gifts to buy,” you rubbed your eyes to continue getting the sleepiness out of your system.

“You do, indeed.”

“Mhm. And a lot of… pictures,” you yawned, the fluffiness and softness of the pillows and sheets overtaking your senses. “We should visit the forest too. If only we could explore a ruin again…”

“We will, one day in the future.”

“Yeah… do you want to go anywhere, Zandik?” You had moved his hand that was held hostage to your cheek, enjoying the warmth.

“I already have plans for us to go somewhere later.” You forced your eyes open to blink at him in surprise.

“Really?” Despite being on the verge of slumber, that grabbed your attention very much.

“Of course.”

“...I am admittedly a bit concerned at how thoughtful you’re being, Zandik. Are you going to experiment on me when we get back?” You couldn’t help but tease him, however, it was still true that this was a bit strange coming from a person like Il Dottore. You were used to receiving his love in an… unconventional manner, that was just Dottore-like. It was hard to explain.

“Your lack of faith in me is rather heartbreaking, [Name],” he said in a similar, more sarcastic tone. “Perhaps I will run a few tests on you later.” You giggled in protest as he began to move his hand downward, tracing lines on your neck until he rested on your pulse, teasingly stroking the area. Your laughter had turned into yawns the more the seconds went by.

“So… how many minutes have passed?”

“Less than five.”

“Aww… well, I can keep going…” your voice dipped in volume the more you spoke, your grip on his arm becoming looser as you finally succumbed to sleep. He let himself feel you for a bit longer until he pulled away, moving your body into a comfortable position so you wouldn’t be sore, and then looked back to watch you. 

The rise and fall of your chest had always been something that brought him a sense of relief. It was the tangible sense of it that reassured him, always being the man who favored facts over fallacy. Your heartbeat along with the movement of your chest, and sometimes the small noises you made, were all things he checked for once you slipped off to the land of dreams. A doctor, a scholar, or a scientist could never be too careful.

A lover could not either.

—

Although waking up early wasn’t one of your favorite things, you did it anyway because this birthday wasn’t something you wanted to squander. The warm morning sun spilled into the room, a feeling that was never to be found in Snezhnaya. Rubbing your eyes, you realized Dottore was again at the side of the bed getting ready, just as he was last night. Your rustling movements alerted him to your consciousness. 

“Finally up, are you?” Dottore was always up early, well, it was more like he never went to sleep in the first place. You yawned in response before turning over to face him better, admiring his bare chest through his half-buttoned shirt, but more importantly, his lovely face that was not yet covered by that mask of his.

“Mhm,” you hardly mustered a response before smiling, continuing to nuzzle into the pillows, admiring your husband who always managed to look so good to you, especially when all the finer details were highlighted by all the light coming in. It was surely a sight to see as well, watching him put on that complicated outfit…

“Are you going to continue staring, or are you going to start getting ready?” His tone was more teasing for your wandering eyes rather than displeased. 

“So mean,” you giggled, finally sitting up and stretching before wrapping your arms around him, pressing your chest against his back. “I’m just glad the first thing I saw today was your handsome face.” He had no response as you kissed his neck, leaving soft kisses downward as his hair tickled your cheek.

“Here. Now carry me,” you pulled away and spread your arms out, patiently waiting as he turned back to look at you with narrowed eyes. “What? It’s my birthday, you should listen to my requests.” He paused to examine your bright smile and hopeful grin before he acquiesced.

“As you wish,” he replied, then wrapped a single arm around your side and hoisted you up rather inelegantly as you awkwardly dangled above the floor.

“H-Hey! Be gentle!” You squealed at the rough treatment before it turned to giggles, as you then got ready for the outing with your husband’s help.

—

The streets of Sumeru were everything you knew yet nothing at the same time. So many people going about their lives, Akademiya students walking about as well, mumbling about their research and exams and everything that came with being a scholar. Walking up the tree-woven bridges and staring from above, the view simply too beautiful for words to describe.

But…

All of the stores and buildings you once knew were gone, replaced with new ones. You knew that after so long nothing you’d remember would still be there, but deep down you hoped for something concrete to remind you of the past, if only to ease your heart for everything you missed out on. The only thing that remained the same was the Akademiya, though it certainly looked upgraded. Speaking of the Akademiya… if only you could set foot there again with him… pretending to be a student in the House of Daena like once before… but those days were long gone.

“You couldn’t possibly have thought the same things from centuries ago would still be here,” he sighed as you buried your face into his shoulder with disappointment.

“Well, you’re right but, I don’t know… there might have been a long-running family business or something,” you mumbled, appreciating his warmth and scent. At least you still had him after all the years.

“There is no need to fret. There are many things here you’d like.” Dottore attempted to comfort you, which wasn’t a lie. He knew the kind of things you were interested in. After a few moments, you shifted to look at him, nipping at his shirt before pulling away and grabbing his hand resolutely.

“Hmph, I know that. Now come, we need to see if this Puspa Café can compete with the one we used to study at,” you tugged on his arm, and he grinned, delighting in your whimsicality. 

—

By the end of the evening, you were sure you knew the face of every vendor there was in the city. Practically everywhere had been explored by you (and Dottore in tow, who was dragged along.)

Gifts had already been acquired - your favorite being an Aranara toy for Zandy. You considered the cookbooks as a shared gift, seeing as you’d make the food for everyone. It was always quite hard to pick something out for them, this was the many versions of Il Dottore after all… Still, it was a good thing you had agents to carry the items back. Poor things.

You also made sure to get your fill of delicious Sumerian food as well. Sure, certain things could be imported, and there were chefs in the Fatui, but it would never taste quite as good as it did here. And oh, the pictures. There were a lot of pictures. Nothing was off the table - the scenery, the animals… Dottore watched in silence, tapping his finger as you even took pictures of the food. And of course, you posed next to many things but especially the kitty cats.

“There can never be enough photos of me on your desk, Zandik. And I need to share them with all the other segments too! Now keep taking them,” you demanded, your poor Harbinger husband feeling more like your temporary maid as he fulfilled the most ludicrous requests for you, only for today of course.

“Come, come, let me see them now!” You ran back to him, eager to see the (hopefully) pretty photos. As you began to shuffle through the pictures, your smile gradually dropped while you could feel the smugness radiating from Dottore.

“…You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you, Zandik?” You looked up at him, completely unamused… because all of the photos he had taken just now were perfectly imperfect - the wind had messed with your hair or outfit, someone interrupted, you were being harassed by a bug…

“I fulfilled your request, did I not? I merely took the pictures as you asked.” You narrowed your eyes at him before pressing your finger into his chest.

“Listen here you, normally I find it adorable when you’re being cheeky and annoying,” you paused to stab him again with your finger, “but I will not tolerate it today of all days. I know we both remember the last time I gave you the treatment. Now be a good little husband and actually take good photos.”

“You’re rather feisty today, aren’t you dear?”

By now, the sun would soon begin to set, signaling the day would be coming to a close. The sky would slowly change into a brilliant hue, the perfect thing to gaze upon after a lovely day. You were… content, despite all the worries and less-than-nice feelings that sometimes rose to the surface, which you desperately beat back down for you didn’t want to think about that now.

But you knew the day wasn’t over yet. The whole time, Dottore’s words lingered in your mind - the promise of taking you somewhere. You wondered where it was. The best you could guess was the giant Ruin Guard you two used to visit back when you two were students… perhaps he wanted to see it again. You would be interested in knowing if that note he left in there survived for so long… 

“So, would you say it’s time for you to reveal your secret plan, Zandik? It’s been on my mind all day, you know.” You tapped the railing as you watched the clouds float in the sky, trying to find any shapes that looked familiar. Dottore watched from behind you, his eyes more focused on your pretty frame.

“I was waiting for you to finish this little adventure of yours. You’ve been so busy, how could I possibly interject?” Your husband moved to stand next to you, the black fluff of his outfit tickling your shoulder.

“And I thank you for your very much appreciated patience. I know you’d rather be tinkering with something than following me around,” you chuckled, relishing in the closeness of his body.

“Nonsense. Even I value the time I have to admire your many expressions. It brings much amusement, especially the idiotic ones,” he hummed as he took his hand in yours, tugging you forward as you ignored the little tease.

“So… where are we going exactly?” You squeezed his hand as you followed Dottore, simply trusting him. You had always loved Dottore’s hands. They were big and fit perfectly in your own, reassuring you whenever he ran them over your body. It was the same hands that took so much from others… but always gave to you.

“You’ll see.”

“Can I at least have a hint? Or what we’re going to do there?”

“You’ll see,” he repeated while you huffed in disappointment, but then he paused, seemingly wanting to say something more. “It is a place you showed me.” You raised your eyebrows but didn’t pry anymore. 

Soon the path dwindled, the noise from the city fading as two you got further and further away, and you instead decided to appreciate the atmosphere of the walk. However, your legs had gotten very tired from all the walking earlier, even though you took numerous breaks in the city, and you were struggling to keep up the pace now. But you were too shy to tell him about the problem.

It was a good thing your husband happened to be an observant doctor.

Dottore’s pace lessened so you could catch your breath, and then he stopped completely to sweep you off your feet, something your body was far too grateful for. Your sigh of relief was also quite audible, much to your displeasure.

“The path ahead is dangerous. It is better if you don’t walk,” he said simply, sparing you the embarrassment. You whispered a quiet thank you as he carried your body bridal style with complete ease, your head nuzzled into his shoulder while your fingers played with his shirt and accessories. (You always wondered how he wore all those hanging things… when you tried putting all of them on before, your back hurt… really bad.)

He was right - the path was steep and rocky, hard for the average person to walk. There were some monsters, but he didn’t even need to draw his blade to kill them of course. Even though you were more interested in cuddling into his chest, the journey seemed familiar… very familiar in fact, and you suddenly thought hard about where you could be going. It had to be some place during the Akademiya time… 

You blinked again at the scenery and then you saw the past again. 

Ah, how could you forget? The time you dragged the unwilling scholar from his dorm, all because you wanted to show him a special place (and get him out of that stuffy room for once, all he wanted to go to was to class, the dorm, or to some ruin for investigation.) You helped him through the whole hike, defeating the enemies easily as he panted behind you. You only ended up going there once with him due to all the hassle it took, but it was so worth it because the view was-

Absolutely breathtaking, you thought, as you set sight on the place after over four hundred years. To be exact, it was just a very large flower field filled with dainty Sumeru Roses, but it was just so pretty, along with a clear, unfiltered view of the pure sky. The smell was always so pleasant too, the perfect place to relax. The last time here, you forced him to lay back and just relax (which he was not a fan of, he bought his books anyway.)

Dottore had set you down carefully, making sure your feet weren’t too wobbly, so you could take a few steps into the field.

“It’s just as beautiful as I remember,” you sighed happily. “I… I can’t believe you actually remember this place,” you got a bit flushed at how he remembered this, especially when you loved it so. Your eyes roamed about, trying to take in every detail when you noticed there was something spread out a bit in the distance. You took a few more steps while Dottore followed closely behind, still silent. Soon, you were in front of a soft blanket, along with a picnic basket, the delicious aroma wafting out.

“This is…” The words didn’t quite make it out of your mouth as you kept looking back and forth between the picnic and your husband. Meanwhile, Dottore didn’t seem phased in the slightest as he ushered you to the ground. A few containers were emptied onto the blanket, packaged just the way you used to when you were a student. Did he copy you? Not to mention…

“These are the same things I made for you for our last picnic…” Obviously, he couldn’t have cooked these himself or he’d have blown up someone’s kitchen, but his memory was quite exceptional. You always specifically made these dishes because they were loved by both of you.

“Eat before it gets cold. Though… the flavor lacks in comparison to what you make,” he seemed slightly disappointed by the quality as he bit into the samosa. Perhaps this was why he barely ate anything all day. You, on the other hand, were still… flabbergasted, your jaw moving to speak and then freezing up. You furrowed your eyebrows before you moved much closer, gripping his shirt and yanking on it.

“…Who are you, and what have you done with Dottore?”

“…Pardon?”

“I’m asking who you are and what have you done with the real Dottore!” You exclaimed as you pulled him back and forth while he looked at you blankly, surprisingly more with confusion than amusement.

“Alright, how many times have you apologized to me in your numerous centuries of life?”

“Three times.”

“How long did you kick me out of the dorm when-”

“Four days, thirteen hours, and fourty-seven minutes.”

“Okay… how many pens did you end up breaking on the expedition when we got trapped in that one ruin in the desert?”

“Nine.” You blinked at him carefully before scooting back, satisfied with your little interrogation.

“…So- so, you’re the real thing, huh? Hmph, I- well, it is about time you did something like this. I always had to organize all the picnic dates back then you know,” you brushed it off, trying to not show how touched you were by this, your heart stuttering badly. It was so simple, but all so meaningful. It showed that Dottore paid attention to you, only to someone as ordinary and weak as you, nothing escaping his watchful eye. Quickly, you tried to shake off the sudden emotion bubbling in your chest as you continued to defend yourself.

“You can’t blame me for this, by the way. Doing all this is awful strange for you,” you stated. The way he was acting was almost a bit perturbing. You never would have thought him to care so much. 

“I only copied exactly what you did. Hardly any effort was required on my part,” he always said such things so casually, as if it was meaningless (which could be good or bad, depending on the situation.) But things like these always made your heart race, made you think that at least you were special to him. You decided not to continue the topic.

You plopped your head onto his lap, beginning to reach for something to munch on when he stopped you.

“Don’t eat lying down. It’s bad for your health.”

“Aww, but you're so nice and cozy down here.”

The time flew by quickly after that, words swept away by the gentle breeze. After a bit of prodding you were able to get him to start rambling about that one experiment that was giving him a headache, an update that you were interested in but more so listening to his voice. You loved when he did this - not many people know how much of a talker he could be. 

In the meantime, you also idled by weaving some flowers together. You had done this last time too - the blush on his cheeks gave you a good laugh. Though your hands trembled from how much precision the braiding of the stems took, you continued on slowly anyway. 

“There we go,” you let out a sigh of relief as the stems were finally connected into a crown, even though it definitely wasn’t your best work. You glanced at Dottore, who was still ranting on (about the banker this time), and then placed it on him, which he momentarily paused at the sensation, fingers reaching up to brush against the flowers.

“Hmm… it’s a bit lopsided, but it suits you, cutie,” you smiled at the work of art you created - your husband adorned with Sumeru Roses, to be exact. He rubbed his fingers between the soft petals before placing the crown on your head instead.

“It suits your features far more.” Heat rose to your cheeks as you shook your head.

“Such a smooth talker. I feel as though our places have been swapped,” you exhaled softly, remembering how you were the one always blatantly flirting with him in the Akademiya. “Ah, wait, I still have one more request!” There was one thing you wanted to do for the whole day.

Your trusty Kamera was released again as you looked at him with pleading eyes, the device aimed toward him. Dottore let out a great sigh. As much as he enjoyed sharing new mechanical tools with you, you could get… really into them. Especially because he kept tweaking them to make them better for you. Though he supposed he shouldn’t blame you too much… as long as it kept you satisfied. 

“I believe you’ve taken plenty.”

“Well, yes, I have… but none of you, beloved!”

Even though you had taken a lot of pictures, none of them included Dottore unfortunately. He wasn’t very fond of the idea of you having such… soft photos of him in possession. He knew exactly the kind of person you were, and what you could do with them, more specifically… who you could show them to. 

“Come on…” You cozied up to him, nuzzling yourself against your lover. “My scrapbook longs for more pictures of my one and only dear husband. Just one picture. One is all I ask! I’ll even take one of only your back profile if-”

“Do what you will, but make it quick,” he gave in begrudgingly, much to your pleasure. You gave him a good smooch on his cheek for that as you scooted back, getting into a better position to angle your Kamera. 

“Could I get a smile? A pose? Your eyes?”

“Don’t push your luck too much, [Name].” You grinned cheekily at his response.

The audible click of the Kamera sounded, and then the photo printed out. In a few moments, his face appeared on it, and you sighed in contentment. He was so handsome, and the background was perfect too.

“Satisfied?” He questioned, to which you nodded. “Now give it here.” You passed him the photo and he looked at it briefly, before motioning for the device in your hand. You were a bit confused as to why he wanted your Kamera but you gave it to him anyway.

“What? Are you confiscating it now?” You giggled. He fiddled with it, fingers gliding over the buttons as you watched curiously, and then all of a sudden it was pointed at you, the snapping sound catching you way off guard. He similarly copied your previous motions, looking rather pleased at your scattered self that he managed to capture.

“Ah- hey! At least let me fix myself first!” You fruitlessly lunged at Dottore to try and take back that unflattering picture of yourself, but of course, he was much stronger and faster than you.

“This one is for my personal use. I see no problem, you do the same thing, do you not?” He smiled smugly, as you gave up rather quickly, grumbling about how cruel he was.

—

So much time had ended up passing that nighttime was in full swing, the only thing illuminating the sky was the brilliant stars that shined above. Your birthday was drawing to a close. Dottore had already quietly whispered the words to you, as he always did.

You were happy. Happy to have spent this time away from that lab, away from seeing snow for miles and miles. It really did feel refreshing. And of course, you were happy to spend time with the one you valued above all. The feeling had left you feeling lighter than you had in a while, and you were busy snuggling up to Dottore while you gazed at the stars.

But then he spoke.

“[Name].”

“Yes?” 

“How have you been as of late?”

“Hmm? Well, I’m fine. You know, same old, same old.” You lazily shrugged your shoulders, though you were a bit caught off guard by the question. He seemed to ponder your answer, fingers drumming against you in a contemplating manner. He wondered if he should press you - you had been far more lively today than you were lately, and he was not sure if it would be wise to leave a sour taste in your mouth.

“And what about you? How have you been, Zandik? Still sitting at a desk for twenty-four hours straight?”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. Usually, you’re more than aware of my habits, considering you always barge in to change it.” You opened your mouth to respond, but your throat had gone dry because you knew what he was suggesting. You hadn’t really been visiting him or the segments lately.

“What? Do you miss me that easily?” You forced a smile onto your face, hoping to just play off the situation.

“And what if I said I do?” Whatever words you had prepared had disappeared and gotten stuck in your throat. He used to be so horrible with lovey-dovey words, and yet he managed to pull them out so casually sometimes. You breathed in.

“I… you see…” It was embarrassing really, how easy it was for him to break down the walls you hardened so desperately. Or maybe you were just weak. You had been dismissing any hint of pity from all the segments and him for so long, but it seemed like it was all catching up to you now. The light feeling you just had was beginning to quickly revert back to the heaviness that weighed on your heart.

“It’s nothing really,” you still try to deflect the question. You try to roll over too, just so he doesn’t have to see your face contort with all your stupid feelings, but his grip is far too strong for you to ever break free. 

“Your face is very easy to read, darling. Why do you not simply tell me what ails you?” You already saw this coming. You two have done this so many times, and each time you never fail to feel like a burden.

“…Because it’s the same conversation every time, Zandik. I don’t know how many times I can continue to tell you everything… my body, my health… it’s always the same thing.” 

You cannot help but think that surely he would prefer a more… active partner, one who could follow him around and be at his beck and call, assisting him with his intriguing research and experiments, one who could easily match his level, elevating his progress more and more. Not… you who struggled with tasks that should be as simple as breathing, and was more like a thorn in his side than anything else. 

You could list so many traits and things about him that could effortlessly show how he far exceeded the average person, even the Gods, how could you ever hope to live up to him? To a person who he deserved? You recall every time you ended up sobbing your heart out to him about these foolish matters, and yet every time he would listen, further ruining his research and schedule and- and, everything.

“I see,” he responds, his grip on you growing tighter, noticing your unleveled breathing. It is silent for a few moments, and you know he’s thinking of what to say, to ease your worries. It’s probably nothing you haven’t heard already though, so before he could waste his time, you interrupt him.

“Zandik. It’s my birthday. Let’s not talk about such things,” your voice is quiet and on the verge of being uncontrollably shaky. You ignore the prick of tears at the corner of your eyes and opt for hugging your husband instead. You hope that he takes pity on you and decides to let it go.

Dottore strokes your head for a few moments before pulling you back and taking off his mask, your eyes trembling as you struggle to look at him. 

“Look at me,” he says, as he thumbs your chin, preferring for you to listen instead of him forcing you like he usually does. You let out a soft sigh and eventually comply, only because you know that he always gets what he asks for when he’s like this. When you do look at him, his face doesn’t have a hint of softness, instead, it’s serious and solemn as he stares at you resolutely.

The look he gives you says that he’ll make sure you’re here for the next birthday, and the one after that, and all the ones decades and centuries from now, no matter what sins may stain his hands. You can only admire it for a few moments before you lean your head down. Even though he claimed not to be good at comfort and whatnot, he always made you happy… especially when it mattered.

“I love you, Zandik. So much. I don’t know what I’d do without you…” your words come out quieter than you want them to, but you got the message out anyway. Zandik doesn’t respond, but when he tilts your chin to kiss you, you know that he feels the same. You let him push you down on the blanket again, continuing to kiss you as he held your body firmly. You don’t know how much time passes, but the world is even darker now.

“It’s getting late,” Dottore commented, rubbing circles on your palm. You only weakly squeeze back in response. “Perhaps we should get back now.”

“Aren’t we leaving for Snezhnaya first thing tomorrow morning?” Dottore nodded in response to your question. “Then let me treasure this moment for a bit longer. Who knows when we’ll be able to do this again?” You looked away from him to the sky that was now dark, the stars glimmering above the two of you. Dottore’s gaze remained on you until he too looked away to share the same view as you.

“Very well,” he gave into your request and a comfortable silence fell between the two of you, as you moved your hand to intertwine with his own more firmly. The two of you said nothing as you continued to share the moment with each other, until the very end.

Il Dottore wasn’t a good man. Many people froze in fear at the mere mention of his name, their bodies cold at the thought of what he had done, and what he could do. He wasn’t the best lover either. You two didn’t always get along, there were obviously times he upset and frustrated you. Any normal person could probably think of a hundred reasons as to why you shouldn’t stay with Dottore.

But you knew that whatever remained of Zandik’s heart loved you, and that was all that mattered.

[liarchive]

✦ what will they do on their last day with you?

:: FEATURING ─ gender neutral! reader, diluc ragnvindr, kaeya alberich, xiao, kaedehara kazuha, thoma.

:: FLAVOR ─ angst.

:: WARNING ─ major character death, implied death in every character's part, mention of homesickness in thoma's part, repetitive use of word "tears". (I think that's all?)

:: TYPE ─ short ficlets.

natalia’s note: HAHAHAHA THIS IS SO RUSHED THAT I BEGAN TO LOVE HOW BADLY WRITTEN THIS ONE IS. anyway, started off writing thoma with angst. also, this is made before i announced my hiatus, but i was only able to finish it tonight, though it's all very rushed (hence the bad writing). now i will go back to my hell hole. <3. if there's any grammar mistake or disposition of words, my apologies, i'm too tired to be able to proofread this and i just want to be a menace again before disappearing.

; diluc ragnvindr.

the sun rises, and he’s afraid. though, diluc couldn’t accept to waste the important day by feeling sincere scariness and all. he would give you a bonquet of flowers that held the meaning of sincere and eternal love, and bring you to a place that is pretty much secluded, away from the chatters of people. it’s only you and him. the day will last with you and diluc reminiscing the past and telling each other hopes of your future and him (although you both know it wouldn’t happen). diluc would seem like he isn’t knocked off by the fact that after that, there will only be him (again) in the ruthless universe. his smile lingers on his face almost forever. it’s only during nighttime, hours before he has no choice but to let you go regardless of his acceptance or unacceptance that he breaks down. the tears he let out are truly beautiful. they shine through the darkest night. the day ends with both of you embracing each other, with hands intertwined, as you wait for your death.

; kaeya alberich.

the day starts with lots of kisses. the kisses feel very different than the past hugs he had given you. the taste of admiration and love is very distinct, it feels more like desperation. it continues with you and him walking around mondstadt, visiting every place you’ve gone with him, every people you’d like to meet. it ends with you dancing under the moonlight. the trembles kaeya’s hands have are very noticeable, it’s quite impossible for you to not feel his touch tightening every few seconds. the whispers of love he tells are only for you to hear, the eyes that reflect adoration are only for you to see. the whispers of goodbyes are also only for you to hear before you close your eyes in his embrace.

; xiao.

he would try to keep his distance from you in fear of not being able to accept your death, yet it only ends with him dashing towards you when he sees you. xiao holds your hands tightly, and he opted to rest his face on your shoulder. seconds later, you keep hearing everything xiao wishes he could’ve said to you, and done for you. but alas, the celestia isn’t the kindest entity. xiao repeatedly tells you everything, and despite having heard of it, the warmth in your heart never flatter; it only ignites more. the day ends with crystalflies all around you and two lanterns. he wishes to fly the lanterns with you. one of the lanterns has been filled in with xiao’s wishes and hopes, as he lets the other one be filled with yours. the lanterns are the resemblances of the wishes and hopes that aren’t fortunate enough to come true. the very last thing xiao would give is a hug; the hug you will die in.

; kaedehara kazuha.

kazuha has experienced losing somebody important, and to be frank, he doesn’t want to experience it again. but what can he do to fight against fate’s will? he is a mere human.. every few seconds, his hands find their way to grasp yours. endless tells of how much he loves you, how he loves everything about you; how you are a blessing for him escapes with his soft voice. though kazuha looks calm, he’s screaming inside. the wind keeps telling him something isn’t nice will happen soon, but kazuha doesn’t want to know. it is only that day, where kazuha desperately wishes for the wind to have mercy on him. don’t tell me, please. don’t tell me. yet the wind never wavered. the haikus kazuha makes are slowly changing drastically in meaning. once it shows how he couldn’t wish for anyone better than you, and now it shows how much he doesn’t want to lose you. the night ends with your hand intertwined with his, as the crystal-like tears fall onto your face.

; thoma.

the day feels like another usual day. thoma appears with a wide smile on his face, and at the first glance, he does look happy. though you can’t miss the tint of solemn in his eyes. the day goes on with the both of you wandering around inazuma, going anywhere you want. thoma is always beside you, never once did he flatter away from your sight. the warmth of his hand always lurks around yours. thoma never mentioned everything regarding your impending death. it was only at midnight, where the fireworks decorated the night sky, where thoma cried out his heart. he would hold your face, staring deeply with your eyes with nothing but his love. his kiss feels very soft, it feels very weak, as if he's already trying to let go of his grip on you. but truly, it is only your senses that are going numb. it seems thoma will have another homesickness soon.

[yeoldontknow]

the light keeper’s daughter | jhs (m)

A/N: written as fulfillment for the july house games at @bangtansorciere  ❂ To The Lighthouse      ⁂ Hosted by: Professor Bee @inkedtae through @bangtansorciere​ AU Type: Trident’s Tides (soulmates) Themes: God/Goddess (goddess reader); Secret Relationship Kinks: clit biting; pain kink; size kink; masturbation; degradation; overstimulation; dirty talk; cum play; panty sniffing

↝ Creative Content Contributor: @jamaisjoons​ for this incredible banner. its literally so stunning ;~; ↝ Pairing: Lighthouse Keeper!Hoseok x Goddess of Light!Reader (oc; female) ↝ Genre: soulmate au; secret relationship au; gods/goddess au; mentions of an arranged marriage; heavy angst; smut; romance; pining ↝ Rating: NC-17 | 18+ ↝ Summary: For years, you’ve kept your relationship with Hoseok a secret. As the daughter of the God of Light, you are destined to marry anyone who slays the beast in the Gloaming Isles in your honor. When that day finally comes, you go to Hoseok to tell him your relationship must end and you are set to be married. One last time, Hoseok reminds you no one will love you as eternally, as enduringly, as he. ↝ Warnings: explicit sex; explicit language; pregnancy; unprotected sex; creampie; masturbation; clit biting; oral sex (f receiving); pain kink; size kink; overstimulation; light degradation; a brief handjob; impreg kink; dirty talk; cum play; panty sniffing; crying; biting; marking; scratching; brief mentions of blood ↝ Word Count: 14.7K        ↝ special thank you to @softyoongiionly​ and @kithtaehyung​ for reading through this and being amazing betas! if there are any mistakes left over they are absolutely my own and the fact that 98% of this was written while sprinting owo

Looking at Hoseok, you think, is exactly like being struck by lightning. Which is to say, every time, all the time, looking at Hoseok means you feel him everywhere, all over and all at once. 

Inside the lighthouse, there is no escaping him. 

Pressing your back against the rough concrete of the small light room, you tilt your head to the side as the totality of Hoseok’s warmth, ardor, and fidelity blossoms over you. He flowers deep in the nodes of your lungs, your breath constricted as you take him in, studying the curve of his lips, the slope of his nose, the way he wears the night as though he is the stars.

In the distance, waves rush to the shore, kissing the land with the same enthusiasm you wish to be kissing him, only to pull away from land; the water shy, anxious of the earth’s response to its affections. Over and over, the sea rolls like thunder. Every now and then, the light that spins overhead refracts downward, illuminating the blood that has rushed to his cheeks. Flushed, his lips part as he processes the words you have just told him, all red and red and red with understanding.

As though he is burning, as though you are not burning for him, your hands clinging tightly to your skirts as you hold your knees against your chest. It should be utterly unfair, you think, for him to appear so beautiful, so exquisite, even as he remains painfully stricken by your words. The searing ache in your chest germinates alongside your love, mind racing with the apologies he deserves. Your bones tremble with the force of remaining still, prepared to reach out and hold his face and tell him it was a lie. You want to smile for him, want to tease him, want to say you’d been terribly silly and that such jokes are best kept for nights when the sky is not clouded, not cold, and instead warmed by your shared rapture. 

How you would like to give him all the kindest, all the softest, words in the world.

‘It can’t be true.’

He’s said this twice, the disbelief in his voice only just winning out against the grief. Hoseok repeats it again, taking a step towards you, eyes cast down to where you have slunk in shame and sadness. Hands limp at his sides, his fingers quake, torn between balling his hands into fists or running through his hair, their resting place for his worry. Deciding on neither, he simply stands tall and stoic, appearing so small in the light that cascades around the room.

You’d glow for him if you could, if you felt like you deserved to illuminate any part of him at all.

Looking away from his woefully dejected expression, you turn your attention to the small gap in the wall beside you. A window once blocked the wind - stained glass, exquisite. It shattered during a storm, on a night when he pressed himself so deep inside you traces of his essence lingered on your tongue. He was deep enough it hurt, rolling into you with enthusiastic vigor. Tonight, the breeze smells of low tide, acrid in the back of your nose and sour, just like your mood.

‘We knew this would happen,’ is your quiet reply. 

A weak and pathetic excuse, you hate the words even as you say them. Shameful, you think with a grimace, to have pretended that you could have a happy ending, that convincing your father would have been simple. The lies you told yourself and Hoseok, the platitudes that fell from your lips to comfort him, turn on your now, betrayals stacked against you that weigh heavily your judgement. You’ve been childish, so childish, to assume you could have ever been happy.

Hoseok shakes his head, refusing to accept your answer. All fury and rage, he comes to stand before you and lowers to his knees, demanding you look at him. His presence is a live wire, the heat and energy from his skin is vital, a pull against yours that makes you regard him once more, confronted by his enduring beauty. Flooding your vision, he is all you see, all you can fathom, your world beginning and ending with his pleading eyes. 

‘But it’s been years,’ he argues, the high pitched tone of his voice wavering and taught with emotion. He’s older than you, physically, but at this moment he has never been so young, so small, so gloriously human. ‘Centuries even. It’s unfair to you.’

A huff of breath rushes through your nose, your scoff ripe with bitterness. ‘Someone finally slayed the Sydral, as archaic as this ritual actually is. My father said I should have always expected it.’

‘And so now…’ Hoseok’s voice drifts, falling back onto his knees crestfallen. The corner of his lips drop into the beginnings of a deep frown, all manner and will to fight rapidly dissipating.

‘I have to marry them,’ you nod, answering his unspoken question.

For a long while, you hold his gaze, allowing yourself to get lost in the umber of his irises and missing the mirth that usually ignites their sparkle. It is just his breath that cascades over your skin, just the waves that rush beyond the light room, just the world that seems to turn onward, without you, time passing without either of you truly acknowledging it. In this silence, you see your history, your every moment spent with him: the day you met; the day he could not help himself any longer and kissed you soundly, without restraint; the first moment you told him you loved him; the first moment he said he needed you; the plastic ring he won at the pier arcade - extraordinary in all its ugliness - and the gentle, reverent, way he slid it over your finger, calling it a promise of fidelity. 

In Hoseok, you see it all. 

Similarly, he drowns in you, the pink of his cheeks deepening to rose with each passing breath. Posture falling slack, the strap of his ride suspender slips from his shoulder, the collar of his linen shirt loosening with the lack of restraint. A sliver of his collarbone becomes exposed, golden and rich, a tantalizing patch of skin you would caress and kiss if only the circumstances had been different. You wonder idly what he remembers of you, what he sees in your own dispirited expression. You wonder if he remembers the way he loved you, the way he loved you beyond your light and into your darkness. 

You wonder if he remembers the way he ate your shadows - with his whole mouth, with fervor, with pride. You wonder if he remembers the way you devoured him just the same. 

‘This is ridiculous,’ he announces, finally. Turning to look out the window, he regards the sky solemnly, the curve of his profile imposing in its majesty. Eyes narrowed, it is the harshest he has ever looked, devoid of forgiveness. ‘It’s supposed to be me.’

Swiftly, you shake your head, adamant in your disagreement. You reach for him, leaning forward to rest your hand against his chest, against his heart where it thunders in his sternum. Warmth from his skin radiates into your blood, taking root between your joints. Hoseok worms his way into pieces of your spirit long left abandoned, and you swallow thickly, wondering if such affection as this is normal, if it’s always this way.

‘I’d never have let you.’ Your dispute is biting, sharp enough Hoseok turns his eyes back to you, jaw clenched and tight with silent fury. ‘You’re human. It would have killed you. And then where would I be?’

‘You’d be sitting where I am,’ he argues, emphatic. 

Reaching for your hand where it rests, he covers it with his own, lifting it slightly to twine his fingers with yours. Unable to help himself, he inches closer, running his thumb over your knuckles and sending shivers along your nerves. Like always, his touch is a wildfire, the electric kinetic energy needed to set you aglow. Your mind swims with him the same way your body becomes whelmed by his devotion, but he does not let himself become distracted. 

‘Do you even understand?’ Voice little more than a whisper, Hoseok’s gaze is penetrating, a bite to his veneration that demands your complete attention. Tilting his head to the side, he continues. ‘You think I wouldn’t die for you?’

You squeeze his hand with tenacity, acknowledging his sentiment, but he does not see all the things you have witnessed. He does not know the true menace of the Sydral, does not know its tricks, its many heads, its speed, its cunning; Hoseok would die for you, and death would find him quickly. 

Instead, you offer him a small smile, one that is so fragile and close to breaking. Hoseok’s intensity burns within your chest, transforming his softness into the valor of a man that leaves you breathless. Salvaging your own strength, you lower your gaze to the white collar of his shirt, to the soft linen and the expanse of his throat where he swallows. This you can regard with pleasure, can regard without fearing you may shatter.

And so you smile, finding the will to fight him once more. ‘The problem,’ you begin, hoping the earnestness of your smile is enough to cool the rage that boils in his throat, ‘is that I know you would. And I would live my life alone, married to him while knowing you are gone. Would you really condemn me to such misery? My darling, I would die to keep you safe.’

This feels like anguish; this feels like dying, you think to yourself, growing ever more despondent the longer you feel Hoseok pleading with the emptiness that lurks behind your eyes. You can’t bear to face him, not when the tightness in your throat becomes a threat, tears lingering on the precipice of spilling. Every time his gaze meets yours it is brutal in its honesty, violent in the way your love and lust tumbles so completely into grief.

‘How long?’ he manages, breathing life to the very question you’d been hoping to avoid. 

Your future is still so far away, distant enough it makes this moment, and every moment to follow, heavy with the pain of imagination. Still, you’ve never been able to deny him anything. 

Once more, you turn to view the window, regarding it with a vacant expression as though you are regarding time itself. ‘You know this is the last time I can see you.’

‘I know,’ he bites out, unwilling to let you dodge the answer. ‘I mean how long until...you’re not mine anymore.’

‘That’s...not possible,’ you offer gently, casting him a solemn, detached grin. ‘I am always going to be yours. Even when I’m in his bed, even when I’m thousands of miles away, even in death, I am yours.’

Hoseok pulls you against him, compelling your complete attention. Eyes wide, you study his face - the resolution of his passion fierce enough to be an earthquake against your sternum, a collision of meeting worlds. His arm winds itself around your waist while he still clutches your hand, the strength of his grip stinging against your knuckles. You tremble against his powerful frame, inhaling the deep scent of cedar and ambergris that always clings to him, the salt of the ocean that lingers on his skin, the dust that has saturated his shirt from the lighthouse, and you; your vanilla and lemon, the brightness of your own natural scent that emanates from your light and always seems to find him, not unlike rays of the sun. 

Your mouth waters at this closeness, his own eyes darkened to a rich black as he studies you seriously. You’ve wounded him - worse, you’ve denied him - and he presses the tips of his fingers into the soft muscles of your back, ensuring you cannot leave him. Not until he is ready to let you go.  

‘You know what I mean,’ he breathes, words lowered to a hiss. If he were a vengeful sort of man, he would be full of venom. Instead, there is only remorse in his insistence.

Closing your eyes, you sigh. ‘Months, most likely. Tomorrow the rituals begin - the seven days feast, the Fate Tying, the Blood Gathering.’ 

When you look at him again, your lower lip begins to quake. Saying the words makes it all feel immediate, tangible, as though your father stands in the dark corners of the light room casting his judgements. You almost feel him there, his presence always so sinister for a man blessed to command the light; he resides in the silent places, giving birth to shadows, prepared to pull you from bliss at a moment's notice. 

‘All this pomp and circumstance from eras bygone,’ you continue, grounding yourself in the firmness of Hoseok’s arms and chest. The bones of his knees press into your thighs; your hand caught between your twin heartbeats; you immerse yourself in the pain of this connection and remind yourself it hurts because he was always meant to be yours. ‘It’s been centuries since a goddess has been married off, and yet somehow I’m the first for such a sentence. The wedding won’t be for at least five months.’

‘Then we have time.’ Hope saturates his words, his hold on you growing ever more unyielding. ‘You can still come to me, we can still see each other,’ he explains quickly, speaking in a rush. ‘No one will have to know.’

Biting your lips, you raise your hand to the soft strands of his hair, carding your fingers through it. All silk and satin, you relish the texture as his desperation soaks into your pores. 

‘I wish that could be true.’ Even as you speak, you focus on his hair, committing these small details to memory. The curve of his bang in the center of his forehead, the deep amber and dark sienna and all the golden highlights that come to life in the daylight, the way all of him, every piece, is soft enough to break you. Yes, you focus on it all. ‘All the Old Gods will be gathering in Teylim. There will be more eyes on me than ever before. Ladies coming to fuss over my hair, my clothes, the oils I wear; men worshiping Daeus like he’s some kind of king when, really, he’s just lucky enough to be half of a god. I won’t be able to get away.’

Hoseok’s eyes roam your face, wild and storming, waiting for you to amend your answer. When you do not speak, his brow furrows and he exhales, a small whimper released from the center of his breaking heart. ‘So this is it, then? This is really it?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ you whisper, moving your hand from his hair to cup his cheek. 

He presses himself into your touch, turning just slightly to kiss delicately at your palm. The sweetness of his tenderness splinters the last of your courage, the tears you’ve so valiantly held back starting to burn as they spill over to your cheeks. 

‘I wish it could be different,’ you plead - with everyone and no one at all. ‘I wish for it everyday. Hoseok, I can’t -’ Distraught, you choke on your own words, and Hoseok pulls you firmly against him, resting your head against his shoulder. ‘I can’t breathe without you. I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this.’

Hoseok says nothing at all as you dampen his shirt, tears spilling into the linen as you struggle not to collapse against him completely. When you are finally alone, you will succumb to the sorrow that has learned to occupy every chamber of your heart. When you are finally alone, you will eat the spirit of rage with teeth and fangs, and you will let the darkness have you, refusing to let the light erupt from your skin. But for now, you let the tears arrive of their own accord, aware that you are suddenly too sad to even weep, tears dripping into his shirt as means to remain a part of him.

Against you, Hoseok’s breath becomes uneven, his own shoulders shuddering as he minds his own heroism, fighting back his own tears. He quivers against you, his stuttering breath exhaled through his nose as he maintains his composure. The light room becomes almost too quiet, the blood rushing your ears drowning out the sound of the sea, narrowing your focus to just the shared heat between your bodies. You inch closer, removing any space that could exist between you, extinguishing any oxygen that would dare to separate you from him. What you would give for a thunderstorm, any sound at all to give life to the end of love, to the start of the war of loving. 

Unable to stomach the quiet any longer, your mind seems to become unhinged. All the tiny, miserable little thoughts Hoseok’s love kept locked away worm their way past your lips, erupting to life as though your heartbreak has given them permission to persecute you. 

‘I wish you never found me,’ you mumble, almost incoherent. Your tongue fumbles with the words, caught between weeping and speaking, making a mess of so much more than just his shirt. ‘I wish you never saw me. I could love you like that, on my own, from a distance. I could be strong enough to move through life not knowing you, loving only the idea of you. You’re so much more than anything my mind could have fabricated out of childish desire. The reality of you is heaven. And now, I’m hurting you. I should die for such a transgression.’

‘Don’t say that.’ Hoseok pulls, easing you back and lifting both his hands to cup your face. Briefly you mourn the loss of his fingers and knuckles so rough against yours, but cradled between his palms, your skin tingles, making a festival out of this contact and celebrating the nuance of his fingerprints. He looks down into you, deep enough you feel him taking root in the center of your belly. You love him most when he looks like this - fierce and unforgiving - and you cannot help the way your body responds, aroused simply by the passion of him. ‘Don’t you dare wish that,’ he commands, voice thick. ‘The day we met was the day my life started.’

‘But...’ you struggle to find the words, drifting off with the implication that, now, his life is surely ending.

‘I don’t want to know who I would be without you.’ Hoseok takes his time as he speaks, an art you cannot comprehend. 

Behind his eyes, his mind races, words living and dying before they can reach his tongue. He has so much to say, so many more promises to make, so many more words of affirmation he’d like to give you. You see them all, recognize them all - for they mirror yours, are born from your own likeness; you know them all so well, you feel as though you could reach out and touch them. 

‘I can’t fathom it, I won’t even consider it.’ Shaking his head, he denies this completely, holding onto your stare with a fixation that borders on zealous. ‘You came to me, and it felt like I could breathe. You came to me, and I felt like myself. Loving you makes me better, loving you is partly why I am alive.’

It’s difficult to swallow around the lump in your throat, its size and prowess growing ever larger in the wake of his words. In the oncoming quiet, you wish he hadn’t said it, wish he hadn’t reminded you of the way you the oncoming storm of his presence before you met him. One look at him and you had seen it all, a life designed by the Fates - marriage, children, hope, happiness. In death he’d have joined you in Teylim, youthful, young, yours. With eternity before you, you’d bask in the rapture and the joyful silliness that comes with forever. 

He felt it, too, saw it in your eyes. On your fourth meeting, he held you against him and promised you his life.

‘I will put my child in your belly,’ he announced, deliberate in the way he enunciated his words. You waited for the shock of such an exclamation to overtake you, but it never came. ‘I can’t explain it,’ he chuckled, amused by his own enthusiasm, ‘but I’m certain of it. I see my unborn children in your eyes. I think this is what the elders mean when they say there is always a plan, and you will always know it the moment you find it. I’m so certain my whole life is tied to yours.’

The memory burns within your mind, a scorch of greed mixing immediately with longing. You wish the fire of it would incinerate it to ash, that it would vanish altogether before the Fate Tying. You can handle all of these frivolous little rituals, sure of yourself and your own strength, but the Fate Tying means to unmake you. At just the thought, your stomach begins to sink. 

You will sit, hands clasped on your amber throne with the sunlight seeking your hair, your cheeks, your lips; Daeus will smile, wrapped in oak and evergreen, in the earth that flourishes beneath your light; and you will weep, watching as the Moirai unstitch your soul from Hoseok’s, peeling it apart inch by horrible inch, to thread it with the ugliness of Daeus’ strands. You will wonder, mouth dry and eyes wet, why the Moirai would bother making a man for you, would bother weaving your spirits together, only to unravel the work they had done, the love you had found. 

The movement of Hoseok’s gentle caress, pads of his thumbs running across the bones of your cheeks, returns you to the present moment. Once more he whimpers, doing his best to keep you grounded with him, unwilling to lose you before he absolutely must. Digging your nails into his shoulder as you grab fistfuls of his shirt, you wallow with him, knowing that, just like him, you don’t know who you would have become without him.

‘What do we do?’ you manage, reduced to a more pathetic version of yourself as you plead with him. Anyone else, and you’d be ashamed to appear so weak. ‘How do I do this?’

‘I don’t know,’ is all he can provide. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Promise me -’ You cut yourself off, not entirely certain where the idea comes from, what part of you would willingly propose such a request, the meaning of what you had intended to say catching up to your mind the moment you heard your own voice. Hoseok waits patiently, and you lower your gaze to the curvature of his lips, wanting to kiss and kiss and kiss him, knowing your next words will scar you both. ‘Promise me you’ll find someone else. Promise me you’ll be happy.’

Without any hesitation, he scoffs, dismissing the idea altogether. ‘Don’t ask me to tell a lie.’ 

‘I can’t, Hoseok.’ Now, it is your turn to hold his face, cupping his cheeks with veneration. Mind reeling, you envision it, certain you could take it. You are certain you would die for less. ‘I can’t do this if I spend my life knowing you’ll be unhappy. I can’t do this knowing you’re alone.’

Slowly, gently, Hoseok lets the tip of his nose press against yours, rubbing it back and forth, back and forth. Breath  a deluge down and over your lips and skin, he somehow finds it within himself to smile, empty of all amusement. 

‘It’s so unfair of you to expect that I could be happy with anyone but you,’ he chastises. ‘I’d rather be alone, utterly and completely, than to be lonely with someone. They deserve better than someone who is with them out of loyalty to another person - a promise kept to the person they truly love.’

His rejection and refusal of your plea inspires a thrill in the pit of your stomach, all manner of possessive pleasure coursing through your veins. How easily he turns you into a selfish woman, how quickly his promises of fidelity make you lose all sight of strength and future vision. What sort of man is Hoseok that he should have such dominion over you, you think to yourself. But then, you know. You know as you have always known: Hoseok is your man, your lover, your soul.

Stroking his cheeks with your thumbs, just as he had done, reverently, adoringly, you bite your lip and feel your exhale shake. ‘So what will you do?’

‘I’ll do as I’ve always done,’ he shrugs, as though the very thought is not a bruise within his ribs. ‘I’ll keep the lighthouse. Every night, I’ll let the beacon burn, and keep the light on. Even on clear days, I will let the light shine.’ Hoseok smiles as he says this, the first real smile he has managed since he saw you on the shore this evening, waiting, just like always. ‘When you’re up there, perhaps you will see the light.’ 

He shifts his gaze to the roof of the light house, looking up and beyond, past the clouds, up to the seat of the gods. Furrowing his brow, he hardens his jaw just slightly, eyes turning dark as he demands your father witness him. 

When he looks at you again, he is a changed man - a boy trapped in the throes of love, and a man on the verge of letting himself perish.

‘Maybe up there,’ he murmurs, ‘you will see my light and know that I’m burning for you, just as I’ve always been. I’ll continue to love you. I’ll be good, I’ll be pious, and maybe when I die we will meet in Teylim and even in death I’ll watch you, staying close to your light like a bird in flight.’

‘Hoseok.’ The quiver of your bottom lip disrupts the cadence of his name, besmirching it to little more than a sob.

Sucking air through his teeth, Hoseok leans forward, pressing his forehead against yours as his eyes fall shut. At such close proximity, you study the almost feminine length of his eyelashes, the pores of his skin, and wonder who or what god or demon you could barter with to stay inside him forever.

‘You’re supposed to be mine,’ he whimpers, the sadness welling up in him like a mountain. ‘You are mine, but…I will always be yours. Even when they untie us, I’ll be yours. They can’t thread me with anyone else. I don’t think my soul will allow it.’ 

Unable to sustain it any longer, your desire for him rises to a swell, erupting beside your sorrow - just as fervent, and even more unyielding. His words are a comfort, an echo you will revisit over and over when you have long departed, but your skin has learned how to ache for his touch, learned how to anticipate the way he moves over you like water, and you need it. You need him. 

The rest of your pitiful existence looms out before you, days and months and centuries passing without Hoseok to hold you and keep you, and you despise the very notion of it. You rebuke it, refusing to let yourself continue on without knowing how it feels to have him. Tonight, you do not want him as your lover.

Tonight, you want him as your husband.

‘Kiss me,’ you announce, guiding his forehead away from yours, skin prickling with the lack of his warmth. ‘Kiss me like it’s our wedding. I -’ The tightness of your voice steals your breath, words hot and heavy in your mouth as you say them. ‘I want to know what a marriage bed truly feels like. I want to know what our marriage bed would be like.’

Mad with an unbearable passion, no longer contained, Hoseok heeds your words and lets his tongue wander over the seam of your lips. You cling to him, clutching what you can of his shape, his body, and you sigh in woeful euphoria, granting him unspoken entry to the recesses of your mouth - but he does not enter. Your lover has always been disobedient, reckless in the evening when your skin and your lips and your heart are presented to him, and tonight he is no different. Tonight, he scorns the hour, taking his time as he traces over your cupid’s bow with his tongue, rendering the turn of the earth meaningless. The heat of his breath tickles your skin, a cascade in which you luxuriate, and your eyes, blurred by the urgency of your desire, lose all sense of your surroundings until there is only Hoseok. 

Hoseok - on you, around you, all over you, the rain and the wind all at once.

Only when he has had his fill of your lips does he press the whole of his mouth against yours, sucking languidly at your bottom lip. Skin growing tight, you keen into his kiss, consumed by greed. Slowly, he moves his hands down and down, letting his fingers trace indeterminate lines over your cheeks, your jaw, your bones until they rest at your neck. With his palm over your pulse, he holds you still, his touch a fever, his touch the sun, radiating deep into the caverns of your heart. 

Filled with him, you think. Absolutely alive with him, Hoseok lets his palm cradle the tether of your life until you are certain he is the oxygen made to sustain your mortal form. You, living and breathing, are little more than remnants of departed touches, composed entirely of his affections, his affirmations, his adoration.

So, too, do you kiss at him, battling against him for any semblance of permanence, demanding that you be remembered. Feeling you writhe against him, insistent in your need for closeness, he hums in pleasure, a musical sound that traverses your synapsis with unhurried ease. Gooseflesh raises on your arms, either by a passing breeze or the way Hoseok leans in, harder, rougher, all manner of dominance in the way he so desperately seeks to have you, and you shiver, delighted by the peak in your senses; delighted, fundamentally, that you will commit every moment of this last evening to bodily memory.

Willing to be devoured, you surrender to him, feeling arousal leak from between your folds as though his savagery has given it permission to spill over. It soaks into your underwear where you briefly mourn the fact that it will not coat your thighs, not yet, and that Hoseok must wait to see how easily you could paint yourself in your wanting. Like always, he anticipates you and ardent your longing; perceptive and always acutely aware of the way you have grown wanton. depraved by the strength of his kisses alone. 

Hoseok eases his hand to the back of your neck, determination apparent in his grip, and guides you forward to rest in his lap. Letting your legs settle on either side of his thighs, you straddle him, unwilling to break any contact he has with you, your skin, you, your hands on him. You come together like a cataclysm, the burgeoning tip of his erection firm and stubborn where it presses against your core, assertive and tantalizing even beneath the fabric of his trousers. 

It’s lewd the way you crave him deep inside you, jaw dropping as your mouth opens wide to gasp in delight. Hoseok wastes no time in letting his tongue glide against yours, explorative and eager, utterly deliberate in his stroking. Slowly, the tips of his fingers move from your neck to your hairline, ever deeper and ever more intrusive. A low chuckle rumbles in his throat as he runs his tongue over yours, grazing the roof of your mouth before he forms a fist in your hair and tilts your head back, swift and aggressive. 

All at once he pulls away, face hovering just centimeters above yours and gaze hooded as he explores your lustful expression. A flush creeps into your cheeks, the control he has over the flow of your blood is always surprising even if it is to be expected. Hoseok seems pleased, evident in the familiar way his eyes have become blackened by the force of his yearning and the smile that has worked its way into the corner of his lips, a secret for only you to discover. He takes a pause, disregarding his haste, to regard you: your parted lips, your heated cheeks - a fire that has spread itself over your chests and breasts.

‘You are a vision of sin,’ he murmurs, cocking his head to the side and tightening his grip in your hair. ‘What would all the gods say?’

Your own nails scratch tenderly into his scalp, gripping his hair to mirror his hold on you. Futile, you know. The strength in Hoseok is silent, a gift that makes him appear merely pretty until the seat of his power is fully revealed, a fortitude you could never mimic.

You swallow, preparing to speak, and watch the way Hoseok studies the movement of your throat. ‘They would call me a harlot.’ 

His gaze returns to yours, an otherwise thoughtful look turned menacing by the terror of his passion. ‘And are you?’

Tongue heavy in your mouth, you struggle with the few words you can manage. ‘They will make me out to be,’ you begin slowly, poignantly, ‘and it will be your fault. You’ve made me a slut.’

You hold onto the word - draping yourself over the “s”, tapping your tongue against the “t” - ensuring it lingers in your mouth long enough for him to taste it. It’s his fault, really, that you will be judged and scorned and shamed for coming to your new husband wholly impure, the construct of your virginity eradicated by Hoseok’s insatiable appetite. It’s his fault, you think, that you want him this much. That you love him this much. Your tongue caresses the word slut like it's your dearest companion, familiar with its shape and texture, and you lean upward, hoping to put it in his mouth. 

If he is half of your soul, then he should learn how it tastes to be utterly reprehensible. 

But he dodges the trajectory of your desires, moves away from your lips and your face entirely, diving down to your chest where he lets his teeth traverse the expanse of your sternum. Lifting his hand from your pulse, he trades one beat of your blood for another, fisting his hand in the collar of your dress to pull it down and expose the thin bit of flesh covering your heart. It thunders in your ears, your body a storm of his making, and you tremble as he positions himself to ravage your very spirit.

His teeth leave scars upon your nerves, eternal echoes within your pores that have you rolling your hips downward in encouragement. Again, you feel him, his cock against your core, enough to have you whimpering as though you are small and fragile, not the maker of your undoing. As punishment for your impertinence, Hoseok takes aim and bites down harshly at the slender bone of your clavicle. 

‘Hoseok!’ 

‘I know you, Sparrow.’ The husk of his breath is an avalanche into the marrow of your bones, the memory of his teeth still reverberating into your lungs. ‘You always like it when it hurts.’

Your skin still stings, yet he is relentless. You quake in his hold as he bites at the bone once again, teeth inlaid perfectly where they had been before. Your skin bends beneath the force, ecstatic hiss descending into a low moan, giving away the truth of how well he truly knows you. The pain grounds you in the moment, allows you, too, to ignore the passage of time, the ebb and flow of the waves as though the tides have halted altogether. You are prettiest when you are red and purple, black and blue by the marks he leaves in his wake, and not once, not even when he breaks your skin to bleeding does he tarnish your light.

In his arms, you are illuminated, glowing with the same intensity as the lighthouse beacon. He’s called you the heavenly sky for the way you glow under his affections, your inability to control your power when he makes you feel so impossibly good turning you into an evening star. You often forget you are blessed with a holy gift, the goddess of light as though your title has any meaning beyond providing you a seat at the table in Teylim. You often forget this is who you really are, someone happy, someone made of magic - a light kindled only under joy.

‘I will make you ache for me,’ he breathes, pushing the collar of your dress lower and lower, threatening to expose your nipple. ‘I want you alight, burning for me. Only me.’

Hoseok kisses deftly at the supple softness of your breast, diligent and greedy. His breath comes ragged, thick in the center of his lungs where he struggles around the insurmountable longing that puts force in his handling of your body. Working his tongue over the skin, he licks the stars out of the constellations of your pores, tasting the dust, the salt, the sea. Your hands run through his hair, messing the thick strands to a state of perilous disorder in your eagerness to move downward to the comforting solidarity of his shoulders.

Grinding your hips into his lap, the tip of his clothed erection slides along your slit, and you release a whimpered exclamation as the cloth of your underwear slips between your folds. Biting your lip, you breathe deep, Hoseok’s own groan of dissatisfaction vibrates into your chest. You feel him deep in your throat, his voice alongside yours, his desire matching yours in intensity. 

Hand leaving your neck in favor of your waist, his grip tightens, fingertips pressing deep circles into the muscles of your back. Thrusting upward, he teases you, laughing darkly to himself with a rough nip to your breast. The motion sends your underwear deeper into your cunt, a pressure to your clit as erotic as it is cruel. It sends a shiver down your spine, inspiring tremors in your nerves that have you clenching your walls around nothing at all, seeking the bulbous head of his cock in need. 

Pleased with himself, he raises himself from your chest to work at the buttons of your dress. Your nails dig into his shoulders, your own rolling back to present you breasts to him like a preening cat. Hungry, he takes the bait, slipping a palm under your dress to cup your breast. He presses against your nipple, a small wine tumbling from your throat to mingle with his whispered expletive. Rolling your nipple between his knuckle, he regards you momentarily, studying your dazed expression. Against him, you are an earthquake unto yourself, a cosmic shift of longing ravaging your blood, and you are pleased by it, offering him a smile of gluttony. 

Abruptly, he releases your breast, hands falling to your hips as he raises to his knees, keeping you against him. Hoseok pushes your hips roughly against his, cock a threatening force against your core as he guides your bodies down to the floor, careful to keep the shift in position painless. Once more, he thrusts at you, and you feel yourself becoming soaked, juices no longer dripping into your underwear but instead crawling slowly down to your ass. The concrete of the floor is chilled, cold enough your back and hips arch indelicately in retreat, causing you to carelessly meet his thrust. 

‘Fuck,’ he mutters, returning his hands to your front as he sits back on his knees. 

Hoseok avoids the buttons over your breasts, choosing instead to undo the buttons just beneath. Continuing onward, he takes his time unwrapping you, hungry for the pieces of your body he will mark as his. The heart of his lips parts on a silent exclamation, mouth falling open as he unveils more of your ample flesh. The light from your skin mixes with the lighthouse beacon, casting shadows of desire in his eyes, rendering him beastly. With his eyes only, he devours you; your body, the fruit of his immense craving. 

Leaving your breasts covered, Hoseok exposes your hips, your stomach, your thighs. Your hardened nipples strain against the fabric, begging for release the same way your core clenches once again around nothing at all, swallowing more of your underwear in an effort to lure him deep inside you. He meant it this way, all too aware your sensitive nipples will tease you to a point of aching the longer they rub against your dress.

The sea breeze cools your skin, so much of you exposed you feel as though you have been submerged in wind and sky. Chewing the inside of your cheek, you mourn momentarily that it is not Hoseok that covers you, not yet. Still, you enjoy being naked for him like this - naked, vulnerable, safe, and his. You open your legs further, letting the wind kiss at the wetness of your cunt, your answering grin borderline salacious. How glorious to give everything and hide nothing from him. How glorious to let yourself be worshipped, his eyes starved for the pleasure of your sex. All this joy, and yet your frustration runs over, an overflow occurring with little thought. 

‘It’s not fair,’ you whine, raising your arms to reach for him. ‘Let me undress you.’

Sitting up, you press your hands flat against his chest, becoming attuned with the ample hills and valleys of his muscles. Hoseok sits still and proud, lips reddened and wet from kissing you. Your light ignites the flush that dapples the tips of his ears, skin flushed by lust and longing. Throat running dry, you swallow thickly, committing his unrivaled beauty to memory. You refuse to forget a single moment of this, unwilling to relinquish a single detail of him. 

Slowly, you ease the suspenders from his shoulders, humming in approval at the way the loose linen of his shirt relaxes in its newfound freedom, offering you more of his neck and collarbones. As your fingers work earnestly at his buttons, Hoseok takes his time admiring you, a piercing look both penetrative and heartsick. His hand comes to cover yours, unable to help himself, and he holds it tightly, raising it to his lips. His eyes remain locked on yours as he kisses the pads of your fingers, one by one, before slipping your index and middle finger into his mouth. Your lips part on a sigh that fades just as quickly as it came, feeling his tongue swirl over the digits with purpose. 

And much the same way you did not expect his touch, so too are you caught off guard when he moves your fingers from his mouth and guides it down your stomach. Lower and lower, he guides your hand between your bodies where he slips it beneath your underwear. Your breath hitches, skin wet from his saliva and clit throbbing at the prospect of tangible contact, your own hand an ominous presence resting upon your mound.

‘Touch yourself,’ he commands.

Hoseok is so often the picture of tenderness in the way he makes love to you, always gentle and always mired in the totality of his affections. Occasionally, he is sharp and, occasionally, he is in control - only on days when he is starved, only on days when he is completely ravenous. Tonight, there is no room for argument. Tonight, he makes himself an unrelenting devil, unafraid to exert dominance.

‘Eventually we will remember little of how we undress,’ he explains, pressing your fingers over your mound, dangerously close to your clit. ‘Right now, I need to see the way you will touch yourself for me when I’m no longer around. I want to see it. I want to memorize it. Touch yourself for me.’

Removing his hand from yours, he nudges softly at your shoulder, and you obey immediately. Leaning back on your right elbow, you keep your hand in place as he grabs the band of your underwear and pulls it down. Lifting your hips, your tongue licks at your bottom lip where the skin has become dry and chapped, struggling to catch your breath as your desire becomes oppressive. Falling back on your tailbone, you spread your legs wider still, proud and impish as you slide your fingers down your slip, separating your folds to display your core. 

But he sees nothing as he lifts your underwear to his nose, fisting his hands in the fabric and pressing it against his face. Hoseok breathes in deep,eyes rolling back slightly in the effort of keeping his eyes open, a growl rumbling in his chest like a warning. Exhaling into the cloth, he laughs to himself, a high pitched, small sound of amused embarrassment before he falls completely silent once more. And then, he breathes in again, just as deep, just as fervent, lips kissing at the wet patch you have created.

‘I’m keeping these.’ Easing your underwear away from his nose, he crumples the garment and buries it in the pocket of his trousers. Cocking an eyebrow in pleasure, he takes in your exposed cunt, licking his lips. ‘I’ll fuck myself with them, imagining it’s you and your wet pussy.’

‘Pervert,’ you tease, jutting your chin forward in mock derision.

‘Whore.’ Inspired by your nakedness, he begins to undress, gaze heated and focused on your wet cunt. ‘I told you to touch yourself.’

Your fingers easily breach the barrier of your folds upon their release, wet with Hoseok’s spit and your walls slick and dripping with your juices. Years ago, you would have been ashamed of being so soaked, a damp patch expanding in the concrete beneath you in visible proof. But you no longer care, not when Hoseok’s expression of thirst is so incorrigible. 

You fuck yourself with your hand, fighting the urge to tilt your head back in relief - small as it is. In the heat of your lonely nights, you find it tragic your fingers never reach as deep as Hoseok’s slender digits; yours are too slim, knuckles not nearly as rough or pronounced. And when your mind drifts dangerously to thoughts of girth, your eyes drop swiftly to the pronounced shape of Hoseok’s straining cock. Swallowing the weep of appreciation that builds in your chest, your teeth chew at your bottom lip, clinging in anticipation.

Pressing the base of your palm against the hood of your clit, you whimper. Mild and meek as it is, your fingers bring a temporary relief, this satisfaction fleeting, and it will not be long before you are begging him to fill you. 

‘You’re dripping,’ he comments, interrupting your thoughts and removing his shirt in one swift motion. ‘Are you sure you’re not the princess of water? If I kiss your cunt I might drown.’

‘I’m in love with you.’ 

While not truly a detailed explanation, the words carry the weight of your whole chest, erupting with little thought. Your mind offers the only logical explanation for your wetness it can manage while your body grapples with the implication of Hoseok’s mouth upon your core. 

‘Say it again,’ he orders, hands tugging harshly at the zip of his trousers.

A slow smile spreads over your lips, head cocking to the side as you admire his eager expression. ‘I’m in love with you.’

‘Again.’

‘I’m in love with you.’ 

This time, you say it with venom, as though you want it to hurt and hope that it will leave scars in its wake. Hoseok tugs his trousers down his thighs, rising to his knees, appearing regal and godly. Freed from its cloth restraints, his cock springs upward to rest against his stomach, and he smirks, chest and neck flushed as your focus shifts immediately to the purpled bulbous head. 

Without hesitation, you remove yourself from your folds, the ache at your core only minutely grieving the loss of your small hand. Instead, you reach for him, fingers slick with your juices as you grasp the base of his cock with a gentle squeeze. He’s heavy in your hand, rigid in the solid way that makes your walls clench and drip once more, mirroring the way your mouth waters. Slowly, you move your hand up and down the shaft, letting your thumb rub over the leaking tip with care. 

Hoseok’s breath hitches, his hips thrusting slightly into your hand as you pleasure him. His own hands clutch at his discarded clothes, doing his best to exercise his dwindling patience, and you repeat motion, admiring the smoothness of the skin in contrast to the veins of his shaft.

‘I always wonder how you will fit inside me,’ you comment, moving your hand back down and studying the way your fingers do not meet your thumb. ‘You’re so thick.’

He rolls his shoulders back in the aftermath of your praise, inhaling sharply through his teeth. Hoseok is always free with his praises, showering you in worship and stating it is his duty to devote himself to the goddess in his favor. Always, he does this, and always he seeks nothing in return. But you have always sensed, as attuned to him as you are, that praise from you sets his soul afire. One word of praise from you and you are certain he could eat the god of Daeus entirely, rendering him completely human.

‘You were made for me,’ he explains, voice taught and words strained. Unable to hold back, he fucks your fist, seeking relief. ‘You will always stretch to accommodate me, just like your life was meant to. Just like your belly was meant to, stretching with my children.’ His gaze is penetrative, deeply serious for such an obscene state of being. ‘You were meant to take all of me. My true home is inside you.’

Your grip loosens slightly at his admission, lips curling into a small pout. ‘I so desperately wanted to give you a child.’

A choked sound rumbles through his chest, and his hand reaches yours, pulling it from his cock to wind your fingers together. With his free hand, he nudges at your shoulder, easing you back to the ground with a darkness in his eyes that has your throat running dry. Automatically, your legs spread wide, offering him space to settle between them. The tip of his cock rubs carelessly against your slit, and your focus fades, mind emptying with the single desire to have him inside you taking root. 

‘Promise me you won’t give him children,’ he commands, words thick with purpose.

He walks his hand languidly down  your body, grazing over your chest, your covered breasts, to the flat of your stomach. Beneath him, you tremble, the tectonic plates of your spine shifting beneath his touch. Splaying his hand over your stomach, he eyes your skin with parted lips and a furrowed brow. Hoseok wars with himself, his thoughts tangible behind the darkness of his irises, expression swimming with strife.

‘Promise me,’ he repeats. ‘I don’t think I could survive the thought of someone else's baby growing inside you.’ 

Raising your hand from the floor, you card your fingers through his hair while you squeeze your joined hands, determined to win his attention. 

‘I promise,’ is your soft whisper. ‘I shall bear no other child than yours.’ 

Invigorated by your promise, he returns his gaze to yours and maintains it as he works his way down your body with his tongue, kissing everywhere his hands have been. Without warning, he buries his face between your legs to bite gently at your clit, this contact a thunderclap in your spirit. Back arching off the floor, your voice shatters around his name, teeth chewing over the syllables as tears prick at the corner of your eyes. Your bones hum with the stimulation, very existence stinging and resonating, while he sucks your clit into his mouth, soothing the pain into a deep, soul burning pleasure. He swirls his tongue around it, mouth greedy and impatient, the fullness of his lips a heaven unrivaled by Teylim, and your hand tightened in his hair, body writhing in passion. 

Hoseok releases your clit with a wet pop before he kisses his way down to your folds, thrusting the flat of his tongue between them, impatient and hungry. Mindlessly, your legs spread wider, small gasps escaping from your chest as your lungs take in the scent of your sex and your hips roll upward, feeling your juices mix ceremoniously with his saliva. Consumed by the sheer power of your need, you feel yourself howl like a moonless wolf, rolling your hips against Hoseok’s face in erratic motions, inspired by the promise of your orgasm.

But Hoseok releases your joined hands, moving it quickly to your hips where he holds you still, growling against your cunt.

‘You shall not wander from me,’ he says, moving his lips against your slit as he presses you into the ground. ‘Keep still and let me feast on you.’

Once more, he thrusts the full length of his tongue between your walls, sucking eagerly at the juices spilling into his open mouth. He’s velvet and silk against your core, sturdy and solid while still gliding against all the places you have needed him most, and your voice careens off the ceiling, loud enough to drown out the ocean waves. Scratching your nails down the soft skin of your thighs, you fight back the desire to thrust against his face, wishing you could fuck his mouth and press yourself against the tip of his nose. All of it, every thrust of his tongue and every roll of your hips you suppress has you moaning, voice high pitched and growing erratic.

The feel of his tongue inside you inspires the deep desire for something larger, something thicker. Your orgasm is a threat in the center of your belly, spine tingling and tightening as each press of his tongue against your walls tames the beast of your racing heart. Hoseok buries himself between your legs with a diligence that borders on hysteria, holding you down and indulging in your

Still, his tongue only just hits the place inside your core that needs him most. You want him hard against your cervix. You want him deep enough to leave bruises on your softest pieces.

Tonight, you want the thick girth of his cock to splinter your bones. Tonight, you want his cock pressed against your cervix, a bruise you will carry for the rest of your life. Tonight, you want his cum so deep inside you it burns.

Tonight, you want him to love you and you want it to hurt. 

‘Hoseok,’ you whimper. ‘Please, I -’

Hoseok thrusts two fingers into your cunt beside his tongue, silencing you with the rough skin of his knuckles spreading your walls even wider. The contrast between his fingers and tongue elevates your hips from the floor with force, disregarding the strength of his hand. You are beastly beneath his ministrations, finding yourself caught in a wild hour and feeling as though you have abstained from him too long. He forces your hips back down with the palm of his hand, groaning against you loudly enough you feel his voice reverberate up to your tongue, and you cry out, distraught. 

Having left the top of your dress buttoned, your nipples strain against the cloth, sensitive and sending electric ripples down your arms, your shoulders - all along your nerves. Another breeze moves through the lighthouse, and it kisses at the sheen of sweat that has broken along your hairline. 

Desperately, you want him. Desperately, you need him. But still it’s not enough. 

‘God,’ you keen, ‘I need to cum.’

Hoseok hums in understanding, the vibration of it moving deep inside you once more. 

‘Oh,’ you whine, so small and so close to breaking. 

Hoseok’s tongue leaves your cunt, only his fingers remaining, and he moves his mouth to your clit where he sucks at the swollen nub deftly. Again, your hand scratches down your thighs, harsh enough to draw blood. Red and angry, the sting of these scores against your flesh makes you smile, a manic and monstrous expression you hope your father, Daeus, and all the gods can see. Frustrated and feeling the coil of your orgasm tighten, your other hand slaps into the ground, gripping at the linen of Hoseok’s shirt. You dig your nails into it, pretending it is him, his skin, his cock, anything substantial to torture him as he tortures you.

Against your cunt, you feel Hoseok begin to laugh, wearing the smirk of the devil as he sucks diligently at your clit.

His name begins in your mouth and dies on an exhale, eyes open wide as you stare up at the ceiling. Vision glazed and vacant, your body trembles as your orgasm lingers dangerously on the precipice of your nerves, skin growing hot and bordering on a point of pain. You hear yourself crying, you feel yourself pressing harder and harder against Hoseok’s eager mouth, and you struggle to discern if the rush in your ears is your blood as it moves swiftly to find him or the ocean that works swiftly to keep your coupling secret. 

And then, without any warning at all, Hoseok once more latches his teeth to your clit.

Your orgasm takes you by surprise, a wave of heat in your blood and skin, your juice cascading into Hoseok’s waiting mouth. This orgasm is an eruption, a shockwave in your soul that leaves you trembling while his relentless motions of tongue and hand milk you to completion. The tears you have held back begin to spill, soaking your cheeks as you soak his lips, a great wave over you that leaves you breathless.

‘Come up here,’ you gasp. ‘Come up here and kiss me.’

Slowly pulling his lips and fingers from your cunt, you hiss as he eases his way up your body. Using the tip of his tongue, he traces the shape of your parted lips with careful strokes, still messy and dripping with your slick juices. At your core, his cock presses, the contact sending tremors up your spine and causing a whine of pain to splinter in your throat. Granted permission by the sound alone, Hoseok delves his tongue inside your mouth and demands you taste yourself - you, your cum; him, his breath, his spit, his flavor; all of it, mixed together. Your walls clench as you kiss him, devouring him, as your folds seek to lure his cock inside you. 

Gasping against his mouth, you feel his tip press roughly against your core, your walls still sensitive but your body and spirit eager for his fullness. Hoseok pulls away from your lips to whine a low expletive, his resolve shaking and unstable, close to shattering by the force of his desire. His lips part on his sighs, breath slow and shallow, and still shimmering with you. Already, he had devoured you, drunk his fill and yet he still appears starved. As he lingers above you, Hoseok rolls his cock against your walls once more, a challenge, a reminder that he is exhausted by the prospect of not having his fill of you.

Moving your hands to his shoulders, you press your fingers into the soft skin of his back and muscles, letting them wander down and down until you grip the rounded flesh of his ass There, your grip tightens, threatening to push him inside you lest he waste any more time. 

‘Hoseok,’ you breathe. ‘I need you to fuck me.’

‘You want me to fuck you?’ he mumbles, running his tongue over your jaw before biting at your chin. ‘Tell me how badly.’

‘Please,’ you whimper, rolling your hips up against his cock, a warning against the tip. ‘I need you so badly it hurts.’

Wordlessly, Hoseok thrusts himself inside you to the hilt, balls pressing against you with a loud slap. You feel him shake inside you, body shivering with the sudden heat enveloping his cock. Hoseok’s moan is a deluge, an ecstatic exclamation howled victoriously into the juncture of your neck and shoulders, and you smile blankly at the ceiling, mind empty of all things that are not the feel of Hoseok against and inside you. 

His stillness is a tease you cannot endure, and so you clench yourself around him, his teeth biting at your skin as you release and repeat, urging him to move. The feel of his mouth at your skin, the feel of his heaviness pressed so roughly inside you, as your cunt leaking over him, back down into the floor where it coats your ass in its stickiness. Still, you pay little attention to anything other than his immense girth as it stretches you, your walls strained to accommodate him like always. 

Feeling you drip over and under him, he pulls out and thrusts back in, a knock at the door of your cervix and the sudden feel of him so deep as you groaning his name. He challenges you, repeating the motion as your bodies slide back along the floor with the force of his thrusts, the piercing sensation stealing your very breath. You are gasping as you clutch him, breasts moving against the fabric and nipples aching with the sensation, letting him push your body to its limits. 

‘Tell me you love me,’ he grits out, an echo of your earlier promises.

‘I love you,’ you choke, the words incomprehensible. 

‘Say it again,’ he hisses, executing a piercing thrust that has you gasping for breath, nails digging into his skin for purchase.

Squeezing your eyes closed, your hands move to the wings of his shoulder blades and you cling to him, a flightless bird. ‘I love you.’ 

When you hear yourself say it, you realize you are crying, your voice a sob of affirmation around tears of grief. It should be impossible to love someone this much, with the devastating whole of your existence. 

‘Tell me you love me,’ you plead, barely able to speak around the way Hoseok punishes your cervix, a punishment for abandoning him. 

‘I love you.’ Equally affected, his voice warbles over the words. Face buried in the crook of your neck, he presses the words over and over into your pulse. 

‘I love you, I love you.’

Slowing his pace, Hoseok accentuates his proclamations with brutal thrusts against your cervix. Slow as his thrusts may be, they are full of power and force, a pain against your walls and muscles ensuring you will never be free of him. Tears falling freely, your breath is as sharp as his thrusts, a burn in your lungs as you struggle to contain the cosmic feeling of love you hold inside. 

‘I know you like it when it hurts,’ he grits out, thrusts relentless. 

All you can manage is a nod, a moan, the dig of your nails into his skin, the acknowledgement that you would prefer it if he shattered you. You would prefer it if he left nothing behind of you at all.

‘I know you like it when I stretch you, when you can’t walk for days.’ 

‘I do,’ you nod weakly, legs automatically spreading wider - until your hips hurt, until you are certain your bones will bruise from the way you have spread yourself open just for him. 

Hoseok moans as a harmonic response to yours, the sack of his balls slapping diligently at your ass. You cling to him, holding him against you in despair, the vice grip of your hands matched only by the grip of your walls. Pleasure ripples through your synapses, an overload to your very synapses, little else registering in your mind apart from the places Hoseok penetrates within your core.

‘Do you want me to cum inside you?’

The pleading nature of his tone does not go unmissed, his own anguish evident in the way his hand cups your breast and his nails scratch at the flesh, wishing for entry. 

‘Yes.’

‘What if I get you pregnant?’ he muses, though he remains completely sincere. What if I fuck my baby into you? What will they do?’

‘I hope you do.’ It takes all your strength to speak without losing your breath. Once more your orgasm has started to build gloriously around the pain of taking him against your cervix, and you need him to know that you mean it. ‘I don’t care if they scorn me.’

‘I’ll do it,’ he bites out - not a threat, but a promise. ‘I’ll knock you up, fuck my baby into you. They’ll have to watch you grow someone else’s child. What a sight, huh? Bet Daeus would love to see you deliver another man’s baby.’

‘Do it.’

You see yourself, heavy and round with his child, glowing brilliantly like a constellation unto yourself. Carrying your offspring, you would be a supernova, the cradle of the very universe and you would celebrate it with every word breaking over laughter. Daeus would snarl at you, a sneer reserved for your growing belly; your father would find himself in a rage so beautiful and blinding, you think darkness would befall the earth, this winter sudden and unforgiving. The other gods would ignore you, this you are confident of and would take with pride. You’d tease them with it, finding yourself immensely confident in the power of being pregnant with Hoseok’s child. 

You’d carry his child as though this were your real pilgrimage within Teylim, your true purpose. 

And Hoseok, you know, would be your chosen king, god of the sun because he deserves it.

He deserves you. 

‘Yeah?’ he moans, hips picking up pace as he begins to chase his own high. Still, he loses none of the strength in his motions, seemingly motivated by your affirmation of desire.

‘Get me pregnant,’ you plead, biting your lip with shame at this impossible ask. A fool’s errand, a childish plea to change the way of things. ‘Make me stay with you,’ is your final whisper.

Together, you both fall silent as he fucks you with vigor, silent and awestruck by the violence of your coupling. With each thrust, your voices become a symphony of your union. Gripping him tightly, you hope it reaches the gods, your father, all of Teylim. You hope they see the way Hoseok fucks you, absolutely unforgiving. You hope they see the way you make a mess of yourself for him, that you have already decided on a husband and he is no god, no hero, but a man who loves you as though you are the whole of the sky. 

Hoseok trembles against you, and you sense his orgasm approaching in the way he gasps against your skin, thrusting harder and faster and, somehow, harder into your core. You are burning with the ache of containing him, but your own orgasm is cosmic, making its steady approach with each brutal thrust. Hoseok wanted to live inside you, wanted to give you a child, wanted to watch you swell with him alone - and it is these thoughts that send you over the edge, the universe apart from Hoseok melting into a white. In this orgasm, there is no air, no sea, no sky - only Hoseok; his breath, his smile as you cum around him, his ecstatic laughter.

You imagine yourself pregnant, learning to contain a sun inside your womb. You imagine him laughing, hands and lips at your belly. You imagine him happy. You imagine him happy, and your orgasm moves over you with the strength of a lunar tide, the same way your tears move over your cheeks, torn between sobs of bliss and sobs of grief for a life you will not have.

Hoseok continues to thrust into you with purpose, the last of your orgasm leaving you in shockwaves as the motions of his hips overstimulate your walls. It hurts to contain him, not nearly as much as it hurts to leave him, and you dig your nails into his skin, demanding all you can from him with enthusiasm. The world is tilted on its axis as he cums inside you, wave after wave of seed spilling into your core as you stroke tenderly at the hair at the base of his neck. Teeth chattering, you mumble his name, shivering as he spills himself inside you, and you pray, woefully, that he kept his word and left you with a piece of him.

‘Mine,’ he says, stilling inside you as the last of his orgasm quakes his mortal form. 

As his cock begins to soften inside you, the hand at your breast moves gently to the buttons. Your skin burns with the heat of the saliva he dripped against your neck, and he presses his cheek against your neck as he unbuttons the last of your dress. Exposed, now, to the sea breeze, your back arches slightly as the wind and his breath moves over your nipples. His hand cups your breast, too tender for the way he fucked you, and you are certain he is imagining your breasts full of milk, your body heavy, his wish granted, too. 

Pulling his cock free, you both grimace at the feeling, and he removes his hand from your breast to instead smear the cum from your core that leaks from between your walls over your folds. He strokes the tips of his fingers against your slit, the stimulation making you hiss and writhe beneath him in retreat, before you are crying out his name, his fingers dipping inside to scoop his cum from your center. As he pulls his hand free, his studies his fingers carefully, smirking not unlike the devil, before he guides them over your breasts and lets it drip.

And then, without warning, he begins to write his name along your breasts.

‘I am sanctifying you,’ he explains. ‘Anyone who pulls down your clothes will find me. I have already laid claim to your temple.’

Your smile is composed entirely of sadness, a hope that has made a home of despair evident in your expression. Holding his hand in yours, you guide his soaked fingers between the valley of your breasts to your stomach, where you hold him still.

‘With any luck it will be visible here,’ you offer, hoping he cannot hear how remorse has consumed you.

Hoseok frowns. ‘My biggest fear is that you do become pregnant and that I cannot see my baby grow in you. That I won’t be able to raise our family with you.’

Furrowing your brow, you tilt your head to the side in consideration, battling the new found grief that consumes you. ‘Did you not mean it?’

‘I meant every word,’ he promises, moving his hand from your stomach to cup your cheeks. ‘I’d put twins inside you if I had any control. But you are mine, our family is mine. I curse the gods for taking it from me.’ Hoseok falls silent, and you press your cheek into his hand, turning to kiss his mount of venus in encouragement. ‘The day I met you I saw my life with you,’ he continues, so quiet, and so unlike your Hoseok. ‘You are half of my soul.’

Abruptly, Hoseok lifts himself up and pulls away from you. As he rises to a stand, he is still warmed by your touch, the glow from your magic still draped over his muscles, turning him amber and yellow. He’s incandescent, as much as a god of light as you, more regal and more royal than any man who was lucky enough to slay a beast in your name. Running a hand through his hair, he regards you with dark eyes - embers burning in his rises of lust and longing, devotion and despair. He says nothing at all as he moves, naked and vulnerable, to the back corner of the room where he gathers his tools. 

‘What are you doing?’ you hum. Reaching your hand out, you curl onto your side, writhing in the pillow of your discarded clothes, beckoning him back to you. ‘Come back to me. It’s cold without you.’

He says nothing at all as he roots around, pulling out a thick screwdriver and hammer. 

‘He will give you rings,’ he says, more to himself than to you. 

The words come softly, barely a whisper that cuts through the air. Settling in front of the fog bell on his knees, he begins to hammer the end of the screwdriver into the metal, carving and carving. 

‘He will give you flowers,’ he grits out bitterly, ‘and will see your smiles in the morning. He will bring you food and nectar, and he will watch you glow your brightest. He will watch you glow each time you remember my hands on you, my lips on you. In bed, he will watch you glow, thinking it’s him, letting his own ego grow so immense he will get off on his own power rather than you. But he won’t know, not like I do. Not like we do.’

Sitting up, you don’t bother to cover your naked body, the breeze from the sea cooling your dampened skin. Licking your lips, you watch as his muscles strain with his pound of the hammer. Brow narrowed, jaw set, and hands gripping his tools with confidence, he marks the metal with a certainty born from a man learning to combat loneliness. 

‘He won’t know,’ he continues, words a grunt of demand and dominion. ‘No one will know that each time he touches you, you are comparing him to me. You will be remembering me. I want you to remember me. I want you to think of me, I want you to look for the light from this beacon, and I want you to outshine the anguish. I am destined to look for you the way so many people look for the North Star. My every storm is guided by you. So don’t you dare forget.’

The fog light spins overhead, clouds passing by and changing the refraction just enough to see the shimmer against his cheeks. Hoseok weeps as he carves, jaw unflinching, and hands steady with determination. A lump rises in the center of your throat, chest tight with the pain that comes from loving someone too much, entirely too much. Gasping for air, you move towards him, wanting his body pressed tightly against yours in comfort.

On instinct, you give him light - more light, so much light. From beneath your skin, you become torchlight, neon, candle flame; wrapping yourself around his back and shoulders, you rest your head on his shoulder and cling to him, becoming sunlight and firewood, banishing the darkness from his mind and mouth, a lamp unto his feet to lead him home. Pressing your lips at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, you feel him tremble beneath you, mindlessly leaning into you for more, endlessly more. 

As you turn to watch his hands, your own tears soak the corner of your eyes.

‘Hoseok,’ you breathe, regarding his craftsmanship.

‘He can’t give you light like I can,’ he murmurs, suddenly so small and so young, weakened suddenly by the ever looming distance between you. ‘He can give you all the falsehoods of husbandry, but he can’t give you light. He can’t give it back. He is not your equal like I am.’ 

Beneath the careful, diligent work of his hammer and screw, your name begins to take shape, just beneath his. The markings are deep, thick scratches unlikely to erode in any substantial length of time. Wind and sea will not wipe your names away, nor snow nor sand. Not even heaven, you think, could cause your names to smear. 

When he finishes, the bronze bell glimmers beneath your light, your names encased in a heart he artfully crafted. You imagine it in a wedding band - silver, and not gold. Gold, you think, is too soft and too malleable. The gods prefer it, a sign of eternal wealth and glory, but gold bends. Gold is too impermanent, value placed in all the wrong places. You would give Hoseok platinum, would give him silver, would give him bronze. If you had the power to move the earth, you would give him iron and steel, anything equally as enduring as the way you will be immortalized in ardor. 

‘I can’t believe this is all I will have of you.’ Hoseok stares at your names, at the jagged lines he carved into the bell, mourning. Shoulders slumped and hands folded neatly in his lap, he laments quietly to himself as though in prayer. ‘At the end of all this, this is all I have. Your name and a memory.’

Raising your hand to his chin, you turn his face to yours, biting your lip as he cries freely, tears staining the softness of his cheeks with salt. 

‘No one will have me, not like you.’ ‘He can take me, he can take my light, he can take my name, but he will never have my heart. All of me belongs to you. I am yours. Swear to me that you are mine.’

The hammer and screwdriver fall to the ground at his knees, a loud clank so disruptive for the quiet paradise you have built at the top of the lighthouse. Enveloping you in his arms, he buries his face in your neck, lips at the center of your throat - a place he has been so often this night you are determined to call it his home - tugging your hair back to make space for him. 

‘I’m yours,’ he swears passionately. ‘Not a single person will have me the way I’ve given myself to you. In a thousand summers, not a single one will pass in which I’m not yours.’

The conviction in his words undoes you, your eyes wide as you stare up at the ceiling, at the base of the light, feeling as though there is no difference between the moon and the sun, not anymore. For you, they are interchangeable, each burning in an hour of love; which is to say, there will be no hour that passes in which you do not love him, no hour passing in which your light does not belong to him and his does not belong to you. 

‘I wish I could stay like this.’ These affectionate speeches tumble from your lips, your mind empty of misgivings, wishing to be as honest as you are naked. ‘I wish I could stay this way, forever touching you.’

‘Time is meaningless,’ he muses, detached and distant, even as you hold him. ‘For me, this is the end of my life. There will be nothing else after this. For me, it will always be this way. My arms will always be around you.’

For him, you are glad. For him, you are relieved that there shall be no other moment than this. 

SEVEN MONTHS LATER

The seaside feels like the edge of destruction after so long away from it, gravity pressing at your bones. From where you stand, the unchanging nature of the earth makes a mockery of your nerves, the past beating against your sternum like a second heart.

You are poised and still, relearning the way the earth is unforgiving compared to the heavens. Too long have you been removed from such a tangible feeling of living, such a tangible reminder that you, too, are made of flesh and blood and all the things that break so easily, just like ocean foam. Your toes bury themselves into the rocky shore, rooting yourself like a tether as a promise that you will not run away, that you will not leave - not again. As though it senses your presence, the sea rages beneath a cloudless sky, the sun’s rays reflecting off the water, illuminated without any need of you.

The lighthouse looms along the hilltop, and you worry your bottom lip as you study its eternal guardianship. All these unchangeable things, loyal without you, and yet you stand here, begging for acceptance. You can hear Hoseok’s words like an echo, words not yet spoken but you anticipate them, the lump in your throat sinister in its tenacity. 

How dare you, he will shout, and the tears on his cheeks will be your parting gift. How dare you haunt me here when I did not expect you, when I had already worked so hard to give you up. 

Promises in the dead of night are easy to make when the daylight has yet to take anything from you. The earth remains unchanged but you are evidence of the passage of time, and you are certain Hoseok will have warred with himself so completely your memory of him is little more than a ghost of a man who died the moment he woke to find you missing. 

He used to be able to sense you here. Back when things were new and things were simple, back even at the end, he would sense your presence along the water and come running, a smile already at his cheeks in welcome. Stroking your naked hip with the tips of his fingers, he told you all about his skin would tingle when you were close, a static on his tongue that told him something too important to be contained by the earth was waiting for him. Even before he knew you, before he knew it was you, he felt it, as though he had been made just to know you, to find you. 

It used to be the same for you, a pull to the shore and a lightness of being that always made you stand here, in this place, waiting. Weeks passed before either of you had any idea you were near one another, before you’d even introduced yourself, and now it is the same. Your body combats the change in gravity with strength, though you realize too much has changed in you for the weight to feel the same. 

The hair at the back of your neck stands on end, rising in anticipation as the air becomes thick and heavy. You feel him approaching, a magnetic pull against your back that has your posture shifting, pulling you to your full height regardless how heavy all of you feels. Still, he doesn’t close the distance, and your lips part around a sigh, silently asking him to reach for you, to touch you.

But he won’t.

Not when he thinks you are the same as you were. Not when he thinks this is all just a memory.

Closing your eyes, you turn to face him, feeling tears burn against the lids. Hoseok makes no movement towards you, and, unable to hold back any longer, you open your eyes once more, weeping at the sight of him. Chewing at the inside of your cheek, you study the way he looks at you, the way his gaze traverses your form with a pained expression, the knot in his brow visible even from a distance. He’s far from you, far enough you cannot touch him, but he, too, remains unchanged - still beautiful, still glorious, still the sun king himself, and you choke back a bitter cry at the way it seems only you are the one who was allowed to change.

‘Hello,’ you try, offering a weak and unsteady smile.

Hoseok says nothing as he closes the distance, eyes trained at your middle, focused enough you feel him move inside you. He lets himself get close, close enough your skin calls out to his eagerly, begging him to touch you. You can smell him on the wind, the same musk, the same ambergris, the same dust that you remember, and your hands twitch at your sides, straining to reach out to him. 

‘What is this?’ he manages, not looking you in the face.

‘I -’ A small cry cuts you off, and you press your hand to your lips, forcing yourself to keep your composure. 

Hearing the anguish in your voice, he raises his gaze to yours and you see the way he mirrors your pain, confused and bewildered. 

‘Tell me what this is,’ he whispers, fierce and demanding. 

‘It’s exactly how it looks,’ you explain, feeling terribly pathetic.

It’s so simple, you know. Absolutely obvious. Your pregnant belly sticks out far enough now it leaves a distance between you, a gap where your child grows the only thing that separates you. 

‘Did you come here to mock me?’ he spits, leaning forward with venom.

‘No!’ you exclaim, holding your hand up in surrender. ‘I…’ you drift off, uncertain where to begin. You decide, perhaps, it’s best to begin with the truth. ‘The baby is yours.’ 

Hoseok’s expression shatters, a thousand different feelings breaking over his face before he settles on disbelief and quiet rage.

‘Why would you show me this?’ he pleads, sounding so small. ‘Have I not suffered enough? You knew I wished for this and now you tease me with it?’

‘I’m not here to show you anything, Hoseok, and certainly not to cause you pain.’ It’s shocking how tired you are becoming, putting in the effort of not reaching for him, not weeping for him, not rushing to an end you both deserve. ‘They...rejected me,’ is all you manage in the end.

Hoseok sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes watering as he lowers his focus to your belly once more. ‘They stopped the wedding?’

He speaks so softly you almost do not hear him over the rolling tide, and now, you cannot be contained. In one swift motion, you reach for his hand twining your fingers together. Your hold on him is unrelenting, not allowing him a single escape. Feeling his palm against yours is all the motivation you need, a resurgence of energy you have been missing for months.

When you continue to remain silent, he narrows his brow and persists. ‘Are you unmarried?’

‘They were going to go through with,’ you explain quickly, not allowing him any room for interjection. ‘They were going to make me marry him. Daeus even said he’d give the child to a human family, make it go through a Hero’s Journey to join us back in Teylim. Gods, the fight I put up to stop that from happening. The Fate Tying went poorly,’ you finish with a sardonic grin.

Gently, you tug Hoseok against you, forcing his stomach to bump against yours. His heated breath cascades over your skin, and you sigh in pleasure.

‘The child is completely human, my love,’ you whisper, eyes searching his face. ‘The Moirai refused to untie us.’ Incredulous, you laugh, looking out over the grassy hill in wonder. ‘The old crones are always right.’

The weight of your explanation steals Hoseok’s breath, and he falls against you, clinging to you as he sobs into your shoulder. Holding him close, you remember the last time you were in this position, your tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt, your hands clutching him, unwilling to be removed. As though sensing the great wave of his emotion, the child in your belly stirs abruptly, pressing against your womb to get his attention. 

You jump slightly at the feel of it, and Hoseok looks down, laughing, incandescent in his joy. He brings his hand to your belly, touching softly at where your child had just been, and he sniffles, looking to you and back down, cheeks reflecting the light you suddenly cannot contain. 

‘It’s a girl,’ you state, always wondering how he would react to knowing he’d have a daughter. ‘Our daughter kept me with you.’

Falling to his knees, he holds your belly in his hands and presses his forehead against its peak, too overcome with emotion to utter a word. Instead, he simply breathes deeply, wrought with bliss. Lowering a hand to the crown of his head, you thread your fingers through your hair and think that this, this precise moment, is what it means to be a goddess.

This is what it means to truly be sanctified.

[bowieandqueen11]

Jaskier Dating an Autistic!Reader Would Include...

Request: Hello lovely, Could I please request Jaskier dating an autistic!reader would include? Preferably with a female reader, but it really doesn’t have to be!

In celebration of season 2 (and our Bard’s incredible new look), here is a very late request!!! Thank you so much lovely! <3 Also I have to say listening to Bardcore playlist whilst writing this is the greatest decision I have ever made XD

☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°

For all his flirtatious ways and his confident manner, Jaskier would genuinely be the sweetest, most doting and loving boyfriend in all of existence (I am very emotional about this okay).

You two are so in sync, you genuinely might as well be one person because he knows and understands and absolutely ADORES you it actually brings Geralt to the brink of tears sometimes with how much it annoys him.

(Even though he tends to grunt and roll his eyes a lot around a love-struck Jaskier who spends his time writing love songs for you, inside he secretly believes that never could two more perfectly matched beings find each other in all the lands).

Jaskier is so soft for you - if you’re sensitive to loud noises and sound, he knows instinctively. He’ll quickly pull you away from the situation, taking you away to the edge of some meadow on the edge of town. It would just be the two of you, some bright cornflowers, a starry night, some lingering fireflies around the treeline and the bard’s melodic voice and strumming as he warbles out some gentle songs he knows soothes you.

Having played the lute for so many a year, his hands are quite adept, so he often gives them to you to play or stim with if you ever want them. (He’s also the only other person he’ll ever let touch his lute if strumming helps you - and if you’re okay with touch, he loves to come up behind you and give you a tight hug, resting his head on your shoulder. He smirks as you feel the ruffles of his sleeves against your own arm as he loops around you to place his fingers over yours, gently strumming your hands down the strings.)

Your two hands together as one. As it should be. After all, you are half his soul - he feels most of the time that you are more himself than he is. He blesses ever goddess he can think of for sending one of them down for him to spend his eternity loving.

He couldn’t wish spending his short life doing anything else. Spending his time adoring, lavishing, loving you, he finds, is the only thing that has ever truly pleased him in life.

If you’re nonverbal, that’s completely fine!! Jaskier is so outgoing, he can communicate with everyone else for the two of you. In fact, when you’re on your journey with Geralt, the two of you have this little system going - just to make sure that the two of you are safe and okay, you’ll always just twang the bottom string of Jaskier’s lute.

Jaskier knows all of your triggers and stressors off by heart, and despite his outward appearance his heart of full of fiery, steely thorns if anyone ever dares to disrespect your boundaries or try to upset you!!! As Geralt has attested to, too many times has he had to drag Jaskier out of a tavern, or from the royal court, or even once from a lair of Wight’s by his armpits because he is straight up ready to fight magical beasts alone if it’s for your honour.

If you don’t have an aversion to touch, he is the cuddliest, clingiest man in the world!!!! If the amount of time he spends looking like a model, staring wistfully out into the sunset on some clagged rock at the edge of a desert field’s precipice, whispering out whims of love songs about how you’ve chained his heart and soul to yours didn’t give it away, the way he acts physically sure does.

He always acts up when you approach him and quietly sit down cross legged on the floor next to him. His pursed lips, the way he runs his hands through his fringe, the warm glow in his eye as he beams over at you with that toothy smile, all the love this measly world could muster threatening to break from every cell of his body. He’ll slowly, gingerly, reassuringly take your hand and kiss each knuckle on your finger as the two of you just stay together, at peace, watching the sun fall over the warm golden and honey orange glow of the horizon.

He always makes sure to ask for permission first before he touches you, though! He tries his best, despite his flirtations, to be a gentleman through and through. He always does this during long days journeying with the Witcher, when the two of you are exhausted - dragging your dusty heels along the ground next to Roach, the sun sweltering over your heads as Jaskier sighs to himself, side still bleeding slightly from their last attack. He doesn’t care in the slightest though, when he beckons his hand out towards you with a shy raise of his eyebrow, gently asking if he can just hold you tightly into his side for a while.

He breathes you in, closing his eyes and trying to stop his racing heart. It’s the only way he can reassure himself that you’re here with him. You’re safe. He’s okay, because you’re safe.

He’s always a big softie boy, so if deep pressure stimulation helps you, he gives the biggest, warmest, kindest hugs - the kind where Geralt thinks you’ve disappeared because you’re so wrapped up in the ridiculous layers of ruffled emerald clothes the bard wears. I’m also just going to put it out there, that if you like the softer materials, this man is very very good of making you kneel down in the soft meadows beside him, laughing gleefully as he skilfully weaves flower crowns around the top of your head.

If you do have an aversion to touch, this is completely okay with Jaskier too!! This man has made a living convincing everyone to fall in love with (and give their money to him) with his honey sweet words, so he’ll gladly just spend anytime he can get during busy days sitting near you, talking your head off, or singing you the newest song he’s currently trying to quill down off the top of his head.

The tips of his ears do flush this adorable shade of peach, though, his eyes almost uncharacteristically unable to meet yours because all the songs he writes are about his muse (i.e. you.)

If you’re not too fond of touch, in dangerous situations he’ll always hover over beside you, annoying Geralt’s head off with the way he acts like an annoying little fly until he grabs the bard by the collar and makes him go sit down by the fire.

He also this little sign of locking pinkies in the heat of fights, just to reassure each other that you’re alright.

He knows that you’re capable, but he’s also just so protective!! Jaskier is 100% one of those himbos in love kind of people lmao.

If you’re hypersensitive to loud sounds, he’s rather fond of quiet nights in at the tavern. The kind of long evenings where it’s just the two of you, a stormy night raging in the latticed window behind your head, a few dripping wax candles on the innkeeper’s bar and a warm fire toasting your feet. Turns out, he managed to bribe the owner to keep the inn open for an hour or two past closing time, just because he enjoys being in your company so much.

The whole time, his attention is completely centred on you, especially if you’re telling him about your hyper-fixation. Like your mouth is dripping the sweetest honey, he’s tied onto your every word, the sound like a chorus of angels in his ears. He does that cute little thing where the edge of his tongue sticks out in concentration, hand resting underneath his chin, until at one point he completely forgets anything from the outside world exists. In his excitement, he accidentally knocks his flagon of ale over the innkeeper and swiftly gets the two of you banned from ever entering there again.

He thinks it was completely worth it though.

When nights are cold and dark and twisted, and the roads are long and tiresome, the fire dwindling and announcing the end of the day, he’ll come sit down beside you with that soft smile of his and wrap his blue jacket around your shoulders.

It’s so warm, and soft, and smells so much like him - of apple wine, carrots and sage, that it brings comfort to you almost immediately.

He’ll run away if you ever try to give it back to him, because he’s quite stubborn too. Plus, he turns into a blushing, groaning mess every time he sees you wearing it.

One time, he kept on dancing, twirling and skipping around you, Geralt and Roach on the road. His fingers flew over his lute and his mouth just would not stop as he kept on singing songs of your praise and his reverence towards you, that Geralt just finally snapped and shoved him into a puddle of mud.

[yandere-mha]

Hello, my precious honey cake!🍰 I feel like I'm exploiting your kindness at the moment but still ;;;; since you said you want to do at least one Christmas themed request I just couldn't resist So, what if Dabi on his first Christmas with his darling together wanted to make everything the way it was in his early childhood (garlands, cookies, Christmas movies, etc.), but his darling don't understand why he is so obsessed with this because usually these days she doesn't celebrate at all

Oohhh... honey cake 🤤 This turned out to be a tiny bit different from what you asked so I hope that’s okay with you. Also I always love to do your requests so don’t feel like you’re taking advantage this is fun for me <3

TW: KIDNAPPING, ABUSE, UNHEALTHY DYNAMICS, MENTAL ILLNESS, HOLIDAY CHEER.

READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

Dabi was... in the kindest verbiage.... impossible to figure out. It seemed that every mood swing he would have was triggered by the most random and nonsensical things and, if you didn’t read in between the lines accurately, he would get angry. In between the many moments of anxiety, hurt, and confusion, there were a few oddly touching moments of connection with him. This is when you would truly realize that he was a broken man, desperate for anyone to reach out to him. It was hard not to feel pity for him.

As the winter season set in and the chill of the upcoming holidays slowly approached, you noticed a shift within him different from any you’d noticed before. His face seemed to remain static in a tired frown and all of the fire that would occasionally ignite in his eyes seemed to have been snuffed out completely. While he wasn’t usually a very chatty person, he seemed to become very quiet and withdrawn, never demanding or expecting any kind of affection from you at all. Even when you would slowly wrap your arms around his waist, he would only lightly caress you cheek with a subdued expression, a major underreaction compared to his normal behavior.

You looked across the room to see him lazily slumped on the couch with his feet propped up on the table while staring at the flashing TV. It didn’t seem that he was even paying attention to it as his heavy eye lids hardly seemed to keep themselves open.

Treading your feet nervously over to him, you sat on the cushion next to him with an aura of concern surrounding you, staring at your hands in your lap. Dabi didn’t acknowledge you for what seemed to be an eternity until his monotone voice broke the silence.

“It’s Christmas Eve, ya know.”

You didn’t know this. It seemed that you hadn’t left the house in so long that the passage of time was no longer real and it came as a great shock to you. You sadly wondered if your family missed you. Christmas had always been your favorite holiday.

You were so lost in thought that when Dabi spoke again, you jumped.

“hey.” He snapped.

By the glare on his face, you knew he could tell that you were thinking about things he’d rather you not think about. You could see his jaw clench slightly. This was the first time since early November you’d seen him show this much emotion - oddly enough, it was a bit relieving. Still, you decided it would be in your best interest not to anger him.

“Sorry, I-I... just really like Christmas is all.”

At this, Dabi did something completely unexpected and out of character - he smiled. It wasn’t like any of his usual malicious grins born out of mania, but it was a soft, slight upturn to the corners of his mouth. The smile reached his eyes and you weren’t sure if his eyes were twinkling in adoration or in the reflection of the light emanating from the television. His shoulders and jaw relaxed as he lazily moved his gaze back over to the TV. You would have given all of the money in the world to be able to read his mind at that moment. His entire demeaner changed at the flip of a switch.

Before you could question him, he interrupted you in a hushed voice as soft of a whisper.

“Do you love me?”

When Dabi asked questions like these, it was very important to stop, consider the wording of your answer, and make sure it was believable. For this, you felt that only one word was necessary.

“...Yeah.” Your voice was small and mousey as your faced flushed. 

Your eyes bore into your hands clutched in your lap in fear. You prayed that he’d find this answer acceptable. 

You were so focused on not panicking that you hardly noticed when Dabi spoke again. 

“...I’m beat.”

He reached a scarred hand over to you, roughly clutching at your shirt, and gently pulling your body down towards his reclined body. He propped your head up on his shoulder, grabbing your waist and resting his head on yours.

After a few minutes of resting like this, it seemed that he was asleep. In an attempt to make sure it stayed that way, you pointed the remote at the TV and shut it off, giving you a reflected view of yourself and Dabi in the glass. He had a wide grin plastered on his face an his eyes only half-shut in excited exhaustion. Perhaps he never slept after all.

The next morning, you awoke to him shifting out of his seated position. In your tired comfort, you squeezed your hold around his chest tighter in slight annoyance, prompting him to softly cup your cheek in the dark living room and put his lips next to your ear.

“Merry Christmas, baby.” He whispered softly before planting equally soft butterfly kisses all over your earlobe. 

Your eyes began to flutter open as he completely removed his body from the couch before kneeling on the floor in front of you, and roughly pressing his face into your belly and ensnaring both of his arms around your waist much too tightly for comfort. You weren’t able to see his face, but you could feel his enormous grin pressed into your midsection as his death grip squeezed the air out of your lungs. The softness was nice while it lasted.

“I have so much planned for you today.” He sneered. “We’re gonna be like a happy family, ‘kay?”

[tpwkjerii]

as you wish | 3

your one true love was lost in a pirate accident five years ago, and now you’re engaged to a cruel prince. with all your misfortune, you didn’t expect three unconventional thugs and a painfully familiar pirate to save you from a dreadful future. (inspired by The Princess Bride)

pairing: pirate!seokjin x princess!reader

warnings: fluff and angst (!!), reader is forced into engagement and becoming a princess, mentions of death, kidnapping, murder threats, mentions of monsters and fire, kissing, attempted murder, cursing

genre: fairy tale/pirate au, semi established relationship au

word count: 3.7k+

a/n: two more parts left eek (this is also kinda unedited; my apologies for any grammar mistakes :[ )

prev | next | m.list

“Looks like your darling Prince has caught up to us,” the masked man stated dryly, his arms crossed in obvious displeasure.

You furrowed your brows. “You’re not working for him?” you asked quickly.

He scoffed in response. “Why would I work for him,” he spat.

You rolled your eyes at his attitude, concern growing in your mind. You still had no idea who this man was, so going with him was a 50/50 chance of life or death, and you definitely knew that Prince Donghae would not be pleased if he got to you. The last thing you wanted was a repeat of your first night at the castle — it wasn’t unlikely that he would go further either.

However, you didn’t have much time to decide on or say something as the masked man harshly grabbed your arms and pulled you away. You sputtered as he practically dragged your body down the hill.

“What do you want from me?” you asked, your voice and body tired. “If it’s ransom, I promise that you can get it, no matter the amount.”

The man in black scoffed again. “And how much do you think you’re worth, your Highness? What are your words worth, the mere promise of a Princess?”

You sighed, your irritation growing with his stubbornness. “I was giving you a chance… It doesn’t matter where you take me, Prince Donghae is the greatest hunter in this kingdom. He will find you, and I can’t guarantee your fate for when he does.”

He laughed scornfully. “You think your dearest love, the Prince, will save you?” he questioned.

Your face screwed at his suggestion. “I never said that he was my dearest love and yes, he will save me, that I know.”

“You admit to me that you do not love your fiance?” the man asked you, shock evident in his tone.

“He knows I don’t love him,” you responded simply.

“Are not capable of love is what you mean,” he remarked snarkily.

His words stung and, outraged, you planted your feet on the ground above you and ripped yourself out of his grip. You looked at the masked man directly in the eyes, pain in your voice as you told him, “I have loved more deeply than a killer like yourself could ever dream.”

This man may have several physical similarities to Seokjin, but his words and attitude clearly showed otherwise. Perhaps your first impression based on his revealing attire was correct after all.

He was silent as you continued. “I know exactly who you are. Your cruelty revealed it all.” He remained silent as he simply looked at you.

“You’re the dread Pirate Joohyun; admit it!” you exclaimed, anger towards the man who killed the only man you ever truly loved overtaking you.

A mischievous smirk spread across the man’s face. “With pride,” he responded, causing you to breathe out in anger. “What can I do for you?” he asked teasingly.

“You can die slowly — burn and be fed to the sharks for all I care!” you answered, angry tears spilling down your face from his words.

He winced in faux pain. “Those words hurt, your Highness. What have I done to deserve such a cruel fate?”

You stepped closer to him, now staring him dead in the eyes. “You killed my love,” you said, your voice threateningly low.

The man faltered, and for a brief second you almost thought that he had remorse for you. “That’s possible. I’ve killed a lot of people,” he replied bluntly before immediately grabbing you again.

You scoffed, struggling against his strong arms as he dragged you further away.

“Who was this love of yours? Another prince? Was he ugly and rich like this one?” he remarked, contempt clear in his voice. You briefly wondered what exactly this man had against you and your fiance (who you don’t even like) before you responded.

“No,” you started, keeping your voice as level as possible as you reminisced about Seokjin. “A poor farm boy. Poor but perfect, with eyes like chocolate and the kindest soul I’ve ever met.” You stepped closer to the masked man, tears now slowly rolling down your face. “Your ship attacked, and we all know that you, dread Pirate Joohyun, don’t take any prisoners.”

He was slow to reply. “I can’t afford to make any exceptions. Once word goes out that a pirate’s gone soft, people start to take risks and disobey you. Then it’s nothing but work and fighting from there,” he explained like a teacher would.

You breathed out in disbelief at his outward lack of contrition. “You mock my pain,” you spat.

“Life is pain, your Highness.” His grip on your arm tightened and his pace quickened. “Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.”

You didn’t get a chance to respond before he continued, “I think I remember your farm boy. That would have been what, two years ago?”

You remained silent, the past two days and sudden onslaught of this man’s harsh words and memories of Seokjin bringing tears to your eyes.

“Does that bother you to hear? To think about once again?” he persisted.

You ripped yourself out of his grip again and pushed his chest, sending him a few feet back. “Nothing you say now can upset me any more than you already have. My heart is used to harshness and disinterest.”

The masked man ignored your words and continued sharply, “He died well, that should please you. No bribe attempts or useless blubbering. He only said ‘Please. Please, I need to live.’ That’s what caught my memory. I asked him what was so important on this earth that he deserved to live for, and he said true love.” He paused to laugh bitterly. “Then he spoke of a girl of surpassing beauty and faithfulness. I can only assume he meant you. You should thank me for killing him before he found out who you truly are.”

“And who am I?” you countered, stepping closer to him in anger.

“Faithfulness, my lady. He mentioned your unwavering faithfulness,” he responded bitterly. “Now tell me, when you found out he died, did you get engaged to your prince that hour, or did you at least wait a week, out of respect for the dead?”

Your hands balled up by your sides. “Don’t mock me anymore! I died that day! You speak as if it was my choice!”

“Was it no-”

The masked man paused, and both of your heads turned towards the fields which he rushed you away from. There, Prince Donghae and his small army were making their way in your current direction.

Your eyes moved from the royal soldiers towards Seokjin towards the ravine that was lying below the hills on your right side; and with only a moment of thought, your hands moved up towards Seokjin’s chest.

“You too can die for all I care,” you said darkly before you pushed him down the hill.

You watched as he tumbled down the grassy hill, no emotions running through your tired body. It wasn’t until three words, three words which used to bring you great comfort and happiness, rang out, the voice behind them growing further and further away by the second.

“...As…you…wish…”

Your hand instantly flew to your mouth in horror. You were wrong - extremely wrong. “Oh my god, what have I done? My sweet Seokjin,” you whispered, your mind reeling at the sudden turn of events.

Without a second thought or consideration of the dangers ahead of you, you ran down the steep hill into the ravine. You barely made it a few meters before your foot got caught on a rock, sending you tumbling down the hill and into the ravine behind Seokjin.

You winced as you landed on the dirt, your body sore from the heavy impact.

“Can you move at all?” you heard Seokjin groan from a few feet away.

“Can I move?” you started, lifting your head up to look at him. His mask was off his face now, allowing you to perfectly see his beautiful face and know that it really was him.  “Seokjin, you’re alive. I could fly if you asked me too.”

“Fly then.”

“You know I meant that figuratively, Jinnie,” you said with a sigh, a wave of relief crashing through you as you realized his sense of humor never changed even after all this time. “Oh, Seokjin,” you murmured, closing your eyes and laying your head down on the ground again.

The leaves and stones crunched beneath him as he stood up and walked towards you. “I told you that I would always come back to you,” he said, leaning down to gently caress your face before lifting you to your feet. You opened your eyes and looked up to meet his eyes, your hand instinctively reaching for his. “Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked softly.

You felt a knot in your chest as you answered. “You were dead. And I had no choice in following Prince Donghae’s orders of becoming his Princess if I wanted to live.”

He let go of your hand, much to your initial dismay, and moved it up to gently cup your cheek. “You should have had more faith in me. Death can’t stop true love, it can delay it at most,” he spoke earnestly.

You nodded, eyes glazing over as you said, “I’ll never doubt again.”

“You will never need to doubt,” Seokjin replied before he leaned down and closed the distance between your lips. His plump lips were slightly chapped yet still maintained their soft quality. You melted in the familiarity of his tongue swiping against your bottom lip and the way he pulled away only for a few seconds just to kiss you again. His large hands rested gently on your face before moving to your lower back and the back of your head as he pulled you deeper into the kiss.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally pulled away. Breathless, you both took a few seconds to catch your breath.

“I’ve been wanting to do that for the past two years,” Seokjin admitted with a laugh as he massaged your hands lovingly.

“If you’d taken that mask off earlier we could’ve done that at least 20 hours ago.” You laughed.

Seokjin opened his mouth, ready to reply before an echo of a horse’s whine rang through the gorge. You and Seokjin looked up and saw the man whose appearance you’d been dreading this past journey. Prince Donghae had dismounted from his horse and was looking down into the gorge, an unrecognizable expression on his face.

Your breath caught in your throat. “Do you think… he can see us?” you whispered to Seokjin.

He shook his head. “Unlikely. Even if he does, he’s too late. There’s no way they can get around this gorge in less than at least three days.”

Seokjin’s confidence reassured you, although a small feeling of reassurance still gnawed at your stomach. “Are you sure?”

He nodded and gave you a kind smile. “I’m positive, my love. Even if he did, I would not let him take you from me again — I would rather die than let that happen.”

You sighed and shook your head. “Still dramatic, aren’t you?” you asked with a teasing smile.

He scoffed in offense. “It’s true! I really would!”

“I’ll take your word for it, Jin,” you said lightly.

He grinned and leaned down to press a soft kiss on your cheek. A blush spread across your face as he grabbed your hand and gently tugged you forward. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“How do you know where to go?” you asked curiously, examining the dense forest ahead of you.

“Do you think I’ve just been lazing around the past two years?” He reached his arm towards his back and unsheathed his sword, the silver barely shining in the low light that barely peeked into the gorge. “I’m not the same farm boy that I once was.”

“And what happened these past two years, Seokjin?” you asked as you followed him while he skillfully led you through the thick trees.

He sliced through a natural wall of tiny branches, a sharp slicing noise filling your ears. “Would you like the short story or the long story?”

You took his hand as you hopped over the pile of dead branches and leaves. “Well, I’m assuming that we have at least two or three to go through whatever this place is, so I suppose that you have time to tell the long story?”

“You’re absolutely correct,” he said cheekily, using his sword to cut through a wall of vines that hung from the trees. “Before I start, I would like to hear about you.”

You jumped as you heard a loud chirp from within the forest, instinctively moving closer to Seokjin, who moved his hand so he could wrap his arm securely around you. “What about me?” you asked, your voice still shaky in mild fear from the unexpected noise.

“You know what I mean, Y/N.” He took a deep breath as you sliced through another wall of built up branches. “How did you end up as Princess, engaged and to be married to Prince Donghae? What happened?”

“Not too long after you left us, father died—”

“I’m sorry,” he interrupted you, a sorrowful look on his face.

“It’s ok, I’ve already made my peace with his death.” You smiled at him gently before you continued. “Not too long after, news spread of the King’s deteriorating health and the subsequent search for a Princess since Prince Donghae was yet to court anyone. Prince Donghae began searching throughout the Kingdom for any princess he deemed suitable, and honestly I expected the search to end in the inner Kingdom with a wealthy daughter of the court.

But I guess none of them satisfied him, and one day he was in our village. All potential ladies were gathered together in the Church - trust me I wouldn’t have been there if I wasn’t forced - and subject to his scruitany. Prince Donghae examined each lady, sparing some only a quick glance and other a brief exchange in words,” you paused to laugh bitterly, old feelings of resentment awakening. “I suppose that’s how I sealed my poor fate.”

“Something about me must have caught his attention, and he tried to start a conversation with me. Like a fool, I thought I could get away with ignoring him.” You paused to breathe in deeply, the memory of that day bringing in a familiar feeling of deep regret. “And showing him I wasn’t interested. Evidently, my silence spurned his curiosity, and as of that evening, the search for the to-be Princess ended.”

“I’m sorry for assuming you left me on your own will,” Seokjin apologized with a pitiful expression. By now your walking pace had decreased to a leisurely stroll as he guided you through the dense trees. “I hope that life as a Princess has at least treated you well.”

“Treated me well?” You laughed indignantly. “While I may have not had to worry about finances and a sudan surplus of materialistic items, life in the palace has been everything but welcoming,” you began to rant. Seokjin, while trying to contain his anger, listened thoughtfully as you continued. “I don’t belong. They never fail to remind me of that very fact every single day.”

“Who’s they?”

“The royal court, the administrators — hell even Prince Donghae sometimes! I hear the whispers whenever I enter a room: the mutters of ‘why is the poor village girl still here?’ and ‘how could such a lowly maiden be the Princess?’ and more. It takes all my willpower to not scream at them and tell them that I didn’t want to be there in the first place. Prince Donghae chose me but I never chose him or this life.

Every moment of the day I’m surrounded by people and guards who monitor my every action. They wait by my chamber rooms, by the drawing room, by the garden, and by every single room I could ever be in. Anything suspicious or out-of-line is reported to the Queen, who hates that I wasn’t born into wealth or royalty. But out of everyone, Prince Donghae is the worst,” you muttered darkly, tears threatening to fall from your eyes as you averted your gaze to the dirt floor.

“Why? What has he done to you?” Seokjin rushed, red hot anger spreading across his body.

You laughed bitterly. “All the sentiments that everyone in the Palace shares about me, he hears and feels them. He knows how I’m constantly ridiculed by the court and his own mother, yet he says nothing to them or of them. He uses me like a toy; he forces jewels and fine dresses onto me as his partner at formal events but throws me to the side when I’m not needed. There is not an ounce of love or affection between us. And heaven forbid I ever talk back or defend myself, because if I do… I’ll regret it.” Your hand unconsciously reached up to your neck, fingers touching the same spots Donghae’s were.

Seokjin seemed to understand what your sudden change in hand placement meant and his grip on his sword tightened. “That bastard touched you? He hurt you?”

You nodded. “But all physical injuries pale in comparison to the emotional blows I’ve faced. Like all things, though, I’ve grown uncaring. Their words won’t stop, that much I know, and for a long time I felt hopeless and knew that there was little - or nothing at all - I could do to change my fate. For many months, I just relished in the fact that I wasn’t dead.”

“If I had known that he was hurting you, I would’ve done everything I could to come back sooner.”

You looked up at him, and Seokjin’s heart ached at the vulnerability of your body language. You kept your voice soft as you asked, “What were you doing the past two years, Seokjin? How did you survive the attack?”

He sighed and slightly increased your walking pace as you entered a clearer path. “I first ought to explain that the dread Pirate Joohyun isn’t really Joohyun,” he paused to chuckle at your bewildered expression before continuing. “The real Pirate Joohyun has been retired twenty years now after securing enough gold and jewels to last his family three lifetimes. The rest of us have been under the mere illusion of a name… When my ship was attacked that night, I pleaded just like I told you did. The then-Joohyun, named Sihyuk, pitied me and welcomed me onto his ship.

I was a simple crewmate for a few weeks. It wasn’t seamless, of course. Every night, Sihyuk would tell me that he might kill me the next morning, but he never did. Before I realized it, he started training me in all skills a pirate should have: sword fighting, strength, balance, combat, everything. After a short few months, he told me everything about his true identity and the others before him and his plans to hand the title of ‘Pirate Joohyun’ to me.

I accepted, obviously, and the next day, we stopped at a port in Europe and got a new crew. When we set sail again, I was the Captain and Sihyuk called me ‘Joohyun’ until everyone believed that I was truly Joohyun. Then Sihyuk retired from pirating forever, and during the months between then and now, I fulfilled my duties as the Pirate Joohyun.”

You nodded, absorbing his story. It seemed like both of you had a rather unconventional past two years. “Did you ever go back? Back to our village?” you wondered aloud.

He nodded sadly. “I did once a few months ago. I left disappointed when the bakery lady told me that you had moved to the castle as the new Princess.”

“I’m so -”

“No.” Seokjin shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he stated firmly. “You did not deserve what you’ve been through, and my words were unwarranted. I did not know your side of the story and I thought harshly of you because of that.”

“It’s ok, Seokjin. I understand the pain you must have felt,” you whispered, your heart twinging at the thought of Seokjin leaving your tiny village, undoubtedly heartbroken and furious, under the impression that you no longer loved him and moved on with a rich Prince.

He paused in his steps and turned so you were directly facing him. His arms wrapped around you gently and you followed his movements. “I promise you, Y/N. You will never have to see Donghae or step foot into that castle again,” he whispered as he clutched you to his chest. You breathed in his familiar scent and tightened your arms around him. Seokjin’s hugs were just as comforting as before - if not more - and you basked in the way one of his hands rubbed circles in your lower back while the other slowly inched its way up to the back of your head.

You lifted your head up and met his eyes before you leaned in to press your lips against his. Your lips molded together perfectly, and you both rejoiced in the perfect feeling of electricity coursing through your veins and heat spreading across your chest as your mouths moved, magnificently in sync.

After your kiss, you and Seokjin continued through the forest. Seokjin, just as he mentioned, led you through expertly. You watched in amazement as he weaved you through every trap and navigated the unclear forest paths. Even when faced with unexpected monsters, Seokjin maintained his cool and swiftly killed them as if it was second nature.

(Although, he did complain about getting blood on his brand new top and singing the bottom of his pants when he nearly missed a fire trap).

The next few hours passed wonderfully with Seokjin and his comedic commentary, and you imagine that the journey would have been miserable with anyone else. When he announced that you were almost at the end of the gorge’s forest, you felt a ray of hope shine within you. Perhaps this would be the moment you’d dreamt of for the past two years. Maybe this was your second chance at life with Jin. Your excitement grew as you walked towards the visible clearing ahead, eager to leave the gorge with Jin at your side.

But of course, the prospect of being able to flee with Seokjin was too good to be true. You were right in your words before after all — Prince Donghae had found you.

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Legolas x elven reader

Summary: At long last you have finally admitted your innermost feelings for the Woodland Prince to your dear friend Aragorn, at the same time he has learned of the feelings Legolas has kept for you. Now you and Legolas have a chance to express how you both truly feel for one another.

Part 1 is here

-Requested by @sokkasdarling​

Gandalf had called for everyone to continue onward, just as a tiny rock rickashayed off the side of your head, you snapped your attention down to the right. Where Pippin stood, looking down and desperately trying to avoid eye contact at all costs. You heard a deep and hearty laugh from farther on the rocks, raising your sights in that direction you found Aragorn doing a terrible job at holding in his amusement. You raised an eyebrow to him as you caught the sight of a smiling Legolas, “Yes hilarious.” You deadpanned with a roll of your elfish eyes, in good humor of course. You turned to Pippin who was quickly finding his courage again as he confidently looked upon your annoyed face. You flashed him a friendly smile before silently clenching your fist and shaking it at him in a mock bit of anger. He just stuck his tongue out at you before skipping over to Merry and Sam like the little bastard he is. 

The ten of you had made your way down the other side of the rocky hill without much indecent to be concerned of, past a small stream for a water break, near to a small herd of deer, and now you all travel through open grass fields with the occasional large bush as you pass by. During all this time it had occurred to you in your keen observations that the silver haired prince seemed more jubilant then usual. He appeared to hold himself with a confident and tireless stride as he walked ahead of you and half of the Fellowship.

 His blue eyes would linger on you when everyone took that five minute break at the stream, and since his talk with Aragorn earlier his whole being seemed to change ever so slightly. You could not place why, could he know something you don’t? Did Aragorn tell him about your feelings for him? Now since you’ve pondered over the idea it does seem very plausible considering they both spoke together not even three hours ago. If only you hadn’t been distracted by those pesky hobbits would you have been able to listen in on their conversation. 

Letting out an unbothered huff of air you keep moving through the grass as Merry and Pippin trail behind you, then Boromir, Sam leading Bill the pony, and finally at the rear Aragorn. You can tell how exhausted the hobbits are becoming since most of the day was trudging uphill for hours on end, if you were human you’d without a doubt be just as tired. Luckily you are not, and this whole day has been mostly a breeze, with the exception that you have great suspicions about Legolas and what Aragorn had told him. 

Alas the sun begins its slow decent upon the wilds of the land, alerting Gandalf to pick a place among the grass and bushes before the hastily approaching night swallows you whole. Soon a fire is made and food is divided around for everyone to have a share, you stare up at the stars as Gimli tells an elaborate story about the first time that he killed an orc. You sit comfortably on a bedroll in between Frodo and Pippin who are listening intently with wide eyes. Across the fire sits Legolas, who shares a knowing look with you as everyone listens to Gimli who’s most certainly exaggerating his story. 

Legolas gives you a fond smile and for the first time do you both stop to share a comfortable moment together. It feels like the world has evaded you and no sounds are to be heard, all your focus and means of care are on the prince who stares back at you with those big beautiful eyes of his. It’s truly entrancing until Gimli breaks your moment, “Ey lass, a good orc is a dead one huh.” You suddenly turn to him, caught of guard by his random question that you only heard the last part to.

“Oh uh, yes. Same goes for goblins or trolls.” You first turn to Pippin then Frodo, “Very valuable information.”

Gimli lets out a laugh of approval at your quick wit as he dives back into the story once again. Though you are surrounded by friends and safety for the time being, your heart cannot stop from fluttering with nervousness even now, Legolas is doing things to you and he doesn’t even know it. After what felt like hours of story telling does the Fellowship settle down for the night. The fire dissipates to low burning embers as your companions place themselves around it.

 You cannot catch sleep if you tried so instead do you take the first nights watch, covering Frodo and Pippin with your extra blanket do you stand up to walk a bit away from your sleeping friends. The night sky is decorated with thousands of glimmering stars as a crescent moon stares down back at you with a pleasing smile. A comforting gentle breeze brushes past your face, sending your cloak in rhythmic flaps against your body. You close your eyes and listen to the sounds of the grass as it sways in the wind, your friends soft breathing, the flick of Bills tail, and the familiar sound of Legolas’ light footsteps in the grass. 

A smile forms onto your lips as he slowly approaches you, “Come to join me on watch?” You ask, opening your eyes once again to find the woodland prince to your left, he turns to you with a warm smile upon his dashing features.

“I thought you would enjoy the company.”

“You know me well then.”

The two of you settle into a comfortable silence, the both of you trying to search for the next words to say, you’re not entirely sure how to start with what you want you really want to say to him. Your anxieties suddenly brushed away as Legolas goes to speak first, “Uh...Y/N I.......Aragorn had told me something..”

“Huh, now what secrets would that ranger have to share?”

“Actually it was yours.” He looks at you with a worried face, afraid that he had started off wrong, your heart speeds up as you avoid eye contact with him but only for a moment before your eyes are searching for his once again.

“Oh...I wouldn’t have any idea as to what he might have told you.” Is all that you can mutter, he brings his sight up from the ground to study your stunned face, he suddenly breaks out into the kindest smile you’ve ever seen.

“I feel like you do.” Says Legolas softly, at this your nerves prick in anticipation and excitement, nothing on his face indicates anything false.

“What would that be then?” You ask in a hushed voice as you stare longingly into his beaming eyes.

 “I did not realize how your heart leapt as mine does when I look upon your face. No elleth has so unknowingly taken the very stars out of the sky in the way that you have Y/N....I would like it very much if you would have me, for the rest of our days in this world, and beyond those into the lands of eternal summer.” 

Your breath catches in your throat as a lump forms and a tightness grows in your chest, keeping you from saying anything comprehensible. You definitely had not anticipated Legolas to straight up confess his undying love to you in one night. But as your kind is known for, once two fall in love, they fall with all of their heart and soul in a way that no human, dwarf, or hobbit could ever understand. Your eyes soften as unexpected tears well up in the corners of your eyes. You’re not usually so moved by words, but in all the centuries in middle earth not once has anyone said something so wholeheartedly kind to you like this.

“I do not know if we shall even survive through our quest.” You reply in a whisper, he looks towards the ground at your feet, a heartbroken expression crossing onto his shadowed face as he begins to doubt Aragorn’s confession of yours, “If I am to spend however long I have left, I would want no other then you, Legolas.” He pulls his attention back up to you in an instant, his heart swelling with happiness and relief as you continue, “You have taken my heart and I never want it back.” You finally confess as you reach out your hands to touch his own, he looks deeply into your eyes while he interlocks his hands with yours.

“Then I will keep it safe forever, just as you’ve asked...if you will do the same for me?”

“No one will ever find it.”

He smiles at that, letting out the softest of laughs that’s pure music to your own pointed ears within the quiet of the night. Your own lips break into a beaming smile, a surge of absolute joy and adoration seeping throughout your entire vessel. He settles down once again, its just you and him in this giant world of chaos and calm, his eyes are so bright and he feels like a dream.

 Then just like that the two of you are leaning in without a care in the world, his lips are soft and inviting as his hands break from your grasp to snake around your waist. Pulling you in closer, so as you melt into one, he is gentle and delicate as he moves his hand to caress the side of your face. When you both can’t take the lack of breath anymore do you begrudgingly pull away, your faces flushed and beaming with pure bliss and love. 

“I think I would like to do that with you everyday for as long as we may live, meleth nin.”

“As do I my prince.” 

[whitherliliesbloom]

quietus

[ ffxivwrite2021 ] ★ [ masterlist ] ★ [ prompt #13 - oneirophrenia ]

[ kaye & illya ] ★ [ 1,883 words ]  ★ [ wozwald au ] a continuation / sequel to fragrant sorrow, a previous fill i did

a hallucinatory (dream-like) state that is caused by such conditions as prolonged sleep deprivation, sensory isolation, and drug use

in the midst of his delirious, drunken haze he saw her - he can’t tell if it was meant to be his final blessing or an eternal curse

When the man felt the effects of the strong intoxicants begin to take its toll on him, they had already long left the domain of the last minor god he’d slain, dragging his bloodstained scythe behind his back. 

Though Lily had insisted that they scour the area for medicine in order to purge his body of the toxins, he’d stubbornly refused and instead stumbled his way back to their base. They both knew that a god of the original pantheon would not be so easily felled by drugs in his system.

But Kaye hasn’t been the same since they’d last visited the ruined temple of the first goddess of creation - his refusal to sleep, eat or even communicate past singular words of acknowledgements or fatigued grunts troubling to no end. She had thought it best to simply leave him in his grief, that time would come to heal him back to normalcy, and that she needed only but to wait for the painful memories to fade. 

It was a decision she regretted immensely as she watched as he finally crumpled to the floor. And as she cradled him in her arms and watched in tearful horror as he stared back up at her with an emptiness in his eyes, light slowly fading, she cried out his name that sounded nothing more than like the muffled trickling of water ringing distantly in his ears.

“Kaye! Kaye!”

Perhaps this was the ending he had always longed for, a fate that he has long awaited at far end of the tunnel... and it certainly took it’s sweet time to arrive. 

As the closest thing to divinity, it would be no small feat to kill him. No amount of drugs, sleep deprivation or even starvation would be able to grant him eternal rest - he knows first hand. He’d spent many millennia injecting his body with nicotine and alcohol, but they never did anything more than to dull his senses - a small mercy granted for him to put up with the karmic retribution that constantly struck him with pain like hooks sinking into his very flesh.

The only thing that could kill him was one of the other pantheon members - and they’re all gone. The life he has led thus far as the sole survivor is one he saw as divine punishment. 

But even a god has his limits - and he wondered if it would perhaps benefit Lily more if he’d just passed on from his own hands, unlikely and irresponsible as that may be.

“Kaye. Kaye.” 

He hears his name being called again, but his eyelids feel too heavy to open... until the scent of daisies fill his nostrils. 

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself in an old, familiar body... a long almost forgotten form of himself from ages ago that he abandoned with the passing of the last of the divine pantheon. 

He’s silent as he looks down at his tattered robes, loose and out of fashion for the modern age compared to his leather jackets and high laced boots. 

“Kaye.” 

He turns his head to the sound of the voice behind him, and his eyes widen - but only briefly. 

“You seem troubled. Is something wrong?”

An ethereal maiden clad head to toe in silken white garbs rests against the stone pillar, her back resting against the cold cobblestone and a singular white flower clasped tightly between her small fingers. Her once familiar vibrant and sparkling violet eyes are now a muted, murky hue - a luster in which he’s had to watch being lost gradually to the cruelty of time. 

Was this a dream? A lucid nightmare? Or perhaps he was in limbo - caught between the realm of the living and the underworld of the dead that awaited his arrival. Where do the souls of dead gods even rest after death? He’s unsure - but he’s certain there is no place for him in heaven.

Despite his initial confusion, Kaye doesn’t seem perturbed or panicked in the least... the sight of the girl filling his heart up with a sorrow that he hadn’t known was even possible for him anymore. He had thought himself incapable of feeling anymore - and yet here he was.

“Nothing.” he answers before he can even think, just like he had back then... Perhaps he really was in a dream - reliving the memories of his biggest regret as punishment for his transgressions. 

“Are you sure?” the girl asks, her voice weak and soft... and he furrows his brows at her insistence. “You can talk to me about whatever is bothering you.”

“I’m not the one who is-” 

The words die in his throat, caught in a choked mutter that gives away his lapse of weakness. He cannot bring himself to say the words, but she has abandoned all shred of self-pity and spells it out with her own voice... and he can only wonder why she is being so nonchalant about her own fate.

“Going to fade? I know.” 

How can her voice remain so gentle? One would assume nothing was amiss about her had she not been wearing an obviously drowsy expression on her face - and even then, she is still smiling. 

“But melancholy doesn’t suit you... You’re usually more... passionate, more angry. Like when Roko pranked you into drinking the stale wine.”

“I’m surprise you still remember that.” Kaye huffs, but his words aren’t entirely true. Because of course she would remember - of course the kindest, most pure-hearted of the six of them would remember everything... She loved everyone more than she even loved herself, foolish and naive as she is.

She giggles lightly, like tiny bell chimes ringing and carrying its melody in the wind and into the starry night sky... but none save the trees and himself are here to hear it, and it does nothing to soothe the thorns that are wrapped in his chest. 

“Maybe I should take you to the shrine after all.” Kaye suggest, has already suggested multiple times before... But the girl merely shakes her head. 

“I’m tired. I don’t think I’d make it even if you carried me.” 

He would in a heartbeat if it would help, but the both of them know it’d be pointless. He’s in denial of the situation, clamoring for what little hope there was left. Were his brother around, he’d certainly point out the irony of the situation with a laugh. 

“Besides... I want the remainder of my energy to remain there... So you can remember me by.”

Beneath sealed lips, Kaye grits his teeth and bites the insides of his cheeks. He knows she doesn’t mean for it to be... But her words felt like they were meant to be a punishment for him - a promise that he wasn’t ready to commit to and make yet.

“Illya.” At the sound of her name, she quiets, fiddling with the petals of the lone flower in her hand gently. “I probably won’t last long enough to remember anything.”

“Don’t say that.”

Finally, he catches a hint of strain in her words, pain flashing in her eyes as she shakes her head.

“All creation will always meet an inevitable end... But death is everlasting, it’s eternal for as long as the world exists.” The goddess pauses for a moment to let her words linger, to let her voice hang in the air and embed itself into his memories for as long as she can afford it to. “You were always the strongest of us... You’ll keep protecting the world for us, won’t you?”

Kaye doesn’t respond her question, but he doesn’t need to... He knows Illya already knows what his answer would be - she knew even before the world began to fall to anarchy.

“Without life, there can be no death.” He murmurs bitterly, and she smiles sympathetically back at him.

“Which is why I will never truly be gone. As long as you live on, you will be living in my memory.” 

A selfish part of himself says he doesn’t want to. He was never known to be the most altruistic of gods, back in the beginning of the world and even now. She knows full well the burden he must bear - and the weight of the words that she spoke to him. 

But beneath the surface level, there is a reason for her blind optimism. She sees her urging him to live not as punishment.... but because she still, even after the ugliness of humanity and life has presented itself fully, carries a flickering hope in her heart that he is sure will die with her.

Illya wants him to live because she believes he will one day find a way to be happy... and if that is what it takes for her to pass on in peace, then he is willing to indulge her with that juvenile, unimaginable fantasy. 

“Can I ask a favor of you, Kaye?” it was to be her final request out of many... She knows of her own self-centeredness as she asks him apologetically. 

Her hand slowly raises, the white flower in her palm grasped weakly between her little fingers. The golden ornaments dangling from her armlets knock together and let out a soft ominous chime. 

“When you visit me in the future, could you bring flowers?” 

He hesitates to move... knows that if he were to take the flower from her hand, that he’d be sealing her fate... and he was far from ready to accept that.

But the swirling of her hopeful, radiant eyes... even as they were slowly losing their usual jewel-like shine bids him take the flower with his left hand, and he holds it delicately in his palm - so softly that he was afraid it would wither away. 

“What kind of flowers? You still haven’t told me what your favorite was.”

“Hehe... you’re right. I am a little indecisive when it comes to that, aren’t I? Let’s see...”

He turns away from her, staring intently at the flower in his hand.

“There are lilies... particularly white ones, but other kinds are pretty too. I really like hydrangeas.. did you know that they bloom in different colors depending on the soil they grow on?”

Her voice is getting softer - more distant. He swallows back the lump in his throat, even if he can tell that she was closing her eyes.

“Yeah, I know. You told me before.”

“I also like plum blossoms... They represent resilience and hope. They’re also called the harbingers of spring.”

She’s so lost in her enamor for flowers that she failed to realize that she hasn’t answered his question... but he cannot bring himself to interrupt her.

“Carnations, hibiscuses, delphiniums...” 

Kaye can no longer remember what her final words had been - only that she spent the final seconds of her life listing the names of flowers - of the things that she loved even unto the very end.  

By the time he realizes she’s grown quiet, and he turns his head to look behind, she has vanished, leaving naught but the lingering, quickly dissipating warmth of the stone she sat upon and the flower in his hand that swayed gently in the nightly breeze. 

[your-world-with-nct]

— 2020 has been a wild year for all of us and let me start this off by saying well done to us all for simply making it through this crazy ride - if surviving this year was your biggest achievement, that’s completely okay, and i am so proud of you for being here today !! despite the many, let’s say, mishaps, that have occurred this year, both nct and nctzens have been key in my 2020 and i couldn’t be more grateful for them, so i decided to make a little appreciation post of my own before the year ends 🥰

— to my followers ;

my petals !! i can’t believe i started off this year with around 300 followers and i’m now nearing 600 🙈 this account has grown so much this year and it’s all thanks to you. if you’ve ever come across my blog, liked or reblogged a piece of mine, sent me an ask, or pressed that follow button, i want you to know that i am so grateful for you and thank you for enjoying my works 🥺 hopefully 2021 will carry the same positive energy here on your-world-with-nct as it has this year and i’m hoping that you’ll be seeing a lot more fics in the near future 👀 once again, i love you petals <3

— to my dearest mutuals ;

@emistoomultifandom

em bubs !!! i know i could easily do this on any other app or even irl but i just wanted to thank you for making my year 🥺 my lockdown wouldn’t have been the same without us constantly texting and fangirling and our ty track/bfc reunion on my birthday was elite. and obviously this new school year has been an adventure and a half so far, with all the lunch time shenanigans, revision sessions, and exam stress, but i can’t wait for the rest of it 🙈 i am so grateful that i had you by my side during 2020 and i am eternally thankful that i’ll be able to go into the new year with you by my side once again 🧡💚💜

@misfitneo

bella - my first mutual, my tumblr mum - it feels like just yesterday that you wrote a beomgyu blurb for me after seeing my pink theme; now you’ve finished college and i’m applying to colleges 🙈i know we haven’t been able to talk as much recently but that doesn’t mean i appreciate your presence any less - i’m so proud of you for getting into med school and pursuing your dream 🥺🥺 i hope that this year treated you well, and that 2021 treats you even better 💞

@nsheeteeish

loml, almost birthday-twin, fellow leo and xiaojaem stan, fave writer - what do these things have in common? they all apply to v, or, yeet anon, if you remember the days where i ranted to you about my crush and you were a baby stay 😪 not only have you delivered such amazing content on ur writing and gif blogs, but you have provided so much comfort and joy to me whenever we message with dilay 🤧 i look forward to checking your blog every day for new posts and my twt and insta notifs in case you’ve sent me something or you’ve seen what i sent you 🙈 the fact that you think of me when you see certain things just warms my heart and you’re just such a caring person in general, thank you for being a part of my 2020 v, all the best wishes for your 2021 🖤

@cloudyangers

dilay !!! my resident yangqi and the person i think of straight away whenever i see yangyang 😚 i remember when you first requested that e2l chenle blurb back in 2019 and now the only chenle stan between us is v 😁 finding you on this app again after i forgot what ur skz blog’s url was, was just amazing and i don’t know what my tumblr experience would be like without me being able to reconnect with you 🥺 thank you for being able to make me laugh effortlessly with our lack of geography knowledge and our random antics, i will always look forward to seeing the username @cloudy_____ on my dash and screaming over renhyuckyang (+ sungchan 👀) with you for years to come 🤍

@nctsoftarchives

andi bb, my fellow dad!johnny stan 🥺 seeing you post a jaemin birthday blurb for me after your return to tumblr was so sweet and i can’t believe your first post after coming back was dedicated to me 🤧 i remember the day i first messaged you and you were gushing over how you were a big fan of mine and i said the same about you - we were just going back and forth about how much we love each other’s work 😌 you are such a talented writer and you are so full of love - wishing all the best for you in the coming new year babie 🥰

@jensungf

coming across leyna’s blog after reading that jsmr fic was the best decision, because not only have i befriended a brilliant writer, but also a jensung enthusiast who is just the kindest 🥺🥺 i think now would be a good time to tell you that despite jeno’s bias wrecking antics back in august, i actually bias jisung now 😃 i know we haven’t talked in a while, because of our busy schedules, but i hope you’re resting well and i hope that 2021 won’t be as hectic for you 💟

@doyoungcore

joyce, i know we only started talking recently but the serotonin boost both you and your works have given me this year is just incredible and i am so thankful for your warm personality on your blog and for your amazing fics 🤧 i started off as a silent reader who gushed about your writing in the tags but now i’m friends with such a talented writer and we just casually ramble about doie and jaems biases and writing struggles,,, wow 🤯 (btw took some of ur tips on editing headers 🙈) i hope that next year we can expand our friendship and that i can continue to give you the feedback you deserve 🥺💕

— favourite reads of the year ;

i have reblogged all of these to my main @/lovelycharm05 before, but i just wanted these masterpieces on here with everyone since these fics are so memorable and enjoyable to me <3 (beware there is lots of me gushing over how f&%#ing good all these writing techniques and plot devices are - can you tell i’m an eng lit nerd)

@nsheetee - moonlight café

obviously v released so many iconic pieces this year but this series was just *chef’s kiss* coffee shop au’s are the cutest to me because you can do so many different things with them, and you truly showcased that through each members’ part. although i am nahyuck biased (out of all the 00 liners), i have a soft spot for jeno’s part 🥺🤧 but that doesn’t mean i’m not obsessed with jealous jaems and cocky hyuck 🙈

@notnctu - to all the j’s i loved before

the very first work i ever read of yours, joyce 🥺🥺 i remember seeing an nct network reblog this and after reading through the summary of the series, i was enticed by the plot and i read most of your masterlist whilst waiting for the next parts 🤧 the main character’s relationship with each ‘j’ was unique to them and their interactions were just so sweet to read (except jaemin’s >:( why did my ult’s part have to be the angsty one 😤 jk jk i loved it anyways) special mention to ‘cupid’s arrow’, because that fic was an emotional rollercoaster and i loved that almost as much as i love bestfriend!jungwoo in the last part 😌

@misfitneo - lee haechan’s pride

it would be a sin if i didn’t include this in my top reads this year, pun intended 😌, especially since i have a weakness for mafia aus. i haven’t had the time to read mark or renjun’s parts yet, but from what i read in this fic, i’m sure theirs are just as good, if not better. the storybuilding and the development of the plot are so detailed and intricate and that is what i love in a fic. i already reviewed this on my main with a lengthy description of my favourite parts so i’m gonna keep this short and sweet - if you love haechan, mafia au’s, and enemies to lovers, you need to read this !!

@jensungf - passing clouds + only forever

these fics hit different now that i bias jisung 😭 ‘passing clouds’ was pure angst and as much as it hurt, it was written so beautifully and i loved it so much. ‘only forever’ healed the jisung shaped hole in my heart and made me fall in love with him all over again. the first love vibes he gives off is unbelievable and that innocence was presented perfectly in this 🤧 side note: never let jisung bake for you even if it’s as a peace offering 😖

@hyucksie - in the long run + second first kiss

although ‘sweet talk’ and ‘silent treatment’ are also contenders for some of my favourite fics of the year, these two have taken the cake 😌 the concept itself of time travel and mark and y/n seeing their future child was so creative and the mixed emotions that the characters experienced seeing their future were executed so well and the ending when their actual future selves remembered the day they time travelled 🥺🥺 not to mention the sequel doesn’t feel forced at all, the story flows well, and jealous mark is a cutie 🥰

@luvdsc - not clickbait

i’ve been following cat after i first read ‘i turned my best friend into an e-boy!! (and kissed him)’ and ever since then every piece of hers that i’ve read is simply breathtaking and so engaging. her style of writing is so unique and whenever i read anything of hers i feel so immersed in the fic. the dreamies as youtubers and tiktokers was such a cute concept to me and the little comment section at the end of each fic is probably my favourite part 😳 the way each member’s fic connects to the plot of another is perfect and their cameos in one another’s fic >>> (jisung telling y/n about the tiktok challenge in mark’s fic + cameraman jisung in chenle’s) i could keep talking abt this series for a lot longer but i’ll end it here, also i can’t wait for norensung’s parts 💞💞

@pwarkhans - the neo academy

i’ve probably mentioned my love for ‘the umbrella academy’ before but THIS !!! this series just made me love it even more 🙈 despite yangyang’s part being the only one that’s out, that and the prologue are interesting enough and seeing the 00 liners in this alternate universe is honestly amazing jxjwjxkw jaemin as three and hyuck as two is everything. the brothers’ relationship, especially in yangyang’s part, is so complicated yet so cute and i can’t wait for the rest of the members’ parts 💘

@yongtxt - vintage

when i first stumbled across this series, i was immediately intrigued by the plot, and not just because it was about rapper!mark and singer!y/n🧑‍🦯🧑‍🦯 the side characters (dreamies + doie and jisoo) were so funny and well-written and the plot >>>> i was so invested in the twists and turns of the story, the relief i felt when the conflict was finally resolved and we got our fav musician couple !!

@byunbaekby - apartment b23

i only found this series recently but wow am i invested in the plot already 😭😭 the conflict in the story is realistic and feels like something you could actually relate to. norenmin’s friendship/bond is so strong and evident through the story and the side characters are my babies (heejin, shuhua, lia - ily 🤧) i can’t wait for the rest of this series since i am a sucker for the perfect balance of angst, fluff, and crack in this 🥰

— favourite works of the year ;

unfortunately i haven’t had enough time to release any fics this year, and i’m hoping that that won’t be the case next year, but here are my top 5 favourite blurbs that i enjoyed writing and reading <3

1:48pm -> dad!johnny

one of the most popular blurbs on my blog to this day 🥺 honestly i get why, who doesn’t love dad!johnny? hyejoo is literally so adorable here and the family dynamics make me soft all over again whenever i reread this piece. also everyone’s reactions and replies to this are so heartwarming because everyone’s just whipped for the suh family 🙈

1:05pm -> soulmate!taeyong

i love soulmate au’s but something always irked me with the permanence of your soulmate like ,,, what if you end up falling out of love with them? then what? that inspired me to write my own take on soulmates, where they aren’t found, but made. taeyong’s character here is just so full of love and you know how much i love lovable boys 🤧 (ever wondered why i ult na jaemin...?)

12:13pm -> boyfriend!mark

7dream!!!! i don’t usually write domestic fluff even though it’s one of the genres i indulge in the most 😔 but when i do, i go all out because everyone needs to know how soft i am for my boys >:( mark’s love for the dreamies is so unique and i love their friendship so much, i had to write about it when i first heard about the 7dream announcement which i definitely did not cry at

11:40pm -> boyfriend!jeno

this was one of the first requests i ever got and i was just so touched than someone personally requested something from me AND it was jeno 🥺🥺 everytime i read the tags under this, everyone is just gushing over jeno and like,,, same 🙈 this type of fluff >>>

waking up with wayv -> wayv reaction

when em first requested this, i didn’t exactly know how to write something for each member without being too repetitive, but in the end, i loved the mini plots i wrote for them and it’s just one of my underappreciated faves 🥰

— favourite releases of the year ;

just a few of my favourite albums that got me through online school and revision sessions for offline school 🥲 ft. lots of nct + october albums bc that month was PACKED

nct 2020 - resonance pt1 + pt2

nct 127 - neozone: the final round

nct dream - ridin’

wayv - awaken the world

superm - super one

enhypen - border: day one

twice - eyes wide open

txt - minisode1: blue hour

seventeen - semicolon

stray kids - go live + in life

itzy - not shy

conan gray - kid krow

if you’ve managed to read all the way to the end, congrats for putting up with my lengthy and very sappy sentiment and sorry that you had to go through all of that 😭😭 thank you for being a part of my 2020, i hope that the new year allows us all to have a fresh start and brings us the opportunities we didn’t have this year. happiest new year to you all 🥳 (even tho it’s not 2021 yet when i’m posting this :))

[boxboysandotherwhump]

Paxton and Amal 12

As always a big thanks to @finder-of-rings for proofreading :D

Taglist:

@haro-whumps  @albino-whumpee  @orchidscript  @morelikepainsley  @thingsthatgo-whump-inthenight

CW: boxboy universe blanket warning, discussion of abuse, mention of abusive caretakers (in childcare system), discussion of the autonomy of abuse survivors.

“Oh man, you like him. Like really like him!”

Amal nodded miserably into his teacup, not daring to meet Ray’s or Michal’s eyes.

Their spacious living room suddenly felt too small, the coffee colored walls looming over Amal like a cave threatening to collapse and swallow him whole.

He wanted nothing more than to disappear in between their wine red couch cushions and live there, preferably for all eternity. He could start to hoard all the pennies that would find their inevitable way down there with him and live off of cookie crumbles. Like a little sofa troll protecting his treasure. Sofa trolls surely didn’t have to deal with university and work and having the fucking responsibility for another person all of a sudden and developing feelings for said person. He’d gladly exchange all his stupid feelings for being a Sofa troll right about now.

“Hey, no need t’ look like 3 weeks bad weather.” Ray’s green eyes glistened with warm mirth as he refilled Amal’s half empty cup. “After everything you told us, he seems t’ like you too. ’s even your type, all sweet ‘n subby.”

“That’s not goddamn funny, Ray!” It felt good, in a weird way, to snap at someone, to be able to raise his voice without worrying about scaring Paxton. Not that he would ever want to snap at him.

The thought of it alone…

Amal slumped back into the sofa cushions. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry.” Michal began to dab at some of the tea Amal had spilled from the coffee table. Amal watched the honey brown tea soak into the white paper. “You know Ray likes to be a little brat sometimes.”

“Hey, I-“

“But isn’t he kinda right too? I mean it does sound like he likes you back.”

Groaning, Amal buried his face in his hands. “Yeah but that’s beyond the point. I mean, god damn what else is he even supposed to do? Boxboys- people like him they… they get trained to like the people who… and thinking about his old… of course he would like me compared to that.”

Biting his lip until it hurt, Amal forced the rest of his words out, speaking into existence the very doubts he’d tried to repress since the day Paxton had arrived on his doorstep. “If we would have met in any other context, if he wasn’t a boxboy… I doubt he would look at me twice. He probably wouldn’t even like m-“

“Oh c’mon that’s utter bullcrap ‘n you know it!” Ray blurted out, his eyes sparking like wildfire as his brown curls flew every which way. “You’re smart. You’re attractive. ‘n one of the kindest people I know. Just forget what the fucking staff of our fucking juvy home told you! They said the same shit t’ everyone, Amal.”

“This has nothing to do with that!”

He hated to be so utterly transparent to Ray.

He hated that exactly this always drove him back onto Ray’s sofas, or makeshift beds, or moving boxes. Always accompanied by too sweet tea and the perfect amount of cursing. And since three years ago also by Michal.

“I know they were just mean bitter people getting off on- I know that. Ray. But it’s not only them. What they said. Somethings, you know, some people said similar things, even Benedict-“

“Your shitty Ex was jus’ a total piss pot. Had brain rot for sure.”

Amal sniffed, barely holding back a chuckle. “He kind of did.”

Ray grabbed his hand, stroking idle circles over Amal’s knuckles. “Kinda? He routinely got his thumb stuck in beer bottle necks and thought the university system is not an ableist, capitalist pile of crap, you can simultaneously attend and criticize.”

“Oh god, don’t remind me.” Amal’s sigh turned into an involuntary snicker.

“’n you really wanna let guys like him determine your worth?”

“…no,” Amal fidgeted with the fringes of the green pillow beside him. Rolling the little fabric strands between thumb and forefinger calmed him down, at least a fraction.

“But that’s still beyond the point. Even if Paxton could… “, he took a deep breath. “… like me. For real. When he wouldn’t depend on me. The fact that he does right now still stands. I could never be sure if something truly wouldn’t be okay. It would be so easy to hurt him- I…”

“You know,” Ray began, all humor gone from his voice now. “Treatin’ him like an infant could hurt him just as much. If you don’t let him make decisions how should he learn to be autonomous? I mean yeah sure, maybe his submissive side was beat’n into him, but let me tell you his masochism surely wasn’t. Either you are one or you’re not. ‘n he asked you to hurt him only after he felt safe with you or not?!”

Michal grinned as heat rose to Amal cheeks at the thought of Paxton arching into his every touch, nearly begging him to press harder into his back, the way his hips had twitched when-

“Ray may be a brat sometimes but he’s a really smart one.”

“Stop calling me that already.”

“I mean, Michal is right, though. You are one.” Delighting in Ray’s mock scandal, Amal relaxed into the couch cushions. His limbs began to grow heavy but his head hadn’t caught up with his body’s exhaustion jet.

His thoughts couldn’t stop racing and all of them rushed in the same direction.

No matter what, he could never give in to his feelings. He could never exploit Paxton like that, bind Paxton to him in such a way. Could never ruin his chances to find someone he loved, truly loved, for their personality and looks and charms and not just because they were the first person to treat him like a human being.

He could never ever be that cruel to him. He had to be there for him as a friend.

A friend only.

And thinking back on the last couple days, he’d even failed at that.

Amal shifted sheepishly on the sofa, clearing his throat. “Guys thanks for talking to me until like, oh shoot, nearly two am. But I think I have to pass on the sleepover this time and go back home.”

“What? No! Why?”

Ray’s eyes were on his now, round and green, his brow furrowed in complaint. A part of Amal really wanted to stay, to give into his best friends’ silent pleadings. He very nearly budged.

“I don’t- I was so caught up in my own shitty feelings, I wasn’t really there for him after the whole ‘massage incident’.”

Michal pulled a face similar to Ray. “But he’s gotta be asleep already anyway.”

“Yeah. C’mon, wait til tomorrow.”

Amal shook his head and peeled himself from the couch. Pins and needles prickled down his tired legs.

“I want to be there when he wakes up.”

Sighing in defeat, Ray grabbed the cookie pack from the coffee table and shoved it into Amal’s hands. “But call once you’re home safe. G’ damn goody-two-shoes. ”

[hcs-on-the-loose]

Pillars and upper moons swap roles au?? I wonder what will they be like >:D

Pillar / Upper Moon Roleswap AU??? I GOTCHU DUDE

I only have a 5 character limit though so I picked out 2 Pillars and 2 Upper Moons! ENJOY THE FEAST

Yeet im dumb i forgot to put down uh possible spoilers aye

-

The Pillars

Shinobu Kocho - Upper Moon 4

Known as the Lady Butterfly, mistress of poison, she who had slaughtered Slayer after Slayer in single strokes. Some say the last thing you hear is a woman’s soft laugh and the flutter of butterfly wings.

Possesses a body that looks like an amalgamation of a human and a variety of deadly insects, particularly butterflies.

Her skin is deathly pale, transparent to the point where you could see her organs. Her limbs and back billow with purple monarch wings, though the rest of her is scattered with toxic spines. And hen she opens her mouth centipede’s mandibles scuttle from it, and her eyes are the compound eyes of a butterfly, bright violet and all-seeing with the number 4 carved into every facet. When she speaks, there is a chorus of wasps in every breath.

Instead of poison, the demon Shinobu being organically an insect as well now uses natural venoms.

Her Blood Demon Art is based on Shinobu manipulating her blood and turning it into various types of venom, each mix deadlier than the last. Unlike her Pillar self, who was limited to whatever poison she had in her sword sheath, her demonic self has virtually no limit on what she can create.

Her most powerful blood technique is known as the Hundred-Thousand Sting; she deploys her worst venoms with her own unaltered blood in the form of an extremely corrosive mist that once you breathe in, you’re a goner. If it touches you, it will seep in, and you’re a goner. If you’re so much in the range of the fog, you’re still a goner.

While outstripped in strength by Gyomei, Sanemi, and Muichiro– Shinobu still proves herself an exceedingly deadly opponent through speed and intellect.

Her personality as a demon is a mangled representation of her traits as a human; while seemingly calm and sweet, Shinobu holds the exact same demeanor while brutally killing others. But she is also notoriously quick to anger, sending her into furious fits as she attempts to reign it in. Make no mistake though, she is still wickedly clever.

As a human, she’d been cared for by her demonic older sister Kanae after their parents were killed and her sister forcefully transformed into a demon by Upper Moon 1 Gyomei Himejima.

Kanae had managed to resist the hunger for human flesh to be able to care for her sister– mercifully spared by Gyomei as she reminded him of a child from his human past.

Shinobu had desperately wanted to become a demon just like Kanae so that they could truly live together, though Kanae always rebuffed her– until the arrival of the Pillar.

The Snow Pillar, Doma. He had battled Kanae under the accusation that she had killed their family and paid no heed as he beheaded her in front of her terrified human sister. Maddened with grief, Shinobu drank her sister’s blood, vowing vengeance on the Snow Pillar.

It was Upper Moon 1 who found her, having been originally sent to recruit Kanae into the Moons. Seeing that Shinobu was far more bloodthirsty and willing to kill, he took her in instead.

Up until now, Shinobu hunts for Doma, and takes special care to kill any Slayer with ice or snow-related techniques slowly. A refinement of her most agonizing of venoms just for him.

Mitsuri Kanroji - Upper Moon 6

This one is insane.

She is Love, she is made of Love, and she will Love and Love and Love and she will take their Love as well until there is nothing left to Love.

It is said that Mitsuri is the kindest Demon Moon, taking her prey with the greatest expressions of Love that they could ever receive. But do they, really? When Mitsuri loves them with everything she has– from her horrific strength to her blood to her insatiable appetite?

Mitsuri is fond of shapeshifting, though her true form is… that of a normal human girl, albeit with pink skin, white eyes and a fanged mouth. She even keeps the unusual hair she had detested her whole human life. Did you think this embodiment of unquenchable desire would be a little racier?

When Mitsuri kills and devours, she does so in every way of loving that she can. She will embrace you until your spine gives way, she will kiss you until your lungs collapse and your lips are torn to shreds, she will lie with you until all is spent and blood seeps from every part of you.

It upsets Mitsuri so that her Love isn’t returned adequately. But she is a forgiving demon– so she will continue to express this devotion to every being until it is returned in full. Not even other demons are exempt.

The number 6 is written in careful script over the pale surface of her eyes. It is watermelon green and pretty and the last thing most of her prey see.

Her Pillar self believes in love, sweet and gentle and ultimately ephemeral. Demonic Mitsuri believes in giving and taking until there is desire to love anymore.

It was what was promised to her, when Muzan fed her his blood from the palm of his hand. She had been rejected for her hair, her strength, her need to love and be loved.

He had found her, cast out and alone, just one cruel husband after another. Muzan promised her that demonhood would let her love for all eternity, that in his world she would never be rejected. Mitsuri agreed. Can you blame her?

As an Upper Moon, her already prodigious strength has made her nigh on par with Sanemi and even Gyomei. Her flexible body surpasses superhuman limitations and weapons simply sink harmlessly as she softens her body to the blows.

Her Blood Demon Art, however, is not focused on her physical ability. If it were, she would have been placed lower on the rungs of the 9 Upper Moons. No; her blood is one that makes the mind bend and dance to her will. Love and aphrodisiacs. One whiff, one taste, and it’s all over. There is only love.

The pinnacle of this technique is her Eternal Ecstasy, where wounding her is suicide in itself if she does not cut her own flesh open first. Her blood becomes incredibly potent and drives men and women alike to madness in their desire to be loved by her– they will kill each other and let themselves be killed by Mitsuri if the initial violence doesn’t get rid of them initially. Her blood is the Marechi equivalent for humanity but is surprisingly more dulled towards other demons.

Await her battle with Hantengu. He thinks himself incapable of love, his Pillar’s skill and impeccable focus. He believes nothing will sway him, not even the rumored supernatural charm of Upper Moon 6. He secretly prays that it is enough when he draws his blade against her in the Swordsmiths’ Village.

—————–

The Upper Moons

Akaza (Hakuji) - The Destruction Pillar

For a Pillar, Akaza– Hakuji is a name he leaves at home for his wife– is unusual even for them.

While the Pillars carry weapons made of nichirin, ranging from blades to blunt force to guns, Akaza fights with his bare fists. It is the only sort of fighting that Akaza has known his whole life and he won’t stop now– not even as his fellow Pillars look to him in concern.

It doesn’t matter. Akaza’s happiest when he’s beheading demons with his own hands. He has gloves especially made for this, made from flexible nichirin, knuckles topped with the sun steel. Even his knees are capped in nichirin.

His breathing style? Some call Akaza a genius, some call him crazy. Either way, he had merged his adoptive father’s Soryu Style martial arts with breathing, creating the Destructive Kill Style. Before he had begun training in breathing, he had depended solely on his own natural strength, and this discovery of the Slayers’ method of combating the demons had raised Akaza’s power to almost how he had been as his demon self.

Hence, he is called the Destruction Pillar. It is an ominous title that, coupled with his roughened features and muscled frame, has even hardened Slayers steering clear of his path. His wife Koyuki knows better though, knowing him as grumpy Hakuji who had a soft heart under all the grit.

In the heat of battle Akaza is an unforgiving beast, relentless in his pursuit and merciless in his killing. At home, he is Hakuji; gruff and quiet but gentle in his selflessness, especially towards his dear Koyuki. Often you can find the Destruction Pillar walking beside his wife in the gardens, feeding ducks and sitting amongst the flowers.

While not tattooed with the criminals’ marks, shortly after becoming a Slayer Akaza had himself inked with a single bar for every ten demons slain. So far he has almost reached the amount of tattoos he has on his demon self.

His story remains nearly the same– but when Keizo told him that he was to inherit the dojo and marry Koyuki, it was not poison that came for them. When Akaza ran to his father’s grave, the two assassins by the well were beset upon by another; a particularly strong demon, a real one, killing then devouring the two before setting its sights on the father and daughter inside.

Keizo could fight, and he fought better than Akaza did when he first met him. He held off the demon just long enough for Akaza to rush to their rescue– only for fate to recall that Keizo had grown old, and he was never as blessed with endurance and strength as Akaza had been. The demon dealt a fatal injury, and Keizo fell.

In another world, Akaza’s hands were bloody with the scum of humanity. In this one, enraged he lunged at the demon and shoved both his hands into its chest. He obliterated its organs and yet… it was Akaza’s first demon, and this demon merely regenerated and laughed into Akaza’s face. In another world the blood had come from sixty-seven men. This time it was blood from the demon that he had killed sixty-seven times through the night. A demon could only be killed through nichirin or the sun itself; when Akaza tore its head off at his final attempt, the demon’s body simply gave.

Akaza collapsed out of exhaustion, and slept for three days. With Keizo dead and her fiance unconscious, Koyuki was in shock and was immediately wracked by a fit of weakness. It was only through the sudden intervention of the Moon Pillar that the couple were tended to; it had originally been Kokushibo who was supposed to slay the demon in their town and upon hearing that Akaza was fighting some unkillable enemy, sought a meeting with him.

It was Kokushibo and a worried Koyuki Akaza awakened to. After confirming that Koyuki was unharmed, Kokushibo then expressed admiration for Akaza’s fighting skill and offered him membership into the Demon Slaying Corps. Initially both Akaza and Koyuki refused. Why would they endanger themselves further with this talk of demon-slaying? But as Akaza thought of Keizo, who had died protecting Koyuki and with faith that his adoptive son would save her, he eventually agreed.

When Akaza rejected having a blade or weapon of any kind forged, Slayers shook their heads and muttered that Akaza would die. There was no Slayer in existence who had gone against Muzan’s spawn with their bare hands. But as they witnessed Akaza wrench off the head of a Lower Moon demon without the use of any weapon aside from his gloved hands, the whispers ceased altogether.

This time it is Akaza who is assigned to investigate the Infinity Train. Before every mission, he prays at the graves of Keizo and his father, kisses his wife goodbye. For some reason he prays a little harder, holds Koyuki a little longer– lately his dreams have been plagued with fire…

Doma - The Snow Pillar

This’ll be one of the only times I’ll not clown on Doma. Treasure it lmao.

Emotionless, capricious, and a known glutton for pretty women, Doma is an excellent Pillar and is frighteningly effective at killing demons. His being a moral citizen though is… highly contested.

As a Pillar, Doma lacks the cult he had as an Upper Moon, but he does have a loyal following of admirers from his pre-Slayer who believe him a sort of demigod for his pale hair and lovely rainbow-hued eyes. His charming personality and pretty face only serve to buoy his reputation amongst the populace as well– much to the chagrin of some of his Pillar colleagues.

Instead of a sword, Doma makes use of his fans; both are made of nichirin steel and hued gold in Doma’s hands. Despite their ornamented surface, they are razor sharp and can function just as well as twin short swords.

His is a pretty, almost gentle breath style; Breath of Snow is more a delicate dance in appearance than something meant for combat. And much like Doma, it is a death sentence to mistake beauty for the lack of deadliness– the Breath of Snow utilizes misdirection and inhumanly fast and precise attacks meant to cripple an opponent before the killing blow is dealt, with these strikes resembling the howling gales of blizzards.

More often than not Doma toys curiously with the demons he hunts, tossing them around with the nigh-invincible evasive ability of his breath before executing them, all in an effort to feel emotions. If the pleasures of human life could not elicit these so-called feelings his fellows had always talked about, then how about violence?

Pretty girls, pretty women; it’s not a real feeling that blooms in Doma’s chest (it’s hollow, Akaza hisses, hollow and cold as shit) but he enjoys them. Enjoys the rapturous expressions on their faces, from pleasure to fear to pain to happiness to despair– he puts his hands on their faces and smiles his best. The beatific one, the one that makes his eyes crinkle at the sides.

After his parents died, his father by his mother and his mother by himself, Doma continued to handle the cult, raised by devoted followers. He grew up the smiling, soulless leader of people he believed as foolish for putting such blind faith in him. It was only after the demon attack that the emotionless monotony of his life was shattered; wishing to devour the rainbow-eyed god the people whispered about, the demon disguised itself as a beautiful woman, hinging on Doma’s well-known desire for ladies. As soon as the demon was in Doma’s presence, it slaughtered all of his attendants and then announced its intention to feast on the leader.

More bemused than terrified, Doma was about to let the demon kill and eat him if only out of a detached curiosity. However, in its haste to eat Doma, the demon accidentally ripped open a curtain– letting sunlight spill into the room. Before Doma’s blessed eyes the demon burned to ashes.

Further curiosity led Doma to seek out the truth behind the sun and the thing that almost killed him. It eventually placed him on the path to the Demon Slayers, and his own desire to encounter the demons again brought him to his training, becoming a Slayer and eventually a Pillar. Discovering that killing demons gave him a semblance of feeling alongside his being with women, Doma strived to find the one kill that would give him a true rush.

This came in the form of a lonely flower-demon, whom the Slayers spoke of only in hushed whispers. Rumors of a demon who had killed her entire family and now atoned in some twisted way by caring for some child, a demon who only killed now to protect its pet. Needless to say that Doma was interested; a flower demon? Why, she’d have to be a very pretty demon indeed.

Kanae was a name Doma learned only after a long, fierce battle through the night. He had known the demon had caught his scent, and was already attempting to hide that human child she kept with her. Well, it wouldn’t do at all! It wasn’t difficult; the demon had no idea on how to fight properly whatsoever, and every flick of his fans and an intake of breath only weakened the demon further and further. It hadn’t taken long for him to bring the demon to her knees, and it was only as he had sent her head rolling into the snow that he heard a name being screamed into the wind.

It was nigh euphoric. The expression on Kanae’s face before he had taken her head was utterly sublime in its rage and grief and resignation, and Doma had felt a soaring glee at this particular hunt. It was a feeling, one that swelled to crescendos and made his blood run hot. The sun rose quickly and Doma left, satisfied. What a feeling to be alive.

Now the name of Kanae rings in Doma’s ears once again as news of Upper Moons circulate through the ranks. A demon borne through the blood of Upper Moon One at the same place where he had left Kanae to burn in the sun, a demon that demands his name with every kill and a demon that butchers any Slayer that dared wield breaths in vein to his. Doma only hums at the talk; another hunt to remember, then.

[dannydouni]

I got tagged by @faceless-dude for smth. And like. All I want to say is that you so much. Cuz I’ve had this sitting in my drafts for months and I didn’t know when would be a good time to post it. Or like update it or like just when I should do anything with it. So yeah. Thank you so much for helping me get the chance to post this :)))

“I’ve had this in my drafts for some time now probably since the Canadian thanksgiving and like only touched on it a few times, and well I never got to post it cuz I got well uuuhhh... shy I guess and at that time a lot of things were going down and stuff. And because of that I just felt like it had no meaning whatsoever anymore. So I thought I’d edit it a bit so it fits better and so I can finally post it and stuff.... sometimes it’s nice to get something out there after having it written down for so long. And well what better time to post it than now XD on New Years!. Anyways here it goes”

Hey guys, friends especially, ITS A NEW YEAR!!!!!! I just wanted to pop in and say that...well...thank you. And while I don’t really mean this directly to anyone so far (details for ppl that I know on this app will be written later on in this post). I know it’s usually super cheesy and just cringe and stuff but I honestly couldn’t care less about that stuff when it comes to the people close to me and to the people I love and care about. So I would like to take this opportunity to thank y’all. First and foremost. What the actual fuck guys. Why lmao. Out of everyone in this world you bunch picked the weirdest, ugliest and just straight up stupidest dude out there to be friends with XD, y’all do know there was much better than this out there right XD. I legit have no competition since I’m just so bad LOL. But still, for some reason, with all the shit I just listed y’all still decided it was a good idea to be friends with me. Y’all still decided it would be a great idea to stick with me up until now. Y’all still decided that I could belong with other people that I could fit it with you guys. That I could.... have genuine, real and just straight up amazing friends. I have absolutely no fucking clue how this turn of events happened. But I can say this with full certainty. You guys have changed my life. You guys are probably the main reason I’m still kicking around to this day lol. You guys are the reason I keep going and keep living and just keep enjoying the tiny gifts that life has to offer sometimes instead of pain XD. I still don’t and probably will never understand why or how god or life decided to be nice to me the few times I met one of you but I’m honestly so eternally grateful that I just... I have no words almost.... I just don’t know what to say sometimes. It’s honestly so out of this world how amazing and nice some of you are even tho I’m like the complete trash of this world XD. In all honesty.... without you guys I’d probably not even be here lmao... I’d probably would’ve just went on with my life with nothing to wish or hope for other than for the next day to pass even quicker than the last.... or just for days to just over as soon as they start... I won’t say more cuz that’s shit is personal and I’m not about to write that in public 😎. But like I know for sure that without you guys. I would not be here right now. So thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you for all the memories you’ve given me, the countless nights you’ve made me die of laughter, The countless times you’ve made me choke and almost die from how funny something would be, the countless times you’ve made me think “damn I don’t ever want to wake up from this dream if this is not real”. Just thank you, for talking to me, for letting me vent, for letting me be there for you when you were there for me, for being my rock to lean on, for helping me go through the toughest of times like if it was a normal day. Thank you guys so much for treating me like an equal, for being friends with me, for playing with me, for inspiring me, for teaching me new things and helping me with anything I could ever ask for. Thank you guys so much, and while words will never be able to fully explain what I fully mean or what I fully feel. But I hope that this at least will give you an idea of how greatfull I am for you guys... i hope this will show you how thankful I am for you guys. I love you guys so much that the word love just can’t even express how much you guys truly mean to me. You guys have changed my life for the better and even tho I will probably never be able to repay that I’m hoping that I can do something to at least return how much y’all have done for me. And even tho a lot of the people I mean by this message are not on Tumblr I have a few that are and it is for that reason that I will thank you and write something for you guys here too. So here is the part for the specific people.

@frogb, Genny :)

Genny :D

GENNYYYYY >:D

Good God..... how are you even real XD well to start off, a quick intro :).... probably my only irl friend that is actually active on this app and of course MY BEST FRIEND FOREVER IN THE WORLD AND THE #1 PERSON IN MY LIFE >:), I want to take this opportunity to just thank you again (I know I’ve said a a bunch of times and you probably hate me for saying it a lot XD, that along with sorry :(((( I can’t really control that Lmao but I’m getting better at it right :D). You....you’re my best friend :)... you have changed my life for the better way too many times cuz. I’ve honestly lost count dude. I’ve lost count. I just want you to know that even tho I said that the first thing I wrote on this post was meant for a bunch of people. I was really mainly thinking about you when I wrote it. Ever since you’ve been part of my life. You have made sure to change it completely. And only for the good and for the better. I don’t think you have a genuine idea of how much you’ve changed my life and how much you’ve made me happy :)... thank you Genny thank you so much for being the best thing to ever happen to me. Genny you truly are the best most amazing, kindest, nicest, loveliest, most wonderful, most talented person I’ve ever met. Look I won’t write my full thing here since...well I’ll say the rest to you directly. But well .. Genny... I love you... I love you so fucking much alright :D thank you for being the highlight of my life. Thank you for being you Genny and thank you for being here for me and just being my best friend in the world :)

@ritsu-in-a-maid-dress , heyyy duuuudee buddy chum buddy pal XD (don’t ask lmao), I know we like met only a few weeks ago actually idk maybe at the point when I actually decide to post this it’ll be months or like a year 😳 (and if it is HOLY SHIT WTF I HOPE I ACTUALLY TOLD YOU SOMETHING IN THAT TIME CUZ DAMN) and well so far, you have been nothing but an amazing, way too nice, handsome friend that has somehow probably one of the sweetest hearts out there. You’re actually so fucking funny and have made my day much better sometimes just from the very few talked we’ve had lmao (correction now it’s actually been quite a few 😳and honestly they’re getting to much better and funnier so thank you so much for making me laugh :D (oh and I will never forget that one call we had for 3 FUCKING HOURS DUDE!!!! THAT WAS AWSOME!!!) ) and while at first I was very shy to even talk to you. I’m happy that I can comfortably say hi without any regrets or anything lmao. I will tell you something I’m very thankful for in dm too cuz it’s kinda private :) so yeah.... thank you so much for being you and being my friend :D

@quellfy yoooooo duuuudde I don’t think we’ve ever really interacted on here but I’ve talked to you on the server and well I can know from there that. You’re just such an amazing and kind person. And that every time we talk I have a great time :)) I don’t know a lot about you but I do know that you’re an amazing artist who has amazing art (yes even when it’s not sad “pointing at alluka in snow drawing” amazing) and that you’re such a kind and I nice human being who’s been just super nice and good to me :)) so thank you. For being my friend and for being such an amazing human being :D

@faceless-dude yooooo I don’t think we’ve properly talked before but like :))) I really think you’re an amazing person and just super talented. Your art is something I’ve never seen before and I really really think it’s unique and just amazing. Thank you for your wonderful wishes. And yeah dw. I plan on keeping that promise >:) Gen will get her booties kicked just like you asked XD

@kur-upira we probably only interacted a few times. But in those few times. I could tell what kind of person you are and how much of an amazing person you are :D. I can tell you that just from those few times. I was able to see how much of a beautiful, talented (yes holy shit. I cannot stress this enough. I love your artstyle and good god it’s so good everything from the actual drawings to the shading to the colouring. It’s amazing dude. I really mean that. It’s one of the most unique and most beautiful artstyles I’ve ever seen), friendly and just amazing human being you are :))) thank you for those few interaction (which probably took me whole days to respond to because of anxiety and bs XD sorry about that lmao) and yeah. I would absolutely love to get to know you better and to interact more with each other :D

@starrynarwhale, I know we like pretty much only interacted like twice with each other but from those few times. I knew that you were a wonderful person :) not just an amazing person. But a very talented one too :D (your art is amazing dude. It’s really great. Not only that but like. Can I just say that. Your frog gon fridays are godly dude. They’re always so fucking cool and wholesome 🥺🥺I love them so much. Amazing) you seem like a very kind and amazing person so yeah :)) I’d love to get to know you better :D

@catboyyouko yooooo. I know we probably have only interacted once but let me tell you dude. You’re a wonderful, amazing, nice, kind and extremely talented human being. (Dude you don’t understand. Your art is fucking amazing. Not only that but your comics are so goddamn great too. Not just in an art way but in a story way too. It’s just always so amazing) oh and also like... I see that you vent a lot and stuff and just wanted to let you know that if you ever needed someone to talk to or vent to. I’m here for you. I feel like you’re such an amazing person and I would love to get to know you better :) so yeah. If you ever need anyone to talk to. I’m here alright :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE. I LOVE YOU ALL SO FUCKING MUCH

And if I didn’t @ you I promise It’s just cuz I’m too scared to bother you and @ Ing this many ppl has already made my anxiety skyrocket.

[forgcdstrength]

Tess Stone

STONE: Space Stone (Tesseract)

FC: Alexis Bledel

GUARDS: Steve Rogers and Loki Odinson

POWER: teleportation

ORIENTATION: we’re talking about a timeless entity; they literally couldn’t care less. If they’re into you, they’re into you

MAIN VERSE: canon-divergent; post-Avengers: Infinity War

INFO:

Honorary oldest sextuplet. Started this crap – or at least feels responsible for it all – but is also very tired of it all. Must protect Steve because she feels he doesn’t know how to do it himself. Didn’t mean to fall in love with the idiot, but here she is. Also helps Milo corral Loki because a) her brother takes on too much, and b) some people – like a god of mischief – can validify having two protectors. Charts the stars to relax.

VERSES:

PRE-CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER:

No one wanted to admit that they’re spoiled, but these days, Tess found it easier to say as she looked back on her life. As she looked back, she saw that she had been able to spend long stretches of her life in the same place, generally comfortable and truly at home, and that wasn’t a luxury afforded to most of her siblings.

From the beginning of time, Tess lived on Asgard, the Realm Eternal. It was easier, after all, to be connected to people with longer lifespans. On Asgard, if they were good people, she wouldn’t lose them as soon, and if they were evil… It was still Asgard, and a warrior culture, and the evil would be vanquished, and Tess could move on with her life. Up until second century AD, she lived in her human form as a respected member of society.

But Asgard was a warrior culture, and there were downsides to that, and the time came when the enemies of Asgard came for her. Borr, the current king, sent her away, to Norway in Midgard, with her current protectorate. One of their enemies followed, though, and killed the warrior to whom Tess was bound. In turn, she banished the murderer and, with those who protected the temple where they’d landed, Tess saw to it that her friend was given a resting place befitting his status. Struggling with guilt and a sense of failure, she found herself bound to the Midgardians of the Norwegian temple. Her guilt abated with time. She spent the next nine hundred years living as a Midgardian in the temple, exploring the country and protecting the people of the surrounding towns, but never letting anyone outside of the temple know how powerful she really was.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER:

But then came WWII, and Johann Schmidt, and the longest and most difficult years of Tess’s life. As the town she’d come to love was destroyed, those in the temple urged her into hiding. Helpless against their wishes, she used her powers to get inside the casket of the Asgardian warrior and, as a stone, waited for them to leave.

But when they did leave, it was only once the town and temple, and her friends, were destroyed – once she was in the hands of a madman. She never dared change into her human form while under Schmidt’s control. He had reeked enough havoc with her powers without discovering her shapeshifting and trying to delve deeper into all he could do with her. So she sat in her stone form for years, waiting for someone to come along that she could connect herself to in place of Schmidt.

Steve Rogers was the one who came, and Tess happily – and literally – tossed Schmidt into space in favor of Captain America. She sent Schmidt to her brother, Solomon’s, last known location, knowing that Solomon’s presence – and unavailability – would drive Schmidt even more mad, while she hoped that Schmidt’s presence would drive Solomon out of his self-imposed exile. She had no way of knowing how that went for decades, though, because she crashed into the Arctic alongside Captain Rogers first.

AVENGERS:

For decades she waited, content to remain near the captain in her stone state. Until SHIELD found her and brought her back out of the ocean to study her. Still nothing happened… until she began to feel restless, began to feel a pull on her power, a pull towards connecting to another being. But she wanted to keep her connection to Steve, so she begrudgingly opened herself to a second connection, soothed only by the fact that she felt her brother, Milo, nearby. Loki Odinson. Then Loki came, using her powers to open a portal from a deep corner of space to Midgard. Then New York was destroyed, and with it, so many Midgardian lives.

She blamed herself. After all, she could’ve fought Loki harder, could’ve held out longer against letting Loki onto Midgard. She had literally opened the gates for this to happen.

At the end of the day, Thor took her, and Loki, and returned them both to Asgard. She was back on her first home realm, and her connection to Loki, tenuous though it was, helped soothe the ache of being so far removed from Steve. It felt like a reward that she had done less than nothing to deserve. Yet Asgard was a much-changed place from the days of Borr and the Valkyrie. Borr’s son, Odin, struck a deal with her – the kindest thing she could hope for; she could live as an Asgardian among his people, but if ever trouble approached Asgard, she was to turn herself over to the guards of the weapons’ vault, transform into the stone, and stay there until the trouble passed. She took the deal without a second thought.

POST-THOR: THE DARK WORLD:

A few more years passed, and practically out of the blue, Odin summoned her to his throne room. Only… it was not Odin. The man on the throne looked like Odin, but Tess knew when she was near Loki. He quizzed her, innocently, it seemed, ultimately to see if she knew who he was, and she, inwardly baffled, led him on. Until she knew what was happening, she would do her best to go along with whatever Loki appeared to want. She was a teleporter, not a mind-reader, but she tried to figure out the answers he wanted, and she must’ve done a good enough job of it, because he dismissed her from the throne room without incident.

Unsure what else she could do without raising the new king’s suspicions, Tess went back to her life as normal.

THOR: RAGNAROK:

Much as the destruction wrought by Hela worried her, she even kept to the deal she’d made with Odin, and when Ragnarok came, she went into hiding in the weapons’ vault. Until Ragnarok was almost over, when Loki took her aboard Asgard’s get-away ship.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR:

Their safety lasted all of an hour and felt exactly like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The Titan came, already bearing Tess’s sister, Olivia, in a gauntlet. He killed half of what remained of Asgard and took Tess away from Loki. By all appearances, Thanos even killed Loki, but Tess knew the trickster and his illusions, and she could still feel the connection between them even as Thanos took her further away from the Jotun. But the destruction of the Asgardians’ ship was just the beginning of her horrific time with Thanos. One by one, he rounded up the rest of her siblings, leaving a clear path of destruction in his wake – but the Stones worked just as hard amongst themselves. They came up with a plan, with tricks and illusions of their own… and in the end, they won. They tricked Thanos, and trapped him, and put the universe back to rights.

POST-AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR:

When the terror was over, and the proverbial sea was relatively calmed, Tess revealed her human form to Steve, and decided to follow him – on the run, onto the next adventure, she couldn’t say she minded either way. She’d been near Loki long enough that she trusted him to be able to take care of himself. Besides, Milo was still watching over him, and in a pinch they could both sweep in to help him out if needed. He would be fine, and she could go with Steve, and so she did, come what may.

AUs:

BOLDLY GO: (Star Trek) a geologist at the rank of lieutenant

Starter Call

[emybain]

White Rose

I couldn't muster enough energy to edit this, so I apologize in advance for any typos, etc. I thought I was doing okay until the end, and that’s when I started breaking down. This is my second fic that focuses on Georgia Rawles (my eternal queen). I’ve been wanting to write this for a while now, so im also sorry for the angst. just as a warning, there is death and loss of family members/loved ones in this. 

    There were only a handful of people left in the cemetery, all of them chatting quietly amongst themselves. Adrian watched as Kasumi Hasegawa pulled Tamaya Rae into a hug. They were both gripping balled up tissues in their fists, so crumpled that they were beginning to tear. Adrian wondered if they had been clutching the same tissues all day. Probably not, judging from how they both could barely keep it together for more than five minutes at a time. 

    He turned his head back around, slouching in his chair. Immediately, he heard his mom’s voice in his head, telling him to sit up, or else he would get a hunchback like that villain in one of the old movies she had from when she was a kid. But he wasn’t sure if he could muster the strength to sit properly. Not today. 

    Adrian Rawles was only seven years old, and he didn’t know how to deal with loss. Especially this kind of loss. Death was a concept that his mom had never fully explained to him; she usually told him not to worry about things like that. He was scared, confused, and above all, he felt as if something had been dug out of his chest, leaving him hollow inside. Empty.

    When Uncle Hugh had shown up at Adrian’s and his mom’s apartment late one night last week, Adrian hadn’t understood why he was so upset. He had woken Adrian up with unshed tears in his eyes, and told him to grab whatever he might think he need as he went and told Adrian’s babysitter she could go home. Then, Hugh took Adrian and his small bag full of a few toys and a stuffed animal back to his own apartment. Adrian had questioned the whereabouts of his mom repeatedly, and grew frustrated when Hugh didn’t answer him. It wasn’t until they were at his apartment that Hugh finally told him what had happened: his mother was not coming home; she had been killed by an Anarchist.

    “You remember the Anarchists, right, Adrian?” Hugh had asked gently as Adrian stared at the floor of the car. “The bad guys?”

    Adrian had nodded silently. He knew his mother and the rest of his aunts and uncles, the Renegades, were the good guys, and that they fought the villains known as the Anarchists. Hugh continued to tell him how she was on her way to a special mission she was assigned to when it happened, but Adrian barely registered any of it. He remembered how first his fingers went numb, and then gradually, the rest of his body. Mom had told him before she left earlier that night that when she got home, she would tuck him in properly and kiss him goodnight, like how she did every night. 

    But she didn’t.

    Since that night, that horrible nightmare that was in fact reality, Adrian had been staying with his Uncle Hugh and his husband, Adrian’s other uncle, Simon. Their apartment was different than Adrian’s home. He had barely gotten any sleep in their guest room, which was smaller than Adrian’s room and doubled as an office. It didn’t feel right to go to sleep without saying goodnight to his mom and receiving her hugs and kisses. 

    “You haven’t given your mother her rose yet, Adrian.” Adrian looked up to meet the sad eyes of his Uncle Simon, then back down at the white rose between his fingers. Everyone close to his mom had been given similar roses to place on her casket before it was lowered into the ground, and Adrian was the only one who hadn’t given his up yet. He shrugged one shoulder, back folding in even more. 

    Simon sat down beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “I know today has been hard for you, Adrian. I can’t imagine what you’re going through.” When Adrian didn’t respond, he continued. “No child should ever have to lose a parent.”

    They sat in silence for what seemed like hours. Adrian kept his eyes trained on the laid out turf flooring beneath him, refusing to let the pooling tears in his eyes fall. He had already cried too much today, though he tried to hide it from everyone else. It was important that he keep a brave face for everyone; it’s what his mom would’ve done. 

    “If I give up the rose,” Adrian began, voice hoarse despite him having barely spoken all day, “then she’ll really be gone, and I’ll be all alone.”

    Simon’s hold on his shoulder tightened, and he pulled the young boy closer. “You’re not alone, son, and you never will be. Don’t you ever think that, okay?”

    Adrian shied away from Simon’s hold. He swiped at his eyes angrily. “But I am, Uncle Simon,” he said harshly. “My mom is dead, and my dad...my dad might as well be dead, too. He wasn’t even at the funeral.”

    It had been a pointless wish for Adrian to hope that a man would show up at his mom’s funeral, that he would search the room until his eyes landed on Adrian, and Adrian would think of how familiar he looked. It was stupid of Adrian to think that this man would approach him and introduce himself, and then tell him that he was Adrian’s father and that he was going to take care of him from now on. But Adrian had wandering eyes throughout the funeral, despite his distress, and he never found this man. He was crushed; his father, whoever he may be, truly didn’t care about him or his mom. Adrian remembered his mom once telling him, when Adrian had asked about his dad, that his dad just wasn’t ready for a life with prodigies, and that he hadn’t been absent from Adrian’s life because he didn’t care about his son. Before, Adrian had believed her comforting words, if only to hold onto the thread of hope that he had a loving father somewhere out there, and that this man would return one day. Now, he knew better. 

    “Your father is no dad.” Out of the corner of his eye, Adrian saw Simon shake his head. “I’m sorry he didn’t show up, Adrian, but that’s not what I meant. You still have dozens of people who care about you, dozens of people who love you. Hugh and I are your godparents, and we’re taking you in, for now, at least. We will understand if you would rather live with someone else in the future, but for now, it is our responsibility to you and your mother to raise you as our own from now on, and we’ll gladly do it because we loved your mother and we love you, okay?” Again, Adrian didn’t answer. Simon sighed tiredly. 

    “Your mother was an incredible person, Adrian. She was brave, intelligent, funny, and above all of that, she was one of the kindest people I have ever met. I see her in you so much, and that’s proof that she will never truly be gone. She will live on inside of you, but you have to make sure that happens.” Adrian peeked up at him then, a tear rolling down his cheek. “I can guarantee that she is watching over us right now, too. Do you want to know how I know that?” Adrian nodded, chin beginning to tremble. “Because she’s too stubborn to leave us alone.” For the first time that day, Adrian’s lip curled up on one side. It was only slight, though. “Even when she would leave you with a babysitter for her work, she would constantly check in and see how you were doing. She hated leaving you at home, and I know she hates that she can’t be by your side right now. You were her world, son, and she will continue to check up on you for the rest of your life.”

    Adrian dropped his gaze down again. Simon patted his back gently, staying with him for a moment before getting up. “When you’re ready, just find me or Hugh, alright?” 

    And then he was gone, leaving Adrian alone with his thoughts. 

    A gust of wind blew through the canopy tent where Adrian sat before his mother’s casket. He thought back to earlier that day during the funeral and how many people had shown up. It had been in a small church, yes, but there had been people lined up along the back walls, people that Adrian had never seen before in his life. He guessed he had never realized how important his mom was to others than just him.

    He had insisted on being a pallbearer, after he had asked Hugh earlier that morning what it meant upon hearing it come up in conversation. While he was too small to handle that, something that annoyed Adrian, Hugh allowed him to walk with the pallbearers, specifically beside Hugh and Simon, as they carried his mom. It had been a strange experience, but Adrian couldn’t imagine himself anywhere else; he had been attached to his mom’s hip since he was born, and he was going to keep it that way for as long as possible. Foreign faces became sympathetic at the sight of him walking with his mom, strangers offered their condolences and apologies all day, whatever condolences even meant. 

    Adrian looked back over his shoulders, eyes landing on Hugh and Simon, who were standing together with a man and a woman that Adrian didn’t know. His gaze wandered to the sunny day, the blue sky and fluffy clouds. It wasn’t fitting for a funeral. 

    He twisted back around to face the casket. Tamaya, his mom’s old roommate and fellow Renegade, picked it out. It was white with gold trim and decorated with lilies here and there, his mom’s favorite flower. Slowly, Adrian stood up, gripping the white rose between his trembling hands. He made his way to the casket slowly; each step was painful. When he reached the casket, he let out a slow breath, ignoring the tears welling up in his eyes. He placed a hand on the side. Just barely. Simon was right. His mom would always be watching over him because that’s who she was. And Adrian would make sure that she would live on, that she wouldn’t be forgotten. 

    “If...if you’re really out there,” Adrian mumbled, sniffling. He wiped at his face with his shirt sleeve. It had been the same one he wore to Hugh and Simon’s wedding a while back. Once holding a happy memory, now not so much. “I love you, Mom. You tucked me in for so long,” his throat caught on his words as his chin trembled greatly, “now...now it’s time for me to tuck you in.” Tears fell freely down his face and to the ground. Closing his eyes, Adrian reached his hand forward and set the rose down on the casket, on top of the others. 

    Feeling himself finally break for the first time since Hugh had told him what happened a week ago, Adrian Rawles laid his head in his arms on top of the casket and cried.

[veridium]

oc interview - olivia

tagged by the terrific @heraldofwho​ to have my oc do an interview! thank you again for the tag!

tagging @dickeybbqpit​, @avaquet​, @bitchesofostwick​, @cullenvhenan​, and @star--nymph​ if they have not done one already, or would like to do one for another oc!

name ➔ “Olivia Sinclair is my full name, though people hardly know it on account of my title. I know you have likely been asked to adhere to that, but please, call me Olivia.” are you single ➔ “I...” She grins tensely, and looks off to the nearest window. “I have a troublesome history with that word. I never consider myself “taken” or “spoken for.” I am never spoken for. But I admit I have a fondness for someone. That is all I will admit.” are you happy ➔ She smirks and shakes her head. “Happiness is a distracting goal. I have not been happy as people would call it in many years. Do I have moments of happiness? Yes. Do I hunger for it? Yes. But someone like me, the world does not encourage happiness.”  are you angry ➔ “Yes, always. I just hide it well, and choose to laugh whenever I have that choice.” are your parents still married ➔ “They were until my Father passed away when I was seventeen. As far as I know, my Mother never remarried. I would not care, truly, if she did. I wouldn’t be surprised, either. Their marriage was far from perfect or lovely.”

NINE FACTS

birthplace ➔ “I was born at my family’s home just north of Val Royeaux. Normally I just say the Capitol, since it is close enough.” hair color ➔ “Blonde, fair, bright, whatever you would call it. The Bard in the tavern, Maryden, teases me by singing of it as spun gold. She knows I scowl at the idea of being talked about like I am some pristine art fixture.” eye color ➔ “That changes rather famously. When I am at rest they are hazel, but I am never at rest. They glow a little of gold and sometimes red. Mages can have very expressive eyes, and if they choose not to control it, it can be rather sinister looking.” She pauses, and a wry smile grows on her lips. “I like it like that.” birthday ➔ “The 7th of Drakonis, in the year 9:15.”  mood ➔  “My mood? Hah,” she crosses her arms, “depends on who you ask. I would say quite friendly. Varric would agree. The Seeker would not.” gender ➔ “I am a woman.” summer or winter ➔  “Summer. Though, I have become used to the eternal snow and chill of the Frostbacks. It isn’t always a treat. Summer and Spring are my favorite seasons because of the warmth and liveliness of the country. My Father used to hunt and host gatherings celebrating the open season. Everything felt much more bearable and beautiful.”

morning or afternoon ➔ “Mornings. I do not sleep very well, so mornings are my most productive. As soon as the sun rises, I do. I absolutely detest getting a late start to my day.”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

are you in love ➔ “You would never have me admit in open air if I was. Sorry, but I learned far before I ever had the chance to decide for myself, that wearing my heart on my sleeve is nothing but a liability. It is a hard habit to unlearn.” do you believe in love at first sight ➔ “I believe in infatuation as well as obsession. I believe we can use people as escapes from our own concerns. All-too-often we use these hungers as excuses to call it love. As for the real thing, perhaps I am unfamiliar with it and that has made me a skeptic. I cannot be blamed, no? After all, what have been my examples of it? Nothing worth recreating or venerating, I can tell you that much.”

who ended your last relationship ➔ “I did not have relationships, I had encounters. They ended as anomalously as they began. I do not start things with people that would cause me too much grief to finish.” have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ “Yes...and their skulls...and their arms...well, I should clarify that it was not a lover’s quarrel or honest tryst. I would never do that to someone I was sincerely fond of. Where do you think I got my alias as the Black Dove, anyway? There is a reason no one has yet ventured to court me.” are you afraid of commitments ➔ “My friends would say yes. I would say yes if it means I know the perils of “belonging” to someone.” She says it with an ache in her voice, like she only half-agrees with what she is saying. She crosses one leg over the other and shakes herself of the melancholy. “I think it is even worse when the commitment is genuine. You cannot avoid it or dissuade yourself. It just becomes this affliction you have to wash yourself of.”

have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ “Yes! Of course! My friends, my Ambassador. She used to have such an odd look on her face when I did it in the beginning, she is such a stickler for decorum. We only ever do it in private because of it. She has been won over, though, I am pleased to say.” have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ “In all likelihood, yes. When people first meet me it is all about how pretty and petite I am. Naomi said once that I am honey on the eyes but spice on the tongue. I do not disagree,” she snickers a bit. have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ She opens her mouth quickly, but catches herself from responding. She chuckles a bit anxiously, and runs a hand up around the side of her neck. “I have, and I do. But that is our little secret -- I cannot have people thinking I am so sentimental.”

SIX CHOICES

love or lust ➔ “Love is a fanciful ideal. Lust is a human craving that I am much more sympathetic of, and I know that sounds rather careless, but it is the truth. When we are honest about what is lust and what is love, I think we find lust is the most apt descriptor for the needs we act on. Love, however, takes many shapes. I love my people, I love my allies, and I love my cause. I am a human who lusts for intimacy and gratification. These do not have to exclude each other.” lemonade or iced tea ➔ “Oh sweet Maker, who would drink lemonade? Tea, tea, nothing but tea. Though I will admit I like it better hot.” cats or dogs ➔ “I do not have a preference for either. Cullen will talk for hours about dogs and I only pay attention to the first sentence and last -- shit, don’t tell him that, he will only want to rant more. Cats are fine as well. My favorite animals tend to be much larger, and with hooves and muzzles,” she says with a fiendish smile, knee jerking to show off her calf-high riding boots still on her feet. 

a few best friends or many regular friends ➔ “A few very close friends is always worth more than a legion of accolades. I will never not say so. I will admit however that my inclusion of people into that category has grown bigger since the Inquisition began.”  wild night out or romantic night in ➔ “Romantic, you say? So, me alone with books, candles, and a cup of something strong? I will take that over a night out. At the risk of being accused of lies, I will say I do not hate being out with good company. I am good at being sociable! Does not mean I wholeheartedly enjoy it.” day or night ➔ “Day for the struggle, night for the trouble, as my dear friend Roslyn would say. I will leave it at that,” she says tilting her head and chuckling again. 

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

been caught sneaking out ➔ “Yes. As a child I would always want to stay up late like my Father did. Sometimes I could make it from where my room was on my Mother’s side of the home to my Father’s and find him still sitting by his fire, smoking a pipe or drinking his brandy. When I was sent to the Circle such things were much more dangerous to do, but I still sometimes broke the Templar’s curfew for certain...reasons. Understandably, nowadays I do not run into such authorities.”

fallen down/up the stairs ➔ “Uh...hm, well,” she scrunched her lips to one side of her face. “I am afraid both. I am...or, was, quite clumsy. Funny, considering I was a dancer in my childhood. We cannot outrun all of our imperfections, no?” wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ "Yes, so many things. So many opportunities I have chased and craved for years. It is at the very heart of who I am. As for people...that is a much more sordid answer.” wanted to disappear ➔ “If it meant defying a Templar’s vigilance, yes. Completely. Growing up I would have given anything to just be what I thought was a regular, more liberated person -- someone not born to privilege which I saw as a cage. I have since learned it was a child of wealth’s romanticization of poverty. I had many troubles, yes, but none of them were insecurity with food, shelter, or protection. What I truly wanted was to be treated with respect and love. That standard should not depend on class.”

FOUR PREFERENCES

smile or eyes ➔ “Eyes! Eyes are projections of the spirit. I fall for--I mean, ahah, I get to know someone a great deal through the way their eyes and faces change in different moods.” shorter or taller ➔ “With my height, it is rather easy to elect for taller.” intelligence or attraction ➔ “Both, yes? You need both to a degree. Minds in tandem with one another add the fire to any bond.” hook-up or relationship ➔ She gives a knowing look, brow raised and grin crooked, indicating to move on to the next question. 

FAMILY

do you and your family get along ➔ She only chuckles and rolls her eyes.  would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ “I grew up in a deeply distorted and toxic culture. I was sent to the Circle which oppressed Mages for being who they are. My friends and I broke free and I landed here, somehow, with an anchor in my hand and a title before my name. I have suffered but I have survived. A lot of people would say the same having faced dangers I never had to.” have you ever ran away from home ➔ ”No, but then again, eventually I did not have to.” have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ “I believe that is what one might say into describe my being sent to the Circle, so, yes?”

FRIENDS

do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ “Secretly? No! Veronica knows I revile her.” She tries to maintain a straight face, but she cannot help but crack another smile.  do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ “Yes, of course. They are the noblest, kindest, and most worthy people I know. We grew up together. As for my friends in the Inquisition, I know better than to believe our relationships indivisible. We all have arrived from different places and positions in the world. If this fight ever ends, I imagine those positions will pull us into new and old directions. All this said, I wish to believe that our bonds have a sincerity to them.” who is your best friend ➔ “I could never say I have just one. I have a few. When we have different concerns and needs, we go to each other. It is as it should be.” who knows everything about you ➔ “Me as a person behind the leadership role? One of the girls could probably answer that. Me as both leader and person? Leliana and Josephine, of course. Cassandra would...she would, too.” She blinks, and shakes her head suddenly. “I mean, of course she would. That woman has dragged me everywhere. Insufferable.”