#can two wretched queens not be at each other's throats?

[magemegane]

if this keeps up im probably moving to my secondary blog and making it private i cant live with my ass out on the same website where people are making powerpoints about how s*bastian is Always Perfectly Civil when he “debates” and*rs

[vipier]

❛  i  can  feel  your  heart  beating .  ❜

TWO BEASTS AT REST, DOCILE, TUCKED IN THE DEPTHS OF A CAVE CARVED INTO A MOUNTAIN FACE, AVOIDING THE DESERT HEAT. they have burrowed deeply enough that they have lost sight of the entrance, their chosen cavern lit only by a small fire flickering not far from them. despite the merciless sun scouring the sands beyond the cave's mouth, the chill in the depths of the cuts deep, such that it almost feels refreshing in comparison, requiring the use of their packed bedding – and enough to justify the additional use of body heat. not that tristan feels he has any particular need for a reason, other than the nature of them both as suspicious creatures more likely to snarl at a touch too gentle than willingly accept it. they are lethal enough to have earned plenty of individual attempts on their lives.

it isn't the first time @godwitch has reclined against his chest this way, not the first time they've found themselves entwined, innocently or otherwise. the witcher would claim that endless travel makes for strange bedfellows, but in truth, he finds it not to be strange at all, but rather, the logical progression of their circumstances. together, they create some inversion of the storybook tales in which valiant knights faithfully serve benevolent queens ; she, a beastly goddess, as beautiful as she is terrible, and he, the assassin's blade silent at her side, prepared to do as bid. for them, then, a restrained courtly love would stand to no reason. they hunger, and so they feast when they become ravenous, often after battle, eagerly consuming the blood of others from the canvas of each other's flesh. this sort of peace is rarer, a breath held amongst the chaos of the flight of the queen with no crown and her outcast sellsword.

his eyes do not open as she speaks, the warmth of her breath brushing against the flat of his chest with each word, but a distant hum escapes him deep in his throat, more a rumble than anything. he is not a creature predisposed to rest particularly, with senses perpetually heightened, predisposed to feverish dreams of past horrors. but for now, however briefly, he is docile, teeth tucked neatly behind his lips and metaphorical claws only pulling gently through her hair, against her scalp, like some pauper's imitation of a lover, of intimacy. as though he would know what it looked like, felt like, tasted like, if he tried. it is only after a long pause – long enough that it nearly seems he hadn't heard her – that he speaks, his voice a low rasp in his throat, not even loud enough to find the slightest echo in the wide chamber.

" did you think I had none, cold unfeeling wretch that I am? " keen enough ears might detect the slightest hint of amusement behind his words. his kind, if scattered and hardly allies amongst the various schools, all share a particular reputation which might lend itself to believe witchers lacked hearts as well as souls. but he knows that the dragoness knows better, as keen to the fictions in his myth as he is to hers. " they were meant to remove it after the trials. alas, that they forgot. " a dark chuckle escapes him, one that would sound sinister to most ears, although doubtlessly she has grown used to it by now. his fingers tighten in her hair, not enough to pull properly but to be firm, to tilt her head upward so that he can meet her eyes when he opens his, slitted and reptilian and keen even through the half dark. " have you a mind to tear it from my chest and eat it yourself? "

[forcebewitht]

You Must Really Be A Diamond...Because You're Still Shining For Me  (Aftermath Overblot!Jamil Viper X Reader) 

It had now been about an hour or two. Since Jamil fiercely kissed you. Since Jamil went on a rampage with the students as he Overblotted. Since your friends were swatted away like mere flies into the depths of the Scarabia Dorm. But, even still, Jamil kept you by his side and treated you like his little queen. And you, hoping that your friends would come and eventually bail you both out, simply played along. Jamil gave out orders to the Scarabia residents here and there, soon followed up by a sweet remark or brief quip to you. "Bring out the food and drinks! Today, we celebrate the day that simpleton of a sultan was overpowered and made way for someone more capable! Ahhh...I feel so refreshed...I've got an endless supply of magic…[Y/n], darling, won't you be a sweet little thing and tell those peons what you want? It also would make your Sultan very happy to hear your adoring words of praise once more~'' One of the Scarabia residents hung their head low, now groaning out a reply to the prior command like a zombie. Soon, the entire group was groaning out their praises, to which Jamil released a chuckle of triumph. "Hahaha...that's right. Tell me more about myself." Your nerves were shot, but nothing made you jump more than hearing some familiar voices pitch in. "You are incredibly handsome…"  That voice belonged to Azul, who very swiftly yet soundlessly seemed to be slinking through the crowd towards you. Once he caught your gaze, he sent you a wink that seemed to relieve your prior stress. Grim was next, gently stepping around the crowds of Jamil's brainwashed Scarabia residents. "Tall...and dark…"  Grim almost had a start when he looked at your current appearance, but given a slight head nod from you, he kept his mouth shut and kept going. Next was Jade, who was following closely behind Azul. "Your eyes are so angular...so intelligent…" Next was both Floyd and Kalim, who both flashed you bright smiles to ease your prior anxiety even more. "You're so fashionable~" "You look super strong, you know!" Nodding along with your friends, you gently pet Jamil under his chin. "I'm spellbound." Jamil's lips curled into a grin at you, allowing his head to turn. "Mmmmm...what a wonderful compliment…" Then, the other voices seemed to hit him all at once. His head snapped back over, his eyes widening in shock. "Geh- you're all-" 

Jamil seemed utterly shocked to his core as he slowly stood up, having a snake curl around your waist and gently place you on the ground beside his throne. "I sent you all flying into the middle of the desert! How did you get back here so quickly?!" You were silent and quick to slink back over to your friends as they began to explain..well, more like boasting- how they used Kalim's Unique Magic to fill up a river, along with Jade and Floyd's eel forms, to swiftly swim back over. Upon seeing you standing back with your team, Jamil's gaze softened for a moment, as though he was truly hurt. Then, it hardened all over again as he released a growl. Kalim soon stepped up with a determined look, everyone else getting into their battle poses under your direction. "I challenge you, Jamil...for the seat of Dormhead you stole from me. I plan to take it back." Jamil folded his arms, his prior, cold gaze growing even harsher at Kalim's claim. "I stole it? Hmph...big talk! Even though you're the one who stole everything from ME!" You blinked a few times in shock, allowing your head to tilt. There it was again...that same, faint sparkle near Jamil's heart as you had seen with Riddle, Leona, and Azul's hearts before. Like it was calling out to you for help. A sudden burst of power caught your attention, your gaze flicking back up to Jamil's. "Let me show all of you a taste of my true power! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" 

And with that, Jamil charged, already heading straight for Kalim. You were swift enough to dodge out of the way as Grim launched a fireball right at Jamil. It shot him right in the chest, the male releasing a grunt at the impact. His snakes flared and all hissed at Grim at the same time. With a swirl of his hand, one of them came off and began to swiftly slither towards Grim. It began to bite at the air, hoping to grasp the monster in its fangs. Grim began to run around in a circle, shouting something about not being a fan of the little pest in terror. Jade and Floyd both stood back to back, the two of them now launching their own attacks at Jamil. Jamil took the one from Jade but swatted the one from Floyd right back at him. The Tweel went flying into a nearby pile of carpets, to which Jade looked back to his twin to check on him. Once he was certain he was alright, given a thumbs up from beneath the carpets from Floyd, Jade continued his prior assault. Right after said attack, Kalim charged for Jamil, the two men now quite literally wrestling on the ground. Snakes began to nip and bite at Kalim, but the red-eyed boy held his ground. Using his Unique Magic, he began to pelt the snakes with water, making them hiss out in pain. Azul was swift to dart over to Grim, taking the head of the snake that was chasing him and crushing it under the bottom of his cane. Grim then turned, and with a battle cry, set the snake on fire. The snake soon dissolved into nothing more than pure ashes, to which Grim and Azul quickly high-fived and shared a smile for their efforts. Jamil soon kicked Kalim off of him entirely, now sending him flying right into the pile of carpets where Floyd had just been crawling out. The two boys collided with each other, now both Floyd and Kalim being within the pile at the same time. A snake curled around Jade's throat, now promptly choking the Tweel out. He began to choke, raising his arms and attempting to pull the snake off of him. You and Azul charged at the same time, Azul swiftly unlodging the snake from Jade's throat with his cane, and you smacked it down onto the ground with a nearby vase you had picked up. Shards of the antique flew everywhere as the snake hissed in pain. Grim charged over once more, setting this snake ablaze like he had with the one before. Once it was nothing more than ashes, Azul held onto Jade with an arm while you fished Kalim and Floyd out of their pile. Soon, your group turned their gazes onto Jamil, and they all began to fire multiple spells at once. Despite his overpowered state, Jamil was vulnerable due to his hysterics, like the others had been before. It didn't take long for Jamil to crouch onto a knee, those sparkles from before now seeming to trickle from within his very heart. 

His voice was weak and pained now. "Number...one….I thought...I could finally be free…." Now grasping the light, you arose and dashed to Jamil's side. His eyes weakly flickered up to meet your own. You gently held out your hand with a warm smile. Silence passed over the dorm. While Jamil seemed reluctant at first, he eventually took your hand in his own with a tear in his eye. You took hold of his other hand, now swiftly pulling him to his feet and ripping him towards you in a hug. Though he was taken aback, the male soon hugged you back, tears gently beginning to cascade down his face. Your vision began to turn white as a light was cast over both you and Jamil, making your group cover their eyes. You knew what time it was. Soon, you could see the foggy images and memories begin to play out of Jamil's past, his voice strong and clear despite you feeling like you were underwater. You could hear both his voice as a child's and Kalim's along with him, your form soon being swiftly pulled through the various scenes Jamil's inner self played out. "The earliest memory I have is of my parents bowing their heads in submission to Kalim's parents...I loathed seeing them like that." You turned your head as another memory popped up, one of Jamil's parents telling him to keep a losing streak up to Kalim. Your heart wretched at the sight. Shouldn't parents only wish the best for their children? "Kalim's family is way above my own...which means...he is above me. Therefore, whether it's grades, athletics, or games...I can never allow Kalim to surpass me." The coldness and pain in Jamil's voice as he spoke was undeniable. Your gaze softened even further than it had before, for you could see Jamil's hooded form standing directly beside you now as he kept on speaking. "To keep pace with Kalim, I pretend to be incapable of anything." Another memory of Kalim and Jamil began to play out as the figure of Jamil beside you seemed to stiffen. "...You haven't beaten me. I've been letting you win all along. With that airhead look….pay attention, Mr. Oblivious!" Another memory began to play out, but this time, it was of both Crowley and Kalim speaking. Crowley mentioned something about...a transfer? You soon felt your opinions on Crowley begin to shift. Was he really so easily bought? "Adults always say the same thing. "I'm sure you understand". But, who is going to try and understand me?" Jamil's hooded head soon turned to face you, his body turning to follow suit. He looked exhausted and pained. Kalim's voice soon came through the memory once more. "We have to work together, Jamil! Okay! Ahaha!" Jamil's body and voice began to shake as his eyes were filled with utter rage at the mere sound of Kalim's voice came through. "...E-enough…" Kalim's voice soon came through once more, his voice even brighter than before. "Jamil is the only one who'd never betray me!" Jamil began to shake even more, now beginning to curl in on himself in rage despite standing up. "THAT'S ENOUGH! Kalim, as long as you're there….I-i…I'll have to live my life handing everything over to you! I-i….even I want to be...number...one…" Your lips soon curled into an inviting smile. You turned to face Jamil as the last memory faded out. Taking both of his hands in yours, you beam up at the boy. His gaze soon flickered over to meet yours, silent tears running down his cheeks. But soon, his legs crumbled and he fell to his knees. You caught him and held the male close, allowing him to silently sob in your arms. Your vision soon began to fade to black…..

"Jamil….JAMIL!"  Kalim's voice was the first thing you heard as you began to reawaken. Your eyes fluttered open and you turned your head to the side. You and Jamil had both passed out side by side, still holding each other's hands. Soon, you begin to sit up as Jamil did the same. "Ugghhh….my head...where am…" Jamil slowly turned his head to you, then to everyone else. They were all crowded around the two of you. Everyone began to give their relieved statements, Jade and Floyd being the pair to help you stand completely. You hung back as Jamil and Kalim began to teasingly reconcile. Azul even began to praise Jamil on his tactics and intelligence and offered for the male to join Octavinelle, which Jamil declined with a wild smirk. Soon, you made your way over to a nearby fountain and sat down, letting your finger gently trace circles in the water below. The sound of footsteps caught your attention, to which your head turned. It was Jamil, who was now pulling his hood off. His gaze met yours and softened, the male's head now slanting at the sight of your figure. "[Y/n]. If it's not too much for me to ask….may I…" Soon gathering what he meant, you slid over for Jamil to take a seat. Jamil exhaled in relief, now taking his place beside you. His gaze soon trailed back over to the water as he seemed to carefully mull over his words. Thankfully, you were the one to begin to speak first. "If this is about the whole Overblot thing and the...lovely outfit change? Don't worry about it. I was fine." Jamil glanced over, already chuckling at your rather blunt statement. "Ah...you are rather bright. Although, I truly must...apologize for before. And...I know what you saw. What you heard. What you felt. We were both right there, after all. I….did not mean to lose my composure. You may hate me for that, little diamond...I will take it in stride." Jamil placed both of his hands onto his head, allowing his eyes to screw shut. You could have sworn you saw a few tears pricking his eyes. Glancing over to a blossoming vine nearby, you gently pluck a bright jasmine flower from the vine. Turning to Jamil, you learn over, now tucking this jasmine flower into his hair. Jamil's eyes flicker open in shock, his expression now a bit more loving than before. "....What...after all I did...you still…" He seemed to be at a loss for words. You smiled once the flower was in place, now taking both of his hands in your own once again. "Don't you worry, Jamil. I'm here for you. Now and always. Though I can't do anything about your struggles in the past, I can help you push through to the future. I've got your back." Jamil's eyes filled with tears once more, one breaking free from the rest and trickling down his face. He wipes it away with a hand, releasing a breathless chuckle at you. Then, he begins to smirk, now taking another jasmine flower nearby and placing it into your hair. "...Just know I won't go easy on you, either. I'm through with that." Jamil sent you a wink and you allowed your head to slightly tilt back in a laugh. "Ohhh, I didn't think so. I don't think I'd have it any other way. Just, promise me something? Don't turn into Medusa again, okay? Snakes are slimy." Jamil began to laugh right along with you at your quip, the two of you enjoying each other's company for the time being. Once your laughter had died down, you both met each other's gazes. Without a second thought, the two of you seemed to drift towards each other, a sweeter kiss than the one from before being shared. Jamil hummed into your lips as he gently cupped your face with his hands, a breeze being swept over your two forms. 

As you both separated, Jamil's gaze had softened once more. "You must truly be a diamond, [Y/n]...because you're still shining for me."

((Hey Hey Hey, everyone! Its finally here! I had a complete and total ball writing this one! The pain yet eventual happiness is real here! Next up will be Aftermath Overblot!Azul Ashengrotto x Reader! Hope you all enjoyed and I hope you have a fantastic day~💖🌹

Fanart Link: https://www.zerochan.net/3013185

[drwcn]

CQL!AU: Everyone is an orphan except Wei Wuxian, and the Twin Jades are dark practitioners. Needless to say, that changes things. (canon what canon) 

Master Post

~

[1-3]

[1] Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were the ones who died early. Wei Changze returned to Lotus Pier to become the guardian and regent of his best friend’s son and heir. 

Lotus Pier was black and white. Lifeless. 

That was the first thought that crossed Cangse Sanren’s mind when she and Wei Changze docked at the port, swords in hand, and their little son in toll. 

The people mourned. Posts were temporarily closed, the market suspended. Windows and doors of their bustling riverside town were firmly shut, with white and black drapes hanging from its sills and fluttering in the wind. 

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan were dead. Two young cultivators, parents, taken from this world too young, gone before their time. 

“A-Ying, come child,” Cangse extended a hand to the boy who glanced around at the unfamiliar place with timid curiosity. 

“A-niang, what’s going on?” 

“No questions. You must behave yourself today.” Cangse brought her son closer to her, watching her husband’s usually smiling, gentle face pull taut into a mask that betrayed none of the grief he felt underneath. He held himself taller today, shoulders pulled back, spine rod-straight and jaws clenched. She’d forgotten, after all these wonderful years of travelling the world with their family, that this place was once his home. 

“Er’shixiong,” a man greeted them at the pier, flanked by a party of younger Jiang disciples, all appropriately garbed with white sashes around their waist. “Cangse-daozhang.” 

They had spoken in depth about returning. Cangse knew there was nothing she could do to stop him; Changze’s devotion to Jiang Fengmian ran deeper than she understood. It was never herself that Yu Ziyuan should’ve resented; though however misplaced Madam Yu’s jealousy had been, it was a moot point now.  

Chang’ge, I will not ask you to choose between your love for him and your promise to me. If Lotus Pier is where you wish to go, I will go with you. I cannot promise however that I will always stay. That — is not my nature. 

Thank you, Wumei*. I understand. 

They found Jiang Wanyin, the little lord, and his sister Jiang Yanli, in their mourning robes, kneeling and crying before their parents’ funeral altar.  

Wei Changze sunk to his knees beside them, and folded his body until his forehead hit the ground. “Shixiong,” he spoke to the spirits. “I’ve come back.” 

“Who are you?!” The boy Jiang Cheng, five-years-old and hurting, blurted out rudely through his tears. His sister held him from behind and gave a trembling nod of deference to the older man. 

“Wei-shishu.”  

Beside her, clinging to her skirt, Wei Ying looked up and asked quietly, “A-niang, are we going to stay?” 

Cangse Sanren, the favoured fifth pupil of Baoshan Sanren herself, smiled down quietly at her only child and smoothed back his hair. “Yes, A-Ying we will. Lotus Pier is home now.” 

(JC 5 yro; WWX 5 yro; JYL 8 yro)

[2] When Qingheng-jun’s respected mentor died - murdered - he made a very different choice. He turned his back on his clan and his responsibilities, and escaped into the wild with the woman he loved. They were just an ordinary family, living away from the chaos in a paradise of their own. But even Eden eventually falls, and nothing gold ever stays... 

Take A-Huan and A-Zhan and go! Do not stop until you are safe. Do not turn around. Do not come back. 

Shijie! You’re injured! Let me help you - 

Zhao Ming! Zhao Zhuliu, you listen to me: their names, Lan Xichen for the older, and Lan Wangji for the younger. It’s what their father and I wanted for them. 

Shijie - jiejie - 

Now go! Go! 

A-Niang, come with us! A-Niang, don’t go!! A-Niang!!! 

The forest burned like the autumn sun at dusk descending from the sky, red and golden and glorious. A single figure stood amongst the flames, corpses littered at her feet. Bichen fell from her grip, barely making a sound as it landed against dampened earth, soaked with Lan blood.  Those who fought her were dead, but she feared that she did not have long either.

“Rong-gege,” Qiu Baiti collapsed onto her hands and dragged her body towards the man who lay still amongst the carnage, arrows piercing his front, his sword Shuoyue still clutched tight in his left hand. 

Lifeless eyes remained open, as though he could not rest. 

“Rong-gege,” Baiti called helplessly, crawling to him and laying her head down against his chest. There used to be a heartbeat there, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost hear it again. “Wait, don’t go without me...” 

She was so tired and bled from so many places. It was not until a sharp cry and a familiar face descended from the sky that Qiu Baiti realized the inferno which surrounded her was not yet hell. 

"Qiu-jiejie!" Cangse rushed forth, almost tripping over the corpse of a dead Lan disciple in her haste. “Lan-da’ge, he -” A horrified gasp drowned the rest of her words. 

“Cangse...you’re here...” 

Cangse gathered her bosom sister into her arms and immediately drew upon a torrent of spiritual energy from her core, channeling them into her fingertips to heal her friend. She could tell that whatever combat Qiu Baiti had been through, it had already taken the little life inside her, and now hers was following it to the other side.   

“Hold on, I can save you - hold on -”

“Cangse - Cang - stop, it’s too late.” Qiu Baiti lay limp there.  

Death, it drew near, but she was ready. She closed her eyes as a slip of tear escaped beneath her lashes. "I did this to him, to all of them... if I hadn't...it’s all my fault. I was the one they wanted; he was just trying to protect me. A-Huan, A-Zhan...."

Trembling and in near hysterics, Cangse sobbed, “No, don’t say that! Where are the boys?” 

“Safe. A-Ming has them...you mustn’t tell anyone. Not anyone, promise me. Not even Lan Qiren. Especially Lan Qiren... Rong-gege trusts his brother, but I - I - promise me - promise -” Qiu Baiti gasped for breath, gurgling blood in her throat with each laboured attempt. 

“Qiu-jiejie, please - don’t - I - I promise.” 

“Good...Cangse...” Qiu Baiti clutched her hand and smiled, a crimson wound cutting across her pale, beautiful face. “Good.” 

And then she died, with the red of the forest flames still in her eyes. 

Cangse held her friend - dear, damned, dead - and allowed a scream to tear through herself. From the depth of her grief, she released a pulse of unrestrained spiritual energy that rippled through the dense woods as though the storm of her anguish could not be contained. And like a measly candle-light assaulted by the winter wind, the forest fire was extinguished in an instant. 

The sun was gone, and the night was dark.  All was quiet, but there was no peace to be found. 

 Cangse buried Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti in two unmarked graves side by side beneath a tall oak tree. She sifted through the bodies and the grime and collected the spiritual weapons they left behind — Shuoyue, Bichen, Liebing (cracked in two places) and the strings of Qiu Baiti’s shattered guqin — and stored them away in her qiankun pouch. She hoped one day that she would find Zhao Zhuliu and the sons Lan Cenrong and Qiu Baiti had left behind, and return these items to their rightful owners. 

It was not until three years later, not too far from her shifu Baoshan’s sacred temple nestled in the snowy mountain peak, where Jiang Yanli had been brought to strengthen her health and train as Cangse’s direct disciple, that Cangse perchance came across Zhao Ming again. 

He was accompanied by two youngsters, two beautiful jade-like children who called him jiufu. Cangse was not surprised in the least to find that both of them have learned the technique for which their mother and jiujiu were hunted: the core-melting hand. 

(LXC 9, LWJ 6 -> LXC 12, LWJ 9 ) 

[3] They called her “The Little Queen”. Wen Qing never wanted to be Sect Master, or Deputy Sect Master, or Regent Sect Master. She just wanted to live quietly with A-Ning and Wen-popo and study the art of healing that her parents practiced. But alas, life had other plans. 

Wen Qing was a month short of her tenth birthday when her life changed forever. 

Wen Ruohan, her father’s older cousin, who’d always been close with her family, had come to visit Dafan. Wen-bobo didn’t have siblings, and her father Wen Ruotian was as close as a brother to him, more than any other Wen descendent of their time. 

Wen Qing liked Wen Ruohan well. He was doting and found her intelligent. Her parents chose the simple village life, but they often spent New Years and holy days at Nevernight at Sect Master Wen’s behest and invitation.  

When Wen Ruohan came to Dafan and told her folks that there was a piece of the Yin Iron inside the Stone Fairy, her father had been eager to help, though weary he was of those powers he could not understand. 

He’d been right to be afraid. 

The extraction had gone horribly wrong, and the rebound of dark energy had eviscerated all those near by, her mother, her father, and Wen Ruohan himself. It was by the skin of her teeth that Wen Qing managed to yank her baby brother Wen Ning out of the way. Then, without thinking, she caught the vile, wretched thing as it sailed through the air. It landed in the palm of her hands, and there she stood, regarded with fear and bewonderment from all those in witness as the cursed item, which burned the life out of cultivators much older and seasoned than her, quieted in her small hands. 

The Elders said she had...a nature affinity. For what, they could not say. 

Wen Qing was brought back to Nevernight and given the name Yuefan: to exceed mortality. Within days, the heavy crown of Sect Master of Qishan Wen was placed on her head. 

It was then that she learned that her Wen-bobo, with no inclination to marry and bind himself to another, did not leave behind a legitimate heir. His young sons, 4-year old Wen Xu and 2 year-old Wen Chao were born to him by women of ill repute.  They were kind, good boys, but they were infantile and illegitimate. Wen Qing felt for them, but she could not change their fate. So for the time being, she accepted what she had to. 

The adults did what they could for her, but there was no one in the cold, vast palace of Nevernight to mind her or nurture her. She stood alone upon the towers where the eternal flames, fuelled by Qishan Wen’s combined spiritual energy, burned in their iron brazier, and watched over the lush volcanic mountain range that was hers to govern and protect. Those beneath her - servants, disciples - feared her and her unknown powers. Those advising her - Elders, mentors - had their own agendas. In any case, they stopped seeing her as a child the minute she held the Yin Iron in her hands and lived to tell the tale. 

It was a secret, they told her. She must guard it well. 

The Chief Cultivator Jin Guangshan sent his ambassadors to congratulate her succession. Gusu’s Lan Qiren and Qinghe’s Nie Heqiu both arrived consecutively to pay their respects to their ten-year-old colleague and fellow Sect Master. 

There was a momentary rumble amongst the Wen Elders about whether Nie Heqiu’s older son Nie Mingjue would be a good match for her someday, but as he too was set to inherit, the idea was put aside as quickly as it was brought up. 

Then came Yunmeng’s regent Wei Changze, bringing along an entourage of Jiang disciples and a boy one year her junior, the son he conceived with the revered Cangse Sanren. 

Wei Wuxian. 

Wen Qing liked him enough. He was spontaneous, agreeable, and clever, and he found her aloofness fun to provoke. They would’ve both been satisfied with the arrangement had she not met Yunmeng Jiang’s young Jiang-zongzhu some years later, and had he not crossed paths with the vengeful and infamous Lan Wangji. 

But life, as the gods have planned it, must have its mysteries. 

(WQ 10, WWX 9) 

TBH?  

Note: 

Wumei - fifth sister, Wei Changze’s nickname for Cangse. 

Details of Cangse and Wei Changze’s name as well as Qingheng-jun and Madam Lan’s name can be found here .

jiufu 舅父 - maternal uncle, formal.  

[babylooneytoonz]

The Vessel [ Pt. 10 ]

Pairing: Geralt of Rivia x Fem! Reader

Summary: You go back to Cintra, back in your kingdom and back amongst the people that love you, and your two companions go back with you.

Warnings: Idek?

A/N- Although I decided to have Ciri in my story, Ciri actually does not have any powers in this one, and the reader does. For some reason, Pavetta's bloodline could not have the elder blood in it.

[My Masterlist] [My Witcher Masterlist - Read the other parts here!]

Calanthe had a tight lipped smile etched to her face; this celebration was making her feel claustrophobic and the crackling cords of the lute gave her a headache. On one side sat her husband, the King of Cintra, Eist Tuirseach of Skellige and on her other side sat her granddaughter, the blonde haired blue eyed beauty, Cirilla.

"Spare me the festivities, I can't wait to retire and sleep off all night," she muttered under her breath, her fake smile still plastered on her face, as she acknowledged the lords that bowed their heads in her direction in greeting.

"Calanthe, love, it's her anniversary, you can atleast pretend to have a good time," Eist smiled, his fingers curling around the goblet in front of him as he lifted it and brought it up to his lips, taking a sip.

"Would someone even bother asking me if I like it?" Cirilla scowled, rolling her eyes. If there was one thing she couldn't do, was pretend, unlike her grandmother and her husband, who could give a 1000 watt smile on even the gravest of days.

Eist scoffed, but was met by a glare from his wife, as she turned towards Ciri with a stern look on her face, but not one with hatred, "Ciri, when will you learn?"

"Oh stop it grandmother, not again."

Calanthe let out a deep shaky breath pummeling from deep within her lungs as she sat back, trying to get more comfortable when she spotted one of her soldiers speaking to Mousesack by the gate. She squinted her eyes, bringing her index to her chin as she leaned forward, letting her chin be supported by it. Mousesack's expressions screamed at her that the discussion was not a common one; something was up.

Mousesack craned his neck to his side, discreetly and looked at her, her eyebrow instinctively shooting upwards in inquisitiveness and he blinked, slowly striding towards him until he was leaning next to her and whispering something into the Queen's ears; Eist and Ciri watching them with their eyebrows raised.

"We need to see Calanthe," Geralt said to one of the guards at the massive gates for the fifth time, and the guard asked him for the fifth time back what their purpose for visit was.

Geralt pursed his lips shut, and turned towards you. He looked at you in the eye, and you sighed. This wasn't working. There was no way on earth they were going to let you go in unless you told them what the truth was, but you couldn't risk it. What if they didn't believe you?

"Guards, back away. Let them in. The Queen wants to see the three of them." Mousesack's voice rang from behind them and they turned around immediately, moving out of the way until you came face to face with the a man with greying long hair, although way shorter than Geralt's. He had a pleasant, kind look to him but still, he had caution in his eyes.

"Follow me," He said, his voice not wavering a bit.

You turned towards Geralt who was stiff, and alert too, his eyes scanning the man in suspicion. When you didn't follow him, the man turned and his expressions softened, "I am Mousesack, Queen Calanthe's confidant. I mean you no harm."

"Geralt, I think we should?" You asked, and he blinked in approval, his lips clenched together.

The three of you entered the palace, slowly following the man in front of you. The hallways were elegant and beautifully lit, and a faint sound of a lute filled the hallway. You slowly turned towards Jaskier, and saw him in a daze just like you had expected him to be.

"Jaskier, I'm sorry about your lute," you sighed, and he looked away for a bit, in sadness, his hands held together in front of him.

"You know? Lovers may come and go, but she was forever loyal to me."

"I'm sure you'll find a new one," Geralt grumbled next to you and you gasped, elbowing him in his side.

"Geralt, can you please not?"

He grumbled something again, but you chose not to entertain the Witcher. Instead you linked your hand with Jaskier's, sliding it against his arm until you were holding it and walking, leaning against him.

"I don't think Yennefer will take my revenge on your lute."

Geralt snorted next to you, and Jaskier threw his arms in the air, dramatically and you giggled teasingly.

"I thought you were on my side, [Y/N]. But I see that your priorities have changed."

Jaskier wiggled his brows dramatically and flush crept on your cheeks, your insides flaring up once again. Your heart almost felt like it stopped, and you couldn't bring yourself to take a look at the brooding man walking next to you. Finally, you mustered enough courage to look at him, but when you did, you realized that he was actually grinning like a Cheshire cat.

"You too?" You growled at him and he stopped smiling.

"Jaskier isn't always wrong."

"Hey! I am NEVER wrong—"

"Geralt, I supported you. You're siding with him now?"

The three of you were talking at the exact same time and Mousesack abruptly stopped, turning towards you and all three of you stopped bickering, looking at him with embarassment on your faces.

"We all thought you were dead, Princess."

You looked at him in disbelief; he knew?

"My apologies, I didn't meant to startle you. I'm, uh, a druid. I know things, and I can feel powers. The minute you stepped into Cintra, I felt your presence," you blinked, "and Tissaia de Vries might have told me you would come?" He smiled at you.

"Does she know?" You asked, your voice coming out weaker— as though something was lodged to your throat.

He smiled, and nodded, "She does. She has been waiting to see you ever since the sorceress paid her a visit and told her you were alive."

As Mousesack stopped talking, you looked up to see that you were in a richly furnished chamber but it wasn't the chamber that surprised you, it was the woman that sat nervously by the edge of the king sized bed, her fingers nervously toying with each other. Another young girl stood in a corner, excitement glimmering in her eyes.

"Your Majesty, she is here," Mousesack announced.

Calanthe looked up, her eyes brimming with tears. She glanced at you from top to bottom as though she was trying to fit your memory into her mind. She blinked, ignoring how thick chunks of tears now flew from her eyes and she stood up, almost trembling like a leaf.

"Come here, sweet child?"

You didn't know what came over you. Maybe, it was the fact that you didn't ever experience the love of a mother. Or maybe, you were going to be a mother yourself, so you knew what a mother's role was. You ran towards her, and she almost choked on a smile as you ran into her arms, burying your face into her chest as her fingers began stroking your hair.

"I can't believe it's you, sweet child. I never thought..I'd get to hold you in my arms. Look at you. You're.. grown up," you pulled back, and her palm came to rest against your cheek, her thumb stroking it gently.

"What's your name? I never.. got to name you."

"It's [Y/N], mother."

Ciri awkwardly walked up to her grandmother's side, her fingers clenching the Queen's garment, her blue eyes looked at you.

You looked down at her and raised an eyebrow.

"Meet Ciri, [Y/N]. Your niece."

You sat back, trying to get more comfortable in the utterly soft chair on the Queen's table; your back hurt like a bitch.

Calanthe nodded at one of the lords who took her hand and plastered a kiss against her knuckles and she gave a fake smile before turning to you and muttered, "The child giving you trouble?" Her words ended with a glare towards the Witcher and you bit your lip.

"I'm fine, mother."

"I can't believe you brought that wretched bastard with you, [Y/N]. Men like those, treating our bodies like we are nothing but a fucking commodity."

She took a sip of ale, her eyes not leaving Geralt who stood in the farther end of the hall, drinking ale from a pitcher himself. Jaskier had taken the lute from the bard, borrowed it actually, and was now entertaining the guests.

"Mother, he isn't.. I mean.. I know this all doesn't paint the right picture, but Geralt has been kind to me."

"Kind? You would call a man who used your body just for the sake of having a child? And look where it got you—" She hissed.

"Mother—"

"Calanthe, my love," Eist intervened, and you swallowed the lump forming inside your throat, your eyes fixed on the Witcher.

"Fine but he needs to leave. Before I ask him to leave myself," Calanthe growled.

Your heart sank at this, and to make this worse, Geralt was right there in front of your eyes and your heart aches to go talk to him but you didn't want to anger your mother, especially when you had met her for the first time in your life.

You sat up in bed, drenched in your own sweat, your chest heaving up and down. You had seen the sorceress in your nightmare and she was smirking, holding your baby in her hands. What made it worse was the fact that Geralt was next to her, holding her by her waist, as he bent down to kiss the forehead of his child.

You swiped your palm over your face as reality sank back in and you realized that it was just a nightmare— you were in Cintra. You were safe.

You laid back down in bed, closing your eyes so you could fall back into a deep slumber yet again, only hoping that the sorceress wouldn't torture you in your dreams again.

For a few minutes, you kept tossing and turning in bed, your body churning in discomfort. You couldn't sleep.

You sat up once again, rubbing your belly, trying to comfort your unborn baby, until something struck your mind.

You decided to explore the palace, for this was your first time you had actually been to one, and ironically, this was your home. You slid into your robe, tying it securely around your blossoming waist as you stepped out of the chambers, holding just a candlestick to help you look around.

You wandered aimlessly through the palace confines for a few minutes, exploring.

It was only after fifteen minutes or so, you decided to check out the other tower. Only, you had no idea that the other tower was the guest tower where Geralt and Jaskier were staying the night.

Geralt frowned, squinting his eyes as he threw back his head, downing the contents of the pitcher in one go. He looked at Jaskier, who had a blonde woman curled against his lap, his fingers fondling her thigh. Shaking his head, the Witcher slammed the pitcher onto the table and pushed himself up.

He pushed his way through the overly drunk guests at the celebration, his only goal now to reach his own chambers for the night so he could get a peaceful sleep before the dawn came the next morning.

The hallways were quiet this side of the palace, and Geralt could practically hear the sound of his feet as he climbed the staircase towards his room.

Strangely, his eyes fell on you— you were sitting on the topmost staircase, staring at your hands, a look of exhaustion draped over your face.

"[Y/N].." Your name shot out of his lips like a prayer and he saw you look up, a look of relief reflecting in your eyes.

"Are you okay?"

The concern in his voice was like a sharp knife cutting through your heart, hurting just the right amount. You blinked, giving him the weakest of your smiles as you nodded and stood up. You were now on the top most step, and Geralt was on a step below you, so the man was just the same height as yours.

His eyes were golden, a fire lurking within his irises, his eyes although hollow and devoid of any emotion, for others, you could see a flicker in them, that made a warmth tingle inside of you somewhere.

"Couldn't sleep.. "

"Is it the baby?" He frowned, still looking at you, an inexplicable look on his face. It was only then that you felt something. When you lowered your eyes, you saw his palm pressed to your stomach.

It felt oddly intimate. It was just the two of you, in that hallway, and Geralt had his warm palm protectively draped over your belly— and as though the baby already knew who his father was, you felt a flip in your stomach.

"No, the baby is okay."

Relief filled him, and he gave you a flicker of a Ile before he placed his other hand on your arm and pushed you slightly towards the wall to step up the topmost stair, so he could tower over you.

"She haunts my dreams," you blurted out, although you didn't know why you said it and Geralt looked thoughtful for a bit.

"Mine too."

"In what way?"

Despite the crispness of the weather in Cintra, you could feel your blood running cold and your toes begin to tingle, not in a good way. You could feel the jealousy rise inside of you, and your nostrils flared.

"I see her as a monster."

"Not your lover?" You mumbled.

Geralt took a step closer, and you instinctively took a step backward, until your back was against the wall. The proximity between you two was almost that of a finger length, but you didn't mind.

He shook his head as he took a deep breath.

He smelled of ale and the forest— of nature.

"You're safe now. And so is our baby."

"Until when?"

It was all rainbows and sunshine, until thick black clouds fled up the sky, hiding the sun and it was all dark.

"I—" Geralt began speaking, but almost immediately, he fell quiet, and you blinked, waiting for him to speak but no words came out of his throat.

"What?" You asked.

"Do you regret this?"

The question pulled you off guard as you were least expecting it. Your eyes went from widened to confused, as you tilted you head slightly and placed your palm against your side, parallel to the wall and using it to support yourself.

Did you regret it?

"Which one? Having you use my body to find yourself a motive in life?" You asked, bitterly.

"Meeting me I mean."

"We didn't exactly meet in the best circumstances, Geralt," you chuckled nervously, bringing your palm to your front, your fingers hooking to his locket, as your fingers began toying with it, your eyes fixed on his, "the thing I remember, you fucked me on the Great Mount."

Geralt grunted under his breath, but he still leaned closer, letting his face dip, ever so slightly so that his lips were inclined to yours, aching to be pressed to them. He parted his lips, letting his tongue swipe over his bottom lip, as your fingers began trailing upwards, his locket now forgotten.

Geralt closed his eyes, the instant he felt your fingers run against his chest up to his neck, as you suddenly grabbed a fistful of his collar and pulled him closer, your noses now touching, and your chests heaving out of control.

"Tell me, Witcher, do Witchers dream?" You suddenly asked, your hand flying up to your head as you absentmindedly tucked a strand of your hair behind your ear.

Geralt's lips twitched, and his eyebrows creased slightly, as though he was thinking hard. Finally, his face moved slightly, just a light bob, signalling a nod.

"What do you dream of? What did you dream of most recently?"

He blinked, tilting his head, "I saw you. You were in the woods."

You were captivated by him; frozen on spot, and he didn't even touch you, or hold you. It was like there was an imaginary force binding him to you, drawing the two of you together.

"There was a woman long time back, I met her in Blaviken."

You bit your lip hard, a taste of metal flooding your tastebuds. Why was this making you jealous?

"I think I should go." You stepped away abruptly, and immediately took a step around, your hand flying to your heart, as you began fisting your fabric into a ball, your cheeks still heated up. Your steps were fast, and you didn't stop until you were at the end of the hallway when Geralt's voice rang out behind you, and you paused, just for a second but didn't turn around, only to let his words sink in. "Her name was Renfri. And she said something to me— The girl in the woods will be with you always. She is your destiny."

You gasped at the realization, his words slowly sinking into you, settling into everywhere in your body— your mind, your senses, your heart. You didn't look back, and instead you began running, towards the confines of your chambers, for you knew if you didn't, you wouldn't be able to stop yourself from falling into his arms.

The Vessel Taglist:

@kawennote09 @viking-raider @raspberrydreamclouds @pterodactylterrace @singeramg @historianwithaheart @miss-emilia-cavill @ayamenimthiriel @crazynocturnalkiki @xxxkatxo @coffeebreathy @fanaticnae @kmuir1 @little-jana @pineapplemama @auds24 @sassy-pelican @bitchynicole @cavillsim @ragamuffin285 @hista-girl @oliviali0930 @introvertedmouse @madbaddic7ed @libbymouse @nerra75 @maxineswritingcenter @superawesomegeek @waifu4lifeu @funalpaca @petitefirecracker10 @marantha @vikingsbifrost @babypink224221 @jessyballet @strrynigxts @rn7rocks @theroyalbrownbarbie @amirra88

[laurore-stormwitch]

Post rule of wolves, about Zoya and Nikolai being soft with each other in one of the many moment of hardship they face. Zoya gets a letter that unsettles her and leans on Nikolai to face more of her demons and move on. I love how Zoya is slowly learning to open up and face her wounds, and how Nikolai is there to catch her. Feedback are always appreciated, so much love to you all 

the blood in our veins - ao3

When the sound of leaves crunching under someone’s steps reached her, Zoya did not startle. She knew Nikolai would appear at some point, as he always did, as if he could sense her despair. Or as if someone played the snitch on my escape, more likely. He was the only one to have the key, beside her, and the only one to know she would take refuge here. For a moment, she lingered on what a strange sight she was making; a steel spined harpy perched amongst the wildflowers, her kefta smeared by dirt and pollen, her eyes trained on the ground and a sprout in her hands. She felt his intense gaze on her, his worry. The scent of his skin; Nikolai always tasted like salt and sunburnt skin, like the sea. 

“Who ratted me out?”, she asked. He lowered himself toward her, brushing a kiss on her head before kneeling beside her on the ground. 

“Tamar”, he answered, “told me you got a letter and dismissed the meeting.” More like run away from it. She would have to thank Tamar for her regard. 

Zoya clicked her tongue. A letter. Her hand went in her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, handing it to Nikolai. She sensed his concern turn into outrage. Zoya knew it was a matter of time before Sabina reached out to her. After all, her daughter had just become the queen of Ravka. There was no hope left in her heart that her estranged mother would not try to exploit this particular advantage. As long as she was not dead, she supposed. Which, as far as she knew of, could very well be. As it turned out Sabina was not the one Zoya should have been wondering about.

“It’s a long list of arrogant pleading. Get to the end”, she instructed Nikolai. Zoya glanced at him and saw him shook his head with a sigh when he came to the last lines. 

“Zoya – “, he tried, his tone insecure, weary of what was the right thing to say. Was there a right thing to say when you lost a father you had already wiped from your mind? The word lost probably was not even fit for the situation. 

“He’s been dead a couple of years, apparently. She did not even bother to say how.”

There was no grief left inside her to tug at. No sentiment to pull and mourn over. Nothing left for them, for him. There was just a void lurking next to the well inside her, in which so many stones had tumbled. It was not endless anymore; it stopped right beside her, where Nikolai’s light flooded in through the cracks in her walls. Zoya tried to look for something to hold on to, something to guide her over this empty sea of nothingness. No love, no regret, no pain. The sorrow in the well had always been for Lilyiana, for Lada. For David, for the Grisha, maybe even for herself. A monument to her solitude. None of it was dedicated to the two young people who had given her breath. Yet she felt the void, like it had form and claws that pierced at her heart. Its fingers tied around her throat, squeezed the air out of her lungs. 

“I thought maybe I should plant something for him, too. I – I don’t know.” 

She murmured. Her voice came out more frail than she had desired to, more vulnerable. Nikolai moved closer, his shoulder brushing on hers. She grasped at that touch that anchored her on this moment, that prevented her from losing herself. 

“I don’t know what the Suli ritual is.” The defeat in her tone sparked a flicker of injustice. It was supposed to have been over; the child that did not look back on a wretched church was supposed to have grown. Such restless waters she had had to navigate. How does one separate hatred from fear, love from abandonment, rage from regret? 

“We could find out.”

“There’s no time. There’s no time anymore.” To know him. To understand. To take the child in her hand and protect her in an embrace. Faintly, in the distance, Zoya felt Nikolai’s hand on her back, his lips landing again on her cheek. 

“Why did you choose this?”, he asked, bobbing his chin at the sprout she was holding, at his light blue blossoms.

“I’m not sure”, she sighed. “When I was very little, there was always a glass of forget-me-nots on the kitchen table. My father used to bring them from the fields at sundown. He stopped before my sixth birthday.”

Zoya never knew what they meant. Her mother told her they were the colour of their eyes, weaving them in her hair. She had felt like a princess in a fairytale, with a crown of blossoms.

“Inej told me the Suli have a saying about love. Her father says that you would know a boy truly loves you when he brings you your favourite flowers. I figured that is why our house was full of them, at first. Maybe these are for both of them. Maybe I should bury my mother too.”

What a sombre, depressing thought, she half expected Nikolai to say. Instead, he just reached for her, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, watching her in silence. So she forced another sentence out, one that stung to admit. “I thought I did that already the moment I set foot in the Little Palace. I thought they could float away like a river in the sea, instead I just built a dam that feels dangerously close to shatter.”

The quiet stretched on. “I don’t know what they are”, Nikolai admitted. “Your favourite flowers. I don’t know them.”

She moved her gaze to him and wondered what he was seeing. If he had already grown tired of her, of her dark moods and brooding tendencies. Those fears clutched her heart on her worst nights. Was he catching the sheer sentiment in her eyes, the fire that burned for him inside her? How she grasped at his voice like it was the thread that tied her to safety, to belonging? Whatever her failings were, Nikolai’s look never wavered. His certainty, affection. He was the one keeping the dam from falling, keeping her from breaking. 

“You told me once I could be branches without blossoms and wait for the summer to come. The way you love…it’s not the fleeting beauty of petals. It’s the strength of roots.”

She spoke before having the chance to think about her words, not sure what she had wanted to convey, pressed by an unfamiliar urge to let him know. Saints, Nikolai was rubbing off on her. His eyes sparkled and he looked taken aback, a fond and surprised smile tugging at his lips. Zoya let his warmth creep into her, before moving back to look at the flowers still resting in her hands. 

“I don’t have a favourite one. I like them all.” 

Nikolai nodded, his fingers lingering in her hair, brushing through them. “Good to know. See? You are not such a difficult person after all.” Zoya heard him move beside her, sensed his fingers draw away. He gently pulled the plant in front of her. “Let me do it for you”, his voice soft, caring. Let me carry this weight for you. Her hands dug into her kefta, clinging into it as if it could make her remember who she was.

Nikolai pulled his gloves away.  She snatched them from him, huffing impatiently. It really was an unnerving habit of his. “Would you stop with these? You do not need them around me. Or anyone, for that matter.”

“Don’t take it out on my gloves”, he grinned at her. Yet, she caught the shadow sweeping through his eyes; the darkness Zoya had never wanted him to hide. He worked in silence, moving the terrain away, placing the sprouts and watering them. Zoya stood still, one hand clung to her kefta, the other tightened around his gloves, watching him as he took care of her garden for her. 

“My mother was loud”, she said abruptly. Water leaking from the cracks. Nikolai’s gaze swept toward her as he kept going. There was no other person she could tell this to. Stories needed to be told, She had learned. “Sabina kicked and screamed her way into our misery. She shouted her wrath; she broke the ceramics on the floors, spewing spite. She weaved sweet lies that stuck like sap into my ears, before wiping my tears as I stood in a ridiculous ruffled dress.” Zoya sighed, seeing her memories flash in her mind. She did not want to feel this. She did not want to know. But Juris’ wisdom was unforgiving. “Her frustration, her selfishness. Everything was like thunder. Maybe that’s where I take it from.” A dry laugh escaped her lips, as she forced herself to say what she knew had been the truth this whole time. “My mother was loud. Yet, it was my father’s silence that broke me. That was what carved the hole inside of me. The way he let everything happen, his head slumped on his shoulders, his mouth shut. The emptiness of his affection. It gave me the guilt of not being enough, of not being worthy.”

Zoya kept going, averting Nikolai’s eyes. “Yelling is easy to counter. It enrages you, fires you up, picks at your pride. Silence is different; it cuts you slowly, drains your blood drop by drop, renders you powerless. How do you fight a wall made of nothing?”

His gentle touch moved to her jaw, tracing the lines of her face, grounding her to earth. 

“I feel it. I can see it.” Every word she got out seemed to force a split into the void. Warmth flood in, rage went out, passing through her like a blade. The dragon's eyes had opened, whether she had wanted it or not. She felt like drowning. “How unprepared they were. How powerless. The hatred that grew around their souls like thorn wood. It’s the same they have set upon me. I do not want that. I do not want this to be their legacy for me.”

Legacy. What was hers, in this life, and what was theirs? Zoya had Sabina’s eyes, Suhm’s wavy black hair. It gave her comfort to think her pride and her strength came from Lilyiana. Her wind and lightning was born from the making at the heart of the world. What, then? What had they been like, when they were just a boy and a girl in love, dancing under the moonlight? She had shrugged her name as if she could be born anew. Tossed the memories of them as if she could build a new life. That she supposed she had done, at least. Even with this new name, this new life, something of them still remained. The poisoned blood in her veins if nothing else. She could not cut them open and change it, and she had spent her life feeling it flow like a curse through her. 

“I cannot go on hating them.” The words were spoken as a shameful confession, as a defeat. As a realization too, however. Nikolai laced their fingers together, making her relent the hold on the kefta.

“Perhaps we should not hate them”, he said, careful and gentle. “Maybe the secret is that we need not pass judgment over them. Maybe the secret is to forgive them.” 

Zoya shook her head at Nikolai’s relentless goodwill and optimism. He had forgiven his mother that day in Os Kervo. He had forgiven the one who was not his father, he had delivered his punishment and moved on. And Zoya? She did not have any forgiveness left in her. The hatred, though. Whatever remained of it, she guessed she could try and leave it here, with the blue blossoms thriving from the earth like forgotten hope. 

Their legacy might have been just thorns, storms, and thunders. It might have been just the spite that had threatened to rot her insides. Still, it was an inheritance she could find the strength to relent. She could keep their eyes, their blood, Sabina combing her hair and Suhm telling her a goodnight story in his arms, even if she did not miss it, even if she did not remember what that felt like. Zoya was not Nikolai, she was not golden nor kind. She could not justify their weakness; she could not pardon both the screams and the silence. Maybe you could let go, though. She wasn’t sure if it was Juris’ voice or her own to cut through the mist of thoughts. Zoya bleeding in the snow. Zoya crying on her own. Let go.

The dam had broken, but the dragon queen did not drown. Hours could have passed, or minutes. Nikolai had put his jacket on her shoulders, the fabric thick and warm. He had not spoken anymore, just sat with her in the quiet as the sun disappeared. At some point, when the chill had started creeping in her bones, he had tugged her up and walked her to her chambers, dismissing the Heartrender twins who stood guard on her door with a wave of his hand. Zoya had let him handle her, leaning in his touch. Only when the lock clicked, she had let herself release her breath, slumping in her favourite velvet sofa. The crackle of the fire was comforting. Nikolai had called for tea, murmured something in her ear she did not remember. He had sat on her desk next to her, working through some documents while she got back to herself. The familiar rhythm of their quiet caught on, enveloping the room, soothing as a cold cloth on an open wound.

Time did not matter anymore. Zoya had the cup in her hands, the fire in front of her, and Nikolai’s jacket still curled around her. His scent was tight on the fabric. It lulled her into a silent calm, along with the rhythmic pounding of her heart, the sound of Nikolai’s pen scraping the paper, of his hands scribbling, the muffled huff of his breath. Peace washed over her in a tide. 

“What is it like?” 

Zoya suddenly spoke, after what felt like an eternity. The tea had turned cold. She kept her look trained on the fire. Nikolai stilled, relenting whatever piece of work he was doing, arching a brow at her. The question was vague, at the very best. “Not being an only child”, she added. Now his attention peaked on her. 

He shuffled back the papers on her desk, got up and came to her. Moving her feet away, he eased himself on her sofa, letting Zoya stretch her legs over him, resting his hands on her calves and leaning his head on a cushion. His careful look never left her face, turned thoughtful as her question travelled his mind. 

“I adored my brother”, Nikolai started, slowly, “Worshipped him. Loved him with every fibre of my being. Until I did not anymore. We were not bound, or tight, and well – we all know how that turned out. It was an embarrassment and a weight, more than an anchor like I desired him to be. And I did desire that a lot.”

Zoya looked at him. She left the cup on the nightstand; as soon as her hands were free, Nikolai snatched one of them in his. “And Linnea?”, she asked. An affectionate smile curled his lips. 

“Linnea is…different. I feel the kinship – and not just because we both have a soft heart for ships. I know she is me, for some part, and I am her. She’s more grounded than me, more quiet, more practical.” He brushed a thumb over her palm, tightening the hold. “I guess that’s why she likes you. I am quite scared at how much you two get along, frankly. And she has this creative, restless energy, she is charming in her own silent way, brilliant. Sometimes it’s like I’m looking inside some sort of distorted mirror. In some life I may have had if I took a different path.” 

Yet, the choices they had been forced to make forged a solitary childhood for them. A lonely boy looking for sounds to fill his deafening silence, a vengeful girl screaming her rage over lost love. Had they been choices at all? When had they stopped being their parents’ sins, and had they become their own? How long can you blame a mother’s failings, how long can a daughter or a son be defined by rage and guilt? Zoya could see the same query behind Nikolai’s eyes. He spoke again, tentative, a vulnerable edge to his voice. The lonely boy, looking for hope in the vengeful girl. 

“I want her to know me. I want her to care for me, to be honest. I feel protective of her. I feel like I cannot wait to show her every wonder I know of. The wonder of life, of adventure. The wonder of romance”, he managed to wink at her, “I wish to be for her the brother Vasily never was for me. To make up for lost time. This is idiotic, right?” 

He huffed at the end, as if he could dismiss the intense desire for a family that still haunted him; there was a slight plea in his look, darkened under the dim light of the fire. Zoya felt an ache in her throat, and she knew there were tears in her eyes. She could feel them clouding her sight. They belonged to the little raven-haired child that silently cried alone in a corner, in all her nightmares. It was not a cry for grief, but one of deluded wanting. She leaned in, brushing some golden strands from Nikolai’s face. He was looking at her like she was his light in the storm, even though he had just been the one to pull her back from a devouring pain. 

“We should have her here more often”, she said. Nikolai wiped one of her tears away. “We should have them here more often. Linnea and your father. You deserve to have this family, Nikolai.” 

Nikolai stopped his hand on her neck, grinning wider at her. 

“Zoya, I already have one.” She frowned at him.

“I hardly count as a family. I am just me.”

“Then I’ll have two. So long as you stop referring to yourself as just you.” Zoya rolled her eyes, feigning annoyance. He started fidgeting with a loose silver bead on her kefta’s cuff. Another unnerving habit of his, the way he always snatched those away. “Why do you ask?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I wasn’t an only child. I would have had someone to shield and someone to shelter in. To give me purpose, I suppose.”

A little brother, a little sister whom she could watch grow up and think how much better than her they were, how much softer, how much worth preserving. Though it had not been like that, for Sabina and Lilyiana. It was best not to linger on what ifs. She huffed and shifted, suddenly nervous; time to face this problem head on. “You think I should help her, right?”, she asked, knowing damn well what the answer was. Needless to say, Sabina’s letter pleaded for Zoya’s support, lamenting her misfortunes, and praising her daughter’s victories. Especially the gifts she could share. Even if she had not stated it, Zoya was sure that a jewel or two would be just fine. Greedy and hollow like she remembered. 

“I think you should do what makes you comfortable.” Zoya shot him a threatening glare, and he chuckled. “Fine”, Nikolai added, “but don’t kill me. I think you’ll keep the weight on your chest as long as you do not help her. I think maybe it would bring you some peace to do it. Still, I support whatever decision you make.” He marked the last words, and she knew he meant it. 

“I don’t want to be the bearer of my mother’s misery.” Zoya despised herself a little while admitting it. An exasperated grunt erupted from her as she threw her hands in the air. “How can I feel responsible for her?”

“I guess that’s the curse of being a daughter. You can’t relent the blood in your veins, not anymore that you can ignore the good heart that thrived inside you behind all of your spite.”

Maybe the secret is that we need not pass judgment over them. Maybe the secret is to forgive them.

How she loathed when Nikolai was right. It made him insufferable. And unfortunately, he was right most of the time. Unbearably reasonable. He smirked, as if he could read her thoughts and sense his victory.

Zoya might have been an angry and unloved little thing, but that was not what she was anymore. She had been a soldier, a general, a loyal friend. She was a queen now. And most certainly not alone, she thought, gazing at the confident ball of sunshine seated next to her. Had this happened before the war, before knowing Nikolai, her crueler and colder heart would have prevailed and she wouldn’t have thought twice on this, burning the letter along with her sentiment. The beaming boy had definitely rubbed off on her.

“I can not forgive her, or them. I do not have it in me. And I cannot forget, not for now”, she said, cautious. That was what Lilyiana had always desired for her: to release the hold on her anger. For her, she could try. “But I can start by letting go. We can find her work in a factory, with a salary and some retirement money. I can provide her with a dignified life. That is all I can do. I will not get a letter from her anymore; I will not grant her audience or listen to her words. Someone will have to deal with this.” 

Juris roared inside her, clearly displeased. Hush, you lizard. How irritating of him. Be a dragon, bide your time and stop harassing me. Enough progress for today. Nikolai, on the contrary, smiled at her with relief, nudging her closer. 

“We will arrange it.” He let her rest her head in the crook of his neck, curling his arms around her. “Do you think you can close your eyes and rest for a while now?”. His voice was already coming from afar, as she inhaled deeply in his skin and her lashes fluttered closed with exhaustion. Zoya wished her days as queen would become less tiring, and she also wished they could always end in Nikolai’s safe hold. Her mind fell silent; the last thing she heard was his whisper hovering around her. “I got you, Zoya.”

Zoya could still be a daughter, could take the raven-haired child in her arms. Daughter of the wind. She could still be whole, worthy, and loved. We see you. She could be at peace. The world went black; yet, it was not dark.

[kingandfireheart]

What stories are left in ACOTAR: Elain edition

It is likely that the next installment of the ACOTAR series will cover Elain Archeron. Elain is probably the least developed character of the Inner Circle, and the only character (other than Amren and Lucien) whose perspective we haven’t seen yet. This post details her trauma, the issue of choice, Elain’s personality, the sweet innocent Elain image, and her various roles. 

Elain will definitely have to face her past trauma, which include:  

Graysen: grief, feeling of betrayal

The Cauldron and being kidnapped: trauma, feeling violated, becoming high fae

Her father: grief

Sisters: having a role in the Night Court, belonging there, being protected

Choices: 

Before I get into Elain’s role, I want to talk about a huge thing for Elain, which is choice. Rhysand spends ACOMAF and ACOWAR showing Feyre that she always has choices. Nesta struggles with this in ACOSF, and while Nesta does make choices to be more active - she kills the Kelpie, saves Feyre, saves her friends, she choses Cassian, and kills Briallyn. 

“I am not a thing to be controlled by you”, Nesta said icily. Everything in her life, from the moment she was born, had been controlled by other people. Things happened to her; anytime she tried to exert control, she’d been thwarted at every turn -- and she hated that even more than the King of Hybern.

Elain, who has suffered much of the same trauma as Nesta, will make her own choices in her book. Those choices will involve who she ends up with (I refuse to get into the Elucien/Elriel debacle here - I like both!), how she wields her power (as a seer, as high fae, as a Made person, as the Cauldron’s favorite, as a political pawn), and what she makes of the situations that happened to her. 

Elain has already shown that she can make good on a bad situation in ACOWAR, I’m excited to see how she keeps that up in her book: 

“This could end very badly, Elain.” // She brushed her thumb over the iron-and-diamond engagement ring. “It’s already ended badly. Now it’s just a matter of deciding how we meet the consequences.” (ACOWAR)

“I know your circumstances for coming here were awful, Nesta, but it doesn’t mean you need to be so miserable about it.” (ACOSF)

Sweet Innocent Elain: 

Elain’s persona in the Inner Circle is a sweet and innocent girl. She loves gardening and cooking. She is kind and cares about things like manners and propriety. Here are a few quotes that show that: 

Elain had always been gentle and sweet—and I had considered it a different sort of strength. A better strength. To look at the hardness of the world and choose, over and over, to love, to be kind. She had been always so full of light. (ACOWAR)

“You’re still lovely,” Mor said a bit gently. Elain offered a half smile. “I suppose that war makes wanting things like that unimportant.”Mor was quiet for a heartbeat. “Perhaps. But you should not let war steal it from you regardless.” (ACOWAR)

“What now?” Elain mused, at last answering my question from moments ago as her attention drifted to the windows facing the sunny street. That smile grew, bright enough that it lit up even Azriel’s shadows across the room. “I would like to build a garden,” she declared. “After all of this … I think the world needs more gardens.” (ACOWAR)

“I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elain is sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she’d disappoint you all.” “With time and safety, perhaps we’ll see a different side of her emerge.”(ACOSF Bonus Chapter)  

We know that there is a lot more to Elain than anyone gives her credit for - Cassian, Amren, Rhys, and even Nesta point this out on different occasions in ACOSF: 

Cassian: “Nesta was wrong to think Elain as loyal and loving as a dog. Elain saw every single thing Nesta had done, and understood why.”

Amren: “Elain, who is more than capable of defending herself against the darkness of the Trove, if she chooses to. Don’t underestimate her.”

Rhys: “I also think we haven’t seen all she has to offer. “Don’t forget that gardening often results in something pretty, but it involves getting one’s hands dirty along the way” “And torn up by thorns”

Nesta: “Elain stiffened, but refused to balk from whatever she beheld in Nesta’s gaze. “You think I’m to blame for his death? Challenge laced each word. Challenge - from Elain of all people. 

We also see Elain starting to take back her power in ACOSF when she steps up to look for the Dread Trove

“You do not decide what I can and cannot do, Nesta.”

“You can���t have it both ways. You cannot resent my decision to lead a small, quiet life while also refusing to let me do anything greater.”

“I am not a child to be fought over”

“I went into the Cauldron too, you know. And it captured me. And yet somehow all you think of it what my trauma did to you.”

Elain’s Roles: 

Sister: Elain has long been a mediator between Nesta and Feyre. She is the calmness that complements each of their fire, she is the one they each seek to protect. (I’m thinking of SJM’s fire/ice/stone metaphor for Manon, Asterin, and Sorrel). However, she is able to fight for what she wants with each of them, and use her skills to her advantage. Elain shows Feyre her remorse for the years when they are poor, which is why Elain and Nesta step up to help with the Mortal Queens.

 “Feyre gave and gave—for years. Let us now help her. Help … others.” (ACOMAF)

“And as for Feyre’s hunting during those years, it was not Nesta’s neglect alone that is to blame. We were scared, and had received no training, and everything had been taken, and we failed her. Both of us.” (ACOMAF)

Sweet, innocent Elain who vomited from the violence on the battlefields, who recoiled from Cassian’s weapons, does show that she is willing to fight for her sisters. 

Elain stepped out of a shadow behind him, and rammed Truth-Teller to the hilt through the back of the king’s neck as she snarled in his ear, “Don’t you touch my sister.”

Seer: Elain seemed to gain clarity once she realized what she was seeing. She says she can control her Seer talk, and actually uses this power to help Feyre find the Suriel in ACOWAR, and offers to do the same with the Dread Trove.  It isn’t clear if Elain’s refusal to acknowledge her powers stems from fear, lack of acceptance, or just the fact that she needed to be normal before she can embrace her new life. 

“Are you asking me that as her sister, or as a seer?” (ACOFAS)

“Then I will find it. I might require some time to ... reacquaint myself with my powers, but I could start today.” (ACOSF)

Made and Cauldron’s Favorite: Just like Nesta and Feyre, Elain is Made. All of the Like Calls to Like logic that applies to Feyre in ACOMAF with the Cauldron and the Book of Breathings and Nesta in ACOSF with the Dread Trove applies to Elain. Now that Nesta’s power is limited,  Elain may have to step up and use her power to help find the fourth Dread Trove item or with a new Cauldron-related task. The big distinguishing factor here is that the Cauldron likes Elain. 

The Cauldron purred in Elain’s presence as the King of Hybern slumped to his knees, clawing at the knife jutting through his throat. Elain backed away a step.

The Cauldron seemed to realize what she’d done, too, as his head thumped onto the mossy ground. That Elain … Elain had defended this thief. Elain, who it had gifted with such powers, found her so lovely it had wanted to give her something … It would not harm Elain, even in its hunt to reclaim what had been taken.

“You were Made by the Cauldron. You may track other objects Made by it as well... and because you are Made by it, you are immune to the influence and power of the Trove. You might use them, yes, but they cannot be used upon you.” 

Lucien’s Mate: Elain hasn’t been raised with the mating bond, she doesn’t care for it in ACOWAR when she tries to win Graysen back, but it is possible that after almost two years in the Night Court, and watching both of her sisters accept their bonds, that she may want to acknowledge it, or at least understand it. Being Lucien’s Mate also makes Elain a political pawn. Her presence in the Night Court ensures Lucien’s loyalty, and given that Lucient has ties to 3 of the seven courts and the human lands. Elain could potentially wield the power of those alliances (or destroy them based on her relationship with Lucien). 

“You are his mate. Do you even know what that means?”// “It means nothing,” Elain said, her voice breaking. “It means nothing. I don’t care who decided it or why they did—”// “You belong to him.”//“I belong to no one. But my heart belongs to you.”(ACOWAR)

“You couldn’t say a single word to him? A pleasant greeting?//“He brought you a present”// “And that entitles him to my time, my affections?”// “No. He is a good male. He cares for you.”// “He doesn’t know me.” //“You don’t give him the chance to even try to do so.”//“I don’t want a mate. I don’t want a male” (ACOFAS)

Elain, the wretch, had taken the seat between Feyre and Varian, about as far from Lucien as she could get.

Cassian’s heart strained at the pain etching deep into Lucien’s face as he tried to hide his disappointment and longing. Elain only shrank further into herself, no trace of that newfound boldness to be seen. 

Member of the Inner Circle: Elain insists that she is a member of the Night Court in ACOSF, and offers her help in tracking down the Dread Trove. . She is already an active member at Inner Circle dinners (seen in ACOFAS and ACOSF), and those bonds could continue to grow. 

“And he knew the cruelty of the Hewn City troubled her. But she hadn’t hesitated to come. When Feyre had offered to let her remain home, Elain had squared her shoulders and declared she was a part of this court -- and would do whatever was needed. ... He’d never once in the two years he’d known her found Elain to be plain, but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be part of this court... It sucked the life from her.”

Nuala and Cerrdiwen’s Friend: Elain has befriended the two half-wraiths who spy for both Azriel and Rhys. Give Elain’s powers for persuasion (”my sister Elain can convince anyone to do anything with a few smiles”)  and observation (”Nesta never spoke if afterward, I just observed”// “Elain’s brown eyes flickered, well aware of all that.” ), she could make an interesting spy or courtier.

“They’d spent more time with Elain than even I had. They understood her moods, what she sometimes needed.” (ACOFAS)

Nesta started, not having heard her sister approach She scanned Elain from head to toe, wondering if she’d been taking lessons in stealth either from Azriel or the two half-wraiths she called friends. (ACOSF)

[littlelovelyspiderling]

Unmasked

Spider-Man is forced to fight the Sinister Six while he’s sick, which leads to his enemies making unexpected discoveries about their arch nemesis.

Chapter 2

Doc Oc’s notoriously dull and empty lab was filled with bodies and excitement that evening. The Sinister Six piled eagerly into the large room as Octavius dumped a bloody, unconscious Spider-Man onto one of the examination tables. An uproar of cheers and laughter followed.

“The spider is finally squashed!”

“Is he still alive? No way he’s still alive.”

“Heart’s still beating, according to the computer.”

“Who cares? The little bitch finally got what was coming to him.”

“I wanna break his other leg. Can I break his other leg?”

“Now, now, listen, my comrades.” Octavius rose above the group on his metal limbs, tapping a glass against a bottle of champagne until the room fell quiet. “Before we continue, I think a win this spectacular deserves to be celebrated accordingly.”

Using the prehensile pincers at the ends of each tentacle, Otto poured and distributed the alcohol with ease, and everyone raised their glasses.

 “A toast to us, the greatest super villains to ever grace history!”

“Here, here!”

“And a toast to Spider-Man! The biggest, most obnoxious pain in all our asses—vanquished at last!”

Laughs and shouts preceded the communion. After downing his drink, Otto wiped his lips with a grin. 

“And as the leader of this great and glorious team, I am nothing if not giving to my loyal followers. Since you all deserve personal retribution for the many, many grievances this wretch has inflicted upon us, I promise each of you at least two minutes of reparation time to do to Spider-Man whatever you feel he deserves. Once we wring his throat dry of whatever information he possesses, he’s all yours. So long as I get to deal the final blow.” He chuckled. “Well, if he survives that long, anyway.”

“I’ll snap off all his fingers!”

“I’ll gag him with his own webbing!”

“I’ll pop his head like a grape!”

“I’ll zap him ’til his heart stops, then zap it back to life, then zap him dead again!”

“Revenge is sweet,” Octavius concurred, walking around the table to stand behind Spider-Man’s head. The rest of the Sinister Six went silent and gathered on either side of the fallen hero, with Rhino at his feet. “But first,” Doc continued, reaching forward with one of his mechanical tentacles. The tips of the metal prongs pinched the fabric at the top of Spider-Man’s mask.

“Let’s have a look at our arch enemy’s face.”

In one quick yank, the mask peeled off the hero’s head. Six pairs of eyes absorbed the bruised, pale face lying lifelessly before them—the face of their sworn nemesis. A face none of them were anticipating. Gradually, the grins and snickers faded away, replaced by furrowed brows and puzzled glances.

“Wait…” Electro said, breaking the long stretch of silence.

“I’m…confused,” Scorpion added.

“Is he—does he look—?”

“Like…a kid?”

Everyone’s gazes rose to Octavius. The brilliant scientist looked between them and Spider-Man bewilderedly, his mouth hanging agape.

“I…” he began, rolling the hero’s head to the side. An ugly gash marred his left cheek; dried blood was smeared all the way to his hairline. “I don’t…understand.”

Spider-Man had the soft, innocent face of a child. It was the kind of face grandmas couldn’t resist pinching and puppies just had to lick. His hair was a wild mess of brown curls that was sticking up all funny because of how long he’d been wearing his mask. He severely lacked the sharp, signature features that defined man from boy. Hell, he even had acne: tiny constellations of it dotted across his chin and forehead. No way was he considered a legal adult by the state of New York yet.

Spider-Man was no man at all. Spider-Man was, in fact, a Spider-Kid.

Otto lifted his eyes to the others. He didn’t know what to say.

“It’s not him,” Scorpion suggested.

Sandman scoffed. “What do you mean, ‘it’s not him’?”

“Maybe this isn’t Spider-Man,” he said. “Maybe the real Spider-Man sent a double. Someone to stand in his place while he’s busy or whatever to keep us at bay.”

“Spider-Man’s despicable if he’s sending some kid to fight his battles for him. Doesn’t sound like his style.”

“I don’t know! I’m just brainstorming here! I mean, you saw how pathetic he was today. Spider-Man normally puts up a better fight than that.”

“Yeah,” Electro said nervously. “Maybe it’s not him.”

“He was sticking to things and shooting webs and mouthing off just like the real Spider-Man always does,” Shocker retorted. “I’m pretty sure this is him.”

“Silence!” Octavius shouted, holding up his fist. He turned to the large screen on his right. “Computer, run biological and forensic diagnostics on Spider-Man.”

A series of beams and lasers scanned across the hero, gathering and analyzing information. About a minute later, a robotic voice spoke up.

“Facial and DNA match confirmed,” the A.I. replied. “Subject is Peter Benjamin Parker. Born to parents Richard and Mary Parker on August 10th, 2001. Age: fifteen. Address: 42-42 80th St, Queens, NY 11373. Current occupation: Intern at Stark Industries and sophomore high school student at Midtown School of Science and Technology.”

Stinging disbelief pricked all of them. Rhino’s jaw fell.

“Fifteen?”

“Sophomore?”

“High school?”

It was strange to finally be able to put a name and face to someone they had all known only as a masked caricature for so long. Peter Parker. Peter. And yet, the face still had everyone reeling to the point that the name hardly registered. Otto slammed a metal arm against the table.

“Shut up, all of you!” he spat. “Computer, relay back all the biological data you’ve gathered on Spider-Man.”

“Confirmed,” the A.I. said. “Subject’s current heart rate is 52 bpm. Subject’s current blood pressure is the 79mmHg. Subject’s current temperature is 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit.”

“None of those sound normal,” Sandman said with a snort.

“Relay DNA findings,” Doc Oc barked impatiently.

“Confirmed. Subject’s DNA is mutated and abnormal. Subject’s blood emits low levels of gamma radiation. Subject’s genome is human combined with an unidentifiable species of arachnid.”

Everyone’s eyes snapped up at once. The realization drizzled over them like baleful mist.

“Oh my god,” Sandman breathed. “It’s him.”

“You mean he’s actually part spider? Gag!”

With a scoff, Electro stepped away from the table, cupping his hands against the back of his neck. “You’re kidding me. You’re shitting me. You’re telling me this is the person I’ve been trying to kill this whole time? This is the guy I’ve been frying like a mozzarella stick?” He kicked a trash bin across the room. “Dammit! I do a lot of bad things, but I’d never knowingly hurt a child!”

“Spider-Man is just some fifteen-year-old high school brat?” Rhino said, pouting his lip. “Geez. I can’t believe we just beat the shit out of some kid.”

“Spider-Man is not just some kid!” Otto roared. “Who cares about his age! Have you all suddenly forgotten how much this bastard has antagonized every last one of us? How he’s foiled our plans and ruined our lives again and again for the past two years?”

Sandman pressed the heels of his hands to his temples. “Oh my god. Does that mean I’ve been beating him up since he was fourteen? My niece is three years older than him, and I can’t imagine putting her through what I’ve done to him!” He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head. “What kind of monster am I...?”

“I broke his damn leg,” Shocker said distraughtly. “And I enjoyed it.”

“Hell, guys…this is so messed up…”

Five members of the Sinister Six stewed in a sauna of shame and guilt. Octavius refused to join them.

“You spineless morons! All of you! Our enemy lays defeated in front of us, yet you choose to wallow in remorse! We should be celebrating! Nothing has changed! He’s young—so what? That doesn’t undermine all the frustration he’s caused us, or our glorious victory over him! Come on, now! Raise your glasses with me! To the Sinister Six! Guys...?”

Nothing he said could wipe the queasy looks off all their faces, or the guilty stickiness he felt in his own gut. Everything—all of this—it just felt wrong.

Sandman stood over Spider-Man and gingerly placed his hand against his forehead. It was startlingly hot and damp with sweat. “Computer, why is Spider-Man’s temperature so damn high? What’s the cause?”

A couple seconds later, the A.I. pinged. “Confirmed,” it said. “Subject has a norovirus infection. It appears subject has been infected for at least twenty-four hours. Norovirus is commonly diagnosed as gastroenteritis or the stomach flu. Symptoms include fever, cramps, dizziness, lightheadedness, and nausea.”

A groan swept through the room. Scorpion crossed his arms against the table and buried his head between them.

“He’s sick. That’s why he seemed so sluggish and off during the fight. Because we were beating up a sick kid.”

“Shit. Last time I had the stomach flu, I didn’t leave my bed for two days. He really thought he could take us on in his condition?”

“Not like we really gave him a choice,” Shocker murmured.

“The little punk probably didn’t even think twice about it,” Sandman said miserably. “After all, his dumbass adolescent brain is still developing.”

Rhino sulked. “Yeah, as long as we didn’t permanently damage it...”

The Sinister Six fell into a dreadful silence.  

At that moment, Spider-Man coughed. The group jumped and gasped, automatically assuming defensive positions with their fists raised, weapons drawn, and muscles coiled.

Spider-Man coughed again, his head lolling to the left, but he didn’t wake up. A collective sigh passed everyone’s lips. Electro went lax, his hands falling to his sides.

“So…um…what the hell do we do now?”

Scorpion frowned at him. “What do you mean?”

“Like, what do we do? We have him here, beat to a pulp. What are we going to do with him?”

For the first time, Spider-Man was at the complete mercy of his most powerful enemies. And for the first time, none of them wanted to chop off his head and impale it on a spike. 

Sandman gazed across the bruises on his face, the road burn striped across his limbs, the bloody puncture wound in his chest. His swollen leg, his black eye, the charred fabric and flesh. He hadn’t allowed himself to take all the damage in for what it was until now. A truly abominable and grisly sight.

“He won’t survive long if we just leave him like this,” he said quietly.

Again, all eyes rose to Dr. Octopus. Otto grimaced between their pitiful looks, their reluctantly pleading stares. Pathetic! he wanted to shout, but he couldn’t find the will to conjure the word—any words.

Soon enough, he felt his own callous facade melting away. He sighed.

“I…I suppose keeping him alive is in our best interest. For now.” He cleared his throat and pulled the goggles off his face. “I’ll clean and treat his injuries as best I can. At least to the point that they’re not life-threatening.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Go—get some rest, all of you. We’ll, uh—we’ll regroup in the morning.”

The Sinister Six exchanged nervous looks with each other, then turned back to the face of the half-dead fifteen-year-old in front of them. Hesitantly, they filed out of the room and up the stairs, shooting a couple anxious glances over their shoulders before climbing out of sight.

The room was eerily quiet now that it was just the two of them. An evil scientist and an unconscious super-child in spandex. The only noises were the beeps from the monitor on his right and the kid’s shaky, labored breathing.

“You’re really something, you know that?” Octavius scoffed. “Of course, now that we’ve finally bested you, this is what we end up with. This is what you are.”

With a thought, the claws at the end of one of his tentacles reconfigured into large shears. The material that made up Spider-Man’s suit was tough, but with a few strategic cuts and snips, Doc was able to tear through and peel the clingy fabric off his body. Now that he was stripped down to nothing but his boxers (which had tiny cartoon Iron Men on them, a sight that made him snort, despite his efforts not to) the devastating harm they’d inflicted upon him was painfully evident. The ratio of undamaged flesh to damaged flesh was sickeningly skewed toward the latter. There was so much to tend to, he wasn’t sure where to start. And it wasn’t like his doctorate had been in medical care.

“We really did a number on you, didn’t we Spider-Man?” Otto murmured. He looked back at the screen. “I mean…Peter. Peter Parker.”

The name felt salty on his tongue. He didn’t like how it humanized him, transforming the famous vigilante from vexing public figure to baby-faced teenager. He’d always dreamt of unmasking the scourge that was the elusive Spider-Man. Now he wished the day had never come.

He left Peter’s side to grab the medical kit from under the sink. Then he got to work, undoing the damage they had reaped.

___________________________________

“Computer, summarize what you’ve gathered on Peter Parker’s personal life.”

Roughly four hours later, Octavius flopped into a chair by the kid’s side, exhausted. He had treated all the wounds he had the capacity to treat, hooked him to an I.V. full of fluids and electrolytes, and was now monitoring his steadily improving vitals. The kid was a suture-filled, burn cream-lathered, bandaged-up mess, but at least he was on the mend instead of his death bed. Seemed like a good time to take a break and do some research on the person behind their friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

“Confirmed,” the A.I. responded. “Compiling personal file.”

A slide with pictures and lists regarding Peter’s life materialized on the screen.

“Peter Parker was born in Queens, New York and still lives there today. He lived in a house in Forest Hills until 2005, then moved into the apartment complex he currently lives in now.”

“A house in New York City?” Otto scoffed. “How lavish. Why the downsize?”

The A.I. enlarged a photograph—a man and a woman holding a bright-eyed, squishy-faced toddler sporting a familiar headful of brown curls.

“Peter’s biological parents, Mary and Richard Parker, died in a plane crash in March of that year.”

A knot formed in Otto’s gut as he stared at the happy family portrait. “Oh,” he said.

“Orphaned at age four, Peter was then adopted by his aunt and uncle, May and Ben Parker. They couldn’t afford to live in the house in Forest Hills, so they moved Peter into their apartment nearby.”

Another picture floated up, this one of a different couple hugging a slightly older version of the curly-haired toddler. After that, a series of images flashed across the screen—young Peter at Central Park, at a science fair, at the zoo, at home, on the subway, on the Brooklyn Bridge, passed out on a couch. With each new picture, he got bigger, older, but not by much. Sometimes his aunt and uncle were with him. Sometimes he was with others his age. Sometimes he had on glasses as thick as windshields. His smile was wide as the sun and just as bright.

In the last picture, he was standing next to Tony Stark, holding an upside-down certificate congratulating him on his acceptance as a Stark Industry’s intern.

“Barf,” Otto muttered, but he couldn’t displace the warm, uneasy feeling he got when he looked at Peter’s smiling face. He really was just a kid. A young, dorky, stupid kid. A kid they’d beat into the dirt ten times over.

“Last year, May Parker became Peter’s sole guardian.”

Octavius blinked, his shoulders tensing. “What happened to the uncle? Ben Parker?”

“Ben Parker was murdered last April by an unknown shooter. The culprit was never caught.”

Octavius swallowed, staring at the photograph of Spider-Man’s uncle. Then he turned back to the mummified teenager on the table beside him. For an instant, something he never thought he could feel for the spider-themed superhero brushed his heart. 

Sympathy.

With a huff, Otto stood from his chair. “Come along then, arachnid,” he said, lifting the kid and the I.V. stand in his metal arms. “Let’s find you a more comfortable spot to rest.”

It was well past 4am by the time Octavius slumped into his own bed.

[tchallasbabymama]

Isn’t She Lovely

Hey beautiful people, here’s chapter 11 of Playlist. Check out my masterlist here to catch up and to read my other stories.

Also, In a couple weeks I’ll be starting up “Ménage `a Trois”, a T’Challa x  OC x M’Baku throuple fic. Check out the preview here! Word count: 6800

CW: pregnancy complications, a lil smut

“What about T’Kiri?”

“What is it with you all and these apostrophe names? No. How about Adana?”

T’Challa shook his head and scrunched up his nose.

“I hooked up with an Adana once, pass.”

Ashanti rolled her eyes, “Well maybe if you weren’t such a whore back in the day this would be easier.”

Shuri caught the tail end of their conversation and cackled loudly as she entered the kitchen.

“Still trying to come up with names?” She asked as she sat next to Ashanti, now towards the end of her second trimester. The princess grabbed a mango and started slicing away, handing some to Ashanti without her even needing to ask. 

“Yes, and half of the girl names I suggest remind your brother here of his sordid past.”

T’Challa rolled his eyes as he continued to fix her a plate of fish and plantains, her latest craving combination. “My past is not sordid, in fact it was quite fun-”

Ashanti stared at him with vibranium daggers in her eyes and he changed his tune, clearing his throat.

“What I mean is, um-”

“Mmmhm. Anyways, this baby will be here before we even know what to call them,” Ashanti put her head in her hands and Shuri rubbed her back.

“Are you open to suggestions?”

“Sure, why not?” Ashanti gave in.

“I’ve always liked Jendayi for a girl.”

“Jendayi…”

“Jendayi…”

The parents both rolled the name around their mouths and looked to each other for confirmation.

“Ok I like it, it’s going on the list.”

“How many names do you have so far?” “We have Nailah, and Jendayi for a princess. A prince would either be Dakarai, Hasani, Kendi, Shaka, or Omari.” Ashanti pulled the prince names out of thin air since they knew they were having a girl, but wanted to throw her off their trail.

“Oooh, good choices.”

“Thank you,” she playfully stuck her tongue out at T’Challa and he gave her the “you’re gonna get it later” look. Her face got hot and she looked away, knowing she had been working his nerves all day long. Ashanti dug into her food and smiled at how even when she was being difficult he would pull out all the stops for her. He scooped some fish and plantains onto his plate and stood with his back against the counter, devouring his food.

“So I see you two are still on that weird ‘baba pregnancy’ thing.”

“Thank Bast for the heart shaped herb or I wouldn't be able to fit into my suit,” T’Challa mused before he and Shuri heard a small sniffle.

“Lucky for you. I feel like an elephant.”

“Oh, my love, I didn’t mean-”

“I know, I just. Ugh, hormones,” she laughed through her tears and he came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and rubbing her baby bump as he rested his head on top of hers, wishing his baby girl would kick for him.

The princess watched the adorable interaction and sighed. The more she saw of Ashanti’s pregnancy, the more she realized she would never put herself through that ever in her life. Shuri felt she was destined to be the Cool Aunt, not someone’s mother.

“Well I just came for a snack, I’ll see myself out before the two of you start practicing for baby number two.”

They chuckled, but understood. Lately they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other and oftentimes forgot to tone it down when there were other people in the room.

“We can behave, we promise.”

“Speak for yourself,” T’Challa grumbled into her ear, causing her to giggle.

Shuri wretched loudly as she left the room.

“She’s so easy,” T’Challa laughed at his sister’s habit of disappearing whenever they got too close.

“She’ll be a great auntie though. Imagine her teaching our little girl, she’ll be a genius!”

“Who do you think taught Shuri?” he asked, slightly taken aback. 

“I just sort of assumed she came out the box fully assembled.”

He laughed at her and reached for her plate.

“No, I’ll get it baby, you do so much for me,” she turned around on her stool and gave him a kiss before hopping off and grabbing her plate. Before she made it around the counter T’Challa got a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach and she faltered, dropping the dish with a loud crash and fainting into his arms.

When she woke up she was in Shuri’s lab with her midwife, Binta, T’Challa, and Shuri all surrounding her. 

“What happened?”

“You fainted, love,” T’Challa’s voice was shaky.

“Am I...is the-”

“They’re ok, but dear...you have preeclampsia. Your blood pressure is through the roof, it’s amazing this didn’t happen sooner,” the midwife, Ramla, pointed out. “And you’re lucky the king was there or it could have been much worse.”

T’Challa intertwined their fingers and squeezed her hand. She could tell he was shaken up.

“Ok so what now?” the queen asked. Binta grabbed her other hand and looked to both the soon-to-be parents.

“You’re on bedrest, sweetie.”

“What does that mean?”

They all locked eyes with each other in a silent conversation.

“It means we need to keep your stress levels down so you and your baby can stay healthy.”

“You mean, keep me from getting worse…” her voice softened from the emotions welling up inside her.

T’Challa looked to the midwife and she nodded before leading everyone else out of the room. Once they were alone her tears flowed freely and he wiped them away, letting a couple of his own fall right along with hers. 

“You scared me, Kitten,” his hand found its way to his daughter, like always. “I thought I lost you...both of you.” 

“We’re here, baby,” her hand cupped his face and brought his lips down to hers. She kissed him lightly and wiped away his tears now. She knew that although anybody would have been scared in that situation, T’Challa was especially worried about the same thing happening to Ashanti that happened to his mother, and now his worst fears were coming true. She kissed him again and he leaned against the table to get closer. “I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.” 

“You better not, I’ll go drag you back myself.”

Ashanti chuckled, but she knew he meant every word.

--------

T’Challa pulled up to the small home on the outskirts of town and parked his hoverbike around back before heading up to the door and knocking. When the door opened he was met with the sight of a short and stout woman with long gray hair braided down her back. Her face lit up when she saw him and her warm eyes crinkled as she smiled. Her smile was short-lived though as she quickly reverted to fussing at him.

“It’s been too long, T’Challa.”

“Yes ma’am, I know. My apologies.”

“Mhm, get in here.” she opened her arms and he came in for one of her famous hugs that made all your problems disappear.

“You should stop by and say hi to your old nanny more often,” Ada chastised him. “But I’m glad to see you. Come in, make yourself at home. Are you hungry? I just finished dinner, I’ll get you a plate.”

He wasn’t, but he knew better than to turn down food from Ada. 

“So what brings the king to my doorstep?”

“Ada, you changed my diapers, I’m not ‘the king’ to you.”

“See that’s where you’re wrong, you were always a king. Plus it’s just so funny to say ‘I used to wash the king’s ass’,” she set down a plate just as he took a seat, both laughing. “So, what’s bothering you?”

“Why does something have to-” 

“Boy please, get to talking.”

He had hoped he could work his way up to the conversation, but Ada could always read him like a book. He let out a deep sigh and leaned back in his seat.

“It’s Ashanti…”

“Hormones driving you crazy already? It’s just going to get worse from here, so strap in.”

“No, well yes, but I can handle her mood swings...mostly. It’s about her health...she was diagnosed with preeclampsia just the other day and I…,” he sighed again and ran his hand down his face.

“I understand,” she said, taking his hand in her much smaller ones. “T’Challa she’s not your mother.” 

“I know that on some level, but it’s the same ailment and I just can’t get those thoughts out of my head.”

“Of course.”

“And she still hasn’t kicked-”

“She? Awwww, you’re going to spoil her rotten.”

“That is what Ashanti and mama say. You all act as though I have no self-control.”

“You won’t once she stares up at you with those big brown eyes and goes ‘pleeease baba’. I’d bet money on it.”

“You three have no faith in me,” he chuckled as he shook his head.

“Oh I have all the faith in the world, dear. You’ll be a great baba, just as I’m sure you are a great husband.”

“I am trying. She’s supposed to be on bedrest relaxing until the baby comes, but you know her.”

“Mmmhm, stubborn as a rhino,” Ada said, head shaking from side to side. “I bet getting her to stay in bed takes an act of Bast.”

“It’s been two weeks and she’s already going stir-crazy. I just wish I could do something, I feel so helpless.”

“All you can do is keep that woman off her feet and away from stressors.”

“Ugh, she lives for stressors. I can’t get her to stop working. You know, she almost went down to Taj’s yesterday.”

Ada let out a belly laugh. She had known Ashanti almost her whole life, too. When her parents opened Zana Cafe, Ashanti would be across the street in her art supply store all the time browsing the aisles and coming up with all kinds of creative ideas. She knew the girl was head-strong, but her downright stubbornness tickled Ada. Ashanti was hard headed just like her umakhulu, and just like her husband.

“You’re not much better. Ramonda told me they basically had to drag you from the throne kicking and screaming when you caught that bug a few years ago. The image in my head is quite hilarious.”

“It wasn’t that dramatic, and I’ve since learned to take days off. If I hadn’t I never would have met Ashanti.”

“Yes, well thank Bast for-”

“Small miracles,” he smiled at her, completing her sentence. She would always say that to him when he was younger, and it stuck with him into adulthood.

“So you did listen to me,” she said with a smirk.

“Of course, more than my own baba at times,” he said sheepishly. “How have you been, Ada?”

“Getting old, but I can’t complain too much.”

“Ada you’re barely 70, you’ve got another 30 years in you.”

“Tell that to my bones,” he waved him off and he chuckled. “I can barely take a step without something aching or rattling.”

“You know, Shuri can help with that. Not the aging, but the pains.”

“I might have to take you up on that. How old is she now, nineteen?”

“Just turned twenty last month.”

“Bast, you kids are getting old. I can’t even call you kids anymore.”

T’Challa smiled warmly at his former nanny, reminiscing on his childhood before taking a bite of his meal.

“Mmm, Ada you’ve outdone yourself.”

“I know,” she winked at him and took a sip of her tea. “So, while you’re here can I get you to change a lightbulb for me?”

“Of course, you don’t have to bribe me with food,” he said and she shrugged, reaching for his plate as he moved it away from her hand. “I’ll take it though.”

T’Challa spent the afternoon with Ada, just catching up and doing odd jobs around her house before he got a call from his wife.

“You’ve been hiding out here all day, you better take that,” Ada warned as he took a deep breath and pressed his communication bead.

“Hello, my love.”

“Hi baby, what are you up to?”

“Visiting someone special,” he turned his beads towards Ada and she sent the queen a wave. Ashanti’s face lit up at seeing the older woman.

“Miss Ada, hi!”

“Well hello miss thing, what’s this I hear about you not listening to the midwife?”

Ashanti glared at T’Challa but he looked off to the side, pretending to care about the wallpaper.

“I’m listening...kind of.”

“Well, ‘kind of’ isn't good enough dear. Our princess there-”

“Challa! You told her?!”

“It slipped out!”

“Can you blame him for being excited?”

“No, I guess not. Oh! The reason I called,” she panned her beads down to her belly, “I think I felt a flutter.”

“Awwww.”

“She kicked?!”

“Not a full kick, just a little movement. Maybe she needs her baba to come sing to her after he picks up some sugared dates from that booth we really like.”

“Gladly,” he chuckled. He knew she had a sweet tooth and had planned to bring her some anyway. They said their goodbyes and T’Challa finished up dusting the fan blades before saying goodbye to Ada, too.

“Don’t let another year go by, T’Challa,” she fussed as he kissed her cheek.

“I wouldn’t dream of it! Come by the palace for dinner sometime, you know you’re always welcome. I’ll make your favorite,” he sang.

“Well if you’re cooking I’ll be there, just say when.”

“Tomorrow? N’Jadaka’s in town.”

“Oooh I’ll definitely be there. You know, if I were forty years younger I’d be your cousin-in-law.”

“Goodbye, Ada,” he chuckled as he took off on his hoverbike towards the bazaar.

--------

The King and Queen of Wakanda laid in their bed, silently watching trashy reality shows as they spoiled their dinner with sugared dates when T’Challa’s laugh made Ashanti sit up suddenly.

“What’s wrong?!” T’Challa panicked, his hand immediately going to her bump.

“Nothing, I thought I felt something.”

The two of them stayed still waiting to see if their baby girl was finally ready to make herself known. They must have sat there for five minutes before T’Challa gave up hope.

“Maybe next-”

“I felt it again!”

“Where?” 

She moved his hand over to her left side and they locked eyes.

“Say something again…”

“Uh, what do I say?”

“Did you feel that?”

“No, nothing,” his voice was soft as he visibly deflated.

“Hey,” she brought his face back to hers and kissed him softly, “she’ll kick soon, I can feel it...no pun intended.”

He chuckled and kissed her back.

“Maybe try talking to her some more, she seems to like your voice,” she stroked his curls as he laid his head right below her breasts, his large hand rubbing slow circles around her belly.

“Molo isipho sam, it’s your baba. Will you kick for me? Please?”

“Keep going, I feel that flutter again in the same spot.”

He brought his lips down to kiss over it before placing his hand there.

“Come on, baby girl…”

They spent the rest of the night like that, ordering their dinner to be brought to them so T’Challa could continue coaxing his daughter out of hiding. He spent the whole night periodically checking in with her to see if anything had changed, but she just wasn’t ready to kick yet. He was a little hurt, but was happy to know she responded to his voice. Even as Ashanti drifted off to sleep he continued to talk to his little girl about nothing and everything before wrapping his arms around his wife and following her to dreamland.

--------

T’Challa sat up from the dirt and looked around, confused by his surroundings. His heart beat out of his chest when he saw the far-off acacia tree filled with panthers.

“Relax, son, you’re not dead.”

His head jerked to the side and he locked eyes with N’Yami.

“Wh...how am I here?”

“Bast’s will. And I wanted to talk to you, unyana,” she reached out her hand to him and he took it, rising from the ground and dusting himself off. 

“Is something wrong? Is it Ashanti? The baby?!”

N’Yami chuckled, “No, it is you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you’re going to worry yourself to death about this pregnancy.”

“I’m just concerned about-“

“History repeating itself...I know, that’s why I brought you here,” she said with a smile before grabbing his hand, “walk with me, son.”

The two of them strolled along the plane in relative silence until they came upon the same lake Taj brought Ashanti to when she was in her coma. N’Yami waved her hand across the water and as the ripples travelled across the surface they carried an image with them. T’Challa could see himself asleep with his wife, chest rising and falling in rhythm.

“See? Not dead. Now look at this.”

She waved her hand across it in the other direction and another image came to view of T’Challa and Ashanti walking with a little girl teetering between them, holding their hands while she looked up at her baba. Much like his dreams of Ashanti before they met, he couldn’t make out his daughter’s face, but the sight of the three of them together warmed his heart. He felt his entire body relax, releasing tension he didn’t even realize he was holding on to. A big, lopsided smile took over his whole face and N’Yami looked on with pride as they both watched him with his family.

“I can’t see her face, but she’s beautiful,” he said in awe of his daughter. “Can you tell me her name?”

N’Yami chuckled, “It is not Bast’s will for me to do so...but you should know, the two of you chose well.” She winked and he smirked at her cryptic answer before turning his attention back to his daughter. 

He could have sat there all night watching her, but he knew he’d have to get back to the plane of the living soon enough so he tried to commit every detail he could to his memory. 

“Thank you for this, mama,” he hugged her and kissed her temple. They stayed like that for a few moments until N’Yami pulled away and looked at her son with a hint of mischief in her eyes.

“You should also know, she is a very special child...as is your wife.”

“How do you mean?”

“You’ll see,” she said with a snap of her fingers. T’Challa opened his eyes to see he was back in his bed with Ashanti, very much alive and sated with knowing his girls would be fine.

Just as he was about to get his day started, Ashanti rolled over and threw her leg across him before nuzzling into his side. He placed his arm around her and his other hand rested on her bump. Ashanti’s light snores filled the air as he rubbed her belly in circles with a smile on his face, thinking back to his dream. It was a little fuzzy, but he remembered seeing his birth mother and deep down he was no longer worried about Ashanti and their princess. As Ashanti slept he let his mind wander to thoughts of their future. Would they have more children? When would they step down? When would he let her take over being the Black Panther?

“So many questions, little one,” he mused aloud as he sighed, but his eyes quickly lit up at feeling the smallest little tremor right under his hand. 

“So you do like my voice, eh?” he felt it again and Ashanti shifted next to him, undoubtedly feeling the movement as well.

“Wake up, Kitten,” he whispered in her ear and a smile spread across her face before her eyes slowly fluttered open. “Watch this.”

He lowered himself to her belly and his eyes flitted back up to Ashanti.

“How was your sleep?”

“It- Bast! Did you feel that? You had to have felt that one.”

He nodded with a goofy smile on his face, “Just a little bit.”

Tears came to Ashanti’s eyes as she sat up in bed. More came and T’Challa grew concerned, pulling her into his arms.

“What is it, uthando? Talk to me,” he tilted her chin towards his face and wiped her tears before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“I was worried something was wrong since she hadn’t moved yet,” the queen sniffled.

“She’s ok, just a late bloomer,” the smile returned to his face as he felt movement beneath his palm.

“She really loves her baba.”

“Can you blame her?”

“Uh-uh,” she leaned in to kiss him, slipping her tongue past his lips.

“Kitten…” he warned, “The midwife said-”

“Ugh I know what she said, but I’m horny as fuck. That’s gotta be another stressor or something, right?”

He laughed at her insistence. “Only if you choose to stress about it, my love. Don’t make me call Binta...or Bisa.”

“You wouldn’t dare…”

“Wouldn’t I? You won’t listen to me, so-,�� he pretended to reach for his beads.

“Ok fine!” Ashanti pouted and T’Challa chuckled at her bratty behavior.  

“You act like I don’t miss it, too. Trust me, the second you’re all healed up, you’re in for it.”

With that he got out of bed and padded his way to the shower, turning it on to their desired temperature and catching a glimpse of her out the corner of his eye as she walked into the bathroom, yawning. When she turned towards the shower his jaw could have dropped.

“You get more beautiful every day,” he pulled her in and his fingers trailed down the dark line down the middle of her stomach as she rolled her eyes. “What? I’m serious, look at you.”

He pulled her in front of the full-length mirror in the shower and stood behind her with his head on top of hers and his arms in their usual place on the underside of her belly. He studied her round face as she squirmed in his arms.

“Challaaaa,” she whined and poked out her lip, “I don’t feel like it.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how to explain it...I just don’t feel like it’s my body anymore. I don’t feel like myself, I don’t feel beautiful or sexy or any of that stuff you tell me. I just feel...sick that this body that’s supposed to keep my baby safe and do all these wonderful things could harm her instead,” she didn’t even realize she was crying until she felt T’Challa’s thumbs on her cheeks. She buried her head in his chest and sobbed as he stroked her back. “This was supposed to be a beautiful experience and it just sucks. Plus I’m constantly horny but I can’t even have sex with my hot ass husband. I fucking hate preeclampsia.”

“Me too, Kitten,” he sighed and she pulled back to look at him. She hadn’t really considered how he felt in all this, understandably wrapped up in her own web of emotions. “She will be fine though, I just know it. You both will.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He grabbed the loofah and squirted some of her black soap bodywash into the middle before lathering her up.

“Last night, I had a dream but it’s sort of fuzzy. N’Yami was there and...I think she gave me a glimpse into our future. I don’t remember what I saw, but I woke up happy.”

A slight smile appeared on her face.

“And as for the sex, well the midwife said if we can get your blood pressure down it’s a maybe...so let’s focus on keeping you relaxed, ok?”

Ashanti nodded before he grabbed her chin and forced her eyes on his. “Because I miss my pussy,” he kissed her passionately before he pulled back and rested his forehead against hers. “You walking around here looking like this while I can’t touch you is gonna come back to haunt you later, trust me. I know you don’t see it right now, but you look like Bast herself.”

T’Challa knelt down to wash her legs and feet and she moaned at the feeling of being pampered by him. He chuckled and rose to his full height before she began washing his body in return. He stopped her when she began to kneel, but she got down anyway.

He had missed how she looked from that angle and she tried her best to ignore his thickening member right in front of her face. He had just taken care of her, what harm could it do to return the favor?

She looked up at him with a playful look in her eye and just as he registered what she was going to do, his dick was already halfway down her throat.

Her head bobbed up and down his length as he leaned back against the shower wall, sloppy sucking noises filling the air. His hand palmed the back of her head, but didn’t push. It just stayed there, riding out the waves of pleasure shooting through him.

Her tongue explored the head of his dick as her left hand fondled his balls while her right hand stroked his shaft. He let out a loud moan when she took him all the way in and swallowed around him, deepening the suction as she did her damndest to suck the cum right out of him.

“K-kitten, mmm. Let me cum on that pretty face of yours,” he growled out. She removed her lips from him with a pop, but a trail of spit still connected her to him.

“Ewe Kumkani,” she said as she stroked his dick with both hands. “I hear you at night, in here stroking your dick because you can’t fuck me. Let me do it for you, baby.”

“Mmmhm,” was all he could say as her grip tightened around his length and her other hand cupped his balls, making his cum shoot out and paint her face.

“Stay just like that,” he grabbed his beads from outside the shower and pointed them towards her. She smiled as he snapped a picture of her covered in his essence. He helped her up from the floor and kissed her before they finished their shower and went their separate ways for the day: T’Challa to the throne room and Ashanti to the couch to catch another trashy tv marathon.

--------

“Are you sure you feel up to this? We can cancel if we need to,” T’Challa fretted as he put on her shoes for her since she couldn’t reach her feet anymore. She was eight months pregnant with their active little girl and was finally getting to have some fun for the first time since she was placed on bedrest. 

“Challa, we’re not cancelling my party. We’ll be fine, remember?” She alluded to his dream from several weeks ago as she took his head in her hand and brought it to her face for a kiss.

“I know, I just want you to be comfortable.”

“What’s more comfortable than being showered with gifts and praise?”

He chuckled and kissed her forehead then her nose then her lips.  He reached for his beads and she stopped him.

“If you call for that transport chair, I swear to Bast-”

“It’s too far for you to walk, my love.”

“It’s just downstairs, I’ll be fine if we walk slowly.”

T’Challa agreed before holding out his arm for her and the two of them leisurely walked downstairs to join their friends and family that awaited them for a small party in Ashanti and baby’s honor.

When they walked in they were met with the smiling faces of their loved ones all around the beautifully decorated living area. Ashanti’s eyes watered at the sight and everyone smiled empathetically at her tears. Bisa approached her daughter and led her to the throne she never gets to sit in anymore, what with being bedridden and all. They had it brought upstairs for the night just so she could sit on it like the proper queen she is.

“Look familiar?” Chidi joked as she sat down gingerly.

“Barely, I forgot what it looked like!” 

Everyone laughed and she looked around, confused.

“Where’s yours?” she asked her husband.

“Today is not about me, it’s about the queen.”

“Nah we got some stuff for you too, you just don’t get a throne,” N’Jadaka shouted from the kitchen, looking over the snack table before his auntie pulled him away.

T’Challa chuckled and made himself comfortable in a normal chair next to her. He couldn’t take his eyes off of how she looked sitting on that throne. Ashanti looked more regal than ever and he fell in love all over again. She caught him staring and he sent her a wink, so she sent him one right back.

Zina giggled at their interaction and Ashanti turned to ask her about the shop when T’Challa stopped her, “No work today, uthando.”

“How did you-”

“I know you,” he turned to their loved ones, “So, what now?”

“Now I get gifts,” Ashanti said with a devilish smirk on her face, making the room erupt in laughter.

“That you do dear, and I think your parents wanted to go first,” Ramonda stated, moving out the way so they could get to their daughter.

They were both already fighting tears as they hugged their baby girl tight. When they pulled back, Chidi handed her a gift wrapped box that she quickly tore into. When she removed the lid, she paused.

“Was this-”

“Yours, mhm. It’s your baby blanket,”  Bisa sniffled as Ashanti pulled the woven blanket from the box, tracing her fingers over the symbols and fighting tears of her own. She handed it to T’Challa and he looked over it like it was the most precious thing in the world.

Ada was next, pulling a stuffed panther from behind her back. 

“I made it myself,” she bragged as both of the soon-to-be-parents’ faces lit up. 

“Miss Ada, it’s beautiful!”

“Nothing but the best for our future prince or princess,” she said with a wink. So far she was the only person who knew the gender besides the two of them and they wanted to keep it that way for now.

One by one, their loved ones presented them with gifts for the baby and parents. N’Jadaka got the baby a tiny pair of limited edition Jordans, Zina and Jafari made the baby a little Taj’s apron and an IOU to paint a family portrait once the baby arrives, and Shuri made a bassinet that could track the baby’s vital signs and growth. M’Baku and Shani gifted them with furs to keep the baby warm when they visited their aunt and uncle in the mountains. Nakia got the future monarch hand-sewn vibranium cloth diapers, sure to keep in whatever messes they made. Naturally, Okoye gave them a small practice spear, and Steve and Bucky sent a box of Cuban cigars for T’Challa to crack open after the birth. However, Kwame and Binta’s gift was apparently not to be opened in public since it was “for when that pussy heals.” 

Ramonda purposefully went last, handing them a storybook of Wakandan folktales.

“Open it,” she said to T’Challa with a gleam in her eye.

He cracked it open and the kimoyo bead lodged in the spine of the book activated. A voice rang out that hadn’t been heard in years.

“One day, Ari the panther was out walking by the river when she looked up and saw a monkey swinging from the tree above…”

“H-how?” T’Challa choked out as Ashanti reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“He had the idea a long time ago and figured he should go ahead and do it ‘just in case’.”

Everyone, aside from N’Jadaka, who would truly never forgive his uncle in life or death, was misty-eyed. 

“Now they can know their umakhulu, even if it is just his voice.” 

“Thank you, mama. Thank you all, this has been…” his voice trailed off as his eyes found their way back to the storybook.

“You don’t have to thank us, we do it because we love you. All three of you.”

The little party continued through the night, with Ashanti on her throne looking to her loved ones with a smile on her face. Her right hand almost never left her bump as she thought about all the love their little girl would be surrounded by her whole life. She was lost in her thoughts for a moment before yawning and bringing herself back to the present. 

Bisa caught the tail end of it and shook her head, “Someone’s tired.”

“This is the most excitement I’ve had in months,” Ashanti chuckled “I guess I just can’t hang anymore.”

“You’ll get back to it once baby…” Chidi trailed off, hoping a name would slip out one of the parents’ mouths. “Oh, come on!”

“We haven’t even picked a name yet, baba. Actually,” she looked to T’Challa for confirmation and he gave a slight nod, “we were wondering if you all could each give us one suggestion.”

“No playing favorites, though!” Kwame pointed out, making everyone else nod along in agreement.

“Yes, you should not pick my suggestion just because it is mine, but because it is obviously the best,” M’Baku grinned from his corner of the room and Shani rolled her eyes at her husband’s antics.

“Everyone, text me your suggestions and I’ll send them over. I already gave them a name the other day,” Shuri offered the group and her beads already started buzzing before she could finish her sentence. About a minute later, all the names were in and Shuri sent them off to Ashanti’s and T’Challa’s beads. “There you go. Have fun picking my name anyway.”

As the group argued amongst themselves about whose name would win, Ashanti leaned into her husband and whispered in his ear, “I love this, but I can’t keep my eyes open and Baby Girl is cranky and won’t stop kicking. Can we go?”

T’Challa leaned down and kissed her belly, “Princess, be nice to your mama.”

The kicking stopped and Ashanti glared at T’Challa.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to do?”

“Apparently,” he shrugged and kissed her temple before standing up. “Let’s go, love.”

He reached out his hand and she grabbed onto it, rising from her throne.

“Thank you everybody. I love you all, but I can’t stay awake any longer or I might just pass out.”

“Go get some rest, dear,” Ramonda kissed her cheek before turning and kissing her son’s. “We’ll see you in the morning.”

The couple said their goodbyes and went back to their quarters. They quickly got undressed and slid into bed, immediately getting into their usual position as of late with Ashanti curled into his side with her leg thrown over him and his hand resting softly on her bump. However, the princess wasn’t ready to go to sleep after today’s excitement.

“Challa, tell your daughter to go to sleep, mama’s tired,” she whined as her child turned cartwheels in her womb.

He scooted down to her belly and placed a kiss on it, rubbing the sides and softly singing a lullaby his baba used to sing to him. He remembered that it always knocked him out, and apparently it worked for his wife and child, too. They were both out within minutes and he smiled at a job well done.

--------

Around 1am, Ashanti got up to go to the bathroom, as usual, but when she got back in bed she just couldn’t seem to get comfortable. T’Challa’s light snores filled the room as Ashanti sat up in bed, rubbing her belly and thinking about what their future would be like when she felt a wetness between her legs.

“The fuck?” She stood up and saw a wet spot on the bed that reminded her of the fun times she and T’Challa had in the past. However, while she was still the culprit, this time it was a little different.

She waddled her way to the bathroom and wiped herself up, but it kept slowly leaking out of her.

“This is it, she’s coming,” she said aloud to no one in particular with a smile on her face before waddling back to the bed and shaking the sleepy king awake.

“Mmm, ice cream or peanuts tonight?”

“Neither.”

His eyes opened slowly and he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Ok, do you want me to cook something?”

Ashanti giggled, “No...I think the baby’s coming-”

“What?! She’s early-”

“- but don’t panic, Binta said we have plenty of time from when my water breaks to when I actually start active labor.” She grabbed his hand, “Yes she’s early, but so were we. Calm down baby.”

T’Challa nodded, trying to remember anything Binta or Ramla had said over the last few months, but drawing blanks every time. “Ok, so what now?”

“First, I’m going to take a shower-”

“But-”

She held up her finger, silencing his protest.

“I’m going to shower before the serious contractions kick in, then we can talk about names. Binta said it’s all about staying comfortable until it’s go-time.”

He sighed, knowing he wouldn’t win the argument. “I’m coming with you.”

The two of them showered together and T’Challa kept a watchful eye on her as her face twisted in discomfort at the cramps coming from her womb.

“Are you sure this is ok?” 

Ashanti pulled him down and placed a soft kiss on his lips.

“I’m sure.”

They finished up their shower and he covered her in cocoa butter before doing the same thing to himself. T’Challa then stripped the sheets from the bed and the two of them laid down, pulling up the list of names on their beads. They argued over a few of them and one was already on their list, but one of the names stood out to both of them and they finally came to an agreement just as Ashanti’s contractions intensified.

“Ok we should start timing them,” she said through gritted teeth.

T’Challa nodded and set the stopwatch on his beads before texting Binta and updating her on Ashanti’s progress. Ashanti climbed out of bed and started walking around, one hand supporting her lower back and the other on the underside of her belly. T’Challa felt helpless as he watched her face contort in pain again, and looked down at his beads.

“Twenty minutes.”

Ashanti labored in their room for another hour or so before the contractions reached ten minutes apart and they transported her to the royal birthing chamber.

The birth was a blur. All Ashanti remembered was the feel of the warm water and her husband’s solid body behind her. She knew there had to have been pain, but seeing her daughter’s face when they laid her on her chest made it all disappear. Her parents wept when they first saw her and her first cries were music to their ears.

“Does she have a name?” Ramla asked as Binta wiped the new mother’s forehead with tears streaming down her face, too.

T’Challa spoke without tearing his eyes away from his daughter, “Siyanda. Her name is Siyanda.”

After Ashanti delivered the placenta, Ramla and Binta helped the new family out of the tub and into the bed. Ashanti’s eyes could barely stay open, so she fell asleep and T’Challa took his daughter into his arms.

“Hello, my princess,” she opened her eyes and stared up at her baba for the first time, causing his breath to catch in his throat. She had his mother’s eyes.

A little yawn escaped her tiny mouth and he was amazed as though he had never seen a yawn before. Every little thing she did blew his mind and as she yawned again he realized she was waiting on him.

He chuckled before shaking his head, “Oh I know what you want.”

He quietly cleared his throat and began singing to her softly, watching as she drifted off to sleep just like her mother.

“Isn't she lovely?

Isn't she wonderful?

Isn't she precious?

Less than one minute old

I never thought through love we'd be

Making one as lovely as she

But isn't she lovely made from love?

Isn't she pretty?

Truly the angel's best

Boy, I'm so happy

We have been heaven blessed

I can't believe what Bast has done

Through us She's given life to one

But isn't she lovely made from love?

Isn't she lovely?

Life and love are the same

Life is Siyanda

The meaning of her name

Ashanti, it could have not been done

Without you who conceived the one

That's so very lovely made from love”

Next Chapter

Taglist: @maddeningmayhem, @theblulife, @ljstraightnochaser, @determinednot2fall, @dersha89

[oneweekoneband]

In the first cold hours of a new December morning, Taylor Swift once again revealed herself to be the primary antagonist in my hero’s journey. Weary and woebegone as I am, I will not waste strength on any attempt to deny that this latest attack has knocked me off balance, but I believe it is important that I—we, really, the lot of us who have been bloodied pitiably beneath this most brutal show of force—rebound immediately into a defensive posture so that there might be any hope at all for survival. Taylor’s second pandemic album will be released at midnight tonight, so I guess Shakespeare and his little “play” about elder abuse can get fucked after all. The album is called evermore. It was hubris, I can see in retrospect, which led me to tempt my enemy by writing all these words about her on this, the week of her birthday, knowing as I do that Taylor is one of those especially dangerous adults who make a big deal about both birthdays and lucky numbers. Icarus is my name now, covered in melted wax and tumbling to the sea. So as to steel ourselves for these horrors yet to come, I offer now, with not arrogance but the faith of the foolhardy, my best conjecture as to the content of each detestable track. 

willow - Could be about a tree. Could be about a girl. More likely it is both somehow, which is extremely pervy, and not just because that’s part of the plot of the unspeakably cursed The Raven Cycle novels, which I, a full blown adult with, generally speaking, normal brain function, voluntarily read for the first time this summer because some of us, ma’am, used the pandemic for activities that hurt only ourselves, not others. Well, happy holidays, tree fuckers.

champagne problems - Whatever this is, know that I will be considering it a work after Fall Out Boy’s “Champagne for My Real Friends, Real Pain for My Sham Friends” and I’ll be right to do so and many people will say as much admiringly and they’ll smile at me with pride and doff their caps as I go.

gold rush - If this song is anything but a loving, comprehensive summation of the children’s novel DEAR AMERICA Seeds of Hope: The Gold Rush Diary of Susanna Fairchild then I’m going to walk directly out of my home and, deadly virus be damned, keep walking until I’ve entered Taylor Swift’s instead, at which point I will begin to scream out a litany of complaints at the very top of my voice, ceasing only when her security team kills me or we fall in love.

tis the damn season - Worst case scenario this is a sad Christmas song (the best kind of Christmas song) and it devastates me in the most degrading way possible. Best case scenario it’s really bad and dumb and I can live without pain.

tolerate it - Many possibilities here. Could be about white-knuckling it through a period of depression, or a breakup. Most obviously, it could be about COVID-19 lockdowns keeping us trapped in our homes, disconnected from loved ones, going slow-brained and strange, bowls piling up, and suddenly so desperate for human interaction that even memories of having drinks with somebody from Hinge who quoted Friends twice in an hour are tantalizing in comparison to the touch-starved dreamstate of staying indoors... But I kinda feel like this is Taylor replying “COPE” from on high to my tweets about how I would rather be boiled alive than have to face the existence of this record.

no body, no crime (feat. Haim) - What would be very good is if this is a homosexual romp about Taylor Swift and the one hot Haim guitar girl with the really gay energy doing a murder together a la “Somethin’ Bad” by Miranda Lambert with Carrie Underwood, but honestly, it is probably another song about Gone Girl.

happiness - Impossible to speak on this since, thanks to Taylor Swift, happiness is something with which I have no familiarity. 

dorothea - Have seen chirping on the odious bird application about how perhaps this song title suggests that Taylor has written a song about Middlemarch, titling it for Dorothea Brooke, but I reject this because it implies that Taylor has read Middlemarch, which is a premise I cannot accept. Whether this refusal is out of self-preservation, being unwilling and in fact unable to face a world where Taylor Swift read and was moved to creation by the novel which was my most essential friend the summer I got dumped by a guy who I still had to work feet away from in a candle factory for another month, and about which Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson whose birthday it happens to be today, which isn’t to say that this means anything about anything. I am simply trying to batten down all hatches literally and spiritually in light of having been had once again by this numerology obsessed demon) once wrote "What do I think of Middlemarch? What do I think of glory.” or because I just at my core do not believe that Taylor has read a single book since Gone Girl I couldn’t possibly say.

coney island (feat. The National) : Some ungodly americana ass bullshit that is going to ruin my life. The thought of holy terror shaped like a horse girl Taylor Swift and trickster nymph in the body of a tax accountant Matt Berninger, two individuals I have allowed, separately, to cause me grievous psychic harm, having even the barest amount of one to one contact, even digitally, has made me want to peel all my skin off and put it back on flipped inside out so that I might, when I look in the mirror, see a version of myself which approximates how I feel.

ivy - Another song for the plant lesbians. That’s fine, and I’m happy for that community, but what I want to know, looking at this growing pile of songs named after women, is where, Taylor, is the song about loudmouth queen Inez, legendary gossip and, for my money, the star of folklore?  

cowboy like me - Putting it as mildly as humanly possible, to slit my throat would be less cruel. I am drawing a straight line from me writing illegible sequels to perfect film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (itself a sequel) in crayon as a toddler, to Paula Cole’s “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” on the radio in my mom’s two door Honda, to me everyday after school in third grade changing into the cowboy costume my godmother bought, to me at fourteen internalizing a sense of righteous indignation that would take years to even begin to outgrow when Crash beat Brokeback Mountain for Best Picture, to the winter I dropped half my classes out of fear and sickness and read paperback westerns on the twenty third floor of the college library for tens of hours at a go, to the profoundly gay episode of Supernatural called “Tombstone” which is, yes, named for the profoundly gay cowboy film Tombstone, to the inspired and revitalizing pause in “Space Cowboy” by Kacey Musgraves where she’s like, “You can have your space........ cowboy”, to Mitski’s Be the Cowboy, to the perfect boygenius cover of certified classic “Cowboy Take Me Away”, to whatever the hell this is going to be.That line is not to make a point at all. It’s just that there is a line and beside it there is me, incapacitated.

long story short - Just like all the other times anyone has ever invoked this phrase in the entire history of human beings expressing themselves with language, it is going to be a huge lie, because this woman never shuts up.

marjorie - After all that Taylor has put me through over the years, she should have at least named one of these wretched things “ellen” after my dead Sagittarian grandmother, whose birthday is tomorrow, December 11th, which is again, the release date of Taylor Swift’s second album in sixth months, but it’s probably for the best that she didn’t because you simpletons would immediately think it was an homage to George Bush’s friend Dory the fish, and therefore gay, regardless of the actual text of the song, and it’d be the “betty” massacre all over again. That being said, this is almost assuredly another horny song about some mid-century white lady. Only days ago Taylor was telling Entertainment Weekly that she’s been watching a lot of movies in quarantine, and while she didn’t name 1958’s Marjorie Morningstar starring Natalie Wood, I wouldn’t put it past her.

closure - God, I hope this one is another Kaylor classic so we can all act like complete raving lunatics online from the confines of our own plague quarters for a few days. It’s been a hard year.

evermore (feat. Bon Iver) - I’ll be catatonic by this point. Who cares?

right where you left me - Yes, in hell.

it’s time to go - Yes, TO HELL.

[laequiem]

She kills my self control - Chapter 8

/ Includes dialogue from The Cruel Prince, Chapter 21-22.

“Crawl," Jude blurts out.

A shiver went from the tip of my tail to the top of my spine. In my most indulgent fantasies, I am the one ordering her to crawl. In my worst nightmares, it's the other way around. Once again, I have the impression that nothing about this is real. Still, I can’t help but smirk.

cw: unhealthy coping mechanisms (alcohol, sex); physical abuse; nsfw

read on ao3  • previous chapter • next chapter  • all chapters

Chapter 8. A little death is better with somebody at your side

Elfhame was waiting for its new ruler to be crowned and I, its disappointment of a prince, missed the coronation.

After the initial change in air pressure, the ground shakes, and I feel dread creep through my drunken numbness. I get to my feet. The girl I was with is gone. The fox mask she was wearing is still on the ground where it fell when we were making out. I pick it up and secure it to my face, hoping to get back in the throne room without anyone recognizing me.

As quickly as I can without looking conspicuous, I make my way out of the cellar and towards the ballroom. My mind is whirling, my vision is blurry, but I have to reach the throne room before my absence is noticed.

When I enter the room, I am greeted by absolute chaos. Knights are gathered around the throne. A bottleneck of folks from every court stretches from each possible exit as guards inspect everyone.

I approach a table closer to the dais and absentmindedly fill myself a goblet of wine as I crane my neck to look past the knights. There is blood everywhere. The throne looks weaker than it did a few minutes (hours?) ago, like its roots are not being nourished by the land anymore. The flowers that bloomed earlier are withered. But out of everything up there, that is the least alarming thing. Bodies upon bodies lay lifeless on the dais. My eyes catch on a heap of blue fabric stained red. Loyal Caelia, a bolt sticking out of her chest. Next to her, fierce Rhyia, with a knife in hand and a slit throat. Determined Elowyn, her gown covered in dried blood dripping from her neck. My sisters, barely more than strangers to me, slaughtered. I see other bodies nearby: guards, knights, a headless female, and my older brother Dain. 

This can’t possibly be real. Am I dreaming? Did another court attack when we were at our weakest? Is it a coup coming from our own people? I feel bile rising in my throat. 

I see no trace of my father. I scan the room for him, but my gaze catches on dark navy fabric coming out from under a banquet table.

No, no no no no no. Anybody but her. 

The Grand General came back to Elfhame last night and my father threw a ball in his honor. Madoc is holding a child’s arm forcefully as he toasts with the soldiers. She is fae, a year or two older than me. But she is not the only child he brought back. Two other girls came to the ball with him, but he is not parading them around like he is doing with the older girl. They are standing alone in the corner of the room, as far away from anyone else as possible.

I look at my father. He is toasting with the general, courtiers at his arm. I look at my mother. She is dancing with a Lord from another court. They have not so much as looked at me in weeks. I found the revel by accident, roaming the halls of the palace in an attempt to find something to eat. 

I run towards the new girls. They look like copies of each other - brown hair and brown eyes, tan skin, frail little things. They are both wearing ill-fitting beige dresses, as if whoever dressed them did not know what to wear for a ball. 

“Are you servants?” I ask when I reach them.

“No,” they answer together.

“You look like servants. Fetch me food.”

I make to grab for one of them, but she backs up before I can. They run away and I run after them. They duck under a table, as if I couldn’t see them. 

I lift the tablecloth and smile. They try to back away, but the table is set against a wall, trapping them. I grab one of them by the hair and drag her out from under the table. I pin her to the ground by the wrist. I move her hair away from her ears.

“Human! You’re human!” I exclaim with glee, “Maybe I’ll eat you.”

Someone pulls my hair and forces me away from her.

“Leave my sister alone!”

I whirl on the second girl. I bite the arm holding my hair. She lets go of my hair with a startled scream, but she starts punching me in the chest. 

“Jude, stop this right now.” Madoc’s strong voice echoes through the room. 

The girl freezes, eyes wide with fear. She gets up. 

“Your Majesty, forgive her,” the Grand General tells my father, “She does not know how to behave around royalty yet.”

My father waves a hand in dismissal, unbothered. I look at the girl, Jude. She’s staring at me fiercely, a silent promise of violence.

I bolt towards the table. The pressure in my chest slackens when I see the fabric shift. She is alive. I reach under the table and grab her arm.

“You’re mortal,” I say, as if it wasn’t obvious. My eyes dart to the knife in her hand, then back at her face, “It’s not safe for you here. Especially if you go around stabbing everyone.”

“Not safe for me?” she snarls, “Get down here before you’re recognized.”

Why would it matter? Surely, nobody would think of me as a threat to their coup.

“Playing hide-and-seek under the table? Crouching in the dirt?” I laugh, unable to keep my composure and hide my anxiousness, “Typical of your kind, but far beneath my dignity.”

Suddenly, she throws her arm forward and punches me in the stomach.

“Ow!”

Jude drags me under the table with her. Sure, I had imagined us hiding under tables before, but I never imagined it being to avoid being murdered.

“We’ll get out of here without anyone noticing,” she whispers, “We stay under the tables and make our way to the steps to the upper levels of the palace. And don’t tell me it’s beneath your dignity to crawl. You’re so drunk you can barely stand anyway.”

I snort, “If you insist.”

As we make our way, through the music and wild laughter of rowdy guests, I hear snippets of conversation, allowing me to put the pieces together. Balekin is alive and looking for me, Madoc killed Dain, my father is dead.

My father is dead.

I look at the signet ring on my finger, the proof of my royal blood.

“He despised me.”

Would my father have crowned me, if all my other siblings were dead? Would he have crowned me before he crowned Balekin? I doubt it. He would rather keep the crown, knowing as I do that my reign would doom Elfhame. Yet, I will mourn him. 

“Balekin?”

Another disdainful snort, “My father. I didn’t much know the others, my brothers and sisters. Isn’t that funny? Prince Dain- he didn’t want me in the palace, so he forced me out.”

Dain is the only one I will not mourn. He put me at Balekin's mercy knowingly. Brought me down to raise himself up. If I am Prince Failure, he was Prince Perfect, the High King's pride.

“And now they’re all dead. Thanks to Madoc. Our honorable general. They never should have trusted him. But your mother discovered that a long time ago, didn’t she?”

Cruelty and laughter. My only weapons against fear, against the reality of being the last one alive to crown Balekin. He will hunt me down, force me to crown him. Will Jude bring me to him directly? She is Madoc's ward, after all. She might just bring me straight to her father, who will gladly give me over.

“Crawl," Jude blurts out.

A shiver went from the tip of my tail to the top of my spine. In my most indulgent fantasies, I am the one ordering her to crawl. In my worst nightmares, it's the other way around. Once again, I have the impression that nothing about this is real. Still, I can’t help but smirk. 

“You first.” 

Fighting with her, teasing her, humiliating her. It all comes so naturally to me, and I am willing to bet it does to her too.

We move from table to table, until we are close to the steps leading out of the hall. I lift the tablecloth and exit first, then offer her my hand. She does not take it.

Jude makes to go towards the steps, but I stop her. 

“Not like that. Your father’s knights will recognize you.”

Her fierce gaze narrows, “I’m not the one they’re looking for.”

I frown under my mask. 

“If they see your face, they may pay too much attention to whom you’re with.”

“If they knew me at all, they’d know I’d never be with you.”

And yet. She sighs, then takes the pins out of her braids and lets her hair loose. She ruffles her hair. I am taken aback, unable to stop staring.

“You look…”

Mortal. Lusty. Obscene. Untamed. Filthy. Gorgeous. 

“Give me a second.”

Thankfully, she leaves before I can finish my thought. The dress I designed, her menacing attitude, the hair. It’s all too much, too close to my fantasies. Cardan, you pathetic wretch. Your family was slaughtered and you think about banging a mortal. I grab a bottle of green wine from the table and guzzle it down while she is gone. When she comes back, she is wearing a mask like I am.

“Come on,” she grunts as she drags me towards the guards watching the steps.

“Look elsewhere for your pleasure,” one of them says authoritatively, “This is the way to the palace, and it is barred to common Folk.”

Who is he calling common?

“We will do as we are bid,” Jude replies submissively as she tugs me away. I stand my ground.

“You are much mistaken in us,” I reply with a saccharine smile. 

If nothing else, sweet-talking is my forte. 

“The High King Balekin is a friend to my lady’s Court,” I drawl as I slide my signet ring off of my finger, “You may have heard of Queen Gliten in the Northwest. Balekin sent a message about the missing prince. He is waiting for an answer.”

“I don’t suppose you have any proof of that?”

“Of course,” I reply as I hold out the ring, “I was given this token so you would know me.”

They step back. Half-truth, the language of the court. I smile and grab Jude’s arm, dragging her eagerly up the steps.

“What about the mortal?” one guard inquires.

“Oh, well, you aren’t entirely mistaken in me. I intended to keep some of the delights of the revel for myself,” I give them a knowing smirk.

I guide her up the steps, then unlock the door to the upper level of the palace. As soon as we enter the empty hall, I hear the lock turn. Confused, I turn towards her, only to see her point a dagger at my face. She presses it under my chin and I stiffen.

“Jude?”

“Surprised?” she grins at me, fire and hatred burning in her earthy eyes, “You shouldn’t be.”

She presses the knife deeper and I feel the sharp blade resting against my skin. Not a nightmare, then. Real.

“Why?”, I try to sound bored but it comes out more like a whine.

“Because your luck is terrible and mine is great. Do what I say and I’ll delay the pleasure of hurting you.”

My luck is terrible. My tormentor stands closer than she ever has, but I am not the one holding the blade to her throat. I feel shame wash over me as my blood rushes south at the thought of her pushing that blade deeper.

“Planning to spill a little more royal blood tonight?” I sneer as I try to wiggle my way out of her grasp, “Feeling left out of the slaughter?”

“You’re drunk.”

An obvious statement, I guess, to mirror the one I made earlier about her mortality. I lean my head back against the stone wall and close my eyes. I cannot bear to look at her, determined and deadly, cunning little mortal.

“Oh, indeed," I scoff, “But do you really believe I am going to let you parade me in front of the General, as though I am some lowly—” 

She presses the knife harder to my throat. I swallow.

"Of course," I laugh nervously, “I was passed out cold while my family was murdered; it’s hard to fall more lowly than that.”

“Stop talking. Move.”

“Or what? You’re not really going to stab me.”

I kind of wish she would. 

“When was the last time you saw your dear friend Valerian? Not today, despite the insult implied by his absence. Did you wonder at that?”

My eyes fly open. Valerian’s presence is definitely not one I missed, but I did wonder where he was. It is unlike him to miss a revel, especially one with such bloodshed. I stare at Jude, trying to find the answer to this riddle she just posed in her eyes. She gives nothing away. 

“I did. Where is he?”

“Rotting near Madoc’s stables. I killed him, then I buried him,” she boasts, a vicious smile on her face, “So believe me when I threaten you. No matter how unlikely it seems, you are the most important person in all of Faerie. Whosoever has you, has power. And I want power.”

I blink a few times. She… killed him? I knew she hated him, hated us. But I never imagined her going out of her way to find him and murder him. No matter how much he deserved it. 

“I suppose you were right after all,” I say in disbelief, “I suppose I didn’t know the least of what you could do.”

“Time to move,” she cuts in, “Go to the first door and open it. When we’re inside, we’re going to the closet. There’s a passageway through there.”

“Yes, fine,” I bark back at her.

It’s humiliating that Jude, of all people, knows this palace better than I do. I put my hand between the knife and my throat to push it away, but she holds it and it cuts my fingers.

Shit.

I put a bleeding finger to my mouth. “What was that for?”

“For fun,” she croons, then lowers the dagger.

She pushes me forward. “Will you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“No. Now move.”

I go to the first room and immediately spot the closet. I open it, then I look back at her. She is still holding that damned dagger, her eyes burning holes in my back.

I crawl in reluctantly.

[hollyhomburg]

I’m so interested now in the in between of king Yoongi and queen reader’s courting and marriage, like that time in between where he asked her to be his queen, she said as long as it’s only me, and the whole planning the wedding process and the first night oh my gosh I-

i think that she might be a little shy and at first- yoongi would be unsure because of it, if he should just leave her alone (while subtly taking care of her), but then he would maybe like- have jimin do some spy work. and he catches her smiling one time while she looks at him and then kicking her feet in happiness when she finds flowers by her bedside. and jimin reports to yoongi that yeah- he should keep going because she likes him back. 

and then when it comes to courting i think its a lot of them finding time to be near each other? like he’ll invite her for lunch in the war room (all of the stuffy generals cleared out) and he makes sure he has the most delicious food made for her. and then at other times- he’ll set up picknicks in the grasses or invite her to take a carriage ride with him to the ocean for a weekend (with jimin as chaperone of course). during their courting, there are alot of hand touches and maybe one or two kisses here and there but nothing more than that.

 and maybe their courtship is interrupted by a war of some sort. and she’s upset- but yoongi has to go at least for part of it. and when they say goodbye she cries and yoongi can’t help but ignore propriety and pull her in closer. “promise me, promise me you’ll come back” and he does, and when he leans close he’ll say, “i’ll marry you the second i do” and shes kinda shocked but she’s happy because yeah- they both know thats where it’s going.

 the war lasts a few months, and yoongi writes whenever he can, and she saves each of the letters, even sends him one or two back (because the letter of a governess for a king is hardly anything important during a time of war) and yoongi looks forward to those letters more than anything. after the war is done, yoongi returns and the first time he see’s you, his eyes meeting yours in the garden, stalking towards you in all of his regalea, tired from a week of riding, he drops his knee before you, and the lady you’re walking with stills, scattering after a moment. 

you can barely stop yourself from running to him. “my lady” he says, then puzzles over the words for a moment, “i’ve always called you that, but you have not been mine for long, nor are you mine if you so wish it- i will not lay claim to your love simply because i am king and i can- you’ve shown me what virtue there is in listening to others and honoring their wishes, so- if you wish to be parted from me say it now and I will leave you be but continue to love you even if you do, but if you still love my wretched soul as your letters lead me to belive- if you are still my lady, then let me also become yours. will you...will you become my queen?” and of course you fall into his arms and say yes, because yes- you do want to be his and have him be yours. 

the marriage preparations take a little while, after the war- the people are ready for some reason to celebrate. and you also have to be trained a little too. because after the wedding you will be queen and will have many more responsibilities than you did before. You get assigned an advisor, a clumsy scholar named namjoon who honestly prefers to spend most of your time together talking about books, only to be reigned in by Yoongi’s head advisor seokjin- cuffing namjoon over the back of the head with a ream of paper. 

i think the wedding would be a gorgeous affair, paper hanging from the trees of the secret garden, flowers, and candles set about in big bunches as well as food- so much food. there are some of the more simple traditions- such as the throwing of chestnuts and a funny moment where yoongi accidentally catches one, and for once, a few giggles in the crowd don’t tempt him into a murderous rage.

 the whole night he looks nearly drunk on you, eyes soft and honeyed in the light of the evening, especially once the candles are put out and you return to his rooms, yoongi leading you there with a hand. the floors warm underfoot, his things set out- nice and clean. you kiss in the entryway, and his arms come up around you, hands fixing over the smallest part of your waist- groaning into your mouth to touch you like that.

but he wants to do everything right by you not even in the traditional way where the groom knocks up the bride on the wedding night because at the end of the day your marriage is consummated through love- not something as silly as sex- he pulls away after a moment to say “if you want- we don’t- if it’s not what you want then-” and you just answer him with a kiss, your hands on the closure of his hanbok. your smile mirthful.

 i think yoongi would undress you slowly, like every inch of you is a gift crafted for him. his mouth lingering on the places he’d never seen before, the sensitive spot at the inside of your elbow, the crest of your shoulder, the hollow of your throat. until you’re bare before him. and yeah- he’d make love really slowly to you, aware it’s your first time. and i think your first time would be more about making sure you’re both as close to each other as possible rather than cumming however many times you think is propper.

 “I never imagined you’d be so soft” yoongi would say when you where curled up on his chest, cheek resting over his heart. smiling up at him with your dopey grin, hands running up and down your back, like he can't feel you enough, the pads of his fingers sinking into your butt to pull you up against him more snugly “it’s nice, I like it” and you’d just kiss over his heart and say

 “im happy it pleases you my king” he makes a little huffing sound and leans forward to bite playfully at your neck,

 “anything for you my queen, should i say it again? and detail what other parts of you i like in a poem? or maybe in a song?”

 “why not both?” you’d tease, and he’d laugh and joke some more but then you’d both fall asleep, one out of many more happy nights that you’d have in the future. 

[the-great-bbe]

How about something with Rhaenys/Garlan?

Setting: Regency Era!AU, “I have nothing to give but my heart so full and these empty hands.” “They're not empty now.”

Note: Marei of Oldstones is the Westerosi version of Marie de France, a 12th century poet whose work influenced the Arthurian Cycle. And yes, it was a common pastime for learned ladies to discuss the phallic imagery ever present in medieval romances lolol the tumblr instinct has been around for centuries

--

It begins as simple admiration. He is Margaery’s favorite chaperone, as Willas can’t keep up with her merry chases and Loras enables her chases to become proper misadventures. So he is the one that Mama sends to court when Margaery becomes lady companion to Crown Princess Rhaenys. And what a court it is—Queen Regent Elia rules with grace and glitter, and all the courtiers gossip enough to make dear Grandmama herself lean in. Here Garlan can train with the finest of knights, read from the royal libraries, discuss with like-minded lords and ladies about the progressive new laws that the Queen Regent is putting forward...

And then there is the Princess herself. 

Tall, with rich olive skin and black ringlets cascading down her back. Her face is soft and round, balanced by full lips and large eyes—oh, her eyes! Garlan has never seen such eyes outside of paintings, an impossible shade of black-violet. And when he first sees those eyes, she is smiling at him. He cannot help but smile back.

--

It’s not just that she is beautiful, of course. Her mind is a treasure beyond words. One day she and Grand Maester Tyrion have a three hour long debate about the origins of dragons in the courtyard. Garlan nearly swoons like a green maid to hear the strength of her arguments, the logic she wove like silk in a loom. And even Tyrion concedes defeat to her, as most people end up doing to the Crown Princess. When Rhaenys takes her leave to give her mother company, Garlan bows. “An excellent battle, Your Highness. I’ve never seen a Field of Fire through words alone before and yet we all are blown away.”

“Thank you, Ser Garlan.” She smiles and there’s faint dimples in her cheeks; the sight nearly makes Garlan swoon again! “Care to escort me to the Queen’s apartments?”

Of course. Her hand is a warm weight in the crook of his arm and truly, Garlan is surprised she is not betrothed yet. She is eighteen, of age to take the throne in her own right were it not for her father in the sanitarium on Dragonstone, and easily the loveliest creature on the gods’ green earth. Perhaps she will marry Lord Robb Stark for his bloodline, or Ser Joffrey Baratheon for his riches. Had Willas not eloped with Leonette Fossoway to Braavos he too would’ve been a contender. Grandmama will probably throw the Tarly girls at Garlan, or perhaps a girl from the Riverlands...

“Your eyes seem far away, Ser. Does anything trouble you?”

Garlan shakes himself. “It’s nothing, Your Highness. I’m simply wondering when I shall become an uncle.”

“Yes, I hope my wedding present to your brother Lord Willas and his wife Lady Leonette survived the ship to Essos.” Her gaze flickers away for a moment, then she squeezes his arm. “Join my lady mother and I for tea? Perhaps you can give your perspective on elopement, as my dear brother Aegon intended to run off with Shireen Baratheon in their “doomed romance” when we’d much rather just give them Summerhall.”

--

“Ser Garlan! Do join us!” Rhaenys sits on a large picnic blanket with Marg, a gaggle of other ladies and Rhaenys’s fearsome cat Balerion. Prince Oberyn, Rhaenys’s uncle and practical second father, keeps watch over them and nods at Garlan. They are in the shade of a gigantic plum blossom tree given as a gift from the Emperor of Yi-Ti, and there’s a few petals fallen into her hair. Unthinkingly, Garlan sits by her side and brushes them loose, and he shivers from the feel of her hair between his fingers. Rhaenys asks, “Tell us, have you read the words of Marei of Oldstones?”

“Yes, her poetry influenced the Arthurian Epic did she not?” Epic tales set in the Dawn Age of heroes and fair maidens and wretched monsters. Garlan remembers being still in leading strings, listening to Papa read him and his siblings a passage before bed each night. 

“We were discussing some of the themes in in the Epic and other tales of its kind.” Marg gives him a grin that sends a shiver down his spine. Gods, what is she up to now? “About the imagery of a knight rescuing a princess from a tower. What do you make of it?”

“I...”

Sansa Stark hides a giggle behind her folding fan. “It’s always a giant tower, so very large and impressive.” Then she and little Allyria Dayne dissolve into giggles.

Garlan tugs on his collar. Rhaenys is looking at him expectantly and he can’t ignore his future queen. But really! Marg is still grinning and Garlan narrows his eyes at her. Oh, he’ll get her for this. “It is quite a juxtaposition of imagery. As Lady Sansa said, the tower the knight must handle is always a tall and imposing one. Yet...”

“Yet?”

Garlan prays to the gods for guidance. “Yet the knight must enter the tower. So truly, what function is the imagery in this context?”

Walda Frey—Loras once called her Fat Walda at a feast and she gave him a split lip and a black eye, so now Garlan defers to her as the very best of Waldas—whispers to Marg, “Better than just scaling up and down its walls in its lonesome.”

The ladies giggle and Garlan wants to sink into the floor. Then Rhaenys laughs. “Well put! Thank you for indulging us.” She pauses, then cocks her head and Garlan wonders when the mild spring day got so warmer so quickly. “Indulge us again: do you prefer the sword, or the joust?”

“I prefer handling two swords at once, although I am no green boy when it comes to the joust.” Marg might just choke to death on her stifled giggles and Garlan hopes that she does! But there’s a hint of red to Rhaenys’s ears, and what mild flirtation ever hurt anyone? “At the next tourney, I’ll do my best to impress you.”

“Perhaps I’ll give you my favor as a good luck charm. We can’t have me being unimpressed, can we?”

Indeed, they can not. Garlan would love nothing more for her to admire him, as he admires her.

--

“Your Highness,” Garlan licks his lips, as they are as dry as a Dornish desert. His words catch in his throat. Then Marg in the stands motions at him to continue, Prince Oberyn himself sends him a wink...and he says, “I crown you, Princess Rhaenys, as my Queen of Love and Beauty.”

The crowd erupts into cheers. It was a very hard joust won, as Ser Jaime of the Kingsguard nearly dislocated Garlan’s shoulder and Lord Robb was no one to be trifled with. But at the end he threw even his brother Loras down to the dirt—as if his trick of using a mare would work on Garlan! Not after the tourney at Longtable where Garlan broke his nose!—and won the crown of jonquils and morning glories. They look so beautiful in Rhaenys’s hair, almost as beautiful as Rhaenys herself.

Rhaenys’s reply is nearly lost beneath the deafening roar, but Garlan hears it all too well. “I am honored and delighted to be crowned by such a noble and true knight as you.” And her favor, tied neatly around his arm beneath his armor, seems to catch alight.

He has nothing to offer her, other than this crown of flowers and his hand in the dances to come. He is a second son of a family with many mouths to feed, with no kingly descent or heirloom sword. She shall marry someone worthy to take his place at her side as Prince Consort, and he...he shall content himself with the feeling of her hand in his.

He bows over that lovely hand and kisses her knuckles. 

Later that night, after hours of dancing and feasting and laughing and chasing, he kisses her knuckles again. And again, and again, and again. Until Rhaenys pulls him up from his knees and kisses him with lips as soft as spring and rich as wine. Beneath that plum blossom tree with no one to witness them other than the moon and stars reflecting in her impossibly beautiful eyes, no other sound than their shared breath against each other’s lips and Garlan whispering “I think I’m in love with you.”

He kisses her before she can tell him they cannot be. He cannot bear it.

--

“Do you love my daughter, Ser Garlan?”

Garlan can hardly breathe before the presence of the Queen Regent Elia Martell. So much of Rhaenys’s bold beauty is from her mother, and the Queen Regent has decades of power behind her piercing gaze. But he is no liar. He jerks a nod. “With all my life, Your Majesty.”

She nods, as if it were a foregone conclusion. She is not wrong in that, as the entirety of Kings Landing must know that Garlan would gladly die for Rhaenys, and live for her as well. Even Papa knows, and Papa hardly knows anything! After an eternity of being sized up and raked over the coals of the Queen Regent’s eyes, she sighs. “You are not my first choice, but you are not my last. If my daughter consents to it, I give my blessing to officially court her.”

Truly? Truly?! Garlan gapes like an idiot, or perhaps some ill-bred fish. And the Queen Regent laughs; she sounds so much like Rhaenys. “I encourage you not to make that same face when you ask for her permission.”

Garlan, after bowing and scraping as much as he can without fainting, eventually leaves the royal solar. Marg immediately tackles him and cackles that her hopes have gone swimmingly, and her best friend shall be her sister. Then she pulls him along to gods know where while Garlan’s head reels.

He? To court Rhaenys? To hold her hand in his and not let it go? Garlan’s knees nearly give out, especially when Willas and Loras both clap their hands on his shoulders. “Grandmama will finally be proud of us, I think,” Loras boasts.

“Her Highness has not even consented yet!”

Marg rolls her eyes “Garlan, I love you, but you are as thick as molasses. Now go confess your love to her!” She practically shoves him towards Rhaenys’s plum blossom tree. “And kiss her! With tongue!”

He stumbles into the tree and nearly into Balerion. The cat blinks up at him to say he is a fool, then slinks away to a laughing Aegon’s arms. “Ser Garlan! Are you alright?”

“Y-Your Highness, I...” Garlan peeks around the tree to see Rhaenys on the other side, standing with something hiding behind her back. She catches his questioning gaze, and flushes a pretty red before revealing a knitted scarf. “For your brother, my princess?”

“For you, actually.” She bites her bottom lip before puffing herself up. “I intend to ask my lady mother the Queen Regent if we would be allowed to court. With your consent of course! I would never presume that you would wish to—”

“I was just given permission by Her Majesty to ask for your permission.”

They stare at each other for a moment, before Rhaenys giggles into her palm. Garlan melts, and finally asks, “Would you like me to court you, Your Highness?”

“Yes.” She presses the scarf into his hands, and leans up to murmur in his ear, “And please, call me Rhaenys.”

He shivers. “Rhaenys.” All is right with the world it seems, just from the sound of her name on his lips.

--

Garlan smiles despite the tears in his eyes. “Rhaenys, are you sure? I have nothing to give but my heart so full and these empty hands.” 

“They're not empty now.” Rhaenys squeezes their hands together.

Then she cloaks him in her house colors, and Garlan is hers, hers forever and always, just as he was always meant to be.

[wonkasmissstarshine]

The Chocolate Prince and The Lovely Maiden {Willy Wonka x Rose Bucket AU}

Chapter 6

Lady Scarlett Beauregarde

Tagging: @holdmeicant @frozenhuntress67 @pastelmoonwitche​ @ariwonka2004​

When Willy and Daniel arrived to the castle, they couldn’t help but notice the carriage that had pulled up. The carriage itself was big, blue, and sparkling. Overall, it just had a loud personality and it told you all you needed to know about who it was carrying inside of it. 

“It seems that Lady Scarlett has arrived” Daniel said.

“Yeah” Willy grimaced. He was not looking forward to meeting the high class princess. Some ladies stepped out of the carriage first. None of them seemed to be Lady Scarlett, but rather her ladies-in-wearing. The three of them were wearing matching blue dresses and they all wore masks. But it wasn’t just masks covering the eyes. No, they wore full face masks.

“Those would be Lady Scarlett’s ladies-in-waiting” Daniel informed. He had read up on Lady Scarlett to prepare for her visit. He knew more about her than he wished to. “She makes them wear masks because she doesn’t want any other woman’s beauty outshining hers”

Willy snorted in amusement at that. “She mustn’t be that pretty then. Not if she has to make all the other ladies hide their face”

“No, no. Lady Scarlett is beautiful” Daniel countered. “She’s described as having been gifted with Aphrodite’s beauty. Wherever she goes, men fall at her feet”

Willy opened his mouth to respond, but a different voice called out. “Son! There you are!” King Wilbur approached his son, with members of the royal court behind him. “Where have you been!? You know Lady Scarlett was to arrive today!”

“That’s exactly why I wasn’t here” Willy retorted. 

Wilbur just sighed and shook his head. “No matter. You’re here now. Come and meet your wife-to-be”

Willy didn’t have it in him right now to argue his way out of it. Instead, he trailed behind his father, following him to the carriage. “Ah! King Wilbur! Prince Willy!” An older gentleman standing beside the carriage greeted. “I am Beryl, Lady Scarlett’s trusted advisor”

“We are very honored to have you and Lady Scarlett here, Beryl” Wilbur said.

“The pleasure is all Scarlett’s” Beryl chuckled. “May I introduce Lady Scarlett’s ladies-in-waiting. Jade, Mauve, and Sienna” The ladies bowed as they were introduced. The sound of a throat clearing could be heard from inside the carriage. Beryl sighed and rolled his eyes in annoyance. He quickly smiled, hoping that no one caught onto it. Wilbur didn’t, but Willy did. “And, lastly but certainly not least, may I introduce her grace, Lady Scarlett Beauregarde of Champonia”

And there she was. Lady Scarlett Beauregarde. She stepped out of the carriage. You could tell just by looking at her she was high class. She wore a ruffled, silky blue dress. Her hair was pinned up in curls, secured in place by the jeweled tiara on her head. And her face was just caked in makeup.

This was the Princess that made men fall to their knees? This was the Princess who was gifted with Aphrodite’s beauty?

Well, clearly there was a mix up and Aphrodite’s beauty was gifted to someone else by mistake. Because Willy was not falling to his knees for this woman.

“Prince Willy” Scarlett batted her eyelashes at him. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I knew you were handsome, but I wasn’t expecting such an Adonis”

Willy had to force a smile. “Thank you, Lady Scarlett” 

Scarlett kept smiling at him. She held out her hand. It hovered in front of Willy’s face. He just glanced at it. What was she expecting him to do? The smile from Scarlett’s face quickly dropped and was replaced with an annoyed expression. She cleared her throat again.

“Son! Kiss her hand!” Wilbur urged in a harsh whisper.

He didn’t even want to touch her hand. Forcing another smile, Willy took Scarlett’s hand and brought it up to his lips. He kissed it and had to keep himself from retching. 

Scarlett seemed please though, for when she pulled her hand back, her smile was back. But something that caught her attention made her smile turn into a scowl. “Beryl!”

“Y-yes, Lady Scarlett?” Beryl seemed nervous of her.

“I had clear instructions. Any woman that is present should be wearing a mask. Why are they not wearing masks!?” Scarlett demanded. She pointed at the few women that were members of the royal court. “Get them masked immediately!”

“Yes, my lady” Beryl said. 

“Well, you heard what she said” Wilbur said, addressing the female members of the court. “Go get fitted for masks, and spread the news to every female member of staff”

All the ladies looked at each other with bewildered looks. Sure, there was such a thing as accommodation for guests, but for Lady Scarlett to order them like that? She wasn’t even their queen yet, but she was already acting like it. Still, they knew better to argue so they went to do what was asked of their king.

“Apologies about that, Lady Scarlett” Wilbur quickly apologized. “The message must have gotten lost”

Scarlett smiled again. It was clear that was her ‘I’m pleased’ smile. “It’s alright. Consider this their first warning. But, if I see one lady who is unmasked, I expect some punishment”

Willy’s eyes widened and his mouth hung open. Punishment? For any woman not wearing a mask? All because she’s a little self-conscious? This lady was crazy. And Willy was stuck marrying her.

Yay.

“Daniel, I can’t marry her!” Willy ranted to Daniel. The two of them retreated to Willy’s secret chocolate room. At least they had privacy in here. “She’s a nightmare! And whoever first described her as having Aphrodite’s beauty is clearly blind!”

“It’s a bit hypocritical, don’t you think?” Daniel mused. “She wants every woman within vicinity of her to wear a mask, yet she wears one herself”

“Huh?”

“Did you see how much makeup she was wearing? Seriously, you could spot her face from miles away! It’s so bright!” 

Willy sighed, taking a seat, and running a hand through his hair. “Is there anything I can do to get out of this?”

“Well, your father did say that because you weren’t picking a wife, he picked one for you” 

“Where are you going with this, Daniel?”

“Maybe if you told him that there was someone else you were in love with, maybe the King would change his mind about you marrying Lady Scarlett”

Willy considered it. It was a good idea, in theory. But there was just one problem with that. “I’m not in love with anyone, Daniel”

“I know. But maybe just tell your father. Maybe he’ll believe it”

“What if he wants to meet her?”

Daniel chewed on his bottom lip in thought. “You’ve met Priscilla, right? The pretty girl from the bakery?” 

“Yes” Willy nodded. “She seems nice and she is pretty, but I’m not in love with her”

“No, but I am” Daniel whispered that part to himself. “I’m suggesting that if your father were to insist on meeting the one you were in love with, maybe see if Priscilla would be willing to play the part”

“Daniel, I’m no good with feelings, but I can see just from the way you talk about her, that you feel something for her. I don’t want--”

“It’s okay” Daniel said. “I know it wouldn’t be real. Besides, if we don’t do it this way. There is only one other option”

“Which is?”

“We’d have to murder Lady Scarlett” 

Willy’s eyes widened with shock. He was surprised to hear Daniel of all people suggest such a thing. “I may not be able to stand the wretched woman, but I am not resorting to such an avenue”

“You’re right. That’s too far” Daniel said. He was quiet for a moment. It was clear he was still pondering the idea. “But, we could make it look like an accident. Maybe slip something in her tea...”

“No!” 

“Okay, okay” Daniel held up his hands defensively. “I’ll stop. We’ll go with the ‘you’re already in love with someone plan’”

“I just hope for the love of chocolate that it works” Willy prayed.

This was the best plan he had for now. Hopefully his father would fall for it. But, if he didn’t...then maybe he would have to resort to getting rid of Lady Scarlett in some other way. Would Willy be able to do it? He hoped he would never have to find out.

[teamhook]

AO3

FFN

I want to thank @cssns , the mods , @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713 for the lovely art! And @ultraluckycatnd for her beta services. 

Killian stood in front of the old house. He was desperate and hoped he was not turned away. The door opened before he could knock.

“Mr. Jones. The Rioga will see you.”

Killian walked behind the doorman. The house was exactly as Liam had desired. It was a home, not a trace of royalty. The man opened the door to what should have been an office but looked more like a mini-library. All sorts of books lined the shelves. A familiar petite body rose from the center of a pile of books on the floor. She looked the same. Liam’s love was as beautiful as the day his brother introduced them.

“Killian,” the smile on her face blossomed as she rushed to hug him. “I’m sorry, I loved Liam and he said if I married him you two would be safe. I found out once I had agreed and it was too late.” she sobbed into his chest.

Killian gave her a small smile. “Lass, you don’t need to apologize. I’m sorry I let my anger cloud my judgment - but how did you know I was coming?”

Belle smiled, her eyes crinkling. “I have a seer in my employ and she informed me of your visit. Her timing was a little off, though. I’ve been expecting you for a while. The only thing she didn’t inform me about was the reason.” She examined him. “Killian, how can I help?”

Killian grinned. “Ah, you’ve always been so good at reading me. Even better than Liam.”

“No, it’s not that. I can recognize a broken heart when I see one.” Belle hugged him.

He held her tight. This was the closest he had been to his brother in years.

“How can I help?” Belle asked again.

“I know that you’re the Rioga of this area and you are given the information we aren’t privy to. Even as queen you had access to certain information,” Killian said. “I’m hoping you know something that can help before I lose all hope.”

“Killian, if it’s within my ability, I will. You are still family.” Belle smiled. “Come, let’s sit.” She guided him to her office. As they entered the office, she sat in a tall leather chair that looked like a throne. “Now, tell me how I can help.”

Killian sighed. “I need to break a contract that was altered without my agreement.”

Belle’s eyes meet his stormy blue eyes. “Killian, what did you do?”

“I made a deal with the Norn, a deal she broke.” Killian clenched his stubbled jaw as he remembered the hag’s trickery.

“The Norn tricks, she lies. Why would you go to her?”

Killian stands suddenly, the chair scraping the wooden floor. “I was desperate. I needed to make sure the woman I love,” He shook his head, “ loved survived the last battle.”

“What did she take?” Belle asks hesitantly.

“I offered her my wolf,” his eyes cast down. “I made the same offer for Liam but—” a lump in his throat made it difficult to speak.

“Liam wouldn’t have wanted you to sacrifice your wolf for him. That would have been like cutting your hand off. It’s a part of you.”

“Belle, I know. I just couldn’t lose her. She’s worth it, she’s bloody amazing. I just didn’t think the Norn would alter our deal.”

“I really hope she’s worth it. Tell me, what did the Norn take?”

“My love. Emma is my mate and now I will feel nothing for her. I couldn’t face her.”

Belle sighs. “And your Rioga didn’t offer any help?”

“My Rioga is Emma’s mother.”

“You didn’t even bother asking. Killian, this can cause a problem. There’s a reason each territory is assigned a Rioga.”

“Bloody hell, Belle. You and I both know that Rioga is simply a different word for Royalty. It’s the same thing. I don’t think this will be an issue.”

“I hate to say this, but I don’t think we can get your love back using diplomacy. No one has been able to break a deal with her before. I think you might have to try a different approach.”

Killian’s face falls as Belle confirms his own conclusion. This is why he didn’t go to Mary Margaret. She would tell him the same. “What do you suggest?”

Belle stays quiet for a second. “Killian, I’m sure you are well versed in plundering and still have connections.”

“I might know of someone, but last I heard he had retired. He is now married with a son. Do you have any ideas? Do you know of anyone reckless enough to take on the Norn?” Killian asks.

Belle stays silent for a second. “I know there’s someone who has no qualms with getting his hands dirty.” The slight blush is almost missed by Killian.

“What kind of company have you been keeping?” Killian teases.

“Oh no, I’m not acquainted with him in that way. He just caused some trouble for the Dark and I had to intervene. Their Stygia wanted his head.”

“Alright, where can I find this man?” Killian asks.

“He is staying with his brother in Sherwood Forest.”

“Wait, are you talking about Scarlet?” Killian laughed. “Bloody hell, I had no idea he had acquired such a reputation. When I knew him, he was good but Locksley was a far superior thief. He was the Prince of Thieves.”

Belle’s eyes widen. “I shouldn’t be surprised you know him. You don’t think he can do this.”

“Belle, he is good. When I met him he was rebellious. Tired of living in Robin’s shadow. We bonded a bit over that. No one knows better than me how that feels. We lost touch after I joined the Misthaven Rioga.”

Emma couldn't believe her luck. She was sure that Killian had gone to that wretched woman for help. The ache in her heart was growing bigger. She decides to head to the station, hoping Graham will have some news. Killian was very responsible. He would not leave without informing his superiors. Emma walks into the station, nervous to know what she would find.

The station looked the same. The only difference was that Killian wasn't at his desk. He wasn't there pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance at Leroy's most recent antics. The desk was empty if not for a cake that sat on his desk. Wait, why was there a cake?

"Hey Graham, why is there a -" her words stop as she takes in the image in front of her. Inside Graham's office sits a dirty blonde woman with an eerie familiarity.

"Emma, this is Autumn Day. She was looking for Killian to thank him," Graham says. "I was telling Miss Day that Killian is not available at the moment."

Emma purses her lips. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Autumn smirks, "Oh no, dear. Mr. Jones is the only one I trust to help." She licks her lips.

"I understand, Miss Day, but Killian is not here." Emma's patience was wavering rapidly.

“I shall return. Could you have him call me once he is back?” Autumn handed Graham a paper and got up to leave. As she reached the door, she turns back to say “Please, do enjoy the cake. I would hate for it to go to waste.”

Emma turned to Graham as soon as the woman left. There was something off about her.

“Has he called in?”

Graham sighs. “He asked for some time off.”

“Killian asked for vacation days? Mr. ‘I’ll rest when I die’?” The ache felt like it would swallow her.

“He said he had a family emergency. I’m sorry, Emma. I could not deny him.” Graham winces.

“I just don’t understand what’s going on. And who the hell is that woman? I don’t remember him working on any cases that involved anyone with that name,” Emma sighs.

“Emma, I’m sure he is fine. He will be back soon,” he assures her.

Belle travels with Killian to Sherwood Forest against her advisor’s pleading.

“Belle, you should’ve stayed back. If something were to happen to you, your territory would be open to an attack.”

“Killian, I have contingency plans set up for those situations. You forget I taught you and the pack everything about strategy, and besides, I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” She winked at him.

They had gone the rest of the trip on horseback. Robin had never been able to leave the forest behind. The ride was like traveling back in time to simpler days.

Robin Locksley’s compound was a small fortress. The wooden cottages were reminiscent of Killian’s days with the pack. After losing Liam, he came across Robin and they took him in. His heart was still black with anger and he didn’t stay long. It was a miracle he didn’t pledge to the darkness. He simply wanted justice, just like he did now.

A young boy rushed out of the main house with excitement on his face. They rarely had visitors. “Roland, wait a minute,” an exasperated voice boomed from within the opened door.

“Killian Jones is that you, brother?” The blue-eyed, light brown-haired man smiled wide at his friend as he engulfed the man in a tight hug.

“Locksley, it’s good to see you too.” Killian’s smile didn’t reach his azure eyes. There was no mischief in them.

“Hello,” he turned his face to Belle. “Interesting company you keep, Rioga. It appears you have a soft spot for scoundrels. Will most definitely will be devastated,” Robin winks at Belle.

Belle has turned beet red. Killian raises an eyebrow.

“Marian, we’ve got company. Roland, go fetch Uncle Will.” His happiness overwhelmed him at opening his home to old friends.

They follow Robin inside and sit on the comfortable plush sofa. It was a homely room.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?” He smiled as they sat down.

Killian scratches behind his ear, his well known tell said more than words. Robin studied his friend.

“Killian, you look different,” Robin states.

“Aye, I’m not here for revenge,” Killian starts.

Robin finishes his sentence, “You’re here for love. You once said you would only risk your life for two things: vengeance and love.”

“I need to steal something but I cannot risk my Rioga going into a small war with the Stygia in our territory. It could cause a full-blown war,” Killian says.

A startled Will enters the room with Roland in tow. His smile is big as his eyes land on Belle. His gaze stays on her for more time than it should. Once he drinks her in, that is the moment Killian’s presence is noticed. Will senses the familiarity between his friend and the woman he fancies.

Belle is the one to break the ice. “Hello, William. Have you stayed out of trouble since the last time we saw each other?”

Will blushes as he takes a knee. “Rioga, I’m your servant.”

Killian turns to Robin, amused by his friend’s behavior, and honestly surprised since Will has always been anti-authority.

Robin simply shrugs at the display.

Belle laughs. “William, we are here to ask for a favor.”

Will hasn’t risen from his position. “I will do as you wish.”

Belle shakes her head. “I’ve told you before that I’m your friend. I’m not your Rioga, and as your friends, we are here to ask for a favor.”

Will finally acknowledges Killian’s presence. “Jones, what are you doing here?”

Killian doesn’t miss the way Will looks between Belle and him.

“I need the services of a thief and Belle thought of you,” Killian says.

“If memory serves, you were quite the thief yourself, Jones. I guess the rumors are true, you’ve gone soft,” Will sniggers.

Killian rolls his eyes. “I’m afraid I cannot risk causing trouble for my Rioga. You are not affiliated with anyone. Sherwood isn’t assigned to anyone according to the agreement Robin made.”

Belle clears her throat. “We are here because we need your help.” She smiles wickedly at him. “Your target is the Norn.”

William whistles low. “What am I stealing?”

Killian winces. “My love passion; she altered our deal and tricked me.”

Robin breaks his silence. “Killian, I love you like a brother, but the Norn is an ancient Fae. This will not go unnoticed. Perhaps-” he is cut off by Will.

“I’ll do it. Robin is a mother hen.” Will waves his hand in dismissal.

“Robin, she is one of the oldest Faes alive, but our laws apply to all. The problem is no one has tried taking her on. She has tricked Fae out of their most cherished possessions long enough. It’s time she faces the consequences for her trickery. It’s time she finds out that she is not above the law.”

“So when do we leave?” Will asks.

Belle smiles. “Killian will leave first. Then we will follow days later. I need to reach out to his Rioga for permission to travel to their town. William, you will come along as part of my security. That way, you will be able to come and go as you please.” Both of them blush as the words come out of her mouth.

Belle, Will, and Killian finalize their plans just in time for dinner. Although Robin is not 100 percent on board with the idea, he pledges his assistance in whatever capacity it is needed. In one last act of sisterly love to her former brother-in-law, Belle urges for Killian to tell Emma what happened. “Killy, she deserves to know; this doesn’t just affect you.”

The Norn had been disappointed in missing the wolf. She had used some of the blonde savior’s hair infused with a touch of the love passion of the deputy. The glamour spell hadn’t worked perfectly. She would simply wait for her chance. Her plans wouldn’t be thwarted.

All those years ago when he had first appeared at her door, she had been intrigued by the blue-eyed wolf. The attraction she felt for him was unnatural and one she had never felt before. Her reflection image was of a dirty-blonde woman with hazel eyes. The hair wasn’t exactly the right shade of blonde or the right color eyes for that matter. She wanted golden-blonde hair with green eyes. The magic should have worked better. She sighs as she takes out the vial with the love passion and the one with the hair strand out of her cabinet. It will work. Where was her wolf? He would be hers, she had an arsenal of magical weapons at her disposal if needed. She scoffs; she still didn’t understand what made the blonde “Savior” so special. Sure, she is powerful; a waste of power on a human in her opinion.

Days later Killian shows up at the station. He tries to put on a smile. His desk is void of papers just like he left it. He looks around the station and it’s quiet. A message scribbled with the name Autumn Day was left on his desk. The name didn’t sound familiar. He puts it aside and digs into his cabinet for any case that could keep him busy until Belle arrived. His cellphone was in the drawer, turned off. He turns it on and waits while it powered up. The screensaver appeared with a selfie of Emma and himself smiling. He traced the image with the pad of his thumb slowly. They were so happy that day. He sighs. Bloody hell he missed her. The love might not be there, but the ache definitely was.

Soon enough he will have to face her. How would he explain all the unanswered texts and calls? This had to work, he had to get it back. He would never stop fighting for them.

If Liam was still alive he would say, “ A man unwilling to fight for what he wants deserves what he gets .”

Tagging:

@rumdrum91 @itsfabianadocarmo @xsajx @hookedonapirate @kmomof4 @searchingwardrobes @seriouslyhooked @profdanglaisstuff @let-it-raines @revanmeetra87 @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @kymbersmith-90 @branlovestowrite @thejollyroger-writer @shireness-says @ilovemesomekillianjones @thisonesatellite @thesschesthair @winterbythesea @stahlop @resident-of-storybrooke @superchocovian @lfh1226-linda @artistic-writer @thislassishooked @shardminds @winterbaby89 @xhookswenchx @ultraluckycatnd @gingerchangeling @laschatzi @wellhellotragic @xemmaloveskillianx @courtorderedcake @pirateherokillian @optomisticgirl @darkcolinodonorgasm @sherlockianwhovian @andiirivera @djlbg @nikkiemms @jennjenn615 @scientificapricot @officerrogers @imlaxdris71 @therealstartraveller776 @kday426 @allons-y-to-hogwarts-713   @donteattheappleshook @spacekrulesbians @lassluna @carpedzem @captainodonoghue @killian-will-do @jarienn972 @tehgreeneyes @demisexualemmaswan @queen-serena88 @swanslieutenant @tiganasummertree @whimsicallyenchantedrose @bethacaciakay @ohmakemeahercules @jrob64 @klynn-stormz @mariakov81

[catracorner962]

9 Lives of Catra Applesauce Meow Meow Ch. 8 Corridors

Burned a life to save Glimmer.

*This chapter gets graphic please be warned!*

“Do what I ask of you,” Horde Prime commanded. Catra’s heart hammered against her chest, her eyes darting towards where Hordak...the new clone...whoever he was, stood vacantly before them. She shivered. Green light reflecting off of Prime’s white robes. The clones moaned and groveled in their sick revelry.

He’s got you cornered….you pledged your allegiance to him, her mind raced with self-accusation. She’d gotten herself into this mess. Backed herself into this corner through her usual lies and attempts to survive. If Hordak couldn’t please him…..how can I possibly? 

“Don’t pretend you're any better off than I am here,” Glimmer’s words rang through her ears. She winced, stupid princess was right. Catra swallowed, her throat dry. She looked up at him. Searching for any sign of a way out, any card she could play, any tool she could use. Nothing. Prime’s eyes, alight with that sickly glow only stared at her, pleased with the way she was squirming under his gaze.  She cleared her throat, running her hands through her hair in an attempt to press it down.

“Yes, Horde Prime.” He smiled, revealing pointed fangs, pleased.

“Go in now in peace.”

Catra managed a curt bow, and forced herself to walk from the chamber.

I’ll talk to Glimmer, but if she says anything about Adora I won’t….I can’t...no I’ll...I’ll figure something out. I always find a way. Whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes, her chest clenched. The bruises and scars along her body ached in an echo of exactly what it had taken to stick around this long. To hold her station. To get to where she’d gotten.

How many lives have I burned through? Five...no more than that. Eight? That many? They all ran together in her mind. The pain of each time jumbled and confused. Catra shook her head, now sprinting down the corridors, as far away from the pool as possible.

---

“You want me to talk to her or not? Trust me, I need cake.”

The clone cocked its head, confused. Catra snarled, tail flicking.

“All these ships and you don’t have a kitchen? What do you eat? Green goo? You want me to talk to the Princess. I need to get her to trust me. Now get me some cake that resembles whatever they’d have on Brightmoon and let me do Horde Prime’s will.” Her stomach churned at the words, she swallowed down bile. The clone nodded.

“We will get you what you ask Little Sister. Horde Prime knows all.”

Catra rolled her eyes, folding her arms.

“Hurry up.”

The clone’s empty eyes looked over her for a moment and she fought the urge to scratch him. Does he know…? Can he really see all? If he really had such omnipotence he would for sure see the doubt and indecision that ate away at Catra’s core. The self-loathing and hatred. Toward Prime himself, toward SheRa, toward the Horde, all of it.  But she was here now, whatever things she had done to get her were in the past. There was no going back.

I can’t just undo….

“Here you are Little Sister,” Catra snapped back to attention at the clone who handed her a small box. She lifted the flap, looking at the pretty pink cake inside. She nodded, turning on her heel and making her way to Glimmer’s cell. She could feel the clone tracing her steps close behind her, causing her fur to stand on end.

I’m running on borrowed time here. Ever since we were beamed up.

They navigated the hallways, and she made sure to purposely make several wrong turns.

As if I don’t know exactly where Glimmer’s being kept.

As if she hadn’t been sneaking there all this time. If only to see a familiar face.

Someone who’s almost done just as bad as I have, some deep part of herself whispered. Just didn’t expect it to be the Queen of Brightmoon herself.

They arrived at the cell, the clone reaching forward to press its palm against the green barrier. Catra’s eyes narrowed, watching the hand remain there until a green diamond appeared, sending the rest of the barrier fading away to allow entrance.

“Give us some privacy?”

“Of course Sister, Prime sees all.”

The wall of green materialized gain, leaving the two of them.  

“What’s with the babysitter?” Glimmer asked, her tone more casual and easy than Catra expected.

“Here,” she held the box out in front of her. Glimmer looked at the cake, bewildered. “It’s the dumb food you wanted.”

Wow she’s just as bad as Adora, the idiot.

“You know?! From your perfect day or whatever.” A crimson blush rose to Catra’s cheeks.

“I remember,” Glimmer pipped up, looking at her with wide eyes and a smile...not twisted with sarcasm or chagrin to match Catra’s own but...a sweet smile, a kind smile. Catra kept her head turned, starting at the floor. 

“I just….thanks,” Glimmer finished her voice shaking a little.

You’re welcome.

“Don’t go thinking I actually care about you,” because I don’t! I do not! “I’m supposed to talk to you, so eat the stupid cake and then answer my questions,” she handed the box to Glimmer who took it, still looking wide eyed at her, for some sort of answer. Catra’s ears flicked, listening for the clone outside.

It’s still there….fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck.

What am I going to do?

Get the information from Glimmer. Horde Prime will be proud of you. You could rise above Hordak. Maybe, if you do this, if you continue to do as Prime says. Maybe.

No….no matter what you do he’ll get rid of you like Glimmer said. And Glimmer….she...she..

Sweat dripped down Catra’s temple, curving along the line of her mask.

“What’s going on?” Glimmer’s voice trembled, delicately.

“Shhh, don’t say anything,” Catra turned from the door, back towards the princess, taking Glimmer’s hand in both her own. “Just look at me,” she whispered, walking backward to the farthest point of the cell. Glimmer backed up, finally sitting on the large bed. “An old First One’s ship left Etheria’s atmosphere a few days ago,” Catra knelt on the ground before her, squeezing her hands.

Not for the first time….when you fought her before. When you died, she was holding you when you died. She was holding your hand.  When you came back again, she held your hand. It grounded you. She doesn’t want to hurt you either. You asked her to kill you...and she still didn’t do it. She had every reason to. You killed her mother, Catra’s stomach threatened to empty, looking into those purple grey eyes.

“Prime cannot track it, what do you know about it?”

Glimmer gasped, tightening her grip on Catra’s hand. The cake clattered to the ground on the floor.

“Adora’s on that ship,” Catra’s voice hitched. “Isn’t she?!” She stood, letting go of Glimmer.

“You can’t tell him!” The princess seized her arm, trying to pull her back, “You know what he’ll do to her if he catches her!”

Catra’s ears folded against her skull, face flushing.

She’s right. He’ll do to Adora what he did to Hordak….

She tightened her fist in indignation, yanking it out of Glimmer’s clammy grasp.

“Adora’s on her way here, she’s coming for you! I don’t have to do anything! I just have to let it happen!”

She turned to go, fury in her chest, her tail lashing behind her.

“And you think Prime will reward you?!” Glimmer leapt in front of her, fists balled. “As soon as you’re no longer useful to him he’ll get rid of you in a second!”

Of all Catra’s skill, her  enduring willful ignorance to inevitable truth was the strongest.

“I always find a way out!” She growled, moving forward. Glimmer  grabbed her by the shoulders, shoving her backward .

“So you’re just going to run away?! To...to what?!” The princess begged, her eyes rimming with tears of anger. “If Prime captures Adora he can use the Heart of Etheria to wipe out the whole universe! Is that what you want?!”

Catra’s eyes widened, her mouth opened to offer a smart rebuke but nothing came.

What do you want Catra? A question she had met with violence and deception, and blind ignorance, not with an answer.

The princess’s gloved grip  brought her back to reality, tightening around her hand. Tears now pressed at her eyes.

“Catra! Please! Do one good thing in your life!”

There was trust in those eyes. Trust in a better part of herself, trust that there was a better part of herself. A secret heart in her that wanted to save, or at least prevent the destruction of their planet. An appeal to her better half. A hope that a better half existed. Glimmer. Who had gone behind her own friend’s back herself to try and activate the heart. Glimmer who tried to fix it. Who was still trying. Her fingers gently stroked across Catra’s gloved hands, her whole body shaking.

Catra sucked a breath, threatening to let out a quiet whimper.

I...I’ve never done a good thing in my life. Not for Adora...or Scorpia...or for anyone. If Prime wipes out Etheria...Adora will be dead. Everything will be obliterated. The Fright Zone, Brightmoon, the Princesses and the Horde.. Adora and I….we wanted to rule Etheria, not destroy it.  Not destroy it.

The only thing you’ve ever been good at is destroying those you love. Destroying other people’s happiness and hope. Destroying yourself.

“Argh,” She swiped her arm away from Glimmer’s hands once more, shaking, squeezing her eyes shut. If only to get away from the princess’s beseeching look. “Don’t talk to me like you know me!” She cried, 

“You don’t know anything about me!” Catra pounded her fists against the green barrier.

“Hey! Let me out!”

She took off as soon as it dissolved, trying to run as fast as she could, away from Glimmer’s despondent sobs.

---

Catra’s claws wracked down the hall, Horde Prime’s hollow words running through her mind:

“You will be raised up above the other wretched creatures of your home world. Is that not what you want?”

What do you want?

Adora….

Always Adora. It always had been, it always would be.

Catra stopped in her tracks. Staring at the reflective wall, her own forlorn sleep deprived face looking back at her.

This is all I’ve ever been. All I will ever be.

She drew a heavy breath, her chest hurting to even move. Thought’s roving,

Adora and me playing...running through the industrial halls. Laughing even though there was no reason to laugh. Playing and fighting and play fighting.

She could see it clear as day, their squealing laughter, her heart skipped in her chest, blood thrumming through her ears. Her and Adora rolling around on the ground, she would almost always pin the other girl down, laughing. Hands on Adora’s round little shoulders. Catra’s eyes widened, picturing it as if her childhood broken as it was, appeared before her.

It wasn’t all bad. There were good things, there was Adora.

Just Adora.

Not SheRa...not Adora who left but Adora my friend.

“I’m always gonna be your friend,” the sunlit voice of her friend sounded clear as a bell.

Catra’s face fell, staring down the corridor picturing little Adora. Barely enough blonde hair to stay in a ponytail, her large blue eyes, missing front teeth, round face. Her tail flicked back and forth with indecision.

“I’m always gonna be your friend.”

It’s too late….I’ve done too much, I haven't done enough...but I can do one good thing. Glimmer was wrong...you were wrong you sweet, sweet idiot. There’s no better part of me. It doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t matter.

Catra took a deep breath, face going tight, she set her jaw, ears going flat.

I don’t matter. But they do. Adora does.

One good thing.

She bit her tongue, tail now lashing. Catra unleashed her claws, and sprinted towards Glimmer’s cell.

---

“It’s nothing personal, Hordak,” Catra grunted, sliding her claws into the port at the base of the clone’s neck. His eyes faded as sparks flew. Going from green to white. She grunted, heaving him upward, holding his arm aloft.

“I’m coming in!”

Without waiting for an answer she held his hand up to the green barrier, waiting for it to fall away. Glimmer lowered her arms, the shard of a chair leg held in her grip, ready to attack.

“Wh...what are you?”

Catra dropped the clone,

“I….I wanna do that one good thing in my life,” She breathed. “Like you said.” She held out her hand to Glimmer, on a chance, on a wish.  “So...come with me…?”

Glimmer’s eyes widened, her whole form shaking. Catra watched her glance at the fallen clone, then to Catra’s outstretched hand.

She took it, holding tightly. Catra allowed a small smile to flit across her face. Glimmer returned her cautious friendly expression.

I can do one good thing. If it’s the last thing I do. Let it be good.

Catra adjusted her grip, careful to keep her claws from shredding Glimmer’s gloves, then pulled her along.

---

Catra held Glimmer’s arm in a death grip, as much to quell her own pounding chest as to move her forward. Pushing her towards the launch pad. The princess stumbled forward, only to be blocked by a sheer energy barrier. Catra ran to the console, the alarms blaring in her ears.

“What are you doing?!”

“What does it look like?” Catra glowered, fingers scattering across the controls. 

“I’m getting you out of here.”  She typed fast, watching the doors on either side of the room slide shut. 

“Good, that should hold them.”

Not for long, but long enough.

“What are you….? Are you saving me?”

Glimmer asked, timid from where she stood. Catra tapped the keys, trying to send a transmission to the incoming Etherian ship.

“Not you,” she lied. “Adora. Even if I send her a message to stay away she’d still come for you. That’s just how she is.”

Stupid heroic Adora who would throw herself into harm’s way for her friends.

Clones moaned, shrieked, their claws pressing and scratching against the grinding metal doors, prying them apart. Catra’s heart sped furiously.

“W...what about you?!” Glimmer’s voice cracked with concern Catra could only hope was genuine.

“Me?” She stared at her hands, her claws. Claws that had cut and sliced. She bit her tongue. Words that had hurled insults, spat lies, weaved deception.  “All I do is hurt people,” she whispered, shaking her head. Then, spoke the truth: 

“there’s no one left in the entire universe who cares about me.”  

Double Trouble was right. You’ve driven them all away.

“Adora?!” Catra asked, eyes frantically darting to the doors where the clones were nearly breaking through.

“Catra?!”

She bit back a smirk at the familiar voice. Even through the static of the transmission.

“Don’t sound so happy to hear me. I’m sending Glimmer to you.”

One good thing. Do one good thing with what’s left with your lives.

If Catra was going to die, as she suspected she would now that the clones had barged through the doors and were rushing to attack her, then she was going to do so not for Horde Prime, or Shadow Weaver or for her own twisted power games, she was going to die doing something for Adora. For someone else. It was the only thing she could do. The one good thing.

“Wait, wait, wait Glimmer is with you?!” Adora’s strained voice panicked in confusion.

“Aaaarhhh!” The clones pourned in, arms ready to subdue her.

“We don’t have time! You need to get to these coordinates now!” She typed furiously, “don’t come here! No matter what!”  She lashed out, punching the first on coming clone in the face. “Horde Prime is coming for you! Arrgh!” Catra kneed another clone in the gut.

“Catra I don’t understand What is….?”

She screeched, two clones pulling her from her feet, their impossibly strong arms slamming her into the wall. Catra squirmed, tears now fully streaming.

“Adora! I’m sorry!” She clenched her fists, trying to yank it free of the clone’s grip. 

“Uuughhh, for everything!”

Catra threw herself forward, arm outstretched, sliding the controls upward. The green barrier around Glimmer began to vibrate. A clone fisted its hand into Catra’s wild hair, twisting it tight and jerking her head back. Three more clones grabbed at her. Too many arms and legs gripping all over her body, their weight crushing her against the control panel.

“Aaaah!”

“Catr…” Glimmer screamed, her body being pulled upward.

“Glimme….go!”

The clones worked her like a puppet,  her head bent backward, neck threatening to snap. A force beyond her control and resistance gripped the top of her head, clawing into her scalp. Her face went flying forward, temple hitting against the corner of the control console.

A defining crack, something released like a pressure valve. Catra’s vision blurred, ears ringing.  A dizzying lethargy shrouded her mind. She tried to open her mouth, to bite and snarl but nothing happened. The clone grabbing her skull lifted her crushed face from the corner and brought it down again. This time, Catra tasted blood in her mouth, hot and metallic and thick. Dark hair matted with torn flesh, she tried to twist away but couldn’t, her thoughts becoming more scattered, her body going more limp with each slam against the edge of the table.

Glimmer….

A….adora..

I….

CRACK

..a...am...

CRACK

...s..so...sorr

CRACK!!!

Her body flailed, twitching, eyes blinking  rapidly, unable to focus. Something wet and globules stuck to her face, mixed with sweat and blood. A warm foul wetness trickled down her legs. The clones brandished her head against the table once more. Her vision went dark. They pressed and crushed against her, holding her captive, bludgeoning her head into the corner but she’d already defied them. She already made her choice.

I did it….

The ghost of a smile, blood ran between her broken teeth.

One good thin

…ssss…..ckk….kaCK...s...shh

Catra died for the eight time.