#dauntless kin

[almostfoxglove]

AN END TO DROUGHT

written for @perotovar's offering of Frith

RATING: Explicit (18+) | PAIRING: Javier Peña x f!Reader GOD: Freyr God of fertility, harvests, and peace WORD COUNT: 5.4k CW: Smut (f!oral, m!oral, unprotected piv, creampie).

SUMMARY: The future of your family's homestead hangs in the balance as Javier Peña comes home in the middle of a drought.

read on ao3 | almostfoxglove masterlist

For two fortnights you’ve seen no rainfall. Not a single, silver drop. The orchard, rich with the stunted globes of pale apples not yet fully formed, withers browner every day. Leaves crisp and folded in prayer, the last-ditch desperation of dying fronds. You spend hours hauling well water to the rows of cropland on which your livelihood relies, but it isn’t enough. Each morning you wake to the sun rising phoenix-like on the horizon, hotter and more accusing than the day before.

You speak to the trees, the fledgling stone fruit, apologizing when there is no more water your body can carry, when the well runs dry. 

Six generations your family has raised apples like they raised their kin. 

Now it will die in this drought with you as its shepherd.

Hopeless in your waking, back throbbing, shoulders sore, you rise from your bed at the crack of a new dawn to the fragrance coaxed every Sunday by your mother’s slender hands. She is fragile now in that child-like way, skin thin and veins sapphire blue, hearing going, but sturdy, still, for you. Doesn’t matter that you’ve been grown for decades now, solely responsible for the farm and her mounting care—your mother bakes a pair of her grain-kissed boules every week without fail.

“There you are,” she says, when you are just two steps away. These days she cannot hear your footsteps on the stairs.

“Sit, now,” you say softly, slipping your hand over hers to take the bread knife, and with a soft tsk your mother surrenders before settling at the breakfast table.

You break bread together: salted butter swept glistening over the delicate crumb and sturdy crust, spoons of preserves canned the year before. Cinnamon and cloves, honey and stewed apples, wild pickled blueberries. It takes so long to notice the change in the air, but when you do it’s obvious—you aren’t sweating in the way you have for weeks. The house, once sweltering, has cooled ever so slightly. When you gaze out the windows into the orchard, the sky is no longer the blue you’ve come to resent, but a wash of cotton batting. 

Clouds. 

Your mother, thin wire glasses low on her nose, grins at your expression. 

“He’s home,” she says.

“Who?”

Her smirk is the same as you remember it being when you were a girl. “The Peña boy,” she says, lifting her bread slice to her mouth. “Weather always fixes itself when he comes ‘round.”

You hum beneath your breath. You can picture him only vaguely—lean and liquid, little more than a silhouette in the distance on the other side of the fence that cages your family’s property from his. His father you know better, see often. Spiced apple cider traded for horse manure or Chucho’s brawn. Twice this past winter he fixed your fence after a furious storm and asked for nothing but a loaf of your mother’s bread in return.

Javier you’ve not glimpsed in a decade give or take, if you’re remembering right. Moved somewhere south for duty’s dauntless call.

In the lullaby of easy silence, you finish your meal, rinse the dishes, and walk out into the fields with the second loaf in hand where overhead the sky is performing a miracle befitting the gods: letting out the first tender, forgiving drops of rain. Your body brightens as you watch it freckle and darken the starving, yellowed earth. 

A caw, something of a laugh, shocks loose from your chest—delight, pure in its relief.

Tracing the aisles of death-bed apple trees, you sweep your fingertips along their trunks. Water pools in the green spades turned to spoons for liquid crystal. The precipitation for which you’ve longed and begged and prayed: here, at last, to save the grange.

The rain picks up. Forceful in its abundance, peppering the sandy earth. Soon your boots stick as you walk between trees, dirt becoming mud, so you shield the boule beneath the leaf of your buttoned shirt.

At the end of the orchard, the log fence stands and the grass grows tall and clover-riddled, purple thistles starved yellow in the heat. You stride towards the fence, far beyond which the Peña house stands white and shingled, framed by the umbrellas of old oak trees that border the meadows in which their herd of equines laze back and forth, grateful as you for the merciful change in weather. It is beautiful here, though it’s easy to forget when all the season brings is wilting. 

You hear him before you see him: a quiet, clicking tongue. 

Then a mare picks up her cantor, spurred forth by Javier—indeed returned, wide in the shoulders and dark hair slicked by rain, out forty feet or so—tanned skin made gold around his eyes by yellow aviators, periwinkle shirt undone a button too low. More handsome than you remember, but it’s been a long time. 

Your mother was right: it seems he brought the rain home with him.

As you come to a stop near the fence, tall grass clinging to your calves, his head turns slowly in your direction. Jaw working over something—gum, if you had to guess. You lift your free hand, show him your open palm, and he takes a last look at the horse before sauntering your way.

Like you, he’s undisturbed by the rain. No shelter-seekers here; you’re grateful enough to bathe in any storm. Come hell or high water—isn’t that how the saying goes? You’d swim any flash flood after all this unending dearth, drink any tidal wave.

“Heard you were home,” you call out over the pebbling downpour, watching his broad hand rake through his hair. 

Much more handsome than you remember, the nearer he strides. Unhurried, Javier lifts his sunglasses off to slip into his shirt pocket and even from some way off you don’t miss the path of his brown eyes as he takes you in. Against your better judgment, the hungry stripe of his gaze flips something low in your stomach, something needy. 

He stops just shy of his side of the fence, no more than an arm’s length away, as the splatter of kind weather kicks up the earth’s perfume. 

“This morning,” he admits, his voice all gravel and mead. Low and heady, a little sweet. Not shy—his eyes drop again, this time to your stomach where you’re holding the bread beneath your shirt. Sort of useless now—the rain’s too strong to save it—so you draw it out, flashing him by accident a glimpse of your bare stomach where his gaze stays pinned. 

Then, bread rising in your hand, seeded crust glistening as it speckles wet, his eyes at last leave you to follow it. “Ma thinks you brought the rain,” you say, not bothering to hide your smirk.

The corner of his mouth pulls into his cheek. “That so?”

You shrug, loaf held like a waitress’ tray not yet offered. “Accordin’ to her.”

To your surprise you see in his eyes what appears to be timidity—perhaps bashful to be given credit for the sudden end to the wrecking drought he’s no doubt heard about. With a sweep of your arm, you present the bread in your outstretched hand and one dark brow rises high on his head. 

“Before it’s drenched,” you insist, and Javier takes it, smile lopsided and pretty. 

Above the chuffing sound of a horse grazing on the trampled grass, the sky splits like a seam and sunlight cuts through the cloud’s white cover, throwing down a ribbon of yellow that licks the stables. 

Javier tilts the bread in his hands, inspecting the ear, the crust. Flashes those dark eyes back at you, exacting and tender at the same time.

“Our way of saying thanks,” you say, already stepping backward, toward the apple trees. “Neighbor.”

The rain doesn’t stop for three days—just long enough to wash the ash of long-snuffed forest fires from the orchard’s leaves. When the sun returns whole and yolk-gold to the sky, it brings heat of a kinder type. Warm for the growing things but barbless in its licking flame. You swear in just three nights the orchard lifts itself from its stupor—broadens, stretches, unfurls new leaves. 

Your mother bakes like she’s got an army to feed and doesn’t wait till Sunday to do it. 

“Take them, take them,” she insists, as fragile in stature as she is adamant in tone. Such a small, hunched little thing. “Least we can do.”

“Ma,” you sigh, powerless to her persistence, how she rests the arched handle of a basket in your hand for you to take. “You don’t seriously think he—”

She tuts softly, shoos you with one pallid hand before re-knotting the bow of her apron behind her back. “Just be grateful,” she says. “S’only right.”

Might as well be a girl again because here you are, obedient. Carrying the basket of seeded bread across the grass, between reborn apple trees, the fragrant orchard rows that days ago seemed doomed to die. Your heart thuds, surrendering itself to gratitude. Suppose it doesn’t hurt anything to take the Peñas bread.

Javier’s out in the pasture cleaving a rotten log from a sunken fence panel with an axe. White t-shirt translucent and clinging to the muscle that banks his back, he heaves the blade down with a biting crack and a grunt. Your footsteps give you away—he straightens as you hop the fence between your properties and land on his side, halting his rhythmic swinging.

As he turns, face halved by the shadow of an oak looming overhead, eyes squinting to make you out in the light, Javier cocks an eyebrow, dimple winking in his cheek.

“Neighbor,” he says, unabashed, now, in his lingering gaze. Dark curls cling to his temples and forehead, licked by sweat, across which he wipes the back of his forearm before setting the axe down against the fence.

Growing up on adjoining farms never sowed friendship between you—you’d estimate you’ve exchanged no more than a couple hundred words in damn near four decades—but there is in Javier a certain familiarity. A sense of him fitting into the landscape, reliable as an oak always looming in the distance. As constant as these valleys and hills, as the house beyond his muscled shoulder. Never something to acquaint yourself with, but something to rely upon.

Peculiar to stand before him now—twice in the same week—exchanging words.

You hold out the basket, linen cloth folded neatly over the boules. Javier, eyeing you suspiciously, takes one cautious step toward you with his hands on his narrow hips, peering down at your offering. His eyes flicker beyond you to your house and though you don’t look back you’d bet the whole season’s harvest that your mother is standing on the porch, watching. Guaranteeing you hand off the gift as she’s asked, like you aren’t well past grown.

Amused, he hums low and quiet. “For me?” he muses, knowing the answer, and when you roll your eyes he only smirks. Pleased, maybe teasing you.

You squint at him—glistening, all sinew and bated breath. Your mother’s mind may be failing in that drawn out, terrible way—hearing fading, her logic a little swimmy—but standing this close to Javier you can’t blame the woman for mistaking him for a god. 

“Just take it,” you say, betrayed by the curl of your lips. “She won’t let me back in the house ‘till you do.”

This time as he slips the gift from your hand to his, Javier sweeps his fingertips against your open palm, sending a sparkle of heat up the length of your arm. You watch him peel the frond of cloth back, unveiling the golden tithe as you drop your arm at your side. When he inhales slow and deep you can smell it too, that redolent unfurling of warmth. Hypnotic, despite its familiarity. Hypnotic, too, is the breadth of his chest as he takes that long, indulgent breath, thin fabric slick to his damp, lithe form. 

“She really think I brought the rain?” he asks, frowning a little. Watching you like he knows you’re watching him. Each of you sizing the other up, scrambling to build opinions of someone who’s only ever been a figure across the lush trees and grass. 

Did you once lose a kite to one of their oak trees? You think you might remember a young, rawboned Javier climbing a web of gnarled branches to fish it free, delivering it safely to where you waited on your side of the fence. Yes, you can see it now—that lazy, one-sided smile on his boyish face, the sun-bleached kite, and the relief of its homecoming to your trembling hand. 

Three decades older he is no less honest in the way he awaits your reaction.

“Or she’s messing with me,” you admit. “I never know anymore.”

His scoff triggers yours—a brief, quiet chuckle in the remains of a salvaged summer. Javier shrugs and yes, you think he catches the way your eyes skirt briefly to his shoulders because his jaw ticks, cheeks hollowing as he sucks his tongue against his front teeth. He turns his head in the direction of their house, sees no sign of Chucho, same as you. A low hm sound rattles from his chest.

You’d swear the sun flares a little hotter when he returns his gaze to you.

“If it rains again,” Javier says, his voice swooping to a deeper shade. “What will you bring me?”

You cross your arms. “I think you can count on the bread indefinitely.”

“Don’t mean her—I mean you.”

Traitorous, your heart: how it speeds, skips a note or two in its once steady pattern. “I don’t think you brought the rain,” you tell him. “Just timing.”

When he narrows his eyes, his crow’s feet swallow them. Mustache quirking, pink tongue darting over his bottom lip. “Call it hypothetical,” he says, and you’re not sure if you were standing quite this close just a moment before, if one of you has moved and if so, which. 

Hunger rarely devours you in any of its forms. A life spent in service of harvests leaves little excess to spend. Yet it stirs unmistakably, low and begging, at the sound of Javier’s gruff voice and the graceful way he pins your eyes to his mouth with every tiny movement of his lips. He doesn’t have to smile for you to feel him smirking—a fact alone that feels somehow mythic in its dominion, its quiet, unassuming power. All of him marble-sleek and solid, the image of virile beauty. It almost feels like a shame to think you’ve seldom stood this close before.

You jut your chin to the sky—that blue untouched by a single cloud—and shake your head. “It’s not going to rain,” you say, steadfast in your certainty. “Not anytime soon.”

“And if it does.” He doesn’t say it like a question—rather, an inevitability—which is to say you hear his real meaning: and when it does.

Head shaking, cheeks set aflame, you once more roll your eyes, this time turning back to return to your side of the fence. Over your shoulder you call out, “If it rains this week, I’ll bring whatever you like.”

For six days there’s nothing but sun. You watch the apples blush on their branches, those first pinkish stripes that promise a red and sugared fruit. Autumn will bring spices and cider, days and weeks and months of fermentation, of watching fruit turn liquid and then to gold. This stretch of summer is make or break for the harvest to come: the right weather now can mean perfection or a crying shame.

All week you watch Javier at such a distance he appears as only a tiny, charcoal figure roaming the fields, hauling lumber and picking up the far-off slack.

Yet often when you do, you think his head looks to be already angled in your direction. Impossible to know for sure in the blazing light and with so much land between you, but you’d take that bet. You’re pretty sure he’s watching you too.

You’re sure, also, that you’re right about the weather. At the dawn of the seventh day the skies look no less blemished than they have all week. Doesn’t look at all like it’s going to rain.  To your surprise, you’re a little disappointed, but the feeling passes.

You push out into the orchards, tend to the lifelong task of keeping everything verdant and alive. Sweet is the air at this early, fragile hour in which the birds are just now waking, filling the world with their jubilee. Sky pink at the horizon, white overhead, you spend the morning gloating to no one but the trees—you were right, and Javier was wrong. He’s going to lose.

Lose what, you aren’t sure, but when midday breaks golden and ripe, Javier appears in the tall grass, hand steadied on the neck of a tobiano as he and the creature walk between gated pastures, and his face turns in your direction, catches you drinking icy cider on the porch while you catch your breath between tasks. 

This time when he catches your gaze, he lifts his free hand, forefinger spearing up at the sky. Too far to call out to each other, you have no way of asking what the gesture is for, so you step down from the croaking porch into the crabgrass and look up.

There hang, above you, newborn wisps. Clouds ashy at their bellies.

But clouds are just clouds. They aren’t rain.

The reckoning comes an hour later. 

You dismiss the first, shy drop. A fluke, a fleeting blip of your imagination. Then the second: clear and wet on your forearm. Then a third. Soon it’s unavoidable—above you gray has gathered like dust bunnies beneath a couch, the bright summer shaded by the weather’s impossible will—and the rain that falls is not a patter, not a whisper, but a stony fist fight. The kind of rain that comes sweeping and determined, that has something to prove. 

It’s like autumn has taken the stage two months too early. Childlike in its eagerness to command your attention—a downpour harsh and giving. 

You emerge at the end of an arbored aisle to see Javier cut stoic against the shaded sky just shy of the boundary between your properties, chest wide and proud, just as drenched by the onslaught of rain but not fazed in the slightest. Too cavalier to smile but its essence hangs in the air between you, silver as any raindrop, unmistakable in meaning. He nods in the direction of a stable not far from the first shelter of elder oaks and without a word or invitation lopes off toward it, so fluid in his lazy strides, legs a little bowed and no small bit solid, hugged tight by denim that might as well be painted on.

You are following before your mind can think to.

You are hopping the fence.

You are dashing for the shadowed stable after him.

Breathless, hair kelped to your cheeks, clothes more water than textile, you cannot at first make out the stable’s interior, eyes not yet adjusted to the shift in light, ears booming with its cacophony. “Okay,” you say to the darkness in which Javier must be standing, blinking fast, wiping the rain from your eyes. “You got really fuckin’ lucky. What do you want?”

Embers warm in your chest—the first fronds of new wanting. You know what you hope he’ll say.

A flash of movement as your eyes adapt: Javier’s tanned arms reaching for you. His broad hands frame your face and you are not yet surefooted as he, swept up in his sudden, steady embrace. You hear yourself laugh over the barrage outside, silenced only by the blackness in his eyes—all that warmth and brown swallowed by his pupils. Your hands cuff his wrists, holding him to holding you without hesitation. 

It should be awkward, this first real meeting of your bodies. How Javier steps up to press the length of his torso to yours, sly in the subtle turn of his lips as he breathes one quiet word: You. But it isn’t. He slots his lips to yours like kissing you is just another step in his languid stride, graceful and planned, his arms dragging you against his steady frame. The softness of his mouth a welcome surprise. Dizzy on the first swipe of his begging tongue, you’re entirely unaware of Javier walking you backward until your shoulder blades hit the stable wall.

What a gift it is to be kissed and kiss with one’s whole body. Javier licks hotly into your mouth, sucking sweetly on your tongue or bottom lip depending on his whim, hands holding you flush to the fire of him. When he moves to your jaw, the soft flesh of your ear, you are a candle never before lit, touched a thousand times wrongly and made finally right.

Javier mumbles something lost under the bellowing tempest. Every raindrop riots on the sheeted roof. 

“What?” you pant, eyelids heavy with lust. Your shirt hangs open, as does his, both unbuttoned though you’d not noticed their undoing. Now visible in the gray light is the bronze of his freckled chest, the dark hair drawn from his navel to the waistband of his jeans.

You’d stare, but Javier then laps at the hollows of your neck, drinks rain from the dip in your collarbone, and you hum softly, entranced by his touch, eyes fluttering closed. He moves his lips closer to your ear. “Perfect,” he repeats, before his mouth is lost once more to the curve of your shoulder, the slope of your chest.

Meanwhile the path of your hands draws a symphony from him: low grunts and breathy huffs and, when your fingertips trace the hair on his stomach to graze his jeans, an earthy moan sweeter than any rainfall after any summer. 

Javier cants his hips against yours like he’s making a promise.

How sublime, the wet ask of his tongue down your stomach as he falls to his knees. 

Though he—after catching your eye, fingers frozen over the fly of your shorts until you nod—is the one to strip the layers from you first, you aren’t certain which of you is the one who’s praying, only that the reverence hangs heavy as a heatwave in the humid air.

Your head falls back against the stable wall. All but the roar of the storm is lost beyond your panting bodies as Javier kneels at the altar of you, shelves one of your legs on his shoulders, and laps hungrily from your aching heat. The pledge of his mouth sucks the air from you—your hands fly to the laurel of his hair, bathed locks slipping between your fingers as you clench and throb and tug, hardly conscious of the whimpers you let out in the wake of his tending.

Dutiful, he brings you gasping to the brink of some new chasm. Tongue expert in its tracing, circling, slipping, driving. Lifts his face to smirk just before you fall, dark stache glossy with your need and eyes blown black, and perhaps you’d be annoyed if Javier looked arrogant at all, but his confidence appears to you only assured. Resolute in his wanting. As if the world would have to come to a sudden, gasping end for his concentration to falter at all.

“Like that?” Javier asks, perhaps as winded as you. Genuine, you think, in his asking, though he must know.

You’re not sure if you remember how to nod or speak, but your hips buck on their own accord, desperate for him to see this through. 

“Yeah,” he rasps, his thick fingers squeezing your hips. “Think you do.”

Then his grin vanishes as he resumes and all at once you are tumbling, swept away in a landslide and earthquake at the same time as he slips two fingers into you, coaxing a rush of pleasure into his mouth. You might cry out his name, but the sound is lost to the din of the deluge.

When next you catch your breath, Javier is standing, denim wet and straining against the swell of his length. Hesitation is no longer a word you know or hold, already greedy for his taste, so you urge your mouth to his and lap the taste of yourself from his tongue, fingers busy with freeing him, the slick peeling of his jeans. You fall without realizing you’re falling, sunken to the ground with Javier’s cock heavy and throbbing in your hand. 

He might whine when your tongue flickers sweetly against his weeping head—but there’s no mistaking the desperate groan dug loose from the earth of Javier’s chest as you bring the whole of him into the furnace of your mouth, wet and tight and willing. Your moan sends a shiver through his body, then Javier’s hand shoots out fast as a gunshot, palm slamming into the wall to keep himself from toppling. 

“Shit—” he gasps, and you look up at him through dewy lashes to find his eyes have closed, lips swollen and jaw hanging open. 

Again, you hum. Make a game of the stroke and slide and swallowing that makes him quiver until it’s too good, too good, too close baby and he pulls you off him, drool slugging down your chin. His cock aching, surely, when you nuzzle your cheek against it, tempted to take it in your throat again. But you smile as he plummets to meet you on the ground, then swoon when he lays you out on the topsoil not yet drenched by the rain. 

“Wanna feel you first,” Javier murmurs, petting the hair back from your face, lapping the spit from your chin with his tongue before he unites it with yours. Lips plush, more tender than you expect amidst his fervor, the kind of kissing you can’t help but lose yourself to. You think you’d kiss him the rest of the day, through any night. Brows pinching when he pulls away, cupping the blaze of your burning cheeks with the palm of his hand, thumb swept across your upper lip as he gazes down at you with adoration.

“Need to fill you,” he groans. “Don’t I, hm? Dime, baby.”

Thighs spread to make room for him in the bowl of your hips, you pull him over you by the shoulders until he blankets you, covering all but a sliver of the rain-rich sky visible through the stable’s entrance, and the oak tree’s canopy lashing in the fevered gale.

Is his shirt below you now, somehow? You think it must be—spread carefully to protect your needy flesh.

“Yes,” you breathe, as Javier kneels between your legs, fisting the base of his cock. “Yes, yes.”

A grin, but not of ego—he is only pleased. Pious in his watching the way breath shudders in your chest. Javier nods, brow dented low and serious, curls black with water and plastered to his face, and pumps himself once, then takes your ankles in his hands. Sets them flat on the ground, bending both your knees to frame him. Hands butterflied and wide, tracing the slant of your thighs to the bend of your hips like all of a sudden he has all the time in the world. 

Maybe you do. It almost feels like you do. 

Like this might not be a spell that breaks with the end of the rain.

“I’ve got you,” he says.

“I know,” you breathe.

With both hands Javier lifts your hips from the ground and pulls you toward him until your core presses against the underside of his cock. He hmphs, transfixed by this silken meeting, and thrusts his hips once, gently, rubbing himself between your folds. You whimper at the friction, cunt fluttering, begging. 

Javier clicks his tongue as you claw at his forearms, hips pitching in his hold to ask for more, and this time there is perhaps a drop of pride in his cunning gaze. Glad to be the one you stir for, the one you choose.

“Needs me, hm?” he coos.

You paint the air between you with his name.

“I know,” he murmurs, guiding himself to you now, nudging his tip against your clit once, twice, then notching.

Then rhapsody. The urging in and dragging out, the sweet perfection of Javier inside you, taking space that now seems like it was made for him from the start. “Fuck,” you hear yourself say, more breath than voice, and Javier grits his teeth as he feeds his cock to you slowly, throbbing and whole.

“So soft,” he grunts, resolve slipping—his hips snap against yours on the next thrust and you yelp from the bliss of it. Teeth bared above you, Javier yanks you flush against his slender hips, buried to the hilt as he tries to catch his breath. “Shit, baby.”

Thighs clamping around his waist, you writhe, plant your palms on his sternum, desperate for more. 

“Javi,” you plea, and in a flash Javier spreads his hands over your hamstrings, pins your thighs to your stomach, and bends over you, fucking you into the ground.

Your teeth bump when he moves to kiss you, then he tilts his head and it’s all saccharine again: his tongue lapping sweetly into your mouth, mustache scraping against your cupid’s bow. Like this, the angle is exquisite. So deep it’s like he’s everywhere, stretching you out and stringing you taut and Javier must feel it too because he starts to grind, the thatch of dark hair at the base of his stomach rubbing against your clit as he grazes his teeth along the underside of your jaw.

“That’s it,” he mumbles. “Damelo, baby, quiero sentirte.”

You shatter, or bloom, you can’t totally decide. Exaltation in a single moment, your whole body electric in its trembling, clenching, gasping. Javier falters only when your body comes down from its high, emboldened to move again. Folded as you are, you can only whine and moan and sparkle as he once more takes up a rhythm. Smooth and hot as cider on a cold night, his cock glistening with your need as he pulls out and presses in, patient again.

“Perfect,” he prays.

It’s possible that this is heaven.

You don’t know when it stopped, but the skies have quieted. A lick of sunlight casts into the stables and falls over the expanse of Javier’s back and shoulders as he rocks into you again and again and again. Hand weaving into the curls at the nape of his neck, you hold him to you as his pace begins to stutter.

Javier licks the column of your throat, purring against your neck, “Lo quieres, baby? Hm?”

“Yes,” you tell him, one arm winding around his shoulders. “Deep.”

He kisses you once, then pulls back just enough to watch your face, his own lust-tense and sneering as his high builds and climbs. You swipe your thumb across his bottom lip, tell him to let go, and he is beautiful—lit copper and gold by summer’s warmth as he drops his forehead to yours.

Perfect in his promise, Javier offers all to you, fills you wholly, his body tense and then unraveling. His weight drops onto you properly as he paints your cunt with his seed. When you grunt he lifts just enough to free your legs without leaving your heat, and you lock your ankles over the small of his back.

Javier nuzzles his nose to yours.

You aren’t sure how long you stay like that, but when you’re standing again, his hands guides your weakened legs back into your shorts. You button each other’s shirts instead of your own. 

Outside the stables, the earth sings petrichor, grateful for the fleeting flood. Across the fence beyond the tall grass your orchard sparkles, glittered with rain as you stand beneath the oak tree gazing out in gratitude. Javier’s hand ghosts over your spine and you feel a rash of goosebumps break out as if he’s once more touched your skin. 

His breath is warm against your hair, the apple of your cheek. “Don’t wait for rain next time,” he whispers, then slinks off regal and graceful as a wildcat, clicking his tongue to call out the horses to the pastures now marbled with loam.

It doesn’t rain again for weeks, but you go to him anyway, hopping the fence that cradles your homes to seek his arms.

moodboard by @perotovar & dividers by @saradika-graphics

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[fluentisonus]

Since we've finally gotten there & it's my favorite song in the book!! This is my personal favorite version of the Song of Eärendil/Eärendil Was a Mariner

Lyrics (also in today's newsletter):

that tarried in Arvernien;

Eärendil was a mariner

he built a boat of timber felled

in Nimbrethil to journey in;

her sails he wove of silver fair,

of silver were her lanterns made,

her prow he fashioned like a swan,

and light upon her banners laid.

In panoply of ancient kings,

in chainéd rings he armoured him;

his shining shield was scored with runes

to ward all wounds and harm from him;

his bow was made of dragon-horn,

his arrows shorn of ebony,

of silver was his habergeon,

his scabbard of chalcedony;

his sword of steel was valiant,

of adamant his helmet tall,

an eagle-plume upon his crest,

upon his breast an emerald.

 

Beneath the Moon and under star

he wandered far from northern strands,

bewildered on enchanted ways

beyond the days of mortal lands.

From gnashing of the Narrow Ice

where shadow lies on frozen hills,

from nether heats and burning waste

he turned in haste, and roving still

on starless waters far astray

at last he came to Night of Naught,

and passed, and never sight he saw

of shining shore nor light he sought.

The winds of wrath came driving him,

and blindly in the foam he fled

from west to east, and errandless,

unheralded he homeward sped.

 

There flying Elwing came to him,

and flame was in the darkness lit;

more bright than light of diamond

the fire upon her carcanet.

The Silmaril she bound on him

and crowned him with the living light,

and dauntless then with burning brow

he turned his prow; and in the night

from Otherworld beyond the Sea

there strong and free a storm arose,

a wind of power in Tarmenel;

by paths that seldom mortal goes

his boat it bore with biting breath

as might of death across the grey

and long-forsaken seas distressed:

from east to west he passed away.

Through Evernight he back was borne

on black and roaring waves that ran

o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores

that drowned before the Days began,

until he heard on strands of pearl

where ends the world the music long,

where ever-foaming billows roll

the yellow gold and jewels wan.

He saw the Mountain silent rise

where twilight lies upon the knees

of Valinor, and Eldamar

beheld afar beyond the seas.

A wanderer escaped from night

to haven white he came at last,

to Elvenhome the green and fair

where keen the air, where pale as glass

beneath the Hill of Ilmarin

a-glimmer in a valley sheer

the lamplit towers of Tirion

are mirrored on the Shadowmere.

 

He tarried there from errantry,

and melodies they taught to him,

and sages old him marvels told,

and harps of gold they brought to him.

They clothed him then in elven-white,

and seven lights before him sent,

as through the Calacirian

to hidden land forlorn he went.

He came unto the timeless halls

where shining fall the countless years,

and endless reigns the Elder King

in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;

and words unheard were spoken then

of folk of Men and Elven-kin,

beyond the world were visions showed

forbid to those that dwell therein.

 

A ship then new they built for him

of mithril and of elven-glass

with shining prow; no shaven oar

nor sail she bore on silver mast:

the Silmaril as lantern light

and banner bright with living flame

to gleam thereon by Elbereth

herself was set, who thither came

and wings immortal made for him,

and laid on him undying doom,

to sail the shoreless skies and come

behind the Sun and light of Moon.

 

From Evereven's lofty hills

where softly silver fountains fall

his wings him bore, a wandering light,

beyond the mighty Mountain Wall.

From World's End then he turned away,

and yearned again to find afar

his home through shadows journeying,

and burning as an island star

on high above the mists he came,

a distant flame before the Sun,

a wonder ere the waking dawn

where grey the Norland waters run.

 

And over Middle-earth he passed

and heard at last the weeping sore

of women and of elven-maids

in Elder Days, in years of yore.

But on him mighty doom was laid,

till Moon should fade, an orbéd star

to pass, and tarry never more

on Hither Shores where mortals are;

for ever still a herald on

an errand that should never rest

to bear his shining lamp afar,

the Flammifer of Westernesse.

[kemetic-dreams]

THE HISTORY OF ODUMOSA, THE POWERFUL HUNTER AND FOUNDER OF ERIN-ILE KWARA STATE

Erin-ile, an old Yoruba town was established around 1225 AD for example more than 878 years prior. History of Erin-ile goes back to the verbose return of Oranyan from Edo nation after his red hot military campaigns against the Igbos who were then annoying that piece of Oduduwa's reality.

Erin-ile is probably the most established town in the old Oyun Local Government Area, including Offa. Erin-ile town was established about a similar time as Ipee and the limit between these two was before the coming of Offa town. Solid oral custom and serious research agreeably spin the authentic cause of Erin-ile around one famous regal sovereign of Ife called ODUMOSA.

He was known to be an eminent tracker and marksman, subsequently his name "APAAYAN", for example a marksman who was presumed for his best games. As the fore-name recommend, Odu-mosa was additionally a faithful religionist and a figuring chief. He was a shrewd executive and appealling character. He was the grandson of lord OBALUFON of Ife. OBALUFON is the contracted from the OBA ILU IFE for example (The ruler of Ile-Ife), and Olufon its short structure implies OLU-IFE for example (the ruler of Ife).

He was an acclaimed skilled worker and the first to acquaint metal works with Ife. He is as yet being exceptionally venerated for that important commitment. Ruler Obalufon was ruling when his nephew sovereign ORANMIYAN drove his arrangement of military undertakings to Benin. Ruler Obalufon later kicked the bucket and sovereign ORANMIYAN who was the beneficiary obvious didn't return in time from the war front. In his nonattendance, lord Obalufon's child ALAIYEMORE was designated and introduced as the following Ife ruler.

From that point, sovereign Oranmiyan surfaced suddenly to Ife. Frenzy held everybody inspired by a paranoid fear of what might and could be the response of such a fierce military legend to his life aspiration being so run by his counsin's climb to the seat which he (Oranmiyan) had constantly desired. In such a disrupted and unsure circumstance, ODUMOSA who was the immediate child of lord Alaiyemore thought of it as foothardy to sit tight in Ife for ORANMIYAN's response.

He immediately chose to stop Ife so as to get away from the conceivable anger of Oranmiyan. It was everybody's conviction that whoever incited Oranmiyan welcomed searing war. Odumosa set off with a huge unforeseen of devotees including his child ALAWODE AREBIOPE and his stepbrother, ruler ALAPA. He conveyed with him enough supplies of essential needs. he brought various valuable fortunes from the castle. Among such were beaded crowns, glorious clothing types, regal staff (EDAN OBALUFON), Obalufon's celebration silver crown, set of strung coral dots, the way of life of Obalufon, Ifa prophet, war types of gear, arms and ammo, (for games and self preservation) and a puzzling clarion horn for collecting his adherents at whatever point they dispersed looking for games and food or were abandoned. He depended particularly on the horn which he likewise used to give war or harmony signs and headings of next developments to his supporters.

Like patriarch Abraham of the Jewish history who on divine requests left his folks in the land Haran for an obscure goal. Odu-mosa left Ife on Ifa prophet's guidance for the open wide world without learning his genuine goal. He was a man of confidence, without a doubt a man of dauntless boldness, never terrified of slopes or wildernesses, dry land or overwhelmed planes. He continued endlessly nudging his contingents to walk and head quick in the opposite direction from a potential pursue by Oranmiyan. He told his kin "E RIN E RIN; E RIN" for example WALK FAST, WALK FAST, WALK FAST. The name ERIN was later suffixed with "ILE", which signifies the terminal finish of the trek on Ifa prophet's heading to frame the compound name ERIN-ILE.

After a long spell of meandering and meandering aimlessly before they arrived at that goal, they ended and rested in various spots, as ERINMO or ERIN-ITADOGUN for example an intersection place where they laid on seventeenth day of their trek and made places of arrangement fronds. A major market was set up at the intersection settlement. When Odumosa left, a portion of his devotees stayed behind and settled for all time in ERINMO. Other spot of visit included ERIN-OKE, ERIN-IJESHA, which are all now remarkable towns in Osun State. At Erin-ile, Odumosa met three trackers; Olowe, Afolumodi and Gbaagba, who received him as their first ruler when they was aware of his august status.

At a last visit before Erin-ile, Odumosa, Odumosa overlooked his clarion horn. When they returned for it, it had sunk and shimmering water, presently the stream Owo has begun spouting out of it. It was at this crossroads that his stepbrother, ruler Alapa isolated from him while Odumosa moved west ward, Alapa moved east ward. Alapa now settled Eku-Apa now in Irepodun LGA of Kwara State.

An a lot later settlement of Odumosa's replacements are Erin Papa, established on an open meadow by the thirteenth Elerin of Erin-Ile in rebellion of Alimi, the Fulani Jihadist. Erin Papa was found in Osun State and is presently called Erin – Osun. Around 1907, Elerin olaojo chose to profit to Erin-Ile for discontinuance of threats by the Jihadist. A few residents tailed him while some picked to remain. Erin_osun is likewise a major toen and she imparts close proclivity to Erin-ile. Indeed,the two towns are "twain" towns.

Aside from towns and settlements set up legitimately by Odumosa or his replacements, there are additionally families who have blood or social proclivity with Erin-Ile and are living in different networks. They can be perceived by their surname (oriki) regardless of whether they are in Ibadan, Abeokuta, Ilorin, Oshogbo, Ilesha, Ogbomoso or Offa. Such names incorporate, "More, Mosa" (from Alaiyemore and Odumosa), "Omo Elerin Mosa", "Omo Elewe Ladogba", "Omo Obalufon L'Erin", "Omo Abinuwole" alluding to Olowe who sank alive and "Omo Abiowe" again alluding to Olowe star war pioneer of Erin-Ile. Some outstanding Nigerians with such names incorporate Ali Agboguleri; Saka Pena, Adegoke Adelabu (Penkelemi) and Oba Gbadamosi Adebimpe all in Ibadan, the balogun group of Iragbiji, the Duro Ladipo family in Oshogbo, the Ige family in Ijeshaland spreading to Ibadan, the Toki family in Offa and on the maternal side, the Olugbense imperial family in Offa and so forth.

By and by, Erin-Ile is in Oyun LGA of Kwara State and was the base camp of the Local Governement when it was first made in 1980. For odd reasons, the central command was moved when the Federal Military Government re-made the L.G.A. in 1990. Erin-Ile is on the southern-most edge of Kwara State and offers limits with Offa, Ilemona, Irra, Eku-Apa, Ipee, Igosun all in Kwara State and Oyan and Ila - Odo in Osun State. She is overhauled by current enhancements. A yearly celebration impossible to miss to her is the Obalufon celebration named after their begetter in Ile-Ife.

[darkness-beyond-ink]

The Viking’s Saga 💀🗡️

Upon the stormy ocean he did sail

With dauntless courage in his noble heart

He faced the foes and monsters he did meet

With cunning skill and strength and wondrous art

He pillaged lands and treasures he did find

With honour and with pride he did divide

He shared the spoils and glory with his mates

With faithful comrades ever by his side

He worshipped gods of thunder and of war

With pious faith and sacrifice he paid

He followed codes of order and of law

With justice and with vice he did obey

He lived a life of brave adventure bold

With fervent passion and with zest he burned

He was a Viking, fearless and untamed

With valour in his chest he ever yearned

He loved a maiden, gentle and so fair

With beauty and with grace she did adorn

He wooed her with his deeds and words so sweet

And won her lovely heart and face so warm

He raised a family, loyal and so strong

With kindness and with care he did them raise

He taught them how to live and how to fight

And how to brave and dare in all their ways

He grew old, but not in spirit frail

With wisdom and with fire he did glow

He still joined raids and battles with his kin

And never did retire or rest or slow

He died a death of glory and of fame

With honour and with name he did depart

He joined his gods in Valhalla's hall

And left behind his mark upon his art

[mushabumi]

"Wreathed in Wrath"

A cryptid origin story. TW violence. 869 words.

She became accustomed to the whispers as she walked. The stilted looks. Downcast eyes. As if she would pour venom into their skulls with the barest grazing of her gaze. It didn’t matter that she felt the rage in her belly gnaw at her throat; behind her eyes. She’d become a master at sheathing her temper behind a tepid smile.

‘Be seen, not heard. Smile and obey. Pray and obey,’ they preached in schools and church. ‘This is how it is. It is how they are,’ they said after wanton touches, or words that cleaved. After the leering of men, or snickering of the women. The town seethed with cruelty. Of cats batting at mice until the shrank from sight. The meek would never inherit anything but tears on this earth. She was tired of staying quiet.

Then it started.

 She broke things with a glance. Menial as the sins committed in the day. Broken baskets of bullies in the market. Cracked jugs of ale in taverns. As she grew, so did their sins, she noticed. Soon, she became vicious. Snapping fingers that reached. Splintered nails that groped. Peeling threads of skin with each errant look toward her. Finally, they stopped, resorting to whispers and bated breath as she approached. Lack of proof kept the pitchforks and holy men at bay, she knew.

It was only a matter of time before the crusade was at her door. Still, she was not afraid. For a fire thirsted within her and burned in her eyes. ‘Demon,’ they whispered in the church. ‘Witch,’ the spat. Not long after, she abandoned the town, and rightly so. For she never heard any voice of divinity during her prayers. Saw no righteous flaming bush.

She walked in the dead of night with no witness but the moon. Kissed by stars and held by vines, she still heard no Lord above. What she knew were the needles of pine as she knelt; softer than any cushion between a pew. What she heard were the trickling of brooks, whispering wings, and padding of paws. Their inherent divinity equaled any choir. She was more creature than lady there in the dark. She knew the moss beneath her toes as her own skin. The bark beneath her fingers was an old friend. Ancient boughs leaned in as she passed. Beckoning. Tempting. She listened.

Her visits into town became sparse. Villagers noted the changes before she did. The hinting of gnarled knuckles. The clinging moss. Pallid and gaunt, her face a dauntless mask. Her movements further and further away from humanity with each passing month. She noticed her eyes. The slit of her pupil. The way they shone in the dark. A bridled flame promising violence.

She no longer remembered the girl she was. Her body was a stranger. The forest a dear friend. One she never wanted to leave. In time, she didn’t. She prowled along the beasts of claws and wings. Swam and bathed as she pleased. Plants sprouted as she neared. Moss sprouted in every footstep. She didn’t question the beginnings of bark creeping along her limbs. Skin turned stone. Bone in place of flesh. Antlers crowning her forest reign. She presided. Soon she felt her subjects. The steady pulse of them was veins. Their breath became her lungs. She knew them as she once did her hands; her heart.

She felt them die. Felt the stinging steel as it cleaved. More fell as she ran to the source. She knew the men holding the axes. Remembered their downcast eyes. Their ruddy faces as they grabbed. She loved the fear she saw as they beheld her. The quaking steps they took away from her.

Claws of bark wreathed in lichen rose before her. “You take what is not yours as a right. No more,” dissonant whispers declared in the decimated glen. With glee, she unfurled the simmering rage held within her. Baring her teeth, she waited for their greed to strike first. The forest was hers to protect. She shall show the wrath incurred to those seeking to harm her new kin.

A flaming arrow lit. Axes raised. As one, they approached. As one, roots flew soared through their lungs. Mangled cries erupted. Blood bubbled from their pleas or mercy. She sliced a hand through the air and they pulled the roots as puppets on a string of sundering flesh; aiming for their heart. She felt the men wither as her new kin drank. Felt their bones sate the fungi and beetles.

The villagers stopped coming into the woods after the third group of men never returned.

She mended the trees and knotted the brambles across the path leading into the forest. Wolves sentried across her borders. Soon, she became legend. The creature in stories told to children before they slept. The monster that would snatch only the naughty boys and girls. It never touched the gentle ones, they would say. ‘Stay out of the forest, or face her wrath.’

They were right to be afraid.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Eärendil was a mariner

that tarried in Arvernien;

he built a boat of timber felled

in Nimbrethil to journey in;

her sails he wove of silver fair,

of silver were her lanterns made,

her prow was fashioned like a swan,

and light upon her banners laid.

In panoply of ancient kings,

in chainéd rings he armoured him;

his shining shield was scored with runes

to ward all wounds and harm from him;

his bow was made of dragon-horn,

his arrows shorn of ebony,

of silver was his habergeon,

his scabbard of chalcedony;

his sword of steel was valiant,

of adamant his helmet tall,

an eagle-plume upon his crest,

upon his breast an emerald.

Beneath the Moon and under star

he wandered far from northern strands,

bewildered on enchanted ways

beyond the days of mortal lands.

From gnashing of the Narrow Ice

where shadow lies on frozen hills,

from nether heats and burning waste

he turned in haste, and roving still

on starless waters for astray

at last he came to Night of Naught,

and passed, and never sight he saw

of shining shore nor light he sought.

The winds of wrath came driving him,

and blindly in the foam he fled

from west to east and errandless,

unheralded he homeward sped.

There flying Elwing came to him,

and flame was in the darkness lit;

more bright than light of diamond

the fire upon her carcanet.

The Silmaril she bound on him

and crowned him with the living light

and dauntless then with burning brow

he turned his prow; and in the night

from Otherworld beyond the Sea

there strong and free a storm arose,

a wind of power in Tarmenel;

by paths that seldom mortal goes

his boat it bore with biting breath

as might of death across the grey

and long-forsaken seas distressed:

from east to west he passed away.

Through Evernight he back was borne

on black and roaring waves that ran

o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores

that drowned before the Days began,

until he heard on strands of pearl

where ends the world the music long,

where ever-foaming billows roll

the yellow gold and jewels wan.

He saw the Mountain silent rise

where twilight lies upon the knees

of Valinor, and Eldamar

beheld afar beyond the seas.

A wanderer escaped from night

to haven white he came at last,

to Elvenhome the green and fair

where keen the air, where pale as glass

beneath the Hill of Ilmarin

a-glimmer in a valley sheer

the lamplit towers of Tirion

are mirrored on the Shadowmere.

He tarried there from errantry,

and melodies they taught to him,

and sages old him marvels told,

and harps of gold they brought to him.

They clothed him then in elven-white,

and seven lights before him sent,

as through the Calacirian

to hidden land forlorn he went.

He came unto the timeless halls

where shining fall the countless years,

and endless reigns the Elder King

in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;

and words unheard were spoken then

of folk of Men and Elven-kin,

beyond the world where visions showed

forbid to those that dwell therein.

A ship then new they built for him

of mithril and of elven-glass

with shining prow; no shaven oar

nor sail she bore on silver mast:

the Silmaril as lantern light

and banner bright with living flame

to gleam thereon by Elbereth

herself was set, who thither came

and wings immortal made for him,

and laid on him undying doom,

to sail the shoreless skies and come

behind the Sun and light of Moon.

From Evereven's lofty hills

where softly silver fountains fall

his wings him bore, a wandering light,

beyond the mighty Mountain Wall.

From World's End then he turned away,

and yearned again to find afar

his home through shadows journeying,

and burning as an island star

on high above the mists he came,

a distant flame before the Sun,

a wonder ere the walking dawn

where grey the Norland waters run.

And over Middle-earth he passed

and heard at last the weeping sore

of women and of elven-maids

in Elder days, in years of yore.

But on him mighty doom was laid,

till Moon should fade, an orbéd star

to pass, and tarry never more

on Hither Shores where mortals are;

for ever still a herald on

an errand that should never rest

to bear his shining lamp afar,

the Flammifer of Westernesse.

"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" - J.R.R. Tolkien

[kinsonas]

★ Alyra ★

200 x 200 ; genderfluid / uranic ; for anon!

[wolfnovak]

[  peter gadiot  —  thirty - three  —  he / him  ]  Introducing  WOLFGANG  ‘  WOLF  ’  NOVAK.  Word  on  the  street  is  they  are  a  SICARIO  and  member  of  the  CORTÁZAR  CARTEL  for  the  past  THREE  YEARS.  Though  they  are  FORBIDDING  and  MORDANT,  they  can  also  be  PRAGMATIC  and  TACTICAL.  In  the  chaos  of  New  York  City,  they’re  sure  to  fit  right  in.

— BASICS

Name:  Wolfgang  ’ Wolf ‘  Novak.

Age / D.O.B.:  Thirty - Three  /  November  7th

Height:  6'1.

Gender, Pronouns &. Sexuality:  Cis  Man,  He / Him,  Demisexual / Demiromantic.

Hometown:  Brussels,  Belgium.

Affiliation:  Ex  Military  /  Cortázar  Cartel.

Job position:  Ex  Special  Forces  Sniper  /  Sicario.

Education:  West  Point  Admitted  (  did  not  attend  ),  Bachelor's  Degree.

Relationship status:  Single.

Children:  N/A.

Positive traits:  Autonomous,  Dauntless,  Perceptive,  Pragmatic,  Tactical.

Negative traits:  Caustic,  Forbidding,  Lethal,  Mordant,  Taciturn.

— BIOGRAPHY

Trigger Warnings: war, violence, shell shock, death, child neglect, mentions of alcohol and drug addiction.

Wolfgang Novak was an omen from birth, but far from one found in hallowed parables. His mother had been Valéria Aguilar, a stunning Mexican woman charmed by a Dutchman stationed in El Paso, Texas. His father, Wilhelm Novak, was a man forged from an extensive background in Military service. Though Wolf stole Valéria’s life upon his birth, her death didn’t prove to be a fatal blow to Wilhelm, but an inconvenience, as the responsibility of a child lacked the necessary space in the man’s plans. Being the product of careless interaction, he was not a father’s treasured kin. Instead of a son, Wilhelm treated Wolf as a Commander’s protege. He expected nothing less from the acquired boy but the same militarized skill-set he himself had honed and possessed. As such, Wolf began to assume the life of a soldier before he was able to understand what life a boy should have.

With his patriarch deployed often and no relatives left to shelter him, Wolf spent the majority of his adolescence passed between generous military families, though eventually became a ward of the state due to combative behavior. He raised himself, battled a self-proclaimed lawless environment and challenged its particularly brutal consequences. He became a violent young boy, prone to rage and introducing himself with a legendary bloody nose. Volatile tendencies, however, didn’t get you very far in education or with a figure such as Wilhelm. His insurrection was personal, and he challenged Wilhelm with every breath of his being. It wasn’t until an arrest for hijacking vehicles with nefarious company that Wolf swapped tactics. But it was difficult not to return to a life of delinquency when your caretaker exhumed neglect. When Wilhelm was present, he was often impaired by both alcohol and drug intoxication, shielding himself from the horrors Wolf was yet to comprehend. With age came an inkling of understanding, but not forgiveness.

Wilhelm Novak was a strict man with selfish intentions, yet Wolf was determined to unlock some form of residual pride. Because of this, he began to excel in his studies. His brilliance was refocused and trained on subjects that could aid him instead of ail him. The plan soon backfired. Wilhelm was impressed — perhaps too enthralled — and became involved as he wished when he were younger. The boasting rights Wolf fought for from Wilhelm were responded with a ship off to military school. Harboring a severe distaste towards authority, Wolf’s beginning was a cataclysmic revolt. Forced to adapt to a life of grueling training, often being pushed to carry out seemingly impossible feats that drove the wedge further between he and Wilhelm as the goal of prodigy was reached. Top of his class, he was accepted into West Point, yet did not attend due to mortal circumstance.

He attended Wilhelm’s funeral. Vanquished overseas, Wolf was told the man perished as a hero. He found it difficult to fathom, when he had been privy to a considerably villainous adversary. Aside from comrades he held no notion of, the recently graduated youth was the only one to stand before a fresh grave. Wolf found himself with little remorse, but a voluminous sense of solace. He would no longer be the puppet to a puppeteer, or rot within a lying semblance of kinsman. Unearthing Wilhelm’s life, everything that had been hidden from him throughout their explorations had been unleashed, leading to an honor which Wolf hadn’t the knowledge of. He had been the witness of a demolished man, and not the pillar evidence proved he’d been before. It was for that reason that Wolf kept his surname, and allowed the continuance of a loathed man’s legacy.

Eighteen, he had successfully been inducted into the Army. He felt reborn, and trained vigorously. Despite its grisly work and grueling actions, it would seem he’d been sculpted for war. He was robotic with a weapon in hand, and carried out orders as quickly as he received them. Wolf had reached the pinnacle of his life. Ribbons, medals, ranks — even his name became adorned by others. Wolf remained unattached to his escalating position, and merely focused on the duty he swore to uphold. When he received a contract from the Army to enter their Special Forces as a sniper, he accepted, and pursued a subsequent, more lethal chapter within the armed forces. His name was a known one. Novak, it turned out, had taken a place among the Special Forces for quite some time. Among them, Wolf had finally laid claim to the family he had unknowingly longed for. The Commander of his own unit, he was a piece of an unmatched brotherhood.

For years, Wolf and his elite team were unconquerable. They suffered through losses, but prevailed. They were the victors of unspoken wars, and safeguarded their country without credit. But Wolf was a sinister omen from birth, and the clock was ticking. It was a rescue mission that ended his reign — a supposed simple grab and go — that his unit had experienced more than once. They were to recover a soldier under apparent heavy fire. The claim had been false, leading to a disastrous airdrop and loss of chopper. The team was trapped in the midst of an ambush, and it swiftly turned into a futile effort as a grenade invaded the space near his comrade. He leapt toward the role of savior as a man responsible for entrusted lives would. What he found was a flash of red light, and an ephemeral god complex pursuing the dark abyss.

The accident left Wolf in extensive recovery that resulted in an honorable discharge. They told him he was fortunate to survive, sporting shrapnel and nerve damage that left him in critical condition for months. He lost feeling in the majority of the injured area, and felt deceased despite the rise and fall of his chest. Wolf shut down and reverted to the eruptive youth he’d been. He did not permit the remainder of his team to visit him in recovery, refusing them to see the failure he felt he’d become. His career — his world — had imploded. After his initial release, Wolf was sent to an Army rehabilitation facility, where his psychiatrist urged him to find somewhere quiet, somewhere without the noise.

They told him nothing heals like time; a statement which initially drew forth a sharp snort and caustic remark. Having gone off the grid post his discharge, Wolf found little reason not to vanish further. Tipped off by an old friend who’d recently come into good, albeit dirty money, he headed for New York, hoping to secure funds in which the government screwed him out of. Unable to afford further treatment or life’s necessities on his career’s felled pension, he struck a deal. For the Cartel he would be a crackshot, a deadshot, harboring the particular cold - blooded patience which constructs a sniper, a kind of violence associated with coldness, deliberateness, ruthlessness. Unlike so many of its members, Wolf was quiet, attentive, focused, and emotionally intelligent whilst being extremely capable of violence. Not cocky, showy, or quick to anger, he worked best alone, only being contacted when someone was in need of silencing. Currently entering his third year as the Cortazar Cartel’s Sicario, he’s proved to be a vital force, yet his mental synapses remain obscured and un-mended by a turbulent past.

— WANTED CONNECTIONS / PLOTS

Brother  /  Sister  relationship.

Brother  in  arms  /  Till  the  end  of  the  line  deal.

One  night  stand(s).

Ex  ‘  lovers  ’.

Drinking  partners  /  Drinking  partners  that  only  like  each  other  while  drinking  and  hate  each  other  outside  the  bar.

Late  night  diner  buds.

Doctor  /  Psychiatrist  /  Someone  in  the  medical  field  he’s  forced  to  speak  to  as  part  of  his  ptsd  treatment  as  well  as  following  up  on  physical  ailments.

Someone  he’s  casually  sleeping  with.

Consequential  victims  of  those  he’s  assassinated  for  the  Cartel.

Those  he’s  met  whilst  enlisted,  traveling,  any  prior  connection  before  his  work  for  the  Cartel.

The  one  who  officially  got  him  involved  with  the  Cortázar  Cartel  as  mentioned  within  his  bio.  (  Johannes  ‘ Hans ’  Starke  )

[faebound]

&&. cauldron above, ( ada desai ) was just spotted in the fae lands — word has it ( she ) is affiliated with ( the wild hunt ). ( she ) is a ( 290 / appears 26 ) year old ( half-wild hunt fae / half-nymph ). it’s been said that ( she ) resembles ( anya chalotra ). ( she ) has been said to be ( dauntless & loyal ) but also quite ( volatile & untrusting ). ( she ) is currently serving as ( third-in-command/military advisor to the wolf king )

tws: maternal death, death mention, violence.

FULL NAME: Ada Desai

GENDER: Cis female

SPECIES: Hybrid Fae

PRONOUNS: She/Her

SEXUALITY: Homosexual

HEIGHT: 5′8

EYE/HAIR COLOUR: Violet eyes, black hair.

AFFILIATION: The Wild Hunt

WILD HUNT WOLF PETS: One black male named Tíre, and one white male named Anluan.  

WINGS: Black feathers with an ombre transition to deep purple at the tips. 

( A little like this: )

( but with much more prominent purple towards the ends, like this: )

Biography:

Ada was born from the loving copulation of a Wild Hunt father and Nymph mother almost three centuries ago.

While she wasn’t their first child, she was their last. A complicated and difficult birth leading to her mother’s death mere hours after Ada drew her first breath.

Her father couldn’t quite find it in himself to forgive the girl that had stolen his mate away from him initially, the fact that she inherited her unique iris colouration seemingly too much to bare.

It was the main reason for an agreement made, that she was to be raised in the garden without his input entirely.    

Try as she might to fit in with the fair and elegant Nymphs of her mother’s blood, there wasn’t so much as a delicate bone in her body.

The girl had a darkness so thoroughly entwined in her very soul that no matter what she did, she always found herself falling short of their teachings.  

She wasn’t make-up and pretence and grace; but rather blood, bones and broken promises enclosed in beauty. A snarling, tree climbing, fight loving wisp of a girl; her viciousness despite all those around her had her back within the loving arms of the Wild Hunt before her tenth birthday.  

It was a way of life she much preferred, even if she still appreciates those within the Garden to this day.

Becoming a fully fledge member of the pack also seemed to soothe old wounds with her father. He’d even apologised for the dark place he’s found himself in after her birth, and made a point that animosity was the last thing her mother would want for the pair of them -- It was all she needed to hear, and over the years that followed they became incredibly close. 

Ada seemed practically made for the Hunt in all ways. Appreciating the familial ties, falling in love with the wolves; awestruck by the dragons and relishing in the training she received with regards to their warrior-like lifestyle. She finally found a way to channel her nature into something productive.

Things may have changed rather drastically for the lupine fae in the first five years with her kin, but it was perhaps the harsh realities of loss that steeled her mind the most. Her father and brother had been out hunting when it happened. An ambush by a group of hunters at the time trying to make a name for themselves. They had hidden their tracks well and the bodies even better, but there was no hiding such things from Wild Hunt in wolf form when the search party had gone looking.  

Ada dealt with it in her own way, by which she never really dealt with it at all. The only solace she ever found was in fighting. When everything else faded to darkness as fist connected with bone. She threw herself entirely into any and all training her elders offered, tunnel vision clouding her judgement until it consume her completely.

The hybrid relished in the way her nymph-esque visage lead others to underestimate her, using it to her advantage on multiple occasions both within her pack and out of it as she grew and advanced into the woman she’d become.

Earning a name for herself as a formidable warrior in her own right, she raised through the ranks quicker than most. Her interest piqued entirely when it came to her people’s military prowess.

She took a keen attentiveness in any and all inner workings of war; as though it was an incredibly complex game of chess with unknown variables, each side anticipating the next’s move on bated breath.

The hybrid almost reveled in its intricacy, watching a battle as though it were a tightly woven tapestry, to be mulled over and pick at until a single thread was pulled that could unravel their rivals entirely.

It was a way of thinking that had her noticed expeditiously, and one that has served her well to this day.

She takes her position as both third-in-command and military advisor incredibly seriously, and will be damned if she allows anyone to harm her family on her watch.

Personality:

Ada truly is an enigmatic individual. The way she interacts with members of her pack is the polar opposite to how she deals with any and all outsiders. She’s fiercely loyal to those within the Wild Hunt, almost viciously so, and is incredibly protective of them. As a result she’s grown to be weary of the other courts and humans alike, often distrusting and cynical of anything deemed as even the most innocent of intentions. Perhaps the only slight exemption to that particular rule are the Nymphs within the Garden, but that can be chalked up to her mother’s influence and the fact they have held an alliance forged in blood for eons. She does trust Lucien completely, and if he deems this tenuous alliance they now have with the Night Court to be their way forward she will respect it -- But she’s also not about to let her guard down. Now more than ever the Nymphs and Wild Hunt Fae are her top priority. Her version of love perhaps a rather complex and unorthodox one, but she does love her family, and she will gladly utilise all the accumulated knowledge and skills at her disposal should any dare cross a single one of them.

Connection Ideas:

Fwb/Sub/Fling connections: TBA. Pretty self explanatory, the girl has needs lmao.

Enemies with benefits: TBA. These two hate each other; like passion of a thousand suns hate. I mean, Ada isn’t always the calmest person, but this person can somehow get under her skin better than anyone in the history of ever. With that being said, there’s also this weird pull between them. It’s like all that anger and hatred and loathing spills over into everything they do – but Ada kind of lives for it. They just try to push each other’s buttons in every way possible. They’ve even slipped up a few times and had some pretty intense hate sex because, ya know, sometimes physical fights have just got to end like that right?

Bros/Friends/Individual alliances: TBA. The friends and connections she’s accumulated over the years, plain and simple.  

Anything else you can think of! Feel free to come at me!!

[autumnstwilight]

Rating: T Words: 1,500 Tags: Gen, character study, WoR, angst, blood/injury Summary:  Gentiana encounters a wounded Ignis outside Lestallum. Written for Lost in Wars zine.

It is not her own coldness that fills the night. Not the bright chill of the winter wind nor the crispness of fresh snow underfoot, but the hollow black rot of absence, and so it displeases her. Her footsteps through the roiling dust are like fingertips taking a temperature and finding the body corpse-stiff. The scourge is bitter on her tongue and her breath each moment she spends here.

Here at the still point of the turning world, time has carved away half of the wait appointed. The midnight moon is just past full, and must wane again before the darkest hour. Frost blossoms at her feet, flowers from the dead land.

It has been many years since she first began to live among the humans. At first, she served as a companion and guide for the young Oracle, now she passes her time in the city as another set of hands, stirring the soup pot and tending to the sick, tasks that pass unnoticed, unrecognized. In the hours when the humans sleep, she slips the gates and wanders, surveying what is left of the world. She does not hunt the daemons, but when the Light within her draws their attention, she dispatches them with a freezing gale.

He is not far from the city gates when she finds him, the heat of his blood bright in the frosted dust, and the wheezing of his breath rising like smoke from a candle flame. Life burns within him yet. She has no message to speak, and so she watches. Eventually, he lets out a wet cough, and rolls onto his back.

“All has its hour, but the hour of the Swordsworn is yet to come.” It is, to her, an observation, as one might comment on the weather. The thread of fate on which his life is suspended has not yet reached its end.

“It will take more than that to finish me,” he asserts, pushing himself into a sitting position. “You should know.”

He summons a cane into his hand and prises himself from the ground, leaning on it heavily as he makes his way toward the gates. Draped over one shoulder, he carries a bundle neatly wrapped in cloth, treated with more caution than any part of his own body. She does not assist, but trails behind.

It is always so. She is not permitted to alter the events that have been preordained. The life of the Star rests on the point of a needle, as does the truce between the remaining Gods. Between the wrath of Leviathan and the justice of Ramuh, between Bahamut’s pragmatism and her own compassion. Woe to him who tilts the balance.

And thus, her role is observer and Messenger. Her borrowed body has lingered here, watching the Oracle grow into a dauntless young woman, then facing the destiny asked of her. Gentiana shed tears for her, as promised. It was to cry for Lunafreya that she took this human form.

“You know,” he says eventually, “I once found your following us reassuring.”

“Is it no longer so?” she asks.

Too distant for human senses, the daemons hiss in the wasteland and under the earth that his blood drips over and soaks into. They dare not rise while she is here. She is not permitted to tilt the balance. But every now and then, she places a fingertip beneath the scales.

“Back then, I thought that he had your favor. That you would protect him.”

She tilts her head at this seeming accusation.

“Bearing the blessing of the divine, the King lives yet. The High Messenger watches as he walks the path appointed.”

The man turns away from her, a wordless noise escapes him. When he speaks, his voice is rough and thickened by something other than blood.

“You did not protect the Oracle in Altissia. And when her murderer turned his blade toward the King— there was not a God in sight. What I did may have been reckless, but I never abandoned him. Can you say the same?”

“It is not for the Messenger to interfere with the path set for the King. The Swordsworn understands this now. He too knows what lies ahead, and spoke of it not.”

His head jerks back toward her, outrage on his features, and for a moment, he appears to be searching for words.

“With all due respect, our circumstances are hardly comparable. I did not decide the way of things, merely failed to change them.”

“Every action brings about change,” she tells him. “Such acts of loyalty echo in the halls of eternity.”

“Forgive me, but I’m rather more concerned with the present.” He sniffs, then wipes a trail of blood from his nose. “And I’m not ready to face eternity yet. Nor send anyone else in my stead.”

“The fate of our Star now rests upon the King. Bearing the Light, he will return prepared. Does the Swordsworn intend to oppose him?” She asks this pleasantly, but there is a taste of frost on her tongue. Betrayal displeases her.

“No! I— I will follow him to the gates of hell, if I must. But only after all other roads have been exhausted.”

It should gladden her, but her heart fills with sorrow. She recalls the elder brother standing before her, bearing the crest of his enemies, the same urgency in his voice as he insisted there must be another way, and he would find it, even if he had to tear the world apart. She had smiled sadly then, too.

Humans claimed forever so easily in their vows and poems, like snowflakes that did not know of spring. Yet even if she could freeze them in the moment, she would not. Eternity was not for them.

Long ago, they had turned against her love, driving him from his throne and leading to his downfall. But who betrayed whom? Was it Ifrit who was the first to turn cruel, demand too much, punish too harshly? Her mate, or her beloved humans— she had turned a blind eye to the flaws of both.

And would Ifrit have punished the humans knowing that his actions would lead to the poisoning of the world, threatening the Crystal itself? It seemed impossible, he had been created to defend it. And yet as king, he was as uncompromising and unstoppable as the flow of magma down a mountainside. Perhaps this was what he had willed.

Her unease then, is with the will of the Gods. It pains her most, as she has walked among the humans, come to value even lives that vanish like frost in the morning sun. None of them take joy in this, but she alone comprehends the weight of each loss.

The children of the Crystal, cruel and kind, petty and generous, short-lived and spanning across ages. Her humans. She could not look at them and feel despondent. They gathered and huddled in their settlements like campfires reduced to embers, nestling for a rebirth.

Her companion walks with a furious stride and says nothing more until they arrive at the gates, and she bows to him in preparation to leave. It is then that he turns to her, with the hesitance of a child and asks, simply.

“How long?”

She smiles a little, although he cannot see it.

“Which answer is sought? That he is soon to return, and free the world from its peril? Or that time remains, so that the Swordsworn may prepare, mind and body?”

The expression on his lips is thin and bitter, twisting around the answer he already knows.

“Too long. And not long enough.”

He lets out a sigh that dissolves in the emptiness around them.

“Tell him then. If you can do nothing else for me, then deliver this message. We are waiting. Always.”

He passes through the gates and they close with a clang of metal, something harsh and man-made. The noise displeases her, but no more than the faint howls of what lies in the wastelands. At least the creaks and clattering of mankind speak of hope. Someday they will build towers and ring bells once again.

It is then that she turns away from the city. Her gaze turns to the waning moon, suspended above the Umbral Isle and trickling away like sand in the upper half of an hourglass, cliffs reaching up like spread wings to catch it. Below, the King sleeps, and the land with him. Devoured by darkness deep enough to swallow the Light of the Gods.

But all is not lost. The cycles of the ocean still pulse, sending the sea breeze, the heat of the earth still pushes upward, and the rain still falls to quench its thirst. She senses her kin in the stirring air, refusing to let Eos perish. Within her hand she cups snowflakes, and lets the breeze snatch them from the clifftops, illuminated by the glow of the meteorshards below. For a moment, the endless night has stars.

[blccdties]

( josh hartnett, cismale, pansexual, he/him ) rome welcomes WILHELM ULRIK, an ORIGINAL WEREWOLF. they are 41/3000+ years old and have been in the city for FOUR MONTHS. they are known to be DAUNTLESS + BRAZEN, which makes sense because they’re LOST about the marriages. i heard they’re betrothed to ANY MALE FC and to ANY FC - an UTP and an UTP.

(please like this if you would be interested in plotting!!)

@bloodwedstuff​

FULL NAME: wilhelm ulrik

NICKNAMES: will, william

AGE: 41 / 3000+

DATE OF BIRTH: cannot recall. around 1200 BCE

DATE OF REBIRTH: cannot recall. 

PLACE OF BIRTH: around northern modern-day germany, southern modern-day denmark

NATIONALITY: saxon / early germanic tribe

RELIGIOUS VIEWS: undecided

EDUCATION LEVEL: the equivalent of a masters 

PERSONALITY

POSITIVE TRAITS: fearless, strong, loyal, outspoken

NEGATIVE TRAITS: brazen, loud, careless, temperamental

WHAT ARE THEIR FEARS?: coming out on the wrong side of history

HISTORY

wilhelm’s story begins many, many years ago. many centuries, really. wilhelm was born around the late bronze age, early iron age, to a germanic tribe that would later be called the saxons. life was nomadic and violent. at the age of “manhood,” wilhelm was gifted a spear and shield, just like every young man in his tribe. their culture centered around the warrior elite and chieftans who were voted in by the people (but it still heavily relied on inheritance as well). wilhelm happened to be a son of his tribe’s chieftan and was raised for battle. young men strived to prove to their older kin that they were strong and capable warriors. wilhelm and his siblings were a wild brood, and usually silas could be blamed for the trouble they got up to. as the ruling chieftan’s children, there was an immense amount of pressure to see them stronger, better, greater than any others so they could prove their father was fit for his title.

whispers began . . . a prayer to a god now lost to history, a ritual performed on the banks of a river, a meeting with a wolf. what was believed to be a blessing turned out to be a curse. one man’s hubris felled the ulrik children. 

wilhelm was faster, stronger, and more agile than ever before, but he was turned into a monster in the process. wilhelm was unable to control his transformations for hundreds of years, shifting every full moon. unlike other shifters, wilhelm’s shift into his werewolf form has always been painful. he suspects that each subsequent generation experiences this less and less, something to do with the initial curse becoming weaker. 

wilhelm views himself as weak to the beast inside him. it’s a constant conflict within himself, and he’s terrified of losing control again. wilhelm has never left silas’s side, however. he fought next to his brother in the war, and now watches as he practically rules over rome. he isn’t sure what’s becoming of his brother in grief, but he knows it isn’t pretty.

[pastelpunker]

Krystal - Form

𝒌𝒓𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒆

༄

gender identity: cisgender female 

pronouns: she/her 

sexuality: heterosexual 

romantic: hetero-romantic 

——

age: nineteen 

birthday: 5/22

astrology sign: aries 

——

personality type: ISTJ

traits:

+ambitious, persistent 

=orderly, guarded

-irritable, cold 

——

job: professional ice skater 

——

hogwarts house: slytherin 

godly parent: khione 

divergent: dauntless 

spirit animal/protronus: snow leopard

kins: elsa (frozen), megara (hercules), gamora (marvel), & hermione (harry potter)

moral alignment: lawful neutral 

——

aesthetic: hot cocoa, safe in solitude, first snowflakes of winter, tries to seem chill but is very uptight, thigh high boots, pros and cons lists, death glares, passive aggressive test messages, shiny trophies, red ribbons, sharpened ice skates, & insults to express affection 

——

extra: has OCD, has been skating since she could walk, & was adopted by her lesbian moms

——

playlist:

1. K. by Cigarettes after Sex

2 Mothers daughter by Miley Cyrus 

3. Princesses don’t cry by Carys

4. One woman army by Porcelain Black

5. Fuck apologizes. by JoJo

[polarisricki-a]

                             [   🤴🏻  …  LIAMCOLEMAN        /         @polarisleigh​​​   ]

“SIR LIAM OF AQUILA!” Thomas, though typically soft-spoken and likened to a Disney prince, right down to the tendency to follow cues given by animals, shouts at the building he knows the man to be residing in. Thomas has got a jar of bones jingling at his waist and a Burger King crown on his head. ( —-a heartfelt gift from Her Virtuous Lady Duyen; a token to take into battle, ensuring his victory. ) Thomas juts one hip out and rests his hands on his hips. “This is Your Dutiful King, Thomas Baker of Betelgeuse! I wish to know your intentions with my sister, the Dauntless Princess, Lenora of Cygnus.” 

He nudges his foot against the concrete, patience wearing thin. He understands why someone would love Lenora, of course; his sister is ingenious and exceptional, of course those around her find her enthralling. That said, it is indecent and disrespectful for anyone to approach a woman without seeking the blessing of her father —- or, in this case, the closest representative being her brother. 

He lets his head fall back as he continues to yell at the building. “I have no issue with you, Sir Liam! You are a noble and handsome man, for whom I wish the very best! Yet you pursue my kin without my blessing and that is a slight against me that I cannot ignore. If you are at all a man, you will come and face me! If you have any true desire for my sister’s affections, you must best me in combat, or turn your eyes to another woman —- or man. We, as beings of love and magic and common sense, must not look down on others for who they love, in this year 2020. I support your heart, no matter who it longs for. —-However! My sister is my business and I demand you come out here and answer for your crimes!”

[barebevil]

25 16 10 3

25) Do you enjoy concepts in books to be concrete or abstract?

i used to think i preferred abstract and sometimes i get confused and think i still do but i dont, i get annoyed or bored with an abtract or vague concept a lot of the time, really i prefer a concrete concept, i like a story that feels like it knows what it is. That’s not to say there aren’t exceptions. I love to make a definitive statement and then walk it back. If i have an opinion, no i dont, yes <3 Concrete!

16) What’s your favourite of Shakespeare’s plays?

you’d think someone who majored in english would have strong opinions about this but i dont really. I’ve only read a handful. I genuinely like romeo and juliet a lot. read macbeth in high school and i still think about it regularly. I tried to read hamlet once cus im gay and depressed and i wanted to, you know, kin or whatever but i got a halfway in and i was like I Can’t Read :( and then i never finished it

10) Bookmarks, dog ears or leaving the novel open and face down to keep your spot?

All of the above. I sort of make the decision with realizing as soon as i pick up a new book, and sometimes its a bookmark book sometimes a dog ear book, and i don’t know it myself until it’s time to put it down and i just know, sometimes it needs bookmark sometimes not, and if im feeling dauntless and wild or im just doing something else for a little while i just put it facedown wherever. sometimes i place larger objects on top of the open book to keep it open. generally im open to using any odd thing as a bookmark

3) Are there any genres you will not read?

not so much genres i Refuse to read, more so genres i just dont really read. it’s usually more interest driven than genre driven for me, i’ll read any kind of book if its about a specific thing i want to read about. I really like sci fi but i almost never read it. I’m not huge on magical realism, again, i used to think it was my favorite genre, turns out im just a slut for urban fantasy, alas, maybe i should try reading something before i start having opinions about it, who knows, maybe one day. I also don’t like world war II novels, is that a genre? idk but i just really dont want to

[cvrsair]

ben barnes, thirty - three, jean - luc de guise. ❝ ⤚⟶ FLORENCE, 1455. thanks is given by the LORD OF GUISE & CORSAIR, RET. ADMIRAL JEAN - LUC ( LUC ) DE GUISE, from FRANCE. they are at best AUTONOMOUS, and at their worst INSURGENT. whilst sojourning in florence, their ambition is to ACT AS AGENT TO HIS SISTER, GATHERING PARAMOUNT INFORMATION IN WHICH SHE CAN USE TO HER ADVANTAGE. HE seems to remind everyone of BEN BARNES & LUNGS SO DROWNED BY THE SEA THAT THEY ROT AND BLEED SALT VISCERA / THE TIDE POST THE RUINOUS STORM ; ITS ICED WINDS WHICH FROST THE HELM. ❞

I. ━━ OOC.

it’s  holland  here  for  round  ii,  ft.  chaotic  bisexual  pirate.  as  usual,  you  can  find  me  at  𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝#0518  for  all  your  plotting  purposes  !

II. ━━ STATISTICS.

FULL NAME :  jean - luc ( luc ) de guise.

TITLES :  

lord de guise, admiral of the royal fleet. ( past )

lord de guise, ret. admiral, corsair of france and aragon. ( present )

BIRTHPLACE :  guise castle, guise county, france.

AGE :  thirty - three. born october 31st, 1422.

LANGUAGES : french, english, latin, spanish, portuguese, italian, turkish, russian, german, croatian, etc. if the language exists, it's safe to bet he can speak it if not understand enough to proficiently function, his life on the seas taking him to ports throughout the world, picking up crewmen from each of these areas as he went as well as his time as admiral with the royal fleet / interactions with those on trade routes. another note, although from france, his accent has become a muddled mix of regional intonations, making those of new introductions hard to place him.

DYNASTY / HOUSE :  house de guise, cadet branch of house lorraine.

MOTHER & FATHER :  thérèse d'anjou ( princesse du sang ) & jean - bastian de guise ( 10th duke of guise ).

SPOUSE :  n/a.

ISSUE :  unkown if existing.

SIBLINGS : jeanne marguerite de guise ( princess of asturias ), jean - henri de guise ( 11th duke of guise ), and jean - rene de guise ( chronicler's apprentice ).

OTHER :  wife of jean - henri and the children of jean - henri ( son, daughter, son ). royal house of anjou ( maternal cousins ). royal house of trastámara ( sister married into ). royal house of braganza ( kin to house trastámara ).

ZODIAC :  scorpio.

RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION :  atheist ( though family raised catholic ).

ORIENTATION :  cis - male, bisexual, demiromantic.

PERSONALITY TYPE :  entj, the commander.

VICES :  brutality, murderous, pride, thieving, wrath.

VIRTUES :  autonomy, daring, dauntlessness, perceptiveness, resilience.

FACECLAIM :  ben barnes.

HEIGHT :  6’4.

RECOGNISABLE FEATURES :  dark brown hair, appearing black unless in sunlight. eyes are classified as onyx. his physique ( mesomorph ) bears a plethora of scars from various ordeals including naval battles, raids, and generalized war. a more prominent mark, however, is a scar through his left brow, ending beneath his eye. && a variety of stick ink tattoos ( including the mark of the armada ) obtained from foreign travels, most notable being a kraken on the left side of his chest with its tentacles enveloping the length of his arm.

REPUTATION IN FLORENCE :  a once honored and reputable admiral, many often held high praise upon their tongues. but he's fallen far, if you ask around, a captain with a villainous crew. the world wants to know : what noble would commit self - exile ? the rumors are vast regarding luc's occupatianal deviance ( nightmarish && murderous tales which keep most from sea ), stories purloined from foreign crews spreading like wildfire throughout countries && their cities, scorching everything in their obliterating wake. a wanted man of known ferocity, many blank when met with his undeniable charm ; when the facade is called for. they want the truth of the corsair, and perhaps a glimpse aboard his notorious ship, the night spire.

WANTED CONNECTIONS :  details uc. though due to his travels and time at various ports, it's easily plausible to have met him, though whether it was an amicable greeting is to be discussed. some ideas also include him having been hired for assassinations, raids, naval assistance, carry or retrieve letters / goods ( legal or illegal ) somewhere for a price, including the smuggling of an individual if need be. one night stands as he's gone beore the sun rises, etc.

III. ━━ PERSONALITY.

colossal leviathan ; you concave a vessel’s hull and send its crew to the depths of tartarus. the sirens laments are sung about you, immersing wayward sailors with mortal kiss meant for you. kraken souled, you are truly poseidon’s son, cells infused by salt, heart constricted by seaweed. blackguard ; wolfish and severe, you smirk when they sneer ‘ pirate ‘. morals displaced, you are no longer the courtly image of lord or admiral. ornamented uniform exchanged for onyx attire, smooth jaw now scruffed, you are a masquerade wanted among territories ; devoid of honorific to place alongside their bounties. the love you bear only extends to sister and dual black pharaoh hounds, cetus && scylla, your heart damaged, oozing black tar for all you’ve lost. in the name of familial espionage, you execute men whom once served you. there is a part of you which desires the past, which wishes to begin anew. but you are far too mature for such fledgling fantasies. this is the life you’ve been damned, and you are prepared to burn.

IV.      ━━  SYNOPSIS.

born october 31st, 1422, in the county of guise, france, both matriarch and patriarch were rapturous at the birth of subsequent son. quintessential spare, luc fell beneath his mother’s stern reign far more than he did his father, the man’s enterprising focus residing with his eldest brother, aspiring duke. dutiful matriarch often waged war with an adolescent luc, swiping blood from his brawling fists whilst servants purged vermillion stained garments. requiring discipline for her youthful rogue, luc was consigned to militaristic cousins, whereas his parentage forged devotions, anticipating their son’s glorious future within martial prowess. sixteen when presented to the royal armada, it was here luc met raphael, a privateer admiral for the crown whom took part in felonious trade, among other illicit acts upon anarchic seas. with such a blackguard as diligent mentor, the man inspired luc’s insurgent tendencies, instructing him in arts of loyalty and deceit ; arming him with the necessary trappings of a taciturn outlaw. yet to the public eye, he was a respected lieutenant of the royal fleet, worthy of promotion to admiral, which he helmed by his early twenties. expert mariner, luc harbored merciless yet proficient notoriety, not once having lost a vessel or crewman during naval battle. he was content upon uncharted seas, reveling in his self - proclaimed liberation and willingness to perish across oceans. then came a day where the admiral was charged with raphael’s arrest, the insidious captain’s treasonous acts having been overturned by spies. his mendacious mentor turned father figure had even ignited trade wars, costing the crown voluminous funds as well as strategic turmoil, their once trusted captain having auctioned the province’s secrets. his hand forced, luc sailed to apprehend him, and was greeted by naval warfare. privateer warships opposed foreign corsairs, the result a mass of fragmented hulls and buoyant carcasses. amidst these deaths were raphael and luc’s undisclosed lover, a marauder captain whom he’d initially met off the coast of aragon, raiding france’s commerce vessels ( it is said he nearly drowned searching the watery depths for a body ). shadowing this tumultuous point was his beloved sister’s arranged marriage, the sole piece of family he cherished. in doing so, he followed her into exile ( conspiring espionage in the process ), ultimately becoming  a retired admiral turned corsair captaining an entirely black ship dubbed the night spire.

V.      ━━  STATE OF AFFAIRS.

unwed and without known issue, the lord of guise was betrothed only once in his life. a potential union which was terminated by luc’s own doing, it brought a brief yet potent wave of disgrace upon his noble household. worse than this were eventual rumors of a deceased lover ( gender varying dependent on rampant tongue ) in which was a cause of the admiral’s chosen retirement, said to have begun to forsake his duties upon witness of their death. uninterested in the pursuit of relation, various beds are often shared once, then exchanged for the twilit company of another. religion has never held a place within his life, whatever god - fearing instillation meaning to be acknowledged having submerged itself beneath salt water. all sense of allegiance lies with his sister, recently anointed princess of asturias, as well as with his vessel’s libertine crewmen.

[verumking]

⚔️ *:･ﾟ✧┆HEADCANON : SHATTERED PERSPECTIVES

      This headcanon is something I’ve been thinking about for a LONG TIME, and here it is: how Yozora VIEWS the world from four contrasting PERSPECTIVES. Yozora by no means has multiple personalities-- rather, these four ‘facets’ sum up his INNER CONFLICT. Whilst these perspectives OPPOSE each other, some feed into others. All of this was inspired by this musing.

ONE. ┆ GENTLE CHILD, TELL ME WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LOVE: THE HEART OF A BOY

       Perhaps the most subtle aspect of his personality, Yozora still maintains the morbid curiosity he wielded during his youth. When in solitude, Yozora enjoys researching the Old World, perusing through literature exchanged in the backstreets of Replica Earth. He is fascinated by the planet that they had lost, and one day hopes to visit the ruins of original Earth. 

       Despite the devastation of his rebirth, Yozora is still possesses the naivety of a child, especially when it comes to love. Whilst he is aware of what love is, he refuses to believe he is ever fall in love himself (or is even capable of such emotion at all, from the perspective of a machine)— and fails to acknowledge it when he does. Perhaps this love is what drives Yozora to almost foolishly protect those close to him. 

TWO. ┆ CROWNED HEAD, TELL ME WHAT IT’S LIKE TO CONQUER: THE HEART OF A KING

       Fate placed a crown upon his head, and he had to bear its weight. Yozora is the hanged man of a tarot deck— crucified by the stars, destined for a greater purpose. Despite shunning his destiny, Yozora possesses all the qualities of a true king. He is an excellent leader: a tactician in warfare, level-headed and calculating. He is not optimistic, but realistic, and isn’t afraid to retreat if it meant rising stronger the following day. 

       He also knows when to sacrifice himself— and even others. Yozora does not consider the Gigas any more worthy of life than he is, despite being sentient and sharing the same lifeforce. He was fighting a war-- and even humans show no remorse towards their kin. Why should machines be treated any different?

       Yozora is also unafraid to claim responsibility for loss, and is critical of his shortcomings. He perhaps carries the world’s burden entirely upon his own shoulders. It was what he was taught, after all, as the king of humanity: he was conditioned to lead the world to its rebirth. His drive to claim responsibility and inadvertence to become a leader (and hence, a figure of authority) whilst simultaneously rejecting higher powers (for placing him in a position of authority) is a reality Yozora refuses to face time and time again. 

THREE. ┆ FEARLESS SOUL, TELL ME WHAT IT’S LIKE TO INSPIRE: HEART OF A MACHINE 

       Despite a distinctly human appearance, Yozora is more machine than mortal. He is a rogue experiment, adamant in fighting against celestial prophecy. Whilst shunning his existence as a machine, Yozora is very much resilient like an automaton— both physically and through a lack of emotional attachment. 

       As a result of childhood trauma, and perhaps after the sheer experimentation on his mortal body, Yozora represses most emotion as a subconscious defence mechanism. He believes himself to be incapable of positive emotion: and when such emotions occur, he is swift to snap back to his neutral state, reminding himself that happiness was only temporary, and he should not indulge himself in something he will only yearn for when all hope is lost.   

       Whilst he was destined to rule, Yozora was created to serve: as a machine, he is dauntless in every sense of the word. He was designed to be both revered and feared. Yozora does not flinch at the sight of his own blood, and shrugs off pain-- even if wired pain inhibitors fail him. His rebirth as a cyborg is certainly something Yozora cursed— and it was this vehemence which drove him and those around him to rise against the Gigas’ rule. Yozora was a weapon— and a weapon he became. 

FOUR. ┆ BROKEN HEART, TELL ME WHAT IT’S LIKE TO FALL: HEART OF A HUMAN

       Above all, beyond the prophecy of divine rule and the titanium that stripped him of his mortality, Yozora is still a human. He craves the humanity that he was denied from childhood. An ordinary life, where he was not tethered to the stars. Where his reason for living is not for war, or for a crown upon his head. 

       Indeed, Yozora is not invincible. Whilst concealing his true emotions in the presence of others, in solitude, he unsheathes his shell. He too, has uncertainties and fears. In recorded messages, Yozora whispers of an unknown future. A loss of faith, the longer the war rages on. 

       Yozora is also curious about human mortality, and the concept of death-- though he daren’t commit it upon himself. He is truly a victim of ‘l’appel du vide’: the fleeting devil in his ear, whispering about the inevitability of man. A reminder that death is always around the corner. The temptation towards self-destructive behaviour, manifested by his guilt towards the experiments that passed before his creation: and the experiments that will continue to be produced as a result of his success.