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rosalinrabbit · 2 years

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Over - Pollination

Pairing: Morpheus x Nymph!Fem!Reader

Warnings: Smut, sex, oral sex, unprotected sex, vaginal fingering, sex pollen/sex drugs, drugging/spiking, slight non-con (reader isn't exactly sober/of sound mind...), cum obsession, begging.

Summary: Desire has a fondness for trouble, but perhaps just this once, their goal is a little less nefarious. As their brother Morpheus, Dream of the Endless continues to shut himself off from everyone and refuses to let himself be happy, Desire sets a plan in motion. A plan that will only have one outcome, for Morpheus would never let you struggle alone.

Word Count: 3.7k

A/N: A super smutty one-shot in honor of our favorite King of the Dreaming. How can you possibly watch Sandman and not instantly become obsessed with this lovely man? I adore him.

In terms of new stories, I have been super busy but written A TON, but I don't like uploading multi-chapter fics until they are finished for editing/not abandoning and leaving everyone suffering purposes! Please bear with me, I hope to have them out soon.

SMUT 18+ / Minors DNI

Do not translate or re-upload any of my work. Works are only cross-posted on AO3.

Morpheus was interrupted from his work by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” he sighed, reluctant to have to speak to anyone. He only grew more annoyed when he laid eyes on his sibling as they entered the room, slinking about with that stupid grin on their face. “Why are you here?”

“What, I can’t visit my brother?”

“You never just visit. Why are you here.”

Desire smirked and leaned against the wall by Dream’s desk. Annoyed eyes narrowed at them, trying to discern the purpose of their visit.

“Death and I had a little chat the other day. And you know what she told me? She said that you’d gotten yourself a pet.”

“You mean Matthew? He’s hardly a pet.”

“No, not that stupid bird, I’m referring to your little nymph. The one that Death found, all lost and scared and without a home,” Desire said in a slightly mocking tone.

Morpheus’s jaw tightened at the mention of the you. “Do not refer to her in such a way. And do not mock the tragedy that befell her or her home. Death found her and her home was destroyed, she had no where else to go. I agreed to let her live here. That’s that.”

“Well, anyway,” Desire waved in the air, dismissing their brother’s disdain towards their attitude. “She’s very cute. Very sweet. I think you two would make quite the pair…” Morpheus said nothing as he continued to stare down his sibling who rambled on.

When it was clear Desire would not leave until he gave in to whatever it was they wanted, he responded. “She is very dear to me, but we are friends. Please don’t read into things.”

“You’re quite thick in the head, did you know that, brother? Which is why, sometimes, I think it’s best to force your hand…”

Morpheus stood up from his desk abruptly. “What did you do?” He asked in a low, stern tone.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Desire winked. “Goodbye, brother!” They called as they left, likely returning to their own realm now that they’ve succeeded in causing trouble.

Dream of the endless tried to sit back down and go back to his work, but it was hardly an hour after his sibling left that two palace staff came rushing into his office.

“Sir, It’s y/n…. She- she um…” one of them spoke, panting from how quickly they had ran in and clearly unsure how to phrase it.

Morpheus simply stood up and headed towards your chambers, walking at a quick pace.

He heard a strange, high-pitched whimper coming from your door as he approached it, as well as the sight of vines and leaves creeping out from the cracks in the door. He swung open the door quickly to see you writhing in your bed at the far end of the room with the plants you kept growing and twisting around the furniture and up the walls.

The palace doctor was trying to examine you but you wouldn’t quit moving. Morpheus shut the door behind him and crossed the room to where you were, looking to the doctor for answers.

“What happened?”

The doctor turned to him and pushed her glasses up slightly, sighing. “It would appear that she has been given a drug which has greatly increased her libido. It’s like she’s gone into heat, her temperature is increased and her mind is all mixed up. According to Lucienne, she collapsed in the library after being seen with Desire… I think you can guess who is responsible.”

Morpheus’s pale face nearly reddened at the doctor’s words, and his eyes trailed down to you. Your face was flushed red and your eyes squeezed shut, a few tears escaping down your cheeks, and both your hands gripping the sheet that had been laid over your body, threatening the sheet to fall and exposing your breasts.

He quickly reached over to you and pulled the sheet up, and felt your hands gently wrap around his arm as he did so, refusing to let him go. You hummed in contentment through small sobs, eyes still closed yet savoring the contact.

Morpheus had been around a very long time. Of course he knew how to fix it, but he didn’t know if he could possibly overcome his own fears of doing so. He was terrified of letting you get close, and even more terrified of losing you.

“It should wear off in two days without anyone intervening, it’s just going to be a bit painful for her… If there is intervention, it could wear off in a couple of hours to a day. Unfortunately, there’s nothing else I can do for her… so I’ll be on my way,” the doctor gave Morpheus a look before leaving the room, making a point to lock the door behind her.

He sighed, looking down at you. Gods, he thought you were gorgeous. Even in your delirious state your hair shone and your skin looked as soft as silk.

You had been living together for a few years now, and he considered you a good friend despite his reluctance to allow you to live in the Dreaming. It was Death who had convinced him.

Death impressed upon him the importance of nature, the value of giving humans dreams and visions of lush greenery and delicate flowers. It was the lack of appreciation for those things that left you without a home, weakened and alone.

You were so good to him, and he appreciated you deeply. You somehow always knew when he was in a mood, when he needed to talk, when he just needed company. For the most part, you seemed to keep to yourself, crafting those visions of nature for the humans and filling children’s dreams with butterflies. You fit right into the Dreaming, effortlessly.

As you clung to his arm, he gently moved his other hand to push hair from your face. A small gasp escaped your lips, and experimentally, Morpheus cupped your cheek, stroking his thumb across your skin. Your eyes fluttered open, more tears escaping, and you sighed at the contact.

“Morpheus,” you whined, trying to grip his arm tighter and pull him closer.

“Little one,” he whispered to you, knowing how your heart skipped a beat when he called you that. You never told him how much you liked it, how it made you feel as though you were under his protection, but he knew. “What’s wrong?”

“Too hot,” you gasped, and it was painfully true. It felt like you had caught on fire, clenching your thighs together as you felt wetness seeping out of you and down your legs. “Hurts so much. Touch me, please,” you moaned. You would normally never ever be so brazen, but your brain wasn’t working quite right and the only thing you wanted was the gorgeous god next to you to rearrange your insides.

You felt your muscles cramp again, letting out a heady moan as more slick left your entrance and the vines around the room twisted up another few inches. You could never quite control the plant growth when your emotions were running rampant.

His thumb that had been gently rubbing against your cheek slowly edged towards your lips, and without second thought, you opened your mouth, your tongue curling around the digit and sucking on it. The black haired god sat down on the bed beside you, staring into your eyes intensely.

Those grey eyes were filled with indecision and restraint. Trying to assure him, you asked again. “Please, please, touch me, Morpheus. I need you,” you pulled down the sheet covering your breasts and grabbed his hand, licking and pressing kisses against his wrists.

Morpheus knew as soon as the doctor told him what had overcome you that this would only end in one way. He cared too much to lock you in here and let you suffer alone, and he was far too infatuated with you not to take the opportunity to bring you to several mind-numbing orgasms. Especially if you would be in pain otherwise. He might be a god, but Morpheus felt powerless against you. He knew he’d do anything for you.

You watched his eyes as his resolve broke, pulling his arm away and yanking the sheet entirely off your body. The cool air of the room felt better against your feverish skin, but you burned under his intense gaze, his hand ran over your skin, across your breast and down to the curve of your hips, before stopping. You whimpered, and his hand finally glided over towards your legs, up your thigh feeling the liquid that had been dripping out of you. A strange, low growl emitted from his throat as he felt just how wet you were, and you nearly cried when he finally touched your center, fingers circling through the wetness and around your clit.

“Shh, good girl,” he whispered as you moaned wantonly with his fingers on you, desperate to cum in any way you can get. “Does that feel better?”

“Mhm, so much better,” you sighed, trying to move your hips against him. His long fingers suddenly breached into your pussy and slid in with ease, curling up over and over again, making your body feel like it was being wound up impossibly tight. “Oh, gods, please,” you moaned as he continued curling his fingers slowly inside of you, the slow pace torturous yet making the buildup even more intense before you shattered, crying out his name and squirting liquid onto his hand as your legs shook and your pussy convulsed around his fingers.

The orgasm took the burning, painful heat away and took the edge off of the pain you had felt, leaving you warm and buzzing as the aftershocks rolled through you. Morpheus pulled his fingers out of you and his clothes were gone in an instant, climbing over you and claiming your lips with his own in a messy, heated kiss.

You kissed back fervently, feeling the needy heat inside of you flare back up as you wrapped your arms over his shoulders, whimpering into his perfect mouth and rubbing against his leg that was now between your own.

“You’re being so good for me, darling,” he told you in that seductive voice which had always affected you even when you didn’t want to admit it. His voice sounded like pure comfort and sin.

“Oh!” You gasped when his mouth came into contact with the spot under your ear, nibbling down and making you feel like you could burst at any second again.

You watched in awe as he worked his way down your body, clutching the sheets beneath you when his mouth sucked and gently bit on your nipple, giving attention to the other one as well before continuing down back to your center, eyes locked on you as he began to place kisses on the inside of your thighs.

When you felt his tongue part your soaked folds you were convinced that you must be dreaming. But you weren’t, and the man between your legs was the one responsible for all dreams in the first place. No, it was all shockingly real, and every time his tongue swirled your sensitive clit, the warmth added even more pleasure as he worked you back up to your peak.

He paused, and you felt a hand grip your breast as he spoke. “Look at me, y/n.” As if he needed you to see it was him bringing you pleasure. It was him you revered, him who was making you see stars, and you of course complied, looking down to see his ever-messy black hair slightly covering his eyes as he looked at you.

The sight of him between your legs mixing with the look of pure power he was giving you as he sucked your clit made you cry out his name as you came once more, juices dripping down his chin as you gushed and your walls clenched around nothing, his name coming out in pants through your overwhelming pleasure. When he finally ceased his movements his hands both gripped your thighs as he sat up, looking down at you. Your hair was messy and your eyes were beginning to glaze over in ecstasy.

Morpheus often wondered how you looked so perfect, so effortlessly beautiful. Perhaps it was because you were simply of nature, a nymph made to protect and nurture, sweet by mere creation. Now, looking at you in your post-orgasm haze, he realized he hadn’t been appreciative enough of you. You were beyond perfection, made of pure wonder, better than anything he could ever imagine. And now, you were under him. You were his, looking up at him as if he was the only important thing in the world.

How had he waited this long?

Perhaps, despite Morpheus’s disdain for the pain the condition was causing you, Desire’s meddling had worked out well for once. Not that Morpheus would ever let Desire anywhere near you again…

The feeling of his hands gripping your thighs was oddly comforting, making you feel powerless against him. And that’s all you wanted. You wanted him to absolutely ruin you, to pull you apart at the seams and put you back together as his.

Your eyes were skimming across his slender, long body before landing on his cock, erect and leaking, and you let out a whimper at the sight of it alone, moving to sit up and reach for him, but he didn’t allow it, putting a hand on your shoulder to stop you from getting up.

You let out an unhappy noise at the refusal but he quickly reassured you with kisses along the side of your face.

“You’re still burning up, let me take care of you, little one.”

Nodding, you opened your legs for him, but still quickly wrapped a hand around his length and pumped up and down gently, experimentally almost, and watched his eyes flutter closed for a moment as he let out a deep groan.

“Such a needy girl. You need to be filled up? Will that make you stop hurting?”

You nodded again, desperate for him to stop talking and shove himself deep in you already.

“Say what you want,” he taunted in his seductive voice.

“I want you, Morpheus. I want you in me,” you breathed impatiently.

He finally lined his tip up with your entrance, the intrusion warm and causing you to gasp.

As he pushed in, he began to fully stretch you out, causing a slight burn. But the burn felt so right, and you just wanted him deeper. You wanted him everywhere. You wanted to feel like you were so full of him you could burst.

You encouraged him by wriggling your hips against him as he continued to push into you, moaning softly in his ear and he let out a low moan as he finally bottomed out, fully sheathed inside of you. You were incredibly wet and your walls were squeezing him tight, and the overwhelming sensation of finally being inside of you forced Morpheus to pause for a moment so he wouldn’t cum inside you right away.

Before he even started moving you wrapped your legs around his waist and started rocking into him slowly, looking at him with pure lust and moaning in such a lovely, needy way that he had no choice but to give in to you.

He finally started fucking you in earnest, and your nails began to dig into his back as his cock dragged in and out of you, hitting every single spot as he did so and leaving you a mess. You couldn’t stop moaning, losing touch with reality quickly as he tilted your hips up and began thrusting directly into your g-spot, making you nearly scream as you saw stars.

Your eyes were locked on his, in near worship of the way the god was giving you pleasure. Your brain was obsessed with it, still locked on the idea of getting him somehow deeper, desperately yearning for him to cum in you as much as possible. There was nothing but him as his hips thrust into you, a hand moving to your breast to squeeze it roughly.

The thought alone of Morpheus cumming inside of you is what sent you over the edge. You wanted to please him, wanted to keep a part of him in you, wanted him to mark you and use you for his own pleasure.

You cried out through your fog of lust at the intensity of the orgasm, your pussy tightening around his cock and clenching down, you could feel him throbbing inside of you as you came around him and coated his thick cock with your release. Instead of giving you a clear head, the instant pleasure and release from your orgasm only lasted a few moments before you were sent further into hyperdrive.

“Oh, fuck,” Morpheus cursed at your tightness. “Give me one more, darling. One more,” and his hand moved to circle your drenched clit. You cried out, squirming under him.

“Deeper! Please, Morpheus, my lord, fuck me deeper! I need you to fill me with your cum, need it so much,” you babbled, desperate and dead set on being filled with his cum. It was the only thing your brain could think of, being marked, being his, filled to the brim with your king’s white and sticky release, the warmth spreading through your abdomen as it dripped from your soaked core.

Morpheus knew immediately that the drugs were fully affecting your words and desires, but he was quite sure that if he didn’t give you what you wanted, you would remain overheated and desperate and would go to whatever lengths it took to get him to cum inside of you.

He complied, shifting your hips once more to change the angle to reach even deeper, a high-pitched whine escaping from you as he hit your spot perfectly.

“You want me to come inside of you?”

“Yes! Yes, yes, please!” You cried, back arching as you looked up at him in pure desperation.

“How could I ever say no to you? I’ll fill you up so full, mark you, leave you dripping…” your moans grew in volume as he continued, still rubbing your clit. “Do you want that? Want to be so full of my cum that you feel it inside of you?”

Morpheus knew you were beyond words, you were so lost in pleasure that the vines you unknowingly controlled had began to creep onto the bed and wrap around the headboard. With the brutal pace and precision of the way he was fucking you, and the amount of liquid that kept seeping out from your core, he knew you were close.

“Cum for me again, and I’ll cum inside of you, my love. Cum around my cock,” he commanded, and you certainly complied. You gripped the sheets beneath you as you finally let go, sobbing out in your release, feeling like fireworks had gone off in your nerves and gushing around him for the second time. It was so brutally powerful, and even more so when you felt Morpheus’s hips slow as he released inside of you with a deep groan, the warmth coating your insides and filling you with inexplicable contentment. The feeling of him finishing inside of you prolonged your orgasm left you shaking. You felt perfectly full, overjoyed to be claimed by him in such a way, and your needy brain finally quieted giving you peace from the rampant lewd thoughts.

The vines and leaves shrunk away, not dying but reverting to their previous state. The overbearing heat finally left your body leaving you feeling only warm, buzzing, and sated, whispering your thanks to him in a small voice. You felt heavy and your legs felt nearly numb. Morpheus stayed inside of you but shifted your bodies to be on your sides, facing one another. “You were such a good girl for me,” he spoke softly as he pulled you closer. You quickly curled up against his chest and fell asleep, barely aware of your surroundings but feeling safe in the warmth of his arms.

•*•*•*•*•*•

You woke up feeling normal, the cool and fluffy fabric of the comforter against your skin, along with the warmth of Morpheus’s arms.

The man was always so stone-cold and expressionless that you thought he might be cold to the touch, but no, he was pleasantly warm.

Then, confusion hit you. Why were you naked? Why was he naked?

And why was he in your bed??

Your eyes widened and you shifted your head to look up at him. He looked so peaceful, messy hair hanging over his closed eyes, chest rising and falling with each breath.

As you watched him, realization began to wash over you as you remembered what you had done. You shot up in embarrassment and covered your mouth with one hand, using the other to pull the blanket up and cover your exposed breasts. The sudden shift loosened the god’s grip around you and his eyes opened.

“I- My Lord… I am so sorry!” you apologized still covering your face, bright red with embarrassment over your brazen actions.

“What are you sorry for, little one?” He asked with the ghost of a smile on his lips, sitting up to tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear and pull your hand from your face.

You looked down shamefully, face burning and unable to meet his gaze. “For what I did… earlier…”

“Look at me, y/n.”

When you didn’t comply he reached out to tilt your chin up.

“Do you regret what we did?”

You paused for a moment before shaking your head.

“Well, I do not regret it either,” he spoke in that ever serious voice of his, smooth as velvet and dark as obsidian. He took the hand that was holding the blanket over you and pulled it away, pulling you towards him to settle back against his chest. “Though I do apologize for not doing that sooner.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you, and you glanced up to see an obvious smile on Morpheus’s face.

Though an odd turn of events in your relationship with the King of the Dreaming, as you lay in his arms, you could not be happier.

#the sandman #morpheus #dream x reader #morpheus x reader #dream of the endless #rorabbit

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thithesandofferings · 1 year

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Just thinking about how instances Cloud/Seph/Zack would be as mystical creatures loving you.

Tags: NSFW (but- mildly lol) , dubcon, light choking, breeding- idk how I got here but here ya go

Cloud- Water Nymph

You are lost when you see him. Blood rushing with trembling hands, you see cerulean blue eyes peer out of the water at you. You'd never seen anything so beautiful. You, who is almost jealous of the sun, the way it kisses his slickened blonde strands. Thousands of bejeweled memories embedded and loved. He's shy when you approach him, sinking silently into the water, his eyes unblinking up at you. Beseeching. Dragging you further. You make a vow that you want to be with him forever. You've known him for a long time right? It doesn't matter that you've forgotten why you were lost, or even who you were. Nothing matters when his hands close over your cheeks and he asks you to open your mouth, just for him. Humming in pleased delight when you obey immediately. Water from where he surrounds himself, comes in contact with your tongue and the world becomes fuzzy. When he curls his tongue around yours and his thrusts match the waves of the water, you think you can understand what "home" is. There is no alarm gracing your heart, only pleasure when he tells you to come. That you'll be his forever as he fucks you into the water that matches the deep possessiveness of his eyes.

Sephiroth- Vampire

It's cold tonight and maybe you should've brought a jacket. You don't think anything will warm you up, your shiver is far from cold. There's fear tingling and trailing up your fingers and forearms, stabbing you in the heart. You've seen him before. Many times. In your peripheral, in your shadows, before you turn around- he's always there but out of sight. Eyes so green, you're always too overwhelmed to look at him. They haunt you in your dreams. Even if you think the morning will save you, the quietness in your home sounds as if there is someone holding their breath, waiting for you to close your eyes and tonight is no different. It's too dark, and you're too alone. But you're so tired, exhausted from watching over your shoulder and jumping when the wind blows wrong. When you stop at an alley way it seems the best. "Come out" you whisper. You know he can hear you. So when you feel warmth at your back, there is relief. All that fear feels silly now when long silver strands stroke your cheek as he drags a hand up to cup the front of your neck. Whimpering when he squeezes lightly. You close your eyes in defeat, leaning back, earning you a pleased hum and kiss brushed along your neck. You glance with lidded eyes up at him to see a very satisfied green eyed gaze. It holds you down better than any chains can. He whispers that he's glad you've come to your senses to let him in. He's waited a long time for you. There is nothing to hold to when his cock drags against your walls with his fanged teeth piercing through your neck. No reality to set foot on when he holds you by the throat and forces you still, shushes you so you can hear the slick noises your body makes for him. Only for him.

Zack- Werewolf

It was just a simple solo camping trip. You wanted to be alone. You knew a place that was quiet, away from all the noise that chases you. And yet, you didn't heed the warnings of "there's something out there" made by everyone you'd crossed paths with. You thought they were being selfish. But when you lay next to the fire and start to drift off, you began to regret it because you hear a crack of a twig and the growl of...something. When you're shaking and heaving from running, you realize what you'd been hearing behind the gasping was laughter. The beast was laughing at you. You widen your eyes because his smile is an easy smile and he is ethereal. Tall and dark hair to match the night, your heart stutters at his dewy grin and strong hands that wrap around you with no problems. He waits to your heart rate calms down before he kisses you. Wet and possessive, he holds you by the jaw licking into your mouth as much as possible. When he has you on your tummy and stretching you open with his fingers, his growl permeates your whole body. Electric blues capture your eyes and he grins. Licking down your spine and telling you how good you are and how good he's going to be to you. How well he's going to take of you. His mate. Gasping and clenching around his knot has him howling in pleasure. Fucks you into the dirt over and over so that it takes. So that you're full of his cum and eventually-his pups.

#ff7 #cloud x reader #sephiroth x reader #zack x reader #zack fair #sephiroth #cloud strife #ff7 x reader #final fantasy vii remake #ffvii #churchboxconfession

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yandereorg · 1 year

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No thoughts behind my eyes just the outlaws with a submissive! Darling 😩 Darling's never been in a relationship before so their just willing to please their yanderes not really understanding what their doing (saying 'I love you' way too early, moving in too early, tbh just doing whatever to keep the outlaws pleased bc darling is a subby simp like that 😼)

𝐊𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭

Implied noncon

𝐑𝐨𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐩𝐞𝐫, his dreams have come true! Jason had doubted you, but Roy knew that you were his angel, his pretty little nymph, always so good for them. Roy is the one to set the pace, one date and he's saying I love you, and you're saying it back!!! His smile shines through as he brings you in for a hug, and the others join in, you're overwhelmed with love, and it's incredible. Once you tell him that this is your first relationship it's Roy who suggests they take advantage of this, you're their sweet little angel and roy really likes that. He goes to Kori and Jason, explaining how they just need to take control and you'll hand yourself over. Roy also quickly discovers that tears are his way of getting everything he wants from you.

𝐊𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐝'𝐫, another one who exploits your oh so easily moulded disposition. She knows Jason doesn't like this but she's just guiding you, her and Roy are just acting as the loving governors of your affections. She just wishes to please you and you're so desperate to please them and you just look so pretty underneath them, so pretty and powerless, letting her do whatever she wants and you're just so easily convinced to play how she wants you too and you quickly learnt that saying no lead to Roy getting tears in his eyes and kori giving you an anxiety inducing silent treatment. Roy and Kori often wake with you laying besides you, their pretty angel covered in their marks, and like the good lovers they are you wake up to kisses and someone in-between your legs.

𝐉𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐝, hates how the others are acting. They have a chance to be happy with you and they're pulling this shit. I think Jason knows when to be manipulative and doesn't like doing it when he doesn't need to. He wants to be happy with you not doing icky stuff when it's not needed, I feel like this would lead to a large fight, Kori and Roy versus Jason which just kind of scares s/o and enlightens them into the betrayal, you realise that Roy and Kori have been taking advantage of you this entire time? You are so embarrassed, you just wanted to make them happy and they were using you.

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i-luvsang · 8 months

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like a dream — kang yeosang

pairing : dryad!yeosang x gn!reader ➖⟢ genres : fluff, angst, fantasy, strangers to lovers ➖⟢ cw : mythological inaccuracies, food mentions, borderline controlling parents, scary encounter with dark fae, kissing, pet names ➖⟢ wc : 13.3K ➖⟢ for : the stuck in summer collab held by @a1sh1teruu ➖⟢ special thanks : to @yuyusuyu for beta reading !! <33

bonus : inspo pinterest board & playlist

about dryads : in this fic, dryads retain their core attribute of being nymphs/spirits of trees, their life force being connected to the tree they reside in. they differ from traditional greek mythology here, in that they can be in the image of any gender (not just women), and are considered to be a type of fae.

it all felt like a dream, like magic. the summer haze that fell over the quiet countryside, the trees rustling softly with the gentle wind as twilight fell. the cool water of the lake in your hair, fresh strawberries from the farm just a short walk away, and more than anything at all, him. his smile, the twinkle in his eyes, and, like a miracle, his hand in yours.

admittedly, it didn’t feel that way in the beginning. to be whisked away to your practically estranged grandmother’s home in the middle of nowhere was never what you imagined for the summer between high school and the start of your college journey. you left the day after graduation, still vividly angry with your parents as they shooed you onto the train.

“i swear i’ll be fine on my own! mingi’s parents offered to help if i need anything while you’re gone,” you protested, trying not to let them hand you your already packed bags.

“your grandmother has already prepared to have you. you are getting on that train. we paid for the ticket, you’re all packed, and we are not letting you stay home alone for two and a half months,” they refuted. you had wanted to argue more, maybe bring up a new point, but by then, you had said it all, and despite your recent entry into legal adulthood, your parents still held far too much sway over you.

the train ride is long, dreadfully so. despite the glory of the city fading and gradually being replaced by tumbling hills, trees, and fields, you cannot help but curse it all in your head, too wrapped up in self-pity to love the sights in the way that you normally would.

a woman that you barely recognize from your childhood greets you at the bus stop as the sun begins to dip low in the sky. she’s sweet to you, but not overbearingly so. during the ride from the station to her home in her small, run down car, you do your best not to act coldy to her, trying to remind yourself it’s not her fault that your parents dumped you into her care for two and a half months.

by the time you arrive, the sun has set, and she has grown on you more than you would like to admit for how adamant you’ve been in hating everything about your current situation. she understands that spending the summer with her is not your ideal by any stretch, and she promises she’ll do her best to make you comfortable in any way she can. the way she says it all is kind and genuine, and you’re grateful to see that she’s far more understanding than your parents have been all month leading up to this.

she allows you to settle in for the first few days, showing you around the need-to-know basics of the sweet cottage she lives in. she’s seemingly unbothered by the way you spend most of your time in your room on your phone, bemoaning your unfortunate state to your friends over text or the phone.

but it only takes her five days to have you falling in love with the place around you. the first two are for your sulking, the third for getting you to come out of the house and take a look at her gardens. the fourth day is for a walk to a nearby farm to purchase fresh produce (the strawberries being your favorite), and the fifth is for the sunset.

it’s glorious, and you have no choice but to admit it. after a freshly cooked meal, eaten on her porch as the heat of the day finally begins to subside, she asks you to stay and watch the sunset with her. you agree, even if the sun won’t set for another hour, now aware that you don’t mind spending time with her at all. you talk as you have been for the past few days, the conversation easy and never forced. when a breeze cool enough to feel like an early manifestation of the night rustles the leaves on the trees and the clothes on your body alike, you wonder why your parents ever distanced you from her at all.

she doesn’t let the conversation die out even as the sun truly begins to set, and you like it that way. it feels natural and gentle to have the colors become brilliant in the sky as you learn to accept and love the place you have been plopped into for the summer.

it’s not half as bad as you imagined. though you still feel bouts of jealousy for the adventures your friends are having without you and bitterness aimed at your parents for not allowing you to experience this summer the way you wanted, you try to heed the silent advice from your grandmother to make the best of your situation. she never says that out loud, of course, knowing you’d hate to hear it, but she gives you ways to do so each time she shows you a new beautiful thing.

in the second week, you muster up the courage to ask her over dinner if you’re allowed to go into the forest behind her house by yourself. the day before you went on a short walk into it together, and you felt as though you’d fallen in love with it. she does nothing to hide her smile at the question.

“of course!” she delights. “it’s very safe, it’s quite hard to get lost so long as you don’t stray too far and stay on the paths. almost all of them lead back here or to the main road. i’ll show you tomorrow.”

she sticks to her word, as always, and takes the whole day to show you around the closest areas of the woods. from that day forward, the forest becomes yours. while your grandmother loves it, some stretches are more difficult for her to navigate in her older age, so most days you explore it on your own.

when you’re in the forest, the adventurous side of you comes out. of course, you’re still full of caution, but you are not immune to the allure of a bit of well-calculated risk taking for the sake of tree climbing and wandering off the path just a little bit.

the things that pull you off the path are simple; flowers, mushrooms, long stretches of moss, and the likes. usually it’s something you’d like to capture with the digital camera your grandma has lent you for the summer.

this time, it’s where the furthest navigable path begins to change direction to lead you back home. right where your grandmother told you it’s best not to stray any further. but it’s not far from the path at all, just a small patch of mushrooms that you’ve missed up until now. you make your way over without a second thought, pulling out your camera and snapping a quick picture.

when you stand back up and look out over the small downward slope just a few feet away from you, something else far more special catches your eye. you hesitate this time, knowing that you won’t be able to see the path if you climb your way below it to examine the white flower that you see on the edge of your vision. but you can’t resist the allure, too curious about the single, out of place bloom. so, taking note of your spot at the top of the slope to make your way back to it easily, you carefully make your way down and across the stretch of your vision to confirm your suspicions about the flower. up close, you take in its appearance, and while you’re not an expert, you know enough to tell that it’s a dahlia.

it’s curious, to say the least, to see the white flower fully blossomed when your grandmother had shown you the short dahlia stems in her garden, telling you that you’d be lucky to see them bloom before you left. in response to the phenomenon, you take your time to snap a few photos to show your grandma the early bloom.

once satisfied, you stand from your bent over position and grin when you see a butterfly fluttering deeper into the forest. you take a few steps towards it, trying to get close enough to identify it, when a deep voice interrupts you.

“i wouldn’t recommend going much further from the trail.” the voice is gentle, but it still startles you into whipping around in surprise. you take in the figure standing a few feet away from you. the first thing you notice is that he’s absolutely gorgeous, features soft and beautiful enough to rival the looks of the fairies in the set of paintings hung up in your grandma’s hallway. but that does nothing to aid your surprise. he is, after all, a stranger in the middle of the forest who has somehow approached you in complete silence.

“who–,” you choke the word out, nervous and not even sure what you want to say.

the soft smile on his face shifts into a look of light regret. “sorry. i didn’t mean to startle you. i live close by,” he explains.

“oh.” this doesn’t explain why you couldn’t hear him approach, but you let it slide by chalking it up to the fact that you weren’t paying much attention to anything but the flower and the butterfly. “my grandmother never mentioned you.”

“was she supposed to have mentioned me?” he asks, the hint of a teasing lilt in his voice.

you clear your throat a bit awkwardly. “well, no? i mean, maybe. she told me about everyone else who lives in the area,” you tell him. you’re a bit offended she never mentioned a boy so strikingly handsome.

he hums in acknowledgment. “i don’t go out much,” is all he offers in information. you look him up and down, growing a little suspicious under his gaze with all of these vague answers. he looks perfectly normal, dark brown, almost black hair that falls down to his cheeks in the front and wearing simple clothes. he sports a mossy green t-shirt and dark wash jeans that make him look like he belongs in the forest. he looks confident and comfortable where he stands, as if he knows every inch of this place. maybe he does, granted his claim that he lives close by.

“i mean it, though,” he interrupts your train of thought. “it can be hard to find your way back to the trail if you go any further than this.”

“ah. right,” you nod. “i was just looking at this flower. i thought dahlia’s didn’t bloom until august.”

his reaction to your words is odd when it looks like an expression of nervousness flashes across his face. but it disappears so fast you take the time to wonder if you’d just imagined it.

“usually,” he confirms, “but sometimes they bloom early here.”

“interesting,” you muse, curious again what could be the difference between the forest and your grandmother’s garden. a moment of silence passes between the two of you, and it seems there’s nothing left to say. plus, you’ve got to get home sooner than later to be in time for dinner.

“i guess i’ll get going then.” you point vaguely in the direction you came from.

“right.” there’s silence only interrupted by the sounds of your foot falls as you begin walking away, already thinking of the many things you’ll have to tell your grandma over dinner. the early blooming flower, the somewhat strange boy. he pulls you right out of your thoughts once again with his melodic voice. “i’m yeosang, by the way.”

you turn around to face him, surprised when you’re met with what you could only describe as a bashful expression on his face.

“oh!” you give him your name, not even having realized the two of you never really introduced yourselves to one another. “i’m staying with my grandma for the summer.”

“well,” he echoes your name, and the way it rolls off his tongue in that deep voice of his has your heart jumping in a way you hadn’t expected at all, “see you around.”

“mhmm,” you agree, suddenly eager to meet this stranger again. “see you!”

with that, you turn and make your way back up to the trail, and when you glance back around to seek out his pretty face one more time, he’s nowhere to be seen.

—

when you arrive back at the cottage, it’s just in time for you to help your grandmother set the table for dinner. the food is aromatic and fresh as always, but even the watering in your mouth at the sight of it isn’t enough to distract you fully from your odd encounter in the woods. it’s hard to hold back from telling her all about it the second you got home.

but, you don’t have to wait for long. once you’re both settled at the table with food served and a few bites eaten she asks you how your outing went today.

“actually,” you begin eagerly, “it was quite eventful. and before i say anything else, i promise i stayed within sight of the trail.” she raises an eyebrow at that, but you can see the smile tugging at her lips that tells you to go on. “i saw a dahlia off the path. it was white and in full bloom. i have pictures to show you after dinner! do you think there’s a difference between your garden and the forest?”

“really? that’s fascinating,” she ponders, “i’m not sure if there’s any difference besides maybe the soil, but that’s still unusually early for wild dahlias.”

“that’s what i thought,” you agree. “but grandma! i met some guy while i was looking at it. do you know someone named yeosang who lives around here? he didn’t seem much older than me.”

“ah!” she claps her hands in recognition. “i’m surprised you met him. i’ve never met him myself. i’ve heard he lives in a small cottage in the forest. according to anyone who’s seen him, he's quite a recluse, but still kind.”

“he was a little bit odd. but nice, he seemed to mean well,” you pause a moment before deciding to go on, “but grandma!” you let out a light laugh, “he was… he was really cute.” you’re downplaying the extent of his beauty, but you’re not really one to call a man you just met “gorgeous” in front of your grandma, no matter how fitting the word truly is.

“well, well, well,” she laughs, “have we found you a summer crush?” she teases.

“that’s not what i’m saying,” you refute. “i’m just saying he’s good-looking. maybe he comes across nice but has a rotten personality!”

“i hope that’s not the case!” she lets out another laugh. “maybe you can get him to get out of his shell and get to know the people he lives around. he’s so young, it must be hard for him to live alone.”

“he’s alone?” suddenly a new wave of curiosity and even concern crashes over you.

“well, as far as we all know. i feel so sorry to say it, but he’s so rarely sighted and even less talked to that i think many of us forget about him. i’m sure he’s a kind boy and could use a friend like you.”

you hum absentmindedly at that, already wondering if you’ll run into him again.

but it’s not until the next morning, once again making your way to the deepest point in the forest you’re allowed, that you realize you’re starting to hope to see him again. you find yourself far too curious about him, wanting to know more, looking for his fairy-like features every corner you round.

you reach the spot where you stepped off the trail yesterday, pausing to wonder if he’s more likely to show up here since it’s where you saw him first. it feels a bit silly when you shuffle to the edge and bring your foot over into the vegetation right off the path.

“you don’t have to leave the path for me to show up.”

you can barely process that the tone of his voice is genuine, not teasing like the words themselves might suggest, as you nearly trip over nothing when you’re startled into spinning around too quickly.

his smile is sheepish and apologetic when you lay your eyes on his face. “sorry.” the boy—yeosang, you remind yourself—doesn’t have to explain what for; you recall his apology last time for surprising you like this.

“how are you so quiet?” you wonder aloud, voice curious and void of any accusatory tones, not bothering to keep the question silent this time. you hope it’s not rude to ask, but he just shrugs.

“i’m just used to moving like that, living out here.”

it’s not a very clear or enlightening explanation, but you brush it off regardless. there’s a moment of silence as the two of you just peer upon the other, a hint of curiosity in his eyes that mirrors your own features.

“so…,” you begin, hoping he doesn’t mind if you ask more questions, “you seem to be quite at home here … how long have you been living here?”

“my whole life,” yeosang must sense your surprise at that answer, so he continues speaking to explain, “my parents were, well, recluses, and since they moved out a few years ago, i seem to be following in their footsteps. that’s why most people around here—like your grandmother—don’t know much about me.”

suddenly, you decide you don’t want this to be a short lived conversation. as you ask a new question, you take just a few short steps to sit on a flat rock at the edge of the trail. he follows in suit, taking his place right on the forest floor, leaning his back against a tree directly across from you.

“do you prefer it that way, then?”

he pauses, as if he doesn’t have an answer prepared for that. “i guess,” he shrugs. “i’m used to it.”

“so you don’t get lonely? yknow, living alone now?” you’re surprised by the questions that spill out of your mouth as if without permission. they’re not the kind of thing you normally ask pretty boys you’ve just met. but, more than that, you’re curious about the way the features of his face reflect the internal debate he must be having as he tries to come up with an answer to your question. it’s either as if no one’s ever asked these sorts of questions, nor has he thought about the subject at hand at all. or maybe there’s an answer he could give, but would rather not. you suppose it’s the former option, if he’s really been so secluded from all the people around him for his whole life.

“sometimes,” is the cryptic, too-simple answer yeosang decides to give. but, as seems normal with him, his voice and the look in his eyes are laden with much more. you feel crazy for thinking it, but it feels like he’s saying, “sometimes i’m lonely, but most of the time i’m alright. either way, it’d certainly be nice to have someone else around. you, maybe.” you hope that’s what his eyes are telling you, but you could just be pushing your own feelings onto him because you don’t want to be the only one who feels that way. you love your grandmother’s company, but these days you’ve been missing in-person interaction with friends your age.

“sometimes,” you nod, mumbling the word under your breath. for a moment, you let the air fill with bird calls and the rustle of leaves in the breeze. “so, mr. yeosang,” you speak louder, weaving a bit of playfulness into your voice, “since you’ve been living here your whole life, is there any chance you’d be able to show me around the forest. you know, off the trails.” you watch as a soft, almost hesitant smile makes its way onto his lips.

“sure,” he replies, his answer short as always and turned into something meaningful by the borderline innocent, and certainly sweet look on his face. yeosang’s glad you asked, he just doesn’t say it out loud.

“cool,” you grin. eyes drifting down to examine the plants beside your feet, you wonder what you’re supposed to say next. but that’s no longer a worry when he speaks up first.

“we can start tomorrow,” he proposes. he rushes to follow up, with a kind, “if that’s alright with you, of course.”

your smile grows at his consideration, the light worry in his voice that he hasn’t been perfectly kind to you. in your eyes, he certainly has.

“that’s perfect,” you assure him, “i’ve got practically nothing to do all summer long, anyways.”

“great.” he sends you a smile that catches you completely off guard. or rather, it’s your own reaction that surprises you. the way the curve of his lips and the sparkle in his eyes sends your heart racing. on second thought, maybe hanging out with the prettiest person you’ve ever laid eyes upon isn’t the best idea you’ve had. of course, that thought is completely wiped from your mind when his melodic voice meets your eager ears again. “you know the giant rock at the fork between painter’s path and luna moth trail?” you nod quickly at his question. “we can meet there, then.”

“sounds good!” you chirp, then glance up to the sky between the treetops to check if the afternoon sun has begun dipping low enough to force you back on the trail homewards. sighing, because you’re just a little bit disappointed your time with him can’t last any longer today, you tell him it’s about time for you to head back and bid him goodbye.

“see you tomorrow,” he calls softly after you. his words send a rush of excitement in the form of flitting butterflies to your stomach, so you rush off, wondering what’s gotten into you. butterflies? already?

—

the next morning, you wake with yeosang already on your mind. the first thing that you realize is that you never set an actual time to meet with him. it was just “tomorrow.” you let that slip up worry you for a measly thirty seconds as you pull the cream colored sheets away from your body. but the way that the morning sunlight sneaks into your room through the white curtains and illuminates the framed artworks above your dresser steals that prick of worry away, replacing it with something akin to whimsy. somehow, you’re sure he’ll know when to meet you. and if not, by some chance, you wouldn’t mind waiting for him one bit.

after a quick breakfast and a hasty goodbye to your grandma, you grab your bag, already packed with your usual supplies of water, lunch, and your camera, and rush out the back door. by now, most paths are familiar, and you easily make your way to your designated meeting spot. that boulder is clear in your memory, as well as the pictures of it captured by your camera. you adore the way that the moss grows on the intimidatingly large stone and the view of the forest floor from the top when you managed to climb it last week.

it’s a delight to find him already there, perched up high at the exact spot you ate your lunch last thursday. it takes up all of your willpower to keep from pulling out your camera and capturing the image of his practically divine figure, soaking up both the sunlight that filters in through the leaves and the dappled shade that the trees provide. once again, you’re struck with just how much he appears to belong in this forest, as if you couldn’t imagine him anywhere else but here.

he’s already looking in your direction when he comes into your line of sight, and you’re reminded of how you don’t have his talent of traveling through the brush in complete silence. the subtle wave and soft smile that he gives you sends a rush through your body. you return the wave, now more eager than ever to explore the forest with him as your guide. he tells you to wait at the path for him, disappearing for only a moment before reemerging from the side of the boulder in mere seconds. you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to look at him without his beauty throwing you off momentarily like a breeze that rustles your clothing out of place just enough that you have to stop a second to collect yourself.

“you ready?” he asks, the tone of his voice not helping you to respond normally. you clear your throat unnecessarily before answering.

“mhmm!” you nod your head enthusiastically. “where to?”

the light smile on his face quirks up so that it’s almost mischievous. “a surprise?” he says the words like a question, both to sound extra teasing but to also leave you room to protest if you really want.

your grin grows. “if you insist.”

he smiles wider too. you get the inclination that his smile will be the death of you someday.

it surprises you just how easy it is to talk with yeosang considering how flustered his presence makes you sometimes. but you don’t complain at all; instead, you soak it all up the same way you do with the new scenery that comes when you part from the path. he’s a wonderful listener, clearly content to hear anything and everything about you with the way he asks actually interesting questions and retains every detail that you provide him. of course, you hate to be the only one talking, and you hate not to hear more of his voice, so you’re sure to engage him to talk about himself. he’s intelligent with his words, reserved with how much he says, but speaking volumes in just a sentence or two. the simple things are nice too. you get to learn the way he pronounces words like lychee, syrup, and caramel and he gets to learn how much you love fresh fruits for dessert and that you hate frosting unless it’s homemade and not too sweet.

you’re about to ask him if he likes rainy weather when he tells you to wait for just a moment. you nod, and he pulls himself up to the top of the shallow ravine you’ve been walking through. it’s taller than the both of you, and the grace in which he climbs to the top is impressive. he crouches at the edge and extends his hand out to you. you flush when you realize you’re supposed to hold his hand. trying not to think too much about it, you reach up to place your hand in his. it’s alright for a split second, but when his deep voice meets your ears as you keep your eyes level with the vegetation in front of you, your heart begins to hammer in your chest. you almost don’t catch what he says.

“if you put your left foot on that rock by your knee, i can pull you the rest of the way up,” he advises. you hope he doesn’t notice the slight buffer in between his words and when you actually follow his instruction. but he’s right, it’s easier that way and you’re standing at the edge of the small cliff seconds later, just far too close to him for your heart to come back to its normal resting rate.

“thanks,” you breathe out, voice quieter than you expected it to be. but he hears you easily with your body pressed against his and only the rustle of leaves sounding through the forest.

“of course.” you feel a bit better knowing that his voice has come out almost as hushed as yours, as if there’s something special about being this close to one another. as if this is something you both would rather not brush off as nothing. instead, being close to him is something, it means something. what it means, you’re not sure, but you do know that despite the nervous fluttering of your heart, being near him is safe and filled with peace.

you try not to hate it when he pulls away because you feel strange that you’re so attracted to him barely three days into having met him. yet, you question the harm of it. who’s to say you can’t have a summer love under the leaves, with a quiet, gorgeous boy who seems to have taken a liking to you too? certainly not you.

when you turn to face the direction he’s looking in, a different type of excitement takes over your mind. there’s still a bit of a ways left, but there’s no doubt that what you see in the distance is the sight of sunlight catching on water.

you spin your head to face him again. “there’s a lake?”

he lets out a light laugh at the clear excitement in your voice. “i think i’d classify it as a pond, but yes. we’re close to my favorite part on the shore.”

“perfect,” you grin. you let him continue to lead the way, reminding yourself not to get ahead of yourself in the case of unexpected landmarks like the kind he’s been steering you clear of the whole way here. he seems to know every little thing about the forest, easily guiding you away from roots, rocks, and the likes that you would probably trip over were you alone. that’s just a small reason you’re so glad to be with him.

when the trees break and you’re met with a small patch of land between the trees and water, you pull in a gasp of awe. the following breath comes out as a contented sigh. he’s right; the body of water isn’t nearly big enough to be classified as a lake. but that doesn’t take away any of its glory. the lily pads are blooming and the trees lining the edge are beautiful in contrast to the water. and you could fall in love with sunlight reflecting off of any water every time you see it, and this time is no exception. it’s just that maybe you’ve fallen in love a bit more than you normally do, knowing that this place is tucked away, almost a secret. knowing that you’re discovering this place with him, and knowing that there’s more. suddenly you’re curious.

“have you ever shown this place to anyone else?”

the question seems to catch him off guard, and you instantly wish you’d bitten your tongue before letting it slip from your mouth. you wish you’d just told him that it’s beautiful, that you love it, that you’re grateful he’s shown it to you regardless if you’re the only one or not. but then there’s a light smile on his face.

“no,” he answers, “there are people that know about it, of course, but i’ve never shown it to someone.”

you nod, thankful he’s not upset that you asked, but instead seemingly glad to answer instead. as if he’d like you to know you’re the only one, but he’s too shy to bring it up himself. as if he’s glad that you’re asking because it means that you want to be the only one.

“well, thank you for showing me. i love it.” you let that hang in the air and hold back the questions that you still have because you want him to know that you mean it.

“i’m glad you love it,” he says, voice sincere as always. and the silence isn’t the kind that you hate, it’s the kind where you both know that the quiet is right because you’re both basking in the beauty of what’s before you, you’re basking in the fact that it feels like the person beside you is willing to understand you and if feels like they’ll continue to do so. you’re basking in the silence because all of it feels right, feels like a fairytale, like a dream. because how the hell do you meet someone twice for so short of a time and then talk for hours when you see them next? how could silence already be comfortable? turns out it just is.

for you, it turns out the quiet boy is always kind, is always willing to listen, and always willing to answer. it turns out that he never tires of showing you new places like the bubbling creek and he doesn’t mind that you love catching frogs and salamanders just to hold them for a moment. he must think it’s cute that you find them cute every single time. he tells you about the types of moss and lichen that cover the boulder over twice the size of the one you meet at nearly every morning. he obliges when you want to go back to the pond to wade in the water and look for tadpoles in the shallows. he knows that you’ll love that one clearing in the middle of the deep trees that always filters in the rays of the sun just right so that it always appears to be straight out of a fantasy movie. and he loves to take you to the willow tree.

the moment you told him it was your favorite spot, yeosang thought he’d kiss you right then and there. but he knew it was too soon. before then, you’d only held hands, first as you ran through the forest to his small, bare cabin to escape the rain, then shyly a few times more just because it felt nice.

you’re holding hands now as you near the willow for the millionth time in the last month since you’d met. it’s a normal occasion by now, as you claim to only be grabbing his hand because it can get cold in the forest, but the two of you know it’s because neither of you can get enough of it. you’re just too shy to admit anything like that.

it doesn’t take long for you to settle at the trunk of the tree; the routine of sitting side by side in the grass with lunch splayed out in front of you is easy and natural now. once the food’s all gone, you’ll sit and talk for hours until you have no choice but to head home. today is no different, the same motions are there, along with the butterflies in your stomach that always come from sitting so close to him, his voice practically right in your ear as he goes on about something that you love to hear. but today he seems quiet, pensive. it’s almost as if you can feel the way that thoughts swirl around in his mind, like you can see it in his eyes as he silently eats the sandwich in his hand. he’s a bit far away, in a way that’s not quite bad, but not good either. you wish he’d tell you what’s on his mind.

you let it sit for a while, understanding of the want to just be. to let oneself be quiet without the pressure to hold a conversation. but you also want to help. you don’t want him to feel like he has to hold in whatever he’s thinking of if he doesn’t want to.

“what’s up?” you ask, voice light and airy as if to show him that you’re giving him space to do as he wishes.

“do you believe in magic?” the question slips out of his mouth as if he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. yeosang’s gaze avoids yours, staring straight forward as you peer at him. you take in his features the same you that you always love to. the lines of his profile perfectly catch the light of the sun that streams through the delicate leaves of the willow. your gaze drifts from his ridiculously dainty eyelashes to the unique curve of his nose and finally to the lips you haven’t been able to get out of your mind since the time you named this place as your favorite.

when you said that two weeks ago, you’d been sitting like you were now, shoulders and thighs brushing together. he didn’t say a word, but he turned his head to meet your eyes and suddenly he was leaning close, closer than he’d ever been. but a far away look flashed through his eyes, one that mirrored his gaze now, and he let his lips curve into a sad smile that you still don’t understand. then he moved away, and said, “i’m glad,” and you knew he meant it.

suddenly, you realize you’ve let his question hang in the air for too long, lost like always in thoughts of him. you pause a moment longer, wanting to answer truthfully and thoughtfully.

“i want to believe in magic,” you admit. “though i guess it could depend on how you define magic. like actual fairies and spells and storybook tales that aren’t real—or that we don’t know if they’re real—or things like this. to me, this is magic. the sun lighting up the leaves and the side of your face, and the beauty of this tree. to me, magic can be the way someone makes you feel. but if we’re talking about the other kind … i want to believe in it. i wish it were real but it’s kind of hard to believe in it when i’ve never seen that kind of magic. i’m a hopeless romantic in some ways. i’ll still imagine that fairytales could be real, that if i hope hard enough i’d see a fairy living in a toadstool fairyhouse. but i still like proof, so i settle with that hope.” once you let out your long-winded answer, you realize you’d probably never say that to anyone else. that happens a lot when he asks you questions.

something in yeosang’s gaze changes and he’s not so far away anymore. if anything, there’s that last word you spoke reflected in his expression. hope. like that’s the perfect answer for you to have given him.

“i like that way of thinking,” he says, voice soft and honest. you want to ask him if he believes in magic, but for once the question stays stuck in the back of your throat. it doesn’t feel like he’s ready to give his answer and you’re a bit bewildered as to why, but you let him be. you always let him be when that far away look interrupts his smile.

exhaling lightly, you let your head tilt to the side until it’s fallen onto yeosang’s broad shoulder.

“it’s nice to hope,” you say, wondering if his heart could be beating as fast as yours is.

“it is.” then his head is resting on yours and you wish that summer would never end. you don’t know it, but he wishes the same in a far more desperate and bittersweet way.

—

today, you’re meeting him at the willow rather than the normal spot at the boulder. you readily agreed when he asked if that would be alright with you, confident in finding the way on your own. the confidence was warranted, as you’ve walked there many times and the journey has been smooth from the beginning. you know you’re almost there when you pass the bend in the creek with the young maple tree hanging its branches over the water. it’s only a few steps later that something catches your eye.

instantly you’re reminded of the first time that you met yeosang, a fully bloomed dahlia coming into view. this time it’s dark in color, the deep red-ish undertones of the petals visible even from your vantage point. without a second thought, you pull out your camera and clamber your way over to the regal flower, surprised you’ve never noticed it before. now that august is right around the corner, it’s far less odd to see a dahlia bloom, but now that they remind you of yeosang you can’t help but want to capture the pretty sight in your camera.

as you focus your gaze into the viewing piece of the camera, you frown at the dark lighting that you can tell will be reflected into the image. there was plenty of sunlight filtering through the leaves just moments ago. you pull the camera away from your face to reevaluate your surroundings, confused.

without warning, everything begins to grow dark, like the once artful shadows of the forest are multiplying and expanding right in front of your eyes. it’s like when a storm approaches and the sun is swallowed up by thick clouds, but it’s not a darkening of the sky that swallows you up, but rather the shadows themselves.

fear hits you like a truck, and your heart hammers in your chest because you know instinctively that none of this is right. i need to get to the willow, is all you can think, and yet the moment you resolve to run, it’s as if you can’t tear your eyes away from the flower in front you.

you wonder if this is what it feels like to be under a spell, a real one, a dark one. nothing like the spell of falling in love, nothing like the feeling of being stunned into silence from one glance at those glorious eyes of his.

“you’re a lovely little creature, aren’t you?” a horrified chill runs up your spine when the dark, thin voice permeates through the air just like the unnatural shadows. you dare not look up to where the voice came from, though you’re not even sure you could look away from the dahlia. sharp, shallow breaths escape your mouth as you panic. it feels like you’ve been thrown straight into a nightmare. you shut your eyes tight and beg in your head to please wake up, please wake up, i have to wake up.

your eyes almost snap open when the voice speaks again, sinister and demanding. “don’t be so afraid. look at me.” but you realize that with your eyes closed, you’re no longer being pulled towards the flower by your transfixed gaze.

so you turn and run.

opening your eyes doesn’t do much to help you, the darkness that’s wrapped around the trees is not too different from the dead of night. you trip over roots and get whacked in the face by low hanging branches, stumbling along in the direction you can only pray is back to the safety of the willow. you’re not even sure why you’re so convinced that the tree can save you, but you have to run somewhere.

it feels like a miracle when you see the shadows begin to thin in the near distance. the promise of daylight prompts you to push yourself to run faster. and you think it’s working because you haven’t heard anything but your own rapid footfalls and heavy breathing. the light is getting closer.

but something as firm as metal shackles latches itself around your upper arm and you can’t control the scream that rips from your throat as you’re yanked into darkness again. this time the darkness is solid, wrapped around you like spindly, immovable arms. then the darkness speaks and you realize you really are being held by something.

“you’ve wandered too far for me to just let you go like that. humans.” the last word is spit out like something disgusting and covetable all at once. then you realize the last word makes it sound like whatever freakishly tall and strong thing holding you captive is not human. that would make sense if there were other things in this world that could talk but aren’t human. but that’s not real and this has to be a horrifyingly realistic nightmare.

you struggle in the grip he has you in, desperate to get away. “let me go!” you scream. he just clicks his tongue.

but then he does. his arms release you and you almost crumple to the ground with how weak your knees are with fear. you try to run, but suddenly he has his hand on your chin, forcing you to look up at him and you can no longer move of your own free will.

his face is striking, beautiful even. his black eyes are so empty it feels like they’re burning holes straight through your soul. he looks human. almost. but he's at least 7 feet tall and his face is framed with shadows rather than locks of hair. his robes seem to be shifting and swirling like black smoke. he himself seems to be shadow. and those eyes are certainly not human. just like he’s the black dahlia, you can’t look away.

“that little dryad thought he'd scored himself a sweet prize, didn’t he?” he tilts his head as he asks the rhetorical question, one that makes absolutely no sense to you. “a shame you wandered too far from his tree. i can’t believe he let you walk alone so close to the border. getting you to cross it was far too easy,” he croons. the first tree that comes to your mind is the willow and you have to shut out the wild thought that this monster is talking about yeosang. yeosang who loves the willow tree, yeosang who asked you to meet him there, leaving you to walk the whole way on your own. yeosang who you first met at a white dahlia bloom.

thoughts of him crowd your mind, pushing out the darkness bit by bit. so you concentrate on everything here that’s felt opposite to this nightmare; everything dreamlike. in your mind there are rainstorms watched from the safety of your grandmother’s porch, frogs from the creek in your hand, and sunlight dappling the forest floor. there’s the shining pond, fresh strawberries, and priceless sunsets. there’s his hand in yours, his breath on your cheek, and the branches of the willow tree swaying in the breeze. and then there’s nothing tying you to the darkness, so in desperation, you bolt, praying that this time you’ll be fast enough.

the light approaches faster and there are tears on your cheeks. letting out a cry, you see a figure running towards you, backlit from the sunlight that was always supposed to be there, and you know it signals safety before you can see his face.

yeosang gets closer and closer, and suddenly his hand is wrapped around your wrist and he’s tugging you along behind him, towards the light. you hear nothing behind you, but you know the shadowy figure is there, his dark smoke nipping at your feet, trying and succeeding in catching up.

but yeosang runs far faster than you thought he could and at any other time you’d question how you’re able to keep up at all. now you can see it. the blurry border where you can somehow see the light and dark balance perfectly. and you know you need to get past it where the light overpowers dark, where it is natural and shadows only exist because there is sun.

you let out a cry of surprise when you feel a sting at your lower calves and look down to see the smoky shadows climb higher, biting at the back of your legs and climbing up to your knees and lower thighs as your captor comes closer to keeping you in his cold grasp.

“keep going,” yeosang urges, and you resist the urge to let out a loud sob at the sound of his voice. you want to scream at him and ask what the hell is going on. instead, you follow his lead and push yourself even harder than you thought possible, and suddenly you’re sprawling forward, straight into the ground as your hand slips out of yeosang’s grip.

the fear clenching your heart squeezes hard, but nothing else snatches you up, no shadowy, steel-like hands, no cold voice in your ear. just him at your side in milliseconds, voice asking if you’re okay and hands pulling you up from the ground. you don’t say a word as he hoists you to your feet, telling you that you’re safe for now, but should get farther from the border as fast as possible. you just let him hold you close as he guides your tired and wobbly legs away until you’re under the leaves of the most familiar tree in the whole forest. only then do you let your knees buckle and a fresh wave of tears escape from your eyes. he keeps you steady so you don’t fall, gently lowering you to the ground and into his arms.

he holds you like that for god knows how long, rubbing your back in an attempt to sooth your shaking, and whispering a mix of broken apologies and comforting words to calm your crying.

“i’m so, so sorry, sweetheart. i’m sorry,” he calls you by a mix of sweet things and your name said like something holy. “i never meant for anything like this to happen, i’m sorry. please, please tell me you’re alright,” he begs. you hate how sad and guilty he sounds, but you can’t say a word, completely unable to process anything that’s happened. you just lay in his hold like it’ll keep any threat in the world away from you.

eventually you’re still and quiet in his arms save for your shaky breathing. his shirt is wet under your head. he’s mostly quiet now, still whispering out apologies here and there. it takes a moment for you to speak.

“is this a dream?” you whisper, tilting your head up to look at his very real, heartbroken face.

“i’m sorry,” he answers, voice guilt-ridden. that means no. your head drops back down to his shoulder and you sigh.

“i’m… i’m scared to ask, yeosang,” you begin, voice soft and still a little shaky, “i’m scared to ask what the hell that was and why the hell you seem to know exactly what’s going on.” your tone isn’t accusing, just tired and confused. once you start talking, it’s hard for you to stop, even when the words make little sense. “that– that can’t have been real, i swear. how the hell could that be real? he was– there’s no way that he was… human. he didn’t look, well, possible. and it was like i couldn’t move sometimes and god! i must have been hallucinating.” your voice drops off into silence with a thud. he doesn’t say a word. there’s a stretch of silence, and it feels like the only moving thing is his hand on your back, still rubbing back and forth in comfort. your voice is even smaller than before when you speak again. “and he… he said things and i think he was talking about you. why was he talking about you? why… why aren’t you telling me none of this is real?”

the pain in his voice is enough to tell you without looking that his lips are drawn tight in a frown and his eyebrows are furrowed with something almost as intense as sorrow.

“i’m sorry,” when he speaks his voice is small too. “i wish i could tell you it wasn’t real. and i’m sorry because i never meant for anything like this to happen, i never meant for you to find out like this, and i never should have let you walk out here alone. i wanted to tell you that the magic you let yourself hope for is real, it almost slipped out of my mouth a million times… but i didn’t know how. i didn’t know if there was a right time, or if i’d scare you away, and that’s the last thing i could ever want. i didn’t want anything to change. so i’m sorry i kept you in the dark like this and i’m sorry this happened. please, please, please tell me how i can fix it.” the words tumble out of his mouth like a waterfall, unfiltered and uncontrolled and so clearly true. it’s so different from the way he normally talks. he’s always truthful, but he picks and chooses his words both precisely and scarcely. here, it’s clear that he’s let it all come falling out, too guilty and upset for your sake to filter through the mess of his mind right now.

“and that’s why you asked me if i believed in magic a few days ago?” as you say this, you try to understand, finally pushing yourself up. you stay in his hold, still tucked into his wide frame, but now more level with him to better engage in a real conversation. it hurts a little to see the pain on his face, but it’s hard not to look at him either way.

he nods at your question, not even caring for now that you haven’t directly addressed his previous plea. “and so i decided to tell you. for a while i wondered if it would be better if you never knew at all. but i didn’t want to hide things from you and your answer was… it was… i was going to tell you today. i was going to surprise you with something small, right here.” his hand reluctantly leaves you to dig into his pocket. when he opens his fist to show you, it’s a tiny set of clothes, like the kind you’d find for small dolls. “these are my friend’s. he’s a pixie.” your silence makes him realize you must still be completely overwhelmed. quickly, he shoves the clothes back away and looks at you apologetically. “i’m sorry. this is too much, isn’t it?”

“i– so,” you struggle to find your words, “you’re telling me that magic is real? like the storybook kind? and you’re friends with pixies and there are horrifying shadow-men that try to capture you if you stray too far in the forest?” he cringes at that, and you want to apologize because you didn’t mean it like that. it’s just that you can’t seem to wrap your mind around this at all.

“well… yes.”

“oh.” you blink, once, twice, three times over. you try to let it sink in and he doesn’t say a word because he’s afraid of scaring you further. there’s silence for a long moment. “and… you. you’re magic too?”

he lets out a sharp exhale. “yes. i’m a dryad, a type of fae. a light fae. the shadowy man is a dark fae.”

you surprise yourself when you start to feel a hesitant smile try to find a way to your face. “and this is your tree?” you look up at the grand branches of the rustling willow.

he can’t hide the small smile of pride when he answers. “this is my tree.”

“it’s beautiful,” you marvel, as if you haven’t said so a million times before. but this time, the meaning is new, and once again, yeosang is dying to kiss you.

“thank you,” he breathes out, hopeful you’ll be alright, and hopeful that you won’t shut him out for hiding a whole entire world from you. there’s another pause for silence as you take in the tree with a new set of eyes, and he knows he’s in love with you when he sees the sparkle in your eyes. he feels like he’s ruined any chance with you after putting you in so much danger and throwing you into a world of the unknown and utter confusion. and here you are, staring at his tree with a wonder so pure in your eyes, as if he’s shown you the most beautiful thing in the world.

to you, that’s what it feels like, though. your brain may be running a million miles an hour and your heart may still be beating in fear, but magic is real. for you magic is real in so many ways, because to you, his dreamlike smile is a magic of it’s own, and now he’s really, actually magic. he is one with nature, in a way you can only begin to understand now, and even more deeply, he is one with the most majestic tree you have ever laid your eyes upon. everything about him is beautiful in ways you didn’t even know, but that you feel blessed to have been shown now.

and you struggle to even think that he’s to blame for not telling you yet. it’s true, you’d much rather not have found out the way you did, but how could anyone dismiss his hesitance? no one, when you belong to a species so destructive, especially to mother nature. not when it was because he was afraid of scaring you away. not when he didn’t know until just days ago if you would even be willing to believe in anything near fantastical. you’re honored to know he did intend on telling you, because you believe him wholeheartedly in everything he’s told you.

but a sudden series of doubts cross your mind. what if he’s been playing me this entire time? what if he’s not who he claims to be? what if he’s using magic to make me trust him… to love him, even?

but he interrupts those thoughts with his soft, careful voice. “you broke his spells, you know? those moments when you couldn’t move, you were under the influence of his magic. his kind is far stronger than mine. my magic is connected only to nature. i’d have a completely hellish time trying to break that kind of spell with my magic,” he admits before continuing, “and without any magic? well, it’s nearly impossible. but you did it. your mind is incredibly strong and full of light. of course, i’ve known that for a long time now, but you’ve just proven it to one of the strongest faeries in this forest. you’re practically magical too,” he muses, and every doubt is wiped from your mind.

“i thought of you,” you admit quietly, “and other things that i love.” the confession is subtle, but yeosang doesn’t miss it.

his voice is begging and oh so gentle when he asks. “can i kiss you?”

“please,” you breathe out. then he’s tilting his head closer and closer to yours, just like before, but this time he doesn’t get the faraway look, and this time his lips finally meet yours.

—

you thought that the faraway look would be gone forever once you found out about the world of magic. but it’s come back now that your days with him dwindle. it’s not that you’ve even addressed the end of the summer approaching, and therefore, your time with him too. but it isn’t hard to guess that he’s thinking about the fact that you’re leaving, and he’s not. what you can’t understand is the extra layer of sadness and regret. you can’t figure out what it means because somehow you know it’s not just the fact that you’ll be apart—though that part is plenty distressing to you.

you already knew that the end of the summer would bring a difficult goodbye, but now that he tucks his head into your neck when he’s shy and makes white dahlias bloom for you in seconds, you’re not sure how the hell you’ll be able to part with him. now that you see the way he glows when he channels magic from his tree and shows you fairy houses built into toadstools that are no longer lived in, you can’t fathom that you’ll have to go back to a life where he and his magic are practically a entire world away. now that he kisses your knuckles when he thinks you’ve fallen asleep under the willow with your head on his shoulder, you know that you’ll miss him in a way you’ve never missed anyone before. and now that there’s no doubt in your mind that you love him, you wish he’d tell you the things he keeps hidden behind that unreadable look on his face.

you interrupt the sound of the breeze dancing through the leaves. “it’ll be alright,” you say, voice almost hushed since you’re still a bit afraid to talk about it. but the way you catch him looking at you sometimes has you desperate to comfort him.

“i know.” but his smile is anything but convincing.

“i mean it,” your voice comes out strong this time. “i’ll come back during all my school breaks and i’ll get you a phone so that we can talk while we’re apart. we’ll be alright, we’ll make it work.” you believe in your own words wholeheartedly, but you’re begging for him to do the same.

your voice comes out of his mouth almost at a whisper. “i– that’s what i want. i wish you’d never have go at all, but–”

“but what? there doesn’t have to be a ‘but,’ yeosang,” you argue without even hearing what he has to say. he sighs in defeat.

“you shouldn’t limit yourself.”

“sangie,” you plead, “don’t say that. i’d be limiting myself if i didn’t let myself have you. i’m coming back to you. just because i’m going to meet new people and have new experiences doesn’t mean i’m going to forget about you. yeosang, you’re unforgettable.”

“i–,” suddenly he looks away, avoiding your earnest gaze. the moment of silence that follows stretches out like an eternity, and you begin to fear if he really means it when he wishes you’d never go. “i’ll be waiting for you.” he says it like it’s a wish placed on a shooting star that you can’t see, like there’s still something being left unsaid. but the look in his eyes tells you that he means it, so you lace your fingers through his and bring his hand up to press a kiss to it like a promise.

you curse the early setting sun of the winter. by the time your parent’s car pulls into your grandmother’s driveway, the sky is as dark as it’ll get. you know that, realistically, you wouldn’t have been able to see him today, regardless of the color of the sky. but you can’t hold back just a bit of disappointment.

you let the feeling fall away, though, when your grandma welcomes you back to her home for winter break with open arms and a hug that’s probably warmer than the fire raging in her hearth. even now, you’re still struggling to understand why your parents never let the two of you get close until this past summer.

settling back into your summer room is easy and satisfying, pine cones and fairy clothes you couldn’t take back, gifted by him, still decorating the dresser. of course, this time it’s colder than you’re used to, but the extra blankets and knowledge that yeosang and his willow are right there lull you to sleep quickly.

when the morning sun chases you awake, you’re up with a grin, more glad than ever to get ready for the day and disappear into the forest. you can’t escape breakfast, but you can’t complain about it either, more than happy to taste your grandmother’s food and speak with her more again. and of course, your parents implore you to stick around to spend some time with family. you slip out the back door within minutes of that suggestion.

the snow coated trees are like a foreign home, undeniably familiar, yet different in a way you’ve never seen before. it excites you to realize that you’ll be able to learn about this version of the forest. the branches hang heavier, adorned with the snow that glitters in the cold winter sun. it seems that no matter what season, the forest sparkles in the light of the sun—and magic—to make it feel more like a dream than anything else.

you’re impressed by yourself when you’re able to still find the way to your summer meeting place, the boulder newly majestic with it’s blanket of whiteness. the whole journey is almost as wondrous as discovering magic; experiencing the forest in its snowy glory distracts you for a moment from the fact that the boulder stands tall … and alone. you’ve never seen the boulder this way. empty. there’s not a single time where he wasn’t there, waiting for you.

you try not to let your heart sink heavily into the pit in your stomach, but you can’t shake the way that it feels all wrong. it’s easy to tell yourself that there’s no way he would know you were here to look for. but you then remember what he told you, sitting up on that rock together, soaking up what sun you could. that he’s always there, waiting for you because he can feel it. he can feel you when you enter the forest. so why isn’t he here now? he promised he’d be waiting for you.

maybe it’s the snow, you consider. somehow even that feels like a silly excuse. but you don’t turn around, back in the direction of home. you search the paths that you can see in the midst of the snow, softly calling his name in hopes that it will be carried to him somehow. through the wind, the leaves, or the word of a fairy that you can’t see. you trudge along until you grow too cold and the hot chocolate in your thermos runs out.

—

two more days of searching through the snow, and your parents are beginning to question your daily outings into the forest that only result in a few pictures on your digital camera and a moody quiet from you.

your grandmother comes to your aid, serving you more soup for dinner and telling your parents about how much you adored the forest all summer long. this is the part where you think she’ll out you, tell them that you fell in love with a boy in the forest even when you made her promise not to say a word about it.

but she says nothing. even worse, does nothing. there’s no teasing smile or subtle wink from your end like you would have expected from her, the kind of reaction she always gave you when you talked to her about him. you tread forward with caution, as if testing new waters.

“so grandma, have you seen yeosang lately at all? how’s he doing?”

her response is strange enough to scare you.

“yeosang? you mean the young man who lives in the forest?” she relays this information back at you as if he’s some distant figure, someone you’ve rarely talked about at all.

“yeah,” you confirm, trying to hide any bewildered questions from rising hot into your throat and out of your mouth.

“why, i haven’t heard about him in a long while. i’d forgotten you met him over the summer. it seems i’m really getting old, aren’t i?” she chuckles, as if this is the most normal thing to say regarding the boy her grandchild gushed to her about for months. “but i do hope he’s holding up alright in this cold. we’ve gotten quite a bit of snow this year!” and with that, she starts going on to tell your parents about the snow from this year and last, and probably the year before that too.

you spend the rest of the meal in silence, quick to disappear to your room once your dishes are cleared from the table and washed. you find it difficult to wrap your mind around what happened at dinner tonight, wondering and wondering why the hell your grandma could seem to remember close to nothing about the boy you told her you love. for a minute you’re afraid that she’s getting sick, and that her age truly is what’s affecting her memory. but you think back to the first time you mentioned him to her and can’t help but feel an unsettling sense of deja vu.

missing him worse by the minute and growing increasingly worried for him and maybe even yourself—because what if you’ve made everything up in your head, what if it really was all the dream that it felt like it was—you resolve to finally attempt to make your way to his willow. the past three days, you’ve avoided the journey, afraid of traveling in that direction alone once again after what happened last time. but you know that if you’re to find him anywhere, it’ll be his home.

—

“sweetheart, you probably should stay inside today,” your grandmother advises over a hot breakfast. “there’s supposed to be a snow storm today, i’d hate for you to get caught up in it!”

“thanks, grandma.” you smile softly, trying to make her feel like you’ll heed her directions to lessen the worried crease of her brow. it makes you feel a little bit guilty when you know that you have no intent whatsoever to skip your outing in the forest today.

the moment you’re given the chance, you slip out the back door like you’ve done every other day, this time leaving a note in the living room for your grandma not to worry too much.

the forest is less glittery today, with the grey clouds stretching out to cover the vastness of the unseen blue sky. you set out in the direction that your heart knows better than your mind, trying to drown out the fear hanging in the back of your mind and the ache in your joints that comes from the hard work of trudging through thick snow.

when the snow begins to fall, you pay it no mind, solely intent on finding yeosang and unworried by the slow drifting down of the tiny flakes. but with each passing minute, the snow in the sky grows thicker and falls with determination rather than passivity. then, when you can barely see a few feet in front of you and it feels like your toes, fingers, and nose will fall off from the cold, you finally begin to wish that you had listened to your grandma.

what scares you even more is that, with the landscape so obscured, you’re not quite sure where you are anymore. a moment of panic overtakes you, and without thinking, you cry out his name into the silent air. it feels almost like that’s the only thing that could save you from the storm; if he finds you.

but that panic subsides into a more manageable pit of anxiety in your stomach when you try to push yourself back to rationality. you seek out your own footprints before they’re completely covered by the new snow and follow their faint outlines until they fade away. you don’t get too far, but you pray it’s enough to point you in the right direction. yet, your hope wanes as your exhaustion grows along with the hot pit in your stomach that you wish could warm your shaking limbs.

“yeosang?” you call out, quieter this time. “why can’t i find you?” you choke out, and suddenly you feel a lump in your throat and a burn in your eyes. but the last thing you want to do out here is cry and have your own tears freeze to your lashes and cheeks. “you said you’d wait for me…”

you hang your head as a feeling of defeat washes over you. you curse under your breath and force yourself to lift your head and keep going, intent on saving yourself. but as your gaze goes back to the white streaked landscape, the image of the dark trees and bright snow is interrupted with something moving towards you, quickly and silently. for a moment, you’re scared, but in the next you’re heaving a sigh of relief that comes out sounding much more like a sob.

you’ve barely taken a step forward before his arms are wrapped around you. his heavy breathing is loud in your ear and the brush of his cheek against yours as he pulls you into him is like a piece of heaven.

“yeosang,” you gasp out as your gloved hands clench the plush of his thick coat. he doesn’t speak for a long moment, just holds you as if he thought he’d never see you again.

“you’re shaking,” he whispers, pulling away from you to properly look at you.

you nod. “it’s cold,” you offer as a lame explanation while taking in the image that you’ve missed so much. “you’re so beautiful.” whether the flush in his cheeks is from the cold or your words, you’re not sure, but god are you happy to see it again.

his face becomes serious in a split second when he remembers that you’re shivering. your face had him distracted for a moment. “it’s far too cold for you to be out here right now, lovely.”

“i just wanted to find you,” you let your reason slip. now he’ll feel sorry about it.

and as you knew it would, his face falls even further, but the love in his eyes still grows. but he doesn’t scold you softly in the way you thought he would. he doesn’t tell you that you shouldn’t have been that reckless for him. not because he doesn’t care, just because he’s so relieved to see you. at least you’re safe now.

“let’s get you warm,” is all he says, pulling you into his side and guiding you to the closest shelter he knows of. he’s glad you wandered in this direction, easily taking you to the cabin he told you he lived in before telling you the truth about his magic. you lean into him heavily, letting him do most of the work in getting you there.

“thank god,” he mumbles to himself when he finds the cabin stocked with wood and matches. he sits you down in a chair by the fireplace and wraps you in the few blankets he can find before starting a fire. he tries to keep you talking as he removes your boots and damp socks, redressing your feet with his own pair. then there’s a pot full of water hanging above the fire that’s already starting to bubble with heat. he’s sitting at your feet on the rug, hands holding yours through a blanket to try and transfer some of his body heat to you.

“i missed you,” you mumble as you finally settle down, comforted by the heat of the fire that burns so bright in the hearth that it’s almost raging.

“i missed you, too.” his voice is hushed. it’s earnest, but he says it like it’s something he’s never supposed to be able to tell you. like he can’t believe he’s got you again.

“i meant it when i promised i’d come back for you,” you whisper, fighting the urge to fall asleep.

“i know,” he assures, “and i meant it when i promised i’d wait. i have waited and there’s not a day that went by where i wasn’t thinking of you.”

“so why didn’t you come to me when i first started looking for you?” you beg for him to answer in truth.

“my love,” he starts, cautious and afraid to say it out loud, as if he’ll jinx himself and unravel it all by admitting it, “you weren’t supposed to be looking for me. you weren’t supposed to remember me, at least not the way that we were. you weren’t supposed to remember loving me.”

you squeeze his hand and furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “what do you mean? how could i ever forget loving you?”

“magic,” he says simply, dropping the word heavily. “it makes humans forget, at least for the most part, about meeting creatures from our world to protect us. sometimes they’ll remember those of us like me, the ones that look like humans, but never more than a vague idea. it’s like a dream. so vivid when it happens, but quick to disappear from your mind once you’re awake and out of that world. so…you’re not supposed to remember anything much about…us.”

it all feels like a tall wave of stinging water, salty like the tears threatening to spill, surging over you and knocking you right off of your feet.

“why–,” your voice cracks, “why didn’t you tell me?”

“i didn’t want to hurt you,” he says, voice pleading. “if you knew, it would have been looming over your head like a ticking clock. i wanted you to be able to just be happy while we were together, i didn’t want you to worry about it. about me.”

“but it was looming over your head,” you cry, “you were hurting all alone, convinced i’d forget that i love you, and what? you’d have to love without me to love you back?”

he nods, and a tear slips down his cheek. “i loved you– still love you so much that i couldn’t push you away. as long as i could love you while you remembered me, i was alright with loving you when you forgot. i’m sorry for hiding more from you, i swear i am, but it was worth it to me. to let you leave me with hope rather than a final goodbye… i wasn’t ready to say goodbye.” the last sentence is whispered, as if it’s something he’s realized just now, that he didn’t say a word just as much for you as for himself. it breaks your heart to see tears flow from his apologetic eyes so freely.

“but i do remember you. and god, do i remember loving you. i’ve remembered you and the way you make me feel every day since i told you that you were unforgettable.” he looks up at you like you’re the most heavenly thing he’s ever set his eyes upon.

“thank you,” yeosang whispers through his tears, voice thick with emotion, “thank you for remembering. i don’t even know how it’s possible, but i thought i’d go crazy without you. i thought it would be fine, but it took everything in me not to go right to you when you got here. i knew i wouldn’t be able to act as if i didn’t love you more than anything else. i’m sorry i’m late.”

“quit apologizing and just kiss me, will you?”

his expression is relieved as he scrambles to his knees and leans in close to you. you lean forward, letting the blankets fall from your hands in favor of placing them on his cheeks and pressing your lips to his. you almost break the kiss when you feel a fresh wave of tears fall from his eyes, but you wipe them away gently with your thumbs, kissing him harder to prove to him that you’re really there. then his hands are on your waist, holding you tight and pulling you closer. the movement of his lips is practically desperate, and he wants to kiss you with all the gentleness that he can muster, but he just can’t help it when you’re right here in front of him.

“i love you,” he mumbles against your lips and cuts off your reply as he goes back to kissing you hard. he’s trying to get so close that he pulls you right off the chair and onto the floor, into his lap. “i need you,” he whispers with the softness he wants you to feel from him. your arms wrap around his neck and you think his kisses must have magic in them too when his lips are on yours again. it’s safe to say that you’ve warmed up by now. to catch your breath, you pull back and brush your nose against his with all the affection in the world. “yeosang, you are like a dream. just the kind that’s so beautiful and loved that i could never, never forget you.”

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kissvamps · 6 months

Text

honey heat: prologue

pairing: riri williams x black!oc

synopsis: when riri finds a young woman sleeping under her mother’s pecan tree during a bad thunderstorm, she isn’t expecting to get used to seeing the stranger’s face. but when the storm clears up unusually fast and the crops in her mother’s farm bounce back from the mid-june heatwave, riri can’t help but wonder about the pretty stranger with an odd taste for honey.

special dt to @clinicallykrazy, thee biggest evangeline enthusiast HAPPY BIRTH MONTH SISTER

series warnings: gay bitches from like the late 1800s early 1900s??, cowboy!riri, they live on a farm but they also have some horses so there’s a little ranch area too, nymph!oc (i love earth fairy lore, eve is my cutie patootie), lesbian yearning, eve is a little bit obsessive ngl, interesting relationnships with god/religion, death but it’s not anybody deserving of love or it’s on accident lmao, magical woo woo shit, FAWK time, tank tops are a thing cuz it’s essential for cowboy butch riri, racial tensions but trust they get handled, eve is a bit unhinged but who isn’t?

a/n: ntm on these long ass sentences and paragraphs cuz i wrote this in creative writing class and the formatting i used was different but i hope yall enjoy!!

—

Evangeline wasn’t stupid, she was far from it. She knew why her mother urged her not to sing, not to tell the garden of her perils, not to rejoice in the nearby river. Nature laid in the palm of her hand. She was terribly familiar with it, the way the sun treasured her skin, the way the trees hung off her every word. Her mother called it an illness but Evangeline knew what it was. Much more than a gift, this was ethereal. Evangeline had god in her.

It was the easiest to resonate with the life around her with song. They loved her song, the way god spilled from her lips like honey. The trees swayed gleefully and the wind whistled a supporting melody while the garden animals flattered her with their charmed chatter. The young woman sang and sang, ‘til night fell sometimes. The moon would greet her just as enthusiastically as the sun, setting a fairy glow over her. This was only when it was good, when god was good, when Evangeline felt good.

Her mother, Rosemary, had strong reason for casing her daughter in these emotional bubbles. As a baby, her cries had started endless thunderstorms. Always knocking down the distant power lines of cities and unearthing the beloved trees, Earth was eager to bow to Evangeline, to correspond with her mood. Evangeline, Earth, and God were all one, and this was simply the way things worked.

The worst it’s ever been was Evangeline’s first heartbreak; her best friend, Kiara, moved away to a small country where her father could find better work. The Earth ate away at itself, tearing the surrounding forestry apart, stripping the sky of any light because why should anyone see light in such a dark hour in Evangeline’s life? Evangeline split the Earth’s ground as lightning tore through the darkened sky.

Thunder roared over the sound of the little girl crying for her friend, the only other girl her age for miles, the only friend she had that didn’t despise her for the way god flowed from her eyes. Her mother and father struggled to console the little girl, bursting with lightning shaped-scars and sobs that coincided with the booming of thunder. No matter how tight they held her she kept crying.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. Especially not to Evangeline, she loved being so close to nature, able to hear the inquiries of rose bushes as if they were her own thoughts, having the love of sun radiate in her heart, it was dream-like for her. Her mother, Rosemary, worried deeply for her daughter. When she was much younger, Rosemary witnessed her mother battle the ‘illness’ that swallowed Evangeline whole.

Over and over again, Rosemary watched her mother struggle to keep the lightning in her fingertips, to the ocean coasting over her emotions. By the time Rosemary was Evangeline’s age, moonlight was already starting to favor her presence, all while her mother fought to distinguish herself from her Earth, from her God. Nothing helped and by the time she passed her death brought a wave of grief to her Earth and anger to her God.

Plenty of the shrubs and old growth trees behind the house fell over in a way that would suggest they uprooted themselves, the wind blew a mournful hymn and the animals were scarce besides the few that fell so ill they suffered a fate similar to Rosemary’s mother. Rosemary had learned to suppress it, feed her Earth laughter and joy every few weeks and pray that her God didn’t find her sorrows or her rage.

Rosemary kept her Earth fed and her God sedated almost always. She couldn’t help hurting, though. As much as nature loved to cater to her, she was still human, still feeling. Her mother’s death almost rocked the cradle too hard, just a few weeks before Evangeline was born. Rosemary tried to travel where her Earth’s grief couldn’t touch her but she was surrounded. Isaiah was good though, he was an anchor through all that storming pain and heartache.

He was a good man, a good father to Evangeline, too, but still she felt he didn’t fit into her view of life. Isaiah wasn’t hard to look at, he was somewhat funny, and well-skilled with mechanics and botany, subjects Rosemary loved dearly. But Isaiah disrupted the calm she worked so hard to give her Earth and the tranquility she fed her God.

Sometimes she’d just look at him and frown, hear him speak and be beyond irritated with his existence. It wasn’t any help that Evangeline favored her more, Isaiah always second place. It wasn’t like he was bad to either of them, Rosemary just quietly wished he’d go away and Evangeline heard those whispers.

Her mother was always too busy trying to keep her God comatose that she had no clue their Earths talked to one another. One of many factors of why Evangeline favored her mother. When her mother slept at night after another day numbing her God, her Earth would reiterate some of those secrets to an Evangeline much too awake to turn her own mother’s Earth away.

Rosemary’s Earth bustled through the leaves of the shrubs next to Evangeline’s bedroom window and the new moon would cast a menacing shadow on the energetic hummingbirds that, much like Evangeline, were too full of life to sleep tonight.

And these hummingbirds chirped out the thoughts Rosemary was too scared to let her Earth hear, let her God know of. But they knew better than Rosemary did. She kept them too starved to do anything but tell, and tell they did. Evangeline’s Earth was much too connected to her to be restrained.

The wind howled as the young oak tree, barely as old as Evangeline that day, reached its branches into her parent’s bedroom and inched further and further until the branches snagged on kin. Her mother slept a restless sleep as the beloved oak tree turned Isiah into an ornament. Evangeline didn’t mean to let the branches grow that far, she didn’t even intend for her Earth to react to her mother’s secrets.

She told this to her mother when she woke, uncharacteristically distraught at the news, and Rosemary only had words of contempt for the young fae.

“Always. It’s always unintentionally. That’s your problem, you never mean to cause thunder showers, you never mean to put your father in an early grave because you never meant to do anything. You let your Earth siphon your emotions right from your heart, you can’t control it. You never could.” Her mother ranted to her with conflicting tears running down her face.

Evangeline’s Earth sent two twin flashes or lightning at her mother’s harshness.

“It wasn’t even on purpose! And you’re acting like you’re gonna miss him, like you could even stand to look at him. You’ll forget what he looks like by next week, momma!”

The truth in Evangeline’s worlds shook Rosemary so deeply a harrowing symphony of a storm began outside. The lights shut off barely a moment later. “Just because I don’t like him doesn’t mean you gotta send him to kingdom come.” Rosemary’s voice broke as she whispered to her daughter in the dark.

“You still saying that like I did it, like I did it on purpose, like I wanted it to happen.” Evangeline spat out, tears of her own welling in her eyes as the storm outside worsened, tree limbs loudly knocking on the windows in a manner that suggested they were trying to check on the two women.

“Just cuz you can’t stand the love I have for my power doesn’t mean you gotta blame me for everything my powers do.” The young fae huffed angrily at her mother. All this upset over a man her mother could hardly stand being in a room with, it was unbelievable to Evangeline.

“I didn’t love him like a wife does, I hardly liked him to be truthful, but he made me feel like I could be normal, like if I ignored my God enough, kept my earth happy, it’d be just like I was normal.” Rosemary spoke so softly her daughter was unsure of whether or not she meant to say it outloud. The confession brought a swirl of understanding and pain to Evangeline’s chest. It was common for the younger woman to try and socialize, make a friend, or even just enjoy a book and be hit with the reminder that felt like a tidal wave; she wasn’t normal. Never would be.

She considered herself lucky compared to her mother, Rosemary. She’d cried away her contempt for herself, her Earth, her god, when she was still little. Rosemary had this hatred festering for herself for decades. Marrying Isaiah for the sake of trying to gain a form of normalcy couldn’t have been helpful.

“We’re normal to us, they normal to themselves. Don’t hate yourself for that, it won’t make you any less earthly.” Evangeline spoke warmly to her mother, hugging her to try and provide some comfort to a sobbing Rosemary. The two sat there crying for a while, the storm outside lightening to a soft drizzle, the trees swaying as Rosemary’s sobs lessened. By the time the sun returned the mother and daughter were tiptoeing around a question that needed an answer, and soon.

“What’re we gonna do with him, momma? He might start stinking up the house soon.”

Isaiah’s body was disposed of in the typical way. Incineration had become increasingly common amongst people as decades passed and Rosemary and her daughter figured it would make answering any questions easier. Especially those asked by figures that were too nosy and emboldened by their badges to stick their nose in things they couldn’t begin to comprehend. Once Isaiah was cremated the two decided to put him in a deep blue urn.

Evangeline giggled, “You know this was one of his least favorite colors?” Her mother dropped her jaw at the news in disbelief.

“You let me pick out that urn, Evie, why you ain’t tell me?” The younger woman simply shrugged and played innocent, twirling one of her braids around her finger, “I mean, you the one that married him.”

Rosemary rolled her eyes at her daughter’s antics. Her father had just passed, partially due to her own emotions, and here she was having a laugh about letting her mother stick him in an urn of his most hated color. She smiled after a while though, seeing the joy and brightness in her daughter’s smile. Rosemary much preferred her daughter’s mirthful attitude than the tears that fell from her eyes like water from a broken dam.

—

Evangeline and her mother began to return to normal, a better normal, actually. Rosemary would help Evangeline with the garden and she taught her mother how to connect with her own earth and her god, how not to let them rule her. “I love my earth and my god, you fear yours. That’s the difference.” She explained to her mother with an understanding smile on her face.

Just as her mother began to finally make peace with her earth, she left. Left Evangeline.

—

Rosemary had just begun to find peace in her Earth, truly understand her God, and then she passed. Barely a year after Isaiah, Rosemary left her daughter all alone with her Earth and her god. Evangeline cried and screamed so much the first few days after, the rural area she lived in was practically washed away by the downpour of tears her Earth shed and the furious howls of her god blowing away any and everything besides for the little home housing a young woman too tired to be meek. Even if she wanted to, Evangeline couldn’t stop her Earth from pulling itself apart and her god lashing out at whatever it saw fit. The same way she was connected to her god and her earth, they were connected to her.

Whenever her god tore trees up by their roots, Evangeline would have to weep. Evangeline and her only companions, her Earth and her god, grieved together like that just long enough for Evangeline to have cried herself sick. All her screaming sobs only strained her voice until it was no more than a whisper. Evangeline opened the door of the house pleadin for the sunshine to hold her since her mother could no longer wrap her arms around her. There was an unusual briskness to the air, it was well into late summer, the sticky humidity of July should’ve been clinging to her skin. Her grief was all around her, suffocating her with the strange chill in the air and the knee-high flood water caused by her own grief.

Dragging her feet, Evangeline swayed eerily back and forth as she trudged forward. The young woman had no destination in mind but she couldn’t keep this up, screaming herself sick in the home that held every single memory she’d ever have of her mother. It wasn’t a safe place for her to grieve. And even if it was safe, she didn’t want to grieve.

Evangeline trekked on through the flooded valley, barefoot and stumbling over herself when her mind replayed particularly wondrous memories with her mother. It hit her that was an orphan, a motherless child. Though she was an adult, she was still so young, she needed the guidance of her mother, the protection and safety of her love. Evangeline felt like nothing she cared for could stick around. Not the pet squirrel she had when she was five, not the pet rock she adored when she was 10, not her best friend when she was 13, not her mother that taught her so much and learned from Evangeline as well.

A dull ache settled firmly in the center of Evangeline’s chest as it began storming again. The fear and despair rolling over her distorted her perception so bad she wasn’t even sure if all this storming was her doing. She didn’t feel strong enough to put a could in the sky, let alone bring about a downpour like this. Evangeline was so far from that little house she and her family lived in, that little shoebox full of life and love, it was ages away now. Her lips would be cracked if not for the rain, and for the first time in her life, she had bags under her eyes and a dullness to her brown skin. All the cold, wet weather was gonna get her sick. The girl didn’t even get allergies but she could feel an unfamiliar itch at the back of her throat and the congestion in her sinuses. Barefoot, sick, and too far from home, Evangeline fell dizzy as the dread spilled down on her in sharp, icy rain drops.

—

Evangeline found herself wrapped up in a quilt. She could tell it was handmade from the stitches, for a moment she’d mistaken it for a new project her mother was working on. It felt like vines of ivy were twisting around her heart when she remembered that wasn’t possible, that her mother was gone. The reminder also brought an intense sense of fear to the young fae. She’d wandered away from home trying to negate some of the overwhelming burden of her own grief. Evangeline had no clue where she was and was scared to find out. This was no time of guaranteed safety for women like her, there hadn't been a time like that in this country, ever.

Another realization; she was in new clothes. These clothes were made for someone quite a bit shorter than she was. The shirt she had on had loose sleeves that stopped just shy of her wrists and the waist was wide, she guessed they were old maternity clothes. Her pants fit loose as well, a bit tight around her waist and stopping well above her ankles. Evangeline was more than grateful though. No one who intended to harm her would give the clothes off their back and a warm bed in their house.

Evangeline was still a bit scared but reminded herself there was no need to be. If there was true danger here, her Earth would’ve stretched blossoming tendrils of vegetation to tickle her ear and pull her out of her slumber to observe the danger. Her Earth and her god were just parts of her but her mother knew well enough to teach her daughter how to protect herself with this gift.

Quietly easing out of the comfort of the mattress, Evangeline crept out of the room to meet whoever was kind enough to save her from her own grief. A small frown began to form on the young woman’s face as she tiptoed around the cozy house, only to find it was currently empty.

Briefly, Evangeline pondered the possibility of her own abilities saving her from that storm but she quickly dismissed it. Someone, multiple someones, lived here. And a small animal, judging by the two little bowls just outside the kitchen. Creeping towards the front door, Evangeline took in a deep breath to calm herself again.

—

Evangeline’s heart was still heavy beyond words with the loss of her mother but the hot, humid air of late July in the south was refreshing, comforting.

Almost immediately after stepping outside, her eyes found someone plucking some ripe fruits from a tree that was much, much older than Evangeline. The tree also looked to be much older than the person gathering its fruit. She was young, Evangeline’s powers could actually tell her how old exactly, but she figured she shouldn’t do that to the stranger that’d been kind enough to take her in.

The stranger had rich brown skin just a few shades lighter than the lively dark brown bark of the fruit tree she busied herself with. Her shirt was the same material as Evangeline’s but the sizing was much different, the same going for the stranger’s pants, which were rolled up to her calves. The stranger had her coily hair pulled away from her face in cornrows that tickled her shoulders.

Evangeline walked away from the cover of the house and closer to the farming stranger, wanting to get a better look at her. Evangeline walked further from the cover of the house and closer to the farming stranger to get a better look at her face, which was beautiful from what Evangeline could see so far. Brown eyes framed with dark lashes, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, a wide nose and full lips. She reminded Evangeline of a painting she’d been obsessed with when she was little.

“They don’t say hello where you from?”

The sudden speech shocked the young fae. For a moment, she thought she heard it in her head. When the stranger fully turned her face to Evangeline, and the sounds of fruit being plopped gently into a weaved basket stopped, she realized the speech was indeed real. This stranger wasn’t some figment of her imagination.

“Sorry, I’m Evangeline. You the one I should be thanking?” Evangeline kept her eyes on the leaves just above the young woman’s head, preferring that over direct eye contact. She found direct eye contact to be strange most times, especially with strangers.

“You can thank my mama when she get back from the market, I’m just the one who took you out that rain. Well, me and June.” The stranger grinned a little at the end of her sentence as she returned to her tedious task, her eyes set on something off in the distance.

Turning around to see what had grabbed the kind stranger’s attention, Evangeline saw an adorable puppy with sandy fur and umber patches running towards her. She giggled as the small dog pawed at her leg, whining for the new stranger to pick them up.

“What’s your name?” Evangeline questioned the young woman as she picked up the energetic puppy. June immediately began yipping as the fae scratched under her chin.

“Mamma named me Amary, something to do with them flowers she love so bad.”

Amary. Amary. Amary. Amary. Evangeline let the name roll around in her head, making an effort to stick Amary’s name to her face. She knew exactly what flower Amary was talking about, too. A beautiful winter flower that was red.

“Amary like Amaryllis?” Again, Evangeline asked Amary a question. This time, the friendly stranger climbed down the wooden ladder with the basket full of fruit up against her hip, chuckling at Evangeline’s curiosity.

“You a bit nosey, huh?” Amary joked with the other young woman while guiding her to the little table set up on the porch of the house. “Now, you wanna help me pit these plums and tell me where you from while we wait for my mama to get back?”

Evangeline smiled softly as she took in the scenery of the place, felt the livelihood of nature, the warmth of this stranger’s actions. She gave Amary a nod as she headed to sit down at the table with her. Evangeline and her Earth felt a bit of peace, her God full of hope.

Maybe, just for a while, she could grow here.

#honey heat #kissvamps #black!writer #incoming black butchfemme couple #everybody cheered #kissvampswrites #lesbian #riri williams #riri williams fic #riri williams x oc #black lesbian #pulled the name amary out of my ass lowkey but amaryllis is a real flower so

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garnetea · 11 months

Text

dream a little dream of me.

who roronoa zoro x fem black! y/n. length 715 words! warnings fluffy smut! nipple suckin. semi-wet dream. napping on a hammock. it's mostly fluff.

leman's letter! this's a little old, i just wanna get out some zoro stuff tbhhh. also, reader being chunky is implied a little but not as heavily as my last zoro piece; do with this as you will! and not super proof read..

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤ ★

A tranquil breeze provided by lingering nymphs sets Y/n and Zoro's shared hammock into a subtle rock, as the cool evening air tickles their necks and foreheads with delicate brushes. Zoro's mossy hued hair nestles against the bare warmth of Yn's chest, while dozing somewhat noisily, accompanying the forming pool of drool in his mouth with light exhales and snores.

It's a rare sight to see such an event as this; the typically stubborn and stoic swordsman being so vulnerable and adorable, finding comfort upon the plump breasts of his corpulent lover. The weight of his sleepy head is relaxed and trusting in your presence, though he'd never go as far as admitting that this is because you're beyond precious to him. Instead, he grants you with another arm full of sweetly softened breaths and incoherent mumbles.

Though, when Zoro's unconscious mumbles and grumbles grow audible to a noticeable degree, you worry that he'll wake up before he's truly rejuvenated, which will leave you with an unpleasantly grumpy boyfriend on your hands. Therefore, you place your foot on the grassy ground below, moving the comforting weight of your hand from Zoro's scarred back to his messy bundles of hair. Rocking your foot in place, ever so carefully, you breathe out a motherly, "Shhh." Smiling affectionately as you do so, all to lull the furrow-browed man back into uninterrupted rest.

However, before long, your smile slowly fades as the man's nap takes its own route of self satisfaction. Suddenly, he's leaking a pool of built up saliva from the confinements of his parted lips and onto your exposed chest. You watch tentatively and attentively with increasingly intrusive ideas, as the shimmering dribble graces the crevice separating your tits, and smears over the comfortable stiffness of your dark nipples. Due to Zoro shifting in his sleep.

"Dios mío, not now, Noa.."

Your hushed pleas of cessation to this evolving scenario went unheard and uncared for as Zoro shifts even more against his lover's mattress of a body, with a stiff knee pressed between your spread thighs as he finds himself in a more comfortable position. It's nothing a few inches backwards you can't fix, but the pressure from Zoro's knee on your lap becomes the least of your concerns as the sleepy swordsman's lips habitually latch onto the perkiness of your nipple.

The tip of your skin was brushing his lazily parted lips. A subtle gesture which — even if it holds little force, since he is in fact asleep — sends your nerves and self control into an uproar, tempting your excitement to run rampant in the blood stream riveting your quickened heart. The blood stream which is suddenly rushing its intensity downward to entice the arousal of your clit in the process.

Embarrassing as it may be in such a pure setting as this (being doused with the soft kisses from a loving sunset, along with the distant tunes of Sanji playing the acoustic guitar for another lovely woman), the sensation of Zoro's uncharacteristically needy lips against your skin rids you a necessary amount of sanity. You have to fight the urge to wake the swordsman from his hazy dreams and find pleasure in a more sensitive area than your sloppily abused chest, but that urge is quickly combated with the stirring of Zoro's facial expression as he rests.

Seemingly on cue, you drop the rocking movement on the ball of your foot and the height of your heel against the ground, leaving your body limp as you abruptly force your eyelashes to a close and rest your head correspondingly. A sleepy guise, of course.

In turn, Zoro lazily raises his head and yawns obnoxiously, only stopping his inconsiderate movements when he realizes your "sleeping" state. He'd smile softly at the serene sight if it weren't for the moist substance coated over his lover's chest, and the same substance being slickly fastened to his own rosy cheeked front. With noticeable fluster, he mumbles, "Sorry bout' that.. had a weird dream." Before laying himself in the same comfortable position and continuing his previously unconscious adventure, since by the heat and fattened pudge beneath your loose shorts, you seem to have been enjoying the scenario just as much as him. "Eh, I know you don't mind. Just stay there and be quiet a while longer, alright?"

#leman's art!#<3 #interact if you enjoyed! & i want to build an audience so reblogs mean the world!!#anime x black!reader #one piece #one piece x black!reader #anime fanfic #anime #roronoa zoro x reader #roronoa zoro x black!reader #roronoa zoro #zoro x reader #zoro smut #roronoa zoro x y/n #zoro fluff #one piece smut #one piece x reader #one piece x black reader #zoro x chubby reader

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k0z3me · 1 year

Text

jujutsu kaisen fic recs

fics

- only lovers left alive — gojo satoru— @nezuscribe

+summary : when a disease turns the world into an apocalyptic landscape, you join a group in order to survive. you find yourself drawn to a certain blue-eyed man for no explainable reason. though the two of you have your own pasts to deal with, the two of you grow closer and closer together. after all, it seems as though you’re the only lovers left alive

- a bowl old rock candy (pt1) (pt2) — gojo satoru— @alaskasmonsters

+summary : ...it was likely that you and gojou had been friends before this curse incident that had lead you to wake up with amnesia, the last few years of your memories gone. but why was he so unbothered by your memory loss then?

- crush culture — fushiguro megumi — @mitsies

+summary : megumi fushiguro is so in love with you, it makes him look like a fool.

- all of the girls you loved before — fushiguro megumi — @somelattes

+summary : megumi can't stop thinking about having casually met your ex boyfriend

- sabotage — ryomen sukuna — @marble-anime

+summary : After finding out about your parents' plan to set you up in an arranged marriage, you ask the King of Curses to give you a baby in an attempt to sabotage their plan.

- sometimes a family is you, teen dad gojo, and the six year old child he accidentally orphaned — gojo satoru — @seravphs

+summary : Gojo’s living that hard life as a single father at the tender age of 16, so to prevent Megumi from putting himself back up for adoption, you step in. It turns out that raising a child with someone can cause complicated feelings.

- what if you’re just someone i want around — suguru geto — @saetoru

+summary : somewhere along the line, you started to hate suguru—that doesn’t mean you stopped loving him too

drabbles

headcanons

smau

series

- 7 minutes in heaven — multiple — @garoujo

+summary : you’re surrounded by some of the hottest guys on campus while playing seven minutes in heaven at a frat party? what’s the worst that can happen . . .

- blood & pearls — ryomen sukuna — @vennilavee

+summary : a lonely water nymph washes up to the shores of an enchanted lake with dreams of the sun and the stars. little do you know, that this enchanted lake belongs to the king of curses himself, ryomen sukuna. or, a series of drabbles about you, a water nymph, and a four armed demon dressed as a deity.

- uh oh! he's a dilf — toji fushiguro — @sujikuna

+summary : a collection of fics about dilf toji <3

- half of me is yours — gojo satoru — @satorini

+summary : gojo's just a man who's in love with his ex-wife.

- the hand which holds the knife — gojo satoru — @seravphs

+summary : knight!gojo x princess!reader

back to navi

#⟡﹒﹫jjk﹕♠️”#reader insert #gojo satoru #gojo x you #gojo x reade #jjk #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #fic recs #fic rec #jjk fic recs #x reader

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moony-2001 · 5 months

Text

Lore Olympus ep. 255 critique

Boy oh boy.

No remorse and tonal whiplash

We open this chapter with Persephone waking up not dead, total shock in Hades' arms, asking him if what happened was all a bad dream.

When Hades responds that what happened was not all in her head, we as the readers would expect Persephone to react with shock, remorse, something. Nope. Instead, we get this:

"Oh dear" with the most expressionless face ever. Our empathetic, caring protagonist everyone.

Now maybe I'm being too harsh. However, I feel like most people upon being confronted with the fact that they caused mass destruction would be pretty upset, if not incredibly so. But that's just my 2 cents.

We immediately transition into a party that's being set up for Persephone by all her friends and cohorts. We're then treated to this lovely image:

Thanks Captain Obvious.

While Hermes and Megaera argue over whether or not carrot cake is good, Thanatos pulls Hecate aside and notes about the massive uptick in incoming deaths which confirms what I said in my last critique post. While initially denying it, Hecate quickly realizes that something is very very wrong and that's when Hades and Persephone burst through the doors. Persephone bursts into tears and we get the most tone-deaf sentence ever:

Wow. Haha so funny. Comedy. Given the context of what just happened, this attempt at humor fell so flat.

I feel like the first third of this chapter kind of speaks for itself in terms of the writing and art, which is not good. There's just no emotion at all. I get the feeling that we're supposed to feel bad for Persephone and I just... don't. I don't have a whole lot more to say about this portion of the chapter; just that when I read it, I strained my eyeballs from rolling them so hard.

Hades tries not to make everything about himself challenge: Impossible

We transition into the post-party disaster cleanup where Persephone is hiding out in a greenhouse and Hades and Hecate are inside. Hades takes this opportunity to make everything about himself.

First of all, you're not and you're not.

But on a more serious note, this is not the first time we see Hades take a situation that has either nothing or almost nothing to do with him and make it all about himself. In fact, this is something he does frequently throughout the comic. Hades, in my opinion, very much has a "me, me, me, it's all about me" mindset.

One instance that comes to mind is this scene that happens in early s2 after Persephone opens up about her childhood and AOW. She barely has had time to share and process her traumatic experiences when Hades decides that this is the perfect time to dump 2000 years' worth of pent-up trauma onto a girl he's known for maybe 2 weeks at that point. Yet, he refuses to actively seek help during his time before meeting Persephone and even calls his therapist a hack.

Another instance is when Persephone confronts Hades about ripping out Alex's eye in s1 (when she was still somewhat empathetic to nymphs and whatnot).

Hades, when torturing Alex, very quickly shifts from the mentality of "you could've really damaged Persephone's reputation" to "I'm going to punish you because I view Persephone as my property and how dare you do this to me?"

Hades even outright admits it when confronted. He took a situation that had nothing to do with him and completely made it about himself.

Another instance is when Persephone tells Hades about what Apollo did to her and Hades flies off the handle and makes her trauma about himself. About what he is going to do even though that is not his decision to make.

It baffles me how conceited Hades is despite claiming to care about Persephone. I don't understand how you can look at a person who is going through a hell of a time and think "Let's make this about me". But that's a whole other post for the future

Zeus and Apollo

Skipping to the end of the episode, Apollo calls Hades (with Zeus' phone?) and tells him that he wants to take Persephone off Hades' hands.

Straight up, I don't like Hades and Persephone either as characters or together as a couple. I think they bring out the worst in each other. But Persephone is not some dog that needs to be rehomed and frankly, the whiplash Rachel is giving her audience in regards to Apollo's character is going to put me in a neck brace for life. She keeps flip-flopping between trying to make Apollo this sad, sympathetic anti-hero and the most egregious villain to walk the earth. You can not be both Zuko and Azula Rachel. You need to pick a lane and stay in it.

Apollo reveals that Zeus is in a coma and Hermes conveniently has the news up and running so we as the audience can be greeted with this:

"Attempted murder" you say? Of a being that literally can't die? Rachel, do you even know what attempted murder means?

"The defendant took at least one direct (but ineffective) step towards killing another person" and "The defendant intended to kill that person (malice aforethought)" -> California Law and Sentencing

While both of these are true in the fact that Apollo took the steps to kill Zeus and also intended to kill Zeus, they're gods. You can't murder a god. In order for murder to be attempted, or to even happen, the person in question has to be able to die. But then they're a human, not a god.

I feel like a more accurate report would be something along the lines of "Zeus has fallen victim to what seems to be a violent coup that has left him seriously incapacitated." Maybe that's not the best sentence to ever grace the writing scene, but hopefully my point is clear.

Also, how are people still oblivious to the fact that Apollo is, at the very least, incredibly suspicious right now. I mean his father has just been announced to be "dying" and instead of taking the time to mourn or even appear upset, he immediately slides into the position of power as King of the gods.

This chapter definitely wasn't as bad as 254, but it did make my brain hurt. Merry Christmas Eve and Happy Holidays to those of you who don't celebrate Christmas. See you all soon.

#lore olympus #lore olympus criticism #lo critic #lo critical #unpopular lo #unpopular lore olympus #anti lo persephone #anti lore olympus #anti lo #lo hate #lo criticism #lore olympus critical #lo critique

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rosenallies · 3 months

Note

I'd love that 🥺

yes thank u for biting I’ve wanted to write more for this ship since the last one I wrote <3

——

Jane breathed deeply, smoothing her pink dress before she knocked, a bout of anxiety coursing through her as she twiddled with the skirt, so far from her usual dark attire but she knew the light pink would look pretty next to whatever yellow ensemble her date would don. Coupled with the yellow hair clip she’d stolen from Nymphia the last time she spent the night, Jane felt pretty and lighthearted, but more nervous than she’d ever felt before a date.

Though, the moment Nymphia opened the door to her apartment, she was like a breath of fresh air, knocking the wind from Jane all at once.

“Hi,” Jane said, her thick accent coming through like it always did when she was nervous, thrusting a bouquet of yellow roses into Nymphia’s hands. She cleared her throat. “Sorry, my accent always comes through when I’m anxious.”

Nymphia laughed, making Jane’s heart skip a beat. “Hi, Jane, and yes, I know” she said softly, sniffing the sweet smelling roses and taking Jane’s hand. “You don’t have to be nervous though, this isn’t a normal first date. We’re already girlfriends, who just happened to have not had a real first date.”

The sentiment was simple, but it worked in making Jane’s nerves disappear. She fake gasped, feigning offense. “So those drunken nights where we sat on the floor and ate takeout after fucking for hours weren’t dates to you?”

Nymphia laughed, throwing her head back. “ of course they do, this is just our first date outside of that little routine. You look beautiful, by the way.”

“So do you, a vision in yellow,” she laughed, comfort suddenly blooming in her. This was nothing to be nervous about, it was technically a first date but a first date with Nymphia who was just about as comforting as a soft warm blanket and a cup of hot tea on a cold day.

“Well, you know me, mellow in yellow some might say.”

Jane rolled her eyes lightheartedly. “Are you ready to go? I’ve got a very special day planned for us.”

Setting her flowers on the side table near her front door, she grabbed her things and took Jane’s arm, chattering idly while they walked to Jane’s car.

Nymphia’s easy chatter carried them all the way to their destination, a pretty botanical garden where butterflies fluttered about, landing on the people who walked through.

“Oh Jane,” Nymphia swooned, about to jump out of the car in excitement, “I’ve always wanted to come to a place like this!”

Jane blushed, a light dusting of rose petal pink over her cheeks. “I remember you telling me that a while ago.”

Standing on her tip toes, Nymphia pressed a gentle kiss to Jane’s cheek. “Everyone’s wrong about you, you know? You’re totally not a bitch.”

“Wow, that’s the thanks I get for making your dream date come true? I get it,” Jane chuckled, shaking her head.

“I’m just kidding, I love it. Thank you for taking me here. Should we go?”

Hand in hand, Jane led Nymphia to the entrance of the garden, paying for both of their fees and leading her inside to the paved walking path.

“This really is beautiful,” Nymphia said after a bit of comfortable silence while they walked.

Jane shrugged. “It’s nice, but really, it’s you I can’t stop looking at.”

Just as she said that, a big yellow butterfly landed on Nymphia’s head, fluttering it’s wings like it found a home there.

“Hold still,” Jane said softly, pulling out her phone and snapping several pictures, setting her favorite as her Lock Screen, “there,” she said proudly, showing Nymphia her new background.

“Hey, wait, that’s not fair. Now you’ve gotta let me take one of you!”

As of on queue, a blue butterfly landed on Jane, right on her shoulder.

“Your turn to hold still,” Nymphia giggled, pulling out her phone and repeating what Jane just did, choosing her favorite photo carefully and setting it as her phone’s Lock Screen.

They stayed at the garden as long as they were allowed, watching the sun set from one of the stone benches. Nymphia laid her head on Jane’s shoulder, signing contently. “This has been a perfect day.”

Jane found her hand, lacing their fingers together. “Do you think we could have more of these?”

“I sure hope so,” Nymphia replied whistfully, “you know, someday I want to take you to Taiwan. It’s really beautiful there and I think you’d love it.”

‘Someday’ made Jane feel a bit anxious, briefly worried that there wouldn’t be a ‘someday’ with Nymphia but the look on Nymphia’s face and the gentle way she kissed Jane’s bare shoulder told her otherwise.

“I think I’d really love that.”

#prompt request #planymphia office au

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tunaafishyy · 1 year

Text

The Nymph’s Dream Artifact Set & The Story Within (Part 1)

WARNING: This post contains spoilers for quests in the Genshin 3.6 update

Ok, with the spoiler disclaimer out of the way, it’s time to get started theorizing about the Nymph’s Dream artifact set and it’s rather abstract story!

The story within the artifact set can be broken up into 3 categories

The prophecy, recorded as a fairytale

The story of the children of the Narzissenkreuz Institute

The overviews of “story-telling devices/themes”

To try and cover all these different aspects in a coherent manner, the post is broken up into the following sections.

Section 1: The Story’s Identities — covers speculation on who the people in the story are, as well as the purpose of the institute. The most important part of this section are the names of the speculated children, but I included speculation for other roles as well for funsies

Section 2: The Story of the Hero and the Dragon — a re-telling of the story of the children using the identities defined in Section 1

While the next two sections won't be included in this post, they will be included in Part 2

The Prophecy — who’s involved, what it’s about, and how it connects Section 2 to Section 4 :)

The Story-Telling Devices — the importance of these sections, and what they mean when looking at the past, present, and potential future (based on existing lore).

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Section 1: The Story’s Identities

In this section, the most important characters for the speculated story are Alain and Rene. I’ll be covering other characters/roles in this section… but most of the artifact set (per my interpretation) is about them.

The Narzissenkreuz Institute

The purpose of the Institute, ran by the Director and Vice Director, isn't exactly clear, but let's go over what we know or can infer.

Based on the Heroes' Tea Party artifact, the Institute appears to be located underground, or at least in a place where that "would not see the light of either sun or moon".

It contains many children that often play out the roles of heroes and dragons in stories, but more importantly, these children seem to be elemental/seelie beings.

The first hint of this is also in the Heroes' Tea Party, when the Director hugs the little girl... resulting in her clothes getting soaked... which sounds a lot like what would happen if you hugged one of the lochfolk.

We also learn from Rene's notes that he and Jakob are of "a similar composition" to the "sacred lotus".

If we super summarize the origin of the sacred lotus as "from the Goddess of Flowers"... then Rene and Jakob having a similar composition means they're very similar to something that comes from a Seelie... which also lines up with the watery-hug in the previous example coming form the lochfolk.

We're also told that Oceanids come to the Vourukasha Oasis in search of their god, which could line up with Rene and Jakob's trip.

They aren’t a super great fit since previous Oceanids have names that align with Oceanids in mythology, and they're always female in myths... but since we don't know what creative liberties hoyo might take, I still think it's a possibility.

Ok, so the Instistute is hidden from the sun and moon, and holds at least a couple of children who may or may not be related to the Seelie's. But why?

Clarification: the next statement is pure speculation, and in no way related/important to understanding the artifact set…

...but I think it could have to do with statements made by the Goddess of Flowers about not being able to look upon the heavens and struggling to maintain her form. If those two ideas are connected (maintaining form by not looking upon the heavens) ... then maybe the Institute helps hide seelie-related-children who haven't lost their form from the "light of the heavens"... or something.

... Might also explain Rene and Jakob's very strange idea of growth (3 teeth... what...)

Definitely a stretch, and not super important to the story within the set... so lets get back on topic.

The Hydro Archon as the Director (or Vice Director)

From the Vourukasha Oasis artifact set, as well as multiple other references, we know the Hydro Archon was killed during the cataclysm, and her body became the Amrita.

Also during the cataclysm, the Director and her sisters journey to 'defeat the evil at its source'...

Considering the Vourukasha Oasis is located in the same area as a large door to Khaenri'ah, the Amrita is there, and a significant number of abyssal creatures flooded out from the area... I think its very likely the location the Director went to was the Vourukasha Oasis… and that she is the Hydro Archon who died there.

Now, one thing that threw me off a bit about the passage was the use of the term "Director and her sisters". The term 'sisters' immediately made me think Hexenzirkel, and a Hexenzirkel member being part of the Institute feels like it would go well with the "prophecy being turned into a story" part of the artifact set...

If the Director isn't the Hydro Archon, I think they’d still be a part of the story, just as the Vice Director instead. Support for the Hydro Archon in this role might be found on Rene’s notes:

In Rene's notes, he comments on how "seeing all this" (the Vourukasha Oasis), he believes the Vice Director will be "unable to return".

So, if they thought that the Vice Director was the one at the Vourukasha Oasis, and the Oceanids who journeyed their were in search of their dead god (per Zirvan), then maybe the Vice Director was the Hydro Archon instead.

Phew… so far we've speculated the identity of the Director and Vice Director, as well as the purpose of the institute. Now, it's time to talk about who actually matter for understanding the story...

The children of the Narzissenkreuz Institute.

Alain as "The Machine Lover" & "The Hero who slays the dragon"

Alain Guillotin is the founder of the Fontaine Research Institute of Kinetic Energy Engineering, and was considered a genius inventor. In particular, he was renowned for his inventions related to clockwork mechanisms and kinetic energy.

From Rene's notes, we also learn that he was at the Narzissenkreuz Institute. It doesn't specifically state that he was one of the children there, but there's a couple of descriptions related to clockwork and energy that would line up with him well.

We're told one of the children loved machines, and made a pocket watch eventually gifted to a friend...

We're also told the story of the hero, after becoming victorious over the dragon, 'conceives a kingdom powered by machines and energies not derived from the elements'.

Considering that the research institute established by Alain is specifically for "Kinetic Energy"... this description lines up well with researching power sources not derived from the elements (if that wasn't obvious already).

The question is... is Fontaine's power source a result of "kinetic energy research", or did the push for "kinetic energy research" result from the 'special' power source Fontaine runs off of?

I believe it's the latter... which bring us to the next character

Rene as "The Fell Dragon"

We learn in the "Fell Dragon's Monocle" set that the dragon "thinks of the time he once spent with the hero" prior to being slain, implying that the hero and dragon spent time together at some point.

Additionally, the one who Alain gave the pocket watch to eventually "fell into the primordial liquid that dissolves all"... which sounds very similar to the description of the dragon falling into the "chasm that dissolves all things".

So, then why Rene for this role? Well, out of three names we're given... (Alain, Rene, Jakob)... Rene seems like the best fit to me. It's very possible the role belongs to someone we haven't been introduced to yet... but we'll stick with Rene for now.

While I don't want to go to far in depth on Rene's notes (since evaluating those really needs a thread of its own), there's a couple of important points that make him a good fit for the fell dragon role:

The fact that his notes are being used by the Abyss Order in the first place makes the content of his research pretty suspect.

He uses some 'taboo' energy to keep Jakob and himself from weakening... and based on the description of Rene's notebook... with the goal of "surpassing mortality."

He and Jakob are running calculations to prevent the "destruction" caused by a certain "impact"... and eventually they come up with a solution they want to bring back and share with Alain.

In summary, Rene and Jakob go to the Vourukasha Oasis, possibly in search of the Director / Vice-Director, discover a way to utilize a certain energy to prevent some type of destruction (possibly of Fontaine... maybe from something like a divine nail dropping?), and want to bring the info back to Alain.

Assuming they actually make it back to Fontaine... If we consider that Rene was utilizing power with potentially dark implications... then it seems very likely that he, like almost everyone else who messes with taboo power, could have ended up becoming "evil"... at least in the eyes of Alain.

Rhodeia as "The New Arrival at the Institute"

As mentioned in the Institute subsection, a little girl gave the Director a hug that ended up with the Director getting soaked.

While I think this role could probably belong to any of the lochfolk, I'm giving it to Rhodeia because of what we learned about her during the Wishful Drops event.

During that event, Endora tells us that Rhodeia "fled Fontaine, harboring a longing for the previous Hydro Archon."

Rhodeia only desired to "keep the dreams of yesteryear alive."

Her desire to keep the dreams of yesteryear alive reminded me a lot of one of the sections about the children in the Odyssean Flower:

Some still reminisce endlessly over the afternoon adventures that have yet to continue...

Jakob

I don't want to leave Jakob completely out since he was one of the children at the institute, but I don't have too much to say about him. As far as the story goes, I speculate that when the Vice Director asks [redacted] to watch over [redacted], she's asking Rene to watch over Jakob, and that's why they're traveling together.

EDIT (added 2023-08-08)

It was pointed out in the comments by opticor that Jakob would be a good fit for the evil mage:

“regarding the [redacted] names, the children who are urged not to fight (the "knight" and "dragon") both have 2-symbol names, matching how Alain and Rene are written in Chinese; the second pair of children have 3-symbol names, and so does the one who is given the Vice Director's feather. given Jakob's preoccupation with her, i would assume he is the "evil mage" of the group (Jakob is spelled with 3 symbols)”— opticor

I really like the idea of Jakob as the evil mage… both Rene and Jakob having “evil” roles aligns well with them both being involved in the questionable energy experiments.

And looking at the feather description:

But in the end, this feather would never become the mystical staff used by some evil mage.

It would instead follow its new owner and reach the source of that which caused the calamity of parting, before returning to from whence it came...

The part about going to the source of the “calamity of parting” could refer to Rene and Jakob’s trip to the oasis!

END OF EDIT

Section 2: The Story of the Hero and the Dragon

Reminder: this story (more like a small fanfic XD) is based on the speculations in Section 1

The Narzissenkreuz Institute, run by the Director and Vice Director in a location hidden from the light of the Sun and Moon, is the home of many children.

The children, when not taking snack breaks, spend most of their time playing out the stories of heroes and dragons. While their existence is rather stagnant when looked at over the course of time… they live happy, carefree lives...

Until one day, the Director and Vice Director tell the children they have to leave on important business.

“... don’t go running outside,” the Vice Director tells them.

Sound advice, considering the world is being ripped apart by a cataclysm.

After giving Rene Jakob her prized feather, and promising to return, the Vice Director heads off the Director.

… but they never come back.

Eventually, Rene and Jakob leave the Institute, making their way to the Vourukasha Oasis in search of the directors.

Slowly, as they continue their research and experiments in the area, it becomes more and more clear that the Director and Vice Director won't be coming back as promised.

Their state slowly begins to weaken due to the unfavorable conditions, and Rene begins to become concerned that their trip back to Fontaine will become impossible.

Utilizing a power considered 'wrong' by pedantic adults, he alters his and Jakob's compositions so that they're able to live without sustenance. Not wanting Mr. Karl to becomes suspicious of the power he used, Rene tells Jakob they must continue to pretend to require sustenance, and to continue eating even though they no longer need.

They continue their research. Running experiments to prevent a 'greater destruction' caused by an 'impact', eventually theorizing that combined with their power and the divine will extracted out of an energy source, they can reflect the imminent destruction.

They return back to Fontaine, sharing what they've learned with Alain.

They utilize the energy source in Fontaine, and all is well for awhile.

Until one day, Rene's corruption from continuing to use the taboo power finally reveals itself. Alain learns the truth of the 'not fully understood' power Rene uses, as well as of his increasingly radical mindset.

Having no other choice, Alain knows he must slay the dragon to stop him.

Thus, Alain and Rene, children who grew up acting out tales of heroes and dragons with each other, become the hero and dragon of our story.

“... but if you had seen what I had…”

Alain, bittered by how the unnatural power darkened his friend, vows to never again believe in anything that the sum of human knowledge cannot completely grasp and understand, and to the end of his days, strives to make Fontaine a country powered by machines and energies not derived from the elements.

He founds the Fontaine Research Institute of Kinetic Energy Engineering, determined to free Fontaine from the unreliable and questionable power that Rene and he had put in place.

(Alternatively, Alain slays Rene as soon as he returns, and the unreliable energy source used by Fontaine is kinetic energy.)

The End

Ending Summary

So, there you have it! I know this theory makes a lot of assumptions, so it's certainly a super stretch, but I hope you enjoyed!

Part 2 will cover The Prophecy (why Narcissus is the Director, but not the dragon) and Story-Telling Devices that appear (taking a look at to Dehya's Story Quest, Rene Girard), so keep an eye out for it!!

... and maybe Part 3 to actually talk about the symbolism of the different names and such, but that seems a little overzealous, so going to try and finish up Part 2 first XD.

Thanks for reading!

Edited on 2023-08-08 to fix typos and add comment from opticor to Jakob’s section

#genshin impact #genshin lore #genshin theory #genshin impact theory #genshin impact lore #genshin impact 3.6 #genshin 3.6 #genshin sumeru #genshin impact fontaine #genshin fontaine

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eternalflashh · 9 months

Text

i give up. i've been thinking about the fontaine lore too much to not put my thoughts somewhere.

no, this is not at all going to be organized, because i hardly have it all together yet. but i've been trying to get a gist of fontaine's prophecy, and i'm just trying to put the pieces together after what we've learned of fontaine's history (albeit not much, and neither is the theory the best. i'm just thinking on paper here.) this is going to be *very long* by the way. very, very, very long.

naturally, beware of spoilers, particularly: fontaine AQs and world quests (narzissenkreuz, elynas (the melusines) — including the canotila side quest, institute of natural philosophy, khvarena), artifacts (nymph's dream, marechaussee hunter), weapon (fleuvre cendre ferryman)

also, disclaimer: i may be wrong. i am not a genius—kind of an idiot, really. i'm just thinking. thinking. read this as someone's journal, not the wiki entry.

here's a brief recap of the three fontaine world quests, because we're going to need them:

in the narzissenkreuz adventure team quest, we accompanied the tiny oceanid ann in order to save a "princess lyris", only to find out that she never existed and this was all a fictional tale—one, though, that has its roots in the real narzissenkreuz institute.

in the elynas quest, we saved mamere from getting her paintings stolen, and found out that she was painting with elynas's blood. a man named jakob ingold has been trying to collect this blood, and now, apparently tries to revive the dragon itself—for a cause that is beyond even the abyss's plans.

the quest with the institute of natural philosophy wasn't quite as plotful, aside from the fact that we simply were led to the institute thinking it was the narzissenkreuz institute, and found plenty of old records. it's also where the narzissenkreuz ordo's quarters was buried inside, and where we managed to unite ann and seymour to continue their story.

now, from the many ancient texts and artifact/weapon descriptions i've managed to piece a rough idea of what happened 500 years ago, which i will try my best to summarize coherently according to my understanding:

the narzissenkreuz institute, which had an oceanid as its director and basil elton as its vice, was a special unit founded with the purpose of protecting fontaine against the evils (of khaenri'ah, presumably). that being said, they housed orphaned childen. these included the mary-ann we see in "the real annapausis" (whose consciousness was transferred to our oceanid ann), alain, rene, and jakob.

it was said that "the director and her sisters went off to fight the evil at its source" (nymph's dream), which i'm assuming is khaenri'ah, while the vice director set off for the seas in the Sponsian ship where she eventually passed. shortly after, the institute was disbanded. before the vice director (basil elton) set off, though, she had entrusted the children of the institute to her close friends: emanuel gullotin and karl ingold (marechaussee hunter).

alain guillotin and mary-ann guillotin, taken up by emanuel, became marechaussee hunters; rene de petrichor and jakob ingold, in the meantime, headed for sumeru's girdle of the sands with karl ingold to research the remmants of the lord of amrita. (if you did the quest, you would've had "rene's investigation notes" in your inventory—which essentially describes what they've been researching; rene appears to have recently turned into a young adult, while jakob is still "a child", but they both sound... young.) it also seems that before this, they infiltrated elynas—in the investigation notes, they seem to be hiding their condition from karl; later we find that jakob seems to be surviving on elynas's blood.

sometime after this, alain guillotin is enrolled into the institute of natural philosophy where he researches (i assume) the mechanics of arkhe and pneuma-ousia annihilation; rene and jakob are also enrolled in there some time later. at first, they were working on the same research (alain's), until rene and alain eventually broke off their working relationship (noting that they, including mary-ann, still hung out together as friends), apparently having disagreed on something.

now we saw jakob ingold— which clearly means him having absorbed elynas's blood (and all those research) has somehow given him the powers of immortality, which rene and him had been researching in the desert; although it appears that rene has found a different way of implementing immortality. rene, in his "memories" as told in the book of revealing, discovered a way humans could surpass death by dissolving in the waters, their consciousness preserved even as doomsday comes (i assume this is how the water from the primordial sea came to be rediscovered after ages), and chose himself as the first test subject to be dissolved. alain, meanwhile, went off to establish the fontaine research institute that studied clockwork and created the meka we see roaming around fontaine now—i personally think the specific use of clockwork was intended to allude to the underlying goal to surpass their time. but yk, that might be overkill.

mary-ann's end, though, was never quite explicitly told. and in fact, the "mary-ann" we see in annapausis described the place in the book as her tomb, even though the story (whether the one we were going through, or the literal story you find in the fountain with the "statue of princess lyris") was unfinished. she might not have been a particularly "important" character in the history, but she was significant to each of the other childen— the various notes always expressed joy whenever they see mary-ann, may it be alain who was said to care for his sister (so much that he made her seymour), rene, jakob, even carter (alain's assistant).

this is important because, coincidentally, it resembles ann's role in the narzissenkreuz adventure team fairytale. ann was described to be their leader, a sort of mascot, among the team fighting against the fell dragon. and in fact, each of the characters we met resemble someone in reality: 'al' is from alain, 'ney' is from rene, 'jak' is from jakob, and 'mori' from seymour. (the others are... a bit complicated and i cannot yet discuss them because I'm Still Thinking, and that'll go besides my current point.) basically, the fairytale was literally told with the children as real life inspiration. (even though, of course, it was cut off quite annoyingly.)

then, it's worth understanding the tale to understand their true motives as well. the tale talks of the adventure team's existence essentially to help princess lyris to protect her realm and fight against the big bad evil, the fell dragon narcissus. narcissus was fighting her for "a treasure of hers that he did not have", and in order to help fight against this evil, princess lyris shared her time with her friends, time that allowed them to be ahead of the dragon's attacks. but in the end, the dragon still had the upper hand; eventually she trapped herself in the high tower, entrusting a treasure to the adventure team: a bright pearl of water.

common sense tells that this princess lyris alludes to the archon of their nation, egeria; the adventure team being the narzissenkreuz institute, while the fell dragon narcissus is the khaenri'ahn invasion. judging from this, then, it appears that the archon left behind this "bright pearl of water" as the last thing before she trapped herself in the high tower. and that's it— that's the end of the story, so we don't know how the rest of history went. well, except for the fact that the former hydro archon is, in fact, dead, and now we are left with a most ominous prophecy: of the original sin, of why it's exclusive to fontaine, of why the oceanids do not recognize their current archon, of why furina is exempt from this prophecy—and what she is waiting for.

i have so many questions, and no idea of how to approach them in a methodical manner—so i will first point out all the things that bother me.

i wondered why this problem is exclusive to fontaine. regarding there is a problem of exception mentioned in rene's notes, where the children's constitution are different from karl's; i still have no idea the nature of this distinction, only that rene and jakob's bodies are like the power of the sacred lotus (i.e., the former archon's power). at first i thought that this distinction may be the reason for them being susceptible to the primordial seawater's effects, but without understanding the distinction, it doesn't help in answering the question.

then, again, i wondered what their real motives was. neuvillette says that the former archon left furina with the prophecy—but it doesn't sound like a problem so much as a statement of what's to come. we don't know what egeria actually believed. but i went back to the final feast teaser, and found that egeria actually had some narration:

the original sin is the fairest: everyone sinks. make the most of the final feast, because for the sinners, the curtain call has come.

which certainly does make it sound like she sees them all as sinners, and that they have always been bound to sink.

the interesting thing is— this might not necessarily be a bad thing, no matter how we see it as a crisis. even the victims of the disappearances case regard dissolving into the waters as "relief" (vigniere from the AQ); even the people say this is just like returning to whence they came from, and mary-ann of the sunflower annapausis says that together, as one body of water, they can become strong. in line with this, perhaps rene's act of dissolving into the seawater doesn't seem so much as a radical act anymore.

i always come back to this line at the storybook:

"So, in Narcissus's story, I'm the evil villain?

it may sound like an innocent question, but a fairly odd one for a child to be asking. and i believe it says more than it seems. for one, i'd like to point out that narcissus is another term for the flower daffodil, which symbolizes rebirth—the narzissenkreuz also means "narcissus cross", aka, death of rebirth. which makes sense when you think that they're enemies of "the fell dragon". but why would they be fighting rebirth? perhaps because the narzissenkreuz institute were fighting the prophecy, which they, including egeria, perhaps, believed at the time to be a good thing.

i say "at the time" because, look at what became of the children. in essence, they became "villains". rene, for one, founded a source of the primordial sea, which was certainly what led to the current problems—and, hence, what would lead to the realizing of the prophecy. jakob is out here trying to revive elynas in order to use his blood to strengthen human lifespans, so that they can overcome the surmised cataclysm that would come? to turn everyone immortal? meanwhile, alain's deviced a way to subvert the usage of celestia's elements by making work of pneuma-ousia power. essentially, they are each fighting for rebirth, instead of fighting against rebirth. perhaps not precisely rebirth, but a way to preserve humanity, to subvert the crisis. even mary-ann, in a sense, had managed to attain this goal, by preserving all her memories—despite it being unfinished—in that storybook.

and in fact, perhaps that's also why the story ended there—because it was that point, when the cataclysm occurred, where the story's moral had shifted, and they had each lost their original intention to fight. because they then realized that they needed better ways of handling this crisis, only to have one of them revert to that crisis itself. tl;dr: the prophecy ceased from being a crisis, instead becoming rene's perceived solution. which is.... interesting, to say the least.

again, it sounds radical, but it may very well hold water. one interesting thing i noted from the canotila quest was that where we saw the dark power of the abyss in "the end of things" as predicted by the world-formula, canotila instead saw a nice place with flowers, etc. and when we were talking to elynas, he noted that "the things they (the primordial dragons) enjoyed were not things that humans valued". it's similar to this situation—two different viewpoints may see the same thing to be two very different things; either salvation or destruction. which then brings a lot of suspense toward the resolution of the AQ—what, truly, will become the best solution for them? would being dissolved save the people of fontaine? or would they find a way to subvert both the dissolution and the destruction? (obviously, it's probably the latter—the question, as always, would be how? to answer that, we need to know more on why they are subject to this sin, and that is not a question i can answer, despite this Very Long Rambling. i am most stressed)

but if nothing else, at least i've figured that the foretelling of this disaster is something that's originated far before the cataclysm, from egeria's time. perhaps it'd be something like rukkhadevata & nahida, where rukkhadevata had her own way of solving the issue with combating forbidden knowledge, but it led to a whole other issue, and nahida had to find her own solution.

one thing still perplexes me, though— furina's perspective in all this.

at first i thought she may be the "pearl of water" referred to in the storytale, since it would make sense that that's where the next archon comes in—but since furina is supposed to be older than nahida (as said by neuvillette in nahida's introduction), it seems unlikely. though it's always possible that this happened several years before the cataclysm, it wouldn't align very nicely; one would assume the princess trapping in her tower to be an event that took place during the peak of the cataclysm, so the life born out of the pearl must be sometime after that. but the possibility remains.

or perhaps one shouldn't take the story too literally, and assume she was simply handed the gnosis after egeria's passing—but why? who is she to begin with? and what then is the pearl of water that the princess left to the narzissenkreuz? it must bear significance, if it was left in the story at all (and something the storyteller felt important enough to be named after the child she was telling the story to, lyris). perhaps the pearl thing was only an expression, and it was meant to allude to the passing of her gnosis to the next archon. but of course, this is only conjecture.

furina's behavior... is perhaps simply a consequence of her original personality, under her circumstances. her personality aside, though, what would her woes we hear in the fountain mean? what does she mean when she say "interminable"—what, exactly, is she waiting for in unbearable loneliness? it doesn't make much sense for her to be waiting for the prophecy to come; otherwise, she'd have no reason to research it for so long, gathering intelligence, when she hardly cares for the nation's affairs. surely she wouldn't be waiting for divine intervention to come save her from her business? lyney and lynette note that she always appears to be "acting"—so what is she acting for? why does she aim to judge other gods? if she wants to prove that other nations are also at fault for "sinning", then wouldn't she need more time, instead of being impatient? nothing seems to add up with her. perhaps she wants to save everyone, but perhaps she is tired as well. perhaps she doesn't feel like she's capable of it, and wishes for release to come instead. is that what it is? who knows. who knows. it's impossible to tell, with someone with so many faces.... it's very interesting. furina is certainly a very interesting archon.

anyways. that was long and this doesn't hold much water to it (get it) but. i had to dump my thoughts somewhere. i'll get back to it when i find more information, when more thoughts come to hound me,,,,,, yeah. anyway.

#this is far longer than the report i have to write but here i am #always most productive when i'm procrastinating #anyways this is a Long Mess #and i might be wrong about many things. or stupid #but it's okay #rambelles #genshin impact #fontaine #focalors #furina #world quest spoilers #archon quest spoilers #lore thoughts #genshin lore #genshin theory #genshin spoilers

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