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oxbellows · 1 month

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Welcome Home! Nothing Weird Happened.

Written based on @emilybeemartin's spectacular Boromir Lives AU comics, with permission. I might write more, who knows.

My whole thought process here is this: if Boromir lives and makes it back to Minas Tirith, he is about to receive an absolutely ludicrous quantity of bad news. And I for one think it would be both plausible and hilarious for Pippin to be the one who ends up delivering that news. So here we are!

Trigger warnings for that whole pyre situation from Return of the King.

It was fitting, to Boromir’s mind, that the battle for Minas Tirith should be decided by dead men. So many had died for the city of kings already, their blood seeping into her soil like rain. Why, then, should her fate rest solely in the hands of the living? An unnatural justice rang out in the clang of steel against phantom blades, heralding the return of a hope long since given up for lost.

“None but the king of Gondor may command me,” the wraith hissed.

“You?” Boromir had roared. “You, Oathbreaker? I am the heir to the Stewards of Gondor. Generations of my kin have died for an empty throne. None but the king of Gondor may command ME. Here stands the king of Gondor before us, and you will suffer him as I have!”

And suffer him they did. Sickly green washed over the last armored oliphaunt as the dead claimed more souls for their own. Boromir pulled his eyes away from the spectacle and spun his sword in his hand, scanning the area around him for the next foe. He found none. Only the backs of retreating orcs, and weary Men attending to their fallen brothers. That and, out of the corner of his eye, the strangest possible trio of a Man, a Dwarf, and an Elf. Finding no enemy to engage, Boromir instead turned his step toward the strange trio to embrace his friends in the wake of victory.

Aragorn, king of Gondor, did not appear especially regal at the moment. He was covered in grime and gore, surrounded by the corpses of orcs left to rot in the open field. Gimli’s sturdy metal armor was slick with blood, and it dripped steadily off the edge of the axe that he had slung over one shoulder. Legolas, of course, was only as disheveled as he might have been after a short run, clean of the muck that covered the rest of them. His hair still fell properly at his shoulder, what witchcraft did the Elf use to maintain it?

Boromir could only imagine what he himself must look like. He knew that he was damp and smelled like death, which did not bode well for a lordly appearance. Nonetheless, even in all his heavy armor Boromir felt lighter than he had since childhood. The battle was over, fought now only by those straggling beasts that had not managed to escape the field on foot. Boromir was still, impossibly, alive, and so were his companions. So was his king.

The enemy may yet prevail, but Gondor would not fall before the White Tree bloomed again. It was more than his grandfathers had ever dared to hope.

“Is that blood in your hair or just its natural grease?” Boromir asked his king, sliding his sword back into its scabbard and stepping over the body of a fallen orc to approach him.

Aragorn laughed, raising one dirty hand to skim his fingertips over the top of his head. “I cannot say, Captain. I only know that in either case, I would wash it before I present myself to your lord father.”

Boromir clicked his tongue dismissively. “My lord father’s not the one we have to worry about. If my brother hears that I’ve brought Isildur’s heir home in such a state, he’ll throttle me.”

He almost continued speaking. He almost added, if he’s alive. Aragorn heard the unspoken caveat all the same. His dark eyes had a softness in them when he spoke.

“The battle is over, Captain of the White Tower,” Aragorn said. “We must turn our efforts now to the dead and wounded. May we not find you kin among them.”

If the taste of ash settled on the back of Boromir’s tongue, it could be attributed to the smell of Mordor’s filthy army laying dead at his feet, and not to the terrible image that flashed across his mind’s eye of Faramir’s bloodied and unblinking face.

“My father will be well,” Boromir asserted, determined not to speculate on his brother’s wellbeing. “He is past his time as a warrior. He will have commanded our troops from a place of safety within the walls.”

Aragorn inclined his head in assent. His hair really was a sight- black blood had matted chunks of it together, and where they stood now in the open field, with the sun just beginning to peek through the enemy’s unnatural bank of shadow, Boromir could see that his clothes were in much the same state. Perhaps this was why Aragorn so persistently favored black for his travel clothes. Were he wearing any other color, it would be obvious that he was as drenched in the blood of orcs as if he had bathed in it.

A warrior of staggering skill was this king of Men, but he preferred not to proclaim his deadliness to the world. He tucked it away into shadow until such skill was needed. Perhaps one day Boromir might look upon this man that he called brother and not be humbled by the mere sight of him.

Perhaps.

“I will search with a sharp eye, then, for Captain Faramir,” Aragorn promised.

Boromir closed the distance between them to grip Aragorn’s shoulder in thanks. Aragorn returned the gesture with ferocity, digging his fingers into the mail covering Boromir’s upper arm. Gimli thumped Boromir’s back in a heavy handed gesture of approval, and Legolas bowed his head with a coy smile. A river of unspoken words passed between the four of them, about great and important things like love and fear at the end of the world, and then they released each other. Aragorn turned his stride towards the Citadel to lend his knowledge of elvish medicine to the House of Healing. Legolas and Gimli set out together to help carry the wounded into the city for aid. Boromir made for the rocky outcrop at the city’s outermost wall, the one that archers favored for its vantage point. There he was sure he would find rangers, and hopefully news of Faramir.

The walk carried him past countless dead orcs and uruk-hai, but also more dead men and horses than Boromir had ever seen on a single field. For every pair of comrades he saw embrace in giddy relief, another wail of grief reached his ears from somewhere else. His mail grew heavier with every step he took.

Boromir had scarcely made it halfway to the archer’s outpost before he was stopped by the sound of his own name.

“Captain Boromir!” a familiar voice shouted. “You live!”

Boromir stopped and whirled about. There, about ten yards from Boromir, close enough to the outermost wall to be half-concealed in its shadow, crouched a man in a forest-green cloak. His hands still hovered over a fallen Gondorian soldier, as if he had frozen partway through checking for signs of life. Before the man in green rose to stand, he brushed a hand over the fallen one’s face, coaxing his eyes shut before stepping away. Boromir felt a dull pang of grief in his already overburdened heart at the confirmation that yet another of his countrymen was dead. He had no time to acknowledge that pain, though, as the man in green righted himself fully. The green cloak, brown leather vambraces, and longbow on his back all sparked immediate recognition.

Boromir knew this man, had met him before, but his weary mind failed to provide a name for him. It hardly mattered. The uniform he wore told Boromir everything he needed to know. Faramir had been clad exactly the same, the last time Boromir had seen him. This was one of the rangers of Ithilien, his brother’s own company. Hope swelled painfully in his chest. He hastened his step towards the ranger.

The ranger rushed to meet him and performed a quick, obligatory salute when they were close enough to speak comfortably. “My lord,” he greeted, breathless. “Your father thought you dead, but we in Captain Faramir’s company held out hope.” A wide grin split across his face. “You cannot imagine how sorely you’ve been missed!”

Seeing his smile finally dragged the ranger’s name to the front of Boromir’s memory. “Anborn,” he said warmly. “It’s good to see you alive and well. Tell me, what news do you have of my brother?”

Anborn’s smile dropped, giving way to a look of naked concern as quickly as a candle being snuffed out. “I have no news, my lord, none that is not two days old at least.”

"Then give me the old news,” Boromir pressed, trying not to snap.

Anborn grimaced and nodded. “My lord,” he said, haltingly, “The last time I saw your brother, my Captain, was on the day he rode out to reclaim Osgiliath with a company of forty mounted soldiers.”

Boromir could only stare for a long moment, turning over Anborn’s words in his head to try and make them comprehensible. No clarity came to him. “My brother is- in Osgiliath?”

Another grimace. “If he is still there, he is dead.” Boromir’s lungs constricted and froze. Anborn continued, “Osgiliath was overrun more than a week ago. I’ve heard rumors that Faramir made it back to the Citadel, but I cannot say any more than that without inventing rumors myself.”

“The Citadel,” Boromir repeated. He forced breath into his uncooperative lungs. He would go to the Citadel, and he would find Faramir there with their father, incoherent with frustration after arguing strategy with Denethor. He turned on his heel and started walking. Anborn said something as Boromir strode away, but he didn’t hear it properly over the ringing in his ears.

What he had heard of Anborn’s words clamored in his mind- it sounded as if Faramir had taken a company of only forty men to reclaim an overrun city. That would be absurd, though. Faramir may be prone to bouts of melancholy and brooding, but he wasn’t suicidal. And even if he did, for some reason, decide to seek his own death, he would never bring any number of Gondor’s defenders with him to do it.

Your father thought you dead.

Boromir broke into a run.

Faramir didn’t hold sway over all their troops’ movements. Faramir wasn’t the Steward.

He was moving too slowly. Stumbling to a halt, Boromir grasped at the leather straps holding his pauldrons in place and did his best to unfasten them with numb fingers. Denethor had not been the same in recent years. The shadow in the east had darkened his thoughts, day by day, and set him talking as if the end were already here. His gray eyes had glinted in a way that Boromir scarcely recognized when he’d spoken of the One Ring. He’d never favored Faramir, never encouraged him the way he deserved, but the cruelty that had colored Denethor’s every interaction with his secondborn in the year or two before Boromir left shocked him.

Boromir’s pauldrons landed on the ground in a heap, and now he doubled over to escape the shirt of mail. It was a difficult task without taking off his sword belt, but he managed. He needed to be faster, but he could not bear to go unarmed. The chain links poured gracelessly down over his head, yanking his hair as they went, and then he was free. Boromir took off running again, now unencumbered.

Faramir would never plan a suicide mission.

Would he accept one, though, if he was ordered?

Boromir’s feet touched white marble bricks for the first time in months that had felt like decades. He did not pause. Shouts followed him as he went, calling his name or exclaiming surprise. Arches and edifices flew by overhead. Rubble littered the street. He caught glances of bodies crushed under great stones.

Boromir made it to the stairs. His weary legs burned and protested, but he dared not slow his descent. He needed to know where Faramir was, now. He needed to know what had happened in Osgiliath, before any more ideas had the chance to take root in his head. If he finished the line of thinking that Anborn’s news had set off-

Boromir might kill his father with his bare hands.

So, he would not stop, and he would not think, until he found answers.

He reached the top of the stairs.

A small group of guards, maybe five or six, clustered together at the Citadel gate, all spoke over each other in urgent tones. Boromir could not hear most of their words over his own ragged breath, but he caught a few. He heard “Mithrandir” and “Witch King” and “wood”, and then, “Denethor.”

“Where?” Boromir barked. Every one of the men before him startled and turned to him with unabashed fear written across their faces.

If Boromir had looked a mess back on the fields, by now he must appear absolutely deranged. Half his armor gone, hair wild, white shirt drenched with sweat and blood- he could hardly blame the unsuspecting guards for the shock and confusion they displayed so brazenly at his question. Nor could he blame himself for the urge to grab the nearest one and shake him until he spoke sense.

Fortunately for all present, the guard furthest to the left, a man of slight and youthful stature underneath his plate armor, spoke up.

“The House of Stewards,” he said, voice trembling. He pointed in the right direction. “In the tombs. Both of them, lord and son, with orders from the Steward to be left undisturbed.”

Boromir ran like he had never done in his life.

For what possible reason would his father and brother be in the tombs in the midst of battle?

He threw himself against the door to the tombs of his forefathers. They gave way with no resistance, and as he stumbled through the opening, he noted that the floor was dusted with splintered wood. This door had already been broken through. There he stopped short.

He could not, for the life of him, make sense of the scene before him.

In the center of the foyer, directly on top of Húrin’s memorial etching, were the remains of- a bonfire? Heaps of ash and charred wood covered the usually immaculate white marble floor, built up into a high, still-smoldering mound in the chamber’s center. The air reeked of smoke. Neither Denethor nor Faramir were in sight, nor was anyone else. The tombs appeared deserted.

“Faramir?” Boromir called warily.

A clang of metal and the scuffle of unshod feet on stone answered his call, and then-

“Boromir!”

A small form collided hard with his midsection, forcing him to take a staggering step back. Small arms wrapped around him like a vice, a familiar vice, and Boromir abruptly realized that he was in the embrace of a hobbit.

“Pippin?” he demanded, aghast.

The young hobbit turned his face up to meet his gaze and a fresh wave of panic seized him. Pippin’s face was coated in ash and streaked with tears.

“Boromir!” Pippin cried again. “You have to help, Gandalf said that healers were coming but nobody came, there was screaming in the halls so I dragged him as far as I could but he’s heavy and I don’t know where Gandalf went and just- just- come here!”

The hobbit released his iron grip around Boromir’s waist in favor of clutching one of his wrists and started hauling him off to one side of the room, into a corridor of mausoleums. There, poking out of the nearest alcove, Boromir spied the lower half of a single black boot.

Pippin pulled him onward when his own pace faltered. With each step he could see more of the body that Pippin had apparently tried to drag to safety. A small, or rather, hobbit-sizedsword lay carelessly discarded on the floor beneath the alcove’s arching entrance where Pippin had dropped it. That would explain the clanging sound Boromir had heard just before being tackled, then. Which would mean that when he called out, Pippin had been guarding this archway with sword in hand.

Pippin’s relentless tugging finally forced Boromir to where he could see the stricken man on the floor.

It was Faramir.

Of course it was Faramir.

A rough, strangled sound echoed through the quiet tombs, and Boromir only realized a moment later that it had come from his own throat. Pippin darted from his side to kneel at his brother’s head, petting his hair and murmuring a soothing word. Faramir did not react in the slightest. He wasn’t dead; Boromir had seen enough dead men in his life to know with unfailing precision the difference between a dead body and a dying one.

No, his brother was not dead. He was only dying.

Boromir dropped to his knees.

In all this time that he had dreaded coming home and hearing that Faramir had fallen in battle, it had never occurred to Boromir that he might watch him die.

“He needs medicine,” Pippin pleaded, his little hand nestled in Faramir’s hair. Boromir now saw that the hobbit was dressed in the garb of the guards of Citadel, mail under a velvet tunic embroidered with the white tree. What had happened in his city? When had this barely-trained halfling become his brother’s last line of defense?

“Go,” Boromir rasped. He touched the hilt of his sword. “I will protect him now. Go to the House of Healing, down one level. Aragorn is there. He will listen to you.”

Without another word, Pippin took off at a sprint. Boromir and Faramir were left alone, together for the first time since Boromir had left for Rivendell.

Boromir wanted to scream.

Instead, he maneuvered himself carefully to sit at his brother’s side. How Pippin had managed to stash Faramir away in this little nook, Boromir had no idea. He could only just find room for himself against the wall without jostling the motionless body beside him. He reached a tentative hand out to lay it on Faramir’s forehead. He paused before he touched skin, momentarily stunned by the radiating heat. When his fingers settled on his brother’s brow, it was like touching metal that had been left in the sun too long. Faramir burned. Boromir gently smoothed his hand over damp hair.

It wasn’t just Faramir’s hair that was damp, actually. It was everything on him. His short beard, the finely embroidered collar of his tunic, the silk of his sleeves. If his fever was so high, it was not so surprising to find him coated in sweat. The choice of clothes, though, was undeniably strange. There was no blood staining the fabric. Had he not been hurt in battle, then? Had he simply been taken by a violent illness? Was there a plague in the city? That might explain the lack of gore but not the presence of finery. Boromir had only ever seen Faramir wear this tunic for ceremonies. He wouldn’t have put it on before battle, and he would certainly have taken it off if he were falling ill.

No, the only reasonable conclusion was that Faramir had not been the one to dress himself. A terrible, unspeakable suspicion wormed its way into his heart.

Boromir almost regretted sending Pippin away without first asking him what had happened to create this bizarre tableau. Almost. His answers could wait until Faramir had been brought safely into the care of physicians. He lifted his hand to stroke Faramir’s hair again, but the slickness that clung to his palm bade him pause.

That wasn’t sweat in his brother’s hair, it was something else, something more viscous. Puzzled beyond words, Boromir brought his hand close to his face to inspect it.

His palm was smeared with oil.

All at once, a dozen disparate fragments of information arranged themselves into nightmarish clarity.

Someone had dressed Faramir for a funeral. Someone had brought him into the place where the bones of their ancestors rested and covered him in oil. Someone had lit a bonfire in the center of the tombs.

Not a bonfire. A pyre.

Someone had tried to burn his little brother alive.

“No,” Boromir whispered, as if he could prevent his next thought from taking shape.

Only one person in Gondor could do any of this without being stopped.

In the tombs, the guard at the gate had said. Both of them, lord and son, with orders from the Steward to be left undisturbed.

Boromir launched himself upright, out of the cramped alcove, and was sick all over the marble floor.

For the second time in a day, Pippin found himself running for someone else’s life. At least he didn’t have so far to go this time. He could not remember ever being so tired. It was also fortunate that he knew already where to find the House of Healing. Gandalf had insisted he memorize the route there as soon as he’d made his oath to Denethor, which was a bit insulting, to be honest, but turned out very useful in the end.

The first time he’d entered the House, just a few days ago, he’d thought it was very full. Most of the rows of clean, simple cots had been occupied by rangers returning from outside the city. As he dashed through the sturdy oaken door now, though, he entered a different world entirely.

The cacophony of sound, smell and movement that surged up to meet him stopped Pippin in his tracks. The House of Healing was so crowded he could not see the far wall. He could barely see the nearest row of cots. Tall ladies rushed about in every direction, shouting orders to one another above a nauseating din of groans and cries. Pippin had been standing guard in a cloud of smoke for hours, and yet the onslaught of ugly and unfamiliar smells that accosted him here made him wish for the scent of smoke again.

His foray into the front lines of a battle had been terrifying. This place might be worse.

Boromir had said that Aragorn was here, though, and Pippin would walk headfirst into an army of orcs right now if it meant that Aragorn would help him. He never wanted to be in charge of anything, ever again, especially not trying to keep great lords and heroes alive. Aragorn was good at that sort of thing, he could take over now. Pippin took a deep breath and began forging a path through the chaos, calling Aragorn’s name as he went.

As he weaved his way through cots, ducking underneath outstretched arms and around long legs, Pippin heard questions following him that he had no desire to answer.

“How old is that boy? Who let a child in the guard?”

"Is that one of those halflings? The wizard’s pet or something?”

“Are you lost, little one?”

Some of these Men had the most terrible manners, clearly. Most of them were bleeding very badly, though, so Pippin could forgive them for their rudeness. He ignored them all and kept moving.

“Aragorn!” he shouted again.

A women that had been rushing by him paused for an instant to glare down at him. “Hush, you,” she scolded, in a voice that spoke of unquestionable authority. She wore a sort of veil with a nice brooch on it, so Pippin supposed she might be in charge here. “Lord Aragorn’s doing very important things right now and I’ll not have you disturbing him.”

Pippin’s heart jumped. “Where is he?” he asked.

The woman tsked and shook her head, making to continue along her original path. She held a bowl in her arms that Pippin was quite sure he did not want to see the inside of. Whatever it was sloshed unpleasantly when Pippin lurched after the women and grabbed a handful of her skirt to prevent her from leaving.

“The Steward has ordered me to fetch Aragorn! Show me where he is!” Pippin declared. He didn’t think it was a lie. Denethor was dead, so that made Boromir the Steward in his place, probably.

The woman gasped in surprise. “Lord Denethor lives?” she asked. “Wondrous news, we thought lord and son dead already.”

Pippin avoided the question about Denethor by standing up as straight as he could. “Lord Faramir needs medicine,” he said imperiously. “He needs Aragorn’s skill. Take me to Aragorn.”

With a quick hand gesture to follow and not another word, the woman took off walking at a brisk stride deeper into the crowded hall. Pippin had to run to keep up with her. After what seemed like a dozen maneuvers around clumps of people and cots, a figure clad all in black finally came into view.

“Strider!” Pippin cried with relief.

Aragon knelt at a young man’s bedside with a wet rag and bowl of water in his hands. He turned his face at once toward the sound of Pippin’s voice, a genuine smile gracing his lips as he did. Some of the panic that had been driving Pippin these last several hours faded away at the sight. If Aragorn was here, then surely things would get better now.

His relief faltered a bit when Pippin noticed that Aragorn was simply covered in blood- both red and black, and sweat, and grime that Pippin could not begin to identity. The Men gathered round him didn’t seem to mind Aragorn’s state, but then, most of them were splattered with blood as well, probably their own. Even Aragorn could not dispel the somber truth hanging in the air, that unimaginably many people had died today.

Faramir would join the dead soon if Pippin didn’t get a move on, so he marched past all those tall, bloodied Men to stand right at Aragorn’s side.

“Faramir’s dying,” he hissed, hoping he was quiet enough for none but Aragorn to hear. He didn’t especially want to deliver more bad news to the people in this room. “Boromir is with him, but he needs medicine, now.”

If Aragorn found this news distressing, he did not show it. He just nodded thoughtfully, and asked, “Can he walk?”

Pippin shook his head. Aragorn hummed an acknowledgment and rose to his feet. He handed the bowl and rag he’d been holding to another woman that Pippin hadn’t noticed before, murmuring something that sounded like instructions. He then spoke to the lady that had led Pippin, the one who seemed to be in charge.

“Ioreth,” he addressed her. “We have need of a stretcher.”

“It will be done,” she said, and turned on her heel to vanish back into the crowded hall.

Aragorn wiped his hands on his trousers to dry them. Pippin suspected he made them dirtier in the process. “Pippin,” Aragorn said. “Will you please lead me to Boromir and Faramir?”

“Yes, this way,” Pippin answered quickly. He was eager to be out of this terrifying place. He found it easier than before to navigate through the throng. He realized after a few moments of uninhibited movement that people were stepping aside to make way as soon as they saw Aragorn following him.

Had Aragorn already gotten around to being crowned while Pippin was busy? These people were certainly treating him like a king.

“Did you already become the King?” Pippin asked without thinking.

Aragorn chuckled dryly. “No, and I don’t think the lady healers would much care if I had. They care only that I know how to draw out the poison that covers many orcish blades, and that I’ve shared what I know.”

“Oh,” said Pippin, feeling queasy.

Finally, the door came into sight, and with a quick burst of speed, Pippin flung himself back into fresh air. Mostly fresh, anyway, permitting for some lingering smoke. The smell of blood and death that lingered in his nostrils seemed even more vile when contrasted against another, cleaner scent, and it made him gag. Aragorn placed a sympathetic hand between his shoulders.

“The battle to save the wounded is the hardest and the bloodiest,” he said gently. “There’s no shame in being shocked by it.”

Pippin couldn’t quite speak yet, so he bobbed his head in a jerky, shaking nod. He allowed himself two deep breaths before turning his attention back to the task at hand. Right. Faramir. Shot full of arrows and nearly burned to death, currently stashed in a mausoleum, actively perishing of fever. He had to bring Aragorn there, and then maybe he could sit down for a moment. He set off again at a jog.

Aragorn, being unfairly long-legged, could follow him with a brisk walk. Pippin was growing weary of these big people, he really was.

Back over the same cold marble stone he went, retracing his steps to the tombs. Two men carrying a stretcher had started following them at some point- Pippin hadn’t noticed exactly where they came from, but the stretcher they carried was already stained with red, so he suspected that they had been going back and forth from the House of Healing for a while already. Aragorn let there be silence between them for several yards, but began asking questions as soon as they crossed under a crumbling archway.

“What happened to Faramir to leave him needing medicine?”

“He was shot at least twice, I’m not sure when. Sometime yesterday.”

"Where has he been?”

“Well, he got shot when he was fighting in Osgiliath, and then the horse dragged him back, and that probably made it worse, actually, but then Denethor put him away someplace for a day or so and then brought him into the tombs and tried to burn him alive.”

Aragorn froze for a moment. “What?”

“Denethor lost his mind just before the battle started, he tried to burn Faramir alive on a pyre. And himself too, I think. He thought the world was ending.”

“Where is Denethor now?”

“He jumped off the wall.”

Aragorn took up walking again, now at a faster stride. “Boromir is with his brother now?”

"Yes,” Pippin confirmed, doing his best to keep up with Aragorn’s pace.

“Does he know what happened?”

That was a good question, actually. Had Pippin explained the situation at all? He couldn’t remember. He couldn’t remember most of today, to be honest- it was all a blur of screams and fire.

He remembered the blinding panic he’d felt when heavy footsteps had entered the tombs. He remembered clutching his sword with sweaty hands and bracing himself to get torn to shreds by uruk-hai, and then abandoning his sword to hurl himself at Boromir once he’d heard the man’s voice. What had Boromir said, though? Anything? Had Pippin said anything?

He remembered Boromir dropping heavily onto his knees. The look on his face had been awful. He looked sad and scared and sick all at once. Pippin had never been sure what the word anguish meant, but he was sure now.

“I don’t think so,” Pippin finally answered.

Aragorn muttered something to himself, a string of elvish words that Pippin had never heard before. It sounded like what Legolas said when he missed a shot, though, so Pippin could wager a guess at what it meant.

At last, they reached the door to the House of Stewards. Pippin darted through, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Aragorn was still following. Through the foyer, around the smoldering remains of the pyre, down the corridor on the right, and there they were. The lords of Gondor. Not quite as Pipping had left them.

Boromir had extracted Faramir from the alcove where Pippin had dragged him to lay his brother out in the open. The fine silk tunic Faramir had worn lay in oil-soaked shreds scattered about the floor, and the mail shirt he’d had on underneath was similarly cast aside, half-obscuring a puddle of vomit near the entry to the alcove. Pippin was sympathetic- being in this place made him want to retch, too.

Faramir lay on his side in his undershirt. The fabric had been white once, Pippin knew, but blood, oil and ash had colored it through. Boromir knelt at his back, holding him steady by the upper arm with one hand and gently tearing the cloth of the ruined shirt with the other. The cloth didn’t move the way it should when Boromir tugged it. It stuck stubbornly to Faramir’s scorched upper back and shoulder, like it had been glued there.

Pippin gasped in horror as the realization hit him. Boromir couldn’t get Faramir’s shirt off because it was stuck to his burnt skin, fused in place by the heat of the fire. Had his skin melted? Could skin melt? The thought alone sickened him.

Boromir must have heard Pippin gasp, because his head snapped up to fix the hobbit with a wild stare.

Pippin didn’t usually think of Boromir as frightening. Fearsome, of course, but not to his friends. Certainly never to Pippin.

He looked frightening now. His eyes were wide, and his pupils were tiny pinpoints. His lips were pulled back into an animalistic expression, somewhere between a grimace and a snarl, showing just a hint of teeth. His shoulders curled forward, hunching slightly over Faramir’s still form, and through his thin, damp shirt Pippin could see he was shaking with pent up energy.

When Pippin was younger, one of Farmer Maggot’s dogs had gone missing. They’d found the creature hiding under a shed, nursing a bleeding paw, growling and snapping at any hobbit that tried to approach. Boromir did not make a sound, but Pippin swore he could hear the same wounded dog’s growling all the same.

Pippin felt rather than heard Aragorn approaching from behind him, and it was a great relief when Boromir’s gaze flicked up off his face to fixate on Aragorn instead. With what seemed to be a tremendous effort, Boromir opened his mouth to speak.

“Where is Denethor?” he rasped, voice shaking.

Aragorn took a cautious step forward, moving in front of Pippin. He held his hands up, fingers splayed open, the way he did when trying to settle a spooked horse. “Boromir, my brother-” he began, voice soft and steady.

Boromir interrupted before he could take another step. “Tell me where my father is, Aragorn,” he croaked. “Tell me so I can find him and gut him.”

“He’s dead,” Pippin blurted. “He set himself on fire and then he went off the edge of the wall and died.”

Aragorn stiffened. Boromir’s jaw went slack. He heard gasps from the men carrying the stretcher behind him.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have spoken. Gandalf was always telling him something to that effect.

Boromir let out long, low groan and slumped in on himself, bowing his head so low his forehead grazed Faramir’s hair. He released the firm grip he’d been maintaining on his brother’s upper arm to grab fistfuls of his own hair instead.

Aragorn moved swiftly to kneel beside Boromir. He wrapped one arm around Boromir’s shoulders and pulled him into a lopsided embrace. Boromir went without protest, deflated and boneless against his king. Aragorn spoke to him, too softly for Pippin to hear, and coaxed him to shuffle backwards just a pace or two to create space at Faramir’s side. The two half-forgotten men with the stretcher between them seized their opportunity and swept in to gather Faramir up. Boromir twitched forward when they lifted his brother, but Aragorn held him back with a hand on his chest. With quick, synchronized steps, Faramir was taken out of the tombs.

Louder now, so Pippin could hear again, Aragorn spoke with real regret in his voice. “I must follow them. I promise I will give all the skill I have to make Lord Faramir well.”

“I’m coming,” Boromir stated.

Aragorn fixed him with a hard stare. “It will be ugly,” he warned. “I’ll have to cut the shirt off his back, and I expect much of his skin to come with it. If he wakes it will be to scream.”

“I know,” said Boromir.

“I would rather not find your blade shoved through my heart while I work.”

Boromir flushed. “I would not.”

Aragorn raised one eyebrow. “All the same, if you wish to follow, leave your sword at the door for my peace of mind.”

Boromir opened his mouth, but seemed to think better of it and simply bowed his head in assent. Aragorn hauled himself to his feet and offered Boromir a hand up, which Boromir accepted without hesitation.

“Can I help?” Pippin asked, surprising himself.

Aragorn eyed him up and down. One corner of his lips twitched upward. “Yes, Pippin, I think you can help us all very much by staying at Boromir’s side and keeping him calm. If you have any more news to deliver, however, perhaps you could share it beforewe enter the House of Healing?”

Pippin recognized the admonishment for what it was and ducked his head, chastened. On the other hand, now that he mentioned it-

“Gandalf’s staff is broken,” he announced.

Aragorn closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I see. Thank you, Pippin. Anything else?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Very well. If you think of something, take Boromir out into the hall and tell him.” Aragorn turned to Boromir and spoke sternly. “Boromir, if Pippin takes you out into the hall, I forbid you to pick up your sword until we have had a chance to speak.”

Boromir huffed out something very close to a laugh. “Wise council, my king.”

#@emilybeemartin #lotr fic #Boromir Lives AU

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camille-lachenille · 4 months

Text

A flickering flame

She looks at the babe in her arms, blissfully asleep and unaware of the world he just entered. This little boy who shouldn’t be, her miracle and her curse.

Drained, she leans back against the pillows as the midwife cleans the room. It’s a sad place, to bring a child to life in, this rickety little cabin in the woods. And yet, it is the only way to keep her secret, to keep her son safe.

“Do you have a name for him?” the midwife asks quietly. It is not the first time she asks, and not the first time silence is her only answer.

No, she doesn’t have a name for her son, because she did not mean to have a son. Because, by any mean, he should not even exist.

Yet, exist he does, and his warm weight against her breast chases some of the pain and melancholy away. She presses a light kiss to his soft dark hair. His eyes are blue, for now, and she wonders if they will change to her own brown or stay as blue as his sire’s. She considered calling him his father, even if just in her heart, but the wound is still too fresh and the word stings at this gaping absence. He left her, alone with this tiny, flickering life; he does not desserves any other title than sire of her son. And yet…

And yet this is not her son, she muses, not entirely, for the life in him is brighter and stronger than it ought to be. This babe a mere hours old already has a keen gaze, his large eyes reflecting the light. She wonders if they will reflect the stars, if she brings him outside.

She does not have foresight, for this is a gift of the Eldar, but she knows her time with her son is limited. That she has to secret him away and rip yet another piece of her heart if she wants him to live. He does not belong to the green forests of Ladros and the villages scattered there. He is not destined to the simple life of the men of this land.

With a heavy sigh, she carefully lays her son next to her on the bed and asks the midwife for the paper and ink she packed with her own supplies. The letter is short and to the point, just cryptic enough that anyone unaware of her identity can’t understand the message. There is precious little wax in the cabin, but she sacrifices a bit of her candle to seal the letter before handing it to the midwife.

“Give this to the closest courrier you can find,” she says, an order despite her tired voice. The midwife nods and tucks the letter in her bag. She won’t speak, she knows.

***

The answer comes swifter than she expected, in the form of a tall, cloaked figure entering the cabin at night. She almost screams in fear, reaching for the knife on the bedside, before recognising the face half hidden by the hood. The bright eyes shine in the dim light of the lone candle.

“You called for me?” the figure asks, his voice melodious and fair. If she did not know the identity of her visitor, she could have mistaken his voice for another, beloved one, just for the faintest moment. But he is not him. She will never see him again and she thinks ‘good riddance’ even as her heart bleeds.

Mutely, she signals to the visitor to sit on the side of the bed, and places her son in his arms. “Take him to safety, my Lord,” she says. “Tell whatever lies you want about his origins but keep him safe with his kin.”

“But you are his kin, my friend,” he replies calmly, even as he rocks the babe in his arms. And what a picture it would be, to see this great Lord playing nursemaid, if the situation wasn’t so painful.

She shakes her head. “He may share my blood but not my soul; I can see it in his eyes. He belongs with you. Please, take him and tell no one the truth!” and she hates how her voice shakes, how she is reduced to beg to have her son taken away from her. But she cannot keep him, she knew that from the very moment she felt this little life growing within her.

Her visitor sighs softly in defeat, and even this sound is music. “Very well, my nephew has a young daughter and his wife is still nursing. They will be happy to call him their son.” And his words sound like a promise.

A knot loosens in her chest at the knowledge her son will be well cared for. “Thank you, my friend,” she whispers quietly. “But go now, before dawn comes. There is a basket with supplies for the babe on the table.”

The visitor raises, towering over the bed she has spent the last few weeks in, close to her son, and secures the still sleeping babe in a sling against his heart with the uttermost care. Yes, her son will be safe in these hands.

He is about to leave, basket in hand, when he pauses by the door and turns to look at her. “You never told me his name.” His voice is serious and his gaze piercing.

She looks back at him, calm and sure of herself for the first time since he entered the cabin. “Artanáro,” she says with a tight little thing of a smile. “For his life is bright as a flame.”

Her friend smiles faintly as he looks back and forth between her and the babe. “Artanáro. Yes, it suits him.”

#tolkien #the silmarillion #athrabeth finrod ah andreth #gil galad #gil galad son of plothole #finrod #andreth saelind #implied aegnor x andreth #silm fic #tolkien fic #my writing

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thegnomelord · 5 months

Note

forgot to add on but i absolutely LOVE scorpions. under appreciated when they aren’t feared.

did you know that they dance, practically WALTZ as a mating ritual? i’d just love to have hunks like ghost in my arms when the rest are asleep as i guide him through the steps, humming a sweet little tune for a man who needs that sweet little thing in his life.

OMG yes I so just wanna be sweet with that man anon I love this idea!

CW:SFW, GN reader, Ghost, just dancing.

It's a quiet night, the crickets gently chirping to the warm night air, the rest of the lads having gone to sleep hours ago; But not Ghost, and not you, the only two souls still awake in the middle of the night.

You — because you're nocturnal, awake and energized when the sun sets. Simon — because the icy jaws of that damn coffin haunt him again, mocking him with what he's lost, his arms fizzling with shadows like the tip of the cigarette he's smoking on the roof. You had found him easily enough, not saying a word as you leaned against the railing and watched the stars, just. . . just letting him feel the existence of another person.

Simon doesn't say it, but he appreciates you being near him, gives him something to focus on other than the hollowness of his silent chest. He takes the final drag from the cigarette, snuffing it out beneath his boot. "Thanks." He says, voice rough like gravel.

You smile at him, the distant light of the lamps making the hard patches of exoskeleton glow a dim blue-green light. "No problem,". Ghost sees the way your tail slightly wiggles, your eyes setting him on edge. "Hey, dance with me?" You ask.

Ghost moves his head back as if he'd been slapped, blinking a few times to insure he heard you correct. "Whot?"

"You heard me," You shrug, straightening out as he does the same.

"Dance? With you?" He levels his gaze with you, his eyes turned completely black, not a hint of that warm brown you love so much. "May as well put a saddle on a cow."

"Oh fuck off," You snort, take a careful step as if you're facing another of your kin and you don't know if they see you as mate or as food. "C'mon, I'll lead, it's not hard." You say, placing one hand on his side, feeling the hard muscles beneath your palm.

Your heart beats just a little faster when he doesn't push you away, grunting a rough, "I'll step on yer toes." that you can't tell if it's a warning or a promise.

"Just don't lose your shoe, Cinderella." You grin back, your mandibles chittering happily as he lets you push him into position, one of his paw like hands on your shoulder, the other holding your own. Simon shivers at the contact, the obvious difference between your warm body and his corpse like temperature.

"Relax," You coo softly, talking him through the steps. He's a big mountain of muscle but in your arms he may as well be putty, clumsy as he tries to move along with the slow tempo you set. He tries to keep his attention on where his feet are, trying to grasp the moves despite how simple they are, irritation making the edges of his shape smoke with shadows at how he can't grasp it.

He steps on your toes more than a couple of times. "Told you so." He says the next time he does it by accident, but you just snort, pulling him closer so your chests are flush, a low chitter in your throat.

"I know, I know. But you're doing good." You hum, feeling your heat seep into his cold body. "Now stop looking at your feet and look at me."

Simon just grunts, but his eyes settle on you like you're the only thing that exists. You smile at him, squeeze his hand three times as a silent declaration of love, starting to hum a tune that's equal parts sweet hums and melodic clicks, soft and calming.

It takes a few minutes for Simon to squeeze your hand back three times, your tune ringing in his ears like a caress, a blanket for his mind. Slowly you can see the warm brown return to his eyes, the darkness crawling back to that grave without him.

"Gonna teach me how to tap-dance next?" He asks absentmindedly, his body almost warm enough as your waltz turns into mindless swaying.

"I'd prefer you learn to twerk with the ass you have." Your mandibles click as you laugh lowly, grinning when it earns you a soft chuckle so you lean over to kiss him gently.

His skin tingles from your touch, like coming back from a cold winter to warm himself by the fire. He doesn't need to breathe but his chest still moves, stuttering as if lost for breath before taking in your scent as he holds you close. His heart's grown cobwebs over the years, yet being chest to chest with you, feeling the strong beat of your heart, almost fools him into thinking his own still functions.

His mind drift, losing focus of every inch of his body and just slowly swaying with you under the stars, his head tipping to rest on you. He lets you move the two of you however you want; So long as you don't pull away, so long as your warmth spreads trough him, so long as he can feel your heart and the rumble of your chest and the soft tune you hum just for him.

He almost feels alive again.

It's nice.

#cod mw2 #gnome correspondence #x reader #trinkets from the hoard #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x male reader #simon ghost riley x reader #male reader #top male reader #gn reader #top gn reader #simon riley x reader #simon ghost x reader #cod modern warfare #cod x reader #fluff #monster 141 au #monster cod au

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fairy-verse · 1 year

Text

The Elegant Beauty of Autumn

“And before you were the firstborn fairy of autumn in all her grace and wisdom, for even among her own kin, it was her who grew to learn of her powers first, and her the others turned to in need for guidance and comfort. It was she who lost her original purity, and yet regained it as the land took pity upon her broken soul.

Oh, how her loveliness conquered the corruption overflowing her, for not even the strength of her own curse could hide away what the green hands had spent so long sculpting to perfection.”

Artwork created by @aoi-kanna

Fairy Nightmare designed by @lunnar-chan

Nightmare by jokublog

#aufairyverse #utmv #fairy!nightmare #nightmare sans #aoi-kanna #Thank you for making this absolutely stunning illustration of our beloved fairy Nightmare Kanna #you have all of my love <3 #and yes Nightmare is genderfluid in this au #all of the firstborn are

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its-actually-minicika · 1 year

Text

Dragon Sickness

Part 2;

Pairing: Bookcanon!Aemond x Strong!Niece!Reader;

Warnings: No usage of Y/N, bookcanon Greens, potential spoilers for Fire&Blood (but not really), dubious consent, allusions to sex, to male masturbation and oral from Aemond (female receiving - he just wants to tickle your pickle with his fingers and mouth but yk), slight angst, minor and major character death, vague descriptions of death by asphyxiation;

For the sake of keeping characters as close to canon as I can, the eye that Aemond lost was his right, not his left!

Word Count: 7k+;

Author's Note: Repost because yeah...

Reblogs would be really appreciated, since I believe I was shadowbanned :") ♡

Sorry for taking so long with getting this next part out ♡ I wanted to make sure it's perfect (or as close to perfect as I can get it), because the last thing I desire is to post something I'm not proud of/I wouldn't personally read :")

This gif was made by the love of my life and the moon to my sun - @aemondx here on Tumbr ♡ if you aren't already following her, definitely follow her right now now. I'll wait. The story will wait. She is absolutely amazing, and the sweetest person ever.

I also dedicate this chapter to my literal soulmate @diamantesprincess , who beta-read this whole shit-storm for me, and supported my insane antics ♡

Young girls dream about their wedding day. And women prepare themselves for the humiliation bestowed upon them by the night.

Her cheeks flushed with the expectancy that was thrown before her – the avid sting that prickled her skin, flooded her veins and broke her soul. She could feel her smooth-green gown stick to her contorted form. The horrid fires of lashing out already licking at the corners of her downturned mouth.

The Velaryon thus swallowed thickly, whilst flickering her eyes by nigh to each corner of the squaring table. She needn’t glance into the silver plating to ensure what she had known, simply owed to the salacious heat that downed her heart in poisoned terror. How vexing it had been for her to hear the former Queen about – darting to her wedding night, hinting at her lack of purity. How terribly uncertain she’d felt, when Aemond all but abandoned her on that rueful and exerting night.

She’d searched feverishly for his company, trying to converse with him, to allude him to take interest, to inspire him to like her. But her attempts were answered with indifference, with clumsy lines of conversations, which never led her far in musings.

“– Even so, I trust that you understand your duty.”

She couldn’t have been quiet for long. For she felt how her mouth lulled opened, if only to blurt out a passive admission to Alicent’s extended words. Still she felt the decades pass, turning her old, and mean, and cold, as an ample flood of pain engulfed her sparring and incisive heart. The Queen Dowager sighed, either by lack of blitheness or by wry exhaustion, and merely shook her head at the sight of the conflicted bastard.

She supposed she should be grateful – for a private bedding brought across no prying eyes upon her form, upon her skin and womanhood; upon the shame she would soon feel, to spread her legs for the Qybor who slayed her kin. But a private bedding meant she'd have to be alone with him. A private bedding was unsafe, for it meant her maiden blood wouldn't have to be the one staining their rivetting sheets. And Aemond had killed men before, his flesh and blood, innocent spawn – so was there anything that would ensure he wouldn't cut her very throat?

A silent tear obscured her view, and one of Helaena’s beetles boldly flew nearby her plate.

Satin green and oryx white, silky blue and striking violet.

To be born a female was a wright cursed account.

Upon her birth, she belonged to her father. And when he died, she fitted Daemon. She suited to her brother, Jace, to the whims of the New Seven, and very soon to those of Aemond.

To be born a female stripped one of all crass autonomy.

When she was young, her Septa was the one to tell her the story of her cursed birth – how she was good and quaint and quiet, how she had not ensued hard labour. How her mother cried when she saw her small and portly face. And how she sighed with great relief at the notion of her naked sex.

Benevolence was to be found within the weakness of a poor female.

‘The girls are easier than the boys,’ The woman nodded as she spoke, ‘They're less rowdy and quick to anger. Easier to marry, too.’

To be born a female meant a deconstructive marriage. Simply something that must happen, not a matter of debate.

To be born a female meant fantasizing about that marriage. Salaciously filling your head with hopeful dreams of charming knights, or handsome princes and comely lords.

To be born a female was underestimated work. Work put up by sons and fathers, whose sole purpose of providing to the girl was to find her a well-suited husband.

A future to be well decided, set in stone and judged quite harshly – all in valour of a missing cock, and a lack of tiny stones.

When Rhaenyra married Daemon, she was happy for her loving mother.

‘I want to be just as beautiful on my wedding day!’ Her voice chirped through the halls of Dragonstone, whilst rotating about the room, chased by an ongoing Jace, ‘We’ll have a pigeon cake the size of a young hatchling, and a venue bigger than that made of the smallfolk of King’s Landing!’

‘Maybe one that smells better, though,’ Jace snickered inside her ear, earning a brisk tickle from his younger sister, ‘But you’re right, it’s better to stay realistic!’

A loud fit of giggles erupted from the waiting children. Rhaenyra only glanced at Daemon, who in turn shook his head, bemused by her swallowing visions.

‘Whatever prompts you to even believe your mother and I will allow such a thing?’ The Rogue Prince graced her with a trumping smirk, as the girl’s face fell in a childish and pathetic slouch.

‘I’ll have to get married one day!’ She rebutted her stepfather, ‘With a strong knight in shining armour, or a chivalrous Lord from an important House!’

‘There will be yet some time before that happens, sweet girl.’ Rhaenyra grinned at her daughter’s eagerness, pushing down the bittersweet feeling that gnawed beneath her bludgeon gown. She placed her hand atop her cheek and gingerly grazed the youth’s plumpness with a soft, motherly touch. ‘A couple of years from now on, at best!’ She hummed into her tender caress and opened her mouth to speak again, but Jacaerys’ mellow voice cut the base of her dream short.

‘I would be very careful with what I want,’ He mimicked a serious and grieving tone, ‘So far you could only marry Tyland Lannister or Kermit Tully!’

Her eyes widened to the size of two round plates, and the young Velaryon merely scrunched her nose up in dissatisfaction. ‘Kermit wouldn’t be that bad…’ She tried to reason with herself, ‘And his sister, Celia, is very nice! We would get along quite well.’

‘Of course, of course –’ Jace nodded in understanding, before throwing Luke a mischievous look, ‘Or you could always marry Aemond – he’d be quite a match, you know!”

Silence ensued for a while, until all three children broke down in their hysteric fits of laughter.

‘Oh, Gods be good…!’ She murmured lowly, shock and aversion evident on her once impatient face.

She’d found herself someone who loved her, someone whom she could amply trust. A man that’d be reliant for her, in her times of greatest fraught.

When the War of Ravens first ensued, it was he and her small brothers who went to deliver envoys. When Luke died, it was he who mended and arranged the curdling scheme of Blood and Cheese. And when Aemond took a hold of Harrenhal, cruelly burning at their allies’ lands… it was he who gave his life in an attempt to free their folk.

“Gods be good…!” Her voice strained through the musings of her handmaiden, so preoccupied with lacing up her constricting and excessive corset. “Could you go in any tighter?” Her snapping question deterred the young girl to remove her calloused hands from the fine silks that engulfed her. All of the other women who tended to her hair and eyes took a backwards convoluted step and, as if whipped across the face and wholly burnt by dragon fire, they froze up in minute poses – all of them gripping their hands, and looking down in taught submission.

Breathless and submerged in bashness, her reddened lips pressed to a line, as her gaze followed their in suit, falling on the stone below her.

“I’m sorry,” She began with a taut pitch, while expelling one of her brisk and tantalising breaths, “I didn’t mean to shout at you. That was below any level of discretion.”

"W-Would you like us to continue, Your Grace?" One of the older-looking wenches dared to ask the fair Velaryon.

No, she ached to bring herself to say, I'd stay like this, still half-undressed. Unpresentable for him to take.

"Of course," Her meek voice echoed in reply, "You must make haste to get me ready. The wedding is in but an hour."

Tens of dozen of pairs of hands flooded her every sensation with their ceaseless and insistent prodding. The softest of the cluster played with the slicked ends of her charcoal hair, adorning it with a myriad of pins and jewels, grazing her scalp with heavy and relenting hairstyles. Now there was prudence in her tying corset – as if she were a rabid beast who’d sink her claws into their necks, if only she’d feel indisposed by their way of picked-up working.

For the first time since her ladies swarmed into her darkened chamber, the girl’s leer settled on the gown before her. She took in a quick breath through the margins of her teeth, whilst feeling her stomach wail and churn with an unkept overzeal.

Her dress was of a deep set black, which seemed more fitting for a funeral than for a joyous feast precarred soon after by a most imposing wedding. Yet upon a closer look, the brims which laced its puffy bottoms smiled to her in rueful red.

Surprise etched upon her face, and the coy women must have noticed, for they all stopped forthwith again. She brought a hand to the light fabric, and grazed it slowly with her fingers.

She almost hummed in chasmal worry, before fixating her eyes away.

“Apologies, but who told you to bring this dress?” Her voice reverberated with a faint but levelled question, and a retort came back her way.

“The Prince Aemond, Your Grace,” What she assumed was a slight seamstress replied for the whole gathering, “He requested that his vest should also bear your House’s symbols.”

Surprise merged with upheld amusement, until her judgement simmered down to a least lenient of views – since the Blacks were there no more, what point was there for an exorbant gown with any shades of ghastly Green?

No matter his good-hearted message, Aemond hadn’t done it for her. Just like Alicent hadn’t proposed a marriage with her son for her clemented and invested sake.

Her family was dead. All she knew had gone with them – swallowed wholly by the sea, or by Sunfyre, by Vhagar.

There was no more point for her to wear his sickly green. There was no reason for the usurpers to display their endless rows of utter power.

“I see,” Her vocal cords strained with her roughened and perturbed reply, “It’s very beautiful,” She whispered not a heartbeat later, as she turned to the appraised seamstress, “Thank you. You must have worked very hard.”

As everyone resumed their tasks, a trailing truth pierced through her heart – she now had no family left to lead her to the Greater Sept.

His collar fell too tight on him.

He noticed late, as she approached him.

He swallowed thickly once before her, as his burnt brother gripped her hand.

Her softened smile lit up her face, though the disgust within her eyes unveiled her sickly mild facade. A rattled thought surged through his chest, mending with akin distraught. He knew full well she didn’t love him, but at the least, he’d have to try. The subtlety of her rejection stabbed right through his nervous gut, but still the Prince looked down upon her, gracing her with a half-smile.

The ease with which she then returned it relieved the throbbing underneath his leather patch, and as she mouthed him her timid greeting, the man bowed deeply in reply.

“You may now cloak the bride, and bring her under your protection.” The Septon’s voice instructed deeply, snapping both out of their trance.

His calloused fingers unclasped the belts from his broad and heaving shoulders – the cape fell heavily into his hands, yet Aemond still approached his Lady, and placed the Targaryen embroidered mantle atop her tense and fragile shoulders.

Brown eyes clashed with an unnerving lilac – both bride and groom sucked in a breath, and yet refused to look away.

The silence of the Sept was deadly, and as Aemond closed his eye, allowing his relentless thoughts to slip into a hurried prayer, he swore that every witness to their union would hear the keen beats of his heart.

The High Septon clasped his wrinkled hands together, drawing a faint and muffled noise which reverberated through the clearing – signalling to the lost children to place their hands into the other’s.

His Lady was the first to reach him. Shyly she grazed his palm with the smooth padding of her index finger, flattering an anxious probe which distilled his wilted heart, and brought heat into his cheeks.

Her small diversion urged him to press back into her – with a doubting and reserved caress made with his thicker middle finger.

The man bit into his inner cheek, as he aligned his palm to hers, and waited patiently for the Septon to bind their hands with the white linen.

“In sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls, binding them as one, for eternity.”

Her thumb gently caressed his own in an attempt to soothe his breaths. Though her smile had broadened yet, her eyebrows twisted to a brazen furrow. The old man hummed with unturned patience, and he nodded at their leisured and unhurried movements.

“Look upon each other and say the words.”

His chest tightened with unruly pride, as her cheeks flushed with a deep colour, which grew to match the lacings of her fitted cobbler – both took a moment to compose themselves, before Aemond’s voice filled the room with the silk-smooth baritone of his levelled and protruding tone.

“Father, Smith, Warrior,” His lone orb swirled with both uncertainty and desire, as her own voice ushered him suit, “Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger.”

Her chest heaved with a weighty exhale, and her pushed bosom shifted in her dainty dress. Abashed by his sexual intrusion, Aemond focused his left eye on the shape of her inviting lips.

Though they said the words in unison, only her better half beset his ears, “I am his, and he is mine.”

“From this day, until the end of my days,” The Targaryen hushed in return.

Thousand of cheers erupted in the Great Sept, and Aegon even whistled lowly, but nought of the crowd’s boastful words engrained themselves into his mind.

“With this kiss, I pledge my love.”

His mouth pressed hungrily against her own, with a force and desperation that dispersed her every hope for a chaste, intimate peck. The shape of his lips moulded against her with an ease that left her wanting – wanting for it to end, for him to stop, for him to keep going.

His scent invaded her diluted senses, and flashes of her brothers’ faces danced across her hazy view. And just as Aemond was about to deepen and take his uncouth ministrations further, the greying Septon interjected with a subtle but alluding cough.

Despite the fact that he refused to speak to her since the incursive night of their engagement, the palpable need and excitement that seemingly had gathered in him burst for all high lords and petty maidens to see. Coveting whispers reached the girl’s reddened ears – each muttered truth more beguiling than the last.

‘A Kinslayer and a bastard… what an ill match for the grandeur of the Great Sept.’

With her mouth slightly agape and her breath still somewhat staggered, the former Velaryon avoided his stare, with an adamant and willful steer.

Her own eyes began to water. And the aching sadness that curled into her vrying soul muted out any reminder of the crowd’s elated boasts.

What had happened was now irreversible; and the Greens would host a banquet in honour of the newlyweds. Goblets would drown her violent sorrows, food would fill them like fattened-up pigs for cutting.

Aemond would breach her with his cock if he felt disposed to do it. Then he might smother her face, or cut her throat with the same dagger that he used on her late brother.

For why else would he deny a prim and proper bedding ceremony?

Though her eyes still looked at him, and a smile still spurred her lips, the girl swallowed down a prayer.

Perhaps he had grown to like her. She’d been good to him in those past weeks.

The High Septon yelled over the cheering crowd, cutting down each thought that breached through her weary and misguided mind.

“Let it be known that they are now one heart, one flesh, one soul. Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder!”

Then cursed be she, in the light of the Seven.

The dizzying nature of the fifth waltz of the night left everyone in the Great Hall drained and panting – fully taken by the mistifying anticipation caused by the encapsulating ardour of Prince Aemond’s wedding reception. Roaring applauses erupted from the few women seated at the high tables – Aegon’s eyes followed the wanton skirts of the lowborn maidens, and even Helaena disregarded her fattened caterpillar to grace the crowd with her absent-minded stare.

At the centre of the King’s table stood the Court’s styled “star-crossed lovers”, each seemingly preoccupied with avoiding any further dancing at any and all occuring costs.

The girl’s fingers traced over the rim of the wine goblet, glancing from time to time at her newly acquired husband, who seemed hammered in his seat and not at all wanting for chatter. The dim lighting of the candled room sprawled its shadows all across his tired features, which loomed all the more sharp and perusing with each notion of a passing hour. His lack of joyful disposition was clear and evident for all to see – for even his contented mother had chastised him under her breath.

Alas, any notion of stability had at large been long repressed, and not even her able chirping managed to pry at her son’s attention.

As her eyes trailed lower yet, over the arch of his broad chest, and the poignant veins of his clenched fist, the Targaryen gasped at the obvious arousal restrained in his black leather pants. Her face turned promptly to the side, before anyone’s conviction should follow her indiscreet trail.

Another smile graced her red lips, as a very drunkened Lord tripped across her narrow view. He approached her with bemusing boldness, borne out of believed renown, and introduced himself as Quince Webber: a lower lord within the Reach, ‘right across the Arbour seat’. His puffy face was basked in red, an indication of his mind’s plied state – and as he blabbered on his woven lapses on what wedded life should be, the Lady bowed her head with grace, thus managing to stop his spiel.

He slurred over his predicted wordings in a heavy and relentless breath, but still managed to congratulate the twain for their well-thought-out alliance.

“Thank you, my Lord, I am indeed very lucky.” Her cheeks hurt from all the smiling, but still she forced herself to laugh, “Aemond has been very kind to me.” She turned to face his stare, abashed, and allowed her hand to touch him. The charcoal leather of his broidered vest burnt her at the faintest touch, and the girl had to stifle a gasp at the arid heat which charred her palm.

“He has, he has!” The lord of Coldmoat agreed well-pleased. A wolfish grin spread across his droopy face, pulling both his plump cheeks higher. An impish laugh beleft his lips, as he took a swing of liquor from a nearby empty glass.

The corner of her smiling eye darted back to that of Aemond, who merely glanced through the drunk lord with a horriedly vexated look.

“Although,” He teased them with a slurred hic, “I can’t say he’ll be nice to you when the bedding ceremony will ensue!”

Wholeheartedly amused at his inappropriate and shrivelled joke, the old man began to laugh, much to Aemond’s disarray.

His fists came into contact with the sprawled-out wooden table, shaking every cutlery which remained scattered across it. The lively whispering of the Great Hall ceased with his vicious display, and even his contented brother jerked his shoulders in dismay.

“Aemond,” Alicent spat out his name, as her face turned cold and wary. “Perhaps it’s time you two retire.”

A restless snarl etched from his throat, and he looked ready to pounce – were it not for the soft hand that touched him, and the sanity utter of her voice, which managed to somewhat reground him, and contort poor Webber’s choice.

But as cruel fate would weave and have it, another end would spend their night.

“Aemond,” His Lady tried to coax him in, “Let’s listen to your mother… please?” Her fevered eyes adamantly searched for his, until a strange yearning and passion registered on his reluctant face. His hand gripped hers in pure devotion, and his large thumb ran over her flaring knuckles, as she'd done so many times before for him.

The lord’s lost face painted over with uncouth excitement, and he turned his back around, almost hitting Daeron’s face.

“It’s time for the bedding ceremony!” He announced the crowd quite loudly, and tens of voices of plastered men rose with every passing second. Some of them swarmed close to the couple, some tried to pick the girl from her leering resting place. Most barely launched up their feet, struggling to uphold their balance.

“There will be no bedding ceremony tonight.” Aemond’s dark and frigid voice thundered through the cluttered hall. Women sighed in great relief, while the men and boys began to bicker.

“It’s tradition!”

“I’ve been told specifically that it would take place.”

“Such stupidity!”

“I bet Renly six gold dragons that –”

“The King long announced there would be none.” Otto’s otherwise calm voice resounded with a harshened tone.

“Has he now?” A slurring lord took three wide steps in the direction of the pressured lady. Her whole face morphed into preleened discomfort, as she placed both her hands upfront. “Oh, don’t you even think about it…!” She warned him with a throaty hiss, but before his hand could graze her, Aemond grabbed his arching fists.

When his nervous gaze settled on his face, he smiled.

The lord clawed at his darkened neck, for Aemond forced him in a kneeling stance, and wrapped his hands around his throat. The timber in his chilling voice rained affront with his obduring malice, sending a shiver down the bent spines of the mere on-watchers, “You wish to gaze upon my wife tonight, Lord Ashford?” The callous ends of his slim digits dug into his purple skin, “You want to see her naked form, and compare her dripping sex to your own wife’s loosened cunny?”

The older man opened his mouth – but the pressure on his wielded neck impedimented his speaking manner and, much like a fish that’d been hoisted out of water, he could barely form a word.

“N…No-n-no – I’m s-s-”

“You’re sorry?” His eyebrows rose in feigned surprise. His wails of anguish pierced his heart – and yet his grip didn't uncurl. “You’re sorry now, are you?”

“Aemond, that is enough!” Alicent’s chastising shouts failed to break his unsound trance. Among the mistifying flock of ladies, the Velaryon stood high, but frozen. Her parlous specks of deep brown eyes bore into the shocking scene, as her own transfigured hand prodded at her covered neck.

"You've heard, perhaps, what happened with little Luke Strong, the bastard.” Her own eyes widened at his cruel retorts, and her deft fist grabbed at her skirts. Despite it being aimed to scare the stupid and unbashful lord, Aemond’s dicey did nought else but expose her to the whole crowd whole.

The heated blade of loss and ire impaled her through her aching chest, cutting both her breath and temper and deterring her to simply shake.

“– I'll gouge your eyes out and present them as a wedding gift to my wife."

Little Luke. Jace. Rhaenyra. Daemon.

Joff. Rhaenys. Corlys. Allyn.

Baela. Rhaena. Viserys. Aegon.

“I-I’m b– begging you–”

Little Luke. Jace. Rhaenyra. Daemon –

“Then beg. Beg my wife for her forgiveness.”

Joff. Rhaenys. Corlys. Allyn –

“My L– My Lady, p-please…!”

Baela. Rhaena. Viserys. Aegon.

Mother, mother, mother, mother –

“Please, Aemond, stop! Just stop!” Her own voice screeched into the balling clearing, as the sound of breaking bones and the smell of copper blood menged right through her very veins. “Stop. It’s enough. It’s alright. I’m alright. Please–”

Her panicked breathing flooded her ears. Her lack of presence drowned her in.

Her husband threw her an affrighted look, as he instantly let go of the man’s entwisted neck.

He crawled closer to his own wife’s feet. His piqued-up breathing staggered for a brief momentum.

For two or three seconds they waited.

And then quietness enwrapped the Realm.

Her honeyed voice had reached his ears.

"We're man and wife now, you and I.” She began with a faint murmur, and a small smile on her lips, “We must start talking to each other. Eventually, I mean."

She spoke to him in utter earnest, despite her voice’s nervous edge.

Alas he must not have replied to her, for her body shifted in her narrow seat, ducking away from him in recluded and uptight tension. “I’d like there to be no secrets between us – I’d like for us to tell each other whatever happens to be on our mind.”

The alluring scent of her dark hair, the creamy skin of her bare shoulders…

His breathing turned close to erratic, as he morphed his hands to fists. But two waltzes he had danced with her, before he felt his breeches tighten, bringing forth his quaint undoing.

He would have stayed in bitter silence, focused on the passing hours – were it not for the unlucky words that the brittle lord had uttered.

Oh, and how she looked into his eye; full of shock and brittle terror.

She must have been scared of him. For she was shaking like a leaf.

The walk to their marital chamber loomed with ever-pressing silence.

If only he could read her thoughts – then he might just mend his error.

“I rather liked the pigeon pie.” Her voice came out as weak and gruff, “Though it was far too big for those at present.”

When his answer wouldn’t beckon, the Lady turned and closed her eyes. She snapped her head in his direction, faltering her present smile. “I think that what you did was very chivalrous and brave, my Prince.”

The corner of his left eye widened, as her words registered in. The margins of her flimsy skirts kissed the ground atop her form – the swish and flicker of the candles remained the only source of noise.

The corners of his mouth bent slightly, at her ludicrous but fair assertion. Whether he had meant to thank her, or kiss her on that very spot, the Prince failed to puzzle out. Though his step halted in place, and his face turned briskly to her.

“Aemond,” He sighed, reluctant, whilst awaiting for her change of heart, “You said it yourself, we’re man and wife. You should start calling me Aemond.”

Her daring eyes looked up right through him, dissolving to a kindred stare. “Then you should also use my name… Aemond.” She uttered with a playful tone, testing his name upon her lips. “Though I… much prefer it when you call me ‘wife’.”

His reply was fast, forthright, “I’ll call you whatever you wish.”

“Then…” She began with a weak mutter, allowing her hair to hide her face, “No, forgive me, never mind.”

“Tell me,” He commanded with grave urgency.

Tell me of anything and I will make it yours.

“Mayhaps,” His Lady paused a while again, “You’d agree to call me your ‘dear wife’?”

His cock twitched inside his pants. The blood that pigmented his face descended lower in its lax pursuit.

All that you need do is ask.

“Anything you want,” His voice rumbled in a breathless timber before he could stop himself, “Dear wife.”

She must have thanked him with a smile again. All she did those days was smile.

She smiled when that low lord approached her. She smiled at her engagement feast. She smiled when Aemond took her dancing.

“I trust,” Alicent had swallowed deeply, “That your mother already taught you what’ll occur after the wedding.”

Better said during the bedding. When she’d be forced to spread her legs for the one man who’d damned them all.

She smiled when Aegon named her bastard. She smiled at the mention of her sweet dead brother.

She hummed as she touched her fingers, rotating her golden rings.

“What of Aly Blackwood?” Her eyes pried at her heavy conscience, “You said that if I marry Aemond, you’d think of a way to release her and make peace with Benjicot’s House.”

–

Her trail of thought was pulled before her, like a feeble dream which she won't reach.

The handle of a leaden door was yanked, pulsing the quaint hall with clatter, and basking her with a warm light.

“We’re here.”

Though wailing dread flooded her senses, her voice came out in slight bemusement.

“It isn’t furnished.”

“I wanted you to have a say.” The depthness of his mellow tune carried out his crass remark, “I didn’t know how many dresses you’d have.”

The notion of her moving in, of sleeping side by side with him, of sharing a bed and a mattress and a bath with him – it hadn’t failed to make her snort.

Hidden from his plane of sight, she allowed a distant scowl to break in her pretty features.

She wanted to scream and shout. To lash out in grave disconcern the moment his revolting hands came in contact with her lower back, urging her to step inside. She wanted to laugh at him – at the sight of his scarred face, his forceful probe and lack of honour.

“You’re so thoughtful, Aemond. Thank you.”

A grave unease surged in her gut. Pure fright prickled at the apex of her thighs. Her once loose dress seemed to constrict her form from running – from hitting him over the head and at last make her escape.

A pained sigh escaped his lips – the One-Eyed Prince who killed her family.

The Kinslayer. The Trident’s Terror. The Prince Protector of the Realm.

Almost as if he could sense her worry, the lithe Targaryen beckoned her in.

There’d been a moment when he only looked at her, bearing holes into her face and the front lobe of her skull, as his thick brows twisted slightly, jarring in misguided silence. Her jaw clenched involuntarily, as his face hithered in closer. She closed her eyes for two, three seconds, before she opened them again.

The lack of ease with which he gawped at her would have dearly made her laugh. The great and feared Aemond Targaryen, so incursed, taken aback.

He exhaled deeply in connived frustration, and simply took a few steps back. A rumbled hum of welting havoc trailed behind his high-arched lips, and a simple look of ardour was engraved on his sharp face.

The hands which had been snaked around her let her go within an instant, and as a curse sprung from his throat, the man found refuge and retreat towards the blazing fireplace. The girl followed his lenient steps, which faltered near the goatskin armchair.

His hands moved in accord with stress. Stiffly he had poured himself a hefty glass of liquid courage – swallowing it down with haste, and indifference towards the spectacle that he made with his demeanour.

His hands were shaking. His gulps of dark and bitter wine accentuated with every guise of stolen looks he dared to throw and hatch her way. At one point through his fretful jitter, the Prince snapped with a scorned hiss.

"Do you reckon you need help with your black dress, my dearest wife?” The rattled edge within his voice echoed through the room's long walls – his tone was mystified by pain, by torturous need, and want, and lust.

"N-No, my love, that I do not." She tried with shear to reach her lacings, as her mouth quirked with a smile. The desolation in her orbs spun the man to heave a sigh – his wobbled hand to reach his collar, and pull at it with forced renown.

Multitudes of scattered feelings reveled on her softened face – pain and fear, disgust and anger, lack of confidence and broad distress.

Inch by inch she thus revealed patches of her creamy skin. Feeling all her fingers stiffen with perturbed stilling discomfort, shame and angst and staid mistrust.

Although her corset was now loosened, the source of air within her lungs remained scarce and all the same.

She maintained his carnal stare, watching how his one eye darkened, turning to an opaque black. His lips pressed into a line, his furrowed brows deepened his stare – he gulped another hoist of wine and swallowed thickly at her chaffing stare. His adam's apple bobbed up and down in repressed bewilderment and apt surrender. His weary mind surged with a vast contrast of thoughts, each one more torturous and sparse than the mentioned fleeting latter.

He felt utterly inadequate.

He'd touched and fucked women before – handmaidens that caught his eye, wenches that offered their heat, servant girls who lured him in.

But none had managed to prepare him for the unrelieved pressure of her. Of the one woman he loved, of the one he wanted most.

She'd been kind to him when they were children – and remained polite throughout when he dared to rain his anger on his ludicrous half-sister.

He regretted every hostile instance where he hurt her with his words. And every bite full of prone venom, that he threw her brothers' way.

He regretted how he acted, when he killed the raucous lord. How he taunted him with perverse pleasure, how he named Luke's shocking perish right across from his sweet wife – knowing somewhere all too well that she'd take offence to it.

His face felt numb, his limbs felt heavy. He wanted to denude her slowly, to prode at the extended nature of her smooth and nuanced skin. To devote himself to her fair pleasure, to worship the slickness of her womanhood with a reverence and love perturbed.

He longed to lay his masculinity at the altar of her maidenhood, get on his knees and devout his being to making her peak with him – on his tongue, on his slim fingers, on his chin, or on his face.

He’d read the ways to get a cunt wet – it would take no less good skill and incredible amounts of patience; but for her, he’d gladly wait, and gently stretch her virgin hole, with the aid of his firm touch and the pulsing of his deepened voice.

He closed his eye in a small prayer, as he begged his Gods for guidance – to be able to bring her to the heightened cliffs of sinful rapture, to be able to prove himself as a man fit for her needs.

To make her love him in return, perhaps, and make her see his side of things.

As he remained hammered in place, trying his hardest to regain control over his trembled conscious and his indulgent thoughts, the man failed to notice how his Lady made impressive progress into her methodical and empty musings.

Her head hung low as she undid the lacings of her fitted garment. Her eyes were cast in shadowed doubt and in utter lack of certainty – her breathing came as fast and laboured, and her hands with-held a tremor with every new poignant display of another patch of skin.

Unbeknownst even to her, hot tears of merciless aversion rolled off her rosy cheeks, landing on her petticoat and the cold stone ground below them.

The Prince sucked a jarring breath, as she turned to face the bed with a heartbreaking and crushed compliance. Her softened eyes peered at his form, and a forceful smile unfurled along the corners of her swollen lips.

His expression must have tightened, and his form recoil in slightly – for her hazy eyes enwrapped him, and her shapely brow rose up.

“Aemond…?” She tried to lace her voice with sweetness, “Do you–” The latter words died on her lips, and she remained with her mouth parted, until her thoughts surged loudly clear.

“Should I… d-do you want me to sit in any way?”

The hoarseness in her tender voice made the man pale in disgrace.

“You’re scared of me.” He long admitted, with a rough and neutral tone.

Aemond’s feet carried him slowly, towards the place in which she stood. When his hand came to rest over her wet cheek, she stiffened up and almost winced.

“Why are you so afraid of me?” The desperation in his utter broke the silence of their spacious room, “I would never hurt you. I would sooner die than see you in pain.”

Realisation settled in, and her lost face morphed with awareness. She brought her palm smooth on his own, and searched despairingly to entwine their hands together. When she opened her mouth to speak, she blinked away her forming tears.

“No, my P– Aemond. I could never be afraid of you.”

“Yet here you stand,” He murmured weakly, “Half-naked before me, and shaking.”

“The chamber just feels very cold.” His wife hung onto the excuse. “I’m sorry, I didn’t – I swear to you that I do want this –”

“I will not bed you.” He hummed as he wiped off her tears – a soft and feeble grazing led about by the callous ends of his smooth pads.

Her face breached forward with mistrust, as her weary mouth lulled open, “W-What? No, Aemond, believe me, I–”

“I will not bed you,” The Prince repeated to her gently, “Not until you ask me to.”

A disgruntled and affronted sigh left the high arch of his lips, yet an understanding look rained across his lustful stare. The one hand which hung loosely by his side trailed a slow path to her jolting shoulder. He swallowed thickly before speaking, pushing down his burning desire.

"Ziry iksos ao qilōni lurksas issa kesīr." The meek admission in High Valyrian made her relax into his touch, "Nyke jāhor daor gaomagon mirros bona mazverdagon ao zūgagon."

The Prince staggered with a shaky breath, whilst looking her into the eye. "Skoro syt kostagon ao ūndegon bona?"

Although she tried so hard to speak, not a word etched from her throat. She nodded in undisplayed wonder, and gripped her husband by the shirt.

He took her balling fists in his, and kissed atop the even skin.

Thoughts strengthened with affirmed abhorrence steered clear through her befuddled mind – there may be hope to fix the error that she so tactlessly set off that night.

And yet before she could place Aemond’s hands down the shape of her small back, the Prince grabbed his sharpened knife, and merely nicked his open palm.

Droplets of deep-crimson liquid seeped into the whitened sheets, and the girl remained upright and frozen, as she watched him clean his blade and rummage through his modest cupboard for a piece of airy cloth.

With one hand he gripped the footboard – and began to firmly shove it into the stone wall up ahead.

The avid creaking of the bed turned into a pleased refrain. One not too fast, but not too slow, which carried on for a few minutes.

Outside their petulant and guarded door, whistles of men and cheers from women crassly seeped into their ears. Though most were muffled down by the sensitive and leal guards, some managed to blurt out half-enthused encouragements upon their midnight escapades.

A flow of compliments descended upon Aemond’s lasting pace – and some of the more improper ladies even dared to coo at her.

“It’ll feel better once you give it time, sweetling!”

“You simply must confine in us what it was like to ride a dragon!”

How utterly humiliating.

Like all bad things within the world, their idle and unseemly chatter ceased after a little while. Aemond sighed and stopped his motions, while granting her a knowing look.

“I’ll remain here for mere more moments. Then I’ll leave you for the night.”

‘N-No!” Her eyes widened in mistrust, as she gnawed her bottom lip. Almost too soon for her own well liking, she’d begged incessantly for him to stay. “Please remain near me, sweet husband… I so long to sleep by you.”

When her words seemed to elude him, she reached for his wounded hand, giving it a slight caress. She pressed her lips atop his cut, and devotedly looked up at him.

“Ao vestretan bona nyke udrāzma ao kesīr. Nyke lurksas bona ao umbagon issa rūsīr."

Aemond drew in a sharp breath, and merely settled on the bed.

“As you wish, my darling wife.”

Translations:

"Qybor" = uncle - specifically, from the mother's side;

"Ziry iksos ao qilōni lurksas issa kesīr. Nyke jāhor daor gaomagon mirros bona mazverdagon ao zūgagon. Skoro syt kostagon ao ūndegon bona?" = 'Tis you who commands me here. I will not do anything that leaves you frightened. Why can’t you see that?

“Ao vestretan bona nyke udrāzma ao kesīr. Nyke lurksas bona ao umbagon issa rūsīr." = You said that I command you here. I order that you stay with me.

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ineffectualdemon · 2 months

Text

I feel like if Shen Jiu swapped places with Shen Yuan and experienced memes and all our culture and came back he'd still be a bitch but he would also take one look at Zhuzhi Lang in is true form and be like "I kin that."

And then pick him up and be like "I only had this horrible snake demon for one minute but if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in this room and then myself"

If he then got to talk to Human Shaped Zhuzhi Lang he'd be like "God you're so pathetic. It's perfect. Let's go torment Luo Binghe"

They would be besties and you can't change my mind

Even if it's just canon Shen Jiu he'd still see Zhuzhi Lang's true form and be like "that's what I feel like on the inside" and if he chose not to kill it because it's not trying to kill him and like, why let a perfectly good metaphor for his soul go to waste?

I can see Liu Qingge going to kill him and him saving Zhuzhi Lang out of pure spite and gaining his New Best Friend

I just think they're both neat okay

Especially as terrors together

Similarly I can see Yue Qingyuan and Zhuzhi Lang having solemn conversations about utter loyalty to one person even if it's at the expense of yourself and how that's so correct. But also he'd find Zhuzhi Lang's cold-hearted spiteful revenge as reminiscent of his Xiao Jiu and be charmed

They're even both green!

#svsss #shen jiu #zhuzhi lang #yue qingyuan

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sleeplessdreamer123 · 10 months

Text

Fanfic Idea! (Could be lucemond, where Daemon long prepared for the betrayal of the greens and urged his children to make alliances of their own, and Lucerys' anger has reached his endpoint)

Lucerys is pissed. He is angered, he is tired, his sorrow for the loss of his sister and the rage he felt for her undue death was what made him storm through the Baratheon home. He already knew his uncle was there. He saw the decaying dragon before he even got to land.

He knew him being there wouldn't do anything. His grandmother already told him how different Borros was to his father, but he had to at least pretend to try, for his mother. So there he was, dripping wet from the storm, hate and anger in his eyes, but a smooth, calm face, as to not give the people more reasons to look down on him. He deigned to smile at the girls, they were his kin, after all, and someone who he had been sending letters to ever since they all met, a secret from Borros, lest he tries to force one of his girls to marry him. They, in turn, smiled back.

He didn't bother looking at his uncle Aemond, barely acknowledged his jibe. He knew being ignored would piss him off more than any answer he would ever give, and that was more than enough of an incentive to pretend he was nothing more than passing wind from the storm, loud enough to howl, but something easily ignorable. He simply came to deliver the letter. He already knows that man wouldn't budge, had already planned to marry one of his girls to Aemond, or whoever the greens were willing to sacrifice. To him, Borros was already a traitor and an oathbreaker, and him being there was just a farce.

When the obvious refusal from Borros came, coupled with a few insults that made Lucerys momentarily enjoy a vision of just ordering Arrax to enter the hall and fry him before his courtiers, he nodded, and told him he would take his message to the queen, before turning around, his head held high. He nodded once more to the girls, and they knew. It was time to accelerate the plan. Borros is to die as soon as Aemond leaves. He will drink his ale, swallow his meat. The story would be that he saw the ghost of his father, angered by Borros for making him, making his house, bear the name oathbreaker, before forcefully taking his son's soul, leaving behind his frightened body as a warning. That way, it would be seen as a horrible omen, Aemond would only find out once he reached King's Landing, and would be too late to return.

In reality, Floris is to drop a special little medicine in her father's drink, one made by Alys, that causes people to have frightful illusions based on things they have been thinking about. Eventually, they becomes so stressed from fright, they started trying to get away from whatever apparitions their mind created, and finally, die from their heart giving out. He has already made sure the main thing on that man's mind would be his father's vow to his mother, from the letter. If things go as planned, (and he ensured it will, seeing as he gave a stronger mix to Floris) the eldest, Cassandra, is to be the new lady Baratheon in his place, and he knows she would support them. The greens would call them traitors, oathbreakers, but then again, Cassandra can claim she was undoing her father's oathbreaking by following her grandfather's vows, so his soul can rest at last. They can call for foul play, but could they when the man dies right in front of all his men, loyal or otherwise, watching him run from someone who isn't there, watching him scream for his father to not hurt him, before succumbing to his death, as if Lord Boremund snatched his soul from his body to ensure he never breaks another oath?

He wonders if any powerful house would try to side with the greens with the threat of their previous heads coming to haunt them to their death for oathbreaking. He thinks not, as the people of Westeros seems to hold great importance to the words of those long dead. If they do, well.... he has already made quite a lot of connections. It wouldn't be hard to ensure someone's predecessor would visit them to give a "stern warning".

Before he could leave the place and lead poor, wet Arrax out of the Storms, Aemond decided to order him to wait, to claim an apparent "debt". Lucerys was just going to ignore him, but his anger filled him. They were already stealing his mother's throne, and their own inheritances, simply because their mother wasn't a man. They have already taken their mother's chance to say goodbye to their grandfather, not even allowing her to burn his pyre. They have already killed his sister, who they didn't even allow to breathe. If there was anyone here that had the right to demand for someone to pay a debt, it was him, his family. Not Aemond.

And he will get revenge. Just not now. But he will not allow Aemond the chance to call him a coward. Instead of facing Aemond, he looked back to the soon-to-be-deceased Lord Borros.

"My Lord, I know it isn't my place to tell you how to run your house, but I do strongly suggest you close your windows and doors."

There was confusion in the crowd, even Aemond looked momentarily confused at his statement.

"The howling of this storm is quite strange. The wind just now sounded like it was trying to say something."

With the people realizing what he was implying, and his uncle's face going red, (with embarrasement or anger, who knows, who even cares?) he walked away calmly as the guards prevented Aemond from chasing him, his screams for his eye ignored once more. Lucerys, after all, has more pressing matters to attend. He is to fly to a cave one of the girls secretly found. There he would wait out the storm, wait out the shocking death of Borros, before "flying back" to Storm's End due to a "premonition" of sorts, and return home with the the Baratheon alliance in his pocket.

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Plotholes? Yes. Why? Because tired, can't think much, school sucking the life out of me.

#lucemond #aemond x lucerys #lucerys velaryon #aemond targaryen #lucerys x aemond #aemond one eye #if lucerys is tired of everyone's shit #and aemond is ignored over and over again

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astralnymphh · 8 months

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born of flora and fauna | teaser I. ellie williams

knight!ellie x princess!reader

an; thought I would bestow a little excerpt from my prologue for this fic, cause the preluding alone needs its own teaser. plus, a little moodboard for it! this would count for the prologue only, as it's set in the wintertime and then progresses into spring. just a note this series is a bit more fantasy leaning than pinpoint history accurate (mainly in clothing department) but I'll still be including some realism into it. expect some.. complicated n poetic writing.

༻⋆the excerpt;

a vividness to her movements, flowing like a river. for it is water that soothes the most cosmic fires, carves veins into the earth's soil, descends from the heavens above and proves iron soluble. a knight so pinpoint and poised like a painter, yet so daring and baneful like a warrior of evenfall. an artisan of her craft, ellie was. born to thrive in matters regarding protection of her kingdom and its nobility.

you were a daughter of the illustrious king and queen, sister of your highly revered and cherished kin, prudence. subsequent to her fabled rise, was your fall. down-spiraling in neglect and a corroding shame that you couldn't fulfill the duties of a courteous princess. wickedness wasn't necessarily your play of folly. rebuking the role of royalty isn't your entire bastion of vengeance. you purely long for a world of your own color. your self-brewn arcadia of art. in a concise phrase, desire for sovereignty.

' why don't you resemble your sister more? '

upon this midwinter day, steel clashes and clanks with the marching of castle guards en route to their designated patrol sites just beyond the barrier of the throne room. braziers birthing a cordial flame glowing with a saffron ember, balls of warmth to resign a frigid numbing along the stone pillars surrounding the epicenter. the rabble of townsfolk forked into two large columns in the palatial hall afore the platform of the royal family, gossiping amongst themselves at the event taking place.

you are aligned in royal seating adjacent to your mother and fathers throne, crossed legs pleating your tunics' billowing skirt, seemingly stoic poise contrasting your usual gestures of criticism and resentment. a flurry of knights in waiting present themselves individually before the nobility, emanations of each one's virtues and brawns scrutinized in one sweeping glance of the majesty himself, to which the mass of them were not up to par.

on comes a figure, shrouded by a leather fitting of attire compared to the other bodies of steel and chain before them, a smooth cloak of basil green silk embroidered with their respective house symbol in yellow; a moth, and a face hidden by the iron nature of a helmet. as every knight has shown oneself to the king, so do they, forcepping the helm with a gauntleted grip to reveal a face blemished by the trudging of time and battle, freckles mimicking the color of almonds, lips like a coral rose bud and hair painted of the most earthly russet you've ever bore sights to. except, there was one asset that sucked you right into her indirect gaze, circlets of green, like a willow tree's canopy of shrubbery, green, like the vernal springscape of the earlier year, an ethereal green, a hue no soul has ever seen before.

༻⋆the moodboard;

hope yall are excited as I am!!! 💗 this is the first draft of a portion of my prologue so you may see some additions or changes.

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anulithots · 3 months

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we have the worst words for friends. Relationships in general.

LIke.... there's friends, but then there's more than friends but not romantic. The comfort person. The other half of your soul. (it can be more than two people) Soulmates really. Not romantic though.

Then there's not romantic, not platonic, not something in between. Something else. Something more. I like Queer platonic for this. But... There's so much nuance and wonder to friendships that I hate so much how we label it. I love shipping but shipping isn't everything and I want words to describe all the wonderful dynamics in both fiction and in real life.

LIke... found family? KIn? Do they work? No. they don't sound right to me.

Gahhhhh I hate it all. I'd rather dissolve all the labels and let it be poetry... but then there would always be the romantic interpretation. Which is fine... but it would be nice if it was just ONE of the interpretations instead of the ONLY interpretation. There's so many colors. Why are we only looking at red? Have you seen the pretty shades of green and blue and purple and orange?

#queer platonic relationship #queer platonic partner #queer platonic attraction #queer platonic love #queer platonic radioapple #aroace #aromantic #qpr #friends #best friends #friendship #labels #thoughts of mine #late night thoughts #thoughts #feelings #emotions #inner thoughts #life

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safely-in-vhagars-belly · 6 months

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What power looks like (Dark!AemondPrince Regent x morally grey Reader/oc)

X FEM AFAB READER

Tags: Show canon/ish bookish canonish and totally not canon at all

🔷Summary: You once bullied Aemond and fell in favour with his brother, but now that Aegon is uhm...not able to talk right now, Aemond wants revenge for all you did to him. And he means all of it.

🔷Author's note: This is very poor written but i wanted to share something so...here it is.

🔷Wordcount 4000

Warnings below the cut but mind your step!

cw: blood, stalking, paranoia, smut, oral sex m reciev. fucking, throne fucking, blood, cuts, daggers, slight dubcon.

There had been fighting before you were born.

There will be fighting long after you have left this place, nothing more but a pile of dust, that once were your bones.

There had been war before you were born.

And there will be war long after you have passed.

But none war was so accursed, such a mockery to the gods as the war between kin. And no war was so bloody, so frightful, so deadly, as a war between dragons.

The day began like any other. One might call it ‘ordinary’. There is no day that is ordinary when it comes to you. At first, you awake within the same four walls you always do. Your bedroom in the Red Keep, still nestled warmly in the golden sheets.

Your head is still pounding from last night, your sigil ring of house Asteryon on the floor, near your nightstand. You likely attempted to throw it on the table last night before you fell asleep. And you failed.

You pick it up, your fingers slightly trembling as you easily slide it around your finger. The bed is not yours to worry for, so you let it be, for your servants. You dress that day, alone and quick.

Your mind wanders fast and everywhere, as you slip in a black simple gown with silver details. You pick one of your decorated daggers from your vanity, sliding two of them in your boots. The other, you put in the hidden pocket of your dress, near your corset.

When you are convinced there is no more gold, no more silverware, and no more weapons that you can smuggle out of your rooms, you come out of it. Instantly you are met with the cautious eyes of one of the many faceless servants of the Red Keep. You remain frozen as she enters your bedroom, paying you almost no mind.

Almost.

You study her briefly. Her big brown eyes and her blonde luscious locks as she keeps her attention exclusively at you, fumbling with your bed linen.

You know better.

She is here for you.

Another reason to leave.

You don’t pay her any mind when you open the doors of your bedroom, leading to the big shallow halls filled with empty souls and hollow guards. Right away, you are confronted with an almost piercing smell of iron. No, not iron. Blood. Sweet, fresh and likely still warm blood. The type you only gain by slaughter of innocence.

You pause in the hallway, your mind opening the map inside your mind, of the Red keep. Searching for any quick way out. Any quick way to the ports. Any quick way away from this.

When the Greens had taken over, your mother warned you it would be a short time before they would show their true colors. And now they have. You wonder how many are dead. Dozens, hundreds, thousands?

Your mother is gone now.

There is only one hope for you left.

You need to get to the North.

To Cregan Stark.

To your rival.

And you need to fall to your knees, cry, beg, scream, and finally convince him to marry you.

If he still wants you.

You pass a mirror on your way out.

You briefly look into it, adoring your reflection, aside from those hauntingly scared eyes. The eyes of a peasant. The eyes of a servant.

Most men only like fear in a woman’s eyes. This will not make your conquest harder. Only easier. You lay out the steps for yourself. Get outside, get to the North, get Cregan and hope the Greens don’t follow.

You step outside your rooms, your feet quickly pacing over the tiles where Queens, kings and their servants walked before you. The route you walked a million times. Now is the time to leave.

King Aegon and Prince Aemond are still fighting in Rook Rest. Dowager Alicent is still mourning and the Hand of the King, Ser Criston is with the two royals. You only would expect a rat to interrupt you. You only would suspect a rat would greet you.

And that is exactly what happens.

You hear footsteps behind you, quickly, fast, yet with effort. As if someone’s having trouble with their armor. Marching, rushing up to you as if you can escape any moment. You subtly take another direction, cutting your pursuer.

off. And you walk right in the arms of your enemy. Right where they wanted you.

The Hand of the king, Ser Criston proudly stands in front of you, his armor still bloodied and blackend of what you imagine would be dragonfire. You pause, quickly shifting your mind and spinning a story as to why you are here. ‘’Ser Criston. Such a pleasure! I assume Rook Rest went well?’’

All that meets you is silence.

The type that haunts a field of corpses after a battlefield.

You remain smiling, forcing him to respond. ‘’I have orders to bring you downstairs. Together with your family.’’ You hear alarm bells ringing, blood rushing, and thoughts screaming. Yet you remain smiling.

You easily step out of his reach. ‘’I must remind you: I am a Lady. You have no authority to collect me. If the King wants to see me, he can come collect me himself.’’ Aegon had been proven to be very keen on you, very easy to manipulate as well ever since his sad little wife died and his son was slashed open like a juicy ripe watermelon. You had no effort wrapping your arms around him and shoving his face in a hug, accidentally making sure that your sleeve would slip a little bit.

You would whisper sweet nothings and promises in his ear whenever he felt horrible about himself. But you are still you. You are still a lady. And in that world that means you are still a slave to the truth: Men are allowed pleasures. Women must burn for them.

To even send Ser Criston, the honorable maiden among the men to collect you, is an insult. A confirmation. ‘’Ser Criston!’’ You shriek, the moment he has picked you up as a sack of potatoes. You kick his back and claw with your nails at his eyes as he brings you to the throne room you have come to know so well.

When you arrive, you notice it is still dark outside. Candles alight the room. But barely. You can make out a shadow sitting on the iron throne, a shadow with silver hairs. A shadow that keeps his face well hidden, for now.

Ser Criston puts you back on your feet, and you thank him with a punch in his gut for the way he treated you. ‘’Aegon! Have this animal beheaded at once!’ You shout at the shadow. All you hear back is a terrifying unfamiliar chuckle.

The shadow rises, mending with the flames so you can see its face, finally. You see a face longer than Aegon’s. A face with pouty lips, one bright blue eye, a terrible scar and an eyepatch to hide it. You back away the moment you know it's him.

He doesn't terrify you.

The crown on his head, entrusted with rubies and valyrian steel…

That terrifies you.

Aegon should be wearing this crown.

The fact that Aemond wears it, is bad news for you. For multiple reasons.

You need to leave.

Now.

Your feet take off running as Aemond patiently rises from the throne, walking after you with calm and collected steps, his hands folded on his back, his smirk growing wider every moment. You become aware of Ser Criston who grabs you.

‘’No, no let me go!’’ You beg, when kicking Ser Criston. ‘’Aegon!’’ You add, with a shout.

Aemond chuckles. ‘’Aegon can’t hear you, sweet little Badger.’’ He murmurs when Ser Criston’s grip tightens around your body. You see a glister of insanity in his good remaining eye. A glister you know very well. ‘’He’s with the Seven gods now.’’ He adds, turning his face back to the Iron throne.

You stop fighting, as the floor is pulled from your feet, and your world is shattered. He is dead. The Blacks killed him. The trap that was supposed to be his victory, became his own undoing. You feel sick to your stomach. Not for Aegon. For yourself. He was all that kept Aemond away from you.

You remember the days when you were all little. You, Aemond, Luc, Jace, and Aegon. You remember sneaking in the dragon pit whenever the boys had lessons, studying the dragons along with them, but more importantly, studying Aemond and Aegon as your mother instructed. ‘’One day, a king will sit on the throne. Make sure you are at his side.’’ You didn’t understand back then, but you were a pawn, shoved over the board by your own mother.

Prince Aegon was the likely successor, despite you all knowing that Jacaerys would one day be the heir. But he was a bastard, as everyone knew very well, so you always assumed and worried that one day Jace’s luck would run out, and his head would be on the chopping block, together with his mother’s. So, you did everything to get on Aegon’s side.

Including orchestrating a prank, where Prince Aemond was gifted a dragon of his own. A prank you are sure he has never forgiven you for. A prank you are sure, he will kill you for.

‘’Yes, Badger. He is dead. Gone.’’ Aemond repeats after he has sent Cole away. You realize that the plans have changed. Aegon won’t grant you safety here anymore. You won’t have his protection anymore.

You hate how Aemond uses Aegon’s nickname for you, as well as your house sigil. ‘’And you are next in line.’’ You manage to mutter.

‘’Yes, I am. His children are too young to rule.’’ He says, a bit dismissive but you can tell he enjoys this development very much. Almost too much.

‘’Such a pity, that must be for you.’’ You spit out, accusingly. It all fits a little too well, like a puzzle he thought of. Aemond shoots you a glare and you see the pain and conflict mirrored in his eye.

‘’You will mind your tongue, little Badger. I am not as humble as Aegon, that I let you degrade me.’’

You should not let it betray you but it catches you off guard that Aemond knows how Aegon liked to be handled in the bedroom. You quickly look around for witnesses but aside from Aemond there is no one there. ‘’Yes. I know what a dirty little whore you truly are. I know you two did all sort of wicked little dirty things.’’ You fold your arms, unable to stop a grin.

‘’Jealous?’’ You guess.

He briefly touches the crown on his head.

‘’Why would I be? I am alive, he’s dead.’’ He says with a twisted little grin.

You have the eerie feeling you know where this is heading. and it's not looking good. ‘’You are playing with fire, Aemond Targaryen. You must return me to Cregan Stark.’’ You demand.

‘’So you can fuck him?’’ He guesses. ‘’You go from one powerful man to another. You really play and play and don’t give a damn about our feelings, do you?’’ Should you? Do they care about yours? No. So why should you feel guilty?

He smiles soft, almost gentle to himself, polishing the newly acquired ring around his fingers. ‘’No. You are not going anywhere. You still have a debt unpaid to me. You laughed so hard, that day. I never have forgotten your sickened, twisted laughter.’’ You scoff.

You are not prepared for what comes next. Aemond grabs you by the throat, before pressing a dagger to it. You stare at him helplessly as he drags you to the iron throne, throwing you right in front of it. You watch as Aemond sits down, his eye burning with hatred as he pulls you down, on your knees. ‘’Aegon used to brag about fucking you.’’ You are surprised at that, since you asked Aegon to keep it a secret. And turned on. You bet Aemond was jealous after every time you left Aegon’s chamber, probably fucking himself in his hands as he has no one else who wants to do it for him.

Aemond lifts your chin so you are forced to look at his face. He grins, spitting in your face before forcing your mouth open, inspecting it. ‘’I heard you have the naughty habit to not swallow when a man gives you his cum. I don’t have patience for that kind of behavior. If I feed you, you will swallow.’’ To ensure you understand, he smacks you lightly on your cheeks. You glare.

Aemond speaks much raspier, as you understand that even sitting this close to his cock, with him in power makes him aroused. ‘’Here is how this will go: You will pledge your loyalty to your new prince regent by sucking his cock, and if I am satisfied with your work, I might take you as my whore, my little dirty mistress. You will be bred, fed and fucked the way you like.’’ He adds.

You know he is not Aegon. He could never be. But he is in power now. So you might as well take advantage of it. ‘’I want a crown. You will make me your Queen.’’ You say, clear as a command.

But this man is not as easy as Aegon. Not as in love with you either. ‘’You? My Queen? Hah! You are delusional.’’ He laughs in your face. ‘’Get to it. I have been waiting for years.’’ He murmurs, impatiently unlacing his trousers.

You bow your head before taking the cock in, wettening it with your lips, your tongue and finally your mouth. Aemond is much more inexperienced than Aegon and almost groans when you have your lips suck him off, your mouth moving in different directions to make it good and nice for him. His hands grab hold of the iron throne, groaning out loudly as all you hear is his groaning, grunting and your own lips smacking and sucking. You keep at it for a few minutes until the Prince regent shifts in the chair, grabbing your face tightly and moving his cock up and down your mouth, fucking it.

That is when you push him off and out. You will not do such things. Aegon was never allowed to fuck you like that, neither is he. You watch his erected length, red and swollen. You sit back, proudly on your knees and give him a challenging look.

Aemond stares at you a little longer. He grabs you by your hair, dragging you closer to the throne. You end up with your face on the tiles, on your knees. You hear him pant with need and feel his hands pull down your small clothes, and hear the fabric of your dress tearing. ‘’You had so much fun. Now it's my turn. You will learn your place around me.’’ He warns before smacking you so harshly on your behind that you cry out. In response to it, he laughs, amused and grabs you by your hips, fucking you in front of the swords of the fallen enemies.

‘’So tight, little badger. I can see what Aegon meant now.’’ He mutters between trusts, causing you to cry out. Your head bows in shame, in arousal and in confusion as you let out a soft surrendering sound. Aemond throws his hips a little stronger at your back, pouding away cruelly chasing his own orgasm. ‘’Going to fill you with my children.’’ He adds, as the trusts become almost too much to bear.

You buck back, letting yourself enjoy this moment. You try to not think about the consequences and the fact that you are surrendering to Aemond. ‘’I can only bear your children if you make me your Queen.’’ You add with a lowly submissive little trust back at his manhood. Aemond gives it a thought, at the very least before he throws you back to your knees, fucking you fast and hard.

‘’You won’t give up, hm? You want to be my Queen so bad? Why? What do you care about the title? What do you care for me?’’ You don’t care at all for him. You care about being alive. A lot.

You fake submission. ‘’I must admit, King Aegon has been perhaps too gentle with me. The way you take and treat me, it does me well.’’ You like it, that is true.

But you know that Aemond and Aegon always had a rivalry. And hearing that you enjoy him more, makes Aemond more rallied and more aroused, fucking you now even more harder, as your cries become loud enough to hear in another rooms.

‘’Exactly. I always knew you were a whore. Aegon, my mother, everyone is too blind. But I see what you are.’’ He rasps, biting your ear, smacking your ass until you are sure he breaks his own hand.

‘’Yes, you are so clever to see it.’’ You whisper. He groans at that. You give a little more, driving him to the edge. ‘’You are right. I am worth nothing but what you give me. I should be punished.’’ He roars at that, and within four hard almost bone breaking trusts he finishes inside of you with a war cry.

Your body still is in a confused state. You understand that punishment is likely not aimed at your pleasures. You won’t come. You stand up as Aemond plants himself naked in the iron throne. His arm is wrapped around your belly and you are placed back on his lap.

Aemond fucks you patiently on the iron throne, ignoring your cries of pain and pleasure. He moves you over his cock, fucking you the right way. In ways Aegon never could. ‘’As my Queen, you will need to attend to your duties. An heir must be born.’’ He says, when fucking you when sitting patiently. You nod, not giving a fuck what he says, really. ‘’And we must…find a way to deal with my annoying sister, her bastards and Aegon’s children.’’

That sounds ominous.

‘’A way to deal with them?’’ You have this feeling that there might be more than that Aemond tells you. There always is.

There is. ‘’I have no trouble killing Rhaenyra. Or her bastards.’’ He says, coming up with a plan between the fucks he gives you.

You have an idea. ‘’Perhaps I can be of use. I can seduce Jace.’’ You offer. It might work, maybe it won’t, but it is worth a thought. And you would slip under the radar, escape Aemond and join forces with the Blacks. If they don’t kill you first.

And that offer is rewarded with a hard smack on the back of your head and a rough fuck. ‘’Ow!’’

He growls as a mere animal at you, scolding you.

‘’You are mine, in case you have forgotten.’’

You shake your head, trying to explain you meant no harm, as you don’t want to damage the relationship you have built with him. ‘’No, hear me out. He thinks I’m still loyal. I can seduce him, tie him to a bed, and then, you come in, give a mean speech and finish him off for good.’’ You say appealing to his darker side.

Aemond grins. ‘’Yes. And before we kill him, I will fuck you. Show him who really owns you.’’ He adds, making it even more disturbing. You wonder if that kind of sex will be enjoyable. But if it gives you power…..

‘’What do you have planned for Rhaenyra?’’ he asks, kissing your cheeks. ‘’Tell me, my dark sweet badger.’’

You were friends with her, once. You played with her children. But Aemond is watching you now. And Aemond holds the power. And saying it now, does not make it true later.

‘’I want that whore burned alive, when her children watch and weep. I want Vhagar to burn her. I want to hear Vhagar burp and smell Rhaenyra’s sickening perfume on her breath.’’ Aemond fucks you harder at that and you come on his lap, panting and screaming his name.

‘’I want that too.’’ Aemond murmurs. ‘’Such a shame we can’t just burn Dragonstone to the ground with her in it.’’ That would be the easy but hard way.

There is one final thing to be answered. ‘’You mentioned you’d like us to have a heir?’’ You ask, uncomfortable as Aegon’s corpse is likely sizzling somewhere near.

‘’Yes.’’ He whispers.

‘’So, what happens to Aegon’s children?’’ He sighs, and for the first time he lets go of you as if he’s ashamed as to what he will utter now.

‘’For the sake of the realm, they all must die.’’ He says, and you nod, in understanding. If not, there would be another dance of the dragons soon anyway.

Yet you feel a sting, of hurt, of betrayal. ‘’They are your family.’’ You remind him kindly. Children too. But in what war did families not die? In what war did children not die?

The two boys are dead already. Only his daughter remains. And she is not well, if what you heard is true. He only sighs. ‘’You didn’t see what I saw. Killing her would be a mercy. She would be reunited with Helaena.’’ Her brother was killed by Daemon, a family member, her mother killed by herself, and her own life taken by her uncle, another family member.

‘’You’d be a kinslayer.’’ You add softly. ‘’Nothing is so accursed as a Kinslayer.’’ You remind him as you both dress. Aemond chuckles, staring at the Iron throne.

‘’I already am one.’’ He says coldly.

You roll your eyes. Aegon told you what really happened.

‘’That incident with Luc…’’

Aemond interrupts you sharply. Too sharp, too abruptly almost as if you caught him in a lie.

‘’No.’’

And your gut tells you you were right all along. ‘’You killed him.’’ He killed Aegon. He killed your Aegon. You reach for your dagger…

‘’Do not do something stupid, little badger. I am still considering giving you a bit of power as my Queen.’’ He should be mortified and upset, mad and ashamed. But he only laughs. ‘’It was easy. He was wounded. ‘’Aemond, brother help me up.’’ He said. I dreamt of this moment for years. And I wasn’t going to wake up now. ‘’No, I don’t think so.’’ I said, And I drove my dagger through his chest.’’ You hear with anger what he did. ‘’I burned his corpse so the others wouldn’t ask questions.’’ He sees your angry tears and he cups your face, grinning as he licks a few tears away. ‘’Little Badger, you wanted power?’ You can only cover your mouth to avoid a scream. ‘’I will make you my Queen. For one reason and one reason alone,’’ He drops a silence as he leans in to kiss your teary cheeks. ‘’I want you to kill the girl. As proof of your loyalty and devotion to me. I want you to carve her heart out so I know you are on my side.’’ You gulp.

You know that girl. You played with her with her dolls and her stuffed toys. You played with her mother and her and her brother. ‘’What if they catch me?’’ Well, stupid question, truly. You’d be dead.

‘’Don’t you care for them at all?’’ You ask, your heart beating strongly. He has no clue you have the dagger in your hand. His back is turned.

He scoffs. ‘’I care for them a great deal. Which is why I am offering her a free passage out of this cruel fucked up world.’’ You wait a few moments before raising the knife and attacking him by his back.

Within a second he turns, grabbing the knife as it tears open his hands, but not his back. It does not kill him. ‘’I thought you were supposed to be clever.’’ he tilts his head before bringing the knife to your own face, grabbing you by the throat. ‘’I have two options now. I can’t let you go anymore. You will tell everyone I am a monster.’’

‘’You are a monster!’’ ‘’And monsters are most dangerous when they are threatened. I will make you my Queen. I will make you my wife and the mother of my children. One day, one day soon, something terrible will happen to your own family. And your friends. And your allies. And you will have no one, no one but me.’’ He vows. ‘’I will make you regret being born in the same world as me. I will break you, mold you and shape you into my perfect little pet. That is what power looks like, little badger.’’ He says, before stabbing the knife inside your left eye socket, pricking your eye on the dagger and dragging it out, tearing the flesh as you screams echo through the halls of the Red Keep.

hi.

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definegodliness · 4 months

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Vision

A new leaf unfurls, shimmering Pristine and lime green, Steadfast, and doubtless in the Mathematical perfection of nature's Origami.

Pretty little thing.

All too easily overlooked In the short lived process Of its existence, as such.

Soon, this leaf, too, will turn Dark and dull, Yet sturdy and fully functional; Anonymous among its kin, so, swallowed By the entirety that is survival.

Yet now, still,

It is a vision of purity.

I dwell on this — my incessant Yearning purity; grounds keeper home In the graveyard Of my soul, Where candlelight burns In the darkest nights So that the eulogies, collected, May remain legible.

The tomes in here contain Dust-ridden truths, I rarely revisit, But when the wind decides To leaf through their pages I cannot help but glance a bit:

Hope —

Hope is a symbiont of the dead, It grows even on ossified bones And as such it needs not my attention To remain.

I ponder this.

Were I more reckless, I would add:

"What more, virulent And constricting hope becomes When given too much time under sun; How its roots then thirst and beg; How its tendrils latch at throats and Seek to squeeze out Just one tear To nurture the only fruits it may bear; Despair And dejection."

Please do not mistake the winter hardiness Of my resignation For the rot of cynicism.

Hope, symbiont of the dead, Merely stems from the past; It is the residual waste Of a moment, captured and recognized As a timeless truth For the length of its Experience.

However, such truths rarely live on for long In us, mortal beings.

They are malformed By our defining, and analyzing When we cease to live within them, and start Remembering.

Timeless truths are better left buried.

This is why I do not pick up the pen To ruin the tome with my temporary Imaginations.

One does not disturb the soil where Once stood a rose To once more see Its petals.

One can only respectfully maintain the earth Wherein it lays buried.

A leaf unfurls, Pristine and lime green; I dare not touch it due to its fragility.

What a pretty little thing.

This is what love Means to Me.

--- 14-2-2024, M.A. Tempels ©

#poetry #spilled ink #writing #dark academia #romanticism #romantic poem #romantic poetry #love poem #love poetry #poem #poets on tumblr #tumblr poetry #spilled thoughts #creative writing #prose poem

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verysium · 4 months

Note

would a beautiful young lady like you be so generous and besprinkle me with some sae itoshi thoughts

beautiful young lady? 🤭 anon you are so sweet. and for that, i present to you a writing idea that has lingered in the back of my mind for a while now. introducing......✨rōnin sae✨

he was originally the first-born son of a wealthy samurai clan but was ostracized due to his left-handed fighting style and refusal to conform to bushido. the night of his thirteenth birthday, he wrongfully murdered a man, and for that he was exiled by his family and later banished from the estate. forced to leave everything behind, he traveled on foot to kyoto to enter into the service of the daimyō at yodo domain, but no master or dojo would accept him.

after three years, he became a wanderer, a ghost identified by nothing except the incorporeal lingering of fear he left behind. no one has ever seen his face, nor do they know his name. a pair sharp teal eyes is the last thing the unfortunate souls see before they meet their end at the tip of his blade. he slices so clean it leaves no blood, only a soft body caught between the furrows of earth, lodged into eternal sleep beneath the snow.

working part-time as a serving girl between a soba shop and a brothel, you encounter him on one of the longest days of winter, the sole customer who dares to enter between the hours of midnight and dawn. as you set down his bowl, your eyes catch onto the silk tie fastened to the hilt of his katana, a rich hue of burgundy red. he must be a member of the upper nobility, you think. you've only ever seen the color on the obi of the wealthy patrons and the entrancing eyes of the madam's geisha. you politely ask him where he bought such beautifully dyed fabric, setting down his chopsticks with a sweet smile. he stares up at you from beneath his jingasa hat, so low on his face that you cannot see his eyes. a beat of silence passes, then two.

it is blood.

his tone is quiet, deep enough to send shivers down your spine. he waits to see the horrified look on your face, the crumpling of your delicate features so that he knows when to leave, where he is not welcome. but it never comes. instead you beam, blabbering on about how you figured he was a ronin with the number of bodies he left behind, and the number of days he says he's been here. he remains silent, though you see a flicker of something beneath the brim of his hat, the color so bright you do not know if it is blue or green.

you realize who he is. and you don't care.

that is enough to get sae interested in you, at least interested enough not to kill you. most people never hear the rumors let alone fathom his existence, yet you let him stay here with you, as if you expected his presence all along. at first, he coughs and refuses, standing up swiftly to find the exit. but when he lifts the noren and is hit with a face full of harsh snow, he begins to reconsider your offer, to wait until the storm passes.

you boil tea on the kettle as you lay out a spare futon on the tatami, lighting a candle in the darkness. in the corner, he sees a small misshapen bundle beneath the blankets, and he immediately pulls his hand back when two glossy eyes peer back up at him. the bundle he realizes is your mother, and the blankets he learns is a deathbed. you have no other kin left, no money to feed yourself, nowhere to hide the rotting body. only in time will he fully understand the ghosts of your past. you are the daughter of a prostitute; he is a son in exile. it shouldn't even be considered a match, but it strangely feels like one.

the storm passes, but sae doesn't leave. instead, you and he settle into the mundane expanse of cold routine, him searching for hire by day and you working by night. except one night, you do not return home by the tenth hour bell. it isn't until the sun carves a sliver into the morning sky that he sees your silhouette in the doorway, kimono slightly rumpled. you pull the ornaments out of your hair, makeup smeared as you run frantically into your room, slumping before your wash basin.

it doesn't take much from him to pry out an entire story from your lips. apparently your friend himeko has disappeared, the last you've seen of her was her entanglement with a young nobleman who promised to buy her out of the brothel. you sigh, lamenting that you are not attractive enough to be wed, much less make your way up the ranks of the maiko. sae wants to say you are foolish for believing a man's lies, but he holds his tongue when he sees your expression, the delicate features of your face crumbling, the same way he expected them to the night you met. it is the first time he sees you cry, and he cannot even hold you. he does not know why this hurts so much.

it's too late by the time he realizes.

you've buried yourself into him. stomped your muddy footprints all over his heart. left evidence in the snow. successfully haunted him in every single iteration. now he tells you that he would wed you in a single heartbeat. any sign of discomfort and he would not hesitate to kill. his only regret is that he wished he could give you more than this life of an untethered ghost, more substance than this lack of being. but your lips quell the storm that resides in his heart, his rotting fingers trembling as they find a home on the side of your cheeks. if he were to die, he would be content to be buried inside you, his stone cold body resting within the peace of your existence.

it is the hour between midnight and dawn when sae realizes the snow outside has stopped and that his life has only just begun.

#asks #can you tell this was inspired by mizu...#sae itoshi #sae itoshi x you #sae itoshi x reader #sae itoshi x y/n

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snowblack-charcoalwhite · 1 month

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Gwayne's appearance in the trailer (with him riding fast with Criston to save Aegon) has intrigued me and I wondered what his relationship with his nephews and nieces was like? I don't know if Alicent had the chance to bring her children to Old Town but as someone who loves the Green family dynamics, I would love to know headcanons, anything, about the Green kid's relationship with their uncle.

Hello, and thank you very much for the ask!

There`s not much said about Gwayne in the book, and it doesn`t feel like we're about to see a lot of him in the show, so it is indeed more of a headcanon territory.

I imagine his relationships with Alicent's children like that (if there was time to develop them - if memory serves me right, Gwayne came to KL with Otto so he could watch the Targtowers growing up):

Gwayne would be very supportive of Aegon: if he was Alicent's elder brother (like in the show) they would bond on the "elder child with a lot of expectations weighing down on them" basis, and Gwayne's supportiveness would be more of a sympathetic kind. If it was the other way around, it would be more of a "you must be a good king, and you will be a good king" from Gwayne vs "I wish you taught me how" from Aegon, as the latter IMO would be more ready to open up to his uncle than to, for example, his mother.

Helaena and Gwayne's relationship would be quite sweet if not a very close one. I don't imagine him putting too much effort into truly inderstanding her - not out of indifference, more because to Gwayne his little niece would feel like a beautiful rare flower that needs protection more than understanding. He woud cherish Helaena and get furious after B&C, perhaps more furious that he ever was before in his life, because someone as pure and sweet as Helaena should never suffer like she did.

IMO Gwayne's relationship with Aemond wouldn't be a very close one, probably due to the fact that Gwayne wouldn't see in him much (or anything) of his sister - Aemond is Alicent's rage and fury after all, and I think that Gwayne would not be able (or willing), for various reasons, to look deep enough into Alicent`s soul to see this boiling pit. And Aemond, in turn, not feeling any particular warmth coming from his uncle would treat him more like an acquaintance (during his childhood) and ally (during the Dance) than like a relative.

Daeron, I think, would be Gwayne`s favourite, and not just because among Alicent's kids he was the closest one to the Hightower part of the family. As strange as it might sound, Gwayne could see young Daeron as a role model, as the one who got the best from both worlds (Valyrian and old Westerosi ones). And his affection for Daeron would be even greater because the youngest Targtower would understand him the best - the struggles he faced as either the youngest or the eldest sons, the pressure of being a son of the Hand of the King, a brother to a queen.

I myself am also very interested in discovering the dynamic Gwayne has with Alicent and, even more so, with Otto. However little we're about to see of Gwayne`s interactions with his kin, I'm here for it.

#asks #gwayne hightower #hotd #house of the dragon #aemond targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #helaena targaryen #daeron the daring #team green #hotd headcanon

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ariundercovers · 1 year

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Withholding (Din Djarin x Reader)

Summary: Din has been holding something back from you. He finally willingly gives it.

Pairing: Din Djarin x Reader (one female gender descriptor used @ the end)

Word count: ~2k

Warnings: fluff, marshmallows, and feely good feelings. A flagon of angst at the very beginning if you squint with some reading glasses on.

A/n: This is very dialogue heavy - not my usual style of writing! It's super plotty for being a fluffy fic so, idk. we'll just try it out. As always - let me know what you think!

It was just about a week since the three of you settled in the small cabin on Nevarro. You and Din were happily seated outside under the small awning, Grogu off playing with the other school-aged students for the time being. There was a comfortable silence between you for some time when Din finally broke it unceremoniously.

“I commed Bo Katan yesterday.”

You turn to look at him, surprised. “Oh? And?”

“She asked me if I had taken you as my riduur yet, and then she told me I was a kriffing moron. Her words.” You’re surprised at the response, assuming it would have been something regarding Mandalore, but then you chuckle.

“Sounds about right.”

He nods his head almost imperceptively. “She made me realize many things. I owe you a lot.”

You turn fully to him, eyebrows scrunched together in concern. “What? No, you don’t owe me anything.”

He sits up a little straighter and it feels like his visor is burrowing into your very soul with the intensity he is giving off. “I do though. I owe you much. I know you were disappointed when I took Grogu as my own in the mines, in front of all the other Mandalorians, but I did not offer the same to you. It wasn’t fair.”

“No, no… It’s okay. I understand. I know I’m not Mandalorian, and, well, honestly I’m just happy with whatever you can give me. I don’t need more.”

He sighs, always overwhelmed by the selflessness you exhibit to a fault, especially when it comes to him and the kid.

“But it’s not okay. I have been withholding things from you, and that’s not right. You have given me everything, you have shared all of yourself with me, but I have not offered you the same. I can give you more than this.”

He pauses briefly before continuing. “It never felt like the right time. I’ve had nothing to offer you - no home, no stability. Just running into the abyss and a wizard of a tiny green child.”

You laugh at his description of your lives over the past few years. “I love running into the abyss with you. And I love your tiny green child.”

He leans into you abruptly. “Ours, cyare. Our tiny green child.”

You hum in response. You know he’s right, even if it’s hard to admit to yourself. “I don’t need anything from you, Din. Just you. I don’t need a home, or a ship. I don’t need stability. I just need you and Grogu. I’ll run into the abyss for the rest of my life if it means I get to have the two of you.”

He leans back in the chair a little bit, looking out over the fields that sprawl in front of your little home. “I know that now. But I wanted so badly to be able to provide for you in some way. I was starting to think the Crest was enough of a home for us, but just as I was coming to terms with that, Gideon showed up and we lost the kid. I needed to have something for you. You deserve something. You are an amazing mother, and an even better partner. You are… everything to me. You are the planets, the suns, and all the stars in my galaxy.”

“Din…” You can feel yourself blushing as he overwhelms you with compliments. It’s too much to wrap your brain around.

“I mean it. We finally have a moment here - a small slice of normal. Something… real, maybe even permanent. But it’s still not complete because I have one thing more I need to offer you, to let you choose.”

You turn your head toward him, brows scrunching in confusion. You’re curious, unsure exactly where he’s going with it.

“Cyar’ika, I want nothing more than to have you as my riduur, my kin. You are already part of my clan but I want you to be mine and I yours, completely. I… would you make a riduurok with me? Be my riduur?”

You knew what a riduur was - at least a little bit. The first time you had met her, Bo-Katan mistakenly assumed you already made a riduurok. She explained it to you a bit then. The first time you met Paz, he huffed about letting an aruetii in - that Din needed to be a real Mandalorian and choose his riduur already.

“I’ve been wondering if you would ever ask. I was starting to think you couldn’t ask me… Or wouldn’t, maybe.” Your eyes dart down to your lap, where you’re fiddling with your hands.

“I know. I never should have made you wait this long.”

You look up to him, meeting his visor. “Surely you must know I would have said yes, right? If you had asked me before.”

He nods back at you. “I know. This wasn’t about you, it was all me. And I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you many cycles ago.”

You smile softly and pull on of his hands into your lap, craving the friction of his skin against yours. “How does it work? Is there a ceremony?”

You slowly unlatch the buckle of his glove, loosening each finger. “No. It’s always done in private. You exchange a set of vows in Mando’a.”

You pause, to look at him with a concerned expression. “I’m gonna fuck them up.”

He puffs out a chuckle and turns his hand over so you have easy access to the alm. “Doesn’t matter. It’s about the intention behind them.”

You nod your head in agreement, pulling his glove the rest of the way off and tucking it off to the side. “Will you let me? Let me take you as my riduur?”

You revel in the feeling of his bare skin upon your own as you contemplate how you’ll answer - of course you know the answer you’ll give him already, but you have to figure out how you’ll actually say it. You lace your fingers in his own. “Yes, Din. Of course, I will.”

He stares, unmoving.

“Just like that, you say yes to marrying a person you’ve never even seen before?”

You sigh, immediately understanding where this line of questioning was going. Din was always a self-deprecating soul - someone who didn’t understand how he could deserve, or earn, happiness in his life. Someone who saw himself as a means to an end more than as anything else.

“Din… I’ve seen enough of you to know you’re human. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need to see you to know I love you.”

His helmet droops, looking away. “You’ve never wondered?”

You shake your head no. “Not really. I try not to let myself. I respect you and your Creed far too much to allow my thoughts to go down that road.”

“What if I’m ugly? Beneath all the beskar?”

You tilt your head to the side and smile genuinely at him. There’s that self-deprecation creeping in again. “A man as good as you could never be. I see you, Din Djarin, through all the beskar. And Din Djarin the man - not Din Djarin the Mandalorian - is a kind and compassionate soul. He’s an honorable and righteous man, a great father, and a very worthy romantic partner. You could never be ugly to me, because that is how I see you, helmet or not.”

He doesn’t move, only speaks lowly, nearly a whisper.“What if I’m… disfigured? Or horrifying? Or something else?”

You smile again, rubbing the back of his hand as you hope to settle his nerves. You can tell he has built all this up into something major in his mind. “Then I’d learn to love that, too. But it doesn’t matter, because I will never, ever, ask you to break your Creed for me.”

The two of you sit in silence for a few moments, pleasant as you stare into his visor, hoping that any change might alert you to his current mental state. He’s the first one to break the silence.

“I know you wouldn’t ask it. It’s part of the vows.”

You blink a few times, not understanding. “What’s part of the vows?”

He responds quickly. “I have to show you my face.”

You’ll feel badly about it later, but in the moment you’re so taken aback by it that your voice raises and comes out like a blaster shot. “You what?”

You can hear a audible deep sigh through the modulator, his tone exasperated. “We vow to share all with one another. I have to share this, too. There are no secrets between riduurs. It’s why they’re always done in private.”

You squeak out an “oh”, but that’a all you can manage.

“Do you… still want to? If you don’t, I wouldn’t…”

You shift quickly, gathering both of his hands in your own as you pull yourself closer to him. You want him to see that you are serious about this. “Yes. Kriff, yes, of course I do.”

“Even if…” You shake your head and cut him off before he can start.

“No. Din. Even if I could never see your face. Even if you were the most conventionally ugly human in the entire galaxy. I. Want. To. Marry. You.” He nods a little bit in acceptance. “How soon can we do it?”

Shifting in his seat, he squeezes your hands back in his own. “Whenever you want, cyar’ika. It’s just us.”

You look toward the barren lands in front of you and then back to him. “Can we do it now? Here?”

He sighs again, and you can tell how baadly this conversation must have been wearing on his soul. “If that’s what you want, yes.”

“Then tell me the vows.”

He’s visibly taken aback by your sudden response, floored by the way you’ve been responding to him since he first brought this all up. “You… really? Right now?”

You sit up in the chair a little more, smiling, waiting, hopeful “I’ve waited long enough, Din - I’m not wasting another moment without you being mine. What are the vows, Din?”

He stutters out a response. Even though he knows these vows by heart, sharing them with you sends him spiraling into a nervousnss that he’s never felt before.“I, uh… T-There are four of them: Mhi solus tome. We are one when together. Mhi solus dar’tome. We are one when parted. Mhi me’dinui an. We share all. Mhi bajuri verde. We will raise warriors.”

You smile. The vows - like all things Mandalorian - are short and sweet. But that means that every vow - every word - every letter - means that much more. Din tells you each vow again, this time addressing you directly. He goes slowly, and helps you through each vowel that feels foreign on your tongue. You stumble the most over the last one - the heavy-handed language is like a sticky substance stuck to the roof of your mouth, but you make it through to the other side and you look at him, hopeful.

There’s a lightness to your heart that you don’t recognize when Din tells you, “Then it is written in song, my riduur.”

Your face erupts into a wild grin, never having thought youd see the day that he would can you mine. “Riduur…” You test out the word on your tongue, feeling like you could have been floating on clouds.

His hands squeeze yours, pulling you out of your thoughts and back into the moment.

“Yes. My riduur, Lady Djarin.” Your cheeks hurt from smiling so much for so long, but you just cant make yourself stop. You can’t help the expression that forms on your face at his words.

“Lady Djarin. I like it.” He chuckles, smoothing one ungloved hand over your cheek. He grabs your hands in his and places them on either side of his helmet.

“Help me fulfill the rest of my vows to you?”

You nod your head, yes, knowing that this moment would be emblazoned in your memory forever. This evening would change everything. In a new house, on a new planet, with a newly christened relationship, and a tiny wizard of a green child, this is where you and Din finally became one. One clan, one partnership, one shared bond - forever.

And it turns out, you couldn’t wait.

riduur - spouse

riduurok - marriage/love bond

aruetii - outsider

cyare/cyar'ika - beloved one; term of endearment

#din djarin x reader #din djarin #din djarin x y/n #din x you #din dijarin fanfiction #writing #no beta we die like men #this might be incoherent #im posting it anyway

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theladyregret · 1 year

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Drow Name Tables

Something I did as a special favor to @kimmurielsscryingmirror (@eldritchmist ) who showed interest. Because it’s...pretty big I decided to make it into it’s own post.

These are a few Drow naming tables that were originally found in an issue of Dragon Magazine. It’s two d100 tables of prefixes and suffixes commonly used in first names. The second couple of tables is a list of common house name prefixes and suffixes.

EDIT: Just a little something for those who care which I didn’t add before because it took me so long to finish the transcription I just wanted to post it lol. The gender difference is noted in the related Dragon Magazine article as being significant. Non Drow may not notice but a Drow will notice the difference. Female names sometimes borrow parts that are normally only considered male and this is considered fine...but a male with a name that borrows a typically only female part would be seen as extremely taboo.

Prefix (Female/Male) - Meaning

Akor/Alak beloved, best, first

Alaun/Alton lightning, powerful

Aly/Kel legendary, singing, song

Ang/Adin beast, monstrous, savage

Ardul/Amal blessed, divine, godly

Aun/Ant crypt, dead, deadly, death

Bae/Bar fate, fated, luck, lucky

Bal/Bel burned, burning, fire, flame

Belar/Bruh arrow, lance, piercing

Briz/Berg graceful, fluid, like water

Bur/Bhin craft, crafty, sly

Chal/Chasz earth, stable

Char/Kron sick, venom, venomed

Chess/Cal noble, lady/lord

Dhaun infested, plague

Dil/Dur cold, ice, still

Dirz/Div dream, dreaming, fantasy

Dris/Riz ash, dawn, east, eastern

Eclav/Elk chaos, mad, madness

Elvan/Kalan elf, elven, far, lost

Elv/Elaug drow, mage, power

Erel/Rhyl eye, moon, spy

Ethe/Erth mithril, resolute

Faer/Selds oath, sworn, vow

Felyn/Fil pale, thin, weak, white

Filf/Phar dwarf, dwarven, treacherous

Gauss/Orgoll dread, fear, feared, vile

G'eld friend, spider

Ghuan accursed, curse, unlucky

Gin/Din berserk, berserker, orc, wild

Grey/Gul ghost, pale, unliving

Hael/Hatch marked, trail, way

Hal/Sol deft, nimble, spider-like

Houn/Rik magic, ring, staff

Iiv/Dip liege, war, warrior

Iim life, living, spirit, soul

Illiam/Im devoted, heart, love

In/Sorn enchanted, spell

Ilph emerald, green, lush, tree

Irae/Ilzt arcane, mystic, wizard

Irr/Izz hidden, mask, masked

Iym/Ist endless, immortal

Jan/Duag shield, warded

Jhael/Gel ambitious, clan, kin, family

Jhul/Jar charmed, rune, symbol

Jys/Driz hard, steel, unyielding

Lael/Llt iron, west, western

Lar/Les binding, bound, law, lawful

LiNeer/Mourn legend, legendary, mythical

Lird/Ryld brand, branded, owned, slave

Lua/Lyme bright, crystal, light

Mal/Malag mystery, secret

May/Mas beautiful, beauty, silver

Micar lost, poison, widow

Min/Ran lesser, minor, second

Mol/Go blue, storm, thunder, wind

Myr/Nym lost, skeleton, skull

Nath/Mer doom, doomed, fate

Ned/Nad cunning, genius, mind, thought

Nhil/Nal fear, gorrible, horror, outraged

Neer core, root, strong

Null/Nil sad, tear, weeping

Olor/Omar skin, tattoo, tattooed

Pellan/Relon north, platiunum, wind

Phaer/Vorn honor, honored

Phyr/Phyx bless, blessed, blessing

Qualn/Quil mighty, ocean, sea

Quar aged, eternal, time

Quav/Quev charmed, docile, friend

Qil/Quil foe, goblin, slave

Rauv/Welv cave, rock, stone

Ril/Ryl foretold, omen

Sbat/Szor amber, yellow

Sab/Tsab abyss, empty, void

Shi'n/Kren fool, foolish, young

Shri/Ssz silk, silent

Shur/Shar dagger, edge, stiletto

Shynt invisible, skilled, unseen

Sin/Szin festival, joy, pleasure

Ssap/Tath blue, midnight, night

Susp/Spir learned, skilled, wise

Talab/Tluth burn, burning, fire

Tal/Tar love, pain, wound, wounded

Triel/Taz bat, winged

T'riss/Teb blade, sharp, sword

Ulvir/Uhls gold, golden, treasure

Umrae/Hurz faith, faithful, true

Vas/Vesz blood, bloody, flesh

Vic abyss, deep, profound

Vier/Val black, dark, darkness

Vlon/Wod bold, hero, heroic

Waer/Wehl deep, hidden, south, southern

Wuyon/Wruz humble, third, trivial

Xull/Url blooded, crimson, ruby

Xun demon, fiend, fiendish

Yas/Yaz riddle, spinning, thread, web

Zar/Zakn dusk, haunted, shadow

Zebey/Zek dragon, lithe, rage, wyrm

Zes/Zsz ancient, elder, respected

Zilv/Vuz forgotten, old, unknown

Suffixes (Female/Male) - Meaning

a/agh breaker, destruction, end, omega

ace/as savant, scholar, wizard

ae/aun dance, dancer, life, player

aer/d blood, blood of, heir

afae/afein bane, executioner, slayer

afay/aufein eyes, eyes of, seer

ala/launim healer, cleric

anna/erin advisor, counselor to

arra/atar queen/prince

aste bearer, keeper, slaver

avin/aonar guardian, guard, shield

ayne/al lunatic, maniac, manic, rage

baste/gloth path, walker

breena/antar matriach/patriarch, ruler

bryn/lyn agent, assassin, killer

cice/roos born of, child, young

cyrl/axle ally, companion, friend

da/daer illusionist, trickster

dia/drin rogue, stealer

diira/diirn initiate, sister/brother

dra/zar lover, match, mate

driira/driirn mother/father, teacher

dril/dorl knight, sword, warrior

e servant, slave, vessel

eari/erd giver, god, patron

eyl archer, arrow, flight, flyer

ffyn/fein minstrel, singer, song

fryn champion, victor, weapon, weapon of

iara/ica baron, duke, lady/lord

ice/eth obsession, taker, taken

idil/imar alpha, beginning, creator of, maker

iira/inid harbinger, herald

inidia secret, wall, warder

inil/in lady/lord, rider, steed

intra envoy, messenger, prophet

isstra/atlab acolyte, apprentice, student

ithra/irahc dragon, serpent, wyrm

jra/gos beast, biter, stinger

jss scout, stalker

kacha/kah beauty, hair, style

kiira/raen apostle, disciple

lay/dyn flight, flyer, wing, wings

lara/aghar cynic, death, end, victim

lin arm, armor, commander

lochar messenger, spider

mice/myr bone, bones, necromancer, witch

mur'ss shadow, spy, witness

na/nar adept, ghost, spirit

nilee/olil corpse, disease, ravager

niss/nozz chance, gambler, game

nitra/net kicker, returned, risen

nolu art, artist, expert, treasure

olin ascension, love, lover, lust

onia/onim rod, staff, token, wand

oyss/omph binder, judge, law, prison

qualyn ally, caller, kin

quarra/net horde, host, legion

quiri/oj aura, cloak, hide, skin

ra/or fool, game, prey, quarry

rae/rar secret, seeker, quest

raema/orvir crafter, fist, hand

raena/olvir center, haven, home

riia/rak enchanter, mage, spellcaster

ril bandit, enemy, raider, outlaw

riina/ree enchanter, mage, spellcaster

ryna/oyn follower, hired, mercenary

ryne/ryn blooded, elder, experienced

shalee/ral abjurer, gaze, watch, watcher

ssysn/rysn artifact, dweomer, sorcerer, spell

stin/trin clan, house, merchant, of the house

stra/tran spider, spinner, weaver

tana/ton darkness, lurker, prowler

thara/tar glyph, marker, rune

thrae/olg charmer, leader, seducer

tree/tel exile, loner, outcast, pariah

tyrr dagger, poison, poisoner, scorpion

ual/dan speed, strider

ue/dor arm, artisan, fingers

uit/dar breath, voice, word

une/diin diviner, fate, future, oracle

uque cavern, digger, mole, tunnel

urra/dax nomad, renegade, wanderer

va/ven comrade, honor, honored

vayas forge, forger, hammer, smith

vyll punishment, scourge, whip, zealot

vyrae/vyr mistress/master, overseer

wae/hrae heir, inheritor, princess

wiira/hriir seneschal of, steward

wyss/hrys best, creator, starter

xae/zaer orb, rank, ruler, sceptor

xena/zen cutter, gem, jewel, jeweler

xyra/zyr sage, teller

yl drow, woman/man

ylene/yln handmaiden/squire, maiden/youth

ymma/inyon drider, feet, foot, runner

ynda/yrd captain, custodian, marshal, ranger

ynrae/yraen heretic, rebel, riot, void

vrae architect, founder, mason

yrr protector, rival, wielder

zyne/zt finder, hunter

House Name Prefixes - Meaning

Alean the noble line of

Ale traders in

Arab daughters of

Arken mages of

Auvry blood of the

Baen blessed by

Barri spawn of

Cladd warriors from

Desp victors of

De champions of

Do' walkers in

Eils lands of

Everh the caverns of

Fre friends of

Gode clan of

Helvi those above

Hla seers of

Hun' the sisterhood of

Ken sworn to

Kil people of

Mae raiders from

Mel mothers of

My honored of

Noqu sacred to

Orly guild of

Ouss heirs to

Rilyn house of

Teken' delvers in

Tor mistresses of

Zau children of

House Name Suffixes - Meaning

afin the web

ana the night

ani the widow

ar poison

arn fire

ate the way

ath the dragons

duis the whip

ervs the depths

ep the underdark

ett magic

ghym the forgotten ways

iryn history

lyl the blade

mtor the abyss

ndar black hearts

neld the arcane

rae fell powers

rahel the gods

rret the void

sek adamantite

th challenges

tlar mysteries

t'tar victory

tyl the pits

und the spider's kiss

urden the darkness

val silken weaver

viir dominance

zynge the ruins

#Dungeons and Dragons #Drow #The Legend of Drizzt #dnd #dark elves

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