#grey-misty-mornings

[beamattack]

Hi omg i love your loz idea so so much they live in my head rent free for real!! I have a question tho; what happened to my girl hylia?? Like you said the faceless statue in the village might have crumbled or been destroyed somehow but is that the ONLY statue there is? Are there others? Are they also destroyed somehow? Has the whole concept of the godess hylia faded from hylian memory??

Also as someone who lives in the arctic sircle you got the vibes perfect btw!! Love the frozen wasteland it is my natural habitat ^_^

Thank you so much!! :^D I'm glad you like it, and that you like the vibes! I don't live in the arctic circle but i do live pretty close to it, so we usually get quite cold snowy winters as well!! I love snowy landscapes, they can be more beautiful & have more variety than many might think!!

As for if the concept of Hylia have disappeared from hylian memory - both yes & no! Just as with Din, Nayru & Farore, whose names have been lost to history and are now just known as ”The Three” or ”The Creators”, Hylia's name and visage has been forgotten & warped over time. The statue of the Faceless is the only one known by the villagers, so for them it's normal that that's just the way she looks. There are stories about both her and The Three that have survived and transformed over time - about how after The Three created the world, The Faceless brought down people from the heavens to live on it, and about how the Faceless herself battled an unspeakable evil but had to retreat to the heavens after she had sealed it away, as her wounds were severe. This period in Hyrule is almost exclusively reliant on oral tradition & retellings to tell history, so stories change naturally over time (only Zelda, Impa and a few others can read & write since it's important for the work they do! And no, Link can't 👍).

So in the end, it IS still Hylia that the villagers pray and ask for guidance to, even if it's by another name, but much about her have been forgotten and retold over many, many years.

There is one other statue of the Faceless that can be found out in the middle of nowhere, but just as the one in Link & Zelda's village, its face/head has been destroyed in some way. As for why both statues are like that, I like to keep that to everyone's own interpretations :^) If this really WAS a game there never would be an answer for it in-game either, haha!

(loz idea masterpost)

[rcrisdraws]

Now that the 'dog' trivia is out, i should really just draw a herd of horses and one of them has the fucked up mouth and it's just titled Shepherd-

[sunbeamsinapinecone]

Grainy day

[sofioosh]

16.05.23

[jamminvroomvroom]

hi babe i’m here from the dms but. speaking of brain rot, thinking abt fwb lando again where u stay the night after and wake up in the morning expecting him to be gone already for smth work related or what not but he’s still in bed absolutely clinging to u. and then more soft sleepy morning sex 🫠🫠

play pretend.

ln x fem!reader

in which it’s time to stop pretending…

just a little blurb to say…. HAPPY BIRTHDAY @lavenderlando !! sorry i made you wait like 6 months for this lmfao i love u girl, u mean the world to me and i hope this hits the spot 💖💖 lemme know what y’all think, more 4k requests will be worked on asap (it’s exam szn ew)

songs to set the mood: denial by james marriott, real love baby by father john misty, can i call you rose? by thee sacred souls

warnings: 18+!! minors go away! smut, morning sex, friends to lovers, best friend!reader, friends with benefits type relationship, fluff, unprotected sex (don’t be silly…)

1k words

cool air casts goosebumps over your bare skin, the open window letting in the morning breeze. you tug at the grey bedsheets, dragging them higher over your frame where you lay. you eyes are cracked open, hazily taking in the sight before you.

he’s still here.

you often expect lando to be gone when you wake up. sometimes it’s because of work, sometimes it’s because you’d promised not to do this again but alcohol had then rendered the both of you irresistible to the other, and it was too awkward to have yet another jarring conversation about how you’re such good friends.

but he’s there. and he’s looking at you.

“hi.” he croaks, soft and low. you revel in his morning voice on the rare occasions you get to hear it.

“hey.” you mumble, leaning in closer to him.

he pushes the duvet up and away, inviting you into his arms, and you wriggle towards him. he’s a human heater, and you’re cold, that’s the only reason you snuggle up, tucked between his arms.

“you’re still here.” you whisper into his chest, purposefully quiet, almost as if you don’t actually want him to hear you.

“couldn’t leave you.” he mutters quietly.

you crane your head to look up at him, eyes blown wide at the admission.

“why?”

“i hate leaving after.”

the ‘after’ hangs heavy in the air between you for a second. he’s eyeing up your lips and you’re returning the gesture, sleepy eyes flitting between his and his plush lips.

this never happens. usually, the night starts with too many drinks too quickly, progresses to his hands dropping dangerously low on your waist, leads to the pair of you mentally scarring an innocent taxi driver, and ends with you underneath him. or, on top of him. and then, he’s gone.

“for the record, i hate it when you go.” you reply, and the space between you dissipates. there are so many unsaid words being traded between you, an intense charge of energy. you’re anxiously sliding your hands up his sides, itching to feel impossibly closer.

“maybe i should stop going then, hm?” two of lando’s fingers grasp your chin, tilting it up to bump his.

“yeah.” you breathe.

it’s like he’s tugged an invisible string, and you’re melting into him, his lips slotting immaculately over yours, as if they were sculpted by god to rest against yours. he tastes familiar, it’s rare you get to kiss him sober and in the light of day. you bask in it, finding the messy, loose curls tickling the back of his neck, threading your fingers through the thick, brown strands. he groans, parting his mouth just enough for you to slide your tongue over his.

“want you. now.” you gasp urgently into the space where your lips part, your body rolling hungrily against his.

“i always want you, drives me crazy.” lando grunts, grabbing a handful of your ass and pulling you even closer.

lando slots his thigh between your legs, and you search for friction, rutting against him. you’re both naked from the blurry night before so you can feel everything, each part of him so ready for you. you’re slick for him already, can feel the way it’s painting your inner thighs. you hate how easy it is to lose yourself in him.

“take me then.” you whine, your forehead collapsing against his shoulder.

lando smirks, flipping you over so that your back is to his chest, like you’re nothing. he hooks your top leg over his, sliding himself closer to where you’re aching for him.

“can’t keep pretending.” lando whispers against the shell of your ear.

he slides deep, then, filling you to the hilt. it knocks the air out of you, your back arching at the sensation of him hitting every single spot that mattered.

“then let’s not pretend anymore.” you choke out, your head rolling back against his shoulder.

“yeah, baby? wanna be all mine?” he teases, thrusting deep and slow, the slide of him shooting pleasure over your body like the slow, satisfying drip of warm honey.

“already am, all yours.” you sigh, totally and utterly content as your nerve endings pulsed with pleasure.

“good girl.” lando praises, his voice fucked out and lovestruck.

as if he’s rewarding you for your admission, the pad of his finger slips down your navel, finding your clit. you’re soaked for him, wet and warm, and he traces circles into the bundle of nerves, each touch sending you keening back into him.

“so close.” you sound like you’re begging, pleading for him to let you finish all over him.

“gotta say please.” he nips the skin of your shoulder and you squirm, toes curling.

“please, lando.” you writhe, canting your hips back against him.

“sound so pretty for me.” he coos, peppering kisses down your neck.

his fingers speed up against your folds, working you perfectly to a sweet release. everything is still blurred by sleep, your body overly sensitive from the cool air pouring in through the window and the slumber still lodged in your bones.

“cum with me.” you slur, your eyes squeezing shut. you almost turn into him, convulsing in his arms to the point where you’d be staring into his stormy eyes if you could manage to pry yours open.

“let me see those eyes.” he commands, your entire body shuddering. you blink, staring up at him, and you both fold, meeting your ends. he looks fierce, starved, completely enamoured with every single way your face moves.

your jaw hangs agape, a choked cry stifled in the back of your throat. it’s all too much, and just about enough, huge, calloused hands roaming your body as your shake, spilling all over him.

“god.” you breathe, flopping limply against him. he stays buried inside of you, his face lost to the damp skin of the crook of your neck.

“i never would of left all those mornings if i knew this is the good morning i’d get.” lando laughs, the sound deep and wholesome. you cosy yourself up even closer to him.

“not letting you leave from now on.” you murmur, smiling to yourself when you feel his lips press against the back of your head.

“you couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.”

-

sorry this is soooo bad lmao i felt the urge to write something short n sweet xoxo

-

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[bunny584]

OBSESSED: NANAMI (PT. II)

A/N: Because our collective husband won the contest. Gege texted me saying obviously Nanami would win. He also said if I don’t post a second part immediately Choso gets the boot next season. So I’m doing this for ALL of us 🤗 (I swear, I swear I’m 90% done with H&H for those of you that follow/have tolerated my lollygagging).

C/W: Fluff, Breeding, Mature, 18+

“It wasn’t over…it still isn’t over.”

Lines from The Notebook bubble from your lips onto Nanami’s bare chest. You’re curled onto him like a Cheshire cat. Your pretty, flushed mouth pets him. Followed closely by muffled sniffles. You bury your misty eyes and runny nose into his ratty, old college baseball shirt.

The one washed heather grey from the days turned months turned years of your careful handwashing.

I can get you another shirt, my love.

But I want this one, Ken. It reminds me of when we first fell in love.

Your answer is the same whenever he offers. Pouring all of your being into mending the natural little holes, the frays, and strain that comes with time.

His precious girl.

You nurse his shirt back to health, time and time again. In the same way you kiss him on rainy Sunday mornings. And pull him into the kitchen to dance with you under candlelight. And sneak extra food into his packed lunch on days he has to work overtime.

You are celestial.

With you he’s entrenched in the Heavens.

With you he builds the palatial wings of his own personal Icarus. Flying close, nearly too close, to the blinding warmth of your Sun.

“It’s so romantic, isn’t it?”

You shift up higher on him. Torsos melding together. Both your thighs cradled between his pajama clad legs. Nanami drags his fingers along your delicate spine.

God, he revels in you like this.

“It is, baby.”

Nanami catches the glassy mosaic in your eyes. Worthy of display in the Sistine Chapel.

You quickly bury your head into his neck, embarrassed about crying over a movie you’ve both seen over 10 times.

“I’m being so ridiculous, I’m sorry. It’s the stupid, dumb, stupid hormones.”

You press a cloud soft kiss into his chest and it reverberates down to his thundering heart.

Truthfully, Nanami has spent the entirety of the film watching you.

Tiny wrinkles in your button nose during some scenes, giggles and full belly laughs at others. You try to bite back your sobs. Slap away your tears before they splash against his abs — like they don’t correlate with the same points in the plot everytime.

He purposefully chose The Notebook after dinner because of your reactions. Just so he could fall in love with you all over again.

Just like Icarus.

Who fell from flying too close to the Sun.

Because loving you feels like a blissful free fall. With no ground in sight.

“I can’t wait to marry you.” The words flow out of Nanami. He can’t seem to contain it.

A pretty gasp escapes you. You pull away from the TV to shift closer to his face.

“Oh, Ken. I can’t wait to—“

“Kiss me.” His voice is throaty, laced with growing need.

Such an obedient girl.

Your lips are addicting. A fiend’s paradise.

He surges his hands in your hair while his tongue traces and tastes every corner of your mouth. You whine into him. He sucks on your tongue before taking your bottom lip into his teeth.

“Baby,” You breathe against his lips. Gentle pants melding with his.

Nanami kisses a hushed I love you into your mouth, before shifting your bodies on the plush couch.

His cock has been throbbing the entire movie. His shirt has inevitably shrunken over the years. Where it used to fall past your mid thighs, now it rides halfway over your hips.

Your plump, perky ass has been in plain view the whole night. Nothing protecting you from his invasion except for a thin, baby doll thong. Navy. Like the letters on his alma mater’s shirt.

Because your body is in heat, preparing you for a baby, your breasts are noticeably larger.

Filling out his shirt in the most mouth watering way. Your nipples, hard and sensitive, enticing him with every miniscule movement.

God, the way you wince and squeal when you brush your buds too harshly against him. Or whimper when the supple, puffy flesh of your tits push against his rigid body a little too hard.

His cock bucks off his thigh every single time.

The next 3 days Nanami will be reduced to the most rudimentary version of himself.

He’ll follow you around the house like a lap dog. Burying his nose and mouth and lips and tongue into every part of your body. He’ll grope you. Rub his crotch into you at every turn. Cum from just sucking on your nipples, if you let him.

You two have decided to abstain from sex when you ovulate. Until you are ready to create a love child.

He says you, because Nanami is fully ready, eager, to have mini-yous filling his home with life.

And really, he’s happy to let you dictate your family planning.

But the next 3 days will be torture. His needy, oversensitive heavy cock will drive every thought. He’ll jerk off more times than he can count.

Nanami is on his back now, with you perfectly perched on his manhood. Nothing but your thin panties cupping your precious little cunt. His length tents right up against you, begging for entry.

Both of your warm hands caress each hill and valley of his abs. Little crystals line your wide, puppy eyes. Tip of your nose so deeply flushed from all your tears. Cheeks dusted rose from your sex rubbing against his in this position.

No matter how many years you two have been intimate, you always blush, and squirm, and look away and hide your face like it’s the first time.

And it just makes him want to bury his cock in you. And take you. And worship you. And keep you swollen with his cum.

“How did I get so lucky?”

Again, Nanami means to think the statement but it rolls off his tongue on its own accord.

“D-do you mean that?” The way your bottom lip quivers makes his cock drool.

“My love. Your name was etched into my heart from the day I met you.”

Nanami pulls himself up so that your chest collides with his. You whimper at the sudden contact and the sound decimates his brain.

He crashes his lips into yours once more.

Your sweet mouth is blinding. You immediately evanesce into him. Little “ohs” and little “mmms” escape you in the pockets of breath Nanami allows you.

His cock jerks violently against your warm, dewy folds. Your arousal has soaked through your measly barrier. Now mixing with his, staining his sweats.

“Oh sweetheart,” Nanami husks against your lips. His fingers go to move your thong aside and are now drenched.

“So wet for me. Such a needy girl.”

He circles your puffy clit twice. And you buck against his veiny hand.

“Mmnnggh…oh god, K-Ken..” broken little moans kiss Nanami’s neck, while he pets your soaking wet folds.

“My precious girl,” he muses, fully aware of how pliant you become under his sweet words and light touch.

Nanami shifts his hips upward, just to avoid his legs falling asleep. But the sound that emanates from your lips is mind altering.

The friction from his fingers on your sensitive bud and his barely clothed, steel pipe length bullying into your opening drives you to see stars.

You bury your head back into the crook of his neck. So embarrassed about the way your hips start rutting against his cock. Slowly. On low autopilot.

Nanami grips your fleshy ass with his free hand. Pushing you deeper onto his rod every time you hump him.

“Oh yeah, baby?”

He gently teases into your ear. It’s such a fucking turn on. You rutting against him so desperately. Blushing up to your ears. Trying and failing miserably at fighting your body when it’s in heat like this.

Your nails dig little crescents into Nanami’s back. Small little puffs of air feather his skin.

“That’s it, pretty girl.” Nanami huffs.

“Use my cock. Make yourself feel good.”

You mewl at his words. Frustrated that the friction you want, need, is escaping you.

“I-I’m so…” words broken by your sloppy, desperate humping. Nanami grips your ass tighter. He suspends his hips upward to help you.

But his adjustments just make you whine louder. Pulling your face out of his neck to glare at him. Little frustrated crystals fall from your eyes. Your pupils are completely blown. Eyelids heavy. Nostrils flaring.

Fucking hell.

He could cum from just looking at you right now.

You need his cock. It feels criminal not to sink into your begging, decadent, pretty little cunt right now. When your body has worked so hard to prepare you to be stuffed and bred.

“I’m so horny,” another salty tear rolls down your pretty face.

And Nanami has to look up at the ceiling.

Because you say things like that.

While dripping around his dick. With your puffy tits and lips. Wearing his shirt that reminds you both of when you first fell in love.

How can you expect him to maintain any decorum?

“I-I-I love you with all my heart, Kento.”

And, he’s off.

You snap his last remaining string of self control in half.

Nanami takes another bruising kiss from your lips. His hands start dragging his shirt over your head. And you immediately moan into him.

“Be gentle with it!” You scold through delirious groans.

He can’t help but smile against your lips. His sweet, tender hearted future wife. So protective. Even if it’s just a cotton t-shirt.

“Forgive me baby, I’ll be more gentle.”

Willing his hands to move a beat slower. He pulls the prized possession over your head and sets it on the couch ledge behind you.

His eyes instantly drop to your sensitive nipples. And you squirm away from his searing gaze.

“My beautiful wife.” Nanami murmurs.

He places feather light kisses on your sensitive mounds.

Your tiny fingers wire through his hair and gently tug. And Nanami’s cock twitches in return. Leaking more of his arousal onto the mess you both have created.

“Can I make love to you baby? All I need is my tongue.”

Grit in his tone almost sharp enough to nick your skin.

You roll your bottom lip under your teeth. Wanton and utterly fucked out, you drop your hand to his crotch for the first time. Evoking a loud hiss from your soon-to-be husband.

“I want to feel you.” Hot desire woven throughout your angelic features.

Your voice calls to his manhood. The last remaining blood in his brain diverts directly to his groin.

“I…” Nanami pulls in a deep, shaky breath.

“I won’t be able to pull out, pretty girl.”

You take a kiss this time, swirling your sweet tongue around his. Nanami melts into your mouth like chocolate. Palming both of your hips with his large hands.

Pull out? He won’t be able to last more than 5 seconds inside you at this rate.

“You’re my husband,” your dulcet voice absolutely fucking his brain.

“And I want to feel you.”

Nanami has to bite back a pathetic whine. There’s barely 3 seconds left before he’s thrusting into you like the caged animal he is.

“Sweetheart, I could…” No, he knows he will.

“I will get you pregnant tonight.”

He offers you the last warning he’ll be able to mumble before he starts.

You cup his face. Place a chaste kiss on his swollen lips and grind onto his helplessly rock hard cock.

“Then let’s make a baby.”

[yellowpsyduck]

𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮

Thomas Shelby x Reader

Warning: Smut

Her dress was white like the Arctic Snow. 

Her cheeks were red like the Chrysler Imperial. 

A glance was all it took for one to deduce that Y/N Elliot stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the sea of greys in the grimy streets of Birmingham. 

With her short tight curls and her eyes that seemed untinged with the horrors that plagued the notorious English town, she was a sight to behold. 

Mr. Elliot was the preacher at the local Presbyterian Church, but his daughter evoked the urge to sin in the minds of the lads of the town.

 And again, a glance was all it took for one to fixate upon this seemingly other worldly apparition that roamed the streets of Birmingham with her teasing smile and her plump red lips. 

And Thomas Michael Shelby was no exception. 

Soon the occasional glances that he threw her way should they ever cross paths turned into waiting by the front of her house to escort her to finishing school, much to the dismay of the girl’s father. 

The young Elliot girl was infatuated with the older man. The boys that previously courted her couldn’t hold a candle to his suave. With his cigarettes and his well pressed suits, Tommy Shelby was simply a dream come true for the impressionable girl. 

She couldn’t care less about her parents’ disapproval of their relation, nor did she care about what the towns folk had to say. 

‘He loves me, and I love him and that’s all that matters’ she assured herself each night. 

The two soon became inseparable, the leader of the Peaky blinders even barged inside the school and pulled his darling out of the classroom simply because he ‘missed’ her. The teachers and staff knew better than to obstruct the infamous gangster. 

The two went to the fair that day. He bought her all the dainty little trinkets that her heart desired. She didn’t go easy on the spending too; she knew his pockets wouldn’t hurt from her silly purchases. 

And for his kind generosity, she rewarded him with her first kiss. 

A simple kiss on the lips; that’s how it started but it soon turned heated and passionate. 

It goes without saying that she lost her purity to him, right in the backseat of the black Ford. 

Still clad in her school attire, she sat on his lap with his hands encircling her lithe waist. 

He left a trail of kisses down her exposed collarbone, his hands working to unbutton her shirt which her mother had carefully pressed that morning. 

The chemise underneath soon found itself discarded on the floor of the vehicle. 

Her pink coloured bra was on full display for him. The more conservatively fashioned fabric did little to hide the fullness of the plump breasts underneath. 

Her breath was shallow as she looked at him with those beautiful doe eyes of hers. 

Her cheeks tinted with arousal and her eyes misty with desire. 

She was a sight to behold as she guided his hand to cup her left breast, telling him that she was ready. 

Tommy couldn’t contain himself any longer and his fingers found themselves unclasping the fabric that shielded her modesty. He sucked with urgency on her perky nipples while he kneaded the other, giving equal attention to both of those glorious mounds. 

Y/N was a squirming mess. She loved the feeling of his hot mouth as he showered her with his touch.  

She could feel her panties dampen with each passing second. No boy had ever made her this hot and bothered. 

She needed more of him. She needed his touch. 

Tommy could feel the wetness on his thighs as the girl began grinding herself on his thighs. 

“Eager, aren’t we?” he teased with a raspy drawl. 

God! This girl was driving him crazy. 

He continued trailing his kisses down her stomach and halted at the waistband of her skirt. 

He swiftly tossed the heavy garment aside along with her garter and knickers. 

She was on full display for him. For him and his eyes only. 

He couldn’t peel his eyes off her body. 

She had bewitched him.  

Sure, Thomas Shelby had been with his fair share of women before her, but he had never felt so strongly for any woman before, nor did he think he could ever. 

Not after this. 

Not after her. 

His thumb slid across her clit, eliciting a beautiful moan from her. 

Gently, he prodded her glistening hole with a finger. 

She was too tight. 

He thrusted his finger inside her as she coated him in her lewd liquid. 

Now two fingers. 

He was thrusting her insides with just two fingers, yet it completely filled her up. 

She was a panting mess. 

She could feel his now bulging erection poking against her bare butt. 

Just as she could find her release, he extracted his fingers from the throbbing pussy, making her cry in desperation. 

“Tommy please.” she purred as she met his pale blue irises. She was a whimpering, desperate mess. 

“Just a minute darling.” he assured her as he hurriedly unbuckled his belt and freed his pulsating swollen cock. 

Y/N wasn’t sure how he was going to fit his fat cock inside her tight pussy, but she didn’t care anymore. All she wanted was for him to fill her up and make love to her. 

He carefully lined his cock that was leaking with precum to her entrance and gently entered her hole.  

Just the tip was in and even then, Y/N was threatening to spill teardrops from her lustful eyes. 

“It’ll only hurt for a second, Darling.” he whispered in her ear as he forced himself inside of her virgin cunt. 

Y/N was seeing stars. 

Oh! The pain and the pleasure; both feelings intertwined as she felt him thrusting inside of her giving rise to this otherworldly feeling of ecstasy. 

Tommy couldn’t control himself inside of her as he pounded into her. 

Her tight pussy was driving him mad with pleasure. 

He could see the scarlet testament of her purity flowing down her thighs as he corrupted her innocence. 

She was his. 

No one else’s. 

The two continued their lovemaking, completely engulfed in the throngs of their union.  

That night, as they lay in the meadow on the English countryside, with his hands around her and her head on his chest, they looked up at the sky that bear witness to their passions.  

And that faithful day, Thomas Shelby made a woman out of Y/N Elliot. 

[tadpolesonalgae]

On The Wrong Side of History: The Queen of Hybern

Azriel x Hybernian!Reader

synopsis: Reader is one of Hybern’s generals, fighting for her freedom after Prythian turned her back. Born with no magic, she was forced to cultivate a different kind of power, one that could prove deadly to the inhabitants of magic-blooded fae of Prythian. But when she’s captured and thrown into the scarred hands of the Spy-master, which side of history will prevail? Will Hybern’s story be told, or will it be covered up and concealed before the suffering of her people ever makes it to the light.

warnings: miscarriage at the end, war, general suffering and grimness, slight torture(?)

a/n: I had this idea yesterday and wanted to write something so fair warning it’s a little rushed! It also lightly brushes over miscarriage which might be a delicate subject for some so please take care of yourselves 🧡💛

word count: 3,810

——————————————————————————————————————————————

The war is coming, and not a single inhabitant of Hybern will stand by and let the chance for freedom pass. It’s been five-hundred years since you were confined to that island, cut-off from the mainland and left to rot and starve. Now is the time to reclaim the ground you were deprived of. War is coming, and she is starving for revenge. Starving like your people have for centuries, and nothing will stand between you and fighting for your right to life. Not even the baby you know is growing inside of you.

The air is fresh and damp, and you take the time to inhale its freshness before hot blood is spilled, turning the ground to a mushy, fleshy soup. The day is overcast, heavy grey clouds that look like the mould on bread swelling in the sky, ready to start leaking, dripping down into the open fields. Grass stomped into a muddy mush as feet frantically fight for ground, desperate to keep steady before they’re trodden down into the dirt, trampled and crushed beneath the weight of an army.

If you fall, you cannot rise. Not with a writhing mass of violence crowding the land, oozing bloodlust so thick it won’t matter which army you fight for. A body shouldn’t rise from the mud, any attempts to would be met with steel slicing down in a frantic jolt.

You turn from the entrance of your tent, making for the bed, moving slowly, peacefully, to the protective coatings you’ll be wearing in a couple of hours. The leather that will stick and slide over your skin, wet with blood and sweat, hopefully some rain, too. Heat gathers quickly in the midst of battle, and between the stink of gore and the sweltering sweat that greases any soldier’s grip, rain and wind are much appreciated for their gentle touches.

Your nose twitches as a breeze passes through the camp, quiet in the early hours of misty, grey dawn. Even beneath the cover of your tent, the smell of the battlefield can reach you—damp and bloody, contaminating the fresh air you’d been treating yourself to.

Something shifts inside of you, and you glance down at yourself, hesitantly raising your palm to your lower stomach. You only found out about your condition mere weeks ago, but even had you only found out this morning, you would still be here, preparing for your freedom.

The baby won’t survive, anyway. Not with what your body has turned into.

————

“You’re ready for today?”

A wry smile curves your lips, settling deeper into the chair that’s been set to one side of his room, the large bed in the centre already made despite him having risen as recently as yourself. Neither of you have ever particularly been ones for sleeping in, having so much to do at all times of day. “I’ve been ready for the past five hundred years,” you answer, leaning your chin on the heel of your palm.

The King of Hybern reflects your smile—the slightest twist of his lips. “Perhaps I made a mistake sending Amarantha to seize control of Prythian,” he muses, slipping the shirt over his head, pulling his dark, shoulder-length hair free of the collar once it’s on, making to tighten the laces that can be used to close the V of the hem. A note of dissatisfaction slides beneath your skin as his amulet is obscured—a hollow iron circle, his crest welded from the dark metal inset to its centre.

“Perhaps,” you agree lightly, watching as his fingers tighten the ties of his trousers, noting the distinct lack of armour—he’ll be watching over the Cauldron today. “Though in that case she might still be alive,” you murmur quietly, a little smile dancing in your eyes.

“You disgrace her,” he chuckles lowly, pulling the thick coat from his bed, leather on its exterior to keep out the bite of wind or the lick of rain, while lined with a warm fleece. “You trained beside her for a good portion of your life, at least honour her memory.” The King of Hybern shucks on the coat, the hem of leather coming down past his knees, and he adjusts the cuffs before making for the large, wooden chest at the foot of his bed.

“There was little to honour,” you counter, straightening in the chair as you watch him decide on which daggers to hide beneath the coat. “She was brash and brazen at the best of times, too quick to grow comfortable on her throne. And I never liked her bedside manner. She was always too grabby and rough for my liking.”

“She was ambitious,” he counters, strapping a small blade to the interior of the coat, hidden away in a pocket on his left side. He pauses, briefly considering something, then glancing over you, how you’re lazily sprawled across his chair, “though her nails could have been a bit shorter. They were an unpleasant surprise, at times.”

Your lips curve at one corner, sharing a look with him, before he returns to selecting his daggers, settling on one with a jagged, serrated edge, a wicked hook to its tip.

It’s then he turns, blades concealed beneath his coat and he silently walks to you, charcoal eyes glittering as you sit straighter. “How long have you been serving me now?” He asks, pausing at your side, so you have to incline your chin to look at him, baring your throat. “Five centuries? Six?”

“Six and a half,” you reply, “if you’re counting foot soldier duties as serving.”

He smiles a strange smile, glittering teeth showing briefly beneath familiar lips. “Loyalties are rewarded,” he says cryptically, his palm settling beneath your jaw, inclining your chin—it would be easy for him to snap your neck with the slightest snap of his hands. “Have you thought about what you want?”

“It seems greedy to ask for something before I’ve even succeeded at winning this war,” you reply.

“Consider it a show of assurance,” he remarks, “I have no doubt you’ll prove instrumental to Prythian’s ruin. Now, what would you like, upon your victory?”

Your eyes gleam with hunger, and you wonder if it’s at all possible he might not already know what you desire, more than anything. And looking at the way those charcoal eyes of his are gleaming, as if goading you on, urging the words to spill like honey from your velvety tongue—you feel it’s impossible. He knows what your request will be. And he’s practically dragging the desire from your throat, with the grip he has on it.

“Make me your queen.”

———

Darkness pounds at your mind, eyes aching as if the blood vessels are bursting, hot pressure building, ready to splash out through your pupils. The air is cool…cold, skin hypersensitive to the slightest shift in temperature, telling you there’s a layer of sweat over your exterior, alerting you to each swish of air.

Your thigh stings, the laceration taking its time to heal, longer than others of your kind would. The small cuts you’d been given the day before—a few inches long—have scabbed over, no longer in danger of leaking blood, but there’s going to be a definite pucker around each cut. A shiver traces up your spine, an involuntary shudder passing through your lungs as coldness sweeps across your skin, like a winter’s breeze.

Slowly, keeping your breathing as even as possible, you crack an eye open, only to be met with darkness. Hesitantly, the other slides open, and you peek at your surroundings but the dark seems impenetrable, thick and absolutely solid. Your nostrils flare, and the faint smell of ammonia and iron waft up along with the sharp tang you associate with stomach acid, the air itself thick and damp, slightly humid. Fertile and rife, perfect for things to start growing.

Casting your gaze downward, you can spot the stitching that’s covering the split in your right thigh, jaggedly stitched up, and from the looks of it you’re quite glad you weren’t conscious for it. You also notice the grime that’s already begun settling on you, dirt and mud and gore still layering your skin, save for the small perimeter that’s been cleaned around your thigh. The thought of how you must smell is a grim one.

“You’re awake,” a voice observes from the darkness, making your ears twitch.

You keep your mouth tightly sealed, waiting to hear what the observer has to say. Let them speak their part first, before you start making your own moves. Already you can tell this one is different from the previous ones—yesterday’s one had a lighter voice, squeaky and dragging. This one sounds like the first roll of thunder before a storm breaks.

“You’ll forgive me for the haphazard stitching. Healers are needed elsewhere.”

So this one’s to blame for the child’s-quilt on your thigh. It’s more than likely it was done intentionally carelessly, rather than simply poorly—poor stitching could lead to further infection, while careless stitching just might leave a trace of a scar. On a regularly healing body, at least.

Straightening in your chair, you try to pick out where the voice is coming from, but the darkness is so thick, and your eyes have barely had a chance to adjust, and with the faelight bobbing above your head there’s little chance they will anytime soon. Keeping them shut would be the quickest way, but it would be leaving yourself open. More open than you already are, that is, with your arms bound at your back. They haven’t bothered to shackle you to the chair itself today, the ties from yesterday are gone, and you can feel the weight of the stone around your wrists: Gorsian shackles—utterly useless on you.

“What do you want today?” You ask into the darkness, stretching your fingers to keep them awake and ready. It’s already been at least three days, and you suspect whoever has come to visit today isn’t just any old torturer. You can tell from the silence they keep, how undetectable they are despite your honed senses, sharper than most’s. They had to be, for you to survive.

“The same thing anyone might want from a prisoner of war,” the voice replies, ghosting through the room, bouncing about in the darkness so it’s impossible to tell its root. “And what is that?” You ask, following the script, familiar with the direction of the conversation—unaccustomed, however, to be on this side of it. “Information,” the voice replies, and there’s less than a second of detectable presence before your hair is wrapped around a fist and dragged back, your throat exposed as you’re positioned over the back of the chair, making it impossible to swallow. The faelight glares down at you, beaming into your adjusted eyes, and you’re forced to squint as your vision blurs from the sting of the light and the grip on your scalp. Cool steel settles just below your jaw, the tip of a blade spiking into the soft flesh just beneath the hollow of your mouth.

Your teeth grit together, hissing sharply at the roughness of the touch, thigh aching from the tension that shot through your body. A laugh forces its way from your chest, ragged and strained as you peer up into the faelight, pupils tightening to slits in the face of the brightness, “give me something in return. I can’t very well go back empty handed, can I?”

Your captor roughly tugs on your hair, your lip twitching a little from the pain but otherwise unruffled. “You might go back with no hands at all, unless you’re careful.”

“Threats already? You haven’t even told me what you’re after,” you bite out, voice heavy and grim.

A beat passes between you, then the steel is flipped away between deft fingers, removed from your throat in favour of pressing to your sternum—a warning before the cuts begin, gradually skinning you alive until they get what they want. Fury simmers quietly inside of you, but you keep it tucked away. That’ll only come in useful once the pain starts setting in. A fuel to fall back on when food would become a problem. But it’s high time you return to your king. You’ve spent long enough here, all because of a stupid, foolish…

“Would you like to hear something interesting, then? In the name of compromise?” The voice asks, low and rasping, and you sit silently, waiting for what they have to say.

“The one who visited you yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that…each one refused to come back the next day. Insisted there was something wrong with you.” The hand tightens on your hair then releases, the presence vanishing like a flame snuffed out, leaving your skin tingling with awareness. “Once is by chance, twice is a coincidence, but three…three’s a pattern.”

Something hisses past your ear, and you jerk in your seat, not foolish enough to stand. You glare into the darkness, peering deep from beneath your lowered brows, lips turned down in the corners as you try to pick out even the faintest shadow, but they all blend together so seamlessly, like one giant, blank wall. Not a single shape to be found.

Something whispers to your left, then cracks to your right, your pulse beginning to pick up involuntarily form the confusing stimulus, attention split between both directions.

A figure steps into the grey shift in light, silent and menacing as it prowls forward, one military-grade boot in front of the other, and you take in the towering silhouette, the great wings looming in deeper shadow. Your eyes follow the light as it glides up his frame, revealing long legs clad in Illyrian leathers, scarred hands within easy reach of visible weapons, a lean waist and broad chest, the Night Court insignia clear over his heart. Cold, cutting hazel eyes, with a glint you recognise. After having spent so many centuries gazing into eyes like that, it would be strange to not be able to place the intense glint of honed reproach, the look that desires utter eradication of the thing that’s causing suffering.

Calm and deadly, he is your exterminator.

“We’ll start with an easy question,” he says, gaze unfaltering as he meets your own.

“What is it that makes all kinds of magic recoil from you, General?”

A slow smile breaks across your lips, delicately curving in a mocking grin. You should have known this would be his question, that they would have figured something was wrong with you by now—the slowed healing, the way their magic leans back from you, as if trying to scuttle away.

“And you?” You ask, a gleam in your eye. “What’s your title?”

His mask doesn’t shift, not even the slightest hint of emotion in his dark eyes. Just silence. Patient, grating, silence.

“Not even the name of my captor?” You push, smile slipping away, settling back into a wall of ice to match his own—you can play that game, too. “Or are you nobody? You don’t seem like you’re nobody, though.” You angle your chin, shifting in the chair slightly, re-flexing your fingers, testing the gorsian shackles. “You’re clearly important, if you were sent in to investigate after three turned away, and considering the insignia you’re wearing, with those wings…master torturer of the Night Court?”

He inclines his head, “Spymaster. Shadowsinger.”

“And how do your shadows like me, Spymaster?” You murmur, able to guess the answer.

His dark eyes narrow on you almost imperceptibly, then his right hand is wrapping around the hilt of one of his blades, inset with strange markings, as dark as obsidian. The hairs on the nape of your neck rise as he thumbs the blade free, a sharp glint in his eye being the last thing you see of him before he steps away into shadow, falling seamlessly back into the darkness.

“How long had you planned to let this war go on for?” He rasps from the darkness, the question bounding in and out, coming from different sides that make it impossible to track his position. All while he’s free to observe from the shadow. “You ask that like we have control over the nature of war,” you reply neutrally, keeping your gaze sharp, but all it looks the same. If you could find a way to put the faelight out, or to lure him to stand before you… Getting some information first would be preferable, though.

“But maybe we had an idea.”

The sound of steel slicing through air comes from your right, and you instinctively follow the familiar hiss of a blade, body tensing, as if expecting it to come flying out from the darkness.

“You’d have to be confident in a victory to have a timeframe in mind.” His rasp echoes throughout the room you’re kept in, whispering in varying volumes as it’s bounced off shadow. “We’ve had a long time to prepare,” you reply vaguely, features remaining blank, despite being unable to so much as feel the weight of his attention. If it wasn’t for the fact you’d seen him, and were having a conversation, you wound’t believe he was in here with you. You hate to admit it, but it’s impressive.

“And I suppose you believed you’d win?” He questions.

“I know we’ll win. Whether I’m in here or not.”

The steel tip of a blade grazes the top of your back, slowly tracing the length of your shoulders, occasionally pressing deep enough to disrupt the skin, but mostly remaining as a taunting reminder—he could choose to cut you at any moment, as deeply or as slowly as he pleases. “What made you believe that? Numbers? Experience? Speeches?”

“We have the cauldron,” you reply, keeping apprehension clear from your voice, the tip of the blade pressing a little too deeply into the back of your left shoulder. “What was it like, by the way? Seeing your soldiers wiped from existence in the blink of an eye?” The blade bites into your skin, probably pushed in to about an inch of flesh, and you grit your teeth as he twists the steel, opening the wound up. “I’m fairly certain we targeted your aerial armies on the first day,” you grit out, remembering the wings at his back. “I’m guessing you knew some of that scum?”

The blade retracts calmly, but he makes no further incisions, walking back around to stand in front of you. He’s strangely under control, considering how badly the war will be going for his side.

“Why are you so repulsive to fae magic?” He repeats. Unruffled by the comment. Good. “Why don’t you come closer and figure it out yourself?” You reply, noting the living shadows that are gliding down from his shoulders. “See if your shadows can answer that question.”

He regards you silently, then slides the blade back into its home at his hip, walking forward until he crowds your space, scarred fingers biting brutally into your cheeks, squeezing as he leans down. “I don’t think I need an answer. Not anymore.” You keep your mouth shut, confused by what he’s saying. “You see, despite your certainty, you were proved wrong. Two days ago. I would like to know what it is about you that makes magic react the way it does, but at the end of the day, it’s ultimately of no importance.”

You glare up at him, muscles tense from the grip he has on your cheeks, squeezing your jaw.

“You lost the war,” he says, quietly. “Your king was decapitated by one of the humans he used as a test subject. Felled by his own creation.”

There’s no falsity in his gaze, just ugly, unforgiving, truth.

And he’s in reach.

You twist your wrists in a snappy movement, harsh enough the already weakened gorsian stone crumbles away, allowing you to launch from the chair, hand seamlessly wrapping around the hilt of his blade, sliding it free with the familiar sing of steel.

He’s caught off guard—it’s impossible to break out of those shackles—his moments of surprise allowing you to use his weight against him, pushing into the frame of muscle in the places you’re familiar with, tripping him up. His wings thrash as they’re caught beneath him, shadows vanishing at your proximity, shoved away to some godsforsaken pocket as you aim the blade for his throat, his own scarred hands wrapping around your wrists to loosen your hold. But fae are made of magic, their very strength dependant on it. Encountering a creature that nullifies any and all types…his muscles tremble beneath you, shaking with the force of keeping you from plunging the blade into his throat.

“I’ll kill you, and your High Lord,” you hiss, leveraging your own weight, so the blade sinks down toward the bare, unprotected part of flesh. “I’ll end every single one of you, and I’ll save that abomination for last,” you snarl, in regard to the human who he’d told you decapitated your king.

His strength is draining swiftly, and he knows you can sense it, can feel the tremble in his muscles, and the steel inches closer, spurred on by his weakness.

The Spymaster grits his teeth as he shifts suddenly beneath you, allowing you to gain precious inches so the steel scratches the swell in his male throat, but in turn allowing him to raise his leg from the ground, stomping his boot into your stomach, sending you flying back, crashing into the chair you’d been sat on, the faelight flickering above.

Your lips part, eyes going wide as nausea rises up swiftly, having only seconds before you’re vomiting onto the floor, heaving up chewed food and saliva, a dizzying feeling sweeping through your entire body.

You’re flipped over not even a second after you get the first clear breath down, the Spymaster over you, dark eyes cold as ice as the steel of that blade glints in the unnaturally pale faelight. The blade hisses down, aimed to slice up beneath your ribs, cutting into your heart, but his eyes have dropped to the hand you have over your abdomen. Nostrils flaring at the slight tang of blood.

His features slack. “You’re—”

You take the chance, knocking the blade from his hand, reaching to wrap your hands around his throat, but something impacts with your temple, a second figure coming from the darkness that you hadn’t noticed, and you feel as the hit registers.

A fresh wave of dizziness slams into you, the world tilting dramatically before you’re slumping, heading for the floor before hands catch you. Making sure you don’t land on your front.

The world goes silent.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

general taglist: @myheartfollower @tcris2020 @mali22 @slut4acotar @sfhsgrad-blog @needylilgal022 @hannzoaks @hnyclover @skyesayshi @nyotamalfoy @decomposing-writer @soph1644 @lilah-asteria

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[pochipop]

＃FNAF MOVIE !! ♡ — SWEET NOTHING (MIKE SCHMIDT X READER).

#. synopsis! — sometimes it feels like mike may never escape the past, but he hears the future in the beat of your heart (nightmare reverse comfort) .

#. characters! — mike schmidt .

#. warnings! — vague references to past traumatic events (canon compliant) .

#. word count! — 1.1k .

#. alt accounts! — @ddollipop (nsfw) @hhoneypop (moodboards) .

#. others! — navigation & masterlist .

#. a/n! — i got an autism diagnosis today lmao, makes sense tho.

The house is dark and shrouded in silence, broken only by Mike’s uneasy groans and his occasional writhing in his sleep. What seemed peaceful at the get-go has become something less content, leaving him entangled in the sheets and pulling most of the shared blanket to his side of the bed. The late autumn chill hanging thick in the air has you shivering, casting a tired, half-lidded gaze to the digital clock resting on the nightstand. It’s four minutes past three thirty in the morning, displayed in vivid, neon green digits that prompt a slight scrunch of displeasure from your face at the glaring brightness.

You remind yourself that this really has gotten better. It’s been weeks since the last time, and he’s been going to therapy like you suggested, even if he was a little unsettled by the idea at first. His new job cleaning up after club-goers at a nearby joint pays pretty well, all things considered, and with your income added to the mix, money is still tight at times, —but he’d decided after the first few sessions that you pressured him into that it was worth the trouble.

Still, that doesn’t negate the obvious. Mike has suffered a lot in his lifetime, and that’s hardly lent itself to consistency or stability. Some of it has been his own doing, while other parts have been far too out of his control, and he’s been learning how to maneavour his way around that misty grey area in between to the best of his ability. But he’s not ineffable, and sometimes, especially on nights like this, the cards fall where they may. At least this time he’s not waking up in a cold sweat, halfway to a panic attack, sweat drenching the mattress beneath him. At least this time he isn’t gasping for breath, clawing at something unseen in the shadows of the bedroom, jerking away like a rodeo bull the moment you reach out to ease him down. 

He mumbles something that sounds like a plea in his sleep, but it’s muffled by the pillow his face is squished against. If he weren’t obviously disgruntled, you might have been tempted to admire how cute he looked for a little while longer.

“Mike,” you say softly, reaching out to rest a gentle hand on his bare shoulder, “hey.”

He reacts slightly to the touch, but isn’t fully awake, so you try again.

“Mike,” you repeat, fingers curling around the curve.

This time, it’s enough. His eyes shoot open, taking a moment to adjust to the darkness, then locking on your face. He sits up slightly, perching on his elbows. The breath he lets out in the aftermath is sobering.

“Sorry,” he utters, letting his head hit the pillow unceremoniously.

You ignore the unnecessary apology in lieu of brushing some loose strands of brown hair away from his forehead.

“You alright?”

He gazes up at you with those sweet, puppy-dog eyes that he doesn’t even have to try to put on. They’re just his natural state, and heaven knows you could spend a few lifetimes gazing into them if it were possible.

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs a little, reaching up to grab your hand and hold it in his own.

His touch is so soft and tender, albeit calloused and a little clammy from the leftover adrenaline of his nightmare. He’s really come a long way, and you hope he knows that. You wouldn’t mind saying it, but he’d definitely get embarrassed by it, so you avoid laying verbal praise on too thick when you can help it. This time three months ago, he’d have been jumping out of bed to rush down the hall into Abby’s room, only letting himself relax upon seeing her sleeping form bundled up beneath her covers. Now, he takes a deep breath, exhales it slowly, and kisses your wrist.

“Nothing to worry about,” he assures you.

“I always worry about you,” you answer, offering him a lopsided smile.

He gives you a knowing look and replies: “That’s exactly the problem.”

You roll your eyes playfully and watch as he fiddles with your fingers for a bit before glancing in the direction of the clock.

“What time is it?” He asks.

“Too early for you to be awake,” you respond lightly. “You can sleep for a few more hours at least. You’ll need it.”

Mike nods, letting his heavy eyelids close again.

“Bit of an understatement,” he jokes.

It really is though. If anyone knows about hard work, especially hard work for the sake of anyone but himself, —it’s him. The least he deserves is a proper night’s sleep. You figure that’s why it’s so hard for you to see him like this, even when it’s getting better. You’d trade your dreams for his in a heartbeat if it meant he could be less haunted at night.

“C’mere,” he murmurs, voice laden with drowsiness.

He drops your hand only to open his arms, encouraging you to take your place on his chest. It’s comfortable and intimate all the same as you nestle against him, seeking comfort and closeness, and hoping with every fiber of your being that you can offer the same to him. Mike tugs the comforter up to your neck, one arm folding around your shoulders, thumb caressing the fabric of your pajama shirt. For a moment, you find yourself wishing you’d gone to sleep without it, just so he could rub against your skin directly.

You relish in his warmth, body molding to the contours of his own, —finding the closest thing you’ve ever known to heaven on Earth. Quiet connection simmers in the surrounding air, sparking like static electricity, and you let your eyes close.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” You ask quietly.

He probably won’t, but it’s always better to ask, if for nothing else than to let him know that the option is available.

“Not right now,” he replies, and though he’s turning your offer away, there’s an undeniable softness threaded amidst it all.

“Later, then?”

He hums, and you feel it ripple through his chest.

“Maybe.”

Later might never come, but that’s okay. As long as he knows that you’re a safe haven to seek refuge in, then that’s enough for you.

“Just get some sleep for now,” he continues, craning his neck forward to ghost his lips against your forehead, his stubble scratching your skin in a way that makes you smile on command.

“Night,” you mutter quietly, snuggling further into his chest.

“Night, baby,” he returns, smoothing a hand along your hair.

It’s quiet for a moment or two, and then he sheepishly adds: “I love you.”

No matter how many times you hear it, it still gives you butterflies.

“I love you too.”

[lots-of-pockets]

Taken

Chapter: 1

Words: 3077

Warnings: kidnapping, dark Natasha, diapers and a brief mention of throwing up. Let know if I need to add anymore!

Summary: Deep deep down, Natasha knew this was wrong. Taking someone against their own free will was borderline psychotic, let alone very much illegal. But she couldn't help it. After months upon months of watching your every move, she'd become convinced that you were only person perfect enough to become her daughter. She would do whatever it takes to have you, no matter the consequence.

Natasha stares into the fire. It crackles and glows with a radiant gold flame, the smell of burning wood filling her senses. In her hand was a glass of her favourite red wine, the rich liquid velvety on her tongue.

The outside was piercing in contrast to the heat before her. The empty skies were a dull white, and freshly fallen snow was covering all the eye could see. Everything was quiet, muffled, the atmosphere holding a sense of serenity the summer months did not have. It was peaceful and calming, a cherished few moments Natasha allows herself to have in the evenings after a hot bath full of bubbles and her favourite music.

The dancing flames of the fire could be seen in Natasha's eyes as she finishes her wine, setting the class down onto the coffee table with a soft, barely audible thump. She sits back against the couch and tightens the grey, fluffy blanket around her shoulders, eyes drifting to the clock in the corner of the room.

11:35

It was nearly time.

*

The busy street was quietened by a large blanket of snow, a carpet of cotton batting falling everywhere you looked. As you walk your usual journey to work, it crunches loudly beneath your feet. Your fingers and toes feel numb and are beginning to ache, and you could see the misty fog escaping your lips with each exhale. The trees were rocking back and forth, creaking and groaning just like the sound of an old rocking chair.

One positive about rising this early in the morning was being able to hear the birds on the street. They fill your ears with soft chirps, and you find it almost impossible not to smile at the sound.

Behind you, you hear the sound of a vehicle approaching. Your senses were almost immediately on red alert. The road you were on was almost always deserted. It was narrow and only one way, and you knew there was no reason for anyone to be coming this way this early, especially in a car when the snow plow hadn't even been through.

Your breathing accelerates, and you feel yourself begin to sweat despite the freezing temperature. You try your best not to outwardly react and continue on your way, but the car behind you slows the closer it gets, and you feel yourself become almost paralysed with fear.

You close your eyes for a second and practically force a deep breath into your lungs. You then speed up your pace, knowing that even if the person in the car means no harm, it was better to be safe than sorry.

When you hear the car door open and shut, the fear becomes a tangible, living force that creeps over you like some hungry beast, and it immobilises you, raising the fine hairs on the back of your neck. Your legs pick up on their own accord, but it was no use.

Someone grabs you, and the scream of pure terror that escapes your lips was muffled by a large, cold hand. You flail your body; you kick, you scratch, but your attacker was stronger, larger, and it was evident you stood no chance.

The hand was soon replaced by a cloth, and your senses almost immediately become a blur. Your eyes become heavy, your body becomes a deadweight, and despite the last ditch effort to escape, everything fades into nothing.

*

When you come to, your disoriented brain takes a few moments to catch up with the events that had just concurred.

You notice you were no longer outside. You were on a bed, and the mattress beneath you was soft and comfortable. The jeans and coat you had on were no longer, replaced by a pair of pyjamas much like a toddler would wear.

Your eyes flicker almost subconsciously around the room. The only light came from a slit between the curtains at the window, the feeble brightness barely enough for you to make out anything.

You did, however, note that the room was of medium size, adorned with white furniture. You couldn't make out any sort of decorations, but the door held a single lock with a touch screen pad.

You stare at it for a moment, and something in your brain seems to click bringing your subconscious to the realisation of what had happened. You'd been kidnapped, someone had taken you.

An immediate feeling of dread creeps up from the pit of your stomach, and your pulse beats in your ears blocking out all other sound.

You could feel your fight or flight responses kick in, increasing your heart rate and flooding you with added adrenaline. You try to sit up, but something was pinning your wrists down. It tugs at your skin uncomfortably, and when you look up, you see that you'd been handcuffed, each metal circle attached to the wooden headboard of the bed.

At the sight, your fear only grows more. You try to scream, but when you open your mouth, you come to find that even words had deserted you. It leaves you to release a choked sob, and you feel hot wet fluid begin to dribble down your legs, a bastion of warm comfort in a moment of primal terror.

The door opposite beeps in warning before it opens, and you feel your stomach grip in protest as a women comes into view. She was tall, and her pose screamed power. Her broad shoulders were held high, but her eyes, a soft green in colour, were gentle, and full of warmth.

The stark difference would have confused you if it wasn't for the sense of overwhelming dread.

"Hi little one. I'm glad to see you're finally awake," The woman speaks in greeting as she locks the door behind her, "I was beginning to grow a little worried." She adds as she flickers on the small night light that was plugged in near the bed before easing herself down next to you.

It bathes the room in a soft glow finally allowing you to finally take in your surroundings.

You couldn't help but tremble in complete and utter terror as your eyes burn with the familiar sensation of tears.

"It's okay," the woman soothes in a soft coo as she reaches for something to your left. "I know you must be scared, and I'm sorry about that." Her hand returns into view holding a tissue, and you flinch almost violently as the woman makes gentle work of drying your cheeks.

She doesn't outwardly react to it, but her features soften and her touch gentles further. You still shift uncomfortably, and it prompts the woman's eyes to flicker down towards the lower half of your body.

When they take in the large wet spot beneath you, your skin prickles with the fear of the unknown. But the woman simply shakes her head, a playful, yet gentle glint in her eyes.

"We'll fix that," was all she says as she disposes of the soiled tissue, grabbing a small bottle of hand sanitizer from seemingly nowhere and squeezing a small amount out onto her hands, "my names Natasha, but you may only call me mama. I'm going to be looking after you from now on."

You simply stare, trying to mask your emotions and pretend like you weren't mere seconds away from emptying your stomach in complete disgust.

"And you're Y/n, right?" Natasha continues, staring at you with a look that tells you she was expecting an answer.

You manage a mere nod, not wanting to upset the woman by defying her. Right now, you had no idea what Natasha was capable of, and you didn't want to provoke her in any kind of way by disobeying.

Natasha smiles in satisfaction as she rises from the bed and heads over to the white dresser placed in the corner of the room, "You were out for a while, so I suspect you must be pretty hungry. I have dinner made, and you may have it once we have you nice and clean." When she turns, you see she was holding a familiar rectangle of padded cotton.

Your cheeks burn, but you soon come to the daunting realisation that the woman must have already seen you naked due to the unfamiliar pair of pyjamas you were currently adorned in.

The bile in your throat worsens when you realise that Natasha could have done absolutely anything to you, and you feel yourself begin to gag in both fear and absolute dread.

Your vision becomes blurry, and as you try your best to keep your last meal down, you distinctly feel one of your hands become free if it's confines. Your body was then turned sideways just in time for you to vomit up absolutely everything in your stomach.

"There there, I've got you. You're okay." A muffled voice fills your ears as a hand gently grazes up and down your back, and having those hands on you only furthers your disgust and you find yourself puking once again.

You want to tell Natasha to get the hell off of you. That how dare she touch you after what she'd done, but there were no more words left in you. You could barely find it in within you to remain conscious, and you deem that more important right now. You had to stay awake. You had to try and protect yourself.

"Are you done?" The voice questions, and you nod ever so slightly. You feel a soft hand grasp your own and raise it once again to rest above your head, the cold cuffs once again circling your wrist.

Through your blurry vision, you see Natasha leave the room, and you allow yourself a moment to close your eyes and get yourself together.

When the women returns, you note she was wearing different clothes. You internally smile in victory when you realise you must have puked on her.

Serves her right.

"Okay, let's get you changed." Natasha sits herself down at the end of the bed, and it was only then do you notice that your feet were tied up too.

"I'm going to untie your feet, but if you even so think about kicking me or harming my furniture, I'm going to leave you in your wet clothes for the rest of the night, do you understand?" Natasha's hand rests on the rope tied securely around your ankle, and though the eyes staring at you were still the same soft ones as before, this time, they held a look of warning.

A warning you did not want to test. Not right now when you were still in such a vulnerable position where this woman could so absolutely anything to you and you'd be powerless to stop it.

And so you nod, despite everything in you telling you to fight with all you could.

Your heart races as Natasha unties your feet, legs subconsciously moving of their own accord and rising to a bent position where your thighs were pressed against your stomach.

The woman allows this, and when her hands reach for the waistband of your pyjama pants, your fight or flight instincts break.

You begin to flail your body as much as you could, the woman's prior warnings dissipating into the back of your mind. You had to get out. You couldn't let Natasha do this to you.

Despite your attempts, the woman gets your pants off anyway.

"No!" You finally find your voice, and it comes out hoarse, trembling with fear, "no! Let me go. Let me go!" You cry out as your stomach heaves with sobs.

"Hush now," the woman lightly scolds as she successfully manages to slide the diaper beneath your squirming figure, "There is no need for you to get so upset. I am not hurting you, so I suggest you calm down before I keep my promise and put you right back into your wet pants."

You still at the threat, but you continue to sob. Tears flow down your cheeks, blurring your vision and soaking your hair. Gut-wrenching sobs that tear through your chest fill the otherwise quiet room, and you want nothing more than for all of this to just stop.

You want to go home. You want to be curled up on the couch with your mom watching your favourite movie.

Not here. Not here where you're being emotionally tormented with all the things you no longer have; where you no longer have your independence and would be subjected to the unknown.

"There, all done." You hear, and you once again feel your legs being secured into their former positions. The sheet beneath you was pulled off next, replaced by a dry one with quick and efficient ease despite your presence on the mattress.

Natasha then shifts up the bed slightly, her weight tipping the mattress as her hand comes up to cup your cheek and wipe away the tears.

You flinch, but allow it to happen. The woman obviously knows what she wants, and it was becoming evident nothing you did would stop her.

"No more tears now," another soft coo as a gentle thumb continues to trail over your skin, "you're okay little one. Deep breaths."

You shake your head, "I want...I want to...go home. Please...let me...go home!" You cry as you extraneously squirm to get out of your confines.

Through your blurred vision, you see Natasha shake her head, and your body was wracked with another onslaught of sobs, complete hopelessness converted into tears that pour down your face at lightning speed.

"I know that must be upsetting for you to hear, but you'll get used to it. I'm going to get your dinner. I expect you to be fully calm by time I get back." Natasha once again wipes off your cheeks, the material of the tissue rough against your skin.

You try your best to comply with the woman's wishes, your throat tightening in dismay when you force back the sob that so desperately wants to escape.

Natasha smiles as she gives your leg a soft pat before rising to her feet, "Good girl."

You say nothing, but Natasha doesn't seem to mind. She disappears from the room and returns a short while later carrying a tray that held a glass full of water and a bowl of what appears to be soup.

"You haven't earned the right to feed yourself just yet, so I'm going to do it for you." The woman explains as she sets the tray down onto the nightstand, picking up the bowl along with a plastic spoon.

Soon, said spoon was being held to your mouth, the plastic warm against your lips. 

You stare at the woman for only a short moment before reluctantly allowing your lips to part, and Natasha smiles as she places the spoon into your mouth. It was soup, but due to your blocked nose, you couldn't tell which kind it was.

You don't particularly care however, because you weren't in the slightest bit hungry after throwing your guts up just a few moments ago.

"Good girl. Is that yummy?" Natasha coos as she refills the spoon and once again holds it to your lips.

It wasn't, but you nod anyway as you open your mouth and allow yourself to be fed. You were scared if you told the woman any different, you'd be punished and tied up for longer. If you couldn't get away from Natasha, you at least wanted out of these stupid cuffs.

Natasha smiles happily, "I'm glad. Mama worked hard and there's lots more if you're still hungry."

Your stomach churns in disgust at the woman calling herself that, but you nod along, fear constricting you from acting upon your thoughts.

Soon, the bowl was empty, and you watch as Natasha sets it down and picks up the glass of water. You go rigid when Natasha places her hand on the back of your neck to elevate your head, hating the feeling of her touching you.

"Drink." Natasha prompts, and you quickly down over half of the water in the glass.

The woman sets the glass back next to the bowl and reaches for the blanket that was folded and placed over the footboard of the bed, "It's late. Time for bed." She shakes it out and lays it over your body.

"There's a baby monitor placed on the shelf up there, and it can see and hear you. If you need anything, I want you to call for me. I can't help you if I don't know anything is wrong." She brushes the hair saturated with tears out of your face before tucking it behind your ear.

You force yourself to nod.

Natasha smiles and gives your cheek one last gentle touch before rising to her feet, picking up the tray before heading towards the door, "Goodnight little one." She calls softly before leaving the room.

You don't reply.

*

Sleep does not come easy.

Fear prickles at the base of your spine each time you feels yourself beginning to drift off, a terrible sense of anxiety creeping over you at every little sound you hear.

The light thud of footsteps, the branches of the trees outside hitting the glass windows. Even the sounds of the house settling were unnerving, and no matter what you did, the subconscious of dreamland just didn't want to come.

A part of you wonders if anyone had realised you were missing. You keep to yourself mostly. Didn't have many friends or acquaintances. The only person you did have was your mom, and it had been nearly six months since the effort had been made for a visit. You decide that no, no one would have noticed, and because of your tendency to stay locked up in your apartment for weeks on end, no one would for a while leaving you to Natasha's mercy.

A part of you wants to call out for her. You want to beg her to be un-cuffed so you could at least try and get comfortable. But fear prevents you from doing so. It prevents you from even opening her mouth, so all you could do was lay here until morning comes.

A brand new day would greet you, and your nightmare would continue.

**

Your thoughts would be appreciated! ♥️

[foldingfittedsheets]

Some experiences just blaze themselves across your soul forever. Even if you don’t want them to. My memory is often spotty but I remember some things I’d rather not with perfect clarity.

Like the morning I was walking to my car to go to work. It was a chilly fall morning, mist and fog clung to the treetops, the thin light was grey and damp. It was early enough that no one else was stirring, it was like I had the world to myself.

My car sits right beside the dumpster, which is enclosed by a paltry wooden fence for propriety. As I got within a few feet of my car I heard a bizarre wet sound. I paused and looked toward the dumpster.

Two squirrels were darting away up a nearby tree, startled from their pillaging of trash. The sound I’d heard was haunting me. Something small but heavy, something damp and limp. Almost against my will I looked around the corner of the fence.

There, splayed on the cold wet concrete, was a dead parakeet. Dropped unceremoniously into the dumpster, it had been found and feasted upon by squirrels, then abandoned with a splat into my still misty morning.

I was so distressed. I’d never met this bird but seeing it’s little body left so carelessly with the accumulated rubbish hurt my heart. It hadn’t been cherished enough to be disposed of with care. It’s body had been left to scavengers.

All day I would remember it and shudder but I couldn’t convey to any of my coworkers how awful it had been.

I’ve never been able to see the neighborhood squirrels the same. Rodents are omnivores and it’s just a fact of life, but the ones by us are cursed for me now. I can still hear the sad wet sound of that bird hitting the ground.

[sunbeamsinapinecone]

Misty rolling hills

[warmblanketwhump]

this was originally written for the sicktember prompt “I should have stayed home” but I forgot about it. so enjoy it now!!!

A raises their eyebrows as they see B dressing to go into town. “B, are you sure you don’t want us to to stay home and rest for another week? I can handle it.”

B shakes their head, pulling on their coat and winding their scarf around their neck. “I’m fine. I’ll go mad if I have to stay inside another day, and I want to help.”

A sighs, trying not to notice the dark shadows under B’s eyes. B’s been under the weather for the last week and a half, battling a terrible cold that hit along with the sudden cold snap. After nearly a week of being too weak to leave their bed, B had been getting restless, their mind tired of being confined to the cabin even while their body struggled to recover. But A wants to trusts B’s judgement of their own body and how they're feeling, so they let the matter drop.

Besides, A thinks, with the smallest tinge of guilt, we really do need the money from this market—maybe they really are ready to help. The doctor’s visits and bottle of medicines had stretched them thin this month, and there were only a few markets left to sell as much as they could before winter would set in.

On the ride into town, B seems alright—a bit more talkative and a few more smiles and rough-voiced laughs at A’s banter. And for a moment, A wonders if B’s just feeling better than they look.

But when they arrive at the town’s weekend market and start to set up their wares, A notices the way B struggles to lift even the lightest of the crates, how frequently they stop tug their scarf closer against the damp, misty air, how hunched their shoulders are. A says nothing, but tries to move the other crates as quickly as possible to ensure B doesn’t have to work as hard.

“You sure you’re okay, B?” A asks as they unload the final crate. They look exhausted.

B nods, though A notices they’re a few shades paler than when they left home. “I’m alright. Just not used to this much activity.” They try a weak smile, but it only serves to underscore how worn out they already look.

“B, if you need a break, you rest, alright?” A’s voice is stern, but they let their hand gently squeeze B’s shoulder, and B nods again. “And if you're not feeling well, you tell me.” B nods, their gaze already slightly glazed, and A fights back the urge to head for home right that moment. Trust them. They’ll say something.

The market opens, and soon A’s swept up in orders, chatting with friends and neighbors, hurriedly moving about their stand to ensure everyone has what they need. Out of the corner of their eye, they see B seated on one of the barrels they brought.

Good, A thinks as they take the money from another customer. They're taking a break like they're supposed to.

The morning continues, cold and cloudy and breezy, with a steady stream of customers buying their goods. It isn’t until a lull in the customers later in the morning that A sees C, a fellow vendor and friend from a neighboring farmstead, come by with a grey wool blanket tucked under their arms.

A shakes hands with C and the two exchange pleasantries about the weather, the harvest, the town news, and everything in between as A gathers up C’s usual order.

Then, C holds out the blanket. “For B.”

A takes the blanket, a puzzled expression on their face. “What?”

C gestures behind them. “Poor thing’s looked miserable all morning, and we had an extra blanket in our wagon. D said they couldn’t bear to watch them freeze for another minute.”

A whirls around. Sure enough, B’s curled up on the barrel, visibly trembling and clutching their coat close to themselves, and most definitely not the picture of health.

A takes the outstretched blanket and hurriedly nods to C in gratitude, then rushes back to B, who looks awful. All the color is gone from their face, their lips are a faint purplish-blue, and their teeth are chattering. When A takes B's hands, they feel like ice. A should have known that B would be too easily chilled in weather like this, especially considering how under the weather they’d been.

“B, what happened?” A briskly rubs B’s hands before tucking the blanket around B, then rubs their shoulders for good measure.

B tugs the blanket closer, shrugging. “Got c-cold.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“D-didn’t want t-to bother you. We need the money.”

A curses under their breath, wrapping their arms around B and pulling them close, wincing as they feel how frail B is in their arms, the near-constant shivers that wrack their frame.

B’s voice is soft, barely above a whisper. “I s-should have s-s-stayed home.”

They weren’t better after all, A thinks grimly. Helplessly, they look around the stand—boxes of goods that need packing up, loaded back into the wagon—and then there’s B, who’s practically collapsing in A’s arm, who A desperately wants to get out of the wind—

Before they can even begin to feel the full weight of the crushing guilt, C’s in their line of vision, eyes full of concern. “Go home. We’ll take care of this.”

“C, I can’t—“

“A, don’t worry. We’ll pack it all up. You can stop by the farm whenever to get it.”

A can barely whisper a thank you through the lump in their throat, then turns to B. “Alright, B. Let’s get you home and warmed up.”

Gone is the easy chatter of their ride into town—now, B just curls into A’s side, face buried in the blanket, soft, keening whimpers as they press their body closer to A and their warmth. Around them, the smallest snowflakes begin to fall, little glittering shards that dust A’s coat and make them will their horse to go faster.

When they arrive home, A practically leaps out of the wagon, B in their arms. A hurries B inside, setting them in a chair and stoking the coals to get the fire high. B’s trembling from head to toe, and A hastily covers them in another blanket, vigorously rubbing their arms. “There you go. I’ll get something hot for you to drink, then get you in a warm bath. How does that sound?” A tries to keep their voice even. B’s teeth are chattering too hard to respond.

After putting the horse and wagon away, A gets to work heating some canned broth from their pantry, then helps spoon feed sips through B’s lips when they’re shaking too hard to hold the bowl.

When they’re finished, A realizes that B’s ghostly pallor had been replaced with glassy eyes and high spots of color on their cheeks.

“B…how are you feeling?” A’s tone is cautious, warning.

“Cold,” B rasps, and still they shivered and clung to the blankets as they hunched close to the fire. “Need…need the hot bath.”

A palms a cool hand on B’s forehead, and their worst fears are confirmed. Whether B’s fever had never been gone or had relapsed when B had gotten chilled, it was back with a vengeance. They’re sicker now than they had been all week.

“B, you’ve got a fever. I….I can’t.”

B’s eyes are wild, feverish, desperate. “Please. Even a minute or two.” Their voice cracks on the last word, and they cough feebly.

“B, I can’t. I’m so sorry.”

After a few minutes of desperate pacing, a compromise was reached: a small washbasin filled with heated water so B could soak their feet and hopefully take the edge off their chills.

After being dressed in the softest clothes A could find, B’s tucked into bed under two quilts pulled up to their chin.

B coughs feebly and tugs the blankets over their nose. Outside, the wind howls as a fall storm blows through, small icy pellets pelting the windowpanes, and B shudders weakly. “The wind. I can still feel it in my bones.”

A doesn’t feel a draft—only the stuffy air of an overheated cabin. Still, they smooth the quilts over B’s body before covering them with a third blanket, gently hushing them. B grasps the covers, squeezing their eyes shut as a single tear escapes.

“Please, A. I’m so cold. I want to go home.”

Great. Now they’re hallucinating.

“You’re alright. You’re inside where it’s warm.”

“Please, A. I want to go home.” B’s voice cracks on the last plea, and A can’t take it any more. They crawl under the covers with B, wrapping them up in their arms and hugging them close, feeling the fever burn through the layers.

“I’ll keep you warm, B. Just try to sleep.”

B rolls over to face A, and A can just catch the tear tracks in the flickering light of the fire. But it’s only a moment before B buries their face in A’s chest. So A hugs them closer, whispering soft, encouraging words as they try and lull B to sleep.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 11: I Know This Hurts, It Was Meant To]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, sexual content (18+), lots and lots of death and destruction, literally nothing good happens in this chapter don't even read it, a Wolfman sighting, a wild Alys-Whent theory appears, more witchcraft! 🔮

Series title is a lyrics from: “7 Minutes In Heaven” by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying” by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 6.2k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

Only 2 chapters left! 🥰💜

“Why isn’t Aemond back yet?”

You’re standing in the Dragonstone rookery with your arms crossed, brow furrowed, ravens pacing through straw and flapping their dark captive wings inside the cages. Through the window, you are watching the waves break against rocks where the Narrow Sea meets the shoreline. Outside it is overcast, misty, grey, cold. When you stepped into the gardens this morning—while Aegon was still sleeping, something he does with ever-increasing frequency, though you aren’t sure if it is more of a physical necessity or mental escape—frost crunched beneath your boots. Lord Larys Strong has shuffled into the room, his cane tapping on the stone floor; that is why you have spoken.

“Perhaps my sister was wrong about Daemon being at the Gods Eye,” he offers demurely. He is trying to be helpful; he is trying to comfort you. But you remember how vividly Alys showed you Everett being murdered by a mob in King’s Landing. You remember his screams, his flailing arms, men ripping the rings off his fingers and women stabbing the blades of their rusty kitchen knives into his eyes. Alys has never met Everett; she could not possibly have known what he looked like, what his voice sounded like, without gifts beyond what you once believed to be possible. Her sight is true and terrible.

“No,” you reply softly, still gazing at the iron-grey ocean. Any minute I’ll hear Vhagar flying over again. I’ll see her vast, reptilian shadow and know that Aemond has won and the war is all but over.

“Perhaps Aemond felt compelled to go south immediately after defeating Daemon and Caraxes. Perhaps he’s with Prince Daeron now, and they’re burning Northmen in the Reach. Perhaps he wants to return with Cregan Stark’s severed head.”

There’s no logical reason why this can’t be the case; but in place of relief, what you feel instead is a heaviness like stones being piled up, like ships filling with seawater. You turn to Larys. “If the king asks about Aemond, I want you to reassure him the same way you’re speaking to me right now.”

He bows his head. “Of course.”

“But I want you to do it more convincingly.”

Larys startles a bit, then regains his composure. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“Is Aegon awake yet?”

“He was just getting out of bed when I checked on him.”

And that’s what you’re always doing now, you and Larys and the maesters and the guards: always looking in on Aegon, always making sure he’s not in too much pain, reminding him to eat, distracting him, soothing him, lifting his spirits. “Good. Have the cooks make something that will give him strength.”

“Not crab?”

“No. Something heavier. Beef, venison.” You recall the feast in King’s Landing to celebrate Rhaenyra’s taking of the city, slabs of rare meat glistening with blooddrops like rubies. Red like war, red like the banner of the house you were born to. “Boar, if the kitchens have any.”

In his bedchamber, the king is gazing out of his own window, but slumped in a velvet-cushioned chair instead of standing. He’s sipping a cup of red wine languidly, glazed eyes and slow blinks. There’s a dagger on the table beside him, the one he uses to cut his hair when it starts to grow too long. There are locks of white-blond hair scattered around him on the floor like a thin dusting of snow. Outside, grey clouds churn and waves shatter when they meet jagged boulders and cliffsides, the earth’s own bones.

Aegon glances over at you and says thoughtfully: “Where’s Aemond?”

“He’ll be back soon. I know he will.” He has to be. We can’t win without him. You go to Aegon and kneel down on the floor beside his chair. You lay a palm on his thigh, light as a feather, like you’re just a ghost or a memory. He places a hand over yours. Seconds tick by, late-autumn wind rattles the glass of the window.

“Aemond used to talk about us not being real Targaryens,” Aegon tells you. His voice is faint and dreamy. His eyes are still cast outside—miles away, years away—where he is willing Vhagar’s monstrous shadow to appear. “When we were very young. The Hightowers don’t have any Valyrian blood, they’ve been here in Westeros forever, since men lived in caves and worshiped…” He gestures flippantly with his wine cup, rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, I don’t care, sticks or rocks or whatever. That bothered Aemond. He felt that made us less than Rhaenyra and Daemon. Our father rejected us, he ignored us, he broke every precedent to keep us from the throne. Being a Targaryen…it didn’t matter to me.” He smirks wryly and looks down at the flurry of silver hair around his chair. “I didn’t want it anyway. Sunfyre was the only part of my inheritance I didn’t think was a curse. But Aemond needed that legacy. He always wanted to be a hero. He was willing to put in the work, he had the discipline, he had the skill. It meant so much to him, and I…” Aegon shakes his head, his voice breaking. “I shouldn’t have said those things before he left.”

“He didn’t think you meant it. He knew you were speaking out of pain and frustration.”

“I have to be able to apologize to him.”

“You’ll get the chance. He’ll be back soon.”

And Aegon’s eyes—huge and shimmering and a tumultuous blue like the ocean—drift to yours. The words are there, though you don’t hear them aloud: Will he really?

You have to divert him. You have to make him smile. “And don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll bring your favorite swamp witch with him.”

Aegon laughs; crinkles spring up around his eyes, pink rushes into his pale cheeks. “Oh, seven hells. He better not expect us to host her here while he flies south to roast the Stark men.”

“You don’t enjoy her company?” you tease.

“I’d throw crab shells at her. I’d make her sleep in a tree.” He sighs. “Borros Baratheon is going to be furious.”

“I suppose we don’t always get much of a choice in who we fall in love with.”

“No,” Aegon agrees. “We certainly don’t.” He sets his wine cup on the table, leans down to cradle your face with both hands, draws you in close to him and kisses you, deep and tender and slow. He tastes like wine, and weakness, and heat that he is fighting desperately to keep kindling. Everything he does now is full of effort, even just speaking, even just love. He moves like his arms weigh a thousand pounds, like his jaw is iron and his spine is lead. But he lifts it all for you, for you.

Your palm skates to the apex of his thighs. He is hard, he is hungry for you; but he breaks the kiss and covers his face with both hands, moaning. “Aegon?” You thread your fingers through his choppy hair, tuck his braid behind his ear, bring your lips to his forehead. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He chokes out: “I’m so fucking pathetic.”

“You’re not.”

“I am. I’m just this scarred, crippled, useless man. And everyone I touch is ruined by me. I can’t let anything bad happen to you. I don’t understand how you could still want me.”

“I do want you,” you swear, taking his hands from his face: the tears glistening there, the rough red burn on his right cheek. “You and no one else.”

Aegon stares at you with his wet, wounded eyes. “You can’t just give in because you think it’s something you owe me. We can’t allow this to become something that’s poisoned.”

Poison. You think of the tea you brewed Baela, of the milk of the poppy in the glass bottle on Aegon’s bedside table across the room. You think of the night you surrendered to Aemond for nothing, no gain, no strategy, no heir, just treason that grows heavy and unmistakable within you like a child would. “It’s not poison with you, Aegon. It’s the only time I feel pure.”

Aegon staggers to his feet and kisses you again as the wind howls outside. His tongue darts between your lips; his arms circle around your waist to help him keep his balance. He follows you to the bed, a moon chasing its planet, and helps you shed your gown of emerald green velvet, just one of your many skins. He’s lying beside you, he’s touching you everywhere, he’s nipping ravenously at your throat, your breasts, down to your belly, your hips. He’s parting your thighs like pages in a book. He’s dragging his tongue through your drenched folds. And then it flashes in your skull like lightning: memories of Aemond, of betrayal, shame and nausea and scalding blood rushing into your face.

“Come back,” you murmur, and Aegon obeys. But then he does something strange. He heaves himself up with great effort, repositions himself behind you, kisses the bumps of vertebrae down the back of your neck as the scars that riddle his chest scratch against your shoulder blades. When you try to roll towards him again, Aegon stops you.

“No,” he pleads in a whisper, hushed and desperate through your hair. “Don’t turn around. Don’t look at me.”

And before you can protest, his fingertips have skimmed over your hip to stroke you where you are warm and slick and aching, and you are gasping helplessly, begging for more, and his cock slips into you with slow, powerful thrusts that he battles not to break the rhythm of until you’ve come. But in the midst of the pleasure, you are aware that just like the moon in its withering phases, Aegon is somehow less, and so are you, and so is everyone, and so is the world itself.

When it’s over, Aegon doesn’t hold you like he usually does. He doesn’t sink into sleep like deep water. He rolls over, fumbles for his bedside table, pours himself a cup of milk of the poppy with shaking hands.

~~~~~~~~~~

You sit on the bottom steps of the stone staircase, your bare feet in cool wet sand. Your gown is scarlet velvet, a bear fur cloak clutched around your shoulders. You are reading a book from the castle library about the medicinal uses of berries. Across the beach, Aegon is trying to coax Sunfyre into eating a goat that the guards have brought for him. The dragon is sluggish and flightless, and his own blood stains his muzzle; but he peers at Aegon with pained golden eyes like he wants so desperately to please him. And for the first time, you are at last able to see dragons as something more than animate destruction. You see intelligence in them; you see what might even be love.

There are distinct footsteps approaching as Larys descends the staircase, his cane tapping ever-closer. News of Aemond? News of his victory? You twist around to greet the Master of Whisperers. “Do you bring something to lift our spirts, Lord Larys…?”

But no; his face is grim, and he’s holding a bundle of fabric under one arm. He lowers himself down onto the step where you are perched, sets his cane aside, and grasps the bundle with both hands. He stalls for a moment before he speaks. He is in shock, he is terrified. “I’m afraid, Your Grace, that I must inflict great heartache upon the king.” His eyes flick to you. “Perhaps you could help me. I don’t even know how to begin.”

Your veins feel icy; your pulse is thundering in your ears. Aemond? Vhagar? “What’s happened? Is it…about the Gods Eye…?”

“No.” Larys gives you the fabric, folded into a neat square. You pull it apart to examine it.

“What is this…?” But then you know. It is a cape. It is not a regal emerald color, nor a deep envious viridescence; it is a vibrant seafoam green, bright and bold and showy. The clasp is still attached, a gold that glints like the dragon ring on Aegon’s left hand. And the cape is riddled with dark maroon smudges and places where the fabric was singed away, leaving only a gash like the puncture mark of a fang. It smells like smoke and the coppery sickness of blood. Soot rubs off on your palms. “Daeron,” you breathe.

Larys nods gravely. “Yes, Your Grace.”

“How? How did you get this?”

“I have informants in the Reach. After the battle, one ensured that this made its way to me. It should be preserved. It should be given to his mother when we are reunited with her, I believe. Perhaps it will bring her some small consolation. It is the only relic of him she will have to bury.”

“Daeron,” you say again, and you can see him like he’s standing in front of you: daring, arrogant, brave, capable far beyond his years, cunning blue eyes, a shock of silver hair that he was so proud of. Alicent has lost two children. Can she survive this? Will she want to? “I don’t understand, what battle…?”

“Cregan Stark and his men met the Hightower army at Tumbleton,” Larys explains. “Addam Velaryon returned on Seasmoke to join the Blacks and prove his enduring loyalty to Rhaenyra. Perhaps the bastard was genuine, perhaps he only wanted to convince Rhaenyra to free poor Corlys from the Red Keep’s dungeons. It doesn’t matter which now. The boy is dead.”

“Dead,” you repeat. Addam Velaryon may have been a boy, but he fought for Rhaenyra. He fought for Cregan Stark. And you say before you can stop yourself: “Good.”

“Daeron on Tessarion, Hugh Hammer on Vermithor, and the Velaryon bastard on Seasmoke tangled in the sky above the battle. Vermithor was killed by a scorpion bolt fired by the Northmen. Seasmoke was killed by Tessarion. Daeron fell from his dragon in the midst of the clash. Once the Blacks emerged victorious, Tessarion was found alive but mortally injured, and she was shot to death by Stark’s archers.”

“And Cregan Stark, he’s…he survived?”

“Yes. He is unharmed. But the Hightower army was devastated.”

“What about the other Betrayer? Ulf the White? Could he and Silverwing—?”

“Ulf slept through the battle. Drunk to the point of unconsciousness, I’ve heard. He was slain afterwards. The riderless Silverwing has vanished.”

No Tessarion. No Vermithor or Silverwing. Sunfyre is dying. The only Green dragon left is Vhagar. You can’t believe it. You won’t believe it. “But…but Aemond was supposed to fly south after the Gods Eye, he and Daeron were supposed to fight together, and if Vhagar was there this never would have happened—”

“No, it wouldn’t have,” Larys concurs somberly. “But evidently, Aemond has not yet left the Riverlands.”

You study the cape, this ash-and-blood tapestry of the youngest Targaryen brother’s demise, the fifteen-year-old boy who was so much like Aegon. Where is Aemond? Still waiting for Daemon and Caraxes? Holed up inside the crumbling towers of Harrenhal with Alys? Where the hell is he? We need him. We need him. We can’t win without him.

“Your Grace,” Larys says gingerly, like trying not to creak floorboards. “I think it’s time for you to consider what your options are if a Green victory no longer appears to be viable.”

If the Greens lose, Aegon will be executed. You shake your head. “No.”

“I don’t say this to cause you distress. I do it to save your life if that time ever comes. The king would want you to survive, and so would Alicent.”

You hug the mangled cape to your chest, your throat full of embers and your eyes blurring with tears. “There’s nowhere else for me to go.”

“To Claw Isle?” Larys suggests. “The Blacks believe you to be innocent. Your family would take you back.”

“Clement is the head of my house now. He idolizes Cregan Stark, I think he loves him more than he ever loved me. If Cregan is still alive when the war is over, Clement will give me to him. How can I marry a man who fought against Aegon’s cause? Who murdered Greens?” Who is, at least in part, responsible for his death?

Larys scrambles for another solution. “I could try to send you somewhere far away. Dorne, Essos.”

“And then what?” you demand; and Larys cannot answer. You do it for him. “I’d be a woman alone in the world. I would be vulnerable and friendless. I have no idea how to fend for myself. Autumn knew it.” And you remember what she told you before she accompanied you to Dragonstone, a journey that feels like a lifetime ago: I mean no offense, my lady, but you know nothing of the world beyond your castles and gardens and books full of naked men drawings. You would not last a day on your own.

“You read, you write, you study medicine,” Larys says, rather frantic now. “Perhaps I could arrange to have you taken to the Citadel and you could train under the maesters there…I could try to contact some who are sympathetic to the Greens, and if they agree you should depart immediately—”

“I won’t leave Aegon.”

“Your Grace, if the Greens lose this war…I fear the king will not survive. He is already weak. He is already ailing. There is very little you can do for him now.”

“I won’t leave him,” you hiss fiercely. “As long as he breathes, I belong where he is.” He’s risked his life to save mine. He’s taught me the joy that can be found in marriage. I will never stop repaying that debt.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Larys concedes. Then you refold the cape and walk barefoot across the beach to meet Aegon.

Sunfyre has at last appeased the king by setting the goat ablaze with a sickly gasp of flames. Now he is gnawing listlessly at the corpse. His golden eyes catch on you and track your steps as you approach, dully curiosity but with no malice. Aegon takes his leave of the dragon with a gentle pat of his angular face, struggles to his feet, and joins you under the bleak grey sky. Once he could not step into the sunlight without it burning him; now the sun rarely shines at all. He knows there’s something wrong. He can read it on you like clandestine letters.

“Angel?” Then he sees the cape that you’re holding. “What is that, a banner? A blanket? My bitch half-sister’s funeral shroud, I hope.”

You give it to him. Aegon shakes the cape open, surveys it, then gasps, a sharp inhale like the whistle of a blade through the air. His knees buckle; the fabric flutters to the wet sand. You drop down beside Aegon and embrace him, shelter him, shield him. He grabs at you desperately, like a drowning man clawing for scraps of buoyant wreckage in the waves.

“It was quick,” you murmur as you hold him. “He fell from Tessarion. He didn’t suffer.” You don’t know that, you have no idea what Daeron’s final moments were like. “The battle happened at Tumbleton. The Northmen are in the Reach.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Aegon rasps. “I don’t want to be the king. I never wanted it. I want to go back to before everything happened. I want to give Rhaenyra the throne. She can have it, I don’t want it, I don’t want it. Can we go back to when my father died? I’ll let Rhaenyra have the Seven Kingdoms. I don’t care what Otto and Mother and Criston say. They wouldn’t fight for it either if they knew what would happen. All of us are dead or broken. It’s not worth it. Nothing could be worth it. I don’t want to be the king. I don’t need the Iron Throne. I need everyone I’ve lost back. And I need you.”

“I’m so sorry, Aegon.” Your fingers are snared in his windswept silver hair; your heartbeat is thudding against his. There’s salt on your cheeks: his tears, your tears, the spray of the ocean. “It’s not your fault. Rhaenyra had the chance to end the war. She was offered terms and she refused them over and over again. Daeron’s blood is on her hands. She will pay the debt.”

And a tiny voice inside you says: Hasn’t she already lost four children? Hasn’t she paid enough?

The answer is dark and resounding. No. Nothing will ever be enough. But her life is a start.

“Where was Aemond?” Aegon sobs. “Where the fuck was he? Daeron wasn’t supposed to face the Northmen without him. He was a kid…just a goddamn kid…”

“I don’t know.”

“Are Daemon and Caraxes still alive? Is Aemond at Harrenhal?”

“I don’t know, Aegon. We haven’t heard anything.”

“I should have been there.”

“You would have been if it was possible. But you’re not able to fight. Sunfyre isn’t either.”

“I’m useless,” he weeps bitterly. “I can’t win the war. I can’t save anyone.”

And you brush his hair back from his face and feel his forehead for fever as you say: “You saved me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s she like?” Lord Bolton asks as he and Cregan Stark warm their large, weathered hands by the fire, their breath foggy in the wind and the stars glimmering in a cold cloudless sky.

The Northmen are still clearing dead and wounded from the battlefield at Tumbleton. Split bones must be forced back into place, infected limbs amputated, gouges scrubbed and stitched, burns treated, corpses buried, soldiers who cannot continue evacuated back to Winterfell via the Kingsroad. All of this must be attended to; Cregan Stark is a man of honor, and honor demands that he care for those who have pledged their lives to him. When the task is done, the Northmen will begin their assault on King’s Landing. The riots must be put down, the rightful queen must be protected, the succession must be secured. And Cregan must find and claim the woman he has been promised and yet denied by the wickedness of the grotesque, amoral, soulless Usurper.

“She’s beautiful, of course,” Cregan says. He speaks in subterranean rumbles, dark and rolling like thunder, booms and quakes, always a little louder than he means to be. He takes up space; he bends the light and gulps down the air. He smiles wistfully, remembering. “But that’s not the important thing. She’s clever, she’s tough. She’s not afraid of gore. I’ve seen her help set a compound fracture that pierced straight through the skin. She had blood all over her hands.” He grins and holds up his own, stained with earth and ash and half-dried maroon that looks as black as ink in the firelight. “We are made for each other.”

Lord Bolton whistles admiringly, his breath like mist. “She is a rarity.”

“Like treasure, like gemstones.” Cregan lays his blade across his knees, a longsword taller than some men and with a hilt carved in the shape of a wolf’s head. He cleans it, he tends to it, it is a part of him as immutable as his spine or his heart. “But she is not prideful. She behaves like a true noblewoman. She is quiet and modest. She defers to her father, to her brother, to me. She obeys.”

“That is essential,” Lord Bolton notes. “Nothing breeds discontentment like a willful wife.”

“She will give me sons with Valyrian blood. She is fertile, surely. Her mother bore six children.” Cregan polishes his blade, his unruly dark hair blowing in the night wind. Now he is pensive. “Her maidenhood was entrusted to me. It was a great honor, a great responsibility. It was something only I ever should have had. It is not her error, but she is less now.”

“You are a good man to still take her, the way she is now. The very best of men.”

“I cannot seem to forget her,” Cregan muses, quiet in a way that is rare for him. “I dream of when I first met her at Winterfell, snow in her hair and pages of books rustling beneath her fingers.”

“What will you do when you capture the Usurper?” Lord Bolton asks; this is the part that most interests him. “Burn him? Gut him? My men have brought their flaying knifes with them from the Dreadfort. They are eager to use them.”

“No,” Cregan says firmly. “No flaying. It is against the laws of war.”

“What use are laws to animals like Alicent Hightower’s children?”

“They preserve us. They safeguard our own humanity, our own honor.” Cregan holds his longsword aloft and scrutinizes it, gazing at his own reflection in the glinting blade. “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword.”

“So you will do it yourself,” Lord Bolton says with grudging awe. His own flaying knives are suddenly very heavy in his pockets; his fingers itch to use them.

Cregan Stark—the Warden of the North, the new Kingmaker—nods under the starlight. “Yes. I will end the Usurper. It can’t be anyone but me.” He sheaths his longsword, gliding it into its leather scabbard, thinking of his long-awaited wedding night with the woman whose purity was stolen from him like pieces of gold thieved from a vault. “And I will enjoy it.”

~~~~~~~~~~

In bed, surrounded by candles that flicker when cold drafts blow in through the crevices of the castle, you read to Aegon from a book cataloging all the bones of the human body. He doesn’t care about the content, you know that; he just likes to hear your voice. As you read, Aegon—his arms linked around your waist, his chin resting in the dip of your clavicle—interjects with drowsy commentary. “I’ve broken that bone,” he says. “Oh yeah. That one too.” “Grandsire almost cracked my radius in half when I was ten and I replaced his beard cream with cake frosting. He put it on just before going to sleep and woke up assailed by stray cats.”

You chuckle, a lightness that lasts mere seconds. Now Lord Larys Strong has appeared in the doorway, the orange-gold glow like dusk on his face. He rests both hands on the handle of his cane like he often does, but his expression is one you have never seen before. He is not just mournful. He is paralyzed, he is shattered. His eyes are wide, bloodshot, blank. He swallows noisily. He opens his mouth, but no words escape. He closes it again.

“Don’t tell me that,” Aegon says, deathly quiet, winter still. He pulls away from you. You shut the book and place it on the bedside table beside his glass bottle of pearlescent milk of the poppy. Then you watch Larys.

The Master of Whisperers takes a deep, tremulous breath. “I have received word that both dragons disappeared into the skies above the Gods Eye, and then—”

“No,” Aegon whispers. “No, he’s coming back.”

“Your Grace…”

“No, he’s coming back!” the king roars. “He has to, he has to, you know we can’t win without him!”

Aemond? you think, terror-stricken.

“I have three separate reports. They all agree. Caraxes and Vhagar destroyed each other. They plummeted into the lake and sank, along with their riders.”

“No—”

“Both of their riders,” Larys says.

Aemond??

“The reports are wrong,” Aegon counters. “They have to be.”

You can picture Aemond: smirking, teasing, bitter, brilliant, thoughtful, visionary, blind. How can he be at the bottom of the Gods Eye, eternally chained to Vhagar’s saddle, fish nibbling at his fingers and lips and the gristle between his ribs? “Aegon,” you begin, reaching for his hands; but he flinches away from you.

“No, no, he’s coming back!”

Larys says gently: “Your Grace, I am so profoundly sorry for your loss.” But of course, it is every Green’s loss. Who is left to stand between them and Cregan Stark’s army of archers, cavalry, Boltons with their flaying knives? The Baratheon men? And does anyone truly believe they can defeat the Northmen, assuming they arrive to wage war at all?

“He’s coming back.” Aegon is hysterical. His murky blue eyes stream like riptides. “He has to. We need him, Larys, you know how much we need him. It’s a mistake. Aemond is okay, he’s coming back, he’s coming back, we can’t win without him!”

You try to take his hands again. “Aegon, it’s not over yet, we’ll—”

“Don’t touch me!” he cries, breaking down in breathless sobs. Then he covers his face, ashamed, broken. “Everyone I touch dies. I’m a curse, I’m a monster. I ruin people.”

Larys rushes to comfort the king. You retreat from the bed, watching Aegon as he howls and moans, feeling that although there is one of Alicent’s children left alive, all of them have already been taken from you.

The witch, you think, poisonous, venomous, bloodthirsty. She led Aemond to the Gods Eye, and now he’s gone. He’s dead, he’s nowhere, he’s doomed us all.

What had Alys said before she returned with Aemond to Harrenhal? I can appear and speak to you briefly, perhaps for five or ten minutes. I will be like a mirage, a ghost. Find a closed door and write my name upon it in blood. Then knock three times and open the door. I will be there.

You dart to the table beside Aegon’s favorite chair, cushioned with deep red velvet, and snatch the dagger he uses to cut his hair. Clutching the hilt of the weapon, tears searing in your eyes, you bolt from the room and out into hallway. Dragons of stone and steel, fire crackling in their gaping jaws, watch as you flee past them towards the bedchamber Aemond always used when he visited the castle. You can’t fathom that you will never see him again. He was a weed that grew into you and put down roots, he became a part of your landscape. He was dandelions, he was clovers, he was ivy, and now he is earth scorched to ash.

I’ll never speak to him again. I’ll never see him again. How is that possible?

Blood. You need blood. Would there be any in the kitchens? Should you have a goat or a boar butchered?

No, no. Your mind is a maelstrom of storms and rage, fire and blood. I can’t wait.

You go to the closed door of the room that was once claimed by Aemond. He never owned anything; he only took things and penned his name to them in void-black ink. You take the blade of the dagger and rip it down the length of your left palm. Then you write on the wood of the door two words in a rust-colored scrawl, one on top of the other: Alys Rivers.

You ball up your bloodied fist and knock on the door three times. Then you throw it open. And in a black mist, there she stands: onyx gown, obsidian hair, black moonstone eyes, tears of blood that fall in a torrent down her alabaster cheeks. She is grief-stricken. But you have no compassion left for her; your mercy was once an ocean and has now receded to a creek, a puddle, sparse raindrops that people pray for during droughts.

“You told Aemond that Daemon and Caraxes would be waiting for him at the Gods Eye. You encouraged him to go.”

Alys shakes her head, an inhumanly slow motion. Her voice is deep and echoing, like a shout through a long tunnel. “I didn’t know this would happen.”

“You see things, don’t you?!”

“Not everything,” Alys sobs. “I saw him take flight. I didn’t see the rest of it. I didn’t know. I never would have let him go if I’d known.”

“And you killed him. You murdered him, you ruined him, you might as well have driven a blade into his heart.”

“Aemond went of his own volition,” Alys says. “I told him the truth of what I saw. He was certain that Caraxes could not meet Vhagar in battle and emerge unbroken. And he was right. Caraxes did not survive. But neither did Vhagar.” Her blood-streaked face crumbles again. “He was stabbed through the eye. His beautiful sapphire eye…”

“You’ve doomed us. Vhagar was our last adult dragon, Aemond was our best warrior after Criston died. You’re a murderer. You’ve killed us.”

Her glare turns hateful. “You are not such a stranger to killing.”

“Careful, witch,” you warn. “Or when Aegon sits the Iron Throne, we will send men to the rubble of Harrenhal to burn you alive.”

“No. My son and I will live. And I’ve seen your children, too,” Alys says, and for all the times she did not intend to be cruel, now she is grinning with savage madness.

Panic rises in you; you try to conceal it. “I don’t believe I’ll ever have children.”

“Oh, you will,” Alys insists gleefully. “You will. I’ve seen it. Snow in your hair, furs around your shoulders, children who are dark and rugged, wolf pups with dirt and ash on their faces.”

The North. The Starks. “No,” you say, horrified. I can’t marry Cregan Stark. If I’m given to him, that means Aegon is dead. “No, no, you’re lying. You’re lying!”

“You are not a woman who motherhood will come easily to. It will take time to conceive, but you will give the Warden of the North heirs. He will enjoy putting them in you. He will have to try often.”

Your voice is hoarse and helpless. “You’re just trying to hurt me, it’s not real—”

“Wolf pups,” she says again, insistent. “After Aemond died, I saw them all in a row. And my son,” Alys continues dreamily, tracing her belly with one palm, not showing yet but full of potential like blue-white lightning flashing from inside a storm cloud. “My son will be a knight of House Whent.”

“There is no House Whent, you lunatic.”

“No.” Alys smiles, leers, gloats. “But there will be. I will be driven from Harrenhal, but they will reclaim it. And a Whent will marry into Tully, and a Tully will marry into Stark, and your blood will mix with Aemond’s after all. Isn’t there a certain poetry in that?”

Your hands have flown up to cover your ears. Aegon can’t die. I won’t survive it. “No, no, no!”

“The blood of wolves will always sing to dragons. And that is because of you, I think. The mind forgets, if it ever knew at all…but the bones remember. Pieces of you threaded into the marrow. Murmurs of your voice in their dreams. Do not attempt to resist it. This is your fate, and it could be far worse. The wheel goes around and around, and we all take our turn being crushed. Be grateful you’ll still be alive. Be thankful you had the time you did with your broken king.”

“No!” You slam the door shut. The blood on your palm is drying; the slit you cut there burns.

She’s lying. She’s mistaken. She’s a witch and a madwoman and I don’t believe a word she says.

And before you can dwell on how little comfort this brings you, you hurry to return to Aegon’s bedchamber.

“Borros Baratheon will expect you to take his daughter as your wife,” Larys is telling Aegon. “He was promised a royal marriage. With Aemond and Daeron both gone, you are the only suitable Targaryen left.”

“I won’t do it,” Aegon says quietly. He looks bloodless and haunted; he looks half-dead.

“Your Grace…please…failure to appease him might inspire Borros to withhold his military support from us. His army is the only substantial force the Greens still possess. It is not a personal decision. It is a strategic one. And without having an heir with the queen, her political utility is minimal…”

“No,” Aegon snaps. “I will not be parted from her. Do not ask me again.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Larys yields, bowing deeply. You know he does not act out of ill-will towards you. He is an advisor, and he is trying to advise. You are not the logical choice. And if Aegon loses, you will reap no rewards because he chose to call you his queen. The world will end for you as well.

“What is that?” you ask, and they both jolt to see you in the doorway; but you aren’t looking at Aegon or Larys. You are peering out the nearest window at pinpricks of firelight that dance over the waves. Larys shuffles to the window, his cane rapping against the floor. With agonizing effort—though he refuses your help—Aegon crawls out of bed and stumbles across the bedchamber to join you and Larys.

“It’s her,” Aegon says; and you can hear the vicious satisfaction in his voice like glistening strands of saliva dripping from the jaws of a ravenous animal, a wolf or a bear or a dragon. The fire is from the glass lanterns they carry. There are no signs of Syrax or Sheepstealer, not even little Tyraxes, no squeals or shrieks or shadows that pass over the moonlight.

Stepping off a tiny boat moored at the end of the pier—attended by only a handful of servants and tugging her white-haired son along behind her—is Rhaenyra Targaryen.

[madaqueue]

Practice Makes Perfect | Chapter 11

synopsis: you and yuji have been best friends basically as long as you can remember, and you made a promise to each other to stay friends and help each other be the best versions of yourselves for your future partners. but will things change when yuji finally starts looking for a relationship?

pairing: yuji itadori (18+) x f!reader

themes/content: modern college au (characters aged up to 18+). language, angst. kissing. 18+, MDNI

word count: 1.1k

a/n: this is NOT the last chapter!!!! fret not friends there's still more after this

previous chapter | series masterlist | next chapter

You wake up the next morning, the sky still grey and the ground wet from the torrential downpour that hit overnight. Since it’s Saturday, you don’t have to rush to get anywhere and you take your time getting ready, knowing how intense you expect today to be.

You step back into your room, hair still wet from the shower, and grab your phone to text Yuji. You know you need to see him and have this conversation, but a part of you is still dreading it. As you turn it towards you, the screen suddenly lights up.

Incoming call: “YuYu”

A soft smile forms on your face - you two truly are connected. You answer and hold the phone up to your ear.

“Hey,” his voice comes through the line. It’s lower than normal - maybe he just woke up?

“Hey,” you respond sweetly.

A moment of silence falls between the two of you. To you it feels calm, until you hear something from the other end. It almost sounds like Yuji…sniffling?

“Can you…shit…can you come over?” his voice wavers.

Something is wrong.

“Yeah I-I’ll be right over,” you respond, unsure of what exactly is going on with Yuji, but knowing he needs you.

“Okay,” he says, his voice nearly a whisper.

Before you can get another word out, the call abruptly ends.

Something is very, very wrong.

Throwing on the nearest clothes, you practically sprint out the door.

You finally find yourself back outside the familiar door to Yuji’s dorm. Your hair is still damp, as are your clothes as you rushed through the misty sprinkles hanging in the air on your way over, not caring to grab an umbrella on your way out. Raising your hand to knock, the door opens before you can get to it.

You come face to face with Yuji for the first time since your fight. His pink hair is disheveled, and he’s wearing nothing but wrinkled sweatpants. Your gaze lands on his face: eyes puffy, nose red, tears slowly falling down his cheeks. The sight nearly breaks your heart.

He says nothing as you step into the room, his shoulders slumped as he lets the door fall closed behind you.

“Yuji,” you whisper, unsure of what to say to him.

Still silent, he leans forward and wraps his arms around you, resting his head on your shoulder. You return the hug, hands stroking the skin along his back. The gentle touch breaks something inside of him - you feel his whole body begin to shake, sobs breaking through his voice as wet tears land on your shoulder.

“I’m-” he tries to say through choked sobs, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Hey, it’s okay,” you try to comfort him. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Yu.”

Hearing your nickname for him, he lets out a cry against your body as he shoves his head into your neck. “I…fuck…I never meant to hurt you. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Continuing to trace gentle lines over his back, you try to figure out how to better comfort the boy weeping in your arms. Before you can say anything, another sob racks his body.

“I lied,” he blurts out. “I lied about Nobara,” he says softly, voice still wavering.

“I know,” you whisper.

“Wait,” he slowly pulls away from you for a second so he’s looking directly at you, his voice raspy. His eyes are red as tears continue to stream down his face and chin. “You know?”

“Yeah, she sort of told me yesterday…” you trail off. “We ran into each other, and she recognized me, and she explained the situation with you, and-”

“And you’re not mad?” he questions, voice nearly a whimper.

“No,” you assure him. “I’m not mad.”

Upon hearing your words, he collapses into you again, arms holding you tighter than before as he continues to silently cry against your shoulder.

The two of you stay like this for a while, intertwined in embrace, until you feel Yuji’s breathing start to slow. Taking in slightly more steady breaths, he leans back to look at you again.

“I, um, thought I was going to lose you,” he explains, face still wet with tears. “This was the longest we’ve gone without talking to each other since we met, so I knew I fucked up pretty bad. Then Megumi told me you seemed off during class, and I just couldn’t handle knowing that I hurt you,” he sniffles.

“Yuji,” you hum, lifting one hand up to his cheek to brush away the fresh tears falling from his eyes, “you are never going to lose me.”

A soft smile pulls at the corners of his lips as he looks down at you with so much kindness in his eyes it makes you feel like your heart might burst.

You lean up to his face and gently kiss his cheek, tasting the salt of his tears. Moving down slightly, you hold your face in front of his. Instinctively, his arms pull you towards him as your eyes flutter closed. His lips press softly against yours, feeling the warmth of his skin against you.

Butterflies.

This moment, one that started so tragically, has become so perfect, so sweet, so everything. You can’t believe you lived this long without Yuji - although, now that you think about it, it didn’t really feel like you were living. When he wasn’t there, you didn’t feel like yourself, you didn’t even feel like a person. There is something inside you that connects you to him, and now you can’t deny it any longer.

Your lips finally part from his as you both pull back, looking silently into each others’ eyes.

“Yuji,” you whisper.

“Wait, before you say anything, I have to tell you something,” he says, lips brushing against yours. “I started asking you to practice all this stuff with me because I had feelings for you, but I was scared to say anything. I’ve felt like this for a long time, but I didn’t have the words to say it. Now, after this, after thinking I was going to lose you, I do.” He inhales, eyes meeting yours without wavering. “I love you.”

Your mouth opens slightly into a smile as you take in his words.

“You don’t have to say it back, because I can only imagine how hard this was for you, but I just had to tell you. I don’t want to live a life without you in it, one where you don’t know how I feel about you,” he says softly. “You’re my best friend, you’re the love of my life, you’re my everything.”

“Yuji,” you start again. “I love you too.”

His eyes look into yours, and you see it - you see the love he holds for you.

He pulls you into him again, your lips melding together as though they were made to be connected, as if every second they spent apart was the cruelest punishment the universe could devise. His body forms to fill in every curve and crevice of yours, your breath becoming shared as one.

This is it, you think, this is love.

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[afewproblems]

Rain falls lightly, pattering in the grass. The misty gloom feels appropriate, Eddie thinks to himself as he plays with the unlit cigarette in his hands.

It's cool out, he thinks. Grey and quiet, mid-morning still by the light.

Eddie doesn't look up as a pair of sneakers enter his peripheral.

Steve sighs and sits down, despite the wet grass, close enough that Eddie feels the slight warmth radiating out from him.

Neither speak for a minute. Both content to watch the rain paint the landscape.

"Talked to your uncle today," Steve blurts out. His voice sounds rough, ragged even, as he sighs.

Eddie turns slightly, taking in the slump of Steve's shoulders, the red rimmed eyes.

"He'll probably be by later I think, same with Dustin," Steve sniffs once and rubs his nose with the back of his hand.

"Max is still in the hospital, but the uh, doc says it's looking like she'll be okay".

Eddie smiles, tucking the cigarette behind his ear.

This is the first time they've heard something definitive about Little Red, a tightness in his chest he hadn't realized was there finally begins to loosen.

"And Dustin's milking his sprain for all its worth, the little asshole knows exactly what he's doing," Steve snorts as he brings his knees up to his chest.

The rain is falling slightly harder now, plastering Steve's hair to his forehead, his grey jacket looks absolutely soaked through, but he doesn't move.

Eddie wishes belatedly that there was a tree nearby, something to shield them from the deluge.

"God," Steve barks out suddenly, "you fucking idiot, I told you, I told you, not to be a hero".

Steve presses the heels of both hands into his eyes roughly and sniffs again before swiping a hand through his wet hair, "the kids are all okay, I just thought you should know, it isn't fair that you didn't get to see the end of it".

Eddie nods, quietly, spinning a ring on his left hand as Steve stands up with a small pained groan. His hands jump to his sides before he's able to stand completely upright once more.

And for just a second Eddie swears that Steve is making eye contact, that a glimmer of recognition appears in his wide brown eyes.

But his gaze moves through Eddie, down to the black plaque embedded in the earth.

"I'll see ya Eds," Steve says softly. He lingers for a moment longer before he turns and makes his way back to the gravel path.

"I'll be here," Eddie whispers quietly after a beat.

Steve can't hear him anyway.