#he's bound to his duty as a king but I think he's stuck between wanting to be a king for that reason

[dmclemblems]

I love all the comments Dimi makes (in canon and in Heroes!) about he likes to help farmers/the working class and how he could see himself being one of those people in another life. He’s a royal, he has riches, he can make all the laws if he wants to, he gets the last say in everything, he has loyal friends even! ...but he thinks about a life where he has less than that, or he doesn’t tell the commonfolk who he is so he can be around them and help them. If he doesn’t tell people he’s a king, he can mingle with whoever he wants and live the life of a commoner for a little while.

I feel like Dimi finds being born as a royal to be a little frustrating only because of all the things other people will do to him/his family and friends solely because of his status. He wants to be a king so he can guide and help his people, but it’s put such a burden on him and absolutely ruined his health both physical and mental because of what others have done to him.

What Dimi seems to really want is a regular life even as a king. He wants to be the kind who can help his people that will create their future the way they see fit for themselves, but he wants to live the same as them and be no different from them. Some people need a leader and they need someone who can make the hard decisions, but at the end of the day sometimes those people are just like everyone else and I think that’s his ideal life. He lives for other people and devotes himself to other people, but I think what he really wants is to be like anyone else and to be able to fit in with all those nice, helpful, supportive regular villagers who are happy and unburdened when they’re just living their lives in the fields and not being stressed by politics.

It’s sad because he seems to really want things for himself and he wants to be happy, but since he thinks he doesn’t deserve that (all because of things people did to him/his family and friends that weren’t even his fault), he forces himself to deal with not being truly happy most of the time. Instead, what he actually wants is a simple and humble life and to be like anyone else out there... 🥺 

[thevikingwoman]

another letter reached Meryta before she sets out for the Rak'tika Greatwood

Fandom: FFXIV | Words: 786 | Read on Ao3

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

Meryta Khatin x Tansui | during A Little Faith | romance Rating: Teen. Letters, longing

LETTERS AND LONGING, PART 3

The next letter finds her at the Imperative. They’re looking for remnants of the Church of the First Light, but before she starts looking in earnest, the post moogle bounces into her view.

“I came all the way from Fort Jobb, Kupo! You better be grateful.”

She ensures it she is, and sends it off with her thanks and a plea to wait and rest at least a little, to give her a chance to write back. The moogle hums and agrees, scuttling off to rest in the shade.  It’s not been long since she sent her last letters, but when she opens it, it’s clear Tansui has received his already. The moogles – or Feo Ul – must be working overtime. Perhaps it helps to be king.

Tansui congratulates her on her win, and she’s not sure what to make of that. She fights and she wins and it’s what everyone expects. It feels different in his words, however, his expectations more like support, and less like a duty. Like he seems equally proud and concerned for her, between his teasing words. Or perhaps that he wants her to win for herself, and not because anyone else expects her to. He sounds relieved too, and it feels good to know he’s concerned.

Tansui tells news from the Confederacy, a long story about a hapless captain unwilling to let go of his cargo when met with mostly newer recruits. Until one of them had put an arrow between the man’s feet, perhaps backed up by Tansui’s scowl. His letter downplays his own role, and she can feel how proud he is of the people he trains. It had turned out that the captain had spent his very last gil on his cargo, and in a vain hope of maximizing his profits had all but forgotten about the ruby tithe. The ship’s hold had been filled with Hingan furniture bound for Eorzea, and now the Confederacy is the proud owner of gleaming red-lacquered garden benches.

She imagines it, pretty benches in the sand. Mayhap they will pass them on to Doma in a trade, but truly she does not know if the Domans need them any more than the Confederacy.

She chuckles at the story, as she sits on the stairs as she reads. Thancred passes by, a curious look on his face, but he doesn’t ask. She should help with the search, but mostly the letter makes her want to go to him again. With his letters, she knows that he did not tire of her visits, that he wants her. The thought makes her happy, warmth coursing through her. He says as much too, that he misses her, that he wants to hold her, kiss her, touch her.

She looks at the aetheryte, the sparks of aether currents humming about it. It would be so easy, to throw herself into the lifestream, to see him. To feel his hands on her.

His lips.

The warmth of his skin beneath her fingers, his beard scratching across her chest…

Minfilia bounces up the ramp to her left, a white blur of motion. Meryta shakes her head. As much as she wants to, she can’t leave now. Not even a day’s rest here, and who knows if a trip will be an hour or a week on the First. Maybe soon, when they’ve met with Y’shtola, she can find time. Or mayhap when they’ve delt with the next Lightwarden.  

She shudders at the thought. She’ll keep going, no matter how terrified she is, for the sake of those she can save, but right now her mind turns to Tansui first. His smirk and the challenge in his eyes. The affectionate words in his letters, and the appreciation in his hands.Curiously, she finds determination in thinking of him, a promise to see him again, her battles done. There’s a hunger to not only win for herself, or the scions, or everyone else; but so that she can go to him, victorious. She’ll never give up and flee a battle, that is not her nature, but this kind of longing is new.

Across the courtyard, Urianger braces himself against a heavy door. It’s probably stuck from disuse. He seems to have the task well in hand, as it swings open, and he disappears into the darkness.

She should write tonight, at least. She wonders what he’d think if she put her desires, her yearning, on paper, but she’s not sure she can find her words as easily with pen in hand as in her mind. He surely wouldn’t mind, his boldness always evident. She blushes, want running through as she think of his touch again, and tucks the letters into her clothing.

[goddessesofeverything]

Of Ice Cream and Lights

A/N: This is a fic based within the universe of @tri3tri where the reader and Yandere!Malleus have a son, Lucien, who is starved for affection from the reader. So...I wrote a story in which the reader is transported from a different universe that has a loving relationship with both Malleus and Lucien. Thank you to Tri for letting me use her characters for this fic! Please check out her other works!  

Tagging: @tri3tri

Yandere!Malleus x Fem!Reader ft. Lucien 

You woke up and immediately opened your eyes to a familiar sight. The sight of you and your husband’s bedroom. The space next to yours was empty. To be expected, of course, Malleus had so many duties as King of the Valley of Thorns after all.

You slid the covers off and lept out of bed, ready to start the day yourself. 

Searching through the hallways, you attempted to locate the wayward Lilia to ask him about the latest reports of Lucien’s studies in magic. 

Out of the corner of your eye, you spotted Lucien hiding behind the wall. You turned to the hiding boy and bent down with a smile on your face. “What are you doing hiding over there? I’m not that scary am I?” 

Lucien ducks further behind the wall, uncertain if this was a trick or not. You frown internally at his hesitancy to approach you. Usually Lucien would come running into your arms as soon as he spotted you. Drawing slightly closer, you whisper to him, “Are you playing hide and seek with Lilia? Is that why you’re hiding?”

Lucien blinked and glanced behind himself to see if you were talking to someone behind him but there wasn’t anyone there. He didn’t know what to do about this development. You were smiling at him. You were speaking to him playfully. There was a warmth to your eyes looking at him that was never present before. But if you were speaking to him, he knew he should answer before the opportunity was lost. He quickly shook his head.

“In that case, can I get my good morning hug now?” You spread your arms and he bounded over to you as fast as possible. Little arms wrapped around you in a tight hug, face burrowed in your chest and hands fisting the fabric of the back of your dress. You set your arms around his trembling form, soothing whispers leaving your lips. “Did you have another nightmare last night?” 

Lucien shook his head against you and burrowed deeper into your embrace. This. This was the contact that he had been craving so much from you.  

You readjusted your grip in order to scoop him up so that you could carry him. You rest him against your hip before running your fingers through his hair. You placed a kiss to his forehead and his horns before gently lifting his face to look at yours. 

Lucien had tears running down his eyes and he sniffled when you had him pull away. 

“What’s the matter, my little dragon prince? What do you need?”

Lucien ducked his head down and bit his lip. What if you turn cold again if he asks for you to do this? If he risks your anger, would you notice him more? He quickly glances up at you again to see patient eyes and a smile still on your face. Lucien pulled at the fabric that remained in his grip and tugged you back into the embrace. “Can you hug me more?”

“Of course, my little prince. Always…” you replied to him. You begin to rock side to side, bouncing him a little within your arms. You begin humming a little song as you card your fingers through his hair again. 

“Lucien?” you eventually say.

Lucien stiffened in your arms, waiting for the evitable moment that you’d let go, waiting for the coldness of your tone and face to make its reappearance. But it never came. Instead…

“Would you like to help me make some ice cream for your father? He’s been incredibly busy lately and I think this would be a nice surprise for him. What do you think?”

Lucien’s head shoots up from your chest, nearly knocking into your chin if not for your built reflexes from all the times you’ve dodged his head before. 

“Yes, please!” Lucien practically shaking from the possibility of helping you with anything. Not to mention, you were talking about father! You were talking about making a gift for him! 

You giggle at Lucien’s bright eyes and newfound energy. Often, you would have to distract your son from nightmares/memories of them and one of the best ways was to cook or bake something. Lilia would have to be kept from the kitchen though. Before anything else, you needed to locate the bat first. 

Shifting Lucien for a better grip, you found yourself nearly colliding with Sebek. “Your majesty!” Sebek immediately launched back before you two could make contact.

“Oh good! Sebek! Would you happen to know where Lilia is? I would like to have a word with him.” You smile at Sebek’s sputtering. It reminded you of all the times he would first get shocked from how casually you addressed Malleus. You waited for his sputtering to slow before addressing him again.  

“Can you please tell Lilia to meet us in the dining room? I would like to speak to him for a moment.” Heaving Lucien up into a better grip, you head off to the dining room. Along the way, you could hear the whispers of the passing servants wherever you went. It was no secret that the servants would love to gossip but it seemed that they were in more of a buzz than usual. You’ve since learned to tune out the chatter of the crowd. 

Soon, you were met with the smiling face of Lilia, himself. He eyes your hold over Lucien before facing your beaming face. 

“Good morning Lilia,” you greeted. “Can you please keep Malleus busy for me? I would like to surprise him with some homemade ice cream and…” you bend to conspiratorially to whisper in Lilia’s ear, “I believe it would be a great way to distract Lucien from his nightmares. I think he’s having some again.”

Lilia’s smile grew wider at your plans. If you were acknowledging your son and making Malleus a gift, this surely needed to be nurtured. Best to let you do as you pleased. Lilia could sense there was something different about you. A sort of magic that made you seem brighter than before. Making a mental note of it, Lilia only bowed and teased, “I’ll be sure to keep the King occupied, your majesty.” 

A nod of your head towards Lilia and you headed straight for the kitchen. While you had to let Lucien down, this was easier said than done. Lucien would not let go of you so you were stuck with a clingy dragon prince latched to your dress and face burrowed into your neck. 

“Lucien? Sweetie, I need to set you down now. We have to make Papa’s ice cream.” 

Lucien whimpered. You held longer than any other time he’s ever interacted with you and he was frightened that you’d never touch him again if he lets you go now. He’s had a taste of your warmth and affection and he was not going to lose it now. So, he takes what you’ve said about nightmares and uses it to his advantage. 

“Mama, I’m scared. You might go away like in the dreams…” Tears roll down his eyes and soak your dress once more. 

“My precious boy. You don’t ever have to worry. I’m here. I’m right here.” You stroked his head and kissed the top of it, right between his horns. “Mama is here. Mama loves you. So much. Daddy loves you too. We will never leave you.”

You set him on the counter before gently patting his cheeks with a handkerchief. Lucien’s hand still holding onto the sleeve of your gown.  

With tears still running down his face, you kissed his cheeks and wiped away the tears as best you could. “No matter what happens, Mama and Papa will always love you, okay?” You kiss his forehead and his cheeks before resting your forehead against his. 

Eventually, you had to pull away. Lucien let go. He knew if he pushed too hard, you might not hug him again. With a smile and another kiss to his forehead, you patted his cheeks with the handkerchief once more. You promised you’d be right back and Lucien released his hold on you. 

Flitting around the kitchen, you located all the ingredients and equipment necessary for the construction of the frozen treat. Everything laid out behind Lucien, you approached him once more and urged him to scoot closer to the ingredients. 

“It’s high time we made something new. Do you want to make mint chocolate chip ice cream for your father?” You grinned at Lucien as he nodded his head as fast as possible. 

“Yes, please!” 

You both set on your mission to make ice cream for Malleus. 

Throughout the entire process, you constantly looked over to Lucien and did your best to make him laugh. Tickling him, telling jokes, making funny faces, smearing some butter onto his face. Whatever it took to bring out that smile you loved. 

Lucien couldn’t believe the luck he had. His mother’s entire attention was on him and only him. Your focus and little actions of affection was everything. There wasn’t any other thing that could make this moment any better unless it was his father being there with them. 

Speaking of his father, Malleus had heard from Lilia of an unprecedented sight. 

Obviously, the king had to see for himself what Lilia had reported to him.

His wife, the constantly indifferent queen, was smiling and holding Lucien in her arms as if she’d been doing it her entire life. 

Having heard the squeals of delight and the unabashed laughter ringing through the halls, Malleus felt his entire being tremble from the sound. 

A sound that you haven’t made since your days at NRC. 

Malleus’s stealth was something to be desired at this time. His entire focus on that sweet sound he always wished to hear. It mattered not how long it had been, he will forever savor the chance to hear you happy once more. 

Peeking his head through the open doorway, he was greeted with the sight of his beloved with his son, smiling. There was no trace of the usual blankness that would typically paint your face. You were back, his bright light. 

Lucien spotted him first. Putting a finger to his lips, Malleus tiptoed his way to you. Your back was turned to the door as you continue to pour chocolate chips into your latest mixture. You were enchanting Lucien with tales of your youth so the sound covered Malleus’s approach. 

Malleus wrapped his arms around your waist and dropped a kiss on your neck. Brushing your ear with his cheek, he leaned over you to wink at his son. 

“Malleus!” You smiled and swatted at his arms with playful indignation. “You weren’t supposed to come down here yet. We were going to surprise you.”

“How could I not join? You were so beautiful and happy.” Malleus breathed in your scent, content in this moment in time. You weren’t squirming away nor leaning as far as possible without being impolite. On the contrary, you were leaning into his embrace. Going as far to caress his cheek with your smooth hands. 

Malleus melts at your loving touch. It draws out the deep, possessive purr from deep within his soul. 

With your smile at Lucien and your affection for Malleus saturating the air, he knew he would do whatever it took to keep you here. In this moment, in his hold, you would remain. However, it seems as if you’ve accepted your place by his side. 

And you, completely oblivious to the danger that surrounded you, hummed as you danced to grab the first batch of ice cream chilled in the freezer. 

Giving Malleus a kiss on the cheek and blowing a raspberry into Lucien’s, you set down the mint chocolate chip ice cream and produced three spoons. Father and son battling to be the first to spoon to dip into the luscious treat. Made by your hands, it was the best dessert ever. 

You giggle before scooping up some of the fruits of your labor yourself, unaware of the eyes that followed your every movement. 

In the quiet space of the kitchen, a family came a little closer together. 

[honeyhenry]

Homeward Bound

A/N: This was NOT meant to be this long...but I was inspired and now we have this... dad!Syverson....you can thank me later :)

Warnings: army-related talk, labour, fluff (because i rue the day I actually write anything other than that)

After an honourable stint, Captain Syverson had finally finished up his active duty in the army, having chosen now to spend his life devoted and committed to you. While every second week he had to make a daily 45 minute commute up the road to train newbies needing a boot up their asses to prepare for the realities of war, Sy was able to come home to you just in time for dinner every evening. He got the best of both worlds, earning a solid pay with training up new recruits, and having the ability to make good on those promises he made you way back before he told you that the next tour would be his last.

He had kept his first promise within a month of him returning for good - giving you a shiny ring that he’d had the deposit down on for as long as he can remember. That was his most nerve-wracking promise to keep, even though you’d assured him no matter what, the answer would always be a “yes”. His second promise was also signed, sealed, and delivered within weeks of his return, most likely conceived in celebration of your engagement.

That promise had stuck with you a little more than the first; “Gonna put a baby in ya, peach. Can promise ya that I’m ready for wantin that with ya.”

Sy had arrived home in October, and there you were, round and ready to pop at the end of the following August.

During your labour on that warm summer’s day, he’d been gritting it out right beside you, clutching your hand and holding your half full cup of ice chips, using his best Captain voice in offering encouragement. Between contractions you had cried, screeched, and panicked. It had seemed Sy had given you the big baby he had been so certain of.

“Your baby’s too big Syv, it hurts so much...”

“Peach believe me, if I could I’d take all this pain for ya I would” he had comforted you, knowing by making eye contact that he meant every word. You had relaxed momentarily at the love you held for him, before the pain hit again leaving you crying and screaming once more.

And then Captain Syverson heard the words that he detests, typically uttered from his soldiers in the base camps or training rounds. 

“I can’t...”

It’s a cowards way of thinking, a poor outlook on life, and it makes the entire side weak because of one weak link. It angers him to no end, and he usually ends up heading off alone to clear his head. But not when it’s you

“I can’t do it, Sy...”

You’re the strongest person he knows, pushing out a brand new Syverson into the world with minimal medication and a steely determination for the past 14 hours. You’re no coward, and you’re by no means weak. He’s had men on his side who haven’t blinked in the face of adversity and terrorism, and yet here you were, stronger than the lot of them in every way.

“Yeah you can, peach. Ya think I’d put my baby in any ol’ fool? No it’s you, ‘cause you’re the strongest woman I know. C’mon now, let’s have us a baby.”

And then you did it, almost an hour later and she’s earth-side. As the sun had set on the last day of a sweltering August, it is as though the room cools to a warm breeze, the world stopping in its tracks as you birth your sweet baby Syverson, born in the first minutes of a new September. She’s all yours, and when the doctor announced above the primal, wild screams that “it’s a girl!” you’d looked to Sy, watching him as he cried. It was just a couple of tears, and he won’t admit that they happened, but it sure as hell doesn’t make him any less proud.

You’ve only been cooped up in the room for 24 hours, and while you and baby Syverson have been cared for and helped with the basics (along with you receiving a substantial amount of pain relief), Sy wanted you and his baby girl home so that he could be the one to take care of you both; plump your pillows, fetch you cups of tea, burp the baby, dote on her endlessly. All within the quiet, cosy home you’d made together over the past years and months. Pictures lined the walls, featuring happy memories including your courthouse wedding that had been planned and occurred within a week of knowing about baby Sy. Your big gruff man just couldn’t take not having you as his wife, especially when you were carrying his child.

There’d also been a picture of the sonogram taped to the fridge in your quaint little kitchen, courtesy of Sy wanting to see the baby each morning before heading to work, or while he cooked you a warm breakfast. It’s as though he didn't keep updated pictures in his wallet and in his truck, right next to a beautiful picture of you. From your first sonogram with “SYVERSON” printed at the top, Sy loved to see his growing family, and always taped the newest scan picture right on top, using the same piece of tape he’d just found laying around one afternoon. Now, after plenty of pictures taken on his phone, he was going to update the fridge once more to feature a picture of the little pink squish with big bug eyes and a smattering of dusty brown hair. Maybe he’ll add some new tape, too.

Now three Syversons would live in this home, where old caps, worn from war and still grimy after a couple of washes, lay around the house, and where a still somewhat-tinged green Aika would roam freely - except on the bed. Sy was adamant that Aika never jumped or slept on the marital bed. That was his place, with his woman. The wooden interior and cosy fireplace that Sy himself had built, made it an even more homely and special place for you both to live. The perfect place out in the country to raise your girl. 45 minutes from Sy’s work, 15 to the local school. It was a dream, and now it had come true, as you watch him lift your princess into the baby carrier, fastening her in and watching her little pouty face as he removes his large, warm hands that you know she must adore being held by already.

He’s so glad that he can now take you both home. He insists on carrying both the baby carrier and the hospital bag from the past few days as you both leave the room where your girl entered the world, now entering the real world and all the opportunities she would have out there to explore. Since you don’t have to lift a thing, you just get to watch the sweet view of the “scary” Captain Sy check things off mentally to make sure you've brought everything.

“As long as we bring the baby home, I think we’ll be okay” you grin, and he blinks out of his organised, battle-ready mindset for a moment, remembering that this wasn’t some covert operation. This was a big deal, but one that is exciting and new and as Sy turns to look at his daughter again, it seems he’s already forgotten how tiny she is. She’s wrapped up, but Sy insists that he wraps the carrier with his flannel top, protecting the baby from both the sun, and any chill that pierces the air. He can’t resist a final little peek into the baby carrier as you sign the final documents to discharge you both from the hospital. You even hear him talk to your sweet girl, having one of their first little talks together.

“i’ll show ya a real home, just wait. Nun’a this bright light and doctors nonsense. Got a crib with your name on it ya can be all cosy in. Built it myself while Momma watched. You are gonna be so loved up with her, she is everything sweet in the world. Just like you princess.”

“I thought i was your princess?” you interrupt him and...is that a blush you see mark his cheeks? If only his men knew the state you could get the great Captain Syverson into, and most likely that your baby girl will be able to as well.

“You’ve been promoted peach, after all that giving birth to her, you’re a queen among peasants. I got two number 1 gals now. Gotta be ya knight in shinin’ armour.”

All the war torn memories, the killing, and the violence from his past, doesn’t mean a thing. It baffles him to this day - he still doesn't know how he’s ended up with two slices of heaven in you and your baby girl, but he’s selfish and he’s keeping you all for himself.

“You can be a Captain to your men but you’re our King, Sy. I know you’ll always protect us, and she’ll grow up knowing that too. Now come on. Let’s get her out of here. Lead the way Daddy?” you grin, watching as he proudly marches through the doors of the ward with a tight grip on the baby carrier, while the bag is slung over his shoulder.

The rest of his life with you and baby Syverson, just waiting on the other side.

taglist: @seriouslygoodlookinggents @ohmygoodie 

[mediocrevideopodcast]

Cuddles - All Turtles

Request: Hi I really like you writes! keep up the good work, I was wondering if you could do a rottmnt cuddle Imagines? If that's fine?

Pairing: All Turtles! (Non-Poly) 

Content: Fluffy as FUCK. Brush your teeth after you read this, cause it’s sweet as hell. 

Raphael: 

He loves to cuddle! But...he’s nervous. He doesn’t want to prick you with one of his spikes, or...worse. With his brothers, it’s different! They’ve got hard shells and plastrons, but you’re so... squishy! What if he hurts you? 

He gets so happy about casual touch. Putting you on his shoulders? Throwing his arm around your shoulders? Affectionate hair ruffle? He’s the physical embodiment of :) 

If you want full cuddles, though, you’re gonna have to be the one to initiate it the first few times. He’s just too nervous, otherwise. 

Rest your head on his plastron when you’re watching a movie and he’ll melt. 

Seeing how your arms maneuver around his spikes to embrace him, how gingerly you hold him...Maybe it’s possible. Maybe you two can cuddle without getting any boo boos.

He can’t really lay on his back because of his spikes. He’ll either get stuck that way when his spikes inevitably get embedded into the material, or he’ll shred up whatever he’s laying on.

(He’s banned from the beanbag chairs.)

He wants to be the little spoon so bad, but it’s physically impossible. He’s forever bound to big spoon duty. He’s okay with that, though. 

(One time you showed up wrapped in mattress foam and bubble wrap to try and be the big spoon. It's a very fond memory, even if you were padded too stiffly to actually hold him.) 

He likes to rest his head in your lap. Run your nails along his head or shell and he’ll be asleep in no time.

He won’t lay on your stomach or chest though. He really wants to, but he’s afraid he’ll crush you. There’s no debate with that topic, unfortunately. 

He’s such a good big spoon!! He’s so strong, and he cradles you like you’re the entire world. Because you are! 

He likes to rest one hand on your stomach and tangle his other hand with yours. It’s so cool to look down and see how his spikes cradle you. Almost as though you were a treasure encased in barbed wire, protected from the outside world. 

You always feel so safe when you cuddle. I mean, it’s hard not to when you’re cocooned in 1000lbs of muscle and spikes!

His hold is firm, but noticeably gentle. 

He runs pretty warm, compared to the rest of the turtles. Great in the winter time, not so great in the summer.  

He traces little doodles on the back of your hand. You can never tell what they are, though. And he won’t tell you what they are, if you ask.  

(They’re dogs.) 

He’s not coldblooded, due to the way he was mutated. As such, he doesn’t really have any issues regulating his body temperature. He does find himself seeking out heat sources, however! Donnie calls it a vestigial response. Raph absolutely does not care about no scientific names or explanations: he just knows that he likes to sit under the heat lamp in the morning.

Prepare to be his next heat lamp. 

If you come over in the mornings, prepare to be greeted with a very sleepy Raph the instant your feet hit the lair concrete.

He’s never on his phone when you cuddle.

He is a talker, though. He doesn’t quite whisper, but he definitely invokes the gentle voice. 

He falls asleep very quickly if he doesn’t keep himself talking. Your presence is just so calming to him, he can’t help it! 

He’s a very deep breather, and it’s really calming to listen to!

Unfortunately, he starts to snore about 15 minutes after he falls asleep. And he’s loud. 

You’ll get used to it, eventually. 

Donatello

He doesn’t sleep consistently, so full cuddle sessions are far and few between.

He read that fake rumor that Albert Einstein only slept for five hours a year: while it’s since been debunked, it’s stuck with him. He started training himself when he was little to power nap instead, and now it’s hard for him to get out of the habit.  

But..you’re a good motivator.

He’s a little nervous around the concept of cuddling, at first. He’s very touch-starved, and once you warm him up to the idea, it’ll be hard to pull him off you! But he’s incredibly nervous about it at first.

It’s...intimate, you know? He’s vulnerable, and that freaks him out.

His shell is super sensitive. Partially because it’s soft, but wearing his battle shell all the time has removed a lot of stimuli that would have made it less sensitive.

He reflexively rolls his shoulders when you run your hands along his exposed shell. At least, for the first few times. If you do it enough, it’ll quickly become a way for him to relax.

Likes to pull you to his chest and hold you like that. He usually has your head under his chin so he can scroll through his phone while you cuddle. He doesn’t move his arms much though, so it’s okay.

(He also likes it when you’re facing him so he can steal glances at you once you fall asleep. He thinks you’re even prettier when you’re completely relaxed.)

You’ll rarely see it for yourself, but his eyes get all soft while you’re cuddling together. The quietest, calmest smile graces his features when you’re in his arms.

However, you do notice how all the tension fades from his body, and how his breathing seems to slow down.

He’ll run his free hand along your back every now and then, pressing a quiet kiss to the top of your head.

He runs fairly cold, which is awesome in the summertime. He always lets you borrow his hoodies when you cuddle. If you ask nicely, he’ll let you keep ‘em, just so long as he has one or two in the closet.

His bed has super soft blankets, and they’re so nice to curl up in. You’ll probably stay there for a little while after he gets up, honestly.

He’s not a talker, surprisingly. Every now and then he’ll pull his arm back to show you some meme on his phone, but that’s about it. He’ll listen to you though! He actually really likes it when you mutter about whatever's on your mind while you cuddle.

King of “Uh huh,” “Wow,” “Mmhm,” and “Damn that’s crazy.”

He really is listening, though. He just likes to tease you a little bit.

His grip is either iron-tight or loose as hell.

On bad days he’ll curl up as the little spoon, and not even the gods could convince him to let go of you.

It takes him a while to warm up to the idea of being a little spoon. Both because his shell is hyper-sensitive, but it also kind of erodes that “bad boy” persona he’s got going on.

Once he’s more comfortable with it, he’s about 50/50 on it. He’s more likely to indulge himself on bad days, but it honestly just depends on his mood.

If you pull him away from work, you can bet that he’ll pull you to his chest while he’s sitting on the bed. He’ll lean forward to rest his chin on your shoulder as he explains his latest breakthrough. He shakes a little bit when he’s excited, and you can feel it as he holds you.  

He panics a little bit when he’s on his back, but he really likes it when you lay on his plastron, so...Chair cuddles!

He likes to have you in his lap while he works.

He also likes to kick his legs up onto your lap when watching TV. If you guys have the couch to yourselves, he’ll also lay all the way on your lap. If anyone sees you guys, or if anyone comments on it he’ll just hit ‘em with a very snarky quip.

“Okay, and? At least I actually have a partner :)”

You don’t know how he said “:)” outloud.

Leonardo 

He thinks he’s so smooth, but honestly? He’s such a dork.

He’s huge on touch. But cuddling? It’s a whole ‘nother ball game. He loves it a lot, but...he’s so vulnerable! It’s so intimate to him. He’s not adverse to it in the slightest; in fact, it’s the exact opposite! He’s super excited when the topic comes up.

You can tell that the idea of fully cuddling affects him more than he lets on, because he won’t stop talking when you bring up the subject for the first time. He rambles when he’s nervous.

(He talks with his hands a lot, and it’s really cute how he rambles and rubs the back of his neck.)

He’s actually a great cuddler, though.

Big spoon? Hell yeah. Little spoon? Awesome. Horrific entanglement of limbs that would put eldritch horrors to shame? Sweet! He’s just happy to be close to you.

He can go 50/50 on having his phone with him. If he does, he’s usually either watching memes with you or playing a mobile game.

(Kind of unrelated, but he was very excited about that weird, Subway Surfers revival that happened earlier this year. It was all he played for a while, and now you have the tune lodged in your brain forever.)

He’ll talk for a little while if he doesn’t have his phone, before you settle into a comfortable silence.

He’s either ranting about something shitty that happened that day, or shitposting. There’s no inbetween.

“If I shot someone from Texas while I was on the moon, would that fall under Texas’ jurisdiction or the moon’s?”

He also likes to trace little patterns on your hands, if he has access to them that day! You can usually tell what they are. Other times, it just seems like he’s finding an excuse to hold your hand. It’s really cute.

(If you ask him what he’s drawing, he’ll say he’s reading your palms before dropping a sweet little line about how he’s in your future.)

(He does NOT know how to read palms but it’s the thought that counts <3)

Not ashamed about cuddling in public. Hell, if you’re fine with it, he’s more than happy to cuddle during movie night. In fact, it’s kind of a source of pride for him!

He looks so cocky about it that Donatello has to make a physical effort to NOT hit him.

Please run your palms over his shell, he’ll melt.

If he’s the big spoon, squeeze his biceps. He might not say it out loud, but he’s melting internally. It sticks in his head for at least a few weeks afterwards. Ego Boost 100

If you’re ticklish, prepare yourself for tickles. He strikes without a pattern, and without warning. He doesn’t always do it, though. Maybe about one in ten times. He just likes to hear you laugh :)

He’s very nice to cuddle with overall. He’s the best cuddler in the lair, hands down.

Michelangelo

Literally the only one in the lair who isn’t embarrassed when you bring up the topic.

He’s been WAITING for this moment, actually.

Doesn’t care about whether he’s the big or little spoon.

He’s super talkative when he cuddles, it’s cute. He usually likes to spend this time talking about one another’s day. He’s a great listener too!

He’s always 100% engaged in what you have to say.

He has trouble settling down outside of his normal schedule, so it’s rare that he’ll fall asleep while cuddling.

If you’re in a position that gives his arms a lot of mobility, he’ll draw on you. Not just tracing patterns, but he’ll actually bring out his markers and draw on your arms, back, or just any exposed piece of skin.

He always manages to find the prettiest colors to compliment your skin tone. You never want to wash it off, honestly.

He HAS to keep himself busy with something, or else he’ll explode. At least, that’s how he describes it. If you try and get him to lay down and fall asleep...well, he’ll try! But he’ll be squirming the whole time.

It’s best to throw on a Jupiter Jim movie if you want him to stay still.

He likes to tangle his legs with yours while you cuddle. Whether he’s taller or shorter than you, he WILL find a way.

He’s the lightest out of all the turtles, so there’s a possibility of letting him (partially) lay on you without shattering your sternum! Congratulations!

(He’s around 525 lbs. He’s only half of what Raph weighs, but he still has to be careful about how he lays on you. It’s crazy to think that you’re so small compared to him.)

His hands are so cold, and he’ll absolutely use that to his advantage. If he gets bored, or if he just wants to make you laugh, he’ll grab your waist with his cold fucking hands. Hope you’re a northerner <3

He also likes to tickle you, way more than Leo.

Don’t try and tickle him though, he HATES it. He’s absolutely the type of person to just Scream if you try.

Like I said, he gets bored really quickly. He also just likes to make you laugh.

If you’re cuddling in bed though, like right before he falls asleep? It’s so nice.

He’ll still tangle his legs with yours, but he moves so much slower. He loves to let his hands lazily roam across your form as he pulls you closer to him, savoring the comfort and heat that you bring. If he talks, it’s in drowsy whispers that only you two can hear.

[sirthisisa-wendys]

The Aristocracy (Part 1): Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

synopsis: your whole trajectory is upended in one afternoon. Will you make it work? or will you let it consume you?

wc: 1k

tw: none (just plot)

masterlist

White clouds escape from your mouth in the freezing winter air, and the horse beneath you snorts heavily, pawing at the cobblestone bridge leading to your home. You’re gripping the leather reins in your hands tightly, your leather gloves making sounds as you roll the material between your fingers.

Something’s off.

“Your Highness?” your stable attendant whispers next to you, his normally chipper voice laced with concern.

“There were too many horses in the common stables when we passed by. How long have we been out for a ride?” you inquire, and your attendant looks up to the sky, shielding his green eyes before replying,

“Three hours, your Highness.” Three hours. You dismount from your horse and allow the man to take it while you walk up the path. Someone’s here, you rationalize, removing your gloves as one of the many side doors to the palace swings open.

“Your Highness!” The sound of your lady-in-waiting, Hinata, bounding into the hallway is enough to set you at ease as she takes the cloak from your shoulders and shakes off the snow. “How was the ride?”

“Uneventful,” you murmur, handing her the gloves. “There were a number of horses in the common stables. Do we have a visitor?” you question, looking the woman in the eyes. Hinata’s eyes dart to the left for a brief second, when suddenly, an eruption of laughter catches your attention.

Without hesitation, you follow the sound to the dining hall, where your father is mid-tale about some hunting accident with your mother and…

“Oh! Y/n, I didn’t know you’d returned from riding so soon,” your mother mentions, placing her fork down on her plate. “We would have waited a little longer so you could eat with us.” The third guest at the table rises carefully, black eyes focused on your face as he bows at the waist.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Your Highness.” You examine him a bit longer, taking in his long black hair and expensive blue and gold clothing. You don’t know who this is, but he looks like royalty. During your examination, he clears his throat, and then finally says, “My name is Prince Suguru, and I’m...” Suguru... Geto? The prince from the Geto empire is here? In your territory?

His words are completely lost on you as you turn towards your mother and father in shock. “How could you let the son of your enemies into our home?” Your mother presses her lips together, and your father closes his eyes, sighing as he shakes his head. “Have we not lost thousands of troops to the war we’ve been fighting against them? And now, you’re letting this man and his filthy hands into our home?”

“Watch your tongue, y/n,” your father warns, standing from his position at the head of the table. “You speak of the past. We are ending the war, and building a new future.”

“Where are King and Queen Geto, then?” you inquire, folding your hands together. “Why are they not here to sign the treaty?”

“Because the treaty will not be on paper,” Prince Suguru announces.

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” you retort, your lips curling up in disgust.

“The treaty will be through marriage,” your mother answers, not looking at you. “Y/n, you and Prince Suguru will be married within a fortnight to signal a new peace between our empires.” The color drains from your face, and you feel lightheaded, unsure if you imagined the words or if you're really destined to be married to that… thing. You grip the table in front of you, mouth opening to speak, but nothing coming out.

“Is… is this a joke?” you ask when you reclaim your voice, and your father shakes his head.

“It’s what’s best for our empire. I know you’ll understand that.”

_____________________________________________________________

The library is where you find your escape. You’re curled up on a window ledge that’s large enough for you and your stack of books, staring out at the white landscape in defeat.

Marriage… to a sworn enemy, no less? It doesn’t seem real.

When the door to the library opens, you turn your head and lift your eyes over the banister to the first floor, where you see a black-haired head swiveling about.

“Go away,” you call out, and the eyes of Suguru Geto flick up to your position on the window ledge.

“They told me I could find you here,” he announces, moving to climb up the stairs. “It’s quiet. I like this room.”

“I said go away,” you repeat, looking away from him to the snow-capped trees outside.

“I came to speak to you about our circumstances.” When he sits next to you, you recoil, clutching your knees closer. “I know this is a surprise to you, as it is to me. I want to reassure you that no action - besides this marriage - will be taken without your permission. I’m not going to force you to love me, nor will I pressure you to do… other marital duties. This is a marriage of convenience, and if you wish to take another lover during this time, then I will oblige… as long as you keep it discreet.” You scowl at him and he returns your look with a blank stare, hands laced together in his lap.

“You’re saying that so you can have your own lovers, aren’t you?”

“No,” he begins, sighing heavily. “I have no desire to be saddled with many lovers at this point in my life. I have too much else to worry about.” You close your eyes, exhaling deeply, then wave him away.

“I have to think about this.”

“What is there to think about?” he laughs sadly. “We’re stuck in this. My family and your family have already written this into being. All we have to do is exist as pawns for their benefit.” Suguru stands, brushing his hair out of his face. “But I will let you think for a little while. Let me know if you need me.”

And with that, the Geto prince walks away and back down the stairs, leaving you in silence as you watch your life turn upside-down in one afternoon.

_____________________________________________________________

TAGLIST: @just4readingfics @ambiguous-something @vabybizzle @brownskinnedgirll @jotazinha @leanne-tamashi @amaris9 @missbonekitty @fyotituti

[licieoic]

“The Seventh Prince” - Digital Oil Painting

Inspired by Suptober, theme: Switch it up! I’m a major fairy tale nerd, so I decided to go for a “Wild Swans” AU where Castiel is the seventh prince, the one stuck with a swan’s wing for an arm, and Dean is his personal knight/protector. Have a drabble under the cut, because I’m obsessed...

Please see the pinned post at the top of my Tumblr for my links if you'd like to help support me in saving for a safe place to live!

Dean applauded along with the rest of the wedding guests as the young queen kissed the king. Now that she was finally able to speak, it had seemed only right to have a second wedding, one where she could do more than nod. He still didn’t fully understand the particulars of why she’d needed to keep silent for seven years as she’d worked to undo a spell set upon her seven brothers, but he figured he didn’t really need to know. Magic didn’t come with handy explanations, magic just was.

Movement to his left drew his attention away from the happy couple and he saw his charge, Prince Castiel, rising to leave the garden where the wedding had taken place. Bound to protect him, Dean followed as he always did.

“I’m not going far, you don’t have to come with me,” said the prince, his rough voice a bit softer than usual.

“Actually, I do,” said Dean, before adding with respect, “your highness.”

“Suit yourself, Sir Winchester.”

“Will you ever call me Dean?” It was a question he asked often. “I hear ‘Sir Winchester’ and I think you’re talking about my father.”

“Perhaps someday.” It was the answer the prince always gave, though he seemed more preoccupied that day.

Dean hadn’t been Castiel’s knight protector for very long, but he thought he knew what had him so upset. Eying the red shawl that was perpetually wrapped around the prince’s left arm from daybreak when Dean would join him to sundown when he would leave for bed, Castiel only possessed one good arm, which left him unable to join in the happy applause for his sister.

The knight stayed only steps behind Castiel as they mounted a tall hill overlooking the nearby forest. They would often end up going on walks in this manner. Whenever his mood would darken, Castiel would always withdraw from his family rather than burden them with his melancholy. But Dean saw it all. The troubled expressions, the heavy sighs, the longing looks toward the horizon. Normally, he wouldn’t say anything, it wasn’t his place, but his heart had gone out to the prince. He seemed so lonely, so isolated. If he had to endure punishment for overstepping his boundaries, so be it.

“Do you, uh…” He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck, looking everywhere but at the prince. “Is there anything you’d… like to, you know, talk about?”

Castiel flashed his vibrantly blue eyes at Dean and the knight tried to appear nonchalant, desperately hoping his face wasn’t turning red. It was painfully obvious that feelings and talking about them were not his forte, but he didn’t retract his offer. At first, Dean thought the prince might refuse or else ignore him entirely, but then he sighed.

“I was just thinking,” he said, looking back the way they’d come toward the wedding where the guests were beginning to move inside for the party. “This might be the last time all eight of us are together for a long while. Lucifer left pretty much as soon as the spell was broken, that was no surprise, but then Michael followed him soon after. Now Gabriel has been talking about leaving and seeing the world too. I have no doubt that the rest of my brothers will go at some point. And that leaves me. Here. Going nowhere.”

“You’ll always have the queen,” Dean pointed out.

“And I love her dearly,” said Castiel. “But she has her own family now, with two children who are terrified of me. Not that I can blame them.”

“Where would you go?”

Castiel shook his head. “I have no idea. But the desire is always there. The need to… just be free.” He lifted his head, casting his gaze over the tops of the trees where green met endless blue above. “I miss the sky.”

Dean blinked. “The sky?” Then the penny dropped. “You can’t fly.”

“Not anymore.”

Taking a step closer, Dean tentatively asked, “W-what’s it like?”

A small rare smile ghosted across Castiel’s lips and it was like a bit of sunshine peeking through the clouds. “Exhilarating. It was the only time I didn’t feel trapped in my own body. Swooping through the clouds, gliding on the wind like I was weightless, landing on water and floating like a ship, completely effortlessly.”

Dean’s heart was pounding just at the thought. “Sounds terrifying to me.”

Castiel chuckled and it felt like winning something. “I suppose it would.”

“Why couldn’t you go somewhere if you wanted to, like your brothers did? Just—not the sky.”

“And spread more rumors about the monster? I couldn’t.” He must have caught Dean’s expression because he added, “I know what’s said about me. It’s why I keep my distance from my family as much as possible. I don’t want them to be feared and whispered about as well.”

They were silent for a while. Castiel closed his eyes, lifting his face to the breeze. Dean kept his gaze on the prince, watching his dark hair play in the wind. He leaned his weight on one leg, his left hand going automatically to rest on the hilt of the dagger he always kept at his side. He could only imagine what Castiel was thinking, feeling so alone, essentially going from one cage to another, living in a body that was only mostly his.

“You’ll always have me,” he said, suddenly.

Castiel’s head snapped in his direction, his eyes wide, but then he scoffed. “That’s a nice thought—”

“I mean it,” Dean interrupted. “I want to stay. With you. I’ll always be by your side.”

The moment hung between them, heavy with things unsaid, though it was still far more than Dean had ever intended to say. He almost wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole, but then the prince would be alone and he’d just promised him he wouldn’t leave.

Slowly, but with far more dexterity than Dean would normally expect from someone with only one working hand, Castiel untied the knot of the sling wrapped around his left arm, then unwound the fabric and pulled it free.

All of Dean’s breath left him in a whoosh as the prince stretched out his wing, the feathers bright white in the afternoon sun, like the wing of an angel. It was so massive, even though they stood a few steps apart, Dean could swear he felt the tips brush his cheek as the wing extended past his head. It was softer than anything and left the knight with the crazy urge to bury his hands in it.

“Now do you understand?” Castiel asked. “Why I can never let anyone get too close?”

“It’s… beautiful,” blurted Dean, the first thought in his head tumbling out of his mouth like an idiot.

“Beautiful,” the prince repeated, his eyes dark as he lifted his face to look at the wing. “Sooner or later you would see it as I do. A curse. And you would ask to be assigned a new duty. One where you could forget about me.”

“I won’t,” said Dean, speaking quickly when Castiel opened his mouth to argue, “let me prove it to you.”

That seemed to bring the prince up short, making him pause in the act of folding his wing back down by his side. “How?”

“Let me stay with you.”

The wing settled, rippling elegantly. “For how long?”

Dean shrugged. “Well… as long as it takes.”

Castiel looked at him for a long moment and Dean wondered what he saw. Blue against green, like the sky meeting the forest.

“I’ll give you a year,” he said, at last. “If you remain by my side that long, I’ll believe you.”

“Only one year?” said Dean, giving him a teasing half-smile. “Why not seven?”

“I don’t think I’d be able to wait that long to claim you.”

It was Dean’s turn to be brought up short. “What?”

“And once mine, I won’t be able to let you go. Remember that.”

“Why? W-what would happen if I left then?” Was this more magic?

“It would kill me.” Castiel tilted his head in that maddening way he had. “Don’t you know?”

Dean shook his head. The prince closed the distance between them, reaching up with his right hand to touch Dean’s face. His thumb slid across the apple of his cheek as his fingers traced around the outside of his ear. Shivering, Dean resisted the urge to close his eyes.

“Swans mate for life… Dean.”

The knight’s stomach clenched involuntarily, hearing the prince use his given name for the first time. Swallowing thickly, he asked, “That a promise?”

Castiel’s deep blue eyes were stormy as he answered, “A warning.”

[st-just]

A Setting: The City of Sethennai

Because I’ve spent long enough tinkering on this that I might as well share it with a population of more than a half-dozen potential players. Also it could almost certainly use an editing pass, and I don’t want to lose it all next time my computer dies.

So, a collection of densely packed plot hooks in the shape of a city

City History

The City of Sethennai is quite possibly the oldest city in the world, or at least the oldest still inhabited. When the first Dwarfs and Goliaths fled the Titans for the coast, they found ziggurats already rising from the water and tunnels dug beneath their feet, ruined by some already ancient cataclysm. Supported by fertile soil and full waters, they built their own city over it, and welcomed their own gods to it, a center of resistance to the Titanomarchy that became an empire in its own right.

Centuries passed and power drifted inland, to the mountain palaces of the Titans’ Giant heirs and the divinely appointed heroes who sometimes overthrew them. The City was rich, but peaceful, its soldiers only raised when one princess or another took it as a capital during a civil war. Such was the case when the first ships appeared from the East.

The adventurers from the League of Free Cities had been spurred across the sea by visions of fortune and glory, overwhelming the defenders with armies of goblin slaves and the ability to evoke demons far beyond what they could deal with. Their leader Sethennai proclaimed himself Emperor and renamed the city in his honour, taking it as his capital. After his assassination some years later the ‘empire’ fell into an anarchy it has never quite recovered from, but the name has stuck, and for the two hundred years since wonders and riches have flowed across the eastern ocean while mercenaries and adventurers have poured west in ever greater numbers.

The city’s ruler for the last fifteen years has been Prince Cael, an adventurer universally believed to be supported by the League’s political rivals back East. If so, they got what they paid for – experts and financiers have been imported and sponsored, and trade opened to anyone capable of paying the reasonable import duties.

Until two years ago, he had been the picture of brutal decadence, rousing himself from luxurious hedonism only to brutally deal with any threats to his power. Recently though, he changed – sponsoring vast expeditions into the ancient palaces of the interior and the ruins buried on the city’s outskirts, and installing a self-proclaimed Hierophant whose heresies had earned her a death warrant back East in the city’s grandest temples (violently banishing the cults which had held them since the Conquest in the process).

One week ago, at exactly noon, the sun vanished from the sky for one minute, and the entire city was filled with a deafening scream. Since then, the Prince’s grand palace has been sealed tight, with ingeniously horrifying magical defences ensuring that anyone who tries to force a door or window isn’t around to try again. Everything’s very rapidly falling apart, and the city’s traditional power brokers are reacting like so many rabid weasels in too small a cage.

It is, then, a perfect opportunity for people with the will to seize it.

Districts

The Palantine

If Sethennai is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, the vast palace complex which crowns its central hill is probably likewise the oldest building still in use. Its foundation is burrowed deep into the hill on which it stands, to the point that some delvers and historians have theorized that it was once a truly massive pyramid now mostly buried by the ages. Rising out of it are two great peaks - impressive ziggurats in their own right - of obvious dwarven make, fashioned to house their ancient Ancestors-Kings and gods in suitable splendor, and since renovated and built over to house the city’s rulers and most favored priesthoods. Surrounding them are a dozen smaller peaks, each the estate of one of the city’s foremost patrician families, teeming with retainers and servants. The land around them is pristine and perfectly manicured, full of wondrous botanical gardens and menageries for the amusement of Sethennai’s greatest citizens.

Location of Interest: The Throne 

A palace built on the ruins of a palace built on the ruins of a palace. The grand ziggurat which the city’s rulers have called home since time immemorial is built into and sits at the peak of its highest hill, the highest point in the sky for dozens of miles in every direction. Its labyrinthine apartments, kitchens, vaults, galleries and corridors house the Prince and his family, dozens of favorites and notables, and hundreds of guards, servants, retainers and entertainers. 

Or, well, housed. 

One week ago, the sun vanished from the sky, and a scream echoed through the city. Since then, the palace complex has proven impenetrable. Every door and window is closed, and attempts to open them by force have fared...poorly. In a ‘never going to walk again’ sort of way. Scrying and other means of magical surveillance so far attempted have simply failed. No one has tried to escape, and no noises have been heard - the whole complex is simply silent. 

Of course, that means that all its secrets and riches are there for the taking. Or that’s the growing consensus - at least three separate groups have camped out near various gates and major entrances, each preparing their own scheme to break in and seize everything within. There’s no fighting between them. Yet. 

Faction of Note: The Hierophant 

    Yri Cenred is many things. A self-proclaimed ‘experimental theologian’. One of shockingly few mortal humans to piss off the Illyrin clergy enough to be specifically declared Anathema. A member of the Commonwealth’s very exclusive list of ‘Enemies of Reason’. Empirically immune to thunderbolts from cloudless skies and most other signs of divine disfavor. Easily one of the most powerful mages in the city. And, for most of the last two years, its High Priestess and Hierophant. 

    No one knows quite how her first meeting with Prince Cael went, and whether she was responsible for her change in personality or if he sought her out because of it. All anyone knows is that shortly after she arrived in the city a few days ahead of Imperial Witch-Hunters looking for her head on a pike, Cael forcibly expelled the Khasali cults which had occupied the Palantine’s grand temples since the Conquest, and installed her in their place with the newly minted title of Hierophant for the city. Since then she and her growing coterie of acolytes (bright-eyed, motivated and young, though you can flip a coin as to whether their hands are stained with ink or blood) have been extremely busy, though no one can say exactly what with. Certainly they haven’t held any public rituals or services. Despite the costs - both political and monetary - in protecting and sponsoring her, Cael never seemed to question whether it was worthwhile. 

    The general opinion on the streets is that she’s probably to blame for anything and everything worth complaining about. The only real divide is between those who think she bewitched the Prince and turned him into her puppet, those who think she’s the one who killed him, and the moderates who think the correct answer is probably ‘both’.

Foundrytown

The New World is absolutely full of exotic reagents, fuel sources, and materials to craft and invent with. It is also absolutely full of people who will pay in your currency of choice for finished goods, armor, weaponry, and whatever nasty alchemical tricks you can keep from blowing up in their face until they want them to. Foundrytown is the sprawling mass of smokestacks, workshops, factories and markets that has spilled to the north of Sethennai’s walls, exploiting both opportunities to the fullest while limiting the chance that some idiot will burn half the city down (again). Robber barons, militant workers, loose fraternities of tinkerers and half-trainer artificers, and the occasional rogue clockwork or alchemical monstrosity all jostle for space and control of the beating heart of Sethennai’s economy. 

Faction of Note: The Grand Bazaar 

    Official Imperial theology accords true dragons a place of honour - the Princes of the Earth, entrusted by Heaven with containing the fury of the elements within themselves so as to render the world peaceful enough for cultivation by the younger races - and forbids very few things to wyrms willing to play the part. (Principally, do not become undead, a god in your own right, or an archdemon of the elements. Though some justification can usually be found for how any sufficiently problematic dragon is actually doing one of those). 

    And Tyramara the Magnificent, the Fire of the Deeps has not technically done any of those things. Still, the ancient wyrm has little interest in allowing the wasting disease which has crippled her continue to spread, and her solution is unorthodox enough that she thought it prudent to abandon her palace-lair in Imir and relocate to the New World, six treasure galleons worth of her hoard in tow. 

    One of the city’s wealthiest residents from the moment she landed, she has bought a plaza in Foundrytown and offered her sponsorship to nearly every tinker and engineer who cares to set up shop there, provided they help sustain and improve the mechanical and hydraulic prosthetics that supplement and replace her dying organs. She has promised a full half of her hoard to any who can permanently deal with her condition, a fortune men have killed for in the past, and certainly will again. 

Faction of Note: The Hellworks 

They’re not officially called the Hellworks - there are, in fact, absolutely no devils involved. Still, between the billowing clouds of soot and steam pouring from their chimneys at all hours of the day, the severe architecture, and the bound spirits who keep the looms running at all hours of the day and eagerly take any opportunity to leave anyone who gets too close crippled or maimed to vent their anger - well, the name stuck. 

One of the most obvious consequences of Prince Cael’s turn towards the esoteric these last years, the ' ‘Royal Sethennai Weaver’s Trust” is the brainchild and absolute domain of the Lady Binder Katerine sol Dalme sol Telrin ir’Paimon. An Illyrin magister with heterodox opinions on the proper uses of magic, popular opinion is divided on whether it’s more accurate to say Cael invited her to reside in the city, or just offered her asylum before her elders had a chance to properly condemn her. 

Regardless, after six months of operation she - and her half-dozen strictly bound and extremely unhappy ifrit, and several hundred eminently replaceable more mundane workers - are already well on their way to supplying all the clothing and textiles Sethennai’s teeming masses require single-handedly, produced at a scale and speed far beyond what any traditional artisans guild could hope to compete with. 

Crossroads

Dominating the Old City - synonymous with it, really - that the district is called the ‘Crossroads’ is often considered something of a cruel joke by new arrivals. The ‘Labyrinth’ is usually offered instead. Ancient stone tenements and storehouses are basic facts of geography, surviving through conquest and fire, and over and around and through them are generations of newer building - mansions of imported oak and marble, shantytowns of cannibalized carts and derelict ships built on rooftops, and nondescript inns and stores conveniently built on top of trap doors and tunnels leading to much more exciting locales. Natives of a neighborhood who know all the secret passages and blind alleys can quickly get to anywhere they like. New arrivals are strongly advised to pay well for a reliable guide. 

Faction of Note: The Dreamers 

    There’s something under the harbor. There always has been. There probably always will be. Most people can go their whole lives without noticing it, but a certain few find living in the Old City a haunting experience, their nights spent dreaming of drowned palaces and impossible angles, their days spent lost in alleys and markets that have never existed. Inevitably, they come out of a daze and find themselves perched on the waters edge, staring into the filthy, polluted depths with an intense sense of longing. 

    Called the Dreamers, they’re an eclectic and informal fraternity, living in makeshift houseboats or the cheapest tenements that press against the water. Quite a few simply sleep on the streets. They’re something like a religion, and something like a guild - the most personable and talkative are merchants, selling the fish that others catch, the strange relics and minor treasures that their divers retrieve from the harbor, and the often beautiful - if always uncanny - art they produce. They take care of each other and, though no one has ever seen a dreamer raise a hand in anger, every attempt by syndicates or rival cults to extort or expel them has ended with their opponents going mad, screaming and clawing at their flesh in the middle of the night, or found poised in some elaborate and improbable suicide. After the third time, everyone more or less got the idea. 

    No one knows who leads them - if anyone does. Insofar as they have a public face, Zoe Alvane is it - a street urchin who ‘found the sea’ before she had hit puberty, for the last few years she has been the one who spends seemingly every hour of the day ensuring her ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ have food and shelter, and looking after the other beggars and poor in the neighborhood while she can as well. She’s also the one outsiders deal with when they come looking to buy information - it’s a disquieting fact of life in Sethennai that the Dreamers’ know almost everything there is to know about almost everyone. They are generally content to be left alone, and Zoe is very sympathetic and willing to offer personal advice and play the part of fortune teller to anyone desperate and willing to trade or do a favor - but it’s generally agreed that trying to force information from them is a bad idea. 

Faction of Note: Ironfang Mercenary Company 

    When Prince Cael seized the throne, he didn’t do so single handedly. He needed trained, disciplined soldiers to seize the Palantine and coastal forts, ensure no one escaped the palace, and keep order on the streets while the messy business of extinguishing the previous dynasty was carried out. For all this and more, he relied on the professional expertise of the Ironfang Company. 

    Formed around a core of hardened hobgoblin veterans of various border wars and colonial filibusters in the Free Cities, the Company has for the last fifteen years been the Prince’s favorite tool for securing his interests, keeping order, and bloodily making examples of any threats to his rule. For their trouble, they’ve grown fat and happy - a steady paycheck and yearly bonuses have left every officer with a townhouse, and most common soldiers with coin for families and apartments for them to live in. 

    Despite the lack of real combat - and the need to take on locals as new recruits, as more and more soldiers retire or die over the years - Captain Azaersi is a leathery old warehouse who has never let her troops grow soft. Even week the grand parade ground in Crossroads echoes with screaming drill sergeants and the crack of muskets, and it’s an open secret that the Prince paid to import stocks of grenades and munitions from Quepta for her arsenal. No one knows quite how she plans to deal with the sudden disappearance of her patron and employer, but for the moment the Ironfang seem content to keep order in the corner of Crossroads around the arsenal and parade ground that they call home. 

The Ruins

The ruins are not, legally, part of Sethanni, and absolutely no one with anything resembling sense would ever actually choose to live there. No one actually knows where the eponymous ruins come from - or at least, no one can agree which section is from where. Shantytowns of the most despised and desperate and built on top of their predecessors, which are built on top of battered and broken pre-Conquest ziggurats and homes, which are built on top of - well, some of it is just a natural cave system, and no one is sure about the rest. Or ever found just how deep it goes. Aside from the casualties of the Prince’s attempts to map it, the Ruins are inhabited exclusively by those that would be strung up or burned alive if they tried to live anywhere else, or those sufficiently dedicated to their greed or ambition that they’re absolutely certain they alone can unlock the secrets and find whatever wonders are buried beneath all the traps and monsters. Not great company, either way. 

Faction of Note: The Weavers’ Masquerade 

    Sethennai never really followed its ‘sister cities’ in the League in religion, with a sort of tolerant anarchy of different gods and sects almost always predominating over the gleefully blasphemously sublime demon-cults that the conquerors originally brought with them. But the small cultists that did exist at least enjoyed a luxurious, privileged irrelevance, with sanctums in the city’s grand temple. That finally changed when Cael seized the temples for his new Hierophant - and every relic and sacred text in them, as bloodily as necessary. Which with demon worshippers meant a massacre - letting one escape and beseech their patron for aid in crafting some horrible vengeance being generally agreed to be a terrible idea. 

    Not that that actually worked, of course. One acolyte managed to escape - no one’s quite sure how, but then, probably best not to ask unless you’ve got a particularly strong stomach. Well, that’s one of her stories, anyway - she goes by Maia Dayal, Beloved of the Architect, Wearer of Ten Thousand Faces, and sometimes she prefers to say she’s a recently arrived priestess from Celmy, or a street urchin who found enlightenment entirely on her own. As might be expected by the self-proclaimed title, she also changes her face (and build, age, species…) about as often as everyone else bathes. 

    While she has shown no interest in actually taking bloody revenge on the Prince, Dayal has done plenty to earn the price on her head. The Masquerade that has grown around her is a carnival of wonders and horrors, where all manner of temptations are offered to the truly desperate, debauched and vile. Skinweavers and facetakers always need raw material, and secrets and deaths can both be easily bought for the right price - though in keeping with their patron, the Masquerade is hardly a safe or stable place to do business, and offending the wrong cultist can easily lead to a shift from ‘visitor’ to ‘canvas for artistic expression’. 

Faction of Note: The Keendream Expedition

    Over the last two centuries, the actual facts about the pre-Conquest city has (with few exceptions) been buried under the weight of legends, rumors and (when necessary) several tons of rock. Despite this (or because of it) whenever things get bad (...worse) for the original population of goliaths and dwarves who can trace their lineage back to that time, stories about some hidden savior or buried relic that will free them spread like wildfire. This is just such a time. 

Ilidak Keendream Kathu-Viano is an explorer from a family with some grounds for its claim of being pre-conquest nobility. For the last year he has worked on commission for the Prince, leading a large and incredibly well-armed expedition into the ruins across the water from the Old City, digging into them in search of..something. No one who knows the goal has been willing to talk, but certainly it has involved hiring every historian and scholar with anything like knowledge of the city before it was Sethennai (not to mention half the charlatans and rumor mongers who might know something). 

Once news of the Prince’s disappearance reached Kathu-Viano, work shifted from its previous sedate pace to something much more determined. Certain paranoid minds have said it’s almost like he was waiting for this. Other, moderately less paranoid ones have pointed out it’s a bit odd that the government-sponsored expedition is so short on patricians and city notables and so high on mercenaries form the interior and goliath clans with far more reason to listen to Kathu-Viano than the Prince, should some conflict break out. 

The Stacks

Museums, exhibitions, satellite campuses, mystical archives, storehouses of eldritch knowledge, and one actual wizard tower - if the faint taste of ozone in the air doesn’t warn you what you’re getting in for leaving the city’s eastern gates, then the architecture certainly will. Wedged between variously reputable bookstores and inquisitives, different formalized and longstanding campuses are dedicated to the arts of conjuration, enchantment, sparkcraft, and practical cosmology. Competition for new discoveries and to fully unlock ancient secrets are good natured and nonviolent - at least, that’s all you can get out of anyone left standing once the smoke clears. 

Faction of Note: The Bookhounds 

    The Bookhounds aren’t any sort of formal organization - and at least half of them would roll their eyes at the name - but rather a loose network of gutter mages, disreputable academics, private inquisitives and researchers for hire, and people with a little talent or cash to burn and far too much curiosity for their own good. They act as a sort of volunteer police force in the Stacks, passing each other clues and leads and doing each other favors to track down stolen (or escaped) relics and curses, stop idiots from unleashing anything really dramatic, and generally help people and save the day. Not to mention accumulate really impressive bags of tricks and rare books themselves in the process. 

    While they don’t have anything like a real leader, the group’s beating heart is Nikos Roth, an Esheri academic who arrived in the city as a fresh-faced student on a three month expedition a decade back and who never intends to leave. Running a small, incredibly ramshackle-looking secondhand book store wedged between two tenements, he nonetheless has one of the more impressive collections of occult lore in the city, and is more than happy to trade for more of it, or connect anyone in need with a specialist who can help them. As more than one would-be thief has discovered, he’s also a fairly talented mage, and for all that being entirely self-taught has left him with some obvious holes in his training, it’s also left him with some tricks that basically no one comes prepared to counter. 

Redgate

Once, Redgate Prison stood alone, a fearsome warning of the Prince’s power to anyone looking south from the city center. Eighty-some years of steady urban sprawl later, most of its inmates would probably just need a running start from the prison walls to land back home. Filled mostly with those whose dreams of a new world fell flat, but with too little cash or too many enemies to get home, the slums of Redgate are a natural habitat for street gangs, drug peddlers, flesh traders, and everyone else looking to take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. The prison itself - and its infamous and heavily armed wardens - has stumbled into being the center of law writ large, dealing out summary justice for criminals that are (correctly) assumed to be beneath the Prince’s notice. 

Faction of Note: Regate Prison 

    Sitting on a steep hill across the water from the Old City, Redgate prison was at one point a fortress, but for generations has been put to use housing the city’s worst, most dangerous, and most profitable criminals. Given the sprawling, crime-ridden slums that now surround it, its wardens also work as a sort of brutal police force, keeping the pretence of order on the street and preserving the Prince’s Peace. Usually. 

    The problems with discipline start at the top, really. The Prison’s infamously brutal First Warden is also its oldest and most dangerous prisoner. Before the Conquest, Vrocdruk was one of the city’s lesser gods, enthroned in one of the Palantine’s grand temples. When Sethennai - the man - defeated him, he chose to pull his demons away before they could tear the god into so much bloody aether. Instead he was crippled, lessened, and bound to a new home in the fortress and a new purpose; defending the city and its rulers. Later, less skillful, princes altered the binding, making him responsible for most crime and punishment and hoping that his sacred nature would make the native dwarves and goliaths more obedient. 

    Vrocdruk is still crippled, still bound to the prison, still forced to obey the orders of the city’s acclaimed ruler, and still extremely unhappy about it. He takes any excuse to work out his unhappiness on criminals or troublemakers with the incredible bad luck to catch his direct attention. His wardens largely follow his example, often acting less like agents of justice and more like a particularly well armed gang - to the point of semi-officially collecting fees for ‘security’ from nearby businesses, supplementing the cash extorted from prisoners and their families for both necessities and luxuries while incarcerated.

Sootcliff

Trailing south of Foundrytown, on and under the steep slope beneath the city’s western walls, the densely packed tenements of Sootcliff are certainly stained grey enough to earn the name. Existing primarily as a source of blood and sweat to feed into the ever-hungry foundries and assembly lines to the north, The buildings are cheap, massive, and constructed at the lowest possible cost, with all the consequences you would expect from that. With easy access to weapons and alchemical supplies from Foundrytown and (literally) beneath the notice of the Old City, Sootcliff is famous as the home of militant bands, revolutionary conspiracies, disgraced artificers, and generally anyone who has a dream for a new world and a plan that will require a lot of explosions to get there. 

Faction of Note: The Painted Doctors

    Less a single organization and more an extraordinarily loose confederation of - often feuding - crimelords, the Painted Doctors are a fraternity of (largely half- or self-) taught alchemists who have over the last year grown to be the dominant criminal guild in Sootcliff. The name sometimes refers to the incredibly distinctive tattoos each ‘Doctor’ has covering much of their body, universally agreed to be somehow enchanted or cursed. Otherwise it refers to the incredibly alien and vibrant skin tones that their test subjects and muscle develop after repeatedly ingesting their ‘miraculous’ potions and tonics. 

    While possessing remarkably little actual magical talent among them, the Doctors have perfected the recipes for several extremely useful potions - several incredibly addictive drugs, a half dozen forms of acids and grenades, and a dizzying variety of enhancing tonics to improve themselves and distribute to their thugs - and have managed to keep both the recipes and their sources for the necessary reagents entirely secret. This has left them in the enviable position of being able to promise anyone signing on with them that they’ll be able to more or less become a regenerating ogre for an hour whenever they need to fight, while their opposition has had to settle with advising their men to stock up on fire and acid. 

    The leading light of the Doctors is one ‘Dr’ Fadre - almost certainly not his real name - an alchemical savant whose ‘miracle cures’ are bought and resold across the city. A flashy and well dressed sort whose patronage has turned several of Sootcliff’s most prominent dens of vice into something close to palaces for those who can afford it, he’s said to be far less interested in the nuts and bolts of running a criminal empire than enjoying its fruits and indulging his passion for the Sciences. It doesn’t hurt his reputation that he doesn’t look a day over thirty, and has for as long as anyone has known him. 

Chance

Facing Oldport from across the river’s mouth, the docks of Chance are significantly new, cheaper, and altogether more ramshackle. Not really a part of any conscious design, Chance grew organically as the city sprawled beyond its original walls, essentially smuggling docks so successful it was easier to legitimize and start taxing them than it was to hang everyone involved. They now provide the city with a constant infusion of nerdowells and fortune seekers, and the district around them takes great pride in fleecing new arrivals of every penny to their name by the end of their first night on land. Hostels and boarding houses are usually safe, traditional vice dealers less so, and anyone selling treasure maps or magical amulets not at all. Still, they’re probably more harmless than the various mercenary recruiters and ‘exiled princes’ promising to give new arrivals exactly the thrill and fortune they came searching for. 

Faction of Note: The Red Ocean Trading Company

    What is now the Red Ocean Trading Company has gone through several dramatic changes over it’s eighty years of existence. First a privateer fleet hired by the Free City of Celmy during the First Armada War. Then eventually growing strong enough to seize several islands as an independent pirate state, before being crushed by the Esheri Navy during the Second Armada War. It’s remnants learned a bit of humility from that, and it is now seemingly content with its existence as either (depending on who you ask) a obscenely profitable shipping firm, or one of the most widespread criminal syndicates in the world. 

The Company’s significant interests in Sethennai - nearly half the docks in Chance, guides and guards for anyone heading into the Interior, and fingers in quite a few less legitimate pies as well - are ably represented by Captain Arun Prem, a(n in)famous adventurer and scoundrel in his own right, apparently enjoying his semi-retirement behind a desk by getting outrageously drunk with his favorite mercenaries and criminals every night and swapping incredible (and implausible) old war stories. 

There’s plenty of rumors, of course - that he’s here in de facto exile after angering the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he’s a thousand-year-old vampire and is the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he ate a kraken’s heart, and is immortal as long as he doesn’t lose sight of the water. That he’s biding his time to prepare an army before heading inland to carve a new kingdom for himself. That he’s only in the city for as long as it takes to carry out some truly spectacular heist. That he killed Prince Cael in a secret duel and trapped his soul in the pocketwatch he wears at all times. And so on. Of course, other rumours say that he started all of those himself to preserve his mystique as he grows fat in his old age.

Oldport

Facing out to the harbour but safely ensconced within the city walls, Oldpot is, as the name implies, one of the oldest ports in the new world - and certainly one of the busiest. Fully loaded merchant ships arrive daily, their cargoes emptied and replaced with the plunder of the New World almost overnight so they can return home on the next turn of the wind. Beyond the grand ports themselves, this district is home to all the most respectable shipping companies, merchant banks, hotels, and townhouses and apartments, as well as all the official consulates and embassies that Sethennai plays host to. 

Faction of Note: First Bank of Sethennai

    Despite only being as old as Prince Cael’s reign, the Bank already feels like an eternal and irreplaceable part of Sethennai. This isn’t something people are necessarily happy about, but its leadership had done a truly amazing job at keeping dissent to grumbling and resentment of the inevitable, and not actual resistance. They’re good at that sort of thing, even when they used Prince Cael’s (and, thus, the City’s) massive debts to his foreign benefactors as justification for taking control of the city’s tariffs and tolls, and began rigorously enforcing them, possibly for the first time ever. 

    Combined with a legal monopoly on the ability to mint coins, this has of course made the Bank incredibly wealthy. But not to the degree that might be assumed - the riches collected are to a large degree shipped back east to foreign creditors. Of the remaining, quite a bit is invested with as much an eye for politics as strict profit. 

    Executive Director Salman Ticaret, like most of his staff, is a Sethennai native who sought education in the Commonwealth (like most, he took a new name on gaining citizenship). Along with modern accounting and investing techniques, he came home with a firm grasp of political economy - and so for the last decade and a half has been more than happy to offer favorable rates to well positioned patrician and merchant houses, in exchange for their own favors and consideration in turn. The result is that the bank’s marble halls and adamant vaults house information as much as money. And Ticaret is perfectly willing to invest both, if the opportunity is promising enough. 

Foreign Interests

The League of Free Cities

The League of Free Cities is not so much a single power as a collection of fiercely independent deomcratic city-states held together by the intertwined private empires of their leading citizens, deep and interdependent trading relationships, and a common religion that the rest of the world calls demon-worship - they view this as deeply offensive. Also they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years and they’re not all dead yet, so clearly everyone else is just doing demonology wrong. Politics are a mess of knives in the dark and openly bribing the voting populace with feasts and spectacles, with glory and riches to anyone who can hold the mob’s favor for long. 

Demonic evocation - and the arts learned as a result of it, like fleshweaving, orienomarchy , breaking reality down into elemental chaos and shaping it to your whims, and so on - are in the rest of the world generally met with very thorough execution, making the freethinkers of the League the world’s bleeding edge in magical innovation. The entire culture of the League is also nearly custom-made to produce bold idiots willing to do what it takes to get rich or die trying, and the various Free City’s Adventurers Guilds are (in)famous the world over. 

Until recently, the Free Cities considered Sethennai, if not one of them, then at least a younger sibling or benevolent dependency. Prince Cael’s coup has been taken as something of a wound, and the merchant interests who have lost out as he opened trade have made sure that in the decades since his name has become synonymous with bloody-handed tyranny. The first broadsheets celebrating his death will sell out in moments, and the acclaimed merchant adventurer Vyas Asraya, said to be en route to the city, is said to be very optimistic about future trading opportunities. 

Holy Illyric Empire

Technically speaking a vast and sprawling feudal state unified only in the person of the Sovereign (Empress of Illyrin, Queen of Belthaya, Defender of the Hierophant of Imir, Grand Duchess of Abhari, etc, and so on, and so forth), the Empire dominates the better part of two continents, and in terms of size and prestige is unquestionably the foremost state on the globe. It is also a bureaucrat’s nightmare, its aristocracy distracted from their internal feuds only when they need to defend their ancestral rights from central overreach. 

Ancient controls and long established relationships make Imperial binders the most fearsome conjurers and thaumaturges in the known world, a process not at all hurt by the wholesale incorporation of any powerful spirits or terrestrial god who will sign on the dotted line into the official pantheon. Illyrin Paladins are also easily the most storied heavy cavalry the world has ever seen, and Abharic necromancers are generally held to be the heirs (or direct pupils) of the inventors of the craft. 

Illyric interests have prospered under Prince Cael’s reign, but the last years have seen Sethennai become a haven for heretical priests and radical binders, something Ambassador Konrad Reingard has been rumored to be increasingly frustrated with, though no one heard a word from his Oldport estate since the chaos began.

The Sublime Esheri Commonwealth

A thoroughly modern and enlightened state, the Commonwealth is history’s gift to the cartographer, an empire with firmly delineated borders and clear, rationally determined administrative divisions. Governed by a Janissary Corps educated and conditioned from childhood to put principle above self interest and the good of the Commonwealth above friends or (nonexistent) family, the Esheri control far less land than the Illyrin Empire, but has been able to fight it to a standstill and even force it to abandon certain far flung dependencies over a series of wars across the last century. 

Beyond a ruthlessly efficient system for taxation and conscription, the Commonwealth’s military might is credited to two sources - on the one hand, its marines are the finest and most disciplined line infantry anyone is likely to ever see, experts in the use of gas and artillery and famously cool under fire. One the other, their heavy automata are an answer to any conjured devil or bound beast, enlightened clockwork providing enough force to cleave through scales and enchanted plate without missing a beat. But the Janissaries are as happy as their enemies to admit that they prefer unfair fights - though they credit their infamous spy network to the fruits of their scientific studies of society and history, while their enemies instead blame the corrupting effects of gold, blackmail, and a complete indifference to the morals of those they work with. 

While the Commonwealth does have an embassy in the city, it mostly exists as an appendage of the First Sethennai Bank, the private institution responsible for printing and guarding the solvency of the city’s currency, its entire upper rung staffed by experts trained in the Commonwealth and generally considered Prince Cael’s way of paying back their support for his coup. More recently, it has been rumored that the Secretariat has taken an interest in the struggles in the interior. Coincidentally, an ‘Academic’ has been seen floating around various less than reputable bars in Chance, ostensibly as part of a project to record the city’s myths and folklore. 

The Warlord States

For the last two hundred years, the interior has been an evershifting patchwork of successor kingdoms, native revolts, monstrous empires, released horrors, and stranger things besides, the unending tide of weapons and adventurers ensuring that no single player was ever able to secure dominance (and the various rulers of Sethennai have certainly played their part in keeping things that way). At the moment the foremost powers are a giantblooded kingdom led by a messaniac priest-king claiming to be the reincarnation of a Titan, a personal union enforced at sword point between a Khasli pirate queen and a goliath ‘emperor’, a red dragon who has claimed an old giant palace and forced the dwarves living in the mountains around it to provide tribute and worship, and several dozen more minor principalities. It should go without saying that war is the natural state of being, and soldiers are sucked up like ships in a whirlpool.

Adventurers are the lifeblood of Sethennai, and they don’t only flow one way. A constant stream of veterans - either enriched or embittered - skulk, limp or run back once they’ve had their fill of the wonders of the new world, usually missing something important or carrying something priceless - sometimes both. The courts and inner circles of every powerful warlord are composed exclusively of this sort of hard, tricky and generally insufferable type of rogue, and they’re often the only agents trusted enough to be dispatched on delicate missions. The line between warlord and criminal kingpin or pirate magnate is also extremely thin - sometimes nonexistent - as smuggling, sabotage and assassinations are simply basic tools of statecraft in the ruthless arena of the interior. More than once, an ambitious Prince of Sethennai has attempted to recreate their ancestor’s short lived empire, only to be found butchered in their bed but the agents of one warlord or another.

The Warlord States view Sethennai as a vital artery for supplies and funding, and for manpower to refill their armies with disposable bodies for their constant border wars. On a grander scale, those with ambition view it as either a crown jewel and future capital, or a bleeding ulcer on the land which needs to be razed to its foundations. In either case, few are interested in a strong, stable government for it. Regardless of their opinions, sending emissaries and embassies to the city is the first (and often only) diplomatic initiative of every new warlord state - though in truth their role is often closer to mercenary recruiter and fundraiser.

[hollandsrecs]

completed series masterlist (1)

links last checked 16/12/2020 | more masterlists here

2 hearts, 22 calibers by heyhihellowhatsup0

summary: despite discovering the new owner of the club you work at may have his own secrets hidden, the temptation to get closer to him outweighs your trepidation...

12 days of christmas by keepingupwiththeparkers

24 hour, long lasting by madmadmilk

summary: a clumsy you, a tube of long lasting lipstick, a small case of stumbling, a stain, and a boy you never imagined to meet.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

against the agenda by cosmetologynerd

summary: he was tom holland; love was not on the agenda. 

all of the lights by spiderboytherescue

always, yours by angelicholland

summary: you always knew you loved your best friend but you figured that he would never feel the same way, so you set those useless feelings aside. how will you cope when you find a box of letters that tells you otherwise? is it too late to let go of the butterflies trapped deep within you? would he even feel the same way anymore?

apartment 509 by sweetlysilent

summary: tom brings girls home almost daily, something that bothers you to the end of the world; whereas on the other hand you rarely go out, spending majority of your time focused on your studies, something that drives tom insane, the tension between the two of you becoming thicker, even more when he finds out you have a study date.

attachment by hazinhoodies

summary: maybe you held on a little too tight. you were only trying to salvage the most important relationship of your life.

beneath the waves by cosmetologynerd

summary: “please, i wish to be free.” 

black beauty by blissfulparker

summary: tom, the king of hell, has no time for love or any woman in his life. he spends his days finding new punishments for the people who deserve it. you, spend your days in heaven making everyone happy. never wanting a soul to feel down. what happens when heaven decides to send you down to join tom in hell? why would they send their best angel to the devil himself?

born king by spiderboytotherescue

breaking curfew by wazzupmrstark

summary: when you got the job to be a counsellor at the summer camp you’d grown up attending all your life, you expected to see some familiar faces. but you certainly hadn’t counted on having to work alongside the boy who had made it his life’s mission to make your life a living hell every summer. in fact, you thought you’d never have to see tom holland again. but he’s is in the cabin right across from yours with campers of his own- smirk, jawline, and all. if you didn’t know any better you might’ve thought that he applied for the position just to spite you, but who were you kidding? what kind of asshole would do something like that?

clear by peeterparkr

summary: y/n is in town for summer, she wants the sea to wash away the pains of the past, however when a certain surfer comes into her life, the remaining salt might not decant, but maybe some sweet surprises might come to shore

complications by loserparker

summary: being roommates with tom was easy, fun. that is until feelings started getting involved. throw in the fact that both of you suck at communication and things are bound to get complicated.

contrapposto by madmadmilk

summary: you desperately needed a figure model for your upcoming art final and you find a friend willing to pose for you.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

dare you to move by starksparker

summary: friends with benefits is supposed to be just that. friends with the benefits of fooling around and not having anything more than platonic feelings. easy, fun, thrilling, no one gets hurt…right?

determined by blesshimnorris

summary: you are enjoying university life with your fellow housemates, except for tom, who seems to avoid or tease you every chance he gets. but with your birthday slowly approaching he finally tries to make amends.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

dine and dash by blissfulparker

summary: tom comes into your diner every tuesday and thursday, it is no secret that he only goes for you. when will he ever be brave enough to say something, when will you ever be brave enough to let him in?

eighteen by angelicholland

summary: y/n is tom’s math tutor and needed a date for sunday dinner. tom has tattoos all over and just looks like the type of guy who would piss off her parents. will their fake relationship turn into something so much more?

eloped by worldoftom

summary: you and tom have been in a secret relationship for a long time, but what would you do if tom proposed unexpectedly during your vacation in casablanca, morocco?

every step of the way by sunshinehollandd

summary: you and tom are best friends, and you have been for as long as you can remember. after one night, everything changes. but, tom is by your side every step of the way.

ex on the beach by heyhihellowhatsup0

summary: eight months after your ugly breakup with tom, you find yourself stuck together for two whole weeks at a private beach house. just you, tom, some mutual friends, what could possibly go wrong?

for king or country by avengers-sweethearts

summary: from the time you were a child you always lived in the castle. your mother and father were both servants and even after they died you stayed on as one yourself. prince yom was always someone you admired from afar. he was the nicest out of all the holland royalty and incredibly handsome. along the way of your daily duties the prince begins to pay you more attention when you save him from an awkward situation. things get more complicated when his jealous betrothed princess zendaya comes to court and stirs up trouble for the forbidden romance. will prince tom follow his heart or stay true to his country? most importantly of all, will you even make it out alive?

forbidden rose by avengers-sweethearts

summary: if there was one person who knew how to throw a party, it was tom holland. in 1922 partying wasn’t uncommon, but a tom holland party was like none ever seen before. the young billionaire thrived off of rumors and speculation. despite the parties being held weekly, no one had ever seen the mystery man. tom intended to keep it that way until one night an enchanting woman caught his eye. but what happens when her cruel fiancé is tangled up with demons from his past. will their love be enough to overcome the trouble that lies ahead?

forever by starksparker

summary: what happens when a fuckboy with some anger issues and a bad streak is forced to work alongside someone who’s his opposite? and what happens if they can be ripped from him in seconds?

ground rules by madmadmilk

summary: you just love holding someone, and being held. It’s not a hard thing to ask for, but it sure can be hard for someone to understand.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

happiness is a butterfly by blissfulparker

summary: you and tom spend your whole lives looking for your soulmates. how could you not see that you two were right under each other’s noses both coming from a mob family?

heart eyes by madmadmilk

summary: tom holland is a friend that you only see once or twice a year, but when the stars align and you finally start to get close to him again you realize that… you’ve never really known each other at all. he has an emoji tailing after every contact on his phone… but none for you. hm. a soft and bumbling story about how you get to know him, and how he gets to know you.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

heartbreak weather by t-holland2080

summary: after getting out of a rough relationship, you meet tom, who pulls you out of your heartbreak weather.

heavenly yours by tomsrebeleyebrow

summary: angels live in a perfect world. in a complete ivory tower. but loving someone else is forbidden. a true sin.

hostility by starsholland

summary: everything was going well in your life, living in LA, trying to make it big as a journalist, but all of that is foiled when tom holland walks into your life bringing drama and negativity. how much will you be able to take before you finally lose it?

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

hotlanta by hollandorks

summary: a fun night in atlanta forces the reader into a fake relationship with celebrity tom holland in order to save both of their careers.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

how to unlove someone by whatevsholland

i only feel you by stuckonspidey

summary: a world in which soulmates feel their other half, physically and emotionally. y/n has given up on finding her soulmate, given up on trying to decipher the sensations he feels and the lifestyle he leads–prompting her to give up on him. her other half, she’d come to find, is the leader of the holland crime family, and in no means the easiest person to love.

kiss currency by madmadmilk

summary: swapping underwear with your best friend’s best friend, while maintaining your cool composure. he’s cute, he’s funny, and you’d be down to kiss him at least once. :)

chapters: 0 | 1 | 2 | 3

lacuna by thollandss

summary: being friends with benefits with a celebrity isn’t easy. nobody said it was.

limits of desire by peeterparkr

summary: you met tom a night he was trying to sleep with you, it didn’t work and you became best of friends. wedding bells might be ringing for when you both realize how you really feel.

london boy by tonguetiedholland

summary: you’re a famous singer and actor whose break up with ex boyfriend, shawn mendes, has just hit the media. when it all feels a bit too much you do the only reasonable thing you can think of, escape to london and lay low for a little while. who knew that tom holland, the boy you’d only met once but had you in the palm of his hand when you did and vice verse, would also be in london at the same exact time?

lucky number by tomhollanders2013

summary: what happens when one of the world’s most famous celebrities accidentally dials your number instead of his new assistant’s... is it a happy accident or a recipe for disaster?

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

miss yer kiss by angelicholland

summary: a one-night stand turned something more, you and tom meet again against the odds. an aspiring tattoo artist and a famous actor with “i miss you” on the tip of your tongues meet again and again as you slowly realize what love looks like.

model for me by thollandss

summary: in which you are a photographer for GQ, and during a private session with tom holland, you find yourself getting to know him very well.

money can’t buy you love by hilllsnholland

summary: y/n has worked her whole life to get into the prestige university of her dreams. nothing can stop her, right? maybe tom holland, son of billionaires and the poster child of privilege, who has made it his mission to woo the ‘scholarship baby’.

more than i know by lauras-collection

summary: you need a date for your sister’s wedding and the stranger in the coffee shop seems to be the perfect choice. until you see pictures of yourself and him all over the internet because apparently he’s an international movie star and now the whole world thinks you’re dating. and you have to give the people what they want, right? even if it’s fake.

naughty or nice by avengers-sweethearts

summary: the holidays are the worst time to be alone, especially in a brand new city with a brand new job. when an unexpected meeting with famous actor tom holland ends in the exchanging of phone numbers you find yourself in the dangerous position of falling in love with hollywood’s hottest and most eligible bachelor. unable to help yourself, you being to fall for the handsome actor and will do almost anything to earn his affection. trying to balance work, love, and the holiday proves to be more of a challenge than you had initially thought. the million-dollar question is what side of tom’s christmas list will you end up on: naughty or nice?

of broken promises and heartbreak by softspiderling

summary: it’s been six years since you and tom broke up, six years since you’ve last seen each other. a lot has happened, tom got insanely famous, making countless billion dollar movies, attending one red-carpet event after the other. but now he was attending one event, he wasn’t sure he was ready for. your wedding. and he wasn’t attending as your groom.

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

paint the grass green by lauras-collection

summary: a complicated relationship ends when tom breaks up with you after a fight. but it’s about to get more complicated. because how are you going to tell him that you’re pregnant if he won’t let you talk to him? so you don’t. years later you run into harrison, and there’s no denying that it’s tom’s son who’s tightly holding onto your hand. harrison gives you an ultimatum: either you tell tom, or he will.

peppermint by hollandandi

perfidy by peeterparkr

summary: tom and you have been sworn enemies since you were young. however you happened to be best friends with the twins. when one of your friends challenged you to break tom’s heart, you immediately accepted to get back at him for all the times he’s hurt you. old feelings might come back, while both of you try to go past your pride and your lies.

philanthropy by museinmind

summary: things seemed to be going too well in your life when you became your sorority’s president. so of course something has to go sideways somehow, and you end up having to take a chemistry class if you want to graduate next year. so what better person to tutor you than tom, the frat ultra hot boy who hides the fact he has textbooks nearly memorized?

pinky promises by sunshinehollandd

summary: being a single dad to a four-year-old isn’t easy, but tom figures out a way to make it work with the help of his best friend.

season of reunions by unbelievableholland

summary: you were adopted by 2 mysterious agents. you knew you were adopted and you never thought about your original family. being content with the life your parents gave you, why would you? that was, until your parents are killed and you’re left to fend for yourself and with a lot of questions unanswered.

seeing the thing by angelicholland

summary: you’re stage-managing your school’s spring show, almost, maine when you’re taken out of your element by a cocky boy with a dazzling smile and a way to your heart that makes you hate him before you can see the thing.

sincerely, by whatevsholland

summary: you and tom were childhood best friends. but when he started dating the girl who got everything you ever wanted, it began a falling out between you and tom. now he’s back home in london, just in time for your sister to host her engagement party.

single all the way by heyhihellowhatsup0

summary: when tom finds out he has to go home for christmas, he decides to formulate plan so he doesn’t have to run into his ex alone. you.

soulmate by spiderboytotherescue

summary: sometimes finding your soulmate doesn’t always happen where you expect it too. and sometimes, you’re just not ready to fall head over heels in love just yet.

sweetener by keepingupwiththeparkers

summary: okay, so maybe lecture hall proximity and roast calibre weren’t the only reasons for your frequent visits to this particular coffee shop. maybe there was a certain brown eyed brunette who worked there, and maybe he always gave you two stamps on your loyalty card instead of one, and maybe you liked watching his back muscles shift under his stupidly tight t-shirt while he pumped sweet vanilla syrup into your cup. maybe.

take me out by angelicholland

summary: you killed people, people who deserved it, but you killed people and that was your reality. killing is a job for one person. add another and it gets messy. things don’t happen by chance, not in your line of work. you held people’s lives in your hands and made the active decision to end them. what happens when you team up with a gorgeous man with a charming british accent to take out a prolific user of a sex trafficking website? but it was not by chance that you fell in love with him, it was the worst decision you could’ve ever made.

the fame game by duskholland

summary: there’s just something about tom holland that makes your blood boil. he walks around like he owns the world, always with an unhelpful quip or irritating smirk on hand. you can’t stand him, and your feud has burned hard and bright for three years. everything changes following an explosive evening at the oscars, when a questionable encounter with the paparazzi lands you in some hot water with PR. the only way to save your shattered public image is to agree to the unthinkable: tom will be your boyfriend, and you will be his girlfriend - and this might just be your hardest performance to date.

the jar series by libertybarnes

summary: tom holland, notorious mob boss, meets a single mother and her bubbly child and has to learn to live life with something to lose.

the king by sadchappuccino

summary: y/n is an angel who fell from heaven, tom is the king of hell. will they put that aside and fall in love?

chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

the missing piece by avengers-sweethearts

summary: when you graduated with an elementary education degree you were lost. you thought you wanted to be a teacher but you weren’t entirely sure if it would make you happy. as you’re in between jobs, you’re lucky enough to stumble upon the opportunity to be a nanny for the very rich and very handsome single father, tom holland. tom is busy running a company and he doesn’t want his daughter ella to be alone or sent to a daycare. things get crazy when you move in with the little family. between some secrets about alla and the undeniable attraction between you and tom you’re not sure what your role is to this family. do you keep it professional or do you risk it all and take the chance of falling for tom? only time will tell if you’re the missing piece.

the situationship by fairytelling

summary: a cup of tea can solve just about any problem. except, it can’t solve your confusing, headache-inducing ‘situationship’ with your university flatmate, tom holland.

to new beginnings by petersshirts

summary: it’s time to settle down and when your best friend asks you to have a child with him, how could you say no?

two lies and a truth by lauras-collection

summary: you wanted a fresh start. and uni seemed like the perfect opportunity. until you bump into tom. he says he’s sorry for everything he’s done to you. but can you trust him?

untitled by marvelbws

summary: suits, smirks, and a major sex appeal.

vlogs by spideyyeet

summary: being in the vlog squad was dope af but having david dobrik run into tom holland and getting him to surprise you was a whole other thing. now let’s see what’s it like to have tom meet the vlog squad and be with the girl that’s making him rethink some decisions.

we’re only kidding ourselves by wazzupmrstark

summary: you work as a production assistant for the spider-man: far from home crew, or rather as tom holland’s handler. the two of you don’t get along very well to say the least, but you won’t quit and he can’t fire you so you’re stuck with each other.

wicked games by captainmarvels

summary: in which tom holland, overwhelmed by his personal demons, seeks comfort in the only ways he knows how; spending money and rough fucking. the hotheaded ceo with major daddy issues can’t seem to get it quite right when it comes to you, but is there hope for his heart?

with love, tom by thollandss

summary: when an envelope addressed to tom makes its way into your mailbox, you realize he has enlisted in the army. your walls begin to crumble down at the idea of him leaving you like this. alone for eight weeks. he makes a promise to you, a promise that every week he is gone, he will send you an update letter... but soon enough, you start to not receive them.

yellow roses by grussell63

summary: tom’s mother has him participate in a bachelor-like dating competition, because she is tired of him sleeping around. furthermore she decides to bring in his best friend to spy on the contestants. is tom going to find the one amongst the 12 candidates or is he just going to play his little games?

chapters: 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | EPILOGUE

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Secrets ~ 2

Warnings: noncon sexual acts later in series

This is dark!Bucky and dark!Steve and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: A buried family secret comes to light thrusting you to the forefront of an old alliance.

Note: Last night I got some not so nice comments about me and I know it doesn’t really matter but considering I have to work on my bday tomorrow and everything is just mounting and mounting up, I don’t know how much writing I’ll be doing. It could be a lot or a little. But thankful to have those who care, you guys, cheering me on.

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

You went on like nothing had changed. It hadn’t. You weren’t leaving to marry some stranger. Some outdated prince in his crumbling castle. You studied the past, you didn’t want to live in it.

You went to class. Numb. Your anger slaked away as you jotted your notes and tried to ignore the tugging in your chest. Three classes, a coffee in between the second and the third, then you were due at the bookstore for the closing shift.

It was late enough in the year that the customers weren’t so many. You paced the aisles and asked students if they needed help. Few did as they perused the shelves and wandered, almost aimlessly so. Danica was on the till, though you took turns between sorting through the table of discount paperbacks left disordered by curious shoppers.

Only twenty minutes before close and you were near the back of the store, sweeping. Your path was blocked however as you turned in the far aisle. That man, Mr. Barnes, stood by the wall of rucksacks and hoodies, pretending to be interested. Given the fine cut of his suit and the polish of his shoes, you doubted he needed or wanted the campus-branded clothing.

You kept at your work. You got closer and continued to sweep, knocking his heels with the broom as you grumbled a grizzly ‘excuse me’. He chuckled and stepped aside, turning to watch you as you tried to ignore him.

“Your highness,” He said.

“Don’t call me that,” You huffed as you lifted the dustpan and it folded up against the stick. “What are you doing here?”

“My duty.” He said lightly. “I was sent by your fiance to keep an eye on you. To bring you back to him.” He glanced around and slid a magazine from the rack. “To free you of this boring mediocrity.” He flipped through the pages. “You don’t belong here, Duchess.”

He folded back the magazine and turned it to face you. He held it out and you scowled. He waved it impatiently and you sighed as you stepped closer to look. A man, tall, blonde, austere, leaned against an expensive sports car, a mansion behind him, akin to Versailles, as he gazed nonchalantly into the camera. The headline floated beside him; ‘A King for our Times’”

You recognized him. You’d seen him, as most people had; on the news, in tabloids, on questionable gossip blogs. You’d never paid much attention to him or those royals who existed beyond their means. You scoffed and shrugged.

“Am I supposed to be impressed?” Your lip curled.

“Your feelings don’t really matter,” He closed the magazine and put it back. “The contract stands.”

“You came all this way on the back of a paper signed by a dead king of a dead nation?” You shook your head. “Is your king that desperate?”

His jaw squared and he swallowed. “You think this makes you better than him? This… existence?”

“A life I earned,” You retorted. “I doubt he or you know very much about that.”

“And how much do you know of duty? Obligation? A purpose beyond your own selfish needs?”

“Selfish?” You rolled your eyes. “Sir. We’re closing. You need to leave.”

He tilted his head and grinned. His tongue poked out along his lip and he chuckled.

“Your highness,” He bowed his head. “Until tomorrow.”

He stepped closer and you turned to let him past.

“Don’t bother,” You said to his back as you watched him near the end of the aisle. “I’m not going. Tell him to find someone else.”

He stopped and pushed back his shoulders. He said nothing, just stood there a moment before he continued on. The electronic ding signaled his departure and you let out the breath that had stuck in your chest. 

You clutched the broom and dustpan in one hand and grabbed the magazine from beside you. You went to the counter where Danika was balancing the till.

“Hey,” You leaned the broom and pan against the counter. “I wanna buy this.”

“Just take it.” She shrugged. “With our discount, it might as well be free.”

You nodded and took it, bending it under your arm.

“Anything else besides cleaning?” You asked.

“Nah,” She counted out the last of the pennies. “Go on. I’ll close up.”

👑

You sat on your bed, the glow of your small lamp the only light. After an hour of tossing and turning, you surrender to wakefulness. You stared at the magazine, the glossy cover reflected the light beside you. You sank back into your pillows and picked at the pages until you found the one. You opened the magazine and stared at the man; the king; the strange. Fiance?

He was handsome, sure, but even in a picture, he seemed haughty. There was an arrogance to his shoulder, the way he leaned on the white hood, how he appeared to look down his nose at the lens even while standing on the same level. You flipped the page and began to read. 

A short blurb introduced him as the King of Astrania, once the playboy prince, but, as the article claimed, matured by the throne. You recalled the gossip of those days, yourself barely a teen then. One night, he had a socialite on his arm, the next an actress, next a singer, a model…

‘You’ve done so much. Anything still on the list?’ The interviewer lobbed another softball question.

‘Lots.’ The king answered. ‘I think my mother would be relieved to hear me say I think it’s past time I found a wife. A queen.’

‘You’re going to break a lot of hearts, your majesty.’

‘I’ve had my fun. Maybe too much. If I’m to serve my people, I’ll need someone at my side.’

You lowered the magazine and frowned at the ceiling. You pushed the pages off your chest and rolled over to turn off the lamp. You pulled the pillow over your head and squeezed your eyes shut. The thought of being bound to man so opposite yourself made you want to scream but you were too tired for that.

👑

You still didn’t know what to say to your mother. Your whole life was a lie. Not a lie you hated which was worse because the truth threatened to undo it all. When you went to the kitchen to get your coffee, she was there, waiting, a mug ready for you. You didn’t say more than thanks as you took and returned to your room.

You readied yourself for another day. Thursday. The last two days felt like weeks.  You packed up your bag and left through the front door, avoiding your mother who watched you from the kitchen. What were you supposed to tell her? It’s okay you lied to me, it’s okay you don’t want to fight, it’s okay to barter me away before I was even born? None of it was okay.

You reached the end of the walk and a man in a black suit stepped into your path. You stopped short and tried to pass him. Another man, in the same suit, black jacket, black tie, black everything, blocked you again. You turned the other way and found yourself box in by Mr. Barnes. He crossed his arms as he smiled at you.

“You’re off early.” He said.

“I have class.” You sneered and once more tried to make your way around the men. They moved with you, forming a wall. “Get out of my way.”

“The king wants me back before the end of the week. I can’t return empty-handed.”

“I don’t care what your king wants. I have class, work--”

“The jet is charted for three,” He checked his watch. “We have lots of time to pack.”

“You’re not--” You sputtered. “No.”

You looked back at your house. Your mouth stood in the door as she watched. She looked sad, broken. You grimaced at her.

“I told you I’m not going,” You tried to shove past Barnes and the other men grabbed your arms, your bag flopping to the ground. “Hey, let me go.”

“Your highness, my king did permit us reasonable force in our duty,” Barnes said evenly. “And to this point, I have restrained from it.”

“Hey,” Your mother swept through the door and stormed towards the men. “Don’t! Let her go! You’ll hurt her.”

“There is a seat for you on the jet too, Princess,” Barnes offered. “It’s only fitting the mother of the bride should attend the wedding.”

“Get off!” You kicked out and Barnes moved out of the way. “Off!”

“Astrania favours tradition.” He continued. “And it is not unheard for brides to be brought in chains. I’d rather not be so medieval.”

“I don’t wanna go! No!” You continued to struggle. Your mother grabbed at one of the men and was swiftly shaken off. “Stop!”

“Get her inside. The princess, too.” Barnes order.

One man hooked his arms through yours and held them behind you as the other seized your mother. You were turned and forced back down the walk, growling and grunting as you were pushed up the porch steps. Your mother whimpered as she was held by the back of her neck and angled through the front door ahead of you.

Inside, the door clattered and the thicker one was closed and locked. Barnes led the way into the living room and pointed to the couch.

“Princess,” He ordered and your mother was pushed onto the sofa. “Bring the duchess here.”

He beckoned to the hallway and strode ahead of you. Your shoulders ached as you tried and tried to wrench yourself away. Barnes looked in doors until he found your room. You were taken inside as he peered around.

“Cuff her,” He said. “Put her on the bed.”

He turned you and pushed you down onto the mattress. He released your arms as he pinned your down with his knee in your back and you reached back blindly to claw at him. He caught your wrists and held them together, securing them with a pair of thick cuffs before he got off of you. You rolled over and kicked out. Barnes caught your ankle and squeezed until you groaned in pain.

“The king would prefer a bride without a broken foot,” He warned. “But he will accommodate it, should he need to.”

He threw your leg down gruffly and nodded to the man. The other left and you sat up awkwardly, your arms trapped behind you. You stood and Barnes quickly pushed you back down.

“I’ve been nice. Patient.” He said. “But I don’t have time for this.” He pointed his finger in your place. “Perhaps your mother didn’t tell you how these things work or maybe you just didn’t listen. This isn’t a proposal, Duchess. Not a choice.”

You snapped at his finger and he drew away quickly. He smirked and scoffed and shoved you back roughly.

“Keep it up and I’ll have you strapped down.” He snarled. 

You slowly sat up, glaring at him, but didn’t go further. “Fuck you.” You spat.

His eyes rounded then he snickered again. 

“Oh, there’s a lot to work on, Duchess. That mouth, first of all,” He turned and pulled open the sliding door of your closet. “Ugh, and…” He touched a wool sweater. “And these, most of all.”

The man in black reappeared with a suitcase, the other faded leather dug up from the linen closet. He slapped it down on the bed beside you and flipped it open. He went to stand in the door, blocking it with his wide frame.

“Duchess, future queens, do not wear…” He held up a jacket. “Tweed.”

You growled, fighting the urge to kick him. You couldn’t reach and the cuffs kept you off-balance.

“We’ll take enough for the time being but… we’ll have to bring in some stylists,” He dropped an armful of clothes into the suitcase. “For…” He looked you up and down. “Everything.”

“You can’t do this,” You snarled.

“I can. I am.” He insisted as he tucked in the corners of the clothing. “That’s what you don’t seem to understand. I can do whatever I want. I have an order from the king and I have diplomatic authority. Now, I have been nice so far, I will even allow your mother to accompany you.”

“No,” You hissed. “No, leave her here.”

“Leave her?” He asked.

“It’ll be easier.” You lowered your chin. “For both of us.”

He was quiet. He nodded and stepped away. He went to the attached bathroom and returned with your pouch of essentials. 

“We can make up for whatever we forget,” He dropped it atop the open suitcase. “Anything in particular I’ve missed, duchess?”

“Beyond human decency?” You challenged.

He laughed once more and closed the suitcase. 

“It’s a long flight,” He said. “And it’ll be longer with those.” He tugged on the cuffs. “Hopefully it gives you time to think.”

He zipped up the bag and handed it to the man in black. Then he grabbed you and lifted you onto your feet. He guided you from the room with his hand on your wrists. Your mother sat, the other man staring her down, and looked over as you entered.

“Please, don’t take her. Please.” She begged as she tried to stand only to be nudged back by her watcher. “You can’t--”

“Princess, you know you can’t stop us.” Barnes said. “And your daughter has made up her mind. You will stay.” He bent to look her in the eyes. “You get your wish. Stay in your exile, pretending, playing at normalcy.”

“I’ll go,” She pleaded. “Let me go.” She leaned over and looked around him at you. “Don’t leave me here. I’ll come with you. I’ll-- I’ll-- you’re my daughter--”

“And you lied to me.” You sniffed. “You did this. Why would I want you to come?”

“I’m your mother.” She uttered.

“You’re the Princess of Ecklun. It was written there on that paper.” You sneered. “In your hand. I have to live with what you’ve done but it doesn’t mean I have to live with you.”

You turned your head up and held back the sudden wave of sadness which swelled in you. Everything you knew was just a lie. Your own mother. Your only family. She’d sold you like cattle. If she had warned you, maybe you could have stayed hidden. If she had warned you, maybe you wouldn’t be so unprepared. If she had warned you…

“Well,” You looked at Barnes. “Are we going?”

He stepped away from your mother and took your arm. “No goodbyes?”

“She signed her farewell a long time ago,” You said and turned away from her. “She’s had years to prepare for this. Years she stole from me.”

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - The Return of the King

So we’re back to the quasi-filler stuff. This episode does set a few things up for the finale, like bringing Edmund to Corona, but none of those things are actually good and it’s still mostly filled with irrelevant shit alongside the more important stuff. 

Summary: King Edmund arrives in Corona to see his long-lost son, Eugene, and to give him the royal sash of their bloodline. Eugene wants nothing to do with him, but Rapunzel invites him to stay. Later, the sash is stolen and a ransom note is left behind. Edmund and Eugene decide to go and retrieve it. Meanwhile, the Stabbington Brothers plot revenge on Eugene as they are both viewed as a joke by the other criminals.

So How Did the Stabbingtons Escape the Prison Barge 

Last we saw them they were stuck on a prison barge along with Lady Caine and all of the other season one villains. How did they escape? Did Lady Caine or anybody else make it out? If so then where are they this season? 

We’re not going to get any of those questions answered are we? 

Man this is just sloppy continuity. Which ironic, because these two were only brought back this season because of continuity. They need to be “redeemed” so that they can be at the wedding. I guess it just sucks to be you if you’re an original villain for this show and not named Cassandra. 

Why Is This Deserving of Ridicule? 

Like...We’re talking about a world renowned thief and adventurer and his magical royal girlfriend who are well known enough outside of Corona to be mentioned and there for no doubt people know how they both defeated monsters, daemons, and several criminals besides just there two guys, right? 

This plot point makes no sense. 

You could just kick these dumbasses butts and be done with it. I doubt they’d bother picking on you again if you did.  

Did we really need even more motivation for them to want revenged against Eugene?

Rapunzel is Back to Being Her Bossy Self 

Rapunzel has not earned the role of “wise administrator” yet. She’s only been out of the tower for two years now and she has yet to prove to the audience that she has managed to learn anything since then. By jumping the gun and forcing her into a role that she hasn’t grown into, and by ignoring that this whole show started out as a coming of age story, it just makes Rapunzel unpleasant to be around. All her “advice” is just her ordering people about with a veneer of chipperness to try and mask her controlling nature. People who should know more about their own lives than she does and have no reason to listen to her.  

So We’re Showing Rapunzel Being Responsible... By Having Her Avoid Responsibility? 

Part of why the writers made her “acting queen” for the first half the season was to get her to grow into the role of becoming full time queen. However they screwed this up by not having her actually learn anything and having her avoid the real duties a queen preforms. 

What Rapunzel is doing her is just being a socialite busybody. The only administrative thing she does is approve some low-scale building plans for a small business. A thing that would have been handled by a lower official in an actual functioning government.   

Once again Rapunzel is being selfish and doing what she like, ie bossy people around while having them kiss her ass, as the real work of running the kingdom is left to someone else. This isn’t being responsible, it’s being hypocritical, but don't expect anyone to ever call Rapunzel out for this. 

Pointless Action Scene is Pointless

At this point, the low stakes action sequences are just cringe. Like is this an adventure show or not people? Stop forcing crap like this and give us some real conflicts instead.  

How Did You Get Here So Fast Edmund?

It took Rapunzel and company nearly a year to get to the Dark Kingdom. Even if Edmund wasn't delayed with pit stops like they were, it would have still taken him several months to get here by horse. 

Did he take a boat, or have four to six months already past since Rapunzel’s Return? 

I would argue that this episode was aired out of order and should have been later in the season, but Cassandra’s appearance at the end of this story, and Hamnuel’s appearances in later episodes, would suggest otherwise. 

Crap like this is why season’s three timeline doesn’t work unless you stretch everything out to two years instead of one. 

Read the Room Rapunzel

One could argue that Rapunzel is just trying to be polite, but that doesn't really hold water. 

For starters Eugene is clearly upset and has every right to want to set boundaries between himself and Edmund. Ignoring that is incredibly rude and if my significant other ever did such a thing, well they wouldn’t be my significant other for very long. 

Secondly, Rapunzel could have offered other accommodations if she felt pressured to be polite to Edmund. Not only are their lots of inns in a port town known for trade, many of which are probably well-to-do, but there’s also that convent that was mentioned back in season one. It has to be somewhere in Corona itself and as the so far only mentioned major religious organization in the country it would no doubt have stately quarters for when royalty and nobility would visit. 

So not only would it be a suitable place for a visiting king to stay in, as it would be made for such things, but it’s also far enough away that Eugene wouldn’t feel like his space is being invaded but close enough that Edmund could come and go as he pleases. 

By that point it’s still between Edmund and Eugene and Rapunzel can stay out of it, like she should. 

Eugene is Right

These are all valid reasons for cutting someone out of your life. Furthermore, you don’t even need a reason. If you don’t want to associate with somebody then just don't associate with. It’s your life. You don’t have to justify how you choose to live it and people who actually care about you should respect that. 

Unfortunately no one respects Eugene.  

Not Edmund, not Rapunzel, and most certainly not the writers. 

Then Why Don't You Get Closer to Edmund, Rapunzel?

I understand Rapunzel’s viewpoint here. Edmund is the only person she’s ever met who has experienced the same isolation that she has. He’s one of the very few people whom she can empathize with. 

However that doesn’t give her the right to force her views upon her boyfriend. If she cared so much than she could just befriend Edmund herself and leave Eugene out of it. 

Trying to encourage a child to have relationship with a parent who neglected them is super tone deaf at best and outright disrespectful at worst. It’s also highly hypocritical seeing as Rapunzel cut Gothel out of her life for similar reasons and Eugene only ever supported her for it. 

No really, flip the situation. If Eugene tried to encourage Rapunzel to give Gothel a second chance everyone would be slamming him for it. So why does Rapunzel get a free pass? 

Shorty Already Did That, Eugene. Don’t You Remember? 

I mean, you were literally right there when it happened. Are we forgetting season two the same as season one now? 

So Why Are Stan and Pete Suddenly Back, But Not Cap?

I mean we went through all that trouble in Rapunzel’s Return to write them out of the narrative and here they are without any explanation. Why are simple set ups so dang hard for this show? 

Rapunzel is Overstepping Her Bounds Here

Ok, giving Edmund a place to stay is one thing. Suggesting to Eugene that he should give Edmund a chance is not appropriate but still forgivable. But this? 

This crosses a fucking line! 

Eugene is not Rapunzel’s subject. He’s her boyfriend, and a prince in his own right. Rapunzel can’t just volunteer him for crap without his consent. That’s just indirectly ordering him about like she would a servant.  

Once again, flip the script. If Eugene tried to force Rapunzel to work with Gothel everyone would be up in arms. Why is this then deemed okay? 

This is Coercion

Not only is Edmund and Rapunzel trying to guilt trip Eugene here but she even fucking elbows him!

Like this isn’t “cute couple bickering” here. That kind of stuff is reserved only for inconsequential shit. 

This a woman trying to strong arm and guilt trip her husband to be into having a relationship with his abusive father! Because guess what? Neglect is still abuse! 

Rapunzel has zero say in Eugene and Edmund’s relationship. It’s none of her fucking business! Trying to force her into this plot just makes her look like an asshat. 

I mean look at this smug smile! The fucking bitch is proud of being a shit human being and a terrible girlfriend. 

And of course don't expect the show to call out this behavior as wrong because of out of date sexist double standards. If you think any of this is okay then just role reverse Eugene and Rapunzel here and then tell me its still alright. 

The Show Missed a Real Trick By Not Naming Him Horus Instead

Horus, the sun god, would have been a nice bit of irony and given meaning to the name while keeping the joke virtually unchanged. You could have had both lore and a punchline. 

And I would argue that the joke as is, isn’t even funny. Horace is indeed a lame name, but not for the reason that the show gives. It’s lame because it’s not unique enough. There’s already a Disney character named Horace and I’m sure there are real people out there with that name as well since it’s not completely unheard of. So the joke falls flat and winds up insulting anyone with that name. 

Don’t Expect Any Pay Off for Eugene’s Identity Issues This Season

Yeah the show makes a big deal out of Eugene having a mid-life crisis through out season three, but then never resolves it in any meaningful way. 

Edmund Is an Asshole 

I don’t care how “crazy” he is. Calling someone by a name they don't wished to be called is just plain rude. Acknowledging someone’s preferred name is just a basic common courtesy that is expected of everyone. Once again, this isn’t funny, quirky, nor charming, just unpleasant. 

So the Animators Wasted a Model on a No-Named Character Who Only Appears Once

Someone said this little girl appears in season one, but it’s not noticeable if she does. She also doesn’t have a name and this is her only speaking role. What a waste of money. Just have one of the braided girls from the movie instead. You already built models for them and haven’t really used them. 

And before some mentions race here, this is poor rep already cause the character has no impact. 

Turns Out, Varian Didn’t Even Need Those Truth Serum Cookies

Not only does this dumb down Pete to a ridiculous degree, but it also invalidates everything Varian went through in The Alchemist Returns and the grief he got from everyone for using the truth serum. 

Oh, and it’s also lazy writing and a plot contrivance.  

That’s Not Figgy Pudding!

This is Figgy Pudding.

It’s a boiled “pudding” that’s more like a cake with dried fruit in it. During the 14th through 18th centuries such bread puddings were made to be carried around in ones pocket or knapsack for eating on the go. They’re nothing like the creamy custards we call puddings today. 

It also looks nothing like what’s shown on the screen below. 

That’s like a half eaten loaf of wheat bread?  

That’s jelly filled .. apparently...?

Once Again, If You Have to Make Everyone Else Incompetent to Make Your Hero Useful to the Plot Then You Need a New Plot

Rapunzel has zero business in this plot. She doesn’t even need to be in this episode beyond a cameo. Trying to cram her into the protagonist role in a conflict that doesn’t involve her is just a disservice to everyone.  

Winnie The Pooh Is More Mature Than This Show

More of that meta commentary I was talking about last episode, and it just as full of shit as ever. 

Seriously Find Her, Keep Her is the best script I have ever seen in any show. It’s perfectly balanced so that anyone of any age can relate to it. It’s real and heartbreaking and perfectly suitable for small children to understand. There’s no shock value, no darkness, no modern satire, but its far more mature and complex and deep than anything TTS has tried. 

Also Rabbit is a far better father than any dad in this show, while still being cut from the same trope. There’s no shame in being a children’s show when its done well and this now 30 year old kids show runs rings around what ever mess Tangled is trying to sell. 

Eugene Isn’t Exaggerating Here and I Don't Know How to Feel About That

Turns out Eugene did grow up with these guys the same as he did with Lance. It’ll be confirmed only two episodes later. That just recontextualizes everything. He didn’t just betray some rando guys that he held no feelings for, he betrayed people that he’s known and worked with since childhood. 

Now just because he’s known them doesn’t mean that they were family to him like Lance, but like the fact that he keeps claiming then as such through out the episode would suggest that perhaps they were like siblings. 

That’s ... ingenious. That makes Flynn Rider retroactively an even worse person and gives the Stabbingtons real reason for vengeance. 

Only the show doesn't do anything with this!  It just makes Eugene an even bigger jerk in the movie for zero reason. 

Let Me Reiterate, Edmund Is an Asshole 

Just like with Frederic, Cassandra, and Rapunzel the show uses framing to try and make the audience side with people who do unforgivable things. 

Edmund is an abuser. He neglected his own son for 25 years. But the show presents him as “funny” and “quriky” and “look at his pouty face, he’s so lonely”.... 

No!

Edmund isn’t deserving of anything and how he treats Eugene here is garbage. 

This show is utter crap writing wise but boy does it know how to gaslight its own audience into siding with bullies and abusers.  

Eugene Is One Thousand Percent In the Right Here, But Don’t Expect the Narrative to Acknowledge That

There’s nothing you can do to make up for that. 

Eugene might forgive him. Eugene might move on from it. Eugene might decide a relationship it still worth having with Edmund. But the horrible thing still happened and it happened because Edmund allowed it to happen. There’s no going back from that and everything going forward has to be on Eugene’s terms alone. 

But the narrative won't allow Eugene that agency. 

Even as he makes his grand proclamation about being done with Edmund the cameras chooses to focus on Edmund and his feelings. The story is already priming the audience to prioritize Edmund over Eugene so that when the forced and contrived forgiveness scene comes we won't question it. But it only comes because Chris doesn’t deem Eugene as individual person with thoughts and feels of his own, but as an avatar to fulfill his wishfulment fantasy regarding his own personal daddy issues. 

Rapunzel’s Characterization in Season Three is Just....Off

Ok, even ignoring the major stuff, like not recognizing what she’s done wrong, putting her into roles she’s not meant to carry, and making her a shitty girlfriend suddenly, Rapunzel just behaves contrary to her character all through out season three even in small subtle ways like here. 

On the surface this seems like a clever call back to Great Expotations, but lets examine more closely, shall we. 

On one end we have yo-yos; an invention that’s been around since ancient Greece and is so wide spread across the globe that the word “yo-yo” itself is theorized to come from Indonesia and the Philippines.

On the other end there is Rapunzel. A woman who spent 18 years isolated inside of a tower, because of this she is both ignorant of somethings and insatiability curious and eager to learn.  Or at least she was, until striking out onto a year long road trip, and having now been out of the tower for only two years, claims to know better than the entire fucking world about this object who’s existence she didn’t even know about until only a year and half ago! 

Like what kind of sense does this make? Why would you abandon the core of her drive and motivation, to learn, explore, and grow, and then call it “development”? 

How Did Edmund Get Beat By These Guys?

Edmund took out Adria. The Brotherhood is suppose to be the best physical fighters in this world and Edmund is supposed to be best out of all of them. Yet he’s taken out by two random, mediocre dudes who didn't even jump him. They gave him time to respond and he stood up to fight them. 

Was all his physical prowess tied into that axe? Is the axe magic? 

If you characters have to be depowered for unexplained reasons for the plot to work than you haven’t a good plot. 

This Isn’t as Heartwarming as You Think It Is Show

If Edmund knew where Eugene was this whole time then he could have actually provided for his son. He could have arranged adoption with someone by letter, sent money, food, clothes, ect, maybe even wrote to Eugene directly and kept up a long distance relationship to be there for him emotionally. 

There is literally no excuse anymore for Edmund to hide behind. He literally neglected his duties as a parent, just cause. 

Finding these things shouldn’t make Eugene happy. Finding these things should piss him off even further because that’s how any logical adult would respond to this bullcrap. 

I sure know I’m angry. I’m angry that Eugene is a pawn for the creators’ writing wank-off rather then being treated as human being; as an actual character. 

“Nice” Isn’t the Same Thing as Kind, Rapunzel

One could argue that she’s not even superficially nice in season three, but the real problem here is that the show, and by extension Rapunzel herself, doesn’t understand the difference between being “pleasant” and actually being a good person. Outwardly polite people can stab you in the back, can kill you even, and not care, as Rapunzel has demonstrated repeatedly since season one.   

Do They Have to Be “Family” for Eugene to Give a Damn? 

Can’t Eugene just do the right thing, because it’s the right thing to do? People don't need to be friends and family to care about each others lives. Kindness isn’t transactional. Empathy and true charity doesn’t come with strings attached. If Eugene’s whole arc is about becoming a better person, then making the Stabbingtons “family” kind of undermines this. 

Don’t Reward the Dude for Doing the Bare Fucking Minimal 

No seriously. Edmund forfeited the right to ever be called “dad” by Eugene a long fucking time ago. He doesn’t get to be called that now just because he stopped being a piece of scum and showed the bare minimal of human decency. Even if Eugene decides to have a relationship with Edmund after this, it doesn’t mean that  he has to be recognized as his dad or that that relationship will be a parental one.  

Eugene, and by Extension the Show, Places Rapunzel Upon a Pedestal to  the Detriment of All

Only 4 villains out of 20 get redeemed in this show. Four, and yes I’m counting the Stabbintions as one entity here. That’s 16 times Rapunzel failed to give someone a second chance just cause she didn’t feel like it that day, and even here she did fuck all in trying to give the Stabbingtons any sort of chance. That was all on Eugene. 

The more this show goes on, the more it looks like Eugene is just in love with the idea of Rapunzel rather than who she actually is as a person. It’s a disservice to both their characters but it damages Rapunzel most of all because the show perpetuates this over idealization to everyone she interacts with. 

It’s really sickening to watch and terrifying to know that some uphold this selfish brat as a “role model” for little girls. There’s nothing empowering in being an inhuman “goddess” who can do no wrong....even as they do several wrongs and never gets called out on it.    

This Isn’t “Cute”

Eugene can’t even have an opinion on a fucking toy!

Look if you still like New Dream despite how horribly written it is this season, then good for you. That is completely understandable, especially since this is mainly a problem with season three and not really in the first two seasons and certainly not in the movie. 

But if you try to deny that they aren’t toxic in season three, that people who do have problems with how they’re written aren’t valid in their concerns, than you’re either someone who hasn’t been paying attention or someone who has gross double standards for women in relationships. 

This Scene Is A Waste of Time

This doesn’t tell the audience anything. It contradicts what was previously established concerning her powers without explanation and then just throws the creepy girl voice in there for a lazy hook. It doesn’t work at foreshadowing since we repeat this info all over again in the next episode and it doesn’t expand upon neither Zhan Tiri’s nor Cassandra’s characters.

 In fact it kind of contradicts Cassandra’s characterization in the last episode as well. Is she a remorseless bad bitch or a vulnerable woobie? She can’t be both. Not in the way show is going about it anyways. 

It’s poor time management and poor storytelling. 

Conclusion

It was mildly better than Rapunzel’s Return, but that’s not saying much. Everyone’s character is still circling the drain and there’s no escape line in sight. 

But before I close out, here is a real world update. I had to quit my job at Amazon for personal reasons and am currently job hunting. I’m not hurting right now, I do have money saved up to cover me for at least a month and I’ve been doing commissions here and there, however despite having more time technically to write these reviews, I’m now having to juggle it along with artwork and job hunting. 

If you would like to support my reviews and other personal projects you can send me a tip over at Ko-Fi and more public commissions will be opening soon over there as well.  

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[youngster-monster]

fools rush in

Quel’thalas may sit on the coast of Lordaeron, but it has never been a naval nation. Kael’thas has never been quite so acutely aware of his people’s lack of seafaring abilities as he is now, bent over the side of a ship and fighting a losing battle against seasickness.

“Hold on. We’re nearly there.”

He sends a venomous glare Rommath’s way. His friend seems perfectly at ease on deck, only moving to shift his weight so he doesn’t stumble with the sway of the ship. Looking at him, Kael’thas could almost believe his motion sickness is a personal weakness rather than a quel’dorei trait.

Fortunately he’s seen Lor’themar looking a little green for the whole journey. Rommath is the real outlier here. Probably out of spite. He wouldn’t be caught dead displaying any kind of vulnerability, let alone something as small as seasickness.

“You’ve been saying that for hours,” he grits out in response.

Rommath shrugs, unconcerned by Kael’thas’ plight. “Nearly is an imprecise unit of measurement, I’ll admit it.”

“Although this time he’s right,” another voice intervenes. “We will be in view of Theramore’s harbor in under two hours.”

Kael’thas blissfully closes his eyes as Jaina lays a hand between his shoulder blades. Her magic sinks under his skin and the chill of it soothes his nausea to a point he no longer feels like he might throw up at any moment.

“Remind me why I’m subjecting myself to this again?”

Jaina chuckles warmly. “Because you are my dear friend and you wish to support me during an important change in my life?”

“I should have taken a portal with my father…”

“And miss watching me dissolve into a ball of nerves in the next few days?”

It’s true that the diplomatic delegation from Quel’thalas wouldn’t be privy to Jaina’s slow descent into panic during the preparations for her coronation. That’s a privilege reserved for Kael’thas only — and the two friends he was made to bring along as bodyguards, technically.

Of the world leaders who are coming to witness the event, few will be lucky enough to enjoy Theramore outside of official functions. Kael’thas is willing to suffer countless journeys by sea for the joy of watching Jaina get drunk in a sailor’s pub for the last time before she has to act like a proper monarch.

Affecting a greater misery than what he already feels, he says, “Still. For all that trouble, I better be here for your dress fitting.”

Jaina shudders at the thought. She may be a princess, but she clearly hasn’t gotten used to all the annoying little details of royalty. Or she forgot after too many years in Dalaran. Kael’thas grins. It’ll be years, if not decades, before he has to be in her place. He intends to enjoy the spectacle while he can.

Schooling his features into something more serious, he turns gingerly to face her. The deck rolls beneath his feet and he has to hold on to the banister or fall flat on his face.

“How are you holding up?”

She quirks up a small smile that struggles to reach her eyes. “I’m alright. A little scared, but…”

It stands to reason she would be, even though this coronation has been in preparation for years. She’s been spending more and more time away from her magical studies, learning how to rule a country, ever since she turned twenty-three. Still one can never be entirely ready to lead.

The fact that the date had to be moved forward because of an attempt on her father’s life must not be helping her anxiety any.

“Have you received news from your father?” He asks, knowing the subject a little easier to deal with. Daelin Proudmoore has recovered quickly from the botched assassination, and has been more preoccupied with rooting out the conspirators than with healing from his wounds.

She nods, gazing at the horizon. Kael’thas can just start to make out Theramore from the grey sky, though it’s more creative interpretation of a vaguely rocky shape in the distance; to her, it must look like home. “Yes. He’s fine. Healing nicely, for all that he refuses to rest. But they still haven’t found his attacker. He’s afraid they’ll go for me, too.”

Kael’thas waves that concern aside. “Of course they will; the day of the coronation is the perfect occasion to get rid of both you and your father, if that’s what they seek.” He winks at her, smiling slightly at her dismay. “That’s what you have me for. Oh, and that great hunk of a fiancé you have as well, I suppose. We’ll keep you safe.”

His exaggerated scorn when he mentions Arthas gets a giggle out of her. He doesn’t despise the man like he used to, back when Kael’thas was infatuated with Jaina and saw him as a threat. But that doesn’t mean he has to like him. Rival or not, he’s still an annoying, bruttish paladin, although he looks exceedingly pretty doing it.

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Rommath sighs from the side. He sounds like he has little hope about the matter. He’s used to Kael’thas and Jaina’s antics: if there’s trouble to be found, they’ll find it alright. “Go get your bags, Kael.”

“Why? We’ve hardly arrived yet.”

“By the time you stumble your way below deck and up again, we’ll be there.”

Kael’thas flips him off. But he does go get his bags; not that Rommath has a point, he just likes to take his time. And if he holds onto the railing the whole way down, well. That’s between him and the ship.

-

It wasn't an empty threat, when Kael’thas mentioned that any assassin would probably turn up during the coronation. Every major political player of Azeroth came to pay respect to the new Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras. If someone wanted to commit some kind of political murder, now would be the time.

It also leaves the cathedral the coronation takes place in a somewhat crowded place.

Kael’thas shifts on the uncomfortable pew while the priest drones on and twists around to look at the back of the room. He may have joked about it back on the ship with Jaina, but after three days shadowing her everywhere the reality of assassins has become much more worrying. His friend is about to leave herself open to all kinds of attacks while an old man shoves some metal on her head; it leaves a little on edge.

A cursory glance reveals no shady character hiding in the wings. If someone intends to hurt Jaina, they’re doing a decent job at hiding it.

“Stop fidgeting,” his father hisses.

Kael’thas rolls his eyes but lets himself be prodded into sitting straight again. He spares a brief glance for Arthas. The Lordaeronian king is entirely ignoring the people trying to engage him in conversation, and watches over the room like a hound during a thunderstorm, jumping at every odd sound.

It helps settle Kael’thas’ nerves somewhat that Lordaeron’s most sword-happy paladin is on the look-out. He won’t let anything happen to Jaina, Kael’thas reasons, even if he must burn the cathedral down to keep her safe. Though it hopes he’ll let them get out first.

Fingers ghost over the back of his hand and he all but jumps out of his skin before it registers that it is only his father trying to capture his attention.

“Be at ease,” Anasterian whispers, a touch of humor softening his sern voice. “You’ll do lady Proudmoore no favor by feeding into her anxiety.”

Smoothing the nascent scowl off his face, Kael’thas calls on the years of teaching in the art of decorum to affect an air of nonchalance. He can’t quite help the stubborn frown born from his worry though. “She has reasons a-plenty to be stressed: someone wants her dead.”

“This event is as safe as it can be. There is little more you can do but pretend everything will be fine, for her sake.”

Kael’thas adjusts the folds of his dress robes in his lap and says nothing. It’s easy for his father to say: it’s not his friend who’s out there risking her life.

Human lives are so fragile. Of course he worries. And what good are the guards, if Daelin was hurt on their watch?

He only lasts about five minutes before risking a glance behind again. Nothing has changed; but he feels a prickle over the back of his neck, as if he’s being watched, and it compulses him to look.

“Kael’thas,” his father sighs.

Kael’thas cuts him off before he can work himself into a proper lecture. “Are those the kaldorei delegates?”

Anasterian pokes him mercifully in the ribs until he sits properly, and only then does he offer a response.

“Yes. With the efforts made by the kaldorei to open to other kingdoms, Lord Proudmoore thought it polite to invite them. Something you’d know if you had bothered to pay attention while I talked about this event,” his father adds, long-suffering.

“I do listen,” Kael’thas says absently. He wants to get a proper look at the elusive night elves, but he thinks his father might actually hold his head in place if he tries it. Their whole whispered conversation is already stretching the bounds of propriety and trying Anasterian’s patience enough as it is.

“Do pay attention, Kael. The priest is nearly done; Jaina will be here soon.”

A coronation is a tremendously boring affair, Kael’thas finds, even once Jaina has stepped up to the altar. The priest drones on and on about her duties as Lord Admiral, the honor, the weight of name and duty, blah blah blah—

Boring. At this point even an attempt on her life would be a welcome distraction.

Jaina kneels and her father stands before her, taking the crown off his head and holding it high above hers. He looks good, Kael’thas notes, for a man who so nearly died mere weeks before.

“Do you swear to live by your people, for your people, and to serve and protect them as your duty demands?” He intones.

“Yes, I do.”

The oath goes on for some time. Jaina answers each demand with unflinching certitude. Looking at her, one might never guess her nerves.

But just as Daelin lowers the circlet, abou to set it on her head, Kael’thas feels a prickle of unease not unlike what he felt earlier. He turns on his seat, heedless of his father’s disapproving hiss. There, in the shadows of the cathedral’s upper level; a flash of—

Spellwork.

The warning gets stuck in his throat, a half-choked yell swallowed by the roar of a ray of fire shooting across the nave. He reaches out without a thought, draws up a barrier that manages to catch the spell at the last possible moment before impact. It shatters across the translucent surface of his shield and scatters in a burst of embers and arcane. The guests underneath cry out as sparks rain down on them.

What his spell doesn’t stop is the crossbow bolt that flies in the wake of the spell. It misses Jaina’s by a hair’s breadth and ricochets off the tiled floor before embing itself in the wooden altar. If she had not moved at the sound of the spell being deflected, it would have gotten her in the throat.

The room explodes in motions as guests and their guards scramble out of the pews. Kael’thas is already on his feet. He catches a glimpse of Arthas’ fair head in the commotion as the paladin ushers Jaina and her father away from the scene. He backs out of the room with his sword raised high, eyes wild as he looks around. Satisfied that his friend is safe, Kael’thas turns on his heels and run for the doors.

Rommath, who watched the ceremony from the back, calls his name as they nearly run into each other on the way out. Kael’thas stops with a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Get my father to safety!”

“Where are you going?” Rommath yells above the din, but Kael’thas is already running again.

“After them!”

Rommath’s answering invective is lost in the noise. His hand grabs Kael’thas’ robes to try and pull him back; Kael’thas unclasps them from his shoulders and leaves the heavy fabric in Rommath’s grasp as he books it.

Bursting through the doors, Kael’thas draws a gulp of fresh air before he sees, out of the corner of his eye, two figures scaling down the cathedral’s wall. He takes off after them without a second thought.

Without his cumbersome robes weighing him down he manages to keep up with the fleeing attackers — but only just. His feet pounding the pavement, he nonetheless fails to gain on the faster runners. They make a sharp turn left; by the time he reaches the corner they’re nowhere to be found.

Snapping a hand forward, Kael’thas gathers magic in his palm. This isn’t a spell he’s casting, though; it’s a summon.

And, bursting forth in a shower of fire and ashes, Al’ar answers.

He’s already climbing up his beloved familiar’s back before the phoenix has fully materialized into this plane. Kael’thas smoothes a hand over the soft feathers of his neck, smiling slightly at the pleased sound Al’ar makes, before he urges the phoenix into flight again.

They need no words to communicate. It’s for the best, as Kael’thas doesn’t think he could muster speech with his heart beating wildly in his throat. He’s not much of a runner and there was no course at the Kirin Tor for chasing after assassins. This is all very new to him; the excitement has him nearly shaking.

It’s easier to follow the assassins from the sky — and to gain on them as well.

Al’ar dives as soon as he is above them. Kael’thas holds on to a handful of feathers as the wind howls past his ears, confident that al’ar won’t let him come to any harm. The fugitives aren’t that lucky. Al’ar’s piercing cry is the only warning they get before he swoops down on them. His wings unfold to catch his fall with a sound like a forest fire; his talons glint in the light of his own burning as he extends them towards his unfortunate preys.

One is quick enough to dodge his grasp. The other gets bowled over by the force of the blow, and can only weakly struggle as Al’ar lifts them off the ground. Kael’thas jumps off the phoenix’s back before he can gain altitude again, stumbling slightly on the landing.

He’s unarmed, but mages need no weapons beside their magic, though he’s decent with a sword. He can deal with one measly little assassin without a blade.

At a glance, the assassin seems to be a human woman; and from the arcane energy crackling in her palm, the mage of the two as well. Kael’thas grins. He’s one of the best duelists of the Kirin Tor. This will be a walk in the park.

The mage casts a blue-tinted spell, too quick for him to tell what it does. He catches it in front of his face, turns, throws it back, and she has to jump aside to avoid it. Good. His smile grows, all bared teeth, as his own magic bubbles up to the surface. A tongue of fire whips towards her and hits her in the chest, sending her flying back into a wall.

Dazed and more than a little singed, she cannot get up quickly enough to block his next attack, and the concussive blast knocks her out. She slides down the wall and falls to the ground, unconscious. Shame they must be interrogated still. He’d gladly have burned her to a crisp.

But at least that’s one good thing down. He tilts his head up, trying to catch sight of Al’ar. He can feel their bond stretching as the phoenix flies away — he must be bringing the other assassin back to the cathedral, to be dealt with. Good.

Behind him, he hears hurried footsteps, and a voice shouting,

“Watch out!”

Kael’thas turns just in time to see the mage he thought he had downed take a knife out of her sleeve and throw it with unexpected accuracy. It whistles past him, close enough to leave a line of fire along the side of his neck. Kael’thas snaps his hand out and flames roar around his opponent before she can try another attack. They burn brighter and hotter than any natural fire, and her cry is cut short as she collapses into a pile of ashes and charred bones.

Here’s hoping the one Al’ar carried away survived the initial mauling.

“Are you alright?”

Turning to the new voice, Kael’thas blinks owlishly at the chest that greets him before it occurs to him to lift his eyes. It’s a kaldorei, he notes somewhat distantly; his thoughts feel sluggish all of a sudden. He’ll readily blame it on the fact that this is one of the most attractive men he’s ever seen — and he’s seen his fair share of beautiful men. His

He shakes himself, blinking some more to clear the haze that has settled over him. “I— yes, I am fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Kael’thas lifts a hand to his neck, still pulsing with painful heat, and his fingers come away slick with blood. “Oh. So I am.” The blood has an oily sheen to it, and it takes a moment of rubbing it between his fingers to realize it might actually be some kind of poison, unless his blood has all of a sudden gained some mysterious new material property.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” The kaldorei asks again, bemused. “You seem... shaken.”

Waving his hand impatiently, Kael’thas steps away from the man. “A bit of poison, nothing more.” The ground sways under his feet nearly as much as the ship he took to Theramore; it takes all of his concentration to keep himself upright.

Real alarm crosses the kaldorei’s face. “I’m going to get a healer.”

“Ah, no need. My magic will burn it away before it can deal any real damage.” He breathes in and out slowly, trying to manage the nausea. “I just have to… wait it out.”

The kaldorei seems unconvinced, though something about Kael’thas assurance must be enough to convince him to settle back for now.

He leans against the nearest wall. It still bears a black, slightly-greasy mark where the other mage once stood before he took care of her. His head spins, and black spots have started to appear in his field of view. It’s a good thing he’s been poisoned before, else he might not know this particular quirk of his biology and panic a lot more about the situation. As it is he’s quite used to the feverish feeling of his inner fire flaring to fight off the infection — it’s why he’s so rarely sick, as well.

The kaldorei looks at him and then, lower, at the remains of what once was an assassin. His mouth twists in a sardonic smile.

“I followed expecting a fight,” he says with a kind of rueful disappointment, “But it seems there’s little for me to do here.”

Closing his eyes, Kael’thas exhales softly. It’s a shame he always meets attractive people when he himself is at his worst possible state. The first time he saw Jaina, he was going on three days without sleep, and looked more undead than like a dashing elven prince. “Do not worry. I might pass out yet, which would leave you free to heroically carry me back to my father.”

He means it as a joke but in truth, he’s not sure he’ll manage to get back otherwise. Even if the dash after the assassins hadn’t exhausted him, the poison is quickly sapping his strength.

Tugging on his connection with Al’ar in the hope that his familiar will simply fly him home, he scowls when his summoning meets unexpected resistance. The phoenix must still be in this plane, then. Perhaps he found trouble with the other assassin. Wouldn’t be the first time they struggle to pry a prey out of his talons. This bird has a grip like a bear trap.

He can already feel himself sliding down the brick wall as his legs slowly but inexorably bow under his own weight. He’s ready to cut his losses and sit down in the pile of ashes when they suddenly give out from under him for good. Thankfully, before his ego and backside can be anymore bruised by the fall, strong arms catch him around the middle and heave him back to his feet.

“You weren’t joking about passing out,” the kaldorei chuckles.

Dazed, Kael’thas tries to look up at him to decipher if he’s being laughed at, but all he manages is to weakly tilt back his head until it hits the man’s chest. “Fighting off poison is no joking matter,” he tries to say, but his lips don’t quite manage the movement required for proper pronunciation, he thinks.

The chest he’s pressed against vibrates slightly as the man hums low in his throat. After some kind of deliberation Kael’thas is not privy to, the kaldorei ducks down and, passing an arm under Kael’thas’ knees, scoop him up as if he weighs nothing.

“Wha—”

“I’ll take you on that offer of a heroic entrance,” he says lightly. He shifts so that Kael’thas’ head rests against his shoulder and, with no effort apparent, starts walking in the direction of the cathedral.

“That was a joke,” he protests weakly.

“Didn’t you say poison is no joking matter? Don’t worry. I won’t drop you.”

“That’s very pretty of you,” he mumbles. It doesn’t sound quite right, and he frowns in confusion before making another attempt. His thoughts are starting to feel more jumbled as his magic responds to the poison with a purifying fever. “That’s…nicely pretty of you.”

There. Perfect.

The last conscious thought that crosses his mind before darkness swallows him is that the kaldorei has a very nice laugh, and then that Rommath is going to have a stroke, if he sees Kael’thas in this state; but he is too comfortable to care about that now.

-

Rommath is indeed apoplectic at seeing his friend and crown prince brought back unconscious and bleeding. Kael’thas, of course, only hears of it second-hand. By the time he comes to, he’s lying on a fainting couch in the wing of Theramore’s castle offered to house the sin’dorei delegation, and Rommath has calmed down somewhat.

Still, when he notices his charge has come awake, he doesn’t wait a second before railing on him.

“You’re an idiot.”

Still dazed and developing a headache suspiciously reminiscent of a hangover, Kael’thas squints up at his best friend. “I’m a genius,” he says for the sake of argument, though as brilliant as he is it is hardly applicable now. It’s a known fact that between the two of them Rommath is the one in charge of being street smart.

“Running on foot after two assassins, and not even dispatching them correctly — that’s what you call genius?” Rommath shakes his head and his shoulders drop slightly as he heaves a sigh. “What little of the city hasn’t seen your idiocy first-hand will know of it by tomorrow morning. That’ll do wonders to your reputation.”

Kael’thas pushes himself to a sitting position and rubs his head with a scowl. “I’m sure the attempt of the new queen’s life will be more interesting news than my dashing attempt at revenge.”

“Perhaps. But the nine foot tall moon guard carrying your bloody body through the streets is certainly an image that’ll stick.”

“It wasn’t that dramatic,” he says, though it might very well have been, for all that he remembers of the trip back.

“They’ll make it that dramatic. Also, you bled a lot, for such a small wound. You’ll have to properly thank the high priestess, by the way: I’m told it’s a great honor to be healed by the envoy of Elune herself.”

Rommath’s dry tone nearly distracts Kael’thas from his actual words, and it takes a second for his mind to connect the dots.

“Tyrande Whisperwind healed me?” He asks, taken aback.

“Well, her brother-in-laws did ask her directly, yes.”

“Her brother-in-law—” Like lightning, he realizes: few kaldorei leave their land, despite the latest efforts of the leading triumvirate to open to other kingdoms. Only the most powerful would have come all the way to Jaina’s coronation. Most likely the triumvirate in person. One of which healed him, at the demand of the other one, who must be the one who carried him after he passed out from a flesh wound. He hides his face in his hands and lets out a sound halfway between a sob and a scream. “I can’t believe I fainted on Illidan Stormrage.”

“You made an impression, apparently,” Rommath notes wryly. “He told your father your aid was invaluable in apprehending the assassin. Singular. I could have sworn there were two,” he adds airily.

“I set the other one on fire,” Kael’thas mumbles in his hands.

“Yes, I expected that much.”

Kael’thas rubs his face with a low groan and drops back on the fainting couch. Maybe he could just… fall unconscious again. Stay that way until they’re back in Silvermoon. He’s sure he could put himself into a magical coma, if it came down to it.

“I met Illidan Stormrage.”

“Yes.”

“The most brilliant sorcerer of his time. And ours, probably.”

“Huh-huh.”

“And I passed out on him. Did I drool? Light, tell me I didn’t drool.”

“You did,” Rommath says, merciless.

“I told him he was pretty.” With feelings, mostly of mortification, he adds, “I want to die.”

“You had your chance already. Now you’ll have to learn to flirt through the awkwardness like the rest of us mortals.”

Kael’thas is always flirting through the awkwardness. He’s never flirted in a way that’s not awkward. Doesn’t matter how attractive and smart Illidan is; he’ll never be able to look the man in the eyes again. His beautiful, golden eyes. Who saw Kael’thas drool probably all over his fancy moon guard armor.

A magical coma sounds more appealing by the minute.

[lapis-arts]

The Knife of Amphibia

Chapter 2: Prison Escape

Summary: Months had passed since Anne's arrest. After putting up with mistreatment and retaining her innocence, she finally thinks about breaking out of prison... Little did she know, someone is willing to help her out.

Fandom: Amphibia

Features: Assassin AU, Aged Up Anne and Plantars

Warnings: Violence, blood, interrogation

Word Count: 1,807 Words

--

Anne woke up in her dingy cell that morning. Her body had ached all over from sleeping in the prison’s horrible conditions for the last few months.

Lady Olivia was nowhere to be found to hear her out, having to replace the king's duty to restore order in the city, lest it burned down completely. She had told General Yunan what happened word for word since day one, but it all fell upon deaf ears. All Yunan wanted was for Anne to confess to the murder and she might get life in prison. She wasn't going to, though. She knew what happened, her story stayed consistent throughout the months, so she stood her ground and retained her innocence.

It had felt like today was the final day of her life as guards came to her cell and dragged her to the torture chambers once more, strapped down into the chair for the torturer to do as Yunan ordered. The tall and hulking toad burned Anne repeatedly with a red-hot iron rod, the human crying out in pain, the general trying once again to force a confession. A few burns later, Yunan finally stepped in.

"Ok, ok, that's enough!" She said, motioning for the torturer to leave them alone. Anne growled as the woman got closer and spat in her direction.

"I already told you everything that happened... Why won't you listen to me!?" She hissed. Yunan just gave her a grin as she walked up to Anne and placed a hand on her chin to make her look up at her. "Oh, you foolish human.. It was part of the plan all along." Yunan said, about to reveal her hand to Anne.

"Wh-what?... What are you talking about?" Anne asked, clearly confused by what Yunan was telling her.

"Andrias was bound to be murdered before you and Marcy arrived earlier than noticed.. You just showed up at the wrong place at the right time. Now, I get to hit three flies with one stone." She chuckled, Anne staring wide eyed at the general in disbelief.

"You're insane..." Anne said, her brows furrowed in anger as she tried to struggle through the straps, the thick leather leaving rope burns on her skin the more she struggled to break free to beat up Yunan senseless.

"It's far too late to put up a fight, Anne. The whole kingdom believes you killed Andrias in cold blood and poor Olivia has no time to listen to your pleas. I'm in charge of your fate now.." Yunan smirked, grabbing the iron rod the torturer left in the burning fire, poking at Anne with it to get an official fake confession for the last time.

"Don't make this harder than it already is.." she threatened, burning Anne every time she refused to agree to the confession, the human stifling her cries of pain the best she could, not giving Yunan the satisfaction of hearing her pains.

After enough torment, Yunan knew the human wasn't going to give in. By that account, refusing to admit to the murder, Yunan had sentenced Anne to death by guillotine.

Anne was to be thrown back in her cell and await execution for the next few days, her body completely sore and covered in fresh and painful burns. She can't take on this abuse anymore. Anne had to get the hell out of there. She was clearly innocent based on the evidence, but a conspiracy damned it all...

Something didn't add up.. Why would Yunan kill off Andrias? Did she have something to do with the plague, or does she just want to rule Amphibia for all the glory and power? No matter what the newt's motives were, Anne needed to get out or her head will be rolling from the chopping block this weekend no matter what. For now, all she wanted to do was rest and slumped into a corner of her cell to sleep the afternoon away.

---

Later that evening, Anne woke up from the sound of a guard rattling the bars of her cell, signifying that it's dinner time already.

"You should eat up, Anne. This meal is from a friend." Is all the guard said, leaving rather quickly. A friend, was it? The human made her way over to the food tray, seeing a bowl of soup as usual, but it was actually warm and fresh this time. As she pulled the bowl away, she noticed a folded piece of paper in tact. She nearly tossed meal aside and quickly opened it, a small key falling out on her lap, yet revealed a handwritten note directed to her, and she couldn't be more relieved to recognize it was Lady Olivia's handwriting in particular.

"Hello Anne. I apologize for my absence, but I know for a fact you are innocent. I've pestered Yunan to extend your trial, but she's too over her head for reasoning and I have no time on my hands to continue doing so. Take this key, escape your cell and take refuge into the sewers."

Anne wasted no time at that point. She looked out the bars of her cell to check for no guards doing rounds, and slipped the key into the cell lock and got out. To her convenience, it seems like the guard who gave her the note left a sword on top of one of their tables, Anne gladly took it and fled the area. The human stuck close to the walls, peeking over the corners to make sure no guards were in sight. In some parts of the prison, Anne had to stick to the pipes and vents near the ceiling to avoid the guards scattered across a room. Never had she been more grateful to endure Marcy's stealth training, as it came quite in handy until she reached the exit point.

Just outside of the entrance gate was the river that surrounded the prison. If she could find a way out, she could easily dive and swim to the sewer entrance on the other side. Unfortunately, in order to do that, she had to get through the guards. Anne evaded the guards doing rounds, sticking to the shadows and hiding behind storage containers. She managed to slip through a broken window the entry office hadn't fixed yet, seeing a newt guard yawning while he was writing something down. Anne couldn't take any chances and neutralized him, putting him in a chokehold until he passed out.

"Sorry.." she muttered under her breath, quickly traversing to the next room, taking down whoever was there. Next to the window was a control panel, a lever off to the side labeled "Gate."

Bingo, her one way ticket out of here.

She quickly pulled the lever and waited for the gate to open, slipping out through the back door. All the guards turned their attention towards the gate, puzzled as to why it was opening. Once the moment was right, Anne sprinted as fast as she could towards the exit, shoving guards aside as they got in her way.

"Sound the alarm!!" A guard yelled, a couple of officers running towards the nearest alarm, hastily ringing the series of bells.

"Shit!" Anne growled as she heard the alarms ring out, pushing herself even faster towards the ledge. Near the edge of barbed wire fence were the watch towers by the lifted bridge, the prison guards hearing the alarms and spotted Anne down below. The guards grabbed their crossbows and shot at her, Anne pulled out her sword in response, slashing a few bolts out of the way, save for one that nicked her right on the shoulder, drawing blood. Anne hissed from the sharp pain, but ignored it once she reached the ledge, and finally jumped off.

She dove down a few yards into the water, quickly swimming away. She made her way to the sewer gates just across, swiftly opening and shutting them close as she entered, finding a loose pipe and shoved the metal in between the handles of the gate, making sure no one would enter for a good moment.

Once the adrenaline rush ended, Anne took off deeper into the sewers and stopped as she was met with a locked gate. She took a step back to rest for a moment, collecting her thoughts before continuing on, processing that she actually broke out of prison.

"Oh my fucking frog.. I actually made it out.." she panted, sliding down the wall onto the floor to take a breather. After regaining herself, Anne turned to the locked gate again, trying to figure out a way around it. Off to the side of the wall, was another handwritten note, seemingly from Olivia again.

"Anne, if you made it, then congratulations! Beyond the sewers should be your exit, and familiar friendly faces should see to you after you leave through the storm drain. Good Luck"

Anne looked up the gate and saw a little crawl space, climbing up and crawled through to get to the other side. She soon heard footsteps and officer commands echo through the sewers, knowing it was the Royal Guard trying to find her. The human stuck towards hiding again, trying to avoid much conflict as she could this time around. Anne even had to endure swimming through the sewer water under bridges just avoid detection, thankfully leaving unscathed.

--

After exiting the sewers out of a storm drain, Anne finally reached above ground where she saw a familiar looking family wagon, seeing three young looking frogs keeping watch. It wasn't until she saw that unmistakable aviator hat on one of the pink frogs that she realized who it was.

The said frog with the hat turned towards the drain to see the human climbing out of it, his eyes widened in disbelief as he realized who it was and quickly hopped over to her.

"Anne! You're ok!" He said, jumping into Anne's arms and hugged her.

"Sprig! Hey buddy!" She hugged him back, embracing the moment for a bit before she placed him down as the other frogs came to see her. "Hey Polly, hey Ivy. Damn, it's been a long time." Anne said. While the sentiment was nice, they all understood they didn't have time to waste.

"We gotta get you to Wartwood! It wasn't easy for us to get past the barricade." Ivy explained, Polly brushing off the situation. "Oh please! Those guys are nothing. We can take them on if they're trouble." That statement hinting the young frogs certainly weren't going down without a fight.i

After that, the frogs quickly got Anne into the fwagon, making sure there were various hiding placing for Anne just in case someone inspected them. Sprig took the driving seat and grabbed Ol' Bessie's reigns and finally took off to make the journey to Wartwood.

[mrs-i-have-too-many-biases]

𝓕𝓸𝓻 𝔂𝓸𝓾, 𝓕𝓸𝓻 𝓾𝓼, 𝓕𝓸𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓶 – 𝓗.𝓗.

The fairies of Yellow Wood

Summary: A forbidden love between a Knight and a Princess, it’s them against the world. Would they endure separation, or would they change it all. Season: Spring Genre: Fluff/ Angst Category: Fantasy Tropes: Enemies to Lovers || Kind of Slowburn!Fluff? AU: Fairy au Pairing: Knight Fairy!Hyunjin X Princess Fairy!Reader Word count: 25,9K (idk what happened) Disclaimer: I don’t know much about folk tales or fairies in general. This is my imagination with the use of fairies in my stories. Warnings: slow burn fluff, strong language, terms of psychotic behaviour, mentions of blood, mentions of death threats. If you spot any mistakes, sorry about those it’s almost 26k words I probably read over it through editing <3

Fairies of Yellow Wood Masterlist

,,, Chapter one

Once upon a time,

in a great kingdom with small inhabitants. Lived hundreds of the fey people, another common name for them are fairies or pixies. They lived in peace among one another as they kept nature in balance and protected from whatever would or could possibly harm it. Every one of them had a destiny. One was destined to grow fruits, so they could live healthy and provide everyone of food. Another was destined to be a guard of the sun. They made sure the day arrived every morning on time, that the plants had enough sunlight to grow greatly.

And so was Y/n a princess among the other fairies. Born into a hierarchy she was destined to be queen of Yellow Wood someday. Unlike other fairies, Y/n knew since the day she was birthed what her destiny would be.

At the age of ten, every fairy were to find out what their destiny would be. One would be very happy with theirs and others were rather disappointed. On this day, the fairies also received a birthname that complimented their given powers and destiny. With Y/n being a princess, she was also given a birthname: Avery de La Grande. Her name meaning: Ruler of the elves. Y/n being an only child, she was often surrounded by people who worked for the family de La Grande. They would help her dress, get her ready for the day, they taught her mannerisms and gave her the usual lessons.

Y/n never really interacted with other fairies of her age, except the ones who were the children of the maids or guards. Hwang Hyunjin was one of those fairies. His father being the knight commander, Hyunjin also had an idea what he destined to be. At Hyunjin’s birth, his birthname was bound to be Harvey, meaning ‘Battle worthy’.

Hyunjin’s father couldn’t be happier when Hyunjin got the confirmation at the age of ten that he was bound to be a knight. He began to train with his father and grew up to be skilful. Beside his skilfulness he also grew up to be one of the most handsome fairies in the kingdom. And he was well aware of that.

The maids and their daughter were absolutely head over heels for him. The young knight trainees were in awe by everything he did. They wanted nothing more than to be him and get a little taste of the life he was living. As you can tell Hyunjin’s popular among the people, implying that the entire kingdom knew who he was. Y/n, being one of them.

She grew up with Hyunjin as their fathers were friends and fought together in the battlefield before. Y/n never understood why people were so enchanted by Hyunjin’s charms. She would roll her eyes as her own mother, the queen, giggled at Hyunjin’s eye-smile that he was given by his father. Y/n saw Hyunjin as an arrogant boy who loved to play with other’s feelings, even though she was fully aware of the fact that Hyunjin had taken an oath to loyalty to the king and queen.

He performed his position well, he ended up becoming the king’s personal knight. It annoyed Y/n that she constantly had to look him in the eye whenever she was around her father. Even at dinner she had to look Hyunjin as she forced herself to eat, knowing that his face made her lose her appetite.

Her day was going southwards. Her music teacher was being a bitch, nothing new. Her food was spilled all on the floor by Hyunjin who bumped into her and as if her day couldn’t get any worse. Her father called her into his office, where (to her not-so surprise) Hyunjin was as well.

“Y/n, my daughter. Since your time of becoming our new queen is nearing. We have decided to give you a personal knight as you perform your new duties as future ruler of the Yellow Wood reign.” She was waiting in anticipation to find out who was her new ‘protector’, she knew she could take care of herself, but knowing her father, she ‘needed’ extra protection. “Hyunjin, I assign you from today on as the personal knight and protector of the one and only crown princess.”

Hyunjin was trying to keep the swearing to himself whilst Y/n was shooting daggers with her eyes towards him. “Dad, does it really have to be him-“ “He’s the most loyal fey I’ve ever worked with, beside his father of course. I couldn’t imagine any better candidate.” The king crowed proudly. “Your majesty, there must be a different way, w-who is going to be your personal knight?” Hyunjin stuttered. “Your placed will be filled in by an old friend of mine. Another great warrior who I also haven’t seen in ages, so I will enjoy my time with him.” He laughed before shooing the two out of his office.

The two young elves shared a look and sighed. “Don’t get anything into that dull head of yours. It’s not like I asked for this.” Y/n snarled as Hyunjin glared at her. He only sighed before nudging her to start walking, because he hadn’t even started, but he knew he was already tired of her.

As mentioned before, the two had known each other for a long time as they grew up in the castle. They never bothered talking, so being together for such long periods of time, was new to them. The two were constantly on each other’s wings. The most interaction they had with one another that didn’t include numerous cuss words, was the two rolling their eyes to each other.

Y/n would often let Hyunjin go off and do his own thing, claiming that she could handle ‘her shit herself’. Hyunjin would put his hands up in defence before flying off elsewhere, anywhere. As long as it was far away from her.

It was the first day of the two being actually stuck with one another and Hyunjin was glad that he was able to go to his beloved Eunhee. She was the daughter of one of the maids, who was working in the castle just like Hyunjin. The two grew up together and had become best friend through the years. The male fey would smirk to himself as he sneaked up behind his best friend, scaring her almost to death as she threw the clothes she was holding all over the place.

“Stop doing that!” She whined whilst punching her friend in the arm, leaving Hyunjin hissing in pain. “I had to make my day better somehow. And what way better doing that by scaring the pixie dust out of you.” He grinned with a smile plastered on his face. “Was the meeting with the king that bad?” She asked, picking up the clothes in process. “Well, not that exactly. I think I got a promotion?” Hyunjin laughed as he leaned against one of the pillars that were framed around the palace garden. “What? That’s amazing news Hyunjin! How could that be bad?” Eunhee squealed, excited for her friend.

“Well, I’ve become the personal guard of miss snobby.” Hyunjin scoffed. “Oh you poor thing!” Eunhee cooed as she took his face into her hands to squish it. “Yeah, I am pitiful. Pity me. It’s been day one and my life has never been so boring.” He complained. “Tell me everything.” Eunhee clapped in excitement as her best friend told her all the juicy gossip that Hyunjin knew.

The two would laugh about Y/n’s snobby attitude and her self-centred personality. “I really don’t get how she is supposed to rule our kingdom one day. The day she gets crowned as queen, I will be moving a reign far away from here.” Eunhee laughed. “She’s not ready to be a queen, she’s not even ready to be a princess, which she already is. She never interacts with her staff or with her citizens. They know who she is, but do they? I bet everyone would agree on her being a pretentious spoiled brat, who doesn’t know what hard work actually is.” Hyunjin scoffed.

“I couldn’t have said it any better.” She smiled before pressing a playful kiss on his cheek, leaving him with a smirk plastered onto his face.

After saying their goodbyes Hyunjin would return to Y/n who ready to go out for a fly. He caught her fixing her hair and checking her face before he appeared into her view. “Did training go well?” She assumed, Hyunjin would hum back in respond, wanting to get this over with.

The two exited the palace and were greeted by a big pond that was spread over the great kingdom in front of them. The royal Family was greeted every morning by their hardworking fairies that flew around.

Y/n shot them a smile as they passed by, which caught Hyunjin’s attention. He’d never seen her interact with anyone except her parents. Hyunjin knew of Y/n’s daily fly through the kingdom. It was well known that she loved to sit near the pond or on top of the trees to enjoy the sunset.

The flight was quiet and awkward and it bored Hyunjin to the bone. He had a hard time to stay focused, but he honestly didn’t care about her. He knew he had to protect her, otherwise he’d lose his head, but he wouldn’t mind her disappearing into the distance out of nowhere.

When they returned from their little trip, the sun would be set and the moon had come out. The Yellow Tree’s leaves were glowing as it usually would at night, showing it’s great power of life that was stored for the fairies of the reign. The houses’ lights and energy were also originated from the tree. You would think that someone would easily find the reign of Yellow Wood, but no one could coordinate their way through the Forest of the lost. The name speaks for itself.

The magic that nature itself owned protected itself from the vile hearts that belonged to the humans who wanted nothing more than to do harm to the magical creatures, who now belonged to the forest.

Hyunjin was impatiently flying back and forth as Y/n was getting changed into a more comfortable fitting. The young fairy who was waiting outside was Yearning to see Eunhee again, since the two were planning on having dinner together. “Can’t I just leave? I’ve hung around you all day, can’t I deserve a fucking break?” At this point he was worn out and wanted to get her off his wings.

“Fine, I can have dinner with just my parents. Go on then. There will be other guards there anyway.” Y/n snarled from the other side of the door, causing the maids who were dressing her sharing a look of surprise with each other.

“Bloody finally.” Hyunjin groaned before he sped away.

“Your majesty, please forgive me for interfering, but I feel like you could be nicer to Hyunjin.” One of the young maids suggested in a small voice, obviously scared of the princess’ reaction. “He might be all smiles and charms to you guys, but he’s a real bother and almost a waste of time to me. He doesn’t even pay attention to my protection. He’s absentminded. I don’t get why my father chose him as my personal guide. Well, I do get it: loyalty, trust and whatsoever. If I end up hurt, I can all assure you, it will cost Hyunjin’s head.” The frustration causing Y/n to harangue.

Without saying much after, Y/n left her bedroom to enter the dinner hall where her parents were already seated and waiting for her to join. Their dinner would be served and sooner enough they started eating, until her father spoke up. “Isn’t Hyunjin joining?” He asked. “No, I let him leave and give him a break-“ “Y/n, your intentions might be good, but Hyunjin has assigned breaks. He can with no unreasonable exception leave your side.” He noted clearly.

‘It was fun while it lasted.’ Y/n thought to herself with a heavy sigh, saying goodbye to her peaceful life, knowing it was about to be filled up with stress and annoyance.

In the meantime, Hyunjin had dashing through the fairies as he made his way to Eunhee, who had been waiting for over an hour. “I’m sorry I’m late!” He exclaimed as he caught his breath. Eunhee only giggled and signed him to sit and eat with her. “She took ages didn’t she?” Eunhee guessed with a raised eyebrow, laughing as Hyunjin gave her an exhausted look.

“She flies so slow, she gets changed every four hours or so, it’s ridiculous. I never thought I was going to say this, but I miss the king.” Hyunjin cried out, making Eunhee laugh even harder.

“Hyunjin!” A female voice squealed from behind him. “I got you some extra Honey Cake!” She beamed a smile as she place the place proudly next to him.

“You are the best, do you know that. I bet you do. Also, you look absolutely stunning today, even more beautiful than yesterday.” Hyunjin complimented as he shot her a wink. He’d take a bite and squeaked in delight.

“The best Honey Cake in the reign!” He cheered as he hugged her. In the meantime Eunhee was watching the two with resentment. “Jinnie, let’s eat. I’ve waited long enough.” She whined whilst pouting. Hyunjin hugged the other fairy goodbye, before he gave all his attention to Eunhee again.

“Hwang! Get your wings moving, the king demands to see you right away!” An elder guard’s voice boomed through the kitchen where the pair were seated. Both sighed in defeat and Hyunjin gave her an apologetic smile. Eunhee knew he had to go and shot him a small smile.

When Hyunjin arrived at the dining hall, he was shaking in anxiousness. ‘Did Y/n rat me out? I wouldn’t be surprised if she did.’ He thought to himself as he sucked in a mouthful of air and held it there to calm himself down.

“Hyunjin, there you are.” The king started.

‘Here we go.’

“I get that you would love extra breaks, but as a personal guard you have assigned resting hours, so somebody else can take over your place for a short period of time. Next time when you wish to have a break, you unfortunately have to wait, now sit down and eat with us, you must be starving.” The king’s words surprised him, but he did was he was told to do so and sit down next to Y/n.

She looked distressed and looked at him, whispering: ‘I’m sorry’.

He was yet again surprised and tried not to show it, by filling himself with food.

Weeks had passed and there were little words exchanged between the knight and the princess. Their days would go on as usual, but the two never bothered to actually work on their ‘relationship’.

Y/n never really know why Hyunjin disliked her so badly. She never hurt him in any way, she thinks at least. She never really talked to him before. To be really honest, she didn’t even know why she acted resented towards him either. He never did anything bad, beside flirting during his shift with any maid he saw in the castle.

Her father was right, he indeed was a great knight. He did his job so well when he worked for the king, yet she wondered why he couldn’t do the same for her. They continued their daily flight whilst ignoring each other.

Hyunjin thought about it and he neither understood why he was so hateful towards Y/n. She’s never hurt him in a personal way. He felt like he might’ve hated her through the stories of other fairies, who had ‘experiences’ with her. They all made Y/n seem like this horrible snob that doesn’t know what basic mannerism is.

Now that he’s almost seen her 24/7 the past weeks, he didn’t understand what made him actually think that Y/n was a bad fairy being.

Hyunjin saw Y/n from seven o’clock in the morning until midnight. He would see her wake up and go to sleep. He was right there by her side, having to protect her from what evil or danger is coming their way. The young knight chuckled to himself as he realised that he was maybe giving up his own life, to save someone he doesn’t even want to be around with.

Well, that’s what he felt like, because all of his feelings seemed to conflict and confuse him. Right now, he just stuck to hating and disliking her since it was easier that way. Hyunjin saw how much she hated to dress up. He had seen it and it didn’t look pretty, the ‘getting her into the dress’ part. She looked absolutely stunning in her gowns or any other type of royal clothing she was put into, the process she just hate.

One fairy would be tugging on a corset and tightening it so that she could just breath. Another was trying to do her hair whilst the last fairy was putting on her makeup. Later more would arrive to put Y/n into the rest of her dress and help her beautifying her wings and even putting her shoes on for her.

Hyunjin saw the annoyance in Y/n’s face whenever eight o’clock struck. The same maids would walk in to help her and it just seemed like they ruined her entire day. She’s independent and he knew she was fully well capable to take care of herself.

Yet, she was never rude to any of her. She didn’t show them the annoyed that was hidden behind a smile as they helped her dress. They were orders after all and the fairies were just doing their jobs and Y/n was well aware of that.

Hyunjin appreciated that about her. He had some newfound respect for Y/n after seeing that. It also occurred to him, that Y/n was an actual sweetheart. The staff that worked in the palace, specifically for Y/n, had never spoken a bad word about Y/n. They praised her kindness and diplomatic manners.

Hyunjin had to admit that Y/n certainly wasn’t dumb, he had made her out to be stupid, but she had proven him wrong at defence strategy meetings. She had hushed everyone’s mouth, radiating power from her side. She knew what she was talking about and the knights and guards took her advice and theories to appreciation.

The young knight himself was impressed too. He had never seen her like that, the serious soon-to-be-queen kind of acts.

“I don’t understand why I disliked her so badly. She’s smart, she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to defence strategies. Her theory was amazing it left everyone at awe!” Hyunjin exclaimed. He was in the kitchen with Eunhee as they were celebrating their break. Eunhee rolled her eyes secretly as Hyunjin continued to praise Y/n like everyone else in the castle.

“C’mon Jinnie, if that girl wasn’t a princess, she would’ve been a nobody. She wouldn’t have to have knowledge to protect a kingdom, she would be basic and boring.” Eunhee scoffed, taking another sip of her honey milk. “You might be right, but I guess she really isn’t so bad as the other fairies think she is. Besides, they are from outside the palace and don’t see her everyday like I do.” Hyunjin tried to make sense. “I mean, you’re probably right, but I bet she’s just nice to you because she has to. You’re the one protecting her after all. Would be a shame if her knight suddenly turned his back to her, because she treated him unfairly.” Eunhee shrugged, making Hyunjin sigh because he thought that his friend was right.

She glanced at him and smirked when she saw his defeated expression. She would scoot closer to him and rest her head on his shoulder. He would lean in as well as he continued to eat, making her smile in victory.

“Even though she might be faking her kindness towards you, I just want you to know that I would never turn my back to you. I like you too much for that.” She bluntly says whilst looking up to him to see him smirk and wink in return.

Hyunjin’s day went well after his break, but it all went south for Y/n. The two were in the king’s and queen’s office, Hyunjin witnessing how the family ended up in a fight.

“Y/n there is no other option-“ her mother started. “What do you mean there is no option? You could make an alliance with someone instead of arranging a fucking marriage without asking for my consent!” Y/n yelled back. “Language, young lady! You have no say in this! This is the best for our kingdom and you know that.” The king argues. “So, you let me make strategies to protect the kingdom, literally one of the only ways we protect ourselves from the enemies. But you can’t discuss this with me, something that will change my entire fucking life?” She yelled back.

“You know nothing about alliances through marriage, they are the most loyal alliances, because we would be an united kingdom, if one would turn their back on the other, it would be no use. Besides, this marriage has been planned before your birth. There’s nothing you can do about it. You will meet prince Han Jisung soon. This conversation is now over, you better prepare yourself and get to know him. He will arrive at the palace and stay here so the two of you can meet and get to form a relationship together.”

“Dad you can’t force a relationship between two people!” Her father would turn around and she would try to look at the mother desperately, hoping that she could make a difference for her.

But she only shot her an apologetic smile. Tears were brimming in Y/n’s eyes as she run out of the office and into her room.

Hyunjin was still stunned from the situation, but quietly and awkwardly left the office. The way she ran to her room crying felt disheartening. He knew that he had to protect her, but right now he felt like she needed some comfort.

He walked into her room and quietly made his way towards her. She felt her bed dip on one side and looked up to Hyunjin, who was now face to face with a puffy-eyed crown princess. “I’m sorry about what happened back there.” He whispered as he softly rubbed her back. “It’s fine, I’m sorry that you had to see and hear all of that, but hey. It’s not every day where you see the royal family argue like normal beings. You just witnessed something rare.” Y/n chuckled trying to lift the atmosphere.

“You know that you can be just sad, right? I can imagine that this is very frustrating and unfair. A big part of life must be taken away from you now, isn’t it?” He asked carefully. Y/n sighed and simply nodded in responds as she sat up.

“I guess that’s a price we have to pay as royals.” “That’s so unfair. Does this mean that you will never experience self-found love? Like, meeting someone out of the blue, falling in love with them and then the rest of the story is history?” Hyunjin asked, feeling distressed for her.

“Guess that wouldn’t be a chapter in my book.” “That’s horrible.” Hyunjin exclaimed, making Y/n shocked by his outing of feelings. “Everyone deserves a chance to find true love, true happiness. That applies to you as well. No matter who you are, right?” Hyunjin continued.

“Why are you being nice to me? I thought you hated me?” She wondered out loud laughing out in quite disbelief. “H-hated?” Hyunjin stuttered, surprised that she got onto his act. He tried to find the right words to make up for his action, but he only sighed as he didn’t dare to look Y/n in the eye.

“I don’t hate you, I have to admit that I’m not, or well wasn’t, too fond of you.” He confessed. “I’m not going to lie, I wasn’t too fond of you either when I first saw you.” She admitted, making the both of them chuckle.

“I guess we started off wrong. I changed my opinion on you though through the time we were basically forced to be together.” Hyunjin said, causing Y/n to perk her ears in curiosity. “Oh yeah? Tell me, what do you think of me now then?” “Well, you’re actually very nice and that you’re one heck of a smart fairy who knows what she’s talking about.” Hyunjin laughed, Y/n joining him. “Okay so, you thought I was mean and dumb before?” Y/n asked playfully, causing Hyunjin to stutter.

“N-no! Of course not!” “Calm down it’s fine. Everyone has their own opinion on things which are fine, if they are right is something else.” Y/n laughed. “And, did your opinion about me change after a few weeks?” Hyunjin dares to ask. “I guess you’re fine.” She jokes. “Excuse me only ‘fine’?” He scoffs whilst laughing loudly. “Kidding!”

After that night the two became close. Hyunjin even introduced her to one of his friends, who happened to be someone she already knew: Jeongin.

The young fairy was one of the most adventurous fairies out there and he worked for the royals to gather information on anything. Wanted a new recipe for food because honey milk had become boring? No problem, Jeongin right here saw the humans put strawberries, bananas and even melon in their milk to make it fruity!

Jeongin basically was the cause of many advantaged the kingdom has made. He analysed inventions from humans and brought them back to the fairy realm so they could also provide from the knowledge, but safely. Jeongin had to stay in the shadows to not get caught by mean spirited humans who wanted nothing more to hurt the magic creatures.

Anyway, Jeongin and Hyunjin basically are best friends. When the two are together, you can’t separate them. They would share stories they had recently experienced. For example: Jeongin had just come back from his adventurous trip and had brought back something that was called a ‘dumpling’.

Jeongin saw to his shock that humans put meat in it, but then to his relieve he saw that there were also good humans who put only vegetables in it, meaning that they didn’t had to harm the animals.

The fairies shuddered in bewilderment and anger at the fact that there were people out there killing innocent animals. After Jeongin was done analysing and speaking about his adventure, the chefs took the recipes and immediately rushed to the kitchen to try out this new ‘dumpling’.

The three, now friends, would sit outside and enjoy the vegetable filled delights. Jeongin and Hyunjin turned to Y/n when she suddenly started laughing whilst looking at her dumpling. “What?” Hyunjin asked curiously. “You look like a dumpling.” She giggles before taking another nibble.

Hyunjin was as red as a tomato and didn’t know what to do or say. In the mean time we had Jeongin over here who was laughing his little fairy wings off. “I-I…” Hyunjin could only stutter. “Now you have apple cheeks!” Y/n squeals as she pinched them, making Hyunjin almost scream as he felt like he couldn’t get any more flustered.

Y/n clapped excitedly in amusement whilst Hyunjin was blushing shyly. You could tell that their relationship has started to bloom and there was a specific person who wasn’t all too happy with this.

Could you take a guess? You probably guessed correctly. It’s Eunhee. She had to serve the three some drinks but she had other plans She gently placed Hyunjin’s next to him and jabbed the drink in Y/n’s face who only gasped in shock. She got up from her seat, looking down at her dress that was now ruined by the red grape juice.

“My sincerest apologies your majesty! I trip and fell!” Eunhee lied with a smirk hiding behind her phoney worried face. Y/n was shivering from the cold and feeling icky from the sugar that the juice contained. “It was an accident, don’t worry. If you would excuse me. I’ll go and change.” “Me too, it got all over my pants.” Jeongin mutters before flying off with Y/n.

Hyunjin watched them leave before he faced Eunhee, who now had a smirk plastered onto her face. He looked at her confused and she started to laugh. “Oh c’mon, you have to give it to me, that was a good one!” She giggles whilst bumping him playfully. “You did that on purpose?” He asked her in shock. “Of course I did, I take every chance to fuss with her.” “That dress costs a fortune.” Hyunjin states, still trying to process the current situation. “Oh please, she has tons of those hanging in her closet.”

“I’m not doing this right now.” Hyunjin sighs as she was about to take off as well. “Wait, you’re telling me you’re standing up for that miserable arse?” She huffed. “I’m going to check up on her, I’ll see you around.” Hyunjin mutters before he flew off to Y/n’s room. Leaving Eunhee with green flames in her eyes.

“Y/n are you alright?” Hyunjin called from the other side of the door. “Yeah, I’ll just put on something comfortable since the day is pretty much over.” He heard her call back in return. “Want to go out for a quick fly? I bet they have some goodies in town we can go and eat.” Hyunjin suggests. “Sounds good to me!” She chirped back. “Alright, I’ll be out here in a second. I’m going to change as well!”

Hyunjin hurried his way to the room next door and changed himself out of his clothes. When he put on an old hoodie, since the nights could become chilly, he spotted a note placed on his dresser. Whilst frowning his eyes in confusion he made his way towards the piece of paper and opened it.

It read:

My beloved Hyunjin,

This if the first time I’ve ever written a love letter to someone, so please bear with me. I’ve loved you since we were young and lately I can’t get you out of my head. You’ve taken over my mind and stolen my heart. I wish I had only the courage to tell you this in person.

But for now I will express my love to you in letter form.

Forever yours and hopefully one day officially.

Yours sincerely,

Your secret admirer.

Hyunjin was baffled at the sudden confession and confused at how the note even found its way into his room, which was locked at all times. Unless Hyunjin himself unlocked it of course.

As Hyunjin was trying to figure out how the mysterious note got into his bedroom, Y/n was already waiting outside her bedroom door. She was sniffing the flowers that were decorated outside hers and Hyunjin’s bedrooms. She cocked her head to the side in slight bewilderment when she found a black paper inside the bouquet.

She looked around her to see if anyone was watching and quickly snatched the note out of the flowers. As soon as she did, Y/n immediately regretted it, reading whatever the white letters said:

Your majesty,

It has come to my attention that you have stolen one of my belongings. I intend on having this back, or else the consequences will not only affect you, but your entire kingdom.

Make your decisions wisely madam.

I will be watching you.

The note brought shivers to her spine and she quickly hid the paper when she heard Hyunjin fumbling with his doorknob. The pressuring anxiety hadn’t faded a little after Hyunjin arrived, fortunately for the princess that he hadn’t seen the note.

She didn’t wanted him to see this. She didn’t wanted this to affect him, she cared for him. Maybe just as a friend or even more she wasn’t too sure about it, but he certainly didn’t has to clean up the mess she supposedly made.

Y/n now had to figure out what she did wrong. She doesn’t even interact with other few people that often. Beside her staff of course. Just the thought alone of her own staff turning against her and trying to kill her made her anxiety raise through the roof.

She tried to focus her attention on Hyunjin who told her that he had received a love letter for the first time in his life. “Really? You don’t get that kind of stuff on a daily basis?” Y/n asked surprised before handing the market lady her money for the apples they just bought. “No, of course not why would I?” Hyunjin scoffed, trying not to out his flustered state.

“Well, obviously you’re very kind and caring, which is part of your nature as you are a knight. Speaking of, you’re protective and reliable. People love that! And let’s not forget that you are very good looking, but let’s be honest. Those looks are pretty much a bonus since there are already so many amazing things about you that are so loveable!” Y/n praised whilst making her way with Hyunjin to the tops of the trees.

“W-why thank you. I didn’t know you saw me that way.” Hyunjin tried to say in his most confident voice, but the stutters betrayed him terribly. “These are the basic things that I have figured out about you after being with you twenty-four-seven for the past months.” Y/n giggled. Hyunjin could only hide his face in his hands, receiving a playful push from Y/n.

“Let’s head back before people will wonder where the hell we are.” Y/n continues to giggle before taking the lead home.

Time passed and right now Hyunjin and Y/n were seated around the dinner table with her parents. The atmosphere was thick and Y/n still hadn’t forgiven her parents for what they did to her.

And as if it couldn’t get any worse her father started to talk. “Y/n I forgot to inform you, that Prince Jisung will be arriving at the palace soon. You will meet him at the ball of our spring festival and after that you have eight months to prepare yourself for the wedding.” He stated without meeting his own daughter’s eyes. She choked on her food and tried arguing against her father as soon as her breath had stabilized again.

“I don’t even know the guy! And you want him to live here?” She yells in frustration. “Of course he’s going to live here, he will be the future king.” The king’s monotone angered her even further and Hyunjin felt bad for her.

He couldn’t imagine how frustrating it must be to be involved in an arranged marriage. He felt blessed that he never had to experience such pressure and commitment. He still very much believed that everyone deserved to find their own love of their live, so this was pretty much against his morals.

After dinner Y/n requested to be left alone as she wanted to clear her mind in her room. Hyunjin asked her if she was sure she didn’t want him by her side, but she would tell him that it might be good for her to be alone for once in a while.

He agreed and now he was alone with Jeongin in the garden. Hyunjin told his friend about the frustrating situation Y/n was facing at the moment. “You really seem to become fond of her.” Jeongin laughs. “What do you mean?” “Well, you have to admit. You weren’t her biggest fan before you actually got to know her.” Jeongin states. “I know, but she’s just so kind and I wouldn’t wish anyone a life like this, when it comes to someone’s love life.” Hyunjin sighed.

“I hate to say it, but I told you so.” Jeongin laughed, causing Hyunjin to look at him in confusion. “I’ve always told you what she’s actually like, but I guess you were just too stubborn to see who she really is.” Jeongin states with an amusing smirk. “Fine, you were right. I have to admit, I really enjoy her company. She’s great to hang out with.

When Jeongin didn’t react he continue to rant about the fact that she calls him dumpling when no one is watching. “… it’s really the cutest thing. She would get all giggly and bubbly. She’d squish my cheeks together and just look at me cutely, my heart melts every time!” He cried out with a beaming smile on his face.

Jeongin shook his head, smiling as well, before he started to talk. “Seems like someone has a crush on our princess.” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully whilst Hyunjin shook his head in denial.

“No-“ “Oh please, have you just heard yourself?” Jeongin scoffed as he laughed. “I-I, no seriously. You know I have a thing with Eunhee.” Hyunjin stumbled over his words and he felt his chest tightening after he finished his sentence. Something didn’t feel right. “Sure buddy, if you say so.” “I-I don’t know okay! I think I like her.” “Who are we talking about, Eunhee or Y/n.” Jeongin wondered. “Eunhee, I think I like her. I know her well and we’re always together. We grew up together after all.” “Just because you grew up together doesn’t mean you have to grow old together. Sure, I can tell that she likes you, but you surely don’t. Trust me. I’ve seen you with Y/n before.” Jeongin smirked.

“What’s that supposed to mean.” Hyunjin asked. “You’ll find out eventually.”

More time had passed and at this point, Hyunjin had started to love his job. He spent all his days with Y/n and they went from enemies to best friends. They talked about anything and everything. They even started to bicker together, causing Jeongin to roll his eyes playful whenever he was around.

Hyunjin had only eyes for her.

He was well aware of that. The entire kingdom was talking about it. They saw Hyunjin and Y/n taking a stroll everyday together and they assumed the obvious: that they were dating. But that fantasy soon disappeared when they realised that that was strictly against the law of the Yellow Wood Kingdom.

That didn’t stop the two from going out together. Sometimes they would take a break from their usual strolls around the garden or on top of the trees, they even went undercover together to experience the energy of the citizen who lived in the centre of the kingdom.

Even though Hyunjin had a busy schedule, which existed mostly out of spending time with Y/n, he still went out to Eunhee who was impatiently waiting to get his attention. They were having lunch together as usual, but Hyunjin’s mind was anywhere but where it was supposed to be. And Eunhee wasn’t loving it.

“Jinnie!” She whined resting her chin on his shoulder to get his attention, but Hyunjin was still with his mind in the clouds. “How do you show someone you have feelings for them, but maybe in a lowkey kind of way?” Hyunjin blurted out, causing Eunhee to look at him in surprise.

Her eyes had widen and soon she started to smile brightly to herself. Thinking to herself that he had finally recognized her love for him. She thought that her love letters had worked that she had been leaving around his place for the past few weeks.

“It’s really about the small little things that will make someone notice that you like them. Per example, whenever you talk to them make eye contact, it shows that you have all your attention focused on her and her only. Treat them a little more special than the other people that you know, like give them compliments or small gifts that made you think of her. Just talk to them about anything and everything, remember small facts about her that will surprise her that you even know that about her. Those little things often makes the other person get the hint that you like them.” Eunhee said boastfully.

Hyunjin began to smile and said to himself: “so basically what I am doing already?” Which made Eunhee grin in amusement. “Well if you are already doing all of that, maybe you should take it a step further to show her your true feelings.” “Thank you Eunhee that’s exactly what I will do!” Hyunjin chirped as he kissed her temple before flying out, leaving her confused. ��Where are you going?” She called after him. “Got to prepare something I’ll see you later!”

But she didn’t see him later. Instead he had hurried his way to Y/n during his lunch to whisper a message to her. “We’re going somewhere tonight, meet me in front of our bedrooms in regular clothes.” He had said before flying off again, since he still had some lunchtime left.

Now Y/n was waiting in front of a closed door, hoping that no one would walk by and catch her. She knocked on Hyunjin’s door once again, getting impatient and anxious. “You ready?” She let out a squeal in surprise when Hyunjin suddenly had appeared behind her. “Don’t do that!” She cried out before hitting his chest, causing him to groan in pain. He held up a braided basket with a bright smile on his face. She cocked her head in curiosity, but Hyunjin held his finger up to his lips to tell her to be quite before he grabbed her by the hand and lead themselves out of the palace.

She had to admit that her heart fluttered and was not beating rapidly. She looked at Hyunjin as he was taking them somewhere. His eyes were concentrating on the fairies around them, hoping that they wouldn’t get caught. She was openly staring at his face, without him noticing, his handsome features had her captivated. Until he stopped suddenly causing her to bump into his shoulder.

He looked down at her whilst still holding her hand. With a smirk plastered on his face causing Y/n to cock her head in curiosity again, but before she knew it. Hyunjin launched off into the air, making her squeal for the second time that day in surprise. They landed on a big branch that belonged to the Yellow Tree and Y/n plopped down on the branch, feeling out of breath.

“What are we doing here? Won’t they see us up here?” Y/n asked worried whilst looking down to see the village coming alive at night. “They probably will, especially since I got these guys helping me out.” Hyunjin said. Y/n looked up to see fireflies surrounding them as they minded their own business around the pair. “You did this?” She asked in awe, with Hyunjin only nodding in responds. “You did this for me? Why?” She was touched by his surprise and pouted whilst looking at him, feeling a little emotional.

“Well, I know you haven’t been the happiest lately and that being a crown princess is frustrating and tiring. So, I did this to cheer you up, hopefully it worked.” He muttered shyly as she scratched the back of his head.

“Thank you.” She whispered before she tackled him with an embrace. Hyunjin was hoping and praying that she didn’t feel his heart speeding for her. “Your welcome, here.” He said, pulled out the basket he was holding earlier. When he opened it she gasped in excitement when she saw that it was filled with her favourite foods, including the new dumplings.

“How… when…?” She was speechless at his kind gesture and couldn’t come up with the words to form a decent sentence. “I went out to the chefs during my lunchbreak, after I went to you, and asked them to prepare this for us.” He said with a proud smile. “You are so sweet. What did I do to deserve someone like you.” She cried out to her best friend. “Just continue being you and I promise that I’ll always be here.” The emotion in his voice could be heard clearly and it made Y/n even more emotional than that she already was. She started to tear up and scoot closer to Hyunjin’s figure to hug him tight.

“Thank you Dumpling.” “You’re welcome Princess.” He smiled whilst looking down at her. “I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to these bad boys.” Y/n teased as she picked up one of the doughballs from the basket, making Hyunjin laugh loudly before he began to eat himself.

Time went by and the two were stuffed with the delicious food Hyunjin had brought along. They were now looking down at the other fairies from the branch and enjoying the view together. Y/n began to feel a little chilly, the cold night breeze surprising her, making her put her hands into her pockets, trying to find the tiniest bit of extra warmth.

But to her surprise she felt a piece of paper in her pocket. She could feel her heart drop into the pit of her stomach and she looked to see if Hyunjin wasn’t paying attention to her. He was too immersed by the few people below him, so she could take a quick look on what the note could be.

She gulped loudly when she saw yet another familiar black note that had somehow found its way into her jacket.

Your majesty,

You’re not doing quite a well job in returning whatever’s mine. I suggest you to stay away from it. It belongs to me and only me. It doesn’t matter who you are, who you have on your side. I shall do everything in my power to get what I want.

Whenever, I want.

Don’t forget your majesty.

I’m watching you still.

Y/n’s boy had stiffen and anxiety had found it’s way back into her mind. Hyunjin noticed the sudden change in behaviour and softly touched her shoulder as he asked if she was alright. She jumped in surprise and quickly tried to hide the note back into her pocket with a hurry as she said that she was fine.

Which she truly believed since he was by her side. She knew nothing could get to her when she had someone like Hyunjin. He made her feel comfortable and safe. He made her feel like a normal fairy instead of someone who was soon in charge of a kingdom with a jewelled crown on her head.

“Want to go see if my friends are down there? I bet they having a good time.” He chuckles as he saw the citizen dance below them. “Sure, sounds good.” Y/n stood onto her feet and stretched her body out. Hyunjin looked up to her as she did so, she’s absolutely stunning. Her wings were big and elegant. They were often the cause of the two getting recognized by villagers, making them flee right away from the scene, laughing of course.

Hyunjin looked down, smiling to himself. Until he noticed a piece of paper besides Y/n’s feet. He was about to address it to her, but she cut him of and sooner enough flew down after yelling: “Last one down is a rotten egg!”

Hyunjin couldn’t help but shake his head with the smile still stuck on his face as he cleaned up their little picnic. But, he couldn’t help but feel drawn to the black paper that was accidently left behind by Y/n. She was down there and he knew he had to be quick and scanned the note.

His smile had disappeared and a worried expression came in its place. Hyunjin was shaking in anger, wondering why someone would harass someone from the royal family. And he got even more frustrated when he realised that Y/n didn’t even mention this to him, when he’s there to help and safe her whenever she needed help.

‘Maybe she already handled it?’ He thought to himself, she was smart and wise after all.

But he couldn’t risk it. He shoved the note into his own pocket and almost dove down. He had also come to the realisation that Y/n was down there, all by herself in a big crowd of who knows who.

The one who had written this note to her could be down there and he wasn’t there to safe her. He panicked when he couldn’t spot her. The crowds were big and everyone was busy talking to each other. He knew he couldn’t shout her name above everyone, it would bring too much attention to them.

He was about to pass out from a panic attack when his eyes suddenly caught a familiar cape near a stand. He sped through the people and dropped the basket he was holding as he brought her in his arms. She was surprised at his sudden embrace, but wrapped her arms around him anyway. “Don’t ever do that again.” He muttered into her hair. “What-“ “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. Okay? I almost passed out from a panic attack.” Hyunjin stated seriously as he had her face cupped into his hands, looking her deeply in the eyes.

“I-I’m sorry, I saw this stand with rose water and the dumplings made me thirsty.” She explained, feeling bad for making him panic over her. “It’s okay, just don’t do that again, okay?” Y/n simply nodded before hugging him again, guilt washing over her for making him worry.

When they arrived back at the palace it was already midnight. Which meant that Hyunjin was off knight-duties. He either could sleep or he had some free time for himself. After changing out of his armour he put on a comfortable blouse and some loose pants.

He let himself fall onto his Queen-sized bed and stared onto the ceiling. His mind went back to the note that he had found earlier that night. He just couldn’t keep his thoughts off it. He fished it out of his jacket.

The words were cold yet horrifying. He still didn’t understand why someone would harass Y/n. She wouldn’t hurt a fly and that’s a promise.

Hyunjin thought that he maybe should make work of this and got back on his feet. Before he knew it he flew through the halls of the palace without a plan, only to be interrupted by a familiar voice. “Hyunjin!” Eunhee yelled from behind him. “Yes?” Hyunjin said tiredly as he continued to fly. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you!” She sounded annoyed and it made Hyunjin want to roll his eyes, but she was in front of him, so maybe it was for the better that he left that idea out of the picture.

“First you suddenly leave me alone at lunch and now you avoid me? Jinnie did I do something wrong?” She asks with puppy eyes. “I was working. You know that.” Hyunjin sighs. “But I don’t get to see you at all. I miss you Jinnie.” She cried out holding onto his bicep and shaking him lightly.

“Eunhee, you know this is my job. I only have a time for myself during breakfast, lunch, dinner and after midnight. I don’t have a lot of time for myself. I’m well aware of that and you should be as well.” Hyunjin stated seriously. “So, you choose your work over me? You’re always gone and you leave me alone! You know that I don’t have anyone but you, right?” She cried out once again. “Eunhee, this job was a personal order of the king-“ “I bet that little brat is keeping you from me. She knows how much you mean to me and how much I need you. That I have no one else besides you.” Eunhee whined dramatically.

“Look Eunhee,” Hyunjin began with a sigh. “We’ll spend some time together soon, okay?” Hyunjin put his hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her, but she didn’t seem to calm down. “Then go to the spring festival with me. The villagers will have the market place decorated prettily and we can go there to dance, to drink and eat of course-“ “I would love to Eunhee, but I have to work. There’s a royal ball the same evening I have to attend with-“ “Y/n, I get it. I get it. Got to serve the brat.” She mutters in annoyance. “Oh cheer up, I’m sure I get to see you. I thought you were serving at the ball?” Hyunjin cocked his head slightly as he thought. “Right.” Eunhee sighed. “Well, I’ll get going then. I have some stuff to go through.” “Jinnie wait!” Eunhee called after him, but it was no use. He was already out of sight.

But not out of her mind.

It was the first official day of spring and the kingdom was thrilled. Everyone was hurrying around to make everything just right for their first day of spring. The season fairies had gathered together with the royal family to officially announce the season, causing the citizen to roar happily.

Y/n saw the seasonal fairies, like the flower fairies, hug each other excitedly as they got to carry out their personal magic. Y/n smiled as she looked down to the citizen of their kingdom. They all seemed to be happy, excited for another chapter of a great year.

Yet, Y/n wasn’t really feeling any of it. Jisung had arrived a few day ago and the first introduction together was terribly awkward. Y/n felt bad that she neglected his tries on starting a conversation, but it just didn’t seem to work. It was only three months from now and the two would be married to each other and soon after be crowned as the new king and queen.

Hyunjin was there, well not really he was guarding the door, as the other two tried to get to know each other. Hyunjin could hear the entire conversation from the other side and it still broke his heart that he had to give her up like that. Many times he was conflicted over the fact whether he should confess or not.

Right now, he stood behind Y/n and saw he slumped figure. He knew that later tonight was the Spring ball and that she had to get ready for it, as much as she hated that. They, Jisung and Y/n, will be shown for the first time in public as an engaged pair.

Hyunjin couldn’t call them a couple. He just couldn’t. They barely knew each other and he was certain that they didn’t love each other. Both of them were pushed into this directed and into the current situation.

Hyunjin also couldn’t call them a couple, because of the fact that he was madly in love with the crown princess. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. She even appeared into his dreams after a while.

He had dreamt that they were ordinary people, that they lived a simple life together, but they were happy and they could love each other without anyone standing in their way. Something like the law. The knight even spend hundreds of hours in total in the royal library. Hopeful to find a little loophole to maybe have a chance with the love of his life, but unfortunately luck didn’t seem to be on his side.

So, instead. Hyunjin cherished every second with her. And once again, he had dragged her to the same branch above the market place to have a little picnic with his favourite princess.

“You’re brining me here again?” Y/n asked with amusement heard in her voice. “I brought you here last time to cheer you up, I thought I should do it again.” Hyunjin muttered to her with a small smile on his face.

He found it difficult to sound happy when he knew he was giving her up for someone he couldn’t stand a chance against. “I guess this will be our happy place then.” Y/n chirped pulling out a bottle of rose water and giving it to her friend. They toasted before they looked down to enjoy the happiness of others.

They had to save their energy for the ball later that night. And she also wasn’t allowed to attend the festival at the local market, because of the massive crowd that showed up at such gatherings. Hyunjin looked to his side and saw her smile as she was looking down to her people. He felt still felt bad for her. Her life was turned upside down, he really felt the need to do this. Not as her knight, but as her best friend. And Y/n was clearly surprised and touched by his gesture.

Her eyes would meet his, making him shoot his focus away from her. Causing her to giggle at his cuteness. “Thank you Dumpling, I needed this.” She said to him softly. He was about say something as well, but he sooner enough felt a pair of lips connecting to his cheek and a soft touch on his jaw.

To his surprise, Y/n had kissed him softly on his cheek.

Both hearts of the young fairies were racing. Y/n was screaming on the inside that she finally had the courage to make a move. Hyunjin was on the other hand absolutely speechless. He was stuck in a shock and he didn’t dare to look at her.

Y/n knew she was in love with her best friend. I mean how couldn’t she? Hyunjin was tall, for a fairy then, he was strong, caring, sweet, emotional and always kind. Y/n felt like there really was a spark between them. And she had complained an umpteenth time that she didn’t wanted to marry prince Jisung.

He seemed like a nice kid, but she didn’t feel anything. She wasn’t in love with him like she was with Hyunjin. And now especially when she had admitted to herself that she was in love with him, wasn’t helping her at all.

When Jisung had arrived at the palace, the black notes seemed to worsen. They seemed harsher and darker and they also always seemed to disappear somehow. Y/n didn’t wanted to think too much of it. She just hoped that someone was just trying to mess with her and that this was all just a sick joke. That would be the best outcome for this whole situation.

There even was a note wrapped noticeably around the napkin as the food was delivered to her room. She hurried to the door where it was left for her and tried to see whoever brought it, but there was no one in sight.

Y/n sighed and almost cried to herself as she wondered what she did wrong to hurt this person so badly that he or she made harass her. It was still early in the afternoon and the king walked in, telling Y/n that she had to spend the afternoon with Jisung, as if her day couldn’t have gotten any worse. She sighed to herself and got up to follow her father out of the room. Leaving her food untouched.

The two flew slowly to the garden where she would have to meet Jisung. Y/n looked up to her father and gathered the courage to speak to him. “Dad, what would you think or say when I fell in love with a commoner?” The king shot his head to his daughter and sighed. “We’ve talked about this Y/n. You can’t get out of this marriage. I-it’s not possible, you just can’t.” He stuttered. “But-“ “There’s nothing else to discuss. You are marrying this prince and that’s the end of this conversation. You have duties to fulfil and to our sad reality this is one of them. I don’t want another word about this and I forbid you to see this commoner once more if there really is someone else. You stay away from him and that’s an order. Now, there comes prince Jisung. Be nice to him.” He only said before leaving again with a hurry.

She’s talked to Jisung a few times now and she knew that he was a kind and very polite fairy. She also noticed how he didn’t like to meet new people, which was very understandable. Especially as someone from a royal family, you had to watch out for people who wanted to take advantage of their title that came with wealth and power.

Jisung also seemed quite timid and their time together usually became very awkward after a while. Also because Y/n tried to avoid him as much as possible in the palace.

In the meantime Hyunjin, who was unaware of Y/n leaving her room, was surprised to see the large bedroom empty when he let himself in. He looked around the corners to see if she didn’t wanted to jump scare him, but he found the room to be completely empty, beside a tray filled with food that was now calling his name.

He skipped towards it and contemplated on eating it himself, but he knew better than that and was about to return it to the kitchen. He had the tray in his hands when he saw that the napkin had an unusual black paper wrapped around it.

He recognized the texture of the paper and then the handwriting of the words that was written in it. He sighed to himself and didn’t bother to read the horrible note. The words were hurtful and would probably get under his skin. He told himself that he would analyse it later on, he had gathered a lot of notes anyway. And he wondered if he would find more through time.

Now that he thought about notes, he realised that he was also getting more and more love letters. Those never stopped and they declared someone’s love to him every single time. At first he was flattered, but they began to worry him a little since they began to sound obsessive.

‘The more love notes I get, the more death threats she gets.’ He thought to himself.

Hyunjin sat down and started to think further. Through time, he had noticed that the staff was turning against Y/n. Y/n even noted it to him herself. He heard them talking badly about her, spreading rumours among each other that obviously were false.

The young knight sighed and got back onto his feet and made his way out and towards the kitchen. The tray was in his hand, untouched, yet the black paper had made its way into Hyunjin’s pocket. When he arrived in the kitchen he was immediately greeted by Eunhee who clung onto him like a koala.

He tries to shake her off as he had to get ready for the ball, but she didn’t give in. “Eunhee, I have to go. I have to be ready within an hour. You should get ready as well, the ball starts before we know it.” Hyunjin sighed, leaving Eunhee to scoff and whine. She was about to protest, but he had already disappeared again.

The ball had started about two hours ago. Y/n and Jisung were introduced together at the beginning of the ball, leaving everyone in awe. Tons of people came up to the two to congratulate them or to offer ‘personal advice’ for the newly engaged couple on how to rule a kingdom or how to keep the marriage going. And neither of those were something they wanted to hear right now. They shared a look with each other and sighed. They both were unhappy, yet they had to put on their best smile to please the others.

Now, two hours in and Y/n had to reject countless men who tried to dance with her. She just wasn’t in the mood. And neither was she in the mood for the curious-aunty-like fey people, they were just so noisy and she didn’t wanted to do anything with those kinds of fairies.

Y/n had spotted Hyunjin who was talking to one of his fellow knights. She excused herself from the crowd around her and rushed her way towards her best friend. “I’m going to borrow him for a while!” Y/n whisper yelled before she dragged her best friend to the dancefloor. “As if you hadn’t done that already!” The other knight yelled back and laughed.

“What are you doing?” Hyunjin asked as he had his arms wrapped around Y/n’s waist whilst swaying over the dancefloor. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. They’re only interested in rich-few-people-talk.” Y/n cried out whilst resting her head on Hyunjin’s chest. She could hear his heartbeat, which Hyunjin tried his hardest to control around her.

She didn’t care that everyone at the ball could see. She was exhausted and just wanted to be comfortably in the arms of the one who she really loved.

Eunhee, who was serving at the ball, had her eyes locked on the two, just like most people at the ball had. Jealousy was something that had become her second nature. She gritted her teeth and almost growled to herself like a green beast as she looked at the guy who she felt like should’ve been hers.

She was going to end this, one way or another.

Jisung saw the pair as well and immediately he knew that she as well had someone else who had stolen their heart. Jisung knew what that felt like and immediately fell back into his gloomy mood, missing his love of his life. He looked at Hyunjin and Y/n and envied the two. They at least got to spend all their time together, while he was stuck here, far away from home and no where near his beloved significant other.

He was surprised by himself that he wasn’t made, but how could he? Y/n was happy. Still, he had a little bit of a ‘what the fuck’ moment.

The night of the ball soon had ended and the guest finally left the palace again, except for Jisung of course.

It was early in the morning when Hyunjin was called to the office of the king, where he was told that he had a special and important mission for the knight.

“There has been an alarm set off in the Woods of the Lost that someone or something is approaching too close to the magic fairy reign. I want you and another scout to find out what it is, to see if there is more danger to it and if there is I want you to lead it far away from our reign.” The king had said.

“Wait, your majesty, but isn’t this a job for scouts to do-“ “I was informed about your strength and intelligence. This person seemed to speak very highly about you. So, I trust you that you got this under control.” The king states.

‘Way to pressure this onto me.’ Hyunjin thought to himself and before he knew it he was out of the reign and into the woods with some kid, who didn’t seem to be ready for this kind of job. The two had flown for hours and the sun had started to come out, there was no sign of any danger.

Hyunjin sighed and kept flying around as he was told to. He missed his bed and craved sleep more than anything. Well, maybe Y/n’s hugs, but that would be it. The young knight looked down and saw an odd trail of flowers. ‘Must be a flower fairy, but why would they be outside the reign?’ Hyunjin wondered. 

He chocked his head when he noticed a blue flower from his height. He immediately knew what flower it was: a forget-me-not. He thought of Y/n and how he had to give her up, which made him sad almost instantly.

Hyunjin could just cry there and then, but he knew better and got himself together and accompanied the scout who still was scared out of his mind. “Hyunjin, do you really think there is something out here?” He asked shaky. “I’ll be honest I have no idea.” Hyunjin admitted as his voice trailed off. “But I do know that I want to take a closer look at those flowers.” Hyunjin muttered before he dove down to ground level, which was not allowed. The chance of them getting caught as they’re on ground level is bigger and it would take them much longer to get out of something like a miserable human’s reach.

But Hyunjin just had to get the flowers. They reminded him of Y/n. Call him a romanticist, but he knew what those flowers meant. They represented hop the recipient will not forget the giver. It also symbolizes faithful love and memories. When he finally set his feet on the moist soil he looked at the flower and knew instantly that these were made by a fairy. He knew that, because the flowers were ‘fairy-sized’. They fitted into his hands perfectly.

The scout was still high up in the air, screaming his lungs out for something. “What? What are you yelling about?” Hyunjin yelled back, but to his surprise he was cut off by a giant hand ripping through the air. Hyunjin dropped the flower and dodged the hand fortunately. “Fuck.” He said to himself in slight panic as he now had to get rid of a human, who looked like it had been roaming around the woods for ages. “You! You demonic creatures are the cause of this! The cause of my pain and my torture! I’ve been lost in these damned woods for months now! And you are going to get me out if you like it or not you demon!” It yelled as it tried to grab Hyunjin once again.

Hyunjin flew up in the air and told the scout to hide. Hyunjin sped his way through the forest in the hope that the human would get off his wings. And to his fortune, the man finally got lost again, deep into the forest.

But now, Hyunjin had a problem: he had to find his way back. 

He didn’t know where to start and flew in circles. He sighed and sat on a leave for a second as he tried to clear up his mind. Hyunjin became frustrated and hung his head low, thinking that he never would find his way back. Only to look at the ground and see the odd trail of flowers that was maid by one of the fairies from his reign. He thanked his lucky stars and made his way back. Eventually he found the young scout as well who was hiding on the top of the trees.

Him being very emotional and scared, he hugged Hyunjin tightly before they made their way back. “Wait, I have to do something.” Hyunjin said, before diving down to the flowers again. “That got you almost killed last time!” The scout shrieked in fear. “Or it made us find out problem and get rid of it.” Hyunjin states as a matter of a fact as he held up the bouquet.

When they arrived back at the palace Y/n was waiting in front of the entrance with her father who was trying to calm her down. “Y/n he’s fine! I bet that he’s gotten rid of that monster already.” The king tried to assure his daughter. “But what if he’s hurt! What if he’s lost!” Y/n cried out in panic, scared that she was never going to see him again.

“Well, well. Don’t worry too much princess, it will only hurt that pretty head of yours.” Hyunjin said with a smirk, causing Y/n to turn around within seconds and rush her way to him, who only could let out a laugh as he hugged her back.

“What are those?” Y/n asked, looking at the dozens of flowers he was holding. “I found these in the woods and they reminded me of you, I just had to bring you some.” He winked, making Y/n slightly blush. “’Forget me nots’?” Y/n asked curiously. “Just to remind you that I am unforgettable.” He teased, trying to hide his pain behind a smile as he received a playful push from Y/n soon after, causing him to hiss in pain. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” Y/n worriedly roamed her hands on his chest unknowingly how awkward that must’ve been for him.

He grabbed her hands and placed hers in his and told her that he was alright, but the young scout who was still stressed out thought otherwise. “He fought that miserable human all by himself! He dodged him and outsmarted him! And we found him because Hyunjin dared to fly to ground level! He almost got himself killed though! But Hyunjin’s tactics worked wonders!” The scout blurted out. Hyunjin bit his cheek as he eyed the king who looked shocked. He knew he broke a rule, but at least he got rid of their problem.

“I’m just glad you two are safe. And you have made sure the entire reign is safe. You shall not be unrewarded. Expect something from me soon as a gratitude.” The king said before excusing himself. “Wait, did you risk your life to get me flowers?” Y/n asked in shock. “Shh, let’s get inside. I had no sleep at all and I know you don’t have a schedule today.” “Answer me Hyunjin!” Y/n cried out playfully yet in disbelief, but he only shot her a wink, causing her to gasp. “Hwang Hyunjin, you are insane!” She laughed out, feeling like she’s about to go mad. “Insanely fond of you!” He winked once again, causing her to shriek out, leaving him laughing.

Hyunjin would never admit that he almost got himself killed to bring the love of his life flowers. He never even thought that something like that would happen. ‘Next time we’ll just go to the market,’ he promised to himself as he laid down on his bed. Y/n promised to sit in her room for the next few hours so he could catch up with some sleep. Which is exactly what he did.

The next morning Y/n woke up with some surprising news. “Your majesty, you are ordered to stay inside today. Sir Hwang seems to be sick.” A knight informed her in the early hours of the day.

Y/n immediately woke up from her sleepy state and rushed into Hyunjin’s bedroom. Hyunjin shot up in shock and looked at Y/n tiredly. “What happened to you?” Y/n asked feeling his head as she sat besides him. “Nothing too bad, the doctor said I had overworked myself and that my body is begging me this way to take a break.” Hyunjin chuckled. “Well, I got to agree with it. You’re so hardworking, you deserve some time off, but you’re sick.” Y/n pouted as she ran her hand through his hair. He leaned into her touch, not really minding the fact that he was now stuck in bed if she was going to be there.

“What are you up to today?” He asked her whilst half talking into his pillow, cutely burying his head deeper into it. “Nothing special really. I think I’ll go get you some rose water, fruit and soup. It will help you back to your old self.” Y/n was about to jump off his bed, but was stopped by him grabbed her wrist. “You don’t have to do this, you know?” “I know, but I want to. You take care of me everyday by protecting me and keeping me company. It’s the least I could do. Now, lay still. Go read a book or something. I’ll be back.” Y/n chirped before leaving the room.

Hyunjin was left in his bed, still staring at the door she just walked through. He thanked his lucky stars once again for making it back home, making it back to her. He sighed deeply and was bummed out that he couldn’t go out with her to the fields, to see the flowers bloom, to see the first rainbow of the season and experience the warm rain on a sunny day.

Before Hyunjin knew it, Y/n had returned with her hands full with things. He was about to stand up and help her, but was quickly ordered by Y/n herself to get back in bed, causing him to pout at her. Y/n set up the food and sat cross-legged next to him. Feeding him the soup that had secret vegetable dumplings in them. “Hey, you may be sick. But these have veggies in them which means they are good for you. Besides, I got to keep my favourite Dumpling ‘dumpling-ly’.” She giggles before feeding him some more.

As Y/n took care of Hyunjin he had to admit that he wasn’t used to someone else caring for him this way. He was very independent and was usually the person who cared for the other person, but he could get used to this. After drinking his rose-water and ate all his food, he was stuffed. He was also quite bloated, but Y/n loved it and couldn’t help but touch his cheeks.

Hyunjin was still tired and wanted to lay down, Y/n who was still next to him, was zoning off as he suddenly laid his head on her thighs. “Tired?” She asked him, instinctively playing with his hair. Not minding the sudden affection at all, especially the way he hugged her tightly, feeling his cheeks squish itself onto her body. She also could feel him nod tiredly, causing her to giggle. She caressed his cheek and ran her thumb softly over his features.

He looked up to her as she stared at him with soft love-filled eyes. Hyunjin could just fall in love with her all over again at that moment, which he probably did. But to their unfortune, their moment was soon to be interrupted by someone entering the room unannounced.

“Jinnie! I heard you were sick! I made you some soup and I got you- oh.” Eunhee had entered the room and walked right into the scene of the pair half-cuddled up together. She was clenching the put in her hand tightly as she tried to remain herself calmly.

“Eunhee?” Hyunjin mutters tiredly, not realising what was going on. “Uhm, thank you for the food, but he just ate. I brought him soup, fruit and rose water already.” Y/n states, not realising she only made Eunhee angrier. “Ah, I see. I’ll be out then.” She almost hissed before walking out. When Eunhee was on the other side of the door, she was almost growling in anger. She despised the brat of a princess that Y/n was.

‘You’ve not seen the last of me your majesty, you just wait and see.’

Days elapsed and Hyunjin was back in the air. He was back spending time with Y/n and protecting her from whatever was threatening.

So he thought.

It slipped past his mind that Y/n was an engaged princess who had a wedding to arrange and he couldn’t be a part of it since it was first of all not his wedding and secondly because the king ordered no one beside the staff who had to work could know about the details of the wedding.

As if those would be hidden from Hyunjin, Y/n would tell those things to him herself.

Hyunjin’s feelings for her had grown stronger to a certain point where even just the mention of her name could drive him insane. While Y/n was in her office with Jisung, probably discussing on what colour napkins they would like on their wedding day or any other dumb detail that for some reason needed to be discussed, Hyunjin was trying to get through the day by sitting in the kitchen. Catching up with other knights and maids who walked past.  

“So, you have a day off and you don’t tell me?” A familiar voice said from behind him. “I don’t have a day off though Eunhee, I can’t attend the wedding meetings, so I’m stuck here until they’re done.” He sighed whilst picking his food. Eunhee took a seat next to him and placed her fingers under his chin and moved it towards her so he had to look her in the eyes. “Jinnie, for how long do you think you will continue doing this?” Eunhee asks. “What do you mean?” “Playing Y/n’s knight in shining armour?” She states with a chuckle. “For as long as I need to, why are you asking this?” He wondered as he shook his head in confusion.

“You know that Y/n is going to be married, she’ll have Jisung by her side to protect her. You know she won’t need you forever.” The words hurt Hyunjin like a bitch, but he knew that she was right. “There’s no expiration date to my contract.” Hyunjin states, trying to convince himself that he got to be with her no matter what. “Jinnie please, wake up. You have to realise that soon she will be a married woman. She’ll have Jisung by her side and you won’t be needed. Besides you won’t need her either! You have so many other things to do besides babysitting a spoiled brat.”

“Why are you reminding me of all of this?” Hyunjin sighs out. “To remind you that there still is a chance for us.” “Eunhee, do you even remember what I’ve told you the other day?” Hyunjin exhales in disbelief.

-Flashback

Hyunjin and Eunhee were seated together under the moonlight as they caught up together. Hyunjin had promised after all to make up for leaving her alone all the time. “I have to confess something.” Hyunjin breaths out catching Eunhee by surprise.

‘This is it!’ She thought to herself and got ready to hear the words she’s been longing to hear.

“I’m in love with Y/n…” Eunhee only could hear, the rest seemed to be a blur. She could feel her world fall apart and something snap inside of her. “W-what?” She could only make out. “I’m in love with Y/n, did you even listen? I’ve been talking for five minutes already-“ “B-but Jinnie! What about us?” She cried out holding onto his arms tightly.

“Us? There is no us Eunhee, there never was?” He states in confusion. “What do you mean? Can’t you see that I love you?” Eunhee cried out as she her tears ran down her face. “I-I… No, I’ve never noticed, I’m sorry but I don’t feel the same way. I only thought of you as a friend, a little sister even.” You’ve done it Hyunjin, you broke her.

Eunhee let out a maniacally laugh and soon she ran off with tears still streaming down her face as she yelled to Hyunjin that he was a cold-hearted fucker who played with her feelings and didn’t actually care for her at all.

-Present time

“Come on Hyunjin, you know that you have a better chance of being with me than being with her! She’s literally about to be married within a month and a half! Just imagine how much you would hurt yourself, how you would drive yourself insane. Seeing her walk down the isle and you still having to serve her as her knight. Just imagine her birthing a tiny fairy into the world that belongs to Jisung and not to you-“

“Stop.” He whispered.

“-seeing the child grow up as you still serve her miserably. Your colour would fade eventually and then your power soon after! She will forget all about you and you will be left in the dust as she goes on with her glamorous life!”

“Shut up!” Hyunjin yelled out, tears were streaming down his face. His heart hurt and he knew that there was truth in her words.

“Jinnie, just admit that you would be so much happier when you let her go and just stay with me. Like the old times. You didn’t needed her back then, why would you now? You have always so independent and strong. You go this.” Eunhee persuaded. “The difference this time is, that I am in love with her and that my heart and soul needs her more than they need air.” Hyunjin mutters calmly as he let his tears roll down his cheeks.

“Alright, then now what? Are you going to make a complete fool out of yourself and stop a wedding? You will be banished and left with nothing and there would be nothing I can do to help you out of that mess Jinnie. Just think about how foolish it would be and look when a knight tries to ask for the hand of a princess. Your both out of each other’s league. Literally, you’re not in her rank and she’s not in ours. We belong together Jinnie! We’ve always belonged together, partners in crime remember?”

“We should stick together so no one will be hurt at the end of the day, just like how it was supposed to be. We had something special Jinnie, I think you’ve forgotten about it. That girl had gotten into your head and played with your feelings until you were wrapped around her fingers. You shouldn’t throw away something so beautiful we had for years when you’ve only been around her for a couple of months.” The words out of Eunhee’s mouth were stuck inside of Hyunjin’s mind.

His head was spinning and he was conflicted between Y/n and Eunhee.

The day went on and Eunhee left feeling satisfied as he plan unfolded. She now was on her way to Y/n’s office where she found the princess alone. “Your majesty, I came to bring you your food and tea.” Eunhee announced as she made her way inside.

“Thank you Eunhee, you can place it right here.” Y/n sighed as she went through the stack of papers in front of her. “You seem tired madam.” “More like depressed.” Eunhee could hear the princess mutter under her breath. “Aren’t you happy to marry such a handsome prince like Jisung?” Eunhee dared to ask. “I guess I am.” Y/n mutters back, still letting out a deep exhale as she felt unhappy.

“I hope you will find happiness in your relationship with Prince Jisung. It’s nothing compared to my Hyunjin, but I bet prince Jisung would treat you as good as Jinnie treats me.” Eunhee said with a sly smile. Y/n looked up to Eunhee and cocked her head in confusion, her eyes turning gloomy. 

“Y-you and Hyunjin are together?” Y/n stuttered. “Yeah, amazing isn’t it? We’ve been friends for so long and now we’ve been dating for a while. And no, I don’t mind that you two are close. He’s only your knight after all your majesty.” “Right.” Y/n trailed her eyes away from Eunhee as she tried to focus again on her papers. “Ma’am may I be excused?” “Y-yes, of course. You can go.” Y/n’s voice cracked slightly, leaving Eunhee satisfied before she bowed and left the office.

Y/n was left stunned. ‘Did he really get into a relationship and not tell me?’ She thought to herself. ‘Would he really fiddle with my feelings like that? No, he wouldn’t, right?’

“Are you okay?” Her fiancé asked when he walked back into the office. “Well, not really.” Y/n admitted as he voice broke down. “I know that this marriage is hard, but we have to get through this together. As much as we hate it-“ “He has someone else.” Y/n blurted out, making Jisung look at her with a shocked expression.

“What? Who? Hyunjin?” Y/n nodded and started to cry. Jisung brought her into his arms and rubbed her back as he tried to comfort her. Her wings were hanging low and he noticed a greyish tone being added to it as Y/n cried.

A sign of brokenness. When fairies are mentally hurt, they will lose colour in their skin, wings and it shows that they can’t function properly.

Jisung hugged her tighter and told her the story of how he had met a fairy as well, someone who had stolen his heart the second he saw her, but he had to leave her to get here and he still sees her heartbroken face whenever he closes his eyes.

Y/n felt terrible for Jisung and comforted him and told him that he should go out and at least look for her. He still had some time left before they were wedded. “I-I don’t know Y/n.” “Please, do it for me. I don’t want you to regret not telling her and her finding someone else only to leave you heartbroken like me. A king and queen can’t rule that way. What would the people think of their grey king and queen?” Y/n stressed, wanting nothing more than Jisung to be happy as well.

He had taken her hands in his and rubbed it softly. “Alright, I’ll try to find her, but I don’t know where to start. I only know that she grows flowers beautifully.” “Then go to the market and find every possible flower fairy. And if she isn’t from here, then as least you’ve tried.” Y/n said, knowing that Jisung told her that she certainly wasn’t from his kingdom, he knew every fairy of his reign after all.

Later that day, Hyunjin was back to Y/n’s side. And the two could feel the sudden tension between themselves. After Eunhee had visited both, their minds were spinning and they weren’t sure how to feel about one another.

Yet, Hyunjin still wanted to do something fun with Y/n as he still was cherishing every second with her. Especially now, the words were like a broken record in his head. Both didn’t feel like going outside that day, emotionally exhausted from the stress they were both feeling. Y/n would be flying in front of Hyunjin as they made their way to the kitchen. Hyunjin noticed her wings, the grey tone to her usual white ones scared him.

He knew what it meant and he hoped that it was the stress from organizing the wedding and not from some idiot hurting her.

“Why did you want to go here?” She asked softly when they had arrived in the kitchen. “I wanted to eat some delicious food with you, so let’s start making some!” Hyunjin chirped, trying his hardest to earn himself a smile from her. Hyunjin was smitten for her, he was well aware of it at this point. He couldn’t stop staring at her as they made a Dutch sugar loaf together. Her hair was tied back, exposing her gorgeous facial features to him. Her cheeks were puffy and her eyes concentrated.

Her lips were shaped plum and in a slight pout, luring Hyunjin to come closer and press his soft ones onto hers. After finishing baking they went outside to enjoy the warm sweet bread together. It was quite cold and Hyunjin noticed Y/n shivering. He easily could’ve gone inside to grab her a blanket, but instead he got onto his feet and shook off his jacket and placed it on her shoulders.

The gesture messed with Y/n’s mind. ‘Why is he doing this when he has a girlfriend?’ She asked herself whilst looking at him, feeling like he was making this harder for her than it should be. He was, with his head hung low, eating his bread, more like picking it. She saw that he looked gloomy as well, but she didn’t know what to do about it. He had a girlfriend after all, wouldn’t she comfort him?

As if it was on cue, Eunhee walked into the scene. She saw Y/n and Hyunjin scooted close to each other and Hyunjin’s jacket wrapped around the princess. When Y/n noticed Eunhee she shot up from her seat and almost looked terrified. She made up a lie to excuse herself before she dropped Hyunjin’s coat and flew off.

Hyunjin was left confused and turned around to see Eunhee standing. “What are you doing here?” “I’m just doing my job, what are you doing?” “What-“ “Don’t you see that she finally realised that this little thingy you two are doing is going to bring the both of you in trouble? You know how what this could do to her reputation when even one fairy finds out about you two hanging around like this. Before the engagement announcement, sure whatever. But now, don’t ruin her life Hyunjin. If you do, she could come out to get you and seek revenge and eventually ruin your life with the power she has.”

Hyunjin sighed, knowing that the anxiety of showing affection to Y/n probably wasn’t going to be worth it in the end.

So here they were, days later and both not spoken a word to each other. Which was very surprising since they spend entire days together, unless Y/n was in her office with Jisung of course.

Things had become worse for Y/n, the stress was getting to her, she began to feel even more depressed and for some reason, the staff had turned against her. Y/n could go around the palace and greet a maid normally, only to receive a pair of rolling eyes her way. They even started to talk back to her, telling her how inappropriate it was to wear another fairy’s  clothes when she was about to get married to another.

Y/n’s heart dropped because apparently, they had seen her and Hyunjin a few days ago.

‘Were they mad because I hang out with someone out of my rank?’

Her day became even weirder when Hyunjin came up to her out of nowhere, telling her that he wanted to stop their little dates. “What? I though we were having a great time?” Y/n stuttered, knowing she was about to lose the last thing that was keeping her happy: Hyunjin. “It’s not professional, I shouldn’t have started it in the first place.” He had stated coldly before flying off again, leaving Y/n heartbroken.

Her wings and skin officially lost its colour and now Y/n walked around the palace with a grey tone to herself. She hadn’t even had the strength anymore to fly. 

She was confused and didn’t know who to go to.

She wouldn’t run to her parents as she felt like this was partly their fault. Instead, she went to the person who she least expected to run to: Jisung. He saw her broken state and let her cry out on his shoulder.

“I try to find comfort by Hyunjin, but he would refuse to do it himself anymore and call a fucking confidante for me. He doesn’t care anymore. Did he really mess with my feelings, but for what?” Y/n cried out after Jisung asked why she came to him instead of Hyunjin. “I don’t know what’s going on Y/n, but this is not going well. I’ve seen the maids treating you poorly. The guards don’t even bother to bow to you in politeness.” Jisung commented.

Jisung continued to comfort Y/n until she was breathing normally again. She thanked Jisung before leaving again, not wanting to bother him with her problems any further. Which made her realise, that she didn’t receive a death threat in a while. “At least one problem solved itself.” She sighed before going out to look for Hyunjin.

It was already eight o’clock and the sun had just set. She still didn’t come across Hyunjin. When she walked past the kitchen for the seventh time that day, after looking for him for hours, she saw him sitting with Eunhee, laughing and smiling together. When Eunhee noticed Y/n in the doorway, she immediately scooted closer to her ‘boyfriend’ and clung onto him.

The way Eunhee called Hyunjin ‘baby’ made Y/n’s heart ache. It was broken and bruised and she had Hwang Hyunjin to blame. “Hwang!” She called out strictly, causing everyone in the kitchen to freeze. Hyunjin had been avoiding her and ignoring her. Basically everything he should never do with the job he was assigned to do. Hyunjin made eye contact with Y/n who looked horrible. He wanted to get up and go to her and make sure that everything was alright.

The staff in the kitchen felt the tension between the two and held their breath when the crown princess walked down the stairs into the kitchen. Hyunjin wasn’t sure what Y/n was going to do, she could fire and ban him for not being loyal to her and his job. Instead he was shocked when Y/n grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him along with her.

Him still being shocked at what was happening, he kept quite and trailed behind her. Her grip had weakened and he could easily rip himself free from her grip, but he let her take him away. They stopped in the middle of the palace garden where they were alone. Y/n let go of his hand and turned around to face him with red eyes. His breath was caught in his throat as he felt his heart break at the sight.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Y/n cried out softly, not trusting her voice. “What?” Hyunjin couldn’t endure the cold act that he was performing towards her any more as she cried out to him. “Why do you hate me?” She asked him, but he didn’t answer. “How could you hurt me like this? You play with my feelings like it’s some kind of game!” “Y/n, I…” “I can’t believe you, I thought were here to protect me and to help me. But here you are messing with my mind and heart. You’re an insensitive prick and you must be very dense or simply not very bright to not notice how madly I am in love with you!” Y/n stressed as she threw her arms up in frustration.

She was trembling as she continued to cry. Hyunjin still kept silent and it angered Y/n. “So, that’s it? Nothing? No explanation why you did all of this? Is that what you wanted to do after all? Hurt me? And also, if you had a girlfriend, you could’ve told me beforehand you know! It would’ve saved me a lot of fucking time on this dumb heart break!” She yelled.

Hyunjin was shocked by her outburst, but especially by her words. “Girlfriend?” He asked. “Oh please, do not play innocent. She even came to me to tell about your relationship, how you’ve been dating for months. Can’t you see that I am suffering here. I thought you cared, but I guess that was all a lie as well then.” Y/n’s voice had gone back to small and broken and she turned her feet and walked away.

Hyunjin was still confused and stunned. He didn’t know what to do. So his heart decided for him. His wings had shot him up in the air and his eyes started to scan the huge garden, only to find Y/n dropping onto her knees in pain. It costed her last energy to get to the pond. Hyunjin dove down to where she was and landed with a thud, scaring Y/n. A second thud was heard and soon enough she was in a pair of familiar arms.

She could feel warm droplets land on her cheek that didn’t belong to her. Y/n looked up to Hyunjin who was sobbing with her. He couldn’t take his own pain any longer. He couldn’t find the words to tell her how much he actually loved her. He could only hold her and bury his own face into the crook of his neck as they cried together.

“Don’t leave me.” Y/n whispered into his chest, making Hyunjin shake his head vigorously. He held her closer to his chest as if that was even possible. He breathed in her scent and he started to cry harder. He’s going to miss her so badly, even though they would still be living in the palace together, yet separately.

He didn’t wanted to be away from her any longer, he couldn’t handle it. He wanted to be with her forever. Running away together would be no use, she would be find in some kind of way and he’d be thrown in the dungeons for kidnapping her majesty.

They spend the rest of the night at the pond in silence. Enjoying each other’s touch which also could be the last time. Y/n fell asleep and he knew that she was exhausted. He was still worried about her colour, but he knew he could worry about that the next morning. He snaked his arm under Y/n’s sleeping body and carried her to her bed. He tucked her in and moved a strand of hair out of her face. He looked down at her lovingly and secretly pressed a kiss on her forehead.

It was midnight already, a new day had arrived. Something inside of Hyunjin was burning, anger had taken place after sadness and suddenly he was speeding his way through the palace halls to the kitchen, where Eunhee still was seated. She was happy to see him and shot him a smile, but he had an angered expression on his face, which scared Eunhee a little.

“Did you tell Y/n that we are a thing?” Hyunjin growled lowly, Eunhee was looking at him innocently and was slowly sliding the black paper under her hand away from Hyunjin’s vision, but he saw. “What’s that?” He asked, demanded almost. “N-nothing.” She stuttered, trying to hide it behind her back, but Hyunjin already connected the dots. “Eunhee, we’re friends. We’ve known each other for very long time. We grew up together, but that doesn’t mean we’ll grow old together. We never had romance going on between us two. And I warn you, I know what you are doing and what you’ve done, I could recognize your handwriting out of thousands. I should go to the king, but I’ll spare you for now since I do care about you as a friend.” Hyunjin threatened with a deep voice.

Eunhee shot up from her seat, dropping the black paper. “Hwang Hyunjin! You are a fucking scumbag! Why do you have to break my heart like this! You’re emotionless, aren’t you! You know how much I care about you, how I’ve always been there for you and then you dare to leave me shattered and broken! I thought that you would always be there for me, she’s changed you! I don’t even know who you are anymore!” She yelled, throwing whatever was close to her towards the knight. 

Hyunjin had enough of her tantrum and flew away, saying his goodbyes to her and feeling happy that this was now resolved. He didn’t bother to listen to her any further, he had spoken out his true feelings to her. And he hoped that she got the message.

When Hyunjin left the kitchen Eunhee fell to her knees and started to breath heavily in rage. That little bitch had ruined her plan, but she wasn’t going to let her get away with it, no way. She had plan B ready and steady to go into action.

The wedding came closer and the nearer it came, the more nervous Hyunjin became. He still felt conflicted as he turned back to his nice self towards Y/n. He was back by he side and he was still planning on staying there, even though the vile words of Eunhee spun in his head.

Right now Y/n was keeping him company as he was training. He had an old bag filled with dried leaves which he could punch during his training. There also was a wooden cut out figure that Hyunjin could use to practice his sword skills. It was a very dangerous weapon, especially for fairies since it still was made out of iron and silver. The grip was made out of old branches that had fallen down through the years. The fairies wouldn’t dare to touch the trees and potentially hurt it.

Hyunjin was panting tiredly as he paused with his sword in his hand. He wore a loose blouse and his top buttons were undone, exposing his chest, that was glistering with sweat, slightly. She couldn’t help but stare, especially when he would move in a certain way that gave her a glimpse of his abs.

“Nice pecks.” She teased, causing Hyunjin to swing his sword weirdly as he tried to cope with a flattering feeling. The way he panicked made her laugh. She tried not to stare him down too much, but how couldn’t she? He’s absolutely stunning.

But sooner enough her attention was turned to something completely different when a sudden crowd appeared to the open training area. Hyunjin heard yelling and fairies fussing behind him, when he turned around he immediately got into protection mode and stood broadly in front of Y/n to protect her.

“Hwang! You’ve been ruining my life for as long as I can remember! You steal the girl of my dreams from me and then you left her hurt! I am here to dual you for her hand and to show her who really should be her man!” A fairy, Hyunjin didn’t recognize, yelled out.

Hyunjin looked down to Y/n who was dazed and confused. The knight knew that he would do anything to have Y/n by his side and didn’t hesitate to fight for Y/n’s hand, even though she was getting married in less than a few weeks.

“Fine, we’ll duel then.” Hyunjin’s voice was low, but confident. The other knight was rather shaking in his boots. He got to his place and Hyunjin saw him quaking as he tried to reach for his sword. “Jinnie, I don’t even know who he is?” Y/n whispered loud enough for Hyunjin to hear. “To be honest, neither do I. But, I will do anything even if that means fighting for you.” A boost of energy rushed through Y/n’s body and she looked down to her hands to see that her colours was returning.

Her heart was flattered and her cheeks couldn’t hide the fact that he made her a mess. Hyunjin saw and shot her a wink. The scene attracted a lot of other fairies, they were either cheering or longing in silence for something exciting to happen for the first time in their fairy-lives. Eunhee also had come to the scene to see what the fuss was all about. She saw the drawn swords Hyunjin and the other knight, known as Seiji, second son of an unbound knight.

Apparently Seiji has been crushing on this fairy for a long time, but Hyunjin always seemed to be in his way. “You always think that you’re better than any other of us. You’ve been serving the king closely for years now! I think that it’s time one of us actually gets a chance to shine.” Seiji said with a smirk, other knights (in training) cheering behind him. “I thought you came here to fight for the hand of Y/n?” Hyunjin asked with a sight, knowing that Seiji was also here to make a dramatic scene.

“Hyunjin, you don’t have to do this, you know?” Y/n tells him as she grabbed his hand softly. “I do.” He simply said whilst looking at her. “But why?” “Simple, because I love you.”

Everyone around the pair gasped, including Y/n who couldn’t believe her pointy ears. Hyunjin shot her a smile, feeling the weight of burdens lifting off his shoulders. He squished her hand as a sign that it will be alright, before he turned to Seiji who was watching the two in confusion. “What, you came here to fight for her, didn’t you?” Hyunjin wondered. “No, this isn’t about her. I came here to fight for Eunhee. The love of my life who you have been keeping away from me for all these years! You selfish fucking bastard!” Seiji yelled in anger whilst pointing his sword to Hyunjin threateningly.

Eunhee, who had erased Hyunjin’s confession to Y/n rather quickly, was still hoping that Hyunjin was willing to fight for her, flattered that there were two fairies who were willing to fight each other for her. That he secretly couldn’t live without her and that he needed her as much as she needed him, that this was all a mistake and that he was going to leave that brat right there and then.

But her hopes were let down, when Hyunjin’s threw his sword below his feet. A sign of forsaking. Hyunjin had realised what was going on and he knew he hadn’t had to waste his time on a fight when it wasn’t about Y/n. He would give up his life for Y/n if he needed to, but this he was certain of that it wasn’t worth it. Seiji looked at Hyunjin, his eyes filled with horror. “You can have her.” Hyunjin coldly states, taking a few steps back as he was now standing next to Y/n to make his point clear. She stood up and looked at him in adoration yet surprise.

Seiji didn’t know what to do and Hyunjin took this as a chance to flee. He grabbed Y/n by the waist and pulled her along with him, to somewhere were they couldn’t find them. Eunhee was left furious and pushed herself through the crowd, she thought it was time to execute her revenge.

“What do we do now?” Y/n asked him as they were away from the crowd. “To be honest, I don’t know.” He admitted whilst chuckling.

Y/n turned to face Hyunjin and he looked down to her. Her hands had found their way up to his cheek and cupped it softly as she sighed. “Jinnie, I love you. I love you so much. I want to be with you so badly, I don’t want to marry Jisung. I can only imagine my life with you.” She whispered whilst caressing his features softly. “I don’t love him Jinnie, I could never love him the way I love you.” She added before she told him about the conversation she had with Jisung the other day.

-Flashback

“Y/n?” Jisung muttered as they sat under the moon together. “Yes?” “Do you love me?” He asked carefully. “I guess I do, but not in the way I probably should.” She admitted, shooting him a small smile as she looked at him. “In what way do you love me then?” He continued to ask. “I love you like a friend, as someone who’s dear to me, but who I am not attracted to romantically.”

“Is there somebody who you love-love then?” Jisung’s question made her giggle, but she nodded truthfully. “It’s Hyunjin. Isn’t it?” “It is, for you it’s that Flower fairy, right?” Jisung smiled brightly at the thought of her, but sighed when he knew as well as Y/n that they would be wedded soon.

“I found her at least.” “Did you tell her how you felt about her?” She asked her friend. “No, I hadn’t had the courage, besides. I think she hates me.” He sighs in frustration. “We’ll get through this Jisung, I promise.”

-Present

Y/n removed her hands from Hyunjin’s face and her face dropped as she remembered something. “If you love me too, why didn’t you confess the other day at the pond?” Y/n wondered. Hyunjin let out a deep breath and took Y/n’s hands in his warm ones. “I thought I didn’t stand a chance, you’re engaged after all. The law also doesn’t make it any easier for me to express my true feelings.” Hyunjin mutters. Y/n hands travelled back to Hyunjin’s face and rested themselves on his shoulder.

She wanted to kiss him badly, but a guard who suddenly appeared next to them, stopped her from doing so. “Your majesty, I had to come and inform you that Prince Jisung has been gotten sick and he has requested your visit.” He formally said before leaving again. Y/n looked up to Hyunjin with a worried look spread over her face.

They hurried their way to Jisung’s room who looked even worse than Y/n, who also still hadn’t regained her colour and strength. Jisung’s body felt heavy and he couldn’t move his limbs in his own bed. He managed to turn his head towards Y/n and Hyunjin who looked at him in shock. “What happened?” Y/n asked, sitting next to her fiancé. “S-she…” He started, but his crying was stopping him from being able to form a normal sentence. “I saw you fly passed us, please. Maybe we can help you.” Y/n tried, but Jisung shook his head.

“She has someone else.” Jisung cried out in pain, crying into Y/n’s shoulder who was in shock by his statement. “What do you mean she has someone else?” “I saw her, with that sun fairy.” He mutters sadly. “But you still love her, don’t you?” Jisung nodded and she brought him closer to her body. Hyunjin was standing behind her and watched her comfort her fiancé. The view hurt him, but now that he knew that she loved him, he felt at ease. Kind of.

“Jisung, I promise that I will do anything so that you and your fairy can be together. I’ll try anything to change this law for you.” She whispered to him, genuinely meaning her words. She turned around to Hyunjin who looked at her with a shocked expression. “I do it for you, for us.” She promised that day.

Y/n had come out of the library after doing hours of research. She was in deep thought when she came across Eunhee who glared at her and even dared to roll her eyes at the crown princess. “Eunhee, I’ve been noticing that you have been acting ill-mannered. Especially to royalty, like me.” Y/n commented sternly, finally snapping after all the shit she took from the staff who had began to treat her poorly. Eunhee, somehow being one of them.

“What about it?” Eunhee snarled, catching Y/n by surprise. “Listen, I take a lot of shit, but disrespect isn’t one of them. You either teach yourself some manners or I’ll get my people to teach you some.” Y/n threatened, causing Eunhee to roll her eyes again.

In the middle of the hallway to the throne hall, where dozens of guards were patrolling, Y/n noticed the unusual behaviour of them. They didn’t spare her a glance and they didn’t interfere. Y/n also noticed the unusual cloth Eunhee was wearing. Her work clothes were replaced by a dark black coat that was draped over her shoulders.

“You really think you’re something else, don’t you Y/n. Thinking you can get everything you want, whenever you want. Let met tell you what, something that no one else dares to tell you, only because you wear fancy clothes, wear a crown and have people do the dirty work for you.” Eunhee started as she moved closer to Y/n.

“You’re nothing more than an useless spoiled brat, who doesn’t deserve to live the way she does.” There was a wicked smile plastered on Eunhee’s face that concerned Y/n quite. “Who are you to decided what I deserve and what not?” Y/n snapped back. “You think you can get anything you want, anyone you want without someone else caring. Well let me tell you something else, your majesty. I am hurt. And I want you to pay for it.” Eunhee moved her arm from behind her back and revealed a glass bottle that looked all too familiar to Y/n. “Eunhee what are you doing? Where did you get the poison from?” Y/n shrieked as she tried to move backwards.

“None of your business Y/n, the only think you need to know is that your happily ever after ends here, right now.” Eunhee ripped the cork off and threw it to the side. “What have I ever done to you? I barely speak to you!” Y/n cried out in panic, looking at the guards who didn’t dare somehow to look her in the eye. Completely ignoring the fact that she could die right there and then.

“You-“ “Eunhee stop!” The fiendish fairy was cut off by a male voice coming from behind her. “Speaking of the devil.” Eunhee mutters, she rolled her eyes when she saw Hyunjin guarding up in front of Y/n who was feeling helpless and unenergized.

“This, is what I was talking about.” Eunhee began again. “You think you can get everything you want Y/n.” “Eunhee stop.” Hyunjin demanded, but she kept going. “You stole him from me!” “Eunhee enough!” Hyunjin yelled. “You belong to me! You are mine! You are only mine! If I can’t have you then neither can she!” Eunhee cried out hysterically.

“Eunhee, I’ve warned you! I gave you a chance to stop this, so you wouldn’t had to rot in a dungeon. Please just stop this.” Hyunjin begged. “I rather die, knowing that I ruined that miserable bitch’s life, than seeing you two happy together, knowing that it should’ve been me.” Eunhee gritted through her teeth.

“Hyunjin, what do you mean you warned her?” Y/n’s eyes widened when she realised what he had said. 

Hyunjin who now turned around to focus on her couldn’t find the words to tell her that he knew it was Eunhee who harassed her all these months through those black notes.

“Didn’t he tell you dear? Your beloved Hyunjin actually knew all along that it was me, who wrote you those letters.” Y/n looked from Eunhee to Hyunjin with an expression of horrify. “Hyunjin, you and I both know that we would be better of together. Just do it, be with me. I’ll promise you that I’ll leave your beloved princess alone.” Eunhee tried. “Hyunjin no-“ “Hyunjin, do I also have to remind you of all the awful things you’ve said about Y/n?” Eunhee grinned, making the knight panic as he turned to Y/n.

“Don’t listen to her-“

“Y/n, did you know that he hated you to the core of his being? He didn’t wanted to do anything with you, he felt cursed that he even got to know you in the first place. He even told me that he thought of you as a spoiled brat, who doesn’t know any mannerism, is a bitch and doesn’t care about anyone else but herself.” Eunhee stated as a matter of fact.

“What?” Y/n exclaimed, she could feel her colour face from her body and she felt the floor touch her feet again. “Please let me explain.” Hyunjin cried out. “What is there to explain Hyunjin? You’ve always hated her! Loathe even!” Eunhee laughed wickedly.

“N-no…” Y/n stuttered, the words that escaped past Eunhee’s lips had a clear effect on her and Hyunjin didn’t know what to do. “He probably never even loved you Y/n. His feelings for you are based on hatred, judgement and vexation.” Y/n was crying by now, knowing that Hyunjin hated her from the very start, but she never knew that he hated her that badly.

She looked at him desperately and when he didn’t say anything and I mean anything to defend himself, to prove himself wrong. Y/n knew that Eunhee had a sense of truth in her words. 

“I thought we were going to fight for us. We even promised Jisung.” Y/n whimpered as she cried.

“So, you two think you can fight your way to your gratification.” Eunhee chuckled, the bottle still in her hand and she was not afraid to use it. “Eunhee, why are you doing all of this?” Hyunjin cried out, knowing that if he attacked that it would cost Y/n’s life.

“You should’ve stayed with me Jinnie, everything would’ve been perfect. Nobody would’ve gotten hurt.” Her eye twitched and she got back in position to swing the bottle to one of their heads. “Doesn’t matter who dies, the other would die from suffering sadness anyway, killing two two flies in one hit.” Eunhee mutters.

Hyunjin was ready to draw his sword, but before he knew it. Eunhee had surprised him by throwing the bottle and Hyunjin had just enough time to pull himself and Y/n out of the way. The bottle shattered as it missed and Eunhee growled in anger. Her eyes were filled with anger and it was clear that she wasn’t thinking straight.

Now that she was without a bottle Hyunjin decided to draw his sword quickly and swung it to his once-best-friend. Y/n couldn’t scream out for help and had to lay helplessly on the ground, hoping that the universe would send another saviour to her to get this situation over with.

Hyunjin had swung the iron-silver sword, but didn’t notice the flashing dagger Eunhee took out of her coat. Her reflexes were quick and she dodged Hyunjin’s sword. She turned and sliced Hyunjin’s chest with the sharp blade, only to place her own hand on his chest. He looked down to her hand that was touching his bloody wound and noticed a substance on Eunhee’s hand, he knew that it was poison and before he new it, he fell to his knees.

He clutched his chest and groaned in terrible pain. Eunhee could only smile and leaned down to get on his eye level. Her hand was placed under his chin, making him look up so they were eye to eye. “Such a shame.” She sighed, pushing him over before focussing on her other victim. She was about to poison Y/n as well, thinking of what to say as she would steal the last breath of the princess and the knight, whose forbidden love would’ve been punished, but Y/n saw Eunhee’s breath hitch and soon she was on the ground screaming in pain.

Y/n noticed a cut in her leg and blood on Hyunjin’s sword. Eunhee’s skin was burning, confirming to Y/n and Hyunjin that Eunhee had turned into a dark fairy, with the silver having such an effect on her.

Hyunjin looked down and felt pity for his old friend, but he did what he had to do. He quickly removed the dagger from her hand and pinned her poisonous hand under the weight of his feet. The knight would call for actual back up right there and see Eunhee being dragged away as she threw a fit in fury.

Hyunjin turned around to see Y/n nowhere in sight. He was about to panic, but one of the actual guards informed him that the princess was quickly taken away from the scene. Now, Hyunjin was on the search through the entire palace to find her. It was night and he was worried sick. Almost literally, since he knew that he had to get his chest treated, but not before he had found Y/n.

He finally found her at the pond where they had talked and cried before after she heartbrokenly confessed her love to him. He hurried to her and almost tackled her body in an embrace as he let his tears fall down onto her shoulder.

The young knight felt his own heart break when he was pushed away from her by her weak hands. “Please look at me.” Hyunjin cried softly. “How can I look at you when you’ve said all those things about me. I knew you hated me, but I never thought that you felt this way towards me.” She laughed out of disbelief. “Please believe me Y/n, it’s been so long since I’ve felt hatred towards you. You have to believe me.”

“How can I believe you, when I still feel like I’ve been played with. Even if you started to show interest in me, how am I supposed to know that you wouldn’t turn your back on me if you have ever felt such strong hatred towards me?” Her eyes were full of tears and Hyunjin wanted nothing more than to turn back time and take back everything vile he’s ever said about her, just to make her stop crying because of him.

He was about to cup her cheek, but she pushed his hands away again. “I would like some space, please go.” She whispered. “Don’t give me space that’s the last thing I want with you.” Hyunjin whispered. “Well, apparently you didn’t even wanted me to be around, so what’s the point now?” Y/n snapped, tears streaming heavily down her cheeks. “Yes, I took the job, because I was ordered to do so, but I want to be with you.” Hyunjin states seriously. “You’re just saying that because you have to protect me.” She muttered.

Hyunjin’s heart was racing and hurt at the same time, he cupped her face and gathered all his courage together and connected her lips to his. She was taken back by his action, but relaxed into his touch. His lips were soft and warm and moved in sync with her cold ones. He held her tightly to his body, but made sure none of the poison was touching her skin directly.

“I love you Y/n, I love you so fucking much. My heart hurt, that’s how much I love you.” The words touched Y/n, but she gasped when she realised that he was in need of medical care.

What they didn’t know, was that Jisung had witnessed the entire scene. The palace was chaotic due to the turmoil. He was very weak still, but he wanted to get out of the mess and clear his own mind. Somehow, he found his way to the pond and found the two lovers. The prince felt delighted at the scene, hoping that one day he could be happy as well.

He looked behind him and saw that his wings were still unable to spread open, but somehow he felt a little bit of hope that it would all be alright in the end of the day.

After Y/n and Hyunjin had visited Seungmin, the best healing fairy of the reign, they sat under the stars together. Hyunjin had a bandage wrapped around his torso, glad that he would be alright, but he had a long time to heal fully. “Look a falling star!” Y/n exclaimed before clasping her hands together and shutting her eyes. “What did you wish for?” Y/n asked Hyunjin. “You know what I wished for.” Hyunjin winked before kissing the top of her head.

Later that night, it was a long day, Y/n was now in front of her father who obviously was stressed out by the sudden chaos that had outburst in the palace. “That little traitor has stolen money from the palace and bribed the guards! How sick do you have to be to do something like that!” He yelled out, not even noticing Y/n flinch by the loud noise.

“Apparently she also has taught herself black magic and turned herself due to that into a dark fairy. I don’t know where she’s gotten the knowledge, but I am certain that our library doesn’t exist out of those kinds of books.” He stressed.

“Dad can we talk?” Y/n managed to say in a weak voice. A portion of her energy and colour had returned, which was a good sign, but Y/n was still mentally unstable which was the reason of why she couldn’t regain all her powers yet.

Her father didn’t spare her a glance, making her frustrated. She shoved the papers he was working on off the table and slammed her hands on the desk with her the few power she only had just regained. He looked up to her in shock, yet in anger.

“I don’t want to marry Jisung.” Y/n states, causing the king to sigh. “We’re not talking about this again and most certainly not right now.” The king mumbles before trying to pick his work back up. “Dad, this is important!” “No, you are marrying Jisung if you like it or not, you will have to take over the crown sooner or later!” “I can rule a kingdom by myself! I can handle being a queen on my own and you know that. Dad please can’t we just talk about this, it’s very important.” Y/n sighed. “And so is the act of betrayal against the royal family! Y/n this can wait- we’re done talking, leave my office.”

Y/n huffed and groaned in frustration before she walked out the door, her footsteps finally catching her father’s attention. He got a glimpse of her grey figure, causing his heart to drop in a pool of worrisome. But it was already too late for him to call her back as she had slammed the door on him.

Days went by and you could count down the days to the wedding on your fingers. Hyunjin was still in recovery and the kingdom was shaken up by the alarm of a dark fairy among them. The story went around like a wildfire and it terrified every fey to the bone to think about the fact that someone had turned psychotic, due to a heartbreak.

The story of Hyunjin and Y/n also went around and people seemed to love the fact that they fell in love. They had spotted the two together and the citizen could see the love between them.

But the two never had a chance to see each other after the atrocity happened. Y/n was busy banning the guards and knights who had accepted bribe money and basically betrayed their loyalty to the crown. Y/n felt horrible for doing it, knowing that they probably made the choice to live in more wealth, but it was the right thing to do so.

Hyunjin was still healing and ordered to stay in bed. He was bored out of his mind and he missed being next to Y/n. She would talk to the wall that divided their bedrooms so they could still secretly talk to each other. More guards had been assigned to protect Y/n, her parents were very anxious that there would be someone else who was out there to get her.

The young knight with the bandage around his torso was horrified at first when he heard that other knights were assigned to protect Y/n. He felt like he was being replaced, but he was assured that when he was back to his old self that he could get back into his position.

But what he didn’t know, his assignment to Y/n wasn’t assured and he found that out when he was suddenly called to the throne hall. He saw Y/n sitting beside her parents and Eunhee to her side who was chained and held by guards. “Dad, what is Hyunjin doing here?” “I was informed that he was involved on the plan to assassinate you.” “What!” Y/n yelled out. “Y/n no, you know that’s not true!” Hyunjin cried out in panic. “Your majesty, what I’ve told you is true.” Eunhee dares to say.

“Dad are you seriously going to believe the dark fairy over your own loyal knight?” Y/n stressed. Her father thought for a second and decided to enounce Eunhee’s punishment first.

“You shall be banned from this kingdom and this realm. Your powers shall be taken and you will be send off to the Forest of the Lost.” The king said before she was taken away again. Y/n this time didn’t spare Eunhee a glance who could only glare at her and Hyunjin.

When she was completely escorted away, Hyunjin was now left in front of the Royals for his judgment. He was terrified and look at Y/n for help.

‘Did she secretly turn her back on you- no don’t even dare to think such things.’ Hyunjin thought to himself as he gulped loudly.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself Hwang?” The king scowled. “I-I, no? Please your majesty, you have to believe me I haven’t done anything wrong.” Hyunjin exclaimed. “You haven’t? I’ve heard that you’ve spoken vilely about our crown princess.” “No, dad please. We were kids back then.” Y/n tried to defend Hyunjin, but her father wouldn’t listen. “I shall now enounce your punishment-“ “Dad for fuck’s sake! He saved my life! He got himself poisoned to protect me!” Y/n yelled out as she stood up and was about to walk to Hyunjin, but her body had given up on her and almost dropped her onto the floor, if Hyunjin’s reflexes weren’t so sharp. He sprinted forward and caught her in his arms, making him hiss as she fell on top of his chest.

“Are you okay?” He whispered softly, checking her fact that he held in his hands. She nodded before they got back up. She straightened her dress and her next action, that was bold and surprising, made her parents’ eyes widen, Hyunjin’s as well. She stood in front of him, as if she was now guarding him, like he did days before from Eunhee, but she held his hand on her back.

“I do not want to marry Jisung.” Y/n states slowly, causing her father to groan in anger. “I am not discussing this right now-“ “I do not want to marry Jisung.” Y/n repeated in a steady voice. “Y/n-“ “Honey, let her talk. Love, why don’t you want to marry prince Jisung? Isn’t he a lovely guy?” Her mother interrupted as she looked at her daughter in curiosity. “He’s great mom, but I don’t love him. I fell in love with someone else.” She confessed to her parents’ shock.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that commoner?” The king huffed. Y/n looked behind her and made eye contact with Hyunjin as she shot him a small smile. He could feel him pull him to her side so that they now were openly holding hands together, it being visible for the king and queen to see.

This was Y/n’s way to tell them with little words that Hyunjin was the one who she was deeply in love with.

The king stood up in shock and threw his hands up in frustration. “He has betrayed his loyalty to us, Y/n.” He stressed, even though he knew how much potential Hyunjin held.  “No he didn’t-“ Y/n argued, but Hyunjin cut her off. “No, your father is right. I should’ve informed them about Eunhee’s situation. It could’ve prevented this whole mess.” Hyunjin muttered.

“No it wouldn’t change a thing! Even if you told my parents, you wouldn’t had actual prove that she was up to something. Yes, the notes were one thing and the handwriting as well, but that could be mimicked easily and she could’ve actually brought you down and make your life miserable if you would’ve done that. I’d have to miss you because my father had banned you.” She said as she caressed his cheek.

“Besides,” she turned to her father, “he gave her a warning, knowing what she was like in the past. He believed that there was still something good in her and gave her a chance, which is something that you could see in the craftmanship of a king if you ask me.” Y/n said with a slight smirk. She knew she was getting to her parents.

“You’re making my job difficult my dear.” The king sighed whilst shaking his head. “He saved my life dad.” Y/n reminded him with a soft sigh.

The king plopped back onto his throne and let out a deep breath as well. “Y/n, my dear, do you know why there is a law made specifically for mixed ranked couples?” The queen asked, making Y/n shake her head ‘no’. “A long time ago, far before your father and I ruled this kingdom, there wasn’t a law that restrained fairies from different ranks to be together. One day, two fairies came together, both had different powers and used their magic together for the wrong use. Just like Eunhee did last week.” The queen noted.

“Eunhee may not have been born with given powers and maybe that was the reason why she began to study black magic, but it was one of the reasons why the kingdoms had decided to ban mixed rank relationships. If the fairies stayed with their own kind, their powers could be controlled easier. And misunderstandings or dilemmas wouldn’t be in our way.”

“But, if I understand this clearly, besides Eunhee’s action from last week, this has been decades ago?” Y/n asked. “Maybe even centuries.” Her mother said with amusement in her voice and a smile on her face. And Y/n knew that she had won her mother over. The two ladies turned to the king who started to pout. “You two do this every time! Stop putting me in such difficult situations! You know what the kid did wrong.” He states, feeling like he’s been set up. 

“And you know also how well Hyunjin has been working.” The queen acknowledged. She got up from her throne and flew down to the young lovers. “I have noticed that you’ve changed the way you’ve been working Hyunjin.” She began, making Hyunjin tremble in fear. “Y-you have, your majesty?” “I did. And I liked what I saw.” She assured.

“I saw that you took your job more serious then ever, even though you disagreed on executing the job. You have made our one and only daughter very happy through the time you spend together. New friendships or relationships in general can be difficult, so I understand that the two of you started of roughly. I will be honest, your father and I couldn’t stand each other.” The queen laughed whilst looking at her daughter.

“We were also stuck in an arranged marriage, but we were blessed by the universe by falling in love. You, my dear, unfortunately had to fight for it. Almost literally.” The queen caressed her daughter’s face lovingly before she turned to her husband. “Dear, I think it’s time that some things have to change around here.” A smile appeared on the queen’s face when she heard her daughter gasp and softly squealed.

“But what if another dark fairy shows up?” “Then we and the new future king and queen will make a plan to keep everyone as happy as possible and safe. So no one even has to think about turning evil.” The queen suggested.

Y/n looked at her parents in shock, still holding onto Hyunjin’s hand. She couldn’t believe that her mother supported her, but now she was looking hopeful at her dad, not knowing what he was going to say. “I know you’re a good kid Hyunjin, but you have to understand that as a father, I am extra careful with my one and only daughter.” “I-I understand your majesty, I promise you that I will not take your trust for granted, again.” Hyunjin promised as he bowed deeply.

“Then that’s settled. It is indeed time again to trust out citizen and change the old ways.” “Does that mean?” Y/n asked hopefully, not daring to finish her sentence, scared that it would jinx their last hope. “Yes, my dear. You won’t have to marry Jisung anymore.” Y/n smiled brightly and a boost of energy rushed through her body.

Her parents and Hyunjin saw the colour returning to her body and her wings powerfully yet elegantly broke open and stood up mighty. The floor wasn’t connected to Y/n’s feet anymore and she felt great to have her strength back. She felt happy and could kiss Hyunjin’s face right there and then and as if Hyunjin could read her mind. He had brought her into an embrace and cupped her face, slowly leaning in as he was stuck in the moment.

Y/n panicked, remembering her parents who were right there, she moved away from him with widened eyes. “They’re still there.” She whispered, causing him to turn red in embarrassment as well.

“Hyunjin dear, thank you for coming, but right now we would like to speak to Y/n alone for a second.” “Yes, your majesty.” He said to her mother. “I’ll wait outside the doors.” He whispered to her before he made his way out.

Y/n turned to her parents and looked at them with her head cocked to her side and before she knew it, she was embraced by both of her parents. “That kid has quite the influence on you.” The king jokes as he admired the beautiful wings of his daughter that he hasn’t seen in the air for ages. “H-he does.” Y/n giggled shyly.

“Can the law actually be changed that easily and quickly?” Y/n asked her parents. “Well, yes. And since we don’t think that the citizen would have a problem with this change, we have faith that this can work out. Besides, you and Hyunjin has shown us that it indeed is possible.” “Just wait until you see Jisung with his flower fairy.” Y/n chuckled. “Who?” The queen asked in confusion. “You’ll see.” Y/n laughed, happy that she could keep her promise to her friend.

“We are sorry dear. Both of you had found your own path to love and we made it difficult on you two. We are truly sorry.” Her mother said as she hugged her daughter once more. “I understand mom, they’re royal duties after all.” Y/n responded wisely, making her father feel pride. “You almost sound like an old wise king. You sure will be a great queen one day Y/n.” “Thank you, dad. That means a lot to me.”

“If he breaks your heart, we can always ban him, you know.” The king joked, causing her and the queen to laugh. “I don’t think you will even have to think about that.” Y/n said sighing in relief that this was now finally over.

“Now go to him, you two had a rough time behind you.” Y/n thanked her parents once more before she sped to the door and swung it open. Hyunjin was surprised by the sound and looked up from his feet. He was taken by surprise when she launched herself into his arms, but he didn’t care and instead he instinctively twirled her around.

Her hands had found their way to his hair and her lips were sooner enough connected to his. The kiss was soft but passionate and both fairies could feel the deep love they had for each other through the kiss. He had lifted her up in the fair, making her giggle as she felt his tight grip around her waist. She pressed kisses all over his face causing him to giggle before he put her down. He knew that it was happening and he felt like his heart could burst of happiness when he realised that he wouldn’t have to spent his life in pain. Wondering what it would’ve been like to marry Y/n and start a family and life with her. Right now, he was the only was who she had in her heart and since the wedding of her and Jisung’s was off the map, he had her hall to himself.

They both gasped to themselves when they remember Jisung and hurried to his room. They were shocked to see him so beaten up and still heartbroken. Jisung broke down in tears when he was face to face with Y/n, he felt like he could die any second of his broken heart. Y/n sat down next to her friend and gently grabbed his hand. “We did it Sung, the law will be changed.” Jisung looked up to her with widened eyes and started to cry out in happiness.

“But that means that she can be with her sun fairy.” He muttered, still sad and heartbroken.  “No, you’re going to find her and fight for her. It’s the least you can do. Even if she has someone else, tell her that you love her.” Y/n encourages.

Jisung took a deep breath before he managed to sit himself up. He stared into the distance as he whispered to himself: “if this turns out well, I might have to fight my own parents for this, let alone my own brother. Who will probably not hesitate to kill me, but I would do anything for her, even if it costs me my last breath.”

Before Y/n and Hyunjin realise it, Jisung had jumped onto his feet and rushed his way out of the palace, on the search to find his beloved fairy, but what the two didn’t realise at that moment was that Jisung still wasn’t fully recovered.

But he was gone already, love blinding him and hope making him forget about the pain.

It was only a few days before the wedding day, that was originally meant for Jisung and Y/n, but it still wasn’t officially called off. Which worried Y/n a little. She trusted her parents, knowing that they got this all under control, but something inside her couldn’t help but think about a possibility that they could’ve changed their minds about changing the law and forcing her into a marriage anyway.

But they never did.

Today, it was judgement day for Eunhee. Her powers would be taken away and she would only be left with the skill of walking and basically would be living as a human in fairy format. Eunhee was brought into the throne hall and she looked rough. Her hair was all over the place, her skin was dirty and her eyes weren’t set right.

Eunhee looked up from her spot and was face to face with the Royal family and Hyunjin, who was standing next to Y/n. Eunhee could see the hand that Hyunjin had placed on Y/n’s shoulder and she knew exactly what was going on. They were together and she knew that she had lost.

The procedure was harsh and the king and queen didn’t hesitate to show any mercy on her. She betrayed the kingdom after all and brought lives in danger. Eunhee had tried during the procedure to drag Hyunjin with her once again, but Y/n held his hand as a sign of assurance that it would be alright. He couldn’t look at his old friend who was being punished right in front of him, but she deserved it.

Hyunjin had found out that it was Eunhee who was the cause of him going on a ‘mission’ into the Forest of the Lost and almost got killed, turned out she was cooperating with humans to get everyone killed. Eunhee had confessed that she indeed did it. “If I couldn’t have you, then no one could.” She had said, not feeling any sense of regret.

After it all was over and Eunhee was brought to the deep parts of the forest, they all sighed in relieve. It was now finally over. The bribed guards were gone and replaced by new ones, Seiji being one of them. When he found out how twisted Eunhee actually was , he lost feelings very fast. He had apologised to Hyunjin and so did the other knights he once had trained with. They now all had a position higher up and couldn’t be happier. The way it happened may not have been ideal, but they were happy in the end.

Speaking of happy, the king and queen were tired of the gloominess that hung around the palace and they offered to go outside and clear their mind for a while. Hyunjin and Y/n agreed before they followed them outside.

The four of them had arrived at the pond where Y/n and Hyunjin had met each other numerous times. Y/n was taken back when Hyunjin suddenly took her hands in his and made her look up to him. “Y/n, my love. We’ve known each other for a long time and we started off at the wrong foot. Through these months I have fallen in love with you, deeply and hard.” Hyunjin chuckled. “I have come to the realisation that I can’t live without you and that I can’t imagine any other fairy but you in my future, so…” Hyunjin had let go of Y/n’s hand and grabbed something out of his pocket that made Y/n’s eyes almost fall out of her sockets.

A small box was revealed and Y/n had started to cry, she looked back to her parents who were standing with bright smiles as Hyunjin was no on one knee in front of her. He held the box up to he and popped the question: “Y/n, will you do me the honours of making me the happiest fairy in the world and marry me?” He asked, his voice trembling due to his nerves.

“Isn’t this too fast?” Y/n stressed as she kneeled down in front of the love of her life, making Hyunjin chuckle as he knew that she was overthinking. “Well, I’ve risked my life for you twice, so I don’t think we’re moving too fast.” He reminded her, causing her to look down and smile in embarrassment.

“Yes.” “What?” Hyunjin exclaimed with his eyes widened. “Yes! Yes! I want to marry you! Yes!” She squealed as she tackled him in a tight hug and pressed kisses all over his face, but most importantly on his plump lips. “Well, now you got to find yourself a beautiful dress for the wedding this Sunday.” Her mother squeaked happily. “Wait, is this why the wedding day wasn’t called off?” She exclaimed whilst looking at her parents. “Hyunjin requested it himself and we were happy to help. Besides, it would’ve been a waste for all the hard work to go in vain. You two love each other already, why not put a seal on it?” The king smiled.

And so the wedding day finally arrived. And it was the wedding Y/n always had dreamt of, Hyunjin’s as well. They had found their own way to love even though the path was rough. They knew they were meant for each other and the pair couldn’t wait to say their ‘I dos’.

Y/n had asked Jisung’s now-girlfriend to be her bridesmaid, since she didn’t had any other friends besides the three boys. His girlfriend was stunned at the kindness and she wasn’t surprised that Jisung was forced to marry her, she felt a little insecure, not knowing how she had to stand a chance against the future queen.

But Y/n assured her that she was perfect for him. “He’s told me a lot about you and not a single one was a bad thing.” Y/n smiled before shooting a wink to the shy fairy.

Thus, the wedding began. The officiant made his way down the aisle first, the queen soon following her. The wedding could be seen by the entire kingdom by one of the inventions Jeongin had brought into the realm, something called a ‘livestream’. The fey people were stunned by the new technology and at how fast and smartly the young fairy had adapted it into their ways of living.

Therefore, with a little magical help, the entire kingdom was in shock, to see Hyunjin flow down the aisle as it was time for the groom to make an appearance. Soon after the groomsmen flew behind him, who existed out of Jeongin and Jisung, leaving the entire kingdom holding onto their breaths. After Jisung’s girlfriend, the flower fairy who Y/n thanked a thousand times for the beautiful decoration, made her way down, it was now finally the time for Y/n to fly down the aisle with her father linked in her arm.

She was nervous but certain about this. She had never felt such strong love towards anyone else before and she trusted her life with Hyunjin. The fey people were in awe when they saw their princess in her white gown flow down the aisle. Her skin was glowing and there were sparkles visible in her eyes.

Hyunjin couldn’t help but cry as he looked at his beautiful bride. When she stood in front of him, he couldn’t help but squeal at little at how beautiful she was, causing everyone around them to laugh.

The ceremony went by rather fast, but before they were to say their ‘I dos’ they turned to the citizen who were seeing the wedding. “As you can tell, we are from different ranks. Some grew up with Hyunjin and saw how great of a knight he has become. Some grew up and saw me become the princess I am today. And as the only princess in this royal family, it is mandatory that I shall take over the throne soon. Now that I almost am married and you all soon can expect a crowning ceremony, I shall execute my first act as soon-to-be-queen.” Y/n started, leaving the crowd in suspense. 

“From this day forward, the law of mixed ranks relationships will be changed. We have chosen to trust out citizen. We shall speak further about the changes later, but that will take place after the wedding.” Y/n announced before she focused her attention to her almost-husband. The citizen were already cheering and they hadn’t even said their ‘I dos’ yet.

But when they did and shared their first kiss as a married couple, they could feel the joyful energy coming from the cheering citizen. Y/n had her arms wrapped around Hyunjin’s next, as he pulled her closer with his hands that rested on her waist.

They smiled into the kiss, before Hyunjin took her by the hand and ran down the aisle with her.

A celebration was going on through the entire kingdom, fairies were happy that they could be together with who they longed to. It had also been announced that prince Jisung had given up his title and put down his royal duties to become a citizen in the Yellow Wood Kingdom, so that he could be together with the fairy of his dreams.

The citizen welcomed him with open arms and were happy to have him as their new neighbour. The kingdom loved him after all, he had left a great expression with them and was known for his kind and charming manners.

But Y/n and Hyunjin were the favourite couple and a couple months later their greatest king and queen. Hyunjin had a lot to learn, but with Y/n on his side he new he could conquer anything. To him, she was the ultimate queen. She carried the hardships of the fey people so they didn’t had to. That’s what made her a true queen. She was ready to sacrifices her own happiness, her own happy ever after, so her kingdom could live in peace.

But man, was she happy things turned out this way.

She was now standing with her husband on the balcony, looking out on the lands that belonged to them. She rested her head on his chest as he embraced her from behind. The new queen knew she did it, she did it for him, so they could spend their lives filled with love and happiness. She did it for them, looking out to the village that was energised by the fairies who still celebrated the change of the law after months.

Y/n was now at peace and couldn’t feel happier. She’s got everything she needed and couldn’t and didn’t had wish for anything else. Hyunjin agreed with his wife and pressed a sweet kiss on top of her head, knowing that things worked out for them perfectly. 

And so, they lived happily ever after. 

The end.

Gif doesn’t belong to me.

Copyright © 2020 Mrs-I-Have-Too-Many-Biases All rights reserved

[dcbbw]

Drake. Singing "Jolene" in the shower. Please please pretty please. xoxoxo

Hahahahahahahahahaahahaha, BURNS!!!! Hopefully I delivered what you were looking for.

To provide context/background to whomever reads this, @burnsoslow and I have random late-night convos that cover a whole range of topics. The other night, we were discussing Drake Walker’s taste in music. I see him liking old-school country and 70s rock (think The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac). Then I got this image of Drake in the shower singing Dolly Parton’s Jolene, a song about a woman pleading with a temptress not to take her man.

Well, then the question became which Drake? The answer is below the cut.

Song lyrics are from Jolene and are the property of their respective owner(s). Forgive me, Dolly for taking liberties with some of your words, but Burnsy came up with the BEST name!

Thanks to my bears for pre-reading!

All characters belong to Pixelberry.

Answer has hints of lemon. 

Driam

Drake Walker was in the shower, his fingers working shampoo into his thick, brown hair. As suds bubbled over his scalp and transformed his mane into a white, soapy cap he sang.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene I'm begging of you please don't take my man Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Please don't take him just because you can

Your beauty is beyond compare With flaming locks of auburn hair With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green Your smile is like a breath of spring Your voice is soft like summer rain And I cannot compete with you Jolene

Liam joined him, the hot water pelting his body as Drake began the second verse. Liam’s heart twisted at Drake’s song choice. Coronation was mere hours away; Liam would be fully duty bound to Cordonia and her soon-to-be Queen before the night was over.

“You have no competition, love,” Liam murmured against Drake’s wet skin as he stepped behind his lover, his arms encircling his waist, hands splayed across Drake’s hips.

Drake stopped singing. “Hey, Li,” he said softly.

“This Jolene is not an apt description of Lady Riley. She sounds more like Duchess Olivia,” Liam frowned as his hand began stroking Drake’s length.

“Ha! Never made the connection, but I suppose you’re right.” Drake’s eyes closed in both bliss and hurt at his King’s touch.

“I swear on everything Drake, Lady Riley won’t come between us and what we have. It’s just a temporary situation.”

Drake stepped closer under the shower head, letting the water rinse the shampoo; rivulets of soapy water rand down his back, causing Liam to release his hold from Drake.

“Did you hear me, love?”

Drake nodded, not trusting himself to speak. If his lips parted now, he would tell Liam the truth and he had promised Riley she could be the one to tell Liam.

Liam’s choice would refuse his proposal. Because she had chosen Drake. And they were leaving for America in a week.

It broke Drake’s heart, but he and Liam would never be together they way they both wanted and deserved. Everyone was free to love the way they wanted to except the King. And Liam would never, could never give his country the attention it needed if Drake were in the picture.

Already, he was planning to divorce a Queen he hadn’t even married.

Drake would say his goodbyes to Liam after Riley broke the news. He wondered if he could ever say goodbye to Liam. The man was ingrained in his mind, his skin, his very soul.

He had to. It was for the best. It was for Cordonia.

Commoner’s Wife AU Drake

The Duchess of Valtoria blearily opened one eye, letting out a loud groan at the time. 9 am. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry from consuming too much alcohol and not enough food at the charity gala her Great House had hosted the night before. She had been too busy being the dutiful wife and gracious hostess.

She sipped whiskey with her husband, Drake, as they made their rounds; their smiles were wide, and their questions sincere as they networked with their fellow nobles. She drank wine with the ladies of court while the men smoked cigars. She had flitted from table to table during dinner, making sure everyone was full and happy, with a martini in her hand.

When she finally sat down to eat with her husband, the orchestra had begun to play, and the Duke and Duchess led everyone in the first dance.

The entire evening, her eyes constantly strayed to the King, who had escorted Duchess Olivia to the soiree. Riley’s eyes narrowed whenever Liam’s fingers touched Olivia’s. Her jaw clenched when she saw the King and Duchess dancing, his hands placed just above her buttocks and her slender, pale arms snaked around his neck.

Her husband saw it all.

Riley rolled onto her back, her head sinking into her pillow. She had already decided she wasn’t going to do anything other than hydrate and pop ibuprofen. Her phone buzzed; her hand reached out to grab it.

Liam:  Last night’s gala was magnificent, yet pales compared to the shining jewel that is you. The Crown’s contribution is forthcoming. I miss you.

Riley deleted the message and tossed her phone back onto the bedside table. Fuck you and Olivia.

She had just risen from the bed to use the bathroom when she heard the shower turn on. Drake. She decided she would kiss her husband good morning and plead hangover to get out of any plans he may have made for them for the day. What good was being a Duchess if one couldn’t take a day to rest and relax?

And sulk over one’s lover being lovey-dovey with someone else.

Riley entered the bathroom, hearing Drake singing. She raised an eyebrow. Two things Drake didn’t do: sing and dance. She listened to his voice, a deep bass, singing an old Dolly Parton tune. But the words were wrong.

She talks about you in her sleep And there's nothing I can do to keep From crying when she calls your name JoLiam

And I can easily understand How you could easily take my girl But you don't know what she means to me JoLiam

Riley’s hand covered her O-shaped mouth. Did Drake know?  The twisting in her stomach was not so much about being caught; she did have enough love for Drake to not want him to be hurt. It just wasn’t strong enough to overcome her need for Liam.

She hastily coughed to announce her presence; the singing stopped.

“Brooks?” Drake called out.

Riley stuck her head in the shower; the spray lightly peppered her skin. “Good morning,” she said softly.

Drake grinned. “Good morning.”

“Hey, how about waffles for breakfast? And that thick cut bacon you like?”

Drake looked at her in confused surprise. “Are you up for it? You had more than your share of liquor last night.”

Riley kissed Drake’s wet lips, slipping in a little bit of tongue. “You’re my husband! Of course I’m up for it. And anything else you may want to do today.”

Drake looked searchingly over his wife’s expression. “Are you sure?”

Riley nodded, a bright smile on her face. “Positive!”

Drake soaped his washcloth. “Brooks, are you happy? With me?”

Riley swallowed over the lump in her throat. “There’s no one I’d rather be with,” she lied.

She left the bathroom to cook breakfast before her husband saw the truth in her eyes.

Upstate AU Dramien

Heavy rain poured outside while Drake Walker and Damien Nazario lay in bed watching the Saved by the Bell reboot on one of their many streaming services. It was 10 am, but with no lights on their bedroom, the room was as dark as if it were still 6 am.

“Thank GOD we cleaned out the gutters last weekend,” Drake commented.

“Hmmmm”, Damien responded absently.

He wasn’t the house person. He liked the idea of home ownership: It represented adulthood and was a great investment, but the work it took to keep up the house and protect it from unnecessary problems? The tree pruning, gutter cleaning, keeping sewage lines clear? Drake took care of that or found folks who would.

“You know, it doesn’t get dark like this in the city when it rains,” Drake observed as they watched Lexi shy away from kissing Jaime because he really liked Aisha.

“The lights from all the stores and office buildings penetrate the cloud cover.” Damien shifted in the bed to pull more sheets over his body. His eyes were glued to the screen. “Why does it not surprise me that Zack Morris is an absentee father?”

“I wonder why Jessie is still hanging in there with her loser husband. He’s having an emotional affair with a character from his book!”

“And now said character is pregnant.”

Drake shook his head as he grabbed the remote to turn the television off. He glanced over at Damien. “Breakfast?”

Damien nodded. “I’ll cook if you wash the dishes.”

“I cleaned the gutters so we don’t have to worry about it raining on our heads. You cook and do dishes, and I’ll take care of dinner.”

“Deal”

Drake climbed out of bed. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”

“In our new manly bathroom?” Damien teased.

“It was PINK! ALL OVER! Like a teenage girl puked up everything Pinterest in there! Even the toilet was pink.”

“I like pink!” Damien argued.

“You like everything I don’t.” Drake gave Damien a quick kiss on his lips and padded into their master bath.

Alone in the bed, Damien stretched before getting up and making the bed. He then went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. The sounds of the shower and Drake’s singing greeted him.

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene I'm begging of you please don't take my man Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Please don't take him just because you can

You could have your choice of men But I could never love again He's the only one for me Jolene

“Why are you begging Jolene to leave me alone?” Damien teased as he stepped into the shower with his lover.

“Why aren’t you cooking breakfast? Drake countered.

“I missed you,” Damien replied as he grabbed his washcloth.

Drake looked at him knowingly. “You think I’m going to do the cooking as well as the home improvements.” He shook his head. “Not happening.”

“Jolene would happily do it.”

“I’m not Jolene. And she needs to stay 50 feet away from your ass.”

“I love it when you’re jealous.”

Drake grabbed Damien around his waist and pushed his back against wet tile. “How about some … dessert before breakfast?”

Damien kissed Drake deeply. “Always down for dessert.”

“But only if you’re making it with me,” Drake clarified.

“Jolene only cooks breakfast.”

DC AU Drake (Issa throwback)

It was the morning after Drake Walker had broken up with Riley Brooks inside of the Columbia Heights Target. He hadn’t slept a wink and was hoping a hot shower would soothe his red, burning eyes and relax him enough to get some type of rest.

Or wash away his guilt.

He stepped beneath the water, wishing there was someone he could talk to, but he didn’t even have an explanation for what had happened. He wanted to call Brooks and see how she was holding up; they had been friends too long for it to just end that way. But Drake had no idea what to say to make it better, and she was hurting enough.

As he shampooed his hair, a memory came to him.

Drake was in the shower, his hair filled with suds and his conditioner bottle in his hand, his mouth to it as if it were a microphone. He was belting out Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, and so caught up in the song he didn’t notice that Riley had slipped into the shower behind him.

She stood, her hands crossed over her chest as she giggled. Drake turned quickly, dropping the bottle; he grinned at her sheepishly. “You heard that, huh?”

“You’re missing the boobs and hair, but you kinda nailed it.”

“Ya think?” Drake picked up the conditioner.

“I didn’t peg you as a Dolly Parton fan.” Riley stepped in front of him to let the water wet her body.

“She is ICONIC, and we do not deserve her!” Drake began to shampoo his girlfriend’s hair. “Did you know rumor has it she wrote Jolene and I Will Always Love You on the same day?”

Riley squirted her rose and peony scented bodywash onto her washcloth. “Really? Homegirl was going through that day.”

“But she’s been married to her husband for over 50 years,” Drake pointed out.

Riley turned to face him. Her hands pressed against his shoulders. “Doesn’t mean they didn’t have problems.” Her eyes looked into Drake’s, the slightest hint of uncertainty in them. “We’re good, right?”

Drake looked at her, puzzled. “Why do you ask that?”

“I just don’t want to be hurt. Or killed.”

Drake pulled Riley closer. “You’ve been watching too many Lifetime movies.”

“Maybe.” Riley laid her head on his shoulder. “I just … “

“Shhhhhh,” Drake interrupted her. “You’re it, Brooks. We’re good. We’ll always be good.”

Drake wiped a soapy cloth over his torso. He shook his head, wondering what the hell he was going to do. Brooks deserved an apology, an explanation. But he had to find the words, because right now it was looking like he was thinking with his dick.

And Alyssa Devereaux was so much more.

Devereaux. She deserved the truth.

Drake had to find a lotta words.

Fuck!

Another Dolly Parton song popped into his head and in a cracked voice, he began to sing.

I had to have this talk with you My happiness depends on you And whatever you decide to do Jolene

Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene I'm begging of you please don't take my man Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene Please don't take him even though you can Jolene, Jolene

Tagging:  @sirbeepsalot @jared2612 @katedrakeohd @jovialyouthmusic @hopefulmoonobject @amomentofsinclairity @ao719 @burnsoslow @bbrandy2002 @janezillow @marietrinmimi @annekebbphotography @merridithsmiscellany-blog @queenjilian @texaskitten30 @glaimtruelovealways @indiacater @forthebrokenheartedthings @kingliam2019 @bebepac @zaffrenotes @liyanin @liamxs-world @choiceslife @ac27dj @the-soot-sprite @gnatbrain @sanchita012 @anotherbeingsworld @atha68 @hopelessromanticmonie @amandablink @cmestrella @iaminlovewithtrr @cinnamonspongecake @lifeaskim @starrystarrytrouble @liamandneca @liamrhysstalker2020 @alyssalauren @ladyangel70 @yourmajesty09 @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @twinkleallnight @umccall71

 #long post #dcbbw answers #Jolene ask #very slightly, lightly ns*w #drake walker

[laurore-stormwitch]

we will fight for you -  part one

Post KoS: a fight ensues between Nikolai and Zoya after weeks of tension. The one person I could see helping in this is of course our beloved Genya. Second part is how I imagine the interaction between Nikolai and Genya going down. Thinkin of adding a third part displaying Zoya and Nikolai confrontation. Please note this is my first fan-fiction ever (so yeah slightly terrified about this). And also English is not my first language, so every advice counts!! I'd really appreaciate every feedback you'd wanna give. KoS has a special place in my heart. I'm just hoping to ease the anxiety until RoW comes out!

It’s also posted in full in AO3: we will fight for you

 “Your Highness”

He was absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the table. The voice came from far away, meddling in the storm of thoughts that was plaguing his mind.

“Nikolai, is everything okay?”

The voice was sharper now, more urgent and the tone slightly higher. He blinked twice, realizing he was looking at Zoya, her eyes trained on the maps scattered on the table, her hands scribbling something on a piece of paper. Someone cleared their throat from his right. He shook his head and turned to the sound, finding Genya staring at him with a severe expression. She was the one who was trying to catch his attention.

“Yes Genya, I’m sorry. I guess these war meetings are getting to me. What were you saying?” He pinched his nose with two fingers, catching back his confident attire. He hoped the others would just believe he was exhausted. Which, to be fair, he was. But there was something else rendering his nights sleepless.  

“What are we going do with the Inferni stationed at the Fjerdan border?”

Genya asked, sorting through the coded letters they got from Ravkan spies. Nikolai’s eyes turned traitor again, slipping toward his general. She was standing straight at the other side of the room, her spine like steel, as silent as she had been for the past weeks since the Fold. Her look was focused, directed everywhere and to everyone but him.

It was driving him crazy.

They’ve been going on like this for weeks: the brilliant, smart, too-clever fox Nikolai Lantsov was clueless as to why she was acting in such an irritating way around him. Or what to do about this. It hadn’t been clear, at first, or maybe he was just too distracted to grasp the severity of the situation. Since they’ve been back from the Fold, she had been unusually nervous around him, snapping at every remark, staying away from him as if his touch was electrifying, avoiding the moments of peace they were used to sharing. Then she had begun to slowly put some distance between them: she had started finding excuses not to be alone with him too long; whenever he searched her out to have her opinion on something, she somehow slipped away. Or she would give him her thoughts, politely, without their usual banter or inside jokes, and then close him off. She wasn’t exactly ignoring him: it was as if they were just a King and his General, keeping their relationship affection-less and professional.  

He had the distinct sensation she was trying to sever the bond they shared, forget the intimacy they had. After a while he had started to feel her drifting away from him, growing more distant by the day, putting up the same walls she had before the Fold.

And she wasn’t looking at him. Not really looking at him.  Not once in the past two weeks.

He had tried everything. To provoke her, to catch her off guard, to get her stuck in meetings with him. Well, to be honest he had tried everything except talking to her. He had been steering away from a direct confrontation too. Was he afraid of what she might say? Of losing for good whatever they had found in the Fold, whatever spark of something he felt flickering between them? Or maybe finding out that the spark was all his doing? Her feelings were carefully hidden behind her armour, as usual. Was she running from them, distancing herself from him, or did they never exist in the first place? Maybe he was alone in this. The shadow of those feelings tormented his nights: loneliness, longing, despair at what he was losing. At the fact that he didn’t know how to stop this loss from happening. Realizing that maybe he wanted her, and maybe she didn’t, not in the same way. And that even if she did, there was a whole country standing in the way. Was the great Son of Ravka a coward? Too much was happening. He felt like he was losing his mind, his feelings screaming at him, tearing him up from the inside. The war, Ravka, the marriage, his duty, his wretched heart. He didn’t have a clue on how to face this. On how to face her.

And he missed her terribly. He was aching at not having her near on those long nights by the fire. He searched for her look, for a nod of her head, for the touch of her hand. He missed his general, the one who kept him marching, who steadied him, his strength and his friend. He also knew that those weren’t the only things he was missing: that the warmth in his heart and the crushing pain he felt whenever she was near was not at all the longing you felt for a friend.

He was angry. At himself, for what he was being forced to do, for running away from this. At her, for not giving him the chance to explain, for being so stubborn and ruthless in her behaviour.

“That’s a question for General Nazyalensky, if she’d be so nice to answer.”

His tone was sharper than he intended. His expression remained calm, unreadable, but the frustration in his voice was clear enough. He looked at her. She sat back on her chair, waving a hand lazily through her hair, taking her time. This was bound to kill him. How could she be so arrogant? She held her chin high, moving her eyes for a split second to him, and then to the windows and the sky beyond.

“You didn’t seem to agree with the course I suggested. So, I guess we’re stuck with your decision after all, Your Highness.”

She indulged while using his title, in a mocking tone. He knew they didn’t agree much on using so many Grisha spies on the border, and he knew she was frustrated too from being held behind the palace doors and not on the field with her soldiers. But they still needed to choose a course of action. He tried to maintain the grip on his emotions.

“You’re in charge of the Second Army soldiers. We need your opinion on this.”

“I gave you my opinion on this on the last meeting. I was under the impression you ignored it. Too busy trying to charm the princess into submission to actually discuss war’s strategies with you generals?”

That was a low blow. Especially considered the ruthlessness of her tone, sarcastic and gutting as a blade, and her eyes still refusing to meet his gaze. He knew she was just trying to test his patience: she had no problem holding a look while tearing someone down with her words, she never had a problem holding his look. She was purposely ignoring him, as if he was a commoner disturbing her quiet. Nikolai’s patience had been too strained, and the reference to Ehri was too much to take: it was not like he was too caught up on having fun to take care of his army. And it was not like charming Ehri was a task he took happily.  He coud’ve ignored her snarky remark. He would have done it, if the situation was different. But all the anger built up in the last weeks, all the pain and confusion slipped its leash and his temper was lost before he could assess how to properly react. He slammed his hands on the table, standing up straight, his hazel eyes darkening, lit up by fire.

“For Saints sake Zoya, look at me!”

There was a slight tremble in his voice, but he managed to keep it low, which was even more dangerous. The air in the room froze instantly. The fact that he also used her first name didn’t go unnoticed. Genya looked worried, shifting in her seat uncomfortably. Tamar and Tolya were avoiding his eyes, their heads awkwardly trained on the floor. David cleared his throat a little. Everyone seemed to sit back and drew away from the table, leaving a clear path from Zoya to Nikolai.

She took a deep breath in, getting up and turning to face him at last. She had the decency to appear startled for a couple of seconds, at least. It wasn’t common to see Nikolai lose his composure like this.

But of course, Zoya was Zoya after all: she kept a fiery look, not willing to give up her icy demeanour or to let any emotion through. Her eyes slitted silver for a moment, then they turned deep blue again, shining with rage at her prickled pride. A cold breeze made the table tremble. The room was crackling with electricity. Time seemed to slow down, everyone waiting for something to happen. Possibly for Zoya to strangle her King.

At least if she kills me, I’ll get a reaction from her, thought sourly Nikolai.

“What is it? You can’t decide on your own? Do you need me to coddle you?” Her words were meant to hurt him, and they found their mark. Nikolai felt his throat burning. He might have been already regretting his reaction, but he was not going to back up now. If this is the game she wanted to play, she surely had found a worthy contestant.

“Maybe I need a General who will listen and aide his King instead of disrespecting him. And who’s able to go through a war without her pride clouding her judgment.”

She lost her balance a little, struck at the words, taking a step back. Her voice when she spoke was slightly trembling too, now.

“I’ve done nothing but listen and aide my King. Nothing but be at your service. Maybe that’s where I was wrong.” He felt a wave of remorse and renewed anger. He wanted to hold her close to his heart and tell her everything was going to be okay. He wanted to hurt her like she hurt him. A new mask slipped on him.

“Do not make the mistake to think you can act like this and still be irreplaceable. I need soldiers, and if you’re not able to be one, you can walk through that door.”

He squared his shoulders, holding her gaze. His tone was cold, every word calculated and spoken like a ruler. That was Nikolai The King. That was someone he usually wasn’t around her, a persona he didn’t care to use with his friends. He heard the air crackle again around them, felt a freezing unforgiving wind rise against him. She had her fists clenched at her sides; utter shock written on her face. The dragon was clearly rumbling inside her, and for a second it looked like she was considering burning Nikolai alive. Even now, her deep blue gaze filled with rage, her silk black hair hovering around her, he managed to think of how insanely beautiful she was, and that he would have probably marched happily to his execution. The others had fallen silent, perfectly still, not knowing how to interfere with this. Genya leaned forward in a hesitant way, seemingly wanting to do or say something to release the tension. But she didn’t have the time to follow through: Zoya eventually hissed another breath in, unclenching her fists. The wind ceased to flow; she regained her posture, ruthless as ever. He didn’t really know what to expect: maybe her screaming at him, maybe being hit with a lightning. He didn’t expect the storm to stop; she cast him a pained look that tore his heart in two. Without saying so much as a word, she turned her back on him, leaving the room and slamming the door shut. He ran a hand through his hair, breathing deeply.

“The meeting is dismissed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He didn’t know how he managed to keep a steady voice. The anger was all gone, replaced by a searing pain in his chest, making it hard for him to breathe. He remembered Zoya stealing the air from her opponents’ lungs; maybe that’s how they felt. He watched as the others all silently got out, without daring to say anything. Genya turned to him with a weary expression, but eventually slipped away without speaking. He watched the door close behind them, with the heavy feeling that all the light in the world had been sucked out and he was left alone, in darkness.