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ellewritesalright · 10 months

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Nine Long Years - Part 6/?

Nikolai Lantsov x Rietveld!reader, Kaz Brekker x sister!Rietveld!reader (platonic)

Part 1 --- Part 2 --- Part 3 --- Part 4 --- Part 5 --- Part 7

Synopsis: After watching your brothers die, you found yourself working on the Volkvolny. In the many years since then, you somehow became the queen of Ravka while your brother somehow survived firepox and life in the Barrel, rising through its ranks. In disguise during a diplomatic trip with your husband Nikolai, you meet Kaz Brekker for what you think is the first time, only to find out that he is your long-thought-dead little brother.

Author's Note: Hi! It's been a while, huh :) ? Get ready to buckle up again cause this part is another 10k words of mess and destruction <3 Hope you're ready for it. Also this part picks up directly after the events of part 5 and then takes place over a few months, so I hope it makes sense to y'all

Warnings: heartbreak, mentions of death, angst with minimal fluff in this part, mentions of sickness, panic attacks, firepox, mentions of the Hertzoon con. and if i'm missing something pls lmk

Word Count: 10,020

……….

FIFTH YEAR

You had a bag packed and ready by dawn. All you had to do was find a horse, then you'd be headed far away from this camp and the people you'd devoted so much of yourself to. Even if it pained you to leave them, it would pain you more to stay; so you snuck out of Tolya and Tamar’s tent and into the camp. You quietly approached the stable area. Not everyone was awake yet, but a few soldiers were up and roaming already. Still, no one noticed you as you went along–or, you thought no one noticed. As soon as you laid hands on one of the horse's reins, a voice called out to you.

"Leaving so soon?"

You turned and saw Mal with his arms crossed.

"Wouldn't have anything to do with your captain and Alina's engagement, would it?" He asked.

"What's it to you?" You countered, dropping your hands to your sides.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you and him are involved. So if you leave, what's stopping him from wanting a real relationship with Alina?"

You rolled your eyes. "He can have a real relationship with whoever he wants, I don't give a shit."

"But I do." He pursed his lips and sighed. "I care about Alina, and this whole… situation with Sturmhond is stupid."

"Prince Nikolai, not Sturmhond," you corrected. "And I rather think he'd call it 'mutually beneficial' for him and the saint."

"It's a sham is what it is."

"Well, take that up with him, not me." You turned back to the horse you planned on stealing.

“Back to the topic, though. You're leaving?"

"You're staying?" You sassed over your shoulder.

"I love Alina. No matter how angry I am with her or with Nikolai right now, I love her. So I'm going to protect her and stand by her, even when we don't see eye to eye."

You glanced back at him, voice quiet. "How can you do that?"

"Because it's always been her and me. Together. And I would rather be with her and be miserable than be without her and be devastated."

"I don't think I can do that for Nikolai," you admitted, eyes drooping to the ground.

"Do you love him?" Mal questioned.

More than anything, you wanted to say, but all you could manage was a shaky nod.

"And how would you feel without him?"

"Terrible." You felt your blood boil at the thought of it. "But having him like this–in the night, behind closed doors–when she'll have him in every way that counts? I can't live that way."

"She won't have him like that," he scoffed. "She loves me as much as I love her, and she wouldn't have him in any way other than ceremonial. I mean, it's like a stupid show for the Ravkans, for saint’s sake."

You whipped around to him, bordering on incensed. "And when they're married, when they have to have children--heirs--what then?"

"It won't come to that. I won't let it,” he ground out, his face going red.

"You can't stop it, Oretsev."

"Just watch me, Rietveld." He looked as angry as you felt, but he took a breath and made his next words calm yet firm. "I won't let it happen. And if you stick around, there's even less of a chance it will happen."

"I can't watch this 'show,' as you put it. It hurts too much just thinking about it all; seeing it would kill me."

His face softened. "Rietveld, please, stay with us. At least until we make it to Os Alta. You could find a job in the city, or you could always stand as a private guard–that’s what I’ll be doing. And if it ever feels like too much, come talk to me. Vent to me. I’m on your side here–I hate this all just as much as you do.”

You considered his plea. You didn’t realize how this would affect him too. It felt like the lash of this engagement had only cut you, but it was selfish to not realize how others around you were bleeding. This sort of thing hurt everyone involved, not just you–though admittedly it hurt some people more. With a frown, you realized how Alina and Nikolai must also be in pain.

But despite your deeper understanding of the situation, you couldn’t feel sorry for Nikolai–he was the one who’d dealt the blow, and he would have to lick his own wounds.

“I’ll stay,” you told Mal. “But I swear I’m not going anywhere near Nikolai. I’ll only be here to stand guard of Alina with you.”

“You realize they'll likely have to spend time together and you’ll have to see him?”

“All I have to see is Alina, he’ll be peripheral from now on.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Thank you.”

You nodded at him and squared your shoulders. “Where is the saint then? I’d like to start working.”

……….

At first you thought the journey to Os Alta would be no big deal, that you would be able to handle how he rode side by side with her or in a pretty little carriage while you were riding ten feet behind at all times. And it almost was no big deal, for the most part. Alina didn’t seem swayed by his joking or small talk, she was too proud to let him in after he’d lied about his true identity all the time he was at sea with her and Mal.

But it was when you stopped in all the little towns on the way to the capital that things became rough. Nikolai put on a show for the Ravkans, charming them left, right, and centre. And his pretend affections--if you could even call them pretend considering how real they looked–slowly showed more blatantly in front of the townspeople and First Army escort. His hands would linger on Alina’s as he helped her off her horse; his eyes would watch her softly, as though she was the light of his life; he spoke of her to his travelling companions and hosts with a reverence and care that made your stomach twist each time you overheard it.

You kept yourself busy, preferring to spend your time with the horses or sitting in the corner listening to the gripes and gossip of the First Army soldiers. If ever Nikolai glanced at you and you caught him, you always glared back until he looked away first. Sometimes you saw a glimmer of hurt in his eyes from your harsh stare, but you couldn’t allow yourself to feel bad for him. This was his doing, after all.

Sometimes Tamar or Tolya would sit with you. They would all glare at Nikolai just like you did, though you tried to dissuade them. Well, you didn’t try very hard to dissuade them; you would give them each a look if you ever caught them doing it, but you never said anything as you were silently grateful that they sided with you. The twins had known Nikolai longer than they’d known you, and you felt weird being the reason they were icy with him. And yet, you kept repeating to yourself that this was his doing, that they were also upset about the way he treated you.

The arrival at Os Alta could not have come sooner. You were glad to be in a more permanent spot, though you couldn’t say either building would ever feel like a home to you. You were used to the open decks and low ceilings of schooners and ships, or the modest rooms of inns, or even the little farmhouse you’d grown up in. The Grand and Little Palaces were greater than any building you had ever seen. When you’d been in Ketterdam, you thought the exchange was the most massive place in the world, but now you knew you were wrong; the Grand Palace stood three intimidating stories high, with marble and gold inlaying almost everything.

It was odd picturing Nikolai’s youth here. You couldn’t imagine being a child in a place like this; how impersonal it all felt to you, with its glimmering white walls and landscape oil paintings, but how much worse it would have been to be a kid here. You supposed that was why Nikolai had made an effort to fill the captain’s cabin on the Volkvolny with all manner of cozy blankets and furniture and knick-knacks he’d acquired from his travels.

Luckily for you, though, the only times you had to be in the Grand Palace was when you were on guard for Alina and she had a meeting or had to attend dinner over there. Most of your time was spent with Alina in the Little Palace. While still massive, the Little Palace had much more charm to it, with its lovely carvings and pearl embellishments. On days when you weren’t guarding Alina, you’d taken to sitting by the lake and watching the Second Army summoners training.

And, now that you had more officially started working as a member of Alina’s guard, the times you saw Nikolai were more manageable. Most times you saw him, there were royal officials or army generals around, so he had dialled back his smittenness with Alina compared to when you were all on the road. Moreover, he barely spoke to you, though you supposed that was because you never spoke to him. The most you conversed–though it was one-sided–was a short greeting and nod from him before you tilted your head away to watch whatever Alina was doing. He didn’t push it beyond that; he didn’t dare, knowing the anger you carried last time you two spoke.

It felt slightly odd to you that the last time you’d actually talked to him was weeks ago when he told you of this engagement with Alina. You’d never gone that long without speaking, not since you first met him. Even before you were his second in command, he made it his mission to speak to you and every crew member on the Volkvolny at least weekly.

His greeting to you today was the same as it had become as of late. You were with Alina at a meeting of First and Second Army generals in the Grand Palace. At the end of the meeting when almost everyone had cleared the room, Nikolai approached you.

“Rietveld,” he smiled at you, giving you an almost awkward nod. But rather than keep it at that, he also said, “You look well.”

You wanted to scoff. You’d barely gotten any sleep the night before because of your nightmares. They’d returned since you started sleeping by yourself again. Night after night, you kept waking up having relived your brothers’ deaths, and there was no one with you to help you through it.

You tilted your body away from Nikolai, doing your duty as you looked at Alina. You knew she was safe since she was just speaking with Mal, but you needed the poor excuse to turn away from the infuriating man beside you.

“I thought you might like to know that a team of Fabrikators and I are rebuilding the Hummingbird after the crash through the fold. It will be docked at the lake behind the Little Palace, so you’re welcome to visit it any time, to see how it progresses.” He spoke with all the confidence he usually exuded, though one look at him and you knew better; his eyes were nervous as he extended this small gesture of goodwill. He was worried about what you might say or do, you just knew it.

You almost said nothing, but as you looked into his eyes, you let out a short huff and grumbled, “Well let’s hope this one flies better than the last.”

“Truly,” Nikolai grinned, pleased that you’d given him a response.

You looked at Alina again and noticed she was leaving the room, so without another word, you left Nikolai.

……….

It was happening again.

You were on the streets of the Barrel, hurrying to reach your brothers after a long and stressful day of work. You wove through the alleyways, your feet moving like air; you were weightless–drifting. There was a light scraping, the prodding of the Bodymen's hooks against the cobbles, and a horrible thought came to your mind. You tried to move faster, but your feet were still drifting. All you knew was that you had to get there faster–had to say goodbye to your brothers.

Suddenly, something shifted and you were upon the tall stack of crates Jordie and Kaz were hiding behind in their time of illness. You stepped up slowly, only to see Nikolai sitting there in the place of your brothers.

He lay in a heap on the cobbles; weak with firepox, and mumbling nonsensically. Your feet could not move fast enough to be with him.

You crumbled down to your knees beside him. And you reached for him, but he used what little strength he had still left in him to push you away. You tried again, but he swatted you back with a sick wail in his throat. Again and again, you reached for him, trying to hold him in your arms, to touch his forehead or grab his hand, to comfort him in whatever way you could, but he always evaded you.

And then when you finally got hold of his shoulders and leaned in to look at his face, he shoved you away with a great force. You were knocked down beside him, and his face turned angry–hateful.

Suddenly, he shouted at you, "This is all your fault!"

You woke up with a start. Sweaty and shaking in the dark, you rushed to light your bedside lamp. The dim flame brought you some comfort, but as soon as you started to dwell on the images you’d dreamt, you felt nausea gripping you tight. You could taste the death in your mouth, stirring a sour, stale sickness inside you. You sat on the edge of your bed, your body doubled over and your head between your legs as you tried to shove the rot away.

You tucked your knees up to your chest as a sob tore through you. It was moments like this that made you most angry over Nikolai’s engagement; moments where you used to rely on him to help you, but where you couldn’t anymore. Since that trip to West Ravka a year and a bit ago now, he was the one to pull you out of any nightmares and back to the warm reality of his arms around you. But now for the last two months, he was all the way in another stupidly grand building. And engaged. And utterly unavailable to you.

You huffed, shoving to your feet despite how weak your limbs felt. With a cloak over your pajamas and your boots to protect you from the autumn evening chill, you travelled out of your stifling bedroom, through the tall halls of the Little Palace, and out into the open sky of the outdoors. You gulped in the crisp air, clearing your lungs of death as you listened to the crickets. You looked out at the lake behind the Little Palace and spotted Nikolai’s new flying boat modelled after the Hummingbird. The bobbing boat beckoned you closer.

In the moonlight, your boots crunched towards the short dock on the lake. It creaked underfoot as you approached the boat. Kingfisher was written in scripted lettering on the small vessel’s stern. The deck wasn’t too large, though there appeared to be a cabin beneath it, judging by a small circular window on the port side. You noticed the flicker of candlelight through this window, and before you could turn tail and run back in the direction you came from, you heard his voice.

“Can’t sleep?” Nikolai called out to you, appearing from the open hatch of the cabin

You gulped, not wanting to meet his eyes. You muttered, “Something like that.”

“I can’t sleep either,” he said.

He stepped towards the ramp that connected the ship to the dock. You ignored how he wrung his strong and greasy hands on a cloth. You also ignored the sweat on his brow, ignored the memories of all the times you’d once worked beside him. All the times you’d admired the concentration sculpted along his beautiful face. He wasn't dressed like the prim prince you'd seen the last couple of months, he looked more like the privateer you loved.

“Would you want to come aboard and look around?” he asked softly, his voice reminiscent of all the nights you’d once spent with him by your side.

You nearly shook your head, nearly said you should go back to sleep. But the lingering fears in your mind kept you from returning to the Little Palace. All that was there for you was nightmares and a Nikolai that despised you. At least this Nikolai spoke softly, with a lingering affection.

Silently, you climbed the ramp and boarded the Kingfisher. Your arms crossed as you took in the sails and rudders, the fine lacquer keeping the fine wood intact. The sway of the waves beneath brought you some peace. It was too long since you’d sailed.

“Come check this out?” Nikolai asked of you, tilting his head towards the stern.

You stepped over to the back of the boat, keeping a secure enough distance beside him as he braced his hands on the wheel. You eyed the lever that would adjust the sails so that Squallers could lift the boat. The designs were updated, but most everything looked the same as it was on the Hummingbird. Nikolai pointed to the back mast.

“When I pull the lever now, this mast will only tilt halfway, allowing smoother steering than the last one did,” he explained, his eyes alight. He looked like a kid on the first wintery day of snowfall.

He looked over and caught you staring at him. You turned away as soon as you could, but the damage was done. The soft adoration in his eyes snapped whatever tough resolve you’d built up over the last few months, and you took a sharp breath. It came out in a shaky exhale, and you brought your hand to your mouth.

“This is all your fault!”

The words he cried in your nightmare flashed through your ears, and you felt your throat tighten. You started sobbing, nothing held back as hot tears dripped down your face. You heard Nikolai sigh softly as he realized you were crying. Without hesitation, Nikolai brought you into his arms, holding you under the watchful eye of the moon. You should have been strong enough to push him away, to remind the both of you what you’d lost. But you just weren’t strong enough. It wasn’t in you to push him away like he had pushed you away in your dream.

"What’s wrong, my darling?" He murmured into the crown of your head.

“Nightmares.” There was so much more to your pain, but this was all you could say.

His voice fell to a whisper, "Oh, darling."

He held you close, swaying you for a moment as you stood on the deck, then he ushered you to the cabin hatch. He brought you below deck, sitting down on a plain bench with you as a lantern burned in the corner. As you sat there, you felt the boat swaying gently, rocking you.

Nikolai's one hand caressed your back, rubbing warm circles into you, as the other cradled the back of your neck, holding you securely as you leaned against his chest. He smelled like salt, grease, and pine; it was a combination so familiar and so Nikolai. You forgot what it was to breathe him in.

There was a bubble in your throat, an aching pressure on your larynx as you sobbed into his half-laced shirt. You tried to keep it inside, tried not to let the bubble burst and the truth come out, but you hadn’t been good at hiding things from him ever since the first night he saw you cry.

“I just miss you,” you whispered, praying he didn’t hear you.

His hand stilled on your back for a moment, then he kept rubbing along it. He heard, then. And yet, he didn’t say anything. He just held you to him as you kept crying.

The scent of him lingered as you stayed in his arms. Even after you shut your eyes and felt your brain slowly falling asleep, you could smell him. The boat kept rocking, and soon enough your body fell asleep in the comfort of his familiar arms.

……….

You could hear birds when you woke up. The air smelled crisp. Your eyes blinked open, looking around at the cabin of the Kingfisher. It looked bigger in the light of dawn. You lifted your head off of Nikolai's chest.

A sick form of embarrassment took root in your chest. There was no humiliation quite like falling asleep in the arms of someone you swore you were done with. And he awoke with you, just as light a sleeper as he'd always been. He smiled softly at you, and you had to look away and get up lest you do something even more stupid.

"I should go," you said, straightening out your cloak as you went to the hatch. It was still dawn, the sun had barely risen, but you needed to be off of this ship and back into your room before people started waking up.

"Or you could stay," Nikolai replied quietly, standing with you. "We could talk about us? About last night?"

"There's nothing to talk about, Nikolai," you huffed.

"Darling, you were sobbing last night. I haven't seen you as bad as that since that time we were stranded in West Ravka." Nikolai sighed, stepping a bit closer to you. You let him grab your hand. "I made a promise to myself that night that I wouldn't let you cry alone ever again.”

You pursed your lips, saying something he knew. “You’ve already broken that promise."

“I know. I know I have, so the least I can do right now is talk and listen to you until you’re better.”

“I’m not going to get better," you scoffed.

He knew that too, you were certain of it, but he didn’t dare say it aloud. Instead, he said something much more stupid. “If I knew the people of Ravka would accept me as their king I never would have–”

“Stop,” you said tiredly, dropping your hand from his. You folded your arms around yourself. “I don’t want to argue right now. You’ve made your choice, and that’s that.”

Nikolai went quiet, his eyes dropping to the floor. You took a breath and climbed up the hatch, into the open air, and into reality. You walked across the deck, but stopped at the ramp when he cleared his throat and called your name.

"I have a test flight of the Kingfisher this afternoon." He gave a weak knock to the mast, a paltry smile on his face. "You're more than welcome to come watch.”

“I’m on duty later, I’m not sure I can come.” At your sides, your fingers balled into your cloak.

“I invited Alina already. She said she has Grisha training, but she might be able to make it.”

You nodded politely. “Then perhaps I’ll see you again later.”

“Perhaps.”

You turned to leave but he called your name again. You looked at him, watching his nervous eyes.

“I… I hope you know that you can always come to me when you’re hurting. I’ll never turn you out,” he said softly. “Or if you’re not upset but you just feel like talking to me, I’m here for you.”

His words made your blood sting. You knew he didn't mean to make you mad, that he was being sincere and kind, and yet you couldn't stop the low-boiling rage that seeped into your veins. Why he couldn't just say that he missed you and that he had made a colossal mistake, you didn't know. Why he felt the need to cloak his regret in some twisted extension of goodwill, you also didn't know.

If you were even angrier, you might have called him a coward, but instead you shook your head and gave him another polite smile.

“Thank you, your highness, but don’t ever expect me at your door.”

He frowned and glanced out at the lake. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that. You know we’re beyond formalities.”

“I’ve nothing else to call you now besides formalities.” You turned on your heel. "Have a good day, your highness. I won't bother you like this again."

"It wasn't a bother," you heard him mutter as you descended the ramp and hurried back to the Little Palace.

……….

Your day wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Sure, you woke up in Nikolai’s arms, but other than that nothing of note happened. You guarded Alina, you escorted her around, then you came back to the Little Palace.

As you were turning down your bed for the night, you heard a soft knock at your door. You expected it to be one of the twins challenging you to a game of cards before bed as you sometimes did with them. So you gently called out for them to come in.

It was not Tamar or Tolya. Or even Alina or Mal, the only other people whose quarters belonged in this wing of the Little Palace. It was someone who was not supposed to be here.

"No," you shook your head at him as you glanced back and saw him. You hadn't snapped at Nikolai this morning, but as he shut the door behind him you felt the urge to chew him up and spit him out. "Are you crazy? What are you doing here?"

"You said you wouldn't bother me, but I made no promises not to come and bother you," He said with a playful shrug. "Besides, last night reminded me of how terribly I sleep without you."

"You shouldn't be here, you'll be caught," you said quietly, though with a measured level of anger.

"By whom? The twins? Mal? Alina? They all know our feelings for each other, and they won't care."

You crossed your arms. "Well, I care. Staying with you on that damned boat last night was a momentary lapse of judgment, not an invitation to make this into a habit."

"To me, it's just a way to sleep better," he said softly, stepping a bit closer to you. "I would rather have four hours of high-quality sleep with you in my arms and have to sneak back to the Grand Palace while it's still dark. The alternative is tossing and turning alone in my bed because I feel so incredibly alone I could scream."

“I don’t care if you’re lonely! I don’t care!" You stormed up to him, glaring a hole into his beautiful hazel eyes. "I'm lonely too, but I don’t cry about it to you. Because what good would it do? Would it change your mind? No, it wouldn’t."

Nikolai raises his brows slightly, a signal he's about to talk, but you cut him off with a huff.

"So, your highness, no matter what you say to me, no matter how badly you want me to, I will not warm your bed. Not if there is no real future with me by your side as anything more than a mistress that you hide away from the world!”

He opened his mouth to try to speak again but a loud knock on the door cut him off before he could.

You raised a hand in front of him in a halting motion. “Don’t. Don’t say whatever it is you’re going to say. I don’t want to hear any more on the subject or I will leave Os Alta. I will pack my things and head for the coast. Because I won’t do this. I… I can’t.”

You ignored the tremble in your lip as you watched him stand there, dejected. Something in the way he stood made him look like a small child after a scolding. It was almost enough to make you feel bad for lashing out at him. Almost.

Another knock at the door made you take a breath, and you stepped back from Nikolai again.

“Come in,” you called out.

The door opened to Tamar, Tolya, Mal and Alina standing in the hall. Great, you thought, you’d woken everyone with your yelling. With your luck, all of the Little Palace heard your grievances.

Tamar and Tolya came to your side, not-so-subtly standing between you and Nikolai. Mal and Alina remained in the doorway.

“Is everything alright?” Tamar asked, carefully looking between you two.

“Nikolai was just leaving,” you muttered.

“Good. I’ll walk him back,” Tolya said.

“I’ll go too,” Mal piped in.

Nikolai shook his head with a sad little frown. “I don’t need you to–”

“C’mon, your highness.” Tolya ushered him from the room.

The last you saw of him was an ashamed glance he cast over his shoulder as he passed Alina in the doorway. Once he was gone you approached the summoner.

“I’m sorry for waking you,” you said to her. You looked at Tamar. “You and the others as well.”

“It’s alright.” Alina gave you a paltry smile. “If you want me to, I can punch him again.”

“Same,” Tamar said. “Or I’ll get Tolya to do it. That would be a spectacle.”

You chuckled. “That won’t be necessary. But thank you.”

When you looked at Alina again you saw a guilty gleam in her eyes. She almost matched Nikolai’s levels of shame as she wrought her hands. Then she suddenly hugged you.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled beside your head.

You wrapped your arms around her.

It wasn’t her fault, though you couldn’t deny that you resented her a little. She would have the greatest love of your life, living in the peaceful eye of a hurricane, while you would be caught up in the worst storm imaginable, peering through to them with desolate eyes as you tried not to lash out and harm them.

But it still wasn’t her fault. It was squarely on Nikolai. And yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to say anything to her, to so much as accept her apology.

Alina let go of you, and she and Tamar said their goodnights.

You couldn’t sleep, so you lay in bed, watching the stars through your window.

You recalled starry nights at sea, when the sky and the water were one with twinkling specs of white on the darkest blue you’d ever seen. Nights when you were happy, wrapped in a warm and familiar pair of arms, and the worst kind of storm you knew of only involved heavy rain on the deck of a ship.

……….

As luck would have it, there was a hunting party leaving the next day. Mal was going, and after the fiasco with Nikolai the night before, he invited you to join him and the group of nobles and high-ranking military faces on this hunt.

You gladly seized the opportunity to be away from the palace for a spell, and now you were riding horseback alongside Mal. The last time you'd ridden beside him was the road to Os Alta, but you shoved that memory aside. Nikolai was there then, putting on the show of his engagement for the Ravkan people. Saints, no matter what you were doing or what memory you carried he always seemed to linger, staining your mind and your every moment.

You shut your eyes for a second, your grip tight on your reins.

"Everything alright?” Mal’s voice reached your ears.

You glanced at him. “I’m fine.”

“Rietveld,” he started, eyes darting around before he lowered his volume. “I hope you can enjoy yourself this week. You deserve the time away from it all.”

“I know.” You nodded. “I just… I don’t know how to get through this.”

“Well, you’re faring better than our lovely prince.”

Were you though? You might have been the one to reject him last night, but you were also the one who broke down in front of him then passed out in his arms the night before. You supposed neither of you were taking this well.

“And how are you and Alina?" You asked quietly.

He turned his eyes ahead. "We're…"

You nodded after a long moment when he could not respond. "Yeah. I get that."

"It's a bit shit, isn't it?"

"A whole bucket-load of shit is more like it."

He shrugged in agreement.

……….

While you could admit it was a marvel watching Mal tracking, the hunting part of the trip was not nearly as interesting as the evening dinners. You'd be sat at tables between Ravkan lords and generals and dignitaries, listening to their stories and answering their questions. Speaking with them reminded you of your time with Lady Trokowsky; so many of them were as curt and prim as her. And though some of them were also a bit pompous for your liking, you held your own in their conversations. Plus, when there was wine and good food, even the most irritable guests were made tolerable.

"Were you really a sailor, Ms. Rietveld?" One of the lords asked you on the third night. "Grigor here says you were, but I can't imagine you at sea."

"And why's that, my lord?" You raised a brow. "Do you not think me capable?"

"Oh, not at all! Aside from our esteemed Oretsev here, you've shot the most game--I think you are very capable indeed. I just can't envision a young woman as refined as you in the life of a sailor."

"You think I'm refined? My lord, you flatter me," you said, smiling politely and tilting your glass at him. That was what Lady Trokowsy used to do when paid a compliment; you took your cues in manners from your time with her. You noticed Mal leaning forward in his seat.

"Ms. Rietveld is more than accomplished. If I'm not mistaken, she knows five languages, she can track and divide large sums all in her head and without paper, she's quite gifted with a sword, plus if you're bleeding and broken she's great to have around when there's no corporalniks nearby."

The table guests all nodded their heads, murmuring in approval, and you gave a slight look of thanks to Mal. As their new favourite hunting guest, his word meant a lot to these people. You were grateful for their good opinion; you hoped perhaps one of them might offer you a job or help you once you one day decided to leave Alina's guard.

Dinner carried on, with many of the guests asking you more about yourself or even just your opinion on local matters or the state of the war. They all seemed pleased by your answers, and you left for your tent that night feeling good about yourself and your future. Mal walked with you, and he nudged you with his elbow.

"We've got a future diplomat on our hands," he smiled.

"Well, you helped out quite a bit."

"I said one thing. The rest of that was all you, Rietveld. You charmed them all by yourself."

You sighed at his words. A small grin took up your face. "I kind of did, didn't I?"

"You definitely did." He turned to you as you stood outside your tent. "I'm glad you came on this trip. And I'm glad you got to see what kind of life you might have ahead of you."

"And what kind of life is that?"

"A life of rubbing elbows with the Ravkan 'elite.' You're already pretty good at it, but it's nice practice for once you're one of them."

You gave him a look. "Mal, that's never going to happen."

"It will once Nikolai marries you," he smirked.

You frowned at his chipperness. "He's already engaged, remember?"

He lowered his voice, looking around to check if anyone was nearby. "Alina's not going to marry him. Trust me. She doesn't want that life. When all is said and done, she won't go through with it."

"And you think he'd just marry me?" You asked in an irritated whisper.

"Yes. He loves you."

"I have nothing to offer him. At least Alina's a saint."

"He loves you, Rietveld," Mal repeated.

You looked at him, saw the certainty in his eyes, and had to look away again. You hated how sure he seemed. How confident he was, even though you knew better and he should know better too. Even if Alina didn't end up marrying him, Nikolai wouldn't marry you. The last few months had shown that. He would no doubt choose a princess or a very rich man's daughter, of which you were neither of those things.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Oretsev," you muttered, then ducked into your tent.

……….

Alina was there to greet you and Mal when you arrived at the Little Palace. But unfortunately, Mal kept riding to the stables, practically ignoring Alina. You had no idea what happened there between them to have him ice her out like that; all trip Mal had only complimentary things to say about Alina. Still, you supposed if any of the hunting party asked your opinion of Nikolai you would only say favorable things.

Regardless, Alina was there to offer you a hug and walk with you inside the Little Palace.

"How was your trip?" She inquired.

"Good. It was nice to be away for a bit," you said, remembering the tense circumstances before you'd left. "And nice to spend time with Mal. He's a good friend, even if he embellishes a bit."

"Saints, he embellished what exactly?" She raised her brows worriedly.

"Well, he was talking me up to some of the guests and he made me out to be some daring and sophisticated hero."

"Why's that?" She chuckled.

"No idea why. At one point he even said I went to the university of Ketterdam and graduated top of my class. Meanwhile, I was never educated past fifteen years old; I was raised on a farm, for saint's sake."

"Well, I'm glad he talked you up." She smiled at you. "I'm sure it made those stuffy lords and generals more pleasant to be around if they thought you were admirable."

"I suppose it did." You looked at her. "He talked you up too. Turned more than a few of them on to your side as the new leader of the second army."

"He did?"

"Yeah, he's really good at all of that."

A gentle silence filled the air. You weren't sure if it was because you'd told her what Mal got up to while they were apart, but she decided to talk about what Nikolai had been up to. Apparently, he mostly spent his time fine-tuning the Kingfisher or a number of other inventions he'd set up work on near the Summoner Pavillion.

"Also, last week he did something odd," Alina said as you arrived at the wing where both of your rooms were.

"Odd how?" You asked.

"Well, we were meeting with the royal family's jeweller." She saw the quizzical curve of your brow and added, "For Nikolai's birthday next month."

You pursed your lips. "Oh. Right."

"Part of the preparations was getting fitted for outfits and choosing which royal jewels and crowns to wear. It was a lot." She sighed. "And when we were going through the royal jewels, that’s when he did something odd."

"Oh?"

"The jeweller was showing off different crowns and tiaras for me," Alina blushed slightly, "and when he pulled out some sapphire crown, Nikolai lost it for a second."

The mention of a sapphire crown made your face burn. Could it be the crown you'd helped Nikolai recover? The crown he'd once put on your head and called you moya tsaritsa--his queen? Your heart hammered in your chest.

"He…" You furrowed your brows. "He lost it? What do you mean by that?"

Alina leaned in conspiratorially, lowering her voice despite how you were alone.

"Well, I wouldn't compare it with other people's losing it, but for Nikolai, it definitely made him lose it. He's usually so calm and everything, but he looked upset. He got all pale and then he looked at the jeweller and sternly said something like 'I told you very specifically not to put that crown in the selection.' And when the jeweller said that the queen wanted me to pick from everything, Nikolai started to go red, and he said 'I don't care what my mother said. This crown isn't to be worn.'"

Your lips parted slightly, and you glanced away for a moment, parsing out what she'd said.

Had Nikolai really been that upset over seeing that sapphire crown on display? You cared to know what upset him about it. Was it the sight of it? Or was it the thought that Alina might have picked the crown he foolishly thought you would one day wear? You weren't sure. You didn't even know if he had actually thought you could be his queen; but regardless, he had to know now that you weren't an option.

Alina chuckled slightly. "That's odd, right?"

"Yeah…" You said softly. "Odd."

……….

It was your first day off after you'd gotten back from the hunting outing. So, like most of your days off, you decided to take a walk on the Little Palace grounds. There was a pretty path behind the lake, and you were admiring the changing leaves of the trees all around you. It was understandable then that you didn't notice someone's sudden presence.

A throat cleared ahead of you on the path and you instantly snapped into focus. Your eyes landed on Nikolai and you almost sighed but then your jaw tensed instead. Since you got back you had seen him while on guard, but you hadn't been alone with him since that night he'd snuck to your room. You were afraid that the furious nature of your last conversation would only continue if you spoke again.

He gave you a slight smile and a polite nod. His hands were clasped behind his back. You took in his clothes, the slightly unkempt way his fine shirt was tucked, and the grease spot on his trousers. He must have been working on the Kingfisher again when he saw you walk by and chose to follow you. Still, he didn't look like he was in the mood for an argument either, not with his diplomatic smile.

"How was your hunting trip?" He asked, finally breaking the silence between you.

"Fine," was all you said.

He nodded, shifting his weight on his feet. "I hope you weren't too bored with all the lords and generals. I know how dreadful those trips can be."

"It was fine, really," you said, crossing your arms. "Mal is a good friend to have around those sorts. He and I spent all the time while we weren't shooting to talk up our little saint; to win public opinion of her."

"I didn't think Oretsev was clever enough for that," Nikolai grumbled, the annoyance of his words hidden under a smile. "Using influential lords and the likes to bolster the public's opinion of Alina… good on him, I suppose. It's a smart tactic."

Something about his words, or perhaps his slight irritation and the fact that he had no right to be irritated, irked you to no end.

"You hypocrite," you scoffed. "You frown down on Mal for using these lords and changing their opinions to help your fiance, and yet it's you who's engaged to her just to use her sainthood to bolster your claim to the throne."

Nikolai chuckled lightly. “And she is using me so that my family doesn't declare her and all the other Grisha enemies of Ravka. I wasn't frowning down on Oretsev for using these hunting parties. Using people for one's own advantage happens all the time in politics.”

“So I’ve learned," you said, your eyes narrowed slightly on him. You watched him for a moment. "Were you using me?”

“What?” He turned to you, his eyes turning from slight amusement to a blinking bewilderment. “Of course I wasn’t using you,” he said softly. “Do you really think I was using you?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, Nikolai. You told me you wanted us, now and always. You put a crown on my head and called me your queen.” You tugged your simple chain out from under your shirt and let Nikolai’s ring dangle on it. “You gave me a ring that I, very stupidly, believed meant something… And then you made me feel like an idiot for thinking you could ever be mine–that I could ever share my life with a prince.”

"You still wear the ring?" His eyes seemed hopeful.

"I… that's what you've latched onto?" You blinked at him.

He stepped closer to you. His eyes were earnest. "I'm sorry. I wasn't using you. It was always love between us; I wasn't going to exploit that."

"No, instead you broke it."

You saw it on his face. Yes, I broke it, was written in the mournful line of his mouth as his eyes drooped to his shoes.

"If I could take it all back," he said quietly, "I would. And you would be happy and I could stop worrying and it would all be back to the way it was before."

Your fingers balled up at your sides as you scowled. "And how was it before? You expect me to believe you would have married me once you were back to being a prince? When you were still Sturmhond you were so ashamed of me that we didn't even let the crew know we were together!"

"I wasn't ashamed–" he started but you stepped closer to him, eyes furious.

"Why would I believe you'd ever let the royal court know you wanted to be with a common sailor?"

"Because I would!" He exclaimed, a desperate glint in his eye as he brushed his hands through his hair. "Because I love you and--despite what you think–I am not ashamed of that love. I never have been."

He took your hand, and--ignoring the urge to break free and slap him or shove him into the dirt–you let him. He took a breath, letting his eyes meet yours again once he was ready.

“What I’m trying to say is that I–"

Nikolai cut himself off at the sound of footsteps approaching. He dropped your hand and took a step back, and you pretended his actions didn't sting. The approaching footsteps turned out to be Vasily, and you kept down the groan you wanted to make.

"Vasily," Nikolai nodded.

He put on a charming smile, though his chest rose and fell quickly. You didn't need to read his mind to know what he was thinking because you were thinking the same thing--how much had his brother seen between you two? It was a wonder with the way Vasily stared so skeptically at you both.

"Who's this you're speaking with, brother?" Vasily asked, sleazily eyeing every part of you besides your narrowed stare.

"This is Rietveld," Nikolai answered calmly, though you noticed how his hands were desperately trying to not ball up at his sides. "She was my second in command at sea, now she's one of Alina's guards."

He sneered as he glanced between you and Nikolai. "Ah yes, one of your… crewmates. Seems quite pretty for a sailor. I think you spoke about her before… didn't you say she was Kerch?" He addressed you. "Are you Kerch, girl?

"Yes," you replied with gritted teeth. He bent a superior eyebrow and you added, "Moi Tsarevich," with the bow of your head.

"A Kerch sailor," he mused. "I wonder where you met her… Was it Ketterdam?"

"Yes, brother," Nikolai said, his words carrying a careful twinge of annoyance.

"Such a pretty thing… I wonder, where in Ketterdam could you have found her?" He made no attempt to hide how he watched you like you were a piece of meat. "Did you pluck her from the Barrel?"

"Vasily," Nikolai warned with a low voice.

"I imagine she came from somewhere lush and expensive, at least I hope you didn't buy her out of one of the cheap brothels. Though she does have the scowl of a cheap whore."

Nothing more could be said on the topic, as Nikolai's fist came in contact with Vasily's jaw. You heard an ugly thwack sound, and Vasily stumbled backwards, landing on his ass on the dustiness of the dirt path.

"You filthy mutt!" Vasily spat. "You nearly knocked all my teeth loose!"

You expected Nikolai to straighten out with a diplomatic apology, sarcastically citing a lapse in judgment or pretending his arm had spasmed. You expected him to act as prince, but at this moment he was privateer instead. He bent down beside his brother and grabbed him by the collar.

"If I ever hear you speak about her like that again, I will punch you so hard you bite off your own tongue," Nikolai threatened. "Am I understood, brother?"

"Some brother you pretend to be–"

Nikolai's grip tightened. "Am I understood?"

"Yes," Vasily sneered.

Nikolai let go of him and stood to his full height, dusting himself off. He was back to being a dignified prince. "Good."

Nikolai glanced at you then glanced down the path in the direction back to the Little Palace. You took the hint, and silently but with quick steps, the two of you walked along.

The image of Vasily in the dirt brought you joy, though you couldn't say the same for the way Nikolai threatened him. Nikolai's actions frustrated you to no end, making you frown as you walked. It wasn't his job to do that, to fight for you, but he was a fool who treated it like his duty.

Once the Little Palace was in sight, you spoke to him.

"I've dealt with worse than Vasily, I don't need you to defend me," you asserted.

He looked at you. "I know you don't, but I wanted to."

"You don't get to anymore," you said, "you have a fiance to defend instead now."

Nikolai scoffed. "He called you a whore, what else was I supposed to do?"

"Let it slip by. Defending me is not worth the wrath of your brother."

"Please, I've already earned his wrath just by existing." He smiled. "And besides, it was nice to give him a whack like that. He deserved it for what he said."

You wanted to agree with him that Vasily deserved a whack, but you held firm. It was hard to tell if you were just being contrary for the fun of it or if you meant it.

"You shouldn't let him get under your skin," you muttered. "Don't do that again, Nikolai."

He slowed and you slowed with him. Stopped in the shade from the Little Palace, he looked at you, his stare earnest.

"I could tell you I will only let myself lash out at him just this once, but I would be lying." You thought he might hold your hand, but as he reached for you he thought the better of it and clasped his hands behind his back. "I would be lying, because if he–or anyone else for that matter--speaks about you like that again, hitting him would be the least of what I'd do."

……….

FIFTH YEAR - KAZ

Kaz didn't know why he was in Lij.

He hadn't been in his hometown since he moved away from it at nine years old. But he was walking the harbours of Ketterdam on his day off from the Crow Club and saw a boat travelling down the coast to the southern farmlands of Kerch. Next thing he knew, he was sailing away from Ketterdam.

Then he was in his old, simple little world. Acres upon acres of farmland, a town square with market vendors and people who smiled at other people without trying to steal their wallets… it all seemed so foreign to him now.

He went up the hill to his old farmhouse first. It had sat in disrepair for a few years now since his siblings moved to the city. The fields were wildly overgrown, but it still looked like a plot of good land. Kaz trudged through the weeds to the barn out back. It only took him four seconds to pick the lock on the barn door. The inside was empty, but it still looked alright.

He didn't dwell for long, though. He stood in the barn, shut his eyes for a moment, breathed in the farm air, thought briefly of his family--of how he missed them--then he left.

He relocked the barn, instinctively leaving it how it was found, then set out on another path down the hill.

Kaz passed by the well-kept house of Old Lady Trokowsky. How that Ravkan bat frightened him when he was younger. He had no idea how his sister managed to visit with her every other day just to read to her and keep her company. As Kaz recalled, her tongue was always so sharp, and she would shout at him and Jordie from the upper porch above her front door whenever they got into the slightest bit of mischief.

He wondered for a moment if she was still alive; in his memory, she seemed ancient, after all.

A broken post on her otherwise perfect fence caught his eye, and he nudged it with his foot.

"Rietveld? Jordan Rietveld!" A worn voice called out as soon as his boot made contact with the post.

Kaz's eyes snapped wide in surprise, and he instinctively straightened out at the memory of reprimands gone past. He looked up to the porch above her front door, and sure enough, sitting there by the railing was Old Lady Trokowsky. He would have smiled at the sight of a familiar face if he wasn't so frightened of her.

"Jordan Rietveld, what are you doing to my fence? And what are you doing back in Lij? Your family's supposed to be in Ketterdam!"

Kaz blinked up at her. Did she really think he was his brother? That he was Jordie?

"Well, young man?" Her gravelly old voice called down to him again.

He felt like a child under her eyes. He was fourteen now, yet he felt like he was six and following along with whatever trouble Jordie was getting into.

Trokowsky waved an arm in a resigned manner. "Oh, come inside, boy. I've got hot chocolate and cookies that I'm too old to stomach now. Eat and talk with me, Jordan."

Kaz paused at the gate. He wanted to pass by and head back to the town, but he felt a strange desire to go into her house. The closest he'd gotten to the house was standing in the doorway with Jordie when Da would sometimes send them to fetch their sister home early; the inside of it was always a mystery to him.

He passed through the gate and went up the stone path. It felt like he'd get in trouble, but he opened the front door and peered into the front hall. A caretaker for the bat came down the stairs to greet him. She directed him up the stairs and straight to the front where Lady Trokowsky would be waiting on the upper porch.

His eyes roamed the walls as he went upstairs. All these Ravkan portraits and plaques adorning her house--the burgeoning criminal in him told him he should swipe something, but he ignored the urge. His sister had always spoken highly of Trokowsky, despite how the bat would shout at him and Jordie, so he would respect his sister by respecting the bat's belongings.

He stepped onto the upper porch and noticed immediately that her eyes had a slight wispiness to them that no doubt impaired her vision. Cataracts, if that was the right term. This was likely why she didn't recognize him as Kaz but as his brother.

"Ah, Jordan Rietveld," she greeted in her worn voice, gesturing to the rocking chair beside hers. "It's been years, hasn't it?"

Kaz nodded and took a seat beside her. "Yes."

"How are you, boy? How is the city treating you?"

Like hell.

That's what he wanted to say. He'd been chewed up at spit back out by Ketterdam. He was rising through the ranks of the Dregs, but not without a few scrapes and tussles. He'd grown to be a swindler and a scammer, though he supposed that information would be quite useless to this old lady.

"Very well," he lied, feeling compelled to smile for the bat. "I've just been promoted at work."

"Oh, isn't that wonderful?"

She did something that was nearly a smile. Her wrinkly face tightened slightly with the weak force of her mouth muscles, stretching her lips in a kind position.

"And how is that young brother of yours? Is he still as much trouble as you?" She chuckled fondly.

"Kaz is dead," Kaz said bluntly. He almost didn't realize he said it at first, but then he noticed Trokowsky's face fall.

"Oh dear… I'm sorry to hear that. Your sister always spoke so highly of her baby brother," she said with a sad coo.

Kaz glanced away over the balcony. "Well, she's gone now too. Moved across the world."

"I suppose that explains why she stopped writing to me." Trokowsky sighed. "I thought she might have passed in that plague–what a terrible, terrible bout of firepox it was this last time…"

If only she knew, Kaz mused, holding back a wry smile.

"Do you ever see her? I'd love for you to tell her I say hello and that I miss her company," she said softly.

He didn't have the heart to tell her the truth. "I see her every few months. She comes to visit me in Ketterdam, or I go visit her in Novyi Zem."

"Oh, good. I'm glad to hear that." She smiled again. "Your family has suffered enough without being separated by something so trivial as the sea."

It seemed as though Lady Trokowsky might have said more on the matter, but a sudden coughing fit wracked through her. Kaz's body recoiled from her wheezing. It brought back memories of plague.

He balled his gloved hands into fists and he looked away from her as he waited for her coughing to end. She recovered from her fit, and he stayed long enough to finish his hot chocolate and eat three cookies while he listened to a couple of stories from the bat. But he didn't stay much longer than that. Trowkowsy grew tired, in need of an afternoon nap as the elderly sometimes need. She gave him a kind parting smile as her caretaker wheeled her to her room.

Kaz waited in the main foyer until the nurse came downstairs again. He procured a Crow Club card from his pocket and handed it to the caretaker.

"Please let me know when she passes," he nodded to the caretaker.

Then he left and went down to the town square again, heading for the municipal office. He tried to acquire his family's farm back from the township. He didn't quite have enough money to buy it back yet, but he knew he would put it under Jordie's name when he did. Or perhaps Jordie's middle name would lend itself better as the ink on a dotted line. Either way, he could not secure the deed today, so he found his way to a ship bound up the coast to Ketterdam, back to the city of thieves and barterers.

A few months later, Kaz received a short letter. Lady Trokowsky had died of her old age.

At her funeral, the name card on the grandest bouquet of flowers gifted was simply: "The Rietvelds."

..........

A/N: Thanks so much for reading! Feel free to like, reblog, and comment on this new part--I really appreciate the feedback! If you want to be tagged in this series or to be added to the Nikolai taglist please comment on this part or send me an ask. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day/night :)

Part 7

Masterlist

Taglist: I will reblog this part with the tags because there's too many of you to tag and tumblr won't let me do it all at once

#nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov fanfic #nikolai lantsov x you #nikolai lantsov fic #grishaverse fanfic #nine long years

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flowerandblood · 10 months

Text

The Impossible Choice (38)

[ Aemond • Targaryen x Baratheon! • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, angst, smut, domination ]

[description: Aemond comes to Storm’s End to choose his future consort. However, Lord Borros Baratheon presents him with only four of his five daughters. Being attached to his youngest child, he does not want to marry her. The prince, however, thwarts his and her plans with his decision. This is slow burn, with a lot of dark angst and sexual tension. (Anon Request)]

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous and next chapters: Masterlist

______

He could not fall asleep that night, but for the first time in his life not because of the nightmares, the war or his family. This time the reason was different, making him open his eye again as soon as he fell asleep, pressing his face against his wife's cheek, her naked back pressed against his chest, her legs entwined with his in disarray, her quiet, calm breathing the only sound in the tent.

I love you.

She said it aloud then and many more times afterwards as they made love, gently, slowly, tenderly. She knew he wanted to listen to those words endlessly − eventually he didn't even have to ask her to repeat them anymore − she mewled them in his ear as he rooted into her with slow, smooth thrusts of his hips, her hand stroking his hair.

He came inside her, panting with relief, feeling as if he were lighter, his chest filled with pure peace − he took his mind off what was happening around them and prayed to the gods that the night would last longer than usual, that the sun wouldn't rise, that he wouldn't have to tear himself away from her naked body.

He knew that with the next day − their world would collapse and everything around them would go up in flames.

Several times he fought with himself to whisper to her while she slept that he reciprocated her feelings, but he couldn't.

He was afraid that he would then cast some kind of curse on them, that until he said it aloud the gods did not know what he really felt and wouldn't take her away from him, thinking that she was not precious to him.

That he would succeed in deceiving them and destiny if he was destined to lose her.

He knew what it would mean to him.

The black, boundless abyss he had stood over before he flew to Storm's End and saw her.

He was dead and she was filled with life, quivering with uncertainty, feelings and emotions that he had drunk like nectar from her moist lips when he had stolen her first kiss so violently.

After that, he felt as if he had emerged from a watery depth and drew in deeply, the air painfully tearing at his lungs anew with life.

He was alive because she was alive.

He was living fire and she was like a rain that made sure that he didn't burn down along with everything around him, bringing him endless relief.

Fire and water.

He kissed her bare shoulder tenderly at that thought, his fingers massaging her lower abdomen where he held his hand, not letting go for a moment, in his mind protecting her and their child in this way.

Everything he wanted was in his arms.

Despite his prayers, morning came, and just after dawn a servant stepped into their tent, bowing shyly, not daring to look at their naked bodies − his wife covered herself quickly with the furs lying around them, ashamed of her scars. He stood up with a murmur of displeasure, putting on his breeches quickly, asking what was the matter.

"We have received a message from the Eyrie, Your Grace." Said the young boy and approached him without lifting his eyes, holding out his hand in front of him with a small note rolled up. He took it at once and unrolled the letter, reading it with rapidly beating heart.

According to the will of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne will remain Jacaerys Velaryon as her first-born son and successor.

War then, he thought, tightening his lips, shredding the letter into tiny pieces.

His wife looked at him uncertainly, furrowing her brow, covering her breasts and thighs with thick furs, breathing anxiously.

"Bring my armour." He said lowly, the servant nodded quickly and left their tent, leaving them alone.

"What does the message say?" She asked quietly. He pressed his lips together.

"There is no turning back now." He said coolly, glancing at her out the corner of his eye. She was sitting in front of him, her lips parted in worry, her eyes warm and shining.

He thought he wanted to do this with her.

He'd thought about it all night.

He planned it all in his head.

"Meet me at sunset on the hill by Vhagar's lair. Don't take anyone with you. Do you know where it is?" He asked, dressing quickly, his wife blinking, surprised.

"Yes… something has happened? What are you going to do?" She mumbled, clearly horrified by how it sounded, perhaps even thinking he was going to run away with her on Vhagar to Essos.

"We'll get married." He said matter-of-factly, tying his shirt. His wife swallowed loudly, not understanding completely what he meant, so she remained silent for a moment, looking at him with wide eyes.

"I… forgive me, I don't understand. We are married." She said quietly, as if she feared she had missed something.

"Not in the face of my gods." He said quietly, casting her a careful, proud look. "Not in the tradition of Old Valryia."

He saw her blush all over and tighten her lips, trying to suppress the smile that pressed itself onto her face. She lowered her gaze, playing with the material of the fur with her fingers.

"Oh."

"Mmm." He just hummed, deciding he didn't need to say anything more.

He wanted, before the fighting began in earnest, to marry her in a way worthy of his great-grandparents, a wedding of blood and fire, of pain and pleasure.

One they were not forced into, one they decided for themselves.

His manifestation of infinite love towards her, his fidelity and devotion.

Once he was in full armour he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, her maid was just braiding her hair. His wife was looking at her hands, a dreamy expression on her face, her cheeks red, her lips curved in a gentle, almost invisible smile.

He felt a squeeze in his throat that all this was happening now, when she was closer to him than anyone had ever been. He left the tent without even saying goodbye to her, feeling that he wouldn't be able to get any words out.

He wanted to head for the tent where they met for council, but decided he would do something else, and made his way to the tent where Borros Baratheon was staying. The man threw him a surprised look when he stepped inside, Royce paused his words in mid-sentence, rising from his chair. They were both wearing armour.

"What is it?" Borros asked coolly, sitting down behind his large wooden table, on which were strewn maps and pawns, showing the proportions of the two opposing armies.

He figured he'd pretended that he hadn't heard him skip the courtesy phrase.

"I would like to speak to you alone, Lord Baratheon." He said coldly, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Royce, who snorted loudly.

"How dare you…"

"That's enough." Said Lord Borros, spreading himself out comfortably in the big wooden chair, sighing impatiently. "Leave us alone."

Royce pressed his lips together, looking away, and after a moment got up reluctantly, going outside. They were left alone.

"I don't have much time. Tell me what you're coming with." He said indifferently, looking him straight in the eye − his earlier fury had passed, his army did not look at all like they were gathering to return.

As long as his daughter stayed with him, he could not return with a calm heart to Storm's End.

He pressed his lips together at the thought of what he wanted to say.

He'd had all night to think about it, and he felt he had to do it if he was to be sure of his fidelity.

"My mother treats my wife as her daughter, however, you do not treat me as your son." He said indifferently, looking away, embarrassed by his own words. Lord Baratheon chuckled loudly, shaking his head.

"And you do not treat me as a father should be treated. You have neither respect nor patience altogether. My daughter and son, unlike you, know when to speak and when to be silent. You are a spoilt pup, nothing more." He said in a low, throaty, frustrated voice, slamming his fist on his armrest.

Aemond looked at him with his jaw clenched, furious. He felt humiliated, but he also recognised with pain that his father had never spoken to him in this way.

He didn't give him advice.

He did not lead him.

He was not his role model.

Criston tried to do so, but who was he to have the audacity to replace his father?

Lord Baratheon, however, was his wife's father, and though he could neither read nor write, he held his army in an iron grip, his soldiers respected him and listened intently to his words, his experience and sense of war strategy impressed even Criston, who did not have the gall to defy his orders.

He, although well-read in matters of war, had only a theoretical understanding of it.

He was the only one he could trust in this respect and whether he wanted it or not, he needed his support.

He grinned at his last words, but his smile did not reach his eye. He hummed and looked somewhere to the side, thoughtful.

"That is what we are alike in, my Lord." He said mischievously, and Borros pressed his lips together, wrinkling his brow, breathing anxiously.

He wanted to say something, but he would not let him.

"I will not leave my brother. My wife will not leave me. You will not leave her. Support me with your experience."

Silence fell around them. Lord Baratheon sighed heavily, massaging his temple, his face pale and tired, his wrinkles even more visible than usual.

"How can you let her stay here knowing what threatens her?" He asked defiantly, lowering his hand, not looking at him but somewhere to the side. He snorted.

"You know better than I do, my Lord, that she can be persuasive when she wants to be." He said lowly, glancing up at him to check his reaction. Her father measured his face with a wary look, apparently wondering whether he should believe him or not.

Go on, he thought.

Ask me.

"Why did you take her away from me?" He asked after a moment of regret and pain, and he struggled to hide the smirk of satisfaction that coursed across his face. "My youngest child. The most innocent, inexperienced, not knowing life −"

"− that's why." He said menacingly, glancing at him, a twinkle in his eye from which Lord Baratheon moved uneasily in his seat.

"You wanted to give me trained maidens, speaking from memory what they had been taught, what would be considered to please me. Do you know that one of your daughters came to me at night to suck my cock? Knowing my wife, I'm sure she's already told you about it." He said, his lips stretched at last in a mocking grin − he saw Borros press his lips together, reddened with shame, looking away.

He had him.

He had him in his grasp.

"I could have let her do it, because why not? I've heard of your many bastard children scattered throughout the kingdom, so you must have let the ladies take care of you this way more than once as well. My brother would say it's a manly thing, lust." He said, walking slowly around the tent, speaking lightly, his hands clasped behind his back. He could see her father shrinking into himself with every word he said, without even looking at him.

"Does my wife realise that she has many more siblings? I heard you left one behind in Harrenhal. Perhaps I should seek him out?"

He watched with a heart burning with joy as her father shook his head, as if the very thought of his beloved child finding out his unpleasant secrets put him off. Borros clenched his hand into a fist, tightening his lips, his nostrils moving restlessly in rage, his face red with shame.

"That's enough." He hissed, and Aemond hummed under his breath, looking contentedly to the side, sighing heavily.

"My wife seems to have inherited respect for herself and her body from her mother, for I have never experienced greater fulfilment with any other woman." He said calmly, as if he were telling some ordinary story, her father's eyelids closed at his words.

"For her sake I will never disrespect you in public again. For her sake I won't say anything about how you like to fuck on the side instead of taking a second legitimate wife, spawning bastards all over the kingdom on every hunt you visit. I won't tell her that you are in some ways like my brother, whom you both abhor so much." He said with emphasis on the last sentence, looking at him menacingly.

It was a warning and he knew it.

Borros swallowed heavily and let the air out loudly, his breath ragged. He ran his hand over his forehead, droplets of sweat from stress on his face − they both turned towards the entrance when a servant stepped inside and announced that the war meeting had begun and everyone was waiting for them. He threw him a smirk over his shoulder and left first.

During the council, he revealed to the lords that there would be no peaceful resolution of the situation because his sister would not relinquish the crown and pay tribute to his brother. He ordered the servants to send a letter to his brother on the matter to prepare for total war.

"How is the Greyjoy case?" He asked, glancing at Criston, who grunted loudly.

"Your grandfather proposed a marriage between your brother Prince Dareon and Lord Greyjoy's granddaughter. Lord Greyjoy accepted the offer." He said, and he pressed his lips together, nodding with satisfaction.

Perfect, he thought.

They'll blockade them at sea, he and Vhagar, and after his brother arrives, Dareon too will patrol the skies. Jason Lannister grunted, glancing at the map, stepping from foot to foot.

"The usurper has more dragons than we do. What if they just burn us alive?" He asked, several people nodded at him with uncertainty. He tightened his lips.

"Only the dragons of Daemon, Rhaenys and Rhaenyra are big enough to pose any threat. Rhaenyra won't poke her nose out of the Vale, because if she dies, all will be lost. The most dangerous rider is Daemon, Rhaenys also flies perfectly. I don't think Daemon or Rhaenyra would choose to put their children and their baby dragons at risk of death." He said, placing some pawns on the map in front of him.

"However, my Lords, I am the rider of the greatest dragon in the world. If they come within range of Vhagar's maw, they will die. The Harrenhal incident is a lesson to us, our army must stick together, so that I can protect us from above and not let anyone get close." He said lowly, glancing around him. The men nodded their heads, speaking to each other.

He thought with a beating heart that he had convinced them and himself.

It wasn't impossible.

They had to be careful and use their slight advantage, but it could work.

Lord Borros grunted, moving a few pawns back.

"If there will be a battle, you must set out in front of the army, watching over it from above. A situation may arise in which several dragons attack Vhagar, and several smaller dragons move on our army, scattering it. What then?" He asked, looking at him expectantly, on his face still rage and embarrassment after their conversation. He hummed at his words.

"That will be the task of my brother, Dareon. As a last resort, to protect our army, my sister, Helaena, can also help us." He said, placing an additional pawns with a dragon's head on the map.

He did not want to involve her in the war, but if the situation forces them to do so there will be no way out.

"According to my will, the armies from the south and the Hightower army are heading towards us. In terms of the number of armies, the fighting will be even, but it is the Baratheon army that is the most experienced in battle, and this is our strength." He said, throwing his wife's father an impatient look, and Borros only nodded. Royce looked uncertainly at his father, then at him, sensing that something had happened between them, but said nothing.

He walked out of the tent after his armor was pulled off, feeling hopeful for the first time in month.

His chest was filled with pleasant warmth for another reason as well.

He asked one of the dragon guardians to bring the robes that he had ordered to prepare for them earlier. They were not the same ones that his ancestors wore, but they were similar enough. He told him what he wanted to do, and the man nodded with understanding.

The two of them moved through the woods toward the hill near where Vhagar rested. He saw from afar a small hooded figure walking at a safe distance from her − his dragoness had her head raised high, looking at her, but did not move an inch.

She sensed that she had carried child in her womb, he thought fondly.

His wife turned over her shoulder hearing their footsteps and threw off her hood from her head. She was wearing a beautiful, ornate gown, red and brown, the colors of his and her lineage.

The corner of his mouth lifted up at the thought that she would have to pull it all off.

"We need to change." He said to her softly, the orange warm rays of the setting sun framing her face. She blinked, looking at him questioningly.

He held out his hand to the man in whose company he had come, and he handed him the ceremonial robes, cream-colored and dyed partly red. The man turned away, giving them a theoretical sense of intimacy.

"Here? What is this?" She asked at the same time frightened and curious − he felt heat run through his body at the thought of what they were about to do.

"These are our wedding robes." He hummed low, and she looked at him with wide-open eyes. She took one of the soft materials from him gently, looking at him with her lips tightened, her cheeks red with excitement and joy.

"You have to help me." She whispered, glancing at him, and he murmured low and nodded.

Untying the sleeves of her gown and her bodice proved more difficult than they had both anticipated, so they struggled with it for a while. It didn't spoil their mood, however; they glanced at each other once in a while, looks of contentment filling their eyes.

When she was finally left in just her chemise, he helped her put on the robe, placing it on her body with solemnity, tying it around her waist with a wide, gold girdle. He glanced at her with satisfaction and murmured under his breath, seeing how noble his wife looked in an attire similar to what his ancestors once wore.

"Let your hair down." He said calmly, and she threw him a surprised look.

She pressed her lips together, apparently having worked long on her exquisite hairstyle of braids tied up in a bun, however it did not match the headdress he had brought for her. He helped her slide the pins out of her hair, leaving them on the grass, lowering strand by strand onto her shoulders.

Once her hair had fallen down her back, framing her face wonderfully, he untied a triangular crown made of delicate material, decorated on the sides with tiny beads one the thin strings, all trimmed with gold threads. His wife looked at the object as if enchanted, her lips parted in mute admiration.

"It's beautiful." She whispered.

"Mmm." He hummed, lifting the crown up, gently placing it over her head. He moved back to look at her in all her glory and felt a tightening in his throat at the sight of her.

She looked as if they had stepped back in time, the simplicity and nobility of her robes made her look like a goddess, as if the Maiden herself had descended from the heavens to marry the god of the underworld, death, mystery, the Stranger.

He felt lust at that thought, at the sight of her innocent, soft face, red with emotion, at the sight of her warm eyes filled to the brim with affection for him, at the sight of her dark hair around which bright beads shimmered.

His beloved, whom he was about to marry.

She extended her hand to him. He passed her his robes and began to slowly undress − this time it was she who helped him, putting the long robe over his shoulders. He looked at her focused, thoughtful face, and saw her glance at him once in a while, embarrassed.

As if they were not yet married.

As if he hadn't fucked her for several months.

She tied an ornate girdle around his waist, tying it in front, looking up at him at last, her lips slightly parted, her gaze hot, from which he felt his manhood pulsate hard under his robe. He touched his fingers to her face, unable to stop himself as her hand reached for the black ribbon in his hair, loosening the strands tied back.

He pulled his eye patch off his head and took her face in his hands. She swallowed loudly, looking at him expectantly.

"Do you know what this ceremony involves?" He asked lowly, and she shook her head, scared and excited at the same time, placing her hand on his, pressing her cheek against his soft skin.

He thought he felt like ripping the robes off her and just fucking her, but he tried to focus and chase those thoughts away.

"Do you trust me?" He asked quietly. She pressed her lips together and nodded.

He hummed with satisfaction and leaned over her, placing a tender kiss on her forehead. He pressed his nose to her cheek and began to speak quietly, as if he had just revealed some secret or mystery to her.

"The man who came with me will lead the entire ceremony. He has dagger made of dragon glass with him. We will cut each other's lips with them, and then the insides of our hands. The blood will flow from them into a goblet, from which we will both drink afterwards." He said, stroking her cheek reassuringly with his thumb, seeing how terrified she was by what he said.

"− do not fret −" He whispered and kissed her greedily, slipping his tongue between her puffy, moist lips, drawing her close to him, letting her feel how much he wanted her, how much he needed her.

He pulled away from her, his hand still holding her cheek, her gaze dreamy and hot, full of affection from which he was filled with desire.

"Will you do it for me?" He whispered, and she nodded.

They walked slowly toward the man who was already waiting for them, the cup in his hand − he took out dagger made of dragon glass, which he handed to her. His wife took the object from him with a trembling hand, looking at him uncertainly, beautiful, pulsing with life.

His.

His lips formed soundlessly into the words do not fret again. He saw her swallow silently as the man spoke in a low voice the sentences in the language of his ancestors, the language of Old Valyria.

He felt the pride and solemnity of this moment fill him, the fact that this time they were deciding their own destiny.

His wife, his goddess, his Maiden approached him slowly, uncertainly, grasping his cheek in her hand, terrified that she felt she was about to do him harm, to hurt him. He, however, wanted nothing more than to feel the blade on his skin, to have their blood mingle, to be forever marked by her.

To be hers.

He grasped her petite hand in his, lifting it up, parting his lips with her fingers and nodded, encouraging her to do what she was about to do. He closed his eye when he felt the blade cut into his fleshy skin, going down his lower lip, felt a burning pain and sticky blood spilling over his palate.

He opened his eye, his wife was looking at him mesmerized − her breathing was uneven, her lips parted, her eyes misty, full of lust and desire.

He thought that he would fuck her all night, that he would devour her and finally become one with her.

He took the blade from her, and she drew in the air quietly, frightened. He hushed her quietly, stroking her plump, rosy cheek with his hand, drawing her closer to him. He looked at her with a pounding heart as his thumb slid inside her mouth and tilted her lower lip, soft and lusciously wet.

She trembled all over as he ran the blade gently over her fleshy skin, creating a red line from which a drop of blood dripped a moment later.

"− my brave girl −" He whispered, grabbing her neck, pressing his forehead to hers, looking at her with awe and reverence, feeling that they were taking part in something sacred, solemn, dark and beautiful at the same time. He put the blade back between her fingers and extended the inside of his hand to her.

This time she didn't hesitate that long and with a simple, sure, gentle cut she slashed his skin. The man in front of them placed a cup under their arms as he took the blade from her, grasping her hand in his, cutting it as gently as he could. He heard her quiet hiss of discomfort.

"− shhh − just a little more −" He whispered tenderly, then grasped her cut hand in his and intertwined them together, their mingled blood flowing into the cup beneath them.

They both looked at the scene as if mesmerized, for some reason both breathing loudly − when the blood stopped flowing, the man lifted the goblet up, handing it to his wife first.

She reached for it with her healthy hand, and he saw that she held it with difficulty, her fingers trembling all over. She looked at him uncertainly, and then took a deep sip from the cup, swallowing it with effort.

She handed it to him, and he drank its contents without hesitation − their blood had a tart, metallic aftertaste from which he shuddered all over.

Their blood mingled together.

They marked each other for eternity.

The Maiden and The Stranger.

Fire and Water.

They were one.

______

Taglist 1

@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @astral-blossoms @randomdragonfires @amirawritespoorly @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes @darylandbethfanforever9 @fudge13 @snh96 @diosademuerte @rwdkarla @echos-muses @ipostwhtifeel @letmeloveyouuuu @yentroucnagol @valeskafics @tempt-ress @blairfox4 @crazymusicgirl104 @ahristata @menaosama @ladywin17 @queenofshinigamis @rae-seri @dark-night-sky-99

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dawneternal · 26 days

Text

The Benevolent | Eris x Healer OC | Four

☁︎ notes: these dummies are so smitten

☁︎ warnings: usual talk of injuries and Beron's abuse. Injured animal (he's okay though)

☁︎ word count: 2.2k

☁︎ AO3 Link / Masterlist

☁︎ tags: @cauldronblssd @teddyhoneybear @imma-too-many-fandoms @tele86 @mybestfriendmademe @allyjoe755 @milswrites @shadowdaddies @zenkindoflove @landofpetrichor

The next summon interrupted Aya’s day off. Her promised day of nothingness; no lessons, no jobs, no meetings, and no Court dinners. She planned to curl up in a corner of the green house and read, surrounded by the scent of healing herbs and flowers. Until that infernal ring began to glow once more. She could not ignore it, but she could grumble to herself all she wanted about how talented the Heir of Autumn was at collecting near-death experiences.

She was still silently complaining while she winnowed, while the world righted itself, and while Edana’s garden appeared before her eyes. What finally stopped the chain of complaints was the sight of Eris standing before her.

Hands in his pockets, head tilted to the side, he smiled as her gaze met his. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, eyes bright and unclouded by pain or alcohol. The sunlight gilded his copper hair and kissed every freckle.

Aya found herself unable to remember what she had been thinking about. No memory of her difficult weeks, her reluctance to return to this land of cunning and deception. She was lost in his smile. Something in it made her feel like she knew everything and nothing all at once.

Eris watched her eyes flick over his form, still struggling to focus after winnowing, and he took the time to study her in turn. Her height surprised him, the top of her head barely level with his shoulder. She had lovely curves, hugged by flowy, pastel fabrics as per the Dawn Court fashion. Her ears were lined with piercings, a gold ring with a gem dangling from her septum. Her wings were a soft glimmering gold dappled with darker brown, feathers rustling in the light breeze. She kept them tucked in tight to her body. And her eyes-

He thought of the sun rising, the blue fading into the orange and leaving that strange greyed-out tone in between. Somewhere in that softly painted sky was the color of her eyes. A brilliant silver, not quite blue, hints of orange. Purple in some lights. Somehow conveying all the loveliness of a misty dawn. Perhaps he had not appreciated the sunrise as much as he should in his five hundred and something years alive.

In short, they spent entirely too long staring at each other.

“At last, I meet my savior,” Eris broke the silence.

“I’d hardly call myself a savior,” Aya said, clutching her bag a little tighter. Her voice was as soft and melodic as he remembered from his dream.

“You deserve countless thanks, nonetheless,” He smiled, and Aya admired the way his freckles moved and dipped to make way for his dimples.

The crisp air combined with her thin clothes pulled a shiver from her. She had begun to wonder if he had called her there just to thank her when he swept an arm toward the door to Edana’s rooms.

“One of my hounds is injured,” He said, his expression slipping into something more solemn, “I’m sure you’ll be glad to know it’s nothing serious. If you’ll follow me.”

In the daylight, she could see more details of Edana’s rooms. The trim, doorways, and furniture were cut from the same dark wood as the rest of the Forest House, but the Lady had her walls painted light colors. Her decorations ventured outside of the familiar autumn color palette, a few daring shades of blue scattered throughout.

Aya also noticed for the first time that the door to the stone hallway was different from the rest. Aside from being situated in a strange place, it was older, warped and scratched. It had been left slightly ajar, and she could see from its faint purple glow that it was enchanted. When the door was shut, it would disappear from the wall entirely.

She followed him through the doorway, watching the fae-lights in the dim hall illuminate his muscled shoulders and well tailored shirt. As the ever present silence of the stone hallway wrapped around them, it finally hit her that they were alone.

“This is a private passage?” She asked softly, “There’s never anyone here.”

“Yes,” He answered, his voice strangely tense, “It’s an old passageway either unknown or forgotten by my father.”

He did not elaborate and she did not pry any further. It bothered Eris that she had been here twice before and he had not been conscious of it. He had no idea what she had seen and heard and learned. Things he should have been there to shield her from, no doubt.

When she stepped through the doorway, Aya shivered, her wings ruffling. Eris’s brows knit together. He had never seen anyone react to wards that way before. He watched as she scanned the room and locked in on the hound laying on his bed, needing no instruction. When she approached, she offered him the back of her fist to sniff, and he seemed to have no qualms with her coming closer. She soothed him before moving to his wound, smoothing down his dark fur and massaging his ears, all the while murmuring kind words and praise.

Eris almost smiled, wondering if she understood how ferocious that beast could be. He had seen the same dog with eyes hollow and hungry, blood dripping from his jaw. Not many would go near him. On his feet, he probably stood almost to her shoulder. And here she was, turning him to putty with her pets and kind words. His tail wagged as she spoke to him and he didn’t protest when she finally began to clean and dress his wound.

“What happened?” Aya asked, eyes remaining focused on the work before her. He admired the dance of her hands, swift and coordinated.

“He tumbled near the river bank, silly beast,” Eris answered.

Aya noted the affection in his voice and the embroidered collar around the dog’s neck. A thought also prickled at the back of her mind that Eris was not telling her the real story. Why have her come all of this way if the cause was not something that Beron must not know? But it did not matter, because she wasn’t supposed to sleuth.

“He has a name, doesn’t he?” She said instead, smiling.

“Juno,” Eris admitted, a bit sheepishly. Embarrassment crept up the back of his neck, the feeling of being caught at something he tried to hide. Her smile was too knowing, she definitely recognized it as another figure from mythology.

“I wish I could give you something to thank you properly,” He continued.

“Well you did interrupt my day off,” She flashed a sly smirk, eyes still on her hands.

“Oh, did I?” His eyebrows raised, lips twitching up into a smile. Something sparked in his veins at her playful tone. “I suppose I’ll have to figure out something special then.”

“If you think that’s fair,” She let out an exaggerated sigh, eyes glittering.

Eris was distracted by a golden glimmer, catching the light as she worked. It was the ring on her forefinger, a simple gold band that fit snug against her skin. His stomach dropped.

“My mother bound you?” He whispered, and from his tone she could practically see the embers burning in his throat.. Aya paused and looked up at him, the color draining from his face.

“Yes,” Her brows furrowed. She thought he would have known that. “Her contract seemed fair. I asked for a written copy.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw and he said in that same quiet fury, “Will you please send me a copy?”

“Of course,” Aya said, gaze still stuck on his as she searched his face for answers. It was almost too long before she turned back to the hound, who had begun to whine for her attention. The silence in the room had begun to squeeze.

“I understand that this situation is…delicate,” She continued after a moment, swallowing hard. It was always too quiet here, sounds of arguing and pain the only things to interrupt it. It was unnerving, like balancing a glass ball on each shoulder.

“I wish she would not have dragged you into it,” He whispered through his teeth. He stood with his arms crossed, looking a little taller than before. This was closer to the image of the Heir she had heard stories about. Though he was certainly less intimidating since she had seen him drunk and smitten with a fictional angel.

“I can handle it,” Aya said, giving Juno one last pat before rearranging the supplies in her worn leather satchel.

“You shouldn’t have to.”

She faced him, bag in hand, tilting her head back to look at him fully. Eris drew in a deep breath, trying not to stare at the reflection of the light on her long glossy curls, in her misty eyes.

“Thesan gave me a talisman,” She pulled up one sleeve to reveal a tattoo on her bicep. A stylized, swirling cloud. “It will give me protection against magic if your father tried to use any against me.”

The sight of it did strange things to Eris’s heart. He felt the relief of her protection. She was not another liability, another piece on his chessboard that he must keep under his watch at all times. But there was another feeling there, too. Like he resented this thing that separated her from him. That ugly desire to control and protect everything he felt a fondness for reared its head. She belonged to the Dawn Court. She was Thesan’s creature. She may be Eris’s healer, bound to his mother by that horrible ring, but she was not his. She was not loyal to him. Unless she chose to be. And nobody ever chose Eris of their own accord.

“Good,” Eris said, in another tone that Aya couldn’t read.

“Oh,” She said, in an attempt to avoid another awkward lull, fishing a corked bottle of green tablets and holding it out to him. “Juno can have these for the pain. They’re mostly herbs so they’re very safe for him.”

“You’re very kind,” Eris smiled, his voice softened by the kindness she had shown his beloved pet. It was, of course, a risk to show any affection for his hounds. They were meant to be ruthless weapons. Just like the seven sons.

“What are your mother’s guards names?” She asked suddenly, brows drawing together.

“Why?” He swallowed an urge to reach out and smooth the wrinkles between her eyebrows with his thumb, swiping away whatever worried her just to see her smile again.

“I just think I should know. It seems to rude to refer to them as anything else. They’re not my guards.”

So she must not know about Thesan’s order for Eris to protect her while she was present in the Autumn Court. He had extended that order to the guards.

“The older one with dark hair is Caspian, and Asher is blond and bearded,” Eris answered. Aya nodded, and he could practically see her tucking the information away in her mind.

Against the dark wood and warm colors of his room, he thought she looked like a sparkling gemstone. Vibrant Amethyst among common stones. They watched each other in silence for the third time until, reluctantly, he led her back to the winnow spot and let her return to her world.

⋆｡˚ ☁︎ ˚｡⋆｡˚☽˚｡⋆

The next morning, Aya was pulled from her sleep by a knock on the door. A courier waited on the other side with an envelope and package wrapped in brown paper and string. She thanked him and returned to her bed, holding the parcel in her lap. The paper and string fell forgotten to the floor as she opened it eagerly.

Inside was a new leather satchel, the same shape and size as her old one. The sides and edges had been dyed a rich mulberry, the leather carved and tooled into an interlocking, curving design. The golden clasp, shaped like a leaf, gleamed in the morning sun. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of it, so lovely and new compared to the one she had carried daily for years now. The leather had been worn so thoroughly that it drooped and sagged.

Aya opened the bag, finding it lined with pockets and sections the perfect sizes for bandages and vials. There was also an envelope nestled inside, her name scrawled on the front in curly script. She opened it gingerly, planning to add the paper to the box of ephemera under her bed. Mail was a rare treat.

Aya,

Thank you again for your help. Juno is doing much better and I suspect you have made a friend of him. I hope this gift will be of use to you.

As for retribution for your missed day off, you may also find that your instructors received a strongly worded letter from some anonymous busybody complaining about the state of cleanliness in the healer’s wing. I believe the buildings are being deep-cleaned over the next few days. Enjoy your long weekend.

Eris

Aya buried her face in her hands, covering her silly, involuntary smile and burning cheeks. She finally bothered to open the other envelope, finding Eris to be truthful. The head of the school had sent a note announcing that classes had been canceled, though they did include a list of assignments to complete and log in the meantime. Assignments that she could complete in the greenhouse, between dozing off and basking in the sunshine the green, herbal scent. Somehow, against all the odds she battled with, Aya had made a friend.

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hp-hcs · 9 months

Text

(Fine, I’ll do it my damn self: part 3 of my silly lil mlm stories <3)

Slytherin Twin — draco malfoy x male! slytherin! weasley! reader x harry potter

tws: umbridge’s blood quill, maybe like a pinch of homophobia?

i need more representation of slytherins who enjoy care of magical creatures goddamnit

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

“Ronald Weasley.”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

“Y/N Weasley.”

Oh, no. Minerva McGonagall does not get paid enough to deal with another set of Weasley twins.

“SLYTHERIN!”

Maybe I should retire, Minerva thinks faintly.

You don’t seem to mind at all that the Great Hall is dead silent as you skip towards the Slytherin table, your brothers watching in a mix of shock, fascination, resignation, and abject horror.

You plop down right next to Draco Malfoy, grinning widely at him before waving cheerily towards some of the older students who are struggling to hold back their unabashed glee.

“A Weasley in Slytherin? I thought your entire family was made up of idioticly naïve fools,” Malfoy sneers sharply, a look of contempt rising on his smug face.

“Draco Malfoy in Slytherin? How much did your family have to pay to ensure you got in?” you reply with a sweet smile on your face. The older students stare in awe at the Weasley who just left a Malfoy speechless.

Much to their surprise, however, Draco’s face broke out into a grin. “So you do belong here. Very well then, Weasley. Lovely to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise, Malfoy.”

~~~

“‘The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir beware.’ What does that even mean?”

“D’you still think it’s about Potter?” you ask around a mouthful of toast. “Cause I think you might’ve been wrong ‘bout him, Dray.”

“Potter is a spoiled prat, Y/N. Just because he’s the Chosen One, he thinks he’s so special-”

“My brothers broke him out of his uncle’s house over the summer. They’d put bars on his window and starved him.”

Draco stops his tirade about Potter, looking positively bewildered. “What?”

~~~

As you were leaving the library, you bumped into Hermione Granger, your brother’s girlfriend friend.

“Sorry,” you mutter, continuing on your way. You don’t look back, so you never see the dawning look of realization once Granger unfolds the torn-out page you’d shoved into her hand.

~~~

Harry Potter opens the Gryffindor portrait at your hesitant knocking. “Oh- Y/N, right? Ron’s brother?”

You nod uncertainly. “Yeah, um… I just wanted to say that I’m real sorry about Buckbeak. Malfoy’s a git, you know.”

Harry nods slowly. “Yeah. Isn’t he like, your best friend though?”

“Like you’ve never thought of Ronnie as a git too, Potter.”

He grins and holds the portrait open for you. “Here- welcome to the common room, I guess.”

You look around, unimpressed. “My eyes are bleeding.”

Smoothing out your Slytherin sweater, you continue, “Like, this is almost as bad as Ron’s Chudley Cannons shrine-bedroom.”

A unfamiliar scowling face looks up from the couch, glaring daggers at you. “Oi, what are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be fawning over your Slytherin prince?”

“Hey, leave him alone, Finnegan!” Ron snaps, appearing at the bottom of the stairwell to his dorm. “I swear to Merlin, you are such a prat.”

Ignoring your brother, you raise your hands up in mock surrender, smiling patronizingly at Seamus. “Hey, no hard feelings, leprechaun. I’m just here to apologize on Dray’s behalf.”

“On Dray’s behalf,” Cormac McLaggen mocks in a high-pitched voice. “Oh, Dray!”

A few girls next to him titter with laughter.

“Malfoy your boyfriend or something, Weasley?” McLaggen spits your name like it were a curse.

“Oh, indeed,” you deadpan. “You’re invited to the wedding. Won’t you be my best man, please?”

“If you’re just here to make fun of us, maybe you ought’a leave,” Seamus butts in again.

“Whatever. Anyways, Potter, I found a couple of books in the library about the Ministry’s statutes, and I bookmarked a few pages about the fascinating Release of Liability contracts that Hogwarts students’ guardians have to sign at the beginning of every school year,” you look down at your nails, feigning disinterest. “But if you’re not interested, then I’ll be off. Wouldn’t want to overstay my welcome.”

~~~

“Y/N, here,” Pansy Parkinson said with a look of poorly-contained glee, gently setting a pure white ferret into your hands. “It’s Draco’s, and you’re in charge of ferret-sitting for the foreseeable future. Have fun!”

Blaise just slowly shakes his head and mouths I’m so sorry in your direction as Pansy drags him off, laughing mirthfully. You blink, glancing down at the tiny animal who is currently glaring at you. Draco’s indeed, you think to yourself.

“Heya, little guy. It’s snowing pretty hard outside, are you fine riding in my pocket until I get to my next class?”

You hold open the deep pocket of your robe with your free hand, the ferret immediately leaping inside. You waited as it got settled, its tiny paws and head peeking out.

Satisfied, you start your walk across the school grounds, taking a much longer path than usual to avoid your older brothers, who had been giggling to each other far too much this morning for your comfort.

You chatter to the little rodent in your pocket, about everything from the Divination test you failed this morning to the fantastic cherry tart your mother makes every Yule. Before long, you arrive and climb up the stone steps, knocking on the heavy wood door and tucking your hands into your armpits to keep warm.

The door opens, revealing the half-giant groundskeeper who smiles happily at you.

“Y/N! I jus’ put on a kettle of tea, now. Glad y’made it, lad.”

As he ushers you into the warm, inviting hut, the ferret in your pocket squeaks at the sight of the large dog asleep by the fire.

You giggle, pulling the ferret out and setting it on the arm of your chair, gladly taking the warm teacup offered to you. “Mr. Hagrid, sir. My friend Pansy just kind of gave me this little guy out of nowhere and told me I was on indefinite ferret-sitting duty.”

Hagrid sits forward in his chair, setting down his delicate china teacup that looks rather out of place in his large hand, and squints at the ferret.

“Tha’s transfigured, that is,” Hagrid grunts. “Not a ferret.”

“I figured,” you shrug. “Ten galleons says it’s Malfoy.”

The ferret squeaks indignantly.

Hagrid chuckles. “If it is y’, Malfoy, I right like you better like this.”

You reach out to scratch the top of Malfoy (Ferret?) Blondie’s head. “So can you turn him back, Mr. Hagrid?”

“‘Fraid not, with no wand,” he taps his fingers on his teacup, making a steady clink clink clink sound. “Ah! But our mutual friend should be dropping by shortly, yeah?”

His sentence is punctuated by the well-timed FWOOSH of a flooed-in visitor.

“Heya, Harry! Draco’s a ferret now.”

“He wasn’t already?”

~~~

“My father will hear about this!”

“I’m sure he will, Dray, I’m sure he will,” you deadpan, wincing at the sting of Murtlap Essence on the back of your hand.

He mumbles a quiet apology, already rewrapping Harry’s hand in fresh bandages.

If you had told any Hogwarts student five years ago that one day, Harry Potter and Y/N Weasley would be sitting on the dusty floor of Filch’s dingy custodial closet, having their self-inflicted ‘detentions’ healed and wrapped by Draco Malfoy, they would’ve laughed in your face.

Despite that, the perplexing triad found solace in each others’ presence. No words left needing to be said.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. — Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

#harry potter #draco malfoy #maybe drarry? i don’t actually know #ferret draco #draco x reader #harry x reader #hp x male reader #x male reader #these bitches gay good for them #fuck jkr #mary oliver

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desertdragon · 1 year

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MiqoMarch #4: Journey

Insp by @finishing-touch Febhyurary

#edits #miqomarch #there was going to be more but i ran out of space #heir of rising dawn

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esther-dot · 4 months

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oh and I hope you don't mind (we can share my mood) 11k by @thkingslayer

“You make presumptions, your highness.” “I do not. I know how unwanted I am by you, Lady Sansa.” Her mouth opens as she struggles to find the words to tell him it isn’t true. She’s a lady. She would be nice if he would. She just wants— She just wants— -- When the king travels north, Sansa takes an immediate liking to Prince Aegon. She does not, however, want anything to do with her cousin Prince Jon—the brooding, dark haired, younger brother. She's quite sure he does not want anything to do with her also. And by the Old Gods and the New, she will not let him ruin her mood.

Dawn 19k

Like her mother before her, Sansa will do her duty. She will marry a man who is practically a stranger, mere days before he sets off for war.

All That Glitters 3k by @rumaan

Sansa is annoyed she has to give up a day with Prince Aegon to show his boring younger brother around Winterfell. Some alone time with Prince Jon makes her re-evaluate her opinion.

Sapphires and Salt 9k by @wendynerdwrites

The Princess to be is jilted, the unwanted prince rises

Salty Teens one, two, three by @blackholeofprocrastination

Sansa bursts into his solar in a swirl of skirts, her precious courtesies forgotten. Jon remains seated behind his desk, earning a scowl from his lady wife. “What did you say to Jeyne?” she demands. “Nothing.” It’s not entirely true, but he is still too furious to be cowed in his own damn solar.

Learning to fight, learning to Dance 1k by @myrish-lace-love

Lyanna Stark survives, and Jon and Aegon are half-brothers. Jon is in a hastily arranged marriage with Sansa Stark. They get on each other's nerves constantly during the day, but their nights are a different matter.

What a Disappointment 7k by @justadram

Sansa Stark and Jon Targaryen are married and neither of them is pleased about it. Set in a world where Rhaegar lives and Jon was raised in King's Landing as a legitimized bastard.

lights still shining in the room, you left me here 11k

Perhaps at one point, her marriage to Jon had become less of a sham. But with a history of three dead children between them, even the strongest of unions would break, let alone one as fragile as theirs. When Sansa tries to save herself, her actions lead to some interesting revelations.

Made New 3k

Sansa does not get the wedding night that she longed for and has to fix it

Tell the Ones That Need to know (We Are Headed North) 10k by @vixleonard

After years of confinement in the Red Keep with Ned prisoner in the black cells, the Dragon Queen comes. With the knowledge that Jon Snow is actually a Targaryen, she agrees to let the Starks return to Winterfell only if Jon marries one of the Stark daughters. Sansa volunteers so they can all go home. Soon she figures out being married to Jon isn't bad but it is complicated.

half a kingdom and a princess 2k by @misshoneywheeler

“Guess you’re stuck with me, old girl.” Old girl. He’s never called her that before. He’s never called her anything but Sansa and my lady, or sometimes Lady Stark, a title that gives them both discomfort as Lady Stark is still Sansa’s mother to each of them. Something in Sansa thrills at the strange endearment, though she should – and may – protest at being called such a thing. There’s just something so familiar in the words, in Jon’s soft affection as he says them. Something intimate and real.

A Convenient Inconvenience 4k

Once Daenerys takes the Iron Throne she knows the battle is only half over. Now that she has the throne she must keep it. Since she cannot have heirs of her own she names her new half-brother, the former Jon Snow, now Jon Targaryen, the Crown Prince. And a prince needs a princess which is where Sansa Stark comes in. The pair marry yet it takes months for Jon to realize that Sansa thinks of their relationship as more than just a duty.

PRE CANON - WESTERN - FAIRYTALE - REGENCY - LITTLE WOMEN - HOLIDAY - SEASON SIX - ANNE OF GREEN GABLES - THE GIRL IN GREY - FREE CITIES - FAIRYTALE PART II - POLITICAL MARRIAGE - POST CANON

#jonsa #jonsa fic #dot fic list #salty teens au #arranged marriage au #political marriage au #some of these are jon is a targ but they're primarily salty teens so stuck them here and will do more jon is a targ fics later

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year

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Now I’m Covered In You [Chapter 7: Sundials]

Series summary: Aemond is a prince of England. You are married to his brother. The Wars of the Roses are about to begin, and you have failed to fulfill your one crucial responsibility: to give the Greens a line of legitimate heirs. Will you survive the demands of your family back in Navarre, the schemes of the Duke of Hightower, the scandals of your dissolute husband, the growing animosity of Daemon Targaryen…and your own realization of a forbidden love?

Series title is a lyric from: Ivy by Taylor Swift.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), dubious consent, miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, violence, warfare, murder, alcoholism, sexism, infidelity, illness, death, only vaguely historically accurate, lots of horses!

Word count: 6.0k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @borikenlove @myspotofcraziness @teenagecriminalmastermind @quartzs-posts @tclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @chainsawsangel @itsabby15 @padfooteyes @arcielee @travelingmypassion @what-is-originality @burningcoffeetimetravel @randomdragonfires @anditsmywholeheart @aemcndtargaryen @jvpit3rs @sarcastic-halfling-princess @flowerpotmage @ladylannisterxo @thelittleswanao3 @elsolario @tinykryptonitewerewolf @girlwith-thepearlearring @minttea07 @trifoliumviridi @deltamoon666 @mariahossain @darkenchantress @doingfondue @atherverybest @namelesslosers @skythighs @moonlightfoxx @partypoison00 @bellameshipper @coffedraven

He doesn’t say anything; he doesn’t even move.

He just stands there under the arc of the doorframe, half-shadow, half-firelight, dawn and dusk and the Rapture all rolled together into a handful of seconds that stretch on infinitely. He gapes senselessly—dead-eyed like a fish—blinking a few times as if he’s expecting to wake up. Then he spins around and sprints out of your bedchamber.

“Fuck,” Aemond hisses, and again, slamming his fist against the wooden floor: “Fuck!” He scrambles to his feet and pulls on his clothes, his long silver hair disheveled, his skin glistening with your sweat. He’s wearing the evidence of your transgression like chainmail, like rain.

“Aemond…” you begin, petrified, your knuckles pressed to your face. Is this the end of us? Is this the end of me?

He doesn’t reply. There’s nothing for him to say that could comfort you. Instead, he takes off after Aegon and vanishes through the doorway, his footsteps fading into the entrails of the palace. You untangle the bunched-up layers of your gown and stand, wobbling on bare feet as you straighten the hem, dimly aware—like peering through a fogged window—that you’re whimpering with a helpless sort of dread. You follow after Aemond, pausing every so often to listen for the echoes of his steps.

Westminster Palace is serene like still water as the sun rises over it; the Greens are collapsing after a long night of wedding festivities, the Blacks are solemnly witnessing the final days of King Viserys’ mortal illness. Aegon runs all the way through the castle and then out into the gardens, past the stables, and across the daybreak emerald field to the edge of the forest. You don’t understand what he’s doing until you and Aemond finally catch up to him, until Aegon stops just beyond the tree line and doubles over gasping with both hands on his knees. Until he allows himself to be caught.

He knew he couldn’t shout at us inside the palace, you realize. Not without everyone else hearing. Not without announcing our treason to the court, to the world.

Aemond grabs for his brother, and Aegon shoves him away with a viciousness you’ve never seen from him before, that you didn’t know he was capable of.

“It wasn’t enough for you,” Aegon seethes through bared teeth. His face is a mottled, furious red, tears streaming from his bloodshot eyes. “Mother loving you more, Grandsire regarding you as more worthy, being stronger, smarter, more talented, more disciplined. You had to have everything. You had to take her too. She was the only thing that was mine.”

Aemond glances at you miserably. “She didn’t choose you.”

“Since when have I chosen anything?!” Aegon screams, his hands like claws against his own chest. “None of us got to choose what we are or who we marry, I didn’t, you didn’t. Helaena didn’t, Daeron didn’t, Mother didn’t, and I was resigned to that. I didn’t choose her and she didn’t choose me, and I’m sure if she’d ever been asked she wouldn’t have wanted to be burdened with me because who the fuck would? But she was mine.” His eyes drop to your belly, where you are still a month away from beginning to show. “Am I even the father?”

“Yes,” you and Aemond insist simultaneously.

“You’re both goddamn liars. Why would I believe you? How could you possibly know?”

“Because…we haven’t…we’ve never…” You look to Aemond for help.

“Not all the way,” he clarifies. “Only twice and never to…um…completion. My completion, I mean. She…um…well…” Now he’s accidentally said too much and doesn’t know how to reverse course.

“Jesus Christ!” Aegon exclaims, wincing, rubbing his face with his hands. “You think I’m asking for those details? You think I want to hear that?! You know, maybe I’m the honorable Targaryen son after all, because I’ve had my share of scandals but I know exactly where I spent my fucking wedding night.”

You say softly: “Aegon, you had a child with another woman while I lost four of them.”

The rage drains out of him and the childlike shame seeps in, cold drips that slowly fill a bucket. “That’s different.”

“Because you’re a man?” you scoff.

“No, because it didn’t mean anything! That was the whole point, that’s why it was something I wanted, because it was the only thing in my life that wasn’t heavy or obligatory or self-sacrificial. But this…” He points from Aemond to you and then back to his brother again. “This means a lot.”

“It does,” Aemond admits.

“So she was your escape then,” Aegon says with razored bitterness. “I had wine and whores and you had fantasies of fucking my wife, and I suppose that dulled the pain a bit, didn’t it? The pain of being the second son, the pain of forever coveting what’s been forced upon me.”

“No. Loving her is the most painful thing I’ve ever done. I don’t love her because she was given to you. I would love her anywhere and at any cost.”

You watch him in the faint dawn light, higher than clouds, horrified to the bones. He loves me. He said that he loves me. Aemond gazes back at you. He shouldn’t, but he does. He can’t help it.

Everything about Aegon sinks, vertebrae crumbling like ancient ruins, vessels and ligaments folding in on themselves under the weight of your betrayal. His words are venomous. “I’m sorry that I’m standing in the way of everyone’s happiness. It’s what I’m best at, it seems.” And he begins trudging back towards the palace.

Aemond is frantic. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“God, you really do think I’m brainless,” Aegon replies, but he sounds more defeated than vengeful. “As if I have any desire to see her burned at a stake.”

“Then where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” Aegon throws over his shoulder. “There’s nowhere else to go. There has never been anywhere else to go.”

He leaves you and Aemond alone in the newborn incandescence of the first day of May, 1485. The moment you shared on the bearskin rug is over now. In the daylight, it is impossible to ignore how risky it is, how unjustifiable, an act of thievery that can only end in heartbreak that swallows up lives far beyond the epicenter. Still, Aemond looks to you, waiting for you to decide what happens next.

After a while—long, burdened minutes punctuated only by birdsong and the rustling of leaves in the wind—you return to your rooms. Aemond retreats to his own. Princess Kunigunde, presumably, waits in vain for him to reappear in her bedchamber, the blankets pulled up to her chin and her clever, immaculate forehead lined with worry. Four people, none of whom should be alone right now, locked away in their own rooms with their own ghosts.

You try to sleep, but you don’t; you just lie there staring up at the canopy of your bed, green roses and gold dragons, shivering despite the warmth of the fireplace, fears clattering in your skull like pieces of porcelain or glass. At last one of your ladies arrives and yanks back the curtains, filling your eyes with daffodil-yellow mid-afternoon sun.

“Good morning, princess!” she says cheerfully, even though it’s long past noon. Throughout the palace the Greens and their supporters are unraveling from slumber and still in good spirits after the dancing and feasting…well, most of them, anyway. “You’ll need to dress straight away. The Duke of Hightower has summoned you.”

You jolt upright. “What? Why? What did he say?”

She offers you a puzzled glance before going to the closet to fetch an emerald-colored gown. “It’s time for lunch, of course. Lunch with the royal family. It’s Princess Kunigunde’s first day as Aemond’s wife. The Duke has had an authentic Austrian meal prepared.”

“Oh. Right.” You remember now; the post-wedding plans had slipped your mind. You consider the prospect of sharing a table with Kunigunde, Aemond, Aegon. “Um, actually Elizabeth, I’m not feeling very well. Nausea. The baby. I don’t think I’ll be able to attend.”

She raises an eyebrow. Your ladies have never exactly been yours. They’re agents of the Duke and the families he considers most loyal, daughters who have not yet married, chess pieces that have not been played. “He’ll be expecting you.”

“I’m sure he will, but under the circumstances…”

“Would you like me to inform the Duke that you are indisposed? I suspect you’ll soon find him here in person to express the importance of this gathering.”

You sigh heavily, swinging your feet to the cool floor. “No, perhaps not.” Of course now he wants me out of bed. Now that we all know my pregnancies weren’t doomed by physical exertion…and now that he wishes to pay every courtesy to the Holy Roman Emperor’s daughter. “I’ll endure it somehow.”

A table has been brought out into the gardens, and everyone else is already there. Kunigunde wears her characteristically neutral colors, not signifying anything except her own intrinsic worth; her gown is a shimmering cream with gold accents. She smiles politely, regally, as the Duke of Hightower boasts about the trappings of the table—kasespatzle, tiroler knodel, tafelspitz, powidltascherl, other mysterious dishes from her homeland, grapes, pomegranates, pitchers of wine and mead—but the princess is notably subdued. Aemond sits beside her with his hands laced together and pressed to his lips, as if in prayer. Sir Criston Cole has just located Aegon and is heaving him into his chair, eyes glazed and still bloodshot, straw from the stables in his uncombed hair. You are determined not to make eye contact with any of them as you settle into your seat as inconspicuously as possible.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Nico chirps, feeling your cheeks and the back of your neck with a lack of formality that Kunigunde seems perplexed by. Nico and Daeron are the dots of lantern light in metaphorical darkness, vines splitting through frosted earth. They are miraculously untouched by the times they find themselves living in. “You look awful! Didn’t you get any sleep at all?”

You hide your face by slurping your cup of mead. “Not much. The baby’s been making me ill.”

Aegon groans loudly, as if in pain, pushing some sort of potato-and-sausage monstrosity around his plate with a fork. The Duke shoots Aegon a repulsed sort of grimace but otherwise ignores him.

“Would you like to know what I’ve heard?” the Duke of Hightower says merrily.

“No,” Aegon mumbles.

“That the strongest children cause the worst sickness for the mother.”

Queen Alicent nods in agreement. She spends her days with her father and children rather than her dying husband. She has definitively chosen a side. “That’s true in my experience. I was horribly sick when I was pregnant with Aemond. Almost bedbound for the first five months!”

Aegon flinches and guzzles wine until it runs down his throat like blood.

“I remember,” Sir Criston Cole says, with a gentle sort of protectiveness that might strike you as odd if you weren’t already consumed by other anxieties.

“And very soon we should have another Targaryen heir on the way.” The Duke beams at Kunigunde with approval. “I understand that the wedding night proceeded without any hinderances. A spot of red on the sheets, as was required.”

She nods modestly. “Yes, Your Grace. That’s correct.”

You turn to her, startled; and you can see from the short-lived crease that appears in Aemond’s forehead that he is baffled as well. Aegon stares blankly at a thorny tangle of crimson roses. Kunigunde’s stoic face reveals nothing…but after much investigation your eyes find a shallow cut between the ring and middle fingers of her left hand. That was wise of her: a wound that can be concealed with gloves much of the time and easily explained away if glimpsed. Hands are a human’s great asset and yet profound weakness: when they go astray they get bitten, scarred, crushed, burned, carved to ribbons.

But why? Why would she lie for Aemond? A man she barely knows from a family that needs her so much more than she needs them?

And then you understand as you watch Kunigunde take dainty nibbles of her food and thank the Duke graciously for his hospitality.

Because she’s honorable, you realize. Just like Aemond is. She’s married to him, she’s been sent by her father to him, and so she’s doing exactly what a wife is supposed to. To support and safeguard her husband entirely. To protect his reputation. To purge herself of any desires, ambitions, dreams that diverge from his.

There’s a weight in your chest like an anchor. After less than twenty-four hours, she is already a better wife than you could ever hope to be. She really is the sort of woman Aemond should end up with. The kind he would have chosen for himself if he’d never met you.

Kunigunde steals troubled looks at you, questioning, wary. Aemond sips wine and forces down occasional bites of Austrian food. His hair is secured in one thick, rather untidy braid, woven in haste after little sleep. It is something that the Duke might easily mistake for a good omen; you know it’s the opposite.

Nico is chattering joyfully about her own wedding, now only three months away. Daeron smiles at her, warm and fond, every few minutes lifting her hand to touch his lips to her knuckles. “Do you think we could have Milanese food when I’m married? Minestrone and ossobuco and polenta? Panettone for dessert? It’ll be the wrong time of year for it, true, we usually only eat panettone at Christmas, but I do love it so!”

“You could wait to marry until December,” Kunigunde suggests pragmatically.

“December?!” Nico squeals, aghast. “I’m barely going to make it until August! I’d marry him right now if I could, here in the gardens with no ornate ceremony whatsoever, or in the horse stables, or in a dungeon, even! I’d marry him in a tree!”

Kunigunde is disturbed by her unabashed lack of ladylike inhibition. “Nico,” you scold, but you’re grinning. Alicent is laughing, the first time you’ve seen her truly happy in days.

Nico turns to the Duke of Hightower. “Do you think you could write to my parents and convince them to let me and Daeron marry sooner? Perhaps…by the end of May? Oh please, Your Grace, please please please?”

“Unfortunately, as much as I would welcome that, they were quite adamant that Daeron must be at least sixteen and a half before the wedding can take place.”

Nico rocks back in her chair and growls up at the sky. “I’m being tortured. I am a martyr to my parents’ well-intentioned aspirations.”

“Aren’t we all,” Aegon mutters.

“Might I have some more kasespatzle?” Kunigunde asks primly.

The bowl is resting beside Aegon. He pushes it towards Aemond with a balled fist. “Pass that to…” He pauses. He’s forgotten her name. “Uh. Your wife.”

Aemond gives the bowl to Kunigunde. She accepts it and tries to catch his gaze in the process. He peers down at the table instead. Soon he is embroiled in a whispered discussion with Daeron, who looks at him in a way that reminds you of how the Black children once regarded King Viserys: with admiration, trust, awe. You listen as closely as you can as Nico asks you about gown colors and styles, wedding frivolities. In Aemond’s war plans you detect the names of castles along England’s east coast: Norwich, Tattershall, Colchester, Framlingham, Castle Rising. Places for allied armies to meet them. Places to use as footholds against usurpers from the North. Kunigunde is staring at Aemond, and for the first time you see her mask slip, and beneath it is something horrible beyond words: desperation, fragility, despair.

You rise suddenly from the table, your chair shrieking against cobblestones. Everyone looks up at you. Nico is concerned, Aemond alarmed, Aegon sullen and loathing.

“I’m really, really not feeling well,” you say. “I apologize, but I need to go back to my rooms now. Right now.”

Nico begins: “Should I—?”

“No, no, I’ll be better after I rest a while. Please don’t let me ruin lunch for everyone else. I shall see you all tonight for dinner and dancing.” And it might kill me.

Nico frowns anxiously. “Well, okay, if you insist…”

You bolt for the palace. Aemond’s eye follows you all the way to the door. Kunigunde’s eyes stay on him, shiny with delicate longing.

You stumble through the hallways, leaning on the walls to catch your balance and your breath. Nobles pledged to the Greens stop—swarming like flies on a corpse—to ask if they can help you. You have that to thank Daemon for; he’s made you a figure of pity and blamelessness, an idol, a saint. They know nothing about who you truly are. You assure the loyalists that you’re fine and wave them off. There’s nothing they can do to help you. There’s nothing anyone can do.

You wander to the Great Hall, which is presently empty except for a few servants sweeping the floor. And in the quiet, under beams of afternoon light flooding in from the windows, you contemplate the throne. It’s vacant right now, it’s a liminal space like a doorway. The old king will soon be lowered into the earth; a new one is rising. You wonder if there’s a version of this world someplace where things turn out differently. You wonder if in another thread of time—running parallel to yours but never intertwining with it—Aegon was born somewhere else, far away, impossibly far away, and Aemond was the Greens’ heir all along, and you were the woman married to him, no one else, and you never became an adulteress and a traitor and a whore. You touch your belly, where your child is small and weak but growing.

You deserve a better world to be born into. You deserve better parents.

You’ve been standing in the Great Hall for some span of time that doesn’t matter—five minutes, ten, fifteen, twenty—when you hear the tolling of bells from the Tower of London. This is a perfectly ordinary occurrence, except that it isn’t; a new hour hasn’t arrived yet. And the bells don’t stop after a few chimes. They keep ringing, and ringing, and then it pierces you like a stone through a window. Now there are crowds rushing through the halls of the palace. Now there is clamoring, plotting, screaming.

The king is dead. But the war is just beginning.

You rush out of the Great Hall and are intercepted by hordes of cloying Green-affiliated nobles. “Your Majesty!” they cry, bowing to you and kissing your hands and feet. You give them your utmost appreciation—as is required—but your eyes scan the corridors for Aemond.

“Have you seen the prince?” you ask them. “Do you know where he is—?”

But they assume you mean your husband, because that’s who you’re supposed to be thinking of.

“Long live King Aegon II!” they chant, they shout, they will into reality with the brute force of the knowledge that his demise would mean theirs as well. “Long live the king!”

You dodge the crowds and dart through the halls, searching wildly for Aemond. Where will he go now? What does he need from me? Will I ever see him again?

At last, you spy him at the end of a long corridor covered in slanting amber-hued afternoon sunbeams; and the way he races to your side tells you that he was looking for you as well.

“Aemond, what happens now—?”

“Walk with me,” he says. It’s the same thing he told you when you miscarried at five months on Christmas night. And just like then, his arm hooks around your waist to whisk you along with him, his head bent close to yours to murmur secret things.

“My father is dead. The Blacks have already left Westminster Palace. They took their horses and are riding North to raise men to fight and die for Rhaenyra’s claim.” His face goes hard and vicious. “They tried to burn the stables down before they fled. With our horses still inside. Sir Criston and the guards stopped them.”

“Monsters,” you breathe.

“They were in Green territory here and they knew it. They scattered like cowards, like rats. But north of Nottingham, the Blacks have the advantage. They will gather their forces and return to bring fire and blood to our doorstep.”

Aemond is leading you outside towards the stables. Your feet move hurriedly in tandem together over soft spring grass. He’ll have to go to war, you know he will. Between his strategy, his swordsmanship, and Vhagar, he is the greatest asset the Greens have on the battlefield. “When must you leave?”

“Now, Ivy.”

“Now?!”

You’re in the entranceway of the stables; you hear the agitated stomps and huffs of horses who can smell the shift in the winds. “We must ready our own armies and pursue Daemon and Rhaenyra,” Aemond says. “The farther we can keep them from London, the safer you’ll be.”

Aegon—grim and with half of his short hair tied back—strides into the stables. He turns furious when he sees you. “Of course you’re saying goodbye to him. But cheer up, wife, maybe you’ll both get what you most wish for and I’ll be killed in battle.”

“Aegon, I don’t want that—”

“Don’t fucking talk to me,” he snaps, mere inches from your face. Aemond glares at him savagely and your husband withdraws. He goes to Sunfyre’s stall and leads him outside, where servants are working in a flurry to saddle the Greens’ horses. In the chaos and the sunshine, Daeron and Nico are enmeshed in a needful embrace, weeping and exchanging ardent promises as servants slip Tessarion’s bridle over her massive grey head. The Duke of Hightower is issuing orders in every direction.

“Aemond, what can I do?”

He coaxes Vhagar out of her stall and saddles her; she won’t tolerate anyone else doing it. She’ll kick them until their brains litter the ground like fall leaves. Will I see him again before autumn, before the baby is born? Will I ever see him again at all? “Write another letter to your brother Alonzo. It should be able to reach him before he sets sail. Tell him and his forces to meet us at Castle Rising. Nico and Kunigunde should send the same message to their own kingdoms.”

“I’ll make sure it’s done.”

“Get your sword from under the cedar tree. Keep it with you. You might need it.”

“Alright, but—”

“I have to go now,” he says, fastening Vhagar’s bridle. Then Aemond turns to you. Your left palm presses to his chest; the fingertips of your right hand graze the length of his silver braid. You breathe him in, leather and smoke and greatness, and wonder if it’s for the last time.

“Aemond…” The words snag in your throat. I can’t lose you. I can’t do this without you. I love you, I love you, I’ll never love anyone but you.

“Don’t,” he murmurs, laying two fingers against your lips. “Tell me when I see you again.”

“I will,” you swear.

He leads Vhagar—colossal hooves thudding, tail swishing eagerly—out of the stables. Sir Criston Cole is waiting there. He won’t be going with them. He is pledged to Alicent’s service…and he and a small contingent of guards will be the only protection left at Westminster Palace. “Aemond, remember your training—”

Aemond seizes him, pulls him in close, nods to you. “Criston, you stay with her. She is the priority, she carries the heir. If the city falls, Mother can seek sanctuary in Westminster Abbey. Nico and Kunigunde can seek sanctuary, and I believe it would be honored. But Daemon will not spare Aegon’s wife and child. He will kill her if he gets the chance, but he will make her suffer first. So you stay with her.” He shakes him. “Do you understand me? You stay with her.”

Criston looks terrified. “I understand.”

“Good.” Aemond releases the knight. Alicent and Kunigunde appear, dashing out of the castle just in time to say goodbye. Alicent clings to Aemond, whispering to him, no more able to protect him now than she was years ago when his eye was cut from his skull. He replies in words you can’t decipher. When they finally break apart, Alicent’s face is wet with tears.

“Husband,” Kunigunde says stiffly.

“Wife.” You look away as he kisses her, swift and formal. Even that you cannot bear to witness.

And then they gallop away—Aegon, Daeron, Aemond, a retinue of loyalist noblemen—vanishing into the horizon where the sun is sinking towards the west, away from the Continent, away from every part of the earth that is known to you.

It’s the first week of June, and your belly has just begun to show. You don’t want to get your hopes up. You tell yourself that you’ll love it—if it’s ever born, that is, if it survives—with equal power whether it’s a son or a daughter. But you’ve begun to dream of a little boy: quick feet, a shock of white-blond hair, large blue eyes the same turbulent blue as Aegon’s. He never has a name, but he’s yours. He’s a living heir. He’s your ultimate redemption. But more than that—much, much more—he is the family you have wished for since long before you knew the name of the man who would become your husband.

You spend your days scribbling letters and sewing tunics and trousers for the Greens’ soldiers. There have been skirmishes but no full-scale battles yet. Aemond writes to you, although he is vague and impersonal; the risk of interception is far too great. You write to him about the plants that bloom, about the weather, about the books you are reading, about Midnight. Daeron sends the occasional letter to you too, and he pens ten pages at a time to Nico, who sits in the gardens reading them over and over again until her tears ruin the ink and his sentences become illegible, and then she cries even harder. But you never receive a single word from Aegon.

With Sir Criston’s instruction, you fashioned a belt and scabbard to carry your sword around in. The first time the Duke of Hightower saw it, he raised his eyebrows and then acquiesced without further comment. Perhaps now he finally sees the utility in you having some way to defend yourself should the occasion arise. You practice your sparring in the courtyard with Sir Criston, who can never quite shake his embarrassment about training with a woman, and a pregnant one at that. His swings are pitifully harmless, your skills unremarkable next to his or Aemond’s; but they’re better than nothing. They’re far more than Nico or Alicent or Kunigunde have.

When Nico spots you walking through the halls—one hand on your belly, the other on the hilt of your sword—she bursts out laughing. Sir Criston trots dutifully along beside you, as he always does. “Now you really do look like Boudicca,” Nico says.

“You must stop comparing me to a conquered queen who died by suicide. It’ll turn into a curse.”

“I’m always saying the wrong things. If I had the capacity to curse people, I think we’d know it by now.” Then she gasps, intrigued. “Do you think I could curse the Blacks? If I really, really tried? You don’t look like Boudicca at all. You look like Saint George arriving to slay the dragon, and that’s Rhaenyra and Daemon, an evil beast not fit for the rules of our world. I wish for this series of events to come to pass most zealously.”

“Nico, that sounds an awful lot like witchcraft.”

“Oh.”

“Which is punishable by death, as you know.”

“Well…perhaps you’ll be kind enough not to tell the Duke of Hightower.”

“Bad news! That’s where I’m headed right now. You’ll be in the afterlife by sunset.”

She smiles. “Where are you actually going?”

“To the chapel. It’s my turn to pray with the queen.” You, Nico, and Kunigunde alternate accompanying Alicent; she spends a good part of each day there imploring God to spare her sons on the battlefield. You don’t especially look forward to this ritual. It’s not that you don’t believe in God; but you find action a more natural path to work his will into existence.

“Queen dowager, you mean,” Nico reminds you. “She’s not the queen anymore.”

You are, according to the Greens anyway. It’s a title that doesn’t yet feel real. “Where are you going?”

“To practice my dancing,” Nico says with a wink. “I’m getting married in two months.” Nothing can convince her otherwise. Maybe she thinks it would be tempting fate to doubt it.

You walk outside into the warm, sunlit morning. Bees circle lazily among kaleidoscopic flowers; birds whistle and call to each other. Daylight chases the strip of shadow around the face of the sundials in the palace gardens. Your shoes click on the cobblestones. The hem of your gown flutters in the golden, roomy breeze. When you reach the chapel, Sir Criston lingers just outside the door to give you and Alicent privacy as you pray. Surely no harm can come to you in God’s house. You step inside—blinking, your eyes adjusting to the low multicolored light—and see Alicent in a pew near the front. It’s not until you’ve already sat down beside her that you realize it isn’t Aemond’s mother at all. It’s his wife.

A stunned little gulp pulses in your throat. You try—badly, you’re sure—to clear the dismayed shock from your face. You spend plenty of time with Kunigunde, of course, but only ever in mixed company. You are never alone with her. You don’t want to be. You’re under the impression that she feels the same way.

“Uh, good morning, princess,” you say, rather awkwardly.

Kunigunde doesn’t reply. She gazes at the wooden cross on the altar as if she’s completely unaware of your arrival. The pigments of the stained glass windows fracture across her skin: emerald, sapphire, amethyst, ruby. Her dress is a dim orange, midway between the flag of her homeland and your own. By now everyone knows she isn’t carrying Aemond’s child, but not even the Duke of Hightower can fault her too much for that. Only one night of supposed wedded bliss is hardly a fair chance to conceive.

You stand, making your escape. “Well, I’ll leave you to your prayers—”

“Does it bother you?” Kunigunde asks, her voice perfectly level. “Does it ever strike you as ironic?”

“What do you mean?” you reply; but the dread is already swelling in your gut like an infection.

“Begging God to save another woman’s husband. The one you’re in love with.”

You glance at the chapel door, willing Alicent to appear, willing Sir Criston to interrupt. You truly have nothing to say in your own defense. You know it’s indefensible; that’s what makes it such an excruciating fucking burden.

“And he loves you too,” Kunigunde says. Her face, harrowingly exquisite and hollow and hateful, turns to you. “I’ve scavenged through every corner of his rooms since he’s been gone. He hung your tapestry on his wall. He struck up a correspondence with your brother and purchased Midnight for you. And the poems. The poems. Hundreds of them, in drawers, in trunks, under his mattress, everywhere. And they’re all about you.”

You look to the door again, desperate. “I’m sure you’re mistaken.”

“They’re dated,” she hisses, like she’s stabbing a blade through the gristle between your ribs. “I’m not stupid. They begin the same month you married Aegon. Almost two years ago. And they’re all about you. So clearly about you. Your hair, your eyes, your voice, your wit, your tenacity, your sorrow, your body, how goddamn badly he wants you.”

What can I say? What the hell is there for me to say? You touch your ivy leaf necklace self-consciously. You wear it every day without fail. “I’m so sorry,” you whisper.

“I tried to destroy them. To feed them to the fire. But they were too beautiful to burn.” Her hand skims across her cheek, and only now do you realize she’s weeping. “I did not choose my marriage any more than you chose yours. But I have a responsibility to make it successful, to bear its fruit. I have no intention of returning to my homeland a disgrace. My father and brother would blame me. Aemond’s honor is legendary.” She squeezes her eyes shut, flinching. And then the stoic lines of her face collapse and tears pour down her face unimpeded. “Oh God. What am I supposed to do with a husband who won’t lie with me? Who won’t give me a son?”

“But you are determined to stay the course? To protect Aemond?” And his horrible, traitorous secret?

“Yes.”

“Princess…can I ask you something?”

“I suppose. I don’t see what good performative decency can do us now.”

“Why? Why are you still loyal to him?”

She collects herself somewhat. “Men show courage on the battlefield. Women show it in bed. We endure the unimaginable there. Conquest, childbirth, abandonment.”

You stare at her, a little fascinated, a little appalled. “Then I won’t interfere.”

“He’s not mine if you have to give him to me.”

“I’m not capable of giving him to you. I don’t own him. Nobody does.”

Before she can reply, Sir Criston erupts through the chapel door. “Princess!” he shouts, signaling for you to follow him. He’s not so good at remembering that you’re technically the queen now either. “Back to the palace! Now, right now!”

“What? Why?”

“Now!” Criston commands, and half-drags you there, Kunigunde flying on his heels.

Westminster Palace is crawling with bawling women and frantic men. Servants sprint to cower behind curtains and inside closets without any thought for their duties. Your ladies are quaking, hysterical. Nico comes barreling out of a hallway. “What’s going on—?”

“Daemon,” Sir Criston says breathlessly. “He’s here.”

You whirl to him. “What?” And then you hear the commotion just outside the palace walls: the clanging of blades, rallying cries, horse hooves, shrieks.

You run into the Great Hall, Sir Criston, Nico, and Kunigunde close behind you. Alicent and the Duke of Hightower are both there, squeezing together to peer down on the castle entranceway through a window.

“Oh God,” Alicent moans. “Oh God, God help us…”

You look through the glass, murky with Alicent’s handprints. Below you see Daemon leading a small group of soldiers, only ten to fifteen men.

Small enough to slip by the Greens’ armies unnoticed. Small enough that Aemond doesn’t know.

Daemon is on Caraxes and in full armor, terrifying, already wearing blood on his face. His head falls back and he gazes up at you. His eyes find yours through the glass and he grins like a wolf baring its teeth. Jace and Luke are among the soldiers with him. And—you observe with no surprise at all—so is Baela.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Sir Criston says. “He can’t take the city with numbers like that. Our guards alone will be a challenge for him. Word will travel and within hours reinforcements will arrive from the nearest encampments. The Southern nobles will rush to our aid. He has nothing to gain from this, he’ll be forced out of London within a day.”

“Oh, Jesus,” the Duke of Hightower exhales in sudden understanding.

“What, Father?” Alicent says, clutching his arm.

“What?” Nico echoes urgently.

“He’s not coming to take the city.” The Duke of Hightower turns towards you, horror rising in his pale eyes like the dead at the Rapture. “He’s coming to take Aegon’s wife.”

#aemond targaryen #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x you #aemond x reader

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sotwk · 5 months

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1st Day of Yule: “A Partridge in a Pear Tree”

Crown Prince Thranduil & Princess Maereth

Second Age 3430

Bar Lasgalen, Palace of the Crown Prince

In all his three and a half thousand years of existence, Thranduil was certain he had never before held anything so precious, so desperately in need of his protection, even while the tiny fist that clutched his forefinger already boasted of a strength that made his heart swell with wonder and pride.

He tugged the swaddling clothes up higher to sufficiently cover the newborn’s head, before stepping out into the balcony and the cold winter's night. He held the babe aloft for a moment, so that the legion of stars might meet and kiss his face with their light before fading into the dawn.

But something else, something less expected, greeted them in the morning twilight. From far off, unseen voices carried faintly across the sprawling, snow-covered palace grounds, singing in chorus a sweet hymn so old, as ancient as Eryn Galen’s trees, that even he could not understand all the words of the Nandorin blessing.

“Our people welcome you, ion nin.” Thranduil chuckled at the gurgle he received in response. Such keen curiosity shone in those wandering little eyes, that already sought to take in the wide world he had just entered!

Tonight they were given privacy and peace. Tomorrow, well-wishers will descend upon Bar Lasgalen and the great feasting will start. King Oropher had already declared and made arrangements for a kingdom-wide celebration in honor of his new grandchild. The heir to his heir, the future of his house, the scion of his line. It pleased Thranduil that his father had finally set aside his grievances concerning lineage and did not let it mar his excitement over the newborn prince.

Yet a persistent cloud cast a shadow of unease over Thranduil's boundless joy. His knowledge of the Darkness stirring in the lands beyond their realm weighed on him, more heavily now that he carried a priceless treasure in his arms. The enemy threats they thought they could dismiss as distant and outside of their concerns, suddenly felt too close and too real to him, too unsafe to ignore and leave unquelled.

As father and son retreated back into the warmth of the royal chambers, Thranduil sensed his wife stirring behind the sheer curtains of their canopied bed, waking from her much-needed rest.

“Can I bring you anything, Endanya? Are you hungry? Shall I send for food?” He did not doubt his wife’s great strength, but she had yet to properly eat after her long labor, and in the days leading up to the birth she would consume only the golden pears she craved, a rare fruit that grew in the valley of Imladris where she had previously lived. Elrond himself had sent baskets of it across the mountain to Eryn Galen, making time for this gesture of care even in the midst of a rising crisis. However well-intentioned, this kindness added to Thranduil's burden of obligation to their old friend.

“No, my love.” Maereth smiled and reached out with a hand that Thranduil immediately took inside his own. “I have everything I need right here.”

“I never imagined I could love anyone anywhere close to how much I love you,” Thranduil shifted his gaze from her lovely face to that of the infant that had now fallen back asleep, content in the curve of his arm. “But this one has firmly taken his place second in line.”

He knelt at his Queen's bedside to bring their son closer to her. Maereth brushed her hand lightly over the baby's head of fine hair, silver as the starlight, just like his.

“I will do everything in my power to protect you both,” the prince said suddenly. “To the last breath in my body, I will do what I must. I will not let any danger or evil come near either of you.”

He knew she understood his meaning, and that she believed him; she always did. But she squeezed his hand and leaned over to kiss his forehead.

“Leave those vows for the morrow, Melmenya,” she whispered. “For now, let us keep our thoughts on the gift we have been given. On Mirion.”

“Our Mirion,” Thranduil agreed, carefully returning the sleeping child to his mother's bosom. “Finally, a jewel I could agree is worth marching to war for.”

Yuletide Series MASTERLIST

Yule Event Tag List: @a-world-of-whimsy-5 @achromaticerebus @aduialel @asianbutnotjapanese @auttumnsayshi @blueberryrock @conversacomsmaug @elan-ho-detto-elan-15 @entishramblings @freshalmondpandadonut @fizzyxcustard @friendofthefellowshipsnerdblog @glassgulls @heilith @heranintomyknife23times @ladyweaslette @laneynoir @lathalea @lemonivall @LiliDurin @quickslvxrr @ratsys @spacecluster @scyllas-revenge @stormchaser819 @talkdifferently6 @tamryniel @tamurilofrivendell @acornsandoaktrees @warriormirkwood @emmanuellececchi

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blackopals-world · 1 year

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The Black Feast

Tonight on her coming-of-age celebration Yuu shall dine on the traditional black feast. To prove herself before her community, family, and friends. But she didn't tell her very special guests what was on the menu. (No one is getting eaten, it's not that kind of story.)

(???)!FemYuu x Headwardens(+ Jamil)

"All rise for the entrance of the future black maiden!" The announcer shouted above the crowd.

The packed ballroom went silent as everyone went silent.

Yuu descended down the stairs case draped in a beautiful black dress. Behind her were her personal guests who walked behind.

Once everyone reached the bottom of the stairs it was time to mingle among the guests. Vil and Azul were the best suited for the role as they made small talk with the elites in attendance. Here and there they were asked questions like their relation to the black maiden and if they hope to be chosen.

They had no idea they were being sized up at first.

Kalim didn't do as well with the stiff-lipped nobles who didn't come to the event for fun and games. The only reason he wasn't dismissed was because of his family name.

Riddle was welcomed into their circle due to his strict observance of protocol. In fact l, he was deemed quite charming by the older woman in the crowd.

Jamil lingered around the servants watching for a bit as they ran around. He noticed the strange accessories that everyone wore black widows on their lapels. The guests were no different as they had scorpions and spiders on their wrists, jackets, and necks. Yuu dressed no differently with a coral snake wrapped around her arm. She assured him that "Sweetpea" was docile but it was safer to keep his distance no matter how cute the snake was.

Malleus and Leona were royalty so they were praised and treated like kings. The nobles were eager to see if they were interested in becoming the bride-groom of the future Duchess or preferably of one of their daughters.

Idia was being held hostage by the current Duchess who had chosen the wallflower as her favorite.

It was dawning on each of the boys that they had entered into a competition for their classmate's hand in marriage. The scornful eyes of the other young suitors who had been waiting for this moment to meet the Duchy's heir.

Suddenly a bell was rung and the ballroom's mood shifted as servants brought out silver-covered platters of food. All seven of Yuu's friends were to be seated at the table with her. The other guest respectfully stood 15 feet away as they watched.

Yuu stood gracefully as she rang a bell in her hand.

The chefs who stood lined up along the wall bow before the head chef spoke.

"Your Grace, we have worked hard to prepare for your feast. We hope that it pleases you." He said his head low.

"Thank you, Chef Don. I have waited for this day since I was young and hoped you would prepare my food this day." She smiled as the other chefs unveiled the beautiful dishes.

Whole chickens stuffed with filling, hogs glazed with honey, candied fruits, and other delights filled the table. The guest instinctively took a step back as Yuu raised a class of deep purple wine.

"Tonight I shall dine on this delicious feast made for me. Watch as I partake in the Black Banquet: The Poison Feast. What would be the death of others will nourish me." Yuu said to the crowd who cheered for her.

"Are you hungry my daughter?" Yuu's mother asked at the front of the crowd.

"Ravenous, mother." She responded.

"Then eat. Eat and prove yourself to only yourself and never question your worthiness."Her mother said as she clunked her glass against Yuu's.

The boys were at a loss for what to do or say as they watched in silence at the proceedings.

Kalim was glad he wasn't going to eat the food. Idia who had been eyeing the candy realized that the candy was candied scorpions. The tarts Riddle wanted were made from purple belladonna berries. Leona's venison stew was coated in rosemary peas.

The list went on: Hemlock stuffed hen, cheese-stuffed death caps, hogweed and honey glazed ham, foxglove champagne with a bit of venom, mistletoe salad, oleander garnish on belladonna wrapped in nests of golden spun sugar.

Yuu drang down her deadly nightshade-tainted wine and sighed happily.

"Be careful not to eat this food. You guys are sitting at the table out of respect." Yuu said whispering to everyone. "Look at everyone else, they must stand and watch because they aren't permitted no matter how important they want to look."

Azul eyed the food curiously he wondered how it looked so good yet was so dangerous. It was like a venus fly trap.

Vil had the most intimate understanding of poison and its effects. His mind raced as he began identifying the ingredients in the food. He was in awe of how Yuu enjoyed every bite. He wondered in the back of his mind what poison could affect her and if she would enjoy it.

Jamil shifted in his seat as he stared into his waking nightmare. Poison was a sensitive topic and when you spend your life making sure one idiot doesn't die, it's difficult to turn off the urge to pull everyone away from the table.

Idia still kind of wanted try the candies but watching Yuu eat made her look like the final boss of his gothic horror rpg "Vampire Castle".

Riddle wanted to throw up when the scent of the sickly sweet but potent wine. He could feel how toxic it was.

Leona felt threatened. What sort of celebration makes someone willingly eat poison and wear literal snakes as accessories? This place was hell. Still, it was impressive to watch her go.

Malleus was enraptured by the black maiden. His resistance to poison himself made him take part in the ritual as well. He began cutting up the Hemlock hen and serving it to her as he tried some himself. The crowd gasped at the sight.

Azul joined as well riding Malleus of his smug expression. Azul was venomous himself and could pick out what he could eat.

Vil even joined but only drank venom-laced wine. Venom was harmless if ingested as long as you didn't have open wounds.

"Thank you guys so much for coming. Despite how easy I make this look its actually hard to eat this much poison at once." Yuu could feel her temperature spiking even though she was only sampling the food.

She knew she only had to eat as much as she wanted and could choose to eat nothing at all but the more she ate the more her status rose. Only the best Duchesses could eat the entire feast like her ancestors did. Even if the myth was embellished her people are looking to her to succeed. She must have no weaknesses.

Having friends eat with her only raised her status but they were really invited for support.

"I have eaten my fill now, but it shall only be an appetizer for the future that is to come!" She said as she raised her glass and put her napkins over her plate. "Now ends the Black Feast!"

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reasonsforhope · 1 year

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"If I wanted to convince you of the reality of human progress, of the fact that we as a species have advanced materially, morally, and politically over our time on this planet, I could quote you chapter and verse from a thick stack of development statistics.

I could tell you that a little more than 200 years ago, nearly half of all children born died before they reached their 15th birthday, and that today it’s less than 5 percent globally. I could tell you that in pre-industrial times, starvation was a constant specter and life expectancy was in the 30s at best. [Note: This is average life expectancy, old people did still exist in olden times] I could tell you that at the dawn of the 19th century, barely more than one person in 10 was literate, while today that ratio has been nearly reversed. I could tell you that today is, on average, the best time to be alive in human history.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll be convinced.

In one 2017 Pew poll, a plurality of Americans — people who, perhaps more than anywhere else, are heirs to the benefits of centuries of material and political progress — reported that life was better 50 years ago than it is today. A 2015 survey of thousands of adults in nine rich countries found that 10 percent or fewer believed that the world was getting better. On the internet, a strange nostalgia persists for the supposedly better times before industrialization, when ordinary people supposedly worked less and life was allegedly simpler and healthier. (They didn’t and it wasn’t.)

Looking backward, we imagine a halcyon past that never was; looking forward, it seems to many as if, in the words of young environmental activist Greta Thunberg, “the world is getting more and more grim every day.”

So it’s boom times for doom times. But the apocalyptic mindset that has gripped so many of us not only understates how far we’ve come, but how much further we can still go. The real story of progress today is its remarkable expansion to the rest of the world in recent decades. In 1950, life expectancy in Africa was just 40; today, it’s past 62. Meanwhile more than 1 billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990 alone.

But there’s more to do — much more. That hundreds of millions of people still go without the benefit of electricity or live in states still racked by violence and injustice isn’t so much an indictment of progress as it is an indication that there is still more low-hanging fruit to harvest.

The world hasn’t become a better place for nearly everyone who lives on it because we wished it so. The astounding economic and technological progress made over the past 200 years has been the result of deliberate policies, a drive to invent and innovate, one advance building upon another. And as our material condition improved, so, for the most part, did our morals and politics — not as a side effect, but as a direct consequence. It’s simply easier to be good when the world isn’t zero-sum.

Which isn’t to say that the record of progress is one of unending wins. For every problem it solved — the lack of usable energy in the pre-fossil fuel days, for instance — it often created a new one, like climate change. But just as a primary way climate change is being addressed is through innovation that has drastically reduced the price of clean energy, so progress tends to be the best route to solving the problems that progress itself can create.

The biggest danger we face today, if we care about actually making the future a more perfect place, isn’t that industrial civilization will choke on its own exhaust or that democracy will crumble or that AI will rise up and overthrow us all. It’s that we will cease believing in the one force that raised humanity out of tens of thousands of years of general misery: the very idea of progress.

Changing Humanity's "Normal" Forever

Progress may be about where we’re going, but it’s impossible to understand without returning to where we’ve been. So let’s take a trip back to the foreign country that was the early years of the 19th century.

In 1820, according to data compiled by the historian Michail Moatsos, about three-quarters of the world’s population earned so little that they could not afford even a tiny living space, some heat and, hopefully, enough food to stave off malnutrition.

It was a state that we would now call “extreme poverty,” except that for most people back then, it wasn’t extreme — it was simply life.

What matters here for the story of progress isn’t the fact that the overwhelming majority of humankind lived in destitution. It’s that this was the norm, and had been the norm since essentially… forever. Poverty, illiteracy, premature death — these weren’t problems, as we would come to define them in our time. They were simply the background reality of being human, as largely unchangeable as birth and death itself...

Between 10,000 BCE and 1700, the average global population growth rate was just 0.04 percent per year. And that wasn’t because human beings weren’t having babies. They were simply dying, in great numbers: at birth, giving birth, in childhood from now-preventable diseases, and in young adulthood from now-preventable wars and violence.

It was only with the progress of industrialization that we broke out of [this long cycle], producing enough food to feed the mounting billions, enough scientific breakthroughs to conquer old killers like smallpox and the measles, and enough political advances to dwindle violent death.

Between 1800 and today, our numbers grew from around 1 billion to 8 billion. And that 8 billion aren’t just healthier, richer, and better educated. On average, they can expect to live more than twice as long. The writer Steven Johnson has called this achievement humanity’s “extra life” — but that extra isn’t just the decades that have been added to our lifespans. It’s the extra people that have been added to our numbers. I’m probably one of them, and you probably are too...

The progress we’ve earned has hardly been uninterrupted or perfectly distributed... [But] once we could prove in practice that the lot of humanity didn’t have to be hand-to-mouth existence, we could see that progress could continue to expand.

Current Progress "Flows Overwhelmingly" to the Developing World

The long twentieth century came late to the Global South, but it did get there. Between 1960 and today, India and China, together home to nearly one in every three people alive today, have seen life expectancy rise from 45 to 70 and 33 to 78, respectively. Per-capita GDP over those years rose some 2,600 percent for India and an astounding 13,400 percent for China, with the latter lifting an estimated 800 million people out of extreme poverty.

In the poorer countries of sub-Saharan Africa, progress has been slower and later, but shouldn’t be underestimated. When we see the drastic decline in child mortality — which has fallen since 1990 from 18.1 percent of all children in that region to 7.4 percent in 2021 — or the more than 20 million measles deaths that have been prevented since 2000 in Africa alone, this is progress continuing to happen now, with the benefits overwhelmingly flowing to the poorest among us.

Vanishing Autocracies

In 1800, according to Our World in Data, zero — none, nada, zip — people lived in what we would now classify as a liberal democracy. Just 22 million people — about 2 percent of the global population — lived in what the site classifies as “electoral autocracies,” meaning that what democracy they had was limited, and limited to a subset of the population.

One hundred years later, things weren’t much better — there were actual liberal democracies, but fewer than 1 percent of the world’s population lived in them...

Today just 2 billion people live in countries that are classified as closed autocracies — relatively few legal rights, no real electoral democracy — and most of them are in China...

Expanding Human Rights

All you have to do is roll the clock back a few decades to see the way that rights, on the whole, have been extended wider and wider: to LGBTQ citizens, to people of color, to women. The fundamental fact is that as much as the technological and economic world of 2023 would be unrecognizable to people in 1800, the same is true of the political world.

Nor can you disentangle that political progress from material progress. Take the gradual but definitive emancipation of women. That has been a hard-fought, ongoing battle, chiefly waged by women who saw the inherent unfairness of a male-dominated society.

But it was aided by the invention of labor-saving technologies in the home like washing machines and refrigerators that primarily gave time back to women and made it easier for them to move into the workforce.

These are all examples of the expansion of the circle of moral concern — the enlargement of who and what is considered worthy of respect and rights, from the foundation of the family or tribe all the way to humans around the world (and increasingly non-human animals as well). And it can’t be separated from the hard fact of material progress.

Leaving a Zero-Sum World Behind

The pre-industrial world was a zero-sum one... In a zero-sum world, you advance only at the expense of others, by taking from a set stock, not by adding, which is why wars of conquest between great powers were so common hundreds of years ago, or why homicide between neighbors was so much more frequent in the pre-industrial era.

We have obviously not eradicated violence, including by the state itself. But a society that can produce more of what it needs and wants is one that will be less inclined to fight over what it has, either with its neighbors or with itself. It’s not that the humans of 2023 are necessarily better, more moral, than their ancestors 200 or more years ago. It’s that war and violence cease to make economic sense...

Doomerism, at its heart, may be that exhaustion made manifest.

But just as we need continued advances in clean tech or biosecurity to protect ourselves from some of the existential threats we’ve inadvertently created, so do we need continued progress to address the problems that have been with us always: of want, of freedom, even of mortality. Nothing can dispel the terminal exhaustion that seems endemic in 2023 better than the idea that there is so much more left to do to lift millions out of poverty and misery while protecting the future — which is possible, thanks to the path of the progress we’ve made.

And we’ll know we’re successful if our descendants can one day look back on the present with the same mix of sympathy and relief with which we should look back on our past. How, they’ll wonder, did they ever live like that?"

-via Vox, 3/20/23

Note: I would seriously recommend reading the whole article--because as long as this post is, this is only about half of it! The article contains a lot more information about the hows and whys of human progress, and it also definitely made me cry the first time I read it.

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