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#historical fantasy
kriskukko · 16 days
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what keeps us // 1911
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amandacanwrite · 1 month
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The Bear and the Fox - A Halsin x Reader One Shot
Word Count || About 6,000 Words
Scenario || You are a druid adept that has been imprisoned by Kagha for trying to stop the Rite of Thorns in Halsin's absence. He returns to find you and is none to happy to see it, especially after all you have been through.
POV || 2nd Person, ungendered tav/reader.
CW || mentions of entrapment, trafficking, self-deprecation, trauma. (Please let me know if I forgot anything.)
A/n || I have been a little stressed out and have been using this as a distraction/escape. I would appreciate so much if you all let me know what you think! Requested by the lovely @drabblesandimagines, thank you for the idea and I hope you enjoy it!! Thank you for your patience in waiting for this one!
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You’re almost certain Archdruid Halsin doesn’t know you exist, but it doesn’t stop you from being devastated when he doesn’t return to the Emerald Grove from his travels to the nearby goblin camp. Even if he doesn’t remember you, you certainly have never forgotten him. Nor have you been able to wrench your heart from the grip of the merciless pining that has plagued you ever since you woke up on a pile of soft hides on the floor of his vault beneath the temple.. 
The truth is, Archdruid Halsin had saved you. 
You’d been captured, at the time, by a troupe of traveling drow with the intention of taking you deep into the underdark to be used for whatever nefarious purposes they deigned. You were one of many captured, but the only druid in the lot. 
They’d entrapped you in a cage, preventing you from even taking your wildshape to flee. They’d gone between distressing you in both forms, though. They’d seemed to have a particular talent for making you miserable, and in time you’d lost a bit of your humanity to the shape of the russet and auburn fox you often favored. 
When he’d reached in to coax you out with a gentle hand, you pounced on the appendage–far too entrapped in the fear-addled mind of an animal that would sooner gnaw its own foot off than let a hunter find it caught in his leghold trap. 
But he hadn’t flinched; hadn’t even grimaced as you sank your sharpened teeth into the thick flesh of his muscled forearm and tore at it. He’d simply watched calmly as you got it out of your system. When you’d realized he was an unyielding mass of man, you’d backed into the farthest corner of your kennel and cowered. 
“Fear not, little one,” he’d cooed with that gentle, gravelly tone. “You are among friends now. I only wish to ensure you’re uninjured, and you can be on your way to find your mate or your burrow.”
You’d only blinked and he swapped his bleeding arm for his other one. You’d sniffed cautiously before dropping your head and your ears. He’d not needed any other sign, he’d known the way animals communicate; with gestures and body language rather than sounds.
He’d smoothed a hand over your ratty coat; it was the first kind touch you’d felt in months. You’d leaned yourself into it and he’d used the opportunity to scoop you up into his arms. 
Perhaps it was at that moment that you’d fallen for him. Because as soon as you’d registered the strong and tender support of his warm, cradling arms, you’d suddenly realized how exhausted you’d been. You lost hold on your wildshape and changed back to your humanoid form, unclothed and skinny. 
He’d started, adjusted his grip a little clumsily as you’d spilled out of the space he’d allotted in his arms for you; but he didn’t drop you.
“You surprised me, child,” he’d said as you’d started to drift into unconsciousness. “I’d certainly thought it was strange to go through such stringent measures for a single fox, but I see now why they’d made such efforts to keep you entrapped.”
He’d reached up to brush your tangled hair away from your face. “I can see you’re exhausted. Rest now; when you wake, you’ll be safe and warm with a meal and a warm bath awaiting you.”
He hadn’t lied, and the Emerald Grove had quickly become your home in the months and years that had passed since then. You’d seen Halsin around, of course. And he always seemed to have a smile to spare for you as you passed like swans floating in a pond. But you’d never quite been able to find a way to speak to him in private. 
Perhaps it was your fault, you think, as you find yourself in a new cage, heart broken and aching as it seems less and less likely that he will ever be coming back. 
You know Halsin to be strong. He’s a seven foot elf and built like the cave bear he so often likes to take the shape of. But there is only so much a single druid can do on his own, even one as competent as Halsin. 
It hurts to be facing the possibility of rotting in the cells below the grove–below the place that had so much begun to feel like home for you, finally. It hurts to realize you may die here having never told Halsin how you feel about him. 
But perhaps it’s better this way. Perhaps it is better to die having never faced the awkward acknowledgement of feeling that could never be returned. 
Halsin has always been effusive, warm, welcoming…brave. 
But there is a reason you chose the fox for your wildshape. 
You have always been furtive, timid, too reliant on a single person. It has always been your nature, but you can’t deny the fundamental absurdity of the fox falling for the bear. At best, you could only be an inconvenient pest to him. You’re sure of that much. 
Still…you miss the sun…you wish you could see it one more time. You’d always wanted to die bathed in the sunlight, not cold and damp in a stone chamber flooded with three inches of water. You curl into yourself, hugging your knees close, trying to remember the feeling of those warm arms around you as the Rite of Thorns continues somewhere above ground, heedless of your pleas for stalling, uncaring of the courage you’d had to summon to stand up to Kagha at all. 
Kagha had never cared much for you; found you weak and miserable. 
Pathetic. That was the word you’d heard bandied around when she didn’t know you were within earshot or when you were cozily cloaked by your shadows. 
“You should have just kept your mouth shut,” you tell yourself. 
But even you don’t really believe that. Not truly. You found kindred spirits in the Teiflings who had come to find refuge in the grove. You’d even played with the children in their little hiding spot beneath the old stone structures. 
When the goblins came screaming the name of the Absolute, when Halsin left to learn more about the parasites, you’d been shocked and frightened by the sudden turn of sentiments against them and gotten swept away in your own outrage over it. As far as you’d been concerned, everyone in the grove should have been well aware of what Halsin would have tolerated. They should have known that he’d want any living being to be safe and fed–especially the children. 
But it’d seemed that even the Emerald Grove druids were merely people; they were just as vulnerable to intimidation, coercion and power hunger as anyone else in Faerun. 
You shiver in the cold and the dank, wishing you could get some rest so that you could take your wildshape and find warmth in the silken texture of your auburn coat. 
You think of the nights curled up by the fire in Halsin’s secret cache while he allowed you a smaller space to acclimate to when you’d first arrive. You remember the feeling of large, gentle hands cradling your small, vulpine body in comfort as you slept. 
It’s at that moment that you hear the scuff of loud, fast foot fall on the decrepit stairs that lead down to this sodden prison. It’s followed by heavy, hurried sloshing before, as if out of thin air, Halsin stands before you. His hands are wrapped around the thick, stone bars of your enclosure so tightly that they are white at the knuckles. His broad chest rises and falls with exertion; or is that emotion? It is hard to know. 
He looks…utterly stricken. So much so that you wonder what happened to devastate him. Did he get back to The Grove to find all of the tieflings slaughtered? Did the tieflings rise up and destroy the grove before the Rite of Thorns could be finished? 
He opens his mouth and you expect terrible news–expect the worst. 
“A-are you alright?” is what he chokes out instead. 
You’re quiet for a moment; the question not making sense to you. Why in the world would he care if you were alright? You were…nobody. A druidic adept that found much more comfort tucked into a nest of blankets than anything else. You’d failed to stop the Rite. You’d failed at almost everything in your life so far. 
Has he…is it too dark down here? Does he think he’s talking to someone else? 
He grits his teeth and starts to wrestle with the door to your cell. 
Its mechanism is like the others in the temple; controlled by a stone tablet which should be placed in the proper slot and then activated with druidic magic. But he’s trying to use his own raw strength to open it. 
“Forgive me,” he grunts as the stone actually begins to give way, heeding his command. “I should have never left you here while The Grove was tangled in so much unrest. Had I thought the Kagha…had I known–”
“Archdruid,” you stammer. “You’re going to hurt yourself–”
“I care not,” he says, his tone taking on an almost ferocious quality that has you lifting your shoulders and shrinking into yourself. “It is you I am most concerned for. You had only just begun to smile and I– because of my negligence I find you entrapped all over again.”
Your mouth drops open as you realize that he actually came down here looking for you. Specifically to find you. To save you again. 
You are small; practically half the size of the archdruid. Yet, you suddenly recognize that he is trying to free you and you are just sitting there like some kind of dead fish. You stand to your feet and hurry over to the bars, grasping two of the other juts of stone and pulling it as he pushes. 
You’re not sure, but for a moment you think you see the barest ghost of a smile before his teeth clench again with effort. 
When the door is finally forced open a few inches, you release the stone. You roll your shoulders, shake out the tension in your hands. You will yourself to become smaller, to become lithe. You will your mouth to grow sharp, unforgiving teeth. You become vulpine. 
You slosh through the water on four padded feet and dash through the opening. 
For a moment, you almost flee up the stairs, ready to retreat to the fresh salty air outside. Ready to resign yourself to life as a fox. 
But Halsin drops to his knees and you look at him as he looks at you. 
He reaches a hand out to you, and you see the faint, silvery scars on his forearm from where you tore into him on the day you met. You sniff at him for a moment, then you shift back to your human form, carefully cradling his arm in your hands. 
“Did it get infected?” you ask. “After I gnawed at you?”
His brow is low and lips turn down at the corners. 
“No,” he says. 
“I don’t understand,” you say. “You shouldn’t have scarred…you should have been able to simply heal yourself.”
“I was able,” he says. “But I was unwilling. I…I didn’t want to forget.”
You look up at him. “Why?” you ask. 
There is the sound of chaos from up the stairs. You turn your head, letting your ears tune into the finer details of it as the quiet ambience of the water dripping and sloshing around you obscures it. As your focus narrows, you hear her. 
“She’s back,” Halsin sneers. “Kagha has finally returned.”
You look at him, your eyes wide as if you’re seeing him for the first time. The expression on his face is nothing short of raw, wild fury. He is the snarl of a wolf, he is the crackle of wildfire, he is the dark promise of death in a row of pointed teeth. 
He draws his arm back, stopping to take both of your small hands in his. His expression softens. “I will tell all,” he says. “But not before I punish the one who did this to you. Not before I see justice properly served for all of the disarray and cruelty enacted in my absence.”
You try to find a way to answer, but you can’t, settling instead for a dumbfounded nod. 
He stands and, once at his full height, shifts the position of his hand to cradle yours; offering you help, but also offering you the chance to help yourself. You grasp that hand and he tightens the muscles of his arms as you use his strength and stability to get yourself back up to your feet. 
“I am loathe to leave you down in this terrible place…but if you’re too frightened to face her…” he offers. 
“I’m not…” you say. “O-or at least I won’t be…not with you there.”
He graces you with the first real smile he’s given you since he suddenly appeared before you and you think you may no longer need the sun if he can continue looking at you just like that. 
“Come,” he says. “I want you to be part of this discussion.”
You follow Halsin, dwarfed in his shadow as you ascend the craggy steps, your soft leather shoes uncomfortably soggy and embarrassingly loud as you go. It feels almost surreal to be acknowledged by Halsin. Even more strange that he remembers you–that he seemed to have come to seek you out before anything else. 
There are more questions than answers immediately available, and you’re not sure you’ll have the nerve to ask those questions when all is said and done. 
When Halsin reaches the top of the stairs, he stops and looks back at you, giving you a calm smile as you quicken the pace of your last few steps to catch up with you. 
Now that you’re in better light, his brow faintly tenses and he reaches out for you. You go utterly still as he places two of his fingertips under the very tip of your chin, using the most minute bit of pressure to turn your face. 
“You’re hurt,” he says. “I didn’t see it in the darkness of the cells.”
You’d forgotten about the injury on your face–it’s not one you’d actually gotten to see before you were imprisoned, but you’d felt it throbbing for the entire day you were there. 
“It’s just a bruise,” you say. 
He removes his hand from beneath your chin and draws those same finger tips carefully over the curve of your brow. You wince slightly as he touches the most tender part and shakes his head. 
“There’s a split in your brow,” he says. “It will scar…”
You heave a little breathy chuckle. “Perhaps it will make me look more distinguished,” you say as you meet his hazel eyes. “You certainly wear them well.”
His heartbroken expression eases up and he shakes his head, hesitant amusement on his face. “If I wear them well, then you’ll be exquisite as ever with your own,” he says. “Still–that you were hurt because of my absence–”
“The fox was caught sticking it’s nose where it didn’t belong and was appropriately punished for it,” A familiar, haughty voice interrupts. “Don’t let the little bandit fill your head with untruths.”
Halsin takes your hand in his and pulls you slightly behind him as he also moves to block you from Kagha’s sight. It’s a protective measure, but he doesn’t force you to hide. Instead, it feels like he’s asserting his position as your protector–as the protector of any who are weaker than him–while allowing your agency to remain intact should you wish to take the lead.
“I don’t want to hear about your paranoia Kagha–I’ve heard enough of it to turn my stomach,” he says, that gravelly voice gaining an almost abrasive quality. “Tell me why I shouldn’t turn you out–or hand you over the shadow druids you’ve been cavorting with?” 
You watch as Kagha goes pale and your stomach churns with a dizzying mixture of nausea and fear. 
The shadow druids. The order of druidic magic that lay closest to the dark. The drow, the deep gnomes, Shar. Everything that represents the terror you’d once experienced crammed into a too-small cage. 
How could she? How could she want to work with them?! And then to have a nerve to call you a fox in the hen house. 
“I didn’t do anything,” you say, your voice quiet but steady. “I was only looking for a way to convince you that we needn’t go through with the ritee…”
“By snooping in places you DON'T belong,” Kagha says. 
“Perhaps it is you who does not belong here,” you snap. 
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Halsin growls. “You do not deserve to remain here, yet it is Nature who will determine what becomes of you. One thing is certain: my teachings have clearly not made the difference here. You are to start anew—be made a novice once again.”
“You can’t do that—“ Kagha starts. 
“I am the First Druid in this Grove and I will do whatever I see fit to protect the people who call this place their home!” Halsin booms. “Kagha, you failed me. You failed everyone who relied on you!”
“That fox is an outsider. Ever since you pulled it in by its scruff it has done nothing but consume priceless resources and shrink into the corner like a frightened rodent. If you so crave balance—“
“Enough!” Halsin barks. “I will hear no more of this.”
“But—“ Kagha says. 
“I said enough. Get out of my sight before I lose hold of my humanity and tear you to shreds,” Halsin snarled. 
He says it loudly and deeply enough that it echoes in the stone chamber. Even you flinch a bit at the sudden fury coming off of him. You can almost smell it coming off of him–the adrenaline, the willingness to fight and gnash at Kagha. 
Kagha has the good sense to dip her head in deference. 
“Understood, First Druid Halsin,” she says. 
“Good,” he says, his voice a low rumble in his chest. “Now. Apologize.”
Her head snaps up again and her gaze slides over to you, sharp as an arrowhead. The silence between you carries the same anticipatory nausea of waiting for a cobra to strike. You can sense quite well that Kagha may be properly chastened for her actions in the grove, but her opinion of you seems to remain the same. 
Pathetic, you remember. That’s what you are to her. 
“It’s fine,” you say. “I’m just happy to be free again.”
“No,” he commands. “It is not fine. You did what was right and were punished for it. Kagha. Will. Apologize.”
Your heart stutters and pounds in your ears. You know Halsin means well. You know he is angry on your behalf, and that he wants to see you treated kindly, but you don’t like confrontation.You think that ferocity is meant to be directed to Kagha, but you’re not entirely sure. Flashes of terror and confusion climb out of the burial ground of your mind. Memories of a cramped cage, the smell of blood, the sound of pained mewling, angry shouting in a language you don’t understand and the pain of punishment when a command you didn’t understand was not followed.
You don’t want this display; you do not want to be the vehicle of this lesson. You don’t want to rock the boat unless the situation is absolutely dire; especially now that you’ve proven just how little efficacy you have when you insert yourself into the matters of people who do not like you or simply have more investment in their own interests than in the interests of the collective. It feels like a leg snare waiting to lock down on you and you’re not sure you can escape it this time.
The tension between Halsin and Kagha sings at a tenor that pierces your ears. Or is that your adrenaline? You’re not sure. Whatever it is, your muscles are sore and aching; wound tightly and ready to spring at the first sight of danger; the first sign of movement toward you.
Halsin spares a glance your way, perhaps sensing that growing tension. Your eyes dart up to his as your body starts to tremble, not with fear, but with the urge to act. You are a small, scrappy creature locked in a stand-off with a larger predator. 
His expression softens, looking almost apologetic. 
“Easy, little one,” he says as he reaches his hand out to touch you. 
Your mind is more feral than human by then. Just before he can actually touch you, you drop into a crouch and dart away from him, your heart hammering painfully against your sternum like an animal backed in a cage. You feel that wild urge to scratch, to gnaw, to snarl. 
His expression drops into one of worry, his guilt clear in his expression and in the way he bends at the knees, lowering himself and making himself small like one might when trying to calm an injured animal. 
“You are safe, dear one,” he says. “You are safe.”
You don’t believe him. It doesn’t feel safe here, not anymore. Perhaps never again. 
A sound comes from behind you and you lurch forward, losing your footing on your slick, damp boots, falling hard onto the palms of your hands before you get back up to your feet and fly through the old temple and scrambling out of the door. 
You simply run, your mind a blur of colors and raw, terrible fear. You can’t even register and savor the feeling of the sun on your skin or the sweet, salty breeze coming off of the lower cove. You run, and run, and run until familiar sights bleed into unfamiliar ones; until the wound up tension in your muscles gives way to trembling exhaustion. 
You don’t immediately recognize where you are, but you find a little alcove tucked into a glen of oak trees, their trunks fat with age and their canopies heavy with acorns and boughs full of leaves. 
The sun shines through the eaves, coloring the long grasses in deep emeralds and dappled yellow light. You sit against one of the trees, feeling the steady presence of Sylvanus as you gulp in desperate, exhausted breaths, your heart still hammering loudly in your ears. You rest your head back against the tree and close your eyes for just a moment. You breathe, and then you breathe again. Distance from the grove gives you a moment to realize just what being in that place was doing to you. 
The politics, the prejudice, the precarious balance between the available resources and the people who needed them most. You always do better on your own. There’s a reason the form of a fox comes to you most naturally; they aren’t pack animals. As it so happens, apparently, neither are you. 
So why had you stayed so long? 
The fear of being captured again, perhaps. 
Or maybe it was the Teiflings–you’d found a little group of friends among them; enjoyed sharing a drink with Dammon once in a while. 
But neither of those seem to ring true for you, in reality. 
No, what really seems to be the reason is the other part of foxes that makes the most sense to you. 
That they tend to find a mate, have a family, and remain with them for life. 
A reality you’d spent the last several years trying to avoid. Because there was only really one person keeping you at the grove. And that person was Halsin. 
He’s just…
He’s everything you wish you could be. 
He’s everything you wish you could have.
But you can’t. Because at the end of the day you’re just some animal, fleeing the first offer of help and biting down on the hand that feeds you. There’s regret in this moment. Regret that you will never get to inquire about the expressions on Halsin’s face; about the reasons he came to free you so quickly. 
But the regret gives way to exhaustion and as you soak in the speckled rays of sunlight, feeling truly warmed for the first time in days–perhaps even weeks–you drift into a dreamless sleep. 
It’s the quiet sound of metal against wood that wakes you. 
The manner in which you wake is not a lurch; not an abrupt burst of movement that feels like you’re gasping for air. It’s the slow, soft blinking of an afternoon nap becoming an evening laze. In breathe in through your nose, slow and deep, faintly aware of the feeling of soft fur against your bare feet. 
You feel swaddled by warmth. Wrapped in the familiar scents of clove, moss and tobacco. 
You finally open your eyes and find a fire crackling before you, hemmed in by stones half-darkened by clay, as if someone collected them recently to guard the oaks from the danger of an unkempt flame. 
You don’t put it together at first that you’ve been moved; specifically that you’ve been laid down within a comfortable bedroll. That the smell infused into the furs is comforting because of the man sitting not even a few feet away; the source of the sound of metal against wood. 
You crane your head up to find him. Halsin Silverbough quietly focused on a block of soft wood, whittling away at it. You just watch him for a few seconds, almost dazed that he’s here with you. 
“Is this a dream?” You ask. 
His knife slips a little clumsily, he hadn’t noticed you were awake. He drops his hands into his lap and turns his head to smile down at you. 
“Do I often visit you in your dreams, dear heart?” he asks. 
Hearing that gravelly timbre and that tender pet name sets your blood on fire. You feel a flush rising to your face and you can’t keep from bringing the covers up to hide the evidence. His eyes crinkle with mirth and he lets out a pleasant, easy laugh. The easiest you’ve heard him laugh in…well, ever. 
“Forgive me for laughing,” he says, setting his little project aside. “You gave me quite a scare when you ran off like that. But I suppose I can’t blame you for reacting that way…I know how hard it is for you when tension is high. Forgive me for being inconsiderate of those feelings by making you the instrument of Kagha’s repentance.”
You’re quiet for a long time, unsure what to say. You finally settle for, “How far did I run?”
His brows rise a bit and he heaves out a bit of a grumbling breath as he thinks about it. “Hard for me to ever tell how long a distance is, but we’re somewhere near the goblin camp at that old temple of Selune,” he says. “Lucky for us that I cleared it with a group of adventurers today. Otherwise, I fear I would have made things much worse for you by tackling you down before you could get too close to their camp.”
You bite the inside of your lip, trying not to imagine your body tangling with his. Your face is red enough. 
“I’m glad you’re okay,” you say, still beneath the covers. “I was so devastated when you didn’t come back from the goblin camp.”
“I’ve been worrying about you since I left,” he says. “I was…I wasn’t behaving calmly when I found you. I wasn’t acting in a way befitting a First Druid.”
“No one is above their own natural drives,” you say. “Anger is a natural reaction to disobedience.”
He looks at you, his brow creasing. “You think I was angry because Kagha disobeyed me?” he says. 
“It’s as good a reason as any,” you say. 
He inhales. Hesitates. Then inhales again before saying, “You asked me about the scars on my arm. Why I didn’t want to forget them.”
“Yes,” you say. “But then Kagha came back…”
“I know,” he says. “But I’d like to answer that question now. Now that I’m calm.”
There’s something in his gaze that feels heavy and significant. You slowly rise from your position tucked away in the bedroll, letting the furs fall away from you. You notice, now, that your damp boots have been placed on the other side of the fire to dry, along with your socks. A small act of care a lesser man may have never thought to do for you. 
You turn to face Halsin and he turns to face you. 
“When we found you…that day with the drow,” he says. “You…reminded me of something I went through as a young adept. A time in which I was kept as an unwilling guest in a drow lord’s estate. As time goes on, it’s easy to forget those things that have happened to me, or to minimize what I went through. 
“In truth, I admired you. I admired how you snarled and gnashed at my hand when you were barely the size of my forearm. I admired the way you reached out for care when I housed you while you got back on your feet…for a while I feared that you were never going to heal. But then I realized that you were strong in a different way…in a way that I was not.”
“I’m not strong,” you say, shaking your head. 
“You are,” he insists. “Strength is not only measured in brute force. It’s not measured in violence and demands and power. It’s in how you wake up every day, how you rise out of your bed and try to be better than the day before. What I experienced…I shoved it deep down inside of me until the pain was forgotten, but I watched you facing yours every day.”
You’re shocked to hear this, because in your recollection you struggled each day. In the beginning, you were frightened of everyone and everything, and the only thing that allowed you to function at all was the desire to be worth the effort Halsin made in saving you. 
“Then…then I learned of you trying to stop the Rite of Thorns, and of you winding up imprisoned again in the very place you should have been safest,” he says, his anger a quiet undercurrent as he remembers newly. “I was so terrified that you would fully retreat back inside yourself, but then you stood and put your small hands on the stone door, snarling at your entrapments just as you were that day I met you.”
You remember his smile, a brief flash when you came to help. 
“Am I still strong if I run away from the grove?” you ask. 
“You wish to leave?” he asks. 
“...I’ve realized, Halsin,” you say, your voice quivering. “I’m not well suited for the social hurdles involved with remaining with the druids…and that the only reason I’ve stayed is because…”
You swallow tightly, words lodging in your throat. Halsin is silent, ever patient as he waits for you to speak. 
“Halsin, I have loved you for some time now, I think,” you say. “I know that I am young and that I can’t hope to compete with your past lovers or even the braver druids back at the grove. I know that you hardly have the time for romance, and that even if you did, you likely wouldn’t spend that precious time with me–”
“Hah…you sound so certain,” he says, his voice quiet and contemplative. 
It’s your turn to be silent, now. You bring your gaze up to meet his again and he is smiling so gently at you. “The only reason,” he says finally, “the only reason that I have not invited you to my bed is that I didn’t want to cause you inadvertent harm by placing pressure on you that you wouldn’t have the resolve to deflect. I didn’t want to risk my position as the first druid making you feel as if you couldn’t say no to me.”
You blink, the world coming to a screeching halt around you. 
Halsin…wants you? You?
You shake your head, feeling your face begin to blaze like you’ve come down with a fever. 
“Well, I suppose it’s moot,” you say. “I can’t expect you to leave the Emerald Grove with me.”
“You don’t have to,” he says. “I’ve already left.”
“What?” you say. 
“Did you think I packed a bedroll and a pack just to come retrieve you?” he says through a chuckle before he heaves out a rough sigh. “No, truth be told, my heart, I have long become disillusioned with my place among the druids in the grove and with you and the ache of old pains, I can no longer say that my heart is fully in it. The adventurers who released me…they are making their way to the shadowlands and I hope that if I join them, I can undo an old failure from a century ago. Finally heal the ache instead of simply avoiding it. I’m hoping that I can be more like you.”
You feel breathless for a moment, even more so when his eyes lock on yours. 
“It will be frightening, my love,” he says. “The shadow curse makes the underdark look like a stroll after midnight. But if you still feel the way you’ve told me you do and if you can trust me to continue protecting you, I would have you in my tent with me greeting each day together.”
You don’t speak, not because you’re uncertain, but because you want to savor this moment. 
Halsin loves you.
The bear has fallen for the fox. 
And he wants you by his side. 
It is the purest bliss you have ever felt. You think you could die happily in the shadow cursed lands if it is a sacrifice you make for him. 
You will protect him. 
And he will protect you. 
“Dear heart,” Halsin says, his nerves coming through his voice. “You torture me by keeping me in suspense. Please know if you don’t wish for this you needn’t agree. I know what I ask of you is–”
“I’m going with you,” you say freeing him from the discomfort you’ve resided in for years. “Of course I’m going with you, Halsin.”
The smile he gives you is nothing short of miraculous. 
“Nature blesses me with you,” he says. “Now come here, I need to enjoy you before I take you to meet the others. I have waited so very long for the opportunity, and I have until nightfall to make good on it, if you will have me.”
The image of your body tangled with his appears in your mind’s eye again. You rise to your feet and stride over to him, slipping your fingers into his wild hair. He cups the back of your thigh with a large hand before coaxing you to sit on his lap. 
Where he kisses you for the very first time.
May the oak father bless you with countless others. 
Taglist|| @itty-bitty-dancer @thoughts-of-bear @tryingtowritestuff24 @drabblesandimagines @soupaisu @ladyoakenshield157 @ladytesla @incrediblethirst @baldurs-gate-simp @themidnighttiger @rayskittles33 @hippiewrites @whisperingwillowxox @ethereal-sk1es @cosywinterevenings @themartiansdaughter @brain-has-left @any59 @madwomansapologist @midnightmoonytales @unaliveoni @im-just-a-simp-le-whore @kellerybird @tiedyedghoulette @jenn-duncan @thelittledoe @esotericeribos @robingreysantos @erwinmybeloved @itdobe-foggy @witchywannabe3263 @kaimxri @cryingoverpixelsetc @theoriginalannoyingbird
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zephyrbug · 3 months
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HAPPY SECRET SATAN!!! I got the honor of drawing for @//seanjhermanart (on insta) and chose their character Irisea, the mythic hunter 🐺🏹🌙
Love Greek-inspired characters and settings so this was a treat! I tried my hand at a classic greek style ship just scaled down and did some fun water studies for this! One of these time I will not make a super wide piece...not this time...but one day...
Thanks again to @leidensygdom for hosting the event and everyone who helps keep it running smoothly!!
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cheesy-cryptid · 9 months
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American occupation era Philippines but our girlie here is secretly a vampire hunter at a fancy party looking for her target 🦇🧛‍♂️🌴
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c-leadraw · 4 months
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A Marvellous Light by @fahye Freya Marske
Prints available
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exhaustedwerewolf · 4 months
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so I finished A Power Unbound yesterday
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lsdoiphin · 4 months
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Lord Lamonte Hubert Urdagan is known among Tri-Kingdom nobility as the worst Lord in all of Vestur. At a rather young age he inherited the Urdagan Lordship after his father perished in a freak moose accident, and he has been an unwanted blemish on the Northern Kingdom ever since. Luckily, the Tri-Kingdom at large can comfortably pretend he does not exist, as Urdagan territory has little in the ways of population, roads, trade exports, or modern strategic value. There are viscounts with more sway in Tri-Kingdom politics than Lord Urdagan.
This is a reality he has accepted, and he attempts to make the best of it. He does his damnedest to care for his people with the means he has, and looks for silver linings where he can find them.
After all, if no one cares to watch you too closely, your time is your own.
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monstersandmaw · 8 months
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Laces for a Lady - 18th century poly shifter romance (Part one, sfw)
Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me. 
Well folks, here it is. You said you were interested, so I hope it meets expectations! Here's part one for you, of a multi part story. If you want to kno wmore about it, you can find some more info here, as well as a little 'mood board'.
Content: sfw, the daughter of a country gentleman from Sussex relocates to a sleepy fishing village in Cornwall in order to become the paid companion of a young widow, and meets some of the locals on her arrival. Wordcount: 3972
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Five and twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark - Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk. Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by! ~ from ‘A Smugglers’ Song’, Rudyard Kipling (1906)
In the cool, lavender light of a late spring dawn, a gaff-rigged cutter drew into the sheltering arms of a small bay at high tide, and quietly dropped anchor. As if the soft splash had awoken him, a cockerel spluttered to life in a farmyard somewhere inland, but most of the villagers were already up and awake and steering their small, secret fleet of boats out from the golden crescent of sand beneath the cliffs to meet the waiting ship fresh from Roscoff.
Beneath the waves, where churning kelp moored itself in unyielding handfuls to the ancient granite of the sea floor, a long, serpentine shadow snaked between the stalks, and the currents of the coastline subtly shifted. Any revenue men trying to sail along the coast from Fowey to catch the smugglers would have found the wind and tide set dead against them, and in the subtle wake that wafted from the mottled, eel-like tail as it passed unseen, the waters of the secluded inlet calmed beneath the keels of the scurrying fishing boats. The drag of the oars through the waves lessened, and muscles already tired from heaving and hefting goods up the cliff moved a fraction easier for the unexpected boon.
Between them over the next hour, the gathered men and women shifted their haul of half anker barrels and dozens of crates and boxes of goods ashore. The small kegs of rich, French cognac would fetch a pretty price all across Cornwall, and along with the liquor came smaller luxuries like lace and silk, and bundles of tobacco and spiced tea, all meticulously wrapped in oil cloth to keep the sea and the salt and the water out.
And when the speedy, slender ship was riding noticeably higher in the water, the locals simply melted away into the countryside like so many mice from a late summer granary before the excise men even knew the ship from Guernsey had visited the cove at all.
Fifteen miles away, as the sun breached the horizon and cast its first rays of warmth along bellies of fleecy clouds and the flanks of blossoming hedgerows below, a stagecoach lurched and rumbled westwards along potholed roads, and a young woman stared out of the grimy window as the horses carried her into a new chapter of her life.
After leapfrogging some two hundred miles or so along the staging stations that dotted the South Coast, with nothing but a small trunk of her belongings and a thrice-read, dog-eared novel for company, Eleanor Bywater was more than ready to see the back of that infernal stagecoach. Had it not been for the small but inconveniently bulky travelling case sitting at her feet, she might have hired a horse and ridden from the last staging inn at Plymouth to reach the secluded fishing village of Polgarrack, but given that the trunk held all her worldly belongings, she had not been quite desperate enough to escape the discomfort of hard seats and poor suspension to abandon it.
Bouncing along in the nearly-empty stagecoach, she studiously tried to ignore the older woman sitting opposite her. She’d stared intently at Nel since they'd left Plymouth behind that morning, and her scrutiny had begun to make that last twenty mile stretch feel much, much longer.
Finally, after jouncing over a pothole deep enough to start prospecting for copper ore at the bottom, Nel gasped and then raised her eyes to meet the woman’s openly curious stare. She found sympathy for her own discomfort, and a small degree of kindly amusement too. 
“Where are you headed, miss?” the stranger asked after Nel raised the hint of an eyebrow at her as the silence stretched.
“Polgarrack.”
At that, the woman’s grey eyes narrowed in confusion. “Now what takes a young miss like you to an old fishing village like Polgarrack?”
She looked to be in her fifties, though a life beside the harsh sea had weathered her features somewhat, and her wiry grey hair was covered by a simple linen cap. Her dress was dark and plain, though there was a hint of tired lace around the neck and cuffs. Her hands had the tough, reddened look of someone who scrubbed pots and salted fish, while Nel’s own hands were smooth and soft, if a little ink stained from sending a letter to her friend before leaving the inn that morning.
Nel laughed quietly and shrugged. “There’s no mystery to it,” she said. “I am to be employed as a companion to the widowed Lady Penrose at Heath Top House. I am expected there this afternoon.”
Given that only ladies of relatively high social standing themselves tended to become a ‘lady’s companion’, the older woman made a hasty re-evaluation of her fellow traveller, and her already ruddy cheeks flushed a darker shade as she cleared her throat and looked away.
“Begging your pardon, miss,” she said. “We don’t get many new faces in Polgarrack, is all. I didn’t mean to pry or cause offence with my questions.”
“No harm in a little curiosity,” Nel said, trying to put the stranger at ease to avoid any further awkwardness between them on the remainder of their journey. “I take it you’re from Polgarrack yourself then?”
“Oh, born and raised, miss,” she chortled. She eyed the forest green redingote Nel wore, with its rather masculine high collar, wide lapels and small, gold pocket watch dangling on a chain, and the contrasting sage green skirts beneath, and no doubt made one or two judgements of her own about the young lady. “And yourself? You don’t sound as though you’re from these parts at all, if I may be so bold.”
Nel smiled. “I’ve come from Sussex.”
The woman’s watery, grey-blue eyes widened almost comically and she gasped. “’at's a bloody long way, miss! And all on your own?” She shook her head but remembered herself and mumbled, “Begging your pardon.”
“You’re right,” Nel sighed, letting her gaze slide to the window to watch the countryside roll past in a blur of salt-bleached grass and vibrant yellow gorse flowers. “It is a bloody long way.” And her spine and backside felt every lump and bump and lurch of the stagecoaches from Sussex to Cornwall. With a warmer smile, she turned back to the woman. “My name is Eleanor, but most people call me Nel.”
“Agatha,” she replied with a grandmotherly smile of her own for the young woman. “But everyone calls me Aggie. My husband, Martin, is the village carter and smith, and we’ve got four boys, all of them either fishermen or miners. They all married too, so I’ve got nine grandchildren, if you can believe it!”
Nel offered Aggie her congratulations and another little smile, and then ventured to ask, “Will you tell me a bit about the place? I should like to know more about it, since it is to be my home for the foreseeable future.”
Aggie brightened even more and shuffled her plain, dark skirts, giving a wince and a grunt as the coach lurched over a pothole and the driver cursed audibly above them. Settled, if not entirely comfortable, she began.
“Well, see now. Folks has been fishing these waters for time out of mind. Pilchards is our mainstay, o’course, but the folks over St. Austell way mine clay, and obviously there’s copper and tin mines all over in the north of Cornwall. Mining here is as old as fishing, but it’s starting to dry up here and there now, o’course.”
She barely paused to draw breath before barrelling on, and Nel sat and listened while the older woman talked.
“Now, your Lady Penrose married into the Penrose family — see, she’s from Bath herself originally, though I can’t rightly remember what her family name was, but…” Nel let Agatha's potted history of the fishing and mining community wash over her, paying just enough attention to make polite sounds at the right pauses, but the discomfort of the journey and a decided lack of sleep was beginning to wear her attention span down to a single, fraying thread.
After two hours in the swaying, rolling coach, she felt woozy and weak-stomached, but with Aggie’s near-constant chatter, she at least had a better understanding of the politics of the little village than she’d ever have gained in six months on her own. She’d also learned why Aggie had been in Plymouth, since most folks never had any reason to travel further than the bounds of their own parish. Agatha’s sister’s husband had apparently been killed in the American Revolutionary War some ten years earlier, and since the widow’s health wasn’t the best these days, Aggie made the trip along the coast when she could to see her and take care of her.
Nel’s ticket took her as far as Whitcross, a desolate intersection of paler roads on a clifftop overlooking the tightly-nestled fishing port below, and away across the heather and tufted grass of the heath, she could just see an old manor house in the distance, flanked by tall copper beeches and ash trees. It looked slightly further away than she had anticipated, and she glanced apprehensively down at the travelling trunk at her feet.
Still, she was aching for fresh air and to be free of the sickening motion of the carriage, so she took the driver’s hand and allowed him to guide her safely down onto the hard-packed surface of the road before he lifted her case down for her as well.
From inside, Aggie peered out and scowled disapprovingly. “Now just you wait a moment,” she barked at the driver, who cocked an eyebrow but did pause. “Did they not send someone for you, dearie?” she asked Nel, still leaning out of the doorway and peering about like a disgruntled badger, and using the endearment freely. Apparently, two hours of talking non-stop at Nel had removed any pretence of formality or sense of social distance. Nel might as well have been adopted into Aggie Carter’s family as a niece by that point, and she couldn’t help but smile at the warmth it conjured in her chest.
“I… I never thought that far through,” she admitted, with her hand atop her bonnet as the wind gusted up from the sea below, soaring delightedly over the edge of the cliff and racing on inland as if to continue the momentum of the great rolling breakers that foamed and thundered against the shore. The coachman glanced at his pocket watch and groused something about a schedule that was almost immediately lost to the next inward gust.
“No, no, dearie,” the old woman scoffed. “No, you must come into the village. It’s far too far to go all by yourself, and with that case as well. Here, let me —”
“I can manage the case, I assure you,” Nel said with a gentle smile as Aggie half-toppled, half-leaned out of the coach to pick up the case. “How far is it to the house?”
“Two miles up that hill yonder,” Agatha said, pointing with one gnarled and arthritic finger towards the house on the rise to the north. “Come to the Lantern, and we’ll have one of the lads take you up once you’ve caught your breath.” The Lantern, as Nel now knew thanks to Aggie’s detailed prattling, was the inn at the centre of the village, right on the water near the harbour.
She had been about to protest, but with a sigh, she simply nodded. The constant journeying and jolting had worn her down more than she cared to admit, and while she wasn’t the kind of wallflower she’d met any number of times in London during the Season, a life led mostly indoors with few opportunities for physical activity had not prepared her for a two mile walk in heavy, too-fine clothes, carrying an unwieldy case in gusty conditions. Her family had been invited a number of times to Goodwood House to walk the large park there, and she had frequently ridden a rather spirited mare through the parkland of Lavington Hall with her dear friend William, so she was not entirely unused to the great outdoors, but she did have to admit that her experiences had been rather more curated and sanitised than the wild expanse of heathland visible on all sides of the stagecoach from Whitcross.
“You’re kind, Agatha,” she said, and let the woman heft her case into the otherwise empty coach.
The thing about a tiny village was that an outsider stood out a mile, and a young lady in her mid twenties and dressed in impractical, rich green clothes, stood out like a beacon in a dark night. Everyone turned to watch her as she disembarked from the coach. At home, she had barely garnered a look from anyone. Being the centre of everyone’s curiosity there was novel and, in a word, horrifying.
She almost blurted aloud that one would think she was a revenue man come inspecting for smuggled goods, but she bit it back just in time. Cornwall’s so-called ‘free trade’ and smuggling rackets were absolutely none of her concern as an outsider, infamous though they may be, and it would do her no good to start sticking her nose where it did not belong.
The Lantern was a half-timbered, two-storey building that faced the walled harbour. Its painted sign was peeling and sun-bleached, and it squawked something dreadful as it swung back and forth in the squalling wind. Mullioned windows glinted and shimmered, though the small, diamond panes were caked with a haze of salt spray, and alongside the inn, a hand-cart rumbled down from a narrow side alley towards the harbour beyond, where fishing boats bobbed on their mooring lines at the lapping high tide.
Agatha pushed open the black-painted door but came to an abrupt halt as someone appeared to be leaving the inn at the exact same moment, and nearly barrelled into her and Nel.
“Oh, excuse me,” came a young man’s hoarse tenor, and he stepped aside within the inn’s small porch to allow the two women to enter before he left.
Nel noted briefly that he wore well-made but plain clothes, and carried a hefty looking cane in his left hand, upon which he leaned while he waited for them to pass. He was pale and thin, his undyed linen shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders, and his light brown hair was tied back at the nape of his neck into a horsetail. The moment he met her eye, he inhaled in surprise and almost immediately looked away, his large, dark brown eyes turning shy and uncertain. “M’lady,” he mumbled without looking up.
She didn’t have time to correct him and tell him she had no such title, because the moment she had stepped inside, he was off out into the day beyond, limping markedly on his right leg as he went.
Nel turned back to find Agatha waiting for her, watching. “That there was young Edmund Nancarrow,” she supplied as Nel caught up with her. “Local lad. Lots of Nancarrows in this area,” she chuckled. “Can’t move for tripping over a Nancarrow. He was a shy, skittish thing even before he went off to war in the Colonies and came back with a bad leg,” she added. “But he’s a sweetheart if ever I saw one. Tailor’s ’prentice he is now.”
At that, Nel just nodded. Something in her ached when she realised she probably wouldn’t have much to do with the folk from the village once she was ensconced up at Heath Top House, and she half wised she could. They already sounded far more interesting than the Lady Winnifred Penrose, with whom Nel had only exchanged a short flurry of letters before becoming formally engaged as her ‘companion’. 
Still, an unmarried woman of Nel’s age and social standing was considered almost past her prime, and given that the few marriage proposals she had received had faded into the mists of her very early adulthood, she had had to find another respectable way to support herself. Hence, Heath Top House.
Aggie bustled her into the main room of the pub, and their arrival caused a flurry of activity that drew the eyes of a good few patrons. 
Seated at the wooden bar inside, hunched over a pewter tankard, sat a tall, bulky man in his late-thirties or early forties, with long, thick, dark grey hair shot through with a shimmer of silver white. He had it tied back off his face in a low ponytail at the nape of his neck and as he turned to regard Nel’s arrival, she met unusually deep green eyes surrounded by a web of crows’ feet lines in a tanned, weathered face. His scowl was dark and full of suspicion, but even the storm clouds in his expression couldn’t mask the fact that he was handsome, in a rugged, rough-hewn kind of way.
When she saw where Nel’s attention had snagged, Aggie let out a little gasp and snatched her by the upper arm to steer her towards an empty table in a bay window, about as far from the wooden bar where the man still sat and glared at them as it was possible to be. 
“And that’s Locryn Trevethan,” Aggie hissed as she saw Nel settled into a seat. “Can’t say as I’ve seen him in here more than a handful of times this year though. He’s usually out on the water. Lives alone in an old stone cottage round the bay from here, up at Pilchard Sands. You’d probably best be giving him a wide berth, miss. Not that he should give you any trouble, mind,” she amended carefully, “But he’s not for the likes of you to go mingling with.”
Nel smiled at the protective tone in the older woman’s voice, and nodded once.
With her warning given, Aggie raised her voice and called over to the old man behind the bar. “’ere, Tom! This young lady needs a ride up to Heath Top. You think you can arrange that for her?”
The stoop-shouldered, white-haired man nodded and knuckled his forehead at Nel across the space. “Not the finest, but we got a cart.”
“If you have a horse, I could ride,” she said, trying to be helpful.
“Ain’t got a saddle for a lady,” he said regretfully.
Memories of galloping through the leafy trees of Lavington Hall’s parkland with William flashed across her mind and she suppressed a smile. She certainly hadn’t ridden the grey mare side-saddle while keeping up with her childhood friend, and although it had been a year or so since she’d sat astride a horse instead of side-saddle, she thought she could manage well enough. “I know how to ride a man’s saddle,” she said, “But I do have a travel case I’d need to send someone back for.”
“I could get one of the lads to bring that up for you after,” said Tom, “But it’s almost as much effort to hitch up a cart as it is to tack up a horse for riding, ma’am.”
“Whatever is the least trouble for you will do fine,” she said, and the stoic, weather-beaten old man’s red cheeks darkened and he ducked his head.
While Tom left to sort out transportation to the house, Aggie flapped about getting some refreshments for Nel, leaving her to wait at the table alone.
In the wake of the hubbub and pother Agatha left behind her, Nel took a long, deep breath looked around to find Locryn Trevethan still staring across the room at her. Taken aback by his directness and the intensity of his glare, she tried to smile, but his expression remained thunderous beneath strong, dark brows, and she quickly looked away, embarrassed.
In a face turned to leather by the sun and sea-wind, wide cheekbones and a heavy brow framed his piercingly green eyes. Never mind that marked crow’s feet around his eyes that made him look like he would rather have been laughing; the contrast between the dark, hostile glower and the soft laughter lines unnerved her and made her feel off-balance, as though her stranger’s presence in their local pub had unknowingly raised the ire of a usually gentle man. 
He had a short, neatly-trimmed, salt-and-pepper beard around full lips that were currently turned down at the corners and which bore a silver-pink scar across the middle. Despite the warm day, he wore a fisherman’s dense, woollen sweater, and when she risked another look back at him, she found him still frowning openly across the bar at her.
Nel didn’t relax until Aggie returned, at which point the man snapped abruptly out of his trance, slammed a coin down on the bar, and strode from the pub on long legs that were thick as tree trucks at the thigh. The door bounced back off the plasterwork in his wake and his boots rang on the flagstones outside.
“Not one to welcome strangers, I take it,” Nel muttered, and downed half of the cheap, watered-down wine that Agatha had set on the table for her.
“Oh don’t you pay him no mind, miss,” Aggie scoffed, settling herself down into the seat opposite her like a brooding hen and glaring at the pub door. “He don’t seem to like no one in Polgarrack save for sweet Ned Nancarrow, strangely enough. Then again, I ain’t met no one who’s taken a disliking to sweet Ned. Now, Tom will have the horse and cart ready for you in just a moment, but you just take your time and recover after your journey.”
Nel, who had felt ten times better the moment she’d taken her first proper lungful of sea air on stepping out of the swaying stagecoach, looked across the table into the older woman’s face and found a mother’s kindness and compassion in her wrinkled face, and something twisted in her gut. “You’re very kind,” she whispered, unable to muster anything more. “Thank you.”
She chuckled. “You know, and don’t you take this amiss, but you remind me of my niece a little, though she’s a little younger than you.”
Nel’s eyebrows twitched in wry amusement, and Agatha blushed at the impropriety of her words. Nel didn’t get the chance to reassure her because Tom shuffled back in and told her the cart was ready for her.
She laid a coin on the table for the wine and stood, following the innkeep out into the yard and clambering up with her case into the back of the cart. It was hardly a very dignified mode of transport for someone of her station, and when Tom said as much while they rumbled out of the inn’s yard, Nel just laughed and said she didn’t mind.
“Anything is better than that awful rolling stagecoach,” she beamed, and swung her legs back and forth like a child off the back of the cart bed while Tom clucked his tongue at the horse to hurry up.
As they trundled up the narrow, cobbled street from the harbour, they passed Edmund Nancarrow standing outside a tailor’s shop, talking with the beast of a man from the bar. Both men looked up and watched her pass like she was some kind of rare spectacle.
In a way, she supposed she was. 
Still, she smiled at them despite her nerves, and Edmund knuckled a non-existent cap at her with a shy smile, while Locryn just glared.
She sighed and wondered what this next chapter in her life would bring.
___
Next chapter ->
Well, what did you think of it so far? I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it, as always!
I hope you’ll consider reblogging as well as leaving a like if you enjoyed it. Take care, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.
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prokopetz · 2 years
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It kind of irks me whenever I shitpost about space aliens in historical fantasy settings and somebody in the notes inevitably objects with something to the effect of “wouldn’t the Fae be more authentic?” – well, no, they wouldn’t.
“The Fae” as they appear in contemporary fantasy fiction are a modern literary invention, cobbled together from bits and pieces of a wide range of essentially unrelated folkloric traditions, and in most historically-inspired fantasy would be just as anachronistic as little green men from Mars.
Certainly, if you’re willing to do a whole lot of research you can depict your elves in a way that’s consistent with the folklore of the time and place your story is set, but – particularly in their post-Tolkien incarnations – elves are not in and of themselves more “authentic” to any particular historical milieu than space aliens are.
Anybody who’d look down their nose in disapproval at the latter but not the former is not only being a literary snob, they haven’t even properly thought out the basis of their snobbery!
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shadowpuppetteer · 1 year
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Once I read that Katana was from feudal era Japan, my nostalgic brain was like "OOOOOHH!!". Now crossovers ensue in my brain. Just put me in fandom jail.
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theblackbookofarkera · 8 months
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Gynlin Taylor
unnamed Tanogeni warrior
Woodcut
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kriskukko · 3 months
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it's 1913 choose your magician
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amandacanwrite · 2 months
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Halsin Headcanons For When He's In Love With You/Tav (Ungendered)
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I ACCIDENTALLY POSTED TOO SOON
Generously Requested by @cryingoverpixelsetc I can't tell you how much it means to me when people actually WANT to hear about my bg3 brainrot because this game has been my escape lately and also, just a nice little break from the freelance work I have to cram to get done.
(PS if you like these, I am also a writer of my own original stories and I have some WIP's you may like.)
Quick CW|| Some graphic depictions of violence, particularly puncture wounds and viscera, intentions of heavy violence also referenced. In Battle
He trusts you, perhaps more than anyone else, to handle yourself. He doesn't hover, but he always has an eye on you as you tear into the fray.
He always seems so gentle to you that you sometimes worry about your own brutality in a fight. Especially when it leaves you covered in blood.
Because of this, you tend to keep your distance after a fight, too frightened to look into his pretty hazel eyes and see any measure of hesitance or disgust with you. Not that you've gotten used to it, you cant bear the thought of him not calling you 'my heart.'
This is only a fear for you until you got pinned down with a particularly nasty bhaalan cultist. Astarion had already been taken down in the surprise attack, then you were toppled by one of the many in the ambush.
The scream you let out as they sadistically drove their daggers through the palms of your hands was shocking even to you. You felt like a moth pinned to a board--it was too painful to try to break yourself free, even as the assailant wielded his next blade like he was about to field dress an elk.
You'd never felt fear like that.
But it didn't last long. A great cave bear launched through the air and into your attacker, wasting no time before ripping into the soft flesh of his throat and tore it out.
The smell of fear on you was strong, he knew you couldn't fight like that, so he simply stood guard over you, tearing to shreds anyone who got close from what small parts of it you can remember through the utter fear.
It was the after math of that fight when you knew you could never let him go.
He cups your face in his large, warm hands.
"Look at me, dear heart. Look upon me and remember that you're alive. There is no more threat. There is no one to hurt you. I would never let someone take you away from me before nature deigns it so."
The blades, you wept, the blades would hurt to remove.
"They will, but only for a moment, my love. Just a moment of pain before I heal you myself and carry you back to camp."
It's Astarion who removes the blades from your palms and frees you; he has the steadiest hands. But Halsin wastes no time in cradling you close to him, holding both of your hands in his own as he quietly whispers the healing word. You watch as your flesh and tendons weave themselves together. Then he envelops you and comforts you as you cry. Just cry.
How lucky it is that he is so at peace with every expression of you. He takes you as you are at all moments; whether you're bloodthirsty, joyful, or terrified. He basks in it all.
At Camp
Always touching you. Always. To him this isn't a public display of affection. It's not awkward. He loves you, why should he not touch you at every moment he can?
Sometimes it's a small thing, a broad hand on the small of your back as you discuss travel plans with Wyll. A little touch to remind you that he is there, like a tether to safety.
Other times your bodies are a tangle of comfort. Like he's looked for every way he can weave his body with yours. His fingers in your hair, your arm over his shoulder, your leg betwixt his, his wide chest lifting and falling with his sleepy breaths. This is often how you wake in the mornings with him.
Perhaps your favorite, though, is the nights by the fire. He doesn't even ask most days, just places himself behind you and offers himself as your seating arrangements for the night. His arms up behind him as he reclines against a rock or a felled tree, you sitting on his lap or between his lazily bent legs. His husky laughter tickles against your ear, the little hairs on the back of your neck. His rough voice rumbled against you as he regales the camp with yet another story of his youth.
He's a bit of a night owl. You fall asleep long before him most days.
He's also a bit disheartened by how difficult it is to find clothes that fit him in your travels together. Karlach as generously offered to share her clothes with him of course, but...something about her taste doesn't really seem to quite suit him.
(A disappointment to you, considering how nice those legs looked in infernal leather.)
He's the one who does much of the hunting for the party, along with Astarion. Halsin's a shockingly gifted fisher, though most of the fish he brings back to camp have bites in the flesh.
It was unnerving to gale at first, but he learned to live with it when he once brought back a salmon the size of a deep gnome.
When You're Alone
Rarely fully clothed. Not shocking, of course and certainly not something you would ever complain about. He usually just takes his tunic off, he says it feels restrained by it. He feels like he can breathe a bit better when his chest is bare.
No pun intended, of course.
Funny thing though, you always feel its much harder to breathe when he's shirtless.
There are no chaste kisses with this large elf. He seems to not have the restraint.
"I love the taste of you, my heart. It's the finest ambrosia. How blessed I am to have free reign to sate my appetites with you."
He likes to braid your hair and you're not sure why you're surprised at how good he is at it. Braids are a common hairstyle for elves, after all, and the man is a few centuries old. It soon becomes your favorite part of any day.
"I love how long your hair is getting, love. These times with you, my focus lost in your tresses...they have become some of my most treasured memories."
He compliments you often and freely.
One day you tell him about how you worry that you're too brutal to be with him, that you're concerned you'll scare him off one day for good.
"My heart, I spend more than half of my life in the form of a cavebear. I know I have told you how I received this scar. I may treasure the thriving, living of nature but that is only one side of the coin. Nature can be as brutal as it can be miraculous. In you, I see the beauty of brutality. I do not fear it, I admire it."
In Intimate Moments
Potential NSFW below, proceed with caution.
TW|| Mentions of consensual rough housing before...well, you know.
He is...proportionately sized...if you like.
(You do. You like very much.)
You sometimes have to remind him to get his pleasure with you. He is so pleased to be with you in this way that he forgets to indulge himself, even when it would be a moment of shared pleasure.
He loves every iteration of making love with you. He loves to take you fresh after a battle, covered in blood, to remember what it is to live and be alive.
He loves to take advantage of the vulnerability of a bath in the rivers and lakes of Faerun. Seems to particularly enjoy the sounds that come out of you as he thrusts up and into you, the sounds of your bodies muted by the water so he can hear every whimper and hitch of your breath.
He loves to hunt you. More than once you've stolen away into the forests and he gives you a head start. It's some of the most thrilling experiences you've had being intimate with someone.
This is no simple game of hide and seek, it is a true pursuit.
He always finds you quickly and he is fast, but you are faster. It's always a struggle for him to catch you. When he finally does succeed in his quest, you are so lost in the thrill and challenge of the pursuit that it becomes a struggle.
This part he always wins though. Sometimes because your desire for his body takes over your desire for besting him.
Sometimes you are still fighting when he gathers both of your wrists in a single one of his hands and carefully locks your legs beneath his.
He is careful though. He would never do anything without your express consent, without your enjoyment. He may be lost in the moment but he is old enough and wise enough to keep his head.
"Do you still want this, my love? Does your body still burn with need? Or has the pursuit run away with you?"
When you tell him you want this; you want him. That brief tarry into gentleness vanishes. He smiles sharply and turns you over, taking you as an animal in the wild might. Rough and unrelenting.
His hands dig into your thighs, your hips. His fingers tangle and pull your hair.
But when all is said and done, the kisses are soft and sweet. Peppered over your shoulders, down the path of your spine.
He collects you in his arms and soothes you.
"Have you pain anywhere? Is there anything I can get for you my love? You have been so generous with your body this night, it is only right that I take care of you for the remainder of it."
He likes to discuss your intimacy at length. He wants to know what you liked, what you didn't like, what he should change. At first you didn't like to critique, but he pressed you about it once he started to notice changes in your demeanor or reactions in the act. It's gotten much easier for you to discuss these things with him over time.
He simply loves discussing the potential of a family with you. Sometimes enough to be ready for a second round. But that second round is much gentler and more loving than the first. Like he's dreaming of a future with you.
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polsterreich · 3 months
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An illustration for the last (non chronologically) scene that I wrote for Act 1. The introduction of the Order of Othala to the universe was a recent change that shook up the entire plot, the final part missing from the story for all these years.
Thank you so much for 550 followers!
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aczamudio · 2 years
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Purification.
Design inspired mostly by Armstreet’s King’s Guard suit. It is gorgeous.
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arcadiiian · 4 months
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playing dress up
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