#it heavily influenced the fit on the right

[tteotlma]

Whiskey and Wishful Thinking

-- unrequited love and misplaced desires

Logan/Wolverine x Reader 6.2kw(😵‍💫)

a/n: this idea has been in my head for a while now and i didn’t really edit —

TW: 18+ MDNI AFAB!Reader, alcohol abuse/intoxication, sexual content (explicit), Emotional manipulation, unrequited love, mild violence (Logan crashing into things), infidelity (emotional), sexual encounter under the influence, emotional distress/angst, mild language, p in v

—

The quiet whirring of the air conditioner filled the cavernous space of the library, its cool breeze a stark contrast to the sweltering August heat outside. You circled the poster board laid out on the worn wooden table in front of you, your fingertips ghosting over the glossy photos and carefully cut-out newspaper clippings. Your chin rested on your hand as you examined the display closely, brow furrowed in concentration.

The new semester at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was starting in a week, and you were determined to be prepared. This wasn't just about having a visually engaging classroom; it was about proving yourself. Your second year as a teacher here was right around the corner, and you still had people to impress—or maybe overshadow. The pressure to live up to the legacy of the school's illustrious faculty weighed heavily on your shoulders.

You were in the middle of rearranging a faded photo of Richard Nixon next to a more vibrant one of Mystique—a stark visual representation of the complex history you were trying to convey—when something caught your eye. A small tear in the corner of the Mystique photo made you frown. It was barely noticeable, but you knew it was there. Much like the small imperfections in your own mutation that you tried so hard to hide.

As you reached for the tape to add more photos, a thunderous crash erupted from the direction of the front door, reverberating off the mahogany bookshelves and causing the chandeliers to tinkle ominously. You startled, your elbow catching the edge of the poster board and sending a cascade of photos fluttering to the floor like autumn leaves.

"Dammit," you muttered under your breath, dropping to your knees to gather the scattered images. Each one represented hours of research and careful curation. There was Erik Lehnsherr in his prime, Charles Xavier before the wheelchair, headlines about the Mutant Registration Act—pieces of a puzzle you were trying to fit together for your students.

As you collected the last of the photos, another crash followed, accompanied by a string of muffled colorful curses that could only belong to one person: Logan.

You rose to your feet, brushing dust from your knees and straightening your top. A part of you wanted to ignore the disturbance and return to your work. After all, you weren't one of the X-Men, just a history teacher trying to make a difference in your own small way. But another part, the part that had brought you to this school in the first place, urged you to investigate.

With a last, longing look at your unfinished project, you began to walk down the corridor, your footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. The warm wood paneling and lush carpets couldn't quite muffle Logan's gruff voice, slurred and aggravated.

"Who the hell locked the damn door?" he growled loud enough to be heard through the mahogany, followed by another thud that sounded suspiciously like a body hitting solid wood.

You rounded the corner just in time to hear Logan slam against the door again. Sighing, you approached, your hand hovering over the ornate brass doorknob.

"Logan?" you called out, trying to keep your voice steady. "The door's always locked after midnight. You know that."

There was a moment of silence, then a muffled grunt. "Oh. Right." You heard him fumbling on the other side, likely searching for keys he didn't have. "Must've... must've forgot."

You leaned closer to the door, lowering your voice. "Did you lose your keys again?"

"Didn't lose 'em," Logan grumbled, his words slurring together. "Just... misplaced 'em. Temporarily."

Rolling your eyes, you turned the lock. "I'm letting you in. But please, try to keep it down. Some of us are trying to work."

As you swung the heavy door open, the full impact of Logan's state hit you like a wave. He was leaning heavily against the doorframe, more disheveled than you'd ever seen him.

His usually wild hair was a mess, matted in places as if he'd been running his hands through it repeatedly. His leather jacket was askew, one sleeve pushed up to the elbow while the other hung loosely at his wrist. The strong scent of whiskey wafted from him, mixed with something earthier – had he been in the woods?

His eyes, usually sharp and alert, were unfocused as they landed on you. For a moment, they seemed to look through you rather than at you.

"Work?" he scoffed, stumbling slightly as he entered. "It's summer, kid. Live a little."

The irony of his statement, given his current condition, wasn't lost on you. But as he brushed past, the scent of alcohol growing stronger, you couldn't help but wonder what had driven him to drink so heavily tonight. Logan had his demons, sure, but this seemed excessive even for him.

"Logan," you said softly, reaching out to steady him as he swayed. "What happened? Are you okay?"

He paused, turning to look at you. For a brief moment, his tough exterior seemed to crack, revealing a glimpse of raw pain underneath. But as quickly as it appeared, it was gone, replaced by his usual gruff demeanor.

"I'm fine," Logan grunted, his voice rough as gravel. He shrugged off your hand with a forceful jerk that nearly threw him off balance. "Just need to sleep it off."

As he stumbled towards the stairs, you stood frozen in the foyer, a war of emotions raging within you. Frustration at the interruption of your work battled with genuine concern for your colleague. The sound of his heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway, each thud against the hardwood punctuated by a slight scuff - clear signs of his unsteady gait.

BAM

The sound reverberated through your chest, jolting you into action. "Oh my- Logan!" The twisting knot in your stomach unraveled, replaced by a surge of adrenaline as you found yourself on your knees beside the fallen giant. The polished wood floor was cool against your skin, a stark contrast to the heat radiating from Logan's body.

"Are you okay?!" Your voice came out higher than intended, tinged with worry. You gently turned his body, your hands careful but insistent. Logan's face came into view, his rugged features slack, eyes roving aimlessly. They passed over your face without a flicker of recognition, unfocused and glassy.

"Clearly not," you muttered, answering your own question. The words tasted bitter on your tongue, worry and frustration mingling in equal measure. You patted his stubbled cheek, the coarse hair rough against your fingers. The familiar texture grounded you, a tactile reminder of the man beneath this drunken exterior.

"Come on, you big lug." Your fingers curled around his jacket collar, the worn leather an old friend under your grip. You could smell the years of use on it – a mixture of tobacco, whiskey, and that indescribable scent that was purely Logan. You tugged, your muscles straining against his dead weight. It was like trying to move a mountain, and you felt a bead of sweat trickle down your back with the effort. "I can't get you up those stairs, but we can try to find something else."

Logan stirred under your hands, a low groan rumbling from deep in his chest. You could feel the vibration of it through your palms, like the purr of some great, dangerous cat. Keeping a steadying hand on his arm, you helped as he struggled to his feet. His muscles were taut under your touch, coiled with a strength that, even in his inebriated state, was intimidating.

The scent of whiskey hung heavy in the air around you both, an almost visible miasma. It mingled with the earthy smell of his leather jacket and something so distinctly Logan – a heady mix of cigar smoke and pine that usually brought a sense of comfort and safety. Now, it just emphasized the bitter truth that in trying to distance himself from his pain, Logan had simultaneously distanced himself from the man you once knew.

He was mumbling, disconnected words tumbling from his lips like scattered puzzle pieces. You caught fragments – "Jean" and "Summers" among them – each name landing like a small stone in the pit of your stomach. But you weren't really trying to piece it together, not now. Your mind was already racing ahead, calculating the logistics of moving him, wondering if you could manage to get him to the nearby study with its comfortable couch. And, if you were being honest with yourself, a small part of you was wondering how soon you could get him out of your sight and return to the normalcy of your work.

You watched, as if in slow motion, as Logan threw a heavy arm around you. The sudden shift in weight knocked you off balance, causing your body to shove even closer to Logan's as you struggled to support his swaying form.

You closed your eyes, trying to distract itself with thoughts of your discarded project in the library. You tried to reimagine your pre-arranged photos and timelines, hearing them calling to you like a siren song of productivity and purpose. But it was hard to focus on that, not with the heat radiating off of Logan's body making your skin feel like it was sizzling, every point of contact between you a livewire of sensation.

You could feel every hard plane of his body pressed against you, the heat of him searing through your clothes. The closeness was both thrilling and terrifying, and you quickly shook your head, pushing the confusing thoughts away. Right now, Logan needed a friend, whether he (or you) realized it or not.

"Alright, big guy," you said, your voice sounding strained even to your own ears as you adjusted your grip on his arm. Your fingers dug into the solid muscle there, seeking purchase. "Let's get you somewhere you can lay down before you fall again and cause some damage." You began to guide him, every step a careful negotiation between his unsteady feet and your determined support. It was like trying to direct a landslide – Logan's bulk and uncoordinated movements making each step a precarious balancing act.

"I-I'm fine," he slurred, his words thick and syrupy. His head bobbed with each trudging step, reminding you of those drinking bird toys. "Jus' needed a break." The words were punctuated by a hiccup that shook his whole frame, and by extension, yours.

"A break from what?" You grunted, the words coming out breathless as you strained to keep him walking in something resembling a straight line. The carpet runner in the hallway bunched under your feet with each step, creating small obstacles you had to navigate around. "It's the last week of summer."

The reminder seemed to hit Logan like a physical blow. He let out a loud groan, the sound rumbling through his chest and into yours where you were pressed against him. Suddenly, his body went limp, all semblance of cooperation vanishing in an instant. He stumbled again, but this time, anchored to you as he was, he dragged you with him.

"No, no Logan," you gasped, your muscles screaming as you struggled to keep both of you upright. Your feet scrambled for purchase on the polished wood floor, sliding dangerously. For a heart-stopping moment, you thought you were both going down, but somehow – through sheer determination or dumb luck – you managed to keep moving.

With a final, herculean effort, you maneuvered Logan's bulk towards the library. The giant sofa loomed before you like an oasis in a desert, promising relief from your burden. And of course, because the universe seemed to have a twisted sense of humor tonight, it was right next to your craft table. The carefully arranged materials – your planned escape from this chaos – now stood as silent witnesses to your struggle.

As you finally deposited Logan onto the couch, the leather creaking under his weight, you couldn't help but wonder how this night had spiraled so far from your quiet plans. The Logan-shaped imprint of heat on your body slowly began to fade, leaving you feeling oddly bereft despite your earlier desire to be free of him. You stood there, catching your breath, watching the rise and fall of Logan's chest as he settled into the couch, already half-asleep.

As you finally deposited Logan onto the couch, the aged leather creaked in protest under his substantial weight. You couldn't help but marvel at how drastically this night had veered from your meticulously laid plans. The Logan-shaped imprint of heat on your body slowly began to fade, leaving behind a peculiar sense of absence. It was a feeling that caught you off guard, considering your earlier desperation to be free of his burdensome presence.

For a moment, you stood there, your chest heaving as you caught your breath. Your eyes traced the rise and fall of Logan's broad chest as he settled into the couch, his features already softening with the onset of sleep. The furrows in his brow, usually so pronounced, began to smooth out, giving him an almost peaceful appearance that seemed at odds with the tumultuous events of the night.

Shaking your head, you turned back to your project, eager to lose yourself in the familiar comfort of organization and creativity. Each piece fell into place with a satisfying click, the world narrowing down to the careful arrangement of photos and timelines. Time seemed to slip away as you worked, the rhythmic sound of Logan's breathing fading into white noise.

Despite the rhythmic process you had created, your mind managed to stray to the man beside you. Logan's presence, even in his unconscious state, was impossible to ignore. Your eyes drifted from your work to his sleeping form, tracing the rugged lines of his face that you'd memorized long ago.

A familiar ache bloomed in your chest, a bittersweet mixture of longing and resignation. How many days and nights had you spent like this, stealing glances at Logan when he wasn't aware, allowing yourself to imagine a reality where his eyes would light up at the sight of you? But that was a fantasy, and you knew it.

Your fingers absently toyed with a photo of Jean Grey that had fallen from your timeline. Even in this candid shot, her beauty was undeniable. Logan's voice, slurred with alcohol, echoed in your mind: "Jean." Of course, it always came back to Jean.

You couldn't blame him, not really. Jean was everything - brilliant, powerful, compassionate. And you? You were just... you. The history teacher who helped patch him up after missions, who listened to his rare moments of vulnerability, who silently loved him from afar.

A soft murmur from the couch drew your attention. Logan's face had contorted, his lips moving soundlessly. Was he dreaming of her even now? The thought sent a pang through your heart.

"She's with Scott, Logan." You shook your head.

The words tasted bitter on your tongue. Because that was the cruel irony, wasn't it? Jean was utterly devoted to Scott Summers. Her love for him was as clear as day to everyone - everyone except Logan. He clung to hope like a drowning man to driftwood, blind to the fact that Jean's heart belonged to another. Just as he was blind to your feelings for him.

You turned back to your work, trying to lose yourself once more in the familiar task. But your eyes kept drifting to the leather jacket draped over a nearby chair - Logan's jacket. How many times had you imagined him placing it around your shoulders on a cold night? How many times had you dreamed of being the one he looked at with that intensity, that raw need?

But those were just dreams. Reality was this: Logan, passed out on the couch beside you, murmuring another woman's name in his sleep. A woman who would never return his feelings. And you, silently loving a man who would never see you as anything more than a friend.

The spell was abruptly broken by a loud, guttural grunt from the couch. Startled, you whirled around, your heart leaping into your throat. Logan's peaceful demeanor had vanished, replaced by a mask of distress. His forehead was creased, beads of sweat forming at his hairline. His hands twitched at his sides, fingers curling as if grasping for something just out of reach.

The realization hit you like a splash of cold water: he was having a nightmare.

Pushing your chair into the table with a soft scrape, you rose to your feet. Your movements were slow, deliberate, as you approached Logan. Years of living in a school full of mutants with varying degrees of control had taught you the value of caution, especially when dealing with someone as potentially dangerous as Logan in a vulnerable state.

You positioned yourself at the head of the couch, carefully staying out of range of his arms - and more importantly, his claws. Your eyes flicked nervously to his hands, half-expecting to see the glint of adamantium at any moment. Swallowing hard, you steeled yourself and reached out, your hand hovering uncertain over his forehead.

For a heartbeat, you hesitated. The man before you was a far cry from the intimidating, gruff Logan you knew. In sleep, trapped in the throes of a nightmare, he looked almost... vulnerable. It was a side of him you'd never seen, never even imagined existed.

Taking a deep breath, you gently placed your fingertips on his temple. The skin there was hot to the touch, almost feverish. You could feel the rapid pulse of his temporal artery beneath your fingers, a testament to the intensity of whatever visions were plaguing him.

"Logan," you whispered, your voice barely audible even in the quiet of the library. "It's okay. You're safe." He let out a soft moan. Your fingers comb through his unruly hair, something you had never dared to do before. His usual gruffness is stripped away, and what remains is raw, untethered vulnerability—both his and yours.

His breath is uneven as he shifts under your touch, but your movements remain steady, soothing him. The weight of unspoken feelings that have built up over the years presses down on you. The sight of Logan up close so troubled and lost pulls at your heartstrings in a way you can’t ignore anymore.

"Logan," you whisper again, this time more firmly, urging him back to reality. His eyes flutter open, hazy and disoriented. For a moment, they lock onto yours. There's no Jean, no Scott, no X-Men—just the two of you in this quiet, dimly lit room, the air thick with unspoken tension.

His hand moves up to catch yours as it rests on his hair, his grip surprisingly gentle despite the strength behind it. "Why... why are you here?" he mumbles, voice still hoarse and thick with sleep, but there’s something else beneath the surface.

"I'm here because you needed me," you reply softly, the words feeling far too loaded but still true. The tension in his grip tightens, and for a split second, you wonder if you're imagining the way his eyes darken, the hint of desperation and something else swirling within them.

"Don't you have someone else to take care of? I'm not worth the trouble..." His words are a mixture of bitterness and regret, and it cuts deep. You shake your head slowly, heart pounding in your chest.

"You are worth it, Logan," you whisper, barely able to believe the words have left your mouth. Maybe it’s the weight of the years you’ve spent suppressing your feelings, or the heavy air filled with alcohol and desperation, but something shifts between you two in that moment.

Without thinking, Logan sits up, his grip on you tightening as he pulls you closer to sit beside him, bodies pressed together. The sudden movement leaves you breathless, your body leaning against his, faces only inches apart. His breath is warm and carries the sharp, smoky scent of whiskey, but beneath it lingers something else—something raw, unspoken, and heavy between you. The proximity feels electric, the tension between you simmering just beneath the surface.

For a split second, neither of you moves. You can feel the thrum of Logan’s pulse where his chest presses against yours, and his eyes, dark and stormy, search your face for something—maybe reassurance, maybe an answer to a question neither of you has dared to ask aloud. The weight of unrequited love hangs between you, an invisible thread that pulls you closer even as you hesitate. You've both been running from this, denying it, but now it feels inevitable.

Logan's hand lingers on your arm, his rough fingers brushing against your skin in a way that sends shivers down your spine. His jaw clenches, and you can see the battle raging inside him, the unspoken words on his lips threatening to spill out. "I—" he starts, his voice rough and hesitant, like he's about to confess something too heavy to bear, but you don’t let him finish. You can't, not when you're both teetering on this razor's edge.

You lean in and kiss him, your lips meeting his in a soft, tentative press. For a heartbeat, Logan freezes, his body going rigid with surprise, but then something in him snaps. His right hand snakes down your left side pulling you even closer, as his other hand cups the back of your neck, and he pulls you deeper into the kiss, his lips urgent, almost desperate. It's not gentle—it’s raw, filled with the intensity of everything he's never said. The kiss is a release of all the years spent pining for someone else, all the nights spent wishing for what he could never have.

You know this isn’t love, not the kind either of you have been hoping for. It’s about filling the hollow space left by the people who’ll never look at you the way you want them to. You’re both seeking something that’s just out of reach, using each other to drown out the ache of unrequited love that’s settled deep in your bones. Jean's name might as well be carved into the air between you, but tonight, that pain is dulled, replaced by the heat and urgency of the moment.

His grip on you tightens as the kiss deepens, a silent understanding passing between you. This isn’t about forever. It’s about right now—two people grasping for something real, even if it’s fleeting, even if it doesn’t fill the spaces you need it to. You know that come morning, things will be different, but for now, you both allow yourselves this escape.

Logan’s tongue licks tentatively at your lips, you give him the permission he’s silently seeking as your lips part. You feel lightheaded as his tongue slides into your mouth, and your groin feels hot as Logan lets out the filthiest groan into your mouth.

You let out a soft whine as you grab at his shirt, his muscles hot and firm under the fabric. As Logan continues to indulge in the taste of you, fingers trail down the front of his shirt all the way to and under the hem. Your fingers lightly drag across the thin sliver of skin and you feel Logan’s hip twitch, and he pulls away sighing lightly into your mouth.

He adorned the sexiest look on his smug face. Granted he still looked inebriated but this time instead of being drunk on whiskey.. he was drunk on you. Mother of all that is good and well, you know you should say something, be reasonable, smart, but dammit if there’s one thing you will stick by it’s that you will always help a friend in need…

You bring him close, hands clasping behind his neck and pulling him in as you swing your leg over his lap straddling him. His hands immediately meet the small of your back, and he leans in to kiss you again pulling you flush to his chest.

Now its your turn to take control in the kiss, Logan pliant as you lap at his mouth. He lets you think your in charge until he takes you by surprise and uses one hand to grab the hair at the back of your head. You lose your rhythm for a second and he takes the opportunity to push his tongue along yours, saliva pooling in your mouths and melting in the middle. He begins to suck on the slick pink muscle and you give in.

Whatever ounce of worry, hesitation, anxiety, any reservation whatsoever you could have had left your body and you gave in to desire. That bitch, that deliciously sinful demon had got her way as the muscles in your legs gave in and you relax onto Logans lap. He continues to slurp at your mouth, and you mewl. Never in your life had anyone done this to you before. Not only was it filthy, it was incredibly hot.

The heat in your groin burned your insides leaving you with an ache you needed to relieve. Your hips buck reflexively as you feel a wetness pool on the fabric of your underwear. You let a moan slip out of your mouth, and Logan let out a deep and throaty chuckle. His fingers go back beneath the waistline of your pants, fingers gripping the flesh of your hips and grinding you down against his pelvis.

You threw your head into the crook of Logan’s neck as he began to buck his hips into yours at a steady rhythm. His fingers digging harder into your skin, as he applied more pressure. You could feel the thin fabrics of your underwear and sleep shorts soak the more you rubbed against Logan. You began to gyrate your hips in tighter circles.

“Ah, fuck.” You breathed out as you pressed your forehead to the brute of a man beneath you. “Logan, Logan, come on, stop teasing.” You panted between breaths. Logan shifted a bit beneath you causing your neglected clit to get caught during your motions. Your head lolled to the side and then back as a whimper turned into a full cry of frustration. God, you wanted this pain, this ache you were feeling to go away and you’d do anything to make it stop.

Logan’s grip tightened on your hips, as he stilled your body for a second.

“What the fuck,” You hissed, trying to slide your wet heat on Logans definite show-er and grower but the man loved to tease. Logan continued to hold your hips and you began to grow frustrated. The feeling of his smirk against your neck causing tears to come to your eyes.

“Logan, please.” You whimpered, your voice shaking. You feel him freeze and you mentally shoot yourself in the foot— You didn’t want this to be a thing with emotions, it was bad enough that the first time you’re having sex with the man you’ve loved for five years is as a one night fling. You didn’t want to have to think about the emotional repercussions before having what you’re pretty sure is going to be the best orgasm of your life.

In a moment of panic, and wanting to shift the focus you lean forward, and your hands find the button of Logan’s pants. You unbuckle the belt, and he peppers kisses along your shoulders, your fingers fumble with the button, and he noses your jaw, you slide down the zipper and he pecks your neck. All of a sudden the intimacy becomes too much so you trail your hands at the band of his underwear and you begin to pull the fabric down. Coarse hair grazes your fingers, and before you can stop yourself your hand runs up his stomach, and down back to his groin— his breath shudders against the nape of your neck as he begins to nip at your skin.

Before you can fully expose the man he grabs your hand and puts it on his shoulder as if saying to let him do the work. You obey and lift your hips to give him space. Next thing you know your being guided back close to him, hovering over his groin.

While you hadn’t seen his dick fully yet, you knew the mutant was big. You could tell regardless of the scenario. The way he walks, the way he sits— legs spread so wide it’s like he’s constantly inviting you to kneel between them. Missing the opportunity this time didn’t make you think any different though, this man was massive. The heat within your body was already painful enough, but now the heat you feel outside your cunt was unbearable.

Your right hand slid between your bodies as you reached for Logan's thick dick. He let out a low growl as your fingers wrapped around his shaft. Logan's fingers reached for the fabric between your thighs, moving the soaked cloth to the side urging you to put his cock inside.

You guide the tip to your entrance and you can feel your cunt clench around nothing in anticipation. You feel heat rise to your cheeks in embarrassment, but the aggression in Logan’s breathing gives you relief that you’re not the only one desperate. But for who it was is a different story.

Logan got impatient and lifted his hips to push the tip past, and your mouth fell open as a silent moan possessed your body. God, you were right. He was so thick, the stretch was borderline unbearable but before you could fully adjust Logan began to thrust up even further. His dick going so deep, the tip hit the spongy part.

He let out a strangled grunt as he held your hips down, and you squirmed.

“You needa stop that.” He barked, as he rolled his head back against the couch rest, trying to control himself as he felt your hole clench around him.

“I’m sorry,” You sob, trying to adjust but the pain and pleasure were too overwhelming you could feel yourself losing focus.

“I just–” He shushes you by cradling you against his shoulder, arms enveloping you in a tight hug, and just when you think you’ve calmed down he devours you like you’re his last meal. He wraps his arms around you and lifts you from his lap before he brings you down and he thrusts up.

A sob escapes your lips as his hips fire off like a pistol, thrusting in and out, brutal but so worth it as your desires are finally being satiated. He’s holding onto you like if he let go you’d float away. A string of curses fill the air as he continues to pump into you.

“Fuck, fuck, Logan.” You mumble, words slowly leaving your mouth.

“Awe,” Logan tuts as his hips fall into a normal pace, his hand coming to caress the back of your hair. “Don’t tell me this pussy is lightweight, we’ve only just started and you’re already acting like this?” You don’t respond, and instead let out soft moans as he continues to fuck into your abused cunt. Logan uses the opportunity to pull you back by your hair (again) to examine your face. It’s flushed red, glowing with perspiration, your chest panting as you try to catch your breath.

“No baby that won’t do.” He caresses the hair out of your face and nuzzles his face against yours. His facial hair prickling your skin. He places a kiss on your forehead before he pounds into you faster, deeper than before. You can barely keep your eyes open and all the sounds that leave your lips are just pathetic little whimpers and sobs.

"M'close." He grunts and you can't help but agree. "You gonna come, sweetheart?" You can't find the words and nod, pliant like a ragdoll in his arms. He groans.

"C'mon. You can do better than that, can't ya? Tell me."

"Fuck yes," you pant, your voice barely audible between gasps. You writhe beneath him, desperate for something to anchor yourself to, but with his hands pinning your wrists, the only thing you manage to grab is the rough hair on his lower abdomen, the friction of it grounding you as much as the heat and slap of his body. "Please… don’t stop."

His grip tightens on your wrists, the pressure pushing you to the edge as he moves faster, his breath hot against your skin. Each thrust sends a jolt through your body, every nerve alight with anticipation and need.

"That's it," he growls, voice thick with control as he watches you fall apart beneath him. "Let go."

You can feel it building, the tension coiling in your core, and with one final snap of his hips, you shatter—your body arching, toes curling, a strangled cry escaping your lips. The world blurs, everything outside this moment fading as you hit your peak, wave after wave crashing over you.

But even through the haze, you feel him reaching his own release. His pace becomes erratic, his muscles tensing, and as he finally falls over the edge, his body tight against yours, he groans—a low, guttural sound—before the name slips out.

"Jean—"

The word cuts through the air like a knife, your euphoria draining in an instant, replaced by a sharp, hollow ache in your chest.

Your heart plummets, and the warmth of his body that moments ago felt so consuming now feels like ice against your skin. The name he whispered isn’t yours. It echoes in your head, louder than the pounding of your pulse, louder than the ragged breaths you're both still catching. You feel like you’ve been struck, yet somehow, you’re not surprised. You always knew this wasn’t really about you. But it doesn’t stop the ache spreading through your chest.

You close your eyes, swallowing the lump in your throat as the reality of it all comes crashing down. This was always going to hurt.

For a few seconds, neither of you moves. The weight of the moment lingers, heavy and unbearable. His body relaxes, but the guilt etched into his expression is unmistakable, and you can feel the shift in the air. The intimacy that just moments ago had been raw and consuming has evaporated, leaving behind only an awkward silence and a sense of regret so thick it’s suffocating.

You disentangle yourself from him slowly, the warmth of his skin now foreign, a reminder of what you never really had. You sit up, your body still trembling, trying to piece together your scattered thoughts. The room feels stifling now, every breath you take thick with the weight of everything left unsaid.

Logan’s eyes open, still clouded with the haze of pleasure, but they widen when he realizes what he’s done—what he’s said. Panic flashes across his face, but it’s too late. You’ve heard it, and you can’t unhear it.

“Shit…” he mutters under his breath, his hand reaching out as if to apologize, but you’re already pulling away, slipping out of his grasp like sand between his fingers.

“It’s fine,” you murmur, voice barely above a whisper, though the crack in it betrays you. You force yourself to keep moving, pulling your clothes back into place, each motion slow and deliberate, as if trying to hold yourself together with every button and clasp.

He doesn’t say anything, and for once, you’re grateful. You don’t want to hear an apology, you don’t want to hear him stumble over words of regret. You don’t want to hear him say her name again.

You stand up, back turned to him, your chest heaving not from passion, but from the pain you can’t quite swallow down. Your hands are shaking as you adjust your clothes, but you refuse to let him see it. You knew this was a mistake. You knew this wasn’t love.

“This was never meant to fix anything,” you finally say, your voice steadier than you feel. “I was just… trying to help.” The words taste bitter, but they’re true. You’d gotten caught up, you’d let yourself believe—if only for a moment—that maybe it could be more. But it never was.

Logan sits up, running a hand through his hair, looking at you with something that could almost be remorse. But it doesn’t matter anymore. He made his choice long before tonight.

With one last glance over your shoulder, you meet his gaze. His eyes are still shadowed by the weight of his unrequited love, and you can see it all too clearly now. You were never the one he needed. You never stood a chance.

“I’ll be fine,” you lie, turning back to the door, your footsteps heavy as you leave the room, abandoning the project you had started earlier that night, each step pulling you farther away from the moment that should’ve never happened.

But even as you walk away, you can’t shake the feeling that for a second, despite knowing better, you let yourself believe it was real.

———

a/n: i thrive off of feedback and criticism.

[bugdogg]

💃

OC in some radical 90’s clothes

i tried very hard to figure out what a 90s fit even looked like and eventually decided the fits are more inspire by 90s "style" than actual fits they'd wear in the 90s

i used pinterest for help and got irritated because most things that came up were 70s or 80s related and i kept getting more confused

what i did notice when i found ad images from the 90s was the clothing was more colorful, like there were these popular colorful jackets at the time (you can actually see ichi wearing it in retro pop although the colors are simpler) and i meant to add it but then i saw another image and gave Zuki a diff top on the right, oops, but i still tried to make it colorful

ig this is technically a mess and doesnt make alot of sense but I HAD FUN LIKE A LOT OF FUN, this was like homework to me but i actually cared about what i was doing. this may not be perfect but its a good start and im sorta happy w it

also the retro pop doodle was my fav to do. although it would clash w the official stuff it was a good first draft i think. Mizuki doesn't really have a select color besides indigo or a bluish purple, so i decided to just go nuts w it

[logosbot-tm]

Man, I'm so happy that Hazbin Hotel genuinely is fun. Like the episodes have rewatchability, and the characters + music are genuinely enjoyable/likeable. Tbh, even though there was a fairly long wait, I do think it was worth it. If ya compare Hazbin to Helluva, then there's a clear difference in quality, storytelling, and pacing. So yeah, I'm happy it turned out so well.

[s4sharkteeth]

ten kids and a teacher on the way to Mt Komorebi, let’s pray for Mr Morlind and Charlie

PREVIOUS

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[sciencebecameouraddiction]

if you keep undressing me with your eyes, i’m going to catch a cold.

alastor, lucifer, rosie, husk

⌇alastor

you looked the radio demon up and down, thinking that doing so from the farthest corner of the bar would ensure he didn’t see you. it’s not like you could help it though. alastor had switched out his normal suit for a gorgeous red velvet, his hair pulled up with what looked like braids in it, no doubt nifty’s doing. you took a sip of your drink and looked down, seeing him look up at your area of the bar.

you had been doing this since you had sat down at the bar. watching him interact with patrons and royalty, who were there to have their pocket books pried open for some funding as well as support for the hotel. it wasn’t an easy task by any means even with lucifer in support of the idea and here tonight. you were supposed to be chatting people up as well, but after the first guy you spoke to kept his hand on your arm for a little too long, you decided you were too sober for all of this.

you saw alastor’s attention be pulled else where, giving you your cue to look back up. he was angled away from you and you gulped audibly. the way the jacket fit his frame, his hair style complimented his long neck, and how his waist looked so deliciously tiny made your stomach warm and your face heat. you had zoned out, your mind taking you to an alternate reality where you had a chance of slipping off that coat of his… you shook your head and your eyes locked with alastor’s. you’re not sure how it was possible but your face heated even more, almost burning with the blush you had at being caught. you couldn’t look away though, even as he smirked at you.

you swallowed heavily and shakily took a sip of your drink as you saw him depart from whoever he was talking to, walk up to the bar and stand close next you.

“just a few fingers of that old rye you have back there.” alastor requested, and husk nodded turning away. giving alastor a chance to look down at you. you felt yourself shrink under his gaze as he smiled again, almost like a smirk. he grabbed the glass husk handed to him and you watched intently as he brought the glass up to his lips and sipped his drink, glancing at his neck and the way it moved. flickering your eyes back up to his as his grin widened. he bent down at his waist, you both face to face now.

“if you keep undressing me with your eyes, i’ll catch a cold darling.” he murmured to you, as your eyes widened and you looked down ashamed. alastor chuckled and you felt his finger draw your face up to look at you again.

“cat got your tongue?” he asks, smirking. you try and speak but no words come out and you feel your face and now arms burning. you take your cool hands and place them on your cheeks. he draws them away, holding them.

“don’t do that. i like the red color. red as blood.” he says, kissing your right cheek, then straightening up and taking his drink and himself back into the middle of the party, shooting glances at you from time to time as you still just watched him charm the crowd.

⌇lucifer

there were many benefits to being with the king of hell. you practically never had to worry about anything, be that financial or even emotional or physical. you knew lucifer had you covered. he was in your corner. once word got around that you were dating the king of hell, the perks increased. you’d walk into a shop and the attendants wouldn’t let you buy anything. there was just a small ask to post it on sinstagram or voxtube and review it. which you never minded, but then that oddly started an influencing career in hell. that definitely was not something on your bingo card for when you died.

right now though, you were faced with the biggest detractor of dating the king of hell. he had to attend this gathering. very boring, and you felt your eyes glaze over as you sipped lucifer’s appletini he left. you watched him converse with this group of royalty and business people, you being the only one left at the table. not that you minded and no, you didn’t want to go make conversation over there. you sighed and decided to use this opportunity to really admire lucifer.

he was dressed in his suit but instead of the white base he wore around normally, the suit was gold with red accents. and it just brought out his eyes so well. he looked ethereal standing there, talking to those people. you gave him a once over and all you could think about was getting him out of that damn suit that fit him so well. just imagining him underneath you, panting and sobbing for-

“if you keep undressing me with your eyes, i might just catch a cold.” you hear lucifer’s voice in your ear. your gasp sounding more like a moan when he grabs the appletini in your hand and throws it back in one drink.

“undressing you? you were already undressed in my mind. already on the bed if i’m honest.” you murmur to him and watch the blush take his cheeks.

“this boring you?” he asks smiling.

“desperately.” you look at him. “we should go back home. we can pick up where i left off envisioning you on our bed underneath me… begging for more.” you grin wickedly as lucifer gulps. he quickly makes his way over to the group, explaining something and you see them all nod. he quickly makes his way back to you and takes your hand, waiting for you to get up. then he all but drags you out of the venue.

“let’s go home.”

⌇rosie

you had told rosie she should wear her new dress. and damn it she was so excited about it, that of course you said yes. now… a part of you regretted saying she should as one of the gentleman in cannibal town kept talking rosie up while she was checking out a long line of patrons. you tried to breathe as you just watched rosie. you knew she was capable of taking care of herself. you watched how she nimbly packed up different items, wrapping them all while charming all around her. her figure was so graceful and the dress hugged her just right, accentuating her waist. you bit your lip watching her. both of your eyes widening as you caught each others gaze.

you blushed deeply while she smirked at you and checked out the last guest in line. finally she took a second to come over to you.

“if you keep undressing me with your eyes, i’m going to catch a cold darling.” she purred as she strode up to you. you saw behind her the same gentleman watching the both of you, his gaze hungry. you glared at him as you grabbed a bit of rosie’s skirt possessively, but not wanting to make a show. she chuckled.

“he’s really got you worked up, don’t he?” she asked.

“he keeps flirting with you. it’s disgusting.” you comment, looking at rosie. she hums and pulls you up so you were standing. she still towered over you, as she gently maneuvered you face to look up at her. she smiled again, licking her lips and she bends down and kisses you. your eyes widen as you throw your arms around her neck, reaching up on your tip toes to get closer.

you hum into the kiss, gently weaving your fingers in rosie’s hair and pulling at her nape. you feel the growl that comes from her, slightly panting as she break.

“get a fuckin’ room! absolutely disgusting. there are children!” you hear susan yell and you sigh. you hands at rosie’s waist, absentmindedly rubbing over the boning in the dress.

“i think you need to get back to the shop.” you sigh and rosie nods. “anything i can help with?”

“sit there and look pretty for me?” she asks and you laugh, nodding. you turn to the check out area and smile even brighter.

“he’s gone!” you exclaim. happy the guy from before wasn’t in the store.

“oh, yeah. he left right when i kissed you.” she laughed, patting down some of the fizz in your hair. “needed to make sure that everyone else knew who i was with though.” she winks and walks back up to the front counter as you sit back down and sigh. you wondered how you got so lucky.

⌇husk

watching husk talk to other patrons and quickly whip up drinks was a past time of yours that you greatly favored. it was sort of relaxing seeing him in an element that he excelled in, but honestly, just watching him and how good he was with his hands made you blush.

you were currently off, deep in thought, but husk caught your glance. your eyes widen as you try and look away, attempting to save whatever shred of dignity you had by playing it cool. you knew husk wasn’t dumb though. he had seen you staring.

he went back to work quickly enough and you waiting for a few more moments before looking out of the corner of your eye at him, watching him rim a glass with salt. he poured two liquors in at the same time topping off with some red liquid and a lime wedge, pushing it towards a demon who giggled as their hands touched being passed the drink.

you rolled your eyes and as soon as husk’s back was turned you took your opportunity to really look at him. he wore his usual suspenders and pants, but he had slicked back his hair tonight and had on a white button down shirt with suit themed cufflinks. it was an incredibly dapper look and you couldn’t help imagine taking off the damn shirt he was wearing. loosing your grip on reality again, you didn’t notice a drink being slid to you. you hear the drink before seeing it in front of you, looking up, you meet husk’s eyes. a smirk almost tattooed on his face. you blink a few times, trying to understand, when he chuckles.

“if ya keep starin’ at me sweetheart, and undressin’ me with those eyes of yours, i’m gonna catch a cold.” he takes back your old glass and leaves you sitting there bewildered as he helps the next guest. you take a sip and see a slip of paper from under the glass. you squint to read the scrawled handwriting.

“meet me at 1. party should be wrapped up then. you can stare all ya want.”

you placed your hand over the paper and felt your cheeks grow warm. he was going to be the death of you.

[arkhammaid]

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ OF DRAGON BEHAVIOUR AND OLDE TRADITIONS. 

fandom. genshin impact

pairings. neuvillette, zhongli x gn!reader

content warnings. sfw + nsfw, MINORS & AGELESS BLOGS DNI, heavily influenced by 'dragon' behaviour (is a bit leaned on a/b/o), 5 + 1 fic type (the + 1 is nsfw), possessive neuvie/zhongli, sfw: collaring, scenting, marking, nsfw: nesting, both of them have big dicks lol, talk about breeding, not edited/proofread, written in lowercase

word count. 1.8k

notes. i'm so down bad...

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ flaunting. 

once a dragon is mated, they like to show off their mate proudly. to enhance their physical aspects and to proclaim their trust in them, mates get draped in the dragon’s treasures. treasures this mythical beast usually hoards with jealousy. the shinier and bigger the treasures, the higher is the mate in social standing. 

neuvillette is less lavish with his treasures, simply because his priorities in his riches lay elsewhere. this is why you often where the brightest pearls, adoring your neck or shiny shells around your wrists. he enhances your beauty much subtler, but nonetheless you’re still worthy to be called his mate. after all, he’s a dragon of water, it’s only right for him to drape you in the gifts of the sea. 

zhongli prefers you in the finest silk and your skin adored with gold and other treasures found in the rich land that belongs to him. as a dragon of earth and especially as geo archon, all the gems are crafted in the most beautiful jewelry. everything to enhance your beauty. he especially likes you in cor lapis, a jewel in a color that he claims as his— and seeing you in this soft hue of orange swells pride in him. 

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ collaring. 

collaring can be seen as a step further of flaunting. the dragon creates an individual collar for their mate, to not only protect one of the weakest points of their body, their neck, but to also immediately signal that they belong to them. it signals protection and ownership, which is why mates rarely part with their gifted collars,as they’re also the first gift they receive as a dragon’s mate.

neuvillette knows that collars, by human standards, are not something normal. this is why he takes great care to create a collar that not only shows his strength but also fits within the domain the two of you move. this is why your collar is not a traditional one, instead resembling a tight necklace adorned by pearls and silver. it’s just enough to calm his instincts but also a fashionable item— one for which you’ve received many compliments. 

zhongli on the other hand has crafted a collar of which his elders would be proud of. it’s heavy on your neck, made by his own hands and not your usual jewelry. despite that, the collar is made by the best gems and jewels zhongli could find, and of course in his colors. and to ensure you’re comfortable wearing such a heavy collar, the inner side is embellished with the most expensive velvet he could find. 

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ acknowledgement. 

another important aspect between the relationship of a dragon and their mate is the acknowledgement of the hunt. once the dragon has successfully brought home the game, it is now up to the mate to appraise said game. only once they give their approval can the food be shared between them. this also includes all their offspring. 

neuvillette is always very careful with the food he brings to you. he ensures he’s the only one touching it, as tradition demands, and satisfactory enough for your plate. to him, keeping you fed and happy is much more important than to take care of his own needs. even when you always scold him, when he neglects himself, in this aspect he won’t bulge. 

zhongli himself has a very expensive taste and only the best is just good enough for his mate. no matter what you say, he will hunt on his own and pick all the herbs and berries himself, or else he wouldn’t even present the food. your approval is the highest praise, only one of the many reasons why zhongli takes so much care and time to honor this tradition. 

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ scenting. 

scenting is one of the few habits and traditions that are more intimate. a dragon scents their mate for several reasons. firstly, it’s one of the final steps of their ‘ownership’ over the mate. clothed in their treasure but also bathed in their scent. secondly, the process itself is very calming for the dragon, almost meditative. 

neuvillette likes to scent you when he comes home. it calms not only his dragon but also his mind. because of that, he never scents you in public, thinking it as a private matter and a treasured one added to that. it’s not something others should witness— you in his arms, pliant to his nosing, his gentle kisses and nibs on your skin and especially when he removes your collar to scent you on your neck. 

zhongli, despite being an old dragon, behaves as if he’s freshly mated and a young blood when it comes to scenting you. he dislikes smelling others on you or any artificial scent that’s not you. he has no shame scenting you in public, but over the years living with you he has reduced to the almost scandalous behaviour to nothing more but scenting on your wrists and a quick nosing on your cheeks. 

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ marking. 

marking is quite similar to scenting, only this behaviour varies from dragon to dragon. for some, a so called ‘mate-bite’ is enough, others like to add new markings everytime they couple with their mate. but there are even some dragons, who enjoy being marked by their mates, a most unusual behaviour. 

neuvillette has always enjoyed marking you, but is very gentle with it. his mate-bite, another physical sign that you belong to him, is located on your right shoulder, a wound healed a long time ago. he much prefers when you mark him, your teeth sinking in his much sturdier flesh. it leaves him breathless, just the mere thought of you marking him making his head spin— he loves to leave his marks on you, but he even loves it more when you mark him, to tell the whole world that he belongs to you. 

zhongli always loves to admire the marks his sharp teeth leave behind, trace his fingers over your reddened skin— he’s fascinated by your vulnerability and your eagerness to please him. but what matters most to him is that you love to wear his marks, never hesitate to show them off by not hiding them. social decorum would demand for you to hide them away behind draped fabrics, but instead you proudly wear them, as if they’re badges of highest honor. 

— ˚₊‧⁺˖ nesting. 

as every other animal, be it mythical or not, dragons go through a cycle. at it’s highest point, their fertility is much more prominent. to ensure the increased chances of success in producing offspring, the biology of dragons demands them to nest during the cycle. if the dragon ignores this inner instinct, it grows irritated or even aggressive to everyone who is not their mate. nesting ensures the comfort of both the dragon and their mate and helps them to properly prepare for their coupling. 

the moment the first child of the couple is born, nesting becomes a daily thing until said child passes the first stages of growth. the dragon builds a nest in their den, a different one from the ones in which the parents couple, and ensures that both mate and offspring are within this nest. the warmth and scent of both parents help the child to imprint on them and to recognize them later on as their sires. 

neuvillette, when it comes to nesting, is very picky about it. his nest has to be ready before his cycle starts and you have to be in it as well, pliant and ready for him. if you’re not comfortable, he gets stressed and that doesn't end well. 

for the most part, he has his instincts under control, but when you’re in his nest, naked and flushed, he tends to get feral. and once he lets go of that tight control he has over himself and his body, the dragon in him comes out. 

his pupils turning to slits, fangs sharpening and nails becoming claws. scales appear on his skin, his horns grow— neuvillette lets go of his human skin and becomes the closest he can be to a dragon without hurting you. it always excites you, seeing your usual calm and stoic mate all excited about the thought of breeding you. 

he’s an attentive lover, even if he could just slide into your hole and start fucking you stupid. instead he takes immense care to prepare you, hours even, lips and hands leaving marks on your skin while he makes you cum on his tongue several times. 

and then, when you see stars behind your closed eyes, your thighs shake around his head and you try to calm your breath— then he slowly slides into you, his giant cock hitting you in all right places, making you scream again—

then, only then, when you’re pliant and open for him, a flushing mess beneath his massive body and moaning his name— only then he would truly start to fuck you. 

zhongli is very attentive during nesting, but especially as your lover. he always puts your needs above his, simply because he finds pleasure when you enjoy yourself. 

despite being mated for a long time, you’re always nervous about nesting, especially about the most intimate part of it. zhongli is big and it’s always a tight fit, even if he prepares you with his fingers and mouth. you’re never in pain, he wouldn’t forgive himself if he would make you cry, but you’re still understandably nervous. 

zhongli doesn’t mind it, he understands and instead makes sure you’re distracted enough to not lose yourself in spiraling thoughts. it also helps when you’re breathless from the countless orgasms he has already given you, your hole wet enough, almost gushing, so the slide is smooth and painless for you. 

and you can’t lie, you enjoy his big dick, but sometimes it’s too overwhelming. yet the many years together has taught him many tricks and especially things you enjoy. 

you flush beneath him, when he starts praising you, his rich voice causing goosebumps all over your body. you whimper, when his fangs craze over your skin and moan when he actually bites you. 

but you truly lose your mind when he starts fucking you, slow but deep thrusts, taking his time while you writhe beneath him. it seems so effortless, how he’s destroying you, as if he isn’t going crazy when his mate is in his nest, calling his name, clinging onto him, begging him to go faster, harder, begging for more. 

taglist. @trailblazernet , @themercyverse , @lem-hhn , @verxsyon , @auraxins , @lupicalbestwolf , @the-dumber-scaramouche , @spiriteddreams , @kiiyoooo , @8-xnny , @spiriteddreams

DO YOU WANT TO JOIN THE TAGLIST? please send a non-anon ask to be added to the taglist. taglist can be general taglist (all fandoms and all works), fandom taglist (all works within the fandom), series (all works for specific series) or nsfw taglist (all nsfw works and all fandoms).

ARKHAM MAID 2023

[shurisasthmaticgf]

the curls are curling: lando norris x black social media influencer fem! reader

summary: the secret behind why his curls have been consistently looking perfect is revealed.

authors note: i am still very new to formula one so please don't jump me if there is some slight inaccuracies. i did my best to look things up if i wasn't sure about them. this fic isn't based off of any grand prix in particular either. also, this is a work of fiction meaning it's not REAL so please remember that as well! constructive feedback is heavily encouraged and very appreciated 🫶🏽

heat pooled through the open windows of the house as you ran around to try and get yourself ready for the long day ahead. you woke up an hour ago to give yourself two hours to get ready because today was a race weekend. usually, you only needed about an hour to get you and your boyfriend out the door but today you'd gotten up earlier to film a vlog.

the whole social media influencer thing was still fairly new for you, only having started to consistently vlog and post a few months ago. before you'd started dating lando you were posting here and there about your day to day as a university student and intern for a large company in the city. every so often one of your videos got a couple hundred thousand views but you didn't really mind that your other content only got a few likes...that was just how tiktok's algorithm worked.

once you graduated from university and your internship ended you didn't have much to vlog about until you decided to film a race weekend and post it. what you didn't expect was the video to get millions of views and likes overnight. a massive influx of fans followed but you didn't really pay too much mind to the number, this was just something you liked to do and people also liked to watch. with time you ended up opening a youtube channel where you posted longer vlogs and other videos, and tiktok became a place where you posted 1-3 minute clips of your longer videos. one thing you never really did was center your entire vlog around your boyfriend. sure, lando was the entire reason you ended up at races but you were also your own person...that and lando was oddly camera shy when it came to your vlogs so he often wanted you to edit him out if he happened to end up in the frame.

which is how you ended up in your bedroom with your tripod pointed the camera directly at you. you smiled widely, hoping that it masked the fact that you were nearly half asleep, "good morning everyone! it's race day and i'm gonna be taking you along with me. everyone's been asking for a longer race day vlog so i'm here to give you all what you want. first lets get into the fit- these pajamas were sent to me from Brooks Avenue, if you like them you can use the code Y/N for a little discount on your purchase!" you backed up to show off your pink and green pajamas that would have definitely cost an arm an a leg if they hadn't come in a PR package. the matching pink and green satin bonnet on your head slowly slipped down your forehead leaving you to push it back up with an annoyed huff. you explained to the camera once more, "okay and first i'm gonna brush my teeth then do my skincare routine...he's in the shower right now so the lens might get fogged up, sorry in advance." you knocked on the bathroom door to let your boyfriend know you were coming in before pulling your skincare products out of your travel bag. quickly you brushed your teeth with until you felt like you'd gotten rid of every trace of morning breath.

just as you finished your skincare routine, the shower turned off and you slipped out of the bathroom. while lando finished in the bathroom you sat back down at the vanity and situated the camera back in front of you. slowly you slipped the bonnet from your head and untied the silk scarf under it, letting the large twists in your hair fall against your shoulders. to the camera you explained, "it's gonna be really hot today so i'm just gonna pull the twists back with a ribbon and call it a day i think." you pulled a jar of edge control and a brush from your bag and began styling your baby hairs, effortlessly into swirls and swoops. a laugh fell past your lips as you admitted, "honestly the only reason i still do this is so my forehead looks slightly less...megamind-esque in pictures." when you finished you tied another scarf messily around your hairline and began gathering your twists into a ponytail to secure it with a holder and ribbon.

the bathroom door opened and lando walked back into your room, fully dressed but his button down left wide open exposing his bare torso. in his hands he held a blow dryer and two bottles, one leave in conditioner and a gel you'd bought for him a few weeks ago. you finished tying the bow around your ponytail then took the two bottles from him and plugged the blow dryer into the wall. a hand gently pulled on your hand and you looked up to see sleepy smile grace his lips, "good morning, beautiful." you drew closer to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and letting him pull you in by the waist. his head nuzzled into your shoulder as your hand found the back of his head, stroking his hair softly with your fingers you murmured, "hi baby." you could feel the shy smile he wore against your shoulder until you pulled away from him. you pulled a robe from the back of the door and told him, "put this on." he knew most of the reason was so he didn't stain his shirt with hair products but another part of it had to be the fact that his shirt was wide open.

lando sat in front of the camera and you laughed at how awkward he looked compared to normal. you prompted, "baby, say hi to everyone. they ask for you all the time." he stiffly waved a hand in front of the camera and you sighed, "i don't know why you act so funny around my camera but everyone else it's fine." he mumbled a soft, "because it's you..." but only the mic on the camera caught it. he sat on the bench in front of you and slightly leaned back into your body before letting his eyes flutter shut.

meanwhile you showed the leave in conditioner to the camera, "this is the kinky curly knot today leave in-" despite his eyes being shut lando let out a small laugh and you asked, "what?" he mumbled cheekily, "kinky." you let out a exasperated sigh, "oh god you're like a child...anyways i was saying, i put a little of this in his hair but not too much just a tiny amount to add moisture." squeezing the leave in conditioner into your palm then applying it to his hair you hummed along to a sza song that ran through your head. the gentle work of your fingers running along his scalp nearly lulled lando back to sleep. you worked through his hair with a practiced ease, adding product and coaxing the curls atop his head to take perfect shape. not wanting to disturb his peace, you silently showed the matching brand's curling custard and then applied that lightly to his hair. once you'd finished you turned on the blow dryer, accidentally jump scaring your boyfriend under you. a soft melodic laugh fell past your lips and one hand fell to his shoulder before you leant down and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, "my bad babe." the camera didn't miss the way he leaned into your touch, pushing his cheek closer to you with his shoulders dropping further in relaxation.

not even half an hour later you were done and the light brown curls on his head were perfectly defined. you wiped your hands on the hand towel you'd slung over your shoulder earlier and laughed when you realized your boyfriend literally fell asleep. you gently cupped under his chin and pressed another kiss to his cheek. just above a whisper you mumbled, "all done, bubs. " he opened his eyes and smiled while you mused, “my pretty boy.” his cheeks flushed slightly, “thank you” and you brushed a few curls into place before looking at his reflection, "of course." he stood up and pulled you out of the frame to gave you a quick kiss before going downstairs where you'd meet him when you finished getting dressed.

the white and navy blue floral sundress you wore was both nice and simple enough to wear for today. simple gold jewelry and a pair of white sandals finished off your look and you grabbed the camera to show your reflection in the full length mirror on the wall, "all dressed so i'm gonna go meet lando downstairs and i'll see you all a little bit later!" you stopped recording and went downstairs to find your boyfriend sitting and ready to go, his cheeks burning pink when he laid eyes on you. a subtle fluttering erupted in your stomach at the familiar gaze, the one that made you feel like the only girl in the world.

*extra*

you scrolled through your social media accounts, something you never really did if you didn't have to. the first thing that came to your attention was the flood of pictures and comments that were about your boyfriend's hair. for the past few races you'd been doing his hair and more and more fans were noticing it looked better than normal. honestly, you found it amusing that people were bringing it up and so much at that, so you decided to add to the conversation just a bit:

fans reactions to recent vlog upload:

[mysunshinetemptress]

Not Strong Enough

Alexia Putellas x reader

Warnings: angst, relationship issues/breakdown

“Well I’m fucking sorry I’m not her Ale.”

“No you’re not your just a fucking disappointment.”

You stood frozen looking into the fridge cleaning up from a dinner you had made hours ago that Alexia hadn’t even bothered showing up for. You turn slowly looking at the clock behind her head “I don’t want to do this right now.” Alexia shook her head “no I’m so fed up with you, why honestly why can’t you just be like her.” You shook your head looking at the floor feeling your throat close “I don’t know why, I am the way I am I’m sorry I’m not her.” You couldn’t believe you where apologising, you had done nothing wrong but she was Alexia Putellas, La Reina she deserved someone who could match that she deserved Jenni Hermoso and no matter how hard you tried you never got close enough. You shook your head as Alexia just stared at you looking for a fight but you didn't have the energy instead looking up at the ceiling thinking of the ring that burnt a whole in your dresser wishing to be used, you had it all planned out but you saw that future slowly slipping away as Alexia began shouting again so loud you could barley here the song "Boys Don't Cry" playing from the speaker.

You turned to look at her as continued shouting about how much of a disappointment you where to hear, how you would never be enough and you wanted to look at her and hate her for her words but you found yourself believing them and therefore you couldn't hate her if you agreed with her. As the older girl continued to compare you to her ex you couldn't help but think of how you would never be able to be enough for her like Jenni was, you didn't play football, you weren't famous or an influencer you worked a desk job, a 9-5 week in and week out, you didn't have trophies or medals adorned with your name across them you simply had an office where you added up numbers how could an accountant from A Coruna.

You where simply an angel not a god like Jenni, no never a god

You couldn't move as Alexia shouted out all of the ways Jenni was better then you and you felt yourself suddenly begin to realise what was about to happen. This was it the ring in your dresser wasn't screaming at you to get out and be placed on Alexia fingers your mind wasn't telling you to fit the energy was gone.

"SAY SOMETHING" you looked up at Alexia as your eyes refocused and you where pulled back to present time "What do you want me to say Ale" you sighed heavily tired of it all "See this is what I mean at least Jenni would talk to me, communicate her feelings with me you shut off." you subbed your eyes god did they feel heavy. "Theres no point." you moved to the drawer taking out your car keys before heading upstairs to pack your bag.

Alexia stood shocked as you waled past her to the front door "At least Jenni would fight for us you are walking away such a disappointment." you turned shaking your head. "Yes Alexia such a disappointment like you already said, like you have said since this relationship started, I'm done I...I can't take the constant fights after you realise I'm not here and then feel the need to take it out on me its...its not fair.. and the sad part is I tried to be her but I'm sorry I failed at that because I can't....I am me and I thought you loved me for that but clearly I was wrong." Alexia shook her head "Don't make it out like I'm the bad guy you....you only got with me for my name for my status." You looked at her in disbelief how could she ever think that.

"I have loved you before your injury, I have loved you during your injury and the sad part is I will love you long after this injury is healed and you are back to La Reina but I won't be in the stands, who would want such a disappointment of a girlfriend screaming for their return no."

You chucked the keys at her as you walked out the door. Done with never being enough for her always being a disappointment and falling short for always only being an Angel and never a God, for never being Jenni Hermoso

[anonymouscheeses]

Hazbin hotel theory (not circus related 🙄)

So we all know Charlie and Vaggie resemble alot of Lucifer and Lillith right?

Lucifer is a fallen angel and Vaggie is a fallen angel. Both sacrificing so much for their lovers. Both having different ideals and beliefs aside from the majority of heaven, because of that they both end up in hell. Also literal head over heels for their wives. Lucifer still wears his ring and Vaggie has very few scenes outside of Charlie.

Charlie and Lillith are both demons, although I guess Lillith is more human I think. But, they both fit in the other category. They both have fallen angel lovers. It's said in the opening cutscene that Lillith was an activist who sang as a way to influence. Charlie is an activist who sings in "ready for this" to persuade the cannibals to join her fight against heaven.

Personality and design wise though, Charlie and Lucifer are the most similar. Lillith and Vaggie? From what we've seen Lillith seemed loving in her pictures but calm and serious at the majority, if that doesn't describe Vaggie I don't know what does. Also Lillith wears purple and Vaggie is at this point purple coded 💀

It's implied that Lucifer had romantic or at the least smeggsual 🤭 relations to Eve. Sure it could have been a joke/lie, but clearly Adam gets pissed and doesn't say that he's wrong. I'd like to think Lillith and Eve also had romantic ties but there's not enough shown of them to make even an evidential guess. It's obvious tho that Lucifer at least was with the both of them at some point. (Maybe even Eve gave birth to Charlie since Lillith was cursed with miscarriages. At least if Viv still wants to keep that. No. No... Lucifer did NOT give birth to Charlie... youre jst weird... /j)

So... if Lucifer, Lillith, and Eve were once all in a polycule or at least a vee(two date one)....

who would be the one that stands in as Eve since Charlie and Vaggie are Lillith and Lucifer?

Plot twist. I'm a two and half halo shipper. It's Emily yall... 😨

HEAR MEE OUTTT!!!

In this image below, Vaggie is jealous that Charlie is holding Emily's hands(YES. CHARLIE IS HOLDING HER HANDS, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Charlie is very touchy sshh) which is kind of weird they would include that tiny scene. Sure, it could just be comedic but what's comedy except a person who looks too much into a small 1 millisecond scene. It still puts in a dynamic that at first isn't implied to be romantic but! But, having this one scene still creates a slightly romantic undertone dynamic. Even if it's not heavily implied, Vaggie sees Emily as someone who's taking moves on her girlfriend. (Which could also imply Lillith and Eve's first impression before they got in a polycule.)

What I'm about to say is pure speculation, there still isn't much to go off of in the show at the moment with these six. But I think I have some points that maayyy just be smart for an idiot like me :3. Emily is an angel yes, but we aren't sure what Eve's fate was, where she went or what happened to her after. Maybe she stayed with Adam(after the creation of sin), and if Adam could go to heaven, a man who also ate the apple, then I believe Eve could too, it doesn't matter who started(assuming Adam did eat the apple in the show. Most likely.) What I like to speculate is that Eve went to heaven with Adam, although she didn't feel happy in their marriage and decided to make herself a fallen angel to be with Lucifer and Lillith, her true lovers.

Now the similarities with Eve and Emily? They both are against the ideas of those higher than them in heaven. Emily is against the idea of extermination in hell because she feels its unnecessary genocide. Eve went against heavens orders and ate the apple from Lucifer for knowledge. Oh also look haha their hair is kinda similar in the images below(not actual evidence but still its kinda cool) That's where the current canon similarities end. But ofc the big well known theory is that Emily will become a fallen angel because she goes against Sera's wishes. I HOPE she doesn't but in this show? Yeah, most likely. Currently Emily hasn't taken action, but maybe one day she will, which is the most likely situation. And if I'm right that Eve was a fallen angel then that would also be ANOTHER similarity. (Also. Ya'll.... the woman who picked up baby Charlie in "more than anything" was NOT Lillith. Like okay, maybe she is, but that didn't look like her AT ALL. She didn't have the same slick back mullet. But, in the image below, Eve and the woman who picked up baby Charlie have the exact same hair. Jst another thing I wanted to throw in to further evident that Lucifer Lillith and Eve were in a polycule/vee)

I LOVE TWO AND A HALF HALOS SO MUCH GUYSS. PLEASE FEED INTO MY NAIVETY. LUCIFER'S STOLEN WIVES AND CHARLIE'S ANGELS ARE LITERALLY CANON AND NO ONE CAN SAY OTHERWISE TO ME 😭😭

BONUS!! Adam is Lillith's ex rightt??? Well Lute is basically Vaggie's ex. Sure, you could argue that- no. No girl, they was exes, I know, Viv told me herself smhhh..... not only are both Lucifer and Vaggie fallen angels because they had different ideals from heaven, Lillith and Charlie are both activists who use their voice as powers, Eve and Emily go against heaven, BUT LILLITH AND VAGGIE BOTH HAVE EXES??

Bro, Adam and Lute are also besties like? The polycules kicked them out and then they were like, "nuh uh, now we're gonna date eachother since yall don't want us" 😭

Basically what I'm saying is that Lucifer's stolen wives and Charlie's angels are Canon and no one can say otherwise because I'm so smart. If anyone says they aren't just link them to here and BOOM we got another one added to the small ship. Also. This is so underrated. Ya'll.. the potential is so crazy. And since Charlie and Vaggie are already established it would be so intense and adorable to watch Emily try to impress and date them both. Uggghh so.... hyperfixated..... I hope this isn't my special interest now 😭

[notjustjavierpena]

How did reader reveal that she was pregnant with Lucas?

Bun (Drabble)

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost | Support a disabled creator

A/N: This might be heavily influenced by a TikTok that I watched months ago. I hope you like it. It seemed to fit a first-time-pregnant couple.

Summary: You do a pregnancy reveal for Javier!

Pairing: Javier Peña x f!reader (no y/n)

Tags: Domestic fluff, pregnancy reveal, hugs and kisses, Javi is a himbo, reader is a MILF

Word count: 700

Bun

“How bad is it? Is it very bad?” You ask, peeking over Javier’s shoulder and into the oven. It’s a miracle that the smoke detector has not gone off because a tiny cloud has just emerged from your oven.

“Honey,” Javier sighs dramatically. He has oven mittens on, pulling out a rack from the oven whilst you are giggling, “I love you so much but why would you make a single roll? How did you even measure the ingredients?”

He places the rack on top of the stove. On the baking sheet lies a single bun, black from charcoal as you have accidentally forgotten about it in your excitement to tell your secret. You roll your eyes but cannot stop smiling. You know something he does not, “It’s not a roll, it’s a bun.”

Javier pulls off the oven mitts and hangs them in their usual spot on a hook on the wall, furrowing his brow, “Okay?”

“What did you just pull out of the oven?” You say. You really thought that he was going to get there sooner.

“A burnt roll,” he replies with slight exasperation.

“Noooo,” you laugh at his obliviousness, “It’s still not a roll. It’s a bun.”

“Fine,” he shakes his head, “A burnt bun then.”

“It’s a bun,” you try to spell it out for him, “… In the oven.”

“Uh-huh? Yeah?” He narrows his eyes in confusion.

“We have a bun in the oven,” you smirk.

“I just pulled it out,” he argues.

You run a hand over your face, and then you start laughing loudly but it only seems to annoy your husband. If he only knew that you want to make a joke about pulling out being too little too late.

“What? Why are you laughing?” He is starting to lose patience with you.

“Javi,” you say his name sweetly when you finally start to calm down, “We’re having a baby.”

The sentence’s meaning takes a moment for him to process but suddenly, his eyebrows rise up into his hair. He looks much younger now, mouth falling open in amazement and awe, “Wait, what? Are you serious?”

“I took a pregnancy test while you were at work,” you giggle as he practically launches himself in your direction. He picks you up from the floor when he hugs you, causing a squeak to leave you, “And then I took two more. They’re all positive.”

“You are joking!” He gapes at you when he places you back down on the floor, mood changing incredibly quickly between surprised, happy, and suspicious. You nod and he runs both hands through his hair, “Are you sure?”

“I’m not joking, and actually I’m positive,” your cheeks are starting to hurt from beaming due to happiness and Javier laughs genuinely at your silly joke. You know it’s only been eight weeks but this just feels so right, and you will confirm it at the doctor’s next week.

“Oh, mi amor. ¡Qué fantástico! (Oh, my love. How fantastic)!” His kiss takes you by surprise but you hold onto his wrists as he cups your face and melt against him, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you bask in your happiness and love when you pull away, bump your noses together, “Now we’ll just have to hope they take after me. Otherwise, we’re in for some serious trouble.”

“Ay,” he tuts as he kisses you a few times more. You pull his hands from your face and wrap his arms around your waist. He hugs you close to his chest, “These strong genes are sure to give you a Peña clone.”

“Alright, Peña,” you giggle into his shoulder, “We get it.”

“It’s really ‘we’ now, huh?” He talks into your ear.

“It was always we. As in I can’t believe we’re going to have a baby,” you say dreamily, “I’ll be a mom.”

“You’ll be a MILF,” he snickers when you pull back to glare at him. You slap his chest.

“Not in front of the b-a-b-y,” you say with fake outrage.

“A M-I-L-F then,” he jokes back.

“You’re incorrigible,” you lean back into his embrace.

He puts his arms around you even tighter, talking against your cheek, “I never know how to behave accordingly around you, Momma.”

.

.

If you would like to follow my writing then go follow @notjustjavierpena-fics and turn on notifications 💖❤️

[lattaeyongs]

the trojan horse (hrj)

original gif

↳ pairing: huang renjun x reader

↳ word count: 19.6k

↳ genre: royalty!au, historical (late 1700s)!au, arranged marriage!au, heavy angst, fluff, smut

↳ summary: in which the boy you fall in love with isn’t who you think he is.

↳ warnings: character death, political unrest, violence, nudity, explicit sexual content (oral, penetration, switch!renjun, switch!reader, cum play), may contain historical inaccuracies

↳ a/n: influenced heavily by the events of the french revolution.

1791

Ominously, the large, mahogany doors of the Royal Court open. Two guards tightly grip the arms of a shadow, and as the three slowly approach the center of the room, you realize it is a middle-aged, disheveled, pitiful-looking man who wouldn’t put up much of a fight against the guards anyway.

Across a large table sit the Members of the Royal Court. They include some barons and earls, along with religious leaders. Your father, the King, sits at the center, looking especially royal in his brand-new purple robes, and you sit by his side, your fingers intertwined together neatly.

“Order!” Your father announces loudly to the Court. The barons and lords’ chatters die, and the room is silent. 

“Name?” Asks the King. 

“Kim Donghyun,” the man says. He is practically just skin and bones, and it makes you think about how you’ve never gone a day without having three exquisite meals. 

You guiltily avoid his gaze; he doesn’t notice. His attention is toward the King. Due to the days of sitting in a dungeon in utter darkness waiting for his trial and sentencing, he has to blink a few times to get adjusted to the bright light in the Court. 

“What is your crime?” 

Kim Donghyun takes a deep breath. You observe him intently, and you notice how he is practically quaking in fear at being in front of the King. The only time a peasant like him would ever be graced with the presence of the King is when it is nothing good at all. 

Being tried in front of the Royal Court constitutes as ‘nothing good at all.’  

“Theft,” he says in a small voice. At his fear, the King looks at him in disdain. Kim Donghyun knows that his time is limited, and he won’t die without a shred of dignity.

He raises his voice. “I did it for my family.” 

“Only describe the crime,” the King interjects.

“I work in the farming district. In an apple orchard. Instead of turning over all the apples I collected to the cart that takes it to distribution centers, I kept some hidden in my home.” 

The King turns to look at the rest of the Court and discusses quietly, avoiding your gaze. You’re able to make out some words, such as ‘sin’ and ‘infestation of the poor,’ but you don’t interact. Of course, he ignores you, as if you don’t have an opinion. As the only woman on the Court, you were only there after you convinced (more like begged) your father. Deciding a man’s fate wasn’t apt work for a royal woman, whose responsibilities lie in producing a legitimate, male heir for the Kingdom after your father chooses your husband, who is the next in line to the throne – not you, who is your father’s own flesh blood and has a right to the throne. You told your father that Queen Elizabeth I more almost three hundred years ago took the throne of England and ruled through a golden age, dismantling your father’s claim that women weren’t fit to rule, but your father argued that was why England didn’t have a direct, legitimate heir, and why England fell into turmoil after Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603.

“There is only one suitable punishment for thieves,” The King says in a sure, kingly voice. You gulp harshly. You knew the next words that would come out of his mouth, after sitting in the Royal Court’s proceedings, which all practically ended the same way, no matter how big or small the offense is. He doles out this punishment like it’s nothing. There used to be other punishments for thieves such as cutting off their hands, but the only places those punishments are described in history books.  

“Death by The Dragon’s Fang!” Your father declares. Through the ornately decorated window, you see the chopping block where executions take place. The Dragon’s Fang, the family sword that has been an important symbol of Justice in your Kingdom, cuts cleanly across the neck of whoever has done the Kingdom of Ambrosia wrong. Sharpened every day by the Executioner, it never gives anything but a decisive end to someone’s life. 

“Please,” the man pleads. The chains around his wrists rattle as he folds his hands together tightly in desperation. The two guards accompanying him hold him even tighter, creating small impressions on his skinny body, but your father gestures for them to let go of Kim Donghyun. He falls to his knees, tears forming at the rims of his eyes. 

You’ve sat through hundreds of proceedings, and every single one of them rips a new hole in your heart.

“I never intended to steal,” he explains. “My family, we’re starving. Starving!” He screams in anguish. The guards come closer to him but do not hold him like they once did; desperate this man is, but not desperate enough to run.

“It’s no excuse,” the King says firmly. 

“I had to do it. Come to the farming district yourself! We’re all suffering before dying of starvation and disease. Reeking dead bodies are everywhere and we have no medicine and no food! How are we supposed to live?”

At his anguished voice, you decide that you’re not going to let this be yet another proceeding that you will watch and do nothing about the result. After all, this is supposed to be your kingdom in the future, not your future husbands, even though it doesn’t seem like that.

“He’s right,” you say. Stunned gasps echo through the room. Not a single member of the Royal Court has second-guessed any of the King’s decisions. But you do not let that affect the firmness in your voice.

“How are the working class supposed to serve us if we cannot give them enough resources to live?” You spin it another way. You don’t truly mean what you say, only giving the situation in this light in order for your father to understand; he only understands when things affect him; the rest of the Court are the same way, almost medically unable to expand their cold, selfish hearts to show a little compassion. 

“If we show mercy to this one man,” your father says patiently, “then others will start doing the same thing. We need to make an example of the misdeeds of this man, to prevent further law-breaking.” Your father knows of your compassion for others, an un-queenly trait that he thinks you will outgrow when you get a little more experience with royal affairs, the only reason why he let you take part in the proceedings of the Royal Court. Being that you’re only a child, twenty years old, you have not the same maturity as a seasoned King. But to you, it’s not just a phase.

Whatever happened to the great leaders of yesteryear who knew when to show compassion and when to rule with an iron fist? Your father’s ruthless punishments are what earned him the title of ‘The Mad King’ by the commoners, according to the King’s spies (aptly called his ‘Ears’) everywhere. It is even rumored that the Resistance, an organization whose goal is to destroy the royal family, is real. After hearing about the American Revolution and the Revolution in France, common people hold out hope for a democracy, where everyone’s voices are heard. The writings of Thomas Paine and John Locke started circulating in the Kingdom of Ambrosia and have stirred up more political unrest than what could be imagined.

Your father afterward made it his mission to find every copy of Common Sense and Two Treatises of Government and burn them, as well as execute anyone with a physical copy of those books. He could not have that sort of insolence from his subjects. However, that did nothing; the words were still in peoples’ minds, spreading to others orally, and who knows how many illegitimate copies there are, the words printed on cloth or in their minds? This made people want to get bootlegged copies even more. If the commoners had enough food on the table and compassionate leaders, then their cries for revolution are quieter. If the Gods chose you to be a ruler, then that means that the Gods see leadership potential in your lineage, and you should follow that.

“I’m not saying to spare Kim Donghyun any punishment,” you explain cooly with your hands in your lap in a lady-like fashion, just as your governess taught you when you were little. “There are other means of punishment which will get the point across.”

“Other means of punishment?” Your father echoes in a tone that makes you feel small. “Stealing is a sin and sins are punishable by death.” 

“Can’t he get a whipping? I’m sure that he learned his lesson. He’s frightened to death and needs to feed his –”

“Quiet, girl!” The King declares. Instantly, you feel your father’s palm connect with your cheek, and a stinging sensation burns your skin. This immediately makes your tear ducts tingle with the need to let hot tears roll down your cheeks, but you will not let the Royal Court see you as a little girl being chastised by her father.

You are a young woman and one that is to be the future queen at that.

At the way you take a painful slap, Kim Donghyun meets your gaze with a resigned, yet thankful look at your efforts. He already knows that in a few short minutes, his blood will be pooling on the floor in the adjacent room.

“The Royal Court here rules that Kim Donghyun is sentenced to death by the Dragon’s Fang.” He bangs the gavel against the table loudly, glancing at you before locking gazes with Kim Donghyun. He doesn’t cry, he doesn’t scream. He knew he took a massive risk with those apples. He only wished that he stole more because the look of satisfaction when his wife and children ate was intoxicating. 

The two guards grab Kim Donghyun’s elbows before escorting them out of the Royal Court and into the next room. The window gives a clear view of the large chopping block stained with dry, brown blood where Kim Donghyun is supposed to lean, his knees on the floor, his neck and the edge of the block lining up. Then, the Executioner takes the Dragon’s Fang and raises it above his head. He doesn’t close his eyes at the sight he is about to see, a ritual he has performed thousands of times, only asking the victim for any last words, as you can tell from seeing this proceeding many times. Kim Donghyun says something, but you are not sure what. Then, the Executioner swings the sword, and Kim Donghyun crumbles to the ground in two parts after a sickening crunch (that you’ve heard so many times, it echoes in your head).

You think you’re going to be sick.

-

Just like there were many court proceedings before the trial of Kim Donghyun, there are many afterward. The Resistance is growing larger, according to the King’s Ears, and is ready to plan something large. Normally, your father would not tolerate this insolence against the royal family. He would have liked to nip it in the bud and hang the bodies of all the rebels in front of the streets to make an example out of them, but the King is running into a huge problem: he is close to bankruptcy. He barely has enough resources to pay guards and mercenaries to protect the current palace, as well as cooks and maids and servants. He doesn’t have enough resources to pay for a large army and create a special task force to get rid of the rebels. After spending his money on clothes and shoes, brand new wings of the palace and concubines, he was spending money faster than he was receiving it. 

Obviously, you knew that this was a serious problem, and it was information that select people had access to; Royal advisors were trying their best to make sure that this information was kept under a tight lid and wouldn’t find its way to the Resistance. Royal advisors suggested that the King find a source of needed materials without raising taxes yet again, and that’s where you come to play. Your father arranged for you to meet a suitor to set up a much-needed marriage alliance.

Today, you would be meeting the Prince of Neo, Huang Renjun. Neo is a small kingdom a few days journey from you by the sea, and they are known for their ample craftsman class who commission some of the finest weapons. They are also a source of skilled fighters, and they will be more likely to ship off their people and provide resources to Ambrosia if they have a suitable marriage alliance.

As much as you hated being auctioned off like an antique vase, it was something that couldn’t be helped as a royal woman. You only hope that this Huang Renjun isn’t like the other suitors you have met, who are snooty and stuck up, ruthless as if they are miniature versions of your father. More importantly, you wish that they won’t cast you aside, using you as a pawn to get their hands on the better prize, the Kingdom of Ambrosia, the largest kingdom in the area.

There’s already tension in the air when you are escorted by your mother and lady’s maids into the drawing room where you first lay eyes on Huang Renjun.

His raven-colored hair is neatly gelled and combed, and his skin is pale in contrast. He stands up politely at your presence, and you get a good look at his clothing: rich, exactly what you expect for a royal from another kingdom. He wears red robes with delicate, intricate yellow designs, and you suspect the material is velvet. He has white frills at his neck, and milky white socks that compliment the black shoes at his feet, which have a gold flower at the center of the foot to match the gold designs on his robes. 

You’re thankful that the suitor you’re meeting is actually in the same age range as you, but it’s an additional bonus that he’s one of the most beautiful men you’ve met without even trying.

He is also observing you with the same tenacity as you do with him: You’re wearing a crown of pink flowers on your head, which matches the pink flowers on your sky-blue dress. Your skirt is large and trails at your behind, which shows your royal standing, and the sky-blue sleeves of your dress slowly become white lace as his eyes follow from your shoulders to your wrists. The sleeves of your dress are cone-like, and the edges are able to reach your knees. 

For a few seconds, you meet Renjun’s gaze. His eyes are a beautiful dark brown, and they offer you a friendly look, which puts your heart at slight ease. 

“Princess Y/N, this is Prince Renjun of Neo,” your mother introduces in a voice that makes it seem like she has known Prince Renjun for a long time (which she hasn’t).

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, your Highness,” Renjun says. His voice is absolutely magnificent, song-like, and dreamy. He steps forward and bends down on one knee, taking your right hand and kissing the back of it. 

His lips feel warm against your skin. 

There are a few other men by Renjun’s side. There are his personal guards, who came with him on the carriage ride from his castle to yours, and another man in fine clothing, someone you failed to notice due to your observant study of Huang Renjun. 

“And this is the King of Neo,” your mother continues, gesturing. He bows down and takes the time to bend down and kiss your mother’s hand (which has her bubbling with pleasant words) and your hand, which you give a curt greeting. His black robe shuffles as he steps back, and you study Renjun side-by-side with his father. 

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highnesses,” he says. 

A few maids come in bearing silver trays piled with bite-sized sandwiches, in the shape of a pyramid. You and your mother take one, while Renjun and his father take one each, all four of you being overly courteous to the help in an effort to keep appearances. 

“Your daughter looks like a lovely young lady, perfect for my Renjun,” the King of Neo comments, giving your mother a gracious smile. “So elegant and full of grace, she will make a fine queen and wife, Your Highness,” he addresses your mother. 

“Thank you for your kind words,” Your mother responds back, her eyes crinkling as a part of her practiced genuine smile. “May I escort you to the King? He has some matters that he would like to discuss with you.” 

“Of course, my good lady,” the King of Neo responds back courteously. Your mother leads the way out of the room, and a few maids look like they are going to follow her, to make sure that she is okay, but she only needs to give a flick of her wrist for them to disperse back into the drawing room. Now, you and Renjun are alone, except for the help, but they don’t count. You’re grateful that your mother has left you both alone because you absolutely hate being chaperoned during meets with suitors – it makes you more nervous having that extra company. That just shows how important this alliance is for the Kingdom that your mother understands your weakness and tries to put you on the best possible foot to make a good performance for Huang Renjun.

Performance. The word has the connotation relating it to a game, which is what this whole suitor business is. 

“Please have a seat,” you say to Renjun, gesturing at the plush pink-and-green sofa that he abandoned when you entered the room. There is a small ottoman opposite of the sofa, and there is a glass table in between with the pyramid of sandwiches that the maid brought a few minutes ago. You’re ready to bring up something about the weather and other practiced lines you have prepared for occasions like this when something catches your eye on the table, a leather-bound book. It is a copy of The Oresteia by Aeschylus. You remember reading it back when you were still taught by a governess. 

“Excellent choice,” you start off, gesturing to the volume on the table.

Renjun smiles at you, a pretty sight just as beautiful as his voice. 

“Thank you. You have a wonderful library, larger than the one I have at home,” he says in awe. The library room is in the next room, and it is dark and paneled with fine wood; it would not be a good choice to meet a suitor, for it is a major turn-off if a woman is too well-educated, enough that she would love books more than making an heir for the family.

Personally, the library room is your favorite room in the house.

“You don’t have Oresteia in your library?”

“No,” Renjun says sheepishly. “It’s been on my list of books to read for a long time, but I just haven’t had the chance to get a copy with all the suitors my father forc–” Renjun suddenly stops, realizing who he is talking to. His face turns into a bright beet red, thinking that he has messed up more than he ever thought he could.

Your face doesn’t shrivel with offense the way Renjun thought it would. He met a royal woman once who after he said he didn’t like blueberry scones, escorted him out of her castle. Instead, he is greeted by a smile. You experienced the same feeling.

“It’s okay,” you say lightly. “I wasn’t exactly that happy to meet you too.” You’re glad that your mother isn’t chaperoning, or anyone in your Court is either because hearing those words from your mouth would earn you a slap across your face. ‘A lady isn’t supposed to tell someone what she thinks,’ you can hear your mother’s and governess’ voices ringing in your ears (they practically had the same voice… all high-class women had a high pitch, sultry yet innocent voice). 

Renjun finds your words refreshing; this is the first time he’s met a royal who actually says what she thinks, and that sort of directness is what he craves in someone – he hates having to analyze every little word in a woman’s sentence in order to find out what she truly means.

“How far are you?” You ask. 

“Not very,” Renjun sighs. “I wished you came later so I would have had more time to read.” You titter a little, and Renjun is glad that he is able to see a real, genuine smile from you.

“But Clytemnestra has just killed King Agamemnon and Cassandra.” You nod, remembering yourself all those years ago holding this same volume. You’re trying to think of something to say that will contribute to the conversation when Renjun’s voice becomes lower. 

“Do you think he deserved it?” 

Initially, you’re not sure if you should answer the question. On one hand, you do want to answer the question because you can’t believe that you have a suitor who wants to intelligently discuss literature with you, a complete dream that you can’t believe is happening in real life, but there is another part of you that wants to follow your mother’s advice she gave you a long time ago when it came to meeting suitors: to not let him know too much about your opinions too early. 

“I apologize,” Renjun says hesitantly. He just broke all rules when it comes to meeting suitors. He is also not supposed to ask questions like these. Questions like “what are your favorite sweets?” or “what is your favorite city?” are more appropriate for someone you just met. 

“You don’t have to,” you say more confidently. “I think I understand Clytemnestra’s fury. Imagine finding out that your daughter was sacrificed so that your husband can help his brother get his wife back. There’s a line that has to be drawn between your family and someone else’s family, and Agamemnon failed to do so. Menelaus had other allies from various kingdoms that could help him, and Agamemnon could help in other ways than sacrificing his eldest daughter to Artemis. But Iphigenia only had Agamemnon. She was his daughter. He was supposed to protect her. He wasn’t supposed to auction her off to her death. So he must pay with his life,” you explain rationally.

Renjun is pretty sure that you’re not only talking about Oresteia anymore. And he’s right. Maybe you feel a little like Iphigenia, but the free will that you are sacrificing is for the good of your kingdom and not someone else’s. 

After your father overspent his money, even after charging ridiculously high tax rates and has no means to quell the Resistance by force. 

The way you passionately discussed literature was endearing to Renjun. He didn’t want to be stuck with a bimbo for the rest of his life, who was only interested in parties and pleasure. You have substance. 

The two of you continue to discuss other Ancient Greek literature since much of the literature includes myths that are implicitly referenced in other works that people in those days would have understood. The conversation is entertaining, and you freely give your opinion and Renjun does the same, and you appreciate the candidness more than anything in the world.

“I’m glad for one thing,” you say during the conversation.

Renjun raises an eyebrow. 

“That the Greek Gods don’t meddle in our lives.” 

-

Sometimes, just sitting around in the castle got boring – no, a lot of times, just sitting around in the castle got boring. You didn’t have much of a say in the Royal Court and you didn’t have much of a say in royal decision-making either, so you decided a few years ago that there would be something that you would have control over. 

Every weekend, you went into the cities of your Kingdom and practiced healing with the royal healer. A maximum of four people knew about this, and you wanted to keep it that way because if your family found out about this arrangement, they would serve your head on a platter. But so far, no one unnecessary knew about this. The royal healer, the cart driver, and your head maid were the only people who knew. It was your way to give back to the kingdom since so many were dying of diseases or were injured and lamed forever, and these tragedies could be avoided if there was a better spread of healthcare across the kingdom. 

Your head maid has clothes prepared for you, a maid’s outfit that you go into town wearing. With how the people feel about the royal family now that the Resistance is trying to spread their message, it was better if your deeds went unsaid; you didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention to yourself, or else the people in your care could get hurt.

So here you are, sitting in a prepared cart filled with medicine, along with the royal healer. The hot late-summer sun burns your shoulders as you sit, but you’re glad you’re only wearing a maid’s outfit and not the eight different skirts you have to wear all day as a royal; wearing all that clothing in this heat is the definition of hell on Earth. 

Maybe you’re being dramatic when you say that because when you see the capital city, Ciel, it certainly looks like hell on Earth. A little part of you is glad that you’re safely tucked away in your castle in the countryside because you’re not sure you could ever bear calling what is now Ciel, home. Sick people decorate the well-trodden streets, orphaned children scour waste for food, wails of anguish fill the air as people cry over the dead, and the stench – oh, the stench! How pungent and repelling it is, you almost want to gag. Thankfully, you have a flower from the royal gardens tied to your wrist, and you harshly press the flower against your nose, breathing in the fresh scent.

But the saddest thing on the street is the people who are wholly unaffected by all the events happening. They are residents no doubt, with tattered, stained breeches that have probably never seen a wash, but the resigned look on their faces is what breaks your heart into a thousand more pieces. They accept that this is how life is going to be. These people are usually able to hide among the crowds of people, but to you they stick out like a sore thumb.

Speaking of people, there seems to be less than there was last week. Everything seems a tad quieter, and people don’t seem to be sporting angry, belligerent looks on their faces against the royals, just the resigned, sick, and anguished seem left.

But this doesn’t stop you from setting up shop. With the royal healer Doyoung, you both find an abandoned building – a building that you have kept under a different name using some royal funds you’re able to get out of your father’s hands – and set up medicines, table cloths, bandages, and other tools needed to properly heal the masses. After seeing your appearances, people start coming in. It was an unspoken thing with the people of Ciel, the most poverty-stricken people in your kingdom, living in shanty towns because the capital is where all the work is. It spread around to others that a healer and his assistant would come every week to try to relieve them. They didn’t know anything about the healer or the assistant, or why they only came once a week (many people have requested that you and Doyoung make your presence known more often), but you would simply sigh and shrug your shoulders, that you could only ever manage once a week. In your heart, you knew that your family wouldn’t notice you gone for at least six hours in a day, but if you tried six hours in two days, that’s asking for problems. Although, you never say that. 

However, you and Doyoung have trained others in town who want to heal some basic hygiene and herbs that can be found around Ciel, such as poppy seeds for sleeping and ginseng for preventing inflammation of wounds (but sometimes a cure-all for desperate people). However, due to how populated Ciel is, it’s hard to find even find these plants since medicinal plants need care to grow. They aren’t like dandelions that can grow among the trash and ruin. Which is why you and Doyoung bring a decent stock of other plants from the royal medical gardens and teach others how to store them. But even still, basic training and plant stocks are not enough to keep people alive, and many times, you need a trained medical opinion or experience.

As some patients take rest on the blankets that are scattered in this makeshift hospital, other helpers (practically employees) come in as well. 

The first to come is the brother-sister pair, Soobong and Sooyoung. They were always the most punctual, and they live for healing and helping others – with enough medical training, they were good enough to work at the castle.

“Good, you’re here,” Doyoung says brusquely. “More and more people are coming. Sooyoung, ask patients what their ailments are, and Soobong and Y/N, help me unload the stock.” Doyoung commands confidently. 

Kim Doyoung had been at this for a long time, as you notice through his weathered, experienced face. He’s been doing this before you knew about it, and when you caught him, you told him that you would join him or you would tell the King, and he gladly took the former option. Doyoung himself grew up on the streets of Ciel, orphaned, but he met a man who helped him learn the art of healing, and he became a revered healer in Ciel before going to the castle. As much as he loved being generous, most of the people who came to him had no money but were only able to exchange favors. He gladly accepted favors – fresh honey, a wonderful story, a beautiful flower, but he also liked recieving a salary. 

Still, it doesn’t seem like the streets of Ciel were angry with him for wanting to get paid for his skill; they were only thankful that he was generous enough to continue sharing it with them after all these years.

As Sooyoung socializes with the patients, she is courteous as she asks about their ailments. She can take fifty people’s troubles and tell you every single one – she just has that sort of memory. She would write down all the conditions if she knew how to read or write; only now have you taught her how to count, so that she can refer to each patient as ‘patient at blanket number x’ so it is a more efficient way of describing them.

You and Soobong along with Doyoung are going out to the cart and bringing in jars and wrapped packages of medicinal herbs, from marigold to milk thistle to goldenseal.

When the last of this week’s stock is brought in, Sooyoung approaches you and tells you what conditions people have today. 

“The man at blanket thirty is suffering from diarrhea and his wife is very worried about him,” she reports, ending her interactions with all the patients. All of these conditions you’re too familiar with after years of healing. Diarrhea from eating contaminated meat. Cholera from drinking contaminated water. Itchy skin due to a poor personal hygiene regiment. Infection after a metal bucket scraped skin. Sleeplessness after the violent death of a loved one. All of these conditions, you were able to easily escape due to your high status. And you were the one with the best healthcare in the Kingdom after you rarely did anything. When was the last time you picked up a bucket? Or had itchy skin? You live such a good life that half the time, you didn’t need a healer. 

But these people do. And they don’t have a healer.

You, Soobong, and Doyoung crush some marigold leaves for the man with the infection, valerian for the sleepless woman and others, handing the paste to Sooyoung who would administer the herbs to the patients. Thankfully, as more and more sick people came in, more and more help was arriving, including Na Jaemin. 

He and a few others were bringing injured-looking people. You rushed to their sides, helping them out after abandoning the leaves you were crushing. Before Soobong could do anything, Doyoung ordered him to stay and that you and Jaemin were taking care of whatever needed taking care of.

“What happened?” You gasped, carrying the people to empty blankets. Jaemin follows you, carrying a heavy-looking older man. 

“T-There was a riot,” Jaemin says breathlessly. 

“A riot?” You echo dumbly. Jaemin nods. 

“The Carcel,” he says as if he explained the whole story. At your confusion, though, he continues. 

“There was a storming. Weapons were stolen, and the place was trashed before it started burning.” Your blood runs cold. 

The Carcel has served as a fortress, armory, and political prison for as long as you can remember. Erected by your great-great-grandfather to protect the castle – the old castle that your family used to reside in before picking a different, more luxurious location in the countryside that gave plenty of room to expand; that castle burned in an earlier, angry riot. Now it looked eerie in the capital, and it was moderately reconstructed as an armory and a prison for prisoners that your father decided not to kill on the spot before his killing spree started.

Knowing this information, Ambrosia was teetering closer and closer to ruin. You gulp. You thought that if your father gave more freedoms to the people and modernized, there would be a higher chance that you would still be in power for generations to come, or at least… your lives. Now, that hope is all gone. People are angry, and they won’t stop until the Royal Family is gone for good. You know what that means. The people won’t rest until your heads are hacked off by the Dragon’s Fang.

“A-And these are,” you take a deep breath. “Insurrectionists?” You ask. No matter how much sympathy you had to the people of Ambrosia who have been wronged by the royal family, you still feel a chill crawl down your spine

You wonder how Soobong, Sooyoung, and Jaemin would react if they knew your true identity – or anyone in this room except Doyoung knew.

“Not all of them. Some of them were just caught in the crossfire.” 

“What were you doing there?” You ask accusingly. You bite your lip in shame, hating how transparent you seem. Jaemin looks at you with a brow raised. For all he knew, you were just Y/N, a maid to a nobleman who knew Doyoung as a child on the streets of Ciel.

Immediately, you clear your throat. “It could have been dangerous. Are you hurt anywhere?” You ask with concern, taking his bare forearms in your hand to inspect. You furrow your brows at a fresh-looking mark, but it’s just a smudge of red dirt. 

Jaemin smiles. “No. Clean as I’ll ever be.” He chuckled in a hearty way that put all your worries at rest. He continues. “And I was there because my cousin was there. I didn’t want him doing anything stupid, but he wouldn’t listen to me, so I went to watch him.” His expression hardens. “Where his stupidity took him,” he grunts, pointing to another boy carrying a younger boy, maybe fifteen years old, to a bed, with bleeding on his arms and his leg twisted. 

“Jaemin!” A voice shouts. You and Jaemin whip your heads to see Doyoung, still crushing leaves into paste and squeezing the juice out of roots. “I need some help over here. Y/N, work with Sooyoung to get the ailments of the newcomers.” 

“Yes, Doyoung,” you say and shuffle away. To Doyoung’s perceptive eye, he could see slight cuts on your fingers from all the crushing, and he couldn’t possibly return you home like that. So, he gave you a less taxing job. It was a shame though – you were one of his most skilled apprentices.

Sooyoung takes care of half of the newcomers while you take care of the other half. As you ask them what is ailing them and inspect their injuries, you can already see yourself writing a mental list of needed herbs: marigold, garlic, echinacea, aloe vera, poppy seeds. All of these were anti-inflammatory plants with poppy seeds bringing patients to sleep to help cure their wounds. 

But there is a face, an unmistakable face attached to a body that is sitting on a blanket. Despite the contusions on his face and body, as well as his twisted leg at an odd angle, the boy sitting at blanket number thirty-seven is Huang Renjun, Prince of Neo. 

As shock finds its way to settle into your face, so does suspicion. What was Huang Renjun doing in a rebellion against the King of Ambrosia?

Every part of your royal instincts tells you to tread carefully. If Huang Renjun is an enemy, then it’s best to keep that information to yourself so you can give yourself an advantage.

Before you can decide whether you should pretend you don’t know him or acknowledge his existence, Renjun speaks first. 

“Y/N,” he says softly. You look around. Soobong, Jaemin, Sooyoung, and Doyoung all look preoccupied, and the others that you know are hurriedly applying salves to injured people or offering them edible medicine. You didn’t want to explain how you knew this stranger. 

Renjun, like you, is dressed in a commoner’s clothes. He wears a casual set of commoner’s breeches and a faded, light-blue shirt. He has a brown hat next to him that smells oily and full of sweat, and his jet-black hair is disheveled, compared to when you met him. Renjun has been staying at the castle, and your father and his father are trying to strike a favorable deal when it comes to providing an army to quash the Resistance. During the past two days, from what you can hear behind the door, it is a long deal, with both men throwing numbers and getting others to write a contract of this agreement. Renjun has been sitting in the negotiations, to learn the art of negotiation, but you aren’t allowed to sit in. And when they aren’t negotiating, the three of them go hunting together, for your father to get to know the man that will marry his daughter and take over his kingdom. So, you haven’t seen the boy ever since you talked about Aeschylus and other Greek authors and myths together, only seeing him in passing at dinner, which you are almost always joined by the Huangs. Other invitees at dinner seem interested in this stranger, leaving almost no more time for you to know him.

At this moment, your chemistry is undeniable. 

“What are you doing here?” You blurt out. 

Renjun smiles in pain. “I’m injured obviously. But I could also ask the same for you.” He eyes you in your maid’s outfit. 

“I mean, what were you doing at the Carcel?” You inquire. Butterflies erupt in your stomach. You see him reach for something, and you tense up. Your instinct thought it was a knife, a plan to kill the Princess of Ambrosia since he is the only one in this crowded room who knows your true identity. 

The object Renjun was reaching for was his dirty messenger bag, and he struggles to open the latch. You take the bag and look inside. Paints, and a smeared painting of roses. You’re not sure if it’s red paint or blood.

“I was painting at the Square.” He says simply. The town square is still a bustling place, in viewing distance to the Carcel, cobblestoned and filled with a rose garden that is sometimes known as the envy of the land, the only place in Ciel that doesn’t look hopeless thanks to various people in the area who consider those roses a part of Ciel’s character. It’s the only greenspace in the center of Ciel, minus a small wooded place two blocks away where helpers gather poppy seeds and milk thistle. 

“I was painting roses since it was the only time I could get away from everything,” Renjun starts. “But then I heard people screaming and there were people with weapons and then a stampede ensued.” Renjun shivers thinking about what happened in the past thirty minutes, and at this movement, his twisted leg twitches and he bites his lower lip to contain a scream.

You’re about to scurry off and get something for the pain, but Renjun grips your wrist tightly, an uneasy smile on his face. 

“You didn’t tell me what you’re doing here.” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” you scoff.

“Enlighten me.”

You take a deep breath. “I’m here as a healer. I come every week with Doyoung.” 

“And I can imagine that it’s not what you’re supposed to be doing?” Renjun asks, knowing what the obvious answer is. 

You don’t answer him. 

“Well, I was here doing what I wasn’t supposed to be doing.” He chuckles. “If my father found out I was painting, he would rip me in half.” Renjun wasn’t lying. The life of a royal was restricting, no matter if you were a man or a woman. For a man, hunting was seen as an appropriate, manly hobby, but painting isn’t.

“Apparently, painting is only for indecent people who ogle naked women and sleep with their muses.” 

You almost want to gasp with how crass Renjun sounded. Renjun only laughs at your shocked expression before sucking in a breath due to his pain. With a wet cloth on a tray nearby, you dab the wounds on his arms, and Renjun’s face contorts at this gesture. 

You hurry back to the shelves of herbs and grab some marigold paste and some thin, bandage cloths. Gently, you apply the salve on Renjun’s wounds and bandage them with a precision that you have been perfecting for a long time. Renjun only focuses on you as he tries to forget about the pain, admiring your expertise. It wasn’t every day that a royal knew a skill that didn’t include commanding others to do tasks for them.

Looking at his awkward leg, you make direct eye contact with Renjun. 

“This is going to hurt a lot,” you say. Rushing to the counter at the front, you grab a stick and give it to Renjun. “Put this in your mouth,” you say in a commanding voice that Renjun doesn’t want to argue with.

Carefully, you hold the side of Renjun’s knee with one hand, and with the other hand, you yank his leg, locking it back into its correct place. 

The twig in Renjun’s mouth snaps during the process. 

“You were right,” Renjun says breathlessly.

“Say,” Renjun says after a while of watching you apply a salve of milk thistle on the cuts on his legs before bandaging them. 

“I won’t tell your father that you were out here healing the poor, not once but weekly with Doyoung unless I get to paint you.” The request is shocking, and you look at Renjun, puzzled for a split second before you make an offer of your own, a smile on your face. If there’s anything a royal is good at, no matter a man or woman, it was negotiating.

“And I won’t tell your father that you were painting unless you come and help out with me here,” you counteroffer. 

“An eye for an eye,” Renjun recalls, remembering how you passionately defended Queen Clytaenmestra for making King Agamemnon to pay for his life after leading his eldest daughter to her death. In this case, one favor each to keep you both doing what you loved doing.

“Yes. This knife cuts both ways,” At how solemn you both sound, you two look each other in the eye to seal the verbal contract that you have just created.

For once, your parents made a good match for you.

-

It’s another few days before you see Renjun again. It’s at dinner, but this time the air of tension, filled with encoded thoughts is gone, and both your father and the King of Neo look jubilant. That can only mean one thing: they both have reached a deal that they are both happy with. It’s surprising, given that at the end of such long deals, one side is unhappy in ‘giving in too much’ while the other believes that they have won a match. 

Nonetheless, dinner is no less than fine. Renjun’s father sits at the end of one table with Renjun at a seat nearby, while your father is seated at the other end of the table, with your mother accompanying you. You sit in between your mother and Renjun, while on the other side, the King’s advisor is facing you directly. Joining you tonight are a couple of earls and marquis who your family has always been particularly close with, enough so to share such an important meal as tonight’s meal. 

“We have some exciting news,” The King of Ambrosia says. You think everyone in the room already knows what the news is due to his expression, but that doesn’t stop him from sharing. 

“King Huang and I have reached a suitable deal. They will provide a sum of armory and mercenaries to help us with our problems with rebels. Just in time after the incident at the Carcel. He has been so agreeable due to the arrangement that Princess Y/N and Prince Renjun have. Our grandchildren will be certainly powerful!” Your father cheers. You smile pleasantly and find Renjun’s face beside you, and he also stares at you with equal fondness. The others in the room are pleased that you two have gotten on well. Although they only know of one meeting between you two, no complaints have been made by either of you against the other. For the two of you, suitors are a touchy subject, and you both have a hard time getting along with others that you are arranged to marry, but this time, it seems like two kindred souls have met. 

Your father’s prayers have been answered; Ambrosia won’t fall to ruin after his overspending. Of course, that doesn’t stop him from having lavish, excessive meals every night while the people of his kingdom are starving. 

King Huang starts speaking. “The King and I have started talking about something to celebrate the upcoming marriage. We have discussed a tourney in Princess Y/N and Prince Renjun’s honor.” 

Your mother claps gleefully, and the King’s advisor looks thoughtful. He hoped that Neo’s resources were in plenty, so he wouldn’t have to impose more taxes. 

Your mother looks at you pointedly for you to make a response, but Renjun speaks first. “On behalf of myself and my betrothed, I thank you both for your generosity.” His voice is crisp, sincere yet formal. He looks at you with a smile. “I’m sure that we both are going to enjoy it.” You both know that if there’s anything that you’d enjoy, it would be a room full of books and paints. 

The servants arrive with plates and plates of food, freshly and expertly cooked by the castle chef. You eat the creamed lobster, poached eggs, meat-stuffed bread, carrot purees, chocolate souffles, and wash it all down with red wine. The table is filled with content eating sounds, the clacking of forks against ornately designed china. 

As the last plate is collected by a kitchen maid, music fills the nearby ballroom. 

“A night like tonight should be celebrated with music!” Your father announces. The dinner party follows him and the King of Neo to the ballroom, where there is a live orchestra filled with the best musicians in Ambrosia. They play waltzing music, so the earls and dukes start dancing with their wives, and their children find people to dance with. 

“May I have this dance?” Renjun is on one knee, his hand held out as he waits for you to accept his invitation. You scoff a little at how ‘noble’ he is acting, compared to the boy painting in secret and stating that he hated meeting suitors. 

“Of course, my betrothed,” you say smoothly, taking the boy’s soft hand. He stands upright, and you look almost eye-level with him. He gingerly puts a hand to your waist and the other clasps your hand as he dances with you. You think that you probably learned to Walz around the same time you learned to walk, and the steps feel familiar as you follow the compound beat. 

“One, two, three, one two three,” Renjun murmurs to himself. If you hadn’t been listening carefully enough, you wouldn’t have heard him count to himself. You only did so when you were a beginner of the walz, counting to make sure that your steps were correctly timed as your dance instructor danced with you. 

You can’t help a giggle bubble up your throat. 

“What’s that?” Renjun asks. 

“What’s what?” You reply, feigning ignorance. 

“I know you heard me.” Renjun confronts you. 

“I’ve never heard anyone our age counting during the Walz.”

“What’s wrong with counting? I like to be precise.” Renjun challenges in that playful way that you can’t get enough of. You exhale. 

“Only children count when they Walz.” 

“Can I make a confession?” Renjun asks. His voice is quiet, and his lips are close to your ear, his breath hot and smelling of spices. At this moment, he looks absolutely ravishing. 

He doesn’t wait for you to reply. “I only learned to Walz last week. Your mother taught me. She thought it was improper that I didn’t know how to dance with a lady.” That did sound like your mother. You take a second to see her dancing with your father in a perfect Walz, from years of hosting and attending events that are similar to this one.

You sigh, bringing your body closer to his and correcting any of his missteps. You loved the way that his body deliciously brushed against yours, and the way that his hand moved down your back, not entirely gentlemanly. You keep your voice quiet, closing some space between your faces. “She knows I don’t care about that.”

“Does she?” Renjun questions. You don’t answer. The royal breed wasn’t exactly the best listeners. There were a lot of ideas that your parents liked to push into your head, such that a woman should be the type devoted to her husband and her life’s work is creating an heir to the throne. And there is one thing for sure: women were supposed to be pure. They didn’t have sexual urges, they were subject to the will of their husbands. 

You’re not going to pretend that thoughts wouldn’t enter your brain as Renjun’s length brushes your leg…  

You and Renjun keep dancing for a few more minutes, but neither of you is really feeling the mood anymore. It’s always a surprise how the upper class can keep dancing and dancing and dancing.

“Does this dance ever end?” Renjun groans. No one seems to hear him, trapped in their own worlds. 

“It does now,” you say. You stop dancing and gently yank Renjun’s arm. Without an eye on either of you, the dull Walz music becomes a distant memory as you both walk into the dark castle corridors. There are a few guards here and there, but you and Renjun walk up the stairs and stop midway through the staircase, on the flat piece of floor that proceeds another swivel staircase. A large window is on the wall, and you can see the moon, a small crescent. 

There’s something so romantic about the dark, something that makes you want to unleash your inner feelings. Huang Renjun is thinking the same thing. 

You can barely see each other’s faces as your lips meld into his. Renjun was different, and you wanted him, you think as you taste his lips from every possible angle, his nose bumping into yours. His hands feel intoxicating as his hands find your waist, his grip deceptively tight as if he never wanted to let go of a woman like you.

At the sound of echoing footsteps, you and Renjun jump away from each other and search for the source of the footsteps. It’s a few guards, and they make brief eye contact with you and then with Renjun. 

You press a quick kiss on Renjun’s lips. It was the perfect time to stop. You haven’t given up your chastity just yet, your dress was still on! Now you would leave him wanting more. It was the strategy your mother gave you when you were meeting suitors, but you can find other ways to keep that statement relevant in your life.

“Until later, my sweet,” you lean in, murmuring those sultry words against his lips. You leave him standing by the large window as you find your way back to your chambers on the other side of the castle, becoming a smaller and smaller shadow in Renjun’s vision.  

-

The next time you would visit the streets of Ciel is sooner than you think, for this week has gone by rather quickly. As per your agreement with Renjun, he would help you out in the makeshift apothecary with Doyoung if you kept his secret that he paints in his spare time. This week, the apothecary is not less active than it was last week since the spread of disease is rampant in these areas, so you’re glad that you’re able to bring some forced labor with you.

Renjun is also dressed in servants’ uniforms, getting it from your lady’s maid, who covertly got this from the washerwoman. However, before you got out of the cart bringing you, Renjun, and Doyoung into the city, you still felt like he had a ‘noble’ look to him. Finding some dirt on the ground, you take a handful and rub it on Renjun’s cheek. 

“There,” you say, admiring your handiwork. “You look more like Y/N the maid’s friend.” Renjun just laughs a hearty, carefree laugh. 

The story behind Renjun was easy to fabricate when you were explaining his presence to Soobong, Sooyoung, and Jaemin. He also worked at the same nobleman’s house that you did but as a server, and he wanted to find out what you were hiding when you disappeared one afternoon every week. You made him swear that he would never tell since you were supposed to be working, and after he promised he wouldn’t tell, you brought him here. Sooyoung looked a little suspicious after you told your story, and you felt like your heart was beating in your throat as you waited for her to say or do anything, that maybe she recognized him from the last week after the storming of the Carcel, but she doesn’t say anything. You were more than relieved. 

She probably didn’t care anyway, given that your group needed more help than you could imagine. More healing apprentices showed up, mixing salves and administering medicines, but most of Ciel has been under strict curfew. After the storming, your father demanded that there be soldiers on the streets, prowling for any rebels, courtesy of the deal made with the King of Neo.

They were given the right to shoot if they even looked dissatisfied with how the people were behaving.

Although you were (somewhat) safely tucked inside the abandoned building that you have been paying to keep as a hospital for the sick of Ciel, you can still feel the tension outside, as if they are waves licking at the windows. People walk stiffly, their eyes darting before they say something, trash litters the ground, hastily-built huts and pieces of wood serve as many peoples’ homes as they inhabit the slums for their work. 

Of course, only when there is dissent are the royals actually thinking of the people of Ciel.

Soldiers stand outside, backs straight, yet some squirm in their thick uniforms under the bright, hot sun. It’s not like they can do anything to an apothecary, so they stand, looking around. The thought of being watched makes you feel almost breathless, and you just hope you don’t look like royalty enough for them to notice. As your heart beats a little faster, you tightly wrap a bonnet you found around your head, focusing your vision only on the sick.

You show Renjun to the table where Doyoung is, and show him how to crush leaves and efficiently save all the healing juice, how to wrap a bandage, how to clean a wound, where to get some water to soak cloths, and where the stores of poppy seeds, milk thistle, and other anti-inflammatory herbs are. Those, you think, are the most important training to learn first. 

Renjun watches as you talk to Sooyoung, the girl who chats with new arrivals and diagnoses their conditions. Then you grab herbs, bandages, and wet cloths and work around the room with the help of Jaemin, who is now administering medicine since Renjun is supposed to be crushing leaves and filling the water bucket.

If you haven’t noticed, life was getting harder at Ciel. Just as you were curing more sick people, more and more people were coming in, needing treatment. Not to mention that not everyone survives treatment; every week, you’re surrounded by death. On top of that, with the current instability in Ciel, Renjun was surprised that you were dead-set on coming with Doyoung because it wasn’t really your job to care. Sure, it wasn’t really Doyoung’s job to care either, but since he grew up in Ciel as an orphan, he always would feel the need to give back to his hometown. But you? You were the child of two royals, who had everything you could ever possibly need in the castle. But that wasn’t enough for you. You had to know that your subjects were okay, and if they weren’t, you wanted to do your part and help even if you have no say in most royal affairs. 

Every day, he has more and more reasons to fall in love with you.

For a while, Renjun admires your work from afar, but he continues to work himself; just being surrounded by such productive people makes him want to be productive as well. 

Finally, he’s able to get a moment alone with you. 

“Why do you even care?” Renjun asks. You both are in a back room alone as you lead him to the borage supply to help cure a family’s fit of coughs. 

“Why shouldn’t I?” You challenge. Renjun voices what he has been thinking while he observed you working yourself to the bone. 

“Because you have everything you need in this life and in the next. What is a reason for doing this other than you’re probably the kindest person I’ve ever met in my whole life?” 

You smile. “You know how our families were picked by God to rule? To conquer?” 

“Of course.” 

“There’s got to be a reason, right?” You question. “To give us such a high position in power over so many people.” 

“He must have seen potential in our families. We need to live up to that.” You say simply. 

“Have you ever told anyone your opinion?” Renjun asks quietly. 

You snort a little before looking at your feet. “Once. To my father.” You turn your head to face Renjun, the smile widening on your face. “That was probably the hardest slap I’ve ever received.” 

Renjun closes the space between you, and his face is so close that your noses are brushing. “Probably not as hard as the whipping I got after getting out of our palanquin to give a homeless man a few crackers in my pocket.”

“I guess we’re two soft-hearted people.” You giggle, finally closing the pesky gap between your lips. You pull away, letting your finger trace his lips. Renjun’s nostrils twitch at this feeling. 

“We’re going to be different rulers when we get the throne, right?” You ask as you study his soft, pink lips that look deliciously kissable. 

“Of course,” Renjun says after a long pause. “If there was a way to tell the people to wait for a little while longer…” Renjun trails off as he presses his forehead against yours. Immediately, he feels the dampness of your skin, how you’re sweating in this hot building, but he doesn’t care.

Renjun thinks he loves you now at this moment more than he ever thought he would even though your appearance is less than exemplary. But because it’s imperfect, it makes you feel more real. 

“We’re going to give people more freedoms, like in other countries. We’ll share our resources better. And we can build schools to educate people and help them learn how to make the right decisions,” Renjun says. The word ‘we’ echoes in your brain. For the rest of your lives, Huang Renjun would be on your team, and together you would try to undo the oppression that your families have facilitated through generations. 

“Would you rather be loved or be feared?” You ask Renjun as you absorb the warmth of his chest. It’s a pleasant sort of heat, not the heat that prikles your skin.

“I hate that question.” Renjun chuckles. 

“Just answer it,” you pout. 

“Fine.” Renjun sighs. “Feared.” You raise an eyebrow curiously.

“Why?” 

“I only want to show love for my people. But I want my people to fear what will happen if they take advantage of me.”

“Interesting take,” you say softly. “You already know my answer. Love. I want to be loved by my people, no matter what.” 

Renjun takes your cheeks into his hands as he stares into your beautiful eyes. 

“Just be careful, my darling,” Renjun says. “You’re so trusting, too trusting for a royal.”

“Isn’t that what you love about me? That I’m different?” You ask playfully, poking his chest with your index finger.

Renjun doesn’t answer, only placing a kiss on your warm cheeks 

You take Renjun’s hands and wrap them around your body so you can be held in his embrace. The future together seemed so sweet, but now, you need to focus on the present. 

“Right, the borage,” you say, pulling away reluctantly.

-

If there was anything that your royal parents would disapprove of, it’s letting a man into a young maid’s bedroom, especially if she is unmarried. 

But you’re not for one with the status quo, and as per the deal, you were going to let Renjun paint you. The only place that wasn’t crawling with servants and event planners trying to organize the tourney celebrating your’s and Renjun’s upcoming wedding that would be held on the royal grounds was your bedroom. 

If there was anything you yourself would disapprove of is not keeping your word. 

You’re sitting on the ottoman by the window of your bedroom, one leg over the other and your hands knit over your knee as you pose for Renjun’s painting. You’re wearing a long turquoise dress, one that doesn’t have a million underskirts. Renjun wanted you to wear a dress that was so undeniably you, and this turquoise gem was it. The soft blues complimented your pacifist nature, and it was incredibly simple too. It is one of those dresses where the top is laced up, creating a ‘v’ on your chest, and underneath, to keep you modest is a white under-dress. The sleeves are conical and long, which is one of your favorite styles. Your parents didn’t like this dress after you requested the seamstress to make it because it looked like something a working-class girl would wear, which after that, was the reason why you weren’t allowed to request dresses anymore and your mother would do that. You were only available at the dress fittings, which bored you beyond end. 

It was just another way for your mother to silence you.

After some ten minutes of Renjun painting, you had a hard time remaining still, and that was when Renjun asked you to focus on something. You thoroughly focused your gaze on him, at his furrowed eyebrows at how he paints, dipping his brush in water, mixing new paints on his wooden palette. It’s as if the rest of the world is drowned out as he paints, and he exists only with you, his canvas, and his brushes. The way his eyes would drink in your appearance to replicate on the canvas made your heart rise to your throat; not so hidden in his eyes is his lust. 

Renjun stops for a few moments. His fingers are at his chin as he looks pensive, looking between the canvas and you. His eyes are glazed, and his lips are pursed when he suddenly says something in a raw voice.

“Take off your clothes.” 

“Excuse me?” You shoot back, stunned. 

“You heard me.” 

You’re not sure what’s happening in your chest, if your heart completely stopped beating or it’s beating so fast that you can’t even tell its keeping you alive.

You’re finally able to regain your composure when you say back wittily, “I guess you’re turning into the kind of painter that ogles naked women and sleeps with their muses.” 

“I guess so,” Renjun smirks. 

Your simple dress slips off your shoulders and falls to the ground when you unclasp the hook resting at the nape of your neck, and the following hooks that went down to your mid back. You’re left in your underdress, and your corset is beneath that. 

“Beautiful,” Renjun murmurs. At the way you stop, reveling in his attention, Renjun chuckles. “Now take it off. All of it.” Renjun says. He watches how you untie your white underdress that is fastened by a thin bow on your waist, and he watches how the string comes undone, and the dress comes to your feet. You untie your corset in the same way and discard it carelessly to the side. 

“I never liked that thing anyway.”

Renjun’s eyes travel down your body, to the way your waist is curved, beautiful with an hourglass shape and a cute paunch. He watches how the nubs of your breasts become hard at the way they are exposed too long, and to a man for the first time. 

You sit back down on the ottoman. You think about re-creating the pose you were doing but think against it. As a caterpillar comes out of its cocoon to become a butterfly, you shed your cocoon of clothes and become this butterfly.

And you love how your nakedness weakens the man in front of you. 

You reposition yourself on the ottoman, the expression on your face playful and carefree as you let your breasts hang on your chest shamelessly, plaching your arm between your narrowly-open legs to cover your womanhood. At the way your shoulder hunches, you create a cleavage on your chest.

It’s as if you’re Medusa, turning him into stone as he not-so-secretly ogles, the strokes of his brush against the canvas more sparse. 

All of a sudden, you leap from the ottoman and saunter to Renjun, who stares up at you from his sitting position. 

“You know you’re supposed to stand when you’re in the presence of royalty. That’s basic manners.” With a coy smile on your face, you swat his shoulder, your breasts jiggling and almost hitting his face. 

“Y-yes Your Highness,” Renjun says, bashfully looking away. He stumbles as he stands, and you can see even through his thick breeches a large erection. You can’t stop yourself from giggling as you grab him. Your bed is barely a meter away from where Renjun is, and you grab his shoulders and push him backwards, forcing him under you on the bed. 

You have both of his wrists in his hand as you animalistically kiss him, your womanhood searching for his manhood underneath his clothes. You can feel his rough stubble from his cheeks after maybe two days of not shaving, and it feels delicious, that you’re being touched, fucked by a real man. Renjun passionately enjoys your kiss, biting and sucking your lips as he pushes his tongue into your mouth. Your tongues war inside your mouth, sliding against each other in a slobbery way that is normally disgusting, but beautiful if it is done with the right person. You gasp as his tongue reaches further and further down your mouth, almost entering your throat. Your second of shock allows Renjun’s wrists to slip from your grip, and he places them on your naked side, squeezing the softer part of your body, his hands slowly climbing up and down your back until finally, he gives your rump a delicious squeeze. Panting, you finally find his hard dick under his clothes, and you hump him as hard as you can, moving your hips along Renjun’s body, shaking your bed.

“Slower, Your Highness. You don’t want to break the bed,” Renjun chuckles. 

Renjun audibly moans at how you’re riding him, but slowly, the pleasure comes to an end. Renjun opens his eyes (that he didn’t realize was closed) to see you slide off of the bed, reaching from the side to pull off his breeches. 

“You’re reading my mind,” he says. You’re able to pull his thick breeches and pull up his tucked-in shirt to find his cock hidden in his underclothes. You pull it down to Renjun’s mid-thigh, watching with excitement as his cock springs out, large and erected at how much your humping aroused him. You reach out and excite his member some more, moving the delicate skin up and down, squeezing his hard length.

Leaning forward, you decide that it is time to suck, and you wrap your lips around his cock. You move your head up and down his length, your lips following, shielding your teeth from coming in contact with his sensitive skin. Your tongue swirls around his member, creating obscure saliva designs, and you can hear Renjun above you, turning into puddy by the minute as you pleasure him. 

Your mouth starts to fill with seed suddenly, and you gulp it down, tasting the sweet cherry pie that was for desert tonight in his cum. You close your eyes blissfully, and you don’t even realize that Renjun is sitting up. With a strength you didn’t even know he possessed, he pulls you up to his side, and he climbs on top of you. 

He’s ready to take charge. 

Renjun takes your lips into his mouth as he freely moves his hands on you as if he’s never going to touch you again. He hands travel from your cheeks to your jawbone, moving down to your collarbone and then your nice, plush breasts. He spends a few moments there, letting his hands massage the soft flesh, and you can feel moans leave your mouth. After a few moments, he focuses on your nipples, pinching them until you yelp. Then, his hands travel down your body, to your slightly paunchy stomach and your curvy sides. His hands wander to your throbbing womanhood, and his lips wander to the side of your neck. 

You’re overcome with more pleasure than you think is possible. 

“You’re so beautiful, like art.” Renjun murmurs as he pulls away from your neck, starting lovingly at your ruffled hair, at your smooth skin, at your bruising breasts and neck that will surely yield black and purple marks from tonight’s activities. 

You smirk at him. “Then you should be looking, not touching.” 

Renjun’s eyes glow at how you use your wit, how mischievous, how playful yet serious you can be. He’s lucky to consider a woman like you his betrothed. 

“You’re the exception.” 

Once those words slice the air, you feel Renjun’s fingers force themselves inside of you. About to scream, Renjun takes his other hand and places it over your mouth. 

“You don’t want the world to hear how good you’re getting fucked, hmm?” Renjun asks in a soft voice. Your screams remain trapped between your lips and his palm as Renjun forces one, two, four fingers into your womanhood. Your legs are flailing, but Renjun’s position on top of you keeps him steady on your body. 

Everything that comes out of your mouth is just a jumble, but you can hear yourself whimper and moan while saying “please.”

“You’re so well-mannered, Your Highness,” Renjun coos. “Oh, look,” Renjun notices. “Something came,” 

You don’t realize the white-ish, clear-ish liquid that came out from how fucked you were getting until you look down. 

As Renjun leans down for a taste, you suddenly close your legs. Renjun’s hands travel to your upper thighs, his knees on the ground since he hopped out of the bed. 

“Please please let me taste it, Your Highness,” Renjun begs from underneath you. His eyes become larger, rounder, and you realize that the power has shifted to you. For you and for Renjun, you realize that you both don’t fully take control of the bed, but it comes in waves. As Renjun becomes more submissive, you can feel yourself inflate, becoming more dominant. 

“Beg some more,” you command. 

“Please please please,” Renjun says in a string, the word jumbling more and more as he repeats his desire. He nestles his chin between your thighs and looks up at you with wide, innocent-looking eyes. 

It was these same eyes that watch you flail around as he inserted digit after digit of his right hand into your vagina. He’s a lion in sheep’s clothing, and you can already feel the little sheep start to suck the skin of your inner thighs, pressing loud smooches. You watch him graze your legs, his nose becoming covered with a dollop of his own saliva as he uses his mouth to convince you. 

You don’t realize that you’re opening your legs to fully enjoy the pleasure that Renjun is giving you when you feel his head between your thighs, licking your vagina. 

“Mmmhm” Renjun rumbles to himself, enjoying your sex. You can feel loud moans catch in your throat at how skillful his tongue, how sinful this pleasure feels. Renjun moves up your body, to your lower stomach, trailing your skin with your own cum until he finally meets your jawline. He presses more than ten loud smooches to that small piece of your body before surrendering his lips to yours, his mouth tasting like the cherry pie that you ate also that was present in your cum. 

Renjun’s hands still linger by your pussy, taking your cum in his hands. You feel slightly ticklish at what he is tracing along your stomach, and you look down, only to see his name written on your skin in your cum. 

“Mine,” Renjun says possessively, quickly taking your lips into his mouth. You bring Renjun closer to you, crushing him against your body because you want to become one so badly. You tangle your legs with Renjun’s, feeling his bare, naked member rub against your clit. Renjun decides to drive you crazy, rather than relieving you and your throbbing walls with his large dick, he decides to keep rubbing himself against you. 

“Please, please go in, Your Highness,” you address your betrothed, properly. “I need you I need you,” you mumble to yourself. 

“Have you got enough room for a future king?” Renjun asks coyly. 

“Yes, Your Highness. King Renjun,” you reassure him. 

With that, Renjun pounds his length into you, in and out, in and out repeatedly until you start feeling your head spin with delicious pleasure. 

Yet at the same time, you feel adrenaline coursing through your veins. You feel like you could lift a mountain with how much energy Renjun’s dick puts inside of you. Renjun shakes a little, roaming his body along yours so that his penis could explore inside of your walls. You gasp at how good that feels, how your walls squeeze his member, craving for his seed that dried up after you gulped it down like a hungry child.

As your mind wanders, the whole world turning into background noise as Renjun’s dick pounds into you, you whimper at the pain, how Renjun is tearing at your hymen. Yet, you still feel pleasured at the sensation, satisfying Renjun’s manly needs, and your needs for new experiences. 

You look down at your stomach, and maybe it’s your mind playing tricks on you, but you swear you see the outline of Renjun’s penis in your stomach as it roams around. You gasp and whine at how good the feeling is, how rough Renjun’s hands are while he grips your sides, and Renjun pulls out, his member dripping with his seed, arousal that coursed in him due to being inside of you. He pounds his length into you more and more as he looks into your eyes. 

You feel as though you could be trapped in this moment forever, of just you and Renjun panting to a rhythm that only you two know, completely naked as Renjun puts a little more of himself in you, making you both into one person. You think that all your problems being a royal, the daughter of your father, the impending stress of taking your kingdom and enforcing a newer, freer, more modern rule that hasn’t been seen or heard before. Certainly your royal advisors would be against it, only interested in perpetuating the old ways. 

Those problems feel elevated knowing that Renjun is by your side. Fucking your brains out every night. 

Renjun heaves a breath as he finally pulls out of you completly for a second time, lying down next to you. His member is still seeping with cum, and with a mischevious glance, you climb on top of him, your nipples barely touching his chest with how you’re positioned on top of him. You grab his penis, pleasuring it for a little bit before squeezing out more cum from your betrothed. He moans at your touching, and you can feel him shifting his position so he can enjoy you on top of him more. Pulling yourself away slightly, you trace your name onto his skin. 

“Mine,” you say with a cheeky grin, admiring your handiwork under the moonlight that filtered into your bedroom. 

All of the animalistic urges are gone from you two, and you both are panting heavily at the activity of the last hour, staring into each others’ eyes, shocked that you both were capable of such passion. You bring your face a few centimeters away his chest and kiss his heart. Renjun coos at you, gently placing his lips on your jaw. He trails soft kisses along your collarbone until he kissing the soft flesh of your breasts. He sucks on the nubs of your breasts, this time he is the infant, and he places his head between your breasts. 

“I suppose we were overenthusiastic about our jobs, and made a male heir too quickly,” Renjun murmurs between the mounds called your breasts. Your laugh only causes them to jiggle, causing Renjun to laugh too. 

“We’ll find out if we were successful if I skip my period.” 

“The birth date would certainly raise some eyebrows among the Royal Court,” Renjun chuckles. 

“It would, but then I would remind them that their wives are waiting for them at home, waiting for them to finish their work in the castle and nothing else,” you have a cutely evil look on your face, and Renjun picks up what you try to hint. 

There’s silence between you and Renjun. He pulls his face away from your breasts, and your faces are so close, you can feel the shadow of his nose on yours. 

“I love you,” Renjun says quietly. “From our first conversation in the library, I’ve known you’re the one.” Renjun waits in anticipation for your answer. You trace the outline of his face with your index finger. 

“I love you too. I’m glad that if I’m allied with anyone in this cold world, it’s you.” 

Renjun sighs, and your faces slide against each other. Completely naked under the romantic silver moonlight that pools on your’s and Renjun’s flesh, you act as though cuddling with your beloved like this is the most normal thing in the world.  

“I’ll never let you down.” 

-

The day of the tourney has arrived. Your father and Renjun’s have spent the greater part of two months preparing for this tourney, providing your mother the funds to put it together. If there’s anything a royal woman loved is party planning, and a tourney is just in your mother’s wheelhouse. 

All of your noble friends have been invited, dukes and earls, barons and other landlords that your family is on good terms with. They are said to bring their families, that this was one grand party. 

You’re seated with your mother and father, and Renjun is by your side. The King of Neo would be arriving late today, discussing some terms of the agreement he and your father came up with to his weapons suppliers, and he would be joining you later.

Together, your family and Renjun are watching a fencing match between two men, but the stakes are raised higher in this match: the two competitors must fence on horses. Until one man is unhorsed, the match will continue.

You never understood the point of watching two men fight on horses, but it is something you’ve gotten used to attending hundreds of matches with your family. What was the point in all this when the kingdom needs help? 

Sighing, you keep your thoughts to yourself. Renjun is sitting beside you with equal boredom, and you can tell that he probably has the same opinion as you. However, neither of you suggested leaving for some alone time because after all, this whole event was held in your name. Together, you would imitate the cheers of the other dukes and earls sitting with you, agreeing when they would talk about fencing strategy. 

The man in a dark horse and slim, fitting steel armor is Jung Jaehyun, a knight that was trained in Ambrosia. His father was a lower baron, but his status increased the second that his son was accepted into the King’s Guard when you were just a little girl. With his helmet and his clean strokes to his opponent, you’re reminded of the girlish crush you had on him as he ingratiated himself with your father. However, he married the daughter of an earl and had a daughter that was a few years younger than you. 

Normally, a man can be unhorsed by Jung Jaehyun in the matter of minutes, but his opponent is not giving up. The other man is someone you do not recognize after your years of attending tourneys and matches. He must be some new talent if he is able to be on the roster for the tourney and face of Jaehyun for this long. 

From the others around you, this man’s name is Qian Kun, and he’s from a different kingdom (those around you are throwing around more names than you can keep up with). He’s on a white horse, wearing minimal armour and determination on his face. His name is whispered as if he’s a forbidden secret. If one thing’s for sure, he’s keeping the audience interested – even you and Renjun are focused. 

Every thrust that Jaehyun throws, this Kun is able to block it, moving his body with a flexibility that you know for sure Jaehyun has. Jaehyun has brute force, from what you learned watching him, and he’s able to break down his opponents by being relentless. Most don’t have the skill to dodge. 

After multiple dodges and audience gasps, Kun starts attacking in his own right. You think that Jaehyun took the phrase ‘the best defense is offense’ too seriously because he struggles to dodge Kun’s shots. He’s so used to being on the attack that he doesn’t know how to defend himself properly. Being a big fish in Ambrosia make his skill in taking a strong opponent weak. 

It doesn’t take long for Kun to unhorse Jaehyun, and Jaehyun falls unceremoniously to the ground. The umpire calls it a match and races towards Kun, pulling his hand up in the air to signify to the audience that he really won. The audience is in shock before a few people start clapping, and then the rest. Kun gets a standing ovation from you and Renjun, and the others in the tourney follow in suit. 

The winners of matches get to enjoy the fruits of their rigorous training. There’s a cash prize, and for a boy like Kun, who wears homemade-looking armour and has a tan on his face and neck from rough outdoor work, the cash prize is something that can alleviate his and his family’s pain. 

Finally, you see Renjun’s father, the King of Neo, appear after all the hoopla that Qian Kun’s victory was for this torney. Another match would be taking place between two different knights or other sportsmen. 

“What a match you missed!” Your father says to Renjun’s in a light tone. 

There’s something different in the air with the King of Neo. All of a sudden, you feel as though the eyes of the world are around you. While you’re surrounded by a few of the nobles that your family is close with, the others are scattered around, and if you really think about it, the others sitting around you beside them are completely unfamiliar. They are people that Renjun’s father brought from Neo who are allegedly very close to his family, who would want to honor the marriage of their prince with the princess of Ambrosia. 

The King of Neo nods, and then hands grab your father and mother, as well as your family friends. You feel the tight grasp of familiar hands on your forearms, and you look behind you, to see it’s Renjun. 

His gaze isn’t recognizable. He only looks to his father, waiting for his instruction. 

Your father is cursing, spitting, while your mother’s face is drained of all blood as she stares in horror around her. 

“Renjun?” You ask, looking at your betrothed, hoping this was all some sort of game or mistake, but a part deep down in you knows that it’s not either. 

“Where to, father?” Renjun asks, avoiding your gaze. His grip on you becomes tighter. 

“Take them to the cellar.” 

-

You feel almost stupid as the story is unfolded in front of you. Renjun and his father are the Resistance, and their identities have been cloaked well. Ambrosia, as the largest kingdom in the area, was vulnerable, and the people were struggling and starving. All the King of Neo had to do was inject the idea of revolution by distributing literature that cried for revolution, and educate people that life could be better than being a peasant. Declare independence from your ruler, like those in France and America few years before. That worked as a recruiting process, and made his organization stronger. It gave him ears everywhere and a wonderful plan to destroy Ambrosia and take the fertile land for himself.

The information that your family is almost bankrupt passed to the Resistance through maids that were seen and not heard, and Renjun’s father set up a match that your father could not refuse. It was a perfectly crafted offer that would make any normal man suspicious. You guess your father was just despirate to make his money problems go away.

So Renjun came, his father got what he wanted from your father, and now you were trapped in a cell, your castle sieged. Wooing you or no wooing you, your father would have forced you to marry Renjun, but in the time that you’ve been locked up, you concluded that Renjun enjoyed watching you fall for him.

Huang Renjun was one hell of a trojan horse. Always be wary if a deal is too good. And always be wary when someone is just too perfect. 

You’ve never felt so stupid and childish before. Thinking that after the tourney, you would start seeing dressmakers who would taylor your wedding dress. Hire musicians, cooks, cleaners, and waiters. Tasting delicacies that will be present at the wedding meal. You thought that you were going to be with Renjun forever, but you now realize that forever was just a fantasy. 

Instead, you were starving. Compared to the delicious, decadent three meals per day that you were used to seeing, the mysterious mush that gaolers presented you did not sit in your stomach well, and sometimes, your meal times were skipped. You never knew when your next meal came. 

You guess you now understand the life of the poor people of Ciel. 

One day, out of deliriousness and anguish, from the lack of sleep you were getting on the floor of a wine cellar, you threw your hot mush at the guard who opened the door to give you one of your meals. He hit you across the head and you fell over anticlimactically like a rag doll. 

Furious at this insolence, the higher-ups of the Resistance decided to tortue you some more. Forcing your head into a bucket of ice cold water. Ripping open your skirt. Beating you with anything they had on them; once a gaoler beat you with a spoon. You’re chained to the floor as the door opens, and your new gaoler is in front of you. 

It’s none other than Huang Renjun, the same way you met him but different. His hair is combed back, and he wears a warm overcoat, trousers, and long boots. He has a small book in his pocket. It’s Oresteia by Aeschylus. The weather has been getting colder in the few weeks you’ve been trapped under the castle that you’ve always called your home.

Renjun drops the plate in front of you. He can’t even bear to look at you. 

“How are you enjoying Oresteia?” You challenge, venom in your voice. God, what you thought you would do after you saw Renjun on that fateful day at the tourney. You thought you would slap him and kick him and hurt him in the way that you have been hurting in the past few weeks.

Since you’re too weak to do any of that, you settle for some ‘dull’ conversation about a book, a book that brought you two together. How apt. 

“It’s good.” Renjun says simply. He looks away. He doesn’t say anything more than that. Where is that spirit that impressed you when you first met? You wonder if that was a sham. 

Renjun is about to leave when he stops himself. He turns around and faces you. You, out of all people, deserved an explanation. He shuts the thick door of your cell. He doesn’t face you as he clears his throat.

“You know, I didn’t want to do any of that.” He struggles to say any of this, to verbally disagree with his father. His father is the seed he came from. You are not his blood at all. Words made this whole fiasco more real. 

“Really?” You ask, unimpressed. The dark circles under his eyes tell you that he needs your forgiveness so he can sleep at night. 

“It went too far. Why couldn’t he just be happy with what he had?” Renjun grovels, not speaking to you in particular anymore. 

“I want to speak with my father. Or my mother,” you command icily.

Renjun sits down. “They’re dead. Beheaded two days ago.” His voice is dry and cold. “My father went with them.” 

You gulp. This information isn’t that shocking, yet you feel bile rise in your throat. You knew any news of your parents would mean death. They represent everything that the proletarians hated about the upper class. They would be the first to be kill. Yet still, knowing that the people who raised you, the people who you didn’t always agree with, were erased forever from this world makes your heart sink. 

You don’t have any other siblings. You are now truely alone in this world. 

But then the second part of the news sinks in your brain. You raise your brow. Renjun explains. He finally has someone he can process these events with. 

“Once the other members of the Resistance found out that my father only gathered them so that he could take over, they killed him.” He choked. “Knowing that their cause was manufactured so that another king could rule them made him just as bad. I swore my fealty to the new Resistance in exchange for my life. The organization has decided on a new leader today. A man named Bang.” 

“Just a few hours ago, five of your dearest earls were killed. The ones at the tourney. Bang and his cronies are scouring the records of anyone who was friendly with your family.” 

You snort a little. Renjun looks at you, and he knows that he deserved it. 

“Poetic justice, I guess,” you say, speaking about the deceased King of Neo. Renjun shrugged his shoulder. After a silence ensues between the two of you, Renjun gulps in a deep breath. 

“You know, they want to kill you next. Who better than the offspring of the Mad King?” He asks rhetorically. You were prepared for this. It’s not like you were going to be held in a dungeon until the end of time. You were going to have to face the music for your father’s crimes against his people. It felt so unfair, but it couldn’t be helped. 

“I’ve been postponing it. I tried to postpone your parents’ execution too.”

You didn’t even realize that you were holding your breath. 

“Even after all of this, I still care about you.” Renjun says. His voice is small, as if he’s afraid of someone hearing his declaration of love. After all, there is still a guard posted outside these echoey cellar walls.

Who you thought was a sweet, sensitive, artistic man was one who was always under the thumb of someone else, be it his father or this Bang character. 

“You’ll care about me until your new master calls,” you say derisively. 

Renjun pursed his lips. 

“I deserved that. But I want to be better for you.” 

You bite your lower lip. 

“How?” 

Renjun’s lips are close to your ear; you can barely hear the words he’s saying. 

“My men found a network of tunnels down here. One of the rocks on this wall is movable and will open a passage inside. I will give you a map. When you are done reading, eat it up, so there’s no paper trail.

“When I give you a lantern, you know that that is the time. I’ll give you a watch and a slip of paper about the time that there are the least guards watching the outside of this castle. I’ll distract anyone else. All you have to do is run. Got it?” Renjun asks. 

You’re stunned. Immediately, you want to tell him that you’ve got it, but you’re now suspicious. After all, your family’s demise was being too trusting to the wrong people. 

And Renjun has proven that he’s the wrong person. 

“How do I know if I can trust you?” You ask. 

“It’s the only choice you have. If you don’t escape using this plan and try to run off any other way, then you will be caught, tortured, and beheaded. The Resistance is scary business. You want my help. I’m their inside man. And I love you. I still do, even after all of this.”

You sigh. You could be fooled again. But it’s better than rotting in a wine cellar at the mercy of the Resistance, living every day hoping it’s not the day of your beheading. At least running gave you an iota of control that you lacked your whole life, as a royal or as a ragged prisoner.

And there’s something else. His eyes. His eyes were able to fool you once, but there is something truthful to it this time. 

You don’t have to say anything for Renjun to understand your agreement.

-

The lantern comes only a few weeks later. Since Renjun came to you with a plan of escape, you’ve felt more lively, and Renjun notices that as your gaoler for a few weeks. Due to the “good behavior” that Renjun vouched, you were unchained once again in your cell. 

Your first small step towards freedom. 

Renjun is able to slip in a few delicacies that Bang and his cronies are eating upstairs in the dining room that you used to eat your whole life. One day an apple pie, another lamb stew with herbs. While you gobbled down that food – the only food you’re actually able to stomach – he would engage in a brief conversation with you; it was the only social interaction you’ve had since the Resistance took over and placed siege on the castle, yet he would only stay long enough that Bang would not grow suspicious of him. 

Renjun handed you the map only a few days before the true escape, which was when you knew that the biggest moment of your life was coming. He wanted you to learn by heart the tunnels in the castle, enough so that you can reproduce the map in your head, and he didn’t want to give you the map too early in case you forgot. Obediently, you learned the map as best as you can, associating certain turns as if you were walking above ground in the castle that you were raised in. Once you were done, you ate the map, as Renjun said so no evidence would be left behind. 

“180 degrees, vertical” was all he said. You knew what that meant; 6pm. You had no way of keeping time in your little, windowless cell, so Renjun gave you a pocket watch. It wasn’t just any pocket watch, but your fathers that he always kept in his breeches. Overwhelmed with emotion, you dismiss the man who is saving your life, and clutch the pocket watch. 

A few minutes to six, you start palming the stone walls of the cellar, hoping to find the notch that will open a door that is your entrance to the secret passage. Your heart is in your throat as you claw the walls like a despirate animal, until finally you hit the right one. Using the minimal light and the small, hidable lantern that Renjun gave you, you trudge through the secret passage, remembering the map he gave you clearly, each step you take being another “dash” of your path on the map. You successfully navigate until you see a trapdoor. It requires a key for it to open, but you have a beautiful hairpin still in your hair from the day of the tourney. As you wiggle the pin into the lock, you take a deep sigh. This is a side exit that shouldn’t reveal your escape quite immediately. 

Your heart is pounding restlessly as the open air touches your skin. The warm sun and fresh, cool air feel good against your skin, where in the past few weeks, you’ve been entombed in stale air. You gleefully inhale the scent of the garden’s orchids, which is wafting from the garden that is north of your estate. 

You linger a little longer than you should. Renjun didn’t have to say it for you to know that this will be the last time you will see your beloved home ever again. Nothing will ever be the same again. You won’t be a high class woman (not that that mattered much to you anyway), you won’t have your excursions with Doyoung (what happened to him?), you won’t have your exquisite library anymore. 

Your love for Renjun is a distant memory. Today, you will be leaving everything behind. 

Your lingering turns to loitering when you feel a bright flash hit your face. 

“The prisoner!” A guard shouts. He rushes towards you, and you are just quick enough to slip away into the large woods in your estate. You used to play here as a child, and you know the woods like its the back of your hand, and just as Renjun’s map promised, the areas you ran through were sparse of guards. 

You can feel more footsteps thumping the ground as more and more men join the first man that noticed you loitering, and you feel nauseous. You can feel yourself screaming in your head that this is your one last shot, you can’t afford to mess up, and Renjun can’t even help you if you were caught. 

Wading through the creek nearby with your bare feet, you run into a ditch, taking scrap leaves from the ground and covering yourself with the debris. You’re too out of breath to keep running anymore; the gruel has not been doing you any favors. You hide in a nearby ditch, clothing yourself in debris and the shadow.

“Sir, she went through the water,” you hear one man say.

“Then get into it!” Another man said, more likely the head of this security unit. “You all are a bunch of pussies, a little water doesn’t hurt anybody!” 

You hear some reluctant groans as the men trudge through the creek, and you hear the shuffling of various feet at various positions, making it impossible to pinpoint where the noise is truly coming from. 

You’ve never been more terrified in your life. You’re honestly not sure how you’ll react if one of the men on that security team find you. Will you scream? Will you cry? Will your heart break into two pieces knowing what lies in wait for you when you’re sent back to the Resistance? To another, worse cell burrowed deeper into the castle cellar than your previous cell? Tourtue would surely be a staple if you were caught. These are thoughts you want to filter out of your mind, but they seem to be infesting your thoughts. 

“I don’t see her,” you hear one man say. 

“I don’t either,” another man says. You feel slight relief coursing through your veins. 

“What should we do, sir,” one man asks his superior. 

He takes a deep breath. He shuffles through the woods, causing the anxiety and adrenaline to spike in your veins, and he takes a look around once more. 

“Here’s what we will say,” you hear feet shuffling as the men get closer to their commander. “The girl died. She fell down that cliff over there,” he points to the cliff at the distance, the cliff that gives you a view of the Kingdom of Ambrosia. “We don’t mention what really happened here. Understood?” You can imagine that all the men are nodding. 

As you hear the mens’ footsteps receding, you wait for ten minutes before your head peaks from the ditch. The sun has fallen, leaving the world pitch black. 

Quietly, you shed off the debris from your pitiful dress as a snake sheds its skin. 

Now begins your new life. 

-

1802

You think you have seen the sun rise and set almost four thousand times since you escaped from the Resistance’s clutches. You haven’t seen or spoken to Renjun in the past eleven years, and he’s as good as dead. In the end, he righted his wrong, and you are not as bitter as you were when you were thrown into that cellar. 

That night, you traveled tirelessly north from the woods of your estate, going somewhere you didn’t know yet. All you saw were woods and woods and woods. Maybe a racoon or two. Plenty of squirrels. You tried to talk to some, but that didn’t work very well. It was the loneliest period of your life. 

Towns you considered settling in littered the landscape once you crossed Ambrosia’s boarder. Every day, you became a little less fearful that you were being searched for by the Resistance, and eventually, your quest for a new home came to an end after three months of searching. The peaceful little town you would be settling in was called Heaven’s Gate, called because of its high, rocky shores well above sea level. 

From the newspapers, you observed the rise of the Resistance, with more and more bloodshed every day that Bang was in power. Eventually, he was beheaded, and the whole Resistance fell apart. From then, Democracy slowly rebuilt the area. In honor of its roots, the state that is your old home is now the Democratic State of Ambrosia.

The switch into democracy didn’t stop peoples’ fascination with the former royal family that was wiped out. There were public records of the death of your mother and father with images of their bodies and eyewitnesses of their death, but none of you. This lead many scholars to believe that you were still alive somewhere. 

It’s a nicer alternative to the current narrative. 

You smile at the few books and pamphlets you found in your new home’s library detailing the reasons why people think you are alive and where you are now. The common theory is that you boarded a ship to America as a stowaway, living your best life.

It occurred to you that if you walked a little longer, perhaps a few weeks, you could get to the coast and become the stowaway like the stories said and land yourself in America. That would truely be a fresh start. But to leave your homeland? Never.  

The people of Heaven’s Gate were quite unassuming. Nobody asked many questions about your life before Heaven’s Gate. You took on a new identity, and the role as the town’s healer. At the ripe age of thirty-one, you have decided that Heaven’s Gate is your children and that you will repent for the sins of your father against his people. 

You operate your healing out of your home, and thanks to healing a construction worker’s mother, you got an extension for your practice built for practically free. There is an entrance to your office from directly outside, a little waiting room, and an operating room for you to examine the sick. Definetly much better than your travelling medic act in Ciel. 

As you sweep the floors of the operating room, you hear a knock on the door. 

“Come in!” You shout. 

In comes your apprentice Yoona, who has a strange man limping, leaning against her for support, his messenger bag dragging against the dirt. 

“I found him by the creek. He’s already rubbed some marigold paste on his wound, but I wanted to see if you could do anything else with it.” 

When you look at the man, it’s like you’ve seen him before. He’s around your age, wearing shabby, dirt-trodden clothes of someone who has begged for their whole life. He hasn’t looked like he’s showered in days, and he’s thin like a stick, but at the same time, he looks… content? 

Nothing about this man made sense. Beggars didn’t know that marigold stops infections. Where could he have learned that? A friend? He looks like he’s been wandering alone for a long time. 

Deciding not to much further thought into those observations, you notice how Yoona looks at you for a way to proceed. 

“Right,” you say, hoping to hide how taken aback you are. “Any sickness? Headaches, sniffling, coughing?” You ask. 

“None yet,” the man says grimly. “Although that bread looks very nice.” His gaze falls to the bread pan you have in the kitchen next door to your wing, fresh out of the oven. Despite how content this man looks, there’s a glint in his eye that betrays the hunger that gnaws at him, from days of starvation, running off of whatever he could find, most likely berries on the land. The man in front of you doesn’t emanate skill in hunting either, or else he would have a bow and arrow with him.

Out of pity, you take the bread from your kitchen and bring it into your operating room, letting Yoona shoulder the man into your extension. She lays him down on the bed, and nods out. She will be getting the standard items — water from the well, a few blankets, and spare clothes that you kept washed to give to anyone that came to you for medical help — sometimes, just being clean helps cure the illness more than medicine. 

Once she leaves, it’s just you and this stranger. You curiously watch him as he gnaws on the bread, a look of relief in his eyes at not having to forage for this food. Something about this stranger though feels so familiar. But you don’t know how. Any associates of your family were wiped out during the violent period of the Resistance, so no one you love from your old life is left on this Earth. 

Since the man already used your standard cure of marigold leaves, the only thing left for you to do is to rub a fresh coat, wrap a bandage around his wound, and hand him poppy seeds to put him to sleep faster since he has no signs of infection. Sleep is also an excellent cure. 

When you hand him some poppy seeds, the man shakes his head. “I can take that in a little bit. Really I’m fine,” You look into this deep brown eyes, and the feeling of you knowing this man is gnawing at your brain. “Can you hand me my bag?” He asks. You look dubiously at him and to the poppy seeds still in your hands. “I promise I will take them.” 

Knowing that you’re not going to breech this patient’s stubbornness, you grab his bag and place the poppy seeds into a small piece of cloth. The flap on top of the bag is pulled back, revealing a sketchbook and a small canvas. Memories, painful memories haunt your conscience of the boy who fooled you and then saved you. 

Watching the man take his sketchbook, he opens to a page of roses. Immediately, the storming of the Carcel rushes back to you. At the way you’re watching the canvas peak out of the man’s messenger bag, he breaks the silence between you. 

“I can show you what’s inside too.” He says. But you already have an idea what it is. Putting his sketchbook aside, the man pulls out the slightly dusty, smudged canvas. 

It’s you. Naked. That fateful night. 

“Huang Renjun?” You ask, finally able to find your voice. 

The man smiles, confirming his identity. “I was beginning to think I would have to reintroduce myself.” 

You’re completely flabbergasted. “W-What are you doing here?” You ask, your jaw practically dropping to the ground. 

“Getting healed. Remember?” He points to his wounded leg. 

“I know that,” You snort. “What I mean to say is how are you alive? Wouldn’t Bang have had your head since you let me escape? And then the ending of the Resistance. You were extremely high-profile. How did you avoid death all these years?” 

Renjun stares into the distance, recounting his life in the past ten-ish years. “I wasn’t as high-profile as you’d think. I was the Resistance’s painter, painting portraits of high-profile Resistance members. And I was a gaoler. Something about my presence,” Renjun gestures. 

Smiling, you agree. “You do have a power over people. Quite a comforting jailer.”

“I was close to the action, but was never really involved in it. I was more of a servant to Resistance members, if you will. And then the Resistance was overthrown. Any “close” members were taken into an interrogation center. I gave up everything I knew in exchange for a presidential pardon on War Crimes. That lead to the execution of Bang and his lackeys. Their over-the-table chatter led me to know about a little residence they have in Corsica where they went when things got too tough,” Renjun says ruefully.  

You nodded, absorbing every part of this story. 

“And then I heard rumors from old associates from my former kingdom. Neo is now a democracy. And then the papers. That you were alive somewhere. Deep down in my heart, I know you’re a fighter, you’re the strongest person that I know, and I just knew you couldn’t have died somewhere. I would have felt it.” Renjun places a fist against his heart. 

“As I searched for you, I completed this canvas of you with the last of my expensive paints from my time with the Resistance. That’s how I felt so connected to you, so sure you were alive.” Renjun smiles at the painting, letting himself get lost in time. 

He slowly moves his gaze from the painting that provided him condolence and guidance, his eyes glassy. “And here you are in front of me. Living your life. This is the life you always wanted, isn’t it? No royal chaos, no backstabbing and plotting. Just healing.” 

You nod. “I’m happier in this little house in this nowhere town, paid mostly through favors and the peoples’ love of me,” you smile. “I’ve always wanted to be loved.” 

“I remember,” Renjun says. 

Your hand finds Renjun’s. You study the sight. With the dirt caked under Renjun’s fingernails and all the creases in your hands from the mashing and plucking of herbs from questionable places, you can hardly tell that you both experienced a royal life. Genuinely, it feels like it was a lifetime ago. 

“There were times that I wanted to give up finding you, though. This is a big, wide world, and you could be anywhere. The rumors could have been right, and you could be on a boat to America, and I wouldn’t know better. My intuition could only tell me that you’re still alive.

“After seven years of being the Resistance’s little puppet, I was ready to find a purpose in my life again. As cliche as it might sound, my life had meaning when you were in it. Otherwise, I was always working for someone else, whether it was my father or Bong. This was the one thing I wanted to do in my lifetime.

“I had been wandering around for a while, visiting village after village, town after town, never staying too long. I wanted to settle down, but I was also attached to my mission to find you again. So I’d move on. Then your assistant found me. When I walked into this town, and then your house, it screamed of you. After all these years, I was finally sure of something.” 

You’re silent for a long time after this monologue, processing every single word, racking your brain to say something, anything. 

“The period of my life with you was the happiest. I wasn’t meant for the royal life, but having someone who felt the same way felt as though we were meant for each other. And then the Resistance happened. And then you saved me. You corrected one bad deed with one good deed. I don’t miss the old Ambrosia and my old life which is what made me able to forgive you after I escaped. I miss my parents sometimes, though. But if it wasn’t your family and the Resistance, it would have been something else — monarchies are growing out of style.” You chuckle. 

Another silence between you two. You’re out of words to say to each other, enough of the small-talk. Without you realizing, you come closer to Renjun, closer and closer until your chests are pressed together, and you can smell Renjun’s breath. A thin layer of dirt and sweat cover his face, and you take your thumb to brush his cheek, making a visible mark on his face. 

“I never thought I’d be in this moment with you, but the Universe is kind. I love you Y/N.” The fat tears falling from his eyes make tracks along his skin. You feel the stinging sensation of tears developing your eyes. You don’t realize how much you’ve suffered. Townspeople have tried to set you up with their sons, uncles, friends. But you’ve always rejected. At first it’s because you wanted to be a dedicated healer, and it would be difficult to do that with children. But now you know the real reason, and he’s standing in front of you. 

Huang Renjun. He is the reason. Despite all that has happened, despite how he expedited the end of the Kingdom of Ambrosia, you loved him more than you ever realized. Enough that it seems like that love is about to burst. After all these years of being alone, you finally feel complete. 

Grabbing Renjun’s cheeks, you pull him impossibly closer to you, letting your lips land on his and suck his dry, parched lips, but you don’t care. Renjun grabs your waist as he kisses you back.

Your breaths hitting each other’s noses, you finally pull away, your noses touching, as if your bodies can’t bear to be apart any longer.

You were finally going to have your happy ending.

tagging: @peachjaem00 @infnteen @zennymeow-blog @shwizhies

a/n (2): if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! as my longest fic yet, i've spent countless hours on this fic, and i'm glad to publish the final results. i hope you found this fic enjoyable, and let me know what you thought in the comments or in an ask :3

[logosbot-tm]

Man, I'm so happy that Hazbin Hotel genuinely is fun. Like the episodes have rewatchability, and the characters + music are genuinely enjoyable/likeable. Tbh, even though there was a fairly long wait, I do think it was worth it. If ya compare Hazbin to Helluva, then there's a clear difference in quality, storytelling, and pacing. So yeah, I'm happy it turned out so well.

[steveharrington]

can you elaborate more on steve being abandoned by the narrative?

yes <3 so i think there are two very unfortunate circumstances surrounding steve's character that have led to the current state of his plotline: 1. after not killing him in s1 like they originally planned, the duffers have never really had a plan for steve and 2. they are extremely influenced by audiences. when they were conceptualizing steve to fit in among the ensemble cast, the duffers were picturing him as a douchey boyfriend who unceremoniously dies. lonnie was originally going to come back to the byers house to save jonathan and nancy. there was no need to picture where he'd be 4 seasons down the road, so they just didn't account for that. then joe keery charmed them so hard that they literally couldn't bear to kill him, so steve ends season one still somehow alive.

but we've already established the nancy/jonathan plotline, because jonathan was once the duffers' self-insert who must defeat the evil jock and win over the girl. they couldn't just backpedal on that right away, so they needed to give nancy and jonathan a plotline alone, away from steve. but steve only ever functioned as an extension of nancy until this point, so what do we do with steve now? in an accidental stroke of genius that the duffers have admitted was a last second decision, they pair him with the children and make him into a babysitter. it almost instantly boosts steve into being tied with hopper and el for most popular character from the show, potentially even beats them both out. in 2017 when s2 aired, you could not escape mom steve jokes. it was everywhere, steve was everywhere, joe was everywhere, it was arguably the second coming of #justice for barb, which, in netflix business-y terms, was the exact viral meme type situation that the show wanted and needed to sell merch and remain relevant and say "see we still got it!!!"

you know who has the 2nd most lines in the entirety of season three? directly behind hopper? ahead of winona ryder? steve. think for a second about how absolutely insane that is. the character who was written specifically to die in season one. joe keery's name wasn't even in the season one credits, because he wasn't considered a series regular. and now he has the 2nd most spoken lines in the big blockbuster season because he rocketed up in popularity so intensely. season three marketing features the mall so heavily, creates a literal physical shrine to 80s nostalgia, and when the very first promo is released an entire year before the season airs, who's the star of that teaser trailer? and who, pray tell, is featured in the main brand sponsorship ad that plays in movie theaters worldwide? thats right its america's little darling steve harrington.

but here is the issue. the duffers look at what made steve popular and they see: funny exasperated babysitter, heartthrob action hero. they're like oh okay so we should keep putting him directly in the center of the action, bang him up every season to give him his classic bloodied aesthetic, but. he still needs to be funny. we can almost kill him, but we can't actually kill him because he's profitable. we can let him get horrifically injured because it's badass, but we still gotta let him crack jokes. it creates this very weird tone to steve's role in the story starting in season 3 because he's both the action hero and the comedic relief and protected by plot armor, so we get scenes where he's being literally tortured until he's begging for his life and gasping for breath but the tone is still.......fun? comedic? light and goofy? i think the duffers also forgot he's supposed to be a teenager.

now this is partially me making educated guesses but i feel pretty confident about this: once again, like gollum, joe keery uses his big shiny eyes and manages to evade death again in season four by being so likable and charming and marketable that netflix execs or shawn levy or maybe even the duffers themselves were like oh fuck we just can't do it. they were obviously tossing around the idea of taking mom steve all the way by letting him die sacrificially for dustin, so in season four they make eddie, transfer steve's relationship with dustin directly onto him, ctrl f steve's name in the death scene and just type in eddie instead, and once again steve is alive but he's directionless.

so what does he have now, in season four? i think the duffers have a whiteboard somewhere with steve's name and around it are little circles that say "funny" "cool" "DO NOT KILL" and steve is now stuck in this endless cycle of getting beaten up, popping back up somehow unharmed like a looney tune, saying something cute and oblivious, rinse and repeat. because that's what worked, that's what made him popular all the way back in season two. that's what the duffers are obviously keeping in mind when they're writing steve: popularity. not realism, not depth, not growth, just literally how to continue making him popular. meanwhile, other characters get to be part of the actual story. other characters get to serve a purpose other than selling merch. when el is bitten by a monster, she gets to actually feel pain and need help because that's realistically what any human would need. when hopper is tortured, he gets to suffer and ponder his existence and reflect on the relationships in his life. steve never gets any of that, because the writers just don't see steve as the 19 year old boy on his 4th straight year of traumatic events that he actually is.

they literally just see him as a money maker, there for cool viral moments and witty lines and maybe the occasional emotion experienced but only if it's about his romantic prospects. and the narrative that other characters get to have and be apart of just kinda runs parallel to steve. he's there, technically, but he's not really in the story. and it's like actually crazy because you'd think after all the funko pops he sold, he'd have earned an actual storyline!!!

[extrajigs]

The MODERN MIRAN SCRIPT. Basically the continuation of the old school Chimeric that I covered in this post. That has most of the nitty gritty and this is more so about the branch of the language. The BIG info dump below the cut!

Chimeric is the original, a purely written language used by chimera when talking is unavailable. Written in a circle heading inwards with two defined lines of dialogue. The subject/action 'real' substance and the tonal, emotional intent of the writer and sometimes reader. Chimeric is still used by the remaining population to talk within their ranks, but nearly every chimera is at least bilingual depending on where they ended up. Back in Mirum the written language of Chimeric stayed behind but has been pretty heavily modified to better suit the reading style of the people that remained. Mainly Histin who cut out pretty much all the fluff and added a bit more structure.

So! As opposed to the radial style of Chimeric, Miran has double decker sentences. With the top row being the remnants of the Subject quarter and the bottom row being the Action quarter. Linkage of subjects and actions take place between the two lines. Plus there is a new form of linkage, the priority/influence links which show which subject is acting upon who, and define action sequences. While Chimeric is written inwards radially, Miran is written top to bottom, starting going from left to right then right to left and alternating down the page. Also circular paper is swapped for rectangular, think a standard 8x10. Still, you are expected to enclose sentences within two parentheses, lil hold over from the circular days. But to the outside perspective the largest difference between the two is their tones, or well overtonage of one and lack of tone in the other. Chimeric is the 3 paragraph overly detailed text, Miran is the single word response. Lest to say they do not mesh super well.

ANOTHER fun hold over I want to add but am still thinking over characters for is that for rare fancy words (poetry/music/heart speak) Miran can slide in a THIRD ROW in between the first and second. There the spoken tone quarter manages to eek out a meager Miran existence through a few dozen sets of characters to convey certain emotions and the like. Songs in Miran very often have multiple sets of lyrics overlaid in this fashion, the largest can have 5+ tonal rows.

Oh that reminds me! Miran DOES have a spoken equivalent. Or rather, the original shared Histin/Diagrevies language has been stretched over to fit better with the written word. That in itself has split the spoken word in Mirum in two once more, with spoken Miran and Draconic being the two main talkings. Histin typically only speak and read Miran, whilst Diagrevies will speak both; with their preference being draconic. A Diagrevies will typically have a Histin under their employ to read and write for them since ya know, they cannot see.

All this taken into consideration though, Miran and Chimeric are still basically two ways of writing the same basal language. Not that modern speakers like to admit that. But small character additions and style changes aside, if you can read one you can get the gist of the other. Miran is by far the most spoken in modern times tho. Its a little more accessible for different species than Chimeric.

Want to get more into the modern Mirum dealings. The chimera may be absent but their influence is still very plain to see if you know where to look.

[thewebcomicsreview]

So, Gunwild, the writer of Cassiopeia Quinn, made a comment on that post about webcomics turning into illustrated prose

gunwildversuseverything said: I was hoping this would prompt a discussion about formats and expression, but no, it’s about artist versus writer workloads and “amount of story” being reduced to equations and word counts and update schedules. Figures.

And you know what, it's a good point. So instead of getting into the Artist vs Writers debate for the millionth time, let's take a look at how you, and artist and/or writer, can get a story told on the internet. For the sake of this discussion, lets assume you don't have any actual preference for a given medium that might influence you, you just want to know what's right for your story and will learn whatever skills you need.

TRADITIONAL WEBCOMIC

Comics are the most visual-heavy medium that a solo project can realistically do. This has several business advantages (pictures do better on social media), but it's also a good fit for stories with a bunch of things that are interesting to look at. Cassiopeia Quinn is a story heavily featuring weird alien races, cool spaceships, and attractive young women with extraordinarily casual dress codes. These are visual things! And visual things can be conveyed super quickly and subtly using visuals. Imagine just the "Cassiopeia doesn't wear pants" gimmick, if this was written out. If Cassiopeia gets a description of her appearance the first time she shows up in chapter one and then it's kind of glossed over, the reader would forget. If every time Cassiopeia entered a scene Gunwild had to go

Cassiopeia sauntered up to the motorcycle rack. Her own rack was barely contained by a dangling strip of black fabric, visible through an open orange jacket. Black elbow-high sleeves, covering her hands, matched her thigh-high stockings, separated from her black panties by her thigh pouch.

Somehow it's a lot less cute when it's written out like this, huh? And it also takes way longer to read that then it does to just look at her on the page, which increases the chance your readers might get bored. Comics are the medium that takes the most time to make and also the least time to read, which makes readers a lot more likely to put up with exposition or a plot tangent that doesn't really connect with them. Even if your comic has bits that don't grip your readers, they can grip themselves if you show them interesting bits.

The main downside of comics is the "equations and update schedules" part. They take a looooooong time to make, even compared to everything else. It's also got issues with how people read it. A comic that looks good on a desktop often looks too small on a phone.

TEXT UNDER A PANEL

This style is so strongly associated with Homestuck that a lot of people who weren't making explicitly Homestuck-themed comics seem to have been scared off it. But it's a perfectly cromulent format. It reads well on both desktop and mobile, and lets you use art for all your visuals while using text for dialogue and character thoughts. It's not, however, the best fit for every story. Because each panel is separate, it can be hard to make an exciting action scene this way, which is part of why this format is also associated with special animated pages (I mean, besides "Homestuck did it"). The panels don't really flow into each other, and there's a constant switching between looking and reading.

ILLUSTRATED PROSE

Distinguished from the Text Under a Panel Style mostly by the ratio of text to art, without a hard line demarcating the distinction between them. This style also reads well in desktop and mobile. Well, it should, but a lot of webcomics who switch to this style tend to stay in their webcomic format, meaning it's a picture of text that doesn't resize legibly, grumble grumble. I don't....I don't know if I need to explain the concept of "text" to people. You know what words are, and if you don't there's nothing I can say to explain it.

VISUAL NOVEL

I'm not going to claim to be a visual novel expert, but the main advantages are that it's the most art-efficient medium of any of these (because you can flat-out reuse art), the main disadvantages are that you'll usually need music, it's maybe not as well suited to long monologues, and most importantly that it's not a good method for drip-feed three-day-a-week updates. You kind of have to release the entire thing all at once, or at least in large episodes.

ALL OF THE ABOVE

A comic like Out-of-Placers is mostly traditional, but uses illustrated prose for lore updates. Prequel is text-under-a-panel but not always, and of course Homestuck is the absolute king of format switching, even ignoring the animations. The upside is that you can use the best format for any given scene, and that you're constantly keeping your readers on their toes. The downside (besides having to learn to do all this shit) is that you kind of have to commit to the bit and get your readers on board early with the idea that you're going to just be doing whatever this week. It's also harder to take full advantage of any one medium if you're constantly switching them up

I'm sure I'm forgetting about two hundred formats, but what are the biggest ones I'm missing?

[arcadia345]

The Natal Astrology chart of Jeon-Jungkook

‼️🔞🔞🔞 not a real astrologer just my observations :) paid readings

Born in Busan, South Korea on Monday Sept. 1st 1997 at 3:23pm

ASC: Capricorn 6°

the first thing to stand out on him appearance wise would be his hands and arms, shoulders, teeth, hair, legs and thighs, but especially his torso! With his dreamlike and eccentric presence they didn’t take him seriously Saturn influence but as time passed and he worked on his crafts and himself everyone seen him as the star he is. Capricorns are known for having to mature quicker than others because of responsibilities. As a cap rising with Uranus and Neptune in the first just like him I KNEW he was a Capricorn bc of how his nose has always been prominent throughout his life but now he’s grown up/ into his features 🥹 and also how everyone always projecting (Neptune)onto him like???? Like when did he tell you this?? Definitely the dissociation king 👑. Very easy to dream about him I feel😭 he brings out our subconscious desires. His rebellious Uranus side popped out when he came out with his piercings and tats you could tell he was tired of being projected onto but also iconic because he’s kinda like the first A-list K-pop idol (bts in general tho)to go out of social norms appearance wise. In a way they kinda broke a generational curse 🥹 I remembered how he said he got the scar on his cheek because he was fighting with his brother which correlates to his Aries Saturn (his chart ruler) in the 3rd(siblings). Style wise he gets bored quickly so he’d like to switch up his appearance often. Most of the time he’d go for comfortable but still fashionable clothing, like you may see him in a chill outfit but it’ll cost more than ur rent💀. He could like to switch it up with odd/bold/flirty colors & fits but mostly he loves his darker colors like grey and black.

2nd house: Aquarius 14°

Lemme tell y’all right now…. This man is WIERD at heart🤣🤣 like he’s genuinely quirky lol it’s not a front like fr he’s so down to earth it’s crazy🥹 also his whole chart points to being very spiritual? esp with that 8th house stellium like he’s very into expanding his mind in any way possible so his could be heavily gifted and in pretty sure he knows this by now. He definitely ask himself “why me?”all the time like what did he do to end up so blessed/different?. He definitely would’ve had money regardless of fame as long as he stays true to himself and learns to give enough without being taken advantage of. He loves watching television/listening to music to pass the time. (Any other Neptune in 1st feel like they were raised by television??) Jupiter is all about indulging so in the 2nd house he loves all the simple pleasures, he LOVES FOOD like omg & nice clothes and smells everything that makes you feel good, he likes to collect things that’ll make you go????🤨😃 also he’s DEFINITELY CHRONICALLY ONLINE AND STALKING US BUT HE CANT HELP IT he’s just really nosey lmao😂. He’s the type of celeb to be like “I’m bored, what are my fans doing?” Like omg pookie you genuinely curious what I’m up to??? I feel so special😭 he feels his real persona can come out online better than irl? I think it’s a shyness thing.

ꪔ̤̥ Now since he grew up in the spotlight please take into consideration since bts is his 2nd family a lot of the things I discuss would include them especially 3rd and 4th house but I’ll just call them family also

3rd house: Pisces 23°

First off we already know how dreamy and passionate he is when it comes to his communication skills, in school years he could’ve been the kid nobody noticed in class, also bullying could’ve been a issue, the type to sleep through class, also his siblings could be talented as well, he/they could have many secrets they share between each other. I’m getting that it could be hard for him to remember his upcomings sometimes because like it genuinely flew over his head💀 like yes he was there but he wasn’t there mentally sometimes lol same. Saturn in this house his siblings/ family were strict on him he could be shy when it comes to expressing his emotions like it’s hard to just pinpoint one emotion when you feel everything all at once so that could discourage him from expressing himself. Also he could’ve been lied to /left out often and didn’t even know it omg😭 now don’t get me wrong even tho a lot of things fly past his head he’s VERY MUCH self aware he just doesn’t care fr💀 also since his 3rd house ruler is in the 1st the scenario that comes to mind is like someone seeing your sibling out and public and the first thing they ask is “where’s your brother(Jk)?” Saturn can represent the father and discipline🥺 trying not to cry while type this) him and his siblings went through a lot of difficult times together but also they taught him so much he has sooo much respect for them he knows he wouldn’t be the same person today without them omg like they really raised him🥺🥺😭

4th house: Aries 26°

Now he could’ve had an erratic home life he could’ve moved around a lot & moved far away at a young age since Venus is in the 9th. There is a lot of mars masculine energy here so he likes chaos/excitement in his home also lots of sporty/action stuff around the house I feel like when he first met bts it was like his first taste of freedom in a way. I tell ya rn there was never a dull moment where he lived lol. Him and his family were always in competition with someone they had to fight for their place. Struggle wise at times he could’ve been FIGHTING for his life lots of arguments and aggression (which makes sense since they said they didn’t really get along at first)but with the Taurus degree there was definitely struggles with money and food / stability and personal possessions which drove him to work even harder. His 4th house ruler being in the 10th is giving I grew up at work😟😔

5th house: Taurus 22°

Firstly he’d be such a great dad 🥺 a really funny one too 😂 . His flirting style is not flirting at all😎 well kinda he’s more of gift giving person. His love language is genuinely opening up to you because he barely gets to do that fr, for Capricorns that’s a big thing. Things like showing you the most simple smallest things that means sm to him🥹🥹 to things he created. also food is big to him like the key to his heart actually, that man loves his food! be ready to be wined and dined and spoileddd. He loves traveling, dancing, music, philosophies & beautiful things so he’ll want to get your input on almost everything he wants to pick your brain lol. Also he’s really clingy that’s important to him physical touch but he really doesn’t open up much because he knows he has a lot to lose so he definitely isn’t a fling type of guy he likes to build a foundation with someone unless it’s like a one time thing out of the country where he knows he’ll probably never see you again so might as well act on his instincts. He could be into choking/restrictions, taboos, spontaneity, feet??? One of his erotic zones is his neck. Also his siblings influence his creativity heavily because he knows they know what’s best for him. What he considers as fun is eating😭😭👀 playing some games, cooking, listening to his fav music, drinking, cleaning doing laundry like he’s such a simple man that a good day for him would be staying home all day 😂

6th house: Gemini 14°

He’s very versatile he likes learning he hungers for knowledge. He keeps a strict routine but still likes to switch it up cause he gets bored easily. He was very young when he started working and also he was one of the youngest of his peers so Gemini here makes sense also as he is naturally curious he likes working with his peers/ siblings and unique personalities. He likes traveling also and trying the different types of food they have and shopping there also he obviously spoils his pets feeds them the best food keeps them well groomed, it’s in a mutable sign so I wouldn’t be surprised if he had many types of animals but he’ll want to cuddle a lot with them so idk if he’ll be keen to reptilians with such a busy career atm. He’ll also be very vocal with them they could know a lot of tricks that he taught them. He’d like to travel with them also if he has the chance to, Taurus in his 5th he loves to dress them up and pamper them, wouldn’t be surprised if he was having danceoffs against them lmao 😂

7th house: Cancer 6°

Let me tell you something…. This is HUSBAND MATERIAL RIGHT HERE. The type to be like “I can fix them.” Cause he loves a challenge but he’d actually be able to fix them ngl😭. But first let’s get into how other people perceive him on a 1-1 basis. Now with both these planets being in the 8th it’s very evident that they’d want to jump his bones/ spiral into obsession/ an awakening after meeting him. People naturally spill their hearts out to him, definitely a trauma dumping placement. Ofc people are gonna baby him it’s like he brings out people’s maternal instincts they just wanna keep him safe🥹 but this is also how he treats everyone, with genuine love and respect❤️ also he could get shy easily like the bunny Thumper from Bambi 🥹

8th house: Leo 14°

Okay now bare with me on this one because it’s hard to really understand stelliums if you don’t have one in ur chart, but what I’ve noticed is no matter what they seem to get put in situations that correlate with the house the stellium is in, which causes them to focus on the opposite house to balance the energy’s out. Now first off this man has some HEAVY good karma from the past life he honestly deserves every abundant thing that comes to him x2. As you know he is very keen on perfectionism and order, I refuse to believe he wasn’t some cult leader /powerful witch or something in the past life. Especially a VIRGO stellium in the 8??!!? He was/is a natural born healer 🥹🥹 no doubts about it especially with his moon at a 0° so the moon is in its pure element no matter the sign he’s here to experience those raw emotions. I’ve never met someone with their moon degree at 0 cause its hard to find but i had a manager that had a cancer Venus 0° and when I tell you she made me feel soo special 🥹🥹 like you can feel how genuine she is she loved giving gifts and making sure everyone was okay like the energy was so PURE and innocent in a way it reminds me of jungkook and his acts of service . Also which is why I get why everyone thought he was a Leo moon cause he is in sidereal Astro but I don’t get that egoistic attitude from him if anything it’s the opposite. I don’t want this section to be too long so I’ll move on to his pleasures😈 he’s into praising, teasing, creampies, being rough, nipple play, playful banter, degrading, car s*x, breast/chest, backshots, anal, heavvvy on oral and hand play the type to tie you up 😳 he could possibly be LGBTQ+ friendly if ykwim since he has prominent Aquarius and Virgo is a mutable sign known for their curiosity and versatility, and yk Virgos are obsessed with perfection and cleanness so I’m assuming he likes to get extra messy and wet during the act and he’s not finished with you till you BOTH climax he refuses to be known for bad s*x😤 he likes to make a scene/put on a show. But like I said earlier with his moon and mercury conjunct he needs a strong emotional and mental connection with you before he does anything. His 8th house is so interesting I could go on and on but no😏

9th house: Virgo 23°

Jungkook is very sharp when it comes to the 9th and 8th house since they’re very important in fulfilling his life purpose. In later years school people could’ve seen him as perfect in a way very organized and on point probably a teachers pet or honestly it could’ve been the other way around 😹 ofc half the class had some type of crush on him or was just naturally curious about him but still with that Pisces degree he lowkey didn’t care to be there in a way he probably was absent often but the teachers didn’t care cuz hello??? It’s jk.🥴 Let’s not forget his Libra Venus is in this house as well so he’s natural charming without trying esp to foreigners (9th). He has a strong connection to his past life so I’m thinking he’s like a green witch in a way? Like healing/manifesting when cooking or in nature around plants and animals, singing or just by listening to someone who needs to vent or vise versa. When he travels he needs EVERYTHING to be clean and in place to make sure him and his people are safe bc if not he’ll spiral also he could get jet lagged easily but by now he probably has a routine that helps with that. Also I wouldn’t be surprised if he got married to a foreigner, someone in his circle that he’s known for a long time. Ngl I have Libra 19° in 9th and I tend to get reallly curious when I travel ifykwim 🥴🫣 I really like to experience the people aswell as the location that I’m in to get the full experience. Also with the Pisces degree he’s more likely to do substances like 🚬 and drinking when he’s with his siblings/cousins/ traveling

Mc : Libra 26°

His mother has a heavy Venus influence on him, I’m getting his family altogether was close-knit growing up. He’s known for his worldwide aesthetics, and basically being perfect boyfriend/husband material. Hes known to be easily loved by many, but he’ll mostly be know for the pain he’s experienced, his healing abilities, and his versatility in skills. His Chiron is in this house so most of his pain comes from the industry he’s in, authority, and his public image, with it being at a 29° his ego can hurt him the most😳 which is why I don’t understand why people would get that cocky vibe from him other than his mars. With a Scorpio mars here he’ll also be known as a big sex symbol/someone who brings strong reactions out of people. Since it’s also the ruler of his 11th house so he’ll be known for his viscous and obsessive fans especially online. He’s prone to getting many stalkers/sesangs with how heavy his 10th and 11th house is with Scorpio energy and peers see him as competition even though they see he’s not a malicious person. On the positive side tho he’ll have the ability to feel & see what goes unseen, people’s hidden motives and desires, and so will his fans!! Iykyk👀 Also mars represents passions and pleasure so he could have a thing for love at the workplace, maybe into older/mature people or power play. He could have a porn addiction, definitely into some kinky 💩 with that Aquarius degree. yall plz don’t cancel me I’m just reading his chart. 😭

11th house: Scorpio 22°

His internet presence with have good longevity, this house has to do with our wishes, I’ve been saying I really feel like he did something in the past life to “seal the deal” fame wise because that’s what his chart is giving doesn’t necessarily mean he did something bad but there was definitely intentional manifestation there. Esp with the kill or be killed degree here you don’t have room for mistakes. Yall this man is a stalker big timmme like he stalks us reallll bad but also so does his fans 😹😹 it’s definitely a 2-way street I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a spam twitter account to watch us start army wars💀. If you have Pluto in 11th you know how hard it is NOT to stalk people online😩??? I don’t even care about the people I stalk I’m just nosey asf lmao. His Pluto is at 2° so he could get a lot of gifts from seasangs esp food and material things I’ve heard him speak on these topics also. They’ll try to expose him for having fun since Taurus is in his 5th house,ie while out at restaurants, shopping, his creative endeavors, his love life, or just when he’s at his most comfortable, and children.(Omg? The way that sesang incident with Enwoo just happened right after I typed this wth😳)He understands how crucial his privacy is for his protection so he’ll choose not to post as much. He’s the friend in the group with the silent power/ magneticistm, he prefers to befriend people who understands his deep emotions, friends that have also went through traumatic experiences, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was apart of a online community secretly so he can feel normal for once. Also he’s known as the sexy emo friend lmao with the cool tats and piercings that smokes cigarettes to look cool 😎 he also prefers to befriend people who look like this also

12th house: Sagittarius 14°

Sag in your chart is where your blessings are & what you’re optimistic about. Also where you tend to be a little pessimistic. Sagittarius reminds me of the feeling a sugar rush/liqour gives you, while Capricorn reminds me of the come down afterwards regretting all the decisions you made and how you’ll never do it again. Like I’ve said this whole time he is spiritually gifted and he has strong connection to his past life. He has a lot of Deja vu moments, the things/hobbies he loved then he loves in this life also it brings him a lot of fulfillment. He’d prefer to be in solitude than to be around people but his Jupiter is in Aquarius so this part is a bit odd… he’s comfortable having cameras around when he’s secluded esp with friends but in public??? He hates it especially when he’s not with anyone he knows I think he has social anxiety 🥺 could’ve been overweight in the past life that’s probably where his love for food comes from, he’ll be blessed with assets abroad from his homeland. He could look really similar to what he did in the past life I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a bunny or something.

ꪔ̤̥ That’s it for now till next time❤️ check back for updates