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no-droids · 4 years

Text

Mercy, Sabotage, and Dead Space

(gif credit to @redwyyne-archive)

Part One of The Bet series

Pairing: Poe Dameron/Reader

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 12.7K

Summary:

1. No sex.

2. No touching yourself.

3. No orgasms.

Warnings/Tags: DUBCON/NONCON elements, fuckboy Poe (OOC), Enemies to Lovers, degradation/humiliation, mentions of oral sex, SMUUUTTTTTTTT also I’m not sorry for what I did but you’re not allowed to read if you’re gonna get mad at me okay byeeee

***

This.

This shit, right here.

If the question was ever, “What’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever let Poe Dameron somehow talk you into doing?” then the answer is this stupid shit, right the fuck here. This is like. You remember that one game, Mercy? The one where you’d dig your nails in and twist arms and just needlessly inflict pain on each other as children until one of you cried uncle because someone somewhere once decided to turn torture into a matter of pride?

You always thought those games were fucking ridiculous. Who can hold their breath the longest, who can handle a lit deathstick against their flesh the longest, who can take the hardest punch—who cares? It’s child’s play. It’s self-inflicted agony for the sake of bragging rights and even as a youngling, you refused to fall for it.

But then you met… fucking Dameron.

You know those people that… they don’t just rub you the wrong way, but literally every single aspect about their personality is sandpaper against wet skin and your whole entire being feels chafed raw just by existing in their general vicinity for an extended period of time?

You’re… you’re not usually a competitive—much less aggressive person. You never have been. It’s just not part of your nature. If you ever excel at anything in life, it isn’t because of some secret, deep-seated desire to win or be better than anyone else. You just… do you. You do whatever you do, and if it’s good, it’s good. And if it’s bad, it’s good. Because at the end of the day at least it’s still you, and you’re okay with that.

But this?

This shit? Right here?

“This is fucking dumb,” you say, because you know it’s what you both must be thinking so you may as well just get it out in the open. “This is the dumbest fucking thing, Dameron. What are we doing? Why are we doing this?”

The grumpy, orange-jumpsuited figure sitting behind you just sighs heavily and slumps even further down in his bucket seat, as if it isn’t the first time you’ve tried asking this incredibly valid question (it totally is), bringing a palm down to thunk the top of the guidance controls between his legs in a quiet irritation you’re almost certain has everything to do with the very topic you’re trying to bring up.

“Because,” comes that infuriating drawl. You can only see his face from this angle by looking at his reflection in the transparisteel barrier directly in front of you, but even just imagining the way his mouth moves while he rounds out the words makes your jaw clench. “The coordinates we picked up were scrambled and this rendezvous could be going down at any one of thirty-six locat—?”

“No,” you interrupt him with a scowl, “not why I’ve been floating in dead space in this Maker-forsaken ship with you for eight fucking hours a day since… fuck, what’s today? Thursday? Friday? Nope, can’t be Friday, Friday’s our off-day. Thursday, then. …Thursday?” You shake your head. “Ugh, see? Time doesn’t exist when I’m not allowed to cum, life is like one never-ending nightmare.”

“Oh.” He takes a second to think about it in silence, the calloused tips of his fingers scratching the side of his face while he considers. It wouldn’t usually be as loud as it is right now. Maybe it’s the haunting quiet of space surrounding the ancient powered down hunk of metal you’re both stuck in, inadvertently isolating and amplifying the sound—or maybe it’s because your copilot’s jaw is currently covered in a thick, dark beard that you swear barely took his testosterone-overloaded ass a fucking week or two to grow, if that. Regardless, the dark bristles crunch loudly under his short fingernails and it takes you about a grand total of five whole uninterrupted seconds of the scraping sound to realize you’re grinding your teeth along with it. “Well,” he finally says, “that was your stupid idea.”

“Hmmmmmmmno,” you contest firmly, wiggling your elbow back to poke at his shin with your index finger once, twice, thrice, until he finally slaps your hand away in quiet irritation. To the misfortune of you both—and likely the other hundred or so pilots concurrently taking rotating shifts in these tandem x-wings in a glorified mass stakeout, the cockpit of this ship is just way too fucking small. Your arm is squeezed uncomfortably against machinery and electronics to get to him from this angle and a light slap isn’t going to stop you now that you’re here. “You—” (poke) “—have a superiority complex and decided to turn it into a competition, not—” (poke) “—me.”

“Oh, I have a superiority complex, okay,” he scowls and nods in vehement, fake agreement, finally giving up and letting you poke at will, but the appeal is lost as soon as you realize he’s over it and your arm eases back into your lap. You watch his reflection look out of the viewport and scan the empty void of space for the twentieth time in the past five minutes, clearly just as desperate to get back to base as you are. “So what is it you call saying—wait, no no, not even saying, loudly declaring—‘Of course I can go longer without sex than “wham bam thank you ma’am” Dameron, you brainless fucks, it’s a simple fact!’”

“Alright—I don’t sound like that, fuck you very much,” you return, in reference to his shrieking, high-pitched impression of you surrounded by your fellow pilots in the rec room when you’ve had a bit too much to drink. “Also, you don’t have to finger-quote literally every single syllable of my fucking sentence, Dameron. First and last word, that’s all it takes. And if it’s so superiority complex-ey of me to state simple facts, then what is it you call saying ‘betcha two weeks worth of pay you can’t, pretty baby’?”

“Uh, easy credits?” He immediately asks, side-eyeing your reflection through the transparisteel. “ Easy credits. Just begging for it. Two weeks of your slutty, sexy, easy fucking credits just begging to be taken and used— ”

“You need to get laid,” you cut in to tell him bluntly, scrunching your nose in what you hope looks like disgust. As per protocol, the power to the x-wing was cut at the beginning of your shift—what feels like a fucking eternity ago—as a preventative maneuver in case the target falls out of hyperspace unexpectedly. Avoiding the scanners of a fleet that may never actually show means it’s cold and dimly lit in here—just starlight in front of either you, but you’re hoping he can gauge the severity of your revulsion with your back to him. “You just turned my money into a sex object. It was vile. I feel violated on its behalf.”

“Sounds like you’re the one who needs to get laid,” he tosses carelessly back at you, and you roll your eyes with as much sass as you can physically muster, so tired of all the dodging. You know this hasn’t been easy for him either, he just has too much pride to admit it. “Besides, you’ve gotta be past the withdrawal stage by now. Is it really all that bad?”

“The fuck you mean, ‘Is it really all that bad’?” You snap at him, shuffling around grumpily in your seat, hating the way the bulky weapons controls sit right between your thighs and prevent you from closing them. Withdrawal stage, ha. “Of course it’s all that bad. It’s horrible. It’s the fucking worst. And more importantly, how are you not having any trouble with this? Oh, wait—that’s right,” you answer yourself before he has a chance to. “Because you cheated.”

“I did not cheat,” Dameron’s reflection immediately challenges with an accusatory finger pointed at you. “I did not. When the fuck did I cheat? I swapped housing assignments with your shitty roommate and slept in the bunk below yours for a month and a half—all because you don’t believe in the honor system—just so you could tell me I fucking cheated?”

You scoff, feeling your annoyance spark even more. He’s always been able to get under your skin, but the neglect you’ve been forcing your body to endure is just throwing gasoline on an already roaring fire. “Okay, first of all? Rude. I am a fucking joy to have as a roomie, alright? I put up with your snoring, your 2:00 AM dinners, you blasting your radio while I’m trying to sleep, I barely complain about your body odor—”

“My snoring is adorable, I get snacky at night, only sad people with fucked up lives hate music, I smell amazing,” Dameron casually lists off on his fingers, the self-confidence so easy and unshakeable that you swear he’s almost preening at the compliments he just gave himself by the time he’s finished rebutting everything you can think to throw at him. And, while you’d never admit it, he does smell good. He smells… unbelievably fucking good. Always. Something dark and woodsy, you can never quite put your finger on. It pisses you off, so much that you’ve made a habit of pulling a face of disgust whenever the warm, rich scent noticeably reaches you, hoping it deflates his ego just a little bit. No such luck so far.

“Whatever. The point is I’m a good fucking neighbor, alright, I’m neighborly as fuck,” you grumble, crossing your arms over your chest defensively. “And don’t make it sound like I’m putting a chastity lock on your balls every night, because you can fuck anyone you want. In fact, I strongly fucking encourage it—I just want to know about it when it happens.”

Dameron smirks and you groan, already knowing what’s coming. “You wanna hear it?”

Yep, there it is. “Second of all—”

“Feel the whole bunk rock with it?” He goes on, completely ignoring you. “Use the excuse that you’re trapped up top so you can just stay there the whole time and listen? You know you can do a lot more than just—”

“Second of all,” you project over him, “you’re seriously telling me you haven’t had any wet dreams then, hm? No snorgasms? Hmmm? No happy naps? No captain midnights? No mattress fracking? Hmmmmmm???”

His voice very quickly sounds… shocked. “How many fucking euphemisms—?”

“Wait wait, one more—” you quickly interrupt, too much momentum to stop now, “—sleepskeet.”

You watch in immense satisfaction as his expression seems to progress through all five stages of grief, before he exhales a long, unamused sigh and scratches his beard again. You want to pluck each strand of it out of his face one by one. “Anyways. Wet dreams are totally different and don’t count.”

“It’s not different!” You burst out, unable to help yourself, “it’s an orgasm, and rule number three is no orgas—”

“I know what the rules were, Gold-Ten,” he returns calmly, and it infuriates you, how he’s always able to make it seem like you’re the instigator who’s overreacting. And he knows exactly what he’s doing by calling you by your flight designation, and it pisses you off even more because calling him Black-Leader in any other situation besides active warfare just feels like an unnecessary reminder of his skills. Why he’s currently behind you manning the guidance controls and why you’re currently stuck in the front seat with the bulkier weapons systems. “The question is if you’re seriously that bad enough of a sport to automatically disqualify me because of something that happens to any human with a dick indiscriminately when we blueball ourselves.”

“But that’s the entire fucking point, Dameron!” You shrill, throwing your hands in the air in pure exasperation. “There it is! You need it more than I do, you just said it yourself! Not to mention I said I can go longer without sex than you can— sex , not orgasms, but as it turns out I win at both. Now can we please call this shit off so I can finally cum? This isn’t fun anymore.”

“Nope,” he says immediately, popping the P with a bit too much hard emphasis to be genuinely amused. He’s frustrated, too—his voice is too pleased, too fake to not be masking irritation underneath. “Sorry. But this was also your stupid idea, so.”

“You’re insufferable,” you grumble, anger flaring equal to his, just way more… verbal. And descriptive. “Wet dreams don’t count, fucking right. Tell that to the oceans of Kamino I got going on down there, huh? I move on this seat wrong and I’ll slide off it—”

A loud slam of a palm against the controls suddenly echoes throughout the small cockpit, causing you to jump slightly.

“Don’t,” Dameron snarls, “... say shit like that to me. Not right now. Not right now, fuck .”

You go quiet for a moment, not expecting that much of an outburst at something you considered to be a throwaway remark, but then… oh. Something occurs to you, something… sinister. Oh, well, now there’s an idea.

Everything inside you immediately surges up and burns at the thought—the mere whisper of a way out of all of this, quickly, without giving in and letting him hold your surrender over you for Maker knows how long. It’s so fucking simple, you don’t know why you didn’t think of it before. You don’t have to wait him out at all; instead, you just need to… entice him into giving in first.

Neither of you say anything for a while, and you don’t know what he’s thinking (nothing, probably—a dry tumbleweed bouncing across an empty desert landscape, you imagine) but you take the dip in conversation to consider a plan. You can’t go at it too outright, it’ll be too big of a turnaround and he’ll see it coming lightyears away. A halfhearted joke about your pussy tossed out without thinking is what catalyzed the most substantial reaction from him you’ve seen, so… maybe you can keep steering the conversation towards the idea.

“How many wet dreams have you had?” You suddenly ask, your heart beginning to pick up in your chest as soon as the words are out of your mouth.

“Excuse me?” Dameron grunts from behind you, and you catch his reflection raising a thick eyebrow at you.

You take a deep breath and disguise it by stretching your back out just a little bit, lifting your shoulder blades and arching the sore muscles there, before settling back down in your normal crappy posture once more. “Now many times did you cum in your sleep? Had to at least been once for you to claim they don’t count.”

“Why does it matter?” He asks, completely sidestepping the question for the second time. “It was involuntary.”

You shrug. “Just so I know how many freebies I can get tonight.”

“No,” Dameron instantly counters, his voice dead serious. “Not fucking allowed.”

“Why not?” You ask, and this time, there’s significantly less challenge than you’d typically deliver it with. Instead, your voice is soft, questioning. Not argumentative, but curious, and there’s just enough of your point left unsaid that it’ll seem like he conjured the rest of the image himself.

There’s silence while he considers his response to the perfectly executed bait. You assume you’re both picturing the same thing, because it’s what you’ve pictured almost every single night spent in this celibate hellscape. The cool darkness of your shared quarters, the standard-issue sheets that still feel crispy and rough on your skin no matter how many nights you’ve slept in them, with one of your hands pressed tight over your mouth and two of your fingers circle your clit.

“You only get to do it if I’m in the room,” he poses instead, and you swallow thickly, feeling your body tighten with an unintentional drop of pure heat through your tummy at the thought. Maker, it must be really bad if Poe fucking Dameron is getting to you like this. The bane of your existence shouldn’t make your insides twist in on themselves—at least, not in a good way.

“Not like I’d have much choice,” you eventually respond, keeping it purposefully ambiguous. “It’s your room, too. Unfortunately.”

Stars, it’s been so long since you’ve done this, since you’ve walked the fine line between flirtation and seduction, wanting to turn on the charm slowly—gradually ease it up like a hyperdrive lever under your fingertips so that you’re at maximum by the time he realizes you’re even there. You take a moment to glance at his reflection, watching Dameron look back at you curiously, a flash of interest in his eyes.

“By the way, how does that one girl feel about us doing this?” You ask out of nowhere, suddenly remembering the existence of his pretty little number. You’ve seen her under his arm around base at least a few times, which is more than you can say for the rest of them. “Red-Six. Tall brunette with the tattoos—I don’t bother learning names, they all come and go.”

“Nihla,” Dameron nods with a wistful sigh, tilting his head to rest against his shoulder. “Or, wait… Neah. No—it was… Nalal. Yeah, Nalal, I think that’s right…”

“Unbelievable,” you mutter. “One of the greatest mysteries of the universe is how many people get in line for you, I’ll never fucking understand it.”

“They just want me for my cock,” he tells you without missing a single beat, sounding like he’s not joking in the slightest. “It was starting to get obnoxious. Glad I finally have an excuse to turn them down.”

“Unbelievable,” you repeat, stunned by how truly, mind-blowingly full of himself he is. “You’re… fucking…”

You end up just staring at him and making a sound somewhere between a laugh and a scoff, at a complete loss for words, and Dameron eventually shrugs and continues on after you fail to form a coherent thought in the allotted time frame he provides.

“Now I can just tell them I’m in a long-running bet with Gold-Ten over who can sexually deprive themselves the longest and weirdly enough, they don’t seem all that interested anymore,” he remarks, tilting his chin up and rubbing at his beard again, and for some reason… the sound of it bothers you somewhat less now, the way he phrased that resonating deeper inside you than it should. Lower than it should. You blink a few times, almost shocked by your body’s unprecedented response to his admission—Poe Dameron uses you as an excuse to turn down sex with pretty girls? Happily?—and your mind goes blank for a second while he watches you through the transparisteel. “It’s alright,” he eventually goes on, tilting his head. “Sometimes a sabbatical is good. I do really miss pussy, though.”

“Well,” you finally tell him, oddly not having much else to offer at the moment. “I’m sorry? And… you’re welcome. I guess.”

Dameron shrugs once more and makes an apathetic sound without opening his mouth, and you drop your stare down to the machinery between your spread thighs after feeling like you were looking at each other for too long. The position started uncomfortable and seven hours later, it’s still fucking uncomfortable. At first the discomfort twinged at your hips and lower back, but now the sensation seems to be… centering itself a bit more, finding a spot right between your legs, especially when his words echo through your subconscious and make you naturally want to push your thighs together. I do really miss pussy, though.

You try to snap out of it a bit, try to stop hyperfixating on the way your underwear has felt sticky and wet for fucking hours now, but it’s so fucking difficult to chill yourself out when your body already went into this whole situation with a month and a half long stumbling block. He’s not really doing anything at all—he’s leant back in his chair and staring out the window into the black emptiness of space when you steal a look once more, but something about how his casual responses are affecting you makes it seem like he’s the one currently seducing you.

Maker, you have to focus. You have to control yourself. You’re starting to feel a little warm in your thick jumpsuit—a particular shade of orange that does not compliment your complexion but you normally rejoice in wearing regardless. It’s baggy and uniform and hides most of your curves and most importantly, it keeps you toasty on missions like this. Space is cold —especially this far out in the Cauper Void, and there’s no fucking reason this powered down hunk of floating metal should feel as muggy and stifling as it does in here.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” you suddenly hear yourself say, spontaneously, no thought put into it whatsoever. One last try, one last attempt to avoid it, a last-ditch go at flight before he gives you no choice and you’re left with this one remaining option. “This isn’t a good idea. It’s… not healthy. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

This gets a small chuckle out of him. “I know you don’t, pretty baby.”

“Then let’s just call the whole thing off,” you propose once again, trying to lighten your tone, make it a… a friendly thing. It sounds so fake, even to your own ears—since when would you be desperate enough to let the dreaded petname slide?—but granted, you know what they say about time and measures and all that shit. “We can call it a tie, just go back to the way things were befo—”

He cuts you off and pins you with his gaze through the reflection. “You realize that you begging me to put an end to your suffering is—ridiculously hot, mostly—but also only an incentive to make me keep pushing until you finally give in?”

You groan and comb some of your hair off your forehead, not liking the way it’s getting just the slightest bit damp. “Fine, we won’t call it off, but can we at least just stop—” You immediately catch yourself, not wanting to unintentionally push this too far too quickly, but your hesitation is clear and compelling enough for him to prompt you.

“At least just stop what?” Dameron asks, and though you don’t think it’s intentional or even noticeable from his perspective, something about the way his voice sounds… husky. Low to the ground.

“Stop dragging it out,” you breathe, your heart pounding. Why is your heart pounding so fucking fast? This is a fucking sting op, a facade, so why are you getting so caught up in the lie you’ve spun for yourself? “Finish it. Sooner, rather than later. Quit being masochists about it, just fucking put it to—”

Maker, your eyes instinctively snap to his at your poor choice of wording, having almost said bed on complete accident. Genuinely, you didn’t mean to phrase it that way, but at the same time, the thought of it almost burns you alive. Fuck. Dameron, and you, in bed. It could be mean. It could be rough. A fight for dominance more than anything. He’s bigger than you and he could make it fucking hurt, especially after going without it for as long as you have, but something about how double-edged that type of relief would be isn’t really sinking in for you right now. Like a person slowly dying of thirst that’s fantasizing about drowning. Regardless, the idea of a night with him and the sudden assortment of vivid imagery it provides is enough to get you to shut up and take a deep breath, just wait with your mouth shut for whatever his response is.

Unfortunately, you don’t have to wait long at all.

“This is cute,” he suddenly tells you, and you jerk back and sputter a bunch of consonants stupidly like he smacked you.

“Fuck you?” Are the first recognizable words that can be heard. “I’m not—this isn’t fucking— cute?”

“It’s cute,” Dameron repeats, hiding a soft smile from you with a few of his fingers pressed to his lips. “You,” he says as he points at your reflection, twirling his finger around in circles, “trying to be all sneaky about it, go about your little performance. It’s like… watching a little kid just blatantly fuck up a magic trick but they’re naive enough to think it’s working. Keep going, I’m enthralled.”

You hold still for just a second as ice suddenly sinks through your tummy and clears away any trace of warmth you may have once felt from before. Of course. Stupid. Stupid, you shouldn’t have even tried something like that, you don’t know why you thought…

Horrifyingly, you go dead silent and the lack of an immediate response from you hangs awkwardly in the still air. You’re usually so quick with him, so fiery, letting the things he throws at you just glide right off you, but for some insane reason, you’re actually fucking… embarrassed? A little bit?

You should say something, but your whole body is just frustratingly blank, almost buzzing in mortification, and it gets worse and worse the longer you stay quiet. You don’t usually put yourself in a position to be compromised, and you certainly didn’t think the place he decided to jab this time had particularly thin skin.

You… you’d forgotten what it’s like to have someone laugh at you when you’re genuinely trying your best to flirt.

Well, it’s too late to say anything now, you think. Now it’s just uncomfortable in here—true discomfort, not the typical angry silences. You’re used to that, you’re used to huffing and crossing your arms and ticking your jaw through the breaks in conversation, refusing to say a word because you’re beyond pissed off. This is different. This quiet sits different in the air, this emotion hits different in your chest, somewhere vulnerable. A crack in your armor he found without even necessarily intending to, but at this point, the stupid way you can’t seem to hide the wound from him is just as much to blame.

“So, uh…” Dameron clears his throat as you shut your eyes tight against the awkwardness, but you can still feel a strange little shift in the air from behind you. There’s something about the enclosed space, the quiet darkness surrounding you both, you feel… too close to him. Sharing his air, feeling the energy when it’s cramped and you’re not able to just get up and storm away from him like normal. You don’t like it. You don’t like that you can immediately tell something has changed without being able to see him, that type of intimacy between you is pushing a boundary you can’t quite pinpoint but know exists.

You snap your eyes open and look over at Dameron’s reflection when he’s quiet for too long, and though you try to glare as fiercely as possible at him while you do it, the look on his face almost stops you dead. The pure intensity raging in his expression, the way he’s got his eyes narrowed, flicking back and forth between yours, carefully studying you, wondering if perhaps he may have gotten it all wrong. “I mean, y’know. Theoretically speaking, and all. If I broke, you’d let me fuck you?”

You… aren’t expecting that.

You don’t know why but your heart suddenly starts to race again, but it’s not the same as before. Before it was speeding up and at an angle, like a rocket trying to escape a body’s gravitational pull, to go somewhere, search for something. This time it just feels like it’s ricketing downhill, unsteady and out of control, about to break apart with every single pothole that rattles and slams through you. Shit. You didn’t expect the ultimatum would be presented to you so up front like that—you thought there’d be… some resistance, at least.

Fuck, you take way too fucking long thinking about it, and your face feels warmer and warmer the more you mentally pick apart his specific phrasing, wondering where you should even begin. You still haven’t said anything, but the damage is already done. What should've been a firm, instantaneous go fuck yourself is left suspended, unanswered, open for interpretation. You miss your window of opportunity to shut him down, you overshoot it by a longshot, and then you feel that spark of a what-if flare deep down once more.

No, fucking stop it. Stop it. Maker, your eyes do everything they can to not look at him while you concentrate and work to tap into your anger, stoking the flames of your fire to avoid feeling… temptation. How dare he? How fucking dare he do this to you, especially when there’s no chance to get out of here, to abort mission and cut your losses? You clench your jaw and isolate that fury, magnify it until it’s the only thing you can feel anymore.

“My turn now,” Dameron eventually breaks the silence to clarify, blinking at you, and by this point you’re so fucking pissed off that you don’t recognize that isn’t actually a question.

“No,” you immediately snap, strung far too thin to deal with this new, treacherous territory with him. Defaulting to normal is best, it’s easier. “No, it’s not your turn, and fuck no, you can’t fuck me, not even if it means I win this stupid bet. No to everything that has anything to fucking do with you, alright? Don’t talk to me. You’re lucky if I agree to sleep in the same fucking room as you tonight. And—and?—I think your beard looks dumb.”

Okay, so maybe the last part was just a little bit childish, but you’re in such a bad fucking mood and you want to insult something he’s clearly just trying out for right now, hasn’t yet solidified as part of his usual appearance and unshakeable confidence in it. It’s a downright lie—you think he might look more attractive with it than he ever has. Effortlessly rugged and masculine, framing his face and making his eyes all the more piercing.

You don’t think it works, but regardless, he heeds your sharp words and says nothing for a good few minutes at least. You had hoped the break in interaction would allow you the ability to reset a little bit, give yourself time to work through it, but it’s like the pressure in the air steadily increases regardless of how silent it is in here—or perhaps, because of it.

You can’t help it. You flick your eyes to the transparisteel in front of you once more and catch his reflection staring directly at you, unmoving. It jars you as much as it sparks your anger, and you glare down at your hands and give him a few seconds. A few seconds of grace, of mercy, before you try again.

Sure enough, he’s still got his dark eyes pinned to you when you go to check once more, like he’s actually fucking thinking about something right now, which is just… astounding, for obvious reasons. Mainly, the nerve of him. The fucking nerve of him to be able to look at you like that, like he’s just entitled to study your every feature, searching your eyes for things you’ve never looked deep enough to find within yourself, making incredibly loud assumptions with his mind that he has absolutely no right to be making.

“Shut up,” You snap at him defensively, feeling like you’re sweating buckets even in the freezing emptiness of dead space. You can’t figure out if it’s a cold sweat or if your body is legitimately just malfunctioning under his stare. “Shut up.”

You watch as his reflection suddenly drops his head back against the seat and rolls out the stiffness of his neck, blinking his eyes shut and raising his eyebrows like you’re completely overreacting, like he has absolutely no idea. “I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re not that dumb,” you challenge. “You’re… plotting. Evil plotting.”

A thick eyebrow drops so that only one is quirked up, and a grin pulls at his lips.

“You’re right,” Dameron admits casually after a moment with his eyes still closed, his voice pitched low in the cramped ship. “I was thinking about what it’s gonna take to get you to lose.”

You swallow against the dryness in your throat, starting to unintentionally bounce one of your legs up and down without even realizing it. Fuck, this ship is small, it’s too fucking small in here—you gaze wistfully out at the vast endlessness of space, wanting to grit your teeth at the irony of being surrounded by the one thing you so desperately wish you had.

“I just have to find a weakness,” he shifts forward in his seat and reveals to you, bewilderingly shameless in his honesty. Like all of a sudden you’re an accomplice to this endeavor instead of its target, as if he isn’t spoiling the secret by letting you in on it. “Something that you like, that gets you going. Something that riles you up, gets you all hot and bothered down there—”

“So you can exploit it,” you huff, slouching over a bit and trying not to sound like you’re pouting.

“—so I can exploit it,” he finishes happily, collapsing back into his seat like he’s glad you caught on so quick and he doesn’t have to explain further. “Now we can do the whole routine—the bickering, the tension, the undeniable sexual chemistry we have—or we can skip all that and you can just tell me flat out what it’s gonna take to rev that pretty little engine up, because I want it purring.”

And, it’s so fucking weird, because the specific verbiage that would normally make you cringe just hearing it spoken aloud doesn’t inspire the typical response, even though it feels like it should. It feels like you should be grossed out, it feels like a moment you should screw up your facial expression and act offended, but you’re… not. This is actually fucking working, it’s unbelievable. The undeniable fact infuriates you just as much as it stumps you.

“You do realize that everything you say is a game that two can play at, right?” You point out, not really sure where you’re going with this but feeling heated about it all the same. “What’s stopping me from exploiting something you like?”

“See now that’s a great idea,” Dameron announces, clapping his hands together happily and sending you jumping a few inches in your seat at the sudden sound, your hand automatically shooting up to rest on your thumping heart. “I can tell you what I like, and you can just listen.”

Alright, no, wait—backtrack—

“How about I tell you what I don’t like,” you snip breathlessly, tucking your hair behind your ear and feeling all the blood rush to your cheeks. Default to normal, default to normal. “Your fucking attitude. Your demeanor. The way you talk down to me. You don’t listen. You walk around like you’re such hot shit just because you’re a good pilot but none of that means anything when you don’t ever fucking listen. You’re terrible at it, doesn’t matter who’s talking—you don’t listen to me, you don’t listen to people who actually like you, you don’t listen to orders, you don’t listen to reason—”

“You think I’m a good pilot?” He suddenly asks, and you have to take a second. This cockpit isn’t designed for anything other than sitting, much less turning all the way around, but you’re sure you can find some way to throttle him from here. He chuckles as you let out the loudest sigh you’ve ever heard yourself make—which, is an incredible feat you think both of you should be congratulated for—before Dameron eventually carries on. “You could tell me that,” he admits with a shrug, a hidden smile on his face that he’s trying to bite back. “Or you could tell me the truth.”

You shouldn’t encourage him, but you just can’t fucking help it. There’s something inside you, something you can only compare to a morbid sort of curiosity. Maybe you’re just a glutton for punishment, even more so than agreeing to this bet has already confirmed. “And that would be—?”

“That you use anger as a defense mechanism because I touch a nerve you didn’t realize you had,” Dameron replies breezily. “Have since the moment we met. And that you maybe want me to touch something else, but you’re too stubborn and proud and committed to hating me to ever admit it. You can admit it, it’s okay, I can touch whatever you need me to tou—”

“How about the emergency eject button?” You hiss, finally feeling your frustration peak. “Pop the top on this bitch. Put me out of my fucking misery, right now. You’ve got such a big head that the blood flow will probably keep your tiny little brain warm enough as long as you strap yourself down beforehand, I’ll wait. And then you can go back to base, alone , and find another poor girl to emotionally torture since you probably don’t get enough of it from the ones you work your way through but can never remember the most basic things about.”

Remarkably, that actually shuts him up. You’re doubtful the jab really hurts him, but you’re not going to feel bad about it either way. He deserved that. You cross your arms over your chest and don’t even bother looking at him, huffing and flushed with the climax of your ferocity, now left feeling strangely exhausted in its wake. Eventually your breathing evens out and disappears into the silence, until nothing at all can be heard.

It’s like that for a moment—only a moment, before the loud tearing of velcro suddenly shreds through the quiet in the cockpit, completely rattling you. Automatically your eyes shoot over to his reflection, watching large hands pull the orange jumpsuit apart at his chest and then shrug it over broad shoulders. It’s not sexual. It can’t be sexual, because there’s just no fucking room to allow it—it takes him forever to pull the long sleeves down his arms, but the way he drags it out somehow just increases your anticipation for an event you should have absolutely no interest in spectating. He’s wearing a white sleeveless undershirt underneath and the jumpsuit bunches at his waist, making him look all the longer and more defined as he finally collapses back into his seat and reclines in it, the distant constellations bathing his lean torso in dim speckles of starlight.

Your gaze catches on every good part of him—it falls down the muscular lines of his neck and follows the thin gold chain wrapped around it, disappearing into the white of his scooping neckline. His toned body finds a place to rest and stretch out without looking awkward or uncomfortable, coarse hair darkening his jaw and dusting the strong lines of his forearms—but it’s his eyes that make your heart stutter. They’re endlessly deep and dark and knowing , and you can’t seem to look away from him, not even when he opens his mouth to address you.

“You’re always so fucking mean to me,” Dameron remarks, and for just a split second—just a split second, you feel a stab of regret. “I should eat you out tonight.”

Fuck, he hits the nail right on the head on his very first try, and just hearing the words come out of his mouth so effortlessly makes your pussy clench in on itself in need. Nothing about his inflection changed from one sentence to the next, nothing in his voice made it seem like he just flipped the fucking galaxy upside down with just a few words. To an onlooker who doesn’t speak Basic, they’d have absolutely no hint as to why your face is suddenly radiating heat at an industrial capacity, blazing hot enough to warm the whole cockpit. You feel like you’re literally burning up with it. You have to put a palm to your cheek to make sure it’s not actually on fucking fire. “What— what did you just say to me?”

“That’s what you need,” he drawls, unbothered by the sharpness of your tone. “What you’ve needed, ever since I can remember. Should’ve done it a long fucking time ago, now that I’m thinking about it. How long’s it been? Tell me the truth, I know it’s been awhile.”

You feel like you’re being roasted alive like one of those hairy little Kowakian monkey-lizards that you’re pretty sure have sentient designation but are the first to be skewered and cooked over the firepit regardless. Your heart is slamming against your sternum and you scramble to come up with an even slightly clever response after such an ambush.

“This is your plan?” You raise an eyebrow at him, feeling a bead of sweat drop down your temple and onto the corner of your lashes. Oh fuck, be cool, be cool. “You think this is gonna work? Ask me if I want a weak orgasm and rugburn on my thighs?”

“I can shave,” Dameron proposes quietly, lifting his chin and gently scrubbing the side of his cheek. The sound of the thick bristles against his fingers makes you swallow thickly and push back very vivid thoughts of how his face would feel between your legs. How soft and wet his mouth would feel at the center of that thick, coarse beard. “Tonight, I’ll shave it off. Make it nice and smooth for you.”

Something inside you surges up to assure him he absolutely should not shave, and you actually have to bite your tongue to keep it buried at the last second. Stars, that was a close one, what the fuck prompted that?

“I don’t give a shit what you do,” you quickly return, resisting the urge to wipe your brow. “Beard or no beard, makes no difference. Foreplay is overrated, I’m not big on wasting time.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” he immediately laments—so quick , and the worst part is that the sympathy in his voice actually sounds sincere. You’re having trouble looking him in the eyes right now, hearing the genuine pity come through in his tone. “Who… who did this to you?”

“You said you want to figure out what I like, what turns me on,” you return, tucking your hair behind your ear once more and trying not to sound self-conscious. Maker, how long until your shift is over? You need to get out of here, this shit is… way out of your league. “I’m not into it, so try again.”

“Really?” Dameron takes a moment to look at you, furrow his thick eyebrows at you in barely concealed curiosity, before his head tilts sideways and drops to his shoulder. “Normally I’d respect that, but I meant it when I said you need it.”

“We fucking hate each other, Dameron,” you hiss, a reminder to him as much as it is to yourself. Fuck, you really don’t like where this is going. “You don’t know anything about me, you don’t know what the I n—”

“I bet you think we’d fuck hard,” he murmurs, low enough that you have to take an unsteady breath and physically brace yourself for whatever is going to come from that dirty mouth next. “You think that maybe I’d throw you around a little, give it to you from behind, teach you a fucking lesson for always talking back to me. But that’s primitive shit, Gold-Ten, that’s not for you.”

Resist. Resist . You’re part of the fucking Resistance, for Maker’s sake, you’re taught to hold out until death in torture scenarios. Since when did this tin can suddenly become a new POW camp simulation you have to train for?

“I want to take you apart so slow that you can’t talk at all,” Dameron continues quietly, and you close your eyes, biting your bottom lip hard enough to sting. “We don’t even have to fuck—I mean, I want to, but mostly I just want to taste you. Go nice and slow. I want you on your back, so I can look in your eyes and see all that anger just… fade away. I want to watch you try to fight how fucking good I’ll make it. How hot it’s gonna be when you can’t glare at me anymore, when your pretty doll eyes go all soft and sweet and you finally realize that I’ve never hated you at all.”

Maker. This is a trick. It’s not a question, it shouldn’t be presented like one—this is a dirty rotten trick , and you’re not gonna fall for it. You can’t fucking fall for it. It’s a low blow, and you refuse to even acknowledge he said anything at all. He’s lying to get your guard down. He laughed at your flirting. He’s a shit person, he’s using you, this isn’t real.

Real or not, you still gulp loud enough for him to hear it.

“We could go back to our room after our shift is over,” he offers out of the blue, and you have no clue why, but when he pauses and lets it hang in the air for a second, you don’t interrupt him. You stay completely silent while he waits for you, waits for your typical snarky comeback. You have it in your head instantly, you know what you’d normally say. Your room. It’s not ‘our’ room, it’s fucking your room that you’re generous enough to let him bunk in, a privilege he’s this fucking close to losing—but you can’t find it in yourself to say it right now. Your anger is gradually losing the war to your arousal and you’re forced to watch every single small defeat inside you happen from the sidelines.

His reflection blinks at you through the transparisteel, his eyebrows raising just slightly at your prolonged silence, before he suddenly sits up a little and leans forward.

“And I could lock the door,” Dameron continues, lowering his voice, both in volume and register. “The lights in there are way too fucking bright but I don’t want to be in complete darkness, so maybe we can turn them off and open the port shade, let just enough light come through to see. I could turn on the radio, find something quiet, easy to listen to. Something you like, I’ll let you pick it out. And then… Wait, hang on, which bed?”

You clench your jaw and purposefully say nothing even as your pussy squeezes, glaring right through his reflection into the black void of space.

“Mmm. Your bed,” he eventually decides. “I want you comfortable. You shower at night. Your hair will be wet and you’ll be in those baggy pajamas that you think I can’t see your nipples through, the ones that I know you take off under your covers and then put on in the morning when you think I’m still asleep. That’s good, I want you relaxed, so that maybe… maybe you’d let me take your panties off at some point. And you could lay back and open your legs, and I could go down on you for a little while. However long you need.”

Fuck.

No, this isn’t fucking happening. Your lower muscles aren’t twisting in so hard that it actually fucking hurts, your pussy isn’t leaking through two layers of fabric under your jumpsuit, your body isn’t outright revolting against the sheer neglect you’ve put it through. Maker, it’s fucking painful. You have to clench your hands into fists and dig your fingernails into your palms before you can open your mouth.

“You want to know what I need?” You nearly wheeze, a drop of sweat sliding down the back of your neck this time. Your body feels like it’s three sizes too big for this cockpit and your skin feels like it’s three sizes too small for your body. “I need you to shut the fuck u—”

“What you need,” Dameron purrs, sliding up closer behind your seat and sighing soft against the worn material of your headrest, “is a warm mouth to cum in. Don’t be shy, pretty baby, you can tell me.”

You growl out his last name as threateningly as you possibly can before he purrs yours right back in your ear, and fuck, you’ve never heard it sound so sexual before. Last names allow pilots to maintain a respectful distance from each other. Flight designations are Resistance-wide, but last names are just… allies. Not friends, not companions, but a vast network of people brought together by a common enemy. It hurts to lose a first name. But the way yours sounds rolling off of Dameron’s tongue is just too sinful, too intimate when calling you that is meant to sever intimacy by design. He says it slow and makes it dirty, muddies it in the back of his throat as he slides up even closer to you, until his face is right next to yours as you stare at each other through the transparisteel.

“I’m really…” he pauses, before exhaling through his nose and swallowing thick enough to make his Adam’s apple drop and bounce up again, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lips as he blinks slowly at you with a heavy gaze, “… really good at it. Call me Poe and I’ll do it for you all night.”

Shit, your pussy is just a fucking mess right now. It feels like it’s melting sweet and syrupy all over your thighs, throbbing and pounding and clamping up and screaming at you to do something, at least press your hand down there to alleviate some of the aching tensi—

No— stars, no touching yourself is rule number two. You drop your hands to your thighs and squeeze them, trying to reign yourself back in.

“I think you’re—just projecting,” you try, but turns out responding in general is just an all-around bad idea. Nothing about it comes out right. The ‘just’ sounds like your tongue is stuck to the roof of your mouth and your voice cracks on the word ‘projecting,’ but you don’t even have time to be self-conscious or embarrassed at how much you’re giving yourself away—all your energy has to go towards fighting the tightness between your open legs, how you’re so fucking turned on that you’re worried you’ll cum without even touching yourself. Oh Maker, can you imagine? How fucking proud of himself he’d be? You can’t let that happen, but fuck, holding back something so appealing is so much harder than it sounds.

Tap into that anger, tap into that anger—only, you can’t suddenly find it. Where’d it go? Fuck, doesn’t matter, conjure it. Quick, before it’s too late, get mad —don’t let him lure you into a… a false…

Dameron tilts his chin down towards the line of your shoulder and then slowly turns his head towards your neck, breathing you in gently.

A false sense of…

His soft exhale makes goosebumps break out all the way down your arms.

… What?

“Maybe you’re right,” Dameron acknowledges, talking just under your ear. You watch his eyelids dip and the dark beard brushes against your skin and you catch just a hint of that woodsy, spicy scent engulfing you. Like… teakwood, maybe? Stars, you don’t know, you think you’re starting to lose your mind. What the fuck does teakwood even smell like? “Maybe it’s just what I need. You should exploit it, chances are I’ll still cum first.”

That rockets another painful spasm down low. It hurts so fucking bad—fuck, maybe you could… rub yourself up against these weapons controls? Just a little bit? That joystick, right there, just ease yourself up against it just to nurse this wound a little bit…?

No, fucking— bad. That’s bad, you have to stop—

“This isn’t real, this isn’t—y-you just…” You flutter your eyelashes shut, digging your fingernails into your thighs like it’ll help break through the fog of his lulling voice, how fucking amazing he smells right now. “You just want to win th-the b—”

“ Fuck the bet,” he tells you quietly, his head dipped low enough now that his lips brush against your neck, and you shudder so hard at the sensation that your shoulder almost knocks into his chin with it. “You really think I’m doing all this for a fucking bet?”

Don’t trust him, don’t trust him, don’t—

Your deep breath is so stuttery and uneven that it’s technically just a series of shallow inhales all anxiously strung together, too desperate for oxygen to go about it legato. It’s painfully obvious to him by now, it has to be, but you very quickly miss the shaky breathing as soon as he takes away your ability to do it all together.

“Let me taste you,” he whispers, his voice almost breaking with how gentle it is, how it sounds like it flips in and out of his register when he speaks this low. “Right now, let’s make it real, let m—I know you have to be soaking fucking wet, baby, just let me try a little bit of it, please—I’m… holy shit, I’m so hard just thinking about it.”

“You c-can’t,” you stammer, reaching up to pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. At him, at the situation, at the painful throb of emptiness between your legs. “Fuck, it’s not allowed, it’s against the rules—”

“It won’t be,” he assures you, and you hiccup when you suddenly feel his hand brush against your side, strong fingers branching out to curve against your ribcage. “You don’t have to do anything, you can stay just like this. Just a few seconds and then I’ll stop, I promise.”

Oh, Maker, it’s on the very top of your tongue, so unbelievably close to telling him something—but you don’t know what it should be. You’re right at the tipping point, on a tightrope right between what you want and what you should want. And, knowing you’re this close to giving in, Dameron slowly eases his hand down your side and starts to trail it inwards, and just the lightest brush of his warm tongue against your neck shatters any composure you have left.

You whimper and instinctively try to close your legs, but you fucking can’t— your knees are forced wide apart by controls and your whole body freezes when his hand slides down and folds gently along the curve of your pussy through the thick fabric of your jumpsuit.

The feeling of being held like this by him is just too good , cradled so perfectly in his palm as he opens his mouth and flutters his tongue out to taste your skin again, giving you a little more of it this time and letting you feel the roughness of his beard with the way his lips move. Your breath catches, then he hooks his fingertips up just the slightest bit and pulls back, and you suddenly have to smack your whole hand over your face in a terrible attempt to stifle your loud gasp.

“Oh, Maker, I c-can’t,” you stammer against your fingers, not being able to trust him or your own body. You continue to protest even after he moves back up, resting his palm low on your abdomen, letting the heat bleed through the fabric and transfer directly to your floor muscles as he lifts his head up from your shoulder. “I can’t, we can’t, I…”

You can’t see him, but you know he’s looking at you. He’s staring right at you through the reflection, studying the way you’re hiding your face from him, how you’re still melting, still losing your composure just from the warm palm pressed tight your tummy.

His touch leaves you for a second. But then the deafening sound of velcro ripping at the crotch of your jumpsuit has you dragging your hand down your mouth and your eyelids dipping.

“Dameron,” you breathe into your fingers, just as his carefully slip into the small opening and begin to work at the button to your pants. “Dameron, this isn’t—you don’t want—”

“You don’t get to tell me what I don’t want,” he grunts at you, and you try not to bite yourself at the sound of him unzipping things and yanking fabric to the side. “What I really fucking want is the real thing, but I guess this’ll have to do for now.”

“I—” Your mind whirs desperately, trying to process when his fingers wedge under your panties and down. But he doesn’t give you a single fucking second. As soon as the tip of his middle finger reaches your slit, he’s dropping it and sliding it through your slick, hot, unbearably neglected cunt.

“Fuck,” he spits, and you feel like you might be about to break your own fucking jaw with how hard you’re clutching it, trying so desperately not to make a noise. The pad of his finger is rough and calloused as it drags against your clit in slow, tight circles, and you clamp your eyes shut and try to breathe normally, but it’s no use. Fuck , it’s been so long . You’ve been aching for it for a full fucking month and a half now and you know that even if he couldn’t feel it, he can hear how drenched you are right now. It’s making an obscene sound as he steadily masturbates you with one heavenly finger, giving your body what it’s desperately craved for so many weeks. “Fuck, baby’s pussy got fucking wet hearing me talk about how good I’d lick it, huh?”

That sends a bright flare launching through you and you gasp raggedly, both hands whipping out to snatch at his forearm where it disappears between your legs. “No, shit, wait, stopstopstopstop stop , I—”

His hand slips out immediately and yet you continue to tremble like his finger is still right there, like your clit is just imagining it so vividly that it’s successfully convincing itself of the illusion. The aching bit of flesh is burning, that good burn, the one that’s searing and bright that makes your muscles continue to chase the sensation long after the stimulation is gone. Fuck, he almost made you cum. He barely touched you for a few seconds and yet your fingers have to tighten into claws to slow your body down the fuck down, flexing against your thighs and trying your best to halt the impending climax.

By the time you’re able to wrangle yourself back from the edge and look at his reflection, his middle finger is already in his mouth and he’s blinking slowly at you, his pupils blown wide. You’re breathing hard at him, staring open-mouthed at the way his lips are closed below his second knuckle, how he takes forever dragging it back out again. You have to close your eyes. You have to clamp them shut and keep them that way, knowing you won’t be able to look at him through whatever he’s going to say next.

Except, oddly, he doesn’t say much.

“Shit,” he breathes, dropping his mouth to your neck once more. “Shhhit. I…”

Your eyes snap open in sudden, blind panic when he doesn’t continue, horrified at the possibility that he doesn’t like it. Dameron always has something to say, he doesn’t go speechless. “Oh—Maker, is it not—?”

“Mmmfuck, just—” he grits, panting hot air against your skin, “—fuck. Give me a second.”

You can only see the crown of his head with the way he’s angled, but you can see his shoulders a little further back. They start… moving slightly. Just the littlest bit, a smooth motion, like his whole body is slowly easing back and forth—

The nav controls are between his legs, you immediately realize. He’s grinding up against them with how close he is to you and your seat.

And suddenly, it’s like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. A ray of sunshine that breaks through the raging storm. Dameron might cum in his pants like this. Which means you’ll win, and arguably more importantly, you’ll finally be able to cum. You don’t even take a moment to consider the potential consequences—how you’re going to have to withstand the stimulation until he succumbs to it, how you’ll have to outlast—but you’re not thinking straight. You’re not really thinking at all.

“You can…” you suddenly hear yourself whisper, and your heart pounds in your throat when he instantly stops moving. “One… one more. If you want. You can put your finger inside this time, it’s where I’m the… w-wettest.”

“Fuck,” Dameron croaks into the crook of your neck, his voice scraping low and rough and sending a tremor through you. “Fuck, okay, yeah—”

His hand slides across your hip and down, but you catch him just in time.

“But don’t touch my clit.” You try to sound as firm as possible through the breathlessness, still trying to put your foot down even when you’re giving in, and Dameron’s teeth come out as he stifles a soft groan into your neck in response.

“Yes, baby,” he murmurs obediently as his hand sinks down once more, and so diligently, he avoids it altogether. His fingers slide under your panties and fall straight down to your entrance, down to where you know you’re the hottest, where your pussy is flexing and pushing wetness out with a steady, wicked throb. The pad of his middle finger presses gently against the tight muscles there, rubs just the slightest bit to feel that resistance, and then the length of it eases inside you so slowly that your knees rattle against bulky metal.

“Fucking Maker , ” he hisses as he slides it in, his body making a sudden jerk against the controls.

Your eyes roll back at the feeling of something inside you after so long, after such a torturous buildup, and you grasp at his forearm again when it curls naturally up against searing pleasure. Oh, it’s so good, it’s so good, your hands shake while he very carefully moves it in and out, the raw sparks of heat threatening to incinerate you as your muscles cling to every ridge of his finger. He gets it sopping wet, bathes it so completely in your slick that you’re almost certain it’ll come out pruny and drenched.

“Shit, okay,” you pant, squeezing desperately around his finger, “o-okay, fuck, that’s enough.”

His hand pulls out… slower this time. He slips his finger out of you quick enough, but he drags the tip of it through your folds as he retreats, just barely grazing your clit and making you jolt in your seat. Shit, you don’t know if it felt intentional enough to fault him for it—mostly it just excites you, thrills you to have him edge you like this without really needing to put any effort at all into it.

Dameron lifts his head to sink his finger deep into his mouth once more, and you tremble as you watch him enjoy it, staring at the way his shoulders seem to relax as soon as your taste is on his tongue, how his face goes soft with it and he almost slumps.

Relief. Genuine, not embellished. He still doesn’t say anything after he slowly slides it out and blinks at you, no sugar sweet drawl telling you how amazing you taste, no candied words to make you give in and let him have another go. You’re both breathing hard at each other, staring, waiting to see who will break first.

Stars, you… fucking like this. You want him to keep going, but you can’t offer it again. It’s just too exposing, too revealing to let him you’re actually really fucking enjoying this, you can’t—

“Do you w—?” Your voice automatically comes out through the silence without your permission, sounding just absolutely fucking wrecked by this point, but his palm is already slithering back down as soon as you speak, and you make the softest little submissive noise in your throat at him taking immediate initiative like that. He’s not as careful about it this time—his hand finds its target with less frill, his finger slides in quicker, sinking deep into your heat with little hesitation, lighting you on fire from the inside out, and you bite the meat of your thumb to stay quiet.

“Fuck, this is so hot,” he suddenly breathes next to your ear while your legs spasm and you gasp brokenly. “This is so—fuck, pretty baby letting me do this to her, I can’t fucking believe—”

Dameron eases a second finger inside you this time, letting you feel that delicious stretch from this angle, unable to lift your legs or shuffle around to help and subsequently resigned to simply experience it the way he gives it to you. Your teeth have probably permanently indented your bottom lip from how hard you’re clamped down, a testament to how much you’re trying to hold back the loud moan you miraculously haven’t released yet. Somehow it makes it sexier, not letting him hear you, not having your own noises to drown out the spark of urgency in his voice beginning to peek through.

Shit, it’s too much. You can only let him touch you a few seconds at a time before you feel that familiar tug towards mind-numbing bliss, and the more he does it, the more appealing that feeling then becomes. It’s teasing you, floating right in front of you and calling into question what could possibly be so bad about just reaching out to meet it? You could. You could cum right now. What’s two weeks of pay? You could cum all night long if you want, that is a thing you can do—

Quickly snapping out of your hypnotic downfall, your trembling hands snatch at his forearm once more, and Dameron, the fucker, drags his fingers slowly over your clit on the way out— so not accidental, not even close to it this time, but the sensation makes your hips stutter upwards and chase it nonetheless.

“Fuck you,” you groan at his audacity, your chest arching as you drop your head back, “I said don’t touch my—” but two wet fingers slipping past your lips and onto your tongue muffle the rest of your sentence. Your heart does half a somersault before slamming down early, the taste of your pussy filling your mouth as you automatically start sucking on them.

“None of that,” Dameron tells you softly, massaging his fingers along your tongue before pressing a sweet kiss under your ear. “Be nice. I’m being nice.”

You should bite him. Instead, you just close your eyes and mphh weakly around his fingers, your body sagging as you give into it and let him explore your mouth with them, your lower muscles cramping up in painful desperation even when he’s not anywhere near that part of your body right now. Your tongue even comes up to lick between them, swirl around them so soft compared to how hard you’re puffing through your nose.

Dameron slowly inches his fingers out, letting the tips of them rest against your bottom lip for just a brief moment, before his hand is moving again. Not down, but back and around, so he can open his mouth and taste you another way this time.

Shit, you feel like you’re dying. You need air. Your hands clench into fists and you use the back of one to wipe the sweat from the bridge of your nose while he takes his time sampling you like this. If anything, he looks just as blissed out as before, continuing to rub his crotch up against the solid metal between his legs and teasing you with it as much as he’s teasing himself.

“Maker, let me do this for real tonight, okay,” Dameron pants after dropping his fingers from his mouth, sounding like he’s fighting for his breath while you can’t find yours at all. Your eyes flick down to watch the way his hand disappears behind the chair to grab the controls and push his cock up against them even harder, how he drops his forehead to your neck like he just can’t fucking handle it anymore. “Fuck, I’ll shave, I’ll do anything you want, just let me—”

“Cum,” you gasp out before you can stop yourself, and there’s a moment after it where his hips suddenly stutter against the controls, and you both freeze.

Shit. Shitshitshit, did that actually work?

No, you very quickly realize, his body isn’t spasming like it would if he finally emptied his load after a month and a half. He’s just… holding there, his head buried in your neck, completely still.

You didn’t mean it like that. Well… fuck, you did, but you didn’t realize you’d be that reckless about it, that upfront about reissuing the challenge.

Dameron pulls back to look at you from the side this time, but it’s too cramped—he keeps his head turned facing you even as his eyes flick up to the transparisteel to take in the finer details of your features, the thin sheen of sweat on your forehead, and the slightly alarmed way you’re blinking back at him, worried you just shot your blaster at him in the midst of a mutual ceasefire and you fucking missed.

You see the understanding in his eyes instantly fall into place, and it’s not fucking good. Ohhhhhh no, it’s not good. Your chest starts rising and falling rapidly, suddenly registering the position you just put yourself in. Fuck, you didn’t think—you saw your opening, so clearly, you didn’t have time to think about the consequences.

“D-Dameron…” you try your best to placate.

“Don’t touch your clit?” He asks quietly, the raspiness of his voice ripping a hole through you while his hand suddenly shoves its way back down your body once more.

“Dameron,” you whimper, your heart stuttering in panic as you grasp weakly at his arm reaching between your spread thighs, “Dameron, this is—this is against the r-rules—”

“You keep saying that,” he comments, his fingers easily finding the opening in your jumpsuit no matter how hard you flex your thighs against bulky mechanics to try and close them. “How clearly do you remember the rules? What were the rules again?

You open your mouth to respond but his hand sliding under your panties and down just obliterates any chance you were going to attempt. No words, nothing comes out but a shaky whine as his finger sinks into your soaking heat, going right for the kill.

“Come on, baby, the rules,” Dameron reminds you when you never give him an answer. “Tell me. No fucking, no jerking off, and…?”

You suddenly struggle forwards in a last-ditch attempt at preventing the inevitable, hoping you can scoot up enough in your seat to escape his reach from behind. But fuck, your thighs have been shoved wide open for nearly eight hours—none of the muscles are working the way they should be anymore. There’s just enough room in front of you to get there and you probably would’ve been able to do it at the beginning of the shift, even with his hand between your legs like this, but you’re sluggish and your thighs pull sharp and urgent with the movement. The frantic maneuver enough to veer his fingers off course just slightly, moving one of your lips to the side at an angle, and you keep pushing against the pain no matter how useless it is.

“—No cumming,” he finishes for you, and his other hand is slithering up under your arm and groping one of your breasts through the jumpsuit before shoving you back tight up against your seat once more, totally helpless against it. “Probably have another fifteen minutes or so before our shift ends. Better hold it in, pretty baby, because this one is all you.”

“This—this isn’t fair, this is—” The second the slippery pad of his finger presses hard against your clit, you’re biting your lip to cut off a breathless whimper that slips out. “This is… is sab— sabotage— ”

“Oh, I know,” he moans next to your ear, mocking your high plea of distress with a fake, overly sympathetic whine. “Feels so fucking good though, doesn’t it?”

Fuck, it does. The build feels like an orgasm in itself, just working your way to it. You’re already so unbelievably close after just a few seconds of direct stimulation, an obvious consequence of originally agreeing to such a hardcore edging workout. You’re pouring sweat, so swollen and tight between your legs as you do everything you can to revolt against your body’s needs.

“Oh fuck, stop touching my clit—” you gasp raggedly, heart thundering in panic while your lower muscles start to immediately seize up, “oh—fuckfuckfuck— Poe, take your finger off m—”

Instead of doing it, his hand just slows down until the tip of his finger comes to a halt, maybe less than an inch over top of it. You still can’t catch your breath though, not when you feel yourself throbbing against absolutely nothing, the calloused pad holding perfectly still over the bundle of nerves. The swollen bud still arcs and flares at a steady frequency, building and building, and you choke out a wordless garble, absolutely fucking furious that this is what’s gonna make you cum.

“Don’t make me cum,” you switch up your sentence but not the terrified plead in your voice, the way it’s pitching up and out of control in the dead quiet of space. He doesn’t even acknowledge it. “Don’t make me cum, don—”

“Say it again,” he prompts instead, and lightning arcs up your spine.

“Poe,” you wheeze, the words coming from you without thought, your fingernails digging into his forearm even as your hips jerk up into his touch, “fuck, don’t make me cum, Poe—please don’t make me c—”

“But it’ll be so good,” he counters lowly, and your clit throbs in desperation at the richness of his voice when he speaks like this, saying things from deep in his chest. “It’ll be so fucking good when it happens. Stars, you’ll feel so much better, won’t you? Cum right now and I’ll give you as many as I can until we have to go home.”

“N-No,” you whine, feeling his teeth scrape at the crook of your neck. “No, I can’t—”

“Cum for me,” Dameron raises his voice, sharpening it into a direct order. “Right now. Come on— fucking make yourself lose.”

“But I—I—” you sob, starting to feel your body curl inwards, nearly about to succumb to the burning, the tightening, right on its last breath, “I-I don’t want to cum—”

“And I don’t fucking care,“ he hisses while your hands start flexing unintentionally, grasping helplessly at his immovable forearm where it disappears between your legs, the dark hair sliding under your fingertips as you claw desperately at it. “You’ll fucking cum when I tell you to cum and you’ll like it, you disrespectful, cock-deprived, bratty little—”

And then everything goes dark.

No, literally. The stars disappear.

The cockpit is suddenly shrouded in pitch blackness, and you’re almost certain it’s because you pass out, except then Dameron is all but ripping his hand out of your jumpsuit and cursing repeatedly in alarm. You crumple in on yourself, eyes clamped shut and not hearing anything, right at the peak of your ecstasy and ready to soar into the light completely unassisted, your muscles doing all the work on their own—

“—shit, they’re way too close—” you hear his voice shout, “—we have to turn the engines on—Gold-Ten, baby, turn the fucking eng—”

You’re almost there, you’re almost there, you’re gonna cum, you’re gonna fucking—

Your first name, roared out in startling, blinding panic.

You don’t often hear it. Just during roll calls mostly, but only if you’re flying with a different squadron and need a new temporary flight designation for the day. First names hurt. You can’t remember a time you’ve ever willingly told anybody yours.

Your head jerks up to look at his reflection but something else beyond the transparisteel takes immediate precedence. Your brain takes about two seconds to catch up before thundering terror slams through you and halts your previously inevitable orgasm in its fucking tracks. A runaway train about to launch off its tracks suddenly slamming directly into a megaton force-field of cold, hard fight or flight instincts.

A staggering fleet of First Order ships silently plunging out of hyperspace on all sides—your powered-down x-wing stationed right in the middle of the drop location.

***

Stay tuned for part two coming soon!!

#poe x reader #poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #SMUTTTT #reader insert #star wars #fanfic #the formatting on this one is downright horrendous but im so mad that i cant even fix it right now so thatll have to come later im sorry

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spidernana · 3 years

Text

Day 3: Secret

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34214341/chapters/85234534

Once upon a time, there was a mountain.

This mountain was a lonely one, standing apart from the distant range of similar peaks in the distance, casting its shadow over the city of men that lay at its foot. It was surrounded by dense forest, deep lake waters, and a slowly melting glacier, its rounded, ancient top dusted with snow and its base lined with an aged but well maintained barbed wire fence. The fence had signs posted along its perimeter that declared it private property, but in truth, the mountain, the forest, and all its secrets belonged to no one.

The signs were there because of what lay beneath the rocks and the roots. The fence and its barbs tried to hold back adventurous souls from climbing the lonely mountain, in the hope that no one else would go missing, because among its dark and aged trees, within the many caves and deep shafts that dotted the cliffs and wending paths, many people had disappeared and never been found. The mountain was considered dangerous, perhaps even cursed, and likely riddled with hungry mine shafts determined to swallow up the unwitting.

The mountain had never been mined. There was no curse on those ancient grounds. No... there was instead a history, long forgotten, buried deep within the dormant volcano itself. There was a people, ash and dust, imprisoned there and left to rot. There was an old and consuming shadow, still wandering the halls and paths below, that hungered for release.

All else had perished. Scattered to the winds, so much power given to the hands of one who dared not ever return to, or even look upon, the mountain ever again. He had abandoned his world entirely, for a time, caught up in the games and caprices of warring gods and petty, fickle creators, and hadn't thought of the magickless world even once as he had explored the multiverse and seen sights beyond compare.

He returned now, though, half a world away from that forsaken and hollow mountain, stepping into being as the air about him snapped and crackled with his dark master's power, lent him for the sake of spreading Nightmare's shadow across all worlds. He shrugged twice, settling a stained and aged blue jacket back evenly onto his broad shoulders, and crooked his head side to side as he shook the remaining dregs of the Void from himself, cracking the visible vertebrae his neck was composed of.

His empty sockets swept the horizon with practiced caution, long years of running and being attacked, both with provocation and without, teaching him well; the grasses of the flat and nearly featureless plain he had appeared in bent beneath the touch of a gentle breeze, barren and uninterrupted for miles but for a single, small log cabin. The sun was starting to set, throwing shadows from the scattered and widely spread trees across the fields and coloring the sky with a bursting of reds and pinks and golds, reflecting off the heavily curtained windows of the cabin he now approached, the gravel of the front path quiet beneath his careful heel.

A thin finger of smoke rose from the chimney stack atop the roof, carrying to him the scents of cooking meat and baking bread, and from beyond the curtained windows, there came the sound of music, accompanied by unpracticed but pleasant singing. A smirk split the bone of his face, the corrupted magic streaking from his sockets and his mouth glinting in the setting sun, the target floating before his hollow chest gleaming as wickedly as his twisted smile.

She'd never hear him coming.

The door, well oiled and unlocked (tsk tsk...), opened and shut behind him without a sound, sparse but comfortable furniture lined the rooms he snuck through on the way to the kitchen, its light illuminating the doorframe. The music and singing grew louder, the clanking of dishes and the rush of water giving away the occupant's position, and as he bent around the doorframe, sockets locked on her turned back, a long, gleamingly sharp knife slid from within his sleeve, falling with practiced ease into his skeletal palm.

His steps were silent across the tile floor as he slipped into the room with the grace of a shadow, his posture that of a stalking predator as he drew near enough to smell the soap in her freshly washed hair (lavender... his favorite), the knife shone steady and deadly in his hand... before he pounced, his free arm winding around her waist from behind and his hand, knife glinting in the overhead light, slamming down against the kitchen counter hard enough to embed the blade a few inches into the wood.

The woman in his grasp let out a shriek, thrashing wildly against his hold, but he pressed her against the edge of the counter with his hips against her rear, pinning her with his greater weight and size, and turned his skull to press his bony lips to her ear through her shoulder length, chestnut brown hair-

“didn't i tell you to keep that door locked~”

Her squirming and shouting ceased immediately, her form losing all the rigidity that surprise and fear had lent it. She turned in his grasp, bright brown eyes framed by long, dark lashes finding his sockets, before a smile lit up her pretty face, framed by poofy locks of hair and flecked with a few suds from her washing. Her expression shifted into affected anger a moment later, though, and one of her hands roe to slap his shoulder gently (as though even her hardest attempt could harm him now... he'd gained far too much LV at this point to flinch from even knife wounds), her brows lowering over those beautiful, luminous eyes and her full lips pulling into a frown.

“Sans!! Jesus, you scared me!” Frisk chastised even as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against the front of his without fear and her lips to his bony pair without flinching, and just that gesture, just the sound of his long abandoned name and the trust he could feel emanating from her, stole every last dreg of his breath from him, as it did every time he returned to her.

He'd almost forgotten his name, truth be told, by the time he'd come back to his world in search of fate. The years had been hard and long, and his corruption ran deep in his twisted shade of a soul, stealing more and more memories of before from him as time trickled on. He hadn't needed that name, anyway, so he hadn't cared for its fleeting memory... no one else had called him Sans since the last life he'd taken in the Underground.

He'd been Killer for so long that when he had finally found her, had stolen her from her miserable life in the city and brought her here, to keep her safe and hidden from the grasp of his master, that he hadn't known how to introduce himself. She, unlike many of the other worlds he'd been to, had never fallen into his Underground. He had never met her, befriended her... been betrayed by her, or betrayed her in turn, as many of his companions had.

It had felt like the fresh start that it truly was, a second chance at a life he'd long disparaged. He'd given up the love that he'd seen many others by his name give chase to, focused only on ascending to the highest level of power any monster had ever achieved... but then, Nightmare had told him, and his companions, of his past. What had caused his fall from grace, the reason for the never ending war with his brother, the real motivation behind his trail of conquests, and what he intended to rebuild from the ashes of those he had ruined.

He was gathering Frisks, all who were bonded, or could be bonded, with Sans coded monsters, and using the power of their souls to reclaim his own lost love, a celestial being that had, long ago, divided her stardust infused heart among all the universes, to bless other’s lives and experience true love untainted by her lovers’ warring.

Nightmare's mission was to find and retrieve as many of their souls as he could, to take back the pieces of his beloved's heart and rebuild it. He knew his brother intended the same, both struck with a jealous and possessive love of the same perfect being, and so was utterly ruthless in his quest to find her first, taking the bits of stardust back the only way he knew how.

None had yet survived the process.

His long dead soul had flinched back, at the knowledge of what Nightmare was doing, that he so callously destroyed both universes and others' soul bonds to benefit himself. He had been sickened, even, by the understanding that his own fated mate, left behind without thought before that moment in his ruined world, would suffer that same fate, unless he did something. Could he live with that, with the knowledge that his own inaction had robbed him of a love he wasn't even sure he wanted?

He found the answer to be one he had not anticipated: no. No, he could not.

And so he had acted. He had taken his Frisk, and brought her to a place far from where anyone would think to look for her. He had blatantly lied to his master, telling him that he had killed his Frisk himself, in his Underground. He had even enlisted the help of his compatriots, who he had been more than a little surprised to hear had had much the same reaction that he had, and had all taken measures to secure their own Frisks, to keep them away from Nightmare's cruel and gluttonous consumption.

They kept each other's secrets, now... secrets that would undoubtedly end in their deaths, should the god of night and negativity discover what they had done and meant to keep from him.

It was a difficult and complicated thing, of course, for beings such as they to attempt romance in their condition. They were to a one corrupted, polluted by their lust for power and death and blood, driven half insane by tainted magic and changed forever by the deeds of their hands and the sins on their backs. Learning to feel, to change their ways and accept love, not LV, into their souls had a steep learning curve, and he knew perfectly well that he had failed more times than he'd succeeded.

And yet there she stood, an impossible and fragile mortal being, looking up the few inches that separated their heights with a gently chastising pout on her face, her soul emanating utter adoration and trust and the love he'd never known he'd craved before he’d received it without qualm. Before his chest, the floating target shaped itself into a heart of its own volition, warmth both alien and welcome touched his cold and weary bones, and his arms wound more gently around her waist, bending to bump his forehead against hers meaningfully.

“heh heh... i couldn't tell,” he murmured, smirking in the way that he knew would get her heart racing- and there it was, thumping against his ribcage like a drum. He let out a quiet, rumbling growl in response, backing her up against the edge of the counter and bending his head to nuzzle at the crook of her neck and shoulder, against the scarred indentation of his teeth that he could smell even through the material of her dress.

His... all his.

Something he had never thought he would say.

He felt, more than saw, her blush in response to his heavy-handedness, to the rumble of his growl, and within his chest, he felt his soul, before her influence long dead and silent, give the slightest twitch. It wasn’t completely pleasant… some days, he thought it would have been better for it to remain cold and hollow, keeping up the charade of his manic glee and glorying in the kill, in the misery of others to minimize his own.

Those thoughts were always short-lived. He would be lost in the morose, macabre vacillations of his mind, on the edge of madness and the Void, and then she would touch his hand, send him a smile, and say the name that he had nearly forgotten, he would feel her love suffusing the air around him, and everything but her would fade. Having her was the closest to normal (or the monster he’d been before the demon’s possession, at least) that he’d been in his memory, and he wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Frisk, giggling quietly at the feeling of his breath on her neck, pulled away only when he’d had his apparent fill of her scent, the feel of her pressed against him (to feel, after so long living in the cold and the dark… there was nothing like it. A sweet overabundance, such that sometimes, he could do nothing but marvel at simple emotions like joy and amusement, untainted by murder and dust-), to look closely at his face, one hand tracing along his jawline carefully, lovingly, her brows low with concern.

He couldn’t keep himself from leaning his cheekbone into her palm, all but purring from the fullness of her pure love, the care and worry she felt for him, most undeserving of all. If the others could see him now… he’d never live it down.

He suspected, though, that they were all indulging much the same as he was.

“You were gone for a long time this time. I was worried about you,” she murmured, in their closeness, and a pang of guilt shot through him, dire and turbulent and cutting deep, so much deeper than he was sure most would feel. It attested to his long departure from feeling anything at all, he could only suppose… stars, it hurt to let her down, though.

“i’m sorry. work’s been keeping me busy… boss has really been riding my tailbone, heh,” he excused as best he could with a grimace; it was absolutely true, though she had no idea just how much so… he had been forced to come up with an abundance of excuses for why he was failing so many missions, to attempt to hide the fact that his companions were taking the Frisks for themselves, rather than delivering them to their master, and Nightmare was starting to lose his patience.

He was going to have to start bringing them to him again soon. He already knew it was going to hurt, knowing he was causing the deaths of fair creatures with his mate’s face, simply to save his own hide.

Thankfully, he was still selfish enough to excuse it as necessary. He’d do anything to keep his own Frisk safe and well... anything.

That fierce protectiveness was what had pressed him to bring her here, so far from civilization, her life before, anyone else at all. It had been, in part, what he had told her… his lie to Nightmare could only be preserved if no one had her face in their mind for the godlike being to find in their dreams. But the lengths that he’d gone to… they had all been selfish ones, just as selfish as his decision to sacrifice others to keep her safe. He’d brought her to the very edge of the world, killed everyone she’d known before without hesitation, and had kept her here, the center of his dark world.

Jealous possessiveness was an odd emotion, and he didn’t really like the influence it had over him. He’d done everything he could to remove it, so quickly that his work had almost been messy. But it was a necessity, in his mind, as spontaneous as it had been.

He was no longer surprised by that, though. He had always been impulsive, ever since the building of his corruption... it was the way that his soul had been twisted, separating him even further from the monster he'd used to be. He had been described as flighty, careless, reckless, and unthinking many times, and had taken a lot of damage through the years because of it... his impulsiveness seemed to apply to her as well.

It was just so impossible to resist her, to see her and feel her and do his best to love her. She was truly perfect, made for him in every way, and he could only be thankful that she was so patient with him, disappearing for days at a time and coming home to her with only the barest of explanations. He knew she was suspicious… anyone would be, considering just how long he would be gone, the new cracks in his bones, his manic energy, almost always ending with her beneath him in their bed, only moments after he’d stumbled through the door, jabbing knives into all the furniture and inflicting his poor sense of humor on her-

She never complained, though. She was such a bright and giving soul, selfless and wholesome in a way he never could be. And yet… being with her… she made him want to try.

She looked up at him with such calm and patient understanding, even though he let her down… though he wasn’t nearly the partner to her that she deserved. He was a wretch, a selfish and grasping shade of who she had been destined to be with, before his fall… and yet she had accepted him, somehow and impossibly. And yet, her smile grew across her face to wipe away her concern, her cheek dropping to press against his chest, to sway with him in time with the beat of their fated souls.

“I’m just glad you’re here. It’s never the same, with you gone,” she whispered, her eyes drifting shut and her love sinking again into his bones to fill his with a warmth and a light so pervasive it edged on pain. His soul twitched again, brought to life by the wonderful, impossible, heavenly creature in his arms, and in his sockets, creased with a truly heartfelt smile, a crimson light flickered for a moment, unbeknownst to him.

All he could do was hold her back, and sway along with her, and attempt to understand his incredible luck, aching and not caring in the least.

He’d never understood the other Sans’ obsession with their Frisks. It had seemed baseless, a waste to spend so much time and energy and thought on a mortal being that would cut their lifespans short by many hundreds of years… he’d never understood how they could love a human so completely.

He understood now.

It was worth it, without question. All the pressure from Nightmare, the guilt starting to eat at him the more and more that his soul came back to life, the failures to be a good mate to her, the anxiety of keeping this huge and life-altering secret… his shorter lifespan, the reawakening of his soul, the slow, trickling loss of his LV as her love replaced it. It was worth it all, every second. And as he lifted her chin and turned his head to meet her lips with his, he knew he'd do it all over again in the blink of an eye, despite it all.

He knew that without a shadow of a doubt.

#franstober #frans #killer #my own metaverse #day 3 #secret #fluff

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acahope311 · 3 years

Text

I Promise

A/N: Amari, Queen of Erebor and wife of Thorin Oakenshield, spends a day exploring the secret tunnels with their son, Arnel. But when a friendly and peaceful mother-son outing turns deadly in a heartbeat, can she keep her family and home safe? This is my first ever fic, so I hope you like enjoy it :) Also the lullabye I reference is “Hushabye Mountain” from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Warnings: blood, angst, tears

Words: 6547 (it’s a doozy)

I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone for taking the time to look at the story and reassuring, supporting, and hyping me up through the whole process! ^-^

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Deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain, in the walls of a secret tunnel, the quiet calm was broken by childish giggles and squeaks. Amari, Queen of Erebor, and her son, Arnel, explored secret tunnels that snaked in and out of Erebor with excitement. Initially, Amari was reluctant to venture into such a dangerous expedition with her son, but even she could not stand against a cherub face framed with a hint of dark peach fuzz. Preparing for this outing, she decided to move her queenly duties aside and trade her gown for a borrowed tunic and trousers from her husband's wardrobe, her bladed tonfas sheathed in her hip holsters. Although still in their home, it was best to always be prepared when entering unknown areas of the mountain.

"Amad, hurry!" the squeal of a child reverberated down the abandoned walls of an ancient tunnel that wound around the base of the Lonely Mountain. Amari smiled fondly at her son as he pulled at her hand, urging her to quicken her pace.

"Calm down, ibinê. We have all day, sweetheart. If you keep pulling, you'll run out of energy, then we'd need to return." The queen warned as she gently pulled the young prince into her arms. Whining, he tried to pull away from her grasp.

"Maaaa, I'm not a baby, I'm almost seven! I'm a warrior!" Arnel scowled as he fended off his mother's affection, but failing as he too started to giggle at her kisses.

"Of course, my warrior prince. Now let's just walk a bit further, then go and save your father from those boring councilmen, hm? I’m sure your sister is there too." She gently placed him down and ruffled his hair affectionately.

The dwarf prince was about to object, when suddenly a low growl came from his stomach. Embarrassed, Arnel looked down. "That wasn't me…"

Amari laughed heartily at his expense, further annoying the child prince.

"S’ not funny!" He whined, stomping his tiny foot. Looking up indignantly at his mother, his ocean blue eyes flashed a storm. Although a Durin worthy scowl took place on his face, little tears formed in his eyes, threatening to fall from embarrassment. Amari held her laugh in as she picked up her son again and wiped them from his face.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart. Of course it didn't come from you. Now, why don't we head back? I am getting a bit hungry…" Arnel took this opportunity to divert the blame to someone else; he stroked his non-existing beard mischievously and looked away for a moment.

So much like his father. She thought as she studied his face.

"Well if you are tired, it is only right for a warrior to keep the Queen safe and well fed. Right, Mama?" He asked, unsure but firm in his thinking. Amari nodded and put him down.

"Right you are! Spoken like a true prince. Now, let's head straight to the kitchen and make some pizza, then I'll tell you a story from my world while we cook. I think we will need to make a BIIIIG pizza for your father and sister. What do you say, kiddo?" Arnel perked up at that; he always loved hearing tales of your life before coming to Middle Earth.

"Yes please! Can you tell me the story of your amad and namad? I like hearing that story." Reaching up to her, she picked him up and cradled him to her hip.

"Of course, my-"

Suddenly a rock tumbled across the flat ground towards them, as if kicked by an unseen being. Its sound echoing through the darkness making the hairs on Amari’s neck stand on end. Instinctively she hugged her son tighter to her chest. A menacing laugh surrounded them, thickening the air with fear and anxiety.

"I'd like to hear that story too. Can I join you?" A deep, rasping voice came from the end of the tunnel, shattering the safe haven of mother and son. Amari turned protectively to the source. Stepping out of the shadows, a group of orcs emerged.

Orcs?!?! Here in Erebor?! Adrenaline started to course through the woman's body. Looking more closely at the creatures, she realized these were not orcs. Uruk Hai. Amari's face paled at the realization. It was no wonder, though, she thought them to be orcs at first sight. However these creatures were taller, more muscular, and oozed evil- so much so that even the eternal torches that lined the tunnel cowered before them. She hadn't even realized that she started to back away until they moved forward menacingly. Stained with blood and hair, they gripped a black sword in one hand, and in the other…

Oh no…

A large body was being dragged, no bigger than a dwarf.

Frode…

The young guard’s uniform was torn and tattered, soiled with dirt and blood. Amari had wondered where her assigned guard was that morning, but never in her life would she have anticipated this. Her flight or fight reaction kicked into fight mode, but in her arms, she could feel Arnel's shaking body, eyes brimming with fear and tears. Gently, but quickly, she brought her hand to shield his view of the carnage and threat looming over them.

"How did you get into our home? Get out!" She yelled with such fierceness that it startled both herself and Arnel. The leader chuckled maliciously before dropping the body with a sickening thud.

"I don't think so. We like it here, you see. But even more so! Boys look, this isn't any human. The queen under the mountain has graced us with her presence." He sneered, his companions growling like a pride of lions, eyeing their prey. "And look… she brought a snack. How thoughtful your majesty." Amari tightened her hold on Arnel. Not breaking eye contact from the advancing Uruk hai, she spoke to her son softly and calmly in their secret language.

"Sweetheart. I need you to be brave. Can you do that for me?" Arnel looked at his mother, her brown eyes looking away from his, but he could see her panic. He had never seen his father, nor his mother afraid, but witnessing her fear, he let out a small whimper, but he knew that he had to be strong. Gulping audibly, he nodded. "Yes, mama." He whispered as bravely as he could.

"Thank you, my brave, brave warrior. Now, I need you to hold on tight, and hide your face to my neck. Don't look up, no matter what ok? It'll be like when we play peek-a-boo with adad. Remember? It'll be just like a game!" Amari says the last part as lightheartedly as she could, but a quiver in her voice betrayed her. She was terrified; under normal circumstances, the Queen would never back down from a fight, but with such precious cargo in her arms, she did the next best thing. She ran.

----------------------

How did they get in?! How the fuck did this happen?!

Deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain, the quiet calm was broken by the sounds of quick and light footsteps, rapidly outrunning the thundering and heavy footfalls of evil.

Amari ran as fast as she could down the tunnel, retracing her steps to break out of this hellish nightmare turned reality and back into the safety of the open halls of Erebor.

A little more! Mahal please! The queen begged the gods for the chance to escape. She could feel her son's quivering and whimpers, her shirt already wet from his silent sobs as he kept his head tucked into her neck.

"Amad I'm scared! I want adad!" He whispered fiercely. Her heart breaks with every word. "I know ibinê. I'll get us back safely, I promise. But please, don't look up, keep your eyes down!" she begged between each hard breath she took, her lungs burning from running for what seemed to be an eternity. However she saw the familiar light of the main hall, where they entered. Yes!

"Oh no you don't! It’s rude to abandon your guest, your majesty" the cruel voice raked down her back, but she didn't care. She just needed to get Arnel out. At whatever cost.

"MAMA LOOK OUT!" Arnel's shriek broke her concentration as she felt a sharp pain in the back of her thigh. Suddenly the ground came up to her face, instinctively she shielded Arnel with her body as they tumbled forward. Her arms held him close, however her body tumbled further and jostled on the floor, losing her grip on him, he rolled out of her arms and into the hall. Luckily, her training kicked in and she steadied herself and corrected her stance, pulling out her tonfas. Battle ready to defend her son and herself. The advancing Uruk hai halted in their tracks and grinned cruelly.

"Tired your majesty?" They taunted, eliciting a menacing growl from her.

"On the contrary, scum, I have never felt more invigorated." She retorted. Her mind is running a million miles a second. She knew if she left with Arnel, the Uruk hai would follow them into the mountain, truly threatening the lives of innocents. However if she stayed, she and Arnel would never make it…

No… not Arnel. Not him.

Calling to him, she yelled in their secret language.

"Sweetheart, are you ok?" Silence. "Arnel!" She barked. More silence, just as she was about to risk a glance, she heard his little sobs.

"I want adad… Amad I'm scared…" His quiet cries were starting to grow louder as he saw his mother’s leg pierced with a silver dagger, blood dripping and pooling at her heel. Amari took a deep breath to steady her nerves. It wouldn't do anyone any good if they were in hysterics. Without looking at him, she continued talking.

"Arnel, everything will be alright!! I promise, sweetheart...I need you to do something for me. I know you are tired and scared, my love, but I need you to run as fast as you can and get adad-"

"Mama-"

-He is in the room where he meets with the important people. Do you remember where, sweetheart?"

"Mama I don't wanna leave you! I'm scared- "

"I know." By now, Amari's tears fell freely down her face, but she made sure her fear and sadness would not reach her words.

She could see them inching forward, growling and grinning at the prospect of hurting the Queen herself.

"I know you are afraid, ghivashel. I am too my love… but you need to be brave and bring adad here. And then everything will be alright. Can you do that, my brave warrior? C-can you do that for mama?" Arnel sat for a second, processing what she was asking him. She was asking him to leave her… and get help. The prince stood as tall as he could but he kept his eyes on his mother’s back; he could see her shoulders shake- he hesitated. And that was all that the enemy needed.

In that second, a dagger flew to the face prince of Erebor.

------------------------------

"Adad! Look! Troll!" Darna squeaked as she held up the King's notes to his face, obscuring his line of sight to his councilmen. She could feel his chuckle rumbling through his chest as he took the piece from her small chubby hands.

"Hmmm, who is this supposed to be ghivashel?" He inquired, tilting his head to the side as he studied it with such scrutiny, you'd think he was looking to buy it with a whole bag of gold. Darna mirrored her father's expression and stroked her non existent beard.

"Its Unca Dain!" She proclaimed. The King's booming laugh echoed through the room, pausing the meeting and aggravating the council. The dwarf in question strode into the room and stood next to them, looking at the picture, then nodded.

"Not bad lass, I guess you take after yer amad." Placing two glass chalices on the table that glittered and cast beautiful shapes light that captivated the princess. Thorin took them and gave Darna hers before turning his attention back to the meeting, drinking his ale. Darna, looking up in awe at her father as he chugged the liquid down in one go, tried to mimic him and did the same with her milk, only to start coughing. Her coughing fit halted the meeting once again and Thorin gently patted her back.

“It went up my nose adad…” She whined, pushing her glass away. Thorin wiped her tears and milk on his sleeve, staining his royal robes.

“That’s why we do not rush when drinking, men uzbadnâtha.” Taking a handkerchief from his pocket- a parting gift from Bilbo- to clean up her mess. Fili smiled at the sight, never would he have thought that his uncle, Thorin Oakenshield, King Under the Mountain, would be a doting father- wrapped around a little girl’s finger like a ring- then again even he could not be spared from the princess’ charms, nor her brother’s. Kili frowned, as he noted the queen’s empty seat thirty minutes into the meeting.

“Uncle, where is auntie?” He inquired.

“Your auntie took a break to spend time with Arnel, something about exploring.” Thorin, without breaking from his fatherly task, answered. Worried glances were thrown across the table, the silence made him look up. “What?”

Balin cleared his throat and looked nervously at him. “Laddie, there have been some reports of our people going missing in the mountain. I thought you told her?”

“I did, and I assigned Frode to be her guard.” Thorin replied. Dwalin- who had not been paying attention to the meeting- suddenly sat up. “Thorin, Frode has been missing since last night.”

A chill ran down his back as his mind ran a mile a minute thinking of the worst scenarios that could happen to them. Fili and Kili stood, knowing how their uncle’s mind worked, and headed to the door.

“Do not worry uncle. We will look for them and make sure they are safe” Fili reassured.

“Not that she’ll need it- You know how auntie is with her tonfas. Mahal help the assailant! Remember when the assassin at their wedding tried to- ” the dark haired prince’s conversation was cut short by the heavy door being thrown open, banging against the stone walls. The sound startled everyone in the room- Darna nearly fell off her father’s lap. In turn, the King stood- holding his daughter protectively against his chest- and angrily turned to the door.

“What in Durin’s name-” He stopped, staring in horror as the image of his six year old son, blood dripping down his face from a cut, breathlessly gripped the door.

"ADAD! ADAD HELP!" His shrieks echoed in the room as he tried to rush further into the room to the safety of his father, but fell onto the floor, breathless. Fili bent down to catch him as the little prince’s legs gave way. Blood stained the golden dwarf’s hands as he tried to look for other injuries. Gently putting Darna down, Thorin rushed to his son.

“Inùdoy! What happened?! Who did this!” He howled, causing Darna to whimper.

“Adad…” The little girl walked slowly to her brother and father, fearful of her brother’s situation.

“Do not move! Stay there... sweetheart!” He yelled, making her sob softly. Kili saw her distress and went to comfort her. “Uncle please…” But it fell on deaf ears as Thorin tended to Arnel.

The young prince gasped for air as he tried to stand again. Everyone stared in horror at the child prince- disheveled, bleeding.

"AMAD! FIGHTING MONSTERS IN THE GWEAT HALL! ADAD PLEASE SAVE MAMA! MONSTERS COMING!" Arnel gasped as he stood up, only to collapse in on himself. He hated how he looked right now, he needed to be brave. He promised amad. Looking, pleading with his father. Without thinking Thorin ran out the room, flanked by his nephews. The company who attended the meeting raced after him. Except for one; Bofur stopped mid stride, grabbed the prince and placed him in the arms of Balin.

"Keep the lad company, we'll be back.” Bofur ordered before swiveling on his heel and running out the room. The walls rumbled from the heavy footsteps of a Company of dwarves running down the hall. The dwarves’ protective instinct drove them to run to the Queen’s side but Thorin’s mind set on one task: Save his One.

Unbeknownst to him, two pairs of little feet followed the men, just as determined to save their mother, the Queen.

---------------------------

"Hurry up Arny!" Darna squeaked as she tried to keep a safe distance from the group of dwarrows running to their mother's aid. Her brother wheezed as he tried to keep up.

"Darny, I cant… my legs hurt so much! My chest is hurting!" The young prince whined, slowing to a halt and falling on his hands and knees. Darna stopped and worriedly toddled back to her twin. As she got closer, she was finally able to get a good look at him; his hair was sticking up in different directions and his braids, always so neat and in place, were falling out of its plait. What really scared her, however, was his cut; even though she knew it was shallow, the gash would scar and leave him and his family a lasting memory of today. The weight of the danger weighed heavily on the young princess, the reality that she could have lost her beloved brother shook her to her core. Darna kneeled next to him and gently placed her hand on his sweat soaked shoulder.

"Nadad… are you ok?"

Arnel looked at his sister's face but quickly turned away in shame; although young, they were told often that they were the spitting image of their parents- and it wasn't until he looked at his sister's face did he believe them- for he saw their mother's scared face in hers. Arnel looked down in shame.

"Namad… I'm so sorry." He whispered, watching as his tears fell onto the stone floor. Each drop seemed to weigh a ton and echo through the hall. Arnel hated feeling like this; he felt weak. He couldn't protect his mother, he can barely keep up with his sister. "I couldn't help amad." He hiccups as his crying increases. Darna hugged her brother tightly, her own tears cascading down her chubby cheeks. "And she could be dead. Mama… mama she told me to run and get help. I couldn't do anything else." Darna rubbed his back, starting to hiccup herself. "I'm weak, Darny…"

"Nadad, you're not! You're able to get adad! You're hurt, but you still did it! You're so b-brave, brother. I bet even braver unca Dwalin.” Darna pulled back and watched his hunched figure shaking.

“ Were they orcs? Were they like how adad said they were in the stories?” Darna couldn’t help but ask- little did she know the loaded question she’d just asked. A heavy silence descended on the children as memories of the recent events flashed through Arnel’s mind- huge creatures with eyes as dark as night, hands and skin stained red, gnashing mouths with sharpened teeth… their strong and lithe mother taking on the menacing evil with shaking shoulders that he knew she tried to control for his sake. A sudden wave of bravery and adrenaline washed over the young prince. Standing up, he stumbled a bit before Darna could steady him. Looking at his face, she notices the shift in his resolve- looking more like their father during his meetings on topics of war.

“We need to go help mama, Darny.”

“But you’re hurt! We need to go back, I’m sorry I made us leave but-”

“No, you don’t understand namad. Mama is very hurt and we have to help her and adad!” His blue eyes flashing like an ocean storm.

“Will you follow me, sister?” Darna couldn’t help but be moved by his determination. Returning his intense gaze, she nodded.

“Anywhere you go, I’ll follow, brother.” Hand in hand, they ran down the hall to their parents.

---------------------------

The mountain thundered as news of the danger spread like wildfire. Every available dwarrow dropped their task and took arms to defend their home and beloved queen- for although she was no dwarf, let alone from Middle Earth, she had been blessed by their Maker to bring hope and happiness to her people. She cared for them as though they were her kin. Amari could feel a shift in the air, as though someone opened a window to let fresh air into a stuffy room, but she could not be distracted- not when she was fighting for her life.

Left. Right. Parry. Dodge. Repeat.

Is Arnel alright…

Please hurry Thorin! Fucking King under the mountain my ass! I always have to clean up the mess here!

Amari’s mind jumped from indignation, anger, annoyance, worry, then ran her mind back to her training as she took on a mini legion of Uruk hai. Her tonfas cutting a path slowly but surely through her enemy. Her mind set on making sure none would make it through the threshold of her home- she is Queen under the Mountain, born in a modern world, a mother to two blessings of Mahal, wife of Thorin Oakenshield- if she could not defend her home and family, then the burden would fall on others and she would have failed. So lost in thought, she failed to register a pair of assailants and landed deep wounds on her back, raking down from shoulder to hips. Her pained scream echoed through the hall, suddenly she felt cold air hit her bare back as the uneasy feeling of warm scarlet liquid trickled down. Nonetheless, she persisted. Pushing back even harder, one by one they fell to her attacks until there were only two.

“Tired your majesty? You seem to have left quite a mess in your wake.” One of the beasts taunted. Her enemy cracked his whip dangerously close to her. Dodging it, she failed to realize the feint and dove straight into the path of his waiting ally. Amari stared in horror at her mistake and did her best to regain her footing to dodge once again, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The uruk hai brought down his blade across her torso, slicing her chest open. At first, Amari thought it was the end, but upon second thought she realized her three doublet undergarments saved her life.

Thank freaking Mahal! I knew it was a good idea to wear these!

Taking advantage of her enemy’s false victory, she took her tonfas and cut his head off, watching as it rolled to the side. Breathless, she turned to the last one standing- his face bared the anger and hatred that was unleashed upon her new world.

“Tired already?” She taunted, throwing his words back at him. The queen slowly slunk into a dangerous prowel. She exuded grace and ferocity, elegance and power. No longer was she prey, she was the predator. This was her territory and he was her victim. Quick as lightning, Amari lunged. Her eyes set for her target, no hesitation. One slice was all it took for her to incapacitate the beast. The uruk hai was wailing in pain on the ground helpless, however she did not kill him- one thing Dwalin taught her was to always keep one alive for questioning. As the monster lay on the ground bleeding, his wails subsided to malicious cackling. Amari’s fury flared again.

“What’s so funny? Does death seem like a joke to you?” She grit through clenched teeth as she painfully approached the helpless form- every step like a burning wave through her body. Her injuries finally catching up with her as the adrenaline subsided. She knew she had a little over an hour to get help before it would be fatal. The uruk hai seemed to know this too, noting her pale face and scarlet pool gathering at her feet.

“You don’t look too well, your majesty” he taunted, another cackle followed by a coughing fit echoed through the hall. “I suppose there is some prize to this whole ordeal. If I am going down, I made sure you are coming down with me, foreign queen.” With every word spoken from the vile creature’s mouth, Amari’s blood boiled another degree. “It’s just a shame we couldn’t take the half-breed down. But we will. And your husband will be none the wiser.”

“Wanna bet.” a booming baritone voice echoed down the hall as the dwarf King descended on the evil creature- maiming him with his bare hands. After a moment, a group of dwarves pulled the king back.

“Let me go! That scum deserves to die!” Thorin roared as he fought off his kin. Dwalin pulled him back, fury raging in his eyes.

“Thorin, I know. But we need to interrogate him for information. You know this.” Dwalin growled so low, it surprised even himself. Shoving off the hands pulling him back, Thorin had no choice but to agree. Nodding, he turned to his friend. “Make sure he suffers.”

A thud to his right brought his attention to Amari, laying on her side, facing them. Thorin’s blood ran cold as he swiftly gathered his beloved carefully into his arms. He noticed the gash on her torso but felt the wounds on her back to know that those were the worst.

“Amralime, I am here. You’ll be alright.” He softly reassured his queen. Amari’s eyes started to close, worrying the King. “SOMEBODY BRING A HEALER HERE NOW!” Thorin ordered. “Look at me, Amari. Keep those eyes open…” He begged. “You cannot leave us, my love… you cannot leave ME.” He shook her gently, making sure that she stayed awake. Amari fought with every ounce of strength she had to keep her eyes open, not because she knew she was going to be alright. But to make sure to burn into her memory the face of her most beloved. If this was to be last view, she was glad it was her husband. The thought calmed her enough to smile. Reaching up, she pushed his hair behind his ear, before caressing his cheek.

“If you keep frowning, you’ll get wrinkles, your majesty,” she teased. Even in her weakest moments, she lived to see her loved ones smile. Managing to pull a brief and soft chuckle from the distraught king.

“Thorin, Frode… he’s dead. He- in the tunnel. The Uruk hai-”

“Shhhhh. Ghivashel, please. We can look into this later but right now, we need to get you to Oin.” Thorin began to pull her up, only to stumble when she yelped in pain. His knees buckled at her pained voice

"It hurts so much, love" Amari whispered. Every word is a knife to her husband's heart.

"I know, my love I know." Thorin kissed her forehead and brought her closer, ignoring the warm wetness staining his sleeve. "But Oin will be here, and you'll be fine. Everything will be fine, ghivashel so please…" the king's voice broke. Trying to keep face, he took a deep, shaky breath. Amari could see his resolve break. She'd only ever seen her King let his walls down in their chambers. Her heart broke at the first tear that fell from his ocean blue eyes. Amari wiped it away, smiling.

"Don't cry, my love." Thorin leaned into her touch, "Oh Amari..." Another tear. "Please, just a little while longer, ibinê. Talk to me, my love… Don't leave me." Thorin begged, and he didn't care. He didn't care that his royal garment was being stained red. He didn't care that his eyes watered his lover's face with tears. He didn't give a damn when his body shook with grief and he whispered soft prayers to his Maker to save his One.

"My love, our people are here… you need to be strong.” She whispered, gently stroking his bearded cheek. Thorin in turn leaned into her touch. “If not for me, kurduwe, then stay strong for Darna and Arnel.” The names of their children brought a minute wave of strength.

“Arnel…” Amari gripped his coat tightly. “Did he-”

“Mama?” two tiny soft voices rang through the halls, like bells in a steeple.

----------------------

It was my fault.

Arnel looked at the small figure in their father’s arms. Frozen in place, as Darna sprinted to them.

“MAMA! MAMA! DON’T GO! DON’T LEAVE ME PLEASE!” Falling on her knees and vigorously shaking her mother’s arm. Amari turned her head and moved her hand to caress her daughter’s face.

“Darling, I didn’t pick your clothes today but you look so pretty.” Amari noted, smiling warmly. She was determined to make sure that she showed no pain or sadness to her cherished treasures.

Darna looked down, a tiny flicker of pride flashed within. She always worked hard to get praises from her parents, even for the smallest task like closing the door to keep the draft out. She smiled and tugged on her garments.

“I… I picked it myself, amad...But I don’t- I don’t wanna pick my clothes anymore, so- so you have to pick them for me forever, amad. And you promised we would go out again next time, and you said princess and queens don’t break promises.” The princess of Erebor weeps as she wraps her little pinky finger around her mother’s pinky, her fragile voice breaking every heart in the hall. “Mama you promised- you pinky swore.” She whispers, giving up and curling into her side. The whole time, Thorin tries to keep his tears at bay, keeping a mask of hopefulness and stoicness but failing as each tear drop trails down his aged face, the facade is breaking. Amari chuckles

“I did, didn’t I…” Frowning, she moves her head slightly- hissing.

“Amari.”

“Mama no…”

“Where’s your brother?” Arnel, still as a statue, flinches. Thorin’s blue gaze reaches his own. Arnel has never seen his father so broken- he always saw him like the statues of his forefathers: grand, big, immovable, majestic. But here… Arnel saw a scared and heart broken dwarf.

“Come, inùdoy.” To the ears of those around, it sounded just like any command the dwarven king would give. To the ears of his closest friends and family… it was the plea of a broken husband. Slowly, the young prince walked to his family. The hall was silent except for the sound of his little shuffling feet and the quiet whimpers of their kin. When Arnel reaches his mother’s side, he breaks. Falling to his knees, he places his head tucked in his arms on her belly, weeps heavy tears and wails. The cry shakes the halls that even the mountain itself seems to weep with the prince, not soon after the wails of his sister follows, amplifying the pain of the inevitable possibility that the Lonely Mountain could lose a queen, that a husband could lose his wife, that two little children could lose their mother.

“I’m sorry… amad, I'm so sorry…” a hiccup. “I should’ve been stronger. I should’ve fought with you. I should’ve protected you.” Arnel grips his mother’s clothing. “I promise I’ll get stronger but- but you have to help me, amad...I don’t wanna be weak anymore. So promise you will help me mama… A queen keeps her promises- so you have to mama!” The prince raises his little finger and wraps it around his mother’s finger. Amari is quiet. She knows what they’re doing, trying to buy time for her. As much as they can.

Little rascals. She smiles.

“Mama…” Darna pulls her attention back to them. A soft chuckle escapes her. Thorin can see she's trying- holding on as long as she can. But even she has limits, just as he does, and right now his heart is pushing past its own to make sure to be strong for their children.

“I promise sweetheart. When I’m… better, we can train together. After, your sister and I go to Dale. Do we have a deal, my lovelies?” She shifts so that now she is leaning on her husband's strong arms- trembling arms. Not from tiredness of holding the weight of his family- Mahal knows he will hold that weight forever in his arms if could. No, they trembled from sadness and fear. Amari gathers her son and daughter in her arms, inwardly wincing at the pain, but Thorin feels her flinch.

“Kurduwe, don’t overexert yourself.” He warns, readjusting his hold. Amari ignores his warning and starts to sway a little.

“My loves, I will be fine… I did say I will be with you, no?” She asks playfully, the two whimpers and grip their mother’s clothing, placing their head onto her torso- ignoring the moist feeling on their cheeks that they know aren't their tears. Thorin embraces his queen tightly and sways along with her, he turns his head and pushes his nose into her hair- inhaling her scent. Turning to the group, he sees the Company in tears, all their heads slightly bowed, giving the family the privacy they need. Only Balin is holding his head high- taking in the sight of the Queen Under the Mountain caring for her husband and children, and sending fervent silent prayers to Mahal, to Manwe, to any of the Valar to hear the plea of an old dwarf to save this woman beloved by dwarf, man, and elf.

Amari hums a quiet lullaby that calms the room, Arnel and Darna’s cries have quieted and only the uneven breathing of sorrowed children escapes their mouths. Minutes go by and they yawn.

“Sleep my darlings.” Amari whispers, her voice weak and light. The twins shake their heads, they do not want to lose a second without their mother.

“M’not sleepy.”

“Me too.”

Another yawn spills from them. Darna’s eyelids begin to droop as her mother strokes her hair

“How about a lullaby then?” Amari moves so both children are safe within her and their father’s arms.

“Don’t wanna sleep… Don’t wanna lose you mama.” Arnel whimpers, another bout of crying threatening to envelop him. At that comment, Darna’s little chubby hands grip Amari's clothing.

“You won’t lose me, sweetheart. I’ll be here, I promise.” Thorin exhales sharply, his heart breaks at her promise; he knows that even though she is answering their son, she is also reassuring him.

“Promise, you’ll be here when we wake up…?” Darna asks, her eyes closed and Arnel close to follow.

Silence.

“I promise, I will be with you when you wake…” Thorin grips his wife tighter- the implication heavy on his heart.

“Adad you too? You’ll be here too?” Arnel asks sleepily. Thorin nods.

“Yes, ibine, I will always be here with you.” A promise verbally etches into the walls of his mountain. I will always be with you. I promise. Amari sniffles, moving so her hand is cradling Arnel, and the other arm moves and caresses the back of Thorin’s neck to bring his forehead to her’s.

“I promise, I will be here when you wake.” She promises again to her king. Closing their eyes, Amari sings.

“A gentle breeze from Hushabye Mountain

Softly blows over Lullaby Bay,

It fills the sails of boats that are waiting,

Waiting to sail your worries away.

It isn't far to Hushabye Mountain,

And your boat waits down by the quay.

The winds of night sdo softly are sighing,

Soon they will fly your troubles to sea.

So close your eyes on Hushabye Mountain,

Wave goodbye to cares of the day,

And watch your boat from Hushabye Mountain

Sail far away from Lullaby Bay.”

A heavy silence falls. Thorin opens his eyes and sees his children softly snoring, looking up he looks at his queen.

“Amari..” he shakes her gently. “Amari!” His voice makes Darna shift.

“Mama…” she whispers in her sleep. Arnel is gripping his mother’s ripped tunic tightly in one hand, while his other is to his face as he is sucking his thumb in comfort. Amari doesn’t move, nor does she open her eyes, her breathing is shallow and weak, her face pale, but her grasp on their children does not falter or weaken.

“Mahal please…” Thorin begs. “Anything, please… just save her.” The king quietly sobs into his lover’s hair. He opens his deep blue eyes and pleads to the surrounding dwarrows. In the distance, he sees two tall men walking toward the group quickly. The crowd parts and rushing to their side, Gandalf the Grey and Thranduil, king of Mirkwood, urgently looks at the queen.

“Thranduil, take the twins. I need to look at Amari.” Gandalf orders, immediately, the elven king reaches out to the children. Thorin growls and pulls his family closer to his chest, his eyes glaring at the elf. The wizard heaved an exasperated sigh at the gesture.

“Save me from the stubbornness of dwarves! Thorin if you do not give them to Thranduil, I cannot see Amari, and she will die.” Begrudgingly, he loosens his grip and Thranduil carefully cradles the small bundles in his arms- a peaceful tenderness befalls the face of the elven king, reminiscent of when his own son was at this tender age.

Gandalf’s hand hovers over the small frame of the queen, when he comes back to her face, he whisper’s a spell. Thorin watches the mage with bated breath, praying that he can save his beloved. After the incantation, Amari gasps a heavy breath, but her eyes stay close. Thorin had witnessed his life saving magic, he himself experienced it during the quest for his home, but never had he seen the victim not open their eyes. He started to panic again.

“Gandalf-”

“She needs urgent help. Thranduil-”

“Say no more, Mithrandir.” The elvish king gently deposits the twins into the gray wizard’s arms. Then tenderly, he lifts the wounded queen into his arms and without another word, turns on his heel and strides to the healer’s wing. Thorin is just about to protest when Gandalf gently places Arnel and Darna’s sleeping forms into his arms- he notes the huge change of weight in his grasps and begins to show distress.

“Thranduil is gifted with healing- you know this. If anyone can save your queen, it will be the King of Mirkwood.”

“But-”

“Stay with your children, Thorin. They need you more than ever now.” The wizard’s eyes fall on the sleeping pair and he gently touches their head, whispering another spell. Thorin looks at him questioningly.

“To sleep soundly and peacefully, for they deserve happy dreams away from this living nightmare.” With that, Gandalf hastens out the hall, towards the halls of healing, joining Thranduil.

Deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain, the quiet calm was thick with the smell of blood, and sorrow as the King Under the Mountain, held his slumbering precious treasures, staring helplessly at the direction that his beloved was taken, tears endlessly streaming down into his beard as his closest friends and family reassure him of her safety, but even they are unsure. Thorin exhales a breath he did not realize he was holding and sends another endless plea to the gods.

Mahal please… Keep my One safe.... Amari, come back to me, to us...I promise I will wait for you.

To be continued?

Taglist: @cassiabaggins @guardianofrivendell @elles-writing @lathalea (thank you so so much for reading and double checking me :) )

Thank you for hyping me up! :D @luna-xial @fizzyxcustard @tschrist1

#thorin x oc #thorin oakenshield #angst #uruk hai #the hobbit #tolkien #im sorry #first fic #thorin x reader #thorin's company

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thenightling · 3 years

Text

A list of petty hedge-magicks that work against Dream of The Endless...

Rules, rules, rules...

The Endless are powerful beings but there are laws that govern the universe that they are slaves to obey. These rules include old magicks.

Now, the summoning spell, itself, could have easily been brushed off if Morpheus had not been weakened, but once summoned it was certain “Petty hedge-magicks” that held him for over seventy-two-years.

Morpheus has (at least twice) referred to some of these old spells as “Petty hedge-magicking.” Hedge-magick usually means low level, weak, or amateurish, spell casting. Or as I like to say “Something he woefully under-estimates.”

Here are some of the petty hedge-magicks that have worked against Dream of The Endless.

1. A summoning / binding circle. In many occult practices a summoning circle can double as a binding circle and whatever you summon within it cannot leave the circle until banished or if the circle is breached.

Often these sort of circles are based on figures from the key of Solomon. They can be drawn with things as simple as white chalk. It’s the symbols and the beliefs behind them that matter.

The pentacle design in the summoning spell in Sandman is very elaborate and full of actual arcane symbols from alchemical sigils and Futhark runes and I think I see Hebrew in there. It’s a magical hodgepodge. I won’t go into too much detail about these because some of them are hard for me to see in the illustration even when I enlarge it.

However...

Notice the use of the pentacle at the four points of the circle. In the Sleep of the Just splash page (issue 1 of The Sandman) I can only see two points but I believe there is a pentacle at the North, South, East, and Western points of the circle.

The pentacle is NOT Satanic in nature, despite popular misconception. It is an ancient symbol of elemental magicks. Each point is an element. Water, Fire, Earth, air, and spirit at the top. Water, Fire, Earth, and Air are each associated with a direction. For example, water is associated with the west. (Ironic that The Wicked Witch of the West was destroyed with water, isn’t it?)

The pentacle is a fairly ancient Pagan symbol however it also has had popular use in Christian lore.

In one folk belief a ring with a pentacle on it was given to King Solomon by the Archangel Michael and this helped enable him to bind djinn or demons.

in Goethe’s Faust Part 1 we find out that a pentacle used as a protection ward over the entrance of Faust’s home can successfully ward against demons. In German lore the pentacle was once known as the Drudenfuss (The Druid’s foot.) The demon, Mephistopheles AKA Mephisto, is only able to get in the home because one of the points didn’t quite meet the edge of the circle. However the pentacle was correct enough that he could not leave until the pentacle was destroyed.

In the 1941 film The Wolfman the pentacle could be used to ward off the werewolf, prevent the werewolf transformation (when worn by the werewolf), and would appear in a vision to the werewolf on the next victim as a warning.

This carried over into the TV series Dark Shadows, which used the same rules for its own werewolves. However Dark Shadows preferred to use the unbound pentacle (without the circle around the star). This carried over to the 1981 film An American werewolf in London where the tavern “The Slaughtered Lamb” was warded against the werewolf with a similar unbound pentacle. And was possibly drawn in lamb’s blood (More on that later).

2. The crystalline cage.

While the circle holds Morpheus incorporeally, the crystalline cage holds his material aspect (his physical form). This cage isn’t merely glass though there is an irony to it being glass as glass is made from sand. Sand that has been transformed into something else. The Sandman trapped by sand... Ha! That must have pissed him off...

Anyway, it’s not purely glass. It’s leaden quartz crystal. In folk belief from many parts of the world quartz crystal can absorb and contain magick. In some lore it can even trap a ghost. Modern day Wiccans and other Neo Pagans often use quartz crystal in spellcasting. It’s a common tool in scrying practices.

That and it is an aspect of sand...

3. True name. Though Dream of The Endless is more of a function than a name, the aspect known as Morpheus is so much a part of his identity that on some level he must perceive it as his true name. Hence why he hears and answers to it when Rose Walker calls out to him.In folklore if you know a supernatural creature’s true name that’s how you can invoke or banish them. It’s also why you should never give a fae your full true name. They can use it to cast magick against you.

The story of Rumpelstiltskin uses this rule as once the queen knew the imp’s true name she was able to banish him.

You see it all the time in pop culture such as summoning The Candyman by calling his name five times, or Beetlejuice- you can invoke or banish him by calling his name three times. Or the old party game of Bloody Mary. A true name isn’t necessarily the name you were given at birth. A true name is the name you most heavily associate with yourself. The Endless supposedly don’t have true names but the aspect of Dream of The Endless that answers to the name Morpheus certainly treats it as his true name.

4. A circle drawn in the blood of a black lamb. This one has it’s origins in Exodus. The passover story. It was the blood of the lamb that kept the angel of death from entering the Jewish homes so that the angel could claim the first born of every Egyptian family and passover the slave homes. Because of this there was established lore that the blood could protect against demons and angels. Lamb’s blood was used in early exorcisms and sometimes as a sacrament in place of sacramental wine. In the TV show Forever Knight it could even ward against vampires if blessed or with faith behind its power by the person trying to use it as a ward.

5. A geas tattoo in the form of the tree of life merged with a dreamcatcher. As Dream is not of any particular race and represents the dreams of all sentient life, symbols of faith in regard to dreams will work on him (on some level) from all beliefs.

This one from the 2018 The Dreaming by Simon Spurrier is a combination of the Tree of Life from Kabbalah mysticism combined with a dreamcatcher sacred among Native American / First Nations / Great Plains cultures. According to popular belief if you hang a dream catcher over the bed it will protect against nightmares. The nightmares will be caught in the net while good dreams can pass through. The nightmares burn up in the early morning sunlight. As Dream of The Endless is the anthropomorphic personification of both dreams and nightmares this ward can successfully bind him.

A geas, by its very nature, is a spell to prevent someone from revealing something, or to force them to say or do something, or in most cases prevent them from saying or doing something in particular.

In light of how often he has been thwarted with petty hedge-magick, this ultimately leads to the realization that Dream’s true greatest enemy is the master of all hedge-magick, the Arch Hedge-Wizard!

I know that’s a long way to go for a cheesy pun but I couldn’t resist...

#The Sandman #Sandman #Neil Gaiman's The Sandman #Neil Gaiman's Sandman #Neil Gaiman #Dream of The Endless #Morpheus #Daniel Hall

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icecreamkink · 3 years

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watched all of the untamed / cql in two weeks after my friend 1 told me abt mdzs a hundred years ago and my friends 2 and 3 tried to get me into cql for like two whole years and there are.

feelings.

very first scene is a very dramatic death in the middle of nightmare battle on sith planet land . i will forget abt it in the next tenish episodes and then will be very surprised when it becomes Extremely Painful

anyway magic flying gays and possession and human sacrifice! we are off to a great start

in retrospect, chaos goblin wei wuxian must have had a blast pretending to be so cRaZy and be as disruptive as he could as mo xuanyu lbr

listen. why is fire always evil coded. cant a magic clan wear red, black and orange and have flame motif while being wholesome?

For Legal Reasons These Are Not Zombies

i wish the politics of the sect were a bit clearer, especially at the beggining when the wen clan had sm power, was wen ruohan the chief cultivator? is that why they were so slow in responding to the attacks? im v confused by the pre yiling patriarch politics

fighting in the roof by the moonlight as way of flirtiiiiiiing. as i understand this is a wuxia/xianxia trope and honestly...... thank u for ur service

slight bullying and being a nuisance in general, as a way of flirting we love to see it

wwx: if i drink on the rooftop, thats not inside the cloud recesses! hmmm check and mate :D lwj: i will fuck u up so help me god wwx: :0

i lov them

through hell or high water (quite literally) wei wuxian rem ains a trashfire gremlin till the end and i love him with my whole heart

in the pt subs wei wuxian calls jiang cheng a stubborn duck and i dearly wish that had come back

my opinions on almost every character goes from love to hate u - Hmm Me Like U - BABY. ILY. and i am Very Pleased w that. its been a while since i loved such a complete cast so much i think

no really. i WONT go into a detailed rant abt what i love about each of these characters and each of their relationships to each other. but i COULD.

some lan disciples in the loudest whisper ever: YEAH THATS THE JIN BASTARD MENG YAO HEARD THE GOT SUPER HUMILIATED BY HIS DAD LOL SURE HOPE HE DOESNT TAKE SLIGHTS TO HIS CHARACTER TO HEART

lan xichen, immediately: i must Love him

being into problematic ppl is in the Lan genetics, we come to realize

wen qing deserves so many awards for so many things but not snapping and just stabbing wen chao is at the top

that scene at lan qirens class where wwx talks about using resentful energy to fight a violent spirit. exquisite.

It establishes Good Student lan wangji, wei wuxian as curious and questioning and not afraid of taboo, lwj sees that wwx is not, in fact, a dumb ass hes just a Dumbass, shows us the audience (esp. a western audience) how shocking the idea of disrupting the dead/dying and controlling resentful energy actually is, the theoretical foreshadow arguing, everyone else like ‘shUT UP’, “and how could you ensure that the resentful energy would obey you and not hurt other?” “well i havent thought that far” and of course, lan qiren just straight up lobbing a hard object at wwx head,. chefs kiss

fellas is it gay to bother the hot rule obessessed nerd from ur school and make drawings of him with flowers in his hair and then hide gay porn in his book to antagonize him and ask him to hold ur hand and be ur friend and talk to him all the time and get him drunk and give him bunnies bc you know he likes them and give him a lantern and always want his attention and dedicate yourself to getting him to smile-

and after all of that wwx rly said oh i Admire him, aksd like yeah we all were there in high school buddy

i have Learned. caves = gay.

accidental marriage +beint physically tied together with the sacred married ribbon+ gay panic+foreshadowing+bunnies! in the cave (1)

the story abt lan yi and baoshan sanren tho. i would like to see it

early days wen bros pull my heart strings like a guqin

EVERYTHING about the lantern scene; disaster hets jiang yanli and jin zixuan; how wwx made lwj a bunny lantern. how soft and touched lwj was. wwx gleefully pointing out he was smiling and lwj IMMEDIATELY PULLING HIW SWORD ON HIM LMAO. tragically foreshadowy promises to do right by pepople, living without regrets. lwjs 'oh no do i love him??' face. just. all of it.

i have it on good acc that in the novel lwj is explicitly Repressed Gay Panicked Big Horny which is delightful and rly Adds to the performance

baby lwj is really just conceal dont feel dont let them know u have EMOTIONS (derogatory)

jiang cheng rly went "why dont.u go play with HIM if u like him so much"

jc and wwx have big BIG annoying sibling energy dont think too hard abt it or youll cry

lotus pier is soo pretty :((((((((((((((((

up until episode 13 you could think this could be a magical ancient chinese gays pride n prejudice w swords and shenanigans ................youre just not prepared for the game of thrones of it all

seriously ha ha ha i cried so much w this show my eyes genuinely swelled up . like. physically. fun timez fun timez

that being said, its hilarious that wen xu goes to cloud recesses like 'come out or ill kill all these hostages' and then DOESNT WAIT FOR AN ASWER AND KILLS THEM ALL IMMEDIATELY. do u know how blackmail works sir

would like to make it recorded that from day one i was like 'CALL A GODDAMN CULTIVATION G20 THIS ASSHOLE SECT IS LITERALLY MASSACRING YALL!!' and it took them like 3 or 4 massacres to do anything and they STILL sent their heirs into their territory LIKE

when wwx cites the gusu lan rules to wen chao tho. that rebel/attention whore/cutie pie 'look lan zhan i DID memorize the rules after all' ‘also a big fuck you to the wen sect :D :D’ sweet spot that scene achieves . delicious

all the cultivator young masters being petty af even though they are practically prisoners at the cave is hilarious and i love them

hurt and comfort + gay mistunderstandings + watsonian gay declaration music + accidental evil acquisition! at the cave (2)

its like where do i start? the fact theyre both trapped and kind of heavily injured inside an isolated cave with a murder turtle? wwx gay panicking lwj into coughing up bad blood? lwj being jealous as wwx babbles abt mianmian? telling him he shouldnt play with people and wwx saying he never played him? wwx going Oh. I See what is happening. YOU like mianmian, and lwj absolute done face ??? (iconic) wwx touching the sacred married ribbon Again? the telepathic communication? the sword? WEI WUXIAN ASKING LAN WANGJI TO SING TO HIM AS HE IS PASSING OUT AND LWJ SINGING HIM. THE SONG. HE WROTE. FOR WWX. AND THAT HE CALLED. THEIR SHIP NAME????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

they are SO insufferable pleeeeease

in the words of my friend 1 : “CQL is so gay we were all amazed how it got past the censors Ofc unfortunately it can't be novel level gay But they did their best And we love them for it”

in the theme of songs THIS OST. WUJI HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY MIND RENT FREE SINCE I FIRST HEARD IT the whole ost is so so sO beautiful.

the costuming in this is also soooo exquisite. the embroidery? the fabrics? the details? how every sect and clan has a distinct style and architecture? (also ik they based each off of dif periods in chinese history which is REALLY fucking cool) just chefs kiss

the direction too!. i enjoy the unusual camera movements and i think they give it that Vibe, also their composition is PARTICULARLY good when it comes to telling the subtext through position of camera/position of character (like nhs off to the side in scenes he at first glance doesnt need to be/ how lwj is often centered when hes Jealous Yearning at wwx being affectionate w other ppl, wwx return from burial mounds etc)

ik madam yu is like Badass Milf Check and shes not getting any mom of the year awards but im delighted at how messy she is. IMAGINE that woman on tiktok

you better have enjoyed gay cave (2) bc its Just Pain from here on out!

jiang fengmian and madame yu win the Most Dramatic Way to show they do care about each other, actually ..... ever :)

i thought jiang yanli jiang cheng and wei wuxian forcing themselves to escape yunmeng barely holding on after their parents are killed was going to be the height of pain in this show. ha.

the family dynamics in general on this showwwww, both blood/ adopted/ found families, brotherly bonds and lifelong friendships just. rly. truly. fucked me up. theyre all so important and complicated and well rounded and beautiful and tragic

and beyond being a Win For the Gays im so glad the relationships w wwx and jiang yanli/ wen qing were NOT changed from platonic bc they are so much better like that imo. like maybe if we didnt Live In A Society it wouldnt be so, but the fact wwx and others can love and value them so much and theres nothing romantic or sexual abt it is like. so refreshing. especially @ jyl, with the way he and jc are overprotective of her and shes such a nurturing/care taker figure for them, it would just not vibe as well if they made it romantic

i love that this is a story abt Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch aka Actual Satan/Boogey Man/Village With/Public Enemy Number One , my dude is literally a necromancer who only dresses in black and has evil smokey black tendrils wafting out of him, but the really edgy one is still jiang cheng, pastel purple fashion icon

and speaking of best/worst siblings wei wuxian and jiang cheng *immediately starts crying*

The Golden Core Transfer i just. no thots only tears

wen qing and wen ning putting themselves in so much danger just.... to help them. wn saving jc from wen chao. wq finding a way to get wwx to transfer his core. like thinking about the monumental work these two did to help wwx and jyl and jc... jyl trying so fucking hard to be strong and keep on moving and giver her little brothers comfort after losing everything... jiang cheng. losing his parents and his home and his ability to do anything abt it and his complete desperation and lack of self worth and turning on them with agression when he didnt realize all that they did for him ... hhhhhhhhhhhhh

me, pointing at the whole cast “i just LOVE them mom!!!”

its sad tho, that BARELY ANY of the women have like.... actual important conversations let alone relationships with each other at all in the story. and like wq and jyl have stayed at the same place for extended periods of time, where wq actively took care of her TWICE, and still! not one measly convo, nothing! ................ .𝓌ₕᵧ

everyone in this show need a good sip of Self Worth and Stop Sacrificing Yourself juice

ngl the sword flying looks very dumb

“a-cheng, please bring a-xian back.” “i will, i promise.” ;-;

the whole calling each other by the More Intimate Version of the name, first as teasing and later as true intimacy. mmmhmmm yes

untamed where everythings the same but wwx evil flute song is eoeo

related that scene when wwx comes back from the burial mounds for the first time w demonic cultivation and he acts all formal and calls lwj hanguang-jun and keeps being evasive and distant and mean and soooooo................. facetious

and how hes kind of desperately trying to keep intense lwj at bay (A FIRST) and avoiding actually talking to either of them and its all tension ughhh and then he MOCKS his and lwjs relationship, he jokes w him in this like... mean echo of their usual ~banter~ oof

and like!!! uncertain but so relieved jc who just HUGS him w no reservations for once and its not like he isnt just as worried as lwj abt wwx and what hes doing, but he chooses in that moment to enjoy getting him back first and mmhmMMMmMm yes (maybe my favorite scene in the whole show? MAYBE SO. )

highkey hurt me but also. i might be into mean wwx. i will take no criticism.

lan zhans sad eyes tho :(((((((((

on one hand i wish we could have seen what happened at the burial mounds but on the other the timeskip adds so much flair to his return so im hnnn

also i love that hes been missing for 3 months reappears kinda melancholic and bloodthirsty and knowing malign tricks and jc is like 'so. are u sad bc of lan wangji'

when ur bae survived the war but he thinks ur evil/ might be evil so you cant kiss :///

hmmm talking at the rooftop under the moonlight not mentioning everything that stands between usssss

they are the two jades of lan and we’ll be the two heroes of yunmeng is the type of line u dont even need to know whats gonna happen to know thats gonna be sad

when they fight wen ruoshan at the nightless city i thought that was the battle we see at the first ep and its not and its so easy and theyre all like ‘yayy we won go wwx!’ i was just. SCREAMS WHAT is gonna HAPPEN

so like. post burial mounds/sunshot campaign pre yiling patriarch wwx is like. ultra arrogant, ultra mocking, peak lil shit and it gave me e v e r y t h i n g i wanted

even tho having the wen prisoners at the targets at phoenix mountain and still having wwx and jzx shooting the arrows was???? so.... tone deaf

wwx: fucking w demonic energy jyl: he has never done anything wrong in his life, ever <3 <3 (mood)

the parallels between meng yao/wei wuxian (and even xue yang a bit?) are Seen and they are Valid

wwx post burial mounds: can yall SHUT UP abt the goddamn sword (suibian left the chat)

LIKE truly, we talk abt the angst and yearning with wangxian. but what abt wwx and suibian. xianbian / xianqing angst and comfort 100k

take a shot everytime someone coughs up blood

zidian is simply the coolest spiritual weapon rip to suibian and chenqing and bichen and sendou and baixa........ but tis the truth

cons: everyones families died in a nightmare war! everyones homes burned to the ground! everyone is traumatized! pros: everyone gets cooler clothes and weapons!!

wen ning and a-yuan and yanli bestest babes squad dont touch me rn

everyone: brooding and fighting wq and jyl: why dont you try some acupunture/drinking some soup and calm down huh? how abt that bitch??

showing the battle/massacre at the nightless city first was genius actually bc then everytime we have a cute scene w yunmeng bros and theyre like 'we'll be together forever! uwu' youre like oh. oh no. oh no no no.

justice vs lawfulness vs means and ends 👁

jc: stay in the right path and practice the art of the sword wx: yeah thats not gonna happen chief

my reaction to wwx renouncing to the sect politics to help the wens was just that elmo burning gif in succession

the dramatic rain. wen qing desperately calling out to wen ning. the ghosts/puppets killing the guards. how terrifying wn actually was while wwx was controlling him :( lwj goeing after him to try and stop him and then he just; he Sees him and understands him even if he cant actually do anything about it other than let them go.

“there must be somewhere in this earth we can go to :(((((((((”

"IF I HAVE TO FIGHT THEM, I'D RATHER IT BE YOU. DYING BY YOUR HANDS WOULD AT LEAST BE WORTH IT." oh my god oh my god oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddd

also lwjs umbrella is white w black smoke.. . . nice

yiling patriarch / demonic farming burial mounds settlement is like one of my favorite concepts. they an "EVIL" FARMING COMMUNITY LED BY THE VILLAGE WITCH COME ON

they planted TURNIPS and LOTUS FLOWERS and ONE (1) baby and made lanterns and a common hall :(((((((

wen qing and wei wuxian, baddest bitches and genius science best friends i absolutely LOVED to see it. they rly went ‘is anyone gonna sibling/project partner that’ and didnt wait for an answer

both wwx and jyl getting lotus ponds at the burial mounds and in lanling bc they miss lotus pier ;;;;;;;w

;;;;; wish jyl had actually gone into the burial mounds. we were robbed of jyl and wq meeting again and jyl meeting a-yuan and seeing the settlement and the homes and all ;w; at least jc did go, stab wounds and broken arms and all

wwx like... having thrown his whole life away to help the wens (yeah the sect leaders and jin guangshan in particular wanting his stygian tiger amulet was an Element but still) and not.... necessarily regretting it, but grappling with all of the consequences of it... becoming moody and drepressed at times, missing his family and lotus pier and his friends and probably simply missing being around people and causing trouble, extrovert that he is, lashing out at the wens and at a-yuan, just in general the whole messiness of that experience

the way the resentful energy does affect his temperament is rly nice bc its not too in your face,(i mean outside of the Shaky Hands of Rage) but like he clearly has a much lesser control on his anger and impulsivity (tall order) than both before bm and after hes ressurected

on that note A-YUAN BABIEST BABY BOY BEST BOY

lan zhan being like oh hey there wei ying fancy meeting u and our son here. just passing by u know how it is hmmmmMm and then PLOT TWIST having defied orders to go see him and being punished for it. oof;;

they habent seen each other in like? a year? and now theyre tgt 10 seconds and are already parenting a child together

also lwj rly kneels down in the snow way too much to be healthy

wwx: calm down guyssss i wont lose control of demonic cultivation omgggg . spoiler alert: he loses control of demonic cultivation

did u enjoy cute children? good bc now the Real Pain Begins

jiang yanli and jin zixuan rly out there APROPRIATING both disaster gays AND bury ur gays huh ;w;

i KNEW jin lings birthday was gonna fuck something up but the GASP that left my body when wwx lost control of wn and killed jin zixuan .. . .

im sorry and thank you aaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAaAAAAA

when wen ning and wen qing were telling wwx their plan i was saying NO NO NO NO NO NO out loud in despair

also can we talk abt how wq is definetely talking about only the both of them surrending themselves but then? everyone else just surrenders w them? IT MAKES NO SENSE LIKE WHY WOULD THEY what would be the Point

sometimes there are some pretty gaping jumps in logic and continuity that are just like ? ?

wwx: oh so when you try to murder me its justified but when i survive through dark magic and murder all of you its a "war crime"

unsurprisingly, his most feral, most spiraling moment talking to the sect leaders on the roof and attacking them and even fighting lan zhan is among my favorite scenes... its like, so painful to watch but also so thrilling (and maybe my wen bbs dying arose some resentful energy in me what can i say)

and its JUST, all they ever wanted was to do good but then... war. and trauma. and hubris.

jiang cheng on the ground clearly thorn between what to do and feel is a Mood, lets just say

i was already crying when jyl showed up, but if i wasnt-

i suffered SO MUCH through this series trying to figure out WHY jc would kill wwx. and when i understood. its somehow not as bad as i thought and also MUCH MUCH WORSE

a look into my group chat during the last flashback episodes:

SO ANYWAY. after the BLOOD BATH and RIPPING YOUR HEART OUT and FEEDING IT TO YOU the untamed goes ‘ayy back to the present!! tu du dud ud du’

literally it ends a quarter into an episode and then KEEPS GOING i had to pause and stare blankly at the ceiling for an hour

babie cultivators and detective soulmates . i do need some cute after All of That

(not that the pain is over LOL)

lwj is significantly less emotionally repressed in the present and its delightful. hes just ALL IN with wwx. and not just in the ‘i would and have killed various men and risked my reputation for you’ but also ‘ur tired here have a drink i brought it up cause i know u like it and it want you to be happy, always’

“when everyone praised me and wanted my power, you were the only one that challenged me. now that everyone hates me and wants me dead, youre the only one that stands by my side.” hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

and just filling in the blanks how lan zhan searched for him. for all of those 16 years he searched for him and was punished for it and raised a-yuan, the only survivor of the burial mounds settlement, as his own in gusu......

and jiang cheng. being the tough love uncle . having raised the yunmeng jiang clan from the rubble all alone, his whole family dead, some of it on the blame of his own brother, his siblings, his closest friends gone.......and only jin ling there needing his guidance.

THE PARALLEL BETWEEN JIN LING BEING A LIFELINE FOR JIANG CHENG AND A-YUAN FOR LAN WANGJI AFTER THE BATTLE AT THE NIGHTLESS CITY

great now i made myself sad

and like . the fact! that lwj and jc dislike each other!!. jc projects blame onto him for wwx both “leaving” him and indirectly causing their families deaths and when hes so consumed by it he makes wwx an enemy, lwj is there now? trying to protect him?? and lwj, who can never understand the pain that wwx , indirectly or not put jc through, but who was right there when jc tried to kill him and will never allow him to hurt wwx again. and how they like. in a way project blame of their tragedies onto each other while dealing with some type of survivor guilt and in their own way still loving wwx through it all??? amd in way its kind of fundamentally selfish but also tragically understandable? and like when u put it against the fact that after he disappears during the sunshot campaign they were looking for him together and fought together??

JUST. THE CHARACTERS. AND THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS. MAN. UGH. GOD.

and like i think thats what makes it so good? its such a sad and painful and violent story, edgy even, but its compelling bc at the center of it there are all of these relationships and different types of love and hope and. :( i love it

enough crying lets talk abt wwx sleeping at the jingshi with lwj and wearing his under garment for a minute 🙏

jin ling just has that Was Raised by JC energy tho lmao i love him

babie cultivator squad is the perfect ammount of cute and comedic relief while still bearing the weight? of the narrative in a way, both from sizhui and jin lings existences, and also. like. how do i put this. they feel hopeful? they were born after a war, they came of age at a time of relative peace, they dont hold on so closely to the resentments of their parents/father figures, they are specifically shown as more accepting and open minded. and its like.... Hope for the future

one of the ?? things i love the most is the fact that the main cast are often in situations where theyre hunted/running but they like. never wear disguises... just going around in their gorgeous expensive clan clothes and hair ornaments and distinctive spiritual weapons.... maybe w a straw hat on, just for kicks

wwx teacher 🥺🥺🥺

so this is why its called Yi City Misery huh

a-qing is such. an icon. im so sad. my girl even knew to leave xys dumb self rotting by the road but no one listens to her thats why theyre all dead or sad

her and xue yang measuring each other up was so entertaining lmao

its the funniest thing when hes like. HERES MY SAD STORY. FOR WHY IM A SADISTIC MURDERER. I BROKE MY HAND ONCE.

like ok someone broke his hand in a horrible way, and like Poverty, i get it but also like.......... that lost the brunt of a proper sob story like, 50 sadistic murders ago bby

and i love that xingchen does not entertain that for a second hes like ‘not ?????? good enough???’ and the best thing is he wasnt even like 'u hadto be the bigger person' or sth but ' well then break that dudes hand back, rip his arm off for i care, what do the rest of us have to do w anything???”

anjo sensato :(

xue yang is like..... the sexy sadistic evil version of a himbo..... a meanbo...

the fucked upness of xy’s feelings for xxc/ xxc and sl feelings for each other... like my dude literally gave his bf HIS EYES. and xy getting so attached to xxc .... the fucked up fake domesticity.... having him hurt sl..... then desperately trying to bring him back ...................... oof

song lan........... literally had his eyes AND tongue removed, his bfs eyes put in place, was almost killed, turned into a puppet by his bf unknowingly, manipulated by xy, sees his bf killing himself in despair.... and STILL finds the strenght to get up from there, and keep on traveling and helping people and attempting to fix xxcs soul.......... like, my man. damn.

wangxian looking at songxiao and seeing an Actually more painful parallel for themselves. ft. that Color Coding.

THE A-YUAN/SIZHUI REVEAL PUNCHED ME IN THE HEART but in a good way for a change

should have know that he would be the Best Boy the cute one w all the braincells

the butterfly AND the bunny lantern. i see how it is

u know is very convenient that no one can see the stark black veins on wen nings neck, ever

BAT WEN NING

wns face when lwj comes into wwx room like ‘:0 omg did u two finally get your shit together? good for you master wei good for u’

(they didnt) (yet)

DISASTER DRUNK LWJ. JUST. THRUST SOME CHICKENS TO SHOW UR RESSURECTED BAE THAT U LOVE THEM.

i have absolutely no idea WHY they gave lwj the same punishment for fighting his own sect/allies to protect the burial mounds as when they got drunk on cloud recess class days.... like? its such a ... emotional continuity error again

also is lwj gonna get an actual friend besides wwx , ever

mianmian marrying and having a family and a cute life after saying FUCK U AND UR SYSTEM TOO in a much less unhinged and dramatic way than wwx......... fills me w joy

also lol the idea that like. her husband not knowing that shes friends w satan/the boogey man/the village witch is hilarious

i love nie mingjue bc hes the resident Though Guy but also the most dramatic bitch in this show and thats Saying Something

jin ling cant have one uneventful relative can he

the fact that everyone present already knew “mo xuanyu” was wwx at the stairs is so funny, their faces are like ‘oh............ wow. that. sure is a development. shock”

in the tradition of extremely loud whispers wwx tells lwj with twelve guards standing like one meter away from them: HEY PSH LAN ZHAN PRETEND IM FORCING YOU TO STAY W ME DO IT

oh my god oh my god

the absolute Yearning on his face when he leaves wwx and a-yuan at the burial mounds and refuses to stay for dinner was already Enough but the fact?? they brought it back?? to this declaration of love?? their expressions??????? strike me dead right now just go ahead

lFor Legal Reasons We Cant Kiss but we will have a very sappy declaration of love and trust and look at each other in way that is the actualization of 💞💘💗💖💓💘💞💗💖💘💗💖💕💞

also icb all the sect leaders and guards are standing there watching them say they like like each other with a dozen swords pointing at their neck

i enjoyed the depiction of the fickle public perception and how easily it can be used to scapegoat people. when the sect leaders turn on jgy and wwx knows thats its more for convenience than anything else...

poor lxc is literally like 'oh so when YOUR problematic boyfriend gets called evil its a misunderstanding but when its MY problematic bf-'

ok like i cant get over nmj let jgy play a song that messed with his temperament at all, like maN u KNEW he might be shady wth

wwx: “hey dont say anything bad abt lan zhan hes not an arrogant dick, thats just his face.

ME ON THE OTHER HAND"

the cultivators as wwx is poking holes in their narrative is literally *nazaré meme*

"wei wuxian-!" "what did i break your leg, too?" not to be problematic but i laughed so hard

not as hard as "you dont have the rank to talk to me " tho

i Enjoy that, over the course of story, wwx sees that... theres nothing truly to Do, but move on. he saw how his arrogance and his mistakes hurt others, and hes trying to fix what he can, but he already did die for his mistakes and there are things he cant fix and that's. just how it is. even towards jgy, the narrative doesn't go gleefully and completely with "lets make THEM pay bc theyre the big bad" bc its not that simple, and it wouldn't lead anywhere but more pain...

re him and jiang cheng and the wens and kinda. isnt that what nhs did? scheming to displace jgy out of revenge more than any justice and doing so in the most painful way?

idk if that actually makes sense im truly just babbling

i thought the scene at the lotus pond would be CUTE but the context was PAIN again

jiang cheng finding out about his golden core and his conflict with wwx at the guanyin temple .... destroyed me but in a nice way kinda.... same way it destroys him look at his face oh god

and. the fact??? he sacrificed himself for wwx?? first?? and he'll probably never tell anyone much less wwx???? keeps me up at night

i havent decided if the neckbreak transition between jgy does sth super Evil or does he he does OR Does He yes he does O R does heeeee is sth i dislike or not

jin guangyao and wei wuxians most interesting parallel is that... theyve both seen 'hmm hey this system is fucked up' and wwx went 'so fuck it all i will renounce it and challenge it' and jgy went 'so fuck it i will use all of it to my advantage and manipulate it to my goals and whims'

the fact jgys mom was actually great and he loved her and his whole issue w it was more than simply being ashamed of being a bastard kinda got me ngl

never trust a dude with a fan.

nhs and jgy: the first rule to a convoluted and decades spanning violent revenge plot is to have fun and be yourself!

when a-yuan finally FINALLY remembers ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;-;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; wen ning has someone in his family back and a-yuan has someone to talk abt his wen family and wwx has him back bc he survived and lwj raised him anD HES THEIR SON. THEYRE MARRIED AND HAVE A SON. UGH.

and theyre allowed to heal. everyone is allowed to try and recover and be happy

netflix put all of the 3 endings on top of each other and it looks kinda weird actually BUT I DONT EVEN MIND :’’’’’’’’’)

the gasp that left me when lwj says ‘wei ying’ and wwx turns.........

there was also a screen with ‘thank you mxtx for creating these characters, we hope their wishes come true’ and i might. have cried then too. maybe.

that was . a ride. as is proven by this behemot of a ramble clearly i just really needed and Outlet. i am currently trying to convince dumb monkey brain to not consume the other medias of mdzs immediately bc i REALLY need to like. live. a life. and take care of real responsibilities. *longest oh boi ever*

#m.#ANYWAY #ENOUGH TALKING #THIS IS SO LONG #LOL #but whatever this is MY performative journaling i do what i want #rambling impressions abt what i watch is a thing i do now? apparently??#cql #untamed #the untamed #fun fact that chat is named 'k keeps on babbling abt the untamed' and it STILL wasnt enough #also it took me 15 episodes to realize lwj was yibo #IT WAS V SHOCKING #i did not recognize him at a l l #but in retrospect he WAS the perfect choice

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lesserfandomappreciation · 3 years

Text

Ariadne and why the Mycenaeans can fuck right off

Warning: Includes brief mentions of r*pe, cultural destruction, ancient patriarchy reminding us why no woman would ever time-travel more than 5 years into the past if that and a great deal of spite for male historians/public education history/mythology classes.

Possible side effects may include a sudden intense rage for an ancient society equivalent to the innate rage one has for the Romans burning the library of Alexandria, a distinct hatred for ancient men not being able to let anyone have nice things, and a sudden fascination for Minoa.

Usually, I stick to writing imagines and being happy with that. It’s fun! I love it! But every now and again, in an attempt to escape the crushing forces known as reality and responsibilities I’ll put on a few cutscenes from games I’m: A) Too lazy to play B) Too broke to play C) Too unskilled to play D) All of the above

because cutscenes are free and why torture yourself with impossible levels when its free on Youtube?* *In all seriousness please support video games and video game creators, but no shame to those of us who prefer cutscenes to gameplay. A few weeks ago I added the game Hades made by Supergiant to the list because the cutscenes were bomb and the characters are so much fun! Intricate as all hell! Hella cute too but that’s unrelated! Now my pretty little simp patootie is especially a big fan of Dionysus and his gorgeous design so the cutscenes with him are my favorite.

I’m re-watching his cutscenes a few nights ago for fun as background when he has a certain line about Theseus. Don’t quote me on this since my memory is foggy at best but roughly it was: Dionysus: Good job with Theseus. Never cared much for him- what he did to that girl was just horrible.*

*I know that’s not his exact line but this is clearly a rant post fueled by spite and ADD-hyper-focused obsessions with ancient civilizations so let’s not worry too too much about the semantics here.

Now, I like mythology! Personally, I prefer the Norse mythology due to the general lack of very very gross dynamics that several other ancient mythologies seem to include, but I’m decently familiar with Greek mythos. Enough to go - “Why does the God of Wine give a single fuck about the frat bro of Greek heroes being a dick to a woman? Grossness is embedded into the very DNA of all distant relatives of Zeus, a woman being harassed by Zeus or his bastard army is a typical Tuesday in ancient Greece.”

Wikipedia confirms that Ariadne is the only woman in the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, which I kinda knew already so unless Theseus did some f’ed up shit to some other princess of Minos, Dionysus could only be referring to her. Disregarding what I know about Wikipedia and how it can suck you down the rabbit hole of rabbit holes through sheer fury I stupidly clicked the link to Ariadne’s article.

By the time we get to the end of this shitstorm, I will have two separate plotlines for two separate stories based of Ariadne, 2k+ notes (and going) on an ancient civilization prior to a week ago I didn’t know existed and within me there will be a rage towards a different ancient civilization I vaguely recall learning about in high school.

Here’s how this shit went down.

First of all, apparently after Theseus abandoned Ariadne on an island to die (yep! He did that! To the one person who is the only reason he defeated the minotaur! Fuck this guy.) there are multiple storylines where Dionysus takes a single look at Ariadne and falls in love.

“A god falls in love?” you say, aware of how most love stories in Greek mythos can be summed up with Unfortunately, Zeus got horny and Hera is a firm believer in victim blaming. “This poor woman is about to go through hell!” I thought so too! And in one variation of the story, Dionysus does his daddy proud by being an absolute tool to Ariadne. In the majority though? He woos the fuck out of her, and ultimately marries her by consent!

Her consent!

In ancient Greece!

The party dude of the Greek pantheon knows more about consent then his father and modern day frat brothers!

Okay! That’s interesting, so I keep reading.

Ariadne getting hitched to Dionysus is a big deal in Olympus, to the point of getting a crown made of the Aurora Borealis from Aphrodite who is bro-fisting Dionysus, beyond glad she didn’t have to give him the talk about consent. The rest of the gods are pissy especially Hera who doesn’t like Dionysus much since he is the son of Zeus and Semele but they don’t do much. Ariadne ascends to godhood, becomes the goddess of Labyrinths with the snake and bull as her symbol and that’s that on that.

Colorin, colorado, este cuento se acabado. And they lived happily ever after. That’s the end of the post right?

NO! Because curiosity has made me their bitch and there’s more to this calling me.

Also, I was pissed! Still am! Why the fuck-a-doodle-do did I have to learn about the time Poseidon r*ped a priestess instead of the arguably healthiest relationship in the entirety of the pantheon? Why is Persephone and Hades’ story (which has improved since it was first written and I like more modern versions of it, no hate) the only healthy-ish Greek love story I had to learn when Dionysus and Ariadne were right there? The rage of having endured several grade levels of “Zeus got horny and Hera found out” stories in the nightmare of public education led me to keep looking into this.

There’s this wonderful Youtube channel called Overly Sarcastic Productions that I highly recommend that delves a lot into mythology, and I have seen their bombass video about Dionysus and how his godhood has changed since he was potentially first written in a language we comprehend.

Did ya’ll know this man is the heir apparent to Zeus? ‘Cause I didn’t know that!

YEA! Dionysus, man of parties, king of hangovers and inducer of madness, is set to inherit the throne of Olympus! Ariadne didn’t husband up the God of Wine, she husbanded up the Prince of Olympus and heir apparent to the throne! Holy shit! No wonder some of the gods were against her marriage to Dionysus - can you imagine the drama of an ex-mortal woman sitting on the Queen’s throne of Olympus? Hera must have been pissed.

BUT WAIT.

There’s more.

The reason we know Dionysus is a very important god and is possibly even more important than we think is because of a handy-dandy language known as Linear B, otherwise known as the language of the Mycenaeans!

For those of you fortunate enough to have normal hobbies and interests, the Mycenaeans were the beta version of the Greeks. Their written language of Linear B is one of, if not the first recorded instance of a written Indo-European language. This language, having been translated, gives us an interesting look at what the Greek gods were like back in their beta-stages before they fixed the coding and released the pantheon.

Interesting side facts of the Mycenaean Greek gods include:

Poseidon being the head god with an emphasis on his Earthquake aspect, and being much more of a cthonic god in general.

Take that Zeus, for being so gross.

The gods in general being more cthonic, as Mycenaeans were obsessed with cthonic gods (probably due to all the earthquakes and natural disasters in Greece and Crete at that time)

Several of the gods and goddesses that we know being listed, alongside some that we don’t consider as important (Dione)

The first mention of Kore, later Persephone, but no Hades because since a lot of gods were cthonic, there would be no need for one, specific cthonic god to represent the majority of death-related rituals.

That’s not what we’re focusing on though! What we’re focusing on is a specific translated portion of Linear B that we have. One of the translated portions of Linear B that for the life of me I can’t find (someone please help me find it and send the link so I can edit this post) says an interesting phrase. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

One more time. “Honey to the gods. Honey to the Mistress of Labyrinths.”

Mistress of Labyrinths.

Now wait a gosh darn minute. Isn’t there a goddess of labyrinths in the Greek mythos? Why yes! Yes there is! Ariadne!

Here’s a question for you. If Ariadne is but a minor god in the pantheon, a wife to a more predominant god, why is it that while all the other gods and goddesses are bunched together in a sentence of praise, the so-called ex-mortal gets a whole-ass sentence to herself singing praises?

And thus, we have arrived to Minoa!

What is Minoa, you ask? Minoa is to Rome what Rome is to us. An old-ass civilization either older than or younger by a hundred years to ancient Egypt. Egypt, that started in 3200 B.C-ish depending on who you ask. That’s old. Old as balls. They were contemporaries to their trading partner, Egypt until 1450 BC-ish. A 2000 year old civilization.

Minoa was founded on the island of Crete, and was by what artifacts we have found a merchant civilization with its central economy centered on the cultivation of saffron and the development of bronze/iron statues of bulls. Most of what we know about them comes from artifacts and frescoes found on Crete that managed to survive everything else I will mention later, but what matters is that we know a few things about them.

Obsessed with marine life for some time, given their pottery.

Had the first palaces in all of Europe, some of them ridiculously big.

Wrote in Linear A and Cretan Hieroglyphs, both still untranslated languages.

Had a ritual involving jumping over a bull, for some reason.

Firm believers in “Suns out, Tits out.”

You’d think I’m kidding on the last one but no! No no no! All the women apparently rocked the tits-out look in Minoa!

^^^^One of many, many Minoan works featuring women giving their titties fresh air. ^^^^

“Wait a second Pinks! What does this have to do with Ariadne being the Mistress of labyrinths?”

Well you see dear wonderful darling, while we know very little about Minoan religion because Mycenaeans (we will get to those bastards in a second), we do know this:

All the religious figures appear to be exclusively women.

The most important figures of their religion seem to be goddesses as there are few artifacts featuring male gods.

Because of the religion, the culture may have been an equal society or even a matriarchy! Historians who are male aren’t sure.

A frankly ridiculous amount of their temples, including the ones in caves in the middle of fuck-all feature labyrinths. A lot of labyrinths!

Their head god is a goddess! Whose temples have labyrinths and whose main symbols are snakes and bulls. Who do we know is a) the mistress of labyrinths and b) is symbolized a lot by snakes and bulls?

ARI-fucking-ADNE THAT’S WHO!

Ariadne didn’t upgrade by marrying the prince of Olympus! Dionysus wifed up possibly the most important goddess in all of Crete and becoming her boy-toy!

I’m not even kidding, most Minoan depictions of the goddess’ consort features a boy/man who cycles through the stages of death. Dionysus himself in several myths goes through the same cycle - life, being crushed, death, rebirth, repeat. Cycles the consort goes through in Minoan legend depictions too!

Okay, that’s great, but what does that have to do with the Mycenaeans? Why do you want to single-handedly go back in time and strangle the beta-Greeks with the nearest belt?

Everything I just said about Ariadne being a Minoan goddess, the Mistress of Labyrinths being hella important on Minoa, is all theoretical. The Mycenaeans are partially to blame for making it theoretical.

Minoa thrived for 2000 years but it had a lot of issues, mostly caused by natural disasters. Towards the end of their civilization (1500 BC-ish), the nearby island of Thera, today known as Santorini, decided to blow up. The island was a hella-active volcano that when erupted, destroyed a lot.

How big was the eruption? Well when Pompeii was wasted by Mt. Vesuvius, the blast was heard from roughly 120 miles away, 200 km.

The blast on Thera was heard from 3000 miles away. 4800 km away.

Fuck me, the environmental effects of the explosion were felt in imperialistic CHINA.

Holy shit that would waste anybody! And it did! Minoa went from being a powerhouse in the Mediterranean to scrambling to recover from losing 40,000 citizens and who knows how many cities. Tsunamis may have followed the blast, further destroying ports which for a navy-powerhouse of an island nation is a bad thing and the theorized temperature drops caused by a cloud of ash lingering for a while would have destroyed crops for the year.

Minoa was fucked.

The Mycenaeans and all their bullshit made it worse.

Up until a few hundred years prior to Thera’s explosion, Minoan artifacts don’t depict much in terms of military power. Why would it? Crete is a natural defense post. Sheer cliffs, high mountains and a few semi-fortified areas would make it pointless to invade. It’s only when the Mycenaeans in all their bullshit decided to attack/compete that Minoa really needed any army to speak of.

Guess who decided to invade while Minoa was reeling from an incredibly shitty year? Mycenaea!

Guess who won?

Also Mycenaea!

Nobody knows how this shit went down though because wouldn’t you know it, the Mycenaeans in all their superiority-complex glory decided to destroy most written accounts about Minoa, a good junk of the temples and culturally eliminated most of Minoan beliefs.

Minoa isn’t even the real name of the civilization! It’s just the name Arthur Evans, the guy who re-motivate interest in Minoan archaeology, gave to the civilization because the writings that would have included the name of the civilization were destroyed.

“That sucks!” Fuck yes that sucks! “What does that have to do with Ariadne though?”

Oh ho ho. Strap in because you’re about to be pissed.

Those of us unfortunate enough to be aware of all the bullshit the Christians pulled on the European pagan belief system are familiar with the concept of cultural, religious destruction. There’s a special name for it I don’t know but if I did I would curse it to be absorbed by the horrendous will of fungi.

An example: Christianity was not the most popular of religions amongst the Vikings. A monotheistic religion that is heavily controlled did not strongly appeal to anyone with a pantheon as rad as the Norse one.

In order to appeal to the Vikings, what monks would do is they would write down traditionally Viking stories which up until that point were orally passed down. Beowulf, the story of the most Viking Viking to have every Vikinged, was one of these first stories.

However! Did these monks write Beowulf as closely to the original oral transcript as possible? Of course not! They took liberties! While Norse features such as trolls and dragons and all sorts of Norse magic occur, there is a lot of Christian features added in.

This happened across all Pagan religions that Christianity came into contact with in Europe. Stories would be altered when written down to be more Christian (this happened to the Greek Pantheon too btw), holidays that were Pagan magically lined up with ones the Vatican just happened to suddenly have. Even names of mythological figures were taken and added onto Christian figure names. Consequently, a lot of pagan religions they did this to got erased over time, with many of their traditions and details being lost forever, and the details we do know being tinted by Christianity.

The Mycenaeans were likely no different.

Minoa and Mycenaea were as culturally opposite as can be. Minoa is theorized to be a matriarchal or equal society*. Mycenaea and most of early Greece absolutely was not. In fact, during early stages of their religion where they believed in reincarnation, the Mycenaeans believed the worst thing to come back as was a woman.

Did you get that? With your options ranging from man to ever single animal on Earth, a woman was ranked as beneath literal animals in Mycenaean society.

Fuck the Mycenaeans.

* This is not to say Minoa was without fault, as a society that is matriarchal or equal can still have rampant issues such as privilege, classism, racism, sexism and more, but when history has a shortage of civilizations that didn’t treat women like shit, you find yourself rooting for them more.

What do you do then, when you take over a society that is very much the opposite of a nightmare of a patriarchy? You fold their beliefs into your own to bait them into yours. Going back to the Linear B line about “Mistress of Labyrinths” that line would/could have been an early tactic of incorporating Minoan belief into Mycenaean belief. Other goddesses and gods were made into aspects of Mycenaean gods. Bristomartis, the Minoan goddess of the hunt, would become Artmeis. Velchanos, a god of the sky, would become Zeus.

With more time, the religion shifted more into Mycenaean and eventually into ancient Greece as we know it. Through trade other gods and goddesses would continue to shift and change, some being straight up imported (Aphrodite for example). Dionysus himself changed a lot too, going from a God representing freedom and attracting slaves, women and those with limited power into his cult, to a God of parties for the wealthy.

Theseus and the Minotaur was a myth likely based on a Mycenaean myth based on a Minoan myth that changes Ariadne from an important, possibly the important goddess of an ancient religion and relegates her to a side character in a pantheon so vast that she would be lost within it.

All of this brings us to today. Today, where as soon as work ended I spent most of the day, as well as the past two days, looking up everything I can on Minoan civilization and added it to my notes. Spite is fueling me to write two possible different stories for two different fandoms where Minoa dunks of Mycenaea and it is giving me life. Expect an update within the next two weeks folks as I lose control of my writing life once more.

In summary: Ariadne deserves more respect, fuck the public education system for skipping over the good parts of Greek mythology instead of the r*pey as shit parts, the Mycenaeans can eat my shorts, and a world were Minoa became the predominant power instead of Greece would be an amazing world to live in.

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk. Pink out.

#minoa #minoan #crete #ancient history #ariadne #mycenaea #mycenaean #I hate #HATE #HATE HATE HATE the Greeks so much #homer is a dick #So much spite and curiosity went into this #if I ever get a time machine I will travel to the first years of Mycenaea for the express purpose of burning it to the ground before #they get a chance #the opportunity #to look at Minoa wrong

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