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musings-of-a-rose · 7 months

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Falling Slowly - Chapter 7

Pairing: Tommy Miller x f!reader

Word Count: 4000+

Rating: Mature - 18+ ONLY!

Warnings: Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.

Notes: This chapter is back to reader/Daisy’s pov

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❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

**Divider made by @benkeibear

**Reader is not described

Main Masterlist

Falling Slowly Masterlist

Tommy Miller Masterlist

<<;Chapter 6<<

Outbreak Day: Daisy

I snuggled into bed after tucking Jax in, fully intending on reading my book until Tommy came home. It shouldn’t be too much longer, depending on how well the Rivieras can hold their liquor. But after a couple of chapters, I was actively fighting on keeping my eyes open, a day of packing and chasing Jax around finally catching up to me. I set the book on my stomach, closing my eyes to just rest a moment…

A blood curdling scream from outside rips me from my sleep and I jerk myself awake, heart racing and frozen in place while I try to listen for more, my hand automatically feeling for Tommy in the bed next to me, but feeling cool sheets and no Tommy. In the distance, I can hear some light commotion but I can’t quite place it. I quickly get out of bed, grab the wireless phone off its stand on the side table and pop my head into Jax’s room, finding him still asleep. I dial Tommy quickly, but when I put the phone to my ear, all I hear is beeping. I hang up, putting the phone to my ear before dialing this time and hear the same sound. Which means the phones are down.

Fuck.

I head downstairs quietly, ears on full alert for the slightest sound or movement as I grab my cell phone and unplug the charger. It’s fully charged but it too has no signal. This is not good. Landlines and cell signals cut?

I move to the living room and switch on the tv, colored lines reflecting in my eyes as channel after channel alternates between colored lines and displaying the same emergency message:

NATIONAL ALERT

PRIMARY ENTRY POINT SYSTEM

ISSUED AN

EMERGENCY ACTION

NOTIFICATION

“...indoors. Law enforcement and emergency services are in the area and will be in contact with further instructions….Stay indoors. Law enforcement-”

I switch off the tv, fully awake and alert now. What the fuck was going on? Are we being invaded? And where’s Tommy?

I hear more sounds outside, car doors slamming and helicopters moving about in the distance and it jerks me into gear. Tommy had taught me some basic things to do in case we had to get out fast, in case of an invasion or something else. I don’t know all of what he saw when he served overseas but he said it was good to always be prepared, just in case.

Thankfully, our bags were already packed, suitcases and backpacks against the hall wall waiting to be put into Tommy’s truck. I dashed into the kitchen and packed a bit more food than I had initially intended, tossing some extra filled water bottles into a tote and setting it down by the backpacks. I quickly went upstairs and changed into jeans and a shirt, grabbing one of Tommy’s flannels and sliding my arms into it, trying to at least get some comfort from his scent. Hair pulled back to keep it from my face, I lace up my shoes, trying to tell myself this would all be for nothing, that it was really a test and Tommy would be coming home any moment to tell me everything was fine. Another quick glance at Jax shows me he’s still asleep and I let him sleep for now. There’s not really a reason to wake him until I’m certain we have to move. I toss an extra outfit of jeans and a shirt in his backpack just in case he can’t change before we head out, an extra pair of shoes stuffed in a bag on top of his clothes.

It’s when I head downstairs to wait for Tommy that I hear it again, that scream that sets my entire body on high alert, nerves coursing at their full fight or flight.

I move to the front window and slide the curtain back just enough to peek outside, hearing crashing coming from next door. I can’t quite make it out, but it looks like Mr. Johnson is attacking Mrs. Johnson? No, that can’t be right. But then they move into the streetlight, Mrs. Johnson’s scream ringing out again and that’s definitely the one I heard and Mr. Johnson is definitely not behaving right.

Without thinking, I grab the baseball bat near the door and open it, stepping out into the yard and quickly sneak up on the couple, Mr. Johnson having pinned Mrs. Johnson to the ground. He’s hunched over her, an odd wheezing sound coming from him. He seems to sense me, his body stiffening and when his head turns towards me…what the fuck is that coming from his mouth? Before he can move I swing, my bat landing its target square in the face, Mr. Johnson flying back and laying still on the ground. Carefully, I walk over to them, glancing over at Mr. Johnson who’s face was definitely smashed in from my swing. Fuck, I didn’t mean to kill him!

But then I hear gurgling from Mrs. Johnson and I look down at her, seeing the exact moment when the light leaves her eyes. She’s still for a moment, the sounds of car tires screeching and helicopters flying overhead getting a little louder. Then her body jerks inhumanely, and I back up quickly, gripping the bat tighter in my hand. As she sits up, she turns her head to me and I can see the same whatever the fuck coming out of her mouth just like Mr. Johnson and my entire body yells “JAX! GET JAX AND GO!”

So I do. I turn and run as fast as I can back to my house, hearing screeching and feet pounding the cement behind me, Mrs. Johnson chasing me back to the house. I try to slam the door closed but she’s there, bouncing off of it, scrambling to push it open and I don’t wait, running down the hall and throwing everything I can reach in her way, even chucking the bat at her head. It seems to slow her down just enough for me to take the stairs 3 at a time, launching myself into Jax’s room and slamming the door shut and locking it, putting my back against the door as Mrs. Johnson screeches and pounds at the door from the other side. Jax is sitting up in bed, wide eyed and afraid and it kills me I can’t move to him, to comfort him and shield him from whatever horror is happening.

“Hey buddy!” I’m struggling with the door but I have to get him safe.

“Mommy?”

“Listen, Jax. I need you to play a game for me, ok? I need you to get in your favorite hiding spot.”

“Mommy, who’s knocking on the door?”

I dig my heels into the floor, pushing my back harder against the door as Mrs. Johnson continues to pound into it.

“Don’t worry about that, little man. I need you to hide. Can you do that for me? Be silent and wait for me, daddy, or Uncle Joel to come get you. If you do, you win.”

He’s still scared but can sense my urgency and nods while hopping out of bed. “Ok, mommy. Hug first?”

Tears fall down my cheeks and I hope he can’t see them. “Not right now, bud. I really need you to hide and not come out for anything other than daddy or Uncle Joel. Can you do that now, please?”

He studies me for a moment before nodding. “Ok mommy.” He moves to his closet, getting inside and closing the door behind him. I hear him rummaging around, going deep into his favorite hiding place and I pray to whatever is listening that he will stay there, stay safe. Even if….even if I don’t come back.

“Ready bud?” A quiet, muffled “Yes” meets my ears and I choke back a sob. “Ok baby, remember to stay silent, ok? No matter what. Until Daddy or Uncle Joel comes for you. And remember…. I love you bud.”

“I love you too, mommy.”

The sob gets stuck in my throat as Mrs. Johnson heaves herself against the wood of the door. I take a deep breath and open the door, letting Mrs. Johnson clamber into the room, falling onto the floor with the force of her movements. While she’s trying to get up, I grab Jax’s Rangers bat from where it hangs on the wall, my eyes never leaving Mrs. Johnson as she growls and launches herself at me. I push her back with the bat but damn she’s strong, what I can only describe as tendrils coming from her open mouth as if they’re trying to reach out to me. I push her back and she stumbles, hitting the floor and I turn, running out of the door and making a lot of noise as I do. She follows me without hesitation, falling down the stairs but clambering up more quickly than someone her age should do. She chases me around the kitchen island and I pull out all the drawers, knocking everything off the counter onto the floor or at her as she runs after me, growling and screeching. I manage to make it past her and back out the front door, quickly glancing around before running to the backyard of our other neighbor’s house.

Mrs. Johnson bounces back up, running full out after me as I run through 2, 3, 4, 5 backyards, eventually spilling back out onto the street, other people now outside throwing things into cars. New screeches join the one coming from behind me and I run the opposite way down the street, making sure to stay out of the streetlights. I get behind a car and squat down, turning to look where I came from. Mrs. Johnson had chased me for another block down this street, but then a man emerged from the house across that street and she changed course, lunging after him as he screamed, sounds of a scuffle coming from inside his house.

I take a moment, my chest heaving, trying to catch my breath before glancing around. I’m about 3 blocks from our house and I have a choice to make: I can either take the streets, which will be brighter to see by but definitely have a higher chance of running into those…things. Or I can take the backyards, infinitely darker but less likely to run into whatever they are. I hope.

I decide on the latter, taking a couple of deep breaths before glancing around. Seeing no one paying me any mind, I run, back through a few backyards before reaching the end of my street. I turn to duck into the backyard but a movement catches my eye and I’m able to quickly turn as a man falls past me, growling, outstretched hands just barely missing me. I run again, in the opposite direction of my house, trying to keep him away from Jax at least, the man chasing me as I run down the street. The cramp in my side is making me slow, reverberating pain shooting out into the rest of my ribs and I know I can’t keep this up. I spot a semi-truck without its trailer and I head for it, getting a running leap and praying I make it. I manage to get high enough up on the front to pull myself up quickly, but then a hand shoots out and grabs my ankle. I quickly kick out, knocking the man in the face and he goes down, pulling me with him. My back hits the pavement and the air whooshes from my lungs, momentarily stunning me. My vision swims but then he’s on me, his face leaning towards mine, tendrils reaching for me and I put my arms out, and push against him, gluing my mouth shut as he pushes closer to me. Then my hands land on a rock and I grip it, slamming it into the side of his head. He slides off me sideways and I raise the rock again, sitting up and slamming it into his head over and over until he stops moving.

Fuck I hope this doesn’t infect via blood. I really, really hope it doesn’t.

I don’t have time to think about it, my sole focus on getting back to Jax and getting him safe. Even if that means I have to…get rid of myself.

I stand up, glancing around and figuring out where I am, silently moving back towards my house through the backyards, listening closely for any sounds of movement. Thank God I run into no one else, moving around the front of my house and heading inside. I really made a mess in here but hopefully that deters anyone else from coming in. Not that those things really care. I go upstairs and see Jax’s door still open from when Mrs. Johnson chased me out, what feels like days ago. But then I see Jax’s closet door cracked open and it definitely wasn’t open when I left.

“Jax? Jax, it’s Mommy

. Are you still there?” I open the door, holding my breath, tears silently flowing down my cheeks and burning my eyes, praying that I don’t find him here, hurt. But then…he’s not here. I look around the rest of his room. No Jax.

“Jax?” I yell out of his bedroom door, my voice echoing around the upstairs. Nothing. No noise, no movement. I check every room to be sure but find nothing. I’m freaking out, no idea if Tommy or Joel came back and got him or…or.

I can’t think about the or.

I stand in my destroyed kitchen, debating on what to do next, when my eyes land on the table, my backpack on it. Which is definitely not where I left it. I quickly walk over to it, shifting it slightly and that’s when I notice the piece of paper on it with his handwriting.

Tommy’s.

Hey Darlin’,

We’ve got Jax and Sarah. We’re heading to the cabin. We’ll meet you there.

Please be safe. I love you.

Tommy

I clutch the paper and hold it to my chest for several moments, allowing the tears to freely flow as I hold on to the hope that this letter brought me. He’s safe. Jax is safe with his dad. Joel and Sarah too. I wonder if they found Rose….

Snapping my eyes open, I shake my head to clear it of my emotions, carefully folding the note and sliding it into my pocket. I quickly run upstairs and pop into Jax’s room, quickly grabbing his favorite stuffed bunny from his bed where he laid unpacked and forgotten in the hustle to get to safety.

I toss the luggage into my trunk, grabbing my backpack last and tossing it into the passenger seat. I take one last quick glance around, grabbing some photos from the fridge before I manually open the garage door, hopping into the driver’s seat and locking the door and my clicking my seatbelt into place. At the end of my driveway I look back to my house, our house, and allow 1 tear to shed down my cheek as I pull away from the only house that had truly been my home.

I had to re-route myself several times trying to get to the back highway that would eventually lead to the cabin we’d purchased a year or so ago. It seems like a lifetime away with all that’s happened in the last few hours. I stop for no one, my only goal to make it to the cabin to my family. Then we can go from there.

Miraculously, I make it to the nearly hidden drive without a hitch, grateful Tommy had taken us on several back roads so I was more familiar with alternate routes. I hadn’t seen another car or person in at least 2 hours, but that was normal. Most people had closed up their cabins for season after Labor Day, and no one really went down this road aside from random homesteaders or a handful of farmers. I wonder if they’re ok.

I nearly miss the turnoff, stopping quickly and backing up a little to turn between the brush, branches, and twigs snapping at my car. I make the final curve and the cabin pops into view, looking exactly like it had when we left it last.

No lights. No truck.

No Tommy.

I turn off the car, staring at the cabin for several minutes, but nothing happens. No one is here. Or at least, no one noticed I am here. Or made a move about it. Well, there was only one thing to do. I took a deep breath and got out, moving around towards the trunk and getting out the crowbar stashed by the spare tire. I grip it and head towards the cabin, eyes scanning everything to sense movement. I quietly try to turn the handle on the front door, but it remains locked. Sliding the key from my pocket, hands shaking I push it into the lock, hearing the little click it makes as it opens the door. I push it open and stand back, just in case. But the house is still and silent as I poke my head around the corner. I move throughout the cabin, checking all of the rooms. No one is here and, by the looks of it, no one has been here since we were here last. He’s supposed to be here, with Jax, with Joel and Sarah and maybe Rose. Where are they?

The cabin is quiet, eerily silent and I try not to let panic envelop me. They could have had to reroute like me. Maybe they ran out of gas and have to go on foot? I didn’t pass anyone but they could be behind me. Or hiding from the main road. Because regular people were behaving almost worse than those things.

I jump into action, quickly unloading my car into the cabin and parking it in the garage. I take the outside broom, and the shotgun Tommy had kept here, and walk down to the end of the nearly hidden drive, sweeping the tire tracks from the drive. This will help to keep this place hidden, and it’s far enough away from the road that even if all the lights were on and it was dark outside, no one could see us tucked away in the trees. A couple hours later my tracks are hidden and I’ve checked the power grid how Tommy showed me, grateful as fuck to the Joneses for wanting a fully off the grid place and having most of that installed before they sold it to us for practically nothing. I leave the fancy electric metal window coverings on the windows, changing nothing of the cabin’s outward appearance. People were nuts and, as of this moment, I am a woman, completely alone in the middle of nowhere.

Alone.

Everything locked up and lights dimly on, I quickly take a shower and again, thank the Joneses mentally for the solar power they hooked up so I could take this shower and have some light. After, I unpacked our suitcases, hesitating over Jax’s clothes. He usually sleeps in the 3rd bedroom with Sarah. She was officially going to let him have the top bunk this weekend and he was so excited. I start to cry then, pulling out all of his tiny clothes and, instead, folding them and setting them on shelves in our closet. I can always move them into the spare room if he wants it. It’s when I reach Tommy’s suitcase, opening it and getting a whiff of his cologne, his scent permeating my brain that I lose it, officially. Grabbing a shirt of Jax’s and Tommy’s, I lay on the floor and cry, huge heaving sobs until I fall asleep there, clutching each of their shirts to my chest.

They don’t turn up the next day. Or the next. I try to keep myself busy so I pull out all of the bed sheets, fluff them out and put them on the beds. I dust, cleaning everything that was already clean. I take out all of the food I’d brought with me, along with some sustainable things we already had there and take stock. I do the same with the medicine cabinet and first aid kits. Hell, I even dig out the sewing kit and fix the tiny tear on the side of the couch. But by the end of that first week, I could no longer find anything to do inside, my nerves leaving me jumpy at every gust of the wind.

So I go outside. I check over the greenhouse and the root cellar, making note that the self watering system seems to have worked on most of the vegetable plants. Reading my gardening journal, I see that I should plant some things soon, so I pull out my little box of seeds and get to work, planting what needs done both in the greenhouse and the root cellar. This takes me nearly another full week, as I decided to clean it up a bit and reorganize things.

2 weeks and still nothing. No one.

I wasn’t running out of food per say, but I knew adding 5 more mouths to feed would bring us to the end of our stores pretty quick. So I tried my hand at fishing, which was not really my forte. I did manage to catch a couple, but I would need a lot more than a couple small/medium fish. Well, practice makes at least better, which is what I tell myself as I work at it for the next few days, eventually getting a little better and finding a better spot to fish from. I had found a homesteading book on the shelf that showed me how to prepare fish, so I followed that and froze a bunch, hoping this would at least help when they showed up.

I never strayed far from the cabin, afraid that if I did, they would show up and leave, assuming I wasn’t there. I didn’t want to miss them again and every time I thought about how I had missed them back in Austin, I wanted to cry and scream and throw things. I really wasn’t sure what to do other than what I was doing - preparing and waiting. I had no idea where they were, or if they were… no, they were alive. I could feel it. But even if I wanted to go find them, where would I start? The more I thought on this, the less I knew, driving every possible route in my head but nothing with a clear path to finding them.

5 weeks. Well, almost 5 weeks. Still alone.

His scent is fading from his clothes, the flannel I kept with me and hold at night barely smelling like him. I had put others in storage bags, hoping that I would only have to pull them out to give them to Jax and Tommy and not just so I could smell them and feel, just for a moment, like they are here.

I pull Tommy’s flannel top tighter around me, shifting the covers a little higher on my shoulders when I hear it - an engine.

I sit bolt upright, my ears straining to listen to what was obviously getting closer. I hadn’t heard anything since I came here, not even a truck passing on the road. I hop out of bed and quickly grab the shotgun, my heart racing along with my brain, the many possibilities of who is out there swirling around enough to drive me crazy. I shake my head a little and look out of the peep hole in the front door. A car pulls up slowly, not one I recognize. The sun was just rising, not enough light to see inside the vehicle. If it were bad people, surely they would’ve brought a truck? Maybe not. But then the side door opens, and a mop of black curls gets out of the backseat and my heart stops, breath seizing my lungs as the person straightens out, gripping a shotgun in his hands as he turns towards the cabin and a sob ripples through me as I rip open the door, standing there for a moment in utter shock as my eyes lay on him. My other half, the love of my life.

Tommy.

>>Chapter 8>>

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#tommy miller #gabriel luna #The last of us #tommy miller x you #tommy miller x f!reader #tommy miller x female reader #tommy miller x reader #tlou #tlou fanfic #tlouff #the last of us fanfic #gabriel luna x reader #gabriel luna x you #gabriel luna characters character fanfic #gabriel luna character ff #gabriel luna character fanfiction

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lets-try-some-writing · 6 months

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The Grim Dark Archives: Transcript #004 Higher Ups

[Transcript taken [Redacted: Sensitive data]. The following transcript is technically personal, but I've decided to put it here nonetheless. The conversation I had was with one of the higher ups who I will leave unnamed for privacy reasons. I was attempting to explain my reasoning behind my decision to... attempt further investigation into the aliens on my own.

I just can't sit here and listen as problems arise. [Redacted] is indeed useful when he feels like being so, but I refuse to wait around twiddling my thumbs while more horrors go on around me. I want to be proactive and learn as much as I can about this threat so that hopefully, when the time comes, I can do something to stop it.

Transcript begins.]

══════════════════

Agent Witwicky: Thank you for accepting my request for an audience BLANK.

BLANK: Of course.

Agent Witwicky: I am sure you saw my report and my detailed plan.

BLANK: I did, and I can't say I fully agree with it. I assume you came here to explain yourself?

Agent Witwicky: That would be correct, Sir.

BLANK: Go on then.

Agent Witwicky: Very well. I will try to keep things as concise as possible.

Agent Witwicky: To begin, I feel that we should begin looking more into the Autobot threat. They have claimed to be allies, but [Redacted] has proven this to be at least quite likely to be false. Not to mention these Decepticons have yet to do anything whereas the Autobots have already claimed civilian lives.

BLANK: And what exactly is your goal here Witwicky?

Agent Witwicky: I understand that it would be dangerous to dedicate a team to the task of understanding these aliens. And so I would like to suggest a singular agent be assigned this mission. That way if things fall through, this agent could be cut off from the government and claimed to be rogue, saving the US military from the ire of any potentially harmed parties.

BLANK: A sound suggestion. Let us imagine that you are this hypothetical agent for a moment. What would you be doing exactly?

Agent Witwicky: I would first get into contact with Agent Fowler and establish communications. He is by far the most knowledgeable and I would like to collect statements from him regarding the Autobots.

BLANK: That could be done without a dedicated mission.

Agent Witwicky: Yes, but what I would do after this would be less easy to accomplish for anyone tied down by military regulation.

Agent Witwicky: I would then take the risk of speaking to Optimus Prime in order to possibly acquire further information on Cybertron and its people. We currently have very little actual information. [Redacted] is a good source, but he only speaks on subject we inquire upon. I would like to dig deeper, to ask the Prime himself about Cybertron and its history. Maybe then we can determine the best course of action.

BLANK: That goes far beyond what we need to keep them in line.

Agent Witwicky: I need to know Sir. I need to understand these beings. Don't we have agents sent to other countries to understand them? Why can we not have an agent here to understand the aliens too? They could have valuable data, maybe even information on other worlds for NASA to use-!

BLANK: Enough. I understand Witwicky. Let us drop all pretenses here. What do you intend to do?

Agent Witwicky: I want to interact with the Autobots personally, to get their statements and stories. The more we know, the better chance we have of fighting back. I don't intend to tell [Redacted] about my visits either. Having two sources of information will help us pick out what is real and what are lies.

BLANK: We can make you a Diplomat. But I see that look in your eyes, that isn't the extent of what you want to do. Right?

Agent Witwicky: Correct Sir. I also want to look into the children. I want to see the changes they undergo and hopefully gain greater insight through them.

Agent Witwicky: Rafael runs a blog. He hasn't posted much, just a few thoughts every couple of days. But [Redacted] has implied that he will join the Archive, an organism of knowledge. A human mind cannot handle huge amounts of data, so there must be an outlet for all of it. I want to see how his thoughts change.

BLANK: You want him to be a test subject?

Agent Witwicky: Isn't he already one? We can't get him out now. So the best thing he can do for humanity is show how he is changing.

BLANK: ...

Agent Witwicky: The girl, Miko, she has a journal and a sketch book. I intend to get access to those things and transcribe the information they hold. Miko is the only one out of the children who is unaware of her situation. I want to see how that changes her view and if she can pick up anything we can't.

BLANK: I see...

Agent Witwicky: Then there is the older boy, Jack Darby, Arcee's target. He is by far the most interesting at present. He has been issued regular conversations with the military sanctioned therapist, correct? I want access to those recordings. Jack must hear things we could never comprehend. He must know so much more than us-

BLANK: Witwicky, what are you really after here?

Agent Witwicky: What do you mean? I've already said that I want to understand our potential enemies to help us fight back more effectively-

BLANK: No Witwicky. You have a personal investment here. What are you actually hoping to get from all this?

Agent Witwicky: ...

Agent Witwicky: I want knowledge. [Redacted] is hardly explaining anything. I hate having missing pieces in my puzzle.

BLANK: I see.

BLANK: ...

BLANK: Your orders will be issued soon. Consider yourself no longer outwardly affiliated with the United States Military. We will fund you and you will have access to everything you need, but if you are discovered, you will have no protection. Do you understand Sam?

Agent Witwicky: Yes Sir. When can I begin my work?

BLANK: As soon as you feel ready. Keep this information from [Redacted] as long as possible. He's already proven capable of violence when threatened.

══════════════════

[Transcript ends.

The higher ups were dubious about granting me my new position, but they will understand with time. It's going to be dangerous, that's for sure. But this way we will learn so much more about our enemies. Especially with [Redacted] here as well.

I don't mean to use the children, but considering they are all but lost causes, I think its for the best to just... make the best of their situation. Learn what we can so that no others share their fate.

Here's hoping the Decepticons are less convoluted.

Agent Witwicky signing off.

Recording end.]

#transformers #maccadam #transformers prime #optimus prime #alternate universe #the grim dark archives au #agent witwicky #transcript #a sort of intermission but not really #this will have ramifications later

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deconstructthesoup · 5 months

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Some of the lore for the D&D Slay The Princess AU:

In the beginning, there were only two gods---The Long Quiet, the god of constants, emotion, stability, connections, and comfort, and The Shifting Mound, the goddess of change, transformation, beginnings, endings, and time. Together, they were able to spin stories into worlds, shaping entire universes to exist side by side in the Material Plane... but every one of these universes was eventually fated to end, for you cannot have a story that lasts forever.

A man, whose name has been lost to time, grew bitter at this cycle, believing death to be a curse. As his universe began to take its steps towards its ending, in his desperation, he managed to achieve godhood, becoming The Narrator---the crow god of knowledge, fate, and tricksters. He tore The Long Quiet and The Shifting Mound apart, banishing The Shifting Mound to languish underground while The Long Quiet was left to mourn in the stars. Legends say that The Narrator intended to trick The Long Quiet into killing his love, but he failed in the end. Death still exists---you can never fully rid the world of death---but as long as change and constants are separated, no other worlds can be made, meaning that the world we find ourselves in now is entirely alone, and bound to the cruel laws of fate.

In the wake of this, new gods emerged to help guide the mortals through their confusion. The first was The Apotheosis, the goddess of justice, retribution, power, and light, who watched over the afterlife of those who were good in life. The second was The Fury, the goddess of anger, war, slaughter, and destruction, who watched over the afterlife of those who were wicked in life. The third was The Wild, the goddess of shadows, secrets, mystery, and sorrow, who dwelled deep in the tangled woods of the Feywild. The fourth was The Thorn, the goddess of love, redemption, discovery, nature, and growth, who lived in the Feywild alongside her counterpart. And the fifth was The Grey, the dual-natured goddess who guided souls to the afterlife---wearing white and burning with hope if you were good in the end, and wearing black and drowning in despair if you were wicked.

There are four other beings who some consider gods and some consider monsters, depending on who you are and how much terror you possess in your heart. The Eye of the Needle is the queen of the dragons, and while she has no use for mortals and only cares for gold, you will earn her respect and undying aid if you can defeat her in a fight. The Wraith was once human, but has long since left that behind in favor of being a lich, and she will rob you of your will and turn you into her puppet if you dare cross her or get in her way. The Mother of Clarity is the queen of the vampires, and though she and her children are feared and hunted everywhere you go, she will listen to you if you are willing to plead. And The Den is the mother of all fearsome beasts that stalk in the shadows, and she obeys no order other than the one of the hunt.

That's all I got for now, but I do have some ideas for the Voices, so... :)

#yeah i'm digging this #slay the princess #the long quiet #the shifting mound #stp the narrator #stp the apotheosis #stp the fury #stp the wild #stp the thorn #stp the eye of the needle #stp the wraith #stp the moment of clarity #stp the den

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as-amemory · 7 months

Text

I Could Drive You Crazy

Pairing: Éomer x OFC (unnamed)

Summary: She drove him crazy, with her little mannerism specifically crafted to irritate him, to get a rise out of him, for it was then, in that sweet spot before he starts to boil, before his true ire took over, that they find themselves in the heated throws of passion.

Warnings: NSFW, explicit, racism against Dunlendings (if thats a thing? I don't know, I'm new here), unhealthy relationships.

Word Count: less than 2k.

Setting: Aldburg, Rohan - some years before the War of the Ring.

Notes: This is the result of me ovulating and having no outlet as well as a song-bug stuck in my ear: I Could Drive You Crazy by Sierra Ferrell. Basically its a song about being crazy and I thought that might make for an interesting character to pair Éomer with, since apparently I enjoy watching him suffer. I'm not yet ready to name this OFC. I kind of hate her but I want to play with her a few more times and see what mischief she can get up to first before I decide if she needs a permanent residence.

I'm probably going to the small section of hell they specifically reserve for the sickos who deface Tolkien's works with such vulgarity. Enjoy!

Hay Fever threatened to take him fully yet she barged through the door as if he hadn’t complained to her that morning of an oncoming headache. She loved to do that. Ignore his every word and then act surprised when he was upset with her for having to repeat himself. Rare did he share his feelings with others, rarer still that he was forced to repeat himself. Not as Third Marshal of the Mark, Lord of Aldburg. People listened when he spoke. She did not.

“Feed your dogs, Éomer,” she says, voice full of spite. He hated when she called him by his name so casually. He never particularly cared for the triviality of titles. It matters not to him how he is referred to, as long as he first gave leave to call him by his given name, yet she takes the privilege without even bothering to ask permission.

She eyes the hound dogs sprawled at his feet with contempt. She did not like that he allows the dogs to reside inside the confines of his home. They belong in a kennel, outside. “They look as though they will devour me.”

This was his home. It would do her well to get used to seeing them laying on the floor. He sits back in his seat appraising her, the judgment seeped deep in her dark eyes. She is of mixed ancestry, there is no doubt of that by looking at her. Carrying enough blood of the Dunlendings to mark her differently. A mark of his resentment towards her. Resentment that blossomed into hate, the sweet fuel to their more rousing escapades.

“I should let them.” The threat comes out harsher than he intends, the start of a cold restricting any tenderness from escaping his throat.

Tossing two halves of an uneaten pheasant on the ground the dogs swallow it whole in one bite. He had taken his supper in his room that evening, not in the mood to dally with the residents of Aldburg. Typically the seasonal Hay Fever did not affect him but the heavy spring rains had caused an influx of new weeds to run wild in the fields causing him to feel less than ideal. Currently a pain bloomed behind his eyes and at the base of his throat, leaving him in no state to make friendly conversation. Yet here she is, when he had specifically ordered the Doorward not to let anyone into his rooms.

She could drive him to insanity with her blatant disrespect of him. He did not know why he kept her around. They had nothing in common and his list of grievances against her was long in number, dating back almost a year prior, growing longer still.

Showing up late to a personal invitation to go riding, acting as though they had never agreed to a time and certainly not a place of meeting. She had once offered to cook him supper to which he almost choked on the bones swimming in the stew. Had ruined a hunting trip, scaring away all the animals with her incessant humming. A tune which was stuck in his head for almost a fortnight. There was no fishing to be had with her, requiring more patience than whatever little she possessed. Yet time, and time again, him found himself tangled in sheets of his bed with her, or roughly pressed against the edge of his desk in the solar, partial to the idea of being caught, or in the hayloft above the stables, straining so deliciously tight around him as she rode -

He teeth grind at the sight of her, fluttering about his room, touching this and that, moving it slightly away from its original spot as she talks about her day.

“I found a lovely bolt of cloth that would make a fine dress.” She has picked up the crystal paperweight from his desk, peering at it as if she is speaking to the paperweight and not him.

So it was money she wanted? He should have known better than to think she was checking on his well being. He lifts his chin, waiting for her to meet his eye. She would have to ask him directly if she desired any coin from him but she continues to pick up random items just to set them down again, completely ignoring him.

“Come here.” His patience has grown thin. He will not ask her twice yet she looks at him as if he should be the one crawling on his knees to be near her. As if he should hand over his purse just to be allowed the honor of being in the same room as her.

When he does not concede to her silent petition she nods her head in appreciation to his stubbornness. A sly smile curls on her lips as she approaches him, already lifting her dress to better seat herself on his lap.

“I don’t know what I ever liked about you,” he says gruffly as she straddles him. Pushing aside her skirts he unties the laces of his trousers. He would have his due of her before this Hay Fever set in fully.

She laughs mockingly at that. “You love me.”

“I don’t think I do.” He nips at her lips and she smiles ruefully. Skirt pulled around her waist he is able to easily palm the wet folds of her labia. “You seem to like me,” he draws out, pushing the heel of his palm into her sensitive nub, eliciting a delicate gasp from between pink parted lips. He takes the opening to kiss her fully when she otherwise does not particularly enjoy the intimacy of a long drawn out kiss. She surprises him by matching the energy, eagerly molding her lips against his. Rutting down on his hand and along his ever hardening cock causes a gasp of his own to escape his mouth and into hers. His eyes closed briefly at the contact. They had last laid together only that morning. Was he so fallible to her that he could not even keep from gasping out like an inexperienced adolescent?

She bites down on his lower lip. Hard, drawing blood. He hisses his resentment through clenched teeth, digging his fingers into her side. He hated when she did that. This she knows. She remembers that particular detail about him, yet could not remember the name of his first horse or his favorite fishing spot. More than anything she loved to know what he hated.

She is trying to get a rise out of him. Make his boil, just a little. The sex was always better for it.

“Minx,” he growls against her mouth. Taking hold of his cock he spreads the juices of her pleasure along the length, lining himself up with her entrance. Greedily he flicks his hips up into her without warning. She laments her pleasure, loud for all to hear. The Doorward, no doubt, will not be expecting reprimand from him, not when he can so clearly hear the results of his mistake.

Wiggling against him she tries vainly to adjust to the size difference but he holds her in place, fingers digging into her sides. He wishes that he wasn’t so incorrigible. That he wasn’t so tempted by her teasing. That he could withhold himself from acting out so rashly. Maybe like that of his older cousin, whose poise and sense of propriety had always come with ease. Yet he falls for her time and time again, fucking her exactly as she enjoys. As he enjoys.

Letting his eyes linger on her undulating body he sets his jaw to keep from baring his teeth at the pressure of her rolling hips. If only she rode horses as good as she did him then she might be worth her weight in the saddle. Yet for all her withering she is shit astride a horse. It was that cursed Dunlending blood, tainting her ability to be anything but subpar.

A whimper escapes her lips, and he smiles cruelly, at least she suffers, same as him. She rides him slow, a painful pace that leaves him groaning. His only respite from her torture is his thumb circling her clit. She might know everything he hated but he knew exactly what her body loved. Specifically how to milk an orgasm out of her that would leave her seeing stars. It starts slow. Small circles to bring her to attention, and then an increase of pressure as blood engorges to the area. Her breathing hitches in her throat. Like the cat that caught the canary, he smiles at the sight of her. A harsh thrust of his hips, he fills her fully causing her pace to falter. The careful placement of his thumb halts, watching the confused look cross her features as her incoming orgasm slips out from under her.

His name is a growl on her lips, a slight warning. “Éomer.”

That he could take his name from her lips.

She knows the game he plays, the same one she taught him all those years ago. His thumb picks up pace with her rolling hips. He cradles her neck with his free hand. Skin hot, beneath his touch. A sheen of sweat is building along her hairline. He traces the curve of her collarbone and down her chest, across to her nipples, hard beneath her bodice. She is almost as sensitive here as she is between her legs, her hands clench around his shirt trying to hide her rising ecstasy. His nostrils flare, eyes trapped on the expanse of her face, carefully watching for each small indication of her pleasure.

Turning her head she tries to hide from him but he quickly has her jaw clasped between his fingers. He would see her. Shaking her head she waves off his touch, attempting to cover her eyes behind her hand, like a child hiding in plain sight. He clicks his tongue, taking her hand in his and after some struggling binds them both in his clasp behind her back.

“Go on then.” He flicks his chin in her direction. Her pace has all but stopped, hesitantly she finds it again, knowing full well that he now possesses all the power. The power to dish out pleasure as he saw fit.

Yet her rolling hips are more powerful, more exaggerated than before, causing him to grimace, lest he call out her name. She would love that, revel in his undoing. He steels himself with a deep breath through his nose. A ragged breath from her lets him know she is close again. He slows his thumb, wondering if she’ll cry out, plead with him to give her what she wants.

“Éomer.” His name, like a prayer on her lips, is soft and sweet, and he knows he no longer possesses the control he once touted.

Letting free her hands, he pulls her in close until her head rests against his. He can feel the warmth of her breath as he takes his pace, thrusting into her. She has brushed away his teasing thumb, replacing it with her own skilled fingers. A shuddering breath and she tightens further around the length of him. She cries out loud enough that he is certain they hear her in the Great Hall. He is still thrusting into her as she convulses hot and heady around him but he soon follows suit, letting his release run him fully with a loud groan of his own.

Panting, she rests her head against his chest, forehead sticky with sweat it clings to the thin fabric of his shirt. She does not cuddle. She never has lingered in his arms as they slowly drift down from their high. She slips off his lap and he shutters at the sudden loss of contact, hands gripping the armrests of the chair.

By the time he has regained his senses enough to stand she has relieved herself and wiped clean his seed dripping down her thighs. Maybe a good romp was the cure to any oncoming ailment. He drowns the last of his ale, eyeing her as she smiles prettily for him under dark thick lashes. So demure and pliant, when only moments earlier he was ready to have her thrown from his room for her uncouth behavior.

“You spoil me, my lord,” she says coyly. He bites back a scoff.

Her gaze is taken with the leather purse heavy on the corner of his desk. A slight nod of his head and she promptly reaches across the expanse, showing off the long lines of her body, and that of the soft curves she knows he loves to grab hold of during their coupling. Deftly, her fingers dip inside the pouch, taking out three coins.

“This should cover the cost.” Her gaze darts to him, searching for any subtle hint of permission that she could take more but he is hard set against giving her indication. Already she pushes the bounds of his generosity.

“And one more,” she purrs softly, plucking a fourth coin out. “As insurance to return to you.”

He rolls his eyes, knowing well she will only return when she pleases not because she feels indebted to him. Offering a low curtsey, she mumbles her thanks, letting his gaze linger on her, on the low cut of her dress. Her bosom all but swells out of the strains of her bodice. When did such a salacious style come into fashion? Surely his sister did not expose herself so scantily in Edoras? He bites his lip, thoughts of his sister quickly pushed from his mind replaced instead by the women so humbly lowered before him. Already he feels a slight twitch of his groin.

She rises, satisfied with her display of deference. A Haunting smile on her lips, she glances at the hound dogs splayed out on the rug.

“Feed your dogs, Éomer,” she instructs as a final goodbye. Out the door he is certain she can hear his mocking laughter following her.

#I probably got his voice entirely wrong #but I had fun writing this #eomer fanfiction #Eomer x OC #Eomer x OFC #Eomer smut #lotr fanfic #lotr smut

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meetmyothersouls · 2 years

Note

Take some time to feel better girl, we’ll be here :)

Thank you so much, sweet Anon!

As a gift, here’s a short little blurb for you ❤️

Say Okay

Warnings: kissing, some angst?, fluff

“Take a chance on me, please,” he said, tears brimming his eyes.

You’d never seen Timothee cry. It did something to you. Seeing a man cry, yes. But seeing your Timothee cry…you stumbled a little over both your feet and your words.

“I-Tim-I can’t there’s just…there’s too much to lose.”

He sighed, exasperated. “Damn it, you won’t lose anything, y/n.” He ran an exhausted hand through his loose curls and licked his lips before biting his bottom one. He did that when he was upset. “Who else knows you like I do, hm? No one.” He took a step toward you, and you backed away. Not because you were scared, you weren’t, but because you’d been avoiding this moment. You’d been running away from loving him for years. And it was easy until he started loving you too. Damn him. You backed away from his slow steps, until your back hit the wall of his bedroom. He kept a few inches between you, enough to where you could escape if you wanted, but still you could feel his fast, heavy breaths hit your face. If you pressed your ear against his chest, you were sure you could hear his heart racing, matching those quick breaths. He sighed, another breath danced across your skin. It smelled like mint and slightly of cigarettes. “I know that you hate listening to music in the car and that you say your favorite color is red when it’s really purple.” Your eyes stayed glued to the floor as he talked, even when he tucked a few strands of your hair behind your ear. “I know that ordering food gives you anxiety so you always want me to go first. I know that you’ve been wronged so much in your life and you somehow still manage to be the best person I’ve ever met despite it.” He lifted your chin. “And I know that you love me. And I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to admit that I love you too. And, god, do you deserve better than me. But please, please, take a chance on me.”

Timothee pressed a kiss to your lips. His lips were soft and pillowy. They tasted sweet and slightly salty. They were everything you imagined them to be. He swiped a thumb across your cheek, wiping away a tear that fell from your eye.

“Tim-”

“You won’t lose me. You won’t lose anything. I don’t intend on letting you slip away.” His eyes bounced back and forth, hopping between both of yours and your lips. He bit his bottom lip again. “And if you truly don’t want to be with me. Then I’ll still love you and I’ll still be friend and it’ll kill me but you’ll still have me.”

You were quiet. You weren’t sure if you remembered how to think, or blink or breathe. You’ve wanted him for so long and now here he was, offering himself fully to you. Your hands were shaky and sweaty, and your breathing felt as erratic as your thoughts.

“Please, say something. Please say ‘okay’,” he said, desperation evident in his voice.

You shook your head.“I can’t handle losing you,” you whispered.

A hand found the small of your back and pulled you into him. His lips met yours and slid perfectly against them.

“I’m not going anywhere. Please say ‘okay’.”

He pressed his lips to yours again, opening his mouth slightly as he began kissing you again. Everything about him tasted good, and felt good. Felt right.

“Okay.”

Tags: @imnotoverlyobsessive @dayafied @soulofendlessbook @fashphotolife @chicchanelcigs @scentedkittenperfection @weasleytwinscumslut @timotheel0ver @mxciscastleintheair @marvelmaniac2000 @lovelyrocker @divine-1 @louievr @love-poems-only @starberry-cake @inlovewithphantasy @alexagirlie @misswestfall @softhecreator @livresjaunes @timmymyluv @inannamoon @harrys-thick-thighs @s-we-e-t-t-ea @timolaurence @its-schmackin-dude @justagirlwhoneedshelp @gatoenlaciudad @patronsaintofthetwinks

#timothee chalamet #timothée chalamet #writing #timothee chalamet x reader #timothee chalamet x you #timothee blurb #timothee chalamet imagine #timmy chalamet #smut

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resuri-art · 5 months

Text

So, to feed @bakawitch need of casteshipping, here my bird-cursed!Atem Ancient Egypt AU:

Context: Atem is cursed since a very young age. Someone tried to kill him as a kid with magic *cough*Akhenaden*cough cough* but it didn’t work completely. Now Every night Atem turns into a falcon and to turns back human he has to be in contact with the sun's very first lights. If he miss them, he is stuck as a bird until next morning. Only a very few selected people know about this (not all the priests know).

Then story line stays the same until the 'Bakura goes into the throne room with daddy's corpse on a leash and get his ass kicked by Atem" part.

Bakura flee, but Atem is very worried about the menace he represents. So he decides to use his curse to search for Bakura. Bird-boy escapes the Palace as soon as the night is here, but... Atem didn't take into account that he never left the city before and his dumb ass ends up lost in the middle of the desert. Not to mention he never flew that long before so he gets quickly tired.

Atem goes on the ground to rest but gets attacked by wild animals and his wing gets injured. He is rescued by Bakura who makes the animals flee. Atem doesn't have the time to react because he lost a lot of blood and pass out.

He wakes up the next day as a bird as he missed morning's first lights. His wing has been cares for, he has water and food around him, is on a very comfortable pillow. Then bird-boy realises with horror that his savior is Bakura. Usually the thief lets animals do their things but he somehow felt pity for the bird this time. At first Atem is very aggressive but he can’t do much with his injured wing. Bakura doesn't think much about it as he expected a wild animal to be aggressive.

Atem has no choice but to deal with it until he can escape. The two of them spend a few days together (and Atem manage to avoid morning sun's light because he is sure Bakura is going to kill him otherwise). Turns out Bakura takes very good care of him and Atem is so confused. Like is this really the same guy who attacked him before???? Bakura even rescues him again when people tries to capture Atem to sell him. (And damn it why does it have to fell so nice when he pets Atem's feathers???) Atem also learns more about Bakura's past because Bakura loves to talk even if it's just a bird listening.

When Atem's wing is fully healed he knows he has to go. It's been days and everyone at the Palace must be panicked by his absence. So he leaves the night Bakura gets his bandage off.

Bakura suddenly feels very lonely, but that was to be expected from a wild bird. Atem returns to the Palace and gets everything back in order.

Things happens and Bakura goes to the Palace to fight Atem again. But this time Atem just can't attack him like before because he knows Bakura is not a villain but someone who has been hurt.

He doesn't have any choice but to fight because Bakura is serious about killing him. However the night will arrive soon and Atem is too focused on the fight to notice. He changes into a bird in front of a very confused Bakura. Akhenaden uses that confusion to attack Bakura, but Atem flies in front of him to stop him. Akhenaden doesn't care and it's Atem who gets hurt. The priest does some evil speech how he can kill the thief and the Pharaoh (one stone for two birds you know) and put everything on Bakura. Bakura is still very confused but gets Atem and runs away.

So the thief is back in the desert with his bird, now very much aware of its identity. And very confused. And angry. (And omg I scratched his head and called him cute names.) They talk about it once Atem can change back and conclude that Akhenaden is behind everything and have to work together to get him down (and Atem has to deal with the 'Oh fuck I'm in love with Bakura'. It comes a bit later for Bakura.)

... Damn. This got way longer than I intended it 😂

#casteshipping

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horanghoe · 1 year

Text

SBIADITO - Scarlet Fever 2/2

Main Masterlist // SVT Masterlist

Group: Seventeen

Members Mentioned: Hoshi//Soonyoung, S.Coups//Seungcheol, The8//Minghao, Han//Jeonghan

Pairing: Werewolf!Soonyoung x Reader (Fem Perspective)

Genre: Angst / Fuff / Heavy Smut / Werewolf!SVT, minors dni !!

Word Count: Just over 17K

T/W’s: Heavy smut with frequent mention of Werewolf features & lore. This is purely fiction and not intended to harm. If you don’t like Werewolf!au’s, please scroll on, with peace and love!!

(Pls dm me if you would like a trigger warning added ♡)

SPECIAL SHOUTOUTS & A HUGE THANK YOU TO ALL MY BETA READERS:

Banner, Header & Divider Art: @classicscreations

MTG Discord Furries /jk/: @slightlymore // @raibebe // @starlitmark// @just-come-baek

IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTES:

(For this post): listen up yall, I'm over writing this shit 😈, imma post it, balls to the walls & errors intact, thanku n GOODNIGHT!!! (its 10.14 am and im at work) (Copied from previous post): Wow. So I think it's fair to say I never ever ever thought in my time here writing that a werewolf series would even be in my league, but here we are, wahahaha... This beast took me over 3 months to fully draft, write and edit. (There's already an Epilogue of the original series, (Spider Boy Is A Dog In This One) in the works, along with an edit of the OGS!)... So please stick around for more ;) Asks welcome!!

Music to listen to while reading ♡ (in no particular order)

None currently on the OP's mind - please feel free to recommend some via my ask inbox ;)

Soonyoung slid his hands down the curve of your arms to grip the middle of your shirt, ripping until the buttons pinged off. Then he continued his hot and open-mouthed kisses down the length of your stomach. A simple squeeze to your right breast made you furl into him with a cry.

Soonyoung chuckled with a mocking tone; knocking your knee out of the way and pressing your legs apart with his elbows.

"You left these on?" he growled against your stomach, hooking two fingers in the elastic waistband of your completely soiled trousers only to let the fabric snap back against your skin.

His mouth continued to lick and suck down your belly, Marking the skin there with wet, bruising, lovebites, as he travelled to your hipbone.

“Y-yes, they’re m-my nesting pyjamas...” Your lips trembled as you moaned beneath him, words barely strung together.

His nails scraped against your skin as he pulled your silk sleeping shorts down towards the crease of your ass. It was humiliating. You held your hands to your chest as his face travelled everywhere but where you needed him.

“Yeah, well. They smell fucking good. Try not to wear these around the house again - unless you're in the market to be bred full of pups.”

He seemed to have some kind of affiliation with your left side. In theory, you figured, maybe because it was the side closest to your heart.

But then again he was never one for methodical balance. As he spread his tongue across the thin skin of your hip, teeth teasing over your bone, you knew he was about to leave his Mark.

Soonyoung anticipated - or really rather, caught - your hands as they attempted to fly out to him. Wrists held in an iron grip as you struggled, pausing only to pant and whine loudly.

“Soonyoung, please, it hurts, please just fuck me, please, please please please please, fuck me, please please, please God I need you -”

The pleaded words were a surprise to you both, but you just couldn't help it.

Your body was burning now; set alight, cunt clenching for a release, that he seemingly was refusing to give.

Soonyoung barely even reacted. He simply growled against your hip, tightening his grip on your wrists until you huffed and whined in defeat.

Satisfied with the way you were giving in to him, Soonyoung released you, giving you the grace to thread your fingers through his hair, dragging your nails across his scalp and earning a deep moan.

His hand spread long fingers across the soft of your belly. Gripping and kneading before weighing you down with strong, lean palms.

“Do you want me to breed you, pup? Fill you up until cum drips out of you and you leak all over your den?”

“Yes, yes, God, please -”

“Mark you till you have no skin left to bruise?”

“Please, please touch me Soonyoung, please -”

Soonyoung chuckled at your begging. Hi smoothed his hand over your belly and your right inner thigh until you settled. Shushing you with kisses and a hickey at the thin of your hip.

“Then settle down for me, angel. And be a good bitch for me. Can’t do much when you’re kicking me, can I pup? All this moving is doing is telling me that you want me to leave you all alone in here like this. Sopping wet and needy.”

You released a deep belly whine, one last kick and twist proving that you wanted him and you needed him badly. His use of 'bitch' was meant in an entirely carnal and sinful way, not degrading at all.

But you complied, panting breaths as you lay below him in a complete and utter willingness to be used.

"Good girl," He purred fiercely against your hip.

Your momentary submission allowed him space to press his palm up against your clit, pushing the silk fabric into your dripping wet cunt. Soonyoungs eyes closed upon contact, nostrils flaring and a deep familiar growl vibrated against your legs as he caught your skin caught between his teeth.

You just couldn't help yourself, grinding yourself down upon his strong palm. The movement of the silk against your boiling skin sent you into ecstasy. Your belly tensed and fluttered under his left palm, keeping you pinned to the bed.

“Soonie, I’m close I - I can’t stop it, I’m so close, please, please don’t stop -”

“I know, beautiful,” He hummed against your skin, watching you with adoration. “You don’t need to stop. Don't stop. Just let it happen. Chase that high till you've got it; then tell me when. I’ve got you.”

You moaned aloud as he flexed his hand to add sensation to the friction, the fingers of his free appendage splaying across your stomach to ground you, your only anchor to the bed.

Quickly, the coil in your belly turned and twisted until it was impossibly tight. Your thigh muscles spasmed and as you moved to curl backwards; you cried out his name, hips bucking up against the palm still firmly pressed to your stomach.

Soonyoung growled loudly before sinking his teeth into the skin of your hips.

The feeling was insatiable.

He groaned deeply as you cried out, his eyes rolling into the back of his head to betray the ecstasy he felt at getting to watch you twitch and writhe against his hold.

It was different here, covered in nerves and much more sensitive. You gushed instantly through the fabric and his nose flared at your scent coating his hand.

Finally, he moved his palm in patterns against your cunt that had you gripping his wrist and seeing stars.

Your orgasm didn’t seem to stop. Your fingertips with frazzled electricity while you pulsated around nothing, aching to be filled and grinding against him wanting more, more, more.

As your orgasm settled you yowled deeply, panting and tugging at his hair as a silent urge for him to ease up, your body unable to take any more of his attention directed at your most sensitive spot.

You could feel yourself dripping down the back of your thighs, the fabric of your trousers and tainting your mate's hand. Your body was pleasantly numbing with energy while your cunt continued to throb wildly.

You could smell yourself from where you lay.

Retracting his teeth from deep within your hips with a groan, Soonyoung licked the wound until it clotted and he could no longer taste blood. He grumbled gently as you gasped short breaths beneath him, stomach still shaking.

He rose to meet your face but saw a blissfully closed expression instead.

"Well done, pretty dove."

Your mate welcomed you, allowing your arms to wrap around his neck, legs curling to lock your feet at the small of his back.

'I'm here.' Soonyoung spoke through the link; the sound bounced around in your mind. 'I've got you. You're safe.'

His body weight pressed you back down into the bed, the vibration of his rumbles grounding your mind and allowing you to give in.

You panted, trying to force your body to breathe at a normal pace while a buzz settled into your mind, your cheeks growing numb.

You released a loud, long moan that sounded more and more like howling as it went on. Shivering as your mind flashed stars behind your eyes, completely clearing your thoughts.

Soonyoung could sense it immediately.

The way you curled into him. Clinging to him and burying your face against his neck.

The twist in his lungs was followed by clarity.

He allowed you space to settle into this new feeling for a moment. Letting the ripples in your after-orgasm glow settle against his ever-so-sensitive skin. Your lustful pants had turned into the smallest sounds against his skin. Murmurs. Whispers of trust.

"Can I see you, angel?" he whispered through a deep growl, feeling your small whimper and a nod against his neck as a response.

Soonyoung rose on his elbows, seeking your face.

With a soft exhale, he met your eyes.

They were newly painted in gold, pupils blown out wide and dark, edged by his purple claim, unique to himself and a high-ranking Alpha.

The colour was permanent. Soonyoung could feel it in his soul.

Deja vu to eyes he had never met before; a love from another lifetime.

He reached a hand to brush the hair from your face, meeting your eager reach for reassurance. A gentle kiss, pressing once, twice three times before settling. Your lips brushed against him, noses bumping against one another before shying away.

“Hi, flower. Well, this is new, isn’t it?” He spoke quietly, lips curling into a kind smile.

His grin widened when you nodded, eyes turning into crescent moons of joy that make you fall in love with him over and over again.

“You’re beautiful, my brave Omega. I'm so proud of you for trusting yourself. For letting me take over. I'm honoured - honoured to call you mine.”

You groaned at the beautiful words whispered by your lover, and the groan coupled with the curl of a familial growl in your stomach, the likes of which you've never felt before.

Soonyoung nodded at you, encouraging you to ‘try it again’. You did, and your brain fuzzed in a way that shook your shoulders, eyes drooping from the warmth on the back of your neck.

“Are you scared? Scared of the new things happening to you?” Soonyoung asked., watching your face carefully for any signs that indicated you were uncomfortable, or that you wanted to stop before you linked completely.

But you were placated. Scented and Marked three times over. He knew you were stubborn, but fighting this would be God-like. And he knew that if you truly wanted it to end, he would be a slave to your pleas.

“If you want, we can stop? You have one last chance before it’s too late. Before we commit to this. You just need to say the safeword, angel. You know I would never push you.”

Gently, you shook your head. You knew your Wolf. And the only anxiety you felt was the anticipation of judgement from absolutely anybody else. So you shook it again.

“Want it. Want you. I’m ready, want to feel you Alpha.” Your voice was once again accompanied by the purr of a growl, and the feeling was alien on your tongue. But it felt good, and it felt right. "I'm nervous, it feels weird - but I trust you. I want it. I promise. Want. Want…"

Soonyoung huffed tenderly in response, the air over your face causing you to blink into a smile.

“Do you want me to scent you?” he asked benevolently, voice barely above a whisper. This close to each other your noses brushed, gazes locked with bated breath. His thumbs brushed against either side of your eyes.

You admired his eyebrows, hands smoothing up and onto his strong shoulders to make him shiver. Then you admired the fluctuations in his skin tone, the length of his pretty lashes, his eyelashes, his tiger-like eyes you had traced and outlined in your mind many times.

“Y/N, listen to me. Would you like me to scent you?”

Soonyoung searched your face as your body tried to match his demand for an answer. His pupils constricted and you felt a tug in your belly to respond to his question. But you were slow to come to a decision. Your lips twitched and your nose flared; pupils fluctuating until you were able to form a coherent thought.

“You liked it before, and it may make the pain of the bites less intense. I will never force you to be scented, love. Tell me what you want, and I’m yours.”

Scenting, depending on the environment, acted like a mild sedative or a calming aphrodisiac for Wolves and their sexual partners. At this point, you were already beyond turned on. If there was such a thing as a Wolf-subspace, you were on the one-way train of getting there. But it would cause you to sink into him even further. Smell like him for weeks, rely on the otherworldly pull to get by.

“Please,” You sighed into his lips. “Please yes, Soonie. Want it. Want you. Don't make me wait, I can't take it…”

You were met with a heavy, placating kiss that lay you back down. Padding kisses from your cheek down to your jaw. Your knees curled up further into him, onto his strong back. Holding onto his bicep, supporting his head as he moved your neck out of the way.

He could scent you any place on your body.

The back of your legs. Even your feet.

Such was the powerful scent of an Alpha.

But he chose to do it near your original scar. Kissing, nuzzling, growling and whining against your skin. Wiping his cheek against your own and purring into you until all he could smell was himself.

The scent hit you heavily, and it hit you hard. A lot harder than usual due to the scenario. Making you feel inebriated with a full body buzz, despite being completely cold-stone sober.

“My den -” You mumbled airily with heavy eyelids, feeling his warmth leave your body as he lifted himself up and away from you.

Soonyoung gracefully turned you onto your belly with his strength.

“It’s -” You rested on your elbows in a cobra-like yoga pose while his hands smoothed along the back of your thighs. Massaging their way back up in adoration of your body. Total praise. "It's -"

“Mhmm?” Soonyoung hummed, spreading your cheeks apart with one hand as his other stroked languidly at his cock. The visual made him groan. "What is it, little dove?"

He was already erect. And he likely would remain so for a long time.

He checked your body for any resistance as he pushed his thumb into your entrance. But he was only met with a dipped head and a strong moan, his hips twitching into the ghost of momentum.

“It smells of you. An Alpha. Of my cum. Of - of us. Both of us. It's so heavy I can feel it in my lungs, Soonyoung.” You finally whimpered. Jaw slack at the two fingers that readily entered you. "Want it to gather till I can't breathe, Soonie ~"

Soonyoung smiled against your shoulder.

"Intense, isn't it love?" He hummed in agreement. Moving to kneel over you as his abs flexed against the feverish ache in his muscles. Fingers hooking down into your stomach and making you tremble.

“Is it bad?” He huffed.

He was asking you if it was a bad thing, the way it smelled.

How it filled your lungs with weights and smoke screened your virgin scent den with a scent of pure sex.

He moved his body onto his strong arms and pecks either side of you; sliding forward to kiss your shoulder and hold your elbows as you tried to speak.

You nasally whined, knocking your cheek against his with a dizzying shake of your head.

“No. It’s good. So. Fucking. Good. Nngh -"

He chuckled at you, placing a chaste kiss on the height of your cheek.

'Breathe, sweet dove.'

Soonyoung pressed the head of his cock into you as slowly as he was able, hands trembling. Your hips twitched upwards, moaning into the open air as you gripped the sheets between your fingers. Meeting his face at your side for the meetings of cheeks as he thrust forward.

Unusually girthy, thanks to the intense rut making his cock throb filthily, it was a new stretch to accommodate. But with your multiple orgasms already, and your own liquid sipping from your cunt, he knew you were ready and soaked through as soon as he had entered your den, moments ago.

With one movement, a sloppy thrust and a grunt permeated the feeling of complete fullness, cock stuffing you full.

You moaned loudly, brows creased as Soonyoung moaned and growled loudly into your shoulder blades. Pulling his hips back to slowly push back in.

The action pushed both his precum and yours out with a loud wet sound, and he could feel you throbbing around him.

He set a slow pace. Pulling most of the way out, before hitting the hilt of your cervix. Making your toes curl and head fall forward in ecstasy. Soonyoung was never a shy lover and became even less so as you lay pliant and pleasure rode beneath him.

His voice only spurred you on further.

Moving your hips back to chase him whenever he pulled out, pushing up against him when your ass met his cervix.

At such an angle where you were lying down, he was unable to go much faster, but you didn’t care.

On one particularly deep thrust, you shuddered, moaning as your hand tapped across the bed to fold over his hand. He accepted you willingly, pausing his thrusts to gyrate his hips while he left hot open kisses on your shoulder blades.

“F-fuck Soonie, you’re - so deep, nghh - fuck -”

Soonyoung purred at you once more, feeling your walls press in against his cock as you hit a very slow and steady peak.

“You’re close already, aren’t you pup? I can feel you, you know. Can feel you squeezing me tight. Feel your heartbeat racing inside your cunt.”

He nipped at the skin on your right shoulder, finding his preferred spot and Marking it before he snapped his hips into you in quick succession.

It made the heat in your skin prickle up until the pressure in your abdomen gave way, moaning and fucking yourself even further on his cock and dropping your head to practically drool onto the duvet.

Your walls pulsated, gripping onto him and making such sinful moaning sounds as you came.

When you whined for him after catching your breath, Soonyoung moved to nuzzle your cheek, cock still deep inside of you.

But even from all this fucking, you were buzzing from head to toe. The other shoulder now sparking under your skin in a way that blew your Wolf's eyes open even further.

He chuckled next to your ear in amusement.

You made a noise of confusion before he moved a hand back and swiped it ever so carefully over your shoulder blade.

You flinched at the sensation of something new and sensitive.

“You didn’t even notice that one, pup.”

Dropping his hand, he traced his teeth over your skin until it dipped into the already-closing wounds. The fit was snug. And your skin was no doubt swollen and

sensitive.

You shivered deeply, mewling as he shifted positions behind you. Your eyes drooped and your jaw loosened at the sensation of being anchored to him by his Marks. Sensing where he was moving his body weight without having to look. He was moving away, to kneel behind you.

Experimentally, he thrust back up into your awaiting hips - sat back on the heels of his feet - tilted forward in the air and just begging to be filled. You moaned deeply at the unexpected thrust but didn’t move to push him away. Instead, you pushed your hips back, shuffling low onto all fours just to be able to feel that heavenly pressure again.

It seemed Soonyoung could hardly wait.

With calloused hands, he used your pliancy to pull you up, back, and into his chest, holding your wrists at the soft of your belly.

The placement of your hands meant his knuckles rubbed against your new mark on your hip with every tiny movement; making you keen with a moan at the feeling of numbness being sparked up your thigh and cunt every time it hit.

You had started panting. Wolf's eyes bleary from the moving lights in the room. You arched your back, pressing into him with a loud open-mouthed moan as his other hand moved to hold your throat. Head pressed back to his shoulder.

He wasn’t choking you. Merely holding you upright with his large hand wrapping around your jugular and pressing into your new Mark. Growling against your cheek with bared canines as his hips hit fast and sharp upwards into you.

A total change up from the pattern before.

And by God's - it felt amazing.

“Look at you, my pretty little Omega, getting fucked dumb. You take me so well, love; I can’t wait to make you gush all over this den.”

Sooyoung's uncharacteristically harsh growls vibrated into your brain, clenching down on him and crying out until he gripped your cheeks, moving to hold your face and point downwards.

“Look at yourself, getting split open on my cock. Look at it, my precious Marked bitch. You’re close already and we haven’t even done anything yet.”

He didn’t need to command you twice.

With bleary eyes, you looked down at where your bodies met. Over your chest and stomach, face held by Soonyoung to watch as his thick cock pumped in and out of you with wet noises followed by slick dripping down your legs. The view made you fold over in ecstasy.

Once again your stomach is bundled. Whining and trying your hardest to withstand his hard thrusts into your hips.

Soonyoung was close, you could tell by the way he stared at you with a gentler expression, eyes full of love. His hips jutted up in a sharper, shorter sequence until he came hard.

It felt like he was filling you to the brim. Making your thighs ripple in pleasure as your fluids dripped down the inside of your leg. Fucking it back up into you all the while.

“Fuck - fuck - fu - fuck - fuck -” Your mantra continued as you ground down on him in a totally different headspace than you ever had experienced before.

He was literally going to fuck your brains out.

And for the unknown time this night, you felt the sensitivity of your walls rub against his hot cock slick with thick warm cum and your belly twisted desperately with the need to release. Shaking with shut eyes and grinding down on him until you were positively vibrating. Totally missing his next bite onto your outer shoulder, holding you up by a squeezed breast and upwards thrusts alone.

And his efforts to fuck you until dumb became even more apparent when despite cumming himself once, despite feeling you orgasm on him twice, he was still rock hard and thick inside of you.

Now with his thick cum creaming inside of you, you dropped forward onto the bed. His cock made you moan and drool, fists gripping at the fabric next to your mouth as you slithered open an eye to see him.

Soonyoung’s hips never stopped. They moved with a stiff judder, thanks to the fever, but if anything it made him hit the right parts of you even harder.

He moved you so your knees stayed together, ass up in the air and between his knees. Hitting the deepest you had felt yet. A strong palm pushed your ribs into the bed and in honesty - you had no wish to fight.

“How - do you - feel - pup?” Soonyoung panted between thrusts. Teeth grit and tone tight.

Your response was immediate. Garbling as he commanded you to respond. Fingers curled into the blankets and eyes blown impossibly wide. Meeting his eyes in your peripherals as he fucked you until you couldn’t breathe.

He knew how you felt.

He just wanted to hear you say it.

“Full.” Your mouth hung open as he thrust harder and quicker; your toes curled until you gasped for air, eyes closed and sound falling out of you from behind your lungs coupled with rippling vibrations in your vocal cords that satiated the eternal ache in your gums. For once, it was enough. For once, you couldn’t ask for more.

“So. Fucking. Full. So good. So warm… Yours…”

“Good.” He snarled. “You deserve it, and more Y/N. Whatever you want. I'll give it to you."

He was content. His instincts were pleased by your display of vulnerability.

Your back was Marked by teeth and tongue. Flushed skin indicated the healthy blood pumping through your veins, the aphrodisiac poison making your limbs go numb in pleasure.

There was no resistance to the bonding anymore.

No want or need to fight for control.

You were finally letting yourself get lost in the motions of it all.

And he was so proud of you and your bravery.

In a final display of possession, Soonyoung lifted onto all fours to press you even further into the mattress.

Fucking down into you until your legs began to uncontrollably shake, voice strained and stuttering, moving and gyrating as he watched his second load pour out of you like a fountain. At this angle, a stream slipped along the length of your back, but the majority of it dripped onto your belly and your bedsheets. Making Soonyoung groan from the sight alone.

Distinctly, he felt you shudder; legs kicking and hips moving to continue the pace as you shoved your face into the blankets and pressed your ass up in a deep curl of your spine.

Well, this was new.

If he didn’t know any better; if he wasn’t acutely aware of your cycle and multiple methods of birth control; he would’ve taken that as a begging to be bred full.

Not that you weren’t milking him currently.

He decided to help you chase your body and its high; fucking into you at the same pace and angle that made you cry out and grip the sheets against your hot body.

Until eventually something panged deep in your cervix. You released a loud, pitiful and erotic cry as a feeling of release seeped across the muscles in your abdomen.

Your body began to tremble as Soonyoung continued to plough into your sensitive and soaking-wet cunt, until you were twitching away from him with a sharp whine.

Seeing you squirt all over his cock and onto your bed, your safe and quiet comforting nesting bed, made Soonyoung practically cum again on command. With your sensitivity finally appearing, he pulled out with only one goal in mind.

He released strips of sticky hot semen all over your ass and pussy, pushing the stream down your belly like melting ice cream.

And like his favourite dessert, he intended to eat you whole.

“Relax, Y/N. You’ve done so well pup. So, so good, pretty girl. Catch a breath.”

Without your eyes even opening, you relaxed fully into the mattress. Whining and moaning and sniffling as Soonyoung held your hips up by your love handles.

You curled the blanket up into your mouth to bite into it; each hit against your canines caused you to moan in dumb satisfaction.

Fucked dumb and yet still writhing for more.

He chuckled at your method of trying to satisfy the deep ache in your gums but wasted no more time in swiping his tongue up the majority of the stream, lapping into your folds as your entrance moved in response. Pulsating around nothing. Clenching to be filled, but pushing your fluids out all the same.

The sight made Soonyoung short circuit.

And before he could help himself, his gums sat snug in the flesh of your ass cheek on the right side. His thumb slipped into you easily as you moaned and moaned and moaned, hips grinding into nothing as he held you there.

It twanged the coil inside of you to suddenly coil and release.

But he wasn’t about to let this orgasm of yours come and go so easily. Even if he was your; totally wholeheartedly obsessed mate.

He removed his thumb to circle your hole, holding you with one firm grip. He slipped two of his fingers into you up to his knuckles, and with surprising ease. You groaned into the fabric in your mouth.

Gnawing with closed eyes.

“You look good, pup, fucked nice and full.” Soonyoung hooked his fingers down towards your belly, moving in and out at a fast pace before gliding slower. He smiled at your pitiful whines, eyes droopy and fucked into oblivion.

“Try holding the bite. That should satiate it.” A particular flick of his wrist pooled cum to pull out with his fingers, quickly lapping at your clit to catch it.

You weren’t listening to him. He kissed his teeth in annoyance before pulling back to see you.

Of course, you weren’t listening.

You had no active thoughts left between those rolling, spaced-out eyes.

With a roll of his own eyes and a sympathetic shake of his head, Soonyoung reached to give you his forearm.

“Go on, baby girl. Bite me, you pretty idiot.”

He growled with a firm tug at your link, smiling at his own humour.

Even fucked brainless you could still follow the command. Releasing the fabric to sink your teeth into his forearm.

The skin there was so soft and pleasant and warm against the very snug top of your canines. A completely new satisfaction that made you drool. It completely eased the throbbing against your skull to just get a hold of something.

You didn’t exactly have any poison like an Alpha would, but the Mark of Claim was enough, and his pulse against your tongue only spurred you forward towards your next climax.

Soonyoung groaned as he sped up the pace of his fingers fucking the liquid back out of you, adding a third finger that had you curling your toes and biting down harder.

When you did eventually cum, and for the very last time, Soonyoung moved down what couldn’t have been two more inches downwards behind you, keeping you up steady as he bit into you one last time at the very back top of your thighs. That made your pussy drip onto his nose. By now, you didn’t even register the pain.

Moaning and whining as the poison seeped like the aether of the gods into your veins. Releasing his arm to bury your face into the bed.

For a moment, you were sure that you must have blacked out.

But you were merely fucked so good that you had started to dissociate.

Soonyoung lapped lazily at your broken skin, scenting the area (your inner thighs) as the wounds closed.

The scars looked clean. Probably some of the best work he had ever seen, aesthetically.

And he cleaned you up with his tongue.

Lazily.

Leisurely.

He diverted for a small moment to lick his own wound, still holding you with one lean arm. He growled in comfort at the Mark you had left on him. Watching your face carefully.

"You okay down there pretty dove? Not going to pass out on me, are you?"

"Mmmm - hhhgh - no - good - feel good -"

"Alright, if you say so." Soonyoung chuckled, kissing your thigh.

He was impressed at how deep and hard you had bit him; imagining that with the look on your face it had finally eased the ache that your human biases told you so incorrectly to ignore.

He was so proud, smitten even, as you melted against the duvet.

With no thought at all he reached his hand up to spread the beads of cum on your legs and stomach, up and over the back of your thighs. It made his cock twitch, and he growled loudly against the fresh bite to your thigh.

"Where do you want me to come, sweetheart?"

Soonyoung asked with grit to his teeth. One hand holding you, the other starting to squeeze at the base of his cock.

"Inside." You moaned dumbly into the duvet.

"You sure?" Soonyoung chuckled, growling possessively as he moved to kneel again.

"Yeah - Want it Soonie…"

Pumping himself on his fist despite his efforts to just clean you up. Fucking his fingers imagining it was your squeezed cunt before - thrusting into you in one fluid pump and groaning.

He gripped your ass harshly, staying there for a moment before reluctantly pulling out.

Pushing in one last time to pump you full of thick white beads of cum.

Soonyoung pulled out and crashed to sit weakly on the bed behind you, holding you up as he regained the blood rushing around his head.

He had come so hard and heavy he saw stars.

He satiated himself afterwards by lapping at your labia. Slipping in between your folds and sucking until you moaned, pushing against his face. Yet twitching in sensitivity.

He amused himself by licking until there was nothing left. Nipping and sucking at your thighs to hear you sigh.

But nothing more. You needed to rest.

Finally, pleased with his work, Soonyoung placed your hips onto the bed. Leaving to clean himself, clean his teeth and change the blanket.

Then, eventually, he doted on you selflessly until you awoke.

—-----------------------------------------

The next thing you remembered was Soonyoung sitting beside you on the bed.

His heartbeat was steady. And you were curled up into an oddly tight ball at his side as he applied ointment to your wounds.

Your knees were tucked unusually tight to your chest. And every intake of breath smelt of him. Eyelids heavy as you moved to find him, his warmth.

You weren’t sure exactly where you were going, so dizzy, full, and content; but you knew you needed to make contact with him.

“Soon -” You called with a sharp and desperate whine, catching his immediate attention as he quickly pulled his oily hand away from you. "Soonyoung, please -"

Soonyoung blinked down at you, growling protectively and with a huge amount of affection in response to your link tugging so suddenly.

“Hey, pretty girl. You shouldn’t be awake yet. What’s up?”

You just about made out his smile in the haze, aching to move up, up, up.

He realised quickly what you were doing. Moving forward to bump against your head. Eyes closed. Breath shallow.

“Easy, angel. I’m just cleaning your bites…" He grumbled, huffing affectionately against your cheek. "I'm right here. You can rest."

You held there for as long as you could.

Whining through your nose with a new wolfish peak to the tone made Soonyoung practically whine back. He was enamoured with you, by you.

'You’re okay, Y/N. I'll care for you now. Easy, pretty girl.'

Soothed, you lay back down. Feeling a gentle brush of his knuckles then an even softer kiss against the side of your head.

"They don’t look that bad at all, actually. Nothing like your first Claim. I think your body actually accepted them this time.”

His voice was low, rough and sore. But back to his usual tone. And it made you reach for him. He smiled fondly at your hands curling into the corners of his shirt. Giggling at your canines tucking your lip into a funny position.

“The fever…” You mumbled before a huge yawn prickled over your scalp, stretching your sore and aching limbs out then back in again. “Is it gone?”

Soonyoung laughed softly with a small cough into his bicep, using his non-greasy hand to press his fingertips into the crown of your head. Sliding back into your scalp with an eye-rolling pressure.

“New discovery. I think it can be fucked out of me.”

“Mmhmm…” You yawned into his knee, curling around his back and placing your arm over his thigh.

“Aching.” You sighed airily.

Soonyoung smiled down at you.

“I think you’re going to be feeling that poison there for a little while, pup. Scenting will help. Sorry, I went pretty hard on you. About ten bites total. I know - it was a lot."

Soonyoung scratched his neck sheepishly.

"Speaking of… second new discovery: you might be the one suffering from the first discovery when it comes to practice... In the future I mean… Sorry, love.”

You shook your head, curling even further around him with an even bigger yawn. Mumbling something along the lines of ‘Don’t be silly. It felt amazing! Would do it again anytime, 10/10 rating’.

But if you knew anything about Soonyoung’s chuckle, you knew that you hadn’t even delivered one line successfully.

But you really didn’t need to say anything for him to understand.

His thumb brushed next to your eyes as your pupils expanded. Enraptured by you.

“Get some rest, love. You’ll be aching tomorrow. Or whenever you wake up. Trust me on this one.”

And being the stubborn beast that you were, you tried to fight it, you really did.

“Go back to sleep, precious dove. I’ll lay with you soon.”

“Please don’t leave… don’t go…” Your eyes dipped heavily as a yawn rippled up your throat, face pressed into the outside of his thigh and lips tucked in front of the gums of your canines. “Stay here… my den… Don’t go…”

Soonyoung laughed softly, shaking his head and scrunching his nose. You were adorable. “I’m right here, Y/N. I’m not going anywhere, anytime soon. I just need to clean you up first, after using and abusing your body so much. You’re safe, angel. I won’t leave you. Close your eyes. Get some rest. Go on. I’ll be here when you wake up. Sleep well, my love.”

But with all that comforting and coaxing, and a healthy dosage of his pressuring ability pulling at your already weak consciousness, you could do nothing but melt into his touch and submit whole and fully to his gentle command.

The grip from your hands slowly released, until they rolled to the bed and into your chest.

“Good job, beautiful.” He whispered, tugging at your link until he felt content enough that you were steady into a deep sleep.

And as your body eased, Soonyoung leaned to kiss your temple one last time before continuing his attention to your wounds.

Scraping out one last viscous lump of earth-scented goop and spreading it into the crease of your ass cheek before shaking his head with a soft laugh to himself.

Of all the places to bite - he really did think with his dick first.

The ointment congealed against the open teeth-shaped wounds on your skin as your Wolf immune system mixed with it to heal. Creating a barrier over your skin to encourage scarring and clotting any chance of bleeding.

But with how diligently he had Marked you, there was nothing much beyond body liquids to clean up.

Most of which he had already swallowed; the heavily scented blanket shoved into your wash bin until a later date.

He watched it dutifully to make sure the skin was completely coated and had hardened before using a damp cloth to wipe away the excess on your skin, testing as he did the others with a poking thumb, stretching the skin.

In the quiet of your room now, alone with you and caring for you, he blushed at such an action. At everything that had happened. He was so happy. And more connected to you than ever.

He placed the ointment on your nightstand and moved away to rinse his hand in the bathroom sink in the hall and change his clothes before coming back into you.

He closed the room to your door with a soft putt. Immediately picking up on, and then further appeasing the sounds coming from your body, curled up in your sleep with a hand to your head and a thumb moving against your tense brow.

“Easy, easy, easy now. You’re so silly Y/N. I’m here, flower. Right here. And I'm not going anywhere. Get some rest.”

As you settled down again, he pulled your weighted blanket down from the overhead cupboard. Doing his best to place it down gently as he stepped over you, lying on his side to curl his legs underneath you. He tucked his arms under your ribs and onto your belly. Crossing them to pull you flush to his abdomen. Anchoring you as your eyes fluttered open, shut, open, shut. In a place between sleep and consciousness.

Soonyoung growled softly at a steady and deep vibrating pace, whispering commands of deep, restful sleep until your movements subsided. Anchored in his arms. Heartbeats matching.

Finally, finally, after hours of stressful waking, you could rest.

Soonyoung thought much the same; burrowing his face into your neck, and curling into you until he felt safe. Comforted by holding you.

His Scarlet Fever was placated.

For now.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------

You woke up alone… but not entirely.

While it was true your nesting room and safe bed were now otherwise empty; it was still warm, and six other beings were moving around and making unwelcome noises in the sanctity of your usually silent apartment.

More noise than you found comforting, in this current state. And it strung a tense band around your head and between your eyes.

You could hear them through the walls.

Their voices and distinct heartbeats.

Could sense their presence like a rash on your skin as a stranger's coy laugh bounced between your ears.

Though muffled, it was intrusive. And as you rose, wiping your bleary eyes, you realised just how much you were aching.

It must have been a day or two that you had spent in and out of deep sleep, you realised with slight shock.

You remembered drinking and relieving yourself with his aid. But never had you felt a sleep this deep. And you didn't even feel hungry, or thirsty.

Soonyoung had flipped over your calendar for you on your bedside table. And as you moved to sit up, a hot water bottle flopped along the floor, until it came to a stop in front of your dresser, where he had hung one of his nightshirts and your favourite nesting drawstring joggers.

“Oh…” You mumbled, clutching the heavy-weighted blanket to your chest as your heart and belly fluttered. Touched. Humbled. Enamoured with love.

He had been doting on you.

The thought to text him came to mind, but you saw his phone on charge next to your own on the bedside, and you huffed in defeat. The time read 8am; which while reasonable on any other day, was an awful time to wake up in your current state. You couldn’t call him from across the suite, you would embarrass yourself in front of these strangers. But you couldn’t exactly run out to him on strong legs either.

As you shuffled out to the edge of the bed, you whined deeply, so deep that you gasped for air afterwards. Scrunching the blanket between your palms.

You had caught a whiff of Soonyoung, disorienting you completely as you knew he wasn’t in the room.

But it was coming from… the blanket?

Curious, you inhaled deeply against the fabric in your hand; dragging it along with a dazed mania until you reached the side he had slept under.

It smelt just like him.

You found some small form of new comfort in rubbing against his scent for a moment, but it just wasn’t enough.

Soon it was replaced with the smell of your usual bedding, and you whined at the ache you felt, desperate to just get near him.

It was a strange feeling for someone who usually defended their independence so fiercely.

Rising from the bed, you changed at a slow pace, and in a great amount of discomfort. You were aching bitterly, but you weren’t suffering from any usual symptoms of heat. This was an entirely new feeling. And you figured the intense tug in your gut to reach him, the strain in your ear and nose muscles to follow your mate’s tracks, was due to his intense imprinting upon you. And yours upon him.

And as you passed the large oval mirror hidden in the alcove of your oddly shaped room, you parted the decorative fake ivy to peer into your own golden yellow eyes.

Well, that was new.

At your own shocked noise, you spooked yourself, watching in morbid fascination as your pupils contracted. Making yourself relax just to watch them expand again, if only slightly. And the colour; a deep matte brown gold edged by an electric purple, which you correctly presumed to be a sign of your mate's imprinting; he had left a Mark on you that was simply gorgeous.

Well, that was something you would just need to get used to.

The thought of trying to suppress your emotions to see the switch into your normal eyes occurred, but before even putting the thought into action you shuddered with a deep whine.

Another time, then. Noted.

Your skin also looked… softer?

And while you knew he had probably helped you to the toilet already RE: a lack of sudden pressing urge to after-sex-pee after being rudely awoken, you hadn’t realised he had also brushed your hair for you.

You huffed a breath into your hand to check your morning breath, but it was just… minty.

“Huh…” You mumbled to yourself.

And your neck, your shoulders… He must have bitten you more than you had realised in the throws of lust and carnal passion.

Two scars lay on either side of your pulse points under your jaw, one old and healed, the original bite that turned you, the other freshly melded and hot to the touch. There was another above your heart, two more on your left shoulder, and two on your right. And you caught sight of one at your shoulder blade and slightly lower on your back and in the middle as you spun with a craning neck to try and see them.

A weak growl rippled from your lips, vibrating your throat.

He had been gnawing at you like a dirty old fishbone.

And you were smitten.

Entirely besotted by them.

Oh if your human companions could see you now - well, they would never understand.

You even pulled up the shirt to brush your palm over the particularly sensitive bite on your hip, and the other on the soft of your belly. It made you twitch with a pang of desire, and with thoughts of the nights before flooding behind your eyes, you decided to leave it alone, for now.

Dropping your shirt to puff out a sigh.

All-in-all, it was an unfamiliar sight. A new, heart-wobbling and consuming image. It sent a message to the world that you could never take back or deny. But it was not unwelcomed, not at all. You had only ever seen glances and been taught about this level of Claiming by your pack elders. It took many a decade to build that level of trust.

That fact made you feel entirely seen.

And you mostly just felt… loved.

Your attention soon turned to your den door. It had never seemed this unfriendly.

But hearing Soonyoung’s small giddy laugh, your body rushed with energy to leap out, hands outstretched.

Before you could realise what you were doing, you stood outside of your room with the door pulled tightly shut.

You just… stood there for a moment.

Outside of your place of security. In shock. In fear.

You even considered hiding. That was what it was made for, you argued with yourself, before deciding that no, it was only to be used when threatened - it’s our home, and there’s no reason to be scared. Not while Soonyoung was near.

While considering whether to lean into your human flight or Wolfish fight instincts; you caught Soonyoungs scent on your shoulder; chasing it to breathe in the smell until you had pressed yourself silly into the corner.

You had practically breached the wall to chase your mate’s track. Huffing with frustration towards yourself as you rubbed your head, punching the stupid wallpaper with a weak open palm.

But eventually, that trace also disappeared. The residual scent still stayed; as yours did to your nesting clothes. And you realised with a flip in your heart that that was the reason he had left it for you. Hugging yourself tightly in his scent before taking a deep inhale and gathering the courage to leave your safe place pressed in the corner to move forward.

You made it about three steps, moving closer to the noise and smells and the unwelcome coats and shoes in your entryway. Almost instantly you felt a small pang of anxiety hit deep inside your belly and up into your chest. You held yourself tighter. Shrinking in against the wall and against yourself until the shaking in your legs stopped and your irises unpinched. But it took an unusually long time, swallowing with a dry throat as your peripherals fuzzed completely.

This was entirely unlike you. Or anything you had experienced in your turning.

‐—---------------‐—---'xxxxxxxxzzzxxxxxx

With a deep huff of frustration towards yourself and such a foreign wave of anxiety, you gripped the fabric of Soonyoung’s thick cotton shirt between your fingers and slid them back out, breathing through your mouth in deep fear of becoming overstimulated.

Your nose twitched as you padded to the edge of the wall.

You could tell that the majority of them were people you knew, with just one remaining stranger unidentified and otherwise unwelcome. Your senses were sharper and more sensitive than ever thanks to your strengthened link. Being Marked by an Alpha was no small thing. And you felt its repercussions in the ache of your bones and the trembling of your legs.

You squeezed yourself in frustration as you just tried to concentrate. They were right around the corner, just - they’re right there! Why couldn’t you properly smell, or even hear them!?

Truthfully, the world was muffled. And as you closed your eyes, inhaling deeply through your nostrils and holding it as Soonyoung had taught you - all you could sense was him. His shallow and relaxed breathing. His pulse. The sound of his hair as he scratched behind his ear; fabric rubbing against his arms.

Even with your new ‘abilities’, you just knew you had to reach him, and fast, before you gave in to your urges to get near him and ended up hurting someone.

He must have felt you coming. A silly thought, you realised, considering how connected you were to each other now. But it was all just so new that you found your brain chasing nature with logic.

Truthfully; he had picked up on the change in your heartbeat as soon as you had awoken from a deep slumber. He had listened out for you as you had shuffled from under your bed covers, anxious to your whines as you got changed, feeling the minute shift of your mood in the mirror, even feeling your anxious heartbeat against his skin as you stopped dead in your tracks at the hallway to your open home.

He found it a true test of his will that he was able to withstand your tugging and reaching for him while there were so many other Alphas present in your home. Let alone other Wolves. And he felt your grievance in the way you moved, the urgency and uneasiness of your footsteps to reach him.

But he had to push you. Had to see if you would follow the pull. Had to see if you had finally accepted him. Needed to test if you trusted yourself enough after years of encouragement to finally lean into your new instincts and lean into them more than ever before. Enact upon teachings that could sometimes take natives decades of processing to understand.

So of course, as soon as you had rounded the corner of the entryway - your eyes wide with strikingly pinched irises, hair loose and appearance soft, while your fists lay white and clenched at your sides, pink scars making themselves known - Soonyoung locked onto you with a pleased smile.

As you locked eyes with your mate, you choked down a pained sound. Face scrunched and body language screaming as you pressed your back, back against the other side of the hallway. Soonyoung watched as you struggled, feeling your own fast pulse beat seemingly in his own throat.

But he had to let you move. For you to come to him. And so he waited. Removed and unbothered by the conversation in front of him; his sole focus was on you, even as the voices in the room stuttered into silence.

Your mate had been leaning forward with crossed arms onto the island separating the modern kitchen and open living area.

Upon seeing you, he straightened his spine. A movement that alerted the company to your arrival.

All attention snapped to whatever the trusted and well-reputationed bodyguard had become alert to.

What they didn’t expect to find a bother to their security was the small stiff form of a female hovering near the front of the apartment.

Soonyoung wore a pressed suit; his family ring pinned to his breast pocket.

He had washed since your activities.

And before he had been expecting you, you imagined his expression was as fiercely sharp and intimidating as it usually was in his job. And with his hair gelled back, he looked as handsome and as eye-catching as the day you had met him.

Well, maybe you were slightly biased.

But he did catch eyes easily.

In the anxious silence of the room; he smiled at you discreetly with an aching heart. The tips of his lips twitched up until his cold expression completely cracked; nodding his head for you to come further into the room.

"Come here, angel. Come in." Inviting you to come into the circle of Wolves, to be seen by several sets of eyes, to come towards him, to arrive safely in his presence.

And despite everything; he was still peering into you with those bright red Scarlet Fever eyes. With a purple ring that now finally matched your own deep and settled gold canvas. Soonyoung was already grumbling with glee, pleased even from this distance at your visual.

His prized partner in life now stood before him, Marked into a possession nobody could ever touch. He wasn’t the type to show off, but he admired you as you stood there; strong despite your nerves. Defiant despite your submission. It reinforced that you had given yourself to him willingly, pulling an enchanted smile across his cheeks.

You had wandered straight into a family business meeting you realised very, very quickly.

Anxiety in the form of carnal fear bubbled in your veins as you stuck to the wall.

Something innate screamed inside you that they shouldn’t be here. That it was too soon, they were too close, too loud. And finally that they needed to leave. You had to get them out of your home before they could come near you. It tormented your mind's eye enough that you began to tremble, with eyes pinched so harshly it was nought but feral impulses driving you now.

Having located your mate, you looked quickly at the other five Alphas.

You could tell they were Alphas by their domineering presence; the knowing of the power they held. You could feel it pressing against your throat like it had sucked all the clean air out of the room.

You knew four of them in total. Your family leaders and eldest brothers; Jeonghan and Seungcheol. Your mate, and his closest friend, Soonyoung’s brother Minghao, who you considered a brother to you now also.

But there was a stranger with his back to you. And it stuck a fist in your gut that had your brain spinning gears.

You huffed quietly in desperation, rocking on your feet before gripping the wall and hauling yourself forward. With thick night socks, large oversized clothes and a deep ache in your bones, you juddered forward as fast as possible until you reached the island.

Running into your mates' arms with a heart-jolting cry and eyes squeezed shut.

Soonyoung caught you behind the island in a tight embrace. He lifted you into the momentum of your run with a graceful spin, before rounding back. His stomach was vibrating as you struggled to breathe, gripping your mate with tears in your eyes.

“Easy, easy, easy now, flower. You’re safe. I've got you.” Soonyoung whispered gently, holding you so tightly against him that you truly believed it for once.

"You're okay, I'm here. You're alright."

He kissed and grumbled against your hair, cradling you between his shoulder and his cheek.

Until after about three minutes, your grip ever so slightly loosened.

"Soonie - please -"

Your body was shaking, nerves still in your throat, irises painfully slit thin, but you were just so desperate to see his face.

When you pulled away; Soonyoung anticipated your nerves and grumbled deeply as he met your forehead. He bumped your nose with his while turning you gently, to shield you from the eyes of your guests in momentary privacy.

His lips met your own; pressing once, then again, then one last time. His eyes blew wide; pouring love and security into your own.

“Hey there, gorgeous. Calm down, you're alright. Can you tell me how you're feeling? Or what you’re feeling, pup?”

Before answering you looked wildly at the room. Looking back into his eyes with the most hushed version of a whining plea that you could muster.

"Hey, don't look at them. Look at me. Look at me, love."

You whined on a long exhale before surrendering.

“Strange, Soonie. I’m so anxious it hurts, my bones ache without you near and their heartbeats are giving me a headache… Please don’t leave me again. I'm so frightened of - of this, it's new and I don't want to get overwhelmed -"

“Hey, hey, hey. I'm not about to let you freak yourself out after reaching the finish line. You've done so well dove, even if everything is a little much right now. I’m also not going anywhere anytime soon. You're my priority. I’m right here. Always have been; less than a room away. Not that far away at all, hmm, silly?”

At his words you whined loudly; so loud that even Soonyoung laughed in shock, the sound piercing across the otherwise relaxed aura of the room.

But he stopped laughing, smiling lovingly instead as soon as you pressed yourself against him, tucking under his chin and reaching to intertwine your hands against the hot, inflamed skin of your cheek.

He felt your heart pounding against him, burying your face into his collarbone with a short, puttering set of cries. Skin hot to the touch like it would be during your heat; though no sweet smell to accompany it.

“See to your mate, Soonyoung.” An older, deep and rumbling voice purred with amusement across the room. “She looks about ready to kill someone.”

Soonyoung pulled away from hushing you to look to his side, observing with a curled lip the eyes that watched you.

It made his skin crawl, and he was never usually the overly possessive type, especially in front of his brothers.

But with his mate shaking so vulnerably in his arms, he had to cut off the tension and fast.

"Quit fucking staring at her before I lose my patience. All of you. You’re intimidating her. She's already newly Claimed and anxious and you're making it worse."

"We're just anxious as to how she might react to us, Soonyoung," Jeonghan explained calmly, with accusing caution written all over his features.

"This isn't - well, we all realise that it's not an ideal scenario for a freshly marked to be exposed to. You’re not naive. She can now shift and lash out violently brother, so please be realistic here."

Soonyoung snarled fiercely in response.

"You're already doing a great fucking job scaring her by impressing yourself upon the room so much, so do me a favour and fuck off glaring holes into her back like a rabid dog. She won’t shift if you don’t give her any reason to."

Soonyoung growled lowly towards everyone in the room. His tongue curled and pressed to the roof of his mouth to make some fearsome gurgling sound.

"I'm sure you’d all like your eyes still stuck firmly in the sockets of your skull by the end of this meeting. Give her some space and we'll keep it that way."

You held him tighter and with a sense of desperation as his sounds caused you to shake in fear. Was he indicating danger? He said you were safe but - were you really?

“Okay, okay, okay. Just - quickly now, please. Everyone divert your eyes for just a moment. Respect and some space.” Seungcheol pressed in a low voice, cautiously eyeing you from beneath his younger brother's arms.

While he couldn’t exactly see you, he could smell and hear how much you intended to get them out of here and away from your newly scented home in the snarl against your throat and anger rushing off you like a wave of heat.

Seungcheol didn’t exactly blame you for being angry.

The three of them had sensed, smelled and tasted that their brother had Scented the entire floor as soon as the elevator had opened its huge reinforced doors to them early that morning.

It was an impossible thing to hide, even despite Soonyoung’s attempts at open windows and odour-neutralising sprays; or the building’s deliberately thick-lined architecture; it was just something innate that a Wolf didn’t have to touch in order to feel.

Seungcheol just preferred his guests to be mauled at a later arranged date - rather than in his brother’s comfy and swish living room by the hands of his newly Marked, freshly Claimed, reasonably pissed off and honestly his favourite, little sister.

You hadn’t quite anticipated the ferocity of your snarl until it curled up against the back of your throat; eyes wide and pure gold as Soonyoung gripped your wrists.

Before you could struggle against him he moved fast and with purpose; dragging you with him in one solid gripped hand and a chair in the other.

"Come on." He grumbled. "Sit down, you pretty pup, and tell me what's wrong. What is it exactly, love, that's stressing you out so badly?"

"Want. Them. Out."

By now you were shaking, about ready to let out another blood-curdling growl before Soonyoung gripped your hips, lifting you into the opposite stool and dragging you into his space until your knees hit up against the chair between his legs.

Growling with wild eyes and a racing pumping beat of adrenaline in your ears; Soonyoung gripped your wrists. Shaking you to look at him again.

“Stop it, Y/N. Quit it. Look at me. Look at me, you precious thing. They’re not going anywhere, and neither are you. Get a hold of yourself before you black out - I'm right here, you are safe.”

Your muscles rippled and tensed visibly all over your body as you shook your head, eyes squeezed shut and teeth bared; somewhere between fighting him and curling in on yourself. Your knees knocked up loudly against the chair as you pulled at his grip on you with some might.

“Look at me, you’re going to hurt yourself in a minute - Y/N, I -”

The leaders watched with accusing eyes; what they saw as a threat, Soonyoung simply knew you were just deeply afraid. Terrified, even. And their pressuring ability was simply making it worse.

Soonyoung growled viciously through grit teeth. Fighting his instinct to smother you to instead allow you to come to him when you needed him. Right now, you were too highly strung to need much at all.

“Fine then, resist it, see what happens. You’re not going to like it, or last long at all. I'll catch you when you fall."

As soon as Soonyoung stopped fighting you, letting go of your hands and leaning back, you paused in shock. And became instantly consumed by a trembling, whole-consuming fear of your mate pulling away from you.

You peered up at him with a desperate plea, one that he answered with a deep grumble you could feel against your connecting skin.

He was right; you couldn’t have lasted longer than a few seconds.

He met you in a teeth-clashing kiss, blunt nails digging into the crown of your head and holding your scalp in his palms as his teeth migrated across your cheek in a forceful growl. You choked for breath, holding him against you as your last fight kicked in.

"Want them out - want - they're scenting our home, Soonie - want them - them to - LEAVE - out - get out of our home, please! It's not their place to stay!"

Soonyoung hushed your manic cries with his tongue lapping at your hot and relatively unscented pulse. He could sense now that he had left you alone for too long and caused you to get overwhelmed by the fight mode in your Wolf.

"Soonie - I can't breathe -" You cried, body flinching harshly at the faux panic coursing through your muscles.

"Easy, you're alright, you're okay. Give in, angel. Lean into me. Stop fighting the pull. Breathe love. I'm here."

He sucked and gnawed and growled against you until your legs shook. His free palm pressed your shaking leg against your bar stool, soothing over the joggers until your body tensed, then fell against him. He held your scalp in a tight grip as he scented you, but this time he went the direct route.

"Let go, beautiful. I've got you. You don't need to protect anyone. You're safe. Let me take over."

Like a predator holding its prey's neck, until it stops moving, Soonyoung sunk his teeth into your new Claim on your shoulder, holding you there until you stopped struggling. The wound wouldn't re-pierce now even if he tried - not that that was what he was even trying to do.

He licked at it occasionally, but mostly he was using it to anchor you to him. The scar was sensitive and soft, the flesh hardening over the last few days but still deep and so snug to the hurting gums that he reacted in a way that made him growl so possessively you couldn’t help but mewl audibly in response, curling into his hold.

"Soonie -" You cried pitifully. " I - my - it feels like you're pulling me into you b-but - h-how do I make it stop - I can't grab onto it, Soonyoung please it feels like you're ripping away from me -"

‘Remember to breathe, my frightened little dove. You're doing so well. Take a deep breath for me. I've got you. Let go, whenever you're ready, let go.’

Soonyoung growled like a rattling engine still canine deep, kneading at the aches in your thighs as you clung to him. Closing your eyes to give in and lean on him in every way.

"Nngh - my head - it hurts -"

‘Is she going to make it, Soon?’ Minghao asked with a timid tone, through the link and across the room. ‘We’ll need to remove her, if not. I don’t want it to come to that. I know you don’t want it to come to that. And neither do the boys… But this is worrying, brother.’

Soonyoung grumbled with a nod and a smile that was tempered completely with love, lips secured over his connection with you.

‘She’ll make it.’

Slowly but surely, you indeed came around.

You relaxed completely in his arms, a pang in your heart causing you to moan a few pained breaths through burning lungs. Your heart rate slowed until it matched his. And he could pull away to Eskimo kiss you. A sense of clarity washed over your scalp like a mint bath as he removed his teeth from your scar, lips pressing to your cheeks and growling hushed against your hair.

‘Well done, beautiful. The link wasn’t snapped, it won't ever break now - but you were so scared that it might, you started to panic. Just another day, another lesson. I'm so proud of you gorgeous. You’re safe. Catch your breath.’

A warm, aching whimper echoed from you, Soonyoung purring a deep growl in response. Your heartbeat and adrenaline slowed dramatically, gasping a breath as you leaned to pull him forward for his comfort. He met you without question.

“Easy, love. You’ve got time.”

You curled your fist up into your aching canines, eyes drooped under the mind-numbing security now occupying your thoughts. You gnawed at your knuckles until Soonyoung tugged your hand away.

“I'm sorry… It's just… It’s all too much, Soonie…" You whispered against his blazer collar. “Thank you…”

The light from the window dazzled you for a moment. Bright and sparkling.

With your irises blown wide; it was not exactly a great idea to stare straight into the morning sun, at least not so soon. Jeonghan moved ever so subtly into the ray of light; growling affectionately, but acting indifferently to the room.

“I know,” Soonyoung laughed gently, after observing the interaction with his brother. He moved to support your head and brush a thumb over your eyebrows; forcing you to blink and break eye contact. “I know it’s a lot.”

‘The boys are worried for you.’ He added mentally, letting you rest for a moment.

Suddenly, your body followed your mind; your eyes flooded out wide and your lip twitched in tandem with your nose.

“Is it - are we safe? Are any more people coming? When will they leave?”

At the urgency in your voice; all eyes returned to you in Soonyoung’s arms. He purred something pretty as he tucked you into his shoulder, embracing you as best he could at this angle.

“You’re okay, flower. You’re safe.” He growled softly through open lips. His heart melted for you. “Nobody is going to hurt you. Nobody else is going to come. They'll leave under Seungcheol's command. Relax, Pup. No one is going to touch you, or me, or our home, without our permission.”

'But - your brothers - why are they here -' You whined through the link.

He understood where your fear came from. You weren’t used to having so much power and it was devouring your usual mind into more instinctual behaviours.

"They're your brothers, Y/N. They would never deliberately hurt you. You're safe."

You took a second to compute. Eyeing them all suspiciously with contracting, then expanding golden eyes. Soonyoung smiled widely as you squeezed the knee stuck between your thighs, accepting your affection as you rubbed your cheeks to his neck. Meeting your embrace.

You had just given him your first non-verbal sign. Agreeing with him by performing the equivalent of folding your ears and rolling; wilfully submitting to his lead.

He took a second to tilt your jaw away from your shoulder.

Your neck and shoulder were Marked so beautifully he couldn't help but deeply growl in comfort. Continuing the soothing of your thighs as he removed his hands to let you curl into him, arms around your shoulders instead in a momentary embrace.

Seungcheol addressed you both now.

The elder watched your reaction closely and with a great amount of caution.

The whole ordeal seemed to have lasted hours. But it was only a minute or so outside of your little bubble. Soonyoung did a good job deliberately shielding you with his body for the majority of the interaction, anyways.

—---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you had dashed to meet him; Soonyoung’s nightshirt had hung low on your shoulder blades. Flowing off Soonyoungs heavy, musky scent in waves and exposing your collarbone and upper back scarred and marked for the world to see.

Not that you cared. You hadn’t even noticed it. Tunnel vision set upon Soonyoung and your desperate need to reach him.

But everybody else did.

Everybody else had noticed.

Everybody else had taken it in with a sharp, focused vision.

Minghao averted his eyes as soon as he took note of you at the corner of the room with a knowing private smile. Instead, he watched your dash to his brother with a warm heart. Laughing to himself as your nails dug into his blazer, desperate for reassurance. Ready to crawl into him in an effort to be soothed.

Jeonghan had stiffened against the window he was propped up against. His lip had twitched up into a sour expression at the scent of a newly claimed entering the space; before shaking out the red that seeped into his eyes. He only glanced back up again at your whine upon contact with your mate, smiling to himself.

He heard the emotion in your voice. But he wasn’t convinced. Uncomfortable in his entire being that they were even in your space after being Claimed so soon.

Seungcheol had also stiffened upon your presence being made known but was the only one to watch you dash the whole distance to his brother.

He had been waiting for your appearance all morning. And you hadn’t failed to please him. Hands outstretched and eyes blown wide for your mate. He was mildly disgusted with his brother and the thought of him even performing the act; but otherwise, he was touched.

And this guest - they seemed to be staring at you far too much.

Seungcheol put two and two together and made a note to watch this newcomer closely, especially around you. His intense staring had been putting you at unease at a much more suffocating pressure than any of the brothers.

As Seungcheol’s younger brother tended to you, the guest seemed to watch with bated breath.

As he understood it; his guest also had brothers, 5 in total, that had never mated, pressured or even bought an Omega from the outer cities. It was strange to him. But he guessed with good knowledge that he likely watched the two of you with envy, slight lust, but mostly pure fascination.

Seungcheol had curled his lip into a snarl until the stranger quickly apologised and averted his eyes.

"Cut it out." He had growled lowly and directly as Soonyoung placated you. "Or I'll gauge your eyes out with my tongue."

The young man bowed his head in apology, but despite his size and physique, he didn’t appear to be at all threatening.

Your pack leader stared him down until he was confident the action was not done with offence, and the heavy beating in your chest had settled into a gentle matching pattern to your mate’s, before looking up at you both.

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You looked so out of place.

Your usual sharp-witted self with a sweet musk of an aroma was newly replaced with a bed-soft, Marked and scented female.

It's hard to describe to a human, but the connection and the new binding of the bond could be felt by everyone in the room. It was present as much as Wolf’s pulse, breathing and own Alpha imprints upon the space around them, the type that the eye could not see.

Seungcheol was unfamiliar with the golden eyes that stared back at him over the height of his brother's blazer sleeve. Your gaze was sharp and cold, unlike your natural eye colour and humility he was so used to. He would be lying if he said he didn’t like this new side of you.

But it would take some work.

“Good morning, Y/N. Apologies, I hope we didn’t wake you.” Seungcheol spoke with a softer and far more hushed voice than normal.

With your nose pressed into Hoshi’s shoulder, it was hard to fight the pliancy of the pull and bite back. "You most certainly did." But you still managed. Hoshi giggled behind a knuckle.

“I'm sorry - we’ll try and give you both some more warning next time; so as not to scare you so much. We didn’t realise the situation until we had sat down.” Though he remained his usual sarcastic Leo self. “Thank you for your understanding.”

Jeonghan eyed Seungcheol with suspicion before turning to see your reaction. His brother seemed to know what he was doing; you hadn’t bit back and seemed to genuinely be considering his words from behind your mate’s arms that leaned at ease on the bar stool’s flared edges on either side of your hips.

All six pairs of eyes turned to you. Some yellow, some red, some green. The new male’s eyes struck silver in the mid-morning light.

You growled from within deep in your belly, moving to shift your chair even closer, then behind Soonyoung. He let you move to his side; practically behind his taller frame. The two of you were sitting up with your eyes locked together.

“What are you all doing here?” You growled, nose pressed against Soonyoung’s shoulder as he peered down at you. He was watching you in case you reacted suddenly but he also acted as your grounding in such a volatile state.

“In our home. At this particular moment in time. With a stranger. This early in the morning. Couldn’t you have held this meeting somewhere - anywhere else but here?”

A beat of silence pulsated in the room.

And your gaze was locked with Seungcheol’s.

Soonyoung growled in warning as he moved to lean his weight on the palm planted between your anxiously tensed thighs; lips pressed to your temple in pattered kisses.

‘Drop it, Y/N. Not now, not here.’

Seungcheol met your tension until he heard Soonyoung’s voice through the link. Then he kept it strung tight purely out of his classic morbid curiosity.

Soonyoungs growl grew deeper. And his fang pressed into your cheek, teeth bared.

‘Now.’

Instantly; your thighs eased, instead focusing on his body leaning into you as you nuzzled his bicep with a dizzy expression. One hand gripped his blazer back as the other slipped between his fingers. In a complete tunnel vision of affection, ears once again metaphorically folded. Soonyoung kissed the corner of your eye in thanks.

But you tensed once again as your attention was drawn away, back to the wider room. Eyes pinched at the stranger who stared far too much into your eyes for your liking.

“It’s a fair question.” Minghao shrugged, smiling knowingly at Seungcheol who simply rolled his eyes. Jeonghan remained quiet and watched you with sincere caution. As anxious of you as he would be any other newly turned. “Who wants to take this?”

Soonyoung jumped at the opportunity.

“The neighbouring pack has offered us a treaty, in unity, pup.”

You met Soonyoung’s gaze. His eyes were soft; the purple and red softened by his love for you.

But no matter how much you fought it; these basic customs still churned your stomach into bits.

“You’re marrying off one of our Betas?” You questioned. Tone hurt, sad. Smooth to his ears. “One of our Omega girls? They’re not even ready to consort like that, Soonyoung… You would do that? Marry off one of your own girls?”

Soonyoung considered your words. But didn’t physically react. You were asking a deeper implied question here; speaking for the pack as if the Omegas were your own, shared children. The Omegas in question were well of age, and the Betas in question fell within the gender and sexuality spectrum, more than ready to move on.

“No.” Soonyoung purred plainly.

It was alarming how much he could control his body; but he was determined to keep you steady, so aggressively shaking his head would do no good here.

“At least, not yet pup - that’s why they’re here to discuss it. To see if there are any suitable matches. I’m here to make sure nobody gets hurt, like at every head meeting.”

Your mate spoke in a soothing tone as his thumb circled your palm. His expression was calm, and it spoke to you a thousand words. Tactfully melding you into a state of ease. Your cheek dropped to Soonyoung’s chest, one sharp eye watching the said stranger.

“I’m presuming you already know the implications of the unity, hmm?” Soonyoung asked; words muffled as his nose brushed against your hair.

You nodded against him.

“That’s why they’re here, in our home. That’s why I'm here, Y/N. And not outside. At the office. The company bank. Anywhere else. The meeting came here, so I wouldn’t have to leave you. You're my priority here, love. I’m not sure there’s much more I can do to prove it.”

You didn’t respond verbally. Instead, you rubbed your forehead against his neck; infatuated and submissive. Soonyoung brushed the hair from your cheeks and pressed a kiss to the crown of your head; nodding that it was okay for them to continue.

The brothers in the room audibly sighed.

Every careful step to counter your anxiety was saved effort in preventing your potential sudden and violent shift. This was a critical time, and everybody could sense it. Even the guest.

“I can now see why Soonyoung didn’t want to leave you alone in here, little sis,” Minghao spoke, voice gaining your attention.

“And why he recovered so quickly,” Seungcheol added in humour, voice as gruff as ever.

“Right,” Minghao chuckled to himself quietly. “We weren’t sure how long the meeting was going to take.”

“I’m sorry, we should have considered you further,” Minghao added from his place on the sofa next to the stranger. He sat up suddenly from his resting elbows to stretch his arms.

This allowed the visitor to eye you curiously.

Soonyoung pressed his thumb into your palm as you growled into his bicep. Your pinched eyes pressured the guest until he looked away.

Soonyoung eyed him curiously - exchanging a few mental words with Seungcheol about him - before rounding back to you.

“You’re safe here, little sis.” Minghao continued.

“I’m sorry we spooked you, pup,” Seungcheol uttered through a heartfelt mumble; leaning forward with heart-melting amber eyes that you very rarely got to see. “If I would have put two and two together sooner, I personally would have forced us to rearrange,”

“You’re okay - I promise. Nothing out of the ordinary is going to happen. And we’ll leave as soon as the meeting is done. Okay?”

You considered his words deeply before whining weakly and hugging Soonyoung tightly, burying your face in his scent.

“My. Head. Hurts.” You growled moodily. “And they stink. Want their scent gone, Soonie… They’re making me nauseous..”

“I know, flower. It’s a lot to take in, a little too soon.” Soonyoung laughed softly, smiling down at you. "You're doing so well, though. Just don't push yourself. Your senses are viscerally stronger, so you don't want to process too much too fast and get a mild sensory-hangover…"

"You never even told me that was… a thing…" You grumbled in a long sigh.

"Well, it wasn't really an option before - you weren't able to shift completely - but, it will be an issue from now." Soonyoung smiled fondly down at you. His face pressed into his blazer, glaring at him. "You could always go back into your den until -?"

Before Soonyoung could even finish that sentence your grip around his ribs tightened and you shook your head against his stiff jacket.

“Okay, pup.” He laughed benevolently, looking up to see an anxious Jeonghan as the other two brothers cooed at the massaging hand on your head. “Just don’t strain yourself.”

'I think my big-brain of an older brother wants to talk with you, love, whenever you're ready.' Soonyoung purred inwardly, awaiting your eyes to meet him before nodding back towards the window.

Jeonghan remained tense until you caught his eye from behind his brother.

The older Wolf growled in a way that you imagine a young female Wolf would. It was pretty. Delicate. And the type of sound you wanted to hear again and again.

It was at that moment that you realised you had never actually heard Jeonghan growl before.

Soonyoung laughed through his nose as he heard your mind wander; nodding for Jeonghan to come towards you both.

'She's settled, brother. You can come to say hi.'

Cautiously, he walked forward.

Edging into your space before he stopped at the edge of your comfortable bubble, senses sharp and in tune with your body as he anticipated a reaction.

But there was no reaction. Curiously, your new instincts knew what to do, and your heart followed.

You kept a hand locked with Soonyoung and met Jeonghan’s gaze as he stepped in front of you. His eyes seeped a lighter yellow, closing the distance by holding his breath and closing his eyes to lean forward and knock his head against your own.

You were starting to grow accustomed to this.

It was… a nice and new feeling of familial intimacy.

Closing your own eyes with a sharp inhale, you immediately felt Jeonghan’s love he had been guarding in front of the others.

Something about it.

Something about his gentle exhales and the pretty rumbling as he leaned a hand on the edge of the chair, breath fanning over your cheeks. You could feel all of his worries and anxiety surrounding you and Soonyoung come rushing forward through the link.

'Are you okay, Y/N? Did he hurt you? Are you cleaned properly? Are you able to control yourself around the guest?'

The strangest feeling took over your throat; chuffing delicately against Jeonghan’s cheek. His worrying was coming from a place of love.

'I'm okay, Hannie.' You confirmed in a noticeably weak tone. 'We're okay. I’m just… Worn out and tense, is all.'

Jeonghan nodded ever so slightly, moving to hug you.

'You’ll get to rest together, soon, Y/N. I know it's a lot to get used to. You're doing good, pup. Just shout us if it becomes too much.'

The embrace was a little… odd, given the situation. But you could smell his scent in a new way, and it comforted you greatly. Something like the perfume of a sibling. It filled you with familiarity and love.

'I'm sorry - if we had realised, we - I … Just don't push yourself. We're in your newly Marked territory. But we won't do anything to disrupt it, Y/N.'

You opened your eyes slightly to see him.

Strikingly pale yellow irises against a light brown outline and an inner brighter yellow ring met you.

'I promise.'

You hadn't much to say. But you didn't need to say anything. Not with your new body.

He could read you better than you could read yourself.

You matched Jeonghan's strength until he pulled away, settled now he knew you weren’t going to lash out.

Soonyoung kissed your head on the way back, rounding you to stay by his side.

One arm stopped you from retreating backwards while the other was free to move. Your thighs and side pressed into his suit, a solid hand laying between your knees and gripping the soft flesh under the thick joggers.

"Good job, beautiful." He purred against your hair as your cheek rested on his shoulder.

From this angle, he could see your irises had begun expanding greatly; blown wide whenever Soonyoung pressed against you, but also by Jeonghan. Being still new to muscle control; they would almost touch black if it wasn't for the purple ring.

"You follow your instincts more easily now. I can feel it, pretty dove " Voice hushed so only you could hear, his puffs of air pushed your heavy eyelids to blink wistfully. "Just take it slowly. You're doing so well. Can you try and unfocus your eyes for me, love? You've blown them out a little too wide. And give me these -"

He moved to slowly pull away the fingers curled up and pressed between your throbbing teeth and under the sharp point of your canines - the second time in mere minutes the habit had appeared - to smooth over the grazes and indents and small, sharp, thin but deep cuts with his thumb. A new habit he would have to watch out for.

Your fingers were bleeding.

He popped the finger into his mouth - to make contact with his saliva - without much thought. But winked at you with a giggle as you shied away into his shoulder. Releasing you with a chuckle.

You looked exhausted.

Small pained whimpers fell from your lips as your pupils expanded and pinched at every single dart across the room. A dazed look of confusion began settling on your face with your brows tugged low.

"I know, baby. Try and focus on me. Or Hannie, or Hao if you need to. I know it hurts to process so many people in your territory right now, but you'll be alright, I promise."

Soonyoung was tender to your wants of not disrupting your home, but there was little he could do against his older brother's instructions.

He placed a gentle kiss on your brow bone, smiling deeply as your dazed line of view spun around until your face met his own. He wasn't convinced you could totally comprehend what he was saying at the moment, but your eyes blew wide under his watch and eyebrows eased their tension. And this was enough.

"I'll help you rest again soon, angel. We'll sleep later, get some real good food down you, then afterwards I'll scent you until your nerves settle again. Lean on me, the link, for now. It will all be over soon."

“I’m guessing now would be a good time to introduce myself?”

The stranger's voice made you flinch hard.

Your irises pulled together unreasonably quickly; Soonyoung anticipated the spike in your pulse as a solid warning to place himself in front of you.

You had intended to run towards him.

And to no doubt maul him with your extended and exposed canines appearing from under your lips.

'Don't. Do not. Don't you dare lunge at him.'

Soonyoung growled slowly. Pressuring you not to fight his guidance again. Unable to truly command you with such a soft spot for you.

'Do not move, Y/N. I mean it.'

He held you steady, growling almost inaudibly as you gripped him. His lips pressed against your head as you folded into the tug of him grounding you.

But this action was mirrored by a watchful growl from Jeonghan.

'Sister, you have to resist it. I know it's hard. Try and control yourself. He is safe in your territory. You have many guards here. You are safe.'

You knew logically you were safe. But it was a lot to process and by now your vision was blurry and you had already worn yourself out; sinuses burning as much as the ache in your gums.

So you took his previous offer up immediately.

With a scratchy nasal exhale, your eyes closed and you moved to lean into him in every aspect.

His hand withdrew from your leg for a moment to press into the muscles under the height of your cheekbones, where he presumed you were throbbing into your skull.

"Good pup." He whispered, kissing the corner of your eye with a creased-eye smile before settling again. "Good choice."

Your instant moans of relief proved he was right.

Luckily hidden by his blazer; you had your mouth open and eyes closed so he could easily slip under your lips and press the pads of his fingers into the throbbing ache in your gums.

It was heavenly, but not enough.

You needed to mark him again.

Soonyoung growled softly, tugging at the link while he rested the heavy meat of his palm against your lips.

You followed your body; discreetly sinking into the flesh of either side of his palm with eagerly smooth canines and sinfully muffled moans until he winced.

'Hold it.' Soonyoung reminded you. Brushing his thumb over the hand that held his palm to your mouth. Smiling sheepishly at you despite the sharp pinch.

And you did hold it.

It was terribly tender for him, but you couldn't stop pressing down with new Werewolf jaw force until the tension panged out from your link.

“Enough,” Soonyoung whispered, eager to guide you to stop, aware of the hunger versus the limits of marking in your current state. “Let go.”

You pulled away upon his instruction, pliant and eager to please; processing the taste of iron with a muted moan; gasping for air. The blood spooled from his palm quickly upon the break; dripping down your lips and chin and the veins of his hard-working hands.

"Good girl." He growled affectionately, tactfully avoiding blood stains on his pressed suit by forcing gravity to suppress the flow and hold your face up via a pinched chin.

As you peered up at him with a dizzy expression, he pulled to make eye contact.

'Eyes on me, angel. I’m right here.'

He waited until your irises pinched to make sure you saw him and no one else in such a vulnerable state.

You simply melted under his gaze.

All consumed. Mesmerised like a kid in front of a fire.

He held your gaze until your irises completely expanded; pulled intensely by his powers.

And he was barely even exerting himself. Preferring never to use it on you; the rare occasions he did made such a difference.

"That's enough." He calmly whispered, allowing the grounding to snap. “Rest.”

Like a weight dropping; your eyes drooped with an exhausted whimper. Soonyoung had been holding you in anticipation; pressing you to his chest between his arms instead of letting you fall. You folded towards him as he caught the towel chucked at him via Jeonghan from the counter.

"How unsanitary." Jeonghan mused. He was being light-hearted, luckily. “Marking with company present, next to the kitchen, of all places. Didn’t Mother teach you better?”

Soonyoung snickered but moved to wipe at your face, then his wrists. He was holding the wound behind your back. But mostly he was watching you.

You were placated. And it pleased him, greatly.

Minghao's expression softened greatly from where he sat.

'That’s going to hurt Soon…' He spoke, gently scolding his younger brother. "Not a wise place to put a mark brother, not at all…"

'I know.' Soonyoung replied, looking up at his close companion as he licked at his hand. 'I know it will hurt…'

'Hmm. But not as much as she's hurting; right?'

'Right.' Soonyoung confirmed. 'She's been aching badly, Hao. I can feel it. I've been taking some of the pain from her while she sleeps.'

Minghao pressed a finger against his lips and pulled tight in consideration.

'You're a good mate, Soonyoung. She loves you dearly. You have my wholehearted protection, brother. We'll keep her safe while she's out of your sight. But just look at her, Soonyoung. Her eyes are beautiful. You placed the scars well - even if it makes me gag thinking about the fucking shit you did to even think about placing them. You dog.'

Soonyoung shared a silent smile.

'She just looks so weak, Soon. We're worried about her. All of us. We're also sorry if we upset you.'

'She's so tired already.' Soonyoung confirmed. But he shook his head. 'And thank you. I appreciate it, but you don't need to explain. It's okay, Hao. Really.'

His brother nodded.

'I didn't get a chance to scent her before you guys turned up. The whole thing has really spun her off her axis…'

A pause.

'She's scared, Hao. So, so scared. It's all so new to her. I think the family tends to forget she wasn't born like us sometimes, because she puts on such a brave act. Even I do. But it's mostly a front.'

He growled a consistent hum as you nuzzled against him. Your heartbeat had settled greatly. It grounded him.

'All to cover how lost she truly feels. Vulnerable in amongst the pack. And I don't blame her; do you?'

Minghaos eyes floated to your face; delightfully puffy lips and eyes folded over with grief.

'No brother, I don't blame her. Not at all.'

'Ever since she's let me in - I can feel it, Hao. She's terrified… I think it's all very new for both of us. But one of us was born a human. Please be patient with her. That's all I ask of you. She's trying so so hard for all of us, but it will take her a little longer to get used to it than one of our own.'

Minghao smiled lovingly with a soft muted growl. Sharing a glance with Jeonghan over your shoulders.

Though not speaking directly to him; Jeonghan was being pulled into the link via Minghao. And Seungcheol by Jeonghan.

So in this way, the link in a family acts like a Web.

Whereas a mated pair can communicate solely between themselves; not much outside of that can be hidden from the pack.

Even Seungcheol’s eyes strayed from distracting the guest to the way you folded against his brother so feebly.

How could they say no?

'I know.' Minghao smiled gently. 'We all do. You're both doing so well. We're here if you need us. And you're right; we shouldn't judge too quickly. We won't. And we'll remind the younger ones to do the same… Just make sure she's secure before the next time either of you leave this building. We don't want anybody getting hurt. Especially not our new sister.'

Soonyoung chuffed; deeply touched by his brother's words.

He was talking on a deeply spiritual level. You were now tied into their bond, whether you liked it or not. And they were equally as tied to yours.

'We love you, brother.' Jeonghan added faintly. 'Love you both. We all do. It will be a big adjustment for all of us. There are three of us who have mated until linked now. We'll discuss this later.'

The three dipped their heads to each other discreetly before Seungcheol spoke, bringing them back into the open space.

“I think now would be a great time to introduce yourself!” Seungcheol chuffed through an amused smile, curious to see your reaction.

Softened by you and your vulnerability towards the family. Listening to the link while entertaining the guest until you were all ready.

In fact, everyone was enamoured by you.

But none seemed nearly as humoured as the elder. He knew you too well. Like he got some kind of dark joy out of testing your limits.

“Soonyoung, may I speak for your mate?”

You were far gone again; face buried into his blazer collar. Soonyoung nodded.

He moved to place a grip on your thigh, just in case. “Sure, go ahead.” Rolling his eyes then his jaw, releasing the tension in his own neck to rest his cheek against your hair.

“Thank you. Chan, Y/N is Soonyoung’s mate - if that wasn’t already fairly obvious. She delegates his safety teams where and when needed, in collaboration with Minghao in our statistics team. Oh, and she also helps Jeonghan and me with our accounts. Though I imagine you’ll need to be a little gentler with her today, you’ll usually find our sister to be quite the tough cookie. She has a reputation for being sharp and is a valued member of our family."

Minghao scoffed at his brother, rolling his eyes now, with a kiss to his teeth.

“We’re still not entirely sure how these two paired up. An intern with a killer work ethic and an idiot in clown-to-clown combat training. But there you go. Fate has her own initiative.”

Seungcheol snickered, nodding to his guest; “Go ahead, she doesn’t bite.”

His voice trailed off with a cruelly amused smile as the young and totally oblivious Alpha stood to jump in your direction with a loud booming voice and an outreaching, palm down hand, flashing his gums at you in an eager smile.

He may as well have lunged at you in this state.

Seungcheol didn’t even have to move or give a signal, to know you were protected.

“Hi Y/N, my name is Chan -”

As he stood to speak to you, a snarl ripped from your throat so firmly that it forced Minghao to rise with quick reflexes to stop Chan dead in his tracks.

Demeanour switched in an instant with a hand gripped firmly into the guest’s throat.

Jeonghan had also stepped forward, ready to block. But as usual, he remained able to see all, ready to catch you instead if you ran forward.

"Woah, woah, woah, easy now boys… Stand down before either of you start something we will all have to regret…" Jeonghan mumbled with a snappy tone to his younger brothers, but stepped forward to shelter you further.

"Think about what you're saying before you ruin a fucking pack unity, Soonyoung." He whispered harshly down at your mate. "Take a damn second."

But by now, Soonyoung was furious.

Body shaking and eyes glaring into Chan as Jeonghan moved back out of the way on high alert.

"Sit down, or get the fuck away from my mate, you naive mutt, before I take that choice away from you. Learn a thing or two about body language before you come into someone else's den and start lunging at newly Claimed females. You're lucky you're under my brother's explicit protection, or you would already be staining my wife's 30-thousand-dollar-rug."

Soonyoung growled deeply, lowly and genuinely enough for Seungcheol to quit laughing.

"And you - your shit isn’t funny, Cheol. Don't make me maul our guest like one of your sick and twisted fighting pens for your own fucking amusement in the middle of our own apartment."

nodding at his brother and maintaining mental communication before the elder's face dropped completely, waving his hands for everyone to sit back down.

You don't know what was said, but it was extremely rare for Seungcheol to back down. And maybe more so for Soonyoung to get so genuinely angry. Such is the hierarchy of a pack. But Cheol had considerably overstepped his Mark.

"She's Exhausted, and afraid, Seungcheol. Think of Y/N as your own mate before you start playing your fucking power-hungry games around her."

"That's enough, Soonyoung." Jeonghan spoke quietly from his place against the dark window. Turning around from his view with an unimpressed demeanour.

"Cheol - it's time to move on. Continue with the meeting, please, brother." He turned with a scowl to the elder. "Before one of us gets hurt."

Jeonghan was entirely unamused by everyone this morning, and it hadn't even hit 9am.

“Alright - alright! The fun’s over, that’s enough now, let’s leave the poor woman alone and continue our discussion. Chan, please sit your cute ass back in that chair before my sibling rips your throat out. Either one of them. And Minghao, step down, for fuck’s sake. He’s not going to touch Y/N, you’ve made that perfectly clear, thank you. Thank you again.”

Chan had reacted appropriately to the sudden aggression; though naive he knew how to defend himself and snarled at the tall man digging his nails into his jugular simply for the following instruction. Standing down from his counter with Minghao upon the eldest brothers’ instruction to ‘take a seat’.

Minghao turned to you with emerald eyes as his hand left Chan’s throat. He looked frightful.

It was rare to see your brother angry.

And you were pretty sure the last time he flashed his gums at anyone they died long and viciously in an alleyway outside of a bar - which now that you think about it, was to protect his own mate.

He stepped towards you fluidly, reaching your cheek in an embrace, meeting your forehead and squeezing his eyes shut.

The contact felt strange with your gut tugging you back to Soonyoung, but when he pulled away he stuck to your cheek with a soft growl. It washed over your skin like sparklers and you groaned gently in a confirming response.

'Are you okay?' Minghao spoke through the link so only you could hear. Speaking you through what he had just confirmed non-verbally.

You nodded with a jaw-cracking yawn and a grumbling vocation.

'I’m okay. He didn’t even get close. Thank you.'

You smiled, accepting the final contact of his forehead against yours before curling back up into Soonyoung’s side.

But this time for good.

Putting your legs over his knees - and loving the contrast of your clothes in some deep part of you - as you growled gently. The sensation was… nice. New, but comforting. Soonyoung watched you with a kiss on your forehead.

'Yeah, right, no worries.' Minghao laughed softly as he plopped back into his seat. His eyes were partially green as he bit at his lip, at odds with the stranger next to him.

"Welcome home, Y/N." Seungcheol spoke low and with gummy-grinned intent. And you felt it, what he truly meant. Despite Minghao's dismissive scoff, or Jeonghan’s glance of confusion.

Welcome home.

Finally, he had seen you in your entirety, and accepted you.

"Bangchan, I hope, overall, that you aren't insulted by our younger sister, or my brother's. As you can maybe tell, she has recently been Marked. You're a stranger in her home. And though you haven’t had the chance to experience this yet; I'm sure your mate would react exactly the same way. And your bothers would protect your mate also, I hope."

He was the only one laughing, the only one with years of wisdom and hundreds of dog fights under his belt. But as he nodded to confirm your security across the lounge, a private understanding of boundaries was shared. You never know unless you rock the boat; Seungcheol had almost tipped it.

“Right, golden eyes?” He poked softly.

All eyes looked at you as you nodded back, moulding into your mates’ side and taking refuge in the solid sound of his beating heart as the meeting continued.

At some point in the meeting, Soonyoung purred at you lightly dozing on his shoulder. With little effort, he pulled you onto his lap. Quickly your forehead met his neck, arms hugging yourself tightly as he held you. One hand on your knee and the other on your back.

"I'm so proud of you." He whispered kindly. "Get some rest while you can. We'll talk later. Take some of my energy, if you need it. You know how now."

You managed to mumble something back but mostly moved to find one last piece of comfort. And you found it in the bite against your heart. And the feeling it gave you as your hand curled against it.

Soonyoung felt a tug in his gut, something otherworldly that meant you were aching for him. Pulling on the newly strengthened link is like testing the strength of a new elastic band straight out of the box.

Your mate simply swooned. Kissing your hairline with an enraptured smile, Soonyoung released your knees to press his palm firmly under your own, intertwining your fingers.

'There’s no need to search for me, when I'm already here with you, Y/N. My love is free. You only have to ask. And I'll always leave a part of myself with you, wherever we go. Get some rest, love. I'll be here when you wake up. Closer, this time. Sleep, my brave dove. You deserve it.'

Finally. You felt safe. Secure. Connected.

And your eyes drooped until numbness eased over your brain.

As Soonyoung soothed you, the eldest brother, Jeonghan, mused something new to himself. Something he had been waiting over four years to witness.

You had a bark.

But you most definitely had the spirit to bite.

Both physically - Jeonghan had already noted the deep wound on his wrist and the one settling into his palm - and metaphorically too - despite all the reassurance and placating pheremones in the world; you still went to bite at the guest when wrongfully approached.

They could use that.

It was sadistically amusing to him, just as much as it was to his brother. One of them could just hide it better. One of them deal in relations while the other watched men and dogs bleed out for fun.

And in your new tight-knit family, you were beyond willing to help with anything asked of you. Surviving every test put past you without failure; even with initial barks and doubts.

And despite their sickly sinful inclinations; the family in that room with you would die for you, on a very quick dime.

A good match, even by Jeonghan's standards.

The Tiger and the Dragon - two beasts in their own rights, pushing to face the world one surprise at a time.

“So,” Your subdued voice spoke into the room. “What comes next?”

(BACK TO PART 1/2) ~ (THIS IS THE END OF PART 2/2) ~ (CONTINUE TO SVT MASTERLIST….. )

Well would you look at that: 13/April/2023

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sotwk · 1 year

Text

The Broken Shield (Thorin & Frerin brotherhood fic)

Written for the TSF 2023 Event by @thorinsspringforge

Event Partner Artist: @cycas

Story also features Thranduil Oropherion and the Elvenqueen Maereth (SotWK OC)

Summary: Thorin and Frerin, the young Princes of Erebor, rise above the grudges and prejudices of their forefathers to forge an alliance with the Elves of Mirkwood during the War of the Dwarves and Orcs. But the tenuous bonds of friendship are shattered when tragic losses suffered by both sides lead to grievances, misunderstandings, and an even greater divide between the two races.

Word count: 9.5 k

Content: Brotherly bonds, war, angst, family drama, Dwarf-Elf relations, Line of Durin history, Mirkwood and Thranduil history, Thranduil's family, pre-BotFA, pre-Oakenshield

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Major character deaths

To Read on AOC: Link

Artist credit: @cycas

The Broken Shield

Third Age 2791, Dunland

With a furious scrape of chair legs against the floor, he was out the tavern's door faster than Thorin could have anticipated.

"Where are you going?!" Thorin scrambled after him, nearly colliding with a hapless barmaid and her fully laden tray in his haste. "Frerin, stop! Wait!!"

But his brother did not listen; he did not even slow his angry pace. This had become a disturbing pattern with Frerin of late. The steady, reliable young dwarf who used to never question anything his elders told him, was mutating into a stubborn goat who seemed to challenge half the orders he was given. Whether the change was due to Frerin's recent achievement of reaching the age of maturity, or because of the lady that had inflamed his passions to reckless heights, Thorin could only guess. He only wished his little brother could have picked a better time to lose his heart and head to a dwarrowdam.

But he probably should have kept this opinion behind sealed lips.

"I said stop!" Thorin finally came close enough to seize the retreating dwarf's shoulder. "If you would only listen--!"

“And what would listening get me?!” Frerin flung out his arm to wrench Thorin’s grip off him. “More reasons why I shouldn’t pursue my own happiness? If I wanted those, I would have gone to Father or even Dis instead of confiding in you.”

His words reeked of a hurt that lashed at Thorin. In happier times he might have beamed with pride to hear himself being compared to King Thrain. Now he flinched at it, knowing it was intended as an insult, especially coming from Frerin.

“My counsel on the matter is for your own good." Mahal! The words stumbled out of his lips before he could stop himself from proving his brother right. That was exactly the condescending line their father would say.

"Why do you all insist on knowing what is best for me?!" Frerin exclaimed. “I love Ezri, and she has always loved me, and I am blessed to be chosen as her One. Do not dare imply that you can offer a greater life than the one I can share with her."

"Frerin, you are a Prince of Erebor," Thorin stated calmly, even though he actually wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake sense into him. "When we reclaim our home from the Dragon, it shall rise back to its place as the greatest kingdom on Middle-earth. Your proper place is home, where it has always been, Under the Mountain. Not…here!"

He threw his arms out at their village surroundings, unconsciously revealing his disdain with a sneer. "You have a higher purpose beyond staying in Dunland, eking out a living as a common blacksmith, peddling your craft to Men for a pittance."

"You know I care not about my crown or title," Frerin declared. "I have said it many times, emphatically, for years now. But you all turn a deaf ear because you refuse to accept my choice."

Thorin guffawed and clutched at his hair with both hands, as though it would help him hold on to his dwindling patience. "You are mad if you genuinely believe Father would ever accept you renouncing your birthright."

"Which is why I came to you!" Frerin shot back. "I thought if anyone still might understand and care about my wishes, it would be my brother. Or is it asking too much for you to take my side on the matter?"

“Frerin,” Thorin sighed. “You have not thought hard enough about this. This cannot truly be what you want in life.”

“Not all of us seek heroic glory in battle, or legendary fame from great deeds, or gold and jewels one could do nothing with but pile and hoard,” Frerin said. “Some of us desire nothing better than a cozy home to return to at the end of an honest day’s work, where a hearty dinner and a wife’s kisses await, and the songs and laughter of little ones.”

Thorin finally softened as he regarded the earnest conviction on his brother’s face. “So is that it?” He shook his head. “You would stay behind and leave us to deal with Azog and his armies, and all the challenges that still lie in the long road ahead?”

“That is not what I said.” Frerin moved close to grip Thorin’s forearms. “It was my grandfather too whom they murdered, and make no mistake, the same fire burns in my belly to seek vengeance. I will go to war against Azog with you, and only after we have won shall I return to make a bride out of my betrothed.”

His grave face cracked into a smile. “I know you need me to watch your back, your Highness . I will not make you beg for my axe.”

Thorin chuckled weakly and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Oh, however can I repay such magnanimity?”

“By returning the favor. By helping me to return home safely so I can make good on my promise to Ezri.”

By my life, I shall. Thorin vowed silently. But before he could open his mouth to tell his brother so, they were interrupted by a shout from further down the dimly lit street.

“Thorin! Frerin!” When the figure in the shadows came up to meet them, Thorin recognized their kinsman, Balin, slightly out of breath. “Finally--I have been searching everywhere! You must come to your father’s house immediately. The King has called for a council and everyone awaits you.”

Thorin’s eyebrows rose. “A council at this hour? What could be so urgent?”

“An elf has turned up requesting an audience with Thrain.” Balin’s voice dropped to a tense whisper as he looked meaningfully at Thorin.

“A rider from Mirkwood, bearing a message from the Elvenking Thranduil.”

Third Age 2793, The Greylin River

Thorin could not recall ever seeing a full moon so large and bright, a great lantern high above the valley, illuminating the military encampment sprawled out by the riverbank. Dwarves preferred to fight their battles underground, in tunnels and caverns where their skills gave them certain advantages, so something about being out in the open, in clear view of their enemies, made Thorin uneasy. But King Thranduil had sent out keen-eyed scouts who reported no signs of hostile elements nearby, and the roving Elven patrols kept constant watch of the perimeters while the remainder of the army took their rest.

At daybreak, a few short hours away, the entire combined force of nearly six thousand strong will commence their march towards Gundabad, and their people’s great war against the Orcs shall begin.

Thorin massaged the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, his right arm resting heavily against the lyre propped upon his thigh. He had tossed and turned uncomfortably in his cot whilst Frerin snored away on the other side of their shared tent, before he finally gave up on sleep. He took his golden instrument and hiked a distance away from camp, seeking out a secluded spot at the eaves of the forest where he could play in peaceful solitude. Music, especially melodies played by his own hands, was usually effective at soothing his nerves, but even an hour later the anxiety that had taken root in his chest ever since they set out from Dunland still refused to be tamed.

Thorin laid his fingers against the lyre strings to try once more, searching his memory for the tune of a childhood lullaby. However, the very faint rustle of shifting undergrowth caused him to leap up to his feet instead. The lyre fell to the ground with a thud, and his hand closed around the hilt of the knife sheathed at his belt.

The tall, lithesome figure of a lady stood just a few feet away from him, close enough that he had to tilt his head back just to gaze fully upon her face. She appeared unperturbed by the dwarf's aggressive stance, although the four Mirkwood soldiers that stood just behind her noticeably tightened their grips on their spears.

"Prince Thorin." The lady dipped into a graceful curtsy before him, sinking so low that the voluminous skirt of her dress pooled against the patchy grass. "Good evening."

"Queen Maereth," Thorin answered, bowing from the waist in return.

The Queen of Mirkwood affixed her soft gaze and warm smile upon him, and the tight knot in Thorin's chest seemed to finally loosen. Although they were only recently acquainted, Thorin had been in the presence of the Elvenking Thranduil's wife multiple times already over the past few months, for she sat at her husband's side in every single meeting held between the Dwarven and Elven leaders. The Queen's beauty, a pure and natural radiance that surpassed the rarest and finest gemstones ever unearthed in Erebor's mines, did not escape the dwarven host's attention, and enchanted most of those who laid eyes upon her.

At the same time, something about the ethereal presence of Queen Maereth unnerved Thorin's father. At the council gatherings, King Thrain avoided any direct communication with her, muttering to the side that military dealings should only be between one king and another, as was “proper”, although he never dared suggest dismissing Thranduil’s wife from the meetings. And true to his principles, he left all interactions with the Elven host, their supposed allies, to his lieutenants.

Frerin surprised them all with how instantly he developed a camaraderie with the Mirkwood elves. It was only a week ago that the Elven army had arrived to join the Dwarves and set up camp alongside theirs by the Greylin River. By nightfall of the first day, Thorin found his brother at the Elven camp, the lone dwarf sitting around the fire with a group of Mirkwood soldiers, deep in his cups and slurring in speech. As an aghast Thorin dragged him away, Frerin chortled about how he shared a name with his new elf-friend, Feren. Since then, the younger prince continued to spend more time with the Elven soldiers than with his own people, and Thorin decided there was no point in preventing the phenomenon, if even the kings of their separate camps seemed unbothered by it.

Unlike his father and brother and their quick judgements, Thorin remained unsure of his feelings towards their new allies. Cautionary tales passed down by Dwarven elders warned heavily against trusting Elves, and the Sack of Erebor, an event that he himself witnessed, gave damning evidence of Mirkwood’s questionable loyalty. And yet there they were, about to launch perhaps the greatest war effort in the history of their race, and they would be fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with a previously sworn enemy.

Alas, Thorin’s father had not allowed him to attend that first meeting with Thranduil, so the prince still did not know what had led to the sudden alliance, and Thrain stubbornly refused to enlighten even his own sons.

"May I join you?"

Queen Maereth’s words pulled Thorin’s mind back to the present, and as his attention shifted back to her, and he beheld her lovely and tender smile, the answer dawned on him, clear as the sun emerging from the cover of dark clouds.

Her. It was because of her. Of course.

Stunned by his own epiphany, Thorin could only utter a vague grunt, but he nodded in assent, which seemed good enough for the Lady.

She addressed her guards with a few words and, much to Thorin’s surprise, all four promptly bowed, turned about-face, and disappeared into the shadows of the surrounding trees.

He watched in helpless fascination as the Queen settled upon a low flat stone, mindless of the damp dirt on her fine green gown. Perhaps it was the absence of the silver crown she always wore to the councils, or the wildness of their forest surroundings, but there suddenly appeared a pleasant earthiness to the Queen that Thorin had never noticed before. Not an ounce of her Elven beauty was diminished, but it shifted somehow from being a piercing and untouchable flame, to a warm and inviting hearth.

Thorin stepped slowly towards her, their faces now at level with each other. "You did not have to send your guard away on my account."

"I prefer we have our privacy, and they are not needed here,” the Queen responded. “I told them I will be safe in the company of a great warrior."

A bold assumption to make , Thorin thought, although internally her words made him glow with pride. He was a near stranger to her and had done nothing to merit such confidence. But as he gazed upon the fair vision she made sitting there, like a delicate flower freshly bloomed from the earth, Thorin felt a swell of protective instincts from his gut. A fierce conviction that he would spill his own blood before letting any harm come upon someone so pure and trusting.

A long, unbroken silence hung between them as the Elvenqueen stared at Thorin intently, unabashedly. Thorin did not meet her eyes, nor did he shrink away from the attention. He bent over to pick his lyre off the ground and rest it against the base of a tree, but he remained standing, now closer to the Queen than any of his kin had ever come before.

“Forgive me,” Queen Maereth said at last. “I am sure you are wondering why I have sought you out alone like this.”

“Perhaps you have words for me that you wish not for my father to hear?”

“You are as wise as I thought, Prince Thorin.” She smiled and folded her hands across her lap. “But I also thought mayhaps you too have things to say to me away from the ears of others. King Thrain has made clear that he has no interest in anything I have to say, but I sensed it is not the same with you.”

Thorin laughed, but even to his own ears it sounded uneasy. “You presume a great deal about me, my lady.”

“I do not presume; I see .” The Queen’s kind eyes flashed with firm reproach. “And when I look at you Thorin, I see Durin alive once more. The very same fire that once burned in your ancestors shines bright from your whole being."

Her unexpected declaration made Thorin freeze. Part of him wanted to wallow in such profound praises of his character, but a voice in his head decried her honeyed words as suspicious. After all, elves were notorious for employing riddles and fancy speeches for their machinations. Still, curiosity rose above all, and when Thorin regained his voice, he said, "You speak as though you knew him.”

"I knew them ,” said the Queen. “I had the honor of calling several of the great Dwarf Kings my dear friends." A fond reverie swept across her face. "But it was Durin the Third whom I loved best, he who ruled Khazad-dûm at the height of its glory."

"You saw Khazad-dûm…" Thorin whispered, finding himself suddenly breathless. His mind spun at the thought of it, of standing in the presence of one who had walked the halls of his ancestors’ now lost and ruined kingdom. An elf . He had heard the tales of Elves from the ancient ages who had been proclaimed "dwarf-friends", who built bridges between the two races, although those alliances never endured past their lifetimes. Therefore Dwarf historians wrote them off as aberrations, and not accomplishments to seek out or aspire for.

"I lived in Khazad-dûm as Durin's guest for several years," said Queen Maereth. Her eyes closed as she paused for a moment, clasping her hands together over her breast, and she murmured something in her Elvish tongue that Thorin could not hope to guess. "I shall always be grateful for the kindness Durin showed me, and to this day, many centuries passed, I have yet to find a more loyal or generous friend."

It could not be. It was too much. Thorin folded his arms across his chest and finally turned away, forgoing his princely manners. Everything she was telling him conflicted with everything he believed about the Elvenking and his family. Faithless, manipulative frauds who cared only for themselves. The Queen's accounts had to be lies…or else the stories told by Thorin's father and grandfather were.

"The White Gems, Thorin."

Thorin whirled around suddenly. "What of them?" He spoke more sharply than intended, but she could not have broached a more sensitive topic. The cause of Thranduil's ire against Erebor, the reason why he allowed the Dragon to besiege the Mountain without lifting a finger to lend aid. Those accursed White Gems that now lay buried in Smaug's hoard along with the rest of Erebor's treasures.

"What reason did your grandfather give for refusing to return them to us?"

Thorin's brow furrowed. He had been present at that fateful exchange, and had witnessed the cold, silent fury of the Elvenking when King Thror refused to relinquish the necklace he had commissioned for his wife.

"He said the gems belonged to Durin's House by birthights," Thorin said slowly. "Because they came out of the mines of Khazad-dûm…" He stared at the Queen, eyes suddenly wide as though he had been struck.

Queen Maereth smiled sadly. "I cannot blame your grandfather for coveting them. It must have pained him to see treasures from his ancestral home in the hands of Elves. But we did not steal the White Gems, or purchase them from raiders. They were a gift from Durin the Fourth himself, who wished to honor us on our wedding day on behalf of his late father."

"Did he know of this?" Thorin demanded, even as he dreaded the obvious answer. "Was my grandfather aware of this history all along?"

Now the Elvenqueen was the one to turn her face away, the voluminous waves of her dark hair momentarily blocking the sorrow that graced her features. "Truth inevitably grows distorted the longer stories are passed on, and prejudices creep into interpretations." She shook her head. "Thror made decisions on what to believe, and those are the versions he presented to your father and to you as truth."

"So this is why Thranduil despises us,” Thorin said bitterly. “Why he withheld his army and merely stood by to let Smaug drive us out of our home."

The Queen’s hand suddenly came to rest upon Thorin’s arm, her touch warm and gentle as a mother’s caress. "My husband does not hate you or your people, dear Prince,” she told him. “His inaction that day is a mistake he has come to regret, even though he would never admit it. He is a proud king, and your grandfather inflicted one too many wounds upon that pride. But my lord did not withdraw from the field that day out of revenge or spite."

“I suppose you have another grand tale to explain his motivations, then.” Thorin could not help the rush of hot anger that flared within him at the memory, and he stepped back, away from the Queen’s reach. “If you can offer a good explanation as to how your husband managed to do nothing but watch the Dragon raze not just Erebor, but the entire town of Dale…" He clenched his fists against the assault of the horrifying images the repressed memory roused in his mind. “...how he could turn a deaf ear and a blind eye to thousands being incinerated right in front of him… I would like to hear it.”

“Had I been at Thranduil’s side that day instead of across the Mountains visiting my kin, things might have been different.” The grief that descended upon the Elvenqueen’s fair face almost made Thorin regret his harsh speech. “We could not take back what had already been done, but in the aftermath, we aided survivors in every way we could.”

“If aid had come sooner, there would have been more survivors instead of dead!” Thorin growled. “If aid had come sooner, we would have stood a chance at defending and keeping our home.”

“Erebor would have been taken, even if our army had marched out to fight. That is for certain," the Queen countered. “And we would have lost so many more lives. Perhaps even the lives of the last two sons that remain to us.”

Another silence dropped between them as Thorin fumbled with her words. It was the first he had ever heard of the Elvenking having a child or heir, and he had not considered that there might be several of them. What sons? No Elven princes had arrived with the army and no mention was ever made of them at the councils.

“He already lost one son to dragons, and he refused to risk another,” said the Queen, her voice now barely above a whisper. “That is the thought that ruled my King’s decision to turn his army back.”

“I do not understand.” Thorin muttered, pangs of shame now surfacing above his cooling rage. “You have lost a son to dragons? Has your family encountered Smaug before?”

The Queen raised her eyes from the ground, and in holding her gaze, Thorin saw for the first time the truth of her age, hidden beneath her unfaded youth. The wisdom in her eyes, borne from countless years of immortal existence, made him realize the indescribable burdens she must carry upon her shoulders.

He never thought he would ever feel pity for an elf until that moment.

“I have shared enough for one evening,” she said with a faint smile. “It was not my intention to shake your faith in the things you have been taught. I only wish for you to understand better my King’s mind, and to know that our family has always valued our friendship with Aulë’s Children. My people are marching into battle side-by-side with yours tomorrow. I would have you trust that the Elves of Greenwood will protect you as our own.”

“But would they, oh Queen?” Thorin raised his eyebrows. “It remains unclear to me why Mirkwood should now do such a thing for us, when the crime committed by Azog was against our house alone.” He wondered if she suspected his father’s private theory, that Thranduil’s sole motive was to force Durin’s House indebtedness, and the Elves' so-called friendship was merely an expensive service that would have to be paid for later. King Thrain had accepted the Elves into their ranks as mercenaries, not friends.

“That is where you are wholly mistaken, Thorin.” This time the Queen frowned, and the soft lines of her face grew taut. “My family has endured unspeakable losses at the hands of the same Enemy that murdered Thror. This war belongs to us all, and so we shall take our stand together to put an end to these monsters that have taken far too much from us.”

“And what of the sons you spoke of? Might not Thranduil abandon the cause again out of fear of losing them?”

If the Queen took offense at his brazen sarcasm, she did not show it, which only deepened Thorin’s guilt. “Our sons stayed behind in Mirkwood, charged with ruling in their father’s absence.” She tilted her head to the side, pinning the dwarf with a searching gaze. “You are still too young to have children of your own, so it may be difficult to understand the fierce instinct to protect the ones you brought into this world.”

“I have no wife or children,” Thorin responded. “But I still understand the willingness to give my life if necessary to protect someone I love. I have a younger brother, Frerin, whom you have already met, but you may not remember…”

“Oh, I remember Prince Frerin indeed.” Queen Maereth’s sudden laughter was the sweetest, most musical sound that dissolved whatever bitterness lingered in Thorin’s heart. “It has certainly not escaped our attention how much your brother has enjoyed visiting our camp. My King is convinced he is mad, but it amuses him nonetheless, and I for one have not been delighted by a dwarf's charming manners in far too long."

"Just this morning he approached me, very boldly but ever so courteously, and asked me for a favor to carry with him throughout this war." The Queen gestured at her waist, where the intricately embroidered bodice of her green dress joined with the flowing skirt. "I gave him the sash off my gown and told him I would be honored for him to bear it."

Thorin felt his jaw drop, utterly flabbergasted, but when no words could pass his lips, a bark of laughter rang out. "That is the sort of thing Frerin would do," he admitted. "Particularly if he had been goaded by your soldiers, which I suspect is what happened. It was kind of you to indulge him."

"By that favor shall my blessing accompany your dear brother into battle," Queen Maereth said softly. "I shall pray it always leads him to a safe return."

“He left behind the woman he loves to come here," Thorin said abruptly. "His betrothed. I would see to it that he returns to her in Dunland to make good on his promise to marry her and have the future he desires."

"Then may it happen as you say." The Queen nodded. “But what of you, Crown Prince? What awaits your return after this war?”

Thorin shook his head. “There is no future for me in Dunland," he said flatly. “Only in Erebor. As my father’s heir, our people look to me to secure their own futures. I can seek no happiness of my own until I help reclaim our home."

There was a pause as the Queen regarded him even more intently. "You will lead your people back to the Mountain.” She spoke as though stating a fact, as certain as one would be of the sun rising to usher in a new day. “It shall be achieved by you, in time. So long as you learn to heed the counsel of the wise, of those you might regard as outsiders. Resist the flaws of your fathers, and do not be so hasty to regard the world with suspicion. The greatest victories are won with help coming from the most unexpected of places, so you must keep yourself open to receive it."

"Is that not what we are doing now, my lady?" Thorin swept his arm in the direction of the camp in the far distance. “Who could have foreseen that Dwarves and Elves would ever come together under one banner this way?”

“It is an auspicious start,” the Queen agreed. “I feel hope is renewed strong with this alliance, and that we shall prevail so long as it remains unbroken.”

“It will not fail from our end,” Thorin declared stoutly. “As a dwarf-friend, you would know that we honor our word once it is given.”

"I do believe that, Thorin, Son of Durin." She reached out to offer him her hand. Thorin grasped it, lightly at first, but was surprised by the strength he felt from those slender fingers pressed into his palm. He moved his other hand in to completely encase hers, and they sealed the gesture with an exchange of smiles.

“With all the power in me, I shall see to it that the Elves reciprocate your loyalty. Only hours from now, you shall see for yourself." Deep pride glowed on the Queen's face. "You will see the difference it makes to have the greatest warrior in Middle-earth fighting on your side."

Artist credit: @cycas

Third Age 2793, Mount Gundabad

Thorin pressed his clenched fists over his eyes and pulled in a slow, deep breath that shuddered through his lungs. After the emergency war council ended and all the Dwarven officers in assembly followed King Thrain back out of the tent, the prince sat alone in the dead silence, for a long time motionless as a carven statue upon his chair. His hollow stare bore straight into the canvas flap through which they had all exited, walking off to proceed with business as though absolutely nothing of significance had occurred.

When he thought enough strength might have returned to his legs, Thorin staggered to his feet. But something in the act of just moving returned his mind to the realities of the present, to the memories of the last twenty-four hours, and the tenuous stranglehold he kept on his emotions shattered.

And finally, Thorin wept.

The Elvenqueen was dead. He might never have believed it possible, but he was one of the few witnesses to lay eyes on her broken body being carried out of the pits of Gundabad, a most wretched sight that would surely haunt him to his last day.

Immediately upon returning to camp with his company, Thorin stood before the Dwarven council to deliver his account of the battle. His report was hopelessly garbled and raised many questions he could not answer, but those present managed to cobble it together with the fragments of news and hearsays picked up from the Elven ranks and form a coherent story.

The news of Queen Maereth’s abduction had reached their camp in the cold darkness of a moonless winter night, and the chaos that had erupted from the Mirkwood host was unholy. The Dwarves were woken from their sleep by the noise of over a thousand Elves scrambling to form ranks as the word spread like literal fire setting their tents ablaze, and there arose a terrible cacophony of enraged shouts and anguished wails, spoken in a tongue they could not understand.

It was not until much later that the Dwarves discovered Thranduil had ridden out all by himself, immediately, without delaying even a moment to rally his guard, or to strategize, or to brief his confused and panicked soldiers. Without warning he simply vanished, leaving his officers uncertain of what they were to do next in such an unprecedented crisis.

Yet somehow, orders came from the absent king. The Queen had been located. At morning's light the Elven army finally set off in great haste, and after many rejected attempts to communicate with the Mirkwood lieutenants Thorin managed to force an answer out of them as to where they were marching off to, so he could lead the Dwarves to join them in the rescue.

Back to the depths of Gundabad, the orc captors had taken her, barely more than a league away. The Dwarves and Elves had spent the last three months laying a relentless siege upon the ancient stronghold, waging battle after battle, and winning decisively each time. Their armies cut through Gundabad's defenses with overwhelming ease, slaughtering the orc legions until only dredges of their filth remained, withdrawing to the deepest caverns, clinging to their nests like stubborn roaches. The Mountain should have been one final purge away from being utterly won.

Instead, their enemy had lashed out with their most devastating blow yet.

“There was nothing left for us to do,” Thorin told the commanders of the Seven Houses. "By the time our forces arrived, a thorough razing had already been accomplished. We chased down a few survivors attempting to escape, but the Elves had exterminated the rest." He paused and closed his eyes briefly, as a vivid memory flashed in his mind, and he corrected himself. "Or from what I could tell, Thranduil had carried out most of it."

"I heard he was half dead when they found him," one of the officers grunted. “And entirely mad.”

“That preening peacock has always been mad. Charging into Gundabad on his own without waiting for even a single soldier to cover him.”

"Foolish bastard."

"He was injured," Thorin broke back into the exchange, grimacing as the nightmarish image of the blood-drenched Elvenking once again crossed his thoughts. "Far more seriously than he has ever been. But he walked out of Gundabad unaided, even carrying the Queen himself. I did not get a chance to speak with him, and have not seen him since."

"He has not shown himself at all since this whole disaster started," Thrain burst out, pounding a fist on the arm of his throne. "What kind of king sends a messenger to deliver notice of his retreat? Or perhaps I should just be thankful they didn’t simply fade into the night without a word of warning!”

"Their queen is dead , Father." Frerin's tone was sharp when at last he broke his silence. Only Thorin caught the slight tremor in his brother's voice and he gratefully realized he was not the only one with grief swelling in his chest. "It is only right that they go home and lay her to rest."

"Pulling out the entire army in the middle of a campaign?!" scoffed a Firebeard chieftain. "It stinks of typical Elf weakness."

Frerin stood abruptly from his chair. "There are rumblings from the Mirkwood camp about a betrayal," he said loudly. "Committed by our people. It is being said that it was one of our escorts sent with Queen Maereth that betrayed her to the enemy, and assisted in her abduction."

A chorus of indignant shouts immediately rose in the tent, but Thorin remained silent. Frerin's friendship with the Elves still gave him reliable sources of information, and this accusation did not surprise Thorin at all. The same suspicion had dawned on him when he pondered how the ambush on the Queen's convoy could have occurred. Meticulous plans had been made to take her by a safe route home over the Grey Mountains, through passes known only to Longbeards who had long dwelt in those lands.

The Longbeards King Thrain had offered up as guides were people Thorin had never met before. They were distant relatives who came forward to answer the call to arms, claiming descent from the Gloin who once ruled over the Grey Mountains. But Thorin knew little else of these so-called relations, and he doubted his father had the time to get any much better acquainted.

“The orcs slew the entire escort to capture her! Dwarves and elves alike, indiscriminately!” bellowed another officer. “How dare they accuse us of treason, when lives of our kin were also sacrificed to shield their Queen!”

“I should have been the one to do it,” Frerin said bitterly. “I volunteered and you forbade it, but I should have insisted upon it. I should have gone to ensure Queen Maereth’s safe passage.”

Thrain stared at his son incredulously. “You are a Prince of Erebor, not some Queen's maid!” he exclaimed. “We were not remiss in our obligation. We gave her a strong and proper escort, but the mission was compromised. Our enemy outsmarted us. It was an unfortunate incident, but one we could not have predicted or prevented.”

“Unfortunate?!” Anger blazed in Frerin’s bright blue eyes. “Is that what you would call it? Bad weather is unfortunate. A spilled barrel of ale is unfortunate! The Queen of Mirkwood was murdered, when she was supposed to be under our protection! How can you be so dismissive about such a failure, that is now a stain on our honor?!"

For once, silence dropped like a stone upon the assembly. Father and son glared at each other for a tense moment, until King Thrain growled, "Leave my sight, Frerin. Do not return until you have rid your head of nonsense and cleansed your mouth of insolence."

Thorin watched his brother storm out of the tent and almost wished he could join him, but he stayed behind to hear the continued grumblings of the Dwarven leaders.

"We brought this upon ourselves, joining with elves, who have time and again proven fickle and faithless."

"We have gotten some use out of them, at least. Gundabad was quickly won, and at barely any cost to our ranks.”

“Hah! Let them be cowards and run back home! We shall advance without them and show them the true meaning of grit.”

“Aye! I never liked the thought of that woodland fairy sharing in our glory anyhow!”

"Thranduil has fought fiercely for our side from the onset of this campaign, and his valor has played no small role in our victories.” Thorin was barely aware that he was shouting, not to be heard above their jabbering, but to release the frustrations that would otherwise cause him to implode. “But this war, which was never truly his to fight, has cost him his wife, his companion for thousands of years, a bond none of us can possibly comprehend. Now you mock him in his grief, calling him a coward for his need to mourn?!”

Just as with Frerin, Thrain glowered at his elder son long and hard, and Thorin thought for certain he too would be ejected from the council. Instead, the King rose from his throne, gave the prince a tight, patronizing smile, and launched into a speech that robbed Thorin of the desire to say anything else.

"I understand you and your brother had been ensnared by the charms of the Elvenqueen. Lovely and fair she was indeed, and I will not deny that her presence gave strength to our hosts. But in the end she is still just a single soul lost, one casualty in this war. And I will not allow the blame for her killing to fall on our people!” The blue gemstone of his great ancestral ring flashed as Thrain waved his hand in stern proclamation. “Thranduil was the one who risked her life by bringing her here, keeping her so close to danger. Perhaps if these Elves treasured and safeguarded their women in the ways we do, this senseless tragedy would not have occurred."

As Thorin wept quietly in the tent at the conclusion of that sickening assembly, he knew that his tears were not merely of sorrow at the fate of the Elvenqueen. He did not think he had ever been angrier with this father in all his life, or more ashamed of his kinsmen, or more disappointed in himself for his inability to tell them all exactly this.

Frerin found him slumped low in his chair when he returned to the tent. The younger prince raised his eyebrows at the pathetic sight but said nothing about Thorin’s watery eyes, flushed cheeks, and damp, disheveled beard.

“Come Thorin,” he said urgently. “The elves have begun their march. They are leaving, right now. You must come!”

“And do what?” Thorin asked dully.

“Let us go speak to them, learn of their plans! Perhaps we can get some idea as to when they will be rejoining us.”

“They are not coming back, Frerin,” Thorin said tersely. "The alliance has been declared broken by both sides. Father and his generals have accepted the Elves' departure. I have certainly heard enough crowing of how we will now triumph in the rest of this war without having to share the glory.”

"Shall we heed the words of those puffed-up wind sacks?” Frerin scoffed. “We have taken very few casualties with the Elves fighting by our side! Is pride really worth more than all the lives we can save by asking Mirkwood to stay with us?!”

When Thorin still refused to budge from his chair, Frerin gave a frustrated growl and grabbed both his arms, yanking his brother to his feet.

"We should speak directly with King Thranduil," he said, pulling Thorin towards the tent exit. "He has as much cause as we do now to want Azog’s head. Surely he craves revenge and will not find rest until the task is done."

“It is not that simple.” Thorin rubbed his temple, where a pounding headache seems to have formed. “Maereth is gone. Can you not see why our enemies targeted her? Much of the Elves’ goodwill towards us rested on her, on the love her husband and their people bore for her. We cannot replace her influence on them, the zeal she inspired in their hearts. Nothing can.”

“I think our relationship with the Elves has grown beyond that, now that we have spilled blood together. The least we can do is try,” Frerin insisted. “Or shall we stand quiet and let her death be for nothing? Because I think she would want us to bring our case to Thranduil, and make him see reason if need be--”

“Just stop, Frerin!” Thorin cried, finally snapping under the weight of grief and exhaustion. “Enough! There is nothing left to be done, and we have to accept that. It is over .”

Frerin did stop talking, for a second, to give Thorin a scathing, disgusted scowl. “Never mind, then.” He released his grip on Thorin’s arm, giving him a hard push away. “Sulk in your corner. I will do it myself.” He disappeared behind the flap of the tent exit.

“Frerin, wait!” As tired as he was, Thorin rushed after him into the evening twilight.

He did not have to venture far to find what Frerin had wanted him to come and see. The Mirkwood soldiers had departed from their now empty campsite and formed a long, wide column that snaked eastward, marching back towards the Greylin, and from there to their woodland home. Many dwarves had come out of their tents to watch the Elven army leaving in the distance, but none were curious enough to approach the giant procession.

Thorin walked quickly to catch up, keeping an eye out for the vibrant blue color and fur collar of Frerin’s winter coat.

The marching Elves paid no heed to the dwarf-prince that came up to walk alongside their lines. Thorin noticed that despite the bitterness of the winter chill, they had all removed their cloaks, leaving their fine golden armor looking oddly incomplete. Instead, long strips of jagged fabric ripped apart by bare hands were tied around the tips of their spears and bows. Thousands and thousands of crimson ribbons fluttered high in the wind, and made the slow-moving column of soldiers appear from afar like a river of running blood.

Looking ahead towards the front of the procession, Thorin finally spotted Frerin, easily noticed next to the line of towering Elves. As he surged forward to reach his brother, Thorin realized they had come alongside the most important section of the cavalcade.

On a large litter borne by the shoulders of a half-dozen Elves, the Queen’s body lay, covered almost entirely by a thick, richly embroidered coverlet, and draped over that was a shimmering silver cloak that Thorin recognized as the Elvenking’s own. Sheer white silk veiled her face, still beautiful and unscathed, but whose pale lifelessness was too saddening to look upon.

Thorin came up to Frerin, who had finally stopped moving, and was just staring helplessly at the Elvenqueen’s body as it passed by. Thorin saw the fear and despair on his brother’s face and reached out to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

The princes remained that way for a while, suddenly transported back to a time during their childhood in Erebor, when two little dwarves stood by the funeral bed of another deceased queen, scared and confused and unable to grasp what a motherless future held for them.

“We should go,” Thorin finally said.

"No," Frerin said brusquely. Determination renewed, he continued walking up the line, his boots crunching against the packed snow. "He is right there ."

The Elvenking rode at the very front of the column, separated from his soldiers by a good distance. Astride his great bull elk, he towered above the marching elves, but even higher above the dwarf that boldly approached him.

Thranduil's war steed was a violent, ill-tempered creature. Thorin had watched it mow down orcs on the battlefield, and once saw it nearly bite the shoulder off a Ironfoot spearman just for coming too close. The beast had to be part monster, a lethal hazard that could only be controlled by its similarly dispositioned master.

Sure enough, when Frerin strode up within scope of the elk's sight, it immediately halted in its tracks. It did not buck or make any sudden movements out of respect for its rider, but its nostrils flared as it snorted angrily and dipped its head low to challenge the intruder with its massive antlers.

Behind Thranduil, the entire procession also came to an immediate halt, and a profound silence allowed the dwarf-prince’s voice to be heard loud and clear.

"Lord Thranduil," Frerin called, stopping a safe distance before the elk beast, out of reach from being skewered or bitten. Thorin watched, aghast, as his brother sank down on one knee in a manner of greeting. "Forgive my impertinence and allow me to deliver a message on behalf of my King and our people."

Thorin froze when he realized trying to interrupt his brother, or discredit him by denying the validity of his words, would only rouse the Elvenking's notorious temper. And so he held his breath and stood aside, watching as Frerin pulled out a golden silk sash from the folds of his coat, and raised it above his bowed head.

“We mourn your loss with you," Frerin declared. "Queen Maereth was the kindest and fairest soul many of us had ever seen in our lifetime. We beseech our Great Father, Mahal, to intercede for her during her sojourn in the Halls, and to honor her as the dwarf-friend she was."

Then he rose and braved a few steps forward to offer the sash up to Thranduil, who still had not uttered a sound or moved in his saddle.

"Peace be on your journey as you bring her home to rest," he said as he waited for the Elvenking to accept his offering.

“We will await your return, when we shall rise together in arms once more to avenge her.”

At long last, Thranduil bent down to reach for the golden sash. He gripped it tightly in his fist, but still said nothing as the bitter silence droned on unbearably.

Unwilling to continue letting his brother stand there alone, Thorin finally walked over to Frerin's side. His arrival seemed to jar the Elvenking from his trance and he turned his piercing gaze towards the elder prince.

It was a sight both shocking and chilling to behold up close, the tears that streamed down the cut and bruised cheeks of Thranduil's cold, inflexible face. He inclined his head in a small, vague nod.

The elk lurched forward without warning, forcing the brothers to scramble hastily out of its path. As quickly as that, the Mirkwood army marched on, once again leaving the dwarves at the sidelines to witness their exodus.

"They will be back," Frerin whispered, an unquenchable conviction burning in his eyes. "I saw it on his face."

Thorin did not know how much he shared in this optimism, but his heart swelled with admiration and pride in the bravery his little brother had demonstrated. He just never learned how to express it in words.

"You should have kept the Queen's favor. It was her gift to you."

Frerin shrugged. "And I used it as I believe she would have wanted me to," he responded. "Whenever Thranduil looks at it, he will remember my words and the cause she gave up her life for. He will not let it be for nothing."

He touched his fist over his heart as the Elvenqueen's body was carried past them once more. "For now, we will hold the line until they return."

Third Age 2799, The Valley of Azanulbizar

The uproar of bellowing dwarves and the piercing blare of war horns echoing throughout the sunless valley signaled victory. Had they really won? After six long years of underground battles that culminated in a final descent into hell, was the impossible war finally over?

Thorin reached up to swipe aside the hair plastered by sweat across his face, and only succeeded in smearing more black grime into his eyes. He gasped and clutched his left arm, feeling a shock of breathtaking pain run up from his wrist to shoulder. The bones had to be broken in multiple places, with the damage worsened by his fighting on after it had been injured. It would never regain the same strength it once had even after healing.

As close as he had come and as close as his bodily pain still felt to death, somehow he was alive and standing. The battlefield surrounding him revealed a much grimmer fate for most of the eight thousand dwarves that had marched into Dimrill Dale.

The truth of the death toll had been impossible to notice while the bloodshed continued, but after the last axe-stroke had fallen, it became clear that victory for Durin’s Folk was a questionable claim.

A deep, throbbing ache clawed up Thorin’s leg with each step he took, as he limped across the barren plain, struggling to get his bearings in the black darkness of the cloudy night. Several times, he stumbled over what at first appeared to be a boulder or felled tree, but the clink of chainmail or steel armor announced a corpse.

A handful of torches moved in the distance, as Dwarven soldiers began the task of combing through the field, seeking any wounded left lying among the dead that might still be saved. Only then did it finally sink in for Thorin that he needed to find his brother, and that immediately drove out all awareness of his own pain and exhaustion.

He staggered towards the nearest torch-bearer as quickly as he could. “Frerin. Have you seen Prince Frerin anywhere?!” The blood-stained, swollen-faced soldier merely blinked at him with confused, unrecognizing eyes. Thorin moved on to ask the next dwarf, and then another one, and so on with the same results. Finally he ripped the torch off one of the roaming rescuers’ hands and started searching the field of corpses himself, screaming his brother’s name until his voice ran hoarse.

They had begun the battle literally side-by-side in King Thrain’s mounted vanguard, charging at the advancing hordes of orcs that flowed down the mountain slopes above the East-gate. Their cavalry rams were quickly shot down, forcing them to plunge into the chaos on foot. In the initial onslaught of the orcs, the company led by the princes succeeded in driving their opponents back, and the brothers managed to stay within reach of each other. But then innumerable creatures, including trolls and wargs, began to pour out of Moria’s gate, and the tide of battle turned swiftly ill. Thorin lost track of his men as they fell at a rapid pace, and he was swept away from the sight of his brother as night’s terrible shadows cloaked the accursed valley.

It felt like an eternity before someone finally responded to Thorin’s relentless cries. He was found on the field by his cousin Dwalin, a dwarf who should have been counted too young to join their ranks but was so robust and strong for his age that his own father volunteered him along with his brother Balin.

“Praise Mahal!” Thorin hugged tightly the cousin he had practically helped raise, glad to finally lay eyes on a surviving relation. But when he pulled back and took a closer look at Dwalin’s expression, he found no shared joy or relief, but a face crumpled with sorrowful anguish. The cold dread swept back into Thorin’s chest.

“What is it?”

“Frerin,” Dwalin choked out, cementing Thorin’s fears. “Hurry--you must come.”

They had set him down underneath a tree by the banks of the Kheled-zâram, far enough from the main battlefield so that the stench of death and decay did not overcome the lakeside air. Frerin’s eyes were closed, and he lay so still tucked between two giant roots that Thorin collapsed to his knees with a wail, fearing he was too late.

But his brother’s eyes fluttered open at his voice, and his lips parted in a blood-stained smile. “What took so long, nadad ?” he croaked. “The Halls await.”

“No Frerin,” Thorin shook his head vigorously, clutching his brother’s limp hand in a grip that would have crushed stone. “You cannot go. Your place is still here with me.”

“I cannot obey, Highness.” His chest heaved visibly in dire gasps for continued breath. “I had nearly slipped away. But had to see with my…eyes that you live and will not follow… where you should not yet be.”

“Frerin…”

“Not yet , Thorin.” Strength seemed to return briefly to the dying dwarf’s hand, and he squeezed Thorin’s fingers. “Not for a very long time still.”

“There has to be something I can do,” Thorin said desperately.

“Take my braid…” His words fell to wheezing, as the final dregs of strength he had clung to swiftly faded. “Back to Ezri. I love her. As much as…love… you.”

Thorin did not leave his brother’s side for hours after Frerin breathed his last. He succumbed to a deathlike sleep with his head upon the younger prince’s chest, and wept once more when he eventually awoke to find that it had been no nightmare.

By morning’s light, the dwarves commenced gathering the corpses and stripping all their soldiers of armor and weapons, reclaiming every single piece so that none would fall into orc possession. Balin and Dwalin helped Thorin carry Frerin a long distance to the Longbeard camp set up outside the valley, where the prince’s body could receive care befitting his station.

King Thrain’s angry curses and anguished sobs filled the tent when he finally arrived, hobbled by his own near-fatal injuries, to grieve his lost son. Only then did Thorin finally leave to give his father privacy, and to seek out his cousin so he could make one more request of him.

“It would be my honor,” Balin said gravely. They sat by a campfire together as they made plans, nursing bowls of hot barley stew. It was the only food Thorin had consumed in almost three days, but it tasted like ash in his mouth as he forced it down for sustenance. “I shall start gathering materials immediately. It seems the plan for most of the fallen is to build great pyres, so while the supply of lumber might run short, there will be enough stone to work with.”

“I will scout for a suitable location.” Thorin set aside his half-eaten stew and reached into a pocket in his tunic, drawing out the braid of Frerin’s copper-brown hair that bore a betrothal bead marked with runes. He turned the small silver bead over with his fingers thoughtfully. “Somewhere on a hill with lots of sunshine. He was an odd enough dwarf to enjoy something like that.”

“Then I will build him the finest hilltop tomb I can manage,” the master stonemason promised. “But are you certain you would not rather carry him back home to his sweetheart?”

“Dunland is not home ,” Thorin said darkly. “One may argue that this orc-infested mountain is more our proper home than that place.”

Balin’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Then do you have plans to return elsewhere when we are done here?”

“I do not know,” Thorin muttered. “It does not even seem to matter at the moment. Right now, I just feel nothing will ever matter again.”

He staggered to his feet, cradling his bandaged arm across his chest, and excused himself before walking off. He cut straight through the Longbeard camp, willing himself to ignore the growing pile of corpses he passed on his way out. But just outside of the campsite boundaries, another great pile caught and held his gaze--the collection of salvaged Dwarven armor and weaponry.

One item in particular ensnared his attention, for it seemed to have magically appeared in front of him at the right moment, when it might have been abandoned by the Great Gate with the orc carcasses.

He remembered the day Frerin presented the intricately wrought shield to him, the product of a whole month’s labor in the forge. There had been no special occasion; just a proud young smith wishing to prove once and for all to his older brother that he had surpassed him in at least one skill. And truly, Thorin had never borne a finer shield into battle, and he knew he never would again.

He picked up the black-and-silver shield by its edges and stared at the burnished surface that barely yielded a scratch. Only the leather strap was actually damaged, ripped apart by the sheer force of many powerful blows that had broken Thorin’s arm before it even managed to break the mighty shield. It could easily be repaired if he wished.

Instead Thorin laid his shield to rest with Frerin, and had it molded into the stone that covered the top of his tomb. Your death will not be in vain, brother, was Thorin’s last promise before he bid farewell to the hilltop grave. I will not forget the vengeance you are owed, and I will never forgive the betrayers of your trust.

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