#methods of rule

[idontmindifuforgetme]

maybe a bit of an esoteric advice but saving nice things people have said in a notes app entry has saved me so many times. if i’m having a bad day, being hard on myself, dealing w negativity from others etc etc. just whatever it is. i open this page—which is basically a compilation of people complimenting me on certain attributes, sweet interactions i wrote down, or things i’ve accomplished—and it brings me right down to earth. like someone could be saying mean shit about me (whether it be a person or a voice in my own head) & instead of having to go through the mental toil of summoning up positive memories to negate that, i just go to that notes app entry. i read over everything and im like ohhhh ok im not the most horrible person in the world after all. i don’t deserve being told that after all. it’s all written down right here.

[seirindono]

The Missing Scarf (Interlude) - part 17

Duties and kinship

First part | Prev | Next

Ko-fi | Patreon | Comic | Commissions  | To support the comic

[everytimewetouch-dot-mp3]

good morning, today i am thinking about dragon god shen yuan, tea, and rituals, so have a few scattered thoughts on the theme:

every cang qiong peak lord has at least one tea pet fashioned after the sect’s god. for the ones who consider themselves tea connoisseurs (shen qingqiu, qi qingqi, and the presently unnamed lords of the agricultural and engineering peaks), the dragon god tea pet only comes out for ceremonial/ritualistic use, though for those who rarely have gongfu cha, the dragon god is likely the only tea pet they have. when new disciples are admitted, the dragon god tea pet is part of the tea ceremony. pouring tea over it is treated as an offering to him.

cang qiong has a few sect-wide festivals annually. one is a multi-day festival honoring ascended peak lords, with one full day dedicated to the founding lords. there is a temple on the dragon god’s mountain, and during the peak lord festival, the current peak lords bring a small delegation (usually their head or most senior disciple, the eldest member of their peak, and two or three of the innermost inner disciples) to light incense and pray. this ceremony opens and closes with the zui xuan peak lord brewing a large pot of tea, and each member of the group offering the dragon god a cup (by pouring it over him). it’s treated as an invitation for luck and an expression of gratitude for protection from evil.

shen yuan didn’t drink much tea in his first life. he knew how to prepare and serve it properly, mostly for the sake of entertaining his mother’s friends and his father and brothers’ business associates, but he really didn’t drink much on his own

dragon god shen yuan always smells vaguely of the tea that cang qiong’s agricultural peak is famous for—tian gong jasmine tea. it’s near impossible to purchase and rare outsiders have had the occasion to try it. the leaders of the great sects have each tried it, and when lbh becomes ruler of the demon realm, the peace treaty between his empire and cang qiong is finalized over a pot shared between himself and yue qingyuan. it is also, coincidentally, both the tea offered most frequently to shen yuan and his favorite to drink.

because of all the tea offerings while he was hibernating in dragon mode, when the system finally allows shen yuan to wake up properly and attend to his sect, he’s developed a really strong taste for tea. he can distinguish stages of fermentation within two or three days just by taste, and for tea that was grown in the tian gong range he can describe things like the tea’s growing conditions, including weather, soil quality, and spiritual strength of the cultivators who tended to/processed the trees and leaves. shen yuan finds this extremely odd knowledge to just Have

the second-best pot of tea shen yuan has had in 700 years is the one that luo binghe prepares for him when he takes binghe as his personal disciple. the best pot of tea is the one luo binghe prepares for him on their wedding day.

[jesuis-assez]

↠ Tim & Lucy ↳ 2x01 - Impact

[muzzlemouths]

hello my fellow executives of dysfunction. how the hell do you get past security

[officialspec]

can you answer this so i can see if my friend follows you too? hi percy

hi percy

[lavender-town-radio]

anyway that poll is stupid im making a new version

[sleepyorchidmonster]

In light of recent developments in twst's story chapters (A.K.A. Book 7.5 WTF) I've decided to finally talk about some ideas for Book 8 that had been plaguing my mind since march😅...

The main idea is how, after Book 7, both Idia and Ortho tried to understand how the hell NRC students managed to defeat 7 OVERBLOTS with ZERO casualties (almost, but Lillia got better), and yet they still haven't managed to beat RSA.

The answer? DORMS.

You see, while NRC is know for its competitive students who can't seem to get along, let alone exist in the same room without starting a fight, there is a sense of camaraderie present in the dorms, the "I'd go to hell for you, but I wish you'd stop going there you IDIOT" type of camaraderie, that is.

I mean, the main reason the dream segment went so well was because they went by dorm order, like, can you imagine if the dream team started the Heartslabyul chapter with Riddle's dream? Aside from whatever Grim and Yuu could tell the others, they wouldn't even know Riddle basically erased his entire life...

Anyway, now that they established this point, they just have to use it for the Interschool Spelldrive team. Which leads to a team comprised of the overblotters (we're praying that their shared experience as overblot victims, dormleaders and whatever they managed to glean from Book 7 will be enough), and a NRC Tribe 2: Overblot Edition.

And that's how Book 8 would include two main plots, with the A plot following Yuu and the first years investigating the mirror, Mickey and the Overblots, and the B plot following the shenanigans of the overblotters and Grim (yes, this would be the first Book that separates Grim and Yuu, assuming Grim will overblot, we need to tackle his abandonment issues).

[eriequeerie]

GUYS, GUYS

I think I know why Sir Pentious was the first sinner ever redeemed to Heaven.

Remember during the trial when Adam was asked to say what would be needed to get into Heaven?

Act selfless

Don't steal

Stick it to the man

"But eriequeerie," I hear you say, "surely in the history of Hell, Sir Pentious wasn't the only one who ever did those things?"

Yes, but. BUT.

No one had ever written down rules for getting into Heaven before.

[spark-river]

Asmodeus: Levi needs to get out of his room more.

Mammon: Why?

Asmo: He didn't know if his Online Friend was a demon, angel or human.

Mammon: *confused* It's difficult to tell through a screen.

Asmo: They met up.

Mammon: ...I'm going to steal his figurines-

[avrorean]

and if I said Eamon was as much staging a coup as Howe was-

[cringefail-clown]

been thinking about alpha feferi and her ruling over beforus, especially in contrast to how condesce ruled alternia. like, beta meenah kept her iron grip over her citizens largely because of the existance of gl'bgolyb. cant do much against her if she can wipe the entirety of troll society with one command given to her lusus. however, gl'bgolyb was a "gift" given to her by doc scratch in the post-scratch timeline, so alpha feferi didnt have that ace in her sleeve avaliable.

wondering how this all turned out. she probably didnt have as much to say in how beforus was actually ran. beta meenah couldnt give less of a shit, tossing the responsibility of governing to the largely male upper castes and going to wreck havoc in space away from all that boring political mess, but i imagine beta feferi wouldve wanted to be much more proactive in managing her citizens. maybe she started bright-eyed and ready to flip how things were ran on beforus, but her ideas were quickly twisted and mangled into something much more nefarious that would benefit only the highbloods? sure, she had her longevity as a fuchsia, but how much her lone voice could actually accomplish against thousands of governing highbloods, who also lived long lives? i dunno, thinking about it makes me feel kind of sad

[witchofthesouls]

I like to think that Cybertronian morals especially for mecha that survived the Quintessons invasion like Ratchet have a bit of moral blind spot in regard to them.

Old Bot 1: It's bad to eat sapient species!

Old Bot 2: It's a Quintesson.

Old Bot 1: Oh well, that's allright then.

Initially, I was thinking along those lines, but then I veered in a different direction with cultural shifts that can occur under long-term occupation.

The extent of Quintesson occupation of Cybertron was probably an equivalent of Vietnam under Chinese rule for 1000 years. Equivalent since Cybertronians have an extremely long lifespan compared to humans, so how many generations came under that entire rule? How much information was destroyed or repressed? The Quintessons had no issues with manipulating the Well of Allsparks to their benefit, so would it be surprising if they also paved the foundations to eliminate obstacles (i.e., agriculture and foraging traditions, historical evidence of Cybertron's natural landscapes and biomes, dietary culture, and language related to cuisine, production, and health, to name a few) to ensure they had total control of the entire planet? They would have found ways to switch the natives from a varied diet into a fully liquid one with scarce esources to make it viable.

[carlyraejepsans]

I'm really curious about how you made your adult Frisk design you use for Daemoverse. I'm idly working on a continuation for a neutral ending and seeing your design and thought process would be a big help.

ah I'm afraid I can't be of much help there, that one was a matter of trial and error more than actual conscious decisions. though from the moment i drew that sketch of them holding daemo on their shoulder, i could tell it was a turning point for their design. that was the moment where i was like "oh ok. this is what i want them to look like." and the design solidified itself in my brain from then onwards

[corellianhounds]

Bad Reputation

Media: Return of the Jedi, The Book of Boba Fett

Rating: Teen

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Canon-typical slavery, allusions to involuntary prostitution, brief non-graphic reference to sexual assault.

Art Credit: Ralph McQuarrie

Summary: The less outsiders know about a culture, the more they seem to speculate. (A brief prologue to an eventual series titled “Back In Business,” but can be read standalone, leading up to TBoBF.)

Every Mandalorian has a reputation. They as a culture had a number of them. One that had been exaggerated to falsehood and beyond was of their lust for flesh in one form or another; some of the ancient Mandalorians, the Taungs of legend and history, were said to tear into adversaries and victims with their teeth and eat their fill once a battle subsided (though whether those rumors were substantiated or not was still a debate among scholars), and Mandalorians as a whole were renown for being a warrior culture. Death was met with surety, honor found in battle. In whatever form they took, Mandalorians were nearly always a fighting people.

The rumors did not stop there.

With a guarded culture such as theirs, their anonymity afforded outsiders little insight into their practices, beliefs, customs or ideals. What was known was the emphasis put on family bonds, guardianship and acquisition of younglings and fellow fighters, and raising children no matter the species with the ability to fight and defend themselves. It came to be that outsiders believed them to be hellbent on creating more and more Mandalorians with the desire to convert or destroy every other race and people they made contact with on their nomadic spread across the galaxy, a twisted extrapolation so far removed from the source it painted them as rough, lustful, insatiable, and barbaric.

Some found the myths appalling; others were enamored and intrigued. Mandalorians were the topic of speculation everywhere from cat-houses to palaces, rumors of their sexual appetites proliferating and taking on a life of their own. With such a violent race, people said, It’s no wonder they take what they want, when they want it.

The rumors were baseless speculations and accusations drawn from so little knowledge that they could scarcely be considered more than schoolyard gossip, but people for eons have always told stories, and stories revolve around some kind of conflict. Sex, desire, and fertility have always been topics of interest, and the more salacious you can spin those tales the bigger the audience you have.

The truth was, Mandalorians took said topics as seriously as they did every other aspect of life, and as an overwhelming majority they were knowledgeable, honorable people bound by a common creed; the myths of insatiable savages were unfounded. It isn’t to say there have never been dishonorable Mandalorians, but they more often than not are swiftly handled with the kind of justice they deserve, justice nearly always served by other Mandalorians.

Every once in a while, though, one slips through the cracks.

Una trembled in what little she had that passed for clothing. Her chains clinked together as she waited to be bought by whoever paid the demanded price for transfer of ownership. She was the only female Twi’lek in the slaver’s haul, something the auctioneer emphasized in every language he advertised in, saying she was the only one amongst the backwards natives.

The actual truth was that the men of her home had bought their families and loved ones time to escape as they fought back the slavers that descended on Ryloth— She just wasn’t fast enough. Now she and dozens of her countrymen stood at the back of a raised platform, waiting to be dragged out and sold to the highest bidder.

There were faces of every kind in the crowd: Foremen looking for laborers. Nobles looking for exotic servants and entertainers. Dons, madames, pirates, and pimps, all looking for workers.

Una wished there was some way she could revolt them, something she could to turn them away and keep them from considering her, but her countrymen had already tried to fight back on her behalf and received punishment for it. Nothing that left a mark, but enough to cause an enduring, inescapable pain nonetheless. She’d already thrown up before they arrived on-planet, and even the mud and clay that had covered her legs and arms had been scrubbed off before they were transported to the auction block.

She was last, of course, the prize of the evening. She watched as her cousins and friends and townsfolk were sold off to despicable people of every kind, the crowd thinning until only the most wealthy remained: a courtly woman with cranial horns, flanked by two looming Dathomirian guards; several dons of varying stripes, some accompanied by enforcers, some alone; a madame and a droid with several of the male Twi’leks already with them; spectators and other sentients in nondescript clothing, their attire masking their purpose or reason for being there. There was a Mandalorian with a flock of five women surrounding him, all of them different species and all of them resigned, their eyes turned to the ground.

Something about the man— he had to have been a man— was familiar. Something in his stance or his armor, she wasn’t sure. None of the women moved from where they stood, no chains or guards keeping them in place, and somehow their implicit obedience sickened her more.

Una approached the front of the platform, the lingering threat of the shock collar around her throat compelling her to obey. She couldn’t hear the auctioneer’s voice, her head swimming with fear and trepidation. Though her eyes were filled with unshed tears, she bit her cheek and willed them away. They’d made it very clear that she was not to cry.

Finally the chain tugged on her wrists and she exited the stage down the steps below. With horror she finally gasped, realizing now out of the stage lights that it was that Mandalorian with the retinue exchanging the credit transfer to the seller. Her legs shook even more than before, and her shoulders tensed when she felt hands on the back of her neck, unlocking the collar.

The Mandalorian, she realized. He was a collector, a sleazy lowlife with a harem of women at his beck and call. No one knew how he could afford to acquire and keep them, seeing as no one knew of his place of business and he’d never advertised that he was interested in renting out rooms by the hour. It was rumored he took them and polished them up to be resold to buyers with much deeper pockets, keeping the ones he liked best for himself. An unrelenting hunter, bringing his spoils back to the den.

His distinct paint and armor etchings proved he could be no other, and as the other women guided her along she felt the dizziness and despair return from before. She stumbled along the streets of the foreign planet, traded from one set of hands to another.

There were several twists and turns through alleys, passageways, and districts, so many she couldn’t keep track of where the starport was behind her. One by one three of the women split off alone and bid her farewell, and once the rest of them arrived at a boarded up and seemingly abandoned theater in the entertainment district, several passersby looking at them curiously.

Una was guided inside and the back door closed behind her. The boarded up theater looked abandoned and partially destroyed. There were lights strung between passageways, but it didn’t appear to be populated even by employees, the grand thrust stage in the open air unused even as a niche performing platform for the seating surrounding it.

One of the women’s wrist comms pinged as they traversed the stairwell. They paused on a landing, the woman and the caller speaking in a language Una didn’t recognize. For the first time she heard the Mandalorian’s voice as he interjected.

They will come to you, he said. I will take care of the Twi’lek.

“It’s going to be okay,” the human woman told her when he stepped away, both her and the Mikkian looking apologetic despite what might have been warm smiles. Una couldn’t have believed them less.

Both women split off onto the next level, and when the Mandalorian turned he gestured for her to take the stairs. When they reached the upper levels where none of the windows let light into the building, he gently guided her by the arm and said “Bear with me. I’ll explain everything once we are out of range of the street level security and recording tech.”

Una wanted to run, but she had no idea where she could escape from or where she would go where they wouldn’t find her. She thought she would pass out when they got to a set of double doors, and as he keyed in a code she held her breath and tried to steel herself for what was to come.

Inside she found she was a bit… underwhelmed by the simple furnishings. The room had been converted into what one might call bedchambers, but it didn’t match the Mandalorian’s alleged opulent taste. He closed and locked the door behind her, and Una heard him sigh beneath the helmet before he made a sweep around the room as if looking for hidden cams.

“Please forgive the theatrics,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s the only way to ensure our operation remains undetected.”

He came back to the center of the room with what looked like a set of clothes folded over one arm. “This isn’t how I like to handle things. Ideally you would still be with the other women and they’d be able to explain what we do, and ideally you’d never have to talk to me again. You’re more likely to believe this coming from them.”

The Mandalorian set the clothes aside. In his hand she could see a handheld scanner similar to the ones the slavers had.

“This is only to check you for any chips or trackers. It won’t hurt.”

Una remained silent. The Mandalorian briefly hovered the scanner over the back of her neck, each of her limbs and her torso.

“Did they put anything in your teeth?”

Una’s eyes widened. “They can do that?”

“Yes, unfortunately, though I assume by that response the answer is no.”

She nodded.

He stepped back and dragged a chair to a distant wall, facing the boarded up bay windows away from her. “There’s a dressing screen to the right,” he said. “You’ll be able to see me through it but I cannot see you, and I won’t turn around.”

Una tentatively pulled the screen out, and the corrugated plasticlear screen proved to do exactly what the Mandalorian said it would. Still she hastily changed from the rags into simple, comfortable clothes, her eyes on the Mandalorian the whole time. He too did exactly what he said he would and remained turned away from her. She surveyed the room.

“I’ll keep this short and simple,” he said. “I have a reputation for buying people from the invis market and I let the rumors that I run a private brothel or bathhouse or whatever abound because the less people know the truth, the more they’ll fill in the blanks for themselves. In truth, I help people escape. The women you saw with me— All five are employees by choice, paid and provided for with the ability and skills to leave any time they want. They’ll meet us shortly to explain more over dinner, but they were called away, like you saw. I try not to appear in public more than I have to, and anything they do when they’re with me is to reinforce that reputation, nothing beyond what they’re willing. I won’t get into why or how that reputation got started right now, but I do assure you it’s entirely false. I’ve just found a way to leverage it to my and others’ advantage.”

Una slowly lowered the wine bottle back down, rethinking her escape plan.

“Are you dressed?”

She set the wine bottle aside. “… Yes.”

He stood and turned again, keeping his hands visible and keeping the distance between them.

“I don’t expect you to believe me. I don’t expect you to believe them. I’m still going to give you the resources you’ll need to get off this planet and go wherever you want or need to go and hope you understand that your silence about what we do will ensure we can continue to do it. Do we have an accord?”

“… I’d like to eat.”

The Mandalorian nodded. “Follow me.”

Over the following hour Una heard the Mandalorian’s story corroborated by everybody she met. The dogged rumors of insatiable lust and a habit of “going through” slave girls were baseless accusations thrown at him by rivals intent on discrediting him as a bounty hunter, and as the rumors followed him his employers became more and more scarce until the only ones who would hire him were the ones buying slaves themselves.

Disgusted by the invis market but unable to escape the sordid reputation, he realized there was a way he could leverage it to his advantage.

Outwardly he appeared to buy women from the auction blocks and haul them off to “refine” and resell to high buyers, others remaining behind as his obedient prisoners. His public appearances were accompanied by the women he hired making a show of fawning over him and following his every command, but with their help in the hidden headquarters of the abandoned theater, he used his bureaucratic skills, connections, and network of contacts to help others escape.

What he really made his money in was commissions: most of those who chose to stay in his employment were trained to be bounty hunters themselves, and once they’d been initiated into the Guild, he acted as their broker under a pseudonym, collecting a percentage of the Guild payout on their successes, which in turn kept his operation up and running. In just under five years he’d amassed over fifty loyal hunters bought or traded from the slave market and trained under his expertise, and over two hundred others he’d helped secure the freedom of.

By the time she’d healed and been fitted with some resources to keep her on the move, Una found herself beneath the theater with several others heading out the secret passageways under the city. She hadn’t spoken to the Mandalorian since the first day— Didn’t even know his name— but when she looked back to him conferring with the women who had helped her, he nodded and she nodded back.

After Q’rad, Una found that every Mandalorian she crossed, even those with the most fearsome reputations, was an honorable person who largely kept to themselves and didn’t start trouble (though she found they very easily ended any that came their way). Once, she’d seen a rather boisterous and uncouth fellow with the telltale armor be thrown out of a casino on Canto Bight, only for two Mandalorian bounty hunters to summarily beat him within an inch of his life when he tried to clumsily fight back. It turned out the loud one was not, in fact, a Mandalorian at all, just a pretender who’d found or stolen the armor of the two hunters’ brethren. Time and again she found that she could tell which Mandalorians truly shared the culture and code by which so many of them lived, opposed to the people who’d simply claimed the armor for themselves.

As the years went on, Una saw fewer and fewer Mandalorians in her travels. Eventually she wound up again in chains, this time as a dancer to the syndicate slug on the planet with two suns. It was an unfortunate commonality she had with several girls, including three other Twi’lek women. They had all been betrayed by the Hutt’s majordomo, a selfish, pasty former noble of their species by the name of Fortuna, a male Twi’lek who had gifted them to Jabba and who they all knew had also captured the Secura heir during the fires set to their homeworld.

The last woman, Oola, was the one Una formed the fastest friendship with. The lot of them, alongside a Rodian, a Theelin, an Aruzan, and an Askajian, made up Jabba’s then-current menu of performers. Max Rebo’s band, Barqin D’an and the other musicians at least had the luxury of wearing clothes if they wished, but for the dancing girls they were back in the thinnest scraps of clothing available, compelled to sing and dance and… entertain Jabba the Hutt.

When she heard of a Mandalorian hunter under Jabba’s employ her hopes were lifted, until she saw the green-armored warrior herself. Even if he had painted his armor, she could tell he wasn’t the one who’d helped her all those years ago. He didn’t make an effort to free the slaves, but with numbers against him and slave chips keeping those like her tethered on pain of death, Una knew there wouldn’t have been a way he even could have, not unless he or someone else managed to kill Jabba and his entire entourage. Though his reputation as a cold-blooded killer was well-known it was only partially true; sometimes employers like Jabba paid more for live capture. Beyond that though his fearsome reputation was bolstered by his ruthless efficiency, which it was said could be found in every job he took, from acquisitions to executions. Not only was it rumored he’d taken work from Vader himself, it was said that he’d even turned down permanent employment from the Emperor's enforcer.

The near-silent Mandalorian proved to be one of the few in Jabba’s hire who was an exception to some of the usual constraints: free to come and go as he pleased, not indebted to Jabba in any way, and formidable enough to hold his own without question. The bounty hunter stopped by Jabba’s palace from time to time to refuel; nobody could really say that the Mandalorian rested, per se, and for as slimy as the slug pit was there were well-paying clients and connections to be found in spades, and he liked to keep busy.

The times he lingered, Una found him to be enough of a conversationalist that he’d exchange some surface-level stories, provided nobody tried to dig any deeper, and if it appeared to others like he was just enjoying the rest of what Jabba had to offer there in his personal den of iniquity, she could find respite herself for a time appearing to entertain him. She could count on her hands the number of times it happened, but just seeing his armor there in the court gave her a sense of relief. His reputation and the usual rumors preceded him, but Una and the others never found themselves on the receiving end of more than his company within the throne room of the palace.

And then the sail barge came under assault and the Mandalorian met his demise in the maw of the Sarlacc, pulled down into the acidic depths even as he clawed at the sand in an effort to stave off a grisly and agonizing death. He had fought his way out of every other obstacle in his life; Una had hoped for his sake it would work again.

It was a fruitless hope though, and when the lights were shot out and the chaos continued she barely managed to yank her bindings free and jump for the scorching sand like the rest of the rats on Jabba’s sinking ship. How many survived the explosion, she wouldn’t know until much later when she tried to scrape a living together in the streets of Mos Espa, but the Mandalorian was not among them.

After that it was several more years of much of the same, eaking out a meager living and resorting to desperate measures just to survive. The Tatooine suns kept her from braving the wilderness, and in the city she had to be fast to escape the hands of those much stronger and more wicked than her.

Having blue skin and lekku makes you stand out on Tatooine though, and it wasn’t long before she was caught by Bib Fortuna’s agents and hauled back to Jabba’s palace in chains, a slave again.

When Una saw the assassin in black descend to Bib Fortuna’s throne room, killing the daimyo’s attendants and guards, she jerked against her chains on instinct, bare feet slipping on loose sand, trying to get away. When the assassin stopped, seeing her left, Una squeezed her eyes shut and prepared to meet her end.

A shot rang out. The chains jolted in her hands. Una fell to the coarse sand floor, her irons severed, and she looked around wildly until her eyes met the assassin again.

The woman jerked her head to indicate that she should leave, and Una didn’t have to think twice.

At the farthest end of the throne room near the stone staircase that would take her to the tunnels however, Una paused, looking back at the sound of spurs.

And when she saw the green Mandalorian descend into the throne room, she hesitated.

… Is that…?

Bib Fortuna, vile thing that he was, entreated the silent figure that now stood before him. Una flinched when another shot echoed through the room, a flash of red ending in the Twi’lek traitor’s demise. The Mandalorian stepped up onto the dais, effortlessly heaving the corpulent daimyo’s body aside. The assassin took up a flask and the Mandalorian eased onto the throne as comfortably as if he’d always belonged there.

And as Una silently ducked out of sight and raced on sandstone stairs to one of the hidden exits, she found she was unafraid.

Boba Fett was back.

[softquietsteadylove]

Vibrators have been mentoined a few times, i think is time gil uses one on thena and leaves her shaking 😌.

"Don't you have a meeting?"

"Princess," Gil moaned directly into her mouth, his hands running up her back, "you think I care about that right now?"

Thena laughed, purring against him. "You might, considering our quarterly reports are upon us."

He groaned. The Ice Queen was on the top of her industry for a reason. But he was more concerned with making out with his wife than his bottom line at the moment. "They can wait."

"Sir?"

Thena pulled herself away from him at the knock on the door, not that they would enter without express permission. She smoothed down her hair and brushed off her dress, sashaying away from him with those delectable hips of hers. "You have business to do, Tyrant."

He grunted. He would just send them away--tell them to reschedule. But His beloved Ice Queen was already across the room, perching herself on the sofa that faced his desk and away from the door.

"Fine, come in."

Gil leaned back in his chair. The two accountants and one assistant scurrying in could obviously already tell he wasn't in the mood for whatever they had to say.

"Go," he waved his hand at them, although he looked over at Thena. He wasn't going to remember any of what they said, but it would be in a memo or an email or something anyway. And if he was really lucky, Thena would 'remind' him of everything they reported later.

Thena met his eye, although she was clearly amused by his lack of attention to the business portion of his 'business'.

He shrugged at her; she was the economist, he was the muscle.

"The winnings from the new pachinko you opened up are substantial. If we look at the gross margin-"

Gil sighed, leaning his chin on his fist. He wasn't absorbing any of this, and he likely couldn't even if he was trying. He watched as Thena rolled her neck, stretching herself after their hasty make out session. That long, pale, sensational neck...

Thena licked her lips, then stretched her arms up in the air. She was behind his associates, in view of him and him alone. She sighed, feigning some boredom.

He made a face; she was driving him nuts and she knew it.

The accountants went on, though. "However, there is the matter of Jasmine National."

"Uh-huh," Gil muttered, still not looking at them as they spoke. Not that they would dare turn to look at what he was looking at. They knew better than to take their eyes off the most dangerous man in Koreatown.

Thena arranged the long skirt of her dress, parting it at her thigh where the slit kissed just above her knees. She tilted her head at him as she crossed one leg over the other.

Gil's hand tightened around the paper under it, crinkling it hopelessly.

His accountants flinched, associating the action with their news. "B-But!--th-the stock we have in the market is currently up! And the real estate we've acquired in Jeju is set for renovation!"

"Great."

Thena uncrossed and then crossed her legs again in the other direction (minx). She arranged her dress, although she let her hand linger over her thigh before slipping through the slit and under.

Gil leaned forward, squinting to get a better look.

"We have the numbers for you, sir."

Gil almost waved at them to get further out of his way. He raised a brow as Thena leaned on her palm, angling her hips away. Her hand was snugly between those surprisingly strong thighs of hers. She wasn't...

"So, as you can see-"

"Y'know what? I don't need to see anything else!" Gilgamesh declared, slamming his hands down on his desk. "Looks great, good work, boys."

They looked amongst themselves. "But sir-"

"Out!" he barked, snapping his fingers in the direction of the door. They hesitated for just one more second, but he reached for one of his desk drawers, "now."

They wisely scurried out, closing the door behind them.

Thena watched them go, releasing a sigh once they were gone. "What a terror, you are."

"You're the terror," he muttered, retrieving what he was looking for in his desk. It was not - contrary to what his accountants had thought it would be - a deadly weapon.

Thena's jaw dropped. "You do not keep that in your desk drawer."

He grinned at her, eager to resume their business from earlier. "Never know when we might need it."

"Who is we?" she glared at him, now deciding to press her thighs together and cross her arms at him. "And what if someone happens upon it?"

"Do your employees get anywhere near your desk?" he asked her dryly, "let alone on that side of it?"

She rolled her eyes, which was as good as admitting defeat for his Ice Queen.

"Now," Gil leaned down to her, gripping the vibrator in his hand. "Lie down, you little tease. Unless you'd like to start things off yourself."

Thena continued to glare at him, even as they both reclined on his black leather sofa. "Your obsession with these things escapes me."

Gil chuckled, though, trailing the tip of the thing up her thigh before flipping her dress as far out of his way as it could go. "It's not this thing I'm obsessed with, Princess."

Thena's head lolled back and to the side as he pressed it right against her, the faint buzzing already filling the air with their hot breaths. "No subtlety."

"Like you're so subtle?" Teasing him like that? He pressed the thing more firmly against her. "Since when do you wear thongs?"

Thena bit into her lip as he managed to reach her clit with the vibrator's head. It was a similar model to the one she used at home. "Sometimes they're - ah! - the most appropriate option."

"Appropriate my ass, Ice," he growled, leaning over to kiss her cleavage. "You just like driving me nuts."

Thena let out a positively sultry sounding moan in response. The tiny little excuse for underwear she was wearing didn't resist much as he moved it out of his way to begin pushing the device into her.

"Feel good?" he pressed his lips to her neck (which she had also used to tease him). Once it was fully in her, he was able to lie over her more. He kissed her mouth, then her jaw, then her neck again, and then finally his hands were free to extract her breasts from the confines of her sparkly dress.

"Yes," she whimpered, her hips rolling as Gil pawed at her. Her hand snaked down to control it better to her standard but Gil grasped her hand with his.

"Don't be a backseat driver, Ice," he grinned against her hot flushed skin. He moved her hand with his, pumping the vibe steadily. "My little control freak."

Thena made some kind of sound of denial, although it was hard to feel intimidated by her when she was busy being so pleasured by him in the moment.

Gil leaned away from her again, moving the vibrator more quickly. He undid his belt and unzipped his trousers. "You wanna finish with this thing, or me?"

Thena moaned louder, although there was a note in her little melody that told him that she didn't appreciate the question. He paused their motion, making her moan become more of a growl.

"I said," he leaned closer to her again, pressing his hardness against her belly. "This hunk of plastic, or me?"

Thena bit her lip again. "You."

"Hm," Gil pursed his lips. He wasn't sure if she really meant that or if she was trying to save his ego. Then again, his Thena wasn't the type to assuage a man's ego for the sake of it--not even her husband's, unfortunately for him.

Who was he kidding; he loved that she had his ego under the spiky heel of her stilettos.

"Gil," Thena panted, eager to finish what they started. She rolled her hips again, but he kept her still. She looked at him, pressing her lips together. "Please, baby, just move."

He grinned. He could see why she liked him hot and begging for her all the time. It was very appealing. "Since you asked so nicely."

Gil extracted the vibrator from her gently. She expressed her frustration at the temporary emptiness he left her with, but he pressed his own tip against her, promising to remedy the situation. "Real thing is better, right?"

"Yes," she sighed as he finally pushed into her, sealing their bodies together.

Now, that, he believed. Their groans harmonized as he finally started moving, making love to his wife as intended. No matter how many times they did it - which was enthusiastically and frequently - he never got tired of the ecstasy of his wife's body.

"Gil," Thena whimpered, gripping his side and his back as soon as he was in range of her. Her legs wrapped around him too, securing him to her as if he was going to slither away.

"Fuck, Thena," he panted, already closer to the edge than he wanted to be. If anything, he was lucky he had warmed her up before diving in; he was already so turned on by her little show he was just about there.

Thena's moans joined the creaking of the sofa's frame, no matter how solidly bolted to the floor it was. Gil made a clumsy attempt to kiss her, but they both needed too much air to linger long. They gasped in puffs of each other's breath. "Right there, so close."

Thank fuck, because he was holding on for dear life. Gilgamesh let his hips drive him, his pelvis meeting hers like an animal's. The slight elevation of her hips, the bounce of her cleavage, half in her dress and half out of it, the pink blooming up her neck and into her cheeks.

His wife was a masterpiece.

Gil groaned up to the ceiling as he shot into her. He was no young buck, but Thena was not of this earth. He ground their hips together, pressing down under her naval but above the line of that devillish little thong she wore.

He didn't even know she had one.

Thena moaned with him as she too toppled over the edge in bliss. She undulated around him, coaxing more from him with each wave of her own pleasure. She drank him up just as greedily.

Gil grunted as he slipped out of her. They said they would stop doing this; working up a sweat while he was in a suit, fucking in the middle of the work day, putting their carnal needs before business.

But he really couldn't care about that when his wife was panting for air under him in all her glory.

Thena sighed as he dove into the crook of her neck, nuzzling into her with light kisses. Her fingers spread out in his hair. "Terrible, we are."

"I thought it was pretty hot."

She gave his hair a playful little tug, although it released just as fast, her body all noodly after her orgasm. "We said we'd stop doing this."

"Yeah, well, that was before my wife decided to show off her hot new panties to me in the middle of my damn quarterly."

Thena laughed; so she did know what she was doing, and she clearly thought it was hilarious, too.

Gil couldn't blame her; he joined her in her laughter. Their business wasn't exactly lighthearted, but at least he could have a good fuck and a good laugh with her about it.

Thena blinked as he kissed her again--like, scooped her up and kissed her like they were in Casablanca kissed her. She looked adorably ruffled from the sex already, but the kiss clearly woke up her senses again. "W-What was that for?"

Gil just grinned at her, unable to contain himself. And why should he? He was the luckiest man in the world, with a woman like her by his side. "A man can't be happy to make love to his wife?"

Thena's eyes dashed to the side, turning shy in the face of his unhindered love for her. She cleared her throat, pulling her dress over herself again. "Not in the office, he can't."

Gil let her pull some modesty over herself again while he shoved himself back in his pants. He also reached behind him, retrieving their little friend. Well, no, it was no friend of his; it was a tool for pleasing his wife, and that was all the respect he would give it. "I don't know if there's much we haven't done in the office, Sweetness."

Thena kneed him in the thigh as she adjusted her thong back into place. He let her retrieve his suit's pocket square to clean herself up a bit down there. She didn't look at him while she did, but she muttered, "exactly why some self-restraint might do us some good?"

Gil just shook his head with a smile as Thena stood. She tested how presentable she looked right away when they were in the office. Tested her steadiness on her feet, smoothed out her dress, combed her fingers through her hair. What a Goddess she was. "I don't know how you can expect that of me when you're this beautiful."

Thena sighed, definitely rolling her eyes at him. But she turned around and leaned down to him again, kissing him the way they ought to kiss every time--like there was no one in the world but them.

Gil leaned into it eagerly, moaning even as she leaned up and away from him again. He pouted at her.

But the Ice Queen met him grin for grin, adjusting the straps of her dress. "Don't you have a quarterly report to go over? I know you didn't listen to a thing your accountants told you."

"And whose fault is that?" he chuckled at her, finally rising from the couch, although he had to wiggle a little to get himself sitting comfortably in his pants again. She pressed her lips together to keep herself from laughing. He gave her side a playful little pinch as he kissed her cheek. "Go over it with me? We both know you'll understand what it says more than I will."

Thena followed him to his desk to pull up the reports, even as she faked a sigh, "if I must."