#s: carrion comfort

[pricemarshfield]

got tagged by @a-treides to do this adorable picrew and i am. obsessed with it. so here’s tav and astarion, rose and shadowheart, roxanne and elliott, and gwendolyn and haley! anyone who’d like to can consider themselves tagged!

[50cal-fullauto-astarion]

to leave the blood stay in the veins

monster!könig x f!rcursed!reader (no use of 'y/n') 6.6k words NSFW!

DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT‼️CW: extremely NSFW, descriptions of gore, implied consumption of human flesh by a non-human monster, mention of necrotic curse, monsterfucking, vaginal sex, unprotected sex, knotting (no omegaverse), outdoor sex, ambiguous ending, pre-established relationship, 0% proofread, könig and reader are both fucking unhinged.

Day 01 of the Haunted Hoedown Challenge by @/inklore

taboo au (monsterfucking) + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into." + oh no i'm dating the town serial killer

There is a beast in the woods, and it leaves so little meat on the bone that not even carrion birds find value in the corpses it leaves behind.

It’s a strange town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps, full of little sicknesses hiding in the corners, and you learned them well when you moved here. No one goes past the treeline at night. Hardly anyone is outside of home if they can help it. Tourists are the beast’s fodder.

Your boyfriend thinks it’s funny. 

König, under his ever-present hood–a not altogether uncommon sight in your town, people come here when they have something to hide, something they are uncomfortable with or find hideous in themselves, and he has given an unimaginable amount for you out of love–laughs, sharp in the tooth.

“Anyone dumb enough to head into the trees is dumb enough to die,” he teases, but there is an arrogance and a contempt swimming deep in his bloodshot blue eyes. 

“That’s coldblooded, but not wrong,” you tell him, from behind your own mask. Plain thing, blank in expression, modeled from the one from Eyes Without A Face. It covers the ravages of a curse, numb necrosis slowly spreading up your face through the years. “I still want you to get me a gun.”

“What’s a gun going to do against a thing like that?” he asks, tilting his head, the hood bagging off the curled horns that start at his temples and sweep back over his ears. “Something like that, you need silver. I’ll get you a knife. Big one. Nice and fucking sharp, Schatzi.”

The knife isn’t a comfort when the beast begins to hunt in town. It stalks from house to house, preying on people in their beds, their living rooms, their bathtubs–there is no rhyme or reason, not a whit of discernable pattern. 

Only teeth-gouged bones and viscera ground into wall, tile, and carpet alike. Your neighbor falls victim, and you watch the police from your window, flinching when a veteran officer stumbles out into the fall-frosted grass to vomit, sobbing and pulling his hair.

“It got Emil,” you say, still watching through your sheer curtains. 

König nearly cackles from your bed, lounging as he visits. “Good. Emil was a piece of shit. Depperte Fut.”

You glance at him from the corner of your eye, over your shoulder, before returning back to the circus in the yard next door. “‘Stupid cunt’ is a pretty strong insult. He was an asshole, but I don’t think he deserved to die like that,” you mumble.

“You don’t know all that much about your neighbors, Schatzi.”

You begin to rock side-to-side on your hips, the enormous silver blade König gifted you turning over and over in your hands, the point digging lightly into your palm. 

It’s insane, the way you begin to tell yourself that you’ve seen König’s face nearly everyday for the last two years—you can see it right now. He lies on your bed, pointed teeth gleaming under his split philtrum in the soft yellow light of the bedside lamp and the red-blue flash of the cruisers. You know there is a man under the hood, however odd and satyr-seeming.

And yet. And yet.

The blade digs a little too deep, drawing a curse-blackened bead of blood. König’s eyes burn into the back of your neck, and you can only guess his horizontal pupils dilate into black holes. 

Just quit your job. I’ll take care of you.

It’s a simple enough promise, and one you know König will keep, but not one you’re willing to make. You have few shreds of independence, hard-bought through years of fighting back against misfortunes and setbacks, and, no matter the depths with which you love him, you’re not willing to trade your shit wage on faith for love of a man. It doesn’t matter how helplessly besotted he is. 

It’s this molar-cracking grit that delivers you right to the beast. Because you were forced to pick up an extra half shift at the hotel to fold towels behind the front desk, because you needed the money, because you wanted to pay back your beautiful, bloodthirsty boyfriend for the ridiculous blade he begat you. 

The god forsaken thing lumbers down a deserted street, blocks from your little rental, and something fucking horrendous seizes you. It’s enormous, walking on cloven hooves and back-bent legs. Its arms are too fucking long, clawed, jagged. And worst is the skull, bleached white and glowing like a beacon in the dark, an enormous rack of brutally sharp horns dripping trinkets of bone and gold that glints in the street lamp it approaches. 

A horrible fact hits you. It’s not lumbering, it’s wandering. Putting a massive, craggy hand on fences and peering into houses, taking its time, evaluating. You swear you can almost hear it humming. 

You don’t know when your hand found the handle of the silver blade strapped to your belt under your coat, but the leather on the grip bites your palm with the force of your grip, a nauseous, cold sweat terror tearing apart your ability to think. 

It’s a primal fear, one that makes you want to protect your soft, vulnerable neck, even if the blood that warms it runs venomous. 

It’s a bad choice, but there are no good ones. When the beast lifts its head and scents the air, skull snapping your direction and shaking its grisly trophies, you run. You snap the huge blade off your hip and drop into a dead sprint, cutting between yards, trying to escape the horrendous bellow that reverberates through the bony chambers of the monster’s skull.

Choosing to run instead of freezing maybe bought you a few extra minutes before death decided it was time to seize your pulse in reclamation, and it hurts. The physical exertion it takes to bomb through the last stretches of suburbia before the forest closes in feels like you are breaking every bit of your body by forced choice, listening to that awful fucking thing chase after you. 

Your blade makes a slicing sound cutting through the air at your side, the monster’s hooves pound the dirt as it digs in and chases after you, but, good god, it doesn’t sound like it’s even trying.

You don’t dare look back, pushing your body past agony, your lungs shredding in your chest. You’ve never moved this fast, you’ve never run this hard for this long. Your body is TV static—hissing, popping, distant—and, insanely, the urge to cry drills into your eye sockets.

You’re going to die. You’re going to die. You’re going to fucking die, stupidly and dumbly and pointlessly, because you wanted to pay your boyfriend a stupid sum of fucking money, for a stupid fucking knife that he bought you on a stupid fucking joke. 

Two meters from the second worst decision of your life, the monster snaps out, rough hand between your shoulder blades, crashing you into the goddamned dirt. Your eyebrow splits on a tree root, your eyes roll in the back of your head, your hand stays manically tight on the blade, slicing your other arm. 

“Schaaaatzi,” the miserable fucking thing hisses, pressing that same hand between your shoulder blades, pinning you into the freezing dirt. 

Oh, god, no, it has König’s voice. It’s—it’s not him, but it has his voice, thin and washed out as low-hung fog, but you would know that voice. In hell, in high water, in the dirt with a massive, bark-rough hand grinding your skin raw through your coat—you - know - his - voice. 

Furiously, you slash the blade over your head, behind your back, screaming and digging your feet in the dirt. For a brief second, as you hack at the wood of the monster’s hand and wrist, you’re even able to push yourself off the ground by mere inches. The beast growls and shoves you back down twice as hard, knocking the wind out of you, spasming your hand open. The knife drops, and you begin to blindly try digging and dragging yourself away. 

“Stop…hurting…me,” the beast lows, still in your boyfriend’s voice, and you imagine a bathtub full of gnawed bones, a living room with scattered body parts, your kitchen smeared with blood like cave wall art, and you start to scream as loud as your lungs will allow, your mask filling with dirt in your horrendous and futile bid to escape. Bloody murder bellows, filled with rage, wanting to kill and consume and conflagrate.

If König is dead, you will take your pound of flesh. You will either die fighting, or win, and you will hack apart this freak-fuck’s corpse to burn in your woodstove to warm your home. You’ll mount its fucking skull on your front door, so anything else in these woods will know you won’t hesitate to make trophies of them either. 

Bone, warm to the touch, presses against the back of your head. When it breathes, the air is as hot as exhaust, almost scalding your back. “Schatzi,” it bids you slowly once again.

“I’LL KILL YOU!” it rips your throat raw to shriek it, reaching back and almost dislocating your arms to rip at anything you can. Your hands fall on the dressings attached to its horns, you tear off a vertebra, and a gold wedding band, and a bracelet of rave kandi in plastic beads. “IF YOU HURT HIM, I’LL YOU FUCKING KILL YOU!”

The head presses harder, driving your face into the dirt. There is something desperate in the pressure. It spits all at once, grating and wide in a voice you know better than your own, “You pissed off a fucking witch, because you ran out of riddles to tell her, when she was ransoming you to your arshloch grandmother. She never paid. That’s why you were cursed—no one gave a fuck. But I gave her my face for you, to stop it halfway, better than fucking nothing.”

Your rage freezes immediately, your chest heaving under the weight it presses down on you. 

No one knows that. Only König. He’s the only person who would know about his lonely and quiet climb up to the Scottish highlands. Besides you, and the witch, König is the only one who would know why his human face was distorted, malformed, made animalistic. 

“Lee?” you pant, unleashing part of his first name, the only one he ever tolerates. And, fuck, instantly the pressure pulls away, the skull rubbing against your back to soothe it.

“It’s me, Schatzi,” the slow voice promises, nuzzling you. There’s rustling above you that you don’t dare turn to see. “I’m not going to hurt you.” 

A tinkling piece of jewelry lowers in front of your eyes, and you can see that it dangles from an enormous, ligneous finger. You’re being shown a sterling silver charm bracelet. You’re being shown your bracelet, the one you thought you had lost months ago. 

Your hand shoots out, wrapping around the finger, the peeling bark shearing off under your grip. You find instantly that you can pull yourself up on your hip, sitting, caged and protected under the beast’s massive body—under König’s massive body. 

He shifts back onto his digitagrade haunches, holding himself over you, still offering your bracelet. He shudders at your touch on his hand, and you imagine that he may’ve never been handled with kindness in this shape. Which makes a certain amount of sense. Because he fucking kills and eats people.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” you snap, staring dead into the hollow sockets of his eyes. He shifts uncomfortably, turning his head. “Why—you have me so fucked up—what have you been thinking—?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, do you have to—”

“Yes, I have to, fucker.” It’s impossible to wrap your head around the magnitude of what a simple secret and a silver bracelet has done to your understanding of the world. A complete unraveling—upheaval, utterly. 

You take the bracelet from his finger, on which it fits like a ring, and push it into your wrist, sitting up on your knees and grabbing him by the underside of his jaw. Though it puts you in his blind spot, staring dead center at the sinus dimples between his eyes, it feels like you have a mote of power over him. 

(If he were asked, he would say the power you hold over him could corrupt, absolutely. He would badly like you to ask someday.)

“Why are you—what are you? Have you always been like this? Or was this new, with the fucking witch? Are—Jesus Christ—why are—the monster isn’t supposed to come into town, why are you in TOWN?” you run off at the mouth, words stalling and crashing and fusing together as your thoughts overwhelm just how quickly you can speak. 

And up from that impossibly deep throat–simultaneously from the center of your brain, and from all around you all at once–crawls König’s pitchy hyena-laugh, edged, always, with cruelty. He butts the jagged end of his nasal cavities into your stomach, catching on the threads of your sweater. 

“Leshy, Schatzi, say it for me.”

Your hands pull his jaw closer, digging the bone into your stomach, wondering if he can feel the pressure of your deep breathing. Oh, fuck, you could crack. This is your König. You start to wonder how many of his perverse buttons you can hit, the part of you that felt shame for your attraction to what the world discarded as ‘ugly’ long ago removed from your emotional bank.

“Leshy,” you say, really leaning into the word, saying it deep in your chest. One of your hands travels the long length to the hinge of his jaw, gripping tight, directing his head to turn so you can meet one of his empty eyes. “Answer my fucking questions.”

The laugh doesn’t come this time. In its place is a near-violent whole-body shudder that wracks through you. 

“Old! Alwaaays been this way,” and even in the strange disconnect of his voice from his physical form, you can tell his arousal is eating away at him in big bites–clipping his speech, broiling his brain with body heat, “can’t remember ever being young, haa-haa. And why do you think I’m hunting in town?”

Another trap, a stupid pop quiz, wanting to test your knowledge of him, or a gotcha! to check your observations and what you had missed.

Your hands get tighter, and you pull his jaw open, marveling at the sharp grooves ground into his teeth, like nightmarish, ivory rook pieces, tall and straight in the dry sockets. His chest begins to heave, his breath fogging into steaming clouds over your hands, and, remarkably, it smells like nothing at all apart from pin needles and snow.

You’d thought you’d smell decaying flesh or rotten blood. The only blood you can smell comes from your own busted brow and sliced arm, crusting black on your skin and in the fabric of your sweater as it coagulates.

“If I was working on a hunter’s instincts, I would say that Schladming has become too good at keeping people out of the forests. Even during daylight hours. It cuts down on prey,” you say, ice cold and clean as a slit throat. Your eyes flick back up to the socket, surrounded by the feeling that those glass-blue eyes of his humanoid form are drilling into you. He’s waiting for you to hit the hook. “But I’m working on your logic.”

“Oh, yeeaah,” he drawls, his hips shifting, and you feel as if he would bite his lips in anticipation now, if he could. 

“Oh, yeeaah,” you echo him, “the logic of a fucking crazy asshole.” He feels like a huge grin, hands on his muscular, bunched, and flexing thighs. That detail is not lost on you. “You’re hunting in town because you’re pissed off. You reached a limit, and you got tired of sitting on your fucking reaction.”

You swear to god he moans a little. Just softly. It could be a breath, but you know him too well to dismiss it out of hand. 

“That’s good, Schatzi. I like that. I like that you figured that out,” he says, definitely panting in rhythm now, his fogging breath giving away the rhythm secondary. “People are looking at you too much. I don’t fucking like it when they look at you too much.”

That’s a sudden thought that had not occurred to you, and you lash yourself silently because it hadn’t. König has always been possessive of you. Jealous. Protective. And he held grudges in ways that could spark blood feuds and successive generations of death.

Like a curse.

It’s a testament to how fucking cracked and perfectly matched the two of you are that you start laughing, stroking his orbital bones in big, pleased pats, kissing the bridge of his nose. 

“Schatzi, please,” he groans, pressing into you insistently. “Promise you won’t tell. Promise me.”

“Why the fuck would I tell?” you laugh, losing track of your faculties, your very sense. What does it matter? What does it all even mean? You’ve found a man that loves you so deeply and truly and twistedly that he slaughters those who desire or deign you. You’ve found, and fallen in love with a man that would sell his face to save as much of yours as he could. “Who the fuck would I tell?”

The slope of his shoulders relaxes, and he moves closer to you, once again shielding you with the massive bulk of his body, warming you in the cold air. Tucked under his chin, you can study the soft suede-like material of his body, how the bark covering his arms gives way to a ruff of dense, double-layered fur around his shoulders and his long, muscular neck. 

The rest of the muscle on him is horrendously hard, flexed like steel cabling under a layer of fat. There is something about this body that reminds you of the shape of the human one so well–long legs, a nipped waist, and flat hips built to strut and rock, all of it buttressing a broad set of shoulders.

You press your face into the ruff, pushing your fingers into it. Dear god, your hand goes deeper and deeper, and it just never seems to stop. His scent is–it’s almost familiar. He’s in there, somewhere–his musk, the metallic tang of blood seemingly sunken into his skin–but there’s so much more to it. Green, and earthy, almost like soil and moss. 

A sound comes from his body, like a house settling. A deep, broad creak. The trophies on his horns rattle together, clinking like dull wind chimes. “More,” he says simply, leaving you to figure it out. Simple enough.

Your hand drops from the ruff, tracing over his convex chest, down to his stomach. Another shudder, and he pulls those big arms around your entire body, a fuller, more protective hug than you’ve ever felt. 

“Schatzi–would you let me…” he breathes, a heaving sigh. 

Another laugh cracks out of you, hysterical, constricted by your mask. Why not? Why shouldn’t you? You’ve always been a woman that loves monsters. You, yourself, are one. You can’t find a reason to halt your hands, nor your body, nor his desire.

In an odd show of tip-to-tail, you push the mask off your face, and kick off your boots, going for your zipper. “Yeah. Yeah, honey, come on. Show me,” you urge him, pawing at his massive waist as you struggle out of your jeans. 

He groans and this obscene trill escapes his body–a low, rattling moan that travels miles through every cell of your body, his legs spreading wider. You laugh in delight and mania, watching rapt as his cock slides out of a sheath you hadn’t even caught sight of, his monstrous body a foreign land you hadn’t traveled yet, but, fuck, do you want to learn the lands well enough to call them home. 

It’s heavy in your hands, a little slick, and, childishly, you almost giggle (holy shit, that is a sound that has never left your mouth in your living memory, and yet, here you are). It’s hot, hotter than you expected, and a vulnerable shade of pale, like a plant slip. Oh, and it’s elegant, almost spiraling. He huffs as you stroke the length of it, pushing your fingertips into his sheath at the base. 

“I don’t think this is gonna fit,” you warn him, and it somehow feels as if you’re challenging yourself with the statement.

He takes it as a challenge for himself, though, and an aspiration to hold for you, “You are going to take all of it. I’m going to make sure.”

His massive hand comes to the back of your waist, finding your fulcrum without needing to search, pulling you off your knees to hold to beneath him. “You naked yet, or still fucking around?” he asks, breathing heavily, and you shove your jeans off the rest of the way. 

“You’re being a little bitch,” you snipe, a dumb swipe at reclaiming dignity after you realize you’re so wet that it slicks your thighs, having darkened the crotch of your freshly abandoned jeans pathetically. 

He throws another coarse laugh, haa-haa, shifting his massive body long, pulling you into place. 

It’s on you, then, to figure out the logistics. Somehow, it just works, even through layers of physical translation. Under your hands, he reads König, loud and clear. 

There’s a brief, flighty moment of terror as you rub the head of his cock between the lips of your cunt, rolling your hips to stimulate your clit against it. It is just fucking enormous, almost half again the size of his human cock. But then you grit your teeth, tipping your weight back so your shoulders rest against the dirt, bleak and unyielding ruthlessness seizing your mind.

You do not back down, you have never done it once in your life, and tonight is no different. 

His head lifts, bottom jaw dropping, and he bays as you push yourself down on his length. The sound crashes into you, rocking your entire body, and the stretch burns, but you buckle down. What are the people in the houses just at the edge of suburbia thinking? Has the fucking abberation that has been slowly killing its way through their number taken to a different form of punishment? Has someone unlucky fallen to its new tastes?

It cuts your mouth into a horrid grin. If they only knew that you were no victim at all, if only they had an inkling of the fact that you are a victor. That you are the hand holding this nightmare’s collar, and he attacks for the sake of you.

Inch by inch, a slow journey, he fills you, pressing completely against your walls, body shaking with the effort it takes not to thrust fully into you. Oh, what destruction that would result in, what a wreckage that would make of your body, what lengths he would go to not ruin you in such a fashion.

“Fuck–fuck–Liebes,” he mutters, just for you, the moment he is as deep in you as he can go, most of his length still outside of what your body can handle, pleading, “I can’t–I. I have to move. Please, meine Liebes.”

“Go. Go-go-go,” you answer back, almost frantic, too full and occupied, needing motion or you might split apart into atoms. The way he answers is instant, undeniable, desperate, rocking into you as if testing waters, going faster as if he finds them warm and welcoming. 

You lose yourselves to it, and your eyes threaten to roll back into your head, gripping onto the elbow of the arm suspending you, blood rushing to your head in an ache from the way you hang off him, forcing you lightheaded. Sap-like blood from where you’d hacked at him in rage drips down your arm, your waist, clinging to your skin in a way that feels permanent. 

He tenses all around you, panting, clouds of steam fogging the air over your head from his pants. Words escape him, leaving nothing but animalistic grunts, the grinding of his dry, exposed teeth as your desperate pussy sucks him deeper and tighter.

You’d taught him as a human to find your g-spot, to destroy your brain with a steady climb, and he doesn’t even need to search now, every movement pressing every inch of his cock into it, and unrelenting onslaught that makes you shake and nearly drool, being fucked like a sacrifice. 

König raps his other fist above your head and pulls out without warning, shaking his head and breathing roughly. 

You imagine brutally grabbing him by the scruff and biting his ear–what kind of punishment would that even be, no worse than a bug bite to him, more likely than anything else–for the loss of his cock. Mostly just an impulsive fantasy, too barbaric and stupid to actually act upon, but you were thoroughly enjoying yourself, and it feels like hell to be split open against him with nothing inside you.

Breathless–and naked, sweating, and trembling in the woods–you start to sit up on your elbows, cunt throbbing. "What is it? Are you okay?" you ask, your love for him–your fear for him–overwhelming even your damnation-worthy starvation. 

König, massive and so dark he's almost indistinguishable from the night apart from his skull, shakes his head again and puts up a clawed hand. Fine, the gesture says, and you’re realizing he’s beyond words now, but trying his best to communicate. Then he curls it into a loose fist and pantomimes masturbating and finishing.

"Christ!" But you’re laughing, tugging at a tuft of fur on his chest, spun out in your giddiness. It’s still him, you’ve already known, but to see it. To find him through this–this utterly new reality. "They teach you that signal in the forces?"

In his hollow sockets, twisting his body to watch you closely, he looks pleased with himself, ducking forward, bracing on his free hand to one side of your head as he nuzzles into your neck and breathes deeply.

He huffs, rough fingers running over your back, claws trailing the parts of your spine he can reach as he holds you, before he taps the side of your thigh with his other hand. At your eye level, he turns his finger in a slow loop. Roll over, maybe? It's worth a shot.

"Okay. Alright," you sigh, relieved. When you try to roll in his palm, he shakes his head and sets you down, pressing down against your body, pushing his arm under your ribs. With his other hand, he gestures a flat line on the ground. You ask, "On my stomach?"

Two knocks against the ground next to your head. Yes.

You stretch out flat over the frost-crisp grass, too hot to even register the chill against your bare skin, and König lowers with you, sliding the arm under you down to your diaphragm. With his knuckles, he taps your outer-thighs until they're drawn back together, and your breathing hitches when you understand what he intends.

With his legs on the outside of yours, he uses his free hand to run his cock up the length of your seam to tease your pussy, but he takes his sweet time with it. Impatient, you slide onto your knees with near-perfect timing, driving your entrance against his head, snarling with indignation when he bows away. "Fucker!"

He rumbles something almost humanoid, between a laugh and a gruff, trilling ‘rrrr’ you recognize as cousin to a sharp, challenging hum he makes when faced with an idiot comment in his human shape.

"Stop teasing me. I can't stand it," you try instead, turning to give him big eyes over your shoulder because you know that it works well on him.

He bends down and barely-barely nips the top of your ear, a startling move that leaves you perfectly inflamed all over again again. Greedy brat, it says to you, so pleased in the fact he is so desperately wanted. 

The feeling of him inside you is extraordinary. He lubricates in this state, but you hardly need it with the nearly absurd way you’re wet, slick down your thighs. You wonder if your cunt is glimmering under the dim moon and streetlamps, because he'd said that to you once. Heilige sheiße, you have the prettiest pussy I’ve ever fucking seen, could just stare at how wet you get for me forever, he'd laughed during one delirious, marathon session of staying sunken between your legs.

He begins to rock his hips, growling quietly and pleased at the wet sounds of your of cunt squelching around him–another sound he enjoys, a marker of pride, how wet can I make my girl get–settling onto his forearm and pressing a little weight against your back. 

He rests his head across your shoulders, burying his snout in your hair, breathing in hard-bought bursts of restraint.

"Yes, honey," you almost seethe, loosening your body, giving up a little of your own iron will to become just a little lost in the feeling of him. You relax your walls in a bid to take more of him, breathing tight, voice pitching up into a plea, "Yes, baby, that's perfect. That's so perfect, keep going. Just like that."

He rocks a little faster, thrusts a little deeper, breathes a little harder. The hand around your waist shifts up to your breast, but isn't dexterous enough to do more than give it an encompassing squeeze. 

With your thighs pressed together, you feel as if your body can't stretch properly to take as much of him as you want (and you want all of him, every burning hot inch, fucking him so well that he cannot disappear into one of his miseries where he will not let you follow, because they all live in his head). 

He ratchets back his speed, tries a new motion with his hips. He rolls instead of thrusting, a more fluid movement, brushing your insides in new ways that leave your swollen clit screaming for attention and your eyes watering. You breathe in ragged pants, fingers digging into the turf over your head, trying not to rip it with the force of your grip by the fistful.

You might cum. You might cum. You want to cum, and you might, and he's so much deeper now, panting hot as fire against your shoulders. You can feel the muscles in his abdomen clench and dance, his horns cutting the air in swipes of agitation above you, and he is so much this way. König: bigger, sometimes bloodier, but always so, so amplified.

"Honey, honey, honey," you whine in a chant under your breath, trying to ground yourself, trying to encourage him. You squeeze your thighs together for the extra stimulation, but you know you’re going to orgasm from him alone, no extra assistance needed. You’re just greedy, you just want it all, but you want him the worst.

When he pulls out this time, you snarl loud and gnash your teeth, digging your dirt-packed nails into his unyielding skin. You were full to the brim and on the wire-edge of climax, and he is so suddenly fucking gone it's almost as abrupt as violence. 

"KÖNIG!" you shout, his callsign cutting from between your teeth like the desire to slit a throat, shattering the quiet around you both, reeling to find him with your burning eyes. 

He collapses onto his side, cock jumping and leaking, and he whines deep in his throat, pulling at you with the flat of his hand. Your thigh, then his hip, your chest, then his–more hand signals, a story-told like a man with a sucking chest wound needing saving. He snakes his arm under you again, whining growing deeper, and you understand.

You roll, throwing your thigh over his hip, tucking tight against his chest. You give yourself one second of feeling cool air against your overheated pussy before you take him in hand and direct him home, and his deep, slick slide into you knocks the air out of your lungs like a punch to the solar plexus. 

You’re only seconds away, and he can't be much farther, driving his head under yours to give you something to rest on that isn't the ground.

You don't utilize his offering, craning your neck as if you'll somehow get a glimpse of your connection from this angle–flat against him from belly to breast, resting your cheek and forehead against his heaving chest. His whine turns into a series of small, strangled howls and gasps as your voice crawls from whimpering to keening.

You’ve known you were going to cum, but you’re still somehow surprised with yourself at how quickly it's raced up, and how overwhelming it feels like it's going to be. You feel like you’re going insane.

His other arm wraps your ribs, too, squeezing you to him like you’re the only thing in the world worth keeping close, and damn him for it. You don't know why, but damn him.

"Cum, baby, cum," you instruct, gasping when you aren't clenching your teeth. You curl close to him, as close as your body will allow, spreading your legs as wide as you can. You drive back down into his thrusts, giving as much of yourself as you can, taking as much of him as you’re able. 

You want it all–everything–every little bit of blood and bone that's built him into a home he offers only to you. "Cum in me. I'm ready, I want you to cum," you demand, finding it truer than true, finding yourself right on the razor-edge.

The command is all it takes. Three hard thrusts, and he's buried in you to the base, punching the wind out of your lungs, and filling you to the point of what feels like impossibility with his spend. It forces you to finish as well, lighting you up like a lightning storm, swallowing him deeper as you cum and cum like you'll never be able to stop, soaking the both of you. 

You gasp a raw-throated howl, tears pricking the corners of your eyes, and you praise him as his cock kicks and kicks, emptying everything he's got to give into you.

A pressure builds inside you, beginning nearly unpleasant, until something just gives and his knot anchoring him to you feels right. 

It feels special and dazzlingly intimate, and you’re boggled, again, with the knowledge you’re the only person in the world that he's ever shown himself to this way. It’s just a thing you know in your marrow, an immutable truth, like the sun setting in the west, or the cruelty of witches without their wants.

You wind down, sweating and panting and filthy in each other's arms, and you rock against him,  holding him inside, clenching around him what little you can. You feel so wonderfully safe, so immaculately powerful, so stupidly, crazily, fantastically in love.

When your combined breathing evens, and the knot between you retreats, you groan when König shifts back into his human form, but only for the resituating you both have to endure. 

The body against yours is familiar again, and you’re dreadfully sleepy, though you want to clean yourself and eat. You crave something raw, something bloody. You hunger the way an animal hungers after a hard fuck. His spend drips out of you now that his cock's returned to normal, and it forms a trail of cooling wet down the crease where your thigh meets your ass.

You feel lovely.

König laughs, rough and spent, tucking hair out of your face and kissing your closed eyelids. "Holy fucking shit, Schatzi," he marvels, looking at you like you are the only god that has ever mattered. 

Your smile cuts sharp, and your fingers find his pulse point, tracing it thoughtfully. “You hungry? I bet you're fucking starved,” is all you say in return, eyes trailing the way his hand finds the charm bracelet newly returned to your wrist, touching it like a token.

It’s late and dark when you both manage to stumble your way back to your rental. He stays close, needy and soft, his hand on your hip, tugging you into his body when he can, careful of not knocking into the big, silver knife you’d placed back in the scabbard on your belt. 

The hood is back on his head, rolled up to his nose, and his split mouth kisses against your neck and behind your ear, his eyes closed like he endures a waking dream. You, in your own filthied mask again, allow it, craning your neck to give him more room, anchoring him with an arm around his waist in return.

It is late now, and the neighborhood is silent. Again, you wonder what the quiet lives inside must be thinking–whether they think the crimes have increased into a new field of brutality, if they are fearing and wondering what body parts they will find at the treeline come dawn. 

You know they will not leave the safety of their homes to investigate. They would be stupid to do something like that.

“That shower is going to feel so goddamned good,” you mutter, unlocking your door, and he nods against your skin.

“Oh, yeeaah,” he says, and the familiarity of the phrase makes you hum a laugh, shutting your eyes as you push through the threshold. "Get that blood off your skin before it stains. Your poor face, your poor arm. Poor Schatzi."

He splits off from you with a facsimile of a kiss–your masks pressing together at the mouth–and he pinches your ass before he takes off to the kitchen, his stomach growling, not even bothering to take off his boots.

You, however, kick off your shoes, and pull together clean clothes, heading toward the bathroom in the hall, the one with the big shower, in case he decides to join you.

Sleepy and content, you listen to his boots move heavily over the kitchen tile, the sound of the fridge door hissing snickt as he pulls it open, and shoves things around in his search for food. You nearly sway up to the closed door–why is it closed, you barely manage to wonder–your eyelids lead-weighted.

It takes only one thing to make them snap open wide, your back going ramrod straight. A dark smear, curling around the knob, around the edge of the door where it seams to the jamb.

Cold grips your lungs, sending your heart galloping painfully in the cage of your ribs, wondering if it really is copper you smell, or if it is a trick of your mind. The hall is too dark to tell if the swipe on the white door is red or black–if it is blood, if it is König’s or yours. 

There is a presence at your back, and enormous hands on the door on either side of your head, so fast you cannot tell if you were even able to blink before you saw his wide, scarred, and knuckle-broken limbs spreading wide across the wood.

Your hand finds the grip of the knife, looking at the brutal gouges you had hacked into his forearm earlier in the night, and you are thinking faster and harder than you ever have in your life, realizing in a terrible microsecond that you will have to make a decision–that you will have to choose what reality you are willing to live with, or that you are simply mistaken. 

Either way, you are moments from learning.

“Something wrong, Schatzi?” your boyfriend’s familiar voice asks, low and raspy, hot against the nape of your neck.

The laugh in his tone is cruel, and you can’t tell whether it belongs to König, or something pretending to be him.

tag-list: @alittleposhtoad @bitchoftoji @dotcie @kastlequill @miyabilicious @moths569 @parttimeprophet @pssytrux <3

[guess-that-ship]

S11 Round 1

Icarian Carrion

Character A is alone in the world, abandoned or let down at an early age by those who were responsible for him. Character B is the first person to truly see him beyond his faults, noticing his skills, initially becoming a sort of mentor, and refusing to give up on him. This makes a huge impression on A, who has trouble connecting with people due to fear of rejection, but who lets down his walls for B. Then B leaves for career reasons, and after an accident, is eventually presumed dead by everybody except A, who cannot believe this. When B reappears some time later, it's A who 'saves' him, and A continues to do so throughout the story, as they become not only close friends, but also coworkers. They go to any length for each other, A never giving up on B and vice versa.

Character A, fiery, strong-willed and protective, finds reassurance in Character B's steady warmth. Likewise, B finds himself able to confide and trust in A's unwavering loyalty and faith. A notices B's PTSD flashbacks and helps him cope with mental illness; B constantly stands by and cares for A. They trust each other, more than anything, and the depth of their bond pierces through realities on occasion. They will always find each other, and save each other over and over again, no matter the cost.

Knight(s) in shining armor

cw: major spoilers

Green and Blue were rivals turned genuine friends, although there was attraction for more from at least one of them. But the circumstances didn't allow for more, partly because of the constant stress they're under as part of their job and the plot, and partly because of the irruption of a third person, Red, who also has a big crush on Green and is close to him. However, Blue realizes upon dying that he loves Green too much to break the promise he made to Green, and thus simply refuses to die. Motivated by their mutual love, he manages to go back in time under a different identity, which turns out to be Red, in order to save Green. He then proceeds to push his past self and Green closer, becoming his own wingman in the process.

During this time, the one now known as Red also tries to get closer to Green himself, and after some rocky beginnings the two end up getting along as much as Green and Blue do/did. Green was heartbroken after Blue's death, and found comfort in the arms of Red, who he only learned was actually Blue after Red was killed too. Green then used the power of love and courage to avenge his lover(s) and save the people they both cared about, and ultimately resurrect Blue, securing their shared happy ending that Green had died for twice.

[stalwart-spirit]

BASICS -

B A S I C S

Name: Saeed Iscitan

Nicknames: Carrion

Age: 39

Nameday: 14th Sun of the 2nd Astral Moon

Race: Dalmascan, Midlander Hyur

Gender: Cis male

Orientation: Bisexual (equal preference)

Profession: Mercenrary, leader of the Damascus Djinns spy sector of the Dalmascan Resistance

P H Y S I C A L     A S P E C T S

Hair: Naturally brunette, undercut, longer portion bleached blonde

Eyes: Amber

Skin: Naturally tan 

Tattoos/scars: No tattoos, various scars from his work, predominantly on his hands

F A M I L Y

Parents: Unknown, was raised by fellow Rabanastrans before the establishment of Imperial orphanages upon the kingdom's occupation.

Siblings: Farah and Tahsin. Not by blood, raised together all their lives and consider one another family.

Grandparents: Unknown.

In-laws and Other: Two adopted children, twins. Polus and Leila. Adopted whilst returning to Valnain.

Pets: None, though the crows near his home have taken a shine to him and the kids.

S K I L L S

Abilities: Quick and light on his feet and a fast set of hands primed for thievery after years of running rampant on the streets as a young waif, then utilised to distrupt Imperial goings on within Rabanastre. Good head on his shoulders, can think fast when the situation calls for it. Surprising medical talent, primarily forensic.

Hobbies: Weaving, though more akin to mending and embroidery though has a keen eye for Dalmasca's more refined weaving crafts of tapestries and rugs. Fishing, even though he's not so skilled at swimming.

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: Determined and resolute, his mind is always set on getting the best out of a situation to benefit all, no matter the cost to himself.

Most Negative Trait: Stubborn and at times reckless, one too many times has he gotten himself into a situation and barely made it out.

L I K E S

Colors: Red and black, desert hues. A hint of sandstone.

Smells: Tobacco, coffee and inscense

Textures: Leather and steel.

Drinks: Coffee, mostly spiced, has a soft spot for wines of his home as rare as they are now.

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: Yes. Terribly so. Hardly seen without his pipe.

Drinks: Occassionally, as a treat. Enjoys a couple glasses of wine when alone and comfortable, though won't shy away from stronger drinks when in appropriate company.

Drugs: Nothing of note to mention.

Mount Issuance: Rashad. An unruly red chocobo. More than likely doesn't even have a licance for the damn thing. Questions how he even wrangled the bastard.

Been Arrested: Countless times. Petty thefts as a youth, to barely escaping execution when Imperial headhunters come for prolifent members of the Dalmascan Resistance. For now, he's been good... Or at least not been caught.

---

I literally had no reason to do this, I was just wanting to kill time!

Not tagging anyone other than if you see this then do it! <3

[bloodrodeo]

COMFORT LIST

comfort food(s): my mom's lasagna...divine comfort drink(s): a hot matcha latte 🤤 comfort movie(s): phantom thread and babylon and also the 2023 steph curry doc but rly just the college part/narrative of it and dijon's short film for absolutely comfort show(s): idt i have one :o comfort clothing: big hoodies/sweaters...need 2 feel cozy at all times... comfort song(s): ballads 1 comfort book(s): the tale of despereaux and the little prince and black beauty comfort game(s): dutch blitz even though i suck ass but if i'm playing it it means i'm with people i love soooo

tagged by: @facepeeled ❤️❤️❤️ tagging: @girlsurvive, @icarian-carrion, @driiipgod 😁

[foundtherightwords]

The Firebird - Chapter 12

Pairing: Prince Paul (Catherine the Great) x OFC, Fairytale AU

Summary: When Paul, a spoiled young prince, spots a strange bird in the forest near his palace, he impulsively chases after it, hoping to both escape from and prove himself to his disapproving mother. Thus he is plunged into an exhilarating adventure across a magical realm populated by enchanted princesses, dangerous monsters, and powerful wizards, an adventure that may change him more than he can ever imagine.

Chapter warning: some smut (non-explicit)

Chapter word count: 3.2k

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11

Chapter 12 - The Realm of Stone

Paul decided to keep Baba Yaga's story to himself. It didn't matter that she no longer had power. After all, she was helping them in every way she could, as she had made clear from the start. It was no use worrying Zhara further. And soon, other, more pressing matters came to occupy them all, so Paul pushed the truth about Baba Yaga and Koschei to the back of his mind.

The landscape around the house was changing. Craggy mountains, not quite as tall or foreboding as Perun's Crowns, but bleak and hostile-looking nonetheless, rose on either side of them. Dark pines broke through here and there amongst the rocks like bristly eyebrows or mustaches on a giant's face, bordering narrow, foamy rapids that rushed past in a race to the sea. The occasional stone hut peeped through the pines, though it seemed deserted.

The first hint of destruction came the next day—a stone bridge, leading from a pine forest to a small village, lay broken in half in the middle of a wide stream. No smoke curled from the chimneys of the village, no livestock or pets milled about, and there was no trace of people.

The forest gave way to rocky hills that led down to a rocky beach, overlooking a gray, stormy sea. The path now followed the shore toward a series of tall cliffs, rising out of the sea in the distance like the walls of a fortress, topped by a castle of gleaming white stone. They passed a town that curved along a breakwater overlooking the beach, lining the slopes leading to the cliffs. The houses here were bigger and better built than the stone huts of the forest but stood in the same eerie silence. Some had their doors and windows tightly shut, others were left wide open, their front yard strewn with clothes and belongings as though the owners had fled in a great hurry or were driven out. The only sign of life were the flocks of carrion birds that circled these houses like a kaleidoscope of death, their mournful cries made all the more mournful as they echoed over the murmurs of the sea. White bones could be glimpsed here and there amongst the pebbles on the beach, though it was impossible to tell if they were human or animal.

The heavy rain—the first rain Paul had seen since his arrival in Lukomorye—did nothing to deter the birds. For the humans, it only made things worse, as it kept them indoors, where there was nothing to do but to look at those horrors outside the window, like watching some macabre magic lantern show. 

"Saints," Paul breathed out. "What is this place?"

"Arthania," Ilya replied.

Paul's heart dropped. Too absorbed by the scene outside, he had completely forgotten about Zhara. Now he saw her frozen on the windowsill, as though the display of death and destruction were a basilisk's gaze turning her into stone. He quickly closed the shutters and reached out to comfort her, but before he could touch her, she'd flown away with an alarmed chirp and settled on the rafter. Her eyes, as they looked down at him, bore no trace of recognition. Paul felt his heart seized in fear.

"Zhara, it's me," he said softly. Zhara seemed to shake herself, and some human awareness came back into her eyes, but she didn't fly to him. She went into the small backroom that she shared with Elena, and avoided their company for the rest of the day.

After supper that night, Baba Yaga declared that the house was going to stop for a while, for they were now close to Buyan Island and needed to prepare to face Illarion. Paul rather wished she had chosen to rest the house anywhere else, but dared not criticize her. Sometimes, the old woman's gimlet eyes reminded him too uncomfortably of his mother's.

Paul went to bed with thoughts of the battle ahead swirling around his mind, turning his blood into ice water and his heart into a quivering mess. Despite Ilya's tutelage, Paul knew he was no fighter. He would gladly stay away from it all, were it not for the fear that Zhara would think him a coward and never look at him again if he did.

A creak of the door startled him. Opening his eyes, he caught the end of Zhara's red braid as she slipped outside. Where was she going at this time of night? Surely she wasn't thinking of going to face Illarion by herself? Paul sprang up from his cot and followed her.

The rain had stopped, but the lawn was still wet, droplets of water clinging to the grass, sparkling under the moonlight like diamonds. Under their shelter behind the house, the horses were sleeping peacefully, having no care for the danger ahead. Paul only had eyes for Zhara though, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he found her standing by the linden tree, looking at her kingdom beyond the fence, while her fist kept clenching and unclenching on the linden's rough bark. Hearing Paul's footsteps, she half-turned her head, before looking back toward the cliffs and the silent castle shining pale in the distance.

"The Seven Sisters," she said, nodding at the cliffs, as Paul came to stand beside her. "As children, Lariosha and I used to play on top of them, bringing back the chalk to draw on the walls of our nursery, to the despair of our governesses. We used to have such fun..." Her voice trembled and cracked. "What happened? What went wrong? How did he become so bitter and cruel? Perhaps it was my fault, I was closest to him—"

"No. Don't blame yourself." Paul took her hand in his, trying to pull her back from that dark path. "You can't have foreseen this. Some people—some people just turn out bad." Did I turn out bad as well? he wondered. He had grown up believing it. Why else did his mother hate him so? But now, standing here with Zhara, he felt that he was, if not good, then at least not entirely bad, not as bad as he'd once thought.  

Zhara looked down at his hand. He was afraid she was going to pull away, but some of the dark fire went out of her eyes, and she put her other hand over his and stroked his knuckles with her thumb. She had never done so before.

"Thank you," she said.

He cleared his throat, not wishing to notice how the caress of her soft, warm fingers was sending shivers all along his arm, or show her how much he was enjoying it. "So... how far are we from Buyan?" he asked, still keeping his hand nestled between her palms.

"It's just beyond the Seven Sisters. We should reach it by midday tomorrow." She lifted his hand to her lips as though to kiss it, but changed her mind and put it down again. She opened her mouth and hesitated, looking like she wanted to say something but didn't know how to. "You should stay here with Baba and Elena," eventually she said. "Ilya can accompany me."

"No!" Paul exclaimed, pulling his hand away. "I'm not staying behind like some coward!"

"Nobody will think ill of you."

"Are you afraid I'm going to get in the way?"

"No, it's not that." Zhara looked at him with beseeching eyes. "It's too dangerous. You may get hurt."

"What of it?" he said sullenly. In his mind, he could hear his mother mocking him for drilling with his toy soldiers, as clearly as though she were standing next to him. "Why should you care if I'm hurt or not? My life is worth nothing here. At least let me contribute something."

Zhara's eyes turned gentle. "Do you think people only care for you if you're worth something to them?" she said softly.

He'd never considered it, but now that he thought about it, it was true. "My nurses and tutors and the servants only took care of me because I'm the heir to the throne," he said, the painful truth coming out slowly. "My mother—my mother is the same. As long as I'm alive, her position is secure." He asked himself, not for the first time, how his mother had been coping with his disappearance. Was she searching for him, or had she come up with some lies to cover it up, as she had with his father? Had she brought out an illegitimate child in an attempt to replace him?

He could feel tears stinging at the corners of his eyes and looked down, ashamed of his weakness. Zhara put a finger to his chin, her touch feather-light, lifting his face up so they were eye-to-eye. "I don't care because you're the heir to some throne," she said. "I care because you're you."

Those words went straight to his heart, making it thump painfully in his chest. "But why?" he asked. "Why me?" There were other men around her, braver, cleverer men willing to lay down their lives for her. Why would she pay attention to a foolish, cowardly boy like him?

"Because you always try to be better. Because when you look at me, you don't see a tsarevna or a half-vila, you only see a frightened girl, but you do your best to help her anyway, although there is nothing in it for you." It wasn't completely true; in the early days, he had clung to her because she was his only hope of getting home. But that had changed. So much had changed.

"And although sometimes she exasperates me to the point of madness," he added, and Zhara laughed, a soft, tinkling sound that he couldn't get enough of.

"Yes," she said. "And because"—here she paused to trace her finger along his cheek and his jaw—"the heart wants what it wants," she whispered.

As her finger stopped at his lips, Paul's heart seemed to stop as well. Without saying another word, he leaned forward and kissed her.

No shy, fleeting kiss for them this time. No more hesitating or checking to see if anyone could see them. Her lips parted, her tongue darted into his mouth, and he chased after her, meeting her tongue with his own. She tasted of birch sap and berries, of wood smoke and pine needles, of fire and sun, and he drew her into his arms, pressing her soft body close to him, drinking her in, feeling intoxicated, insatiable. This was all he wanted, all he'd ever wanted, and it was too much and not enough, never enough.

Then he ran out of breath and had to pull back.

"And that," he said, gasping, "is why you must let me go with you." He was already missing the feel of her mouth under his.

Zhara curled her fingers around the front of his shirt, holding him close. "But if anything should happen, I don't want to lose you," she said, nuzzling against his cheeks. His heart lurched. There was real fear in her voice, but he couldn't concentrate, because she was brushing her lips over his in a way that made his pulse race like a wild horse and split into two, one pounding in his heart, and another, lower down.

He'd felt like a coward before. Now, with her in his arms, he felt like he could take on an entire army.

"Who says I'm yours to lose?" he whispered, smiling against her lips, teasing her, wanting to draw her attention away from the scene of destruction before them, from the coming battle. 

It seemed to be working, for the fearful look left her eyes and she grinned back, the familiar crooked grin he'd grown to love, only with a wicked edge to it that set his blood aflame. "You will be," she said.

She drew him to her, and now it was her turn to kiss him, her mouth burning and hungry. Paul sank to his knees on the soft, moss-covered ground beneath the linden and pulled her down with him. The moss was damp under his back, but the heat from their bodies soon dried it out.

Paul was not untried when it came to women. Despite what his mother may have said, he was still the most eligible bachelor in the empire, and there were plenty of ladies at court, and servant girls as well, who thought it would be a great conquest to seduce the tsarevich, and he let them, for it flattered his ego.

He didn't realize how different it was, to be with someone who actually wanted him for him.

Zhara dropped hundreds of scorching kisses on his neck, his torso, and he found himself on his back, with her on top of him, her hair framing her face like a fiery halo while she rocked against his growing hardness and fumbled to loosen his clothes and her own. He brushed a curl out of her eyes, and the look in those eyes, blazing down on him like the sun coming out from behind a bank of clouds, made him want to cry.

He did cry out, a moment later, when their bodies finally found each other. He sat up, his back against the trunk of the linden, his hands clenching at her hips so he could better match her movements, while he sank into her velvety warmth and she buried her hot face in his damp neck, her mouth trailing little kisses along his jaw and begging him don't stop, please don't stop, each kiss, each whispery plea pushing him closer and closer to the edge. The tree shook with them, the lingering raindrops dripping over them, falling down their bare skin, streaking their cheeks like tears. Paul caught a drop on Zhara's shoulder with his tongue, and it burst into a bubble of sweetness, flooding his mouth with her taste. 

So they may be going to their death the next day. So he may never see his home again. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered but the way her pulse fluttered against his, the way she enfolded him in her whole being, and the pleasure that surged through both of them like wildfire, sweeping everything else away.

Afterward, they fell asleep on the grass, there in the shadow of that kingdom of ruins, her head on his chest, her body bathing him in heat as though she had stored up the sun in her skin.

He woke before sunrise. The Night horse must have left already, for the dark gray sky was starting to tinge with blue. His arms automatically closed around Zhara, afraid to find a bird there instead of a girl. No, blessed be the Saints, she was still in her human form. His stirrings had woken her as well. She stretched luxuriously against him, and he delighted in the way her body moved in his arms.

"Are you cold?" she said, voice still thick with sleep. "We can go inside."

"Cold, with you in my arms, my Zhar-ptitsa? Never."

He felt her smile on his chest. Then she yawned. Even her yawn sounded lovely.

"Don't go back to sleep," he said. "Stay with me."

"I'm not going back to sleep."

They were both quiet for a while. By her sighs, he knew that she, like him, was thinking of what lay ahead, dreading it. He was trying to find something to take her mind off it, when she spoke.

"Paul?"

"Yes?"

"What do you desire the most?"

He thought about it, and realized that, at that very moment, there was one thing he desired.

"To see the dawn with you."

She lifted her head to look at him. The blaze of hope in her eyes would stay with him for as long as he lived. "Perhaps we can, one da—"

She never finished her sentence. At that very moment, the Sun horse vaulted over the sky, followed closely by the Day horse, and the weight of Zhara's body on him reduced to nothingness. For a heartbeat, the firebird remained on his chest, looking at him with those human, heartbreaking eyes. Then she flapped her wings and took off in a flash of burnished gold.

Paul sat under the linden for a while longer, feeling chilled and lonely without Zhara's reassuring warmth on him. Then, with a sigh, he went into the house for breakfast.

Though it was early still, everybody was up, and not only up, but also waiting for him, it seemed. By the time Paul came into the kitchen, Ilya was lifting the kettle down from the stove to make tea. "There he is," the knight said with a knowing grin and winked at Paul. Even Elena showed a faint smile on her lips as she wished Paul a good morning. Paul felt his face going crimson and busied himself with cutting the bread. Zhara also seemed shyer than usual and didn't come to his side at the breakfast table, but remained at the window, where Elena brought her some seeds and berries. Only Baba Yaga was as impassive as ever and didn't seem to notice anything. After breakfast, she knocked on the ceiling for the house to start moving again.

Paul cleaned up the breakfast things with Elena and went into the yard, where Ilya was restringing his bow.

"Can I do anything to help?" Paul asked.

"You can help by keeping the tsarevna company," Ilya said, nodding toward Zhara at the window. "She's going to need the courage, and I'd say you're more qualified than any of us to give it to her."

Paul blushed again. Was he relegated to the role of a royal lover, like Vasilchikov and so many others he'd sneered at in his mother's court, assigned only to keep the Empress's bed warm? "I suppose you think me a fool," he said without bothering to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"No," replied the knight sincerely, his black, crinkled eyes looking straight at Paul. "It is never foolish to love, my friend. In fact, in these dark days, to love and be loved may be the wisest thing you can do, for you never know how short our time may be on earth. Just look at my brothers. I'm glad that Dobrynya had at least known love, no matter how briefly. And I'm glad that you and the tsarevna have this chance."

Paul hadn't thought about it that way. The stories always ended with "And they lived happily ever after," never "And they lived happily for now," but he supposed there was wisdom in what Ilya said.

While Paul was pondering the words of the bogatyr, Ilya looked up, and his face hardened at something he saw over Paul's shoulder. Paul turned around, and his heart faltered. The house had rounded the cliffs and now stood on a small shingle beach, facing the steel-gray sea. In the distance, an island stood amidst the waves. It was little more than a single boulder, most of it taken up by a gigantic, ancient oak tree, yet against that pewter sky, still heavy with unshed rain, with the white-crested waves crashing against it, the island gave off such a foreboding air that Paul could very well believe it to be the source of a powerful magic.

"Buyan Island," Ilya said, getting to his feet. "We have arrived."

Chapter 13

Taglist: @ali-r3n

[chronothread]

On Cloud Nine

…. …. .. ..

No no no…busy busy. No time for that.

Time for what? For that of course, you know what it is, I mean you’re…you. No time for that. There’s so much to do, so many threads to follow. So many loose ends to tie up, I have a duty to fulfill after all. Still have to take care of my mother, and follow up on the other houses. And I need to give Gale my notes, the web goes further than we thought. And I need to figure out the specifics of the wedding this spring-oh Fury my dress! Gale cannot see that, not supposed to see it before it and…Twelve they are going to nitpick every detail at the altar aren’t they? And I need to feed…I need to…

….. 

.. .. …. … … .. ..

. .. …..  ….. . ..

… … …. .. ….. .. … ..

What? No…don’t be ridiculous. I’m still here, aren’t I? True enough I’ve always been prone to injury but…I always bounce back quickly. It’s why I’ve always been so successful on the field. Easy to break, but quick to put back together you know? Pull me out of one battlefield, give me my sword and shield back and stick me into another one, ready to do Halone’s will. And I am ready, I am willing and I am able to do that. I’m useful, truly! I can do good, I am doing good. There are yet lives to save and…

……  … … ……. ….. .. … …..  … ….. …. … ….

…    ….. …. … …. .. ….. …….

… ….. … … .. .. … …….?

But I…I can’t. I’ve made a mess of things. I’ve left it all unfinished. What about Gale?! I can’t leave them! I’ve made a mess of their life and I’ve caused them so…so much trouble. Gods…I’ve made them more miserable than even the Holy See has. What have I done? What have I done?! And now I…now you’re telling me to leave them? After all I’ve done? The least I can do is stick around so they can yell at me! The least I can do is answer for everything that I’ve done! They deserve the time to scream, to shout, to punch and kick and hate me! 

I…I can’t be dying. I can’t. I have to be there for them. Whatever happens. To the bitter end. I made them promise! And I…I wouldn’t make them promise anything I wouldn’t do. So that means I have to do it, it’s a knight’s oath. I don’t break my oaths I…

……  …. ….  … …. …. …. ….. … …. …..

… …    .. .. … …

… … …… …. ….

.. … …… …

I…I’m afraid.

For Gale. How are they going to make it without me? There are so many out there…scavengers swarming, waiting to make carrion out of them. I won’t be around to protect them anymore. I can’t clear their path. I can’t be their shield. 

I can’t be their comfort.

.. … ….. ….?

What? Of course! More than anyone else in the world.

…. …. …. .. ….

…. …….. … ….. …

…I’m sorry Gale. I wanted to grow old with you. Fight and die alongside you. Forever be frustrated with you. Loved you, kissed you. Protected you.

……. ….. ….. …… ….?

….. …. … … ……… …..

I…I suppose you’re right. Then…maybe I can smile. And be happy.

I think…I won’t be so busy anymore from here on out.

Can you please just give me a few more moments. So I can say goodbye?

Of course. I’ll give you as long as you need.

——————————————————————————————————

“...cien”

“Lu…en”

“Lucien!”

I feel something warm on my skin, on my stomach. Was that…a sword? Two? Why wasn’t it painful?

“Hey…hey! Wake up, stay with me sweetheart, okay? You…you lost a lot of blood but I have some potions left. Just stay awake. Because…b-because um…s-s-sideffects if y-you’re asleep. Y-yeah!”

It’s cold. I never really liked the cold here Coerthas. In Ishgard. 

A little warm on my face…what’s that on my cheeks?

…oh. Gale. Crying? I can’t have that.

“Is…that…you, Gale?”

“Ah…uh, y-yes! Yes it’s me Lucien. I’m here, I-I’m here!”

“Can you…come closer? Finding it…difficult. To be loud.”

“N-nonsense, Lucien y-you should really rest hahaha…i-it’s for your own good, recovery. So don’t worry, I-I’ll take care of everything you just rest a-and keep your eyes-”

“Gale.”

I hate cutting them off. But they talk too much sometimes. I want to hear them, but they always get up in their own head. Especially when it comes to goodbyes. They hate goodbyes.

“...yeah. Lucien. I’m here.”

“Good…good. Listen, for me…please?”

Ah…that’s better, I can see them. Did I take a dive in the snow? So…cold. But I guess…it’s not so bad when they lean in to kiss me like that. Their kiss is warm, and their embrace. Always so warm…

“I’ve gotten…many things wrong. In my life.”

“But here, at…at the end…”

“It’s not the-”

“Here…Gale. At the end…with…you?”

“I’ve never been so…happy…”

“To be wrong…about my purpose…”

“And to be right…about you…”

I raise my hand and hold their cheek, and I give them a smile. How happy I am to know…that they’re okay. I don’t remember my arm being so heavy.

“Learn…to smile again. No more tears.”

“I always loved seeing you smile."

I feel their hand on mine. I…

It’s warm.

[cannibalslut]

Cannibalism and Kabru? Interesting. I wonder how he would do with such thing, considering that he’s most likely traumatized by seeing people from his home village being devoured by monsters…

Anyways, I wanted to ask this for a while now:

So, what are your ideas for this ship? What is your s/i like? How did she and Kabru meet? What is the dynamic? What role does cannibalism plays? Just, I’m dying to know what is going on.

Fun fact: I myself have been eyeing Kabru before properly watching Dungeon Meshi, suspecting that I might get a crush on him. But then shit happened, and here I am, obsessing over Thistle instead... Kabru is still cool, though. I especially love how the manga shows that him lying to manipulate people has consequences, so now he has to supress his honest emotions and do things he doesn’t want to do. It’s hilarious, I have never seen it done anywhere before.

(By the way, I’ve seen many people joke about being disappointed by Kabru being a man because they though he was a beautiful butch woman. Thoughts on that?)

– villain-in-love

so sorry to say… the cannibalism is mostly symbolic…. 😔 it’s like sentiments of “i want to eat you” and sexual biting and like. heavy cannibalism allusion used in smut. that kind of thing. kabru i think wouldnt be able to stomach survival cannibalism much less pleasure cannibalism like hes not that kind of guy. cath is a different story.

speaking of cath shes my s/i. her name is Catherine Entrailé she’s fantasy french (unfortunately, that was just too good a name…) and she’s a vulture beastman (were-vulture?). she can shift between human and vulture forms and was cursed to be this way (like izutsumi). she needs to turn fully into a vulture every so often or suffers consequences, she disappears from the party for a few days at a time and they notice a vulture following them, etc etc…

i havent decided who cursed her shes still a fledgling character. likewise i dont know how cath and kabru met (shes in his party) and suggestions would be appreciated lol. i am thinking of giving her a dead sister or something as backstory.

also, as backstory, she has past trauma from being poisoned, so she has to know EXACTLY whats in her food at all times. she eats carrion because its one flesh with no extra ingredients. this sets up conflict with senshi bc nooo why are you putting extra things in my food are you going to poison me!! so she’s like izutsumi bc they’re both picky eaters. she and izutsumi would either get along like a house on fire Or become lifelong mortal enemies. also there might be an arc there about growing past it because shes a vulture now and can digest many toxins without being harmed.

i think thats probably all i have for her for right now, hopefully i can come up with more stuff soon~ i know her dynamic with kabru, though. the reason why she’s in the dungeon is because she’s a murderhobo actually. she’s like kabru in that she hates monsters, but she hates Literally Everything Else too and thinks all humans should die. if she doesnt kill things in the dungeon she will start doing it on the surface. kabru is worried by and captivated by her weird psychology. they also hook up before he realizes she’s a beastman bc she keeps it well hidden. after he realizes he fucked a girl thats part monster he gets so upset it gives him cramps. i still dont know how to get over this obstacle lol i do not think kabru wants to be shipped with a demihuman. sucks for him bc im doing it anyway hes my little toy 🤍

other assorted thoughts: cath heavily enables kabru’s desires and they have like hungry hands-everywhere can’t-get-enough-of-your-body-sex, laios is the reason why cath became more comfortable telling people she’s a beastman and existing in an state between human and vulture (kabru wants to kill himself so bad rn), tension between rin and kabru and cath happens where rin absolutely despises cath bc kabru wont give her attention but will give cath attention. cath kind of doesnt care about rin too much bc shes aro/polyam like me. if they one sided hatefuck it will go nuclear and tear the party apart.

anyways to the rest of your ask! yes kabru is such an interesting and unique character! i like how hes shown as sympathetic and with good intentions but has some very worrying traits like what is up with his freaky stare when he straight up executes those guys? and when he attacks falin? and also the way his trauma affects him is pretty well done. sometimes he reminds me of light yagami but better lol. he also does take it upon himself who gets to live and die based on a moral framework of “some humans are irredeemable vermin that must be removed” but he’s actually a likeable character and DOES NOT have a god complex. my poor little fucked up guy im gonna use him

i never thought kabru was a butch woman but sometimes i wish he was 😔 though i’ve been doing surprisingly well with the idea of him as a cis man. it pisses me off a little bit that he and cath are m/f and both cis. at least hes bisexual. usually my s/is are lesbian but i cant do that here lol. ALTHOUGH i was thinking genderfluid or crossdresser kabru maybe inspired by ryuko kui’s r63 art (Manipulative Girlfriend kabru you will always be famous) plus this tweet: https://x.com/bedtimecreature/status/1768118459693682865?t=2IniV5ZjNZ9m-fdhHU-Vcg&s=19 idk he just looks really good here man i love him. (i dont hc him as transmasc tho)

this is getting long lol so i think ill end it here. hey i got it in earlier than “in the next week”! thanks for reminding me i had to write this haha

[princeofhags]

A Carrion Comfort

Fandom: Baldur's Gate III

Character(s): The Dark Urge: Drakka Ulfgar

Word Count: 730

Warnings: Descriptions of death, violence, blood, murder, and a body. Typical Durge fare.

The sun rises and the girl is still dead. Or rather, Alfira's body is not left as a spectacle in the middle of camp. Drakka grieves what is not his to grieve.

The sun rises and the girl is still dead. She is not some figment of the night, terror summoned only by his worst dreams. Drakka had half-hoped, childishly and foolishly, that he would wake with dawn's first light. That Alfira the Bard would once more open her sightless eyes and smile at him with all of her teeth, with all her insides where they should be again. She would laugh at his silly dream, say he should leave those morbid wonderings behind and ask where they were headed next on their venture.

So eager, so young, so kind. So terribly dead. And Drakka is ever more the monster for wanting comfort from his unwitting victim.

The eyes of his companions follow Drakka the entire way to the stream. Accusations linger in the air that he could not deny. Questions that he had no satisfactory answer to. He does not blame them for the fear or the sickness he sees in their eyes. He feels the same roiling in his belly, though he has no right to it.

A horrifying layer of viscera that is not his own turns Drakka's skin muddy and dulled, turns the water red as he washes. His hands seem to be to him monstrous mockeries of flesh, tipped with nails that are more claw and talon, than anything civilized. The strong muscles of his forearms are merely the weapons he used for the sin, much harder to discard than a mere mallet or hammer might have been.

At the riverbed he scrubs his hands until they are blistering and raw, his own blood mixing with the blood of the tiefling girl that covers him like an accusatory second skin. How he wishes to step out of his own body that would do this horrendous thing! He begrudges the snake the process of ecdysis, left naked and new and unsullied by the end. Do they feel pain when they shed? Is it a relief, to cast off the heavy mantle of history?

History. Of which he has none. Only this terrible curse that pulls him to rend and tear and break a body beyond repair. That still sparks pleasure in his broken brain when he lingers on the thought of the act too long.

Drakka has killed plenty since he has woken upon the Nautiloid with naught but a name. He has not felt the need to wretch like this after every kill, however. At least he is capable of remorse -- a thought that brings him little comfort. Regret will not bring back the light that he has snuffed.

He rises once the only blood that lingers is that which is so crusted beneath the nail that all he can do is stare at the browning half-moons. It is perhaps counterintuitive to cleanse himself when there is still the matter of the body itself to care for, but he cannot bear to do so when still covered so carelessly in her gore. He will wash again once he is done, knowing that no river in this world will truly rid him of this stain.

Shame is his only companion when he returns. He need not even try avoid the gazes of the other members of camp, for they look but do not attempt to meet his eye. Look too long upon a mad dog and they might see it as challenge or threat or both. They must wonder how long before he breaks his leash again, before the thirst swells too greatly within him for him to ignore.

He fears the same.

Drakka does not allow himself to look away from Alfira as he walks past the ghastly scene once more. Let this sear into his mind. Let him remember. Let him never forget it for as long as he lives, though he has forgotten so much else.

He grabs his shovel and gives her the dignity of his own cloak to cover her. The flies have already begun to converge, eager for the taste of dead flesh. He does not know the proper burial for one of her people.

But he will bury her deep beneath the ground so that she is not left to the scavengers. She deserves that much, and so much more. A grave is the only comfort he may offer her now. A cold, carrion comfort at most.

He begins to dig.

[radicalrascals]

NAME: if you know you know

PRONOUNS: my id says 'she' but honestly I don't care. people have labelled me as m, f and anything in between; and that's cool with me. pick whichever makes you most comfortable

MOST ACTIVE MUSE(S): Nick and Liam. Always. 100% If you throw something at them, I'll instantly love you.

RP PET PEEVES: I really, really, really don't like instant fix-its. Please never attempt to fix my muses. Yes, they're broken. I like them that way. And when our muses encounter a problem, don't instantly fix that either. The journey's the reward. Give our characters something to work towards.

EXPERIENCE/HOW MANY YEARS: uuhh... I started rp in school, like literally IN class with my bestie and a little notebook; on tumblr it's been over 10 years and I switched from Doctor Who to fandomless to Doctor Who/Life on Mars to fandomless again.

FLUFF, ANGST, or SMUT: it's probably futile to try and claim it's anything but angst. But honestly I like fluff too, because it nicely offsets the angst. And I wish I was better at writing smut but alas I suck. And not in a good way.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Both have their time and place. Conversations benefit from shorter replies with fewer embellishments, if I wanna set the scene or there's a lot of action I tend to write longer replies. Both is super valid tho.

TIME TO WRITE: on my days off or while I'm commuting, mostly

Tagged by: @saudadexmses & @archxngxl (thank you!! ♥ )

Tagging: @etxrnaleclipse , @riiese , @islandofmuses , @miidnighters , @icarian-carrion , @strikersunindie & @fangsandmagic

[pricemarshfield]

ship traits and picrew!

tagged by @a-treides and guys i know i always say these are long and under the cut for that reason but i really couldn't shut the fuck up on this one so. you have been warned <3 i talked about 11 ocs and a couple of them have multiple partners

tav khoury & raphael (baldur's gate 3); so this is kind of a mix of "canon" end where she kills him and "bad end" where they actually get "together" (read: are insane).

height difference (i am So normal about how much taller his cambion form is than her (lie)) / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ (diveristy win! the worst two people in the world are bisexual) / family disapproves (i feel like their whole thing gives mephistopheles heartburn and that's before we get into the crown of karsus bit) / would die for each other / would kill for each other (and have <3) / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly (exhibitionist weirdos <3) / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed (they don't talk about it) / relationship doubts / they have a song (they probably each write one bc they're bards and refuse to acknowledge the other's as anything other than copying, regardless of who wrote it first. raphael's is better but tav performs hers better, probably) / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests (do not let me get started on this one i'll explode.) / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala (the things these two have gotten up to in dark corners at fancy galas in my wips. good lird) / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together (if gale being cured of the orb didn't necessitate the crown tav would have been Crazy even in her canon end. her morals aren't That good. but unforch. she befriended gale first.) / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers (but only Barely. he kidnaps her when they first meet, she threatens to kill him, but both of them leave that initial conversation feeling largely positive about each other because they're weird.) / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets (her, not him. he's weirdly honest and that drives miss "never failed a deception check" insane) / love after loss (but worse!) / exes / declaration of love (only in bad end but my God does tav fucking go for it there) / flirting / love triangle (only barely. it's entirely dependent on One thing and there's not like an Ongoing Competition. tav's poly she just can't have both because it requires her to reject or lean into Bonkers worldviews) / destructive romance (it ain't called bad end because tav has a positive impact, i'll say that much) / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values (truly insane the degree to which this happened by accident. by the way) / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters (they're both bards. they get Poetic with it)

tav khoury & astarion (baldur's gate 3); just like above, a mix of "canon" end where they're freaks having their happily-ever-after and "bad end" where he ascends and uhh she doesn't like that to put it mildly. but not on moral reasons she dgaf about the seven thousand souls.

height difference (not as much. but still) / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other (and have!) / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly (to the dismay of their party) / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet (idgaf what the epilogue said. scratch and the owlbear are staying with tav) / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts (only insomuch as is canonical in act 2/early act 3) / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry (something horribly intimate about washing the blood out of your clothes after a battle with a fresh bitemark on your neck...) / same hobbies / cooking for each other (tav can't cook but she lets him bite her every night so it Counts) / big fancy gala (leveraging their reputation as heroes to get invites to things that they act wildly inappropriate at) / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies (only in bad end) / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes (only in bad end) / declaration of love (graveyard scene killed me dead i must say) / flirting / love triangle (raphael psychically attacked me into it but alas. it remains) / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well (bad end) / happily ever after (canon end) / love letters

mari marino & karl bishop (undercover agent)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves (don't let the fact that you were hired to spy on their dad and watched him get murdered keep you from finding your true love!) / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts (for at Least a couple years post-game. did you only date me to get better access to my father, are you in this for the money, are you only with me for revenge and there's a con i'm missing, etc etc. but eventually they're like oh dip this is real, nice) / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

lyna mahariel & alistair theirin (dragon age: origins)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ (idc what the game says that man is bisexual.) / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

neria surana & leliana (dragon age: origins)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other (and neria did!) / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews (interestingly enough, leliana in dai is much more in line with neria's worldview in dao than they're aligned when they're both alive. neria's just very much a pragmatist in a way dao leliana Isn't) / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets (neria does Not tell leliana a warden has to die, and she Definitely doesn't tell her about the dark ritual she turned down) / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters (and if i say the locked box in dai is full of the letters leliana writes and can never send...)

kallian tabris & zevran arainai (dragon age: origins)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

marian hawke & anders (dragon age 2) AND marian hawke & justice (dragon age 2)

anders; height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets (she is Still annoyed that he didn't tell her about the chantry, because she would still have been down if she knew) / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well (unfortunately. evelyn the incredibly pro-chantry pro-circle mage is Not letting proud kickstarter of the mage rebellion out of the fade given the choice between her and alistair. so) / happily ever after / love letters

justice; height difference (technically. bc he's in anders' body) / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves (at least a Little bit) / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship (hawke's friends will put up with a Lot but she's fairly certain this is pushing the envelope a tad too much, so) / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers (they Wildly misunderstood each other throughout acts 1 and act 2. it's between act 2 and 3 that they come to an Understanding and then More) / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy (a spirit doesn't covet, But--) / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

garrett hawke & anders (dragon age 2)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other (garrett for anders, mostly) / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

rose hawke & merrill (dragon age 2)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves (merrill's clan is um less than pleased that rose is a) a shem and b) enthusiastically supportive of merrill's blood magic) / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts (on merrill's end, from what i read of her Canonical lack of faith in human/elf relationships) / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies (rose is a deeply curious person who learns about magic as much as a non-mage in kirkwall can) / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

rine hawke & isabela (dragon age 2)

height difference (rine is a short king butch <3 she is standing on a chair or something here) / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts (i would not describe isabela in act 2 as Very Secure in her relationship with Any hawke) / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests (rine liked pirates Well before the game) / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

evelyn trevelyan & josephine montilyet (dragon age: inquisition)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle (only Technically. shoutout to josephine's fiance whose name i forget for dropping that pretty damn quick) / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters

mahanon lavellan & cassandra pentaghast (dragon age: inquisition)

height difference / mutual pining / first kiss / wedding / in-jokes / lgbtq+ (she is bisexual To Me and he is bi and not cis) / family disapproves / would die for each other / would kill for each other / fake relationship / arranged wedding / cuddlers / pda friendly / and they were roommates / holding hands / secret relationship / opposing worldviews (similar Values, but VERY different ideas about how to go about that; he's far more radical than she is in terms of mage rights and chantry "reform") / getting a pet / have kids / want kids / grow old together / relationship failures / rests head on shoulder / share a bed / relationship doubts (i think whenever they butt heads about a Major ideological difference they have doubts, honestly) / they have a song / first date / sharing a blanket / mutual interests / study buddies / bathing together / crash into hello / accidental nudity / laundry / same hobbies / cooking for each other / big fancy gala / forehead touches / hair stroking / sitting on each other’s laps / sexual tension / can’t be together / battle couple / Friends to Lovers / Enemies to Lovers / Lovers to Enemies / keeping secrets / love after loss / exes / declaration of love / flirting / love triangle / destructive romance / envy / “I Don’t Want to Ruin Our Friendship” / shared values / slow burn / does not end well / happily ever after / love letters (she's a romantic, and he is happy to indulge)

[matryx7728]

okay okay i figure i should make an introduction post or something by now

——

Hi !! name Matryx !!

you can call me whatever you want though !! as long as it’s not weird.

Any/All pronouns!! i’m gender apathetic ! (although i do like it/its too i’m realizing)

Also feel free to send mostly anything in my inbox like shitpost wise and whatnot ! just don’t send anything NSFW and also i won’t be likely to respond to any like. vent asks or things like that because i am not very good at comforting people. but if you do need to talk my messages are open ! i’ll try my best !

also quick warning: i do call everyone dude/bro/man/girl/girlie to refer to people a lot! if you’re uncomfortable with this please lmk so i know not to refer to you with these !

i also swear very openly and maybe a bit excessively so. tw i think

another tw: i occasionally reblog suggestive things … oops. all suggestive posts will have the tag #suggestive !! i also very rarely rb actual nsfw and all nsfw posts will have the tag #nsfw so. be warned ❤️

Also !! i’m autistic !! and in relation to this my current special interest(s) is/are: ULTRAKILL, WILL WOOD/will wood and the tapeworms, CARRION (the game about that flesh monster) and CRASHBOX (i loved that show when j was little soooo so so much)

other interests include (but aren’t limited to): mandela catalogue, faith the unholy trinity, jojos bizarre adventure, rain world, undertale/deltarune, minecraft, skyrim (or any of the elder scrolls games), godzilla, wings of fire, final fantasy and souls games (indoctrinated by a friend), PLUTO (netflix show) (NONE OF THESE ARE IN ANY PARTICULAR ORDER THEYRE JUST LISTED AS I REMEMBERED THEM)

i’m currently mad obsessed with gabriel ultrakill ,, oopsies 💔

previous char fixation was spamton (from deltarune) and i still love him a lot still a comfort character

and of course i’m obsessed with all my ocs so they count as interests i think.

i’m very excitable by anything to do with dragons or robots or god forbid both

—

speaking of my ocs. if you’d like to draw any that i show off, please absolutely go for it!! i’ll send a reference if you need it even!! i’m fine with almost all themes, including but not limited to: gore, horror, body horror, psychedelic themes, eyestrain, depressive themes, etc! all of these are fine even severe depictions !

however, do not draw any of my ocs with the following: NSFW themes (moderate nudity is fine just like. no genitals. boobs are fine tho), suggestive themes (unless you ask and i grant permission), etc

i’m on artfight ! my character perms on there go more in-depth!: https://artfight.net/~Matryx

also! my tags are: #matryx speaks (for talking posts), #v0 (for whenever i post abt my ultrakill sona), and #disaster machines/#w01-f for whenever i talk about an ultrakill oc shared with @gabv1rielislyfe there will be more tags soon probably)

i also often use #drools everywhere (for art that i like a lot/makes me happy

and i think that’s it !! don’t be afraid to ask any questions !! except i am a bit awkward socially but i try my best to interact !

feel free to ask for my discord if we’re mutuals. i will gladly infodump about ocs in dms if you ask 🙏

[thathcwriter]

Headcanon Prompts - Unreal Unearth Edition

De Selby pt1 - If they now primarily speak a language that is not their first, what occasions make them speak it again? If they don’t get the chance to, what situation makes them want to?

De Selby pt2 - In what way have they metaphorically “dug their own grave?” Has anyone told them that’s what they’ve done, and if so, do they believe them?

First Time - What about their partner would they miss most if they lost them, but not realize they’d miss until after they were gone?

Francesca - Do they currently believe anyone would be willing to suffer for them? If so, do they believe there is a limit to how much this person would be willing to go through?

I, Carrion (Icarian)- What do they want their loved one(s) know before they die?

Eat Your Young - What was their most defining moment of greed? How do they feel about it now?

Damage Gets Done - Has anyone ever defended their actions or tried to protect them by saying they were “just a kid?” How did they react to this?

Who We Are - What sacrifices are they willing to make to feel comforted?

Son of Nyx - Who would they most want to guide them to the afterlife.

All Things End - What specifically scares them most about death or dying, if anything?

To Someone From a Warm Client (Uiscefhuarithe) - What does warmth mean to them? Has that definition changed?

Butchered Tongue - What thing from home or from their culture do they desperately want right now, but cannot have?

Anything But - Have they ever had a crush they knew had no realistic chance of getting with? How did they act while they had that crush?

Abstract (Psychopomp) - Do they see any beauty in grief? Why do they think this, or who taught them to feel this way?

Unknown/Nth - What things about themselves do they fear will be forgotten when they die? Is there anyone who they trust enough to ensure this doesn’t happen?

First Light - What moment in their life did they feel the closest to fully healed from what they’ve been through? Have things gotten better or worse from there?

[mcmissileproof]

url song game!

tagged by @targentis thank u B)

M - MX Missiles by Andrew Bird

C - Carrion Comfort by aeseaes

M - Mr. Loverman by Ricky Montgomery

I - Imitosis by Andrew Bird

S - Sidhe is Here by Alexander James Adams

S - So Much Wine, Merry Christmas by Andrew Bird

I - Inexplicable by The Correspondents

L - Left Handed Kisses by Andrew Bird

E - Everything You've Come to Expect by The Last Shadow Puppets

P - Pulaski at Night by Andrew Bird

R - Roter Sand by Rammstein

O - On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz

O - Origin of Love by MIKA

F - Fine, Great by Modern Baseball

I tag @pirdmystery and anybody else who wants to do it :3

[technodromes]

Heyyy Fam. What's up?

So, I rewrote my rules completely. If you have a hot minute, I'd appreciate it if you could check it out. I'd also appreciate a like here, so I know you saw this post and all.

The bad, or uncomfortable news is, I purged a large part of my mutuals tonight. Know that I did so with NO hard feelings and solely for my own comfort. I had just too much going on on my dash and that's what had me extremely uncomfortable and uneasy on here. I like to interact with all of my partners, but I just had too many to really do so. Also, there was only ever a small handful of people interacting with my posts, which was frustrating at times, seeing other people being active at that time but ignoring my post/s entirely time and time again.

Sooo, the good news is, I cancel my hiatus here and ease back into my drafts this weekend, now that I feel more comfy again on my blog. I really should have done this just earlier, but purging mutuals is never fun to do, and I wanted to give this situation here some thoughts first before doing anything. Ultimately, I love and care about you lots and I really want to get back to replying to our threads this weekend <33 PS: Muses-Inn will remain on hiatus for longer, so I won't delete my post there yet. The thought of just closing it for a while popped up several times, but I am still not sure about that. Maybe I just reduce my muse roster down instead to Jerry, Carrion, Leck, Ania, and maybe Ashton. I'll definitely give you a heads-up over there once I made up my mind.

[grymmnox]

weekly fic recs #37

meant to post this yesterday, completely forgot. anyways, same stuff as usual; & for platonic, / for romantic, all that.

yes, we are pretending everything between june last year and now does not exist because im too lazy to post them. (might make a big masterpost of all of the bookmarks, but i doubt it.)

fandom(s): rdr

ship(s): canon relationships (bessie/hosea, abigail/john, cal/charlotte)

keep in mind these like.. almost all have major spoilers. the ending broke me and i was coping.

Oneshots

a way from here to the sea; werewolfsquad - red dead redemption

teen and up | 4.5k words | arthur & john, arthur & dutch | READ TAGS summary: When a thirteen-year-old John manages to get himself tossed in a river, it is, as always, Arthur’s job to prevent him from getting himself killed.

If Your Well Is Empty; pipdepop - red dead redemption

teen and up | 6.3k words | arthur & copper (the dog), arthur & van der linde gang | READ TAGS summary: Arthur’s hurting bad, and Dutch doesn’t know how to fix it. Luckily, Hosea might have a solution. It’s small, wriggly, and likes to eat boots.

You're The Anchor I'm Holding Tight Onto; pipdepop - red dead redemption

teen and up | 5.7k words | arthur & van der linde gang, hosea & van der linde gang, arthur & john | READ TAGS summary: As they recuperate after another botched job, Arthur struggles with keeping the gang afloat. Sometimes literally. Or: Copper catches a legendary fish. He absolutely does not mean to.

We Are Definitely Not Getting A Dog (and that's final); pipdepop - red dead redemption

teen and up | 12.4k words | arthur & hosea, dutch & hosea, arthur & dutch & hosea | READ TAGS summary: “You won’t believe our luck! I found something wonderful in town!” Hosea eyes the boy shuffling beside Dutch’s horse, staring down at his boots. Then he slowly turns back to Dutch. Takes in the bright grin, the eyes gleaming with excitement – the expression he usually gets when he comes up with one of his grand schemes. “...behind the dirty urchin?” - Against his will and better judgement, Hosea Matthews acquires a son.

Complete Fics

what wastes and deserts of the soul; magistrate - red dead redemption

teen and up | 33 chapters, 339.7k words | arthur & john, jack & john, abigail/john, arthur & jack, arthur & dutch, dutch & john | READ TAGS summary: Eight years have passed since Blackwater, Saint Denis, and the fall of the van der Linde gang. The survivors are trying to make a life for themselves – some moving on to nobler pursuits, some circling back like carrion birds to the scores they left behind. And outside a town called Purgatory, West Elizabeth, a man wakes up without a scrap of memory or a name, haunted by a black wolf and a golden stag.

Birdshot & Bone; magistrate - red dead redemption

teen and up | 2 chapters, 12.7k words | arthur & van der linde gang, arthur & john | READ TAGS summary: "Got a tip," Sean said. "Good one. Some of O'Driscoll's boys are fixing a move on some sort of hidden treasure, old Plantation savings stashed in a manor, something like that. Something to do with those Lemoyne Raiders pissing all over Scarlett Meadows. Just the sort of Confederate gold we're out here looking for, isn't it?" (John and Arthur go robbing O'Driscolls. It does not go well.)

in my body i fight fire; novoki - red dead redemption

teen and up | 3 chapters, 37.6k words | arthur & hamish, arthur & charlotte, charlotte & hamish, cal/charlotte | READ TAGS summary: Hamish places a hand on Arthur’s wrist, expecting a stone-cold touch, a missing pulse. There’s a beating beneath the skin. Slow but there. Arthur is alive. --- OR: --- Hamish, hearing errant gunshots by his cabin, checks the nearby mountain for any dying men he can comfort in death. He finds a familiar face.

The Cold Hand; Aenlu - red dead redemption

mature | 7 chapters, 24.1k words | READ TAGS summary: Dutch ain't come for him, and Arthur tells himself he is glad for it. It has been almost four full days since Dutch's meeting with Colm, and Dutch cannot shake the itch beneath his skin. ---- Arthur does not liberate himself from the cellar at Lone Mule Stead.

the door gets opened to ghosts; the_ocean_weekender - red dead redemption

teen and up | 3 chapters, 3.1k words | abigail/john, abigail & arthur, arthur & john, jack & john, arthur & jack, arthur & uncle summary: Abigail is home alone with only a shotgun when a ghost visits the ranch.

Tied Up By The Past You Hold; pipdepop - red dead redemption

teen and up | 2 chapters, 11.2k words | arthur & dutch, arthur & hosea, bessie/hosea | READ TAGS summary: In a spur of the moment decision, Dutch and Hosea rescue a young boy from a beating in some backwater town. Trouble is, now they’re not entirely sure what to do with him, and this whole ‘parenting’ thing is a lot more difficult than Dutch thought it would be.