#stone frigate

[tackletbr]

Kate Armstrong, The Stone Frigate 2019 5/5

Four years ago I stood in a bookstore on the other side of my city waiting for my ride home. I didn’t have the cash then to purchase even a bargain book from the shop but I still enjoyed just browsing the shelves. Eventually I wandered into the biography/memoir section and found Kate Armstrong's memoir The Stone Frigate. I read the first sixty pages standing in front of the shelf, too engrossed in her narration to even bother finding somewhere comfortable to sit. Eventually my ride came and I put the book down, deciding to purchase Armstrong's book the second I had funds. 

Instead I forgot all about it, buying it in early 2022 on a whim and still not touching for almost a year. Armstrongs narration is fantastic, she doesn't pick and choose stories from her time at RMC that make her out to be the hero every time. At times I thought her a revolutionary, a genius, an idiot, and sometimes a total bitch. I was rooting for her all the way though. It’s a fast paced read and one I really enjoyed. 

[ltwilliammowett]

Oval box with frigate, late 17th century

Material: agate, silver, gilded, gold, enamel, mother-of-pearl, precious stones

Located today in Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden, Germany

[jpitha]

Between the Black and Grey 44

First / Previous / Next

When they got back to the frigate, everyone went to their rooms. It wasn't the scheduled rest time, but nobody really felt like sitting in the common room.

Fen was exhausted anyway. She showered and fell into bed. Soon after she was completely asleep.

She dreamed.

Fen found herself on a beach of black sand, with a turquoise sky overhead and a sea that was nearly purple. Behind her were trees that looked like mangroves if you squinted, but the leaves were a deep purple, like the sea.

"Where am I?"

"You're on Meìhuá. Or at least how I remember it." A woman appeared next to her. Fen turned, and was taken aback. It was her... But it wasn't. Her hair was different, the lines in the face different, but it still was unnerving.

"You're Melody, I assume?"

Melody, First Empress nodded. "The star that Meìhuá orbits outputs different wavelengths of light than Earth's sun. The plants here evolved to absorb it's energy and power themselves with their version of chlorophyl. But the most efficient color wasn't the green of Earth."

"Is this real?"

Melody smiled. "No Fen, it's a dream. But it's also a memory. And it's also a reminder. You are my clone, and you did interact with the Nanites." Melody stared out to sea. "I missed this. I had all these plans to go home, to visit everyone, to show them my success." She shook her head. "It turns out, that was not in the cards."

The beach changed. With the logic that only works in a dream, they walked a few meters down the beach and they entered a massive room. Room was too small to describe what this place was, it was practically an arena, with seats for thousands of sapients. At the far end, high above everyone was a throne made of something that looked like green glass. It almost seemed to have grown from the floor, it's role as a throne secondary. It flowed up towards the ceiling and spread in fractal branches until it disappeared in a blur that hurt to look at too long. Melody climbed up the steps towards the throne and sat gingerly, wincing slightly. She patted a smaller - but still impressive - chair next to her, and Fen sat. "Okay, but how did you get here? How are you in my head? How are we talking?

"The Builders - that's the name of the people who ruled with the Nanites a long time ago - used to have this ritual they'd do. They would visit the nearest Gate to where they were and touch the addressing stone. This would initiate an upload, and the Nanites would take... a snapshot of the current Empress and store it. I had a chance to do it once before I began my invasion of Sol." She turned back to Fen. "Think of me like that. I'm a snapshot of the Empress when she touched the addressing stone, but also, I know more than that Melody did because the Nanites filled me in." She chuckled. "I'm almost an AI, I suppose."

"Why are you here? Why now?"

Melody leaned forward, and put her chin in her hands. She stared out at the empty arena, and didn't look at Fen. "The Nanites asked me to. They said that you'd listen to me." Her eyes flicked to Fen. "If you're half as much like me as I think you are, they're only somewhat correct. I know you'll listen, but I don't know if you can be convinced."

"Convinced?"

She nodded, her chin still on her hands. "To take up the Nanites again. To become Empress."

"I don't want to be Empress." Fen rolled her eyes and scoffed.

Melody lifted her head off her hands and stared at Fen. Her eyes - nut brown, just like Fen's - stared into her soul.

"So what do you want, Fenchurch Whitehorse, clone of Melody Mullen?"

What did she want? The answer shouted back at her, clear as a bell.

"I want Ma-ren back."

"The one thing we cannot do for you."

Fen stared out at the empty arena, trying not to weep again. It wasn't fair. If Ma was here, she could help her figure all this out. If Ma was here she would know what to do. If Ma was here she... wouldn't be so alone.

"Fen. The Nanites can't bring Ma-ren back, nothing can. But they can help you make the world the kind of place where the other Fens and Ma-rens of the galaxy won't have to be separated the way you were."

Fen turned slowly and stared at Melody. "You're the Nanites, aren't you."

Melody held out a hand. As she did that, the hand... disappeared. There was no blood, no gore where her hand was, her arm just came to a stop. Around where her hand would have been was a cloud of grey smoke. She smiled and the smoke flew towards her and condensed into a hand again. She flexed her fingers.

"Yes... and no." Melody looked up from her hand at Fen. "I am Melody Mullen - at least her when she touched the addressing stone, but I am also the Nanites. We work in harmony."

"We've moved beyond dreaming now. How are we-" Fen's forehead creased and her eyes narrowed. She unconsciously balled her fists. "Helen. Ancestors damn her."

"Yes, Helen provided you with the concentration of Nanites necessary for us to reestablish contact."

The scene changed again. Now they were floating somewhere. The only colors were grey and black. Fen's crossed arms and frown spoke volumes. "I don't want to be Empress, I don't want to do this. I want to be left alone and do my own thing."

"What better person to rule the Galaxy than someone who doesn't want the job?"

"Just why do you want us to rule anyway? What do you have to gain?"

"We've been over this, Fen and we know that Helen has told you. We want you to build more Gates. The Gates reach into our dimension and give us an outlet into yours."

"But why? Why do you want to enter our dimension?"

The representation of the Nanites currently in the shape of Melody floated in the black and grey nothingness, silent.

"I won't agree to anything unless you explain yourselves."

They sighed. "If we explain ourselves, will you be Empress?"

"I will listen. That's all I can promise right now."

"Fine"

They were elsewhere.

It was a planet. They were high in the atmosphere. Full of pinks and light blues with browns and reds below. Overhead was two moons, either further away or smaller than the huge moon orbiting Earth.

"This... was our home. Long, long ago we were a biological sapient species, like you, like the K'laxi, like the Gren, like everyone. We learned about our galaxy beyond our planet, about the space in our local area, expanding out, further and further. Do you know what we found, Fen?"

Fen stayed silent.

"We found nothing. There were stars, but they were far away and dim. There were planets, but only a few, and most were bare chunks of nickel-iron. We used our strongest telescopes, saw back to the beginning of everything and saw that we were alone. We know that your species had a similar feeling, though you had way more stars and planets than we did. Eventually you met the K'laxi and then the wider galactic community, and later still you found the Gates and met us - but I am getting ahead of myself."

"As the realization that we were alone started to sink in, people decided to throw themselves into learning as much as we could about where we were. We spent decades, centuries trying to learn about the physical laws that we were under. Eventually - much later than yourselves - we figured out the math to predict black holes. We know that soon after you predicted their existence, you discovered them. We searched for hundreds of years without finding any."

"Fen you have to understand, we were undergoing a bit of an existential crisis. If we were alone, then what did anything mean. We were a social species, like yours. We were actually pretty close to mammalian, like yours. What did your species do when they're in close quarters with no outside influence?"

"We self-select into groups and then those groups fight." As much as she didn't like her schooling back home, Fen remembered that much from history class.

"You fight. We did too. Huge, decades long wars about nothing at all. At the time, it felt like it was everything, but in hindsight-" they chuckle "-it was nothing. War is a great driver of technology, so our technology grew by leaps and bounds. Soon enough, we were manipulating matter on the sub-quantum level. With enough energy, we could make anything. Your matter printers come close, but this is an evolution of that."

She let them continue, it seemed like they were on a roll.

"The first time it happened, it was an accident. Someone had uploaded their mind and became distributed. A cloud of nanomachines, sentient. There were discussions and arguments about whether they were alive, whether they were a person. Before we could work out the legal framework, someone else did it. Then another, and another. There was something about this that drew everyone in."

As they were talking, the scene around them changed. It moved from being over a planet to being further out, near the orbit of the moons. As they spoke, the planet turned from pinks and browns and blues to a uniform grey.

"It wasn't long before everyone converted. We had all become one distributed nanoscale being."

"What happened to those who didn't want to upload and become Nanites?"

The representation of Melody turned away from Fen. "You know what happened. What always happens."

"They were killed. Turned into raw material for the Nanites." Fen's eyes widen in recognition.

"As we grew, we required matter. That was simple enough - we disassembled our solar system and moved on to others. Energy was more difficult. Our dimension was much more sparsely populated than yours. We don't know why, maybe a quirk of our physics. Anyway, we spread through our universe, consuming everything, turning it all into Nanites when we came upon it."

"It?"

The view changed again. Now, Fen and 'Melody' were floating above a sphere, brighter than a billion suns and just as large. Light and energy radiated from it in every direction. Fen reflexively held her hands in front of her face, but it wasn't necessary. This was only a memory.

"The white hole. If you think of a black hole as a place where energy and matter is taken in, the white hole is where it comes out. Nearly unlimited energy, all for us to take and utilize."

Now, around the white hole it was uniformly grey. Countless Nanites surrounding the white hole, taking the energy it gives and building more of themselves.

"Even though we had become one large distributed intelligence, this did not sate our curiosity. What was the white hole? Where did the energy come from? We dug deeper and deeper into the mystery until we realized that we were most likely living inside a black hole. Your own scientists theorized this as well. Wondering if inside every black hole was another universe. We wondered this too. Eventually, we gained the technology to be able to check and what did we find?"

"You found us."

The representation of Melody holds up a hand. "Almost. We found your galaxy as it was hundreds of thousands of years ago. All around it was stars, planets, black holes, pulsars. Your universe was teeming with energy, teeming with life. Far, far more than ours. We knew enough that we could open a door to your universe from ours and stream through. We could come in and use that energy to continue to grow."

"Then why didn't you?"

"We spent a long time thinking about it. Eventually it was decided that we should not come into this dimension and consume everything to make more of us. We should... be good stewards of the other universes that we find. We developed the Gates and showed the local sapients how to build them."

The view changes. Now Fen can see a massive sphere, made up of rings interwoven. Each ring glows blue with a painful, fuzzy light, almost like Cherenkov radiation."

"The master Gate. All gates are extensions of this Gate. When everyone uses a Gate they pass through here on the way to their destination. It's how Gate travel is instantaneous. It's how we reached out when you went through the gate."

"Okay, but you still haven't explained why. Why do you try and set up a galactic empire? Why do you give the Empress the ability to give orders that can't be disobeyed?

"It's the most expedient way, Fen."

"Way to do what?"

"To build more Gates, to allow us to see into your universe to help us find other universes."

"Other universes?"

"Yes. We made the decision not to consume this one because of how it teems with life, but it has been a long time Fen. A long long time."

The representation of Melody falls away. Fen is back in the black and grey void. The voice comes from everywhere, all at once.

"We are hungry."

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy was feeling very foolish. He had allowed the tide to catch him yet again, and not only had his fluffy feathers been drenched with a nasty, sticky, sandy saltiness which was especially difficult to remove, but he had been obliged to explain to the ocean that he really could not swim, that he would never be able to swim, and that although he appreciated its only-too-frequent encouragement, he would very much prefer that it did not try to assist him again in the future.

Chastened by the insistent and rather impolite reply of the waves, Algy retreated sheepishly to the rocks and settled down on the sun-warmed stone to dry, scarcely even aware that, as usual, it was covered with at least a million crusty barnacles waiting to prickle his tail feathers.

Slowly he began to relax despite the prickles, and as he reflected upon his adventure with the tide, Algy remembered a poem by Emily Dickinson and felt glad that at least he had not allowed the sea to eat him up:

I started early, took my dog, And visited the sea; The mermaids in the basement Came out to look at me. And frigates in the upper floor Extended hempen hands, Presuming me to be a mouse Aground, upon the sands. But no man moved me till the tide Went past my simple shoe, And past my apron and my belt, And past my bodice too, And made as he would eat me up As wholly as a dew Upon a dandelion's sleeve - And then I started too. And he - he followed close behind; I felt his silver heel Upon my ankle, - then my shoes Would overflow with pearl. Until we met the solid town, No man he seemed to know; And bowing with a mighty look At me, the sea withdrew.

[Algy is quoting the poem By the Sea by the 19th century American poet Emily Dickinson.]

[tarabyte3]

Top 5 favourite fanfic tropes?

For my follow up I will allow you a light cheat:

✨️ Top 5 fics (any fandom/pairing)

and (if you would like)

✨️ Top 5 Andy blorbo fics

You know, those ones that live rent free in your mind and you find yourself coming back to even years later (also your choices don't have to specifically follow your trope picks!).

😘

Before I start, I want you to know I only saw the first bit in the preview and was like, "Oh that's fun!" And then got sneak attacked by the rest when I opened it 😂😭 Anon, I respect tf out of you for this, but also I'm going to have an existential crisis lmaoooo

✨Top 5 fanfiction tropes

- Mutual pining/"un"requited love

Especially if it's paired with angst 🤌 want them longing. Yearning, even. Throw in something like forbidden love to kick it up a notch, and, baby, you've got yourself a stew.

- Sex pollen

Particularly if they aren't in a relationship yet to add extra pining and angst. This is a sacrifice (I shouldn't want this). I would do this for you (please let me). I can't stand to watch you suffer (this will break me, but for you it's worth it). That and the smut of it all 😌

- Hanahaki

Being so in love with someone it's literally killing you. It's love made manifest so violently you choke on it. The pain and suffering would end if only you could let the words out, but the thought of rejection—of having to live with that instead—is worse than death. Plus, there's something a little beautiful and poetic about combining pain and suffering with love and flowers. Doom and bloom. Life and death. The Japanese were so real for this.

- Fake dating

I love it when they're both fuckin dying the entire time because they've caught a glimpse of the thing they want more than anything and it isn't real. It's bliss. It's torture. They don't want it to end, but it will destroy them to keep having it just out of reach.

- Getting together

A simple classic, but there's just something about two people falling in love and coming together in spite of everything. And if it's a slow burn? With constant missed opportunities and misunderstandings?! Staple crop of tropes.

✨ Top 5 Fics

I'm going to go with Qui-Gon x Obi-Wan (shocking, I know) because that is the bulk of what I have been reading non-stop so it's at the forefront of my brain. It was difficult to narrow down my 100+ bookmarks because there are SO many incredible works and writers in that fandom that inspire me, and some of them make me want to eat dirt. (I mean that as an exceptional compliment.)

- Shorelines by outpastthemoat

This is what Qui-Gon has done each morning for the past three days, returning to Obi-Wan with handfuls of treasures he has found: Bits of broken glass, polished by the waves, or intricately spiraled shells, a broken piece of chain; perhaps a stone as wide and flat as his hand. But he always returns to the shoreline the following day, and begins his search anew.

This is one of my favorite QuiObi writers (I would highly recommend ANY of her other works at the drop of a hat as well), and I have reread this fic at least once a week for months. Like, I have it open in a tab and think about it constantly. It's an introspective piece—an exploration of a connection and the peeling back of layers to try to understand what waits underneath. There's a beautiful sort of simple yearning, melancholy, and poetry to her writing that makes my brain go brrrrrr. So much is said in all of the things left unsaid. It's two parts of a series and they're both incredible.

- Malalignment by Tohje

The first time is a pure coincidence, all parties could swear it on their deathbeds. The pelta frigate GRS-20 - informally Generosity - is a huge, maze-like, rusting piece of a stronghold with multiple medical wards and cantinas. It is a sheer stroke of luck that 212th and the River Company are accommodated in the adjacent, overstuffed compartments and share the same cantina for their short recuperation periods. There is no thing such as luck, or coincidence, only war (and the Force, according to the Jedi).

Another writer that I adore who has multiple bangers. This one is an AU where QuiGon lives and is part of the Clone War, but in the most Qui-Gon way possible. Combined with Obi-Wan's lingering hurt from the situation with Anakin, the war, and a several year estrangement and by god it's delicious angst. Plus, I love self-sacrificing depictions of General Kenobi. (The smut is also very good)

- That Cold Affliction by Orphan Account

Obi-Wan tries to surprise his Master on a mission with few comforts by making Qui-Gon's favorite tea. Or trying to, at least. As it turns out, tea is a . . . complicated affair. (A little bit like love.)

Short and bittersweet. Forbidden love. Beautiful angst. I'm so sad I don't know the original author because I've seen several of their works pop up that are also orphaned (they have a very specific summary style) and they're all so good and full of similar themes, but I have no way of seeing if I've missed one or not 😭

- Taking Root by sanerontheinside

Obi-Wan thought he was terribly obvious, really. Qui-Gon thought it was Obi-Wan’s secret to share or keep, as he wished.

*banging pots and pans together* QUIOBI HANAHAKI!! This author does a deep dive into the affliction and combines it beautifully with Star Wars world building, plot, and characterization. It's everything I could want from the trope AND the pairing. They're also another one of my favorite writers. And if you're looking for an abundance of excellent smut, you'll absolutely find it in their body of work.

- How to Grow Vegetables and Alienate People by Meggory

Why had Obi-Wan agreed to this? He had exactly no experience growing anything—hell, he'd killed a cactus once, and he'd heard someone say that was impossible—but now he was taking over Bant's community garden share so she didn't feel she had wasted $150 on the plot? He had $150. He should have just given it to her and told her to get blitzed on the plane.

Cute modern AU with a funny af meet cute, excellent characterization, humor, and a simple, lovely plot of two idiots falling in love. Oh, plus gardening. 😌 AND Qui-Gon has a dog. It's the soul comfort food of fics. This author does an incredible job with AUs (pssst you like time loops?) that are great stories so it was very difficult to pick just one!

✨I both adore and dislike this last part. Because on one hand, it gives me the chance to brag about and hype up my friends, who are not only kind, wonderful people, but also very talented writers that deserve it and more. So I truly appreciate you so much for that. On the other hand, there are more than 5 of them that have written Andy Blorbo fics, and some of them have multiple stories and blorbos. And we've all gushed over or discussed many of them at length with each other, so they hold a particular fondness in my heart. Choosing only 5 from that feels like an impossible task.

So I WON'T be narrowing down my top 5 (I'm so sorry, anon, I'm not god's strongest soldier), but I will be taking the opportunity to drop their Masterlists/AO3 accounts 💖😌😇

afogocado | Alfred Pennyworth

amywritesthings | Kino Loy

citrus-moonlight | Ulysses Klaue

eupheme | Alfred Pennyworth, Ulysses Klaue

squidlywiddly87 | Kino Loy, Ulysses Klaue, Liam Black

stargirlfics | Alfred Pennyworth (+ lots of Alfred and Klaue headcanons and blurbs!)

tarrenterror | Alfred Pennyworth, Ulysses Klaue (+ Alfred, David Robey, and Kino headcanons, blurbs, and edits)

viceofdionysus : Alfred Pennyworth, Ulysses Klaue

[heroofshield]

@anderfels

Rating: M

Warnings: some cancer talk, discussion about Ellen's illness & chemo side-effects.

Summary: James returns after a year gone & finds that somethings have changed.

--

Rose inhaled the air that tasted like salt and sunshine before turning to fully face Vega. “You’re probably wondering why I flew out well before the N7 ceremony.”

“The thought did cross my mind, Admiral.”

Rose made a slight face at the title, she’d been an Admiral for almost two years and hearing something other than ‘commander’ in front of her name still made her pause for a moment. “They want me to take the Normandy back up. We’re at the point where we can start sending frigates back up for supply runs and checking in on some of our nearer outposts. I haven’t given them my answer yet, wanted to see how much of the old crew would be willing to join me. So far it’s only Joker and Chakwas, but I wanted to feel you out before I asked anyone else.”

“Me?” James asked, the surprise in his voice evident. Hackett asking if Shepard wanted to command the SR-2 again was almost the last thing he’d expected to hear.

“It’s not the Normandy without an N7 on board.” Rose took a slow step forward with the help of her cane, down the cobbled path that wound through the small garden that was on the side of the building. “And even if you don’t reach N7, having at least one member of my old fire team as Senior Staff would go a long way. Show everyone else that I’m not this demi-god figure the Alliance has built me up as.”

“You don’t need me for that,” James replied casually as he followed Shepard through the local flowers and trees. “Just have them play a round of cards with you and that illusion will shatter.”

“I could say the same for you.” Rose laughed, crinkling her eyes as she did. “Nothing’s written in stone yet, so think about it and let me know what you decide.”

“I will, Admiral.”

Read the rest on Ao3!

[jreads]

Unexpected Constellations (Part 13)

Rating: M (18+, Minors DNI)

Word Count: 6.8K

Warnings: The usuals: Angst (obviously), Foul language, I'm not saying anything else but EVERY WARNING IN THE MASTERLIST APPLIES. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

A/N: Finally. A chapter I actually like. As per usual, comment on this post or the masterlist to get added to the taglist. I'll put another note at the bottom but for now, get on out there and have fun. xoxo

You spent a full day in Fett’s bacta tank. A full day. Fennec had suggested it, citing that they really had no idea exactly what had been done to you on that starship.

No one knew what they had done to you. 

He didn’t know what they had done to you.

What had they done to you?

From the outside you looked alright, apart from a few darker bruises on your knees and legs. But he remembered the way you had thrown yourself at him, the way you had screamed. It was burned so vividly into his mind that—the one time he had tried to rest—the memory of it had sent him gasping into consciousness. 

Day had melded into night again, and you still had not woken. Boba had insisted you stay in the guest suite, a spacious and lavish room atop the Daimyo’s palace. The bed was soft, and the sheets were silk, and it was quiet… peaceful. He sat in a chair by the window, looking out over the sand, trying to pretend that he was simply enjoying the view. Not scanning the dunes for possible threats.

Fennec was bringing his meals up into the room so he could eat. Since you were asleep, it wasn’t a breach of the creed if he took his helmet off, right? Truly, it was the very last thing he was worried about. 

He wanted to go pick up Grogu, but he couldn’t leave you alone. Wouldn’t. Shand offered to make the run down to Mos Eisley, but he refused. She had done more than enough already. Still, she had sent word to Peli Motto, that everyone was on-planet, and that he would be back as soon as possible. He would be back. Not you. Because there was no guarantee.

Din turned from the window to check on you, even knowing you wouldn’t have moved an inch. You looked serene in sleep, angelic, bathed in the light of three moons. 

You left me! YOU LEFT ME!

It seemed to echo around the edges of his mind. His heart palpitated at the memory. Your eyes had been yellow when he found you. The Imps had convinced you that he had gone willingly, sold you off like chattel. What was worse was that you had believed them. The possibility that, in the back of your mind, you still might. It made him nauseous.

He should have made sure you were safe. He should have been honest about how he felt. He should have ensured that you would never question his loyalties. He should have, he should have, he should have. Din fell asleep running through all of the things he should have done but didn’t.

Everything was unfamiliar.

You woke in a large room, the shape of a semicircle, a curved wall of high, arching windows in front of you. They were flung open to let in a breeze, and the linen curtains that flanked them floated like ghosts.

Three moons sat low on the horizon… Tatooine then. You began to piece the past and present back together. Ornate patterned rugs littered the stone floor, a platter of fruit—half-eaten—sat atop a low table at the foot of the bed.

The bed. It was huge, sprawling over at least a third of the back wall. And silky, like a rain cloud. It almost unnerved you, having become so accustomed to the rough padding of the Crest cot.

Luxury. In a place like Tatooine, it could only mean one thing. You were at Fett’s palace. 

Safe? You weren’t sure. Was it true, what Shand had said aboard the frigate? What reason would she have had to lie? Credits?

You were still too weak and tired to try another escape plan. Instead, you inventoried the room looking for something, a bread knife perhaps, anything to use if you needed to defend yourself—

He was so still that you hadn’t even noticed him. Slumped in a leather armchair by the window, his helmet had partially lolled to the side. Asleep. You went cold, the breeze suddenly making you shiver.

You inhaled too loudly.

The helmet straightened and he swept the room, a move you knew was a scan for enemies. You felt an electric jolt when he landed on you, frozen in place, unsure whether you should bolt… whether you would even make it to the door before he caught you.

He stood from the chair abruptly, taking one step forward as if in a daze, your name a whisper through the vocoder.

You scrambled away into the headboard.

He reared back as if you had slapped him. The silence in the room was so deafening that it hurt. Din raised both hands and relinquished another step. He stumbled.

“Tell me the truth.” Your voice shook.

“Why do I feel like you won’t believe me.”

“Just tell me.” You were trembling… from the cold and the uncertainty. “Tell me you didn’t—”

“I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I… I couldn’t.” He sounded raw.

You couldn’t trust yourself to be objective. Not with this. Because you believed him. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, you believed him. You cried silent tears.

“Okay.”

He swallowed audibly and you could see the shadow of his Adam’s apple bobbing under the edge of the helmet. But he was still so tense.

He turned and made for the door, taking a wide berth around you as if you were an easily startled creature. “I’ll go. Leave you to rest.”

No.

You found your voice just as he crossed the threshold. “Din, wait.” And he did.

“Please, don’t go. If I wake up again and you’re not here, I’ll think…” You couldn’t say it. “Just stay.”

He stared, unmoving, until it felt as if he had stripped you bare.

“You’re shaking.” You were.

“Just cold.”

“Do you want me to close the windows?” He moved towards the glass panes.

“No!” He jumped slightly at the intensity in your voice. “Sorry. I just… I need to feel the breeze.” But your teeth were starting to chatter.

You could feel sorrow from him. A horrible and tired kind, which twisted at your insides. 

He took a few hesitant steps in your direction. “May I?”

You nodded, wiping tears from your eyes. “Please.” The bed dipped as he sat on the side furthest from you. 

Warmth. Comfort. It radiated from him like it always had. Your Mandalorian. 

Maybe it was silly. Stupid. Maybe you were a fool. But when you breached that distance and wound your arm around his waist, flatting your body against his legs, the tremors eased.

He sighed, fingers finding your hair. Stroking tenderly. And for a moment, everything was fine. 

You drifted off once more just as the moons traded skies with the suns.

It was almost midday. Still, you slept.

Fennec had come in at some point to bring breakfast and widened her eyes at the sight: your body wound into Din’s like a stalk of ivy. She had smiled softly at him, and he had nodded once, in acknowledgement and thanks.

Hours passed.

By the time you stirred, stretching like a cat against him, he had figured out his plan.

“What time is it?” Your voice was rough with sleep, eyes still fluttering heavily.

“Not sure, just after sun’s peak.” You hummed in response, taking a deep breath. “You should eat something,” he pressed.

That got your attention. “Have you been eating?” The concern made him smile.

“Yes. I have.”

The stare you fixed him with was one of doubt. He had eaten, just not that much. He hadn’t really been hungry. And he knew you could see right through him.

“Eat with me?” It was more of a statement posed as a question. “I’ll turn around,” you amended.

You didn’t wait for his answer before detangling yourself from the sheets and crawling across the bedspread, reaching for the tray that Shand had left.

Stars, you were gorgeous. He instantly missed the feel of you against him. Oblivious, you turned back, placing the tray, laden with cured meats, cheese, and fruit, on the covers between you. 

He reached for the edge of the helmet, sliding it upward.

Your eyes squeezed shut as if you had been burned. “Sorry!” His mouth ticked upward. He’d let you interpret it however you wanted.

You had turned from him, sitting cross-legged on the bed, reaching blindly behind you with one arm to pick things up from the platter.

He laughed lightly, sliding it further toward you. “I can see just fine.” The breeze was pleasant on his face. The view was unbeatable.

“But you have to eat too.” Kriff, you were bossy.

“I will, cyare.”

There was a lapse of silence as you both fed. You were going fast, as if you were starved. 

Maybe you were.

He stiffened at the thought. “Take it slow.”

You laughed between mouthfuls. “It’s just really good. Was I in bacta? It always makes me hungrier.”

He didn’t want to know why you knew that. How many times had you been suspended in a tank? Anxiety gripped at him, hard. For more reasons than one. He called your name, trying to sound more assertive than he felt.

“Yeah?”

“I have something I need to show you today.” He shifted uncomfortably, all of a sudden too warm. “To prove myself. And what I said.”

“It’s okay.” Your shoulders had curled in on themselves. “I do believe you, Din.”

“No, but… But I have to show you this. You’ll understand, then. I promise.” Quiet. “I need to know that you don’t doubt me… not even a little.”

You huffed. “I don’t doubt you. If you had half as many credits as they said you did, you’d be on the other side of the galaxy by now. Some swanky penthouse on Coruscant.”

No, he wouldn’t.

He slid the helmet back on, grasping at your hand. It couldn’t wait. “Come with me.”

I felt nice to be back in the Crest, back home, even under such strange conditions. Din was so on edge that even you were getting anxious.

He was bent over a storage compartment in the hull, rifling around in whatever lay below, while you stood there somewhat awkwardly. Finally, he pulled out a wrapped bundle. Placed it on a crate. Cracked his knuckles.

It was about the size of Grogu, covered in an old, faded felt cloth that was pilling in places. It smelled like fire, like smoke.

“What is it?” He almost looked like he was shaking his head. “Din? Are you okay?”

“I’m sorry… okay.” Why was he so nervous?

“When I said I couldn’t leave you behind, I meant it. I couldn’t. By creed, I couldn’t.”

You didn’t know that much about creed rules. Just the basics. He was barely making sense. “I don’t understand—”

“I know. I know because I never told you. Because I was scared.” He paced in a small circle. Stopped. Started again. “That day you went to Canto Bight, I was late.” 

Canto Bight? That was days before any of this had happened.

“I was late because I went to Glavis. To the covert.” 

“But I thought—”

“I was cast out, I know.” He was being oddly expressive with his hands. “But I spoke to the Armorer. I told her…” He trailed off.

“What?”

Din pushed the package towards you. “It’s probably easier to explain if you just open it.”

His emotions were bordering on panic. You were worried about him. “Din—”

“Please.” It felt like he was begging. He was begging.

Okay. You reached for the edge of the fabric, unwrapping it slowly, listening to its contents clank together. Heavy. Cold. Silver metal with dark swirls.

Beskar. It was beskar. Your jaw just about hit the floor.

“They’re beautiful.” And they were… breathtakingly so. Vambraces, twin to each other, delicate but still imposing. The Armorer’s work had always been exquisite. 

He must have been able to read the confusion in your eyes because he grasped one, twisting it in your hold. “Here.” He pointed to a symbol on the inner wrist with shaky hands.

You looked at the horned creature, easily identifiable, and then back at him. “I… I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“The Mudhorn... My signet…” Was he meaning to say you were part of his family? That you had been since Canto Bight? It would make sense given the context but—

“It’s the closest my people get to proposal.”

Oh.

Oh.

It was like there had been a stopper on his words and—now that it was out—he could no longer control them.

“To share that symbol… it demonstrates a bond. One that our people don’t take lightly. It’s a promise to protect, to defend. To never leave behind.”

You were in shock. Real, honest shock. You couldn’t even look him in the eyes, instead staring down the gauntlets with blurring vision.

“To love.”

You broke down.

He had you by the shoulders. “Please, tell me you understand. I couldn’t leave you behind. It wasn’t possible.”

You were crying, hysterically. It was too much. To feel this all at once was lethal. You could die from it.

“I love you.” I sounded like he might be crying as well. “Do you understand now?”

You clutched him so tightly, in hopes that there would no longer be any telling where one of you ended and the other began. “Yes. Din, I do.”

You had embraced him with such force that he had stumbled backwards into the hull wall and slid down to the floor, taking you with him. And so you had cried into his armour as he held you, curled together like rose petals.

Your body was shaking with big sobs, but he could tell you were trying to calm down. To keep it together. You kept taking large breaths, as if trying to steel yourself, preparing to say something.

He ran a gloved hand over your back. “What is it?”

You sniffled and pulled away from him. “I have, um…” Tears had wet your cheeks and you wiped at them, eyes swollen and puffy. “I have something to show you too.”

Standing up was hard; he supported your elbow to help you up. You swayed a little, looking at him with a gaze that was a mix of something so deep, it felt as if he was being gutted. Taking unsteady steps to the cot, you reached into it, grabbing your pillow, opening the case, and pulling out a small slip of folded-up paper. ‘Mando’ was written on the front.

“When we landed in Mos Eisley, when I…” When you had almost left. “I wrote you this.” He took it from your outstretched fingers as if it were the most fragile thing in the galaxy.

“But when I decided to stay, I wasn’t… brave enough. So, I hid it.” He was already unfolding the parchment, though his eyes stayed on you.

“Wait,” you gasped. He stilled. 

“I can’t… be here when you read it.” You had gone timid, fiddling with your fingers, staring at the floor. “Just…” You backed away, to the ramp. “…come find me when you’re done?”

Din nodded. You practically fled.

Curiosity only allowed him to make it to the cockpit before starting to read, devouring the words with hungry eyes.

Din,

I’m sorry. For all of it. I know that this apology is not nearly enough to cover the damage I’ve caused you, but I hope you will accept it nonetheless. These years with you and Grogu have been the happiest of my life, but they have also made me selfish. I can see that now. I wanted to protect him and I wanted to help you, but the truth is I am just as much of a threat as whatever is out there. Your safety is the most important to me, so please understand why I’m doing this. Please be wary of the crystal, anything the dark side touches is dangerous and should be avoided.

Please don’t come looking for me. I’m sorry. I love you.

He read it once, and then again, and then a third time. And then over again, as many times as it took for each word to be imbedded into his mind forever.

‘…anything the dark side touches is dangerous and should be avoided.’ He knew you weren’t just talking about the crystal. But it was the last line that he dwelled upon the most, as if trying to find some hidden answer in the scrawls of your handwriting.

‘Please don’t come looking for me. I’m sorry. I love you.’ A thousand times he read that line. Insane. It was insane. The whole thing was insane.

He stood so abruptly that the chair swiveled. Boots on durasteel, one in front of the other. Out the cockpit, down the ramp, into the palace. He knew where to find you.

You had taken a shower, trying to calm the nerves, trying to ease the coil in your belly. He had been gone a while. What it meant was a mystery to you.

Fennec had left you clothes, a loose pair of shorts and a soft shirt, and you had put them on with shaky hands. What were you even supposed to do with yourself now? The responsible answer was rest, but there was no way you could go to sleep.

You stared out the window, across the Dune Sea, focused on nothing in particular. The heat of the day was passing, but the room had stayed relatively cool. Small blessings. Some animal tracks stretched across a crest of the sand. Bantha, maybe. You watched aimlessly, willing your mind to go blank.

What had you even said in that letter? You remembered the important parts of course, but what about everything else? Was it the right choice to let him read it? It was the honest truth, all of it, but what if—

Din’s footfalls were so fast and heavy that you whirled on him the moment he crossed the doorframe into the room. Closed the door firmly. Locked it.

And then he was ripping the helmet off, so fast that you saw a sharp jaw, a shadow of stubble before your mind caught up.

“Oh shit.” You squeezed your eyes shut, spun, clapped hands over your face. “Sorry.”

He barely let you finish. “Look at me.”

“No, it’s—”

“Look. At me.” He almost sounded angry. You had no idea what to say. He reached around you, gently grabbed your hands from where they pressed over your eyes. “I want you to look at me.”

Oh kriff, oh fuck, oh shit.

“Are you sure?” 

Impatiently, he turned you to face him. “Open your eyes.”

Finally, slowly, you obeyed. Blinked once. Twice.

What the fuck.

Maybe you had said it aloud, because in front of you stood the most beautiful man you had ever seen. The features you had traced before all started to make sense: the hooded eyes, angular nose, chiseled jawline, lowered brows. A divot between them, a smattering of facial hair. But it was his eyes. The irises. The deep warmth of them. Your mouth had parted in awe. You reached out to touch him. He leaned into it.

“Say it.” 

Oh, stars. 

“I love you,” you exhaled.

He groaned, and then kissed you with such a ferocity that it turned your bones to water. 

Fire ignited in your stomach as you kissed him back; his lips were soft, of course, but now you also knew that they were full, and impossibly carnation pink.

He crowded you against the stone wall, hitching your leg up to his waist and pressing you backward. His other hand was at the nape of your neck, cradling, angling so he could deepen the kiss. By the time you broke for air, you were both gasping.

“The letter…” he panted. “…it wouldn’t have mattered. I would have read it and tracked you to the ends of the galaxy.” He dipped his head to the curve of your neck. Placed one kiss there… two. “You wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden from me.”

It was like hyperspace. Like you were hurtling through stars and all you could do was hold on. So you held on to him. Threaded your fingers through his brown curls as he sucked at that sensitive spot just above your shoulder, and as he soothed it with his tongue. Your answering moan was downright lewd.

You couldn’t take it. Couldn’t handle one more moment not feeling his skin on your own. You started pulling at the buckles on his bandolier. 

“Do you want—”

You cut him off. “Yes.” It sounded desperate in your own ears. You had freed the belt with clumsy fingers, and it clanked to the stone floor. You wasted no time moving to his armour, the breastplate, the pauldrons. When you freed the cape and the cowl you threw them unceremoniously to the side, lost somewhere amongst the rugs, and pulled him back in for another searing kiss. He was laughing against your lips. 

It was hard work, stripping him down to the flight suit, and you had gotten frustrated in the process, pushing him backwards until his calves hit the edge of the bed. He sat back, pulling you with him, into his lap, thighs straddling his own.

“Slow down.” It was tender, teasing. 

“No,” you answered, spurring him along with a kiss, catching his lower lip between your teeth and griding down on him at the same time. He gasped into your mouth.

“You don’t play fair.” You swallowed his words, but he leaned backwards, just out of reach. Din cradled your face, tucking a lock back behind your ear. “I want to savour this.”

“What about what I want?” you challenged.

“What do you want? How far do you want to—”

“All of it. Everything.”

“You’re sure?”

You frowned at him. “Din. Please don’t make me ask again.” And then, before you could overthink, you pulled your top over your head.

Whatever he was going to say died on his lips as he looked at you. No, gaped at you. Ran his hands up your sides, then down again. Grasped at your hips. Whispered something sensual in Mando’a that sent heat rushing to your core. Nothing about the scars that littered your chest, abdomen and back. He just leaned in and kissed one atop your breast, a knife wound, and dragged his palms up your back to cradle your shoulder blades. 

“I’m dreaming.” It wasn’t a question that he whispered into your chest. “I must be.” Another scar, another kiss. “I dream about this often… about you.” His mouth moved to the valley between your breasts. “This is better though. This one is really good.”

You had to trap his face between your hands and guide it, so his eyes met your own. They had darkened, but still held that warmth of a fresh cup of brewed caf. “You’re not dreaming. Let me prove it to you.”

You moved to the zipper on his flight suit, dragging it down at a leisurely pace that was almost torturous. He wanted slow? You’d give him slow. 

Each inch revealed gloriously tanned skin, and the zipper stopped only as a trail of dark hair under his belly button started. You clenched around nothing. He was watching you watch him. Cocky, almost. 

Yes, definitely cocky. Because as you were reorganizing your thoughts, Din had tightened his grasp on your waist, and had started to drag you against him, the friction sending fireworks through you. Under any other circumstances, you might have been embarrassed by the sounds you were making. But it was him.

“I could watch you come like this. I like watching you come.” The words were so filthy, yet delivered so innocently. You gasped through parted lips. “Later… one day, I will.” It was a promise.

But instead, he lifted and flipped you expertly. Climbed over you, sliding you up the silk until your head met the pillows. Trailed a hand up your inner thigh, to cup you over your shorts. 

Holy shit. How could you find a way to touch all of him at once?

Somewhere in the haze, he had toed his boots off. The only thing that remained was half of the suit, the top of it hanging around his waist. You wanted to scratch lines into his back. You did. And felt his muscles flex under your nails.

Din was kissing down your chest again. Wet, messy kisses, on your clavicle, breasts, stomach, hipbones. Those fucking eyes met yours, crinkling at the outer edges, as he toyed with your waistband.

“Don’t tease me.” You lifted your hips for him.

“Whatever you say, my Alor.” Oh, you knew that one.

“I thought you were the Mand’alor?” It was meant to sound humorous, but it came out strangled instead.

In one fluid movement, he had pulled your shorts and underwear down, off your ankles, tossed them to the side. “I bow to you, don’t I?”

And he did bow, right there on the bed. It was different, being able to see him. How he watched you as his nose disappeared between your thighs. Absolute bliss. You arched into him.

“Stay still.”

“I ca—I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.” He licked a stripe up your center and you almost cried out. “Remember when you first joined me? You were still all the time. Like a statue.” He paused to flick at your clit with his tongue. “Even then, I used to think about you like this. Wondered if I could make you relax like this. I’d think about it when you were sleeping metres away from me.”

You were so wet it was mortifying.

“I used to curse myself for thinking about it.” He eased two fingers into you, holding your stomach down with the other hand. “But then you’d moan in your sleep. Were you dreaming about me? Hmm?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Good. Good girl.” The praise made you feel divine, like his words had washed away the years of darkness, of bloodshed. You could be good. You could.

But he curled his fingers inside you, and you lost the battle, canting your hips upwards. He was grinning.

“I need you. I need you. I need you.” You said it like a prayer, tugging at him with greedy hands. But he was lost in it, watching his own fingers pump in and out of you. So you did the only thing you could. You pulled him up, flipped him over. You must have used the Force because his dark eyes were now slightly startled.

But it only took him a moment to recover. To bring his hand up and place those two fingers, still coated in you, against your lips. He watched as you licked them clean, then asked: “Don’t you taste good?”

Flustered. You had no answer, mind going fuzzy. So you busied yourself working at his pants, easing them down, over his knees. Oh kriff.

You had wanted to toy with him, tease him the way he had you. But you weren’t so sure anymore. Now, you wanted to feel him inside you. You didn’t speak, didn’t dare even look at him as you lined yourself up, slid down, just the tip.

He had you beneath him again in a split second, pushing in, practically to hilt, the stretch euphoric. You couldn’t stop your eyes from rolling back.

He stilled and you gasped. “What happened to going slow?”

Din whimpered. Actually whimpered.

“I know, Din… I know.” His head had dropped into the crook of your neck and he started moving, slowly but heavily, languid thrusts of his hips into your own. Each push was so deep, so visceral, that you could feel your body, your mind, rearrange to accommodate him.

The suns must have been dipping lower in the sky because the room filled with a heavenly light, bathing him in golden hues. Stars, the drag of him was almost too much to bear. Din’s earlier assertiveness was long gone, replaced with this raw, vulnerable energy. He was inside you, but you were inside of him. And it was beautiful.

Like a still lake, calm, a sunset skies’ warmth reflected in the smooth surface. Sex, desire, a ripple, making way to a tidal wave rolling towards shore. It grew and grew, instinct, fear, loss, insecurity. 

His breath was a rasp against your pulse point, movements getting faster, more purposeful. “You…You’re so good.”

Good. He knew what the word meant to you. 

‘You’re not evil.’ ‘You’re not a bad person.’ ‘I know you’re not, because you taught me that I wasn’t.’ ‘You don’t ever have to justify that part of yourself. Not to me.’ ‘We’re the same. You and me, remember?’ ‘I love you. Do you understand now?’

You crashed and burned as you came, the feeling so powerful that it brought tears to your eyes. You clutched him so close that he would probably have bruises later, maybe crescent-shaped indents where your nails had dug in.

He shuddered against you, tightening. Stars, you could feel everything, thoughts, feelings, the way he twitched every time you fluttered around him.

“Go on.” You urged him. “Come for me.” That was all it took.

Din lifted up and looked into your eyes. Kissed a tear away and then kissed you, burying himself so deep you swore you could feel him in your chest. He shattered.

There were no words for it, what you felt from him, what you felt for him. Everything else was inconsequential, the galaxy, the wars, light versus dark. This was it.

The two of you had collapsed together for minutes, speechless, just trying to catch breath. When he finally slid from you, you whined pathetically at the emptiness.

Din kissed you again before he rose from the bed. “I know, just let me clean you up.” A reply never came because you were too busy admiring his retreating figure. Wide shoulders, golden skin, narrow waist. You were still gawking at him when he made his way back.

“What?” He knelt beside you.

The lines in his forehead were pronounced. You traced them. “You’re beautiful.” He laughed as if he didn’t believe you, focusing on the task at hand.

You hissed lightly as he dragged a wet cloth over your sensitive skin.

“You okay?” There was real concern in his eyes, and it made you melt.

“Just sore,” you assured him, though that didn’t seem to lessen his worry. “It’s a good kind of sore.” He had the audacity to look bashful.

He was so gentle, wiping you down, discarding the cloth, lifting the sheets, and tucking you into his side. You were still looking at him. His cheeks had gone pink.

“So did you… re-break the creed?” It was your one concern.

“No.” Din smiled. “Well, not really. I guess I never properly asked.”

You propped your elbows under you. “Asked what?”

“About the gauntlets…” He surveyed you with a tender gaze. “Will you accept them?” 

Gesturing to the rumpled silk, you asked: “Was this not clear enough for you?”

His head shook slightly, and again you saw that disbelieving stare. You wanted to kiss it away.

“What does that mean for us? By creed, I mean.”

Din’s answer was simple. “That you’re mine. And I’m yours. Riduur, we call it. Perhaps it’s the equivalent of husband or wife, but to Mandalorians, it means more. It’s closer to something more like… like a soulmate.”

Soulmate. “So, you’re my riduur, then?”

There was a stupid smile on his face then. One that made him look younger. “Careful. If you keep calling me that, we won’t make it to dinner.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, riduur.”

You did make it to dinner, barely.

Watching him don the helmet again was like a punch to the gut, made tolerable only by the fact that you knew you could take it off as soon as the door closed again. Any time you wanted. You would never get tired of looking at him.

Since you had left the sanctity of your room, he had intertwined your fingers. A simple gesture, but one that felt magical, nonetheless.

Fennec had met the two of you just outside the kitchens, with a look that was knowing enough to make you shy. “You don’t mind if I borrow her, do you?”

Beside you, Din felt as if he might decline, stiffening slightly and tightening his grip on your hand, but a smile from you had him reluctantly handing you off to Shand.

“We’ll meet you in the dining hall.” It was a sweet dismissal. She beckoned you to follow her into the kitchen, handed you a small bottle.

“It’s a tonic,” she explained. “We have a few bottles brewed, so you can take some when you leave. It’s a monthly thing.”

Oh god. “Thank you, I really appreciate it.” She only nodded in acknowledgement. It was very thoughtful of her. But it left you wondering just how obvious it was, whether even the serving droids knew what had happened upstairs. Oh, maker. But a tonic… it was a good idea. 

You hadn’t even given it much thought, which was silly. But because of the stress and exertion and malnourishment of your past, your period had always come infrequently. It had evened out a bit on Sorgan, but it was far from regular. Regardless, if you and Din were going to be having sex, and you hoped you would be—a lot—then you should be taking something just to be safe. The two of you already had a child.

Boba and Din were already sat when you entered, engaging in conversation that seemed to abruptly end as soon as you and Fennec walked in. Interesting. You took a seat next to him, which may have been a mistake, because you could somehow feel the heat radiating off of him. You crossed your legs.

But, it was so nice. To be able to sit around a table with good company and have a meal. Din couldn’t eat, obviously, but had loaded a plate anyway, and would have it upstairs, later. With you.

Multiple times throughout the night you caught him staring, in that way that was identifiable only by a slight shifting of the helmet. But you knew him well enough to catch it. Riduur. Soulmate. The words clung to your psyche, even more as the wine started to go to your head. 

You had zoned out from the conversation, replaying the events of the day in your mind. Certain events in particular. Stars, the way he had sounded. The things he had said. He wanted to watch you come? You wanted that too. 

Din’s low voice broke your trance.

“Will you excuse us? I’m getting hungry.” The way he said it… the insinuation was clear. Fennec was biting her lip to keep from grinning as Din all but pulled you out of your seat, tray in the other hand. Shell-shocked, you could only trip after him. Boba’s laugh followed you up the stairs.

You were testing him. You were put in this damn galaxy to test him. 

He had been watching you, practically all evening, and it was beginning to border on torture. You had kept crossing and uncrossing your legs, squeezing your thighs together, nibbling at your lower lip. You weren’t even paying attention.

He was already hard and it was kriffing insane. Even the minute it took to get back up to the suite felt like forever.

“Din!” you were practically hissing at him. He dumped the platter of food on the low table and collapsed into the armchair, pulling you into his lap.

“Couldn’t even keep it together for one dinner?” He wished he could paint the mortified look on your face. “What was it, hmm? What were you thinking about?”

He dipped a hand into your pants, finding exactly what he expected. “Farrik, you’re fucking soaking.” With one finger, he pressed down on your clit. You slapped a hand over your mouth.

That wouldn’t do. “What was it?” He began to circle, slowly. “Tell me.”

Silence. You were trying, he could tell. “Words, cyare.”

Your upper body gave up, falling into him as you tried to reason through the pleasure. “I was thinking about what you said,” you admitted quietly into his shoulder.

“What did I say?” Faster.

You choked. “That you… that you liked to watch me.”

Din was grinning like an asshole under the helmet.

“While everyone was talking and eating their food… you were thinking about riding me in this chair until you came?”

You couldn’t answer, loosing whiny gasps into his shoulder. He felt drunk. This would never get old.

“You going to let me help you?” Incoherent, you just nodded against him. Good. He stood you up and tugged your pants down. You stepped out of them, all too eager. And you were fucking stunning.

Seeing you earlier in the late afternoon light, completely bare for him, was a religious experience. The scars—he had expected—but they had still struck such a deep chord in him that, for a moment, he had remembered who was tied up in the Rancor pit. And what Din planned to do to him.

You went to straddle him again but he stopped you, instead turning you around and pulling you back, so your spine was flush against his breastplate. The inside light was enough of a contrast that he could see your reflection in the glass of the open windowpane. Perfect. You arched against him impatiently.

He wound one arm around you, just beneath your breasts. “I know. I got you.” I took only the lightest of touches for you to let your head fall back onto his shoulder. From then on, you were absolute putty in his arms, squirming and whining as he toyed and teased. You watched his fingers as they finally plunged into you, but he watched your face.

The way your lips parted in a little ‘o’, eyebrows drawing together. Unbelievable. You were grasping at his vambrace absentmindedly, loosing a never-ending string of moans and ‘ahs.’ He had started to become acquainted with that spot inside you, the one that—if he hit it just right—would make you tighten like… that.

“Yes, right there.” You were undulating against him, grinding down onto his crotch so hard that he had to focus to keep control. Stars, he could hear it, how wet you were, and his ego seemed to swell with each audible movement of his fingers. He wished he had a free hand to dial up the volume on his helmet.

Din could see you losing it, hips stuttering, eyes going lidded. He wanted to bring you back. 

“Look at yourself,” he commanded. You did, meeting his gaze in the reflective glass. “Look how pretty you are.” Your shirt had bunched up under his arm; your skin was glistening with sweat. “Is this what you wanted?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes.” You were chanting, practically riding his hand, dripping. He could feel you getting close.

“Any time you get worked up like this, you tell me, understand?” You were nodding, over and over and over. “I don’t care if I’ve fucked you five times already. You want me? You tell me.”

“I’ll tell you. I’ll—” He had put his thumb back over your clit, effectively silencing you. He wanted to make you work for it.

“Promise me.” You were squeezing his fingers so hard he knew you were only seconds away.

“I promise, Din. I promise I promise I promise I…” Your body went rigid, face frozen in a silent scream. It was intense; he could tell just by looking at you. And he looked, at your face, at your lips, at his arm around your chest, at his fingers still inside you.

All mine.

As you relaxed, he held you. You took off his helmet and kissed him and he died. You said you had to shower, so he let you go, but you pulled him behind you—into the bathroom, out of the armour, under the spray. He fucked you against the wall, then licked you clean, then washed and dried you, as you shook a little from the overstimulation. 

You then chided him for forgetting to eat, so he did, and then finally, exhausted and sated, the two of you curled into each other under the sheets.

Taglist: @that-girl-named-alex @aavengingbucky @prismaticpizza @blub-senpai @a-phan-of-youtube @jaguarthecat @lizajane3 @come-hell-or-eldren-fire @graciexmarvel @soobinsrose @simply-maggie @alwaysdjarin @minky77 @tinytinturtle @tae27 @groguspicklejar @slightlyuglierbeyonce-blog @willow-t @abbyhaslongshorts @andrewshotspot @racetrackheart @leithatnight @messageinadaisy @lostinsideourminds @wren-2-d @goth-cowgir1 @aphterthoughtt @sleeplessskeleton @teawrites01 @dashlilymark @imherefordeanandbones @sunshine96 @kalea-bane @http-onie

A/N2: okayyy now that we're all on the same page... first proper smut scene ever how did i do. i literally wrote this so fast that i astounded myself, but it was like four days of my brain just being an extremely horny place. anyways i hope this felt warm and nice while still being a bit spicy. i hope everyone is as happy with it as i am. digital footprint in the toilet, there's no bringing her back now. anyway, if grogu or din dies next week i might never come back.

[rea-grimm]

Otaku guardian of the gate - Chapter 1

You've been looking forward to this trip all your life and you finally got it. Even when you were little, everyone saw you following in your parents' footsteps. You could even say that they infected you with the desire to find the mysterious gate from Atlantis.

When you were older, you all looked for her together. That is, until that fateful accident when they left you here alone. You couldn't get over it for a long time. Maybe until the time when you decided to find the given treasure in their honour.

With this plan, you stood aboard a small yacht equipped with sonar and various computers in the middle of the open ocean and three small uncharted islands. Apparently, the gate should be under one of the islands.

Equipped with special diving gear, you stood on the edge of the ship and watched the water below you. There was a strange calm. Sometimes a fish or a lone shark swam by, but that was it. It was strange because by all accounts it should have been a complete fish paradise.

You checked the necessary things one last time before you jumped. The water was warmer than you expected. You sank and headed for the bottom. You could already see that there were many sunken ships of different nationalities and from different times. 

Long Viking ships decorated with shields, which were partially buried by sand, Japanese frigates, Spanish galleons, giant ships with torn black flags flying in the currents, metal warships and many others.

You swam around the rocks, trying to find anything that might indicate a gate. You found something like an alley of statues in various poses. Based on the style, you assumed they came from ancient Greece. Some were missing their heads, others their limbs, and some were whole. Museums would fight over it.

Subsequently, you found several stones in which various symbols were engraved, the likes of which you had never seen in your life. You then came to a rock that had smooth straight walls and a rectangular entrance leading inside. As if there was once a former door. You tried your luck there. Apart from a few old containers, you didn't find much there. That is, except for the giant black scale, which glistened orange and purple in the light.

After a long day with no organized results, when you may not have found your gate, but instead a lot of other things that could have been a great discovery in themselves. After writing the report, check the photos and all of today's knowledge, which you also checked with your notes. You were definitely close.

Now, after a day of work, it was finally time for a little rest. You were originally thinking about a movie or your favourite TV series where you wouldn't have to think too much and would rather relax. It all sounded tempting, but you had already seen it, and on the other hand, you remembered an anime that you downloaded in case of emergency and that you promised your friend that you would watch.

This anime called The Magical Ruri Hana: Demon Girl was her favorite and she kept convincing you to watch it too. After constant coercion, you nodded your agreement, earning yourself a hug from a lot of octopus, possibly breaking a rib or two.

You made yourself comfortable and played the episode on your laptop. You watched outside on the deck because the weather was nice and you didn't want to shut yourself inside unnecessarily.

After about the first 10 minutes the boat rocked slightly on the waves and you felt as if something was watching you. You settled yourself a little better and turned briefly to look back. 

The original thought that it was nothing, just some fantasy, very quickly turned into Damn, Damn, what is this? You completely froze when you saw your reflection in a giant orange eye that resembled the eye of a snake.

At first, the eye looked like it was watching anime with you, but then it focused on you, winked, and disappeared in a flash with a giant splash under the water. It wasn't until the creature disappeared that you realized you'd been holding your breath the whole time.

The brain could not recover from the shock. A giant eye meant a giant creature and this was a giant snake. The rational part of you tried to explain that it was just a vision, a mere imagination. The other part of you was screaming at you that it was Leviathan, the mythical guardian of Atlantis and that you were damn close.

To take your mind off something else, you played the first episode again from the time you saw the snake. So you watched the first two episodes without any incident and you became calm that it was all just your desire for discovery. When you played the third episode, halfway through, the ship rocked again, and you once again had the strange feeling that you were being watched.

You turned around and there it was again. A giant eye with an iris coloured orange with dark purple edges belonging to a giant black snake. The eye focused on you again and looked like it was about to sink again when you called out to it.

"Wait!" you exclaimed, running ahead to the railing. The snake was already almost completely submerged and only a piece of its head with eyes and horns that resembled branched dark blue corals was visible. 

"You can watch with me!" you exclaimed without even thinking about it. Just so the snake wouldn't sink again and you could get a better look at it.

The snake seemed to hesitate for a moment before re-emerging and tilting its head to get a better view of the computer. He even rested his head lightly against the ship, which had tilted a little. As she leaned over, the snake took off its head again, as if it was afraid that it would sink you otherwise.

When you were both "settled" you started watching. You watched the entire first series and it was truly an incredible experience. Because you would never have thought that a giant snake would enjoy this kind of anime so much.

You could tell for yourself that it wasn't your cup of coffee and you enjoyed the changing scenery of the expressions on the snake's face more than the anime. Shock, joy, nervousness... 

He always got excited when the main character appeared there and either hissed or snorted when someone wronged her. It was truly an incredible spectacle. In the moonlight, his body played with orange and purple highlights.

You turned it off after midnight as your eyes were slowly drooping and you were slowly falling asleep to it. Before you turned it off, the snake disappeared under the water and your boat swayed so much that you had to grab onto something to keep from falling. Such an experience. No one would ever believe you.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Obey me! Masterlist

[scotianostra]

Billy Marshall, King of the Galloway Tinker Gypsies died on 28th November 1792, allegedly at the age of 120 years.

Billy Marshall fought at the Battle of the Boyne and deserted the army seven times and the Royal Navy three times during his eventful 120 years on earth

The oldest man recorded in modern history books — one Jiroemon Kimura of Japan — reached 116 years, 54 days. But even this grand old age doesn't beat the oldest ever Scotsman, who is said to have lived for more than 120 years. What's more, William 'Billy' Marshall was around long before the age of modern medicine and at a time when average life expectancy was less than 50 years.

Marshall died on this day in 1792 and his tombstone in St Cuthbert's churchyard in Kirkcudbright records that he reached the 'advanced age of 120 years'.

It also records his occupation as 'tinker' although he was also known as the 'King of the Gypsies', the 'King of the Randies' and the 'Caird of Barullion'. Billy was also a bare knuckle boxer, a smuggler, a soldier who deserted seven times and a sailor who deserted three times.

He was married 17 times and was the father of 68 children, including four reputedly after his 100th birthday.

Billy is said to have fought with William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 and more than once with the Duke of Marlborough at Flanders during the Nine Years War (1688-1697).

However, he deserted each year, no matter where he was, in order to attend Keltonhill Fair, two miles from Castle Douglas. The Horse Fair was the highlight of the gypsy year, and Billy claimed not to have missed one in a 100 years.

According to an entry in the New Annual Register for 1792: "This miracle of longevity retained his senses almost to the last hour of his life. He remembered distinctly to have seen King William's Fleet, when on their way to Ireland, riding at anchor in the Solway Firth close by the bay of Kirkcudbright, and the transports lying in the harbour.

"He was present at the siege of Derry (in 1689), where having lost his uncle, who commanded a King's frigate, he returned home, enlisted in the Dutch service, went to Holland and soon after deserted, and came back to his native country.

"Naturally of a wandering and unsettled turn of mind, he could never remain long in any particular place. Hence he took up the occupation of a tinker, headed a body of lawless bandits and frequently traversed the kingdom from one end to the other. But it is to be observed to his credit that all the thieving wandering geniuses who, during the weakness of the established government, led forth their various gangs to plunder and to alarm the country, he was far the most honourable in his profession."

Having served as a soldier, he was able to organise the country people who lost land when landowners built stone dykes and walls and went round knocking them down.

He was a skilled horner, giving him the name 'Caird of Barullion' - a ceardon being a gypsy word for a skilled worker who practices some trade or handicraft and Barullion being his homeland in Galloway.

Several examples of his work made of cow, sheep and goat horn at the Museum of Kirkcudbright. One of the spoons has a twisted handle and is inscribed 'W x M 115 1788' — his initials, age and the date.

[williamvonlydonthe2nd-blog]

Like most people, I have an EPIC multi-story fanfic in my frontal lobe that'll probably never see the light of day considering the speed I can write a single chapter at. However I wanted to share a moment from it that I just had to write somewhere.

During the events of Mass Effect 3, Lt. Comdr Paul Luckner finds himself hastily assigned to the SSV Normandy on its mission to Rannoch. His misgivings come from his unease at the assignment. He's to be part of the delegation under Commander Shepard trying to convince the Quarians to call off their attack to retake Rannoch. Admiral Hacket himself ordered him to assist Shepard giving his knowledge of Quarian culture. Of course he and Shepard aren't on the best of terms after the events of ME2 and 'The Arrival'. They had served together prior to ME1 but her apparent siding with Cerberus had complicated things between them.

"Sir, I'm not an expert on Quarians. I wrote a few articles in the Alliance War Journal on the Migrant Fleet, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to most academics. Surely someone more qualified-"

Hacket holds up a hand, even through vid link, the gesture instantly paused the words on his tongue. From across light-years his grizzled voice carries through the speakers.

"The few experts we have are either dead or missing. We don't have the luxury of being picky Commander. You're the most knowledgeable officer we have besides Shepard herself on the Quarians, and it is imperative that we convince the Migrant Fleet to join us. Supply lines are thinning everyday and those ships would really tip the scales back into our favor. Shepard's mission cannot fail under any circumstances."

He clears his throat, trying his best to arrange his next words respectfully.

"Myself and Commander Shepard don't have the best history Admiral. I'm worried that it might be a detriment to the mission if we can't work together."

"You're an officer Lieutenant Commander Luckner. I expect you to make do. I've asked more of others in this war thus far. You can certainly manage to follow someone you may not get along with for the good of the mission." It's said in the finality of an senior officer. Up for no debate. Paul closes his eyes for a millisecond and nods.

"Yes sir. I understand" he lies.

Luckner and Shepard last met under poor circumstances, and he derided her warnings about the Reapers as a side effect of her resurrection by Cerberus. Serving with Alliance Corsairs he last saw her from behind the barrel of a M-3 Predator pistol, reading her the riot act as he attempted and failed to take her into Alliance custody for treason during her time with Cerberus in ME2

But he's a good Spacer and follows his orders. He carries his seabag aboard Normandy without fan fair and starts setting up a dossier on everything he has on the Quarians (mostly tactical analysis and some brief cultural study). He hand delivers this to Shepard's cabin stone faced well asking to speak with her.

With the Reaper War in full swing Shepard isn't holding grudges and explains that she's let it go. Holding back emotions bottled up since the first day of the war, he apologizes. For doubting her loyalty, her warnings. For turning his back on an old shipmate.

Three months into the war and the toll has been getting to him. His first command, a new frigate, SSV Chapultepec was destroyed in the opening month of the war. He lost a lot of good spacers under his command, he's worried about his sole living parent, his birth mother living on Beekstein after the Cerberus attack of the Citadel makes clear that nowhere is completely safe and despite all that the one thing he can't get out of his head? A stupid book he hadn't started, left in his cabin that was destroyed with his frigate's Home port on day one of the war.

"What book" Shepard asks, arms crossed over her chest. He slumps onto her couch, staring at his ship boots.

"'Eternal Patrol'. The author interviewed me for it last year. It's a history of Alliance Frigates lost in action. She wanted to know about my time on Salamis."

SSV Salamis was his first posting out of Archurus Academy. He had skinned his teeth aboard her and gained his first real experience in command as junior navigator. A pirate ambush in the 'Traverse' however killed several including the captain, and forced the survivors into a desperate battle. The pain never did leave him but he had learned to live alongside it.

Shepard nodded slightly, he knew it was how she conveyed listening, before turning on her heels and grabbing something off her end table by the bed and handing it the him

"You can borrow my copy Paul."

He had to close his mouth, wide with surprise, as he stared at the cover image, an assortment of each class of frigate in service with the System's Alliance since the First Contact War. He flipped to the table of contents, finding Salamis midway into the text, glossy pictures of her and her crew with testimonials from the survivors, including himself. At the end of the section a list of those lost, dedicated to the end.

He felt the sting of tears but clenched then away as he noticed something strange, a bit ahead was a bulge. A page folded over to mark a place. Flipping to it he was met with the Normandy, SR-1

He looked up at Shepard, smiling but with a small glint in her eyes.

"I lost a ship too Paul." It was all she needed to say. He stood, running a hand down his fatigues to straighten them out, and nodded. "Thank you Commander" and left before he could make a fool of himself in front of an old friend.

An old friend.

It was only on the elevator ride back down that he let the tears finally run down his cheeks.

"You can come out now" Shepard said. The bathroom door slide open as a Turians stepped out, running a hand over his neck.

"I still don't trust him, Shepard." Garrus said, a slightly whine in his sub vocals. Shepard turned to meet his gaze and closed the distance between them.

"He'll follow orders Garrus. For now that's enough for me."

"For you maybe." He narrowed his eyes in the Turians approximation of a human scowling. "He pointed a gun at you last time. I'm not so quick to forgive."

Shepard didn't speak. Instead she wrapped her hand in his, interlacing her fingers between his talons. His breathing hitched and his sub vocals twinged as she smiled up at him. The argument certainly wasn't over. But for the moment, this wonderful moment that HE had interrupted, it was on hold. That was enough for both parties.

For now.

Not really sure how to tag this but you guys might.

[lullabyes22-blog]

Mal de Mer - A Silco x Mel Piece - Ch: 1~ A Tide, Rising

Summary:

A high-seas honeymoon. Two adversaries, bound by matrimony. A future full of peril and possibility. And a word that neither enjoys adding to their lexicon: Compromise.

War was simpler business…

Part of the 'Forward But Never Forget/XOXO' AU. Can be read as a standalone series.

Mal de Mer on AO3

Mal de Mer on FFnet

CHAPTER

I - II - III - IV

꧁꧂

A honeymoon, they say, seldom sets the tenor for matrimony.

Rather, that tenor is set by the bride: her willingness to be wooed by the ebbs and flows of fate—indifference, infidelity, intrigue.  Or, the tenor is set by the groom: his readiness to weather the storms—dejection, disharmony, despair. But in time, they say, life anchors itself to safe harbors. The sky may darken; the waves may crash the hull and splinter the timber. But soon a path is carved out and a safe berth is reached. 

And, at long last, the ship of marriage settles to a staid old couple, side by side on the porch, rocking together as the evening of life slides, like the day before it, into the gentleness of that good night.

In time, they say.

They, whoever they are, say a lot, don't they? 

They say even less that's worth hearing.

꧁꧂

For Mel Medarda, there was no they. There was only she: Ambessa of House Medarda, its illustrious lineage stretching back, unbroken, for three hundred years.

There was only her glory as the Immortal Bastion's most celebrated military strategist and its de facto Commander General. There was only her legacy of victories, from the Battle of the Black Mast, where she'd sent the Zhyunian warships fleeing with their prows between their legs, to the Siege of the Bel' Zhun, where, at the head of one thousand troops, she'd broken through the great sandstone gates of the Shuriman city like a knife through butter. There was only her legend, doused in blood and lit with flames, spreading as far as the sun, and as deep as the tides.

She, the warrior. She, the victor. She, the conqueror.

She, Mel's mother.

Since the nursery, Mel—who'd been schooled by the Grand Matron herself in the arts of Noxian womanhood—was dutybound to uphold her mother's heritage, to keep it burnished and blazing as a sun-stone. And, when the time came, she would pass the glory down to the next generation, and so forth, ad infinitum.

Pass down, too, her mother's lessons.

"I am your mother, little one," she'd say, after catching Mel sobbing into a pillow after a tiring day of mastering the art of the Fallgren blade. "I am your liege, not your friend. I am not here to kiss your tears or dry your sorrows. I am here to see that you survive life’s hardships, and one day, rise to greatness."

Or:

"There is no love in the world, child," she'd say, after catching Mel sighing over a Morrinese portrait of two young men, embracing beneath a trellis of flowering white magnolia. "There is only the prettied-up lie to hide the hungers we dare not bare, except behind the locked door of a bedchamber." 

Or:

"War is the natural order, girl," she'd say, as Mel stood trembling on the deck of her mother's favorite frigate, overlooking the Kalmanda port, its streets despoiled by Noxian soldiers eager to take and, when the taking was done, take some more. "It is the way of all things to grow, expand, consume. The only difference between the war of man and the war of nature is the tools wielded." 

And, always:

"Men will come, and go," she'd say, after Mel's first, second, third suitor had fled to the ends of Runeterra to avoid her mother's ire, leaving her wed to her work and her books, her art and her ambition, her loneliness and the long, sleepless nights where she'd cry into her pillow, having learned to do so without sound. "They will leave you for a pink-cheeked handmaid. Or a round-arsed boy. Or they will die on the field, leaving their seed in a stranger's belly. They will leave you because your beauty has faded. Or your body has failed. Or, worst of all, your power has outgrown theirs. They will always leave."

"But I won't," Ambessa would add, tipping Mel's chin up, her eyes alight with a pride that warmed her daughter from crown to soles—and yet left her cold, as if a ghost had passed through her. "I will always be here. And my lessons will always stand. So, too, must you. Stand, daughter. And carry on our lineage."

And, Mel, with a smile of spotless serenity, and a fire for better hidden deep in her heart, would say, "Yes, Mother."

And, on the eve of her wedding, Ambessa, her shadow filling the entire room, towered over Mel—who sat before her vanity, daubing her lips with blood-red Fallgren cosmetic, her bedroom wall adorned with Morrinese paintings of lovers' trysts in flower gardens, her carved-mahogany wardrobe stocked with sumptuous gowns of Kalamanda silk brocade, her escritoire heaped with dozens of letters from suitors devastated by her upcoming nuptials, her bedsheets still scented with her husband-to-be's cologne, before he'd dressed and departed with a kiss that hadn't left her skin for the remainder of the day—and she said:

"You will regret this."

"Perhaps." Mel stared into the mirror, her smooth visage and her mother's scarred one, twinned. "But I will never regret that the choice was mine."

"He is not worthy of you."

"He is the leader of a nation. A king—though Zaunites detest the term."

"If he's a king, then his kingdom's a cesspool."

"A cesspool of gold and gems."  Mel dipped her brush into the pot and dabbed it, expertly, across her lips. "The wealthiest cesspool in Runeterra."

"And he, an upjumped thug who'd slit your throat if the wind blew the wrong way."

"The wind only blows one way, Mother. Forward."

Ambessa's shadow grew taller. "Then I will sweep him off the board."

"You would start a war over a wedding?"

"You would shackle yourself to a shark to avoid it? I taught you better, child."

"You taught me wrong."

Ambessa's shadow darkened the whole room, like a moon eclipsing the sun. Mel's smile did not dim.

"We have shared interests, Mother," she said, setting the brush down: lips painted, poise perfect. "Shared enemies, too. We work well together. We understand each other. United, we'd protect our borders. Strengthen our cities. Secure our future."

"Future?" Ambessa scoffed. "What's a future steeped in slime, and tainted with soot? That's the world he will leave behind. And you, his willing accomplice."

"A world of equity instead of elitism. Of cooperation instead of conquest."

"So, you'd sell us to the lowest bidder, is that it?"

"I would unite us under a single banner."

Ambessa's eyes, two golden rings in the dark, glowed searingly hot.

"Marriage is not a merger, Mel. It does not seal two souls together. Marriage is a sea unto itself. Its tides are fickle. Its depths are unplumbed. There are dangers in the currents, and monsters in the murk. If you try to tame it, it will swallow you."

"I'm a strong swimmer, Mother."

"Your husband will be stronger. A shark never slithers to the surface to breathe. He stays, silent, waiting for the prey to come to him."

Rising, Mel smoothed out the folds of her gown. "We do have a ceremony scheduled today."

"That is not what I meant!"

"Then what did you mean, Mother?!"

Mel swiveled to face her. The general, the warrior, the legend. And she, the girl again: no more than a living vessel to hold the Medardas' lessons. Lessons too great for her small body to contain. Lessons that left cracks in the heart, and scars on the psyche.

But the mind and heart are strong muscles. They grow, through hardship and heartbreak.

And Mel's had grown to equal Ambessa's in every dimension.

"The sea," Mel said, "is no dark morass. It connects us all, shore to shore. Marriage is the same. It doesn't just bring two halves together. It takes them to horizons beyond anything you can imagine."

"I have imagined everything, Mel. I've seen all the horrors the world can conjure, and survived."

"And yet, you've learned nothing."

Silence. Her mother's eyes bored into hers. Searching for weakness; finding nothing. Mel's spine had grown equal to her mother's, too. She was, strangely, proud of that.

Nothing Ambessa had taught her would be forgotten. And nothing Ambessa had done would be repeated.  For better or worse, Mel had learned her mother's lessons.

And now, she'd make them her own.

"Mark me, child," Ambessa said, her deep voice charged as thunder, "This is no victory. You're sailing into uncharted waters. And he will drag you down until you never resurface."

"Then we will go together."

"To the grave?"

"To the future."

Ambessa's shadow shrank. Her smile was a thin, brittle thing. Sad, almost. A glimpse of the woman beneath the legend. "As you say, Councilor Medarda of Piltover."

"As I say."

"But remember. When you are drowning, and he leaves you, gasping, to die. Remember that I did not wish it to end like this."

"It won't."

"Remember."

"It won't, Mother."

"And remember, also," Ambessa stepped closer. With a callused hand, she cupped Mel's chin, the way she'd done when Mel was a child, and her touch was the only anchor in a storm, "if he leaves, as men always do, you will still have a home. With me. With our legacy. That, no one can take from you."

"I know, Mother."

"Remember."

And, saying so, she swept out of the room. And Mel, alone, was left to stare into the mirror: the bride’s serene smile a mask for the churning sea below.

꧁꧂

That was three weeks ago.

Now, Mel is a married woman, navigating the sea, with its currents, and its depths, and its monsters.

And the waters, she admits, are choppier than expected.

The SS Woe Betide—("A fitting name," her new husband declared, "for a ship bound for a honeymoon.")—is an ironclad warship built for the mercantile fleet of a Piltovan privateer, long deceased. After her owner's demise, the vessel was repurposed for diplomatic missions and state functions.

She is outfitted with the finest appointments: elegant cabins, sumptuous dining halls, and a grand ballroom for entertaining foreign dignitaries. The interior is decorated in the Art Nouveau style, which was all the rage in Piltover in those days: hand-etched moldings; marble and onyx floors; and a glass domed ceiling that evoked a celestial firmament, its colors changing with the time of day.

It is also, by Mel's count, a floating deathtrap.

She'd boarded the ship in the bloom of health. By high tide, they'd slipped past the Hex-Gates, and were southbound along the coastline. Their destination was a remote Ionian archipelago: a place of white sands, swaying palms, and aquamarine seas, where a private villa awaited the newlyweds.

The retreat was no passionate debauch. Rather, it was an overture to Piltover's long-standing allies. To that effect, Mel had chosen invitations with the same care as Ambessa's military campaigns chose artillery. Each passenger was a heavy hitter hailing from the high-society circles of Piltover, Demacia, Ionia and Noxus.

They'd be joining her and Silco at the villa, where, over the course of a fortnight, they'd feast on the finest fare, toast to the sweetest wines, and, in time, forge lasting bonds of amity and alliance between Piltover—and Zaun.

She'd planned every detail: the itinerary, the entertainment, the ambience.

By nightfall, it had all gone to hell.

The onset was subtle. A touch of nausea. An ache behind the eyes. A fatigue she'd attributed to nerves—or temper. For years, she'd navigated the glittering circles of statecraft like a waltz.  She knew better than most how treacherous the steps could be.

But she'd not anticipated her guests' antipathy toward Silco.

Her husband's reception into their exalted sphere has been decidedly antagonistic.  Most of Mel's clique were accustomed to dealing with new money. New power was another matter entirely. For many, Zaun remained a mere extraction colony. The rest: its culture, its art, its innovations, was either begrudged or belittled.

Sometimes right in Silco's earshot.

Of course, they know his history as a firebrand. To some, it was an amusing eccentricity, something they'd boast about encountering in the same vein as a savage tribe from the jungles of the Targonian Steppes. To others, it was an affront to their stations, and a portent of just how close the world was to tipping out of balance.

On his part, Silco kept his temper. He'd played the part of the polished politician for a half-decade by now. In a social sphere where the smallest slip of etiquette could signal an irredeemable descent in station, his bearing was so faultless as to verge on parodic. He relished taking the elite's rules, and twisting them to his ends, like a street urchin filching food off a banquet table.

There's little to learn, he's often sneered to Mel, from a roomful of fools so far up their own arses, they'd mistake their wind for incense.

Zaunites, Mel thinks dryly, have a gift for metaphor. 

He'd held his composure admirably throughout the banquet. But when an over-served Noxian baron had slurred a disparagement about Jinx, spurred on by a tableful of sycophants, she'd seen that telltale switch in Silco's eyes: that flicker that transformed them from precision instruments to lethal crosshairs.

His reply was languidly polite. But the subtext was a dagger: barely felt until blood seeped through the doublet. Most guests were too thickheaded to pick up on it. The Baron and his retinue, on the other hand, took umbrage and returned the thrust, clumsily.

By the night's end, they'd made fools of themselves, and had to be escorted out—to Silco's dark satisfaction.

But the damage was done. 

A chill set over the rest of the dinner. It lingered long after the final course was served. By the time dessert was cleared away, Mel had felt the tension, like a lit fuse. Silco had retired early, citing a headache. And she'd let him go: a costly mistake.

They were married. She should have gone with him. Stood by his side, and shown solidarity—as a wife ought to.

Instead, she'd stayed to mitigate the fallout—as a diplomat must.

She'd smoothed ruffled feathers with a mot juste and doused smoldering tempers with a coy anecdote. She'd spun circles around the room, as a circus star spins plates, keeping fragile alliances from collapsing and precarious friendships from falling apart. She'd danced the dance she'd perfected, and won applause. Won handshakes, and smiles, and pledges of support.

All while the room spun, the lights dimmed, and the air thinned like a drowning breath.

By midnight, she'd retired to their suite.

Silco was idling by the porthole, a silhouette against the starless night. His cigarette cherry glowed and died with each drag. In the glow, his left eye was a depthless black.

That was the first sign, she'd learned. In his worst rages, the bad eye went dead.

A void that sucked in all light, and spat out nothing. 

Mel, daughter of Ambessa Medarda, was no coward. She was born to a family of warmongers. Her own temper was a high-spirited thing: quick to flare, quicker to fizzle. But years of playing politics had taught her the fine art of deflection. In a spar, it wasn't the force of the blow that counted; it was the grace of the parry. Her precision strikes, sheathed in cool courtesy, could disarm the strongest opponent. And her shield of charm, backed by steel conviction, could deflect the nastiest volley.

As a stateswoman, she'd cut down men twice her size, with nothing but a well-chosen word.

Her husband was no ordinary man.

In public, he was a study of calm. In private, he was a raging sea. Mel could neither deflect, nor disarm. The harder she pushed, the more he unbalanced her. The tighter she held, the more he slipped through her fingers. And when she let him go, she'd lose him for days: to schemes, to silence, to shadows. 

His anger was like his city. It took root and grew in darkness. And, once ignited, it consumed everything. It was the pyre that'd left hundreds dead in the wake of his revolution. It was the fire that'd kept his nation alive, against all odds.  

And her guests, Mel knew, were the tinder that lit the flame.

Now his city was a rising inferno, and their hostility was colored by fear. Fear of what they could not control. Fear of what they didn't understand. Fear that the world's tectonic plates were cracking beneath their feet, and the devils in the depths, ready to drag them down. 

And I will, Silco's eyes vowed. I will.

Marriage, Ambessa always said, is a tilted territory. If you don't stake your claim, the ground will slide out from under you.

And instead of a husband, you'll have an enemy in your bed.

And she, Mel, had failed to stake her claim. She'd let him down. Chosen sides when there should have been none.

Now she must weather the storm.

So, shoulders squared, she'd stepped into the cabin.

And they'd fought.

Fought like they'd never fought before. Not the fights that've become a kind of foreplay: the static between them, of sparring and subterfuge, melting into pure sensation. Not the fights that've defined their alliance: political posturing and personal grievance tangling into a web of illicit trust. Not the fights that've forged their bond: betrayal and blackmail spun in the dark, and the forgiveness that comes with the dawn. 

This was a fight to the death. A fight, conversely, for their very survival. The lastingness of their marriage. The legitimacy of their union. Their lives, and the future.

And it was a fight she'd lost.

By one o'clock, her head was spinning. By two, the room was spinning. By three, the room was gone.  She'd collapsed on the carpet in a heap of velvet and taffeta. Her last waking memory was Silco, kneeling over her, calling her name. She'd wanted to answer him. She'd tried.

And failed that, too.

Afterward, she'd learned that Silco had carried her to bed, and summoned the ship's physician. He was a stolid gray Yordle who'd outlived the Void Wars: more adept at patching up gunshot wounds than the ills of the mind. He'd checked her vitals, prodded and probed, and made dire pronouncements in his quaint parlance.

Mel had drifted in and out. But from the back-and-forth between Silco and the doctor, she'd gathered the gist:

—Mal de Mer.

—What in Kindred's name is that?

—You know: seasickness.

—The treacherous bitch.

—Your wife?

—The sea. We never should've crossed her.

Mel, half-drowning, choked on the irony. For weeks, she'd prepared for their journey. She'd reviewed the manifest, vetted the menu, stockpiled the supplies. She'd known, in advance, what each guest's preferences were: aversions, allergies, indulgences. The Demacian dowager's penchant for sugar cubes. The Noxian duchess's fondness for a good red. The Piltovan Exchequer's craving for a dirty blonde.

She'd accounted for every contingency.

Except her own.

The doctor's prescription was straightforward: a week of bedrest. No wine, no spirits, no salted fare. Only silence and sleep.

A bride, Mel thinks, bedridden on her honeymoon. 

Her mother would've laughed herself sick.

Politics and warfare, Ambessa always said, are zero-sum games.

So, Mel is learning, is marriage.

In both cases, the honeymoon is the loser.

꧁꧂

The SS Woe Betide is in its last leg, a day away from the archipelago.

The slant of evening sunrays fills the promenade deck. The air is balmy; the scent of frangipani wafts in the breeze. Tinkling music floats up from the ballroom. The revelry of the passengers, enjoying the last night of their cruise, is in full swing.

Inside the cabin, Mel's body is a languid starfish on cool sheets. Her ivory chemise—which she'd packed with the full understanding that it'd be worn precisely once, before her new husband ripped the gauzy lace to shreds between his teeth—has been reduced to a makeshift hospital gown. Her hair—loosely swaddled in a silk scarf to keep her locs off the pillow—is a frizzy nimbus. Her complexion is ashen; her eyes dulled to a feverish sheen.

Three weeks ago, she'd wedded the lord of Zaun's underbelly.

Now she's the color of the underworld.

The porthole window admits the barest golden streaks of light. They fall across the foot of the bed, leaving the rest of the chamber in shadow. Not an hour's conjugal bliss has passed between the elegant paneled walls. Not a single sigh has echoed off the brocaded wallpaper.

The groom's devotions—shockingly—have gone unsung.

He'd left at noon, as he does every afternoon, to oversee the ship's affairs. Her husband is a hands-on taskmaster. Or, put differently, a tyrant. Never once does he raise his voice. Yet he steers the voyage as surely as the tides. Everyone, from the quartermaster to the chief of security, snaps to attention at his barest word. 

His command of the ship is absolute. But so is his competence. If there's trouble to be sorted, he's the first to wade in and the last to leave. He's a man accustomed to a degree of chaos; wrangling a hundred souls in a single vessel is a breeze compared to keeping a city alive.

The crew, habituated to the idleness of aristocracy, are shocked by his exacting standards. But in short order, they've come to respect him.

And, Mel suspects, fear him.

Fear, Ambessa always said, is the most efficient way to run a household.

Or an empire.

By daytime, her husband's a force to be reckoned with. By nightfall, he's a presence without form. He comes and goes; sometimes slipping in before midnight, other times gone until dawn.  In her absence, he's taken over her social duties.  At dinner, he greets her guests, engaging in small talk and steering conversation adroitly through the minefield of snobbery and class politics.  He fends off inquiries about her condition. When pressed, he demurs, citing privacy.

The gossip, Mel's certain, is that she's either with child—or dying. 

Silco's behavior doesn't dispel the rumors. Once the night's agenda runs late, he retreats, like a shadow slipping through cracks. No cigars. No card games. No after-dinner drinks. No company, save his own.

Which, Mel knows, is a dangerous sign indeed.

A tide, rising.

And yet, in its own way, the tide is tender. He never coddles or cossets her. But his vigilance is unceasing. Every morning, she awakens to the scent of sweet teas and steaming broths. He keeps her carafe filled with fresh lemon-water and the fruit basket stocked with her favorites: tangerines, pomegranates, figs. Thrice a day, he's by her bedside, plying her with strange Zaunite tonics: bitter rosemary tinctures; pungent eucalyptus balms; salves of aloe vera that leave cool tingles wherever his fingers trace.

His touch—gentle, impersonal—is that of a medic, not a lover. And yet Mel can't help but be aware of him, in this space, in these hours.

His rage is a slow burn.

But so is his devotion.

Her own mother, Mel thinks ruefully, would've jettisoned her to the closest shore. She would've left Mel to the mercy of the doctors, and the ministrations of her servants.

Or, lacking either, to fend for herself.

Adversity, Ambessa always said, is an education. It hardens the character. Steels the will.

And, above all, breeds success.

Since the cradle, Mel has been bred for success. Now she's the color of failure. Five days of fever, and her marriage is yet in its infancy. She can't afford to let it falter. Not when so much rides on it. Her career. Her reputation. Her city.

The weight of a world.

And yet, for all that, she feels so very light.  Her only constants are the sway of the ship, and her husband's return.

At the porthole, the glass glows gold. The last wisp of sun sinks into the sea. Mel's eyes are drawn to a flash of light on the horizon. A streak of red brightens the twilit skies. A signal flare, launched by the SS Woe Betide, alerting a nearby freighter of their approach. A beat later, a second flare rises in the distance.

The call-and-response is an old one, shared by ships everywhere:

I am here.

"Mel."

She starts.

A silhouette fills the doorway. A lean man: sharp-cut, spare. The angular peaks of his shoulderblades jut beneath his suit jacket. His eyes, like two-toned crosshairs, catch the flare's dying light like an inferno on calm sea.

The Devil, cometh.

With her supper.

"You're back," Mel says, a little muzzy.

"I am."

"It's not yet six."

"We're a day from the island. All's in order."

"But—"

"Hungry? Here's soup."

The soft click as the door shuts. The softer sound of his footfalls. The rest is shadow. But Mel's senses, attuned, feel his proximity the way a compass feels the North. Instinctively, her body shifts, seeking. The hairs on her nape rise. Her skin pebbles.

A primordial instinct that whispers: Beware.

She'd felt the same sensation during their first meeting, in Zaun's fire-gutted harbor. In a single step, he'd filled the space. And she'd looked him in the eye, and known:

This man will change everything.

Including me.

Now, here he is, changing her again. His silhouette reappears at the vanity, then the bedside. His movements are languid, liquid, predatory. There's a rustle of fabric, then the delicious scent of tobacco, bergamot, and of him. A moment later, something is set down on the side table: a tray, judging by the clink.  

The lamp clicks on. In the sudden buttery glow, Mel blinks. There he is: a loom of living color.

The Eye of Zaun.

And, as of three weeks, her husband.

He's dressed with his usual sleek austerity: a sable-dark suit, a silver-embroidered waistcoat, and a white cravat pinned with a crooked blue jewel in the Zaunite fashion. His good eye, with its glowing twin in the scoured socket, is a half-lidded blue-green. The rest of him is a cipher.

Before their first meeting, Mel had read his dossier, cover to cover. A Fissure-bred industrialist with a chip on his shoulder. A criminal kingpin with a taste for bloodshed. A ruthless, uncompromising zealot who'd razed a city, and reclaimed its ruins as an independent state. 

Not a man, she'd been warned. A monster.

A warning, Ambessa always said, is often an invitation.

And the devil is in the details. 

Mel's first impression was of a man whose life had left its marks. Her second was of a man who wore the marks well. Her third was of a man who'd lay his own. Across her city, her skin, her self. Marks that would sear, and stay, and shape her future.

Her fourth impression—her last—was: 

I want this.

I want him.

And I will have him.

Now, she watches as he lifts the lid off the tray. Steam spirals. Supper, unveiled, is a light fare. Fish broth. Steamed dumplings. Fresh mangoes. From a tall carafe, he pours a drink—hot lemon-water infused with honey.

Placing the glass in Mel's hands, he perches at the edge of the bed. 

"How are you feeling?" he asks, in those silk-on-gravel tones.

"I believe Jinx has a term for it."

"Oh?"

"The blahs."

He smiles. She likes his smile, the barely-there crook of lips. Likes his lips, cool and dry, and how they feel against her skin. She'd like to feel them now. One touch, and she's sure her fever would break. One taste, and she'd be anything but blah.

Except she can't recall the last time they kissed.

Not since—well, her collapse.

"I've a few terms myself," Silco says. "Profane ones."

"I suspect you and Jinx have that in common."

"We've a mutual dislike for doctors."

"They do tend to be tedious."

"Especially the incompetents."

He presses a hand against her breastbone. Mel hitches a breath. It's a light touch, but his palm is heavy. The coolness seeps deliciously into her skin.

"I believe," he says, "the doctor has misdiagnosed your malady."

"Has he?"

"Your seasickness is not the root. It is the symptom."

"Of what?"

"Marriage."

She laughs, weakly. He does not.

"Marriage," she repeats, "has given me Mal de Mer?"

"Mal de Matrimonium."

"I don't understand."

"Marriage," he says, "is a singular affliction. You'll find the symptoms vary. For some, the first sign is a case of jitters. For others, the it is the absence of jitters. For the rest, there are no signs at all. Just a quick drop, and a sudden death."

"You're being dramatic."

"Am I? You believe you took ill the moment we set sail. You didn't. You've been in a fit of nerves for weeks. I should've understood sooner."

"Medardas are not known for nerves," Mel retorts. "We are a very steely stock."

"Even steel has limits." He drops his palm. "Fortunately, there's a cure."

"What?"

He's already up and off. From the nightstand, he fetches a vial of Shimmer. Medicinal—a special dose distilled by his chemist for treating tropical fevers. Deftly, he uncorks it, then pours three drops into her glass. The liquid turns a pale shade of violet, and begins to fizz.

"Drink up," he says. "That'll put color into those wax cheeks."

"And a roiling stomach. No, thank you."

"It's not a request."

He's so very serious, her husband. All his features are sharpened and elongated, as if drawn to extremes. It's not a handsome countenance, or a tender one. But there is something compelling about the asymmetry of it.

"If," Mel counters, "my ailment is Mal de Matrimonium, as you've diagnosed, then why aren't you affected?"

"Because I'm an old hand."

"You've never once been married."

"I've known my share of bondage. Poverty's an institution. So is matrimony. Your choices, your freedom, your fate. All bound, as surely as Zaun's old chains."

"The chains of Zaun, if I recall, were made of gold."

"So's your ring."

It is. Twenty-four-carat gold, to be exact. It is from Zaun's richest seams; cast into its first bullion. The band is engraved with the sigil of her family crest, and Zaun's dagger-winged emblem. A union of two cultures, forged in blood. The setting is a brilliant cut of emerald, tinted blue, the same hue as his eyes.

The symbol, Mel knows, of loyalty.

Silco's own, a cool platinum band, is a near twin. The only difference: the gemstone. A deep, iridescent ruby. It's a Medarda heirloom—her great-grandfather's. Ambessa had gifted it to Mel on her sixteenth birthday.

A symbol, she'd said gravely, of your proud heritage.

Mel had never worn it, much less coveted it. The Medardas' legacy of strife, treachery, and warfare wasn't one she wanted weighing on her finger.

Or her soul.

And yet, when she'd met Silco, it had felt fitting. His was a world of hard choices and harder lines. A world, like the Medardas, where blood was the currency. But a world, unlike the Medardas, where the true bonds were not blood, but will.

Hers, and his, entwined. 

She hadn't expected him to accept the ring. He was a proud man, and not one for trinkets. But when she'd slipped it on his finger, it'd fit as if made for him. And she, Mel, had felt a heady thrill she could only liken to how Ambessa must've felt after a battle: the sheer, sublime pleasure of conquest.

I have him, she'd thought. He is mine.

And I am his.

"If matrimony's the affliction," she muses, "perhaps the cure's more of the same."

"Hair of dog?"

"No dogs," she purrs, a hand straying across the coverlet, to his thigh. "Just the man."

He catches her wrist.

"Drink the potion."

"Not even a kiss?"

"Your lips are chapped enough to start a brushfire."

"So?"

"So, you need to replenish your fluids. Drink."

Checkmated, Mel sullenly takes the glass.

He's an unyielding opponent, her husband. Her wiles have little effect. And it's frustrating, when the prize is so close. So close that she can see his pulse, ticking slowly in the hollow of his pale throat.  So close his body-heat bleeds between them. So close her temperature spikes, a sweet throb low in her belly.

She wants to be touched. To be held. To be made love to.

She's never been a woman in thrall to her appetites. She's certainly never pined for a man.  Seduction is her art, but sex is merely the medium. The satisfaction comes not from the act, but its orchestration: the first chords of desire plucked, the leitmotif of longing threaded imperceptibly through the words, then rising in pitch, octave by octave, until it crests in a crescendo of erupted passion, followed by a coda of mutual relief.

Only then does she claim her prize.

Her husband bypasses the prelude altogether. He hits a raw, primal nerve: one that sings at his barest touch. It's not a dynamic Mel is accustomed to, let alone one she can account for.

But the aftermath is real as her desire.

Except he'd rather nurse her fever than her fantasies. He'd rather sit by her bedside, plying her with illicit potions, than slide under the sheets, and give her a taste of his own. Worse, she can't tell if the denial stems from pure perversity—or if he is playing the long game.

A Medarda, Ambessa always said, revels in a good challenge.

And she, Mel, will revel in her victory, when she has it.

She always does.

"You're smiling," Silco says, a touch suspiciously.

"Simply appreciating the humor of my predicament."

"Sick wives are a feature of tragedies, not comedies."

"I'm a wife of great contradictions."

"That, I knew."

"What? That I'm your wife?"

He laughs. She likes his smile; she loves his laugh. It's a once-in-a-blue-moon bassline: dark, deep, full of grit. Like his city. But it's his eyes that intrigue her most. The red one, all brimstone and shadow, unblinking in its web of scars. The blue one, the ordinary one, that, when the light catches it, is in fact extraordinary.

The window of the soul, the ancients used to say.

Mel believes it. She can see his, even if it's a window to the underworld. When he's guarded, it's a cold and twisting maze. But when he laughs, she glimpses the best parts of him: his ferocity, his ambition, his wit.

He's no fairytale prince. Not by half. More a subterranean beast, his cruel visage shed only by slow degrees. And yet, there's a delight in each discovery. She's always adored puzzles.

And Silco, by law and oath, is all hers.

"I'm thinking," she says, "that the guests likely believe we're locked inside, making mad, passionate love."

"More fool them."

"Oh?"

"You're weak as a kitten," he says flatly. "I'd get more action out of a washrag."

"A washrag? What a thing to say!"

"And yet the washrag proves sturdier, when pressed for service."

"If such was the only service I could offer, I'd give it."

"The only thing you'll give me," he rejoins, "is your empty glass."

"Or?"

"Or—" He looms in, "—I'll pin you down and pour the lot down your gullet."

It's no idle threat. He's a singleminded man, her husband. Once his course is set, he sails it, no matter the obstacles.

A good strategist, Ambessa always said, knows when to pivot.

Mel holds his stare, and lifts the glass.  Tipping her head back, she downs the drink in three gulps. The Shimmer hits like a thunderbolt. Lights pop before her eyes. Retching, she doubles over.

The room deliquesces. The bed disappears. She slips, and is suddenly enfolded in a steady embrace.

"Well," Silco says, somewhere above her, "I've seen that look before."

"You—you have?" she says dazedly.

"In the mirror."

Her laugh is nearly a sigh. The warmth spread outward. From her gut, to her fingers, to her toes. From her skin into her blood. Nuzzling Silco's neck, she threads her arms around his waist. He's all hard angles and taut lines, her husband. A man without an ounce of give.

But he's giving her this: the cool cradle of his arms, and his cool palm circling her nape, and his cool breath on her temple.

"Better?"

"I don't know." She licks her lips, a dark sweetness lingering. "It tastes... like you."

"Does it?"

"Mmm. I like it."

His stare goes a little dark, a little eerie. "Never say you've a taste for Shimmer."

"Isn't it Zaun's proudest innovation?"

"For the desperate, it's also bondage. Worse than Mal de Matrimonium. I'd see you die before I see you addicted."

There is no gentleness in his voice. But the graveled intensity pours down her spine. She shivers, eyes closing. She wants, nothing more, than to stay like this, her cheek nestled in the smooth curve of his neck.

By nature, she's tactile; they both are. It's only in the intensity that they differ.  He's a man who holds on to his desires, like his rage, like his city: a grip that relinquishes nothing. And she's a woman who's always had her desires at her fingertips: her pleasures, her power.

Betwixt them, there's no middle ground. Only a question of the inevitable: her will, or his. 

Against a well-matched opponent, Ambessa always said, your only ally is patience.

Hold your ground, and wait for the tide to turn.

"We have all night," she says, stroking his lapel, "to test your theory."

He doesn't stir. But his voice drops a decibel. "What theory is that?"

"The cure for Mal de Matrimonium."

"There's no antidote to marriage." His notched lip twists. "I only know Shimmer works because I've seen worse cases."

"Of?"

"The blahs."

"Jinx?" she guesses.

The barest nod.

"Was she..." Mel hesitates, "ill, often?"

She senses his withdrawal. It's a subtle thing, the slithering retreat. He's no longer in the room with her, though his body hasn't moved an inch.

It is how he gets when his family is mentioned. 

Slowly, he breaks the embrace. She clings, but weakly. The languor is bone-deep.  Laying her against the pillows, he nudges the tray closer. The message is plain: Eat.

She does, if only to appease him. The broth is light, satisfying. The dumplings are a burst of ginger and chives. The mangoes, juicy morsels.

It's an intriguing paradox. A full belly and an empty need: coexisting.

Compromising.

Silco, rising, crosses the room. He doesn't go far. At the sideboard, he pours himself a measure of brandy. In the umbra of the lamplight, his features are remote. But he stays, and that, too, is a compromise. It means something.

Something, Mel hopes, that will bridge the gap of fury before her collapse.

"Jinx," he says, "was a strong girl. But not always. Not at first."

Mel waits. She doesn't want to miss a word. His past is a private space, and Jinx, his most precious sanctuary. To breach that sanctity is a risk. To be granted a glimpse is a gift. One she dares not squander. 

A single misstep, and he'll close off completely.

"There were... episodes. The first one, I didn't recognize. Or refused to." He swirls the glass. "She'd been in my care a month. She was yet a shadow. Skittish. Sad. Never smiled. Rarely spoke. But the night the sickness took hold, she was a shrieking banshee. I was out. I came home to her thrashing and raving in a fevered stupor."

"What was it?"

"The illness? Mild pneumonia. But the root was something else. Her mind was a battleground. She'd fought, night after night. A war without end. Now she'd succumbed to the wounds, and was losing. I sat by her bedside, and made sure she didn't."

"You took care of her?"

"Who else? Sevika's a competent right-hand. But her maternal streak's as pleasant as my face is pretty. The crew? They're loyal. But they've their limits." He knocks back the brandy, and kisses his teeth. "A child, a girl, alone in the world. That's a degree of vulnerability that invites exploitation."

"By the wrong sort."

He nods. "And there I was: the worst. The only difference was that I understood what she could become. How she could thrive. So I took her in. And when she fell ill, I did whatever was necessary. I fed her, cleaned her, comforted her. When the fever spiked, I kept her cool. When the night terrors came, I chased them away. I did it all for her."

He stops, the shadows gathering.

"And, I confess, I did it for me."

"Silco..."

"It was selfish, really. But when her fever broke, it was the first time I felt... at peace.  She was so small. So vulnerable. I'd keep her tucked against my chest, her heartbeat to mine. I'd watch over her, hour after hour. I'd feel her breathe, and I'd breathe, too. In that moment, she was my world. My little universe. My everything."

He stops, refilling the glass.

Mel, touched, imagines young Jinx. A little girl, with scabbed knees and tangled blue braids, and a gap between her teeth. She'd have been a dynamo of energy. An exhausting one, too. Nursing her at her sickbed would've been an act of monumental forbearance.

And love.

"She was lucky to have you," she whispers.

"I was lucky to have her." He shrugs, with the air of a man who's stopped parsing out the threads of fate. "A daughter's a rare thing. It took me time to understand. To see past the complications, and accept what I had. She was a gift. Unexpected. Unlooked for. But she was mine."

His eyes, both, seem to drift. He might be looking at the portrait above the mantle. Or his reflection in the mirror beyond. Or nothing at all.

Nothing but Jinx.

"Her fevers," he says, "were a symptom of her grief. It took time, but she fought them off. The closer we grew, the stronger she became. And soon she'd outgrown the spells. Soon, the nightmares were just that: nightmares. Now she's a grown woman. A capable one. She's still my world, but she's also her own."

He downs his drink: a solo toast.

Something constricts in Mel's chest, affection and envy tugging the same strings. She's never been the maternal sort. Too selfish; too headstrong. Too much her mother's daughter. She's better at finding loopholes in trade disputes than untangling knots in little girls' hair.  Better at wielding power like a bonbon on a tray, than baking a birthday cake or kissing a skinned knee.

And yet, Silco makes it seem easy.

He's a father in the same sense that Ambessa is a mother: a force of nature, implacable. He's shielded Jinx, as she's shielded Mel. And yet, for him, fatherhood is neither a foible nor a liability. It's an extension of his steeliest self.

He's a man who, once he loves, loves with everything in him. Even the darkest parts. On the backbone of that darkness, he's forged his city. He's stopped at nothing to give his child everything. 

And, the past week, he's shown Mel the same devotion, if only a drop.

But a drop, like any, turns the tide.

Mel whispers, "Thank you."

"What for?"

"For staying. For... taking care of me." She bites her lip. "And, yes, for the Shimmer. It's working, I think. My head is clearer."

"Good." He's silent a moment, as if debating whether to add more. Then: "It's funny."

"What is?"

"When Jinx fell ill, she'd always apologize profusely. As if she thought I'd be angry at the time and trouble. As if a father, doing his damn duty, requires an apology."

"It's a hard lesson to learn." Mel shivers, and not from fever. "Believe me. My mother taught me the same."

"Not tolerant of sniffles, was she?"

Her fingers pluck at the coverlet; a girlhood tic bubbling to the surface. "Not a single tear. I learned, very early, not to cry. And if I fell ill, not to let it show.  Else she'd take the pain, and make it worse."  A shadow of Ambessa passes over her: a ghost-chill. "She had a way of doing that. She'd twist everything—my hurts, my fears, my failures. Until the pain was the worst thing I knew."

A shadow crosses Silco's face too. The bad eye gleams like old blood.

"How old were you?" he asks. "When she twisted your first fear?"

"Old enough to remember. Young enough to never forget." She smiles wanly. "I'd helped my handmaid hide a stray kitten in my chambers. It was a sweet thing, a tiny tabby. But in our household, there was a rule: no strays. They carried vermin. Plagues. Sometimes, a rival house would slip a sickly mouser into the Medarda stables. The next thing we knew, death was on the hoof." Her smile fades. "I'd found the kitten in the garden. He was caught in the stablehand's trap. Taking pity, I'd freed the poor thing, and given him a hiding place. My handmaid, bless her, even smuggled in a little dish of milk."

She takes a shuddering breath. "I was clever enough to keep it a secret. And foolish enough to pay the price. Soon, the handmaid fell ill. A fortnight later, she was dead. Poisoned, our chemists found, by a toxin in the kitten's claws. I'd survived only because he'd never scratched me. When Mother learnt what I'd done, she was furious. I'd put our family at risk, for a silly whim. I'd cost a loyal servant her life." The bedclothes twist in her fists. "She had the stablehand put the kitten down. Then she made me watch as they burned the handmaid's body. Afterward, I cried myself sick. When I'd finished, she told me: Remember, child. There is a cost to kindness. If you cannot bear to pay it, don't be kind. For the kind are fools. Only the cruel survive."

"Kindred's bones."

Silco looks the way he always does when she talks of Ambessa. Like he isn't sure whether to gut the woman, or to shake her hand. Half-revulsion, half-recognition. 

Ambessa, Mel knows, feels the same. Their antipathy is mutual, but so is their respect. Two monsters on opposite polarities, who will not cede an inch to the other. And who, yet, understand each other as no one else can.

And here I am, Mel thinks. 

Trying to navigate my way between them.

"Don't misunderstand," she says. "I'm grateful for my childhood. Whatever the cost." For a moment, she smells the ash of her handmaid's funeral pyre. She sees the smoke curling like a black halo around her mother's silhouette. "I had everything a child from a noble family could desire. Clothing. Servants. Luxury." The barest smile. "All the things, as you say, A right proper bitch is bred for."

"Yet here you are," Silco says. "On the far side of proper."

"Here I am." She cradles her elbows in her palms. "My mother is a warrior. A survivor. And the survival of a dynasty is a hard-won thing. In her eyes, my softness could be its downfall. That's why she tried, so hard, to mold me. Why she pushed me, and pressured me, and punished me. So I'd survive." A breath. "And I did. Just not the way she'd hoped."

Silco is silent. He does not do mercy. But he listens. And it's the same, in its way.

"Small wonder," he muses.

"Small wonder, what?"

"Small wonder you turned out the way you did." He tips his near-empty glass. "All that pressure. It can either crush a spirit, or forge it into diamond. It's the same with Jinx. You're as different as night and day. And yet, you're a similar breed." 

Mel's smile wavers. "Are we?"

"Driven. Strong. Willful. But you've the same void. All the glitter poured inside won't fill it." He sets the glass down. "Fortunately, the cure's simpler than you'd think."

"Is it?"

"A full belly, and a full night's sleep."

Her tray of supper is taken away. From her armoire, he removes a silk paisley blanket. The fabric, midnight blue, shimmers as it unfolds. It's her favorite; imported from Kalamanda. The weave is impregnated with hyacinth oil, rose hips, tea leaves, sea-salt and spilled ink.

It's the scent of Piltover: her city. Her newfound heart.

She'd packed it with a vague fantasy of sprawling across it, a picnic blanket on a sun-drenched Ionian hillside. With her husband's arm draped around her, his cool palm cupping her skull. His cooler fingers tangling in her hair. The rest of him, tangled in her.

Now, they're together, and there's no fantasy. Only pragmatic hands and a practiced touch. He enfolds her in the blanket, not like a babe but like a meal left to cool.  His lips are cool too. They avoid her mouth, drop a kiss to her temple, then withdraw before she can thread her arms around him.

"Rest," he says. "The night's a balmy one."

"Where are you going?"

"To bath, and ready myself for dinner." 

He turns, and begins unthreading his cuffs. The vest follows, tossed onto the vanity chair. The cravat is tugged free; the buttons at his collar undone. A pale triangle of skin bares itself. There's no deliberation to the strip-tease. Just a man, methodically disrobing.

And the sight, Mel thinks, is almost unbearably intimate.

The Shimmer is a pooling heat in her body. The silk of her blanket—a light thing—teases her skin. His nearness torments the rest.

She is still a little sore. A little achy. But it's a savoring ache.

A hunger that needs filling.

Catching her ogling, Silco quirks a brow. "Eyes up."

"Can't I admire the view?"

"No." His tone is stern. "This is not a performance. You're meant to rest."

"And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"Five days of nothing. And you've not once complained." She lets her lashes fan down and up. "Surely you don't expect me to believe the washrag's proving equal?"

"Not yet," he says, a bitter crook to his lips, "but it's not a bad substitute."

"Is that why you're hurrying? To take matters into your own hands?"

"Better my hand than a guest's."

"A guest?" This is a perturbing pivot. She half-sits up; her chemise strap slips down her left shoulder. "Have you been propositioned?"

"With a missing bride, the groom's fair game."

"Let me guess. The Demacian Countess, dripping in diamonds and innuendo—" 

"—a vapid harridan, of whom I am thoroughly sick."

"—the Piltovan exchequer's wife, who's not above a bit of bed-hopping—"

"—an insufferable busybody, whom I plan to toss overboard."

"—the Vastayan princeling, who's famously partial to men with scars."

"That one's partial to anything with a prick." He stops, a glint of slyness in his eyes. "Why? Are you jealous?" 

She shouldn't be. It's irrational and foolish and beneath her. She is not a woman easily threatened. Her desirability is her stock-in-trade. She is used to being measured as the superior of the most celebrated sirens, and the brains of the outfit, besides. It's a point of pride.

Yet there is a gut-wrench of possessiveness. The thought of someone's hands on Silco. Of him, touching someone else. A stranger undeserving of the gift. 

My husband, Mel thinks, and it's a fierce and terrible burn.

Home territory, Ambessa always said, is to be defended to the last drop.

Else the rot sets in, and the foundation crumbles.

Softly, Mel says, "And if I were jealous?"

Silco's hands still on his buttons.  His good eye, in the lamplight, is a green-lit spark.

"I'd tell you," he says, equally soft, "that you're mad."

"With jealousy?"

"With fever."

"Mal de Matrimonium, after all."

"A shared affliction, I can abide." Wryly, he shakes his head. "The clap's a different matter."

"Silco—"

"Sleep it off, petal. Tomorrow, you'll laugh at your silliness."

The endearment—a rarity outside of their pillow talk—pierces through her. She dares a smile: a little teasing, a little raw. 

A lot wanting.

"You could," she stretches languidly, and a smooth thigh bares itself from under the coverlet, "join me?"

"The party will start soon."

"Not to sleep. Just to talk."

"About what?"

Silco sits, again, at the foot of the bed. It dips beneath his weight. The mattress, a wide affair, is more than big enough for the both of them.

His palm rests on her ankle. The touch, impersonal before, lingers. Emboldened by this small intimacy, Mel lets her fingers itsy-bitsy-spider up the cuff of his shirtsleeve. The weave is cool; the arm beneath deceptively lean in an armature of sinew and bone.

She thinks of the rapiers her mother kept on display in the gallery: honed, fine, deadly.

But a deft touch, she knows, can disarm even the sharpest blade.

"We could," she says, "talk about our itinerary. The island we'll be staying at is renowned for its beauty. There are waterfalls a stone's throw from our camp. And ruins, where the locals say the gods themselves used to frolic. Or the villa itself: designed to merge nature with civilization. The rooms are like gardens, each with their own sunrooms and fountains. All of it, with a view of the turquoise seas." She toys with his cuff, and watches his face. "I know you like the water."

"I'd like it better if I weren't sharing the villa with a half-dozen parasites."

"Don't think of them," she says coaxingly. "Think of me. Think of you. Think of the possibilities."

"Their security detail? Paid for by my dime. Their staff? Paid for by yours. And the bill?" A scoff. "We're footing that together"

"It's a modest bill. Barely a pittance." Mel's fingertips skitter up his forearm. "Meanwhile, we'll have a wing entirely to ourselves. The most luxurious in the villa. Its own beach, white as snow. Its own grotto, with a natural sauna. Its own garden, full of exotic blooms and birdsong."

"And mites, and mosquitoes, and yet more parasites."

She ignores that, continues to speak in that satiny tone she uses for closing deals. "At night, we could light the bonfire and dine beneath the stars. We could take the yawl out and anchor offshore." Her fingers creep higher, and so does her smile. "We'd make love on the deck, and listen to the sea, and make love again, and listen to the sea."

"And all our guests, with their telescopes, would watch, and lay bets on the size of my cock."

"Let them," she husks. "They'll be most impressed."

His mouth, the unscarred side, crooks. He can smell the game a mile away.

"And in the morning," he says, "if the yawl's not capsized, we'll row ashore. Where we'll join our guests for a breakfast of freshly-squeezed Navori plums, and rashers of smoked Sudaro pig. And you, glowing like a sun goddess from your night under the stars, will query the Demacian countess on her favorite spots for birdwatching. And the Noxian baron, eager to ply his charms, will offer to guide you along the nature trails. And you, with your far superior wiles, will steer the talk toward the fresh air, and the healing properties of the ocean, and how healthy living is the key to a long life. And then, while everyone's chiming their agreement, you'll ask if the guests will be so kind as to invest in Zaun's new filtration plant. The plant you've banked so much coin on." His stare, heavy, settles on her. "Am I wrong?"

Her fingers go still. "How did you know?"

"Because I know you." His thumb circles the jut of her anklebone. "Because I know the playbook. A good con needs three things. The place, the pitch, and the pigeon. You've got the first: a tropical paradise full of freshwater and sunbeams. You've got the second: a roomful of rich marks high off their gourds on said freshwater and sunbeams. And the third, well—" His circling slows. "The third is the least obvious."

"Is it?"

"And the most difficult."

"How?"

"Because he's no pigeon. He's a sly sumpraker who's never tasted freshwater, and is immune to sunbeams. And who's already been played, and paid in full." His fingers curl around her calf. "Am I wrong?"

Their eyes meet. His bad one is edged black. It's the smallest, most subtle shift. The first ripple of the tide. His moods, his temper, his impulses: they're all beyond her. Only the undercurrents are tangible, the secret push and pull.

Mel feels it now. A warning.

Her pulse stumbles, nearly slipping. Her smile does not. "Pigeon? Hardly. You are my husband."

"And the difference? You invited our guests to show them Zaun's a rising star in the constellation of Progress. But you'd not anticipated the frosty reception. They're not ready for the union between Piltover and Zaun. Much less the honeymoon. That night—the night you took ill—it hit you like a gut punch. You realized your sea-legs weren't ready for the voyage. And so, the Mal de Matrimonium set in." He tilts his head. "Or am I wrong about that too?"

His gaze is like his grip: a soft, cool pressure. The heat of her chagrin congeals between them.

"It isn't like that," she says. "Not exactly."

"Tell me how it is, then."

"That night... I should've handled it better. I should've taken a stand. For you." The admission is like an anchor lifted. All at once she's unmoored. "I know I made a mess of things. And you were... upset. The past week, you've cared for me, and now I need to pay you back. I'd planned our stay at the villa to be a diplomatic mission. For you. For your city. But if I can sweeten the deal with a few charitable donations, well—" Her teeth scrape her lip. "It's a bargain, I'd say."

"You'd say?" He seems almost darkly titillated. "Or your mother?"

"Does it matter?" she retorts, a little sharply. "You'll have your honeymoon. Your city will have coin."

"And I, Mel? What's my role to be?"

"Nothing." Her fingertips rest on his knuckles. "Only... play nice? Turn the charm on, a little? Let them see the side of you that I do."

He does not withdraw. But his fist, unmoving, feels suddenly like iron.

"You," he says, "want me to play your pigeon."

"I—"

"An exercise of social reform." His bad eye flickers, the red inked black. "Take the sumpraker to the villa. Where the blue skies will temper him, and the sun will burn away his shadows. And at breakfast, you'll show them the tamed beast, and how civilized he is. You'll make your sales pitch: Invest in Zaun. Turn the hellhole into your next holiday destination. And if they refuse, well, at least they'll go home, and spread the word that Medarda, Janna bless her, keeps that lowborn beast on a short leash."

Mel, stung, drops her hand. "That's not true—"

"Isn't it? These guests you're so eager for me to impress: they're the ones who made a mint off the Council's neglect. They've profited for years from the Fissures' degradation. They'd have let us die, if we hadn't fought tooth and nail for our freedom. And now you expect me to not only play their game, but pretend their coin—their condescension—holds value?" His scoff is sibilant as a slit throat. "It's a fine world where you believe I owe those rats anything but a gutting."

"It's a world," Mel retorts, "that's made of trade."

"Trade is an accommodation. A negotiation between equal parties. My city is not a thing to be traded."

"Your city, or your pride?"

"My city!" he erupts. "The city we built from the ground up, with our bare hands. Now it's a jewel, and they'd try to make it a bauble. Their notion of investment is the same as their notion of progress. They'll buy up acres of real estate where Zaunites live, and overhaul it into luxury condos. They'll bulldoze the bazaars where our commerce thrives, and erect monuments. They'll flood our markets with their gewgaws and bury our goods in the dirt. Until every last inch of Zaun's soul is sold, and its body is a carcass, and its corpse is turned into a carnival!"

The words echo like a thunderclap. He is the sea. He is the storm. And Mel, who is neither of those things, still knows that if the world were the two of them, and only the two, she'd hold her ground. 

In safeguarding their cities, they are equal. He is the Eye of Zaun. And she is the vanguard of Piltover. It's a duty she'd embraced from the beginning. But it's been a forked road, full of twists and temptations. A path where her own ambitions were at odds with her duty.

And those who've suffered are those she'd hoped most ardently to save.

People like Jinx, cast to the bottom of the pit. People like Silco, risen up from the dregs.

She's seen the underbelly of Zaun: the sickness and squalor. But she's also seen its beauty. The resilience of spirit. The creativity that burns like a bonfire.  Silco and Jinx are living proof. Their survival is a triumph against the odds.  

But the odds, sometimes, need a helping hand.

She can be that hand. Silco has the drive to take, and the cunning to hold. But not the pliancy to wield. Whereas she, with all her guile, can take, and hold, and wield. She can be ruthless, but not cruel. She can temper the fires, and sweeten tempers, without the horizons set ablaze.

She can be the force that holds Silco steady, and keeps his city safe. 

She believes that. Truly. But if she cannot persuade him to believe too, then she will have no recourse but to fight.

Diplomacy, Ambessa always said. Works best with a large sword at the enemy's throat.

"They'll do none of those things," she says. "Not if I have a say."

"You mean your word? Or your name?"

"One and the same."

"Ah, but what's in a name?" Silco drawls, without rancor. "A word, by itself, is meaningless. A drop in the ocean. Even marriage, my dear, is just a paper bobbing on the waves. There are no contracts beyond the ink. Water will always seep through."

This jabs a sore spot between her ribs. Her mother's voice rings, an ironclad echo:

"When you are drowning, and he leaves you, gasping, to die. Remember that I did not wish it to end like this."

And her reply: "It won't."

"Ours isn't a contract," she says quietly. "It's a partnership."

"A partnership, like trade, is between equals." His voice, too, is quiet. But it is an icy quiet. "We'll never be equals if you keep thinking of me as the shark who's scales need sanding."

"I don't."

She squeezes his hand in both hers. It is a gesture she uses to soften a hard sell. But never has she been so earnest in her entreaty. 

"Zaun is not the problem," she says. "Nor are you. But the two of you are caught in a bind. What was done in the past was wrong. But what will be done is right. I'll see it done, by changing hearts and minds. Because that is true progress. Once the upper echelons are educated, they'll see the wisdom in change, too. They'll understand that Zaun's wellbeing is theirs. That the pollution is their pollution, and the sickness is their sickness. If only you meet them halfway, they'll see the future. And they'll want to join you." 

"Diplomacy in action, hm?"

"Diplomacy is compromise. And compromise, by definition, is a dilution of what you set out to do. The question is not whether you'll compromise. It's how far. At least, if your cards are played right, there's the chance of a mutual win."    

"The chance. Never the certainty."

"Nothing is certain." She summons a smile. "But I believe in our chances. I believe in us. Do you?"

Silco says nothing. In his eyes, the void is banked. But still there. Still hungry. Sometimes she thinks he's staring down, not the past, but a path yet to come. The future, where his daughter will grow up in a city resurrected. Where his people will live without humiliation or hunger.  

Where they will truly be free.

"Belief is a luxury," he says at last. "In Zaun, the first step is survival. Everything else is a bridge to be crossed. Or burned." He leans in, a cold, dark flame. "So: no. I don't believe. I act. And it's not by prostrating myself before the privileged. Their pity will not keep my city alive. Their profit will not keep it safe. For Zaun to survive, it must upend their rules, and play by a different set." 

"You've done that once," Mel cautions. "And it nearly burned down both our cities."

"Fire is a cleansing force."

"Fire is a monster, with no regard for who it consumes."

Their stares clash. The air crackles.

Deliberately, Mel softens her tone.

"There was a time when I was a girl full of ideals. But ideals are fragile company. All it took was a single stroke of my mother's sword, and they broke. All I had left were the splinters. And they hurt. Oh, how they hurt. If I can save a person, even one, from enduring that hurt, then it will have been worth it. It will have been worth the compromise, the dilution, the diplomacy."  

Silco smiles. It is a strange smile: soft and yet utterly devoid of softness. 

Her mother, Mel thinks, would've smiled the same way.

"Compromise," he says. "A beautiful fever. Like Mal de Mer."

"What?"

He kisses her.

It's a quick, fierce thing. Like the snap of a blade. The air cuts from Mel's lungs. His mouth is cool, his tongue hot. When he draws away, she finds herself clutching his shirt, her fingers knotted in the lapels. His hands, likewise, slide beneath the hem of her chemise.  

"Beautiful," he breathes against her lips. "Like the idea that two cities, and two souls, can be one."

He kisses her again. The next thing Mel knows, he's on her, a long leg sliding between hers. And she is already liquid. Already aching. She can't help it. The fever was only a fever. But his distance was hell. Always a footstep away. Always was a thousand miles beyond reach.

And she, cut adrift: a shipwreck in the night.

Now he's here, and the tide has turned. His body, lean and hard, is an anchor. And his stare, unblinking, is an ocean's depth.  

"I've seen the truth," he murmurs. "Of the world. Of its heart. And it's always torn in two. It has a thousand wants. And it wants them all at once. There's no middle ground. No compromise." He palms her breast through the chemise. She bites back a gasp. "Only a war, fought until one side burns the other. And the victor? Gets the spoils."

"It's not the only way." Mel's lips find his throat. His jaw. His mouth. "We can—"

"There is no 'we.'"

"What—?"

"I've lived in a city of we's. Piltover and Zaun. Two cities. Both bound together, and yet pulling apart." His teeth trace her earlobe. She whimpers, and his thumb, deftly, circles. "The only 'we' is the two of us. Not because of our marriage. Not because of vows, or trust, or fairydust. This will work only if we make it. And we can't make it if you take my ring, then trade my city for a price."

"I did not take your ring for a price!" Mel snaps, her temper fraying. "I took it because I wanted a future with you. Whatever that future holds!"

He pushes her back. Pins her wrist to the mattress. It's a gentle manacling, and yet the effect is electric. His eyes take their time, moving languidly up her body—the hem riding high on her thighs, the silk taut across her breasts, the tendrils of her hair a corkscrewing darkness on the pillow. 

Mel's skin hums beneath the scrutiny. She's been looked at a thousand times: by artists, by admirers, by aesthetes. But never, she thinks, so closely. As if her flesh were pure gold. As if she were something worth coveting.

Worth keeping.

He meets her eyes, with something like witfulness. And then, with a sigh, he kisses her, everywhere through the silk. His lips on first one breast, then the other, weighing them in his hands. Mel sighs, her fingers tangling in his hair. His kisses drift lower. Down her belly, across her navel, then down further still, soft kisses pressed in a circle around the place that aches the most. Mel's thighs fall open. Her sighs unravel on a moan. 

She's missed this. She's missed him. His skin on hers is a balm.

Then his mouth reverses its journey. Higher, higher, higher, until he reaches her throat. Its soft, unguarded pulse. He kisses there: a hint of teeth like a brand. Mel hopes he will go further. Bite deeper. That this, the barest tease of friction, is not all he's willing to offer.  

But it is.

He drops a parting kiss to her forehead. Then he is gone.

Mel, bereft, opens her eyes. "Silco?"

"You're still feverish."

"But—"

He's already rising. His shadow, cutting across the wall, is a shark's fin.

"Sleep," he says. "Dream of a future. For me. For you. Full of spoils, and no compromise."

"Where are you going?"

"Dinner's begun. Your precious guests await." He begins unbuttoning his cuffs. "I'll make sure to play nice."

"But—"

"As it happens, I have an inkling how they can be made to play nice too. Zaun's version of nice. Industrial-grade, chemically-clogged, toxin-fueled."

Mel, warily, "What do you mean?"

"An excursion."

"Where?"

"Why spoil the surprise?"

Stripping his shirt, he steps toward the adjoining bath. The lamplight limns the dips and angles of his torso. He's a lean man, her husband, and the delineations of his body is stark as whipcord. The skin is lashed with old scars. A life in the streets etched into his flesh.

Mel knows every inch. And every inch fascinates her.

"Tomorrow," he says, "We'll dock on the island. With luck, you'll be well, with roses in your cheeks, instead of sealing wax.  We'll dine at the villa, all our cabbages and kings. But before—"    

"Before?"  

"Before," he says, a sideways flick of red and black, "we'll see whether pigs have wings."  

The door swings shut. The sound of running water starts.

Mel, propped on her elbow, is left to simmer in the silence.

Her new husband, it must be said, is like Mal de Mer, too.  He creeps in: sly, stealthy, secret.  And before she knows it, her body is aflame.  

Except she can't say whether tomorrow bodes a cleansing cure.

Or a blaze that leaves nothing but ash.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: New Jedi Order First Lines

Ok, so Vector Prime wasn't my first Star Wars EU book; that would have been at least semi logical and honestly logic and hinged-ness is not how I would characterize either my experience with the Star Wars fandom, the EU, or just Star Wars in general. We have Anakin Skywalker, hinged is not the vibe. That said, Vector Prime was my fourth Star Wars book, and despite some flaws and peaks and valleys in quality, the New Jedi Order holds a very nostalgic place in my heart. Let's see how the authors of the New Jedi Order books catch readers.

It was too peaceful out here, surrounded by the vacuum of space and with only the continual hum of the twin ion drives breaking the silence.

-- R. A. Salvatore, Vector Prime

Standing there, on the bridge of his Nebulon-B frigate, the pirate Urias Xhaxin clasped his cybernetic left hand to the small of his back with his right hand. He stared straight ahead at the tunnel of light into which his ship, the Free Lance, flew.

-- Michael A. Stackpole, Dark Tide I: Onslaught

Shedao Shai stood in his chamber, deep within the living ship Legacy of Torment. Tall and lean, long-limbed with hooks and barbs at wrist, elbow, knee, and heel, the Yuuzhan Vong warrior had pulled himself up to his full height and held his open hands out away from his sides.

-- Michael A. Stackpole, Dark Tide II: Ruin

If the system's primary was distressed by the events that had transpired on and about the fourth closest of its brood, it betrayed noting to the naked eye. Saturating the local space with golden radiance, the star was as unperturbed now as it was before the battle had begun.

-- James Luceno, Agents of Chaos I: Hero's Trial

It was morning in Gyndine's capital city, though that fact was scarcely evident to anyone on the surface. The rising sun, when glimpsed at all, was a blanched disk behind roiling smoke belched from flaming forests and buildings.

-- James Luceno, Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse

Lieutenant Jaina Solo rolled her x-wing fighter up on its port S-foil and shoved her throttle forward. A seed-shaped Yuuzhan Vong coralskipper had been harrying her wingmate.

-- Kathy Tyers, Balance Point

Outside the medcenter viewport, a ragged crescent of white twinkles known as the Drall's Hat drooped across the violet sky, its lower tip slashing through the Ronto to touch a red star named the Eye of the Pirate. The constellations above Corellia had not changed since Han Solo was a child, when he had spent his nights contemplating the galactic depths and dreaming of life as a starship captain.

-- Troy Denning, "Recovery"

Dorsk 82 ducked behind the stone steps of the quay, just in time to dodge a blaster bolt from across the water. "Hurry on board my ship," he told his charges. "They've found us again."

-- Greg Keyes, Edge of Victory I: Conquest

Blood, drifting in starlight. That was the first thing Jacen Solo saw when he opened his eyes. It had beaded into what looked, in the dim, like polished black pearls reflecting the ancient starlight filtering through the transparisteel a meter or so away.

-- Greg Keyes, Edge of Victory II: Rebirth

The dark sliver of a distant starliner crept into view, a blue needle of ion efflux pushing it across the immense sweep of a brilliant orange sun. Like a million such suns in the Core region alone, this one lacked any world with a civilization or even a sapient species, and it was too inconsequential for any name except an obsolete Imperial survey number. With so much emptiness, so many planets untouched, it seemed to Jaina Solo that there should have been no need for fighting, that there should have been room for all.

-- Troy Denning, Star by Star

A sunrise corona limned one edge of the planet Myrkr, setting its vast northern forests alight with a verdant glow. Viewed from space, the planet appeared as lush and green as Yuuzhan'tat, the long-lost homeworld of Yuuzhan Vong legend.

-- Elaine Cunningham, Dark Journey

"A god cannot die," Charat Kraal said. "Therefore it can have no fear of death. So who is braver, a god or a mortal?"

--Aaron Allston, Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream

Jaina Solo banked her X-wing starfighter into as tight a turn as she could endure. The g-forces of her maneuver crushed her into her seat, but she called upon the force to protect her, to keep her centimeters away from the edge of blackout.

-- Aaron Allston, Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand

Outside the universe, there is nothing. This nothing is called hyperspace. A tiny bubble of existence hangs in the nothing. This bubble is called a ship.

-- Matthew Stover, Traitor

As she sat in the chair that was hers by right of death, she raised her eyes to the cold faraway stars. Checklists buzzed distantly in her mind and her hands moved over the controls, but her thoughts flew elsewhere, amid the chill infinitude. Searching...

-- Walter Jon Williams, Destiny's Way

Saba Sebatyne knew the moment she emerged from hyperspace that Barab I was burning. Where the planet normally displayed a cloudy, gray face lit the glow of its primary, a sullen red dwarf, her infrared sensitive eyes now saw a fiery inferno.

-- Sean Williams and Shane Dix, Force Heretic I: Remnant

The man who was no longer a man stood before an alien who was not what it seemed. "Everything is in place," the man said.

--Sean Williams and Shane Dix, Force Heretic II: Refugee

Neither moved; neither spoke. They stared unflinchingly into each other's eyes. Surrounding her, hidden by shadows, Tahiri could sense an alien landscape.

-- Sean Williams and Shane Dix, Force Heretic III: Reunion

Three kilometers beneath the surface of Yuuzhan'tar--the world once known as Courscant--the sound of chanting drifted up a shaft nearly as wide as it was deep, the melancholy strains yearning toward the few distant starts that could be seen from the bottom. In the pale blue light of lumen reeds, the faces of the chanters appeared ravaged, their bodies misshapen.

-- Greg Keyes, The Final Prophecy

Selvaris, faintly green against a sweep of white-hot stars, and with only one tiny moon for companionship, looked like the loneliest of planets. Almost five years into a war that had seen the annihilation of peaceful worlds, the disruption of major hyperlanes, the fall and occupation of Coruscant itself, that fact that such a backwater place could rise to sudden significance was perhaps the clearest measure of the frightful shadow the Yuuzhan Vong had cast across the galaxy.

-- James Luceno, The Unifying Force

[ltwilliammowett]

hi! okay i am at my wit's end with this question: where would an 17th century warship (here a frigate) have kept a prisoner/prisoners after battle? Everywhere I look the only results I get refer to a "prison ship" -- but first those prisoners would have to be transported to said prison ship, and must have been held SOMEWHERE. In pirate movies this is the brig, but i've also seen people saying that they would be tossed in the hold. Would you happen to have a better answer for this? Thank you!

Hi, That's a very good question. I know that Brig comes from the US Navy and was only used as a jail designation there since the late 19th century. I don't know one hundred percent but so far I haven't found a really satisfactory answer because every now and then I read hold differently in the orlop, depending on the size of the ship, in the Fregate it would be the hold under guard of course. During the day the men on board had to help and do duty, but now none where they could possibly do sabotage. Back on land, it depended on what rank they were. Officers could be accommodated as guests in other manors and could move about freely for a time during the day. Ordinary Sailors were sent to the prisons, be it the stone ones on land or the floating ones in front of the city.

But I'll keep looking so I can tell you more.

[pinkhairandpokemon]

OFFSCREEN POST

———

Blake knew this wasn’t a good idea. Hell, it was a stupid idea.

The plan after busting out of the frigate had been to wait out the cold, before Kyurem got to a point where it had to recharge- then they’d call in Reshiram, who through their telepathic bond they could tell was waiting just beyond the mountain range surrounding the chasm for their command, before rushing inside and taking out Ghetsis and his new “weapon” while they were at their weakest. That way, they could’ve avoided the risk of Reshiram getting absorbed.

…But when they heard shouts of Zekrom being seen flying into the caverns, caution had been thrown to the wind. With a whistle, Reshiram had rushed to their side, and they went charging into the fray in a blaze of glory.

They’d landed a heavy hit on Kyurem in its fused state- but it wasn’t long before they’d realize their error. When Ghetsis stabbed the DNA Splicers into Black Kyurem’s hide a second time, and saw those pink tendrils lunge at Reshiram, they knew what was about to happen- and with Zekrom already within the ice dragon’s grasps, it was about to be far worse than they’d originally feared.

They hardly even got to say a word to N or the kid with him before they had to steer Reshiram up, bursting right through the ceiling of the cavern. Kyurem came rushing after them through the crater moments later- skyrocketing upwards in pursuit of the fire god.

“Come on buddy, come on buddy!” Blake urged Reshiram on, their voice getting drowned out by the sound of his massive wings pounding against the screeching wind.

Glowing strings of pink energy came whipping past, and Reshiram barrel-rolled to dodge them. He banked left, and then right, leaving Blake to cling on for their life as he narrowly outmaneuvered each of Kyurem’s tendrils with ease.

But the dragon of truth only had so much energy to spare in such a frantic, intense chase. As soon as he exhaustion caused him to slow down even a little, his fate was decided- a panicked scream erupted from his throat when one of the tendrils yanked roughly on his leg, dragging him down to his doom.

“NO!” Blake screamed, looking down to see Kyurem menacingly rising towards them. Reshiram began slamming his wings furiously and thrashing around in a futile attempt to escape, only for them to be folded back against his sides when more tendrils shot up to entangle him.

Just like with Zekrom minutes prior, Reshiram’s flailing grew weaker as the tubes drained away his energy like parasites. With a drawn out, feeble croon, the dragon’s eyes fluttered shut before he had no choice but to fall.

“No no no no no-!” Blake cried, feeling their grip loosen as Reshiram suddenly disappeared beneath them. A scream escaped them as he retreated back into the Light Stone- leaving them to fall from thousands of feet in the sky.

As they plummeted through the clouds, they managed to see their legendary dragon’s dormant form get absorbed into Kyurem… a storm of billowing flames encased the dragon, and its body was swallowed in light as it began to transform yet again…

Soon, a golden eye was left staring back at them.

———

[flowers-of-io]

alone, finally prompt for xivu >:3

Read on Ao3

On the day of Savathûn's death, Xivu Arath is crowned Queen of the Hive.

Oryx would find beauty in this, she thinks -- in the finality of this shape, the Osmium Kinghood chiseled and defined far beyond anything he could have attained. He would be proud of how far beyond the event horizon of his ambitions the Hive have moved. He would've been glad, seeing her carry his legacy on to such glory. She focuses on this furiously.

She thinks of this as she takes up her sword, thinks of it so hard it hurts, and rams the blade hard into the ground beside the hundreds of others encircling her throne. Its time has passed. She will forge a new one, a better one, longer and sharper and worthy of a Queen. A sword she can pierce through the shell of the Traveler-egg.

Tribute flows up the billions of tithe lines as she walks through her throne world, straight into the hungry jaws of her worm. It is sickly sweet on the tongue. With no one else at the top of the chain she is feeding more richly than ever before, the intake of power almost dizzying, filling her up in a steady stream. This is good. This is right. She is powerful--the most powerful that she's ever been, powerful enough to cleave the universe in two and scrape out its truths like the pit from a fruit.

She walks through the throne world, and the universe shrinks away from her in horror. Her presense thunders across the emerald sky. Her lieutenants, squadron captains, the lesser Hive--all sink to their knees as she passes, heads bowing before the sole Queen of the Hive.

This is good. This is right.

The forge empties out the moment she enters, the tall winged door shutting behind her. She picks up tongs and a hammer, each as long as an Acolyte is tall, and moves to pump the bellows that unfold to the height of her shoulders. Fire roars. Xivu hammers the iron with all her might--the might of an armoured frigate, of a row of mortar cannons firing at once, of a full-throated battle cry. She hammers, and the steel gives in under her hand. She hammers, and the fabric of the universe vibrates like a taut membrane, her will ringing upon it with each strike. The bellows holler deafeningly. The handle she carves from osmium, silvery and crumpled and sharp like she is sharp; she knows it will be wounding her until her skin toughens to fit the hold. A plume of vapour hits her face as she sticks the sword into the water bucket with a hiss.

And then everything falls quiet.

The fire still rages, but it is a murmur after the deafening ringing of metal against metal. Through the shut door no sounds of battle slip in from the outside. The sword--dull, heavy, half her height--sits in Xivu's hand, fireglow flickering off the blade, and the sound echoes in the chamber as she gives it a swing and rams it against the stone rim of the hearth.

She struggles to hold herself back from ramming it again, maybe along with shoving the anvil to the floor and kicking the bucket for good measure. Anything to kill the silence--this insistent ringing that is the furthest thing from sound drilling into her skull--but she manages, and only tightens her hold on the handle until the osmium cuts through her skin.

She will grow from this. She will sharpen this blade, and every drop of blood she feeds it will be a testimony of her might and the proof of her rule. She will continue to earn her place at its edge. It is good, it is right. She focuses on this.

She swings the sword again, so hard her wrist joint screams in pain, and the sound of metal hitting stone ripples through the empty forge.

[andietries]

Rules: Share snippets of your work containing each of the words the previous poster selected for you (optional addition: if you can't find the words in your WIPs, or you simply don't have any WIPs, you can just write a sentence around the word).

Thank you so much for the tag @lidensword I loved your short story! Really good way to use the words.

I was given mysterious, stone, sea, glad, I'm going to put the original thing as I have written and then an aproximated translation. My wips are a mess too lol (The first two are from the same wip curiously, lmao but it doesn’t have a title yet, the third is from a sci-fi and the fourth one I have mentioned it some time, is from “When the cat’s gone”)

The words I'm given are: forest, light, miscellanious and crime

Mysterious= Misterioso

"La primera estatua apareció en el parque de los patos. Una figura marmórea de una mujer sentada en la hierba, llevándose la mano a la frente como si estuviera evitando que el sol de la tarde le diera en los ojos. Entusiastas del arte se reunieron para ir a verla, compartiendo teorías sobre quién podría ser el misterioso artista de una obra tan elaborada. La segunda y tercera estatua se descubrieron al día siguiente"

"The first statue appeared near the Duck Pond Park, A marble figure of a woman sitting on the grass, she had her hand by her forehead, as if attempting to avoid the afternoon sun getting in her eyes. Art enthusiasts got together to admire her, sharing theories about who the mysterious artists might have created such an elaborate piece. The second and third statue were discovered the next day"

Stone=piedra

-Corte el rollo, Mallard-interrumpió la detective- ¿Por qué está volviendo a convertir a la gente en piedra?

_¿Moi?_ sonrió el mafioso, enseñando sus afilados dientes_ ¿Qué le hace pensar que he sido yo?

_¿Acaso cree que alguien ha olvidado las semanas que tuvo al Cuentacuentos convertido en roca en medio de su estanque Koi?

_¡Ah! ¿Eso? Uno roquifica a su peor enemigo hace siete años y ya la fama perdura pero, no me negará que era una estatua preciosa, esos suaves rasgos faciales, la figura esbelta, el...

_Por favor, solo responda a la pregunta

"Cut the crap, Mallard" The detective interrumpted, "Why are you turning people into stone again?

"Moi?" the kingpin smiled showing his sharp teeth "What makes you think it was me?"

"Do you truly believe someone has forgotten those weeks you had the Storyteller as your Koi Pond centre piece?

"Ah! That? One rockifies his worst enemy once in 7 years and the fame lasts. But you won't deny me he was a handsome statue, those chiseled features, his slender frame...

"Please, just answer the question"

Sea= Mar

El 27 de febrero del año 2150 partiría del Puerto Selenita Alef la fragata universal SS Mariposa con misión de observar e informar una región casi inexplorada del espacio liminal entre el sistema Centauri y Oort, también conocido como Mar de Éter.

Year 2150, February 27, the Space Frigate known as SS Butterfly would part from Aleph Moonbase in a mission to observe and inform about an uncharted region of the liminal space between the Oort Cloud and the Centauri System, also known as the Ether Sea.

Glad= agradecido

_¡Cuando te enterarás que te está tratando como un títere! _escupió su superiora a la cara sanguinolenta de Wilbur _ ¡No eres más que un simple peón en su juego por derrotarnos!¡Date cuenta, estúpido traidor! ¡No va a venir a salvarte!

A duras penas, levantó la cabeza para poderla mirarla a través de los cristales destrozados de sus gafas y dijo en tono frío como el hielo

_Soy perfectamente consciente que su afecto hacia mí solo era una mentira, nunca que le he caído bien a nadie. Pero estoy agradecido que al menos trato de utilizarme usando amabilidad, que es mucho más de lo que jamás recibiré de vosotros.

When are you going to understand that he's using you like a puppet! "The commander spitted to Wilbur's bleeding face" You are just a pawn in his game to defeat us! Open you eyes, stupid traitor! He's not coming to save you!

Somehow, he managed to lift his head enough to make eye contact through his shattered glasses and said with tone as cold as ice:

"I´m already aware that his affections were a lie, nobody ever has truly liked me. But I am glad that he tried to win me over with kindness , and that's more that I am ever going to get from you.