#the Minotaur is always always in the Labyrinth
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hellenhighwater · 2 days ago
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Someone just reblogged this and I was reminded of a couple things I did deliberately while making this that I don't know if anyone actually noticed. (Which perhaps means they were unsuccessful, but whatever; the intent was there.)
The height of the crack in the wall is very low. The implication is intended to be that he started clawing at this wall when he was much, much smaller. At this size, if the figure stood, it would nearly touch the ceiling.
The marks are mostly in clusters of 4 parallel lines, implying that he was indeed clawing. His hands are hidden from view, so you don't know if they're damaged.
His position near the center of this curve means that viewers can almost never see his face, or all of his body at once. He's hiding.
The cluster of center columns means that most of your view of him when looking straight on is like seeing him through jail bars.
The absence of rubble from the wall makes it unclear if he has just stopped momentarily, or if he gave up on widening this hole a long time ago; the seated pose also makes it clear that at least for the moment, he has stopped even trying to escape.
The curved shape of the ceiling isn't appropriate to the architecture of the actual origin of this story, but I chose it in order to make the labyrinth feel more compressed and to put the inside in a deep enough shadow that the crack would always shine with bright light in comparison, blanking out the view from the minotaur's side unless you look very very closely.
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p---l---c · 2 years ago
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The Algorithm of Daedalus
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recents · 2 years ago
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it’s because you’re that damn minotaur and you’re always in that damn labyrinth
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antidisneyinc · 2 years ago
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ahsoka is so ghoulish as a walking talking zombie of whatever star wars is or was... if we put lightsabers and mandalorians and ships and robots in something it's star wars right? if we beat composers' kneecaps until they reproduce something that sounds like john williams it's star wars right? if we get the aesthetics just right, if we cover our actors' faces in enough makeup so that they look like the plastic animated characters they're portraying, if we interject a familiar catchphrase here and there that sounds way too naturalistic in between our stilted dialogue, it can be star wars right? is it actually stress relieving escapism to watch dave filoni run around a crumbling building, trying to shore it up with a lifetime's knowledge of fanboy do's and don'ts, eternally unable to recognize what constituted the soul of this thing he loved? doomed to keep throwing on spare parts and nonetheless watch the true essence of it drift further and further way from him?
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hedgiwithapen · 4 months ago
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They say everyone has a mundane superpower
Small things, little things, things you might not even notice if the circumstances aren't exactly right. Like, someone out there always manages to wake up right with the alarm. Someone never, ever sprains their ankle. Someone has never assumed there was one more step in the staircase. That kinda thing. Personally, I'm immune to the hazards of those giant retail mazes. like. I go to CostCo. I get my toilet paper or paper towels. I get my basil butter salmon. I eat my hot dog and chocolate chip cookie. I leave. I go to IKEA. I get my bookshelf. I glance at a few trinkets without leaving the path. I eat my meatballs and slice of Daim cake. I leave. I go to the Labyrinth. I fight the minotaur. I walk directly to the exit. I give Ariadne a hug. I eat my gyro and baklava. I leave. It's very simple, I'm very efficient, and you should always take me with you.
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strialternatives · 3 months ago
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bonus:
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:inhales and slams hands on the desk: akechi. palace. pitch.
disclaimer: the setting for this is all about vibes and aesthetics, it kinda got away from me when i started hashing out the plot around it two months ago so now we're here. in hell. (i'll probably have to make a secondary post i made wayyy too many concepts,)
yes i made an ost for this idea, here is a youtube playlist of chill european jazz
AU details under the cut-
Akechi Goro's palace is "Ampitheatrum Doloris”.
KEYWORDS: Akechi Goro, Tokyo Highcourt, Amphitheater
Akechi's psyche is a massive collection of locked doors, puzzles, and contradictions. He wants to be seen but not understood—heard but never known, ect. This makes his palace infiltration a waking nightmare (affectionate).
His palace is made up of five main layers. They each mirror a stage of grief:
1) There is the outer layer of with the appearance of a Venice-esque water canal maze, there is a door that must be opened to reach the entrance to infiltrate the second layer underneath the amphitheater. The puzzle's actually pretty sentimental and revolves around Akechi's interest in literature.
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(This layer is depression, Goro mourns what he lost and the fact that the choices he made for the sake of revenge ultimately led to nowhere. This is reflected in how desolate/meandering the outer layer feels, it is the largest and most time consuming part of the palace for this reason. It takes weeks to finish. AKA, Akira and Morgana have a terrible, no good, very bad month of May.) 
2) The Labyrinth under the amphitheater; it is full of shadows for the arena champion to use as fodder for the enjoyment of the masses. ‘Loki’ resides here—this layer’s theme loosely plays on the Minotaur myth. 
The only way to escape is through a pulley/elevator mechanism which leads to the surface after shattering the Champion’s chains by force. Loki taunts in Old Norse, but gives Akira (and the party by extension) genuine hints on how to escape.
(This layer is anger, Goro is always angry, about the hand he’s been dealt, the futility of his own actions, and the fact that his life has always been a dead end, written in the stars.)
3) The Audience Stands; full of human cognitions and Akechi’s former clients and fans, despite everything, like Sae, he sees them as ‘people’ and is disgusted by them. Their compliments are shallow and empty, surface level like Goro’s facade. Cognition Sae is delegated to a middle manager-type role, and leads Akira and Co. through puzzles.
Different cognitions from Akechi’s shitshow of a childhood throw riddles based around philosophy and the nature of justice at the party, if the answer is ‘wrong’, there’s a mini-boss fight. Answering everything correctly yields a prize—a key, this process is made difficult by all of Robin’s ‘hints’ (which the Thieves can directly ask for) being lies.
(Bargaining. Goro always thought he could still salvage his revenge despite his enemy being essentially invincible, even now deep down he thinks he can salvage all the effort and sacrifices he put in.)
4) The Stage; Robin Hood appears proper instead of in cameo appearances, this is the lead actor's stage. To earn the right to stand with him, Akira has to have to prove his worth in one-on-one combat while showing the crowd a rousing show. The goal is to use the key obtained in the bargaining layer to unlock the Performer's cuffs.
(Denial, Goro doesn’t believe he needs or deserves saving or a life outside of his revenge, he believes there is no other way forward.)
Hereward and the 'treasure' are in the Imperial box area, which I'll save for part 2 of this I think! The second half of this'll have less focus on the environments and more on general plot and character design.
EDIT: here's part two and part three
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maxknightley · 1 year ago
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I've always hated the "labyrinth" vs. "maze" distinction because it makes the original myth of the minotaur completely incoherent.
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suzie-guru · 8 months ago
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Despite the heavy rain in Grand Rapids, I took myself out and about and finally made it to where @hellenhighwater’s breathtaking and deeply moving work for ArtPrize, “Old Stories”, was being displayed.
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It was thrilling to see all of this in person after watching their progression on @hellenhighwater’s tumblr. I kept wanting to grab others and go “Make sure to follow their tumblr! It’s a treasure trove!”
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The pieces that moved me the most are incontestably the ones featuring the Minotaur - after Medusa, his story is the most tragic of the Greek Myths to me and these pieces made me ache for him even more. I fell in love with these statues through watching the progression of their creation, but seeing them in person? All I could think of is how badly he deserved to be rescued, saved from his imprisonment, his loneliness. It hit me like a gut punch.
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Which is why I loved the third and final piece for his story so much. The original ending will always be told, but on the other end of the labyrinth, there’s a more hopeful, gentler ending where the walls crack and crumble, and Asterion steps out and away from his prison, gets to see the stars and feel the sun…
The piece I didn’t expect to move me so deeply was Narcissus.
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As it says on the artist’s statement for the piece, in a mythos full of capricious gods, ravaging heroes, and half-human monsters, Narcissus’ only crime was being beautiful and solitary. How many girls have had to deal with the same persistence and accusations of coldness? Can’t he have the same protectiveness we give them? I never would have thought such things, but this work opened my mind. Thank you for that, @hellenhighwater.
Please, if you’re able to do so, come to Grand Rapids and see all of the works in person, especially @hellenhighwater’s! And vote for them!!!
Now, I’m off to write that story about Ariadne and Asterion being siblings that I always wanted to get around to…
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kneelingshadowsalome · 1 year ago
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Minotaur!König x Ariadne!Reader Theseus is dead. You’re escorting the Minotaur, more beast than a man, out of the Labyrinth. The problem is, he seems to be more interested in what’s between your legs than in his mission of killing the notorious king of Crete… (12 k. Minotaur is not an actual hybrid in this fic. Reader is Hecate’s initiate. Part 1 here.) Tags/warnings: Shameless smut mdni, dubious consent, extremely possessive behaviour, abduction, first time (König & reader are both virgins), hugs & cuddles, washing blood off your monster boyfriend, awkward flirting, semi-rough sex, shifting power dynamics, sexist insults & slurs (the citizens of Crete do not approve of your choices), implied cannibalism, fluffy ending. Mythical AU.
The candle goes out before you reach the surface.
To someone else, it would be the end of the world: to you, it’s only a hindrance, a nuisance, mostly. 
You’re not easily distressed. If you were, you wouldn’t be in the service of the greatest goddess of the Underworld. And you’re not mourning losing the sight of your warmly illuminated beast... You’re only worried about what he will do once the darkness descends. Whether he will forget about his vow, whether the baser instincts take over him once the darkness falls.
And darkness is not capable of making you lost: you can always follow the string in your hand. But without light, it’s difficult to predict the Bull’s moves: whether he decides to maim or fuck you against the wall, you can never tell. He hasn’t lived in the real world among people; he doesn’t know what’s right or wrong and what’s expected of him. Even the best of men can succumb to the demands of the flesh, so what power would a Bull Man have against his animal wants? No one ever taught him to respect the gods, let alone the maidens who serve them...
Then again, if a simple candle was the only thing that kept you alive, then what’s the point of lamenting the loss of it? Your life was already forfeit when you chose to descend here.
So you let it go: as always, the greatest lesson in life is to simply let go. Of control, of judgment, of fear, of hope. 
He doesn’t say a thing when the light flickers, then fades. The candle goes out in silence, and you let it drop before the remaining wax burns your palm.
And it’s not the absence of light, but strength, that forces you on your knees before even an hour has passed. There’s still a long way to go, and the yarn is like a thin string of hope in your hand, but you’re too exhausted, too worn out, too hungry and too tired to go on.
The Bull Man doesn’t object to your suggestion to lay down and sleep for a while. He has walked behind you in silence the whole day. Or night… You can’t tell the difference; you lost count somewhere along the way down here. The air is stale and humid, and there’s no torch, not a single candle anywhere and even if there were, you wouldn’t do anything with them without a flint. 
The horror is kept at bay only through your numerous exercises with the goddess who introduced you to darkness many, many moons ago. You were initiated during the dark Moon, the new Moon, the blood Moon, introduced to the mysteries of the maiden, mother and crone, to the secrets of both the living and the dead. You’re not afraid, but your body still warns you of danger: you just don’t know if it’s a memory from childhood or a reaction to the Bull, panting behind you – out of lust or exertion, you don’t even know. Someone who wasn’t a maiden probably could tell… At times, you curse the fact that there hasn’t been a single phallus inside you because men too possess knowledge. Taking a man into your bed would have initiated you to a different set of mysteries, but now, you are poking blind. 
The Bull Man is an animal, you remind yourself. The longer you stay in his company, the more he starts to resemble a human, even if he is a man of few words. How he even remembers them is another mystery: you thought he was sent down here as a young boy. He speaks oddly but eloquently, a remnant of his noble descent, perhaps. Or perhaps he has listened to the people speaking in the Labyrinth, eavesdropped his victims an hour or two before killing them. Whatever the reason, you have to constantly tie your tongue because there’s simply no point in talking to a beast. The less you know about him and his past, the better.
You ready yourself for sleep, but the cursed cold of the tunnels keeps your body awake. Your flesh is human even if your mind is forged to withstand hunger, thirst and pain. Endurance against cold was never your strong suit, and you miss the heat of the sun, the warmth of it on your skin, even the ample light it gives. You, a lover of the moon, missing the heat of Apollo… It’s a joke, surely.
On the stone floor, it’s even colder, the rough, damp ground making your very bones ache. How on Hecate’s name has the beast survived this place?
“Bull Man,” you speak into the darkness, thick like an impenetrable wall and thin like a virgin’s veil.
“Maiden,” he echoes with a dark, low growl, slightly amused by the name you’ve selected for him.
“Are you cold?” You whisper.
Perhaps he doesn’t quite understand the question or why you asked it. It doesn’t matter: you have to swallow your pride and ask for his help if you’re going to survive this dark prison.
“I don’t get cold,” he finally responds.
“Good. I need your heat.” 
The silence drags on, and you fear he has misunderstood you again, but then he speaks again, with the same slightly amused tone as before.
“Come take it.”
You’re not sure if you’ve completely lost your mind, crawling to him through the uneven floor of the Labyrinth. Who knows what he will do to you once he gets those arms of iron around you? You’re placing your maidenhood, your whole body at his mercy. And you’re not even sure if it’s a he, if this thing is human at all. 
Human or animal, your hand meets the bull’s head on the way to him. He has taken it off, then... It’s not a part of him, just like you suspected. Maybe he is just a giant, daunting man, born from whatever forbidden desire Pasiphae had. Who knows if she only went to a foreign lover’s arms when her husband was at war? Who knows if King Minos has trouble getting his phallus up… These things happen: women get pregnant from their lovers, they do desperate things to pacify their husbands. And you don’t need a bull to get yourself an heir...
You feel his heat before you feel his skin: the Minotaur is verily blazing. He has gotten used to the cold, it seems, his body like a small bonfire in the clammy tunnel. 
“Cold little female,” he comments when you snuggle towards him shyly, thoroughly aware of the uninviting chill of your body. 
You settle next to him, every muscle in your body tight like a bowstring, your breaths shallow when he gives you a welcoming rumble. Goosebumps prickle across your skin and your throat goes dry, the thick swallow in the tunnel echoing around you like a thief.
Arms like iron go around you, and his body is taut, just like yours, but for a whole different reason entirely. He’s not afraid or nervous; he’s just… big. Pure muscle, his whole body thick, the stock and heat of him remind you of the sun. A miniature sun down here in these dark tunnels, but while you start to slowly soften in his arms, a different threat is already emerging. It doesn’t take long before his cock stiffens against you, and with the scarce clothing you both have, you can feel its every excited twitch.
Artemis… Protect me from this beast. Turn him into a dog if he tries to penetrate me. Let him rip my throat instead�� 
You’ve never prayed to the Virgin Goddess; you don’t know if she can even hear you from down here. But Hecate would only laugh if this Bull decided to breed you. No mercy would arrive from that direction: she would either send a disease of blisters upon the Minotaur for touching her chosen or then she would cackle like an old woman, thousand times raped.
“Thank you,” you whisper, hoping your kindness will distract him from what’s happening downstairs.
“My pleasure,” he grumbles, mimicking the words he probably heard as a child in his father’s great hall. 
It sends a chill down your spine and butterflies into your heart to hear him speak like a polite man of court. And again, you think of asking him about his childhood... His mother, his father, the things he remembers from the surface. How he survived here without water, if there are underground springs here somewhere. Whether he eats humans like they say... If he ever embraced the dead women he killed. 
“Can you do it again,” he rumbles against you, cutting you away from your grotesque thoughts.
“...Do what again?” 
“Touch me… With your hand.”
His words are blunt now, his speech clumsy. But the way he says it is not an order. It’s an odd beg, more like. Laced with hope and wishes far away from greed. This Bull is never greedy, per se… He’s just lacking. Starved, for so many things that you fear there’s not enough time nor kindness to give him what he needs.
Your pulse flutters when you slowly lift your hand and caress the strong cords of muscle that make his neck. The rumbling returns; it turns into a low purr as the beast relaxes under your touch. Something softens inside you when he sighs from relief. His unbridled happiness tugs at your heart, trying to yank open something forbidden. It’s the softest violation you’ve ever felt: to be held by a giant killer having a roaring erection, while the said killer clearly enjoys your caress like it’s the touch of Aphrodite herself…
You even stroke his face. His jaw, unclenching under your touch; his cheek, covered with what you suppose is simply a wild, overgrown beard. 
“Your hand,” he groans softly, “makes me sleepy and warm…”
The cold, uncaring goddess recedes. The burdens of past, present and future dissolve. Softness takes place in your heart; the iron locks give in like brittle brass. A smile plays on your lips as you continue to pet him softly, lulling you both to sleep with your voice.
“Then sleep, Bull of Crete...”
You wake up to his cock pressing against you.
Not against your stomach like when you went to sleep – that you could do with – but against your cunt, barely veiled by the thin linen of your dress.
The panic is soon wrestled down with reason: you tell yourself it’s just a cock. It’s just him. You’re simply in the Minotaur’s arms, and he’s sound asleep still; there’s no reason to buck and jerk and scream. 
The darkness feels like a safe womb now, but with nothing to lock your gaze to, you have to take a moment to ground yourself into reality. And the first thing you ground into is a thick cockhead, pressing fast into your nether lips. He’s practically at the gates, and you’re lucky he’s still asleep.
It’s perhaps your fault this happened in the first place: you notice you’ve dragged your thigh over his hip; as if wanting him to fuck you in your sleep… You embrace him like Helen of Troy, and he holds you through his sleep like a man in love, perfectly content with napping on the cold ground with you.
“Mm…” The beast stirs, probably noticing how the female in his arms is tense as a rod. “You smell like you want to fuck…”
“No I don’t,” you hurry to whisper.
Gods curse this man’s ability to smell everything from miles away. Blood and humans and, apparently, a woman at her most receptive. 
What if he can actually smell the wetness between your legs?
“We need to go,” you slowly remove your leg from on top of his waist, hoping it would go unnoticed that you were clutching him like a lover. You have no such luck: he grabs your thigh and draws it back, sets it safe and snug around his waist while adjusting his grip on you, now hugging you entirely like a lover would.
“I want to mate with you,” he says softly. “You want to mate too. Why go?”
He sounds so adorable when he’s still in the process of waking up to a new day. Drowsy and sweet, voice husky from sleep, body warm as can be, the hard-on between his legs happy and stiff.
“I thought you wanted to kill the king,” you try to point out. 
“This is more important,” he gruffs. “Urgent.”
The cock pushes further up and against you, now spreading your folds under the dress, trying to penetrate into your heat. Your eyes go wide as thick need pools down to meet his greed. His body, his cock makes your head go dull for a moment; you feel like you’re not even capable of thinking actual thoughts.
“No, it’s not. We need to get up.”
You stiffen in his arms, push yourself away, and to your surprise, he actually lets you go. Reluctantly and with a hollow grunt, but he lets you go. 
You rise with a wobble, and adjust your dress, your head spinning from his advances. You swear he becomes more man-like every day, every passing hour, even. Or is it just you who’s changing…? 
The Bull Man is up before you get to ponder on that thought for too long. Your heart and head struggle to find their footing for a moment, your legs are so weak you feel like fainting. He catches you before you fall, the warm, thick arms closing around you with stout affection.
“You need more heat?” He asks softly.
You look up out of habit, even if you can't see his eyes, covered by the carcass again because his voice is muffled.
“No… I’m hungry.”
He’s silent for a moment, probably thinking what he could do to help the situation. You fear he will suggest you go back to visit his “pantry” and eat whatever horrible, half-rotten man-flesh he might have in store there, but he only holds you close to prevent you from sliding back to the ground.
“Hmm. No mice up here,” he ponders. 
“You eat mice…?”
“Sometimes.”
You leave it at that: you don’t want to know what he’s had to do to sustain himself down here. You don’t even have a fire to cook the vermin, even if you would be ready to eat even those after another day or two without food. 
“Not a long way up,” he says. “We will reach the sun soon. Then I’ll find you something to eat.”
“How do you know that…?”
“The air smells different.”
You sigh and search for the string, your lifeline to the outside world. You can’t wait to get out of here, and with both hurry and an odd dread, you hike for what seems like another whole day. Tension, hunger and thirst distort your thoughts, and you’re sure by now that the time flows differently here in the Underworld. With no small amount of pride, you feel accomplished to have survived this place so far. Even gods have had to do some tricks to escape the nether worlds: it is no small feat to charm the Minotaur and then walk out of here unharmed. 
To your knowledge, you’re the only one who has ever escaped the Labyrinth. You haven’t even had time to think about what you will unleash with you… The demon that walks on your heels will take his revenge, not only on the king but on the city who threw him here. 
Well. It’s their problem now. Minos and Pasiphae simply have to deal with their successor. The world will simply have to deal with the Underworld’s wrath. 
And oh, how Hecate would laugh if she saw this monster prince of Crete escape his prison because of you – the feared Minotaur set free, only because he’s mesmerized by a woman. You suspect he would have his cock jumping for any girl, though. It's not because you're an exceptional sorceress that he follows you: it's your cunt he's after. And it shouldn’t make you feel jealous that he probably gets distracted the moment he sees a better offer walk by.
But it does. In your darkest wishes, you would keep the Bull Man all to yourself. Get him a leash, perhaps... Feed him with your own hands and let him grope you in the dark, watch him go wild from lust when you finally give him access to your cunt. 
Many would hardly think you’re a virgin if they took a peek inside your head. But the things you’ve seen and done, the white bulls you’ve slaughtered for the dark Goddess, adorning them with cypress wreaths before slashing their throats open, would turn any woman bleak and twisted like this. For once, you would like to save the bull from slaughter.
When you see the first evidence of light, your body lets out a sigh it has been holding ever since you arrived here. Seeing the sun gives you more strength than any food or meal, and you pick up your pace while the Minotaur behind you begins to hesitate. 
“It’s too bright,” he says before you’ve even walked out of the tunnel, now turning into a vast cave, the entrance to the Labyrinth. 
You turn around to look and stop in your tracks when you see the fear in his eyes is acute. It’s mixed with wonder, the curiosity wrestling away doubt slowly but surely. He only needs a little nudge, a gentle pull, an enticing little smile and eyes that he can trust.
“You’ll get used to it soon,” you extend your hand. 
He takes a step, then another, then another, until he reaches your outstretched fingers, and hand in hand you walk out of the Labyrinth and into the bright morning sun, burning over the kingdom of Crete.
He’s only a breath away from panicking, but covers it well. You wonder if it’s truly the light that’s too bright or if the feeling of being so exposed is what makes him so afraid. Clearly, the vast space opening up before him is intimidating. 
There are grassy plains as far as the eye can see, little hills that dot the horizon, and skies so expansive and bright it must hurt his eyes. Goats are grazing under the sun, trees are bending in the wind, the rustling of leaves and the sound of birds calling him to look in all directions as he tries to make some sense of his surroundings.
“It’s alright,” you give his palm a soft squeeze, and the way he looks there under the sun, so big and powerful and able, and still so utterly lost, is giving you heartache you haven’t known since you were a child.
“There’s… so many colours,” he says, looking at the blue summer sky, the deep olive greens, the dirty whiteness of the goats, the flowers upon the grass. A butterfly, flying past, yellow like the citrus that people harvest from a few miles from here. A big blackbird with an orange beak, swooping down to catch a cricket, the slate grey pigeons flying so close to the sun that he has to shield his eyes even if they’re already safe and sheltered under the bull head.
Seeing his wonder and awe makes you look at the scenery so differently that it burns, it actually hurts: there’s so much beauty in the world, and you have always taken it for granted. Cursed the rain and the storms, cursed the droughts, cursed the gods for sending down another famine, when in truth, the world was filled with abundance, of colours, of life and joy… And all you’ve done is worship darkness. Now the darkness is out: it’s standing next to you, watching the view of your mundane everyday life like it’s nothing short of a miracle.
And when you turn back to look at him again, his eyes are upon you.
“What?” You ask, freshly caught in your moment of weakness.
“You are pretty,” he says, eyes wrinkling with delight under the mask. 
Gods damn him… 
He doesn’t know that human men don’t act like this, talk like this, or if they do, there’s usually something vile involved behind it all. He doesn’t know how to play games, he was never introduced to the lies and deceit of the world.
The Bull of Crete only looks at you with soft fondness in his stare – he doesn’t understand that he should cover that softness as well if he intends to win. Any woman could put a leash on him before another moon has passed, but he doesn’t seem to care. And it’s not even heat or hunger that makes you weak this time... It’s those eyes, looking at you with more and more warmth.
“Nonsense,” you huff without a voice, and turn towards the old road with an adoring bull on your heels.
The cold sigh of the underworld is quickly left behind you as you walk up the old carriage road, nearly grown in with weeds. The Labyrinth is located miles away from civilization, but the people living in these hills are used to the cold cave by now. They trust that the Minotaur will never escape and only turn away their heads and close the doors of their huts when the screaming, crying human sacrifices are delivered to the mouth of the cave. Little do they know that the monster is now looking at their little hills and goats with delight, not bloodlust.
For the Minotaur is fascinated with your world: he has to touch every leaf, every tree, every blade of grass, it seems. The goats are afraid of him, but one small nanny is bold enough to come and sniff his hand. Perhaps it remembers that beings walking on two feet give her apples sometimes, and the giant studies this small white animal with gentle curiosity, allows the goat to smell his hand, only chuckles when the goat gives out a little scoff when she notices there are no treats to be found there.
The vision is more adorable than when you’ve seen children play with kittens, and no matter what you do, you can’t turn your heart into ice anymore. You were taught that the Minotaur is a monster who enjoys torturing his victims, creatures far more helpless than him. Now you see him watching the she-goat with warm curiosity, rumbling softly inside his helm, far from the ravaging beast that approached you in that tunnel what seems like months ago.
You watch him with tender sadness as he marvels at the sky and remembers how he used to sit in the shade of an olive tree when he was a child. He goes to sit there now and examines how the sun filters through the massive branches of the tree as if trying to recall the memory. 
He asks questions like: “How can you humans stand this heat?” or “Why is there only one road?” and listens to your answers carefully.
He says he can smell the sea, even if the salty water is miles and miles away, and gets curious about what’s behind that hill, or that one, what about that one… You wonder if he’s even interested in killing the king anymore and suggest that he could just forget about this cruel place and buy himself a sea voyage with that expensive sword. He could get rid of his helmet and ask if anyone needs a goat herd or an able-bodied man to help at construction sites or stables; he could get work from the docks any day, sail to Athens or some other big city, forge himself a new life. 
But he doesn’t want to.
He says he has to avenge his mother who always cried when he was little.
More wretched tugs pull at your heart as you approach the city. The lovely summer’s day turns into a nightmare once people see who’s on his way to the heart of Crete.
You don’t understand their screams, not anymore, while only a few days ago you knew they preceded death. The Minotaur doesn’t kill anyone, mainly because he doesn’t have to. Everyone flees before his wake, people rush to their homes and bar the doors, even soldiers slip away to be with their loved ones or run to warn the king if they have any loyalty left. 
You’re left to walk through the marketplace in settling dust and tense silence as the Bull Man explores the abundant samples of food on display. He has to have a taste of everything from all stands, but only after he has offered figs, olives, grain, grapes, grilled meat and fish to you first.
“Eat,” he says and shoves a handful of pine seeds your way. “You were hungry?”
“This is not the way to–” you ignore the food only through sheer willpower. “This is not right. People own these things. They sell them at the market, you need to pay for these.”
“Pay? With what?”
He looks at you for a moment, unable to recall what money is and how these things are supposed to work. He probably had his mother’s servants bring him everything he needed as a child anyway, so how could he know? 
“They will take your hands for stealing,” you try to explain with softly building despair.
“I will take their heads before that.”
“The next king will hunt you down and punish you,” you rush after him, and when he won’t listen, you seize his hand and finally get him to halt. He looks down at the weak palm around his wrist, then raises his gaze to you.
“Bulls don’t have kings.”
Your attempts to tame him are futile. The things they’ve taught him to be are now being used as a way to escape responsibility, and while it’s none of your business, you refuse to let him believe that he is nothing more than an animal.
“You are not a bull,” you wail in frustration. “You’re a man.”
He hesitates, only for a moment; the gentle, loving gaze makes your legs weak.
“You’re the first to think that.” 
Then he rips himself away from you, softly but sternly.
He doesn’t need directions to the palace: he knows he has to head for the most prominent building in the city to reach the king. The grandiose heart of Crete, white-chalked and beautiful under the burning midday sun is the pride of every citizen, even if it houses another monster.
You sigh as you watch him go: the Bull Man, the demon of the underworld, the one you thought would rape you bloody before you get to crawl out of the Labyrinth. The fact that he wanted to kill his father more than he wanted to be born again into a new life wasn’t a surprise, but that he chose to bloody his sword rather than his cock is somehow... insulting, almost. 
What actually haunts you is how your insides coil and turn when you rush back to your temple. It’s not like you thought the Minotaur would take you with him. Board some trade ship bound for distant shores, and ravage you ever so softly in the belly of the creaking hull. It’s not like you dreamed of petting him to sleep while you two embark on a new life. But the way your heart twists and wails inside your chest makes it clear that losing him is even more painful than losing Theseus and the life he promised you. 
You never even wanted Theseus; you only wanted him to take you away from here. His affection would have been the result of ample witchcraft at best.
He’s practically already dead, and your heart turns to stone far more slowly than you would prefer. It’s just your luck to first have the golden hero of Greece look down on you in disdain, and then witness even the Bull Man walk away from you like you never meant anything to him. Men killing each other is the oldest story in the world, and you want no part in it, but something in this beast has stirred you awake from a long, cold slumber. It’s infuriating that you can’t dispel a simple animal from your heart. Oldest story in the book, that one, too…
But oh, how you now yearn after some cruel, lowly, dirty beast… The Minotaur already owns you, and he never even had to plunge his sword inside you to prove that. Besides, you would’ve been perfectly willing had he decided to take you on the green grass, under the vast sky, while some noisy goats graze around you. You realize that that’s what you expected to happen, and when it didn’t, you’re left more than disappointed: you're left completely hollow. You always find out these things a little too late, it seems… The Bull is headed for the palace and will likely get killed after he slaughters his cruel father. There’s at least thirty spears in that building, and more will arrive when called.
You arrive at the temple, panting and with your body flushed and weak. The maidens at the entrance share a quick glance with each other before turning their fearful gazes back to you. They’re the youngest arrivals, not even initiates yet; one of them hardly even bleeds. 
“The King is dead,” you announce without bothering to even greet them, and the girls huddle up together like they’re a bunch of slaves about to get slapped.
You realize you must look like an animal with your dirty robes, dishevelled hair and your wild, alive stare. No wonder they look like they’ve seen a ghost... You basically are one, coming back from the dead like this.
“What?” 
A priestess arrives at the threshold like an image of Hecate herself, dressed in robes as black as the midnight sky, but you don’t shy away from her like you used to.
“Or he will be. Soon. The Minotaur is here.” 
“How did you… How did it...”
You’ve never seen the priestess in disarray. She’s always composed, cold and distant, but seeing you like the wraith that you are, freshly escaped from the Labyrinth, spat back from the bowels of the earth like the dark gods didn’t even want you there, makes even the greatest of Hecate’s servants a little uneasy. 
She gathers what’s left of her dignity and finds her most commanding voice. Sadly, it doesn’t have the power to shake the ground anymore.
“Where is Theseus of Athens?”
“Disemboweled… is my best guess,” you say in a listless voice, then turn your head toward the smell of fresh fruit.
Normally, you would walk these halls with dignity, but now, you simply barge in and grab the first piece of food you find. You ought to get whipped for your insolence, but no one dares to raise a hand against you. The maids and priestesses stare in shock as you eat and drink like a starved prisoner. You’re a living Hecate in certain aspects, your arrival the first toll of the bell of doom as the palace guards sound the alarm.
So…
The Minotaur has reached the king.
The priestesses deem it only logical that the King finally pays for his sins: the gods have been offended by the number of human sacrifices sent to the Labyrinth, and this is their way of exacting revenge. You were only an instrument of their will.
After a quick wash and some more food, you begin to feel like a human again. The maids bring you a new chiton, flowing and white: your old clothes are burned in a brazier as if that would help you forget.
And this might be the only place you don’t get blamed for unleashing a monster. You were at a crossroads with the Minotaur, and anyone would have done the same: try to talk him out of his killing spree, calm him down, entice him with a gift. No one expected that the beast could even speak, so your approach was unusual, perhaps, but it worked. Hecate guided you through the tunnels, even when the candle went out, she stilled the Bull’s loins until you reached the sunlight where the beast got distracted with other things. You leave out the Minotaur's attraction to birds, bees and butterflies because your story is unbelievable enough as it is.
But the Minotaur will be slain after he has done his deed: Minos is the one who should be punished, not the city of Crete. And it is only just to put down this beast, a mercy.
So when he appears between the pillars of temple, this time wholly covered in blood, people are bound to scream. Even the priestesses who are used to seeing blood, shriek like widows when the Minotaur steps inside the holy shrine of Hecate.
“Where is the maiden of the crossroads?”
He came back for you, after all…
The boom of his voice is familiar, and yet, you cower on the bench when you hear it. The Minotaur sounds like he’s an envoy of Hades himself, and while you’re not among those who scream and yell, it still sends shivers down your spine to hear him speak like that.
Or is it the excitement, a tiny flame of hope that makes you quiver like this?
“We all belong to the goddess,” someone peeps, the Minotaur now descending down the stairs.
The massive head turns, gaze like razor sweeping across the marbled shrine. You’re so far back that he can’t catch you, sitting behind many bodies and faces, and before you can force yourself to rise, the main priestess, the oldest, most crooked of the crones, steps forth to meet this beast.
“This is a House of Hecate,” she speaks. “No man is allowed to enter unless they are Death.”
The black carcass turns, but the priestess doesn’t waver. If anything, her spine turns into unbreakable metal before this man’s gaze.
“I am Death,” he says, far more gently than anyone would expect. Then he walks past the crone like she’s just a harmless elder. No one does a thing, because even the head of your temple is powerless now.
“She had a red string and a candle. Where is she?”
He grabs the first woman he sees, and you rise up before he decides it’s time to thrust his blade into someone to loosen the tongues of these women. 
“Please,” you take a hesitant step towards your Bull. “I’m here... I’m the one you’re looking for.”
The Minotaur lets go of the frightened initiate the instant he sees you. She’s shoved aside with little interest, the blue eyes behind the corpse now solely fixed on you. The way they soften into hazy ice makes your knees weak – that’s the stare of someone who recognizes their loved one among a thick, dull crowd…
“Come with me,” he extends a hand when he reaches you, strong legs swallowing tiles like he’s in a hurry to get back to you. You open your mouth, close it, and look at his hand, the rough, enormous palm held out for you to place your own little hand in.
“You belong to me,” he says with great weight when you don’t speak. It should spark the ire of the goddess for him to dare to talk to you like this… But mostly, your body sings. It tells you to take a step and take his hand: to let him have you, once and for all. 
“My place is here,” you utter, all power gone from your voice. All your dreams, all your fears are offering their hand to you with his, and the maidens, mothers and crones of this hall look upon your exchange with the Bull Man in stupefied silence. 
“You were sent down to me,” he presses on. “You are mine now. You belong to me.”
Your body is singing, singing, singing.
It’s not a request… Or a proposal. 
It’s a god, taking what’s his.
You swallow with nothing in your throat and look at the head priestess with helpless misery: she looks back with the eyes of a noxious Medusa, wholly dispassionate to the problems you brought upon yourself. And what could she even do? She’s unarmed against the claims of Hades: Death is now in love with you, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it. 
He doesn’t want to stay in the city, as enchanting as it is, saying that it stinks and that he’s tired of the screams. No one wants him here; he already knows that, and the task he was meant to do is done. He doesn’t seem to be much moved by it either, only asking you if there is a place where he can wash the blood off himself. 
People become more bold when they see you walk out of the city. Not even the sight of a crimson demigod makes them watch their tongues. Insults and slurs follow you through the streets, shouts such as “Kingslayer!” and “Beast!” are accompanied with curses such as “You are an abomination!” and “Go back to your lair!” 
No one treats him as their prince and savior, no one sees him as the man he truly is. And because hatred thickens in crowds, you get your share of the insults as well. 
What kind of a woman would follow a beast like him? Have you sold your soul to the demons of the desert, or has Hades himself forced you to be with this monster? Are you behind the murder of their king?
“Must I remind you?” You turn on your heels, standing tall and proud with the posture of a queen. “According to the old laws, the one who slays the king is the next to rule.” 
“You led him out of the Labyrinth, didn’t you?” the voices ask.
“Gave him your cunt, too,” they sneer.
“You’re worse than the bloody Gorgon,” they mock, but you have a thick skin: if anything, you take it as a compliment to be referred to the mighty slayers of men.
What cuts through your heart is the filth and hate they spit at him, the man who has known nothing but loath since he was born. 
“Hecate’s whore… I should kill you first,” one soldier shouts with spit running down his chin.
The citizens of Crete would never hail the Minotaur as their king, but none can say the deed didn’t prove great strength. Some would even call it justice. He is the queen’s son, after all: he’s more royal than any of these dung-stinking peasants will ever be. He should never have been sent down to those tunnels in the first place.
Before you know it, the Minotaur swoops past you in haste, diving towards the screaming crowd with hunched shoulders and a fiery breath.
“Stop,” you say, and he halts immediately, gaze still directed to the one who called you a whore. The soldiers back away along with the peasants and tradesmen, these poor, humble Cretes who act like they never meant to be so mean.
“Let us go in peace,” you command, voice unwavering and stern. “Or I will curse you all. You and your families, down to the seventh son and seventh daughter.”
That manages to shut them up. The threat of a curse frightens these poor beasts even more than the enraged Minotaur breathing fire through his helm. No one wants rot and puke to follow them wherever they go; no one wants to doom their offspring with illness, death and sorrow. They disperse in all directions and only hiss and whisper as they go.
You spit on the ground as your last gift to these people, leaving the city of Crete with the ever-adoring Bull at your heels.
“You’re even prettier when you’re angry,” he says while walking next to you, voice thick with genuine passion and awe.
You roll your eyes: any man would cower before Hecate’s curse, but this one? This one only gets more horny. 
“Perhaps you are part bull after all,” you retort dryly.
“It takes more than one spear to kill me,” he boasts, but you don’t need more proof of his prowess. Surely, people have tried to kill him in the Labyrinth, but he’s survived every single attempt on his life – for that alone, he should be a decorated hero.
The only thing that makes you annoyed, however, is this childish need to prove he could’ve taken the whole city by himself just because some man happened to call you a slut.
“Mother said I’m a monster instead of a man,” he says, completely unaware that your snap wasn't meant as a compliment. He says it like he’s partly proud of it, and you finally sigh and turn. 
“Your mother was heartless. And wrong.”
The Minotaur only looks at you with a building passion that goes straight to your loins.
“But you’re not.”
“...What?”
“Heartless.”
You feel stripped naked before him, the way his eyes seem to burn away your poor dress. But the fact that he unearths your most guarded secret, just like that, is a catastrophe of a far wider scale.
You’re not sure who’s tied to whom anymore… Or if you’re tied to each other, the gods now laughing in their wine as they look down at you two: a fierce and bloodied giant following the maiden he stole like it’s you who took him and not the other way around.
You reach the roaring waters of a waterfall in silence, the night wrapping the lands inside a dark blue veil. Stars will be visible soon, and with the moon creeping up to the sky, you won’t be needing candles tonight. The silver mistress gives plenty of light for you to admire your beast, and compared to the thick darkness of the tunnels you emerged from this morning, it feels like a generous blessing.
You sit on the banks of the small, clear pond, utterly exquisite at nightfall. The sun’s heat has turned into a warm, caressing breeze, and you submerge your feet into the water, giving out a satisfied sigh as the cool pond embraces your travel worn feet. The Bull sinks to a crouch some distance away from you, curious about your obvious moment of pleasure.
“Did you meet her…? Your mother?” You ask from the cool water lapping at your feet – how can a simple man make you feel so restless and shy?
“Did you… kill her?” 
“She cursed me,” he says, sullen and wholly unsurprised. Time and time again, you are shocked by the hatred his own kin shows him. How can a mother be so cruel?
“How could I kill my own maker?”
“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “For everything.” 
You swallow before such unwavering love. The same man who cursed the gods yesterday  honours the womb he came from so much that he won’t raise a hand against it, not even when his own mother spits curses at him. You don’t know if it’s his greatest strength or biggest weakness, but sometimes you wonder if he’s more human than humans, this beast.
“I’m not,” he retorts immediately. “The king is dead. Mother is safe. I have you... This is the best day of my life.”
You turn to look at him. Time and again, the lack of lies and deceit in this man catches you off guard. It’s more painful than any wound, to see how the Minotaur has no protective skin against the corrupted human nature, that he is human nature before it was defiled.
“Let’s get you cleaned up,” you falter. 
The chiton pools around your ankles, and you wonder if the man even breathes anymore. You know your skin is glowing with the last rays of the setting sun, you’re aware that the water and moonlight play upon your skin and make you look like an illusion, powerful in its own way.
When have you ever faltered…? Back when you were a little girl, you reckon, the notion euphoric and eerie in your bones.
You rise up and undress before him nonchalantly, trying to ignore the fervid stare of your admirer. Unclasping the brooches holding up your white linen dress, you let it fall down and set you free, secretly reveling in the downright carnal stare now glued to your skin. 
Ripe for plucking, you think while stepping out of the pile of cloth and into the thin evening air. His gaze feasts on you: the plump breasts no one ever loved, the vulnerable navel down below, the dark triangle between your legs, the secret power it holds.
Heat pools into your core as you watch him: everything in your body turns warm and soft when you take in the utter heftiness of him. The mean, swelling phallus between his legs, the near inhuman strength those shoulders and chest possess. Your body is the complete opposite of him, ethereal, almost, compared to the absolute brute strength before you. 
His eyes linger there the longest until he rises too, stiff and dreamy, a beast entirely taken by a thrall. The loincloth is practically torn away, as if it’s only a nuisance he must get rid of immediately. His eyes never leave your shape while he bares himself, and the phallus, you notice, belongs to a human. It’s thick and wondrous, fully erect, adorned with dark curls and accompanied by a set of balls you’ve mainly seen on horses. Big, full and round but unlike animals, they’re covered in dark fur, almost black here in the evening light. Thick seed beads through the slit of his cock from simply seeing you, and the way his chest heaves makes it clear that this man is ready to mate as soon as he’s allowed to do so. 
“You need to take off your helm,” you lift your chin, thoroughly aware of your power over him, even if it’s laughable, a miracle that he doesn’t fuck you on the spot like the animal he is. “You’re a man, not a bull.”
His eyes don’t betray any kind of hesitation. He doesn’t seem to be interested in whether he wears his mask or not. He just blinks as if he’s indeed under a spell and nods.
“If you say so.”
The broad muscles flex as he takes it off, and what is revealed to you from underneath the head is both a surprise and a disappointment. There’s not a monster under there, only a man, a stoic, boorish, shaggy male who’s in desperate need of a wash and a comb. He’s somewhat handsome under all that facial hair and knots, actually, not bad at all – if you like your men rugged and wild. 
He lets the head drop to the ground with a thud as if it was never a part of him at all, and follows you into the pool like you’re his mother and he’s your cub about to get scrubbed clean. 
He seems to dwarf you, even when half submerged in the pond, leaning back with a sigh not unlike yours. If you’re afraid, your body has a peculiar way of showing it: even in the clear, glossy water, you can feel yourself get wet. Never have you seen such strength, not in any man: in horror and awe, you realize he could be a descendant of Zeus himself. As if providing proof to these claims, he looks up to the sky, mesmerized by the myriad stars dotting the vast, unattainable blue.
Using this momentary distraction to your advantage, you reach to pluck a handful of moss from the bank. With this soft little sponge in your hand, you hope to make it clear that this is indeed a bath, not foreplay. 
“They’re stars,” you say softly while slinking closer to him. “Have you ever seen them...?”
“Yes,” he rasps with his head lolled back, throat completely exposed. It always hurts your heart to see that he trusts you so fully. You are no threat to him – even if the gods changed the moss in your hand into a weapon of some sort, you wouldn’t pose any kind of challenge. And still, the way he allows you to creep towards him and wipe his rough hide with the makeshift sponge without so much as flinching is heartbreaking. 
“I have forgotten…” his voice drifts off as he examines the night sky, eyes filled with distant, glass-like delight.
“Beautiful, aren’t they...?” 
“Your world is pretty,” he brings his gaze back to earth and to you. “But you’re the loveliest thing I’ve seen so far.”
You almost freeze upon hearing that. His compliments always catch you off guard, but this time, something forbidden and long forgotten comes undone: a lost want, no, a need to hear such simple words of shallow praise.
“You do not scream... You do not run. Why?”
Your eyes are liquid, glass about to break as you set yourself on the task of scrubbing him clean. You refuse to get emotional in front of him: an initiate of the dark goddess, shedding tears when a horny man calls her pretty? What utter nonsense.
But then he grabs your wrist: not to seize back power, but to prevent you from escaping this fragile moment.
“You are different,” he agrees calmly, then releases you, but you reckon it’s mostly because he misses the soft rubs you were giving him. 
“Perhaps I’m crazy,” you breathe while looking at the damp curls on his chest.
Yes… That’s the only explanation for this madness. It has to be.
“Is that why you took me?” 
“I took you because you’re mine. I want you.”
“You can’t just take what you want,” you warn softly.
“Why not?” His head tilts a little to the side as he’s trying to make sense of you and the manners of your world. “Don’t you want to be mine?”
You lift your gaze and risk a look into his eyes, stripped from all facades as always. You even catch a passing wave of worry there: he had counted on you being as fascinated with him as he is with you. The hunger behind that want, the need to be something special to you, is a whole another issue that must wait until your head is more clear. Way more clear…
“Perhaps,” you confess.
“I have nothing to give you,” he shrugs, eyes looking slightly past you this time, out of shame or anxiety. It takes a while for you to understand he’s liking you to the goods at the market and thinks he’s expected to have money to be able to keep you.
“You don’t need to pay for me,” you smile, trying your best to disguise the soft amusement in your voice. His brows only furrow as he tries to calculate and think.
“I don’t understand the rules of this world,” he finally shakes his head. 
“I’ll teach you.”
For a while, he only looks on with fascination how you rub his arms and belly, basically massaging him with the wet moss. His eyes drift closed when you scrub the back of his neck, the stout erection only getting thicker under the cool water. You’re careful with his legs, not because you’re afraid he’s ticklish but because you try to avoid touching the huge cock already jutting up from happiness. It gives a few excited bounces when you wash his inner thighs, hopeful to get its needs satiated soon. 
“I can hunt for you,” he suggests. “Bring you food… Protect you.”
He’s visibly excited when figuring out a way to give you something in return. He wants to provide offerings for your company, your lore, and eventually, your cunt, too. You might be a virgin, but you’re not stupid: of course he wants the soft, wet prize between your legs. A pair of lovely tits to squeeze at night... Ears to groan hushed confessions into, thighs to nibble, bite and suck until you cry... 
“What do you think?” He asks, breath heavy from the bliss you’re already granting him by simply giving him a bath. “I could give you my heat. Please you...”
“You know how to please women?” 
“No. But you could teach me.”
The way he says it is not shy. Only tentative. A bear, walking on ice and hoping it would carry his weight. One wrong step and the ice will swallow him, spitting out his bones only in spring. 
And then…
“Do you know how to fuck?”
The ice holds, mainly because you’re too shocked to even slap or ridicule this man. His eyes bore into you with such unbridled greed that you have trouble keeping your precious pride intact.
“Of course,” you hear yourself whisper like it would be an insult to your intellect if you didn’t.
“Teach me,” he says, ever more greedily.
“I…”
Your jaw is left open, but not a word comes out. A strong palm closes around your wrist again, this time to bring you flush against him. The water laps at your skin, a distant crow cackles somewhere. Your hand is brought to his phallus, but he doesn’t have to wrap your fingers around it: you do it all by yourself, breath locked in your throat as you feel how hard and blazing he is.
“You want my cock,” he says, mouth only an inch from yours. “Don’t you...?”
You wet your lips – a mistake, because his half-lidded gaze darts to your mouth the instant your pink tongue lashes out. You’re in a predicament, but on the other hand, what else did you expect, taking your clothes off in front of a touch-starved bull?
“I’d give it to you happily,” he insists. “No female ever wanted to spread her legs for me.”
Or a leash. 
Your fingers tighten on their own, they mould around him. Like a bond…
“Really?” You breathe. “What fools they were...”
The cock gives a full throb inside your palm, exalted to be yours. But only a moment later, the dreaded Minotaur moves. 
You find yourself under him before you can even gasp for air: the soaked, hot body of a giant now pinning you on the grass and crushing you under it with ease. The weight of your error is fully pressed against you: he was never tamed, and you were a fool to think you could put him in chains.
The raw scent of earth and musk fills your nostrils, making the stars above you spin. His cock is trapped between your bodies, giving another rich pulse against your thigh. Gods, if he were throbbing like that inside you…
“You make my skin burn,” he growls into your ear, the heat of his skin now unbearable, the coarse hair prickling your skin from neck to thigh. “My loins, ache…”
“Are you a witch?” He asks, and you finally allow yourself to breathe.
If he only knew… But hexes and charms are of no use for you now: the only thing you can do is moan, apparently, as he dives for your neck, planting barbarous kisses on your skin.
Down, down, down he goes, pure avarice driving him to feast on every part of you. You’re too weak to stop him when he searches for the source of your intoxicating scent. Discovering it between your thighs, he dives nose-first into your sex, meeting your core with a hungry grunt.
Your back arcs with pleasure, your nails sink into his back: a funny thing to do when he’s already as close as can be. The trail of crude kisses leads him to your breasts, and you try to keep your whimpers in control, but a gasp erupts when he drags a hot tongue across your nipple. Massive palms close around your tits while you squirm in his hold: he doesn’t seem to be driven by the need to please you; rather, he wishes to study you first, examine how your body reacts to his groping. He leaves your breasts aching and sore, every bite and suck managing to make you wetter and wetter, your cunt screaming for attention by now.
“Gods...” you wriggle on the soft earthen bed, not expecting him to take you with his mouth first.
He withdraws, only a little, but his voice is surprisingly soft.
“Do I hurt you...?” 
“No… But this is not mating…”
“Even I know that much,” he says darkly, and grabs you by the waist, moves you around like a doll until you find yourself on your belly. 
He looks at you from between your thighs, demonic and keen. The broad shoulders force your legs wide apart when he’s seated there, waist-deep in the water, with you hauled to the shore like a siren.
Not a moment is wasted as he pulls you back to him by the hips: you’re drawn to all fours, a hot streak of cum dragging on the inside of your thigh from the cock that meets your skin. He grabs and steadies it with an annoyed grunt, and the fat tip is shoved straight into your folds, your nether lips parted with brute force almost. 
“Guide me.”
His voice is demanding, impatient as he drags the fat head up and down the entrance of your hole, coating his cock with your slick in the process. You wonder if it’s instinctual, if he knows that this is where he should poke and that it will hurt you less if he’s well-oiled. He’s about to rut you into oblivion the instant you tell him where to shove his cock, and the prospect only sends more sap flowing down your thigh.
“There…” you stutter when he finds it, the aching spot that’s leaking profusely. He pushes the head in, not by teasing but by bullying, almost forcing it inside from how tight and unreceptive you are.
“Tighter than my fist,” is his only comment, and it makes you shudder. “I will not last long…”
You wince from the burn, but the rest of it glides in like a dream, and suddenly you’re filled, to the capacity, one could say. He grunts just from the way your womanhood is hugging him, not sure what this foreign object inside you is – is it a good thing or a threat?
“Easy then,” you breathe a huff into the sweet night air, filled with fireflies and night birds who know nothing about the fucking you’re about to go through.
He doesn’t move – inside you, that is. Outside, he crawls forward until he moulds around you, heavy body enveloping you completely. The hairs on his thighs tickle the back of your legs, his chest scrapes your back just so as he demonstrates how you belong to him in every way. But when your cunt starts to squeeze him again, he swallows thickly.
“Does this feel good to you too…?”
You catch faint confusion and concern in his voice, astonished that such a soft, frail body like yours can take his cock just like that. Little does he know you’re still adjusting to his size, thanking all the gods that he doesn’t move yet.
“Yes,” you confess because it does feel good: his thickness inside you, stretching you both gently and violently, studying how it feels to be inside a loving, wet heat.
“Then I will fuck you every day,” his lips come to brush your ear. “Many times...”
You hear yourself whimper, more humble now than ever. No man would dare to take you on all fours, but here you are, like a bought bride about to get stuffed…
He withdraws a little, asks, “Like this?” when he returns with a rough, nasty thrust. The balls meet your mound, heavy on the tender nub you’ve flicked when you’re lonely, covering your mouth while you do it. Both your hands are planted on the ground now, your legs spread before this beast, cunt filled to the brim with his cock.
“Not so rough,” you warn, and he heeds your instructions to the letter until he’s moving in and out with a slow, delicious pace that allows you to feel every thick bump of him. Soaked now down to your thighs, the sounds of your mating is utterly sloppy and slick, and of course he’s curious.
“Are you always like this…?”
“Like… what,” you huff in between the slow, torturous thrusts.
“Soft,” he rasps. “Tight… Wet like rain.”
“No. It’s just when…”
“When you want to fuck?”
You whimper for an answer, mostly because he starts to slip from the agreed sluggish pace. His cock invades you with more urgency, chasing the eruption that must be generous from those thick balls that should belong to a horse.
“I knew it…” he says dreamily behind you. “Some women want to mate with bulls...”
He punctuates his newfound pride with a full, deep thrust, and you wince.
“You’re not a–”
“Keep telling yourself that, little maiden.”
He exhales a hot smile next to your ear, and you’re neck deep in love. Your mouth hangs open, your lids half closed and fluttering from the way he pounds into your poor, abused cunt. Heavy balls slap your swollen nub with careless abandon, making you squeeze his thickness every time he hits the end of you. His grunts become more animalistic with every thrust, and your cunt is a wild thing, leaking and weeping and throbbing until you fear there’s something wrong with you – no woman is supposed to be this needy for a beast…
I’m going to come… You realize in horror as the slick sounds of fucking overthrow even the coursing roar of the waterfall. The knowledge shoots your body full of dark, hot ink; it explodes inside your core like a liquid star, throbbing through your cunt currently being ploughed like you’re nothing but a needy, sloppy hole for him. You’re swimming in so much pleasure that it’s almost painful, the revelation some secret of the gods, no doubt. 
He growls when you moan, heavy arm snaking its way around your middle to keep you in place for him. The purr is eager and low, the rumble erupts from his chest like a thick, loving volcano, a statement of how perfect you are. He nuzzles his nose into your neck and rubs his scent all over you while fucking you through it, the divine rapture that leaves your throat dry from moans. 
He doesn’t need to be told what it means when you’re crying like that: he doesn’t need to be explained that his cock is giving you ample pleasure. It’s so desperate, how much he wants to both fuck and please you, just own you and fulfill you, that you start to shake, your frail body not capable of handling the orgasm he just gave you. 
Your strength fails, and you find yourself on your elbows, cunt even more exposed to him now, the cock pistoning into you with a relentless pace. He’s like a titan upon you, taking pleasure from your quivering, weak frame and the tight wet hole that belongs to it. You’re still in rapture when he starts to sound like broken, wounded man.
“You were made for me,” he huffs. “You were made...for me…”
His voice evaporates along with your thin, adoring mewls, just before he fucks himself over the edge. You can feel the hot, thick spurts, filling you as he roars into your hair, balls pressed flush against your sex, thighs meeting yours in a moment frozen in time. 
They can probably hear him all the way to the city, hear what a cunt like yours does to an invincible beast like him… But his cries are only met with silence; the night sky looks back with disinterest, the birds continue their songs when they notice it was only the roar of a mighty beast that filled the land. Before long, he’s groaning above you, using your hole more softly; loving it until the last drop is milked. 
When he stops, his whole body is trembling from release, but you’re not given a moment of reprieve. He forces you to the ground with him on your back, the rough, thick body never leaving yours. Coarse beard chafes your neck, his body trapping you completely under him, he even opens his jaw to take your shoulder between his teeth and bites you while his cock is still pulsing fat inside you. 
“I can’t get enough of you,” he pants into your ear, angry, almost.
“Good,” you breathe a smile, but he’s not satisfied.
“You couldn’t get enough of me too… I noticed.”
“You gave me pleasure,” you agree. “Lots of it.”
“That was a lot of seed… I haven’t spilled in days.”
He huffs into your ear, astonished and proud that he could do such a thing. You feel him shift to take a better look at you, fingers arrive to graze your temple as if to make sure you’re real, as if having his cock inside you wasn’t enough proof of that. They’re a little shaky, a little uncouth, but the touch is gentle enough, and sweet.
He's boasting again perhaps, you don’t know, but you give him a soft laugh, notice how he stops breathing momentarily when hearing the bright sound.
“I am filled to the brim with you, yes… It will take a while before I can take more.”
“...You have other holes in you,” he offers after a while, quite seriously, in fact. 
“Get off me, you beast,” you huff and squirm to get out from under him, but there’s a luscious grin on your face, a smile that tells him you would more than approve of his obscene ideas later. 
“This feels good,” he murmurs into your hair. “This feels right...”
He allows you to leave from under him, only whines when his cock gets exiled from your cunt. He misses the wet heat like a newborn child misses the womb, but you need to recover from the recent invasion. Seed gushes out from your hole, making a mess on the ground as he pulls you against him, wanting to cuddle you next.
You wonder if he even knows what cuddling means as you lie there with a sticky mess between your legs and the heat of an entire sun on your cheeks. You smile into the coarse, sweaty body hair tickling your nose, deciding it doesn’t matter whether he knows or not: the most important thing is that he wants to hold you like this.
“Yes,” you smile. “This feels right…”
Something blooms in your chest. An odd flower, persistent and sweet. 
The stars above are cold but motherly as they look down on you two: born again into a world that doesn’t want either of you. The only things that accept you now are flowers, birds, the wind and the rain, bees and salty sea, but that’s aplenty. That’s more than the whole of Crete could ever give you.
“Are you thinking about your hero,” he asks above you.
“What? No…”
“Good,” he rasps, so softly now that you start to fear he’s about to cry.
You are more than capable of lying, but Theseus hasn’t crossed your mind in hours: the last time it did, the memory was received with loath and disdain. Thinking about Theseus while you’re draped all over your Bull, his seed flowing out of your womb... What a ridiculous idea. 
The reason for his hardly disguised anger is laid out plain before you: he's just jealous like any other man. Somehow, it makes you feel even more glowy inside.You’re my hero, you want to say, but have no courage to spill out the words. He was balls deep inside you mere moments ago, but telling him this intimate truth seems to be too much.
It never occurred to him, then, that you would enjoy copulating with him. He fucked you with the impression that you needed thoughts of another man to make you wet… That perhaps with the help of the image of Theseus in your mind, you were able to come with his cock inside you. 
“My Bull,” you whisper. “Tell me your name. You must have a name…?”
His breath stops only for a moment, the heart in his chest gives an arduous beat before he answers.
“Asterion.”
Starry one…
Of course.
All monsters have names, usually the opposite of what they’re claimed to be. His birth is in heaven, in the stars; he belongs to the company of heroes and gods.
“Asterion,” you whisper it out into the night air while the animal an man both find their new home in your arms. “Your birth is written in the stars. Did you even know…?”
“Does that make me a hero?” He snorts, more old wounds torn open right before your eyes. 
You wriggle yourself out of his hold, but he avoids your stare. You lift a hand to bring those beautiful Olympian eyes back to you.
“It makes you immortal.”
Perhaps you should’ve known he would be enticed with an apple instead of tethers and deals. Or with a palm, held out with no intent to strike… 
It’s lovely, how he blinks every time he’s confused. You’ve yet to see him shy, but if he ever is, this might be the moment… You even catch him swallowing under that wild facial hair, an awkward blob right after that blink when his birthright is acknowledged.
But even more dumbfounded he becomes when he realizes you’re truly and veritably admiring him. When you whisper it to him – you’re my hero – and watch something shatter in him that was supposed to wrench itself free, that’s when he’s truly granted divinity.
Perhaps it was all about becoming animal again, allowing the other to have a sniff. Baring your throat and embracing the instinct to trust. Marrying your wild soul… The deepest magic of all.
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polygonate · 8 months ago
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i have been slandered and ridiculed
bart simpson trapped in my labyrinth: dont have a cow man
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eroselless · 5 months ago
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─────────the shores we left behind // down to the riptide
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summary: you helped the daring champion through the labyrinth but will you get your happy ending? [3.6k]
[carlos sainz x reader]
Greek!AU, theseus and ariadne
dttr masterlist
warnings: smut, loss of virginity, potential historical inaccuracies, angst, themes abandonment and betrayal, religious/theological references (its a greek mythology story ehmm)
note: holyyyy, my writer's block has been insane lately, especially in relation to the fics and series  I’ve been wanting to put out for you guys. In addition, I’ve started the last stretch of my degree (ahh I graduate in June wtf) so my mind hasn’t been able to properly focus. In hopes of fighting all of the chaos and wanting to still feed y’all, I've gone back to my roots and melded together my favourites.  I hope y’all like these in the meantime while I get back to my series, love y’all <3
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The kingdom of Athens is hectic, streams of champions pouring in to pay tribute to the glory of Crete—your father’s obsession. The labyrinth looms large—a twisting maze of stones and shadows. Nestled within its endless walls is the Minotaur, cunning and brutal. Death waits for the champions, claiming lives as quickly as one takes a step inside. Your fingers tighten around the spool of golden thread you’ve stolen from your father’s workshop, the delicate filament glowing faintly in the moonlight. You shouldn’t have it. Your father would call it treason, your people madness. You’ve always hated the labyrinth, hated what it represents, but until tonight, you’ve never dared to defy it.
But you can’t stop yourself. You saw him today, standing among the tributes, his eyes dark and unwavering as your father outlined their gruesome fate. There’s something about him that seems to lodge itself deep in your chest, like a stray arrow. He met your eyes once—a split second, and you would have missed it. In that glance, you saw your undoing.
When you slip into his chambers, your heart races with the thrill of rebellion. Carlos is sitting by the small window, sharpening his blades. He looks startled when you enter, and for a moment, neither of you speaks. You press yourself against the door, your breath stuck in your chest, as if letting out any air would betray you. His hair is wild, as if he’s spent the better half of the day threading his hand through it. He looks breathtaking, painted in despair, as if he knows his fate will lie with the gods the moment the sun rises.
His eyes lock on yours, searching for an answer in your silence. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says, his voice low and steady.
You step forward, holding out the golden spool of thread and a rolled parchment with trembling hands. “This will guide you,” you whisper. “The labyrinth is a maze designed to confuse even the gods, but with this, you can find your way out.”
He knows the tales of the labyrinth—of its ever-changing walls and how even the fiercest warriors emerge with fear dripping from their tarnished armor. And how so many never emerge at all. His eyes flicker from you to the spool and back again. Rising slowly, he towers over you, his brow furrowing as he looks at your offerings. “Why would you help me?”
Because there’s something in me that can’t bear the thought of you dying, you want to say. Instead, you lift your chin high, summoning a strength you don’t feel. “Because it must end. The bloodshed, the sacrifice. The gods can’t possibly want this.”
He takes the spool, his fingers brushing yours. The contact sends a spark through you, almost reverent. “And what do you want in return?” he asks knowingly.
You hesitate. You’ve rehearsed this part in your head, but now, as you go to speak, the words feel heavy in your mouth. “Take me with you when you leave,” you whisper, your voice barely audible. “Promise me.”
His gaze softens as he looks at you, the weight of your request sinking in. “I promise.”
☾ ⋆・゚:⋆・゚
You can’t sleep that night. Hypnos seems to evade you, taunting you with the presence of his sisters, the Keres. Every breeze, every creak of the palace feels as if the labyrinth itself is breathing, reminding you of the danger awaiting Carlos. When the sun rises, casting a shadow over Crete, you stand among the crowd gathered in the arena around the mouth of the labyrinth. One by one, you watch, your hood drawn low, as each champion disappears into the dark opening in the earth.
Hours pass. The crowd grows restless. Whispers of failure ripple through them like waves. The Keres linger, waiting patiently as vultures do, ready to lay claim to the dead. You shift in your spot, nails digging into the flesh of your palms as you fight to keep your composure. Your way out of here will vanish if he doesn’t return.
But then, as the sun begins to dip below the horizon, a figure emerges, leading the tributes out from the darkness. His armor is smeared with blood, his stride steady despite his exhaustion. The Minotaur’s severed head dangles from his hand as he displays it to the crowd triumphantly.
The crowd erupts into cheers, but you can’t move. Relief and awe wash over you like a tide. It worked. He did it and survived. Athens is free.
The champion’s eyes find yours, and the chaos of the crowd falls away.
☾ ⋆・゚:⋆・゚
You leave under the cover of night, the ship cutting through the waves with ease. The crew works quietly, none questioning your presence on the ship, none asking why the princess has taken refuge with the demi-god. You sit beside Carlos at the helm, your pulse quickening every time your shoulders brush. There is a weight lifted from your shoulders—the weight of Crete, of your father’s legacy. It fades on the horizon, disappearing with every mile you put between yourselves and the labyrinth.
As the days pass, you and Carlos seem to tangle more and more with each other. He isn’t like most of the men of Crete, brash and cruel in their power. He is gentle, kind. He teaches you the names of the stars and the constellations that guide you. He shows you the maps of Athens, sketching the streets with a steady hand. You find yourself watching him when he isn’t looking, tracing the curve of his jaw, the slope of his brows, the way his lips curve in a faint smile when he catches you staring.
“We should be there in a few days’ time,” he says one evening as he charts the final stretch. You don’t know where “there” is. Naxos is a mystery to you, a paradise kept from your eyes.
His hands move in delicate arches over the map, deep in thought. He is quiet today, as if he isn’t quite ready for the journey to end. To have to return to the noise of the land, away from whatever this is—the two of you alone on the seas. Poseidon seems to favor your journey, the waters granting you safe passage and comfort.
“They say Naxos is beautiful,” he says finally, his voice breaking the rhythmic hum of the sea.
You turn to him, leaning forward in your spot on the deck. “Have you been?”
“Once, as a boy,” he says, stepping closer. The disappearing sun softens his features, making him look less like the warrior who conquered the labyrinth and more like the man who held you as you fled Crete. “The beaches are white as ivory, the water as clear as glass. There’s fruit of every taste you can imagine. It’s peaceful.”
There’s a beat of silence. “Peace sounds… strange,” you muse, a smile pulling at the corners of your lips.
Carlos tilts his head, curious. “Strange?”
“All I’ve ever known is duty,” you say, glancing at him. “Being the daughter of King Minos seems like it could have been grandiose and luxurious. It’s always only meant having to play a part. The perfect princess. The obedient, silent subject.” Your eyes stare into the horizon, as if you can still see your spot at the foot of your father’s throne. Seen and not heard.
Carlos studies you, the corners of his mouth twitching into the beginnings of a smile. “You? Silent? I find that hard to believe.”
You let out a laugh, the sound light and genuine, your hand stretching out to swat at his shoulder. It’s a new feeling you’ve learned to get used to, replaying it over and over throughout your journey. “I’m trying to have a moment here,” you cry, a smile gracing your lips.
He raises his hands in surrender, chuckling as he steps away from the barrel you’re standing next to. “I meant no harm. I can’t say I mind your chatter.”
There’s something in the way he says it, his voice low and teasing. It makes your heart skip, sending you turning to the water, leaning on the railing in an attempt to hide the warmth spreading across your cheeks. “You flatter me, Carlos.”
“Maybe,” he smirks, his voice closer now. You glance in his direction, finding him leaning on the rail beside you, his hands dangling over the edge. “You were brave to defy your father, to help me. Most wouldn’t have risked it.”
You hesitate, unsure if you should say the thought clawing its way to your tongue. “I didn’t just do it for Athens,” you confess, your voice a mere whisper.
Carlos turns to you, his expression unreadable. “I know.”
Your breath catches in your chest, just as it did when you stormed into his quarters a mere week ago. The space between you feels charged, as if Aeolus has turned the winds electric. You search his face for a sign, something to tell you this is all in your head. That the look in his eyes isn’t one that sends a current down your spine.
“Do you regret it?” he inquires, his voice soft and smooth, his eyes flickering with something unknown.
“No.”
The word is a confirmation that pulls you closer to him by the ties of your gown. Carlos’s hand cradles the back of your head while the other claims your waist, pulling you impossibly close. He presses his lips to yours, soft at first. It is tentative and cautious, as if he isn’t quite ready to release the feelings that have been brewing in him from the very beginning.
He pulls away, as if to catch your reaction. Your breath is stolen from your lungs, and you gasp, your fingers gripping his tanned biceps. Now it is his turn to search for an answer in your face, and for a second, he fears he has made a mistake. Your eyes are wide as you process what you had hoped for but hadn’t dared to expect.
You meet his gaze once before throwing your arms around his shoulders and pressing your lips back to his. This time, it is heavier, fierce, and consuming. Your hands tangle in his dark locks as his find their way to the curve of your hips, squeezing them and pulling your body closer to his.
Together, you stumble below deck, away from prying eyes and into the cabin Carlos has claimed for himself. Your movements are hurried and clumsy in the dimming light of the oil lamp. Your back hits the door as he kisses you again, his hands roaming over your sides, your back, your chest. His lips trace a path down your neck, the heat of his breath against your skin sending shivers racing down your spine.
He mouths at your breasts through the fabric of your gown, dragging his teeth over your pebbled nipples as they rise at his touch. The sensations send your heart pounding in your chest, and when his voice breaks through the haze, it is hoarse and filled with need.
“Are you sure?” he murmurs, his forehead pressed against yours, his hands steadying your trembling frame.
“Yes,” you breathe, your voice resolute. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
That is all the reassurance he needs. Slowly, he begins untying the laces of your gown, his hands steady despite the storm of emotions roiling in his chest. You watch him carefully, your breath hitching as his fingers move with practiced precision, his lips parting in concentration.
When the gown falls to the floor, you feel exposed, vulnerable. You’ve only been this bare in front of your amphipoloi, your attendants, when bathing. Your arms gently cross over your chest, suddenly shy under the gaze of the man before you.
Carlos doesn’t rush you. He traces his fingers along your bare arms and the sides of your breasts, his touch reverent, as if you are something precious.
“You’re so beautiful,” he marvels, his voice barely above a whisper.
Your cheeks flush as your hands move to the ties of his tunic, fumbling slightly in your nerves. He chuckles softly, his hands enveloping yours as he helps you, the fabric soon joining yours on the floor. Without another word, he lays you down on the bed. The sheets and pillows smell like him—a mixture of salt and bourbon. It’s familiar and uniquely him.
His mouth drops to your lower abdomen, his lips leaving a hot trail in their wake. He goes slowly, dragging his tongue through your folds before suctioning his lips over your clit. It's a sensation you’ve never known and it pulls a sharp gasp from your lips as your fingers tangle in his dark hair. You back arches off the bed, giving Carlos the opportunity to pull you in closer. His arms wrap around your thighs, keeping you still as his tongue prods at you. Soon enough, two fingers pushed into you, your cries filling the air. 
He can feel you shaking with every stroke, voice at high pitch as you beg him not to stop. You were seeing stars, eyes squeezed shut and face contorting in passion. Please, please, please you implored, your voice breaking. You didn’t quite know what you were begging for. He could lie here and taste your forever, Carlos thought, he’d never get tired of your taste. 
Carlos hums as he feels you clench around his tongue, coming up to look at your properly. His fingers continue pumping in and out, reaching for a button he knew would send you off the edge. Your jaw drops, a whine escaping. You meet his eyes, fingers loosening their grip on his tresses before trailing lightly down his face. There’s a glint in his eye as he uses his free hand to pull your fingers into his mouth, matching the pressure to your hole to the swirling of his tongue around your digits. He can feel the tension in your body grow, your eyes rolling to the back of your head. 
You let out a broken sob as you fall apart and Carlos lets go of your fingers with a pop. His fingers press slowly in and out of you in soothing strokes, bringing you down from your high. Your thighs tremble as he presses his lips once more to your sensitive bundle of nerves. You’re heaving, your cheeks flushed and skin prickled with goosebumps. 
His fingers brush gently along the inside of your thighs, kissing the soft skin as he takes in the sight of you. 
“You okay, princesa?” he asks. He realizes how deeply this must have affected you; as a princess, you weren’t exactly expected to partake in acts like this.
You nod slowly, lips curling into a breathless smile. “Mhmm, yeah,” you whisper, propping yourself up onto your elbows. 
He raises to his full height, propping one knee up on the bed before crawling over you. You get a good look at him, there's a few gashes that have scarred on his chest, and one that cuts diagonally across his hip. There are some lingering ones on his arms, not fresh but not quite healed yet, most likely from the maze. 
He slots himself between your legs as they part for him. He lifts his hips, pushing the tip of his cock against your sensitive clit. He loves the sound that falls from your lips as he does so. He pushes himself in slowly, careful not to move too fast against you. It’s different from his fingers, different from his tongue. It was a slow ache, a stretch you can’t quite place. You feel as your face contorts, the ache slowly dissipating and turning into something else. 
He rocks gently against you, the air ripping right out of your lungs as you feel him bottom out. He searches your face for a sign, waiting for you to give him the green light. “Need you to move.” you moan out. 
His strokes are languid, gentle at the beginning. His fingers snake between you, rubbing circles against your clit. His head lays between the juncture of your neck and shoulder, his tongue licking stripes onto the sensitive skin and teeth nipping gently at your jaw. Soon enough, his lips press against yours as he continued at a slow pace. Your breaths mix together as his hips snap against yours just a little faster.  Both of you are a mess, the sounds of skin on skin echoing through the cabin. 
Collecting both your hands in one of his, he pulls them up over your head. There's a sparkle in your eyes as you feel yourself teetering closer to the edge once more. “Carlos, I—” your voice breaks, body arching into his. 
“Cum... cum for me,"  he beckons, pressing fleeting kisses to your chest. Your walls held onto him like a vice, clamping down on him as you fell apart once again. 
He groans as he feels you break, chasing his own climax. Curses fall from his lips as his hips piston in and out of you. Yes, yes, yes. There’s a groan that falls from the both of you as you feel the hot ropes of his spend coat your walls. He falters momentarily before pressing his lips to yours as a moan fell from his lips. He stills, letting his body drop on yours gently.
Your arms wrap around his toned back, fingers dipping into the valleys of his muscles. Slowly, he pulls himself away from your aching core. You both watch as his cum mixed with yours drips out from you. Reaching for a discarded rag, he clears off as much as he can before tangling with you in the narrow bed. 
Your head rests on his chest as he cradles you. The lull of the waves place the two of you into a peaceful silence. You can hear his steady heartbeat thumbing through the expanse of his chest. His fingers drag gently over your shoulder and back.
“I don’t want this moment to end,” you murmur as Hypnos begins to pull you away, your own fingers languidly tracing the scars on his otherwise smooth chest. 
“These moments never do,” he replies as he pressed a kiss to your forehead. There’s a blanket of melancholy that falls over him. An ache settling in his chest as he feels you fall asleep against him. He dreads what’s coming next, the one step the gods demanded of him, but who was he to defy their will?
☾ ⋆・゚:⋆・゚
It's the next evening that Naxos appears on the horizon. You stand at the bow of the ship once more, arms wrapped tightly around yourself. Carlos stood at your side, silent but present. 
“Is this it?” you asked, turning to look at him. 
“Yes,” he answers, his tone betraying nothing. 
There was a shift in him the morning. His once cheerful demeanor exchanged for a colder, sharper one. You look for the face that had kissed you tenderly. The one that had shown you the stars and the word beyond Athens. You couldn’t find it and it churned your stomach with dread. 
“What happens next then?” you ask, feeling your chest tighten in anticipation.
He doesn’t answer right away, eye trained on the island as it comes closer. He spoke in a low voice, laced in pain. “This is where I leave you.”
Your heart stopped in your chest. “What?” you question.
“Carlos,” you say, trying to get him to meet your gaze. “What do you mean?” your voice trembles as you turn him towards you. His jaw is tight as he finally looks into your eyes. The whites of his eyes are red, turning the brown in his irises green. There was a pain in his eyes, shadowed by something she couldn’t name. 
“It is the will of the gods,” he insisted."They command me to leave you here.” 
“And you’ll obey them?” you demand, a flare of anger and pain blooming in your chest. “Even if it breaks you?”
“Carlos,” you call for him. His jaw remains clenched as he looks away from you once again. “I stood against everything I’ve ever known. I risked my own life. I defied my father, my role, my future. I chose you. Not the gods, not duty, not the life I was supposed to lead. You.”
He grips your biceps as if trying to shake the words out of himself. “You don’t think I know that?” he snaps, voice cracking. His eyes fill with tears as he looks at you, eyes just as hazy. “Do you think I wanted this? To leave you here, alone? If I defy them, they’ll punish you as much as they punish me. Their wrath will destroy us both.”
Your eyebrows furrow, a sob threatening to pop in your chest. “Then let them. Let them destroy us together—” You reach a hand up to caress his cheek but before it can make contact he pulls it away, turning from you to face towards the island again. 
“It is the will of the gods.”
☾ ⋆・゚:⋆・゚
He watches you get smaller on the dock of the island, slowly fading into it. He thinks of your laughter, the way you would banter with him. The way your voice sounded when it called out for him. The warmth of your body as it had fit so perfectly against his.  
He thought of how scared you must’ve been to take the golden spool he twisted in his hands. How you left everything behind, to help him. 
Your story was meant for the gods, destined to dwell among them rather than at his side. Yet, while part of you belonged to them—part of you would always belong to him.
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Index:
Hypnos - Greek god of sleep and the personification of sleep itself. The Keres - Greek goddesses/spirits that represented violent death. Poseidon - Greek god of the sea, storms, earthquakes, and horses Aeolus - Greek god of the wind
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a/n: a little fun fact, I almost got a minor in greek and roman studies before COVID hit and I had to withdraw from a whole bunch of classes, boo
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hellenhighwater · 1 year ago
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So! I've been working on submitting this series (plus the rest of the mythology pieces) to ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, MI, this coming September. It's probably the most public display I can do without much in the way of a gallery pedigree. So far, the application been a Process. Part of actually doing this is building custom display pedestals, and some other exhibition costs, which would be on me to cover out of pocket. But! I applied for some grant funding and look at the email I just got!
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Nothing is set in stone at this point and there's still stuff that could go wrong but I'm really working on getting these pieces to a place where at least some of you can see them in person.
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I've started the process of documentation on the last labyrinth, which is...an undertaking.
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monsterloverxxx · 1 year ago
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Minotaur x fem!reader
Plus sized Minotaur
MDNI
POV you have been sent into the minotaur’s labyrinth as a sacrifice, but your offering isn’t one of blood.
Monster-fucking/teratophilia, breeding kink/pregnancy kink, size kink/macrophilia/CNC
Groping, fingering, repeated PiV sex, pushing cum back in, some dom/sub dynamic.
Horror, gore
Dub-con (some non-con groping and grinding, wanted sex and consent but you’ve been put in that situation)
2080 words
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Offering to the Minotaur:
Nobody knows how long the beast has cursed them, some say he has been there since the beginning of civilisation, others the dawn of time; either way he has always hunted these lands.
Mostly he hibernates; but every time the fire-star lights up the inky sky he awakens for 12 moons. An insatiable hunger to consume controls him, a bloodlust only slaughter can satisfy.
To contain his devastation the leaders of these lands long ago decided to gift him sacrifices, offerings to an old brutal god. Innocent souls sent to death to appeal to the mercy of the monster; a barter for their people to be spared.
_
You look up at the crimson glow in the night, an omen for the blood that would soon spill from your veins. Praying to your deities will do no good, you will soon join them in the heavens and drink moonbeams from golden chalices.
It is dark and cold inside the labyrinth; you can feel the chill in your bones; or perhaps what you feel is fear, terror that curdles your insides.
Tall walls once white marble are now green with slime, moss and mushrooms growing on water that has degraded stone for thousands of years.
It is a maze, and you are already lost. You feel trapped, claustrophobic yet overwhelmed by the infinite expanse. Each step cannot be distinguished from the last, you are roaming in endless circles.
Your legs ache from running, the breath inside your chest burns, your heart pounding. There is nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. You turn every corner aimlessly, hoping it will not be your last.
You could hear the others, their echoed footsteps like ghosts, screams of terror and cracks of bones as they were butchered one by one. But now you hear only deafening silence, you know you're the last one standing, it’s your turn to die.
You slip and land on jagged rocks, broken off ruins. Smearing mud on the bottom of your white dress and scraping your tired knees. As you pull yourself up you see him looming over you. Eight foot tall, the head of a strawberry bull, torso of a burly fat man and solid cloven hooves.
You’re frozen in fear, your brain screaming for you to retreat but your body unable to follow. He grabs you and picks you up like a ragdoll, throwing you over his shoulder. The ground is so far below you if he dropped you, you would crack.
“Please don’t kill me” you beg over and over, tears flowing down your cheeks onto his hairy naked back.
“Your offering is flesh” he responded in a deep leather voice as he carries you to his lair
You try so much to wriggle your way out of his arms, even though you know the fall will maim you.
He grabs you around your ass to keep hold of you, his big hands up your dress gripping your underwear. You still try to escape his grasp; but how his hand rubs up against you when you move, you don’t want to admit how that feels.
You believe he’s going to feast upon you. Cook you in a stew with the others, suck sweet meat off your bones, drink your brains out of your severed skull. You pray he would kill you first.
He throws you down onto a pile of straw and furs: his nest. Your head rings from the impact, your bones jolting.
Before you can crawl away, he hops in beside you. He snuggles up next to you pulling you into him, enveloping your body completely with his, his fur and fat keeping you heated. Your face is nestled into his sweaty chest, he smells like rot, the scent of the slain is suffocating.
You wonder if he did this to the others? Gifted them comfort before pulling them limb from limb and devouring their bodies?
He falls asleep cuddling you, snoring loudly. You try to worm out multiple times to no avail. Eventually you give into his soft warmth and fall asleep. How can a creature so brutal feel so plush and tender?
Even though you have no sense of time your body wakes up naturally to the dawn. So had he, you glance around the room, he is nowhere to be seen. Part of you misses his embrace but this was your chance to delay your inevitable end.
You get up and flee his throne room, bolting as fast as your bruised legs can take you. But you do not get far before you need to stop and catch your breath.
As you lean against bloodstained bricks, you can hear him charging you, a great thunderous sound of hooves. He snatches you up, swooping you into the air and over his shoulder once more.
You know it is over now, this was the conclusion of your life, you give up. There’s no point fighting anymore, ‘just kill me quick’ you think, at least grant you that.
He places you back onto the nest gently this time “Stay” he orders
You will.
“Eat” he demands hurling you a bone; you didn’t want to know what it came from or who.
“I’m not hungry” you lie, you are famished but not desperate enough
“Eat” he repeats again “You’ll need the energy”
“For what? So you can hunt me like a hound?” you ask
“No” he responds.
He locks a metal collar around your neck attached to a short chain “Stay, I will return, then you eat, you need energy”
As soon as he leaves you pull at the metal, it is taut and chaffing, rust from many hundreds of years crumbles off in red chunks. You don’t try to get it off, you don’t have the strength.
You wait for him patiently. It is probably close to dusk when the beast returns dragging a deer carcass behind him. The stag's mighty antlers scraped along dirt.
He tears its body apart like it is a simple piece of bread, guts spilling everywhere. He cooks it over flame and feeds it to you. You are ravenous gorging yourself on its flesh like he had done to your fellow sacrifices.
When you are done, he climbs back into his furs again and wraps you up once more. But this time is different, he isn’t there to rest, he craves another thing.
You can feel something pressed up against you, you recognise it. You realise what your purpose is, what he wants from you: something warm and tight for him.
He grinds into the outline of your ass, his face is nowhere near you, but you could hear huffed breaths from his bull ringed nostrils. The way it drags into you sends shivers through your body.
“What is my offering?” you ask
“You are a priestess” he responded petting your messy hair “Your body a vessel for the gods. I am your god.”
“Vessel for what?”
“My pleasure and my offspring” he answered
Your flesh wasn’t to consume, it was to use and abuse, to play with like a toy.
He pushes his hand up your dress, it brushes slowly against your skin, up your body until he roughly grabs one of your breasts, fondling it callously, you can’t help but sigh at his touch.
The white dress that hugs your curves so well, you now see is a wedding gown. You had been gifted as his wife, a slave to him, for his arcane desires.
Your fate is not to dance in the clouds to songs of starlight harps, it is to be split open night after night by a monster's cock, to birth his demonic calves.
He shoves you onto your back and hangs over you, he is massive compared to you, a giant. He grabs the top of your dress and rips it in half, stripping you down, naked and exposed for him.
You are scared yes, but part of you tingles, the wet between your thighs could not lie. He is a beast, he was going to tear your body apart from the inside out, but you have not felt the touch of a man since you had committed to the temple, and oh gods was he a man.
He removes his loincloth; you can’t help but stare at his magnificence. You feel a feral hunger for that huge thick rod hung between muscular legs, hard as the stone around you, dripping with tears of yearning.
“I want to mate with you my little priestess” he strokes your face; his hand is the size of your head.
You don’t know if that is a question or a statement, either way you aren’t going to try and stop him. Maybe it would kill you, but maybe it is worth the risk just to feel him inside you.
“Yes” you responded
“Beg” he ordered “Beg for your god to take you, beg for him to fill you with his seed”
“Please” you plead, pathetic “Please breed me, I am your toy, I am your slave, please use me, please ruin me, I want it so bad, I need you so bad, please”
“Good girl” he grabs you by the hips and flips you over pushing your face into his animal skins. He spreads your legs open as wide as they could go revealing the sweetness between them. He runs a large finger through your folds, gathering slick as lubrication, forcing it inside. You gasp at the penetration followed by soft mewls as he pushes it in and out, going down to his knuckles, checking how much you can take. If this is how good his hand felt, you salivate at the idea of what would come next.
You are so hungry for it by the time he pushes the head to your entrance. He struggles to fit, but he is not gentle, ramming it inside of you with great force skewering your tight cunt. He did not take time to get you used to his size slamming straight into your cervix. White hot pain clouds your head but is soon replaced with carnal ecstasy as he pulls most of the way out and rhythmically thrusts into you.
You take him so well, your walls stretching around him. It’s like your cunt is designed for his cock, the god’s constructing your body specifically for your beast husband, perhaps he had created you for this use. You do not care; you are happy with this fate.
He continues to rail into you, holding your body firm so he doesn’t break your small frame. You are full of him but only half of his shaft is inside. He wishes he could fully stuff you, that he could bottom out inside and his balls could feel your heat as well. But he has stretched you fully out, you cannot physically take any more of him, but he can still try.
He fucks you for what feels like eternity, your body and mind in the heavens. Both of your loud moans are a symphony, a song of lust for only the spirits to hear. Your eyes roll back as your walls squeeze so hard around him, he can’t stop himself from filling you up. His seed drools down your thighs as he pulls out of your spent hole. He catches it with his fingers and pushes it back inside to save it.
His digits in your bruised entrance stings, but when you whine, he starts fingering you again. You rock into his hand, 2, 3, 5 fingers work you open. His own cum escapes down his arm onto the straw.
He trades his hand with his meat again swollen from your arousal, pounding it into you until he has replaced his wasted sperm.
He takes you over and over, again and again, so many times you lose count. Your body is jelly, your mind mush, your pussy is throbbing. He stops only when you pass out from exhaustion, and you fall asleep nuzzled in him.
And then when you wake, he starts again, he’ll keep going until he knows you are with child, carrying his young. And he will use you for his pleasure until he hibernates once more. Maybe he will gift you immortality so you can be his wife for eternity, or maybe he’ll dispose of you when he grows sick of your pussy and your womb, you do not know...
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radawaycunt · 1 year ago
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High Risk
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PART ONE: STAR PATIENT
Mini-series masterlist
Also on AO3
Pairing: Hannibal Lecter x Nurse!Fem!Reader
WC: 3.5k words
Series Summary: You, a nurse at Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, are assigned to the newest inmate -- none other than the Chesapeake Ripper, otherwise known as Hannibal Lecter. He is nothing short of charming, but the dangerous mysteries that lurk beneath are equally alluring. So much so that you can barely resist the urge to uncover them all.
Warnings: MINORS DNI 18+ ONLY, canon typical violence (mentions and some descriptions), slight canon divergence (here frederick is still director of the hospital), corruption, manipulation all around, eventual smut, secret affair(ish?), sort of power imbalance, ongoing murder investigation (the red dragon), cursing, not-so-slow burn, hannibal being hannibal pretty much, aaand that’s all I can think of but lmk if something should be added!
—————
“A woman being never at a loss…. The devil always sticks by them.” — Lord Byron
———-
Much like the Minotaur’s labyrinth, Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane was designed never to let one escape. At least, that’s how you viewed it, even if you were a worker and not a prisoner there. 
Still, you weren’t sure that was any better.
The place’s immaculate cleanliness was almost unnerving, but it was fitting. The walls were a glaring white, and the floors were always polished until they shone. The hallways were meant to confuse those who hadn’t actively tried to memorize them, every corner seeming the same.
Your uniform had to be impeccable too, lest you made the place look bad. It was absurd how much laundry you had to do, and how much time you had to spend on your appearance. All for it to go to waste whenever things got messy with rowdier inmates. 
But despite it all, there was a certain allure to the place that made you want to return each day. Something morbid, almost sinister, like a secret waiting to be uncovered. It was irresistible, and it would be until you found it out.
Doctor Chilton had just given you the rundown about the new inmate, stressing the importance of following protocol when dealing with him. He’d handed you his file to look over and on the very first page, there was a picture of the man they called the Chesapeake Ripper — Hannibal Lecter. 
You were taken aback for a moment, not expecting him to look like that. Luckily, the Doctor did not seem to notice your reaction, and you quickly made sure your expression was neutral once more.
Despite having worked there for a few years, witnessing all sorts of things, you were a little rattled by the way he spoke about him. Especially after mentioning he didn’t want to lose any more nurses, alluding to the incident with a former inmate, Doctor Gideon.
As it turned out, Hannibal was also a doctor, and you couldn’t help but shudder at the prospect of some macabre pattern forming. 
Of course, none of the other nurses wanted to be assigned to him, but Doctor Chilton trusted you to handle things well. You did what was asked of you and never caused any trouble. Truthfully, it wasn’t because you were particularly driven, but you wanted to fly under the radar and take it day by day.
And yet, it had still led you there, despite your efforts. 
You took the elevator down from the top floor, reading the file as you went. It was noted that the risk of him being violent was quite high, but he had thus far been cooperative with the staff. In fact, he had even turned himself in to the police, which was a detail that stood out to you. 
Considering his numerous horrific crimes, along with Doctor Chilton’s psychological assessment of him, he did not seem like a man who would let himself be apprehended so easily. It would gnaw at you, but you weren’t sure if you’d get the answers you suddenly seeked.
You left the file at your station to finish reading later, trying your best to ignore the looks of fear and pity some of the other nurses shot your way. Hopefully none of them would try to give you shallow words of affirmation, knowing you’d be the subject of gossip for the next week or so.
The maximum security cells were on the basement floor, but you stopped by the kitchen first to get his meal tray. You steeled your nerves as you passed through the extensive clearance, continuing down the hallway until you reached the very last cell, which was behind a set of double doors.
Was the light dimmer there, or were you imagining things? You could see shadows lurking in the corners of the room, an ominous feeling curling in your stomach. A cool gust from one of the AC vents made you shiver, but otherwise, you willed yourself to stay composed.
Finally, you dared to look into the actual cell. It was much nicer than most of the other cells, equipped with two bookshelves, a large mahogany desk, and some elaborate sketches that were taped on the walls. Perhaps part of a bargain struck with Doctor Chilton based on his cooperation with the authorities. 
Then again, he was the new star patient, so that probably earned him a few more privileges. Despite those small luxuries though, you knew it’d be hard for him to forget that he was incarcerated.
Hannibal himself was lying down on his cot, reading, but he sat up as soon as you entered. He was even more handsome in person, almost rakish, and you allowed yourself the smallest pause to continue looking at him. 
He had a fine nose, dark eyes, and an aristocratic air to him. Not to mention, a full, obscene mouth that was surely meant to cast impure thoughts. 
Somehow, you had to admit that even his slate gray jumpsuit fit him quite well. If he truly was the Devil, then word of his burning, unholy beauty was not a lie.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted with a smile that you were sure had charmed many in the past.
“Good afternoon. Stay where you are, please,” you said firmly but politely, returning the smile just slightly. “I’ve brought lunch.”
He obeyed, hands resting on his knees. Slowly, tentatively, you made your way to the slot in the glass where you could deposit the tray. 
“Please don’t retrieve it until I’m gone, and let a guard know when you’re done so they can collect it.”
He nodded, smile still in place. “Thank you.”
You began to retreat, feeling his gaze fixed on your back. It wasn’t until your hand was on the door knob that you realized your heart was racing. Adrenaline was dancing beneath your skin like little bolts of electricity, but at least your breathing was even. 
What was it that had affected you so deeply? Was it the thrill of looking into the eyes of pure evil? 
No, that was far too simple, and therefore what you had expected… but that wasn’t all you’d been able to see. It was hard to decipher just at first glance, but you hadn’t been brave enough to hold eye contact for long. And you certainly weren’t any braver when you returned to deliver his supper later that evening.
He was still all smiles and charming obedience, but you noticed his eyes wandered a lot more. It might have been a little amusing, if you weren’t so nervous. If anything, to have his attention was both intimidating and bewitching.
It made you want to say something more, but you weren’t sure what. Still, you knew better than to engage too much outside of protocol.
Or at least you thought you did. 
--------------------
Moonlight slipping through the foliage, anointing the darkened world in silver. A deer silently drank from a stream, unaware the hunter had spotted it. Head bent, throat long. It would be an easy shot, arrow cleanly piercing the jugular. 
It ran, but it did not get very far.  Its wide, ink-black eyes were looking up at the beautiful face of the moon, silhouetting the hunter. Its weakening heart leapt at the sight.
The last thing it saw was his knife.
---------------------
You woke up with a start, panting and confused. Sleep slid off you slowly, like a veil uncovering your eyes. Your hand unconsciously went to your throat, but unsurprisingly, you found no arrow’s fletching.
Two weeks had passed with nothing especially of note. You had read the entirety of Hannibal’s file, the details of his brutality leaking out into your life beyond Baltimore State Hospital.
It was hard to peel off all the misery embedded in its walls, especially being exposed to it daily. It was easier to compartmentalize instead, letting your mind go blank at the end of the day. But the dreams were an inevitable torment, nonsensical and intensely vivid.
You sat up in bed, rubbing your eyes and sighing into the silence of your small bedroom. You stared into the middle distance for a few minutes, mentally preparing to start your day. 
In the time that had passed, you had exchanged a few more words with Hannibal that were not part of protocol. He had asked your name, his tone kept carefully casual, and you thought it only fair to tell him. 
After that, he had ventured to ask more innocuous questions about yourself, perhaps trying to test the limits of your interactions. You had answered most of them truthfully but vaguely, worried about him psychoanalyzing you.
Something told you he'd also know if you were lying, so you figured it’d be mostly useless to try. But you were entitled to your secrets, too, and you preferred keeping your cards close to your chest.
Yet you were also aware that it would not deter him, but unbeknownst to him, you were just as headstrong. 
Later, after having slipped on your mask of cool indifference and clocking into work, you brought down his breakfast. You found him at his desk, sketching. He glanced up without moving his head, pencil still moving.
“Good morning,” he greeted. “Is it nice out today?”
“Depends on what you consider ‘nice’,” you said mildly, making slow work of depositing his meal tray. “It’s been intermittently raining since last night, and I don’t think it will stop any time soon.”
“Not bad at all,” he said, his tone ever so slightly wistful. “I do quite enjoy rain. I hope you didn’t forget your umbrella.” 
Strangely, you couldn’t help but feel a little sympathy for him. The sudden loss of freedom was an unbearable thought to you, and you didn’t really wish it on anyone. But that wasn’t to say he didn’t deserve to be in the position he was in.
He noticed you hovering but not saying anything. Finally, his pencil halted and he looked up at you, leaning forward slightly. His assessing gaze pinned you in place, but your body was tense and ready to flee.
“You sound tired. Did you sleep poorly?” He asked.
You blinked in surprise, the question snapping you back to the present. Lowering your gaze, you inclined your head.
“I’m fine, thank you for asking,” you said politely. “I should get going, I’ll be back in an hour.”
He pursed his lips in what seemed like irritation, but he didn’t press you. Instead, he stopped you once more by changing the subject. 
“Before I try to talk to Frederick about it, there’s something I’d like to ask you,” Hannibal said.
You looked at him with apprehensive curiosity. “I cannot promise you anything, but you may ask me.”
“I would like to draw you, if you’d model for me,” he said. “Simple stuff, all of it appropriate. I promise. I’m just in dire need of a muse.”
“What makes you think he will say yes to such a request?” You asked, not yet processing everything in your state of shock. 
He smirked. “He needs my help with certain things, so it’s only fair I get something in return.”
You crossed your arms over your chest. “And… Why the interest in me, specifically?”
“It would be a sin not to immortalize features like yours.”
Heat crawled up to your face and your arms tightened against your torso, but you kept a mostly neutral expression on your face. You weren’t sure if he was being serious or just toying with you to unnerve you, but you had a feeling it was a mixture of both.
You weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of a bigger reaction, but it was likely he could still tell he’d rattled you. The worst part was that deep inside, you also took his interest as a compliment, but there was no way you would let that show.
“I’ll give it some thought,” you said slowly, unsure why you were even considering it. “Pending Doctor Chilton’s approval, of course.”
“Of course,” he said with a nod. “Take all the time you need. I’ll be here.”
With that, you left, floating down the corridor as if detached from your body. The whole situation had a feeling of unreality to it, and you kept expecting to wake up once again.
As you got to the nurse’s station, another nurse told you that Doctor Chilton had summoned you to his office. You blinked at her in surprise. Impossible… Had Hannibal really been so fast?
Next thing you knew, you were knocking on the door to his office, turning the knob when you heard him grant you access.
“There you are,” Doctor Chilton said, one hand resting on his cane. “Close the door behind you and take a seat, will you?”
You dipped your chin in compliance and mechanically followed instructions. For what seemed like an eternity, he said nothing, studying you instead. You shifted slightly in your seat, instinctively returning the favor if only because you didn’t want to be the one to look away.
He himself had been a victim of Hannibal’s more than once, and his body bore all of the evidence. Still, the Doctor had an undeniable obsession, using any and every opportunity to brag about Hannibal’s capture.
Clearly, the impact had been more than skin deep. No one ever dared to outwardly gossip about it, but it was well-known regardless.
It wasn’t often that you dealt with him directly, and you were being painfully reminded of why you preferred it that way. 
“Did…” you began, but he interrupted.
“I watched it all through the cameras. He knew I would be when he asked you that.” He leaned forward on the desk, hands clasped. “Wise choice not to give in just yet.”
You couldn’t help but balk at this. “I beg your pardon?”
He raised an eyebrow. “It must have been a tempting offer, to be the Devil’s muse. I would not blame you if you were at least a little flattered.”
Your eyes, just like your resolve, were like steel. “Why have you called me here, if I may ask?”
His smug, easy grin faded as he let out a long sigh, his patience wavering for a moment. 
“Hannibal is right about my needing him, though I am not the only one who does. The reason why is classified, as you can imagine, so I cannot tell you much,” he said, keeping his tone bored as if he couldn’t be bothered to explain it to you. “What I’m trying to understand now is why he wants you in return.”
“I’m just as confused, trust me.”
“From what I have observed, you don’t speak much, even if he has tried. I wonder if the challenge interests him…” he drifted off thoughtfully for a moment. “Though I suppose he’s always liked to surround himself with pretty things, too.” 
You stiffened, taken aback by the strange compliment. “And so you are expecting me to say yes?”
“I’m not expecting, no, but I’m sure you’ve gathered that this goes beyond Baltimore State. Of course, should you choose to assist us, you would not only be generously compensated, but I would be immensely grateful, as well.”
You thought about it for a moment. The additional income would definitely be helpful, but you had to admit you were also growing more and more curious about the whole thing. What else did you have going on, otherwise? 
Still, you had to try and cover all your bases first. You couldn’t make it too easy for him, after all.
You slightly tilted your head to the side.“Grateful… so you could call it a favor, then?”
He raised both eyebrows. “A favor?”
“Yes, Doctor. He’s a highly dangerous patient and you are asking me to spend longer periods of time – I’m presuming alone – with him. The safety of all staff should be your top priority, right?” you said pointedly, crossing your arms over your chest. “What use is money if no one’s alive to collect it?”
His green eyes narrowed as he seemed to weigh his options. Your face remained implacable, though there was also a challenging shade in your features that he did not miss. Otherwise, he could not get a very good read on you, and that suddenly intrigued him. Perhaps you’d be more useful than he’d originally thought.
“Right… You make a good point,” he finally conceded. “Well, I am a man of honor, after all. Anything you might need, you can always ask.” 
You smiled as genially as you could. “How gracious of you, Doctor Chilton. Thank you.”
His false smile was more like a sneer. “Of course. You don’t have to give your final answer now, but…”
“I accept,” you said, cutting him off. “I am honored by the opportunity.”
—-----------------------------------------------------
“How close are you able to get to the glass?”
“Up to ten paces away,” you said, taking your cardigan off and draping it over the back of the chair you’d brought. “Should be close enough, no?”
“Not nearly,” Hannibal said with a small, flirtatious smile that you did not return. 
Still, he could see a flicker of amusement cross your face, softening you infinitesimally. It only made him ache all the more to see you up close. He felt a sudden thrill that warmed his extremities — a feeling he recognized but had not felt for some time.
“Doctor Chilton has given us two hours, so I’d advise you to use the time wisely,” you said, slightly lifting an eyebrow and setting your hands on your hips. “How would you like to start?” 
“Just as you are, at your most natural,” he said, picking up his pencil. “Let’s see…”
It was strange at first, to have him stare so intently at you. You, who were seldom cowed by anything, could still barely keep eye contact with him. As an excuse, you offered your profile, turning your body to face the wall. 
He complimented the elegant swoop of your neck and you rewarded him with a demure glance and soft words of gratitude. His grip on the pencil tightened, his heartbeat spiking. You caught the way he shifted slightly in his chair, swallowing hard. 
Despite your icy exterior, you felt a thrill at the effect you seemed to have on him. 
You hadn’t been instructed to do anything but show up, but you knew instinctively that it would take more than that to keep Doctor Chilton’s favor… and Hannibal’s interest. Luckily, you were well versed in the art of slow seduction – giving just enough, but then withdrawing in equal measure.
Not to mention, it felt safer to do so on the other side of the glass.
Once or twice, he gave you brief instructions on how to pose your arms or which way to angle your head. You fell into a sort of meditative state, the reality of the whole situation slipping away from you, as well as the passage of time. 
When your watch’s timer went off, he seemed to snap back into focus at the same time as you. You looked up, startled at the sight of all the sheets of paper strewn about the desk. You noticed his hands were stained with graphite as he set his pencil down.
Curiosity got the best of you, and you took a step closer if only to try to get a glimpse. There was an almost frantic quality to the sketches, as if he was worried he might not be able to trace all the lines he wanted to in time. You weren’t able to gather many details from that angle, but you did not doubt his talent. Something about those hands…
“Productive first day,” you said, lightly teasing him to distract yourself from other thoughts passing through your mind.
A smile and the faintest dip of his chin. “I have not been so inspired in a while.”
“You flatter me too much. I’m sure it wasn’t just due to me,” you said, looking behind him at his bookshelf. “What are you currently reading?”
He seemed momentarily surprised at your interest, glancing over his shoulder and slightly raising his eyebrows. 
“Byron, actually.” He chuckled as he saw your reaction to the poet’s name. “The irony of it is not lost on me, trust me.”
You looked away. “You’re finding beauty where you can. I understand.”
“I always have, in my own way,” he said. “I have a feeling you might relate.”
“In places like this, there is no other choice,” you said, noncommittal. “Not if you want to survive it.”
“The great object of life is sensation,” he quoted. “To feel that we exist, even though in pain.”
You let out a short exhale as you slipped your cardigan back on. How curious that he would be a romantic, but you supposed, in a way, it made sense. 
Free of being a so called muse for the day, you withdrew back into yourself. He’d gotten the barest glimpse of another side of you — softer, more open — and that had to be enough for the time being. 
Had to leave him wanting more, after all.
“I will see you bright and early tomorrow, Hannibal. Get some rest.”
------
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abbotjack · 1 month ago
Note
So here’s the thing, I haven’t watched Animal Kingdom and I am also insane. But Pope reminds me a lot of the Minotaur from the labyrinth. Like before he was shaped into a “monster” he was someone’s baby and there was love there once. And he’s always trying to find his way back to that. The Minotaur had a name too, but no one ever called him that. I often find myself wondering if, when Thesus dragged him out of the labyrinth, if he finally got to see the stars for which he was named again? Is Andrew hoping to see the stars again? He wasn’t always a weapon or a threat. But being down there in a dark all alone would make monsters of us all.
And to go on a different tangent, there’s a line by Ocean Vuong that I’ve been turning over in my head for years and I think might be applicable to Pope:
“What I really wanted to say was that a monster is not such a terrible thing to be. From the Latin root monstrum, a divine messenger of catastrophe, then adapted by the Old French to mean an animal of myriad origins: centaur, griffin, satyr. To be a monster is to be a hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.”
I didn’t have a point beyond needing to tell someone this. And also, your writing is incredible. I’m constantly looking to see what you’re up to while I’m rereading your work. Thank you!
God.
You don’t even know what you’ve done with this ask. I read it and just sat there. Staring. Because it didn’t just make sense—it shook something loose. Not because I hadn’t thought of Pope as a monster before—but because you reframed the word. You reminded me that the monster didn’t make the labyrinth. He was just left inside it.
And yeah. Pope is the Minotaur. Not the horror-movie version—blood-soaked and howling—but the tragedy. The cautionary tale no one ever finished reading. The part where the boy was born into a house that already saw him as wrong. Too much. Too dangerous. Too emotional. Too intense. Where people locked him away and then blamed him for what he became in the dark.
Because here’s what kills me—Andrew wasn’t always Pope.
He was a twin. He was somebody’s baby. He was Julia’s brother. And for a long time, he was just a kid trying to survive in a house where love came with strings attached and violence passed as loyalty. He was a boy who loved so deeply and so literally that when Smurf told him protecting the family meant hurting people, he didn’t even flinch. He just obeyed. Because what else do you do when the woman who gave you life also teaches you how to take it?
That’s the labyrinth.
It’s not some mythical stone maze—it’s Smurf’s house. It’s the way she shut the doors behind him. The way she turned him into a weapon and then acted like she had nothing to do with the blood on his hands. The way she gave him one job: Protect them. And how every time he tried to protect someone, he ended up hurting them instead.
And still—still—he wants out. Not out of the family, not really. But out of the story they wrote him into. The one where he���s the threat. The one where he’s always the one people warn each other about. “Pope’s crazy.” No—Pope is traumatized. Pope is exhausted. Pope is made of a love so feral and so misdirected it devours him from the inside out.
So your line—“I wonder if when Theseus dragged him out of the labyrinth, if he finally got to see the stars for which he was named”—it wrecked me. Because I don’t think anyone’s ever asked that. Not about the Minotaur. And definitely not about Andrew Cody. But yes. I think he’s still looking for them. I think every time he climbs onto that roof and stares out at Oceanside, he’s trying to find the stars again. Trying to remember that there was light before all this. That there was a boy before the monster. That he had a name before they took it from him and made it something to be feared.
And Ocean Vuong—don’t even get me started. That line has lived in the back of my brain for years like it was waiting for a name to attach itself to. “A hybrid signal, a lighthouse: both shelter and warning at once.” That’s it. That’s Pope. That’s the way he stands in front of J with a gun in one hand and grief in the other. That’s the way he holds Lena like she’s breakable, even after everything he’s done. That’s how he stands over Julia’s grave like a ghost. That’s what it means to be him. That’s the tension I’m always writing toward—the impossibility of being both danger and protection. Of being the knife and the hands that pull it out.
And maybe this is where I get too personal, but I don’t care. Writing Pope feels like standing in a house you built out of barbed wire and trying to convince yourself it’s safe. It’s exhausting. It’s cathartic. It’s holy. Because I’ve never written anyone who makes me ache the way he does. Who feels like a myth I want to rewrite from the inside out. He’s not clean. He’s not neat. He’s not the hero. But he never stopped trying to be something more than what they made of him. And that—that’s the part that kills me.
So no, your message wasn’t pointless. You gave me a whole new frame to write from. You reminded me that monsters didn’t name themselves. And more importantly, you reminded me that the Minotaur—like Andrew—was always trying to get home.
Thank you for that. And thank you for reading. For seeing the shape of the man beneath the myth. For tracing the outline of the boy in the dark. I promise, he’s still in there.
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pangolin-404 · 1 year ago
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I think I will ramble a little bit about the Minotaur while the brainrot is fresh in my brain
It's a House of Leaves reference. All of it. In House of Leaves, every single mention of the Minotaur and its surrounding mythology is written in red and struck through. And, in House of Leaves, there are a lot of recurring labyrinth motifs. The book's a maze to read in of itself, with literally hundreds of footnotes, several different narrators/layers to the stor(y/ies) told, and text turned sideways, upside down, and generally formatted like the book wants to fistfight you for DARING to try to read it.
In House of Leaves, the Minotaur is at points an allegory for some maybe-real, maybe-not monster in the house in question. Maybe it was always there, maybe it was given life by the fear of it, maybe it was never real. But also, as one of the frame tales spins off into a rant about its mythology, the Minotaur of Greek mythology is treated as a misunderstood, mistreated character (specifically, it is proposed the Minotaur, "Mint," was a deformed child rejected and locked away). The Minotaur is cut down and slain, still, but it is a tragedy, and he is mourned by Minos while the ignorant people celebrate.
At some point the main character of the book even has a nightmare that he is the Minotaur, wandering dark damp halls, cut down in cold, drunken blood just as the Greek Minotaur was slain.
The Minotaur in Ultrakill is a discarded entity. It wanders the labyrinth, abandoned by its owner. It was dangerous, yes, powerful, as was Mint of House of Leaves. But it, too, was cut down by a blood-drunk entity. Its terminal entry is struck through in attempt to erase the Minotaur from history, as if it was a mistake.
The whole of 7-1 feels very House of Leaves-esque. It is a maze; at some points the halls are black. The labyrinth is intentionally crafted to punish those who try to escape it, just as the lonely house grows more hostile the further it is explored. The house on Ash Tree Lane would be proud. It's probably coincidence, but the square drops into darkness remind me of myhouse.wad.
There's deeper comparison to be dug up from that, I think. Seeing House of Leaves in Ultrakill made me really happy and I'll be thinking about this for a long while.
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