#three finger hobb

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Jon III

He gestured with his stick. “Come, walk with me. They’ll be serving some vile stew in the common hall by now, and I could do with a bowl of something hot.”

Jon was hungry too, so he fell in beside Lannister and slowed his pace to match the dwarf’s awkward, waddling steps.

The wind was rising, and they could hear the old wooden buildings creaking around them, and in the distance a heavy shutter banging, over and over, forgotten.

Once there was a muffled thump as a blanket of snow slid from a roof and landed near them.

[ladystoneboobs]

people would rather die like urri than have what davos does with stannis. that's likely the right choice.

[chimcess]

Afterglow || jhs

Pairing: Hoseok x Reader Other tags: Vampire!Hoseok, Vampire!Reader Genre: Supernatural!AU, Vampire!AU, Twilight Universe, established relationship, fluff, smut, pwp Word Count: 4.5k+ Synopsis: "A loud crack of lighting boomed in the distance followed by a low rumbling. The storm was here. My love was not. I kept watching and waiting." Warnings: Character death (brief), mental illness (not reader and very brief), penetrative sex, oral sex (f receiving), vaginal fingering, lots of licking, kisses, slow and deep, Hoseok is a vocal boy, they are so in love, edging, over stimulation, hair pulling, man handling, growling, body worship, breast worship, unprotected sex (stay safe), vampire/animal sounds, implied outdoor sex, they are honestly so freaking cute, let me know if I missed anything A/N: So, I recently rewatched the entire Twilight Saga and couldn't stop myself. I promise they have nothing to do with the Cullens. I'm simply borrowing S.Meyer's universe for a second. Thanks for reading.

Staring out of the second story window, I frowned. There was a thunderstorm on its way and the wind was harsh. Still, I stayed put. I would not move until I knew he was coming back.

The first few droplets that landed against my cheeks were freezing and as the rain started coming down, I got soaked. There had been a window here once but after a rather unfortunate night, one where mama had shouted and threw a candlestick holder at my head, the glass was all but gone. Only one singular piece along the very bottom of the trim remained.

She was dead now, well, as dead as I believed her to be. Daddy, too. Only I remained. The house had been suffocating at first, my body unable to handle the loneliness. My memories of the attack were weak and dimly lit, but I could never forget the moment the burn began. I will never forget what led up to it.

At the ripe age of nineteen, my father was planning to marry me off to a local boy called Percival Hobbs. Mr.Hobbs was a fine gentleman, his sensibilities and wit uncharacteristically gentle and kind for a man of the era. We were both middle classes, his family only slightly richer than my own, and well matched. I was happy to be marrying him, especially when he told me his plans of expanding his father’s business out of Virginia. I hated this place back then; I could recall that fairly well despite the thick film which covered my old life.

My mother was an unusual woman of which I had gotten my own set of quirks. When I was young, I could remember her singing as she cooked, weaving flowers through her greasy hair as she doted on my father as if he were a king. We never went without, and her joy was contagious. My mother, for all intents and purposes, was a happy person. Perhaps a bit odd, she was more outspoken and considered rather rude to the other women in Richmond, but no one could truly say anything bad about her.

It was only after a particularly nasty accident that her behavior changed. We were on our way to visit her sister in Norfolk when our horses were startled by something out in the woods. Our carriage took a fall and my mother hit her head on a rock. We were all lucky to have survived the ordeal, something my father praised God for, but mama was never the same. She never smiled, hardly spoke, and could never find the melodies of the songs she had loved so dearly. It was as though a switch had been flipped and the light within her was turned off.

Daddy was nervous, as was I, but childish worries and adult sorrow were different. I believed she was sad, but my father knew she would never return back to normal. His work became more demanding after that. As a lawyer, my father was held in high regard at the time and worked long days and nights in order to provide for the three of us. They never bore another child. I believe it was because my mother could no longer stand to be touched and my father could never hurt her, even if it broke his heart.

Years passed that way until a sudden change began to occur. No longer was she silent, but the songs she sang were very different. Her eyes were more alive than they had been in a long, long time, and her voice had come back. The joy of this was short lived, however, as her delusions started soon after. Men who were not really men, monsters who could love, and things that would reflect like diamonds in the sunlight. All of it rubbish, all of it insane, but all of it real in her fragmented mind.

Daddy was planning on getting her committed after she said there were people living in the walls of our home. He might have killed her for declaring her love for a man who shined in the sun if he had not believed her to be completely psychotic. All the while I watched as the woman I held dearly began to hate and resent the both of us. That was when the shouting started, the violence, and then father had no choice but to call the doctor.

He had no way of knowing the chain of events that could cause, nor the dire consequences it would have on me. The doctor came to the house a little after midnight to take my mother away. She screamed and thrashed violently as she went, calling out to her monster to come and save her.

His name had been Louis and I only remember it because of what happened next. She had only said his name once, a broken and terrified cry for help, when the figure appeared. He was a beautiful man; his skin so pale it shined in the carriage’s lantern light. I do not remember if his hair had been brown or black, it was too dark to make out, but I did know his eyes were red. Bloody, dripping with hatred, and trained on the hands of the doctor holding my mother.

The doctor was dead in the next breath he took, my mother curling into the beast’s chest in complete hysterics. Louis then looked at my father, his intentions clear, before finding me. I was crying, my nightgown thin and exposing, and my own horror was reflected back at me. Whatever he saw that day made all the difference. Killing my father was easy for him to do. If he was my mother’s lover, then he would have hated the man who bore her children. I don't remember screaming but I could recall my mother telling me not to be afraid. Louis would make it quick. My death, she said, would be painless.

It was not. When Louis’s teeth sank into my neck, I only felt the slightly pinprick of pressure before I grew tired and weak. I knew I would die, and I did not fight it. I was either too weak or shell-shocked to put much behind it. Then, he was off of me, and I was fighting to keep my eyes open.

“You will be magnificent,” He whispered, kissing my cheek. His voice was soft, presumably to keep my mother from hearing us. I would never know why. “I will take care of her. You take care of yourself, little one.”

Then they were gone, Louis and my mother both. I had barely managed to crawl back inside, my hand clutching the wound on my neck, when the burning started. It lasted for three days and when it was over, I woke up afraid and starved. My father and the doctor were still outside, but I did not care who they were. I drained what was left of them before realizing what I had done. Ashamed and mortified, I put them both in the carriage and set it on fire. No one could know what had happened, of that I was certain.

The next few years of my life were spent in the forests of Virginia staying out of sight and hunting. I lived off of animals mostly, their deaths did not weigh down on my conscience as much as a human's did. My family home was vacant, untouched, and our names were forgotten to time. In 1875, I finally emerged from my isolation in the forests and moved back in. By 1900, I was able to venture into town on a rare occasion when the sun was well hidden beneath a thick layer of clouds. The house had gone through very few changes and the room I stood in now had been my father’s study. I hated the thought of touching anything in it, but I knew I would need to fix this issue. I could feel how weak the wood around it was becoming.

A loud crack of lighting boomed in the distance followed by a low rumbling. The storm was here. My love was not. I kept watching and waiting.

I met Hoseok through coincidence. My friend Seokjin, a Korean immigrant who traveled across the world as a nomad, had stumbled across the boy when he was dying from tuberculosis on the streets of New York. Jin, feeling sorry for the young man, changed him as he had done so five other times. All of his children were nomads, two of them finding their mates, and I got along with them rather well. Hoseok was no exception.

Jin had come to me after Hoseok had taken a swipe at his sire’s own newly transformed mate, Evelyn. The boy needed someone to help him with his temper and dealing with two newborns was rather difficult. I remembered my own early years with distaste. We acted more like animals than people.

Hoseok arrived on my doorstep in 1953, angry, hungry, and completely irrational. He was just over a year old and while the worst of it was over, he had a gift that took its toll on him. Not all of our kind had an extra sense. Jin, for example, was completely normal. His beauty was unparalleled, but even in his human life he was the most handsome man one could have met. Hoseok, however, was not as lucky.

The boy was incredibly powerful, his ability to hypnotize anyone with the sound of his voice was something the Volturi, the leaders and rulers of our kind, would love to get their hands on. For Hoseok, it made his thirst grow quicker and he lacked control of it. He could easily manipulate those around him without meaning to, which was why his brothers did not want to deal with the task. I was Jin’s last resort and the only reason he had come to me was my own gift.

I lived in my world in a sort of bubble. Gifts, no matter the kind, were ineffective against it. The bubble was invisible, elastic, and malleable, but impenetrable. I could choose to remove it from myself and take the brunt of whatever ability was being thrown at me, but I had only done it twice. Both times had been when Jungkook had come to see me and wanted to know if his gift, to make fake clones of himself, could throw me off. He won the first round, but I came out on top the second time. Being the sore loser he is, Jungkook never asked for a rematch.

Hoseok and I took some time to warm up to one another. The pull toward him was instantaneous but he was too young and wild for either one of us to explore what that could mean. The first five months was spent chasing him down before he could attack the unsuspecting townsfolk in Richmond. Then it was showing him the way I hunted. When his eyes changed from red to amber to gold, his mood stabilized. Our friendship was finally able to take root and before long our love bloomed.

After our first kiss under the stars in the trees that surrounded my home, we were connected so deeply that removing one would surely bring death upon the other. When I was a child, I had been disappointed to grow up in the East. We were in the more rural part of Richmond and all of the girls at school made fun of me for being a ‘country bumpkin.’ As a vampire, however, my little ranch was a paradise. Hoseok and I could make love for hours and no one would hear a thing.

Right now, during this thunderstorm, would be prime time for us to lose ourselves within one another. It was a shame he had decided to go hunting alone today. Hoseok liked having space far more than I did, but I understood his wants and needs and gave him what he asked for. I could only hope his delay was from him getting distracted and not an unfortunate slip up. He had them more than I did, and they ruined his mood for weeks.

Finally, I saw him. His black hair was slick and stuck to his forehead from the rain, the linen pajamas he had worn out transparent and heavy. Elated to finally have him home, I jumped out of the window and crashed into him. The sound was thunderous.

Hoseok laughed, “Hey there, Sunshine.”

On top of him, I sighed, holding him close to me. The rain was cold, but it would not bother me. I could not get sick. Capturing his lips, I finally felt at ease. I did not like it when he was gone. The house was too quiet.

“I love you,” I sighed, feeling my body hum to life with need. “I missed you. Touch me.”

This aspect of our love life had been difficult for me at first. I was from an era when a woman did not speak this way, but after gentle coaxing from my lover, I had gotten over the prudishness of the 1850s. We were, after all, more connected than any human couple could hope to be. Gripping my hips, Hoseok licked my bottom lip.

“Can we go inside?” He asked, nipping at my chin as my hands shredded his shirt. “The rain is distracting.”

I nodded and he scooped me up, carrying me back inside at our natural speed. We were fan, faster than any living thing on the planet, and able to see the world clearly as we passed it by. Hoseok ripped the front door of its hinges, making me laugh. He was always so impatient when it came to sex.

We ran up the steps, passing the study on the way to our bedroom. The door was still open, the rain pouring into it. I wondered briefly what my father would have thought of Hoseok. Then his lips were attached to my ear and all thoughts of my father were gone.

He was less aggressive with the door to our bedroom. A creak inaudible to the human ear sent a chill up my spine as I clung to his wet body. His skin felt hot under my hands despite how cold we both were. Hoseok was panting like a dog, more from his excitement than any real need for air.

He laid me down on our bed gently before tearing off my dress. The chemise pulled apart as easily as a piece of paper. Hoseok’s mouth found my chest as soon as it was exposed to him, mouth finding a nipple as a hand fiddled with the other. Whining, I buried my hands in his hair and held him close to me.

“I missed you so much,” I cried out.

Hoseok bit down on the little nub before letting it go with a loud smack. Fingers still twisting and brushing my right nipple, he smiled down at me. Topaz eyes were pitch black with desire and a low purr reverberated through his chest. I felt it in my groin.

“I missed you more,” He replied huskily.

I smiled shyly, reaching out for him. Hoseok leaned into my touch, purring increasing as I caressed his face. Pouting my lips, I begged him to come closer with my eyes. He smiled; his eyes soft.

“I wish you could see how beautiful you look right now.”

He sucked on my chest for what felt like hours, grinding his hips down to meet my own, and purring like a cat the entire time. He had always embraced the more animalistic aspects of our life. My breathy sighs spurred him on, my hands increasing their wandering across his torso, as I silently pleaded with him for more. Hoseok only made me wait a few moments more before sloppy kisses descended down my stomach.

A thin pair of cotton underwear separated us, but he simply licked over the fabric. I cried out, the pleasure sending shockwaves through my body. Long, hard swipes of his tongue had my writhing, his breath so hot and warm against me it felt like I was taking a scolding bath. With every lick and suck I felt myself grow hotter. Hoseok lost himself to his own pleasure, rubbing himself against the mattress as he held my legs apart.

Sex was not always so brazen. Our first few times were more primal, the need to be close after months of dancing around the issue making the release all the more powerful. After that, I had grown slightly shy. Hoseok had taken to leaving my top on during those days, letting me grow more comfortable in his presence, and taking me so gently I cried. The next 70 years have taught us a great deal about one another, and now sex was just a part of who we were. Not a day went by that we were not lost to it, each time bringing out a different part of us, before going back to our respective hobbies. In a storm like this, however, I imagined we would not leave this bed.

“Please,” I whined. “More.”

Finally, the thin piece of cotton was removed, and his tongue was on me. Long and broad at first, he liked to play with me for a few moments before diving in. Unlike myself, my love had enough patience to watch and wait. Savoring it, he said. I think he just enjoyed being the only person who could see my eyes roll back in ecstasy.

I felt the ghost of his fingers trailing down my leg at the same time his mouth found my clitoris. I hissed, back arching off the bed as he swirled his tongue around the bud. His finger pressed against my opening. I gushed around it, grinding my hips down and forcing the tip inside of me. Hoseok groaned, tongue becoming more aggressive. I cried out, pushing down again and swallowing more of his finger. Finally, with a deep growl, he pushed it the rest of the way and added another immediately after.

I had never felt more alive than when we were in this bed. With Hoseok on top of me, eyes hungry and watching my every move like I was the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. The monster within me was finally asleep as I became all consumed with his touch. Finding the soft bundle of nerves within me, Hoseok purred. I sobbed, the pleasure overwhelming.

“Look at you,” Hoseok rasped, moving from my sex to watch me. His fingers stretched me out as my hips raised to meet his thrusts. “So pretty and warm.”

He kissed my neck, “Your body is so beautiful.”

Languid kisses down across my throat, teeth gently grazing the skin, before trailing back down to my breasts. They had always been his favorite part of my body. He licked down the swell before kissing my nipple. His fingers sped up their menstruations making me mewl.

“God,” He croaked, voice deeper than normal. “You love this, don’t you?”

I nodded, body twitching and convulsing. “Yes.”

“Tell me how much,” He sucked on my left nipple.

I struggled to find words. My body was on fire now, my stomach tightening and expanding, and I knew I was close. My thighs were shaking so violently I would be embarrassed if it was anybody else, but this was Hoseok, and I knew he was happy to see my body singing for him. Somehow, I managed to speak.

“So much,” I breathed. “I love it so much.”

Sitting back on his ankles, he smirked. His shirt was gone and his toned body was on full display. I would never get bored of looking at him. Hoseok was the most beautiful person I had ever seen.

“You’re so messy,” His voice was like velvet. “So wet for me.”

His thumb found my clit and I was cumming before I could really savor the feeling. With a loud shout, I fell apart with Hoseok’s eyes on me. I was wired up and so desperate for more I began to beg. My pleas came out without a single thought behind them. I was drunk on pleasure and yearning for more.

“Just relax,” He finally said, hovering over me once more. His fingers were gone now and I began to tear at his pants. They were still wet and his skin had cooled the rain even further. “I’m going to take care of you.”

My hands were all over him. With his pants disposed of and his cock out, I held it tightly as I began to work my hands in a rhythm I knew he loved. Hoseok let out a guttural sound, a mix between a bear and a mountain lion, as he began to fondle my breasts again. Flicking my nipples, he fucked himself into my hand as he panted.

“Stop,” He grunted, grabbing hold of my wrist. “Grab your legs.”

I did as I was told. It had been difficult to let go of my control in the beginning. I was such a tightly wound person, my need for schedules and sameness a byproduct of my upbringing. I was raised to be prim, proper, and well put together. Even if I did not feel well, I was to be washed, dressed, and smiling all day long. Father would not accept anything less.

When my sexual relationship with Hoseok started, that was still a large part of who I was. When we changed we were frozen in time. It took a lot to cause great change within our kind. For myself, I had only had two since the burning stopped. The first was my decision to stop hunting the humans in my area. Animal blood helped calm the raging anger and depression I carried over from the last night I was alive. The second had been Hoseok’s arrival. Our mates changed us in the most profound way, and his existence made the looming sadness I carried with me fade. It was not gone, it would never fully heal for that was impossible, but he made the gaping hole in my heart three times smaller.

The other thing that changed was my horrible habit of controlling the people around me. Jin and the others all commented on my inability to relax or let go. Jimin, the first person Jin had ever changed, had joked that I was the only vampire in existence with wrinkles. I laughed at the time, but after Hoseok came to me I realized he had been right. I was always stressed, always striving for perfection, and always disappointed when it never came to fruition.

Laying underneath him, I was in awe at how easily I pushed my legs up against my chest. My arm pinned them down. There was not a worry about how improper I looked or if my hair was splayed out nicely. I did not care if this was perfect because I knew we were. Hoseok pressed himself to my entrance and I smiled. I did not need perfection so long as I had him.

Pushing himself into me, he cried out in pleasure while I chanted ‘yes’ over and over and over again. Buried to the hilt, Hoseok took a moment to hook my legs around his hips and kissed the tip of my nose. With a soft declaration of his love, he began to move.

I held onto his arms with everything I had. Hoseok was stronger than I was so I did not need to worry about my own strength bothering him. Outside the storm raged on while we rejoiced in our pleasure. Hoseok’s thrusts were hard, steady, and hit my deepest spot with precision. After so long we had one another memorized.

“S’good,” Hoseok slurred, his hips pistoning into me roughly. “You feel so good.”

I whimpered, “Baby, please.”

He grabbed my hair, roughly shoving my face into the mattress as he lifted his leg onto the bed. I wailed, his cock pounding into my g-spot making me see stars. His own sounds grew louder, growls and snarls filling the space as the sounds of us coming together grew louder and louder.

Fire was pooling in my lower abdomen, so hot it rivaled my change. I could feel Hoseok pulsing inside of me, his grip on my hair still hard and strong. Then he tugged, my head lifting off the bed as he manhandled me. He forced our mouths together, a clashing of teeth and tongue as he chased his own high. Time began to slow before fading, the fire all consuming, and I could no longer respond to Hoseok’s kisses. He let go of me then and I fell back onto the bed.

Everything faded into white, hot, searing sparks shooting up my entire body and licking my bones on their way out. I could vaguely hear the sound of something being torn as my body convulsed with the weight of my orgasm. Above me, Hoseok stuttered.

“I love you,” He said, his own pleasure closing in.

I hardly paid him any attention. Our kind would never tire, never sleep, or sweat, but I was positive I was at least two of them at this moment. I felt like I was in a trance as I watched him fall apart, his eyebrows pulled together and his mouth agape. His grunts and groans were more like cries now, higher and pitch and breathless. Then, with one final thrust he was spilling into me.

We stayed that way for a while, Hoseok inside of me as we looked into one another's eyes. Neither one of us was particularly tired but I knew we would take a break before our next round. The both of us enjoyed the human charade of cuddling and pretending to sleep for a time. Eyes closed and breathing evenly before finally one of us would break. Outside a particularly loud rumble made him grin.

“How would dancing in the rain sound?” He asked.

I laughed, heart full now that he was here.

“What kind of dancing?” I teased, already knowing my answer.

“Well, it will not require clothing.”

I pushed him away, sending his body back toward the other side of the room. With a wicked grin, Hoseok jumped to catch me, but I was already gone. If Hoseok was the strongest, I was the fastest. I ran down the hall, into my father's study, and out of the window with Hoseok fast on my trail.

My change had always seemed so meaningless before Hoseok came. Years spent wondering Louis’s reasoning and subsequent abandonment. I had never seen nor heard from either Louis or my mother since that night, and that left so much time for me to grow angry and bitter about this life. I hated what I was and who I was forced to be.

Now, running in with Hoseok in the afterglow of our love I realized something that would cause a third change within me. Everything that had led me up to this moment was worth it. All of the pain, loneliness, and heartache I had gone through was not a curse. It was a precursor. Every memory leading to the very reason for my existence closer still. A smile stretched across my face, one of my rarest, largest of smiles, and I let Hoseok catch me.

As long as he was here, nothing else mattered.

© chimcess, 2024. Do not copy or repost without permission.

[amber-laughs]

What would Jon Snow's favorite flavour of chips be? I have an argument to win, and we've both agreed that you're probably the best authority on this

candidates and reasonings!

he's a health bro to cope with a lack of control over his childhood and accidentally internalizing catelyn only buying sugar-free snacks (lettuce chips/cucumber chips)

2. original/cheese pringles (the bastards of the chip world, pringles in general aside from sour cream)

3. kettlecorn (just feels like something he'd pull out during a date with ygritte and she breaks up with him for it) (also kettle+corn = voter fraud callback)

4. pretzels (I actually think these are decent. he'd like the more solid texture I feel)

5. beef jerky (because ghost likes it and he's too bone tired to get a seperate bag on movie nights with himself and his dog)

I mean chips in the wider sense of the word

@thecounselorfeline this is one of the most important questions ever asked. unfortunately for everybody i think he’d be a beef jerky guy. you just fucking know three finger hobb is making that shit by the barrel before stannis’ men come and plunder their store room. no for most certain castle black has a communal barrel of beef jerky (it’s not always beef) that they all stick their sweaty hands into ala Five Guys’ peanut crates. jon was disgusted at first and wouldn’t partake but then fuck it ya know? his dad got beheaded, robb’s a king, arya’s missing he needs beef jerky like a normal man would need a shot of whiskey and it just rolled from there

[theredofoctober]

BONUS MANNA CONTENT

Between writing chapters I may drop fragments of 'Little One's diaries regarding her captivity under Will and Hannibal. Chronologically out of order

Characters: Reader or Little One (OC)/Will Graham

TW: eating disorders, noncon, kidnapping

---

FUNERAL BELL

Diary,

I've forgotten what wind feels like, in here. The air is so still that I can almost see it, silver prisms cutting across everything like shattered glass. The wind, the rain, I hear it all the time, but what it felt like on my skin I don't remember, whatever's left of the sensation out of focus, like a mirage, like a dream.

I used to spend hours staring out of windows, waiting for appointments and difficult conversations to be over. Now it seems it's almost all I do, hopeless and forlorn. The leaves are maroon, and so many cleave to the branches still that it's like the world beyond Hannibal's house is holding a ragged breath, waiting for me to do something.

Waiting for me to do wrong.

I've grown superstitious, in this dark place, death place, this cenotaph of shadows. Every cobweb and shrouded corner is hungrier than I am, desperate for someone to throw its secrets to the light.

My fathers— they made me like this.

If they are men, and just men, then I'd fear to know anyone beyond these walls again in horror that they, too, might hide that sanguine appetite, not only to kill, but fuck and torment as they will, and anyone they want.

They didn't sleep with Abigail Hobbs, but tossed her between their affections like orcas toying with a stone-battered seal, tearing her to pieces in their ruinous embrace.

They tear and tear at me, too, but I don't die, will never die.

I've always believed that, in some way, my absence of eating made me immortal, cleansed me to such strengths that no ailment could touch me, no failure of organs, nor any symptom common to the things I did. Bed sores, losing my monthly blood, and all the bad temper I could summon failed to break me; even now, cold and logical before the desk my jailer brought for me, I'm sure my illness makes me special, blessed as the saints were that starved, as I do.

This struggle between me and the men— it makes all three of us feel so very much more alive, I see that now. But I resent the power they take from me, that they would quench the last fire I had to survive the nights I can't undo.

I use them, for what they will give me, which isn't much, unless I play their girl. It's getting easier, even without the drugs, to the point that when I hear that whimpering voice, and see the crumpled pantomime of my expression in a mirrored surface, I ask myself: am I just pretending, or is that me? Has that always been me, the fossil of my first self, dug forcefully to the surface?

I can't stop thinking about this afternoon, and what I did to purchase the rarity of a phone call to my parents. Hannibal will no longer allow it— I become too agitated, he says; he doesn't like me crying for others. He's possessive, like that, they both are. My pain is distilled in their bottles, to be savoured by its brewers alone.

Today I clambered onto Will's lap and offered myself for him to drink. I ground myself upon his desperation, watched veins rise upon his clenched fists as I made him hard under the malice of my motions. I tasted the malt of his sweat and the cologne on his pretty white neck as I kissed my way up to his red mouth.

"One," he said, grimly— he always says 'One', a grudging attempt at Dr Lecter's nickname for me. "What are you doing?"

"I want that call, Daddy," I whimpered, into his throat —the veins in it jump-jump-jumped; I wanted to crack them in my teeth like shells and watch him cool in waxen death in Dr Lecter's armchair. I wanted to cry in his shoulder like a princess orphaned by war. I wanted him to fill up the volcanic yawn of my hunger with his fingers and cock to pestle my grief.

"Hannibal said no, but I'll let you do anything," I said— traitor, fork-tongued liar. "I just want to hear their voices. Please, please, please—"

Will ran so hot beneath me I thought I'd made him ill with my affection. I think maybe I had. He wanted to fuck me until I wept; he wanted to put me to bed as though I was very small, and forget that he'd ever touched me, I could feel it.

"If he said no, then why are you asking me?" he asked, through gritted teeth, but I felt his hands on my waist, touching me so awkwardly, with so much needy want that suddenly I needed him inside me, just to squeeze my knuckles shut around that spare shred of power.

"Because you love me," I said, looking into the November waves of his soft eyes, "and I hate you. And you don't want me to hate you. So help me. Please. Please. Please."

I put my tongue into his slick mouth and he moaned so pathetically that I was in awe, for a moment, that he was my captor, and I was not his. But then he was ripping at his buckle like a monk fallen before God in his love of women, and I remembered that I was afraid of him— too late, as the perspiring moon flesh of his hands drew me apart, and he thrust his cock in me with my mouth still on his.

The pleasure— I wish I could pick it out like a knot, that I could put a pin through a doll of it and see it die. But I still feel it all, now, the shift of his pelvis up into mine, his shaking hands on the back of my neck, on my thighs, promise in every fumbled grasp.

I hated him, held back tears even as my middle gleamed with the dirt of him inside me.

"You can call home in the morning," he said, between kisses that will haunt me like the dead. "I'll convince Dr Lecter that you've earned it. And... I think you have."

I lay in his lap, afterwards, his seed warm within me, my face in his shirt, breathing him in, wishing the spores of his pale skin alone could kill me.

Galerina marginata, they call the Funeral Bell, a mushroom that poisons its eater. I'm starting to think that I'm like that, to Will and Hannibal; for every bite of me they dig, dig down into an earthen darkness.

I think I want to see how far they'll go.

[creatureofsunandsky]

I trusted none of them with the Fool but carried him myself to the sled, loaded him, and clambered up afterward to sit beside him.

--

I saw her swallow. “As an apprentice, the first cleaning of an injured man is one of my tasks.”

“As his friend, it’s my task. Please.”

--

I rose and before he could touch the Fool, I took the rags and medicine from him. “I’ll do it,” I told him.

--

Another, saner part of me was saying softly, “Fool. Fool, it’s all right. You are here with me now, and they cannot hurt you anymore. You are safe here. Oh, Fool. You are safe. Beloved.”

--

Feared that it would alarm him to be touched and feared even more that it would draw me tighter into his misery and wake my own. But at last I took the three steps that carried me around the table. “Fool. You are safe here. I know you can’t believe it just yet, but it’s over. And you are safe.” I stroked the broken hair on his head, rough as the coat of a sick dog, and then pulled him closer to cradle his head against my sternum. His clawlike hands came up and clutched my wrist, and he held himself tighter against me. I let him have his tears. They were the only things I could give him then.

--

He rose and groped his way around the end of the table to where I sat. His hands felt for me, found a shoulder, the side of my face, and then fluttered up to my head and the crown there. He lifted it slightly, and then, with no self-consciousness at all, measured the length of my hair. He walked his fingers down my face, touching the break in my nose, the old scar, the scruff of beard on my chin. If anyone else had done it, it would have felt invasive. Insulting. But I knew he was comparing what I looked like now with what he recalled.

He cleared his throat once more and after a pause he added, “You’re a handsome man still, Fitz. Not as pretty as before Regal broke your face. But you’ve aged well, I judge.”

--

"But what matters, as I started to say, is that I want you to feel safe. So tell me. What can I do to make you feel safe?”

His grip on the knife loosened. “You aren’t irritated with me? Annoyed at my weakness?”

I was startled. “Of course not!”

“You went away so abruptly. When you didn’t come to tell me yourself, I thought … I thought you had wearied of having me depend on you for everything.”

“What would make you feel safer?”

“You do. Being here.”

--

Fool's Assassin/Fool's Quest Robin Hobb

[omnivorousshipper]

Hi Omni!! I think it's been forever since I've sent a request!

How about a Shobbs ABO accidental Mpreg? Luke and Deckard have been hooking up for Deckard's heats and they get caught in the moment 😅 Later, Deckard realizes he's pregnant but doesn't tell Luke for a bit until he corners and questions him. It's a shock and Deckard is hesitant until they go for their first ultrasound! It all clicks about how real everything is! Cue supportive Luke!!!!

Ooooooo!! ABO and mpreg!! I love it!!

~~~

The sun was barely above the horizon when Luke opened his eyes and heard birds chirping outside his bedroom window. He tried to reach up and rub at his eyes when his arm was stopped in it's tracks.

Smiling, Luke knew exactly why.

Laying on his side, Deckard was shoved tightly against his chest. He was sleeping on Luke's left arm and had wrapped his own arm under Luke's right arm. They were thoroughly wrapped around each other.

Pulling his head back enough to look down at the sleeping omega, Luke nuzzled his face against Deckard's head.

He could smell the faint wisps of Deckard's heat, indicating it was finally over.

All around them was a nicely crafted nest of pillows and blankets. Some were originally from Luke's closet while the more expensive materials were bought by Deckard and brought out during his heats.

Luke still wasn't exactly sure when Deckard had decided to trust him enough to ask him to spend his heats with him.

It had been years since Luke had helped with someone's heat, but by the way Deckard limped afterwards with a satisfied smile, he knew he was doing a good job.

This was Deckard's fourth heat.

The first had happened when Luke was in London for a mission. He had been shocked Deckard even knew he was in town when he had gotten the call. After that, the next three were spent at Luke's as it was easier for him.

This also allowed Deckard to spend more time with Sam.

While Deckard had this outer tough guy persona, Luke knew he absolutely melted around children. Sam also picked up on this and swiftly had Deckard wrapped around her finger. Not that he minded in the least.

Luke wondered if maybe that was the reason Deckard had spent a month before his next heat with them.

"Mmmm."

Smiling, Luke held Deckard closer as he slowly woke up.

"Morning, princess. How are you feeling?"

"Good," he mumbled, shoving his face into Luke's chest.

"Want me to make you chocolate chip pancakes?"

"Yes."

Chuckling, Luke gave Deckard a quick kiss to the cheek before sliding out of bed.

Heats took everything out of Deckard, leaving him fatigued and like a zombie for a few days afterwards. Luke would never tell Deckard, but he loved these days the most.

He couldn't wait for Deckard's next heat.

---

The call never comes.

Luke is scared when the three month mark comes and goes, without a text or call from Deckard.

So far, Deckard's heats were on time. Every three months.

But not this time.

Then another month passes.

Nothing.

Luke tries texting Deckard but only receives short response, which made him panic even more.

Next, he calls Hattie, who assured him Deckard was alive and breathing.

This doesn't calm him in the least.

He asked her to check and see if his last heat went well, but all he got in response was a gagging noise. Hattie refused to talk to her brother about his heats. She told him to call Owen.

As soon as he did call Owen, all he got was laughter and a clipped "fuck you, Hobbs" before being blocked.

With his job and Sam, Luke's not able to up and travel to London whenever he wanted to. He continues to try and call Deckard, but the other dodges him.

This is how the next month goes until Mr. Nobody calls him and the Toretto crew up for a mission.

Somehow, he was able to get the Shaw Siblings to show up as well.

Luke knows somethings different even before he sees Deckard. He can identify the omega's scent rooms away and knows that it's different.

His normally bittersweet scent was sweeter and sharper.

When he does actually lay eyes on the omega, he can see other changes.

His skin looks healthier, almost glowing. Meanwhile, his sweater was large, almost baggy on him. Luke had never seen Deckard wear anything so loose-fitting when out in public. He only wore those clothes when lazying around the house.

Staring at Deckard, Luke saw his hand resting on his stomach, rubbing circles into it.

Was he sick?

He would have stood there staring at the omega all day if Dom had nudged him and told Mr. Nobody to start the meeting.

It feels like an eternity before the briefing is over and Mr. Nobody let's them go prepare however they want for the mission.

Luke is hot on Deckard's heels, who had nearly ran out the door.

He found Deckard in the bathroom, on his knees and emptying his stomach.

"Are you ok, Deck?" Luke doesn't hesitate to drop to his knees as well, rubbing down Deckard's back.

The omega is too busy dry heaving to do more than shake his head.

Luke desperately wants to do more for him, but there's not much he can do other than wait out the nausea.

When Deckard finally pulls away and wipes his mouth, he sways on his knees. Luke doesn't even think before wrapping his arms around the smaller and man, pulling him into his lap.

Deckard doesn't fight against his offered comfort, rather shoving himself further into Luke's body. A soft whine leaves him as he squeezes his eyes closed.

"What's going on, Deck? Why didn't you call me for your last heat?" Luke keeps his voice gentle.

"I didn't have a heat," Deckard grunted, voice scratchy.

"What do you mean? I thought you were regular?"

"I usually am," Deckard sighed. "I didn't have my last heat because I'm pregnant."

Luke blinked.

"What?"

"I must have forgotten my birth control during my last heat," Deckard explained, leaning his head on Luke's shoulder.

"Oh."

"That's all you have to say?"

"Give me a minute, would you? It's not every day I hear the might Deckard Shaw is knocked up with my kid."

Luke deserved the soft punch Deckard gives him for that remark.

---

Luke's able to convince Deckard to come back to his house, but has to agree with Owen and Hattie staying as well.

He would rather deal with a rabid raccoon than two overly protective Alpha siblings, but Deckard is firm. If it wasn't for the vulnerable look in his eyes, Luke would have refused. But, as Deckard stares up at him, almost begging, he relents.

The house nearly feels like a mine field whenever the three Alphas are in the same room, but neither Sam or Deckard care as they bond over Deckard's baby bump.

Luckily, Deckard's first ultrasound gets them out of the house before a fight can break out. Neither Owen nor Hattie are interested in going to the hospital and potentially seeing Deckard's naked belly. Luke was relieved to finally have Deckard all to himself.

"There they are!"

Holding Deckard's hand, Luke looked up at the screen and could barely make out a baby.

But there they were.

His baby.

His and Deckard's

"We made a baby..."

Deckard snorted.

"You're just figuring that out, jolly green?"

"It all feels more... real," Luke explains, ignoring the soft jab. "We're really having a kid."

"Uh, well..." The technician clears his throat.

A spike of worry goes through the couple as their heads whip around to stare at him.

"You're actually having twins," he smiled at them. "Here's the other one's head."

~~~

I hope you enjoyed friend!! Thanks for the prompt!

[ficmesideways]

Request for @sacredwarrior88 Gif Source: Fight / Hobbs

Imagine meeting Hobbs at your daughters’ school after she gets into a fight defending Samantha from bullies and you ask him out.

------- Imagine --------

Getting out of work early to have to go and pick up your daughter who had received a brief suspension for fighting had not been the highlight of your day; but after sitting in the principal’s office and finding out why the fight had occurred you couldn’t bring yourself to be too mad at you little one. She had been defending a friend from a bully, and though you wished it hadn’t ended in violence you were still proud. You now sat with her outside the principal’s office, waiting for the other girls’, Samantha, parent to arrive as well. All three children would be suspended for the fight but at least the bully would be out longer and the two girls would return in a few short days. Still, the idea of having to deal with other parent’s had your knee bouncing in anxiety and your daughter noticed.

“Don’t worry Mom, I’ve met Sam’s dad. He is super nice.”

“I’m sure he is honey.” You said smiling at her and leaning back on the child sized chair as you continued your wait. You had just closed your eyes briefly when you heard a deep voice. You opened your eyes and looked up…and up into the smiling face of one of the most handsome…and built men you had ever seen. “You must be Glory’s mom, I’m Luke.” He said, reaching a hand down. You took it to shake it and he easily helped you stand from the chair still smiling. “So, I hear our girls got into a bit of a scuffle.”

“Seems so.” You said face flushing and heart pounding fast, faster when you saw no ring on the finger of the hand that still held yours. “I know the principal wants to have a few words with us but…um…” You couldn’t believe what you were about to do in the middle of your daughter’s school but hell with it, “would you like to go over it more…over lunch?”

His smile brightened even more as his hand stayed interlocked with yours. “I’d like that.” The moment would have been sweet if it wasn’t for the two oohing girls that began giggling and laughing at us.

[asongoftinandfoil]

Listen I know we love to get on GRRM's case for writing about food so much, but.

The food descriptions are, IMO, some of the best parts of ASOIAF.

The food makes the scenes and locations real. It's imaginative. It's environmental storytelling. Reading about the lavish feasts in King's Landing (Cersei's swan during the food shortage comes to mind) sets in how extravagant and uncaring the rich are with their wealth. When Arry eats anything other than acorn paste and worms--maybe some foraged vegetables, or a rabbit--you rejoice!

Food is power (Jaime trying to cut a roast one handed, or literally break bread) and wealth and status. It's culture (hot Dornish peppers, Mereneese fetal puppies, Dothraki clotted mares milk) and history and legend. Food is communion and communication, both within the story and with the reader.

When I worldbuild for my own fantasy stories or plan for DnD, I go rabid for food ideas. So it absolutely tickles me that GRRM spends pages detailing meals, from simple fare on the wall (vote for Three Finger Hobb!) to the bowls of brown of Flea Bottom to the 77 dishes of Joffrey's wedding. Everything feels more real, and I love it.

(Can you tell I'm in the middle of reading the Purple Wedding???)

[jozor-johai]

Revisiting the Rat Cook, Part 2: Prince-and-Bacon Pie, and Pork Crackling

This is the second part of a series where I'm examining the symbols and themes present in the "Rat Cook" story, as relayed by Bran in ASOS Bran IV, and search reappearances of those elements throughout the rest of ASOIAF.

This is the first part, as well as the long version of my introduction.

"Revisiting the Rat Cook" is predicated on the understanding that GRRM's use of metadiegetic legends provide a "road map" of symbols and meaning, used in their abstract form, which we, as readers, can use to better understand the relationships between symbols, motifs, and themes as they reoccur throughout ASOAIF as a whole.

Among other things, the Rat Cook story is about a rat which eats rats, or a cook who serves kings; The Rat Cook story is about fathers and sons, about cannibalism, about trust, about vengeance, and about damning one's legacy.

This is likely going to be a 9-part series, but ideally almost all of these parts will be able to stand on their own. Each post will inform the next as I build my analysis, but hopefully each individual post is also interesting in its own right.

"Prince-and-Bacon Pie"

Last time, we talked about Wyman Manderly's wedding pies, and his favorite, lamprey pies.

In the original Rat Cook story, though, the Andal King is allegedly served a bacon pie. “Prince-and-bacon pie”, Bran calls it, and he repeats later that a “rasher of bacon” was cooked into the prince pie. The idea of pork served alongside human flesh is given repeat attention in regard to the pie, but it extends elsewhere into the story as well:

When the Rat Cook is punished, in turn, and becomes a cannibal rat eating his own kind, he is transformed into an insatiable rat “as huge as a sow”. Unusually large for a rat, but he is certainly no longer a man, although perhaps close enough, if you trust the moniker “long pork”.

This connection remains true for Lord Manderly’s Frey pies. When they are served in ADWD The Prince of Winterfell, they are introduced as being pork pies:

“…three great wedding pies, as wide across as wagon wheels, their flaky crusts stuffed to bursting with carrots, onions, turnips, parsnips, mushrooms, and chunks of seasoned pork swimming in a savory brown gravy.

Manderly’s pie is nearly identical to the one served by the Rat Cook, with carrots, onions, mushrooms, and, most importantly, down to pork as the main meat—which is to be expected, as Manderly has all but admitted to his influences.

In fact, though, the association of cannibalism, pork, and even pies comes as early as AGOT Jon IV, when the readers are introduced to the notion offhand while the Night’s Watch recruits mock Samwell Tarly:

“I saw him eat a pork pie," Toad said, smirking. "Do you think it was a brother?"

Three-Finger Hobb is certainly not serving Dickon to Samwell, but it contains all the same connections that the Rat Cook story relies on: between cannibalism and one’s own family, children baked into pork pies. The phrase “rasher of bacon” from the Rat Cook story appears in this same interaction about Sam, doubling down on the associations:

"You girls do as you please," Rast said, "but if Thorne sends me against Lady Piggy, I'm going to slice me off a rasher of bacon."

Again, this early instance of bullying, which might instead be framed as the brutal hierarchy of interpersonal domination—or we might say, brothers turning against brothers—is depicted using the same motifs as literal cannibalism. Is it Sam’s blood brother who is a pork pie, or is it Sam, called pork by the men who would become his black brothers? These are brothers turning against their own, and it is the imagined transformation of a man into a pig.

The recruits are joking here, but the comparison between slicing up a human and slicing up pork was brought up with a much darker tone only three chapters earlier, in AGOT Arya II:

Jeyne Poole had told Arya that he'd cut him up in so many pieces that they'd given him back to the butcher in a bag, and at first the poor man had thought it was a pig they'd slaughtered.

It’s dark irony for Micah, the butcher’s boy, to be returned to his father butchered like a pig. It also evokes our Rat Cook story again, with a dead son delivered to his father; like the Andal king, Micah’s father thinks—for a moment—that he’s being given pork. Also present again is the nature of transformation that this death creates: the prince becomes a pork pie, and the Rat Cook becomes as big as a “sow”, just as much as Micah becomes a slaughtered pig.

When the Night’s Watch arrives at Craster’s Keep in ACOK Jon III, Jon finds the similarity again, noting that a pig about to be slaughtered sounds eerily human:

Nearby, a small girl pulled carrots from a garden, naked in the rain, while two women tied a pig for slaughter. The animal's squeals were high and horrible, almost human in their distress.

Immediately later in the same chapter, Dolorous Edd makes a wry joke about cannibalism:

Best leave the wolf outside, he looks hungry enough to eat one of Craster's children. Well, truth be told, I'm hungry enough to eat one of Craster's children, so long as he was served hot.

Just like with the Night’s Watch recruits, this is a joke, but Edd’s line about eating one of Craster’s children transforms the earlier scene into a more chilling image: we were presented with the human-sounding tied pig appearing side-by-side in the same sentence with one of Craster’s small, naked children. With the addition of Edd’s words, both motifs appear alongside a story of eating children—just as in the Rat Cook story, where the Andal king eats his child-as-pork, and the Rat Cook-as-sow eats his own children as well.

Even more can be made of Edd’s jape, if we notice another minute detail: it’s also loaded that Edd uses “he” here to refer to Craster’s child… when Craster only keeps his daughters. Because Edd evokes sons here, Edd’s joke about eating a child calls special attention to the conspicuously missing sons from the scene. Might we expect, in the context of all this imagery, that these sons have been 'eaten' as well, even if not literally? We learn that these missing sons were sacrificed to the old gods later in the same chapter:

But the wildlings serve crueler gods than you or I. These boys are Craster's offerings. His prayers, if you will.

This is the clear meaning of the earlier association between the vulnerable child and the “almost human” pig, which is about to be slaughtered—or sacrificed—so that the keep could live, by way of eating it. It’s the same thing with Craster’s children, who are also, from his perspective, sacrificed so that his keep can live on, untroubled by the old gods.

Note here how all these motifs occur in tandem with each other: pigs as sacrifice to become food, eating children, sacrificed sons, deference (or lack thereof) to the old gods (and, importantly, their laws). The Rat Cook, in retribution, is forced to eat his children, for he forced the Andal King to do the same.

In both scenarios, the gods seemingly ‘demand’ that a father sacrifice his children; the fact that these are sons for Craster deepens the symbolic meaning, as it did with Walder Frey and the Freys in the last part: it is the death of one’s legacy by way of one’s lineage. Only sons bear the family name.

This is the paradox, the 'doom' that Craster, like the doomed characters in "The Rat Cook", is living out. From his perspective, he sacrifices his sons for the same reason he slaughters the pigs: to ensure his keep's survival. They need to eat, and they need to be untroubled by curses. But that sacrifice is Craster's curse, for even as he ensures his short-term survival, he damns his legacy. Craster may have children, but his keep has no future. Every one of his daughters, rather than become their own generation, perversely returns to reenact the role of their mother’s generation as Craster weds her; his keep, as its own patriarchal entity, is stagnant, and will die with him.

"Pork Crackling"

Regarding the equivalence of eating one’s family as an extension of eating one’s legacy, agency, or even one’s self, bear with me into an interesting digression about Victarion:

In ADWD The Iron Suitor, Victarion understands that his role as captain is both inextricably tied to his physical person, and yet is also an idea, separate from him as a mortal man. Referring to his rotting hand, he thinks to himself:

This was not something that his crew could see. They were half a world away from home, too far to let them see that their iron captain had begun to rust.

His mortality—the mortification of his injured hand—would ruin the effect of his role as captain, a higher status which the Ironborn consider to be a “king aboard his own ship”. Victarion may not be socially permitted to be so incapacitated while captain, but he also understands that if he keeps his captain identity separate from his mortal form—that is, if he can lie about the severity of his injury, keeping the state of his body hidden while playing the role of captain—he can maintain his identity as “the iron captain”.

The role of 'captain', and even more so, the arm that is required to be a warrior, is so intricately tied to Victarion’s warrior identity, and therefore to his sense of self, that Victarion refurses to allow the maester to cut off his arm to save the rest of his body. Again, his identity is greater than his mortality.

Yet, when Moqorro suddenly arrives, and Victarion is faced with an alternative, he is willing to sacrifice all else: to stray from the Drowned God towards R'hllor, to put his body into the hands of a “sorcerer” that he just met—all to pursue the ideal of his legacy as captain, divested from his person. And so Victarion, by beginning to sacrificing so much cultural baggage which he believed was part of himself, gets to keep his arm and his captainhood—and what does this arm look like?

Victarion offers this sickening description in ADWD Victarion I:

The arm the priest had healed was hideous to look upon, pork crackling from elbow to fingertips.

It’s a rare case where someone is able to look at their own body and make the gruesome comparison between their own flesh and pork as food, and this moment is Victarion’s reward. Like the Rat Cook who became a rat "huge as a sow", like Micah the butcher's boy who became a butchered pig, Victarion's arm—which was so much his legacy, his identity, that he would not let the maester remove it, so much a symbol of his personhood and his power that he would stray from the Drowned God to get it back—has become pork crackling.

- - -

Speaking of pork crackling, and returning to Craster's Keep...

When they burn the body of a fallen Night’s Watchman in ASOS Samwell II, Sam finds that it smells so much like pork that he is involuntarily hungry:

The worst thing was the smell, though. If it had been a foul unpleasant smell he might have stood it, but his burning brother smelled so much like roast pork that Sam's mouth began to water, and that was so horrible that as soon as the bird squawked "Ended" he ran behind the hall to throw up in the ditch.

Yet again, Dolorous Edd appears immediately afterward to bring the cannibalistic overtones to the forefront. Again, Edd makes the comparison between eating pork and eating human flesh, like in the Rat Cook story, and with eating one’s family, as with his own jape a book earlier, as with Rast mocking Sam in AGOT, as with the Freys eating their kin in ADWD. They may not be tied by blood, but Edd jokes about eating his brothers all the same:

"Never knew Bannen could smell so good." Edd's tone was as morose as ever. "I had half a mind to carve a slice off him. If we had some applesauce, I might have done it. Pork's always best with applesauce, I find." … "You best not die, Sam, or I fear I might succumb. There's bound to be more crackling on you than Bannen ever had, and I never could resist a bit of crackling.”

If Sam were to die, Edd suggests, he too would become pork crackling. I wonder if that says anything about Victarion's own fate... but I'm talking about Sam for now.

The even more important part of Sam’s experience here is Sam's knowledge that it is wrong, sickening, to eat human flesh—or, perhaps, to turn against his family, even his adopted family, as the two issues are conflated in these instances. Edd jokes about how delicious Bannen smells to make light of a dark, cruel truth: in these starving conditions, that might be true. Despite that suspicion, it is still firmly the wrong thing to do. Sam vomits even considering the thought.

When it comes to the Rat Cook story, though, that knowledge does not spare the Andal King any more than the Rat Cook; both, ultimately, are forced into the position of cannibalism, which makes it all the more tragic: to know the difference between right and wrong, but perhaps not to know which you are choosing. Did Victarion make the right choice turning his arm to pork to stay the "Iron Captain" he wanted to be? Did Craster make the right choice leaving his sons to die so that he could live untroubled? Do they even know?

As for the Andal King, he didn't even understand the choice in front of him; he was placed into that position by the Rat Cook—because of the violation of guest right, that significant law of the Old Gods.

Guest right is a social contract, the type that is necessary to maintain social stability. To keep interpersonal relationships, to build a community—or a kingdom—a person must be able to trust their neighbor. Practically, a guest must be able to trust that they will not be poisoned with food, in the same way that a host must be able to trust that their guest will not turn their cloak and slaughter them under their own roof. In other words, both parties must be able to trust that the social conditions of peace will be upheld.

The fact that this story of the Rat Cook concerns a power dynamic as well—between the lowly cook and the Andal King—expands the metaphor into one that describes feudalism as a whole… but I’ll expand that idea in the subsequent parts to come.

For now, consider this: that the Andal King, like Sam with Bannen’s delicious-smelling corpse, might have known the difference between right and wrong, but it may have made no difference as to what he actually did: he still ate his own son.

But what of the Andal King's own crime? Who started it? The Rat Cook broke the ancient social contract of trust called “guest right” to punish the King… but for the Rat Cook to be deserving of vengeance, the Andal King must have broken a social contract as well, perhaps a social contract regarding the position of power that a King has over a cook. The King must have broken that contract first, even before the story of "The Rat Cook" picks up.

But that will be further discussed in parts to come. Next part we’ll talk more about trust in particular, finally taking look at Coldhands attempting to feed Bran a “sow”, visiting Arya in the House of Black and White, and looking at Quentyn making a deal Meereen.

[asoiafreadthru]

A Game of Thrones, Jon III

They mounted the steps to the common hall.

Inside, the hall was immense and drafty, even with a fire roaring in its great hearth.

Crows nested in the timbers of its lofty ceiling. Jon heard their cries overhead as he accepted a bowl of stew and a heel of black bread from the day’s cooks.

Grenn and Toad and some of the others were seated at the bench nearest the warmth, laughing and cursing each other in rough voices.

Jon eyed them thoughtfully for a moment.

Then he chose a spot at the far end of the hall, well away from the other diners.

[shizunitis]

:))) May I introduce you to two of my blorbos: Kennit and Wintrow from Robin Hobb’s Liveship Traders. They have such a fun relationship. Kennit is a pirate who wants to be a pirate king. Wintrow is a priest turned sailor turned slave turned captain’s boy. Due to Plot Reasons, at some point, their memories are intertwined, and Wintrow has trouble trying to figure out which memories are his and which are Kennit’s. Was he the scared boy crying in a corner? Was he the scared boy holding up his nine fingers to push the tattoo needle away from his face? Whose father was yelling at him?

Are they in a pseudo father/son relationship? Are they the same person just a decade or two apart? Are they just captain and ship’s boy (unlikeliest of options)? Are they prophet and messiah? Are they dating?

Kennit cares more about Wintrow than anyone else other than himself. Kennit has a woman who he took from a brothel who is incredibly loyal to him, and when he finds out that she is loyal to him and is not cheating on him with Wintrow, he gets upset because he wants Wintrow to get her pregnant. She desperately wants to have Kennit’s child. Wintrow doesn’t want to disrespect Kennit like that.

There’s three books in the series, they don’t meet until the end of the first book, but then in books two and three, every chapter you read with one of them in it, their relationship only gets weirder. It’s so fun.

Kennit loves Wintrow more than anything. Wintrow is the one person Kennit cannot allow himself to love.

EXCUSE ME. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE GETS UPSET BECAUSE HE WANTS WINTROW TO GET HER PREGNANT. WHAT SORT OF SHEN YUAN LEVEL-SHENANIGANS ARE THESE?!

Anon, I really hope you left this crucial piece of information out because you got too excited about your blorbos, and not because you want me to suffer psychic damage, but: Do they get together?!

What's Kennit's deal? Does he want to be carrying Wintrow's child? Is that it? Because, fair! But. HUH.

I feel like I felt when I first read the phrase "They fuck to save the world," so many moons ago, and now I think I'm about to pick up a new obsession.

Kennit loves Wintrow more than anything. Wintrow is the one person Kennit cannot allow himself to love.

WHAT THE FUCK!!! WHY!!! I'M GOING TO CRY!! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE!!!!

Anon come back and tell me more. Please.

[banannabethchase]

My predictions, because I have some batshit crazy ideas:

Beneath a cut, because. Well. You know how much I ramble.

Zero Hour

Yuta vs. Hook - Hook wins, but Yuta beats the shit out of him at the end of it. Danhausen comes out to make the save, but Yuta beats him up. And then Danhausen challenges for the Pure Rules title.

Willow vs. Kris - ONLY IN WRESTLING CAN AN OTP FIGHT EACH OTHER. Stokeley is gonna corrupt Kris against Willow, but not until the women's tag belts are announced will he make his final move. Stokeley, secretly working in the background for the Renegade Twins, will unleash his final blow right before the finals of the women's tag titles tournament, causing Staturday Nightingale to lose, and triggering a full on battle between the two of them, likely culminating in match for the women's world title (RoH, probably.)

20 Man Battle Royal - Okay. I got 3 ideas: Sara's dream book, the best story, and what likely will happen.

Sara's Dream Book: Bucks and Hanger come back. Bucks sabotage everybody else to get Hanger to almost win, then Hanger steps back and lets someone else win but leisurely jumping over the top rope when it's him vs. the other person. "I'm above this championship," he says, taking the mic during the other person's celebration. Offical Superdick Party debut, official heel turn, official idiots.

The Best Story: Only 19 people are in or around the ring. Toward the end, a guy in a hoodie, with his face slightly obscured, shows up. It's Jack Perry. He wins, and cashes in the "any time" clause during the Christian vs. Copeland match.

What Likely Will Happen: Midcardapalooza. A very fun, non champion level person like Komander, AR Fox, Kip Sabian, or Andretti win to create a fun flippy match with the winner of Copeland vs. Christian that they will ultimately lose.

Main Card

Eight Man tag (Jericho/Sammy/Darby/Sting vs. Ricky/Bill/Takeshita/Hobbes) - I really. Look. Lot's of stuff about this match is convoluted. It's mean to take the place of the tag belts, which I understand, but they should have bitten the bullet, dropped the Jericho/Golden Jets story completely, and provided a title chance to an actual tag team.

Eight man tag (Bryan/Claudio/Mark/Danny vs. Lethal/White/Rush/Brody) - I think the BCC and friends win, but I think this may lead to Danny being inducted into the BCC. Otherwise this match is kind of weird. However, it means that everyone in the C2 got a match on the pay-per-view, and I like that.

Andrade vs. Miro - Look I KNOW it's all about Miro's redemption or whatever, but he's pissing me off lately and I want Andrade to win to show that CJ's management is effective. But I also think it could be cool for Andrade to lose, to show that a lack of CJ's management causes him weakness. It could develop a more introspective story of talent vs influence that could be approached by both Miro and Andrade in different directions. But it's wrestling, so I doubt the nuance necessary for the storyline would be possible.

Swerve vs. Dustin - Yeah sorry Dustin. Swerve is gonna KILL you. Super sad to hear about Keith's injury. This match was going to absolutely BANG and him being unable to finish this storyline is a heartache.

Julia vs. Abadon - SPOOKY SHENANIGANS! I hope Skye gets out there and she and Julia do some MK Ultra tag level nonsense. Give me shenanigans. Give me lesbians. I love it.

Copeland vs. Christian - You already saw my idea for Perry, but here I think Copeland wins by pulling unexpected allies out of his back pocket.

Eddie vs. Mox - EDDIE BETTER FUCKING WIN THIS. He deserves to be a three belt holder, to hold up RoH, to continue his work. Mox may be my first AEW love, but Eddie. Eddie deserves it.

Toni vs. Riho - Mariah May shenanigans result in a Toni win, but perhaps Riho has an original in the wings waiting to save her. Crossing my fingers for a Jamie return PLEASE.

MJF vs. Samoa Joe - Joe wins. MJF is injured, shit goes down, the Devil and his goons interfere, and Joe is our new World Champion. We also, we gotta, reveal the Devil.

[lynxindisguise]

ten lines, ten people

thank you for the tag @spindrifters <333

rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. if you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway. 

ahhh this is literally all of my fics, except the very first one 😅

shorn and scarred and yours - slytherin sirius AU

Blacks do not cry. Or, at least, they’re not supposed to.

Please Don’t See Me - modern w/ magic AU

“86 Jameson!” Lily calls, tossing yet another bottle into the already overfilled glass bin. 

A Series of Unlucky Events - Love and Other Potions one-shot, fix-it

Lily has never really believed in luck. When she won the vial of Felix Felicis in Slughorn’s class, the pride of winning (and narrowly beating Severus) meant more to her than the prize itself. So she hid it away and barely thought of it over the next three years. 

Pride and Prejudice and Werewolves - enemies to lovers (canon-divergent AU)

Beige corduroy, tawny tweed, and sandy hair, Remus very much hoped he’d be the least interesting sight in the Great Hall.

The Wolf and the Jester - Robin Hobb inspired fantasy AU

A forest is basically a library, Remus thinks. Just as a gruff, unkempt woodsman is merely another version of a shy, studious palace scribe. Except simpler. Everything is so much simpler now. He hunts, gardens, tracks the moon and charts the stars--he's content. And so is the wolf. It's the human part of himself, it turns out, that was restless and temperamental, always itching for change and conflict. 

exes, horcruxes, and other reasons to panic - exes to lovers (oh look, another canon-divergent AU)

Remus stares, mesmerized at the pale lavender smoke emanating from the goblet, definitely not avoiding the intent gaze of those laser green eyes.

Uncanny Moony Effect - Love and Other Potions, one-shot

Sirius wakes up on a scratchy beige carpet he doesn’t recognize on the floor of a bedroom he’s never seen. It’s small, neat, cozy, and eerily familiar in an itch-in-the-back-of-his-head type of way. Well at least he’s not naked. Or in the bed.

Sarcastic Truths and Lies By Omission - Love and Other Potions, one-shot

“Lupin!” A firm hand claps Remus on the back. Startled—he’s always been jumpy, but he’s especially on edge these days—he nearly drops the glass he’s been clutching with white-knuckled fingers.

Of Monsters and Cowards - slytherin sirius, First War Au

The Death Eater raises his chin and surveys the pack haughtily from behind his mask. Most of them are taller than him—maybe it’s a wolf thing, maybe it’s that he’s not particularly tall. But they feel small—all awkward angles folded in on themselves.

A Dog in Stag’s Clothing - Love and Other Potions, one-shot

“Prongs! Mate! Brother! Light of my life! Stop drooling over Evans and pay attention to me,” Sirius whines, tugging on James’s sleeve.

WHEW okay we’re done, no pressure tags to some old mutuals and some new for this one @colgatebluemintygel @fruity-individual @mostlyoptimisticdinosaur @moongays @wanderingdonut @msalexwp @demidreamer @achilleslikespeas @impishtubist @crushofdoves

[stainedglasstruth]

TIMING: A few days after Sacrificial Spawns LOCATION: Wormmates' Apartment, Worm Row PARTIES: Zack (@zackbanes) + Wynne (@ohwynne) + Arden (@stainedglasstruth) SUMMARY: After getting discharged from the hospital, Arden, Wynne, and Zack are all struggling to sleep through the night. CONTENT WARNINGS: N/A

After finally being discharged from the hospital, Zack, Wynne, and Arden– accompanied by Teagan and Ariadne– headed back to the apartment for some well needed rest. Well, first she cried upon seeing Hobbes and proceeded to smother him with affection. Then she rested, practically melting into her beautiful, comfortable bed. Her rest wasn’t exactly peaceful, though, plagued by nightmares of glowing red eyes. While that wasn’t exactly a new one for her, Wynne and Zack being there was. 

She woke covered in sweat, Dream Wynnne’s whimpering the last thing she could remember. Grimacing as she thoughtlessly tried to move her broken arm, Arden slowly sat up, surveying the room as she became more alert. Teagan was still asleep next to her, and she couldn’t help the small smile from creeping over her face as she looked at the nix. Ugh, she was so gay. Reaching for her water bottle, though, she paused. …was that smoke? She sniffed the air, feeling uncertain, but no. It was faint, but…

Carefully, as to not wake Teagan, she pulled herself out of bed, letting out a soft ‘oof’ as she got to her feet. Her body still felt heavy with exhaustion and the remnants of sleep, but she ignored it as she poked her head out into the hallway. Okay, that was definitely the smell of smoke, though not powerful enough to be concerned… yet. Arden spared another glance back to her sleeping girlfriend before stepping out into the hall and closing the door behind her. 

—

As far as first-times-at-the-hospital went, Wynne’s experience ranked pretty low. The lights had been bright, the smell of cleaning agents pungent, the nurses’ faces so concerned and pitiful. It had been disorienting, to go from that dark and pungent basement to the hospital, to be separated from the people they wanted to cling to. Now, at least, they were all together again, back in the home with the meowing cats and their fourth part of their whole.

They couldn’t sleep. They laid there, hugging knees and fingers trailing over the stitches in their neck. Ariadne lied against them, arms wrapped around their body. But her steady breathing did little to ground Wynne, who was thinking about that basement. About Metzli, ripping heads off as if it was as easy as plucking apples off a tree. About Zack’s pleas and the look in Arden’s eye and Zane, refusing to bite them but ending up tearing into their neck all the same. They considered the medication the hospital had offered, which made them drowsy and calm, but remained frozen. 

Until the smell of smoke reached their nostrils. They slipped out of bed, whispering something about the bathroom to an asleep Ariadne, knees trying to readjust to being stretched again. When Wynne walked into the hallway, their eyes fell on Arden and for a moment they just wanted to move over and hug her, because it was something they could do. In stead, they offered a quizzical look. “Zack…?” They offered as a possible explanation. Wynne started moving towards his door, and the smell of smoke grew more powerful. After knocking three times, just to be polite, they opened the door slowly.

—

He was wandering Worm Row at night. Was he going to meet someone? Probably. He must be – it was late and on his own. He must be meeting up with someone at the Wormhole or something. Maybe Arden? Probably Arden and Wynne and Sully – all of them heading out for a drink or two again. But when he turned the corner it was the alley where the torple had latched onto his leg. His brow drew up, confused, and that’s when he saw them – the familiar boots that Arden usually wore. Their body was a crumpled heap huddled at the corner of the alley and Wynne was there next to them – small and bloodied. Before the horrified “no!” could make it out of his mouth, Zack was slammed against the wall, teeth latching onto his neck – a six-foot tall torple ripping him apart. He couldn’t even scream with his throat crushed in but when the fear exploded from him, it was hot–

He wasn’t on the streets of Worm Row, of course, nor was he in the alley in Nightfall. Just his own bed, dreaming. Nightmare. But the heat… That was real. It was that strange kind of heat that always came from his fire. With a panicked gasp, Zack realized that it was his fire – the bed around him, his sheets and pillow were all caught and the flames were licking dangerously close to the curtains. 

It took a few fumbles before he was able to squelch the flames, terrified and caught off-guard as he was. Smoke filled the room still and just as he was moving to wrench the window open, the door opened behind him. Wynne and Arden were huddled there – obviously drawn to the smell of smoke. Shame dropped into his chest, fast and hot. And fear, again, because they had all been asleep. Everyone had been sleeping after the hospital and Teagan and Ariadne had been there too and Zack had almost burned the building down around them. 

“I’m sorry!” was what blurted out of him, sudden and fast and a little choked. “I… I was dreaming and it just–” Giving an unsteady breath, he reached to open the window, the smoke billowing out. “Are you both okay? I don’t think the smoke…got very far.” No, it hadn’t but that was cold comfort.

—

The moment Arden saw Wynne, she was walking over, closing the distance between them. She ignored the urge to wrap her arm around them, not wanting to upset them or any of their injuries. At the mention of Zack, she frowned. 

The thought had crossed her mind, the smell of smoke bringing her back to kneeling on the ground, putting pressure on Wynne’s neck as the barn went up in flames, the anxious churning of her stomach as she waited for him to get out. She hoped it wasn't him, but following Wynne to his door, it was clearly the source of the smell. 

Arden wasn't sure what to expect when Wynne opened the door, but a scorched bed certainly wasn't it. Nothing was actively on fire, though the smoke hanging in the air and the blackened sheets gave her a picture of what had happened. Her gaze turned from the bed to its owner standing next to the open window. He looked okay, thankfully, but that look in his eyes, the strained voice he was speaking in, it all felt so wrong. 

She had never seen Zack scared before they got grabbed, but she was fairly positive that his terrified face was now branded into her mind, along with Wynne’s. They were two of the sweetest people she knew, people Arden now had the certainty of knowing she would quite literally die for. Seeing the two of them so frightened and upset the past several days had killed her. And it felt even worse here, in their apartment, where things were normally so good, were supposed to be okay. 

Seeing Zack standing in his room looking so scared and close to tears, it broke her heart a little. 

"Hey," she started in a placating tone. "It's okay, we're okay. Right, Wynne?" Arden looked to them as she asked before throwing the question back at him. "Are you okay?" 

—

The smell of smoke reminded Wynne of home. Protherians preferred to heat their buildings with fire, rather than central heating, and then there was of course their bonfires. They danced around them on equinoxes, burned herbs and animal parts in them in the name of celebration. But the smell of smoke didn’t only remind them of home: it also reminded them of that night, only a few days ago, where they had watched that barn burn down before losing consciousness.

Zack had saved them with the fire that lived in him. They had seen his magic in action, seen its power. And they were so glad for it. But the smell of it still brought them back to that feeling of desperation. Their fingers moved to the stitches on their neck. They looked at Arden and thought all of this was surreal. The fact that they stood here, alive. That they were here, at home. And that Zack had started a fire again.

He was panicking and that seemed to flip a switch in their own mind. They couldn’t panic if he was panicking. They couldn’t make this worse with their own pathetic anxieties and fear, had to let go what was taking a hold of him.

Besides, they were more worried about him than anything else. Eyebrows creasing, eyes wide, their throat stinging a little from the dry air. “Yes,” they said quickly, falling in tandem with Arden and nodding their head. “We’re alright. Just wanted to see –” 

Well, Arden had said it, hadn’t she? Wynne had stupidly thought that maybe her roommates (and friends, or maybe even family) had been more okay than they were feeling. But maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe they were idealizing the people around them again, thinking them so much more invincible than they were in reality. “If you were okay. Did you have a bad dream?” They had them a lot, though things seemed infinitely better if Ariadne slept next to them. As if she had a magical calmness about her (though, of course, she didn’t: this was something that could be explained with pure emotional logic, rather than the actual magic they had and were witnessing).

They moved a little closer, wanting to take his hands but unsure if he’d want that. They were morosely aware that they all had red-rimmed wrists from the rope. Matching wounds. Just like the teeth marks in all their throats. “It’s okay.”

—

Zack’s eyes darted over his roommates, evaluating, ensuring that they really were okay. They were there, at least, standing there in the apartment. That was good, better than the dank cell they had all been kept in, better than the antiseptic halls of the hospital. The apartment was home, and it was safe. It was supposed to be safe. This time he had woken up early enough, had been able to put the flames out. But what about next time? What about when someone startled him while cooking or he was with someone and they moved their mouth to his neck, what about when Wynne was late coming how from work or Arden was with Teagan and he didn’t know where they were? What about the next night, when he had another nightmare, or the night after that?

“I’m fine. It’s… I’m fine.” He ran a hand up through the back of his hair, rustling the sweaty spikes there. Anything, any sensation to convince his body that he was awake. He was awake and he was in his room and Arden and Wynne were standing right in front of him, alive. “Yeah, I guess I did,” he answered Wynne. Which– How stupid was that? A nightmare and he had almost burned down the whole of their apartment. Overreacted like a toddler having a tantrum. 

Wynne’s quiet assurance was meant to soothe him, he knew. Was meant to settle him down and let him know that they were all fine. But it wasn’t and they weren’t. He laughed but it was a choked off noise. “It’s not okay. It’s really not. I could’ve–” They didn’t even really know, was the thing. What they had seen from him, in the basement, was nothing. They had all been gone when he set the rest of the place ablaze. And even that was nothing compared to what Zack knew he was capable of – the heat that could explode out of him, like it had when he demonstrated for Levi at the island. 

His mind was racing through the possibilities and potentials and problem-solving. “I’m sorry. I’ll– I should go.” It didn’t matter that it was the middle of the night and that he had nowhere to go. Zack had spent his fair share of nights on the street, he could figure something out. For now, the only thing that mattered was keeping his roommates safe.

—

Wynne. Sweet, gentle Wynne. There was already a lump in her throat and just hearing them, seeing the worry in their eyes, the hesitant way they approached him, made it more pronounced. Zack was right, it wasn’t okay. None of this, none of them were okay. 

The three of them had gone through something awful, something terrifying. They had been moments away from their demise before Emilio and Metzli came bursting in. Wynne had multiple stitches in their neck, looked like they hadn’t slept at all, Arden felt uncomfortable, restrained with the splint and sling on her arm, had been having nightmares nonstop since that first night at the hospital, and Zack… Zack was clearly so far from fine, and it hurt to see. It wasn’t surprising in the least, but that didn’t make it any more palatable, any less heartbreaking, to see one of her best friends in such a state. His strained laughter cut through her like a searing hot knife, but it helped rid her of some of the fog clinging to the edges of her mind. 

“But you didn’t,” she stated, firmly. “We’re fine. You’re fine.” They weren’t okay overall, but Zack had just singed his sheets. She wasn’t the most knowledgeable about spellcasters, needed to brush up on the subject, but she knew emotions had an effect on magic. In the morning, she would look into getting him a new set and getting a fire extinguisher for the apartment. She could ask Teagan to help her check their detector, too, and start digging into anything she could find on elemental casting– maybe ask Leah for a bit of help. Arden certainly wasn’t an expert and her arm would slow her down, but Leah might be more familiar, probably had some helpful books somewhere, too. 

I should go. The words sent a bolt of anxiety through her. “Zack…” The idea of being too far from either of them after everything that had happened the past few days made her feel physically sick. She had been so scared, so worried for them, had been convinced she would have to watch her friends be turned into monsters, and she was still so worried. Being separated at the hospital had been torturous enough, she just wanted to be able to keep an eye on them, keep them close, make sure they were safe. Finally being home, being able to do that, had been comforting. 

Arden didn’t want Zack to go anywhere, but she also didn’t want to keep him if he needed the space. She couldn’t be selfish– not with them, not right now. But this felt more like isolation than needing space. This felt like Emilio apologizing to her, holding the weight of the heavens on his shoulders. It felt like Metzli calling themself a monster, leaving her on read, like Teagan trying to push her away for her own safety. It felt like her, pained and grieving and guilty, leaving this town and everyone she knew behind. Maybe that was just her own fear and paranoia, her own insecurities and selfishness blinding her– she didn’t know. Then again, when did she ever?

“Please don’t– We’re okay.” Please don’t leave. She was nothing if not a hypocrite. 

—

Once, seemingly a lifetime ago, Wynne had been a beacon of comfort and hope. An entire commune looked at them to be their savior, their martyr, the one destined to give the ultimate sacrifice for all of them. People looked at them, for some kind of guidance, thought there to be something special abut their touch or even their sheer presence. And though now, these days, they didn’t want to think of it any more, there was something of that person left, wasn’t there? A person who could park their own emotions and qualms for those of another.

There had no room for faltering there. No room for weakness or fear of death — if their sacrificial lamb were to start bleating in fear, what was to stop the rest of the community from doing so? And if they gave into the part of them that was afraid of Zack’s powers now, what was to stop them from somehow worsening this situation?

Repression came natural. Wanting to appease and comfort did too. And besides, they wanted their love for Zack to outweigh their fear of what he might do. Wynne looked at him with some kind of understanding. “I get them too.” Though there had been less of them since Ariadne had joined their side. “It’s okay to be upset.” 

But was it, if being upset meant setting your bed on fire? Was it, when it made him look so afraid of something he had done himself? Was Arden thinking of that last day in the basement too, when everything had burned, the bodies of the vampires as well as the humans that had fallen?  They didn’t want to be afraid of Zack, the same way they didn’t want to be afraid of anything but fear was hard-wired in her body. 

At least Arden was there. At least here, Wynne wasn’t alone the way they had been back at home. “She’s right, it didn’t happen. Nothing happened!” 

He couldn’t leave, not now that they were all back again. Now that things were attempting to get back to normal, as their wounds grew into scars and there was sometimes – when the birds chirped in the morning – even a distant feeling of normalcy until they truly woke. “You can’t go? Where would you even go that’s … that’s better than here?” Was there a place where he’d feel safer? Wynne couldn’t imagine a place better than here, with them, with the door tightly locked and their presence warming the home.

—

It seemed Arden had been right to worry. For once, she despised the fact that she was right. 

They had spoken a little longer, decided to all try to get some more sleep, talk in the morning. She had thought Zack might need to take some time for himself, maybe stay with Levi or crash at the motel or inn, something. It would be difficult to be separated from him after what they had been through, after she had been convinced the three of them would meet the same horrifying fate in that basement, but she could, she would, give him whatever space he needed. They had been moments away from death, from watching each other die, it was doing a number on all of them, and she didn’t have pyrokinetic abilities to worry about.

She hadn’t expected to find a goodbye note. 

Arden really hadn’t expected Zack, of all people, to break her heart. 

She had no leg to stand on, either. She couldn’t manage to fan the smoldering embers of anger into a full on flame, as she sat on the floor in front of the scorched mattress reading and rereading the same words. Was this how Leah felt when I shut her out? When I left? It was all she kept thinking as she fell apart all over again. 

She hadn’t even known Zack that long, but they had just clicked in that wonderful way that just happened sometimes. After the loss of her dad and Jo, she had been so devastated that she gave up, shut down. She closed herself off for so long, keeping people at a distance, sinking back into the familiar ache of loneliness until it became unbearable, until she began to drown. It was only after she returned, needing answers, needing closure, that she was able to breach the surface again. It was only after Leah that she finally started to give people a chance again, finally started to let them in. And Zack had been one of the first.

It was only right then that he would be the first to really hurt her, too. 

Arden couldn’t even hold it against him, the bastard. Sure, she was a hypocrite, but more than anything, she just wanted him to be okay. She needed him to be okay, wherever he was. And if he ever returned, she knew she would welcome him back with open arms, just as Leah had done for her. 

[chloristoflora]

Chade set a cup of brandy down before me with a firm tap on the table. I looked at it and then up at him. "You may need it," he observed mildly. Then he revealed, "The Fool was here, two weeks ago. I'd give a lot to know how he comes and goes from here so unseen, but he managed. I heard a tap at the door of my private sitting room, late at night. And when I opened it, there he was. Changed of course, as you said. Brown as an appleseed, all over. He looked weary and half-sick, but I think that could have been his journey through the pillar. He did not speak of the Black Man, or indeed of anything except you. He obviously expected to find you here. That frightened me."

I set the empty brandy glass down on the table. Without asking, Chade refilled it for me. "When I told him we hadn't seen you, he looked stricken. I told him how thoroughly we'd searched, and that my private premise had been that you'd gone off with him. He asked if we'd used the Skill; I told him that of course we had, but that it had yielded no trace of you. He gave me the name of an inn where he'd be staying for a week, and asked me to send a runner immediately if any news of you came in. At the end of the week, he came back to me again. He looked as if he had aged a decade. He told me he had made inquiries of his own about you, with no positive results. Then he said he had to depart, but that he wished to leave something with me for you. Neither of us expected you'd return to claim it."

I didn't have to ask for it. He set down a sealed scroll, no bigger than a child's closed fist, and a small bag made from Elderling fabric. I recognized it as coming from the coppery robe. I looked at them, but made no move to touch either of them while Chade was watching me. "Did he say anything? As a message for me, I mean."

"I think that is what those things are."

I nodded.

(...)

I sat for some time after he was gone looking at the package and the scroll. I opened the scroll first. I recognized the Fool's careful hand. I read it through twice. It was a poem about dancing, and a farewell. I could tell he had written it before he discovered my absence. So. He had not changed his mind. He and Prilkop had paused here only to say goodbye to me, not because he'd had a change of heart.

The package was lumpy and rather heavy. When I untied the slithery fabric, a piece of memory stone the size of my fist rolled out on the table. The Fool's Skilled fingers had carved it, I was sure. I poked at it cautiously but felt only stone. I lifted it up to look at it. It had three faces, each blending into the next. Nighteyes was there, and me, and the Fool. Nighteyes looked out at me, ears up and muzzle down. The next facet showed me as a young man, unscarred, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. Had I ever truly been that young? And the Fool had carved himself as a fool, in a tailed cap with one long forefinger lifted to shush his pursed lips and his brows arched high in some jest.

It was only when I cupped the carving in my hand that it woke for me and revealed the memories the Fool had imbued in it. Three simple moments it recalled. If my fingers spanned the wolf and myself, then I saw Nighteyes and I curled together in sleep in my bed in the cabin. Nighteyes sprawled sleeping on the Fool's hearth in the Mountains when I touched both Fool and Nighteyes. The last was confusing at first. My fingers rested on the Fool and myself. I blinked at the memory presented to me. I stared at it for some time before recognizing it as another of the Fool's memories. It was what I looked like when he pressed his brow to mine and looked into my eyes. I set it down on the table and the Fool's mocking smile looked up at me. I smiled back at him and impulsively touched a finger to his brow. I heard his voice then, almost as if he were in the room. "I have never been wise." I shook my head over that. His last message to me and it had to be one of his riddles.

Fool's Fate, by Robin Hobb (Tawny Man Trilogy #3)