#to leave a ripple in the fabric of another person's life

[starcurtain]

Trying to explain in the group chat why Ratiorine has me in a death grip and I couldn't find the words so I just sent Little Prince quotes.

“What does that mean — to tame?”

“It means to establish ties. To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world…please, tame me!”

“I want to, very much,” the Little Prince replied, “but I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.”

Absolutely "You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed"-coded ship, my goodness.

[bomberqueen17]

don't know where else to put it

I was going to do a big wrap-up of Everything I Learned From The Must Farm Site Report PDFs but then life got super busy. So I only have the things I turned over and over in my mind, just now, and I want to go back and reread but now's not the time, I'll have to do another pass through at a later date.

But the one tiny vivid little factoid I've got in my mind that I just have to write down-- that necklace, with the big amber bead? Some of the glass beads were shattered from the heat but the amber bead was only charred a little on one side. So obviously some of the necklace was closer to the fire than the rest. I had initially connected that it was found near where there was probably a door, and I vaguely imagined someone dropping it as they fled. But now I'm convinced that's not it at all.

It was hanging up. It was hanging on a peg or a hook or a twig or something, right near the door, maybe even on display, and the big heavy amber bead was hanging at the bottom, and the glass beads were hanging at the top, and the fire at that point spread down from the roof and it burned through the string, and the glass beads shattered and the necklace fell down and when the floor collapsed it wound up in the mud.

The other thing I keep thinking is that the fire has to have started while no one was home. And modern people don't think about this, but in a premodern society where you've got a group of people living in a house, where you don't have appliances you can turn on and off, where starting a fire takes serious effort and getting it to a state where you can cook on it takes hours, where the food served at daily meals has to be the full-time job of several people because it's so labor-intensive--

there's never going to be a time where everyone is out of the village. There's going to be a sickly or elderly person who can't really get out of bed or move far, or a new mother who's just given birth and can't travel, and there'll be someone home to tend to whoever that is, and while they're home they're tending the fire and getting dinner started. There's just always someone there. I could see maybe one house being unoccupied for a brief time, but a village, that probably had at least ten houses if not more, and each house had ten people in it? Someone would be home. And those who weren't home wouldn't be far. We know the wheat etc. that the village was eating was grown on dry land, and the flax they were processing into fiber, but it could not have been far away. And the Fenlands are flat. You'd see smoke. Before the first house was even engulfed someone would have noticed the smoke and they'd be hurrying home.

But nobody tried to fight the fire. Nobody spread it, but nobody fought it either. Nobody pulled any timbers out to save them. Nobody threw water on anything.

Nobody was there. The houses were empty. Nobody fled the fire, because they weren't there to see it start, or they would have been able to stop it.

They hadn't been evacuated in any organized way, or surely the bead necklace would have been taken. Even if they were in a hurry, at least the pot full of cooked food would have been taken, or emptied into something more portable to bring along! There was so much prepared food lying around. And the thread bobbins-- bobbins and bobbins of painstakingly-spliced flax they'd grown and rippled and scutched, some of it then painstakingly plied, hours and hours of several people's labor, and it was on little bobbins, you could sweep that into a basket along with your bulkier household goods and barely take up any space at all and save hundreds, maybe thousands of hours of labor later when you needed to weave some new fabric. Thread like that was precious, and it's portable, and I can't believe they'd choose to leave so much of it behind if they had any chance to choose what they brought with them.

As I'd said, it's beyond possibility that everyone had gone out to do some job-- there would be people left behind in the houses for that. Maybe everyone had gone out for some religious observation, maybe. Maybe something was important enough to even haul out the oldsters and the infants, and to put off dinner until late. Maybe. it's possible. But someone (probably in Structure 1) just didn't bank the fire correctly, and it got away and got into the roof beams. A properly-banked fire wouldn't do that, and surely these people, managing cooking fires for their entire lives, would know how to do it. But even then I can't imagine them going that far, and again, they'd see the smoke and hurry home. Even if it was a religious rite they'd still hurry home from it, there's no way they wouldn't have come back.

So it seems to me that they had to have been forced out. No notice, no chance to pack, everything left where it was, last night's supper still in the pot, tonight's bread still rising on the trays, the lambs in their pens and the dog tied up in House 5.

I can't imagine what forced them out. It wouldn't be weather. It could be enemies. There were no weapons found in the houses, but that might mean they'd taken them with them-- except the spears, perhaps they were only hunting spears but you'd think still if everyone ran out to fight they would take them too, the spears and the axes; if it was a situation where they had to last-ditch defend themselves the non-warriors would certainly arm themselves with the wood axes and the hunting spears. But they didn't.

So my conclusion is that they all were forced to leave in a hurry, without banking the fires, without putting anything away, and they were prevented from returning. The cause could be human enemies-- perhaps the warriors of the settlement had gone out to fight and been defeated, and the victors came here and the survivors knew they could not fight and so came out unresisting to meet their fates.

The cause could be something religious or spiritual-- something they believed in made them leave and prevented them from returning. It would have to be incredibly compelling, however, because leaving without their food or their cooking pots or their domestic goods (the little bobbins of thread!!!!! you could easily carry those!!) would make it very hard for them to make their way in the world.

The cause could be-- I really don't know what else. Disease would maybe make them abandon a settlement, maybe leave no trace if they buried their dead on land, but they would pack first. Most things, they would pack first, they wouldn't leave cooked food sitting out, they'd bring the lambs and dog with them. Any orderly evacuation, they'd have brought the lambs and dog with them. They have to have left in a hurry without a chance to prepare. And there was no attempt at salvage afterward, they didn't come back to look for anything they'd left. The ruins of the burned buildings would have stood visible for decades, the ends of roof timbers above the water, much of structure 4 (possibly the gate house entrance) above the water, the palisade probably unburnt for much of its length. It would have been easy to find. There are only a couple of disarranged timbers in Structure 3 to suggest anyone ever poked through the wreckage at all, and that's not much to go on. Certainly nobody dug around in the mud, which would have been quite shallow at some times of year.

And while it's possible the evidence of what happened existed once, somewhere in the long-vanished sections of the village-- perhaps the fire started at that end, perhaps they tried to fight it there, perhaps they tried salvage over there and discovered the fire had burned too hot to make it worthwhile, perhaps the bodies of the villagers were all dumped into the channel over there after whatever battle there was-- perhaps there was all kinds of stuff. But I just think whatever it was left no trace. So many of the possibilities would now be invisible, three thousand years later.

All we have is the facts: They left in a hurry, leaving their lambs in their pens, their food on the table, the dog tied up in the house, the cooking fires not banked.

And whatever made them leave, they never came back.

[beansricejc]

juices like wine

werewolf!john wick x f!reader

synopsis: on a full moon’s night, you think you’ll be safe in this house alone with your fellow monster hunter.

warnings: monster!jw, cursing, pussy drunk activities, oral (f receiving), squirting, sniffing, watered down spec of masochism, dbf!john, age gap, dub con(?)

authors note: thx for all of ur messages, life is just too much rn and I’m attempting to keep up haha, here’s that spooky thing I promised

“Uh, are you sure this will-“

“Of course it will!” I rolled my eyes, tightening the cuffs on the iron cuffs on John’s wrists. “My dad’s book says that werewolves can’t break through iron. And his book is never wrong.”

John flashed me a skeptical look with his eyebrows raised before rolling those thin brown eyes. Hunting monsters has always been our side gig. Although, things became a little tricky when he had accidentally been bitten by a now dead furry friend, almost a month ago now. Tonight was the full moon, and there haven’t been any side effects but John insisted on taking no chances.

My partner in crime sighed, grunting a bit with discomfort as the iron restraints dig into his flesh a little.

“It better not be wrong. I won’t be able to forgive myself if something happened.”

My hand grabs his bearded and chiseled face, forcing John to give me his attention. There’s always been… tension, between the two of us. Yet neither have acted on it. He was my dad’s best friend after all, before my dad became vampire food on a job gone awry.

“Nothing is gonna happen.” I reassured him, my fingers squeezing his face a bit harder this time. John nods to himself, taking a few deep breaths. “It’s only for a night. Hell, I can just turn The Office on for you while you’re in here.”

Light hearted humor got me nowhere tonight. I’m an idiot. A fool. A fucking moron. That’s what I’m telling myself as I creep through the house on the second floor. A silver dagger in one hand, a phone in the other, with Charon on the other line, the closest Hunter in proximity to us in the state.

“His senses are better, he’s faster, stronger, you need to get out of there or just kill him.” Charon pleads. I grunt quietly.

“I can’t leave-“

A loud and bone rattling howl bounces off of the walls of the house, startling me. I froze in my tracks, cursing under my breath. I hang up the phone and slip it into the pocket of my leggings.

“You smell even better during a full moon.”

My breathing stops as I feel the breath of another behind me. I know damn well who that person is, his voice is much deeper and gravelly than normal, this isn’t him. This isn’t the John I know.

A yelp escaped my lips as two paw-like hands grab me from behind, tossing me over a huge shoulder. John’s shirt is mostly ripped all the way off, since his transformation took place under just a simple tee shirt and flannel pants.

“John! Put me down!” I shouted, legs thrashing as my fists beat at his huge back. Thud, thud, thud, it did nothing. I hadn’t even noticed that John had tossed the silver blade aside until I had tried to use it.

A deep throaty chuckle erupts from John’s mouth, right before he tossed me onto the bed of the master bedroom. I land on silken sheets as my eyes widen, experiencing John as half man, half wolf, for the first time. Fangs peek from his lips as his beard had become much more untamed and wild, even his hair is much longer and crazy.

Muscles bulge from his shirt, before he gets frustrated and rips it off with an irritated roar. The shreds of the fabric land on the wood floor, as his evolved muscles ripple over my cowering form on the king sized bed.

“Such a pretty girl. I’ve always known better than to have a piece of you to myself.” John speaks lowly, his red eyes linger over me. “But I can’t control myself tonight. I’m sorry sweetpea.”

“Wait, John, just, wait!” I know damn well it’s to no avail. His paws grab my thighs and push my legs to the mattress, as his nose buries itself in my clothed crotch. Frowning, I scream in objection but my squirming and resistance is futile. I can’t even beat John while we spar, of course I won’t even have a chance while he’s half man, half creature.

“Fuck, you’re ovulating.” John salivates and takes in a deep breath to get the scent of my cunt imbedded into his feral brain. With one tiny motion of his razor sharp claws, despite my avid protests, he sliced the crotch of my leggings open like butter.

“Hey hey hey! No! John, this can’t happen!” I stammer out quickly. John is far too heavy and I don’t stand a chance.

“Don’t worry. My cock is too big to give you right now.” John insists, dropping his pajama pants and tugging on his huge erection. It matches his insanely big body, one that I’m just realizing has been growing larger and larger ever since he began his chase.

My jaw dropped as I notice he’s got to be at least seven feet tall now, with a cock that’s about 10 inches long, but 4 inches wide. John seriously had a comically large and furry dick at the moment, and I had no idea if I should have laughed or just stayed quiet. So I picked the latter.

John drops to his knees, as both of his hands spread my thighs even further, taking a longer inhalation of the heat between them. Squirming under him, I couldn’t help but whimper and whine out of the pure tickling sensation. The feeling of his beard and nose on my folds were unfamiliar to say the least.

“John, get o-“

I stop talking and let out a moan as his big nose brushes against my clit. His long spongy tongue swiped efficiently on my folds, making them pliable enough to then plunge in a finger.

John let’s go of my thigh for half a second so he can shred apart my sleeping shirt, my tits falling out of the fabric. My nipples harden from the sudden air exposure. John growls against my cunt in response to that sinful visual. One of his paws smack my left breast, earning a gasp from me, while his tongue worked overtime inside of me.

Head like this only existed in porn, right?

Apparently not. Apparently, you can get head like this from your local werewolf.

My fingers dug at the bedsheets and also his head of messy long hair. My fingers even brush against his newly grown canine-like ears, I keep forgetting that this is only happening because John has turned. That meant, he was eating my pussy and needing to inhale my scent on pure instinct. If he doesn’t, he’d go insane. He’d lose control. Maybe even kill someone.

The mere thought of my vagina actually being the death of someone kinda has me in a chokehold at the moment.

“Mine. Mine. Mine.”

John continued to lick, suck, thrust, whatever he could to with his tongue to get my taste and scent locked into his memory. He’s even so desperate that he has managed to scratch up my thighs and stomach in the process. The cuts aren’t anything too deep, maybe a bit more than a cat claw. But I’d be in denial if I claimed the slight sting of his nails and there euphoric head I was receiving wasn’t a delectable combination.

A knot forms in my lower region, an unusual feeling. Not like an orgasm, no, this was something else entirely. I had no idea what to expect, but it sure as hell was shocking when I began to squirt all over John’s bearded face.

My cum splashed onto his cheeks and nose, even a bit of his forehead. The dribbles from my pussy coat his unkempt beard, and he catches his breath with an exhausted smile when he pulls away.

With my legs trembling and moans spilling from my mouth, I laid under his beastly frame, helpless. Exposed to my elder Hunter, it was a shock to see him as some vicious monster. My heart was nearly about to give out from the intensity of the orgasm, and from the pure shock I was still trying to comprehend.

While he collected my juices from his face and sucked them off of his fingers, my mind is racing as I wonder, is he even going to remember this tomorrow? When he shifts back, is it going to be awkward between us from now on? There’s no way he actually felt so strongly for me… right?

If he didn’t recall eating me out like it was his last day on earth, how am I going to drop that bomb? John’s hands grab my face, much like how I had a few hours earlier. His moist nose and forehead press against mine, smushing in a little. My own juices smear against my small face. John’s red eyes demand my full attention from mere centimeters away.

That same rough voice gives me a growling chuckle.

“Been waiting three years for that one, babygirl. Maybe now you’ll notice me.”

[tracingpatternswrites]

Some Prongsfoot love, for @narcissa-black-supermacy because she’s been good and done her work so she gets another little ficlet.

(Most of it under a cut because of length)

Sirius Black is a magical person. 

It’s just not the generations of pure, magical blood flowing through his veins – it’s something more. It’s in the way that he moves, the way magic seems to flow effortlessly from his fingertips whether it’s in class, on the Quidditch pitch or when they’re playing magical tag in the grounds outside of Hogwarts. 

It’s in the way that James can feel his own magic ripple and surge whenever he’s close to Sirius. It’s in the way his skin prickles when Sirius runs long fingers down his spine, when his breath tickles against the back of James’ neck. James feels it at the sound of bare feet against the stone cold floors of the castle, the rustle of fabric as his drapes are pushed aside.

James is used to the feel of magic. The house he grew up in was filled with it, his parents’ and ancestors’ magic had always wrapped around him like a comforting blanket, offering him protection from the moment he was born. The Potter estate looked after him, generations of magic sheltering him. His family’s magic means safety.

Sirius’ magic is different.

Sirius’ magic is explosive, bursting out of him, leaving no-one in doubt about his presence or ability. His magic is overwhelming, all-consuming, and had James been any less capable himself he might have found it intimidating. He knew that other people did. Other people looked at Sirius, saw his power, his name, his heritage, and they became apprehensive around him. 

James didn’t.

James thrived with him. Together they pushed further, flew faster, climbed higher as they roamed the castle, the grounds, the forest and beyond. James thought he hadn’t properly lived before Sirius came into his life, slotting into place like a missing piece, making the world more colourful, more vibrant. 

People thought that he was the one who had saved Sirius, offering him a place to live after his family had disowned him, but James knew the truth. James knew that it had been the other way around. James might not have needed to be saved, but still that was what Sirius had done. He turned James’ world upside down, showed him what it was to be alive, and for that James owed him everything.

He heard the girls at school talk about love, with hushed voices and loud giggles, flushed cheeks and shining eyes, and he knew they didn’t get it. Love was nothing like what was written on the glossy pages of Witch Weekly. At least not being in love with Sirius Black.

Being in love with Sirius Black was an all-consuming, relentless, uncontrollable wave. It had swept James off his feet, and he had long since stopped pretending he had any control. Sometimes it scared him, the realisation that he would do anything to keep Sirius in his life, that there wouldn’t be any James left, if Sirius wasn’t there.

But then Sirius looks at him, silvery eyes gleaming in the darkness that surrounds them, and smiles the small, private smile that only James ever gets to see before draping himself across James, nosing along his collarbone with a satisfied little sigh. And James can wrap his arms around him, hold him close, feel him settle like a comforting weight across his body. Sirius hums in contentment and interlaces their legs, and James knows he has everything he needs in life within his four poster bed.

He will never let that go.

[inundatae]

Birthday's were perhaps never a concern of the chief justice, but they were very much something that Sigewinne took great pride in celebrating. Particularly, other people's. No matter how small the gift, she always went out of her way to hand craft something unique. It made it more special, in her opinion. And Neuvilette's birthday was a very important one indeed! What could she possibly make that could encompass all the love she held for this man... were schedules more in her favor she'd have delivered the gift herself, but in her stead, she sent a melusine friend to hand it off. A neatly wrapped box in azure wrapping paper with an over the top tinsel bow in sparkling silvers. Two sky blue streamers to match his hair coming out of the top. A little note tied on with careful hands. "Dearest Neuvillette, the years pass by so fast, it's a joy to share and celebrate another one with you! I hope you take the time to revel in all the good you do and the wonderful things you've accomplished. I am proud of you every day! With love, Sigewinne" Inside the box is a confetti assortment of stickers and candies to ensure that the delicate gifts are kept safe in transit. A small glittering glass ornament that looks like a melusine on a swing and sways on it's own stand, it's easy to imagine how it might cast a beautiful ripple of light through the room in the midday sun in the same patterns as the waves across the shore. With it is a gorgeous pen in beautiful blue with silver accents and a deep aquamarine ink bottle of the finest caliber to accompany it. And lastly, nestled beneath it all, is a handstitched hair bow with little wave embroideries and tiny stars sewn into the fabric. For the end of his hair, where long ago she'd tied the last one. A folded drawing, much more amateurish then the gifts, is tucked in next to it, of herself, neuvilette, and wriothesley holding hands and smiling. She's clearly put a lot of effort and time into the whole package. A long little life of many hobbies and skills she has little time to practice anymore put to good work, with a whole lot of love to tie it all together.

𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐬 𝐌𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐚, 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐛𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 while others merely for a social call. Regardless, Neuvillette never tires of their presence. Each visit is a delight, filled with their new discoveries as they share their findings with such exuberance that he cannot help but share in their joy. Aeife knocks upon his door, skips through with a package held aloft and gently deposits the beautifully wrapped gift atop his desk.

Normally he would have urged her to set the parcel amongst the many that he has received through the week. Gifts form dignitaries, from coworkers and persons of interest alike, some more ornate in their wrapping while others are simple and plain. All are of little note to him and he leaves the assortment for the Melusines themselves to peel through once he’s received the last of the gifts. Even if he has no care for material objects, there is at least the consolation that Sedene and Kiara and the rest would take joy in ripping through the packages, making a mess of his usually pristine office.

But it is with a word from Aeife that he learns of the sender and allows the gift to remain, taking a place of honor upon the center of his desk. This is not her usual touch when he’d expected pastel colors and stickers adorned to nearly ever surface of the package. The change is unusual enough that his curiosity is piqued. Carefully, without ruining the delicate wrapping, he starts to work gift free, huffing with fondness at the intended resemblance. She is ever so mischievous and he laments that having spent so much time in the Duke of the Fortress of Meropide’s company, that she most certainly have acquired many of his bad habits.

The paper set aside, he lifts the top of the box and though he is aware of the stickers and all the small baubles no doubt are all crafted with such care, his attention is pinned immediately to what is undoubtedly meant to the centerpiece of the entire affair. As though the ornament were made of the most fragile glass and indeed, it could perhaps be precisely that, Neuvillette carefully lifts the figure from the box and sets it directly into a shaft of sunlight. The effect is instantaneous, a dozen motes of shattered stars glitter upon his desk.

And though the thrill and novelty of the gift fades, his case files once more what draws his attention for the day, still his gaze drifts time and again to Sigewinne’s gift. And he finds himself imagining not for the first time, of doing something like the icon is meant to represent. Taking her to a playground and allowing her to experience the simple joys of being on a swing, echoes of her imagined laughter remain even as he locks his office for the day, the little Melusine upon the swing glimmering beneath the moonlight.

[neodarkdark]

Svern's personality and worldview

Svern’s core personality is buried beneath thick and multilayered acting. The only way to get a glimpse of it is to catch him in a vulnerable moment, or be someone he truly trusts with his so-called “real” self. The way he’s normally perceived by others is energetic, bold, and reckless; loud and impertinent. He weaves between clownery and sharpness, and is cunning, quick to observe, comment, and react. He can put on other faces if he needs, but this is his preferred facade. Svern is curious and always pushing boundaries, prodding where he’s not wanted.

Beneath that lies the temperament he exhibited as a child, and what still might peek out in specific situations. Invisible, quiet, and observant; it remembers and internalises everything. Above all, it is static; disturbances to that core are rare and insignificant, outward behaviour aside.

There are benefits to this; he’s rarely disturbed or fazed by things that would bother others, because he simply doesn’t react the same. His emotional responses feel like a ripple in his consciousness. His lack of emotiveness and general disposition unnerved people around him when he was younger; especially coupled with his intellect and the way he could dissect a topic (or a logical fallacy, or a falsehood that wasn't supposed to have attention drawn to it) with ease. Eventually, out of the practical need to integrate with others, he learned to act; to portray himself in a way they found acceptable. Even if it was fabricated and didn't match what he was like or how he felt inside, the people around him didn’t see the disconnect, only the surface performance, and that was good enough for them. They didn't see, or didn't want to see, anything other than what Svern soon learned to present to them.

Though this was a success when it came to him interacting and "getting along" with others, he resented that it was necessary in the first place.

His behaviour varies with on the company and situation. When he has to act acceptably, he will, but he much prefers being a nuisance that people judge as a clown or don’t know what to think of. He gets enjoyment out of knowing the way he’s perceived is massively different to the "reality", that he’s deceived them, that their impression of him is under his control. It also developed an outlet for the resentment he had for people who judged him, and his distaste for their own incomprehensible and overblown emotions.

If their emotions are so vital and valuable, they can suffer the consequences of having them.

Svern possesses an incredibly powerful mind that chews up and spits out anything that interests it. Once he satisfies his curiosity, he quickly becomes bored. Coupled with his lack of emotional variance, he struggles with feeling stagnant. This is why he likes to live fast-paced and reckless, bold and impulsive, sticking his nose into anything he feels like. Any potential source of interest or temporary stimulation is welcomed with open arms.

He’s extremely confident thanks to his abilities. His confidence benefits from his internal stability; there are few things to truly make him feel afraid, or to concern him about feeling embarrassed or ashamed. He is stubborn and determined if he chooses to put his mind to something. Although he tends to be lazy when not interested - he doesn’t see the point in putting effort in unless he wants to or has another specific reason - when motivated he becomes a speedy high achiever.

Svern’s attitude toward life is nihilistic. All people die and when they do, they lose awareness of all they did in life. Everything passes eventually. Without ambition or a sense of duty or accountability, the idea of working for something that persists after your death loses its value; without a strong moral belief all actions become acceptable. Even things that would pain you to think about during life, like leaving loved ones behind or failing to achieve what you wanted to, lose their substance in the face of death.

He sees the world in shades of grey, a temporary and meaningless existence. He's aware that this isn't a generally favoured view, and that most people can find something to colour their lives; they're lucky for that, being able to make or find meaning where there is none. His inability to feel and his giftedness work together to rob him of this. People who can devote their life for a cause and believe in it, too, don't know how fortunate they are. Svern is a passerby without direction - lacking in ambition or wishes, distasteful toward the idea of letting something else guide his steps for him, barely connected to the world around him. He wastes time as he pleases until he can retire from the pointless task of living.

(The advice he received from the one person who understood him was to follow his impulses - no matter if those impulses were a mere suggestion of a thought or something rooted in a real feeling - to make living tolerable. By following them and acting them out, he could get a feel for what it would be like to live the same as everyone else, even if he can never lose himself in the act so much that he forgets that it's fake.)

Thus, he embraces mortality and the brevity of life. If nothing matters after you die, then nothing in life truly matters either. The best thing you can do is pass time until your death, get as much enjoyment out of it as you can, and cause yourself the least bother. Do what you want!

[lemistired]

Essay- Untitled (again)

I don’t like naming things, I’m bad at it. 

I’ve been in a little bit of a slump for a bit now, my anxiety is getting really bad again, like I’m fighting to leave the house every time I have to. The other week I near enough downed 3/4ths of a bottle of vodka and of course i then saw that same bottle twice. I didn’t even expect that to happen, that’s the funny thing. My asthmas also been acting up like CRAZY cause how humid the air is and how much pollen there is, I hate that my lungs are as sensitive as they are, they can take a lot, but when it hits them it hits them hard, I should really tell them they’re doing a good job from time to time. ANYWAYS this is essentially just a vent that I’ve been adding to when things get a lot, and I’ve decided I’m done with this one cause it’s hard to have any literary flow when you’re in bits. 

People go on about how wonderful life is, yet have you ever found someone who isn’t simply drifting?

I mean yeah, I have these hopes and aspirations, but they’re more like rough suggestions. I don’t even know what I’m doing tomorrow, you can’t even say I’m taking the day as it comes because that’s a blatant lie, I’m simply going through the motions I’ve rehearsed a million times before this.

There is no escape from anything anymore. Alcohol simply allows you to sleep without a plagued mind, gradually your tolerance is getting higher though and the four cans of cider and a shot of vodka doesn’t make you drowsy anymore like it did the first time you drank; you keep drinking trying to get that same effect until suddenly you’ve gone through half a bottle of gin. You know it’s getting bad again when you’ve had a hard day and your first thought is to down some whisky, that’s my drink of choice when the days been rough. If I want a good time having rum usually goes down well, but sometimes the familiarity of that burn going down, setting your chest ablaze, is exactly the kind of comfort you need. Your mornings have started to consist of thinking about clearing away those empty bottles in your room, yet your nights are filled with heavy eyes and a thick taste of regret lining your tongue.

Sometimes it’s not enough, so you try smoking a little, doesn’t matter if it’s a tobacco cigarette or an electronic one, sometimes it’s nice to feel like you’re drowning for a moment. You know you shouldn’t because it’s “shaving years off your life”, you’re asthmatic so you know you’ll feel it when you go into an attack about an hour later. Sometimes I find myself unable to get the oxygen to my lungs, my body is shaking as I’m slowly getting dizzier trying to choke back the nausea, my inhalers won’t work so I sit there rubbing my chest hoping to alleviate the pain.

I’ve lost my sense of identity now; I don’t know last time someone asked me about what my characteristics are and I didn’t fabricate something on the spot. One group thinks I’m some shy, kind, reserved person who cares too much about everyone, another thinks I’m a more head strong, argumentative person—they’re even scared to wake me if I fall asleep just in the off chance I’ll snap at them. My family thinks I’m the most responsible introverted person you can find. The only advantage to not having a set personality is I’ve gotten really well at masking everything. I think I was 12 when I started acting, none of my current friends fully know me as a result of this, I keep losing people due to my inconsistencies.

A few points of me have stayed consistent; I’m not cishet-- truthfully I’m always in a state of questioning, my life has always looked like a dark room with a phone light being the only source, hospitals are places that I hate yet still find comfort in—they’re familiar, I hate being alone—at least alone without access to at least text someone, I prefer the cold weather—there’s less people walking so you don’t have to hide as much.

I find my emotions are something that come in waves, you get a tiny ripple, then suddenly thousands of waves come crashing down so hard it hurts as it hits against your skin, eventually they calm and there’s nothing at all. When the waves still, I wouldn’t even call it content, it’s simply a grey area between emotions, you feel something, but it’s not positive, negative, or neutral. When the waves are thundering on for what seems like an eternity, it becomes so overwhelming nothing shows, but you feel it; the suffocating of being thrown under the water with no mercy, you’re struggling to know its pointless so you begin to let yourself drown, only for you to suddenly gain the ability to breathe underwater, it’s the only way you’d ever cope with it.

I’ve become sick of sacrificing everything the moment people ask it of me. I’ve never been a caring person, the habits have just become deep routed in me, if you see a glimmer of genuine concern or trust from me, you know I really care. Sometimes I ask simply because you look upset and I don’t want the day to be dragged down as a result, other times, I want to make you feel better. The way my life has always worked was I was the caretaker, but I was not the kind of person who would clean your wound with such care and give you treats after. I think back to arguments sitting with my brother, trying to convince him to allow me to take out broken fragments of plastic out of his hand with tweezers, the concern over taking me all you may see was aggression at first glance, but those who know me know that is how I care – it’s cold, violent, and upsetting, yet I’ll still touch you with gentle hands dancing over the injury, touch so light you may not even feel it.

On some not rare occasions, I find myself disgusted to be banded in with people, not because I dislike people, I simply feel beneath them, an imposter with subtle cracks showing through a true nature. My emotions lead me in a world shrouded in logic, it was never suited for people like me. I am simply a by-product from a war between obligation and negligence.

━  S

[spellbindingnights]

More aura memes that no one asked for

muses: the Sullivan family

liam & cara: ivory

lace, marble, china dishes, doves, paper, bones, vanilla shakes. your essence is ivory: you are a piece of history, sturdy and eternal. others believe you to be gentle; they don't see the pressure that is threatening to crack you. you seek control and organize your life into rows. you are the overseer. you are the porcelain. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of grey, noir, pearl, and ashen, who share the pressure you put on yourself. you are also drawn to the expressive rose and lilac, who will help you grow and learn that things will be okay even if they don't go right. however, you may struggle to get along with the indulgent personalities of sky and apricot who need too much stimulation and decadence.

declan: crimson

rose vines, blood, apples, velvet, sharp nails, galaxies, dripping jewelry. your essence is crimson: you are the strong, defiant and avoidant. you crave some sort of deviation; to walk in another's footsteps feels mundane, a waste of your time. you are possessive and never look back at the things you've lost or forgotten. you are the rebel. you are the one who will change the world. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of red, blush, garnet, and bronze, who share your impassioned existence. you are also drawn to the confident souls royal and gold, who will help you grow and show that not everyone seeks to break you. however, you may struggle to get along with the slow-acting personalities of navy and umber who never seem assertive about anything.

brooklyn: blue

blueberries, canals, gatorade, denim jackets, stationary, coastlines, bluebirds. your essence is blue: you are as deep as the seas, but sensitive to the slightest ripple. you attach meaning to your emotions; they guide you, but also blind you to how things truly are. you act misunderstood but shy away from telling anyone who you really are. you are the poet. you are the sorrower. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of sky, navy, mauve, and jade, who share your need for authenticity. you are also drawn to the self-actualizing green and orange, who will help you grow and open up during hardship. however, you may struggle to get along with the linear personalities of grey and red who seem overly focused on structure.

colleen: indigo

cold water, tile, masks, constellations, dyed fabric, macaw feathers, night sands. your essence is indigo: your emotional depth consumes all who dip their toes. you are sensitive but enigmatic; you project an air of mystery, and deep down are confident no one could ever solve yours. you are darkly romantic and mesmerizing. you are the mystique. you are the widow. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of periwinkle, mauve, royal, and navy, who share your quiet intuition. you are also drawn to the driven souls amaranth and garnet, who will help you grow and learn how to leave your mark on the world. however, you may struggle to get along with the uncommitted personalities of bronze and hickory who seem to lack true depth.

finnegan: yellow

daisies, road signs, bumblebees, lemon merengue, bicycles, polaroids, awnings. your essence is yellow: you are precise yet shy, putting band-aids on your cuts alone. you demand much of yourself; your self-expression feels tempered by a mold you're intended to fill. you seek an anchor to hold and keep your doubt at bay. you are the dutiful. you are the one who rises after you fall. you find kinship in like-minded individuals of cream, gold, honey, and chartreuse, who share your loyalty and compassion. you are also drawn to the sturdy red and brown, who will help you grow and learn to not question your own judgment. however, you may struggle to get along with the overly-involved personalities of pink and green who are unconscious of their own feelings.

[danieldavidreitberg]

The Moral Machine: Can AI Be Our Ethical GPS in a World Gone Digital?

Imagine a world where our choices are guided by a digital oracle, capable of crunching the numbers and spitting out the "morally optimal" decision. A world where self-driving cars make split-second choices, prioritizing lives based on age, profession, and even social media presence. Welcome to the age of the Moral Machine, where AI isn't just shaping our world, but potentially making the ultimate human call: right or wrong?

The Algorithm of Ethics

The Moral Machine, a project by researchers at MIT, presents hypothetical ethical dilemmas to humans and AI algorithms. Should a self-driving car swerve to save a young child, potentially harming the passengers? Should it choose the "greater good" of saving five adults over sparing one elderly person?

These scenarios, while seemingly fictional, force us to confront a chilling reality: as AI becomes more complex, it will inevitably face situations demanding ethical judgment. Can we trust these digital brains to make these life-or-death decisions, or are we handing over the wheel of morality to a black box of algorithms?

The Empathy Enigma

Ethics, unlike math, isn't just about calculations. It's about empathy, about considering the emotional impact of our actions, about weighing complex variables that defy algorithmic analysis. Can AI, coldly crunching numbers, truly understand the nuances of human life, the ripple effects of a decision on families, communities, and the very fabric of our society?

While AI can assess risks and predict outcomes, it struggles to grasp the emotional tapestry of human existence. Grief, guilt, the value of a cherished family pet – these intangible threads slip through the fingers of algorithms, leaving behind a utilitarian landscape where lives are quantified and weighed against one another.

The Human-Machine Partnership

But perhaps the Moral Machine isn't a replacement for human morality, but an imperfect co-pilot. Imagine AI providing us with a range of potential outcomes, highlighting the emotional consequences of each choice. Ultimately, the decision remains in human hands, informed by the data-driven insights of AI, but guided by the empathy and compassion that only we can provide.

This partnership, however, demands immense responsibility. We must ensure transparency in AI development, preventing the bias of our creators from seeping into its algorithms. We must engage in open discussions about the limits of AI ethics, constantly questioning and refining its role in our decision-making processes.

The Road Ahead

The Moral Machine is a reminder that the ethics of our digital future are not pre-programmed. They are a work in progress, a conversation we must have as a society. Can AI navigate the moral minefield of human existence? Perhaps. But it's a journey we must take together, human hand in algorithmic hand, ensuring that the technology that shapes our world doesn't eclipse the values that define it.

So, the next time you hail a self-driving car or ponder the future of AI, remember that the Moral Machine is just a tool. The choices, the Verantwortung, ultimately lie with us. It's time to chart the ethical GPS of our digital age, ensuring that technology expands our minds, not our moral blind spots.

The road ahead is paved with algorithms and uncertainty, but by navigating it with foresight, compassion, and a firm grip on our humanity, we can ensure that the Moral Machine leads us not to ethical oblivion, but to a future where technology amplifies the best of what it means to be human.

[atzfilm]

murphy's law (m); 1/5

wc/pairing; 17k, san/reader, ?/f.reader

genre; a/f/s, soulmate!au, alien!au, e2f2l

summary; according to murphy's law, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Black holes circle each other until they collide and merge, a cataclysm so fierce, sends ripples soaring through the fabric, crossing thousands of kilometers within a fraction of a second, leaving behind a wave on the space-time continuum. That’s the simplest way you can describe meeting him. And yet, even that is an understatement.

note: please read the warnings! There are a lot of sensitive topics mentioned, even if it is just in passing. warnings under cut

next ➡️

content: death, sex work (vaguely mentioned), politics, arranged marriage, insults, slave labor, misogynistic undertones, anxiety, eating/starvation, future smut

“You’re really going down there?” Jongho asks, balancing a pencil on his nose. You flick through the paperwork, frowning. Lines and checkpoints are written across, many you've come accustomed to after years of working in this department. It's nothing you've dreamed of doing, your artistic life put on hold. But it's enough to support your parents and siblings, and you wouldn't trade that for the world. “Earth to y/n?”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I? Whatever the commander says, I have to follow,” you murmur, sighing as you stare at the regulations. No water. No speaking out of malice. No stepping outside the jurisdiction lines. No reading or writing the Mavian text. And the list goes on and on, several pages of do’s and don'ts. Many of which you can't comprehend. You’d honestly rather not do anything at all, but you can’t risk your family being hurt or moved to a different district. You’ve just gotten clearance to live here. “You know what dad would say. He’d laugh in my face and tell me it’s the only right thing to do.”

“Well dad is an asshole, and you’re your own person. I know you want to protect us, but you don’t have to worry,” Jongho nudges your shoulder, placing his outstretched hand on the papers in front of you. You frown as you meet his gaze, and he only grins. “I can take care of them fine.”

“You’re not old enough yet. You still have a year to go. And we can’t move back there, not after this.” You push his hand away. “It took me years to get us to move up in the ranks. After this assignment we’d be close to the elite class.”

He sighs, slowly moving his hand back. “Don’t you wish we lived back before the invasion? Everything would be different.”

“They didn’t invade, Jongho. They landed on a planet they thought was friendly, and we turned out to be savages.”

“Shh!” He puts his hand over your mouth, glancing around. Luckily, everyone is too far away to hear your conversation. “You know you can’t talk like that around here!” He lifts your hand. You swat him away, grabbing up the papers and neatly putting them back in the folder. You tuck it underneath your arm, standing up. “Wait, you can’t leave yet.”

“I have to go pack. The orientation is tomorrow, and I have no time to waste. I’ll see you at dinner, yeah?”

He nods, watching you walk away solemnly.

It’s 2189, one hundred fifty years since the Mavian race landed on Earth. The day everything changed. People were quarantined in their homes, and endless battles ensued across the seven continents. You could only imagine how it was living back then, the millions dead because of the wars. It was one of the worst death tolls in humankind history; many of the numbers inaccurate because of the large-scale. Eventually, of course, humans won. The Mavian race was weakened by the energy of the morning sun, and humans took that as an advantage. Most of the race was forced to live underground in sewers and subway stations, eventually creating large cities and economies right below your feet. They were never able to leave Earth, their ships destroyed and dismantled for parts.

You walk around a corner, glancing at another propaganda poster. HUMANS AGAINST MAVIANS. There are extremists on either side, but you ignore most of it, focused on your family instead. After the massive loss of human and Mavian life, based on your income and job status, humans were forced to live in different sectors across the world. Military ruled, governments secondary. Countries no longer existed, only sectors of humankind. When you were born you were part of the lowest. All you’ve ever done was try your best to make your family reach the upper class, the elite. Right now, you were only slightly above the poorest; none of your parents' achievements enough to make your status elevate. But when you saw the ad in the news, telling of a way to get higher, you couldn’t resist. Even if it could cost your life.

You stare down at one of the papers still in your hands. Peace Maker Facilitator. Most of the people who took these roles ended up disappearing. A lot of them are said to have been killed by the Mavians, that’s why these spots were always open. You were too young at the time to apply when you first saw the ad, but now that you’re of age, you did it immediately. Your mother begged and begged for you to reconsider this, but you couldn’t. If your death resulted in them having an easier life, you’d do it without hesitation. At least, for Jongho. You couldn’t see him kicked and beaten by the upper class any longer. As long as he had a safe life, that’s all you asked for.

But tomorrow is just the orientation, you’ll have a few more days to figure out what you’re going to do.

-

You get home late, shrugging off your jacket and taking off your shoes as you enter your home. You barely give the rotten wooden floors a glance, putting on your slippers and walking into your home. Dinner is already put away; you are telling your parents that you don’t need anything to eat tonight and that you’d be fed while you’re out. That’s a lie, of course. No one would feed someone as low of a class as you are, most of your food coming from trading or dumpsters. You look into the small living room, noticing Jongho sitting on the sofa, head thrown back as he snores softly. You scoff, walking over and nudging him with your foot.

He coughs, eyes immediately opening and looking at you. Relief crosses his face as he stands, grabbing your arm and guiding you into your shared room. Before you can utter a word, he lifts his comforter, a small bag of bread and cheese hidden underneath.

“Jongho, I said I was fine–”

“Don’t lie, y/n. You’ve been starving yourself so that we don’t have to be hungry,” he murmurs softly, placing the bag in your hesitant palm. “I’m serious. You barely have any energy anymore. Don’t do this to yourself, please. I don’t want anything to happen to you.” his eyes scan yours in the low light. He grabs the candle that he took from the living room, placing it next to your folded sheets. You slowly sit on the floor, opening the bag.

There’s two slices of bread; the cheese slightly melted from the warm room. But you’re grateful, slowly putting the food in your mouth as you look at him. He watches you in silence, knees tucked to his chest, and eyes trained on you. You finished in no time, thanking him with a head nod.

“Are you coming back?” He asks softly. “I heard about those jobs people take that deal with the Mav. A lot of them go missing, or we find their bodies on the streets. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

“I’m not going to die,” you say, shaking your head. “Trust me on that.”

“But you didn’t say that you’re coming back.”

“I…” you struggle with your thoughts. You don’t want to lie to him. Just because he isn’t old enough to hold the same jobs as you, doesn’t mean that you treat him like a kid. “I don’t know, Jongho. I want to come back to you guys. I don’t want to disappear and leave you, okay? I’ll try my hardest to come back, no matter what.” You turn around, flipping up your comforter and finding the loose wooden panel on the floor. You reach inside, taking out a large jar. Without saying a word, you hold it up, looking at Jongho.

His eyes widen, the flames from the candle make them reflect a warm orange. “I’ve saved up a lot. Enough for you to get out of here and find a place on your own. Dad and mom…” You bit your lip. There’s not enough for all three of them here. And you love them, you do. But they haven’t saved anything for the both of you. They haven’t done anything but statues in your lives, even if you don’t want to admit it. You can’t remember the last time they were the ones putting food on the table. Jongho and you did it all. “I tried my best to save, but there’s not enough for them here. You’d have to leave them on their own.”

“I know,” he says, nodding slowly. “But how’d you get this?”

“Don’t ask, please. Just know I did it for both of us. If I don’t come back after two months, you have to leave. Take this and everything you have, and go. Find Finn in the marketplace; he already knows what to do. But you can’t show this to mom and dad, okay? Don’t say a word about this, Jongho. Don’t let them see it at all.”

“Come on–”

“I’m not joking,” you grab his arm, tugging him closer. “They’re our parents, but they can’t handle money. They’d spend it on things you don’t need, and you’ll end up in the same spot. I told you, I’m getting you out of here. Even if I’m not there with you. And I’m not letting them stop you from being free of this-” you gesture around the both of you - “They had enough time to save us from this and did nothing. I can’t trust them, even if I care about them a lot. But I trust that you’d do the right thing because you’ve never been selfish. Just listen to me this once, please.”

You almost beg as you say the last words, eyes flicking between his. His hand covers the first that’s gripping his shirt, pulling you into a hug. You groan, but let your arms surround him. He squeezes you tightly, as if it’s the last one he’ll ever give you. You hold him tighter, feeling his body shake.

“Don’t cry, Jongho.”

“I know, I know. I don’t need to, but this just feels like a goodbye when I don’t want it to be.”

“You know I’ll fight to get back to you.”

He pulls away from you, his eyes moist as they stare into yours. “I’ll be brave for you, y/n. I trust you.”

“Good,” you ruffled his hair, flicking his forehead. “Now go to sleep. I’m going to put the jar back under there; get it when you need to only. Nothing extra kid.”

“Alright, goodnight y/n. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Wake me up before you leave, please.” He looks at you pointedly, going back to his comforter and tucking himself inside. He gives you his back, blowing out the candle. The dim room is hushed back into darkness. You slowly go into your comforter, tugging the sheets underneath your chin. You’re not sure what’s going to happen; you just hope that after tonight, you can see your brother again.

You’ll do anything to see him again.

-

You didn't wake him up, knowing it'd be harder to say goodbye. Instead, you kissed his forehead and left him a letter underneath his pillow. He rarely shifts his blankets, so you're not sure when he'll ever see it, but you hope it comes at the right time when he needs it the most. You tug your bag underneath your arm, navigating through the crowded marketplace. You ignore the gazes of soldiers standing on the sidelines, not wanting to get caught gazing at any of them. Just because the military runs the government doesn't mean they do a good job. You've heard stories about how they trapped people, hurt and harassed them. Avoiding them as much as possible is the way to go.

"Hey, you!"

You glance back, seeing one of the men on the fence move off. He beckons you to him, but you quickly give him your back, pushing further into the crowd. Just a couple of more blocks, and you're in the clear.

"Where ya going!" His voice is less clear now, farther behind you. You take off running, ducking and sliding underneath arms to get away. His stomping quickly fades as you make it to the front entrance of the military compound, slipping through the front doors. Inside, you see several people who look like you. Loose fitting clothing to last years, shoes covered in holes and dirt. Many you recognize from your old town. But you don't say a word, walking to the front desk. The soldier seems disinterested, tapping away on a laptop. You've only seen them in ads, your eyes widening at the technology. He looks at you, pushing it from your sight.

"No beggars," he spits. "Go back out there and pick on the townsfolk."

"No, I'm here for a job."

"A job? You?" He snickers. "And what job is this, little lady?"

You dig through your pocket, pulling out the papers. He snatches it from your hands, eyes flicking over the words. "Peacemaker facilitator? Haven't had one of those in a while," he coughs, the spit landing on your face. You wipe it off with the back of your hand, holding in your disgust. Now isn't the time to be cocky. You have bigger things to worry about.

He digs through his desk, pulling out a stamp and more paperwork. "Keep this with you. A soldier will come and get you, and then you'll be debriefing with the commander on your position." He tosses it to you, the papers flying to the floor. You shut your eyes for a moment before crouching down to pick it up, holding back your anger.

Shoes appear in front of you as you gather the paper, hands helping you. "Oh, you don't have to–" your eyes meet the man's, recognizing him immediately. He winks at you, passing you the papers and standing up.

"Soldier." He turns to the man at the desk. The soldier looks up lazily, scrambling to his feet once he realizes who's standing there. "Have you no shame? Tossing pamphlets to our volunteering aid? Speak."

"Sir, it was a slip of the wrist–"

"Was it?" He quirks a brow. "Then why didn't you help her pick up the papers?"

"I–"

"Next time I see you treat another civilian like this, you'll be punished. Understand, soldier?"

"Yes, Commander, sir," he bows.

The commander turns on his heel, looking at you. "You may follow me." Without another word, he walks off. You tuck the papers into the folder, following close behind. He navigates through the large office building, nodding at the people who bow around them. A lot of the men (there were no women) give you strange looks as you follow behind him, only making you close the distance between you. There's no one you can trust, especially in the world that you live in now. Eventually, you make it to his office, Commander imprinted on a metal banner outside his door. He guides you inside, gesturing for you to sit as he closes and locks the door.

Immediately, the angered brows loosen, his familiar cheshire grin curving his lips. "I haven't seen you in the two years since I left, y/n!"

"I wouldn't have guessed scrawny Chan would end up being in charge of our district. You've really made it high up."

He sits at his desk, leaning forward to rest his chin on his hands. The furnishings in the room are at a contrast compared to the city this building is in. Completely polished and kept in prime condition. Books lining the shelves around him, strategic maps of plans nailed into the wall. And the technology. Screens covering most empty spaces in the room, a large digital table sitting nearby. There's words on there you can't understand, completely above what you've learned in your short period of schooling. You’d never think that the boy you used to play with became a commander of a sector. And he’s no longer skinny like he used to be. You can see the built-up muscle on his arms and the rest of his body.

“Finessing your way up the ranks is the only way to go,” Chan says simply, shrugging. “And a year or two of sneaking into schools to learn could get you far. But we’re not here to talk about me.” He opens a thick manila folder that sits on his desk, flicking through the tabs until it lands on one sheet. Your reading skills aren’t advanced, but you know how your name is written. “When I was going through my documents today, I saw your name amongst the many. Why are you applying to be a peacemaker, y/n?”

“You know why, Chan.”

He shakes his head, his face growing sour. “But you haven’t a clue what it entails. It isn’t an easy job. There’s a reason why most don’t come back from it. You can be killed with the slightest misstep.”

“But I’ll do it anyway.”

“y/n,” his voice is exasperated now, rubbing his head in frustration. “I know that you want to take your family out of the slums, but this isn’t the way to go. Yes they’ll be upper middle class once you enter, but it’s only temporary. If you die, they’ll be put back where they once were. Or lower, depending on how the officers handling the paperwork feel that day.”

You scoff. “Are you kidding me? Temporary? It said nothing like that on the flyer.”

“That’s why I’m telling you now. I’m not trying to dissuade you from this position, but there are others available and with great potential for growth,” he passes you another paper. You glance over it, your stomach twisting. "It's not what you wanted –"

"I'm not working there," you say, pushing the paper back. "I don't care if it's easier, I'm not doing it. Are you only showing me this because I'm a woman?"

He shakes his head. "There's positions open for men as well. All genders qualify."

"I'm not doing it."

"y/n–"

"I'm not. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not for me."

He looks at you quizzingly, eyes narrowing. You're not sure what he sees on your face, but he nods, going back to the original paperwork. "I'll allow you to try out being one of the facilitators. But there are things you need to know about it before you accept. I'm not allowed to mention it all, but it's you. And I can't let you go in there blind to the truth."

"... why do you care for me so much?" You ask softly.

He only smiles, "You really don't know?" He turns around, grabbing a frame from his shelf. He holds it in front of you. Two familiar children stand outside a school building. You can easily recognize him, the muffin hair and rosy cheeks. And you are next to him. Your eyes are already hardened, your childhood gone in the blink of an eye. "I've always cared about you. You were my first friend and my first crush."

"You? You liked me?" You can’t even imagine it. Yea, the two of you spent a lot of time with one another, but it was only friendly. There wasn’t even the slightest suggestion of romance, even as you grew into teens, and he left your town.

He nods, placing the photo back on the shelf. "I do. So…" His finger fiddles with the edge of the paper, in deep thought. "I'm not married yet." His eyes flick to yours. "You could marry me, y/n."

Your crossed arms drop from your chest. "What?"

"We could be married. That will change your family's status easily. You wouldn't have to risk your life to save them. I know you're independent, and nothing will change that. I won't force you to do anything you don't like, and I'll protect you and your family like my own. It can be arranged so that you wouldn’t have to risk your life for their safety.”

Arranged marriage with Chan. You stare at him in silence, consumed by your thoughts. It would definitely help your family move up in the ranks, and it won’t be temporary. You can finally see Jongho grow up the way he should, and assist him in anything he needs. You know the status of a commander. You know that Chan’s pull in society is upper middle class. But you will be married to it. If he dies, you’ll be thrusted back into the poorer parts of society. It’ll be the same, all over again. But years of safety over a small chance of surviving this task? You rub your face, too conflicted.

“I can’t,” you say finally, looking at him. “Marriage is a sacred bond to me, one born out of love.”

“But I love you,” he says, reaching over to you. His hold is friendly so you don’t push it away, watching as his fingers encase yours. “Love can be grown out of nothing. You can learn to love me too.”

Are you being selfish? Would your parents, Jongho, scold you for rejecting his offer? He’s a good guy, and he worked hard to make it where he is now. And he’s offering you the chance to finally be free. You want it, so bad. Desperately. But–

“What if you give me a month to decide?” You ask, slowly pulling your fingers away from his. “I can join and become a peacemaker. I’ve wanted to make my way on my own, to help my family without the need of someone else. And if I decide that it’s too difficult to achieve, I’ll marry you.” You look at him, waiting for a response. You almost expect a negative reaction but a smile breaks out on his face, his expression filled with hope.

“I’ve waited forever to get the chance to marry you and if I have to wait a month more, then so be it,” he looks at your paperwork, quickly writing his signature. “I’ve placed you in a safer area than most, but it will still be hard. Their kind isn’t peaceful like us.”

Your eyebrow twitches at that, but you decide not to speak up.

“The clan that you’re going to be sent to has a group of six Mavian males. There have been very few reports of violent activity amongst them compared to other clans, so you won’t have any difficulties joining them for a month. As a peacemaker, your task is to teach them about human society, and show them how we can coexist. We already have the forms you read off of but in your case, I’ll give you a temporal player to listen on your way to the site.” He hands you off a small bag, “There’s papers in there as well if you’re up for the challenge, but the words are difficult to read. I tried to find a space where you can be with the females, but there were only male groups available. And usually, peacemakers are men. But of course,” he gives you a gentle smile. “You are the exception.”

Most women in their race have been wiped out except for a few, due to humanity not wanting them to populate further. They hoped that killing most of the women would lead to them dying out on Earth, and bringing us back to a more modern society. It’s something that you’ve never agreed with and find it deplorable, but there’s nothing you can do to stop it. And that disgusts you even further.

You take the bag from his hand, thanking him with a slight head bow. He waves you off, “No need to bow to me. We may be married in a month’s time, and I wouldn’t want my partner to lower their head. Especially not someone like you.” He stands, opening the door for you. “I won’t be able to travel with you, but I’ll be sure to check on you every so often in case.”

“Thank you commander,” you say, following him to the door. “And can I ask for one more favor?”

He nods. “Of course.”

“Can you check up on Jongho as well? I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye, and he’s probably worried right now,” you hope he isn’t too angry.

Chan grins. “A brother of yours is a brother of mine.”

-

The trip to the facility is long. It was wrong of you to assume that the place you’ll be staying is close by, but you didn’t expect this much. You’re sure you’ve been sitting in your bus seat for a few hours now, your attention outside the majority of the time. You’ve never had the chance to be inside a vehicle before, the bouncing and acceleration almost startling. It’s strange how many kilometers it can travel in a given time. And how your crowded neighborhood’s atmosphere changed within an hour. The yelling and shouting faded into the distance, only trees and other farmland surrounding you now. It’s almost eerily quiet outside. All you can see is the night sky. The mass of trees shrink, until you’re in front of a facility. It’s clean and crisp, a large building completely different from the one floor homes that you’re used to. You’re sure it’s at least four stories, the rest disappearing into the night.

The bus stops. The people inside groan, waking up from their slumber. The doors open and a guard instructs you all out. You’re one of the last on the short line of people, eyes wide as you take in the surroundings. The large building has a wall encompassing the perimeter, guards patrolling the top. Large guns in their hands, faces covered with masks. The gate opens, and you enter, eyes flicking around the place. You can see an almost garage-like barrier, the roof at an angle. You can only assume that this is the entrance to the underground. The Mavian dwellings. You’ve acted brave thus far, but you’re scared shitless. You’ve never even seen one up close besides photos plastered on walls, so you’re not too sure what to expect. Even the audio that you listened to gave little description besides main attributes. The leaders of the clans are distinct; permanent blue tattoos on their faces just below their eyes, based on the symbol of their clan. It varies, so there’s no distinct one. The other members of the clan have the same symbol on their chests above their right breast, where their heart lies. If there were women, the one who reached adulthood first would be betrolled to the leader of the clan. There were several other facts, but those are the only ones you can think of at the moment.

You grip your papers in your hand, following the line into the building. It’s bright, the artificial lights stunning you in comparison to the dark outside. You squint, blinking quickly.

“Peacemaker y/n.”

Your head turns to the voice. He seems to be a sergeant, eyes narrowing once they meet yours. You immediately avert your gaze, not wanting to insult him accidentally. He gestures for you to follow and you do so immediately, a yard or so away as he rounds a corner. He gestures for you to enter a room, and you slowly make your way inside. You see other soldiers, but they’re women. Before you can ask what’s going on, he closes the door behind you.

“What name would you like?” One of them asks, holding out a paper. You walk over slowly, taking in the room. There’s not much there but rows of text and clothing. You take the paper from her grasp, staring at the words.

You furrow your brows. “What’s this?”

“When you’re a peacemaker, you’re given a codename. You can’t reveal anything personal to the Mavian, so pick one. Or can you not read this?” She raises a brow. “You are from a lower district, correct?”

“Yes, but I can read this. Thank you.” You stare down at it, your eyes landing on one in particular. Despite your neverending bravery, there was one thing you feared; ladybugs. “I’ll choose Ladybug.”

“Very well. We now need to advise you on your job, Peacemaker Ladybug,” she types on the computer as she speaks to you, the other woman gathering clothes. “As you may know, your task is to ensure that there’s a steady line of communication between your Mavian clan assignment and us. In order to achieve that line, we place humans as a leeway in between to grant that. There have been several altercations where the human was killed for overstepping or causing unnecessary troubles. So we have sent you guidelines that you must follow. There is no talk of politics, only friendly and light communication. You have to give us a report of your findings every Tuesday and Friday. These dates do not change, and they give us a chance to check and see if you’re still alive.”

“What happens if I die?” You ask.

The woman’s lip twitches. “Your body will be given back to your family. If we cannot find where they reside, it will be left in the hands of your town. From there, they decide what happens.”

Cruel. Utterly cruel.

“I understand your dismay. But we have to move past that. You are a woman, ladybug,” she finally looks away from her screen, directly at you. “Most women sent down there are placed in positions meant for pleasure to derail a revolt that may be rising. You are the first one to take this position as a peacemaker. You have to protect yourself, hundreds of years have passed but nothing has changed in that aspect.” You notice a slight chip in her tone at the last sentence, but don’t comment on it.

The other soldier walks over, handing you a backpack. You glance inside, seeing feminine products and other toiletries. In between those are weapons. Many you’re not sure how to even use correctly. “Isn’t this illegal?” You ask. “I don’t want to be caught and have my actions hurt my family’s chance to move.”

“Not for you,” she shakes her head. “You’re in a different position compared to everyone else, that’s why we had to speak to you alone. And as I was saying before, many Mavian haven’t even seen their own females in over a hundred years, let alone a human one. You have to be cautious, do you understand?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. You will change into a soldier’s uniform. The clan that you’re entering is of high status, so you will have your own room. They have their own schedule that you have to adhere to. You will be eating Mavian food. You will be following them around. You cannot attack them or injure them, even if you believe that they are planning to harm you. Don't be a nuisance and know your boundaries. Once you enter their home underground, you have to follow their rules and not human ones. Our control is limited unless we want to enter another war. Just mind your own and you’ll be safe.”

“Understood.”

“And y/n? I am speaking to you frankly.”

“Yes?”

She leans forward, eyes flicking between yours solemnly. You noticed her name tag, Sergeant EBI etched into the fabric. “Be careful. Peacemakers don’t often survive, but I can tell you’re different from the rest. But, you are also a female. Be mindful of places that you go without supervision. The clan you’re with has no record of anything nefarious but don’t take that lightly. They can become criminals in an instant. Lock your doors at night and stay in open areas. I would say make sure there’s more than one person with you but you cannot trust any Mavian. Just be aware of your surroundings. And this is me speaking to you as another woman. You will be taken advantage of if you drop your walls. Do you understand?” There seems to be a flash of sympathy in her eyes, but it’s gone as quick as it appears.

“Thank you.”

She gives you a tight-lipped smile. “You can change into your uniform now.”

-

You tug on the jacket, following behind the sergeant as you make your way through the building and back outside. He glances down at you, “Your assignment has been moved forward and you’ll be entering the space tonight.”

“Tonight? I thought I needed to train–”

“Not necessary.”

“But I’ve never even spoken to a Mavian, let alone seen one. I don’t know enough about the customs to approach without offending them.”

“Not my problem girl,” he says simply, pushing you forward into the tunnel. You stumble slightly but don’t fall, coughing as dust fills your mouth. He hands you a mask silently, and you take it, wrapping it around your ears and adjusting it against your mouth. You’ve never considered yourself a weak person, always strong-willed. You never took crap from anyone, but right now isn’t the time to be brave. You have to make sure you stay alive. At least long enough to see Jongho again.

And that means dealing with shit like this with a closed mouth. You wanted to make your way on your own, but a small lingering feeling inside of you thinks that maybe you should have taken Chan up for his offer. You can grow to love him, even if marriage was never something you’ve wanted. You grip the straps of your bookbag, following them into a motorized cart. Before you can adjust yourself, it lurches forward. The drive is steep, your hands shaking as you make your way down. The tunnel seems to be miles long, only dim lights illuminating the sides. You can feel the air change as it goes deeper and deeper, your chest tightening.

“Your body will acclimate itself to the air underground in about a week,” the man says next to you. “There are special filters installed to help. You shouldn't have any difficulties."

“Will there be other humans there?” You ask. The man merely scoffs at the question, but doesn’t reply. You hold back your annoyance, staring out into the dark tunnel as you descend.

–

You grab your bag off the vehicle, following them closely. Your eyes look around, the bright city lights almost blinding you. It reminds you of photos you’ve seen in books of Tokyo, except underground. It makes you wonder how they were able to make this place possible; technology wasn’t this advanced back then. But perhaps it was the Mavians who made it with ease. You know that they were at an advantage in the war until they weren’t. The people stared at you when you were entering the city, some speaking to one another, others pointing in your direction. You sunk deeper into the seat, tucking yourself deeper into your coat. And they didn’t lie about the lack of women; you didn’t see one on your way here. And if there were, they were probably in homes, hidden away from prying eyes. Something that you weren’t as fortunate to have.

“Wait here, I’ll enter first,” one of the guards says, walking up to the building. You look around, the building several times larger than your own home. The clan you were saying with had to be wealthy, other homes you took note of much smaller than the one in front of you.

This is a completely and utterly terrible idea. You should have backed out when you had the chance, but now you're in too deep. There's no use in trying to convince them to let you go back home. And you hate to waste people's time. So you nod, tucking your back close to your body and waiting on the steps to the home. It's larger than yours by far, a manor by the look of it. It seems almost endless in the perpetual night, rooms darkened further down to make it seem larger than it is. It's surrounded by a low gate, blocking itself off from the outside streets. You had to take a winding road to the home, only worrying you. You can remember the sergeant's words, telling you that you can't attack even if they try to harm you. But running wasn't something that they said you couldn't do. You glance back at the path, holding in your breath. You're not even sure how far away the main gate is from here. All of these facts bundled together only make you feel more trapped.

You hear a laugh from inside the home, directing your attention back to the situation at hand.

"A human female?" The voice sounds shocked, almost appalled at the realization. "It isn't possible for there to be a female peacemaker. I've never heard of one. We only agreed on this because of your commander's orders. He never mentioned a human female."

"We have no time for your questioning. She is already here, and I'm sure you've arranged a room for your guest."

"Well yes, but–"

"Then that settles it. We will see you at the end of the week for her check-in.”

"Tell Commander Chan I will need to speak to him. Promptly."

Chan. They know Chan. You didn't realize how far his influence expanded. He's a powerful commander, and you denied his proposal. It only makes your stomach twist. Murphy’s law seems to be swirling around you now. A law you thought was too obtuse to be true, now intricately governing your life.

The door shut loudly, the soldier walking back out and gesturing for you. "They're ready for you."

You seem to hesitate, the soldier next to you pushing you ahead. This time you expected it, not stumbling as you make your way up the steps. Your fist hovers over the door. This is it, you think. Once you knock, there’s no chance of turning back. You bring your hand down against the door, the wood immediately flinging open. You lose your balance, stumbling over the threshold and onto the floor. The Mavian man steps aside, not bothering to catch you.

You can feel your face burning with embarrassment as you grab the things you spilled from your bag quickly, shoving them in the pocket that you failed to zip tight. Your eyes land on the black wrapping of your feminine product, quickly hiding it from view. You immediately zip it closed, standing up and meeting the eyes of the Mavian that’s been watching you silently.

You notice how tall he is in comparison to the soldier’s that you were with, slightly above the average male height for humans. He seems to wear a beguiled smile on his lips as he stares at you in silence. His eyes never leave yours, even as you look away from him. You bow, remembering the words that you’ve listened to over and over. He nods slightly, his smile slipping.

“This was a terrible idea,” he sounded a bit bewildered, glancing at you again. “I didn’t plan for you to be a woman. I apologize for my lack of welcoming, but I need to speak with your Commander before this can go any further. I’ll advise the others not to burden you with their… childish behavior, for lack of a better word.” He bows again. You notice his hair is a deep brown, framing his face with wisps falling from his kept hair. You don’t see a tattoo underneath his eye, so you know he isn’t the leader of this clan. It almost frightens you that he isn’t, his aura thick with authority and maturity.

“Nice to meet you, I am Peacemaker Ladybug,” you say, your voice slightly above a whisper. “I didn’t mean to offend you with my presence.”

The Mavian’s brow quirks. “Hm.”

“Is there a problem?”

“You’re from the slums, are you not?”

You frown slightly at the term he used, but he’s not wrong. Could he tell just by looking at you? Did you not clean yourself up enough to be here? Glancing around and seeing the dim lighting and princely furniture, you did look a bit odd in the uniform they gave you. But he laughs, a joyous sound at juxtaposition to your introduction.

“The commander told me that you were snarky and level-headed. And that I shouldn’t take your remarks in a bad manner, you were just raised that way. Or is this a different person he speaks of?” He frowns slightly. “Now that I think about it, he never mentioned what you looked like. If I knew, I would have disagreed with this arrangement immediately.”

“I don’t care what Chan said about me,” you say, a bit harshly. He raises his eyebrows at your words as you continue. “He doesn’t speak for me, I speak for myself.”

“Do you?” His grin appears again. “Then he wasn’t wrong in his talk of you.” He seems to think for a moment. “But this doesn’t change my mind. I’ll guide you to the parlor and you can wait there until I have news.” He turns on his heel, pausing. He looks down at you, his red eyes seeming to glow. “And my name is Seonghwa, Peacemaker. I am the second in this clan, responsible for tasks such as this. I am in charge of your safety.”

He gestures for you to stand by his side as he walks swiftly. His tall, slender legs are almost twice the size of yours, easily guiding himself through the twists and turns of the halls. His outfit reminds you of Dracula. Long cape that brushes the floor, decorating with red crystals. You’ve never seen anything that shiny, your eyes glued to the gems as you make your way to the parlor. The red matches his eyes, as well as the streaks in his hair. It’s almost odd how similar Mavians look in comparison to humans. The only distinct features are the hair and eye colors, and the tattoos they have. Human technology hasn’t evolved enough to allow iridescent tattoos, one that you can now see peeking out from his collar.

“Peacemaker.”

“Yes?” you ask, quickly meeting his eyes.

Each time he looks at you he seems to be more and more curious, almost fearful. “Do not leave the parlor. Your room is arranged already but the others are lingering around it so it’s best not to bring you there now. Not until we find a solution to the predicament we are now unfortunately in.” He lets out a sigh, opening the parlor door. The flames flicker on, seeming to know that the two of you are standing there. “There is water and refreshments on the table. I didn’t have the chance to brew tea, but I’m sure water will suffice?”

“Thank you, Seonghwa. And I’m really sorry. I thought that they would mention that I’m a woman. I didn’t mean to put you in this awkward spot.” And that you were honest about. Why wouldn’t they tell them? Especially knowing that you’ll be here for a long time. They’ve only put you in danger rather than avoiding it. “I really am.”

He nods, “Thank you. Please rest, you’ve traveled for a while. I’ll be back soon. And, if you don’t mind,” he stands next to the door, grinning at you. “Don’t open this door for anyone other than myself.”

“Alright.”

He shuts it, the click of the lock echoing around the room. You stare at the shut door, before sitting on the couch. Everything seems overly fancy, like you’re in a royal home. Paintings of what you assume are their ancestors line the wall of the parlor, gold trim brightening up the dark area. You’ve noticed that they seem to love red, each and every surface covered with it. You dig into your bag, taking out the media player Chan gave you. They confiscated everything else, all of your personal items at the base. Sergeant EBI explained that it was only for your safety, but you have an inkling that it’s for your family to identify you when you die.

"Pity they think I'd die that easily," you mutter, staring at the glass sitting just in front of you. Condensation drips onto the glass table below, forming a small puddle. You take the cup, glancing at it for a moment before taking a sip. Despite the alarms going off in your head, there's nothing odd about the taste. It actually tastes fresher than the water you salvage for on the surface. You're a bit amazed that a Mavian household could have fresh water but your own neighborhood has to drink recycled, chemical filled purified water. You place it lightly on the table again, guilt ridden. If only you could have taken your brother here with you.

"Is the human in there?" A voice whispers just outside the door. You freeze in place, eyes flicking to the wooden door. Seonghwa has only been gone for a few minutes, and there's already other visitors. A soft knock makes your heartbeat quicken, hands brushing against the knife on your side. It's something the woman left in your bag, you immediately strapping it on outside the home. It's barely sharp, but it's enough to make a wound.

"Why won't you play?" His voice giggles, nails scratching on the surface of the door. You back away from it, moving to the farthest wall. Mavian people are strong, much stronger than their human counterparts. He could easily open the door if he wanted. And yet he only sits just outside it, nails dragging up and down. "You aren't speaking to me," His voice seems to pout. "Seonghwa said you were a special one. A peacemaker, yes?"

Still, you remain silent. Once they catch wind of your voice, it'll only be a matter of time before they realize there isn't a man inside the parlor. Seonghwa, where the Hell are you?

"I hear that you have a family on the outside."

If your heart could plummet to the floor, it would.

"They must be worried sick. I'm sure a visit from me wouldn't be too bad–"

"Don't speak of my family," you clench your teeth, your voice barely above a whisper. The voice hushes on the opposite side of the door. Your eyes widen, realizing what you've just done.

"Oh."

You scramble to look around for an exit, only solid walls catching your gaze. Where the hell is he? The doorknob begins to twist, increasing in speed as your hands tremble. You can't be hurt on the first day, you can't have your chances of giving your family a better life torn away from you. But here you are, slipping up barely an hour into the visit.

The door swings open, slamming against the wall. You press your back against the opposite wall from the door, chest rising and falling quickly. The candles in the room slowly dim, losing their fire one after another. Only the candles just behind you continue their luminance. You hold the handle of the knife, watching the slow steps of the Mav make their way to you.

“A human woman,” he’s the tallest you’ve seen so far, his brows in a steady raise as he takes you in. His hair is dark gray, striking compared to the red eyes that stare at you. You’ve noticed that he doesn’t scan you up and down like the soldiers do, only relieving your anxiety for a brief moment. “We don’t even see our own Mavian females, and yet here you are. In a home full of males.” He cocks his head. His voice is deep, much deeper than the teasing one outside the door. “I wonder if you humans don’t care for your own safety.”

“Are you planning on doing something to me, then?” You sneer, a bit of fear laced in your words as you grip your knife on your waist. “Is your barbaric nature I was warned of the truth?”

He narrows his eyes, “Are you accusing my family of doing something unspeakable to you? Just because we haven’t seen a woman in a long time, doesn’t mean that we’d be interested in you. You flatter yourself too much. And we are far from barbarians, Ladybug.”

“Speak for yourself, Mingi,” Another walks up, completely different from Mingi. His hair is a deep black, a strip of silver straight through the middle. “I find her rather exquisite. Don’t mind him… Ladybug, was it?” You nod, and his grin only widens. “What a name to suit such a beauty like yourself.” You notice a distinct mole just underneath his eye, his gaze warm. “I’m Wooyoung.” You recognize his voice from the playful tune. The one that made you reveal yourself while they stood outside the door.

“Don’t flatter her too much, she’ll have a big head.” A scoff from the corner makes you switch your gaze. You didn't hear his steps, cursing at yourself for not paying close enough attention. “And I’m sure that’s not her real name. These humans don’t trust us enough for that.” You can’t quite make him out in the dark, your eyes not yet used to the underground. But you still squint, trying your hardest to make out his silhouette. Your heart seems to quicken once an extended leg appears into the light. He wears combat boots, stained with dark red. They slowly rock, capturing your attention. He laughs, distracting you.

“Is the Bug shocked into silence that we won’t fall for its tricks?”

“Wooyoung seems to love it just fine,” you say back.

Wooyoung giggles. “She’s quite right about that.” He takes a step to you as you take out back, a frown forming on his lips. “Don’t back up from me, lovebug.”

"Leave her alone," Mingi tugs him back, only making his pout deepen. "We told you that you were to stay in your quarters anyway. So go back."

He sighs dramatically, wiggling his fingers at you in a goodbye. He tucks his hands in his pockets, dragging himself away. It looks as if he's forcing himself to take each step, disappearing around the counter. You slowly drop your hand from the knife on your waist, straightening up. He's a bit strange, you think. All of the Mavian you've met have been a bit of a mystery, but he's different. More open. You're not sure if you should be wary of him, but you note it.

The shadow stands up slowly, his shoe in the light disappearing as he gets to his feet. You can make out him adjusting his jacket, stepping out into the low night. His eyes are a deep brown, widening as they meet yours. You stumble, hitting your back against the wall. The thumping in your ears increases tenfold, your mouth going dry and body shaking. Mingi takes a step to you, but you near an almost animalistic growl come from the shadow man. He stops, confused as he looks between the two of you. But your eyes are completely focused on him. A loud hum rings in your head.

Images flick in your vision, consuming it. Black holes circle each other until they collide

and merge, a cataclysm so fierce, sending ripples soaring through the fabric, crossing thousands of kilometers within a fraction of a second, leaving behind a wave on the space-time continuum. That’s the simplest way you can describe meeting his gaze. And yet, even that is an understatement.

"What are you?" You breathe, finally forcing yourself out of the hypnosis. You hear him breathing heavily, matching yours. "What's going on? Are you using some Mavian ability?"

"What am I? I should be asking you that. Are you a witch, sent down here to cast a spell on me? Your little human tricks won't work on me, Bug," despite the anger seething in his words, his body moves closer to you. You can't back up further, so you follow the lines of the wall, trying your best to stay away from him. "Answer me."

"Why would I want to cast a spell on you if I don't even know who you are? You're being ridiculous, you Mavian!" You shot back, stumbling slightly over a rise in the rug. Mingi looks between the both of you, his confusion only growing. "Don't come near me."

"Isn't that what you desire? They send females down here to try to please Mavians, try to sway us to conform to their ideals," he scowls. "It only makes us hate you further."

"I don't care what you think of me," you utter back. But you lose heart halfway through the sentence, the last bit coming out in a desperate whisper. "Leave me alone."

"What is going on here?"

All of your heads whip to the door. Seonghwa stands there, his lips set in a lime as he glances at all of you. His calm demeanor shifts once he notices you stuck in a corner, the angry Mavian mere meters away from you.

"Leave the peacemaker be, San."

"Me? Leave her be? She is the one that was sent down here to try and woo me–"

"What are you even saying? You can go to a brothel if you desire such pleasures. She is a peacemaker, only here to connect us with the human world. Don't be pompous and believe otherwise." Seonghwa snaps his fingers. "Just because Yunho is gone does not mean you can enter locked doors and infer into matters that do not involve you. Mingi," he turns to the man. You immediately notice that Mingi is much taller than him, almost towering over Seonghwa’s already high stature. Is it possible that there are even larger Mavians? The thought only makes you shiver. "How did you enter this room?"

"Wooyoung," Mingi says simply.

Seonghwa's jaw clenched, his slender fingers massaging the lines that appear between his brows. "And where is he now?"

"Probably in his quarters. I dismissed him only moments ago. Until… whatever just happened," Mingi glances between the two of you. "Of what I have yet to figure out."

"What do you mean?” his gaze turns. “San, what's going on? Mingi, you are dismissed." He waves his hand. Mingi doesn't dare hesitate, taking one long glance back at you before disappearing through the door. You're left with San and Seonghwa. The latter silently moves closer to you, noticing how San's hands clench, his eyes on the distance between the both of you. Seonghwa stops moving immediately, his eyes narrowing.

"What is happening?"

"I told you, she has casted a spell–"

"A spell?" He cracks a grin, glancing down at you. "You believe that dear peacemaker over here has hexed you? San, humans cannot cast spells. This isn't Wysteria, they do not have majik here."

"Perhaps they have somehow learned–" he stops in his ranting, glaring at you. "You do not belong here."

"Don't speak to me," you say back, matching his expression. He scoffs, pushing his hair away from his face.

"Only Yunho has a say in whether she belongs here or not, San," he clears his throat. "I will speak to you privately. But peacemaker," His turns to you, expectant. "I couldn't get into contact with the commander, but once I do we will discuss your new assignment. I apologize for all of this disarray. If I knew what I was expecting, I would have been more prepared. Can I be frank with you?” He asks, and you nod. “I do not appreciate Chan’s sly tongue in getting you into our manor. And by that, it means that I do not trust you either. Having a peacemaker around requires a level of trust between both parties, and it seems that that point has been negated.” He closes his eyes for a moment, a soft sigh falling from his lips. “Yeosang should be standing just outside this door. He will guide you to your resting place until we get this straightened out.”

You grab your bag off the couch, glancing at San from the corner of your eye. He’s said nothing since Seonghwa told him to quiet down, but his gaze has been following you the whole time. You would consider it to be unsettling, except your body seems to want him to watch you. And that realization only makes you want to leave more. Whatever happened when your eyes met, you’d rather avoid it happening again. Even if it’s an unfamiliar feeling, it scares you. Nothing new in your life has ever panned out, especially now that you’ve entered a place you’ve never been before.

You hold your bag close to your chest, stepping around Seonghwa and ignoring San. You don’t dare to look back, closing the door behind you quietly. The hallway is silent, no person standing on either side. You stand there dumbfounded, glancing back at the closed door. Was Seonghwa wrong? Did this Yeosang, whoever he may be, leave before you could see him go? You wipe your sweaty palms on your cargo pants, unwilling to move from your spot. Roaming around a home you know nothing of can only lead to trouble, and you’d rather avoid that.

“Has my little lady left the room alone?” You whip your head to the side, seeing Wooyoung standing at the end of the hallway. He leans against the wall, a teasing smirk on his lips. “You looked surprised to see me.”

“Seonghwa said Yeosang would be here, not you.” And it seemed like he didn’t even want you to contact Wooyoung, by the look on his face. Said man moves off the wall, lazily strolling toward you. “Don’t come any closer.”

“Why not? I won’t do anything unflattering to you, lovebug.”

“It’s Ladybug,” you narrow your eyes, and he only laughs.

“Oh I know that, lovebug.”

You can tell he wants to get you riled up, but you're not sure why. You take steps back as he takes them forward, an sinister grin slowly etching its way onto his face. He uncrosses his arms, pushing his loose bangs away from his face. He looks behind you for a moment. “You always ruin the fun for me, Yeo.”

“You were told to go to your quarters, but you’re bothering the human.” A deep, calm voice speaks from your back, you stopping to turn and look. Yeosang, you presume, stands there. His brown eyes flick to yours for a moment, recognition appearing as quick as it disappears. You look at him in confusion, but he doesn’t give you a moment to dwell. “What would he say if I told him that you weren’t resting there?”

Wooyoung rolls his eyes, “No one lets me do anything around here.”

“Because you often make messes. Now go,” Yeosang waves him off. Wooyoung’s playful look drops for a moment, irritated eyes staring at you. Fear rolls through your body, the soft brush of Yeosang’s fingers on your shoulder distracting you. He nudges you forward, despite your eagerness to take the opposite route of Wooyoung. The two of you pass by him, Wooyoung’s eyes boring into yours as you turn the corner.

Yeosang lets out a low breath, mumbling something in Mav. He glances at you, nodding softly. “We should be at your door soon.”

His outfit is similar to yours, except his sewing is golden, his cargo pants and loose shirt black. It's much different from the fancier wear you've seen the others show off, almost abnormal in the environment you're in. But the look that he gave you just moments ago. As if he's seen you before, although you've never laid eyes on him. His black strands hide his face. You wish you could gaze for a brief moment, see what he's thinking.

"Why did you come here?" He asks, hands resting on his lower back. "This household is wary of humans entirely, but you're a female. It only makes it worse."

"Why?"

His lip twitches. "That is what I said, yes."

"Why do you all seem to keep on telling me that because I'm a woman you have to kick me out?" You ask, a bit of sharpness in your voice. "Can you not handle being around one? Does my presence bother you to the point that you can't control yourselves? Perhaps you are more animalistic than I previously thought." You should one hundred percent watch your words when you're in their territory, but you can't help it. This tone that they seem to use with you when you're just speaking normally, existing, only irks you to no end. You can tolerate but so much.

He snickers, nodding to himself. "Now I know why the commander placed you here. Your words in another household would lead you down a rough path. They might have killed you for just that small remark." He stops in front of a door. "Fortunately for you, this clan avoids confrontation and liability. I hope that you will stay here for a bit longer. This old home needs some life in it." He pushes open the door, gesturing for you to enter. He avoids your question entirely. You take note of that, walking inside the room.

The room is extravagant, the same gold that accented Yeosang's outfit lining every edge. It makes you feel guilty, knowing that your family is living in dreadful conditions. And yet here you are, resting in a room fit for royalty. Yeosang seems to notice your mood change, humming to himself.

“We can move you somewhere else if you’d like.”

“Would the place be different from here?”

He shakes his head. “All of the guest rooms are decorated the same, ladybug. My apologies,” he bows, and you widen your eyes. His gaze meets yours, eyebrows furrowed. “Is something wrong?”

“Why are you bowing to me?”

He still stares at you, puzzled. “Is this against human customs?"

"I am a lower class citizen, Yeosang. No one bows to me."

"That is a pity,” he lifts himself up slowly. “Bowing is a common courtesy between Mav. We even bow to humans, but now I can see why they don’t do it back.” He frowns slightly. “But if you’d prefer it, I won’t bow to you. It will take me a moment to get accustomed to that, though. I have been doing it the whole time I’ve served here.”

Served? Your eyes flick to his wrists, red, burned scars etched into its surface. Familiar to you. In your first hometown, slaves were common. You were used to seeing twine wrapped around the wrists of your fellow neighbors, used to seeing it around yours as well. You rub your wrist absentmindedly, him seeming to notice another change in your expression. You look away from his prying gaze. He seems to note your emotions rather easily. “You can do whatever you want, I’m only a guest in your home. But Yeosang, are you a slave?”

“A slave? To whom, this clan?” His eyes widened even further, shaking his head. “There are no slaves in this home, Ladybug. Yunho doesn’t tolerate that in the slightest. There are no slaves underneath this roof, and never will be. Why do you ask that?” His gaze is sharp. He finally sees the way you rub your wrist, lips setting into a line. “Ah, I see. You don’t have to worry about that here. I know you do not know us well, but trust my words.” he bows again, hesitating halfway and rubbing his back sheepishly. “It’ll take some getting used to, as I’ve said.”

“Thank you Yeosang. For walking me here. And I'm sorry for assuming you were, I just saw your wrists and assumed– but yea, I'm sorry.”

He nods lightly. “No need to apologize for an inquiry, there was no offense taken. I will take my leave now. Please lock the door behind me. It will stop unwanted guests from entering. Even Wooyoung with his strange behavior, wouldn’t dare enter a locked bedroom. Especially one of a lady.” he smiles, turning on his heel and walking out. You close the door behind him, throwing yourself back on the bed.

So much has happened in barely over two days. You wish that you could tell Jongho how you’re doing, tell him that you’re fine for now and you don’t think anything would happen to you. It must be a quick jump, but you think you’re a good people reader. Despite their intimidating auras, none of them threatened you, or said something that put you off. Sure, Wooyoung is an outlier, but he seems to only tease. For now, at least. And San. The one that made you see stars for the brief moment your eyes met. You didn’t read anything about Mavian abilities that could cause anything like that, but you didn’t get to read it thoroughly. Perhaps a quick reread could help you figure out what exactly occurred between the two of you.

Was it even his fault, though? He seemed angry, pointing his fingers at you. And you knew that wasn’t true, you’ve barely met the man, why try to mess with him? And majik, something otherworldly, only read in fantasy novels. You groan, turning to your side and staring out the open window. It’s breeze is calming, enough for you to relax your thoughts. Do you even want to leave here? And what will this Yunho do, once he sees you? Push you away, just like the others? You swallow, fingers digging into the fabric. You said you’d tolerate anything just to see Jongho happy and safe, but now, you’re not so sure.

-

“A woman?” Yunho furrows his brows, letter delicately balancing between his fingers. “How did a woman slip into our clan? And why would they ever bring one here, after what happened years ago?”

Seonghwa shakes his head, rubbing his temples. “I do not know, but we should get rid of her this instant. If the other clans find out about this, it can lead to our ruin. And we already have enough of a burden down the line. Having a human in our home wasn’t too bad, but I thought it would be a male. This is too much trouble to bear at times like this.”

He hums, placing the paper down lightly. “Is it that much of a burden for you to want to see her gone?”

“What?”

“I heard of what happened between the peacemaker and San. Things like that don’t go past me easily, Seonghwa.” He stands up from his desk, brushing off dust that seems to love his fabric. He makes his way to the window, staring out. From where he sits, he can see the sleeping quarter windows across the lawn. And if he counted, he could tell exactly which room was yours. His eyes slid back to Seonghwa. “Now explain to me what exactly happened.”

“I came in just after. San was accusing the peacemaker of messing with his mind and trying to manipulate him. But that cannot be, humans do not have the capabilities to make majik from thin air. It is not possible on Earth.”

“Then what do you suggest occurred?”

Seonghwa purses his lips, “You might find this quite silly.”

Yunho’s lips lift, a brow raised in his direction. “What’s silly is you making me the leader of this clan, despite me not being of age at the time. Nothing else is more silly than that.”

“That was a good judgment call, that’s all,” Seonghwa shrugs. “But… what if they’re Fated?”

His sly smile immediately falls, eyes flicking back to the windows of your room. “Is it possible? For a human and a Mav to be fated? We are different species entirely, and the Fates only seemed to dwell while we were at home, not here. There hasn’t been any fated partners since–” He stops, “I’m getting ahead of myself. Is there a possibility that it was anything else? Were any of the others playing tricks?”

“It didn’t look like it. Mingi looked concerned, and Wooyoung already left. But you know that before the Fated are paired, they’re quite agitated when it comes to their other half. Mingi told me that San growled at him when he stepped closer to the peacemaker. It was odd in itself.”

“Is that right?” Yunho murmurs, rubbing his chin. “Perhaps they are Fated. So we cannot remove her from our grounds, not when we know that San will suffer if she does. If the other clans find out about her we'll deal with the consequences.”

“Then what will we tell the others?” He says softly. “Wooyoung isn’t one to play nice, you know that. And Mingi… he has his own battles to overcome. Yeosang will tolerate her enough. And–”

“And you? How will you be in her presence?”

“I can control myself,” Seonghwa says, a bit too sharply for Yunho’s liking. A quick feeling of dread rolls through him, and he bows. “I apologize for my forwardness, Yunho.”

“It is unbecoming of you to act so aggressively, but I understand. This is sensitive for you, I won’t cast your feelings aside when deciding,” Yunho nods slowly. “If you wouldn’t mind, on your way back to your quarters tell Mingi to bring Peacemaker Ladybug to the dining hall. I’m sure she’s completely famished. It has taken her a long time to get here after all. I’ll be in the dining hall shortly after.”

“Yes,” he bows deeply. “And of Wooyoung?”

“Tell him to meet me here. Along with San. Immediately.”

“Of course.”

-

A knock on your door makes you stumble to your feet. You swing it open without bothering to see who it is. Mingi stands there, his height towering over yours as you look up. Instead of the troubled gaze that he held before, he seems to look at you in curiosity, searching for something. But after a moment, he seems almost defeated, shoulders dropping silently. He nods to you, stepping slightly away from your doorway. He wears all black, his gems onyx on his fit. His long overcoat brushes the ground slightly. It’s fitting for a man of his stature. It makes you wonder how much money these Mavian men have. The homes that you passed on your way here looked unkempt and poor, much like yours. Where did Chan assign you exactly?

“Dinner is being served in the dining hall, and Yunho mentioned that you were to partake in it.”

“I’m fine, I’m not hungry,” you say quickly.

“Unfortunately Ladybug, this was not a suggestion. I’ll guide you there, I’m sure you’ll have a formal tour of our home once they understand your circumstances.” He gestures forward.

You hide your bitterness, stepping over the threshold and into the hallway. He shuts the door behind you silently, walking forward. He doesn't wait like Yeosang and Seonghwa, his steps are quick and long. You could barely keep up with him, almost jogging slightly behind the lanky man. If it's to prevent conversation, it's definitely working. He doesn't even give you a glance to make sure you're still behind. After a little more than a couple minutes, you stop. He looks back, finally.

"Is there something wrong?"

"Are you trying to run me ragged? You're taller than me and your legs are longer, why are you walking like something is chasing you?" You put your hands on your hips, taking a breather.

Mingi’s lips lift, until he laughs. It's boisterous, filling the silent hallways. "I was wondering when you'd say something. It was entertaining to see you running after me."

"You did it on purpose?" You blink quickly.

"I did."

"Asshole," you murmur, wiping your moist forehead with your sleeve.

His grin only seems to widen. "You're unique. No other human would dare say that in front of a Mavian. Especially one of nobility.”

“Nobility…?” you say, staring at him. He sees the shock appearing on your features, his smile slipping.

“Did you not know what household you were in? This is the first clan, Ladybug. The first one to land on Earth and the first to fight in the War to End all Days. Didn’t you see the writing outside our home?”

No, you didn’t. And even if you were looking, it was too dark to make anything out. But Chan put you in a home with royals. Nobles. People that are definitely out of your class range. The nerves suddenly hit you, and you realize that the way you’ve been acting is definitely out of line. The horror of it all weighs on you greatly as Mingi stares at you. All you want to do is crawl into a ball and hide. Going back home and marrying Chan doesn’t feel as limiting as it once did.

“I’m sorry I offended you,” you say quickly. “But I only ask that you spare my life, I have family at home that I need to take care of–”

“Wait, what are you saying? Do you think I’ll call for your execution because you said some harsh words to me? Ah, Ladybug,” he shakes his head. “Like I have said before, we aren’t barbarians. I can handle a few verbal jabs. It only livens up the place,” he chuckles. “Shall we go to the dining hall? I wouldn’t want the food to grow cold.”

Instead of running forward, he matches your pace. You can feel your heartbeat in your ears, the same nerves that you had before coming back tenfold.

“Do the military have a habit of hiding information from their subordinates?” Mingi asks you as you turn a corner. “Because it seems like you’ve been alarmed with a lot of information since you’ve stepped foot into our manor.”

“Instead of hiding it, it seems like they didn’t think the information was necessary. Which is ridiculous, since they said that peacemakers rarely make it home without being killed by a Mavian.” You say. Mingi stops.

“What?”

“They told me that there’s a high chance of us being killed–”

“That’s not true,” his lightheartedness disappears immediately. “We don’t kill humans anymore. We haven’t killed one since the War,” he scoffs. “I can’t believe they tell you these things. These impossible truths I- this, this is why we don’t trust humans and never will. All they do is spew lies to garden fear, then use it to manipulate and use their own people. Peacemaker,” he looks at you. “We are a peaceful race, and have always been. We could have eradicated the humans, but we didn’t. We still could have to this day. But do you know why we haven’t?”

You don’t speak up, too nervous that you’ll slip up again.

“Because, dear peacemaker,” he leans down, eyes leveling with yours. “We are leaving Earth. Soon.” Questions swirl in your mind, too many to spit out all at once. He takes amusement in your bewildered look, his lips curving into a smirk. “Now follow me. We’re just outside the dining hall.”

-

You sit alone, fingers brushing along the curve of the table. Mingi left, explaining that he had some other duties to deal with and that Yunho would be arriving soon. The thought of meeting the leader of the clan only makes you more nauseated, knowing that they lacked as much information as you did. No wonder San thought you were using some sort of spell on them; from all the information you didn’t have, they could suspect anything and it wouldn’t be absurd.

“Fuck me,” you mutter, adjusting yourself in the seat. You’ve barely eaten anything off your plate, your body ridden with anxiety enough to pause your appetite. And seeing all of the dishes that they’ve made, only makes you feel worse. You haven’t eaten like this, ever, so your body isn’t used to it. You could barely eat the vegetables without feeling full. Always on survival mode, unfortunately. You just hope that Chan found Jongho, and he’s well. Even if it’s temporary.

“Peacemaker Ladybug?”

You quickly push your chair back and stand, gaze lifting to the new Mavian in the room. Your eyes immediately notice the tattoo underneath his left eye. It’s too far to see what it is exactly, but it’s confirmation enough of who he is. Yunho. Leader of their clan. And now, you know, royalty. You bow quickly, and he laughs you off, slowly walking to you.

“No need for a bow, peacemaker. You are our guest. Please, sit,” he gestures back to the chair, and you slowly follow his instructions. He takes the seat across from you, taking off his overcoat and placing it on a coat hanger in the corner. Almost immediately as he sits down, the cooks from before come out of the kitchen, placing his food in front of him. You notice the difference between yours and his. Instead of the vegetables and meats that sit in front of you, this is an assortment of fruits. He takes a bit of a melon, humming to himself softly.

You notice that he hasn’t looked you in the eye yet.

“So are you the human who has stirred up this household?” Despite the smile on his lips, you can tell he’s serious, eyes burning into yours. “You’ve met everyone except me. I would like to see if you alert me as well.”

“I didn’t mean to cause alarm, I assure you Yunho- if I can call you that.”

He nods. “You can.”

“Thank you. As I was saying, Yunho, I didn’t know that they didn’t tell you about me being a female. If I knew it would be this burdensome, I wouldn’t have come here. I know my words have no value since we’ve just met, but this is the truth. I don’t like to inconvenience others, especially ones that I’ve just met.”

“And they didn’t tell you this was a noble household?” he asks.

“They didn’t. I just thought I was here to make peace, that is all. All of these other things that are happening, I didn’t know about.”

“Ah, so we’ve all been tricked,” he narrows his eyes. “That’s unfortunate. They want to create peace, but it seems like all they are doing is dividing. What a pity,” he sighs, taking another bite of his fruit. “But I know that you’ve heard the talks about us removing you from our clan and placing you in a different manor. I would just like to know how you feel about moving. And if that’s something you desire.”

“Why are you asking me?” You falter, “I am just a guest.”

“Yes, but you are also the peacemaker assigned to us. All households of our status have to have one, even if we don’t want it. It won’t be easy to find a spot for you somewhere else, but it is possible. It would just take a while for it to be situated. But it would be difficult for us to find another human. The only reason you were placed so quickly was because of your connection to the commander. It would be a bit onerous to go through the process again. And if you don’t mind, I suggest that you stay here.”

“Stay? Stay, when most of you want me to leave because of how difficult it is? Why would anyone want to stay after all the words I’ve heard today?” You’ve been trying to hide how irked you are, but you can’t help it. It just bothers you to no end that they are going back and forth about you. “Why don’t you just decide? I don’t want to be in a place where everyone hates my existence.”

“You are quite… lively,” he says, grinning. “We’ve already voted on your position here. That is why I am asking you for the final word. You can stay, or you can leave. It is up to you.” He lets his head rest on his folded hands, head tilted as he looks at you. He’s blond, his hair brushing against the bottom of his neck. You’ve noticed that all of the Mav are handsome, beautiful even. They have this strong aura around them, as if all of them can take the lead of this household if necessary. But Yunho, his energy is much more playful. With a hint of authority hidden between the soft gazes he sends you. No wonder they chose him to be placed there. Warmth and sternness are good in a leader. You’re sure if you stay around long enough, you can see it in action.

But staying here. You don’t know what they voted for, but he does say it’s all up to you. Does that mean that they wanted you here? Even San and Seonghwa, the two most bothered by your presence? Did something happen while you were sitting on your bed, deep in your thoughts?

“Can I ask some questions before I decide?” You ask, and he nods. “Yeosang said you don’t have slaves in this clan, is it true?”

“Yes. No one in this home is a slave, although there may be former ones. But each staff is paid fairly and are able to either live in the manor, or travel each day to work. It is up to them. But no, I would never have a slave in my home. It’s not something I believe in.”

You notice how his eyes land on your wrists, moving away when you pull your sleeve up. “How many peacemakers have you had?”

“Zero.”

“None? I would be the first?”

“You would,” he smiles. “Since they’ve instated the law to force all large Mav households to have a human watching their every move, we had to have one. Before that, there was nothing. We didn’t see the need to have a human walk these halls. It was unnecessary,” he shrugs.

“Are you telling the truth? About peacemakers?”

“What? That we haven’t killed any?”

You nod.

“We haven’t. Mavian don’t kill humans needlessly like that. It’s not in our nature, unless they have done something unthinkable. But even then, it’s rare. There have been disputes and fights yes, but nothing to the extent of murder. Not here, anyway. As I have said, you are the first to enter our home. I don’t know what happened with the humans that didn’t make it back, but it couldn’t have been anything heinous. Perhaps something happened to them elsewhere,” he murmurs.

It’s strange, after all of the stories you’ve heard of the Mavian people being violent killers, it seems as if they’re anything but. And even if you don’t take his word for it, there’s nothing to prove him wrong. All they’ve done is be kind and aware of your situation. They’ve been kinder than the soldiers that guided you here. Even with Seonghwa’s slip of the tongue about you being from the slums, you could tell there was no malice behind his words. He was just stating simple facts. You did say that you didn’t sense anything eerie about this home, and nothing stood out to you that made you want to run, besides the things that they’ve already cleared up. Still, they are at a higher status than you’ve ever dealt with before. You’re afraid that they’ll go back on their words and actually do something to you if you mess up. But adding the negatives and positives together, you can only come to one conclusion.

“I’ll stay.” you say simply.

His solemn expression brightens, and he claps his hands together in glee. You even let out a dry laugh, lips curving into a small smile. “Why are you so excited?”

“You’ve made my night,” he says, shrugging. “After you are finished eating, I’ll escort you to your quarters. And at dawn, San will guide you around our home to make sure that your stay is well. He’ll provide you with a map as well, in case you forget where things are.”

You frown. “San? Does it have to be San?”

Your disgusted tone seems to peak his interest. “Do you have something against him?”

“Well,” you push your food around your plate in thought. “He did accuse me of somehow influencing his mind when I barely met him. And he seems to just not like me at all.”

“Ah, well,” Yunho clears his throat. “I’ve spoken to him briefly. He won’t be as agitated as he was previously. But before you go, I need to tell you something. I have already spoken to him about it, but it’ll be wrong for me to keep it hidden from you.”

“What is it?” you take a sip of your water, trying to cure your dry throat. You’ve had enough surprises for one day, but it seems like it won’t end.

"It's about San. And you."

–

The artificial sky you see out the window only cements how alone you feel. You tuck your knees closer to your chest, trying to curl yourself into a ball. Enough to disappear into the small seat, hopefully. Yunho's words still ring in your head, things you've never wanted to hear.

Soulmate. Fates. Half of each other's souls.

So many terms thrown at you you were barely able to take it all in. San. Choi San, he said. Your soulmate. The one that looked at you with such disdain and disgust, is your soulmate? You had to laugh at his words, baffled that he would suggest such a thing. But when he began to tell you about how the connection feels, how your body would grow exhausted not being near your other half, you knew it was true. Right after you left that room, you felt like a stone was placed on your chest. Tiredness seemed to hit you immediately. You dragged yourself through the hallways. Why does having a soulmate entail utter exhaustion?

You rub your eyes, reminded of how sleepy you are.

It's been a few days since you've stayed in your room. The words of the soldiers weren't true; you haven't seen them at all this week. Not one visit, despite their insistence that you would be seen twice a week. All you've done is wake up, clean yourself, and eat whatever they left outside the door. A few caretakers knocked every so often, probably to make sure you were alive. But the others stayed away. You haven't even seen San since that first day, and it's been a little over a week now. You have to wonder if it's because of what you told Yunho, that you needed time to think. Being told that you're meant to be with someone you barely know is a lot of information to take in. And it’s a bit funny. Despite your insistence on not wanting to see San, your curiosity is getting the best of you.

And it appears that he’s a bit curious too.

A knock on your door pulls you away from the window. You slowly open the door, eyes flicking up to him. His clothing is tight on his body, a navy cloak resting behind him. You don’t see jewels like the rest of them, an almost thick leather material. You can feel the air change when he stands in front of you, the cool summer night rising into a soothing warmth. It’s not as impactful as it was when you first saw him, but you can feel yourself on edge already.

“Hi.” He says, looking away from you.

“Hello.”

He rubs the back of his neck, sighing. “I’m sure Yunho told you everything. About us.”

“He did.”

His eyes flick to yours, narrowing. They’re dark brown, matching his hair. Except, there’s an undercut of blonde in his locks. Reminds you of a familiar cookie you’ve seen on shelves in the grocery stores. But staring at him is doing you no good.

“Why are you here?”

He purses his lips. “To bring you around. We were supposed to do it that first night, but you haven’t left your room in days.”

“And you haven’t the slightest idea why I haven’t left?” You raise your brow. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe I just don’t want to see you?” You breathe, rubbing your forehead. “This is… this is a lot, San. All of this. I just thought I would be telling your clan things about humans and stay here for a month. Maybe learn to, I don't know, care about you? Learn things about Mav that I haven’t heard before?”

“Ah, so you’re a Mavian sympathizer?”

Did he even listen to a word you’ve said? “I’m just a person that sees right and wrong. Whatever category you want to put me in, go ahead. I could care less.” You care that they have been treated unwell, but San makes you want to pull your hair out.

“You know, you can be killed for your words.”

“By who, you?”

“No bug, we are a peaceful race. I mean your bloodthirsty humans,” he murmurs. “But that’s besides the point. What I wanted to say was that I don’t think avoiding one another is the best way to deal with our… predicament. If you want to leave, I can’t force you to stay. But I think that we should at least try to figure this out. The first step can be for me to walk you around our home.”

You stare at him, the cool persona from before broken down. Even standing in front of him now, you can feel the tiredness that seemed to seep into your bones slowly dwindle, the energy that you once lost replaced with this new invigoration. You frown slightly, glancing back at the room and then down at your outfit. It’s just your nightwear that you found in your closet, a bit big on your body. You tug on the shirt lightly. Everyone should be sleeping, so it shouldn’t hurt for you to walk around with him a bit.

“Can you give me a moment?” you ask. His face seems to light up, quickly disappearing.

“I can wait.”

You shut the door softly, quickly walking over and grabbing your knife holder. You place it on your hips, tugging your night shirt over it so it’s hidden beneath. You don’t quite have the energy to change your clothing, so you think that this is good enough. You grab your boots, tugging it on your feet before hopping to the door. You wipe your hands on your pants, taking a deep breath and opening the door again. San is leaning on the wall, blond wisps resting on his neck. He seems to be in his thoughts, head tilted up. Your knuckles knock against the wall, and he pulls himself out of it, standing at attention. His eyes flick over your clothing.

“Boots in your sleepwear?” He raises a brow.

“It’s too late to change. And it’s a warm night,” you shrug.

He nods in agreement. “Alright then.”

-

"If someone told me that I'd be escorting my human-soulmate around my home, I'd laugh in their face," he says simply, fingers delicately tapping on his forearm. You barely give him a glance, your hands resting on your knife holder. It’s out of comfort, not malice.

"Is that so? I thought you were doing this out of the kindness of your heart."

"Kindness? I despise humans, you all have something to gain," he glances at the space between the both of you. "Even your presence brings me great frustration."

You grind your teeth, holding back only for your commander. "Choi San, you have such a way with words."

His grin is wicked. "Oh my love, you don't even know the half of it." He stops, opening the front door. You look at him quizzingly, but he gestures forward again.

You step out onto the porch, your boots making the wood creak. He closes the front door behind you, hands resting on his chest again.

"This is our front garden. I'm sure you've seen it all on your way here, but I thought it was best fit for our tour around the manor,” he gestures forward. The night seems to shield most of the grounds, but you can see a bit from the torches randomly placed around the area. There’s grass and floral everywhere your eyes can spot, bringing a bit of light to this place underground. It only makes you question more and more how a whole civilization can exist like this beneath your feet. It seems to go on for hundreds of kilometers. How are they able to stabilize something like this, preventing it from being caved in?

“It’s majik, Bug,” San says, hands resting on his back. “The garden, the way we’re able to live easily underneath here. All of it is due to majik.”

“That’s what you mentioned a few days ago, when we first met. Is it the same as human magic? From the fantasy novels?”

His smile lifts, “A bit. Except majik at the levels of this is nearly impossible without giving up your life unless you're a sorcerer, of course,” he crouches down, and you watch as he presses his hand to the ground. It seems to glow beneath his fingertips, the glow spreading out into the garden.The once dark area is luminescent now, blades of grass glowing, as well as the petals of flowers. You widen your eyes, taking a step forward and touching the plants. They wrap around your finger, as if they’re welcoming you to their humble abode.

You can’t help but laugh in astonishment, not knowing where else to look. San comes next to you, his hand flattening against the ground next to you. You notice rings that line his fingers, different stones. They radiant soft colors, the grass welcoming his touch. Without thinking, you place your hand on top of his. You don’t notice how he freezes, his eyes focused on your touch. You can feel how his hand warms yours, the light slowly traveling up your fingers. You pull back, and it disappears as quickly as it came.

“How pretty,” you murmur, standing back up. San stays there for a breath more then follows your moves, rubbing his palms on his pants.

“Shall we venture around the halls? There’s a lot to see, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want any of the others disturbing you while we peruse.”

“I don’t mind it,” you say, following his figure into the home. The door shuts on its own, leaving the two of you back into the silent hallway. “This is their home and I’m only a visitor. Who am I to say when they can walk around and when they can’t?”

San furrows his brows but doesn’t respond to you, continuing through the home. You feel like you said or did something wrong, because he isn’t as lively as he once was. He gives you directions and gestures to rooms with little enthusiasm, seeming to walk quickly. Perhaps he realized something you haven’t. Or maybe he isn’t into this soulmate thing, just as you aren’t. Your hand no longer lingers on your knife, hands crossed against your chest as you back it back to your door. You step instead, San watching as you sit back down on your bed.

“I’ll arrange for you to have better fitting clothes. As you know, we’ve expected someone of a different frame to be in here with us. I’ll ask the caretakers to measure you in the morning.”

“I’m fine with these,” you say simply, tugging lightly on the shirt. “As long as it covers me, it’s enough right?”

His lip lifts slightly, amused. “Is that so? I saw the way you were pulling up the slacks as we made our way through the manor. Unless you sprout a foot taller, it won’t fit you properly anytime soon. So I will continue to ignore your words, and have them measure you tomorrow. By force, if need be.”

“You are really too kind,” you joke, shaking your head. You start to untie your shoes, noticing that he’s quiet. You look up, noticing that his eyes are focused on your hands.

“Stay away from Wooyoung.” San says after a moment, leaning against the doorframe.

“Why? Unlike you, he seems the friendliest.” You take off your shoes, keeping him in your peripheral. San watches you silently.

“He’s part of my clan, but I know him. He likes new and shiny things,” he moves off the frame, holding the doorknob, “And you’re the prettiest gem he’s come across.”

"Oh, do you think I'm pretty?" You joke. He rolls his eyes.

"You are completely and utterly divine, Bug. I'll see you tomorrow. Rest well." He shuts the door, leaving an open-mouthed, shocked human in his wake. If you listened closely as he left the hallway of yours, you could have heard the sweet sound of his laughter in his wake.

tags: @teezers99 @downbadreading (?) @takoyakibinnie @vanishingboots @katelynnsqueendom @baguette-atiny @atinytease @kpopnightingale​ @bettyschwallocksyee​ @captainjoongiekissme​

[waywardstation]

Hello, I just read through you entire train of thought au tag and wanted to write down some Thoughts I had (this may get a little long, feel free to ignore).

I saw that person talking about the hole in Ingo’s coat and theorizing that is was gotten in a Pokémon attack, but I had tied it in to my idea that Emmet was with Ingo when he fell into the portal to Hisui. My personal headcannon is that the hole comes from Emmet grabbing his coat to try and keep him from falling in, but it tearing away either because the fabric just gave out or that something pulled him in.

Utilizing this, we can assume that in this scenario Emmet was the last thing Ingo saw before falling into the portal, so his thoughts and memories of him were likely what was going through his head when the Thing/Entity/Giratina started trying to take over, trying to infect his mind subway. This is when MG Emmet/The Conductor disconnects the mind train cars.

TBH, I’ve sort of imagined the more difficult parts of the adventure to regain Ingo’s memories as video game levels. Maybe there’s one big, main train that sort of goes in chronological order that the pieces are a breeze to find and connect cars for, but there are bigger, longer, more important train cars that house important things or key memories. I had thought of three linked cars separate from any other train, loose on the tracks, the first full of melted wax and glowing purple candles that had ghostly, hostile shadows in it, the second lined with handing black decorative lamps glowing with even more purple fire with more difficult enemies, and the last wider and taller, decorated like a ballroom, with a large purple chandelier hanging from the ceiling, with a huge shadow monster boss fight. Once they defeat it and connect it to the rest of the train, Ingo is ecstatic that he remembered Chandelure, his first Pokémon partner.

My thoughts were that the conductor/MG Emmet started off trying to get Akari and Irida to leave, but slowly realized that they might actually be able to help him and fix everything, so he starts helping and guiding them. Through the regained carts and memories, they see a blurred out figure with Ingo that they can’t make out, but he’s there throughout his whole life. Then, they only have one more piece to connect, and it’s another “level,” multiple carts linked together that all contain the same idea, concept, or person/Pokémon, and it’s the longest and hardest one yet. It’s full of allusions to duos, blurred and broken family photographs, and things that are different but go together. It’s the clearest the Conductor has ever seemed and he keeps cutting off his sentences to say “I am- I am- I am-” Finally, they get to the end of it and discover that it’s actually an engine car, the start of Ingo’s train of thought. It’s full of Pokémon battle memorabilia, model and toy trains, and white. So much white. A ripple is sent out and their put together train suddenly connects with the engine and connected cars. All the blurred photographs clear, revealing a man who shared Ingo’s face. The Conductor turns to them, face perfectly clear and afraid, and shakily says “I am Emmet. And we just unleashed something verrry bad.” And thick shadows spill in from every crevice, though much worse starts to spill from the memory of Ingo’s brother.

The Thing/Entity/Giratina had invaded Ingo’s mind and started trying to take over, landing in his thoughts of Emmet first, but was quickly branching into other cars, the key memory ones first. To keep it from taking over, MG Emmet, who was in the engine since that’s where everything that was him was, split the train up, scattering them around the mind subway, forgetting who he was, just remembering that he needed to protect Ingo, even though he really held the main piece of what was trying to take over. The boss fights at the end of each level have been fragments of this Entity, and now that they’re all together again and in the car that was taken over, the only defense left between Ingo completely being taken over is Akari and Irida (and Lady Sneasler, almost forgot her). The final boss fight is against The Entity repurposing MG Emmet’s mental vessel to battle with, twisting Ingo’s mind and memories to make them even stronger against Akari and Irida. (And, if we’re going with Ingo being awake and conscious the whole time, he will not be having a good time with the fight for control going on in his own head)

(Sorry this is so long, I just wanted to get some thoughts out)

OK WOW ANON ALL OF THESE THOUGHTS ARE REALLY COOL thank you for sharing!! Don’t worry about the length at all!!

I like your explanation as to why Emmet is the Mind Guardian, that’s really cool! And splitting it up into a video game format is really helpful! I really like that at the end there is a clear boss fight with Remnant utilizing whatever it can in order to fight past Akari and Irida to get itself entirely rooted into Ingo’s mind.

Amazing thoughts! They might be long yes, but I loved reading all of them! Thank you for sending them Anon!

[littlefreya]

Prince Of Darkness

Summary: There'll be no escape tonight, the devil always gets what he desires.

Pairing: Devil!August Walker x Unnamed OFC (3rd person pov)

Word count: 6k

Warnings: 18+, DARK! NonCon, kidnapping, stalking, breeding, exhibitionism, loss of virginity, supernatural stuff, sex in a cathedral, mention of heaven and hell. Please proceed with caution. 

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it, ideas or parts it and claiming it as your own

A/N: I have put a lot of effort into this story, and I’m really anxious af. We all like to see August as a demon, but I decided to go all the way... And I’m nervous at your response and going to die after hitting submit. So bye.

Many thanks to the love of my life @agniavateira​, for support, brainstorm and beta. And to @crimsonrae​ and @wondersofdreaming​ who held my hand. 

Please give feedback and reblog if you enjoyed my work. 🖤

Title: Prince of Darkness

Blood painted the streets, courtesy of the blinding scarlet lights that danced upon gravel and tar before dwindling into darkness. The soft, beaming glow pulsed with the muffled beats of a monotonous song that played inside the luxurious nightclub. Like thundering war drums, it rumbled in the ears of the elegant man who stood along the shadows. 

Leaning against the cement, he took a sip from a glass of spiced Bordeaux and brushed an index finger over his thick moustache to wipe away misguided droplets of wine. 

‘How could anyone enjoy this abomination?’ He wondered with a guttural groan, never quite grasping this electronic noise thing; but then again August was older than this music, and his tastes far exceeded cheap and trivial antics. He was a man driven by the appetite for destruction and forbidden delights, and tonight, he was finally about to obtain both. After decades of anticipation, the succulent fruit was ready to be plucked. 

Oh, what an intoxicating and delicious mist his unsuspecting beloved emanated, setting his heart aflame with her sheer ripeness.  

‘It’s been so long, so painfully long.’ 

Time had lost its meaning as he waited, curving and swerving into a stream of an infinite river flowing with decay and death. 

But as the old saying went: all haste comes from the devil. 

So the man lingered against the wall, a sparkle enkindled and crackled in his eyes, morphing into black wells whilst the waves of her honey-liqueured ambrosia grew pungent, seeping through his airways and sinking in his throat. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly, revelling in the sound of harsh tapping heels that echoed louder with every step until she came summoned into the naked wilderness of the city street. 

‘Beautiful and innocent as the garden of Eden. Of course, of course...’

The stranger scrutinised the young woman with another sip from his wine and a bite of great intrigue - but stoicism and silence, for now, were his most valuable allies. 

Clad in a lithe black dress and a stylish leather jacket to keep herself warm from the chill autumn breeze, she fished for the mobile device in her purse while distress washed her wrinkling brow. Illuminated by the bright screen, her face sulked as for the seventh time in the last 30 minutes, her attempt to find an Uber bore no success whatsoever. 

Was there something about tonight that all drivers were kept occupied, or had her luck simply run dry? 

Showing her face to the moonlit sky, she sighed in great frustration. This must have been fate’s retribution to a mindless bad decision; she should have left with her friends, but staying alone to fruitlessly catch the eye of the uncaring bartender seemed more significant as the buzz of alcohol dimmed any ray of logic. Now deep into the night, walking home alone didn’t appear to be the most sympathetic solution, yet it occurred to her that there wasn’t much of choice.  

“You seem distressed.” 

Equal to a dark chant sputtering words of witchcraft, the low yet incredibly soft baritone of his voice slithered from the corner and crept down her spine with icy scales. A lurching hollow flared within her gut, her neck seized by the tight grip of a serpentine phantom. 

His vibrato sounded like a voice that called her through a dream she never had before; despite the unsettling arctic spasm gyrating through her shaky limbs, it lured her to return a stare and meet the cryptic face behind the seducing chant. 

Two sharp glaciers glimmered at her as the stranger sauntered into the penumbra, momentarily lit by another flash of neon red that broke onto his face and highlighted his ethereal features. Her lips drew open, her nipples hardening against the fabric of her dress as a shiver ran through her. To say that the stranger was handsome would be an understatement, as it almost seemed as if he was ‘designed’ by a sculptor - carved cheeks led a path to slightly pouted lips, and a stark, dimpled chin was shadowed by dark stubble. His chocolate-brown hair was elegantly combed to the side, with a couple of large lustrous locks gently nestling over his brow.

Though it wasn’t his good looks that left her riddled with prickly goosebumps, but the unprecedented magnetic haul that made her feel as if she was physically drawn toward this mysterious man. 

Frightened by the unbidden reaction of her own body, she quickly retreated to gawk at the phone and provided no answer to his inquiry. A strange yearning to submit grew between her clenching thighs, a primal response to his striking looks and charms. 

But she killed the seed before it set roots in her flesh. 

‘They said Ted Bundy was charming as well…’ she mused. Frivolous as she wanted to be, getting murdered was undoubtedly not among her plans tonight. 

Revelling in her silent reply with an arched brow, he tilted his head when a blinding flicker abruptly caught his keen eye. Kissed by the pale moonlight’s beam, a small silver cross rested upon her collarbone. His sharp fangs begged to peek with sardonic amusement, but he kept his lips clamped, not wishing to scare her too soon. 

There was to be plenty of that later...

“May I offer you my help, sweetling?”

Threading his long fingers between the smooth stem and clasping them around the bowl, he lowered the glass to the side of his hip, dragging the girl’s unwilling eye to the healthy bulge in his groin. 

Her lips drew open as a surge of staggering heat flushed at her apex. 

It seemed enormous... 

“Name’s August, like the emperor, but you can call me whatever your heart desires...”

Embers burnt at her cheeks; in her belly, the odd mystical calling continued weaving at her core in an urge to accept whatever it was he had to offer. Her eyes warred to tear her gaze away from his nether region as her lashes fluttered to meet the abysmal glance that bestowed both frost and fire through her tendons. 

There was something archaically familiar about this man as if she knew him before the days had names. Yet she swore, it was the first time she ever saw his striking face. 

“I can take you wherever you need to go.” 

Breath laced with wine titillated her nostrils as the words spilt from his lips, whilst another crimson ray broke upon the marble of his face. Never had he urged, but instead suggested with a tongue soaked with honey. Still, a blazing aura of danger encircled him. And even though the very natural fear of walking home alone grappled her, it still seemed like a much better plan than entrusting her life to a stranger who was twice her size. 

Deciding to keep her tongue knotted, she turned and began striding away. ‘Best not to engage him,’ she thought, but once she moved past his bulky figure, her heart suddenly picked up its pace and her legs refused to function as if they no longer belonged to her. 

Seconds stretched into eternity. The thought that this civilised savage will assail her and drag her into the night scratched at the back of her head. But the worst of it was the simmering throb. Unforgiving, like gathering storm clouds, it thundered the closer she walked by him and then gradually died out as she finally managed to move away and free herself from this invisible bond. 

Savouring the final drop of wine, August watched amused as the frightened little lamb quickly oscillated on her feet, scampering into the horrors offered by the dark. It was funny how fear made animals act so heedlessly and rush straight into the burning heart of peril. 

A toothy grin peaked his chiselled cheeks. Always the gentleman, he shifted from the concrete, discarding the glass carelessly to shatter on the sidewalk. His sinew stretched in a relaxed ripple of an apex predator before he straightened both vest and jacket and stroked his thick moustache. 

Though her heavenly fragrance still soaked the air, the girl was already gone from normal eyesight. It was a pity to see her leave, yet there was no need for him to rush.

There was never really a choice for her. 

Strangely, the night kept growing unnaturally darker. A great ocean of blackness and crystalised stars spread from above, casting looming shadows across the tall buildings that resembled a maw filled with rotten teeth. The tepid wind that blew between the vast concrete monoliths was nothing but the breath of a mythical beast intoning her name through the shadows.

Clawing at her forearms, she meandered through the inert street with a wary eye. Desolate neon signs flickered hauntingly, bequeathing a vibrant beacon of dread over the shimmering, onyx road. Not a living soul was in sight as if the world descended into stillness, dominated by an eerie, dead silence save for the harsh echo of her hasty heels. And yet, the long path felt anything but lifeless. With every step landed on the ground, she could sense the movement beneath the surface: swarming vile things, slippery and scaled. Unseen by the human eye, they hissed dirty little secrets and slithered with sinister hunger, drizzling down their fangs. 

‘You can already feel me inside you, can’t you sweetling…’ Remaining hidden, he had to admit that watching the little lamb leap shivering into the slaughter has been somewhat of foreplay.

A veil of fumes emitted from her parted lips. The air became colder, summoning a terrifying truth that made her lungs clench around the black void that abruptly filled them with the notion that maybe... maybe… that chill, liquid-like thing that threatened to touch her ankle wasn’t just in her crazy imagination.

There was something out there, something undeniably familiar. This unusual gust of wind brushing at her nape has accompanied her since she could remember herself, an unsettling breeze bidding that evil lurked between the creases, holding its sinewy fingers clasped together while waiting for her to answer his hushed calling.

‘And once you finally answer, there is no turning back…’ 

Fear gnawed its frosty fangs at her bones, puncturing tiny painful cavities that were needles in her flesh. Tonight, of all nights, the same hazy feeling became stronger than ever before. Deep inside, she knew she would meet her end. Pressing the oily pads of her fingers at the sharp corners of her pendant, she inhaled and chanted a prayer, refusing to succumb to the noxious malice when a frozen pin pierced her heart.

Like the lark calling on the dawn, an unbidden chant carried her name.

Drenched with frigid sweat, she exhumed a shuddering breath, praying to God that it was only her imagination playing tricks on her ears. 

‘The greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.’

Indeed in the darkness, leered the beast. All teeth and malicious glee, August moved from one shadow to another, feasting on the aphrodisiac that was the mixture of her harrowing terror and unveiled desire. If only she knew the trail her scent left for him to follow - he could smell her from miles away. 

The little flower between her legs began blooming the moment their entities finally encountered one another, and it was his ancient name her dew had dripped for.  

‘My sweet little thing, tonight I will finally grant you a purpose...’ 

Like a hound awakened from a deep slumber, he flexed his bulging muscles and tailed her in utter silence. The same spell that burnt in her core seethed the blood gathering in his ardent loins. Since the dawn of humankind, he had more women than any other man on this earth, yet none has evoked such hunger in him. 

He would have eaten her alive and torn her to shreds if only he didn't have bigger plans for her.

Still hidden by the unnatural night, August stalked from behind, the blaze of his enkindling burn licking her path as he crept further to ensnare his prey. He wished she could see herself through his own flaring glance, how beautiful she was with tears of despair rolling down the tender slope of her cheeks. 

His beloved girl; his, by ancient law. Spirited as a rageful tempest, she insisted on escaping her prophesied fate. Muscles and bones strove against the panic that turned her boiling blood frigid. But no power, physical nor divine could revoke this otherworldly attraction that bound her to him. His bidding could never be undone and as much as his blood relished from the thrill of the chase, it was time to put an end to this dance and seal their union. 

Appearing from a stygian haze of a spectral nightmare, the beast drew his claw to grasp the fleeting girl’s shoulder.

The world froze along with the scream that died in her throat. Cold, slippery wet, the phantom serpents slinked around her ankles and held on to the ground as the thing behind her bit his nails into her collarbone. His touch was no ghost, but as real as the quiet moon that voyeured her fate from above and did nothing. A wretched gasp of anguish shuddered through her airways as his fingers stalked forth to cinch at her neck. 

His grip was tighter than the icy finger of death, yet its caress was the sensual lick of a gossamer tongue. 

It was almost as if he worshipped her. 

Shadows befell her as the assailant leaned close, wafting a mist of intoxicating fumes scented of poisonous elixirs and an ancient forest that laid deep between the veils of the underworld, hiding forbidden mysteries that none dared speak of. Seeping through her orifices, it stung her eyes and raked remorseful tears. 

“Please…” she broke into sobs, shaking her head at the dawning of her fate.

The man inhaled deeply. Though she could not see him, the joyful malice that danced on his pleased breath roared in her ears.

“Do not fear me.” The sonorous rumble caressing her ear was hardly a surprise in its familiarity.  It was him, the handsome bewhiskered gentleman from earlier. But of course, it was always him: the whisper in the dark, the slithering things moving beneath the tepid ground, and the smell of burning pyres. 

But who the hell was he?!

As if he read her mind, his hand twisted around her nape and with a careful sway, turned her to face him. The voice inside her head warned her over and over again not to look at him; yet the temptation was too great, peeling her eyes open to stare at the thing that made her heart drop to her gut.

Vast, raven wings spread from each side of an Adonis figure, their intimidating length denying her widened eyes to look at anything but the dark god that soared tall in front her. No, not a god, a devil. A pair of small golden horns peeked from the mane of long curls, and the heavenly icy gaze she remembered from earlier had melted into an abysmal lake of fire.

He was beautiful.

He was monstrous.

And just like that, she descended from the earth, swept into a thick swamp of darkness that swallowed her whole. Never letting so much as her feet kiss the ground, August scooped her into his strong arms. Peering down upon her, he broke into a delightful grin, already enamoured with his delicate new bride. The pang of lust tingled in his groin, though despite the raging need to claim her now, it was her screams he desired more than all as he would consummate their eternal marriage. 

Wicked tongues of fire licked up the shallow air, casting a faint amber glow into the abominable sombre of a vanishing nightmare. Shy as feral nymphs, the bursting sparks ascended melancholily, whispering tales of perishing days that fell to harmony with a strange mumbling chant. Still locked in a void of unconsciousness, the fallen girl shifted with disquiet, her hands restlessly clutching at a virginal silk gown that covered her body. 

Vaguely remembering a horrifying dream of a demonic entity, she woke with a sudden electric jitter. A peal of breathless pants pushed through her heaving chest before she slumped into the intense relief one experiences from a brush with either death or a ghastly fantasy. 

“Thank God…” she whispered with a fist pressed to her breast.

Yet, something was amiss. The low vocal melody continued despite her state of clarity, tangled with the eerie presence of a hundred cutting glares that stabbed her crawling spine. Slowly and carefully, she lifted her head and scanned her surroundings. 

The blood drained from her face.

Swaying like shadowy wraiths stood men cloaked in black velvet hoods. Tears of milky boiling wax trickled from the candles held by their stringy fingers, yet they didn’t seem to flinch as the burning rivulets seared their flesh. Their hollow eyes were fixated upon her while words of a dark sacrament sputtered from their lips and reverberated through the endless archways and ribbed vaults that towered above them. 

Her trembling muscles were briskly stifled under the unsettling realisation of her whereabouts - a cathedral, a thousand years old if not more. Burning torches lit crumbling pillars and statues of monstrous winged creatures that encircled them from every niche, their malicious shadows dancing upon dusty obsidian bricks. Unglazed windows were barred by black iron, the beautiful floral shapes preventing any means of escape. 

Only the fractured ceiling held a cheap shred of hope, as a vast rupture of broken stone exposed her to the scarred carmine wolf-moon.

If only she had wings…

Bones rattling beneath her crawling flesh, she sat upon the hard surface with wells of despair. Her hands clutched around the edge of the bed, only to be kissed by the sharp corners that pierced the delicate flesh. Hissing with pain, she lifted her arms and stared below at what appeared to be a midnight-black marble creased with golden veins and saplings-like patterns. 

It was beautiful, just like the creamy gown that covered her body.  

“Do you like it, bride?” 

Rising from the crowd like a flame among charred coals, appeared her handsome abductor. Suitable to a true evil prince, a long red cloak enrobed his broad, sturdy form, the velvet hem trailing behind him like a thick river of blood while he marched forward with no haste in his dauntless mien. Human once again, August offered the most endearing grin; two profound dimples embellished his scruffy cheeks, and his eyes shone brighter than a frozen sea. 

Yet in her sullen gaze, he was nothing but a monster.

Abruptly enraged and driven by pure instinct, she jumped off the marble and paced backwards. Tears of anger and fright rimmed her swollen lids and her bare feet nearly collided as she shook her head at August who was neither impressed nor concerned by this foolish protest. 

“You stay the fuck away from me!!!” She warned with a scream and hastily turned away. 

Lost in some trance, the praying mob never stirred, granting the girl a fair chance to escape the bewhiskered man who was still several strides away. Her feeble legs made three to four steps when her muscles swiftly turned to stone, and her stomach lurched. 

‘No! It couldn’t be! How?!’

Curls shining like precious coils of onyx, August emerged in front of her, continuing his relaxed gait as if this was a natural occurrence. His bright icicles melted into malicious dark pools of twisted desire, and his tongue briefly laved his plump lips at the sight of pure disbelief that cascaded over her face. He could feel right under her skin, hear the thrumming heart that both chilled and fumed for him. Further beyond her thoughts, his betrothed yearned to be defiled and torn open by him. 

It was her destiny, whether she liked it or not. 

Still she fought, so ferocious and defiant, flinching away from his attempts to seize her. It was almost comical to watch her deny him, knowing that her fate would be no different; she will spread her legs and submit to his conquest. And yet, her battle was immensely appealing; what better bride to the dark lord than a woman who breathed fire.

“Who are you?!” She cried, her trembling voice rising with panic and her cheeks soaking with tears, “What do you want from me?!”

August's face was devoid of mercy, her whimpering hisses did nothing to deter him and only further increased the appetite of the deprived wolf that circled in his gut. With a wring of his wrist, his fingers snapped at her elbow, hauling her against his rock-hard chest with such might her heels hovered above the ground. 

Writhing in his grip she flung her hands at his face, clawing streams of crimson to trickle down his cheeks. The notion of hurting this vicious man brought somewhat of a sick joy; but her onslaught died at once, and her mouth fell agape as his skin healed with not even a trace of injury. 

“Oh God, what are you?!” She shuddered. 

Still holding her elbow hostage, his free hand travelled to the hem of the white gown, the long, perverted fingers twisting around the fabric before yanking it off at once. A resounding rip echoed through the tall arches, causing the chanting choir to halt their susurrations at once. 

All eyes were afloat as the cold air kissed her skin. In vain, she attempted to cover herself only to be felled by the restraints of August’s grasp. 

“God?...” The man finally spoke, his melodic voice ending with a sonorous hum that sprouted through her arteries like a deadly toxin. Not less poisonous, his gaze trailed down her form, worshipping the very sights of his delightful prize. 

“Not God, but once I was an angel,” he suggested and leaned down to inhale her skin with a gratified growl before he flicked his wide tongue at her chest.

A groan of approval emitted from his lips, the sheer coat of sweat that layered her bosom was soaked of freshly brewed fear, his most favourite savour. His wet, velvety snake swept the sweet-briny wetness and licked further down her breasts, twirling around the erect nipple.

Unintended, she moaned. A river of delights rushed between her grinding thighs.

“No!”

Wrongful, unwanted bliss awoke in her. She felt desecrated and allured at once. Her fickle body deceived, mistaking this vile conquest as consensual. And the more August took, the more she desired; her dutiful womb demanded to consummate this bond, almost as if the beast had bewitched her a long while ago, embedding his essence in the marrow of her bones. 

August grinned against her skin, the scent of her arousal fresh in his nose while his lips travelled to kiss down her sternum and the slope of her torso. His thick whiskers left a trail of fluttering butterflies.

“Have sympathy, my love. I had built my own realm and waited in the forlorn abyss. Empires fell and worlds disintegrated into ashes while I waited for thou,” he explained and clutched the cheek of her behind in his claw, squeezing it possessively. “I have longed for your touch since the day your ancestor promised you to me, little lamb. A hundred years’ worth of waiting for the bargain to reach its end, and for you to finally be ripe.” 

The beast pressed one last languid kiss below her navel, a guttural hum exuded in between his lips, huffing hot against her belly. Slowly he rose to his full height, towering above his helpless victim who hugged her arms to cover her naked body and watched her nightmare unfold once more. Cold wind chilled her damp cheeks as August flung the blood-red cloak and exposed his naked figure before her.  

He was massive, a masculine build fit for a warrior angel, covered with thick bulging muscles and dark hair. Lips parted, she forgot herself, gawking in awe and allowing her gaze to trail down to his unapologetically monstrous cock. Firm and throbbing, it dripped with hunger, urging to find release inside her clenching cavern.

She didn’t even know a man could be this vast, but alas, he was no man at all.

It was at that moment when blackest wings spread before her that realisation finally struck through like a blunt hammer to the back of her head. Covering her mouth she cowered away, her exposed back hitting the raised altar behind her. 

August was no man nor god, but Lucifer himself. 

Seeing the hope die in her eyes, the devil sneered. 

“No, no, no! This can’t be real! This isn’t real!!!” She yelled, pathetic little hiccups sputtering from her lips.

August tilted his head, giving a scornful pout and scoffed with amusement. “Am I not?” He asked as he lifted an arm to flick his fingers, summoning two of the hooded servants to approach the dais. Their eyes were soulless gems embedded to a grey face that was cracked like a broken eggshell. 

“I am real, beloved, as real as the child you will conceive me tonight.” 

Shrills of terror flew through the great hole in the ceiling. Kicking and screaming, she fought as the men seized her arms and dragged her to the altar, forcing her flat down and holding her arms to prevent her from escaping. They never blinked at the ferocious war she waged against them, though an impish smile slowly possessed their faces as their master strode forward. 

“Sweet little lamb,” August chanted, enamoured with his fiery bride while he sauntered by the edge of the altar. His Adonis body golden in the candlelight, his fingers squeezed and pumped the ravenous demon that hung heavy between his legs. The twinge in her womb rose in response, a low roar thrumming as it yearned to succumb to its unbridled purpose. Sheen, the arousal trickled between her kicking legs and onto the smooth stone, making her cheek flame.

Much to August’s pleasure. 

“Our son will burn this world to cinders,” he promised and snaked his fingers at her ankles. Calmly deflecting her attempts to kick against him, he dragged her toward him until her knees folded over the edge and spread between his thighs. The platform was in the perfect height, positioning her delicious Eden at the height of his blessed demon. 

“You will make an excellent mother.”

Her entire body shook, her cunt clenching along her sobs in both defence and beguiling need as August leaned in and grazed the silky pink crown between her wet petals. She begged he wouldn’t be able to invade her, but her prayers fell to deaf ears.    

“Please don’t do this to me! I will do anything… please!” She wailed a bargain, still trying to escape the servants’ grip and looking at him pleadingly, “I… I...haven’t been with a man!”

“Oh I know…” August beamed and stroked himself back and forth between her engorged lips. Vamping flames tingled at her flesh, her core foolishly squeezing around nothing in demand for this wretched monster to defile her.  

“You’ve kept yourself for me, didn't you? I have waited for you too, for centuries even, but now our waiting has ended, and I can finally love you.”

With one brutal thrust, he breached through the gates of her sacred haven, corrupting her purity and ripping her open with the elegance of a savage. 

Exasperated bats fluttered their wings over the red moon at the sound of her pained howl. Eyes flared to the bleak sky above; the girl watched them in a daze, disbelieving the blazing demon that scorched her from inside as he nestled himself between her resisting gates with no intention to cease. 

In his villainy, August pushed further. Stunned thunders of ecstasy erupted from his lips, all to humiliate her along with the dark minions who circled the altar to pervertedly witness this sacrilegious ritual in which their master ravaged the unwilling maiden. Ignoring her body’s vehement protest, he forced himself unfathomably deep, only stopping until the head of his cock kissed the gateway of her cervix.

Crystalised tears rolled down her temples and stained the cold marble beneath her body. Slit impossibly sore, she twitched and sobbed at the overwhelming feeling of being invaded by another entity. Her once protected realm was now under the domain of a ruthless prince, and he took no prisoners and granted no mercy nor care at her vain endeavours to push him out. 

He would never stop. He would have her again and again until her sacred little womb would be plentiful with his seed. 

“Tight,” he blurted out in a blissful huff and reached his talons to bite into her quaking thighs. Spreading her wider, he hooked his hands below her knees, moulding her into a vessel to be fulfilled. Arctic orbs glazed down her naked figure, his plump lips cooing at her aching whimpers. The taut and hairy muscles of his gut flexed as he carefully withdrew his vicious cock, coated in the crimson sorrow of her maidenhood.

Hollow pain throbbed in her empty cunt as he suddenly abandoned her. Distressed and overwhelmed, she hoped he would stay out, yet her traitorous body coveted his return in a false faith that it would ease the fervid twinge that soared to her belly and even burnt in her breasts.

It was far from true.

No less vigorous than before, August plunged back inside her, stretching her again, shaping her as his own as she yipped and struggled to escape. His head threw back with a roar of divine pleasure, feasting at the thrill of her dauntless veils wrapping around him like a succulent flower. For a moment there, he wondered who preyed on who. Her concupiscent little cove sucked him so wantonly it threatened to swallow his raging cock. 

‘But of course, every virgin is destined to become my whore.’

Hot and heavy, his shaft seized the void that had always been inside her, their heaving organs collided in euphoric bliss like two broken shards that were lost for decades and finally pieced back together. And even though she seared with every jerk or shift he made, the impassioned flames licked at the seams of her twitching cunt in waves of ache and foreign desperation. 

“No…” she whispered, shame singeing her throat as the little pesky sparks enkindled where the devil had violated her. Vision blurry, she gazed at him utterly mystified. Part of her warred to stoke the fire that screamed heresy, while the other begged to yield to her demise.   

As August pulled away again and thrust harder, a breathless moan tore from her lips.    

A cutting grin radiated onto his face. “It feels so good inside you,” he sang and slid one hand to stroke all the way down from her sweat-ridden thighs to her belly, feeling the movement of his cock with every push and shove. 

He was taunting her, yet she couldn’t care less. Over the cinders of pain and virtue, a garden began to bloom. With every abysmal stroke of his swelling shaft, she could feel green saplings and coy vines growing within her uterus—soft, beautiful tendrils stalked through her arteries, sprouted through her cove, and engulfed his swelling demon as well.

She was no longer burning but becoming alive. Pained cries suddenly evolved into asphyxiation of bliss. Beyond her realisation, she undulated her hips in the desire to endure each of his wet claiming thrusts. Her spine coiled against the surface, further allowing him easier passage to nourish the wilderness that continued spreading through her blood. 

Noticing the change in her, approving groans rumbled in his throat; his little bride was growing tighter around his demon, her quivering lips and fluttering lashes the image of true Elysium. It was not long before he would plant his seed in her fertile lush. Her cunt milked and suckled around him, demanding to be bred by the devil. 

“Yes, my love! Give in to me! Give in to your primal sin!” August urged, enhancing the rhythm until he was thrusting into her like a battering ram, the sinful elixir of their union smearing on his groin and dripping down her rump. “Descend with me!” 

In her delirium she witnessed magical nightshades and sinewy stalks growing amidst the gritty bricks, encompassing the ominous cathedral with bright colours. 

It was paradise on earth, given to her by the unearthly rapturous joy of having this demon violate her, slamming harder with growing frustration until his thick girth ripped through the last threads of her self-preservation and that which she tried so hard to deny erupted through her clenching core.

Euphoria. 

For a lingering moment, she had wings of her own, pale as precious pearls and lustrous stars. Tingling waves of ethereal white heat burst at her seams, purifying her as she flew above the cathedral, and watched their ungodly union from above. But her wings suddenly caught aflame and before she knew it, she crashed onto the earth with a secondary, more violent climax. 

The beast’s roars erupted into a brutal thunder, causing the sturdy pillars of the cathedral to quake and crack like thin glass. With all his might, he clutched her thighs and hauled her against him, slamming his swollen cock deep into her belly and releasing his smouldering, milky essence until it seeped from her sleek. August’s wings flew open as he found his own rapture, blazes following through and consuming the ancient hall. 

This was no longer a hallucination. 

This was Inferno.

Still radiating with orgasmic glow, she screamed horrified as everything around them vehemently burnt to coals. Even the soulless servants crumbled into dust, accepting their fate without so much of a yip. The fire raged and died within seconds, leaving nothing but broken pillars and ashen smoke.  

Shortly, the tepid air of night caressed her naked skin as they remained alone in the ruins of what was once an ominous cathedral. Still buried in her viscera, August broke into a low, stretching groan of relief which made her immediately return her eyes to him. Shame rose bitter in her throat and new fresh rivulets trickled on her cheeks.  

After all that he had done to her, she could see nothing in him but a beautiful monster.

“My beloved queen,” August keened to comfort her and moved his hand to tenderly stroke her lower belly. 

A toothy smile broke upon his face, his eyes gleaming with surprise as he felt the life that had already begun growing in her angelic fortress. A son, strong and glorious as his father. For the first time in his long existence, the devil was truly elated and he vowed in that moment that he would give her much, and much more. But first, she needed to be cared for. 

Her assaulted hole convulsed with pain as he pulled himself out, leaving a trail of creamy fluids to dribble at his departure. Sniffling and shaking, she watched him bemused, as he climbed onto the altar and moved to lie beside her. Though she no longer flinched as he touched her, what was the point of it anyway? He had already destroyed her and stolen her innocent soul.  

“You make me so happy, my beloved queen,” August had murmured as he gripped her jaw and pressed his lips to hers. His kiss claimed her breath, pillaging whatever left of her chastity and wit until she absentmindedly kissed back, forgetting herself as his tongue bested her will. 

When he broke away, the taste of spiced ruby wine and blood lingered in her mouth. 

“An eternity awaits us,” the devil explained as he pecked her nose and her forehead lovingly, to which she shivered - out of fright or out of want, she couldn’t tell the difference anymore.

“You had made me the happiest, now give me the chance to grant the same favour, ask for anything you want in the world and it shall be yours,” he begged and wrapped her in the shelter of his strong arms to lie down with him on the smooth stone surface.

Absentmindedly, she welcomed the protection offered from his embrace and stared silently as flakes of cement broke from the remnants of the wall floated in the air around her before she opened her mouth. 

“I wish for…” 

Her whisper faded into the dark.

*Disclaimer: I do not own Mission Impossible or August Walker

Beautiful dividers by @firefly-graphics​

[1kook]

attachment: 1 image

— jjk x (f) reader

summary; But for Jungkook to initiate some sexting, nevertheless sexting at 1pm on a Saturday, when you were at work and you were almost positive he was supposed to be on stream right now? Unheard of, you had to mark this down somewhere. warnings; sexting, dick pics, dirty talk?, phone sex, vivid depictions of jungkook being just so sexy bc its true, rating; mature (18+) misc; mentions of youtuber kook 🥰, he’s just horny, stupid selfie trends (see here), he’s a little whiny but so hot v.v  wc; 4.6k 

notes; I've had this in my drafts since april 😐 n then i was like maybe we should actually finish this so i started n then last night i hit another follower milestone!!! so then i rlly forced myself to finish this bc i was so 🥺🖤👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩 anyway enjoy lmk what u think its not proofread bc uhhhhh yeah 🤩

You’re at work when it happens.

It’s sometime between your usual listless thoughts of what to write for your weekly reflection papers for some course, and your trip to your store’s pharmacy to bother a coworker. Your phone vibrates in the pocket of your work apron. You’re normally pretty good at ignoring the sound, most of the times it’s just a classmate asking for help on homework or Jimin lamenting his love life, so you’ve grown used to ignoring the tiny vibrations, stocking a quarter shelf of different cooking oils before something in your brain tells you to check your phone.

You already know it’s not something grave, but that thought alone means nothing at the sight of the tiny jungkook♡ that appears at the very top of the list of notifications. Your boyfriend’s texts tended to be wildcards, never following a certain routine or alluding to any specifics. He could send you a long paragraph on how much he misses the scent of that one shampoo, the one you’d briefly run through last year because your usual brand was out of stock, with a ten point explanation on why you should switch back to it. Or two word, caveman sentences that drove you crazy because you never understood what exactly he wanted when he’d send those nondescript “munchies dip” texts.

You unlock your phone, clicking to the messenger app instead of directly on the notification. Hopefully the preview will give some warning on whether you should invest in this conversation or not. You hated the read receipts on messages, choosing to ghost conversations as you pleased, but Jungkook had wiggled his way into your phone one afternoon and specifically turned them on for his chat with you, and you’d never turned them off since. So he knows if you choose to ignore Attachment: 1 Image at 1:43pm exactly, and he'll pester you about it until you respond.

You contemplate it all for twenty seconds. It could be a variety of things, you guess, but the only way to find out is to actually see with your own eyes what he’s up to this time. He knows better than to distract you at work, is usually really good at waiting until your shift is over to spam you with messages. For him to send you something now, only a few hours into your shift, is uncharacteristic of him.

But you glance down the aisle anyway, taking note of some elderly woman you’d helped a few minutes prior and another teenager aimlessly walking around, probably looking for the snack aisle. You inhale and press down on your chat with Jungkook.

It takes you a moment to make out exactly what the image is, twisting and turning your phone around as you fight to see it without raising the brightness. It’s only when your eyes finally adjust to the dark screen, the faint beeping of the check-out registers fading into the distance, that you realize it’s a shot of the front of his sweatpants.

“Hm?” you murmur, getting brave enough to pinch the image between two fingers, zooming in until you’re able to decipher a multitude of details. For one, there’s a Flaming Hot Cheeto stain on the hem of his sweatpants, the same one you’d accidentally put on there a few weeks back and haven’t been able to wash out since. Then there’s that huge palm of his, tattoos and all, rested carefully against his thigh. It’s veiny and thick in all the right places, bringing all the attention to his knuckles, which you guess is what he was going for when you consider the centerpiece of the image—his hardened dick straining against the grey material.

There’s no text attached to the message, no snapchat font slapped over the image, so you wonder what exactly he wanted you to do with this information mid-shift. Well, realistically, you know exactly what he wants, but that doesn’t mean you won’t clown him before getting there. After all, Jungkook was seldom the naughty texter; sexting annoyed him, he would whine, because he would do all that and not even get to feel the true pleasure of sex, of being inside you. You’ve dabbled in it here and there, but it never went as perfectly as it did in pornos. He’d drop his phone and forget it, or you would straight up ignore the damn device as you went all in on yourself.

But for Jungkook to initiate some sexting, nevertheless sexting at 1pm on a Saturday, when you were at work and you were almost positive he was supposed to be on stream right now? Unheard of, you had to mark this down somewhere.

you what’s this about?

You decide to play it safe, because as exciting as the image of Jungkook at his computer chair, cock hard and angry at the thought of you, fluffy hair ruffled in that way you adored, jaw twitching and tightening as he touched himself, moaned deep and rough and just how you liked and—

As nice as that image was, for all you knew this vague message was Jungkook sending you a picture from a week ago to purposefully fuck with you at work.

jungkook♡ what time u get off? jungkook♡ miss you bad baby

Your stomach flips, and it takes everything in you to not squeal and bounce between the shelves like a toddler on a sugar rush. Here was your boyfriend, the cutest, sweetest boy, sending you dirty pictures of himself and telling you how much he needed you. Yes, YOU, not some random on the street, or someone else in a club, Jungkook needed pleasure and that pleasure could only come from you.

You glance back down the aisle again, checking your surroundings for the second time that day. You’ve been standing here, stock cart empty for a little over five minutes now, so it’s probably best to change location lest your manager come barking down your neck. You send one quick text before heading off for stock again.

you 4pm :(

Your phone dings again just as you’re leaving the stockroom, but you decide to check it once you get to the hygiene aisle you need to work on next. Still, the prospect of Jungkook having texted you has you walking with a skip in your step, one your coworker teases you about when you pass by her.

jungkook♡ fuck jungkook♡ tell me what panties youre wearing jungkook♡ please ?

You bite your lip, stopping yourself from smiling at the tone you’d picked up from his message. There was no doubt he’d been riled up for a while now, and you wonder if he sat through his usual Saturday morning streams with his cock hard, pushed against the edge of his desk like you knew he did when such things happened. The thought has you nearly fumbling with a bottle of aloe vera.

you seamless black thong you the one you bought me at the last vs sale

Briefly, you wonder if you should have lied and told him you were wearing that red lace set he’d given you last Valentine’s Day, the one he’d bought with his first big YouTube check. But the beauty of being in a relationship with someone like Jungkook is that you could have told him you were wearing grandma undies and he’d still think you were the most beautiful person to grace the planet.

jungkook♡ mm jungkook♡ tiny ones u ruined last time?

You set your phone down, speed stock a row of sunscreen like you’re on some shelf stocking national competition, before daring to text Jungkook again. Your cheeks are still warm, and your hand tightens dangerously around a bottle of shaving cream.

Before you can formulate some response, he’s sending another one in.

jungkook♡ u soaked those jungkook♡ came fast that day jungkook♡ want u so bad

Your cheeks burn, a little embarrassed that he remembers such details. As with all Victoria’s Secret panties, they were, like Jungkook said, extremely thin. You pause, shift your stance just barely, but you’re definitely wet. Not terribly so, but with this fabric, you’d start to notice it sooner than with others.

you mm you makin me wet bunny

It’s not a complete lie, but knowing Jungkook this is exactly what he needs to hear to get that competitive streak going. You shake your head to clear your thoughts, stocking another section of men’s shaving cream. It takes longer for him to message you back, and you wonder if he got off fine on his own. If it’s over now, at least he provided you with some distraction midway into your shift.

When he texts you again, you’ve almost completely convinced yourself he’s finished, so the Attachment: 1 Video that appears on your lock screen throws you for a loop.

It’s a short clip, no longer than ten seconds, but it has you scrambling to lower the volume on your device as some unsuspecting mother of two wanders past. You flash her your practiced smile, the same one you give all the store’s customers. Not like your boyfriend is jacking it off on your phone, shallow pants filtering out from the speakers.

You turn your phone over carefully after she leaves, try to at least pretend you’re still doing your job as you play the video again.

Sweats are gone, but boxers remain. Legs deliciously exposed, thick thighs with muscles that ripple when he moves. Shirt pulled up just slightly to showcase that broad expanse of tummy, cute belly button and defined abs that tighten with each glide of his palm over the outline of his cock. Your mouth fills with drool at the sight. He was so hot.

Your brain hasn’t even processed it yet, all your energy directed towards your clenched pussy, when he shoots another text.

jungkook♡ im so fckin hard jungkook♡ wanna kiss yuo every where baby jungkook♡ come ove r soon ??

Shutting your eyes and counting to ten doesn’t help ward off the sudden wave of horniness that consumes you, but it does remind you of the job you’re supposed to be doing now. You shake your head, as if the image of Jungkook’s dick throbbing beneath his boxers, low voice in your ear, will magically disappear. It doesn’t, and it plagues you even more when you begin stocking a section of sunscreen, numbly instructing yourself on what to do next. Shaving cream, sunscreen, lotion next, you repeat.

It doesn’t help.

Two minutes later and you’re scrambling for the phone you’d hastily tucked into your apron pocket, tapping your passcode in until your messages with Jungkook are pulled up again.

you after work you promise

Your head is absolutely spinning, the coil in your stomach too tight for you to try and be a functioning member of society. Something in you says to sneak off to the bathroom and call him, but your boss is a little bit of a prick when he wants to be, thinks you take too many bathroom breaks as is.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear. A curt call of your name has you whirling to face your shelves again, phone tightly pressed against your ribs like maybe it’ll melt into your skin and he won’t see it. At the same time, your sudden fright has you scrambling to turn it off, fingers sloppily pressing against the buttons, hitting the volume like seven times before you eventually feel the familiar click that signals it’s off.

Your boss disappears shortly after, and with his sudden appearance having made every hair on your body stand, you find yourself now slumping against your stock cart. Jesus, that man was a handful to deal with.

The paranoia sticks for a little bit, has you stocking shelf after shelf like a robot until you finish the entire row of hygiene products, back stiff from bending over so much. It’s only when you return to the stockroom ten minutes later that you dare take your phone out again.

A pleasant surprise awaits.

It would appear that during your haste to hide your phone from your boss— Jungkook’s scandalous messages and all —your frantic hands had done something else. A fuzzy picture on your end, a blurry display of lotion bottles you had stacked just before your boss’s impromptu appearance, with no words to accompany them. Normally Jungkook would have ignored that; you frequently sent accidental messages like this, butt texted him, he says.

But there’s something about Jungkook’s horny brain that makes him do stupid things, makes him blow up your phone with a series of question marks, call you four times, whine and fuss in your message thread, and eventually, send you probably the oddest image to date.

jungkook♡ ??? jungkook♡ ????what is that jungkook♡ baby please jungkook♡ I don’t get it ??

jungkook♡ Missed Call (4)

jungkook♡ baby jungkook♡ what does it mean jungkook♡ please ur drivign me insane jungkook♡ jsut wanna hear yuor voice jungkook♡ fuck please just

And then, there’s another one of those cursed Attachment: 1 Image messages.

You shouldn’t be as surprised as you are. You’ve been dating Jungkook for a few months now, know he had that sort of unique personality most college dropouts turned YouTubers do. But every now and then the absurdity of his actions makes you question him still, makes you wonder what exactly goes on in that pretty head of his to warrant such ideas, makes him balance a bottle of body lotion on the thick outline of his cock like this.

Unlike the first few images, this one was taken in front of a mirror. The blinding fluorescent light in his bathroom paints him in a stark color, has every inch of his pretty face on display for you. Rosy cheeks, dewy skin. Perfectly swollen cock straining beneath his grey boxers, curved up against his hip. Shirt pulled up, finally freeing that expanse of muscles on his abdomen, cute little belly button on display once again. The red material is pulled up to his mouth, pearly white teeth biting down on the fabric, and he’s got this flushed expression on his face.

But the real star of the show isn’t his chiseled abdomen or sexy expression, but the sheer hardness of his dick that lets him balance a bottle of body lotion over it, like a fuckin’ shelf or something. He’s so hard, dick so full beneath his boxers. So big too, the little boxers pulled taught around said engorged cock and thick thighs.

Your brain says to laugh, to tease him for being such a clown even when he’s horny as hell. He won’t take it to heart, will probably laugh along with you and you’ll add it to your still growing list of funny memories.

But your caveman libido says call him, so that’s what you do, ducking down behind a new shipment pallet with a squeak as the phone rings. It only lasts four seconds before he picks up, voice breathy and low, but it sounds so loud in the silence of the stockroom.

He doesn’t even let you get a greeting in. “You like my picture, baby?” he husks. It sounds like he’s right there, right beside you, speaking into your ear. Your pussy throbs at the way he sounds. Paired with the picture from before, it has your body tingling all over.

“What the fuck is that?” you hiss, trying to not let the sudden overflow of arousal leak into your words. Jungkook chuckles.

“What?” he huffs. There’s the brief sound of shuffling, the scratchy noise of his phone presumably being pressed against his shoulder. “I’m so hard, baby,” he sighs before you can pretend to reprimand him any further. “Fuck— you, can you just talk to me?” he groans, and the disgusting sound of him spitting into his palm fills your ear.

Your face feels warm, eyes nervously peering across the stockroom like your boss will suddenly appear now of all times to rip you from this important phone call. The anxiety and arousal mix weirdly, have your leg bouncing but every new movement sends a shock up your aching cunt to your chest, and then out to the tips of your fingers.

“You shouldn’t be doing that when I’m at work,” you murmur hurriedly, moving to nervously bite at your finger. Jungkook moans softly.

“Uh huh,” he says.

The air conditioning turns on and you nearly jump out of your own skin. “Kook,” you stress, frazzled by your own burning arousal and the fear of being caught. Like you said. Weird mix. “I— not when I can’t respond.”

He shudders on the line. “You’re responding now,” he points out. You hate when he’s right. Before you can defend yourself, define what a proper response is in this scenario, he’s beating you to the punch. “Baby,” he whimpers, voice so airy yet low, makes your eyes roll into the back of your head, back unconsciously arching. “Couldn’t stop— fuck.”

Your mouth feels dry, all and any form of lecturing fading from your thoughts as you become consumed in Jungkook’s little whines and whimpers. He talks smoothly, a modern day Casanova, and it’s certainly because of that cult-like harem he’s gathered on YouTube. Teenage girls who kiss his ass, tell him he’s cute and dreamy. Make his ego so big.

But then he gets horny and can barely contain that lisp you tease him about, shivers and melts when you put his cock in your mouth. “Couldn't what, bunny?” you mumble, voice drawn tight because now you were really horny, and it was all his fault.

The nickname makes him mewl prettily, your speaker suddenly going scratchy as he fumbles with his phone. “C- Couldn't stop thinking about you— your mouth,” he admits, and now you’re certain he’d sat through that Saturday morning stream like this. “T- Tits,” he adds, lisp slipping through. “Fuck.”

You bite your lip, eyes fluttering shut as you remind yourself now was not the time or place to get yourself off. But, well. That didn’t mean you couldn’t get him off. “Sat through your stream like this?” you murmur, circling your kneecap with a trembling finger as if it’ll ward away the raging lust in your abdomen. Jungkook confirms with a breathy moan. “Had all your little fans wondering why you ended so early.”

He groans. “No,” he chokes, voice hot from how much it wavers. “They— I lied,” he confesses out of nowhere, “s- said I had a doctor’s appointment.”

You muffle a giggle into your palm. “Naughty,” you tease. “Too hard to do your job.”

“Just,” he cuts off, voice feathery. He sounds so close and you haven’t even said anything of substantial value yet. “Tell me,” he says quietly, “what to— mmh, what to do.”

A smirk consumes your features. You try to hide it, but there’s no one here anyway so you’re left grinning at an unpacked box of dental floss like a madwoman. “Why?” you inquire playfully, bask in the sad little whimper he responds with. “Shouldn’t you know how to make yourself cum?”

Another groan of frustration, desperation seeping into his tone when he speaks again. “Baby, please,” he begs, and it feels good. Feels nice to have this big YouTuber begging for you like this, whimpering your name like his doesn’t appear on the top 25 most viewed. “Like when you— ah — when you tell me… what to do.”

Your body feels hot, thighs pressing together with each whimper that falls from his lips. “Okay,” you concede, and he audibly moans in relief. “Tip first,” you instruct softly, eyes defocusing as your brain slowly starts to manifest the image of Jungkook spread out on his bed. Thick thighs, grey boxers pulled taught around them, fat cock between his pretty hands, inked knuckles squeezing around his member. You swallow. You can tell exactly when Jungkook does as you say because another muffled moan fills the speaker. “One finger,” you remind him quickly, head spinning from the mere memory of his dick. “Run it… run it over the slit, bunny.”

“Nngh—“ Jungkook sputters. You can only imagine the face he’s making now, the bottom lip he’s bitten raw by now. He does it a lot; it’s a nervous habit. But as sexy as it looks when you’re in bed, you know he has sensitive lips because of it, bleeds easily if he’s too harsh. You have half the mind to remind him about it now, but then he’s hurriedly gasping out for more. “And, and then? Wha— what then, baby?”

He sounds so sweet, melodic voice dripping with honey. “Touch your balls,” you say a little breathlessly. “Don’t squeeze,” you add, “just roll your palm over them.” Your palm squeezes against your thigh, as if it’s remembering the feel of his body, the soft skin between his thighs when you’re down there. He gets so jittery, thick thighs nearly crushing you if you drag him along too much. “O- Other hand on your cock,” you stumble, thighs squeezed together. “Stroke yourself just like I do, bunny.”

Jungkook complies. “Just like you?” he mumbles, suddenly sounds farther away. As if he’s dropped his phone off to the side. “Fffuck,” he grunts, “m- mouth is so pretty.”

“Hm?” you inquire, so consumed with tampering down your growing arousal for a second that you miss his sentence.

Jungkook’s breath stutters, and for a moment you’re met with the wet squelch of his cock in his hand. And then, “pretty mouth… make me— make me wanna see you cry.”

You bite your lip. “Why,” you say tentatively, finally caving in with a hand fluttering over the front seam of your jeans. Not a question, more of a gentle nudge for him to spill his thoughts.

“Be- Because,” he cries, fucking into his hand. He sounds closer and closer. You have to wonder just how long he had been riled up. It’s been a while since his first message, he was probably desperate by now. “Y- You’re so nice,” he cries, and the sentiment, though oddly out of place, makes your heart squeeze with adoration for the boy on the line. “Wanna be,” he groans, “wanna be so fucking mean to you, baby.”

The sudden change of tone makes you choke on a moan, hand pressing against your mound like it’ll somehow penetrate the thick material of your jeans and give you the sensations you crave. As it stands, it’s a muted feeling you get instead. When your hands fail, his voice compensates. “Fffuck, don’t you— don’t you think about it too?”

Admittedly, no.

Jungkook had always been a gentleman in bed. Always cared for your needs before his own, went out of his way to make you feel pampered and adored during your most vulnerable moments. Contrary to what his online persona might say, he was a good boy. Sweetest boy you knew, touched you like you were made of glass.

So to suddenly learn of this dream— fantasy? kink? —of his that you would certainly enjoy equally as much, well. It made you whimper into your palm, eyes worriedly flickering toward the stockroom’s entrance.

“Why?” you whisper, feeling like a broken doll repeating the same phrase over and over again. You’re suddenly aware of how hot everything was. Your polo felt sticky against your spine, apron too tight, jeans too stuffy. How long had you been hiding in here for? You don’t even know. Hopefully your absence on the floor had gone unnoticed.

Jungkook pants into the line; everything sounds so sticky and wet on his end, hand undoubtedly working away at his cock. “Shit,” he curses, doesn’t really answer your question until you prod a second time. “I- I like it,” he stammers. “When you… fuck, when you look small.” He elaborates before you can even ask, breath heavy and drawn out. He was so close. “When your mouth… when it hurts,” he says, thoughts a scrambled mess. “Like when you— when you cry because my cock is— it’s too big for you.”

A blatant ego boost you’ll ignore for now. Not like you can focus on too many things right now anyway. “Your cock is big, bunny,” you agree softly instead. Your legs feel cramped from crouching so long, so you push yourself to your feet. Except then you’re made aware of how fucking wet you are, panties soaked from the phone call with your boyfriend. You shift and they stick to your folds, make you release a shaky exhale that Jungkook doesn’t miss.

“I— you’re wet,” he says boldly, and this time your meek confirmation isn’t a lie. Jungkook grunts. “Fuck, baby, I—“ cut off by his own whiny cry, probably bucking into his hand like a madman by now. “Wanna, wanna kiss you everywhere,” he says, a call back to his earlier message. Your legs feel like jello. You want him to kiss you everywhere too— lips, tits, cunt that is dripping for him now.

“I- I’ll be over soon,” you stammer, feeling like you’ll pass out if he carries on any further. He sounds so good on the line, soft pants, rough growls. You can’t possibly listen anymore, not when you’re so wet and horny in the middle of your shift. “Just,” you pause, can’t get the image of his pretty cock out of your mind. Every blink makes it more vivid, reminds you of the vein on the underside, the exact shade of the tip.

“What?” Jungkook hisses, voice higher than usual, parts of it lost under the rapid movements of his hand. “Tell me, baby, tell me what to do,” he begs hoarsely, “I’ll do it.” Sounds so desperate and needy, two seconds away from busting all over his hand.

You have to lean against the wall of the stockroom to ground yourself, remind yourself you’re not in the same situation as Jungkook and can’t cum in your pants like a teenager. “J- Just cum,” you choke, eyes fluttering shut.

He must’ve been waiting for that command, because the second the words leave your throat he’s filling the line with breathy groans and cries as he comes all over himself, probably ruins his t-shirt. The sounds have your hips unconsciously bucking forward into nothingness, the frustration of not being able to cum with him manifesting in the form of a tiny little sob. Luckily, he doesn’t catch it.

When it’s all said and done, he’s left panting into the receiver, flooding your speaker with breathy sighs that only make you more and more aroused.

“You’re terrible,” you frown, cheeks flushed, body tingling. You flip your wrist over and check the time; it’s been about sixteen minutes since you disappeared from outside. Sixteen minutes of listening to Jungkook touch himself and moan and whine and whimper. Tease you with new possibilities you had never considered before. And now he’s satisfied and you’re not.

Jungkook chuckles, low and tired. The sound shoots straight to your cunt. “Come over after you shift,” he says, as if you’re not planning to fake a severe case of the flu right now in order to get off early and run to his bed. You only had a little less than two hours of your shift left anyway. Not like they paid you well to begin with. Jungkook shifts, releases one of those saccharine groans as he probably snuggles into his bed, all sweaty and worn out. “Want you to fuck my face, baby.”

You frown, counting to ten to calm yourself down. Another few minutes of listless conversation, and you hang up. Your body feels featherlight, a little woozy as you make your way back out into the floor.

Nothing has changed. Customers pour in and out, your boss scolds you for a display you didn’t do, and life inside the store drags on. No one knows that you’re soaking your panties to hell and back, Jungkook’s soothing moans in your ear. Life goes on.

you shift ends in 20

jungkook♡ sweet jungkook♡ got your seat ready jungkook♡ Attachment: 1 Image

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

self-help

y'all liked my first fic, so here is another!

TW: Blood and injury; wound descriptions

------------------------

“Are you all alright?” Alcina asked, looking over each of the three creatures assembled in front of her. The blonde was slightly roughed up, but still stood up tall; the brunette bore a particularly nasty cut across her cheek, though it didn’t seem to bother her; and the redhead was slathered in man blood from getting to kill the intruder that had foolishly entered their castle and tried to murder them.

“Yes, Mother,” the blonde said, always quick to answer Alcina.

Alcina nodded. She looked at her other two daughters. “And you two?”

“I’m okay,” the redhead chirped. She seemed delighted to have killed something that day.

The brunette lightly touched the cut on her cheek, winced, then nodded, “I’m fine. It isn’t that bad.”

“We should still make sure any of that man-thing’s filth didn’t get into you,” Alcina said. She opened an arm and began guiding her middle child down one of the hallways. “Daniela, do what you will with the body. You’ve earned it.”

The redhead perked up, beaming, and bounded down a different hallway to where the corpse of the man had been left. Once she was gone, only the blonde was left behind in the foyer, and the girl instantly doubled over with a moan of pain, holding her stomach.

“Fuck,” Bela hissed. She was lucky for the dark material of her dress or else the blood seeping through the fabric would have easily been seen by her mother and sisters, and worrying them was the last thing she wanted. It was her own fault that she was shot. There were better things for them to focus on, anyway. Like Cassandra’s cut! Yes, that was definitely more important. She didn’t need any help.

Bela stepped forward and immediately crumpled to her knees when a spasm of pain rippled through her stomach. She bit down firmly to keep from crying out and tasted blood when her teeth pierced her tongue. Usually, the metallic tang would be rather appetizing, but something about it right now made her guts churn and twist up into knots, which definitely didn’t help her discomfort.

Kneeling, still holding her stomach, Bela rocked back and forth while taking several calming breaths. Breathing deeply furthered the strain in her stomach, while not breathing at all just made her chest hurt- she couldn’t win. All she could do was grit her teeth and bear with it like she did with everything. Don’t be a burden, don’t be a burden.

“Lady Bela?”

Bela looked up. A wiry, ash brown-haired maid was lingering at the opening of one of the cavernous hallways, shifting on her feet. Her dark amber eyes displayed nervousness, curiosity, and worry. The last emotion wasn’t an uncommon thing to see, at least towards Bela. Because of her general politeness to the castle workers, they tended to show more concern over her. The perks of not killing them for no reason, she supposed.

“Yes?” Bela said, forcing her voice to stay level and not quaver beneath the fiery edge of her own agony. She didn’t want to cause a scene, but she especially didn’t want to cause a scene in front of a maid. That was almost as bad as her sisters seeing her in such a state--though, for what it was worth, the maids wouldn’t tease her endlessly.

“Are you alright?” the maid asked, taking a small step forward. She was looking Bela up and down, most likely searching for any wounds, and Bela once again thanked Mother Miranda for black fabric.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Bela answered. At the same moment, however, a second wave of pain roared through her and her vision was suddenly spotted by black snow. Did someone open the window? And how long had snow been black? None of her books ever said anything about this…

“Lady Bela?”

Bela blinked harshly, and the storm disappeared. No windows were open. Snow was not black. The maid got closer.

“Ahh--” Bela swallowed hard. “Yes?”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” The maid seemed to be trying to hold herself together. She was probably fearing for her own life if something happened to one of Lady Dimitrescu’s daughters under her watch. Bela would prefer to not have this one die, as she was nice enough to actually check on her instead of ignoring the situation like other maids would, even if Bela denied her physical state when she asked how she was.

“Yes, yes,” Bela said, nodding. “I’m alright. Just…stomach cramps?”

The maid blinked. “Do you even go through a menstrual cycle?”

Bela splayed her fingers open with a shrug. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

The maid actually laughed, which was a rare thing to happen. But the laughter was quickly cut off when her eyes focused on something, clouding over with concern, and Bela realized she was staring at her hands.

There was blood on her hands.

Her blood.

Bela balled her fists and cleared her throat. She looked up at the maid. “Go.”

The maid opened her mouth, but thought against whatever she was planning on saying, not wanting to test Bela’s civility--not that Bela would have hurt her if she had stuck around to speak whatever was on her mind. She dipped her head and scurried off, glancing over her shoulder as she went.

Bela sighed. She wiped her hands on a part of her dress that wasn’t damp. She needed to do something about her problem before her mother or one of her sisters found out.

Standing up was difficult, and Bela was sure Cassandra or Daniela, most likely both, would have teased her if they saw her like this. When she began to walk, she felt blood slither in slow trails down her legs, itching her skin. She fought the urge to scratch until she made it to the privacy of her bedroom, then instantly began shredding her dress with her claws, throwing the tatters of wet fabric to the floor to be picked up later. Once the gown was off, she turned to her mirror to inspect the damage.

Red. The entire front of her body was smeared in red. And beneath the red, there were holes, some as small as her pinky, some as big as a coin, each even darker than the blood and packed full of shrapnel.

Bela had been a fool to go after the man-thing on her own. As reckless and wild as Cassandra and Daniela were with their fighting, they were strong, much stronger than she was. She had seen them withstand vicious stabs and strikes and shots that would have killed any normal person and keep slashing their claws as if nothing had happened, but it took a blast from a shotgun to put her down. She was so blinded by the idea of killing the intruder to impress her mother that she didn’t even think to create an actual plan until she became well-acquainted with leaden bullet chunks against her midsection.

The buckshot was evenly spread out along her abdomen, and maybe it could have passed as paint splattered all over her body if it wasn’t for the malevolent grey peeking out from liquid red. There was a particularly large cluster of holes on her left side, where an entire chunk of meat had been blown free from her waist, but they reached all the way over to her navel and up to the underside of her chest. The bullet pieces were the seeds of her agony, and she desperately needed to reap them from her flesh.

Bela began rummaging through one of her drawers, straining the lead lodged in her skin, and pulled out an old cotton gown she hadn’t worn in years. She walked over to the rocking chair in the corner near the window and sat down. She loved this chair, and it was a shame that it was going to be bled all over, but wood was easier to clean than cloth. She didn’t want to risk staining her bed right now.

Biting down on the gown, Bela began going over the buckshot. There were eighteen holes in total, all of them full of lead. She nearly miscounted a few times because she thought some of them were empty, but then realized the bullets were just buried in her tissue. There was one in particular that she didn’t even see, but could feel shifting around beneath her flesh like a hungry maggot. It made her stomach roil in disgust.

This was not going to be fun.

Bela’s hands were shaking as she brought them down to her stomach. Simply brushing the skin sent waves of torture shivering through her nerves, and she didn’t even want to think about what it was going to feel like to actually remove the slugs, but she didn’t have much of a choice. She couldn’t just leave them inside of her.

Taking a deep breath and biting down hard on the gown, Bela stuck her pointer finger and thumb into one of the holes. Instantly, her vision flashed black, then red, and then white, and she was sure she had passed out for a few eternal seconds. Even when she pried her eyes back open, all she saw was a messy mishmash of swirling colors, and she wondered if she had somehow gone blind. But then sight slowly oozed back to her, and she was able to see the grotesque image of her fingers stretching the edges of a bullet hole.

She swallowed down acidic bile and grasped the sides of the piece of lead.

For a moment, the stubborn little thing didn’t want to come out, and Bela began to fear that it was just a part of her now, forever fused with her flesh, burrowed within her like a leaden parasite, but then it popped out with a small spew of blood and she was able to catch her breath. She dropped the ball, which was no bigger than her pinky finger, and watched it bounce across the floor before rolling beneath her bed. She would get it later. Right now, she had its stupid siblings to deal with.

Breathing in deeply again, clamping down on the gown like before, Bela dug her fingers into a second hole that looked easy enough to scoop out. And it was, surprisingly. The blood proved to be a helpful lubricant and the bullet slid right out when she tugged, not bothering to put up a fight. She peered at it for a moment, squinting her watery eyes.

“You are an asshole,” she spat.

The bullet winked at her in response, the bright red blood coating its surface catching on the light inside the room and making it twinkle like a ruby. She flicked it away, and it left a line of crimson across her polished floors. She would clean that up later, too.

Third time’s a charm. Bela prepared herself again, breathing in and biting down, and dove into the next hole.

She didn’t know why she thought the process of pulling out bullets would suddenly be easier just because she succeeded with the first two. She was an idiot when she had gotten shot and she was an idiot now, trying to rid herself from the consequence of her actions.

Her claws slipped on the slickness of her blood and accidentally pushed the bullet in deeper.

Bela would have screamed if it weren’t for the blood that crawled up her throat, clogging her esophagus. She coughed, thinking that the bullet was going to come out of her mouth, and red splattered across her bare chest, staining her bra. Tears sprang to her eyes and poured down her cheeks. Her shaking hands hovered over the hole, but she couldn’t see the slug anywhere.

“Oh no, no, no, no,” Bela muttered. Did she push it so deep it breached one of her organs? What would happen if it did? How was she going to get it out?

She tried to stretch the edges of the wound, but stopped when she nearly threw up from the pain. She sobbed. What was she going to do? Bela leaned back against the chair, causing it to rock slowly. Maybe she could just leave the bullets inside of her. They probably wouldn’t kill her. She and her sisters were able to endure more than normal creatures could, so it would probably just be very uncomfortable. For the rest of her life.

She swallowed blood and bile. Having to spend the rest of eternity like this didn’t sound very appealing. In fact, it sounded like the complete opposite of appealing. Unappealing.

A sound snapped Bela out of her muddled thoughts; the doorknob was wiggling. Someone was coming into her room.

Lunging forward, nearly slipping on a tiny puddle of her blood, Bela slammed the door shut before it could be opened completely and pressed her weight against it. From the other side, she heard a noise of surprise.

“Bela? What is the meaning of this?”

Her heart sank into her bullet-infested insides. It was her mother. She just slammed the door in her mother’s face. Oh, she was in for it now.

Bela nearly opened up right then and there and got down on her knees to apologize, but one glance down at her horribly-scathed body made her think better of it. She had told Alcina that she was fine, and now she needed to live up to it, even if she felt like she was being swarmed and eaten by her own insects. She had to swallow down her hopeless devotion to her mother to keep her from worrying over her.

“Sorry,” Bela said, hoping her voice wasn’t wavering as much as she thought it was. “I, uhh-- I thought you were Cassandra or Daniela. They always barge into my room without knocking. I don’t appreciate it very much.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but she still didn’t feel good about making up an excuse.

From out in the hallway, Alcina was quiet for a moment, and Bela wondered if she was going to break down the door and let herself in. But then she chuckled and said, “I see. I remember the time you tried to set traps for them when they kept interrupting your reading time.”

Bela laughed, which morphed into a groan of pain when her stomach strained. SHe masked it with a cough, then replied, “They were good traps!”

“Darling, you set up a board full of nails for them to step on.”

“My point still stands.”

“And a tripwire that would trigger a pot to swing into their face and knock them out.”

“You got to admit that it was pretty impressive that I was able to make that.”

Alcina chuckled again. “Yes, you have always been my most resourceful little one.”

Bela’s chest warmed with pride. The praise momentarily made her forget about the pain she was in.

“Now, can you let me in? I need to talk to you.”

And like that, the pain was back, the soothing warmth chased off by icy cold dread. Did her mother know? Did that maid snitch on her? She swallowed thickly.

“Umm-- can’t we just talk like this? It’s just as effective.”

“I would prefer it if I was able to see you when I speak to you,” Alcina said. She paused for a moment. “Why can’t I come in?”

“I’m-- I’m naked.”

Also wasn’t a lie, technically.

Alcina was quiet for a moment.

“Bela, I watched you come out of a mass of insects as naked as a babe. I do not think there’s anything left to be seen that I don’t know about already.”

You’d be surprised, Bela thought, looking down at her marred form.

“It’s-- it’s just embarrassing for me!”

Alcina sighed. “Then why don’t you put some clothes on?”

Realizing she wasn’t going to get out of this conversation, Bela said, “Right! Okay!” And then began scrambling for something to wear. The exertion made the two empty bullet holes pucker like hungry mouths and drool out even more blood that drizzled down her legs like snakes. She didn’t have time to clean herself up, so she just threw on the first gown she could reach in one of her drawers--a dark blue one she had sewn herself--wiped her hands off, kicked the tattered black dress under the bed, and smeared the blood on the floor until it couldn’t be seen against the hardwood. Then, she put on the most believable, while also innocent expression of normalcy and opened her door.

“My lady,” she said with a wide sweeping motion of her arm, trying to be funny, trying to hide the fact that she was in immense pain and simply being on her feet made her lightheaded, trying not to worry her mother.

Alcina didn’t laugh at her joke. She seemed rather suspicious as she ducked into the room--not that Bela really blamed her. She was definitely being very suspicious.

“What did you want to talk about?” Bela asked, looking up at her mother.

Alcina looked around her room, but Bela had been smart enough to clean the floors. Not well, but they were clean. When she found nothing, she studied Bela, and Bela held herself as she usually did--maybe a bit too formally.

“I just wanted to check on you all after the attack,” Alcina finally answered, meeting her eyes. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, Mother,” Bela said, and she hated lying to Alcina, but she didn’t have a choice. She hated being a burden even more and that was all she was going to be if Alcina found out about her wounds.

“Are you sure?” Alcina narrowed her eyes at her.

“Yes, Mother,” Bela repeated. Then, trying to change the subject, she asked, “How is Cassandra?”

“She’s okay,” Alcina answered. “She will heal. The cut wasn’t very deep.”

“And Daniela?”

“Feasting. I wouldn’t go near her if I were you. She may just maim you and add you to her meal.” A smile came to Alcina’s lips, and Bela let herself laugh.

Unfortunately, that laughter quickly turned to coughing as her body seized with pain. She tasted blood as the bullets seemed to rattle within her, flesh clenching down around lead. She wiped her mouth before pulling her hand away.

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Alcina didn’t respond for a moment. Her entire face was knitted with great concern, and Bela already felt bad for worrying her.

“Bela, are you sure you are alright?”

For a fourth time that day: “Yes, Mother.”

Alcina wasn’t going to let it go that easily, it seemed, because she questioned further: “Have you caught a chill?” She walked over and pressed a hand to Bela’s forehead. Bela couldn’t help but lean into it, always eager to be touched by her mother. “You shouldn’t be coughing like that.”

“I just had a tickle in my throat.”

“I don’t like being lied to, Bela.”

Bela’s resolve nearly broke beneath her mother’s stern gaze, but she kept her facade from falling through sheer willpower alone. She said, “I’m not.”

Alcina’s eyes narrowed. She pulled her hand back and went to say something when she appeared to slip on something. Steadying herself, she looked down at the ground, and Bela’s breath caught in her throat when she realized what exactly her mother had staggered on.

Alcina bent over and picked up the buckshot.

Bela didn’t let her panic show on her face as Alcina examined the tiny lead ball. Its siblings, still lodged deep in her stomach, seemed to giggle at the predicament she was ensnared in when a fresh bout of pain quivered through her nerves. She stayed calm as flashing yellow eyes slid back over to her.

“Bela,” Alcina said slowly, and Bela already didn’t like the tone she was using. “What is this?”

Bela considered playing dumb, but then she remembered that she was the smart, bookish one. She could use her multitude of knowledge as an excuse.

“That’s buckshot, Mother. It comes from a shotgun. Did you know that they have enough firepower to blow a head off? It’s because it has several bullets in one shot instead of a singular one, which means more power behind each blast.”

Alcina held a hand up and Bela instantly shut her mouth.

“Why do you have it?” Alcina asked.

“I was studying it,” Bela answered. It was believable enough. It did sound like something she would do, but Alcina didn’t seem very convinced.

“Your blood is on this, Bela,” Alcina said. “Why is your blood on this bullet?”

“I-- I--” Bela’s act was beginning to crumble.

Alcina turned to her completely, clenching the buckshot in her fist. “Were you shot?”

“Mother, I--”

“Were you shot?”

“Yes,” Bela blurted, unable to hide it anymore. “But-- but it isn’t that--”

“Show me.”

“Wh-what?”

“Bela Dimitrescu, show me where you are hurt. Now.”

Flinching at her mother’s severe tone, Bela removed her dress and revealed the mess on her stomach and chest. When she heard Alcina gasp, she quickly said, “It isn’t that bad. You don’t have to worry about me, Mother. I can take care of it.”

“You fool!” Alcina exploded, and Bela flinched away. “What were you thinking?! Why would you hide this from me?!”

“I-- I thought I could--” Bela was having a hard time collecting her words. If there was one thing she really hated, it was when people raised their voices, even if it wasn’t directed towards her. When Cassandra and Daniela would get into fights, she always left the room and got as far away as possible so she wouldn’t have to hear them yelling. But, as bad as their shouting was, it was nothing compared to their mother when she was worked up.

“I--”

“I asked you if you were alright!” Alcina roared on. “If you were okay! You said you were! And then I come in here and find you with bullets in your flesh?!” She shook her head, nearly dislodging her hat from her head. “What do you have to say for yourself, Bela?”

Personally? Bela really wished they weren’t having this conversation when she didn’t have a shirt on.

Dipping her head shamefully, the only thing that Bela could manage was a pathetic, “I’m sorry, Mother.”

“Why can’t you just let me help you for once?”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you,” Bela confessed. “Or worry you.”

Alcina sighed and rubbed her face slowly. “Bela, I am more worried and disappointed because you hid this from me.”

Bela could only squeak out a feeble, “Oh.”

Alcina knelt down in front of her and lifted her chin. “Honey, why would I be disappointed in you for coming to me for help?”

Bela couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. “Because-- because I got hurt. And I shouldn’t have. I’m a shitty fighter and got shot and I should have been stronger.”

“Your strength has nothing to do with this,” Alcina said. “Cassandra got hurt too, you know.”

“Cassandra probably didn’t care.”

“I beg to differ. You should have seen her while I was rubbing honey into her wound. She was wiggling around like a little worm!”

Bela laughed slightly, then whimpered immediately after. Alcina glanced at her bullet-filled body, then cupped her cheeks.

“Do you know what I would have done if you had died from these wounds?”

Bela tried not to look at her.

“I would have done everything in my power to get you back to me. I would tear down the sun and moon for you, my darling.” There was so much love in Alcina’s words, so much tenderness and care. Bela was drawn to it. “Please tell me you will come to me next time something happens. I cannot fathom the thought of you being in any more pain.”

Whether or not she actually would when the time came, Bela nodded. Alcina smiled at her warmly and placed a kiss against her forehead.

“That’s my good girl,” she said. “Now…” Her eyes slid down to the bullet wounds. “To handle this.”

“I tried to get them out myself,” Bela said. “I promise I tried. I got two out, but then-- but I couldn’t--”

“Shh,” Alcina stroked her hair. “You tried. That’s all that matters. But I am so proud of you, darling. It must not have been easy.”

Bela shook her head with a whimper.

“Alright,” Alcina stood up straight. “Come on. Lay on your bed. We need to get those little devils out of you.”

Bela didn’t disobey. She had already disobeyed enough for one day. She crawled onto her bed, whimpering each time her body bent in a way the bullets disagreed with. They felt like festering parasites inside her stomach. She was lightheaded.

“Mama,” she moaned. She was the last to stop calling Alcina such a thing. Cassandra was first, then Daniela, and when they both heard her still referring to their mother in that way, they teased her. While it had been done playfully, it was still enough to embarrass Bela and get her to stop to avoid risking further humiliation. But now she didn’t even care. She was far too uncomfortable to care about anything her sisters had to say.

“Mama…”

Alcina caressed the side of her face. “I’m right here, baby. Lay back for me.

Bela, as loyal as a hound, did as she was told. Her head rested against one of her fluffy pillows, but it did little to stop the room from spinning like a top. She looked over at Alcina anxiously, but her mother had an expression of focus and calm.

“Alright, my dove,” Alcina said, cupping one of her clammy, pallid cheeks. “I need you to lay as still as possible for me. Do you think you can do that?”

Bela nodded feebly.

“Very good. I’m going to start now, alright? Just stay still and breathe. I’ll work as quickly as I can.”

Another nod.

“Here I go.”

Even with the warning, Bela’s body still jolted when she felt the sharp stab of her mother’s claws against one of the bullet holes. Her eyes snapped open, but she was blind for several seconds before details bled back into awareness. To her own credit, she managed to keep from crying out, but only because she clenched her jaw so hard she chipped one of her fangs. Cassandra and Danieal were definitely going to tease her over that later, but it was the least of her problems at the moment.

The third bullet slid out with relative ease, lubricated by her blood, and, Mother Miranda, she was only just realizing she had fifteen more to go.

“One down,” Alcina said, flicking the buckshot to the floor. She lifted Bela’s chin to examine her broken tooth. “Hmm. It’ll grow back, don’t worry. It didn’t chip that much.”

“I was using a gown,” Bela said, her words coming out wheezy and weak. “To bite down on.” She pointed to the dress left on the rocking chair. “Can I use it again?”

Alcina followed her hand, spotting the bundle of fabric. “Oh, clever girl!” she praised, rubbing Bela’s head. She picked up the gown and gave it to Bela. “As I said before: you are my bright little daughter.”

Bela smiled shyly before biting down on the gown. She gave her mother an affirmative look to begin again.

The next three bullets went out smoothly--or as smoothly as little masses of lead wedged in sensitive tissue and muscle could be. But then Alcina got to one of the deeper slugs and it didn’t come out when tugged on, causing Bela to cry out and jerk away.

“Breathe, darling,” Alcina said, settling her back on her back when she tried to roll over. “Breathe. It’s alright. This one is a little deeper. A lot of them are going to be, but I need you to stay still and stay calm for me. Can you do that?”

“I-- I don’t know,” Bela said honestly.

Alcina frowned. She stroked her face, wiping away tears. “I know you can. You’re strong, Bela, regardless of what you think. And just know that I am so proud of you.”

Bela reached up to grab her mother’s hand. She pressed into the warm palm like a kitten seeking heat in the middle of a winter storm. Finally, she relented, “Okay.”

“Thank you, darling,” Alcina crooned. She went to return to her work, but Bela didn’t release her hand. “I need you to let me go, Bela.”

Bela was unwilling to part with the warmth, so Alcina did it herself, easily peeling her fingers away. She touched her cheek tenderly for a moment before saying, “Bite down and breathe, baby. I’m starting again.”

Bela did as she was told, grinding her teeth into the gown as claws returned to her sore stomach. She flinched, but didn’t try to squirm away again, grounding herself by grasping handfuls of the sheets beneath her.

Seven, eight, nine, ten… Alcina worked diligently, expertly removing the buckshot from Bela’s body. When she got to the eleventh one and it proved to be rather reluctant to leave its host, she stopped for a moment to give Bela time to breathe and prepare herself.

“You’re doing so good,” Alcina cooed, stroking Bela’s hair, which was wet with cold sweat. Bela had started to tremble at some point, though she didn’t exactly know when, but she hoped it wasn’t making the bullet removal harder than it already was.

“Mama,” Bela mewled. “It hurts…”

“I know,” Alcina hushed her. “I know. I’m almost done. Just eight more to go.”

“Hurry-- hurry--” Bela panted.

“Are you sure? You can wait a moment longer to catch your breath.”

Bela shook her head. “Please.”

Alcina pursed her lips, then nodded. “Alright. Here I go.”

Bela braced herself.

“Eleven…”

Bela breathed.

“Twelve…”

Bela bit down.

“Thirteen…”

Bela--

Bela screamed.

Bela screamed because the fourteenth bullet was buried deep within her flesh, burrowed in her warmth like a maggot in a corpse. She kicked out her legs and tried to yell for Alcina to stop, but blood mixed with bile lurched up the back of her throat and her mouth was clogged with fluids. Alcina ripped out the pellet with enough force to slit the edges of the hole with her claws, threw it to the floor, and then lifted Bela’s head so she wouldn’t inhale her own blood and choke. Bela coughed, staining her chest in a fresh layer of red.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry--”

“Shh,” Alcina stroked her thumb with her cheek. “Nothing to apologize for, darling. You’re doing very well. We’re so close to finishing.”

Bela looked at her, breathing heavily, her throat thick with blood. She didn’t know what to say, so she just nodded weakly. Alcina set her head back down on the pillow.

“Here we go, my sweet. Just a little longer.”

But Bela wasn’t able to handle it when the fifteenth was removed. She grabbed her mother by the wrist when she reached for the sixteenth one, clinging tightly.

“No more, no more--” Bela begged.

Alcina frowned. “I have to get them out, baby. You’re so close.”

Bela shook her head. “No, no-- can’t we-- can’t we just leave them in?”

“Bela. You’re smarter than that. You know we can’t.”

“But-- but it hurts,” Bela wept. “I can’t-- I can’t take it anymore. Please, Mama. Please just stop .”

Above her, Alcina looked incredibly worried. She ran her bloody claws through Bela’s hair, soothing her.

“I have to,” Alcina said. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Bela sobbed, but didn’t stop her.

With a cruel yank, the sixteenth bullet dislodged with a spit of blood. Bela shredded the sheets beneath her.

The seventeenth took some digging, with her mother stretching the tender edges of the hole with one hand, picking out flesh with the other. She nearly threw up at the disgusting squelching sounds that filled the air, but managed to save herself from the humiliation by swallowing hard.

The eighteenth, the one she had accidentally pushed in deeper, was the worst. It was like having a hot knife thrust into her soft stomach over and over again. She shivered with pain and blood loss as she felt the bullet being tugged on in her ragged flesh. It was a sickening friction of skin sucking against the force of her mother’s claws. She didn’t even know if it came out fully because her eyes rolled to the back of her head and everything went black.

——— ——— ———

Wiping her claws of blood, Alcina frowned down at her eldest daughter. Bela was unconscious. It seemed the pain was finally too much for her little body. Though, she made it all the way to the end. Alcina was expecting her to pass out a lot sooner.

And she said she wasn’t strong.

Scooping her up into her arms, Alcina carried Bela to her bedroom, telling a maid to clean up the bloody mess left behind. Once inside her chambers, she ran Bela a hot bath, washing her of all the blood that stained her body. The warm water seemed to rouse her daughter because shiny amber eyes peeked out from under heavy eyelids as she was cleaning out her hair.

“Mama,” Bela breathed out.

Alcina smiled at her lovingly. “Hello, my sweet.”

Bela looked around sluggishly. She seemed dazed. “I’m… huh?”

“You passed out,” Alcina informed her.

“The buckshot…?”

“All out,” Alcina reached out to caress her cheek. “It’s over. You did it. I’m so proud of you, baby girl.”

Bela, always wanting affection, pressed into her hand. “Finally…”

Alcina chuckled. “I’m just going to finish washing all this blood off and then you can lay back down. You need lots of rest to heal.”

“Can you…?”

Alcina smiled again. Her heart swelled with adoration and love towards her daughter.

“Yes, I will lay with you.”

Bela had definitely earned it.

[drakenology]

ˢᵗᵃʳ ᴮᵒʸ ⁻ ᴬᵗˢᵘᵐᵘ ᴹⁱʸᵃ

ʷᵃʳⁿⁱⁿᵍˢ: smut, drug use (weed), alcohol use, raw sex, spitting, inexperienced!reader, corruption?, atsumu is the weeknd, reader is a fan girl.

ᵃᵘᵗʰᵒʳ’ˢ ⁿᵒᵗᵉ: yo yo! so this is for the rolling loud event for my girl @loveatsutani. I love u bitch. I aint gon neva stop lovin you bitch. anyways, hope yall enjoy and make sure to check out the other participants!

w͟o͟r͟d͟ ͟c͟o͟u͟n͟t͟:͟ ͟1͟.͟8͟k͟

Atsumu aka Tsumu was an icon in his own right and the self proclaimed “Star Boy” made sure to show it off. Fame cost him a lot though. Personal space was limited and privacy was a luxury. It was also hard to find a genuine woman who didn’t only like him for his money and fame. Atsumu knew these things would come when he pursued his newest passion in music, but the screaming and adoring fans were all worth the trouble.

Tonight was the night he headlined for Rolling Loud, performing as well as he usually did - and looking good doing it too. Singing was a talent he never knew he had until one day he just sat with some friends, smoked some pot and just belted out some R&B. People compare his music to that of The Weeknd which gained him a plethora of female fans. He watched from the stage as thousands of women flash their breasts, throwing their bras onto the stage. He’s such a tease he lifts his shirt up to flash them his abs, listening to them scream louder as he finishes his song.

“Thanks so much. Yer all amazin’.” Atsumu huffed, out of breath and sweaty from jumping around on stage singing and rapping all night. He waves goodbye to his fans, scooping a few bras off the ground and running back stage to get ready for his after party. One thing Mr. Miya Atsumu was an expert in was throwing an absolute rager of a party. There was always weed to smoke, drinks flowing and gorgeous girls ready to hand him their panties. With his security in tow, He waves goodbye to the fans waiting in line to get inside as he leaves the venue, even signing a few breasts on the way. “Star Boy.” was always his signature.

Atsumu’s house was jumping as the loud music bumped against the walls from the vibrations of the bass. Everybody was having a great time, including him as he downed another shot of vodka.

He stood cooly against the wall when you walked in with a group of friends of yours all dressed to be fucked stupid somewhere in his house. You especially caught his attention with those tits of yours practically jumping out of your dress as you exclaim excitedly about being in the Tsumu’s house.

You and your friends start dancing to the music, grinding on each other and shaking your asses much to Atsumu’s amusement. His eyes wandered across your body as you danced, locking onto your hips as they swayed to the beat of the music.

You’re enchanting to him as your hands travel up and down your body, caressing your hips and grabbing your friends’ asses to hype them up as they twerked. His mind began to imagine your plush thighs wrapped around his waist, imagining the way you’d look under him as your tits jumped with every harsh thrust he delivered. He wanted to hear you moan his stage name as his tongue delved deep into your sweet little cunt, to feel your thighs squish against his face as you cum on his mouth. That’s it, he’s going to approach you.

“Hey, gorgeous.” He slurred, feeling a little saucy from the alcohol he earlier consumed as he leaned into your ear. You immediately turn around to see Tsumu towering over you, smirking as you continue to dance.

“Oh my god! Hi! I’m such a big fan!” You squeal excitedly, only further stroking Atsumu’s ego hearing your sweet voice pitch in excitement over just the sight of him.

“Are ya? Wanna show me just how big of a fan ya are?” He asks, his hands on the small of your back to lead you away from the crowd. Maybe this was why he couldn’t meet genuine women to spend his riches and his time on. But tonight - with the way you look, he could care less about settling down right now.

You of course agreed to go to his room with him, waving to your friends as they raised their glasses in celebration of you bedding Tsumu of all people in this party. His lips meet yours as soon as you reach his bedroom door, moaning into your mouth as he opens it to lead you to the bed without breaking the kiss.

His hands lift up your dress to get a good look at your curves, running them up and down your hips and thighs before spreading them. With his breath hitching in his throat, he groans at the wet spot on your pretty little panties.

“Someone’s excited.” Atsumu teased, running his thumb over your covered clit. Your hips buck a bit from the feeling, gasping as his thumb moves in circles.

“Tsumu, I-I have to tell you somethin’.” You moan, locking your hazy eyes onto his. His eyebrow raised as he peeled your panties off your soaked pussy, licking his lips when he sees your slick pull from it as it sticks to the fabric.

“Hm?” He questioned, collecting your slick with his fingers.

“I um.. I don’t really have much experience. ‘M not a virgin but I’ve only had sex maybe twice in my life.” You admit, feeling your cheeks get hot when he starts to chuckle. God, that only made his cock grow harder. It was hard to believe someone as hot as you didn’t have very much sex but the possibility of becoming the best you’ve ever had was an accomplishment he needed under his belt. He was definitely about to teach you a thing or two.

“Don’t worry, love. ‘M gonna take good fuckin’ care of ya.” He smirked, laying in front of you to rest his head between your nervous thighs. He didn’t want to wait another second to taste you, his tongue parting your sopping wet folds with a soft groan. Your hands find their way into his dyed hair, mewling softly when you feel his tongue gliding against spots that have never been touched.

You gasp sharply when his tongue sinks inside you, your eyes rolling back when he slurps and laps up your juices hungrily. You feel your hips grinding against his face, Atsumu laughing against your skin at your eagerness. He doesn’t keep you still, instead he follows your movements with his tongue. He pulls away to spit on your already sloppy cunt, diving back in without a second to brace.

“T-Tsumu!” You shriek, his ears seeming to perk when he hears his name leave your pretty mouth. He pulls away just to hear you whine, watching as your pussy flutters around nothing.

“Anyone ever tell ya how pretty yer little pussy is, baby?” He asks, licking your slick off his lips before crawling up your body to kiss you. You shake your head no, which wasn’t a lie.

His hands go to take off his jeans, feeling your hands excitedly run up and down those famous abs of his. He takes your wrists and pins you down, pulling your dress down to expose your bare breasts. No bra? God. Immediately he’s leaving hickies all over your skin, nipping and sucking at your nipples before gliding his tongue over your hardened nipples.

“‘M making you feel good, yeah?” He asks, wanting to hear you say it from your mouth being that he already knew the answer. You nod.

“Uh-huh. N-No one’s ever made me feel like this before.” You say as he pulls you closer to his groin by your hips. He takes his hefty cock out, your eyes watching it twitch and leak with pre-cum as you absentmindedly lick your lips.

He prods your weeping hole with the fat tip of him, rubbing the underside of his cock against your pussy. Your hips grind, trying to get him to slide inside you as your plump lips form an impatient pout. This time he doesn’t reward your eagerness, instead holding your hips down and continuing to tease you with his dick.

“I’ll give it to ya if ya ask nicely, sweet heart.” Atsumu says smirking, causing you to whine.

“Please, Tsumu. Fuck me. I wanna feel you. Please, Tsumu, please.” You plead, your eyes going doe-like as your lashes flutter.

With those magic words you feel him split you open, a long drawn out mewl leaving your lips as you feel him bottom out immediately. He waits for you to adjust, sliding in and out of you slowly to get your tight cunt to adjust to the size of him. He knows he’s big, but you’re already taking him so well he can’t help but to speed up to form the shape of his cock into your pussy.

You can’t help but scream and rake your manicured nails into his back, feeling your gelatinous thighs quake as you try and hold them open. His palms press your thighs into your chest, his full balls smacking against your ass as he starts to fuck you into the bed. You can’t even control your sounds, knowing that if it weren’t for the bumping music downstairs the whole party would be able to hear your desperate cries.

“M-More Tsumu. H-Harder!” You beg, trying not to let your moans muddle your sentence as he does what you ask. You were quite possibly the best pussy he’s fucked in a long time. Even though he’s had sex with many beautiful women around the world, none of them felt as warm and inviting as you did.

Your cunt practically swallowed him whole, his eyes glued onto the way your walls tried to pull him back inside when he pulled away. He smacked your outer thigh and told you to bend over for him, groaning when you do so so urgently. You were so eager to please, he even contemplated keeping you around.

“Such a sexy little body, baby. Look at this ass.” He said, his big hands grabbing and smacking the fat of it. His cock twitched at the way it jiggles in ripples, sliding it inside you to see it smack against his lap. You feel him hit new angles, new spots, feeling yourself hanging on by a thin thread.

His heavy balls smack against your throbbing clit with each rut of his hips, yelping when he smacks your ass every so often. Your cries get louder when you feel him hitting the soft spongy spot that’s never been touched by any man. Your cunt squeezes him tight, without warning cumming around him as your eyes well up with pleasurable tears.

“Uuhhh fuck, angel. Yer so fuckin’ tight. Gonna make me cum.” He groaned, spitting down onto hs cock to make his length slicker. You hear him hissing and cussing, his thrusts stuttering until you feel him push deep inside you to cum in thick and sticky ropes. You moan at the warm and wet sensation, humming when he fucks his cum inside you deep. The feeling in your chest was unmistakable when he pulled out of you, unfortunately feeling yourself develop feelings for the super star you just fucked - a curse that came with the female orgasm. But Tsumu was a Star Boy and couldn’t be held down.

Or could he?

[dreamingofaizawa]

A Dragon’s Bride

Dragon Prince! Bakugo Katsuki x Fem! Fae Princess! Reader

Fanstasy AU

***18+ Fic***

If you are not 18 years old, you are not old enough to ride. Please exit the line and find another. Thank you and have a good day.

Warnings: Arranged marriage, smut, soft to rough sex, light fluff. Characters are aged up, Bakugo and reader are the same age.

Word Count: 4.7k

Author’s Note: So I had this idea after reading other fantasy AU fics, and I just really wanted a soft Bakugo. I know he’s an angry moody mf but idgaf aight? I didn’t wanna get super descriptive with the smut, just cause I wanted it to be more like ‘lovemaking’ than just sex, you feel me? Sorry if the pace is a little weird, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on this lmao. Anyway, here’s dragon boi Bakubitch.

Enjoy the read~

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As the youngest daughter of the Fae King and Queen, you knew it was only a matter of time before you were put in an arranged marriage. Your eldest brother had taken his Fae wife and would ascend to the throne in due time, and your older sister had already been married off to the Elven Prince Shouto.

Despite knowing you’d need to marry for political ties, you hadn’t expected to be sent off quite so soon. Your 19th birthday had passed only a few days ago, and that was when the news was broken to you. You were to be married to the Dragon Prince Katsuki Bakugo, soon to be the Dragon King, for his parents had expressed their wish to step down as royals rather early for Dragons of their age. 

The journey was rather long, even as you flew with your guards in a beeline to the lands of the Dragons. Throughout the weeklong trip your nerves were building and the mild fear settled into your bones. The Dragon Prince was infamous for his temper and short fuse, his anger always taken out specifically on Izuku Midoriya, the Fairy Prince from his  childhood. Your kingdom had not tied itself with the Dragons in centuries, and this alliance meant the Fae’s history of stubborn seclusion and independence would begin to diminish. This was a mission you could not afford to fail.

The final night camping was the worst. Sleep seemed to fear you, and you tossed and turned, attempting to settle your nerves. But it was to no avail. The sky began to lighten into a dull gray, signaling the coming morning. The guard came to wake you up, and soon you were bathed and back in the sky. Not having slept was of no concern, you’d gone days without sleep before and were just fine.

By midday you’d reached the edge of the Dragon kingdom, and were landing in front of the mountain castle just before sundown. The castle was gorgeous on its own, the face of it being the only exposed piece of the structure with the rest of the castle buried inside the mountain itself. The entrance was large, a platform that no doubt acted as a landing pad for the royal Dragons. Warm light poured from the large arched doorway as the huge stone doors opened as you approached.

You were greeted by the King, Queen, and the Prince himself. You sank before them in a low curtsy, pitch black wings spread out and flattened to your sides in a display of reverence. The King and Queen themselves bowed their heads toward you as a sign of respect, and when the Prince looked away indifferently, the Queen forced the boy down into a bow by grabbing his head and shoving it down, leaving you shocked. 

You were of lower rank than he, so there was no reason for him to bow his head to you. Noticing your confused state, the Dragon Queen spoke. “Rank is of little concern here, child. My son must learn a grain of respect if he is to be King.” With a small smile, you nod in understanding, too afraid to speak. Your nerves were bound to come through in your voice, and you refused to show signs of weakness in front of Dragons powerful as they.

Tonight was one of rest, and there were rooms for your royal guards to rest for the night before they had to make the journey back to Fae land. The Queen insisted you call upon a maid should you need anything, and personally escorted you to your room. Once alone, you took the time to bathe. A warm indoor spring was not something you were used to. Waterfalls were the bathing pools of choice in the Fae kingdom, though the warm water was welcome after your long journey. Soon you were in a nightgown and fast asleep in a warm bed of furs.

The next morning a maid came to wake you, and you were dressed by several handmaidens. The gown you wore was simple. A soft grey, long and flowing, with the fabric bunched at your shoulders in a sleeveless style and a low-cut back to accommodate your wings. You were escorted to the dining room, and you took the time to memorize parts of the castle.

The table itself was shorter than you expected, with only three seats on the longer sides and the usual single seats on the ends, already occupied by the King and Queen. Prince Katsuki sat to his mother’s right, and you were led to sit on her left, directly across from him. For the first time, you got a good look at the boy. 

Unruly ash blonde hair framed his face, which was chiseled and defined. His deep red eyes seemed to burn and glow like embers, and you had to look away from the intensity of his gaze on you. Your eyes were drawn to the exposed skin of his arms and collarbones, the muscles rippling underneath. You’d be lying to say he wasn’t incredibly handsome.

Through breakfast the Queen asked about your kingdom and its customs, and personal questions on how you felt about this alliance. You gave simple answers, having been trained to respond to such questions. She then walked you through the day, explaining how you’d be spending a lot of time with Katsuki not only for today, but all the way up until the wedding, which was set to take place in six months. The Prince scoffed at the idea.

“Why the hell do I even need to marry her? Why can’t I go find someone I like? I’m sure she’d rather marry someone she likes.” The Queen let out a low growl that could only be from a Dragon, directed toward her son. Her voice boomed through the hall. “Hold your tongue, boy. This alliance is important to both our kingdoms. You’ll do well to remember that.” He went silent with a snarl. She then turned her attention to you with a soft smile, the harsh edge gone from her voice.

“My apologies, dear. He can be...difficult. I hope your union can teach him some humility as well as respect for others.” With a soft smile, you nod. “I understand, my Queen. I pray I am not a burden to the Prince.” She chuckles and shakes her head as if you’d said something extremely amusing. Breakfast was soon over and you were left to spend the day alone with Prince Katsuki.

It was a rather difficult day. The Prince refused to speak, only voicing any irritation or anger he had for something he’d noticed. You were mostly quiet, in fear of angering him and possibly spoiling the union. He didn’t address you at all, and most interaction was awkward, but that was to be expected. You didn’t know each other. The King and Queen left the kingdom on a trip that was to last up until the week of the wedding, leaving you alone in the castle with the prince.

The first few weeks were relatively the same, little conversation between you and the Prince, silent meals, him angrily grumbling about one thing or another. You began to wonder if this was how life was going to be with him. It’s been nearly four months now, and he only ever addressed you briefly when he commented on one thing or another, though he was less angry lately. Tonight you lay awake in bed, stressing over whether or not you’d end up ruining this alliance. 

Sleep refused to come, and you decided rolling around in bed would do you no good. Silently, you stepped out of your room and padded through the castle aimlessly. Eventually you ended up on a lone balcony at the face of the castle, far above the entrance and off to the side, jutting out from the cliffside. The chill of the night air made gooseflesh pebble your skin, but you welcomed it. It had been a while since you’d flown.

Wrapping your night robe tight around your body and stretching your wings, you stood on the railing and leaned back, falling into the open air and sailing into the night sky. You missed the wind rushing past your feathers, whipping through your hair. It was cold, but it made you feel free and light, away from the pressure of the marriage and alliance. Little did you know a pair of red eyes were watching you from a more hidden balcony.

____

You were absolutely beautiful to him. Katsuki watched as you floated on the air. Your dark feathers barely catch the warm light from the castle, giving them a slight glint as they ruffled and moved. He watched as you darted up into the clouds, pulling your wings in and spiraling up through the thick barriers, then falling back downward with your wings stretched out below you.

You were mesmerizing, and he hated how quickly he’d grown fond of you. At first he thought you were some stuck up princess, like the Elf Prince Shouto Todoroki. But he was proven wrong rather quickly. You were intelligent, your opinions sound and logical, the complete opposite of him. He was rash and emotional, and he knew it. He soon came to respect you, though he couldn’t figure out how to speak to you for the life of him. He was always more a man of action. Words were not his forte.

But as he watched you in the night sky, he couldn’t help but be drawn to you. He wanted to fly with you, to dance with you through the air. He wanted to touch you, your skin, your feathers, even your horns. He’d never seen a Fae before, only drawings from books. Though those images were put to shame next to you. Your grace seemed unmatched, even compared to his mother, who was just as rough around the edges as he was.

He’d be embarrassed to say he observed you more than he had intended to. The way you walked as if you were floating, how you held yourself around others. Your posture was regal, poised, and yet full of humility and compliance. You looked like you understood your place in this world, like you knew why you were supposed to marry a Dragon in an arranged marriage instead of being able to choose who you loved.

His thoughts drifted as he watched you, and he found himself wanting to fly with you more and more as time passed. Unlike you, he could sprout his wings whenever he wanted, and soon his large leathery wings were fully formed, ready to lift him from his perch. And that’s exactly what he did.

____

You were so distracted with the rushing wind you didn’t notice the figure approaching you until you felt the air whoosh behind you unnaturally. Swiftly, you turned, and found a pair of glowing red eyes focused on you. Both of you stayed there, flapping softly in the wind to keep steady. He was the first to break the silence.

“It’s a bit late for you to be flying, Princess.” His unusually soft tone of voice had heat rushing to your face. You sputtered out your response, partially from his words, partially from your nerves. “I, uh, I’m sorry, my Prince. I had no idea that…uhm… that I wasn’t allowed to fly this l-late.” A deep chuckle rumbled in his chest, clearly amused. ‘Cute’ he thought to himself. “I didn’t say that, Princess. Just that it was rather late for you to be awake.” More heat flooded your face at his teasing tone.

He tilts his head, indicating for you to follow him, and he flits away, landing on the balcony you’d leapt off of. You were close behind, and landed next to him as his wings vanished into his back. A large hand was extended toward you and you took it, a bit hesitant, as he’d never engaged this much contact before. His warm hand enveloped yours, and he pulled you alongside him through the castle.

You cleared your throat quietly to speak. “Apologies, my Prince, but where are we going?” A small smirk graced his lips as he turned to you. “It’s a surprise, Princess. But I promise you’ll like it.” You gave a small nod and allowed him to guide you through the halls of the castle. He led you deep into the mountain, down corridors you hadn’t explored before, and soon you were walking down uncarved tunnels lit only by torches every few feet.

After a few minutes in the tunnels, the torches came to an abrupt stop, and you began to feel uneasy with the looming darkness. As if sensing your hesitation, the Prince turned and squeezed your hand in his. “Don’t worry, I promise I’m not dragging you to the dungeon.” His voice was playful, something you’d never heard from him before. Despite the mild discomfort of the underground depths, you trusted him and let him pull you into the darkness.

Once your eyes had adjusted, a faint glow came from somewhere further inward. He kept walking, further and further down the tunnel, and the glow consistently strengthened until you were sure you’d find the source behind each turn you took. Then he stopped, and turned to look at you over his shoulder. “You ready, Princess?” You nodded almost excitedly, and he pulled you with him around the corner. The sight before you stole the breath from your lungs.

The source of the cool glow was a gigantic cavern, the walls and ground littered with white, green, blue, and purple crystals, all glowing in the darkness, illuminating the space. The high ceiling was dotted with them as well, almost mimicking the night sky. In the center was a deep pool that reflected the light, the crystalline water perfectly still and undisturbed. Your wings ruffled as you took in the sight before you, the reaction involuntary.

In your wonder, you failed to notice the Prince had disappeared from your side. He called out to you once he had sunk into the water, and your eyes snapped over to him, heat rushing to your face in the realisation that he was naked. He seemed to sense your shyness, and let out a chuckle. “Come on, Princess. Won’t you join me?” Slowly, you made your way over to the pool, eyes focused on the steam rising from the water, and away from the very naked Prince.

You sank down to your knees a few feet from him, your wings wrapping around you slightly. From the corner of your eye you could see his head tilt at you, and you were sure he was smirking at your flustered state. With an amused hum, he turned his body away from you, giving you privacy to undress and dip into the water. Once you were in, you settled onto the ledge and hugged your knees close to your chest, your wings hiding most of your body. 

“Y-you can t-turn back around now, my Prince.” He shifted back to his original position, leaning against the edge of the natural pool and resting his arms up on the ledge, relaxing into the hot water. You were still a bit tense, not having been naked around a man before. His deep voice was playful as he spoke. “Relax, Princess. We’re to be married. I’ll see you eventually.” You could hear the teasing undertone and you hugged your knees in closer.

His eyes were now fixed on you. With a small sigh, he moved, and you squeaked as his arms wrapped under your wings and around your waist. He lifted you with ease, and positioned you to be straddled on his lap, face inches from his, strong arms holding you close. His eyes were glued to yours, and you couldn’t hold his gaze. It wasn’t the same intensity as the first time you’d looked at them. This time was a bit different, the burning in his eyes was not from anger.

A hand came up and cupped your cheek, shocking you from the gentle touch. His voice was just as gentle, soft as his eyes trailed over your features. “You’re beautiful, Princess.” Your wings puffed up slightly at his words, and his eyes snapped to them at the movement. “Can I touch them?” The question shocked you a bit, but you nodded, not trusting your voice. 

The hand that was on your face reached out and pet your feathers, gliding down your wing gently. Nobody had really touched your wings other than you, and it was only to clean them. This was a new sensation, and your wings shook lightly as your shoulders tensed a bit. Katsuki’s ministrations froze, and his voice turned slightly serious. “What is it? Did I hurt you?” 

You blinked at him before shaking your head. “No, no of course not. It’s just...nobody has ever touched my wings before…” He seemed to relax at that. Still, his hand pulled away from your wing in favor of holding your waist. He held you closer, and your breath hitched slightly at the close proximity, your noses inches apart. His breath was warm on your face. “You have no idea how bad I’ve wanted to hold you close like this, Princess.”

Your eyes widened at his words and he laughed a bit. “I’ll admit, Princess, you’d captured my attention rather quickly. I never quite knew how to talk to you. But I am impatient, and couldn’t wait to hold you.” You were giddy from his confession, and you leaned forward, burying your face into his neck and pressing your body into his. 

Up until now, your focus had been on the marriage and the alliance and making sure it went well. But now, knowing it would work out, you allowed your feelings to come into play. From the beginning you’d been taken with the handsome Prince. Within the first month you were no doubt falling for him. His attitude and personality was rather brash, but he was never aggressive toward you. Sure, he didn’t speak to you, but his actions spoke much louder.

He was a gentleman more often than not, holding doors open, escorting you to and from meals, even occasionally gifting you gowns and jewelry. You’d kept your emotions in check, though you knew by now you’d fallen head over heels for the man. Now, his arms tightened around you and you breathed in each other’s scents. His fingers massaged the skin in between your wings, and your body shuddered. It felt...good. Really, really good. You mewled into his shoulder, enjoying the new sensation.

You could feel him smirk into your neck as his fingers dug into the fluffy feathers at the base of your wings. With a gasp, your wings extended out behind you and fluffed up, all the feathers ruffling as you pressed your body tighter to his. A warmth began to build in your abdomen and between your legs, and you squirmed a bit, unsure what the feeling was.

His hands released your feathers and gripped your hips with a low hiss. “Quit your squirming, Princess. I don’t think I can control myself right now.” His voice was deep, and slightly strained. You lifted your head to look in his eyes, and his pupils were dilating, red irises now small rings. “What do you mean, my Prince?” His eyebrows raised slightly before his lips curled into a smirk. He brought your hips down, grinding you down onto him. 

That was when you felt it, his hardness rubbing against your thigh. A small gasp escaped your lips and heat bloomed from your chest up to your cheeks. He watched as your pupils matched his, irises disappearing into blackness. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips onto yours in a passionate kiss. When he finally let go you were both panting, and he leaned his forehead against yours. “Angel. My Angel.”

His eyes burned into your own as he spoke, his voice almost pleading. “Let me take care of you tonight.” You barely managed to nod before his lips were on yours again, this time hungry and wild. His tongue prodded at your lips and you let them part, let him explore your cavern in a mess of tongue and teeth. Without breaking the kiss his hands grabbed your thighs and began to lift, and your arms wrapped tight around his neck as he lifted you both from the warm water and walked.

You had no idea where he was taking you until he leaned and placed you down on soft pelts. Surprised, you pulled away to look around. The bed was situated behind a mass of towering crystals, hidden from the entrance. The blue glow illuminated the blonde’s face as he hovered above you, highlighting his features. You took a moment to admire just how beautiful he is, before his lips were on yours again.

His hands wandered freely now, groping the flesh at your hips and thighs, fingers massaging the soft skin there as his lips trailed down your neck and along your collarbones and shoulders. A thick finger found its way to your dripping core, and you let out a gasp at the feeling. You’d never laid with a man before, however you had to learn how to please one through books. You wondered briefly if the Prince had any real experience, before your mind was brought back to the moment as his finger pushed into you.

It wasn’t painful, and the mewl you let out let the blonde know you enjoyed it. His tongue attacked your pert nipples as distraction as he pressed another thick digit at your entrance, pushing it into your tight walls. A hiss escaped you from the slight burn, the stretch something you weren’t used to. Nothing had ever been inside you like this, the feelings foreign but pleasurable all the same.

His fingers maneuvered inside you, scissoring and curling and pumping until you were a panting moaning mess beneath him. His thumb dipped down into your wetness before reaching up to rub at the little bundle of nerves, making you flinch with the sudden jolt of pleasure, your wet walls clamping down on his fingers. A tightness built quickly in your abdomen the longer he kept his ministrations, and he leaned up to whisper in your ear. 

“I can feel you gripping me. Cum for me, sweet girl.” His mouth attached to your neck and sucked, adamant to leave a mark. It only took a few more moments for you to fall apart around the man’s fingers, legs and wings trembling, moans echoing through the cave. When you had come down from that high, he pulled his fingers from you and licked them clean, a deep groan pouring from his lips. 

Wrapping your legs around his waist, he lines himself up with your core, grasping your hip in one hand. “Are you ready for me, Angel?” Grabbing at the furs underneath you, you nod. “I’m ready, my Prince.” Slowly, he pushes himself into you, panting and growling, jaw clenched hard. The stretch burns, but only slightly, and soon you’re moaning and mewling beneath him. Finally fully seated inside you, his head drops to your shoulder and his arms wrap around you, holding you tight against him.

His breath is hot, blooming over your shoulder and neck, lips and tongue attacking the skin there. He holds his hips still, flush against yours, giving you time to adjust to him. When your walls relax around him, he begins to pump into you, shallow thrusts grinding himself into your walls. As he moves, his hands crawl up your back, fingers tangling into the base of your wings and massaging gently, making you moan out and wrap your arms around his neck.

He keeps his pace steady, but you can hear the strain in his breathing and feel his jaw clenched tightly. He’s holding back, and you don’t want him to. “Please, don’t hold back. I want all of you, Katsuki.” His movements stilled, you never used his name before. Pulling back, he peered down into your eyes as your hands held his face.

“You can have all of me, Angel, if you’ll be mine.” You leaned up and kissed him sweetly, “I’m already yours, my King.” A deep growl rumbled in his chest at your words, “Then you will have all of me.” He pulled his hips back and snapped back into you, setting a quick pace. Your breath came in pants and moans, the pleasure wracking through your body stealing the air from your lungs. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the cave, along with moans and growls and the smell of sex.

His arms held you tighter, fingers continuously digging into your feathers, lips latching onto your neck between heavy breaths. “Mine. My Angel, mine, mine. I love you my Angel.” You moaned out, your voice soft in his ear. “I love you my King. I’m yours, all yours forever.” His pace became erratic, and a hand came between your bodies to rub at the little nub between your folds. Only a few tight circles around it had you cumming and clamping down hard around his length, and he thrust into you hard. 

A few more thrusts and he stilled himself, letting out a deep guttural moan as he spilled his seed inside you, holding your body tight to his. He rolled over, laying you on top of him without removing his length from you. Your wings stretched out behind you, falling limp at your sides once they were relaxed. Katsuki peppered kissed along your hairline, whispering sweet nothings as your breaths calmed.

After a long, comfortable silence, he spoke. “Are you alright, Angel?” You smiled and kissed at his chest. “Never better, my King.” He hummed, the sound vibrating through your body. “We should get back to the main castle. The maids will panic if we’re missing.” You giggled at the thought of the maids running around like headless chickens searching for the two of you. With a nod, you sat up, and he lifted you off of him.

You swung your legs over the side of the bed and pushed up, but your legs were weak and gave way to your weight. Katsuki caught you easily, and scooped you up like you weighed nothing. After bathing in the pool once more, you both dressed and he carried you with him to his chambers, and you fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The next couple months you spent nearly all your time together. You sit side by side during meals, talk regularly, and spend free time alone on a balcony or in the crystal cave. As you spend time with him, you notice things about him you never would have guessed before. He’s extremely perceptive, smarter than his angry demeanor would lead most to believe. He hates lying, hates secrets and deceit, which showed through when he explained why he was so against the arranged marriage at first. 

The news was sprung on him only hours before you arrived, and he was angry that his parents had kept it secret from him. You noticed he was rather protective and liked skin contact, holding you tight to his body whenever he got the chance. He was thoughtful, his gifts were never useless, always something he was sure you would use and appreciate. Your favorite was the many custom jewels he had crafted for your horns. Some a delicate array of dainty silver chains and gems that glittered and swayed as you walked. Others golden wire, mimicking vines and leaves that twisted around and hugged your horns.

That was when you noticed his infatuation with your horns. He’d touch them often when your head was on his lap, tracing the intricate texture with his fingertips. He didn’t find them grotesque or intimidating like most others did, instead he found them beautiful and magical. He never tried to cover them, always adorning them with sparkling gems and glittering metal to accentuate the deep ebony.

He was curious, constantly asking questions about you, your home, and your customs. You grew to love the man more and more with every passing day, and as the wedding came and went you had no reserved feelings about the union. You loved Katsuki, the Dragon Prince, and he loved you, the Fae Princess. He was your King, and you were his Angel, and neither of you would have it any other way.