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activistvictor-blog · 9 months ago

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Kevin the villain assistant from Dorkly is hired to assist nightmare moon with her evil plan. And by assist, I mean literally tear about everything about it due to logical inconsistencies.

“Mwah hahaha,” nightmare moon laughed maliciously. “Finally, the thousand years of waiting are over, and we shall enact my master plan to rule equestria and bring eternal night!” Suddenly however, her monologue and malicious laughter were stopped by a splash of water to the face by her newly hired villain assistant, Kevin. “Kevin, what in the Tartarus was that!? We shall teach you better than to mess with.” But Kevin cut her off mid tirade.

“Oh yeah, I’m a big and scary alicorn of the night using the royal Canterlot voice to intimidate people and show how angry I am blah blah BLAH !.”

Kevin cynically replied, “I’ve heard it all before, so if you are willing to cut through the horse apples, I’d like to have a chat with you about your good old master plan!”

“Ah, so you wish to stroke our ego about the greatness of our plan 1000 years in the making?” Nightmare moon boasted, “Well then we might just be willing to look past that little splash!”

“Oh ho no, I wasn’t here to congratulate your plan, I’m here to tell you how much it FUCKING SUCKS!” Kevin replied angrily.

“What, our plan sucking? How dare thou !?” Nightmare moon angrily clapped back. “We have worked for a thousand years in exile to make sure it is absolutely foalproof! I challenge thou to find one single flaw with it infidel!”

“Oh yeah? Well I challenge myself to NOT find a flaw in EVERY part of it!” Kevin retorted! “For starters, your plan to do grand reveal as soon as you’re free! I mean really, your first order of business after being gone a thousand years is to just launch yourself at everyone in the middle of the festival to announce your return by yourself? What the hell kind of stupid idea is that!?”

“Stupid? Ha!” Nightmare moon angrily replied. “I must instill fear in my new subjects and let them know who their new ruler will be! The best way to do that is to announce my arrival and show my powers in spectacular fashion!”

“Oh it’s the best way to do SOMETHING alright! The best way to get your ASS…. er um FLANK kicked!” Kevin snapped back. “For one thing they HOPELESSLY outnumber you. What if one of them is a sly dog and catches you monologing as a chance to sneak behind you and strike you with a blunt object?”

“It will take more than blunt objects to stop…” Nightmare Moon clapped back before Kevin cut her off again.

“Or how about if they shoot you with a GUN!” Kevin replied, “Which in case you weren’t aware, is basically a device that can propel a lethal projectile at you faster than you could EVER hope to dodge or stop it. It’s literally a device made for killing, and for all you know that entire room could have those on them! The town you’re planning to do that in IS a country town after all!”

“A gun? Surely no such device could EVER exist?” Nightmare moon replied.

“Oh and this is coming from someone who lives in a world where ACTUAL magic exists!?” Kevin said. “If you can use magic to raise the sun and create force fields and whatnot, then I certainly think such a weapon, or at the very least a lethal spell which can avada kedavra your ass, is within the realm of possibility, and dare I say even LIKELY given how long you’ve been absent. And that applies to your sister the literal goddess Celestia and her guards as well. “

“But then how are we to take control if we cannot stop Celestia?” Nightmare Moon said, “I cannot rule while Celestia does!”

“I agree.” Kevin replied. “Which is why you need to go about it differently. The way I see it, you’ve been gone been so long you probably have long since faded from public mind, so why not use that to your advantage and sneak under the radar, Celestia is so busy handling politics and raising the sun and moon in your absence she probably won’t even remember the exact date until we’ll after it’s passed if she does at all! And even if she does remember, you can literally SHAPESHIFT! Become another pony like you did with that Shadowbolts plan demonstration you did last week! Or better yet, just transform into some nameless nobody no one will notice suddenly came into being and bide your time while you learn about new technologies, spells, snd geopolitical rivalries and how you can use those to your advantage when you do choose to strike! Heck, maybe you could even take a more proactive approach while your st it and infiltrate the government and bring it down from the inside without ever having to fight like Neighdolf Hitler!”

“Preposterous!” Nightmare replied,” “Neighdolf Hitler has an army backing him up, and no pony would ever actually want to aid me in bringing everlasting night!”

“Oh I think you overestimate the intelligence of the general public quite heavily” Kevin replied. “There’s LITERALLY an entire group of people where I come from who think the planet they live is flat.”

“Wait…. You’re kidding right ?” Nightmare Moon said aghast.

“Nope, you can’t make this shit up”” Kevin replied. “And there’s an even larger population of idiots around than just them. Did you know a fair number of people in a fandom about friendship based on your show seem to get a sick enjoyment in others’ misery and have missed all the morals it’s supposed to teach…. Especially on fanfic sites! Or that half of my entire country literally voted for a fascist a few years ago and got him elected despite him CLEARLY outing himself as horrible and saying things directly counting their own best interests? Actually, speaking of which, I actually have an appointment with him coming up next.” Kevin said, before he shook his head realizing he went on a tangent.

“Point is though” Kevin continued, “There’s always someone, er um somePONY, who will follow you if you look hard enough and know what to say, which slipping under the radar and NOT immediately exposing yourself in some stupid grand reveal gives you plenty of time to learn and enact on countless palookas looking for someone to follow and who you can throw under the bus if the plan fails while you escape and try again. Sure it might take a few years to do it, but what’s that compared to the thousand you were imprisoned for? If you’re gonna get revenge may as well do it right I say!”

“Ah…. I see, we thank thou Kevin for the valuable insight, we shall now go and engage in your master plan and use it to bring eternal night and rule Equestria.” Nightmare moon said, before Kevin splashed her again. “Grrrr! I swear to Celestia, soon to be myself, if you do that to us again…”

“Uh, no! You will not be bringing eternal night when you take over because that is the stupidest idea EVER!” Kevin snapped at her ignoring her threat.

“But we must show our might to the land and make others know how powerful we are in their everyday lives just by going outside.” Nightmare moon replied angrily. “And since the grand reveal instilling fear is out that is all we have left!”

“Look, I do respect the desire to be respected…. Something I never was from my two ex wives, but that is a HORRIBLE way to go about it!” Kevin replied. “You do realize you need sun to do some minor teeny weenie SUPER IMPORTANT things like, oh I don’t know, grow crops, make clouds for pegasi to shake rain from due to heat causing convection, or get sufficient vitamin D for example! If you take away the sun, you’ll be looking at a wasteland in ten years if you’re lucky! And how are you going to be respected if everyone who could do so is DEAD!? Assuming of course they don’t just French Revolution you and ffoverthrow you before that point and kill you instead. Let them eat moon cake as it were!”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Nightmare Moon replied.

“Oh yeah, forgot, alternate dimension! Doesn’t really make knowing French history all that easy.” Kevin mused, “The point is, don’t take away the sun, you’ll actually kill everyone and likely yourself due to starvation, drought, vitamin deficiency or an angry mob, and even if you don’t die for some reason, you’ll just be ruling a wasteland by yourself with NO ONE to respect you! No, what you do is use the sun as leverage! Demand the citizens follow you OR you don’t raise the sun. That will give them plenty of motivation to not try anything funny, because it’s not like they have the magical ability raise the sun if you’re out of the picture! So that leaves them two choices, either they overthrow you anyway and doom themselves to a slow painful death, or do your bidding for their own sakes, and if they’re anything like the people where I come from, when faced with an existential threats they will most certainly do the latter!”

“That…. Could be a potential solution too..” Nightmare Moon said.

“Uh huh” Kevin replied smugly. “But anyway, I gotta go, if I’m late to my next appointment he’ll grab me by the pussy! But before I go, is there is one thing I want to ask. Why are you so vehement about the night being a staple anyway? Like I know your whole schtick is night time so I could understand some desire, but you have an obsession so I’m thinking that isn’t the only reason is it?”

“Um….. you won’t judge us will you?” Nightmare Moon said.

“I’ve worked with people who LITERALLY snapped half of all living things into oblivion and who tried to kill a baby, there is NOTHING you can say which will faze me at this point.”

“Um….. we may or may not enjoy nighttime donkey shows” Nightmare said sheepishly.

“Aaaaand I stand corrected…..” Kevin said, “On the plus side though, at least you’ll fit right in with the sexually frustrated teens and spiteful miserable manchildren on the website I mentioned earlier!”

#kevinthevilllainassistant nightmaremoon mylittlepony

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thetalentedmrwulf · 2 years ago

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Alright, Pathfinder 2e build time again. This time - a Ghost Rider-y sort of character as requested by Daniel.

With this one, like most builds, the question is what part do you find coolest, so you know what to compromise. In this case, we like skull motifs, fire, dealing with supernatural stuff that doesn't belong, and a skull themed mount.

So we have some interesting options - a pretty great option would be pursuing a Champion build with Trick Driver to be great at Piloting a motorcycle, take Divine Ally (Mount) to get a mount. (Or, take Blade Ally to Smite Evil and have another way to get a mount - foreshadowing.)

Another option would be to go Magus so that your attacks with your chain are Spellstrikes, as you crack opponents with hellfire whips. This makes you a touch more spellcastery yet, but does keep you mostly offense focused unlike the Champion using Lay On Hands to heal allies. Here, you'd have to take Trick Driver for piloting but then work out something special to get that mount? Hm. (foreshadowing part 2)

Instead, we'll just go with option 3 - Barbarian

Ancestry - Human, Heritage - Duskwalker (With Duskwalker you are related to / suffused in the energy of the afterlife and the Psychopomps, the entities that make sure the dead get to their final judgment)

Background - Returned (Hey, it's a background for being back from the dead. Go figure.)

Class- Barbarian - Elemental Instinct (Fire)

So we pick the class of Barbarian that gets all fiery when they get mad, lean heavy into Intimidation feats like Intimidating Glare that lets you Demoralize foes with a glance, and Duskwalker heritage feats that make you good at hunting ghosts and seeing in the dark. Attributes focus on Con for health and Str for Athletics, damage, and attack. Then give them a combat grapnel as a weapon, reflavored to be a chain.

Combat grapnels seem to have some... odd... rules about exactly how they work as they're supposed to be two-handed, but allow you to reel them back in with one hand, a range that's longer than the attached rope you should be pulling it back with... Ugh. Probably fodder for the Remaster in a month. I'm ruling that they can function as a thrown grapple like a net at 10 ft., but if you're just trying to climb a wall, you can chuck it 20 ft.

Then, at second level we take Undead Master (this is what we could've used on the other two but didn't,) take the Skeletal Horse, and either use it as a Skeletal Horse or use the same stats and just reflavor it as a motorcycle. Vroom vroom, and Titan Wrestler so we can wrestle with even bigger things than normal.

So you're built to hunt things not in the right plane, have a skeletal ride, your attacks are fire based, you have the ability to grab enemies with your weapon, and will focus on upping our Intimidation and Athletics until we get to the point where we can wrestle with giants and literally scare them to death with our hateful glare, all the while beating them with fiery chains. When you turn on your Rage, I don't even see a reason you couldn't flavor it as turning into a flaming skeleton as long as you get no mechanical benefit from it.

Enjoy!

#pathfinder 2e #pathfinder #ttrpg #ghost rider #character creation #concept

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fandomhell97 · 4 years ago

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❄Snowflakes and Lightning⚡

Hankcon Witcher AU

Chapter 1

He lives deep in that veil, mint and lavender growing wild amongst the ferns and moss along with the great trees that kept the whole forest shady and cool, almost like that of a cave. Blue wisps of light, dancing in the foggy darkness like fireflies, seeming to draw curious souls in until they disappear once they are seen. Locals grew curious, especially since the woods were ripe with wildlife and food, plenty of mushrooms and berries. At first the elf watched secretly, allowing some to forage at the edge. He had thought there was enough to share for them to be happy. In time one buck hunted from the glen had been enough to feed the small village but they returned for more, wanting more than could be shared. So when the rowdy bandit types from the village came they tore through the ancient sprawling pines and oaks, damaging the old trees and snatching any and everything through their path till they were halted, blue surges of energy warping around them like a mix of azure flames and lightning. They merely saw the figure of the elf in the shadows before they took off screaming, the forest soon falling into a rare and eerie silence. He frowned to himself, calming the spooked horses and ridding them of their saddles before they took off into a distant field. They could be free now. A heavy sigh left the elf as sad brown eyes assessed the damage before going back deeper into the woods to safety, a hand lingering on an injured trunk. The bandits would ride back to the Village, spinning tales of a monster in the woods, an "evil guardian" and such lies, explaining how they had barely gotten away with their lives. They went on about their plight in an inn just as a wandering traveler bearing two swords on his back entered the inn. A witcher medallion hung around his neck bearing the face of a snarling wolf.

It had been a hell of a time traveling through Velen, his steed seeming to grow a bit weary after a day's travel through the war land, finally approaching more woods and pastures. It was definitely a nice reprieve from the fields full of bodies and corpse eaters and ghouls. Necrophages were not pleasant monsters to deal with. At least here it smelled a little better than the perpetual rot and stench of decay that seemed to cling to his leather and metal plated armor. And yet the woods held their fair amount of dangers, just hidden beyond the sight of most. Hank felt relief sink into his bones as his golden cat eyed gaze noticed the approaching village. Though small, perhaps he could finally get a drink at an inn and try to find more contracts. Hank made a beeline to the closest, and only rest stop the tiny village held, dismounting and taking up the pale silver Appaloosa stallion, Blizzard and making sure the horse had plenty of food and water before he made his way into the rundown building.

Hank had spent the night in the inn, drinking and catching the local gossip, most of the locals steering clear of him, his aura alone intimidating but it was the two swords strapped to his back that made the patrons give him a wide berth, shaky voices whispering 'witcher' as if Hank would kill and devour them if he heard. Which he did, easily in fact though he didn't make that fact known. It was bad enough he was called a freak for his mutations, they didn't need to know just how strong they made his senses as well. Besides, the men earlier had been brave enough to approach him about a contract in the area, and a big one at that. So left to brew with the thoughts of his current objective, Hank downed the last of his ale, knowing he'd soon be able to afford plenty more. A damn shame the villagers had no clue as to what was in the woods besides a 'beastie' or 'devil' but it was a good thing he was a professional. By the time dawn broke the next day the Witcher got ready, making sure he had plenty of alchemy ingredients so he could replenish his stock of potions and oils to coat his blades. While not knowing what he was up against, the most he could do was strengthen the enchantments on his swords making sure they'd deal plenty of freezing damage to whatever they strike. The same went for the bombs at his belt. He was set for whatever came his way. He had a hunch that this 'Forest Guardian' was something along the lines of a Leshen but he couldn't be sure. It wasn't long before he was saddled up and riding out from the little village of Heatherton to the thick sprawling thicket of woods before him. Along the edge of the trees Hank dismounted, shushing and patting his steed Blizzard, the silvery Appaloosa named after his rider's favorite bomb to use, the stallion's markings reminding the Witcher of snowflakes.

"Just sit tight now boy, can't follow me in here, fuck knows whats there."

Hank took that moment to narrow in on his senses, heightening then to the point he could hear a pin drop, hear the heart beats and sounds of lurking beasts. There were signs of damage on the edge of the trees as he passed them, noting what looked like blades had gone through the wood and evidence of poorly shot arrows. Hank was a professional for a reason and it was easy for him to see the signs of a fight had broken out. And given by the blood left behind this had all occurred a few days ago at most, the crimson still tacky. He was deeper in the woods yet, following the trail till it cut off, Hank on one knee examining the prints left behind until the woods went quiet, just a hint more, a single small snap behind him had him whirling just as a figure lunged at him.

Hank had made a split second move when he heard the snap, his golden cat eyes narrowing to slits when he saw a faint reflection of a distant figure in the reflection of the metal of his sword. He could make out it was a humanoid that was rushing him through the shaded foliage, moving almost lithe like a cat. In that second Hank reached for a bomb at his belt, lobbing it at the figure just as he rounded on his heel, standing no longer with his back turned to the enemy. It was a reckless fake out and yet the bomb made its mark, a yell cut short when as soon as the impact hit there was a gale of storming wind whirling within a ten foot radius of Hank's throw. Ice formed around the figure, freezing him put, the plants frozen solid as if preserved, little bits of hail and snow swirling as the Witcher guarded with his silver sword,preparing to attack. His breath caught however when the snow didn't stop but instead sparked as if lightning formed around them, a blue glow emanating from him. Hank got finally a good look at just what he was up against but never did he expect an elf. Time seemed to stop. Gold eyes met earthy umber, lit alight like blue fire by the magic wisping around him, even the hail had remained stuck in the air like floating diamonds, the chilling wind coming to a controlled breeze. Silver blade rested along a pale column of neck dotted by freckles as several spears of ice sparkling with electricity, nearly humming as they pointed at Hank from all around. A perfect stalemate filled with tension, both hesitating long enough their meeting gaze showed they had no intention to kill unless pushed. Understanding this and the position he was in, Hank slowly lowered his blade and only then did the magic back off from him. The elf, wearing little more than a simple leather armor dyed blue, eyed the armored man before him, brow furrowing slightly before he finally spoke.

".. You're not from the Village."

Despite the tension Hank couldn't help but roll his eyes with a huff and shoot the other a look.

"Yeah no shit, what gave it away?"

(Author's note: this is my first time posting any sort of content so I'm sorry if the layout is a bit rough and tagging is difficult so I may repost with better tags. And yep this is going to be a ship fic! It's a comfort ship for me so if you aren't a fan of the ship please be respectful and don't send hate. Other than that I hope you enjoyed so far!)

#first fanfic #hankcon #witcher au #may repost with better tags #since i have no idea how to tag #yes this is a ship fic #please no hate #its a comfort ship #hank x connor #dbh connor #connor x hank #dbh hank #hank anderson

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cloudycrystalkpop · 4 years ago

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SMOKY | Hell Below

Blind! Prince! Mingi x [unstated skin deformity] fem! reader

Words: 2k+

Warnings: self harm, possessiveness, demonic interaction

au: crown royal au | moodboard

series masterlist: SMOKY

Seonghwa paced back and forth in front of your door. He was placed on guard duty this evening and it was slowly torturing him.

Normally he would never complain, more than happy to forgo his own rest to know that his princess slept safe and sound. However, he was very aware that at the moment, his princess was not sleeping at all.

He gritted his teeth as he heard your voice moan out a name in pleasure. The name of your husband. A name that wasnt his.

Seonghwa squared his shoulders. He had made you a promise, one a very very long time ago.

When he was the man having you sing such pretty praises. When he wrote his name in calligraphy with his tongue between your thighs.

A promise he painted into your skin, one very late night. Kissing every patch that made you shy. Every inch that your family frowned upon. Every piece you had ever wanted to burn off.

"I will protect you, until the day my heart stops beating, And surely even after."

he is more than just a knight. No, after holding you, bare as the day you were born, shaking in his arms. After the words of hate and disgust at the case your very soul lived in, at watching you take blades to try and peel the unwanted flesh away, he would never ever let you hurt yourself again.

He would never abandon you, even if you took his heart right out of his chest, it was always yours anyway.

Seonghwa held his head in his hands. He was always yours anyway.

"They sure are loud huh?" Seonghwa jumped and reached for the sword on his belt at the voice.

"Sorry, bad night?" Hongjoong asked, standing before the heartbroken man.

"Yeah just, stuck in my own head." Seonghwa admitted. The other man nodded, scanning him with curious eyes.

"You and your princess sure are, close." he stated. The words curled on his tongue, watching Seonghwa flitched as the sound of a high pitched groan came from the lover's room.

"We... Used to be." he replied.

"I see. Makes sense why youre not so fond of that Duke." he quirked an eyebrow, a sly grin pulling at his features. "Hey, you wanna know a secret~" the man purred.

"Not tonight Hongjoong. Im not in the mood for your teasing." Seonghwa frownd.

"Hmm~ if you say so." his smile pulled into a playful childlike one, before Hongjoong skipped off down the hall, leaving Seonghwa alone with his thoughts once more.

Hongjoong purred to himself as he glanced over his shoulder as the knight stood at the lovers door. Lust is a very powerful tool in his bag of tricks, one that, it looks like, will do him very, very well.

you spent your days now often with Yeosang, his experience and wisdom helping you greatly in easing your nerves. he told you many stories, explained much about the kingdom you had never dared to venture around in.

whenever you did leave your family's estate, it was always with Seonghwa as your loyal guard. a long veil to hide you away from the world, or heaven forbid you simply, existing taint your family name.

you remembered the day The King died. he was an old man, had been sick for years. while not beloved by his people, he was well respected, and yet. when he passed, no one knew anything about him. there was no mourning, for there was no loss.

The Queen had fully stepped into power then, ten years younger than her husband she was more than capable of leading. and so it had been since your early teens. The Queen was now however, ready to pass her power, rather than see it out live her too, just like her husband.

and that, was where the crown prince and princess had come in. the pair lost at sea in a tragic shipwreck, the kingdom scrambling to find a new replacement. you and Mingi were nobles, sure. second rate royals even, your father once a prince, a second born. Mingi was next in line to become a Duke, chosen over Yeosang for your hand in marriage for, such a trivial reason. or so you thought.

“my family comes from the Valley, My Lady. Lord Mingi’s comes from the Sea.” Yeosang explained, an, almost forlorn look in his eye. “when yourself and your husband were married, it showed a joining of the land and the sea. loosening trade deals with other lands, its... business I'm afraid.”

“that’s all marriage is good for after all anyway. its just business.” you gazed off out the window, watching the roses sway in the morning breeze. the garden was beautiful, flowers in full bloom.

“I’m sorry you feel so my lady. but, you must admit how darling and romantic an idea it is.” Yeosang followed your gaze.

“to be married?” you wondered.

“the prince of the sea, wed to the princess of the forest. and a man who cannot see, tied to a woman never allowed to be seen.” he hummed softly.

“sounds like a horrible tragedy of a play to me.” you shook your head, eyes falling to your lap. “I should have a word with the playwright.”

“would you have preferred a different ending?” Yeosang wondered, dropping his head down to force you to look him in the eye. you chuckled, watching the corners of his eyes crinkle in a smile.

“I haven't decided.” you answered. “...are the flowers in the valley in bloom this time of year?” you asked.

“oh yes. the wild flowers were always my favorite as a boy. my sisters and I used to go out and make crowns out of them.” his voice was soft, eyes far away. caught in a memory from boyhood.

“...will you take me there some time, Yeosang?” his gaze focused back on you once more.

“if you wish to see it My Lady.” he grinned. “I will braid you a crown so lovely the royal jewels will be jealous.”

“promise me?” your voice betrayed you. a crack of pain hidden away there.

such a very different ending you could have had. one where you could spend your life safe, hidden away from the judgment and piercing eyes your mother always frightened you of. flowers in your hair, children at your feet, a husband who could provide for your every need. free to play in the forest of your childhood. there was no judgment from the trees, nor would you find it in the open fields.

“you have my word... My Lady.”

but your life was no fairy tale. you were to be queen of a kingdom you barely knew. sure, you had a husband, a man to wear the title of “king”, but both you and Mingi knew, the queen is the most powerful piece on the board.

“My little Prince~” you called to the darkness of the room as you returned to your chambers for the evening. “Mingi?” you cooed once more, looking around for the tall man.

“we need to talk.” you nearly screamed, the voice was not your husband’s. upon turning on your heel, you came face to face with...

“Seonghwa! you nearly had me jump out of my skin!” you huffed, smacking the man on the side of his arm.

“hey! I'm sorry I scared you but, I'm serious.” he sighed, rubbing his arm.

“very well.” you huffed, seating yourself on the plush bed and waiting for his explanation. Seonghwa shuffled, changing his weight from one foot to the other, gaze fixed on the floor. “well? when did you become so awkward?”

“since I had to listen to you having sex for hours last night.” he growled. your ears glowed hot, but you choked the embarrassment down.

“I am sorry, I'm sure that was a bit.. uncomfortable-”

“you don’t get it do you, Princess.” he lifts his eyes to meet yours. “I love you.”

a lump forms in your throat. you do not move, only stare him down, unblinking, unreactive.

“I have been in love with you for almost five years now. I was the one who took your virginity, I was the one who held you when you cried, I was the only who protected you from the evils of this world. and I-” his voice cracked. Seonghwa, your loyal knight in shining armor, the one who had been by your side for the better half of your life, was in tears before you.

“I love you! I'd do anything for you! I've been with you since you were just a young girl! I've stood beside you through everything! and I can't pretend that it doesn't hurt me anymore!” his eyes sparkled with tears, cheeks damp and voice horse.

“... I-” you never got a chance to finish your thought as the door swung open once more.

Mingi stood in the doorway, blank eyes staring straight ahead of him, his face blank of any emotion.

“get. out. of. our. room.” never had you heard the intimidation in Mingi’s voice before. his voice rumbled deep in his chest, but his tone now, was that of a final, deadly warning.

Seonghwa stared at Mingi, shoulders taught, fists clenched. but he didn't say a word.

“...you are dismissed Seonghwa.” you finally broke the tense silence between the two man.

“as you wish, My Princess.” Seonghwa made his way towards the door, stepping past Mingi, only to be halted by said man shoving him against the wood, hard.

“if you dare, to even think of touching my wife, if even the thought of her in such context even passes your mind,” he growls. “I will have you executed for adultery.”

Mingi stepped away from a very shocked Seonghwa.

“she may be your Princess, but she will be your Queen. and never, for a moment forget, she will only be your queen, and she is my wife.” and with that he slammed the door shut.

Mingi developed a possessiveness over you, you must admit you didn’t expect. the once shy boy who could barely speak to you, now kept one hand on your person at all times you were together. when asked he said he preferred you guide him over a staff member. but you know by now Mingi knew this castle perfectly fine. he didn't need help or a guide anymore. he was lying.

he also got rather upset if you were left alone with another person too long, without himself or his chosen guard close by. his chosen guard? Hongjoong.

you woke one morning to find bruises so deep on your hips and chest they looked like black ink in the mirror. Mingi was marking you now. like you were something that belonged to him.

knowing who you needed to speak with, you snuck away one morning, before the sun rose. to find Hongjoong.

“your highness! what a pleasant surprise~” the handsome man cooed.

“may I speak with you? in private.” you glanced to the rest of the guard, Seonghwa the only one not meeting your gaze.

“oh? absolutely. please, come with me.” Hongjoong lead you out into the gardens, just as the first touches of dawn peeked over the skyline.

“alright creature. out with it. what have you done to the prince.” you growled, arms crossed as you glared at Hongjoong.

“such mean words from the ‘princess’ herself~” he smiled a grin, one a little too long and a little too wide for his face.

“why are you here?”

“what a stupid question! you already know that answer~ otherwise you wouldn’t have asked to speak to me, alone.”

“fine, who summoned you?”

Hongjoong chuckled, one in tone too deep for the voice he speaks with. “the dead king of course. but that was a long time ago you see.”

“speak to me truthfully creature, did you make a deal with Mingi?” you glared him down. while your experience with his kind was limited, you understood the one true weakness they had. they cannot directly lie.

Hongjoong grinned once more, that same unnatural once, the one that extended too far up his face, showing teeth a human man wouldn’t have. his eyes crinkled at the edges in the grin, the white parts of his eyes turning dark as a bruise.

“no.”

you held back a whimper at his voice. inhuman. demonic. bloodcurdling.

“...thank you. you are dismissed.” you blinked, and the man was back as he was. charming smile and handsome features glowing once again in the dawn.

“as you wish, your highness.” and with that, he walked back into the castle. leaving you alone in the garden, a ring of dead grass surrounding where the pair of you had stood.

#mingi x reader #smoky au #prince au #demon au #knight au #seonghwa x reader #yeosang x reader #Hongjoong x reader #mingi au #Seonghwa au #Yeosang au #Hongjoong au #Ateez x reader #Ateez au #Ateez sereis #mingi series #royal au #fantasy au

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renegadewangs · 4 years ago

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Van Zieks - the Examination, part 5

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

It’s time to return to the first game for case 5, The Unspeakable Story!

Episode 5: The Unspeakable Story – Part 1

Prepare yourselves, this is a big one! So big, even, that I'm going to have to split it into two parts. Fortunately, we can skip over the entire Investigation segment, because virtually none of it is relevant to Van Zieks. In fact, we don't even learn Van Zieks is the prosecutor until we enter the courtroom and see him standing there. Somehow, no one thought to ask who Ryu would be facing. What we do learn during the Investigation is confirmation that McGilded was indeed a lying scumbag who murdered Thrice-fired Mason. He asked Gina to lie for him in a court of law, too. So indeed, Ryu backed the wrong horse in The Runaway Room and Van Zieks was right to suspect the defense of deceit. He was wrong in how he worded half his arguments, though.

An extra thing worth noting is that after the conversation in which the blood is found on Gina's coat and the truth of McGilded comes out, it's revealed that Gregson was hiding nearby in the shadows. He insists he didn't eavesdrop and only just walked in, but it's implied much later in the trial that he knew about the blood on the coat. This means that Gregson is, from this point on, holding the full knowledge that McGilded was McGuilty in the omnibus murder.

So into the courtroom we go, where it is shown we're facing Van Zieks. (And nobody is surprised, because who else would it have been? Auchi?) It is now two months after the Runaway Room and the two Clouded Kokoro cases, so immediately upon starting the trial, the judge basically asks Van Zieks whether he's gone insane- in his own words, that is. First he asks how many years it's been since Van Zieks retired, to which Van Zieks replies that it's been five. The judge notes that Van Zieks resurfaced rather suddenly two months ago, (then basically handled three cases in a single week,) and showed up again today.

HAH. I love how on the nose this judge is when it comes to dissing the prosecution. He goes on to state that Van Zieks used to deal exclusively in matters concerned with 'the highest echelons of society and government', yet today he's trying 'a simple case of burglary and murder'. We already learned this from Gregson in case 1-4, but it's nice to have it repeated again.

Van Zieks replies that there's two things he cannot abide: “Wealthy scoundrels who hide behind a mask of philanthropy-” (hi McGilded!) and... “Secondly- even more loathsome... Those wily scoundrels who masquerade as allies only to effect total betrayal in the final hour.”

So that settles it then. He's specifically taken on his three most recent cases because there were Japanese people involved. He's also outright admitting that which Ryu had already guessed: Van Zieks hates Japanese people and going by his wording (“betrayal”, etc.) he has some bad experiences. Ryu wonders whether that 'torrid look of hatred' in Van Zieks's eyes is directed at him or at all Japanese people. Frankly, I think that in a subconscious sense, it's neither. The way I see it, that torrid look of hatred is directed at a man who died ten years ago. But I'll get back to this when it's time to address the backstory. The judge finds that an “alarmingly scathing explanation”, but welcomes the Reaper of the Bailey back to court all the same.

I love the implication that Van Zieks can apparently just come and go as he pleases in terms of prosecuting. Retirement can just be upturned on a whim and he's allowed to choose any case he wants. Who even is keeping him informed on which cases are happening and who the defense is? Is there a Chief Prosecutor in play we don't know about or is Stronghart slipping notes into his letterbox? Or has Van Zieks been entering the prosecutor's office every day for the past two months, demanding to hear news of 'that Nipponese attorney'?

So anyway, Van Zieks lays out the opening statement, pours himself a glass of wine, accuses Ryu of jumping to conclusions and reveals that he has witnesses. Remember when he threw aside his cloak halfway into 1-3 and it was seen as a big deal? … Yeah. It's not much anymore, now. He gets rid of it before the first witnesses have even taken the stand. The guys called forth are literal criminals who happened to break into the scene of the crime and, according to Van Zieks, “will face trial in the very near future” for their “various trespasses”. Alright, so he's acknowledging he's called forth some sketchy witnesses, but considers the murder itself far more sinister than their burglary.

Ryu manages to prove the taller Skulkin brother fired a gun at the crime scene and in doing so, struck poor innocent (S)Holmes. (Ryu presents a picture of a blood-stained calendar with a bullet in it to prove this, yet ten minutes later, he'll present the exact same picture and the entire court will act as if they'd never seen it before. Awkwaaard.) Van Zieks pours himself another glass of wine, toasts to Ryu's incompetence and later has another micro-aggression:

Scumbag points! And also possibly hilarious foreshadowing if he's referring to either Asogi Sr. or Mikotoba here. Though it's hard to say how well acquainted Van Zieks was with (S)Holmes and his partner roughly 16 to 10 years ago. Anyway, Van Zieks flings another chalice and basically admits that he already knew these two criminals gunned down (S)Holmes, but made a deal with them not to get into that. Though technically, Ryu was the one who got into it by proving it in court, so Van Zieks didn't break any unscrupulous deals. And maybe he was even expecting Ryu to do so? Maybe that's why he was pushing Ryu to present evidence? Either way, Van Zieks now owes 'his Nipponese friend' a word of gratitude, since he helpfully confirmed the two brothers couldn't possibly have shot the victim. Only one bullet was fired from their pistol, after all, and if it hit (S)Holmes it couldn't possibly have killed Windibank.

Van Zieks proceeds to “take a moment to consider the aforementioned Great Detective, Mr. Sholmes” (KEEP THIS LINE IN MIND), and brings up the security cameras (S)Holmes planted at the pawnshop so that he can present a picture of the defendant waving a pistol at the victim. Why didn't he present this evidence immediately instead of asking two shady burglars to testify? Who even knows, man. He's being erratic, just as the judge said. The jurors have seen enough and vote guilty, so it's time for a Summation Examination! Van Zieks poured himself another glass of wine before Ryu even asserted his right to that, because he knew it was coming. He has to stand in silence and so he will drink.

(Juror No 1, aka Mr. Garrideb, proceeds to piss me off by oggling the maid juror. I thought the whole point of this character was that his wife misunderstood and jumped to conclusions; that she's been punishing him wrongfully since he does indeed love her and will stand by her side no matter what, but apparently not.) Some tomfoolery later, we require the prosecution's help to prove stereoscopes are just as cool as wireless telegraphy.

I honestly think it's hilarious that he's meant to stay silent but has broken that rule several times, so now we're taunting him by asking him a direct question during the Examination. So after it's been proven the two criminals moved some stuff around inside the pawnshop, four jurors vote not-guilty and the trial continues. The two witnesses get called back to the stand and---

… Okay. So he definitely is against perjury. He seems to hate it, even. He apparently keeps giving them the evil eye as they testify, intimidating Ringo into telling the truth. But I just can't shake the memory of him feeding a lie to Shamspeare in Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro. Also, the game very much caught me off guard during this testimony when I presented a piece of evidence which wasn't correct, but instead of leading to a penalty led me to a unique set of dialogue not found when presenting other wrong evidence. That is to say, I presented a picture of Gina holding the sole gun to disprove the testimony that both she and Windibank were wielding guns, which led to:

Isn't that what we often do in these games? Van Zieks clearly hasn't been paying attention. Anyway, the judge points out that so long as I couldn't prove that Gina was still holding the only gun some time later, when Windibank was shot, the evidence wasn't relevant. So I had to present the picture of Windibank's body (not holding a gun) instead. Ryu manages to point out through that picture that the Skulkin brothers were lying and-

OKAY OKAY. I GET IT. Van Zieks hates perjury with a burning passion and Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro messed up. The trial continues on to the point where Ryu manages to suggest that the Skulkin brothers shot Windibank and Gina then locked the door to save herself. At first Van Zieks is shocked at the notion, but after Ryu details his logic, he just puts his hands down on the desk and chuckles.

This is the first time we see something close to laughter from him, and it's not even really laughter. It's just a malicious, bitter little noise. In fact, we've never seen him smile. He's not even smiling now, as he cackles. That's a stark contrast from other prosecutors, who all smile/smirk as they gloat. Barok's facial expression barely changes at all. Are they building up to something? Anyway, the judge wonders why Van Zieks finds this amusing, as he found the argument quite persuasive himself. Van Zieks pours himself another glass of wine and says:

“But such blatantly malicious conjuring tricks amount to nothing more than inexcusable pettifoggery here. Because you see, it contains a fatal flaw!”

Scumbag points! He then proceeds to imply all the members of the jury are too dimwitted to count (as he flings his chalice). Bullets, that is. There were two bullets found at the crime scene and there were two guns recovered, each having fired one bullet. So if the Skulkin brothers had shot (S)Holmes, they couldn't possibly have shot Windibank as well.

Bye wine bottle, rip person sitting behind him. Van Zieks proceeds to slander Gina for being “far from a law-abiding citizen” and having “a past riddled with criminal misconduct”. To further illustrate his point, he presents a piece of evidence that the defendant attempted to steal the day beforehand, not with the subtlety of a pickpocket but by brute force and brazen impudence. Gregson loses it at this point, shouting out a loud “Hold it!” before losing his nerve and stammering his way through his protest. He mentions that there was a meeting with the prosecution service where it was agreed that piece of evidence wouldn't be used. Ryu is baffled and thinks this:

And now I'm baffled as well, because thinking back on it... Yes, Gregson has talked about Van Zieks before in Investigation segments and has been called in to testify, but as far as I can recall, he hasn't ever addressed Van Zieks directly. Fascinating stuff. Van Zieks says he's unaware of this meeting- probably because he found out Ryu's defending later on and snatched this case up at the last second. Perhaps even took it from the originally-assigned prosecutor with brute force and brazen impudence. Gregson insists that 'the government bigwigs' were very insistent about not using the disc as evidence, to which Van Zieks says:

Good gracious, Van Zieks is a loose cannon! … Or wait, maybe he's a reckless renegade? Or is he perhaps a prosecutor on the edge with nothing to lose? (Alright, put on a pot of coffee- we're gonna get to the bottom of this!) ...Either way, the prosecution thinks it's sufficiently made its case by establishing motive, opportunity and baseness of character.

OY! I thought you don't read third-rate detective stories! But Iris specifically wrote that line into existence, so he must have. Me thinks we've got a closet Adventures of (S)Herlock (S)Holmes fan on our hands, here. The jury buys into his slander, votes guilty, Iris accuses him of being mean and Ryu enters Summation Examination mode a second time.

Oh he knows what he's in for. He knows. Several minutes of talking about bullets later, the topic of (S)Holmes's waist pouch is brought up and Iris wonders whether perhaps the bullet hit one of the glass vials with flammable content. Van Zieks suddenly speaks up with an “If I may...”, catching the startled attention of Ryu in particular.

“I should inform the defence that I have the pouch in question in the antechamber outside the courtroom. As I understand it, when the police arrived on the scene and found Mr Sholmes injured, they removed the pouch in order to assess the wound. Since then, it has been in my safekeeping along with all other evidence relating to the case. I can personally vouch for the fact that it has not been touched since the incident occurred.”

This whole plotline cracks me up with how little sense it makes, considering the position of this pouch on (S)Holmes's outfit. But I'm not here to criticize plot-convenience of evidence, so let's move on and look at what's actually happening here. The defense is discussing possibilities with the jurors in hopes of changing their minds towards a not-guilty and instead of keeping silent, as he's supposed to during this moment, Van Zieks actively speaks up to admit he has a piece of evidence which may be of assistance. It's entirely possible that the pouch would have all three vials intact and thereby dismiss the theory that the bullet hit one of them, but... Regardless of whether he remembers seeing a broken vial with his own eyes, he's taking a risk by showing the pouch. He could've played by the Summation Examination rules, kept his mouth shut and then later when it comes out he had the pouch all along, just remind everyone he wasn't allowed to speak. That's what most prosecutors would've done. Naturally, it's revealed there was indeed a broken vial and some scorched leather, and even closer examination reveals a third bullet we can present to the jurors.

Scumbag point! So with all the confusion on the third bullet and the implication of there being a third gun, the judge does something pretty extraordinary. He doesn't wait for the jurors to change their leaning and instead actually suspends the Summation Examination until the matter is cleared up. This implies any judge has the power to overrule juror leanings, at the very least during Summation Examination, when they feel the case presented by the counsels is lacking important details. Anyway, closing argument on hold for now and the Skulkins return to the stand. Barok looks them straight in the eyes with his usual evil eye and asks them whether the third gun is one of theirs. When that's denied, he asks whether they had an accomplice, which is also denied. And it's kind of funny, because only a few minutes later when Ryu implies they had an accomplice, we get this line:

“Yet in all that time, there has been not a murmur of a third man. If this apparently wraithlike being exists...” pause for chalice crush... “The court must be shown hard evidence!”

But Van Zieks was the one who questioned the Skulkins about an accomplice earlier, so... Indeed, we don't have evidence, but the murmur was definitely already there. So now the prosecution wants two things: evidence there was a third person on the scene and their identity. The game prompts two options: Either present an answer to the prosecution's demands or, y'know, don't. Naturally I chose the latter option to see what happens and it goes about as well as you'd expect. Ryu stutters and trails off, Van Zieks notes the defense is unable to complete a sentence, let alone provide credible answers... Iris takes the place of Susato in telling Ryu off for faltering, so Ryu desperately tries to catch himself and push his argument. Van Zieks says: “So, my Nipponese friend, despite the swimming eyes you seem to think you have something to say...”

PENALTY FROM THE PROSECUTION, oh how I've missed you. Loading up the savegame and choosing the first option actually also leads to the exact same line of “so, my Nipponese friend, despite the swimming eyes you seem to think you have something to say...”, just with a slightly different posture and followed up with the words “this promises to be interesting.” Ryu presents the blood sample on the calendar once more and as I said before, the court acts as if they've never seen this picture before. Hilarious. Van Zieks asks why the blood is depicted as green and Ryu explains it's because of a new chemical (S)Holmes invented. The green blood is then linked to Eggert Benedict through the music disc. The court gets very excited, but much like the skin prints in case 2-2, this isn't admissible evidence. Van Zieks says “this has gone on long enough now. This flagrant ignorance of the mechanics of law.”

“The protagonist in a series of short stories for the vulgar classes. A god of detection or some such. And now you employ chemical substances devised by this fantastical persona in the highest court in the land? Do you expect us to take you seriously? The samples made by this plaything are not fit to be called evidence.”

These lines! I had a quick look at both Scarlet Study's and Taisa's scripts, and there Van Zieks outright accuses (S)Holmes of being a fictional character. He doesn't actually diss the stories themselves though, nor is there anything similar to that plaything line. He only says the chemical itself is 'rubbish'. What ultimately kills me is the “Yes, I’ve heard the name” as if this is the first time it’s being uttered in the courtroom. Let's be merciful here and take case 2-2 out of the equation. Yes, (S)Holmes is mentioned several times there, they establish the two have some sort of history and he even enters the courtroom at one point to address Van Zieks directly, but that case was developed after this one so accidental retcon is bound to happen. No, let's look solely at the cases in the first game. (S)Holmes has been mentioned several times throughout the course of this trial, even by Van Zieks himself. Even better, Van Zieks was the one to present photographs taken by one of (S)Holmes's playthings earlier on. OOPS.

Ryu enters despair mode because there really is no way to prove that the color green is unique to Eggert Benedict, nor would it be accepted as evidence to begin with. But that's okay, because much like the skin prints in 2-2, it was never about having it filed as official evidence. It was about influencing the jury and as Iris so smartly points out, the Summation Examination was suspended earlier. This means that technically, it's still going on. It doesn't matter what the prosecution or the judge thinks of (S)Holmes's invention, it only matters what the jurors think, as they now have the power to force the trial to continue. Naturally, the majority votes not-guilty. Van Zieks objects rather ferociously. “My lord, with all due respect, this is an outrage! The prosecution refuses to accept this decision!” (heehee, I really enjoy these lines. With all due respect, indeed.) The judge asks on what grounds the prosecution is objecting, and Van Zieks says:

“Then they are too ignorant to be trusted with the judgement of anyone's guilt!”

Gosh, he really doesn't enjoy how 'gullible' the jurors are, does he? Or rather, he gets frustrated when the jurors begin to think for themselves instead of taking the prosecution's word for it. The judge sets Van Zieks straight by basically reminding him that this is how the court works.

It is so satisfying to watch him squirm. Van Zieks wants us to play by the court's rules, so we're playing by the court's rules and now he's got no more comebacks. This is it folks, we're subpoena-ing Egg Benedict! He does indeed show up to court after a brief intermission and reveals his true name to be Ashley Graydon. Graydon expresses haughty dismay that the highest court of the land was swayed by some self-professed detective's homemade tincture. Van Zieks tells him it was the will of the jury, and their great British justice system demands that the jury's will is upheld. Graydon calls the jury members inept, as Van Zieks has done many times before, but agrees to testify. Ryu attempts to needle this guy several times by asserting he was definitely at the crime scene, but indeed, the blood sample doesn't count as evidence and Ryu doesn't really have anything else to back him up. Van Zieks oh-so-kindly reminds him that the obligation to prove the defense's assertion lies with, well, the defense. Eventually we do get there and Graydon starts making up some bullshit story about how he met McGilded in a gentlemen's club and bonded with him over unique music box music, so that's what that disc was. Van Zieks points out that Yard have indeed been gathering items believed to have been McGilded's property, presumably to aid their investigations. Gregson once again loses his composure here and tries to shut the conversation down.

Gregson and Van Zieks continue to banter back and forth about how Gregson is definitely not allowed to talk about these things and Van Zieks should also know better than to pry. Even Ryu thinks it's strange the two of them are bickering like that. Anyway, we're not allowed to discuss the McGilded stuff, so back to Graydon and his breaking and entering! Van Zieks asserts that if the police confiscated the disc beforehand and Graydon saw this happen, there was no reason for him to break into the pawnshop anymore.

Oooh, that's some tasty triumph over Van Zieks's ignorance! Ryu brings up the second item pawned by McGilded, a 'small box'. Van Zieks insists that no such thing was stolen from the pawnshop and he can prove it, since he has a picture of the shelves from before the break-in and one from after the break-in. You know, the pictures taken by that idiot detective's silly little plaything! Through the magic of stereoscopes (or the 3D Slider in the 3DS version), Ryu can see that a small box was moved.

It's absolutely hilarious that most of the court has to go cross-eyed to do the stereoscope thing and then there's Van Zieks, with a fancy stereoscope device that he just happened to have with him in a trial he couldn't possibly predict would require a stereoscope. He's so extra! Ryu asserts that if the box was moved, they have to raise the question of what was inside it and send the Yard to retrieve that thing at once. Van Zieks objects, saying that “some little box belonging to a man who died two months ago can't possibly be relevant to this trial.” The judge doesn't see it his way, though, and overrules his objection. Nice! So officers are dispatched to Baker Street to fetch the box and Van Zieks grumbles to himself about being hoodwinked by a farce.

The judge once again doesn't take kindly to Van Zieks's attitude problems and I love this. I can't wait for the prosecution to be penalized, because it feels like it's right around the corner here. Van Zieks elaborates that this whole thing is nothing but a smoke screen; a Nipponese specialty. Scumbag points for this one! I can't entirely connect this to Professor foreshadowing, I think it's just him being petty. Either way, he's going to jump through hoops now. Mere minutes ago he established that the Yard is still investigating McGilded's stuff and the 'aftermath' of his activities, but he's flipping it all over now. He begins to talk about how McGilded died two months ago, immediately after the trial in which he was found not-guilty.

“So I propose a toast. To my learned friend, and his most... insightful defense.”

So the logic being used here now is that McGilded was a fine, upstanding citizen and anything he pawned was truly innocent/ordinary, so why would someone want to steal it? The only way to prove that there's more to these items than might be apparent would be for Ryu to reveal that the acquittal was a mistake and the defense's argument was based on false information. They all suspected this two months ago, though. It was made abundantly clear that the only reason McGilded walked free was because nobody could say for certain whether the evidence was tampered with. Either way, Ryu's cornered now and wondering to himself whether Van Zieks knows the items in question are related to the omnibus murder. He probably does. He has access to the evidence, which means he has access to to the pawn tickets which hold some very specific dates on them.

The game gives Ryu an option whether or not to have Gina testify about what happened two months ago, but this option isn't real. If you choose 'leave it', Ryu still decides within two lines of dialogue that they have to uncover the truth. There's no penalty for stalling. So Ryu calls for Gina to testify and Van Zieks definitely knows what's up.

“In particular, the impact it will have on the accused's standing... And indeed your own.”

So this is a warning, clear and simple. Van Zieks knows shit will hit the fan. Or, as he later phrases it, it will bring the court down around Ryu's ears. But Ryu insists upon the testimony, the prosecution agrees and Gina is put on the stand. The judge tells Graydon he can step down, Graydon promptly sees this as an excuse to leave and bids them all a good day, but Van Zieks tells him to wait.

Oh, this... I like this. By now, Van Zieks has caught on to Ryu's little trick of watching the reactions from other witnesses during testimonies. He's purposely making Graydon stand there and listen to Gina's testimony just in case he reacts in such an overdramatic way, Ryu can pursue it. Iiinteresting! Now it seems as if he's on our side, but we're not quite there yet. Before Gina can begin her testimony, Van Zieks reminds her that if it turns out she willfully withheld information two months ago, she'll be prosecuted for perjury. That's just an intimidation technique to get her not to reveal what she withheld. … Which is weird, because you'd think Van Zieks would want her to spill those beans. Either way, with some encouragement from Ryu and Iris, Gina begins to talk about the lies she told. Aaand we're ending the essay here for now, because we're only about halfway into this disaster of a trial and the plot will only thicken from here on out. Stay tuned for part 2 of The Unspeakable Story!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #thank goodness #the consistency is back #BLESS

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everlastingdreams · 4 years ago

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Weeping Monk x Reader : Playing With Fire chapter 5

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Story Summary: The Huntsman, that is what they called your brother. A name he had earned by hunting down the fey for coin. Coin that is given by Father Carden for his services. You refuse to stand aside and watch how your brother hunts down those who are fey. When you start to warn the fey camps your brother wishes to attack, you find yourself behind enemy lines. But when the Weeping Monk becomes suspicious of you, you realise you are playing with fire.

Chapter Summary: After getting out of your dire situation you meet someone in the forest that might just offer you a safer way to help the fey.

Notes: Sorry, for the lack of WM in this chapter. But you’ll have LOTS of that in this story so yeah. Also, please let me know if you like the story, comments are like fuel for writers.

Warnings: None in this one yet.

Word count: 2274 words in this chapter.

Chapter: 5/ 30+ something (buckle up, it’s a wild ride.)

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You had ran in the direction you had last seen the boy. At first it looked like the boy, Squirrel, had run off alone. But he had hidden behind a tree and he must have been watching to see what would happen, he was carrying a heavy looking branch. It was probably meant to be used as a weapon should the Monk return for him. You quickly walked to him “Squirrel ! I told you to run !” He pulled a face like you had just insulted him “I did. Then I came back.” It almost left you speechless “He could have killed you, Squirrel.” “He could have killed you too !” The boy protested before frowning “Why didn't he ?” In truth, you didn't really know the answer to that question. Had he let you go only because your brother worked for Father Carden ? It was the only logical answer, why else would the Monk let you live after you had not only tried to attack him to save a fey but also slapped him when he let you go ? “I think he let me go because of who my brother is.” You replied truthfully and felt shame. Squirrel swallowed, he remembered what you had told him “Your brother is the Huntsman ?” You nodded in confirmation “He is... I'm sorry.” “He kills fey. I've heard he tortures them, drags them behind his horse until...” Squirrel fell silent and then asked “Do you hate us ?” Your eyes widened at his question, you should have known he would suspect you of hating the fey as well “What ? No ! Listen, Squirrel. I know it might sound hard to believe coming from me, but I do not hate fey. I hate what my brother does to your kind, I try to warn the fey before my brother finds them. My sister taught me not to believe what they were saying about fey being evil when I was your age.” After all these years it still hurt you to talk about your sister. She had spend many moments making sure you knew that what the Red Paladins were doing was wrong. She hated them as much as you did. His eyes widened at your confession and a smile crept on his face “You're helping us ?” You nodded and smiled at the boy “I am. I have warned the fey in the camp in the north, they left not long ago. The only thing my brother will have found is an abandoned camp. He will not be pleased.” You said the last part more to yourself, remembering that you would have to face Draegan soon. “Brilliant ! But.. aren't you scared he will find out you are helping us ?” The boy's eyes filled with concern. Yes, yes you were scared. The idea that your brother might find out what you are doing behind his back terrified you. You would have rather died at the hands of the Weeping Monk then at the hands of your brother. He had tormented you for years now and he knew exactly how to make your life a living hell. And you, you were stuck. He was under your skin, and as brave as you could be, facing him filled you with fear and terror. Where would you go if you left the village, if you left Mirstone ? If you could even escape from him. You had no one. As long as you played the part of the obedient sister you could help the fey. You could save their lives. A price you were willing to pay. Enough had suffered at the hands of your kin, you could never make up for his monstrous acts but you could try to help where you could. But this was not something you should be telling the boy, he was already going through a lot himself. This was not his burden to bear. It was yours. “Don't worry about me, Squirrel. We should try and find our way here. You know this forest ?" The boy nodded "My village was close.." his eyes fell to the ground “The Red Paladins attacked us.. they killed my papa..” You knelt before the boy, your stomach twisting by the horrible news “I'm sorry, Squirrel...” You fell silent for a moment before carefully proceeding "Can you lead us back to where the Monk captured us ? My horse was near the place. We can go and see if we can find some of your people then. There must have been others who were able to escape the attack." The boy looked at you with newfound hope and nodded quickly “I can !” “Good, lead the way then.” You gave his shoulder a squeeze as you stood back up. The boy started walking with a quick pace, back to the spot where the Monk had lured him out of.

You had been walking for at least two hours before a noise stopped you dead in your tracks and you grabbed Squirrel's shoulder, stopping him as well. “Did you hear that ?” You whispered to him. The boy quietly shook his head. You had heard something, you were certain of it. Then the sound of rustling leaves made you look around the place. The boy tensed up and so did you. Had the Monk returned ? Had he regretted his decision to spare your lives, or perhaps it was some sick game he was playing ? You took the branch from the boy and you tried to shield him from whatever it was that was coming. “Who's there ?! I am warning you, I am armed !” You tried to sound threatening, it was wishful thinking but perhaps they would leave you alone if you sounded dangerous. "Born in the dawn..." A voice emerged from behind you. You spun on your heels and were met with a man wearing a helmet with antlers. There were some others with him as well and you immediately pull the boy behind you to shield him. "Stay back !" You tried to sound intimidating and took a defensive stance. You felt the boy pull on your arm and heard him utter the words "To pass in the twilight." The man took a step closer and you took a step back, moving the boy with you as you did. "Stay back or I will not hesitate to hurt you !" Your voice more fierce now. The man no longer moved closer and instead took off his helmet. When he finally spoke he sounded calm, kind even. "We come in peace, miss. I won't harm you or the boy." He gestured to the boy "We protect our own, as well as those who aid and stand by us." He sounded genuine and you relaxed a little. "You're fey ? Who are you ?" You looked at him, still suspicious. He smiled warmly and gestured to those who were with him as well "We are. I am The Green Knight. Friends may call me Gawain." You sighed in relief, glad that they meant no harm "I'm y/n. And this is Squirrel." Gawain's expression changed when you had mentioned your name “y/n ? huh. You don't happen to be from Mirstone ?” Your breath quickened, he must have heard about you “Yes.” “The village run by the Huntsman...” His word heavy. You knew that he knew who you were now, so you gave a nod and felt the shame wash over you again “Yes. I'm..his sister.” The Green Knight's expression changed, he looked at you with suspicion now. He looked between you and Squirrel. It dawned on you that he might think you were bringing the boy to your brother. "Oh ! No, no ! I.. I was helping Squirrel ! The Weeping Monk had captured him, I was trying to save him." You quickly stammered the explanation. Gawain frowned "The Weeping Monk ? Are you sure ?" Squirrel piped up and confirmed what you had said "Yes ! He captured us both, he killed Josse.. and some others that had tried to free us." Gawain sighed, clearly saddened by the news "It's a miracle you're both still alive. He's notorious for killing our kind." "He let both of us go." A fact that was still strange to you "I don't think he harms the children." Your brows drew together. "Did he hurt you ?" Gawain asked, his eyes scanning you for any signs of injury. You quickly shook your head "No, he didn't. No even when I attacked him with a branch. Or when I slapped him when he cut me loose." Gawain was silent as he thought about what you had just told him "Strange. Perhaps there is more to him then we know about." “He doesn't act like a paladin much either. He's... different.” You still remembered how he had not treated you or the boy like a Red Paladin would have done.

Squirrel found his voice again "He told me to tell the others what I saw. To tell them he's coming." Gawain hummed, seemingly thinking about that "That is strange." "Why is that ?" You quickly inquired. "Strange he would say that. It's a bad battle strategy." He explained and seemed to think about it for a moment. Now that Gawain said this, it indeed made little sense to warn the enemy of what is coming. It takes away the element of suprise. Why would the Monk do that ? Was it meant to be a form of intimidation ? The idea crossed your mind that there might be a chance that it was a warning to help. But why ? Why would he help ? The more you thought about it the less it made sense. “Either way..” he caught your attention again “Thank you for helping one of our kind. I suspect the Huntsman is not aware of you helping the fey ?" You shook your head "No." Gawain was silent when he realised the situation you were in. He was hesitant when he spoke next "We could use someone who can give us the information the Huntsman has on our kind.." It was not a demand, it was almost a plea. You had a feeling he would ask this of you "I have been warning fey camps, I was able to reach the one in the North just in time."

Gawain smiled widely at the news "I heard about that, I heard someone had warned them. We are grateful for your help, I assume the Huntsman would not react well to the news. You're risking your life doing this, are you not ?" You silently nodded, almost suprised someone you had just met was able to guess your dire situation. But it must have been clear in your eyes when he had mentioned you brother's title. A flash of fear rose inside you everytime the name was spoken, a reminder of the cruelty your brother was capable off. What you could face one day as well.. "They have a name for you, you know ? The fey you have warned or ..well...saved." You shook your head confused "What name ?" “They call you the Fey Guardian.” Gawain answered, giving you a proud nod. You couldn't believe the fey were starting to call you that “I'm not sure I deserve it..” He gestured to the boy beside you “It seems quite fitting to me, y/n.” A smile tugged at your lips, if they indeed called you this then you would try to live up to the name “I will bring you the information I can retrieve. Maps, directions, anything I can do to help you..”

Gawain pulled a map from his jacket and beckoned for you to come closer and you did. “See this path near the stream of water ? Do you know where it is ?” He looked at you awaiting your answer. “I do, why ?” You studied the map. “When you have something for us, go there. Build a fire and we will send someone. Is that alright ?” Gawain looked at you hopeful. You quickly nodded “Yes, yes, that will be safer as well.” You had not forgotten that the Monk was suspicious of you, you had been lucky so far that no one had followed you to the fey camps. This would be a safer, less suspicious way. “I will try to get the information soon, I do not know if my brother has returned to the village yet...I should be heading back. We were heading for my horse.” You looked at Squirrel now. Gawain noticed it “We can take you to your horse, but I fear we cannot guide you back to your village.” Of course they couldn't take a risk like that “I understand.” He nodded to the boy “The boy can stay with us. Don't worry, I will keep him safe. We were searching this place for survivors, we have a safe place.” “Are there others there ? From my village ?” The boy quickly asked Gawain. Gawain smiled and let out a chuckle “Yes. We even have a Moon Wing there.” Squirrel's eyes widened at that, then the boy turned to you “Thank you, y/n. For trying to save me. You might be the Huntsman's sister but your not bad.” Was that a compliment ? You'll take it “Thank you.” “Let's get you back to your horse, it won't be long before the sun rises.” Gawain mounted his horse and helped you get on as well while Squirrel rode next to you with another fey.

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#The Weeping Monk #Cursed Netflix #weeping monk x reader #weeping monk x you #The Weeping Monk x reader #The weeping Monk x you #Weeping monk reader insert #weeping monk fanfiction #weeping monk squirrel #cursed squirrel #cursed percival #lancelot x reader #lancelot x you

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believingispowerfulmagic · 4 years ago

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“Reunited at Last” Chapter 11: A Turning Point

Upon returning to camp, John helped Robin dismount with the injured woman in his arms. He then tended to the horse as Robin carried her to his tent, calling for Tuck to come examine her. The friar rushed over with Marian not far behind him and the two entered the tent right behind Robin, who laid the woman down on his bed. He took a step back and sucked in some air as the lantern in his tent illuminated her face, revealing her identity.

It was the Queen.

"Robin, what the hell happened?" Tuck asked, looking confused and concerned at once.

"I don't know, we just found her unconscious on the ground and her horse in distress," Robin replied, still reeling from the revelation of who he had saved. "It was too dark to recognize who she was."

Marian moved toward him as Tuck approached the bed. She wrapped her arm around him. "Do you think she finally crossed the wrong person?" she asked.

"Possibly," he replied. "Though if this person was able to take down the Queen, I'm glad that I didn't run into them."

"I suppose so. But if they did take down the Queen, doesn't it mean they're a hero?" she mused.

Robin shook his head. "Not necessarily. They could just be a stronger villain."

She shuddered. "I don't think I want to know who would be worse than her."

"So, do we know who we saved and how she is doing?" Little John asked, coming into the tent. He stopped short, the color draining from his face. "Bloody hell…"

Tuck straightened up, looking somber. "Marian, I need your help in removing her dress. I need to see how bad the wound on her side is."

Marian pressed her lips together before nodding. She stepped forward to help Tuck while John moved to stand next to Robin. Both men turned around to give the Queen some privacy, staring at the back of the tent. Robin knew it was probably more than she would afford them but it was still the right thing to do.

Robin pressed his hand to his mouth, still processing the fact that the broken woman on the forest floor had been the queen. He had rescued the woman whose Black Guards chased him and his men throughout the forest, though not with the same persistence as the Sheriff of Nottingham. But they were still a threat. And he had no doubt that the queen would issue the same punishment for them as the sheriff.

Death.

"Alright," Tuck said. "You two can turn around again."

Robin and Little John turned to face the bed again. Marian held the queen's dress and the royal was covered by a fur blanket. The candlelight revealed beads of sweat rolling down the Queen's pale face and Robin knew that wasn't a good sign. "How bad is she?" he asked.

"She's in a pretty bad way," Tuck replied. "Her left arm and right leg are broken and she has a nasty bump to the back of her head in addition to cuts there. But I'm mostly worried about the wound on her side. She appears to have been pierced by a sword and I worry infection may already be setting in."

"What do you recommend?" Robin asked.

"We need to set her broken bones immediately," Tuck said. "And there's a poultice I can make that should help fight the infection but the next few days will be critical for her."

Robin processed everything Tuck had said as John asked: "And if we do nothing?"

Tuck narrowed his eyes. "She might recover on her own but it's far more likely she would die."

"We don't necessarily have to go out of our way for her then," John suggested. "Just leave her and see what happens."

"You want to essentially condemn her to death?" Tuck asked, sounding appalled. When put that way, Robin felt appalled as well.

John, though, shrugged. "She may recover. She may not. I'm just saying we don't help her toward either direction. She certainly wouldn't go out of her way for us."

Tuck frowned. "Either way, she will suffer. Her body will get too hot and it will start destroying her internal organs as well as affect her brain. She will become delusional and just be in agony until either her body fights off the infection or she dies."

"It's no less than she deserves," John replied. "She would likely kill us all without hesitation. Why shouldn't we return the favor?"

"Because that would make us no better than her," Tuck argued, his face turning red and fire burning in his eyes.

Robin had to admit both had valid points. The queen would surely hang them all instead of showing them mercy. But that didn't mean they should abandon the honor code he had crafted. They were not evil.

"Robin?" Marian asked, resting her hand on his arm. "What are you thinking?"

He sighed, looking at the Queen yet again. He had only ever caught glimpses of her, usually emerging from her imposing black carriage. She always wore elaborate outfits, preferring black and if she had any color, they were dark ones as well, and had her long black hair done in complex styles. Everything about her was meant to intimidate her subjects and intimidate them she did.

Now, though, she looked very different.

The Queen was smaller than he realized. When he laid in his bed, his feet came to the very edge of it but there was still a good foot or so between her feet and the edge. Robin's experience with other nobles or royals was that their figures tended to be fuller and softer than those who were considered peasants. The Queen, though, was relatively fit and did not appear to gorge herself on the rich, fatty foods often horded by those of her station. He thought of the horse he had found by her side, now eating and resting with the ones the Merry Men owned, and wondered if she was a dedicated equestrienne.

In the quick glimpses of the Queen's foreboding figure, Robin's mind supplied many words to describe her but beautiful had never been one. He didn't think she was ugly by any means but it was hard to gage something like that when one was only watching her for brief moments from the tops of trees. Standing so close to her now, though, Robin was able to admit that she was a very beautiful woman. Free from its elaborate updo, her dark hair fell in soft curls around her head and shoulders, pooling on the pillow placed under her head. It made how pale her skin was due to the fever stand out even more, making her appear even smaller under the blankets. She wasn't some imposing ruler ready to rain destruction down on them, she was just a person who was dangerously ill and injured.

And in that moment, his choice was clear.

"She will stay," he said, "and receive all the medical attention we can give her."

"Robin!" John exclaimed, his cheeks now turning red.

Tuck frowned, glancing at the Queen. "Let's take this conversation outside, shall we?"

"Good. I think all the men should hear this," John said, glaring at Robin before he stormed out of the tent. Tuck followed him with a weary sigh.

Marian took Robin's arm and they left the tent together as John announced the news to the rest of the Merry Men. They glared at Robin as he stepped closer to them. Will crossed his arms as he asked: "The Queen, mate? Really?"

"Yes, really," Robin replied, glaring at John in return. "And if you let me explain…"

"There's nothing to explain, Robin," another man yelled. "She's the queen and deserves to be shown the same amount of mercy she would show us - none!"

Robin held up his hand. "LET ME SPEAK!"

Everyone went silent immediately, stunned as he never raised his voice before. Robin looked around at each member of his Merry Men. "I know she is the last person we would ever want to help. When you joined my band, this band, you agreed to a certain code - and that includes helping those who need it. Not those who could then help us in return or those we deem worthy. Just those who need it. And right now, she needs our help and so we will give it to her."

"Why don't we just let her die?" Much called out. "That would help so many people who actually need it more."

"No," Robin said, glaring at Much. "If anyone believes that it would be the right thing to let her die, you can leave. That isn't anyone I want to be part of the Merry Men."

Silence descended upon his men and he looked around, waiting to see if anyone moved. When no one did, he nodded. "Then she stays. And if anyone tries to hurt her in any way, they will have to answer to me," he told them.

They all bowed their heads and he was certain he had gotten through to them. He nodded. "This discussion is over. Everyone, get some rest."

Robin turned and entered his tent again. He sensed someone behind him and he sighed. "Yes?"

"You know I support you but are you certain about this?" Marian asked, sounding concerned. He turned around, facing his fiancée. She studied him, as if he were a puzzle she was trying to figure out. "She is the Evil Queen, Robin."

"I know. But look at her. She's hardly a threat right now," he replied, motioning to the prone woman lying on the furs and pillows that served as his bed.

Marian nodded. "That's true. But what about when she wakes up? And what if her guards come looking for her?"

"They haven't found us yet," he reminded her, boasting somewhat. "As for when she wakes up, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"I just hope this doesn't blow up in our faces," she told him, reaching out and taking his hand.

He laced their fingers together. "I know. But I think it's going to be okay in the end. I just need you to trust me, okay?"

She sighed, leaning closer to him. "I trust you, Robin."

"Good," he replied, kissing her. He then pulled back and sighed. "I should collect my things and spend my nights with John and Will until she's better. Unless there's another place I could stay…"

For now, they spent their nights in separate tents. But it was growing more and more difficult to part from her each night. All Robin wanted to do was lay down beside her and fall asleep with her in his arms. Then he would wake her with soft kisses in the morning. And in their own little world, only they would matter and they could talk about anything or nothing at all. Just as long as it was the two of them, he would be happy.

She shook her head. "I would love to have you stay in my tent but we promised my father. And I won't lie to him."

"Nor would I ask you to," he replied, disappointed but still wanting to respect her wishes. "Our word is our bond."

"Thank you, Robin," she said, kissing his cheek. "It won't be for much longer."

He nodded, knowing they had set their wedding for Yule. They would be able to return to Marian's village and spend some time there with her family. Everything would be perfect for their wedding, he was certain of it.

"Do you want me to stay with you while you gather your things?" she asked, glancing over at the queen.

Robin looked at her as well. The queen slept on, tossing fitfully in his bed. "I don't think she's much of a threat right now. So you go, get some rest. I'll see you in the morning."

She nodded, giving him another quick kiss. "Good night, Robin. Sweet dreams."

"You too," he said, watching her leave his tent. Once she was gone, he sighed and he began to gather up the things he would need to bring with him.

Robin quickly packed a bag as Tuck entered the tent again. "How is she doing?" he asked.

"She's fitful but still out," Robin replied. "Is there anything you can do so she can get a more restful sleep?"

Tuck pressed a hand to the queen's forehead before nodding. "Bringing down her fever should help. I'll do that."

"Good," Robin said, slinging his sack over his shoulder. "I'll be with John and Will. Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do. Have a good night, Robin," Tuck said, setting up his stool beside the bed to keep watch over the queen.

Robin started to walk toward the entrance to his tent. He paused, looking back at the queen. She shivered now despite the layers of furs on her and a pang hit Robin's heart, despite everything she had done. He wondered if everything about her was just a facade and about who really lay beneath the exquisite dresses, bold makeup and elaborate hairstyles.

Maybe they would find she wasn't evil after all.

Or maybe she was. After all, his men were right - she had caused devastation across the country. The people lived in fear of her and what she could do if she thought they were the ones hiding Snow White from her. He had helped rebuild far too many villages and provide aid to numerous glassy-eyed victims still trying to process the terror she inflicted on them. Everything pointed to her just being evil.

Yet he still couldn't bring himself to believe that anyone could just be pure evil. His gut told him there was more to the Queen, just like there was more to him and his men. And maybe he would get a chance to figure her out once she woke.

If she didn't kill them all, that was.

He sighed as he approached John and Will's tent. Worrying about the queen wasn't going to do him good now. Robin just had to wait until she woke up and then he would figure out what to do next. For now, he was going to get some rest and find their next mark.

Even with the Queen out of commission, there were always people who needed help and he would always do his best to give it to them.

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#once upon a time #outlaw queen #oq au #oq ff #reunited at last

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crystalgirl259 · 4 years ago

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The Flame and the Dragon Chapter 22

Chapter 22: The Frosty Rescue

"This is the best day ever!" Nelson cheered as they skated around the frozen lake. Everyone was still skating around, except Echo, who was sat on the bank with Kai's horse Flame. Kai couldn't help but agree with the child, really enjoying himself for the first time in years. As much as Kai loved his siblings, they were too busy trying to make ends meet to really have fun, with the odd exceptions of Lloyd. Their little brother was the only light Kai and Nya had in their lives.

The brunette really hoped his siblings were alright without him.

Despite things getting better between him and Cole, Kai still felt trapped within the castle, so it was nice to get out and do something, even if it was just some ice-skating. As they skated around, Echo looked up at the sky and saw the dark clouds rolling in. He frowned at this. He had thought it would be clear skies all day, so where had those clouds come from?

"We'd better hurry back guys, it's starting to get stormy." He called for the others. All four of them groaned in disappointment, but complied and started skating over to Echo and Flame. Kai mounted his faithful horse and the others transformed into their creature forms, and just as Kai was about the ride Flame home, the stallion suddenly froze. They looked past Flame's head and saw a small creature standing in the snow a few feet away from them.

It appeared to be a type of bird.

It had two small wings and four small, clawed legs, with a long tail. It had two eyes that sat lightly in its sockets with a thin, sharp beak. Its skin was thin but strong and it was covered in short, thin feathers. Its feather colors were mostly dark purple and black. It didn't look at all intimidating, being only the size of a tennis ball, but something about it set the others on the edge.

"What is that?" Ronin asked, and that set the creature off. It suddenly let out the loudest, banshee-like scream Kai had ever heard. The sound was so loud it actually hurt their ears. The sound scared Flame and he ran in the opposite direction towards the frozen lake. With the speed, he was running at Flame slipped and this caused him to break the ice, exposing the icy waters below. Kai and the others started to scream as Flame started to try and buck them off him, sending Nelson flying into the air.

He went flying into the water and sank into the darkness.

"Where is he?!" Jay cried as they jumped off the still scared Flame and started desperately looking for the child.

"HHHEEELLLPPP MMMEEE!" Nelson garbled as his head vanished again. Kai saw this and, acting solely on instinct, he jumped into the freezing lake after him. Thankfully Nelson was close to the surface so Kai could grab his arms. Unfortunately, there was a strong current pulling them away from the hole in the ice, and that combined with Nelson's added weight and lack of oxygen meant Kai couldn't swim them to safety. The others saw this and they sprang into action.

"Hold on, guys! We will save you!" Jay cried and they started scanning the ice for the pair. Jay soon found Kai under the ice, banging his fist up against it while his other hand gripped Nelson and his feet kicked furiously under them to keep them afloat. As soon as Jay saw them underneath the ice and called for the other. Ronin rushed over to Jay, pulling out his dagger, and stabbed at the ice, freeing Kai and Nelson. They both emerged from underneath the ice, cough up the water from their lungs and shivering as the cold air froze their sore limbs.

When he regained some strength, Kai fully pulled Nelson out of the water and onto the ice with the others, but he stayed in the water until he caught his breath.

"Oh, Nelson, thank God you're safe." Echo smiled in relief as he checked the child over for any injuries.

"I wasn't frightened." Nelson grinned and they all rolled their eyes. The moment of relief was shattered, however, what the little bird from before suddenly shot up into the air and stared down at the group. Kai felt like he had seen those cold, soulless eyes before. He gasped when he realized those were the eyes of that creepy man Kai had met in the forest where Cole saved him from that monster. Before he could tell the others, the bird dove into the water next to Kai and disappeared into the darkness.

It was so dark the others couldn't see what it was doing, but they could faintly make out a purple glow under the rippling water.

Kai tried to climb out of the lake to safety, but it was already too late. The bird had infected the pondweeds below with dark magic and the plants suddenly shot up underneath him and wrapped around his leg, pulling him back under the water. Kai screamed and clawed at the ice, but it was hopeless. The others all try to pull him back up, but he slipped underneath the surface. Kai struggled against the weeds around his leg, but he couldn't get away.

Suddenly he saw a dark shape floating beside him.

He squinted his eyes to see what it was and almost screamed when he saw it was the creepy man from before, giving him a sadistic and perverted grin. It almost looked like the man didn't need air. As Kai struggled, the man swam forward and suddenly forced a rough and passionate kiss on his tanned lips, catching Kai off guard. When the man finally let him go, Kai reflectively gagged, but instantly regretted it when the air in his lungs was replaced with icy water.

The evil man just smiled as he faded back into the shadows of the water, leaving Kai to his watery grave.

Kai floundered, panicked, and made things worse as he tended to do. He was mad at himself for letting this happen even. Maybe he deserved this for being so stubborn, or not thinking before he acts, or trading places with Nya and Lloyd, or being cruel, or leaving the castle grounds without Cole's permission. He could hear someone shouting his name from the surface, but he couldn't tell who it was. The water garbled the sound, and his hearing seemed to be the first sense to go.

He could taste and smell the dirty lake water choking his lungs, he fell numb to the chill of the temperature, and he saw that this was probably the end for Kai Ash Smith.

Drowning in a frozen lake after not only breaking his promise and being forced to kiss a pervert who was trying to kill. Now there was not any time to appreciate the fact he might've been friends with an actual prince. Not just any prince, but the legendary hybrid Dragon Lord. He coughed causing more water to seep in, and the sheer burn he felt in his chest told him that this was it. In his fading moments, Kai felt something big and strong wrap around him and the water rushed down past him.

All of a sudden everything came back into focus.

Kai hacked up what had to be a gallon and a half of water. Jay and Echo were stood not too far away, both looking rueful and on the verge of crying. Nelson was full-on sobbing into Ronin's shoulder as the troll tried to calm him down. But when Kai did a headcount, he saw they were all standing in front of him and none of them looked wet, with the exception of Nelson. In his exhaustion, he searched to see who had saved him from drowning and realized his feet are nowhere near the ground.

He looked up, finding his body rested in the arms of a large black dragon.

Before Kai could work himself to thank his savior, he saw the burning rage in Cole's green eyes as he looked straight ahead. His scaly face was not giving away his true emotions. Kai wanted to say something, but he felt the cold claws of sleep fighting to claim him. In his muddled state, Kai just assumed he was safe with Cole and retreated to dreamland. He rested his head against Cole's strong chest and falling asleep to the sound of his mighty heartbeat.

Cole huffed frosty air out his nose, but said nothing and started carrying Kai back to the castle on foot.

The others just stood there in a mixer of relief, fear, and sadness as they watched their master carry his pale, almost lifeless, captive back to his prison.

"What have we done?" Jay finally asked in a terrified whisper, but no one had an answer...

****************

Kai shivered as he sat on the floor of the dungeon, his wrists bound about his head in black, rusted chains. His eyes were closed and his head hung low as the cold stabbed into his tanned skin like tiny needles. A large granite door with a tiny barred window marked the only entrance to this dungeon's cell. Beyond the door was a large, dark, damp room. The cell they were in was full of rusty chains, rubble, and rat droppings. A single, dim torch allowed him to see carved out words in the stone walls, faded and forgotten by time itself, but Kai couldn't make out what they said.

When they returned to the castle, Cole had the brunette checked over to make sure he wasn't seriously injured.

Once he was sure Kai would leave, he dragged the teen to the dungeons and imprisoned him there. He didn't even bother to change Kai out of his torn, soaked clothes, and this caused Kai to shiver even more. The prince was now standing in the doorway, glaring down at Kai with burning green eyes. He hadn't said a word to Kai since he saved him, and that alone scared the teen more than anything so far.

"You said you'd never leave." He finally said, hurt, anger, and betrayal echoing through the cell.

"I-I-I wasn't trying to l-l-leave, I j-j-just wanted to have s-s-some fun w-w-with the others." He stuttered out, his entire frame shaking from the freezing air. He had thought that Cole might not have been pleased to learn he had left, but he had thought that he could reason with him and smooth it over when he learned that he had gone with Jay, Echo, Ronin, and Nelson and that he was planning on coming back. Unfortunately, Cole wasn't in an understanding mood or sympathetic to his suffering.

"You broke your word and for that, you will rot in this dungeon forever!" He snarled and stormed out the cell without another word. He made sure to slam the cell door as hard as he could as he left, the sound echoing loudly through the entire dungeon and causing Kai to flinch in fright, still not opening his eyes. As he listened to Cole stomping away, Kai couldn't stop the tears raining from his tightly closed amber orbs. He should have known better than to hope.

Cole would never be anything but a monstrous beast...

#The Flame and the Dragon #beauty and the beast #ninjago #ninjago jay #ninjago cole #ninjago kai #ninjago ronin #ninjago nelson #ninjago echo #lavashipping

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darkdevasofdestruction · 5 years ago

Text

Sheepless Sheep Girl ~Yin Zhi x Reader

Yin Zhi, the 3rd Prince, was a mystery for everyone living in the Palace, no matter their age, gender or even if they were his own relatives. He was truly an enigma that, no matter how much you’d try to decipher, you couldn’t. He was unique, a thorough individualist, and all he’d ever want to do is practice archery, study, read diverse literature books and enjoy a secluded life somewhere beautiful, all alone...Or perhaps, with someone by his side to understand him...

But he’s a weirdo, by everyone’s stuck up and closed-minded views, so he doubts he’d ever find anyone to actually get him and who he is.

He’s the 3rd Prince, after all, and since the 1st Prince died young, and the Crown Prince is a fuckass that everyone hates, people look at him to take up the reigns and become the best candidate to lead.

What a joke.

He couldn’t care less about trivial things like these - Being an Emperor is too much hassle than it’s worth. Too many responsibilities, too many people to hear and please, and way too many women and heirs needed...Too much socialisation, too many voices, lies, gossips, snakes and threats to deprive him of the peaceful life he always dreamt of.

Life, however, is an unexpected turn of events, and what was supposed to be just some basic archery training in some far away forest, and somehow, he ended up heavily injured, his horse running away, and he was barely able to keep himself standing.

He was beginning to hate himself for not telling anyone - Not even his eunuch - About his adventurous trip, so nobody would be looking for him any time soon...And maybe, by the time he is found, he will already be animal food, or dead from this wound overbleeding.

Perhaps sleeping at the base of this old oak tree wouldn’t be such a bad idea...

When he next opened his eyes, however, instead of feeling the hard bark of the tree he was leaning on, he felt himself in a weirdly comfortable...Bed? This couldn’t be...How COULD this be?

He shot up in a wild panic, only to feel a pair of hands on his bare, bandaged chest, pushing him gently back down on the bed. It was a beautiful girl with a gentle, yet exhausted complexion, eyes resembling those of a baby fawn, sweet and wet, filled with a myriad of emotions, and her hair looked shiny, long, let down, reaching below the waist, mimicking a gorgeous cascade.

“Please, don’t move too much. Your injuries were pretty grave. I disinfected and stitched them while you were unconscious, dressed them and...You risk ripping them and overbleeding.” she explained, gently brushing her fingers through his hair, getting it away from his face. “Who are you...? And how did you find me?” Yin Zhi asked in a tired, hoarse voice. “I am just a sheep girl. I found you by the Oak tree when I went out looking for mushrooms. I couldn’t possibly let an injured being die out there, helpless, could I?” she spoke with an amused smile...Her voice was so light and warming...What was so different about this woman that made her stand out so much? She’s no noble lady, she’s just some...Sheep girl, living alone, in the middle of the woods. “And how can a Sheep Girl treat such life-threatening wounds anyway?” his sharp eyes peered into hers, analysing her every single move and reaction. “My parents and I used to be the village’s physicians, so any little health issue would come our way. I may be young, but I have enough experience to treat such basic wounds like yours.” she got up, putting some more wood into the heater and stirring into the pot on the oven a few more times, she put stew in a bowl and taking a spoon, came back to sit by his side. “Then why do you live so far away from the village?” he murmured, getting in a sitting position with the help of the girl. “My...My parents died because of a new disease that struck the village. Many died...And while in that terrible state, my parents begged me to experiment on them to find an antidote...Which I did. It’s just...I got blamed for the deaths, so I was shunned. And here I am. Living out here, away from any problem, worry and annoying, stuck up people.” she shrugged simply, clearly used to the idea and the tragedy that befell her. “I see. I’m sorry to hear that.” the prince muttered, not knowing what to say in such a situation. “Don’t be. That’s how life is...Although, sometimes I miss socialising with actual people, not just with sheep.” she chuckled awkwardly, looking away. “It’s a peaceful place you’ve got here. I wish I could live in a secluded place, away from all the nosy and incompetent people out there.” Yin Zhi spoke out, almost without realising. “Would you mind sharing your story with someone you’ll never meet again, stranger whose name I don’t know?” she took the bowl away from him as soon as he finished eating. “Only if you vow to treat me the same as before.” his look changed into one of warning, but she was not intimidated in the least. “I’ve been away from socialising for a long time. Forgive my lack of manners, but I’ll behave with you the same way no matter the status you hold.” she shot right back, which made him smirk in delight. “My name is Yin Zhi, the Emperor’s 3rd Prince. And what is yours, mysterious physician?” he asked, waiting to hear the name of the brilliant woman taking care of him. “Y/N. Nice to meet you, Yin Zhi.”

Due to the gravity of the injuries, he had to stay for two weeks to recover, and in this time, he was able to discover who this girl really was, from her kindness, to her intelligence, her points of view, her choices in books, in literature, how versed she in sciences, in herbalism and many more.

Not to mention, despite his amusement about the 3 animals, grew fond of the family of sheep. Only one ram, one sheep, and a little lamb, all the named after her and her family. The lamb, especially, was incredibly playful and affectionate with him, and would always try to stay around him, poking his cheeks with her wet nose, jumping on his lap, running around his legs and many more, which, for some reason, amused the man greatly.

He had so much to learn from this lone woman - In fact, so much more than many of the scholars, teachers, physicians and eunuchs in the Palace could offer him - And so, he didn’t think of his hunting accident as a misfortune, but as as grace from fate.

These two weeks in this place were truly all he ever dreamt of, and more, should he not have been in pain from his wounds, but by now, he was fully recovered, and as a thank you, he properly taught her how to use a bow and arrow, to protect herself and her sheep family from any potential predators, and more, he helped her build a better shelter for them.

However, like all beautiful dreams, one must wake up, and thus, he was forced to return to the Palace, with the promise of visiting again, and also, to help her with anything she needed, no matter the cost.

Yin Zhi cursed how dull Palace life was, and truly, he felt more all here, constantly surrounded by thousands of people, than away n the woods, with Y/N, so he did what he always did to escape reality - Succumb himself into studying and reading, and clearly, staying as far away from people as possible.

Days passed, then weeks, months, and his mind kept flying off to that great, peaceful time when he was all alone, just with her, some animals, away into the forest, and he could read at leisure without being interrupted by these annoying pests.

He almost wasn’t sure how much time passed, until he received a letter from his trusted Eunuch, from someone calling themselves “The Sheepless Sheep Girl” and worry started harbouring in his heart, as he began reading her words.

As stated, some thieves came by while she was away, picking berries from the forest, and killed her sheep, destroyed the crops and stole everything she had, and now she’s helpless, scared and has no clue what to do.

Darkness and anger flooded him for the first time in ages, realising that, to save her, he needed to get her into the Palace, maybe saying she was his new Head Maiden... What a difficult situation they both found themselves into.

Well, why should he care what anyone else thinks, anyway? He’s not going to be an Emperor, so he doesn’t need to be surrounded by concubines, consorts and whatever other useless women or different statuses and ranks that they did nothing to earn, so why shouldn’t she just be given the title of Imperial Physician?...HIS Personal, Imperial Physician?

Sure, only men have the privilege of having this title given, but she’s talented, well-versed and knowledgeable, so there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be able to be HIS Physician, right? She already saved him once, anyway. It’s not like the Emperor could deny or complain about it, considering he never asked for anything, and used his own power and knowledge to achieve everything he wanted.

She won’t even have to leave his Palace, if she doesn’t want to. She is a timid little doe who has no idea of Palace mannerisms, or how cruel everyone in this forsaken place is, and truly, the last thing he wants is to break her soul and taint her bright innocence and purity with the evil hanging around this polluted air.

Nonetheless, she needed to be taken care of, and so she will be, under his wing, without anyone interfering.

As soon as he got back to her place, Yin Zhi noticed how the house was in a terrible state, and she...Her face...It was obvious that she was exhausted. She was barely able to keep herself standing, she was weak, and her face was pink from the crying... This deteriorated state of her made his own heart ache, and that’s when he realised that he wanted nothing more than to protect her and her precious smile. He wanted her happy, by his side. It didn’t matter if she loved him or not, he just wanted her to shine brightly again, just as before.

He had his Eunuch find the best maid for her to attend her every need, and he found some petite girl called Shi Lian, with a soft voice, but very friendly, and with that, at least, he was content.

“Thank you...You did more than I asked you to...How can I ever repay you, Your Grace?” Y/N bowed her head down, speaking in a broken voice, almost as if feeling herself unworthy to be looked at by someone like him. “First of all, never call me that again. It’s only my name, for you, understood? Secondly, look at me, just like you used to. I won’t allow anything bad to come upon you ever again, I promise you. You saved me once...Let me save you now, Y/N.” he extended his hand for her to hold, as a way of asking if she trusts him. “...If it’s not asking for too much...Please take care of me, Yin Zhi. I trust you.” she gingerly held his hand in both of hers, raising it to her face, placing a soft kiss as a thank you. He realised that, compared to all the women in the Palace, her hands weren’t as soft and delicate, but more on the rough said, from all the hard work she had to put into taking care of herself. That’s a truly reliable woman, he thought, as he vowed to make sure she’s pampered at all times. “Anything for you.” his voice came barely above a whisper as he kissed her forehead, hoping she wouldn’t hear his heart’s confession...And yet, the soft blush on her face proved otherwise.

With each day passing, he could see her skin glowing, her eyes sparkling with life whenever she’d lay down at the base of the willow next to the pond as she would read one of the books he had in his library, her smile, dazzling as before, whenever some stray cat would get in his Palace garden and she would play with it, feed it, and somehow end up adopting it...Them...For there were many cats now in his garden, but it’s not like he could complain. He wasn’t the one doing the cleaning in his Palace, and he was content enough with seeing her happy.

She would sometimes play the flute while he was reading outside, or would pick up flowers from the field and make flower crowns for her and Shi Lian...And yet, on one occasion, she put one on his head while he was too absorbed in his reading to notice.

She wasn’t afraid to ask him for help to understand things she didn’t know from books he had that she wasn’t familiar with, and somehow, he never felt irritated by her - In fact, he actually felt his heart warm whenever he had to explain things to her - And the same went the other way around, when it came to science.

Not to mention how thrilled she was when she found out she was allowed to be a physician once again, just like long ago, and even more, she was bold enough to throw her arms around him, pulling him into a hug, that shocked him beyond belief.

And so, one day, when he came home, he brought a little gift for her... A little lamb that he named after her, to remind her of her little sheep family from before.

It made Y/N laugh with happy tears in her eyes, as she started playing around and cuddling the little lamb, even going as far as to let the baby lamb sleep in her own bed with her, and truly, Yin Zhi didn’t think it could get any better.

His life was finally beginning to shift in the right direction, the one he’s always dreamt of...Especially after one night, she lead him up the hill to watch the beautiful moon and the fireflies, holding hands as they lay on the soft grass and observing the stars, pointing out constellations, telling little legends, myths and stories about random things. He couldn’t help but admire her beauty highlighted by the silver light of Mother Moon, and how she looked like a dryad in that flowy, light green dress, and the fact that she looked ethereal without having to wear make up truly made it obvious how she was above them all without even trying.

For the first time in his life he felt completely enamoured, his heart was captured by this unique woman and he couldn’t help but put his hands on her delicate cheeks and kiss her pink lips that resembled the petals of the softest, most beautiful rose. He was never interested in love or women, he preferred to enrich his boundaries and knowledge, but this one...This one was truly something else. She was special, and he was making him feel special without even trying.

There was no doubt about it - She was truly the one.

And he couldn’t be happier.

It felt like he was living in a fairy tale, the Prince and the Princess, having their happily ever after.

But like any fairy tale, there must always be something bad happening to the Princess.

He wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen - He was sure she barely left his Palace and nobody held any grudge against her. It’s not like she was trying to get up the ranks, or get the Emperor’s favour, she was just a simple girl enjoying the simple life he was offering her.

As he got back home, pissed off for having had to meet up with a neighbouring Princess for the 10th time this week, or, rather said, her father alone, for some reason - Princess that the Empress wanted him to marry, he got in the house, expecting to be greeted by his brilliant lover and her little lamb, or her adopted cats and dogs...But he wasn’t. Instead, he was greeted by a trail of blood that led out in the garden, and to his horror, the girl he held so dear to his heart was sprawled on the ground, he arm extended towards the pond water...

He ran to her, held her in his arms, checking for a pulse, that was faint, but at least there, so yelling for his Eunuch to call for the Imperial Physician, he was able to pronounce that she was poisoned, based on the tea served in the Palace’s tea house, and now, the question came - Who poisoned her?

Of course, the main suspect was her Handmaid, poor Shi Lian, but something in his gut told him that this girl was innocent. Perhaps he wanted to trust her innocence, for it resembled that of Y/N, or maybe he just wanted to trust Y/N’s own trust in her.

Every day and every night, he would be restless, unable to sleep, so he would hold her hand, caressing it, kissing it, kissing her forehead, wiping away the sweat from her face, making sure she’s comfortable, despite the state of agony her unconscious self is in.

“Ricin...” Yin Zhi heard a soft, barely audible voice, struggling to mumble coherently. “Ricin?” he asked again, louder and clear, hoping he didn’t mishear or hallucinate. “Nails...Tea...” she continued, as tears kept streaming down her face, as she was finally able to open her eyes, her breath ragged, as she was fighting with her own body to keep herself awake and coherent. “Ricin...Nails...Tea...So the culprit put Ricin poison in your tea...With their nails? Does that mean it was Ricin powder hidden in their nails, so when they went to help prepare the tea, they mixed it in your cup, correct?” he asked, hoping for an affirmative answer, which is confirmed with a slow nod. “Who was it, darling? Do you remember? A name, a gender, some distinguishing appearance traits?” he pressed again, feeling adrenaline surge through his veins. “Princess...Jealous...Yin Zhi...” she started coughing blood again, clinging on his arm to keep herself grounded, as he helped her drink a glass of water. “A jealous Princess...I know just who you are talking to. Don’t worry, darling, I will solve this and make sure she pays for her sins. Nobody dares harm my beloved dove and gets away with this.” it was obvious he was angry, and rightfully so, and yet, she held onto his arm, not wanting him to leave. “Don’t go...Please...” she whispered, looking up at him with tired, fawn eyes, that melted his rage away. “I will be here until you fall asleep, my dear. I promise.” he kissed her softly, and stroked her hair until she fell asleep with a smile on her face.

He had to deal with this bitch Princess, but he couldn’t just rat her out without being petty and have his revenge. He had to get his physician to prove she had ricin powder in her nails. He could only guess it must have been in her pockets, because a sachet would have been too obvious, so with more help from his darling Y/N, he found out she was wearing a yellow and pink dress with only one pocket on the right, so with the help of his spies, he stole that dress, and his physician found the powder right there.

He won, once again.

And now, it was time for the grand finale, before this stupid Princess would leave. He was going to marry Y/N even if it was the last thing he’d ever do in his life, no matter how angry and disapproving his father would be, or how much the Empress would be against it, since the Princess is from her own family.

So, as soon as Y/N was back in full health again, and discussed things with her, so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable or surprised at what was going to happen, and so, he took her with him in front of the Emperor and the Empress, along with the Princess and her father, to present his case.

“The 3rd Prince summoned us here for a reason, correct? It is not often that you choose to be surrounded by so many people.” the Empress pointed out with a pleased expression, thinking she knew what was going on. “Your Highness, the Empress chose Princess Ruong Xian to be my bride, for she is of noble birth...Her own bloodline. I do not doubt that she is a capable woman with many attributes...One of this attributes being poisoning and deceiving a harmless, innocent woman, because of her burning jealousy. I do not think someone like her should be the wife of the Emperor’s son.” his voice was as cold and harsh as usual, despite his politeness, which created chaos among everyone. “Poison?! Me?! How DARE you accuse me of something so vile? I’m a woman, I do not study plants and poisons, that’s the work of a physician! And what do I have to be jealous of? This ugly, no name who’s nothing more than a hand maid? She has no way of competing with me!” the Princess’ passive voice twisted into a hideous glare, pointing accusatory at the sheep girl who was awkwardly standing right behind him, fidgeting with her fingers and looking down as to not attract too much attention to herself...More than she already did, that is. “My son, that is a grave accusation you are telling us. Knowing you, however, I do believe you have some kind of proof to prove it. I am listening.” the Emperor spoke calmly, knowing very well to trust his intelligent son who never crosses boundaries, breaks rules or does things for the sake of it. “Physician Li, bring forth the dress. Father, this woman I brought home, Y/N, was poisoned recently, and it was proved that the poison was in the tea. Ricin powder. Barely detectable, unless you are incredibly knowledgeable and used to working with plants and medicine, like Y/N, who was brought up in a Physician home, and continued the tradition. The only way Ricin powder could have been put in her tea was through powder brought on her nails, most likely brought in a pocket, for a pouch would be too obvious.” Yin Zhi explained the theory, which made both the Princess and her father yell at him for the disrespect brought. “You have no proof, 3rd Prince! How dare you accuse my daughter of something so evil? You are tarnishing not only our name, but the Empress’ as well!” her father scowled at him, and he could only give him a cocky smirk. “Your Highness, this dress is the one the Princess wore on the day of the poisoning. If we get it inside out, we can still see some powder inside, that on further examining, proved to be ricin powder, which completely proves the theory the Prince explained.” the physician spoke out, showing everyone the proof, and suddenly, the Palace of Mental Cultivation became quiet as a graveyard. “To think that the Empress’ own blood would dare do such criminal acts in my own palace! This woman, Y/N, has been nothing but helpful for the kingdom and our Imperial Physicians, and you dared attempt to kill her? That simply cannot go unpunished! Guards! Take the Princess and her Father to the Hard Labour Camp and give them 50 canes!” the Emperor rose from his throne, his voice loud and angry, not even blinking from the bloodcurling pitched shrieks of the Princess that were imploring the Prince to save her, nor of her father’s. “Yin Zhi! My darling, please, save me! Please, my beloved! You deserve someone pretty! Someone of high rank! Not some filthy shepard girl! Yin Zhi! My Prince! Please, have mercy! Pleaseeee!” she kept shrieking as she was dragged away, only for the Prince to not even spare her another chance. “As sharp and intuitive as always, my son. I’m proud of you and your choices. I am sure you would make for a great Emperor someday...And yet, I know that is not your wish, nor ambition, unfortunately.” the old man’s voice became more fatherly and nostalgic as he looked at his son. “Father, I thank you for your praises, but I am undeserving. I will be forever grateful for you accepting my decisions, and I hope today you will stand by it once again, for I want to marry Y/N. I know she’s of no royal blood, but since I won’t be an Emperor, I believe she would be the best person for this Kingdom. She is kind, incredibly smart, studies all the time, is well-versed in multiple subjects, including science, healing, poetry and music, she is altruistic and helpful to all people, and, as you said, she has been an incredible asset for the Physicians, and was the one to realise it was ricin powder in her tea, even in her delusional fever-induced state. I only ask for your blessings, father, so please, take everything into consideration when you give your answer.” the Prince spoke up in a bold and firm voice, which made the girl standing next to him blush furiously, as she wasn’t used to so many compliments, as Yin Zhi was one to show his affections indirectly, most of the time, not through words, but with actions. “I see...I can see you are smitten with this girl, and rightfully so. I believe she truly is the perfect choice for you, but with her status, she cannot marry a prince.” the Emperor began, making his son frown, only for the man to continue speaking right away. “That is why, for the marriage to take place, I shall give Y/N the title of Lady Shuyu, the title given to Wise and Virtuous women of the Palace, and I will officially give her the post of the Chief Imperial Physician, specifically your personal Physician, my son. Is that to your liking?” the Emperor’s eyes sparkled with amusement as he saw both his son and the girl next to him looking at him with shock in their eyes. “Thank you so much for allowing our love to continue, Your Highness. You are most merciful and benevolent.” the girl immediately knelt, obviously bewildered at what just happened. “Thank you, Father. You have our eternal gratitude.” he couldn’t speak much from the shock, as he also knelt as a thank you. “You have my blessings, my children. You deserve to be happy.” he smiled kindly, seeing as the left the Palace, holding hands.

Out of the Palace, the girl jumped in his arms, as he held her tightly, kissing the top of her head, finally feeling content and at peace with what was going on. They could finally live together, without anyone daring to utter a word against her, or try to sabotage her. Their life together in partial solitude could finally be a dream come true, as they could have a little house somewhere in the woods, back there where she used to live, if they ever want to escape this royal chaos they had to live in, and even better, they could live with all the pets they wanted, go out together in the dark, watch the fireflies, go for a swim in the lake, read together, practice archery together, all while facing no scrutiny or complaint.

They could finally live the dream life their heart yearned for all this time.

#legend of the phoenix #legend of the phoenix imagine #legend of the phoenix headcanons #legend of the phoenix x reader #yin zhi #yin zhi x reader #yin zhi imagine #3rd prince #yin zhen #crown prince #emperor #empress #china #qing dinasty #imperial china

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rosedavid · 5 years ago

Note

Merther prompt: Arthur ask Merlin who his ideal partner is. Merlin in an effort to hide his growing feelings from Arthur describes someone completely opposite Arthur. Shortly after someone arrives in Camelot hoping to become a Knight in Arthur's roundtable. This person is exactly as Merlin described and has immediately seem to set his cap at Merlin. Merlin doesn't know what to do especially when Arthur starts to act funny and won't explain why. Though everyone else seems to know the answer.

thank you so much for the prompt!! it ended up a little bit different, but I hope you still enjoy it!! :)

If you want to read it on ao3, here’s the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23541073

…

Laughter echoes from around the campfire. The sun has long set, but nobody has any intent to fall asleep quite yet. Merlin relishes nights like these; nights free of bandits, evil sorcerers, or something other disaster that Merlin has to solve. Nights like these are few and far between, but when they do come, Merlin appreciates them. He appreciates joking with the knights as if he’s one of them. Around the campfire, after all the chores for the day are finished, he can just relax.

“No way,” Percival shakes his head. “That is not what happened!”

“As if you’d remember! You were as drunk as a skunk! As if you’d remember. Unlike you, I can hold my mead,” Gwaine retorts, puffing out his chest.

“I would never jump on a table and sing!”

“—And it broke, don’t forget the best part!”

Percival smirks, “But if this happened, then why didn’t the tavern workers make me pay my debts for the table?”

“Have you seen yourself?” Gwaine gestures with a wink. “Not only are you a stud, but you’re a big, intimidating stud. Plus, I think Mary has a crush on ya!”

At this, Arthur snorts, “Please, Mary has a crush on everyone. She even complimented Merlin of all people!”

“He’s just jealous because he thought Mary was complimenting him at first,” Merlin pipes up, earning a glare from Arthur as well as hearty laughs from the other knights.

“Ah, crushes are fickle things, my friends,” Gwaine grins, raising a flask he seemed to procure from thin air.

“I can attest to that,” Elyan agrees.

“Oh, do you have someone you fancy, Elyan?” Percival teases, punching his shoulder jokingly.

Elyan rolls his eyes, punching Percival back. “As a boy, I did. I thought she was the love of my life. But we just grew apart. What about you then, Percy?”

A deep blush spreads across Percival’s cheeks, shone only brighter by the light of the campfire. Everyone laughs. Gwaine and Leon push at him from either side, urging him to tell. He raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, fine. I might have a certain girl that I like…”

“Who is it, Perce?! Come on, you have to tell us now,” Gwaine begs, tugging his sleeve.

“No way!”

“At least describe her for us, mate!”

Percival gives in at that. “Okay fine! She has dark, thick hair that curls down to her shoulders. A soft smile. Deep brown eyes that you can get lost in. She’s funny, too, and shy.”

“It sounds to me like Percy is in love,” Lancelot grins. Percival blushes, but doesn’t deny it.

“How about the rest of you, then? Who do you like, Lance?”

“No one at the moment,” he says, honestly.

“Me either,” Leon admits. “My only lady is Camelot.”

“And what does Camelot look like, Leon?” Elyan teases.

“I mean, I’m not at all picky. Though I do like a girl who is kind-hearted and loyal.”

“Boo! Boring,” Gwaine sighs. Merlin, who sits between Gwaine and Arthur, suddenly gets squished into Gwaine’s side, Gwaine’s arm wrapped possessively around his shoulder.

“I like serving girls,” Gwaine proclaims boisterously. “Who have dark, beautiful hair and sparkling eyes, and are clumsy—”

“Gwaine!” Merlin groans, attempting to get out of his tight grasp. All the knights are laughing and cat calling.

“Okay, okay,” Gwaine yields, finally letting Merlin go. When Merlin finally has use of his limbs back, his eyes immediately go to Arthur for some reason. Although Arthur is smiling along with everyone else, his posture is tense, and his smile is tight. Before Merlin can think about it anymore, though, Gwaine directs his attention back to Merlin.

“Well? Don’t keep us hanging!” Gwaine says.

Oh. Merlin is expected to take his turn. This is a problem. He risks a quick glance at Arthur again, knowing that the heat forming from his cheeks isn’t due to the fire. The thing is, Merlin does have a crush, an extremely inconvenient crush. He hates how Arthur’s smile sends butterflies swarming through his stomach, how when Arthur touches him his heart rate speeds up. Over time, Merlin has gotten used to it. After all, nothing would ever come of it. Arthur would never fall someone like him, even if Merlin was noble.

Across the campfire, Lancelot sends him an apologetic look. For some reason, Lancelot ended up knowing not one, but both of Merlin’s biggest secrets. Although Merlin appreciates someone to rant to, he also can’t stand the looks of pity that Lancelot sends him. It’s embarrassing, mostly; Merlin feels ridiculous for even having a crush on Arthur in the first place, let alone someone else knowing. Still, Lancelot raves about his crush on Gwen in return, convinced that she’ll never reciprocate his feelings because her and Arthur are in love. Merlin has a feeling that even though Arthur might be in love with Gwen, Gwen doesn’t return his feelings in anything but a platonic manner. She only has eyes for Lancelot these days. Despite the obvious yearning looks between Lancelot and Gwen, Merlin doesn’t mention anything because Lancelot always certainly denies the obvious. Plus, it just makes Merlin feel worse about his situation.

He can’t risk Arthur finding out. This secret is second only to his magic. There’s no doubt that if any of the knights find out, the truth will come out to Arthur eventually, too. Merlin has to steer them off any trail connecting his crush to Arthur.

“Dark hair and eyes,” Merlin says, picturing the opposite of Arthur. “Sensitive, reserved, and always open about their feelings.”

Gwaine slaps him on the back, “You’ll find her someday, Merlin. I can be your wingman!”

Merlin smiles half-heartedly, still thinking of the person he really likes. He looks over toward Arthur again, only to find him standing up, grumbling about getting more firewood. There’s already a pile big enough to last them the rest of the night.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just a spoilsport,” Gwaine groans. “Princess needs to unwind a bit sometimes.”

“That’s the King you’re speaking of,” Leon reminds him, although there’s no bite behind it.

“I know you all agree!”

The bickering between the knights continue. Merlin smiles and laughs when prompted, saying minimal words the rest of the time. Lancelot notices odd mood, but knows better than to confront Merlin at that moment.

It’s only much later that Arthur finally returns, arms full of wood (it’s the completely wrong kind to keep a fire going, but Merlin doesn’t dare mention that). By that point, the knights are finally calming down. After dumping the sticks near the fire, Arthur turns toward his men.

“I’ll take first watch,” Arthur volunteers stiffly. “Leon, you can take second. We’ll head back to Camelot straight away tomorrow morning.”

Arthur seems different than normal, more stoic. He seems uncomfortable, too, especially when Merlin heads over to his side. Merlin worries that Arthur somehow picked up on his bluff. What if Arthur suspects his crush and is disgusted by it? Merlin really hopes that isn’t the case; he can’t risk jeopardizing the odd friendship they’ve built over the years for one stupid little crush.

“Are you sure you want to take watch? I can do it while you get some rest,” Merlin offers hesitantly.

Arthur purses his lips, silent for a moment before finally responding. “No, Merlin. Just go to sleep.”

No joking or mocking, just a simple statement. Merlin screwed things up so bad. He can only hope that tomorrow will be better. As Arthur stalks off to lean against a tree, Lancelot approaches Merlin. He pats Merlin on the back a few times with a comforting smile.

“Are you okay?” Lancelot asks quietly, as not to alert the others.

Merlin nods slightly. “Yeah, ‘course.” He says this not only to reassure Lancelot but also himself. Who cares if Arthur’s acting grumpy about this all? He’s probably just still caught up with his crush on Gwen and in a bad mood from the long day. Merlin’s not worried at all that his secret has been revealed and Arthur hates him. Things are fine.

…

The next morning proceeds like any other. Arthur orders Merlin around like usual, bickering with him and tossing insults back and forth. And Merlin is relieved. Things seem to be normal once more, and Merlin can deal with normal.

“Mer-lin! Could you be any lazier?! At this rate, we won’t get back to Camelot until nightfall,” Arthur proclaims, waiting with arms crossed as Merlin finishes packing the saddlebags.

“So sorry, my pratness,” Merlin grins. Having a pack thrown at his chest in retaliation has never felt better.

On the journey home, Lancelot trots his horse up beside Merlin, urging them to the back of the pack. “You and Arthur seem normal this morning.”

“I guess he was just in a bad mood last night, after all,” Merlin replies.

“You’re okay with things being normal again?”

“Normal is better than Arthur hating me.”

Lancelot pulls a face. “Merlin, I really don’t think Arthur could ever hate you.”

Merlin doesn’t know what to respond with, but luckily, he’s saved by their approach into Camelot. Arthur, having noticed that his manservant isn’t beside him, calls out for Merlin with annoyance. Merlin offers Lance a small smile for his efforts as a good friend before catching up with the King.

The next fortnight goes by with miraculously no complications. Arthur is busy with his duties as King and ordering Merlin around to do his chores. After coming back from the latest hunt, Merlin decided he would not get hung up with his crush on Arthur. It went well, at first. Merlin pushed out any type of thoughts relating to Arthur’s annoyingly brilliant smile, stupid blue eyes, or joyous laugh. He didn’t feel the tingling sensations when Arthur touched his arm or patted his back. Merlin definitely hasn’t been admiring Arthur’s sleeping body in the morning before he wakes, so soft and relaxed, golden hair tousled along the pillow and skin gleaming under the crack of the sunlight from the curtains.

Damn it. Maybe this isn’t going to work as well as Merlin had hoped. In fact, it seems like Merlin just becomes more infatuated as the days go on!

Unbeknownst to him, there was a big change coming in the form of one Oliver Francis.

…

Recently, word of the Knights of the Roundtable has passed throughout the kingdom and beyond. For the last few months, more and more nobles and non-nobles alike have been traveling the distance to Camelot in order to train for a spot as one of Arthur’s prestigious knights. Many had trained and fought, and very few actually succeeded in becoming a full-fledged knight.

If you asked Merlin, he would say he has no clue what the big fuss about being a knight is. Of course, he believes in Camelot and Arthur and understands the attraction to the prospering kingdom. Never will Merlin understand, though, the fun of constantly sacrificing your life and hitting things with glorified sticks. Not to say he doesn’t appreciate the knights, but he can’t understand it. If Merlin had his choice, he wouldn’t have to use his magic in dangerous situations to constantly save Arthur’s backside. Merlin has no choice in the matter, though, destiny this, future of Albion that, but these prospective knights are willingly putting themselves in that spot. Merlin can’t believe it. And, naturally, Arthur disagrees.

“I don’t expect you to understand the extreme honor that comes with being a Knight of Camelot,” Arthur scoffs after Merlin’s tirade of the new bout of knight training today.

“I’m just saying that there are many other ways to serve Camelot than hitting things with sticks,” Merlin replies, handing Arthur his sword with a smirk.

“Like mucking out the stables?”

“Oh yes sire, mucking out the stables is truly one of the highest honors of Camelot. Perhaps you should have your new trainees do that, instead?”

Arthur laughs sharply. “Then who would protect Camelot? You, who can barely walk without stumbling over his own feet?”

Merlin goes to retort fruitlessly, but happens to trip over a chair leg in that very moment. His face reddens while Arthur grins cheekily. If only Arthur knew exactly how much Merlin does for him.

A knock sounds against Arthur’s chamber doors. “Sire, the trainees are about to arrive,” Leon calls from the other side of the door.

“Yeah, better finish up whatever you and Merlin and doing in there, Princess!” Gwaine says, before muttering “ouch”, probably from getting smacked from one of the other knights.

“I’ll meet you down there right away,” Arthur responds, sending a pointed look at Merlin. Arthur’s cheeks are dusted pink, but Merlin thinks nothing of it.

True to Arthur’s word, they make their way down to the training field a few moments later. The sun burns down hot, causing Merlin to start sweating as soon as he steps outside. He wonders how the practiced knights survive with their heavy chainmail in this kind of heat, let alone a bunch of trainees vying for a spot.

The potential newcomers are already lined up and ready to go in sets of chainmail, swords clutched in their grips. There’s only three of them this time, and as Merlin listens to them speak to Arthur, he ascertains that two of them are of noble blood, while the other was born a peasant. Although Merlin is trained in the art of sword fighting like the King, he’s picked up a few things from watching Arthur train his knights all of these years. He knows enough to tell that they all have potential. Borden, a tall, thick noble, is talented at defense, but not so much at offensive moves. The other noble who goes by Gavin is quick and light on his feet, but his strength leaves much to be desired. Lastly, there’s Oliver. His fighting styles are a bit unconventional, but he knows his stuff. He’s smart in his movements, too, as if every one has an exact purpose to them.

During a quick break from the sweltering heat, the trainees huddle under the shade of the tent and grab a cup of water from Merlin. Oliver is last in line, smiling politely up at Merlin.

“I can’t believe I’m in Camelot,” Oliver says with awe, one hand ruffling through his dark hair. “It seems unreal that I have the chance to be an actual knight.”

Merlin only realizes that Oliver is talking to him after looking around and seeing no one else near them. He then replies, “Camelot is great in many ways. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy your time here.”

“What’s your name, then?”

“Merlin,” he answers. “King Arthur’s manservant.”

“Nice to meet you. How is it working for the King?”

Merlin hums. For some reason, he feels like he shouldn’t be afraid to tell Oliver his real thoughts on the King. After all, Oliver isn’t a noble born. “He’s a prat.”

Oliver gapes for a moment before giggling. Merlin soon joins in, happy that he has a new potential friend. Arthur, having heard them from across the training grounds, eyes them suspiciously before stomping over. His blond hair is stuck to his head with sweat, yet he appears as energetic as ever.

“Please feel free to ignore Merlin,” Arthur says. “He’s an idiot.”

“It’s no problem at all, your highness,” Oliver responds. “Merlin’s company is much enjoyable.”

Arthur narrows his eyes as he inspects Oliver and Merlin. “If you’re certain. But I do have use of my manservant, Oliver, so if you’ll excuse me.”

With that, Arthur yanks at Merlin’s wrist, tugging him to the opposite end of the large tent. Merlin mouths an apology to Oliver before letting himself be pulled along.

“What was that about, clotpole?” Merlin asks.

“I can’t have you distracting my potential knights,” Arthur mutters, wiping his face with a towel. “Besides, I need a fresh towel.” He then throws his dirty towel at Merlin’s chest, making Merlin groan with disgust.

Arthur is about to head back to the training field, but before he does, he stops at Merlin’s side. He reaches up and, with a gentleness Merlin not thought possible, brushes the sweat laced hair strands of his eyes. Merlin’s eyes flutter shut for a moment, relishing in the soft touch. Then, as soon as it comes, it’s gone. Arthur brings his hand away, then says, “Get yourself some water, Merlin. I can’t have you fainting like a girl from dehydration.”

…

Things only continue to get stranger from there. As Arthur continues seeing if these potential knights have what it takes, Merlin notices that Arthur has started acting different than usual. Not only has Arthur been more aloof, but he’s also been especially hard on one of the trainees in particular: Oliver. At first, it wasn’t noticeable; the quick glares, the little bit harder he was ragged on after practice, but then it became apparent. Arthur seemed to only have eyes for making Oliver break under him. Of course, Arthur has never been cruel, but his distaste for Oliver is obvious to everyone, including Oliver himself.

About a week after coming to Camelot, Oliver finds Merlin in the castle halls carrying a large load of Arthur’s laundry to be washed.

“It’s good to see you,” Oliver greets, piling pieces of clothing that have fallen back onto the top of the wobbling basket.

Merlin smiles, “You too, Oliver. Is there something you need?” He guides the basket to the ground, needing a break before his back gives out, anyway.

Oliver sighs, “I suppose I was wondering…well, since you’re so close to King Arthur and all…do you think I have done something to offend him?”

“I have no reason to think that you offended him,” Merlin offers. “Nor do any of the others. We all enjoy your company and skills. Arthur can be difficult, sometimes, but I’m sure that he will get to know you better soon, and you two will become closer.”

Relieved, Oliver clasps a hand around Merlin’s shoulder, mirroring the position that Arthur has held with Merlin many times before. Of course, at that moment, Arthur himself comes rounding the corner to head toward his chambers.

“MERLIN!” Arthur shouts, voice echoing through the walls of the castle. Merlin turns to see Arthur standing just a few foot lengths away, glaring at the pair of them.

“You didn’t have to yell, prat, I’m right here,” Merlin complains. Arthur moves closer toward him, and Merlin prepares himself to be berated or get something thrown at him. Instead, he feels Arthur’s arm wrap around the very spot that Oliver’s was seconds ago, squeezing his shoulder tightly.

“Hello, sire,” Oliver says.

“Oliver,” Arthur acknowledges, nose up. “If you would spend more time training and less time fraternizing with my servant, then maybe you’d have a better chance of becoming a knight.”

Merlin feels just as stunned as Oliver appears. Merlin has never heard Arthur speak so brashly before, and to a knight in training nonetheless. Oliver casts his gaze downward respectfully, hands clasped in front of him like a servant. Suddenly, Merlin has a feeling he knows why Arthur dislikes Oliver so much, and he won’t stand for it.

Arthur leads Merlin back the short distance to Arthur’s chambers, not bothering to respond toward Merlin’s complaints about his laundry still being in the hallway. When they finally arrive, doors closing behind them, Merlin pulls himself away from Arthur’s arm, glaring at him.

“Okay, enough is enough. You’ve been a right prat toward Oliver ever since he arrived, and I know why.”

At this, Arthur pales considerably. “Y-you do?”

“Come on, Arthur, you really thought I wouldn’t figure it out?!”

Arthur purses his lips, feet shuffling. “Merlin—”

“How could you?”

“What do you mean how could I? I can’t help it!” Arthur protests, running his hand through his hair.

“That’s just an excuse, and a terrible one at that!”

“Is it really so wrong?”

Merlin gapes at him. “Yes! I-I though you were a better man than this, Arthur.”

“I—” words die in Arthur’s throat. He almost appears distraught, and Merlin has a sudden urge to comfort him. But Arthur needs to understand that what he did to Oliver was wrong.

“I thought we were friends!” Merlin continues to rant, beginning to pace back and forth. “I thought that after you knighted people like Lancelot who weren’t of noble blood, that you would have no bias toward someone from a non-royal background trying to become a knight, but obviously I was wrong! You’ve been treating Oliver terribly, and just because he’s not nobility.”

“What?” Arthur gasps, peeling off into laughter.

“This isn’t funny,” Merlin says as he grows angrier.

Arthur continues laughing, and Merlin can’t take it anymore. He turns to stomp out of the room. Before he can leave, though, a hand takes his wrist. Arthur’s laughter finally dies down as he wipes at his eyes.

“You’re so dense, Merlin.”

“Me, dense?!”

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Yes, you. I couldn’t care less about Oliver or anybody else’s background. They all deserve an equal chance to become knights.”

Merlin eyebrows scrunch up in confusion. “B-but, then why are you being so rude toward him?”

“God, Merlin, it’s because he’s your dream guy!”

Now, Merlin’s even more confused. “My dream guy?!”

“Yes,” Arthur nods seriously. “That knight in the forest a few weeks back, when we were all talking about our…ahem, crushes, and the type of person that you said you are into is Oliver to a tee.”

Arthur remembers that. Arthur remembers his description. Arthur is talking to him about crushes. Could this day get any worse?

“What does that have to do with any of this?” Merlin wonders, still not getting it.

Arthur groans in frustration, tugging on his hair so hard that Merlin worries he’ll yank it out. He then takes a few deep breaths to calm him down. “None of you ever asked me who my ideal date would be.”

“Wait a minute…” Merlin trails off, “Do you have a crush on Oliver?!”

“What, no!” Arthur groans again. “No, you daft idiot! I have a crush on you!”

Silence falls over the room. Merlin stares at Arthur, as if he’ll wake up from this dream any second. He stammers for words, but nothing comes out of his mouth. Over and over he replays Arthur’s words in his mind. I have a crush on you. I have a crush on you.

Arthur likes me.

“Y-you…you like me?” Merlin gasps. “How can you like me?”

“I wish I knew,” Arthur mutters, “But somehow you’ve managed to get under my skin like no one else. I…I was, a bit unfair—”

“—terribly rude—”

“—Okay, fine, I was rude to Oliver! But I couldn’t help it, Merlin. Every time I saw you two together, laughing and smiling and touching, it made a fire rage in my stomach. I couldn’t stand him looking at you like that.”

“Arthur…” Merlin says, stepping closer to him.

Arthur clears his throat, stepping backward. “But it’s nothing, it’s fine. I mean, I know you must have a crush on Oliver, as he’s exactly the person you described.”

“Now you’re the one being an idiot,” Merlin smiles, stepping toward him once more. This time, Arthur makes no move away. “I’ve been ridiculously in love with you for the longest time, Arthur.”

Arthur’s mouth drops. “But Oliver…”

Merlin blushes profusely. “Well, actually, he’s not really my type. I may have lied a bit at the campfire to conceal my true feelings. The type of person I want to date is actually much different.”

Arthur takes a step closer. “Oh?”

“The type of person I like is kind of a big prat,” Merlin continues. “A big prat with a heart of gold. Who’s brave, caring, and fights for justice. A person who infuriates me daily with his snide remarks but surprises me with his kindness.”

They’re so close now that Merlin can feel Arthurs breath mingling with his own. Merlin’s heart is beating out of his chest, waiting for Arthur to say something, anything. Finally, Arthur is opening his mouth to speak….

“Is it Gwaine?”

Merlin groans in frustration. “You have got to be—”

“I’m joking,” Arthur promises, reaching forward you cup his cheek. “Dollophead.”

“That’s my w—mmph!” Merlin starts, only to be cut off by the sweet press of Arthur’s chapped lips against his own. It tastes like sweat and is filled with desperation. Merlin clumsily fists his hands in Arthur’s shirt, bringing him as close as possible. He’s wanted this for so long that it doesn’t quite feel real.

They only pull apart when they absolutely have to, both panting for air. Even then, Merlin doesn’t let go of Arthur’s shirt. Meanwhile, Arthur’s hand traces it’s way down the side of Merlin’s face, a gentle caress. They drop their foreheads together, unable to hide their matching smiles.

“You’ll be nicer to Oliver now?” Merlin whispers.

Arthur chuckles as he strokes Merlin’s cheek. “I suppose. I do have him to thank for getting us to come to our senses, after all.”

“You mean for you to come to your senses.”

“Do you want to be sent to the stocks?”

“Mmh, you wouldn’t. You’d miss me to much,” Merlin hums, leaning to press a chaste kiss against Arthur’s lips.

Arthur hauls him back in.

“In your dreams.”

#merthur #merthur fanfic #merthur fic #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #merthur fanfiction #merlin emrys #arthur pendragon #lancelot #gwaine #leon #elyan #percival #fluff #fanfiction

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reddeadinmybed · 5 years ago

Text

Simplicity (M)

ANON ASKED; can we get NSFW dutchxreader? maybe something a little rough but not too violent or crazy.

Life on a farm was never easy. My father was never one to ask for money from loan sharks, he was too proud of a man to ever admit that he needed help when times were troubling. However, when a stormy night hit the farm and destroyed the crops and killed our livestock, my father had no choice. My father had somehow managed to find a loan shark easy due to them being only up the road. Something about them recently moving here from Ambarino.

The lenders name was Leopold Strauss. He was a German who was very good with numbers and anything mathematical. He lent my father approximately $250 to let the farm to get back on its feet again, which didn’t need the insane amount of money. He gave my father the time limit of a week and if we didn’t seek him out, he would send one of his men to come and “collect the money” for him. Sounded like a crock of shit to me. No loan shark would come and collect the money without starting a fight.

When my father told my little sister and I, we hit the roof. My father didn’t know the first thing about loaning or money in general. My father was now well over-encumbered with money and my sister and I had to make sure that the money was going to be spent accordingly and wouldn’t be spent on the likes of alcohol. It was either my father spending all the money for his own pleasures, or it was some assholes trying to steal the money for their own pleasures.

My sister and I thought we had managed to get the money back on time. We had put the money in the safe and didn’t let father know where the key was hidden. He agreed, not wanting to be indebted to a loan shark for the rest of his life. It was perhaps one of the smartest moves he made ever since mum died. The smartest move he ever made was to quit drinking and start focusing on a life with his two daughters.

Everything was going great until our farm got raided by some scum who called themselves the O’Driscoll’s. They stole our money, the money that we had saved to return to Leopold Strauss. They had blown up the safe whilst my father, sister and myself went to Valentine to grab supplies.

We came back to nothing. No money. No cattle. Absolutely nothing. We were lucky they didn’t burn our house down. If they had, we would not have been able to have shelter. We were already on the cusp of losing the house. Prices were slowly starting to increase and supplies were scarce.

Leopold Strauss was going to send someone after us and there was nothing we could do about it. There was no way the three of us could make $130 in four hours. Father was told 6:00pm otherwise they would come and if was 2:00pm now.

Father told us that he was going to handle this problem and that we needed to hide. Something about not wanting any of the men in the gang to know we were here however we didn’t make it.

Just as my sister and I were going to hide, there was a man who kicked the door opened. My sister screamed in surprise and I pulled her closer to me, protecting her from the man. My sister was clinging to me desperately, terrified of the man who just knocked our door off its hinges.

“Mr L/N, it appears you haven’t handed us our money back.” The man says whilst taking a look around our house, most probably searching for something for him to take.

“Mr Williamson, you have to believe me when I say I had the money but those O’Driscoll boys took all of it. They had left us with nothing...I-I–”

Mr Williamson grabbed a glass from the cabinet and grabbed the scotch that was half empty. He then took a seat at the table and placed his feet on top of it. Mr Williamson poured himself a shot and brought it to his mouth, swigging it back.

“Now Mr L/N, do you really think I care about those damn O’Driscoll’s? You learn money to our Strauss and you need to pay up.” Mr Williamson chuckled, clearly finding the whole situation amusing.

Father spluttered with his words, giving Mr Williamson more of a reason to find the situation funny. Mr Williamson just sat there and continued to chuckle and pour another drink, knocking it back.

Mr Williamson looked over toward my sister and I, finally noticing us standing there, shaking in fear. If it was even possible, my sister gripped onto me even harder. I felt that if she held onto me tighter, I would die from getting crushed.

Mr Williamson gave a smirk.

“Well ain’t this a surprise,” he looked over at father. “Forget about the money Mr L/N, we’ll clear the debt for one of your beautiful beautiful girls over here.” Mr Williamson started as he creeped towards us.

“You leave them alone you hear! They’re not taking a single step out of this house with you. You and your gang can...can go fuck themselves! You hear me? Go fuck your self!” Father yelled and took steps closer towards Mr Williamson.

“Shut up you old bastard.” Mr Williamson pulled his gun out of his holster and whacked father over the head with it. Father fell to the floor, knocked unconscious from the impact of the hit.

My sister screamed, scared because father was our protector yet he was knocked out on the floor, leaving me to deal with Mr Williamson by myself, who was staring at my sister with predatory eyes.

Panic swarmed through me at the thought of Mr Williamson trying to take my sister. There was no way I could let him take her. I would rather him take me and even kill me before he even lays a finger on her.

“Now the question is, which one of you ladies should I take as payment.�� Mr Williamson’s smirk only grew wider when my grip on my little sister tightened. It was obvious he wanted my sister and his menacing steps towards the two of us made it even more obvious.

“Y-You leave her alone you! Take me instead. I will go willingly if you let her go.” The words were meant to come out strong and make me long strong but my words were stumbled and quiet.

Mr Williamson’s smirk didn’t falter. He knew that I was scared and he knew that I couldn’t do a thing to stop him from taking my little sister. I would still try my hardest to keep the evil man that stands before me from stealing my little sister.

If Mr Williamson manages to take my little sister, I would never forgive myself.

“Well then. If I can’t have her...I’ll take you.” Me Williamson grabbed my arm and yanked me towards him. His grab caused me to go flying into his chest.

He stank of alcohol, no doubt he was drunk even before he came to ‘collect his money’. The smell made me want to gag, it was so bad. Not to mention that he hadn’t bathed in what seemed like centuries.

“H-hey! Let go of me!” I yelled out, trying to yank myself out of his grip.

Mr Williamson laughed.

“Look at what we got here. First she wants me to let her sister go and now she wants me to let her go. Well, I’ve got some bad news for ya sweetheart...” he looked me dead in the eye, “I’m going to have to take you with me. You’re the payment.” He then started walking towards the door, his grip on my collar pulling me with him.

“Y/N!” My little sister yells and proceeds to run after me.

Mr Williamson ignored her pleas and hogtied my hands before throwing me on the floor and hogtying my legs together. He threw me over his shoulders, his disgusting hands giving my waist a squeeze. He chuckled, throwing me over the horse.

“Y/N! No, please don’t go! I need you!” My sister cried out but there was nothing I could do. I was stuck on the horse and I couldn’t even see her. The repulsive man in front of me had faced me away from my little sister so as Mr Williamson got on his horse and started cantering away, I could only turn my head and look at her.

She looked a mess, crying her eyes out and eventually she collapsed onto her knees and thrusted her arms out as if she was trying to grab me. My little sister looked broken hearted and as Mr Williamson’s horse retreated, a tear fell from my eye.

How was I going to survive this?

It was only a 30 minute ride but it felt like hours. I didn’t attempt to speak in fear that I would get hit. I didn’t look towards Mr Williamson at all, not wanting to attract his attention towards me. During the ride Mr Williamson pulled out a flask and proceeded to frantically drink out of it. He finished it by the time we made it to the gangs hideout.

When Mr Williamson’s horse was hitched up, he grabbed my waist again, muttering about how nice my waist looked, threw me over his shoulder, and walked towards a large tent.

There was people in this gang - women to be in fact. They didn’t at all look intimidating, apart from one but she only looked stressed, ordering them girls to clean the sheets and clothes. Maybe they were like me. Slaves.

“Jesus Bill, Strauss sent you to collect money, not a girl.” One of the males said to Bill.

The man wore a worn out stenson with a blue shirt. He had a bandana wrapped around his neck and wore blue jeans with black and white suspenders. He had chaps that overlapped his pants and wore black boots. He was handsome, there was no denying it.

“Oh shut it Arthur, maybe if you could’ve done it better you should’ve gone instead,” Bill retorted and proceeded to walk towards the tent.

I looked at Arthur and he gave me an apologetic look, apologising on behalf of Bill.

I didn’t even get the chance to smile back at him because I was thrown to the floor. I grunted as I hit the floor, the air being knocked out of my lungs. I wheezed trying to find air for me to breathe again.

“Mr Williamson, I trust that this girl is important and that’s why you’ve kidnapped her from her home and robbed her from her family.” A sombre voice rang out and it had me turning to see who was the owner of the voice.

He was a tall but handsome man. He held a cigar in one hand and had the other holding on to his belt. He wore a black top hat with a red lining. He wore all black consisting of a black button up, jacket, dress pants and shoes. He stood there like a god and he looked like one too.

There was a girl in the tent who had red hair. She was gorgeous and had her hair professionally put up and looked perfectly in place. Her dress accentuated all her curves and made her bust looked luscious and plump. She was glaring at me, seeming displeased that I had pulled her away from the gorgeous man that stands before me.

“Dutch, this woman is payment for the L/N loan. Apparently the O’Driscoll’s had stolen their money right before I came. As punishment I took her.” Bill’s words made me angry; livid even.

“The O’Driscoll’s took everything we had! Even our payment to you, you incompetent asswipe.” I spat towards Bill, tired of seeing his excruciatingly annoying face.

Bill looked at me, annoyance dripping down his face.

“Now you shut it you dumb little bi –”

“Enough Bill. You can leave now.” Dutch called out, not once looking at him, his gaze remaining on me. “Before you do leave, untie the girl, she doesn’t need to be bound.” He placed the cigar in his mouth.

It was like I was entranced. Everything he did was perfect and all he did was put a cigar in his mouth.

Bill untied me and Dutch offered his hand out for me to grab. Apprehensively, I grabbed his hand and he pulled me up and towards him. I collided into his hard chest and his hand let go of mine and he placed it on my waist, stabilising me.

I blushed, not expecting such a brazen move. He was all kinds of warm, from his hands to his gaze. The weather was warm, probably why his grip was so warm.

“Everybody gather around. This here is –” he stopped and looked at me, expecting me to introduce myself.

“Y/N,” I muttered. It was so quiet I don’t even think that Dutch had heard it but he had.

“This is Y/N. She will be staying with us now. Keep your eye on her and if she runs away,” he paused to look at me. “Bring her back.” His voice was deep and it brought a shiver down my spine. It was clearly a warning. A warning to let me know that if I try and escape, there will be hell to pay.

A couple of minutes passed and everyone went back to what they were doing. People were cooking, others cleaning. Some were sitting there and writing in a book - a ledger. Most likely Leopold Strauss.

However Arthur caught my attention the most. He had a journal open and it appeared he was sketching. He looked at me ever so often and it didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Arthur was drawing me.

I slowly moved towards him and sat down next to him. He was sitting on a log that was overlooking the river. There was a lot of bugs around here but it was something that Arthur had seemed to be used to, not paying attention to any of the bugs flying around his face.

“Do you like drawing Mr –” I waited to hear his last name.

“Morgan,” he looked up towards me, staring at me for a bit before looking back down and sketching once again. “The last name is Morgan.” He looked very handsome sketching, yet not quite as handsome as Dutch.

“Mr Morgan,” I tested out his name and Arthur looked up at me. I gave a small smile and he returned one to me.

I had no idea but I wasn’t afraid. Mr Morgan made me feel...safe. It was as if he would never hurt me. I know its strange considering I just met him but he doesn’t look like he would hurt me. In fact, no one in this camp looks it. Apart from Mr Williamson and one other man in this camp (he had blonde hair and a strange moustache with an expression that was truly evil), it didn’t seem that any of them wanted to hurt me. Hell they even had a kid in this camp.

I felt somewhat safe with this camp which is definitely crazy considering they just kidnapped me from my family and my home.

“The answer is yes.” Mr Morgan said, confusing me. I frowned at him as if trying to remember if I said anything.

“You asked me if I liked to draw,” Mr Morgan clarified. “Yes, I like to draw.” Was all he said and we were sat in silence again.

I took one look at Dutch and he was talking to the girl in his tent. They didn’t look happy, somewhat yelling at each other. You could hear the phonograph playing classical music, drowning out their argument. I then looked back at the river again and watched as the sun started to go down.

I don’t know how I’m going to survive here but I’m hoping that eventually, they’ll let me see my family again.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I have been with the gang known as the Van Der Linde Gang. I have gotten to know everyone a bit better during the weeks I’ve resided here. I’ve even gotten to know Bill. He was a grumpy brute and although I don’t particularly like him (or Micah and Molly) I remain - for some silly reason - hopeful that a friendship can grow between the two of us.

I’m extremely close to Arthur Morgan and Mary-Beth. Karen doesn’t like me too much, saying I need “exposure to the real world and not some fairytale world”. The reason being that Mary-Beth and I love to read. We love to read about other lives. Other lives being the rich and famous and love stories that we could only dream of.

Arthur is my lifeline. When I felt like I was drowning, Arthur had managed to pull me back and remind me of who I am and what I was doing here.

Although I miss my family very much, I felt like this was the life that I was missing. I felt like I was meant to be here. I didn’t want to leave this place. Yes, I wanted to see my family again, everyone would in my situation. Yet I feel like I don’t want to go back to how things were before. It seemed boring.

Over the few weeks I also got to know Dutch Van Der Linde and his somewhat ‘girlfriend’ Molly O’Shea. Dutch refuses to call her that but Molly jumps at the chance, reminding me that Dutch belongs to her.

It was currently 7:30 in the afternoon and the sun had just left the sky a couple of minutes ago, yet there was a gorgeous residue of patterns from the sun that littered the sky. It was gorgeous.

“Miss L/N,” Mr Matthews voice called out. I turned to face him, a smile on my face.

Mr Matthews was a lovely old man who acted like a father to me. He always talked about his ex-wife Bessie and how things used to be. They were interesting stories and I loved to sit down by the fire and listen to them, a smile on my face.

“Yes Mr Matthews,” I said whilst turning around to face him completely.

His old age was slowly getting to him, the wrinkles becoming evident as each day passes. I had no idea how old he truly was but I was assuming he was in his late 60’s to early 70’s.

“Dutch would like a word with you in his tent.” A spark of nervousness ignited in my belly. The tingle I felt made my breath hitch and I could only give a small smile as a response to Mr Matthews.

He walked off leaving me to sit there and think about what Dutch could possibly want. Was it that he has noticed the stares that I give him? Was he going to kick me out of the gang? Was he going to yell at me for doing something wrong? My mind went into overdrive, thinking of all the worst case scenarios in my head.

I stood up abruptly and started walking towards Dutch’s tent which was all closed off. I had no idea how I was going to let him know that I was there, it wasn’t like I could knock on the sheet. Instead I resorted to, “Mr Van Der Linde, I’m here.”

Dutch uttered out a “come in,” and I found myself opening the sheet and stepping inside, making sure the sheet was shut properly. I then turned to face Dutch and my jaw almost dropped with the sight I had before me.

Dutch held a book in his hand and flicked the page when he had finished the page. His jacket was not one and his shirt was unbuttoned allowing me to see his chest. His hat was sitting on top of a barrel and I could see his hair was rough due to the hat being on all day.

“Y-yes Mr Van Der Linde?” I asked, stuttering at the beginning.

Dutch noticed this, a smirk on his face as he took a puff of his cigar. He blew out the smoke and placed cigar on a tray, ensuring that the whole tent won’t set on fire due to the cigar dropping.

“Miss L/N, I have called you in here so I can discuss a...an observation I have seen with you and Mr Morgan in the camp.” At the mention of Arthur my cheeks turned red.

Oh no, he thinks I like Mr Morgan!

“M-Mr Morgan? He and I are merely just friends, he and I a-are nothing more.” I muttered out quickly and Dutch smirks once again.

Dutch closed the book and placed it on the barrel before walking closer towards me. I took a step back, not wanting to be in his way but it appears he was walking towards me. I took another step back, afraid of what he was planning.

He flicked the switch of the phonograph and classical music started to play. The sound blocked my thoughts, it being way too loud for me to think.

“Dance with me Y/N.” The way he said my name sent a shiver down my spine. He offered out his hand and I didn’t even think before I grabbed his hand, eager to dance with him.

He pulled me to him, much like the first day that I met him, and I collided to his chest. His arms encircled around my waist, giving a little squeeze before his left hand gripped my own.

My breath hitched at being so close to him. His grip on me was tight, as if he never wanted to let me go which was fine by me because I never wanted him to let me go. Being in his arms felt right and I never wanted to be held in another mans arms.

Dutch moved backwards slowly, guiding me with him. Everything felt so right. I could feel his chest pressed against mine and my right hand was gripping his shoulder with such desperation, I’m sure Dutch could feel my nails digging in.

My gaze remained on his and his gaze remained on me, both of us too afraid to look away from each other. It was as if we’d disappear if we looked away from each other.

Dutch’s gaze flickered fo my lips, and at that moment, I desperately wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to make me his, I wanted to be his.

His head tilted in, as if he was going to kiss me and I wasn’t going to pull back. I wanted this just as much as he did. I wanted Dutch to kiss me, to call me his. I could feel his breath on my lips and we were so close our noses were almost touching. If I leant forward even the slightest, our lips would be pressed against each other.

The kiss was going to happen except Molly barged through the tent and saw Dutch and I. She saw me pressed completely towards Dutch and our heads tilted and close together.

I broke away from Dutch and removed myself from his embrace. Immediately a sense of longing filled me. A feeling of yearning for his embrace nagged at me and it would do anything to be in Dutch’s arms again.

Not thinking, I turned and ran out of the tent, not wanting to hear what Dutch nor Molly had to say. I just kept going until I finally made it to my tent and laid on the bed, attempting sleep.

I was afraid. I was afraid of the way I felt when I was with Dutch. I should hate him. He’s forbidding me from seeing my family and he’s keeping me here. I should feel nothing but repulsive when he touches me and I should be trying to escape as I’m thinking at this very moment; but I can’t. I don’t want to leave because when I’m with Dutch, my world is complete.

Maybe I was crazy but the simplicity of being with Dutch is what I yearned for. I didn’t have a struggle when I was with him, life was easy and simple. I wanted him and I knew I couldn’t have him.

He was with Molly.

A couple of days had passed since that night with Dutch. I had avoided both him and Molly, still not wanting to hear what they had to say. Not only that, I had no idea what to say to either of them. What would I even say to Molly? There was nothing to us? Clearly Dutch and I both wanted something that night whether it was just pure intimacy or each other. It wouldn’t make sense if it was just intimacy he craved, he had Molly for that. Right?

I was walking to a table to place my stew down when Molly stood in front of me and knocked my plate causing the hot stew to land on my chest and the food to cover me.

I gasped, not expecting Molly to do that or have food all over me and my clothes. It burned, the stew being fresh off the burner. I wanted to scream and flick the hot food off of my chest but I was also too proud to admit that I was in pain, especially to

Molly looked proud of herself for ruining my dress. She had a proud smirk on her face and she crossed her arms, pushing her bust out.

“What the hell!” I yelled out looking at Molly with an angry look on my face. Everyone in the camp looked our way to see what was happening.

Micah let out a little chuckle and made a remark, no doubt a disgusting one.

“That was for hanging out with Dutch, when you know he was mine.” She then turned away and started to walk away from me.

A flash of anger ran through me and I stormed towards the stew pot. I grabbed a bowl and grabbed a handful of stew with the spoon and placed it in the bowl before walking towards Molly O’Shea and dumping all on her.

She gasped in shock and yelled that it burned.

“Two can play this game Molly. Don’t fuck with me.” I then turned and started walking towards the river. I needed to get these clothes off of me.

I continued walking a few metres away from the camp, just to make sure that no one could see me. I didn’t want anyone to see me naked especially Micah. He was a creep.

When I thought I was clear, I started to undress. I then walking into the water, with my dress in hand. I needed to clean the stew off of the dress if I ever wanted to wear it again. I was limited in clothes and I needed this one to not be stained.

I stood in the freezing cold water trying to get the stain out, not even noticing that Dutch was slowly walking towards me. His steps were slow, him taking his time appreciating the view.

The water stood up to my waist so he would’ve been able to see my breasts and me struggling to get the stain out of my dress.

It wasn’t until I groaned and threw the dress towards the shore that I saw Dutch Van Der Linde standing there watching me. I gasped and covered my breasts although there was no point, he had already seen them.

Dutch stood there with a smirk on his face.

“Miss L/N, I didn’t realise you were so brass.” He grabbed his hat and placed it on the floor. He then took his jacket off, slowly undressing himself in front of me.

“Mr...Mr Van Der Linde, I-I wasn’t expecting you to follow me. I-I needed to clean my dress after –”

“After miss O’Shea threw your stew all over you. Yes I heard. I also heard that you threw stew over her. That was a very bad thing to do Miss L/N. You’re disturbing the peace around here,” Mr Van Der Linde said as he unbuttoned his cuff-links.

“I-I didn’t m-mean to. I was mad and...and I –”

“That’s enough talking Miss L/N, you need to be punished,” he cut me off once again. I gasped at his words. Punished? For sticking up for myself? How exactly is he planning on punishing me?

His shoes were off and his shirt was now unbuttoned, much like the night before. He was now pulling his belt out of the loop holes in his pants. He was staring at me as I watched him undress. Who knows what he was thinking at this point. All I know was that he was so darn attractive right now and I was excited to see what was going to happen.

I took a step back, gasping at the coldness of the water as it hit my nipples. Dutch noticed and smirked, pulling down his pants leaving him bare all for me. I started walking into the water, not even giving me a chance to bask in his naked glory.

He walked towards me and once he reached me he stood there, waiting for something to happen. Or perhaps that was me. We were just staring at each other, naked, with the water reaching my shoulders and his chest.

I don’t understand why he’s not doing anything. Was I not attractive enough? I don’t understand.

“Miss L/N, I must say, you are ravishing. I’m finding it quite hard to hold back.” I looked up in surprise. Hold back? What does me mean by that?

“What if I don’t want you to.” It was a bold move but I wanted to know what he would really do and what he’s really holding back.

He gave one last smirk. It was one last smirk before his lips were on mine and kissing me as if it was the last chance he would ever get to kiss my lips. The kiss was aggressive and fast but no doubt passionate. All of our emotions from the last couple of weeks towards each other were embodied in this kiss.

Dutch tilted his head to the left, allowing me to bring myself closer to him and for his arms to trail down my waist and grab at my ass. He squeezed his hands and I gasped in surprise, which allowed Dutch access to inside of my mouth. His tongue explored my mouth, learning every crevice within my mouth. I moaned and the intensity of the kiss. Never have I been kissed like this before.

Dutch’s lips detached from mine and his left hand came up and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking it down, causing my head to roll back. I winced at Dutch’s grip on my hair but all was forgotten once his lips attached to my neck.

They were slow kisses to start off but soon his patience was worn thin and he proceeded to sloppily kiss and suck at my neck before moving down and towards my breasts.

Dutch’s hands went down to the back of my thighs where he gripped them and pulled them up, wrapping my legs around Dutch’s waist. I could feel his length rub against my thigh and my stomach turned in anticipation.

I have never felt so hot and heavy for any man. Dutch is the only one who has brought these feelings upon me. I felt desire, a copious amount and it was only for him. I only wanted him. Every other man seemed like nothing in comparison to Dutch and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Dutch circled his tongue around my nipple, sucking at the skin and making lewd noises that I have only dreamed of hearing. I’ve dreamt about this moment for weeks on end, wanting Dutch to fuck me; hard.

“Dutch,” I moaned out, gripping his hair with my hand. I pulled him closer towards my breast. He nibbles before biting at my left breast and I gasped in pleasure and in pain, the mix feeling so good.

Dutch pulled away from my breast and looked at me. I was puffed out, wanting Dutch to desperately fuck me and show me how bad I was being. I wanted him to punish me and tell me I was a naughty girl. I wanted everything and I wanted it now.

He turned around, me still in his grip and he walked towards the shore before placing me - surprisingly softly - on the ground. He hovered over me, looking at my body which was still wrapped around his waist.

“Fuck you’re gorgeous,” he whispered to me before kissing me once again.

The kiss was still passionate and rough, exactly what you’d expect from Dutch Van Der Linde. He wasn’t a soft guy, he was a hard and tough man who brought nothing but dominance to the table.

His hand traveled down my body. His hand brushed past my stomach and I jerked due to reflexes until he finally placed his thumb on my clit. He placed pressure on it and sparks flew and travelled up my body. I let out a slight moan at the pleasure.

He pulled away and looked at my face, watching my face contort in pleasure as he slowly rubbed circles on my clit. He did this for what seemed like minutes but it was only a few seconds before pulling away.

“Do you like this Y/N?” His voice was incredibly deep, most probably due to the need he felt, much like I’m feeling at this moment. I needed more from him, I needed him inside of me.

He continued to circle my clit with his thumb gaining more moans from me. It was like I couldn’t control the noises that came from my mouth. They were dirty moans. The type of noises my parents would kill me for letting out.

“Answer my fucking question Y/N!” He raised his voice whilst rubbing my clit faster, causing more moans to escape my mouth. “I said do you like this?” He asked once more.

“Yes!” I called out, halfway through a moan. I wanted more, the teasing was getting too much. I wanted him to stop teasing me and actually do something.

Dutch said no more and moved the finger that was on my clit and travelled down to where I was needing him most. Dutch placed his finger at my entrance and slowly pushed it in. The intrusion made me gasp, bucking my hips forward to feel more of him. Once his finger was fully inside of me, he kept it there, not moving it at all.

“Please,” I begged whilst thrusting my hips up towards Dutch, wanting to feel his finger move in me. Dutch however would not move his finger at all, watching me with a smirk on his face as I looked at him pleadingly.

“What do you want me to do Y/N?” Dutch asked, moving the finger that was in me slightly but never retrieving his finger or attempting to move and make me feel good. It was as if he was waiting for me to tell him what I want.

“I want you to fuck be Dutch. Please,” Dutch pulled his finger out and plunged it back in, causing me to gasp in pleasure once again. “Fuck me,” I moaned out.

That was all it took for Dutch to pull his finger out and grip my legs, spreading them open. He looked at me with such a devious smirk that if I wasn’t so desperate for Dutch to fuck me, I would’ve gotten up and left my now.

Dutch without hesitation thrusted into me, giving me no time to adjust to his hard length which I have not even properly seen yet. It felt large and it left me breathless. It filled my walls up so perfectly and I just wanted him to move already. I wanted to cum so bad and I wanted him to mercilessly fuck me.

He sat there for a moment, looking at me to see how I was fairing. I wrapped my arms around his waist, bringing my arms back up to grip his shoulders. Dutch moved his head and placed it in the junction between my neck and shoulder.

Dutch pulled his hips back, causing his length to come out of my entrance before he slammed his length back in. I moaned loudly, loving the way that he managed to fill me so nicely.

“Faster,” I moaned out and Dutch grunted.

Dutch thrusted faster and harder causing my body to be thrusted upwards. My legs wrapped around his waist and I brought my nails down his back whilst moaning.

Dutch’s right hand travelled from my waist and moved towards, brushing over my breast and travelling up to my neck. He gripped my neck and gave a light squeeze. My breath gave way from the grip on my neck.

It all seemed too much. From the grip on my neck to the hard and fast thrusts that he was giving to me. I couldn’t make a noise, my mouth was open but nothing was coming out of my mouth. Dutch’s thrust kept moving my body, my breasts bouncing up and down. Dutch watched my body, enamoured by the way that my body was reacting to his movements.

“Yes Dutch!” I moaned out, not even caring that the camp may hear us from where we are situated. “Right there, please keep going, please!” I was practically begging, that was how much I wanted to cum, to unravel under Dutch’s touch.

Dutch grunted and brought his other hand to my clit. This caused me to jerk into Dutch’s grip allowing him more access to my neck. Dutch practically growled as he slammed his lips back onto mine once again. His tongue invaded my mouth, connecting with mine. However I could hardly kiss him back due to my moans of pleasure from Dutch’s thrusts. Dutch rubbed my clit in circles and I couldn’t control the jerks my body was making.

A familiar tingle in my stomach formed and a yearning for the upcoming orgasm filled me and it had me panting for more and jerking my body so that both Dutch’s and my hips were meeting together, allowing for his thrusts to hit deeper.

I could stop the moans as my orgasm was quickly approaching. It had me clutching onto Dutch and pulling him as close as I could possibly get him to me.

Dutch looked at me with a smirk (which he never removed).

“Are you going to cum sweetheart?” He asked and I nodded, throwing my head back in pleasure.

It was all too much to handle. The pleasure was flowing through me and I was shaking, it felt that good. From Dutch’s hard thrusts to the lack of oxygen from Dutch’s grip on my neck, I could almost feel the coil snap within me.

I brought my hand up to Dutch’s hand which was wrapped firmly around my neck. I placed my hand on top of his, appreciating the coolness of his rings on my hot skin. I then pulled it at an attempt to let sit back into my lungs as I felt I was going to pass out at any point.

The water from the river hit our legs, the tide coming closer to shore as the day progressed to night. I rubbed my right leg up and down his leg as he thrusted himself into me.

I would never forget the feeling that I was feeling at this moment. I never wanted it to end, it felt so good. I just wanted Dutch to fuck me forever, I could get used to the way that Dutch fills me up so nicely.

The coil that was holding me together was just about to snap, I could feel it. It would only take a couple more thrusts before I would cum on Dutch’s dick.

“I’m going to cum! Dutch, yes, oh my god, I’m going to cum. Please Dutch, faster!” I moaned out, no longer holding back as I was desperate to cum.

“C’mon Y/N, come for me. You know you want to,” the smirk was evident in his voice but god I did want to cum. I wanted to cum so bad, I would do anything at this point.

One last thrust was all it took before the coil snapped and I was cumming around Dutch’s dick, hard. I screamed in pleasure as the pressure finally overwhelmed me. I gripped Dutch hard and clenched around him, causing Dutch to groan in pleasure.

My head was thrown back and my eyes (although were already shut) were squeezed shut and I could bet that Dutch’s back would be scratched to pieces due to my nails gliding down his back.

It only took a couple of more thrusts and Dutch was cumming in me, his cum filling me to the brim. I moaned at the feeling of his cum painting my walls whilst he was still buried in me.

Dutch let out a quiet, “fuck”, letting me know he enjoyed this just as much as I did.

We sat there for a while, trying to regain our breathing. We were panting crazily, both our stamina depleted from the dirty act we had just completed.

“I hope you have learnt your lesson Miss L/N.” Was all Dutch said before he pulled himself out and stood up, giving me a once over before grabbing his clothes.

Without even sparing me a glance he put his clothes on. During this time, I frowned, wondering why he was acting so cold. Usually the people I’ve been with showed some sort of aftercare whether it was one last kiss, cleaning me up or even giving me some cuddles before leaving. Dutch however gave me nothing. He just left me in the sand and put his clothes on.

With one last glance he walked off in the direction of the camp, leaving me, extremely naked and extremely embarrassed that all of this had just happened the way that it just did.

Over the next couple of days, Dutch hasn’t talked to me. He refused to even look in my direction. It was like nothing had happened between us whatsoever and it felt like the hospitality that I should’ve received when I first came here.

I felt used and abused.

Now that he had gotten his way with me, he wanted nothing to do with me. Like there was nothing else he wanted from me. He didn’t even want to talk to me.

The worst part of it all was that Molly O’Shea loved this.

Molly would sit there and smirk at me whilst she clung onto him like he was going to disappear at any moment. It annoyed me to no end that she had to throw it out there to me constantly that ‘Dutch was hers’ or that ‘I was never woman enough for Dutch’.

So I did what I only thought was possible.

I decided to leave the camp. They couldn’t keep me here anymore. Especially since the leader Mr Dutch Van Der Linde didn’t want even acknowledge me as a part of the gang, so I’m sure they wouldn’t mind me leaving.

I made sure to do it at the middle of the night. There would only be one man on patrol duty and that was Javier. Javier had no idea that I was going to escape, just like the rest of them.

That was because I didn’t escape from the front road where the gang usually rode in. No, I escaped via the woods. I ran through the woods until I eventually made it back to the road that lead to Rhodes. It was from there that I managed to hitch a ride from a lovely stranger with the name Hewitt and he drove me back to the farm on his carriage.

When I arrived back to the farm I had no idea what I was going to see. The feelings I felt had never caused me to vomit from shock, pain, anger and grief all at once. The breath in my lungs was no longer there and I struggled to breathe.

What was before me was my house on fire and in front of me, was Dutch, holding a gun to my fathers head.

I had no idea how they managed to become one step ahead. I hadn’t said anything about it and I had never made any plans until tonight to even leave so how the hell did Dutch know that I was going to leave the gang and how the hell did he get here before I did?

Dutch turned to look at me with a smirk on his face. He didn’t say anything, he just looked back at my father who was on his knees and looking at me with an apologetic look on his face.

It was then that Dutch pulled the trigger, killing my father.

I watched as my fathers life flashed before his eyes before his life faded right in front of me and he fell to the floor, a bullet in the middle of his forehead, blood pouring everywhere.

Dutch then turned to me and chuckled. It was a deep chuckle that truly showed how evil he was. He killed my father and my sister was no where to be seen; presumably dead. It was all because of him.

“Miss L/N, did you really think you’d be able to escape from me?” Dutch then walked forward and raised his gun, placing it to my head. “No one escapes from the Van Der Linde gang.”

It was then that he pulled the trigger and all I saw was black.

Hello everyone!

I hope you all enjoy reading this long and extremely unedited imagine which I went way overboard with. But hey, the anon wanted rough, I went there on all levels.

Anyway, thank you for the reads and I will see you next Tuesday maybe.

- REDDEADINMYBED

#Red Dead Redemption #Red Dead #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan imagines #arthur morgan smut #arthur morgan #Dutch Van Der Linde #dutch van der linde imagines #dutch x reader #dutch van der linde smut #red dead redemption 2 imagines #red dead redemption x reader #red dead redemption smut

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bambigoose · 6 years ago

Text

Puppy Love - Tyler Seguin

The iron gates look like something straight out of the medieval ages, the intricate detailing never fails to take Mia’s breath away during the day despite their imposing stature. She’d moved into this community by per chance a little over a month ago and the judgmental stare of Mrs. Fredrick glaring at her currently stopped being intimidating on day one. That miserable old women had no problem letting Mia know she didn’t belong, not like she needed to be told, her older Chevy Equinox stuck out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood of range rovers, Cadillacs, and even a few Ferraris. Mia however knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Her mother was an angel and let her live with her until she was twenty six while she was working the nurse supervisor third shift at the hospital, paying off her student loans, and saving every cent she could with hopes of being able to buy a condo. Mia paid rent of course but it was about half of what she would have paid anywhere else.

Five months ago while searching on Zillow, in bed trying to fall asleep after her shift, her house popped up. It had been posted eight minutes ago and she immediately requested a showing saying she could do it that day while shouting for her mom to call out sick and come with her.

Four hours later, Mia was in love. It was a perfect little two bedroom house with an extra room in the basement that could make it three. Her mom had turned the house upside down searching for a reason it was on the market so cheap besides the fact it was about four times smaller than the average house on the street. Finding nothing despite checking every crack and crevice throughout the entire house, both Mia and her mom had their excitement grow. While having a discussion with the relator about the previous owner who passed suddenly at their summer home in Minnesota and their children were just trying to close everything quickly. Mia immediately put in the offer.

She met Mrs. Fredrick three weeks later while the woman continually walked her fancy poodle with her nose in the air around the entire street. Clearly she had less of a problem with the people moving in a little further down the street on the same day. Clearly they had money, based on the two moving trucks and friends luxury cars helping them move in. Of course according to Mrs. Fredrick his ugly dogs would be a problem in the neighborhood, but that was minimal crime compared to Mia moving in with only her three best friend’s and mother’s older cars. Her nose went even higher seeing them unload a lawn mower, “You’re lawn will never meet the standards of the neighborhood.” The evil witch of the west finally disappeared after Mia just shrugged and stared her down.

Now she just took satisfaction watching her face scrunch up every time she pulled through and waved at her. She could only imagine the rumors she spreads about her being gone all night long most times. Pulling into her driveway, with her decently up kept lawn, Mia placed her head on the steering wheel and sighed. It was a long shift last night and in typical fashion she put off grocery shopping until the very last minute, forcing herself to have to go this morning in order to eat at some point today.

Stepping out of her car, Mia mentally debated whether to just lie down on the couch in her scrubs or expend the energy to walk upstairs to her bed and change into sweats. Opening her trunk, sleeping on the couch was looking even more appealing staring at all her bags. Resigning herself to making multiple trips, she headed in with the first one full of frozen foods, a habit ingrained in her by her mom. ‘Don’t let the frozen go bad in all this heat.’

On her return to the car she thought she could hear jingling as she past the driver’s door but she wrote it off. Turning around the tail end she was greeted by a chocolate lab whitening around his nose and tail wagging a mile a minute in her trunk laying on the cool spot where the frozen food was had just been.

Mia melted on the spot. “Hi baby! Where’d you come from?” She asked leaning down accepting the slobbering kisses all over her face. Her Golden Retriever used to do the same thing before he pasted, if someone opened a car door while he was outside he’d jump right on in. “Where’s your family buddy?” Pushing down a little hard while rubbing his ears, she got an even more enthusiastic tail wag and a tongue rolling out of his mouth.

“CASH! Where are you buddy?”

She heard shouted out from up the street, as his ears perked up. “Cash, is that your name buddy?” Getting one last lick he took up off the street, “Bye bud!” Mia laughed grabbing the last of her groceries before slamming her trunk door shut.

Daylight savings was the ban of Mia’s existence. All she saw was darkness during the winter months; she might as well as move to Alaska with their twenty-one hours of darkness. A surprising winter blast had hit Dallas the past few days in October so she took a deep breath bundled up in a sweatshirt and scarf. All her winter clothes were still in the attic and she couldn’t convince herself to pull them down just for a few days.

Closing and locking her door she headed out into her usually abandoned street. Tonight though she could hear whispering toward the end of her driveway, “Gerry you gotta calm down bud, how are you still this hyper.” Looking up she could spot a man in what looked like a suit with a dog walking across the street from her house. The dog appeared to be dragging him along popping from flower bed to flower bed smelling everything. Mia giggled quietly to herself, unlocking her car. The click and lights turning on brought their attention to her.

The dog was clearly an excitable yellow lab, Gerry she believed it was called. The tail was wagging so hard she wouldn’t be surprised if his handsome suited owner would have a bruise on his knee tomorrow morning. “Gerry no.” The command was useless, Gerry had already taken off across the street at her legs, his poor owner practically running in order to not end up face planting on the ground.

Mia dropped to her knees and readily accepted the puppy loving. The lab was so excited he was bouncing in place, weaving in between her legs before settling on her feet, head leaned back against her knee with the puppy dog eyes. She continually waved off the apologizes his owner was giving. “Hello love! Aren’t you just the most adorable puppy ever?” Scratching up and down his sides the lab start talking to her. Little yelps and excited yips coming out of him each time she rubbed him down. “Shh… gotta be quiet buddy. Mrs. Fredrick will come out and yell at me and your dad. She already hates me enough as it is.”

“Ahh… you’ve met the wicked witch too”came from the suited man, mischief shining in his eyes eliminated by the street light. Sharing a laugh he reached out with his hand extended, “I’m Tyler.”

“Mia. Would it be offend you to know I prepare to refer to you as the puppy father?”

Surprised laughter left Tyler, his eyes crinkling while his face scrunched up. Mia dropped his hand, not realizing how long she had been holding on. Last thing she ever wanted to do was make someone uncomfortable like that, her anxiety was rising just thinking about it. “Well I’ll just have to refer to you as the beautiful nurse.” He says pointing to her ID badge.

“Your daddy is a flirt Gerry.” She says leaning back down to his level getting a slobbering lick all up her face. “Your dogs clearly enjoy slobbering all over me.” She laughed.

“Dogs?” Tyler questioned, trying to think back if he had meet the cute neighbor before. The boys commented on her every time they saw her. The yard work in the yoga shorts and tank top was a particular favorite of the team, especially when working on her flower beds.

She looked up at him locking eyes, “Yes, Cash visited the trunk of my car just last week.”

Tyler went white, he was sure Cash had only taken off into the woods a bit, not all the way down the street and into someone else’s car. “I am so sorry. I can’t believe he…”

Mia cut him off, “Oh he was a love. Not to worry, my last name isn’t Fredrick, your cute dogs and their puppy loving kept you out of trouble.”

Tyler smirked, “Will the cute dogs and puppy loving be enough to get me a date with the pretty nurse?”

Mia looked down towards Gerry, “I don’t know buddy, should I go on a date with your daddy?” Unbeknownst to Mia, Tyler was actively regretting not listening to Jamie and teaching his dogs silent commands. He was banking on Gerry’s excitement and mentally promising him treats should he get him this date. His hopping paid off, Gerry licked her in the face. “I think that means yes.” Mia laughed. “Well puppy father, my next day off is Thursday, but you have a game the next night. Would it work if we do something before your curfew?”

Tyler’s eyes widened like saucers. “You know who I am?”

“If by that you mean know you’re the man with a ton of puppies that lives up the street and happens to be particularly skilled in hockey, then yes but I mean everyone has to be good at something right?”

Tyler release a breath, “And what are you particularly good at?” he joked.

“Loving on puppies, napping, and walking out on conversations so I’m not late for work.” She counted off on her fingers. “I’ll see you Friday?” she questioned.

Tyler smiled, “Come up around five? I’ll order us in something, that way you’ll stay for the entire time. Can’t disappoint the dogs by walking out on them.”

Mia beamed, “So what you really mean is I get to eat and go on a date with the puppies. You clearly know that way to a ladies heart sir.” She scratched behind Gerry’s ears “I’ll see you and your brothers on Friday for our date buddy and I guess we’ll let your dad tag along.” She waved goodbye, hopping into her car and reversing out of the driveway. Tyler watched her go until the tail lights disappeared.

Mia was finishing up her yard work Friday afternoon, she checked the clock sighing, there was about fifteen minutes before she needed to head in and shower for her date with Tyler tonight. She ran into him the next day and numbers were exchanged. They had been talking all week, him sending her different pictures of the dogs every day with reminders not to disappoint them and Mia was excited for tonight.

She grabbed her water and sat down on her steps with her eyes closed and face turned to the sun basking in the warmth. After a moment she felt something wet against her knee. Eyes opening she laughed seeing Marshall, the only Seguin dog she had yet to meet at her feet. “Did your dad send you down here to remind me about tonight huh?” She leaned forward and scratched behind his ears. Marshall galloped up the stairs and leaned against her side, “You’re just a cuddle bug, those young ones trying you out buddy.”

Throwing her arm around Marshall she pulled out her phone, muting the music and opening the camera. She flipped the camera around and snapped a quick shot of them. Sending it to Tyler Lost dog?

Jesus, I’ll come down and get him.

Petting his side Mia looked at Marshall, “You wanna go home buddy or should I tell your dad I’m stealing you?” Marshall shook out his body and leaned heavily against her. Mia chuckled, “Staying with me then I guess.”

Nope. He’s mine now. He’ll escort me to yours later :P

You’re trying to steal my children.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Come on buddy. Let’s get cool inside the house yeah?” Mia called standing up, Marshall following behind her closely. He was practically attached to her hip. She almost tripped over him heading up the stairs. Sitting down on the edge of her bed she tapped the side next to her. Needing no further invitation Marshall hopped up and curled up almost in her lap. “You keep doing this I’m going to call you cuddle bug.”

Slipping out from underneath Marshall she gave him another ear scratch before heading into her bathroom. She made sure the doors to both rooms stayed open in case Marshall changed his mind and wanted to get her attention to leave. She showered quickly, debating what to wear throughout the duration. It was a first date but it was also only at his house. Her anxiety was spiking slightly in worry. Taking a deep breath she told herself he thought you were cute in baggy ugly scrubs everything else you own is better than those.

Rubbing a towel through her hair, Mia throw it up into a messy bun before brushing her teeth. Deciding just to do light makeup she was finished in just a few minutes. Returning to her room in order to check in her friend she paused in the doorway smiling. People say depressed people tend to have more blankets and pillows on their bed, in which place she must be denying the truth but Marshall does not seem to mind at all. He had all but tucked himself under her fluffy blanket, leaning up against her pillows with the ceiling fan circling slowly above him. He raised his head to look at her with a tiny tail wag when she headed to her dresser. "What should I wear cuddle bug?" Marshall was zero help, he just continued to sit there staring at her.

"So jeans and a tshirt with a pullover sweater sounds good then." Slipping into her clothes she nudged Marshall off the bed. "Let's go cuddle bug. Time to see daddy and your brothers." Mia would swear she saw Marshall sigh the same way older siblings do when resigning themselves to watching their little siblings for the evening. The duo walked up the street together never further than three feet apart. That would continue throughout the rest of the night. Tyler had to fight the dogs in order to weasel his way next to Mia on the couch.

…..

Mia sighed pulling into her boyfriend's driveway. Tyler and her had seen even less of each other lately. The hospital had been all hands on deck as the flu ripped through the area leading to a higher than normal admit rate and the Stars were in the middle of the season. Tyler's coach had harshly called out him and Jamie not to long ago so they were practically killing themselves at the practice rink.

Tyler had tonight off and Mia felt awful cancelling their plans to go out at the last minute but truthfully Tyler was relieved. Both of them could use a night on the couch with the dogs and food brought to them.

Turning off the engine, Mia waved to Mrs. Fredrick who of course was even more disgusted with her and Tyler now that the were dating and committing sins staying at each other's houses most nights. As per usual Mrs. Fredrick stuck her nose back up in the air huffing away with her miserable poodle.

Unlocking the door Mia laughed hearing thuds through the hallway. Pulling her phone out from the back pocket of her scrubs she started recording. The post on Instagram was the most liked of the year. Tyler and the dogs rushing down the hallway all but tripping over each other was one of the most hilarious things she had seen in a long time. The best response to her caption which puppy missed me more was Jamie's posted seconds after it went up.

The one with two legs.

#nhl imagines #nhl imagine #nhl fic #nhl hockey #tyler seguin #tyler seguin imagine #dallas stars #dallas stars imagine #hockey writing #hockey fanfiction #hockey imagines

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thewarriorandtheking · 4 years ago

Text

The Night Ride

This is the first Warrior and The King piece that I wrote, their first meeting on the road to Rivendell. I remember writing it almost in one sitting, I could see the whole thing so clearly in my head. It later became Chapter 2 of The Warrior and The King.

Find the rest of the story here

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During the night the rain stopped and a warm sun dried the party as they ate a hurried breakfast and packed up their camp. The warg howls they had heard the previous night were on all their minds, but the day passed without incident. At midday Gandalf turned off the road onto a wide path that followed beside a swift running stream and the way started to climb into the foothills of the mountains. As the sun began to dip into the west the path opened up into a kind of grassy meadow, ringed round one side with fir trees and the other with tall, sharp rocks. To Gandalf’s eye it looked an ideal campsite, and it had seen use by other travelers as the presence of an old fire ring attested. The mountains marched upwards behind them and they could see the path they had travelled for some distance, nothing could come that way without being seen. Thorin called a halt for the night and the Dwarves busied themselves setting up camp.

Fili was setting the picket line for the ponies with his brother when he looked up and saw a rider on the path coming towards them. A large, black horse followed by a big, rangy dog, he could see the rays of the setting sun glint off the rider’s golden hair. “There’s a horse coming this way!” He cried to the others. “An Elf, maybe.”

“Not an Elf, I think.” Gandalf said thoughtfully as he came up between Kili and his brother. “But certainly welcome company!” He stepped forward as the rider drew her horse up, smiling under his bushy beard. “Kaylea Wolf, you are a sight for sore eyes!”

They could all see now the rider was a woman. She smiled at the wizard as she surveyed him and his companions. “I have found you in odd company before, Gandalf the Grey. But none quite so strange as this.”

The woman who rode into their camp was a striking figure indeed. Thorin thought her the fairest woman he had ever seen. Though not an Elf she had the grace of that people, but there was a hardness to her the Fair Folk lacked. As if the beauty of Luthien Tinuviel herself had been poured over a core of thrice-forged steel. She had the appearance of a fell fighter and was armed with many weapons – sword, bow and knives, all bearing the signs of much use and expert care. Her close-fitting black garments of leather and heavy cloth would not have looked out of place worn by a man but were obviously made for her, tailored in a style he had not seen before. Her hair, shining like polished gold in the evening light was gathered in a tight braid down her back. She rode a tall, clean-limbed horse black as midnight. What Fili had taken to be a dog was actually a large black wolf not much smaller than a warg, wearing a wide collar. The wolf had stopped at the edge of the clearing, waiting and watching the company with evident interest. Both rider and horse bore the signs of long travel. Kaylea looked over the company, her glance returning several times to Thorin. He and the other Dwarves were staring at her curiously, her appearance was so unusual they were all taken aback. Thorin was the first of them to move next to her horse beside the wizard. He felt his heart leap when his eyes met those of this warrior woman, like he was connected to her somehow, although he had never met her. Thorin felt it must be just because he thought her so beautiful but it felt deeper, her eyes seemed to look right into his heart.

“This is the company of Thorin Oakenshield”, Gandalf was saying. He indicated Thorin, who inclined his head as Kaylea’s grey-blue eyes returned to meet his.”Kaylea Wolf is a great warrior from a far country across the sea. She has ridden to Middle Earth’s aid before and is well known to the Rangers of the North. You would do us a great honor if you will travel with us, my lady.”

“Perhaps I shall,” Kaylea answered. “I have hurried to catch you to say there is an orc pack on your trail, from the look of it they have been following you for several days.”

“We heard warg howls last night,” Thorin replied gravely. “How many and how far back are they?”

“A little less than a league, my lord. There are more than two score, unless I miss my guess. They have been keeping their distance, for some reason of their own. I expect they will wait until full dark before they come closer.”

Gandalf looked back down the path, then at the ring of stones behind the camp. “We are four days from Rivendell and any help, we must make a stand here. But this is a good place to mount a defense.”

Kaylea nodded, also appraising the campsite. “It would be hard to pick a better sight. But I was thinking I might thin out the pack a bit for you. I can easily get behind the pack and pick off a few.” She looked down at the wizard with a crooked smile.

“If you are hunting orcs, I’m coming with you,” said Thorin, he turned back to reach for his pony’s bridle. The other Dwarves also moved to toward their ponies, not wanting to be left behind if there was going to be a fight.

“Another sword would be welcome, my lord. But to catch warg-mounted orcs we must ride at great speed, ponies will not be able to keep up.”

Thorin quickly turned around, astonished. Kaylea had addressed him in perfect Khuzdul. He saw her holding a hand out to him, a foot loosed from the stirrup. Thorin did not hesitate, he took her hand, stepping up on her booted foot. She easily pulled him up behind her and reined her horse around.

“Hang on tight, my lord. We have a hard ride ahead of us,” she clicked her tongue and the big horse shot forward into the evening light, the wolf followed running into the trees. In seconds they had disappeared down the way they had come.

Gandalf chuckled, leaning on his staff. “Now I have now officially seen everything! Thorin Oakenshield on the back of a horse, who would have thought!”

“I’ll wager any one of us would give his right arm to be sitting where Thorin is right now,” said Dwalin, shaking his head. “I certainly wish I had spoken first!” The other Dwarves all muttered in agreement.

“I do not think being the first one to speak had anything to do with it”, said Gandalf with a twinkle in his eye. “Now, we have several hours before this orc pack gets here, if those two leave any alive. I think we could all do with a little cold supper and then we can prepare our defense.”

For Thorin’s part he was wondering if he was going to live through the ride to do any fighting. Kaylea’s horse set a tremendous pace and seemed to be part mountain goat. They soon turned off the path, the big horse jumping boulders and scaling steep climbs as easily as if they were flat ground. Dwarves are not enthusiastic riders and the ground seemed very far away. But even though the terrain was difficult the horse’s gait was very smooth, his footfalls eerily quiet. They passed through the forest almost like a shadow. Thorin held on to Kaylea tightly and despite his fear of falling found himself becoming very conscious of her body under her clothes, the smell of her hair. Closing his eyes he could smell sage and pine and something like cinnamon, on her clothes the smell of the desert, sun on hot sand.

“How is it that you speak my language?” He asked, opening his eyes again. He kept his voice low, hoping some conversation would distract his mind.

“I speak all the languages of Middle Earth, my lord” Kaylea replied, ducking to avoid a low-hanging branch. The trees had grown thicker as they travelled up the slopes, her horse was alternately trotting and cantering. “As the wizard said, I have travelled here often. But how does Thorin son of Thrain come to be on the road with such an odd assortment of companions?”

Thorin scowled. “You have me at a disadvantage, my lady! You seem to know me but I know nothing of you!” Kaylea chuckled at his anger, but she did tell him a bit about herself as they rode into the night.

She came from a country far across the sea called Dorsai, she said. The lord she served had once lived in Middle Earth and still had a great fondness for the land. He kept a watchful eye on it and upon receiving word that evil was once again abroad, he had sent Kaylea to investigate. She explained that since she knew Middle Earth and its people well, she often got these sorts of assignments.

Kaylea stopped speaking and began to look closely at the ground. Thorin was about to ask about the nature of this evil, but she held up a hand. They were on a well-worn game trail now that wound its way between the trees, as they approached a stream crossing she reined in her horse. Although the light was nearly gone Thorin could see a large number of warg tracks on the muddy banks. “The pack is close before us now,” Kaylea said quietly. ”We must go forward on foot.”

Kaylea reached back and Thorin took her arm. She swung him down, he stepped again on her boot and then somewhat awkwardly to the ground. He shook his head, feeling if he could practice that a few more times he would be able to do it smoothly and not feel so foolish. Now that they stood side by side Thorin could see how tall she really was, his head reached just above her shoulder. Thorin did not find it intimidating, if anything it just made him more curious. The black wolf appeared out of the underbrush and looked meaningfully at Kaylea. Thorin had the impression some kind of silent conversation was going on.

After a moment the wolf turned away and disappeared into the woods again. Kaylea pulled her hood over her golden hair and followed him. “Quiet, my lord,” she whispered. “Step where I step.” Thorin fell in behind her, moving as quietly as he could. Dwarves see very well in the dark, but they are not masters of moving silently like Elves and Hobbits. Kaylea moved more quietly than either, in her black clothing invisible in the growing dark. When Thorin stepped on a branch with a snap she held her finger to her lips and then started to point behind her where he should place his feet, carefully holding branches up so he could pass beneath. Watching her closely and with some practice Thorin started to get the hang of it, placing his feet carefully. They soon heard much growling and harsh voices ahead; it appeared as if the orcs had paused in their hunt.

They moved forward carefully and came to a place where they could see a clearing in the woods, illuminated by a pale moon. The orc pack had killed an elk and the wargs were engaged in a fight for the remains. The orcs were standing around the edges of the clearing, cheering on the wargs amid much laughter. There were several orcs sitting close by on rocks with their backs to Thorin and Kaylea. Kaylea pointed to the orc closest to her and then to herself, she drew a long knife from her boot. She pointed at Thorin and then to the next orc, Thorin took her meaning and nodded, then drew his own blade. Together they each grabbed an orc, both fell silently with a blade to the neck. Several more orcs were slain in this fashion, then one made a slight sound and one of the wargs looked in their direction. With a growl the animal leaped forward, only to have Kaylea’s big wolf intercept him, closing his jaws on the warg’s throat. The two rolled into the middle of the clearing, the wolf rose over his slain enemy to engage the next warg that launched itself at him. Kaylea drew her sword and vaulted over the boulders into the fray, Thorin right behind her. In the ensuing fight Thorin had a few moments to observe Kaylea’s skill. She moved impossibly fast and never seemed to waste a single movement; every sword stroke hit its mark, every move settling up the next. Although he had not felt any mail when they were riding together the swords and arrows of the orcs could not penetrate her garments. Thorin had a close call when the warg mount of an orc he had just slain managed to deflect his sword and knock him backwards to the ground. The warg lunged forward to grab him but Kaylea was suddenly there. In one smooth movement she wrapped an arm up around the warg’s head and, with a savage twist, spun the animal away from her. Thorin saw the creature’s feet come off the ground, heard its neck crack, the beast fell to the ground and lay still. Seemingly always in motion, Kaylea pivoted towards him and, almost in the same instant a knife left her hand, piercing the neck of the orc behind him.

“Mind your surroundings, my lord!” She offered him a hand up then stepped to free her sword from the body of a fallen warg. Together they turned to face the next attackers and moments later it was over, the Dwarf king, the tall warrior woman and her black wolf stood in the hollow surrounded by their dead opponents,

“Looks like a good part of the raiding party,” Kaylea said, looking around. She flicked the blood off her sword and sheathed it, moved among the dead retrieving her knives and arrows. Thorin found his attention drawn to the wolf, he had thought during the fight it somehow looked different, now he could see it was wearing a thin kind of armor that covered its body and the top of its head. As he watched, the armor retracted itself swiftly into the collar the animal was wearing. Thorin blinked, not at all sure what he was seeing. Some kind of enchanted armor? Meanwhile the wolf looked pointedly at Kaylea for a moment then loped into the woods. Kaylea gave a low whistle, a moment later her horse trotted out of the trees. “Let us see if we can find the rest of them.”

Kaylea swung up on her horse, pulling Thorin up behind. They took off after the wolf at a swift canter. They had not gone far when Thorin saw movement off to one side, he tapped Kaylea’s shoulder and pointed. Just at that moment Kaylea’s wolf shot out of the underbrush, right under the nose of her horse, two warg-mounted orcs followed at speed. Thorin loosed his bow and turned, kneeling on the back of the saddle. Kaylea notched an arrow in her bow as well, shooting left handed to not interfere with Thorin’s shot. Both orcs and wargs fell dead. Thorin drew a breath and suddenly realized he had braced his body against Kaylea’s back and was still leaning against her.

“Pardon me,” he muttered, a bit flustered. It would have been fine if he was leaning on Dwalin, or some other member of his company he had been fighting with for years but it seemed overly familiar when it was a beautiful woman he had just met.

Kaylea however seemed unconcerned. “No offence taken, my lord” she said with a smile. “Not if you are going to shoot that well.” She let him down and jumped down herself to retrieve her arrows.

And so it continued through the night. At times the wolf would draw the wargs and their riders close, some they surprised and engaged with swords on the ground. They were on and off her big horse so many times Kaylea could pull Thorin up behind her without breaking stride. For Thorin it was a very different way of hunting orcs, in the past he had always engaged them directly with a large force, to pick them off a few at a time by stealth was new to him. As the night wore on he also found himself thinking he and Kaylea fought as if they had been companions for years instead of hours. Each seemed to know instinctively where the other was going to turn and which attacker to engage. While he very much enjoyed fighting with her, Thorin did wonder where this familiarity came from. They had just dispatched two wargs and their riders, Thorin was pulling his sword out of a wargs neck when he felt Kaylea”s hand on his arm.

“You are wounded,” she said, indicating a long gash above his elbow that was dripping blood. Thorin shook his head.

“It is nothing,” he said, and in fact he had hardly noticed the wound. But Kaylea would have none of it, her grip was like iron.

“Orc blades are often poisoned,” she said, not letting go of his arm. “Please let me take a look at it, my lord.”

While Thorin removed his bracer and rolled up his sleeve she retrieved a soft case from one of her saddlebags and opened it, removing a slim black cylinder. She pressed the side of the instrument, a tiny bright light shone out which she used to inspect Thorin’s arm. She had knelt on a rock to get closer to his wound, her head below Thorin’s for once. The cut was deep, but the edges were clean, no sign of blackening from a poisoned blade. The touch of her hands on his bare arm stirred Thorin’s blood, already up from the fighting. Looking at her in the moonlight he thought again he had never seen a woman more beautiful. His eyes wandered to the laces of her tunic, loosened by the fighting, revealing the curve of her breast. He wanted to draw her to him and kiss her but instead forced himself to look away, reminding himself he had just watched her kill a warg with her bare hands. Thorin was used to getting what he wanted, but felt this was not a conquest that would be easily won. Kaylea meanwhile took a vial from her case and spread some kind of ointment on his wound, she then quickly bound it with soft cloth. “You are lucky, my lord. The cut is clean and will soon heal,” her eyes came up to meet his and she smiled warmly. “I will not have the famous Thorin Oakenshield dying on my watch.”

Thorin nodded and smiled back at her. “Thank you, my lady,” there was more he wished to say but held his tongue. Kaylea whistled for her horse and they continued the hunt.

It was past midnight and when they came upon a spot where the orc pack had split in two, a number headed down the mountain and back, the rest continuing ahead. Kaylea set Thorin down and dismounted to inspect the tracks carefully. Thorin looked them over but he was not much of a tracker so he could make little of them. He looked around at the slope they were standing on, the trees were much thinner here and the hills were covered with broken rocks amid the new grass. The slope looked flat but concealed many rises and sudden ravines.

“Some have broken off, no doubt to double back and attack your company,” she told Thorin. “Do we pursue them, or those that continue along this trail?”

“Let us follow the trail, my lady,” he replied with a smile. “Those that have headed back will get a fine welcome from my companions.”

In the first light before dawn Kaylea’s horse came out of the trees into a wide meadow that spanned a whole hillside. They could see a half dozen wargs, some with riders at the far side of the meadow running for their lives, they went over the next crest and disappeared. When her horse reached the spot Kaylea could see the the hill fell away sharply to a river below. From this overlook the heads of several swimming wargs and their riders could be seen in the water far below, some very close to a bend in the river that would take them from view. Kaylea uttered a word that was surely a curse in her native language, swiftly she set Thorin down and swung off her horse. She reached into the long scabbard that lay under her saddle and drew forth a strange weapon the like of which Thorin had never seen. It had a stock at one end that Kaylea fitted to her shoulder, some kind of trigger and a sort of sighting device mounted on top. Made of some dark metal Thorin did not recognize, flat-sided and deadly looking. Kaylea looked down the weapon at their now distant quarry in the river. Thorin heard a soft sighing sound and another, he looked at the swimming orcs and saw them disappear into the water, one after another. When he looked back at Kaylea she was holding the weapon straight up braced against her hip, shaking her head.

“I think some of them may have gone around that bend,” she said. “I do not think I got them all.” She turned and slid the weapon back into its scabbard. “I will be ill luck if any get back to their masters to set another hunt on us.”

“What is that?” Thorin asked, pointing at the scabbard. “What manner of weapon could hit an enemy at that distance?”

Kaylea favored him with a wide smile. “You did not see that, my lord” she said, and would say nothing further on the matter leaving Thorin to ponder the mystery. “The night is almost gone, and I believe that is the Bruinen. We have a bit of riding to do to get back to your company.”

Thorin peppered Kaylea with questions as they retraced their steps back to where the company was camped. He was feeling quite comfortable on her big horse now and was enjoying being so close to her and having a proper conversation in his native tongue. He kept his hands on her hips though he sometimes had to shift his grip to hold tight when her horse jumped a stream or downed tree. When he leaned against her he found the smell of her intoxicating, he kept looking at her exposed neck from her ear down to her collar. He fought the impulse to kiss her there and, if she had been a Dwarven woman he would have done it, but found he could not read this strange woman at all. He pondered the strong connection he felt with her, but could not be sure she felt it as well or would allow him to act on it.

Kaylea told him a bit about her country. It seemed they were a nation of warriors, and as Dwarves earned their living through their craft, her folk earned it fighting in the wars of others. She had trained her whole life in the arts of war and was a commander for her lord in her own land. For his part, Thorin told Kaylea about his quest to reclaim his homeland.

“So, you are off to slay a dragon,” Kaylea shook her head. “That is a very great task indeed! But why are these orcs pursuing you, my lord? They were a large party, some bore the mark of Gundabad. This was not a random few who came on your trail by chance.”

Thorin shook his head. “I do not know, my lady. In the past I have fought many of their kind, but I have not done anything lately to attract their attention.”

As they were speaking they came in sight of Thorin’s company. It appeared some of the raiders had found their quarry after all, dead orcs and wargs lay on either side of the path. Dwalin, Oin and Gloin were busy dragging the bodies into a pile to burn them. Some of the ponies had bolted during the attack and Fili and Kili were off looking for them. The Dwarves stopped in their work as Kaylea and Thorin rode up, eager to hear news of how they had passed the night. Gandalf and Bilbo were first to greet them as Kaylea set Thorin down and swung off her horse.

“We slew many of the pack and pursued them through the night to the Bruinen,” Kaylea told the wizard. “Still, I fear a few escaped us. We saw where these orcs turned back to attack you, but Thorin said his company could handle them.”

Gandalf nodded. “Yes, they came upon us here just past midnight. We were able to fight them off, I think our resistance rather surprised them. But you have had a long night’s ride, I expect you will be wanting some breakfast.”

“Thank you, but not right away,” Kaylea replied. “I must tend to my horse first, and wash up.” With that she turned and led her horse away around the rocks towards the stream.

Thorin looked at himself then and realized he was covered in black blood, mud and tree sap and felt he must look quite the sight. “A wash seems a good idea,” he said. He turned to make his way to the stream, careful to head in the opposite direction from the way Kaylea had gone. Most of the other Dwarves followed him, eager to hear his account of the events of the night but when they saw him wade into the stream they all felt it was time for a wash and joined him.

#fanfiction #thewarriorandtheking #thorin oakenshield x oc #thorin fanfic #thorin x oc #the hobbit #middle earth #tolkien fanfic #true love

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alison-anonymous · 5 years ago

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flawsome bandits pt. 11 ♡ sonic

Flawsome Tessering

Part 11, coming at you! This part doesn’t have too much Sonic x Y/n, but don’t worry my darlings, I am saving that for the next chapter ;) This one includes some mother-daughter relationships and tons of foreshadowing. Enjoy!

Warnings - slight angst, robotnik x stone mentions

♡♡♡

“Why so down, Sonic?” A man with a head as smooth as an eggshell asked his pet boulder as it sat next to him in his poorly repaired drone. The boulder had tiny little dents in its craters that were obviously created by Robotnik to form a dopey grin and two misshapen eye sockets. The man chortled to himself as he tapped the cracked glass where an electric blue quill sat, charging up his entire machine. “Aww, are you sad because I’m coming back home?”

Robotnik stared intently at the little boulder, watching as it practically began to sweat under his intense gaze. He finally sat back up and let out yet another loud chuckle, filling the silent air around him for miles. “Sorry to disappoint, bud, but you and your little girlfriend are going to be toast as soon as I wrap my hands around your puny little necks~” He sang out the last part, his time spent in isolation taking an immense toll on his sanity. His tethered and gloved hands expertly found their way across his very dented control panel, clicking on a bunch of buttons that ended up making the drone begin to whirr. The air surrounding him that reeked of fungus began to churn at the new winds.

“Come on, baby,” Robotnik grumbled, pushing his prized invention to the limit as it began to levitate its misshapen and damaged body a couple feet off the ground. The engines worked in tandem with one another, struggling to compensate for the extreme damage that had been inflicted upon them. Even Robotnik’s expert repair jobs using the emergency kits Stone had made him place in every one of his drones wasn’t enough to make up for it all.

He guessed Stone was right for once. Shocker.

The erratic energy being extracted from Sonic’s quill mingled with the artificial power he was able to save. As the drone began to sputter, he quickly grabbed onto the throttle in an attempt to steady the drone, even his hideously long mustache hairs twitching with anticipation. He had to do it. He had to make this work. He couldn’t stand another second trapped here with Mushroom Bertha, Mushroom Kick-Sonic’s-Ass, Mushroom Carl, and Mushroom I-Want-A-Hedgehog-Skin-Rug or IWAHS for short. After a couple of minutes spent in agonizing suspense, a little glimmer began to form in the air before him. A malicious grin made its way across his lips as he realized that his plan was working.

The energy coming from his drone was enough to cause a small rip in the universe, mostly due to Sonic’s alienated DNA and ability to tesser between universes. The tear grew a decent size wider, its edges glowing an abnormal white and a very faint image of what he presumed to be Green Hills glimmered within it. It was right there. He was going to make it! It was barely big enough for him to pass through, but it was all he needed. With a surge of energy and Robotnik practically gritting his teeth until they chipped, the drone shot through the portal in a flash of blinding light, crash landing onto a very mossy green ground. The impact made Robotnik slam his face against the throttle, but luckily his gigantic mustache hairs cushioned the blow. The drone slowly began to let off steam, already having used all of its juices to float for less than thirty minutes. A steady blow of steam began to shoot up into the air from one of the drones' important capsules, and Robotnik was quick to regain consciousness, standing up and practically falling back down into his seat from the excitement. He looked around the area, hoping taking over his entire internal chemistry as he looked at his surroundings. The hope died almost instantly as he came to a horrific conclusion.

This… this wasn’t Green Hills!

What the actual fuck?!

There were oddly misshapen trees and abnormal creatures waddling around the perimeter and LOOP-DE-LOOPS?! The anger got the better of him as he picked up the boulder sitting next to him and screamed at the top of his lungs.

“God damnit, Sonic! This is all your fault!” And the tiny boulder was sent flying out of the drone to land against the grass, where it rolled down a hill.

It was safe from the evil man’s clutches at last.

Robotnik let out another frustrated groan and slammed his fists down onto the dash, causing even more smoke to secrete from vital components of the drone. But he didn’t care right now. He had been working on building up all of that power for months. To have it all lost getting him somewhere that wasn’t even where he needed to be - where those goddamn hedgehogs were! And now he was stuck in this crazy backwards land with nothing to defend himself with. At least back with the mushrooms the only predator was sleep deprivation.

And of course, that was self inflicted.

“Oh thank god.” A sudden voice broke through his frustrations. Robotnik’s head snapped up so quickly he was sure he heard his neck crack. He was expecting the worst: three headed bear, snake crossed with a lizard, horse sized horsefly, something deadly and positively hideous. So when he saw a little black and red hedgehog staring at him intently with ruby irises and what looked to be a gun and a little bag situated around his hips, he was very, VERY surprised.

“Well, who the fuck are you supposed to be?” Robotnik couldn’t help but blurt. The hedgehog looked incredibly relieved as he came closer to the drone, showing his gloved hands in a means of presenting no harm.

“My name is Shadow. I was created by your assistant, Agent Stone.” Robotnik’s heart stopped at the sound of his name. “He sent me through the different universes to find you. It’s taken forever, but I finally did it. I have more rings left to get us back to the planet where Hedgehog Sonic and Hedgehog Y/n reside.”

Robotnik was floored, to say the least. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Agent Stone, the little guy who made delicious lattes and who knew him better than anyone else, MADE a hedgehog and sent him to help Robotnik defeat the two once and for all?

He owed him a thank you. Or maybe more than that, if you catch my drift ;)

“W-Well then, I suppose it’s nice to have you on board, Mr. Shadow. Unfortunately, my drone was a bit destroyed during the movement here, so unless you have a giant bag of tools next to your gun there, I-”

“Don’t worry, Sir, I’ve got it handled,” Shadow interrupted him, turning around to point into a throng of bushy trees. “I met an Echidna along the way who might be of use to us. Perhaps we could brainwash him into assisting us.”

Damn. Agent Stone really did a number on this guy. Robotnik liked it.

♡♡♡

A few hours later and a lot of impressive manipulation, Shadow and Robotnik had recruited yet another member onto their team: Knuckles the Echidna. He was a very burly red thing with intimidating eyes and an unfortunate lack of brains. But, he had resources and his muscle could even out Robotnik’s brains and Shadow’s apparent fiery temper. They were able to convince him that Y/n and Sonic were two beings from a far away planet that were power hungry and had a plot to destroy the entire universe, including this planet. Of course, Knuckles was petrified and said that they must be stopped immediately. The guy was also pretty handy with supplying the needed instruments to fix up Robotnik’s drone.

Of course, it wasn’t the best job, but it would have to do for now. After Robotnik had done his little patch job, the trio were beginning to prep for their return to earth.

“I assume that you are very excited to defeat the two hedgehogs, Doctor,” Shadow spoke with authority. “But I think it would be better to hide out in a secluded spot for a little while in order for us to build up our resources. We wouldn’t want to go straight into battle without being prepared.”

Even though Robotnik was really looking forward to crushing Bonnie and Clyde, he had to admit that Shadow had a point. He nodded slowly. “We’ll hide out in the woods in order to gather resources and start the formation of Metal Sonic. Agreed? Agreed.” Even though he wasn’t looking for a confirmation, the two nodded despite. Everything was going according to plan. Robotnik had gathered two allies and had already begun his plan to form a metal-based version of Sonic. For two reasons, really. The first was to use Sonic’s greatest power and turn it into his weakness, and the second was to try and trick Y/n into not being able to fight the one that she loves. They were going to destroy the two hedgehogs once and for good, donating their bodies to Robotnik’s favorite charity: science.

But what these little twerps didn’t know was that a certain fox had been spying on the three of them ever since Robotnik had crash landed a couple feet away from his lab. It was finely secluded within the weeping willow trees, so he hadn’t been able to see it. But his security measures sure saw the mustache guy.

The little fox’s stomach began to fill with dread as he thought about all of this. These guys were obviously up to no good. Anyone who loved the color combo red and black was obviously up to no good. Especially someone who grew their mustache past five inches.

On each side.

Those two hedgehogs they had been mentioning… What were their names? Bonnie and Clyde? Funny named for hedgehogs, but he guessed that their world was different than his. He began to rummage through the different gizmos and gadgets he had spent ages on until he finally gathered all of the materials he needed. His little gloved fingers found their way to his energy-tracker as he calibrated it to their energy sources. Funny, he thought. One of them was stronger than the other.

He narrowed his eyes in determination, steadying himself as he thought of the realm they lived in and tossed one of his golden rings. The second the portal opened, he jumped through, landing on what appeared to be a cliff looking over a small town. Relief filled his orangish-yellow chest as he looked across. He hoped he knew what he was doing.

Extending his two tails, he leapt off the cliff.

♡♡♡

“M-Mom?” Maddie stirred in her sleep.

“Mommy?”

The young mother’s eyes slowly opened to be greeted with the sight of her daughter who had tears streaming down her cheeks. The sight of her daughter in distress kicked all of the sleep out of her as she instantly shot up in bed and immediately started wiping away the tears. Most of them got brushed into the fur around her eyes, but she didn’t care.

“N/n, baby, what’s wrong?” She asked softly, trying her best not to wake up her husband who still lay sound asleep behind her. Y/n only continued to cry harder, her e/c eyes glowing in the dark.

“I-I’m sorry, Mommy. I-I didn’t w-want to see i-it, I-” Maddie gently shushed her, standing on her feet and expertly lifting up the frail hedgehog onto her hip, holding her like she was a toddler.

“Y/n, honey, you’re not making any sense.” She glanced over at the clock and realized it was barely five in the morning. What on earth was she doing up this late? Y/n was in such hysterics that all she was able to do was plant her face into Maddie’s shoulder and continue to cry, her chest feeling like a million daggers were being dug into it. Maddie’s heart was ripping at the seams for her daughter, as the last time she had seen her this upset was when Sonic had died. She quickly and quietly took the weeping hedgehog out of her room, making sure not to make a sound as she closed the door to leave her sleeping husband alone, and continued through the darkened halls until they made it to the main bathroom. She closed the door behind them and set the hedgehog onto the counter, grabbing a wad of tissues and quickly dabbing her eyes while Y/n wrapped her arms around her trembling torso.

“I-I’m s-sorry-” She hiccuped, choking on the mucus being created from her tears. Maddie’s gaze softened.

“Sweetie, what on earth could you have to be sorry for?” To her surprise, Y/n’s eyes only filled with guilt and self-disgust as she looked down at the floor.

“...what happened?” Maddie gently cupped her daughter’s furry face in her hands and stared into her liquid e/c eyes. The deeper she looked into them, the more she was able to picture Y/n before she had turned into a hedgehog, back when she was a human. The little hedgehog exhaled a shaky breath and wrung her hands together.

“I… I woke up to singing. And I followed it outside, and there was this… thing out there. It was calling to me, and when I touched it, this is going to sound insane, but it showed me pictures of the future. I-I saw Robotnik, and I saw me and Sonic with two other people and then… the last one… M-Mommy, it looked like someone was trying to k-kill me-” Maddie’s heart stopped in her chest, her eyes widening in horror. Fresh tears began to spill down Y/n’s cheeks even faster. “I-I don’t want to die!”

Maddie quickly enveloped her in a tight hug, pressing her daughter’s head into her chest and stroking her quills gently. “Shh, it’s okay, baby. You’re not going to die.”

“H-how do you k-know that? M-my powers are growing a-and I don’t know how to s-stop it, I don’t want to kn-know how we’re going to d-die, I-”

Maddie hushed her, continuing to stroke her quills. They sat like this for quite some time, with Maddie consoling her hysterical daughter until her sobs finally died down and were replaced with melancholic sniffles. Maddie’s heart continued to pound, however, fear and confusion coursing through her veins. She was trying with all her might to wrap her brain around the matter, but she was the one who had had the worst time figuring out how Sonic and Y/n’s powers worked in tandem with one another. Even Tom relatively understood better than she could. She knew that Y/n had vocal telekinesis, but seeing the future? Little wisp-like creatures? It didn’t seem like those had ever been mentioned or used before.

What was going on? Was her daughter truly in danger?

Her grip around her tightened. Y/n exhaled softly and it was then that Maddie realized she had fallen asleep. A small smile crossed her lips as she picked her daughter back up and began to make her way back into the living room. She could have just taken her to her bedroom, but in all honesty, she felt safer leaving her with Sonic than by herself. As she walked through the darkened hallways, she tried to silence the red alarms blaring endlessly throughout her mind.

Something was wrong.

She could feel it. She didn’t even need magical powers to feel it. Her breath hitched in her throat as she made her way down the stairs, making sure not to trip as she entered the living room. Sonic still lay sound asleep on the couch, not having moved an inch since Y/n had woken up. Maddie gently set her daughter down on the couch, resting her head on Sonic’s chest and covering the two with a fleece blanket. Her fingers softly traced Y/n’s jawline as she slowly stood back up, a small, yet sad, smile staying on her lips.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” she whispered into the silence. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

♡ a.a.

#sonic #sonic x reader #sonic imagines #sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog x reader #sonic the hedgehog imagines #sonic the hedgehog movie #sonic the hedgehog movie x reader #sonic the hedgehog movie imagines #sonic the hedgehog 2020 #sonic the hedgehog 2020 x reader #sonic the hedgehog movie 2020 #sonic the hedgehog movie 2020 x reader #flawsome bandits

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eclecticanalyst · 4 years ago

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Klaus = Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town

There are three things I always watch every December: The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Year Without a Santa Claus, and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. I’ll usually throw in ’Twas the Night Before Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas as well, and occasionally How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (the original cartoon). I used to watch The Polar Express, but as I got older that movie started getting on my nerves (for several reasons, one of which being that the kid does a lot of unnecessary things that seem designed to cause the greatest amount of problems).

Lately, I’ve been trying to expand my Christmas movie/special repertoire. I watched The Nightmare before Christmas last week for the first time, and a few days ago I watched Netflix’s Klaus, which came out last year (2019).

I enjoyed Klaus, but as the movie progressed I found myself thinking, “This is just a more complex version of the old Rankin and Bass origin story for Santa!”

Let’s examine the evidence, shall we? The first person we meet in SCCT (hereinafter my abbreviation for Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town) is Special Delivery Kluger (S.D. for short), who is responsible for delivering mail to Santa. S.D. claims to know everything about Santa, a claim which is backed up by him proceeding to narrate the rest of the special, so he clearly is close enough to the man with the bag for him to have at some point told S.D. about how he got started in the giving-away-toys business. I’m pretty sure S.D. is called S.D. because he is responsible for all Santa letters, so he probably sees Santa on a regular basis November through December.

In Klaus, the first person we meet (after a sequence that shows us that mail is Serious Business in this world, complete with a boot camp for postmen—incidentally, the importance of the postal service is yet another, although rather minor, similarity with SCCT, because SCCT has an opening newsreel that makes a point of describing the onslaught of letters the postal facilities need to send on to the North Pole) is Jesper, postman-in-training. Obviously the story has only just started, but as the audience we’ve seen the trailers or have a general idea of the premise of this movie, so we know that eventually Jesper is going to be the postal carrier who works closest with the Santa figure. Just like S.D. Kluger. S.D. is the narrator of SCCT, and Jesper is the point of view character for Klaus, so we have in both cases the person through whose eyes we see the story being the Santa-designated postal worker.

The plot of Klaus kicks off with Jesper’s father making a last-ditch effort to get his son to apply himself by assigning him to be the postman of Smeerensburg. Smeerensburg, according to the (hilariously intense) map Jesper’s father has set up in his office, is located on a remote island in the north. When Jesper gets there, he finds out that the people there are bad-tempered and the whole area pretty much lacks all colors except gray. Just like...

Sombertown! The Place Where It All Began in SCCT. Sombertown is also in the north, is also dingy and gray, and is ruled with an iron fist by the Burgermeister Meisterburger. This is skipping ahead a bit, but we’ll find out later in the special that the Burgermeister has banned toys and everyone’s sort of given into the hive mentality of wearing gray, washing stockings, and making sure not to violate any of the Burgermeister’s decrees. The Burgermeister is, of course, The Antagonist and The Evil Authority Figure in this story.

Meanwhile, as Jesper is getting his bearings in Smeerensburg, he meets his own Antagonist(s) and Evil Authority Figure(s): the heads of the Krum and Ellingboe clans, dedicated to maintaining their ongoing feud, which involves various acts of vandalism and occasional all-out street fights. It’s because of them maintaining the status quo of hating each others’ guts that Smeerensburg is such a horrible place.

Here’s where the comparison gets a little tricky. Jesper is the new guy in the Extremely Gray Town, and we learn about the town’s devotion to being miserable through his (mis)adventures. In SCCT, S.D. isn’t actively participating in the story since he’s the narrator, so the new guy in Sombertown is Kris Kringle. (Again, I’m skipping ahead a bit here for the sake of comparison. There’s a whole Kris-growing-up sequence before he actually goes to Sombertown, and we meet the toy-making Kringle family. I will return to the Kringles later.) Basically—stay with me here—Jesper is both S.D. and Kris.

The first person who actually explains a bit of what’s going on to Jesper is Alva, who essentially has a “Love Interest” sign hanging over her head in her first scene and throughout the rest of the movie. Alva moved to Smeerensburg a while back and was all set to run the town’s school, except the adults are more concerned with getting their kids on board with feuding than making sure they know how to read and do math. Alva is, as a result, bitter, and plans to leave Smeerensburg as soon as she saves up enough money from selling fish. She explains all this to Jesper, who has just barely escaped being trampled in a street brawl between the Krums and the Ellingboes. What’s this, you say? A love interest who is a teacher and is also relatively new in town, but has been there long enough to get the hang of things? Sounds like...

Jessica, who confronts Kris when he starts handing out toys to the children upon arriving in Sombertown. Jessica is, in one of the kids’ own words, “our new schoolteacher,” and starts scolding Kris for passing out frivolous items that are against the law until he wins her over by giving her a china doll. So in both cases, the teacher/love interest doesn’t like the new guy at first, but warms up to him later. (Alva takes longer than Jessica because she is a more complex character and the running time of the film is longer.)

Jesper has no success establishing a post office or getting anyone to mail letters, but he happens to notice on the map he’s pinned up that there’s a cabin a ways off from town and figures he has nothing to lose, so he heads out there to see if he can convince whoever lives there to send a letter. As I was watching this part, I decided the cabin in the woods matched up with the Kringle family cabin, as both are located at a distance from Extremely Gray Town and it is at these locations that the toys are made. However, after thinking about it, I revised my opinion--Klaus’s cabin is actually both the Kringle family cabin and the lair of the Winter Warlock. The latter is because Klaus is, like the Winter Warlock, initially an intimidating figure, but one who softens over time. He is self-isolating but gradually joins a chosen family. Also, the Winter Warlock practices magic. Klaus does not practice magic, but there are mysterious winds only he can see that kick up and disappear without warning and seem to be giving him messages, so he’s still for all intents and purposes surrounded by magic, or at least the supernatural. The atmosphere surrounding Klaus’s cabin is the closest we get to the mystical in Klaus, and the Winter Warlock is the only one with actual magic powers in SCCT.

Therefore, just as Jesper is a combination of Kris and S.D., Klaus is a combination of Kris and the Winter Warlock. Jesper has Kris’s roles as new guy in town, male lead love interest, and deliverer of presents through unlikely means, while Klaus has Kris’s roles as toymaker, friend to animals, and general Santa Claus-ness (beard, laugh, etc).

Since both Klaus and SCCT are Santa origin stories, we get the requisite explanations for various parts of the Santa mythos in each. In Klaus, we have the establishment of the Naughty List (Jesper using the prospect of no toys to get the meaner kids in Smeerensburg to stop messing with him), the coal (Jesper getting revenge on the mean kids and the precursor to Jesper making up the Naughty List), Santa’s omniscience (Jesper lives in town and judges the kids’ behavior), stockings as present holders (Jesper, cornered in the fireplace by dogs, putting the presents in the one place he can reach), the flying reindeer (not really flying, just happened to get some air time having careened down a mountainside and shot off a ramp, also they needed reindeer because the presents were too heavy for the horse), and writing a letter to Santa in the first place (Jesper’s scheme to have 6000 letters mailed). In SCCT, Kris isn’t a fan of crying and pouting, so he makes general good behavior a prerequisite for getting toys. There isn’t really any coal involved, because Kris is a softie and at one point remarks “I guess they’re all pretty nice” when checking over his list—also the kids in Sombertown don’t really act out the same way the Smeerensburg kids do. Kris knows what the kids are up to courtesy of the Winter Warlock’s (at this point just going by “Winter”) magic snowballs. Kris has the idea of hiding presents in stockings so that the Burgermeister won’t find the toys in his daily house raids. That’s an interesting one, because in both cases the hostile environment of the Extremely Gray Town forces Kris/Jesper to come up with more creative ways to ensure that kids get their presents. The reindeer in SCCT really do fly, after having eaten Winter’s magic feed corn. The letters are a bigger deal in Klaus, as they are an integral part of the plot, but in SCCT Jessica does bring Kris an initial batch of letters from the children of Sombertown asking for more toys after the Burgermeister destroys the first ones he handed out, and letters continue to come in later, with Jessica and the forest animals in charge of collection and delivery.

The Antagonists in both Klaus and SCCT see the influx of toys as a threat to the status quo. The clan heads in Smeerensburg realize that the kids of both clans, in their enthusiasm for playing and their desire to not be on the Naughty List, have given up the feuding lifestyle and are causing their parents to do so as well. The Burgermeister’s main motivation is that he doesn’t like being made a fool of—his toy ban is a result of stepping on a toy while going down the steps of City Hall and breaking his funny bone (a diagnosis somehow confirmed by his doctor by taking his temperature). I suppose you could also say the Burgermeister values productivity and order, which are both threatened by children playing with toys.

Remember how I said I would come back to the Kringles? Here’s an interesting part of the comparison between Klaus and SCCT. Klaus is on the whole more complex than SCCT—more complex plot, more complex characters. We see Alva’s struggle between wanting to escape Smeerensburg and loving to teach, going from being in denial to using her own savings to buy school supplies (as someone with a teacher for a parent, that moment was very real for me). We get a (very tragic) explanation of why Klaus had so many toys piled up in his workshop and why he lives alone. There’s an entire secret motivation for Jesper that culminates in (what the other characters perceive as) a betrayal.

However! In the case of the people who fill the “elves” slot in the Santa origin story, SCCT’s characters actually come out on top in terms of complexity. The Kringles take in Kris as a foundling, raise him as their own, and teach him how to make toys. They are the ones with the most (I might even go so far as to say any) backstory out of anyone in SCCT: the Kringles used to be Royal Toymakers, but with the rise of the Meisterburgers (or something...that part’s kind of glossed over), they ended up forced into exile. They keep making toys because that’s the family business, and their desire to have those toys actually played with is what gets Kris to travel to Sombertown in the first place.

In Klaus, the “elves” slot is filled by the Saami villagers (alternative spelling: Sami). The Saami people are a real indigenous population based largely in Scandinavia and Russia. In the movie, they are represented the majority of the time by Márgu, who is dismissed by Jesper for a while, then used as someone to talk to, because she doesn’t speak English (or whatever language they speak in Smeerensburg that we the audience hear as English). Eventually Jesper and Klaus make the sled that Márgu has been asking for this whole time. A little later, Márgu’s people all show up at Klaus’s cabin and help with the Christmas preparations. In both SCCT and Klaus, the Santa figure’s distinctive clothing is actually a traditional outfit of the “elf” group—Kris gets a bona fide Kringle suit as his going-away present, and the Saami dress Klaus up in their red garb before his Christmas delivery ride.

Here’s the problem: we never really learn much about the Saami villagers. Why did they decide to hike all the way over to Klaus’s cabin and volunteer their assistance? Where are Márgu’s parents during all that time she spends camping out on the porch of the post office? Since we can’t understand them (unless you are fortunate enough to know their language), we have no real inkling as to their motivations. The only explanation we get is the “one act of goodwill” theme of the film, but it would be nice to get some sort of actual characterization beyond “appreciate a kindness.” Even the myriad citizens of Smeerensburg are not portrayed as a monolith—despite most of the town giving in to the newfound commitment to kindness, we see that there are a few others beyond the clan heads still clinging to the old ways of life. And yet the Saami, who fill an important slot in the Santa mythos, march into Klaus’s cabin as a group, help out as a group, fill the background of the cabin scenes as a group, and are essentially a mystery. The Kringles at least get in some banter as they discuss the arrival of a baby on their doorstep, and we also learn all of their names.

With the Saami taking up residence at Klaus’s cabin, the film culminates in a scene that is a direct parallel to the Rankin and Bass special. In SCCT, the Burgermeister’s soldiers ambush the Kringles, Winter, and Jessica at the workshop in the woods. In Klaus, the same thing happens to their counterparts: the Saami, Klaus, and Alva. Both of these ambushes happen when the Santa figure (for this scene Jesper is the Kris parallel) is not present. I should also point out that in both cases it’s the teacher/love interest who has advance notice of some aspect of The Antagonists’ offensive measures: Jessica hears the Burgermeister ranting about setting a trap for Kris and goes to warn him (but is too late so can only inform Winter and the Kringles), and Alva learns about the Krum/Ellingboe plan to destroy the toys and informs Klaus and the Saami so that they can prepare countermeasures.

After that, we just have some loose ends to tie up in order to solidify the new status quo. The teacher/love interest marries the Santa figure (remember, Jesper has Kris’s role of male lead in the love story subplot), the citizens of Extremely Gray Town reject The Antagonists’ miserable lifestyle once and for all, the Santa figure moves to an obscure and remote place (the North Pole in SCCT, the afterlife/spirit world in Klaus, as the eponymous character is the Kris counterpart for this bit), and the once-a-year appearance is established (Kris has too many toy requests to go more often, Klaus...is operating on spirit world rules? I’m fine with that not being explained). And we end on the postal worker’s closing narration, which affirms the ongoing presence and uplifting spirit of Santa Claus.

So nice try, Netflix! You may have gotten rid of the tendency for characters to break into catchy songs and upped the sadness factor by adding a grieving widower. But Klaus is still a remake of that old Christmas stop-motion classic from 1970. I rest my case.

#klaus movie #rankin and bass #santa claus is coming to town #analysis #holiday movies #parallels #similarities

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