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dzamie-oc · 7 months

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Voretober 21 - Slippery

Length: 1600 words Vore type: F/M oral vore, unwilling prey, digestion Fandom: Pokemon Other info: Goodra/Buizel, casual fatal vore Summary: Goodra plays with her food. Wonder how many friends she'd have if she didn't enjoy her spot on the food chain so much.

"Alright, now watch this!" Goodra turned towards Buizel's cheer, just before he took a running leap at the slope. With energetic laughter, the weasel slid about halfway up, pivoted, and came zipping right back down towards the other two. Thanks to Goodra's thick slime, it was as though he was on ice, rather than dirt and grass. Of course, also thanks to her slime, he found himself sliding sideways, then backwards, and thoroughly out of control.

Liepard leapt smoothly over him, maintaining her streak of only having slime on her paws. Goodra, however, was not so nimble; with an "oof," she took the brunt of the flailing Pokemon to her thick, squishy gut.

After pulling himself away, Buizel grinned sheepishly up at the dragon. "Boy, that slime of yours is really something, isn't it?"

Goodra just waved a paw. "Well, there is a reason I chose a glorified hole to take you two to, with not a cliff in sight. Nice trick, though, aside from the landing!"

"Besides, I've heard Goodras are pretty strong. An accidental tackle is probably nothing to her," Liepard added. When Goodra looked for her, she found the cat in a much more controlled spin sliding from one side to the other, before coming to a stop next to the pair. Liepard lifted a paw and prodded Goodra's gut a few times. "Especially not to somewhere nice and thick like this."

Emboldened by Liepard, and likely curious himself, Buizel had a go at poking her belly. Unlike Liepard's gentle but quick jabs, he pushed in slower, as though worried his paw might sink inside. Also unlike Liepard's turn, Goodra's stomach let out a loud grumble when Buizel prodded it. Buizel froze, and even Liepard startled back; Goodra could feel her cheeks burn and tinge a darker purple.

"Ah, well, speaking of my belly, it seems to be about dinner time. It's been great playing with you two, but would you care to join me?"

Buizel grinned, taking a moment to spit out some slime that had dripped into his mouth - and no wonder, with how thoroughly he'd gotten covered from his fun sliding around. "That sounds great! What're you thinking of for food?" Next to him, Liepard nodded along.

Goodra gave them a bright smile. "I was thinking the two of you for me. For you? …not sure it matters, really."

Fear on Liepard's face, confusion on Buizel's. Goodra sat down and pressed her point. "Look, I'm a reasonable dragoness. If you don't want to be eaten, feel free to leave. You can have a couple minutes to… decide."

Liepard's expression changed from fear to one of focus, of calculating. "I wasn't hatched yesterday," she said, "what are you going to do to stop us from leaving?"

Goodra held up two fingers. "Nothing else. Dragon's honor."

The cat stepped back, blinking, then her eyes slowly moved from the predator to her surroundings: a pit with slick slime coating every exit. Her claws glowed white, and looked like they grew longer and sharper.

Buizel, in contrast, screamed and ran directly away from Goodra. About halfway up the side of the pit, he stopped ascending, no matter how much his slime-covered paws scrabbled against the slime-covered wall. Once again, he slipped back down, and a misstep sent him spinning faster, and inevitably back to where Goodra sat. Liepard had moved to a different section of the pit, leaving nothing in the way to stop him from getting lodged under Goodra's belly. He kicked and shoved, a preview of what was sure to happen INSIDE her stomach soon enough.

Another growl from her belly inspired a new jolt of energy in the smaller Pokemon, and he soon escaped… back to his original position, and already panting hard. By this point, the only way for him to get even more surrounded by her slime would be to be surrounded by her, something she knew was a certainty - and by the look on his face, he knew it, too. Still, he slowly got back up to his feet and stared back at her, though his eyes were slightly glazed over… or was that just more of her slime?

Motion out of the corner of her eye caught Goodra's attention, and she turned to see Liepard, claws glowing, in front of several new divots in the sides of the pit - notably free of the slippery coating she'd carefully applied to the rest of it. Putting it out of her mind for now, she refocused on the Buizel. "Is that a "yes," then, Buizel?"

Buizel shuddered and crumpled. He leaned his body against hers, trying to stay upright through any means possible. "Goodra. Can I… can I choose how I go?"

"Within reason. I mean, you can only do this once; I eat Pokemon pretty frequently. It seems only polite. What were you thinking of?" She saw him nearly slip at how casually she discussed her diet.

"One last trick. Up and down the slope. And when I come down, you- you-" Buizel cut himself off, unable to go further.

Goodra beamed. "Oh, sure! I think that's a new one for me, but I bet I can catch you!"

Buizel sighed and turned away from her. Crouching on all fours, he galloped away, running along the bottom of the pit, then up the side, then finally pushing off with his hind legs. Goodra raised her brows as he slid all the way up to the top, and clamped his forepaws around a small sapling growing at the edge. A glance back to Liepard caught her standing proudly atop her own chosen escape route; if she had to forage for berries again, Goodra knew she'd regret not simply leaning forward to pin Buizel better.

But then, the weasel slipped. He reached back out for the sapling, but his paws slid off as easily as his body slid down the slimy slope. It took Goodra a second to realize what was happening, but she quickly pushed herself forward to lay on her stomach. Focusing on where Buizel was and where he was going, the dragoness opened her mouth wide right on his path, and did her best to relax her throat.

She didn't so much taste Buizel as much as she felt him stretch her gullet; by the time he'd stopped sliding, his snout was nearly in her stomach! Goodra grunted as she stood back up, and gravity alone packed away half of her catch before a single gulp sent Buizel the rest of the way into her gut. Grinning, Goodra hefted her stomach and let it fall with a satisfying bounce; Buizel was barely visible through her fat and the simple size difference between them.

With one Pokemon secure in her stomach, Goodra turned to the cat who got away. "You sure you don't want to come back down?"

Liepard gave her a stare so cold she shivered. "Promise you won't eat me and I'll consider it."

"Of course I'd eat you, that's the entire point of-" Suddenly, Goodra's belly began to swell, heavy and sloshing. She winced as Buizel managed to truly start to stretch her, but then simply shook her head, opened her mouth, and shot a stream of water into the wall - away from Liepard, to avoid mixed intentions.

Before long, her stomach was back to its normal heft, and she shoved her paws against her fat to get Buizel's attention. "It was a good shot, but I'm a Water-type, too. I'd say better luck next time, but I'm the only one who's gonna get one of those."

She smiled and patted her gut a few more times, then looked back up to Liepard. "Anyway, if you really don't want to join him, no point in me staying in here alone." Taking well-practiced steps, Goodra glided around the pit, skating on her slippery slime with growing speed, before launching herself out on the other side from the other Pokemon. "So, I doubt you'll want to hang around much longer, but would you like to meet up again sometime?"

"Are you going to try to eat me again?"

Goodra giggled. "I didn't try to eat you - you were very effective with your refusal. But yes, you can expect me to ask like that again. You just have to properly say no again, is all."

Liepard lifted the back of her paw to her chin. "Mm, probably not, then. Not at my current strength, at least."

"Ah, that's a shame. Well, goodbye then. I do hope to see you again; you had some fascinating stories to tell!"

This got a grin out of the cat. "If you do, perhaps I'll trade some more for an escape from your hunger." With that, she turned and began to walk away from the slimy pit. "Have a good night, Goodra. I'm off to find… a Bunnelby, perhaps, and be significantly ruder to them than you were to me."

Goodra smiled back, waved, and, with Buizel's fighting already barely more than a few twitches, started her trek back to her den to digest in peace.

#pokemon #voretober #goodra #liepard #dragon #dragon pred #pokemon pred #pokemon prey #digestion #unwilling prey #text #v/ore #v.ore #writing #writers on tumblr

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bougainvillea-and-saltwater · 10 months

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TES Summer Fest Day 3: Starlit

You'll Be In My Heart

Summary:

I will tell you the story of the traitorous Dragon Priest who ever truly served one single dragon and no other—the woman he fell in love with; his own Dragoness, the sun-eyed bride of flame, the one who redeemed him from a death everlasting. But in every tale, little one, this one has also a twist: it was he who was first destined to rescue her from a demise, even if they both found out many years later.

✨ ✨ ✨ ✨ Guided by the moonglow and a starlit sky, the First Dragonborn comes to realize that not even the confines of Oblivion can prevent his spirit from finding its evermore destiny.

Rating&Warnings: Teen And Up Audiences. Some (mild) descriptions of the near-death of a newborn child, and some fleeting references concerning changes in Miraak's physical appearance/emotional state in Apocrypha.

Wordcount: 2,006 words

@tes-summer-fest, thank you for this lovely event! 🥰

This one-shot is below the cut and you can find it posted in Ao3, too!

There are no stars in Apocrypha.

Miraak, the First Dragonborn of an Aedra and the First Servant of a Daedra in equal measures, knows this all too well. Much to his despair, he has conceded to it for eternities unending now—or is it perhaps hours, minutes, or mere heartbeats of a second ever since a reel of obsidian-black ink engulfed and swiped him forever from a place asunder in two and smeared in blooded snow? This, he could never really say; time is a thing most whimsical in Oblivion, anyhow. When he is courageous enough to raise his eyes from the intricate filigree full of scattered pages below, to this caricature of a sky aloft, all he damns himself with is a canopy green and swirling, like a poisoned typhoon, like a polluted abyss, and in the place of the moon and stars he once marveled, named, and dreamed under somewhere in Frostwood's ice-sprinkled tundra, now there are only the boneless limbs, and the demon-like, sleepless, ever-watching eyes of the Woodland Man, as his fellow Atmorans called him; the Gardener of Memories, of Knowledge, of Fate—the Gardener of Men, is his most precise name.

His body does not function in Apocrypha; his heart does not beat, and so the blood in his veins does not flow—instead, it lies stagnant with no other option but to adjust with the ink puddles beneath his feet, altering him into a Seeker clad in the tainted flesh of a death-pale man, little by little. His body does not hurt in Apocrypha; if he ever felt any sensation, it was nothing more than the phantom pain one feels upon a limb they have already lost. His body has no need for sleep in Apocrypha; his eternal damnation is to always remain awake, watch how everything changes around him, and how it remains the same.

But, why now, does Miraak feel something changing?

For the first time, a pain keen and penetrating and endless rends through him. It reaches the very depths of his dragon soul that wails its reverberating suffering across Oblivion, it carves him like a razor with a scalding and rusty tip, and it knocks his breath out. As he falls to his knees that crack under the weight of his body, his heart thunders like the drums of a tribal war dance beneath his chest, down his ribs, in his ears, in his face, in every fiber of his being, everywhere, everywhere, setting his blood alight and moiling.

On his knees as he is, his neck and head jerk up against his will as though in a forced slumber, in a trance, his hood and mask slipping and clattering to the stale floor, freeing his waist-long all-tangled hair, and before his bottomless eyes roll in the back of his head, he manages to catch a thing most curious: the evermore swirl of Apocrypha's sky has now ceased, the immense double-pupils of Herma-Mora nowhere to be seen, and everything is frozen and standstill and put out.

_____________________________________________

The extinguished light slowly returns to him, and Miraak is on his feet, feeling no pain this time—on the quite contrary, all he feels is an unexplained calmness, that sort of peace one makes with themselves when they have a clear purpose to fulfill, an inescapable destiny written in the skies before they are even born. Though, there is a more crucial difference now: that light growing its sheen above his head, is not of Apocrypha, its sick green shade is no more, neither on him nor anywhere about.

That light is a delicate, silken caress, limning and bathing him in a milky luster; it reflects flawlessly on his marble skin, burns up the ebony pools of his eyes with a silver flare like a celestial fire, and mirrors his ashen-white hair like an iridescent halo, until it becomes one and whole with his very being, and he looks like—like a lokzii, the eternal entourage of the Divines in Aetherius.

That light, is the light of a starlit needlework, embellished with smaller and larger seams, each representing a distant luminary and various constellations connecting the galactic dots between them. The starglow mingles with the radiant rays of a moon so full that, for an instant, Miraak thinks it is not a mere moon but the heart of an Aedra, expanded and centered inside the night sky's velvet embrace.

And there are stars anew.

Real ones, he then realizes in awe.

Is he—is he back to Nirn? So soon? He has just set in motion his pursuit of enchanting the Skaal Stones with his Bend Will, so his hypnotic influence on the people of Solstheim in toiling them all day and all night long, fueling his return with the sacred ancient power of the All-Maker could have been... not nearly enough to help him escape the confines of Oblivion yet!

"I am lost and adrift," he looks up at the moon and speaks to it as if it were a living person, a fleshed guide. "It has been millennia since I last marveled at the sky, you see, and I cannot recall how it is to follow the path of the stars. Care to show me the way?"

And as if heeding his plea, a moonbeam flashes above him and starts to forge the route—or maybe it is his feet that begin to move first, and he becomes an astral walker with a destination untold but predestined and familiar-to-soul all the same, damning on the boundaries of his hellish prison and spanning through Nirn. As the case may be, the stellar canopy overhead will burnish brighter, as though all the stars together suddenly went supernova, momentary converting the night into day, the moon into the sun, when Miraak finds himself by the heavy, wooden gates of a building—a mead-hall that has the shape of a lavish... longship, a shield-adorned one at that, exactly like the ones once swayed upon the sun-shimmered seawater of Jylkurfyk's harbor; like the ones heroes-of-old sailed across the Sea of Ghosts to meet their coveted plunder at the other side.

He cannot help but recognize the midnight firmament's apparent signal to him, and so Miraak passes through these gates, stepping inside the mead-hall. Like an intangible specter he wanders within, and even though his view continues to be softly wreathed by the white-blue moonglow that escorted him to this place, he is completely indiscernible by every person dwelling there. His hands may graze against theirs as he glides his way amongst them, though he is naught but a whispering zephyr to them, a wisp of shadow, and they are but scarcely limned figures, fleeting forms in his eyes.

Everyone and everything, ephemeral thready presences all around. Except—

Except for a newborn girl, her mirage so clear to his vision as though he faces his reflection in a grand soul gem; a girl with few red tufts upon her delicate crown, set in an oak-timbered cradle chiseled into wolven motifs, next to a bed that smells of blood, wolfsbane, and primrose. A girl that does not get to be held and protected by her mother's loving arms, nursed from her breast, and put to sleep by her soothing lullaby; all because—because Arkay claims her first.

Death has stretched its bloody talons towards the child who just met the world outside the womb, though earlier than she was meant to—always so hasty, always so impatient, the little fool, Mother Mara have mercy on her—and thus she bears a tiny and too-frail body, a listless surrender on her limbs, an ill pallor on her cheeks. A lily, she is; an ivory bud on the edge of withering.

This infant will be dead before the night is done.

Be not afeared, soothes Miraak as he bends over the crib—it is his very dragon soul that it is speaking at this moment, while his human voice does not make a sound, his lips, not even a stir—death's darkness shrinking aside, life-light prevailing. I will tell you the story of the traitorous Dragon Priest who ever truly served one single dragon and no other—the woman he fell in love with; his own Dragoness, the sun-eyed bride of flame, the one who redeemed him from a death everlasting. The knuckles of his hand brush the child's soft cold cheek in the most feathery caress. But in every tale, little one, this one has also a twist: it was he who was first destined to rescue her from a demise, even if they both found out many years later.

And then, silent like a prayer and thunderous like a battlecry, he says: Whatever Light I have left in me, let it pass to her; let her be saved and live.

If the stellar-burst he saw by the time he found the gates of the mead-hall was like a supernova of all stars exploding as one, the forceful blast he sees after these very words leave his dovahsil is equivalent of—

Realms crashing together, galaxies spinning in interstellar dust, nebulae forming new stars over and over again—

Newborn constellations—a shimmering crescent with a fraction of its disk slowly illuminated by direct sunlight, until all Miraak beholds is the moon and the sun united, bound together, rising up up up the starlit sky, finding its place amidst the constellations of the Ritual and the Lord—

Uncreated Light that blinds and redeems him all at once—

And in the end?

In the end, two eyes previously sealed shut, now open wide.

Two eyes, of pure molten sun.

_____________________________________________

A violent inhale plunges down Miraak's lungs, chest heaving and falling by vigorous turns, and he blinks his strained eyes. For some unfathomable reason that he cannot recall no matter how much cognitive effort he puts forth, he is not standing on his feet; instead, he is sprawled upon Apocrypha's moist pages, his body numb and drained, his muscles aching and shaking as though he'd just traversed miles and miles away. His hair is free, his face is uncovered, hood and mask gone, even if he always made sure to conceal his countenance—no, his shame—ever since he set foot in this nightmare.

He bares his teeth and glares at the familiar abyss floating above his head, to his left, his right, behind, in front of him, and everywhere all at once. "Why am I like this?" He croaks, trying to get himself up, but the effort goes in vain, his legs giving up and falling to his back again. "What have you done to me, you foul bastard?"

And while Miraak would have expected some ambiguous but no less sharp rejoinder, Herma-Mora merely narrows his prominent gigantic eyeball in a way that makes him appear infuriated, as if... as if he likewise does not know what to respond to Miraak's demand. As if he is just as baffled as his Servant.

"I am the Demon of Knowledge, Guardian of the Unseen, Knower of the Unknown. No knowledge can evade me forever," he rumbles in the end, almost like he's struggling to assure himself, of his own influence on his very sphere; one would even say he sounds fretful. "Have no fear, dear Champion, and this one shall reveal itself, sooner or later."

Twenty-six years later, a woman will read a Black Book and fall into Apocrypha. She will be stunned by the Dragon Priest's spells in what they both thought to be their first encounter, and down at his feet as she is, she will raise her face and look at him straight in the eye—and for the second time after five millennia, his heart will beat once more. Twenty-six years later, she will kiss his lips and confess her soulful love with a bard's ballad.

Titles, triumphs, praise, power, and pain. All in the shape of hers.

A woman so different and yet so same as him.

Death-grazed, fire-blessed, a clawed-and-teethed spirit.

A Dragoness—

Sun-eyed.

#tesfest23 #miraak x ldb #miraak #oc: jia #my writing #my hands are on fire i'm telling you. between writing my Master's thesis and chapter 19 of TPATD i somehow managed to make even more Words™#couldn't resist! i was looking so much forward to the starlit prompt especially!#ficlet #otp: twin flames

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justanotherharmacist · 2 months

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DnD story time!

I'm gonna vaguely tell it so as to avoid any possible spoilers.

So my party has been tasked to go towards the local winery to check why the fuck there's no wine. We are a couple of shmucks:

Kith, the telepathic bug sorcerer

Amara, the always horny tiefling battle cleric

Borig, the relieable dwarven fighter

Drago, the mischiveous koboldian bard

And I, Light, the wildcard tabaxian druid

We accepted the quest and moved towards the winery, it was raining a lot and windy af so instead of walking the long trek, we shortcutted through a river. Since Amara could fly she picked us up one by one, when she was carrying the last one, Borig, the DM said "Wow Amara, you've been doing trips nonstop across this turbulent river in this rainy and windy weather and now you're carrying a very heavy dwarf with all his weapons and armor. Hmmmmmmmmm, roll me strength." Needless to say, she failed that roll, causing Borig to slip from her hands and falling towards the water.

In a panic, Drago casted feather fall so now our bearded friend was falling into his doom in a slow fashion. I decided to act and casted shape water, making an ice cube. "So Borig, you're slowly falling into your death when you see the cloaked cat move his arms, making ice appear below your feet, you gently stand above it."

We all sighed of relief

"The rest of your companions see you become smaller and smaller until they realize you're heading towards the rapids"

Panic ruled us and I ran on the river bank and started casting more ice cubes yelling "BORIG, JUMP!"

Borig started jumping on them like frogger "Wow Borig, jumping in this rain, wind, on ice cubes that float on a turbulent river? Roll me athletics"

He slipped and fell in the water, panicking I start to remove all the water that surrounds him, making a mini moses sea split, and he started to run as I kept casting the spell until he finally reached the shore. "Uf puff, thank you my friend, *inhales* I owe you the biggest tankard of the finest ale, let me just" and Borig collapses to the ground ass first and recovers a bit of stamina, I sit alongside him, feeling my arms aching from the constant spell casting as the rest of the party flocks towards us.

After a bit we resumed our trek. We decided to sneak around and managed to approach the winery undetected, it was surrounded by wooden creatures, we didn't know they were hostile so Drago casted Major Illusion and made a carbon copy of Kith, to everyone's surprise and proceded to move it mimicking their voice "Hullooooo tis I Kith, I love me some honey and get inside people's noggins, tralalalalala!" Kith sternly looked at him with their compound eyes and despite lacking eyebrows, they were frowning at him.

The creatures slowly approached the illusion and attacked with their branches dispelling it. Now that we know they were hostile I casted Call Lightning, wildshaped into a tiny mouse and moved into the middle of the winnery, took an advantage point and started squeak lightning, the creatures, attracted by the noise of lightning would gather in groups towards the source, making it very easy. However one figure exited the winery and was looking around confused, I squeaked towards him and after getting half his health he spots me and yells in druidic "GET THE VERMIN" once he issued that command, every wooden monster stiffened up and slowly turned towards me. That was when the rest of the party joined the fray. (Unfortunately I missed the fight session) I wake up and see that I'm inside Borig's clothing "The princess mouse decided to wake up eh? Mind if you turn back into a cat?" Grinning I did just that, and Borig started feeling a very heavy sinking force on his shoulder as suddently there was a full grown tabaxi on his shoulder, collapsing due to the weight being too much to bear. "Apologies my friend, here." And I hand Borig a Goodberry. I stretch a bit "So how did the fig-" I see the carnage on the field and the winery now had a 2 story hole from a fireball. "WHAT HAVE YOU DUNCES DONE??? WHY IS THERE A 2 STORY HOLE ON THE PLACE WE NEED TO SEARCH FOR CLUES!?!?!?" "Weeeeeelllllll" Kith's voice resounds in my head "lets say that it was done by, how should I put it, Holy fire." "Oh for Gaia's sake" I say while facepalming. "SHUT YOUR MANDIBLES, IT COULD'VE BEEN ANYONE!" I hear from the hole on the second floor "My dear Amara, you're the only one who, not only knows, but constantly casting it." "Let's just focus on finding out the fate of the owners." I move upstairs with Kith to where Amara is while Drago decides to head to the basement, Borig decides to follow him.

In the basement, Drago makes quite the discovery, Dragon Fire wine, the best of the region. "Oooooohhhhh yeaaaa baby, now this is the shiiiit! I wonder if there are more around her- wait, whats that?" He sees the outcrop of a level and pulls it, revealing a hidden passage, he's standing there observing it when Borig appears. "What are you doing here?" "OH BORIG GOOD TIMING!, could you maybe idk, go inside the hallway and check whats inside?" "Why would I do it?" "Oh my man, guy, pal, you're the best at surviving stuff aren'tcha? Me? I'm just good with my music but you? You're the kind of person to go against the world and come back victorious!" Borig silently stares "And I'll give you this wine bottle!" "Deal" Borig enters the hallway and feels cold, very very cold, to the point of losing consciousness but he manages to leave it, he peeks the hallway and sees some brown mold had grown. "Drago, hand me another bottle of wine, I wanna test something" "Uuuhhh okay dude, I'm gonna stand by the stairs ok?" Borig then makes a makeshift molotov and rolls it into the hallway, where he sees the mold comes into life surrounding the bottle, however what he did not expect was for it to grow so fast it expanded outside the door, 5 feet from him. Instantly he feels that familiar cold in his body, his energy fading as he collapses. Drago gets alarmed and rushes towards his companion only to feel that sapping cold, he manages to remain conscious and casts Healing Touch and steps back, Borig wakes up and before he can understand what's going on he feels that familiar cold that knocks him out yet again. "Oh shit this is bad, really really bad. Guys! Help! Borig is in trouble!"

Hearing the commotion, the group hurries to the basement, whilst Borig critically failed an attempt to regain consciousness and is almost reaching that eternal slumber. "GUYS PLEASE HELP HIM, BUT DON'T GO NEAR HIM, BUT HELP HIM!" I cast Aura of Healing, keeping him from shaking Death's hand while the others formulate a plan, and sure they did, they lasso'd his ass away from the mold while I kept him falling in and out of consciousness. Once safe we healed him and Kith decided to exterminate the entire mold with ice after finding out what had happened from Drago.

After that we idle around the kitched discussing what could have happened to the owners when we hear "Hellooooo, are you friends or foes?" We look from the kitched wall hole a group of individuals, "Depends if you attack us!" The group widen their eyes and look around everywhere for the source of that noise. "Kith!" They hold their 4 arms apologetically " We have a companion who can only speak mentally, they mean no harm and often forgets that most aren't used to hear voices in their heads." "Sorry!" The elder of the group calms them down and we meet outside, we learn that they're the owners of the winery and that they are grateful for our help in driving out the enemies, we mention the leader was in the basement doing who knows what and that unfortunately had escaped. "The basement you say? Oh I hope he hasn't found the mold" "The mold?" "Yes, its a mold that freezes the temperature and is crucial for wine making in these lands" We give each other some worrying looks as we heard this. After some more talking we agreed to escort a cart full of wine towards the city and get our reward.

So moral of the story: If a mold seems harmful to you, it may be benefitial to someone else.

#dnd #dnd story #mold

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mymothershumility · 2 years

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neverflownwithme asked: “He’s been in the black earth now for thousands of years.”

past transmissions || { always accepting }

{ @neverflownwithme }

It begins with a chill upon the air, howling down into the South from the Far North. It begins with the sudden fall of snow in the middle of an eternal summer.

The Citadel has kept record of the years since the last winter.

It has been some eight thousand years before, a fading cold that had slowly retreated beyond the borders of the North and on towards the Edge of the World. Spring had bloomed with winter’s banishment. And, then, summer had come upon the kingdoms to rule with no opposition. Generations have passed since such a time, the residents of the Sunset Kingdoms knowing nothing but the warmth of summer and all of its bounty.

When the first chill upon the air comes, slipping across the kingdoms like a wave swelling up onto a sandy shore, it is viewed as a curiosity, something near mythical. The clouds begin to gray, then, and the air seems to become colder by the day. When the first flurries of snow begin to dust over the lands, though, the curiosity that had first colored the shift in weather begins to sour to fear.

Those flurries give way to howling blizzards soon enough. Crops and livestock freeze to death out in the fields. As famine sets in, discourse begins to rise among the small folk and the high lords of the kingdoms. Rebellions spark, first within the borders of individual kingdoms and then beyond them.

Six moon turns pass, the bitter cold and the snows from the Far North showing no sign of lessening. At the edge of the Sunset Kingdoms, high upon the Wall, the Black Brothers soon find themselves overrun by an enemy that was long thought dead. The enemy takes them during the black hours of night, unleashing upon them before they even realize they are among them.

The Night’s Watch perishes, lost in a sea of ice and death. The Wall cracks as the last one falls, crashing down in bitter ruin with a thundering so loud that it is heard across the kingdoms all the way to Dorne.

Across the Narrow Sea, among the ruins of the Bay of Dragons, something more echoes the Wall’s destruction. Out of the mists, the thundering of hooves is heard, followed by the crack of leathern wings and the roar of a great beast returned to life.

~oOo~

Even in Dorne, the cold has come. Yet, the snows have yet to fall. The clouds are dark, though, and they threaten to burst at any moment.

A dragoness, full grown and fearsome, appears in the night upon the shores of the desert kingdom a mere two days after the Wall shatters and falls. There have been no dragons in the world since before the eternal summer, the creatures disappearing as the snows faded away. They have fallen to myth and legend, as much a fairytale as the Valyrian Dragonlords that had once been whispered to have commanded them.

And yet, one of the fabled beasts alights among the fragrant orange trees, glistening pools, and pink marbles halls of the Water Gardens, black as night with burning scarlet eyes and a roar that can be heard all the way to Oldtown.

Upon the sands, Dothraki screamers emerge from the tides, a war cry going up among the thundering of hooves along the shore.

From the black beast’s back, a young woman swings down onto the marbled pathways that meander through the gardens. Her hair is bright in the darkness, silver-gold strands turned near white in the light of the moon overhead, and her eyes bright violet.

Her Dothraki screamers call her Khaleesi, the name shouted as their curved blades clash and sing in time with the dragoness’ roar.

Kivio Darilaros is another name granted to the woman, the moniker whispered from behind the cover of a red lacquered mask by a Shadowbinder from the dark land of Asshai.

“She is the Princess That Was Promised. A champion of R’hllor,” the masked woman whispers to the youngest Viper Prince the evening after the black beast appears among the walls of the Water Gardens, form half hidden among the shadows of the palace. “She shall return the darkness from whence it came and unify these broken lands.”

Khaleesi. Kivio Darilaros. Princess That Was Promised.

The woman responds to them all, though Khaleesi most of all.

As her forces sail north, though, Dothraki screamers and Dornish shields intermingling among the ships that now ferry them towards the approaching darkness, another name is spoken on the wind. The Viper Prince hears it over the waves of the sea and the howling of the wind snapping through the sails of the ships, hears it in answer to his own questioning and curiosity.

“What do you call your dragon, Khaleesi?” the Prince questions late one evening, his voice swept up on the breeze as the hull of their ship rises and falls upon the swelling seas.

“Daenerys,” the woman whispers to him, her eyes and hair shining in the darkness when she turns to look at him. “My name is Daenerys,” she corrects. There is a hint of a smile curling along the edges of her mouth. “Her name,” she begins, violet eyes turning up to where a great shadow soars above them, “is Balerion.”

~oOo~

Their enemy sets in upon them among the barren landscape just south of the Northern seat. Already, Winterfell has been lost. The Northmen are fleeing for White Harbor, for the Neck, for anyplace that can grant them sanctuary from the coming onslaught.

For a time, Daenerys and Balerion prove successful in their campaign. The dead cannot withstand the might of the dragoness and the Dothraki screamers that tear through the enemy’s ranks, the black blades of their Valyrian steel arakhs making quick work of any who stand before them.

The snows and the wind begin to ebb, briefly halts to a blissful silence. But, then, the thundering of battle ranks sounds in the quiet. The wind begins to stir. And, then, it howls. From the darkness, their enemy emerges once again, washing over the ranks of the living like a never ending flood.

Across the Sunset Kingdoms and across the Narrow Sea, there comes another echo. From the depths of the Smoking Sea, there comes the crack of wings upon the air, the resounding clang of spear and shield, and a second roar that seems to rattle the very foundations of the earth.

~oOo~

Harrenhal is a monstrosity of twisted and ruined towers. Ruined or not, its immense size offers those that have fled south from their advancing enemy sanctuary. The winds still howl, cutting about the castle’s towers in a raging tempest.

The howling of the wind and the bitter cold pales in comparison to what awaits Daenerys and all those that have fled south with her within the Great Hall of the castle upon their arrival.

Out among the courtyards, battalions of Unsullied stand in rank, their black armor and shields a stark contrast against the bright snow. Inside the castle, though, lies the most shocking discovery. Curled about the castle’s throne, a second dragoness lies in wait for those that have come to Harrenhal. Silver scaled with molten golden eyes, the beast makes even Harrenhal’s grand Great Hall seem small. The woman who is seated on the castle’s throne seems all the smaller in the dragoness’ great shadow.

It is Daenerys who breaks from the throngs of soldiers and civilians to approach the dragoness. It is Daenerys who opens her arms to the woman upon the throne when she nears her.

“Helaena,” she speaks, smiling for the first time since her journey upon the ship with the Viper Prince as she wraps her sister up in her arms.

~oOo~

There is a Red Priestess named Melisandre among Helaena’s ranks. She’s calls Helaena Elenei, a bridge between the skies and the depths. She is a last defender, one meant to come before the end of times. A champion of the Merling King and the Moon Mother, her ranks differ vastly from those that had risen from the depths with Daenerys.

Daenerys’ Dothraki screamers were a sword. Helaena’s Unsullied were a shield. Two complimentary forces. Two forces meant to hold the line and defend the realm of the living.

“You know what will happen should we fail.”

The words are whispered late one evening, whispered from one sister to another in Harrenhal’s Great Hall. There are others there with them. The Viper Prince that Helaena sees Daenerys sharing scarcely hidden glances with. The Wolf King that had held the dead from crossing the Neck until aid had arrived. The Kraken Queen and the Redwyne King whose ships had ferried civilians down from White Harbor when the city had become overrun with their enemy. The Roses and the Falcon Queen that had given them shields and food when there had been none for them among the ruined Riverlands.

Still, Helaena whispers the words all the same and she watches the haunted look that passes into Daenerys’ violet eyes with them.

“What will happen?” It is the Wolf King’s voice that breaks through the silence that follows Helaena’s words.

“We’ve another sister,” Daenerys answers, never turning her gaze to the man she now speaks to.

“One with a dragon?” the Redwyne King asks. “Call for her, then. Another dragon will be all the better with what we’re facing.”

Helaena shakes her head as the other talks, turning so that she can regard those in the room with her and her sister. Her pale gold hair is darker among the shadows and in the flickering of the firelight, the sapphire blue of her eyes all the deeper.

“Our sister is different,” Helaena tells them, her voice careful. She and Daenerys love their sister dearly, yet she was born with a far different purpose than their own. “She is not a defender. She is a destroyer, a harbinger of death and rebirth.”

The words seem to hang about them like a curtain, the silence that follows tense with trepidation.

“If we cannot stop the Night King and the Others, she will awaken. And, if she does, she will annihilate the world so that it may begin again from the ashes,” Daenerys says.

“The Night King?” It’s the Wolf King’s voice that follows Daenerys’ own. “The Night King is near legend. He’s been in the black earth now for thousands of years.” Little had been spoken of him since his death, not since the Watch took back control of the Wall and cast the Night King and his Corpse Queen from power.

“As have we, Your Grace,” Helaena reminds. “It is no mere happenstance that brought us here. We only awaken when the Night King does. We awaken when the Great Other calls on his own champion.”

~oOo~

Helaena’s Unsullied do as they have always done. They shield the living and hold the line when the dead descend upon them.

Daenerys’ Dothraki screamers do as they have always done, cutting down their enemies at their Khaleesi’s command.

Balerion and Meraxes prove to be the greatest aid. Though Daenerys had made easy work of the dead up among the wilds of the North, having Helaena and Meraxes to aid her and Balerion makes all the difference. It is always different when the two of them are together. There is always an extra bit of power that is lacking when they are separated.

Still, for all their strength and for all their might, the dead overwhelm them in a matter of days. Harrenhal becomes overrun, crumbling under the sheer ferocity of their enemy.

It is when they’re retreating, making for Saltpans along the Bay of Crabs, that Helaena and Daenerys spy their enemy in full. Positioned at the back of the undead ranks, astride their own mounts, they see the Night King’s generals.

Though there is no sign of the Night King himself, the sisters know that he shall not be far behind.

~oOo~

Dragonstone is a fortress that the Valyrian’s crafted eons ago, well protected by old magic and the ancient gods of the Old Empire. It will serve as a safe haven for them as they consider their next plan of action.

Their forces have dwindled so since Daenerys awakened. Still, there is a flickering hope that they may prevail in their campaign. There is still hope that they can save the innocents of this world, that they can beat back the darkness so that this world may heal in place of being subjected to burning.

It takes time for their ships to maneuver through the waters, the seas now filled with ice. As they pass Maidenpool, Helaena spies the glowing blue eyes of their enemy watching them. By the number of them, she doubts there are any survivors among the trading port. Their enemy is only growing stronger.

And they are running out of time.

~oOo~

Among the Doom stricken ruins of Valyria, a final echo sounds. A third snap of leathern wings is heard, louder than any that have come before it. Hooves beat loudly against the earth, sword and shield clattering as a final war cry goes up into the darkness. Last, there comes a roar, one that threatens to shatter the world asunder.

~oOo~

Their ships are passing Wickenden when there comes a snap and a roar so loud it feels as though the world may well be breaking in two. The noise rouses those from below the ship’s deck, drawing them out into the cold just as the sky brightens with a crimson glow. In the distance, a second roar sounds, one so loud it may as well be above them. Balerion and Meraxes answer it, their calls stretching out in the darkness.

“What is that?” the Kraken Queen asks, her hand rising to shield her eyes from the crimson light above them.

The clouds briefly dissipate, revealing the source of light in all its glory. There, high in the sky, is the red comet known as the Dragon’s Tail, the herald of doom and destruction.

“It is the Dragon’s Tail,” Helaena tells them, a chill working its way down her spine as she stares up at the flaming comet. “The herald of Azor Ahai.”

“Azor Ahai?” the Kraken Queen echoes, looking not to Helaena, but to Daenerys instead. There is a look of dread upon the young woman’s face.

“Our sister has awakened.”

~oOo~

Though the seas this far south have yet to form ice as those farther north have, the voyage is a treacherous one in its final stages. Storms have long been fierce when nearing the island of Dragonstone, the lingering effects of the Valyrian magic that had forged the island stronghold.

Helaena and Daenerys suspect something more in the violent storms, though. It echoes with their sister’s presence, in the ire that is no doubt present within her at being woken.

Though the eldest of the three, their sister takes no joy in what gifts she has been blessed with. There is little love for a harbinger of death, even one who allows life to begin again from the ashes. Were their sister given the choice, they know that she would choose to never awaken, to never be forced to deal the final blow that ends all life so that it may start again.

Helaena does not envy her sister’s power, would never wish to possess such a thing. For all the life that her sister is capable of granting, it comes only after experiencing the utter agony of snuffing it out. She loves her sister dearly, loves her as dearly as she loves Daenerys. Yet, she wishes her sister’s power did not haunt her in the manner that Helaena knows that it does. She wishes it did not steal pieces of her sister away each time she is forced to use it.

She wishes the Lion of Night and the Maiden-Made-of-Light had chosen another to shoulder such a burden.

The Dragon’s Tail remains bright in the sky, burning crimson even as the dawn breaks over the horizon in the east. Dragonstone is bathed in the shadow of the Dragonmont as the sisters walk the twisting paths up to the fortress from the docks below, Balerion and Meraxes flying high above the castle. They can only hope that their ships will survive the storm that is raging about the island where they have been anchored out among the depths.

Should they lose them, there will be no escape from the island for those that have travelled with them.

The Stone Drum echoes with the resounding thunder that booms over head. Helaena is the first to notice the lingering scent that surrounds them as the pass into the fortress, is the first to notice the scent of ash, ginger, and orange floating heavily upon the air. Daenerys notices it only a moment after, her hand reaching to touch at Helaena’s wrist as they move for the heavy red doors that will grant them entrance to the Great Hall.

Darkness greets them when the doors are pushed open. For a moment, all that can be heard is the rumbling of thunder above them and the crashing of the sea against the cliffs below them. Then, there comes the low growl of a woken dragoness and a pair of emerald eyes appear among the shadows.

A sudden flash of light fills the room, the torches among the walls lighting one by one until the room was illuminated in the gentle glow of them.

The dragoness lies curled about Dragonstone’s throne, her golden body massive even in the cavernous hall. Vhagar has grown in size since the last time she awakened. She rivals Balerion’s size now. Perhaps, she is even bigger.

A Red Priestess stands at the base of the throne, her hands at her middle and her own eyes watchful of those trudging into the Great Hall.

“Laira.” It is Helaena who speaks first, stepping farther into the Great Hall. Her sister has yet to speak, yet to even move. She sits upon Dragonstone’s throne, sword resting across her lap, eyes ever watchful.

“Laira,” Daenerys echoes. Laira is a stark contrast to her and Helaena. Olive skinned where she and Helaena are fair. Silver haired where she and Helaena are platinum and pale gold. Tall where she and Helaena are smaller. Her eyes differ most, though. They are dark amethyst compared to Daenerys’ own bright violet and Helaena’s sapphire blue.

It takes only a glance to know all that is whirling through their sister’s mind. Both Helaena and Daenerys know there is a war brewing within her that she dare not speak of aloud. They know that she is considering what will have to be done and what that will mean for the realm of the living.

“The darkness has risen,” the Red Priestess at the base of the throne speaks, her dark hair and green eyes shining in the torchlight. “So comes Azor Ahai to make the world anew.”

{ @truetargaryen & @fullrangeofemotions & @thequeenmaker & @xcoatlicuex & @hisvipereyes & @viperparamour & @nolongerhispawn & @shewhoisironborn & @adornishviper & @anunfailingkindness & @ialwayswasthebest & @iveneverbeenagoodgirl & @aladyofwinterfell & @therosesofhighgarden & @arisiarrxb & @alionessroars & @zaldrizo & @fairytalesandstars & @queeniolande & @yrracynrxl & @scaleddoe & @scraniknatu }

#neverflownwithme #;transmissions #v; always in the end comes death and rebirth #;drabble

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honourablejester · 3 years

Text

A couple more meeting-the-ancestor moments for draconic sorcerers, to go with A Question of Lineage (human sorcerer with green dragon ancestry realises that the old ‘family advisor’ to her crime boss family is said utterly-amoral-but-also-quite-loving green dragoness)

AKA two more tiny mortal/dragon romance stories:

Tiefling Sorcerer with Gold Dragon Ancestry

The tired ‘elven’ spymaster curled his hand gently closed around the locket.

“In so many ways, she was the bravest person I’ve ever met. There were … several cults growing in the capital at the time. In particular, a cult of Asmodeus. I used her. Her features, her heritage. I sent her knowing she would be more easily believed by the cult. And more suspected by her own allies. She knew how I used her. But the job needed to be done, and she … allowed it. She went, at my order. Every time. She forgave me so many times, for sending her to what could have been her death. I couldn’t … It needed to be done. But after a while, it became … hard. She got so hurt. So often. We did what needed to be done. But she was so tired. So used to being used. So used to my using her. And after a while I couldn’t anymore. I am immortal. So hard to hurt by comparison. I had a job to do. But I couldn’t let her be hurt for it any longer.”

He paused. Smiled. His eyes flashed a strange, reptilian gold, for just an instant. He brought the locket to his lips and kissed it gently, before slipping it over his head and tucking it into the high collar of his robe. He looked up, and smiled softly.

“She forgave me many things, your great-grandmother. And taught me … a great many others. In all my years, no one has ever showed me the things she did. Remember that. No matter what anyone says about you and your heritage. Remember that, once upon a time, a tiefling spy showed one of the most respected men in the world what courage and sacrifice meant. And when he finally understood how much it cost her, she found it in her heart to forgive and love him regardless.”

(AKA an adult gold dragon masquerading as an elven spymaster, who fell in love with the tiefling rogue he used as an operative against infernal cults)

Firbolg Sorcerer with White Dragon Ancestry

The great white head loomed closer, scenting the air ominously. She huddled back against the ice of the overhang, barely daring to breathe. Oh, this was turning out to be such a lovely day …

“… I know that scent,” a vast voice rumbled abruptly. “I know …”

The dragon flowed down from the top of the overhand, a fluid fall of scale and muscle, landing with perfect grace on the ice and stone twenty feet below. Despite herself, despite the terror, Snow had to admire the natural beauty of the creature. One of the most awe-inspiring in creation.

The white dragon turned, swinging his head around to glare at the shadows beneath the overhang. Snow swallowed sharply. The great creature, radiating cold and fury, loomed close.

“You’re not her,” he growled furiously. “You smell of her, but you’re not her. Who are you?”

Um. But there was no point refusing to answer. And Snow suddenly … had an inkling …

“Do … Do you mean my mother?” she asked, unable to keep a note of sorrow and maybe longing from her voice. “She looked like me. She was a druid. She looked after the ice, the glaciers. I know she … She loved these mountains. Is that … who you mean?”

The dragon was silent for a long moment. Dangerously quiet. And then, slowly, he said:

“Mother. What … happened to your mother?”

Snow laughed brokenly. It was that or sob. It had been such a lovely day. “The … The same thing that almost happened to me,” she said. She closed her eyes, and tipped her head back against the ice. “Ogres have moved into the lower valleys. They … didn’t like company. They drove us out. And killed—”

The dragon reared back. Violently. The icicles on the ceiling rattled dangerously at the motion. Nostrils and icy blue eyes flared savagely. Spines flared along the dragon’s crest. He didn’t roar. He hissed.

“In my mountains?!” he snarled. “They dare?!”

He swung away, a furious clatter of claws and ice. Heading for the entrance to the cave. Then he paused. Froze, rage and hatred coiling through his body. He swung his head back over his shoulder. Glared at her once more.

“Stay here,” he growled. “If you leave I will hunt you down. There is nowhere I cannot find that scent. Stay. I will return when I have shown your ogres whose mountains they trespass in!”

Then he was gone, an avalanche of ice and scale flowing down the mountainside, and Snow … sagged back against the icy wall. Closed her eyes and slid down into a puddle on the floor.

Well. At least a dragon was a more interesting death?

(AKA a firbolg druid glaciologist who bullied/persuaded a white dragon to help her look after his mountains better, and later on persuaded him to a few things more, and murdering the bright and daring mother of his child is most definitely not a good survival plan)

I REALLY LOVE DRAGONS. Also, white dragons particularly, also green and gold, need so much more love.

#d&d #dragons #sorcerers #original fiction #dragon romances #backstory ideas #draconic sorcerers #if you have dragon ancestry you better give me the dragon love story #heh

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heart-of-flames · 4 years

Text

Tranquility

Lauren x Female!MC

Word Count: 3432

Summary: You know that Lauren worked too hard and that she rarely took care of herself when she got like this. You just needed to figure out a way to get her to take a break.

Note: One of my Ko-Fi commissions that I was given permission to post. I hope you’re all doing well and I hope you enjoy it.

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While you were growing up you had always been a bit different than the rest of the kids your age-- barring the fact that you were Fae. While others, namely your brother, enjoyed the rambunctious attitude that all children seemed to possess-- getting into trouble wherever they went. You had always enjoyed a softer approach to things. While Aziel got lectured in the hall for breaking a priceless vase; you were situated in an almost forgotten alcove. Tucked underneath your handmade winter shawl, you curled up with your escape to the world. Books.

For books had always been your escape into another world. They had always been your closest friend when you didn’t have anyone else to turn to. When you were feeling sad you would pick up your worn copy of Until Dawn. The story of how one boy, with a moon-shaped scar, was able to fight against all the opposing forces in his life. How he had been able to look for the light even in his darkest of times-- it was a solace you desperately tried to maintain.

And with that solace came the belief that everything would turn out okay. That as long as you stayed on the high road nothing could ever truly reach you. That if you maintained the attitude of the boy with the moon-shaped scar you could get past anything. It was a belief that got you through your formative years.

Though as the years passed on, that belief started to dwindle inside of you. Withering away with each passing remark and carefully leveled glare. Trying to remember the past, the story of the boy, but it seemed to slip further and further from your grasp. Until there was nothing left but slivers of what used to be.

Of what would never be again.

As you age you became what the world desired of you-- cold. Gone was the little girl who smiled at the passing family in the market square. Gone was the little girl that was too shy to ever ask for anything. Gone was the little girl who saw the world as a magical place-- filled with wonder and cheer.

In its stead, a woman remained-- strong and unwavering to everything life threw at her. The warmth slowly being replaced by ice. At least that was what you always tried to portray. No one could truly hurt you if you didn’t allow them to-- if you didn’t show them.

If you didn’t flinch as their venomous words pierced through your heart. Or trembled over the barely concealed fury in their gaze. If you were able to get through all of that? It meant you get through anything. Even if it meant you became more detached because of it.

You couldn’t allow your heart to be broken any more than it already was.

No matter how much you wished you could let people in once more.

Even as your body, and your mind, was changing there was still one thing that connected you to your past self-- books. Throughout everything books and reading was the one thing that tied you back to everything you used to be. As you flipped through worn and crumpled pages you were plunged back into days long passed. Days filled with over-eager eyes trying to soak in everything they could and hidden smiles with Kiera as she snuck you yet another book that you shouldn’t have been reading.

Good things must always come to an end it seems, you muse as you watch the shifting landscape from behind your window. The thought filled you with a nostalgic sadness that seemed to wrap itself around your heart and refused to let go-- instead, it simply squeezed tighter each time it beat. It had a melancholic effect, one that you didn’t appreciate at all, but you knew there was nothing you could do until it passed. However long that may be.

Turning, you allow a despondent sigh to escape your mouth. You didn’t know how to pull yourself out of this funk you were in but, as a small smile began to form on your lips, you believed you knew who could help you.

Someone you knew would always be able to put a smile on your face-- however slight.

Lauren.

oOo

The scent of the medical ward assaults you as you step in. Pine and the softest hint of mistletoe, which was probably due to it being the holiday season. You still couldn’t figure out how Lauren was able to make the ward feel so homey. Usually, medical wards, at least the ones you have been to, had a sterile environment. Filling you with a sense of discomfort, because you knew you weren’t supposed to be there. You knew that your presence wasn’t truly wanted.

But with Lauren?

She always made everyone, both humanoid and draconic alike, feel welcomed. Always offering smiles as people either entered or exited. Her soft voice filling the seemingly endless silence during her exams-- as if she knew how uncomfortable someone was becoming.

A smile blossoms on your face at the thought. Your eyes automatically scan the ward for any sight of your favorite healer. Finding her with relative ease, your smile falls from your face at the frazzled state she was clearly in. Her normally neat braid was disorderly; strands of hair being pulled from its confines as if she had been constantly running her hands through it. Whiskey brown eyes tinged with dark blotches underneath-- a clear sign that she hadn’t been sleeping well. Or at all. Her posture hunched in on itself as she sat at her desk. Pouring over various documents that littered the normally clean surface.

With a worried frown now prominent on your features, you move towards her. Watching her jerky movements and overall crumbling composure. It was a sight that concerned you greatly because Lauren was always so poised. An innate elegance that many could never hope to grasp exuding from her every move.

She was anything but graceful now.

Stopping just behind the beautiful healer, you clear your throat. Not wanting to startle her while she was working; as you were well aware of how concentrated she could become. Even still, Lauren gave a slight jolt at the noise. Her body whipping around to face you with a shocked look painted on her features.

She settles down once she realizes it was you, however, a small smile starting to form on her lips. “Edelgard,” she breathes. “I wasn’t expecting you to drop by today? Is everything all right, my love?”

You nod. “Everything is fine, Lauren, I just came to see you.” You pause as you once again take in the sight of her. Your frown once again makes an appearance on your face. “But are you alright? You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

“I’m fine,” she replies with a flippant wave of her hand. “You know how this time of year can get around here. People thinking they can ice skate without the use of protective gear.”

You wince slightly at that. “Have there been any bad ones?”

“The worst was someone having their skull split open and a few cracked ribs, but nothing too life-threatening.” She shrugs. “But that doesn’t mean the paperwork is any less severe.”

You frown as you watch Lauren look back down at her desk-- following her gaze with your own. The sight causes your heart to thud against your chest. Various documents lay scattered about on her desk with her neat scrawl written across. Each one detailing why each patient had been admitted and what had been done to them once they were. From what you could see there were dozens of them on her desk, but there was so much more that hadn’t even been opened yet.

“Lauren,” you murmur. “You need to sleep. You can’t stay cooped up in her doing this paperwork. It’s not good for you.”

She smiles softly. “You sound just like Asa.” She shakes her head as she brings a new document towards her. “But I have to get these done. I’m used to working like this during this particular season.” She glances back up at you with a soft smile that never failed to warm your heart. “Go have fun and enjoy the festivities. I’m sure Silas would love to have company right now. Or maybe you can help Catherine with hanging up decorations around Haven.”

“I would rather spend the day with you.”

“I know, my love.” She sighs softly. “I will try to finish as fast as I can so we can get a late dinner at the inn. How does that sound?”

You know that Lauren was trying her best with what she was given. Just as you knew she hated disappointing you-- even in small ways. So, with a smile, you bring your lips quickly to her cheek. Loving that her scent filled your nose as you did so.

It was the scent of vanilla with hints of chestnut and some form of wood you couldn’t name. The outdoorsy smell with the softness of the vanilla was something you would forever associate with Lauren. With the warm feeling, she brought to your chest every time you saw her. Bringing you back to the times that you were a child. Back when the world was a bright and magical place.

It was the scent that brought you home.

Moving away from her inviting embrace, you speak. “That’s more than okay, Lauren.” You squeeze her bicep in a gentle warning. “Just don’t overwork yourself, alright?”

She smiles. “Alright.”

With that, you step away from her and begin to make your way out of the ward, but with each step, a heavy feeling started to settle over your heart. That only grew the further you were away from Lauren.

You wanted nothing more than to turn back, but Lauren’s soft voice filled your head. Her words from earlier and the earnest conviction laid within her tone halted any form of rebellion. She rarely asked for anything-- you weren’t about to disregard her wishes now.

Even though everything within you was begging you to.

oOo

“I don’t know what to do, Weiss,” you whisper to your dragon as you place various meats into her trough. Your eyes meeting the compassionate golden gaze of the dragoness. Her white scales glowing in the dim torch-light of the cavern.

Yes, you do, dearest one, you just don’t wish to do it. Was the calm response through your mind. Her silky voice whispering through your mind like a gentle wind. Not overpowering in the slightest, but it was a presence that you would always know was there.

You scoff. “What do you mean? I would always do anything I could for Lauren.”

I know that, dearest one, which is exactly why you’re heeding her words. Even though you wish you weren’t.

You frown at her words. You knew what Weiss was explaining, but some part of you still rebelled against it. Maybe it was the part that still wished to honor Lauren’s words? To honor her wanting you to have fun while she was cooped up working. Even so, the mere thought of Lauren alone during the holiday season was heartbreaking. She already gave so much to Haven-- too much at times-- and you refused to have her give this up. You couldn’t bear it.

Glancing up at the beautiful dragoness, you smiled at her. Knowing that you didn’t have to vocalize your next words-- for she could feel them-- but you were compelled to.

“I love you, Weiss. I hope you know that.”

Her head lowers towards you. Golden eyes glowing with all the warmth of the sun. I do know my dearest one. I love you just as much.

Bringing a hand up, you scratch just under her jaw-- a spot you knew she liked having itched. A warm smile blossoming on your face at the small coos she let loose at the sensation. Your gaze locking with hers with a message clearly passing from her to you.

Go to her.

And after one more scratch, you do as she says. Your body rushing towards the one destination you wanted nothing more than to get to.

To Lauren.

oOo

You skidded to a halt just outside the entrance of the ward. Your body almost colliding with the wall opposite you as you came to said abrupt halt. Air rushing into your lungs as you inhaled sharply. Doing everything you could to resupply them after your manic run.

It wouldn’t do to be winded when you spoke to Lauren.

After a moment, your chest doesn’t feel like it’s on fire anymore. Nor do you feel like your legs are about to collapse out from under you. With a solemn breath, you take a step forward into the familiar ward. Your eyes taking in the same sight you had that morning, and it didn’t fail to elicit the same reaction from you.

If possible the frown was even deeper than before.

Lauren still sat hunched over her desk, but her braid was completely gone now. Long, golden-brown hair fell in a gentle mixture of waves and slight curls around her face. Nimble fingers tracing over the various papers that still lay in front of her. Though one of her hands would periodically come up to brush the strands of hair from her face. A clear sign of the frayed edges that was Lauren’s being. You knew that Lauren needed a break, but you didn’t know how to make her have one.

If Lauren was anything it was stubborn. Especially when it came to her work.

With silent, almost cat-like, steps you make your way across the room. Halting, in front of Lauren’s desk as she sat oblivious to the world around her. Such a fact would normally cause a worried frown to pull at your brow, but another cursory glance of the room showed you the reason Lauren was fine with being in such a state.

Asa.

The dragon lay with his head on one of the various carpets throughout the ward. His green scales glowing against the hearth fire that fell on them. His deep rumbling breaths filling the silence of the room-- when it wasn’t filled with the scratching of Lauren’s quill or her mumbling. Bronze eyes having been trained on Lauren’s form turn towards you. Clear relief taking over his features at the sight of you.

I’m glad you’re here, Edelgard, his soft voices rumbled through your mind. Lauren hasn’t been taking care of herself. Nor has she been heeding my words. I truly hope that you have better luck breaking through to her. For you’re the only person I could see doing so.

You dip your head towards Asa in a sign of silent understanding. You knew exactly how Lauren could get when she was truly invested in her work. Not to mention when it was a season of high injury rates because people enjoyed doing idiotic things. Even so, the fact that she wasn’t listening to Asa?

You shake your head at the many ideas flickering through your head. You had to convince Lauren to take a break before she became a patient of the medical ward herself, which was something no one wanted. If you had to you would even go to the Matriarch-- as you knew she had a soft spot for Lauren and wanted to see the healer safe. That would be your second course of action, however.

Steeling yourself, you move to the side of her desk. Your mind working over everything you could potentially say. With a soft sigh, you kneel next to Lauren’s chair. Your hand resting against hers-- halting her manic writing.

Startled brown eyes turn to meet your violet. Her full lips forming an ‘o’ as she registered that you were kneeling beside her. Even still, it took her a moment to form a cohesive sentence.

“E-Edelgard?” She asks with confusion laced within her tone. “What are you doing here?”

“I came because I wanted to see you,” you murmur. Your hand stroking hers with a soft touch that you knew she enjoyed. “Which I’m glad I decided to do because you look even worse than you did this morning.”

Lauren smiles. “Thanks.”

You roll your eyes playfully at her. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, Lauren.”

“I know.”

You take a moment to respond. Speaking with Lauren was one of the easiest things you have ever done. She was like an open book to you. Easy to read and even easier to open up to. For there were no lies hidden within her soft brown eyes. There were no hints of deception within her elegant tone. There was only Lauren.

And there was never anything better.

A soft hand on your cheek pulls you out of your reverie. Your eyes rising to meet a sparkling gaze. A gaze that would normally cause a smile to form on your lips, but only caused worry to gnaw in your stomach. You could clearly tell that Lauren was tired. That she needed rest and time to simply be herself-- without the responsibilities that being Head Healer demanded of her.

Your hand comes up to grasp the one on your cheek. Your head turning to place a soft kiss on its palm. “You need to rest, Lauren. You’re no good to anyone in this state.”

“I’m fine, Edelgard.” She sighs. “There is no need to worry about me.”

“There is every reason to worry about you, Lauren. You haven’t slept in days. You’re not listening to Asa nor are you able to sit up straight without swaying like you’re drunk.” You sigh with frustration. “You need to rest. The paperwork can wait, but your health can’t.”

Lauren stares at you for a moment with an unreadable expression, but it soon smooths out into one of adoration. Her eyes softening with the love she held for you. Dipping her head, she rests her forehead against yours for a moment-- brushing strands of chocolate brown form your forehead while she did so. Her nimble fingers running through the long strands; an action she knew comforted you.

“I suppose you’re right,” she whispers. “I’m no good to anyone in this state. Plus, I think I’ve been writing the same sentence for the past hour.”

You chuckle at that and with an ease that came with muscle memory, you stand with Lauren trailing behind you because of your linked hands. Your gaze never wavering from hers as you did so.

“Then you’re going to have to rest that beautiful mind of yours.” You grin. “But I know you’re not going to want to leave the ward when you still have things to do within it.”

She smiles back at you. The same soft look from before becoming even more prominent on her face. Especially as you led her to one of the various beds the ward had to offer-- the one that was conveniently the closest to Asa.

Laying down, you pull Lauren along with you and tuck her into your side. Her head resting on your chest as you wrapped your arms around her-- pulling her tighter against you. Turning towards the night table that was situated beside the bed, you open the drawer and pull out a well-worn book. As you always kept a stash of them within the ward whenever you had to stay the night with Lauren.

Glancing down, you couldn’t help the smile that blossomed on your face at the peaceful look that was written across Lauren’s face. Her languid breaths ghosting across the expanse of your skin. It was a sight that filled your heart with warmth and brought you back to the many nights of your childhood. Where days didn’t truly matter because you had everything you could ever need right within arms reach.

It couldn’t be more true now.

With a soft exhalation you open the book, one that had clearly been well taken care of, and begin to read. “There’s a legend as old as time itself. A legend that depicted a boy that grew up with nothing but came to have everything. The legend of the boy with a moon-shaped scar…”

All the while Lauren’s soft breathing became deeper and deeper as she fell asleep to the story of the boy with the moon-shaped scar. Your soothing voice that last thing that she was aware of as she slipped into the warm embrace of sleep.

#heart of flames #ko fi #ko fi commissions #lauren #female mc #female dragon #fluff

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foxofthedesert · 4 years

Text

A brief RedQueen take on Hades/Persephone

For @loudestdork in response to this incredible post. It’s your fault I’m still up at 6 am.

Also, I haven’t even proofread this, so please blame any errors or general crappiness in quality on either mental fatigue or sleepless mania. :)

Slowly Regina rises from her chilly onyx throne. The flickering embers stirring back to life within her breast had compelled her to rise, and as they burst once more into flame, the line of silver candelabras begin to glow with an intensity that hurts her eyes. Darkness recedes as light suffuses the chamber, bathing her in warmth that steals her breath away.

Equal measures of excitement and dread war within soul, for within the hour she will leave this place for the surface.

Eyes slipping shut, she conjures up an image to quell her fears – it is one she often draws upon whenever the tenacious, insidious claws of despair dig into her psyche during the interminable, desolate months of spring and summer. Rich chestnut hair cascades in waves and curls over shapely shoulders and down a finely arched back. Pale skin lacking scar or blemish, smooth to the touch like the silk produced by Minerva's loom and sweet as honey to the taste, bared to her greedy hands and eyes. Sea green irises merry with youth and vitality and unbridled curiosity that will burn a brilliant amber when angered or aroused and fade into sickly blue while in the throes of anguish. A frame to rival Diana; a visage more comely than Venus; and a smile and laugh even brighter than those of Apollo and Laetitia that alone is capable of banishing the perpetual gloom that drapes the realm of the dead in a curtain of despair; all belonging to the only person in all of existence that truly matters to Regina anymore.

Soon, so very soon, a voice more beautiful than any of the nine Muses will caress her longing ears. She recalls in vivid detail how it sounded upon the first such reunion.

“Oh! How dreary you have allowed our home to become in my absence,” Ruby (for that is the chosen name of Regina’s beloved) had trilled, an effective chastisement delivered in tones so affectionate and gentle that even the Goddess of the Dead cannot summon a word to speak in her own defense. “I shall spend a week at the very least removing cobwebs and dust, no to mention relocating all of the industrious little creatures that have taken up residence in the shadows. Really, love, why must you continually refuse to utilize the resources at your disposal? Sydney is a splendid caretaker, if not an incorrigible gossip, and Maleficent a wise and capable counselor. How many times must I come back home to an unfit abode before you take my suggestions to heart? Honestly, your continued stubbornness on this issue is most disappointing!”

“Bah! Due caution would appear as stubbornness to your disgustingly naive notion that redemption is possible for those whose misdeeds are as numerous and grievous as mine,” Regina had replied, nose curling in rebellious distaste at any suggestion she be so lazy – or efficient depending upon perspectives not her own clearly superior one – delegate the tasks laid upon her by laws more ancient than her fellow deities or the beastly titans who birthed them.

Oh how Ruby had bristled at that well-aimed dart. “Your sarcasm is not appreciated. Nor is your conclusion. I do not believe it is naive to hope for those who have made mistakes so long as they are capable of remorse. I would not be here otherwise.”

“Perhaps that is your great error. You have blinded yourself with optimism to the truth that I am indeed beyond hope and have doomed yourself to an eternity of sorrow by consequence.”

Regina knows how best to hurt with her words. The skill is, according to her peers, the one most responsible for her being an outcast. Her sister had offered an olive branch after their cataclysmic war, but she had refused it in a caustic speech that is recited in worshipful devotion by her Terran acolytes to this day.

Words are a weapon to be used with precision, their mother had taught them as youths just blooming into their cosmic powers, for they are every bit as devastating as fire or lightning.

When she was banished from Olympos and cast into Dīs upon a searing bolt a lightning, Regina was robbed of her fire. But they could not take her words, and she has used them ever since in both condemnation and reward to pass judgment upon those who arrive upon her shores. That Ruby is too commonly a target for her verbal pila is a stain upon her conscience that irritates her far more than it should considering who she is and what she has done.

Life would be much simpler the six months per annum they are together if she could learn to hold her barbed tongue in check, but Regina has never been one for simple. And so they are often at odds over the banal. They will quarrel over contentious adjudications. They will spend hours in mutually stubborn silence while offended or emotionally injured. They will disagree on meals, spar over Olympian philosophy and art and politics, and speak to one another in outbursts of raw angry passion wielding razor sharp phrases which leave wounds so deep as to be nearly visible.

But there is also love between them. Immeasurable love. Love that time and distance cannot erase when they are forced apart for half the year. Love that is blind to faults and annoyances, that weathers storms of rage and frustration and misunderstanding, and that forgives trespasses and inspires self-improvement however glacially incremental. A love that twines their immortal essences together so tightly that they share a dreamscape while sleeping, and that they have no use for repose is of no consequence when the aching of loneliness or separation becomes unbearable.

It is that boundless, magical, incomprehensible love which revived Regina’s moribund heart and made her start to care again. For that reason she is grateful beyond description on most days and on her worst regretful she ever laid eyes upon the gorgeous creature who single-handedly turned her entire world upside down.

“If I am blind to love you, then may I never see again,” Ruby had said, those enchanting eyes glimmering so brightly in the faint light that the individual strands of her irises were visible. “And if this is to be my doom as you say, then I accept it with open arms, for it shall be one of bountiful joy. The only sorrow for me will come when we are again forced to part. I spent the past six months yearning for you just as I shall the next six when our bell proclaims the arrival of spring.”

“Well, if not blind then you are certainly foolish,” Regina said, throat choked with so much feeling that she felt as though she might suffocate.

Ruby had merely smiled in that way only she could, playful and loving and sincere all at once. “I am guilty as charged of being a fool, my Queen. Your fool.”

Unable to help herself, Regina felt her lips curl up at the edges. “Well, we cannot all be perfect. Not even the celebrated daughter of Ceres Eugenia, it appears.” So as to change the reverse of their conversation back toward less emotionally distressful directions, she had cleared her throat and then returned to the original topic. “As for your so-called suggestion: it is, quite frankly, absurd. One of the two miserable wretches you mentioned earlier is a driveling sycophant while the other is a maudlin dragoness whose fits of fire-breathing mania lead me question my decision to retain her. No doubt they both would abuse such positions to undermine my authority. Prudence would dictate that I should cast them both into Tartarus and be done with their annoyances!”

Ruby’s gasp of affront was so dramatic that it echoed through the cavernous chamber and caused the nearest candle flames to flicker.

“Morta Plutonia Regina! One of these days I will finally teach you how to be nice to those in your charge, especially those who would call you their friend.”

Regina winced as she always does at her given name and returned the favor in kind with as much snark as she possibly could.

“I need no friends, Proserpina Libera,” she said. “I have the dead to keep me company.”

The story of their first meeting, and incidentally how Proserpina Libera became Ruby, then begins to play through Regina’s mind. Before long, she becomes so lost in the memory that time ceases to have any meaning whatsoever.

Her musings last until a ghostly bell rings in the distance. She emerges from wistful recollection to mournful chiming accompanied by plaintive voices singing an announcement that summer has ended and autumn has begun.

Once, there was no bell to quarterly drone and chant in languid harmony with the turning of seasons. Once, she was painfully alone amongst a swelling sea of souls thrust cruelly into her charge. Once, she was content to nurse her hatred of her elder sibling and ruler of Olympos whose envious betrayal resulted in Regina’s current circumstance, and she had bent that hatred and bitterness toward piling ever-more layers of jagged ice upon the impenetrable fortress that was her irreparably damaged heart. Once, there had been no evidence of life at all in this place that she called home save the frost of her breath and tortured moaning of the damned that plagued her every waking hour. Once, she had believed herself incapable of love and took great comfort in that belief.

But that was before her beloved rosa rubra strolled through the forest she was traversing in secret, and left upon every inch of earth those bare feet trod over a carpet of lush red roses.

The surface back then felt much further away, too far for Regina’s overtaxed attention to be concerned with happenings above yet too near to ever escape hope of being freed from her endless confinement. The only reason she kept up with current events was to better evaluate the lives of those she was constrained by unbreakable law to judge. One day she learned of a scandal detailing how her sister had become impregnated by a mortal man through spurious means and birthed a daughter who was a gifted huntress that won the heart of a princess. Knowing that her unforgivably wicked sibling Zelena would be unable to resist interfering, she arranged a brief excursion to terra firma. It had taken countless hours of planning and work, but she had managed to slip through an isolated section of the great Gates of Dīs while Cerberus was distracted (the brutish if not mildly adorable mongrel had still been hopelessly under the thrall of her sister, an enchantment that Ruby was blessedly able to break) and emerge in the land of the living for the first time in millennia.

At first Regina had been unable to do much more than marvel at the scenery. For thousands of years she had been trapped in a world of darkness that smelled and sounded and felt like death. But the world above was teeming with life, even the air smelled as though it were animate, and the overload of so much sensory input had nearly paralyzed her. Once she recovered, she began picking her way through the forest by foot as using her powers to travel would have alerted the Olympians that she was no longer present at her station.

About halfway through the journey, she was stopped cold by the sound of singing. That angelic verse was carried upon the wings of a gentle breeze straight through the mountainous walls of ice surrounding her heart. In moments so swift she was helpless to react, she physically felt her defenses shatter and her resolve to remain aloof from all emotion crumble. A single verse of that song had accomplished what the assembled armies of Olympos could not upon the bloody plains of Thessaly, a verse that she would eventually decree be recited each year by siren spirits upon the autumnal equinox. She was so mesmerized by the soft melodic quality of the singer’s voice that she would not know the rest of the song until Ruby performed it much later.

Recklessly, like a starving lion desperately trailing its only hope for survival, Regina followed the song to the edge of a tiny clearing. And then Regina saw her. In the midst, haloed by Apollo’s rays, she danced and sang as birds joined in with the melody and branches swayed hypnotically to the rhythm. Clad in a flowing crimson-trimmed dress, draped by a lavish red cloak, crowned by a wreath of fresh flowers with roses crawling up her bare arms; her expression open in untold wonderment, cheeks ruddy with the exhilaration of living; she was – and still is – the very epitome of beauty, and grace, and charm, and hope, and joy. Save for the wedding night, no sight before or since has ever rivaled that first glimpse of embodied perfection.

A deafening rumble shakes the cavernous hall as the earth above lazily yawns as if arising from a seasonal slumber, snatching Regina’s focus away from that first fateful meeting. From above, rubble rains down as mote and stone, and the prevailing sunlight filtering through the haze casts a diluted shadow across the hall.

She turns her eyes up, squinting to mitigate the intense pain of photo-sensitivity, and watches impassively as the detritus begins to mold itself into a great spiral staircase. One by one the steps arrange themselves, each uniform in shape and perfectly spaced out as she had commanded centuries ago via laborious incantation, until they have spanned from polished obsidian floors to vaulted granite ceiling.

With measured steps she ascends the newly formed stairway, her raven-down cloak billowing behind her. She holds her head high, proud and regale, as she ascends. Eager anticipation has caused her heart to thunder and her limbs to buzz with energy, but she is still a Queen. Always a Queen.

The afternoon sun hangs low on the horizon, her cousin having turned his attentions elsewhere in the world, and the air is crisp and clean. Death has yet to arrive in earnest, the foliage of the forest remains mostly verdant, but Regina can feel it approaching from every angle, a stooping, skulking specter whose insatiable hunger is gnawing to the point of agony. For a split second she falters, inundated by the cloying scent of nascent decay which beckons her to turn heel and descend into the realm where such monsters as herself belong.

And then she hears it, the introductory lines of a new song written solely for her:

My love, my love, to thee I call;

My love, the fairest of them all

With raven’s hair and silken skin.

I come at last to thee again!

As if an insect brushed away from one’s collar, death recedes into the back of her consciousness so that life can inhabit the space it has abandoned. Life that reverently whispers her name into the crook of her neck and the flesh of her shoulder, that holds her hand and brushes away the tears that began to fall again after infusing her with vitality she had never before experienced, and that loves her beyond any logical explanation and refuses to ever give up on her. Life that has a name, Ruby, and is currently waiting for her in meadow they both hold so dear.

Squaring her shoulders, Regina strides forward with renewed strength. She has a reunion to attend that she has been awaiting for six very long months. Until Ruby points it out, she will not even realize she is smiling.

#red queen ouat #regina mills #ruby lucas #regina x ruby #once upon a time #fanfic #a red queen take on hades and persephone

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flameofchaos · 4 years

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FILIA FINDS HERSELF bodily shivering when xellos rakes his gaze over her form, and though she is wearing only the simplest of peasant dresses, she couldn’t feel any more exposed. rage, disgust, exhilaration, they all pound against her neck that is quick as a rabbit’s and forceful as an ox’s. how dare he burst into her homestead! how dare he even look at her after all these years! it doesn’t matter how many times her thoughts had idled on him while sitting alone in her kitchen, he has no right, no reason…!

her heated blood suddenly runs ice cold.

of course he has a reason. he’s a mazoku. there is always some kind of scheme up his sleeve or some selfish motivation guiding his steps…she conveniently pushes the image of xellos rescuing her and those two children from a deadly blast. or saving her from falling debris. or combining their magicks into one (this thought is a little harder to ignore).

val…!

xellos had been able to find her cottage, warded as it was with holy magic. it’s only a matter of time before he figures out where her son is, even with the specially crafted charm she made just to keep him hidden from both draconic and demon senses. she can’t guess at his plans. she’s never been one for a good scheme. but the thought of losing her son makes her aura of emotion pitch and roll with a despair that even xellos has not tasted from filia in particular.

a mother’s grief.

‘ live– what do you mean live, don’t you– don’t you dare! ’ she shoves her way in between him and her cupboard, muscles straining beneath peachy soft skin. her voice reaches fever-pitch, and though the rage returns, that despair, that fear, hums around her in equal form, like hornets in a hive. still, bad manners or otherwise, her next words are articulate and pointed. ‘ i’m not stupid, xellos. i don’t know what kind of agenda your mistress has given you, but i know it involves my son. he’s off-limits. go find some other weapon to please your mistress because you will not find one here. ’

Xellos smiled politely, devouring all her negative emotions that poured at him intensely. He enjoyed people’s despair, anger and fear, but when those feelings were directed exactly on him it was hard to stay calm. Poor Filia couldn’t notice behind his almost always half closed eyelids, how his vertical pupils widened in excitement under her “attack”, like he would be a hunting predator.

Her fear, not about herself but about the child, made him sure that the boy is near. Sooner or later he will see him. There was no rush. Meanwhile the demon could take all his pleasure, dealing with furious Filia.

“Weapon?” he repeated, chuckling. “I don’t think Val’s small claws could help the lord Greater Beast in anything. Singing to him lullabies also wouldn’t be her favourite activity. No one wants to steal your precious hatchling, Filia.”

She slipped between him and the cupboard like it could stop him. Xellos internally licked his fangs. It was her choice.

The Mazoku stepped forward, pressing his body against hers and trapping the dragoness.

“You heard well. I’m going to spend some time here. No better place for vacation: peaceful town at seaside, nice weather,” The man’s face was now very close to Filia’s.” and very charming views.” Again, had he meant landscapes or-.

“Oh, there it is!” said the priest happily, pressing on Filia harder (oh, how wonderful tasted her embarrassment!) and reaching the arm to grab the jar of tea. Then he turned around, looking for something he could fill up with water. “Really, Filia, you are a terrible host. I hope our young Val didn’t take much after you. I mean, except for all your flaws, even I have to admit you are a great mom… After all, as far Val hasn’t run away with a scream.” When water was boiling Xellos sat at the table. A big bowl of tasty smelling cookies appeared in front of him. “Join me, please.” Xellos patted a seat next to him. He already felt like it was his not Filia’s home.

@magickforged

#xelfi #xellos #filia ul copt #sorry filia #he stays #XD

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leonthecardboardunicorn · 4 years

Text

The Ruined King, Chapter 4

Previous: Chapter 3

First: Chapter 1

Pairing: Felix x Liz

Summary: Hawkeye is once again moving through Gedonelune, and it looks like their aim is on the heart of the Dragonkin Ruins. It looks like we’ll need the help of the three Reciters to solve this mystery!

"The Dragon of Time? What are you.."

The woman, Cordelia, stepped out of the shadows, laughter on her lips. "I see that you remember me."

"We know who you are," I said. "You're with Hawkeye."

"Ah, so you finally figured it out! I admit, losing the Golem was a big blow, but we've found a new plan. And the way I see it, what better way to destroy your wretched kingdom than with the very creature that created it? A fine irony."

My blood ran cold. Using the Dragon of Time..

'If the Dragon of Time should awaken, all of Gedonelune will fall.' That's what I had been told all of my life.

"And how do you plan to get your hands on those gems?" Felix snarled. "You may claim to have the power of the Dragonkin, but you're going against the full power of the Dragonkin Reciters.”

"Oh, you see, that's the best part! I don't have to! This guy will do it for me." She clapped her hands together, and I noticed the floor beginning to glow beneath our feet. "Get them, boy!"

A dark shadow began to take form- a very big, dark shadow- before us- and the chamber suddenly seemed very, very tiny.

"You think that this can stand against us?" Felix said. "Willem, Lacan, let's take care of this!"

They each held out their hands, magic circles glowing beneath their feet, combining into one magic circle. An immense amount of power filled the room, so strong that I could barely stand, spreading through the chamber-

But the attacks went right through the beast, sinking into the wall behind it! And the ceiling began to rumble, chunks of stone falling down around us.

"Something's wrong-"

Through the brilliant light, I saw Cordelia slip through their defenses, weaving through their attacks, making a beeline for the diamond.

The beast didn't matter; all that mattered was stopping Cordelia from getting her hands on that gem! I dove towards the gem, weaving through the attacks.

"Watch out!"

I fell, feeling darkness graze my back. Cordelia was right in front of me, reaching for the stone. I heard voices calling out, but all I could see was the stone.

'Just a little further-'

There was a brilliant flash of light, and suddenly, we were back at the entrance of the ruin.

"What happened?" I looked around; all of my friends were here, and Cordelia was nowhere in sight.

"It looks like we're all safe."

Hugo probably collapsed to his knees. "That took a lot out of me.."

I looked over, and my heart sank. Where the ruin had been was now nothing more than rubble.

"What was that beast? How could she have the power to summon something like that?"

"She didn't," Lacan said. "That wasn't a real creature; it was a projection of light. That's why all of our attacks passed through it. I should have realized from the start.."

"In other words, she played us all for fools," Caesar said.

Something was in my hand. I looked down; I was clutching the gem in my hand.

"I got it!" I said, getting to my feet.

Felix laughed, but it was hard and cold. "Good for you. The temple is destroyed, but Gedonelune gets to live to see another day."

"Felix!" Lacan cried.

"We tried to help them, and look at what we got! Our sacred place was destroyed!” He slowly got up, his voice as cold as ice. "It was a mistake to come here. Helping humans has never brought us anything but pain," Felix said, turning away. "Give him the gem. Let the dragon take Gedonelune away. Maybe then they'll understand what we went through."

"Felix, wait!"

I chased after him through the forest, but he just went on without looking back.

"Leave me alone," he snarled.

"So you're just going to give up then?!"

"Give up?" He stopped, turning back to me. "You have no idea what you're talking about." His voice was low and thundering, but I wasn't afraid of him.

For a moment, I saw pain flash across his face, and I softened. 'Of course he's angry.' It was only natural. A huge, irreplaceable part of his culture had been destroyed in one go. It was no wonder he felt like he didn't want to help us anymore.

"Felix, I'm sorry about the ruins," I said. "You have a right to be angry. They took something from you that can never be replaced.” I couldn't read his expression. "But you can't give up here. Do you think that they'd really stop at destroying Gedonelune? I saw what they're capable of, what the Golem did. My best friend almost died because of them. And I know they won't stop until they've reduced this whole world to cinders.”

He laughed, stepping closer to me until he was right in front of me. “How do you know that isn't what I want? If I recall, burning this world to cinders is exactly what you stopped me from doing before.”

“I don't believe that.” The words poured out of me. “I don't believe that's what you want anymore. I know how hard you've worked to build a new life here. You found the way. Living here with Lacan and Willem, being reunited with the Nidhogg..” I could see something in his eyes flickering, something changing. “They will take everything from you. Can you really look me in the eyes and tell me you're okay with that?”

He met my eyes, and I saw a mix of emotions cross his face, confusion and sorrow all at once. He turned away. “I just.. need some time.”

"All right."

When I went back to the others, they looked at me in concern. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, we should just.." I didn't know if Felix was going to come back, but we couldn't stop here. "I think we should continue on. He'll come back if he wants to."

"For what it's worth," Lacan said, "I'll come with you. I can't let them destroy the rest of our ruins. Plus," he beamed, "I don't want them to hurt my newfound friends."

"And you know that you'll have my support," Willem said.

"And we'll help you too!" Zeus said.

"Yeah, we're not going to let them make fools out of us," Caesar said.

"We've got to protect the others. You're protecting us, after all."

Even if Felix wasn't here, we could work together. The bond between Dragonkins and humans was strengthening even now.

"Thank you." I turned to Willem. "Willem, do you know where they might target next?"

"There are five gems still left, two in our care," Willem said. "They may target any one of them. Although it's hard to say which of the noble families might have one."

"I think I know someone who might have one," Elias said. "I'll contact him at once."

I sighed as I climbed the stairs. 'Finally done with work for the day,' I thought. 'It would be nice to go up to the rooftop and relax..'

But when I got there, I saw a familiar face already there, gazing up at the stars through the telescope.

"Huh, I didn't know that you liked stargazing," I said idly. He turned to me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked gruffly.

"I just wanted to get some air and think," I said, walking up to the railing. From here, I felt like I could see the whole world. "It's been a weird few days, truth be told."

"Hey." I turned to him; there was a strange look in his eyes, something that I couldn't place. "Don't go to Queensblade. You will not find what you seek there."

"What about you talking about? I wasn't planning a trip to Queensblade any time soon."

"It's.." He shook his head. "Nevermind."

"Oh, hey, roomie!" I looked up to see Gray coming our way. "Fancy seeing you here!"

"Ugh, I'm leaving." Viggo grabbed his telescope and left. He turned back to me. "Don't go to Queensblade," he repeated.

'That was random,' I thought as I turned to Gray.

"Roomie?"

"Yeah, Viggo's my roommate!" Gray said cheerfully. Huh, that was a pairing I didn't expect. "I was just coming back from tending to today's memories." He tilted his head. "Actually, I had a couple of visitors today."

"Visitors?"

"Yeah, Willem came with a strange man. he was one of the guys who was supervising the Night Class the other day. The one wearing a hood?" He mimed a hood as he spoke. "He asked to see the memories of the fight with Drago."

"Felix!" My heart soared.

'Felix came back to the academy!' I thought. I didn't understand why my heart was racing, but I suddenly felt like I had to see him.

"Where is he now?"

My heart jumped in my throat as the door to the tower of Memories opened. And, sure enough, Felix and Willem walked out.

"I heard you would be here."

"You came back," I said.

"I thought about it for a while," he said. "I wanted to be angry, but you were right. They're not going to stop. And I have something that's worth protecting now."

I smiled. "So we can count on your help?"

"If you will accept it."

"Welcome aboard, Felix," I said honestly.

"Thank you." And although his expression didn't change, I wondered if I heard relief in his voice.

This time, the group all gathered in the Night Cafe. "It feels like it's been a while since I've been in here.."

They stood up as they saw Felix coming. "Ah, Felix, you're back."

"Yes, I just needed some time to think," he said, taking a seat next to me on the couch. "But I'm willing to help you now."

"Hey, Felix?" Caesar looked sheepish as he looked up. "We wanted to say that we're sorry about the ruin. We know how important that was to you."

"Thank you.” He seemed to relax. "..As long as the three of us are around, our culture will live on through us.”

"That's right! And we'll keep Hawkeye from getting their hands on the rest of your ruins!" He seemed to soften.

"Gray said that you visited the Tower of Memories. Did you find anything there?"

"Yes. Willem and I observed the memories of the previous encounters with Hawkeye. Seeing the Golem with my own eyes was quite an experience."

"What did you think of it?"

"It was-"

"Guys!" Elias rushed into the Night Cafe. "I think that I have a lead on one of the noble gems!”

Elias: So Felix wanted to see the fight with Drago?

Gray: Yeah, I was a little bit surprised, but I let him since he's a friend of Willem's.

Elias: You sure spent a lot of time in there for only showing him the fight against Drago.

Gray: Well, I showed him lots of other stuff too! He was very curious about the memories.

Elias: ..Gray, what exactly did you show him?

Gray: Oh, nothing too embarrassing, don't worry.

Elias: I'm not sure I like that expression on your face..

Gray: Next time, Early Morning.

#wizardess heart #Felix Starjune #Dragon's Song #The Ruined King

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intcritus · 2 months

Note

[ rest ] sender unintentionally falls asleep leaning against receiver. (from sora, for solana!)

the stars are absent tonight, the midnight sky clear but sora's weight is welcome as he leans into her side, head resting on the curve of her shoulder. can he hear the way her heart pounds at his closeness ? judging from the soft breaths, probably not. regardless, the dragon wraps a wing around him, gently shielding him from the breeze. he's cute like this -- soft and unguarded.

shifting, she rests her head atop his, a low rumble in her chest. sometimes, sora reminds her that trusting someone, letting someone in wasn't scary. it could be as easy as floating on a cloud, the ease of delicious chocolate melting on her tongue. but her feelings were certainly her own. maybe she just craved the companionship of someone she'd never attain in her time slipping, but he was refreshing and sweet. how could she not want to experience more ? to hold him selfishly in these tiny moments of respite ? ah, what a lively thing it is to feel. / @metrictita

#( time slipping dragoness ic. )#metrictita #mmmm solana pls. your emotions are so big jfc #solana: -curls protective around sora-#im crying #her dragon instincts really said ' he's shiny. MINE'#👑ˑ » ( answered. ) ᶜʰᵒᵒˢᶤᶰᵍ ᵇᵉᵗʷᵉᵉᶰ ᵈᵉˢᵗʳᵘᶜᵗᶤᵒᶰ ᵃᶰᵈ ᵖᵉᵃᶜᵉˑ

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vanillacaramelhoney · 5 years

Text

Sleep

Pairing(s): Hiccup Haddock x Reader

Summary: The three times (Y/n) was told to sleep, and the one time she wasn’t.

Warning(s): None really

A/N: yo, send me requests for httyd.

(Y/n) watched as Hiccup worked with Toothless, her eyes drooping.

Her and Hiccup had been friends since they could walk, and they were always together despite their differences.

So, it was no surprise when he dragged her off to the forest immediately after dragon training to show her a secret.

(Y/n) just didn't expect to find a dragon, let alone a night furry.

And yet, here she was, watching as the two tried working on flying.

Although, her mind couldn't quite keep up. It had been a long day for (Y/n).

As she leaned back against a boulder, her eyes would occasionally close. She'd begin to doze off but was woken up either by herself or either Hiccup or Toothless making a noise.

She was so tired, but it wasn't that late.

Sighing, (Y/n) pulled her legs close to her chest and rested her cheek in her hand.

(Y/n) couldn't make out exactly what he was saying, she just knew that Hiccup was saying something to Toothless as he adjusted something.

(Y/n) felt bad for being too tired to care.

She knew that she could leave - Hiccup wouldn't mind - but she just didn't want to. With dragon training, they didn't get to spend too much time together, so she was going to take any chance to spend some time with him.

Hiccup looked up from Toothless, glancing over at (Y/n). She was slumped against her legs, eyes closed. Surely she was asleep.

Hiccup stood from his crouch, patting Toothless's back. "Give me a second, bud," he said.

Toothless let out a breath but stayed there.

Hiccup walked over to (Y/n), who sure enough was sleeping.

He crouched in front of her, which seemed to startle her awake. Maybe she wasn't entirely asleep.

"Hey, you tired?" he asked.

"I'm fine," (Y/n) said, rubbing her eyes.

"You can go home and sleep, (Y/n). You don't have to stay here," Hiccup told her.

"I know, I just don't want to. We don't get to spend much time together," (Y/n) explained.

"At least take a nap. I'll wake you up in a little, alright?" Hiccup suggested. (Y/n) looked hesitant.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Hiccup nodded. "Alright."

Hiccup smiled at her before returning to Toothless.

When he looked back, she had already fallen asleep.

Fighting with her parents was not something (Y/n) enjoyed, but it still happened.

Now, she was sat outside, drawing in a book, relying upon the light from other houses.

She leaned against her dragon, (D/N), who was sleeping soundly.

The angry words exchanged between her, and her parents ran through her head.

She knew that they didn't mean anything they said and that they'd all make up in the morning, but she couldn't help but let the words get to her.

(Y/n) paused her drawing and laid her head back, looking up at the dark sky.

She rubbed her aching eyes.

"(Y/n), what are you doing out here?"

She looked up to see Hiccup and Toothless. She assumed that they had been walking home.

"I got into a fight with my parents. I don't want to go back inside just yet," (Y/n) explained.

"Well, you can't just stay out here all night," he said.

(Y/n) didn't respond.

Hiccup approached her and held out his hand. "Come on."

(Y/n) looked at him weird but took his hand.

He pulled her up, and she quickly closed her book. (Y/n)'s movements woke (D/n), who began watching them.

Hiccup pulled her along. Toothless and (D/n) followed behind them.

"Where are we going?" (Y/n) asked, eyeing Hiccup.

"If you're so adamant on not going back inside, you can stay with me," he said.

"Hiccup," (Y/n) whined. "I don't want to intrude."

"You're not. I'm inviting you in, and I'm not giving you a choice," Hiccup said.

"Y'know, this could be considered kidnapping," (Y/n) joked.

"Then lock me up." (Y/n) snorted, and Hiccup smiled back at her.

They arrived at Hiccup's house and quietly snuck in, not wanting to disturb Stoick. Their dragons opted to land on the roof of the house.

Hiccup led (Y/n) to his room and shut the door behind them. (Y/n) set her sketchbook on his table.

"Come on," he gestured to the bed. The two climbed on and got comfortable, cuddling close together.

Hiccup pulled his blanket over the two of them.

"Night," (Y/n) mumbled, wrapping her arms around his torso.

"Night," Hiccup responded. He pressed a kiss to her forehead and wrapped his arms around her, as well.

(Y/n) laid along (D/n)'s back, the wind whipping around her.

She held on loosely to (D/n).

A yawn left (Y/n)'s mouth, and one of her hands came up to cover her mouth.

(Y/n) patted (D/n)'s back. "Alright, girl. I think it's time we head down before I fall asleep," YN said.

(D/n) let out a noise of recognition and began a descent back to Berk.

She landed gently on the ground and (Y/n) slipped off. She patted (D/n) and smiled softly.

"How long do you think we can hide out here before Hiccup and Toothless come looking?" YN asked.

(D/n) looked up at the dark sky, snorted, then looked back at (Y/n).

"You're right," (Y/n) agreed. "They're probably already looking for us."

"You got that right." (Y/n) and (D/n) both looked over to where Hiccup and Toothless now stood. Hiccup was dressed to sleep with his arms crossed and he didn't look too happy. Toothless didn't seem to care. "You've been gone all night. I went to check on you a few minutes ago, and you were gone from your house. Why are you out flying when you're obviously exhausted?"

"I'm not tired," (Y/n) lied. (D/n) huffed and rolled her eyes. "Really? Why can't you be on my side for once?"

"Because she cares about your health, dummy," Hiccup joked, albeit tiredly. "Now tell me. Why are you out flying when you should be getting well-needed sleep?"

(Y/n) was quiet as Toothless strode over to her, allowing her to pet the top of his head. She smiled at her.

"(Y/n)." She looked back up at Hiccup, who was getting impatient.

She sighed. "I don't know," she whined, slumping against (D/n). "I just have this extreme feeling of dread in my gut. It's been keeping me awake. I don't even know why I feel like this!"

Hiccup stepped forward, taking her hands in his. His thumbs over her knuckles.

"There's nothing you need to worry about. You're probably just worried about your parents trip that's coming up," Hiccup guessed. He kissed her cheek. "I promise you that everything will be fine."

(Y/n) smiled at him with a look of love.

"Now will you please go back home and sleep?" he begged. "It's exhausting to check to see if you're sleeping."

"Maybe I should just start sticking pillows under my blanket so you don't worry," (Y/n) joked.

"Please don't. I'd rather have to drag you back to bed every night rather than you getting no sleep," Hiccup said. "Now are you coming?" Toothless and (D/n) nudged (Y/n) forward.

She glanced back at the two. "I don't think any of you are giving me a choice," she said.

"Nope. Let's go." (Y/n) allowed Hiccup to drag her along, their dragons following along. "Next time you can't sleep, just tell me."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Taking a few hits from a few other dragons was something (Y/n) was sure she could survive. Falling who knows how many feet after (D/n) began acting up and threw her off was something she was sure she couldn't.

With the strength she still had and ignoring the pain in her leg, head, chest, (Y/n) pulled herself to lean against the ice. Her eyes went up to watch as all their dragons joined the side of the alpha. It was fuzzy, but she could see it.

So, that's what happened. Drago took control of (D/n), who knocked her off.

(Y/n)'s head rolled back, and her eyes closed. She tried opening them but found it too hard.

A pained sigh left her lips.

Her mind began drifting off, barely registering the sound of someone calling her name.

Hands came to rest on her shoulders, one traveling up to cup her cheek.

"(Y/n), open your eyes." She mumbled in objection.

"(Y/n)!" Her brows furrowed together, but her eyes opened to a squint. The blurry figures of people were in front of her. "I need you to stay awake."

"Too tired," she mumbled. She tried to close her eyes, but someone light smacked her face. A whine left her mouth.

"She's bleeding from her head!" someone whisper-shouted.

(Y/n)'s eyes slid shut once again, quickly earning her objections from multiple people.

The voices droned out, and her pain lessened. Her few thoughts became incoherent but quickly stopped as she faded into unconsciousness.

(Y/n) felt her pain before she could even open her eyes. Breathing hurt more than she remembered, and it felt like someone had dropped a boulder on her head and right leg.

She opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling. It was easy to recognize the familiar ceiling of her bedroom.

(Y/n) tried to sit up but stopped herself when pain shot throughout her chest.

"Nope," she heaved, one of her hands coming to rest gently against her chest.

Her other hand fell off the bed, feeling around for (D/n).

(Y/n) froze as she remembered what had happened.

Taking a deep breath, (Y/n) pushed herself up, doing her best to endure the pain. Sitting up was probably making whatever injury she had worse, but she couldn't care at the moment. She needed to find out what happened and how she got back to her house.

Hiccup walked into the room, eyes widening when he saw YN sitting upright.

"(Y/n), what're you doing?! You need to lie down!" he said, rushing to her side.

She shook her head. "What happened?"

"(D/n) threw you off," Hiccup explained. "You ended up hitting the ground hard, and you started bleeding from your head. You also cracked a few ribs and your leg. You've had a few days to heal, though."

"Wait, a few days? What about Drago?!" (Y/n) panicked.

"Don't worry about him. Toothless took care of him."

"'Took care of him?'" (Y/n) asked.

"Again, don't worry," Hiccup dismissed her question. "We got all the dragons back; (D/n) is outside messing with Toothless, if you're wondering."

(Y/n) calmed down with a sigh.

"Will you bring (D/n) in here, please?" she asked.

Hiccup smiled at her, leaning over to place a kiss to her forehead. "No moving."

(Y/n) chuckled as Hiccup walked off.

Moments later, she could hear the familiar padding of (D/n)'s feet heading to her room.

She came rushing into the room, heading straight for (Y/n). She stopped right next to her bed, looking at (Y/n) with a giddy look on her face.

"Hey, girl!" (Y/n) smiled.

"Be gentle, (D/n)," Hiccup warned.

(D/n) didn't seem to acknowledge him, but carefully placed her head in (Y/n)’s lap.

(Y/n) chuckled, petting her head.

Toothless padded over and joined (D/n)'s side, resting his head in (Y/n)'s lap as well. She used her other hand to pet him.

"I guess you both missed her," Hiccup joked.

(Y/n) smiled up at him. "Come here," she said.

Hiccup sat by her feet.

"Now, why don't you catch me up on what I missed?"

#httyd #httyd fandom #httyd fanfiction #httyd2 #httyd3 #hiccup haddock #hiccup horrendous haddock lll #hiccup httyd #hiccup how to train your dragon #hiccup #hiccup haddock x reader #httyd imagine #httyd imagines #fluff

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hiilikedragons · 5 years

Text

YOU GUYS IT’S HERE

SACRIFICE AU

The days following are some of the quietest and longest Astrid’s experienced since those silent evenings in their nest. When Hiccup would disappear for hours at a time and return drunk and exhausted, before they could manage a civil conversation. There was an emptiness to those nights, a tense uncertainty and a frightening loneliness.

These days aren’t quite the same.

Boredom and monotony drives Astrid to the point of madness. She can’t stand the inactivity, the restrictions. She longs to be up and running, stretching, even flying. But where those dark times on their island were punctuated with arguments and steely glares, these endless hours are full of companionship. Light.

She’s never without company. Either Valka is at her side, telling her stories of a young Stoick that make her cheeks hurt and her eyes water from laughter, or Hiccup is there, babbling on without much input from Astrid herself. Sometimes it’s all of them, arguing over who is the worst cook, playing word games, coming up with names for their latest rescues. Their dragons come and go, demanding scratchies or starting up a round of fetch.

If it weren’t for having to stay off her feet, Astrid might almost be… content.

Valka has picked up a habit of talking to her grandchild. Sometimes it’s in passing, giving Astrid’s belly a kiss and a rub before leaving for the day. Sometimes she crawls over, stretching out next to Astrid, resting her hand in her chin and having a one sided conversation about her son’s personality as a baby.

Astrid won’t pretend it wasn’t uncomfortable at first. Her parents were never overly affectionate-- they weren’t generous with hugs, but she never felt less loved for it. They simply weren’t a touchy feely family. So the first time Valka arrived home from a rescue mission, patting each of her children’s heads and then burying her face in Astrid’s abdomen to mumble something incoherent, the girl was more than startled.

But it’s something she’s gotten used to. Just like Valka’s strange way of walking, her dragonesque mannerisms and the way she sometimes slips into dragonese without noticing. It took a couple of instances of learning not to flinch when someone besides her reaches for the baby, but now it’s something she almost doesn’t notice.

“I’m off,” Valka said once. An afternoon where she’d planned to sabotage some traps Hiccup had found the day before.

Toothless wasted no time in cleaning the scraps of fish off of her lunch plate once she set it aside. Standing, she left Hiccup and Astrid at the fire and began to collect her things. “You two keep an eye on things for me while I’m gone.”

“I am as vigilant as I am immobile,” Astrid replied over her shoulder while her mother in law strapped into her armor. “Don’t have much of a choice.”

Valka chuckled, crossing the room again to smooth a hand over Astrid’s braid. “Just another couple of days,” she assured her. She knelt, and Astrid leaned back just slightly so Valka could sternly instruct the baby to get big and strong while she’s gone. The older woman pressed her palm against Astrid’s tunic and dropped a quick kiss on her knuckles.

Astrid couldn’t help but laugh. She cut her gaze to Hiccup, to shake her head and roll her eyes teasingly. When she caught a glimpse of his expression, though, she faltered.

He was observing the interaction with what should be a smile. Except it was twisted, not quite reaching the rest of his face. He had one hand holding his plate, the other with a bite of food held halfway to his mouth. And there was a furrow to his brow as he watched, almost pained. If anything, he looked like he’d been kicked.

Astrid blinked, surprised. Looking away, she tried to pretend that she hadn’t seen, though she couldn’t really explain why. Something twinged in her chest, and she pressed her fingertips between her breasts to rub at it.

Valka reached over to him to muss his hair, then whistled for Cloudjumper. Hiccup reminded her to be safe as she stood, and Toothless bounded after them to watch them go.

Silence hung between the two, more awkward than it’d been in a while. The sounds of dragons in the distance clattered off the stone and ice.

Astrid stole a glance at him. His eyes were on his plate, but they seemed to look much farther, at something she couldn’t see. For some reason, she wanted to reach across the space between them and rest her hand on her arm. Just feel the warmth of him for a second.

She didn’t, of course. But she thought about it.

Laugardagur in the sanctuary is fast and frigid. Toothless and Cloudjumper are accustomed to using their fiery breath to warm the waters for their riders, but training Stormfly to do the same is proving a little difficult.

“Come now,” Valka croons to the Nadder. She leans over the edge of the icy lake, snapping her fingers over the surface. “Give it a try.” Adding something in dragonese, she gives Stormfly a tiny splash. The dragon responds by shaking out her wings and crowing like she’s been doused.

“I think you should have Cloudjumper show her again,” Astrid sighs, drenching her washrag in the chilly waters. She has her feet dangling over the side a little ways away, trying to get her body used to the temperature. Goosebumps have broken out all over her naked skin.

“Oh she knows what I want,” Valka replies wryly. She wriggles her fingers to try and get the stubborn Nadder’s attention. “She just doesn’t like being told what to do.”

Astrid’s short laugh is accented by the chattering of her teeth. “That’s my girl.” She dabs at her neck and shoulders, feeling water dribble like icicles down her clavicle. “Don’t worry about it, Valka. It’s not my first cold bath.”

“That doesn’t make it good for you,” the older woman protests, sitting back on her heels. She whistles for her Stormcutter while giving Stormfly a raised brow.

“Can I ask a question?” Astrid says a little while later, once the temperature is bearable enough to slip in. Shoulder deep in the tepid water, she has her arms folded on the grassy edge and her chin rested on her wrists.

“Of course,” Valka answers without looking up. She has a small pile of clothes that she’s attempting to wash before the icy chill returns.

The blonde narrows her eyes just slightly. “Why are you and Hiccup being so secretive about what’s going on with the trappers?”

Tilting her head, Valka slows her work a little and sighs. “One less thing to worry you with.” She gives Astrid a tight smile. “Drago and his men don’t know about this place, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know about what Hiccup and I have been doing for years now.”

“Do you think they’re looking for us?”

“It’s a possibility.” Flexing her soapy hands, Valka stretches her fingers before returning to the washboard. “To be honest, dragon hunting is a lucrative business. Hiccup and I do what we can, but the dragons we save are small in number compared to all the trappers out there. We’re an annoyance to Drago and the others, but likely not effective enough to draw their ire.”

Astrid hums thoughtfully, stepping back to drench her hair. Her eyes dart to the cliffside leading to their living quarters. Just to make sure Hiccup hasn’t returned from his grocery run early. He’s insisting he wants to make something special tomorrow to celebrate her last day of bed rest.

She glances back to the surface of the water, watching it ripple as a dragon swims by not too far away. Working at the tangles in her wet locks, she leans her head back on the ledge.

“It makes me more anxious being left out of the loop.” She sees the dragon do a playful somersault and wriggle away. “I don’t feel as helpless or useless if I at least know what to expect.”

“Well, there’s not much to expect.” Valka’s tone is sincere. “They’re expanding close enough that I feel more comfortable occasionally leading them away. But we have no reason to believe they’ll plan a blatant attack. And if they do? The Bewildebeast will protect us.”

Astrid wishes that made her feel better. Even the suggestion of an invasion makes her hackles rise. At least in a day or two she’ll be up and around again. If she needs to fight or escape, she’ll be able to. But showing Valka how much the idea bothers her is a surefire way of assuring that they never tell her anything about the trappers’ plans again.

So she stays quiet, washing her hair and looking out at the water. The Bewildebeast has taken up a spot beneath the crashing waterfall, and Astrid snorts with quiet laughter at the way droplets spray wildly around him while he stares ahead unbothered. Gentle giant indeed.

Something in the distance catches her eye, and she squints. Craning her neck to see better, Astrid tries to make out what’s glinting on the bottom of the lake several meters away.

“Do you see that?” she wonders aloud, pointing as best she can. “That little light there? Between those two big rocks?”

“Hmm?” The sloshing of the laundry stops as Valka glances up. After a moment, she makes a noise of curiosity. “I think so.”

Astrid starts to wade that way, to investigate, but Valka stops her. She purses her lips and makes a complicated whistling sound, and Cloudjumper spreads his wings. The owlish dragon flies over the rippling surface, circling a few times in the direction Valka indicated before splashing into the water like an eagle reaching for its prey. When he returns, he drops his prize on the bank of the lake with a smug whir.

“Oh. That old thing.” Valka waves a hand dismissively and gives the item no more attention.

Astrid pushes herself up on the grassy ledge, trying to make out what looks like a hunk of twisted metal. At closer inspection, though, her brows shoot up. She reaches for the familiar item, turning it over in her hands.

It’s Hiccup’s flask. Or at least it was. At first she suspects a dragon got ahold of it and gnashed it into an unrecognizable lump. But the way it’s been completely bashed in, and the lack of teeth marks make her wonder. It looks like someone took a hammer to it.

“He chucked that thing in weeks ago,” Valka says while rinsing what looks like one of Astrid’s tunics. The corners of her mouth are turned up like she’s attempting to hide a smile. “I certainly wasn’t disappointed to see it go.”

Astrid turns the flask upside down, pouring icy water out on the ground. The cap is missing, and the lip is dented. It’s absolutely ruined. She’s realizing that she can’t remember the last time she saw him take a sip of anything stronger than mead.

“He’s not drinking?” she murmurs.

She’s glad Valka doesn’t reply. The question really isn’t for anyone to answer. More for her own contemplation. Pulling the flask in with her, she sinks back into the lake, tapping the cold metal against her lips.

He used to keep this thing tucked into his vest, close to his heart. It was almost like an extension of him, another piece of his armor. She wonders what he keeps there now.

She’s brushing her hair by the fire later that evening when Hiccup finds her. He hasn’t been back long, and he only traded the briefest of greetings with her and his mother before disappearing to take his own bath. He rubs at his scalp with a towel, straddling one of the benches next to her.

“Evening, milady.” He’s wearing a clean shirt, and it clings to him where his skin isn’t completely dry. “Have you seen Mom?”

“She went out to the garden.” Astrid answers without looking up. Her mind has been filled to capacity, and she was trying to straighten out her thoughts while staring into the flames. “You just missed her.”

“Mm.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t look away from her face. She can feel his gaze on her cheek, warmer than the fire. At first she figures if she ignores it, he’ll stop, but it seems that her indifference only encourages him to keep staring.

Finally, she blushes and turns her face away, muttering, “What do you want?”

Without missing a beat, he replies, “Will you teach me how to braid your hair?”

The question takes her so aback that for a minute, she doesn’t know what to say. She squints at him, stunned. “Why?”

He looks down at his hands, spreads them apart in a shrugging gesture. Shaking his head, he gives her a weary expression. “What reason can I give you that you’ll accept?”

Astrid’s sure her perplexity shows in her features. Her hand stops brushing mid-stroke. “The truth?”

“The truth,” he kind of chuckles. “Okay.” Straightening, Hiccup meets her eyes. “I want to be close to you. I want to touch you.”

Her heart stutters. Like a hand has suddenly grabbed her by the throat, she has to take a moment to catch her breath. Light and shadows dance on his face as he waits for her answer.

Gods know he’s waited on her hand and foot these past couple of weeks. Helped her around the sanctuary, fetched her every whim, made sure she was eating as much as she was physically able. And, as fragile as things are, she likely would have gone crazy if it weren’t for his company. Honestly, it wouldn’t bother her having him near.

“Okay,” she says, and he blinks like that wasn’t the reply he was expecting.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Sliding down from her seat, she lowers herself to the stone floor and pats the spot she’s just vacated. “Come here.”

He wastes no time, tossing his towel aside. Stepping close, he sits where directed, and Astrid shifts so that she’s placed between his thighs. She places her cords next to him so he can reach, having to stretch over his knee. She’s glad that she has her back to him so he can’t see the color that’s likely risen to her cheeks.

“How do I…?” His hands float in her peripheral, unsure. She bats them away.

“Watch first.” She uses her brush to separate her hair into three sections and then sets it aside. “Do you know how to do a three-strand plait?”

“I understand the concept,” he answers uncertainly.

Without another word, she begins tying her hair into one long, simple braid. She tries to move slowly so that he can see each twist, until she reaches the ends. Then, she unravels the whole thing and holds the pieces out to him.

Hiccup’s hands brush hers when he clumsily takes them. The brief friction feels like electricity prickling her skin. He attempts to recreate the braid, weakly pulling one side over the other. Sometimes pausing and then undoing his previous turn so he can redo it. She can tell just by the way he’s gripping the locks that it’s going to turn out crooked and too-loose, but she doesn’t say anything. Frigga knows it took her long enough to learn how to mimic her mother’s perfect designs.

“Alright,” she breathes when he finishes, reaching a hand back to feel the lopsided plait. “Yeah. You’ve got the pattern.” Raking her fingers through it, she shakes the braid loose and spreads her hair around her shoulders. “Okay. So now you’re going to do the same thing, but you’re starting from the forehead and moving to the back. You’re picking up a little bit at a time.”

She lifts her arms, demonstrating. He’s quiet as she shows him what to do, clearly paying close attention to each whisp and strand. When she’s gotten about halfway down the back of her skull, she undoes her work and tells him to give it a try.

And oh gods, this must be a mistake. His warm fingers thread through her hair, gathering it in his clumsy hands, and a shiver reverberates down her spine. Despite herself, her pulse thrums loudly. His touches are so gentle, so feather light, but she feels each one with vivid sensation. She can hear his quiet breathing over the crackling of the fire, feel his exhales on her crown.

“This is harder than I thought it’d be,” he mumbles, maybe to himself. She agrees.

“It’ll take practice,” she whispers back. He’s pulling up too much, not holding it back enough. And he’s not tugging hard, probably for fear of hurting her. It’ll come out flat and uneven. “Keep going.”

Hiccup tucks a stray lock behind her ear, and she finds her eyes closing to savor the feel of his warm hand at her temple. Every graze of his thumb against her scalp, every shift of his legs around her left her trembling and weak.

He clears his throat. “I told you something true,” he begins. “Your turn. Tell me something honest, something I don’t know.”

She only pauses for a second. There’s already something on her mind.

“I used to blame myself for your death.” Astrid fixes her eyes on the flames. Sparks scatter as a burning log falls aside.

His hands slow in her hair, barely, and then resume their work. “How could that possibly be your fault?”

She wets her lips, and her scalp gives gentle pulls when she shakes her head just slightly. “That day you disappeared… It was you and me in the arena, and I was so angry at you for winning over Gothi.” Even now, she can recall the fierce jealousy and indignation that had consumed her as a teenager. It was an acidic, spiteful disappointment.

“I remember.”

“Well. I thought about following you. I did, once or twice.” Exhaling an embarrassed laugh, she drops her gaze to her knees. “I thought you were training with somebody, or you’d found some new dragon manual. I don’t know. I just knew you were up to something.”

Somehow, she knows he’s smiling a little bit at that.

“But that day-- I’m not sure why-- I didn’t go.” She’s never told anyone this before, not even her parents or Stoick. “Like, I got all the way to the cove where we found those scales, but then something made me stop, and I just… turned around. Left.”

Astrid’s fingertips tap restlessly against his knee. She doesn’t remember looping her arm around his leg, but he slides it closer so she can lean against it.

“Later, when you didn’t show up to your test, I was--” Shame tears through her. “I was happy. I was excited. I thought you’d backed out because you were scared, and I was going to get a second chance to prove myself. But…” Her breath rushes out of her chest. “When a day passed, and then another, and then we found the blood in the cove. That same cove, where I had almost cornered you--”

“Mm.” She feels him lean in, nuzzle his nose against her hair. He’s not braiding anymore.

“I felt like it was my fault.” She’s surprised her words aren’t too quiet for him to hear. “We all kind of assumed you were practicing for your fight, and it went wrong. So I always thought-- if I had just gone in and talked to you, I would’ve walked in to find you struggling with this dragon. I would’ve been able to step in and save you, or at least get help. But I didn’t, and you died.”

He strokes the nape of her neck with a single knuckle. It leaves her almost breathless.

“You would’ve caught me leaving,” he says with a ghost of wry amusement. “I’m sure you would’ve been so pleased, watching me run like a coward.”

“Maybe,” she admits. She tilts her head into the fingertips caressing her jaw, letting her eyelids fall shut. “But what if it was different? What if you changed my mind, and we saved Berk? What if we lived in peace with the dragons, and we--.”

“I can’t… think like that anymore.” His sigh is hot against the back of her ear. He takes her hand in his, bringing it above her head to cup his scratchy cheek. The familiarity of his scruff against her palm brings back heated memories of sunlit mornings. “The what ifs? I can’t, Astrid. I didn’t… realize it until recently, but there’s a thousand different lives we could’ve lived. Choices we could’ve made, dumb luck that could’ve changed.”

Her heart is twisting unbearably. He brushes his lips against her throat and a whimper escapes her. Everything is on fire-- too much, too much.

“This one is fucked up, yeah,” he continues, splaying his fingers across her collarbone. Astrid tilts her head to allow him more of her neck. “But I know that in every single one of those lives, I would’ve spared that dragon-- and I would’ve loved you.”

It’s as if she’s fallen from a great height, just to slam into the earth. Her chest crushes the air from her lungs in one concussive blow. Flinching away, she puts a hand between them.

“Stop.”

His hands lift away from her skin but don’t move. She twists to her knees, untangling herself from his arms. It hurts too much to look at him, so she keeps her gaze on the fire.

“This isn’t fair, Hiccup. You can’t just--”

“Be honest with you?” There’s indignation in his voice. In her peripheral, he rubs his eyes, a tell of frustration she knows too well. “Are we going back to the beginning, then? Pretending like we don’t care?”

“It was easier,” she confesses, so softly she’s not sure he’ll be able to hear.

“I don’t want easy.” Hiccup sits forward on the edge of the bench. “Astrid, I want you. Not just because you’re stuck with me, not just because you’re having my child. But because you’re fearless, and loyal to a fault. Because you never let go of your stupid pride and because you’re so damned beautiful when you laugh.”

She can’t move. There’s a thousand different things running through her head, and she can barely hear him over the roar.

“Please,” she says, gathering her hair to one side. Turning it into a wall, a shield between him and his seductive words, she twists it until it almost hurts. “Please go. I can’t do it myself.”

For a minute, she thinks he won’t. She thinks he’ll be stubborn and insist they talk this out. But after a long pause of tense and heavy silence, he finally pushes off his knees to stand. He gives her a wide berth as he leaves.

Everything feels cold after that. Not the comforting frost of anger, which held everything frozen like ice inside her. But cold like the day of Hiccup’s funeral on Berk.

It was bleek and rainy, which seemed appropriate for the ceremony’s tone. Everyone was in shock, still reeling from the search party’s find just two days prior. How was a kid who was so smart and lively just cease to exist? This nuisance turned prodigy-- how was he just not a part of the village anymore?

Stoick was steely and black, glaring out at the sea with just a quiet swear of vengeance. Gobber could barely hold in his tears, coughing and cussing every time he lost his composure. Snotlout was wide-eyed. Fishlegs sniffled. Even the twins were morose.

Astrid was just cold. Cold and numb. The guilt was just starting to set in, the realization that she could have done something, she could have stopped this. Part of her wanted to be angry at Hiccup, for being reckless enough to stray from safety and get himself killed. But the emotion never caught traction. Instead, she just stared at the burning ship, feeling empty and chilled.

Valka must notice that something’s happened. She greets Astrid that morning with a bright smile and a cheerful hello, clearly excited to celebrate her first day back on her feet. Astrid tries to muster a matching expression, but the pull of her facial features must read false. Her mother in law’s face drops instantly, and then melts into one of compassion. She reaches over and brushes Astrid’s bangs aside with the backs of her fingers.

“It’s going to be okay,” she croons, eyes full of warmth. She rubs the girl’s arms, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “The moon wanes sometimes too. It doesn’t become whole all at once and neither will you.”

Astrid’s mouth curls upwards in a way that’s more sincere. She misses her mom.

“Now, come,” Valka commands playfully. “I know a Nadder who is just about dying to spread her wings.”

Truly, it’s nearly a miracle to feel the arctic air on her cheeks again. After over two weeks of being cooped up in the sanctuary, carted from one place to another like an invalid, just being able to look at the sky feels like delicious victory. Astrid didn’t realize how attached she’d become to flying, how much she needed to feel the wind whipping her hair around her face. It’s more healing than any of the midwife’s medicine.

It doesn’t last long, of course. Valka told her to come directly back if anything felt amiss, and Hiccup made sure she was wrapped in about three layers of clothing before returning to his quiet, surly mood. But they’re right-- she doesn’t want to overdo it. So even though she could ride the breeze and dip in and out of clouds for hours, she keeps it brief.

She does things she’s wanted to do for a while, like take a walk through the labyrinth of tunnels and help take the laundry off the line. Simply being able to relieve herself or get a drink of water without one of her companions hovering protectively nearby is liberating.

It does surprise her how thoroughly exhausted she becomes, though. She runs out of breath quickly. It seems like she’s only been up and around for a few hours before she’s having to stretch out in a shady nook for a nap.

Astrid wakes later that afternoon to Valka gently squeezing her elbow. Bleary-eyed, she shields her eyes from the aviary’s light with a hand. “What’s going on?” They don’t often disturb her when she’s resting, usually insisting she needs all she can get. “Is everything okay?”

The older woman chuckles. “Everything’s alright. Nothing to worry about.” She lifts a fine brow. “I’ve come to ask you a favor.”

Intrigued, Astrid sits up. She smoothes a hand over her braids to make sure they haven’t come undone. “Of course. What do you need?”

With a tilt of her head, she takes a steady inhale. “Hiccup’s taking a shift checking the usual trap spots. He’s spent all day cooking, and I know he won’t say it, but it’d make him happy if we all ate together before he leaves.”

Astrid groans, apparently dramatically enough to make Valka laugh. She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes and sighs. Her heart still aches, thinking about the night before and the thread of unwavering fervor in Hiccup’s voice. Having to sit across from him, put on a civil expression, while feeling a maelstrom still raging inside her-- it sounds absolutely miserable.

“I think seeing me is the last thing he needs,” she mutters. Still, she sits up, resting her elbows on her knees. She examines her jagged nails and begins to chew at one.

Valka leans back on her hands, lips tilted up at one side. In the light of the aviary, her green-grey eyes look like mist. She breathes deeply, and then sighs. “My deep well of infinite maternal wisdom has run dry, Astrid.” Shrugging, she shakes her head. “You have to be the one to decide how you feel. What you can and can’t forgive.”

If only it were that simple. She can’t stop weighing the risks, considering the consequences. What can she trust? What’s safe to feel? Is it her head or her heart telling her to run, and would it make her a coward if she did?

“I’ll eat with him,” Astrid says. She looks up at Valka. “Can I ask you something, in exchange?”

Her lashes flutter when she blinks in surprise. “Of course, dear. Anything.”

Astrid tries not to wince. She can’t meet Valka’s gaze. “Do you still love Stoick?”

It takes her a good minute to compose an answer. She licks her lips and tucks a spray of gray hair behind her ear, seeming suddenly years older. But then after a long moment of thought, she says, “I can’t forgive him. For what he’s become, what he’s done to the both of you.” Pausing, she swallows, and for a moment, those eyes of mist glitter with stubborn tears. “But the love always stays, Astrid. Six months, five years, twenty…” She waves a hand with a furrowed brow. “Your feelings can change from one day to the next, but love? It sleeps. It waits. And you will be fine for years, and then you wake up in the night with the smell of his shirt or a song in your head, and all at once you want nothing more than to be next to him again.”

She doesn’t know what to say, so she doesn’t say anything. They sit together for a silent few minutes, until Valka’s sniffling stops and they’re both listening to the cacophony of dragon chatter around them.

Astrid pulls her hand away from her mouth, folding her thumb into her palm so that she can’t keep biting at the nail. “Well.” She tries for a brave smile. “Promise you won’t leave us alone together?”

Valka chuckles and pats the girl’s knee. “I will be by your side every step of the way.”

Together, they help each other stand. As they walk to their living quarters, Valka reaches an arm around her and squeezes her close. Not for the first time, Astrid wonders how she would have survived these last several weeks without her.

The scent of whatever Hiccup has cooking wafts from the stove long before they enter the room. It’s mouthwatering and heady, and it makes Astrid’s stomach growl like a wild dragon. She knows he’s not particularly skilled at the culinary arts, but she can already tell he’s gone the extra mile with this particular meal.

“Smells wonderful,” Valka notes cheerfully when they come upon him. He’s eating from a near empty bowl of thick stew, eyes scanning what looks like a recipe scribbled on parchment.

“Let’s hope it tastes as good,” he replies, barely glancing over at them. Setting his food down and putting the page aside, he grabs a pair of bowls and crosses the room. “Have a seat, ladies.”

“You’re leaving so soon?” Valka nods at Toothless, who’s already sniffing at the stew Hiccup just abandoned. He has his saddlebags attached, and at a second glance, Hiccup’s already dressed in his flight suit.

“Early flight, early night.” An outsider might not be able to pick up on his mood, his unhappy prickliness, but Astrid can sense it. The strand of tension in his posture, the not quite sincere shade of his smile. She’s so busy noticing that she almost jumps when his eyes flick up to meet her. “I’ll be back in two days. Okay? Before sunset.”

Making sure she knows he’s not leaving for good. She takes a seat by the fire and gives him a nod that she hopes looks appreciative.

He serves them two hearty bowls of whatever recipe it is he’s cooked up. He passes the first to his mom, and then sets the second in her hands. When she takes it, he holds onto it for a second longer than necessary.

“I did my best,” he tells her, eyes the color of emeralds trying to communicate something more than ingredients and spices. Before she has the chance to say anything, though, he pulls away.

“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Valka assures him, either oblivious to their interaction or deliberately ignoring it. She digs in right away, making sounds of instant pleasure.

“Thanks,” Astrid murmurs, accepting the spoon Hiccup hands over. It does look good. Heavy brown gravy, with carrots and potatoes and large chunks of meat. There’s a familiar scent to it, something she can’t quite place, and she leans over the bowl to inhale deeply.

“You two enjoy,” Hiccup says, latching the last strap of his armor in place. He gives a quick whistle to Toothless, who has his face buried in what used to be Hiccup’s food.

“Be safe, I suppose.” Valka sounds disappointed. But she smiles at him as he tucks his notebook into his vest and slips around the fire to drop a kiss to her crown. Before Astrid can decide whether she’s jealous or not, he’s giving them a wave and striding out the hall.

She can only stare at his back until he disappears into the dark. Just a few weeks ago, he left that same way, shattering her world and her heart along with it. Ever since then, she’s seen his ghost standing in the doorway, always one footstep away from disappearing again. Her hand tightens around the edge of her bowl, and she forces herself to tear her gaze away.

“I feel bad for waking you now,” Valka sighs. She blows on a steaming spoonful, testing the temperature on her lips. “Just us for dinner, it would seem.”

“It’s okay. I’m starving.” Astrid gives the stew a stir, and then lifts a bite to her mouth. “Told you he didn’t want to be around me,” she adds.

The minute Hiccup’s stew reaches her tongue, something hits her. Nostalgia, dreamy and warm, envelopes her like an embrace. At first, she thinks she must be mistaken, so she quickly takes another mouthful. But the more she chews, the more she’s sure.

She knows these flavors.

It’s the taste of being so small her feet don’t reach the floor from kitchen chair. Of cold winter nights wrapped tight in furs between her snoring parents. It’s the taste of Berk, of its slippery rocks and its wet earth, and the pine sap in the air. It’s learning how to throw an axe from her uncle, and listening to stories of dragon hunting as she falls asleep in front of the fire.

And it’s more. Somehow, beneath the layers of home, Hiccup’s there too. He’s holding her hand as they run from Gus’ forge laughing, and blowing raspberries into her skin as he tickles her ribs. He’s singing her to sleep in a thunderstorm. She tastes the sweat from his forehead and the alcohol on his tongue.

She can’t breathe. Astrid presses the back of her hand to her mouth, as if she can dampen all of the memories, the sensations, the aches and the warmth. Distantly, she’s aware of Valka asking her what’s wrong, but she can barely hear. Everything is too loud, too overwhelming. She’s choking.

And then, the storm clears. She stands, setting the bowl aside and walking over to the stove. The parchment is still there, half folded, and she picks it up like it might burst into flames at her touch.

Despite the blurriness of tears in her eyes, she knows this handwriting. She knows the curves of the runes, the heavy hand. The old Hofferson recipe, the one her mom swore she’d only share once she married. It’s scribbled out with ingredients, instructions, reminders. Hiccup has certain things underlined and circled, little notes in the margins in his blocky print. She has no idea how this is possible, but somehow it is.

A sob breaks out of her chest. Alarmed, Valka stands, but her concern turns to confusion when Astrid looks up at her with a watery, beaming smile.

“Did you know about this?” she asks, giving the parchment a shake. “Did he tell you…?”

Valka spreads her arms in a shrug. Her eyes are twinkling. “I assure you I’m quite in the dark here.”

Astrid looks at the recipe again. The parchment has been folded and unfolded so many times that the creases are worn. In the top corner, her mom has written, “For my beautiful, brave Astrid.”

She sets the recipe back down, and then she’s running. Her heart is slamming painfully in her chest, and her lungs give a protesting squeeze after mere seconds, but she’s flying. Astrid blows through the doorway where Hiccup’s phantom has been lingering for weeks, whisps of fear dissolving in his wake. Even though it’s a dim labyrinth of rocks and ice, she moves without uncertainty or hesitation. She knows, for the first time in months, exactly where she’s going.

“Hiccup!” she shouts, his name ricocheting off of cave walls. “Hiccup, wait!”

At first, she doesn’t think she’ll make it in time. She fears she’s missed her chance. But then, from the dark, his figure emerges, and she stumbles into a sprint.

“Hey, just because you’re off bed rest, I really don’t think that means you should be running--”

And then she’s kissing him. Because she wants it and she needs it and he’s here. Because she spent her whole life being afraid of the dragons destroying her home, and he tamed them. Because being with him feels like flying.

“A thousand lives,” she whispers, barely able to get the words between their lips. “I would have loved you too.”

There’s a clatter as his helmet hits the floor. Warmth, as he takes her face between his hands. And then for the first time in a long time, she’s melting.

#sacrifice au #idek what installment this is #you guys my whole heart and soul is in this chapter

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beginner-in · 4 years

Text

In heat (werewolf story)

Well just to forewarn you this is a kind of pardoy to the spread fact that werewolves fall in heat. That’s just what I like to do so... sorry not sorry. I like to take some serious facts about magical creatures and transform them into more or less funny stories.

So I hope you enjoy reading.

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P.S: It’s out of the diary of Al Van Helsing...

23.12.2001

Drem Yol Lok,

ordinary families go on holidays. Mostly in summer or for skiing in winter. Well, my family is not ordinary, and we don't go on a ordinary holiday. We only go on business trips. Better said, our fathers do business trips and about twice a year are allowed… well better said we have to go with them. This time Varus would have been away over Christmas and the family could not have celebrated together. In his opinion an intolerable condition and so he had taken the whole family with him.

That's how we're stuck now. In the middle of the snow. At felt 300 degrees minus and actual 10 degrees minus. In short, it was bloody cold, but that didn't mean I had less work to do.

No matter where I went, my reputation precedes me and all the magical beings around me knew that not only a protector, but also the Van Helsing would come, even before I had arrived. So, I didn’t have any free time during the actual holiday, but I still had to live up to my responsibilities. (Darn it.).

But not only the beings around were happy to get my help, also my siblings were glad to have me. At least my wolves, at least if they were stuck in a very unfavourable moon phase.

Because there is another myth in modern werewolf literature that is not quite true. Some stories claimed that a werewolf would fall “in heat”, which was used as another word for being extremely horny.

That was only partly true. The "in heat" really existed and could be taken literally. The werewolf suffered from enormous hot flushes, which actually brought his body to an extreme, almost fever-like, warmth. Not particularly pleasant. (And you can't imagine what an emotional turmoil I had caused when I told my wolves about these assumptions.)

As it had to come, this time of heat fell, just into our vacation. And of course, it was my responsibility to take care of my brothers. (Luckily, my adoptive father was able to handle it himself).

So, I sat tired as hell, with deep, dark rings under my eyes, wrapped in a thick blanket and at least three jackets on, on a heating blanket on the veranda of our holiday home and looking into the driveway. A yawn escaped my lips and my hands clung to the warm cup I hold. The mug was filled with coffee, which was supposed to wake me up somehow. With moderate success.

Yesterday I spent the whole day helping a Yeti lady to be after her child, which we found, luckily. At home, all I wanted to do was going to sleep. But I knew destiny had other plans, when I was greeted by my naked wolf brothers standing in front of the opened fridge. So, I had to stay awake all night and try to comfort the sweating werewolves. I knew it wasn't pleasant for them. Especially Fin struggled a lot with the heat. He wasn't that experienced.

In the early hours of the morning, it had become his mantra to mutter: "I think I have to die. Al do something please." in front of me. But I couldn’t do anything else than holding an ice pack to his forehead and telling him that everything would be alright again.

At the crack of dawn, I was completely tired, had sore muscles and completely obsolete, but this was no excuse not to get rid of the snow in the driveway, which was my turn to do. At least for the rest of the family. But when my gaze had slipped outward to the masses of white, my body had already instinctively struck and decided not to move one bit. The salvation came to me in the form of my brain, which screamed for sleep or coffee and this brought a solution to the current problem.

With my plan in mind, I shooed the three werewolves outside and simply laid them down in the middle of the snow. You could literally hear a whizz as their heated bodies descended backwards into the snow. Followed by some eased sighs. "Are you ok?" I had called down to them. "It's elysian." Had been the euphoric response of Layf. So, I decided to leave them alone for a few minutes to protect myself from the cold… And now I was sitting here, with my blankets and my coffee, as I watched my brothers enthusiastically, romp through the snow, only wearing some t-shirts and shorts. They left small, molten spots in the landscape now and then.

"That was the best idea you've ever had. I've always known that you're an absolute genius, when you are overtired." Snapped a voice me out of my thoughts. Alarmed, I turned my head and saw Dragos. He had sat next to me with a cup in his hand, too. Sighing, I slipped a little to the side to give him some space on the heating pad. A vampire with cystitis is the last thing I could need now. “And I always thought I'm uptight when I haven't slept.” I mutter back. "That's true. But also brilliant." Dragos grinned wide at me, showing his sharp fangs. "I take it as a compliment." I said and want to take a sip of my coffee when I suddenly felt something cold on my neck. It was the vampire next to me who had suddenly put his hand and snow in my collar. I shake myself and wanted to release a tirade over him, when Dragos was hit in the face by a snowball. "Hands off, our savior." You could hear Fin shouting and he glared over to us. His vampiric brother understood immediately what he wanted and stepped in the snow to start a snowball fight.

Which Dragos lost. The next few days he complained about a sore throat, which I treated kindly with some tea.

All in all, we learned today: Frome time to time, Werewolves are excellent as heating replacements and for a fast snow shovelling.

#werewolves #how to be a werewolf #werewolf oc #van helsing #oc #oneshot #werewolfkin #werewolf problems #problems #diary #van helsing oc #halloween #magical creatures #creatures #os #newbie #hobbyartist

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eye-raq · 5 years

Text

Let’s Unwind

Adonis x Bianca

Summary: Adonis and Bianca haven’t experienced any time to themselves lately because of their busy schedules. But tonight is the night for them to unwind with drinks, food, and good sex.

This was a fic request! I hope it’s just as fluffy as the person wanted it to be.

“Hey, Adonis?”

Bianca walked into their wide open living room, Adonis seated on the couch in front of their 86” LED Smart TV, watching Sports Illustrated. They were discussing the big fight he had just two days ago, the one where he came out on top, yet again. They all celebrated as a group with his team and his family. Rocky couldn’t make it, but he gave his congratulations and promised to visit soon.

Bianca held a sleeping Amara as she tucked herself in a comfortable spot on the couch. Amara cooed, stirring in her sleep before gripping one of Bianca’s fingers tightly, causing Bianca to smile before looking up at her husband.

“Donnie?”

“Yeah.” He turns down the TV, giving B his undivided attention now.

“I’ve been thinking.”

Adonis blinked twice before raising his brows in question.

“Thinking what B?”

“Well, we’ve both been pretty tied up with work and I’ve been thinking that we should make it a priority to do husband and wife things.”

Adonis chuckles.

“We don’t do that shit now?” He had a confused expression that made B want to mush his face.

“Married couples don’t just come home late at night from studio sessions or work out sessions to take separate showers and get in a quickie.” She says with sarcasm.

“So what you saying, that’s all we are?” He points an accusatory finger between them both.

“Stop it, D. What I’m saying is I want us to be more romantic. Let’s go on Friday night dinner dates, have picnics on the hood of your car, pop up at each other's work places with gifts or small talk, have risky sex, have family dinner, TRAVEL THE WORLD. Anything…”

Bianca has Adonis’s attention now, causing him to flick the TV off on a scene of him K.O.’ing a famous Mexican boxer.

“I’m listening B. I want all those things too, I want to keep our relationship romantic, fun, passionate, all that.” He was having trouble expressing himself. Bianca grips his hand, running a thumb over the scarring on his knuckles.

“Since we are both on the same page, why don’t you get dressed in something nice and make us a dinner reservation.” Adonis gives her a half smirk, before gripping her chin to kiss her soft lips. He loved the little humming sounds that escaped her mouth each time he would kiss her, her soft delicate hands running over his face, the rings on her fingers adding temperature to his skin that caused him to shiver pleasantly.

“I called your mom, and she said she would be more than happy to take Amara for the night while we enjoy ourselves. She said she’s a phone call away when we need time alone.”

Both Adonis and Bianca stared down at their sleeping beauty, Adonis leaning in to kiss her tiny feet causing Bianca to smile. Finally lifted from the couch, Bianca places Amara in her crib to get ready, while Adonis went to take a quick shower. He figured B would want to do a fancy steak house dinner, so he booked a reservation at The Capital Grille. Bianca wanted them both to dress nice for the occasion, so Adonis put on a tailored suit of his in a navy blue color with gold cufflinks and a white dress shirt underneath, not completely buttoned. He sat on his bed to tie up the laces on his dress shoes, watching his woman at her vanity applying some makeup. She went for a red lip, using the Fenty Beauty Stunna Lip Paint, her eyes smokey to bring out the big brown irises she had, her hair pressed straight, the strands clinging to the beautiful creamy skin of her back. She had on a backless black cocktail dress with a slit on the side to give a teasing view of her killer legs. Her feet were covered in Saint Laurent heels.

Adonis couldn’t wait to get back to their place so he could properly dissect his women with his tongue, and stroke her surface with his fingers. Bianca caught him staring, a goofy grin on her face.

“You like what you see?”

“Hell yeah, you lucky we have dinner first because I’d rather skip that and eat you.”

“So you’re a cannibal now?”

They both shared a laugh.

“Hurry up beautiful so we can drop Amara off.”

Bianca put on her last Tiffany diamond earring before grabbing her black clutch, smoothing her dress over her hips.

“Okay, so I think I have everything Amara needs. Her bottle cleaner, I packed extra breast milk just in case, her favorite pacifier, those new booties that keeps her feet warm, extra pampers…”

“Babe. It’s cool, aight? My mom will be fine she can handle it B.” Bianca squeezes her eyes shut, letting out a nervous laugh.

“Okay...I’m overreacting. You ready?”

“You look so damn sexy tonight.”

Adonis drinks from the bottle of Champagne sitting on ice, watching Bianca sip her wine in a sexy manner, her eyes low and fluttery.

“You look just as good yourself Mr. Creed.” She pulls out a tiny mirror to check her lips, smacking them together.

“Keep doing that to your lips they’ll be staining this dick in a minute.”

Bianca couldn’t lie, she wanted Adonis to do the things he talked big about, but her stomach rumbled and she needed some food.

“Let me eat first I’m STARVING.”

Right on cue, the waiter comes over with their tray of food. Bianca ordered a prime rib with Parmesan cheese crust, creamed spinach, and a baked sweet potato with brown sugar maple glaze and butter. Adonis had a ribeye with caramelized mushrooms and onions, garlic butter mashed potatoes, and roasted broccoli with green peppers and onions. It was tender, savory, and juicy, each bite getting better than the last. Both of them could eat, and that’s all they did too, Bianca getting thicker all over. Donnie definitely took notice when she would walk out of the bathroom in her naked glory, rubbing herself down with her homemade whipped body butter. The voice inside his head begged him to calm the heat that began to brew deep within his skin, deciding on ignoring the erection that attempted to grow and ask his women about her music.

“Tell me about the studio sessions lately, how have they been going for you?” Bianca removed her napkin from her lap, dabbing her mouth delicately, before clearing her throat to speak.

“I’m not gonna lie, I may have hit a snag.” Bianca finally spoke with a sound of defeat in her tone.

“A snag? Where exactly?” Adonis ran his tongue over his teeth, his eyes focused on his women as her shoulders slouched, reaching to pour a generous amount of champagne into her glass.

“Well...for one I haven’t had the motivation. Every time I feel like I have a lyric, just a SPARK, something, it just falls flat.” Her silky tresses from the right side of her face slipped over her shoulder, causing her to stroke it back, exposing her creamy skin over her protruding clavicles.

“I’ve been thinking about Amara a lot lately, and the hearing tests, the pressure from everyone expecting more from me now that I’ve given them this gift, my music.” She lets out a breath that sounded strained.

“B. This is what I want you to do.”

Adonis took her hand in his, rubbing the surface with his thumb.

“When you walk in that studio, I want you to close those beautiful eyes of yours. Then, I want you to do what I see you do at home, just hum to yourself. Let that pretty little hum coarse through you like it’s awakening you. Stay still, and let the melody, whichever melody you decide to create, let it cloud your brain and let it get you into the zone.”

Adonis watched the downcast of her eyes, reaching across the table with his other hand to grip her chin softly, lifting her head, and making her look him in the eyes.

“Hey, like you always tell me before a fight, YOU GOT THIS. My girl did not get a record deal and become internet famous in less than a year for nothing.” Adonis playfully jabbed her chin, causing her to perk up more, taking that same hand to kiss it, leaving a matte red lip stain along his almond skin.

“You are the epitome of a man. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have you.” Adonis gives her a soft smile, a light chuckle escaping his throat.

“I should say that about you, girl. You and Mara, and my mom are the light in my life. After the entire Drago thing, I’ve grown and… I needed that.”

Bianca’s bright smile could have swoon the entire restaurant, her hand bashfully coming up to cover her face, her eyes on Adonis unwavering.

“You are something, you beautiful human.” She loved the allure in his eyes, she loved the way he softly smiled at her like she was the only one in that room. She loved how his fingers would caress her hand gently and without pause, making her woozy.

“Adonis Creed?”

Adonis’ eyes looked up and over at a young man who looked to be about 18 years of age, an excited gleam in his eyes and a broad smile.

“Yeah, how you doing man.” Adonis put his hand out to shake the teenage boys, watching as he reluctantly shook his hand with a nervous gleam in his eyes.

“I recognized you from my graduation dinner party and I figured why not take a chance and say hi.” The young boy reminded Adonis of himself when he was 18.

“Not a problem bro, you box?”

“Yeah! I’ve been doing it since I was 7.”

“You love it? Like enough to want to pursue it?”

The boy nodded his head rapidly, causing Bianca to laugh lightly.

“That’s wassup, what’s your name?”

“Calvin.” He stuttered.

“Listen, Calvin.” Adonis pulled out his phone, handing it over to the boy.

“Why don’t you put your cell number in there, and I’ll contact you about private boxing sessions with me, hows that sound to you?” Bianca looked at Adonis as if he were something to cherish as if he were a piece of heaven.

“For real?! MAN of course definitely. I would really appreciate that.” Calvin couldn’t stop giving his thanks, his smile still plastered and his head shaking back and forth in astonishment.

After he entered his number, Calvin said his final goodbyes to Bianca and Adonis, retiring to his family with more pep in his step.

Adonis took a sip from his glass, eyes gazing out into the street of LA, watching people cruise by and the palm trees sway. He could feel the eyes of his wife on him then, so he looked up to find Bianca with glossy eyes and a genuine smile on her lips.

“That was really fucking nice of you D.” She wiped at her eye quick, grabbing both of his hands.

“Thanks, baby, I saw something in him that reminded me of how I was. And plus, I love seeing young black boys involved in other things besides what’s happening on the block.”

Not wanting to let their food go to waste, the both of them continued to eat, silence hanging between them as the silverware clashed with the plates of food. Nothing needed to be said, just his presence was enough for Bianca and the same for Adonis. Peeking at each other, and the bare skin of Bianca’s leg rubbing against Adonis was just enough to spark heat.

—-

Her body stood in front of the ceiling to floor mirrors of their luxury loft, her hand pressed to the glass as one of her new singles, Midnight, played softly in the background. The song drummed through her, causing Bianca to sway her hips, eyes closed as she took in the lull of the sensual instrumental and her soft voice singing about losing control to a man.

Creeping up behind her with unheard footsteps was her husband, both of his hands running up the length of her arms, up and over her shoulders, and then down her exposed back before resting at her hips. Bianca lets out a soft chuckle, her breath hitching softly as Adonis’ body pressed firmly against hers.

“What was going through your mind when you wrote this?” The drag of his voice when he asked her that had her body pressing further against him, her eyes closing against the cityscape of LA.

“I was thinking...of how close I wish you were with me. How being away from you, even for a second, has me itching for your hands.”

Adonis strokes his lips over her ear.

“Just my hands?”

Bianca quirks a brow, leaning her head back to look him in his eyes.

“And your mouth.” Adonis took no time to press his lips to her divine lips. Bianca melted against the moist cushion of his lips, her body automatically turning to face him as their tongues crashed like dangerous waves.

“Keep kissing me like that and watch what happens.” Adonis teases.

“You started it D. Now you gotta finish it. I’m horny husband. I want you to fuck me.”

Adonis’ lips paused over Bianca’s his eyes searching hers, taking in the heat that began to flare behind her pretty brown irises. He was certain that the heat looked just the same within his.

Adonis and Bianca kissed further, practically sucking each other's faces, the back of Bianca’s legs crashing with the arm of their black leather couch, falling crimson her back causing her dress to hike up. She giggles from the surprise change in position, causing Adonis to clamp a fist to his mouth, snorting laughter.

“Oh god, we couldn’t even make it to the bed.” She shakes her head, watching Adonis remove his jacket and shirt.

“Doesn’t matter what surface I fuck you on, just as long as I feel that good pussy I’m straight.”

Adonis took no time to rest his body over hers, kissing her further while his hands roamed. She moaned sweetly into his mouth, her heart drumming against his solid chest frantically, and her hands rubbing over the waves on his head.

The intense passion that they both still felt for each other was mind blowing and gratifying. This is what they both wanted, a marriage where even the slightest gesture makes them erupt in pleasure.

Adonis began kissing from Bianca’s temple, down her face, and to her neck, taking his tongue to trail spit after every kiss. She whispered a repeated yes into his ear like a soft echo, her back arching into his solid frame, causing him to take his hands, removing the fabric of her dress inch by inch until it pooled around her waist.

“I can’t get enough of you ma, I need you ma.” Adonis nibbles on her clavicles, his eyes staring up at her extended head, her eyes low and lustful up at the ceiling.

“Keep going, don't stop.” His mouth finally found one of her caramel nipples, taking his lips to latch around one, savoring the sweet skin. He noticed how her skin shimmers with glitter, his other hand coming up to cup her breast. She chokes on that home groan, her fingers itching to grip the leather of the couch.

One of her smooth legs runs up Adonis’ side, her toes trying to push his black slacks down his hips.

“Skin Adonis, I wanna feel more skin.” Donnie kisses in between her breasts, giving her a lazy lopsided grin.

“Okay, wifey.” Adonis lifts up, approach Bianca at the head of the couch, watching as she takes her dainty fingers, undoing his pants, allowing them to fall loosely, her fingertips taking no time to pull his Calvin Klein briefs down, revealing a smooth veiny shaft, that hung with a throbbing erection. Bianca lifts her head to kiss him on the tip, before licking him there slow, her eyes watching every move. Adonis brings a hand to her head, running his fingers through her pressed hair, gripping the silky strands as he rubbed them between his fingertips.

Head from Bianca was something Adonis could never get over. It always brought him back to the first time he experienced it, that look in her eyes and the way her mouth did tantalizing things had him hooked, even before he had sex with her. She gripped him tightly, wetting him up with her spit and squeezing him good with her lips. Adonis hisses, his eyebrows worrying and his lips attacked by his teeth. Bianca could stare at that list filled face for hours, causing her to bob her head quicker over his length, earning a low but slow fuckkkkk to escape him. She was addicted to her husband's dick, and with every suck, she felt him quiver or twitch.

“Shit B, damn B….fuckkk baby.” His head falls back, hand coming down hard to the back of her head as he came, a low cry escaping his mouth.

Adonis was on his knees now, gazing into the pretty peach that Bianca had nestled between her legs, the wet fruit begging to be licked and many other things. Adonis could never forget the way she tasted; like a sweet piece of fruit dipped in fresh honey from a honeycomb. Bianca had an obsession with eating honeycombs too, the taste was overly sweet and the texture sticky, like how her pussy was now. Adonis trailed his tongue flat against her, liking from her hole all the way to her clit. No more quiet moans escaped her mouth, her heeled feet pointed to the sky and her ring-covered fingers rubbing over his head. Bianca tilts her head, watching the light from the city and the moon reflect off of his face and that shiny tongue that battled to get a taste.

Her legs drew back further, and her face contorted in bewilderment, her man's eyes never leaving hers, the undeniable attraction so clear and so pure. He took those lips and latched onto her clit, sucking deep without retracting, obscene noises loud between them and her creamy thighs shaking.

“Ah, take it.” She moans. Adonis was proud that he still made her feel this way. He opened up wide, attempting to kiss her inner folds, his lips brushing over every surface with persistent need, her legs never clamping around his head. She wanted, needed, craved him.

“Keep that up and watch I cum.” The innocent way she spoke that had the primal nature within him growl.

“I guess I gotta keep going right?” He spoke into her pussy with a low voice.

He kept going and going with the same motions, now adding two fingers, curling them over her g spot. The leather grew sweaty from her perspiration, a repeated gasp escaping her mouth like a melody, causing her belly to tremble, and her legs to shake as she orgasmed without warning. Adonis chased her cum, still sucking her through it until he felt she had enough.

——-

“I love you.” She whispered into his ear before sucking on his earlobe. They were on their second position that night, Adonis sinking back into her tight pussy, Bianca’s hips bringing him closer, her face was buried into the carpet, and her body was arched off of the ground, her pussy quivering around him with each deep pound. His strokes weren’t rushed, it felt like he was trying to remember her this way like he wanted to map out how her pussy felt around him.

“I love you, I love this pussy.” Adonis ran his fingers through her head before gripping tight, his eyes enjoying the way her back looked. Her arch was deep, and her spin dipped in the middle, making him trail his thumb there, catching up the sweat.

“Fuck me, harder.” Whatever she wanted, Adonis would give her, his hips slapped into her ass swiftly, her fingers rubbing into the carpet with a tremble.

“Touch me more.” She could feel the palms of his hand's jiggle and pinch her ass, before trailing both hands up her slim waist, digging his fingers into her flesh. Adonis buries himself deeper, bending over to kiss her spine.

“Throw that ass back,” Adonis slapped her ass, watching as B, began grinding her hips back over him slowly, a moan leaving her mouth after every stroke.

“Look at you. So damn beautiful with this dick in you. Such a beautiful sight baby.” His eyes couldn’t leave the nasty way her pussy swallowed him repeatedly. He felt her clench him, a hiss escaping his mouth.

“I felt that too, cum on this dick B.” Adonis began thrusting to meet her strokes, her ass bouncing and her cries muffled by the carpet.

“AHHHHH.” Adonis lets out a growl so deep Bianca could feel it vibrating through her flesh. She couldn’t even warn him, her words jumbled as she came on him for the third time that night.

LA received a beautiful view that evening, Adonis pressing Bianca’s body into the glass window, her legs around his waist as she bounced over him with a slow, forceful jerk of her body. She had her arms hanging loosely around his neck, and her eyes closed in bliss, head smashed against the thick glass. Adonis loves the image of his wife on him, her skin flushed, lipstick smeared, hair curling in the roots, her eyes wet in the corners. She was so precious, the vision of her made him want to fuck her harder.

“Yes, Donnie, yes give it to me, fuck me, I miss this!” She brought a hand to the back of his head, her nails grazing his head.

“You feel so good, you always feel so good.” He whispers, bringing both of his hands around her to hold her up, bouncing her rough over him. His wife, his beloved, his beautiful black women, she was a sight to see.

“B, fuck…”

“Cum in me, give it to me.”

“Imma give it to you baby, I promise.”

“Yeah, ohmygod ohmygod.”

“Take it, girl, take this dick…”

“FUCK D!” She clenched around him, her head falling back.

“Damn girl.” Adonis smacked her ass, his body shivering from how sensitive he was. He walked back to the couch with her still around him, falling back against it while his women bounced on him, leaning forward to kiss and nibble on his lips with her his grinding deep and his hands buried into the flesh of her ass. Her hands crashed with the couch on either side of his head, her back arching and rolling. Adonis lay there stunned, his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth hanging open. Bianca arched deeper before lifting from him with a swing of her head, her hair crashing with her face, bringing Adonis hands to grip her breasts.

“I’m fucking this dick D, this is my dick.”

She began bouncing, earning a slap to her ass, and a string of moans from him.

“This fucking pussy, GOT DAMN.” His head extended, eyes squeezed shut.

“This pussy is straight fire.” He couldn’t hold back anymore, his hips meeting hers, slapping skin loud. Bianca practically clawed his chest, her body shaking over him in another orgasm, drawing him on further.

“SHITTTTT!!” Adonis lifts from the couch, wrapping his arms around her waist, his hips snapping up into her rough before finally, with a shake, cumming within her deep, shooting his cum against her cervix spurt after spurt. His lips latched to her neck, soft mumbling vibrating against her flesh. The hold he had on her was tight, and the loud thumping of his heart against her chest made her squeeze him tighter.

“If I told you, that this felt like the first time we had sex, would you believe me?” Bianca rubbed her nose into Adonis’s sweaty shoulder.

“I would, but what if I told you that it was EVEN BETTER than the first time we had sex?” Adonis kisses her hairline, enjoying the way her body bounced in his lap from laughter.

“It’s probably because of how freaky I’ve grown to be with you.” Adonis hummed in agreement.

“I’m glad we did this B, it just goes to show how much we still care for each other.” His fingertips rubbed at her back, making her eyes close.

“Just keep loving me like you do, it’s the best feeling in the world.”

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jayalaw · 5 years

Text

HTTYD3 Fix-It: How to Crown A Dragon King, Chapter Two

@evilwriter37 @ashleybenlove @jettara @inhonoredglory @kingofthewilderwest @wolfie-dragon-rider

Hiccup groaned when he woke up. His head was spinning, and part of him was wondering if Tuffnut had goaded him into another drinking contest with Eret. Except Eret would have refused after how Astrid had threatened to tie all of Berk's men up if they messed with Hiccup's brain again.

Fire. The sting of a dart. A man sitting in his father's chair.

Memories returned. He would have shot up straight, except he couldn't move without every muscle complaining of pain. His head ached badly. Cold metal encircled his wrists.

"I was wondering how long you would be out," Grimmel commented. "Normally that drug would make a Gronckle sleep for days."

Hiccup coughed out the foul taste in his mouth. He got his bearings. Wooden boards beneath his cheeks. The glint of nails off iron. They seemed to be in a ship, but he heard no waves lapping against the boards. He pulled himself to a sitting position.

"What is this?" he asked.

"A sky ship," Grimmel said. "My dragons carry it, avoiding the currents and allowing for bulk. Surely you have thought of it."

Hiccup had thought of it. He had once used a shipwreck to ferry baby dragons from where they had hatched on a tropical island. These days, however; the mating cycle was more synchronized; the dragons all went with their riders, had their babies, and returned.

He lifted his head and got to a sitting position. Then he rested his cuffed hands on his good leg. Pain clicked in his brain as he tried to think of how to escape. It was like Grimmel had cut open his forehead and poured alcohol on his brain.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Away," Grimmel said. A tight smile crossed his frame. "You'd best get comfortable, Hiccup. It's going to be a long ride."

"Yeah, no." Hiccup fumbled for the side of the ship. "I think I'd rather tend to those fires that you set. Chief duties, you know."

Grimmel watched. Hiccup tried to pull himself up, ignoring the wobbling feeling in his legs. His head kept spinning like a child's toy.

"Why were you given that name anyway?" Grimmel asked. "Is it meant to sound like a hicc-up? Like the sound you make when you've had too many oysters?"

Grimmel made a hiccuping sound to demonstrate.

"It's tradition to name runts that," Hiccup responded shortly. It brought back a memory, of when he had asked his father the same question.

“Ah, so you were a runt. That explains the tininess,” Grimmel glanced away. “A shame. He was a good chief.”

Unlike you, the rest of the sentence seemed to say.

“He was the best,” Hiccup said, and he knew that it was true.

He managed to glimpse the ocean below puffs of cloud. They were hundreds of feet in the air, and night breezes shot past them. Hiccup tried to think. It made his head throb.

"Just to be clear, you need me alive?" Hiccup asked, trying to sound casual. "Because you want my dragon?"

"I don't need you alive," Grimmel said. "I’ve caught and killed many Night Furies. One more won’t make a difference. The factions that paid me to bring you in would be satisfied with your head probably."

"Sorry, I'd rather keep it," Hiccup said. He leaned against the side of the boat, looking down. Unless he got his hands free, the fall would kill him; he was still wearing the flight suit, but it meant nothing unless he could spread the leathery wings. Still, he had a lockpick somewhere in the suit. If he could struggle for it. Or he could go for the simple solution.

He tripped on his prosthetic as he turned to tackle Grimmel. The man watched as Hiccup fell on his chin, hard. He felt a splinter lodge under the white scar from when he was a baby.

"Did you actually think you'd be up to fight?" Grimmel smirked. "No wonder the other chiefs wanted to underpay me."

"Well, you know Vikings," Hiccup quipped. "We have stubbornness issues."

He swiped with his bound hands. Fists connected with Grimmel's knees, a trick Astrid had taught him. Grimmel grunted as he went down. Hiccup pounced on him the way Sharpshot had. He wrapped the short chain around the man's neck. not enough to strangle him, but enough to hold him.

"Give . . . me . . . the key," Hiccup panted.

Grimmel growled and bucked his thighs. Hiccup yelped as he went sailing through the air. It was only by some miracle that Grimmel didn’t toss him over the side. This time he landed on his shoulder. Below him, the dragons jostled the ship, making it sway through the air. That hurt more. Before he could get up, Grimmel placed a thick boot on his back, pinning him to the ground.

"You don't know when to quit?" he said, no longer smiling.

"Never," Hiccup grunted. "Even if I have to toss myself into the sea, I'm going down fighting."

"That won't be necessary, Chief," a familiar voice said. "We'll do the fighting for you."

Grimmel's expression changed. Eret straddled Skullcrusher, his mouth in a hard line. Astrid hovered beside him, her face promising murder.

"Give me back my fiance," she said.

Grimmel pulled out a sword and pressed it to Hiccup's throat. Hiccup saw his bloodshot eyes in the blade.

"That's not going to work a second time," Astrid said. "We brought along backup."

She whistled. The antlered dragon crashed into the ship. Grimmel and Hiccup yelped as the force tossed them into the air. Strong claws caught Hiccup; Skullcrusher. He wondered when his head would stop spinning.

Stormfly and the antlered dragon released fire on Grimmel's ship. His red dragons grabbed the man and pulled him away into a retreat.

"We got you!" Eret shouted. "Let's get back to Berk!"

"Astrid, come on!" Hiccup called. "We need to stop all the fires."

"We handled the fires!" she called back.

Though it took her visible effort, she turned her dragon around. Skullcrusher dropped Hiccup onto Stormfly, nearly behind Astrid. Hiccup tightened his thighs around the leather saddle.

"Are you hurt?" Astrid asked, twisted her head to look back at him.

"Eh, a few bruises and a splitting headache; nothing that will leave a scar. And I still have my leg! I hope Gobber has a good lockpick." Hiccup lifted his bound hands. "Wasn't able to get to mine."

Astrid grunted in relief. Sweat ran down her hair in streaks, and soot covered her front.

"Where's Toothless?" Hiccup asked.

"Back on Berk," Astrid said. "I didn't want to risk his safety since Grimmel wanted him."

Hiccup nodded in thanks. It's what he would have done. Poor Toothless must be tearing up the floorboards while pacing Berk.

"Who was that guy?" she asked. "He sneaked past all our defenses."

"Grimmel," Eret said. "One of Drago's top Trappers, except for yours truly. A man who enjoys the thrill of the hunt. It would be like him to infiltrate the village and set everything on fire. We're just lucky he didn't get far."

"How far DID he get?" Hiccup eyed the sea.

"Quite a bit but Skullcrusher and Stormfly were fast," Astrid said. "It's fine. We'll double the defenses. And we'll rebuild. We always do."

Hiccup relaxed. He wanted two blocks of ice for his head, and to sleep the next twenty hours away. And he wanted to ask Eret more about Grimmel. Part of him wanted to recall what King of Vikings was, and why the man wanted Toothless. But for now, things were calm. He was safe. Toothless was as well.

Gothi looked over Hiccup, after she shoved a metal tankard in his hand with mead and gestured at him to drink up. Hiccup tried, but the alcohol was too strong so he managed a few sips. His hands still ached despite Gobber using blacksmith tools to remove the cuffs. Gothi ran her thin fingers over the puncture wound in his neck. She frowned. A Terrible Terror, one of her dozens, was dozing in her hair. It snored as she moved, making a strange growling sound.

Toothless had already come and given Hiccup a thorough tongue bath; he was checking on all the dragons now, to make sure none were hurt and missing. All the Vikings huddled there in the cove. The last of Grimmel’s were burning the remains of the village down. Hiccup could still see the orange glow in the sky.

“We tried putting the fires out,” Fishlegs said. “The water didn’t work. The dragons somehow managed to gather dirt from the woods and toss it. Most of the ashes are greasy.”

“I’ll take a look at them tomorrow,” Hiccup frowned. “A fire that water can’t douse. We need to look into it.”

“Probably oil-based,” Eret mused. “I’ve seen those sorts of flames when you want to burn something and make sure it never comes back.”

“It’s too late to rebuild,” Snotlout said. “I’m going to KILL Grimmel! He burned down all my shinies!”

“We can camp here for tonight,” Hiccup said, tilting his head so Gothi could look closer. “Any casualties?”

“Fortunately, no,” Gobber said. “We’ve been so used to fires that first sign of smoke, and we’re all out there. But there was a close call with some of the children.”

Hiccup gulped. He managed some mead to go with that swallow.

Gothi narrowed her eyes. She drew in the dirt.

“Can someone get us a light?” Hiccup called. Someone brought a torch over. “How bad is it, Gothi?”

“She says that you’re banged up, nothing that a little sleep can’t fix,” Gobber said. “Obviously she orders a full night’s sleep, lots of herbs and bath salts, and take a break from chiefing duties tomorrow.”

“I can’t take a break,” Hiccup said. “We just got attacked! By someone who slipped past our defenses and burned down our village! We need to rebuild, and reinforce the island. No one else is going to sleep tonight - ow!”

Fortunately Gothi missed whacking him on his injured side. But she glared at him. The Terror opened one lazy eye to glare as well. The pupil glowed a fierce red.

“Doctor’s orders, Hiccup,” Gobber quipped. “I’d suggest listening to her.”

“We’ll take care of the rebuilding,” Astrid said. “We did use to run the firefighting squad.”

“Grimmel doesn’t take defeat well,” Eret said. “It is unlikely, however, that he will make a repeat attempt with how his ship was damaged. He likes to be the predator, not the prey. The Crimson Goregutter bought us time, a day at least.” “He called himself King of VIkings,” Hiccup said. “My father’s books have that term. I know it sounds familiar.”

Toothless bounded towards them. The dragon looked sobering. Hiccup reached toward him.

“You did your best, Bud,” he said. “This was an enemy we didn’t see coming at all. But we know now. And we’ll learn.”

#httyd 3 spoilers #fix it fic #grimmel #httyd3 fix it fic #httyd3 #hiccup fanfic

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