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the-fox-knows · 4 years

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‘I’ll Tell You A Story’

I’ll Tell You A Story (5)

“It was 2019; June to be precise when I traveled to the United Kingdom — or as you would know it, this island of divided kingdoms.” She paused, her gaze cautiously reading his features as his own gaze slipped away from hers. His eyes were narrowed and calculating, a single line marring his brow as he stared at the cave wall, seeing beyond their cramped shelter. Molly knew what he was seeing, for she was seeing it too. That Northumbrian wood; the confusion, the fear, and the ultimate determination that ruled them both that day. He had wanted her, but she had wanted her freedom. Her will had ruled.

“These lands: Wessex, Northumbria, Mercia, they do not endure as separate entities. They will combine into a single kingdom – England. That’s what it will be called,” she told him, thinking to influence his belief by offering tantalizing facts of the future she felt he would be unable to resist. She read him well, for his glazed eyes blinked into focus ere swiveling to the corner until they rested on her. A cautious grin quirked his lips, though she read little humor in his expression. She understood it was the façade he adopted when he wished to keep his true thoughts to himself; the flash of a grin only to be supplanted by a frown that conveyed the genuine depth of his interest.

“You claim to be from the future?” he asked quietly, his grin immediately dipping out of sight. The fire stood out like a live thing reflected in his stare. His eyes fixed on her while his posture appeared still, as if he wouldn’t take his next breath until he had riddled the puzzle that she was.

“Yes,” she nodded, holding his gaze.

“How?” he put to her. His expression was at once laced with a coating of cynicism, though, once settled into his question Molly recognized a gleam in his eye that gave her courage enough to believe in that questing wisdom she was relying on.

Recognizing this moment for what it was, she swallowed, gulping past her nerves as her fingers inched their way to her elbows where she held herself tightly. Only a beat of hesitation marked the moment when Molly Hatch decided to bridge the chasm that had yawned beneath her feet for so many years; to extend her hand and let somebody in. It somehow didn’t bother her that it was the Viking she was reaching for. During the past twenty-four hours he had lost his moniker and gained the identity of his person. He was Ragnar Lothbrok, a man she had a precarious history with, but the one who presently sat across from her willing to listen.

“I was on the shore,” she began, her voice thick, “in Scotland. You don’t that country because it hasn’t been formed yet, but it’s the land where you first found me.”

His head tilted as his narrowed eyes smoothed into a more pensive expression. He took his first breath.

“The rain had abated somewhat, and I don’t remember being concerned over lightning,” she continued. “My friends were waiting for me up in our rooms. There were three of them: Cathy, Ellie, and Gracie,” she said, taking care to say their names slowly, as if to savor the memory of what had once been a daily curl of her tongue. “We were visiting from our home - from America.”

She paused again, furrowing her brow as she tried to remember dates. “Do you know a Lief Erikson? Or perhaps know of him?” she wondered. She briefly remembered learning that that Viking had been one of the first, or maybe the only Northman to make it to North America before Christopher Colombus in 1492.

“I know many Lief’s,” he obliged, though looking uncertain of the question. “Why do you ask?”

“It is only that Lief Erikson will be a well-known explorer. He discovers North America. It’s the land that will eventually be my home,” she elaborated when she detected a hitch to his brow. “Do you know him?” she repeated.

“No, I cannot say that I do,” he answered. The ghost of his grin reappeared, hidden somewhat by his beard. And if Molly knew him better, knew all the quirks of his features and the glance of his expressions she would understand that the intensity of his stare was not mere focus, that the slight cant of his head no mere intrigue — but a growing triumph.

“It may be that he is after your time,” she shrugged a little disappointedly. She’d hoped that she’d unearthed a link that could be used to her advantage, unaware of the already shifting dynamic occurring between them in her favor. Molly believed that hers would be an uphill battle, trying to convince him of something she herself wouldn’t have believed in prior to experiencing it. In spite of her immersion with the culture of the time, she could not abandon the skepticism that belonged to her own culture, nor help apply it to what others would think of her story.

“This noorth umairika, you say it is the land you hail from? Where is it?” Ragnar wondered, drawing his good leg up and resting his elbow on it. He was leaning a little closer.

“Far from here,” she said, drawing her own knees up, though in a more protective stance as she hugged them to her chest. “It lies across the sea.”

“Which sea?”

“The Atlantic.”

Ragnar’s eyes narrowed again. “There is land beyond the Atlantic?”

Molly nodded, adding, “quite a lot of it. You Europeans think you’re the center of the world until the 1500’s. Or sometime around there. I was never good in history class,” she went on to explain, no doubt nonsensically to him.

“What other lands are there besides your home?” he continued with his inquiries, causing Molly to grimace slightly. She had wanted to sweeten the pot initially with these snippets of facts, but steadily she could feel her impatience mounting as the momentum she had gained for her own history was waning.

“There are many; too many to name presently, though I will tell you that there are three Americas. There is the North, Central, and South Americas and each is made up of countries . . . er, that is, a form of kingdom.”

“When does this Leif Erikson discover these lands?” he asked, already forgetting her ignorance on the dates.

“I told you, I don’t know. It must be after this time though as I’m sure you would’ve heard about him. And besides, he only landed on North America. He likely wasn’t aware of the expansiveness of the land.”

“What is the distance? How long will it take to reach your land?”

Molly blinked. “I don’t know! Months and months I’d assume.”

Ragnar’s brow furrowed. “How can you not know when you say you journeyed from that land?” His glance turned suspicious. Yet Molly could only indulge in a rueful smile as she envisioned a plane flying over his head as explanation.

“Travel does not remain the way you know it to be, Ragnar. Between the thousand years that mark your time to mine many things evolve into creations beyond imagining. I do not think you would understand even if I told you how I traveled to this island, for nothing of its kind exists today, save perhaps the winged beasts.”

Ragnar jerked his head back, his mouth wavering between that uncertain smirk and that curious frown as his eyes flicked to the mouth of the cave and back.

“You can fly?” he posed to her, clearly not believing. And Molly was glad to be able to shake her head.

“No, I cannot fly. But men have made machines that can.” And before he could ask another question, she ploughed on. “Whatever you wish to know, I will tell you - to the best of my knowledge,” she said, her voice deliberately low so that he would be inclined to listen and not speak. “I will tell you about America and all the countries that will be new to you. I will tell you of the plane, train, and automobile; how people can travel across the world in a day; how we can speak to those far, far away and hear their voices in our ear. I will tell you about Neil Armstrong and his famous footprint on the moon. I will tell you all this and more – but, first . . . first I need to tell you a story. My story.”

And she did.

Of that day she told him everything. It was either say it all, or maintain her silence – she could not imagine an in-between. As an outpouring, long bottled and static with energy waiting to be released, Molly found that the words she had mentally tripped over, prior to her decision of telling Ragnar, poured fluidly from her mouth and into his sponge-like mind – absorbing everything with ardor.

Occasionally, when her eyes would flick to his, she would watch him, noting his stillness that marked his absolute focus. He did not interrupt her again, not even to inquire over words she knew he couldn’t understand – words she couldn’t translate, though she did her best to explain. He was her audience, and as any good auditor, he knew what was required of him. When she paused to recollect a moment, or had to turn her face away to hide unbidden emotions, she was not hurried to continue.

In lieu of that courtesy, she indulged in speaking of events leading up to the trip, of bidding her parents a teary farewell at the airport; of her and her friends accidentally insulting one of the flight attendants by referring to them as English when they had, in fact, been Scottish; of landing in Heathrow and waiting over an hour for Gracie’s duffle bag. She spoke of a thousand and one things she had forgotten, lost somewhere in the hazy limbo of her interrupted life, but which now sprang forth as if resurrected.

While she spoke the night wearied, falling into shade and quiet. Hour followed hour, yet her soft tones did not dim in the presence of the watchful night. The only other companion to her voice was the snapping flames beneath the long-forgotten tea that bubbled in its neglect. It was only when the brew spilled passed the sides of the cauldron, hissing immediately at the contact with the flames, that attention was returned to it. Molly jerked out of her compact position, rising to her feet as she grabbed a fistful of her skirts to lift the cauldron from its perch, hissing herself at the heat. Quickly, she set it near the fire, releasing her grip and rubbing her hands together.

“I’m afraid it’s a bit burnt,” she told him, looking up from inspecting the brew. She swished it only to see the herbs shriveled and black.

“It is of no matter,” he said, unconcerned. “I would hear the rest of your story before soothing any stomach aches.”

From where she stood, Molly looked down at him, aware that a small smile tugged at her lips. A fanciful vision of a monk dressed as a nursemaid coming to serve out a stretched out Ragnar, undone by a serious tummy ache, distracted her momentarily as she remembered that the monk’s brew was for easing digestion. Her smile grew wider and threatened to morph into a chuckle.

Her heart was lighter. The burden of carrying her secret for so long no longer weighed on her even though she had yet to conclude her narrative. Yet, already she felt the ease of old manners returning to her as she remembered her old self. Intangible as it was, there was a certain amount of happiness that existed in simply being able to talk about her old life to another human being.

So as she resumed her seat, a tad closer to Ragnar than before, there was no pause or hesitation when she picked up the threads of her tale and continued.

“We were making a tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland, as I said, but I was always most excited to see Scotland. I’d dreamt of the Highlands and the heather, of the whiskey and kilts, of all the romantic associations with the place; my father even noted that I had an unhealthy interest in the pipes and drums.” She did stop then, only for a moment as she found what peace she could in the phantoms she’d summoned. She sighed. “I’m sure it’s best that I never got to see it in the end; it might not have lived up to my expectations.” Tentatively , she offered her companion — the one of flesh and blood, and the only one who could hear her — a glimpse of a smile that told a completely different story to the one that had just preceded it, and which forgot in that moment that he wouldn’t understand her silver-lining humor, as paltry as it was.

His eyes may be keen, either fixed as they were on her face or hovering just around her; brilliant in their intensity and strength yet, at that moment, lacking the spark of any recognition for anything she had just said.

Her face drooped suddenly, exposed as it was to the rawness of the many strong emotions required this night.

The relief that had belonged to the minute before was gone, usurped by the realization of reality. No matter the chances of ever getting close to anyone – and so far this Viking was the nearest to a heart-to-heart she’d had in six years – the nuances of her time would forever remain the property of its time; locked away behind the secrets of its knowledge that would always remain a barrier between her and others. The comfort of remembering home was hers; just not the comfort of home.

In a whirl of contained emotion, never flickering past the internal storm of her mind, Molly at once wanted to throw herself at Ragnar, cling to his chest and just be held as she sobbed and felt sorry for herself; yet in that same brand of impulsiveness she wanted to run – to run in a pointless direction, but one that took her far from the cave, far from him, and far from everything that resembled anything that had been her familiar for the past half-decade.

Swallowing, she steadied herself. Her thumbs were busy picking at each other’s nails, scoring her skin in a pattern of crescents.

She told him of the beach.

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she told him of that landmark whose grey skies had blackened the water and appeared as the shores of superstition, serving as a portal that had opened for her unwilling passage.

The years spent serving Lady, then Lord Cyneric had been kind in one regard: never had she known her mind as well as she presently did. Despite her duties and chores, they claimed nothing of her time as the convenience of modern technology had. Days regularly burst at the seams with work, thoughts, and sometimes, even play. Boredom was no longer a constant in her vocabulary; indeed, she regularly forgot the word with how little she thought of it. What she did think of, however, and what had occupied her thoughts during her more menial tasks was the day in which she had stood on that shore. The tide had been low, and even then — ignorant as she had been — she had mused over thoughts of in-between places; crossroads, dusk, dawn, and of course that strip of sand, appearing only at its designated hours when the sea was low, so that that in-between area was not quite of the land, nor yet of the sea.

And that, she believed, had been her portal.

All this she told him; explaining her reasoning that found grounding in the very nature of the mystic land.

“There are stories – legends and myths, though, I don’t know their names in this speech – that tell of unwary travelers who find mischief done to them; the wanderer who does not heed the natural warnings of nature and find themselves in, what would be called, a fix. These stories are not so ancient as they once were to me, their narrative has more meaning as I now know that there is power in their messages,” she said, drawing her legs to her chest. She rested her hands atop her knees, picking at the fabric. “My sole regret is that I couldn’t have known that their significance endured even while my culture’s credence of them waned. I would not have stood on that shore otherwise.”

“Do people of your time not tell stories then?” Ragnar asked, speaking for the first time in many hours. He looked dubious, as if he was ready to argue her statements by using what he learned about her journal against her. Molly recognized it also as an admission. Despite his first hint of skepticism ere she began, and despite the natural aversion of Man’s to being fooled by seemingly impossible phenomenons, Molly had opened herself to him in a way that exposed her heart, showing him something precious and protected by unraveling her fabricated life.

Also – he had listened.

“For we have many that do much to warn the little ones away from danger,” he continued. “Maybe you did not listen as a child,” he said, pointing a finger at her nose in a playful, tsking manner. She resisted the urge to reach over and swat his hand back to his lap.

“Your people then have precautionary tales of traveling through time?” she said instead, partially rhetorical as she didn’t believe that the Norse did; though, also a little curious in case of the possibility.

Ragnar let his hand drop, adopting a rueful smile as he eyed her from under his brows. His quirked mouth turned thoughtful, however, and he gazed at her straight-on. She saw him only by the faint, ruddy glow of the now dwindled fire; more ember and ash then flame.

“You truly are from another time?” he asked quietly, almost marveling. His eyes were the only point of light on his face; two pricks of focus that somehow carried more expression than a torrent of voiced wonder.

“I am,” she answered simply. She wondered if he saw the same in her; two points of light staring back at him. The lights were disturbed when he blinked, turning his head away, looking forward as he had at the beginning. She could almost hear the wheels turning in his mind, the formulating questions, and the now deepened curiosity that she must undeniably hold.

“Well,” he said with a grunt, adjusting his position so that he sat straighter against the wall. He returned his gaze to hers. “I suppose I must concede to your claim – you have traveled farther than me.”

“Yes,” she chuckled, “my adventurous desire of walking in the rain in a foreign country has inadvertently seen me outpace the ambitions of any Northman seeking new land.”

Molly only just caught his smile as he leaned forward, taking up one of the sticks to jab at the fire. A ripple of warmth spread suddenly, tempering the chill air of the night and reminding her that she was hugging herself tightly in defense against the cold.

“Have you ever tried to return?” Ragnar asked, keeping his eyes on his work.

“Once,” she replied after a pause. “A week after arriving in that town you and your men had sacked,” she interrupted herself in order to deliver a long-in-the-making glare. The Viking at least had sense enough to remain quiet. “I found my way back to that beach. I stayed out there until I couldn’t bear the hunger any longer. I don’t remember how many days, but nothing happened. The road that had vanished didn’t reappear, and when I returned to the village I found it immediately. It hadn’t worked.” Molly often wondered if it would if she could reach it on the anniversary date of her arrival. But as of yet, she’d never been able to make it.

“It sounds temperamental,” he remarked, uselessly twiddling the stick between his palms, working a hole through the fire.

“Extremely temperamental!” she heartily agreed. “At least with you – well, you are very consistent; I always know what to expect from you.”

“Do you think it is so? That you will always know what to expect from me,” he stopped his fiddling to stare up at her, a queer look in his eye. Molly visibly swallowed as she held herself tighter. She felt the mood turn in an instant; dangerous and intimidating.

“You said you wouldn’t force me,” she reminded him, doing her best to keep her voice steady. The knife he had given her was still somewhere near her.

“Aye, I did,” he nodded, resuming his work, and the tension lifted somewhat, “and if that is where your mind has gone it has done so on its own for I have made no mention of lying with you. I would not speak against such a proposition, but I have not suggested it,” he said, flicking his eyes up to hers once more. She felt her heart stutter.

“Then what was all that about with your, ‘do you think you’ll always know what to expect from me?’” she questioned, altering her voice to imitate his low timber.

Ragnar tossed the stick aside and rubbed his palms together, brushing away the soot and ash. His movements were leisurely, almost deliberately so, which only annoyed Molly further when she was already feeling embarrassed by his presumption that her mind had been in the gutters.

“Well?” she pressed.

Ragnar shrugged, incorporating his hands as well as his face in the movement. “Is it not the truth? Who can claim that they know another so completely that they will always know what the other will do? As, uh, sweet as our meetings have been,” he smiled at her scowl, “they have been brief. Do you really think you know me as well as you think you do?”

She opened her mouth to give a remark about first impressions or something of that nature, when she hesitated. Her own first impressions were swiftly being supplanted by more amenable notions of her . . . not friend . . . companion. Her posture loosened slightly and, guilelessly, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear unaware of the way it drew his eye.

“I feel I must know you enough to trust you with the truth,” she admitted. “You’re the first person to know . . . any of this,” she said, initially searching for a word that could encompass her facts of life. “I don’t understand it, but you’re the first person that I felt I could share it with; no one else would’ve have understood, but you, somehow, seem to.” She quirked her brows, appreciatively curios.

Through the gloom and dull, red glow a gleam of benign teeth glinted as he smiled at her. “I always knew you were something more than you appeared,” he said, sounding vindicated. “I knew there was a reason for my safe-guarding your book – for you to be present in my mind, even when time continued and the possibility of ever finding you diminished; you never left me.”

Molly looked away, running her hands up her arms to hug her shoulders. She did not care to admit that she had experienced the same magnetizing thoughts towards him, though far less complimentary. Though, she supposed it was natural to have looked back on him; their first encounter was one of the most frightening moments of her life.

Cautiously, she turned back to him and was immediately confronted with the urge to yawn as she saw him indulging in his own. He did not miss her joining him.

“The hour is late,” he relented, sounding almost bitter by the fact. “You should get some sleep,” he advised her. Night had been with them for many hours, yet they seemed only now to be aware of the time.

“What about you? You have not slept since waking this morning.”

“I may shut my eyes, but don’t concern yourself. I am used to this more than you. Besides, you will need the rest for tomorrow; I have a number of questions I would ask you.”

“And I will do my best to answer them, but at present, you are the one with an injury and I am not. I’ll watch for now. I do not mind,” she added when she saw him preparing to counter. She reasoned that the likelihood of either of them finding much sleep was slim, but the few hours remaining to the night promised quiet introspection which she yearned for ere the next round of revelations began.

Molly stood, intent on switching places with Ragnar, and showing no signs of hesitance in taking his hands to help him up as she had originally. Again he stumbled, but only slightly, regaining his balance in the next second. She released her grip on him, though when he moved to step past her, she automatically brought a hand up to stop him, just grazing his chest before she dropped it again.

“I – uh, I just want to thank you,” with an effort, she managed to bring her eyes up to his, meeting them and reading in them a softness she had not thought him capable of achieving. She swallowed, suddenly very aware that her last vestiges of fear were leaving her as a new, even more frightening, emotion took its place. He was not touching her, as he promised he would not, but his gaze may as well have been a caress for the warmth she felt under its gaze. She cleared her throat. “You listened to me when I know no one else would have. You can’t know what that means to me,” she confessed. “You returned to me a part of myself I’d forgotten about and I must thank you for that.”

In response, Ragnar leaned down, bringing his face level with hers, their noses inches apart. Molly thought for a moment that he would break his word, yet she found herself too curious to back away.

“Does this mean I’m forgiven?” he posed to her instead.

Molly broke out into a wide grin, her teeth now the ones to gleam as she shook her head in amusement.

“Yes Ragnar Lothbrok, I suppose this means I must forgive you now – so long as you don’t try it again,” she added.

“Mmm,” he playfully groused, “that is a cruel thing to hold me to when you have made yourself even more valuable to me. You had better not smile too much,” he warned, “for I am want to lose all reason and do what I please should I see your smiling face near a boat.”

“You would have to tie me to the masthead for we both know I can swim,” she teased back.

“Don’t give me ideas. Where are you going?” he suddenly called when she abruptly turned to leave their cave.

“I thought I would search for the fairies and see if they know how I could return home.” At his arch brow she chuckled and told him truthfully that she had to relieve herself. When she returned, he was still standing, waiting. Without a word he limped past her and was swallowed by the night, likely to take care of a similar errand.

When he returned, she was already sitting, holding her legs close so that he could get by with as little difficulty as possible. From the darkened corners of the rear of the cave Molly heard his grunts, scuffles, and ultimate sighs as he lowered himself to the ground.

“Are you alright?” she felt compelled to ask.

“Fine,” he said, unconcerned.

A moment passed.

“Do you have songs from your time?” Ragnar’s voice came out from the gloom, contemplative, yet accommodating of a certain mischievous quality.

“I’m not going to sing one,” she replied immediately, not even bothering to look at him. She could, however, see his head perk up out of the corner of her eye.

“I did not ask you to,” a smile in his tone.

“You didn’t have to; I knew what you were leading to.”

“But you do have songs?” he urged, not giving up altogether.

“Of course we have songs,” she smiled at the ridiculousness. “A great many songs that would likely make you wish you were deaf. Music has evolved since the folk tune,” she told him wryly.

“You are not fond of music then?”

“On the contrary, I love music; in fact I used to love watching classic musicals with my mother. My father hated them!” she smiled, remembering. “He would walk in the room, hear Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire for a second, and make an about face. I think the only musical we ever managed to get him to sit down to was My Fair Lady. He knew Rex Harrison was in it and thought it would be a ‘decent’ movie as he termed it. He didn’t even get to ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly’.”

Lost in her own memories once again, and not to mention the shadows that now enveloped Ragnar, Molly missed his puzzled expression. “You excel at saying much while revealing little.”

Molly laughed softly, understanding his plight. “My apologies, but it is difficult to translate something that hasn’t been invented yet.”

“I imagine it would be,” he considered, then added, “I envy you your knowledge; to know what will come after once all this is gone; once we here have all played our parts and are done.”

A brief silence stretched between them. In the distance, an owl screeched.

“Don’t envy me, Ragnar,” Molly quietly said at last. “You have the comfort of your time, even if you don’t appreciate it, while I often am adrift with only the cold comfort of memory to sooth me. My fate is not something to yearn for.”

Another, shorter, silence ensued, concluded this time by Ragnar.

“I will do my best to heed your warning Molly Hatch,” he said, a curious note to his voice. An unspoken sentiment hung in the air, trailing from Ragnar’s words, and without meaning to Molly waited for its release. It came as sigh of the wind, soft and coaxing. “But it would be easier if you were to stay with me,” he whispered.

Molly looked over her shoulder, seeking his gaze, but not even those pinpricks could be seen now in the gloom. Looking forward, Molly rubbed her arms.

“Sleep Ragnar, I will watch.”

#vikings #vikingfic #fanfiction #ragnar/OC #timetravel #adventure #romance #veil of time #ragnar lothbrok #ITYAS #fey #fey aspects

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definitelynotaminion · 4 years

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A Study in Survival (Chapter 1/prologue)

It occurs to me that my ao3 is kinda divorced from my tumblr, so let me brag about my favorite fic on my dash! Linking it via ao3 isn’t as fun. Mostly I just want everyone to appreciate shirtless sweaty Sakura in a dragon-ball-Z style fight at the end of the world. It’s a time travel fic, as most of you know. TLDR Sakura is the only human left alive fighting against Kaguya, again and again for months. So, here is the first chapter finally posted on tumblr!!

There is fire. There is light. She is bloody wounds knitting closed as an afterthought, cold, meticulous and precise sacrifices of chakra for each hit, and the jarring impact of her fist shattering against a goddess' face.

The impact destroys the ground around them for miles.

She is rage, and desperation, and there is a yawning chasm of grief in her, as wide as the world is empty, that she refuses to let consume her.

There is a battle that is a war, an endless fight with an enemy that never tires, and she is alone.

Sakura doesn't remember much of what happens. She has been awake and engaged with Kaguya or her forces for days and weeks. Sleep is rare, stolen moments; each scrap and spare bit of chakra is ruthlessly hoarded and used as efficiently as possible.

She feels stripped down to the bones, ragged with all excess parts of her shorn away. Sakura survives. She fights. She bleeds. She survives.

Another cataclysmic exchange of blows. Around them the earth tries to shake apart. Localized earthquakes and tsunamis herald their blows; what's left of the topography of the planet flattens and crumbles in their wake.

Sakura is tired, though she can't afford to be. Every cell screams in her, a razor sharp focus and intellect bent on living. The beat of her heart in her breast is a desperate thing, a furious and urgent thing, the blood in her ears the only sound she can hear.

It is amidst the usual ache of overextended muscles, the mint-burn of healing, and the push and pull of attack and retreat, bestow damage and receive it, that something changes. Sakura has been a thorn in Kaguya's side for countless hours and sunsets, a snarling wolf that disappears just far enough to lick its wounds, gather resources, and slam back into the melee with a reckless abandon.

Sakura has been trying to kill an immortal for so long that it's all her body knows, and she expects this to be no different, though each hit, each jutsu, each glancing touch of her hand or weapon does devastating damage to the world around them because she refuses to give up hope.

It is a wild thing, a snarling thing, behind the breath in her lungs and the constant drought of her chakra system begging for rest, for replenishment. Her hope is more savage than Naruto's was, the constant belief that he could change the world; her hope is more ragged than Sasuke's was, the child's certainty that if he devotes himself to his goal he can fix things.

Her hope is more enduring than Sai's was, a fragile, just-born realization that life can be marvelous, that love can exist, that there is good in the world, and laughter, and beauty.

Sakura's hope is a bonedeep, feral warsong, a thrumming that gets her through the days, and the nights, that moves her body like a puppet on a string, that lets her heal and kill and force her body past its limits. It's a bulldog's jaws clamped tight on her goal, all thoughts set aside for neverending action, deliberation, movement; it's gravity, and the smiles she won't let herself forget, the dreams and ambitions of everyone she can remember wrapped tight but never safe in the core of her, every precious memory burned one at a time to keep it alive.

Sakura's hope is all she's got left.

So while she hasn't lessened her efforts to murder the being responsible for the destruction of all she loves-- if anything, it's the opposite, eclipsing her old limitations with every encounter, every waking moment, inching millimeter by bloody millimeter closer to her goal with each breath in her body-- she is a being of observations, of rationalization, of cool and collected deductions, lightning-fast assessments and reactions half the reason she's still breathing, and nothing in the encounter has led her to believe something has changed.

Sakura jerks back her fist in surprise, not quick enough to pull the punch but able to change the angle so that it slides past her opponent. In a quarter-beat she's a mile away, still high in the sky.

A mile is nothing.

Sakura turns mid-flight, eyes on Kaguya, feeling the change as it lurches through her body. Probably someone else might not have noticed, but no one else is alive; Sakura is aware of every iota of chakra in her body, and Sakura notices the moment it alters.

There's a new pathway where there wasn't before, like a jutsu half-forgotten, and chakra wants to curl out of her tenketsu, twist in just the right way to-- Sakura doesn't know, and has to stop the quicksilver flash of thought as a wave of Kaguya's hand sends black desolation winging toward her.

Sakura dodges, nimbly, tossing a shuriken that expands outward into a swarm, a flock of thousands, uses the moment's distraction to throw herself from a surviving peak to a valley far in the distance.

Her only saving grace is that Kaguya can't sense chakra, not when it's ruthlessly surpressed with Sakura's perfect control-- though the goddess is more than willing to burn the countryside to ash, destroy any cover, and force Sakura out.

She's learned to rest while running, take solace in the comparatively less exhausting labor of crossing ground faster than the winds of a rasenshuriken.

Kaguya can't-- or hasn't, at least-- used genjutsu on her. Perhaps she senses the futility of it; Sakura can sense the intrusion of foreign chakra on her system the instant it occurs, obvious as a drop of ink on a pristine scroll.

This isn't that; this chakra is hers and hers alone.

The sweep of white is her only warning, so fast her eyes can't resolve it into a shape; she doesn't wait for them to, moving back as far as a single leap can take her on instinct. It was a swipe of Kaguya's arm, her senses tell her later, but in the intervening time Sakura has ducked and parried three blows and flipped over a lake, its water rising on on either side of them like a welcoming hug.

Sakura punches the lakebed, lets house-sized boulders rise as asteroids, dances between them for a blink's cover before Kaguya obliterates them with a thought, not even rubble remaining. The skin on Sakura's arms informs her of the heat, even from her new distance. She's behind the goddess now, though-- not that it matters to her sight.

Merely, she's opposite Kaguya's direction of attention for a single moment, and in their battles that's an opening, forcefully torn.

It's a sweeping kick, a dynamic entry that flows into a springboard flip to get away, because any hit that doesn't connect is a liability. Any second of close combat is too long already, Sakura knows, and ruthlessly stifles the frustration in her throat as the move carries her away.

Away, away, away, the endless flight from an enemy too dangerous to engage, and too dangerous not to.

A bright flare of chakra from within her, yin and yang twisting without conscious direction, and it would be terrifying, this loss of control, if it wasn't infuriating. Sakura can't afford any moment of distraction.

She usually engages Kaguya until she only has the energy left for a desperate flight, a retreat to think on what she learned about her enemy during the most recent clash, painstakingly pieced together from the smallest of tells.

She might not have a choice, this time, though each moment of combat is precious, every encounter another chance to learn and capitalize on a weakness, build a strategy up from atoms, and--

Parry, parry, dodge; Sakura slips medical ninjutsu into her enemy's flesh, feels it catch beneath the skin, but where it should absolutely wreck the seemingly human biology, Kaguya shows no reaction.

Sakura keeps her curse contained to gritted teeth, reaches deep and pulls chakra into her hands. She doesn't have the luxury of handsigns, hasn't for longer than she can remember, so each jutsu has to be utterly mastered before she dares use it.

The upside is that she doesn't have any distractions.

It's water molecules slammed into each other, a tsunami raging out, and Sakura uses it to disengage.

She has to figure out what the utter fuck is going on with her chakra before it gets her killed.

The ball of water had been easier than normal, a prison called from the displaced lake, but before she's even ten miles away Kaguya has evaporated it. A rush of seared air, so hot there's not even steam, hits Sakura's back like a shove from a giant.

It spins her and she goes with it, knowing better to have her back to her enemy even as her skin erupts in burns, a line drawn of red drawn over her and erased just as smoothly by her own chakra in a countering wave. Her armor's lost but it did little, anyway.

A blur, and there's nothing to step off of; Sakura replaces herself with a piece of rubble in the distance, replaces again with one of her weapons from before, far enough away that her chakra rips out of her, a sudden void.

The same weird lurch as before occurs, infinitely more disastrous, and Sakura uses precious seconds reaching inward, a step she doesn't have to do ever, trying to isolate the cause.

It's elusive and Sakura would snarl if she wasn't taking to the trees with as little sound as possible, shoving down her chakra with an iron fist.

The hiccuping aberration refuses to be silenced. A frisson of fear lances through her, shock and dismay as a monsoon of wind tears at the forest, ripping trees out of the ground and into pieces. She leaps from trunk to trunk in the sudden tornado, dodging limbs suddenly as fast and dangerous as arrows from Sasuke's Susano'o, really snarling this time when one comes at her at such an angle that she has no choice but to slam her fist through it, giving away her position.

She has to dodge and weave, chakra still suppressed but for that little, disobedient curl directly in the center, and when she multitasks slinging a massive oak opposite the wind-- causing it to crash into its fellows with a sound like ten-thousand exploding tags--

now there's an idea--

and racing to the top of the atmosphere to get over the wall, she pokes at it, a stab of will.

Cooperate!

Instead it comes unraveled, a flower unfurling, and Sakura has just a moment to panic before the winds kick up, slamming her back down to the ground from the seven miles up.

She leaves a crater, leaves the crater barely after it's formed, narrowly dodging the fist dropped into the center of it after her.

The crater is suddenly four times as massive, force delivered with such speed that the landscape is just changed around them, the sound barrier breaking too fast to make noise.

Reinforcing and then still having to heal her spine, in the space between breaths, had taken approximately half of her chakra reserves, but while one part of her mind is cataloging reserves grimly, most of it is still reeling from the golden glow that is sweeping through her, that refuses to be tamped down, that is out of her control.

Fear quickens her breath, and Sakura rips a spear of a stick out of her shoulder, pressing one hand to the place where it impaled her. There's a feeling rising in her that begs to be a sound, a pulsing, a quickening, and she has no idea what it is, has no time to process as she runs for her life, dodging and weaving.

Kaguya has taken the displaced trees in her windstorm and is guiding them at the ground with a single gesture, each huge as only Fire Country trees get-- had they really journeyed so far east, again? The landscapes are mostly unrecognizable, all familiar manmade landmarks destroyed.

Sakura is forced to bob and weave, dart back and channel her dead teammate, be as unpredictable as possible because Kaguya isn't throwing trees at her so much as where she guesses Sakura will be.

Where such strength should shatter the trees upon impact with the earth, they're sticking in the ground like oversized arrows instead, and Sakura has precious thought to spare deducing how-- obviously, reinforced with chakra-- and how she can turn this around, use it as an advantage--

Maybe catch and redirect one?--

Too late, Sakura realizes this too could be a distraction, just as Kaguya puts a knife-hand through her gut and smiles, beautiful and serene.

Of course she hadn't needed to be physically directing the projectiles, huge though they were.

Sakura's muscles are suffused with deadly memory, though, and hadn't required conscious thought to react; nor had the sudden pain caught her off guard. Her arm had whipped around, tan skin brought to bear in a fierce lariat--

No time to remember Bee's smile next to Naruto's, so happy and sure--

-- even as her head whipped forward, one hard-headed jinchuuriki's move against another, back when the bijuu existed, when any village stood at all.

It's unexpected enough that Kaguya takes it, a forehead to the face, and Sakura smiles grimly through blood as she throws herself off the arm through her chest.

Healing it is something she does without a thought-- or really, isn't even something she does. The healing process starts on its own, fueled by her chakra. She could stop it, it's still under her control, but no command had to be given to begin it.

Thanks to the heatwave earlier, there's not even any fabric to get stuck in the wound, or stuck in newly healed flesh.

Sakura would love to capitalize on her enemy's moment of distraction, the sheer unpredictability of the headbutt that actually worked--

Her love for Naruto rears up like a wildfire, burning her inside out, so fierce an ache that it would unmake her if she were any less used to it, if she hadn't cried out all her tears back when the nights had numbers and the days had names--

-- but so big a wound leaves her with near-dregs of chakra left, just a little more than experience has taught she needs to escape.

It grates at her to leave Kaguya injured and as vulnerable as she ever gets, but-- it grated the first dozen times, too.

Sakura pushes on, ignoring the hurts she can't waste chakra to heal, as well as the blurred quality her vision takes, lines and spots erupting. That hasn't happened in a while-- either she's lower on chakra than her body can handle, right now, or--

She's just focused on real, true escape, fleeing with all the strength and speed she has, when the singed hair on the back of her neck bristles.

It's barely a warning, but it's enough.

Pushing off hard against the ground, Sakura hits the clouds again, arrowing through them even as-- yes, Kaguya slams air in the direction, dispersing the moisture in the air to either side of the horizon.

Sakura is already falling back down, using shaky wind manipulation to speed her flight, fist cocked back and slamming hard into the goddess' face.

Too late, she realizes that in the heat of the battle, deep in the familiar motions of retreat, distract, hit and run-- she'd reached for as much chakra as she could spare. She has perfect chakra control, a precise accounting of how much chakra she has within her at any given moment.

Never before has some of her chakra been off limits.

This chakra, burning gold, had come as readily to her pull as any.

The strange mix of yin and yang, erupted into being of its own accord, rushes to her toes and through her throat and up her arm, but it's too late, she has tolive.

Sakura slams her fist forward with a manic yell, has a split second to register the expression of pure shock on Kaguya's face as the punch connects--

And keeps connecting.

Sakura punches a hole in the space-time continuum.

Or at least, that's what she registers later.

In the moment, it's just a tear in reality, a sudden feeling of give to the air itself, which her fist carries her body through.

There's blackness, a kaleidoscope of color-- dizzying, rushing.

Gravity is suddenly different, pulling her every which way and no way at all, nothing and everything turbulent around her.

The golden chakra is singing through her, warm and wild and choking her, destroying all thought.

It threatens to destroy all sense of self, and that's when Sakura gets over her fear to push back. There's a spasm in the air, in the crowded void of creation, and a surge of-- something.

Sakura struggles for breath, only to discover there's no air.

A sense of urgency overcomes her, the mindless and frenzied struggle for survival, as she claws at her throat, forces her heart rate slower to preserve air, as desperation wicks away all thought.

Sakura has been alone for days and weeks and months, the last alive in a world torn asunder, and through it all hope has sustained her.

Endless and enduring, Sakura's hope is a snarling thing, a calculated predator, a living, breathing monster in her breast that demands survival, precision in all things, self-awareness, and burns a vigil of memories of her lost loves to force her into the best version of herself that she could be.

The vortex widens, or tightens, and Sakura refuses to let this kill her when nothing and no one else has managed, when there's still air in her lungs-- even if her vision is closing in, a blackness creeping in from the edges--

Or is that the tunnel?

A lurch, sickening and final, and spinning, dizzying wind.

It stops.

Sakura breathes.

#A study in survival #my stuff #asis #tim speaks #yoooo #crossposting #sweaty shirtless sakura #my kink

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onewhoturns · 6 years

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The Rhyme of the Rosewater Hag - pt 2

So I kept writing. And I’m still working on it, on page 13 now... It’s devolved. Gotten a bit... smutty. As expected, I suppose. Regardless, here’s some more. Feel free to find me on AO3, FFnet, or buy me a ko-fi.

“Your little friend was right, you know;”

She gasped in surprise, and immediately cursed herself, expecting to choke on icy water, but whatever she was breathing-

“The Hag isn’t someone to trifle with.”

The voice that met her ears didn’t belong to any of the members of the circle, either. Nor did it sound like a hag. It came to her like an echo, like a memory. She blinked what should’ve been water from her eyes, but they were dry. Instead of the silver basin, her hands (and her knees and feet, she noted) rested on stone. Stone that was decidedly not from Gristol. Or from anywhere in the Isles.

She looked up, and felt her stomach jolt as her eyes met pure empty space - an abyss that fell infinitely into nothing. Stone floated in great sheets and in tiny pebbles, suspended but still somehow moving, and she knelt on one of them. But inches away that all ceased to exist. It stopped, and before it grew… nothing. An abyss. The Void.

“You’re lucky I stepped in.”

The voice was coming from behind her, she realized, and quickly she fell back and rolled sideways, a motion that she would’ve modified to bring her to a standing position had her legs not been tangled in skirts. (Was this why her mother had stopped wearing dresses?) Instead, she stopped herself from falling forward and steadied herself on the heels of her palms before working on getting her legs in a more useful position. She didn’t need to look far to find the source of the voice. On a distant jagged rock on the far edge of her large platform. Seated, casually, arms steepled over his knees as he watched her. Seeing him made her movements falter. Her lips parted, as though she might say something, but she just frowned and snapped them shut again. In another few seconds she had her skirts bunched in one hand up to her knees, and her legs were soon under her. As she stood, she stumbled back again.

He was closer now. He hadn’t made a sound - the air was all quiet wailing winds and almost electrical hums, no footsteps had disturbed the dissonance of it - but he’d come closer. Quite close. He was no more than two feet away now, glancing at her struggle with a slight quirk of amusement to his lips, before he turned on a heel and began a slow pacing arc around her. “Yes well - it’s good to see you again, too.”

Her cheeks went pink and she scowled at his wry tone. He did look familiar. But he’d seemed so much older then, she’d lumped him in with her father and the ‘adult’ types. Another glowering presence, only this time in her dreams. Not quite stoic but still off-putting, always watching, observing. This ancient creature that had haunted her for, what, three nights eight years ago? Less? Now he looked - she felt the blush creeping over her neck and chest - well, not much older than her, to be honest. And… and attractive, to boot.

His smirk grew more pronounced, and she wondered if he could read her thoughts.

If you can, I hope you choke.

“A silent empress? That’s a first. Usually you royal types are so outspoken.”

Her lips pursed in irritation as he finally stopped moving, having drawn even closer, and he cocked his head to the side as bottomless black eyes glanced over her with mild curiosity.

“Perhaps you take after your father. He never talked much here, either.”

Her annoyance dissipated in an instant of complete surprise, and her mouth dropped open again, eyes wide, interest piqued. “My father? Here?”

His eyes had sparked as hers had, though how she’d seen it in their pitch black depths she couldn’t know. “She speaks,” he murmured, a hand lifting to her face, thumb brushing across open lips for a fraction of a second as he turned his wrist, fingers trailing lazily down her jaw, her neck, as he went on. “I was starting to think I was too late.” She stilled her head even as she glanced down, watching his sleeve as his hand closed gently around her neck. “That the hag had strangled your lying throat before I took you.”

She closed her mouth, swallowing hard and feeling the slight pressure he placed on that same lying throat. Firm enough she couldn’t mistake it for anything other than his grasp, but loose enough that she breathed unimpeded. Her head swam, his touch having chased previous thoughts from her mind. He’d never been so close. Even when she’d seen him before, he’d been elsewhere - further away, too far to read anything but keen observation on his face. But now…

He was distracting her. Regardless of how true his words were - and were they true? Had he really snatched her from death’s door? From the grasping vines of the Rosewater Hag? - he’d evaded answering. If she recalled correctly, he’d never answered her before, either. For all her questions - who he was, why he was there, where there was, what he was watching her for - she’d been met with silence. She was a child then. His silence, offered from afar, could only be met with pouting and foot-stomping. But she was grown now. He didn’t keep his distance. And he wouldn’t keep his silence if she could help it.

“Why was my father here?” Her voice was hushed, though it didn’t need to be loud to reach his ears - if he even needed ears to hear in this place.

A flash of panic shot through her as his grip tightened, and her hands clutched at his wrist - not quite prepared to offend the god by clawing him off, but making it clear she expected him to let go. He held her like that for a moment, black eyes narrowed in some facsimile of curiosity as fear slowly blossomed in her gaze. Finally he let her go, turning his back, and in another instant he’d reappeared a few feet away, still pacing, examining his fingernails with disinterest.

“No ‘thank you,’ Your Majesty? No apology? How many times have I saved you now, two? Three? Most humans are lucky to escape death even once.”

She stared after him in growing horror, hand lifting to her neck as she tried to maintain composure instead of gasping for air. What was he talking about? Saving her? But hadn’t he just-- No. She turned her gaze to the ground as she rubbed her throat, mind a jumble of thoughts and feelings. He wouldn’t save her just to kill her himself, would he? Void, how could she possibly know: he was a god. The motivations of gods were incomprehensible. And twice? Three times? She didn’t remember being so close to death before… And she’d never been torn from her very reality like she’d been just moments ago.

When she glanced up, he watched her with a single raised brow, that same look of mild amusement. Waiting. Observing her reaction.

“I’m-” She stopped herself before she might say more, pursing her lips. She wasn’t about to apologize. And she wouldn’t thank him after he tried to choke her. If he’d tried, he would’ve succeeded, her traitorous mind nagged at her. It was a warning. But a warning to do what? To behave yourself. To submit.

Ha. No, she wasn’t about to believe that. She raised her chin defiantly, managing to adopt a tone almost as careless as his, filing her curiosity away to examine later. “I appreciate what surely must’ve been a real chore for you, all-powerful Void god,” she drawled, before her tone hardened. “Now if you’d be so kind as to inform me of why my father was visiting this hellscape, I’ll be on my way.”

The amusement was no longer so mild, both brows raised as his lips curved into a mocking smirk. “You’ll be on your way, will you?” He seemed to break into pieces in one location as he reformed in another, a swirl of black shards. He swept an arm out, gesturing to the edge of the stone platform. “Go on. Try.”

She seemed to feel the grating, shifting, ringing of stone as it moved, even though it made not a sound. A path formed. The suggestion of a path: jagged, yes, with a few ominous-looking gaps, but manageable. Emily’s eyes darted over it, suspicious. His voice drew her gaze.

“If you make it to the gate, you’ll be home before I can tell dear old Corvo what his daughter’s been meddling in.”

Again, he mentioned her father. Familiarly. As much as she tried to keep her lofty facade, her frustrated confusion wasn’t particularly well hidden. And when she looked back to the path there was, indeed, a gate. Some ways off, but located squarely at the end of the winding path. Two shards of obsidian that seemed dangerously poised against each other, as though they might fall at any moment. Her gaze followed the whole trail back from the gate, eyes spotting each precarious ledge and leap, until she looked at the start of it all: four feet away. A single, non-threatening two foot drop.

“Well?”

Her head jerked up again, to find him standing midway down the path, arms crossed over his chest as if in challenge. No, not ‘as if’ - it was a challenge, plain and simple.

“Afraid you might ruin your pretty dress, Your Imperial Majesty?”

She fixed him with a glare sharp enough to pierce skin. The black-eyed bastard just stared her down, still with that eerie vicious amusement. She scoffed. If he thought she was scared of a little physical strain, he obviously didn’t know her. She kept her eyes on his, her own brows lifting in brief challenge, as she kilted up her gown, getting the layers of fabric to cooperate and perch where she wanted them so she might move more freely. Two steps back, then she began to run.

One drop, a quick turn, planting a hand and vaulting sideways over another stone - she ran it fast, faster than was strictly necessary, gaze calculating each movement just before she had to make it, bounding lithely, the muscles in her arms and thighs burning pleasantly, quickly warming up to the motions she practiced every other night. But the next gap was big - bigger than she’d thought - a yawning chasm between stones--

“Emily-”

More speed-

She watched the edge, calculated, and flung herself at the last moment. As she hit she dove into a roll, even as her knee protested the unexpectedly harsh landing. Too late, she realized she’d miscalculated. Her breath froze in her throat as she tried to correct her course. It was sheer luck that let her weight shift just enough to shift back from the looming edge, pebbles scattering and freezing in air instead of falling off the sheer drop. She stumbled backwards, trying to steady her footing even as she cursed herself for hitting the wrong spot, angling her roll too much forward and not enough to the right-

“Emily-” Her back thudded up against him just before he closed hands around her arms, stilling her, stopping her from bowling him over and pushing them both off of the opposite ledge.

Training kicked in, and she stomped down, then jammed elbows and head back-- He’d disappeared again, and once more she stumbled, this time tipping backward, and she quickly tried to lower her stance, spread her feet and get stable once more, arms braced to help her balance-

He grabbed her wrist - whether to steady her or force her further off-balance, she didn’t know and she didn’t care - she wrenched out of his grasp and let herself fall to the ground -- at least there it would take more than a misstep to fall into the Void.

“Emily. That’s enough.”

His voice had lost some of its mockery, its amusement, instead sounding cross. Emily’s heart was racing, the terror of nearly plummeting into the Void mixing with the sheer exhilaration of the run beforehand. She was panting, limbs surging with pent-up nervous energy, all wound up. When she met his eyes, his lips twisted wryly.

“I’ll admit, you made a valiant effort-”

“I’m not done,” she insisted, dragging herself to her feet. She clenched her fists, rolled her ankles, flexed her toes, glaring at the next edge.

“Yes you are.” He was in front of her once more - close, incredibly close - and a strong palm pressed against her sternum, stopping her from moving forward.

She blinked, eyes that had been on the stone now staring at his chest, and she quickly refocused her gaze, tilting her head back just slightly to meet his eyes again, angry and stubborn.

Whatever annoyance or anger that had been in him had softened, and his smirk was almost patient. “I admire your tenacity, empress, I really do.” Every time he spoke it was disorienting, sounding as though it was both burrowing into her skull and echoing from miles away. As he reached a hand up to cup her cheek she only managed to stop her body from flinching, though her features still twitched, showing her desire to recoil. “But you are done.” Fingers grasped her chin firmly and he directed her gaze toward the gate, his eyes not leaving her face even as the stone path curled in on itself, leaving the primordial archway standing alone, too far for any jump she might attempt.

She felt her shoulders sag, and this time when she turned her face away he let go of her. Her tone was bitter. “You didn’t even make it possible-”

“It’s possible. Just not with your… current skills. You’ll be able to reach it, one day.” The words seemed to amuse him for a moment, but he shook his head, and in another instant was a few feet away again. “But no, I didn’t intend for you to leave so soon.”

She glanced once more at the distant gate, fidgeting for a moment, then sighed as she looked away. Undoing the knots and folds she’d used to keep her skirts out of her way, she smoothed the gown free of wrinkles as best she could, but made no effort to approach the god. “Do you intend to answer my questions, then?” Despite her relatively unassuming pose and even, almost casual tone, her glare was intense.

He turned to face her again, meeting her piercing amber glare with a black abyss that would drive her mad if she wasn’t careful. Again, that smirk. He held her gaze for far too long to pretend he hadn’t heard her query. Just as the air grew thick, unease shooting darts of warning through her body, he disappeared again.

A cold hand tucked under her hair and cupped around the back of her neck, and she swallowed her squeak of surprise, attempting to step away from the presence that loomed once more at her back. Another hand looped around her waist, holding her still. She stiffened, skin rapidly reddening, and she realized with some chagrin that his cool skin was almost a welcome relief. Once she stopped trying to move away, his arm retreated. She had to admit that, after her run - and after such a close call - the chill of his touch soothed her heated skin. Emily shifted foot to foot, hands balling into nervous fists, but gradually her breath became even again, quiet, her limbs no longer trembling from the shock and exertion.

She hesitated, and was about to voice her question again when he spoke.

“You know…” he mused in a low murmur, “I would’ve stepped in either way.” His arm circled around her again, the fluidity of the movement emphasized by the smoke that seemed to waft off of him. It wasn’t an iron grip - she was sure she could break it if she tried - but graceful fingers drummed against the dip of her waist before coming firmly to rest. His hand peeled away from her neck, pushing aside hair that had long come loose from its styling, skimming down the curve of her neck, her shoulder, cupping her arm, and she felt him shift until his chest pressed against her, breath curling like smoke around her ear.

She closed her eyes for a moment, brow furrowed, unsure if this was fear she felt or- or something else.

“...But then you made all those oaths…”

keep reading

#my writing #the rhyme of the rosewater hag #dishonored fanfic #emsider #tw choking #unapologetic smut #smut #UST #writing #trickster outsider #cliffhanger #fanfic

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ariderofcomets · 6 years

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Descrying love.

PART II-

The incestous relationship between Cersei and Jaime Lannister has, in my eyes, always been problematic. Setting aside the fact that it involves incest (honestly, some could argue that's reason enough), there are so many other reasons why it could never work out between them, and the progression of the story is leading us to just that.

First, a note on Cersei Lannister.

I had begun to dislike Cersei from the very start of the series, but my feelings were fixated after I read A feast for crows. It didn't, of course, marr my enjoyment of her POV chapters. To me, reading some parts of her story involved equal portions of amusement and disbelief. Her internal monologue, laced with malice for almost everyone she encountered, was at times, cringeworthy. Sometimes, I had to pause, put my book aside, and dwell on just how far she went with her delusions and what that meant for her.

Some might say that her paranoia was justified. Isn't she facing imminent death at the hands of a 'valonqar'? Doesn't she have proof to support the fact that the Tyrells were, in fact, the perpetrators in her son's death? Yes, I will not be the one to deny that. Cersei Lannister is not the first person to do everything in her literal power to thwart a fate that has been prophesized to be unfortunate, to lash out blindly with a club as if to deter her destiny. But it has caused harm to so many innocent people, and that has never bothered her, not in the least. In her fits of rage, she is sometimes callously cruel, even to those she loves (and that list is shorter than her temper).

By Dance with Dragons, of course, I had begun to pity her, because yes, no matter how horrible a person she was, she deserved none of what the insurgent, radically insane Faith Militant doled out for her (the same Faith Militant, which, in a move that she believed was a stroke of genius, she allowed to be freed from their restrictions), but I am afraid that was all the empathy that I could muster.

To Cersei, the only person worth protecting in Westeros is herself, and her children. She wants them to bend to her will, because only she knows what's right for them. She may have been trying to protect Tommen, with his best interests at heart, but unarguably, the two do not have the best mother-child relationship. As a matter of fact, Cersei did not have that with any of her children. In Joffrey, she encouraged the streak of blatant brutality, in fact even stating that her son's willfulness was his best quality as it would keep him out of trouble in the treacherous mire that King's Landing was. I have no doubt that she was trying to be a good mother, but I also suspect she was anything but that in Tommen's eyes.

In her defense, one can also add that she believed that she was shielding her children from the worst effects of the waves of war that crashed around them. In some instances, however, it seemed to me that she was using the protection of her children as an excuse to assuage, or even absolve herself of blame in the face of the hair raising atrocities that she subjected some of her people to (Blue bard and Falyse). Here is what she thinks after she torments the Blue Bard into admitting to a lie that would aid in framing Margaery-

Getting the truth was wearisome work, and she dreaded what must follow. I must be strong. What I must do for Tommen and the realm. It was a pity that Maggy the Frog was dead. Piss on your prophecy, old woman. The little queen may be younger than I, but she has never been more beautiful, and soon she will be dead.

In this statement, Cersei imputes all that she does to Tommen and the realm, and then, in the very same stream of thought, goes on to dwell over Maggy the Frog and her own motives for wanting Margaery dead. So while Cersei may tell herself all she wants that all of her actions benefit her children alone, they are, in the end, rooted in her own desire to put the stopper on the prophecy that predicts her ousting from power and death.

Cersei is also a woman who believes that everyone takes her opinions with a pinch of salt because of her gender. Her entire life, she has seen firsthand the yawning black chasm of differentiation that exists between women and men in Westeros. Her father had always sought to sell her like a commodity to men she never wished to marry, even as her twin was allowed to tread the path to glory. This is, of course, the very picture of injustice, one that exists in the entirety of Westeros. All of our fortuitous female characters, from Sansa to Arya to Brienne to Asha have been subjected to this form of discrimination.

But how did Cersei choose to react to this inequity? By believing that she had been cursed by being born into the wrong gender, that women were weak and vapid and soft and could only wield power with the 'charms of their sex' and what was 'between their legs'. She eyes most women with distaste and contempt and distances herself from every frail thing that she has associated with femininity and looks to find 'masculine traits' within her, traits which will help her manage the realm as efficiently as her father. Womanly emotions are viewed as nugatory by her, and even when she is queen, she does not do much to alleviate the condition of women in Westeros, botherations not very different from her own. Instead of shunning the flawed paradigm of women that so many men in Westeros hold, she believes it, and begrudges her fate for having been born a woman.

Okay, so Cersei Lannister may not be my absolute favorite character, but seeing as how everything in her life is in a jumbled disarray, and how she is treading the fine line between suspicion and full blown paranoia, she deserves to be freed from any other exigency that weighs her down, including destructive or toxic relationships in her life, which is what her brother needs too, maybe more than her. Where best to start but with each other?

When one person truly loves another person, they will go out of their way to ensure that they do all they can to ease any suffering the other person may be enduring, even if they have to put aside their own sorrows for the moment or if not that, at least listen to the other person and then relay their own difficulties. Even listening to someone talk about their worries can go a long way in making them feel better.

Now, when Jaime came back from Riverrun, miamed both physically and mentally, he practically rushed to Cersei, and didn't even wait for her to consent before proceeding to make love to her. He knew that Cersei had lost a son. Albeit a monstrous one, she was still his sister, and he should have been more understanding of the circumstances.

And Cersei? She was repulsed by his stump. Instead of bolstering his already frangible self esteem, she went on to reveal her own intentions and plans to him, hoping to rope him in, all for her own benefit, even going so far as to asking him to quit the Kingsguard (an institution she had once asked him to join for her own purposes). And when he refused?

Was it your hand they hacked off in Harrenhal, or your manhood?

You great golden fool. He's lied to you a thousand times, and so have I.

Oh, an angry cripple. How terrifying. A pity Lord Tywin Lannister never had a son. I could have been the heir he wanted, but I lacked a cock.

It is clear from their interaction that Cersei was thinking only of herself and of the problems that she would soon encounter, not sparing much thought for her brother's conflict and pain.

While I do not doubt that Cersei and Jaime loved each other as they grew up together in Casterly Rock, I do know that this love must have begun purely as the love that brothers and sisters share, and in their case, a deeper bond of twinhood. This was warped by their thoughtless experimentations later, and as the years advanced and they continued to attach a sexual relationship to it, they twisted the sinuous connection even further.

I do not think they were ever in love. Cersei Lannister surely wasn't. Even as a little girl, she had dreamed of marrying Rhaegar, dreamed of soaring into the gaping skies with him upon the scaly back of a majestic dragon. Her love for her brother, which had begun as platonic, was only sexual for sating her own needs. For lack of a better analogy, his role in her life could be likened to a bloodrider.

I name you ko, and ask your oath, that you should live and die as blood of my blood, riding at my side to keep me safe from harm.

-An oath asked of a bloodrider

They were the khal's brothers, his shadows, his fiercest friends. "Blood of my blood," Drogo called them, and so it was; they shared a single life.

In my opinion, this is pretty much how Cersei views Jaime. A man who is hers, to protect her, live and die for her and vanquish her enemies. She loved him, and he pleasured her, but she was never in love with him. She believed that he was, wholeheartedly, and that she deserved to use that to her advantage, which was what she did most of their life (Prominent instances that stand out to me- Persuading him to join the Kingsguard and asking him to miam or kill Arya on sight if he found her in Darry). When he began to demonstrate his heedlessness to her wishes, she began to regard him differently- He had changed, and he was a thorn in her side. He was supposed to assist her in whatever she did, and if he couldn't do that, she had to send him away.

As for Jaime, he had painted an entirely inaccurate picture of the relationship in his mind. In his ideally rose tinted imaginings, he was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maiden. He believed he loved her for her uproarious flames, but he never gazed deep enough to see the crucible of untamed wildfire. She believed she loved him for his undying fierceness, but never quite took the time to see the contrariant idealism and carefully buried trauma shoved away inside. Neither of them knew or understood the other entirely, they 'loved' each other because they had projected the image of who they believed each other to be on to themselves. The curtains were flung from their eyes in the gales of the personal tribulations that they had to face (particularly for Jaime, who was forced to re-evaluate his whole life).

After discovering that his sister hadn't been as loyal to him as he had to her, and encountering aspects of her that he didn't knew existed, he thinks-

I thought that I was the Warrior and Cersei was the Maid, but all the time she was the Stranger, hiding her true face from my gaze.

And here is an excerpt from his conversation with Daven which highlights his disillusionment-

"How is Cersei? As beautiful as ever?"

"Radiant." Fickle. "Golden." False as a fool's gold.

He also dreamed of finding her in bed with Moon Boy and in the very same dream, proceeded to smash her teeth in, which is a very violent form of expression of the dismay in his sub-conscious mind.

But the one scene that sums his disenchantment up the best is when he throws this letter by Cersei into the fire-

Come at once. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once."

When Cersei sends this letter to Jaime, her need is truly dire. Her sending such a letter and Jaime's reaction upon receiving it both reflect exactly what their relationship has come to.

While Cersei knows that Jaime could not possibly be of any aid to her without his sword hand, she wants him by her side, because isn't that how it has always been? He was meant to protect her. They were meant to die together. He had to come.

And Jaime? He chose not to go.

He chooses not to go when the woman he is supposedly in love with needs him the most.

She has never come to me, he thought, She has always waited, letting me come to her. She gives, but I must ask.

Could it be attributed to his rage at being betrayed? Possibly. But how long can rage last in the face of truly eternal love, and particularly a loved one in mortal peril? Jaime chose to ignore Cersei's request because he no longer wanted to give up everything for a woman who was, in all probability, only going to require him for that purpose. He was not about to put everything on the line for a woman whose shrouded true face had slowly begun to come into the light. He was a knight of the Kingsguard, entrusted with an important task, and he meant to see it through. He didn't leave, even though he knew it could mean a terrible punishment for Cersei, or even death.

Jaime had started to discover other priorities in his life, and Cersei had begun to see him for just who he was. Both of them had. How can two completely different people with a set of conflicting beliefs, who don't see eye to eye, and who dream of things that the other could never possibly comprehend, ever summon true love within themselves for each other? Can a woman who has viewed love as a sweet poison ever look beyond to realise what the liberation and wonderment of love truly entails? Love isn't poison. The absence of love is. Can a man who has distorted sibling love and attached a component of lust to it ever see how truly falling in love with someone is like?

I sure hope they can (though in Cersei's case, sadly, it is unlikely) and I also understand that it is implausible so long as they continue to view each other as lovers.

Theirs isn't a tragic love story. It isn't a love story at all.

And beautiful, wonderful, Brienne of Tarth deserves her own love story, and I really hope that she finds it with the man she has begun to love.

Note-Excerpts from the books in italics.

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #cersei lannister #jaime lannister #jaime x cersei #brienne of tarth #jaime x brienne #asoiaf meta

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towncalledkingdom · 7 years

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Bug Man’s dining room was packed to the brim with anxious, confused people. Mali, after being locked in a bedroom for nearly an hour, sat sulking in a chair at the back of the room. After Mantis had finished berating Riddle for pinning her brother to the dining room wall, she had turned her wrath onto her brother.

“I didn’t know where you went!” she cried. “I was sure someone had hauled you back to the Dungeon. I searched all of your spots- I went to Town Square and all the way to the gates. I was going to march straight back to the Dungeon to search for you before I got it in my head to kick the Phylla hornet’s nest and this whole ordeal with Eleanor panned out.”

Roland had crossed his tiny arms, glancing down at the holes now riddling his fatigues. “You knew I’d be alright, Madi. You know I always make it out alright.”

Mantis grabbed him by his collar and lifted him immediately in front of her face. “So far, Roland Washington. But it’s only going to take a single slip for you to end up dead.”

Mali interrupted the squabble. “Ms. Mantis? Your cousin told me to show you this.”

Still dangling her older brother by his nape, she rounded on the delivery boy. He held the scrap of paper out for her inspection. “Find Bug Man. Well that’s helpful.” She shook her head. “I heard a few whispers around Junkheap Dojo, I think I might know where they’re hiding him.”

Riddle nearly toppled out of her seat. “I’m going with them!”

“Absolutely not,” said Mantis. “Cecilia and Friday need you here, and I’m afraid you might hurt someone.”

Riddle tucked her legs beneath her on the chair and set her goggles on her head. “Unless you’re going to lock me inside this house, I don’t think you’re in a position to stop me.”

Mantis shifted uneasily. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that you are the acting leader for a faction that is trying to tear itself apart. Everyone wants to know what happened to Caracal and you’ve let the whole thing fester until you can’t even sleep over there anymore. Half of your houses want you replaced and the other half is wondering why you haven’t banded everybody together for a war against Eleanor. They’re demanding a body.”

Mantis’s pupils widened until her eyes shone black. “How do you know all of this?”

Riddle smirked. “Just a hunch, I guess. And what were you going to do? Send your shrunken brother off on a dangerous mission with a ten-year-old boy? That sounds like a disaster to me.”

The scrap of paper floated lazily down from Mantis’s hand. She sighed and set Roland down, then stuck her thumbs into her eyes and rubbed. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this,” she grumbled.

Riddle was already standing. “I can’t believe you still think you have a choice.”

… … … … …

It took them most of the day to reach the new spot Mantis had marked on Mali’s map. They passed through fields of corn and soybeans, occasionally stopping for Riddle to inspect the numerous scarecrows and windmills. Roland rode once again on Mali’s shoulder, nodding sympathetically as the boy muttered and glared at their companion.

When she wasn’t stopping to peer at something Riddle peppered the two of them with questions. Where had they come from? How did Kingdom’s economy work? What kinds of wildlife populated their forests? What was really killing the people who tried to leave?

The questions eventually brought Mali out of his sulk. He still walked a good distance away from her, but never far enough to avoid her voice. “Alright, I think it’s my turn to ask you some questions now.”

Riddle was beside Mali so fast he jumped, sending Roland careening into the air for a moment before landing face-first on an unforgiving shoulder. The little soldier climbed up and buried his legs indignantly beneath Mali’s shirt, cringing as he leaned back against the boy’s sweaty neck and grabbed his collar with both hands for safety.

“Anything,” she exclaimed. “Well… almost anything. What do you want to know?”

Mali thought for a moment. “Why aren’t you scared of anything? I think you could see a giant dinosaur climb out of the ground and you’d just say ‘Wow, that’s so interesting!’”

Riddle’s eyes shone beneath her goggles. “That definitely sounds like me!” she laughed. “I guess when you believe in the possibility of everything you become a hard person to surprise." She stopped. "What do you see when you look at me?“ she asked Mali.

He rubbed his chin and looked her up and down. “You’re short. And your clothes look like you made them yourself. I feel like you have a lot of secret pockets in there. You’d probably be really pretty if you took a shower.” On his shoulder Roland stifled a choke of laughter.

Riddle smiled a little. “And you think being pretty is something good?”

Mali scratched his head. “Of course I do. Then everyone would like you more.”

Her eyes fell at that. "I believed that, too, Mali. I thought that the better I looked the happier I would be. I just don’t believe that anymore.” The transformation that came over Riddle spooked her companions and they went silent once again. “When I look at me I don’t see what most people see. I see a bazillion tiny molecules holding on to each other to make my skin. I see what I could be, what I have been, what I wish I wasn’t. Maybe I see everything except for the girl in front of me. There are discoveries hiding behind my eyes, mysteries hovering on the tip of my tongue, and monsters! Monsters sleeping in my hands. I see myself paired in turn with everyone I know. I see myself saving them and killing them and kissing them. Nothing is just a thing to me, no person just a person.”

“Hey Riddle?” Mali whispered. “You know I’m only ten, right?”

Riddle blinked. “Oh! Yes, I do. I didn’t mean you anyway.”

Mali’s eyebrows lowered in concentration. “Not that. You just say a lot of confusing things. Sometimes I wonder if you’re talking to me or yourself.”

“Hate to interrupt you Philosophists but I think we’re getting close!” Roland called up from beneath Mali’s collar. “Mali, stop walking!” Roland jumped to his feet and pulled hard at the boy’s collar. He stopped, looked down, and jumped back in surprise.

The earth fell inward just yards away from Mali’s feet. The flat, grassy land gave no indication of the yawning chasm below. No fences or warning signs signaled the deep scar in the earth, nor was anyone around to save the unlikely trio should they be swallowed by it. Mali scrambled back from the edge and landed on his butt at Riddle’s feet. She smiled down at him, one eyebrow raised. “How interesting!” she jabbed.

She walked to the edge of the ravine, staring down into the dark. “I feel like you shouldn’t be here,” she told it. “What are you doing here in the fields, anyway?” Mali and Roland exchanged a quick glance. Roland shrugged.

The three of them walked along the edge of the dropoff, following the crude path Mantis had drawn on Mali’s map. It looked like something giant had stabbed the earth and dragged, ripping the ground into open space. Riddle began sketching the stratified layers of dirt and rock in a tiny notebook she produced from a hidden pocket.

The little black “x” Mantis had marked on the map turned out to be a single wooden room sprouting up from the field beside the ravine. Someone had painted the word “SHED” on the side with sloppy, running primer. It reminded Mali of an outhouse one might come across in a state park. A padlock hung from a latch on its door.

“Weird,” said Roland. He shaded his eyes and looked back toward where the farmers were still toiling with the crops. “I wonder if they can even see this thing. Seems pretty out of the way.” He directed Mali to the latch and hopped agilely down his arm onto it. “Owowow that’s hot!” he cried, immediately leaping back onto the delivery boy’s outstretched hand.

Riddle brushed past them. “I can take care of this,” she mumbled, two long black pieces of metal glinting in her hand. She put herself between her companions and the door, blocking their view of her work. It took a moment and some cursing before Riddle turned back to them. The door was still closed.

Mali raised an eyebrow. “You can’t unlock it?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” she beamed, casually nudging the bottom of the door with her foot. It swung inward.

Roland pumped a fist. “Nice work, tinker girl!”

“Does everyone have a nickname around here?” she asked.

“Yes.”

As Riddle had suspected, the “shed” turned out to be something else entirely. The open door revealed a steep staircase descending into the depths of the earth. She gasped as she stared down into its dark recesses. “Liminal space!” she breathed. She turned to her companions, eyes full of wonder. “Liminal space if I’ve ever seen one!”

Mali narrowed his eyes. “Can you say something normal for once?” Roland strained forward for a better view, holding tight to the boy’s collar. Mali shuffled forward, peering down into the void. “This doesn’t feel right.”

Riddle made finger guns and closed an eye. “Exactly, kiddo! Let me tell you why! This weird thing right here is a liminal space. Its ONLY purpose is to connect one thing we know to another thing we know. It has no context by itself. It’s like a waiting room or your bedroom before you meant to wake up or a rest stop or… or…”

“Sherwood Road?” Roland ventured.

“Yes! Just like Sherwood Road! Our brains like things to exist for a reason besides just to be passed through. This thing?” she pointed to the little building, “this thing should have the words ‘liminal space’ plastered all over it!”

Roland gave a slow clap of appreciation. “Good talk, weirdo. Now are we climbing into the depths of hell or what?”

Mali scratched his head thoughtfully. “I don’t know, guys. Mantis and Fashi never mentioned anything about a giant gap in the ground or a fake shed. Are we sure this is the place?”

Riddle shaded her eyes and surveyed the flat, grassy land in every direction. “I don’t really see anywhere else it could be. You guys afraid of the dark?”

#ATCK #chapter 6 #liminal space #riddle #Mali #private washington #liminal Valley #mantis #maps #fashi #fissure #bug man

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