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#I'm looking at my two dragon games and like. I'm mad that there's not a bundle membership at reduced price

enkvyu · 10 months

Text

7:02pm — gojo satoru ; part two to this imagine

"gojo, your hair is in my mouth."

"you're lucky i washed it a few days ago."

you peer up at him over your phone. "a few days? how many? gojo, tell me."

gojo hums to himself and you hate that it might be serious consideration that he's under. "like maybe seven?"

you gag, flailing at your mouth and spitting out the few strands. you faintly hear gojo complain but it's overridden as you deal with your dilemma.

the two of you were curled inside the stomach of one of getou's curses as it flew across the ocean to arrive back at jujutsu high. the cramped space and gooey flesh makes you shiver, effectively increasing your poor mood, but perhaps the biggest detriment was the person you were stuck with.

sure, public transport was a viable option but yaga had specifically emphasised on the "top-secret" and "classified" written in big bold red letters on the mission file. this meant no one was to know, not ordinary people, not curses and not even other sorcerers.

granted, the school had access to one private jet which they were willing to offer, but that jet only had space for one.

the three of you had sat down and played a game of scissors paper rock to determine who takes it, and while you were lucky to win it for the trip forward, getou ends up victorious for the way back.

and now, you were stuck in close proximity with gojo inside the gut of a flying dragon.

"why are you in such a bad mood anyway?" gojo has the audacity to ask, as if he wasn't the sole reason why you were uncomfortable. you keep your mouth shut though, nothing good will come out of admitting your undying, and unfortunately unrequited, love for him.

"i'm in a perfectly fine mood."

"why do you look like that then, all constipated and everything? did you not go to the bathroom before we left?"

you curl your fingers into a fist and punch him in the chest. it hits his uniform, smearing some of the curses' stomach juice. "of course i did! i'm not a newbie sorcerer."

"ouch!"

"that didn't hurt you."

"how are you going to tell me how i feel?" gojo jabs back. "because it did hurt, it hurt my feelings."

"oh boohoo."

"so you are mad."

you bite your lip and turn away, finding the abdominal wall of the beast easier on the eyes than your own friend. "i'm not."

"you're sulking."

"i'm not." you hiss before taking in a deep breath. "look gojo, can we just stay quiet until we get there?"

gojo keeps staring at you through his glasses and his face fails to give his thoughts away. the suspense is killing you, but before you can relent and ask what he has to say, he clears his throat.

"i have something to tell you."

you sigh, rubbing at your head. "what is it?"

"wait, don't turn around and keeping looking at the wall. hey, what did i just say?"

"gojo, the view isn't really the best to sightsee. why can't i look at you?"

"because if you do, i don't think i can tell you after all."

you close your mouth. "is it that serious?"

"yeah." he clears his throat again, adjusting the collar of his uniform. "look, i know you've been weird around me the past few days and i don’t think it’s because i stretched out your uniform when i wore it last weekend. i don't know why you’re being mean to me, and shoko and getou won't tell me either."

you resist the urge to look at him. "you're having this kind of talk with me now? here? seriously?"

"you won't even stay in the same room as me for more than a few minutes! getou may call this curse his bad-luck curse but for me right now it's the only way to get you to listen to me." he stays quiet for a few seconds. "this is really serious, okay, so don't make any comments. i know you're practically brimming with them."

it was true you had a lot to say, but gojo's serious attitude was putting you off. still, having him call you out made you more aggravated and you let one slip. "well, this is really bad-luck for me."

gojo clicks his tongue and you can see the irritation on his face before his words are even coloured with it. "i'm not telling you this so you can feel the same way but—"

the curse suddenly tilts to the side, throwing you into gojo as the four walls of its stomach becomes a wheel, rotating you around. you yelp as your forehead hits him hard in the chest, tears springing to your eyes at the pain.

“what’s going on?”

the two of you spin round and round, and you can't distinguish your screams from gojo's as gravity plays you like a toy, throwing you around.

the movement makes you sick. "gojo, do something! blast it!"

"getou'll get mad if i kill another one of his curses!"

"are you kidding, we're going to die!"

gojo swears, grabbing you around the waist and pulling you into his chest. with his other arm, he holds out his hand and presses it on the flesh.

you tuck your chin in, squeezing your eyes shut when you realise he hadn't started chanting his technique. "what are you doing?" you look up at him and find him staring at the exit of the stomach through all the goo and chaos.

with a trembling finger, he points to it. you stare into the abyss, squinting your eyes to make out its indistinct shapes. what was that pulsing thing, attached to the side? and was it just you, but was it getting bigger?

with a start, you realise that the curse was about to throw up. and coincidentally, so were you.

"it's going to throw us up!" you share your realisation with gojo but the look on his face tells you he already arrived at the same thought.

he opens his mouth to say something, or scream you're not too sure as the walls of the stomach contracts. distantly, you feel gojo slide his other arm around you and his infinity takes over, shielding the two of you as you're forcefully ejected from the curse's mouth.

a scream escapes your throat as you escape the curse's, wind rushing through your ears. gojo swears again, bringing his arm up to protect your head.

you only know you're safe when you feel air again, the real kind, not the gas built up in the curse's stomach. a thud tells you gojo has landed on solid ground again and you've never felt more grateful to be alive, your entire body relaxing as your soul leaves.

gojo sighs with you, his hold slightly loosening.

getou watches as you're spat out, stepping out of the private jet with a big smile on his face. "you guys look rough."

you feel gojo tense his jaw rather than see it. "what was that for?"

getou shrugs, throwing a bag over his shoulder. he starts digging through it. "i told you that curse is some serious bad-luck. at least you both arrived in one piece.” he looks up and raises an eyebrow at you. “literally in one piece, are you guys going to stay like that forever?"

your mind slowly pieces together your position, still curled up in gojo's arms as he is sat on the pavement, before you leapt out. gojo makes no move to stop you, though you think he might have tsked.

"here, this is for you." getou finally pulls out what he was searching for from his bag and throws it at the two of you.

you catch it instinctively, studying the object in your hand. "a can of soda?"

"for surviving."

"that curse of yours is a safety hazard." you mutter, but accept the can. you crack open the lid and tilt your head back, taking a long, cool sip.

gojo stares down at the drink. "i told you i don't like this flavour!" he complains and you roll your eyes at his antics.

"then don't drink it."

"no. give me your one instead."

getou pauses, halfway to opening his own iced coffee. "huh? i got this for me. and you don't even like coffee! you should be glad i even got one for you in the first place."

"let's play a game of rock paper scissors to decide who gets it."

"no. i just told you i got this for me."

gojo stands up, taking a step forward menacingly. "huh? after what you put me through, you think i'm just going to take no for an answer?"

getou's eyes flicker to yours before he takes up gojo's challenge, activating his cursed technique. black liquid opens up the air beside him, a peering red eye on the other side. "can't handle rejection, gojo? because you better get used to it."

you take another sip as you watch the boys, absentmindedly wiping at a stain on your sleeve. you remember the feeling of gojo's arm around your body and you blush despite yourself.

"are you feeling sick?"

you look up to see that gojo had stopped fighting with getou, his entire attention on you.

"huh?"

"you're red in the face. you look like a tomato."

ignoring the last part, you hide your face behind your drink. "i'm fine."

getou looks between the two of you and there's a glint in his eyes that you've seen before, one that you've grown to dread.

he throws back the rest of his coffee, grimacing as it gives him a slight brain freeze, before crushing the can in his hand. gojo mutters a quick, "show off" that he ignores, instead chucking the can into a bin a few metres away.

"what a time." he starts saying, the words static. "that was great. well, now that i've finished my drink, i should head back inside."

“i should head in too. i smell real bad.” you sigh and give gojo a glare when he agrees.

“actually, can the two of you stay here? i think my curse isn’t feeling too well after eating you two. just until i come back, okay?”

you think there might be an ulterior motive but glancing over at the curse, you find that it did look greener than before.

"where are you going, and for how long?" you ask and hope the look in your eyes will make him stay.

"i need to tell yaga we finished the mission. you guys can just stay here, i've got it." then to you, he says, clenching his fist in support, "you got this."

you want to break his arm.

getou hurries away despite your silent plea, leaving you in an awkward silence with the one person you wanted to avoid most. you take multiple quick sips to busy yourself, but you can’t ignore the person standing by your side.

gojo shifts his balance to his other foot and the sound of his shoe against the pavement breaks the silence. "so."

"so."

"it's really bright, huh."

"you're wearing sunglasses."

"and do they completely cover my eyes? no they don't. i can still complain about the sun."

"just push your glasses up then."

"no." gojo huffs. "i look cooler this way."

"who told you that? because i know for a fact it wasn't anyone whose opinion actually matters." you jab back.

"your mum said that, actually."

"are you a child?"

"what, are you too cool for old jokes? they're iconic for a reason."

"and there's a reason why 'your mum jokes' died and should stay that way."

the natural way in which you banter with gojo gives you confidence. maybe it didn't matter that you liked him, or that he didn't like you back. it was enough that he was here with you now, joking around. perhaps you could even live with knowing that your unrequited love had come to an end, perhaps you could even pair them up yourself without a sense of bitter jealousy.

"i know you like getou." gojo says in one breath.

the peace you had come to, shatters.

"what?" you say in an inhale, and it comes out sounding weird.

gojo pouts, crossing his arms. "i'm right, aren't i? you like getou. i heard what you were saying to shoko that one time."

"don't eavesdrop on other people's conversations!"

"you were saying it pretty loudly, what was i meant to do? shut my ears?"

you wave away his whining. "stop, hold on. you think i like getou?"

gojo nods. "i don't think you do, i know. you said you like people like him."

"when did i ever say that? also, i'm not the one who likes getou, you are!"

"what?"

"what, what? you do, don't you? you told me yesterday that you liked getou."

"i never said that!"

"then who were you talking about?"

"who were you thinking about?" gojo shoots back. "because you didn't even hesitate when you explained your type to shoko. you were thinking of someone, weren't you?"

you gulp. "i asked first."

he looks at you long and hard and you stare back at your reflection through his glasses. his mouth opens and there's a mixed sense of dread and anticipation brewing in your stomach.

"tch."

"did you just click your tongue at me?"

gojo faces away. his jaw is tense as he blatantly ignores your question. "you're really annoying."

"huh? speak for yourself!"

"you have a problem with me?"

"i have a problem with your stupid attitude."

when gojo closes the distance between the two of you, you take a step back out of instinct. it doesn't matter though because gojo steps forward again, pushing you up against the curse getou had left behind. he slams a hand into the flesh of the curse and it makes a startled sound. the both of you ignore it. "it's you, idiot, i like—"

the force behind his slam is frightening, but the thought is torn from you when the sound of regurgitation grabs your attention. with a start, you turn around at the curse and find your phone on the ground at the entrance of the curse's mouth, covered in goo.

"my phone!" you exclaim, bending down to pick it up.

gojo backs up and groans loudly, but you don't care, wincing instead when the item is sticky.

"i didn't even know i lost this! thanks gojo, i think." your voice trails off wearily, holding up the phone and watching as viscous liquid slowly drips off it.

gojo rubs his face with his palm and you wonder why he looks so distressed. "that curse is seriously bad luck." meeting your eye, he points a finger at you. "listen to what i have to say!"

you raise your eyebrow at him. "damn okay, gojo's arrived." you mutter, wiping down the phone and pocketing it.

the clouds overhead parts, sunlight shining down in rays. the trees whistle in the summer breeze and light filters through the gaps in the leaves and branches. it hits gojo perfectly, adorning him in a golden light and you've never seen him so beautiful. guilt fills you at the thought and you hold your soda tighter.

he breathes in one more time. "i don't care that you like getou." he says. "because it doesn't matter to me. it just means i have to work harder to change your mind and get you to notice me instead."

"it's kind of hard to not notice you." you say. "i mean, look at what you're wearing."

gojo hisses. "don't ruin the mood, you're throwing me off. like i was saying, it's not your fault you like getou but i had to tell you this anyway, because it's been making my heart feel all prickly and stuff. so shut up and just stand there looking pretty, or whatever." his last few words trail off uncertainly, as if he never intended to say them at all.

"what are you even saying?" your heart picks up. was he about to confess?

"i'm saying that i think i like—"

"there you guys are!"

your head whips around at the voice, scanning the familiar landscape before settling on a single person. shoko stands metres away, waving a hand to grab your attention. "over here!"

"shoko!" a grin splits across your face. "i haven't seen you all day!"

"am i interrupting something?" she yells to get her voice across the distance.

you don't even look over at gojo as you shake your head. you had a feeling he was just going to tell you something you already knew, that he liked getou, anyway. “no! hold on, i'm coming over."

before you can run up to her, gojo grabs your arm, a deep frown etched on his face. "wait, you still haven't—!"

without another thought, you hand him your half-finished can of soda and wriggle out of his hold. "you can have the rest of that. i'll hear you out later, okay?"

"but the mood was so right!"

"look after the curse until getou’s back, later!"

gojo stands there in front of the bad-luck curse, one arm limp by his side and the other holding a can of blue soda. he watches as you fling yourself into shoko's arm, already listing all the things you've been saving up to tell her.

there's that prickly feeling again, gojo realises, noting the way the sun lightens the shade of your hair, the way your eyes curve up as you smile, and the way you hold onto shoko's hand, wishing that he had enough courage to hold yours.

defeated, battered and drained, gojo looks down at the can in his hand, and notes the slight lipstick stain on the rim.

with a red on his cheeks that didn't come from the sun, he presses the aluminium to his lips and takes a sip. it tastes sweet.

gojo decides that he'll just have to settle for this.

i hope this was okay considering i had no intentions of writing a part two. sorry for all the descriptions of stomachs and throw up, i was studying the digestive system 👎 if this isn’t what u guys expected feel free to leave a request !!

#gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #gojo fluff #gojo imagine #gojo drabble #getou suguru #ieiri shoko #gojo satoru x you

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barbieaemond · 4 months

Text

The King of Qarth I

Pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Qartheen f!reader (use of third perspective)

Warnings: angst, dubcon (but not really), handjob, fingering, p in v, hints at sexual trauma, self indulgent use of sorcery

Word count: 11k (i know...i'm sorry...)

Author’s note: The foreign words you’ll find are stolen from Greek. Second and final part coming in two weeks. English is not my first language.

taglist: @zae5 @multyfangirl @arcielee @succnfuccubus @zaldritzosrose @kckt88 @venmondiese @miraclealignertlsp369 @ilikechocolatemilkh @credulouskhaleesi @bunbunbl0gs

He had taken each one of them. Dragons, power, the Crown. Snatched them from whatever divine plan the Gods had concocted, for others, never for him, and perhaps this was their punishment.

Death would’ve been a far too kind blessing, he would come to realise in one of those endless days spent wandering, roaming to find some meal, a softer clod to lie on, an identity.

Prince, Protector of the Realm, Rider of Vhagar, Blood of Old Valyria.

They were nothing more than shrouds. Once stripped of them, what was left was merely a man.

And a son. That’s what his mother saw when they threw him on the ground of the Throne Room.

Crawling on her knees like some commoner, she begged and sobbed until her voice became raw and her throat hoarse, chanting obsessively the same plea over and over like a mad woman.

"Please...have mercy in the name of the Mother… my only son...” she had bent so much as to graze the toe of Corlys Velaryon's boots with her face. “you took them all...you took them all...”

Whether she was talking to the Sea Snake, Rhaenyra, the Gods or fate, Aemond didn’t know. He didn’t know the woman kneeling before him, if he ever truly knew her. You cannot know ghosts, only walk through them.

He could not look at her. He turned his head and watched over that crowd of traitors looking down on him, as if they themselves had not looted, slaughtered, and burned more innocent than guilty.

Trained puppets they were, obeying like green little soldiers to Cregan Stark, a northern savage who had taken upon himself the right and duty to do justice. Corlys Velaryon knew it well, having spent days and nights in the dungeons as an accomplice in the poisoning of Aegon the Elder. And there they were, taking over the reins of a kingdom shattered and embittered by war.

But with the promise of Alysanne Blackwood’s hand in marriage, the Wolf had been tamed. He had stopped howling about trials and executions. Now, caution moved and bogged down their decisions. But one thing was clear as a law written in stone: there had to be peace, no matter the cost. Hence, a marriage had been arranged, between two children who, for no reason, had been taught to see the other as the enemy, whose eyes had seen too much death; orphaned and thrown like marbles into a game that brought neither smiles nor laughter to their sepulchral mouths.

She was looking at him, Jaehaera, and in her empty eyes Aemond could see Helaena climbing up the windowsill and letting herself fall.

“What happened to Vhagar?” The Sea Snake asked “Kinslayer! What about your dragon?”

"Dead.” He lied, although he didn’t know for how long that lie would remain so. That rope in his heart had loosened, weakened, but it still held. She must have crawled off to some remote place, perhaps beyond the Neck, to recover from the injuries to her neck and right wing.

Then the Sea Snake had turned his back, consulting with his council of leeches. Exile. He heard them say. Essos. And then that word he hadn’t heard for a long time. Dragonless. A kinder word for useless. Powerless.

“Let him go, Corlys. He’s always been a spoiled brat. He won’t survive for long in those savage lands.” Someone said outside the cell they threw him in, shackled with chains on wrists and ankles like some rabid dog.

He won’t survive for long.

How he wished they were right. How he wished to look into the beady eyes of the Stranger.

Alicent would curse him, perhaps she would slap him as she used to slap Aegon for being so blasphemous, not to the Gods, but to her. Aemond was no father, and no matter how much he could try, he’d never understood the fierce, unforgiving grip motherhood had on a woman.

When he saw her for the last time before being thrown on a ship to Braavos, he realized it was the only tether that kept her alive. Him and Jaehaera.

“Just a little longer, please…just a little…” she pleaded to his jailers. With the arranged marriage, cruelties had softened, and concessions became more frequent. The Dowager Queen was granted to see her son for the last time.

“Mother!” he screamed as they dragged him away “Keep your fucking hands off me!”

He needed to speak to her. He needed her to tell him she was lying.

“Mother, there’s a woman…”

“The Strong witch? Aemond, she’s…They captured our last allies from the Reach and…they said they found a woman in the woods but…she was in pain…and bleeding….”

The Gods’ punishment flowed through the long-cowled robe of the Stranger. And he took them all.

Aegon, Helaena, Daeron. Alys and the baby.

Alicent could not bear to see the last piece of her flesh and bones being cloaked by the cold shroud of the Stranger. And so, she crawled and begged to preserve his existence.

But that, that was no existence.

It was a limbo, a hanging life for the damned. And he was one, wasn't he? He killed kin, he killed innocent men, women and children, coming from above like a heaven banished God unleashing his wrath on the world. And even gods pay for their sins.

Only he would gladly have stuck his head in a noose or waited for the hangman's blade, a death worthy of a soldier, rather than wandering like a derelict, rootless and restless, with that rope pulling and fraying day after day. Or Weeks? Moons? He had no idea how much time had passed since he’d set foot in that limbo.

He seemed to be living in a slumber, a Milk of the Poppy hallucination. And yet, the ground was real beneath his exhausted feet, as was the heat, and at some point, the hunger.

The leeches had tried to appear civil and compassionate, lying to his mother’s face about the gold they would give him, to sustain himself once reached the East. But naturally, they didn’t keep their word. If he died of starvation, he was sure they would have lit a candle to each God in the Grand Sept. They probably prayed for that to happen.

Or maybe not. Maybe there was no greater gratification and source of amusement to know that the haughty Prince Aemond was tasting the everyday humiliation of having to steal in order not to starve, of not having clean clothes, feather pillows to lie on, the disgrace of not being able to give orders to anyone, but rather having to suffer them.

He stayed in Bravoos for a short time. It was too dangerous, too close to Westeros and too wary if anyone ever caught the color of his hair under the cloak’s hood. He remembered his history books quite well. It was the only one among the Free Cities that did not yield to the Valyrian empire; indeed, it was founded by a group of rebellious slaves fled from the tyranny of the Dragon Lords.

Volantis, on the contrary, worshipped the Old Empire. But in equal measure, they worshipped slavery. The city swarmed with mercenaries and slavers, peddling men and women like meat for slaughter, ready at every corner to steal children from the streets. And in Volantis Aemond understood that if he did not want to end up in some butcher’s hands, he had to be what he had always been: a soldier. For he realized that everywhere in the world, the most valuable currency was not gold, nor castles and titles, but blood.

This man for new fresh clothes, that woman for few gold coins and a mattress to rest his back, not to sleep. Sleep eluded him, as well as remorse. Unless his body shut his mind out of exhaustion, he lied there for hours on end, with blood drying on his hands, listening to all the ghosts floating around him, and trying to find a grip—something to hold on to. Duty had been the blacksmith who forged him and the altar to which he devoted himself. Duty to his family, his brother, the crown, the throne, even Alys, yes. For all her riddles and stumps of prophecy, he wanted her. He wanted that son.

But here, he had no high purpose to serve but himself. Stripped of all honors and many more curses, he fell into a daylong stupor, made of blood, humiliations and silent cries for revenge.

Until one day, the rope went taut.

Vhagar burned away the stupor. She had found him. For the second time, she had been his salvation. And on her back, he found a fragment of who he was, but who he was supposed to be remained a distant thing, clouded in smoke.

He flew south, over the ruins of Old Valyria, and then east, crossing all of Vaes Dothrak to the Red Waste, and by the time he realized he should've veered north or south, it was too late.

He was in the middle of the widest and driest desert on the eastern continent.

The Garden of Bones, as they called it, and with good reason. For in those few times that Aemond decided to land to allow Vhagar to rest, all his eye could see were sand, devilgrass and bones. But he didn’t care about the thirst, the dry and cracked lips, the white tow his hair had become.

Vhagar was his only concern. She was starving. She could not fly too high in the skies. And so, along with all the misery and humiliation, came the dread. For if Vhagar died, the last rope, the last tether, which had perhaps kept him alive up to that point, and perhaps kept her alive, would break.

But then, just as it happens in some book of adventures, or simply in dreams, a mirage, a true oasis in the middle of the desert, surrounded by the highest walls ever built in the history of men, guarding the greatest city that ever was and will be: Qarth.

“Hmm” she ponders, pursing her lips. “I’m not sure about this one. What do you think, Nyla?”

The young maid stops her morning chore and blushes. “I think it would match your skin wonderfully, your Highness.”

She hears giggling behind her shoulders, where two of her most trusted maids are braiding her hair after oiling them with mirrh and cinnamon. “You hear that, Nyla? They’re questioning your candor.”

“I am not, your Highness.” says Dora, one of the giggling girls. “But if you were looking for a less partial opinion, let’s say a more objective one...you should have asked me or Mysha.”

“Well, as it happens, I was looking precisely for a partial opinion. Look at her. She’s changing my chamber pot and still, she thinks that shade of purple would suit me wonderfully. Oh Nyla, I think you will soon become my favorite.”

“Is that a yes then, your Highness?” the merchant wastes no time to ask, standing in the center of the room with silk drapes of several colors resting along his arm.

“Yes, Jorio. Two yards of that purple silk.”

The merchant nods swiftly, too swiftly she notices. The man is acting awkwardly since the moment he stepped into her private rooms. Usually, he’s a big talker, a true born seller. He could make believe one could heal from Greyscale if they just wrap themselves in the soft embrace of his silks. But not today. He seems in a hurry. The exhibition of his goods too quick and excited. And then the sweat, lumped in a wet sheen around his bald head.

“Anything else, your Highness?”

Her forehead creases, acknowledging a thought, new but not quite, as if it has always been there. “Perhaps something green?” she ventures.

“Green?” inquires Misha “That’s a first.”

She shakes her head in a dismissing way. “Must be my father’s sorcery.”

The shadows, kóri, they speak to you.

“What do you have in green, Jorio?”

The merchant fumbles with his silks, a turmoil moves his hands clumsily until a few drapes of fabric flutter on the ground. He stoops to pick them up, only to drop the others still clinging onto his shoulder in a chaotic rainbow of colors on the white marble floor.

“Jorio, what is the matter with you today?”

“I—Nothing, your Highness, my apologies...”

“You know if you have problems with your trades, the Salt King and I would be more than happy to help you.”

“It’s not that—no. Must be all the fuss in town.”

“Pirates again?”

“Uhm—no, it’s the…beast outside the walls.”

“The beast? What beast?”

The man swallows, visibly. “A dragon, your Highness. A huge dragon, higher than the city walls.”

“But…that is not possible...” Misha tries.

“I’m telling what I saw with my own eyes. The Thirteen gathered outside the walls. I saw the Spice King along my way here. He said they were about to parley with the Milk man, see through his reasons.”

"Milk Men don’t ride dragons.” she corrects, standing from the soft cushions piled and spread on the ground. “This man’s hair…what color are they?”

“White as midday sun.”

"Your Highness! Come..."

The Salt Queen joins Dora on one of the brightly sunlit balconies overlooking the Route of Trade. There is indeed a great bustle in the town, a motionless bustle however, gazing with open mouths and bewildered eyes at the small procession moving up the street. The City Guard is leading, with their shields and spears to protect The Thirteen, rulers of the most important trading city in the world. They are all dressed in bright colours and precious jewels embroidered in their silk tunics, hanging from their necks, wrists and fingers.

If she narrows her eyes, The Salt Queen can swear she can see the gold ring her husband wears on his nose. What catches her eye though, is not gold or any other bright color, but black, and then white.

There is a man walking down the street with the thirteen, a tall man with plain dark clothes and a mantle of silver hair, white as midday sun.

“Wife, may I introduce you to our noble guest?”

A woman comes forward to greet him when Aemond enters a lavish hall with several windows adorned with colorful drapes of silk. He is sure he has never seen so much marble in his life, feeling even more inappropriate given the state of his clothes and his whole demeanor, shamefully far from the clean, soldierly appearance that left mouth agape.

“Prince Aemond of House Targaryen, from Westeros.” The Salt King declares as the woman stops just before him. He stands tall and imposing, no matter the misery of his shabby clothes, the state of his disheveled hair falling in silver tangles down his back. He is still a Targaryen, his chin is high and proud.

“More like from the Old Valyria.” She says raising an eyebrow, and sizing him up and down. “He seems to have just emerged from the Doom, miraculously unscathed.”

The Prince does nothing but seethe his teeth behind his dry lips, a distant shame in his eye that quickly turns into a focused and unblinking rage.

“Welcome to Qarth, my Prince. I’d trust your journey was uneventful but…I can see the Red Waste takes its toll, even on Valyrian beauty.”

Aemond takes a good, long look at her, inevitably lingering on her chest, dressed as the common Qartheen fashion dictates: one breast exposed. But a lot more of her is exposed. Her shoulders, her arms and legs, a glimpse of her hips, all crossed by swirling bundles of lilac silk.

If any married woman in Westeros dressed like that in the open, he’s sure any husband would lock her up. At least he would.

“You must excuse my wife, Prince Aemond, or rather, get used to her habit of speaking her mind.”

“Come now, Xavos. Surely Westerosi women can voice their thoughts?” she moves, walking past Aemond and her husband to reach a small table inlaid with gold to pour some greenish beverage into a cup. “I had a maid once, she was from…Rich Garden?”

“High Garden.” He sternly corrects her.

“Ah, yes. A delightful creature, always smelled so good.” She says distractedly “Anyway, she fled from your lands because she liked girls and not boys and she didn’t want to devote her life to being a brood mare sucking a flaccid cock until her hair had gone white.”

Her maids snicker somewhere past Aemond shoulders, stiffening his posture at the liberties those commoners are granted. “I should hope you Westerners listen to your women more than you do your horses.”

Aemond watches as she takes a sip and laces his hands behind, slightly tilting his head for a moment. “Where I come from, women do not possess such a sharp tongue. Furthermore, and fortunately, most of them have manners. They know how to address a Prince of the Realm.”

She turns to leave the cup on the same table and glances at Nyla. “Oh, he bites.”

“This is not Westeros, dragon prince.” She says turning to face him with a righteous smile “I don’t need to ask your permission to speak. The Salt King is my husband, that is why you will hear my maids and everyone else address me as Your Highness. So, you may lower that chin and stop waiting for me to bow down to you because technically my rank is higher than yours. You might say the only one meant to bow in this room were you.”

The silence that follows is so stark that the air the Prince quickly exhales through his nose sounds like thunder, alerting the Salt King. "Come now, wife. Don't wake the beast.” he says lightly, stiffening a smile “And I mean it quite literally. You should see the size of Prince Aemond’s dragon.”

“I heard.” she acknowledges “Jorio said he’s higher than the city walls.”

“She. And twice, than your city walls.” The Prince corrects her again, just as sternly. “She’s the largest dragon alive in the known world.” His chin remains high and haughty, simply because he can. Because she knows he could raze the entire city to the ground just by snapping his fingers. So, she looks down and says “Since you will be our guest, it is my duty as matron of this house to make you feel welcomed. If you would be so kind to follow me, your Grace.” She forces her tone to be as much as corteous, but then she smiles “Is my tongue acceptably sharp to your liking now?”

“Where are you taking me?” he asks as he follows the Salt Queen along one of the corridors, made of the finest marble with high arches of white stone and gold glittering under the midday sun.

“Down and down, to throw you in the dungeons.”

Aemond stalls for a moment and she does the same. “I was joking.”

He gives her that stern, distrustful look she starts to think he has etched on his features since his first wail and huffs. “God, have you lost your humor in the Red Waste?”

She resumes her walking, and Aemond follows, glancing around as they pass through many people, some of them are dressed like maids and servants, some others with long tunics of silk and jewels embroidered in the fabric. They speak to one another, he notices, as equals. But they stop altogether upon seeing a living Valyrian walk among them.

“God?” he asks “Which one?”

“Whichever you want. R'hollor, the Many Faced…I’m not picky. It helps me sleep better at night to know I didn’t dump all my sins on one God only.”

He is sure from his education and his mother’s faith that religion doesn’t work that way, but he has more pressing matters at heart. “Will you meet my requests?”

“About your dragon?” she asks stopping before a large wooden door closed. “Can’t she hunt on her own?”

“In the Red Waste? In these barren lands? Perhaps you should put your pretty head outside the city walls and see with your own eyes how big she is.”

The woman smirks, seizing him up and down and furrows her brows. “You seem very keen on emphasizing how big your dragon is. I should hope it’s not a compensating factor for the lack of something else.”

She pushes the door open, not bothering to wait for Aemond who just stands there for a moment, a little dumbfounded by the salt of which the Queen's tongue seems to be made. His bewilderment is only destined to worsen as he crosses the threshold and looks around.

Right in the middle of the palace, amidst all that marble and white stone, stands a wild courtyard, wild and beautiful in its unspoiled nature. Climbing plants and fruit trees grow undisturbed around a large square pool, decorated with mosaics of a thousand colors, harboring the most crystal-clear water he has ever seen; small clouds of steam rise from the surface, pinching his nostrils with the unmistakable smell of sulfur.

There are people bathing together and, obviously, much to his dismay, naked.

“Do you not take baths in Westeros?” the Salt Queen asks, faking true curiosity at the puzzlement she can read on his face, slowly turning into repugnance as he looks at her with a cutting answer.

“We have decency, in Westeros.”

She does not bother to disguise the long sigh blowing through her lips and then she turns to clap her hands vigorously, three times.

“My friends, apologies for the interruption!” she announces as everyone in the pool and outside turns to look at her “I must ask you to leave the pool for the time being. Our…prude guest demands a little bit of privacy.”

She can feel the Prince glaring but ignores him altogether to stop one of the servants.

“Priya, fetch some oils. And some silks, fitting for a prince.” She turns her head to look at him from head to toe, as if valuing a new drape of silk or a new sculpture to put in the Hall of Trade, but then she creases her forehead, as she often does when knowing. “Blue perhaps? To match the sapphire.”

The constant scowl seems to leave his features and she hears his question before he utters a single word.

“My father is a warlock. Magic runs thick in his blood, he says, as well as in the blood of his blood. Sometimes I sense things, bits of knowledge, and sometimes they happen to be right. But you don’t need to be afra—”

“I’m not afraid of sorcery.” He cuts her, his tone flat, his features stoic as ever and she looks at him, curiously, perhaps wondering what lies behind all that stone.

“Very well. Sapphire blue for Prince Aemond.” his name slips into his ears in a strange, liquorous way; vowels are more open in this part of the world.

When they’re left alone, she signals towards the pool. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

He hesitates for a moment, but it is not as if he has never undressed in front of one of his old servants. And frankly, he is too eager to get those filthy clothes off to be bothered by a foreign woman watching.

He throws everything on the ground without too much care, and she watches without too much shame, because that's not how things go there. Bodies, both male and female, they are not something to hide, but something to be displayed and worshipped.

Her eyes linger on scars, old and new, on a lithe body that once belonged to a prince and a soldier, now marked by misery, dirt and hunger.

“Everything.” she says at one point, when he’s left with only his battered cotton pants on.

Aemond thinks he heard wrong. But she only blinks, keeping her face blank.

“Is this the common way to welcome guests here?” he scorns.

“Actually, it is. At least after the incident with the scorpion.” she doesn’t bother to wait for a question or an eyebrow rising. “My husband’s great grandfather hosted a merchant from Yunkai once. He came here with gifts of all sorts among which was a poisonous scorpion, hidden in his clothes. The old Salt King died but so did the merchant. Fell face down in his chamber pot while taking a piss. Quite ironic, don’t you think? You have to be careful when handling such vicious creatures.”

He only looks at her, and she's the one to raise an eyebrow. “I could turn away if you like.”

Aemond sighs loudly, moving his cutting jaw at the umpteenth humiliation and then lowers his pants. She stares into his eye and surely, surely he thinks, she wouldn’t dare to wander down.

But a moment later her eyes sink past his snatched waist, and she smirks.

“I believe I owe you an apology.”

“What for?”

“Questioning your…natural gifts.”

Aemond blinks, running on the verge between scowling, raising his eyebrows and huffing a laugh. Certainly, it never happened to him to talk so bluntly about his cock with any highborn lady barely met, let alone a supposed queen.

“I’ll leave you to your bath, dragon prince. The Salt King and I have much to discuss.”

“Such as?” he deadpans, not really interested while he dives into the clean water.

“Well, a Targaryen Prince is not an everyday occurrence.” She says following his every move, the way water glides on his skin, silver hair floating on the surface like moonblooms. “We’ll make sure to have a feast worthy of your noble taste this evening.”

“And then talk behind my back about what to do with me?”

“Undoubtedly. And I will tell him the truth.”

“Hmm.” He hums, settling on one of the underwater steps of the pool, resting his shoulders against the rim. His mood instantly improves, so he pins her with his eye and looks her up and down. “Do you believe to know my reasons? You’re quite sure of yourself…your Highness. Unless your father’s sorcery allows you to read minds, I dare say even rather pretentious.”

“I don’t need sorcery to know that you, in the first place, do not know what you’re doing here.”

“And what makes you so sure?”

She sees that chin tilting, lifting with a hint of challenge. And she takes it. She has the truth, and indeed, she doesn’t need sorcery.

“Because Qarth is still standing.”

She gets no answer, just that diffident stern look to which she darts the faintest of smirks and then leaves the pool, under his watchful eye that stays on the door for a moment longer, before he lets his head sink underwater.

The Salt Queen gives instructions for the most sumptuous room to be given to Prince Aemond. She sees to it that he is provided with several silk suits and that food is served to him immediately when he has finished bathing. She has observed his body with pleased eyes, so scrupulously she knows the Prince has not had a decent meal in weeks.

“Did he settle?” Xavos asks when she enters his private room.

“In time, I’m sure he will. Valyrians have an impressive disposition to make their own what does not belong to them, do they not?”

She hears him murmur something in return from where he stands, on the balcony threshold that overlooks the city and its massive port. The Queen sits on a soft armchair and starts to twirl her hair around one finger, curling her mouth into a thoughtful pout. “I was thinking goose for dinner. Or salt beef? We should save goats and pigs for the beast. Apparently, poor thing is starving.”

In the silence that follows, she turns to her husband. “Xavos?”

The Salt King turns with one shoulder and a half-bitter smile. “We have a living threat who could burn us all to the crisp walking within our palace and our city, and you speak to me of geese and pigs?”

“It’s useless to cry over spilled milk. You let him in. You let greed lure you all like a piper with a flute. I’m wondering, on which tune did he make you dance?”

He walks to her with slow feet and looks at her after a long sigh. “Dragon eggs.”

“I should’ve known.”

“Cyril began talking of an opportunity of a lifetime. Of the Greatest City that ever was and will be becoming even greater. Think about it. With dragons…Qarth might become the center of the whole world. A newborn Valyria. If we play our hand right—”

“Quit the fancy words. What exactly are you asking of me, Xavos?”

She knows he is asking for something. She has known him for more than ten years, and he has asked, has demanded, a lot of her. She knows that when his voice drops a note, he wants something, as if whispered, it becomes less degrading.

He trails his index finger on her chin and lifts it. “To make him dance to your tune.”

“You overestimate me, husband. I cannot reason with a tiger when my head is in its mouth. Besides, he might be easy on the eye, but he’s as agreeable as a plant of spikes.”

She speaks smoothly—not a flinch or a blink at her husband's hand sinking between her lilac’s folds, and then between her inner ones. “Since when you are so reluctant about who’s allowed in your bed?”

“Don’t confuse me with yourself.” she says lifting her chin to look at him, unbothered by the circling his finger draws on her dry bundle. “I fuck who I want for pleasure, rarely out of boredom, but never to prove a point.”

Abruptly, he slips his finger deep inside, hurting her. “I should have taken your tongue as well.”

“And still…” she forces a smile over the painful grimace twisting her mouth “it would not have given you what you so desperately seek in every hole.”

His unwanted touch leaves her and he straightens, pacing lazily behind her seat. “He’s young. He’s had a rough time. Surely, he must’ve missed the intimate company of a woman.”

“For that kind of company, there are pleasure houses.”

“Don’t play dumb, now. You saw how proud he is. How do you think he will take it if we send a whore to his rooms?” Xavos grips the back of the chair and leans down slowly, speaking to her ear. “Listen to me. Cyril is right. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We must make him feel…important…coddled, even.”

“Even if you shackle his feet with gold, you cannot turn a dragon into a lamb, Xavos.”

The Salt King sighs impatiently, and his tone drops just as earlier. “Do as I say.”

Young Nyla interrupts her masters as she enters the room, and the Queen turns her head. “Nyla, what is it?”

“We have escorted Prince Aemond to his rooms, your Highness.”

“Good.” Xavos says, and then looks at his wife with a pointed stare. “Make sure he has everything he needs.”

The Salt Queen barges in and halts on the door, bewildered upon seeing her trusted friend Mysha on the verge of tears, staring at the ground as if she’s waiting for an execution.

“My deepest apologies, my Prince, I meant no disrespect.”

“What happened?”

“Uh—Prince Aemond asked for some herbs, your Highness. An ointment, for his eye.”

“Aye. I did ask for that, not for you to fucking touch me.”

The Prince is snarling, his eye wide and menacing like a hound on the brink of defense yet hunting for flesh. His face is clean now, the Queen notices, shaven; his hair is damp and pulled back, leaving his chiseled features, that infuriating chin, and high, prominent cheekbones in plain sight. Stupid as it may sound, she can't help but think of one of those marble sculptures she likes to buy from art dealers.

“You may go, Mysha. I will assist the Prince.”

“I don’t need assistance.” He hisses with threatening calm. “Leave.”

He caved in the pool, but he will not suffer another humiliation in front of these foreigners. At least not with something so delicate and private as his eye. But of course, he realizes with annoyance, this woman will not falter at any of his empty orders.

“Are you dismissing me in my own Palace?”

He looks down, sighing and fuming, and she beckons Misha to leave the room.

“You must understand, servants here are treated differently. They’re granted more liberties.”

“I see. As the ones you so generously grant to slaves.” he mutters, and starts to fidget with a tray offering ginger roots, turmeric powder, and eucalyptus leaves.

“Oh, spare me. Of all people, you Valyrians are the least entitled to give a lecture on morals.” she counters, watching his long, tapered fingers hover without touching anything. Clearly, he was used to servants doing it for him.

“May I?” she offers, but doesn’t wait for his permission to make room next to him. “There are no slaves in this palace.” she tells him "How can you expect loyalty from someone you bought with something as cheap as gold?”

“Cheap as the golden ring your husband has stuck in his nose? He looks like a fucking boar.” he says as his eye trails on her profile.

“My husband is an imbecile. This city did not become the greatest that ever was and will be with gold. Trade is our currency. We call it antallagí. Exchange.”

“A true-born merchant’s wife.”

“Or a boar’s one?”

He huffs, and she turns, feigning shock at the faintest of smirks curling his lips. “So you’re not made of stone after all.”

She studies him for a few moments—more than is deemed proper for a married woman, in Westeros at least—but she can't help it. She wonders how it is possible that exile and moons of misery have not bent this man; what drives that rigid posture, whether it is too strict an education or it is all a lie, masking an effort to keep control, to impose it on others but perhaps more on himself.

“Ointment is ready, your Grace. It may burn a little, ginger is a godsend, but it’s tricky. I could help—”

“I need no help. Leave.”

The stone is in place once more. But she won’t have it.

She raises her eyebrows, biding all the time in the world.

Aemond chews thorns as he looks at her, swallows them, and tastes them again, piercing his tongue. “Please.”

“That must’ve cost you a lot. But it isn’t so hard, is it?”

His lips flatten in a thin line, and she smiles. “You are a second son, are you not? That’s the reason for that stubborn chin. You must stomp your feet to make anything yours.”

“Careful, woman. I’ve taken tongues for far less.”

“Why? Did you not see eye to eye with them?”

He moves like lightning, invading her space until he is a breath away from her face, and his mouth breathes fire. “Listen to me. I care not who the fuck you are or which title you make your slaves call you. I am not here to allow you to make a fool of me, Queen or no Queen. Mock me once more, and I’ll carve the word please on your vicious mouth.”

He waits for the fire to catch on, even though flames do not seem to touch her; she's unwavering and solid as marble.

“Get out.”

“I don’t—” she chokes on her words, on his hand seizing her jaw; cold fingers, leaving embers on her skin.

“I said, get out.”

That evening, the already lavish palace of the Salt King was polished and decked out duly to honor the foreign guest. The walls, lit by braziers of fire, stood like a beacon amidst a sea of marble and white stone roofs. The Hall of Trade was a treasury, crammed so full of gold that it looked like a pirate's dream. Pillows were piled on the floor, long tables held food of all kinds. A huge bowl of wine welcomed the guests, who were given a goblet they had to dip into the large bowl and drink, otherwise they would not be allowed inside. It was tradition, a sort of good omen.

It pinched Aemond's nostrils when he brought the cup to his mouth and, thankfully, drank it in small sips. Despite his prudence, by the second he felt his tongue on fire from how spiced it was. By comparison, Arbor Gold was wastewater.

He wears the sapphire blue silk tunic, with a silk belt cinching his narrow waist, but his hair is different. Mysha learned the lesson she asked, and when he gave his consent, she got to work and braided his silver hair. Most of them are loose, falling down his back in a curtain of white. Others are laced in one, two, three braids, softly meeting at the back of his head.

If he thought the Salt Queen’s hospitality was somewhat a little too forward and a lot more intrusive, he had to reconsider when he found himself cornered as soon as his silver head caught the eye of every guest. Men and women, old and young, flocked to him with eyes full of wonder, as if the Salt King had captured some wild and rare creature and called all his friends to make them look.

But they didn’t just look. They talked openly and freely, voicing thoughts that, in Westeros, would have stayed inside one’s head.

“Look at his hair! They seem like moon rays!”

“And the skin! Whiter than milk!”

“What happened to his eye?”

“If only my wife were here…she always wanted to see a Valyrian!”

He had just gotten there, and his teeth were baring.

“My friends, please! Let our noble guest breathe!” the Salt King chuckles as he comes forward among the bewildered audience, looking like the loot of some theft, for all the gold and diamonds and emeralds sewn on his orange silk tunic. “Come, my Prince. The first taste is yours.”

Aemond catches a movement on his right and there she is, the Salt Queen, in a crimson red sparkling like a bloodied dew given the little, tiny red stones woven in her silks. Her hair coils into an intricate bun crisscrossed by a paper-thin gold chain that crowns her forehead with small, rough rubies, like grains of salt.

For a moment, he’s so enthralled by her figure, and her eyes, even more piercing because of kohl, that he fails to notice the clay plate she’s holding, filled with fruits. Some he has never seen, except in books, but he has no time to take a guess.

“Your first taste, my Prince.” she chimes. “Sweet or tart?”

His gaze falls back to the plate, but not before stopping, again, for a blink, on that absurd fashion of one bare breast. “Tart.” He says tightly.

She smiles, as if she knew, and puts the plate down. Aemond watches her bejeweled fingers pluck off a grape and turn, her hand in midair but not quite outstretched toward him. He nothing but give her a pointed look, one that translates only into a stern and irrevocable I can eat by myself.

“My Prince. My wife means no offense.” the Salt King explains “In Qarth, it is deemed a great honor, given and taken, and an excellent omen for the guest's stay, if said guest is fed by the matron of the house.”

His throat bobs and the Salt Queen can’t quite decipher if the dragon prince is more humiliated or angered by the prospect of being fed by a woman like a baby who just teethed. At last, he sighs and leans in, but her hand withdraws a little, leaving him with his mouth slightly open, stretched forth like a beggar waiting for charity. It is not Aemond who bites the grape, but her who finally, after another straight stare into his eye, lets it drop into his mouth.

The crowd erupts in a cheerful clapping, as does The Salt King who goes to stand just between his wife and the Dragon Prince, placing a friendly hand on his shoulder “You see, Prince Aemond, this is one of the extraordinary gifts of Qartheen women. They know exactly how to hold...and when to let go.”

Aemond does not bother to look at him, he is too absorbed, annoyed and deep down, without him knowing it yet, enticed by the tranquil smile that curls her mouth and at the same time curls his pride, mocks it, strips it bare and outright laughs at it, goading everyone else to do so.

Behold, the pink dread!

“Without further ado, let the feast begin!” The Salt King announces joyfully and in the same moment, a delicate and sweet melody fills the room, while Aemond chews what’s left of that grape, tasting his own bile.

An hour later, Aemond is fuming. Fuming because ruling the most important and influential city in Essos, he should’ve known the Thirteen were aware of everything that went on and was currently going on in the West. Perhaps even more than he knew. Did they know something about his mother?

He banished that thought from his mind just as he trained himself to do in all this damned existence.

They knew about the Dance, they knew about Aegon the Usurper, they knew of Rhaenyra the Cruel, the Storming of the Dragon Pit. They knew the kingdom was dreadfully impoverished and in the hands of a young boy.

But they spoke about it as if they were discussing the weather. Qartheens cared nothing about what was going on outside their impenetrable walls; whether it was a new king on a throne far away or a war that had killed thousands and thousands, it was all tittle-tattle to kill time between one cup of wine and the next. He was asked about this battle or the previous one without thinking that he had lived through that war; he made it, he carried it and perhaps he still carried it within him.

He was fuming for this, he was fuming for how women, and even men, gawk at him, for their bizarre custom of hosting a feast without a decent place to sit and eat like normal people do. He was fuming because no matter how much he tried to ignore it, a spool of crimson would always catch his eye.

Grabbing one more cup of wine, he decides to take a breath outside, standing on one of the marbled balconies of the Palace. Air does good to extinguish his fires, but it does not clear up his mind. Perhaps he should blame the wine, perhaps his head is still smoky.

Because you, in the first place, do not know what you're doing here.

As much as he loathed to admit it, the Salt Queen was right. He tricked himself into thinking the main reason for his coming here was Vhagar. She was weak, due to the wing's injuries as well as the old ones, and most of all, she was hungry. But with the promise of goats and pigs, came the clarity and the knowledge that he had no reason, no plan. He only knew he had leverage—a dreadful leverage made of talons and fire on these merchants and their city. But what to do with it?

He hears voices somewhere near, and once more, crimson pollutes his sight. The Salt Queen and her husband are talking behind a tall white pillar. He can’t quite hear what they’re saying, but she catches his stare almost immediately. The talking ceases, and Aemond knows they were talking about him, of course they were.

Xavos comes out of his hiding place with a placid and benevolent expression, walking right past him without a word. But she stays, and she looks, and then she walks to him.

“That will go to your head.” She warns as he empties the cup “I didn’t see you touch any food.”

The spiced wine burns his throat, makes his tongue sour and impatient. “Is your husband aware of your excessive concern about your guests? Or is it a thoughtfulness he has ordered you to reserve only for me?”

“I’m just being considerate since you’re a foreigner and not well acquainted with Qartheen tastes.”

“How exactly am I supposed to eat? Standing?”

She huffs a laugh and shakes her head trimmed with gold and red as she gives him a bemused, though genuine, look. “Good God, how spoiled you are? I thought misery made men humble, but clearly not men of House Targaryen.”

His jaw moves annoyingly, and he leaves the empty cup on the marble, but he doesn’t let go, holding it by the edges in a white-knuckle grip. She notices it as she leans against the marble, with her back to the city, and gives him a long, inquisitive look. “After all the misery you suffered, I thought you would’ve liked the attention…perhaps you do…perhaps…you want more.”

“Do you ever stop talking?” he asks boringly, and just as sourly, staring at the city.

“I must say, I’ve hosted so many people, from so many different parts of the world, and yet…I’ve never found myself before a face so full of contradictions.”

His eye pins her. “Need I remind you how you left my room earlier?”

“With your hand around my neck, because you couldn’t take a joke.”

“I don’t like being mocked. And I don’t like being played like a pawn. So, unless this is another one of your absurd customs, tell your husband to stop parading you around me like a whore. It looks bad when you insist on others calling you queen.”

“We all play parts, dragon prince. Sometimes, they blend. But in the end…it takes little to know the real you.”

Aemond chokes on his breath as her hand slips between them like water, cupping his crotch with a grip of steel, and fire, burning from her fingertips through the fabric. She holds it like a weapon, and his defense is low. She sees his throat bobbing down once, and twice, rejection curls his mouth, but not strongly enough to shove her hand away, to not start to harden against the flames of her fingers, brushing all his length until she cups it once more.

“Whore or queen?” she whispers, brushing his parted lips “Someone in there doesn’t seem to care.”

His grip on the cup loosens, a tremor runs down his spine, and he dawdles in the sensation, one felt before, elicited by other hands, and yet new. It’s been so long. The surge to touch, to clutch, to taste, drains his head of blood. But she eludes him, tilting her head to the right and then to the left to avoid the vise of his lips; her grip loosens, running the back of her fingers against his cock in a feathery brush, touching without touching.

He grinds his teeth to choke a whimper, but then she’s cupping again; she feels him go completely hard for her, and the knowledge washes over her like tongues of fire prickling down her back and between her thighs. The soft, slippery silk allows her to unleash her lunges more fiercely, to easily close her hand around his cock, and that same silk helps her to glide her hand deliciously up and down.

He's breathing hard, almost panting, brushing the tip of his nose against hers; her eyes are open, basking in the sight, the little twitches of his mouth as bends to pleasure, the breathing turning heavier and heavier, his hand that starts to flex. She imagines how those slender fingers would feel between her folds, how easily they would slip inside, and why, why is he not touching her?

“Do it…” she breathes. “Do you want me to say please? I would…there’s no shame in begging, dragon prince….it only makes you free…”

“Your Highness, my apologies.” Nyla calls her Queen suddenly, and she stops her wicked ministrations, abruptly bringing Aemond back to his senses.

“The Salt King sent me after you.” The young maid says, apparently unfazed by what she clearly witnessed. “We’re playing kottabos.”

"Ah, yes, of course.” she tries to regain some control, although she was panting on the sole anticipation, and goes back inside.

Aemond stalls, taking a long sigh in the fresh air to try to stop the blood from boiling. And he follows.

Kottabos, he discovers, is quite a tricky game. The rules are simple: one has to throw the last drops of wine inside their cup to hit a white plate balanced atop a bronze pole. It requires a bit of dexterity, because the player must put the index finger through the handle of the drinking cup and throw the drops while sprawled on pillows, laying on their elbows.

The Salt Queen, it seems, is quite adept at this game. It takes her only two tries to hit the plate and she’s rising from the pillows, bowing her head to thank the cheerful audience. Aemond's eye bends as the crimson veils bend with her every movement; he slips between them and lets them wrap around him, even though he should not, even though he reproaches himself for letting the blood, the wine, the flesh, that has been starved of other flesh for too long, win.

“My closest friends know I’m very fond of sweets and cakes but…on such a special occasion, I choose a special reward.” She announces when the crowd has quieted down, and before she even turns around, he feels her gaze on him as if she had two more eyes on the back of her head. “A sweeter reward…or perhaps tarter.”

She moves towards him, and every step she takes barefoot on the marble is an unmasking. With every step she takes, it seems to him that she is touching him, as she did just before, and more; he feels like her fingers are slipping under the silk, setting fire to his skin.

She stops in front of him and yet, he still sees her moving, feels her moving like a sea creature and her thousand tentacles of crimson silk.

Maybe he should put the wine down.

Wine is not for you, brother mine, your mind’s too heavy. It’ll soak like a sponge and you'll fall into your own vomit.

What she does not put down is her aim, moving her hands diligently as she grabs his face and draws him close to kiss him on the lips, and tilt her head back to look at him, so close she’s breathing his breath. “This…is your first taste.”

“Good! The Queen has chosen her reward. Let us play another round, shall we?”

Again, Aemond does not bother to look at the Salt King, he looks at her and the faint twitch between her lips at her husband's words.

“Come.” She says taking his hand, and he doesn’t know what drives him to follow her, whether his mind is too soaked, or his flesh is crying out to be fed.

What is certain is that now her bare feet tread the marble of his rooms and he is closing the door.

“I hope you don’t mind if we do it here. I don’t take men into my rooms.”

“Why?”

“I’m jealous of my things.”

“Liar.”

“What?”

“So used to play parts and yet, you look down before lying. Disappointing.”

“I’m surprised you were able to look at anything above my cleavage.”

This time, he lowers his gaze, but not to lie. He knows he has looked, many times, and the excuse of not being used to such a custom starts to creak. She walks up to him and looks at him with that knowing smile that makes him want to clamp his hand on her mouth and wipe it off her face, and maybe stick his fingers inside.

“Are you a virgin, my Prince? Did you have a wife in the West? Children?”

He swallows, and her eyes fall on his throat.

“Is that guilt you just swallowed? Or sorrow?”

“Why don’t you listen to your father’s sorcery while keeping your hole shut?”

“I told you, I am no witch. Qarth is the center of the world. Do you think we don’t know what happens in the East, West, North and South?” she angles her head and whispers in his ear “We know everything… Kinslayer, Terror of the Trident.”

She speaks his war titles in that liquorose way, opening the vowels as if she is casting a spell, but he hears the mockery. It is the same that loosened the tongue at the Strong bastards, the same one perpetuated by Alys. But Alys' mockery was different. She spoke in riddles, visions and flames. This woman speaks in truths.

“Do you regret it?” she whispers, and her tentacles thread their way through the silk “All those innocents you have burned…all the ones you have lost.” lazily, she pulls at the laces of the blue tunic and he stiffens, flaring his nostrils. “See? I don’t need sorcery. The more you stiffen, the more cracks reveal.” She straightens her head to look at him with eyes darker than tar, wandering over his face and he feels branded. “I can see them around you…ghosts…why don’t you set them free?”

“What is your fucking game?” he wants to seethe, but she’s so close to him it comes out as nothing but a hiss.

She smiles again and this time the victory is full. "The game is over, your grace. I won, and you're my reward. I will admit I never had such a pretty one...care to show me that sapphire or are you still keen on playing the prude bashful prince?”

Aemond has no qualms about touching her, grabbing her face with nails digging into her cheeks as he pulls her close, turning her chin to spit anger and all his tumbled restraints into her ear “Perhaps I should shove my cock into your mouth to make you shut it, hmm? Is that what you want? What your husband wants? That I fuck you like a whore?”

She stiffens, thrashing in his hold that she may not have expected, and manages to turn her head just enough to look at him, scoffing. “Is this the only way you know to use your hands?”

A taunt, another one. It turns his eye pitch black and he leans closer to her lips, almost baring his teeth, almost as if he wants to bite the words—the mockery, the victory—off her mouth. But once more, she eludes him, tilting back and so, any reason burns and dies into his head.

“D’you want to play games, don’t you? Let’s play, then.”

Still gripping her cheeks, he roughly pushes her into the room, letting her go for only one fleeting instant of freedom, just long enough to grab her shoulders and force her to turn around. A gasp escapes her lips, but the next moment she’s bending on the table, he’s forcing her to. A thrill spills into her blood, making her insides clench with anticipation, and dread.

He traps her, planting his feet between hers to stop her from closing her legs. She tries to pull herself up with her back, but he scowls, pushing her head down to keep it firmly glued to the table. She whines as his long fingers pull at her hair, tearing the gold and red chain off, and she can hear him fumbling with the silks, the other hand hiking her crimson gowns up.

“My Prince, please—”

“Begging already?” snarling, he spits into his palm and gives a few quick tugs to his cock, hard and aching “I wonder who’s coming from. The whore or the Queen. Either way, you’ll get your reward, your Highness.”

“Wait—” she whimpers as she feels the head of his cock teasing against her folds, something coils in her belly, and something else, something cold, grips her heart. “Not like th—”

She chokes on her tongue as he slips inside her, easily but painfully, all the way in. Hissing, his hold on her hair tightens, a coarse exhale coming out of his parted lips as he adjusts to her walls, hot and wet, but tense. She’s tensing all over.

“Why are you fighting me?” he pulls her up by the hair, leaning his face close to hers “You wanted this, did you not? You have been teasing and mocking me since I set foot in here.”

“I—”

“No. I’ve had enough of your talks and taunts. Here’s what’s going to happen, whore queen. You will keep quiet and take it. And if I want to fuck you again later, I will. You are not in charge here—not you, not your husband, not all the fucking Thirteen. So don’t fucking push me, unless you want to die with fire skinning you alive.”

Without too much grace, he forces her back on the table and starts a relentless pace, fisting the crimson fabric and pulling to keep her low back flushed to his crotch. His pants mix with flesh slapping harder and faster as he tries to pour on her, and into her, the grief and rage, the misery and fire he’s made of. She writhes beneath him, arching and crumpling against the wooden with violent gasps; she feels like burning but inside, she’s torn in two.

She clamps her hand on the wood to grab onto something, just like that evening. She feels her, and his, arousal coating her thighs, just as blood did that evening.

The little girl wants to run, but the Salt Queen doesn’t want him to stop.

She’s sinking in her mind, but burning in every corner of her body and soul.

She can only moan, her mouth agape and dry, leaking saliva on the surface as her head bounces at each wild rut, hitting that inner spot over and over.

“Look at you, hmm?” he taunts her with purpose, perhaps vengeance “Fucked so good she lost her wits.”

Look at you, little whore. Bet you like it, eh?

Squeezing her eyes shut, she finds a raw voice hidden somewhere. “Harder—”

“What?” he slurs with a heavy-lidded eye, the braids are almost loose, dangling on his face at each thrust.

“Harder—” she pleads with her eyes still shut.

“Greedy wanton thing—” hips start to snap brutally, in a hurtful way, just as she wants, even if it’s hard to even breathe. Pleasure overwhelms her, drives her up towards the peak. But she finds she cannot climb; her mind is holding her down.

He grunts with each snap and curses in some foreign language she’s not aware of, and she doesn’t care; she’s too focused on letting herself burn. But it’s like sitting in front of a fire and barely feeling the flames.

And then his hips jolt faster, once, twice, and he halts, gripping her hips firmly, coming inside her with a long, satiated groan.

Completely spent, he slumps on top of her, resting his head on her shoulder blades to catch his breath. However, she is quick to slip from the scorching alcove, to slide out the door with her mind drowned but her heart pounding out of her chest.

"Your Highness!" Dora wakes from her slumber, and reaches for her Queen.

"Nothing, Dora." she says in a voice still hoarse, almost scratching. "Draw me a bath, please. And fetch mint and wormwood." Moon tea.

She starts to undo her silks and feels a distant smell of smoke sticking to her skin. Like one who has bathed in fire.

The morning after brings no clarity, because truthfully, Aemond does not need clarity. Everything is drastically simple. He is no coward. However his mind was less clear than usual, he could never blame wine for how he behaved a few hours earlier. And why would he?

Whether she was acting on her husband’s orders or not, she wanted him. And he wanted her. He could concede that he'd acted in a harsher way than usual, that he’d let rage and grief guide his purpose. It was not the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. But it all worked in his favor. A demonstration, a shift in whatever power game the Salt King and the other merchant Kings thought to play out. He only made it clear that he was not some precious pet to be coddled and ridiculed.

She had teased and mocked him at any occurrence. He’d only showed her the price of playing with fire.

His blue silks are fresh and clean when he sits down to have breakfast with Xavos; his long silver hair is tied up in a single low braid that starts from the center of his head and gathers lazily down his shoulder.

He has yet to get used to this strange Qartheen custom of sitting on pillows to eat; at least, however, he regains his appetite when he is served dishes once familiar to him, and less exotic.

"I took the liberty of having you prepare a breakfast akin to your old habits.” Xavos says chewing bread with olives “Ham, cheese, venison. And we have fresh fish every day. Blessed be the trades."

The Prince is sincerely grateful, though he would be a lot more grateful if the Salt King were able to shut his mouth when the sun is not even high in the sky. He goes on and on about the supposed trades, and then about the salt he so proudly sells to every corner of the world. He is just about to go on another monologue about the Thirteen and their hopeful wish to receive the Dragon Prince in their Palaces when he stops, frowning at the young maid clearing the place set next to the king. “What are you doing?”

“Apologies, Your Highness, but the Queen will not attend breakfast. She feels indisposed this morning.”

Immediately, Aemond glances up at her and she’s brave enough to hold it for a bunch of seconds before looking down and making her way to the door.

“Maid?”

She halts upon hearing the Prince and turns around.

“Tell your Queen I was promised something. She said she would see to it personally. And I expect her to keep her word.”

“Yes, your Grace.”

“Wait.” he stops her again, his tone almost bored, and slips a hand into the folds of his blue silks, pulling out a gold and red chain. “Take this. She left it in my room last night.”

He throws the jewel on the table and resumes his knife and fork, not bothering to look at anyone, certainly not at the Salt King who is indeed looking at him, looking as pleased as ever, like the cat that caught the mouse.

The Salt Queen did not in fact forget her word. She promised him she would see to Vhagar’s condition, ordering to save goats and pigs to feed the beast, put them on carts and send someone with the Prince to reach the desert, where the dragon was resting.

However, she should've probably assumed that such an apparently simple task would've turned out to be a lot harder to carry out.

She’s just about to finish her late breakfast with Mysha and Dora, when Nyla breaks into the parlor with quick feet.

“Your Highness—uhm—Prince Aemond is at the door, he asks to be received.”

“What is it now? He doesn’t like how the sun rises here?”

Mysha and Dora giggle, but the Queen stays serious and turns to Nyla. “Tell the Prince he will have to wait. I am sure that even in Westeros, barging in during meals stands for bad manners.”

Nyla leaves, but it’s with even quicker feet that she returns to her Queen in barely a minute.

“My Queen, Prince Aemond is quite adamant on being received immediately. He…also says that…keeping guests at the door is a synonym of bad manners in Westeros, as he is sure, anywhere else in the world.”

Tapping her fingers on the table, it takes her a minute to sigh loudly and stand up, throwing the kerchief on the table.

“My Prince.” She greets him as she stops at the door.

In his usual soldierly stance, he looks past her for a moment before locking her blank gaze. “Still adamant on not letting me in?”

“You were not that drunk last night. I believe you heard me just fine when I told you I don’t take men into my rooms.”

“Hmm. But you did take me, and quite eagerly, if memory serves me right. Are we not past such formalities?”

“Gloating like some common man is not very royal of you, your Grace—"

“Tis’ not gloating. And I might say, not very royal of you either to beg me to fuck you harder, your Highness.”

“You’re right. Fucked me so good I didn’t come.”

The proud mischievous smile that kept stretching his mouth vanishes in a blink, and she has to sigh to stifle her own. “What is it, my Prince?”

“You gave me your word.”

“Indeed. And I kept it. What is your complaint now?”

“Your slaves refuse to escort me in the desert.”

“Well, I can’t blame them. Can’t you feed your dragon on your own? Or are you too humiliated by the prospect of carrying a cart of dead pigs?”

From the way he is staring at her, and having already tickled his pride when the sun is not yet high in the sky, she knows he will not yield on this matter.

“Fine. I’ll go with you.”

“My Queen, it is not safe.”

“Do not worry, Dora. I’ll take the Sorrowful Men.”

Aemond almost laughs to himself as he stands on the left edge of an enclosed inner courtyard of the palace, resembling the training yards of Westeros. There are men intent on training with spears and swords, dressed in strange uniforms made of blue drapes and a strange golden mask on their faces. The carving makes the mask weeping, with a single tear embossed on the gold.

Aemond has no idea how they can see, as there seem to be no holes in those eyes of gold. But his gaze returns at once to the Salt Queen, talking to one of those men, with a large turban on his head. Some kind of commander, he assumes.

He bows to her and then six of these mysterious men march forward and surround the woman.

The Prince glances at each one of them, standing tall and proud as ever with his hands laced behind, seeming unperturbed by these safety measures. In fact, he says “Truly there’s no need to trouble these men, your Highness. What do you expect me to do? Feed you to Vhagar as soon as we are in the desert?”

“These men are not a safety measure for me, but for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes. To prevent you from having certain…Targaryen ideas.”

“Six armed men against the largest living dragon seems like a somewhat unequal battle.”

Narrowing her eyes, she watches as the same placid arrogance bathes his features, but she thinks now it’s the right time to wipe it off, and she knows exactly how to do it. “Sorrows bring sorrows.”

All at once, the Sorrowful men move, drawing their spears with impressive speed and aiming the sharp points at the prince. His whole demeanor changes, becomes menacing, she notices, but he does not flinch. She walks among the weeping men avoiding the spears until she stands in front of the prince and snatches the mask off his face, to wear it herself.

“Listen to me. These men live to serve me. They were slaves once, bought with something far more valuable than gold: freedom. And they chose to stay by my side. If I told them to take the only eye you have left, right now, they would do it. If I told them to cut your cock and bring it to me right now, they would do it. A shame, I will grant you that. So, you’re right, you may be in charge here…but if you push me…you will be dead before you have the chance to say Dracarys.”

Whatever cutting remark the prince has in mind, he does not have time to say it, as he is suddenly distracted by a strange sound, a whistle, like the cry of a bird.

Aemond turns his head and the Queen does the same, recognizing that sound at once. The Sorrowful Men lower their spears and a man steps forward, dressed in a strange purple robe. Aemond stares at him warily, wondering why, in the name of the Seven, this man’s lips are blue, like a corpse.

“Father…” the Salt Queen greets him, taking Aemond by surprise, but sounding a little surprised herself to see the blue-lipped man.

He doesn’t speak, doesn’t answer to his daughter, because he can’t. He starts to move his hands in strange signs, circles and lines. And Aemond is grateful for his strict education, for he knows what that man is doing. Sign language. He is either mute, or tongueless.

Unfortunately, he cannot understand what he’s saying, but his daughter can.

“Kóri. Will you not introduce me to your noble guest?”

The Salt Queen sighs, casting a brief look at the Prince, and then she introduces him. “Father, this is Prince Aemond, of House Targaryen.”

The blue-lipped man looks at him with wide eyes, charmed to the point of looking unsettling. And then he bends into a long bow. Not even when Aemond sat on the Iron Throne, someone had bowed so low before him.

He tilts his chin down to greet him, and sees the warlock’s hands moving. “On behalf of the Warlocks of Qarth” the Salt Queen translates “I welcome you, your Grace. It is a great privilege to see a descendant of Old Valyria in the flesh. Your blood is as ancient as our beloved great city.”

Aemond cannot stop his eyebrow from raising, nor his tongue. “It seems at least one member of your family knows good manners.”

“You must excuse us, father, we have to go.” she hastens to say, but as soon as she takes one step, her father grabs her arm.

“Don’t run from me, kori. You have been knowing, yes? More than usual.” and then his hands rise and fall once more. “Trees wail. Leaves are bleeding. The doom, kori. The doom is near.”

PART 2

thank you so so much for reading!! 💕 💕

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bogleech · 4 months

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MY DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS THREAD

Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is the first DQM game I've ever gotten to play after admiring the series since childhood. The bad news is that it leaves out exactly the three DQ monsters I love most. The good news is that everything else about it is great. I've been taking regular screenshots as I play and I am going to start adding things about it to this post, so it is going to get long. First of all here are exactly my next three favorite monsters in the franchise, which they fortunately did include, and were all available to me by almost the first area:

"Mad Mollusk" or in other dq games "taileater" is great because it has a sad flabby slug face at one end and a fanged leech mouth at the other end. When it uses magic, it reveals giant eyeballs in its antennae somehow?! Love how big the "carnivorous" mouth gets in the attack animation. What a stretchy guy!

"Lunatick" is just called "meda" (eye) in Japanese, I'm glad they decided it was like a parasite thing in the localization.

Finally there's DROHL, a classic DQ enemy that looks like...well I'm not gonna say what it really looks like but I think it's a cool little freak unrelated to that and I think it talks exactly like Droopy dog. Oddly it's known as a "Drohl DRONE," and I believe there are other "castes" in other DQ games, but only the "drones" are in this one sadly. I've yet to find this in the wild; I got it through the breeding system!

....Which is by far the most addicting thing about this game. The actual gameplay is good solid turn based RPG stuff, if a bit basic, but every monster can be bred with another monster to unlock a slew of other species. This is one of the first games in which they actually call it a "fusion" system now, I guess dropping the word "breed" from the English localization, but all other in-game dialog still calls these the 'parents' and 'offspring' and even makes jokes that they're getting married, so yeah, it's still breeding. What happens when you breed a slime with someone's dead grandpa??

.....There are multiple monsters you can get from that, but one of them, and the one that makes the most sense, is Slimeshroom! This is a new DQ slime that's some fungus! What's also fun is that every monster has up to three skills, and each skill actually unlocks a ton of spells, attacks, boosts and effects as you spend skill points on them. Then when you breed two monsters, you can give the baby any three skills from the parents. Any at all! I used this to make my Slimeshroom both a healer and a fire mage in the early game. This catches you up with the same progress I talked about when I first got the game almost two months ago so here's some things that have happened since:

I bred a flying cat and a vampire chinchilla to get a.....sexy bat??

I helped a fat rat - that's the name of his species - rescue his son

I bred a people ghost with a lamp ghost to get a bag of dirt!

I fought this bastard giraffe man who called an elderly wizard a "naughty boy" and put him in candy jail.

"Duffer" from the Giraffe quest is also best friends with Eileen the eye demon, and when you rescue him, they become your loyal subjects! BAD NEWS: this entire game is actually a prequel to Dragon Quest 4, and the player character of this game is the villain of Dragon Quest 4. Duffer and Eileen are also in Dragon Quest 4. They die :( .......Maybe this game gives you a chance to fix that future??? I don't know.

#dragon quest #dragon quest monsters

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daenerystargaryen06 · 5 months

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"How beautiful, the queen tried to tell herself, but inside her was some foolish little girl who could not help but look about for Daario. If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly..." -A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

"I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall. I could name him Robb." -A Storm of Swords -Jon XII

Daenerys wanting Daario to carry her off at sword point, and Jon thinking of stealing Val for her love. Two parallels of one girl wanting to be stolen, and one boy wanting to steal someone. Both for love.

"None of them had ever seen a direwolf before, he realized, and Ghost was twice as large as the common wolves that prowled their southron greenwoods. As he walked toward the armory, Jon chanced to look up and saw Val standing in her tower window. I'm sorry, he thought. I'm not the man to steal you out of there." -A Storm of Swords - Jon XII

"Even if her captain was mad enough to attempt it, the Brazen Beasts would cut him down before he got within a hundred yards of her." -A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys VII

Jon is sorry he can't steal away Val, and Daenerys reflects on the fact that even if Daario did attempt to carry her off at sword point, he'd be cut down.

Both Jon and Daenerys have a sense of romanticism in their POV's. Both are hopeless romantics (perhaps Daenerys more so than Jon in a sense). Both want love, despite denying it deep down. Jon because he's a man of the Night's Watch and a bastard. Daenerys because she is a Queen over her people and accepts duty over giving in to "girlish" thoughts.

Both had found love within confinement. Jon having fallen for Ygritte while pretending to be on the Freefolk's side. Daenerys having found a twisted love in Drogo after being sold to him as a bridal slave. Both were coerced into sexual relations with Ygritte and Drogo. Both had to watch Ygritte and Drogo die (and Dany killed Drogo out of mercy).

"He found Ygritte sprawled across a patch of old snow beneath the Lord Commander's Tower, with an arrow between her breasts. The ice crystals had settled over her face, and in the moonlight it looked as though she wore a glittering silver mask [...] "Oh." Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she sighed, dying. -A Storm of Swords - Jon VII

"And when the bleak dawn broke over an empty horizon, Dany knew that he was truly lost to her. “When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east,” she said sadly. “When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When my womb quickens again, and I bear a living child. Then you will return, my sun-and-stars, and not before.” Never, the darkness cried, never never never. Inside the tent Dany found a cushion, soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt even to walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not to dream. She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down across his face." -A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

Both Jon and Daenerys have also found interest again after the deaths of Ygritte and Drogo. Jon wants Val, and Daenerys sleeps with Daario and may perhaps love him, but doubts over her relations with Daario. Both focus on their duties over giving in to what they really want. Daenerys even marries again for peace over giving in to what she really wants.

Both Jon and Daenerys think of having children, but push away the ideal. Jon due to being a member of the Night's Watch and a bastard. Daenerys due to thinking she is barren/cursed by Mirri Maz Duur and can never again have a child born from her.

Jon reflects that if he ever had a son, he'd name him Robb after his brother. Daenerys when pregnant with Drogo's child names her son Rhaego after her brother.

Jon is the secret son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. Lyanna is associated with blue winter roses:

"He was walking through the crypts beneath Winterfell, as he had walked a thousand times before. The Kings of Winter watched him pass with eyes of ice, and the direwolves at their feet turned their great stone heads and snarled. Last of all, he came to the tomb where his father slept, with Brandon and Lyanna beside him. "Promise me, Ned," Lyanna's statue whispered. She wore a garland of pale blue roses, and her eyes wept blood." -A Game of Thrones - Eddard XIII

"Robert had been jesting with Jon and old Lord Hunter as the prince circled the field after unhorsing Ser Barristan in the final tilt to claim the champion's crown. Ned remembered the moment when all the smiles died, when Prince Rhaegar Targaryen urged his horse past his own wife, the Dornish princess Elia Martell, to lay the queen of beauty's laurel in Lyanna's lap. He could see it still: a crown of winter roses, blue as frost." -A Game of Thrones - Eddard XV

When Daenerys has visions in the House of the Undying, she sees the Wall:

"A blue flower grew from a chink in a wall of ice, and filled the air with sweetness. . . . mother of dragons, bride of fire . . ." -A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

Jon is the 'blue flower' she sees growing from the wall of ice, filling the air with 'sweetness'. Jon is Lyanna's son. Both carry blue flower representation.

Jon also wants to know everything there is about his mother; who she was, if she loved him, what sort of person she was. Just alike to how Daenerys wants to learn and know everything she can about Rhaegar, as she also idolizes him in a sense. Both have thoughts about these people. Jon constantly thinks about his mother (Lyanna even if he does not know yet who she is); Daenerys often thinks of Rhaegar (despite never knowing him). Both think of these people despite them already being gone from the world, and both only wish they could have known who they truly were as people and can only guess how Lyanna and Rhaegar would've thought or acted.

Jon thinks of having dragons at the Wall:

"We should have twenty trebuchets, not two, and they should be mounted on sledges and turntables so we could move them. It was a futile thought. He might as well wish for another thousand men, and maybe a dragon or three." -A Storm of Swords - Jon VIII

When Jon dies, Daenerys hears a wolf howling in the distance:

"Off in the distance, a wolf howled. The sound made her feel sad and lonely, but no less hungry. As the moon rose above the grasslands, Dany slipped at last into a restless sleep." -A Dance with Dragons - Daenerys X

Both have an association/thought relating to one another's animal sigil/companion. Jon thinks of wishing for three dragons (Daenerys' house sigil and her dragon children). Daenerys hears a wolf howling when Jon dies, making her feel sad and lonely (Jon's house sigil through Lyanna/Ned and his direwolf Ghost).

Both Jon and Daenerys dream of home. Daenerys with the house with the red door and the lemon tree. Jon with Winterfell.

Both are estranged from their families (Jon being at the Wall. Daenerys being in Essos and the last of her family having died).

Both have lost their brothers in different means. Both have had their mothers die from childbirth and never got to meet them. Both of their fathers (Rhaegar and Aerys) died during the Rebellion.

Both had arcs of leadership and rule, and struggle with their decisions and making hard choices. Jon winds up killed due to his choices at the end of ADWD, and Daenerys becomes stranded in the Dothraki Sea due to her choice of saving Drogon (and her people from Drogon) from the fighting pit and escaping on dragonback.

While Daenerys thinks of taking the IT as a duty due to being the last of her family and Viserys' last living heir, Jon admits to wanting to become Lord of Winterfell but turning the opportunity away.

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teriri-sayes · 7 months

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Reactions to Young Master Shield's Chapter 212

TL;DR - Alberu and Cale talks about the miscommunication. Alberu scolds Cale. The two plan to rip off other kingdoms again. GoD approves of Cale's request. GoD's bishop meets Cale at the black castle. Violan sees Cale off. Cale arrives in the world of a RoFan (romance-fantasy) and becomes a ML???

The Two Brothers The scenes between the two today was so funny. Alberu scolded Cale for misinterpreting his nod back then, and increasing his workload now. 😂

Alberu: That's why I told you to just go quietly. Cale: I thought I had to explain and then go! Alberu: ...Are you mad at me now? Cale: ... Alberu: Tsk. Why did you have to say that you were saving the world? Cale: (I mean, how will I explain it then?) Alberu: You could've said it was related to Arm. Because it's true, right? Then people will be less anxious and won't worry as much, right? Cale: ... Alberu: Even if you cannot lie, you should speak in moderation. Why are you increasing my workload? The background: *constant ringing noises from the video comm devices connected to other countries* Alberu: *glares at Cale* Cale: Ahem. *avoids the gaze* Alberu: This is driving me crazy.

And then the two laughed as they thought of ripping off the other countries again... 😂

"I plan to gather representatives from each kingdom soon and share some of the truth." "…" "It means we need to hold a general meeting. You know what I mean, right? Huh?" Alberu asked with a bright smile. Cale responded quickly. "Yep." It wasn't 'yes,' but 'yep.' Alberu's bright smile deepened, and Cale smiled back. "Hahahaha!" "Hahaha!" Munch, munch. Raon, who was eating cookies, turned away from the two. "Both of you are acting strange!" The two felt a strange sense of futility in the 7 year old dragon's words and stopped laughing.

Of course, Cale also kept teasing Alberu. Like when Cale brightly smiled at Alberu for thinking the same thing as him. 😂

Alberu: *planning to take advantage of the situation to gain something* Cale: *brightly smiling as if he knew what Alberu was thinking* Alberu: !!! Alberu: Don't look at me like that. Cale: How am I looking at you? I'm just looking at you with great respect right now, okay? Alberu: Haa… (I shouldn't talk to you.)

And one more... 🤣🤣🤣

Alberu: No need to send you off? Cale: *grins* Yes. You must be so busy to even play games. I wish you luck! Alberu: … *smiling brightly* Raon: Oh! I think my human won against the crown prince this time!

Aipotu Plans So Cale's request to increase the number of people to a hundred got approved... sort of. GoD said that Cale was allowed to bring 99 people, and the last 100th spot was reserved for someone who might "descend" to that world.

Cale was surprised at the word "descend", and wondered if a god was going. Woah... Is the situation that serious then? GoD did say that if Cale's guess about the Five-Colored Bloods being wanderers was true, it would cause chaos in the divine realm. So who would descend? GoD himself? GoP? GoFP? Angelina?

GoD wouldn't give Cale an answer on who, but told him to bring Cage with him in case communication through the divine mirror fails.

As for the enemy wanderer, we did get one clue about them. Sui and CJS reported that the enemy was wearing a cow-shaped mask, and that was it.

The Send-Off Because the entire black castle would be going, Cale did not head to the temple of GoD this time. Instead, it was the bishop of GoD who came to the black castle. Cale warned the bishop to keep everything a secret, and they agreed, feeling intimidated by everything he had seen here.

We had some touching scene of Violan sending off Cale, telling him to take care of himself. She handed him a blueprint of the castle's new stuff, and told him to make use of it if an enemy attacked.

Cale, the Grand Duke of the North? And finally, Cale's group arrived at the world of Aipotu. They were all tense and prepared to go to battle, but what did they see upon arrival? A snow-filled landscape and cold winds. Apparently, GoD sent them there because this was where CJG last sent a message to GoD, so GoD thought this place was safe.

The group was then greeted by an old man and his entourage in winter clothes, and the old man mistook Cale for... the Grand Duke! 🤣🤣🤣 Cale was shocked, and the confused old man corrected himself, saying that he (Cale) must be the descendant of the Grand Duke who came to save the fief!

Cale, with his extensive knowledge of novels he had read as KRS, then blurted out, "Grand Duke of the North?" At those words, the old man exclaimed that the revelation in his dream was indeed correct. 😂

But wait, Cale... Grand Duke of the North is a cliche in romance-fantasy (rofan) novels... So you also read rofan?! 🤣🤣🤣 And Cale is that Grand Duke's descendant?! 😂

Okay, on a more serious note, does that mean the Thames household was originally from Aipotu? Because Cale's red hair was inherited from them, and the old man even mistook Cale for the grand duke himself. Or is this another case like how WS's appearance was a red-haired KRS lookalike?

Ending Remarks Today's chapter had a lot of funny moments, though I was surprised that they're suddenly in Aipotu by the end of the chapter. Oh yeah, Cale's talk with the Molans got postponed again, but Cale was now seriously thinking of making time to talk with them.

TCF's genre keeps increasing. First it was a transmigration into a western fantasy world. Then we had the modern fantasy and apocalyptic monsters. Next was the world-hopping. Xiaolen was a fantasy world with necromancy theme and throne succession battle. Central Plains was a typical murim world with Eastern zombies. Earth 3 was said to have hunters and dungeons. And now, Aipotu is... a romance fantasy world with dragons? 🤣🤣🤣

If it's rofan, will we have another crown prince here who's going to be the rival of the grand duke of the north? Who's going to be the FL? A commoner turned noble? Or will we have a villainess? Or maybe a saintess? 😂 All this thinking has me excited for the chapter on Friday!

#tcf spoilers #trash of the count's family

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its-actually-minicika · 1 year

Text

The Harshest Winters (18+!)

Part 4;;

Pairing(s): Jacaerys x Reader x bookcanon Aemond;

Warnings: all of them lmao - dubious consent, canon typical violence, lack of Jacaerys, death, blood and gore, Aemond - who forces the reader into holy matrimony in this one (oh yes it's happening), and of course engages in petty masturbation (it's not THW without him going ham on his own hand ♡)

Word Count: 15k+ (wowza i know)

Author's Note: Low and behold, part 4 is here!! Originally, this was supposed to be a 4 parts series, but that obviously isn't the case anymore. THIS TOOK SO LONG AND I'M SO SORRY - I had major issues with the tag list, and at some point, tumblr wouldn’t let me post this; I unfortunately couldn't solve those problems, no matter how hard I tried, so most of you haven't been properly tagged :") This update is a hot mess, and I haven't actually had the time to read through all the paragraphs that I wrote. I SHALL BE BACK TO EDIT

A huge thank you to everyone who's still following the story, though, and I hope you enjoy!

A war is in its midst.

When everyone else is readying themselves for the following decisive battles, you and Aemond are busy playing house.

Things get heated in Harrenhal, and one must decide when and where to pick their side.

The contact of the hot water upon Aemond’s ivory skin made the man shudder in naught but blinding pain. Achingly slow movements, followed by slow grunts echoed throughout the room – and Lady Tully stilled upon the silken sheets, moving her eyes over the book’s page for the thousandth time since he returned; thus driving all her peace away.

The baths Aemond determinedly took in the raptures of the late-night hours never failed to make her uncomfortable, and keep her on edge. Even so, being forced to hear the pained man move with such little stability and lack of confidence almost teetered the girl to the brink of madness.

Harrenhal had been in shambles since its proud conqueror beckoned his return on dragon back that very eve. Two young maids shouted for maesters, and Alys Rivers nearly caused a scene. As he got off his leather saddle, the Prince all but collapsed from tiredness and blood loss.

'He commanded his features to turn brave and taciturn,' his paramour had told her, 'as to not let a single hint of his condition spread throughout the Keep. My poor Aemond.'

The fool had been reached by an arrow.

An impressive feat, one had to agree – and wonder further on the identity of the courageous shot.

‘Struck right between his shoulder blade and chest,’ she had heard some lost girl utter, ‘It is a miracle he’s still alive.’

… Or the Gods’ cruelest punishment, the Lady compelled within her thoughts.

“Mmhh…” Aemond’s rugged breath deterred the girl to raise her glassy orbs from the confinement of the wilting pages. She schooled her eyes to stay above any level of indiscretion, and gingerly followed the trail of blood mixed with dirt, that seeped into and dirtied the once clear water.

Now that her curiosity was quenched, she could freely look away again.

Half a heartbeat later, she relented and surrendered in the face of his quarrelsome state. The Prince bit the inside of his cheek again, and raised his hand up to allow droplets of liquid to trail past his wounded shoulder… but to no avail.

“You could call in a maid, you know.” Her raspy voice descended upon his struggling body. Sooner than she may have liked, the Bliss of Riverrun closed her eyes, and concentrated on the languid noises that the Prince was making.

Seconds felt like pending minutes, until Aemond One-Eye graced her with a reply.

“I don’t need a maid to help me.”

Then that was that, the young woman soon concluded, returning her attention to the opened book.

'The Philosophies of the Riverlands', however, provided little to no aid to the situation at hand – and her overall station.

For she knew, perhaps far too well, that she had to play a different game than the one they'd engaged in, months prior to her imprisonment in that cursed place.

Insufferable man… she vexed him cruelly inside her head, I hoped by now you would be dead.

She raised one leg from the mattress that embedded her, and shifted it, so as to allow her limbs to hang lowly by the edge of the bed. Her thoughts formed and went as they pleased, but the girl settled on one final reach.

He hadn't even allowed Alys to help him undress. Suggesting her now was a deliberate waste of her time.

Not only that, but she still had to win his trust. Somehow, she promised herself, no matter what it takes, she'd do it.

Forcibly she rose from the bed, and made her way slowly towards his wide basin, fixating her eyes on the stone floor ahead. Her throat closed in on itself, and the girl pursed her lips into a tight line, whilst exhaling through her nose. It took a while for her to calm herself.

"... What about me?" She asked in a leveled tone.

Her gaze met his piercing orb, and the Lady nearly took a small step back. His face long washed the wave of shock from his sharp, Targaryen features – Aemond awaited her next words with a quirked up brow and a slight bite o'r his inner cheek. He seemed more than interested in her meek suggestion.

His wordless approval had left her speechless and, for a while, only her heartbeat emerged in her ears.

The Prince Regent trailed his eye hungrily over her extended arm. He took in a sharp breath as she grasped the rough sponge from his hand, and drained it of the putrid smell. She confidently brought it up to him – and teasingly trailed it over his hard chest, down to his lower abdomen, up again to his slouching shoulder.

"This… will hurt you a little bit." She whispered to him, skillfully averting her face from the man in question.

He gritted his teeth harshly, and almost let out a groan from his parted lips – with his dexterous and long fingers, he gripped the edge of the wooden basin, but dared not to look away from the kneeling Lady – choosing, instead, to focus on singling out her every soft and hard feature.

On her end, (Y/N) dabbed the piece of cloth over his wound gently, chanting inside her head to remain small and taciturn.

He shan't get more of a reaction from me, she promised herself through the span of an agonized huff, as she focused in on the task at hand.

Aemond's white skin revealed itself from the washed patches of dirt, and the Prince sighed a deep breath of contentment, as he felt his body be unintentionally caressed by her. His eye fluttered close, and a slight furrow of his tantalizing brow indicated the uncommon pleasure he took from their sporadic intimacy.

The two remain in awkward silence - the only noise that reached the girl's ears being the rattle of water and the occasional hiss from Aemond.

"... I'm sorry." She strained herself to whisper, whilst her hair fell seemingly out of place. "This looks as if it's painful."

The Prince Protector mirrored her stance, and glanced at her through the thick curtain of long, silver hair – the lilac in his eye complimenting the heatwaves of fire that danced across his marred skin.

"It's not painful." His gruff voice echoed in reply.

"... You –" The Lady began, but stopped on her tracks to level her voice again, by the aid of coughing in the back of her hand.

"You don't have to pretend in my company, you know."

She graced him with a forced smile, one she hoped seemed light enough to fool him. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't make fun of you."

Her eyes trailed over to the harsh stone floor, wrinkling at their sharpened ends – "When I was three and ten," she began, "My youngest brother betted against one of the stable boys: that he could ride faster than anyone on his horse, Middle." Her eyes spasmed close at the memory, and the girl wistfully smiled to herself, "The fool scraped his knees in that dreadful race. Middle threw him right out of his expensive saddle."

As she spoke, she brought the rough cloth over Aemond's shoulder blade, right above his wound, and began scrubbing the dirt that adorned over his skin.

"He didn’t want anyone to know what had happened, so he made me clean it, in the stead of a maester." The Lady let out an airy laugh, as her nose scrunched up with a pang of fondness. "I have never seen a boy get so worked up over a simple scratch before."

Aemond hummed in admission – half relieved by the distraction she was offering, and half worried by the impending pain he would soon feel. He shifted from inside the basin, as if to reach for the sponge in her hand himself, but the girl simply laid her hand away.

Her musings came to an abrupt end. She retreated on her steps lightly, and offered the Crown Prince a quirked-up brow.

"You need to stay put, Prince Aemond. Otherwise, I risk causing you more harm than good." She swallowed thickly, and only shook her head, "Your wound needs thorough cleaning, Your Grace. And it is too far in the back for you to clean it by yourself."

She glanced at his face anew, and let out a tumbling sigh as he nodded his head again, trying his hardest to relax into her touch once more.

Part of him remained put up – the bulk of his chest and shoulders still gloriously hunched over, ready to bolt up at any given moment.

"... I hate to admit it. I thought he was exaggerating then – with the discomfort which he feigned was feeling."

Her lips pursed into a tight line, as she glanced quickly at the laying man, "But how can one make fun of another's state of pain?"

A sympathetic look was shared between them.

Her eyes softened in admission to his furrowed brows and descended features. In that exact light, she couldn’t help but notice how much he resembled her Jace.

"Pain makes us human. And it's a reminder for us: to really cherish our times of incandescent joy."

The break of a cold sweat kissed over Aemond's forehead; droplets of which gathered at the base of his left eye, where his leather eyepatch stayed secured.

The girl pushed down a disdainful puff, as her eyes trailed him over, from the rosy blotch of skin, back to his hawk-like eye.

"Leather retains heat." She murmured before she could catch herself.

The Targaryen Prince expelled a deep breath, and, as her hand came to rest over the buckle that secured his patch into place, he primed his lips into a downturned arch.

"It can't be good for you to always keep it on."

"The sight of it frightens others. I don't want it to frighten you."

"I've seen you without your eyepatch before."

"That was different. This time… is different."

The latter of his words sent a shiver down her bent spine. Nothing is different, she was aching to say. Her lips pressed anxiously together, and the girl offered Aemond a curt nod. Just as she was about to pull her hand away from the nape of his neck, the Prince's wet palm came up to stop her.

His fingers shakily entwined with hers. The deep callouses of his hand scratched the softness of her open palm.

For a while, Time herself froze before them.

(Y/N) came to avert her gaze, but Aemond's eye feverishly searched for the relieving clash of hers. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and the Lady of Riverrun nearly choked onto the clogged-up air.

His silver locks curled slightly at their ends – the dampness of the room striking its claim over his perfectly straight strands of hair. In his own right, Aemond could be called beautiful. His striking Targaryen features might have ensured the favor of many young maidens, were it not for his rash and impetuous attitude, the bite that rested in his character – which no doubt spread like a disease over his life at Court.

"Look at me." Against his better judgment, and his innermost turmoil, Aemond allowed her small fingers to trail over the buckle of his blinder again. He drew out a comforting sigh, and, with her hand still in his, gently slid the leather off.

He sucked in a quiet breath, as the coldness of the air enveloped his throbbing eyelids.

The poise in his composure was cracking at the seams, with the passing of each second, during which she settled to remain silent.

Eventually, her hand came to rest over his face again. Her dexterous fingers began to leisurely wipe the sweat from his brow, his eye, by submerging them into the lukewarm water, and bringing them over and over to his clenched face.

"I'm sorry." She settled on to say instead, once the breaching of kind words failed to meet her. "No one deserves to be left without an eye. No one deserves such appalling cruelty."

"You appear to be sorry an awful lot this evening, My Lady." Aemond choked under his breath, taken aback by her gentle movements and sainty utter.

"I spend the better part of my days in the company of my own thoughts." She huskily reminded him, "... It's been increasingly easier for me to reflect on my past mistakes."

Wordless from her hoax admission, and desperate to feel her hands explore him further, the Targaryen Prince rose heavily from the dirtied water – his chest coming directly to her field of vision.

The girl let out a cutting gasp, as she turned swiftly on her heel, refusing to glance at his modesty, not any longer than she'd already had.

Her eyelids fluttered close, and she shifted from one foot to the other, but to no avail. For in spite of her desire to run away, the Lady found herself hammered in place.

The proximity between them laid out to be a problem – Aemond let out a frustrated sigh, and turned her head around with the clasping of his untouched arm. Two of his fingers came to rest at the base of her cheek and chin; the Prince let out a satisfied hum, as her body trembled in slight shock at their change of position.

"Gevie…" He muttered to no one but himself.

His cock stood proudly at attention, kissing over his prominent abdomen, trailing long past his belly button. Every now and then, white pearls pooled to the base of his length, weeping from his angry tip, trailing past his stones in the reach of the water below him.

"Look at me." He breathed again, and his sweet Lady obeyed.

She threw him a dejected look: half harsh and cold, half hardened and scorned. The tips of her ears matched the redness of her pale cheeks. Her eyes cast their curious glow throughout every corner of the room, yet stayed away from the scorn of indiscretion that called out to her, only centimeters below her swollen lips.

Aemond's thumb flicked once over her crimson labium, but the man sighed, seemingly discouraged, and settled upon gripping her dainty wrist instead.

"Gaomagon daor sagon zūgagon, issa dōna jorrāelagon. Nyke kivio ao naejot sagon gīda."

The gentleness that oozed from his voice could have had anyone fooled. But not her. The translations of the words he muttered against the skin of her wrist were lost on her, but the Lady of Riverrun still singled out a most protruding word.

He had never failed to call her 'his tormenting love'.

The girl's breath rose and fell with each agonizing word that befell over her face.

"Mēre tubis ao jāhor jaelagon issa." Aemond sighed against her wrist.

'I would sooner die than spread my legs for the Usurper's kin. I would sooner die than spread my legs for the Usurper's kin. I would sooner die than spread my legs for the Usurper's kin.'

Her words rang harsh and true inside her head – and, much like it was back then, her heart harbored no honorable intent towards the Trident's Terror.

He burnt your entire homeland, she chastised herself harshly, He killed thousands. Every day, even more find their end by the breath of his dragon. By the way of his wrath.

The ache in her heartbeat rang loudly inside her ears – her every pore aligned with her wish to run away, and her mind was screaming at her to retreat to a corner.

Comparing him to Jacaerys was a laughable feat.

"Let's… just finish getting you cleaned up, Your Grace" She struggled to finally suggest out loud, through the timid inflection of her outwardly calm voice.

She slithered her face away from his grasp, and began draining the sponge of the dark mud again.

Aemond sighed, and lowered himself back into the cold water – his lone eye never leaving the mould of her smaller frame.

"I heard that conversation… sometimes distracts the ill from the discomfort of the cleaning process, Your Grace."

Now turned to his exposed back, the girl's hand wavered over his punctured shoulder. She waited three, perhaps four seconds, before her arm finally breached contact with the wounded flesh.

Aemond took in a sharp breath, but remained otherwise silent, until she prompted him to speak again.

"How… how did such a thing even come to happen?"

Aemond's chest rose and fell with each labored pant. His eye remained tightly closed, his jaw awfully set. Her question registered into his mind, and a reply formed at the former base of his thoughts.

For a while, however, the One-Eyed Prince remained quiet – weighing the option of telling her the truth rather carefully.

"A Frey company was marching South." He hissed as her light hand came over his flesh, applying soft pressure in its wake. "The fog of the morning masked them from me – but Vhagar's shadow still went right above their heads."

The woman brought her free hand to rest over his lower back, and her fingers rubbed soothing circles into the dampness of his skin. "It was… very lucky that you didn't get more hurt."

She scorned herself inwardly, but kept her curiosity at bay. She wouldn’t ask him whether the company had risen victorious, or if he burnt all those men to the ground.

The latter option, in any case, seemed more than likely.

The Crown Prince tensed visibly, but didn’t scoot away from her soothing touch. A deep sigh parted from his cracked lips, and the man revelled at their sudden closeness.

He ached to talk to her, to plead with her to welcome him inside her heart – and into her bed. He could feel his own beat loudly, and his body trembled in unquenched lust and rage.

Still, he knew it was too soon for that.

Not once during their rash acquaintance, did the girl before he talk with so much interest about his day with him.

His thoughts trailed to Alys, and Aemond wondered if half her new admission was owed to her – if indeed the two women secured a friendship within the last two weeks, if his whore became her confidant, if she breathed in her trust in him.

He would have to talk to her later. Thank her, if he was feeling apt and generous.

(Y/N)'s breath caught in the shell of his ear, and the Targaryen Prince nibbled at his lower lip. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down; the coldness of the water gave him the strength to concentrate, by the sliding of small ripples down his exposed chest and abdomen. The ache of his wound was a small price to pay, if only to feel her knuckles working against his back.

"There we are. All done, Your Grace."

She rose up from her kneeling stance, wincing at the sudden change of perspective, and at the throb of her tired knees. She gingerly presented the clean set of clothes and bathing robes to him. Her head remained turned to the side, and her hand instantly let go of the heavy clothes, the moment his palm came into contact with them.

In the stead of returning to sit idly by their resting place, the woman graced him with a final look, and let out a faint mutter. "I'll leave you to it."

She wavered but a moment, and turned her stare to the ruined clothes; the ones that Aemond had so carelessly discarded on the floor, as he prepared for his undeserved nightly soak.

The shadow of a long-laid plan gleamed beneath her silent gaze.

"I can wash them for you tomorrow – after my bath. It might be wiser to keep the nature of your wounds hidden. The maids needn't worry over how much blood you lost."

Aemond's brows furrowed in slight shock, and the Prince remained wordless in the face of her sensible suggestion.

And yet her eyes spoke with so much sincerity, that he gleefully allowed the pang of hope to warm his unforgiving features.

"As you wish." He rumbled out, while forcing himself to move his stare to the folded clothes before him.

His eye trailed back to his hands' agile ministrations, and Aemond soon began to roll over his linen breeches, covering his half-hard cock with the help of the rough material.

A throaty groan etched from deep within his throat, however, as he reached for the pristine shirt.

The girl stopped in her tracks, and a deep scowl settled over her fair features.

The struggle he was undergoing would have been music to her ears – were it not for the solidarity of her position. For the millionth time that night, she reminded herself of her plan and her desperation to escape.

Thus, unbeknownst to her own better judgment, the Lady compelled herself to seek him further.

Although her words failed to assist her, the way she gingerly reached, with her hand wide and outstretched, made Aemond aware of her pending intent.

Their bodies were inches apart. The girl sucked in a hurried breath, and neglected to exhale it as the oxygen hit her lungs.

Aemond was burning up – and whether that was from the lack of fresh air within the confining room, or the first telltale sign of fever, or her – he was lost on saying anymore. His weakened arm slithered into the sleeve of his shirt, though the pain was long forgotten.

And instead of focusing on his poised movements, his glassy eye ran hungrily over her face and hypnotic features.

(Y/N)'s fingertips grazed over the light material. Her tired eyes softened at the familiar feeling. The threat of tears beckoned at the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them all away in a hasty movement. Melancholy ate away at her, far more often than she knew was wise to allow.

Still she remembered, if only for a moment, the raptures of Jacaerys' warm embrace. And how, in the heat of summer, that very same cloth felt against her heated cheek.

They must have had the same seamstress, the same tailor. Of course, she thought to herself in a bitter manner, after all, they are both Princes.

… Were.

But if she closed her eyes, she could pretend – No, she chastised herself fully, such a thing just cannot be. And you'd be a fool to attempt to it.

The magnetic pull between them trebly pried the two souls together. And it would be yet another minute, until (Y/N) finally took a step back, opening her mouth to announce the end of her intimate task.

Her eyes fell on the stone hard floor, and she carefully turned her back around him.

The long waves of her hair shifted over her modest nightgown, covering her mounds of flesh with a slight shift to the left.

"I'm going to sleep." She pathetically uttered, as the warmth that emanated from Aemond's form not moments prior, still fell heavily over her slight frame.

Mechanically she gripped the satin sheets and engulfed herself with them – a slight comfort came over her, as the coldness of the unused bedding fanned gently over her scorched limbs.

Aemond remained stuck in place, and a heaved breath rumbled from within his chest. The red in his cheeks would have put both their Houses' seals to shame – For once, he was glad she wasn't looking his way.

***

The rest of the night was spent in washed quietness.

And his Lady might have made it up: the dip at the edge of the bed, the smell of fresh pine and wildfire that caressed her in her sleepy state, and the slight "Thank you" that dabbled from her captor's lips.

“You plan to ride on dragon-back again? So soon?” The echo of Alys' voice carried her worry throughout the silent clearing.

The first rays of sunlight caught flame into her raven hair, lighting her features in such a way, that it accentuated her every perpetual scar and wrinkle. The fire inside her eyes could rival the one of a trueborn Targaryen, were it not for her strong outer appearance.

Aemond moved his body at a leisurely pace, not even bothering to throw the woman one of his usual vexing looks.

"Do you think dear nuncle will put a stop to the siege of the Twins, should the word spread about my condition?"

His cutting words rendered the woman speechless, and the Rivers witch simply clicked her tongue, whilst glancing at the green grass below her.

"War awaits no one, my dear." He asserted definitively, as he gripped onto Vhagar's long bridles.

The mighty beast let out a shaken roar, as Aemond winced once his wounded shoulder made light contact with her dark-green scales.

"Gīda ilagon, Vhagar. Sagon nykeēdrosa... Sȳz hāedar." He instinctively reached for her, and caressed her lower belly with one of his gloved hands.

At their calm exchange, Alys bit over her lower lip, harshly enough to draw her own blood. "You should stay." She managed to draw out, "At least a while – going in search of your uncle today, instead of tomorrow, won't make a difference to your brother's cause."

But her voice of reason reached deafened ears. For Aemond Targaryen was set on paying the debt he owed. The debt he agreed to take on, the moment his dragon clasped onto Lucaerys, swallowing the bastard whole.

"Everything matters at war, Alys." He hummed impatiently, while snapping his head in her general direction. "What do you think will happen to you, should Daemon reach Harrenhal? Your pretty head will rest near mine, impaled on a sharpened spike."

But if she told you to stay put, you would do just that, wouldn’t you? Her bitter thoughts chewed her conscious away.

Alys spat out a lowly curse, as she shifted uncomfortably in place. "Daemon Targaryen was here once, not long before you. He didn’t kill me then."

"Because you didn't matter back then." The Prince Protector of the Realm hissed through painfully gritted teeth, "You were no one to him. You were a wet nurse who merely spread her legs for him."

The man turned his back to her, as he wordlessly bound Vhagar's bridle over his wrist again and again.

"And last I checked, your cunt failed to inspire him."

Her mouth parted in a silent protest, and her green eyes widened in partial distress. "Still I should remain in luck," She choked out through a breathless laugh, "for it has never failed to inspire you."

"You are perfectly right," Aemond's laughter was humorless and brash, "And it is because of this loose cunt that Aegon nearly lost the support of Storm's End."

The Prince spun around on his heel's end, and trapped the woman in between his hard chest and restless dragon. "Sometimes I think you cost me more than you're worth." He whispered calmly into her ear, while trailing his index finger over the sharp edge of her jaw. "For speaking back to me, I could have you executed."

The finality of his words drew her body closer to the ancient beast, and Vhagar let out a displeased grunt. Amusement pulled at the corners of his downturned mouth.

"Still you should remain in luck," He mocked her with an airy laugh, "I find myself in an exceedingly good mood today."

The back of his hand came to play with a loose lock of her messy braid, and the Prince smiled at her stance and her bewildered look. "But you've been a most useful asset, haven't you, my dear?" He obliged her with a teasing smirk, "Lady Tully responded well to you, hasn't she? Tell me," He paused momentarily, as he trailed his hands to the narrow middle of her waist, and back up again. "Have you kept up your training with her?"

Alys' face fell into a frown, as she staggered a frustrated look. Aemond was toying with her.

"That dull book she pretends to read at night has the maps of three secret passages hidden amongst the latter pages. Two of them lead to that cell into the West Wing – but of course, she doesn't know that. The third one leads to the stables of Harrenhal."

Aemond hummed pleasedly, and the man soon took a wide step back, allowing his paramour enough space for proper breathing. "You did well." He smiled wistfully, "I should reward you well tonight. You may think of something you desire. I will see to it once I return."

"I would very much like you to stay and heal today." She urged him not a heartbeat later, surprising even herself with the intensity of her tone.

Aemond's composure broke with the licks of roaring laughter – one that was empty, and fell devoid of any feelings of fondness or grief.

"Think of something else." He urged her coolly, and dismissively pushed past her, to reach for his dragon's saddle.

"'Tis a good thing you shall never be a wife, Alys. The role of the worried wench doesn't suit you one bit."

"Keep feeding her half-truths and lies." He encouraged the woman with a final reach over her hand. He squeezed once over her balled-up fist – acting as both a promise, and a taciturn warning on what should happen, should she let him down again. "Regarding whatever else she may have to say… you'll report it back immediately."

With that, the Kinslayer of the Trident took off, leaving the promise of bone and ash behind his dragon's menacing ascend.

The Eyrie was, on all accounts, smaller even than Maegor's Holdfast. Inside the stronghold nestled the Arryns, hidden deep beneath the illusion of the smallest stronghold of the main seven Kingdoms. Despite its intermediate size, the Keep of the Giant's Lance deemed itself one of the safest places to be – Hardly a lie, especially now, Cain Waters ineptly hummed, once his wobbly feet carried him over the stoney threshold.

Despite its less-than-imposing size, and lack of sheer volume, (Y/N)'s sworn shield felt himself smaller than ever before.

How would he dare account for his whereabouts? Reason his shortcomings?

How could he hope to explain to his Lord that not only did he return empty-handed, without his beloved granddaughter on horseback – he returned without the notion of a hand at all?

Between the two strange figures with whom he traveled, it was Mira Florent who rested loyally by his side – her strength and stability allowing the Waters bastard to lean into her, if only for a fleeting moment, during the ascend of the narrow stairs.

"Take heart," She whispered, "Your Lord is a kind and understanding one. You won't be facing trial for this."

His mere reply was a solitary grunt, and a quick smile, dejectedly thrown her way.

Between the two strange figures with whom he traveled, Albar had remained behind. The mute man shrugged his head decidedly when Cain gestured towards the waiting castle, and Mira explained to him that the Vale scarcely left him feeling safe and wanted.

And he understood, perhaps far too well – the feeling of dejection a bastard boy felt, as he stepped foot into the land of his birth.

***

He'd been granted the comfort of a Maester and a hot soak, almost immediately after his appearance at the Arryns' Great Door.

The Lady of the Vale proved to be a kindred spirit, capable of great nurture, despite her lack of heirs to her family's ancestral throne. She gasped loudly at the sight of him. Her eyebrows furrowed in grave distraught, and her lower lip trembled as the healers informed her of the state of his right hand.

Her searching eyes reminded him of the ones of his own mother – neither particularly warm nor cold towards him, but fair and just in their own accord.

She almost decided against calling upon him to the Trouts' Black Council, but the young Oscar Tully had entirely different plans.

His eyes, as they were, were socketed by a deep, but elusive brown. They spoke and reminded him of a whole different tale than the one of his fair, poor Lady.

And it was Oscar's eyes, so similar in shape to hers, who bore ghastly holes into the back of Ser Cain's skull. His arm rose up, as if to cut off the man's retelling – his nostrils flared up in disgust, and his face twisted into a painful scowl.

"So what you're telling me… is that you failed to bring her back."

Cain's eyes hardened at her brother's words, and the knight nibbled on his lower lip, in an attempt to calm himself.

Although a brave and honest man, he dared not look in the eyes of Lord Grover Tully – he dared not see what lay beneath his wilted face. Thus, all his attention focused in on the chirping lass.

"Aye, my Lord." He mustered up to tell him, "I lost her to the One-Eyed Prince. We escaped Harrenhal, and managed to get as far as the Saltpans, but –"

The boy scoffed at his attempt to pardon and explain himself. He nodded affirmatively, and scrutinized Cain with his piercing gaze.

"You returned with an empty hand, Ser Cain. You failed: miserably."

His back straightened in an attempt to appear bigger, and the hot-headed lass rose from his chair in a hurling daze.

"Because of you, my sister is in the hands of that cycloptic freak. Because of you, we don't know anything about her whereabouts. She could be tortured, enslaved, sullied – worse!"

Lady Jane Arryn clicked her tongue in disbelief, and beckoned her guard to guide the boy back into a sitting stance.

"That is quite enough, Oscar." She asserted calmly, "We have no evidence of such a feat."

"Of course we don't!" The young Lordling huffed annoyedly, jolting on the brink of madness, "The deranged cripple wouldn't reply to any of our ravens!"

His face contorted animalistically, the freckles on his face being taken by the deep shade of crimson that coloured in his plumper cheeks. "And with you here, Waters, we don't even have the certainty that (Y/N) is still alive!"

"Oscar." Grover's deep voice echoed a warning through the quietness of the tiny Keep.

As if struck in the face, the youngest of the Tully brothers shifted in his seat again. "My sister's fate is breached unknown," He cried out in a collapsing tune, "She's our family, grandfather, my only sister! Pray tell, why does it look as if I'm the only one who gives a damn?"

The graying Lord and the narrow Lady both leaned towards a perplexing look. But before any of them could reply to his laid-out challenge, (Y/N)'s brother urged them further, as he hissed through his gritted teeth. "It would have been better for you not to return at all, Ser Cain. It would have been better for all parties involved to have sent me in his stead, Grandfather!"

His shoulders slouched forward, and the brazen boy fought with Grover's intense stare. "Had I failed, I wouldn’t have even returned at all." Oscar roared over the silent council, proclaiming his intent with a defying raise. "I would sooner have died, than see her be taken by that monster again."

"What would you have had me do, boy?!" Grover Tully raised his voice in turn, "You fool. Would you have had me send you away for her? Do you think your death would have made you a martyr?!"

Cain's lips pursed into a tight line, as the Riverlords before him bickered further. Even Lady Jane Arryn seemed to be left speechless, unsure of when or how to stop their arguing.

Family feuds were neither one's strongest suit.

"Do you think," His Grandfather uttered, "that if you were to die, anyone would remember you fondly?!" The red in his cheeks matched the one on his grandson's face, and the elder Lord broke out into a coughing fit. "Your sacrifice would mean nothing. And when the dust settled over Westeros, and the war was done, you would just be another casualty. Another body to burn in a communal."

Almost immediately, his eyes softened, and their deep creases faltered on his face.

The Lord of Riverrun grunted in fatigue, but still rose himself securely on his two able feet. He marched towards the huffing boy, and placed a wrinkled hand over his sweaty forehead, urging him to quiet down.

"It's not about glory, Grandfather." He spat out lowly, as his ears began to match his fiery locks of curly hair. "It's about family. Our family. It's about ensuring its survival."

The older man gave the lass a curt nod. He pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, and turned to the knight with a downturned smile.

"There wasn't a knight more fit for the task than Ser Cain." He confirmed his judgment with a tired gesture in his direction. "He was knighted at five and ten. You are over your seven and tenth birthday, boy, and haven’t been even mirthed a squire."

Oscar sucked in a protesting breath, feeling the eyes of everyone in the room fall before him. His brows furrowed in a dangerous quarrel, and his blood ran hot. "Yet even with all the skill in the world, he still failed."

Lord Grover was losing his patience, "Yes, grandson, that he did! He failed, despite all the signs that pointedly told us otherwise – do you think you'd do an equitable job? When you haven't even once crossed swords in a Joust or Tourney?"

Nearby the aching knight, Lady Arryn renowed her position.

She whispered to her waiting guard, and the man took a step ahead, hitting over the chantry with the hilt of his sword.

The noise that erupted grabbed the attention of both grandson and grandfather.

"The turn of events marked by Ser Cain's departure means we need to readjust our plans." She commanded their heed calmly, "It is… unfortunate; that Lady Tully's sworn shield failed to protect her. Yet here we all stand, warming our bottoms on a mine of gold."

Cain should have been grateful for the distraction she was offering. All the displeasure surged upon him evaporated within the click of her tongue, and less conventional language – still, even he had to remain weary on the subject he opened.

"On a mine of gold?" Oscar spat out sharply, feeling his self-control disperse by failing him again. "My Lady, do you think my sister's condition is a situation of great rejoice?"

The Lady's blue eyes cut through the boy deeply, and the young man closed his mouth in embarrassment, before sitting down again.

She reached for the goblet of wine, and wet her lips with it, "Our strategical situation couldn't be better. Not once have we had a spy of Harrenhal successfully return. In truth, we didn’t even think it possible." Her lithe hand pointed towards the bloodied knight, and her eyes glimmered in mischief, "Yet here stands our living proof."

She elegantly rose from her ivory throne, and signaled the man to take a seat at the bent table. As he gingerly followed her lead, the woman spared him with a kind glance, and met his glance with her deep azul gaze.

"From what I gather, you spent the better part of a month undetected in the Strongs' Keep. Is that true?"

Cain nodded stiffly, and rested his bulky hands over his tired knees. "Yes, my lady. That I have."

"And you were knighted at fifteen?" She alluded to what was early spoken.

"Yes, my lady."

"By Lord Hunter Redwyne." She urged him to clarify, through the edge of a quirked-up brow, and the callings of a small smile pulling at her dusted lips.

"Yes, my lady. The very one."

Lady Jane hummed, seemingly satisfied by his short answers. She turned her attention to Lord Grover and his tiresome grandson, and merely asked Ser Cain again.

"And you faced the Kinslayer in combat, cut by a Valyrian blade, and lived to tell the tale?"

"... Aye, my lady."

Oscar's eyes remained unyielding. But Grover Tully glanced at the man before him, and offered him a wordless bow.

"Tell me, Ser, how would you like to command your own battalion?"

"You have to be patient." Alys chastised her deeply, as her luring features turned from flaccid to sharp. "Hardly enough time has passed since your last attempted escape – Aemond is still very much on edge."

The Lady's eyes turned to her. With the bridge of her nose scrunched up, and her fair features molded into a desperate plea, the girl looked more like a lost child, than an able and resourceful Lady.

Alys regarded her as such, and sighed deeply as she grasped onto her shoulders carefully.

"If I wait any longer, it'll be too late. I've already wasted three moon turns in this cursed Keep. I have to return to my family." The Tully spoke decidedly, leaving behind no room for arguing. She took a seat before the tiny mirror, that breached her modest vanity – a recent gift from Aemond, deduced by him to make her feel more like a proper lady.

The image that reflected within it looked at her like a dire stranger. The green silks she was dressed into, the pristine, braided hair that framed her pale cheeks perfectly; She was the vision of a flawless royal, a soft and polite maiden, untouched yet by the spoils of death and war.

'Would this be enough?' She asked herself desperately, whilst gripping the edge of her chair painfully.

Was this what Aemond had always wanted? The proof of her lack of autonomy, finally presented to him on a silver platter, as he returned from war every night?

Was he, perhaps, congratulating himself, every time he glanced at her, thinking himself master of the universe for making her arch and kneel?

Alys shook her head once more, and rested a hand over her bouncing knee.

"Patience is a virtue, Lady Tully. You needn't put yourself through any more unnecessary risks."

The Lady of Riverrun shook her head vigorously, finally snapping herself back to reality; Her actions were defying, and devoid of any capacity. Alys felt herself more confounded by the second. "I'll help you plan this thoroughly." The wood witch adverted. Her head quirked to the side in an encouraging gesture, and the girl nodded feverishly in reply.

Her green eyes widened in fair delight, and Aemond's lover lowered her gaze over the girl's book. "You memorized the passages well enough. Very soon, you shall put your knowledge to practice."

(Y/N) let out a tired sigh, and graced the older woman with a pleasant smile. "I'm lucky to have you, Alys" She played with her rings as she spoke, "Thank you. For everything."

As the elder woman finally left her Quarters in favor of bringing out the order for dinner, (Y/N) let out an aggravated groan.

Her long pretense would surely make her nauseous. But she would be a simpleton indeed, to place all her trust in Alys.

The walls preleened with the doom of silence. A cold breeze dug its way deeply into her spine, and the silent taste of passing and demise left a sour taste in her parted mouth.

***

Aemond began dinner as he wontedly did every day – praying to the Warrior to grant him strength in battle, to the Smith, to mend all that was left broken, to the Father, "to shine his light", and lead their souls out of the brink of darkness.

Each and every time, without fail, the girl would bring the pristine napkin to her mouth, masking the obvious way her lips would quirk into a most unyielding smile. His pious speech, and the way his hands painfully clasped together, begging for the blessing of resolve, made her scoff in blinding wonder.

Was he even aware of the words he mostly muttered? Did he ever stop to assess himself throughout the day, and realize the sin in which he debaucherously bathed in?

As his speech came to an end, the Lady preleened forward, grabbing a hold of the boiled-up stork.

How lovely it was to sit between comfort and chaos.

"You've never been one to speak much during our time spent together." Aemond remarked through the rumble of a solitary hum. "Yet I had hoped this last week softened your resolve, My Lady."

Her eyebrows rose in slight discomfort, as her eyes focused on the leisure movements of his bigger hands.

So he was softening up.

She opened her mouth almost immediately, but her hesitant eyes danced around his blinding stare. Her plump lips pressed into a hard line, and she exhaled loudly through her nose, in an attempt to ground herself.

"Not at all, Your Grace, I assure you." The cluttering of her fork came to a hoisted end, as Lady Tully aligned her head to focus directly on the One-Eyed Prince. "I should love nothing more than to talk to you… Please, do advise me on what you would like most to hear."

She fidgeted nervously with her silver rings – a quirk she developed whilst imprisoned in the Strong's Keep – and gingerly awaited his reply.

Your Grace. Your Grace. Your Grace.

The stillness in her speech and eyes drove the man effectively wild.

"Aemond." He stilled her faction through the reign of a distorted sigh.

She regarded him with a petrified stance. Her hands fell heavy over her legs in the wake of anticipation.

"... I-I beg your pardon?"

"Aemond." He repeated his name again, "We already break bread and sleep in the same bed." His lilac eye rose from his plate, and singled out her reddened cheeks. The man paused a while, as if to weigh his words carefully, and his cold, glassy orb, hungrily ran over her form. "It seems inevitable that we'd call each other by our given names. Yet you never once said mine throughout."

The girl could feel her throat dry up. While still maintaining his awkward stare, she reached for the glass of wine that rested by her left side. She wrapped her hand around its stem, and brought it to her paling lips.

The liquid courage slid down her throat in a quick, though burning manner, and (Y/N) had to swallow down an erratic cough. Her brows furrowed amidst, as she picked her words out slowly.

"I have called your name before, Prince Aemond. Many times throughout the moons, in fact."

He smiled at her perturbed reply, and shook his head in coy distraught.

"Not without the honorifics." The man clarified in a pleading tone, his voice growing hotter now. "... Just say my name." He sighed defeatedly. His hand gripped the edge of the table, silently, as the Targaryen Prince could feel his mind running with a thousand thoughts per passing minute.

The silence ate at him alive. She drowned the wine in a swift swing, and slouched forward to pour herself another glass.

She was too sober for this.

Lucaerys, Jacaerys, Cain.

Part of her wanted to pluck his eye out. Part of her wished nothing more than to make fun of him. Laugh, perhaps, at his desperate indiscretion. Do something – anything – to gauge a reaction out of him.

Any sort of reaction, that would make her pestering feelings for him leave her heavy soul.

Surprising even herself, adamantly going against her own wishes, the woman caught herself breathing out.

"... Aemond."

Unexpectedly he moved, by jumping to his ready feet, fully disregarding the oak chair as it hit the floor in a most perused manner.

The pang of noise alerted her, and seemingly, the guards outside. A while they remained in silence, listening in to the clash of metal that announced their unsure shifting.

But they wouldn’t come inside. The girl was lest aware of that.

As time pressed on, Aemond remained hammered in place, heaving out his weighty breaths and clasping his hands in aching fists.

Her eyes momentarily left his shadow – to turn again towards the poach of wine, and empty another glass in rapid gulps.

The heavy atmosphere inside the room hung lowly over their tired heads. (Y/N) resumed her mellow eating, wincing at the shakiness within her hands. She grabbed another piece of the boiled meat, though Aemond's stare soon made her drop it, and the girl clicked her tongue in disbelief; grabbing it instead with a piece of cloth, and securing it into a tight knot.

This time, it was her actions that had failed her. And perhaps it'd be her ready words that would prevail.

"Aemond." She spoke again, this time more confidently than before. The bitter liquor was burning her throat, her chest, her heart. She felt her limbs heavy – with both anticipation and frustration - borne out of lack of relief. She wanted to slap him, to hit him, to crush him beneath her feet.

She wanted to run away, to stay confined, forever inside this room, forever astute to what was going on in the outside world.

She wanted to feel something.

She wanted…

"Yes." Aemond encouraged her softly, and her attention came back to the raptures of the present tense. "There we go." He worded out, keeping his tone barely above a whisper.

Neither could tell when or how it happened – but Aemond's body was inches away from touching hers. The heat emanating from his beating heart washed over the meek form of the tipsy Lady. His Lady.

She gulped painfully, and the Prince could feel how his hands started spasming with the need to feel her. His nails bit the inside of his calloused palm, leaving deep and angry marks inside them.

His prominent veins shifted with his every faction. His face morphed into hopeful disarray.

"There we go." He repeated gently, "I want to hear your laughter. You never once laughed with me."

Her stare was hard to decipher. And yet confliction danced across her face. Aemond turned serious, and the stammering of his hands came to an untimely end. His eye bared holes into her reddened face; and the Lady humorously thought, if only for a moment, that it was a lucky thing he didn’t still have both his eyes. For such a stare would be embedded in her subconscious, bringing forth her swift undoing.

The corners of her mouth felt painful to bend and break. Shakily she smiled at him, and opened her mouth in shocked reclusion.

A shy laughter erupted from her unquenched throat, and the woman shuddered, surrendering the reins of reason to the drunken thoughts that sieged her.

Her laughter wasn't her own. The languid movements of her hands, that trailed over Aemond's chest, were not her own.

His finger came to caress her cheek. Her nose. Her brow. Her lips. Her mouth. The Crown Prince sucked in a dangerous breath, and secured his left arm loosely around her waist.

"Good girl," He spoke tenderly, his voice going from gruff to rough, "Such a good girl for me." His fingers combed through her messy braids, marking their swift undoing – taking a step back, he could feel the heat leave his head, in the favor of traveling lower, to meet the almost flaccid cock confined in the tightness of his pants. "Say my name again. Laugh again." He commanded in a pleading meowl. His lips twitched in anticipation, and his eyes trailed lower, lower still, from up her face, down to her soaring bosom.

"Aemond."

"(Y/N)."

A solitary look of shame was shared between them. Perhaps pushed forward by the only remaining faction of rationale, the two placed a step in between each other, but even that proved to be too fickle of a barrier to keep them whole apart.

Aemond reached to cup her face with his own trembling hand – on her end, the girl's digits trailed over from his high cheekbones, down to his prominent cupid's bow, in an all but gentle caress.

"Avy jorrāelan." He hissed through painfully gritted teeth, allowing his head to rest in the crook made of her shoulder blade and neck. "Avy jorrāelan." He repeated, the vulnerability in his voice making him lose the hold he had over himself.

"Se Jaes emagon qrimbrōstan issa naejot jorrāelagon ao." His feathered breath came into contact with her dainty neck. (Y/N) gasped lightly, as she felt the first of his many kisses being tenderly placed over her jaw and neck.

Her head was pounding, and her eyes were screwed shut, as the coldness of the wall hit her in perused waves. The impropriety of the soft moans and sighs that filled her ears to the brim left her confused and wanting.

The worst of it was that she didn’t know whether they came from her or him.

She felt as though her head was being harshly held below the water, and the girl clawed at her dress to loosen her tight bodice, which seemed to constrict even her erratic breathing.

Aemond's attention moved from her earlobe back to her lips. He felt how her hands contorted sporadically, and he placed his own palm over hers, to put an end to her hasty movements, and give her a sense of calmness. His fingers suddenly entwined with hers, as his form hovered above her. His throat etched with a lousy moan, and his mouth finally crashed with hers.

(Y/N)'s eyes opened at the shocking scene, and her lips suddenly parted, either to beg or to protest against him, but Aemond's hot tongue found entrance into her warm cave – deciding instead to deepen the kiss, and press himself further against her smaller form.

The outline of his throbbing cock molded against the shape of the woman's thigh, and the Prince Protector of the Realm let out a pleasured hiss, once her insistent writhing ended up brushing up his weeping tip. "Jaes, ao istan vēttan syt issa." He mumbled against her swollen lips, "Sepār jurnegon skorkydoso īlon kostagon fāelor hēnkirī."

She let out a fatigued whimper, and swiftly turned her head around, putting an abrupt end to their meek and vicious pecks.

"What's wrong, hmm? Dōna hāedar… ȳdra daor hakogon qrīdrughagon hen issa sir."

Aemond's lips were soft and tender, leaving behind an almost vivacious bite over her exposed parts. His pace had been filled with an animalistic hunger; the longing inside his eye caught her unprepared, and her lips parted with the desire to feel something – anything – that his palpable mouth would keenly offer.

(Y/N) shuddered with her eyes closed, and grabbed a hold of his long, white hair, leading the man closer yet to her swelling heat.

The way in which he held her should have felt so very wrong. But at that moment, the only thing she could do was extend her arm back up to him, and guide him with an insistent pull over his silky locks: encouraging him to bring forth his descent upon her lips.

She disregarded the way a figment of her psyche screamed at her. To stop her ministrations, to slap his calloused hands away from her. For if she kept her eyes closed, and focused solely on the shape of him, then she could almost pretend that the man before her had nothing to do with her beloved Jace.

She could almost pretend that he was Jace.

Aemond's pupil was left blown wide – so much so, that the lilac of his iris could almost be left neglected. He wrapped his hands around the lady's thighs, and hoisted her up to meet him by his narrow hips. Both moaned into the other's mouth, and the Prince soon found his way into the raptures of the silken bed.

His heated cock kissed the outlines of her soaked cunny. Aemond sighed deeply over the arch of her neck, and pawed away at her untouched bodice.

(Y/N)'s hands rested still upon his eyepatch, and, with a swift and hasty movement, she yanked it off his sculpted face.

"We need to stop…" She moaned, defeated, and felt how Aemond's body stiffened up below her, as the harsh realization finally hit them both.

She had uttered the words aloud.

Half expecting him to blow out fuming, the woman tried to pry herself off his fevered body, but his hands reigned like iron shackles over the inside of her spreading thighs.

"Do we?" He whispered lowly, whilst leaning in to steal another kiss from her again.

"We shouldn’t." She strained herself to say once more, and Aemond nodded, still chasing her lips with his.

She melted into his reluctant touch, and hummed against his beating heart. His hands dug deeply into her resting sides; his fingertips scattered over her translucent spine, leaving their possessive mark. "This isn’t right."

"I know, I know," He gasped, "Seven Hells, I know…"

"Yn nyke istan zarvīzis," He pressed a finger over her swollen lips, "Nyke emagon issare sīr sȳz se… sīr, sīr zarvīzis."

With the last ounce of her strength, she bit over his lower lip, dragging a wanton moan from out of his rosy lips.

"Ao aehron raqagon ao ȳdra daor jaelagon bisa..." He chanted, while latched onto her burning sear, "Yn ao jaelagon issa sepār hae olvie. Ao mazilībagon syt issa – sepār hae qosaevaerī."

His High Valyrian had made her dizzy. And at first, she tried to pay his words her mind, she tried to grapple and understand what he was saying.

A starved meowl left her panting lips.

"You can tell me to stop," The words that poured out of his mouth washed upon her like a rippled tide, "You can tell me to stop… and I will..."

Her body quickly arched against him; her shaky hands came to rest over his hips. She laced her mouth again with his, expecting rough, dominant kisses – but Aemond's hands propped themselves loosely against her cheeks, his thumbs pliantly stroking her with untoward devotion. His single eye drank her in with reverence.

"Please…" He whimpered into her mouth, "Avy jorrāelan." He confessed to her, again and again, trying his hardest not to take her against the cold floor – and not fuck her straight into the messy mattress.

Her limbs felt heavy. Lacking their autonomy. The body she was nestled in still wasn't her own.

"... Why?" She asked him disdainfully, sporadically, as his index finger came to pry open her haughty entrance.

His eye widened in perplexed ruin, but the Prince soon stumbled over his words again.

That bastard Jace must have taught her the gist of that.

"... I wish I knew." Came his sole and sincere reply.

Just like that, her eyes welled with the threat of tears.

His hands, his hold, his voice, his mouth. It was all wrong. In truth none could ever hope to feel right.

Flashes of her old lover, of his baby brother – who was so small the last she'd seen him –, of her sworn shield came into view. All of them, gone as if they never were. All of them, with their memories trampled deep beneath her sprawled-out form.

She wasn't a woman of the Faith. Not after what had happened. Not after the spoils of war that she, herself, felt like angry whips upon her skin. But her eyes fluttered close, and she begged the Mother for forgiveness, whilst a tear rolled off her ticking cheek.

She brought a hand to her wobbly lips, and began to violently rub away any remaining trace of Aemond's presence.

She was disgusted. With him, with herself, with the world, with the image of her Jace – that surged in her mind the second she blinked, the moment that she jolted awake in her misery.

On his end, (Y/N)'s display of pure abhorrence failed to falter Aemond's lustful grief. Why, if she did not desire him, did she fall into his arms again and again?

Love was the death of duty. And longing was the doom of all.

"Fucking cock tease…" The Prince growled, grief-stricken, "How much longer are you going to give into me, just to push me away?"

His patience had been running thin. The ache in his breeches was long forgotten. In its stead, the urgent sting in his heart dragged the man into the pits of madness. "What is it this time?" He groveled over her closed legs again.

Her recuperation had been jovial and quick. Adrenaline replaced the pain and shame, and the woman tried to get off the bed, put as much distance as she knew how in between her and the ravished Prince.

For the first time since he came to be, Aemond would not let her escape his clutches. As she moved backwards, he persisted forward – following her wobbly feet throughout the room with the spare of his predatory eye.

"Y-You said –" She tried ceaselessly to accuse him. "You said you wouldn't –"

"And you're right. I meant every. Single. Thing. I told you." He growled into her frightened ear, as his hands came to cage her, trap her under the seclusion of the hard, stone wall.

"You're mine." He hissed desperately, as he clasped her jaw to face him. "You've always been mine, you fucking harlot. From the moment you stepped foot into Harrenhal, your life belonged to me."

Perhaps Aemond was right, and she was nothing but a harlot. A treacherous swine that hung onto whatever he could give her - so starved and devoid of love and warmth, that she'd dare to stoop so lowly with him.

Aemond descended his unquenched rage over her exposed neck, and began leaving tender love bites all over, in spite of her lackluster pleas.

(Y/N)'s head felt like it was about to explode. She felt sick to her stomach – the wine and the distraught both built up inside of her. All she wanted now was to be left alone. For Aemond's touch felt oddly comforting, and her tired eyes began to close. "You drive me insane." She heard him choke.

She wanted to open her mouth. To urge the Prince to stop; but her word hole was sewn shut, taken over by the grip of feared confusion. While his hand hoisted her up by the waist again, her hand went around him, to grab onto whatever she could find. Finally, she stopped at the dragon-glass dagger, that securely latched onto Aemond's waist. Effectively, she wrapped her fingers around its silver hilt, and sheathed it out of its confinements.

"I swear on whatever God you want me to, I'll slit your throat if you don't stop touching me –" She wailed into Aemond's form, as she felt him stiffen up in tumultation.

His nostrils flared up at her attempt to intimidate him, and yet… his face looked most serene, as the cutting edge of the dagger reached close to his ivory skin. She raised her brows at him in utter surprise; for she expected him to surrender. His arms snaked away from her, and Aemond watched her intensely with his piercing gaze.

She could kill him, consequences be damned. And if she faced trial for this, then at least she'd have taken out a Green and Vhagar.

Her hand was shaking. Her breathing became erratic. She'd held a blade on multiple occasions; she'd fantasized about cutting Aemond's throat more times than she could bring herself to count. And yet…

His lack of movement – of worry – rattled her endlessly. She wanted to scream at him, to push him, to cut him. But for some reason couldn't bring herself to do it.

The realization that she just couldn’t do it made her almost drop the knife from the tight hold she'd kept it under.

"Why aren't you the least bit worried?" She spat out lowly, with her body trembling and her jaw set tight.

Aemond remained quiet and taciturn. His eye fixed her face carefully, and his hand gently wrapped around her quivering wrist. "Come on now…" He whispered to her, and watched how her eyes filled with the endless tears of frustration, how the hot droplets rolled down her reddened cheeks.

It would take another moment for her to drop the blade.

A moment she would forever grow to resent.

"I fucking hate you." She hissed through a breathless sob.

Oh, how she wished to hate him. Hate him as she did when they first clashed swords. Hate him as she did when she heard Jace talk about Lucaerys' death.

"Liar." Aemond rasped in acknowledgment.

And, just like that, the damage had been done. The blade rested back into his hand within an instant, and Aemond hit the wall behind her with murderous intent. "Fucking liar." He whispered again, breathing less and less sporadically, trying to wash his nerves away.

"I have been so good to you. But no matter what I do, it'll never be enough for you. Hmm?" He shook his head adamantly, and dug his fingers into the cold tiles of the cursed stronghold. "I am a patient man. But I will not wait a minute longer."

Her face twisted into a painful scowl, and the girl pushed over his chest roughly, but Aemond was quick to deny her exit. "This is not ideal," He muttered lowly to himself, "Yet you need to be taught a lesson."

"What are you d–"

Her words died upon her lips. Aemond hummed in dissatisfaction, and immediately brought the blade into her view.

She let out a scream of pure horror, but his pliant mouth silenced her with a scorching kiss. Her whole body was shaking, and the Prince Regent let out a frustrated sigh.

"Cease your crying, you hateful woman." He chastised her cruelly, "The fucking Gods sent you to ruin me."

At that moment, she wasn't above pleading. Her knees wobbled in place, and her orbs frantically searched for a way out. For something to grip and swing at the man before her.

Aemond's eye softened at the sight of her. Despite the pang of guilt he felt, a teasing and self-assuring smirk formed at the corners of his upturned lips.

So Jacaerys hadn't told her. He never mentioned their Valyrian way to her.

His triumphant feat soon washed away, as her trembling hands came into contact with his. "Ÿdra daor dīnagon, issa gevie Dāria. Nyke jāhor dōrī jaelagon naejot ōdrikagon." He told her adherently, truthfully, despite the obvious language barrier.

He took a moment to regain his composure. Grab a hold of her balled-up fists and remember the ancient words he'd only ever read about in his history books.

"Hen lantoti ānogar. Va sỹndroti vāedroma."

He ripped the sleeve from his linen shirt, and placed it over their entwined fingers.

"Mēro perzot gīhoti. Elēdroma iārza sĩr. Izuli ampā perzī."

The blade finally pressed down, over the softness of his left palm. Aemond winced at the sudden pain, and made a mental note to only nick the frightened girl with it, when the time came for that.

"Prūmĩ lanti sēteksi. Hen jenỹ māzīlarion. Qēlossa ozündesi."

(Y/N)'s eyes widened to a comical amount. Somewhere along the way, it seemed, she grew aware of Aemond's intent. She refused to show her hand to him, placing them both behind her back, and holding on for her dear life.

He let out a disapproving grunt, and reached his bloodied hands to her, yanking her right hand from underneath her strong grasp.

"No! No –!" She kept on screaming, and the guards outside shifted in place, before they fell under their oath of silence once again.

The cold and slick edge of the dragon glass pressed lightly against her writhing palm. Aemond made a smaller cut, and carried on with his rapid mumbling.

"Sỹndroro öñö jēdo. Rỹ kīvia mazvestraksi."

His very fist came to cut over his lower lip. His gory hand then reached for her jaw, hammering her in her place, and a sharp sting reflected on her weary stance. Aemond profited off the moment, to ease the dagger into her waiting mouth.

The metallic taste flooded her senses – the girl saw red before her eyes, and failed to register how his fingers came upon his and her forehead, painting them over with a ghastly symbol.

The Targaryen Prince reached for her hand again, and pressed her wounded palm cohesively with his.

"Following the tradition of my House from before the Doom of Old Valyria, I, Aemond of House Targaryen, bind myself to (Y/N) of House Tully, by blood, by soul, by life –"

"NO!"

" – And I pledge to her: that we are now one flesh, one heart, one body. Now and forever."

As he finally pried his limbs away from her trapped body, Aemond allowed his lips to feathery trace over her twisted mouth. She glanced at him, with wide-set and teary eyes.

"Fuck your fucking pledge."

Some grand venue she received.

A single question hung loosely into the air.

"Are you going to rape me now?"

She scarcely registered her own words as they left her mouth.

Aemond's eye widened at her query, and the Targaryen bit over his lower lip, as a deep grimace morphed the fairness of his features. He looked almost dumbfounded by her made assumption.

As soon as it came, the look of utter betrayal left his face.

"You would slit my throat with the knife." Was his mere reply.

***

Sometime along the night, he left.

The mighty roars of Vhagar registered themselves in the far-away distance.

That night, and only that night, she allowed herself the sacrilege of prayer. And she did so, again and again, pleading to the Seven for a blind arrow to reach his neck.

On the back of Vhagar, Aemond shuddered away from the impossible waves of heat, that licked deliciously at his stiffened cock; whenever her breathing would reach his ears, he felt tortured, trapped beneath the swell of lust and wanton desire.

Despite his abhorrent decision, he knew what their marriage meant. He knew all too well what his cruel bind had done, and yet… he felt no plausible remorse for the situation at hand.

The support of Storm's End, Floris Baratheon, Alys – mere casualties compared to the brink of having her, to knowing that she was finally his, as he was wholly hers.

Eventually, she'd have to love him. Eventually, she'd learn to do so.

A marriage wasn't a marriage until it was consummated. But he would give her, as he had promised, the illusion of choice, if nothing else.

As the cold night's air whipped his face again and again, and as Vhagar's thundering resounded over the burnt trees of the Riverlands, Aemond sighed, and brought a shaky hand to the strings of his breeches.

Scared as she was, his Lady made for a beautiful bride. It was such a shame that he didn’t get to see her wear the traditional Targaryen gown.

The pad of his thumb trailed over the cut he'd made – the same cut that now rested over her extended palm.

The flesh would scar, he thought, well pleased; whenever he looked at her, he'd get to see how she was undeniably his.

A possessive growl etched from his parted lips. Images of her paling skin, of her laugh. Her smile. The way her eyes bore into him, as if she always knew something he didn’t.

Leisurely, he began to pump his cock. Below him, Vhagar let out an anguished roar.

"Nyke gīmigon, Vhagar. Gīmigon."

Droplets of precum rolled over his clenching digits, coating his knuckles and the base of his shaft in a translucent, but thick ropes.

He groaned desperately, aching to relieve his frustration deep within her, but alas…

His gruff moans filled the air around him; and Aemond could feel his climax building up, as visions of her flooded his thoughts.

How she would feel underneath him. How she would writhe on the edge of bliss, begging, pleading for him to finally take her.

He could feel her legs wrapping around him, and feel himself sliding inside her with ease, praising her for being so good to him.

He wrapped Vhagar's bridle tight over his arm, and secured himself better in his leather saddle. His grip tightened around his dripping cock, but it was just not good enough.

The pace with which he fucked his hand picked up in a wilding speed. Aemond sighed in pleasure, and felt his hips move to their own accord. His breathing became rugged. His very mind was not his own.

He wondered what other scars her body bore. What the story behind them was, and how many of them came by his swift undoing.

Would she lie down and let him take care of everything? Or would she want to stay on top, jumping up and down on him, each time with a harsher thrust?

His hips rose and fell with his less than gentle pace, and the man pushed his length deeper into his steadfast grip.

He knew that if she let him touch her, he wouldn't be leaving her bed for weeks. He would pull countless orgasms from her, time and time again, until she begged for him to stop. He would have her so full of his seed, so the Gods' help him, that she would swell with his child – his trueborn child – before the rise of the first rays of sun.

Feeling his release beckon, the Prince set on a final rhythm, one that left his loins more in need than ever. With a loud hiss, he pushed himself inside his fist one final time, spilling his seed onto the saddle beneath him.

He panted wildly into the night, and suddenly opened his lustful eye, allowing a tear of ecstasy to roll off his scarred cheek.

"Se Jaes daoriot rȳbagon naejot nykeā vala raqagon issa. Yn nyke jāhor jikagon va issa knees se kostilus zirȳla naejot ivestragī issa emagon ao. Ao issi issa rōva botagon se se olvie rivaestra lambraes aohvra."

He couldn't keep up the charade with her. He would tell her all about it, once things finally settled down.

Word in Harrenhal traveled fast.

First it was her brash arrival. Then her impromptu marriage.

No one dared to talk to her. Yet she was never without the indiscreet eyes that followed her about.

Her situation wasn't without its ups and falls: Aemond felt no need to guard her as stiffly anymore – For where would the former Tully go, now that she bared his Targaryen name?

She was allowed to breach into some castle corners, always in the company of hefty guards, of course, and basked herself in some new acquired perks of freedom.

On the same account, whilst Alys remained loyal to her role as her lady-in-waiting, the tension between them couldn't have been more pain-strikingly high.

"I never asked for this. You must believe me."

She gave the younger woman a domineering stare, and only shook her head, obliged.

"And yet here you stand, inside his bed."

Word in Harrenhal spread fast – like a fire left unattended, like the so-called "Targaryen madness".

But a new, particular rumor gobbled the attention of everyone present.

Daemon Targaryen was to return to the Riverlands. And with him and Caraxes, he'd bring forth the formerly wild dragon, Sheepstealer, mounted by none other than Nettles.

The Lady had been acquainted with the bastard girl before – when the Sowing of the Dragon Seeds reveled in their first borne crops.

Another troubling report came forth. King's Landing had been secured by Rhaenyra.

When (Y/N) heard the news be whispered, she almost collapsed on her knees in glee. This must have marked the end of it. Surely, the usurpers would be put through the sword, leaving all to be well, and right again.

The Greens would die. They would face trial.

The Greens.

Indeed, word in Harrenhal spread fast. And she'd just been made the wife of the cruelest of them all.

Dread filled her insides. Her eyes cast their darkened shadow over the walls of the cursed Keep. A single, fundamental truth raised strongly from her anxious wallowing.

If Daemon Targaryen should find out about her marriage to his nephew, and get to her first… naught of the loyalty of the Riverlords would have a single say in her decided fate. And she would meet her end by the way of his blade, Dark Sister.

Now, more so than ever, it was pivotal for her to escape.

The clock was ticking.

And she was running out of time.

***

Her last day in Harrenhal was spent making plans. She'd rubbed her temples a myriad times, and paced about the room in a dizzying trot.

It wasn’t enough for her to disappear – she had to ensure everyone else thought she was gone.

When Aemond returned, she beckoned his call by jumping to her ready feet. The girl took him in, in his devillished state, and merely raised her brows at him. Whenever she saw him, the nick on her palm and lip itched at her relentlessly.

Neither was willing to recognize aloud what had transpired two moons ago, but both knew the inevitable punishment that would come with Aemond's actions.

He took a seat by the edge of their bed, and took his dagger out to play with it.

In vain he had asked Alys to share with him what she could see. She laid in broken, cradling her forming bump – the one she so desperately tried to hide away from him. The one thing that once meant her protection and raise in rank, now could very well heed out her doom.

Her green eyes raised from the floor below them, and Alys merely shook her head.

"There is fire, my Prince. Fire, and blood, and death."

"Going out to face two dragons is a death sentence." His deep voice rumbled through the silent chamber, "I can't afford that risk anymore with you involved."

And there it was. The silent admission of what he had done.

"We'll have to move from Harrenhal. You'll get to meet Daeron in Oldtown."

Was he sorry for what he did?

"It was about time you got acquainted with the rest of the family."

Aegon's cause was lucky that Storm's End was already too involved. They couldn't turn in their banners to the other front. Not now.

"It's a wonderful idea." She uttered in a glacial tone, barely above a whisper. "When will we depart?"

Sharpened orbs came in contact with the loneness of a purple eye.

The man took in a sparring breath, and hummed at her obedient retreat. The Prince's fist clenched over his cutting wound, and he nodded his head firmly.

"Should we be graced with the Gods' favor, issa jorrāelagon, then on the morrow," He explained, "but no sooner than that."

The girl's brows furrowed in discontent, as Aemond faltered in pressing the matter further. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with the aid of two long fingers, and heavily rose from his seat.

"Don't wait for me tonight. I shall return to you in the morning. I have unfinished business to attend to."

Lack of air. And crippling fear.

Her tiny world had been thrown into the arms of chaos. But everything fell so perfectly into place.

As soon as Aemond had mounted Vhagar, as soon as her father of wings died upon the night's first watch, the woman sprung to her feet, and began her soul's ascent into the pits of the Seven Hells.

She started off by breaking in her tiny mirror, placing a goose feather pillow below and over it, to somehow mask the clefty noise.

Her long hair was the first to go. She began cutting it swiftly, using big and brisk movements to chop off as many of her luscious locks as she possibly could.

She ripped the mattress of the bed open with one of the bigger shards, and revealed Aemond's dried-up shirt, that she had tucked well under after washing it, long preparing it for that occasion.

Her stomach churned as her hand went to her chamber pot. Risking her own deniability, she submerged her digits deep within it, letting out a victorious huff as she brushed across a piece of cold felt.

The insides of the sack revealed fermented meat – putrid, more like. She scattered the final remains of it over the stone floor like a mad-woman, and ripped the latter pages of the book Alys had gifted her.

She would take the passage to the stables, and simply hope for the best.

Her eyes searched feverishly about the cluttered room, but the hammering in her heart stilled only as she gaped upon the lower left corner of the wall full of banners.

There it was. Exactly where Alys told her it was going to be.

She tore into the mattress further, spreading the wool around, and grabbed a hold of a piece of wood from the crackling fire.

May she be forgiven for what she was about to do.

Her shaky hands grasped the lumber strongly, and she let it roll in the middle of the room, allowing it to fall with a loud bang.

***

The sound of wailing screams echoed inside her head, scratching at her ears, to the point of making them almost bleed. The heat of the fire she caused fell over her skimpily clothed back, and the disgust she felt with herself was palpable against her tongue.

With every turn she took, she made herself another promise. She would not rest until the war would see its end. She'd never sleep warmly again, and forever remind herself of the sacrifice she had to make – of all the lives that she undoubtedly ended, if only to meet her selfish ends.

For once, this was not just Aemond's doing. This was her fault all alone.

Blinded by rage, and seething with fury, her feet carried her down the crooked set of stairs. The woman brought a hand up to her face, and coughed wildly in the back of it. She'd have to make a bold turn soon. Then the outside world would heed, and she would be free again.

With just a twinge of luck, the guards should think that whatever was left of her room collapsed upon herself inside. Her burnt hair and clothes would create the wanted look – the meat would add the unmistakable smell of rot and death, and the lack of an actual body would take days to figure out.

And she prayed. She prayed, she prayed, she prayed: that no one else knew of the passages that she was threading through below.

Her eyes could barely see in front of her. Smoke rose to unforgiving levels, and the Lady swore it could be cut even by the dullest knife. As she reached the crossroads of the secret tunnel, her hands came to grapple at the breeches' pockets, turning them inside out – trying to find the torn pages of the book she'd just previously carried.

A sigh of relief rumbled from within her throat, as the pads of her shaking digits stroked across the withered, olden pages.

Her relief would be short lived.

Boney hands snaked around her, and the girl nearly screamed – until the familiar scent of mint and wild berries floored her senses.

"Alys?!" Her voice let out in an exasperated high. "Alys, we need to hurry!"

But her able hands still hesitantly clung to the soft material of her shirt, digging so deeply into it, that she could rip it in a downward pull.

"You –" She began to say, but cut herself short as she momentarily closed her eyes.

No matter what, she couldn’t tell the Lady before her that she'd have sent her upon her death.

"You took a wrong turn. This isn't the right way towards the South Gates."

The adrenaline flooded her veins. Her heart was pumping wildly against her ears. Lady Tully only nodded, failing to process that Alys had, in fact, never given her access to such an option on the crudely drawn map.

"This way, (Y/N) – came quickly!"

Two sets of legs descended further into the murky passages of Harrenhal. At one point, the smoke had gotten so very thick, that both women had to feel their way out, by touching the corners of every tunnel that they surpassed.

When all seemed lost, Alys finally spoke, "Over here!" She yelled out to her, and latched onto Aemond's dampened shirt.

They stumble into each other, as the small opening of the stifling cellar reaches the South Gates. The witch stops hastily on her heel, and the young Lady nearly busts their cover.

A raid of soldiers came flocking out, with what then looked like tens of thousands of squealing maids. So frightened by their own demise, they bumped into the oak doors and onto each other – choosing to, instead of unlocking the main Gates, reach and pull at the other's hairs, cursing loud and wildly.

Alys let out a bemused huff at their perused antics, but her reglament was short lived; as one of the smarter lassies reached for the illustrious piece of wood, and opened the doors with the loudest of creak.

"Now's our chance," The Lady of Riverrun whispered to her fellow escapee, grabbing onto her wrist harshly, and dragging her out and into the light. "Mingle in the crowd, Alys –"

"My Lady, do not stray far –"

The older woman let out a staggering breath, as she raised her skirts to follow suit on the trail left by the hot-headed girl.

She is Elmo's daughter alright, she disarmingly told herself, Just as hopeless and reckless as he once was.

Alys almost tackled her to the ground, as Lady Tully succumbed herself deeper into the burnt out forest. She gripped onto her hands with hers, so harshly, that she'd definitely leave her mark. "I thought I had told you not to stray far."

The breathless form of the lost child before her appeared to be enough to soften a tad of her resolve. "When I tell you something, I expect you to do it."

Whilst chastising her deeply for her foolhardy behavior, the woman searched her pockets, and pushed out two quarter silvers into her trembling hands.

"You'll go towards the Rushing Halls and buy yourself a mule from the Half Calf's Inn."

As the younger Lady nodded feverishly at her late advice, Alys clasped her cheeks with her hands, and brought her head further towards her. "You'll keep a straight line to the Green Fork. You won't stop to eat or drink – you won't stop until you reach Hag's Mire. Make sure to cover the cut on your hand with this." As she spoke, Alys pushed a black glove into her resting hands.

The Bliss of Riverrun threw the witch a bewildered look. Her eyes searched adamantly for hers, and the woman panted out in pure wonder. "How did you know I intended on migrating North?

"I've already seen you do it." She shook her shoulders promptly, "I've already seen you succeed."

Her green eyes softened, if only for a blazing moment; but the crackling of the trees behind them snapped her out of her inward trance. "Don't waste anymore time. Your diversion was smart, but he will try to find you."

The girl reached down, to squeeze her hands, perhaps, in a wordless display of gratitude and affection. Her soft fingers interlaced over her boney knuckles, and Alys muttered a faint blessing over the twisted arch of her furrowed brow.

The Lady turned around, but not before pausing and shooting the witch one last fiery look. "Come with me." She offered determinedly, and shook her head strongly as Alys took a step back. "He'll try to punish someone for it. You're his next available girl." She begged her to see to reason.

"My place remains here. By his side."

(Y/N)'s eyes hardened at her thorough admission, but she strained herself to shoot the wet nurse back with a curt nod.

"I shan't forget what you did for me." She promised her elder with a minute smile.

"A heads-up when you next decide to set the whole stronghold on fire would be most appreciated…!" She lightheartedly told her, despite the obvious wabbling of her lower lip.

(Y/N) nodded, but remained hammered in place for another while. Alys' hand reached to cup over her face, but a brisk moment of clarity was quick to change her mind.

"Go, you foolish girl…!" She snapped, "Make good use of that promise you made."

Her feet began moving on their own accord. Her mind was blazing with all of the unfinished tasks at hand.

She would run towards the Rushing Halls. Buy a mule. Retreat towards Green Fork. Reach the Twins.

Her road shall lead to Winterfell. If Forrest Fray remained the same kind fool that he once was, she should have no trouble sending Cregan Stark a raven.

And if she could reason with Jacaerys' friend, take in his testimony of protection, perhaps her life wasn't lost just yet.

The gusts of wind ran through her shortened and unkempt hair. Aemond's clothes hung loosely over her, and the stench of fire and ash filled her nostrils with something else other than hopeless dread.

Never before in her life, did the girl run so fast.

Taglist:

Translations:

Gevie… = Beautiful;

Gaomagon daor sagon zūgagon, issa dōna jorrāelagon. Nyke kivio ao naejot sagon gīda. = Do not worry, my sweet love. I promised you I would be patient;

Mēre tubis ao jāhor jaelagon issa. = One day you will desire me;

Se Jaes emagon qrimbrōstan issa naejot jorrāelagon ao. = The Gods have cursed me to love you;

Gīda ilagon, Vhagar. Sagon nykeēdrosa... Sȳz hāedar. = Calm down, Vagar. Be still. Good girl;

Jaes, ao istan vēttan syt issa. = Gods, you were made for me;

Sepār jurnegon skorkydoso īlon kostagon fāelor hēnkirī. = Just look how perfectly we fit together;

Dōna hāedar… ȳdra daor hakogon qrīdrughagon hen issa sir = Sweet girl… don't pull away from me now;

Yn nyke istan zarvīzis. Nyke emagon issare sīr sȳz se… sīr, sīr zarvīzis. = But I've been patient. I've been so good and… so, so patient;

Ao aehron raqagon ao ȳdra daor jaelagon bisa... = You act like you don't want this…;

Yn ao jaelagon issa sepār hae olvie. Ao mazilībagon syt issa – sepār hae qosaevaerī. = But you want me just as much. You ache for me – just as badly.

Ÿdra daor dīnagon, issa gevie Dāria. Nyke jāhor dōrī jaelagon naejot ōdrikagon. = Don't cry, my beautiful Princess. I would sooner die than hurt you;

Valyrian Wedding Vows: Blood of two, joined as one, ghostly flame, and song of shadows, two hearts as embers, forged in fourteen fires, a future promised in glass – the stars stand witness, of the vow spoken through time, of darkness and light;

Nyke gīmigon, Vhagar. Gīmigon. = I know Vhagar, I know;

Se Jaes daoriot rȳbagon naejot nykeā vala raqagon issa. Yn nyke jāhor jikagon va issa knees se kostilus zirȳla naejot ivestragī issa emagon ao. Ao issi issa rōva botagon se se olvie rivaestra lambraes aohvra. = The Gods don't listen to men like me. But I would go on my knees and beg them to let me keep you. You were once the bane of my existence… and now, you find yourself the center of it.

#aemond targaryen #aemond x reader #the harshest winters #aemond imagine #aemond fanfiction #jacaerys x reader #jacaerys strong #house of the dragon #jacaerys valaryon #jacaerys imagine #jacaerys angst #aemond smut #bookcanon aemond targaryen #dark aemond x reader #dark aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #yandere aegon targaryen #unhinged aemond yep yep

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velvetydream · 1 year

Text

꒰ :🌹 [ Motion sickness of a Dragon Slayer ] ”♡ᵎ꒱ˀˀ ↷ ⋯

Summary : It was already the second day of the grand magic games and you seriously didn't understand why they let Sting compete in the race. So now you had a sick Dragon Slayer on your hands, who was way to stubborn to admit it was a stupid idea to not let Orga or Yukino go.

Pairing : Sting x Gn! Reader

Word count : 625

Genre : Fluff

➵ Warnings ;

a/n : I can barely find Fairy Tail content, so now I've made it my resposibility to write fors this awesome show, starting with my all time favorite boy.. Sting! <3

I also just finished the grand magic games arc, so perfect to write for Sting!

┌───────────────────────── · · · · ♡

Why did he have to be so stubborn? It would have been much smarter to let one of the others compete.. But no that dumb ass with the adorable smile had to go up against Fairy Tails Natsu Dragneel and Gajeel Redfox. You understood that he wants to beat Natsu, the one he looked up to for years.. But did it really have to be in a race on moving carts?! Jiemma was so mad, Sting and the whole team couldn't allow themselves another slip up, or the whole guild would feel his rage.

“Sting it's me, I'm coming in.” Entering his room in the inn the guild was staying at, he was laying on his side, clutching his stomach. Beside his bed a little bucket just in case. Well at least it was good to know Sting and Rogue weren't the only Dragon Slayer with this issue. “Lectors out with Rogue and Frosch, they'll pick up some soup for you.” Upon the mentioning of food, the blonde poorly clutched his mouth, letting out a low groan, warning to not mention food again.

Setting the bowl of water you were carrying onto the nightstand, you take a seat at his side. Stings eyes averted. Of course. Ashamed is what he felt when he stood in front of Jiemma, of front of the whole guild.. And he still feels like this. Taking the rug from the water, you carefully wring out the excess water, before rubbing it softly over his face. A content sigh could be heard, as Sting turns onto his back, so you had better acess to his face. Poor boy, he looked completely out of it.

“Feeling better a bit?” Looking at him now, he nods. Eyes closed. For once he had a soft look on his face, no scowl, no sadistic smirk. Deep down he was a hurt little boy wanting to prove himself to whoever. It's sad what this guild made out of him.

“Sting! You're awake!” A cry could be heard, as the little red exceed jumped onto the bed, followed by Rogue and Frosch. “You should really think a little more before jumping straight into the games.” Rogue had a little annoyed look on his face, as he sets the bag with the soup on the table, the green cat letting out a little – Fro thinks so too. The two exceed seriously were the most adorable little beings ever. “Sorry you had to take care of him for being careless.” Words now directed to you, making you let out a little laugh. “Oh it's fine, at least I get to spend some time with my favorite Dragon Slayer.” Ruffling Stings hair now slightly, Lector letting out a surprised scream – at how someone could just touch Sting like that. The later now wearing his usual scowl on his face, with a little twist – he was blushing madly, averting his gaze to the other side and away from you.

Now that Sting was finally feeling better, it was time for the battles of the day. Following them back to the arena, Lector comfortably in your arms. Even if he didn't want to admit it, Lector liked you a lot. The battles were interesting to say the least, especially Mirajane against Jenny. What a show truly. So lastly now Yukino. Of course you were cheering for the white haired stellar magician. You two were quit close. Just like you were with Sting and Rogue. But at the end, she fell. Laying on her back and staring at the sky, tears streaming down her soft features. This was bad. Jiemma will not like this.

The evening and night to come.. were definitely something no one would have expected to happen.

#fairy tail #fairy tail x reader #sting #sting x reader #lector #sabertooth #sabertooth x reader #x reader #anime #manga #anime x reader #manga x reader #fairy tail x you #sting x you #sting eucliffe #sting eucliffe x reader

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 6 months

Note

Hello 👋

How do you feel about the basilisk from "HP and the Chamber of Secrets"? How do you like the book? What do you think of the theory that the Chamber of Secrets is something like the Temple of Salazar with columns and a huge statue?

The Basilisk

That ain't no basilisk son.

JKR does this a lot, pretty much with every magic creature she's got in her arsenal, but the basilisk might be the most egregious that was also extremely plot relevant.

A basilisk isn't a snake.

It's a rooster, dragon, fuck off lizard, toad thing, with maybe, maaaaaaybe, a hint of snake. It's king of snakes for... reasons.. but it's usually not just a big snake. I have never, in any other media, seen it not looking like some ridiculous rooster lizard/just be a big fuck off snake.

Then we have the movie where it's... an eel?

It's one of the funniest things in the franchise to me.

As for it knowing who to eat and who not to eat... I personally smell that it was carefully directed towards/coincidence helped out in it picking the right victims.

I do not trust in the ability of a basilisk to know the difference between Muggle-born and anyone else/care about the difference when it's been starving in a gutter for who knows how long.

Otherwise I have 0 thoughts on the thing.

The Book

The book was... the thing about HP, especially as I'm now going back to reread them, is it's not good. Now, to my hazy recollection, books 1-3 were worlds better than books 4-7 where JKR a) tried to get very serious b) the plot started falling apart as we had overarching mysteries/events that were supposed to last multiple novels.

What I'm getting at is Chamber of Secrets was one of the better books in the series but it still suffers what most HP books suffer from.

The mystery isn't all that good or presented well, as it's not something you can actually figure out, but it's engaging enough compared to some of the other mysteries of the series that it at least keeps you going.

Most of the book is filler nonsense we actually don't care about and no, Harry, I don't care about Quidditch and I never will so quit spending multiple chapters on your stupid games and I don't care that your school rival Draco is now Seeker too but we're made sure to know he's complete shit compared to you.

We also get the start of... house elves...

Its strengths are typical Harry Potter strength: the shenanigans the gang gets into are hilarious and insane (not limited to Hermione accidentally turning herself into a cat only to almost immediately after be petrified, Harry and Ron trying and failing to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle because they know nothing about them and then learning that 'oh, it wasn't actually Darco :/', Ginny going mad offscreen somewhere and nobody giving a flying fuck, Hagrid's desperate plea for his innocence 'follow the spiders boys' in which he nearly gets two schoolchildren eaten for which he would be imprisoned in Azkaban for that crime and had they been eaten he would not have been exonerated from his current crime, Dumbledore somehow arguing that the ghost of the Dark Lord was possessing a little girl and that's how the Chamber of Secrets got open and therefore Hagrid's not guilty and... winning? Off screen? Dumbledore still not getting sacked, ever, etc.), the magic we get is typical Harry Potter magic and is delightful, fun, and insane (we get Polyjuice and that debacle, evil haunted diaries, flying cars, and more), Dobby showing up just to wreck shit then leave multiple times in the book, and it's just the fun madness people love and are nostalgic about in HP.

My Theory on the Chamber of Secrets

I'm even more heretical, I don't think it's real/I don't think Salazar built it, I don't even think the founders are real.

#harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanon #the chamber of secrets #meta #headcanon #opinion #everythingnot65

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stardust948 · 3 months

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Twins AU

Sweet 16 Birthday

*Zuko and Azula standing back to back with their eyes closed*

Ursa: My twins can't have separate parties on their Sweet 16! So while you two were at Azula's Kuai ball game, I came up with a Mom-promise! Take a look!

*Twins open their eyes and see the decorations*

Zuko: Wow!

Azula: Awesome!

Ursa: Hold on, you two haven't seen the best part. Turn around.

*Turns around and see the room split into two themes. Theater theme on one side and Spa on the other*

Zuko and Azula: 😬

Ursa: Two themes, one party!

Ozai on the mic: It's Spa day at the theater! *mic cracks* Why isn't this thing working?

Ursa: Azula honey, you wanted to go to Ember Island resort, so we're gonna have one right here in the house!

Ursa: And Zuko, you wanted to see Love Amongst the Dragons live so we give you a personal backstage tour!

Zuko: Mom this is great!

Azula: Yes, I think we're halfway there. The half that doesn't look like a theater's club trash bin.

Zuko: Hey! I thought this was our party!

Ozai, working on the mic: Firelily it's time to come clean. We kept the secret for too long.

Ursa: No Ozai. *mic comes to life* I'm telling them they were born on separate days.

Zuko, Azula, and Kiyi: !!!

Ursa: Uh... *grabs mic* 🎵Secret tunnel! Secret tunnel! Through the mountain!🎵 This karaoke thing works great! Who's next?

Zuko: What did you just say?!

Azula: We have different birthdays?!

Ozai: Kids, your mother and I have something to tell you.

Ursa:

Ozai:

Ozai: Go ahead.

Ursa: *gives him a dirty look* Zuko and Azula, the day you were born was truly the greatest day of my life.

Kiyi: Well that feels nice!

Ursa: But it was actually the days you were born. Zuko, you were born on the 5th at 11:56 pm. But Azula you were born at 12:02 on the 6th.

Azula, gesturing to her Kuai ball uniform: But the whole reason 5 is my lucky number is because I was born on the 5th. I'm a 5.

Kiyi: Apparently, I'm a zero.

Zuko: Wait, so Azula never celebrated on her actual birthday?

Kiyi: What kind of parents are you?! This is preposterous! I say again preposterous!!!

Ozai: I regret buying you that thesaurus.

Kiyi: If they could do this to her, what does that mean for everyone else? Am I six? Am I twelve? I could be nine.

Ozai: You're eleven.

Azula: Are you sure about that considering you both lied to me my whole life! *storms away*

[Later]

Ursa, coming into the twin's room: Hey.

Azula:

Ursa: Azula honey, I'm so sorry. Every year your birthday would roll around and I would get so excited at the two of you sitting together blowing out your candles.

Azula: Then why did you use those trick candles that didn't blow out?

Ursa: We wanted the moment to last forever. Plus a joined birthday party is double the fun! It's also half the work. See, I'm being completely honest with you from now on.

Azula, trying not to laugh: Don't try to be funny. I'm still mad at you.

Ursa: Honey, I am so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. When you and Zuko were little you were inseparable. As your mother, it felt wrong to take that special day away.

Azula: Are you seriously trying to take credit for being a good mother right now?

Ursa: Yes I tried to slip that in.

Ursa: Just tell us what you want for your birthday and your father and I will make it happen. The sky's the limit. Well, there is a budget-

Ursa: See, being honest!

Azula: Thanks mom, but the last thing I feel like doing is celebrating my birthday. I don't even think I want a party this year. I'm sure Zuko feels the same.

Ursa: Well think about it. In the meantime, I made your favorite meal. Komodo chicken and stir-fried rice.

Ursa: Ok, I didn't actually make it. I brought it frozen in a box-

Azula: Mom!

Ursa: Right okay. *About to leave* Remember honey, you turn 16 only once.

Azula:

#i have no idea what azula likes outside of firebending so i just picked something :/#atla #atla au #twins au #zuko #azula #ursa #ozai #kiyi #fire siblings #royal fire family #urzai #source: liv and maddie #sweet 16 birthday

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buckys-little-belle · 1 year

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Hellfire Babysitting Club : The Sequel (Part Two)

Cafeteria Conversions

Gareth Emerson x Little!Reader (They/Them Pronouns used) / The Hellfire club x Little!Reader (They/Them Pronouns used)

Warnings - Mentions of eating, Mentions of bullying, Gareth being soft, the entire Hellfire Club being adorable in regards to their newest member

Notes Prequal - Please let me know what you want to see in this series! This one has a much more Introverted!Reader than the first instalment, so keep that in mind!

Notes - I know this took a longggg time to come out, I'm dealing with a lot right now, but really wanted to write some more and interact a little again, thank you to those of you who haven't left, and haven't stopped supporting me. I see your messages and asks, and I appreciate them, thank you <3 (THIS IS NOT MY BEST WORK, AND I AM AWARE OF THAT FACT.)

Notes Epilogue - Just to clear some things up for a few people, my idea is that last school year, Little Terror, Eddie, Gareth, Jeff, and Jason Carver were all in their senior year. This year Gare is taking his senior year again, and 'The Party' are now in the eleventh grade! Little Bunny is also in their senior year, this allows me space to make a third part with characters from 'The Party' be the leader of Hellfireclub and co, and another little set in the next year, if I chose to do so. (I am aware this isn't canon, but I'm making it my stories cannon!)

SFW - Please keep all interactions with this post, and this blog, SFW

+ + + + + +

Gareth walked Bunny to their first class, taking note of which room they'd be in just before lunch, promising to pick them up, but ever since then he'd been freaking out. He was excited, sure, but worry creeped in not long after, the reality of him being the lead of the group, not just leading them in D&D but now in babysitting was scary.

'I'm just a phone call away.' Eddie's words filled his mind, though they made him more mad than reassured, he could do this, he didn't want to seem weak to Eddie, to everyone else, especially not to Little Bunny.

When the bell for lunch rang the english class grew busy, Dustin running to Gare's desk. "Same lunch table?" He asked, his books spilling out of his bag, hair disheveled.

"No." Gareth nodded his head, trying to seem confident in his decision. "Gather the others and meet me in Game room." Gareth stood up quickly, getting ready to run to Bunny's classroom, leaving a confused, yet intrigued, Dustin behind.

+ + + + + +

"Y/n!" Gareth whisper yelled, Bunny turning their head to look at him, their nose scrunching in excitement. "Are you ready for lunch?" He panted, brushing a hand through his hair, trying to stay cool as sweat threatened to drip.

"Mhm." They smiled, following as Gareth led them to the Game room, swinging their arms back and forth.

"Good." Gareth cleared his throat before continuing. "Um, my friends and I meet for lunch, is that okay?" He asked anxiously, hoping his plan would work out.

"Are dey nice?" Y/n looked to him, a worried expression replacing their previously content one.

"Oh yeah, plus I'm sure they'll treat you like royalty." He added.

"Why?"

"Right." He chuckled, struggling to come up with the words to explain their situation. "We play Dungeons and Dragons, but we also babysat a little last year." Y/n nodded their head. "I don't have to tell the group that you're a little, but they're pretty good at knowing." He admitted, hoping that what he was saying was okay.

Y/n stopped walking, eyes trained on the ground, fingers playing with the hem of their shirt. "Are dey gonna make fun of me?"

Gareth's heart broke a little, he hoped that one day he could meet a little who hadn't been made fun of, but clearly a group of accepting and willing people was still unheard of. "No, no Bunny, they won't." He smiled, placing his hand on their shoulder, his thumb rubbing soothing circles. "They'll play games with you, they'll talk about toys with you, watch fun movies with you, hold your hand if you're scared, and babysit you when I can't take care of you, they're all very nice, and won't me mean at all." He reassured them, Y/n's eyes meeting his, not a sense of doubt found in his expression.

"You're gonna take care of me?" They asked, trying their best to hide back an excited smile.

"Of course, I found you, so I get dibs." He laughed, Y/n giggling back at his joke. "Anything you need, you can come to me, anything, okay?" The two of them nodded their heads. "And if you can't find me, you can find one of the group members, and they'll help you anyway they can."

"I don' wanna bother anyone though." Y/n admitted nervously.

"Bunny, you're not a bother! I was super stressed this morning, I don't like school very much." Gareth laughed. "But when I ran into you my day got better, you aren't a bother, if anything we will bother you."

"Okay." Y/n smiled. "Okay, 'm excited."

"Me too."

+ + + + + +

"Thank god!" Dustin called out as Gareth entered the room, Y/n behind him, not ready to truly meet the group. "Can you tell me why we're in here? I'm hungry!" Dustin's voice was loud, making Y/n instinctively reach for Gareth's hand, their head peaking past him to see who was yelling so loudly.

"Calm down." Mike whispered, more aware than Dustin that clearly something was happening.

"Who here actually likes eating in the cafeteria?" Gareth asked, the group looking to one another in confusion. "Lucas you hate the basketball guys, Mike you gave me a thirty minute talk in math today about how El struggles with loud noises, Dustin you talk about how your legs fall asleep on the benches, and I hate a whole room of people just looking at us, laughing at us." The room was silent, a few people nodding their heads. "So we're going to be eating in here, everyone pick a seat, and calm down." He smiled, walking into the room further, Y/n blindly following behind him.

"Who is that?" El loudly asked, the newbie not in Mike's Hellfire rundown.

Gareth ignored the groups whispers for a few seconds, setting his bad on the DM chair, his DM chair, and pulling a smaller seat next to his for Y/n. "This is Y/n." He said, still shielding them from the group slightly, not sure if they wished to be introduced fully to the chaos just yet. "They're new to the school, and needed a buddy this morning."

Mike and Lucas seemed to know what Gareth meant right away, that Y/n was a little, and that's why they were here, but Will and El looked very confused, and Dustin didn't seem to be on the same page as anyone. "So another player?" He asked, Mike and Lucas rolling their eyes as Gareth let his face fall into his hand.

"No, Y/n is a little, I'm not only changing where we eat lunch, but I'm starting back up Hellfire Babysitting Club." Gareth proudly said. "And this time we're going to have rules, and a schedule, I don't need Y/n eating soap, or getting into trouble like Little Terror."

Y/n giggled and the group smiled, El and Will still confused, waiting for a better explanation. "I don't get it." Will admitted.

"You guys." Gareth gestured to everyone but Y/n. "Explain what this all is, and what went down last year, and tomorrow we'll reconvene and talk about how things will work here on out." Gareth hoped that the group would respond well to some structure, Eddie liking to just hope things work out fine while winging it. Gareth hoped that making some rules, and implementing new things would let the group stay strong, and would alleviate the stress from his shoulders.

"Can we say hi to the baby?" El asked, taking her seat at the table, trying to peek past Gareth at them.

Everyone went silent, looking at El confused, Mike sighing before weighing in. "I talked to her about Eddie and Little Terror already." He explained.

"Baby please." She said a little more harshly, Mike sending Gareth a look full of warning, knowing El would move him if he didn't move.

Gareth stepped aside, Y/n's sitting frame, cheese string in one hand, the stuffed bunny in another, coming into view, a sweet smile on display for everyone. "Hi."

"I called them Little Bunny this morning." Gareth admitted, smiling as he watched Y/n look around the room, everyone smiling back at them.

"Little cheese fingers." El said seriously, opening her own lunch box and moving on, the group bursting out laughing at her words, though no one argued the name, just sat down too, pulling out their own lunch boxes and silently welcoming the new member.

#gareth stranger things #gareth x reader #gareth emerson #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things age regression #hellfire club x reader #hellfire babysitting club #hellfire club x little reader #hellfire club x little!reader #hellfire club

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a-song-of-art-and-fire · 8 months

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The Kingslaying

"The Kingslayer. The false knight who profaned his blade with the blood of the king he had sworn to defend."

A rather gruesome little diorama for this, our spookiest of months! I've said before how much I love all things Robert's Rebellion, and Jaime's kingslaying is right up there. I think it's a fantastic aspect of GRRM's writing that we're told outright at his first appearance that he's "the kingslayer", and write that off as 'well he must just be sneaky and treacherous as all Lannisters are", and it's only two books later you learn he had complex, nuanced, straight-up heroic reasons for doing it. The heady mix of seige, betrayal, potential patricide, actual regicide, and mass human sacrifice to achieve twisted apotheosis into draconic godhead... it feels like 6 different Greek tragedies crashed headlong into one another, and seeing it all though a haze of steam, hormones, and septic delirium is just... *chefs kiss*.

This diorama was actually pretty thrown together compared to my usual standards. My ASOIAF minis are from a war game, so they need to come up with a lot of distinct units for multiple armies, and the books being pretty low fantasy only really give "late medieval man-at-arms" or "conscripted peasant levy". As such, you get some fairly weird and wonderful units, such as every Baratheon soldier having Robert-style warhammers, or in this case a whole unit in Jaime's lion helmet. For me, this translates to a lot of alternative Jaimes.

I am a bit phobic with Jaime, as I once had to swap his hands very last minute, luckily here he's young and straightforwardly right handed. I don't think the close up is at quite the right angle, but you can see his green eyes under the visor, I'm pretty happy that they look quite frightened/panicked. I added the cloak as well, got to have that iconic "It was that white cloak that soiled me, not the other way around" vibe. This is also the first time I've given him his oft-mentioned gilded sword, I love the blood on it forming the Lannister colours.

Talking of the blood... yes, it's a lot. In my defence, it's actually semi transparent in a way that doesn't show well in photos, but does make it marginally less intense. I also know Jaime actually pulled Aerys up and slit his throat, but I had a hard enough time posing these figures, i thought that would be beyond me. I also like the literal nature of stabbing him in the back, and Mark Addy's delivery of "What of Aerys Targaryen? What did the Mad King say when you stabbed him in the back" is burned into my memory.

Aerys himself is a random wizard miniature I had kicking about, I had to do quite a bit of resculpting to get him right. He has the scabs on his hand, but the Howard Hughes fingernails were beyond my sculpting skills. I made the falling crown myself, again, seven tiny dragons felt a bit ambitious.

#gonna try and do a spooky themed october #although ive got nothing prepped #and ive already done most of the obvious like the others and frankengregor #so we'll see #asoiaf #asoiaf fanart #miniatures #minis #a song of ice and fire #valyrian scrolls #cmon #kings landing #aerys targaryen #the mad king #jaime lannister #house targaryen #house lannister #the iron throne #roberts rebellion

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jasper-the-menace · 3 days

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Jasper's Barely-Hinged Discord Scorpion Rant

Alright, context, I started this rant because I was mad about how the tlincallis (of Dungeons and Dragons second and fifth edition) were designed and handled. I put my foot down at the point where they were reported to have eggs. No, I refuse to accept this.

PLEASE NOTE! While I will not be showing any actual images of real-life scorpions, there will be drawings of them and drawings of fantasy and sci-fi characters inspired by scorpions. Some of them are even weirder-looking than actual scorpions. Fellow arachnophobes, continue at your own risk.

We are also going to be talking about scorpion sex in the context of how they mate and launch babies out. This is my second Tumblr post on the subject and I'm afraid that this might become a repeating pattern. Everyone on Tumblr thinks I'm the scorpion person now.

With that said, have this barely-edited compilation of my feral Discord messages on the subject.

You can tell someone who doesn’t know a lot about scorpions wrote the lore for the tlincallis because there’s a heavy emphasis on egg-laying for their reproduction. Meanwhile, scorpions are one of the only arachnids that give live birth.

I’m not expecting WOTC writers to watch videos of scorpions molting or launching baby missiles over and over again, but I am expecting them to at least skim the Wikipedia article, ya know? I understand that I’m Scorpion Research Georg, but still.

Scorpions fuck weird. Both “sexes” have the same thing - an orfice known as the genital operculum (plural: genital opercula). In order to reproduce, the male will drop a sperm packet on the ground and “dance” with the female to lead her over it. If she’s game, she’ll squat and just kind of vacuum it up into her genital operculum. This is followed by what is called a “mating plug” to keep the sperm inside. The two scorpions will then split away from each other, because scorpions don’t believe in cuddles and aftercare.

Then we get to the actual birth. Or as I like to call it, the Fedex packages.

A scorpion will give birth to between 3 and 100 young, depending on the species - though notably, the size of the scorpion does not impact the number of babies they can have.

The babies are folded up very nicely inside of the mother, and when she gives birth to them, they launch out like little missiles into her waiting pedipalps and front legs, unfold, and then climb onto or are placed onto her back while their next sibling is launched. A mother scorpion is actually a super good parent, and the entire brood will attach to her with little suckers on their tarsi, because they can’t eat or sting yet.

Depending on the species, it will take between 5 and 25 days for them to undergo their first molt - in unison as a brood, taking between 6 and 8 hours - and reach the juvenile stage. Juveniles resemble small versions of the adults and can eat and sting, though they’re still soft and unpigmented. They’ll leave the mother’s back to explore in safety, but then scurry back to her if there’s danger around. Once their carapace hardens and gains color, they can start hunting on their own and will often leave their mother.

A scorpion will undergo an average of 6 molts to reach full adulthood, which, depending on the species, can take between 6 months and nearly 7 years. The average lifespan depends on the species, with some living up to 25 years.

Re: the biological terms I used, here’s a picture and explanation from the Wikipedia article:

1 = Cephalothorax or Prosoma; 2 = Preabdomen or Mesosoma; 3 = Tail or Metasoma; 4 = Claws or Pedipalps; 5 = Legs; 6 = Mouth parts or Chelicerae; 7 = Pincers or Chelae; 8 = Moveable claw or Tarsus; 9 = Fixed claw or Manus; 10 = Stinger or Aculeus; 11 = Telson (anus in previous joint); 12 = Opening of book lungs

Post-coitus cannibalism has never been reliably reported in scorpions.

Scorpions are also kinky fuckers but no one’s ready for that conversation.

So, I will give this much to WOTC writers regarding the tlincallis - most species of scorpions do actively hunt their prey. (Though there are several species that are just sit-and-wait predators.) They are also opportunistic hunters, eating primarily invertebrates but occasionally also going for things like lizards, snakes, and small mammals, though scorpions with larger claws will also go after earthworms and mollusks.

What I will not give them credit for is the method of hunting. A scorpion’s primary hunting tool is its claws. Only large and aggressive prey is given a sting - the method of death is still typically via claw, even in that case.

They also don’t chew. They rip off pieces of their prey and put those pieces in a pre-oral cavity, which uses digestive juices from the gut to start the digestion process. Once it’s liquid enough, it gets sucked right into the gut. Any indigestible matter is ejected at this stage.

They do have an anus separate from the genital operculum, and it runs up into the tail. Scorpions will eat a large amount of food in one meal, and when this is combined with their low metabolic rate and relatively inactive lifestyle, it means that they can survive for 6 to 12 months without starvation.

So no, Wizards Of The Coast, a band of scorpion people would NOT be migratory by compulsion, even if they were aggressive.

And yeah, scorpions are mainly found in deserts, but that’s so limiting. They’ve adapted to nearly every sort of biome and appear all across the world, except in Antartica. So you can literally put them anywhere.

The scorpion is found in Greek mythology (Artemis or Gaia sending it to kill Orion) along with in a page of the Anglo-Saxon Herbal.

Despite the scorpion’s usage in myths, stories, and weapons of war, very few of them are actually capable of killing a human (barring allergy). 25 species out of more than 2,500 have venom deadly to humans. Most of, if not all of these, belong to the family Buthidae, which is the largest family.

Now it’s time for “Jasper analyzes scorpions from different media”! I’ve already dragged the tlincalli for filth, so we’ll pivot to look at another WOTC media: Magic The Gathering.

Scorpions don’t get a lot of rep. At best, they appear as one-off cards. However. Thanks to vising two primarily-desert planes (Amonkhet and the Vorthos-panned Thunder Junction), we have some Guys.

We’ll start with the Scorpion God of Amonkhet. This guy did not used to look like this, but once Nicol Bolas got all up in everybody’s business, he twisted the Scorpion God, Locust God, and Scarab God into giant monstrosities and erased knowledge of their names, even from themselves, and then used them to “harvest” the mortals he had been cultivating to create an undead army. The Scorpion God killed the gods Rhonas, Oketra, and Kefnet, before finally being killed by Hazoret and a group of rebelling mortals.

He is notably the only one of the “twisted” gods to have been killed – the Locust and Scarab Gods both survived, as did Hazoret, and all three defended Amonkhet later from New Phyrexia getting all up in everyone’s business.

(Re: that third artwork, why is he kinda...)

Meanwhile, on Thunder Junction...

Oh, Thunder Junction. If not for the fact that no one in the design and writing department could agree on and work together to determine the right approach to Western tropes, you could have been interesting.

Having said that, the scorpion dragons? Not native to there. Instead, they’re from Gastal, a plane that was mentioned one (1) time back in the day. I’m willing to overlook some questions about these blokes for the sake of blaming the dragon half on everything I don’t think are scorpion-enough when it comes to these guys.

Now, for my third example... I’m going to preface this with the fact that LEGO’s Legends of Chima theme was a problematic mess in hindsight. I still love it with my entire soul, but it was a fucking nightmare.

But within that is the Scorpion Tribe, what is possibly my favorite current example of what you can do with scorpions in a (science-)fantasy setting.

The Scorpions were accidentally evolved with the magic MacGuffin of the series (Chi) thanks to some foolishness going on, and they were the antagonists of season two (or rather, wave two, as they were technically the latter half of season one and the beginning of season two). They’re led by a king, Scorm, and a general, Scolder. And yes, they all stick to the Sc- naming theme, with one exception from the online game.

So, how do you create an anthro Scorpion Lego figure? Like this, of course!

Now, something interesting to note is that because the Chi was not safely introduced to these guys, some of them didn’t “evolve” all the way and still have a scorpion lower body, like a weird centaur. Meet Scutter, posterchild for this, even though his brother Scrug speed-“evolved” to humanoid form.

Something interesting to note is just how flexible and catlike the tails of these Scorpions are. They can flick around and even hold things when curled up.

Another fun thing about Chima is that they don’t put my boys in the desert. Instead, they live in caves in a very hostile jungle. I’m so proud of them.

Analyzing the venom of these guys, though...

Scorpion God = full of god-killing venom

Akul = a "dark curse" that's basically fantasy tuberculosis

Scorpions from Chima = hypnosis mind-control agent that wears off fairly quickly

(Preface for this section: These were random additions that I sent a while later, with little connection to each other.)

Scorpion dads do tend to be deadbeats, but a scorpion mom figure? I would chew that right up.

Re: molting, it is a long, long process, even for something as small as a scorpion. So the bigger they are, the longer it's probably gonna take. It requires a lot of calorie-loading beforehand and can be predicted based on “air pockets” that appear at the sides of the exoskeleton, to give them wiggle room. Scorpions are soft for several days after molting and avoid eating anything until they harden back up.

And did I mention that scorpions glow under ultraviolet light?

So...yeah! Scorpions are so fucking cool, and this is just an overview! This isn't even getting into any particular species! There's just so much to explore in terms of scorpions in fantasy settings, so seeing them reduced to Desert Bad Guy over and over again annoys me.

Put these animals into some situations.

#jasper post #scorpions #animals #long post #legends of chima #lego legends of chima #magic the gathering #dungeons and dragons #tlincalli #the scorpion god #akul #akul the unrepentant #stingerback terror #magda #magda the hoardmaster #scorm #loc scorm #scutter #loc scutter

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humunanunga · 6 months

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10 fandoms 10 characters!

Tagged by @clannfearrunt hiiiiiiiiiiii 👀

1. Tsukasa from .hack//SIGN. I didn't even notice until my late 20s that I'd been making characters inspired by them all this time. But listen. This lost child could fit so much mental illness but they made it out okay and I'm so happy for them. They got friends, a girlfriend and a whole new dad who all got them out of not one but two abusive situations. They were also my first queer rep in fiction. Lesbian? Transmasc, nb/gq? Transfem, even? Doesn't matter which take you run with, there is no cishet explanation for Tsukasa no matter how you look at them.

2. ...I was gonna say Sans Undertale, but you know what? W.D. Gaster, because I love the thrill of the hunt (the speculation about the mysteries surrounding him). Spooky man. Talks in wingdings, the mad lad. Gotta be my favorite sleep paralysis demon. I love cosplaying him. I can't wait to find out if or when we'll learn more about him through Deltarune.

3. Lancer, speaking of Deltarune! What a good boy, he's just a lilguy, his laugh is dopamine. I want to squeeze him like a marshmallow. I love him like I love my cat who begs to be held like a baby. Lancer is baby, no really, he's got so much growing ahead of him to get as tall as his deadbeat dad. (I know what you're thinking. Why didn't I say the other guy from Deltarune? Because we've already talked at length before about everything that makes him such a compelling character. Let the baby boy baby take the spotlight this time.)

4. Calliope from Homestuck. I don't have much to say that couldn't be said just from looking at that cherub. So gender. So very gender.

5. Tanaka Gundham, from Danganronpa. Definitely one of the most characters ever. I fucking love that guy.

6. Mutou Yugi from YuGiOh. I'm just really proud of him. I also love that his thematic dragon is Gandora. Holy shit.

7. Nephrite (centipeedle) from Steven Universe. She skrunkly.

8. Garry from Ib. We know they're going through it, but they were a good chaperone to Ib regardless and we like to see that.

9. Sigh............. Xion. She's the reason Kingdom Hearts was the first video game to make me cry.

10. Number ten, number ten... how about finishing with a problematic fave... Ebel Alfie from Purgatory 2. Reluctant protagonist just wanted to go home and be an angsty emo highschooler, instead gets a demon girlfriend and dragged along to start a revolution. Hilarious.

I'll tag @mini-binni, @child-of-crows, @cryptidbisexual, @fangenstein, @marismolotov, @photochoco, @probablyaposer, @talkingsoup, @ufohh and @wolfgirlakita

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bogleech · 4 months

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What are your favourite dragon quest monsters across the entire series?

The first Dragon Quest Monsters game I've ever gotten to play wound up being the first one to leave out exactly the top three I looked forward to getting:

GIANTSLUG/MAULUSC: I'm pickier about slug and snail creatures than you maybe expect but I love the vapid drippy zombie face of the DQ slug. It perfectly captures the appeal of a slug as a monster, a mindless gooey thing that will just eat you without a care. And its classic color scheme is that of a Banana Slug!!

BELZEBUB: I am also picky about fly creatures; usually I want them to have the proboscis present in some way, and the correct number of wings (two). There's something I still love about the toothy mouth of Belzebub however, maybe the way it curls up between the eyes? It just does a good job capturing the feel of a fly's personality I guess.

DARKEYE/EYELASHER: eye creatures can also very easily feel a bit boring to me because I've just seen so, so many of them, but DQ's basic killer eyeball appeals to me a lot with its irregular fungus-like collection of tentacles. The little root branches on "top" are especially cool to me, and sometimes they're the bottom, because they represent where the eyeball attaches to either floors or ceilings! In a few games, they're even encountered as parasites inside bigger monsters!

I used to admire the guidebook to the first two DQ Monsters games as a kid but never had the games themselves, and never got around to any other DQ titles. I just spent my whole life waiting for just the right one where I'd finally get to assemble my three favorites, then finally this new one comes out and has to be the first time these three took a vacation :( But, Dark Prince was at least nice enough to include exactly my next three favorites in the franchise. I went over them already in my DQM Dark Prince post but some people will see this post first so I will have to reintroduce them:

DROHL: droopy flappy membranous mollusk guys, honestly horrible looking in a great way. In 3d games it turns out their helmetlike head spirals in the back like a snail shell! Apparently they're meant to be troll-like beings.

LUNATICK: just a blue fleshy sac thing with gooey antennae, a bunch of tentacles (most of them segmented like worms!) and a little eyeball, perfect, no criticisms, also reminds me of what Berserk considers an "Incubus:"

(Don't worry, Berserk Incubus aren't sex monsters but monsters that give you nightmares and feed on the fear)

TAILEATER/MAD MOLLUSK: I love how pathetic their front face looks, and the whole shape is so pleasantly reminiscent of an abyssal sea cucumber of some kind.

SKULLROO/GUAARDVARK: I didn't even realize this was one of my top favorites until getting it in Dark Prince. It's an unpleasant wrinkly fat aardvark kangaroo thing that just always carries a human skull around. Its profile says they collect them and the one they carry is their favorite! A lot of slightly lower favorites were also left out however, none of these are in Dark Prince but are very high up there to me:

PYURO: what is this thing? I don't know! Different games have categorized it as an insect or a plant. It's a furball with five eyes encircling a butterfly proboscis, two little legs and a big huge ring of flower petals behind it. Very xenobiology.

TONGUELLA: it's kinda like a dumpy, hairless sloth with an aardvark tail with a mushed-in dog face and a giant gross tongue. I guess I just like foul moist beasts. I wish this was a real mammal we had in the world, I bet it'd smell terrible. Feels like a perfect counterpart to Guaardvark.

SLURPERON: it's one tiny pitcher plant with a giant tongue and then it has cool reptilian eyes at the bottom end. So simple and so rad! A fun way to stylize a pitcher plant monster without ripping off Victreebel.

SICKLER: is a little tiny mantis in a robe, like the Tonberry from Final Fantasy but a mantis

RAGIN' CONTAGION: a newer one, a gooey vaporous cyclops ghost that represents disease. In its first appearance as a boss in the series the English localizers decided it should talk like Yosemite Sam. Sure why not!

So I like the new game and it gave me some new favorites like Skellyfish and new appreciation for some others, but oddly it only has my very middle all-time faves

#dragon quest

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salora-rainriver · 7 months

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The Sympathy Problem, or "Why I'm Too Much of a Monsterfucker to Get Into Horror"

I don't know what the fuck this is, but I'm writing an essay about a problem that, as far as I know, only applies to me (but i might be totally wrong, who knows).

I think the title speaks for itself, but lemme just elaborate on what the fuck happens inside my brain, and how that fundamentally affects the way I handle horror media, to the point where I cannot truly appreciate it as horror on the same level as everyone else.

now lemme post a cute bat here so that there'll be an appropriate image to represent the whole essay when its link is shared on stuff like Discord:

trust me this was important. Okay, let's keep going.

Part 1: Why I'm a Monsterfucker

Let's start at age 4. I'm a dinosaur kid, like roughly 1/3rd of all autistic bitches. I'm a dinosaur kid to the point of owning multiple Land Before Time movies, and tie-in games, and I think I even had like two plushies at one point.

you know it's serious when this is your childhood.

I also had miscellaneous dinosaur plushies, and dinosaur toys, and a dinosaur book I frequently read front-to-back, and you get the idea.

dinosaur love evolves into dragon love, evolves into "funky monster creatures and animals of all kinds" love. I become a freakish savant of the wonderful world of the animal kingdom really quickly, to the point where my child-brain career prospects include "vet" as a pretty high finalist.

And then I find Starcraft, a game in a genre I otherwise wouldn't have given a shit about... but guess what? it has bug dinos.

it's all over for me.

But like, why? why do I like dinosaur so much?

... because I am dinosaur.

Look. LOOK. I can't give a good comprehensive list on the connections between my particular strand of autism and the state of Being A Dinosaur, because by this point, me being autistic and me being a dinosaur are so completely intertwined that it's often a chicken-egg situation. But the point is,

I make weird noises instead of using my words. I toe-walk. I don't like shoes. Sometimes I like to not wear clothes at all, even. I like to hide in small crevices when spooked. When I'm in a meltdown, I scare people.

Me dinosaur. Or at least, me some type of feral.

So is it any fucken surprise that when I go into an RPG, I latch onto the animal shapeshifter, the furry species, or the person who fights unarmed and/or uses a claw weapon?

Is it any fucking surprise that I am the opposite of spooked by snakes and spiders and other such creepy crawlies?

is it any fucking surprise that I have a fursona?????

is it any fucking surprise that I picked Pokemon Scarlet without the slightest HINT of remorse?!

Part 2: Wait, That's not the Intended Response

now let's talk about horror. Let's talk about the elements that make horror into horror: the fear part.

So what scares people? Well... people scare us. A serial killer, a mad scientist, a cult leader, a corrupt government entity, maybe? or maybe even society itself, its darker side full of atrocities and danger and problems where there's no easy solution and things can often seem hopeless?

... lmao who are we kidding that's not the vast majority of what scares people in horror. IT'S MONSTERS! Monsters scare people!

From Xenomorphs to Jean Jacket to The Babadook, it's monsters! Shit that ain't human and never could be human, and maybe it's pretending to be human, maybe it used to be human, but now it ain't, and it's gonna getcha!

And it just.

I'm a monsterfucker.

I'm not scared of ghosts. Sure he's fucked up and wailing in endless pain and lashing out at everything, but that just makes me feel sad. Like, poor ghost dude. We should help him.

I'm not scared of vampires or werewolves. They're people like anyone else, and sure, there's an inherent danger from being around them, but there's also an inherent danger from being close to an alligator, and I'm sure as fuck not scared of an alligator chilling on the side of the road. Cautious, maybe, but not scared.

I'm not scared of zombies. I mean, if they were real, I'd be a bit spooked, cause I have no combat expertise and would definitely be Fucked. But the same would apply if my hometown became a war zone. And... a war movie won't scare me. So a zombie movie wouldn't, either.

I'm not scared of xenomorphs. I mean I don't want to die, but that just means I should be entering alien environments with all proper safety procedures. TBH I'm more pissed at Weyland-Yutani than anything else.

I'm not scared of the Babadook. I'm worried for the well-being of the family as they try to come to terms with grief, and the monstrous shape that grief has taken. But it seems like they're coping in the end, so that's good.

I'm not scared of Jean Jacket - okay no. I'll be honest. It makes me uncomfortable. I will not be going into detail on the difference between this discomfort and actual fear. That is not a Salora Lore I want to disclose here. If you Know, you Know.

Part 3: Horror ceases to be a genre for me

So the monsters in horror movies don't scare me. And yet... I've watched some horror movies. And I've liked them. From this one list I've been using as quick reference to remind myself of What Horror Movies Exist out there, I've watched a few of these, or am at least familiar with them. You know, I've seen some classic horrors like "The Shining" because I went to film class in high school, and I've watched some installments of classic franchises like "Scream", or oddball picks like "Warm Bodies" and "The Relic", because I was having watch parties with friends.

Even beyond film, I read some Lovecraft once, and I've played plenty of spookier-themed videogames, like... well, like Silent Hill 2. Didn't finish that one. Bcs I'm bad at puzzles. But I loved the atmosphere.

And even when I'm not directly experiencing the horror media, I often look it up, read the synopsis, and watch video essays about it.

I know way too much about Hereditary, Midsommar, Get Out, the Slasher Genre in general, Creepypasta, Resident Evil, and mascot horror, for someone who's supposedly not able to properly engage with horror as a medium.

And I like some of that shit! But uh...

... not. as horror.

I just. Don't engage with them as horror films. I engage with them as whatever other genre you could slot them into. Hereditary is a tragedy. Get Out is political allegory. The Babadook is psychological allegory. Ghost stories are dark fantasy. Alien is sci fi. Slasher films go back and forth between mystery, action, and dark comedy. Warm Bodies is a rom-com. (like. that's not even a weird hot take. I don't know why this Rotten Tomatoes editorial decided it was horror, but I'm not gonna dispute their assertion, Bcs like. this entire essay is about why I'm not a good judge on that sort of thing) Silent Hill is a puzzle-adventure game with light action. Five Nights at Freddys is a time-management simulation game that would stress me the fuck out if I ever played it. Amnesia: the Dark Descent is a stealth game.

You get the idea.

So I'm just... in this really weird position. I'm a huge fan of spooky monsters, strange happenings, stories that engage seriously with the anxieties of mankind through allegory,

but I can't. truly enter the horror genre community as an insider.

Cause I ain't scared.

And honestly, it gets even worse when I start to imagine myself maybe, idk, *writing* a horror story of my own. Because... since I don't get scared by them, how am I supposed to know what scares others? Apologies to my fellow disabled folk for this clumsy analogy, but... it feels like trying to paint while visually impaired. I mean... you can do it. You can do it super well if you push yourself. but it's a strong disadvantage, and it might result in an artwork that could baffle the seeing people in your audience.

And maybe there could be merit in that. In writing my attempt at a horror story from the perspective of someone who doesn't find any of it scary. Maybe it's be intriguing, even surreal or dreamlike or alien to the audience who doesn't engage with this subject matter in the same way I do.

Or maybe it'd just end up similar to that one phase of the creepypasta fad where folks were going "wooo! hyperrealistic blood! isn't it spoopy n fuked up????" and it'll be garbage idfk

Bonus Round: ...Okay I Might've Lied a Bit

There is one movie that for me, truly could be considered "horror".

It genuinely terrified me as I watched it. It shook me to my core and opened my eyes to how other people feel when they see some shadowy monster figure with too many teeth reach out and eviscerate a poor bitch. I fucking get it now, to some extent. I don't know *how* the spiky boy elicits that response in you, but now I understand how it feels.

Because I watched FUCKING M3GAN

[SPOILER WARNING: I'm not saying the exact plot beats of the movie but I AM going into detail about its themes and the character development of the protagonist. It's massive spoilers but they're all vague spoilers.]

Me and my friends didn't pick this movie thinking we'd get spooked. this is the movie where the doll does some sort of modern dance routine while carrying a katana. It's goofy shit! We figured this was goofy ass modern trash and we were gonna laugh.

MOTHERFUCKERS I WASN'T LAUGHING????

Is the premise unrealistic and goofy? yeah. are the characters exaggerated and cartoonish? yes. are there like, numerous jokes throughout this film, that are portrayed as jokes? yes. was the dancing robot doll chase sequence goofy as shit? yes*

*ok but the context of That Scene made my brain gloss right the fuck over how goofy it was bcs I was too fucked up over everything else that already happened!

So like. What? How? How is goofy robot doll horrifying? Salora, you know how many stories about rogue AIs and killer robots there are? Why doesn't skynet scare you?

It's not about the doll. It's about the humans who created her.

This film is as subtle as a fucking anvil when it comes to it's social commentary. Like, "opening sequence is a kids commercial for Deranged Knockoff Furby" and "a therapist character explains attachment theory for a whole scene" levels of unsubtle. and honestly that makes the horror fucking worse. in this bizarre cartoonish parody of society, we're seeing a laid-bare and raw allegory for the real harm we are inadvertently delivering upon real fucking people. Weirdly enough, the exaggeration just makes it feel more real.

and what's "It"? Not the uncanny valley of a too-perfect silicon face, the gruesome deaths, the murderous AI,

No, "it" is the commodification of childhood, the degradation of familial ties and human connection through overwork, the way we try to patch these broken ties with product, the outsourcing of parenting to toys and machines, the disastrous consequences of allowing an orphan to vanish into wish fulfillment fantasy instead of being given space to work through her grief,

the exploitation of her grief in order to market the very thing that's spiraling her further into an unhealthy dependency, to do the exact same thing to children worldwide, all because of profit.

Look. Monsters, ghosts, demons, serial killers, zombies, predatory animals, rogue AI, they're not scary to me, because I know them. and if I don't know them, I want to know them. The solution to the threats things like that pose are simple. Keep your distance from the crocodile. Punch the shark's sensitive nose to make it back off. Invest in security measures so your house doesn't get broken into. Don't anger the ghost. Exorcise the demon. Shoot the zombie's head.

How do you, an overworked engineer for a toy company, find the time to connect with your orphaned niece on a human level?

How do you take away said niece's beloved doll when you slowly come to realize that her attachment to it has become unhealthy?

What the fuck are you supposed to even do when you realize that you might have created a murderous monster and marketed it to hundreds of kids, and your overzealous boss is in your ear pressuring you to get it ready for launch?

WHAT A FUCKING NIGHTMARE.

Conclusion: But fr am I like the Only One

so uh. yeah.

My fear response is mucked around by an unusually high level of sympathy for the monsters that tend to populate horror media. I'm Too Kinky To be Tortured, and it puts me in an awkward relationship with the horror genre, where the only things that can well and truly terrify me are unhealthy relationships and capitalism, and even then, only if those topics are presented in just the right way to make me feel like this shit is Real.

And like you know how there's a whole language of like, scares and signifiers and shit that's been well-researched, all these tiny tips and tricks to exploit primal fears in humans? (I dont know if language is the right word but im just gonna call it that until further notice)

well, a lot of that Language of Horror doesn't quite work on me, because it's all related to monsters and physical threats, and I love the monsters too much,

and I imagine there is a whole different Language out there of the shit that can be exploited to scare me,

but fuck if i know what it is. I only got a single movie as my frame of reference. How the fuck would you even find a movie that handles social anxiety like that?

Like idk, do y'all think Carrie would spook me? Carrie's about societal ills, right?

#horror #horror movies #the following tag will spoil the plot twist of the essay oops #m3gan

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