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#Minstrel Books
bargainsleuthbooks · 1 year
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The Secret in the Old Lace (Nancy Drew Mysteries #59) by Carolyn Keene #NancyDrew #BookReview
Nancy Drew and her girlfriends are headed to Belgium to solve a couple of mysteries involving an antique cross and a pair of #BelgianLace cuffs. #TheSecretoftheoldlace #NancyDrewMysteries #carolynkeene #nancyDrew #bookreview #teensleuth #teendetective
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ebookporn · 11 months
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A real Jaskier - and he left notes.
‘Mad and offensive’ texts shed light on the role played by minstrels in medieval society
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The Heege Manuscript which ‘pokes fun at everyone, high and low’ is among the earliest evidence of the life and work of a real minstrel
by Sarah Shaffi
From mocking kings and priests to encouraging audiences to get drunk, newly discovered texts at the National Library of Scotland have shed light on the role played by minstrels in medieval society.
Containing the earliest recorded use of the term “red herring” in English, the texts are part of a booklet known as the Heege Manuscript. Dr James Wade of the University of Cambridge, who discovered them, said echoes of minstrel humour can be found “in shows such as Mock the Week, situational comedies and slapstick”.
“The self-irony and making audiences the butt of the joke are still very characteristic of British standup comedy,” he added.
Throughout the middle ages, minstrels travelled between fairs, taverns and baronial halls to entertain people with songs and stories. Although fictional minstrels are common in medieval literature, references to real-life performers are rare, and the Heege Manuscript is among the first evidence of the life and work of a real minstrel.
Wade, from Cambridge’s English faculty and Girton College, said that most “medieval poetry, song and storytelling has been lost”.
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fictionadventurer · 1 year
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Maybe "King Thrushbeard" is also a great story for Lent? If we take it on a purely allegorical level, it's actually a pretty decent analogy for the Christian life. Like, completely forget about this guy as a real person who has no right to do this to his wife. Forget about the insults and the purposeful humiliation. Just purely focus on the imagery of the story, and the parallels are pretty interesting.
The princess who grew up with luxury is given her choice of the greatest of her world's men, and instead of being grateful, she just insults and rejects every one of them.
She marries a beggar and is reduced to a state of extreme poverty where she learns how inadequate she is on her own, learns gratitude for what she had, and learns humility.
Right when she reaches her lowest point, she learns that her beggar husband was actually also the king all along.
The king took the form of a beggar and was beside her in all her struggles!
After her struggles have reformed her, she is able to take her rightful position in glory.
If we get beyond the extremely dicey dynamic between the characters as characters, the frame of the story is strong, and it might explain one reason why it maintains my interest.
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redrockbutch · 4 months
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One of the most baffling things about the modern world is people acting like Matt and Trey of South Park fame are these subtle satirists with wicked wit rather than overgrown frat boys with all the comedic grace of a muddy anvil falling off a cliff
Maybe, and you're gonna have to bear with me here, people haven't missed some secret subtextual message that you were clever enough to invent discover
Maybe, just maybe, their work comes off badly and bigoted because it is
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faggglerock · 2 years
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Cantus doodle..
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cruelsister-moved2 · 1 year
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I think people have confused the fact that it's definitely possible to go "look this magical guy told me these are the rules so now you all have to obey" with believing that religion is intrinsically just that. and it's like they just discount the possibility that anyone has ever earnestly believed in a higher authority or genuinely had a mystical experience or whatever. the thing is if you actually observe how religious people behave, especially if you look outside of like evangelical megachurch pastors who are clearly just grifting, it immediately becomes pretty hard to ignore that.
for every example of religion maintaining inequality u have muslim charities successfully preventing FGM by informing muslim communities who perpetrate it that it's haram, sikhs opposing casteism, early christians fighting gender inequality etc etc etc + on an individual level literally countless people who have fought against poverty and oppression on the basis of religious belief. like... IS it really something specific about religion or is it the fact that hegemony will naturally pick up and spread whatever supports it and suppress whatever doesn't?because the same can also be said of like... music... so are u going to say music is just a tool of the elite or whatever? bc it definitely can be. but it's equally a tool for resisting oppression and also just a significant part of the human experience.
aren't we meant to be postmodernists now like i think maybe things sometimes do just happen sometimes. what Society does with it after the fact is another question, but if you look at the history of religion I'm surprised if you don't come away with some awareness that genuine belief in some sort of authority or mechanism which is outside of human control can be something very transformative. like the fundamental innovation of the torah was to say that every human life is equal to every other human life in opposition to the code of hammurabi which said that some people's life = other people's pocket change. only a power which comes from somewhere outside human society would be able to ensure that law was applied fairly and equally to all rather than manipulated on the whim of the human with the most power to enforce it. if the "abrahamic" religions can be said to have anything in common at all, it's probably a call to humbleness and the value of every human being. much to think about!!!!
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justanormaluser16 · 1 year
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Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Maid and Minstrel (Kate Stradling) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Rosalind of Lovana/Philip of Mallinae, Rosalind of Lovana/Barnabas Characters: Rosalind of Lovana, Philip of Mallinae, Barnabas, Cassandra of Lovana, Grand Duke of Lovana, Duke Orrington, Martin of Lovana Additional Tags: fairytale retelling, Rewrite, Clean Romance, fairytale, Basically I read Maid and Minstrel by Kate Stradling and liked it but decided it needed some work, I rated this teen to be cautious but it's clean and pretty chill, Fairy Tale Curses, Salt and Light Summary:
This is a rewrite of Maid and Minstrel by Kate Stradling. If you've read that book, be prepared for my version to start similarly and diverge more as the book goes on. I wanted to develop the characters and relationships more fully and fix some plot elements that didn't work for me. If you haven't read that book, then enjoy this fairytale retelling of King Thrushbeard (minus some of the problematic elements of the original story). Rosalind, daughter of the Grand Duke, is forced to trade privilege and luxury for life as a beggar's wife. Barnabas the beggar suffers from a disfiguring fairy curse, but he can't tell her how to break it. Together, can they survive, break the curse, and maybe even find true love? Read on to find out. Updates regularly. This will be a completed, full-length story with about 14 chapters.
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mellotronmkll · 8 months
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Overall top 5 prog records?
ugh this was really hard for me to answer because it depends on your definition of prog and nobody can freaking agree whether anything is prog or not...like I've seen someone list hot rats as one of their favorite prog albums which I was surprised to see that's one of my favorites of all time but I don't really think of zappa as prog per se although of course it makes sense but. If i was gonna count him id include One Size Fits All But. idk and then like on the flip side like people will be like rush isn't prog so. Plus so many artists labelled as prog dont even like the label of prog so i don't know but. SOME of my favorite albums that are like. classic prog (in the sense that theyre mostly bands that came out of the 'underground' music scene in england in the the late 60s/early 70s and/or are bands that often get lavelled as prog) in no particular order:
larks tongues in aspic- king crimson, thick as a brick - jethro tull, animals - pink floyd, foxtrot - genesis (of course), the least we can do is wave to eachother - van der graaf generator, and also I realize now I hit 5 but I will say close to the edge as well. Again I never claimed to not be basic
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dontgofarfromme · 2 years
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Starling's going to stop being a minstrel????What is it with this series and making every single female character get pregnant and ditch their dream job because of it as their happy ending plzzzzzzz
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edrake · 30 days
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Composition Book Chronicles - Good Minstrel Times
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bargainsleuthbooks · 1 year
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The Flying Saucer Mystery (Nancy Drew Mysteries #58) by Carolyn Keene #NancyDrew
It's so bad it's good is the way I'd describe #NancyDrew #58 #TheFlyingSaucerMystery. There's so much crazy stuff going on, it's a mess, yet it still endears itself to me. Find out why. #CarolynKeene #BookReview #TeenSleuth #Teendetective #bargainsleuth
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fictionadventurer · 1 year
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23!
23. What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?
Disqualifying all short stories, picture books and graphic novels, the fastest read was probably Maid and Minstrel by Kate Stradling. It was released at midnight and I was done reading it by somewhere between 2 and 3 pm.
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historywaitsfornoone · 9 months
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it-will-devour · 1 year
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“Eeewwwww how could you have all those clown dolls in your room they’re so creepy..”
Because they aren’t! Because, years ago, they would’ve been a child’s best friend! Taken places! Slept beside! The music boxes brought out on birthdays to make up for not hiring a real clown! They’re colorful and smiling and they’re just cute creatures like any other little toy! It’s not their fault there’s so many scary clown movies it’s not their fault john wayne gacy happened! I’ve seen all those films and documentaries, but real clowns aren’t like that!
If it weren’t for people like me, these once beloved childhood remnants would collect dust on some shelf, never played with or held or loved. All for some film studios to make money!So yes! Yes I keep clowns all over my bedside table! All their names start with a J, some of them play music, they get a bath when they come home from the antique store and they are DELIGHTFUL thank you very much!
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tylermileslockett · 11 months
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Hey folks, this image of Apollo was done for a private commission. Xoxo
The following text is reposted from my previous Apollo Olympians image.
“Phoebus, of you even the swan sings with clear voice to the beating of his wings, as he alights upon the bank by the eddying river Peneus; and of you the sweet-tongued minstrel, holding his high-pitched lyre, always sings both first and last…And so hail to you, lord! I seek your favor with my song.”  (-Homeric Hymn, translated by H.G. Evelyn white)
APOLLO (uh-PAH-low), God of prophecy, oracles, music, art, protector of and disease of boys and men, and archery. Just as his twin sister Artemis is patron to women and girls, Apollo is both protector, and killer from disease of boys and men. In my Illustration the god holds his bow and arrows behind, while he strums the lyre gifted to him by trickster Hermes. Near the sun flies his ally and divine messenger, a white raven. The column on the right is capped with a cow, representing his sacred animal as a god of herds. The serpent Python sits dead at his feet, killed by Apollo’s arrow so that the god could take over the Delphi temple location. The temple complex sits beneath the god, while on the far right, the Pythia (Apollo’s oracle priestess) sits upon a tripod, breathing the hallucinatory gasses seeping up from the earth to get her prophecies which she bestows upon visitors.
The laurel tree has associations with Apollo because the god, chasing a Naiad (water nymph) named Daphne call out to Gaia (mother earth) for help, who transformed the nymph into a laurel tree, which the god adopted as his sacred tree. In book 1 of the Iliad, Apollo supports the Trojans by raining down a plague on the Greeks, and later helping Paris to kill Achilles. Apollo’s cruelty is shown in Ovid’s mythical lyre contest with the inventor of the flute; a satyr named Marsyas. When Apollo suggested they play their instruments upside down, the satyr lost, and was flayed (skinned) alive as punishment for his hubris. 
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aemxnd · 1 year
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midnight rain | daemon targaryen x niece!reader
Can the sunshine win over the darkness?
Heavily inspired by a gender-swapped Taylor Swift’s Midnight Rain as requested by @prettycutebunny, I hope I did your idea justice (and apologies for changing one lyric to suit the plot!)
WORDS: 5.3k (I’m so sorry)
WARNINGS: canon typical incest, dubcon, angst everywhere you look, p in v, v fingering, physical violence, breeding, degradation, praise, pain kink, Daemon being a real asshat, reader is Viserys and Alicent’s third child, reader has silver hair for plot point, Stockholm Syndrome, terrible High Valyrian translations, crying, power imbalance due to age difference. 
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire & Blood characters nor do I claim to own them. I do not own any of the images used nor do I claim to own them.
My requests are open! 🖤
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Such a pretty little songbird.
Little Starling, your mother had once named you as a child. A free spirit, bound only by the towering castle walls that clipped your wings as the youngest child of the King and his second Queen. Weeks, months, years passed daydreaming beneath your favourite tree, reading the same fantastical books and listening to the same wistful odes from your minstrel. 
All the while under the careful eye of your kepus. 
Life’s tragedies and horrors had never crossed your path, never entered your realm, therefore could never harm you. Your childhood as idyllic as you could imagine, save for a loving father. That void was dutifully replaced by your uncle Daemon, whose unrivalled care and indomitable attention ensured you never wanted for anything more, evermore understanding that your father’s duty to his throne far exceeded the loving relationship expected toward a daughter and that his brother could offer the closest companionship to his. Yours was an unbreakable bond that defied all secrets, surpassed all proprietary expectations and often branched into full conversation in High Valyrian to remain undetected by outside ears. 
Meanwhile, your elder brothers Aegon and Aemond sought to salve the absence of a protective male role model closer to your own age, ensuring they trained in the sword to their own degrees should their little sister ever need rescue. No matter how often you reassured them, they refused to share your belief that no danger could come to you, for danger did not seek you. With the guard of three silver-haired Princes, you thought yourself invincible.
As you matured together, however, your brothers discovered distractions. For Aegon, it was women, cups and the sordid activities beyond the castle walls. For Aemond, it was Vhagar, studies and bitterness. You could not begrudge them the right to grow, to extend their roots beyond your all-too-comfortable sibling unit, as you too had become distracted by literature, music and the pursuit of a quiet life with precious few responsibilities. Somehow your tranquil existence had eluded the conversation of marriage, recognising your unfettered spirit aspiring to greater things than a life secluded within the Red Keep.
But not in the eyes of your kepus. 
~~She was sunshine, I was midnight rain~~
“What troubles you, little starling?” Called a familiar voice from behind your favourite reading spot in the Godswood. You squinted against the midday sun to find your beloved uncle Daemon watching over you, an uneasy frown skewing his lips. “Why are you so often here alone?”
“Good day, dear kepus,” you closed the tome in your lap, clasping your hands together. “My brothers are at the Dragonpit, where I fear a princess may never tread.”
“And you are content with reading in solitude?” Daemon stepped closer, treading carefully over the gnarled roots of the tree upon which you sat. “Would you not prefer company?”
“I am sure others would not wish to read the tales I choose to indulge,” you clutched your book closer to your chest, hurriedly attempting to conceal its cover from him. Sighing thoughtfully, you smiled up at your uncle. “I am resigned to the life of a quiet Princess Regent, neither an heir nor a common-born. No responsibility, no authority, yet still no freedom.”
Daemon approached and perched on a root beside you, chuckling softly under his breath. “I suppose that notion is all too familiar to us both, Princess.”
“Then how did you assuage it, uncle?” You looked over to him, noticing a distinct pain behind the considerate smile on his countenance. “How did you counsel yourself to contentment with such an existence?”
“What in the Seven Heavens makes you believe that I have?” Daemon snorted, gaze dropping into his lap. “How do you counsel yourself to contentment with a life of loneliness, niece? You are but seven-and-ten, do you not wish to take a husband? Make an honest man out of some egotistical Lannister?”
You smiled warmly. “I do not wish to marry, uncle. No aspect of marriage or childbearing holds any attraction for me, for I could never find the love of which I read in literature.”
“That I find hard to believe, Princess. If you wish to marry for love, your parents would be only too happy to oblige.” His hand reached to clasp over your thigh reassuringly. “One day, you will find the Prince you deserve.”
A comfortable silence fell between you, enough to hear the rising volume of the wind in the Godswood. You glanced up in tandem to see the once-turquoise sky fading to an ominous grey.
“A storm is coming, Princess,” Daemon clicked his tongue, slapping his knees demonstrably and rising to his feet. With a kindly hand proffered in the space between you, he beamed down at you. “May I accompany my little ray of sunshine to shelter?”
As you reached to accept, Daemon finally caught a glimpse of your book’s cover and smiled to himself. “The Tales of Persephone and Hades, I see.” His voice lowered to a mutter so indistinct you could not hear him. “How apt, vēzos.” Sun. 
You paced slowly toward the library together, Daemon always one step behind, his hands clasped studiously behind his back as you meandered around hallway after indiscriminate hallway, wordlessly travelling as if no conversation could be found. You would never notice the manner in which Daemon consumed the image of you before him, a woman grown so distinctly from the small babe he had observed in your youth, born with gleaming silver hair which now tumbled to the length of your hips. Your regal green gown swayed as you moved and swept the hallway before his intrepid footsteps, Daemon swallowed harshly as he imagined the frame concealed by your bodice and boned skirt. 
~~She wanted it comfortable, I wanted that pain~~
Upon your arrival at the dimly-lit library hall, you turned to nod a farewell to your escort. 
“Thank you, uncle,” you smiled before quickly turning on your heels in search of another book to lose yourself in. As you paced, you heard your footsteps echoing with another, realising that Daemon had followed you. After a few more steps, you ground to a sudden halt, giggling gently as he bumped into you and nearly lost his footing. You grasped his arms behind you and steadied him, the gentle clearing of his throat behind you making you chuckle harder. “Kepus, are you following me?”
His hands searched for your waist and skimmed the contour of your hips, pulling you flush to his chest so close his warm breaths fanned your hair. Your laughter silenced with the sudden realisation that this was no child’s play. 
“I would follow you to the ends of the earth, little starling,” he whispered into the shell of your ear, venturing a hand to brush your tumbling silver curls from your neck so he could blaze a trail of butterfly kisses unimpeded. Your breath hitched in your throat, eyes fluttering closed as his gentle touch melted your resistance immediately. 
“Kepus… what do you mean?” You asked timidly, almost afraid of the response.
His next searing kiss into the base of your neck lingered a while, his lips wrapping you up in anticipation and longing for a touch you had never before desired, but now that you had it, you craved it more than the air you breathed. Your head threw back into the blissful sensation, earning a low groan from Daemon that vibrated softly against your skin. 
“You have always been the midday sun to my midnight rain, haven’t you, little one?” Daemon whispered. “You were born into this world when I returned from the Stepstones, a ray of light when my world was shrouded in darkness. Whenever my life has succumbed to the pitch black of night, you were always there to illuminate the way.”
Your hands rested on his as they traversed deep into the valley of your pelvis, hovering over the position of your most sensitive place concealed only by the structure of your dress. 
“Uncle, please…,” you muttered in a form of weak protest that came out as an encouragement, unable to scramble through your mind for a reason why you should reject his advances. He had lost Laena, you were unwed, there were no marital connections to stop you. Your beloved uncle, who more or less raised you in the absence of your father, had been the deepest love in your heart all your life. Whether or not that had been a romantic love or not, you could not deny the way your body responded to his touch as if you had yearned for this moment ever since you first read of love. Holding him this close felt as natural as breathing. 
“Hush now, little starling,” he cooed as his lips blazed a trail up to your earlobe and nibbled gently, all while pressing his palm into your skirt so his fingers could make contact with your mound beneath, making featherlight strokes into the fabric and causing your hips to buck into his hand. “Tepagon aōla naejot nyke.” Give yourself to me.
The darkness enveloped the daylight as you nodded in agreement, and in the blink of an eye Daemon gripped your hips, spun you to face him and captured your lips with his. At first tentative, he pulled back to scan your face for a response, only to growl hungrily as he watched your gaze journey to his lips eagerly awaiting their next contact, consuming your mouth with his before you could mutter a protest. Your hands instinctively reached to lace around his neck, drawing him closer and dipping into the kiss as if your hunger could not be sated, craving as much contact as physically possible. 
Without you knowing, Daemon had steered your clinch across the room toward the nearest desk, lifting you to rest on the wood and swiftly hitching your skirt up around your hips in the process. His lips refused to part from yours, nudging his nose into your cheek and humming contentedly against your mouth. With one hand cupping your cheek, the other ghosted a featherlight trail from your knee to your inner thigh, blazing toward your smallclothes between your legs, grazing the sodden fabric as it clung to your core.
“You already want the darkness, don’t you niece?” He pressed, groaning greedily and venturing both hands to rip the weak cotton apart at the seams. With his last obstacle laid to waste and clinging to your hips, his fingers grazed your pulsing folds and collected the waiting droplets of your anticipation. “I have waited so many years to feel your heat, ñuha vēzos.” My sun.
Your vision swirled like a hurricane, conflicting emotions and thoughts blurring the image of the silver-haired prince gazing down at you through lust-blown pupils as he watched his fingers daring to breach your folds before you gave him permission. 
“Kepus, not yet,” you pleaded against your own better judgement, a whimper escaping him as you planted both palms on his chest to keep him an arm’s distance away. “We are not yet married, I don’t think this is right.”
Daemon chuckled to himself before grasping both your wrists in one hand and raising them above your head, his free hand pressing your chest to lay you flat on the desk. Pinning your wrists above you and leaning down to hover over you, two fingers rediscovered your folds and slipped inside in one smooth motion. 
“Then don’t think, sweetling,” he whispered as he buried his fingers inside you to the knuckle, fingertips eagerly curling into your spongy walls and stroking slowly. Your hips tentatively reared into his touch, a palpable trepidation leaving you worrying about your maidenhead, the pain of coupling that literature failed to address yet had always remained on the lips of every birthing woman within the Keep. Daemon noticed your hesitation and thrust his fingers deeper, eliciting a strangled gasp from the depths of your lungs and revelling in your back arching into his motions. “It’s alright starling, the darkness has you now.”
You swallowed harshly, eyes roving to the ceiling as the full sensation in your cunt overwhelmed you. With a disapproving click of his tongue, Daemon tightened his grip on your wrists and slammed them against the hard wood, making you hiss gently. 
“Don’t take your eyes off me, niece,” he commanded until your gaze met his again, ramping up the pace of his pumps as you buckled beneath him. “You need not be ashamed of letting go. Let your kepus take control.”
Daemon’s thumb journeyed to settle on your clit, tracing lazy circles around your bundle of nerves while his fingers drove fervently in a race to reach the furthest points inside you, the wet slaps of his motions echoing through the library. Watching closely as your back arched against his restraint, your eyes fluttering to close as if your climax were nearing, the edge of your pleasure cliff was cruelly snatched from you as his fingers withdrew from your soaking folds with a lewd pop. In a determined hurry and a rustle of fabric, Daemon fumbled with his breeches and freed himself before quickly replacing his digits with a smooth thrust of his length into your cunt. Your determined lubrication enabled his swift entry to sheath himself inside you, but not without discomfort as you winced to handle the stretch of your walls around his girth. 
“Easy now, vēzos,” he soothed, pressing a palm into the valley of your hips to feel his tip grazing your innermost core and sending a shallow shiver throughout your body. “Soon the pain will become comfortable, I promise.”
You swallowed deeply, nodding in compliance and dutifully wrapping your legs around his waist to allow him easier access within you. Daemon grunted, making his next thrust deep and punishing to the point you yelped out, filling the library with the echoes of your cries. 
“That’s it, little one,” he hummed contentedly, working your cunt with his bucking hips like a man possessed, his free hand gripping your hip to impale you further. He leaned further over you to hover his lips over yours, his towering stature blocking out the dim candlelight of the room and enveloping you in pitch black night. “Give yourself to me, let the darkness take you.”
With every merciless thrust deep into your cunt, your helpless mewls grew louder which only encouraged Daemon’s animalistic plunges within you. Gathering what little strength you could muster, you weakly pulled your wrists against his restraint. 
“Please… need to… touch you,” you stuttered, fingers clamouring into mid-air for contact. Daemon’s sadistic grin faded as he acquiesced, your hands firing to curl around his neck and pulled him in for a searing kiss so you could silence your screams into his mouth, his relentless force pummelling you into the hard wood of the desk beneath which was sure to leave flayed grazes on your spine the next day. 
“My little sunshine, you feel like heaven around me,” he cooed against your lips, curling his thrusts to bottom out inside you so hard your blurred vision of him would glitter with stars. “Does this not feel like heaven to you?”
You whimpered an unintelligible response, unable to compose any coherent thought as his cock filled you to the hilt. The searing heat swelling inside you brought the vision of your cliff edge back into sharp focus, begging you to drive your hips up to meet his in a desperate race for your release. Daemon recognised your eagerness and met it with a newfound brutal pace, pounding into you so fast the lewd skin slapping that echoed through the chamber became staccato and relentless. 
“When you are carrying my child, your father will wed you to me,” he leaned to whisper in your ear, anchoring himself by wrapping his hand around your throat, his fingers and thumb pressing eagerly into each side to stem your blood flow rushing to your head, leaving you breathless and helpless. “And I will return inside your pretty little cunt every single night for the rest of our lives.”
His thrusts became jagged, betraying his own approach to the precipice.
“You see, every night the darkness consumes the light.”
With one last devastating thrust, your high flooded through you like a tidal wave and crashed against Daemon’s incoming climax, flooding your walls with his release and blending with your own, his gaze travelling to watch the space between you as his glistening cock hammered into your depths and stuttered as he poured inside you. The once-deafening lewd sounds of your coupling now replaced with ragged breaths, gasps for air and Daemon’s contented grunts as he rode out his orgasm within you, you threw your head back against the wood in sheer realisation of your own weakness. 
Not yet married, but most likely to carry your kepus’ child before long. 
You threw your hands to your belly, clutching at the flatness between your pelvis. Pulling out from you and admiring the soaking mess between your folds, Daemon’s hands rested upon yours as you looked up to find him gazing lovingly at the same space which terrified you to the core.
“Byka vēzos,” he hummed. Little sun. “If you do not conceive this time, we have the rest of our lives together to ensure you will.”
~~She looked like a bride, I was making my own name~~
Some flowers bloom only when the sun sets. 
You blossomed for Daemon in a way he could never have anticipated. His bravery in the battlefield garnered him the courage to risk it all for a chance to make you his wife, but he found so very little resistance in your kind reception that his claim over you simply fell into his lap. The thrill of the chase evaded him, as you caved so effortlessly to his will. 
Each time he requested your presence in his chambers, you parted your thighs and accepted him willingly. Yet each time you requested his presence in turn, he refused, ensuring he kept you wanting more and more, the suspense crafting a new height of pleasure each time you were called to his chambers, bent over his bed and pounded within an inch of consciousness. 
Daemon Targaryen had laid his claim to your body and mind, yet all that remained was his possession of your soul. 
Unbeknownst to you, Daemon had long pleaded with your father to wed you to him. Informally at first, often disguised as a joke to strengthen the Targaryen bloodline by betrothing two dragons to each other to fight for all eternity. But since the night in the library, his requests increased in volume and tenacity, resulting in a physical confrontation in the throne room between dragon brothers. Dismissing Daemon’s demand as nothing more than a vicious clamour for the Iron Throne, your father sought to banish his brother from King’s Landing to Dragonstone, where he would live out his days out of earshot of the Red Keep, where he would never again hear the pathetic whimpers of a man desperate to bed his youngest daughter for power. 
To you, that night came as any other, as Daemon’s maid requested your presence in his chambers at the dead of night and you dutifully obliged, pacing the Keep corridors in eager anticipation of meeting him once more. As you crept through his door, a heavy fabric flew towards you and you grabbed it in mid-air. A dark cloak. 
“Kepus, what—?”
“We need to leave. Tonight.” Daemon’s voice was short, snappy, panicked as his face came into view in the darkness. His brows knitted together, his lips skewed with fear. 
“Wh… why? Did my father refuse our betrothal?”
“Of course he fucking did,” Daemon snapped through gritted teeth, grabbing the cloak still laying in your shaking hands and throwing it over your shoulders for you. “We need to leave for Dragonstone now, there’s a boat waiting for us in the harbour.”
“I don’t… why do we… what happened?” You were frozen to the spot, confusion washing over you in waves. Daemon’s hands balled into fists as he adjusted the hood over your head. 
“Will you stop asking so many fucking questions? Just get down to the harbour, I’ll meet you there soon.”
“Kepus… I’m scared,” you stuttered, hands held out in front of you as if still holding the heavy cloak. “Will I ever see my parents again?”
Daemon smoothed the fabric over your shoulders and tucked the hood over your eyes. Pressing a quick dismissive kiss to the fabric laying over your forehead, he clasped your face and pulled it upwards. 
“Whatever happens, little starling, we are each other’s family from this moment on.” 
Suddenly, the tense silence between you shattered to the sound of deafening bangs on the door to his chambers. Immediately hunching his back defensively, he ushered you across the chamber toward a dark passage where a rogue guard waited to take you onward. “Place your trust in Ser Baleon, I will meet you at the shore.”
The crashes against the wooden portal intensified as you fled, the distinct swoop of metal from the chamber behind you suggesting Daemon had armed himself against the ambush. Searing hot tears blazed volcanic streams down your cheeks as you fought to focus on your steps down the dark spiral staircase to safety, wondering if you would ever see Daemon alive again.
~~Chasing that fame, she stayed the same~~
“Your father is a cunt,” Daemon hissed, storming into your Dragonstone chambers and crossing the room in three great strides to tower over you. 
“Surely not, kepus,” you attempted to calm his temper with a reassuring palm pressed to his chest. “What has he said to irk you so?”
“He’s sent a raven to enquire after you,” he seethed, his jaw clenched tightly as if it might snap at any moment. “He claims that I kidnapped you in the dead of night and will not return you to your birthright in the Red Keep.”
“But I came to Dragonstone of my own free—,” you were cut off by Daemon’s hand firing to grasp your throat, your fingers racing to claw at his grip and prize yourself free. 
“Well why don’t you speak those precious words to your beloved father instead?” He half-growled, sneering down at you as if you were his prey. “He seems to be the one that needs persuading of your own free will, Princess.”
“If you… if you let me, I will,” you stuttered against his restrictive clutch, weakly attempting an escape to breathe properly. 
“You would love that, wouldn’t you?” He snarled, using one hand to spin you by your waist while retaining his grip on your throat, pressing his chest flush to your back and steering you to the bed. “You could run back to the Red Keep and your books and your perfect little boring life.”
“Kepus, please,” you protested weakly, reaching a hand ahead of you to cushion your fall as he dropped you face-first into the sheets. “Please, don’t…”
“Please don’t what, starling?” He chuckled, bunching your skirt over your behind and battling with his own breeches. “Don’t fight for my family, or don’t take my wife whenever I so wish?”
You scrunched your eyes closed, willing to block out whatever was coming next. This was not the careful husband you knew, this was not the devoted uncle who raised you in place of your father, this was certainly not the man who you fell in love with under a stormcloud amongst ancient tomes. This midnight rain will pass, no matter how much love it unravels in the eye of the storm. 
Delivering a swift nudge to your thighs, your legs were parted and Daemon crawled between them, grasping your hips and drawing you up to impale yourself on his hardened cock. With no preparation, you yelped at the intrusion and hissed gently.
“The pain will soon become comfortable,” he declared as he ruthlessly bottomed out inside you. “I promise.”
Tears welled in your eyes, threatening to burst their banks as the agony coursed through you in waves, slowly replaced by bolts of pleasure as his tip grazed your innermost walls.
“Please… take me easily, my Prince,” you wheezed out between merciless thrusts stealing your breath from your lungs. “I am… I am with…”
“You would do well not to give orders when I can ensure you lose consciousness in a moment, little one,” Daemon hissed, pounding into you with an inhuman pace, sending your eyes roving to the ceiling as his nails dug crescent dips into the flesh of your hips. “You want to stay awake while I fill you up, don’t you? Maybe this time you will bear me a child.”
“Daemon, please be gentle…,” you fought to finish your declaration while balling your fists into the sheets, your elbows caving beneath you. “I am with child.”
With your last syllable, Daemon’s thrusts ceased instantly, leaving you whimpering at the immediate loss of friction. He stilled completely, not so much as a laboured breath escaping him behind you, his length still nestled halfway inside you. 
“My Prince, I… I’m sorry,” you reassured, venturing a hand back towards him as if willing him to hold it. “I should have spoken sooner.”
You breathed into the deafening silence, wondering if he did not wish you to deliver the news in such a manner. Suddenly, a cool splash of water hit your scalding spine. A tear. Daemon’s tear. 
“I have failed you, starling,” he sighed, completely shattering his blind rage into a self-deprecating reflection. Allowing his length to slip out from your folds, he released your hips and collapsed onto the sheets beside you. “After all this time, I could have destroyed our child with my recklessness.”
“You have never failed me, kepus, our babe is safe inside me,” you purred, reaching to brush another tear from his cheek. “If he’s anything like his father, he can withstand any amount of force.”
Daemon’s saddened gaze turned to you, still on all fours beside him. He ventured a hand to brush your cheek. 
“I do not deserve you, vēzos jehikagon.” Sunshine. 
In the blink of an eye, you threw a leg over his own to capture him between your thighs. Hovering your waiting folds over his length, still hardened and bobbing between your bodies as you awaited a signal to proceed. 
“Let me please you, my King,” you pleaded, one hand venturing between your legs to stroke his cock and line his tip with your aching entrance.
Daemon’s gaze met yours, his wounded pride hooding his eyelids in contrast with your wide-eyed anticipation. You smiled at your silver-haired captor so warmly, he could not resist your brilliant sunshine blinding him to walk into the light. Gently bucking his hips to meet you in the middle, you lowered onto his length and shared a gratuitous moan as he filled you slowly and completely.
“You are truly carrying my babe?” His hands journeyed to your belly, swelling softly beneath his palms as you rocked gently into him. 
“As true as the sun shines above us, ñuha jorrāelagon.” My love. “The Maester says it is early, so I should rest as much as possible.”
Daemon stilled, concerned. “Then you should cease at once, allow me to…”
“And deprive me of this moment with my beloved? Never,” you asserted, sinking down carefully and bucking your hips to graze his tip against your walls, dropping so far you could swear you felt his cock deep in your stomach. “Besides, I may not be able to ride my dragon for much longer so I will take any chance I can get.”
“When you grow too weary to ride your dragon,” Daemon’s fingers splayed out across your belly as you bobbed above him, his eyes journeying to the ceiling momentarily as the sensation of your walls tightening around him stole his breath. “Rest assured that your dragon will take good care of you, little one.”
The mere implication of his words sent you careering to your precipice, clenching tightly around his cock as your walls rippled and pulsed with the approach of your orgasm. Noticing the sensitivity of your walls to his every motion inside you, jolting and surging around him to bring his rhythmic rutting up into you to a jagged pattern, signalling the arrival of his own climax.
“Let go for me,” he commanded through a whisper, keeping his palms pressed to your abdomen and revelling in the strangled gasps you could no longer hold back, grinding your hips to ride through your high as he deftly painted your walls in staccato thrusts.
Filling the chamber with your mixed groans and deep pants as you slowed your motions above him, you couldn’t bear to move from atop Daemon for fear of losing the moment you shared. Instead, he gripped your hips and turned you onto the sheets, keeping his length buried within you as you lay beside each other. 
“Gevie muña,” Daemon muttered under his breath as he reached to brush your silver hair from your face.
Beautiful mother. 
~~All of me changed like midnight~~
It had taken you the best part of half an hour to muster the strength enough to heave yourself from the birthing chair. Propping yourself up on the fruit table stacked high with pomegranates, you gazed out from your Dragonstone chamber to the harbour beyond. The day was bright, gleaming, the waters mirroring the same blissful turquoise sky beneath which you used to read your books, drift off into fantastical realms and dismiss your own captivity as the Princess Regent with no responsibility and no freedom.
The Maester said your third birth would be easier than the initial two, but so far he had been proven catastrophically wrong. When sickness could not claim you, tiredness and weakness took hold. Days blended into each other, weeks dragged for months, your belly swelled overnight as you lay helpless in the birthing chair simply waiting for an end to the monotony of childbirth. After delivering Daemon two sons, you assumed your duty as a birthing mother had been fulfilled, yet another child swelled no sooner than the second had left your womb.
A pair of hands snaked around your hips to cradle your blossoming belly, fingers spread out over the span of the bump to feel every sensation beneath your skin. A chin rested in the crook of your neck and peppered lazy, haphazard kisses over your ear. 
“Good morning, ñuha byka vēzos,” he cooed softly, his breaths warming your neck. My little sun. “You are not usually out of the chair so early, are you not well? Is our Prince keeping you from rest, little starling?”
You sighed as you dipped your head against his, placing your hands atop his as they surveyed your belly.
“I am quite well, husband,” you comforted him, tracing idle patterns over his hands, still as delicate as the day he first held you as a babe. “I’m always well when I am with you.”
Gazing out beyond the Dragonstone harbour, you could make out the faint outlines of the Red Keep from the safety of Daemon’s arms. Word from court suggested your father’s physical strength was at its last. Your mother sent a parchment requesting your presence but your husband intercepted it before it reached your hand, dismissing your concerns and reassuring that a raven would arrive at once if the King was indeed on his deathbed.
King’s Landing lay just beyond the dock, a symbol of the life you gave away for the sake of love. When you once believed you could never attain the love as told in literature, you failed to notice you had already fallen into such an affair. Persephone and Hades, the blinding sunshine tempted into the all-consuming darkness.
Such a pretty little songbird. 
In such a pretty little cage.
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