#Spidersilk Masterlist
Text
Pleasure
Synopsis: Astarion teaches Tiriel to give a blowjob.
Thanks @themadlu for beta-reading!
Tags: smut, oral sex, trauma talk
Read on AO3
Masterlist
Headcanons
The late evening is sweet and warm, the stars shining beautifully in the dark skies.
It’s Astarion’s second spring as a free person.
These months always bring hope, and even in his years of slavery Astarion sometimes dared to dream of freedom in those few weeks when nature was new.
Astarion looks to the right. Tiriel walks beside him in her spidersilk armor. The two-handed ax is strapped on her back. She looks ahead with almost child-like amusement.
He can’t take his eyes off her.
Freckles, wrinkles on her forehead, those funny half-elven ears. He knows every small detail of her body – and loves her mindlessly.
Tiriel notices his look and takes his hand. Her skin is warm, and Astarion squeezes her fingers tighter.
She is much younger, only thirty-eight. The year she was born, he was forced to entertain a certain nobleman from Amn for an entire year. And by the end of it, Astarion thought that returning back to the mansion wouldn't be so bad because at least there he could pretend he was something more than a toy to play with in bed.
Tiriel was beaten by her relatives for being a half-elf. He was beaten and tortured for fun.
Tiriel was starved and humiliated by her own blood. He was fed rats and fleas by his master.
At the age of fifteen, she managed to escape, and Astarion’s undead heart aches when he thinks about young Tiriel, almost a child, wandering the wilderness on her own, without a weapon or armor.
Shedidn’t even have a name before an old adventurer, a tiefling-paladin, explained to her that “pixie” and “fairy” aren’t an appropriate way to call a young woman, no matter her race and origin.
Tiriel told Astarion all these with a bitter smile – her cheating mother, evil chieftain stepfather, cruel siblings, years of traveling on her own, the way she chose her own name at the age of fifteen. The loneliness and pain she tried to soothe with drinking.
But Astarion knows Tiriel too well. She still suffers for what happened to her. Tears prickle her eyes when she talks about her miserable childhood.
They both have a lot of darkness in their past. She consoles him after nightmares and soothes his anxieties. He tells her how beautiful she is.
He smiles to himself. Maybe the gods did hear him after all, making Tiriel’s father stay for the night in the village in the Sunset Mountains and sleep with the chieftain’s wife. It just took Tiriel some time to grow up and get to Baldur’s Gate.
“Well, the night is young and we have many hours of travel again. I wonder if there is any village we can get to by the morning,” Astarion says.
“I doubt it. One more day in the tent, then,” she shrugs.
“Easy for you, Tiriel, you don’t have to stay inside! And I am trapped, protected from the murderous sunlight only by a thin layer of fabric.”
“First of all, you keep me for yourself until I absolutely need to go out,” she laughs. “Second, it’s an enchanted fabric, and third it’s a very big tent! Don’t complain!”
“Oh, it’s not fun to be in a relationship if I cannot complain!”
Tiriel brushes her finger along his cheek. He closes his eyes, savoring the touch. If only he knew she was already alive in the last decades of his slavery. Maybe it would make things more bearable.
Then he notices Tiriel looking to her side. She opens her mouth and then immediately shuts it, as if trying to say something but not knowing how.
His wild girl doesn’t have a wide vocabulary, that’s for sure.
“What is it, my sweet?”
“Oh? Nothing!” she blushes. “Nothing-”
Astarion is sure there is something on her mind but he isn’t sure if he should push her. Tiriel doesn’t like it.
Neither does he.
They keep walking through the valley and no matter how sharpened Astarion’s senses are, he doesn’t catch any sentient creature’s scent.
There is no one for many miles.
“Astarion,” Tiriel calls him out.
“Yes? What is it?”
She takes a deep breath and stares at her feet. Astarion is sure he’s never seen her that embarrassed.
“I want to take you in my mouth.”
Astarion has to put an effort not to laugh. “And what exactly in this gods forbidden place made you want this?”
She turns her head away avoiding looking at him.
“I’ve been thinking about it for three days.”
“What self-control!”
“Don't laugh, Astarion! Besides, you've gone down on me already! Even when I was on my period!”
He chuckles remembering the taste of her moon blood. It was incomparable to anything else.
“You are a half-elf, my dear, I couldn’t miss the only time you bleed every year and a half. In your case, it’s a rare treat. Not so rare if you were a pure-blood elf of course. Then we would have to wait for a decade.”
“I want to,” she says. “I want to give you pleasure.”
“As if you don’t already give it to me,” he approaches Tiriel and puts his fingers on her neck, where a fresh bite mark is slowly healing. “But who am I to say no to such a generous offer?”
He looks around and notices a boulder that he can comfortably sit on.
Tiriel impatiently waits till he puts his sack on the ground and sits. Now Astarion can feel her arousal and he contemplates if he should just fuck her like he usually does.
He spreads his legs a bit so she can unlace his trousers without an effort.
“Should I undress?” She asks.
“Take off your armor. The rest only if you want to.”
Tiriel quickly gets rid of the spidersilk armor and stays only in her shirt and trousers. Then, she contemplates for a bit and takes off her top as well. Her skin immediately is covered with goosebumps and her nipples harden because of the cold air.
Astarion feels the tension between his legs. Tiriel knows what she has just done to him.
“Kneel,” he asks. He tries to make it sound like a request, but it sounds like an order anyway. Tiriel bites her lower lip and slowly sits down.
Astarion admires her face for a few moments and then nods allowing her to unlace his trousers. His cock is soft and Tiriel carefully kisses the base of the shaft.
“You haven’t done this before, right?” He asks, feeling his arousal grow.
“Which part of ‘I was a virgin’ don’t you remember?” She asks, planting a kiss right below his navel.
“Yes… True… Well, I’ve probably received it a couple of times, although I don’t remember. Usually, I was giving…” He shivers when Tiriel kisses his half-naked hip.
“Should I take it?” She mutters.
“Wait,” Astarion brushes her hair with his fingertips. “It will be difficult to swallow it fully, it will just be unpleasant. Use your hand.”
“Like that?” Tiriel grabs his cock the same way she grabs her weapon and Astarion gasps.
“I knew what I was getting into,” he murmurs. He feels hot down there, all his thoughts and emotions are focused on his own cock which is getting harder as Tiriel holds it.
“Yes- Yes, like that,” he grabs a fistful of her hair and makes her head lean towards his cock. “Now relax your tongue and lick the tip. Do it, don't be afraid.”
Tiriel studies the cock for a while and then touches the sensitive head with her tongue. She licks it, forcing a string of pre-cum to flow down the shaft, and then kisses the tip.
“Does it feel good?” she asks.
“Yes-”
“Great, because I like it, too,” she finally goes down and takes the part of his cock into her mouth.
Astarion whimpers as Tiriel starts sucking him. She still hasn't fully taken him into her mouth, and he doesn’t expect she will. Tiriel looks up, maintaining eye contact and he sees tears in the corners of her eyes.
Her right hand goes up under the shirt where she squeezes his right nipple forcing Astarion to moan loudly.
Inexperienced or not, Tiriel knows his body too well, all of his sensitive parts.
Then she stops half cock still in her mouth and her eyes smirk.
What is she up to?
She goes down fully, her lips meeting the base of the shaft. Astarion feels his legs shiver.
He is throat-deep in her and the feeling is like nothing that he’s experienced before. Tears flow down Tiriel’s cheeks. Astarion leans back, and Tiriel uses her right hand to reach out for his balls.
“Ngh,” he whimpers, feeling his orgasm getting closer. He thinks he should pull her head away and come on her naked breasts or on her face – he’s personally always hated getting gushed down his throat – but before he manages to make any coherent movement he finishes in Tiriel’s mouth.
Tiriel lets his still-hardened cock go and Astarion expects to hear a cough or gagging sounds but instead, she stands up on her wobbling legs, smiles, and parts her lips to show the white pool of cum on her tongue.
Then she swallows it.
“You taste divine,” she murmurs, letting him taste himself on her lips. “And look very cute right now.”
Astarion slowly returns back from the high of his orgasm.
“Did you like it?” She asks.
“It was perfect. Everything you do to me is perfect.”
She giggles and then looks at his manhood. It’s still painfully hard.
“I can do the second round,” she says, licking her lips, but Astarion pushes her onto the grass and tugs her trousers. Her own entrance is wet and swollen.
“I want you to scream my name,” he murmurs, getting rid of the last pieces of his own clothes. “I want you to moan and whimper like the good, wild girl you are,” Astarion adjusts himself and feels her warmth around him the next moment. “And then I will come on these breasts of yours.”
Tiriel cups his face and parts her swollen lips.
“I would love nothing more.”
--
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devil’s finery (Chapter 1)
Fandom: The Folk of the Air by Holly Black
Ship: Jude Duarte x Cardan Greenbriar
Genre/s: Fluff, Slow Burn, Eventual Smut
Rating: T
Tags: Post-Canon, Cardan visits the Mortal World, Possessive Behavior, Jude Torturing Cardan Without Even Knowing It, Jude Torturing Cardan AND Knowing It, Vivi and Heather Seeing Right Through Them, Starring: Cardan Greenbriar’s Tail and Jude Duarte’s Rage, Touch Denial, Lingerie, High Stress (only if you’re Cardan) 😈
Description:
Her husband, Jude swiftly realizes, has a thing for mortal clothes.
Specifically: her in mortal clothes.
Links: Masterlist | Read on AO3
Jude doesn’t notice it right away, of course.
For the better part of their first year as a married couple, she and Cardan remain in Elfhame cleaning up the mess her wayward father and the cohort of the Undersea left behind. As a result, she spends most of her time in fae clothing — practical linen trousers, embroidered jackets, the increasingly necessary ballgown — and the remainder of the time, well, out of them.
It’s in such a state that Jude finds herself the morning she’s set to leave for a trip away from the brugh, her first since fully becoming High Queen of Elfhame. To make matters worse, it’s drizzling outside, the sound of the rain pattering and the ensuing morning mist so very close to soothing her back into a drowse, surrounded by the soft, silk sheets of their bed.
A situation that, she’s beginning to suspect, isn’t entirely by coincidence.
“Cardan, I have to get up.”
She’s still catching her breath, and it doesn’t help that her husband is an immovable weight on top of her, his face buried in her stomach, as if he never means to surface from her again.
“Later.” He’s tracing his fingers along her hip, up and down the length of her leg. Lazy patterns, meant to lull. Just like the rain outside.
“I know what you’re doing.”
She feels him smile into the curve of her waist. “Is it working?”
“No,” she lies.
He hums. The vibration of it washes over still sensitive skin.
“What will you do while I’m away?” It’s a leading question, because she knows the right answer. And he does, too, even if he doesn’t like it.
“Await your return.”
“And after?”
“Await your return.”
“Don’t you mean, ‘meet with the tribunal delegation sent by Queen Suren?’”
He waves a hand. “Yes. That.”
“Cardan, I’m serious.”
Dark eyes glint at her. “As wholly am I.”
Quick as a knife, her knee cuts up under his chin, pressing hard into his throat and tilting his head back in an uncomfortable angle. “This meeting has been planned for months. You’re going to show up and pass the agenda, with or without me. Do you understand?”
He smiles, sharp like glass, even as his neck strains. “Yes.”
“Good.” She drops her knee and wriggles, a little inelegantly. “Now get off me. I have to get dressed.”
Cardan does not get off her. Instead, he sends his grunt of complaint into the skin of her stomach, the tension of the previous moment melting back into something comfortable. It’s easy like that, with him. “How cruelly you abandon me.”
Jude shoves at his shoulder, unimpressed with his dramatics. “I’m not abandoning you. I’ll be gone for just a week.”
“A whole week. In the mortal world.”
“Yes.”
He holds steadfast around her waist. “I can come with you.”
“We’ve been over this. Someone needs to babysit Oak while Vivi visits Heather’s family in Seattle. And one of us needs to stay behind to oversee the tribunal for the disbanded Court of Teeth.”
“They can take Oak with them.”
“He has school.”
“Vivi doesn’t have to go.”
“She wants to. Heather’s introducing her to her family, again, and this is important to both of them. Now, move.”
She keeps her mortal clothes in the bottom drawer of their closet. It’s been months since she’s taken them out, and the polyester and denim feel more than a little foreign to the touch: she’s gotten too used to the spidersilks and brocades and velvets of Faerie.
Sighing, Jude begins to slip on her bra. She definitely hasn’t missed the feeling of underwires and stiff elastic. Breast bindings are the norm in Elfhame, but even then, their use isn’t much common outside of knights and soldiers. Fae clothing, she had noticed early on, seemed to be designed without the need of such things, anyway.
As if there wasn’t enough to begrudge the fae, they also somehow had self-supporting boobs.
No one seemed to mind, at any rate, even when she wore dresses and gowns that weren’t entirely intended for her fuller mortal body.
Cardan certainly didn’t.
It isn’t until he presses a kiss to her bare shoulder that she realizes he has come up behind her. His slyfooting has greatly improved, apparently.
“Is this a mortal garment?” He runs a finger over her bra strap, and then — when she doesn’t shove him away — under it, lifting the fabric curiously from her skin. “I’ve only ever seen it worn by you.”
“It’s called a bra. A type of… mortal underwear.”
“Bra,” he repeats, and the word sounds foreign coming from his full, swollen mouth.
He pulls them around, until they’re facing the mirror on the vanity. Jude watches their reflections as one of his hands folds across her stomach, while the other begins to trace the top edge of her cup, the swell of her breast. Watches him watch her, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes.
“What?” she asks, warily.
“I like it.”
“I don’t wear it for you.”
His hand stills, warm against the thin fabric on her chest. “Oh? And are there — ones you would wear for me?”
Jude scoffs. “You wish.”
A knuckle brushes across her nipple. “Pity. I think I do.”
Jude tells herself not to dwell on it too long. Those thoughts lead to danger. Her jeans go on next, but Cardan has effectively plastered himself to her back.
“Cardan.”
“Yes? Need help with your clothes again?”
“What? No, just—”
She finally shoves him away with a hard jab of her elbow. He goes, laughing, even as he rubs at his bruised ribs.
The laugh drops off when he notices the jeans she’s stepping into.
“No.” He’s immediately at her side again, this time without an ounce of amusement. “Don’t wear those.”
She’s doing the hop that all tight denim jeans demand. She misses her easy Fae trousers already. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t, Jude,” he says, something urgent in his tone. He tries to tug at her belt loops, but she swats his hand away.
“What is it now?”
“I’ve seen you wear those before.” His eyes are dark, and wide. He almost sounds like he’s begging. “You need to wear something else. Anything else.”
Jude’s temper is swiftly reaching its end. “Quit trying to delay me, Cardan, I’m going.”
She turns and storms away to a short distance where she isn’t tempted to behead him, for real this time. She hears a strangled noise from behind her as she buttons up her jeans. Whatever his problem is, he can deal with it while she’s away. She pulls on her shirt and jacket, and fastens Nightfell and a few select knives to her body. That part of dressing up doesn’t change, no matter where or who she is.
The door is blocked.
“Jude,” Cardan pleads, hands outstretched like a child. Desperation has rendered him foolish.
Nightfell digs easily and eagerly into the hollow of his throat.
“Step. Away. From the door.”
His tail flicks once behind him, curling protectively over the door knob. “You don’t understand.”
“Nor do I care.” A second blade appears in her other hand, and she presses it to his side. “Move, dear.”
“I’ll trade you, anything, if you just promise not to—”
She feints a swipe of her knife hand, and Cardan, unable to move forward because of Nightfell, smartly recoils to the other side. It’s enough for her to wrench the door open.
“Nice try,” she says. “Have fun with the tribunal.”
__________
Unsurprisingly, her trip to the mortal world is cut short.
The Bomb waves cheerily at her atop a ragwort steed, which grazes heedlessly on the front lawn of Vivi’s apartment complex. “The High King requests your return, Your Majesty.”
Jude crosses her arms. She isn’t even halfway through the week. “Of course he does.”
“I believe,” says the Bomb, still in that cheery tone of voice, “that the request was of the urgent variety.”
“Oh, really.”
The Bomb dismounts, and offers Jude a small packet. “I’m afraid so.”
Inside is a lock of black hair, the tip of it wet. Dipped in blood.
“A gift from Suren’s delegation.”
Jude takes less than a second to think. “Take care of Oak. Don’t let him out of your sight.” She’s halfway up the mount before she turns back and adds, “And if he asks to have cake for dinner, do not give in. There are leftovers in the fridge.”
And then she flies.
All manner of horrible possibilities flood her head throughout the ride back home. The delegation had agreed to the tribunal without much complaint. Maybe too easily. Jude had attributed it to Suren and her fealty to the monarchs of Elfhame. But if they had come so that the Court of Teeth could gain access to the palace grounds…
Suren’s scarred face smiles in her memories, teeth filed into sharp needlepoints and stained red.
Jude’s knuckles turn white around the ragwort steed’s mane.
It feels like only heartbeats later when she slams through the great double doors of the throne room, Nightfell already drawn.
And pauses.
The entire delegation from the Court of Teeth is gathered, standing to the sides of the room. In formation among them are palace guards under the banner of Elfhame; Jude spots Fand and select members of the queen’s guard present. But that’s not what makes her pause. Across the throne room floor is a great mahogany table filled edge to edge with towers of pastries and jams and fruits. A feast, and in the center, a great roast boar.
And at the table sit Suren, and the High King of Elfhame.
Spreading cream on his scone.
“What is this?”
“This, I believe,” Cardan drawls, “was a coup.”
It doesn’t look like a coup. It sure as hell doesn’t look like a tribunal. It looks like high tea in the middle of the throne room.
“A sloppily arranged one, to be fair.” Suren’s voice has regained strength in the months since they parted, but she still speaks slowly and carefully, like she is enunciating around a bridle even now. She bows her head to Jude. “My queen.”
“Not one of my finest,” Cardan says to Suren, as if Jude weren’t there, sword drawn to defend him.
“You set this up. You set me up.”
Suren takes a measured sip of tea, yellow eyes flickering between the High King and Queen of Elfhame.
“You’ve come a long way, Jude.” Cardan slides the chair out next to him in a mockery of chivalry. “At least sit down to the table.”
Jude glares.
Members of the Court of Teeth murmur and stir uneasily. Suren sends them a glance, and they quiet down.
“Were you even actually hurt? Whose blood is this?”
“Blood? Oh,” Cardan blinks at the parcel of bloodied hair she throws down to the table. “Well, you know how the Court of Teeth like to arrange their feasts, Jude. Everything is done themselves, as an honor to their hosts. Especially the butchering.” He runs one long-fingered hand through his dark curls, grinning. “Messy affair, unfortunately. The gore goes absolutely everywhere.” Then he picks up his fork. “The roast came out splendidly, by the way.”
Jude drives her blade into the mahogany of the dining table, inches from Cardan’s plate.
More than a few gasps from their guest delegation. Someone almost draws their sword in alarm. Fand places a calming hand on their shoulder, a look of boredom clear on her face.
“I told you,” Jude seethes, “to handle this yourself.”
“And I told you, wife,” Cardan says, “not to wear those mortal trousers when you left.”
“What?” There is enough venom in her voice that Suren’s teacup stills halfway to her mouth. “You tricked me all the way back here because you didn’t like my jeans?”
“On the contrary.” He tilts his head at her. He’s wearing the kind of smile that tells her a good sum of his amusement is actually directed at himself. “My spies informed me that you took Oak to an event full of unruly mortal men. Wearing that.” His eyes rove over her and linger, heavy and dark, on the curve of her hips.
Jude’s head is beginning to throb. Not just because of the anger simmering with every word out of Cardan’s mouth, but because his words aren’t making any sense. He had spies on her? Why?
“Unruly—” Her hand comes up to rub at the ache forming between her brows. “Are you talking about the basketball game?” Cardan doesn’t say anything. “That was a school thing for Oak!”
He shrugs. “It matters not, seeing as there is only one solution to the problem at hand.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.” He nods sagely. “I shall have to chaperone you throughout your sojourn in the mortal realms.”
Suren must see Jude’s hand reaching to pull Nightfell out of the dining table because she swiftly interrupts. “Your Majesties. It would seem that a tribunal cannot be carried out while the two of you are away. It would be no trouble at all to postpone to a later date.”
“Trouble. Yes, we wouldn’t want any of that, would we, Jude?”
Jude grits her teeth as Suren and her infuriating husband work out an agreeable rescheduling. The young queen, despite her tender age, is a logical, if soft-spoken, negotiator. Jude marks this, and adds it to the tally of information she’s collected about her. There is precious little, and that leaves Jude uneasy. Then, the entire delegation of the Court of Teeth files out of the throne room, Suren’s expression inscrutable throughout it all.
When the two of them are finally alone, Jude stands in front of Cardan, hands clenched.
“I thought you were hurt.”
A flash of teeth as he sips his wine. “And you came for me so quickly.”
“We’ve been planning this tribunal for months.”
Cardan eyes her over the rim of his wine goblet.
“Cardan, some of them voted to have you bridled and enslaved. And today you let them get away.”
He sets his goblet down and sighs. “Yes. And today you saw how well Suren is handling them. They’re all much too afraid of her to even think about making a move against us.”
“That doesn’t mean you had to postpone the entire thing.”
“It also didn’t mean that we had to make Suren order a retinue of her people to their punishment.”
Jude narrows her eyes at him. “It’s her duty as queen.”
“She’s nine.”
“What does that matter?” The words are out of her mouth before she can think them through. And she knows: it matters. Nine years old. Barely older than the age she’d witnessed her parents killed. Barely older than Oak. Too young.
Cardan says nothing, only waits.
A long breath escapes her. “All right. I understand.”
“Good.”
“That means you have to find another way to charge the guilty.”
“Arguable.”
“Non-negotiable.” Her fingers find that throbbing between her eyebrows again. “You didn’t need me here to postpone that ruling.”
“Of course not. I needed you here for a different reason.”
Her irritation is a hot surge under her skin. Jude slams her hands on the armrests of his chair. “Care to elaborate?” Danger, soft in her voice.
A danger mirrored in the tilt of Cardan’s lips. He snags one of her belt loops in one hand, while the other drifts up her hipbone and then around. He squeezes. “These jeans, you call them? Wear them only when I’m around.”
She doesn’t need Nightfell to get her point across. Her fingers tangle in his hair, yanking hard enough to make him hiss.
“If you pull something like this again, I’ll stab you myself. Are we clear?”
He smiles. His satisfaction is sharp enough to cut.
“Well, wife, you did say with or without you.”
__________
It’s the last day of Jude’s designated week of babysitting, and Vivi and Heather have just arrived from Seattle. She comes in from her evening jog with her sweat drying cold against her skin. It’s late October in Maine and her thin jacket and leggings were a mistake in the evening chill. With mild weather a near constant in Elfhame, Jude is out of practice dealing with extreme temperatures.
She rounds the hallway to find them all sitting around the counter having dinner.
“Cake.” Cardan is half-buried in chocolate icing, and is entirely too gleeful. “Jude, you should have told me mortals eat cake for dinner.”
She doesn’t respond.
“We don’t,” Heather answers when the silence goes on too long. “Not usually, at least. But our Seattle trip was a success and we wanted to celebrate.”
“Thanks for babysitting, Your Royal Majesties,” Vivi says with a grin.
“Not a baby,” Oak grumbles.
“It was our pleasure,” Cardan croons. His eyes track her as she moves to the sink. “Wasn’t it, Jude?”
She ignores him, again. Just like every other time he tried engaging her after he finagled himself into joining her in the mortal world.
Just the thought of it has Jude slamming the kitchen shelves as she retrieves a glass. Water sloshes as she drinks and sets the glass down hard against the counter. The other plates and glasses clink from the force of it.
Vivi raises an eyebrow at her, pulling her plate of chocolate cake away. “Shall I move some things, make some space for your rage?”
“We’ll be returning to Elfhame tomorrow,” Jude announces flatly. “We have a tribunal to move up.”
Cardan pouts.
“I thought he postponed that?” Vivi asks.
“Oh, he did. Indefinitely.”
“Ah,” say Vivi and Heather in unison.
“But, Jude.” Oak blinks up at her with frosting smeared across his cheek. “What about Halloween?”
Cardan immediately perks up. “Yes, Jude. What about Halloween?”
“What about it, Oak?”
Her brother shrinks back a little as she turns all of her intensity toward him instead of Cardan, but he soldiers on anyway. “We were telling Cardan about trick-or-treating tomorrow. How we dress up in costumes and go around getting candy.”
“Candy and costumes, tricks and treats,” Cardan says. “Almost all of my favorite things.” Dark eyes flash in her direction.
She grits her teeth. “Sorry, Oak. We agreed just for a week.”
“Oh, come on, Jude. What’s one more night?” Vivi says. “Remember how you used to plan out our routes to get the best candy?”
“Yes.” Apparently, scheming was long in her blood even before she came to Faerie. “But—”
“Slight problem.” Heather’s brows wrinkle. “We’ve had our costumes planned and ready for months now, and there might not be enough time to pull something together for you guys in time.”
“But,” Vivi says, “they won’t really need costumes for what comes after trick-or-treating.”
And here, Jude feels the conversation slip from her control.
“After?” The intrigue is almost too thick in Cardan’s voice.
A slow smile spreads on Vivi’s face. “A party.”
“A party,” he repeats with relish.
“A party,” Jude deadpans.
“No need for glamours,” Vivi tells Cardan. As if he needs any further convincing. “The devil walks the streets on All Hallow’s Eve. It’ll be the one night we blend in.”
Jude does not care for the mischief in her eyes. “Hey. Wait a minute—”
“You, on the other hand,” Heather says with an assessing gaze on Jude, “could do with some blending in.”
Jude sinks into the nearest bar stool, feeling a familiar throbbing building in her forehead. “You’re all impossible.”
And that’s when she feels it.
A featherlight touch against the top of her thigh.
The material of her leggings is too thin for her to ignore it. And besides, she is intimately familiar with what his tail feels like against her skin.
She sat down next to Cardan and didn’t even realize it.
The conversation fades out around her.
The tip of his tail brushes down her leg. Meets the fold behind her knee. The sensitive, delicate skin there. Unprotected by flimsy fabric. Jude holds her breath. Heather and Vivi are still talking but she’s not paying attention anymore.
It continues down the length of her calf, slowly, and every inch it passes, light as a whisper, she wonders if she’s dreaming it up, until — something feathers against the exposed skin of her ankle, and no, she’s not dreaming this at all.
She gasps, soft enough for just him to hear.
She can feel it like a physical thing, the wickedness of his smile.
His tail sweeps all the way up in a long slide against the back of her leg, and curls around her waist: its home for the moment. The soft ends of it tickle against the patch of skin he finds beneath her shirt. Everything hidden underneath the countertop. A secret tucked away.
He hasn’t touched her. At least, not with his hands. Not with his fingers. Not with his lips.
And yet, she feels the promise of them seared all over her skin.
“It’s settled, then.” She finally looks up when he speaks, and, oh, his eyes. They burn. “Tomorrow, I shall feast on all the treats the mortal world has to offer.”
__________
“Don’t you think it’s too—”
“Short?”
“No—”
“Tight?”
“N—”
“Boob-y?”
“Gold,” Jude snaps. “Too… gold. But thanks for letting me know how you really feel, Vivi.”
Her sister shrugs. “I’m the one in a black latex catsuit, so I guess I’m not one to talk.”
With her blonde hair covering her pointed ears and her feline eyes, for once unglamoured, flashing behind a black mask, she looks like something straight out of that French superhero TV show she’d seen Heather watching on more than one occasion.
“I told you, Vee, the catsuit does all the talking for you.” Heather is a flash of red and black polka dots around the corner. “Jude! Give us, like, ten minutes to change out of our costumes, and then we can go.”
The minute she and Vivi returned from trick-or-treating with Oak, Heather pounced. Jude quickly found out that by ‘blending in’ Heather actually meant a dress. A small, tight, gold dress. A definite far cry from her gowns in Faerie.
She actually doesn’t get to see much of the thing before Heather wrangles her in it with frankly terrifying efficiency, and she sure as hell doesn’t feel much of the dress, either, because it seems like there wasn’t much of it to begin with.
All she knows is that when Cardan sees her, he misses a step going down the stairs. It’s the first inelegant thing she’s ever seen him do, and the sight of it rings through her head. When he finally regains his balance, he gives her a look like she’s swung a sword at his head all over again.
Which she shouldn’t have noticed anyway, since she’s not presently speaking to him at the moment.
He takes a step forward, hand reaching out as if he can’t stop himself, and Jude tears her gaze from the look on his face and walks out the door.
They’re on the way to drop Oak off at a friend’s house for a sleepover — “Remember what we promised, Oakie?” Vivi never did develop the disciplinarian nature of her father, to no one’s chagrin. “You get to stay over at your classmate’s house as long as you keep the glamour on the whole time.” — when Heather sidles up next to Jude.
“Are you still giving him the cold shoulder?” she whispers. It’s not a very subtle one.
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Jude snarls.
“Okay. Then what’s with the royal goo-goo eyes?”
“What?”
“Cardan,” Heather says, unhelpfully. “Looking like a kicked puppy.”
She will not look back to where Cardan is walking behind them. She will not. “He’s the High King of Elfhame. He doesn’t do goo-goo eyes.”
Heather takes another glance over her shoulder. “I don’t know. Those look pretty gooey to me.”
“Ignore him.”
“I think he likes the dress.”
“Ignore him.”
“I can’t, Jude. I’m trying to prove a theory.”
“What theory?”
Heather gives her a long look that she’s sure she has seen on Vivi before. “That maybe it’s not about what you ask, but how you ask it.”
__________
They arrive a quarter to midnight on All Hallow’s Eve. The hour is loose, and the morals are looser.
The club is packed. Music thick in the air. She doesn’t recognize the song, much less understand any of the words. The dance floor holds the bodies of partygoers like a bowl filled to overflowing. There’s a machine belching out green smoke so heavy it’s almost like walking into a wall when they cross the threshold.
The place smells like a mixture of sweat, sugar, and bottom-shelf liquor, but it does nothing to stop the cheer that rocks through the crowd when the next song starts to play, the frisson of excitement reaching even the huge throng of people sloshed and milling in the entrance.
Vivi smiles at the bouncer and he grins immediately, expression glazed. No one asks them for ID.
Cardan’s eyes glint as he takes in the mortal revelry before him.
“We’ll get the drinks!” Heather has to raise her voice to be heard across the thumping bass. “You guys find a table!”
“Wait,” Jude yells after them, but it’s useless. Vivi and Heather are swiftly swallowed by the crowd. “I have no idea where—”
A sharp elbow slams into her side, a sticky body pressing against her, and she grunts. It takes her less than a breath to elbow back even more viciously, shoving what looks to be some wasted college guy careening back into his friends.
“Hey,” he slurs angrily, clutching his injured side and looking around with glassy eyes, “watch it—”
The crowd surges again, and she’s not sure which of the boys stumbles into her this time, jostling her, but she’s ready. There’s a needlepoint tipped in deathsweet hidden in her ring. He’s close enough for her to smell his stale breath, feel his perspiration on her skin. He blinks down at her, and she bristles at the way his eyes linger. Just one prick away from the worst hangover of his entire frat boy life—
A hand spreads across her stomach.
Cardan pulls her backwards.
Away from the rowdy group, the drunk boy. Into him.
Her back hits his chest. His palm holds her flush against him, warm through the thin material of her dress. She twists her neck to send him a glare. “I had it,” she hisses. “I didn’t need you to save me.”
He’s not even looking at her. Instead, he’s got his eyes narrowed in front of them. For a second, Jude swears she sees a flash of bared teeth in the dim lighting.
“As if I would even know where to begin.” There’s a hard edge to his voice. “Come away, Jude.”
She almost elbows him as he begins to lead her further inside, but his hand on her hip is firm, and they were supposed to find a table anyway.
He doesn’t let go of her as he weaves through the crowd, which seems to part for him for no other explicable reason than the fact that he’s radiating magic and mischief and the entire power of Faerie. If he hopes to dispel attention from himself, he’s not doing a well enough job of it without his glamour. A good number of people stare after him, jaws hanging, and she’s suddenly not so mad at the way he has her practically molded to his side.
All the tables are full, of course. Jude is already searching the bar for a flash of Vivi’s blonde hair when Cardan turns toward the section of secluded round booths near the wall.
She doesn’t catch him casting the glamour, because if she did she would have kicked him hard for doing that in front of so many people.
But it’s darkest in this part of the club, and everyone is too caught up in themselves to notice when an entire table of partygoers snap to their feet and march out of their booth without a backward glance.
Cardan throws himself into the now-empty, cracked leather seats, satisfaction curling the edges of his mouth.
Heather whistles when she and Vivi make their way to the booth. “Nice. Can’t believe you guys snagged a booth when the place is so packed.”
Vivi tosses Cardan a conspiratorial wink before setting their tray of drinks onto the sticky table.
Naturally, Cardan reaches for the most ostentatious one: it’s vivid pink in a shallow, diamond fluted glass, and its rim is dipped in crystals.
She slaps his hand away. “That’s salt,” she tells him, dryly.
Heather scoops it up. “And that’s mine, thank you.”
He scowls. “Where is my drink, then?”
“Oh,” Vivi says, eyes gleaming, “just you wait, Your Majesty.”
She arranges an array of small glasses in front of them and Cardan knocks back the clear liquid without hesitation.
“That’s foul.” He pushes the empty shot glass back across the table. “Another one.”
And so the night commences. Jude takes a few shots, the liquid burning down her throat in a way that reminds her of poison, but mostly she watches with exasperation as first Heather, and then Vivi drink enough to attempt the dance floor. Cardan decides to stay back in the booth instead of joining them.
“Never took you for the private type.”
His head snaps to her. She tries not to dwell on his immediate reaction to her attention.
He gives her a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. “I find myself in extenuating circumstances.”
“Try not to let us mortals disgust you too badly.”
His gaze sweeps the length of her. Then he turns his eyes to the open floor, surveying the throng of people filling every last inch of the space. “How easily you misunderstand me,” he sighs.
Jude’s up before she can think better of it. “Fine. Guess I’ll go dance with them after all.”
A hand closes around her wrist: imploring, not restraining.
“I’d like it,” Cardan says slowly, “if you stayed by my side.”
“I’m your queen,” she bites back, “not your courtier.”
She sees her mistake far too late.
Cardan grins, a real one now. “And as my queen, you deserve the finest seat of all.”
And then he tugs on her wrist and drops her into his lap.
Jude lands in the middle of his leg, throwing an arm around his shoulders for balance. His arms come around her, and they meet across the top of her thigh, where her skirt has ridden up dangerously high. The press of their bodies is warmer than usual in the humidity of the club.
“Let go.” She leans into his face, trying to be menacing. “You’ll be surprised how many knives I can hide in a dress like this.”
Her plan backfires because he leans in, too, and it’s not menace on his face that makes her swallow. “And you’ll be surprised to know I’ve thought of little else except that dress of yours.”
She will not react to that. She will not. “Release me, Cardan.”
She can fight him off if she really wants to, but she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of unnerving her that far. He might see the heat crawling up her face.
“I don’t think I will. You’re finally talking to me.”
“Regretfully.”
“No matter. We don’t have to talk.” He starts to lean in closer, expectation clear on his smug face.
She stares down, unimpressed. “Be serious.”
“I am,” he says. The words dissolve into the smoky air. “Indulge me, Jude.”
“Only if you indulge me first.”
“Oh?”
“Move up the tribunal. Suren doesn’t have to be a part of it.”
He groans, finally leaning back a little. “Ask me another time.”
“Why.”
His fingers fist in her shimmering gold skirt. “Because I can’t think clearly when I see you like this. When I see how others look at you like this. Because the devil walks the streets tonight in all her finery, and I am forever at her mercy.”
Maybe the alcohol is finally kicking in, because she’s feeling light-headed. “You’re a fool.”
“And you mortals are more dangerous than I thought.” His face tilts up to her, and his voice is a siren song. “I missed you, Jude.”
Mercy, Jude thinks as she leans in to meet his kiss, has never tasted so good.
And if Cardan’s fingers find themselves wandering up the length of her thigh, testing the give of her quickly-disappearing gold hem, well. It’s much too dark in their booth for anyone to notice.
They depart from the club some hours later. There might have been dancing, but Jude can’t really remember anything besides the press of Cardan’s chest and the warmth of his hand on her back.
What she does remember is the staring. It’s like every pair of eyes turn to them as they emerge from the bowels of smoke and music.
And Jude knows, the same way she knows the weight of Nightfell in her hand, that they aren’t staring at him. At least, not just him. No, they’re staring at her, too, the two of them, together. A golden girl and her king of shadows.
Let them stare.
Cardan’s eyes are heavy on the sway of her hips as she walks ahead of him.
She grins.
Let them all stare.
__________
She’s on the couch the next morning, her head pillowed on Cardan’s lap as they watch Oak play video games. His fingers are gentle against her temple, but she knows he’s fighting back a smirk. The sun is a little too bright and the noise from the television a little too loud, but she’d sooner die than admit that out loud to anybody, least of all him.
Hands appear over the back of the couch, bearing a tray of beverages.
“Here, drink this.”
She almost winces, remembering the last time Heather had offered them refreshments. If six shots of cheap vodka counted as refreshing.
“It’ll help your hangover,” she offers.
“I don’t have a hangover,” Jude argues, but she lifts her head and sips it anyway. “Mm. Is there Sprite in this?” It’s been a while since she’s had soda. The carbonated fizzling on her tongue is a pleasant memory of a life she’s left behind.
Above her, Cardan chokes on his own drink. Some of it lands on her face.
“Cardan, ugh—”
He’s staring down at her in horror. “This decoction contains sprite?”
“What?” Jude pulls herself up gingerly, ignoring the way her head throbs at the motion. “Oh. No.” She can’t help the snicker that comes out of her at the sight of his wide eyes. “Not a sprite, I meant — there’s a human drink. A soda called Sprite.”
He doesn’t look like he believes her. He sets his glass down quickly and goes to join Oak in front of the console, as if he can’t distance himself fast enough. She grins while she drains her drink. It’s good. It’s bright and citrusy and it cuts through the pounding in her head enough that she can sit up for a while. No sudden movements, though.
The couch dips violently as Vivi throws herself into the space Cardan had left behind. Jude’s stomach swoops with it.
“Hey, little sister,” she says, cheerfully ignoring how green Jude probably looks. She shakes a bright orange pumpkin basket at her. “Care to partake of the spoils?”
“That’s Oak’s.” Jude’s conviction is weaker than she would like. She can’t remember the last time she’s had Halloween candy.
“He doesn’t mind. Right, buddy? Sharing is caring, and all that.”
Oak’s answer is an unintelligible gurgle, too intent on mashing buttons. Beside him, Cardan is bent over his own console, eyes focused on the screen. With both boys effectively distracted, the sisters dive into the sugary hoard.
Jude paws past a small pile of red-swirled peppermints. “Hey, do they still make those lollipops with the chewy stuff in the middle? Chocolate flavored?”
“Oh, Tootsie Pops? Hang on, I think I saw a couple near the bottom.”
A few minutes later, the entire basket has been upended over the carpet and thoroughly sorted through by enthusiastic, questing fingers. Jude settles back contentedly against the cushions, rolling her prized candy against the inside of her cheek by its white paper stick, and Vivi sits beside her, trying to fit as many M&M’s in her mouth as she can in a single go.
Jude tosses a packet of sour gummy worms at Cardan. “Here,” she says. “They remind me of you.”
His eyes flicker away from the screen at the sound of crinkling plastic in his lap, and he tilts his head in interest to read the packaging.
She doesn’t have to wait long.
His head snaps up a second later, a scowl etched across his face. “These are shaped like worms, Jude.”
She cackles. “Close enough.”
“These had better be as delicious as Taryn foretold them to be,” he grumps. “Otherwise, I will be sorely disappointed.”
But he pockets the little packet anyway, turning dutifully back to the game. Vivi finally swallows her mouthful of M&M’s.
“How is Taryn doing?”
“Her due date is coming up.” Jude keeps her eyes forward as she answers. “She’s settled in Locke’s estate, but she comes by the brugh during revels, when she’s up to it.”
“That’s good.” The unspoken question hangs in the air. Jude sometimes forgets how much of an older sister Vivi can be.
“We’re fine. I mean, we talk.” She shrugs. “But not about the important stuff.” Vivi’s silence doesn’t crowd her, and it’s this that lets her unfurl just a little bit more.
“Sometimes I feel like we should. Talk about the important stuff, I mean. I keep thinking I should reach out, maybe visit her one day, but I just…”
“Feel like it’s not your turn to apologize?”
“Yeah.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
Vivi nods. “I feel the same way about dad.”
Jude lets the quiet moment wash over her. The sounds of the TV, Oak’s inarticulate mumbling. Vivi’s warm presence beside her, Heather washing their glasses in the kitchen. The lollipop sweet on her tongue, the promise of its soft, chocolate center tempting her to just bite through what little remains of the hard candy shell. She could just bite into it; when was the last time she’s had a Tootsie Pop? But Jude’s no stranger to the waiting game. She knows that there are opportunities to strike, and there are opportunities to draw things out for a better outcome.
She eyes the lollipop critically before popping it back between her lips.
Weakest spot is on its side, where the candy has been melting longest against her tongue. She delivers a carefully calculated blow: a long, slow lick up the now-flattened side, intended to cover as much surface as possible.
If only she could break down Cardan’s resistance to the tribunal as easily as this.
Another cursory check reveals it to have worked, but only incrementally. Jude deploys her strategy again, pulling the lollipop through her mouth using the quickly softening white paper stick.
She can just see the chocolate center peeking through. Maybe if she wrapped her lips around it more fully…
Oak shrieks his victory, voice loud and piercing to Jude’s sensitive ears, and wincing, she looks up to appraise the match. Confetti bursts across the screen as Oak jumps up and down, and beside him, Cardan is—
Cardan is staring at her.
Mouth slightly open, gaming console forgotten in his slack fingers, eyes caught on—
Her lips.
His eyes are caught on her lips.
Sucking on a lollipop.
The moment stretches.
And she realizes that she’s a little caught too.
“Cardan?” Oak asks. “Are you still playing?”
His jaw snaps shut and he turns quickly back to the new game that Oak has started, but not before Jude marks the traces of pink high on his cheekbones. Not before she catches the low sway of his tail. Not before notices the change in his breathing.
“Well,” Vivi says, a smile in her voice. “All’s fair.”
And unbidden, a vivid pink storefront appears in her mind: one that she’s seen in malls, selling sheer lacy things, with straps and slipties. Things she’s never given a second thought to beyond a disinterested glance. Things she’s now reevaluating through the eyes of her husband, always intent on her, but lately, even more so. Weapons, after all, come in many shapes and sizes.
And are there ones you would wear for me?
A plan begins to form in Jude’s mind.
She knows exactly how to get Cardan to move up the tribunal.
“Hey, Heather,” Jude says. “I like your theory. Let’s go shopping.”
_____
Tagging: @ireallyshouldsleeprn @nahthanks
* Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future fics (Jurdan or other fandoms!) and it would be my absolute honor to do so!
#jurdan#jude x cardan#jude duarte#cardan greenbriar#tfota#The Folk of the Air#tfota fanfic#jurdan fic#jurdan fanfic#jurdanfanfic#the cruel prince#the wicked king#the queen of nothing#tcp#tcp fic#twk#tqon#tqon spoilers#fandom: tfota#zita writes#fic: devil's finery
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Eikichi and Sterling (Lemon)
Rating: Explicit
Relationship: Female Human/Male Oni/Male Tiefling
Additional Tags: Exophilia, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyamorous Character, Oni, Tiefling
Content Warnings: Sex, Double Penetration, Oral Sex, Power Bottom, Light Bondage, Light BDSM
Words: 4990
A commission for @faeryamber! A woman and her oni boyfriend search online for a third to add to their relationship. They end up meeting a perfect gentleman who completes them.Please reblog and leave feedback!
The Traveler's Masterlist
“What would we even say on our profile?” You asked your boyfriend, Eikichi. The two of you had been dating for almost five years and had an open relationship, but recently the two of you had been talking about adding a third.
Eikichi was an oni who had immigrated from Japan several years ago. He had been the kami, or god, of an old town that no longer existed and presided over construction for his parishioners for several hundred years. Laborers and carpenters from that town used to come to his temple to pray to him for success in their ventures. When the town died out, he was left homeless and joined the human society when other yokai from his region decided to do so. He was no longer a god, but being the CEO of his own construction company was just as good, he said, and he was just as happy now as he had been when he lived in the temple.
Despite a significant age difference, the two of you had fallen in love over tea and books, and the fact that he was gorgeous. Six foot five, two hundred and fifteen pounds of pure muscle, ivory colored horns rising up out of his white hair, red skin like ripe cherries, and yellow eyes. He was stunning. It still amazed you that he chose you to fall in love with. How would you get that lucky twice?
“Just be honest,” He said, his Japanese accent fairly heavy. “That we’re poly and looking for a male to complete our family. Make it clear we’re not looking for a unicorn.”
“A real unicorn or a figurative unicorn?” You asked jokingly.
“A figurative one,” He said with a smirk. “A real one might actually be cute.”
“Real unicorns welcome,” You typed. “Hehehe.”
“Are you being purposefully vague again?” He asked, putting tea next to you on the desk.
“It’s my favorite thing,” You replied.
“I thought I was your favorite thing,” He shot back, kissing the top of your head.
“Close second,” You said, laughing. “Don’t you have work soon?”
“I’m the owner, I can go in whenever I feel like it,” He retorted. “Are you working today?”
Eikichi owned a construction business, and you sold handmade clothing online by commission only.
“Not today,” You said. “I’ve been putting the housework off and I really should get to that mountain of laundry.”
“We could just throw it all away and buy new clothes,” He suggested.
“Don’t tempt me,” You replied, shooing him. “Go on. What are you thinking for dinner?”
“Spaghetti?”
“Again?”
“What? I like the way you make it.” He gave you a kiss on the forehead, cheek, and lips before picking up his jacket. “I’ll be home a bit early. It’s expected to rain.”
“Okay. Be safe.” You hugged him and saw him out of the door.
You sighed and looked around the house, demoralized by the sight of the housework you’d been neglecting. Both you and Eikichi were a little slovenly, you had to admit, but it was an acceptable amount of clutter. Usually.
Before you could bend down to pick up a pair of pants Eikichi had shucked off the day before as soon as he got in the door, you heard a ping on your phone. Looking down, you’d been matched with someone.
“Already?” You asked. You unlocked it and pressed the notification from OkCryptid. You saw who had matched with you and your jaw dropped.
“No way.”
It was, indeed, a unicorn, although he listed his race as tiefling. Where Eikichi was devastatingly handsome, this man was breathtakingly beautiful in a completely different way. He was thin, slightly taller than you but much shorter than Eikichi, and as pale as milkglass. His hair was long, white, and shimmery like spidersilk. A single horn spiraled out of the crown of his forehead. Pointed ears stuck out from under his hair, and his eyes were indigo in color. In his picture, he was dressed in an elegant, pale lavender suit that complemented his skin perfectly.
“Whoa,” You said under your breath. You took a screenshot and sent it to Eikichi. >You’re not going to believe this.
>You’re kidding! He replied quickly. >I was just joking!
>Me too! Should I message him?
>Hell yeah, he’d be perfect, look at him!
>He’s prettier than I am!
>Not possible. But he is gorgeous. Message him and see if he wants to meet up.
>I will.
You switched back to the app and started typing out a short message.
Hi. My boyfriend and I are in an open relationship, and you matched with us. Would you be okay meeting up sometime? We’d both love to get to know you.
You bit your lip as you hit send. You hoped he wasn’t the type who thought he was better than you or Eikichi because he was pretty or wore suits and such. You put your phone back in your pocket and returned to your housework, putting the lovely tiefling out of your mind.
A few hours later, while you were folding some very large boxer briefs, you got another ping. There was a message from the tiefling. With your heart in your throat, you opened it.
Hello! I’m Sterling. I’m very much open to the idea of an open relationship. I’m free this weekend on Saturday, if that works for you and your partner. Please let me know as soon as you can.
Your heart jumped and you felt giddy. You immediately texted Eikichi.
>He wants to meet us Saturday! You don’t have plans then, do you?
>I do now. Tell him we’ll be happy to meet him. You want to do that Japanese cafe?
>You just like that place because that kitsune owner and his girlfriend are pretty and you like looking at them.
>So?
>Maybe we shouldn’t ogle other people while were wooing someone.
>Perhaps you’re right. Sigh. Okay, then the Italian place you like.
>Ooh, I’m always happy with that.
>I know you are. LOL
You smiled. He did know you pretty well. You switched back to the app and messaged Sterling again.
That Saturday, you and Eikichi waited at your favorite restaurant, sipping some wine, when Sterling arrived. He was dressed in a suit again, though a dark burgundy one this time. His bright, gossamer hair was pulled back into a tight plait. Gods, he was pretty.
“Hello,” He said, his voice lilting. “I assume the two of you are my dates tonight?”
“We are,” You said, standing up. “It’s very nice to meet you.”
He took your outstretched hand and folded it into both of his, smiling sweetly. “Very nice.”
“Eikichi,” Your boyfriend said, holding out his hand in turn.
“Well, aren’t you strapping?” Sterling said with a grin, shaking Eikichi’s hand firmly. “Let’s sit, shall we. Oh, thank you for ordering me a glass as well.”
“Of course,” Eikichi said.
“So, tell me about yourselves,” Sterling said, taking a sip of his wine and raising his eyebrows appreciatively. “What am I getting myself into?”
The two of you told him about your jobs and life together and he listened attentively. “What do you do, Sterling?” You asked. “I would hazard a guess that it’s something to do with fashion, given how you dress.”
“Very astute of you,” He replied, pleased. “I’m a tailor, in fact. I own a menswear shop downtown.”
“Really?” You said with interest. “I’ve only ever made dresses, never suits.”
“Well, we will have to compare techniques, then, won’t we,” He said with a charming smile.
“Fashion is something that’s well over my head,” Eikichi said. “But you work with your hands. That’s something we all have in common, even if my profession gets me a little dirty more often.”
“You look good dirty,” You said in a flirty tone. “And even better all soaped up.”
He snorted. “You’re supposed to be flirting with our date, not me.”
“No reason she can’t do both,” Sterling said reasonably, sipping his wine. “So, would I be dating one or both of you? I’ll mean, I am bisexual and you’re both very attractive, but I want to know where my boundaries are.”
Eikichi nodded. “Both. We’re both bisexual and have outside girlfriends. Those relationships are casual and we both prefer it that way.” He gestured at you. “We’ve both met each other’s girlfriends. The four of us sat down and discussed all of us dating each other, but we ultimately decided against it.”
You leaned forward. “Have you ever been in an open relationship?”
“No, not as such,” He said. “I’ve only dated casually before. I’m not opposed to the idea of commitment, it just… hasn’t happened for me yet.”
“It could,” You replied. “Maybe you just haven’t met the person for you. Or persons.”
“Are you insinuating you two are said persons?” He asked with a smirk.
You shrugged and grinned. “We could be. Why don’t we find out?”
He matched your smile.
“We make decisions together,” Eikichi said. “We’ve got a contract, you might say: she’s what you would call a power bottom. She likes taking the submissive role, but she also likes to tell me what to do, and even though I’m what could be considered a dom, I like taking orders. It’s a little unorthodox, but it works for us.”
“How would I fit in?” Sterling asked.
“That depends. What position do you play, so to speak?”
“Whatever is best at the time. I guess I’m a switch? Though, I have to admit I haven’t been very adventurous.”
“We’ll teach you, if you want to learn,” You said, leaning closer so that your fingertips touched his arm.
“It’s not just about sex, though,” Eikichi said. “We want someone to love us as much as we’ll love them. If you decide you’d like to be casual, that’s fine. We can keep you casually and just continue looking for our third. Honesty and openness is the most important thing in any relationship. If you decided to be in the relationship with us, that would apply to you, too.
“And your impression of me so far, if I might ask?”
“You seem genuine and intelligent, and you’re very good looking. I don’t get any bad vibes of you. So far.”
“So what would be your recommendation?”
“Well, the date just started,” Eikichi said. “Let’s get to dessert before we make further plans.”
“And what does the boss say?” Sterling asked, turning to you.
You side-smiled at him. “Dessert first. But let’s just say you passed the application process.”
The three of you spent another two hours talking over dinner and dessert. Sterling was funny and smart and surprisingly nerdy, once he opened up. He loved manga, anime and collecting Funko Pop Vinyl figures. He had quite the collection. He had spend several years in Japan learning about Japanese fashion after college and ended up having a lot of tastes in common with Eikichi, reminiscing about food and drink brands they couldn’t get in the states.
With you, he talked about fashion and sewing and wanting to branch out. And all three of you had similar tastes in music, books, and movies.
After dinner, the three of you went to a small, comfortable pub that you and Eikichi were familiar with and continued your conversation well into the night. At one point, Sterling even loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his shirt, which you thought was a great sign. He seemed comfortable and open. And you got to peak at his collarbone.
Eventually, the bar closed, and the three of you reluctantly decided to call it a night with plans to see each other again soon.
“I really liked him,” You said in the car on the way home.
“I could tell,” Eikichi said with a smile. “You were practically in his lap by the time the night was over.”
“You like him, too,” You said shrewdly in response.
“I do like him,” Eikichi admitted. “There was definitely a connection between all of us. I think he might be the one we’re looking for.”
“Me, too,” You said, bouncing in your seat slightly. “I can’t wait to see him again.”
Eikichi smiled at your enthusiasm, but you knew he was just as excited.
A few days later, the three of you met up for drinks and continued talking. You felt that flushed, rosy feeling when you first start dating someone and it’s going really well, and you thought Sterling was feeling it, too. He was soon holding hands with both you and Eikichi in turn, being flirty and physically affectionate.
You were trying to go slow and not jump into things head first, but there was a real, tangible attachment between the three of you that was hard to ignore. You could see it on both men’s faces when they looked at each other, and when they looked at you.
That night before you parted ways with Sterling, he kissed you full on the lips. It wasn’t just a peck, either; it was long and open-mouthed, with just a hint of tongue. You were surprised but delighted, and reciprocated happily. When he parted with you, he pulled Eikichi down and kissed him, too.
“Why don’t we meet at our house next time?” You asked him. “I think you’ll have a good time with us.”
He grinned. “I have no doubt I will. Sounds wonderful.”
You bit your lip and smiled. “Until then.”
The night of your home date, you were jittery. You wanted to look cute, hot, sexy, and intimidating, but couldn’t decide what to wear that reflected all of those things. You stood inside your closet wearing only your nicest pair of panties.
“You could just answer the door naked,” Eikichi suggested.
“All of your solutions involve nudity,” You snorted.
“That’s why they’re clearly the best solutions,” He replied.
“You are absolutely no help to me,” You said, switching between two different dresses in front of the mirror.
“That black sheer one with the lace, then,” He replied as he watched. “It’s a nice preview.”
“Oh, but I only wear that one for you. Won’t you be jealous?” You asked playfully.
“Nah,” He said, coming up behind you and putting his hands on your stomach. “If we’re going to share, then there’s no point in keeping things from each other. He should enjoy it just as much as I do. Besides, I’m going to wear that black shirt you like so much.”
“Oooh, the one with the subtle feather pattern on it?” You asked as he helped you into the dress. “I do like that one. Leave the top two buttons undone in that way that I can see your collarbone.”
“You and your obsession with collarbones,” He said, snickering.
“Hey, we all got our own things we like. Don’t kinkshame me in my own house,” You joked. “I don’t poke fun at you for your pregnancy fetish.”
“You’re the one who decided no kids,” He said grumpily, checking his watch. “He’ll be here soon. I’ll finish up dinner .+while you get dressed.” He kissed your neck. “You look delicious no matter what you wear.”
He could always make you blush, even after five years. He walked back out to the kitchen and finished up the okonomiyaki and tsukune balls. Eikichi wasn’t exactly a gourmet cook, but he knew how to make plenty of his favorite dishes from home. He thought Sterling might like some Japanese food to remind him of his time there.
Sterling arrived later wearing a black suit with a blood red tie and pocket square. His hair was pulled back in an elegant french braid with red ribbons threaded throughout. He stood at the door with roses, wine, and a bright smile.
“Well, I guess we were all of one mind this evening,” He said as he looked at the both of you both wearing black. He gave you the roses and the wine, which actually turned out to be plum sake.
“Umeshu!” Eikichi said. “I haven’t had this in ages! Come in, come in, sit! I’ll pour us all a cup.”
“How was your day, Sterling?” You asked him, offering to take his coat.
He shrugged it off and gave it to you with a gentle smile. “It was pleasant. I made a few good sales and I have an order for a bespoke three piece double breasted suit with a shawl lapel. Someone is going somewhere fancy, which is my favorite thing to work on. So much gossip during fittings.”
You put the roses in a vase as Eikichi poured the sake. Sterling sat at the table, which was beautifully set, and you placed the roses in the center. Eikichi handed both of you a traditional choko sake dish, one of the few relics he’d brought with him from his old temple.
“Ah, this takes me back,” Sterling said, sipping delicately.
“Me too,” Eikichi sighed happily.
“I’ve never been to Japan,” You said. “Eikichi keeps talking about us taking a vacation there, but he’s such a workaholic that it never ends up happening.”
“We will go! I promised, didn’t I?” Eikichi protested.
You grinned at him playfully. “I’ll believe it when it happens, mister.”
“I would love to take some time off and go back,” Sterling said wistfully. “Some of the best years of my life were spent on that island.”
“Maybe you may be more successful in talking Eikichi into putting in some vacation time,” You said, winking.
“I will endeavor to try,” Sterling said, putting a hand out and resting it on the back of Eikichi’s. Eikichi flipped his and grasped Sterling’s hand briefly, smirking at him, before standing up to finish dinner.
“Tsukune?” Sterling said in a pleasantly surprised tone.
“Yep,” Eikichi said. “And okonomiyaki. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“The two of you are spoiling me,” Sterling said, a hand to his heart a little dramatically, which made you snicker.
Dinner went amazingly. Sterling praised Eikichi’s cooking and he adored your dress, even more so when you told him you’d made it yourself. He actually got down on the ground so he could look at the stitching on the hem.
You smiled to yourself, looking at the top of his head from your chair. Your eyes flicked to Eikichi, and his smile was mischievous. He knew exactly what you were thinking.
You slid off your shoe and began tracing your toe up from his knee, where he knelt on the ground, and up his leg to his waist, managing to pull his shirt out of his pants and tickling the skin of his stomach.
He looked up at you, smirking, but didn’t stop you or say anything. Eikichi silently slid out of his chair and disappeared into the bedroom for a moment, returning with a length of soft cotton rope before sitting back down at the table and watching with a fond smile. Sterling took your foot and kissed the top of it, working his way up your legs with his hands and lips.
You tilted your pelvis forward as his hands went up your skirt and pulled at your underwear.
“These are pretty,” He said as he slid them off.
“Only the best,” You replied with a grin.
“The safe word is ‘Enokida’,” Eikichi said idly from his seat where he was watching, lightly tapping the rope against his thigh. “Don’t stop until she says it, even if she screams and begs. Her rules, not mine.”
“I understand,” Sterling said, though he looked at you with an inquiring eyebrow. You nodded acquiescence and bit your lip.
He hiked your dress up to your waist, exposing you to the air. He kissed the inside of your thighs, working upward until he was breathing on your most sensitive place, stroking it lightly with one long finger. You hissed and sucked in a breath, your body stretching and flexing. His finger teased around your pearl without actually touching it, and he pulled up to kiss your mouth, biting and sucking your bottom lip. Ooh, he was good at this.
The first stroke of his tongue on your slit sent electricity though your body, and you moaned. He vocalized in return, sending vibrations through your skin. Eikichi set the rope on the table next to you and began caressing your shoulders and pulling lightly at your hair, tilting your head back to meet his kiss as Sterling continued his ministrations, looking up from his position on the floor to watch you and Eikichi make out and fondle each other.
Eikichi pulled your dress off and lifted your arms, starting to wrap your hands with the rope.
“Not tying her to the chair?” Sterling asked.
“Don’t stop!” You hissed, looking down. Sterling snickered and went back to work.
“She can get out if I tie her to the chair,” Eikichi said. “I don’t know how, but she can get out every time. What good is tying her up if she can just free herself anytime she wants? Again, her words, not mine.”
Sterling snorted, but continued. You were reaching your peak quickly, having been turned on all through dinner. Eikichi finished tying your hands and left a leash connected to it that he could control. He pulled your hands over your shoulder and held them against his chest while he used his other hand to massage your breasts.
Your thighs began to shake as you moaned loudly, unable to move. You crashed into that wall of pleasure at the speed of a freight train, but he kept going. You tried to push him away with your feet, but he held your legs back against your chest. Eikichi put your tied hands around his neck and grabbed your ankles, pulling them up. Sterling continued, pulling another orgasm from you almost immediately. You were a sweating, swearing mess at this point, but it was so good. You fought against the restraints and their firm grips, but the two of them held you in place rather effectively.
You were still shivering from the aftershocks of the last orgasm when another one sent you contracting off the chair. Eikichi, with his sheer brute strength, was the only thing that kept you from falling sideways.
“Enokida! Enokida!” You screeched, and Sterling finally pulled away and you were left boneless and gasping in the chair. Eikichi lifted you up bridal-style and carried you to the bedroom with Sterling following behind.
“Do you need a break?” Eikichi asked, petting your sweat soaked hair away from your face.
You nodded. “You two have fun while I catch my breath.”
Eikichi grinned at you and slid off the bed, catching Sterling by the waistband of his trousers and pulling him roughly toward him, kissing him passionately. Sterling responded favorably, kissing Eikichi back just as soundly and unbuttoning Eikichi’s shirt.
You spent your break slowing down your heart rate and watching the two of them undress each other and make out. It was pretty hot, you had to admit. Sterling pushed Eikichi on the bed and got on top of him, grinding against him as they kissed. Sterling found his way down Eikichi’s body, just like he had done with you, and started sucking Eikichi’s cock right next to you, where you could watch. Sterling kept switching eye contact with you and Eikichi in turn and moaning. Eikichi grunted and his legs flexed in pleasure.
Your hands were still bound, but you touched yourself as you watched them, and Sterling reached underneath him to fondle himself while he continued sucking. At some point, Eikichi tapped out and put Sterling on the bed, sucking him in turn.
“I’m ready again,” You said. “Eikichi, do the thing I like.”
“You got it,” He said, getting up on his knees. His massive dick swayed upright between his thighs. He took the leash part of the rope and pulled your legs back up, tying your knees up around your ribcage, giving you enough room to breathe but not enough to buck. He also put your arms around his neck, so that you couldn’t move them.
He picked you up and presented you, tied and splayed, to Sterling. “You go first.”
Sterling smiled and gripped your hips, lining his organ up with your entrance. Where Eikichi was all girth, Sterling’s was long and curved upward. He pushed himself into your dripping slit and you groaned. He didn’t waste time in being slow and gentle; he rammed straight into you and you screamed. He railed you fast and hard, every so often either kissing you or Eikichi over your shoulder.
As Sterling’s body slapped sharply against yours with every thrust, the pressure and pleasure continued to build until you burst, and your brain blanked, with you going limp in Eikichi’s grasp.
“Wait, hold up,” He said to Sterling, and Sterling stopped immediately, though he didn’t pull out. “You okay, babe?”
“Mmm,” You said. “Water.”
Sterling did withdraw then, grabbing a water bottle that was on the bed. Because you were tied, you couldn’t take the bottle so he opened it and helped you sip it.
“Better?” He asked.
“Yeah,” You said. “Thanks.”
“You want to keep going or take another break?”
“I don’t think I need a break, but let’s take it a bit more slow. I loved what you were doing, but I think I’m overstimulated.”
“I got you,” He said, slipping himself back inside you more slowly and gently. Eikichi held you so that your head lay on his chest and he put his arms around you, holding you in place but also embracing you, kissing your neck and shoulders.
After some time, you said, “I want both.”
“You got it, babe,” Eikichi said. “There’s some lube in the dresser, Sterling, could you grab it?”
“Of course,” Sterling said. He stopped and pulled out, reaching over to opened the drawer and retrieve it. Reaching underneath you and taking Eikichi’s cock in his hand, Sterling slicked it down with the lube, which made Eikichi hiss, and then lead it to your pucker. Eikichi pushed himself inside you slowly, very slowly, until he was all the way inside and stopped. Sterling took his place back in front of you and took himself in his hand, stroking twice, and pushing back into you.
Ever so slowly, the two of them began to thrust in rhythm. Sterling caressed your face, then took a fistful of your hair, gripping it tightly as he went in and out, his other hand had your breast in it’s grasp. Eikichi grunted and bit the lobe of your ear, whispering dirty things and moaning, blowing his breath across your skin.
The three of you moved in unison, crying out and gasping, sweating, swearing, screaming. Soon enough, they were both ramming you as hard as they could, and you were reveling in the full feeling, the incredible pressure, the feeling of being sandwiched between them.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You shouted, cumming for possible the twentieth time. Sterling pulled out with a strangled groan and came all over your stomach and legs. Eikichi took another few seconds, but finished inside you, roaring and bucking into you from behind. Then the three of you collapsed in a pile.
“Eikichi, the ropes,” You said breathlessly.
He reached up and snapped them effortlessly, allowing them to slip off. Then you managed to move so that you were lying in between the two of them, arms and legs everywhere. Then the three of you just lay there and breathed for about ten minutes.
Sterling was the first to rouse. “Well,” He said, still a little out of breath. “That was definitely a good time, as promised.”
You laughed and pulled him into a kiss. “I’m glad we could live up to our promises.”
You thought Eikichi was almost asleep, except he said groggily, “Are you staying the night, Sterling?”
“I’d planned to,” Sterling said. “I closed the shop for the next two days. I wanted to be sure I had enough recovery time.”
Eikichi barked a laugh. “You might need another few days. This one is insatiable.” He jerked a thumb at you while his eyes were still closed.
“Sounds good to me,” Sterling said, laying his head on your breast and sighing contentedly. “I haven’t had a break since I opened the store. A mini-vacation is exactly what I need.”
“Hey, maybe you might actually get us to Japan, like Eikichi promised.”
“I said we would,” Eikichi protested sleepily, throwing an arm around you and pulling up the covers.
Sterling snuggled in, kissing the middle of your chest before settling. “I’ll see what I can do.”
One year later, you stepped out of the airport in Kyoto, bundled up against the cold. Eikichi stood next to you, carrying most of the luggage, and Sterling took out his phone to call a cab to take you to the apartment the three of you had rented for your vacation. On your left hand, you wore two interlocking engagement rings, one sterling silver, and the second rose gold.
You breathed in the crisp air. “I can’t believe we’re really here.”
“Believe it,” Eikichi said. “The spring wedding will be amazing.”
“And we came with plenty of time to get things in order,” Sterling said, hanging up. “Cab is on it’s way.”
“Thank you,” You said sultrily, pulling Sterling toward you for a kiss. “I also can’t believe the two of you actually said yes when I asked you if you wanted to get married.”
“I’d have married you years ago, babe,” Eikichi said, bending down to get his kiss. “I just didn’t know it was something you wanted.”
“Well, now you know,” You said, winking up at him. “And I can’t think of a better place.” You took a couple of the bags as the cab pulled up. “Now let’s get going. Our future is waiting.”
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homeland (Chapter 6)
A/N: Here we are at the end! And Cardan isn't quite done surprising Jude just yet.
Fandom: The Folk of the Air
Genre/s: Contains Fluff, Slight Hurt/Comfort, Slight Angst, Smut
Rating: E
Tags: Post-QON, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Protective!Cardan, Bewildered!Jude, Jude and Cardan discuss the Undersea, but they get a little Distracted
Description:
Cardan’s eyes flash open.
“Why?” he repeats, and Jude feels the power shift between them. “Don’t you remember, wife?” he croons. “It was the Undersea who stole you away from me.”
And Jude has only enough time to think, danger, before he lunges at her.
or:
Cardan and Jude work on removing their armor. Taking off this particularly stubborn piece happens in varying states of undress.
Links: Masterlist | AO3
“This is a stupid idea.”
“Have you known me to have any other kind?”
He has her there. Jude tugs at the blindfold around her eyes. “Where are we even going?”
“To the beginning and the end of all this.”
“What does that –” Her voice cuts off as the boat rocks precariously beneath her. “I really don’t like the sound of that.”
“You like very little, Jude, and that is a problem of yours.”
I was stupid enough to like you, she almost says. Instead she asks, “Why did we have to take a boat? More importantly, why are you the one rowing? You’re the king.” The boat rocks again, and Jude finds herself thinking longingly for a ragwort steed. Steady, secure, reliable — or, well, as reliable as Vivi’s magic allowed them to be.
“Crossing the water myself proves a fine reminder of my position to those who yearn otherwise.”
“A power play? That’s what you woke me up so early for? Cardan, there are a thousand more things that need my attention back at the brugh.”
It was still light out when she’d felt lips behind her ear, nuzzling her awake. They had probably been asleep for a mere few hours at most. She’d woken up slowly and sweetly, like dragging a spoon through thick syrup, with Cardan curled around her — arms, legs, and tail — and his mouth soft on her neck. It was such a stark contrast to how she’d woken up the previous night that Jude melted right back into his embrace, her body heavy and worn out in the best way possible.
But then he was pulling away, coaxing her to get dressed, murmuring into her skin that he had something to show her.
Promising that she would like it.
The fae cannot lie, but that last part has yet to come true.
“I’m taking this blindfold off.”
“Jude –”
She can hear the petulance in his voice and that just makes her rip the stupid thing off even faster.
It turns out that “crossing the water himself” doesn’t much include actual rowing on his part. Instead, iridescent, aquamarine scales flash across the surface of the water underneath them, their movement rippling and propelling the boat forward.
Merfolk.
Pulling their vessel on his whim.
A power play, indeed.
Jude raises an eyebrow at him, impressed despite it all. He continues to pout at her and the blindfold in her hand.
Then, something catches in her mind.
“Salt and seafoam…”
“Hm?”
“Your nightmare.” She’s staring at him now, understanding how it fits together but not quite believing it. “You said that when you dove into the sea and couldn’t find me anywhere, it was because there was nothing left of me but ‘salt and seafoam.’”
“Yes.” The word is like water on burning coals.
“You –” The sentence is inconceivable even when she tries to form it in her mouth. “Have you… have you been reading fairytales? Human fairytales?”
He scoffs. “Nothing Faerie about them.”
A yes, then.
“So –” She’s known about him reading Alice in Wonderland and even wondered at the way he had kept the mortal book in his rooms. It boggles her mind like this next thought does. “So…” How does she say this? She has no clever ruse with which to coat her words, and so she gives up and goes for direct. “The Little Mermaid. That’s what caused your nightmare?”
He cuts her a look, like she’s being stupid. “No, Jude, your kidnapping and prolonged torture at the hands of my brother and the Undersea while I waited powerless and unable to help you was the cause of my nightmare. And many more of its kind before it.”
She doesn’t much like how he speaks to her like he’s explaining something to a child, but she holds her sharp tongue and wields her silence against him.
“But fine.” He doesn’t meet her eyes. “Yes. The mortal tale about the moronic mermaid and her wayward prince may have… exacerbated any woes I may have already been carrying. Don’t know why I bothered,” he grumbles under his breath. “I hate stories.”
“No,” she says, thinking of the way he fancies himself a villain even though he hasn’t truly been one in a long time, “you don’t.”
He looks pointedly over her shoulder. “We’re here.”
And Jude turns her head to see where it is that he has brought her this morning.
She has to shield her eyes a little from the amount of sunlight that refracts off the massive stretch of sparkling sand in front of her.
No, not sand. Ash.
She knows where they are.
Insear.
The beginning and the end of all this, he said.
When they disembark, Cardan holds out his hand to guide her from the boat.
She doesn’t need his help.
She takes his hand anyway.
There is still something of last night humming underneath their skin, and so if they lean into each other’s warmth and stumble across the shimmering shores of the Isle of Ash, a little lovedrunk while they walk — well. There is nary a soul to see.
It’s somehow even more beautiful in the daylight. And with Cardan here, the island seems to unfurl even further, coming alive just a little bit more the moment he steps onto the soil. The air turns sweeter the farther inland they go, the blues and ivories and blacks of the native flowers populating everywhere they turn. When Jude looks back at their footfalls upon the ash, she sees little sprigs of myrtle springing up from the indents they leave behind.
“There’s something I want to check on,” she says when they reach the thicker parts of the forest. “I’ll come find you again.”
“As you like.” Cardan’s gaze is caught on something up ahead. “Dally not, wife.”
When Jude returns to the clearing where they had encountered the fallen falcons the previous night, she finds no trace of them save a single, tawny feather in their wake.
A token.
She pockets it with a smile.
That same smile fades far too fast when she comes back to find Cardan reaching out a hand towards a shrub of suspiciously familiar, dark-petaled flowers.
She’s between him and the shrub in seconds, pushing him away a little too violently.
In that moment, she was more seneschal than queen. And in the next, when her fingers tighten around his lapels out of their own accord, she is more wife than seneschal.
“Did you touch it?” Panic raises her voice. “Did you get any of it on you?”
“No. I didn’t recognize the flora –”
“Idiot, that’s probably the flower that poisoned me.” She’s checking his hands, his clothes, for traces of shimmering, black pollen.
“Is it?” He plucks one and raises it to his face before she can stop him.
“Cardan –”
“Peace, Jude. It cannot harm its maker.”
And Jude pauses, because it’s true. This flower, this island and everything on it, is Cardan’s creation. He is the root, and as he has proven last night, he is also the remedy.
A beat passes between them, and then: “Did it really have to take a noxious, mood-altering flower for you to tell me about my brother?”
Jude scowls at the insinuation. “I was going to.” She weighs the next sentence in her head. “It’s just… easier to talk to someone when you don’t give a crap what they think.”
The human word is out of her mouth before she can reel it back in, but Cardan nods.
“Yes, I think I can understand that.”
She watches him twirl the flower in his hand. With his dark hair and eyes and clothes, it is without the shadow of a doubt that he created it, that it sprung forth from him and his magic. It belongs with him; it is him. She can imagine it pinned to his collar, petals of black glitter, an extension of his essence.
“We should inform the Bomb. Tell her that an antidote won’t be necessary.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Cardan grins at her like they are old friends trading a secret joke. “I can think of a few ways that an antidote could be useful.”
And Jude feels a thrill up her spine, because there is something conspiratorial in his voice, like he’s letting her in on his plan, like they are in it together, and maybe she enjoys that more than she thought she ever would. Having a partner.
“Scheming, are you?”
“I learned from the best.”
He is always more than what she thinks he is.
“That flower is connected to you. This whole island is, actually.”
“To us,” he corrects immediately, and she marks the strange note in his voice. “The island is connected to us.”
“Me, by extension,” she concedes. “But you raised this island with your own magic.”
He sighs then, as if a great burden has befallen him. “I suppose it now falls to me to name this flower, doesn’t it?”
“Well, you don’t have to name it now. We can always come back later –”
“Bitterblack,” he pronounces solemnly and somberly, and with a swiftness and surety that couldn’t possibly be borne of extemporization.“This bloom, flourishing upon the Isle of Ash, the land raised from my own bitterness, shall henceforth be known as bitterblack.”
“Um.” Jude blinks at his pomp. “Okay. Raised from your bitterness?”
“The birth of Insear marked the moment I deemed the crimes of the Undersea – against you, and against the crown — unforgivable. It was a bitter heart that sowed the seeds of this land. Perhaps it is only fitting that it was a full one that healed its poisons.”
Cardan casts her a sidelong look. He has a way of almost smiling, like the edge of moonlight peeking through the spidersilk canopy of their bed. A gossamer thing, but the light shines through.
A shame that this island will have to go belong to someone else, when she will forever remember Cardan here with her, looking at her like that.
“You brought me here to show me something.”
“Yes.” And oddly enough, his smile freezes a little. Jude narrows her eyes at it.
He leads her towards another clearing among the birches, tucking the bitterblack behind one pointed ear. There is more space here, and the air is crisp and clean, threaded through with the scent of salt and sunshine. The birches stand tall, but the sun reaches high enough to set the ash dusting the tops of the trees afire with crystal brilliance.
“What is this?”
His tail flicks once behind him. “The solution to the Insear claim.”
“What? Wait. You mean you knew how to resolve it all along? Randalin was right. You have been putting it off.”
“Not putting it off, waiting for the right time.”
“It’s been going on for weeks.”
Cardan shoots her a look. “I was supposed to ask you during the revel.”
The events of the revel — and the way it had ended, with Randalin bleeding in her chokehold — play out in her head. “Oh.”
He waves his hand. “No matter. It wouldn’t be the first time you caused a scene in front of the entire kingdom anyway.”
Jude crosses her arms. “Alright, let’s hear it, then. Tell me now so that we can put this whole thing behind us.”
He hesitates.
“Come on. Explain your solution.”
“This isn’t how I planned for this to go.”
“Planned for this to – Cardan. Just spit it out already.”
“Alright, fine,” he hisses. “I want to build a home with you. Here, on Insear.”
For a long moment, Jude wonders if she heard him right.
“Are you drunk?” Even though he couldn’t possibly be.
“I wish.”
“But the claim –”
“Is ours. Rightfully.” He raises his brow at her. “This island is connected to us, raised by my own magic. Isn’t that what you said?”
She stares at him.
“You know how this works, right?” Exasperation is clear in his voice. “I ask you to make a home with me on a new magical island, and you set yourself upon me, your acquiescence falling delightfully from your lips –”
“I do nothing delightfully, Cardan.”
“Oh, I could make a good argument otherwise.”
The entirety of last night, every sordidly delightful detail, flashes behind her eyes.
She clings to any rational thought she can find. “We already have a castle.” She thinks of the brugh, the entire sprawling mass of it. “A really big one.”
“Yes. And the Palace of Elfhame is the first place the High King and Queen should be. But often, it is also the last. A royal castle is just as much a royal warground.” He gives her a meaningful look. “As you and the rest of my family are well aware.”
Jude swallows. “What are you saying?”
“Our brugh will be the first place we make a home of, as monarchs. But it doesn’t have to be the only one.”
He turns her to face the clearing. His arms come around her from behind, his chin resting on her shoulder as they gaze out into a landscape stolen straight from the pages of a book.
“We could build something. Right here, in this glade. Where we don’t have to worry about anything. Where nothing else can touch us. We’ll close it off. We’ll come whenever we want. No spies, no interruptions, no watching our backs.”
And Jude recognizes the way he is holding her, because it’s the same way he held her in their secret room behind the throne, confessing the truths of his nightmares. “This is about protection.”
She feels him shrug. “A part of it, yes. Mostly I just want us to never be interrupted again. But there is power in protection. Wouldn’t you like that, Jude?”
Her head is swimming, because he’s put ideas into her brain, of waking up to the smell of birchwood and of walking along a glittering, moonlit shore — and they’re wonderful, damn him. If she’s being honest, those ideas came to her the moment she first stepped foot on Insear, like something in her had taken root in its sparkling soil, but she hadn’t let herself linger over them, knowing that the land would soon be treatied away.
But now, it’s like Cardan’s words have opened the floodgates, and her entire being, connected to Insear through his magic – their magic – thrums with the song of I could live here, I could thrive here, I belong here, and she aches with the rightness of it all.
“It’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had,” she admits, and doing so feels like she’s left her flank vulnerable during an open duel. She twists around in his arms quickly, before she can dwell on it. “But let’s get one thing clear.” Her fingers fist into his collar. “This nonsense about my being your weakness, that’s your problem. Not mine. I refuse to be held back by your fears.”
He nods with more gravity than is probably required. “And I could never ask it of you.”
“Then what do you ask of me now?” And because so much has changed between the two of them, because of everything that has led up to this moment, she adds, “What do you ask of me now and forever?”
He cups her face in his hands even as her fingers tighten on his shirt. “That you stay by my side. Through it all.” His mouth crooks self-deprecatingly. “And that you do not begrudge it too much that I miss you when you’re gone. That I worry. That I fear. Not because you are human, but because I hold you in my heart.”
She hates how swiftly her breath leaves her.
“Okay,” she says, more to steady herself than anything else, because this is a lot, and she’s never been good with dealing with a lot of feelings all at once. “Okay. I –”
“The rest of the kingdom belongs to the crown.” He presses closer, as if he can see her weakening. He takes a breath. “This… this could be ours. Just for us.”
“This island is too big for just the two of us.”
“No, Jude.” The look on his face is a little pained. “Us.”
A breath. A slice of time separating this moment into a before and after.
He isn’t talking about just the two of them. He’s talking about –
“Oh,” she breathes. “Us.”
“Only –” He’s scrambling a little now, she can see it. “Only if you want them.”
Them. Plural.
Jude sways a little. She’s not prepared for this. He should’ve warned her or something, because she doesn’t know how many surprises she can take in such a short amount of time.
Cardan is looking at her funny and she realizes she’s been quiet for too long. Something moves at the corner of her vision, and she realizes it’s his tail, flicking back and forth with the nervousness that he doesn’t show on his face.
“I want –” she begins, and he stills immediately, as if he could live or die on the next words that leave her mouth. “Okay. I don’t actually know what I want. I haven’t really had time to think about it. I want to talk about this. I do. And we’ll have to talk about it one day. But today, I don’t know if — if I know how, today.”
“Very well.” He says the words like he’s learning the shape of them on his tongue for the first time.
“It’s not a ‘no,’” she says quickly, before he gets the wrong idea. “It’s a ‘someday.’ Someday, you can ask me about children again. And in the meantime, I’ll think about when I can say yes. Deal?”
He touches her cheek, gentle, too gentle. “Deal.”
And all too late, she remembers the rule that she’s lived by all her life, the rule she’s broken time and time again when it came to this bewildering, beautiful boy that has made a place for himself between the stained-glass shards of her heart — never make a bargain with a faerie — because really, really, he shouldn’t be smiling like that, not like she’s given him the world when she’s barely even agreed to anything.
“Did you really plan a revel just to ask me about all this?”
“Yes. And you ruined it by taking a slice out of the Minister of Keys.”
Jude can’t help it. She throws her head back and laughs. “You’re a disaster.”
He glares, but there is no heat to it. “Only because you render me into one.”
Then something clicks into place. Something Tatterfell said while lacing her up in the dress he designed for her. For the king’s sake.
“Tatterfell knows.”
“She was most knowledgeable in your living preferences. How you like your room. Your furnishings. Your floors. I decided that I might know them, too.” He glances at the open space before them, at the sheer potential of it all. “Just in case.”
“We’ve been married for months. You could have asked me.”
“Would you have taken me seriously?”
She changes the subject, because he has her there. “How long have you been planning this?”
“A while.” Another shrug, less carefree this time. “Almost as long as the nightmares have come to me.”
Something hard glints in his eyes, and Jude recognizes the sharp lines of revenge if only because she has worn it too many times on her own face.
“All of this was as much a scheme,” he admits, “as it was a proposal to you. For to take a land borne of bitterness and remake it into a land of bliss, it would be –”
“The ultimate power play,” Jude finishes for him.
He grins down at her. It is heady, the realization that only she knows the true, full depths of her husband’s wickedness.
“I don’t have a lot of experience with blissful homes.” She feels the sudden urge to make sure he knows this. That he understands. It’s as much of a promise as she knows how to make. “I wouldn’t know the first thing about keeping one.”
“Nor I. We’ll have to learn together. Knowing you, there’ll be plenty of knives involved. But I think it starts,” he says, gathering her closer, “just like this.”
And when Cardan kisses her, Jude is sure that this is what conquerors must feel like. Because for years, she has fought for her place in Faerie, fought and bled and killed to belong somewhere.
And here it is.
Here it is, and she could dream entire worlds in his arms.
But she doesn’t have to. She has a whole world spread out before her already.
It’s a land of magic, raw and untested, ready to be discovered. A land of possibility, of infinite potential, waiting to be shaped by their hands. A land where sunlight grows and wayward falcons find peace. A land where the future blooms in full color, one amongst the thousands of flowers.
And it is theirs.
Their homeland.
______
Chapter Visuals:
Myrtle. (Love and partnership, marriage.)
End Links:
Everything: an edit.
His Door. (Cardan POV drabble, post-homeland.)
_______
End Note:
This fic represents a lot of firsts for me: my first completed multi-chaptered story, my first time (heh again) trying my hand at smut, but most importantly, my first time encountering some of the nicest, most thoughtful people as readers.
If you’ve read and followed this little fic of mine up until the end, let me thank you from the bottom of my heart. It’s been an absolute honor to have readers like you. ❤️ I've learned so much from writing this little fic that could, and I hope to continue to grow as a writer. Thank you for coming along with me on this journey and bringing so much value to the fic writing experience – kudos, comments, and your wonderful insights and all.
As always, you can find me and my open ask box on tumblr.
Much love to you, always!
________
Tagging: @ireallyshouldsleeprn @nahthanks
* Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future fics (Jurdan or other fandoms!) and it would be my absolute honor to do so!
#jurdan#jude x cardan#jude duarte#cardan greenbriar#tfota#The Folk of the Air#tfota fanfic#jurdan fic#jurdan fanfic#jurdanfanfic#the cruel prince#the wicked king#the queen of nothing#tcp#tcp fic#twk#tqon#fandom: tfota#zita writes#fic: homeland
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