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#and he did something unspeakable to this girl and when he was caught he ran off

lunajay33 · 3 months

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Both❤️‍🔥

Summary: There was just something about you that Rick and Daryl couldn’t deny, they wanted you, but will they have to fight for you, who will you chose maybe both?

~Threesome

•Masterlist•

You were sat in the watch tower with your binoculars looking out by the fences for any danger, as you were looking around you noticed Daryl and Rick in the field and god did they make me feel things, Daryl first caught your eyes with his mysterious quiet guy act, and then when he’d talk to you with that deep voice and the way he’d look at you made your knees weak like nothing you’d ever felt before but then…….

There came Rick Grimes, that sheriff outfit and the way he took charge of the ground had butterflies erupt in your belly and now you were drooling over the two men constantly especially when they’d be hard at work outside with the sun beating down on them, their tan skin shimmering with sweat god it was so hot

As you were fantasizing about them you hadn’t noticed they were looking back at you, obviously you were spying on them, which made them smirk, when you noticed what you’d been doing you quickly moved the binoculars down and climbed down the tower, once you got to the bottom you were met by those devilish men you’d think about late at night

“Hey darlin” Daryl said as he leaned on the wall next to you as Rick was on your other side trapping you

“Hi” you said timidly

“You have a nice look there, have your eye on one of us sweetie?” Rick asked playing with a strand of you hair

You could feel what was happening in your panties, these men really did things to you, you wanted them to do unspeakable things, they were a bit older than you but you were 22 you’re a woman who needs some strong men to break you out of your shell

“Maybe” you said biting your lip

“Oh really, and which one would that be peach?” Daryl asked as he ran his hand down your waist pulling your shirt a bit lower

You didn’t say anything to distracted by the hands roaming your body

“Come on baby, who do you need?” Rick whispered in your ear

“Mmmmm, I need you both” they looked at you with the look that made you knee weak and your heart pump faster

“What do ya say?” Daryl asked squeezing your hip

“Please, please I’ll be good” you whined feeling the fullest affect of these men

“Mmmm I think we should reward her don’t you think Daryl?” He asked as they looked at each other smirking

“Ya I think she does” Daryl took your hand dragging you up the watch tower as Rick followed

Daryl laid you down on the mattress Glenn and Maggie dragged up here, they looked down at you as they continued to remove their shirts and pants leaving them in boxers and god just from the outlines they were big, it was mouth watering

Rick kneeled on your left as Daryl was on your right as they gazed at you body, Daryl pulled you shirt off as Rick pulled down you tight jeans leaving you in your pink bra and panties

“Oh baby were you planning for this?” Rick asked as he ran his fingers higher up you thigh leaving goosebumps in its trail as Daryl couldn’t rip his eyes from your boobs

“Was just waiting for the day that it might happen” you said rubbing your legs together for some friction

“Here we thought ya were a good girl” Daryl said as he unclipped your bra leaving your chest bare as Rick tucked his fingers in the band of your panties ripping them off, now completely nude, this is new to you so you weren’t sure what to fully do especially with two hot men

“What’s wrong baby ain’t ya want this?” Daryl asked as he licked up your stomach to your chest

“Yes oh god yes it’s just……” you gasped out as Rick ran his thumb against your clit

“Just what baby?” Rick asked as he rubbed faster

“I’ve never……you know, I don’t wanna be bad” you admitted making them both stop

“Really a pretty lil thing like ya ain’t ever been touched?”

“All for us now aren’t you baby?”

“Yes I’m all yours, both of you, just teach me I want you guys to feel good too”

“Oh peach we’ll feel good don’t worry ‘bout that” Daryl smirked as he started to suck on you boob as he ran his thumb over the other

“Mmmm Daryl” you moaned right before you felt something wet flick against your clit making you almost scream, bucking your hips

Everything felt so good, Rick fingers digging into your hips trying to keep you down, both their tongues on you made your head all hazy, it felt so good you didn’t think it could get better

Then you felt fingers enter you curling in and out and it pushed you over, screaming out from the pleasure that coursed through you, your legs shaking from how hard it hit you

They pulled back looking at your shaking body as you huffed out of breathe

“How do you feel baby, ready for the real things?” Rick asked pushing your hair back

“Yes please I want more”

“Who first darlin?” Daryl asked as they both stripped themselves of their boxers as their dicks smacked against their stomach, and damn were they packing, Rick had his red angry tip, long and white, and Daryl’s was thick and veiny but still long

“I want Daryl first” you basically whined spreading your legs open, Daryl dropped himself between your legs, gliding his tip up and down your folds pushing hard against your clit

Rick sat up closer to you as he pumped his dick in his hand at the sight of his best friend pushing into you hearing the pop of his dick stretching you out for the first time, you were up on your elbows looking down whining at the stretch

“Mmmm it’s so good, I don’t know if….fuck if I can take it”

“Just breathe darlin, I’ll get it ta fit” Daryl said as you calmed down so he could slowly push all the way in groaning

“She tight Daryl?” Rick asked as you squeezed his thigh

“Damn right, so tight she’s suckin me in, she’s perfect” he said clawing at you legs burying his head in your shoulder breathing you in

“Ya ready?” He whispered in the husky voice

“Yes be careful please”

He started off slow, pulling back until slowly pushing all the way back in till you were fully comfortable with his length, you were a moaning mess but felt bad for Rick so you snaked your hand up his thigh gripping his dick and started to pump it, running your thumb over his slit ever so often causing his to hiss

The noises coming out of all three of you was damn near pornographic, hell this was a porno two sexy men screwing a virgin but god did you love it

“Am I doing good?” You squealed when Daryl hit a certain spot

“So good baby, fuck I’m gonna cum” Rick groaned as he started to thrust into you hand soon after cumming all over your hand, he sat back huffing as he continued to watch Daryl fuck you

“Ya close peach?” Daryl asked as he sat back up and putting your legs over his shoulders perfectly hitting that spot making you screaming feeling that pleasure build in your belly again

“Yes Daryl I’m about to cum keep going”

Rick started sucking on your boobs as Daryl begin to quickly rub your clit finally pushing you over the edge, squeezing around Daryl’s dick feeling him fill you up as he groaned trying to be quiet

You were hazy again the pleasure making you extremely tired but the after wave felt so good, you actually had a threesome

Daryl pulled out as you all watched his cum leak out of you

“Rick don’t think she can take two dicks in one day” Daryl said as he spread your legs wider seeing your red puffy clit

“Next time baby you’re all mine”

—///—///—///—///—///—///—///—

Part.2<-

Guys this was my first full spicy story lmk if I should do a part 2? Also lmk where you guys are reading from, I think most of my readers are international!!

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illyrian-dreamer · 1 year

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Changing Shadows (Part 20)

Azriel x Reader

Summary: You and Azriel set off on a mission in the Illyrian camps. But what happens when your past gets the better of you?

Lot’s of fluff and angst in this mission/fighting based chapter, I think the reader and Az work so well as a team! Hope you enjoy 💕

Image by koike9023

Warnings: Violence, PTSD, swearing, blood

Word count: 1,588

Part 20:

∇

Cold air wrapped around you as you gripped firmly to an icy branch.

You were waiting for Azriel’s signal from the tall trees that backed the Illyrian war camps. Scanning the paths below you, you saw a few males walking about, fires dimming as they made their way to and from their tents.

You kept a close eye on the lieutenant’s office, an old brick building at the centre of the camp. That was where the records were, and where Azriel was currently getting rid of security one by one, his stealth making him untraceable.

One signal was all you needed, and you would winnow inside the building to infiltrate the records room. And not a moment later, you saw dark shadows seep from the hollow windows, beckoning you.

That was it. You stood on the branch, taking a deep breath before willing yourself inside.

You felt Azriel’s strong hands on your shoulders before the rest of the room fell into place. He held you firmly, facing you down a long corridor.

“Two from the east, and I’ve got two from the west.” he whispered in your ear. A shiver ran down your spine at his instruction.

Nodding, you braced yourself for a fight. Sure enough, two Illyrian males reached the corridor, spotting you and withdrawing their blades. You ran at them, not giving them a chance to gain on you.

You spun gracefully around their attacks, using your night magic to throw their weapons against the wall. Their eyes went wide when they realised your strength, but they didn’t give up.

A fist came careening towards your face, but years of training to counter Illyrian style fighting meant you knew it was coming. You held out a strong arm in defence, kicking out the males legs and using the palm of your hand to push his nose from the bottom up with all your strength.

You heard a crack as the male cried out, his face pouring with blood. You had definitely broken his nose. He fell to the ground, unconscious.

Your eye caught Azriel fighting the other two males near the entrance to the records room. You couldn’t help but admire him. He was a smart fighter, always more collected than his opponents.

The other male reached from behind you, pulling two strong arms around your body and squeezing tight. You gritted your teeth, calling your night magic to enter his body. The male roared in pain, but did not let go. Stubborn bastard.

The male continued to thrash, his grip tightening before he did the unspeakable and bit into your wing. He sunk his teeth into the bone and membrane as hard as he could, and you screamed in pain. It was the most savage move an Illyrian could make to another.

Something in you snapped. Anger so dark, so deep that it wasn’t red that you saw, it was black. Magic pierced from you, releasing his grip as you spun around, the male now whimpering on his knees.

“H-High Fae b-bitch,” he stuttered, jerking in pain.

Your face was one of pure disgust as your ears rang, unable to see or hear anything but the pathetic male in front of you. You would end him now, end any male you dared harm your wings again. This was for the young girl in you, who couldn’t save herself at the time.

You felt magic and anger boil inside you, black night filling your eyes as you raised your palm at the Illyrian on the floor. Your skin crawled with heat as magic encompassed you, unable to feel anything but the pure hatred for the male and his kind.

Magic banked at your palm, building into a dark sphere. But before you could let go, a cool voice cut through the roaring in your head.

“Y/N,” Azriel said calmly from behind you. You blinked, your arm still raised at the male as you snapped your head to him, eyes still black.

“You don’t have to do this.” Azriel looked at you, eyes pleading. You saw the two males he had fought unconscious on the floor behind him.

You blinked again, as if trying to find some light in the darkness that swirled in your head. Your mission was not to kill, Rhys’s orders had been clear. You could feel the violet returning to your eyes as you took a shaky breath.

“That’s it,” Azriel encouraged, a hand now gently placed on your back.

The magic in you simmered as you lowered your arm.

The male on the floor panted, pain easing as your magic levelled. “I’d rather you killed me, you soul-sucking bi-,”

You did not need to raise your arm to shoot a burst of night magic at him, rendering him unconscious alongside his counterparts. You knew it wouldn’t kill him, but would take many days of rest to recover from.

You turned back to Azriel, collecting yourself with another quick breath. His face was relieved.

You tried to speak, but nothing came out.

Azriel grabbed your shoulders again, levelling a calm look at you. “Let’s get those records.”

The rest of the mission went smoothly, thank the Cauldron.

You located the records quickly as Azriel kept watch. Once you had the book, you both winnowed to an agreed location – a less frequented clearing in the outskirts of the camps. From there you would fly, unable to winnow all the way back to Velaris.

As you landed in the clearing, a set of four guards broke through the tents, charging at you.

Azriel smirked, elbowing you as he nodded to the group of males. “You seem like you could blow off some steam.”

You grinned at the challenge. The open air of the clearing meant you could fly, it would be easy work. “Yes please,” you practically growled.

Az held his smirk as he asked “You sure I can’t help?”

“They’re mine,” you joked, playfully shoving him aside.

Azriel laughed as he flexed his wings. “I’ll be watching,” he said, before winnowing to a silent place to enjoy the show.

You spun to a great height before tackling one of the males to the ground. You launched yourself in the air again, the other three males leaping to the skies to catch you in a race they could not win. Az watched as each of them dropped from the sky, one by one, before winnowing to meet you in the air.

You soared silently together for a few minutes, panting from your victory against the Illyrians and allowing mind catching up on the adrenaline. But you knew you needed to address what had happened to you in that corridor.

“Azriel, I-“

“Don’t.” He cut you short, knowing exactly what you were going to say. “Don’t apologise. You were amazing.”

You blinked. “What?” you asked, shock written on your face.

“You would have killed that male in seconds, and anything else in a twenty-foot radius for that matter.”

You gulped. That’s what you were afraid of.

“It was incredibly impressive,” he chuckled, flying closer and reaching for your hand.

You reached back, fingers lacing together. Azriel looked at you in admiration.

“You’ve become so strong Y/N. I am always impressed by your work, but tonight you reminded me why Velaris is in the safest of hands.”

You blinked at him, shocked at his words. You had always tried to show Azriel that you were not a waste of his efforts, tried to show him his years of personal coaching and training and support had been worth it.

Your eyes brimmed with the tears, the wind drying them faster than they could spill. “It’s all thanks to you,” you said softly.

Azriel shook his head. “Not a chance, Y/N. That was all you. You are so strong, it makes me fear for my own safety.”

You laughed loudly. What a ridiculous thought, that a Shadowsinger could fear your power.

“I’m being truthful,” Azriel said, smiling back at you. You let go of his hand, giving him a playful shove. He went to shove you back, which you skilfully dogged.

Soaring ahead, you did a playful loop around Azriel as he chuckled.

You glowed at his words, at the strength he saw in you. You had waited years to hear something like that, and you hadn't even known it.

Azriel’s smile was broad, as if he himself glowed at your happiness, at how far you had come.

He reached for your hands again, wings flapping as he spun you both around and around, your laugh filling the night sky.

“I have never heard or seen anything more beautiful,” he said softly, shaking his head in disbelief as he looked deep into your eyes.

Your heart fluttered, blushing at his words. Oh, this male. You could die right here.

“You, Azriel, are the most truehearted male I know,” you said, thumbs rubbing his hands as he held yours. You could have sworn he blushed.

But it had to end, you had to get the book to Rhys. And your heart hurt at the thought of you losing this connection the moment you walked through those doors. So you closed your eyes, willing yourself to forever remember the moment in the skies with Azriel, the moment he made you feel so complete.

--------

Part 21 >>>

AN: I hope you liked the character development for our reader in this chapter!! Plenty more angst to come tbh, so hold on tight :) <3 Comment to join the tag list!

Tags: @slvtherinseeker @judig92 @kennedy-brooke @hyacinthoideshispanica @brekkershadowsinger @its-me-meg @acotar-thirst @5moremin @honeyrydernot @azzydaddy @lucyysthings @highladyofillyria @paasrin @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @littleshopofwhoress @blurredlamplight @hanasakr @bookish-dream @fall-myriad @aistheamazing @jazmin2211

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rafent · 1 year

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◜ ₊ — 𝓡 ˚ ₊ ❛ 𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐊.

( tw ; vanishing twin syndrome )

In the blood and marble wastelands of Gradlon there is a shimmering flower still untouched beneath the crush of fell - falling - fallen bodies and twisting vipers, a little boy’s shy smile that blooms blasphemously for another before they might even know of each other a name.

“I've seen you before. We look just alike."

"And what of it? I'm busy."

"Well, my name is Nil; will you tell me who you are?”

“...Rafal.”

Rafal. Lacking power, lacking love, the one known as Rafal for the lack of a truer word has always been lacking. His original half, too, he lacked- lost to his weakness, or rather the intensely ingrained search for strength in an early weak, early conniving runt- because in a system of selfish advancement that pins desirability on the sum of two twins who conquer one another and come out stronger, he is a black sheep, a disfigurement of convention.

One who absorbed his half before either of them knew any semblance of light or darkness, right or wrong, or a beginning.

Before they could hate each other, love each other, kill each other- before he opened his eyes to the unspeakable sacrilege of slurping the soft tissues owed to a defenseless being- he had already swallowed the fetus who might one day be his world, whole. He hadn’t even known it; he didn't even remember them, he would later say; and that confession bred only honesty.

But the calamity of his actions are microscopic in the grander scheme. To humans who administer law and morality, judgment and superstition, his origins are the reflection of a primordial evil found in nature; a greedy snake who swallows the egg and chokes on it, too- and what do they matter? On the other end, in view of the Gradlon perspective, he is only the irresponsible fisherman who has forgotten his duties and rebuffed the common notions to wait:

All twins must lose their other halves. Rafal, unborn, had gone ahead and gobbled down the juvenile fish he’d caught in the womb without allowing for it to grow; unfavorable in the environmental length of things, hardly ripe, a meal not to the reach of its fullest potential; a pity. But not altogether spurned.

On the scale of these views, everyone was either here, there, or somewhere in the middle.

“It’s not your fault.”

A lie painted in compassion elsewhere. The least honored concubine of Sombron lamented him for his weakness and his theft of her glory. She, as any rightful mother, had wanted for two chances at strong offspring, not one who already failed. When spoken by Nil it was as if he truly meant it.

“They say it happens sometimes…one twin absorbs the other.”

And when this is no comfort, when he sees the way he looks at others conjoined and made together; their sweetly clutching hands or their darling giggles, their wholeness put on full display-

“It’s alright to miss her.”

“How can you be so sure? That it’s a girl." This answer has never satisfied him, not by him, not by mother or anyone else.

“Why would I miss her—him? It?"

They never even had a name.

There was no mistake in his callous uncaring, no delusion in his eyes turned away from the dark pretending like it weren't a void. Rafal could not miss or love someone he’d never met in the first, he could only acknowledge the mysterious whispers of regret. However, eventually his void did acquire a name. He had never known what it meant to have something until he met him.

Scrawny and powerless and all but malnourished- all these infirmities they did together. He rolled over on his side, on the impossible feat of making himself comfortable.

“I don't care about that. I'm strong when I’m with you.”

“Rafal…”

“It's true. You’re even weaker than I am. That means I'm strong by comparison.”

"That's a horrible thing to say!”

Still those words came in laughter, still those gentle fingers ran through his streaming hair, soothing him to sleep on a nap judged precarious across knobby knees. Lacking power, lacking love, Rafal for the lack of a truer word has always been lacking. But in Nil he saw power. And in Nil there was love.

#◜ ₊ — 𝓡 ˚ ₊ 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐁𝐉𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 ╱ drabble.#◜ ₊ — 𝓡 ˚ ₊ 𝐌𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑 ╱ headcanon.#engage spoilers #points at the spoilers tag you know the drill ( aligning with every other post on this blog ever )#the question of rafal's original twin is a pretty big one but i interpreted his words of not remembering them to be a key understanding #that combined with the lack of elaboration made it feel like his sorrow for that fact was more a void then a forcibly ripped hole #if that makes any sense #he had little to say because he had nothing to experience #he spoke of nil much more than he did that twin

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theaibooks · 1 year

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tittle: the institute by Stephen king

if your a fan of Stephen king then you must have read this book if not your in luck. we hope you enjoy todays story.

Luke Ellis was a boy with extraordinary powers. He could move objects with his mind, see things before they happened, and even make people do things they didn't want to do. But his abilities had always been a secret, something he kept hidden from the world around him. That all changed one fateful night when he was twelve years old. He went to bed like any other night, but when he woke up, he was in a strange room, with no idea how he got there. The room was small, with no windows, and the door was locked from the outside. Panic set in as he tried to force the door open, but it wouldn't budge. Days turned into weeks, and Luke soon learned that he was not alone. There were other children in the Institute, each with their own unique powers. There was Kalisha, a girl who could read minds, Nick, a boy who could control electricity, and many others. At first, Luke tried to keep to himself, but he soon realized that they were all in this together. They formed a bond, a camaraderie born out of their shared experience. They tried to escape, but the Institute was well-guarded, with security cameras and guards around every corner. As time passed, the experiments became more and more intense, testing the limits of their powers. Luke and his friends were forced to endure unspeakable horrors, all in the name of science. But the worst was yet to come. One day, Luke overheard a conversation between two of the staff members. They were talking about a new project, one that involved using the children as weapons. Luke knew that they had to escape before it was too late. He shared the information with his friends, and they began to hatch a plan. They would create a diversion by starting a fire in one of the laboratories, then make a run for it while the staff was distracted. It was risky, but they had no other choice. The plan went off without a hitch. They waited until the guards were distracted, then made a run for it. It was chaos, with alarms blaring and guards chasing them, but they managed to make it outside. They ran through the woods, unsure of where they were going, but knowing that they had to keep moving. They could hear the sounds of pursuit behind them, but they didn't look back. They ran until they couldn't run anymore, collapsing in a heap on the forest floor. As they caught their breath, they took stock of their situation. They were in the middle of nowhere, with no idea how to get back to civilization. But they knew that they had to keep moving, to keep putting distance between themselves and the Institute. They walked for hours, stopping only to rest when they had to. They were hungry and thirsty, and their feet were sore, but they didn't stop. They couldn't stop. It was as they were crossing a stream that they heard the sound of a helicopter in the distance. They knew that they had to hide, to avoid being spotted. They ran for cover, hiding behind a group of boulders as the helicopter passed overhead. They waited until they were sure it was safe, then continued on their journey. They walked for days, until they finally stumbled upon a road. They followed the road until they reached a small town, where they were eventually able to contact their families and get help. Luke never forgot what happened in the Institute. He knew that he and his friends had been lucky to escape, but he also knew that there were others out there, still trapped in that hellish place. He made a vow to do whatever he could to help them, to ensure that no child ever had to endure what they had. And so he became a crusader, using

his powers and his experiences to raise awareness about the atrocities happening at the Institute. He spoke out, wrote books, and did everything in his power to bring attention to the cause.

Years passed, and Luke grew up. He went to college, got a job, and started a family. But he never forgot his past, and he never stopped fighting for justice.

One day, he received a phone call from an old friend, one of the children he had escaped with all those years ago. She told him that she had heard rumors of a new facility, one that was even worse than the Institute. She begged him to help, to use his influence to stop it.

And so Luke set out once again, determined to put an end to the horrors he had once endured. He rallied support, spoke out against the new facility, and did everything in his power to shut it down.

It was a long and difficult battle, but in the end, Luke and his allies emerged victorious. The new facility was shut down, and the children inside were rescued.

Luke had finally found closure, knowing that he had made a difference, that he had saved lives. He knew that he would always be haunted by his past, but he also knew that he had the power to change the future. And that was enough for him.

#storytelling #short story #horror stories #stephen king #book blog #digital art #classic novel #novel shortened #mystery story #must read novles #horror #scary stories

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slutforagoodsmut · 3 years

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Imagine: Dracula’s daughter

She had always been a daddy’s girl, that was certain. Since she was an infant she was attached to him by the hip, always followed him around the castle, always found him fascinating. Of course she loved her mother and Alucard as well. Days her father was busy she’d stay in her mother’s laboratory, watching Lisa mix medicines and asking questions.

“What is this?” she’d ask, barely able to look over the table. Her mother would only laugh and pick her up, sitting her down on the smooth slab of her work space.

“This is a new medicine I’m working on. It will help sick people become strong and healthy, just like you!” Lisa would poke her daughter’s tummy and the little dhampir girl would squirm in a fit of giggles. She loved her mother, she looked up to her.

Her and her brother always found things to do around the castle, painting and writing poetry, playing tag or hide and seek, which Alucard always won for some odd reason.

“You cheated!” she whined, crossing her arms.

“I did not!” Alucard stuck his tongue out at his sister. “I’m just older and faster than you!”

“By a minute! You are older by a minute!”

And at the end of the day, the young dhampir would always find herself in her father’s study, reading a book beside him or begging him to read to her. She’d always end up falling asleep in his lap and he’d carry her to bed, tucking her in and kissing her goodnight. He loved her, he loved his little girl with all his undead heart. Of course there was Lisa, the love of his life, and he did love his children equally, but she always had a special place in his heart.

As the years went on, the girl blossomed into a beautiful young woman. She had long, onyx locks like her father and a sharp tongue like her mother. She was snarky and always had something to say, but she was kind and she was loving, and she had such a big heart full of passion and wonder. She wanted to help others just like her mother, often visited houses of the ones who Lisa was close to and aided her mother if she needed it. Alucard and her loved to duel one another, and she made sure she always won. They picked on each other and instigated but it was all out of great fun. The princess took long walks with her father at night and he told her about his new discoveries between vampires and humans, and her being her, was always fascinated and wanted to know more.

Like Alucard and her mother, she had the privilege of stepping out into sunlight without a problem. She grew her fangs in before her brother when she was a small infant, which to this day she enjoys hanging over his head. She was tall and strong, and very fast, as well as very skilled with a sword. She had long nails she could extend and retract and could turn into animals, making it easier to stalk her prey at night.

Everything was....perfect, you might say. Her life was perfect, sure she lacked friends but she had a wonderful home and a loving family that she could depend on.

That all changed after that horrific night in 1475. When Lisa Tepes was killed everything crumbled to dust. The love in the castle had disappeared, it was so cold and dark and stunk of misery.

She grew strained from her father once Alucard had left home. She didn’t want him to go and he didn’t want to leave her, but they both knew it was for the best.

In a year, it was almost like two complete strangers shared a home. Dracula made no effort to connect with his daughter as he was so caught up with damning the whole world to hell, and in that time his daughter pushed him away. She barely spoke with him, didn’t even attempt to at this point. He was so angry, so angry with the world and with everyone in it. Lisa wouldn’t have wanted this, her children knew that. Their mother was a part of the human race, mortality ran through the children’s blood. They were a part of them, and their father wanted to burn them all.

She grew angrier and angrier with her father as the dreadful days passed on. He let these other vampires into their home and they did whatever they wanted! And what did he do, wallow away into nothing in his library, sitting in front of the fireplace every single day! Pathetic! Absolutely pathetic!

One day, she had enough. Dracula’s daughter couldn’t stand a single day more in that castle, enraged with her father she planned to leave. She considered leaving without telling him, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. So, with a satchel over her shoulder holding her most valuable things, she walked into her father’s library. The back of his chair was to her, and yes, he stared into his fireplace like he always had.

“I’m leaving.” she spoke up, gripping the strap of her bag. Nothing, he didn’t say a word, he didn’t even move a muscle in his seat. His daughter only sighed, a tear rolling down her cheek as she turned away. “Goodbye, father.”

Part of her never wanted to see him ever again. Part of her wanted nothing more to do with her father, but she knew deep down their paths would cross again, and she’d end up in that castle once more.

She was alone, really alone this time, she had no one to turn to, she kept her distance from strangers and if they gave her trouble she’d risk the danger and bear her fangs, making them all run away in fear. The one night, one fateful night, she had run into her brother and two others who accompanied him. She was running through the woods as night creatures attacked, she’d slaughtered as many as she could, but they were closing in on her. In that moment she felt powerless till three beings came out of the thick woods and ended the monsters’ rampage.

“Alucard?” she whispered, leaning herself against a tree, holding her side which bled a concerningly amount.

He gasped, his eyes widened with shock as he looked at his dear sister. “Sister?”

“You have a sister?” The strange woman spoke up in her thick accent.

“Oh god, not another one of you....” A tall dark haired man grumbled, slapping his hand over his face.

Alucard’s sister ran over to him and threw her arms around him as hard as she could. She couldn’t believe it. She had so many questions. How was he here? Why wasn’t he underground like he said he’d be? Who were these people?

Overtime, these questions were answered. The woman was a speaker, her name was Sypha, and that other oaf of a man was a Belmont, Trevor Belmont, a vampire’s sworn enemy. She thought they died off years ago, but never mind that. Her brother had woken from his year of slumber when the two of them accidentally found him (more so Trevor than Sypha) and asked if he’d help them in their quest.

“We’re going to the castle...” Alucard spoke softly. His sister sat across from him, staring quietly into the fire they had made. She wasn’t stupid, she could put the puzzle pieces together. They were going there to end Dracula’s terror for once and for all. Her heart broke, just like it had before. She had to come to terms with killing their father, it was such a painful thing to imagine but...if that meant millions and millions of people would survive, then so be it.

“It just hurts, ya’know? I mean, how could anyone go through with the idea of murdering their father?”

“He’s not our father, not anymore at least.”

Alucard was right, she hated to admit it. That monster conducting all of this genocide wasn’t their father. Their father was loving and caring, and this man....wasn’t any of that. The king of darkness was blinded by a rage and there was no looking back. Their father died when Lisa Tepes took her last breath.

One by one, she slit the throats of dozens. Striking her sword through vampire soldiers, beheading the generals who held councils in her very home, the ones who practically took her home away from her. Was it truly still her home, she couldn’t tell, all she knew it as now was Vlad Dracula’s hideout, nothing more. She would get her revenge on every last one of them, her fists driving through their chests and yanking out their still beating hearts, crushing them in her palms. How dare they mock her home as if it were their own little sanctuary. How dare they.

“Alucard--you, Belmont and Sypha fight off those night creatures! I’m going to find our father!” She yelled as she climbed the steps.

Alucard impaled a night creature “Be careful! He’ll hurt you!”

But she was already down the hall and up the steps to her father’s library. Millions of thoughts ran through her mind. The guilt of it all, having to go through an act that would be considered unspeakable under God’s law. Half vampire or not, she knew she’d be damned to hell in the end.

She took in a few breaths before peeking in. Her father, to her surprise, was not slumped in his chair but standing, he grabbed one of his forgemasters, Isaac, and threw him through his mirror. Isaac let out a scream and the mirror broke into pieces, falling on the ground.

“Father.” She spoke, walking into the room. Dracula tensed up, turning his body towards the door, bearing his fangs.

“My child, the betrayer.”

Her chest tightened, eyes wide. Betrayer? He thinks she betrayed him?

“I did no such thing.”

“Lies!” He snapped, his eyes blood red. “You walked out of this castle and turned your back on your own father!”

“Well you had already turned your back on me!” She screamed at him. “You didn’t try to make me stay! You didn’t even attempt to!”

“I knew what side you were on from the beginning. You were a lost cause.” Dracula’s voice was cold and harsh.

Tears sprouted at the corner of her eyes. “How could you even say that?! You act like you were the only one who lost someone!”

Dracula turned away from his daughter, seething with anger.

“You weren’t there! You were never there! All you’ve done was cause havoc!”

“I did it all for her!” Dracula roared, whipping around and towering his large body over hers.

“And look where that got you!” She bellowed back at him, eyes now blood red as tears streamed down her face. “Look where that got you. You pushed Alucard away, you pushed me away. Mother would never--” Her body was thrown across the room and she hit the bookshelf, falling to the ground. She wheezed out, coughing out blood. He struck her. He...struck her. Her vision was foggy, but she could make out her father standing on the other side of the room. She tried to stand up but she couldn’t, her body didn’t let her. Again she tried, but she couldn’t do it. She hadn’t had blood in such a long time, she’s grown too weak. Why she didn’t consider that going into this mess she doesn’t know, but it was a stupid mistake. Suddenly her world went dark, and she laid unconscious on the ground.

It wasn’t too long till she had woken up from her spot, her father no longer in the library. She could hear screaming from above her. She gasped, getting up as quick as she could and stumbling over herself. Alucard.

She ran and ran, going up another floor, and then another. The dhampir suddenly collided with Sypha and Belmont.

“You’re alright!” Sypha exclaimed.

“Where is he!? Where is Alucard?!”

“Upstairs, with Dracula!”

Her vampire senses tingled. His room. They were in Alucard’s old room. She bolted up the floors and down the hall. They were screaming, things were being shattered, she could feel the whole castle shake beneath her feet.

Alucard was thrown against the wall, their father closing in on him, ready to finish the job.

“ENOUGH!” His sister shrieked at the top of her lungs, stepping in between them. Her father stopped in his tracks.

There she stood, sword in both hands, pointing the tip against her own chest.

“What--What are you doing?!” Dracula bellowed.

Alucard shook his head, fear in his eyes. “No, don’t do it!”

“I’d rather kill myself than live in this world with you, you monster!”

With that, somehow Dracula had come to his senses. The night filled the room, the moonlight shining in through the window. Dracula gasped, his eyes no longer flaming with hatred, but filled with sadness. His daughter kept the sword where it was and she began to cry, hard, endless tears rushing down her pale face.

“Look what you’ve done father...” She sobbed, hands trembling.

Dracula stared at her, then at her brother, then finally his hands. “What am I doing? I....” he choked on his words. “My children, my son and daughter. I’m killing them Lisa. I’m killing our children.” He walked over to a painting that hung on the wall. It was of all of them; Dracula and Lisa, both holding their bundles of joy. He looked at his children again and truly realized how much hurt he’s caused them. How much pain he’s caused his daughter. She mourned in their home, alone, while he selfishly sought out revenge. “My daughter would rather end her life than live in a world with her father.” he looked at her, tears now running from his eyes, “These are the walls we raised them in, loved them unconditionally. These are the walls we painted, the toys we made for our son. I’m so sorry....I....what have I done?” Dracula walked over to her and took the sword out of her hands, pointing it’s sharp tip against his own chest and placing it back in her hands.

“Your greatest gifts to me, and I’m killing them.”

Alucard got up and stood next to his sister, placing his hands around hers. He wouldn’t let her do this alone.

“I must already be dead...”

Her heart pounded in her chest so hard she thought she was going to throw up. “I love you....” the girl managed to get out in a strangled cry, looking her father in the eyes. She could see it in his pleading eyes, silently begging them to put an end to his misery, to theirs and the world’s. In those quiet moments, he hoped she knew how much he truly loved her. How special she really was.

She shut her eyes tightly for a second as her and her brother drew her sword into her father’s chest. He groaned in pain, blood spilling out of his mouth as more coppery tears spilled out of his eyes.

She would forever be his little girl.

WOOOOH that was a long one! I told ya’ll I’d write some sad shit. Ok I’m gonna go cry myself to sleep now, like, comment and reblog!🥳🥳

#castlevania netflix #dracula castlevania #trevor belmont #castlevania trevor #castlevania sypha #castlevania season 2 #castlevania alucard #alucard tepes #sad angst #Dracula x daughter #lisa tepes #castlevania lisa #i’m gonna go cry now #Youtube

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write-like-you-mean-it · 3 years

Text

Streets (Shalnark x Reader)

This is a commission piece from @pastelbear12. It is a part 2 to Pretty Little Psycho. If you would like to commission me, here's a link to my commission page. I hope this kills you Sophie.

Pairing: Teasing!Shalnark x female reader

Warning: Teasing Shalnark, bondage, public sex, choking, daddy calling, very dom Shalnark, this is pure smut.

Word Count: 2610

You let your head duck under the red rope as you held tightly to the blonde in front of you. His face lit up with a wild, untamed excitement. You felt a tight squeeze on your wrist which matched the same tight lipped grin. Shivers ran down your body at the choice you made.

“Hey Shal,” called one of the men still stuck in line. The taunt left his face as Shanark faced his peer. The taller and muscular blonde who’s name was Phink motioned towards the entrance of the club. “You know the boss’s mission.”

Shanark waved away the notion. “You have enough people. Tell the boss I’ll be back later.” His gaze flickers to your own. “I have a more important mission to attend to.”

The music bumped through the speakers as Shalnark dragged you across the floor towards the bar. Not much was different between the two places beyond the line to enter was much shorter and there was a lack of a friend by your side. If you’d not been caught up in his hazel eyes, the terror may have set in by now.

Heavy bass swam between dancing bodies, flirty conversations, and frat boys chugging beers. You could almost hear it over the steady beat of your own heart. Your breath was shaky from the walk over and getting caught looking too long at the blonde man.

“What do you want? He asks while leaning his back against the bar. His arms planted across the empty space of the bar. “Or would you rather I pick for you?”

“I would-” You didn't have a chance to respond as Shal caught you off guard. Although you were going to respond, you didn’t know what you were going to say. Would you allow him to choose for you or would you rather choose something for yourself.

“Or are you worried I’ll spike your drink?” His eyes flicked up and down your body as if he was taking in a beautiful view. “Don’t worry. I’d like you to remember who will leave bruises all over your body tomorrow.”

An involuntary whimper forced from deep within your core. His words made your choice for you. “You can choose.” You almost couldn’t recognize your own voice. It was hoarse as if your throat was starving for water and squeasy as if you needed to gasp for air.

Shalnark reaches over to bush his thumb over your burning cheek before lightly gripping your chin to look up at him. “Seems like you may need water more than anything else. Wouldn’t want you to be too dehydrated for me.” You squirm away from his touch only to have him hold your jaw tighter. “I didn’t say you can look away, did I?”

“No,” you whisper. Shal’s thumb moved to your lips. They part when his finger presses lightly on the bottom lip to wetten them with your own saliva.

He chuckles: “Good girl.”

The blonde stranger’s words catch the breath in your chest which causes you to inadvertently cough and squirm away. “I’m sorry,” you mumble as you try to find a safe hiding place for your eyes that’s not the burrowing gaze of the man in front of you.

“No need to be sorry, princess,” he says while motioning to the bartender. He orders two waters. Shalnark ignored the rolling eyes of the worker,

“You didn’t order anything for yourself?” you question.

“No. I want to be coherent too. Any drinks and you may squirm away from me too much.” Your weight shifted between your feet. Before the bartender could return, Shalnark leaned in right next to your ear and mumbled “not that you aren’t already squirming for me.”

Your lips part to respond as the bartender sets down two bottles of water. Shalnark picks up both and hands you the other one.

“Anything else for you two?”

“Not now. But keep an open tab. I’ll be back for more.” The bartender takes this as his cue to find other patrons who will pay more. Your partner uncapped the lid and drank the full bottle down with almost no stops.

“Trying to impress me?” you tease while upcapping your own bottle. You take a few sips to try and cool your heat-filled cheeks.

“No,” he says while looking disinterestedly at the plastic in his hand. “I’ll need an excuse to use the restroom later. It’ll look suspicious if I take you to the bathroom the moment we walk in.”

Your nose scrunches while putting the bottle back onto the counter. “Why would you..?”

“Don’t tell me you’re that oblivious, princess,” Shalnark says. His tongue reaches out to wet his lips. The blonde’s pupils were blown as he leaned over the bar and into your space; making sure there are no gaps between you. Fear sends a chill down your spine. “I’ll want to take that pretty dress off and do unspeakable things to you.” Your grip tightens on the plastic as some of the water splashes onto your dress. “Ah now you have to come with me. We have to dry off.”

Shanark’s hand rested once again in your trembling hand as the bottle was left on the bar. Part of you hoped you’d never see that bottle again.

The swinging door finally closing was the last barrier between the two of you. Shalnark roughly gripped the clothing that guarded your hips and pulled you into a rough kiss. His force knocked the wind out of your chest. His body cages you against the door; although, that’s not what you would call it. Your arms were wrapped tightly around his neck

For his stature, you weren’t expecting his hands to be forceful enough to pull you against his own. You could have sworn you heard a tear of fabric as Shalnark looked for the skin of your back or hips. You wouldn’t be one to look at it until much later. Instead, you focused on the warmth pressing on his lips and warm breath against your own.

“Shal,” you groan while hiking your legs higher. He took the cue and pushed his full weight into your to lift your body so that you can wrap your legs around his waist. Your dress shifts up to around your waist.

You whimper while feeling his cock pressing into your thigh. Thick enough to feel it was semi hard. Your hips inadvertently grinded against the man. Shalnark pulled away from your lips with only a string of saliva and a whine to replace the once filthy noises.

“Did I tell you to grind against my dick?” he asks. His grip tightens against the small of your back.

“No?” you question. Your mind is a little hazy and lustful.

“No…” Shalnark’s voice trails off with a commanding expectation.

“No, master?”

“Better. But I’m looking for a word that starts with d.”

You could feel yourself absentmindedly closing your legs to gain any friction on your already wet pussy. “No daddy. You didn’t say I can grind against you.”

“Good girl,” he whispers against the shell of your ear. He peppers soft kisses against your lobe before ripping the little piece of fabric against your cunt. You squirm to try and close as the cold air hits your unclothed pussy. “Now. Hands up.”

You cock your head but comply. Shalnark shifts to hold you up by pressing your weight into the door. Your hands dangle above only for him to use your ripped underwear to tie your hands together. He ties them tightly while crossed. “Better,” he grunts before letting you down from his waist.

Shalnark strips the thin shirt and places it on the door knob. Your body trembles from the cool of the room mixed with fear of what could happen. He places a chaste kiss on your lips which leaves your head spinning and wanting more.“Knees, kitten,” the blonde commands and you follow.

When your knees hit the floor, you felt the force of the inability to use your hands. No matter how hard you tug, you cannot get released. You realized how under control you were of this strange man. The realization made your thighs slicker with your own wetness.

“Good little slut. I’ll treat you so nice if you suck my cock well.” Shalnark reaches a hand into your hair and tug it enough to look up at him. He chuckles at your open lips and doe-eyed look. The spider uses his other hand to pull out his throbbing cock. His tip was angry, red and leaking.

You wet your lips before kitten licking his tip. Shalnark hissed at the sudden touch. Curses escaped his lips and the grip on your hair tightened. You take this as a cue to keep doing a few test licks.

The salty taste edged you on to do broad stokes at the underside of his head. Without warning, the man shoves his cock into your mouth. “I’m done with your teasing kitten,” he grunts. “Treat me right.”

Your cheeks hollow as he pulls out of your warm mouth. Your tongue keeps flat against your jaw as Shal sets the pace. At first he’s kind by not shoving his full length in your mouth; however, this kindness doesn’t last.

One push is a little too far and causes you to gag around his length. This pushes the spider to go a little deeper. Your gag reflex would be your betrayal. Shalnark grips the back of your head to guide you at the pace he wants while your hands dig into his thighs. You could feel the trembling of his cock before he pulled away from your lips. Saliva runs down your chin and neck. Soon enough you kept your mouth open and let him use you.

“Fuck you got me too close princess,” Shalnark grunts while helping you to your feet. “Let me treat you to the same.”

At first, you were excited. Then you realized he didn’t cum. You got him close but not enough. Your eyes widen as he kisses your burning lips. “No daddy. I want to cum.”

“Good use of your word kitten,” he mumbles while dragging you to the sink. “I’ll let you cum if you do good. I promise.” His eyes twinkle with some miscivious thoughts.

He uses the sink as a way to prop up your body. You pray that it will continue holding your weight as Shalnark lifts your right leg over his sanding shoulder. This position creates a throbbing pull on your muscles.

A single finger dips into your dripping cunt. He’s teasing the outside as you quake against his touch. You pull at your restraints in hopes of helping him give you something to clench your walls around. “P-please,” you whine.

“Please what, princess?” Shalnark questions.

“Please touch me, daddy,” you cry. Your hips buckle against his touch. Shal hums but compiles. He moves a finger inside your warm cunt which causes you to gasp. Your back arches before hitting the glass of the mirror behind you with your exposed back.

Shalnark curls his finger and touches the spot that sends stars around your eyes. His finger picks up speed while moving in and out of your pussy. Whimpers and whines fall from your lips with little regard for who could hear.

Another finger is added to the one. His pace picks up. “Princess, you’re not ready for me yet. You have to take three of my fingers before being able to handle my cock.”

You whine again. Two felt like enough. You were spread and drowning in your own pleasure; yet, he refused to touch the bundle of nerves. You clenched down on his fingers. “You do that princess and I’ll make it four,” Shalnark whispers. Your pussy made slapping noises with each thrust of his hand.

For all you new, you could be covering his hand with your juices. You wanted to complain but Shal spread you more with a third finger. You clench at the small pain even though he slowed down.

“Doing so well, kitten.” Tears pricked your eyes. Soon Shal could move his fingers without you tightening around them. He took this opportunity to pull out his fingers and lick off any of the remaining juice.

He tears the underwear that holds your wrists. You had no objections as the binding was starting to hurt your arms and wrists. An acceptable pain that would leave bruises for days to come.

Before you could gain composure, Shalnark flips you over to look at yourself in the mirror. Mascara ran down your face from the tears of pleasure and slight pain. Your pupils were blown and lips plump from the barrage of his thick cock. The once beautiful dress was pushed away so that your tits were hanging out. You looked like a sweaty whore; however, your partner only looked hotter. Sweat dripped down his face and wetted his hair. He was filled with determination.

Your once bound wrists were tied by one of his hands behind your back. He uses the other one to line up his cock at your entrance. He traces your lips with the tip of his cock before pushing in. “Fuck,” you grunt while pushing your face more into the mirror. Shalnark uses the momentum of pulling your wrists to bounce you further on his dick.

“Oh princess, you feel better than I imagined,” your partner grunted as he slid out only to push back in. The hand not bound to your wrist slaps your ass at the same time his cock slammed into you.

He did this a few more times until the stinging pain was replaced by Shalnark fucking into you faster. Your whimpers turn into soft screams. Lewd slapping of skin and a few of the spider’s grunts echoed in the small bathroom.

Shal reached up to twist your head to look at yourself in the mirror. “Look at you princess.” He sticks a finger into your open mouth. Drool pools on the end of the sink. “Look at how much of a whore my pretty princess is. Drooling for my cock.”

His hand slid from your mouth to your neck. Lifting you up so that your back is flush against his chest. The hand that was on your wrists was repositioned to your clit. He rubbed rough circles in hopes that the growing tension in your stomach would break.

“Fuck ‘m close,” Shalnark grunts. His hand at your neck tightens around your airway while making it hard to breathe. It was all too much. Your clit, Shalnark’s hand, his thick cock fucking into you.

For the moment after you came, you swore you saw stars. Shalnark pumped a few more times into your cunt until he squirts his cum inside. He bites down on your neck to keep him from moaning. It wasn’t until he was coming down that he finally allowed you to take in the precious oxygen you desperately needed.

Shalnark’s teeth were replaced with soft kisses to your sweat covered skin. He pulled out of you once he and you had come down from your collective highs. Your shaking legs were covered in a mixture of your own cum and his. You shiver from the loss of him filling you up.

“Can you walk, darling?” the blonde questions.

“Yes?”

“Good because we’re going to a hotel. I’m not letting you go.”

“What about our bar tab?” Your question felt hoarse and tired. You had no more fight in you.

“Fuck the bar tab,” Shalnark says while handing you his shirt. “I’m going to fuck you until you can’t walk tomorrow.”

Masterlist

#shalnark #phantom troupe #shalnark x reader #shalnark x you #hxh #hunter x hunter #shalnark smut #a writes #hxh smut #hunter x hunter smut

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xoluvx · 3 years

Text

flashbacks; t.holland

Pairing: frat!boy tom x fem!reader Warning: smut Word Count: 2.9K

The sugary taste of the party concoction in your cup coated your tongue as you leaned into your bubbly friend. She was clutching your arm as the rim of the cup ghosted your lips. You could almost feel the sticky residue of the drink as the cup slightly bumped your lip, your friend expressing something excitedly.

Licking your lips, you looked into the crowd trying to pinpoint the boy she was currently obsessing over. One of the reasons you were here; and not cuddled in bed with a glass of wine and reruns of your comfort show.

“Are you going to stand here all night or are you going to make a move?” you asked teasingly lifting your brow, taking a sip of the sweet drink. You were so going to regret this tomorrow. The hangover was already looming.

“And look desperate? No way,” she scoffed straightening her back; her chest almost spilled from the tight top she was wearing. Which only made you aware of your own ensemble. Jeans that were stretchy, but somehow itchy and uncomfortable and a simple black tank that suddenly felt very tight. Despite it being one of your favorites.

It was just the party. It wasn’t that you didn’t like to party; you just weren’t in the mood. Especially when your friend was clinging to your side like a wounded puppy who wouldn’t shut up about this guy she’d decided not to chase. Whatever that meant.

Taking a sip of your drink, you glanced towards the mob of people dancing, counting the minutes until you could get home. You were completely oblivious to the brown haired boy who was mimicking your moves; his lips wrapping around the cool glass of his beer.

“So who invited you?” you asked over the roaring music trying to get the attention of your friend, but she was so caught up in looking for the drinks she had completely missed your question. There were a few girls who had tagged along, none of which you were close with.

Your roommate had dragged you here, and being that you hardly got out somehow you’d decided this would be good. A good college experience.

But the loud music was thumping in your ears and thumping in your heart as you tried adjusting to the unknown environment. A cup was shoved near your face and you took it, not questioning its contents. Only becoming aware of the alcohol when you took a careful sip.

“You’ll get used to it,” your roommate spoke over the music pushing the cup towards your lips again, as if the more you drank the less you’d notice the alcohol disguised as fruit punch.

She wasn’t wrong.

It’d been an almost an hour; your body was warm from the heat radiating from the sea of bodies. People standing too close; so close you had definitely bumped into girls’ boobs and guys’ groins.

Seeking fresh air, you sighed a wave of relief when you managed to sneak out the house. There were people out in the backyard, but nothing compared to the crowd inside. And unlike inside, there was fresh air circulating.

You awkwardly stood against the wall of the house. The cool surface sent shivers down your spine, but it was refreshing. Your third cup of jungle juice was half empty, but you were babysitting it. Holding it close to your lips as you looked at the people minding their business in the backyard.

None of their faces familiar.

And none of your attention on the boy holding a blunt, glancing at you whenever it wasn’t his turn in the rotation.

Tom snapped out of the memory; the first time he’d seen you was probably an accident, but it’d felt like fate to him. Like you were meant to waltz out of the house and he was meant to see you. To cross paths with you.

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t have every girl at this party, he’d talked to a few, but there was something about you that caught his attention.

Tom watched you eyes light up as you laughed softly at something someone in your friend group had said. He was standing near the music “booth” with some of his brothers. The guys around him were laughing, shoving each other, daring each other to hit on that girl or sleep with that one, but Tom was watching you.

You had turned your back, still oblivious to his presence and still feet away from him, talking to someone he’d vaguely remembered. Your old roommate maybe.

He signaled to the person who was DJ for the night. Soon the house filled with the familiar tune. One that caused you to look towards the DJ.

Your eyes locked with Tom’s and a small smirk spread across his lips as he took a sip of beer never breaking eye contact.

Gulping, you breathed shakily bringing the cup to your lips hiding half of your face.

“Do you want to dance?” The voice startled you causing you to turn around. His breath was warm on your neck, he was close enough to taste. You turned to your roommate who had dragged you back in. She smiled, shrugging her shoulders before slowly backing away giving you no option, but to accept. Not that you didn’t want to.

“Okay,” your breathing was shaky as your heart thumped letting him lead you through the dancing bodies until you were in a small section spacious enough for your bodies.

Unsure of what to do you swayed your body to the beat of the song, your hand still in his. You could dance to it, but it was slow, too slow for you to awkwardly dance to it face to face.

He wasn’t shy. Swiveling your body, his arm wrapped around your torso, fingers still intertwined. You could feel his warm breath on your skin again as your bodies pressed together. The two of you swaying to the song.

The seconds of the song seemed to elongate. Like you were dancing in slow motion. His hands were now on the side of your thighs; his fingers slowly ran up your legs until they were digging the sides of your waist pulling you closer if that was possibly.

He was a stranger, but the way your body melted into his made you think otherwise.

Shifting your gaze from his, you tried hard to ignore him. Tried hard to push out the memory of your first interaction. The first time you felt him pressed against you.

But his gaze was piercing, you could feel it burning holes through your clothes.

Excusing yourself, you made your way towards the bathroom. The bathroom only you knew about. It was the only way you could escape the thoughts racing through your mind and his piercing gaze.

Taking a deep breath, you held to the sides of the counter looking at yourself in the mirror. In the matter of thirty minutes you’d had almost two cups of the intoxicating sweet juice, you hoped the alcohol didn’t hit you all at once. But as you looked at yourself in the mirror, it felt like you were stepping outside of your body. And you were looking at yourself looking at yourself in the mirror.

Composing yourself, you straightened your back giving yourself a pep talk before swinging the bathroom door open.

“Hey,” his voice rang in your ears clearly over the music softly thumping downstairs.

Looking up, your lips parted watching him lean against the door frame. He’d been waiting for you. While you were trying to hype yourself, he was waiting. The false confidence quickly dissipated seeing him.

“You okay, love?” he asked cheekily. You felt yourself growing warmer. A small twinge in your heart heated your temper.

“Perfect,” you said through gritted teeth. He pushed past you leaning against the bathroom counter. Crossing his arms, he glanced at the counter before turning to you. You could’ve left. He wasn’t holding you back, but you stayed put still in the bathroom now facing him.

“Remember when we-” he started saying running his hand over the cool marble, looking up at you. His eyes dark.

You tried rolling your eyes at the memory he was referring to, but vivid images of your body pressed against the cold marble as Tom held an arm around your chest urging you to look in the mirror as he fucked you flashed through your head.

A cheeky smile spread across his lips as he watched your hands turn into fists. Biting the inside of your lip, you scoffed trying to keep your cool. But the burning images of his cheek pressed against yours, his hips rutting against your ass were still too clear to pretend like it’d ever happened.

Tom pushed himself off the counter swiftly urging you to push your back against the bathroom wall. His arms stretched, so he was trapping you. His smile small, but teasing as he watched your breath hitch.

“I remember,” he whispered. The warm gust of air from his breath made your lids flutter and you felt yourself melting into him all over again. Falling into his trance. Making you remember.

It’d become a habit. One you didn’t mind. You’d show up at parties and he was there to sweep you away a few minutes after your arrival. Soon enough you were sneaking back into his house, when there weren’t parties, and you’d spend hours tangled in his sheets letting him do unspeakable things to your body.

His lips were like honey. They stuck to yours and you wanted to relish in every ounce of its sweetness.

When he’d ask you to spend the night, after weeks of sneaking in, there was a part of you that felt proud. Like you’d won this rare trophy no one had ever acquired. It also confused you. Because your relationship with Tom was completely sexual. But your feelings were conflicted and your body was starting to confuse his warmth with love.

Especially that first night you slept over.

He’d touched you differently. His sheets felt warmer and so did his caresses. He kissed you softly holding your chin as he pushed himself into you. The wave of ecstasy washed over you as he thrust into you gently building the pace until you were whimpering under him, moaning his name repeatedly. Holding his shoulders, biting his skin gently as he made your body quiver. Your pussy pulsing against his cock.

It was different.

And you’d fallen asleep. Just like that, wrapped in his arms under his covers. Like it was the most normal shit. Like you’d been doing it for years.

But it didn’t last. Of course it didn’t. Nothing ever does.

“You’re so full of it,” you whispered through gritted teeth, shaking your head pushing past him leaving a dumbfounded Tom in the bathroom.

Tom’s lids fluttered with confusion, though he knew exactly what he’d done. He knew the course of events that led to this precise moment.

Your head rested on Tom’s pillow, his cool sheets rested limply over your body as you turned to look at him. His lids fluttering open, lips slightly parted as he felt the warm rays of sun warning his back.

The back of your hand softly stroked his cheek until your fingers found their way into his messy hair. Messy hair and all he was still so attractive. His lips curled slightly and you smiled as your hand rested on the back of his neck, your fingers playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck.

You felt your heart skip a beat and you caught your breath trying not to think too deeply into what this was.

“You should probably go,” Tom’s voice was husky. You blinked. Did he just say what you thought he said? The harsh words pierced through your chest and you furrowed your brows. “I mean- you probably don’t want the guys to see you,” he voice trailed off as he tried reaching out to you.

But his words were ringing in your head and you were already pushing the covers off your body searching for your clothes.

Tom quickly got out of bed watching you fumble with the buttons of your jeans.

“I didn’t mean it-” Tom tried explaining himself slipping into his boxers.

“I got it.” You snapped pulling your shirt on. “Wouldn’t want them to know Tom has a heart. Better yet, that you’re not sleeping around with multiple women, it’d hurt your reputation.” You wanted to hurt him with your words.

“You’re right,” Tom said plainly going to the door opening it for you as you finished slipping on your shoes.

You wanted your words to sting just as much as his had. You also wanted him to chase after you.

But he wasn’t.

Tom inhaled holding on to the bathroom counter seeing his reflection in the mirror. Exhaling, he shook his head leaving.

You know you should’ve left by now. The whole encounter with Tom should’ve been enough to send you out the door, but the feelings that arose were desperate to be numbed. And what better way to do that than alcohol?

“Drink!” A roar of voices erupted as someone stacked the cup on yours. The bitter taste of the beer coated your lips, its taste was familiar only ever on your lips after Tom’s were on yours. But it was still bitter; you shut your eyes trying to wash out its taste.

When you opened your eyes, the arm that’d brushed against yours as you lowered the cup was none other than Tom’s. His usually teasing look had vanished, simply taking the ball from your hand to continue the game.

You tried keeping your cool. Despite having stormed out the bathroom and holding the upper hand, you could feel yourself melting at the thought of standing next to him. Flashbacks of playing drinking games with him, his arm hanging around you, lips slightly brushing against your cheek when he’d say something, flashed behind your eyes as you shut them for a second.

“I think it’s time for shots,” someone exclaimed. It was one of Tom’s frat brothers, one of the ones who lived in the house and who probably knew everything that’d gone down between you and Tom.

“You down?” his voice roared again holding the bottle of tequila towards you. Your friend bumped your side slightly encouraging you. Shrugging, letting out a small laugh, you reached for the bottle, but he quickly retracted.

“Body shots,” he smiled cheekily. You could feel yourself growing hotter, Tom still standing a few inches behind. You could feel his eyes burning holes into your back. The guy motioned with his head; Tom reached for the bottle.

Biting the inside of your mouth, you watched Tom tilt his head at you. Almost as if asking you if you were down. The people who’d been playing stack cup were still around the table, watching your every move. Hoping on the table, you sat tilting your neck as Tom ran a slice of lemon along your skin, sprinkling salt on the same spot after.

It seemed like everyone else has faded. It was only you, Tom and your beating heart. Taking a swig of the bottle, Tom scrunched his face before sticking his tongue out. He ran it along the stripe of salt on your neck and lingered on your skin longer than you’d expected. His lips slightly wrapped around your skin before he retracted leaving your skin tingling and your heart fluttering.

The uproar of cheers drowned out, but you were quickly replaced by another girl who was now holding her arm out letting someone else lick salt off her skin.

Tom licked his lips, running a finger along his bottom lip ignoring everyone else.

“I’m going,” you said motioning towards the door that led to the backyard. You didn’t owe him an explanation, but you were left in an awkward silence, you felt like you needed to excuse yourself. Tom nodded his head giving you a tight line smile as you turned quickly pulling out your cellphone

Typing out a message to your friend letting know you were leaving, you slipped into the cold night. You made your way towards the side of the house knowing there was a path that led to the front of the house. The cold air hit your face and you wrapped your arms around your torso watching the scattered bodies who were getting fresh air.

Passing the front door, you made your way down the sidewalk. You were all too familiar with the path that led home. Focused on getting home quickly, you didn’t sense the body walking quickly behind you trying to catch up to you. It wasn’t until a gasping Tom was running backwards catching your attention.

“Tom,” you gasped clutching your chest, but still not stopping. You continued walking.

“Hey,” he said exhaling.

“What are you doing?” you asked trying to look ahead of you. Just one more block.

“I wanted to make sure you got home safe,” he said settling at your side walking next to you.

“I’ll be fine,” you said. “I know my way home.” You could feel your chest tightening as he walked next to you. You didn’t look at him, but you could feel his arm brushing against yours, his eyes tracing the profile of your face.

“Can I still walk with you?” he almost whispered. There was a softness in his voice. Like he was surrendering. Admitting his wrongs and letting you take the lead. If you were willing to.

You didn’t say anything, you just kept walking while your heart skipped.

Somehow you felt at ease, though. The flashbacks replaced by Tom’s soft breathing at your side.

masterlist

#tom holland #tom holland imagine #fratboy!tom #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland x y/n #tom holland smut

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mitsungo · 3 years

Text

　∧＿∧

（｡･ω･｡)つ━☆・*。

⊂　　ノ　　　・゜+.

しーＪ　　　°。+ *´¨)

　　.· ´¸.·*´¨) ¸.·*¨)

(¸.·´ (¸.·’* ✫⌒*･ﾟ

　　I didn’t expect the second part to become more popular! It honestly shocked me! I kinda have an idea of where I’ll be going with the ending—kinda don’t. Idk. We’ll just wait and see how this progresses! Also just go with the flow on this please 😵‍💫

　　✧༺🔥༻∞　🌸　∞༺❄️༻✧

Kyojuro had never wished for nothing more than to live a peaceful life with Y/n after retiring from the demon slayer corps. She was a wonderful person, ever since he had met her, he had known that she would be the girl he would one day call his wife, and she would call him her husband. He and his fellow hashira, named Uzui, would talk about marriage and occasionally talk about children and retiring. Though Uzui would get carried away when it came to the children part, adding more to the conversation about making the children and not imagining how the children would be like. When Uzui talked about that topic, Kyojuro would get startled and start sweating, before he would change the topic as fast as he could. But heaven knows that Uzui would pick up the idea that Kyojuro was still, pure, as Uzui would put it. So what if he was? He and his fiancée agreed that they would consummate their marriage duties once they got married. But then again, Uzui would tell him about how wonderful it felt to, be intimate with a partner.

“Y/n, may I ask you something?” Kyojuro asked, his eyebrows furrowing a bit, to show off that he was going to be serious in the conversation. “Of course Kyo, what is it that you wish to know?” Y/n replied gently, her eyes now fixated on his own. “Have you ever thought of, being intimate…on another level?” Kyojuro felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment at the question he had just asked his fiancée. Y/n abruptly stopped sewing, she didn’t move for a good minute, before she put the needle and kimono down on her lap. “Well, if I am completely honest. I don’t really know what you mean by that dear. What do you mean, ‘on another level’? Are you trying to say…” she paused, her cheeks turning bright red as she realized what he meant. “I hope I didn’t make you uncomfortable by asking you that. But I just, wanted to know. You know? I mean, the farthest we’ve gone to is kissing and occasionally leaving small marks on one another.” Kyojuro said, he really hoped he hadn’t made y/n’s opinion change on him. What if she thought he was a pervert now. How embarrassing. As he was lost in thought, y/n burst into laughter, starling Kyojuro in the process. “You could have just asked me if you wanted to make love Kyo. No need to be shy with me! We’ve known each other since we were children darling!” She let another fit of giggles escape her mouth as she desperately tried to cover it with a hand over her mouth. How cute. “Guess you’re right! I’ll try to be more straightforward next time!” He shot her a bright smile, causing y/n to stop giggling and stare at him in awe. Kyojuro made his way over to y/n, kneeling down in front of her and taking out a small picture of her and him together in kimonos she had made for them. “Always and forever, my beautiful wife.” He felt y/n gently put the picture back into his pocket, her fingers entangling with his own. “Always and forever, my handsome husband.” Kyojuro looked into his future wife’s eyes, those beautiful shining orbs of life and color. She leaned in closer to his face, her lips touching his. “Let’s get married here now then. And we can consummate the marriage before you depart tomorrow for that mission of yours.” Kyojuro closed his eyes, placing his forehead onto her own, smiling gently at her, “Very well. I will marry you here. And you will marry me here. Together, we will bring our two families and more importantly our souls together.” She nodded, smiling back at him with a warm smile like the sun. They both leaned in, closing the gap between them. Just how lucky was he to have such an amazing woman in his life? He would never know.

Now looking at the situation he was in, with upper rank 3’s arm piercing through his stomach, he wished he had married y/n sooner. They had only spent two months secretly married together, he was hoping to be spending his entire lifetime with her. He couldn’t give up now, not without a fight, not until he cut this demon’s head off. Kyojuro knew y/n would want him to fulfill his mission, just as his mother would too. He had to do it now. “I WON’T LET YOU ESCAPE! NOT UNTIL I CUT THAT HEAD OF YOURS!” He yelled at the demon, who had began to panic due to the sun rising. “LET GO! I SAID LET GO!” Akaza screamed, but to no avail. Kyojuro could feel his body start to succumb to his wound, no, he had to continue fighting. His mind started to get a bit fuzzy his vision on his right eye following right behind. Kyojuro felt Akaza rip himself away from his grasp, so this was it. The fight was over. He could finally rest. He had also lost the picture he always kept near his heart of him and y/n, how much he wanted to cry from not being able to see her face one more time.

“You will, live on without me. I will see you again.”

The day after Kyojuro’s funeral, she locked herself up in her room, ignoring her aunt and uncle’s plea for her to come out and eat or be in the garden. How could she eat or do anything when the man she loved had just died? Y/n undid her hair, throwing the pin away in a corner of her room. The sound of it hitting the wall harshly, she didn’t pay no attention to it, nothing mattered anymore. Nor she, or anyone. Her eyes started to tear up again, she looked up and saw one of the unfinished kimono’s in her room. Y/n grit her teeth in anger, yanking the kimono from the rack, grabbing a pair of scissors and tearing it apart. The one beautiful piece of fabric was now a torn up piece of cloth. She fell to her knees, her head starting to hurt from the anger and grief.

“Kyojuro! Why did you leave me all alone? Now who will be my other half if not you? Gods, what have I done to anger you enough to take away my husband from me? Please, take care of him for me until I go with him and my parents. Who am I to judge you for your decisions? Even then, I can not live without Kyojuro!” She proclaimed to no one, her hands gripping tightly on the kimono she had just shred into pieces. Why was this world so cruel to her? To everybody? She knew others had gone through much worse, and only now did she understand those who have lost their entire families, friends, and even themselves. How tragic. Her uncle and aunt were shocked when she had come down later in the night to the garden. Y/n looked up at them, her hair a mess, eyes red and a shredded kimono in hand.

“I renounce my title as a seamstress.”

A whole month has passed since Akaza had met Y/n. The two have gotten closer to one another, almost as if they were best friends. He had just arrived for the night at her home, the scent of her perfume in the room.

“Oh, Akaza. You’re here. Please. Take a seat.” Y/n said, gesturing for him to sit down in his designated spot. As he walked over to the small tea table, his eyes caught a certain picture frame that was placed in between a small shrine. Akaza picked up the frame, glancing behind his back to make sure y/n was not there, he studied the picture, it was Y/n and Kyojuro. Both of them smiling softly with their hands intertwined. It made him a bit jealous seeing kyojuro there with her, he didn’t deserve a woman like y/n. “So, are you going to teach me how to sew details into a kimono today or are you just—.” He stopped mid sentence, his mouth covered by y/n’s hands. She leaned into his ear and said, “I know you were the one that murdered Kyojuro.” He felt his eyes widen. “But don’t worry, I do not hate you. Humans and demons are sworn enemies. One may say that you are evil, doing unspeakable things to mankind, but even so, you are still a living creature, as I know you do not age, and you can be killed. Any living thing can be killed, though your morals are different than ours, I understand. What you think you do is righteous , and what the demon slayers think they do is righteous, it will in the end be the same. Killing one another because of different perspectives.” Y/n pulled her hands off his mouth, and backing away slowly. Akaza turned to face her, his face written with confusion and thoughtfulness. “You truly are an odd woman.” Was all he said in response. “They say the best people are a bit odd.” She giggled, taking his hand into her own. “Come now, let me show you how I do these details.”

The wind had began to pick up more now. With the petals of fallen wisteria flowers being taken away by the air and into the unknown. Akaza had just had a hard night, first he was summoned to an upper moon meeting, it seemed that an upper moon had died and their master was not happy at all, then that idiot with the blood stained hair had to go and bother him. How irritating, if only he could beat that parasite. But at least he would be going to go visit y/n today, since he didn’t have much do to. Akaza arrived in a matter of time, he poked his head into her room, his eyebrows furrowed when he noticed y/n’s scent was different today, sickly almost. He began to panic.

“Y/n? Where are you?” He took another look around the room and ran towards the end of the hall. “I’m downstairs, in the study room.” Akaza heard her say, he quickly made his way down to the room she said she was in. He slid open the door and saw y/n sitting down with her hand over her stomach. “Akaza, I found out, today, that I am pregnant.” His jaw dropped at the news, what the actual fuck? “How are you pregnant? I mean, is that even possible? Who’s baby is it? Have you been seeing men behind my back?” He started asking her, though he knew that couldn’t be the answer, as he would have smelt the scent of another man sooner. “I’ve only ever slept with you and kyojuro. This is very hard for me to even understand.” Akaza frowned when he realized that the baby growing inside had to be Kyojuro’s, it irritated him, now this day has truly become the worst one. As he was lost in thought, he snapped back to reality when he felt y/n’s soft hand tightly grip his. “I do not know why, but I have a feeling that there are two babies in me. And you are the father of one of them. You don’t need to stay by my side anymore. I understand. I wouldn’t stay either.” She happily said. Akaza’s eyes widened at her words, could that be a possibility, and would he actually want to keep staying here with her? Perhaps it was, or not. Only time will tell. As for staying with her, he didn’t know how to feel anymore. Y/n looked at him, her gaze slowly breaking away from his own, as if she was getting the aura that he wasn’t so sure anymore about anything. Y/n felt a smile creep up on her face, she pulled her hand away from his and slowly got up. But Akaza quickly yanked her back and embraced her, not too tightly, as he was worried he would hurt her and the babies. Akaza closed his eyes as he felt her arms wrap around him. This was a familiar feeling. He opened his mouth to finally give a response,

“I will stay with you no matter what.”

#demon slayer #rengoku kyoujurou #akaza x reader #kyojuro x reader #rengoku x you #fanfic #akaza kimetsu no yaiba

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beifongsss · 4 years

Text

playing with fire pt. 1 [sokka]

Pairing: Sokka x reader

Summary: You’re a Fire Nation citizen who saves Sokka and Katara from some angry villagers. Aang "convinces” you to come along with them, finding your knowledge of the nation useful. Not everything is smooth sailing though as both Water Tribe siblings have their doubts about you.

this will be a series :D this takes place when they’re at the northern water tribe

prologue

.masterlist.

The air around you was cool, a lot cooler than you were used to. Shivering, you curled up into a ball, grasping at the thick blankets that covered you.

“I see you’re awake.”

Your eyes shot open at the unfamiliar voice and you immediately began to sit up.

“Careful, you took quite a nasty hit,” the person spoke again. “Our healers did all they could but you’re going to be a bit sore for a while.”

Bright blue eyes burned into yours as you winced and sat up slowly. You turned to face the unknown man, a wary look on your face as you addressed him.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“I am Chief Arnook of the Northern Water Tribe,” the man said, his eyes never leaving you. Almost immediately, you got off the bed and kneeled, bowing your head in respect.

“It is an honor to be in your presence,” you said, head still bowed. “Thank you for opening your home to us.”

The man stood but stayed silent, causing you to look up at him. “I know who you are and I know that you ran away from the Fire Nation. I don’t know why you are here but the Avatar told us how you saved his life and the life of our sister Tribe’s members so out of respect for him I will not do anything to you. There’s some Water Tribe clothes laid out for you. The people here do not take kindly to the Fire Nation.”

“Chief Arnook,” you said as the man headed for the door. He paused. “I hope you know how much I appreciate you taking me in. I hope you know that I am here to help the Avatar, not cause trouble for you. There’s a reason I fled the Fire Nation.”

The Water Tribe chief gave you a tight nod before exiting. You moved around the room slowly, changing into the warm clothes as fast as you could before exiting the room yourself. Almost immediately, you were knocked down.

“I’m sorry!” a soft voice exclaimed. You found yourself staring at an extended hand before you shook your head slightly, taking it and lifting yourself up.

“it’s alright,” you said, brushing yourself off. “I should’ve been paying more attention to my surroundings.”

Your eyes widened as you looked at the girl in front of you. She was pretty; tan skin and bright blue eyes accompanied by a soft smile. The feature that stood out the most however, was her white hair, which was styled elaborately.

“No, it was entirely my fault,” the girl replied, the smile still on her face. “You’re the Avatar’s friend, yes? I am Princess Yue.”

You bowed deeply, causing Yue to squeak and pull you up. “That isn’t necessary. Come with me, I’ll help you find your friends.”

You walked with Yue, introducing yourself as you went outside. The two of you continued on with your quiet conversation until you felt someone crash into you, again.

“(Y/N)!”

A pained whimper left your mouth as Aang hugged you tightly. You slowly wrapped your arms around the younger boy, smiling down at him as he grinned up at you. “You’re okay!”

Sokka and Katara came running up behind him, both of them panting lightly as they came to a stop. Sokka glanced at Yue, blushing brightly before averting his gaze only to do a double take when he saw you wearing Water Tribe blue. Standing next to Yue, you almost looked like royalty, were it not for your distinctive Fire Nation features.

“Aang, let go of her,” Katara said sharply, giving you a harsh glare. “Remember she’s F-”

She cut herself off when she glanced at Yue, knowing that she couldn’t risk revealing your identity. Not here. “She’s injured.”

Aang smiled sheepishly and let you go. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you mumbled, looking around at the city. “How long have I been out?”

“Only a few days!”

“A few days?” you squawked, eyes widening at his words. Aang nodded and grabbed your wrist, leading you away from the three Water Tribe teens as he told you about everything you had missed.

“...and then we got caught and Katara had to apologize to Master Pakku but she dueled him instead and now he’s teaching both of us!” Aang finished. Your eyes widened at his story.

“Hey Aang,” you began, wringing your hands nervously. “Thanks for rescuing me back in the colony. You didn’t have to.”

“Of course we had to! You saved our lives!” Aang said, staring at you in disbelief. “We couldn’t just leave you there to be captured.”

“Yes, we could’ve,” Katara interrupted. “Aang made us go back for you but don’t think for one second that any of us trust you. I’m keeping an eye on you.”

You nodded silently as Katara stomped off before turning to Aang once again. “So how did you convince Chief Arnook to not put me in jail as soon as we arrived?”

“I just told him the truth,” Aang replied. “I told him how you had helped Sokka and Katara and how you had risked your life for us. He seemed a little wary at first because he said he recognized you but I managed to convince him that I was telling the truth. Katara and Sokka also told him what happened so that helped. Now come on, I want to show you around!”

Aang bounced away, you trailing behind him until you felt someone begin to walk next to you. You glanced next to you to see Sokka staring at you.

“Where’s Princess Yue?” you asked, not seeing the girl anywhere near you.

“She had some duties to attend to,” Sokka replied. “Who are you?”

“W-What?”

“Chief Arnook said he recognized you. Why?” Sokka asked, his stare burning into you.

You sighed softly before coming to a stop, Sokka doing the same. You avoided the boy’s eyes, shifting uncomfortably. “Look, I used to be the daughter of a really well known Fire Nation general.”

“Used to be?” Sokka asked. You nodded.

“He did...unspeakable things in the name of the Fire Nation,” you explained, hoping that the Water Tribe boy would believe the words you were saying. “He was ruthless, harsh. He trained me to fight, to conquer, he said. He wanted me to take his place when I grew old enough. When I turned fourteen, I ran from home. I couldn’t bring myself to do the Fire Nation’s dirty work.”

Sokka’s gaze didn’t change as he took in your words. He studied you closely, noticing your downcast expression and the pained look in your eye. You weren’t telling the whole truth, but he could also tell that you weren’t lying. He was about to say something when Aang came running up to them

“(Y/N), what’s taking you so long? Hurry up!” this time, Aang pulled you along with him, leaving Sokka to look after the two of you as you hurried off.

A few hours you found yourself walking by the river with Aang, Momo flying lazily around the two of you. He had finally introduced you to Appa, and you had spent a good amount of time playing with the sky bison in order to thank him for helping Aang save your life. The sky bison took quite a liking to you and you found yourself damp with bison saliva long after you had left him alone. Aang had smiled widely the whole time, knowing that if Appa liked you, then he had no reason not to trust you.

Another great thing that came out of meeting Appa was finding out that your sword had been safely hidden in his saddle. You immediately fastened the weapon around your waist after looking it over, making sure that it hadn’t been damaged. Your sword was the only thing that you had kept from your life in the Fire Nation. It was one that you had crafted yourself after years of mastering the way of the sword.

“So Aang,” you began. “How has waterbending been?”

“Pretty good. Katara is doing great!”

You noticed the faint blush on the Air Nomad’s cheeks and smiled, ready to tease the boy. The remark died on your tongue however, when the snow falling around you turned dark.

“What’s going on?” Aang asked as Momo spit out the snowflakes he had caught on his tongue. This time it was you who grabbed his wrist and pulled him along as you sprinted to the palace.

“It’s the Fire Nation!”

You made it to the palace in record time and burst through the doors, throwing yourself at Arnook’s feet.

“Chief Arnook,” you began, voice trembling slightly as Aang watched the scene unfold. “I promise you that it was not I who led the Fire Nation here.”

“It wasn’t!” Aang cried out. “She’s been with me the whole day.”

Arnook stared at you for several seconds before speaking. “I trust the Avatar and so I believe you (Y/N). However, I’m afraid I cannot have you running around during the invasion. You are to stay by my side the whole time, just as a precaution.”

You nodded quietly. It seemed fair; he wasn’t blaming you but he wasn’t fully trusting you and honestly, you couldn’t ask for much more. Within a few minutes, the palace’s hall was filled with all the citizens of the Northern Water Tribe. You were sitting in the front row as Arnook gave his speech, feeling the burn of Katara’s glare the whole time.

“Now, as we approach the battle for our existence, I call upon the great spirits,” Arnook said, his speech coming to an end. “Spirit of the Ocean! Spirit of the Moon! Be with us! I'm going to need volunteers for a dangerous mission.”

Sokka was the first one up, drawing panicked glances from you, Aang, and Katara. “Count me in.”

The glare Katara was sending you softened, and the two of you found yourselves looking at each other with concern.

“Sokka,” Katara whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder. He brushed her off and stood up, making his way towards Arnook. You sent Katara and Aang a nod before standing and joining Sokka in line.

“What are you doing?” Sokka hissed, making sure to keep his voice low.

“Paying my dues,” you whispered in reply, nudging him when you realized it was his turn. He turned and walked up to Arnook, who marked him with three red line marks before turning to you. He marked you as well, giving you a deep nod before you stepped out of line and took your place next to him. You didn’t miss the disbelieving looks from Sokka or Katara.

“Men, you'll be infiltrating the Fire Nation Navy,” Chief Arnook spoke, standing in front of all the volunteers. “That means you'll all need one of these uniforms.”

A handsome boy walked forwards, wearing an old Fire Nation uniform. Almost immediately, Sokka burst out laughing as you dissolved into giggles.

“What’s your problem?” the boy asked angrily, stepping towards Sokka.

"Fire Navy uniforms don’t look like that,” Sokka retorted, his face bright red from trying to hold back his laughter.

“Of course they do,” the boy said irritably. “These are real uniforms captured from actual Fire Navy soldiers.”

“When? Like a hundred years ago?” Sokka asked mockingly.

“Eighty five, actually,” you stated, stepping in between the two boys. You put a hand on the unknown boy’s chest as he lunged forwards slightly, pushing him away from Sokka. Chief Arnook stared at you quietly, motioning for you to keep talking. You faced the boy, staring at the pointed shoulders on the uniform before placing your hands on them and brushing them off. “The Fire Nation doesn't wear shoulder spikes anymore.”

“Yeah. The newer uniforms are more streamlined,” Sokka added from behind you. The boy stared at you for a second too long, causing you to flush underneath his gaze. He had the trademark blue eyes of the Water Tribe and a strong jawline, his handsome face being framed by strands of hair that weren’t pulled up in his half-ponytail. A smirk appeared on his face as he took in the color of your cheeks.

“How do we know we can trust this guy?" the boy asked, looking away from you and glaring at Sokka. “Such bold talk for a new recruit.”

Your blush immediately faded at his words, and you resisted the urge to scoff at his condescending attitude.

“Sokka is from our sister tribe, Hahn,” Arnook replied, looking at the boy. “He's a capable warrior and I value his input. Now, our first objective is to determine the identity of their commanding officer.”

“His name is Zhao,” Sokka said smugly.

“Zhao?” you asked, eyes wide. Sokka nodded, looking at you curiously.

“What about him?” Arnook asked you, looking slightly concerned. “You know him?”

“He’s middle-aged,” you replied as you nodded. “Has big sideburns, but an even bigger temper. He’s not exactly the nicest person to be around; there’s a reason he rose through the ranks so quickly.”

Sokka gaped at you, wondering how you knew that information. He thought back to your earlier words, wondering if the father you had been talking about was Zhao. He definitely fit the description; ruthless and harsh and willing to do anything for the Fire Nation.

Arnook looked at you for a few minutes, deciding whether or not he could truly trust you. He looked at you as you panicked slightly, afraid now that the Fire Nation was here. The Avatar had vouched for you and you had been nothing but respectful since your arrival. He sighed deeply as he came to a decision.

“Alright. (Y/N), I want you to stay here with Sokka, I want the two of you to tell Hahn everything you know. He's leading this mission. Hahn, show them your respect and keep an eye on (Y/N),” Arnook began to walk away, wanting to check on the city. “I expect nothing less from my future son-in-law.”

“I won’t let you down, Chief Arnook,” you whispered as he passed you. He looked down at you and gave you an unreadable look.

“I hope not.”

It was silent after Arnook left, a slight awkwardness settling upon the room.

“Princess Yue’s marrying you?” Sokka finally asked, pointing at Hahn.

Shooting you a glance, Hahn answered. “It’s an arranged marriage. What of it?”

“Nothing, congratulations,” Sokka muttered, causing you to give him a sympathetic look. You remembered the way he had blushed in the princess’s presence.

“C’mon boys,” you spoke, bringing their attention to you. “We have a mission to plan.”

“So, Zhao is ruthless,” Sokka’s voice was loud and clear as he tried to speak to Hahn. “He’s smart and patient, so he probably won’t attack at night because of the moon...”

Across from him, Hahn wasn’t paying attention to anything he was saying. His gaze was focused on you as he slid closer to you, brushing up against you as he reached for a map. You shivered uncomfortably before glancing up at him, a smirk present on his face.

“Are you even listening to me?” Sokka asked exasperatedly, throwing his hands up in the air.

“Why did Arnook tell me to keep an eye on you?” Hahn asked, ignoring Sokka. “Not that I’m complaining.”

Sokka’s eye twitched irritably before he noticed the uncomfortable expression on your face. You glanced at him briefly and he tilted his head, motioning for you to come to his side. Your expression morphed into a relieved one and you swiftly ducked away from Hahn.

“It’s because I’m Fire Nation,” you admitted, hoping that the statement would get Hahn to stop talking to you.

Hahn’s eyes widened before his usual smirk reappeared on his face. “Ah, that explains it.”

“Explains what?” Sokka asked.

“It explains why she’s so hot.”

Both yours and Sokka’s expression changed into angry ones. You stepped forwards, a hand on your sword as you prepared to yell at the boy before Sokka beat you to it.

“Leave her alone!” Sokka exclaimed, approaching the boy. “Aren’t you engaged to Yue?”

“Yue’s nice and all, but the real treat are the points I gain with the Chief,” Hahn replied casually. You frowned at his words, remembering your brief interaction with the princess.

“Princess Yue is wasted on a self-absorbed weasel like you!” Sokka yelled angrily.

“Whoa, hang on. What do you care? You're just a simple rube from the Southern Tribe. What would you know of the political complexities of our life?” Hahn said sharply, his voice mocking. “No offense.”

“Leave him alone!” you replied, repeating Sokka’s earlier words. You began to walk over to the boy angrily, stopping when Chief Arnook silently walked into the room. The two boys were facing you, remaining oblivious to the presence of the Chief.

“Why are you defending him?” Hahn scoffed, looking at Sokka with disdain. “You would have a much better time with me.”

Arnook’s eyes widened at Hahn’s words, his jaw dropping when Sokka tackled the boy. You rushed over to the two boys, trying to pry Sokka away from Hahn.

“You're just a jerk without a soul,” Sokka quipped, pulling Hahn’s hair. “No offense!“

“That’s enough!” Arnook hollered, pulling the two boys apart. “Sokka you’re off the mission. Hahn, we will speak later.”

Hahn flushed as he exited the room, closely following Arnook. You stood in silence for a few seconds before facing Sokka, looking him over for any visible injuries.

“Are you okay, Sokka?” you asked, placing your hand on his arm.

“I don’t need your help!” he yelled, pulling his arm away from you and causing you to flinch. His face dropped at your reaction and he opened his mouth to apologize only to be cut off when Arnook walked back in.

The ride back to the palace was silent.

Sokka was lounging on Appa’s saddle as you sat behind the reins, watching you as you fawned over the sky bison. After Arnook had returned, he had tasked Sokka with taking care of Yue and you had been sent along with him. Sokka had tried to apologize but you had ignored the boy, taking the reins in order to avoid being near him.

“(Y/N),” Sokka suddenly said, his tone urgent as he leaned over the saddle. You didn’t answer, but you did turn your head to acknowledge him. “Bring Appa down, I think that’s Yue!”

Your eyes widened as you caught a glimpse of white hair and you immediately guided Appa down, hopping off of the sky bison as you reached Yue. Sokka copied your actions, frowning as he noticed the distraught look on Yue’s face.

“(Y/N)!” Yue cried, throwing herself into your arms. You didn’t miss the sour look from Sokka as you wrapped your arms around the girl.

“Yue, what happened?” Sokka asked, still glaring at you.

“W-We were in the Spirit Oasis,” Yue began speaking. “Aang had just entered the Spirit World when a boy showed up!”

Sokka stiffened and you sent him a questioning look.

“He fought Katara and I ran,” Yue continued, looking ashamed. “He was a firebender and he had a large scar on the left side of his face.”

“Z-Zuko,” you gasped, saying his name along with Sokka. Sokka gaped at you for a few seconds.

“How do you know his name?”

“This isn’t the time!” you said, already rushing Yue towards Appa. Sokka frowned for a few seconds before he realized you were right. He could interrogate you later. He joined Yue in the saddle as you once again took the reins, making Appa fly in the direction Yue was guiding you.

You reached the Spirit Oasis within a matter of minutes, the three of you hopping off of Appa just as Katara was gaining consciousness. Momo chittered sadly as he came up to you, leaping up and landing on your head.

“What happened?” Sokka asked, helping his sister up. “Where’s Zuko?”

“He took Aang,” Katara said miserably. “He took him right out from under me. I can’t believe I lost him.”

"You did everything you could, and now we need to do everything we can to get him back,” Sokka said, hugging Katara. “Zuko can't have gotten far. We'll find him. Aang's gonna be fine.”

Katara and Sokka whirled around when you whistled sharply. You were back on top of Appa, Yue at your side. “Well are you coming or not? We have an Avatar to find.”

Exchanging surprised glances, Sokka and Katara sprinted towards Appa. You paused for a second, glancing up at Momo before speaking. “You stay here, Momo, in case Aang comes back.”

The winged lemur let out a soft sound and flew down to the koi pond.

“Yip yip, Appa.”

Appa had been flying for a while, his speed a little slower than usual due to the blizzard.

“Don’t worry,” Yue finally said, noticing the worried looks on everyone’s faces. “Prince Zuko can't be getting too far in this weather.”

“I'm not worried they'll get away in the blizzard,” Katara said softly. “I'm worried that they won't.”

“They're not going to die in this blizzard. If we know anything, it's that Zuko never gives up,” Sokka stated, causing you to snort at his words. “They'll survive, and we'll find them.”

All of a sudden, a bright flash of light whizzed by.

“That’s gotta be Aang!” Katara said. You immediately had Appa follow the light. You landed soon enough, seeing Aang trying to crawl away from Zuko even though he was bound. You took a deep breath as your eyes landed on the banished Fire Nation prince, lowering yourself down on Appa to try and hide yourself from view. You struggled to stifle your laughter when you noticed his ponytail.

“Here for a rematch?” Zuko asked as Katara slid off of Appa.

“Trust me Zuko,” Katara snapped. “It's not going to be much of a match.”

Katara waterbended Zuko into the air before letting him fall, knocking him unconscious. You winced slightly before noticing that Sokka and Aang had climbed back on Appa.

“Wait, we can’t just leave him here!” Aang exclaimed, looking at Zuko’s body.

“Sure we can,” Sokka drawled before nudging you. “Let’s go.”

“Aang’s right,” you said, smiling at the Air Nomad. “If we leave him here, he’ll die.”

“You just want to bring him because he’s Fire Nation trash just like you,” Katara hissed as she glared at you. A hurt expression made its way onto your face at her words, even though deep down you understood her hatred. Without another word, Aang airbended himself and Zuko onto Appa.

The flight back was silent until Yue gasped in pain and grabbed her head.

“Are you okay?” Sokka asked, grabbing her arm gently.

“I feel faint,” the princess replied.

“I feel it too,” Aang groaned. “The moon spirit is in trouble.”

“I owe the moon spirit my life,” Yue said quietly.

“What do you mean?” you asked curiously. Yue looked up at the sky before explaining how she had been born sick. Chief Arnook did all he could to protect his only daughter, eventually calling upon the moon spirit to save her. It was the reason why she had white hair. It was the reason her name was Yue.

Aang, Katara, and Sokka all jumped off of Appa when they reached the Spirit Oasis, seeing Zhao trying to fight Momo. The three of them readied themselves to fight, Momo flying over to Aang and perching on his shoulder. You watched the scene unfold with Yue, keeping an eye on Zuko to make sure he didn’t wake up.

“Don’t bother!” Zhao roared, lifting up a sack that held the moon spirit.

“Zhao, don’t!” Aang exclaimed, a fearful look on his face.

“It's my destiny,” Zhao cried. “To destroy the moon and the Water Tribe.”

“Destroying the moon won't hurt just the Water Tribe,” Aang said desperately. “It will hurt everyone, including you. Without the moon, everything would fall out of balance. You have no idea what kind of chaos that would unleash on the world.”

You whimpered softly as you felt fire land between your shoulder blades, causing Yue to gasp. You moved in front of the princess, ready to protect her no matter what. Your hand fiddled with your sword as you faced your opponent, eyes widening when you met gold irises.

“Y-You,” Zuko stuttered, staring at you. “(Y/N), what are you doing here?”

“Helping the Avatar,” you replied. Zuko’s gaze hardened before he lunged at you, sending the two of you toppling over Appa’s saddle. Your breath was knocked out of you as you hit the ground, the snow digging into your burn as you felt Zuko land on top of you. “Get off of me! Spirits, you’re heavy.”

Zuko shot a fire blast at you and you easily dodged it, unsheathing your sword and running at him. The two of you fought for a minute or two, neither one of you putting in the maximum effort. The fight came to a stop however, when you heard Iroh’s voice.

“He is right, Zhao,” the once general said strongly, drawing your attention. Zuko took that opportunity to shove you to the ground before sprinting, easily making his way out of the Spirit Oasis unnoticed.

“Are you alright?” Yue asked, peering over the edge of the saddle.

“Just peachy,” you grumbled, rolling your shoulders and knowing that there would be a large bruise on your back to accompany the burn. You helped Yue down onto the ground, the two of you finally joining the group.

“General Iroh, why am I not surprised to discover your treachery?” Zhao spat, staring at Iroh with hatred.

“I'm no traitor, Zhao, the Fire Nation needs the moon, too; we all depend on the balance. Whatever you do to that spirit I'll unleash on you ten-fold. Let it go, now!”

Zhao hesitated for a second before turning and preparing to walk away. Panic seized you and you rushed forwards, dodging Sokka’s pathetic attempt to grab onto you.

“Zhao!” your sharp cry made the admiral stop, the oasis going silent as he turned around to face you with a fierce smile on his face. You didn’t miss the shocked look that Iroh sent your way, finally noticing your presence. “I command you to let that spirit go!”

“Uh (Y/N)?” Aang whispered, stepping up next to you. “What are you doing?”

“You heard the girl, Zhao,” Iroh stated firmly, still staring at you. “You know that you cannot refuse an order from her.”

Zhao’s face twisted into a snarl before bending down and letting the koi fish fall back into the pond. You all collectively let out a sigh of relief, Sokka and Katara sending you a shocked glance as Zhao listened to you. The relief was short lived however, as Zhao suddenly struck the fish with fire, killing it.

The moon disappeared from the sky, casting the world in a dull grey hue. Iroh immediately jumped into battle, easily taking down Zhao’s guards. During the chaos however, Zhao had escaped, leaving you all alone with Tui and La. You all crept closer to the pond, Iroh bending down and gently picking up the dead fish.

“There is no hope now,” Yue said sadly. “It’s over.”

“No, it’s not over,” Aang stated, entering the Avatar State. You all watched in awe as he entered the pond, La circling him as their energies merged. Within seconds, a huge amphibious-like creature stood in the Spirit Oasis, Aang in the center of it. He took off, ready to help the Northern Water Tribe defend their home.

“It’s too late,” you muttered, being the first one to draw the attention away from Aang. “It’s dead.”

“(Y/N),” Iroh whispered, trying to figure out what to say to you.

“It wouldn’t be if your nation hadn’t attacked,” Katara snapped, interrupting Iroh’s words. You bowed your head in shame as Yue stepped up to you.

“Fire Nation or not, (Y/N) had been nothing but helpful to our tribe during this time,” Yue snapped back. Giving Katara a burning glare.

“You have been touched by the moon spirit,” Iroh said suddenly, staring at Yue. “Some of its life is in you.”

“Yes, you're right. It gave me life, maybe I can give it back.”

“No!” you and Sokka screamed together. You gave each other an understanding gaze before you turned to face Iroh. “Iroh no, what are you saying?”

“You don’t have to do it,” Sokka added, giving Yue a pleading gaze.

“It is my duty,” Yue replied, glancing at you before smiling softly at Sokka.

“I won't let you!” Sokka cried, grabbing her hand. “Your father told me to protect you.”

“I have to do this.”

Everyone stepped aside as Yue approached Iroh and placed her hand on the koi fish. The fish began to glow and her eyes began to shut as she gave it life again. She slumped over a few seconds later, Sokka rushing forward to catch her. You watched silently as he checked her pulse, tears falling when he shook his head.

“No!” Sokka cried. Holding the princess close. “She’s gone!”

Iroh placed the fish back into the pond and stepped back as it swam around. Yue’s body began to fade from Sokka’s arms, causing the entire oasis to fill with an ethereal glow. An image of Yue formed in front of you, the princess smiling at you as you tried to stop your tears.

“Goodbye (Y/N),” Yue said, smiling widely. “Thank you for helping us, even when you were meant to be our sworn enemy. Remember, only we can decide our own destiny. Your past does not determine your future and don’t let others bring you down just because of where you come from.”

Katara looked down im embarrassment at Yue’s words. You sniffled as Yue approached you and wrapped you up in a hug. “Goodbye Yue.”

She approached Sokka next, gently cupping his cheek as she smiled at him. “Goodbye Sokka. I’ll always be with you. Don’t be afraid of change and don’t be afraid to love. Your time will come sooner than you expect.”

The two of them shared a kiss, causing you to look away out of respect for their privacy. Yue faded as she floated up into the sky, the moon reappearing when she finally disappeared. When you looked back at the pond, Iroh was gone. You assumed it was for the best; you had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time you ran into him, or Zuko.

A while later, you found yourself overlooking the Water Tribe with Arnook and Sokka. Your eyes were still puffy, shame heavy in your heart as you realized your nation had done this.

“The spirits gave me a vision when Yue was born,” Arnook said, sighing heavily. “I saw a beautiful, brave, young woman become the Moon Spirit. I knew this day would come.”

“You must be proud,” Sokka said, his heart also aching.

“So proud. And sad,” Arnook said before turning to you. “Thank you, (Y/N). It is safe to say you have earned the trust of our tribe. We owe our lives to you, the Avatar, and your friends.”

You bowed your head deeply and kneeled before looking up at the man. “Thank you so much, Chief Arnook. I am so sorry this happened.”

“I am too,” he said quietly, giving you a bow in return. “But you did the right thing. You have a good heart. The Fire Nation didn’t deserve to have you; fate has other plans for you.”

You and Sokka left a little while later, both of you walking sluggishly as exhaustion took over. You found Aang and Katara easily enough and Sokka wasted no time in walking up to them and wrapping his arm around his sister. You stood awkwardly off to the side, gazing out at the ocean before you felt Sokka wrap his hand around yours and pull you into him. Just this once, his sister could ignore her disdain for you.

The four of you huddled together, Aang coming in to close the group hug as he stood next to you. You whimpered softly when his hand brushed against your back, breaking the peaceful silence as you remembered that Zuko had burnt you.

“(Y/N), you’re injured!” Aang gasped, turning you around and exposing the burn to everyone else.

“Hehe, yeah,” you chuckled weakly, avoiding their glances. “Zuko and I kind of fought and I forgot about it.”

The group rolled their eyes at your words before guiding you to the healers, relishing in the rare calmness that surrounded their group for once.

taglist!

atla: @musicalkeys, @mywigglybaby, @bubblebars, @iguessthefloorislava, @dekahg, @boxofteenageideas, @costcobottledwater, @butterflycore, @coldlilheart, @the-firebender-girl, @ajediherowitchrunner, @lammello, @astroninaaa, @samsmultifandomblogs, @sadskater25

playing with fire: @ilovespideyyy, @binaryssunsets, @a----rag, @existing-but-nonexistent, @milk-n-cheese

sorry to anyone who tumblr wouldn’t let me tag! :(

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tenspontaneite · 3 years

Text

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 24/?)

In which Corvus has some visitors, Rayla takes the princes somewhere nice for a change, and Runaan sits in a new cell.

Warnings: Food shortage; discussion and portrayal of recently acquired physical disabilities.

(Chapter length: 17.5k. Ao3 link)

---

Corvus regarded his visitors. His visitors regarded him right back. In that moment, arrayed in this back room of the House of Healing, they seemed at an impasse.

Lord Viren’s children had come to see him in the afternoon. Having heard of his presence here, and what scant details of his mission he’d shared with the townsfolk, they’d arrived already brimming with questions and impatience. They wanted to know the details of his mission. They wanted intel on his mission.

Corvus had, of course, told them in no uncertain terms that the details of his mission were classified. Certainly, they were not available to two children who wouldn’t even say why they were here. He told them nothing; not even what he had shared with the townspeople.

That had led in turn to some squabbling over the semantics of childhood, and then to further attempts to wheedle information from him, and then to this: silence.

Finally, after a considerable amount of wheedling, complaining, and prodding, the dark mage – Claudia – changed tracks. “…Look,” she said, slowly, and for the first time since they’d arrived, there was a hint of something sincere in her voice. Corvus watched, stone-faced. “You heard about there being two kids with that elf, right? Do you know what that means?”

He wished he could fold his arms, but they weren’t exactly in a fit state for it. “Do you?”

She sighed, plainly frustrated, and lifted a hand to her face for a moment. “It’s Callum and Ezran, right?” she said, impatiently. “It has to be. The last time anyone saw them, was with her.”

Corvus noted her wording, and said nothing.

She wasn’t impressed by his reticence, and scowled. “If you can’t trust anything else, you should trust that we want to help them,” she informed him, resolute. Beside her, her brother shifted uncomfortably. “They’re our friends. We grew up with them. And if we’re going after them and you can’t, because you’re injured – you should tell us what you know. Anything that could help.”

There was, he thought, some honesty in that. He didn’t know how close the friendship between the princes and Viren’s children might be, but they had grown up with each other. That much was true. But… “You didn’t come here looking for them,” he said, eyes narrowed. “I know that.”

Claudia hesitated. She looked at her brother, who seemed about to speak, and motioned him silent. She spent several long moments thinking. Finally, she said “No, we didn’t.” She hesitated again. “We…thought they were dead.”

A lie. Or at least, not the full truth. It was plain from her expression. Sceptically, he asked “Did you?”

She stared at him, expression caught between frustration and irritation and some thread of genuine worry. She exhaled, and admitted “We…didn’t know for sure. But it – it seemed like that’s what would happen, you know? Elves kill people. What else was going to happen, when they ran off with her?”

That was interesting. “’Ran off with her’?” he repeated, sharply, and again she hesitated, plainly uncertain how much she should say. He could get it out of her, he thought. It would take just a little more prodding. “Until I understand what you’re doing here – why you’re really here – I’m not telling you anything,” he said to her, flatly. “I don’t need specifics, if you’ve got your own orders. But I’m not going to share classified information when, from what I know, there’s no good reason for Lord Viren’s children to be here chasing that elf.”

“Isn’t catching a bloodthirsty elven assassin enough?” she asked, with some asperity.

“No. It’s not. If that was all you were here for, your father would be working with General Amaya, and I’d know to expect you. Instead…” He lifted his eyebrows at them, as if to draw attention to their presence here.

She sighed. Her brother tapped his foot, clearly irritated. It took a while for her to deliberate, pacing a little, looking at him uncertainly, biting her lip. For some of that interim, she looked startlingly young. It was almost enough to make Corvus pity her. But he didn’t let his expression change. The General was counting on his judgement – the princes depended on his judgement. So he waited, and then, finally…

The dark mage came to a decision; he saw it in the slump of her shoulders, the way she exhaled, the way she looked at him.

“The elf stole something,” she said, plainly.

Her brother looked uneasy. “Claudia…”

“Shush, Soren.” She didn’t look away from Corvus. “The elf stole something,” she repeated, as though willing him to believe her, and he watched her carefully.

“Something important,” he judged, when he had looked, and determined that she seemed to be honest.

“A weapon,” said Claudia. “I’m not going to tell you what it is. But it’s – magical, and incredibly powerful. My father was keeping it secret, and safe, for if something big happened, and we needed it to protect the kingdom. But then…”

“The elf assassin broke into the castle and found it,” Corvus guessed, and she nodded. He considered the words for a long few seconds, wondering. There was truth to this; he could see it. It didn’t fill in all the gaps, not by any means, but it was important information. He wondered at the implications. “Who knew about it?” he asked, following one thread of thought.

The girl shifted uncomfortably. “Aside from us, and dad, I – think only the King knew. No one else. It’s important, and secret, so – that’s why he sent us after the elf. No one else could know.”

A weapon as powerful as she was implying…yes, that would be something to keep close to one’s chest. Something only to tell the primaries of a Kingdom about, certainly.

But…not to tell Amaya? She controlled the front lines to the entire Pentarchy. What sense could there be in not telling her something so potentially significant? “If it was so secret, then how did the elf know it was there?” he asked, instead of following that up. He doubted the Lord Protector’s daughter would know, or tell him, why her father had judged this too dire a secret for the General of the Standing Battalion.

She blinked, and frowned. “I think it was just by accident,” she said, slowly, as if she wasn’t sure. “Maybe she was told to break into dad’s workshop? It’s not like they wouldn’t know we had powerful mages, and powerful ingredients.”

If the stories were to be believed, it had been dark magic of unspeakable power that had slain Xadia’s monstrous King. Corvus couldn’t imagine anything else managing the feat. If he was Xadian command, and he was sending assassins into the stronghold of the enemy…yes, he thought he’d have them do their best to uncover and remove anything powerful enough to do it again. It made sense. He filed it away. “And what about the princes?” he asked, finally getting to the meat of the interrogation. She’d said the princes ran off with the elf, like she’d seen it. She’d been there.

She scowled, hand clenching on thin air, as though for some weapon she missed. “The elf-“ she started, then shook her head, angrily. “I don’t know how. I don’t know what she said. But – she convinced them to help her.”

Corvus sat up straighter, intent. “Willingly?”

“I don’t know. Like I said, I wasn’t there when she found them. I don’t know what she did, or what she said, or if she cast some kind of – Moonshadow illusion on them…I don’t know.” The frustration in her voice, her bearing…it was utterly genuine. The memory angered her. Corvus watched very carefully. “All I know is that when she stole the weapon, and I found them there – the boys helped her get away.”

He nodded slowly. “Tell me how,” he ordered her. She stared at him, mulish, as though considering cutting off her tale. But in the end, she’d already started, and it was easier to get someone to keep talking than it was to get them to start.

“I had a primal stone,” she said. “I was going to hit the elf with lightning to stop her. But – Callum made me miss, and then trapped me, and ran off with the stone, after the elf and Ezran. By the time I got free, I couldn’t find them.”

Corvus blinked. “Isn’t lightning primal magic?”

“Primal stone,” she repeated, impatiently, and – Corvus didn’t know what that was, didn’t have any frame of reference for what it looked like, but…abruptly, he couldn’t help but remember that last glimpse of Prince Callum, right before the wind had hit him. The memory was coloured and scattered by the snapping, searing pain of the minutes that followed, but…

There had been something in his hand.

“What does it look like?” he asked, slowly, trying to blink away the memory of the wind, the cliff, the fall. “This…primal stone.”

Claudia frowned, suspicious. “Why? It’s gone.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Corvus said, and then “Humour me.”

“…It’s like a glass ball, with a miniature storm inside.” She watched him, eyes narrowed. Clearly, she wanted an explanation of her own, now.

He nodded, and the pieces clicked together in his head. “Prince Callum still has it.”

She blinked rapidly. “What? Are you sure?” The incredulity made sense. What kind of elven captor would let her captives, deceived or not, keep hold of something that – in some measure – could allow them to attack with magic?

Still. “I’m sure,” he said, thinking of the campsite that looked like it had been ravaged by an isolated windstorm, of the dead fish floating in the lake, of – of the cliff edge. “And he knows how to use it, too.”

“That’s impossible,” the dark mage said, frowning. “He’s never learned any spells.”

“He knows at least one.” Corvus shrugged. “Maybe the elf taught him. I wouldn’t know. But if you’re in pursuit…” he hesitated, and sighed. He rubbed a hand over his eyes.

That was it, then, wasn’t it? He believed the girl. She had a legitimate – if suspicious – reason to be here, and she and her brother were able to make a pursuit. If they had a chance of getting to the princes…he had to give them something. Any less would be irresponsible. If they caught up and then failed, or were killed, because of a lack of intel…that would be on him.

The girl didn’t fail to notice his change of heart. “You’re going to tell us what we need?” she guessed, watching him.

After a moment, Corvus nodded. “I’ll share my observations with you.”

“Finally!” the Crownguard boy exploded, as though the outburst had been brewing through every moment of his unwilling silence. “I thought you were going to keep us here forever!”

“It would’ve been faster, if you’d been honest from the start,” Corvus told him flatly, and received a very grumpy frown in response. He turned back to the girl, who was waiting for him to speak, shoulders tense with barely-leashed impatience. “Do you have a way to track them?” he asked, instead of speaking. “They’ve gone through the mountains, now, and there were several days of snow to cover their tracks. They could be anywhere.”

The dark mage’s hand drifted to the satchel at her side. “…Yeah, we have a way.”

Her brother stared at her. “Wait, we do? Then why did we take the dogs all this – ow!” he cut off as his sister elbowed him, glaring.

“The dogs were before there was a storm and rain getting in the way,” she told her brother, sourly. “What do you think I was going through all those caves looking for? I needed components. It’s not like they grow on trees.”

Quietly, Corvus gritted his teeth, and banked the flare of fury that surged at her words. There was dark magic to track the princes. Magic that the Lord Protector could have offered…and hadn’t.

Nothing to be done, he told himself, and tried not to react outwardly. It was something else to tell General Amaya. Being angry at this witchling wasn’t going to get him anywhere useful.

“So?” she demanded, when he’d been silent a while. “What do you know?”

He exhaled, and looked at them. The princes knew them; would recognise them on sight. That was…good. If they trusted these two, they might well have better luck than he had. “The princes appear healthy, and don’t seem to have been harmed,” he said, directly. “They’re not restrained, and help with camping and travelling. I can’t say how much of that is willing, but they’re helping.” He hesitated, then finally sighed. “If you attack the elf, they might defend her.”

Both of them stared at him. “What?” the girl asked, bewildered. “Why?”

“She’s an elf,” Soren objected, similarly taken-aback. “Her gang killed their father. Why would they help her?”

Corvus shrugged tiredly, then winced. He had a lot of broken bones, and a lot of bruises, and every movement hurt. “Maybe they don’t know,” he suggested, half-heartedly. “I don’t know what the reasons are. Maybe they really are bewitched. But…” His hand drifted slowly to his sling. “Well. I’m in this House for a reason, you know.”

If they’d looked surprised before, they seemed astonished now. “Wait, but – didn’t the elf do that to you?” The Crownguard boy demanded. “We heard she’d pushed you off a cliff!”

He shook his head, silent. “You heard wrong. The elf – she’s injured. I almost had her, but then…” He couldn’t quite help it. It was all so tangled up in the memory of pain, and confusion, and fear – that image of the terrified boy with the glassy stone in his hand. He laughed, and it hurt. “Prince Callum pushed me off the cliff.”

“Callum?” Claudia repeated, fully incredulous.

“But he’s so scrawny!” Her brother protested. “And he sucks at fighting.”

It was hard to reconcile those words with the remembrance of what had happened to him. “He blew me off the cliff,” he clarified. “With magic. A – it felt like getting hit head-on by a sudden, horrible gust of wind…”

The girl had a hand over her mouth, aghast. “I – are you sure?”

“It certainly wasn’t the elf,” Corvus said mirthlessly. “She was on her back on the ground, and I was about to kill her. So it was either Prince Callum, or Prince Ezran. And Prince Callum was the one who was-“ His wounds ached, and he cut off, feeling a light tremor in his fingertips. Wordlessly, he gestured with one hand, as if holding a ball. It was explanatory enough.

“I…never thought he had something like that in him,” Claudia murmured, seeming almost shaken. “He was always so…goofy. And kind.”

“Maybe he really has gone elf-mad?” Soren suggested, worriedly. “Bloodthirsty, like one of them.”

Corvus shook his head again, and sighed. It hadn’t been bloodthirst, in that face. Only the awful, panicked terror of someone looking a friend’s death in the eye. “Be careful,” was what he said, in the end. “He knows you, so maybe he’ll trust you. But – be careful, attacking the elf.”

“We will,” the girl promised, still looking a little unsteady. “What can you tell us? You said she was injured…”

“She has some kind of magic tourniquet on her wrist that won’t come off. I assumed a dark mage must be responsible for it.” He looked at her, questioningly.

She frowned and shook her head. “Wasn’t my spell.”

“Your father?”

“Dad didn’t see her. He was in the tower.” And there weren’t any other registered dark mages, in this part of Katolis. Who then cast the spell? Something else to note in his upcoming report, to be certain.

“Well, wherever it came from, she’ll probably have lost the left hand by now,” Corvus said in the end, pursing his lips. “She’s a dual-wielder, so it should make her much easier to fight. On top of that – I did hit her, at least twice. She’ll have at least a shallow wound in the shoulder, and one or two severe injuries on her left arm.”

“Finally, some good news,” grumbled the Crownguard, rolling his shoulders as if they were growing stiff from standing still too long. “A one-handed elf will be easy to deal with.”

“Don’t get overconfident,” Corvus told him, remembering the elf’s skill and agility, obvious even when she’d been injured. “She’s a skilled opponent, with the senses and reflexes of any Moonshadow elf. Don’t let your guard down.”

“I was there at the tower, you know,” the boy said, a little irate, and a little uneasy. Like the memory was an unpleasant one. As well it should be; Corvus had heard most of the Crownguard defending the tower had died. How many survivors had there been, other than this boy? How many of his fellows had he seen die? “I know they’re dangerous. But this one’s going to be missing a hand. That’s got to count for something.”

“We’ll make sure to avoid attacking at full moon, too,” said Claudia, looking speculative. “You said you injured her? Like, with a weapon? Did you break skin?”

Corvus eyed her, strangely. “…Yes?” he said, slowly. “I use a hook and chain. I caught her with the hook, on at least two prongs – it was a ripping injury, would’ve been messy, and slow to heal. Why?”

“Any chance you’ve got the weapon around, and it still has some blood on it?” she pressed. “I can use something like that to track her. We’ve got hair from the boys we can track them with, but…” she trailed off, leaving the rest unsaid: if something happened to the princes, there’d be no way to track the elf.

He held silent for a moment. “I had to leave my hook behind, at the base of the cliff,” he said, in the end. “If it’s not buried in snow, there’ll probably be old blood on it. You’d have to find it, though.” He thought for a moment. “The bargemen who found me will probably have directions for you.”

She looked delighted. “Great! That just leaves one thing…”

Corvus lifted an eyebrow.

The dark mage, daughter of the Lord Protector, grinned sunnily. “Do you know where we can find a mountain guide?”

---

Some time later, with a few mental notes taken, Claudia took her brother and her supplies and left for the outskirts.

When they were a short distance outside the town – far enough to deter snoopers but not so far it’d be annoying to get back – she set out her bag and got to work.

“Can you maybe explain why we had to walk out here?” Soren demanded, while she was plucking vials and bunches of supplies from her collection with wild abandon. “I thought we were supposed to be looking for – elf blood, or mountain guides, or something.”

“We can go back later. First I need to know what we can do,” Claudia said, with half of her attention; she was far more focused on the spellwork now.

“That doesn’t answer anything.”

She flapped a hand at her brother distractedly. “Not now, Sor-bear. I’ve got to do some testing.”

He eyed her supplies, expression souring. “Great. More creepy dark-magic-stuff.” She didn’t deign to answer that, and after a moment, he asked “You’re casting spells now?”

“Yep,” she agreed, lining up her ingredients neatly, ready for use.

“But aren’t those, you know, supposed to be rare? I thought you were saving all-“ he waved at her bag, “that, for important stuff.”

“This is important,” she insisted, and eyed their surroundings calculatingly. “This is going to decide which way we need to go. And how big a mountain we need to climb.” She considered a nearby boulder-sized rock with interest, and then a sort of snowed-over grassy bluff of packed soil a little closer, about half as tall as the rock. After some deliberation, she took her selected ingredients and made for the bluff.

“How’s it going to do that?” he pressed, dubiously. “And why are we climbing mountains anyway? Aren’t we supposed to be catching up to the elf?”

Claudia laid her things out atop the bluff, running her eyes over them analytically. “Well, you see, my tracking spell is supposed to be cast from the tallest mountain,” she said, and plucked a leaf from a half-dead oak sapling peeking through the snow nearby. “And normally, that’d mean Kalik.”

Soren blinked. “But Kalik is at least two weeks’ riding away!”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Which is why I’m doing this. I need to know what counts as ‘tallest mountain’ for the spell. Because it can’t just be tallest mountain ever, right? Pretty sure I’ve read that Del Bar has something taller than Kalik.”

“…The elves could have tall mountains, too.”

“Dad did say the lair of the Dragon King was on a really, really tall mountain. So, you’re probably right,” Claudia mused, and then approached Soren, holding the leaf out. “Here, lick this.”

“What?”

“Lick the leaf, Soren,” she repeated. “I need it for my test.”

He folded his arms. “But why?”

Her eyebrow twitched. “For the spell. It’s not a big deal, just lick the leaf!” She shook the leaf at him, more insistently.

“Why can’t you lick the leaf?”

“Because I’m doing the test! I can’t lick the leaf when I’m the one doing the test!”

“Why not?”

“Because then it won’t work! Just lick the leaf!” She shoved it in his face until it was up against his nose. He grimaced, snatched it from her fingers, and stared at it suspiciously.

“Is this going to do something weird and creepy to me?” he asked her, wary. “Like turn my tongue purple? Or make my pee green? I don’t want to have green pee again.”

“That was one time, Soren. And no, it’s not going to do anything like that.” She pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off a headache. Should’ve just pulled one of his hairs out, she reflected, morose. But no, she’d wanted to be nice to him, and not cause him the admittedly tiny amount of pain that the plucking of a singular hair would involve. Or, technically, two hairs. Maybe more. It’d depend how many tests she needed. Again, she repeated: “Lick the leaf.”

Soren stared at it, grumpily resigned. He licked the leaf. “Happy?” he demanded.

“Let’s find out.” She sighed, plucked the leaf from his fingers by the stem, and took it over to the rest of the stuff. “Stay there.” He made a belligerent noise at her but stayed put, arms folded as he watched her ascend the small grassy bluff again.

She’d been telling the truth about this being important, but still…it galled to be using such valuable and rare ingredients for experimentation. But dad wasn’t here to consult, so she had to make do. One way or another, they needed to know which way to go. So:

Claudia uncapped the wisp bottle, set the oak leaf down as the focus, and reached out to burn.

The heady power of the spell flowed through her veins, swelling behind her eyes. It ached, a little, but it was an ache she’d grown used to over the years; now, she imagined she could feel the way that the strength of the magic grew within her, making her an ever-greater vessel for its might. Great spells did that, dad said. The more magic you cast, the more room there was for it inside you, and the stronger you became. She believed it. She believed it more with every spell she wrought.

This wasn’t a ‘great’ spell. But it was what she needed, for now.

The magic on her lips distorted the words she spoke, so that they came out backwards and echoing. It loosed the spell, and she blinked black eyes as she watched.

The violet of the tracking spell glowed, then shot upwards; it formed an arc from the point she’d cast it from to – well. To the target. The magic came down on Soren and hit him solidly on the head, casting purple wisps all around him. “Claudia!” he spluttered, indignant, wiping furiously at his hair.

“Oh, shush, none of it even stayed in your hair,” she dismissed, observing him sharp-eyed. Well, that worked, she thought, a little disturbed by the ease of it.

An arc. Upwards from point-of-casting, and then down to the target. But it only went so far up.

What would happen if there was something taller between the target and the cast-point?

She had a feeling she knew. But it needed testing. So… “I need you to lick another leaf,” she told her brother, and he glared at her.

“What, so you can hit me with weird glowing things again?” he demanded, and she considered it.

“Yep,” she agreed, honest. “But if it’s any consolation, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to work this time.”

He subsided a little, from confusion more than anything else. “Then why are you doing it?”

“Because I need to understand how it works,” she said. “And if it doesn’t work, then I’ll understand.”

Soren grumbled and complained at her, of course, but eventually she got another saliva sample from him. Then she directed him to stand a good distance behind the big rock, in a direct straight line from the grassy bluff.

She cast the spell again. And, as she’d predicted, the arc of the spell brought it up a short distance….and then its downwards arc impacted the intervening rock. Thwarted. The wisps burst around the stone and began to dissipate.

Claudia sighed, satisfied, then went to retrieve her brother.

“So?” he asked, looking considerably less grumpy now that he’d gotten out of being pelted with magic a second time.

“We don’t need to climb Kalik,” she determined, hefting the strap of her bag back onto her shoulder. “We just need the tallest mountain between here and where the e-“ She hesitated, then amended herself. “Where Callum and Ezran and the elf are.”

Soren seemed appeased by that. “Well, good. So where’s that?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know,” she answered cheerfully. “Let’s go ask around and find out.”

---

For all the difficulty imposed by the snow and ice, Rayla had been right: it did get easier to breathe as they descended. It didn’t do much for the developing blisters on his toes, but he started to regain his breath, and it became easier to talk as they walked. Time passed faster that way. He barely tripped over his snowshoes, he didn’t fall off of anything unfortunate, and the rest of the day’s walking went smoothly. He had the sense that Rayla was beginning to look for somewhere suitable to stop, but…

In the end, a few hours past lunch, their path was interrupted by a river. A very remarkable river.

Callum stopped short as it pulled into view, eyes widening, fingers reflexively reaching for his sketchbook. He had to stop himself from opening it and starting to draw then and there, and just stared with undisguised wonder instead.

Spilling over a rock wall around thirty feet high, there was a waterfall – wide and glittering and entirely frozen.

“Whoa,” he breathed, staring at it, Rayla slowing to a halt ahead of him. She looked back, eyebrow raised, and then back at the frozen river and the frozen waterfall as if it were nothing interesting at all.

“What?” she asked, looking almost amused. “Never seen a waterfall before?”

“It’s frozen,” Ezran exclaimed, neatly summing up the novelty of it.

He couldn’t get his head around how crazy it looked. If it had frozen steadily, he’d have maybe expected the surface of the ice to be sort of…drippy looking, as if water had sluiced down over the existing ice and frozen half-way down. But it wasn’t like that at all. Instead, the ice looked frothy, full of splashing and tumbling shapes that seemed to have frozen in a split-second, preserving all the life and movement of a living waterfall, now motionless in solid ice. The river that ought to have run across their path was frozen, too…although, now that he looked, he thought there might be water running under the icy surface somewhere.

“How does anything even freeze like that?” he wondered aloud, eyes drifting back to the waterfall and its astonishing appearance. It glittered under the sunlight, full of icy blues that deepened towards the middle, the colours shifting as he craned his neck to look at it. “It’s amazing.”

Rayla rolled her eyes, though a smile tugged at her lips as she glanced at him. “It’s just frozen water,” she said, dryly, and stepped towards the river. “Which is less awful than normal water, but…still not exactly my favourite thing. Let’s just cross over and keep going, alright? We’re not here to admire the scenery.”

Ezran pulled his eyes from the waterfall and scurried over to her side, pulling urgently on her sleeve. “But it’s useful, isn’t it?” he wheedled, eyes wide-blue and sparkling like the waterfall. “We should camp next to it! We’ll have so much water to use, right there!”

“We’d still need to melt it,” she said, cynically, and then blinked at the river. Perhaps she’d seen the hints of moving water underneath, as he had. “…Or…maybe not,” she amended. “Hm.” She tilted her head, and he wondered if she was thinking of how long it had been since any of them had washed…well, anything, really. Clothes, themselves, equipment…the most they’d had access to was whatever they boiled in their pot.

Though, he had to admit, he wouldn’t exactly be keen to wash in water that was literally frozen over.

“…It’s not too long from when we’d be stopping anyway,” Callum implored, after a few moments, and saw potential success in the way that Rayla sighed and did not immediately deny it. It was the truth, right? She’d been scoping places out to camp already. “We might as well just set up here.” And then maybe he could spend some time drawing the waterfall from sight instead of from memory, if there was a chance for it.

She didn’t answer, instead looking up at the waterfall, eyes narrowed. She moved her head from side to side, as if trying to gauge the distance, or…something.

“…Rayla?” he prompted, as she stepped a little closer to the ice, still tilting her head like she was trying to take its measure. “Is something wrong?”

“Is there something in the ice?” Ezran inquired, interested.

“This isn’t ‘The Sword in the Waterfall’, Ez,” Callum said, but he was looking too. Instead of answering, Rayla picked her way across the rocks jutting from the river’s ice, and then went up and to the side of the waterfall, peering at something there.

“I think there’s a cave behind here,” she announced after a moment, eyes on the side of the waterfall, by the rocks. “The shadows in the waterfall don’t make sense, for there just being solid rock behind, so…cave. If I can just…” She extracted a blade with her right hand, flipped it to pick-shape, and then hacked at the side of the waterfall. A large chunk of ice cracked off and fell noisily around her ankles.

“Rayla!” he reprimanded, indignant. “I was going to draw that!”

“I’m not going to break the whole waterfall, Callum,” she said, rolling her eyes, still assailing the ice, sending pieces flying everywhere. She might’ve claimed that the moon phase was making her weaker, but it certainly didn’t look like it. “You’ll have plenty left, don’t you worry.”

“It’s not like you wouldn’t just remember it anyway, you know,” Ezran added, from beside him, and Callum crossed his arms.

“I like to draw from life sometimes,” he said, a little sulkily, and then startled at a little at a pronounced cracking sound as Rayla broke through. The next moment saw her literally kicking in the side of that part of the waterfall. A whole section of the ice just caved in, crumbling inwards, and then there was a hole.

Rayla peered in. “Definitely a cave,” she said, with satisfaction. “So long as there’s nothing nasty in there, we might not even have to bother with the tent tonight.”

Carefully, Callum tried to venture across the frozen river to join her in looking in, though he didn’t even bother with attempting to step across the rocks like Rayla had. He’d definitely fall over, probably breaking the ice in the process. At least the river didn’t seem at all deep. It was basically just a very wide stream. The snowshoes were rough enough to offer some purchase on the ice, so – carefully – he crossed over, stopping by Rayla’s side.

He peered through the hole she’d made. Behind the ice, the river was still running shallowly, streaming down the ice, and…sure enough, there was a deep yawning shadow behind the waterfall that seemed to go quite far back.

“Define ‘nothing nasty’,” he said, after a moment, beckoning Ezran over. “Do caves usually have something nasty in them?”

“Caves are good places for animals to live!” Ezran chirped, still inching his way carefully over the ice. Bait was following grumpily at his heels; he loved water, but wasn’t a fan of ice. “They’re warmer and more sheltered. So there could be a bear or a banther or something in there.” He eyed the waterfall with interest, as though trying to peer past its darkness to the hypothetical animal denizens within.

And there was a thought. “Can you feel anything?” Callum asked, curious. “Like you could feel where animals were during the storm?”

Ezran blinked, taken-aback. He plainly hadn’t thought of that. “I mean, maybe? I could try?” Rayla nodded at him encouragingly, so he clamped his eyes shut and went silent. Whatever he was doing seemed to be a struggle. Evidently the power of the storm had magnified his abilities beyond what he could manage now. “…There are some alive-things in there,” he said, finally, opening his eyes. “But it’s hard to feel them from here. I think they’re pretty small, though.” He frowned. “And…fluttery? With wings?”

“Bats?” Callum suggested, thinking of fluttery winged things that might live in caves.

“Bats don’t like places this cold.” He sounded dubious.

Rayla didn’t comment on it either way, just tilted her head at the dark passageway. “Pretty narrow, a little further in. Don’t think a bear could get through there,” she decided, after a moment. Then she whistled sharply into the cave, seeming to listen to the way the noise of it resounded along the stone. “Goes pretty far in.”

“I want to see it!” Ezran said, intrigued, looking as though he were about to step into the darkness that very second. Before Callum could do anything, Rayla put a hand on his brother’s shoulder to stop him.

“Why don’t you let me check it out, first?” she suggested, gently nudging him back. “I’ll just go take a wee look around, make sure it’s alright.” Her lips twisted with a hint of humour. “Keep an ear out, and run if you…I don’t know, hear me yelling about mountain lions, or something.”

“I’d like to meet a mountain lion,” Ez objected, wistful, and Callum patted him absently on the shoulder, already distracted with watching Rayla stalk into the mouth of the cave, weapon still at the ready. Within a few moments the shadows had swallowed her, and he couldn’t see her at all. It was weirdly nerve-wracking; uncomfortably reminiscent of watching her disappear into that awful blizzard. He exhaled, forced himself to relax, and waited.

After a few minutes, for lack of anything else to do, they started speculating idly on what she’d find. Ezran wanted some cool animals, winged or otherwise. Callum wanted a nice vacant space that would make a sheltered and less-cold camping ground. Ezran agreed that a sheltered campsite would be nice, but remained very certain about wanting to meet some cool animals.

He was in the middle of unfolding the tale of the bats he’d found under the castle machicolations last year when Rayla suddenly re-emerged, bereft of her packs, looking intrigued and bright-eyed and in general not as if she were being urgently pursued by the occupants of anything. Nonetheless, she materialised so suddenly from the narrow darkness of the cave that he jumped a little, pulse jolting with surprise.

“I’m back,” she announced unnecessarily, her cheeks pink with excitement and a smile upon her lips. Reflexively, he found himself smiling back, a little startled by her obvious cheer. “The cave is – you’ve got to see this.” In a flash, she’d disappeared into the cave opening again. He stumbled after her, mildly alarmed.

“Er, Rayla?” he said, into the dark, exchanging a bemused smile with his brother. “You know we can’t see in there, right?”

There was a pause, and then she ducked back out into the light again, just close enough to the cave mouth that he could see her eyes glowing in the shadows. “Forgot about that,” she admitted, and then a hand extended from the darkness. “I’ll lead you in.”

He eyed it, shrugged, and reached out to close his fingers around hers. “…Sure,” he sighed, and then reached out behind him for Ez. “C’mon, Ez, take my hand. I’ll try not to trip over anything.”

His brother snickered at him, but obligingly reached out, and then they were walking in a little row along the tremendously narrow cave passage towards…whatever Rayla wanted to show them. Bait started glowing a while in, which at least let Callum see where he was putting his feet, and from there on it was easier to follow where she was leading. The air tasted like an echo of the waterfall, all damp rock and wet air. It was oddly pleasant.

“This goes pretty far,” he noted, craning his neck to try to see whatever she had found so remarkable. The air grew palpably warmer as they turned a narrow corner, squeezing past the rock, becoming damp and humid rather than damp and cool. A new scent came into the air; something green and verdant, like the smell of wet moss in an old forest.

“It’s pretty warm in there, actually,” she said, as if echoing his thoughts, still cheerful. “It’ll be a good place to camp.” He was opening his mouth to question her when she cut him off, announcing “Here we are!” Then, with a flourish, she bowed them into the wider cavern.

He stared, open mouthed, and stepped tentatively out into the open space, ghostly light spilling around him. Rayla slipped ahead of him and turned back, grinning a little as she watched for their reactions.

He tried to say something, but all he managed was “whoa.”

The cavern was relatively large, tall enough to accommodate thrice or more Rayla’s height, and wide enough that they could comfortably put up six or seven tents if they felt like it. The whole place was suffused with light: it glowed on the walls from strange phosphorescent mushrooms that grew in frilly clusters upon the rock; it glowed in points of light in the thick damp mosses under his feet; it glowed in the strange little wisps that danced around in the air. There were butterflies too, or maybe moths, fluttering this way and that in the glittering air, casting gentle light from their wings.

And there were plants! Not just mosses, but thriving leafy shrubs, and even what looked like a couple of young pine or spruce saplings – little trees with delicate needles on their branches. There were even a few larger ones, almost tall enough to brush the roof of the place, wreathed in glittering vines that climbed up their trunks. The whole cavern, trees and all, seemed suffused with a blue-green glow, moving and shifting as the light-wisps roamed.

A few of the glowing moths fluttered past, and he lifted a hand to one. He wasn’t really expecting anything, but – it landed on his finger, wings opening and closing, and he was absolutely certain that his face looked completely ridiculous right now, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He stared at the moth with wonder, admiring its enormous pale green wings and the metallic bronze patterning, and kept staring long after it fluttered away from his finger again. “Wow,” he breathed, looking out at the cavern with a sort of stunned awe.

“It’s so pretty,” Ezran said, similarly spellbound, and when Callum glanced at him he was already covered in the wispy light-things, and was amassing an entourage of moths. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“It reminds me of some of the parts of the forest I live in, back in Xadia,” Rayla spoke, and there was a contented smile on her lips as she looked around them. “All the glowing things, you know? And the colours, and Moon-moths. Feels a little like home.”

For a second, Callum was very, very jealous. But that envy lost cohesion quickly in the face of this kind of awe. He stared around, eyes drinking in the cave and committing it to memory as best he could. This kind of environment would be hard to do any proper justice with just charcoal and paper, but…with luck, in the future, he’d have access to paints again, and could capture this scene properly. “I can’t wait to see Xadia, then,” he said softly, and looked back at Rayla just in time to see one of the light-wisps fall into her cupped hands.

The wisp flickered gently in her palms as she smiled down at it. A moth had landed on her left horn, and another on her shoulder, and the wisps followed in their wake as if moving on some invisible current. She looked at once far more serene and far more content than he thought he’d ever seen her, and – and suddenly, he couldn’t quite seem to look away. The shifting light over her skin drew his eyes to follow it; he watched her white hair reflect the colours of the glowing cave, her eyes luminescing as though to match all the other magical things around her.

He forced his eyes away, heartbeat strange in his throat. More in an effort to distract himself than anything, he asked aloud, “How are all these plants even growing in here? Don’t they need sunlight?” Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Bait already off trying to hunt moths, and shook his head. Those moths were huge. Maybe too huge for a glow-toad. But then again, what did he know? Bait ate all sorts of weird stuff.

Rayla looked upwards at the cave ceiling as if trying to find some hidden aperture to the sky, then shrugged. “I guess not?” she offered, still with that small contented smile. “Magic’s like that, you know. Things that shouldn’t be able to live somewhere just…can. And then you get places like this.”

And, supposedly, that sort of magic was everywhere in Xadia. “I can’t wait to see Xadia,” he reiterated, fervently, and cautiously set his bag down. The ground was carpeted in moss of varying thickness, with very few patches that were just lichen-encrusted stone. He eyed it for a few more moments, and said “You know, we probably don’t even need to set out our cloaks to sleep on.”

Ezran turned his attention to the cave floor, his body still entirely shrouded in light-wisps. They seemed to like him, enough so that he had to brush a few away from his eyes to see. He giggled as they passed over his skin, and then carefully lowered himself and his bag to the ground, bouncing experimentally. “Yeah, this moss is pretty comfy,” he reported, cheerful. “What a great place to camp! I wonder if there’s any animals in here?”

Rayla huffed with amusement, wandering over to ruffle his hair, displacing a few wisps. “If there are, I’m sure you’ll find them.”

Within minutes, Ezran was off prancing through the cave, investigating every tree root, every stalagmite, every mushroom. It was such a delight to see him this happy that Callum didn’t even consider calling him back to help with setting up; practicality could wait a while.

“It’s good to see him so cheerful,” Rayla said to him, a smile on her lips, as if reading his mind. “I was worried.”

“Yeah,” Callum agreed, gut twisting a little at the memory. “Last few days…it’s been pretty tough.”

She glanced at him, sidelong. “They have,” she agreed, after a moment. “But-“ she broke off, and muttered to herself, “Of course you wouldn’t know,” before looking back at him again. “He’s having trouble sleeping.”

He blinked, and re-evaluated his memories of his brother throughout the day. Ez had looked tired, sure, but…well, recent times had been tiring. It had made sense they wouldn’t be fully recovered from it. But… “He is?” Was he having nightmares? Callum would have expected to wake up, if his brother had been having nightmares. He always had in the past.

��Mm. Azymondias is keeping him awake. I woke up a bit last night, talked to him.” She shrugged, looking briefly uncomfortable. “Don’t know how much sleep he got, in the end.”

Callum grimaced. One more repercussion from that awful storm. “Well, that’s not ideal,” he said, now a little worried. This kind of travelling was hard enough even on a full night of sleep. He’d slept pretty well last night, after all, and everything had still been exhausting. What if it was a persistent problem? What if it kept keeping Ezran awake? That…wouldn’t be good. “…Maybe it’ll pass? When more of the storm-magic is gone.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t look convinced. After a moment, she sighed and shook her head. “Well, we’ll find out, I suppose. For now…” she gestured at their bags, hers on the ground and his still on his back. “We could get set up?”

“We won’t need the tent today, right? It’s really warm in here.” A novel experience, really. Even the tent last night had turned chilly by morning. A thought occurred to him, and he huffed. “Gonna be weird to have space to sleep again. We’ve been squashed in that tent for weeks now.”

For some reason, she flushed and looked away. “Yeah. Weird,” she muttered, ears flicking back, and turned to kneel to the bags. “…We won’t need the tent, no. But I reckon we should get everything out anyway. The tent was covered in frost this morning – it needs to dry.”

He nodded, and crouched to help her. “And if we’re going to be washing clothes and stuff, we should probably get all of that out, too.”

“Might as well,” she agreed, and so, without further ado, they started unloading their bags. Over the next ten minutes or so, everything came out; even the slabs of frozen, yet-uncooked meat that had been wrapped and tied to the sides. Rayla took those out through the cave mouth to sit behind the icy waterfall, there to remain frozen, with the exception of an already partially thawing one that she left to defrost in the corner.

Ezran noticed her coming and going, and then noticed that they were doing work without him, and came over to complain. “You should’ve called me, if you were going to be doing stuff,” he said reprovingly. “I can help.”

“I know you can, Ez,” Callum smiled, and reached out to ruffle his hair. “You were having fun, though. And it’s not like unpacking is hard.”

“Still,” his brother insisted, and looked at what he was doing, calculating. “We’ll need wood, right?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

Ezran nodded, determined. “I’ll go get that, then.”

Rayla returned in short order, and the two of them went back to their tasks while Ezran saw to his. With clothes, food, medical supplies, and other miscellanea separated into their discrete piles, it became clear how much cleaning really needed to be done. “I really bled over a lot of clothes,” Rayla said, sourly, inspecting the torn shirt, undershirt, and jacket she’d been injured in. Not to mention the sweater she’d started to bleed through, early on. “These stains aren’t going to come out.”

“That’s…fine,” Callum said, trying not to think about the blood too much. “It’s just clothes, and we’re travelling. It’s not like we need to look good.”

She glanced at him. “Yeah, but these aren’t just dirty, they’re ripped. I can wear them, maybe, but only if I cut the arms off. Might be worth more as cloth to wrap food with.” She frowned at the clothing, and sighed. “Well, whatever. I can put my clothes back on, after this. They’ve got the arms bare, anyway.” Left unsaid was the fact that, with bare arms, it would be easier to get at the bandages. Though he couldn’t imagine she’d be travelling without a sweater on any time soon, with how cold it was.

Callum nodded, sparing a moment to despise the fact that she had to plan her outfits around how hard it would be to access her wounds. “…Is it hard to get in and out of, though? I don’t think I could get at your shoulder through your assassin jacket thing.”

She made a face. “Right. Shoulder. Stab-wound.” She shook her head, annoyed. “No, the light armour is kind of a pain to get dressed in.” Her eyes slid to her own arm. “Suppose I’ll just have to stick to what I’m wearing until I’ve healed up a bit more.”

“…You can always borrow some of my stuff, if you need to?” he suggested, vaguely abashed to suggest it. He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been borrowing and wearing his clothes for most of the journey already. “I mean. I think most of it needs washing, for now, but…”

Her expression was amused. “I’m technically already borrowing your stuff, Callum.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” He coughed, embarrassed, and changed the topic. “So – how exactly are we going to wash everything? Break a hole in the ice?” The idea of having his hands in water that cold was very far from appealing, but…

“We’d freeze our hands off,” Rayla said, shaking her head. “Nah, I’d best just find somewhere we can heat water and make a pool to wash everything in. There’ll be somewhere that works for it around here.”

True to her words, Rayla went out into the cave again and did a quick circuit of all the walls, eventually finding a rocky hollow behind the waterfall where water had pooled and frozen. She promptly grabbed a sword and went to break the ice out, claiming it’d work just fine for what they needed. They lit the campfire outside the waterfall, Ezran making several trips around the surrounding area for wood, and steadily started heating pot after pot of water to create something vaguely warm and usable in their makeshift basin.

Washing everything took a while. They each did a round of clothing first, and Callum had the opportunity to use his primal stone for the first time in days, setting some of it to drying faster. When there was something vaguely dry for everyone to change into, they took it in turns to wash themselves in the swiftly-cooling pool; Rayla went first, after briefly and grumpily soliciting his aid in getting her sweater and second shirt off. She went away after that, handling the rest of her layers alone.

“It’s really nice to not feel like I’m covered in blood anymore,” she announced upon returning, newly-clothed in the somewhat-dry things they’d just washed. Her hair was wet, reflecting the lights of the cavern even more than before. “Might want to put some fresh water in, though. It was getting pretty gross.”

It took a few more rounds of heated water, and a little more taking of turns, but eventually they’d washed just about everything they had that needed it, themselves included. The rest of the clothes they hung on various cavern trees to dry, and then, miraculously, they were pretty much done. Callum sat back down in the cave beside his brother, the sensation of cleanliness bizarrely foreign after days of accumulating grime.

“Feels better, doesn’t it?” Rayla asked him, as if noticing his bewilderment. There was a wry twist to her lips.

“It really does,” he agreed, clothes and skin and hair still damp, and weirdly pleasant for it. He’d got used to being grimy. It had just…sort of fallen into the background, a sensation beyond his notice. And while he wouldn’t say he was immaculately clean, not when all he’d had was a little bit of soap and a rag and an increasingly dirty pool of lukewarm water…he felt strangely lighter for having washed some of it off.

She smiled ruefully. “Yeah, travelling’s like that. I’d never really done anything long-haul before this mission, so I wasn’t used to how gross it gets.”

“I’m pretty used to getting covered in mud and dust and stuff. Me and Bait go exploring in the tunnels a lot, or in the forest,” Ez claimed, blinking slowly at the egg in his arms, newly retrieved from the bag. He’d taken a moment to wipe it over with a cloth too, and now was just…sitting with it. Looking suddenly bleary. “It’s…kinda different when you can’t just wash it off at the end of the day, though.”

“I’m going to remind you you said that, next time you complain about me telling you to wash up,” Callum informed him, and received a half-hearted snicker in response. He frowned at his brother, noting how abruptly out-of-it he looked. “Something wrong, Ez?”

Rayla looked over too, alerted by his concern. In short order they were both scrutinising Ezran, who looked…very tired. Considerably more tired than he had even five minutes ago. “Feeling sleepy?” she guessed, looking at him.

“…Zym’s asleep,” he admitted, after a moment. “He’s been sleeping some other parts of the day, too, but…I wasn’t holding him, then.”

“And you didn’t sleep well last night.” Rayla peered at him, frowning. “Maybe you should have a nap, or something.”

He blinked, looking startled. “Isn’t it kinda late for a nap? And…isn’t there stuff to do?”

Callum, who’d been about to suggest the nap himself, shook his head. “What, you think you’re not going to be tired enough to fall asleep later?” he asked, rhetorically. They were all tired enough to just about pass out they second they lay down, after all. “A nap isn’t going to go that far, Ez. And anyway, we’ve already washed everything, it’s fine.”

“But…dinner?” The objection was very faint. Rote, more than anything. He looked on the verge of dropping off already.

Silent, Rayla took the opportunity to drape Ezran’s cloak over him. Callum approved. “We’ll take care of dinner, Ez,” he said, voice gentling. “We’ll wake you when it’s time to eat, okay? You just…nap there with Zym.”

It was a little alarming, how quickly sleep took him. He’d barely been laid down, arms around the egg, when his eyes closed and he very plainly fell unconscious. Callum stroked a hand over his brow, frowning lightly, though he didn’t speak. He looked questioningly at Rayla, and she nodded towards the cave mouth, so they stood and quietly made their way out.

“It’s kind of worrying me,” Callum said, finally, when they were at the other end, behind the ice of the waterfall. “His…connection. To the egg. I just…” he sighed, following Rayla further out to where the fire still burned, growing sluggish from lack of attendance. She glanced at him, plainly listening, and knelt down to add another branch to the embers. “It was pretty terrifying, how he got during that storm,” he said in the end, softly. “And you saw how fast he just fell asleep. What if that happens while we’re walking? He could – he could get hurt.”

She hummed understandingly, and gestured him over, waiting until he sat down at her side. “We’ll keep an eye on him,” she told him, gentle but firm, and rested a hand on his wrist for a moment. “Make sure he doesn’t drop off a mountain if he does come down all narcoleptic.”

He nodded, wincing. ‘Falling off a mountain’ was about the size of what he was worried about. “Yeah. I’ll make sure he walks ahead of me, or something.” He paused for thought. “I guess we can always try to switch so one of us is carrying the egg instead? He seems a lot more affected when he’s close to it…maybe it would help to take it away?” Rayla eyed him for a moment, as if he’d said something unusual, and he frowned, trying to figure out why. “What?”

She shook her head, the corners of her lips twitching. “Nothing much. I was just thinking about how neither of you’d let me anywhere near the egg when we first left, and now…”

Callum blinked, and tried to remember. “That feels like so long ago, now.” His stomach dropped weirdly, in a sensation alike vertigo, as he recalled how much he hadn’t trusted her in those first days. “How long has it even been?”

Rayla frowned, and shrugged. “Dunno. Ten days since we left, maybe? Eleven?” Her eyes went distant, as though looking at something he couldn’t see. “Feels about right, from the Moon.”

He pursed his lips. “I’ll go get my sketchbook. I was keeping track of it a while back, I think…”

So he rose, walked back through the cave as quietly as he could manage in the dark, feeling his way along the rock walls to the magical glow of the cavern proper. He checked on Ez, finding him still solidly asleep, and then receded back out with his sketchbook and an armful of medical supplies. It was about that time of day, after all. Rayla was poking critically at the fire when he returned. “Might stake some of the meat, today,” she said as he sat down again. “There was a big bit that had kind of…unfrozen, so that’ll need cooking first.”

“Sounds good?” he offered, setting himself and his things down. He shivered a little; none of them had wrapped up as warmly as usual after washing, what with how temperate it was inside the cave, which meant he was cold now. He inched closer to the fire. “You want any help?”

“Nah, I’m good. You can draw, or something. You brought your book, right?” At her words, she looked over as though to check, and evidently noticed the other supplies he’d brought: bandages, a couple strips of willow bark, scissors, disinfectant, lilium. “…Oh.” Her hand went reflexively to her arm. She was only in a short-sleeved shirt, so he could see the bandages there, arrayed thickly beneath her fingertips. They looked damp, like she’d got them wet while she was washing.

“Needs to be done at some point,” he offered. “It can wait till later, though. But you should maybe have some painkillers now.”

She opened her mouth, glanced at the supplies, and frowned. “I…don’t know if I want to take the lilium again. At least, not today.”

Callum paused, looking at her. “…Because of addiction?” he guessed, and watched her shift uncomfortably.

“Suppose,” she said, noncommittal. “I can just take more willow bark. It’s…fine.” She threw another stick into the fire. She wasn’t looking at him, in a way that felt decidedly avoidant. He watched her for a few long moments, concerned, and she seemed to notice. Her shoulders hunched a little. Finally, she spoke again. “I just…don’t like how it makes me act,” she admitted, eyes still averted.

“…Fair enough, I guess.” Tentative, he shuffled a little closer, so he could see her better. “You know we don’t mind, right?”

She glanced at him, then; quickly, and then away again. There was a hint of a flush on her cheeks. “So you’ve said,” she muttered, sounding embarrassed, of all things.

He took a moment to think of why, and then actually remembered how she’d behaved the previous evening. She’d been…cuddly. And had seemed to have some very definite opinions on her medically-indicated hand massage. Right. “…Still true,” he managed, abruptly a little flustered himself. He hadn’t lied, though; it wasn’t a problem, how she’d acted. Not at all.

She looked at him again, from the corners of her eyes. “Ugh,” she grumbled to herself, and tossed another stick in. It crackled. “Just the same, I’ll stick with the bark, today.”

Callum nodded, a little dubious. He really didn’t want to pressure her into taking addictive, mind-altering drugs, but… “Has that…been working out okay? Through the day, I mean?”

Rayla lifted her arm a little, as though testing it, and grimaced. “Okay enough,” she said, seemingly annoyed at, presumably, her wounds’ continued insistence on being sore and swollen. She must have caught the way he frowned at her then, because she elaborated “It’s not as strong as the lilium. Still hurts when I move it. But it at least stops it aching as much.”

“…Have some more bark,” he suggested, and passed a piece over. She sighed, but agreeably put it in her mouth to chew. “I can change the bandages now? Kind of looks like you got them wet, so…”

“Probably not the best idea to let them sit, no,” she agreed begrudgingly, and waved him over to her left side. “Go on, then.”

So, with the increasing efficiency of practice, Callum set himself down beside her and unwound the old bandages, looking over the wounds carefully. As yesterday, there didn’t seem to have been much change. They were still lividly swollen, as from a fresh wound, and there hadn’t been any obvious healing on the surface at all. They still weren’t showing any signs of infection, at least; that was a mercy. “Well, they’ve not opened,” he offered optimistically, and reached out to daub around the edges with an edge of alcohol-doused cloth. “And they’re not infected.”

She winced a little at the touch, even as careful as he tried to be. Clearly, the willow bark wasn’t going very far. “Best we can hope for at the moment, I suppose.” He winced, and nodded.

He did his best to be gentle, he really did – but she had two great big jagged tears in her arm. There was only so much that ‘gentle’ really counted for, with wounds like this. She winced and flinched several more times through the procedure, and all he could do was murmur apologetically at her.

He cleaned everything and set the fresh bandages on, then peeled back her collar as politely as he could manage to get at the shoulder stab wound. That was still doing fine; it was a much cleaner injury, after all, and smaller too. And then there was just the wrist.

After a while with its bandage off, the sores there had gone hard and dark and dry, like old scabs. He felt at the edges of them, very carefully, noting where the binding was even now applying pressure. “How are these doing? Are they painful?”

Rayla shrugged, uncomfortable, and flexed the fingers of the hand. “Maybe a little? It’s…really not much, compared to everything else.” She twisted the wrist a little beneath his fingers, experimental. “It hurts where the binding is,” she said at last. “That’s mostly it.”

Healing, then. But very slowly. She’d said that was normal, for this part of the lunar cycle, but it still left him anxious. He tugged at her hand to bring it closer, inspecting the tiny blister that had formed on one of her fingers, what felt like so long ago now. It, too, hadn’t progressed very far. It looked similar to the wrist sores, if on considerably smaller scale. “It’s barely healed,” he muttered, unhappy.

“New Moon,” she said, by way of explanation.

He made a low noise, disconsolate, and stared at her hand as he held it. “At least your hand’s mostly okay now, I guess.”

She didn’t answer. When he looked up, she was staring at the her upturned palm, brows furrowed as though it were troubling her. She didn’t look like she agreed with his words at all.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, a little anxiously, eyes moving back to her hand. The colour seemed fine, but…was there something else? Something she hadn’t mentioned?

Rayla remained silent for a few long seconds, then said “It doesn’t hurt.”

He blinked, startled. “…Isn’t that a good thing?”

“Well, it’s nicer than pain, I suppose,” she said, still staring at her hand as though it were something alien and disturbing, rather than her own limb. She pulled it away from his grasp, and started pressing her own fingers into its palm, as though testing it. She turned it over, and ran her thumb lightly over the back, tracing her knuckles.

Callum watched, worried, as she poked and prodded along her fingers as though searching for something. Her expression was bleak, her shoulders tense. It took her a while to speak again.

“It doesn’t hurt, anymore, except maybe…tiny aches, and prickles, I guess.” She trailed fingertips lightly over one edge of her hand. “So…that means it should be better, right?”

Slow, uneasy understanding dawned on him. “But it’s not?” He guessed, and shuffled closer, leaning to inspect her hand more closely.

Rayla flexed her fingers outwards until they trembled with visible effort; it took him a moment to figure out she was trying to straighten them. It…hadn’t worked, really. They were shaking as though strained beyond endurance, but remained somewhat bent. She clenched the fingers closed, well within his view, as though to demonstrate something…and the fist seemed looser than the amount of effort seemed to indicate.

She held the fingers straight again, or tried. The fingers shook badly, as if being forced beyond their capabilities, but still failed to extend properly. “I can’t straighten them out anymore,” she admitted, lowly. “I’ve been trying, but I just...can’t. And my grip is – not right. Weak. Before I thought it was just…recovering, you know? But now – it doesn’t hurt, but it’s still…” She didn’t finish, eyes dark as they rested upon her still-bound hand.

He’d noticed some of it, of course. The way she’d seemed to have difficulty with using the hand, the way its gestures had noticeable lagged during the sign language lesson today...he’d noticed. But she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. “…It hasn’t been that long, yet,” he pointed out, voice quiet to match her own, heart aching with sympathy. “Sometimes the deep stuff takes longer to heal. It could still get better.”

She made a noncommittal sound, and touched her fingers to the back of her hand again. “The skin feels weird, too,” she stated, not responding to his words, her eyes hooded. “Here, especially.” She traced a finger along the thumb side of the back of her hand, in a broad line along it and then up the first two fingers. “But the rest of the hand feels off in places too.”

He looked at it, and restrained the urge to reach out. “Off, how?” he wondered, and watched her press fingers against her own skin.

“Depends, really,” she said, and stroked along the back of the thumb, for a brief second. “Here, light touch is…it doesn’t feel right. Sort of itches, or prickles. If I press deeper, it feels a little bit numb.” She moved her fingers. “The rest of the back of my hand is weird with the light touch too. Firmer feels normal, but light...it’s weird.”

“…How long have you been noticing this?” he asked, uneasy, because there was a hint of practiced familiarity to how she laid out the symptoms. As if she’d chartered the strangeness in every inch of her skin, over and over, while he wasn’t there to see it.

She shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Over the last couple days, I suppose. Since it’s been hurting less,” she said, turning her hand over. “It’s been easier to notice, since I’ve been using it more.” She hesitated. “I’ve…been trying not to think about it.”

Callum held quiet for a few long moments, thinking. He was familiar enough with medical principles to know that certain types of wound could have effects on the mobility and sensation in parts of the body, but…he didn’t know nearly enough of the specifics to understand what this meant. He didn’t know what was causing it, didn’t know if it could be made better, didn’t know anything. “I guess we’ll just have to keep an eye on it?” he said, finally, reaching out for her hand after only a moment of hesitation. He took it between his own with a gentle familiarity, palm turned upwards, thumbs lingering on either side. “How’s the palm?” he asked, after a moment. “Is that prickly too?”

Rayla pursed her lips, watching him. “No, it feels mostly normal.” She admitted. “It’s not numb either.”

“Mostly the back of your hand that feels off?”

“Pretty much.”

He hummed, and wondered what that meant for the daily hand massages. Should he change anything? Be a little firmer on the back of her hand, maybe, to avoid setting off the prickling that seemed associated with lighter touch? “I wish I knew more about healing,” he said, the words slipping out before he could stall them. His shoulders hunched, and he glanced up to find Rayla’s eyes on his own.

“Can’t be helped,” she said, after a moment. “I wish I knew more about one-handed fighting. But I don’t. So.” She shrugged. “At the moment, I’d be pretty useless in a fight.”

“…More use than I’d be, anyway,” he muttered, somewhat distractedly, his gut unwilling to renounce the vague sense of guilt and self-recrimination. If he’d only learned more, that feeling said, he’d be able to help her. He could have done something different, would know what to do now…

Rayla shot him a sidelong look that seemed oddly penetrating, as though she knew precisely what he was thinking. She nudged him in the side with her elbow. “Stop beating yourself up over not knowing literally everything about healing,” she ordered him, words just a little gruff. “We had a deal, remember?”

He exhaled, and the breath felt a little shaky as it emerged. Some complicated emotion twisted in his gut: shame and gratitude conjoined. “Yeah,” he said, voice a little thicker. He glanced at her, hesitated, and shuffled just a little closer. Their shoulders brushed together, the pressure strangely reassuring. “…Thanks,” he said, more softly.

Her eyes lingered on him for a heartbeat longer, strangely intense, before she quickly looked away. She mumbled something indistinct that sounded vaguely like ‘you’re welcome’, eyes fixed forwards on the fire. Her fingers twitched in his hands, but she didn’t make any move to take her hand back. After a few moments…well, it just seemed sensible, given they were already there, for him to move his thumbs inwards and start pressing into her palm.

Rayla offered no objection. She just glanced down at their hands, then looked away again. She shifted, just a little, to move the arm more solidly across the front of his chest, fingers uncurling outwards from her palm. “It’s a little funny,” she said, after a moment, and he looked across at her to watch her as she spoke. “I started sleeping on my back because my hand hurt too much to sleep on. But now my hand’s stopped hurting, but I still have to sleep on my back. Because-“ she nodded towards her arm.

Callum considered that. “’Funny’ isn’t the word I’d use, probably,” he said, and she huffed, lips twitching.

“Funny in a depressing way, though.”

He was already thinking, though. He’d not known that her hand was why she slept on her back, but it made enough sense. Particularly after the fight with that tracker, when she’d gained the arm injuries as well as the abdominal bruising… “Couldn’t you just sleep on your right side?” he wondered, and blinked at the way she immediately barked out a laugh.

“If I did that, you’d probably slap me in the face twice a night,” she informed him, mirthfully.

His hands stilled on hers as he spluttered. “I’d – what?” Then, a second later, he remembered her previous comments about how active a sleeper he could be. “Oh.”

She held his gaze for a second, then ducked her head away, ears dropping. “And that’s if I was lucky,” she said, but now, abruptly, she sounded a little embarrassed. There was a hint of colour in her cheeks. He wasn’t sure he had the courage to ask.

“…I’m still an annoying tent-mate, huh,” he deduced, a little morosely, and wondered how badly he tended to keep her awake. She didn’t need that on top of everything else. “We can change places? I think Ezran mostly just hugs Bait or the egg when he sleeps now, so he probably doesn’t move too much…”

Rayla was quiet for long enough that he started to fret, particularly with how she was still determinedly avoiding meeting his eyes. “…No, it’s fine,” she said, eventually, a note of something odd in her voice. “Honestly, I think I’m getting used to it. I’ve hardly woken up in the middle of the night at all, lately. And when I do it’s because Ezran wakes up, not because of you.” She shrugged, trying for nonchalant and failing. He eyed her.

“If you say so,” he accepted, albeit dubiously. “I can swap with Ez, you know? If it’d help-“

“It’s fine,” she repeated, now with a distinct spot of colour on either cheek. She shook her hand aggressively at him, reminding him that he still had it and was supposed to be doing something. “Just – get on with this, would you? We need to get the food cooked.”

Callum huffed, said “Yes, ma’am,” and did as he was told. He pressed his thumbs into her palm, wondering if it hurt at all without the lilium. She’d said it still ached a little, right? He glanced at her furtively as he worked. She…wasn’t flinching, or wincing, and didn’t seem to be in pain. She did seem a little embarrassed, still. She was sat closely enough that he could literally feel the way her shoulders were hunched.

It didn’t last, though. After a minute or two, she slumped against his side, sighing. She still wasn’t looking at him, but…she wasn’t so tense anymore, either.

It wasn’t quite like the evening before, where she’d been so down in the marshes as to cuddle up without a care in the world, admitting things that she probably never would have uttered sober. She was self-conscious, he thought; like he’d been self-conscious last time, like he still was now. But this time she was fully in her right mind, and was sitting with him like this anyway. He liked it a lot better.

She looked at him, once; there and then quickly away again, as though checking his reaction. Then she mumbled something indistinct to herself, vaguely embarrassed-sounding, and settled a little more. She sighed again, and very slowly, started to relax. He could feel it in the ebbing of tension in her, could see it in how her eyes went half-lidded as she stared into the fire, watching the flames as they flickered and danced. He wondered at it a little, but…she had seemed to find this very relaxing, the other times she’d not been in pain from it. Maybe that applied now, too, even without the lilium.

Callum sat there with her hand in his, her form solid and reassuring against his side, and started to get a new, quiet sense of calm from it. Before, he’d always been too occupied with how much pain she was in, or how embarrassing the situation was. Now, though, he thought he was getting used to the whole thing. It was technically a subset of wound care, so it felt weird to actually find it nice, but…well, that was probably better than being awkward about it forever.

Rayla stayed there unmoving through all the quiet minutes of his working, and seemed a great deal calmer by the time he finished. When he glanced over, she looked…comfortable. Not half-asleep, as under the influence of lilium, but calm.

He let the quiet sit for a little longer, not quite wanting to speak. Eventually, very gently, he nudged her. “Alright?”

Rayla blinked, as though realising he’d finished, then looked across at him. A hint of colour rose in her cheeks. “…Yeah,” she spoke, soft. “Thanks.” For a moment, her fingers curled around his own. A tentative smile ghosted over her lips.

Some strange, light emotion fluttered in his chest.

Then she took her hand back, tugging it gently away. She didn’t move beyond that, at first; just looked at him, eyes lingering on his. Then she sighed, and sat up, the warmth and solidity of her vanishing from his side. “Time to get the food started, I think,” she said, still quiet, as though reluctant to break the calm that had settled over them, and started to shuffle closer to the fire.

He nodded, cleared his throat, and looked around. “Anything I can go get?”

She inspected the items around the fire: a stack of firewood nearby, the iron pot with the defrosted meat in it, and one of her swords. She shook her head. “Nah. I’ve got everything, thanks.” Again, she shot a smile his way. “Weren’t you going to figure out how long we’d been travelling, or something?”

Callum blinked. “Er, yeah, I was,” he admitted, rueful, and sat up to stretch a little, shoulders clicking. “I forgot.”

“You do that, then.” Without further ado, she set about cutting the meat and spearing the pieces on an array of sticks, arranging them carefully around the fire. She remained a lot calmer-looking than she had earlier; relaxed and loose-limbed in a way he hadn’t really seen outside of the influence of lilium. It was…nice.

He smiled to himself, oddly pleased, and reached for his sketchbook. He’d been keeping track of the days on a loose page tucked in at the back; he peeled it out, readying his charcoal, and inspected it. It hadn’t been very thorough, barely more than a tally. He considered it for a while, and finally, in script as small as he could manage, started trying to count back the days. He added a little note for each one: waterfall cave for today, left thundersnow cave for yesterday, and so on. With a little twist of grief, he oriented learned about Harrow onto the page, and then a note for the day before, and before that, and before that…

“The full moon was on the night of the twelfth,” he said to her, finally, when he was done. “So we started travelling on the thirteenth. It’s been twelve days since we left the castle.”

She looked up from the fire, blinking. “Feels like longer. But yeah, seems right.” She shuffled over to look at his notes, tilting her head to read. He’d noted the day she’d first had the binding loosened, and the day she’d been injured by the soldier; her eyes lingered on those for a while. “Probably a good idea, to keep track of things like that,” she said at last.

“Yeah. It might be important, if we ever find a proper doctor or healer for you to see.”

Rayla snorted. “Fat chance of that, in the middle of Katolis.”

“We won’t be in Katolis forever,” he reasoned. “And in Xadia – you have to have magic healing, right? If nothing else, someone over there should be able to figure out how to get your binding off.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” She lifted her wrist, staring at the binding. “Never heard of one of these being broken, though. Not sure how it works.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said, determined. “Somehow.”

Rayla’s lips turned up at the edges. “I hope so. Can’t exactly keep Ez and his dragon loosening the thing for the rest of my life.”

Callum winced, a thought occurring to him. “And there’s another good reason he can’t just go back to Katolis and be King right now,” he muttered, chagrined. “Pretty sure Azymondias can’t do the binding on his own. You’d lose your hand.”

She blinked. “I…didn’t actually think of that.”

He hadn’t, either. With this holding pattern of loosening it, again and again…it was easy to forget that her hand wasn’t safe, yet. If anything changed, if Ezran’s trick stopped working…she could still end up losing it. She was already starting to have to face how much damage had already been done, but – that wasn’t necessarily the end of it. As long as the binding was there, she was still in danger. “…We’ll figure something out,” he repeated, as much to himself as to her. She grimaced, but didn’t reply, and he cast about for a change of subject. “You said new moon is in a few days, right?”

Rayla grimaced even more at that, expression sour. “Yeah. I can already feel it coming on.”

Carefully, he wrote out the dates for the next few days. “Do you know exactly what day it’ll be?”

She paused for a moment, as though consulting her magic lunar-sense. “Not the day after tomorrow, but the one after that.”

He noted it in. He had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t going to be a good day, and thought it might bear planning for. “At least we’ve probably got enough meat for a while. You won’t need to go hunting.”

“Yeah, we’re not going to run out of that in a hurry,” she agreed. “Still got loads. It’s something, I suppose. And on that note-“ she turned back to the fire, checking on the cooking. Already the smell of roasting meat was making his stomach growl.

She attended to the cooking, and after watching for a while, Callum returned to his book. He noted down a few more things in the makeshift travel-log, then set it back into the pages, folded. He flipped through the other loose sheets, finding Draconic vocabulary, his rough map, a sketch of some noteworthy rooms in the Banther lodge; mementoes from earlier in their journey. It felt so distant. He wondered how he’d feel in a month, or two, or three. It would take that long to get the egg home, wouldn’t it? Getting to Xadia was only the start.

Already it felt like his entire world had changed, and two weeks ago seemed almost a dream of a past life. What else would change? Would he think on today in a week or two, and feel like it had been an age ago?

He sighed, and turned the page to the front. Nostalgic, and a little homesick, he started to flick through. He lingered for a long time on the drawings of Harrow, grief twisting in his chest. And then he flipped onwards again.

Finally he was to an empty page, and he remembered where he was. Even now, he was sitting beside an entire magnificent frozen waterfall, at the mouth of a cave that held a little refuge of magic in its belly. There was plenty to draw. Plenty that wasn’t depressing. So, determinedly, he set his charcoal to paper, and made a start.

He’d made a respectable sketch of the waterfall and its surroundings by the time Rayla deemed the food ready, and put the pot back on the fire to boil some water. In went a few handfuls of pine needles, and away went Callum’s sketchbook. They brought everything back inside the cave when it was done, settling near Ezran and coaxing him awake.

“Ughhh,” Ez offered, groggy and grumpy as Callum tugged him upright. “I – what…?”

“Dinner, Ez,” Callum said to him, sympathetic, and coaxed him into putting the egg down on the mossy stone. That seemed to help; a hint of alertness returned to his brother’s eyes, and he blinked at the pot with sudden recognition.

“Oh.” With some difficulty, he seemed to pull himself awake, wiping a hand over his face. “Right. Bait?” he called for the toad, who was off in the cave somewhere. “Do you want food?” A croak echoed back from somewhere behind a tree, and Ezran nodded. “He’s fine, he’s been eating bugs,” Ez explained to them, shuffling lethargically over. “Can I just…eat and go back to sleep? I’m so tired…”

“That’s fine, Ez,” Rayla said, and passed him a jar. He accepted it, and stared at it with consternation for over ten seconds before he seemed to realise what it was.

“Tea?” he questioned, plaintively.

“Sadly, yes,” she nodded. “Drink up. The sooner you do it the sooner it’ll be over.”

Callum rolled his eyes, a little amused by how much they both seemed to disdain it, and waited patiently for Ezran to finish with the jar so that he could take custody of it. He sipped his with quiet enjoyment while they ate, then got a refill, and slowly depleted it while working through his own dinner portion.

He ate more than he’d have expected to manage, in the end. Meat really wasn’t that filling on its own; or at least, not in a way that lasted. He wondered if they’d be able to start finding more wild edible plants again, once they descended far enough for there to not be snow and ice on everything.

“I’m getting kinda sick of just meat,” Ezran mumbled, groggy and ill-tempered with it, evidently having similar objections as Callum. “It’s just the same thing, every day…”

“Travel’s like that,” Rayla said, shrugging. “It sucks, but unless you find stuff along the way, or can supply in towns…”

“What did you do?” Callum asked, curious. “Your…team. When you were travelling. You wouldn’t have been able to carry that much food, right?”

She looked briefly nonplussed, and then a little uncomfortable. She averted her eyes. “Well, we had…nutrient pills, and stuff,” she said, after a moment. “It didn’t go really far, but it at least meant we weren’t missing out on anything important if we did just eat meat. And we had some packets of seasoning and the like, so it wasn’t as boring.”

He inspected her, tilting his head. “So you’ve been eating mostly meat for like, months now.”

“I got sick of it a long time ago,” she agreed, expression sour. “Now it’s just sort of…fuel. I really miss proper food.”

“I already miss proper food,” Ezran sighed.

Callum looked between them, and his lips twitched. “…Would this be a good time to do that sign-language practice about our favourite foods?”

They both shot him disgusted looks. “No,” Rayla said, grumpily. “I had enough of missing Moonberries earlier, thanks.”

“Aw, come on, it’ll be fun,” he wheedled, and after a little more cajoling did actually manage to get a little practice going. It had the foreseen consequence of making them all hungry again, so they actually ended up eating almost everything they’d cooked for once. Rayla approved of that, at least; apparently none of them were really eating enough to support themselves on a meat-only diet, and she was getting a bit concerned about it.

“I’m thinking of cooking up a lot more tomorrow night, so we can just sort of start snacking as we walk,” she confided, when they were putting the pot away and filling up their waterskins for the night. “We’re never hungry enough when we stop for breaks. All the exercise, you know.”

“Probably a good idea,” Callum said, though his stomach rebelled at the thought of eating during exertion. “I never really feel full. Even when I stop eating…I don’t know, it feels like I just can’t eat anymore, instead of actually having enough?”

She looked troubled. “Yeah. It’s not great.”

“Maybe we can get some bread or something, when we get to Greatport,” Ezran mumbled, trailing along sluggishly at their heels. He hadn’t become significantly more alert over the evening, and had stumbled through the sign language as though half asleep. “That would be nice.”

Callum didn’t point out that Greatport was probably a good two weeks away, or that they lacked money of any kind. He supposed he could…try to sell something? Or trade? He wasn’t sure what he could sell that they didn’t need, though. “It would,” he agreed, instead of voicing any of his thoughts, and ushered Ezran gently back into the cave.

In the end, he settled his brother in the thick moss beneath one of the cave-growing trees, egg situated a careful distance away.

“I know you like to keep him close,” Callum said to him, laying the cloak over him like a blanket. “But it’s probably going to make it harder for you to sleep, if he does wake up in the night again. We’re not in the tent, there’s tons of room, so just…leave him there, okay?”

Ezran sighed. “Yeah, okay,” he blinked up at him, drowsy, and blinked as Callum settled the cloak on. “You gonna tuck me in?” It was a joke; it had been a good long while since Ezran had wanted tucking in at night. But Callum paused, nostalgia stirring in his chest, and leaned over to do precisely that, tucking in the cloak around his sides.

“Comfy?” he asked, leaning back as Bait shuffled over and insinuated himself under Ezran’s arm.

He smiled, small and sleepy, and hunkered down under his cloak with a sigh. “Mmhm,” he agreed, and then closed his eyes. Barely seconds later, his breath started to settle out into a familiar rhythm; already asleep.

“…He drops off fast,” Rayla said, very quietly, from where she’d been watching. Her eyes were soft when he turned to face her, and just a little sad. He wondered what she was thinking about.

“A lot of the time, yeah.” He gave his brother a last glance, then went over to settle where he’d left his bag. Rayla followed, sitting down beside him as he rubbed at his eyes, suddenly feeling his exhaustion. His legs were sore from all the climbing, his toes hurt from the descending, and he was just…tired. “…How late is it?” He couldn’t really tell, inside the cave. He’d been outside only a little bit ago, though, and it had been almost fully dark.

Rayla paused in that increasingly-familiar way, consulting a sense that was utterly foreign to him. “Not too late, yet,” she said, finally. “Maybe eight?”

He considered that. “I’ll go to sleep soon, I think,” he decided. “I’m…really tired.” He paused.

“But not yet?” she guessed, looking at him. He looked back, for a long moment. In the soft glow of the cavern, she looked…she was just…

He averted his eyes. “Not yet,” he agreed. “I want to draw a little more, if there’s time.”

“There’s time.” She blinked at him, eyes luminescing gently, and shuffled closer. Callum opened his sketchbook and hesitated for a long while, exhaling softly, nudging his artist’s mind away from the way it seemed to want to fixate on the light flickering on the edge of her face. He turned to the waterfall sketch, and kept drawing.

Rayla glanced at him, and when he didn’t object, settled in to watch. They didn’t speak for the rest of the evening, sitting in companionable quiet, until at last Callum’s exhaustion got the better of him and he put the book away.

Even with the whole cavern available to them, Callum settled only a metre or so from Ezran; in turn, Rayla settled a similar distance from him. Close enough to smile at him as she pulled her cloak over herself and nestled on her front into the moss, and to mumble a good-night as her eyes closed.

He echoed it, already half-gone, but…glad, in a way he couldn’t quite put to words, to have her nearby.

In the warm quiet of the cave, sleep came quickly; his dreams spun images of light and moon-moths all through the night.

---

The window was large, and wreathed in a cage of tightly-packed metal bars.

Runaan had assessed it as an avenue of escape when he first saw it, but more as a matter of instinct than of anything else. He was in no condition to stage an escape attempt, even if his captors had been more lax with their restraints and security. The bars were solid, and deeply embedded within the stone walls; even with how recently they’d evidently been placed, it was too much for him to pull out as he was now. Were he at his best, he would be stronger and faster than any human his size, but even that would do him little good against quality metal like those bars, or the restraints wreathed around his surviving limbs.

So, there would be no escape through that window. But he found himself pathetically grateful for its presence, anyway.

There was nothing of interest to be seen through it. The window opened out into some sort of courtyard, his location evidently high up enough that he couldn’t see any of the movements of the people within. Instead, he had an uninspiring view of the castle and its dark windows, and a decent strip of sky above it. A sky that offered light.

An hour after he’d been moved here, a well-ornamented Katolian soldier had entered the room, flanked by two adjuncts, the dark-clothed observer waiting behind. With a stiff posture and cold eyes that spoke very well of her animosity, she’d read to him the letter of the Millennium War Crimes Accords, a piece of legislation that he, as a prisoner of war, was legally entitled to the knowledge of. Within that knowledge had emerged the reason that he’d been permitted a cell with a window. The Pentarchy, it seemed, knew a little more about the weaknesses of Moonshadow elves than he was entirely comfortable with.

Despite it all, he couldn’t find it in himself to regret the presence of the window. Even if that lack did signify weakness.

Daylight was harsh against eyes that had spent so long in the dark, but welcome even so. Moonlight, though…

He hadn’t realised how much he’d missed it – how much he’d weakened in its absence – until the waning Moon rose, and cast moonshadows from the bars on the window that filtered onto his skin. It had felt like an awakening – or like coming alive. In that moment, heedless of all the years he’d spent training, the years he’d spent uttering the creeds, a part of him had stirred and opened and yearned for life; even though he was already dead.

A few days. A few days more without moonlight, and he would be dead. The agony in his body and rasp in his lungs was stark testament to that. But already, the livid swelling on the stump of his left arm seemed cooler. Already, he was breathing easier. A few days more, and it would have been over. But now…

Strength and energy and vivacity filtered into his blood via the touch of the light through the window, and he was helpless to do anything but adore it, as must any creature who owes its magic to the Moon. He sighed, the exhalation shaky with relief, and could not help but feel the shame of the weakness.

I am already dead, he reminded himself. But…

It was deceptively hard to believe, with moonlight on his skin.

His eyes fell on the dim shape the moonlight cast through the window, with its bar-slatted shadows and the gentle shading of the near-New Moon. His impulses warred with him, and he did not know that he had the fortitude to resist them for long.

The length of his chains allowed him to move about the cell. They were heavy with weights, and fastened firm to the walls, but he could stand. He could walk, if only two paces in either direction. He could choose to sit in the slatted square of light cast on the floor in front of the window, and bask in the moonlight. If he were stronger, he might have been able to resist that call. Might have been able to stay to the shadows, and let the absence of the Moon chase a little more vitality from his body with every passing moment. If he were stronger.

But he was not so strong. The moonlight called to him, and weakened and diminished as he was, he was powerless to resist it.

So it was that Runaan settled in the Moon’s path with a metallic clatter of chains on stone, and stayed there for hours, trembling incessantly with the relief of the light. It was a testament to the days spent caged away from it that even the light of a near-dark Moon could affect him so, when usually this stage of darkness would have been chasing strength from his body. It drifted across the sky, the angle of the light upon the stone floor shifting, and he moved with it, turning to follow its path like a puppet on a string. He could no more have ignored that pull than he could have willed his blood to stop flowing. So he followed the Moon across the floor of the cell, mind gone mercifully quiet behind the soul-deep benediction of the light.

Until, a few hours from dawn, something strange flashed in the gloom.

His eyes, held half-lidded to behold the moonlight through the bars on the window, snapped fully open. His mind came awake as though pushing through fog, following that hint of strangeness, of movement; a conditioned response that had been stamped and fastened into him through year after year of his work. He stared, unerring and alert, waiting.

Another flash of light.

This time, he was looking for it, so his eyes sharpened quickly upon it: someone, in a window loosely opposite and to the left of his own, across the courtyard, was flashing light in this direction upon a reflective surface. Probably a small, hand-held mirror. Runaan watched, eyes tracking the light with more intensity and focus than he’d managed to muster since the first few days of his privations.

Humans wouldn’t have been able to pick up on signals as dim as this. Even most other elves wouldn’t see it. Their eyes were too blind to the moonlight. The differences in light levels would be too small for them to see these flashing reflections of the light of a waning Moon; perhaps they’d notice something, but not enough. Not nearly enough. But Runaan was Moonshadow. He could hardly fail to notice this.

The light flashed every ten seconds for the next two minutes, a standard opening to any coded transmission. His heart, though still weak and laboured, beat a little faster as he watched and waited. Then, finally, the light shifted to the shorter, more precise signals he knew. He watched them avidly, decoding it as it passed, and any chance of this not being the work of a Xadian operative passed into extinction.

Ave, sicarius, said the coded light, in the standard ancient Draconic, and he felt his breath escape him. ‘Hail, assassin.’

He’d have closed his eyes to brace himself against how powerfully those words affected him, but he needed to watch for the message. He felt himself trembling, felt his heart racing enough to make him dizzy in his diminished state, but kept watching.

The code came through entirely in that same Draconic, as was usual for communications between mixed forces covert operatives deep in enemy territory. Codes could and would be compromised, but very few humans had enough knowledge of Draconic to interpret such messages, even if they were capable of reading the moonlight, and capable of interpreting the code. It was secure, after a fashion.

Hail, assassin, said the message, in the usual abbreviated shorthand of ictus. I am watching. I am reporting. Take no drastic measures. Xadia wishes you home. Abide, and await further word.

He had nothing in the cell that he could possibly use to reply, over this sort of distance. No mirror, no candle-flame; and the metal of the chains was dull enough that it wouldn’t be anywhere near the level of reflective that he’d need. But….

With considerable effort, he stretched his foot across the cell far enough to retrieve the tray his evening meal had been given upon. It had been nothing but gruel in a bowl, and of course he’d ignored it, shoving it away across the cell in rejection along with the medicines he’d disdained, but now…now, he picked up the still-full bowl with his only remaining hand, fingers dipping into the gruel from the awkward angle, and set it carefully aside. Then, shifting his grip several times to get the proper leverage, he raised the tray.

The coded light was going through its second repetition of the message by the time he reached the bars, and raised the tray with his trembling hand to hit it against the bars. The noise was raucous and rang painfully in his ears, shrieking out through his skull as though to amplify every dull ache and sharp pain his skull had to offer – but it was necessary. The flashes of light stopped instantly as he rose against the window, and stayed gone while he shakily clanged out his response, in the same code. Noise was indiscreet, and would certainly invite investigation from the guards outside, so – he had to be quick.

AG, he spelled out with that sound, as hastily as he could. The signal for agnosco; ‘I acknowledge.’

He sat down as quickly as he could when the keys rattled in the cell door, pulling the bowl of cold gruel to his side. He painted his features with a scowl as the guards entered, bodies tense and hands at the swords on their sides. Their eyes ran over him, over his chains, over the state of the cell…and then they settled a little, though their features were tight and hard.

“What was that noise in aid of?” One of them, the man, demanded.

Runaan, of course, remained silent. He sneered contemptuously at the both of them, and maintained the expression until the man uttered an irritated tch and turned away.

“Of course you choose now to be silent,” he muttered, voice wearing the same contempt as Runaan’s face. His fellow nudged him, a friendly and supportive gesture, though her posture and expression remained coldly professional.

“Leave it,” she said, and offered Runaan a last cold glance as she ushered herself and her companion out of the cell. The heavy reinforced door was locked and bolted again, and he heard them muttering beyond it: “The hunger must have finally got the better of him,” the woman was saying, as they retreated a little way down the hall to their customary posts. “He had the bowl he threw away earlier, did you see? The noise was likely just him retrieving the tray.”

“Seemed a bit too much noise for just pulling a tray towards him.”

“Then maybe he was being spiteful. Either way, just add it to the report. If it becomes a habit…well, we’ll talk about it then.”

Runaan quietly acknowledged the words just as the other guard did. He couldn’t make a habit of sending ictusian code by noise, then. But it had been worth it this time, to tell the spy that he was watching. And, at least, in the absence of any scheduled meetings between himself and guards or healers…the code-breaker was not here to notice that someone had contacted him. That was good.

He listened, wary and guarded, for any sign that the guards were going to return. When there was nothing, he lowered his eyes to the cold slop in the bowl he held, brows lightly furrowed. His only meals these last weeks had been force-fed. He had accepted no medical aid that had not been administered by force, and the medicines the human healer woman had left were still sat tidily in their glass bottles to his side. Without sufficient feeding, and without the medicine…even the moonlight would not save him, soon. He had been counting on it.

It had been his duty as a captive, as a Moonshadow assassin, to die without giving the enemy anything of worth to use. This deep in enemy territory, it was standard procedure to consider oneself lost if captured, and hasten towards an honourable death through every reasonable measure. It was his failing that he had not succeeded yet.

But the message changed things. There was an operative here in Katolis – though whether a transient, a stray entrenched operative, or the more likely deep-cover agent, he had no way of knowing. But they were here. They were watching. They were reporting. Xadia had commanded him to live.

For the first time since his capture, Runaan allowed himself to consider the idea of returning home.

A face flashed in his mind and his heart at once; the pang was physically painful, and he closed his eyes to breathe past it. In the next second he thought of Rayla, and his heart clenched anew. Where was she, now? Had she managed to evade the General? Was she still on her way home…or was she lost, when he had only now gained the hope of being found?

He had no way of knowing, unless the agent deigned to risk themself sending him news. But…

Xadia had commanded him to live.

I am not dead yet, he thought, with a strange rush of energy. Hope, and fear, all at once.

He raised the bowl to his lips, and drank.

---

End chapter.

Chapter Notes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OGBo7nKVDIfWjhxGe90fwaS3lP0IfQJ3?usp=sharing

Link to PIAJ chapter notes folder (Google Drive folder including worldbuilding, commentary, medical notes, research notes, and misc notes for all applicable chapters within this section)

This chapter's notes cover: author’s notes on various scenes in this chapter, dark magic tracking spells, minor worldbuilding notes, and extended commentary on The Runaan Scene.

Timeline: https://docs.google.com/document/d/107eD8zmLAAFBWSOgsLyl8g4pAdQF4EgMh4rpN_m91U4/edit?usp=sharing Link to PIAJ Timeline Google doc ( to be updated as story progresses)

PIAJ Masterpage: https://tenspontaneite.tumblr.com/piaj Link to PIAJ Masterpage on tumblr (containing links to chapters, meta, art, Q&As, and resources) (Link may not work properly on mobile/app)

Author Notes:

God, I can’t believe I finally got to a Key Scene. I’m so proud.

There’s a much higher than average proportion of Really Old Scenes in this chapter. The frozen waterfall, glowy cave (first bit), and Key Runaan Scene were all written in 2019, I believe. Some of the cave scene could’ve been 2020 though, but not all. They were all edited of course, but it was nice to be able to give these scenes the light of day, metaphorically speaking, at last. Extended notes on these scenes, particularly the Runaan one, can be found in the chapter notes document.

A good chunk of chapter 25 is already written. I’d say it’s maybe 40-50% done? Not sure how long that’ll take, but either way, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Comments, as always, are appreciated.

(PS I might not update the timeline or the tumblr masterpage tonight as I’m very tired and it’s late)

#tdp fic #tdp rayla #tdp callum #tdp ezran #tdp runaan #tdp corvus #piaj chapters

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witching-hour · 4 years

Text

Best Friend [Jax Teller x Reader]

REQUESTED BY ANON 20,21,22 from 100 prompts with jax teller x reader plz

REQUESTED BY ANON Hi! Can I request a jax teller x reader with something along the lines of the reader being jax’s best friend and getting into a fight with a crow-eater because she’s jealous? Thank you luv

(A/N): so since you both had somewhat similar requests, i decided to use the second one’s synopsis with the prompts from the first one. i did change the first prompt a bit, though. “I was so stupid to make the mistake of falling in love with my best friend” (20). “Because I love you, you asshole!” (21). “Come over here and make me” (22)

SUMMARY: the reader let’s her jealousy over her best friend consumer her, which causes her to get in a fight with a crow-eater

TW: violence, blood

THE music was loud. Very, very loud. You could barley hear your own thoughts over it, and were surprised how you haven’t gone deaf yet. Sitting at the bar in the Clubhouse during one of the notorious Friday night parties the club loved throwing, was how it looked like you were spending your night.

Opie was sitting at a table in the corner of the room with Lyla on his lap, smoking a joint that was being passed around with Bobby and Tig. You saw Juice get dragged off to the dorms early on with two sweet-butts that managed to capture his attention. Happy was tattooing a nomad, Quinn, who had stopped in town to visit his fellow patched brothers. Chibs was on the other end of the bar speaking with Gemma and Nero over the shortbread she made the other night during a family dinner. And Jax—you didn’t know where he was.

Probably getting his dick wet with some random crow-eater or sweet-butt on the lot. You scowled at the mental picture your brain was creating. Charming’s favorite playboy was at it again. Wonderful.

Sure, you could admit you were jealous that Jax had slept with almost every woman in Charming except you, which you should have held pride for for not being just another notch added to the Prince Charming’s belt. Yet, you didn’t. You made the stupid mistake of falling in love with your best friend. What a cliche, (Y/N). Your mother would be laughing at you right now.

You couldn’t help it. Jax wasn’t even trying and he’d managed to swoop you up from under your feet. With his infamous panty-dropping smile and perfect teeth, even with him being a smoker—which he also made hot for a habit you found disgusting. His grown out, slicked back blonde hair which matched his personality perfectly. Man, how you wished to run your hands through it. His broad shoulders and arms were enough to make you drool. And that six-pack hidden under his layers of t-shirts, flannels, and his kutte...you were done for. With all that, you definitely knew that man was packing some serious heat. Plus all the talk from all the the women he’s been with over the years.

His physical features were more than appreciated, but they weren’t the ones that reeled you in. It was the way he wore his heart on his sleeve. How he was so calm and collected in the most life-threatening situations, calculated. How protective and compassionate he was. His loyalty for his family, brothers, and friends. His undevoted love for those he cared about, because you learned when Jax Teller loved, he loved hard. The way he was with his son, Abel, made you swoon each time you saw them together. He was an amazing father, there was no doubt about it. Especially when he pushed the club into legitimate business in the name of the boy, who looked and acted so much like him, and to honor the father that was taken from him too soon. He sought out the dream his father envisioned, and executed it.

Jax was a bad boy, but a good man at heart. He had done unspeakable things, you knew that. The same hands he used to stroke your cheek, or to hold your hand, or to hug you, were the same hands that had been coated in the blood of his enemies. And was it stupid of you to say you weren’t scared of a man so violent and with the power to hurt another being? Maybe. But maybe it was the gut feeling you had that told you were safe with him. That he would never hurt you, and always protect you.

He was your best friend. Of course he would protect you. Of course he would hug you. Of course he cared about you. He loved you. He’s said it before. Just not in the context you always hoped for.

Glaring down the bottle of beer you had had in your grasp, caught the attention of Lyla who had gotten up from Opie’s lap and zigzagged through the crowd looking for you. Once she saw you alone at the bar, she frowned.

The minute she found a place next to you, she didn’t hesitate to ask you what was going on in that head of yours. “Are you okay?” She may not have been innocent when it came to her work, but she acted as sweet and polite like she was. She was an angel and your female best friend, like a sister.

“Yeah, I’m good.” You sighed. No you weren’t good. Thinking about your (male) best friend’s adventures with women that weren’t you, was not something that would put you in a good mood.

Her eyes ran over your face again, letting a sympathetic half-smile rest on hers. “Jax, again?”

“Mm,” you nodded sarcastically, a tight-lipped grin taking its place. “How’d you know?”

Before she could reply, you felt the air in the room shift. Her gaze left you and fell in the doorway that led to the dorms for patches. Jax walked through, his usual cocky and cool vibe flooding in as he took long strides to where you both stood. And neither of you missed as the infamous porn-slut no one could stand stroll out behind him. Ima Tite.

Your jaw clenched, slightly shaking you head in disbelief. He actually slept with the so called “rancid pussy” he and the club nicknamed her. Out of every woman to throw themselves at him, he settled with the daily used whore. You weren’t one to use such degrading terms for women, especially pornstars and prositutes because not all of them had a choice or they saw it as the only option to support their family, but Ima was not Lyla, or most of the girls you had become friendly with at Diosa. Lyla was genuine and kind. She did what she did because she was raising three kids and was expecting more since she just gotten off her birth control pills.

While Lyla upgraded from sucking dick to directing it, Ima had stuck to ground zero. Lyla became the sole producer and director of Redwoody Productions, and you couldn’t be more proud of her. She even worked Nero’s escort business as his assistant manager. Ima, on the other hand, wanted any and every guy up in her cooche. Especially the Jackson Teller: President to the Sons of Anarchy and Prince of Charming.

But really? Ima fucking Tite.

You felt Lyla’s hand rest comforting on your shoulder as her ex-coworker adjusted her top. The porn-slut not being subtle at all about it either. She ran her pinky down the corner of her mouth when she noticed you two at the bar, smirking tauntingly. She strutted to a pack of crow-eaters and sweet-butts that wanted to hear all about what she managed to snag. You scoffed under your breath, turning around in your seat and taking a long swig of your beer, letting the burn of the alcohol settle within you.

Jax noticed the tension in your posture, cocking an eyebrow up in curiosity and concern. He made his way over, standing in between the seats you and Lyla sat in. “Hey,” he glided his hand across your back in an attempt to comfort you, “everythin’ alright darlin’?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” You replied, sounding stiff and defeated, making him shoot a glance to Lyla questioningly.

Lyla didn’t want to lie to Jax. She only wanted the truth to come out about how both were secretly in love with each other so this high school nonsense would dissipate into thin air already. But being the good friend she was, and knowing you would do the same for her if roles were reversed, she covered your back. “Yeah, it’s just getting late. You know how she gets.” She laughed, flipping a piece of hair over her shoulder, and seemingly selling it to the biker.

“I’m just tired, Jax. I’ll probably head home in a little bit.” You added.

He didn’t look entirely convinced, but seemed to buy your bullshit for the time being. “You want me to give you a ride home?”

Not the ride you want....

Down girl!

“No, that’s okay. I’ll probably hitch a ride with Gemma and Nero. It looks like they’re heading out soon anyway.” You nodded your head towards his mom and business partner.

He looked dejected at your decline at his offer, but covered it up as soon as it showed with his usual mask of a neutral expression. You always jump up at the opportunity to ride on the back of his Dyna, always taking the long routes so you didn’t have to get off so soon. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure.” You replied with a small close-lipped smile, noting that his face had fallen for a split second. Lyla too.

He nodded hesitantly, giving you one last look of concern before sauntering over to Opie, Bobby, and Tig.

You sighed when he sat down with the guys and shaking your head when you faced Lyla once more, “Fucking Ima.”

“I doubt he did anything with her, (Y/N/N).” She tried to assure you.

“Please,” you scoffed with a roll of your eyes.

“Jax isn’t into her. He’s made that clear time and time again.” She continued. “None of the guys like her.”

“Maybe because he was using his upstairs head at the time, Lyla. When it comes to pussy, Jax only thinks with his dick.”

She was stunted. That was true. As much as she loved Jax like the brother she never had, he could be an asshole when it came to girls and relationships. She heard the stories about Tara Knowles, and had met the girl briefly a couple of times, but both times she was judged and commented on for her line of work. Jax and Tara were immature teenagers infatuated with each other to the point of toxicity. They wanted the other to be something they weren’t, and were pulled in opposite directions. They both grew up since then, but when put together, they were stuck in the memories they created long ago, bringing out the worst in each other. Jax was a cheater and hypocrite, while Tara was a green monster wrapped in high morals that clashed with his lifestyle. They were not meant to be together.

But you and Jax were. You brought out the best in him. Made him want to be a better man. Hell, you pushed him to turn the Club around, go legit. You were the only woman to make him fall to his knees, and everyone around the two of you saw that, even Jax. But not you.

“And that’s Ima—she’s borderline delusional when it comes to Jax.” Lyla argued. “Trust me, (Y/N), no one’s touched that since CaraCara burnt down.”

You only gave the ex-pornstar a sideways glance before taking another sip of your beer, causing your friend to give up, despite her exasperation with the situation. You changed the subject, asking her how the newest RedWoody film was coming along. You both chatted about her work until a crow-eater you noticed was chatting with Ima earlier ended up standing in front of you and Lyla.

She had dark hair with cheaply done red highlights, an eyebrow piercing, with a tattoo sleeve of the adult horror version of fairytale characters up and down her arm. You would have complimented the tattoos if she didn’t have the snarky and taunting look on her face. Her shirt was two sizes too small, and squeezing her exaggerated breasts so hard you thought they were gonna pop out of her top. Her shorts were daringly close to letting her ass hang out, and the usual three inch wannabe biker boots adorned her feet like every other crow-easter or sweet-butt in the Clubhouse.

She stood there not saying a word, making you and Lyla share a look. Trouble.

You rolled your eyes, only anticipating what could possibly go down in the next couple of minutes. “Can we help you?” The question was filled with an annoyed attitude, you knew that, but did you care? No.

“Yeah, actually you can.” She smiled with a sickly-sweet tone you only knew meant you were gonna be ripping out those red highlights from her scalp. “Stay away from Jax. My girl, Ima, is finally reelin’ him in, and she gonna be his Ol’ Lady real soon.”

You could feel the entitlement she wore as a crown hit you in waves. Your anger only sparking and spreading through your body. You matched her smile sarcastically, and tilting your head at an angle that anyone who knew you knew you were about to snap. “Thanks for the info, sister. Bye now.” You’ve had enough of this bullshit tonight. You just wanted to finish you beer and go home to your nice warm bed.

“Did’n you hear what I said? That was’n news. It was a warnin’.” She narrowed her eyes in threatening way, but to you only seemed mockingly comical because did she really believe you were scared of her? Ok. “Jax is off the market from your nasty ass cunt. Steer clear or else.”

“Oh shit...” Opie’ coughed on the blunt, shoving it in Bobby’s hands. “Jax!” His hand swatted his best friend repeatedly, motioning to the tension forming on the other side of the room.

Jax looked away from Tig, getting annoyed from being hit. “What the fuck, Ope?” His gaze followed his VP’s line of sight and widened when he also caught wind of the shitstorm brewing, and staggering to get up. “Oh fuck!”

“Or what? You’re gonna unleash your cat claws?” Your patience was wearing thin, and this girl was just not taking the hint to leave. “Bitch, I’m tired and wanna go home; take a nice long shower and go to bed. Not deal with your fake tits and bad attitude.” You rolled your eyes once more, reaching behind you and grabbing your beer from the bar. “If Ima’s delusional ass has a problem with who her imaginary boyfriend of the week hangs out with, then she can take it up with him.” You sent her one last smile before taking a swig from the the bottle.

The steam was flooding in thick streams out of her ears. The crow-eater’s jaw clenched and hands balled into fists.

You smirked behind the bottle up to your lips. You weren’t one to back down from a fight, but you also weren’t one to create conflict. You offered the bitch the easy way out, but she kept coming for more. She wants a cat-fight, you’ll give her one.

Her tell was the way her jaw twitched. It gave her straight away when she swung her arm up to throw a sloppy right hook. You ducked under her arm, holding your bottle by the neck and swung it towards the side of her head, and causing the bottom half to break on impact. She let out a loud cry as she tripped over her feet, her hand flying up to touch the now bleeding side of her head.

“You bitch!” She shrieked.

“Takes one to know one, darlin’.” You quipped, looking down at the broken bottle in your hand.

She let out another yell, lunging for you, but Lyla jumped in and pushed her into the bar away from you, causing two more from her little crew to flank her side in defense.

“She could have a concussion!” One squealed dramatically.

“Crazy bitch! Why’d you hit her head with the bottle, you could’ve killed her?” The other seethed.

You rolled your eyes at that. So. Damn. Dramatic. “Why’d her head hit my bottle, she wasted a perfectly good beer?”

Lyla elbowed you in the side in warning, making you toss the broken bottle to the side with a shrug. The three women glared at you two. One even had the courage to walk up to Lyla and spit at her feet. Your blood boiled at the action, so you gripped the bitch by her engine-red hair and yanked her head back harshly, throwing your fist back and knocking it right into the center of her face.

You don’t remember what happened next after your first collided with her nose, but you felt a pair of strong arms wrap around your waist, and pulling you up off the floor. When your vision zoned back in you saw Opie with his arm around Lyla protectively, and Tig, Happy, and Kozik grabbing the crow-eaters that decided to pick a fight and escort them outside.

As you struggled against the person who still held you while you eased off the high from destruction, you heard a rough voice tell you to calm down.

Jax.

You stopped your attempts to fight him off; the adrenaline slowing down. You huffed in defeat, turning your head to look up at the man who was only staring down at you with a cocked eyebrow. You were in trouble.

“Shit.”

While the prospects cleaned up the mess you made, Jax escorted you upstairs to his dorm. You knew he wasn’t pissed or upset with you, most definitely amused, but you knew he was gonna question you about what went down. It was SAMCRO’s house, and he was the president.

He opened the door for you, allowing you to step inside first. You sat down on the corner of his bed as he closed the door and and disappeared into the bathroom.

Jax came back into the room with a partially damp rag, peroxide, and a couple gauze wraps. You cringed as you looked down at the back of your hands and took notice of how bruised and bloody they were. Your knuckles looked like you went toe-to-toe with a brick wall. You flinched as you flexed your hands, stretching and curling your fingers, hoping that none were broken. You heard a couple cracks but it seemed to be from the cramps already forming as the only pain that seared was from the cuts and darkening bruises.

He kneeled in front of you, dropping the peroxide and bandages next to you on the bed, and keeping hold of the rag. “Mind tellin’ me how you goin’ home turned into this?” He asked as he gingerly took one of your hands in his free bigger one, gently dabbing the warm, wet towel to your knuckles, earning a hiss from you at the contact.

“I was just enjoying the rest of my beer, and I was interrupted and a bitch’s head broke the bottle.” You snarked, hissing once more when Jax pressed a little harder on a cut on your middle finger. “Damn it, Jax!”

“Ok, smartass. Wanna try that again?”

“She was talking shit and my fist high-fived her face.” You couldn’t help but let the sarcasm flow. “Ow! Jackson stop it!”

“Quit being a smartass.” He warned you. “You’re smarter than this. You wouldn’t get into a fight over some crow-eater openin’ her damn mouth.”

“Oh, that’s rich. You’re gonna patronize me over fighting? Really, Mr. SAMCRO President?” You scoffed in disbelief as he attended your other hand.

“Well, then what did she say?” He retorted, grabbing the disinfectant from next to you.

“Nothing important.”

“If it was nothing important, why did it cause a damn brawl in the middle of the Clubhouse?”

You jumped from your seat on the bed, not containing the anger that was bubbling inside you from his persistent questions. “Because I love you, you asshole! And it hurt that I didn’t see you all night at a party that you invited me to, only to finally see you with the fucking porn-slut of all people! I thought you hated her?! Apparently not!” Your hands were flying up to meet your anger and exasperation. Once Jax stood at your level, you shoved a finger into his chest, “And it didn’t help that some bitch was trying stake Ima’s claim on you for her! Oh, and I tried not to fight her because she wasn’t worth it! I was just gonna go home but she wouldn’t leave me alone! She was asking for it! Fucking ask Lyla if you don’t believe me! Then her backup showed up and it all went to shit! I am so sorry it was inconvenience to your night!”

Once your rant was over and you were catching your breath, your glare only sharpened as you saw a smirk resting on his face. You furrowed your brows. Why the fuck is he staring at you like that? It only broadened as he took in your expression. Leave it to him to read you like an open book.

“I love you too, you smartass.”

What, now? You blinked rapidly, drawing blanks at what he said. You had to backtrack through every statement you made through your entire rant, only to pause, your face contorting from realization to shock to embarrassment. “Oh, fuck me sideways with a golf club.”

He licked his lips, glancing away for a split moment before shrugging. “I’d be more than willin’ to darlin’, but I wouldn’t use a golf club.”

Your eyes screwed shut as your lips drew a flat line, cringing even more into yourself, and wishing you could go crawl under your blankets at home. Oh, fuck. I said that out loud, didn’t I?

You peeked an eye open and groaned loudly, covering your face with your sore hands. “Quit looking at me like that!”

“Come over here and make me.”

SOA TAG LIST: @cutekittylexie @talicat713 @woahitslucyylu @xx--day-dreamer--xx @sweetpeaflower01 @rebelwrites

#jax teller x reader #jax teller #jax teller one shot #jax teller imagine #jackson teller #jackson teller x reader #soa #sons of anarchy x reader #sons of anarchy #soa imagine #soa one shot #sons of anarchy imagine #sons of anarchy one shot #samcro #samcrow

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ilovefandoms102 · 4 years

Text

Part 3-Where Loyalties Lie

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Potter!Reader

Summary: A forbidden romance is betrayed when the very dark wizard who is out to kill you is your lovers master...

Taglist:

@jeyramarie @drewswannabegirl @teamnick @jiaraendgame @agirlwholovescoffee @outerbongs @jaxxandcomet @velyssaraptor @baby-pogue @they-write-once-in-a-blue-moon @must-be-a-weasley-92 @kaitieskidmore1 @ma10427 @ifilwtmfc @lasnaro @justcallmesams @judayyyw @lonely-kermit @gviosca @iamaunicorn4704 @jellyfishbeansontoast @fernweh-fangirl @runway-to-my-aid @eb15 @hurricane-abigail @tangledinsparkles @amanda-rotigliano @hxfflxpxffs @bannerbubble @hybridfamily @coldlilheart @fandom-phaser @sunwardsss @http-cherries @bibliophilewednesday @evaporatedrosepetals @thetomatosaucee @tomatosauceagent @redosmo @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch @susceptible-but-siriusexual @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless @obx-direction-sos @they-reblog-once-in-a-blue-moon @iraniq @nekee-lilac02 @gracielou0518 @aplaintart @wollymalfoy @thefandomplace @poguestyleskye @butterflydior

Part 2

Note: I’m so happy for the love and support you all have given me! Thank you for 500 new friends, I am grateful for each and every one of you! I can’t wait to put out more stuff for you guys!

Would anyone like for me to continue the series for how Draco and y/n raise Scorpius and go through the trials of parenthood? Maybe even include their wedding and wedding night😛...let me know in the comments or message me!

================================

Draco pushed me into the main room, his family eyeing me now. I spotted Hermione on the ground, I went to move towards her. I was stopped by an unspeakable pain, a screech left my throat as I fell just feet from her.

“Crucio!” Bellatrix shouted, waving her wand at me again.

I convulsed on the floor, screaming as the pain shot from my head to my feet. I rolled to my side, heavily breathing. I scooted to Hermione, her hand barely mustering the energy to hold mine.

“Since this filthy Mudblood won’t talk, perhaps you will Potter. Where did you get the sword?” she seethed.

“Even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you!” I panted.

“Draco! Your wand at the ready, torture this disgusting Halfblood until she admits her faults.” Bellatrix commanded.

“She said she doesn’t know, maybe they’re telling the truth for once.” Draco answered, trying to hide his fear.

“Either you do it, or your father kills them.” Bellatrix hissed, Draco’s face going pale.

They cleared to the other side of the room, leaving just Draco and I with Hermione limp on the floor. Tears started to leak from his eyes, my heart shattered. His hand shook that held his wand, bending his head to let out a sob.

“It’s ok, do what they say.” I spoke, Draco shaking his head.

“I can’t, I can’t do it.” he sobbed, fervently shaking his head.

“Draco please! It’s the only way we’re getting out of here!” I pleaded.

“What is the meaning of this Draco!? Do it!” Lucius boomed, Draco still sobbing.

“I can’t hurt the girl I love!” Draco shouted, his family gasping.

“You cannot be serious!” Lucius shouted, Hermione’s grip on my hand tightened.

“Fine, if you cannot man up to the task...CRUCIO!” Bellatrix shouted, repeating the spell over and over.

Draco tried to come to my aid, but his father fought to hold him back. He cried as he watched me suffer one of the three Unforgivable Curses, shouting my name as I screamed in pain. I couldn’t even put into words what the pain felt like, an excruciating void of unending beats was the best way to put it.

I tried to reach out for Draco as blood started to fall from my ears and mouth, him trying to do the same with the restriction of his father.

“Please Bella! Stop, please!” Draco yelled, falling to his knees as Lucius scrapped to get a hold of him.

“That’s enough Bella,” Narcissa spoke, pulling on her sister’s arm.

“Consider yourself lucky you belong to the Dark Lord Potter. For your friend, I can’t say the same.” Bellatrix sighed.

There was a sudden commotion as Harry and Ron burst into the room, firing off spells. Draco pretended to drop one of ours, rolling it my way. I fired one at Lucius, knocking him several feet away. It was a struggle trying to get up, only to be snatched by Narcissa, my muscles too weak to fight back. Bellatrix held a knife to Hermione’s throat, Harry and Ron dropping their wands at her command.

I looked at Draco, his eyes wide with worry. There was a squeaking sound from above us, looking to see Dobby unhinging the chandelier. It came crashing down, giving enough distraction for Hermione and I to break free. I launched myself at Harry, he held me close as we all huddled to apparate out. I took one last look at Draco, he mouthed those three little words. I mouthed them back, tears shining as we apparated away.

===============================

Harry was headed to the Ravenclaw common room to find the Grey Lady, while I tried to make the Room of Requirement pop up. Just when I was about to give up, I heard creaking behind me, turning to find the Room of Requirement. Harry appeared next to me, dragging me with him.

We looked around the disastrous area for what felt like hours, clapping my hands over my ears when I heard the telling sound of the Horcrux’s. I whipped around to find Harry holding the tiara that belonged to the Helena. Just as I reached him, a voice I knew all too well sounded in the room.

“Well, well, well, look what we have here. What brings you two here?” Draco taunted, Crab and Goyle holding their wands at us as Draco did.

“I could ask you the same,” Harry answered, tugging on my wrist so that I was behind him.

“You have something of mine,” Draco spat, eyeing me before looking back to my brother.

“Why didn’t you tell her? Bellatrix? You knew it was me, and you didn’t say anything.” Harry asked, tilting his head.

“I would never hurt her,” Draco whispered, the other two Slytherin’s giving him a confused look.

“If you truly loved her-” Harry hissed, now my turn to grab his arm to pull him back.

“Harry!” I exclaimed as they all held their wands higher, at the ready to fire at us.

“Don’t be a prat Draco, do it!” Goyle seethed, Draco gulped before moving his eyes to meet mine.

In a split second, I whipped my wand out. Firing at Draco, disarming him. He turned and ran as his friends continued their assault, Hermione coming to aid. I shouted for Draco, watching as Ron ran after the Slytherin’s.

After some digging, Harry and Hermione plopped back to the ground. Ron came out of nowhere, snatching Hermione’s hand as he claimed that Goyle set the place on fire. Indeed he did as a giant fire in the shape of a snake came bounding after us.

I grabbed Harry’s hand as we weaved through the stacks of rubbish, not finding a way out. I whipped my head in search of Draco, wondering if he made it out alive. My chest burned from the fire, and the thought of the love of my life being dead in the very same room.

We bumped into some brooms, taking off to find the exit. I looked all over for Draco, not spotting him. Harry then caught my attention, whisking around to go back from where we just were. I sobbed in relief when I saw Draco, his eyes lighting up when he caught sight of me. I grabbed his arm, tugging him so he could jump on the back of the broom. He held tightly to my waist, his lips moving to kiss my cheek.

The blast from the fire knocked us off the broom once we reached outside of the Room of Requirement, Draco kissed me before taking off. Harry stabbed the tiara with the Basilisk fang, knocking both of us back.

==================================

My heart crumbled after Harry and I took Snape’s tears to watch his memories. Not only did both of us have to die to completely destroy Voldemort, but that we might not come back. I thought of Draco, that we would never get married, have children, and grow old together. Neither would Harry, but this had to be done.

We found Hermione and Ron at the bottom of the stairs just in front of the castle. huddled together. They stood once they saw us, knowing what Harry and I were about to do. Hermione crushed Harry into a hug, Ron leaning down to hug me tight.

“We all had a feeling this is how it would have to end, no one just wanted to accept it.” I spoke, pulling back to smile sadly at Ron.

“After us, it’s just the snake. Kill it, and you’ll kill him.” Harry said.

Hermione tugged me to her, crying into my shoulder. I rubbed her back, sniffling to hold in my tears. Once I pulled back, I took Harry’s hand as we made our way to the Forbidden Forest. Harry found the Resurrection Stone in the snitch, holding my hand tightly. We looked around to see our parents, Remus, and Sirius. Our mother held her hand out, I instantly went to her. My hand went through her’s, my heart clenching when I couldn’t feel her.

“You’ve been so brave my babies.” she spoke, her voice melodic as it rang in my ears. How I wished I could have heard her voice my whole life.

“You’re nearly there,” our father said, his features resembling Harry so much they almost looked like the same person.

“Does it hurt? To die?” Harry asked Sirius, my eyes leaving my mother’s to look at my Godfather.

“Quicker than falling asleep.” Sirius quipped, a small smile gracing his lips.

“I wish more than ever that none of you had to die, not like this.” I croaked, Harry nodding in agreement.

“I never wanted any of you to die for me,” Harry spoke, looking around at our lost loved ones.

“Remus, Teddy he-” I started.

“Others will tell him what his parents died for, and one day, he’ll understand.” Remus smiled, his eyes looking between Harry and I.

“You’ll be with us?” I asked.

“Until the very end.” our father answered.

“Stay close to us.” Harry said, grabbing my hand again.

“Always,” our mother replied, my eyes tearing up as they disappeared.

===========================

Voldemort had been defeated, finally freeing Harry and I from our life long torture. No more looking over our shoulders constantly, no more people that we loved would have to die for us. I could be with Draco...if I ever saw him again. He fled with his parents after Harry and I revealed to everyone that we were in fact still alive.

“We did it,” I gasped, laughing as Harry and I embraced one another.

Harry, Ron, Hermione and I were walking across the bridge that separated the castle from the outside world, mindlessly kicking the cement that littered from the battle.

“So what will you do with the most powerful wand in the world Harry?” I asked my brother, turning to face him.

I watched in horror as he broke the wand, throwing the pieces over the edge. He did the right thing though...

“Y/n...” Hermione mumbled, pointing at something behind us.

I turned around hesitantly, my heart soaring at the sight in front of me. Draco stood at the other end of the bridge, once he saw me turn he began walking. I took off in a sprint, tears rolling down my cheeks. He jogged the rest of the way, meeting me in the middle as I crashed into his arms. He spun me around, both of us laughing joyously. I pulled back to look into his eyes, a second later his lips were on mine.

Draco held tight with his arms around my lower back, my feet still off the ground. I licked my way into his mouth, challenging his tongue into a dance of passion. I moved one hand to fist it in his hair, tugging it slightly to hear him moan into my mouth. He sat me down gently, pulling away to lean his forehead to mine.

“You came back,” I sniffled, intertwining our hands.

“I’ll always come back for you my love,” he whispered.

“I love you Draco,” I smiled.

“I love you more y/n,” he sighed, pulling me into his embrace once more.

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nightshade-minho · 4 years

Text

-Babygirl-

Warnings: roommates!au, suggestiveness, shirtless Jisung (again), voyeurism (kind of..?), male masturbation, panty kink, implied sexual activity during driving. (Please be safe on the roads! This should never happen irl lol.)

“Jisung? JISUNG!”

The boy in question shot awake, rubbing at his eyes. He looked at you, confused.

You sighed. “You were telling me about the wedding, but you keep dozing off in between.”

“Right, right...” He said, looking like he was struggling to keep his eyes open. “I’m sorry, but it’s so late and I barely got any sleep last night. And...no offense but it’s kind of your fault.”

You nodded sheepishly. You’d spent most of last night under a really hot guy named Hyunjin that you’d met at the club, and was way too caught up in lust to care about your poor sleepy roommate.

“You really need to tone it down a bit. I bet this whole floor heard your moaning. Give it to me daddy!” He mocked, prompting you to slap his arm.

“I do NOT sound like that.”

“You do.”

You groaned, leaning back into the sofa, your hand rubbing your temple. A few seconds later, the snores resumed. You exhaled angrily, slapping Jisung’s arm to wake him.

“Ow...” he mumbled, rubbing his arm. “You’re really testing my patience, you know that? Just let me sleep in peace, babygirl.”

You knew he was mocking the way Hyunjin had called you that the previous night...but something about that word leaving Jisung’s lips had you pressing your thighs together for a moment. When you realized what you were doing, you groaned to yourself. Jisung? What were you thinking? Dude was your roommate, and not a very good one at that.

“Y/n?”

“Hmm?”

“You okay?”

You ran a hand through your hair, quickly standing up. “Yeah totally. Maybe you could tell me about this wedding later? I’m just going to go to my room...”

Without bothering to see his reaction, you briskly walked to your room, shutting the door and lying down on your bed. You couldn’t deny the frisson of arousal that had passed through you when he said that word. Every single person you slept with was well aware of how much you liked being called that.

You dug your head into your pillow, trying to expel these thoughts.

•••

You sat at the breakfast counter, groaning as you used the spoon to draw circles in your cold milk.

“Y/n. What happened yesterday?”

You looked up, and all sleep remaining in your eyes immediately disappeared as you took in Jisung, with nothing on but a pair of grey sweatpants. His hair was seemingly still wet from his shower. You watched as droplets of water fell from his strands onto his stomach, running down his abs...whose existence you knew nothing of prior to this moment.

“Nothing happened! I wasn’t feeling very well.”

He sat down next to you, pushing his hair back as he looked at you, an eyebrow raised. “Uh huh. I totally believe that.”

You felt uncomfortable with his intense gaze fixed on you, and felt yourself becoming very slightly wetter. Oh god...this can’t be happening.

“Honestly. I just wasn’t feeling very well. You know...the weather’s getting colder and I’ve never really had a strong immune system.”

He raised an eyebrow in concern, leaning in to rest his hand on your forehead, his face dangerously close to yours. You felt yourself turning red slightly.

He pulled away. “You feel fine to me.”

You cleared your throat. “It’s one of those sicknesses that don’t change your temperature or anything.”

He looked at you for a moment, like he was trying to figure you out. Finally he rolled his eyes, grabbing a granola bar from the shelf and unwrapping it slowly.

“So...the wedding?” You referenced what he was talking about yesterday, and his eyes widened.

“Oh! Oh yeah...well...I have a favour to ask of you.”

You raised your eyebrow. “What kind?”

“Well. I was hoping you’d come with me to my cousin’s wedding. Not exactly as a date or anything, I just want to prove to my bullshit childhood friends that there are others I talk to...and being able to introduce a pretty girl as my best friend would really put a damper on their egos.”

Pretty. He thought you were pretty.

Holding yourself together, you tapped your chin in mock curiosity. “If you have friends, how come I never see them come over?”

“Oh, they come over all the time. I just choose to invite them at times when I’m alone or you’re already asleep, cause I didn’t wanna disturb you. Trust me, one minute spent with my best friends and you would probably move to Antarctica the next day. And I need a roommate to pay the bills.”

You laughed, trying not to choke on the milk. Jisung grinned at you. “So is that a yes?”

Jisung’s enthusiasm was always contagious. You were more than alright with this, especially since it meant you got to attend a party. You nodded.

“So...are any of these friends attractive or-“

“NO!”

•••

You stared at the mirror, hoping you looked good. You had on a soft blue dress, with a heart-shaped cutout right on your chest. You felt cute and yet also a little sexy.

You turned around finally, satisfied, and made your way out of the room. Jisung was sitting on the couch, straightening his tie and glancing at his watch. You cleared your throat.

He looked up and gasped, trying and failing to hide his shock. “Wow, you look...you look...”

“Pretty?” You offered, grinning cheekily. He nodded. “What about me?” You gave him a thumbs-up.

“You look hot.”

“Oh do I, babygirl?” He said, chuckling right afterwards. There it was. That word again...you felt a jolt of pleasure run straight to your core.

You sat down next to him on the couch. “Are you never going to let that go?”

“Do you want me to?” He asked suggestively, and you almost slapped him.

“You’re such a dickhead.” He laughed, and got up, sneaking another glance at his watch. “Ok y/n, we’ve really got to go now. We’ve got about 4 hours worth of driving to do.”

You sighed and hoisted your bag over your shoulder. “4 fucking hours in a car stuck with you. It sounds like a medieval torture method...fucking unbearable.”

“Why? Because of all the sexual tension?” He joked, but you chose not to reply. How could you explain to your bastard roommate that he was making you feel things ~down there~? Living with this guy blurred enough lines as it is...if you fucked him, there was no going back.

You followed him to his car. You had decided to take turns- you would drive two hours, and then you’d stop at a restaurant for snacks before Jisung drove the rest.

As you got in the driver’s seat and fastened your seatbelt, you heard Jisung curse. “Why do my crappy relatives have to host their wedding so far from my fucking house...”

“Um, probably because it was more convenient to them and...oh yeah, it isn’t YOUR wedding?”

He rolled his eyes as he fumbled with his seatbelt. “You’re infuriating. Sometimes I wish I could just shut you up somehow.”

You don’t know where it came from, but you blurted, “I can think of a few ways to do that.”

Jisung’s eyes grew as wide as dinner plates. He’d been the one flirting nonstop- but they were half-jokes. Now that you’d actually replied to one with an innuendo of your own, he felt his pants tighten all of a sudden.

Jisung couldn’t deny that he was sexually attracted to you. After all, you were quite hot...when you weren’t chewing him out because he forgot to wash the dishes again.

He also couldn’t deny that he was slightly envious of the guys who got to fuck you.

There was an incident that happened a few months ago, which he still hadn’t talked to you about. And he probably never would...it was way too embarrassing.

Jisung had been in your room one night, to find a book of his that you had borrowed. You’d been out when he was rummaging through your bedside table trying to find it, but then suddenly he heard the front door click open...and judging from the moans his ears picked up, you and whoever you were with were going to come inside the room at any time.

As he heard the footsteps approach, he groaned, ducking under your bed and crouching under there. The door opened just then, and the moans and kissing sounds were significantly louder. He felt the bed dip, and soon unspeakable things were going on above him. He held his head in his hands, wanting to escape...but then your moans got to him. The way you whimpered and whined for the guy to take you...it made Jisung incredibly hard.

Clothes were being shed after that, and from his position, he watched as various articles of clothing rained on the floor in front of him. And then...there it was.

Your panties. They fell on top of the heap of discarded jeans and shirts...a tantalizingly red pair, reaching out to him, begging him to take them and use them.

And that’s how he succumbed, his hand reaching out to grab your underwear. As your moans from above filled his ears, he sniffed your wet panties, inhaling your heavenly scent...and hesitantly licked your juices that had rubbed off on them. He felt absolutely filthy as he got his cock out and used the fabric of your panties to get himself off, cumming at almost the same time you did.

It was a secret he hoped he could hold forever.

But now here you were, being suggestive... and he didn’t know if this was just his imagination, but he saw you clenching your thighs and getting slightly affected whenever he called you certain pet names.

What Jisung was about to do next was probably a bad idea, just like taking the red panties to his room that night and never returning them was.

He decided that he was going to try to rile you up again, and if you showed any signs of being into it...he was going to go for it.

“So...y/n.”

“Hmm?” You said as you concentrated on the road, your hand on the wheel.

“Exactly how do you want me to shut you up, babygirl?”

Ever so subtly you pressed your thighs together, your cheeks turning red. And that’s when Jisung finally decided...fuck it!

His hand slipped between your thighs and spread them apart, going to your cunt and rubbing it through your panties. His slender fingers pulled your panties to the side so that he could drag his digits over your exposed wet cunt, slowly pushing a finger inside.

You let out a shocked squeak followed by several groans, your eyes desperately staying trained on the road in front of you. “J-Jisung...what’re you doing?”

“Shutting my babygirl up, of course.”

#smut #skz smut #stray kids smut #kpop smut #kpop imagines #jisung smut #jisung fluff #jisung angst #han jisung smut #han smut #han fluff #han angst #stray kids

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dhwty-writes · 3 years

Text

Dreams

Merry Christmas, everyone! This is my contribution for the @thewitchersecretsanta for @heyabooboo on tumblr.

My thanks also go to @contemplativepancakes, who betaed this fic for me. Thank you for your patience while I was still writing this <3 You guys should also definitely go check out her work, I love it to pieces!

Anyways, I shouldn't bore you too much. Let me just say one last thing: I think this is the most well thought-out piece of fiction I have written in my entire life. I have weighed every words of this five times at least. I hope you guys like it.

Have fun reading!

Summary: Geralt takes on a contract to investigate some spectral activity in a haunted ruin. As it happens, he disturbs the residence of a powerful being, that traps his soul in a nefarious netherworld. Jaskier, local bard with no sense of self preservation, does the obvious and follows him, trying to parse information from talking plants and braving unspeakable horrors in order to bargain for his witcher's soul. If only that were as easy as it sounded.

Moodboard by the amazing @petrificustotaluss

Warnings: Rated T. Canon-typical violence

Read on AO3

It was a serene and sunny day when the witcher scaled the hill to the abandoned mansion. It shouldn't have been, by any rights; neither day nor sunshine quite set the scene for a monster hunter to come slay to his prey. Alas, Weather does what they want rather than what they should—most of the time they are too busy laughing at humans they catch by surprise, to notice another one of their storms escaping anyways— and neither of that is to set a picturesque scene for a murder to take place.

Well, not necessarily a murder; that might, admittedly, be a bit crass. An eviction, rather, though the witcher did know yet that was what he was about to do. He simply marched up there, convinced that he would do some light reconnaissance and then return to the bard he had left behind. He was so adamant in his conviction, even, that he simply couldn't imagine anything else.

Geralt of Rivia slid from his saddle and pat Roach on the side of her neck. "Good girl," he muttered as he tied her reins to the withered remains of a tree on a field of dried grass.

He stepped back to retrieve his sword from her saddle and heard the telltale sign of a dried-up flower crushed beneath his boot. Geralt lifted it. It was a dandelion. He cursed internally. Were he a superstitious man, he might’ve thought it a bad sign. He wasn’t, though, so he knew it to be a bad sign.

Nothing good ever came from places where not even weeds could stubbornly cling to life. It usually meant that nothing would stay alive—or dead— for very long either. He'd have to be fast. 'A quick look around and I can go back to Jaskier,' he promised himself, the only silver lining on the horizon of this shitty day.

With a grunt he went to the road that led towards the ruin looming up above him, taking in every detail of his surroundings. The tree Roach was tied to seemed to have belonged to a grove, considering how systematically the husks of the trees were arranged. 'Like gnarled fingers trying to reach for the sky.'

Geralt huffed. Jaskier was rubbing off on him again. The collapsed stone wall lining it was another strong indicator that once there had been someone tending to the woods. 'A cemetery?' he wondered. It might be a strong start...

He stepped past the large erratic to his left to vault over the crumbling wall. He had barely taken two steps when a dark shadow fell over him. He looked up to see the sun inching closer and closer to the horizon. A shiver ran down Geralt's back. ‘So late already?’ He had barely set out an hour ago, he was sure of it. And yet— something moved to his right and his medallion vibrated. “Fuck,” he cursed. He didn’t like this at all.

Still, he had come here for a reason, so he turned away from the deserted grove and headed to the ruin. It wasn’t a large ruin, by any means, barely three walls standing. The first floor was completely decayed, so he didn’t have to check that, at least. In less than an hour he’d be done.

That didn’t alleviate the uneasy feeling in the slightest. With each step it seemed like the temperatures dropped further. By the time he reached the facade his breaths were visible in white clouds, mingling with the fog drifting up from the ground. The weather was changing entirely too fast for his liking.

Slowly, Geralt stepped over the threshold into the broken mansion. He kept his eyes on the fog the whole time. The tendrils were thicker now, larger than any snake he'd ever seen as they slithered across the rotten floor. 'I should turn around,' he thought. He knew he should turn around. Still, he kept moving further into the mist.

A movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. His head snapped around. One of the wisps rose above the ground, twisting and twirling to a melody he couldn't hear. "The fuck," Geralt grunted and reached for his sword.

He regretted taking the contract already. It was a fool's errand, and he had known it to be. But coin was scarce these days and he had to make do. Even if it meant investigating haunted ruins that made his medallion nearly jump off his chest.

The shrill sound of rusty door-hinges made him twirl around. He was met with an inscrutable wall of fog. "Shit." His sword was in his hand before he could even think about it. A gentle gust of wind swept through the ruin, as if the air itself around him heaved a breath of relief. 'I have to get out of here.'

He turned towards where he had entered and bolted; not quite running, but almost. He hit the wall face-first. "Fuck!" he cursed, holding his bleeding nose.

An all-too-familiar laugh rang through the silence. "Fuckin' idiot!"

"Lambert?" he groaned as he raised his hands to set his own nose. It hurt like a bitch.

"Who else, you bastard?" his arsehole brother answered.

"Where are you?" Geralt wanted to know, feeling blindly for his sword. 'Fuck.' Why had he dropped it? It had been stupid to drop it. He knew better than that. He was a witcher, for fuck’s sake.

"Right behind you!" Lambert laughed again. He was probably within a punchable distance.

Geralt found the grip of his sword and whirled around, coming face to face with... fog. Nothing but fog. "Lambert?" he asked, desperately. No answer. "Lambert!" He waved his hand, a futile attempt to disperse the mist, and squinted, as if that would do anything. Of course, it didn't.

There is something to be said about the eyesight of mortals, and that is that every single one of them possesses a truly despicable one. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that when the witcher blinked and tried to focus his vision, he did not see anything he hadn't seen before; which was nothing at all.

A quiet groan rippled through the dark, and Geralt stumbled forward before he even knew what he was doing. "Eskel," he gasped desperately, trying to follow the ragged breathing. He’d know that sound everywhere, he had heard it far too often already. "Eskel, where are you, I'm coming," he promised, while the maddening mantra of 'I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't.' kept fluttering through his head. He knew exactly what he would find, Eskel with his face slashed open, bleeding and barely breathing. 'I can't do it again, I can't, I can't, I can't.'

"No!" the high-pitched shriek made him halt in his stumbling, nearly doubling over. "Get out!"

"Yenna," he breathed. He vaguely realised that the world was spinning around him and fought the instinct to throw up.

"No, help!" she screamed again.

"Yennefer!" he shouted in response. "Where are you?"

A woeful giggle swept past him, one that might've belonged to a child or a giant or something else entirely.

"Did I not train you well?" a weak voice, that barely sounded like Vesemir, coughed. "Is your sword your only weapon?"

"N-no," he stammered and raised his trembling hand. He willed his fingers to bend; each movement was pure agony. After half an eternity his hand formed the sign of Aard and the fog dispersed.

Never in his life had he regretted anything more. "No-" he choked out weakly as his knees hit the blood-slick floor. "No!" He could barely comprehend what lay before him, only that they were dead dead dead, all of them, gone, dead, their blood soaking him to the bone.

"What happened?" he whispered, whimpered, wailed. There was an uncomfortable feeling coiling in his gut. It was something important, he knew. Something he should do. Somewhere he should go. Someone he still missed. But whatever it was, there was a thick fog clouding his mind that he could not see through.

"You failed me," Yennefer answered, rising from her last resting-place. With each movement her broken bones popped back into place. But there was nothing to be done about her torn-up chest; nothing to be done about her empty eyes, picked clean by the crows long ago, full of accusations.

"And me," Eskel agreed, blood trickling from the gashes on his face. And his legs. And his arms. And his guts. There was not much to trickle left.

"And me," said Lambert's head where it lay inches from his torso. Two swords protruded from his body, one silver and one steel. They had stripped him naked save for the medallion around his neck, a snarling cat where there should have been a wolf.

"You failed all of us," Vesemir rasped, lying limp on his deathbed. After months of sickness and starvation, he could count every bone on his body. But it was the garrotte that had been his end.

"Who did this?" he gasped.

"You did," they answered in unison.

"Me?"

A shadow giggled and caressed his cheek. "Of course, you," a velvety voice answered. "It’s what you do. Butcher. Hunter. Priest. You brought war to my peace."

He groaned quietly, desperate to lean into the touch. When he did, he nearly toppled over. He caught himself inches from the ground. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth. "Who are you?"

"Who am I? That answer's not yet due," the strange voice answered; wisps of fog danced, curled together, formed what might have been a body. "The real query is: who are you?"

"I-" He inhaled sharply as realisation hit him. "I'm- missing someone."

"Missing someone, are we?" The shadow giggled. "Pray tell, who might that be?"

He did not want to answer. He didn't. Still, he said: "Where's- Jaskier!" Fear closed its icy fist around his heart. True fear, that was paralyzing, numbing, horrible. He wanted to do something, wanted to— he didn’t know. His hands were shaking too much.

"Geralt!" a bard’s piercing scream ripped through the eerie silence.

The sinister giggle rang again; a wisp of fog caressed his shoulder. Suddenly, there was light. So much light, it was overwhelming after the all-encompassing darkness of the fog. He screamed in pain, trying to avert his gaze, trying to flee— but he couldn’t.

"There you are," a smile spread on what might’ve been the creature’s face as they bent down, their mouth dragging across the shell of his ear, "Geralt."

#my writing #geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #julian alfred pankratz #geraskier fanfiction #the witcher fanfiction #geraltxjaskier #geralt/jaskier #eskel #lambert #vesemir #yennefer of vengerberg #For You I'll Always Wait #FYIAW #the witcher secret santa

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hannie-dul-set · 4 years

Text

when jaehyun said he was picking you up to go somewhere, you didn't exactly expect to be found in the middle of nowhere. trees were lining the field from a faraway distance and the tall grasses sunk from underneath you. the two of you were leaning against the side of his car on top of a hill on god knows where with no one else but the stars, the moon, and the both of you.

"drinking wine straight out of the bottle— aren't you a classy man?"

a laugh reverberated from jaehyun's throat and he looked at you under the solace of the inky night sky. "let me have my moments, miss y/n."

you sat beside him on the grassy clearing, lightly playing with one of his hands and you looked up to him, only to see downcast drenching his pretty features. letting go of his hand, you sighed and sat up straight, stirring confusion from the male.

"alright, mr. jung," you narrowed your eyes at him. "what's going on in your head? why are you being all sad?"

he let out a huff of air, lips upturned into a semi-forced smile as he gently took your hand back into his, lacing his fingers into yours. "is it that obvious?"

"you're transparent, jaehyun."

sighing, he adjusted his position and took another swig at the hard drink. "you know how overboard some girls may get around me, right?"

"i've witnessed first hand during your party," you laugh, remembering how panicked he looked during that time. "it was a pitiful sight."

"it wasn't pitiful."

the words left like a soft whine from his lips and you continued to tease him, saying that he looked like a small mouse (ironic, considering his stature) being fought over by a group of wild cats, much to his displeasure.

"anyways," he coughed out, a light wash of pink dousing his cheeks, both from your previous joking and the slight chill of the night's wind. "there's this one girl named seonha— i've never told you about her— and, uh, i wouldn't say she's obsessed with me, but—"

"she's obsessed with you?"

you finished, quirking your brow at him and he hesitantly nodded. "yes, you can say that."

"hm," you hummed. "why, what'd she do?"

"a lot of things," he sighed. "her family is closely knitted with mine so i'd met here during one of their charity auctions. since then, she wouldn't stop following me around— in my office building, when i'm out with mark and johnny. hell, even when i'm out of the country."

jaehyun's exasperation ran through his voice as he continued to tell you about the girl.

"she'd even stir up dating rumors about us two which is messed up all on its own. you could argue that at least there's only one of them bothering me, but it's like selling off a few floods for one gigantic storm," the now empty wine bottle was long forgotten on the ground. jaehyun went on with his rant, raking his free hand into his hair. "johnny and mark had told me to file a restraining order, but that wouldn't do anything considering their family's influence, so i have no choice but to deal with her."

the light chirping of crickets amplified the depth of the evening. you guessed it was already around ten, maybe even later than that. it crossed your mind for a short moment that you had work tomorrow, but that thought quickly diminished into thin air.

"has she still been bothering you lately? i don't think i noticed her around you before," you asked, moving your head away to look at him. his hair was in a slight mess and he was slightly tinged pink. yet underneath the glow of the moonlight, he was still as tantalizing as the nighttime sky.

"she's been on a trip to italy these past few months," he softly replied, gazing down at you like your very own moon. "but she's also been texting me nonstop so that's something."

"well, at least she's not here right now."

"about that," jaehyun enunciated. "she's coming back here in a week."

you went silent and jaehyun could feel his heartbeat slowly but surely rising. were you upset that he'd just told you now? did knowing about seonha bother you? it's not easy for jaehyun to read people's emotions— he'd always been lacking with that category. the longer your silence, the tighter his chest got.

"will you be okay?"

like a sudden breath of warmth, your voice pierced through him and suddenly he can breathe again.

"do i have to protect you like last time?"

the teasing tone in your voice relieved him but at the same time it caused him to glare at you, feigning fake offense and you laughed at him. at least he knew you're not upset.

"i'll be fine, you don't have to worry," he said, giving you a smile of assurance. you detached your hand from his and decided to scoot closer to him, resting your head on his shoulder and he naturally found his arm around your waist. "but, enough about that— how was your day, miss y/n?"

"you don't wanna hear about my day. it's as boring as it could get," you reasoned, letting out a small yawn afterwards.

"i do want to hear," he pressed. "i don't mind if it's boring or not. i like listening to you speak."

he caught you off guard with that, to say the least, and you quickly snapped your head to face him. your mind concluded that it was a fatal mistake to do that since now your faces are mere centimeters apart, noses nearly touching. the cold air that was once biting at your skin was suddenly deemed nonexistent due to the sudden rising of the heat.

"a—alright," you stammered, diverting your attention to the sky instead. "if you fall asleep listening, then don't say i didn't warn you, jaehyun."

and so you went on about your day. starting from how you almost got late to your first job because jungwoo and donghyuck thought it was a good idea to barge into your house at four in the morning for a sudden non-sleepover sleepover. then you told him about the adorably gigantic dog you spotted while you were headed for lunch. and now you were talking about one annoying customer you had earlier in the bakery.

"there were five other people in line after her, but apparently getting her blueberry muffin to exactly a hundred-ninety degrees fahrenheit was much more important," you groaned, dropping your head back against the steel of the car. "and of course, i went and reheated one damned muffin just so she would stop complaining."

jaehyun swore he was listening to you. he was attentive— very attentive, and paid the utmost attention to any changes on your features— the way brows bunched up whenever you stop to think for a moment, the way your cheeks were slightly flushed and how you tried to hide it with your hair, the way your lips enunciated each vowel and each consonant and—

fucking hell, your lips.

halfway through your muffin story, his ears were suddenly muffled, his surroundings were a blur, and all he could think about was how your lips would feel against his.

"hyuck always tells me that i'm a bit of a pushover sometimes, and i'm starting to think he's right."

he could hear his heart ringing against his ears. you paused for a moment, sinking your teeth over the plush of your lip in the midst of thought and jaehyun felt like he was being driven into a dangerous corner.

"do you think i'm a pushover, jae?" your head jolted to face jaehyun and his breath was suddenly caught inside his throat along with the sudden thoughts of you overlapping with more thoughts of you, bringing his mind to a combustible state of disarray. "jaehyun? you alright there?"

"oh— um, sorry," he coughed out. "i got a bit distracted, uh, what— what were you saying?"

his fluster was not only demonstrated by the cracks in his voice, but also by the way his cheeks were flaring scarlet and how he refused to look at you.

"distracted by what exactly?" you questioned.

jaehyun was a smart man. having graduated earlier than his peers and landing such a respectable spot in the company at a young age, you'd think he'd be articulate in every situation thrown at him, but somehow he found himself tripping over his own words."will— will i sound stupid if i say i got distracted by you?"

oh my god.

"no no," you laughed, your heart suddenly caged inside an untamed whirlwind. you gently moved your left hand over his face, making him look into you. giddiness tugged at your cheeks, releasing an uncontrollable smile. "it's not stupid at all."

a simultaneous burst of dizzying bliss ruptured between the both of you— coming in the form of the identical beams on both of your faces, staring into each others' eyes as if the moon wasn't the brightest thing in the night.

and somehow, under the spectacle of a million stars,

you kissed.

it hadn't dawned on you that you'd waited for this moment to happen until it actually did. soft lips brushing against yours, rousing an unspeakable rush of heat. it was gentle at first— like the light tremors on the sea until the waves suddenly crashed onto you. his parted lips incessant against yours, leaving you in a buzz and on the brink of gasping for air.

until you felt him stop, abruptly pulling away from you with guilt ridden eyes.

"jae? is everything alright?"

"y/n, i— i'm sorry."

in the midst of your shared kiss, jaehyun realized something. and he couldn't bear the thought of it.

he had realized that he was in love with you.

so, so in love with you.

"i can't— i can't do this to you, y/n."

you felt a lump in your throat and you stared at him, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. was there something wrong— did you do something wrong? everything felt normal until now, everything felt right. but as you looked at him with tears threatening to spill, you'd thought that maybe none of this was right in the first place.

and maybe jaehyun had realized that, too.

"oh," you sucked in a breath, avoiding eye contact with him, and stumbled to get up from the ground. "right, of course. it— it would be damaging to your reputation if you're with me."

the icy breath of the air hit your face once you managed to stand up, the cold flooding your senses once more. "we both know that this wouldn't work out," you gazed down at him, only to see the glass stained heaviness in his eyes and you nearly broke down. turning your back at him, you swallowed, closing your eyes for a brief moment before choking out,

"i— i should go—"

"y/n, i love you."

you froze. everything froze.

"my reputation, my image— god, all of those disappear when i'm with you," jaehyun's trembling voice seeped into every corner of your mind, restricting the air from coming into your lungs. "i'm… i'm not an expert when it comes to this but there is no denying that i am in love with you, y/n."

slowly, you went back to face him. jaehyun stood there, bearing his heart to you. the wind brushing against his hair as he looked at you with mist in glazing over his eyes. it was hard to not just run into his arms, telling him that you were also stupidly in love with him, but you held your words back, waiting for him to finish.

"but... with my job and everything," he stutters out. "i—i won't be able to dedicate all of my time to you, i won't be able to take care of you like i should, i—

i can't make you happy, y/n"

"but you already do."

there was a strong gust, breathing against your skin. you felt your heart drop to your knees, a constricting grasp replacing it in your chest as you felt the tears well up even more like a dam itching to break.

"do you think i don't know that? yes, i know you're busy— i know you have a shit ton of responsibilities to the point where you'd probably suffocate from them, and—and i know that sometimes finding time to have a single fucking conversation with you is sometimes impossible," your breath hitched, nearly choking over your own words but you went on. "but that has never stopped you from making me feel happy, jae. because even a single second spent with you can make make me happier than the rest of my life combined, so don't ever say that you can't make me happy because for fuck's sake— jung jaehyun,

i'm at my happiest when i'm with you."

silence flooded. your breathing was scattered after all the things that you said, chest rising and falling in a repeated rhythm. jaehyun says nothing, only looking at you with an unidentifiable glimmer of heaviness in his face as he slowly walked towards you, closing in the space between you until it was practically insignificant. you could hear his heart beating.

he brings your face into his hands, not even realizing that you were crying until he gently wipes away the tears streaming down your cheeks. you look into him, his eyes pooling with oceans and oceans of emotions.

"i'm at my happiest when i'm with you, too."

a second kiss was shared that night— with a million stars watching over you.

gold painted canvas

the classic rich boy and poor girl love story but with less prejudice and more happiness

28 // make you happy

a/n: woah it took nearly 30 parts but at least it happened ;)) this took three days of utter procrastination but i hope you liked it jhhxjsjsjs

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