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too-much-tma-stuff · 3 months

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Finally Getting Help (prt 6)

Masterpost

The Wayne family gathered in the family room once Alfred was done setting up the projector, somehow there was also a plate of cookies and a couple pots of tea on the coffee table. How he’d found the time they didn’t know, he always seemed to be doing just a little more than should be possible but they didn’t question it.

Jazz seemed nervous as she plugged in her USB and accessed the power point on Ghosts and Liminality. The tidal page had a picture of Danny in his Phantom form standing with a group of others, a boy with gray skin and blond hair, a girl with green hair and skin, and a goth with purple eyes and a dark skinned boy who looked around Danny’s age, and Jazz with the title “Ghosts and Liminals!”

The next slide had simple text: “What are they and How are they made?”

With each slide she read the text on the screen allowed and then added any context or anecdotes she thought of, or had prepared.

(Next slide)

Ghosts:

Made of ectoplasmic energy and obsession

Made either:

when someone dies with strong enough desires

An idea gains enough traction to take on a life of its own

Immutable concepts and gods

Must be allowed to indulge in obsessions or they will cease to exist

All have basic abilities such as flight, intangibility, invisibility, and minor shape shifting

On top of basic abilities most will have additional powers based on their obsessions

Immortal unless killed

Love to fight

Liminals

Made when a human is exposed to high levels of ectoplasm for prolonged periods of time

Have some ghostly traits

Ghostly traits vary person to person

Less susceptible to human illness and injury

“The ghosts on the picture are Kitty and Johnny, we’ve had problems with them but would consider them friends now. They’re the ghosts of two humans who died, but there are others, Vortext for instance is the ghost of Storms. Those ghosts who come from ideas are called ‘neverborns’. There seem to be almost an infinite number of ghosts, however not all of them are interested in having anything to do with us so we tend to get the same faces showing up a lot in Amity.

“I don’t know how many liminals there are. I thought they might be new with my parents' research but as I look into it more I think there are more natural sources of ectoplasm then my parents thought.” Jazz explained before going to transition to the next slide.

“I have a question-” Bruce started before Jazz hushed him.

“Wait till the end please! I might answer it without you having to ask,” She scolded, and he felt very much like a schoolboy again as his children snickered.

(Next slide including a image of the glowing green viles in the Fenton’s lab and a glowing green crystal)

Ghost biology

Ghosts do not have any recognizable organs or bones

The only solid part of their being is their Core which is the source of their ectoplasm

Any injury to a ghosts form not done directly to their core is considered minor and will heal

A healthy ghost is fully capable of mending any damage including removed limbs in a matter of hours or days depending on extent of the injury

All injuries not including the Core are considered minor

Ghosts are considered young for at least the first hundred years of their existence and are often not considered adults until nearly 500

A caveat to this is ghosts are heavily driven by emotion and will often be the age they feel they are allowing ghosts to mature much more quickly, or more slowly

When this is the case ghosts are treated as the age they present and behave

Ghosts reproduce by shaping ectoplasm and Wanting a child badly enough

“Believe me it was incredibly scary the first time I saw Danny in his ghost form have something go right through his stomach. It took him a long time to convince me it wasn’t a big deal and it barely hurt. He does have to make sure he repairs the damage Before turning human again though or the damage can transfer over and I don’t need to tell you a hole in the gut is a lot more serious for humans!

“If I’m honest I only know ghosts that have stayed younger then they really are, for instance Youngblood who’s a few hundred years old and could be well on his way to adulthood if he wanted but has remained a child. I assume it can go the other way though, if a ghost is very mature for their age.”

Ectoplasm

Ectoplasm is the energy that makes up all ghosts and the Ghost Zone itself. All ghosts can feed on the ectoplasm around them as well as produce their own by indulging in obsessions. The ghosts Cores produce the ectoplasm like a brain produces neurochemicals when exposed to the right stimulation.

Ectoplasm is a powerful source of energy but unstable. When it is stabilized into an ecto-crystal it is more stable and can be used as a power source safely by ghosts and liminals.

“Most ectoplasm is green like you see in the pictures. But it isn’t the only colour, some other ghosts produce different colours and it is highly tied to what emotion drives them. When it’s pure it usually smells like petracore but it can get pretty foul.”

(next slide)

What are Obsessions

Every ghost has one or more obsessions

They can be very literal things such as boxes, or ideas and emotions such as Love

In rarer cases they may have dual obsessions

Unlike for humans obsessions are very healthy for ghosts

Ghosts need to indulge their obsessions

Sometimes the way ghosts indulge their obsessions might seem evil, however it is almost always just amoral

Obsessions shape every part of a ghost from their powers to thier physical appearance, to befriend a ghost you Must understand and aid their obsession

In very extreme circumstances a ghosts obsession may shift, sometimes this is healthy, more often it is a result of extreme trauma

“With my interest in psychology this was sort of hard for me to accept. From the outside the way ghosts obsess seems really unhealthy but it’s what gives them life. When not allowed to indulge in their obsessions ghosts will dysregulate and go to extreme lengths to try and get their obsession, if that doesn’t work they either go dormant if their core is still healthy enough or they will melt.

“Ghosts change their obsessions very rarely, I’ve heard of it happening as they heal. For instance once a ghost has gotten revenge for themselves, if that was their obsession, their obsession might shift to avenging other people, or even protecting them so they don’t need to be avenged.”

(Next Slide)

Ghost Culture

The Ghosts have a monarchy

The title of the Ghost King is not hereditary but passed through trial by combat

Under the monarch is a council of being known as Observants, and powerful and old ghosts called Ancients

Ghosts respect strength and value power and cunning in combat a lot

Ghosts bond with each other through combat and play fight with family and friends often

“I have down that the ghosts are a monarchy, and technically that is true but the current Ghost King was a tyrant who was locked away thousands of years ago. I’m sure as soon as someone shows up who’s powerful enough to beat him his court will be happy to pick up where they left off with a better King, or queen, though I don’t think the title has to change based on gender.

“I really can’t stress enough how violent ghosts are! Because nothing short of having their cores shattered can kill them, play fighting for them can look Very Much like a murder attempt to a human. A lot of the issues we’ve had with ghosts have come from them just not understanding quite how fragile humans, and for most of them they feel really bad once they know they actually Hurt someone by shooting them. It’s really best for everyone when they’re kept separate and Ghosts can happily tear each other apart in peace.”

Liminals

The result of long term low level exposure to ectoplasm, sudden high doses are almost always deadly

Liminals Can have almost every trait a ghost can, usually having a combination of a few

Commonalities between liminals include

Minor cosmetic changes such as: glowing eyes, pointed ears, and/or sharp teeth

Increased stamina, strength, and aggression

Increased obsessive behaviour

Liminals sometimes develop powers shaped by the strength and type of obsession

“Most of the people Danny and I know are liminals. I don’t want to talk about them in case they don’t want to be outed so I’ll talk about myself and my parents. We all had prolonged exposure after all. My ears are pointed,” She said brushing her hair back so they could see them, “And Danny is a little more then liminal but even in human form he has fangs.

“My parents didn’t realize it but they could to the point they could subsist on their obsession without needing to eat or sleep as often as a regular human would. About a year ago I started developing the ability to tap into and feel other peoples emotions, I can feed on them a little too but I try not to because the Worst ghost we met did that and I don’t want to be anything like her.”

(Next Slide)

In conclusion

Ghosts are not evil even though sometimes their actions are hard to understand

Never get between ghosts when they’re fighting each other but it’s usually safe to yell at them to remind them not to break anything

Never get between a ghost and their obsession

Don’t drink ectoplasm unless you know you’re already liminal

“I have a feeling the section about liminals will be familiar to a bunch of you. I know Damian is liminal though I don’t know how he was exposed to ectoplasm and some of you,” Her eyes skirted across Tim and Bruce. “Are toeing the line. You’ll probably notice Damian and Danny getting really close, and they might get in some really vicious looking fights. I promise Danny is playing at least.”

The family was left silent for a moment, Bruce knew he was thinking about Jason. Who had died, been exposed to.. What certainly seemed to be something like Lazarus water and come back, obsessive, aggressive, and emotional. He wished he’d had this powerpoint a long time ago. It helped understand Damian too but mostly he was thinking about Jason. He needed to reach out again, maybe meeting Danny would be good for Jason?

“So uhhh, ya, that’s the end of the powerpoint?” Jazz said, shifting from foot to foot in the awkward silence. “Any questions?”

#danny phantom #fanfiction #dc x dp #jasmine fenton #bruce wayne #damian wayne #alfred pennyworth #liminal #tim drake #jason todd #trans!danny #the batfamily #danny is pregnant au #finally getting help au #vlad is a creep #dc stands for disregard cannon

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tritoch · 28 days

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i know a lot of people (very understandably) dislike the paladin job quests in ffxiv, particularly HW, but i do think it's fun that, now that the pre-ShB MSQ revamp is complete, paladins now have a very cool and thematic in-game storyline that happens without a word being spoken: the development of passage of arms.

none of the below is directly stated in the script, but imo it's a fairly obvious gloss on what the game presents, if you assume a paladin warrior of light. spoilers for all expansions through the end of 6.X.

in the new version of steps of faith, as vishap breaks through each ward protecting ishgard from attack, lucia mounts a final desperate effort to hold him back, with a very familiar looking animation:

but even lucia can't hold back vishap's flame alone, so the temple knights surge forward to assist her. their efforts make the shield visually more powerful and larger. the temple knights here band together in defense of ishgard, and their knightly resolve to protect their home is the difference between victory and defeat.

lucia and the knights do ultimately succeed in defending the last ward, as you have to defeat vishap before their shield falls or you lose.

later in heavensward, obviously, we will get ffxiv's most famous (failed) attempt at blocking something with a shield.

this moment can be read as fairly impactful on the warrior of light's development; as i've noted elsewhere, after the trauma of watching haurchefant bleed out in their arms at level 57, at level 58 paladins learn to channel their magic into healing (and it's called "clemency," or mercy. mercy for whom? who was guilty?), and as someone pointed out on that post, at level 58 dark knights used to get "sole survivor", letting them heal in response to a marked target's death.

for a time, you literally carry haurchefant's shield with you, and 3.3 very much literalizes in genre fashion the idea that even when you are standing alone, your fallen friends stand with you. you don't need to call any allies to stand at your side and raise their shields with you because they are already there, in spirit.

stormblood marks a pretty important turning point in the warrior of light as a combatant, in my opinion, and the text makes this clear in several ways. first, in pretty much all your jobs, you've now far exceeded your trainers and are pioneering new techniques. this is no less true of paladin, which for 60-70 abandons any trainers at all for you to show off your peerless skills in a tournament.

second, stormblood is straight up a story about you getting stronger. at level 61, zenos kicks your ass. at level 70, you kick his ass. why? because you fought and got stronger and developed incredible new techniques and became a one-man army.

for a lot of classes, this story lines up nicely with the big rotation changes or flashy new finishers on the way from 60 to 70. SMN is now busting out bahamut and casting akh morn; RDM gets verflare and verholy; DRG starts harnessing nidhogg's power directly through dragon sight and nastrond.

the tanks are divided in two: warriors and gunbreakers get huge damaging upgrades at 70 in the form of inner release and continuation, each of which lets them hit the same button many times for lots of damage and satisfying animations. paladin and dark knight get more protective abilities; dark knight gets the blackest night, and there's been plenty said about that already by pretty much everyone.

paladins get passage of arms. instead of a relentless new attack (and you get requiescat at 68, which is a way bigger deal for your dps rotation), your big reveal at 70 for zenos in your fight in ala mhigo is a superior way to protect your party, a shield that lets you stand for your allies so they never have to fall for you again. it's lucia's same shield, except you need no allies' shields to reinforce you, proof of your martial prowess and your ability to transcend limits, and perhaps in truth a reminder that you never really stand alone.

in many respects passage of arms should really feel like a paladin signature move to you now if you are playing it at this point, because you should be popping it in pretty much every fight (you are using your mits, right...?). basically every FFXIV fight has at least one big AOE with downtime that warrants passage of arms usage, usually after the mid-fight add phase with slowly filling bar. since that AOE usually drops during downtime, there's no reason not to pop passage of arms (which otherwise restricts your movement and actions), and even on normal, sometimes every little bit counts on a damage check even if it means dropping DPS (thinking here of harrowing hell P10N on release, which was...less consistent for a lot of roulette parties than you might hope).

so from 70 onward, passage of arms is in a sense a paladin warrior of light's signature move, and certainly the one a player gets to most actually enjoy (since if you're using it, you're by necessity not doing anything besides moving your camera and admiring your sick animation). it doesn't have any competition in terms of spectacle until confiteor, and those you're usually throwing out in the middle of movement.

it's such a signature, in fact, that the only other person shown using your one-person version of passage of arms is your greatest admirer, who studied your legend for over a century.

and it's when he fails (should've popped arm's length, bud) that the warrior of light decides they can't let their friends fall for them, and sends them away with the transporter beacon. this is all wrong: you were meant to die for them, not the other way around. yours is the shield that stands between your allies and defeat. it is you who will win this passage of arms and break your opponents lance. and you do.

and then later, when they need to quickly establish zero's domain as a place of fallen grandeur, the home of someone who once believed in heroes but is now a cool and cynical vampire hunter d, what do they use? a decayed statue of someone in the paladin endwalker gear doing the passage of arms animation, of course.

from a visible instantiation of knighthood as a joint effort to defend what is sacred, to a tribute to the fallen friends whose memories stand by you and animate you, to a symbol of the wol's power as emulated by their allies or darkly mirrored in other shards.

not bad for a mit button you hit once per fight and otherwise never think about!

#the one-handed passage of arms animation is from a mod that afaik is no longer available #it was junjou laina's eikonic paladin mod but the creator appears to have pulled the version i used #pld #ffxiv #the new steps of faith is a solo duty and there's no way i'm doing all that NG+ for two screenshots #so i got those from youtube (sources in the links)#haurchefant greystone #g'raha tia #lucia junius #tbh i'm corny so i was slightly miffed when g'raha jacked our paladin swag to do passage of arms in an important story cutscene #so placing it in context as him emulating you made me enjoy it a lot more lmao. i'm petty!

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hxmocrastic · 5 months

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𝐘𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐮𝐤𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐧 | HCS

Pairing ; {📺+📖} Luke Castellan x GN!Reader

Warnings ; Yandere, Stalking, Gaslighting, Fear of Abandonment, Imminent Kidnapping, Manipulation, Inferiority Complex, Emotional Abuse. ALL CHARACTERS AGED UP 18+

A/N ; Sorry I didn't respond directly to you anon, I accidentally posted this before it was finished and couldn't edit it 💀 But Enjoy!!

Luke is a Gaslighting, Guilt tripping, Boyfailure personified.

At first he takes up his signature friendly act and introduces himself to you first. He even offers to show you around camp !

To him, you're just so adorable. He loves how docile & compliant you are, how your sweet little chin nod's at his every word. You're just so fucking addicting, As soon as he saw you he knew he had to have you.

In order to get you alone & helpless, He'll start spreading false rumors of your parentage, Just to swoop in and shoo those pesky campers away. See? He's such a good boyfriend ! Why won't you look at him?

He'll even get you into some weaving classes, After all a sword is way too dangerous for someone like you. Don't worry about it! He knows what's best for you !

Luke will gladly take his time in wooing you. Slowly implanting little seeds in that cute little head of yours, Whispering things underneath his breath, Increasing physical contact, Even sending you gifts.

The last encounter he had with his father was a scar that will never heal, and a reminder that the gods see him and his siblings as nothing but cattle awaiting the slaughter.

Underestimated, Undermined, Luke always feels he has to go the extra mile prove himself. He thinks that in the eyes of his father he's worthless but in yours he has a purpose, He's a hero.

He'll do anything to keep up that facade, As he only wishes for you to see him in a glorified light. Isn't that what demigods fight for?? Glory,? It only makes sense that you'd love him too !

But truth is, Although he may sustain his benevolent friendly facade, He sees other's as emerging rivals. Whether it be in 'love' or Competition, He views them as competition.

All his life he'd felt powerless & helpless to the evils that robbed him of his childhood. Like his life wasn't his own, How he was always at the mercy of others whether it be the fates, monsters, or the gods themselves. He's never felt real control.

But at camp he feels like he has some control, some authority of his own. And not just of his own life but of other's too. He's finally at the other end of the stick.

Luke loves the power he has over the camp, how the girls & boys of Aphrodite cabin silently fawn at the slightest glance of his figure.

How his stare alone can send clarisse and her cabin trudging to the steps of their cabin like wet dogs. The power excites him.

But your arrival was different. He would've thought it'd be enough to constantly receive the admiration from camp but he desires more from you.

Luke doesn't just want you to favor him, He wants you to obey him. To hang on his every word. He wants you to worship him, To give him the adoration he would never receive from his bastard father.

This is where it gets dangerous. Once the Luke you knew to be a sweet and protective head counselor, He starts becoming a lot more domineering and unreasonably aggressive. And whenever you asks about, He slips back into his loving demeanor and reassures you softly that everything's alright, You're just seeing things that's all!

But you could've sworn you saw him scowling at your friends. Maybe you were just going crazy, it'd be the only reasonable explanation right? Who'd believe you if you said you heard Luke castellan speaking with another voice, right?

For your own safety, You stay quiet. You abide him and start slipping on a facade of your own. Just play along and you will be fine...

He's your hero, your knight in golden armor, Depend on him and solely on him why would you need anybody else?? Love him and only him, and just maybe your cabin mates will be safe. (Not)

#🏷️#tw yandere #yandere pjo #yandere headcanon #yandere percy jackson #male yandere #yandere #luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan x you #percy jackson headcanon #percy jackson hc #tw dark content #x gn reader #gn reader #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson

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starwrighter · 11 months

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I lied about only making one ship post :/

Thank you @im-totally-not-an-alien-2 your prompts fueled this one. Specifically this one.

Dead serious soulmate au but in separate universes.

In the DP universe soulmates are widespread with pretty much everyone having one. In the past soulmates were only seen as purely romantic and it was abhorrent if you didn't have one, rejected/cut off your soulmate or they died before you.

Soulmates still heavily impact DP universes present society but not in the same ways as before. Current day Soulmates can be platonic or romantic and while it wasn't as demonized as it was in the past cutting off a soulmate is still an incredibly taboo.There are different types of soulmates (ie the red string, skin writing, telepathy, shared sensation,..)

Danny shares pain with his soulmate. While he can't exactly communicate directly with his soulmate he has the ability to heal them a little through the bond. Danny's soulmate was always getting hurt somehow or another to the point he had an unnaturally high pain tolerance by the time he turned 14.

His soulmate hasn't ever healed him back and sometimes Danny forgot he existed at all. As a half ghost it was so much easier to heal his soulmate; with just a surge of energy he could completely heal any injuries his soulmate acquired and go back to whatever it was he was doing before his soulmate got hurt.

Danny was fine with forgetting his soulmate existed. Whoever was on the other end clearly didn't want anything to do with him considering they couldn't even pitch in to heal a papercut. He would still heal his soulmate when he needed it but he just gave up hoping for any kind of relationship with him.

On the DC side of things Soulmates are extremely rare and little to nothing is know about them. Damian of course is one of the very few people who had a soulmate; the small blue soulmark on his chest was proof of that. Damian's soulmark was ignored treated like it didn't exist at all until the day it started healing him.

Then his soulmate was his everything. His soulmate was someone he needed to protect with every fiber of his being and someone he desperately needed to find. Damian kept these beliefs even after he left the league and especially when his soulmates healing powers got stronger.

After years of searching the last place he expected to meet his soulmate was some dingy alleyway...

He could finally start courting him.

#I don't usually ship anything but #Them boys got my brain in a chokehold #dp x dc #dpxdc #deadserious #damian wayne x danny fenton #Clockwork dropped Danny into Dc. Danny proceeded to immediately get mugged #kinda yandere Damian #the batfam would prevent him from doing anything too drastic #Danny getting kidnapped and leaving with a ridiculous amount of money from his kidnapper's apologetic father: ??#call that reverse ransom

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fanwarriorfictions · 1 month

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Not Again - Part Nine

Summary: Y/n is desperate to try and get home, willing to face near death again to try if she must. Azriel is not willing to let her risk herself, and fortunately neither is the rest of his family.

Warnings: she’s a little angsty

Series Masterlist

-Part Nine-

“You’re not trying it again,” Azriel snarls, arms crossed over his chest, “We don’t even know what went wrong in the first place, you could’ve died.”

Y/n sighs, rubbing her temples, they’d been at this for hours now, surrounded by the inner court. So far, no one seemed to be on her side, least of all Azriel. As soon as the words had left her mouth he’d been seething, that quiet calm mask replaced by burning rage.

“Give me the book of breathings and I’ll figure it out,” Y/n snaps back, bearing all of her teeth at him, “I must have misread something. Maybe the ancient busy body will have answers for me.”

“You’re not going anywhere near that book!”

“Az, chill out,” Cassian says, gripping his brother’s arm, “Let’s all calm down and think for a damn moment.”

Y/n slumps into her seat, glaring at Azriel as he paces on the other side of the table, the only thing keeping them from lunging at each other and tearing out each other’s throat. He glares right back, shadows whipping around him like they might grab her and strap her to the very seat she sits on to keep her from trying the spell again.

“Azriel’s right,” Feyre sighs, “That book was holding you hostage, and the book of breathings has done the same to me, I don’t want to risk you getting hurt again, or worse.”

“I’m not a child in need of your protection,” Y/n says, ice cold and guarded.

“No,” Amren says then, “But you are stranded and in need of our help. We will not risk ourselves because you want to foolishly run head first to your death.”

“Y/n, it’s in your best interest to take it slow, and let us help you,” Rhys chimes in, “I felt something when you opened that portal, something dark, powerful. There’s something out there, and whatever it is took an interest in out dear Y/n here.”

Y/n’s shoulder lock up, and Azriel’s glare turns to ice, “You already knew that didn’t you?”

“What was it?” Nesta leans on the table, steely eyes staring directly into Y/n’s soul.

“I don’t know,” she says, holding that piercing gaze, not backing down an inch, “I heard something, when I was trapped. Something cold and wicked.”

“What did it say?” Azriel demands, stepping closer to the table that separates them, multiple times in the last hour she’d been half tempted to leap across that table and fight it out with teeth, fists, and daggers, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh please.” She rolls her eyes, and she can see the exact moment it crawls beneath his skin, he looks half tempted to strangle her, “It’s kind of hard to talk when you’re to busy shoving your tongue down my throat.”

“I’m sorry,” Mor says, looking at Az with wide eyes, “What?”

“Listen, princess.” Azriel leans on the table, ignoring Mor, ignoring the rest of his family who look between the two with varying degrees of alarm, “I don’t give a shit about this whole, I’m tougher than the world act, you’re scared and I know it, I can fucking see it, so go ahead and tell me what the fuck it said.”

She practically hisses at him, leaning forward in her seat, arm in casual reach of the blade at her thigh, “You don’t fucking know me, shadowsinger.”

“That’s enough,” Feyre snaps, “if you two can’t be civil together one of you can get out.”

Azriel looks ready to argue but one sharp glare from his high lady has him backing down. He turns on his heal, taking three long strides away from the table, putting distance between them like it would cool the raging flames in their eyes.

“What did you hear?” Feyre asks calmly, that air of dominance in her voice, High Lady, a queen in her own right.

Y/n holds her head high, meeting Feyre’s eyes, she may not be a queen but one day she would be, and she would bow to no one, “It told me to pay the price, gods killer’s kin.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Cassian asks, “Why can’t these things just say what they mean?”

“When my mother banished the gods to that hell realm to die,” Y/n says, “It would seem not all of them did. And whoever survived is demanding the price my mother was supposed to give.”

“And what price is that?” Azriel’s voice is deadly soft.

She could feel the anger radiating off of him, not necessarily at her, not necessarily not at her. He was angry that she’d nearly died, that she was willing to do it again if it meant going home. He was angry at her for being so damn stubborn that she wouldn’t listen, that she wouldn’t let him play protective fae male. She was angry to, so gods damned angry at the Wyrd for handing her this fate. For bringing her here in the first place, for putting her in their lives, in his, only to take her away again.

“My life.”

Azriel felt the words echo through him, bouncing around in his skull, each syllable cracking another piece of him until he was on the verge of shattering. My life, my life, my life, her life, her life, her life, her, her, her. Sharp stabbing pain in his chest like each word was a ash arrow through his sternum and directly into the heart beneath.

“No.”

“You don’t-“

“No,” he growls again, gaze matching Y/n’s, fire and ice pushing and pushing against each other to create a storm.

“We don’t know what this thing is,” Rhys interjects, “If it’s an actual god like thing, one of Quinlann’s Asteri, or something else entirely. Amren will search that dreadful book for answers about the gate. You two, will sit and calm the fuck down, and the rest of us will get back to work.”

The High Lord’s voice held an air of finality, no room to argue, even Y/n slumped in her seat, letting some of the cold fire go out. Amren is up and out the door as soon as Rhys stands, grumbling something beneath her breath about ungrateful little girls that has Y/n glaring between her shoulders like she was imagining that dagger strapped to her thigh buried between them.

“It will be alright, Y/n” Feyre lays a gentle hand on the female’s shoulder, “We will get you home, and if this god wants a fight, we will give it one.”

Azriel notes the shattered and broken look in Y/n’s eyes as she nods at his High Lady. He is so busy examining each of her motions that he doesn’t notice his family file out, doesn’t notice the concerned eyes and subtle glances between him and the female before him. She won’t look at him, he can tell she is actively trying not to meet his gaze. Fine, if she wanted to play the silent game, he’d play it and he’d win. They were going to have this out one way or another.

He sits across from her, arms crossed over his chest, eyes searching her face for any motion, but she sits still, that absolute fae stillness that looks like she isn’t even breathing. If it wasn’t for the steady beat of her heart in his ears he would think she wasn’t.

They sat there in silence, neither willing to be the one to break first. She stares at the wall beyond him, he stares at her face.

The tension in the room is suffocating, Azriel’s shadows are the only movement, the only sound, whispering in his ears, she’s upset, help her, comfort her. He wants to scream, to tell them to mind their own business.

He knows she’s upset, he knows and there’s a part of him that wants to take her into his arms and hold her, to tell her it’s alright and that he’d help her figure it out, but there’s an even bigger part of him that wants to keep yelling, to grab her and shake her till she stops and actually listens to him. He wishes he was like Rhys, that he could go into her mind and show her what she had looked like, trapped in that spell, he wishes he could show her the terror in his heart. How could she be so gods damned stubborn that she would even think to try it again, to put herself through that again, to put him through it again. Because if she did it, he would be right there beside her, and he would burn all over again to keep her safe.

Both of them were to stubborn to break first, they sat there for nearly an hour before Azriel stood, that far away look in his eyes that meant Rhys was talking to him in his head. He didn’t say anything to Y/n, only sending her a warning look before stalking out the doors and jumping from the balcony. She was half tempted to follow, to take her talons directly into his back, to get the fight she’d been itching to have with him. Instead she sat there, staring at that same blank space on the wall, mind spiraling down and down into that dark portal that ate up the Walking Dead book.

She wishes she still had it, that she could figure out how it all went wrong. She was so sure she’d copied those marks perfectly, spelling out the name of her home meticulously. Orynth, Terrasen, she’d learned how to write out the name in the Wyrd marks as a child, she knew it like the back of her hand. It should’ve worked, the gate should’ve worked.

When it had opened, she swore she could feel home on the other side, lands of pine and snow, the smell of the kings flame blooming across the mountains. It was right there, just beyond her reach, and that was when she’d felt it, when there had been something else, something dark that took her mind and whispered those words. Which god had survived, which one now demanded her death, she wasn’t sure. Quite frankly she didn’t want to know.

Whoever it was, they were angry, angry at her mother for what she had done, for the deaths of the other gods, and for that, they would take the one thing her mother cherished beyond anything else, Y/n. They would take her, using the power in her blood to make the lock that would bring them home, squeezing every last drop of life from her till there was nothing left.

Azriel knew he was going to walk into the River house and be bombarded, the question was, who would get to him first.

“Who needs a babysitter now?”

He glares at his brother, “Shut up, Cassian.”

“No, no, I’m going to enjoy this,” Cass grins at him, “I’m surprised you actually came down here, with way you two were staring each other down I was sure there would be some rough-“

Azriel sends him a warning snarl, “Watch it.”

Cassian only grins wider, holding his hands up in mock surrender, “I’ve never seen someone get under you skin like that. I’m surprised it took this long for, how’d did she put it? For your tongue to end up down her throat.”

Azriel was seconds away from sending his fist into his brothers face when Rhys opens his office door, “I’m surprised you’re not in a bed right now.”

Cassian’s roaring laughter fills the hall way and Azriel doesn’t hold back the fist he sends straight into Cassian’s stomach. His brother breathlessly laughs, even as he doubles over. Rhys’s eyes sparkle in amusement and Azriel sends him a look that dares him to say anything else.

“Why did you call me down?”

The High Lords humor vanishes just like that, it’s enough to even sober up Cassian, “Amren found something.”

No, no, no, no, “What is it?”

“The book of breathings was very talkative, it kept telling her that the storyteller should have heeded its warnings,” Rhys sighs, leaning against the door way, “With enough snarling Amren was able to wring a solid answer out of it.”

Azriel felt like throwing up as he asked, “What did it say?”

Rhys gives him a look, one that seems pleading, “That the Wyrd brought her here for a reason, as a gift to her, and it was angry at her for not accepting it.”

Cassian sighs, “What does that mean. What gift?”

There’s a moment where Azriel thinks Rhys won’t answer. Whatever it was, Az isn’t completely sure he wants to know. Whatever that wretched book had to say, it couldn’t be good.

“Fate brought Y/n here as a gift to her,” Rhys says again, taking a deep steadying breath, “Brought her here as a gift to her and her mate.”

Everything went quiet, the air, the best of his heart, quiet. No sound, no breaths, nothing. Just that word, mate, her mate.

“Az.”

He didn’t know who said it, Rhys, Cassian, his shadows, he didn’t know, he couldn’t hear beyond the echo of the word, mate, mate, mate, mate.

“Who?” He chokes on it, drowns in it, mate, mate, mate, “Who is it?”

He could feel it, like a tendril of shadow that reaches far far above the city, to the red cliffs, to the house carved into it’s side.

Rhys gives him a pitying look, “Brother, who do you thi-“

A soft tug, on that shadow, so faint it feels like it slips between his fingers.

“Who?” He pleads, breaking beneath it, mate, mate, mate, “Please.”

He collapses beneath the weight, knees digging into the soft plush rug beneath him. His brothers don’t move, they let him get crushed beneath the word.

“The book said it was a gift,” his brother whispers, “a gift to the storyteller and the shadowsinger.”

Mate, mate, mate, mate. That tendril of shadow firmly in his grasp, and on the other side, sits a storm of ice and fire. His mate, sits on the other side, high above him in the House of Wind, mate, mate, mate, mate, mate.

She is his mate.

Tag List- If you would like to be added to the list please send me an ask or message me❣︎

@inloveallthetime , @microwaveallthedemons , @nayaniasworld , @thecraziestcrayon , @fightmedraco , @blackgirlmagicforever , @nikt-wazny-y , @fangirlloza010 , @thisiskaylin , @wolfgirl624 , @khaleesihavilliard , @fluffy-bnny , @mariahoedt , @durgenyx , @glitterypirateduck , @byyalady , @amberlynn98 , @ferrarisbitch , @a-cup-of-nightshade , @breella , @hnnybee0 , @superspideyparker , @that-one-little-soybean , @thebeautifulmysteriesoflife , @websterss , @sassybluebird , @fakesocialmediaa , @balsalmic-vinegar , @lees-chaotic-brain , @yashiw , @a-mexican-waffle , @thefairlyaveragegatsby

#acotar #azriel x reader #acotar x reader #azriel #rowaelin daughter #rowaelin #not again #a court of thorns and roses

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enter-the-bogman · 1 year

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Reading through the Tortall books in publication order is funny because you start with Alanna “the village healing woman taught me all she knew” going off to become a knight, and end with Numair “world’s most powerful mage” as young Arram Draper first learning magic at the Carthaki university. Because of the 40 intervening years and five(?) different series further developing the Tortall universe, the magic system is now SO much more complex. Arram is learning an elementally-based, heavily theory-dependent form of magic where conceptual power is applied to physical objects or energy constructs. His teachers make him develop skills in non-magical areas like juggling, jewelry making, and gardening so eventually they can safely guide him through complicated applications of magic. In comparison, Alanna complains that Duke Roger is spending too much time on theory in order to prevent her and her peers from learning “actual magic” and becoming his rivals. And then she throws purple light at things until they explode or she passes out! We also learn from Arram’s misadventures that most of “magic” is creating methods of applying, storing, and accessing power so the user doesn’t drain their own life force and pass out or die. Alanna uses NONE of these techniques; instead, she pulls her magic directly out of her own life force, thinks about what she wants it to do, and hopes she reaches that goal before draining herself. She even (sometimes) factors in the impact of magically draining herself of energy while attempting tasks that require both magical and physical endurance (such as when deciding how much magic to spend warming herself when making her blizzard hike to claim the Dominion Jewel.)

For one thing, this makes Alanna insanely powerful. In In the Hand of The Goddess, she breaks open Roger’s magically locked door (presumably designed by Roger himself-- an immensely strong and well-trained sorcerer) by shoving her own magic into it until it MELTS. This builds an Alanna who decided magical theory was useless at age 12 because she has an immense access to magical potential energy, and who never learns the basic life-preserving models of magic usage that are taught in intro-level classes. She doesn’t have an interest in learning more sophisticated forms of magic, except in healing, which she cared about enough to learn non-magically. So when she heals, she uses magic as a guide or a supplement, rather than depending on it and then draining herself. Since she isn’t attempting complex magic, most of the time the limitations of drawing directly from her own life force doesn’t impact her that much. The things she does magically all have much more efficient alternatives, but they require an understanding of magical theory and ability to store energy that Alanna never learned! If she wants to do larger spells, she just keeps feeding energy into it until it breaks or she does.

The intervening series and Numair’s story makes Alanna’s simultaneously more and less believable. It now makes sense why everyone with even a slight understanding of Alanna’s type of Gift gets angry at times and tells her she’s using magic irresponsibly. (Before, we only understood Alanna’s side of the argument: “Well, I didn’t die and it worked, so calm down.” !!!) The fact that she never actually dies and only rarely is seriously harmed through her own magic use now requires some suspension of disbelief!

#I would love to see the moment when numair first saw alanna use her magic #and realizes that she pulls from her own life force to light a CANDLE #i'm sure they'd have a huge fight with numair trying to convince alanna to at least TRY meditating and alanna refusing out of stubborness #tamora pierce #sincerely cockleburr #tortall #alanna of trebond

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sagaduwyrm · 6 months

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DCxDP Idea:

Damian and Danyal Twin AU where before he was sent away, Damian was forced to make a magical oath never to tell the Bats about Danny.

Meanwhile, Ra's realized that Talia had somehow spawned a pit demon (Danny didn't mean to reincarnate, but some idiot had let Pariah Dark loose and the man was more prepared this time, Danny was so injured he couldn't really stop himself) and decided to use Danny as a weapon. He forced Danny to swear to obey him just like Damian has to swear not to speak of him. Luckily/Unluckily, the strain of an oath that is so against his nature prevents Danny from healing and regaining his power, so at least Ra's doesn't have access to that.

When the Bats realize something is up and help break Damian's oath he tells them about a strange little/older brother who, by all known understanding of the Pits, should have been a ravening, cruel beast but instead was wise and clever, full of stories and tricks. The Bats are furious once they realize that they've failed one of their own again, but helping Danny is easier said than done. He's got his own oath, and if Ra's' orders him to do so... If he breaks his oath, it isn't Danny that will pay the price.

Good news for the bats though, the Keeper of Time has finally found his grandson, and though the Observants prevent him from interceding directly, he can still tip the scales, so to speak.

#fandom #danny phantom #dpxdc #dp x dc #batman #fandom stuff #dc #danny fenton #damian wayne #danny and damian are twins #batfam #batpham #Ra's is an ass

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saphronethaleph · 8 days

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Literary Illusions

“It’s ironic,” Palpatine said, shaking his head. “He could save others from death, but not himself.”

Anakin frowned.

“And this is something the Jedi wouldn’t have told me?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Palpatine replied. “Is it a story you’ve heard?”

“Well, yes,” Anakin said. “Just now, from you. But not before then… and that surprises me, Chancellor.”

Palpatine shrugged. “I think you’ll find, Anakin, that the Jedi have not been telling you everything.”

“Maybe not, but… honestly, that sounds like exactly the kind of thing they’d tell me,” Anakin said.

Palpatine frowned.

“...what?” he asked.

“You know,” Anakin said. “Some Sith Lord works out how to bring people back to life from the dead, but his apprentice kills him and doesn’t bring him back to life because the Sith are inherently self destructive. If the two of them had worked together and been able to trust one another, they’d have been immortal.”

He shrugged. “It’s a good illustration of the inherently self destructive nature of the Dark Side, and it’s the dichotomy of how the Dark Side leads you to seek power in order to achieve goals that you then discard as irrelevant, because they’re not directly related to gaining power… hold on a second.”

Palpatine was a little distracted by trying to avoid mentally kicking himself, so it took him somewhat more than a second to notice what Anakin was doing.

“...Anakin?” he said. “Are you getting your comlink out?”

“Yeah,” Anakin replied. “Going to text Obi-Wan, ask him what he thinks of the story. Maybe there’s some kind of detail I missed which makes it less of a good illustration of the different worldviews and mindsets of the Jedi and the Sith.”

The Knight shrugged, his thumbs tapping away at his comlink. “He probably knows it, he knows all of the old stories.”

Palpatine blinked several times.

“...don’t,” he said, then very discreetly scrambled for a reason why. “It’s the middle of a performance. We don’t want to interrupt them.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s on silent,” Anakin replied, with a shrug. “Or vibrate. Did I put it on vibrate… hang on, Chancellor, I’ll make sure it’s on silent…”

He turned the comlink over, then a loud bwing sounded.

“Oh, right, I forgot to set it to do not disturb mode,” Anakin said. “Hang on… uh… yeah, there we go, I forgot I added all these custom modes. I’ve been missing a lot of sleep lately.”

“Perhaps-” Palpatine began, but Anakin spoke over him.

“Huh,” he said. “He says he’s never heard of it either. Wants to know where I heard about it, it looks like he’s really interested… or maybe he’s trying to tell me about a death stick vendor, he’s terrible with multiglyphs and he thinks he’s good at them.”

Anakin glanced at the Chancellor, hoping for some solidarity, then visibly noticed that the Chancellor was several decades older than him and abandoned that.

“Is there a book I can get the whole story from?” he asked, instead. “Obi-Wan is better at nuances, like I say.”

“That is not the point,” Palpatine said, trying not to get visibly angry. “The point is that there is a way to save your loved ones!”

“Maybe there used to be, but not any more,” Anakin shrugged. “Like you said, this was a Sith thing and the Sith are all dead. Well, unless General Grievous is a Sith who knows how to heal people, but I doubt it given how much he got hurt, and I’m not sure Dooku knew it either… hey, if this story needs to be publicized more then maybe we could have them do a play of that instead?”

Palpatine blinked several times, as he tried to keep up with a Jedi with possible undiagnosed ADHD and found himself discovering a lack of talent for podracing.

“What?” he asked.

“You know, a play,” Anakin explained. “Dramatic betrayals, lost loved ones, it would probably do numbers. It’d be better than this, anyway.”

He waved his hand at the ongoing performance of Squid Lake.

“...what is wrong with Squid Lake?” Palpatine said, before reflecting that that had really been a stupid question for him to ask and that he should have asked a much better one.

“Well, uh,” Anakin began, looking a bit abashed. “Actually now I say it out loud this might be really culturally insensitive of me, but to me this play might as well be eighty minutes of people boasting about having enough water to swim in.”

“It’s a ballet,” Palpatine told him, now completely having lost control of the conversation.

“It’s just a less scary version of Sarlacc Pit,” Anakin went on. “Someone tried to drown me in a lake once, because they thought I couldn’t swim, but floating on sand is much harder, you barely have to do anything to escape a lake. You just float.”

Very belatedly, Anakin caught sight of Palpatine’s look of total befuddlement, and shrugged.

“Watto was a lot of things,” he said. “But he had culture.”

Palpatine’s hands twitched, as he very seriously considered the idea of abandoning literal centuries of Sith planning and decades of personal political advancement in favour of stabbing Anakin somewhere it would hurt.

It was extraordinarily tempting.

“...hold on,” Anakin said, slowly. “I guess… the thing I’d like most at the moment is for… and that means… this is literally one of those times when I could fall to the Dark Side because of it, like Darth Plagueis.”

He bestowed a grateful smile on Palpatine. “Thanks, Chancellor! I need to make a call, I guess the ballet won’t mind.”

Palpatine was so thrown by the swerve that he couldn’t think of a way to stop Anakin in the few seconds he had.

“Love?” Anakin said, into his commlink. “I… think we need to come clean, because otherwise I’ll fall to the Dark Side.”

Palpatine’s eye twitched.

#star wars #palpatine #anakin skywalker #Is sleep deprived #Too dumb to trick #revenge of the sith

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nyx-lyris · 2 years

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my encanto analysis/headcanon that no one asked for

so, i was just looking through some encanto fanart and headcanons and came across this piece (artist: https://mobile.twitter.com/ye_enc):

abuela had triplets - julieta, pepa, and bruno. both julieta and pepa had three kids - isabella, luisa, and mirabel for julieta, and dolores, camilo, and antonio for pepa.

what i noticed is that for each batch of three, each individual falls under a certain category, and it seems to follow by age.

julieta was, as this lovely fanart shows, likely depended on quite frequently for her ability to heal via her cooking. her gift would have been the most useful and therefore she likely would have been praised the most as “the perfect one”.

this, of course, next falls to isabella, who we see this with the most frequently. abuela very clearly is living the life she wished she could have lived through isabella, and is viewed as the perfect golden child by everyone around her.

dolores is a little different, but i believe she still fits the trope. she is basically the physical embodiment of “seen but not heard.” she keeps quiet on the things she knows would upset her family and doesn’t make herself heard, even when she is in pain, whether physical or emotional. she doesn’t tell anyone that she knows bruno has been living in the walls for the ten years he’s been missing; she doesn’t tell anyone about her feelings for mariano, because she knows that will upset abuela and her cousin’s “perfect for the encanto” arrangement; and one can only imagine how loud certain things are to her, that are endurable for us (fireworks, for example).

next are the middle children: pepa, luisa, and camilo. all of them have some kind of pressure on their shoulders. (and - just a fun thing i noticed - while luisa’s literal pressure is the many things she carries, pepa’s pressure is atmospheric pressure, because she controls the weather. but anyway, lol).

all three of these characters are told in one way or another to bottle up their emotions and keep them buried inside. with pepa, we see this very directly as she is constantly told by the other characters (especially abuela) to, as the fanart above shows, calm down and essentially turn off her emotions because of the damage she can cause with her weather powers. this kind of reminds me of the “conceal, don’t feel” thing that elsa had with her gloves. both pepa and elsa demonstrate the same growth throughout their movies, too - learning to accept themselves and their abilities and thus being able to control them instead of being controlled by them - but, i digress.

luisa, by contrast, is indirectly told to keep her emotions at bay. she is treated as something of a useful tool, both by the town and by abuela, and seen in a very masculine light despite her relatively feminine personality. because of this treatment and the expectation that she will always be strong that comes with it, she falls into the same category as pepa.

camilo, like dolores, is a little different, but still fits. we don’t see much of him in the movie, but i imagine he is depended on as being the funny one. if anyone reading this is into k-pop or bts, think of camilo as like the j-hope or the jin of the group. he’s always expected to be funny and smiling, lifting everyone else’s spirits - but who lifts his spirits?

and lastly, we have the youngest siblings - bruno, mirabel, and antonio. they fit into the roll, of course, of the scapegoat, of family disappointments.

bruno was rejected by the town and by his family, seen as a harbinger of chaos and horror, a bad omen - all because he can see the future, something that he obviously cannot control. but, of course, it’s easier to simply blame someone else than accept the truth or take responsibility for your own actions.

mirabel, of course, is treated in much the same way. she is seen as a bad omen, as well, and is quite literally feared to be the one who will destroy the family and the encanto, because of bruno’s vision.

antonio does not quite fit into this category, but i think if he had not gotten a gift, he would have been shunned in much the same way as bruno or mirabel. it can also be argued that his gift isn’t really very useful, and we can see abuela struggle for a moment to think of how they could put his gift to use at the breakfast at the beginning of the movie (”i told them to warm up your seat”).

anyway - this is all to say that each of the siblings in each of the batches of three appears to fill (or almost fill) the same rolls. i’m sure someone else has already noticed this and i’m just late to the party - but i thought it was cool.

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carpenterswife · 1 month

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HALF OF ME (i)

SUMMARY: Despite appearances, you’d learnt Soldier Boy was, actually, capable of being a good man. Somehow, you’d wormed yourself into his good books, and had the rarest privilege of seeing him without the suit, the drugs, the ego, the everything. Just as things were going good, his heart somehow getting even warmer for you, the world separates you in the cruelest way.

PAIRING: Soldier Boy x Fem!Reader

WORD COUNT: 3573

WARNINGS: MINORS DNI. Sexism (set in the 1980’s), typical Soldier Boy behaviour, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, questionable morals (peer pressuring drug use), sexual content, eludes to smut, Soldier Boy may be a bit OOC at times, gore.

SERIES MASTERLIST / MAIN MASTERLIST

Becoming a world famous supe was never something you’d ever wanted. Sure, you’d grown up with their photos on your bedroom walls, your father telling you stories of when the first ever supe came to be, insisting he fought alongside the Soldier Boy in the war

The people around you seemed to idolise them. These… mostly regular people in tight suits, pretending to be better than everyone else.

You knew better. You knew enough. Enough to know supes were dirty, and corrupt, and definitely not the heroes they presented themselves to be. That their hands were more blood than they were skin anymore.

And, frankly, you wanted nothing to do with Vought or Payback — or whatever the fuck those shitty, useless superhero teams were called. (Seriously, what did they actually do? Except sit in their pretty tower and take the peoples’ taxes?)

Your father, however, had different ideas.

So, at 18, you woke up in the hospital, after an ugly head collision, with superpowers you’d never had before. A miracle, the doctors called it, a supe whose extraordinary powers had been hidden for her whole life. When you got home, you forced the truth out of your father. Compound V, he called it, a new chemical made by Vought.

No one was born a supe, he admitted, it all came from a liquid in a vial. The truth hurt you, as much as it didn’t really surprise you. Chosen by God, my ass.

This wasn’t supposed to be your life.

But it’s certainly what it turned out to be.

Payback were as shitty, if not more, than you’d originally thought. Each of them had… many flaws. Soldier Boy, obviously, was the worst. If the Devil reincarnated himself, he’d look and act like Soldier Boy.

Simply talking to the man made you want to shoot yourself.

Well… it did at one point.

Two years down the line, things had changed. Soldier Boy was still insufferable, sexist, arrogant, and a major asshole. But… he wasn’t so much a dick directly to you, as he used to be. In fact, if you didn’t know better, you’d say he was actually somewhat nice to you. As much as his macho heart could manage, anyway.

You noticed it the first time when he saved your life on a mission. He’d grabbed your waist when a grenade clinked at your feet, whirling you around and to the ground, squashing you against his firm chest, using his shield to protect you both from the hot blast. He’d shrugged it off as nothing; as something any leader would do for his team. Then you watched him hit Gunpowder about for not following his order to a T, and realised… maybe he did treat you different.

It was undeniable these days.

You were the only person on Payback that Soldier Boy could remotely tolerate.

“You need’a be more careful.” Despite the hard look on his face, Soldier Boy was staring down at you, as a Vought doctor wrapped clean bandages tightly around your midsection. It was a bullet to the wound; which, with being a supe, wouldn’t be too bad, but you didn’t heal inhumanely fast like he did. “You’re fuckin’ useless when you’re hurt.”

You rolled your eyes. “Thanks for your concern, Soldier Boy.”

His eyes narrowed into a harsh glare. “Ben.” He corrected you, for what was probably the 50th time. Each time he did, he got more annoyed with you. “How many times do I have to say it? Is there a brain in that pretty head’a’yours?“

You grunted, spinning on the bed and hanging your legs off the side of it. “Thanks for the compliment.” Ben rolled his eyes at your sarcasm, not offering a hand as you groaned in discomfort and got to your feet. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be healed up by the time we set off for Nicaragua, if that’s what you’re worried ‘bout.”

Ben just grunted, displeased. “Ain’t happenin’.” He immediately shot that idea down. “We leave for Nicaragua next week. You ain’t comin’. Sit this one out.”

You stared, expecting a joke. Clearly, he wasn’t. “Seriously?” You groaned, unhappy. What was it with this guy? “I’ll be fine. It’s a silly little bullet.”

“I was holdin’ your fuckin’ guts in your body.” He walked away, reminding you of just how bad your injury actually had been. He had, indeed, practically been keeping your guts inside of you as you bled out. “You ain’t going. You’re stayin’ here.” You chased after him, pulling your shirt on as you left the infirmary.

“Ben—“

He whirled around to face you. “I said, you’re fucking staying.” He growled, glaring down at you. God, were you glad you were on his side. This man was terrifying. Six feet of pure muscle, strength and violence. “You’re better off here, using that face of yours to get some PR.”

“And, what? The others will back you up?” You scoffed, grabbing his wrist as he went to walk away again. His expression went cold at your touch, but you didn’t flinch. As much as he tried to scare you, Ben wouldn’t raise a hand at you… probably. You had faith in the man. “They can’t fight for shit, Ben. Gunpowder hasn’t even discovered his own dick yet. You think you’re gonna have your back covered out there?”

He ripped his wrist away harshly. “I don’t need my back covered.”

“Everyone needs their back covered.” You argued. “Even you.”

He chuckled, sarcastic and dry. “You worried ‘bout me, princess?” You gave him a ‘seriously?’ look, as he took a step closer, mouth curled into that ever-infuriating smirk. “I’d perform better if you sent me off with a taste of that—“

“Ben.” You interrupted him, unimpressed. You rolled his eyes at his predictable behaviour. “I’m not gonna fuck morale into you.”

“Shame.” His eyes flicked up and down, tracing the curves of your body. “Bet you’d be a firecracker.” He walked away again, and you threw your hands up, groaning. Ben chuckled as he turned the corner. “Think it over, sweetheart.”

“You’ve got a hand.” You called back to him. “Use it!”

Conversations like that were very common with Ben.

It’d be a normal conversation (as normal as it gets with him) — and then he’d start talking about fucking you against the nearest surface, and all pleasantries went down the drain. Seriously, he thought 80% with his dick, and 20% with his actual brain.

And that was being kind.

But, beneath all of his macho assholery, was his genuine worry. You knew he wasn’t letting you accompany the rest of the team to Nicaragua because of your injury, despite how minor it was, and that he was worried you’d injure yourself further.

He was just… shit it showing it.

Poor bastard wouldn’t know emotion if it slapped him in the face.

━━━━━━ ✦ ━━━━━━

“I am not wearing this.”

Okay… scratch all of that. Maybe Ben was just a dickhead.

He lounged back in his chair, grinning lazily, legs spread like he owned the place. He probably thought he did. “Why not?” He took a sip of his whiskey, ice clinking against the sides, eyes never leaving you from over the rim of the glass.

You held up the fabric. “Seriously?”

It was basically a scrap of fabric, with how much it covered up. You didn’t shy away from showing skin. You quite liked short skirts and pushing the line. Because, as a supe, there was a line. Vought liked it when you showed skin — apparently it made your ratings go up with the male fans, no shocker. But, too much skin on display, the male fans started calling you a whore, and the ratings shot back down.

It was a bit like a balancing game, trying to find the perfect amount of skin to make the boys ogle but also respect you. An impossible feat, truthfully.

And this? This was definitely classed as too much.

“I don’t see the issue.” His smirk said otherwise.

“My tits are not gonna stay in this, Ben!”

His smirk just grew. “Again, I don’t see the issue.”

You groaned and put the dress down. “No. I’ll get my own dress. I am not wearing that.” You tell him, arms folding across your chest. You didn’t miss the way he checked out your tits, and the way the placement of your arms accentuated them.

He rolled his eyes, obviously not happy with your decision. Leaning towards, elbows on his knees, Ben’s eyes took you in. “Why?” His head cocked to the side. “You’d look hot. It’d make your ass look great.”

“That’s not a compliment.” You grumbled, pushing a hand through your hair. Ben made a small grunt of disagreement, but didn’t say anything otherwise. “Listen, there’s a certain line. Alright? If I wear that, every guy out there will be callin’ me a whore. Okay? Imma find something else.”

He hummed and sat back. “I think you should wear that one.” Sighing heavily, you just rolled your eyes at his persistence. “All those assholes will be blowin’ their pants just lookin’ at you, sweetheart.”

“Again, not a compliment.”

Ben stared at you, and silently took another sip of his whiskey. He always seemed to think these crude, rather sexist and inappropriate remarks were compliments. Like commenting on your body. Or saying you’d be a freak in bed. Which were obviously not actually compliments.

You rolled your eyes, rubbing your forehead. “I’ll find another dress, Ben.” You told him, definitive. There was no way he was going to convince you to wear that dress.

“What a disappointment.” He grinned, lopsided. “I was lookin’ forward to seein’ you in that dress.”

“Again,” you deadpanned as he checked you out once more, “you have a hand… use it.”

Ben just smirked, and sipped his whiskey again.

━━━━━━ ✦ ━━━━━━

You wore the fucking dress.

The asshole always won. Always.

He looked so fucking pleased, as you walked into his after-party, wearing the dress he’d picked out for you. His smugness was clear, brushing through the crowd with ease to come to you.

Ben hummed, eyes dilating as he stared you down. His eyes lingered on your tits, as they always did. “You look…” he hesitated, trying to think of a compliment that wasn’t degrading, and failed, “fuckin’ hot. If you weren’t such a bitch, I’d bend you over right here.”

Your face pulled together in disgust, looking at him with your lips pressed together “… gross.”

He chuckled. “Drink?” He offered. “I got your favourite.”

And there he goes again.

Being nice.

It did your damn head in.

Accepting his offer, you shivered as his large hand landed on the small of your back, guiding you through the crowd. They all seemed to part like the Red Sea as he came through, a fact that amused you greatly.

Seriously. These women looked at him like he was Jesus reincarnated, when he’d totally call them in a whore in bed.

Ben silently reached out for your favourite alcoholic drink, pouring it into a glass. His eyes scanned over the room, smirking at a few of the women ogling, sending them rushing to their friends and squealing. He merely chuckled and handed you the full glass.

“Thanks.” You murmured, taking it from him. Your eyes stared up at him for a moment, curious, before looking away again.

What was it with him? How could be such an egotistical one minute, and then be nice and respectful the next? It was like a guessing game, trying to figure out what mood he was in.

He grabbed your wrist, his grip firm, but not enough to hurt you. “Come with me.” He guided you through the crowd once again, to the doors in the back. As he pushed through into the room, he flashed you a cocky grin over his shoulder. Dickhead.

This room was far quieter. You noticed, immediately, the only people present were supes and celebrities, not the random civilians that’d been granted a pity invite — or the women Ben thought were hot. This was the main party. There were drugs covering every table, with various big names passed out on the chairs, blazed.

Ben lead you to the corner, where he’d obviously already been busy, if the half-snorted lines of cocaine proved anything.

Silently, he offered you a line, which you gratefully accepted.

You didn’t do drugs before you joined Payback. In fact, you’d avoided them, promising yourself you’d never become that type of person. But it was the norm within Vought. Every supe spent their nights filling their bodies to the brim with various drugs, poisoning themselves. So, you started smoking weed to fit in.

Then Ben found out you only did weed, and decided it wasn’t enough. With enough pressure, he’d gotten you onto any other substance he could convince you to try.

It made you more attractive, in his eyes, as you spiralled into addiction like him.

In fact, it got him rock hard, to snort lines or share a joint with you. It was so fucking hot, watching your eyes glass over as you got higher with every hit, with every line. God, it turned him on so bad.

You snorted your third line of the night, when Ben suddenly pushed you back into your chair. Bewildered, you stared at him, as he snatched up a baggie of the white powder. Your heart leapt to your throat, the moment he moved aside the slit in your dress, revealing the bare skin of your thigh. All breath left your lungs, watching him pour some of the powder onto your thigh.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

He was about to do a line off you.

He glanced at you through his lashes, smirking at the shocked and flushed expression you wore. He used his pocket knife to cut the lines, mindful of the sharp blade against your soft skin.

God, this was hot. He found it hot. You found it hot. It’d be a damn miracle if you ended the night with your clothes on at this point.

Your skin tingled as he sniffed up the first line, of his hands roughly gripping the top of your thigh to steady you, his other holding a rolled up $100 bill. He groaned in pleasure, body physically shuddering, head shaking, as the drug made his body run hot.

He did the next line, the grip on your thigh becoming tighter as his pupils began to blow up.

Was it getting hot in here? Or was it just you?

Maybe it was the cocaine in your systems, maybe it was the fact Ben was just… so damn hot, but you couldn’t stop yourself from grabbing his hair and forcing his head up as he snorted the final line off your thigh.

He looked up at you, pupils blown, lips parted. Holy shit. This man was sculpted like a fucking God. Your body shivered. “You finally takin’ my offer, sweetheart?” He chuckled, shaking off the immediate effects of the cocaine, raising himself up to your level.

“Fuck me.” You whispered, breathless, practically begging him.

His eyes went dark, almost black, with lust. The smirk on his lips made you squeeze your legs together. “Don’t need to ask me twice.”

━━━━━━ ✦ ━━━━━━

You understood the hype now. You understood why women bent their knees the moment Ben uttered a word to them.

Holy shit, did this man have talent.

Your legs were still twitching, the space in between your legs throbbing and tingling with how many times you’d come on his fingers, his tongue and cock. You’d counted four, before your vision had gone white.

Jesus, he had stamina. A glance at the clock on the wall confirmed it’d been just over five hours since you’d first fell into Ben’s bed. That super strength was better for more than just fighting, after all. This man should be advertised for his abilities. No shocker he was an American sex symbol.

He’d just fucked your brains out.

And now, he was staring at you with admiration, laid on his side, in the same bed he’d just railed you in. “You feelin’ okay?” He murmured, genuinely concerned.

“Yeah.” You rolled over to face him, a jolt of discomfort and pain in your hips and thighs. You might have to hold back on… doing anything for the next few days, however. “You didn’t break anything.” You joked, soft and breathy.

He chuckled quietly, hand sliding around your waist and dragging you closer to him. “You have no idea how long I’ve been waitin’ to do that.” He whispered, uncharacteristically soft and gentle.

“To fuck me senseless?”

He smirked. “Mm, I have dreamt of that.” Your eyes narrowed in mild disgust at the image of him having wet dreams about you, swatting his chest. He grinned and caught your hand. “No… I meant how long I’ve waited to have you. You’re fuckin’ perfect. Not just your body. Everything about you is so sexy.”

Your brows furrowed, squeezing his hand, and then worming your fingers out of his. “What do you mean?” You asked softly.

He seemed to struggle for a moment. He wet his tongue with his lips, making your body tingle again. Jesus. “Let’s get dinner.”

What.

“Me and you.” Ben smiled, tracing the curves of your body with a featherlight touch. “Real fancy. I’ll pay.” Was he… asking you on a date right now? The Soldier Boy, asking you on a date? Instead of fucking you and tossing you out?

“You’re serious?” You asked softly, surprised. When he nodded, you grinned, biting your lip to contain it. “Okay, Ben. Let’s get dinner.”

His eyes lit up. Ducking his head down, his lips touched yours, gentle and affectionate. His kiss spoke so many words; his hands gently cradling your body, as he kissed you like you were made of glass. The touch was intimate and loving, widely different to the one he’d used when he’d been on top of you.

No, this was completely different. This was him being vulnerable. This was him showing you just how he felt, without the words.

He smiled against your lips and pulled back, just enough to speak, but his words were still brushing yours. “Yeah?” He whispered, in response to your agreement.

“Yeah.” You stared at him with big eyes.

He grinned, almost boyish in its nature. He stared at you in adoration, seeming to be collecting the words on the tip of his tongue.

You giggled under his stare. You sat up, pulling him with you, grabbing the blanket that he had draped over his headboard. It was fluffy and warm, and smelt like his cologne, and you didn’t hesitate to wrap it around your shoulders, cocooning yourself.

If possible, his gaze softened even more. “You’re adorable.”

Quietly, you laughed. “You sure you wanna do this, Ben?” You stared back at him. Ben was nothing if not a womaniser. Settling down was nothing like him. “Get serious with me, I mean.”

“You’re the only one I’d ever want to.”

Your brows pulled together, confused. “Why?”

Ben soothed a hand through your hair, green eyes drinking in the perfections and imperfections on your face. “You’re the only one I trust.” His voice was gravelly, still heavy with the effects of your recent endeavours. His hand travelled through your hair, and then came down to cup your cheek.

Wrapped up in his fluffy blanket, your head rested on the wooden headboard. “I trust you, too.” You whispered, tilting your head into his palm. His skin was rough, painted with callouses and scars. Every scar on his body had a story. And you’d spend the rest of your life learning every single one.

Despite himself, he smiled at you, thumb tracing the curve of your cheekbone. “I’d kill for you. You know that?” His words made you shiver. Ben killing people wasn’t exactly new… or surprising. But doing it for you? God, it made your stomach heat up — and other parts. “These assholes don’t hold a candle to you, doll. Countess? That whore is— is repulsive compared to you.”

You laughed softly, rolling your eyes affectionately. “Ben.” You scolded quietly, though not with an ounce of anger.

The supe just smirked, chuckling deep in his throat. “You want me to drop that bullshit PR relationship I have with her? I’ll do it. In a fucking heartbeat. I’ll be with you, publicly, if you want me.”

“You’d ruin your reputation for me?” Now that — that meant something. Ben could say anything and everything; he was a master manipulator. He could get anything he wanted with that smile and his suave words. But, if there was one thing he would always prioritise, it was his reputation. He’d do anything to be the alpha male. Anything.

“I’d do anything for you.” He grabbed your hand within his much larger one, guiding it to his chest. He pressed your palm over his heart, allowing you to feel his heartbeat. “I’ll do anything for you, to be with you.” You felt the steady rhythm of his heart. He wasn’t lying. That, or he was a great fucking liar. “I’m never leaving your side. I’m yours.”

Your eyes searched deep within his. “Always?”

Ben smiled. “Always.” He leant forward, gently pressing his lips against yours in a tender kiss.

Three months later, Soldier Boy died in a nuclear meltdown.

A/N: jesus christ this took me so long to write 😭 but i’m so happy with how this first chap turned out. it’s gonna get so much more fun to write we get to the action 👀 pls lmk if there’s any mistakes, as i will go back n fix them !!! hope you enjoyed <3

banners by @cafekitsune

TAGLIST: @onlyangel-444 @deans-spinster-witch @fumolemon @anundyingfidelity

#soldier boy #soldier boy x reader #soldier boy x you #the boys #the boys tv #the boys fanfic #jensen ackles #jensen ackles x reader #half of me

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em-writes-stuff-sometimes · 18 days

Text

jorrāeliarzus (beloved) │ Chapter 3: Unforeseen

terms of endearment ‘verse: see my Masterlist for the correct series order!

Chapter 1 │Chapter 2 │Chapter 3 │Chapter 4 │Chapter 5 (In Progress!)

Synopsis: Daemon guides you on a journey of healing and self-discovery as you learn to raise your children and build a family of your own. You worry.

Hello, all! My apologies for the delay. There is a bit of a time jump here, approximately 4 to 5-ish months, though I haven't nailed this down concretely. There's also a bit of time progression within the chapter; and I've tried to move away from the incessant exposition and convey this time jump through direct action and brief explanation. Hope this shakes things up a little, makes the whole thing seem a little less formulaic!

Thank you to @ewanmitchellcrumbs for betaing this chapter for me!

Triggers: incest, age gap, purity culture, r*mming, an*l sex, tokophobic themes.

“Blood magic, sacrifice, myth… no, no, no… No mention of anyone with…”

You tune out the sound of his mutterings, staring aimlessly at the monotony of leather-bound spines packed tightly upon shelves of rich, dark wood, and higher, the neatly assembled scrolls piled in their respective nooks. Though the brimstone heat radiates through the rocky walls of the Keep in all places, there is little luxury to be found in this library.

At least the one in the Red Keep had windows. Here, there is naught but dark and smoke and the unnerving sense that something is always amiss, not quite what it seems.

“Under what conditions?”

“Hm?” You turn to Ser Lysan, brow furrowed.

The man looks for all the world as though he had not spoken at all, face difficult to distinguish in amongst the truly impressive cacophony of open, precariously stacked tomes upon the table. He peers down at the pages closest to him, eyeglass giving his iris a comically large appearance.

“Have you tried touching flame since that night?” he asks, a distracted mumble more than anything. “What of the heat of bathwater? Tea? Warm coals between the sheets? Under what conditions does it occur?”

“I—” You pause as the questions register, dread pooling in your gut, roiling there as it so oft does in recent days. “I… suppose I have always liked my baths quite hot. And my tea. But I do not need warm coals in my bed.”

Daemon is warm enough for my tastes, you think privately, though you leave this unspoken. Instead, you let your fingers trail up to the necklace affixed around your throat, metal and gold and onyx and diamond—his first gift to you.

“And the flame?” Ser Lysan’s enlarged eye raises to stare directly at you. “Have you touched it since?”

You shake your head, mute. Truthfully, you have known for a while that you ought to try it, and you know what halts you in your path. Fear. How would you cope with the pain of such a lasting wound? How would you explain the mark left behind should the fire bite into your skin? How would you hide the scar of it in the years to come? Or, worse—what would it mean if the fire once again left you untouched?

“You remember my first lesson, Princess.” His voice is soft, but it makes his words no less reproaching. “Tell me again.”

You sigh, gaze sliding away from his as you cast back through your memory. “If… if you want something, you must do whatever is in your power to achieve it.”

“Correct.” He sets the glass down, levying you with the full weight of his regard. “And there is little point utilising the power of investigation if one is unsure whether or not they wish to find the answer.”

“I know not what you mean.”

You take in your surroundings once again. Usually, there is no need to pay visit to this place. Usually, there are solutions aplenty to be found in the private collections of yourself, your uncle or Ser Lysan. But you have spent moons now going through anything you had thought might even hold the slightest relevance. It was not to be. You have exhausted your archives, and near to that of the Dragonmont, too. Not even the crusted pages of the book on Valyrian magic, the book Daemon had bequeathed to you moons ago, was of any use.

Blood and Fire, you have found, is full of barely comprehensible spells that not even the most profane of Asshai’i bloodmages would dare perform, rituals that call for unspeakable atrocities: torture, mutilation, exsanguination, cannibalism, bestiality… and that is merely what you are able to read. You cannot look upon such a thing for too long without risking the most disturbing of dreams. Unsettling curiosities linger in the back of your mind, conjectures as to how the dragons ever truly came to be. How your people came to be.

With a shudder, you had closed the book and placed it back in its particular spot in your solar, doing your best to ignore the revulsion tickling the back of your throat, and resolved to visit the library. You have no other option but here, now.

Caressing the smooth grain of the shelf before you, you allow your gaze to wander upward. There are dragons in flight carved so that they appear to be leaping from the minute space between each bookcase, suspended by their tails. Each of them is fashioned with black, glittering stones for eyes, their maws set in snarling roars. Interestingly, they do not appear to be uniform in their direction. They are angled at differing intensity, most severe at the corner of the room where you are and softening as one progresses to the halfway point along the eastern wall. And, in the centre, a differing carving: one of a great, polished black dragon, flying up instead of out, claws extended and fangs visible even in the low light. Balerion the Black Dread, hewn so faithfully that it seems the creature lives on in miniature.

It would be beautiful in its savagery if not for the unease that fills you at the sight. Almost like they are watching you.

“I think you do.”

The sudden noise takes hold of your attention. You look away from the central bookcase, from whatever it is about it that strikes you as odd, uncomfortable, wrong.

Ser Lysan, patient as always, observes you still.

“There isn’t always harm in ignorance,” he says kindly. “Sometimes… ‘tis better to let the truth lie.”

You swallow. “Perhaps.”

“For now, at least,” he decides, rising to age-wearied feet, “it can wait. We none of us are going anywhere, and nor will the enlightenment we seek.”

With an almighty thud, he closes the book. The abruptness of it startles a whorl of dust from the musty pages, which in turn rouses a hearty sneeze from your tutor. He does so once, again, and then, suddenly, he bends at the waist, wracked with coughs so furious that you think he might regurgitate his own innards. Without conscious thought, you rush forward, swatting away his attempts to fend off any assistance you may provide.

His shaking hands produce a dirtied, misshapen pocket square. Taking it from his grasp, you hold it against his mouth so that he can dispel whatever humours are inciting him to illness. Though you expect him to hack up some foul secretion, you learn quickly that this is not the intent of the fabric. Rather, his palm pressed to your wrist makes you clasp it ever tighter to his face, and you realise that he is using it to breathe.

Around the same instant, you understand the cloth is not, in fact, dirtied. It is stained with old blood.

It’s getting worse, you think, recalling all those many moons of fever and fatigue and frailty that have plagued him since even before Daemon began courting you. Nausea curdles in your belly.

Ser Lysan braces himself against the table, pushing your fretting hands away with a smile that seems too forced to be genuine. “I am fine, Princess. Never fear!”

“But you aren’t,” you whisper, nose tingling with the urge to tear up. You force it down. “Have you been to see the maester? What about Ūlla? I could get her—”

“My dear.” His fingers are warm where he takes yours. This time, the curve to his mouth is sad. “There is no remedy in all the lands for old age. Would that there was, for I have greatly enjoyed my years with you. I should wish for many more. It seems… this is not to be.”

“Don’t—don’t say that.” Your whisper is no less furious for its lack of volume. “Don’t. Maybe… maybe you would fare better where it is warmer. Somewhere with less cold. You would fit less. Perhaps if you returned to—”

“I can abide your fussing, Princess. I won’t abide your suggestions.” His resolve is firm, firmer than yours. Before he is even done speaking, you are sure that whatever his pronouncement, you will obey. “My place is here as it always has been. As it always will be.”

Until the end. You hear what is left unsaid, knowing in your heart of heart of hearts that this end draws ever nearer. Still, you nod, bolstered by his echoing of your action.

With a grunt of feigned vigour, he draws himself upright, allowing you to support his unsteady weight.

“Now,” he says with marked joviality. “What I will abide is your assistance getting up those damned stairs. Not at all conducive to this old man’s knees, that is for certain! Why these Valyrian castles must make me suffer, I’ll never understand.”

Taking a deep breath, you accept his redirection. With a grin that is only slightly ruined by the wobble of your lower lip, you grasp his arm and begin leading him to the door. You turn your back on the room, feeling the eyes of Balerion the Black Dread upon you as you depart.

“I believe it all started some five thousand years ago, long before the Fall of Ghis in the last of the Ghiscari wars…”

When you were younger, your favourite time of day had been whenever you were allowed to be alone. Whether that be surrounded by your books or your embroidery, or merely the luxury of sitting out on your balcony and enjoying your glimpse of life beyond the Keep, you had cherished the fragments of peace away from your Septa or your half-siblings or your squalling nephews—or worse, the rising frequency of lords young and old come to lurk about like farmhands inspecting the latest produce.

Never would you have imagined a morning like this, here and now, to be what you hold most dear as a woman grown.

“Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba…”

Your little brother Daeron—together with Jeyne and Freda—laugh, fawning over Aelys as she claps her hands in time with the noises coming from her mouth. The babe smiles, pleased by the attention. For all her temper, it is terribly easy to entertain your little girl. She is as free with her happiness as much as others are struck by the intense desire to make her feel thus.

Throwing her rattle to the floor, she squeals with glee at the noise it makes clattering against the stone. Then, as though realising that her prized possession is too far from her, she grumbles, leaning forward with her pudgy arms outstretched. Daeron catches her before she falls flat on her face, returning the rattle to her grasp.

“You shouldn’t throw things, Lissy,” he says, curling her fingers firmly around the handle. “You’ll get in trouble, especially if you hit someone. Ask cousin Luke, he knows all about it.”

“Ba!” she exclaims, giggling madly in response.

Daemon nods in preoccupied assent from the chair in which he is seated, Dark Sister laid out on the table before him. Never has he deigned to leave it in the armoury, nor even in the hands of its master. Instead, he returns from early morning training to maintain the steel himself, the scent of the oil and wax he uses to slavishly uphold its brilliant shine pungent in the air.

“Profound,” he says.

You stifle the urge to snicker. Perhaps the funniest thing about it is that he seems to be entirely genuine.

“Ah!”

The noise escapes you involuntarily, pinpricks of pain radiating down your spine from the point at which your hair had been unceremoniously yanked with the laces.

“My apologies, Princess.” Bethany loosens the ties below your nape, freeing a rogue strand from where it had been tangled.

You gather your hair more securely over your shoulder, eyes searching for their fill of your son—but is not on the rug beside his sister where he had been only moments prior. Apprehension curls in the forefront of your mind. It is difficult to keep the urgency from your voice. “Where is Rhaenar?”

You do not expect the response.

“Here,” Daemon says dryly, staring at a point under the table that is just out of your sight. “Trying to gnaw through my boot, it appears.”

“Oh, don’t let him—” you start to say, though there is no need.

Your husband reaches down and hoists the babe off the ground, settling him on his knee. From your place beside the privacy screen, all you can see is his impish little face, lips spread in a gummy, delighted grin.

Bouncing his knee to make Rhaenar laugh, Daemon says, “Becoming rather agile, aren’t you? A good skill for a future knight.”

“Be careful,” you warn, eyeing the sharp edges of the sword that is far too close to your child’s clumsy fingers. It serves as a welcome distraction from the burgeoning tightness of fabric cinching across your abdomen.

“We’ll be careful,” he murmurs, manoeuvring Rhaenar into a standing position atop his thigh. The boy ogles the Valyrian steel like it is the most dazzling thing a person may ever witness in their life, like it is everything he has ever wanted. His hands flex, legs stomping furiously as he strains against his papa’s hold.

Daemon chuckles. “Do you like it, lad? This is Dark Sister, longsword of our House. It was wielded by Queen Visenya, then by Maegor; after that, your grandfather Baelon, and then the King bestowed it unto me when he passed. One day, it shall be yours. What do you think?”

Rhaenar coos, blowing a bubble of drool from his mouth. Your nostrils flare in amusement, though in your head you turn over the comment your uncle had made. In truth, Dark Sister is not Daemon’s to pass on at his leisure. It is the command of the King that decides who holds it.

Although, you acknowledge, one day it shall be Rhaenyra upon the throne.

She might wish for Luke or Joff to wield it, but you do not think she will care too much to seize it back should your uncle make his protestations widely known. Sometimes, it is simpler to allow him his wants—and your line is as Targaryen as hers. There is no loss to your shared House if it is your children to inherit.

“Will I wield Valyrian steel, nuncle?” Daeron asks, head cocked curiously. His book remains open in his lap, hand absentmindedly resting in the centre of the spread to keep his page.

Daemon sighs, beckoning the boy to him. No doubt now is the time to tell him that your family has but two ancestral swords, and that it seems far more likely that Blackfyre be bequeathed to Jace than to him. The pair speak in hushed voices, too far for your ears to catch, and you watch the disappointment flit across your little brother’s face before it is schooled into thoughtful understanding. Daemon’s hand falls upon his arm, patting encouragingly.

At your back, the tugging stops, drawing your attention. There is a protracted pause.

“Princess?” Bethany’s manner is timid.

“What’s wrong?”

“The… it isn’t closing at the back. The gown.”

You turn to look behind you, reflex more than practicality. There is nothing you can see from this angle, and no mirror with which you can view your lady’s undertaking of the past quarter-hour.

“Are you certain?” you ask, frowning. “The measurements were taken not even a moon ago.”

You ought to be losing weight, not gaining it. Carrying twins in your belly had caused you to accumulate extra girth, and you did not mind this overmuch. It is part of the body’s role in providing the ideal place in which to grow strong, healthy children. But your culinary habits had returned to the norm moons ago, and with it your figure, or near enough in the absence of corsetry.

This was the case. The measurements that had been taken proved it. Unless you had been measured wrong—but you are never measured wrong.

Or unless…

Your heart begins to pound.

“Do you wish to wear something else?”

Taking a deep breath, you say, “No, no. Just… tie it. I’ll wear my hair down, then. It should hide the worst of it.”

“Of course.”

You feel Bethany’s attempts to tighten the laces once more, wincing at the strain across your chest and belly. It seems likely she has underemphasised just how ill-fitting this new dress is, and you are worried she might tear through the material if she pulls any harder.

Then, she halts, hesitates. You angle to the side expectantly. She clearly has something else to say.

“Forgive me,” she stammers, “but… have your—your courses been regular?”

The possibility is much harder to ignore now that she has voiced the intrusive whisper that had slunk through you barely a moment ago. Still, you shake your head, resolute. “I feed the twins quite regularly. I have not had my blood since—before.”

It is difficult to keep the note of caution from your words. Bethany notices.

“I see,” she says delicately.

In silence, she finishes tying you into the gown, arranging your hair to conceal the gape where your chemise no doubt starkly protrudes from amongst swathes of deep indigo crushed velvet. When she is done, you turn, examining yourself in the mirror. What you see is… alarming.

Your brand-new dress is beautiful, yes—

But you had dared to anticipate that your size at measurement would be your largest for some time, requesting that additional fastenings be added either side of the bodice so that the waistline might be drawn in further. Instead of elegant ties threaded laxly under each breast, the fabric bunches unflatteringly, the eyelets straining from where they are sewn on.

You turn, freezing at your side profile. Nothing you have worn has been this tight in moons. It makes the cause all the more obvious—the very thing you had been hoping fervently, vainly, was not the case.

There: a rounding swell of your belly. Too low to be caused by having broken your fast. Too emergent, too frustratingly obvious to be anything other than what it is, what it must be.

A child. Another child.

“I didn’t…” The words stick in your throat.

“I didn’t know,” perhaps. That is true. Everything that heralds such a state had been explainable by the recency of your labours: your appetite, your fatigue, your fluctuating mood.

“I didn’t think it was possible.” Also true. You vaguely remember learning that a woman cannot fall with child if she is still nursing, nor if her moon’s blood has yet to return.

“I didn’t want this.” If the dread threatening to bring up your meal is any indication, this is undeniable.

I’m not ready, you think wildly, uselessly. I’m not ready for another. ‘Twas toil enough the first time, and terrifying besides, and I cannot do it again. Not yet.

“I’ll… fetch the Lady Ūlla.”

Bethany curtseys and vanishes, the sound of quick-rushing footsteps growing fainter and fainter. You take vague notice of Freda’s expedient gathering up of Aelys from the floor, then muttering to the side of the room. Clattering. You watch the reflection as Daemon appears behind you, eyes dropping down and carefully up again, stare blazing and unreadable. The babes squall as they are taken from the room, though Daeron’s strident tones as he sings a silly ditty to them drowns it out easily.

Softer, softer. Then gone, all.

You end up taking the dress off while you wait with Daemon’s help. It seems pointless to keep it on if the healer is coming, never mind the fact that you simply cannot venture out of your rooms in such attire. For a princess to be poorly dressed would be highly improper, a discredit to your name and reputation.

Sinking numbly onto the chaise, you just barely feel the collapsing weight of your uncle sitting beside you before you are curling into him, knees resting on his thigh and face turned to his chest, unseeing. He sighs, threads his fingers into your hair, kisses the crown of your head—but you see the way his other hand hovers uncertainly on your thigh. The way it spasms, seeking higher ground.

Almost… longing.

When Ūlla eventually bustles in, you cease to be fully present. You nod when she asks questions; give her the answer she desires; permit her to examine you bodily, looking blankly into the distance all the while. You already know the truth. You do not need it confirmed, not really.

“How did this happen?” Daemon asks, arms crossed. Ūlla shoots him a dubious look. Scoffing, he adds, “She’s not had her courses. I would know. And I’ve taken great pains to prevent spilling my seed where I ought.”

You are not in a state to care for his crudity. While the healer is unimpressed by it, neither does she mind his words.

“You know nothing, boy,” she says, shaking her head. “If babe is there, then her courses come back. And men make seed even before they spill.”

Daemon grunts, contemplative. “So there is a child, then?”

Ūlla nods. “Near halfway, I think. And just one. Easy this time, hm, Princess?”

That far along? Having experienced this condition so recently, you would think it would be easier to identify. Again, you recall those most rudimentary of signs—the tiredness, the hunger, the tenderness, the lack of blood soiling your smallclothes—and you ponder upon how easy it had been to excuse, ignore.

Perhaps it is because you do not carry twins this time. Perhaps this makes it less obvious. You wish that fact would make you feel better.

“Yes,” you hear yourself say, lips stretching into a facsimile of delight. You hope it does not appear false. “Easy.”

“I congratulate you, Princess,” she says warmly, pressing your hand between hers. Her grin is infectious enough that, even if only for a moment, you feel her gladness as your own. Then, her eyes slide across to your husband, and she adds, “You also, boy. I do good to stay, yes? I was right that new babe come soon.”

You withdraw as the pair bicker among themselves, clutching a fistful of your shift as you seek to quell the bile rising sourly at the back of your throat. The delicate skin of your wrist rests on the tautness of your belly, a thing you had failed to notice before.

How? How have you failed to see the truth twice now? How is it possible that you have been so unaware that another lifeform had taken root inside you, growing in secret? How could you be so stupid?

“Sweetling.”

You startle at the touch to your waist, chin jerking up in reflex. Your vision is filled with Daemon—with the wariness of his expression, the firm line of his mouth, the enquiring tilt to one brow. But it is his eyes that you notice most of all. The brightness of them, shining, belying a thrill he seems cautious to exhibit.

“Did you know?” you ask, twitching a smile when surprise flashes minutely across his face. By way of elaboration, you say, “You don’t seem surprised.”

He huffs, stepping closer and sliding his arms more securely around you. You meld to him, his heat chasing the lingering chill of dismay from your skin. “I suspected. Your body and I are very familiar.”

He levels you with a look filled with intent, before appearing to recall the information of which you had both just learned. There is silence as he grapples with his words, lips parting and then closing, parting then closing.

Finally, he glances down. You know where his gaze is drawn. “Is this… good news?”

Oh, Daemon.

You do not believe you have ever heard him so quietly desperate to hoard hope for himself, fearful that it may be taken away at any instant. It is not something he is accustomed to doing, you imagine. The aching in his voice would surely stir even a septa to heed his wants.

It is at this moment that you know you could not bear to steal from him the excitement of a new child to shower with affection. You could not bear to mar this occasion for him. This—you, he, Rhaenar, Aelys, and the countless babes yet to be born to the family you are building with him—is all he has ever truly desired. You might not know how to feel about this next babe, but you do know how you feel about your husband.

“Yes,” you say. “It will be, I think.”

The creasing of his laugh lines as he allows his jubilation to be known is enough to calm the uneasy curdle of your gut for now. Your answering smile is lighter, more genuine than your earlier offerings, the strength of his joy so much so that you can forget the worry and the fear and doubt, at least for a while.

Last time, you had been near to bursting at the seams to tell everyone you encountered of your happy tidings. Now, however, it seems that the fates have conspired to announce your circumstances before you have fully come to accept them. Barely a day passes between your learning the news and receiving well-wishes from your family.

At the next evening’s supper, Rhaenyra immediately rises from her seat and crosses the room when you enter. With her arms outstretched, she steps into your space and engulfs you in a heartfelt embrace. “Congratulations, sister. And you too, I suppose, Uncle.”

“My thanks for the consideration,” he mutters.

You frown, pulling back. “How did you…”

Your eyes slide past her to Daeron, who stares at the window and kicks his legs beneath his seat, pointedly evading eye contact with you.

“He mentioned you had your healer fetched to you yesterday,” Rhaenyra says, following your gaze back to the source. “It wasn’t difficult to deduce the reason.”

“Ah.” You suppose it is nothing more than an honest blunder on his part, though you wish he had been a little less forthcoming about your doings.

From the table, Baela calls your name loudly in greeting, wholly shattering the illusion you have conjured. “Daeron says you’re to have another child. Can it be just a girl this time? I’m sick of all these boys.”

She gestures rudely to her right, making no secret as to whom she is referring to. Jace rolls his eyes; Luke sticks his tongue out at her, earning him a cuff about the ear and a quiet scolding from Laenor.

“Baela!” Ser Harwin hisses. Rhaena clasps her hand firmly over her mouth, stifling her giggles.

Well. So much for privacy.

It does not surprise you when you begin to hear whispers from the maids as you pass them by in the halls, their stares flickering to your middle. No doubt the serving staff at that blasted supper had done their work to spread the word of your current state. Servants have always been a rather loquacious sort. Sometimes, you wonder if it has been made a requirement of the role.

You suppose it is balm enough that this new babe makes no infringement upon your body other than that which is barely necessary. If not for the expansion of your waist, you mightn’t even know it is there at all. There is no sickness to endure, nor foods that make you faint with distaste; your energy returns just as quickly as it seemed to have waned; and you feel far stronger, steadier and more assured than you had been when carrying the twins. It appears that he or she is aware of your conflicted feelings, that they seek to endear themselves to you by being as unobtrusive as possible.

The merest thought of it is enough to elicit guilt. You remember all too well what that urge felt like—how destructive it is to whittle yourself down into nothing so that others may be pleased by the shell of you.

I will love you, you think toward your belly in those rare private moments that only come once in a while. I promise. I just need time.

When the child quickens in your belly, you find your thoughts begin to wander back to your labours. Flashes of memory previously unknown to you disrupt everyday proceedings with unwelcome disturbance, the smell of blood and the ringing of your own screams leaving you shaky and uncertain. It had nearly undone you. How are you meant to return to it, and so soon?

You try to bury these notions in the tasks you perform each day. You try to lose yourself in Aelys’s burbling laughter or the downy soft warmth of Rhaenar’s hair, in the way the pair interact in their own secret sort of language. It does not work. Everything they do reminds you that you are soon to be chained to the duty that had stolen from you your mother and your cousin, the duty that had wrought its havoc on far too many women of your line. That had nearly taken you. The birthing bed calls, taunting, stronger and stronger with each moment that the child inside you tumbles and kicks and grows.

It is easy enough to cast aside in the hours when the sun shines brightly and the world is full of bustle and chatter. You are not alone in the day. But at night, when the moon is at its full and the sound of your slow deep breaths whisper through the dark of your chambers, fear lingers like smoke long after a fire has been doused.

These are the times when you find that depravity has more uses than the bringing of simple pleasure.

“Fuck!”

Daemon’s face is contorted in a rictus of heady sensation below you, chin tipped back as you rake your nails down his chest in time with the roll of your hips. His fingers dig harshly into the meat of your behind, tugging you unerringly along the rhythm of his choice, quick and hard enough to leave you gasping with the effort of rising and dropping over him. You shudder, you cannot help it, squirming helplessly at the sheer breadth of him as he splits you apart again and again and again.

There is a certain mindlessness that comes from fucking. Here, your dread cannot touch you. Of what import can the abstract be when compared to the heat and glide of skin on skin, the fragrant warmth of sweat and slick and seed, the fizzing ecstasy of another’s body in congress with your own?

“Ah!”

You twist away from the harsh pinch of Daemon’s thumb and forefinger at your pearl, tears springing to your eyes.

“Pay attention,” he growls, teeth gritted as you reflexively clench down on him. “If I wanted a boring fuck, I’d find myself a three-copper whore.”

A meaningless barb, this you know. He has not frequented a brothel since before your marriage. Still, the callousness of it sends a thrill down your back.

“Do you not like it when I playact as your whore?” you ask archly, squeezing your inner muscles hard and breathing deeply through your nose as the action draws him even deeper. Your next words are but a gasp. “My mistake.”

His nostrils flare excitedly at your answer, lips curling in a cruel smile. “That’s no act, my girl. You’re my whore through and through.”

You cry out as he grabs a fistful of your hair and drags you down into a kiss that tastes of wine and spit and blood, teeth clacking against each other. You feel the sweep of his tongue as though it were betwixt your thighs, a pool of liquid heat wetting the mess that joins you together. He groans into you, more vibration than sound, breathing in your air as though he needs it to live.

“If it weren’t for this child in your belly”—his other hand spans the contour of your middle, distended gently against the firmness of his own abdomen—“I’d discipline you the way you deserve. Little sluts don’t get to mouth off to their husbands.”

The reminder of the very thing you are trying to forget cools your zeal somewhat, but you do not wish for it to spoil this encounter entirely. “Sorry.”

With that, you set your arms on each side of his shoulders and tip your head into his neck as you begin rocking back and forth over him, trying to lose yourself once more in the feel of him against you, in you.

“Good,” he murmurs into the shell of your ear. “You’re lucky—such a ripe, perfect cunt.” Alas, for he seems to have fixated upon the very thing you wish he would not elucidate on. Even as you pray that he will not continue, he adds, “Didn’t even have to spill in you to get another babe on you. Greedy, aren’t you?”

It is the wrong thing to have said.

You rise automatically, the movement causing him to slip from you in a gush. “I—stop. Stop.”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, frowning.

You shake your head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

When you try to twist around and grab his length, he halts you.

“Perhaps we ought to,” he says, tense.

“No!” You had not intended for it to come out so forcefully. With an unsteady inhale, you collect yourself. “I mean—I don’t want to talk about my—my cunt anymore. I don’t want to think about it. It is all you or anyone is interested in: what’s in my cunt, what’s growing there, when the next babe is coming out of it, and I just…”

You feel the tickle of anger, of upset behind your eyes, and you look away so that you do not see whatever Daemon’s response is. Frustration, sympathy, indifference—most all of it is enough to pour salt upon the wound.

You can still hear his voice, though.

“Come here,” he says softly, pulling you down again.

He rolls to the side, repositioning you so that you are nestled up against him, cradled like a small girl rocked to sleep. When his hand finds your middle once more, you stiffen but do not withdraw.

“This”—and the way he strokes where the child slumbers means you cannot possibly mistake what he means by this—“has all happened very quickly, hm?” You nod, the motion timid and uneasy. He sighs, lips pressing against your forehead. “I forget how young you are sometimes. ‘Tis normal to be afraid.”

“Please… can we just—not talk about it?” you ask. It sounds far too desperate. “The babe, my cunt, this—” Your voice breaks, so you let your words hang, shaking your head and taking shaky breaths to calm yourself. “I want to pretend. Like none of it is there. Just for a while.”

You look up at him, pleading. His expression is drawn, tired. You hate that you have put it there. Idly, he smooths the hairs from your temple, his gaze pensive on you. Finally, he tips his chin, a terse agreement.

The relief is heady. You lean forward, pressing a grateful kiss to his chest, closing your eyes at the feel of fingers trailing through the ends of your curls. Tentatively, you feel downward, lower and lower, searching for his member with a creeping touch. The moment you find your mark, he grunts, jerking away with a furrowed brow.

“What are you doing?”

“I…” Swallowing, you pursue him once more, fingertips dancing along the head of his cock. “You don’t have to… we don’t have to stop.”

He huffs. This time, he is vexed.

“What is it that you want, then? If you’re barring your cunt from me, then the only recourse is”—you twitch nervously as his hand spreads the cheeks of your rear, as his digits circle warningly against the furl of your other hole, the one he has not touched in earnest for a while—“here.”

It hurt, before. When he took you there. But there was something about that pain that you liked, though at the time you had felt great shame in acknowledging such a thing. And when you had reached your peak, you thought you were going to make water everywhere, such was the force of it. Sharp, sudden, biting—your vision had blacked out with the clamping of your entire body as the crest reached its full.

And after, a glorious stillness, a place where nothing but pure unadulterated calm awaited you. Nothing sounds more appealing at this moment.

“I… Okay,” you find yourself saying.

Surprise flashes across his face, quickly overtaken by a lecherous smirk. The flat of his palm strikes the flesh of your rump in an abrupt sting, eliciting from you a faint squeak. Wordlessly, he shuffles off the bed, no doubt in search of the oil he will need to ease his path.

You shiver as the sound of clinking vials reaches your ear. It reminds you of that night, of how furious he had been with you.

“Don’t you fucking move, niece. I’m not done with you yet.”

Instinctively, you readjust yourself on hands and knees, trying hard not to tense up lest you make this venture impossible. In this position—waiting as you are with the knowledge that Daemon is beyond, that you are wholly exposed to him—you feel a different sort of vulnerability. You sink into that discomfort, simpler and less fraught as it is compared to your present woes, concentrating on the sensation of chilled air ghosting along the folds of your cunny and the secret insides of your rear passage.

The bed dips. Daemon grunts as he makes his way back to you. He traces the line of your spine with an idle touch, a hum of muted admiration escaping.

“Turn over, sweetling,” he murmurs, softer than you expected.

You do as he asks, shifting uncertainly on your back. He looms over you, silver hair haloing his face, and you find there is none of the violent intent of your last endeavour. Instead, there is naught but a calm sensuality in the dark of his eyes, the subtle lift of his mouth at the corner as he helps you lift your hips to slide a pillow between your form and the bedding.

“Good?” he asks, and you give a nervous nod in reply. He smiles. “Relax. Last time was for me. This time is for you.”

“Alright,” you say, not because you need to but rather to quell the urge to babble. You take several deep breaths, allowing your knees to lift and fall apart so that he can do what he will.

Thumbs spread you apart, a lengthy pause indicating that you are being inspected like prize stock for sale. You burn all over at the humiliation of it, forcing yourself to keep still instead of closing yourself off as you so terribly desire to do.

Then—

“Don’t,” you beg, struggling to push yourself up on your elbows.

The weight of your belly and the incline make this difficult, but you are just able to take in the sight of Daemon’s head between your legs in complement to the balmy pressure of his lips on the very worst, the very vilest place lips could ever go.

What makes it all the more awful is how viscerally wet you are.

“Does it hurt?” His voice is but a pulse along your skin, the words mocking even if the tone is not.

“No—but—”

“This here is part of you like any other.” Another kiss, this one directly over your entry, a hint of tongue searching along the divot he means to claim. “I’ll sup as I wish, and you will lay back and take what you are given.”

You moan, filled with misery and illicit excitement as he readjusts, his mouth latching to the flex of your back passage and sweeping the flat of his tongue against it much like he would through the folds of your cunt. The sensation is not the same, not near as enjoyable in terms of feeling alone, but the knowledge of what he is doing is enough to make you clench and release uncontrollably. You burn through and through as he makes his feast of your most obscene place, your breath difficult to catch.

Everything between your legs is dampened, saliva and arousal copious enough that the sheets are sure to be thoroughly ruined. A hot trickle spills from your cunny and down to the site of his attentions. He chases the overflow to its source, nipping at your pearl before sitting back on his haunches and wiping his chin.

“Look at that messy cunt,” he mutters, forcing your flailing leg down as his oil-slick fingers push through your resistance to coat up your insides, one then two then three in a span of time you cannot measure. The thumb of his free hand taps condescendingly over the opening from which your slip gathers and leaks, soft contact that provides only the merest hint of enjoyment. “Jealous, isn’t it? It knows its role isn’t to get fucked tonight.”

His digits prod deeper, drawing a gasp from the base of your gut. Your inner muscles do not quite release, no, this is not a part of you that is capable of such a thing, for here is not meant for man to conquer, not really. But you want it—oh, how you want it.

“Please,” you say, breathy and begging. “Please.”

Daemon’s brow shoots up, a smug curl to the corner of his mouth. “Hm?”

“I… need you in me.”

“In here?” he asks, thumb petting once more over your folds. “Or in”—his fingers twist in you, just shy of casual disregard—“here?”

Your gut cramps from shameful desire. “My—my other hole.”

“Your arse?”

“Yeah.”

His grin is savage, bloodthirsty as he withdraws himself from you. Over the gentle swell of your belly, you see the harsh motions of his fist slicking over his length with oil, the vial stoppered and discarded carelessly beside him. Nudging your legs up—they are forced out by your distended middle—the plush tip of his cock settles at your rim, and you close your eyes to concentrate on staying relaxed as he begins to push in.

Panic seizes you. For a moment, it feels as though your throat has closed up with the clench of your rear entry, that a blockage has stolen your ability to inhale. You barely hear Daemon murmuring, “I know, I know, sh, you can take it” over the frantic thud of your blood roaring in your ears. Fisting the bedding and imagining your nails piercing the sheets and tearing them to shreds is the only way you can keep yourself calm enough to allow him to continue.

I have to want it, remember, that’s the only way this passage will accept him, I just have to keep wanting it, my hole isn’t made for him, but he is inside it anyway because he loves me so much, and I love him, so I have to want it…

These thoughts stream through your head even as the tears begin to stream down your face. It hurts, or perhaps it is simply so overwhelming that you cannot possibly process it. You are at war with your urge to crawl away from the stab of his member as it whittles your body unwillingly into a shape built for his pleasure. If the winded sound of his groaning is anything to go by, you know he is enjoying himself. You know not if that makes it easier for you.

“You can cry, little girl. You need to, do you not?” Daemon uses your thighs as an anchor to drag you onto him, or as leverage to worm his way further and further in. “Don’t worry—I like it when you cry.”

This is all the permission you need to let yourself release the noises you had not realised you were concealing: wounded little whimpers, quick shallow breaths, bitten-off sobs. You toss your head from side to side as he settles to the root, a boiling lance gouged straight through your anatomy, and you nearly drown in the sea of your own tears when he grinds in and out, slow and sure and selfishly indulgent.

You shout far too loudly when he hurries his pace, shock rather than pain, for it aches less the more you convince yourself that it is necessary, that it is important to be right here, under him. His hips move against the soft flesh of your rump in rhythm, the muted slap a foreign sound for so familiar an act. The wrongness of it strikes you again, but now, it is stimulating, and, unbidden, your fingers find the hard, swollen protrusion of your pearl. You shake and squirm as you work yourself in time to his pace.

Daemon barks a laugh when he notices, growling and gritting his teeth as the quiver of his body travels to where you are joined, sparking an instinctive clamp of your rear.

“I thought you were sick of your cunt, greedy girl,” he mocks, palms pushed heavily against the backs of your thighs. Your heels jolt off his shoulders with each thrust, unmooring you wholly. “You cannot help it, though, can you? What a desperate, demanding slut you are.”

You whine, rubbing harder. You are rewarded by the kindling heat in your gut, confused and augmented by your discomfort. “I need it, Uncle, I’m sorry—”

“If you were sorry,” he says, mean and fervent, “you would stop playing with yourself. Filthy little liar.”

“I’m not, I promise, I’m sorry!”

“Tell me—are you close? Ah, you are.” His nostrils flare victoriously, and he shifts on his knees to angle himself even more sharply into you, grunting with his every effort. “Go on, then. Finish yourself off before I am done, or you’ll get no relief at all.”

Desperation drives you to completion. When you crest, it is an agonising, fraught thing, sensation in its purest form. Your form seizes, contorts, the arches of your feet flexing and your spine bowing so strongly that it is no small wonder that you do not snap in half. The entirety of you loosens—your muscles, your mind, your very senses—and perhaps the rumble you feel is the sound of Daemon vocalising to his own end, but you cannot hear it. You lay spent, limp, a placid doll being used for whatever lewd inclinations he wishes.

And then, warmth fills you, and you imagine his seed is travelling up and up and up, all throughout your body, blanketing your innards with the essence of himself—‘see, sweetling, you are nothing but mine now'—and you let yourself finally, completely go.

The wind whips harshly around you, tangling your hair and creeping into all the openings of your riding habit so that even the skin concealed by heavy fabric is chilled. Even so, the cold is mitigated by the sweltering heat that emanates from the dragon before you.

Such is the season that steam perpetually sizzles from Athfiezar’s scales, rising in rivulets like mist off hot coals. It is hard to tell if the constant hiss is from the meeting of air and dragonflesh or if it comes from the throat of the beast. Comforting though it is to lean against his enormous frame, to curl beneath his folded wing and let the warmth lull you to sleep for a time, you have rested far too long—and so has he.

“Lumie ikson daor, ñuhus taobus,” you insist, glaring up at him as his warning growls reverberate through you. I am not ill, my boy. “Rūs yno iemnȳ neven, konir drējior issa, yn mērī mērys. Kesrio ōñapo gō, lanta iltis.” I carry a child, that is true, but only one. Before, there were two.

Your reasoning does not seem to sway him. If he were human, you might say his expression is reminiscent of scepticism. It is certainly the aura he seems to emanate, though you are not prepared to give in so easily.

“Ābrī ñurho ānogro heksīr kiposy, sepār beko issaryro pōjo iemnȳ kipis,” you add, resolute. Women of my blood can ride like this, just as they do usually.

Your lady grandmother Alyssa took to the air right up until her confinement with each one of the sons she birthed, your uncle included. Both Visenya and Rhaenys are said to have flown up to their own times, too.

Athfiezar nudges you gently. You smile up at him, frustration melting to fondness and a muted sort of shame. He has not refused you out of malice.

“Kostōba iksan,” you murmur, palm caressing across what little of his maw is within your reach. “Yne ōdrikilū daor.”

I am strong. You will not hurt me.

There is no resistance from him as you begin to scale the mighty terrain of your mount’s frame, remaining mindful of the additional weight you carry about your middle. Though you are unused to the exertion, there is triumph to be found when you settle, winded and slightly nauseous, in that familiar divot between the joints of his shoulders.

It has been far too long, you think.

You have not had the opportunity nor the yearning to seek the skies for several moons now, much to your regret. Perhaps if you had done so earlier, your state of mind may well have improved without the need for the healer’s tonics and tinctures. When you were younger, flying had been a welcome respite from the tribulations and trivialities of court. Looking down upon the world so far below you seems to make all earthly woes insignificant, inconsequential. Though time has passed, there are moments when you feel that little progress has occurred in shifting your thoughts toward a positive temperament. Misery is the companion of the weak and powerless, fraught as it is in ensuring you take as few measures as possible to change the outcome of your spirits. What you need, what you both need, is a reminder of the power you possess.

If you have been longing for this, then there can be no doubt that Athfiezar has missed you, too.

“Sōvēs!” Fly! you yell, and it is all that needs be said.

With a guttural screech and the rumble of earth far below you, he leaps toward the edge of the cliff-face. The flap of his wings takes you up and up and up, and you throw your arms out to feel the air rushing through your fingers even as it screams in your ears. Your belly swoops. Perhaps it is the thrill of your return, or maybe the child has chosen now to make itself known again. Whatever the explanation, nothing can dim your joy. You are here. You are alive. You are free.

Together, you soar toward the horizon, dragon and rider reunited in flight once more.

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