Hunt
(T/HRONE OF GLAS$ SPOILERS AHEAD! IF YOU HAVEN'T READ PAST Q/UEEN OF SHADOW$ BE WARNED!)
My love for R/owan is boundless, and the series would be infinitely better if he was sick.
This is a multi-part fic of A/elin and R/owan training on a mountain and YEAH! HE HAS A COLD!
not much sneezing yet but it will come I promise
likes comments reblogs always loved and giggled over <3
****
Aelin stalks through the underbrush with lethal silence. Leaves covered with dew from the early morning mist streak across her face, dotting her cheeks. Her prey, a mountain hare the size of her head, nibbles on the sparse grass a few yards away.
She knocks her arrow, slipping in a breath. She can’t wait to see the look on Rowan’s face when she brings back a hare this size. Slowly, she pulls the bowstring back, kissing against her face. The hare turns, startled, breaths coming fast. Now or never–
“hh’rZzSHHh’uh!”
Aelin gasps at the sound that echoes around the mountain. It cracks like a whip, scaring even the crows nesting in trees. The hare takes off and she desperately releases the arrow after her prey. The point finds its home in the thick trunk of a tree rather than the soft neck of the hare.
There goes breakfast. Her stomach growls pitifully. Seething, she rises from the brush and goes to retrieve her arrow.
Five minutes later, Aelin stalks back to the makeshift camp she and Rowan had assembled the night before. The Fae prince had forced her to run from the castle to these distant mountains, shifting in and out of her Fae form to master control, where he then informed her they would be camping for a week out in the elements. And she was to hunt their every meal in between training.
It was a pathetic time, especially with the rain that has settled across the mountain. Damp and cold to her bones, Aelin approaches their campsite. Rowan, appearing much drier than she, sits by the fire she had sparked earlier that morning. He looks oddly run down, like he hadn’t slept much the night before.
Aelin is sure he hadn’t. The mountains were too misty to sleep outside without waking up damp, so they had packed just one tent to keep their baggage light. Lying beside Rowan, last night she had been the private audience to his tossing and turning, grumbling, and finally his snoring.
“You fucking bastard. You scared off breakfast,” she hisses as she approaches, throwing her bow and bundle of arrows down by the tent. Rowan does not look up from the dagger he cleans in his hands.
“And how – snf! – pray tell, did I scare breakfast from here?” He grumbles. Aelin catches the way he sniffles thickly, his nostrils twitching up with the force of it.
She drops her satchel, full of only a bundle of pathetic berries. “You sneezed.” She tries not to give in the warmth that pools in her lower stomach at the memory of the sound. It’s the first time she had ever heard him sneeze, and she was not disappointed. “For someone so keen on silence, I expected you’d know how to sneeze more quietly.”
Rowan doesn’t even grace her taunting with a reply, or a snarl. He just continues rubbing a cloth down the length of his dagger. Strange. He must be feeling really tired if he didn’t bother to punish her for such a remark.
She sits down across from the fire, on a log they’d rolled over so they didn’t sit on wet grass. Feigning interest in destemming the berries she’d picked, she studies him through the crackling flames.
His white hair is loose around his shoulders, creating a curtain that shields the dark tattoo running along his tan face. The tips of his Fae ears poke out just behind the white strands. After weeks of training with him, sleeping out in the elements beside him, she’s learned that he prefers to tie his hair up. It’s so rare to see him with it down.
“More hand to hand combat training today, or magic training?” She asks, breaking the silence that is only marred by the crackling flames.
Rowan sets the dagger aside. “Your job was to hunt. And since you still haven’t caught anything, your job is still to hunt.” He settles his sharp green eyes on her, brows set. If he didn’t piss her off so much, she might actually tremble under his gaze.
She raises her palms in defeat. “Fine, fine. But if you sneeze and scare off my prey again, I won’t be sharing the catch with you.” Even if she’d very much like for him to sneeze again, she’d rather eat first.
In one swoop, she picks up her bow and arrows and satchel again before setting off. With her Fae senses, she could scent a herd of deer in the southwest. Now that would show Rowan. Perhaps she’d bring back a buck, and spear him with its antlers.
As soon as she leaves the camp, nearly out of earshot, she hears the same thunderstrike from before. Perhaps Rowan had been waiting for her to leave.
“hhzjHSHHhieWw!”
A shiver runs down her spine as more startled crows caw in the trees.
****
Two hours later, Aelin returns with a small doe slung across her shoulders.
It’s mid afternoon. She had been lucky a herd was still grazing so late in the morning down by the clearing. She’d been even luckier that Rowan had either gotten his sneezing under control, or learned how to be quiet, because nothing had startled her catch this time.
“Lunch,” she declares to Rowan, dropping the deer to the grass. He hasn’t moved from his spot by the fire. “Is served.”
“It was supposed to be– snf! Breakfast,” he mutters, reaching the dagger at his side from earlier. His voice sounds dulled, like he’s congested.
Aelin rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s not like you helped. And I got us a catch to last us days.” She pats the stomach of the doe proudly. It isn’t very old – there’s still a sprinkling of fawn spots across her back. Aelin feels a twang of guilt for not singling out an older one.
Rowan pinches the bridge of his nose, breathing through his mouth. Aelin hardly has time to prepare before he jerks down towards his crotch, a light mist spraying across his trousers.
“hiHh–... yHhZzSHhhyuu!” A familiar, rushing heat spreads through Aelin’s gut. She swallows, watching as he rubs his nose on his wrist and glares up at her. Is he going to get mad at her for his sneezing?
Rowan chooses not to comment on it, something Aelin is secretly grateful for. “You were– snf! instructed to catch something small. We’re moving camp this afternoon.” He angles the pommel of the dagger towards her.
“What?!”
“Rain is coming tonight and will flood this area. I told you this morning. And now you’ve wasted a young doe’s life.”
A flame of rage flickers to life inside her chest. This is all his fault. “Well, I wouldn’t have wasted jack-shit if you hadn’t ruined my catch earl–”
“Aelin,” he growls, a no-nonsense sound. The tips of his canines poke past his lips. Aelin shuts up immediately.
He stands, crossing the camp in two strides, and shoves the pommel of the knife against her stomach. She glares beneath his gaze. “You missed the catch because you did not act fast enough. Now you can either carry the doe across the mountain, or… hhH—!” His breath snags, eyes looking off into the distance for a split second. Aelin’s heart hammers in her chest.
He quickly recovers and sniffs again, much to her disappointment, and focuses his gaze on her. “Or you can leave it and realise you wasted a young animal’s life for your pride.”
Before she can retort, he turns on his heel and she offers a middle finger to his large, muscular back.
As if sensing her, he says over his shoulder, “And– sNf!– pack up the tent.”
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you don't need to post this but, char, that thing you wrote about being so happy when certain people reblog things from you - you're one of those blogs for me. it's like, wow this person with really cool and good thoughts thought my thing was cool, reblogged it and even wrote something in the tags??
I was going to yap something sappy about community, how we're all brought together through the same thing and enable each other in the best (and sometimes probably worst) ways possible, but judging by your tags you also feel that way :)
anon 🥺🥺🥺
i think it's really neat how positivity is spread through the phandom on tumblr. there's people who have been here for many, many years, and blogs who have tons of followers in the space, but the posts that get the most traction? they're sweet. or funny and sweet. the big blogs will reblog anything from anyone and it'll rock op's world for a few days. and thats so cool! it's holding up a sign like hey i thought this was neat! and we all crowd around like omg yeah!!
i think a lot about post circulation on tumblr, as well as tagging (cause i do it a lot). and what ive noticed from dnp tumblr is that a large chunk of posts get shared bc 1 person reblogged it, and it sets off a chain reaction. most people find most posts through their dash, as opposed to searching the tag. it leads to a big sense of community and comraderie. reblogging is always important but even more so for phandom tumblr.
i'm glad i can share some positivity with the posts i interact with, cause really, that's what it's all about isn't it? everyone here is so fucking cool and i think it's really important for people to hear they're doing well, which is what i try to do with my blog. be it any type of art, jokes, or text posts, we all post to be seen in some way shape or form.
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nah but like
they're "seiros lapdogs" because they're fighting back against the people who attacked them completely unprovoked??? also because it so happens that thales is at garreg mach so they have to go there to reclaim the area to defeat him???
i just hate this because it's just perpetuating things about faerghus and its people that just aren't true. it frames it like they jumped into the war willingly for the church and that they're only here for the church. like nah buddy, it's not faerghus' fault you're out here fighting to protect thales and ludwig.
it also is batshit to me how he and leopold are fighting to stop faerghus from advancing but like... they know what's happening to the empire and that edelgard isn't even calling the shots anymore, yet they still stupidly fight for the very person who is literally razing their country and burning their villages. they know the empire is in shambles and that the kingdom isn't targeting them and is specifically aiming for gm to get it back from who? thales; who, mind, at this point is in his real form and not posing as arundel anymore. everything is laid out plainly, but they still act like faerghus is the bad guy.
but yeah, okay. faerghus BaD for defending themselves, fighting back, finding out who is behind all the puppeteering and heading to take him out. sure, that makes them seiros lapdogs. like what are you, an agarthan mouthpiece??? may as well be like yeah you go retreat and leave you agarthan lapdog. if they don't realize it's Someone Else in charge of course, then ludwig lapdog works fine too.
and it sucks because other than this shit, i like waldemar just fine as a character. it's just like, it feels like they forced someone to have to stick in that final faerghus BaD insult before the grand finale so they just randomly picked someone to remind us that faerghus is Always Wrong as long as they continue to fight back and prevent being attacked in the future.
waldemar here is just basically ag caspar. fighting and risking his life for thales, who is destroying the empire and basically holding the emperor hostage. if the writing here had any decent plot points, they would've all stopped and have been like hey wait, shouldn't we be fighting to get our emperor back? why are we stopping these guys from killing the people who are destroying this country?
and like, they literally went from siding with ludwig during the insurrection to siding with edelgard in this timeline to... jumping immediately back to ludwig as soon as he was at the top of the food chain (thales notwithstanding). as soon as the person in charge changes, they jump ship immediately; then of course get mad that the people they attacked are coming after them... and fighting them as they defend the very people who are letting adrestia become a literal, physical ruin.
it really just tells me that these people don't care about adrestia itself, but status, power and wealth. they don't care about the country itself as long as they're doing well. that's like, the only thing i can get from still fighting with/for ludwig/thales. the fact that they just fight for ludwig again as soon as edelgard is out of commission is also pretty gross to me. they have no loyalty at all.
and it's like, i want to like waldermar and leopold, but they come across as just selfish, entitled and only there for their own asses to be covered. and i get that - that is a realistic take on politicians, but the fact that the game regularly loops back around to faerghus BaD despite that and despite portraying these people as opportunistically selfish is like... what are they even trying to write??
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can i ask for fake peppino and/or the noise with a reader who has anxiety? i love your content btw its very nice and makes me feel better after long days :)
Pep knows little about what plagues you, but he knows he doesn't like what seems to haunt you. Even with him nearby, constantly scanning for enemies, you're attacked, seemingly at random.
Your body grows warm, too warm. He whines as you lean into his naturally cooler body time, sinking into you as well to try and help. Your chest spasms, your breathing becomes harsh, or even stopped for short periods. Pep doesn't know what to do!
So he takes you and runs, hiding you away from whatever got to you. He tucks you into a hidden place, where he curls around you, hiding you away from the world. If it can't find you, it won't harm you.
He doesn't care what comes next. Tears are licked away, and if you grow sick? Pep has seen worse. He does his best to keep you clean and comfortable, though. He repeats motions you've shown him, washing your body how you've washed his before, should you let him. It's clumsy and maybe too rough, but the thought is there.
It's a decent distraction, at least.
Pep is on alert the entire time you're having troubles. Anyone that approaches, even Peppino and company, get hissed at. Pep doesn't know what got you, or what will make you worse, so he focuses on keeping you safe, even from the people close to you. He'll relax only if you call for them, and even then he hovers, ready to sweep you away again at the slightest sign of you deteriorating.
The one thing he doesn't let you do is push him away. You're in pain, in danger! The best you'll get is him out of the room. Pep hates being away from you during this time, however. He stalks the room, growling and even swiping at anyone that gets too close. You want to be alone, and Pep will let you be alone, but he won't let you go unprotected!
He's right there if you need him, always.
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