#monster drink embodiment
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⠀MONSTER DRINK - EMBODIMENT ꓹ
Flag template from @/muutagenic ’ s original post of - embodiment { link here } , .
﹏ 🎙️ ;; term coined by ;;⠀『⠀FREDDY⠀ 』 .
An embodiment term related to Monster Energy drinks ; basically being the embodiment of Monster Energy drinks , .
🪲⠀REQUESTED BY : @hisreturn !! . ⋯
tagging ; @accessmogai for image ID & plain text . @hisreturn { again lol } , @dollgirlsmind for the sillies , .
#⠀ ᵎ { 🧨 } ⌗ . ┅⠀The MADNESS Never Ends．#⠀ ᵎ { 🎬 } ⌗ . ┅⠀ Doing Good Is Boring．#⠀ ᵎ { 📸 } ⌗ . ┅⠀ EYESTAIN WARNING．#mogai coining#mogai gender#mogai flag#mogai term#liom coining#liom label#liom gender#liom#xenogender blog#embodiment#monster drink embodiment
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this isn't funny anymore I need to be able to go into my comfort games and hug my favourite characters
#nadine is typing...#I have been the embodiment of that lisa simpson meme for three days#Want to play comfort games but brain says no so I will spin them in my brain and zone out while drawing#also sidenote I am trying mother for the first time and it's nasty tbfh what is this watered down bs#i just got it bc it's cheaper than monster but monster at least tastes like melted sugar that is slowly killing me :/#mother tastes like watered down hubba bubba#I should not be having energy drinks this often it kind of works against working out but whatever i'm unwell idc <3
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Monsters Reimagined: Yeenoghu, Demon Lord of Insatiable Hunger
It's been some years since I did my overhaul on the lore of the gnolls and how they embody the weird de/humanization that goes on with various monsters over d&d's history. Ever since I've had more than a few folks write in asking about how I would handle the default Gnoll God Yeenoghu, who exists in a similar state of "Kill everything that ever existed" to Orcus and a good portion of the game's other late game threats, thematically flat and not really useful for building stories around.
For a while I've avoided doing this post because I thought it might skew a little too close to my personal philosophy, and risk going from simply being influenced by my views to an outright soapbox. I personally hold that despite being part of our nature hunger is the source of the majority of human cruelty, and if society and cooperation are the tools we developed to best fight against the threat of famine, it is fear of that famine that allows the powerful to control society and secure their positions of privilege.
I've also dealt with disordered eating in a prior period of my life, alternating between neglecting my body's needs and punishing myself for needing in the first place. I'm well acquainted with hunger and the hollowing effect it can have, though I'd never claim to know it so well as someone who went hungry by anything other than choice and self hatred.
Learning to love food again saved saved my life. The joy of eating, of feeling whole and nourished, yes, but there was also the joy of making: of experimenting, improving, providing, being connected to a great tradition of cultivation which has guided our entire species.
If I was going to talk about an evil god of hunger, I was going to have to touch on all of that, and now that it's out in the open I can continue with a more thematic and narrative discussion on the beast of butchery below the cut.
What's wrong: Going by the default lore, there's not much that really separates Yeenoghu from any other chaotic evil mega-boss. He wants to kill everything in vicious ways, and encourages his followers to do the same. He's there so that the evil clerics can have someone to pray to because the objectively good gods are on the party's side and wouldn't help a bunch of cannibalistic slavers.
This is boring, we've done this song and dance before, and the only reason that there are so many demon lords/evil gods/archdevils like this is because the bioessentialism baked into the older editions of the game's lore was also a theological essentialism, and that every group had to have their own gods which perfectly embodied their ethos and there was no crossover whatsoever, themes be damned.
Normally I'd do a whole section about "what can be salvaged" from an old concept, but we're scraping the bottom of the barrel right from the inset. Likewise my trick of combining multiple bits of underwritten d&d mythology to make a sturdier concept isn't going to work as most of d&d's other gods of hunger or famine are similar levels of paper thin.
How do we fix it: I want Yeenoghu to be the opposite of the path I found myself on, a hunger so great and so painful that it percludes happiness, cooperation, or even rational thought. Hunger not as a sumptuous hedonistic gluttony but a hollowing emptiness that compels violence and desperation. More than just psychopathic slaughter and gore, it is becalmed sailors drinking seawater to quench their thirst, the urban poor mixing sawdust and plaster into their food because their wages are not enough to afford grain.
This is where we get the idea of Yeenoghu as an enemy of society, not because violence is antithical to society ( I think we've learned by now how structured violence can really be) but because society fundamentally breaks down when it can't take care of the people who provide its foundations. Contrast the Beast of Butchery with one of my other favourite villainous famine spirits: Caracalla the grim trader, who embodies scarcity as a form of profit and control in to Yeenoghu's scarcity as suffering.
Into this we can also add the idea of the hungry dead, ghouls yes but also vampires, anything cursed with an eternal existence and appetites it no longer has the ability to sate. A large number of cultures across the world share the idea that the dead cannot rest while they are starving, which is why we leave offerings of food by their graves or pour out a glass to the ones we lost along the way.
On that topic, there's also a scrap of lore involving Doresain god of ghouls, who has been depicted as an on and off servant of Yeenoghu. Since I'm already remaking the mythology, I'd have Doresain act as a sort of saint or herald for the demon lord, the wicked but still partially reasonable entity who can villain monolog before the feral and all consuming demon god shows up.
Summing it all up: Yeenoghu isn't a demon you wittingly worship, it's a demon that claims you, marks you as its mouthpiece and through you seeks to consume more of the world. It gives you just enough strength to keep on living, keep on suffering, keep on filling that hole in your belly and feed it in turn.
The greatest of these mouthpieces is Doresain, an elf of ancient times who's unearthly hungers elevated him to demigod status. Known as the knawbone king, he dwells within a dread domain of the shadowfell, and is sought out only for his ability to intercede with the maw-fiend's rampages.
Signs: Unnaturally persistent hunger pangs, excessive drool and gurgling stomach noises, the growth of extra teeth in the mouth, stomachs splitting open into mouths.
Symbols: An animal with three jaws, a three tailed flail or spiked whip. A crown of knawed bones (Doresain)
Titles: Beast of butchery, the maw fiend, the knawing god
Artist
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This love - Vladimir Makarov
Based on a request:
Oh, as a request idea what would be about Makarov and wife! reader for whom he'd burn the world and she got injured during a fight with an opposing tean having him go rampant at everyone until he holds her again? With a fluffy ending mayhaps?
(also I absolutely loved The Great War 💕)
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F!Reader, fluff, established!relationship, in love with the villain, wife!reader, husband!Makarov, protective!husband
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A/N: I always said, Makarov embodies 'I'll burn the world for you, for what they did to you.' I will never back down from that. Also, I'm glad you liked The Great War :)
Red. That is all he saw, how dare they hurt his wife! No one and he means no one can ever in their fucking miserable lives touch you, never and that is a threat. He hated them, for all they are worth, Kasper Team is a dead organisation. Did he need their blood? Yes, his wife, his darling wife got hurt and oh will they pay for what they did. You walk into the room, his gaze softens, his fist opens and he smiles. How can the world be so cruel to him? Making him the evil man and then giving him a pretty lady like you and making him turn into the softest of men.
"My love," he speaks to you, nods the man off so he can be alone with you and opens his arms. "Don't hurt them," you speak and he looks at you, cupping your face and shaking his head. "I must. No one can touch you, sometimes I feel as if I don't deserve the privilege of touching you. You are an angel maybe a little bit of a devil but you…oh, you are my angel and no one should touch or hurt you," his lips meet your forehead. This is always the same discussion, he is so cruel, so evil, so vile primarily if you were hurt. And you always found yourself not wanting him to stop, it is a dangerous form of devotion that you two have. Something neither of you want to stop, to never lose. For you, he would tear the world apart, he would hold you in his warm arms as you two watch with glee as the world falls apart.
For you, he would drench himself in blood, only to have you kiss him, wipe the blood off and still see him as the man of your fantasies. Call it wicked call it anything you please, but his love, oh his loving heart is dangerous and fun. It is the kind of love no man should play with. Not even the evil of monsters dared to touch that dark corner but you did and that evolved into something so beautifully treacherous. He'll tell you anything if you only ask it of him. It's trust, truthfulness, devotion, lust, poison and an anecdote found between lips, warm hugs, sex, and all else those eyes of yours and his fail to say when they look at the other.
To him, having you was brighter than the sun in that blue sky. Your caress was a warm blanket on a snowy day. A room full of bloodthirsty soldiers could go silent when you walked in and into his arms. No one dared question you, never and he would make sure of that. Your kiss, possessing him, taking control of his soul and making it your slave. His heart, that long has been proven to belong to you, to have your name carved in it the second he was born. Stars aligned or not, he was yours, your fool, soldier, lover and friend. He is the darkness, the one you found comfort in.
He cares for you. That's why, he sent his men to hunt down all those responsible for your injury. "Come here, let me hold you," he walks to his chair, sitting down and making you sit on his lap. His arms held you close to him like he needed to have his skin and yours mixed together. It's perfect, you're perfect. He looks at the plans for how he will end that organisation and then smiles, kisses your neck and hums as he nuzzles his face to your body. He isn't like anyone, for if he was, Shakespeare would have done a play about him and it would be that in this case, the villain wins. You drink your poison for him and he does the same for you. Never one without the other. He made sure of that.
They say, that what feeds wars is hate, for him, this new war is revenge. You turn to him, wondering what is going on in his head. And as if he was listening to your thoughts he smiles, "You. I'm thinking of you, how lucky I am…how lucky I got to have a wonderful soul, my wife, my lovely R/N to love me back." His thumb touches your bottom lip. He was in a trance, one you knew well. In his mind, Vladimir always thought of when he met you, how he fell in love with you and how his cold heart started to get warm again. Your eyes, oh that sweet stare that made him into the poem reader he has become. So, when he looks deep into your eyes, he cups your face with both of his hands and begins to recite a poem for you.
O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
(A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns)
Your eyes are teary and beautiful. "Don't doubt for a second I will hesitate to hurt the man who hurt you," he whispers and kisses you once more. Like a precious cascade, his love pours into your lips. No one knew but behind closed doors, in safe arms and on a reading nook, he held you close, a book in his hands as he read to you poems or stories. Your hands by his thighs as the autumn skies cast your shadows. Love, yeah….this is perfect, this love is the embodiment of calm love.
A/N: so...now in my head, it's canon this man reads poetry
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Floating Above Those Dark Skies
My Navigation and Masterlist
My Sweet Home Masterlist
My Cha Hyun-su Masterlist
Pairing(s): Cha Hyun-su x Fem!Reader
Summary: Living with the love of your life and the girl you love like a daughter is perfect. Except for all the bad parts.
Warnings: Season 2 spoilers! Follows the dialogue of the episodes relatively strictly (I know some people like that but some people don't so it's a warning), Reader being like a second mother to Ah-yi, Hyun-su being a great big brother/father figure, slight talk of previous suicide attempts (The National Suicide and Crisis Hotline is 988. There are so many people who care about you and would love to help you. You are not alone), injuries, underage drinking (but they're in the apocalypse so who cares), canonical death, hurt with comfort, the appearance of (soft and kinda ooc) monster!Hyun-su, no use of (y/n), reader has the nickname "Lucky".
Word Count: 17,132 (wow, what a doozy)
Pt 1: Drowning Without You By My Side - This could be read separately if you want to skip the harsh topics in part 1 but I would suggest reading it for context.
Hyun-su led the way as you all walked to his home. Halfway there, Ah-yi complained about her feet hurting and it was then you noticed she had been barefoot this entire time.
‘We definitely need to fix that,’ you thought.
Before Hyun-su could even open his mouth, you crouched down and extended your hands out to her. She rushed forward to jump into your arms with a tired smile. When you straightened back up, she rested her head against your shoulder and was out like a light within a few minutes.
“She seems to like you a lot,” Hyun-su whispered fondly as a gentle smile laid itself on his lips. After making sure she was secure in your arms, you smiled back at him and dropped one hand from holding her to hold his hand.
“I guess I’m just a toddler whisperer. I think she likes me better than you,” you joked and he let out a scoff while squeezing your hand.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” he told you in an offended tone you could tell was fake by the smile threatening to break his facade.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence as you walked, you asked the question that had been burning in your mind since you saw him again with the girl in your arms. “So… who is she?”
He let out a heavy sigh before pushing a tree branch out of the way for you to walk through since your hands were full.
Always the gentleman.
“She’s Seo Yi-kyung’s baby.”
You let out a quiet gasp. “What? But she hadn’t even been pregnant for half a year? And this is at least a 4-year-old child!” You whisper shouted at him, completely shocked by the information.
“I don’t fully understand it either, but I do know she’s hers,” he assured you and you let out a sigh, your eyes wide as you tried to process the information.
“So, is she a monster-human mix as well? Is she like you?” You asked. You hadn’t noticed the way Hyun-su snapped his head towards you because you were too focused on the girl in your arm, letting out small breaths that tickled your neck. The way you said the sentence was so unlike anything he had heard before - especially relating to talking about monsters and neohumans. You sounded so soft, not an ounce of judgment or resentment in your voice. You sounded like no matter what the answer was you wouldn’t treat her any differently. You would adore her just as much as you were in that moment with your face buried in her hair as she let out quiet snores in her sleep. He gave a soft smile at the thought.
“I think so. She's grown so much since I first met her. Her actual age is around 5 or 6 months.”
“Wow,” you breathed and he couldn’t help but marvel at the way your voice embodied adoration and your smile was so bright it set the sky on fire despite the sun falling over the horizon. “That’s… wow.”
The rest of the walk was spent in silence. At some point, Hyun-su’s hand moved from holding yours to circling your waist as you hugged Ah-yi to your chest protectively. Eventually, the three of you arrived at a dock where a large boat was parked.
You weren’t all too surprised to find he had lived on a boat for the past half-year but you couldn’t help the small part that didn’t believe him when he told you.
He hopped up onto the boat first before helping you, careful not to wake Ah-yi. After the two of you were safely atop the boat, he led you to the captain’s quarters and helped you lay the girl in your arms down onto the nest of blankets and sweaters assembled to make a bed. Her dress had dried surprisingly quickly on the way to the boat, the only thing left to be damp was her hair.
You weren’t so lucky.
Your clothes stuck to your skin uncomfortably but you refused to complain, giving a - hopefully convincing - smile to Hyun-su when he saw you detach your shirt from your chest with a grimace. He walked away for a few moments and you sat down at the entrance to the captain’s quarters, resting your head against the door frame until his soft footsteps brought your attention back to him. He stood in front of you with a pair of folded clothes in his hands.
“I have these if you want to change into some fresh clothes. I don’t have any towels but this might help.”
The hesitant and shy look on his face made a smile break out on your own. You gave him a nod and took the clothes from his hands. You didn’t comment on how they were exactly your size but it made your heart flutter.
“Thank you,” you told him genuinely.
He nodded back at you before pointing to a door inside the quarters. “In there is a bathroom for whenever you want to change. I’ll wait for you out here.”
You nodded and turned before the smitten smile overcame your face stupidly at the thought. He just said he would wait for you and you could feel your heartbeat quickening alarmingly while heat rose to your cheeks. You walked into the bathroom and looked at yourself in the mirror. It was kind of scary. You hadn’t seen your reflection in a few months, never venturing into any areas with cars and rarely going near water. All the mirrors in the women's locker room back at the stadium had been broken after a monster outbreak and the monster breaking all of them because she was ‘too ugly.’
You honestly almost forgot what you looked like, but you were beautiful. You had always thought of yourself as a relatively attractive person but never the kind that would make someone turn their head. Now, you found yourself unable to look away. Your skin was glowing, whether that be from the sweat collecting from the walk or the water, you didn’t know. Any blood that had collected on you over the past few weeks had been rinsed off in the lake and you relished in the feeling of being clean of it for once, despite how the stickiness of the wet clothes you were still wearing still made you feel a bit dirty.
Snapping out of your amazement, you quickly took your old clothes off, replacing them with the ones Hyun-su had given you. It was a simple pair of dark gray sweatpants and a maroon short-sleeved shirt. You took off your unbearably uncomfortable socks and replaced them with the soft wool socks he provided as well. Now dry, you exited the bathroom to see Hyun-su had stuck to his word and was waiting for you as he leaned against the door frame of the room, though this time in a different, dryer outfit.
“Hey,” you said softly to get his attention. He looked over at you and smiled when he saw you all dressed and dryer than before.
“Hey,” he whispered back. He held his hands out for you to give him your wet clothes and you did reluctantly. He walked over to the edge of the boat and laid them over the edge so they could dry before returning to you. “Well, you should get some sleep.”
As if his words were magic, you suddenly felt the events of the day hit you like a truck and you yawned, nodding your agreement. “I think that’s a good idea.”
You gave a quick look around the room before deciding to sleep next to Ah-yi with your head using a part of her ‘bed’ as a pillow.
Hyun-su winced as he saw you settle against the hard floor of the boat and walked forward without thinking. He gently grabbed your shoulders, lifting you and then settling you against his chest while you sat in between his legs.
You blushed but said nothing as you settled with your cheek pressed against his chest, his heartbeat echoing against your ear and calming your nerves.
“Sleep,” he told you and tightened his grip around you. “I’ll keep watch.”
Your tongue felt heavy with sleep as you spoke your next words with a slight slur. “But what about you?”
He let out a soft laugh as he heard your breathing even out almost immediately after your sentence ended. He let his head rest against the wall behind him as he kept his gaze on the door.
“I’ll be okay,” he whispered as he briefly looked down at your peaceful sleeping face. “As long as you’re here with me…”
“Lucky.”
~A Week Into The Apocalypse, In Green Home~
It had been a week since the apocalypse started, and you had barely seen Hyun-su. The way the other residents and survivors treated him caused you to be so angry. You were thankful that at least one person - Eun-yu - didn’t treat him like a monster.
She wasn’t much different though, considering she still avoided him most of the time.
It was after the reappearance of Yi-kyung and the failed mission to retrieve medicine for Ji-su and her surgery that you got the chance to talk to him for more than just a quick goodbye or hello.
“All alone?” You asked him as you approached the staircase. The candle in your hands burned a bright yellow and smelled of cinnamon sugar. His head looked up at where you were approaching and nodded as you settled yourself on the stairs with him. Although he appreciated you trying to give him space and sitting a short distance away, he couldn’t help but wish you were closer. You smiled at him and smoothed your hands along your pants when you were seated.
“Are you scared?”
The question through you off guard. Giving a quick look around the room, you didn’t see anything that you would consider to be a threat so you weren’t really sure what he was talking about.
“Of what?” You asked, tilting your head in confusion at the boy.
He mirrored your head tilt with a confused look of his own. Inwardly you laughed at how the two of you must look like confused dogs when their owners told them a command they didn’t understand.
“Of… me?” He questioned again and a small laugh left you when you finally realized.
“Oh, Hyun-su,” you reached over to gently grab his hand as you looked him deeply in the eyes. “I promise you I could never be scared of you.”
He looked down with a small smile at that and you could see the small hints of red on his ears and cheeks.
“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” you started and gently released his hand. He immediately felt cold at the lack of your added warmth. “I never tried because I wasn’t sure if you even wanted to talk to me, but is there a reason why you never came by? Even after you were given a choice to leave the quarantining room?”
He paused as he thought for a moment. “I thought you didn’t want to see me. You were the only person not put on guard duty so I figured it was because you asked not to.”
You let out a sad sigh. “Shit, I’m sorry. I promise that’s not what happened.”
He looked up at you with sad, confused little puppy eyes. “It’s not?”
You shook your head. “The first, and only, time I was put on guard duty, I tried breaking the lock on the door,” you told him and looked away sheepishly.
“Really?” He asked after a moment of stunned silence.
You nodded in assurance. “After that, Eun-hyuk tried to do whatever he could to keep me as far away from you as possible. I was hoping that would change since you got out but now I know why it didn’t,” you smiled at him sweetly and he felt the heat rise to his cheeks so he looked away. “You know,” you continued. “I always saw you stop by my door right before you would leave, but you never said anything. Was that also because you thought I didn’t want to talk to you?”
“Partially. It was mainly so I could just see you before I left. Every time I thought I was going to die I thought about returning so I could at least try to fix whatever was happening,” he told you. Now he was the one who looked sheepish as he scratched the back of his neck. “I always backed out at the last minute though.”
You smiled and scooted closer to him on the stairs, moving down so you were on the same level and making it so only half a foot of space separated you. “I guess I was like your lucky charm then, wasn’t I?” You teased and lightly bumped your shoulder against his.
“Yeah, I guess you were.”
~Back To The Present~
It had been about a month since you reunited with Hyun-su. You’d grown closer to Ah-yi in no time. She looked up to you and it seemed she just needed another girl in her life to have around. Your favorite part about growing closer to her was she had upgraded your honorific from ‘Miss’ to ‘Unni’ which made your heart clench adoringly every time.
The first time Hyun-su decided to make a trip into the city to collect some supplies, he was so hesitant to leave the two of you alone. You promised you would protect Ah-yi and yourself with whatever it takes; that seemed to be enough for him to be comfortable enough to leave. He never lost his hesitancy to leave the two of you alone despite each time he came back the two of you would be fine.
The most recent time was no different. You sat on top of a large, red, metal shipping container with Ah-yi as the two of you drew using the chalk you were fortunate enough to find a few days ago.
“That looks beautiful, Ah-yi! You are such a good artist,” you praised her on her drawing and she visibly beamed. It was a simple drawing of some flowers and her, you, and Hyun-su. It was clear it was made by a child but it was so beautiful in your eyes.
“Thank you, Unni!” You ruffled her hair which she squealed at until you noticed Hyun-su walking towards the two of you with a smile on his face and a hand hiding behind his back while the other supported a red bag over his shoulder. “Oppa!” Ah-yi exclaimed and you smiled at her excitement.
He rounded the corner of the large container and brought the hand hiding behind his back out to place a pair of pink shoes on the top. Ah-yi gasped while you had a big smile on your face.
“Come on!” You urged her and she sat on the edge of the box so Hyun-su could slip the shoes onto her feet with the cutest smile ever on his face. Once the shoes were on, he held his hands out for her and she eagerly jumped down, having full faith that he wouldn’t drop her. Once he set her down, he reached his hands out for you to take and you gave him a funny look.
“What’s wrong, Lucky?” He voiced his thoughts with a confused tilt of his head. You rolled your eyes at him while smiling. Your heart fluttered at the nickname. He’d started calling you it more often since the two of you reunited and yet it still gave you butterflies.
“I’m okay, I can get down by myself,” you reassured him and turned around while you slowly lowered yourself from the canister, your front facing the metal.
You heard Hyun-su softly breathe out a laugh from behind you before a hand grabbed onto the back of your shirt and pulled. You let out a yelp as you felt yourself falling only to land bridal style in Hyun-su’s arms. You clicked your tongue in faux annoyance and crossed your arms while he tried to hide the smug smile on his lips.
“Going full ‘knight in shining armor’ mode, are we now?” You teased him and he blushed, pointedly avoiding your gaze. Suddenly, your stomach dipped as you felt him pretend to drop you and your arms wrapped themselves around his neck while he looked at you with another self-satisfied smirk.
“Well, it looks like my ‘princess’ needs her ‘knight in shining armor,’” he said softly as he looked away from you and you slapped his chest. He kneeled down when Ah-yi ran up to him. Knowing exactly what he was offering, she used one of his extended hands along with yours to help prop herself onto his shoulders. Hyun-su regained his grip on you as he grabbed the red bag he had set down and stood back up to his full height before starting the walk in the direction of the boat. You rolled your eyes, knowing any protests about him carrying you would be brushed off. Instead, you just snatched the red bag from his hand, placing it on your lap and holding it tightly to your body as you gave him a challenging glare. He just rolled his eyes with a fond smile and continued walking.
The three of you made small talk as he carried you. Ah-yi explained what you and her had done while Hyun-su was venturing off and you chimed in every now and then with a comment. Hyun-su explained how he saw a peculiar monster today.
“It was like a mermaid with wings.”
Then, you both went on to explain what a mermaid was to the child.
When you arrived at the boat, Hyun-su set the both of you down and Ah-yi started pulling you to the edge of the boat. You laughed as you walked up to the contraption. It was during your first week that you made the efficient self-fishing machine. It was a relatively simple mechanism that was made of a bunch of fishing poles and a homemade weight sensor. Whenever one of the poles was tugged on by something in the water, the device yanked it up and whatever was attached to the hook was left dangling in the air. 7 times out of 10, the hook was caught on litter in the ocean or a monster that was able to detach itself but there were the 3 times where you would catch a fish or two and the three of you would share it for dinner.
It became a bit of a game for Ah-yi and yourself, guessing if the day would end with a fresh meal or a degrading empty can with barnacles growing on the side.
As Hyun-su smiled at the two of you, he walked over to the stairs leading to the roof of the captain’s quarters and sat on the top, watching the sunset. No matter how many times you invited him to join the two of you, he always refused. It was nice you had a special activity to bond with Ah-yi over and he used that as his excuse every time.
It wasn’t even 10 minutes later as you were skinning the rare fish you’d caught with Ah-yi watching attentively as you explained the different anatomy parts to her that Hyun-su noticed a familiar face climbing the steps of the boat. He climbed down and started walking over to her while the two of you stayed distracted. You only looked over and noticed the two when you heard their footsteps. You carefully set down the knife and fish, wiping your hands on a stray towel beside you, and stood up to walk over beside Hyun-su. Ah-yi followed up behind you, grabbing onto the back of your shirt shyly.
“I came too late, didn’t I?” Yi-kyung asked from in front of you as she looked at the girl shyly standing behind you. You decided not to answer considering you still weren’t sure how you felt about the whole situation of her leaving her child. Instead, Hyun-su answered her question.
“Not at all. You’re here now, right?”
She looked down and you could see the guilt and regret on her face. Slowly, you turned around to face Ah-yi. “That’s your mommy,” you told her and she looked at her hands shyly. “Why don’t you say hi.”
You lightly pushed her in the direction of Yi-kyung and the woman kneeled so she was face to face with her.
“Hi there,” you heard her whisper to the girl while you stood up to your full height. You wrapped your arms around Hyun-su’s waist and leaned into him while you watched them interact. Yi-kyung brought her into a hug and you smiled at the relief that settled on her face.
Over the next few months, you and Hyun-su traveled through the city together, occasionally going back to visit Yi-kyung and Ah-yi but mainly wanting to give them the privacy a mother and daughter should have. It was adorable to come back and see the markings on the wall increase where Yi-kyung marked her daughter’s growth every day. Everything seemed to be going perfectly for the family of two.
Up until that day.
You had an awful feeling in the pit of your stomach for the entire day, feeling as if something bad was going to happen and you needed to get back to the two girls on the boat. When you shared your feelings with Hyun-su, he didn’t question it for a second, immediately going with you to rush back.
When you arrived at the boat, you found a teenage girl covered in blood wearing the same dress as the little girl you’d grown to love while sitting on the bed blankets and jackets. You walked slowly towards her and she snapped her head up when she saw your feet enter her vision from where she had her head hung low. You kneeled in front of her, tentatively reaching a hand out to hold her cheek and she leaned into it.
Just like Ah-yi always did.
You let out a shaky breath as you finally voiced the question.
“Ah-yi?”
She nodded, her eyes filled with fear.
Fear of resentment.
Fear of abandonment.
Fear of your fear.
You just let out a sigh, whether it was from relief or surprise, you didn’t know. What you did know was that this was your Ah-yi and you would love her no matter what form she would take. You wrapped your arms around her and brought her in for a hug which she returned immediately. Relief coursed through her body so evidently that you could practically hear it.
“It’s okay. Everything’s okay,” you dispelled her fears, bringing her closer and rocking her as she cried into your shoulder and told you what happened. You smoothed down her bloodied hair, not caring about how she was staining your clothes with the blood coating her.
Once she calmed down a bit more, you gathered a rag from the bathroom.
“I’ll be right back, okay?” You promised her and she nodded. You turned and left, closing the door behind you and giving her a playful wink through the window which she giggled quietly at. Hyun-su followed you as you walked down the stairs of the boat and to the edge of the water. As you kneeled down to dip the rag into the lake's water, you started asking the questions on your mind about what Ah-yi told you happened.
“How did they even find this place? How did they find out about her being mixed?” You asked Hyun-su. His lips twitched into a small smile when he heard you refer to her as ‘mixed.’ He remembers you telling him the reasoning behind it like it was yesterday.
“I don’t like the word ‘monster.’ I always associated the word ‘monster’ with someone who acts evilly and neither of you are like that. I know you’re not entirely human anymore but I refuse to call you monsters. Human or not, you are still a good person.”
It was the moment he had set it in stone that you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
“I don’t know,” he answered your questions. “But I have a bad feeling about the whole thing,” he paused momentarily before continuing. “What do you think we should do about the whole… touch thing she has?” He asked you and you frowned in thought.
“Well, I don’t think we should do anything. It’s a part of who she is and she shouldn’t feel the need to be ashamed of it. I don’t necessarily think she should use it on people, least of all those undeserving of it, but she can learn to control it. She doesn’t have to live in fear of herself.”
Just as Hyun-su was about to reply to your heartwarming statement, the two of you were interrupted by Ah-yi screaming and crying from the boat. You both ran in the direction of the scream and when you got there you saw Yi-kyung with her head down as blood dripped from her eye while Ah-yi was rubbing at a wound on her forearm.
“What’s going on?” Hyun-su questioned in a panic. Seeing the bloody knife on the ground as well as a bloody pencil, you pieced together what happened. It seemed Hyun-su did too, if his sigh was any way to tell. “Why did you have to do this?”
Yi-kyung let out a few heavy breaths as she breathed through the pain coursing through her eye. “I’m her mother. No matter how she changes, or what form she takes… I need to recognize my little girl. I won’t ever lose her.”
It was then you realized the wound Yi-kyung inflicted on Ah-yi was black. You let out another sigh, anger, and understanding fighting for control of your emotions as you realized the purpose of her actions. She may have had better intentions behind the action, but how she carried it out was not the way to go.
As Yi-kyung rose and left the scene, you sat down in front of Ah-yi, carefully reaching for her left arm where the wound had already healed. You gently used the rag to wipe down her arm, then her other arm, and then her face. You wiped down all the blood that tainted her smooth skin while she sat there silently, most likely in shock by what just happened. The domestic act, despite the violent acts that brought it about, brought a wave of emotion over Hyun-su as he watched the two of you.
It made him realize how much he wanted a family with you one day.
After Ah-yi was all clean, you gave her a pair of clothes to change into while you and Hyun-su went to the opposite side of the boat to talk while you waited for her. When she came out, you walked over to give her a hug which she gladly accepted. She squeezed you just as tightly as you squeezed her. You wished you could engrave it into her brain that you would never, could never, be afraid of her.
Afterward, she went to sit on a barrel, swinging her legs back and forth while you watched her and leaned against Hyun-su’s embrace. It was all so calm until Yi-kyung appeared from the boat’s stairs and walked towards Ah-yi with purpose. Ah-yi, still angry at her mother for what she did, hopped off the barrel and started walking away but was stopped when Yi-kyung’s hand wrapped around her bicep and aggressively pulled her back. The woman shoved her daughter’s hands into a pair of pink gloves connected by a rope that she placed behind the girl’s neck.
“Don’t take those off no matter what. Understand?” Yi-kyung told her daughter. You rushed forward, feeling anger simmer beneath your blood at the sudden display of aggression she started showing toward her daughter.
“Hey, don’t you think this is a bit extreme?” You told her, standing in between the two girls. You felt Ah-yi grip your shirt from behind you. You could tell even if her body had grown more, she was still used to her childhood ways of having you protect her.
“She’s my daughter, I will do as I see fit,” Yi-kyung told you sternly before swiftly turning around and walking back down the stairs of the boat, leaving the three of you alone.
You turned around to face the girl and sighed when you saw her speed-walking to her sleeping space in the captain’s quarters and locking the door behind her. You and Hyun-su decided to just set up camp outside the door, leaving her alone for the time being so she could sort out her thoughts.
The next morning, you woke up to the sound of Yi-kyung panicking. You instinctively looked around, looking to protect Ah-yi until you realized she wasn’t there. You rushed to stand up and ran to where her mother was breathing heavily and pacing back and forth.
“What’s going on? Where’s Ah-yi?” You questioned and she turned to face you.
“I don’t know! I was looking for her this morning and I can’t find her anywhere!”
“Shit,” you muttered to yourself. Your thoughts were racing, trying to think of any place she could possibly be. When you finally landed on an answer, you started walking off.
“Where are you going?” Yi-kyung called out to you and you scoffed, not bothering to face her as you continued walking.
“To find your daughter.”
When you got to the garden dome, the rusting doors were firmly closed unlike the previous times you were here with Ah-yi. Not deterred in any way, you rammed into the doors, successfully sending them flying open. You winced at the loud noise and walked in.
“Ah-yi!” You yelled out, praying your instinct was right and she was here.
“Go away, Unni,” you heard her soft voice tell you from further into the garden.
Sighing, you walked closer until you saw her sitting on the grass flooring while playing with a flower.
“Ah-yi, why don’t you come home?” You tried but she just shook her head. When you realized she wasn’t going to say anything else, you walked closer.
Imagine your surprise when she scrambled away from you, desperate to keep the space between you two.
“Ah-yi, what’s wrong?” You asked gently, stopping in your tracks to give her the space she desired.
“Don’t touch me! I might hurt you!” She exclaimed fearfully through a sob and you cursed her mother for putting that image in her head. Taking another slow and gentle step toward her, you internally cheered when she didn’t move away. You took more steps toward her until you were sitting right in front of her and your hand reached for hers.
When she pulled back, you gave her the best reassuring smile you could muster. “Sweetie, I know that you won’t hurt me. I promise.”
She hesitated but when you reached for her hands again she let you take them. You gave her a smile and squeezed her hand before pulling her into your chest. Your arms wrapped around her shoulders and held her tightly while she started crying more, her body wracking with the violent sobs she let out.
“I just don’t understand why she hates me so much! Those men hurt me first!” She sobbed into the crook of your neck and you softly caressed her hair, brushing the loose leaves and grass strands out.
“I know, I’m so sorry she did that to you. You definitely didn’t deserve that,” you reassured her and lifted your chin to rest your head on top of hers when you saw Hyun-su leaning against a wall while watching the two of you with a frown. You used a hand to wave him over and he slowly walked over so he was sitting about a foot away from the two of you. You looked back down at her and kissed her forehead lovingly. “I don’t want you to be afraid of yourself. You did what you had to do in that situation and no one is blaming you for it. Your mom is just…” you hesitated, looking to Hyun-su for support on how to explain the girl’s mother’s actions in a way that wouldn’t drag her name through the mud any more than it already was.
“Your mom was just worried,” Hyun-su intervened when he noticed your pleading gaze, bringing a hand to rest against Ah-yi’s back comfortingly. Ah-yi jumped a bit, startled, but otherwise didn’t do anything. “It was a shock to her to not only see you grow 10 years older in a few seconds but also to see how you dealt with those men. She didn’t want to lose you.”
“You mean she was scared. Scared of me,” she argued.
The both of you stayed quiet for a minute before you spoke again. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now because of what happened yesterday, but I promise you she loves you,” she started crying again and you just hugged her tighter to you. “And if you don’t believe me, at least know that I love you.”
It was the first time you’d expressed that to her in words and she looked up at you in surprise.
“Really?”
The pure innocence and surprise in her tone were enough for a genuine smile to break out on your face.
“Of course,” you told her sincerely and brushed her overgrown bangs to the side of her face.
‘I guess I should trim those soon,’ you thought to yourself.
“How could I not love you? You’re amazing!” You teased her lightly and she grinned at you. “You’re like a daughter to me, Ah-yi. I can’t see a life in which I wouldn’t love you.”
She dug her head into the crook of your neck again at your words.
“I just stopped crying,” she complained with a whine that made you laugh. “Don’t make me start again!”
“Okay! Okay,” you caved and leaned back to look at her again. “Why don’t we go home now?” She hesitated for a moment before nodding decisively.
The three of you stood up and you offered your hand to Ah-yi without a second of hesitation, something you could see in her eyes she appreciated.
“Ah-yi,” Hyun-su said as the boat came into view in front of you all. You’d stopped by the lake where you saved her all those months ago on the way back and spent a few hours there. Both of you could tell she didn’t really want to go home yet so you extended the day as long as you could.
She hummed and looked over at him from where you had her propped up on your back in a piggyback ride. She had stepped on a rock and dramatically complained about it until one of you just decided to pick her up and bring her along.
That someone being you.
“I…” he hesitated and you freed up a hand to reach over and give his hand a reassuring squeeze. “I need you to do me a favor. When we get back, I need you to go easy on your mom.”
You could feel her body tensing on your back, not expecting his words to be that. You quickly intervened. “We don’t expect you to forgive her anytime soon. Hell, I don’t really expect you to ever forgive her, but I think we both agree that you should give her another chance,” you told her. She huffed and rested her chin on your head childishly. “We’ll talk to her whenever we get back and tell her what she did was wrong, but she was only trying to keep you with her.”
There were a few moments where Ah-yi stayed silent as you walked and you got nervous about what her reaction would be until she sighed.
“Fine.”
You sighed in relief and smiled. What you wouldn’t tell her is that the ‘talk’ you would be having would most likely be a screaming match between the two of you while Hyun-su tried to be the mediator.
It had been about a month since that day and you’d stayed with Ah-yi and Yi-kyung for about half of it. The rest of the time, you and Hyun-su traveled through the city together, enjoying the feeling of being free with each other and occasionally spying on the soldiers of the stadium when they went out on their supply runs.
“I have a bad feeling,” Hyun-su told you one day while the two of you were washing a muddied shirt in the river.
“Let’s go check it out then,” you told him, standing up and wiping your hands on your trousers but he held his hand up.
“I… I don’t think you should come with me.”
You looked at him, feeling shocked and slightly hurt but masking it under a calm exterior. “O-oh. Oka-”
“I just mean it feels dangerous. I don’t really know how to explain it,” he interrupted you quickly, hesitantly taking one of your hands and squeezing it reassuringly.
You gave him a small frown. “But I don’t want you to be in any danger either.”
He smiled confidently at you and stared deeply into your eyes. “I promise I will be okay. Just stay in the shed until I get back. I’ll be back in a few hours at most.”
After a moment of hesitation, your eyes flicking between the broken down shed behind you and Hyun-su’s dark mocha brown eyes, you nodded in agreement. He smiled at you before turning in the opposite direction and starting to walk away. Just as he started to get out of arm's length, you tightened the grip you had around his hand. He turned back to you, tilting his head in question but your head was down, your eyes focused on his hand where you gently played with his fingers.
“Please return to me,” you whispered, barely audible to him and he sighed. Taking a step forward, he wrapped his arms around you, one resting on the back of your head and the other around your waist.
“I will, Lucky. I always will.”
Eun-yu walked down the empty street of the city, darkness clouding every corner and making her jump at every noise. She wasn’t nearly as experienced as you when it came to venturing off alone and outside of the stadium so it was all new to her. This was her first time out of the stadium, let alone all by herself, and she had barely any idea of what to do or where to go. It all started when she was waiting for you at the exit you used to go through when you went on your personal expeditions.
She wasn’t dumb. She knew you were leaving every day and trying to hurt yourself, yet every day you came back safe. Maybe a little broken and bruised at times, but alive nonetheless. Despite the two of you not being close, she still cared about you more than anything. You were the closest thing to a friend that she had. She was positive you didn’t remember this, but she had helped comfort you one night as you cried after another - but also thankfully your last - attempt to leave this world. You told her about the force that kept you alive, protecting you from monsters and from yourself. You told her about how you blame yourself for Hyun-su’s disappearance and how he was most likely dead. You told her everything. Afterward, you ended up passing out in her embrace and sleeping the entirety of the next day away while she stayed by your side to ward off anyone wanting to wake you.
Once you woke up, you seemed normal. The same expressionless look on your face as you went on with your day. It stayed that way for a long time. Eun-yu tried her best to do subtle things to help you; to make you feel more wanted and make you blame yourself less.
Until one day, you never came back.
You leaving and never returning is what led her to be standing at the exit not even a week ago, feeding some of her rations to a small stray kitten. It’s what led her to stay there even when Chan-young approached her and asked her what she was doing. It’s what made her stay even after a young girl she hadn’t recognized revealed herself. It’s what made her stay despite the pleas to go back inside from Chan-young and allowed her to see the woman she thought had died show up and take the girl with her.
It is also what led her here, all alone looking for you or the girl or Yi-kyung. Whilst finding you was her main goal, she would be satisfied with any of the three.
She lost Chan-young somewhere along the way after he was poisoned by the girl accompanying that old man but she didn’t let that deter her.
Now, in the dark shadows looming over the alleyways she walked through, a long metal pipe clutched in one of her hands, she searched the abandoned city with the need to find you forcing down any fear she was feeling. The unoccupied hand had an old piece of clothing wrapped around it, protecting any dirt from getting into the wound where she protected Yeong-su from that soldier.
She often wondered if you knew how much you inspired her to be brave and protect those around her.
After some time, she found herself standing in front of a large greenhouse. Most of the windows were broken and she could see the plants inside had overgrown their once pristinely gardened form, but it was gorgeous regardless. The moonlight shone through the broken glass and cast spotlights of glimmering luminescence across the vegetation. She took a moment to admire everything, noting how you would’ve loved a space like this until she heard a growling sound from behind her and her guard immediately went back up. Moving the pipe so it was tightly grasped in her hands like a baseball bat, she held it defensively and slowly crept closer to the source of the growling. The large crater in the ground made her sick, reminding her of the tragedy that happened less than a year ago when the government tried to kill as many people as possible in order to ‘save humanity from itself.’
As she got closer, she raised the pipe over her head, ready to strike at any moment. The growling of the monster got louder as she approached and she prepared herself to swing until-
“He won’t attack you.”
Eun-yu turned around, facing the new voice and seeing the same girl from before. She lowered the pipe, letting it hang loosely at her side as the girl took slow steps toward her. Since she was almost positive this girl would have nothing to do with you, she instead asked about Yi-kyung. “I’m looking for Yi-kyung. You know where she is, right?” The girl stayed silent, gradually getting closer as she continued with her measured footsteps. “I have to meet with her.”
The two girls stared at each other as the younger girl approached. Silence stilled the air until it was broken.
“Mom… the people… they’re all bad.”
“Did you say ‘Mom’?” Eun-yu questioned, her face portraying her confusion and shock.
‘She couldn’t mean Yi-’
“You’re no different,” the girl concluded, taking her last few steps forward more quickly and launching Eun-yu down into the hole behind her. Feeling the ground disappear from below her feet and the wind rush through her hair, she screamed.
A scream.
A scream was what stopped you from continuing your washing of Hyun-su and your clothes. You snapped your head in the direction of the noise so fast you were worried you got whiplash. Unconsciously clutching the current piece of clothing you’d been washing in your hands, you started sprinting in the direction of the noise. As you got closer, the area around you got brighter and you noticed it becoming increasingly more familiar to you. It was when you saw the familiar metal canisters that you realized you were near the boat.
It was also when you realized the boat was on fire.
You gasped as you saw the flames licking away at the deck in the distance, pushing your body past its limits as you forced yourself to go faster, faster, faster. You were beyond terrified at the implications the fire had.
‘Was this the bad feeling Hyun-su had?’ You asked yourself. You tried your best to stay as positive as possible until you got there but it was difficult with all the possibilities swirling in your mind. However, there was one possibility you clung to: while the boat burning was bad in itself, maybe nobody was on it.
Maybe.
When you got to the stairs of the boat, you climbed them as quickly as you could, ignoring the pain in your foot when you slipped down one and ended up stepping on it wrong.
‘That’s a problem for later.’
You got to the top, not seeing anybody in the burning embers surrounding you. Quickly covering your mouth with the still-damp piece of fabric in your hands and thanking yourself for unconsciously holding onto it, you ran around the top of the deck, looking for any signs of life while simultaneously praying for none. Seeing nothing, your mind ran at a hundred miles per hour as you tried to decide if that was a good or bad thing.
“Cha Hyun-su!” You screamed out, the use of his last name representing your evident panic. “Seo Ah-yi!” It was when you circled the captain’s quarters that you saw a familiar lean body. “Seo Yi-kyung!”
You rushed forward, sliding down to your knees as you reached her and turning her onto her back. You winced as you saw the burn marks and ash littering across the side of her face. You brought the wet clothing down from where it covered your mouth and nose, quickly replacing it with the cuff of your jacket as you used the wet fabric to cover Yi-kyung’s nose. The fire caught onto your pants and you scrambled to put it out, letting out muffled screams into your sleeve as it burned your skin.
You watched as the small baby monster you knew to be Ah-yi’s friend approached you and Yi-kyung. You were mainly confused about why it showed up here willingly, usually, monsters were terrified of fire and would avoid it at all costs but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Go away! Get out of here!” You screamed at the baby but it just babbled at you, running up to you and setting out the fire on your pants. Then, it began to circle around the two of you, using its body to roll out any fire that got too close. You quietly sobbed, your tears feeling like ice against your flaming skin. “Thank you,” you whispered to the small creature, feeling so grateful yet guilty for the way it was putting itself in danger for you.
Suddenly, as you felt yourself fading out of consciousness, the exhaustion from the run over, and the pain in your foot getting to you, you heard a familiar voice call out for you.
“Lucky!”
Hyun-su...
Eun-yu screamed out as she fell until she quieted, accepting her death to be by falling down a large hole while not knowing if her only friend was dead or alive. Just as she lost all hope, the sound of something whipping through the wind above caught her attention along with a familiar large wing made of bone and muscle only. It was only for a moment that she caught a glimpse of the boy’s face before his arm wrapped around her body and they shot up.
Reaching the top, Hyun-su swung around so his body would take the brunt of the fall and they crashed. Sliding across the concrete, he used his wing to slow them down as much as possible and keep her as unharmed as he could. Barely taking a minute to breathe when they came to a stop, Hyun-su opened his arm and rolled Eun-yu off before standing back up.
“Cha Hyun-su,” the girl tried, struggling to lift herself from the ground. Receiving no response as he continued walking toward Ah-yi, who was watching curiously from the other side of the crater, she tried again. “Cha Hyun-su!” She finally made it to her feet as she screamed.
Hyun-su let out a breath. He took a moment to force his eyes to return to their natural state instead of the endless void that would consume him when in his monster state before slowly turning around to face her.
“Are you really just gonna leave like that?” She asked him, more quietly this time as he faced her. His wing flapped lightly at his side, whistling through the wind in an ethereally beautiful way.
At least, that’s how you would often describe it.
“Were you expecting a hug or something?” He asked her in a blank tone and she looked at him with exasperated annoyance.
“Yeah, I was. I expected at least a ‘Glad to see you. How’ve you been?’” She retorted back at him, getting angrier by the moment at the completely blank look on his face.
“But I’m not glad to see you,” he told her and she couldn’t help but expect it. She knew they weren’t close. Nowhere near as close as you were with Hyun-su. You always tried so hard to make him feel included, to fight for his rights even when Eun-hyuk kept you as far away from him as possible. After you tried to break the lock of the door that one time, he gave strict instructions to everyone who had a guard duty that they were not to allow you near the room. You would always leave Eun-hyuk with the same phrase after each failed attempt to see the boy.
“You’re a coward. You won’t go up the stairs to retrieve the residents’ items yourself and then you treat the man who does do it like scum. I can’t believe you.”
It was what made her like you in the first place. While she knew you and Hyun-su had known each other for a brief period before the apocalypse, she couldn’t help but admire how you stood up for the boy without a second thought. She was pretty sure she realized your feelings for him before even you did.
“You weren’t supposed to know how to leave the stadium. You should’ve just stayed away,” Hyun-su’s voice broke her out of her brief flash of memories.
“It was you all along…” she started, taking a stuttering step toward him. “That night with the rope… all the times she tried to kill herself… it was you who saved her, wasn’t it?”
By the lack of surprise or questioning on his face, she knew her answer. They stayed silent for a few more seconds, Eun-yu waiting for an answer and Hyun-su trying to provide one. Though his face remained monotonous, he was trying to come up with an answer that wouldn’t give her too much information but would satisfy her concern and need to know.
“We crossed paths. I figured since we weren’t strangers I might as well help her out. I know what it’s like. She doesn’t deserve that kind of a death. That’s it. Nothing more,” he looked at her, making sure his words weren’t just floating in one ear and out the other. “You understand?”
Without waiting for her to respond, he turned around again, rolling his eyes.
‘I have to get back to-’
“That’s bullshit and we both know it!” Eun-yu yelled from behind him, interrupting his thoughts. She took fast purposeful steps toward him as she continued to speak. “You’re in love with her, she was your everythin-!”
Hyun-su brought his wing down and scraped the concrete behind him, only a few feet away from where Eun-yu was standing. She held her breath, waiting for his next move and cursing herself for the shiver of fear that ran up her spine at his actions.
‘You would never fear him like this.’
Seeing him not make any more moves, she tried again. Prying her feet off the floor from where the strange acid was kicked up by the large appendage, she started walking again only for Hyun-su to slam his wing down again. This time, the toe of her front boot had melted off and she could see the black socks she wore underneath peeking through. She mentally slapped herself for how the breath she let out was shaky. Forcing herself to peel her boots off the ground again, she tried to take another step when suddenly a hand latched onto her bicep and pulled her back, sending her tumbling to the ground.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” The large man, Ho-sang+ asked. His shoulders were draped with a homemade camouflage outfit made of grass and hay. The man raised his shotgun, aiming it toward Hyun-su who had still yet to turn around. “You monster piece of shit, what are you doing here?” The boy turned to look over his shoulder at the new voice. “Get gone!”
Right as Hyun-su turned back around to keep walking, Eun-yu spoke up again.
“Wait!” She scrambled to her feet, intending on running over to Hyun-su but the older man grabbed her shoulders and held her back. “Cha Hyun-su. Cha Hyun-su!” He came to a halt again and it was enough of a tell he was waiting for her to continue. “She…” she began, hesitating to tell him this in case her gut feeling was wrong. “She’s been missing for months. Do you know… I mean… is she…” She couldn't force herself to get her words out, only able to speak in between shaky breaths as she started to think of the worst possible outcomes. If her gut feeling was wrong and you weren’t really with Hyun-su, she didn’t know what she would do.
Hyun-su turned back around to look at her over his shoulder. Keeping eye contact with her for a few moments as he debated whether to tell her or not, he relented.
“She’s alive.”
Turning back around, he could hear the breaths of relief Eun-yu and the older man both released, albeit for different reasons.
Following Ah-yi, they both walked away from the two humans. He waited until they got to the edge of the river to start talking.
“Why did you do that?”
“I don't like her,” Ah-yi responded.
“So why don't you like her?” He pushed,
“Every human is the same. She’s no different,” she yelled angrily before her voice dropped to a mumble he was just barely able to hear. “The only human to be an exception is Unni.”
Hyun-su looked at her when she stopped, the anger being shown clearly on her face and he was confused about why she was so riled up. The quiet atmosphere was only interrupted by the hooting of the owls in the nearby trees.
“I was curious about humans at first… because both Mom and Unni are human. So I said ‘hi’ and they…” She took a shaky breath in before continuing. “They hurt me. They yelled and they pushed and... and they hurt me too. And they killed all my friends and monsters!” She screamed out, her voice heavy with raw emotion. “Leaving just me.”
“They were just scared,” Hyun-su tried to soothe her anger and pain as her eyes filled with tears. “Afraid of losing someone.”
“Then I'll give them a reason. Show them how scary it was,” her heavy breathing slowly evened out and Hyun-su sighed. He knew you would be able to help her with a situation like this better than he would. From the very first day, you always seemed to have a way of calming her down and helping her through the more difficult times.
“Let's get out of here. Yeah?” He suggested as tears began to fall down her cheeks, hitting the pavement below with an imperceptible plop.
“There's no place for me. My house is gone,” she told him.
“What… do you mean?” He asked after a few silent beats.
“I… no longer need you. Not you, or Mom…” she paused to calm herself but couldn’t stop the sob that came with her next words. “Or Unni. Not anymore.”
Hyun-su let out a slight gasp before sprinting in the direction of the boat. He hoped his suspicions were wrong. He hoped Ah-yi wouldn’t do that to her mother.
But he knew she would.
He’d heard the countless nights you spent with her in your arms as you consoled her and reassured her about her mother’s love when she was positive it no longer existed. He knew how much she hated the woman who gave birth to her, hated her for the love she once had but lost on that fateful day.
Hyun-su ignored the sharp pain in his lungs as he sprinted toward the boat, cursing lightly when he saw the fire engulfing it from afar. Finally reaching it, he ran around looking desperately for Yi-kyung and screaming her name.
It wasn’t until he found both her and you lying on the ground that his panic started to take over.
“Lucky!” He screamed, running towards you and dropping to his knees. He quickly picked both of you up, the weight not a struggle for him but the positioning of your bodies being a bit awkward. He ended up with Yi-kyung on his back piggyback style and you being held in his arms like his bride. Seeing the small creature passed out only a few feet away, he picked it up too and put it on your lap as he walked off the boat, letting the home full of memories burn itself to the ground forevermore.
Hyun-su walked towards the swan boat about a quarter mile away from the boat. Gently setting Yi-kyung down first, he placed you down with your head in his lap. He cursed himself. He couldn’t believe he had just left you alone. He couldn’t believe you would go into such a dangerous place willingly.
But then again, he couldn’t be surprised. You were like that, so selfless and kind. If you saw the boat on fire you would never allow yourself to stay behind while there was a potential of the people you loved being on that boat.
He was thankful you at least were smart enough to cover your nose and mouth when you were there. The ripped and slightly scorched shirt covering Yi-kyung’s mouth was one he recognized to be yours. And although it wasn’t a great replacement, he saw how the cuff of your jacket sleeve was loosely placed over your own mouth, slipping once you’d fallen unconscious.
As he was picking the bits of seared wood and singed fabric from your hair, a small whisper of his name drew his attention behind him to Yi-kyung.
“Hyun-su…”
He turned around, making sure not to jostle you around too much as he looked at her. Her face was burned, fresh wounds scarring the flesh of her cheeks that would forever alter her appearance.
“Are you okay, Yi-kyung?”
“It’s all my fault it’s like this,” she started. Hyun-su stayed silent as she continued. “I just wanted her to be safe like you were,” she whimpered, it was unclear whether it was from the pain on her skin or the pain in her heart. “All I wanted was for her to…” she sobbed but no tears came out yet. She was dehydrated and wounded and it was clear she wouldn’t make it without medical help they no longer had.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Hyun-su refuted.
Yi-kyung groaned as she sat up, leaning heavily against the edge of the swan boat.
“I should’ve killed her.”
Hyun-su’s eyes widened at her words. While he knew that was what she had wanted when her baby was first born, he didn’t know it was still something she thought about.
“In the back of my mind, I always had that thought. I know she must’ve felt it when I had those thoughts,” she breathed heavily, her breaths sounding gritty and labored. She looked at the girl lying in Hyun-su’s lap, feeling angry, regretful, and jealous, but mostly grateful. Grateful she had at least you to look up to and show her the way when she couldn’t. “I know she would always tell her about how she hated me,” she pointed at you weakly. “I know she always saw her as more of a mother than she did me.”
“You’re wrong,” Hyun-su protested. “While Ah-yi loves Lucky, she needs you as her mother. I know because I was there too through all those days,” he looked down at you, eyes still shut and sweat clinging to your skin. “So was she,” he breathed out a sigh and looked back at Yi-kyung. “You said you were a bad mother, but you know that’s just not true.”
“The fault is all mine,” tears fell down her cheeks as she spoke, a soothing touch to her wounded face. “I was the one who made her like this,” she blamed herself, Hyun-su’s reassuring words either not registering in her brain or being completely ignored. “No, this is good,” she accepted. She knew her end would be soon. “It turning out like this is for the best. This way, I… I don’t have to kill my daughter.,” she sobbed.
“Were you really going to kill her?” He asked incredulously. At her lack of response, he continued. “Why? You’re her mother! So why?”
“I don’t deserve to be,” she cut him off. “I could never be worthy of her, not when I treated her so differently than you did. Than she did,” she explained. She couldn’t fathom saying your name, feeling unworthy of being near you when she always had those terrible thoughts of hurting her own flesh and blood. You had always treated her so much better than she had, treating her like your own daughter, whether it was by blood or not. “I had the same thought hundreds of times. ‘Why is she cursed like this?’ Why?” She started sobbing again, the guilt and blame she put on herself for the past year torturing her soul. “It’s all my fault. My awful thoughts and desires turned her… into a… monster.”
Hyun-su scoffed. “Yeah, so what?” He looked at her and the surprise of his words stopped her crying. “Are monsters really all bad?”
Yi-kyung sighed and just as Hyun-su was going to continue talking, the soft babbling of the baby monster sounded out again, drawing both their attention to the mini creature. He gently picked it up, holding it in his arms as he spoke again. “This one saved you. Saved both of you. Saved you because you’re family…” his eyes filled with tears but he refused to let his voice break. “You see, monsters feel and recognize people. Because they were human once too.”
He hugged the monster to his chest, and the conversation ended when Yi-kyung faded out of consciousness.
The group sat around the campfire, Ha-ni snuggled up against Chan-young’s side while the other two sat alone.
“So, which is it?” Eun-yu asked. “A brother? A boss? A dad? What are you to each other?”
“Why the hell does it matter? Just eat and get lost,” the older man evaded the question.
“Um… why don’t you come back with us? You’ll be safer there,” Park Chan-young offered and Ha-ni’s head perked up in excitement.
“Are we getting married then?” She asked, moving closer to his side and resting her head against his shoulder.
“Uh, that’s… that’s not what I’m saying,” he repudiated.
“Safe? You guys have just been lucky,” the older man rolled his eyes at the suggestion. “That, or you don’t know better.”
“I think you might be underestimating some of us.”
“I don’t trust humans, okay?” He concluded.
“I’m not surprised. But you don’t trust monsters either?” Eun-yu integrated herself into the conversation once more. “And what about her?” She asked, tilting her head at Ha-ni. “You trust her?” He didn’t respond and it was silent for a minute. “Sure seems like it.”
Ha-ni, noticing how the atmosphere was turning strange and uncomfortable, interrupted. “Let’s go with them. Let’s go together, teacher, hmm?” She insisted, leaning forward in her seat to emphasize her wants. “Hey, let’s go!”
The older man looked thoughtful for a moment, considering his companion’s words before noticing something in the distance.
“What are you doing here?” He screamed accusingly, raising his shotgun threateningly toward the figure approaching.
Hyun-su walked forward. Yi-kyung was tied against his back using the long-sleeved shirt you used to cover your mouth in the fire meanwhile you were held in his arms, cradled against his chest protectively.
He raised his head slightly to look at them, continuing his stride forward despite the threat of the gun in front of him.
In the blink of an eye, Ha-ni appeared next to Ho-sang as he held the gun and moved his arms, forcing it to face the ground just as he pulled the trigger. It hit the rocks harmlessly and she looked at Hyun-su curiously.
Taking a deep breath, he slowly lowered himself to his knees and placed Yi-kyung on the ground after untying her. Keeping you in his arms as he rose again, he held you close as Eun-yu rushed forward. Stopping just a foot in front of him, she looked down at you in shock. She reached her hand out to caress your cheek but stopped herself at the last second.
“Please help,” Hyun-su begged and Eun-yu lifted her chin to look at him. “This was the only place I could turn to.”
Both Chan-young and Ha-ni walked over to where Yi-kyung was lying on the ground, kneeling down to properly assess the damage on her body.
“How did she get like this? And the kid? The girl who left with you?” Eun-yu asked before looking down at you still in Hyun-su’s arms and finally allowing her fingers to skim along the feverish skin of your cheek as she whispered your name, stunned. “And what about her? Is she okay? Why isn’t she awake?”
“First, let’s get them both inside,” Chan-young stopped her questioning before Hyun-su could respond. Ha-ni helped him prop the woman on her back, fully intending to bring her into the trailer until a gunshot sounded.
Eun-yu froze in shock, paralyzed by seeing Hyun-su stumble back with a gunshot to the shoulder. He fell to his knees once more, his grip on you loosening but refusing to let go. He gently set your lower body down onto his lap, his now free hand going to hold his wounded shoulder while the other held your upper body to his chest. He ignored the anger that stirred in his chest when he saw how close the shot came to your face, just missing by a few inches. Clenching his eyes closed tightly and blocking out the sound of everyone talking and screaming around him, he forced the familiar feeling of his monster down. When he finally looked up and opened his eyes he saw Eun-yu holding Ha-ni against her chest with blade centimeters from her neck.
“- and I’ll cut her fucking head off.”
Ha-ni scoffed at her words with an annoyed smile but didn’t try to fight back or move away.
“Way to prove my point about humans,” Ho-sang told her, not lowering his gun. “Pulling this shit after I saved your life is rich.”
“I said I’ll take him with me. I said I’ll take them so just… what's your problem?” Eun-yu begged the man, tears forming along her waterline as the situation continued to go downhill.
“You’re with monsters,” Ho-sang explained, glaring at her from his spot. “That makes you a threat. And you call yourself human? Jesus.”
“You call yourself human when you just almost shot a girl in the face? He might not be human but she is!” She screamed at him and continued when she saw the flicker of guilt in his eyes. “And what makes you special? How can you be sure you’re gonna stay immune?” She questioned but he stayed silent. “What if you were to start showing symptoms? Seems a bullet is your only option. Since monsters have to die.”
Hyun-su groaned in pain before trying to stop her from baiting the man. “Stop it,” his words were spoken weakly as more blood spilled from his wound. He covered it with the fabric of his shirt, trying to avoid getting as much blood on you as possible but the splatters of blood across your forehead and cheeks told him it was already a bit too late for that.
“And her?” Eun-yu continued, ignoring the boy’s warnings and protests as she started to speak about Ha-ni. “Could you put a bullet in her?” Her words were spoken softly but Ho-sang heard it loud and clear. He stayed quiet again, not willing to speak of the situation he feared the most. “How about I save you the trouble?” She offered.
“Oh, yeah. So this is who you are,” he finally spoke, nodding in disdain at her actions.
“Stop it,” Hyun-su tried again but again was ignored. “Don’t do this Eun-yu,” he begged.
Suddenly, Ha-ni grabbed the wrist holding the knife to her throat, and twisted it away from herself, spinning around so the knife was now in her possession and the tip was pointing directly at Eun-yu’s neck. There was a collective gasp from everyone watching and Ho-sang lowered his guns in shock. “Ha-ni!” He yelled at her as she stuck the point of the blade in Eun-yu’s neck, causing a trail of blood to leak out.
After a moment of tense silence, she pulled the knife away and dropped it to the floor where it clattered against the rocks loudly. Pushing her forward, she walked over and entered her car, entering it and called for Ho-sang to join her.
“In this life, we weren’t meant to be,” she started, talking to Chan-young as her companion got into the car and started it up. “Maybe the next one. Get rid of the girl though.”
The group watched as the two drove off before Chan-young turned to Hyun-su. “Are you okay to move? How’s your shoulder?”
Hyun-su pulled his hand away, the wound already having closed and the blood surrounding it was the only reminder that it was ever there in the first place. He nodded. “It’s okay.”
Chan-young took a few steps closer to him before kneeling beside him and looking at where you rested in his arms. The pain from your ankle and slight burns showed on your leg but you luckily didn’t seem to have any difficulty breathing or major damage. “And her? Are you still okay to carry her?”
Hyun-su nodded once again while he moved his empty hand to once again rest under your knees and stood up. “Yes, I’m okay.”
“I think we’d better go. Monsters may have heard the gunfire,” Chan-young concluded and walked behind Hyun-su as he started the path to his chosen destination, whatever that place may be.
Eun-yu kneeled down to grab her bag and knife before looking back at Hyun-su. “Let’s go.”
He sighed as she started to walk behind him, taking a moment to look at you and make sure you were alright before he followed. He would have to wipe his shoulder down and clean the blood from your face before you woke up. He didn’t feel like worrying you about his injury just yet.
Sighing once more, he turned around and started to follow the two.
They arrived at the destination Chan-young had brought them to. It was a hospital, or at least it used to be. As they got inside, there was broken glass everywhere and scratches from an unnatural creature lining the floor. It was clear it was no longer the medical place it used to be.
Setting Yi-kyung down on the hospital bed they found, Chan-young turned to Hyun-su and asked, “What happened to her?”
“A fire started where she was staying,” he started to explain, still holding you since all the other hospital beds they could find were not exactly clean. At least the one Yi-kyung was lying on didn’t have any blood stains on it. He didn’t mind though. “I think there was no way out. She was already unconscious by the time I made it in.”
“It’s carbon monoxide poisoning,” Chan-young concluded from the evidence provided before standing up urgently and turning to Eun-yu. “Something like a small gas tank should be lying around. Go look for some,” he then turned to Hyun-su who was getting ready to stand and help them. “You should probably stay here,” he told him and Hyun-su stayed silent for a moment as he looked at you in his arms before nodding in agreement. He moved to lean against the wall as the other two went off in different directions to search for the gas tank.
After a while, there was the faint sound of someone yelling, “I found one!” Soon after, both Eun-yu and Chan-young returned to the bed, the boy carrying a gas tank in his hands which he set up next to it. Expertly, he plugged the tube into the tank and turned the air on, testing the pressure and how much oxygen was left in the tank.
“Does it work?” Eun-yu asked just as the arrow pointed to ‘REFILL’ and Chan-young sighed. “What? What is it?”
“It’s out of oxygen,” he explained.
“So what happens now?”
“Her organs will start to fail without… without a steady supply of oxygen,” he told them before his head fell forward. “Fuck me.”
“Enough of that crap. Is there any other way?” Eun-yu begged, unwillingly to give up so soon.
“It’s already too late.”
“Don’t say that unless you’ve tried everything,” she told him seriously, she then moved over to start picking Yi-kyung up by her arms. “Park Chan-young, help me carry her. Let’s get her to the stadium. We have to leave now,” she ordered but he didn’t move and Hyun-su just buried his head in your hair emotionally. “I said help me carry her!” She sobbed, setting her back down when he still didn’t try to help her and covering her face with her hands.
The group just finished moving both you and Yi-kyung to another room, this one finally having another bed that wasn’t stained with blood and smelling of a rotting corpse. Chan-young helped Eun-yu carry Yi-kyung to the room while Hyun-su held you close, only letting you go when they found the bed for you to lie on.
Despite how his monster body protested, he allowed Eun-yu to have a moment alone with you and Yi-kyung in the room, choosing instead to wait on the bench outside. He saw through the crack in the door how she held your hand gently and spoke words he couldn’t hear. He watched as she set your hand down across your stomach and retreated from the room to sit on the bench with him, leaving an empty seat between them.
“Are you feeling better?” Hyun-su asked her once she sat down. She sighed quietly and he took that as her response. “We did the best we could.”
“Are you comfortable with this?” She asked him, not understanding how he could be so calm in a moment like this. “Is leaving her to die like that really the right thing to do?”
“Now that I think about it… I think it’s what she wanted,” he construed and she turned her head to look at him.
“What?”
“Her boat was deliberately burned, but she chose to stay aboard.”
“Why, though?” Eun-yu whispered. “Why would Yi-kyung do that?”
“I wanna ask you something,” Hyun-su told her and she stayed quiet as she waited for him to speak. “How’s everyone doing? I’ve tried asking Lucky but she always gets really quiet when I do.”
Eun-yu’s lips quirked up minutely at the familiar term of endearment but the memory of her grief overwhelmed it. She took a few deep breaths to compose herself before answering him. “Hye-in and Su-yeong are dead. And Yoon Ji-su, too.”
Now Hyun-su knew why you would never talk about it, why you would always get quiet and have that far-away look in your eyes when he asked. He always figured you just didn’t know, that maybe you got separated at some point, but somewhere deep down he knew that was just wishful thinking. While he hated that you didn’t confide in him, he understood where you were coming from. Even a year isn’t always enough time to heal enough to talk about something so tragic.
“Just like that, they’re all gone,” she continued in a whisper. He turned his head away from her as a tear fell down his cheek before she spoke up more loudly this time, masking the emotion in her voice with false confidence. “Now let me ask you a question,” she said. He turned to look at her but she was looking in the direction of where you lay on the hospital bed, head tilted to the side as you breathed easily. “How is she doing, really? Is she better?” Her voice almost broke as she unwillingly thought back to how you were feeling during your time in the stadium but she was able to mask it with a cough. While she was hoping you were doing better now that you were with Hyun-su and hopefully didn’t blame yourself for his disappearance anymore, she had to be sure.
“She’s doing good. She still has her bad days but overall she’s doing better.”
She breathed a sigh of relief, a single tear falling down her cheek. “Thank you.”
He turned his head to look back at her and saw she was now staring at him. “Hm?”
“You brought her back to me. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t at least see her one more time. If I didn’t make sure she was still alive. So thank you.”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“I also,” she continued. “Want to thank you for returning to her,” she shot him a watery smile as her eyes brimmed with tears. “God knows she deserves it.”
When you woke up, the first things you saw were the blaring lights of the white lighting fixture above you. Groaning, you brought a hand up to cover your eyes and turned your head only to gasp when you saw the burned face of Yi-kyung on the bed next to yours. Quickly throwing your legs over the side of the bed and standing up to check on her, you let out a yelp of pain as you stepped on your wounded ankle and crumpled to the floor.
Breathing heavily, you cursed yourself before hearing the sound of fast-paced footsteps entering the room you were in. You leaned up on one hand and saw a face you’d longed to see for weeks.
“Eun-yu?”
The girl snapped her head to where you sat and gasped out your name, running toward you and crouching down. She grabbed your arms and helped you stand up, making you sit on the edge of the bed so she could check out your foot.
“How are you feeling?” She asked, concerned but all you could think about was the woman breathing unevenly on the bed behind her.
“Fine, fine,” you said dismissively, only half listening to her concerns. “How is Yi-kyung? Is she okay?”
Eun-yu slapped your arm lightly. “You were passed out for half a day, let me worry about you.”
You gave a small chuckle at her words, reaching your arms out to wrap around her shoulders. “It’s good to see you, Eun-yu. I’ve missed you.”
She exhaled slowly, wrapping her own arms around you and letting herself relax in your embrace.
“Wait, what am I doing here?” You asked as you softly pushed her away from you. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the stadium? Are you okay?” You gasped, firing questions at her like a machine gun prior to grabbing the sides of her puffy jacket sleeves and pulling her a few inches closer as you looked her over for any injuries. Other than the small wound on her neck, she seemed to be relatively unharmed.
“That doesn’t matter right now,” she scolded lightly and lifted your wounded and swollen ankle up. “First, we should fix this up. I’m sure there’s some tape or something around here,” she started to walk away but turned back to look at you. “Don’t move,” she scolded with a finger pointed at you accusingly. You held your hands up in a surrender motion and laughed.
After a while of looking around the room, she walked back with a wad of medical tape in her hand. You watched in awe as she started to expertly wrap your foot with the medical tape in a way that would help keep it in place. Noticing your stare, she explained. “I used to do ballet. I sprained my ankle and had to do this every day.”
“Well lucky me then,” you told her with a smile that she returned once she finished. She then cut the ripped pant leg off at the knee and cut the singed parts off. Using the burned-free part of the fabric, she gave you her hand to squeeze as she poured the clear liquid inside a bottle of vodka on your burns. You screamed and stuffed your sleeve into your mouth, both stopping yourself from breaking your teeth and muffling your pained noises. After finishing disinfecting the wound, she got to work on wrapping the cut fabric around your burns to prevent any further dirt from entering it.
Breathing heavily through your pain, you grabbed the nearly empty bottle of vodka after she set it down and lifted it to your nose.
It looked like vodka.
It smelled like vodka.
Taking a sip, your face scrunched up in displeasure.
Definitely vodka, although something was off.
“Why is it so watery?” You asked her. Eun-yu’s head snapped up to see you bring the bottle to your lips again to take another sip.
Grabbing the bottle away from you, she smirked and brought the bottle to her lips, drinking the last of the liquid while you whined. After sighing overexaggeratedly, she smiled at you and handed the bottle back to you. You shot her a glare “For one, when are you ever going to find a steal like that again? Had to make sure it lasted!” You laughed. “And second, regular vodka is too potent to use as a disinfectant by itself, you have to water it down so you don’t burn away your nerves.”
She secured the fabric with the medical tape and tapped your knee to signal she was finished. She helped you down from the table and let you wrap an arm around her shoulder as you limped over to the bench outside of the room. You thanked her just as you saw another familiar face appear around the corner. “Park Chan-young? What are you doing here?”
“Ah, you’re awake! How are you feeling?” He asked instead of answering your question.
“I’m feeling okay, my ankle hurts a little but not too bad,” you told him with a smile before it faded and your head turned to look at Yi-kyung through the still-opened door. “She’s not going to make it, she?”
You heard the two of them sigh behind you and you let out a shaky breath. Tilting your head up, you tried to stop the tears from falling.
It was silent for a while, the only sounds were the ragged breathing from Yi-kyung in the next room until Chan-young spoke.
“Cha Hyun-su, was it?” He asked and your head snapped up to look at him while Eun-yu who was sitting beside you didn’t even flinch. “That’s the monster that killed Mr. Kim, right?”
You opened your mouth to ask what he meant when Eun-yu spoke before you could.
“It gets on my nerves when you use the word ‘kill’.”
He sat down next to her and leaned forward in his chair with his elbows resting on his knees. “Well, nonetheless, that’s how it went down.”
“Your curiosity will cost you someday,” at his silence to her words, she sighed and continued. “Mr. Kim was displaying symptoms.”
The news of this story was no surprise to you. While you weren’t there when it happened, you do remember how Eun-yu had relayed the story to you only a few nights after the incident. You didn’t know she knew it was Hyun-su though, and to be honest you felt slightly betrayed.
“I don’t know when it’d begun.”
“Wait,” Chan-young started, gasping at the new information. “But why didn’t you say anything? You were branded as a murderer.”
“The Chief and I have had… a long-standing grudge. Yet we all lived because she opened the stadium to us. I can’t deny that. I just couldn’t screw her over like that.”
You quietly gasped. Despite the information not being new to you, you hadn’t known the reason she never spoke up was because of that.
“Lee Eun-yu,” Chan-young said softly.
“Eun-yu, you shouldn’t have done that to yourself,” you scolded her quietly.
“Don’t get me wrong. That wasn’t the only reason,” she continued, leaning back in her seat. “I didn’t know it was Hyun-su, but… either way, I didn’t want to tell Crow Platoon.”
Oh. So Eun-yu didn’t know it was Hyun-su. That definitely made you feel better than the idea of her knowing this entire time and just not telling you.
When a sudden gasp was heard from the room Yi-kyung was in, all of your heads snapped up and Chan-young and Eun-yu rushed into the room. You stood up, hopping over to lean against the entrance when you slipped.
Just as your hand missed grabbing the frame of the door, you felt an arm wrap around your waist and pull you back up. Turning your head to look at your savior, you were surprised to see Hyun-su with his arm supporting you and Ah-yi standing beside him, looking at you with just as surprised eyes as you were at her. The boy moved you so you were propped up against the door frame before he stepped into the room.
“Could you step outside for a moment?” He asked the two as they stood beside Yi-kyung’s bed. They hesitated but eventually made their way out of the room. As Hyun-su walked up to the woman, leaning over her as she breathed raggedly, you wrapped your arms around Ah-yi and brought her into a hug.
“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry,” you expressed your condolences before pushing her away just enough so you could see her face. “How are you doing?” You asked her as you caressed her cheek and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.
She shrugged her shoulders, looking away unconvincingly. “I’m fine. She hated me anyway. I only came for Oppa.”
You tsked and brought her back into your embrace. “You and I both know that’s not true.”
She didn’t respond and Hyun-su turned back to look at the two of you, motioning for Ah-yi to walk in. As she passed by you, you smoothed down the back of her hair and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.
Hyun-su walked past her, letting her have her final moment alone with her mother on her deathbed. Instead, he walked over to you, wrapping his arm around your waist to help you walk as you all moved further down the hall to give the girl some space. Once he decided it was far away enough, he moved you over to the wall so you could lean against it and stood beside you. You leaned your head against his shoulder, wanting to give and gain comfort from the action. You all stayed there, silently, for a few minutes until Ah-yi walked down the hall.
Hyun-su popped off the wall and she turned to face the two of you, mainly Hyun-su as he started to speak. “Why are you out here already?”
You leaned forward, grabbing onto his arm to support you as you looked at her. “You should stay with her a while longer,” you insisted softly. Her eyes fluttered down to where the medical tape peeked out above your shoe and the pant leg was taped in place around your calf before she fluttered her eyes back up to yours.
“Mom’s not going to die. So stop crying, please.”
The way she said it gave you a bad feeling and the clattering that came from the direction of the room didn’t help to ease it. Hyun-su turned, making sure you were balanced before rushing over to the room. You glanced at Ah-yi before heading that direction as well, having Eun-yu and Chan-young help you.
“Yi-kyung!” You heard Hyun-su exclaim just as you all got to the doorway. When you looked into the room, you saw Hyun-su on the ground with Yi-kyung held in his arms while tears fell down his cheeks.
You covered your mouth in horror as your own tears started to form. You stayed there, supported only by the door as you all cried over the loss of your friend.
Your eyes shot open when you heard the sound of bones cracking. Her head was thrown backward and her back arched to the point where you were sure that was the bone-breaking sound you heard. The skin on the left side of her body started to turn black, almost as if ash had been painted across it. She started thrashing around, her body contorting inhumanely and her skin releasing a dark, unnatural smoke. As she rolled onto her stomach the bones in her back crunched loudly and she shot up.
You barely had enough time to move out of the way before she ran into the door you were leaning on. Disoriented and dizzy, you couldn’t bring yourself to focus on what was happening around you until you heard the ringing of a gunshot and Yi-kyung’s half-monsterized body fell backward at the waist.
“No, don’t do that!” Hyun-su screamed, rushing forward and moving Chan-young’s hands away while he held fast to the gun.
“It’s too late for her. She’s already gone!” Chan-young yelled at him.
You looked back at the woman to see the gunshot wound already gone, now covered with the same black markings that covered one half of her body. “H-Hyun-su,” you whimpered weakly and both men turned to look back at Yi-kyung. You let out a soft sob as you saw the tear slide down her face.
“Yi-kyung,” Hyun-su whispered and she raised a hand toward him. Reaching for him, she started to walk forward before her other arm, the remaining human arm, reached out to grab her own hand, almost as if to pull her back. “You guys should go back,” he whispered to you all. “Take Lucky with you, she can’t walk on her own.”
“No! Not without you!” You protested but Hyun-su didn’t turn to face you. Eun-yu looked at you hesitantly before turning back to him.
“What about Yi-kyung?” She let out through a sob. “How could she turn so suddenly? She wasn’t showing any symptoms.”
“Her daughter did this to her,” he explained hurriedly.
“Ah-yi…” you whispered in realization.
“She turns people to monsters?” Chan-young questioned, still aiming the gun at Yi-kyung. “Monsterization is uncontrollable by humans.”
“She’s not a human,” you said lowly.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Eun-yu screamed at you just as Yi-kyung rushed forward to jump out the window of the room behind you.
“Leave! Now!” He yelled at them before jumping out the window after her.
“Hyun-su, no!” You cried out, trying to lift yourself to your feet to no avail. Eun-yu and Chan-young, ran to the broken window, looking out as you continued to struggle. “Eun-yu!” You screamed at her and she turned around to face you with widened eyes. “Please! You have to help him! Don’t let him get hurt, please,” you begged her.
She nodded, determined. Turning to Chan-young, he nodded at her and they set off in the direction of the stairs to the bottom floor.
You sat against the glass doors of the room Hyun-su was resting in. For the first hour, you were in there with him, holding him while he cried. After he fell asleep, though, you decided to give him some space. You waited outside, leaning your head back against the cool surface of the glass with your uninjured leg bent and held to your chest while the other was extended outward.
Down the hall, you could see Eun-yu watching you until Chan-young approached her. You looked away as you saw them staring at you. Both had sympathy lacing their gazes that you couldn’t stand to see. Sympathy meant you had something they felt sympathetic towards. You didn’t want to think of what that thing was. All you wanted was to be back at your shed, doing laundry with Hyun-su while Ah-yi sat down on the edge of the river bank with her feet dipping into the water.
But those days were over, at least for the time being.
“What are you gonna do now?” Park Chan-young asked Eun-yu, her gaze still locked onto your form curled up across the hallway.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I found her, and she’s alright. That’s good enough for me. I know she’s in good hands with Cha Hyun-su. I don’t want her to come back to the stadium with us. Not when she was so miserable there,” she told him, thinking for a moment before giving a conclusive answer. “I’m gonna wait for Hyun-su to wake up. I’ll wait with her until then. Then I’ll say my goodbyes and return to the stadium. You?”
“I should get back there,” he decided. “I’ve been gone for too long.”
She nodded in agreement. “Yeah.”
Chan-young gave a final look back at where you sat now with both your knees bent and your face buried in your arms. “Send them my regards, both of them,” he told her and she nodded up at him. “I’ll see you at camp.”
With a moment of hesitation, he turned in the direction of the stairs and started walking toward them.
It had been a couple of hours since Hyun-su fell asleep. Eun-yu had dozed off about an hour ago but you couldn’t bring yourself to shut your eyes for too long. So you sat there, your eyes staring off into the distance, unfocused and blurred. It wasn’t until the sun started to set, the light shining through the blinds of the windows and casting a golden orange glow onto the tile floor that you snapped out of your daze. Carefully bringing yourself to a standing position, you turned around, opened the door, and walked through. Your eyes immediately went to where Hyun-su was previously lying down, but when you didn’t find him there, you panicked. Raising your eyes, you let out a breath of relief when you saw him sitting on the bed next to the windows, leaning back on his right arm and swaying slightly.
“Hyun-su?” You asked softly but received no response. Walking closer, you saw his eyes were closed as he continued to sway. It seemed like he was barely conscious and his body kept falling right before he caught it, over and over again. Reaching the point that you were standing right in front of him, you reached up to place your hand on his right cheek, a feeling he immediately leaned into. “Oh, lovely,” you whispered. “Let’s get you back to bed.”
About to pull your hand away from his cheek to clear the pillows and blankets piled on the bed behind him, you stopped when his left hand shot up and grabbed onto your wrist, keeping you in place. Confused and concerned, you brought your other hand up to hold his other cheek. “Hyun-su?” You asked. “Are you okay?”
He slowly opened his eyes and you gasped once you saw them.
You’d only seen him like this once before and it was after he protected you from a particularly strong monster. Halfway through the battle, all of his mannerisms changed and he moved completely differently. It wasn’t until the monster ran away, Hyun-su covered in its blood yet not a scratch on him, that you saw his eyes.
You weren’t scared. You could never be scared.
Not of him.
Never of him.
But it did surprise you.
After he returned to his normal self, he told you about how he tried to never go into that state of being because he wasn’t in full control. Despite the honest way you told him he would never hurt you and that you trusted him, he still kept the monster side of him tucked away as much as possible.
It seemed that wasn’t the case right now, though.
“Why are you here?” You whispered to him, your voice not at all accusing or scared, not even a little bit tentative.
“You don’t want me here?” He questioned. It was so strange to see Hyun-su’s body and hear Hyun-su’s voice but know it wasn’t him, at least not completely.
“I didn’t say that,” you told him, your eyes lightly scolding him in a way that made his lips quirk. “I just asked why you were here. Is he…” you hesitated, still unsure of how to fully phrase questions when he was in this state. “Are you okay?”
“He’s hurt. Let him rest for a bit,” he explained as he leaned more into your palm. His grip on your wrist hadn’t been all too tight to begin with but it still softened to a loose hold as he kept eye contact with you.
You nodded at his words, brushing your thumb along his cheekbone and your lips curving into a subtle smile when his eyes closed contently. “Is that why you’re here?” You whispered, not wanting to break the calm atmosphere. His eyes opened again and he stared at you. “To help him with the pain?” He nodded and you sighed. It wasn’t the physical pain on his body either of you meant, and you both knew that. The pain of losing Yi-kyung, and then losing her again at his own hands was too much for him. It most certainly would have been too much for you, so you couldn’t blame him. Not that you would have anyway.
He tightened the grip he had on your wrist and gently brought it away from his cheek before releasing it completely. He turned his head to look forward in the mirror in front of him and used the hand once holding your wrist to move the collar of his shredded jacket away from his shoulder. You winced as you saw the wounded skin there, bringing a hand up to do something but hesitating. Instead, you looked around the room before your eyes lit up as you found what you were looking for. You released his face from the hand still holding his cheek and turned around, taking a step forward with your good foot. He leaned forward, leaning off his right hand and using it to grab ahold of your wrist. You looked back at him.
“Stay,” he said simply and you smiled.
“I’m not going far.”
He held onto your wrist for a while longer before softly sliding it down to the tips of your fingers and slowly releasing you, all the while keeping eye contact. You felt the heat rising to your cheeks and turned before he could tell how flustered you were at the simple action. Taking another step, you tried to hide the limp in your walk and mask the pain on your face as you grabbed the materials and returned to where he was seated. Setting the medical supplies down next to him, you reached for the pillow behind him and took off the pillowcase surrounding it. Grabbing the mostly empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, you poured some onto the pillowcase before using one hand to pull the collar away to reveal the dirty wound underneath.
You raised your gaze to his eyes only to find them already looking back at you. “This’ll probably sting,” you told him sorrowfully. You waited a moment for him to acknowledge your words but he just continued to stare at you with a blank, yet almost soft, look. You used your other hand to hold the alcohol-soaked pillowcase and bring it up to his wound where you carefully started dabbing away the blood and dirt. Looking over at him every few seconds to see if he was in pain, you found none each time whilst he didn’t take his eyes off you. Once the blood was cleared away and the pillowcase was thoroughly stained, it was clear to see the wound was much smaller and less serious than it originally seemed. A fact that made you sigh in relief.
Before you could reach for the bandages to cover his wound with, Hyun-su grabbed your waist and pulled you to stand in between his legs.
“Wha-?” You started to question but stopped when his arms wrapped around your waist in a hug. His head turned to the side and he rested it against your stomach. It didn’t take long for you to return the hug, albeit a little confused and startled.
“You know I love you, right?”
The sentence sounded slightly muffled, and you weren’t sure which version of Hyun-su was speaking, but regardless, you answered, “I know.”
His arms tightened around you, a comforting and promising squeeze. “And you know I’m never letting you go again,” he paused, turning to look up at you. It was both a surprise and yet not when you saw one of his eyes was still the bright blue he had in his monster form, but the other had returned to his natural brown. “Right?”
You placed your hands on his cheeks, leaning down to leave a tender kiss on his forehead.
“I know.”
#sweet home#sweet home 2#cha hyun su#cha hyunsu#cha hyun soo#cha hyunsoo#cha hyunsu x reader#cha hyun su x reader#sweet home netflix#sweet home x reader#sweet home imagines#cha hyun soo x reader#cha hyunsoo x reader#hyun su x reader#hyunsu x reader#hyun soo x reader#hyunsoo x reader#ah yi#ahyi#lee eun yu#lee eun yoo#park chanyoung#park chan young#song kang#sweet home fanfic#sweet home fanfiction#sweet home imagine
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Childe isn't from Fontaine. unlike some of his coworkers, he was born and raised in Snezhnaya, his homeland, and would proudly serve it until his death. because of this, he's rather nonplussed about the prophecy in Fontaine- in the absolute worst-case scenario, he's an excellent swimmer, and will be able to get to safety with no fear of being dissolved, unlike the people of the Nation of Justice. so the Eleventh Harbinger doesn't pay much thought to all the rumors he keeps hearing during his trip to the Court- not that he could if he wanted to, though, with distant whale song and Foul Legacy's quiet growls filling his head at all times. it gives Childe horrible headaches, enough to not care about an entire city being flooded. the people of Fontaine are surrounded by water, they can take care of themselves, he reasons, and ignores his surroundings.
but then he meets you, and his whole world gets flipped upside down.
if Childe, being Snezhnayan, embodies ice and snow, then you certainly embody water and rain. you meet him when you're both out for a hot drink in the morning, recommending your favorite blend of tea to him, and the Harbinger is immediately enamored with your kindness and go-with-the-flow demeanor, so he immediately takes the opportunity when you extend a hand and ask to show him around the Court. it winds up being the most fun Childe, and Foul Legacy, by extension, have had in months, running around the grand city with you and trying various different foods and treats, and at the end you both promise to meet again, leaving Childe with a sappy smile on his face. Foul Legacy adores you, chittering and chirping with delight inside Childe's mind, and Childe can't even bring himself to tell his Abyssal half to be quiet because he likes you, too.
and as you promised, you continue to meet day after day, your tour extending outside of the Court and to the rest of Fontaine to spend more time together. Childe often drags you into more dangerous situations, always protecting you and emerging with rain in his hair and a triumphant smile on his face, which only grows wider when you praise him. and when he trusts you enough, he introduces you to Foul Legacy, and oh, how the moth-like monster loves you. he sweeps you into his arms and stares adoringly into your eyes, nuzzling his forehead against yours with a trill- that's how half of your walks with Childe become walks with Foul Legacy.
sometimes Childe wishes he'd never met you, wishes that your paths had never crossed. but then he despairs, knowing that his world would have been so much darker without the time you had together. and yet... perhaps, if you never met, he and Foul Legacy would not have to endure heartbreak. they wouldn't have had to watch, Childe screaming from inside their shared body as Foul Legacy howled and grasped for you, your body slipping through his claws and disintegrating into a curious pool of starry water you had come across by chance.
and the Fontaine prophecy claimed another life.
#genshin impact#childe#tartaglia#foul legacy#foul legacy childe#genshin tartagalia#genshin childe#genshin tartaglia#genshin x reader#childe x reader#me: hm only fontaine people dissolve into water#me: but childe's not from fontaine... but what if YOU ARE....#evil giggling#i am not sorry at all for this#short scenario#wifi's brainrot#good evening :)
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Tourist Destinations Of The Outer Planes
Mechanus: How dare you suggest there would be anything novel or unique in Mechanus?! To cog jail with you!
Arcadia: Like those normal towns with "world best fish and chips" except they're scrupulously fact checked. "Home of Arcadia's 3826th best B&B according to multiple double-blind studies (citations available on request)"
Mount Celestia: Pure and ineffable spiritual bliss in the face of the divine and, after that, a pretty decent pizza shop where you can get a t-shirt with your face when you learnt the true name of God.
Bytopia: Bytopia is the embodiment of the concept of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and also the domain of the gnome deities, so if you've ever wanted to see the Great Wheel's only 24/7 prank youtuber live show where all the pranks revolve around how millennials need to spend less on avocado toast, you're in luck! If not, may I recommend the abyssal layer where snakes drink your eyes as a pleasant reprieve?
Elysium: Just a rabbit sat on a rock but because you're in Elysuim it's the best thing you've ever seen. You autodelete all memories of your wedding and children's birth and suchlike for being shit in comparison.
The Beastlands: Who's the best dog in the world? Who is it? This isn't a rhetorical question, there's an objective answer. You can see him for the low price of four acorns and a fancy rock.
Arborea: Don't be fooled by the signs! The natives of Arborea spend their time playing and dancing so they have things like open plan offices and tax return help-desks as vacation spots. Instead ask where the boring parts of Arborea are to be given directions to the firework waterslide music concert video game dance party.
Ysgard: Monuments to epic deeds literally everywhere. So many monuments they start sounding sarcastic. If you successfully get to your hotel room they erect a 15ft statue commemorating it.
Limbo: "Look, you had to be there. Literally, what I saw existed beyond the capacity of human words to describe and I weep tadpoles when I try to recall it in any detail"
Pandemonium: Great acoustic guitar scene. Well, we assume they're good. If nothing else, you have to admire their perseverance.
The Abyss: Go on Demogorgan's tour of all infinity layers! The most fucked up shit you've ever seen or your spinal column back guaranteed!
Carceri: Be in the audience at History's Greatest Monster, where the most evil people in history compete for the crown! If you're lucky, you might get an autograph before they're hurled back into their eternal prisons once more!
Hades: Fuck you.
Gehenna: Tourist traps, in the sense of big holes you fall in and have to give a deamon all your money before it will let you out.
The Nine Hells: The Nine Hells are a wonderful place to visit, with a wide varieties of eateries, vistas and attractions that you should visit before you die! I am not writing this under duress and you should not send help to
Acheron: One extremely dangerous theme park. It's cheap and there are few queues but be aware that sometimes the god of orcs will show up and use whatever ride you're on as a bludgeoning weapon. Overall nice atmosphere, 4 stars.
The Outlands: Alas, I'm pretty sure there's absolutely nowhere worth visiting in the outlands. Sorry guys.
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How To Write Vampires With An Original Twist
Mythical creatures are an essential part of the fictional scene, but the same creatures have been used so many times that these creatures now often seem redundant and boring in fiction. This is why I've started a new blog series: How To Create Original Mythical Creatures. I'm kicking off this series with vampires!
Join me as we dive into the world of vampires, from their mythical beginnings to their modern-day interpretations, and learn how to write them effectively in your own narratives.
Origins of Vampires
Vampires have a rich and diverse history rooted in ancient folklore and legends. Across various cultures and civilizations, tales of bloodsucking creatures have emerged, each with unique characteristics and behaviors.
One of the earliest known vampire myths comes from ancient Mesopotamia, where stories of blood-drinking demons known as Lilitu or Lamashtu date back to around 3000 BCE. These entities were believed to prey on humans, particularly targeting children and pregnant women.
In ancient Greece, the Lamia was a mythical creature often depicted as a female vampire who lured and devoured children. Similarly, in Roman mythology, the Strix or Strigoi were vampiric entities that fed on blood and flesh.
Moving forward in history, Slavic folklore introduced the concept of the Upyr, a vampire-like creature that rose from the dead to feed on the living. These early depictions of vampires often portrayed them as revenants or undead beings with a thirst for human blood.
Modern-Day Vampires: Where Were They Originated?
The modern concept of vampires, as we commonly know them today, took shape during the European Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Legends of vampires emerged in Eastern Europe, with notable figures like Vlad the Impaler contributing to the folklore. Vlad's reputation for cruelty and his association with impaling enemies on stakes led to the creation of the vampire archetype, inspiring Bram Stoker's iconic character, Count Dracula.
From ancient Mesopotamia to medieval Europe, vampire lore has evolved and adapted, weaving its way into popular culture and literature. Understanding the origins of vampires provides writers with a rich tapestry of mythology to draw upon when crafting their own bloodsucking creatures.
I wanted to go into more detail regarding the Lamashtu and Lamia since they’re not as well known as their Slavic and European counterparts, but unfortunately, that would deviate from the purpose of this blog.
The Evolution Of Vampiric Appearances
Before we proceed with this section, it's crucial to clarify that the mythical creatures and beings discussed in this blog are not direct representations of ancient vampires. Instead, they serve as inspirations for the concept of vampires and share certain attributes with our modern-day depictions, including blood-feeding, pale skin, human-like appearance with some animalistic features, and so on.
Vampiric Creatures In Mythology
In ancient mythology, vampiric entities were not always depicted as the suave, charming figures we see in modern vampire tales. Instead, they often embodied primal fears and monstrous traits.
Lamia: In Greek mythology, Lamia was a terrifying creature depicted as a woman with a serpentine lower body. She was known for her insatiable hunger for children, often depicted as a child-eating monster. Lamia's appearance combined elements of human and serpent, emphasizing her monstrous nature and predatory instincts.
Lamashtu: In Mesopotamian mythology, Lamashtu was a malevolent demon who preyed on pregnant women and newborns. She was depicted with a fearsome appearance, often described as having the head of a lion, the body of a donkey, and bird-like talons. Lamashtu's grotesque features and destructive tendencies reflected ancient beliefs about the dangers of childbirth and infancy.
Lilitu: In Mesopotamian and Jewish folklore, Lilitu or Lilith was often associated with nocturnal demons or spirits. She was depicted as a seductive, winged demoness who preyed on men and newborns. Lilitu's appearance varied across different myths but often included features like wings, long hair, and sometimes talons, emphasizing her otherworldly and dangerous nature.
Strix: In Roman and Greek mythology, the Strix was a bird-like creature or vampiric owl associated with dark omens and death. It was believed to be a shape-shifting creature that could transform into a woman or an owl. The Strix's appearance combined avian and human features, instilling fear and dread in those who encountered it.
Strigoi and Upyr: In Eastern European folklore, Strigoi and Upyr were blood-sucking undead creatures similar to modern-day vampires. Strigoi were believed to be restless spirits or revenants that returned from the dead to torment the living. Upyr, on the other hand, were vampire-like beings with sharp fangs and a penchant for drinking blood. Both creatures were depicted as pale, gaunt, and often with elongated canines, reflecting their predatory and undead nature.
Medieval Depictions: Shift in Appearance
During medieval times, the depiction of blood-sucking mythological creatures underwent a transformation, shifting from monstrous and terrifying to more humanoid and relatable appearances. This change in portrayal can be seen in various aspects of their physical features:
Teeth: Originally depicted with long, sharp fangs or talons for blood-drinking, medieval depictions often featured more subtle fang-like teeth or no visible teeth at all, aligning with the concept of vampires being able to blend in with humans.
Skin: While ancient vampires were often described as monstrous and otherworldly, medieval vampires were portrayed with paler skin to signify their undead nature but without extreme deformities or monstrous features.
Appearance: Medieval vampires were often depicted as more human-like in appearance, with regular clothing and a less monstrous demeanour. This shift allowed for more nuanced storytelling and exploration of themes like temptation, desire, and the struggle between humanity and monstrosity. This is also what birthed the romanticization of vampires.
Mythological Vampire vs Modern-Day Vampire
Mythological vampires, rooted in ancient folklore and mythology, were often depicted as malevolent spirits or creatures with supernatural powers. These creatures varied widely across different cultures, from the Lamia and Lilitu in Mesopotamian mythology to the Strix in Roman and Greek folklore, and the Upyr in Slavic tales.
These ancient vampires were not always the suave, charismatic beings we see in modern media. Instead, they were often portrayed as terrifying and monstrous, with features that reflected their otherworldly nature. For example, the Lamia was described as a demonic woman with the ability to transform into a serpent, while the Lilitu were associated with storm demons and fertility spirits.
In contrast, modern-day vampires, especially those popularized in literature and film, have undergone significant transformation. They are often depicted as sophisticated and alluring, with a penchant for romance and drama. Authors and filmmakers have humanized vampires, giving them complex personalities, tragic backstories, and even moral dilemmas.
While modern vampires still retain some traditional attributes such as a need for blood and sensitivity to sunlight, their portrayal has evolved to include a wide range of characteristics and abilities. This shift has allowed for more diverse and nuanced storytelling, exploring themes of immortality, love, redemption, and the eternal struggle between good and evil.
Which Option Is Better For Your Novel?
When deciding which type of vampire to incorporate into your story, consider the tone and themes you wish to explore. Mythological vampires offer a darker and more primal essence, rooted in ancient fears and superstitions. On the other hand, modern-day vampires provide a canvas for exploring human emotions, relationships, and societal issues through a supernatural lens.
Ultimately, the choice between mythological and modern vampires depends on the narrative direction and atmosphere you want to create. Both types offer unique storytelling opportunities, allowing you to craft captivating tales of mystery, romance, horror, or even philosophical introspection.
Research and Resources
Writing about mythical creatures like vampires requires a solid understanding of folklore, mythology, and literary traditions. Here are some resources and research methods to help you delve into the world of vampires and other mythical beings:
Books and Literature
Start by exploring classic works of literature that feature vampires, such as Bram Stoker's "Dracula," Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles," and Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" series. These novels not only showcase different interpretations of vampires but also delve into the cultural and historical contexts surrounding these creatures.
Mythology and Folklore
Dive into ancient myths and folklore from various cultures to uncover the origins of vampire legends. Look into Mesopotamian, Greek, Roman, Slavic, and other mythologies to discover different vampire-like entities and their characteristics.
Research Journals and Articles
Academic journals and articles can provide valuable insights into the evolution of vampire folklore, the psychological aspects of vampirism, and the cultural impact of vampire mythology. Explore journals in folklore studies, literary analysis, and cultural anthropology for in-depth information.
Online Resources
Utilize online platforms such as mythology databases, folklore websites, and literary forums to gather information and engage in discussions about vampires. Websites like The Vampire Library, Vampire Empire, and Vampire Rave offer a wealth of resources for vampire enthusiasts and writers.
Historical Research
Delve into historical records, archival documents, and historical accounts related to vampire hysteria, vampire burials, and vampire folklore in different regions. Understanding the historical context can add authenticity to your portrayal of vampires.
Interviews and Expert Opinions
Consider reaching out to folklore experts, historians, and scholars specializing in vampire mythology for interviews or consultations. Their insights and expertise can provide valuable perspectives on vampire lore and storytelling.
Creative Exploration
Don't hesitate to let your imagination roam while exploring vampire mythology. Experiment with creating your own vampire mythology, incorporating unique traits, powers, and origin stories for your vampires.
By combining thorough research with creative exploration, you can develop rich and compelling portrayals of vampires in your writing. Remember to stay open to diverse interpretations and adaptations of vampire folklore, allowing room for innovation and originality in your storytelling.
I hope this blog on How To Write Vampires With An Original Twist will help you in your writing journey. Be sure to comment any tips of your own to help your fellow authors prosper, and follow my blog for new blog updates every Monday and Thursday.
Looking For More Writing Tips And Tricks?
Are you an author looking for writing tips and tricks to better your manuscript? Or do you want to learn about how to get a literary agent, get published and properly market your book? Consider checking out the rest of Haya’s book blog where I post writing and publishing tips for authors every Monday and Thursday! And don’t forget to head over to my TikTok and Instagram profiles @hayatheauthor to learn more about my WIP and writing journey!
#hayatheauthor#writing community#haya sameer#haya's book blog#writing tools#writing advice#writer things#writer community#haya blogs#writers on tumblr#writing life#writing techniques#writing stuff#writer tools#writers of tumblr#writer blog#women writers#writer stuff#writer advice#writer tips#creative writing#novel writing#writing vampires#vampire#vampire books#writerblr#writing corner#writing inspo#ya writing advice#writing tips and tricks
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Til Death Do Us Part | Part 9
Series Masterlist
Astarion x f!reader, Arranged Marriage AU
Word Count: 12.5k
(CW: SMUT 18+, brief descriptions of gore, vampire biting/blood drinking, unprotected p in v sex, cunnilingus)
Summary:
“You turned me into a vampire?” You practically shriek at Astarion. You keep your palms pressed firmly into the ground, fighting against your instinct to immediately rip his throat out. It’s hard to restrain yourself. You feel like a wild animal.
There’s a flash of panic that passes over Astarion’s face before his brows knit together in confusion. “You’re angry?”
You huff out a humorless laugh, eyes turning up to the sky to check if this is some sort of cosmic joke. “Yes, I’m fucking angry, Astarion! What did you do to me? You killed me!”
“Raphael killed you!” He shoots back defensively. “You were dying! I didn’t have a choice.”
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You can’t focus on anything other than this hunger.
Oh. If this was how good blood tasted, how did Astarion ever manage to pull himself away from you?
You want to fall into him and drown. You want to devour him whole.
The aftertaste of his blood sticks heavy in your mouth when he finally tears his wrist free from your tight grasp. You need more. You never want to stop.
“More,” you croak out and your throat feels like it’s burning.
“There are bodies everywhere, my love. Take your pick,” Astarion says. You’re cradled in his arms, and you can’t even think to question how you got there because your entire being is consumed with this burning desire for blood.
After freeing yourself from Astarion’s arms, you crawl on your hands and knees to a downed guard a few feet away. He’s still alive, but barely. You can smell the blood pouring from the gaping wound on his thigh and can hear how it rushes under his skin. You salivate.
It’s too much work to pull off his gloves to get to his wrist, so you go straight for the gap between his helmet and his chest plate, digging your teeth into his neck. His blood is sweet and rich and so good that you can’t think straight.
The whole thing is messy and crude and violent. You can’t even bother to care right now.
You hear yourself let out an angry growl when you’ve drained that man. More, still more. You crawl a few feet to the next body on the floor. This one is dead and their blood is stale. And still, you drink until there is nothing left.
The more blood you consume, the more your mind clears and the sharper your senses become. Has the world always been so loud? So bright?
When you finish draining that man, still on your hands and knees on the floor, you look up to the rest of the group. You can feel the blood running down your chin and neck, staining the front of your dress. There’s blood all over you, in various stages of drying- the rusty tear tracks running down your face from the energy wave Raphael had unleashed, the thick clumps of your hair that are matted and still wet with blood from when your head had been bashed into the wall.
Everyone's faces are painted with varying shades of displeasure and horror. Shadowheart has big, sorrowful eyes and Wyll is looking down at you as if you were a rabid animal.
All except Astarion, who is kneeling on the ground and staring at you with a wide smile on his face, like this is the embodiment of his wildest dreams.
You had just died and he had the audacity to be happy about it?
You burn with an anger that doesn’t fully belong to you. It’s uncontrollable. You’re scared of yourself. Everything is too much; your emotions all feel too big.
What sort of monster had Astarion turned you into?
The two of you had agreed that you would get to decide when you were turned into a vampire- that you would pick when and how, and it would be a lovely memory that you would get to cherish forever.
This is most certainly not that.
“You turned me into a vampire?” You practically shriek at Astarion. You keep your palms pressed firmly into the ground, fighting back against your instinct to immediately rip his throat out. It’s hard to restrain yourself. You feel like a wild animal.
There’s a flash of panic that passes over Astarion’s face before his brows knit together in confusion. “You’re angry?”
You huff out a humorless laugh, eyes turning up to the sky to check if this is some sort of cosmic joke. “Yes, I’m fucking angry, Astarion! What did you do to me? You killed me!”
“Raphael killed you!” He shoots back defensively. “You were dying! I didn’t have a choice.”
There’s genuine sorrow in his voice as he practically pleads with you to understand. And you do. But there’s something itching at your throat and you just died and you’re angry and you’re upset.
It feels like you are watching yourself react, trapped away in a haze. There are tears rolling down your cheeks and desperate, heaving sobs choking their way up from your throat that have you curling in on yourself to weep. Astarion must have come to sit by you because you feel his hand run soothingly down your back. You wrench your body away from him.
You did not want comfort. Not now.
“You took away my choice, Astarion! Again!” You yell at him between your sobs, too aware of the way each tear feels as it rolls down your face. Everything was just too much. Everything felt wrong in your body. “My whole life, I knew I would have little control over who I married. But you took away the choice of whether I lived or died!”
“You were human, we would have gotten to this point eventually. We had already talked about turning you.” Astarion’s hands have fallen in his lap and he looks at you with such melancholy. It makes your skin itch, to think he pities you in your current state.
“It’s about autonomy, Astarion! It’s about choosing what happens to my body and when that happens. You of all people should understand that!”
If you were thinking clearly, you would never have brought up his past. The part of your mind that is still you and not this monstrous new version of yourself shatters as you watch his face scrunch in pain and anger.
“So, you’re allowed to always be angry at me, but I’m not supposed to have my own feelings?” Astarion asks. “I’m just supposed to immediately forgive you and forget the fact that you invaded my privacy by reading my diary? Am I not allowed to be scared after I just watched your skull practically shatter in front of me?”
He struggles in vain to steady the underlying shake in his voice. “Was I not supposed to do everything in my power to save you? Please, do not treat me like I have been completely unreasonable or like you have never done anything to hurt me. You know as well as I do that you would have made the same choice if I were the one lying in a pool of blood in front of you.”
And you simply sit there, powerless, as the person who knows you most intimately in the world calls your bluff.
He’s right. He has seen right through you in the way that only he can. You had made that same exact choice when he returned home from a previous trip with that gaping wound in his side. You had not thought, you had not hesitated when you cut your hand open and fed him your blood. In that moment, all that mattered was saving Astarion by any means necessary.
“Well, if you would have told me everything, we probably wouldn’t have even been in this mess in the first place, would we?” You shout back, trying to deflect from how Astarion had just exposed the flaws in your anger.
To be fair, only you can comprehend the full weight of your question. Astarion still doesn’t know that you have the final gem. Nevertheless, it rings true. The communication issues have compounded on themselves. If Astarion had let you help in his search, you would not have read his diary and he would not have sent you away to be kidnapped. And if you were not kidnapped, you would not have had to fight Raphael. You would still be alive.
Astarion’s crimson eyes flare with anger because he knows that you are right, too. You both just stare at each other, challenging the other to back down. In the background, you hear someone awkwardly clear their throat, but you and Astarion stay fixated on one another. Apparently, a side-effect of vampirism was unwavering focus.
You break first, though, when you begin to grow impatient.
“You say that you are not allowed to have your own feelings, but the minute you set your mind on something, my feelings on the subject become completely irrelevant. It’s all you, Astarion. It’s always about you and how you feel,” you snarl. “I have given you every opportunity to listen to me and to be honest with me and you have fought against me at every turn.”
Astarion opens his mouth like he is going to interrupt, but you cut him off.
“No. Even when you promised that you would tell the truth, you still carefully selected what insignificant information would placate me without giving me any of the meaningful details. How am I ever supposed to trust you if I doubt every word you say?”
“I have never once lied to you,” Astarion defends, his jaw locked tight.
“A lie by omission is still a lie. Evading my questions with half-truths is still half-lying,” you point out, “Astarion, I don’t know how I can be with you if you’re unable to understand why your actions hurt me.”
“Are you-” Astarion stumbles on his words, unable to even finish the thought. But his eyes betray him, asking are you done with me?
“No, never. I-” you cut yourself off, bringing your hands up to cover your eyes and block out all the too-bright lights. Have candles always burned so brightly? “I think you were right. I think we need some space so we can both process for a bit. I need time to be angry at you. I need time to adjust.”
“My love, I’m so sorry, but that can’t happen.” He sounds so genuinely remorseful. His hands wrap around your wrists, gently pulling your hands away from where they shield your eyes from the overwhelming, flickering candlelight. You can tell Astarion wants you to be looking at him while he speaks and his eyes are soft and round with concern. “You need me now more than ever. You’re going to be hungry, going to need to feed. There’s so much I need to teach you.”
“So you’re making this decision for me, too? That’s wonderful.” You rip your hands out of his grasp.
Why does he keep insisting on reaching out to touch you? Does he not see you struggling? Does he not remember how disorienting it was to first wake up all those years ago? You’re so aware of everything and it makes his touch against your skin practically hurt.
Some distant, detached part of your mind reminds you that he is probably looking to ground himself. Touching. Always touching. Astarion needed that comfort and you weren’t able to provide him with that right now.
You feel guilty and angry at yourself that you somehow keep hurting Astarion without even trying. You’re mourning your life and the loss of everything normal that you once knew. And you hadn’t even begun to fully process the fact that you had just killed people. It was all a blur when you had jammed your knife into Raphael’s throat but his blood was caking uncomfortably on your hands and that poor man who you had just drained on the floor might have been at the brink of death, but it was still you who killed him.
You lean over and throw up. Bile and congealed blood force their way up your throat and leave a dirty, metallic taste in your mouth. Astarion reaches out again, and this time you let him hold the hair away from your face as you vomit on the floor. Over the sounds of your sobbing and heaving, you faintly hear a discussion before everyone leaves the room.
And then, it is just you and Astarion and it’s finally quiet. Astarion whispers soothing words to you in a smooth, low voice that doesn’t make your eardrums feel like they’re splitting open inside your head.
When your sobs eventually diminish into little sniffles, Astarion lets go of your hair. He makes a motion like he’s going to stroke your face before he hesitates and pulls away.
“Are you okay?” He asks softly. “The transition can be… a lot. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. It’s been so long since I was turned.”
“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” you ask.
Astarion’s face falls. “Is that really what you want? I’ll leave if you tell me to.”
“No,” you say, almost immediately. You look at your hands in your lap, stained an ugly, rusted brown. Your first instinct isn’t repulsion, but rather that you want to bring them up to your mouth and lick them clean, even if the blood is stale and dry. You feel disgusted with yourself. “What happened to me?”
Astarion seems at a loss for words.
“I want to go home,” you say.
Let there be some comfort, some sense of familiarity, in this tidal wave of foreign sensations.
“We can’t yet,” Astarion says. His voice is so forlorn, as if it is hurting him to see you like this. “It’s about to be daybreak and we can’t travel in the sun.”
It’s yet another reminder of everything you have lost.
“Great, just what I needed,” you scoff.
“There’s an inn across the street. The others went over to get us rooms.”
So that’s where everybody else went. How long ago was that? How long had you been curled in on yourself on the floor, weeping and sick and desperately craving blood?
Astarion must have been trying to give you privacy. Even now, he was still taking care of you- allowing you to grieve without the other’s prying eyes and helping to take away some of the overwhelming stimulation in the room.
“I can go tell Shadowheart to prepare a bath for you, if you’d like me to?” Astarion asks, almost as if he can sense that you are getting lost in your own mind again. He offers you a little smile, “I find those help.”
Those words sounded so familiar… It takes you a moment to place that you had read them in his diary. Astarion had not meant his jab as a jab but it still makes you painfully, acutely aware of how cruelly you had betrayed his trust. You want to start sobbing again.
You simply nod at Astarion, accepting his offer, unable to find the words to say anything else. He seems reluctant to leave you, but he finally pushes himself up from the floor.
“I’ll be back in just a minute, okay?” His hand stretches out awkwardly between the two of you and when you don’t reach out to grab it, he drops it. With a shake of his head, he turns on his heel and leaves.
“Wait-” you call after him and Astarion turns to regard you curiously. You look down at your hands in your lap, feeling a bit silly that you don’t know the first thing about vampirism, despite all the months you spent married to one. “Will I need more blood? I don’t- how do I even know when I’m hungry? I don’t want to accidentally hurt someone.”
“You won’t, little flower, precisely because even now, in the peak of your bloodlust, you are still aware enough to worry about others.” Astarion’s eyes soften. “Though, it is probably a good idea for you to drink a bit more while I’m gone. Can you promise me that you’ll try?”
You nod and Astarion gives you one last fleeting smile before he is leaving the room.
And for a moment, you close your eyes and let yourself sit in nothing but darkness. You sit until you can no longer deny your unquenchable thirst. You don’t even need to look, don’t even need to open your eyes as you drag yourself to a new source of blood.
Only, when you open them again, you are met by Raphael’s cold, dead stare and the deep gash in his throat, nearly severing his head from his body. That is not an image you will ever forget. You fall backward on your hands in horror, trying to back away from him as quickly as possible.
Wrapping your arms around yourself, you pull your knees into your chest. You are too aware of the devilish body sitting just a few feet away from you. Raphael’s face stays at the front of your mind. His eyes had not even been that different than when he was alive, looking at you with pure nothingness behind them, like you were so insignificant that you did not even deserve to be seen.
But you had promised Astarion that you would try to drink something and the idea of blood is slowly consuming you, pushing away that horrible image. You scan the room and find another dead guard to drain.
And you do feel marginally better after drinking some blood, so you finally pick yourself up off the ground. It feels too cold in the room. You hadn’t even realized that you were shivering.
Out of the corner of your eye, you catch the familiar shimmer of one of the green gems, still encased in glass on their pedestals, completely unharmed by the commotion.
You step closer to them, reaching out a hand to press against the glass covering. From this close, there’s no shred of doubt in your mind- your mother’s necklace had contained the final gem all this time. But why? How did she even get one?
It seems foolish to just leave them there when Raphael had gone through so much trouble to find them. Lifting up the covers, you slide the gems off their pedestals. You’ve just tucked them into your skirt when Astarion’s voice surprises you.
“Are you ready, darling?”
You try to gauge whether Astarion had caught you slipping the gems into your pocket, but he simply leans against the doorframe on the other side of the room.
When you come to stand a few steps in front of him, Astarion asks,“Did you treat yourself to a snack while I was gone?”
You nod but you can’t help the way your gaze darts nervously over to Raphael’s body at the mention of a ‘snack.’ His dead eyes feel like they have followed you as you walked across the room.
“Oh,” Astarion’s smile drops instantly. He holds his hand out to you. “Come, let’s leave. We never have to look at him again.”
You know Astarion means to be reassuring but you fear the image of Raphael’s cold, dead face has been burned into your retinas.
Attempting to clear your mind, you give your head a little shake and take a deep breath before reaching your hand out to grab Astarion’s. You do not miss the subtle way he squeezes your fingers, as if he is afraid that you will drop his hand again.
When you finally leave the room, it feels like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. With your hands laced, you let Astarion lead you through the maze of Raphael’s house to the inn across the street, where a warm bath is waiting for you. Astarion shows you to a room. Shadowheart is there and when she sees you, she gives you the same melancholic little smile that had been painted on Astarion’s own face all night and it makes you want to roll your eyes in disgust. How long would everyone insist on treating you like you were made of glass?
“You’ll tell me if you need anything?” Astarion asks. He’s trying to keep his voice measured but there is a pleading, desperate undertone. You know he is only trying to help, but that is of little comfort to you right now. You just need time by yourself.
You nod stiffly at him and he awkwardly clears his throat, finally dropping your hand.
“I love-”
“Don’t,” you cut Astarion off. “Please, don’t do that to me right now.”
Astarion’s brow creases in displeasure and he turns on his heel to leave immediately. You stare after him, watching his figure retreat to the room next to yours. He shuts the door with an angry slam.
Where there would normally be a heavy ache in your chest, there is nothing. Just a deep dread settling in your stomach.
When you close the door to your own room, Shadowheart’s back is turned. Seizing your opportunity, you quietly tuck the gems into a drawer in a dresser. You aren’t entirely sure what possesses you to keep them a secret, but after so long of being kept in the dark by Astarion, it’s only fair you get to have a secret of your own for a while.
Shadowheart helps you peel off your dress, which is stiff and hard where the blood has dried into the fabric.
“I sent Gale into the city to get us all new clothes. I fear this dress is beyond repair,” Shadowheart says, wrinkling her nose in disgust. “Hopefully, he’ll come back with something at least somewhat presentable for you to wear on the ride back. You never know though. It is Gale, after all. He only ever wears purple.”
There’s a small smile on her face and you can tell she is trying to raise your spirits. It was usually easy to goad you into poking fun at Gale. But this time, you just hum in response. The idea of laughter seems too foreign, too impossible right now.
In the tub, you let her scrub the dried blood off your skin as you numbly stare ahead at the wall. The water surrounding you turns an unpleasant shade of red.
After your skin has been cleaned, Shadowheart gives you a towel and instructs you to stand behind the dressing screen in the corner of the room. She calls upon some of the workers from the inn and they refill the tub with fresh, clear water.
You climb back and sink into the warm water, watching the steam curl around the edges of the tub. Shadowheart lets you sit there as long as you want and you stay until long after the water has grown cold and started to make you shiver.
Shadowheart helps you into the dress Gale brought back from the city (which is indeed a rich, deep purple). You’re too aware of the way the once-soft velvet scratches uncomfortably against the skin of your arms.
It’s only after you’ve dressed and Shadowheart has put your hair into a simple braid down your back that you pass by a mirror. You don’t see yourself. Immediately, you try to conjure the last glimpse of yourself that you had gotten in the mirror before you left on your trip. Even then, the image in your mind is fuzzy- you had not been paying attention to details. You had not known it would be the last time you would ever see yourself.
Tears begin welling up in your eyes again.
“Let’s just cover that, why don’t we?” Shadowheart says, turning the mirror around to face the wall.
You spend the rest of the afternoon just sitting in your room in the inn with the curtains drawn and the lights all turned off. It should be silent and dark. It isn’t. Somehow, your new senses cause you to hear every creak and groan of the building. You can hear the mice in the walls, smell the blood of all the other bodies moving in the building.
How did Astarion manage to live like this?
Eventually, Shadowheart knocks on your door to let you know the sun has set and it is time to leave. You follow her outside, down the cobblestone streets of the city to a stable on the outskirts of town.
Everyone else is standing together. They all look better- washed and free of grime and dressed in fresh clothes. You would almost be relieved to see them if they didn’t all immediately fall quiet in your presence. It makes you feel murderous.
“Glad to see you’re feeling better.” Halsin breaks the silence with a friendly smile.
“I may look like it, but I certainly don’t feel better,” you hiss back, even though you know Halsin does not deserve your anger. “Just because I am no longer vomiting blood on the floor doesn’t mean that I’m not in constant agony.”
Everyone’s eyes dart around nervously, like they’re unsure what to say in such an awkward situation.
Astarion laughs, with a roll of his eyes. “Oh, stop being melodramatic, you’re perfectly fine. You’re adjusting.”
Of course, Astarion looks beautiful in the moonlight. His hair is silver and incandescent, shining brightly against his dark, black coat.
“You don’t get to tell me how I feel!” You snap at him, crossing your arms over your chest in defiance.
“So, what?” Astarion asks you. “You’re just going to keep behaving like a-”
“Ehem,” Gale interrupts. “Not that… this isn’t fun to watch and all, but we need to leave if we want to make it back by sunrise.”
You and Astarion lock heated gazed for a moment longer before you’re shoving past him to the rest of the group. Everyone else is standing next to horses, which have been saddled and prepared for the ride back to the Ancunin manor.
“Horses,” you say, a bit surprised.
“They were quicker than carriages,” Astarion answers, coming to stand by your side. His gloved hand brushes against your own for just a moment. “I wasn’t about to leave you with that vile man a second longer than was necessary.”
“There’s not enough of them for me or Shadowheart to have our own,” you observe.
“You’ll ride with me and she can ride with Lae’zel,” Astarion says, as if the answer was so obvious.
“No, I will not be riding with you!” You look at Astarion, incredulous. “You’re not allowed to make decisions for me anymore.”
Since Shadowheart already has a riding partner, you turn to your next closest friend, Halsin. “Can I ride with you?”
To put it bluntly- you’ve never seen cool, collected, go-with-the-flow Halsin look more uncomfortable and unsure in his life. He obviously doesn’t want to be in the middle of your and Astarion’s argument. Astarion is glaring daggers at Halsin. That selfish, monstrous part of you which has grown louder since your turning feels a bit vindicated that Astarion is jealous.
Halsin clears his throat nervously. “I’m truly sorry, my lady, but propriety dictates that you can’t ride with a man that’s not your husband.”
Of course. Silly you, thinking that a friend would be willing to help you in your time of need. Could this day get any worse?
You turn to your backup plan- the only other woman who does not already have a riding partner.
“Karlach, please.”
“Not a good idea.” Astarion interrupts. “We don’t know if you can control your bloodlust, darling. I’m the only person here you can’t hurt.”
Selfish bastard. Why does he now suddenly feel the need to control even the most minute details of your life, like who you ride on a horse with? Does he no longer love you enough to offer you this small sense of comfort in what has been an obviously distressing time?
“Please,” you ignore him, begging Karlach again.
“Alright,” she agrees warily. “But if I catch you staring at my neck for too long, you have to get on with him.”
“Deal,” you say, reaching out to shake her hand.
Which, maybe, is not the most sensitive thing to do the day after you had just resolved Astarion’s deal with a devil. He shoots you an annoyed look.
The first half of the ride is quiet and contemplative. Every time you turn to look, Astarion’s eyes are already on you and he’s got this distant, faraway look that tells you he’s a bit too lost in his thoughts. You can feel everyone else watching you carefully, as well, like you are a ticking time bomb bound to explode at any moment.
It does not occur to you until hours into your journey that perhaps Astarion had been so insistent on you riding with him because he is worried that you are going to leave him the moment that you get home. In his mind, perhaps he was simply trying to spend one last moment with you. Perhaps he even believed he could convince you to stay. It was just the kind of foolishly insecure thing that Astarion would think. He should know better by now- you were not so easy to chase off, even if you had complicated feelings about him at the moment.
And the ride continues in silence until eventually, Karlach nearly bursts with the need to talk. The two of you start chatting, with others joining in occasionally. Everyone seems to start relaxing around you, now that you have proven that you are not completely feral.
Ultimately, the ride home is uneventful. Karlach talks and by the end, her mood is so infectious that she even gets you to laugh a couple times. You’re so grateful for her humor, it was just the amount of levity you needed.
You’re sure that you’ve never been more happy to be home before and you're desperate to be inside. As you walk from the stables back toward the manor, you find yourself fantasizing about how wonderful it will feel to lie down on your bed, even if you don’t need sleep anymore.
Lifting your foot, you move to step over the entryway. Except, you’re stuck. It’s as if there’s some sort of invisible wall barring you from entry.
Of course, because vampires can’t enter a residence without permission.
Astarion’s got a little smirk on his face as he stands in the hallway, looking back at you stuck outside.
“I’m waiting for you to ask nicely, little flower,” he teases.
“Can I come inside?” You spit out through gritted teeth.
Astarion looks like he’s considering it for a minute before he frowns. “Not nice enough, try again.”
“Oh, beloved husband, can I please come into our house?” You ask, voice dripping with sarcasm. But you plaster a sweet smile on your face at the end and Astarion seems to have had his fun with you, anyway.
“Welcome home, darling. Please, do come inside. You’re keeping everyone waiting,” Astarion says, sweeping into an overdramatic, elegant bow.
You make sure to shove his shoulder with your own when you pass him.
Shadowheart has already drawn the heavy curtains for you when you enter your room.
The first thing you do is carefully tuck the gems away in the hollowed out book on your bookshelf. You could deal with that problem later. For now, it was time to wallow.
For hours, you lie in bed, staring up at the mahogany panel on top of your four poster bed. It all feels wrong. You’re so tired, but no matter how hard you try, you can’t will your body to sleep. You wish you had some book, like Essential Knowledge on Being a Vampire, to teach you how to solve this issue.
Later that evening, there’s a knock on your door and you open it to find Astarion.
“I have something for you,” he says, producing a jar of sloshy red liquid from behind his back.
“It’s not fresh,” you say with a twinge of disappointment.
“You’re too spoiled, pet.” Astarion laughs. “I lived on nothing but rats and bugs for 200 years. I assure you, many vampires would kill for stale human blood.”
You pout, hoping that trick still works and Astarion will give in to you. “Why can’t you just call up one of your snacks for me? Why do I have to drink it like this?”
“Now, now, darling,” Astarion reprimands you as he finally steps past you into your bedroom. “It took me a very long time to curate such a wonderful collection of vintages. The last thing I need is for you to drain one of them dry and scare the rest off.”
“So, I’m stuck with that then?” You ask, pointing to the jar of blood in his hand.
“Or drinking from me,” Astarion shoots you a flirty wink. “I’m more than happy to drink enough to sustain the both of us.”
That hungry, lustful part of you runs wild with the idea. You and Astarion could spend your nights wrapped together again, but now it would not just be him biting you. Now, you could bite back. You could finally taste him.
But that doesn’t seem like a good idea with the current state of your marriage- it would just add confusion and more unnecessarily complicated emotions.
“I don’t want anything else from you, Astarion.” Your harsh words aren’t filled with the normal tenacity behind them.
It’s all too much, the constant smells and having to hold yourself back from sinking your teeth into everyone around you. You collapse into a chair in the corner of your room.
“I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep,” you confess in a quiet voice.
You know Astarion heard you. Now that you are a vampire, you understand the sensitivity of vampiric hearing.
Astarion places the jar of blood on the table next to you. You’re reminded of so long ago, that first day you were here, when Astarion kept sending you food even though you were determined not to eat. He was too good at this- at caring for you even when you were determined to be difficult.
“That comes with time,” Astarion assures you, sinking to his knees in front of where you sit. He looks unsure for a moment before he reaches out, grabbing your hands in his own and pulling your attention to him. “I know that you’re stubborn and impatient and you just want everything to go back to normal, but things have changed. It will take time. I have learned the hard way that you cannot just rush past all the hardships in life, no matter how desperately you wish to.”
Astarion’s thumb traces soothing circles on your hand as he continues speaking, “We’re both here and we’re both safe. And I know you need time to be angry at me. And though I know I will forgive you, I’m still hurt by your invasion of my privacy. So… let’s just… spend some time apart. And know that whenever you decide you’re ready, I’ll be waiting for you, okay?”
Astarion reaches out, ghosting his thumb along your cheek as the corner of his mouth quirks up in a half smile. “And don’t rush, we have all the time in the world, my love.”
You nod, unable to speak in fear that tears will start welling up in your eyes again. Gods, was this some sort of horrible symptom of vampirism that you just kept crying all the time? If so, you need to figure out how to deal with that quickly, because these constant tears were a nuisance.
Astarion gives your hand a little squeeze before he’s rising from where he kneels on the floor, turning to leave your room.
“I- thank you, Astarion,” you say when he’s in the doorway. He pauses but doesn’t peek over his shoulder to look back at you, as if he knows that will cause you to lose the nerve to continue speaking. “I don’t say that to you often enough, but know that I am very grateful for all that you’ve done for me.”
—------------
The next evening, there’s another gentle knock on your door but no one is there when you open it. The only thing you see is a leatherbound book propped up next to your door.
It looks remarkably similar to Astarion’s diary and it must have been left by him, but there was no way he was just… giving you his diary, right? Not when it was still such a sore subject between the two of you.
What, was this some sort of weird way to test your loyalty?
You debate whether you should ignore the gift completely but as usual, your curiosity gets the better of you. After grabbing the book, you curl up on your bed and open the front cover.
The first thing you see is your name, your actual name, which Astarion called you so rarely. It’s written in his beautiful, looping cursive and it nearly pulls the breath from your lungs when you see it.
Underneath your name, the first page is a letter to you.
My dear wife,
I know that you are inquisitive by nature and I am sure you are filled to the brim with questions about being a vampire. It seems unfair of me to turn you into one and then send you off into the metaphorical dark, so I thought I might offer you some advice. As you have learned, I have grown to find writing rather cathartic, so I thought it fitting to write to you about my own experiences as a vampire. I hope this will help ease your transition.
Please, forgive me if I have forgotten anything. I have tried hard to think of everything you might ask and I like to think that I know you very well, but I am not nearly as creative in my curiosity as you are.
With all that I am, know that I love you.
Your husband,
Astarion
When you turn to the next page, a loose sheet of folded paper flutters out. There are only two sentences scribbled hastily on the paper.
I told you I would give you your space. I intend to honor that promise.
Oh, how unexpected and perfectly timed. Just yesterday, you had been wishing for a book exactly like this. It was as if your husband, Astarion, had read your mind.
Your insides feel warm and fuzzy as you hold the book to the chest, over the spot where your heart used to beat. For the first time in a long time, you have hope that everything will be okay again, that your anger will fade and love will bloom in its place, a love that was far more radiant than ever before.
—------------
Slowly, you lose track of time. You spend a little time feeling sorry for yourself and a little time feeling sad. But mostly, you spend a lot of time not really feeling anything at all. There’s just numbness and staring at the hypnotic, swirling patterns of the wallpaper in your bedroom.
Time moves. You don’t.
You feel dead. Guess that makes sense.
You settle into a new routine. Sometimes, you and Astarion bump into each other around the manor and you’re both cordial and polite, scared of intruding in the other’s space.
You miss him. You spend your evenings rereading the book he had written for you, tracing your fingers over his lovely handwriting. But at times, the anger inside you still flickers back to life. You do not dare to approach Astarion until you are sure the flames of anger within you are long dead.
“You know, he could have turned you into a spawn,” Shadowheart says one day. It’s enough to finally shock you out of the monotonous routine of self-pity that you had found yourself in.
“What’s the difference?” You scoff.
You were faintly aware of the difference between true vampires and spawn but the subject had not been discussed in any great detail in the book Astarion had written for you. You know this is due to the traumatic nature of his own life when he was a spawn.
“He gave you his blood,” Shadowheart answers. “You’re a full and true vampire. You aren’t bound to serve him; you aren’t forced to obey his commands.”
Shadowheart is purposefully avoiding your eyes while she continues to braid your hair.
“You know, I thought he was going to make you a spawn,” she says. “Trust me, I’m happy that he made the right choice and didn’t. But for a second, it really looked like he was considering…” She trails off and sighs. “Well, I guess I didn’t think he would be able to resist guaranteeing that you could never leave him.”
“Why are you bringing this up now?” You ask. “Are you just trying to point out that my life isn’t as bad as it could be?”
“No, stop being difficult,” Shadowheart punctuates her statement with a tug on your hair that is a bit rougher than what is necessary. “I’m just trying to paint a full picture for you. What you do with that information is up to you.”
She falls into a contemplative silence for a moment before she finally says, “Though, it is rather annoying when the two of you are fighting. I have to go out of my way to avoid two places. When you’re together, I only have to avoid one room.”
You roll your eyes at her comment.
“Something still feels wrong,” you confess. “It still feels like he’s controlling every aspect of my life. He decided we would be married. He decided that I was not allowed to know any details of his past or about his deal with Raphael. He was the one who decided that we would go on the trip which got us kidnapped. He decided to turn me into a vampire. He confined me to this house and made me a prisoner of the sun.”
Shadowheart sighs. “Have you tried telling him any of this? Tried explaining how you’re feeling? Have you asked him what he’s been thinking and feeling?”
“I already made it perfectly clear what I think.”
“No, you yelled at him,” Shadowheart says. She finishes braiding your hair and moves to lean against the vanity to look down at you.
“How do I explain…” She looks off into space as she thinks for a moment before she turns back to you. “Look, Astarion has had a long and traumatic life. Have you really not noticed how he shuts down when people raise their voices around him? Same as how you start spewing insults you don’t always mean. You fight, he flees. Neither of you are capable of listening to the other in that sort of state.”
Damn her. That’s a good point. When did she have time to notice all this about the two of you?
The realization washes over you like a wave- for all your anger about Astarion never listening to you, you had neglected to see that you had been ignoring Astarion’s needs, as well.
This intervention from Shadowheart was good. This was what you needed- someone to shake you awake from the haze you had been trapped in so you could finally see all the damage you were causing.
“Oh gods, I’m a horrible person, aren’t I?” you groan, letting your head fall into your hands. “I’ve been a terrible wife.”
You hear Shadowheart’s twinkly laugh and her voice is amused. “Stop being so dramatic all the time. You’re just as bad as Astarion.”
You shoot her a look of warning between the fingers covering your face, even if you secretly relish the fact that she brought up your and Astarion’s similarities.
“And you’re not a horrible person.” She pats your back in a comforting, reassuring motion. “You’ve been through a lot of very big life changes in the last year. You’re adapting. You’re learning. And I wouldn’t even say you’ve been too harsh on Astarion. He can get a bit too full of himself. He needs someone like you to keep his head screwed on. The two of you just need to talk and actually listen to one another for once.”
“You’re strangely wise, when you want to be,” you tell her.
She shrugs, but you see her smile.
—-----------
Astarion’s faces away from the door when you approach the study, focused on the stack of books next to him. For a moment, you silently watch him hunt along the different rows in the bookshelf before he places a book and grabs a new one from the stack. He must be reorganizing.
You reach out and knock on the door to draw his attention.
“You don’t need to knock if the door is open, Gale,” Astarion says, annoyed. He doesn’t even bother to turn around.
“Oh, I- I’m not Gale,” you stutter out nervously. You fear that he will be disappointed when he sees you- that the beautiful smile that used to light up his face whenever you entered the room will be gone.
But instead, Astarion’s head whips around to look at you. He nearly drops the book that he’s holding, but he manages to catch it before it clatters to the floor. It’s a clumsiness that is so uncharacteristic of Astarion, who always moves so gracefully and elegantly. You have to hide your smile.
Here’s this man, this vampire- so powerful and so strong- and your mere presence makes him so nervous that he nearly drops everything he is holding.
“And thank the gods for that. One Gale is already bad enough,” Astarion jokes and you manage a soft laugh at that. The smile on his face is lovely and you’re struck by the urge to just stand and watch him for hours, to study him how you used to. He tilts his head a bit to the side, in question. “What are you doing here? I thought you still weren’t speaking with me.”
“I came to apologize,” you tell him.
“Whatever for? You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Well, that’s not true at all. I’ve done plenty wrong. And I’ve actually been a bit of a tyrant as of late.” You laugh, though you are sure Astarion made his comment earnestly. You were starting to realize that he viewed you as far more infallible than you actually are.
“You’ve been going through a big change,” Astarion continues to defend your actions.
“Please, don’t make excuses for my bad behavior. Will you just hear me out for a couple minutes?” you ask. “After, you can tell me to leave or stay or say whatever you’d like but right now, I need you to be quiet and let me speak, okay?”
Astarion nods.
You take a deep breath and ready yourself for the speech you had prepared in your head. You had been working on it for the greater part of a day, trying to sort through your thoughts and figure out how to vocalize everything in a way that could be easily understood. You had even forced Shadowheart to listen to you practice it earlier, though she was a rather unwilling participant.
“First of all,” you begin. “I’m sorry I read your diary and I’m sorry I haven’t given you a heartfelt apology yet. That diary was yours and I know that I never should have touched it. It’s as simple and as complicated as that. And I kept giving excuses to justify my actions rather than actually apologize, but I fully recognize that any frustration I felt about you not being upfront with me never warranted invading your privacy. I truly, sincerely apologize. It will never happen again.”
Astarion surveys you curiously, though his face remains soft and open. It’s a good sign, at least, that he seems receptive to your apology.
You continue speaking. “And when you confronted me, rightfully angry, I got upset and yelled at you because I felt guilty. I need to stop doing that- I need to learn to take a break when I feel myself getting upset. I know that I can be mean when I’m provoked and I lash out and hurt other people. It happened when you tried to distance yourself from me, it happened when you found me with your diary, and it happened again right after you turned me.”
“I won’t apologize for what I said after you turned me. I stand by all that. I’m allowed to be frustrated and angry at the world. But I am sorry that I took that frustration out on you. That wasn’t fair of me.” You can feel yourself growing more and more impassioned the longer you speak, so you try to tamper yourself down to a calmer level.
“I promise that I am going to do better at listening to you Astarion, but I need you to promise me that you will do the same. I need to see changes,” you implore. “I feel like I have made it perfectly clear by now, but let me be overly explicit for a final time- I don’t like when you make my decisions for me. I know that it is supposed to be my place as a woman to defer to your judgment, but frankly, I think that’s stupid.”
The corner of Astarion’s mouth tilts up in a grin- he always did love your pluckiness.
You feel a phantom heart beating in your chest as you continue speaking. “I have a mind and a will of my own and it is unfair to make me do things that I don’t want to do. A part of me will always be sad that I wasn’t able to enter into our marriage or choose to be a vampire of my own free will. I don’t want my memories of you to be tainted by that. I value and respect your opinion, but please, trust me to be the one to make my own choices from now on.”
“And lastly, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” You look up to the ceiling, trying to force down the tears that you feel brimming in your eyes. This was the part of your speech you had been dreading the most, the part that you had not rehearsed with Shadowheart because it felt too personal. But if you had ever inadvertently contributed to Astarion’s pain by being too forward in your intimacy, you needed to apologize to him. “It’s not a valid excuse but I didn’t know about your past, Astarion. You have to believe me. I know that I probably pressured you into uncomfortable situations because I was so insistent. Please know that there will never be enough words to tell you how sorry I truly am.”
“And… I miss you, Star. I can’t tell you how many times I've reread the note at the beginning of the book you gave me. I think I practically have it memorized at this point.” You breathe out a shaky laugh. “Okay, that’s… I think that’s everything I wanted to say.”
You pull your gaze back down from the ceiling to gauge Astarion’s reaction. He just looks stunned. Which is fair, you did just dump a lot on him.
And then Astarion just keeps staring at you, like you have broken his brain completely. The longer you wait, the more nervous you get and eventually, you have to close your eyes, terrified of the rejection that you are certain is coming. You can feel yourself start to panic a bit as you prepare for Astarion to tell you to get out and how could he ever love someone as weak and stupid as you?
Instead, you feel his arms wrapping around you. You cling to him, burying your face in his chest and letting the tears that had been building finally leak out.
He’s so much warmer than you remember.
Astarion tilts your chin up so he can look at you and he brushes away the tears that have fallen down your cheeks.
“I don’t know where to start,” Astarion says, at a loss for words. He gives you a sweet smile. “For what it’s worth, I already forgave you long ago for reading my diary.”
The crushing weight that had been sitting on your chest for so long finally lessens. You feel so light now that you can breathe again.
Astarion’s thumb continues tracing along your cheek and his eyes watch the motion, rather than stare into your own. You are too familiar with the fact that it can be easier to get your feelings out without the pressure of eye contact.
“I see now that I was wrong, too. I’m sorry that I didn’t fully trust you. It’s just-” Astarion huffs and his brow furrows, “How do I explain this? You saw me as the man I am now, detached from all my trauma and background, and you loved that person. And for so long, I was scared that if I admitted my past to you, you would no longer see me as the man you knew and loved. I didn’t want to ruin the illusion for you. I realize now that I was mistaken.”
You’re stunned, partially because Astarion just admitted he was wrong and that was a minor miracle in itself. But also, you had never considered that Astarion might have been afraid that his past would make you see him differently.
And you do, but not in any way that matters. He just feels like a more complete person now. All those little reactions and details you could never place finally make sense.
Astarion wipes away another stray tear rolling down your cheek. “And I need you to trust me, little flower. I need you to hear me when I say that I love you and I want you. I like having sex with you. Believe me, I don’t do anything that I don’t want to anymore. I’m past that point in my life.”
And with his words, Astarion continues to quell any shadows or doubts in your mind. It feels wonderful to finally speak so freely with each other.
“And now, it’s my turn to apologize,” he says. “You’re right. I haven’t been listening to you. Throughout our whole marriage, you’ve basically been shouting from the rooftops that all you wanted was to make your own choices and I kept making them for you in fear that you might choose to leave me. That’s not fair of me, either- I need to trust that if you love me as much as you say that you will choose me.”
Astarion pauses, sighing gently, “And I’m sorry for the circumstances surrounding your death but I won’t apologize for the outcome. You know that I am a deeply selfish man. I wasn’t going to lose you- not now and not ever. I will not apologize for what is done, only that my actions have caused you pain. I know nothing I can say will make this… right. And it probably wouldn’t help you feel better, anyway. But know that I am here with you, every step of the way; as a mentor, as a friend, as a lover. However you want me, you have me.”
“What about as a husband?” You tease.
“Well, that can certainly be arranged,” Astarion says as a devilish grin splits across his face.
“I love you,” you tell him. “Thank you for waiting for me. Ever since you caught me with your diary, all I’ve wanted is to go back to how it was before.”
“I don’t think we ever will be able to go back to how it was before,” Astarion says, and his words fill you with a deep sadness. Your face falls but Astarion is still smiling. A real one, not a performative one. “It will be better this time; we’ll be true equals.”
“Equals. I like that.” You smile back at him. His knuckles stroke lovingly along your jaw.
“And now I should probably tell you that I actually kind of like that you get a bit nasty when you’re angry,” Astarion says with one of those smirks that makes you want to get into all sorts of trouble with him. “Maybe just direct that at other people in the future.”
You laugh. “Just point and I shall destroy your enemies with my vicious mockery.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, please.” He giggles in delight. “That sounds wonderfully entertaining.”
And it feels so good now that everything is out in the open. Like you and Astarion are truly seeing each other for the first time as you embrace, grinning like love-struck fools.
“How have you been?” Astarion interrupts the moment, his voice turning more serious. “I feel like I’ve hardly seen you.”
“Um, it could be worse, I guess? I could be dead.”
Astarion frowns at your joke. Note to self- don’t joke about your death with Astarion.
But you’re not sure how exactly to explain the fog that it feels like you’ve been trapped in for the past… Actually, you don’t even know how long it’s been since you’ve been turned. You lost track of time. Has it been weeks? Months?
Now doesn’t feel like the time to unload all that on Astarion. You had just gotten him back, you weren’t about to go chasing him away again with new issues. You would wait until later. Maybe even bringing it up as you cuddle in bed so you do not have to watch how his pretty face twists with worry at your confession.
You deflect by turning the attention back to him. “Thank you for all that you’ve done for me. You must have been pretty busy trying to get all that blood for me.”
For a moment, Astarion looks like he wants to pry into what’s on your mind, but he resists. It was time to trust each other and that involved having faith that the other person would bring up issues when the time felt right for them.
“Ugh, you don’t even know, pet. It’s more work than I’ve done in years,” Astarion complains. “I have to think about what I want and then go and ask Gale for it and that always takes forever. I was made for looking pretty, not for organizing blood draws.”
You giggle at his theatrics. “Well, if you’re going to be so dramatic about it, I’ll go offer my thanks to Gale instead.”
You move to pull away from Astarion but he catches your wrist and pulls you tighter against his chest.
“Don’t you dare.”
Is this Astarion initiating?
He’s looking at you with hungry, red eyes and the way his hand rests just a bit too low on your back isn’t entirely innocent.
You chew on your lip, debating in your mind whether you should just lean forward and kiss Astarion. You haven’t fully adjusted to the new sharp fangs inside your mouth and you found yourself forgetting them constantly. You let out a little hiss at your mistake and your finger comes up instinctually to dab away the bead of blood from your lip.
You stare at the drop on your finger, entranced, former train of thought completely lost. The room fades away and for a moment, there’s only blood.
And then, Astarion reaches out to grab your wrist and he sucks your finger into his mouth with a moan that should send him straight to the hells. Your brain goes blank, yet again, as you watch how he slides your finger out his mouth, never breaking eye contact with you.
Your whole body feels like a live wire. Reaching out, you tug Astarion down by the back of his neck to press your lips against his. You had been without him for so long and now, you’re ravenous.
This isn’t one of those sweet, loving kisses that you and Astarion share so often. There is nothing loving about this kiss- only hunger. As if you can make up for lost time by consuming one another whole.
Your lips crash against his, two sets of fangs ripping and tearing into one another’s skin. There’s blood everywhere- coating your lips and electrifying your taste buds and trickling down your chin.
And just for a second, you hesitate. Did he want this? You hadn’t checked. You had pulled him down and kissed him and, sure, he had kissed you back, but that doesn’t mean he wants more. Despite his words earlier ensuring you that he enjoys physical intimacy with you, your doubts are still present. You aren’t sure how to act anymore.
Astarion, sensing your moment of hesitation, pulls away immediately.
His voice is low and hoarse. “What’s wrong?”
You try to find the right words. “I just- I’m sorry. I should have asked. Did you want me to kiss you?”
Astarion chuckles. “I always want you to kiss me. But please, no doubts, my love. I promise I’ll tell you if I don’t want to do something. But this-” His hand traces along the curve of your ass as he moves his lips down to brush against yours, “this is me initiating. Trust me, I’m nearly out of my mind with how badly I want you.”
His words send a shock straight to your cunt.
“Get back here, then,” you practically growl, pulling him down by the collar of his shirt.
Your lips collide again and the world closes in around you- there is nothing but you and Astarion and this impossible need to be closer. You can’t think past the hunger itching at the back of your throat and the molten fire pooling in your cunt.
You urge Astarion backward until his back is pressed against the bookshelf. You must overestimate your own vampiric strength because a few books are knocked off the shelf and Astarion lets out a little exhale of ‘oof.’
“Sorry,” you apologize into his mouth, not bothering to fully separate your lips from his.
“Don’t be, pet,” he says in a breathy pant. “I like when you lose control.”
Fuck, you need to lose control more often if it makes Astarion talk like that.
Your hands move down, untucking Astarion’s shirt from his trousers and you ghost your fingers over his abdomen. It’s still shocking how warm his skin feels now that you have become a vampire. You had grown so used to the cold.
Astarion separates his lips from yours only long enough to pull his shirt up over his head and throw it somewhere in the room.
There are hands everywhere. Your hands move down the planes of Astarion’s chest, continuing downward to trace over the outline of his cock hardening in his pants. And his hands pull you so tightly against him- one follows the curves of your body and the other comes up to thread through your hair. He gently tugs at the roots, tilting your head back to give himself easier access to lick into your mouth.
Eventually, you part from his lips and they’re all swollen and bloody and wet. His beauty will always stun you.
Gods, and how does he smell even better now?
You run your nose along the column of his throat. There’s bergamot and rosemary and underneath that, the intoxicating scent of the blood sitting still in his veins. He must have fed recently. You can’t even bother to be jealous that someone else got to experience the ecstasy of Astarion drinking from them because he smells so good.
“Go on, little love. You can have a taste,” he murmurs against the shell of your ear. He’s a bit breathless, as if he can’t contain his excitement at the idea.
You take his permission and bite into Astarion’s skin, careful to pick a spot far away from the twin scars on his neck. This was meant to be a new memory, separated literally and metaphorically from the struggles of his past.
His blood is so fresh after so much time of only drinking blood from the jars stored in the cellars. Astarion lets you swallow a few mouthfuls before he guides you back up, crashing his mouth against yours again and chasing after the taste of himself in your mouth.
Astarion continues kissing you, but he presses forward, forcing you backward until your back hits the edge of his desk. You raise your hips to sit at the edge, widening your legs so he can slide between them.
He fiddles with the buttons on the back of your dress while he continues to kiss you senseless and you sigh into his mouth, picturing his wonderful hands at work.
“There’s too many-” Astarion cuts himself off with a growl and you hear a sharp ripping noise as he tears open the back of your dress. “Too many buttons.”
“I liked this dress,” you huff and Astarion leans down to press a kiss to your collarbone in apology as he begins bunching up your skirts.
“I’ll buy you a new one,” he says, as he helps pull your dress over your head. He presses his lips to yours again, slow and sweet and a complete shift in tone. He leans his forehead against yours, “I’ll buy you whatever you want.”
It’s a sweet sentiment. You’ll appreciate it more later when you can think clearly again.
Taking a moment to appreciate the sight of Astarion before you, you try to commit this moment to memory. You try to memorize the way that the rivulets of blood running down his chin highlight the lovely blush staining his cheeks.
And over his shoulder, you notice that the door is still wide open.
“The door’s still open,” you squeak out. You don’t love the idea of someone barging in on you and Astarion’s private moment, but you hate the idea of parting from him long enough for one of you to shut the door more.
Astarion must have a similar thought because he chuckles, deep and dark, as his hands grip the back of your neck, pulling your gaze back to his face. His thumb runs down the hollow of your throat and you feel yourself gulp. Astarion watches your throat move, entranced. “They all know better than to interrupt us. And if they don’t… Well, I wouldn’t say no to a snack, would you?”
The idea of draining someone dry with Astarion makes you salivate. Something to look forward to in the future.
Astarion kisses you again, pushing you to lean back at an angle on the desk and distracting you from the lovely images that you had concocted in your imagination. His mouth moves down to nip at your skin and kiss along your collarbones.
“You still have to get past my corset,” you tease. “Can’t rip your way through that one.”
“I can try,” he practically growls, one of his hands coming up to trace menacingly along the boned seams.
“Don’t,” you grip his chin and turn his gaze up to yours. His eyes light up at your command.
Astarion listens and helps you remove the rest of your clothing. Miraculously, your corset and chemise make it off your body without being destroyed like your poor dress.
The cool wood of his desk against your bare skin makes you shiver but you’re quickly distracted when Astarion brings your wrist to his mouth. His eyes lock onto yours and he presses a kiss to your skin before his teeth sink in. You had missed that rush of coldness when he first bites that sends electricity shooting through your veins and it’s almost obscene as you watch him. He drinks from you slowly and sensually and his eyes burn into you the whole time.
As he drops your wrist, a fresh streak of ruby red runs down his chin and you lean forward to lick it up, greedily pressing your mouth against his again.
You fumble with the buttons on his trousers, pushing them down so you’re able to free the hard length of his cock and wrap your hand around it. He groans as you pump your hand up and down his length.
“Missed you being inside me,” you whisper. “Missed how good you fuck me.”
“Then what are you waiting for, pet? Take what you want.”
You guide him into you and he lets you adjust for a moment before his hips are snapping against yours at a ruthless pace that betrays his desperation.
You had missed this- this closeness, this feeling of being whole and one and loved.
“I’m going to fucking ruin you,” Astarion promises, and he grabs the back of one of your thighs, lifting your leg up to wrap around his waist. It has him hitting that much deeper inside you with each thrust of his hips. Your eyes practically roll back in your head.
Astarion brings his lips down to ghost against yours before he teasingly pulls away. “Look at us. I belong to you just as much as you belong to me.”
You moan at his words, losing yourself in the sentiment and the feeling of Astarion moving inside you. Just him and you, like how it was meant to be. He is yours and you are his.
“Say it,” he commands, pulling your attention back to him. It sends a lovely shiver down your spine. You’d do anything he asked if he kept talking to you in that rough, low voice.
“Yours. Only yours,” you breathe into his mouth, chasing after his lips. He gives you a gentle tug on your hair that pulls you back so that your lips are still just a hair’s breadth away from his.
“And I’m yours,” he says, before he finally kisses you.
And Astarion’s hands are everywhere. As if he is determined to memorize your body by touch alone. It makes you smile. Touching. Always touching. You doubt that Astarion will ever let you out of his grasp again. Nor would you want him to.
The way he fucks you somehow feels even better, even more wonderful now as a vampire. All your senses are tingling and hyper-alert and it only serves to make you that much more aware of how Astarion feels pressed against you and how he moves inside you.
It’s carnal, it’s feral, it’s utterly vampiric.
His hand reaches down between your bodies, his magical fingers moving against your clit in a way that sends sparks through your cunt. It has you reaching the precipice far sooner than you had hoped. That aching desire pools low in your stomach, rising into an inferno.
You come and it’s like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Every nerve ending in your body is molten fire.
“So tight, so good,” he pants against your mouth. You whine at the way his hips keep driving into you at a pace which feels so good it’s almost painful. “Can you come for me again, little flower?”
Oh, this man was going to the death of you, wasn’t he? You nod frantically, unable to form words. Astarion presses open mouth kisses along your throat before he’s biting down again. The sudden shock of cold has you gasping for air and digging your nails into Astarion’s skin. You feel that coil tightening deep within you again, ready to snap at a moment’s notice. Astarion keeps moving his fingers against your clit.
You come.
Astarion manages a few more frenzied thrusts before he comes, too, spilling inside you.
And thank the gods you’re already dead because that second orgasm might have just stopped your heart entirely.
You’re just coming back to your senses when you Astarion sinks to his knees in front of you, lifting your legs over his shoulders. He’s staring at your cunt like it’s a four-course meal and you eventually have to tug at his beautiful white curls to pull his attention back to you.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
“You’re dripping all over my expensive desk,” Astarion says. “I’m going to clean you up.”
Your brain is already a bit slow after two overwhelming orgasms and the sight of Astarion on his knees before you, offering to lick away the traces of his come leaking out of you, has you practically feral with lust. Astarion squirms under your gaze the longer you continue to stare down at him, his confident facade dropping.
“Is that okay?” he asks.
You sigh out a breathy ‘yes’ and he’s back to smirking arrogantly at you. Astarion’s arms wrap around you so he can shift your hips to the very edge of his desk.
He devours your cunt. His tongue is everywhere- lapping at your inner folds and dipping deliciously inside you. You lean back on your hands to steady yourself, but that does little to help when Astarion moves to suck on your clit and your whole body trembles with ecstasy.
You aren’t entirely sure how this is helping to ‘clean you up.’ It seems much more likely that Astarion got distracted by all the noises that you are surely making and is trying to drag this out into some sort of religious experience.
“One more, please,” he practically begs, like it’s some big favor to him that you should orgasm another time. His chin is glistening with your wetness and he sounds practically breathless. “You’ve no idea how badly I missed watching you come.”
His words send another spark of heat straight to your cunt and you let out a surprised, strangled whimper. Astarion’s mouth quirks up in a haughty grin, so you simply reach out to tug his head back toward your cunt.
You feel Astarion’s laugh before he begins feasting on you again, sucking and licking and rolling his tongue in some unholy way that has you seeing stars.
For a moment, there is nothing but the white-hot waves of pleasure that roll through you as Astarion coaxes yet another orgasm from your body.
His mouth continues moving against you until you are shaking. He presses gentle kisses to the inside of each of your thighs before gently lowering them from where they sit on his shoulders and the small, caring act brings a goofy grin to your face.
How is it possible to love someone more with every passing moment?
Astarion surges back up to press a final kiss to your lips. It’s slow and deep and you can taste the combined taste of your releases on his tongue. Astarion gently traces down the column of your throat with his thumb, over the spot where he had bitten you just a few moments ago. You can tell your skin is already healed.
“No more marks.” He looks genuinely forlorn. “A pity.”
“I’ll always have this one,” you remind him, holding up your wrist. Astarion brushes his fingers over the twin bite marks on the inside of your wrist from when he had turned you.
You watch him study the marks and you wish you could hear what he was thinking.
“Speaking of which,” Astarion finally breaks the silence. He leans over you to pull open a drawer in his desk, shuffling around in it blindly. He gives a satisfied little smirk when he finds whatever he was looking for.
“You might want this back,” he says. When he opens his hand, your wedding ring is sitting on his palm.
“Give me that.” You feel the smile light up your face as you snatch the ring from him and place it back on your ring finger. “Are you still wearing yours?”
“Never took it off.” Astarion proudly displays his left hand as proof. Sure enough, the gold band glints enchantingly when it catches the candlelight.
“I love you,” you tell Astarion.
The way he’s looking at you can only be described as awe. He catches your hand and brings it to his mouth so he can press a lingering kiss to the spot where the ring now sits comfortably on your finger, once again.
“I love you, too.”
Somehow, you manage to smile even wider.
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Notes:
So next week, we wrap up the plot (since we still have that pesky Crown of Karsus hanging around) and then the final chapter is the epilogue. I'm actually kind of happy that I decided to move things around a bit because now I get to add in an extra smut scene that I was originally planning as a fade to black since the epilogue was getting too long.
I loved seeing everyone's reactions to last week's chapter! Can't wait to see what you all think as we start wrapping this bad boy up!
As always, huge thanks to my beta-writer AliensNSuch on ao3.
Taglist: @ayselluna @idkbrodontaskme @maruichio @fanfic-share @the-littlest-bruja @asterordinary @divineknightmare @fandomarchiveilyd
Feel free to let me know if you would liked to be added/removed from the taglist for future chapters!
#astarion#astarion x reader#astarion x tav#bg3#baldurs gate 3#astarion bg3#astarion fanfic#bg3 fanfic#bg3 fanfiction#astarion ancunin#x reader#til death do us part
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Jungle Majesty and His Mighty Girth.
My travels had taken me to a remote African village, a gem untouched by the urban crawl. Here stood before me, Kwame, a titan among men, his skin a polished obsidian, a product of nature's own grand design. The first time I laid eyes on him, I knew the camera in my hands was about to immortalize a paragon of raw manhood. That chance encounter, born of my insatiable quest for documents of male authenticity, found me exchanging stories for shelter, and it wasn’t long before the promise of a photo granted by the titan before me.
I let my OhMenFlex drink in every detail - his naked torso, a canvas of black velvet kissed by sunlight, rippled with power as he stood proudly in front of his hut. The dense matting of his chest hair framed his muscle-bundled pecs, each strand weaving a narrative of wild virility. The belly, a proud and robust canvas, stretched before me—his girth, a badge of honor in a world where opulence was measured in the currency of flesh and fortitude; this not a vanity-bred gym sculpt, but the result of a life coerced by survival and abundance in harmony with nature's rhythm.
And then, there was his fat, monster cock, a stunning embodiment of sheer potency. That black pillar, its veins etched like the tributaries of the great Nile upon it, stood with a dignity that knew no parallel. It was like the trunk of a mighty baobab—solid, powerful, and the stuff of primal dreams. Worn by the elements, it narrated a saga of desire and survival, of conquests and whispers in the night.
As he guided me in the rhythms of their nocturnal festivities, the scents of earth and sweat intermingled. Kwame's eyes, orbs of onyx, gleamed with the stories of ancestors, tales of hunts and conquests mirrored in his penetrating gaze. The dense thicket of his beard felt like a bristled cushion against my skin, his thick-stemmed manhood pulsed with life against my own, crude, unrefined, real. As night descended and the hut shielded us from prying eyes, our bodies spoke the ancient language of lust; muscles twitching, bellies heaving, our symphony of grunts and sighs echoed within the thatch and mud walls. Beneath my roving fingers, his flesh was a tapestry of textures – the silk of skin sliding over steely sinew, the pillowy give of his abundant midsection, the sizzling heat of his arousal charring my caress.
Cradled by the amber embrace of dawn, I departed with my treasures: images and touches that captured the essence of Kwame, a man whose virility was sculpted by the hands of life itself.
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midnight embrace
They were young lovers once.
He met her at a tavern, her laugh lighting up the room. She smiled at him from across the bar and it stirred something in his cold, dead heart.
He went back nightly, hoping to see her again, and there she was, laughing and celebrating with her friends. Her glossy black hair hung loose down her back, sage eyes flickering to him, catching his stare.
When he didn’t look away, she bit her lip into a smirk. Those beautiful lips, so tender and full, perfectly pink to match her rosy cheeks. She had the essence of life, the embodiment of joy and wonder.
Another night, and he was back at the tavern. And there she was, waiting for him.
“What is your name?” she asked, sidling up to his lonesome table.
“Renatus,” he said, his ruby eyes piercing her.
“Vita,” she said with an offered hand, and he took it. If she noticed his icy touch, she didn’t show it, though she blushed as he planted a soft kiss atop her palm.
Her scent was excruciating, sweet and coppery, her blood pumping through the thin veins of her wrist.
Vita.
Life.
He conversed with her all night, answering her questions and listening to her silky voice.
He led her to the alleyway as dawn approached. Not enough time. There would never be enough time.
He cupped her cheek, that soft, rosy skin, icy fingers brushing against her neck.
When she didn’t turn away, he kissed her. Her beautiful lips, full of life, full of warmth, everything he wanted and yearned for.
Sweet Vita.
Lovely Vita.
She whimpered into the kiss as he pressed his body flush with hers, her back against the stone wall.
It would never be enough.
As blue light filtered over the horizon, he left her. He could not be here when she saw the sun.
*
Lovely Vita.
He knew he shouldn’t. He knew it was wrong. But he did it anyway.
The next time he saw her, he invited her to his home. The glint in her eye was knowing, but did not know all.
Sweet Vita. Innocent Vita.
She accepted.
Night was falling as she arrived, eyes wide at the palace before her. She had not known. Not known who he was, all that he was.
But she would learn.
They dined at the table, set with fine porcelain and crystal. They sipped wine, her cheeks with a rosy flush, her eyes hooded as she bit her lip.
He knew what she wanted. She did not know what he wanted.
He took her hand, escorted her down the long hallways.
He opened the door and pulled her inside with a kiss.
Lovely Vita.
The way her mouth parted as she whimpered, letting him in.
“Renatus,” she breathed, as his tongue ran across that lovely little neck, her tantalizing veins teasing him.
He undressed her, then himself, and laid her on the bed like a gift. A gift he could not wait to open.
“Renatus,” she breathed, as his tongue ran across her already-wet entrance, slick with need.
It was too much; it was not enough. It would never be enough.
She writhed against him, his tongue dancing across her in sensuous swirls.
He could hear her blood, hear it pounding in his ears as her thighs wrapped around his head, pulling him closer.
Beautiful Vita.
Full of life.
She gasped when he entered her, then moaned as all her limbs enveloped him.
“Renatus,” she breathed once more, her whisper prickling his skin.
“Vita,” he purred as he eyed the pulse on her neck. She was beautiful, all sage green eyes and rosy cheeks. That sweet smile.
He ran a hand through her raven hair, cupping her head as he gazed into those beautiful eyes. So sweet, so innocent, her chest heaving in time with his thrusts.
Before he could stop himself, he sank his fangs into that beautiful neck, that slender neck, so pale and smooth.
She screamed, a shrilling sound so loud it hurt his ears, but still he drank. He fucked.
He was a monster, and he always would be.
She pushed him, hit him, scratched him, but soon she grew weak.
It wasn’t enough.
He continued to drink. He continued to fuck. Long past the moment she stilled, her breath gone, her eyes closed.
He spilled his seed in her, life and death intertwined as one.
Lovely Vita.
He tore into the flesh at his wrist, red droplets dripping across satin sheets.
He brought the wound to her mouth, pressing her dead lips to his skin, making her drink.
She opened her eyes, as wide as saucers, still-stiff muscles clenched with fear.
“Why?” she asked.
“I need you,” he replied, petting her pretty hair.
He pulled her into his arms as tears rolled down her cheeks.
With time, she wrapped her arms around him, accepting his embrace, his icy touch.
With time, she would learn. She would understand. He needed her. She needed him. This is how it had to be.
Beautiful Vita.
Life, no more.
But his, forever.
#monster romance#monster fucker#dark romance#vampire lover#vampire fucker#monster lover#vampire romance#tw necrophillia#necrophilism
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The 7 sins characterization on Helluva Boss on the social aspect.
So far, on Helluva Boss we have only meet these:
Mammon, the Greed. Asmodeous, the Lust. Beelzebub, the Glutony.
Surely everyone has noticed how when it comes to socialize, Queen Bee and Ozzie are very different from Mammon.
On the first place, both Ozzie and Bee have loved ones, and are quite nice to be around with, which opposes Mammon greatly. And this is quite baffling because "they are the embodiment of Deadly Sins, they are supposed to be the bad guys, every single one of them".
Well, it appears Vizzie and her team simply designed them to be those sins. The embodiment of each of those things, so it's not implied they have to be bad guys, but on the other hand... they kind of are.
I mean, Beelzebub casually talked about stealing drugs with no shame at all and even called the one who she was doing to a lame person for being upset for it. Not to mention how she encourages drinking to the point of almost get completely wasted.
And Asmodeus acts sexually intimidating and we saw how he acted with Moxxie's romantic song that had no dirty remarks. He was imposing with his view and acted sexually intimidating.
But it's a little of a surprise they don't look bad since they also can be nice and mostly... next to Mammon they REALLY ARE.
..In comparision, yes. But also we really thought they surely we're supposed to be freaking monsters, so what we got instead doesn't seem like the big deal we had in mind.
But their behaviour and how their social approach is different than the Sin of Greed can be, in fact, explained in how they are the embodiment of each Sin.
Let's start with Ozzie.
Lust is about sexual desire, but sex related demons are pretty much designed to be charming and seductive as well, which means they have excelent social skills. Verosika, for example, is a pop star, with many fans.
Ozzie, on the other hand, he thrives from any lust that is felt anywhere. So he exposes a sex-positive way of life, in which each individual doesn't have to sleep with him, but can be in each way, even in loving relationships. In fact, he mostly seems to focus on people feeling any type of lust and get to enjoy it, since sexual pleasure has the word pleasure on it.
Ozzie's relationship with Fizz is very active on the sexual aspect as well, and affection and love are very present on this relation as well. After all, the physical intimacy and affection do compliment sex, even if they are not a must.
So, lust is something that implies positive social interactions (at least if one intends all participants to enjoy, which is what Asmodeus wants) and coexists with love and affection just fine to the point it can mix with ease.
As for Beelzebub.
As a sin that implies indulgement and obtain satisfaction through food or ingested stuff, Bee aims to please and allures people into her style of life. Key word on allure.
I already analysed how she is and directs her realm:
So as someone who thrives on people being glutonous, she has found that the party queen thing fits her just fine and she seeks that everyone finds that satisfaction on indulgement. This means she uses positive ways to interact with people.
Also, feasts and parties are extremely social events in any culture. This means she has to be someone who is nice to be with.
Then why is Mammon the only one who is entirely a monster, you may ask?
The answer would be: greed is something completely anti-social.
Greed is competitive, and the people allowed around those who are greedy are either people you can get stuff from or straight up leech from.
For example, the twins Glitz and Glam were only a team because they exploit what they are as a team, but they were observed as kind of competitive between them as well, when the only moments when they talk to each other they are salty.
Mammon is the same, he is mostly open about how he only cares about Fizz as a money-maker and puts extreme preassure on him, and gives only encouragement for what he wants Fizz to be and do.
The conclusion we can get for this is: these Sins express social interaction in a way that fits what they are. Glutony is completely fine with social stuff and for Lust has social interaction as a must, so they have to be not complete assholes. Meanwhile Greed is definitely one.
So, we can expect whoever Envy is to be horrible as well, and Pride might have their moments, but most likely is pretty awful too.
Wrath can be a kind of a good person, since one can feel wrath from rightful anger from a offense concerning a loved one. And we have seen people from Wrath being nice and even loving with each other. The social aspect of wrath can be mostly partnership.
As for Sloth, I feel this being is pretty neutral with people. XD
#helluva boss analysis#helluva mammon#helluva beelzebub#helluva asmodeus#queen bee#mammon is awful#each sin is different and they don't have to be all the worst#they are beings from hell but their respective sins have layers and therefore positive aspects#not greed that bitch is nothing but bad news#bee and ozzie wants people to have a good time#it's good to not go with those too far of course#remember to have measure
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. queer gothic fantasy . ghoulish vampires . a grumpy man with a pet rat and a death wish never to be granted . the literal embodiment of sunshine . polyamory . snarky lesbian badass . necromancy and undead horses . a ghost dog . supernatural drugs .
Plagued by a virus spread from an experiment gone awry, never does a night go by where Ashmourne’s cobblestones and soil are not drenched in human blood.
Bloodthirsty monsters wearing the faces of the virus’s victims run rampant the moment the sun is drawn below the horizon and only death can stop them.
Much too quick and strong for any ordinary adversary to survive against, a small group of both willing and unwilling participants have been scientifically engineered to protect Ashmourne from the very horrors the scientists created.
Without these special few, the townspeople of Ashmourne would have far more to mourn than daylight itself.
. bram valdis .
With no regards to his health or safety, Bram delves straight into harm’s way with the hope of a miracle: an end to his suffering. His past is marred with as many scars as his body, haunting reminders of what he is, who he used to be, and what he can never be again. No more than a laboratory rat, an experiment, a mistake … something far from human.
His compulsions lead to a gruesome collection of blood drawn from the Fangs he has slaughtered, a memento of sorts, stored in vials lining the shelves of his bookcases. Less a symbol of triumph and more a way to calm the obsessive thoughts rattling through his skull. Not a night goes by where he doesn’t count each and every one, often to the familiar tune of insomnia.
A fear of intimacy and loss has left him bitter and alone for much of his life, but he dreams of one day finding a love alike that of the fairy tales that accompany him on these sleepless nights.
. halifax bertram .
After out-aging the dirty halls of Galloway’s Home for Unfortunate Children, Halifax and his younger brother, Pennant, were left to fend for themselves in search of a better, safer life outside the borders of Ashmourne.
Poor, helpless, and more than a little hopeless, their journey was wrought with danger and a quick end.
When Pennant is taken in by Ether as a potential experimental subject, Halifax bargains for his freedom in exchange for Fax’s, unaware of the consequences that await him.
Fax hasn’t spoken to Pennant since.
Not without want, but it is forbidden, if he wants his brother to remain safe.
. pennant bertram .
Painting helps Pennant hold on to hope, distracts him from the grim truth of his existence in the weary village of Ashmourne. When painting fails, there’s the withering garden in the forests beyond Dead End to keep him occupied. He’s determined to bring some life to it—a budding flower or a shock of green amongst the wilting leaves.
Ashmourne is a dark and dismal place, desperate for a spot of brightness, a spark of hope, and so is Pennant.
Not even death will stop him from making it happen.
. zay larosa .
Following in her mother’s and aunt’s footsteps, Zay offers psychic readings at The Dirty Rat for a negotiable price—often she will settle for payment in the form of a drink, and many of her clients would claim the drunken prophet’s readings are always more accurate when of a liquor-addled brain. Others would denounce her credibility as a prophet, usually when things go wrong—or, more accurately, out of spite, when they go just as Zay said they would when seldom is it ever in the client’s favor.
It’s all but a distraction—the booze, the nameless women she beds, the hours and coins wasted away in games of cards and dice, all teetering on a risky bet her prophecies fail to correctly foretell—while a thirst for vengeance gnaws ever-present at her heart.
Her father was slain by a man Zay only knows by appearance alone, an unmistakable scar clawed across his face by her hands alone, and she is determined to find and kill him—all the more reason to snatch a glimpse into the futures of strangers.
. athios forsyth .
Haunted by the memories of a murder he didn’t mean to commit, Athios recedes into a life of isolation to avoid facing the truth behind the event. There are no consequences for the crime, no evidence that it ever happened—not when his victim rose from his grave at the touch of Athios’ own hand—except for the ceaseless guilt.
In the accompaniment of Ambrose, a dog whom is neither here nor there, Athios tends to the graveyards of Ashmourne, both with the intent to maintain a pristine appearance and to experiment with his ability to raise the dead.
His curiosity comes with more consequence than he bargained for when he messes with the restricted graves of Fangs and unleashes a new horror upon Ashmourne.
. zacarias bane .
All hopes of affection were surrendered the day Zacarias discovered himself incapable of touching another person without being thrust into their deepest, darkest memories without mercy.
Yet … Bram and Athios seem to somehow be exceptions to this rule.
The two men become a mystery Zacarias is determined to solve, temptation and desperation fueling his quest for an explanation while he suffers through nights of listening to the ceaseless passion of strangers below his rooming above the local brothel.
#my oldest and most belovèd wip and therefore naturally the one i have struggled with the most#wip : mtd#wip : mourn the day#vampires#gothic fantasy#dark fantasy#writeblr#writing#wip masterpost#wip intro#wip introduction
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HATZGANG HEADCANONZ!!!!
Roy:
💵💰🧨🥤
Listens to shitty rap music
Thinks games like Roblox and such are for babies, he bullies Robert for it
Scared of horror movies
Secretly listens to Kpop, if you catch him he claims it’s for the hot girls 🤓
His favorite band would be Twice
Rich white boy
“I’m not privileged! Someone called me a snow roach!!🤬”
Makes fun of foreigners for their accent, but can only speak English 💀💀
His parents force him to do sports, he doesn’t want to so whenever they drop him off he sneaks out and skips the classes without anyone knowing
Either straight or gay, no in between
He’s a chubby and short boy
The embodiment of Eric cartman
Ross:
🌎🔭🌌🚀🛸
Big fan of metal thanks to his dad, favorite bands are Megadeth, Slipknot and Cannibal Corpse
Drinks monster energy in secret, his mom tells him not to because it makes him even more tired since he’s young
Space enthusiast
Smart as hell, has plenty of knowledge
Pretty good at science
Pulls down his beanie when he’s nervous or embarrassed
Quiet, observes instead of talking
Gives random facts during a conversation
Has plenty of metal band shirts that his dad lent him from when he was younger
Tries to be edgy as hell
Latino, more specifically Puerto Rican on his dad’s side
He’d probably be French on his mom’s side since Jaune is yellow in French
Fascinated with aliens and ‘unknown space creatures’
Skateboards
Sneaks out at night to go stargazing alone
Writes poems and he’s pretty good at it too!
Speaks Spanish and English
Bisexual
Robert:
🪴🧸🔎🪱🐞
Gives the best hugs
Probably an age regressor
Loves animals and nature
Likes painting and drawing
Wants to become a painter in the future
Plays reblex adopt me 🤬 with his little sister
Lots of spelling mistakes
Puts his milk before his cereal
AUTISTIC!1!1!1!
John takes him to the police station since Robert admires him
His favorite movie is Beverly Hills Cops because of that
Owns a Nintendo switch
Collects butterflies
VERY clumsy
Eats worms…
I can see him being Slav/eastern European, either Russian or Czech, but just half
Pansexual
#spooky month#ross hatzgang#hatzgang#hatzgang spooky month#roy spooky month#ross spooky month#robert spooky month#roy hatzgang#hatzgang robert#hatzgang ross#hatzgang roy#spooky month roy#spooky month ross#spooky month robert#headcanon#headcanons
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Was it Perfect? No. Was it Joyous? Yes.
Okay, I did a bunch of shitposting yesterday but now it's time to collect some coherent thoughts on what I liked and didn't about "The Giggle", the Doctors' bi-generation and RTD's HEA.
───── ⋆⋅*ੈ⋆｡✶.ೃ࿔𖦹 ✩₊˚⋆ ─────
Donna: I would’ve liked Donna to have a little more to do in the final ep. She just worked out the arpeggio thing and followed the Doctor round trying to have earnest conversations with him. When she was sat with the Doctor and the Toymaker, I kept thinking she was gonna insert herself into the game and insist she be dealt in too. Instead, it became another case of supernatural male genius vs supernatural male genius. Maybe this is me being greedy though. Because the last ep was ALL DT and CT and the whole anniversary season has been very focused on Donna and the Doctor. They had to make room somewhere for a fabulous villain (which he was), a new Doctor (also fab) and the UNIT ensemble (fab-est of all), so I guess that meant a little less Donna.
Donna did have some great moments, including annihilating those creepy puppets (which made me lol), meeting Mel and refusing to let the Doctor die alone. I do think Donna should’ve been the one to lust after 15 (much like she did when meeting Captain Jack), but maybe this older, settled version of Donna is less thirsty. As for UNIT, no doubt she will be fired regularly but then promptly rehired because she’s so indispensable (and beloved). Best of all, I love the idea of her, Shirley, Mel and Kate going out for post-work drinks while Donna’s two husbands wait at home, tapping their watches and wondering where their ginger chatterbox has gotten to.
Male Parthenogenesis: Now, RTD knows his DW lore far better than I do and apparently there is some precedent for this. But I still say the metacrisis from ep 1 could have been used to better effect in this episode, with Donna essentially healing the Doctor with her excess regeneration energy and Rose creating the new Doctor with her share of the metacrisis/regeneration energy. Because, modern understandings of gender and deep-dive fan knowledge aside, Doctor Who pretty much revolves around the idea of male parthenogenesis, man birthing man, passing on history, tradition, power, experience and greatness. Socioculturally, asexuality is fairly unfamiliar to us, but we are all indoctrinated with patriarchal, heteronormative narratives from birth. And historically, men have expressed their fear and envy of the power and potential of women/pregnant people by attempting to steal it for themselves, control creation myths and birth male gods and monsters. All the while, they completely disavowed (even denigrated) the role women/pregnant people have played in birthing this world. Through the lens of heteronormativity, regeneration offers men and boys eternal power and godlike creativity. So yeah, I would’ve liked a grown woman/mother and a trans girl just coming into her power as a woman to get a little of that regeneration action that usually belongs to the boys (with the exception of 13). Not because women and birth parents are defined by this biological function but because the male urge to own and control birth, creation and reproduction still has very real-world impacts for girls, women, enbys and trans people.
Bi-generation: So. The big question is: Does bi-generation diffuse the power and pathos of THE Doctor? Yes. Does it follow that this is a bad thing? No. Not necessarily, not in my mind. I am not a fan of showrunners rewriting known history for shock value or fan service, but I’m not sure this is either. I understand the argument that there is power and meaning in the idea of death and rebirth, letting go and moving on, changing and learning with experience. But for all of that to be owned and embodied by one usually male/male presenting person and played by a popular, powerful cis-het male actor is a problem embedded in this show from the get. NuWho has consistently made an effort to alleviate the inherent power imbalance built into the format, distributing the incredible power of the Doctor amongst a community of extra/ordinary human beings. Some showrunners have been able to do this better than others. That said, we’ve also had a good long stint of the Doctor being a singular, tortured genius who no one quite understands, no one can ever really equal. Whatever gifts companions and their families bring, the Doctor will always be bigger, older, wiser, eternal. But, through the magic of bi-generation, his power can be shared, his centrality dispersed, his reach limited, his experience idiosyncratic, and his knowledge discrete.
Over the years, the Doctor has accrued a lot of trauma and tragedy and suffering and longing, all by virtue of this incredible power. This burden was never been more wetly portrayed than by DT so it’s fitting that he be the one to release both the power and the burden of the sad, wet, lonely Timelord by SHARING IT, by becoming plural rather than singular. It may not feel satisfying, partially because it feels unfamiliar. The trope of the lone tortured genius is recognisable and relatable. We know it well, from so many narratives. Personally, I can’t imagine Ncuti Gatwa as a lone tortured genius. I want him to have a new joyous start. And hey, if you miss the tortured Doctor then 15 has all of time and space in which to once again start accruing trauma and tragedy. But I think it’s good, and time, for 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 to drop their load and come down to earth. No longer a god, an avenging angel, an objective overseer, but essentially, a human being. Which is kinda what he/she/they wanted to be all along. This IS the death of one version of this show, one version of this character, but it isn’t being offered without regeneration and rebirth right there on the horizon.
Happily Ever After: RTD is not like other showrunners. He’s a bold and marvellous beast who isn’t afraid to change things up, especially when they’re not working or have outlived their usefulness. We’re often told that happy endings are trite, trivial, insignificant, unrealistic. Drama, tragedy, sorrow and suffering: that’s where all the weight and meaning of life lies. And look, RTD can write tragedy and pathos as well if not better than the best of them. He could have given us “Journey’s End” or “The End of Time” redux. He could have given twisted and complicated and harrowing. He chose not to. Because, unlike SO MANY SHOWRUNNERS, RTD knows when to write an ending, when to resolve tension, when to heal wounds. It’s common practice, especially in the American television industry, to just…never end, never resolve, never stop, never state, never land. To just flog a creative horse until it drops dead. (At least, this was the television I grew up with; streaming services have altered this model somewhat.)
Doctor Who is exactly the kind of intellectual property that could’ve (and could still under Disney) fall victim to the capitalistic urge for moremoremoremoremoremoremore, despite the fact that such endlessness eventually exhausts creativity and, with it, audience interest. A capitalist never wants the revenue stream to end. But a real writer, a true creator is bold enough to know where to place a well-timed full-stop. In my opinion, RTD read the room and wrote an ending. An ending that the show and the world needed. An ending that shared power. An ending that celebrated ordinary humanity. An ending that healed trauma and prioritised love. An ending that still allows for new life, new potential, new discoveries, new structures, new understandings, and new joy. All of that is totally on-brand for RTD. Those themes of multiplicity, humanity, healing, love and possibility pervade the 60th anniversary specials from beginning to end. They were built into the fabric of each episode. And they’re also the very essence of Doctor Who.
#dr who#dw#dw specials#dw spoilers#dw 60th#doctor who#doctor who 60th anniversary#the giggle#donna noble#rose noble#the celestial toymaker#the doctor#the 14th doctor#the 15th doctor#the doctor x donna#14 x donna#david tennant#catherine tate#tennant x tate#ncuti gatwa#rtd#russell t davies#nuwho
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ISSUE 69 BLOCKS MAGAZINE PAGE 35 + 36
[ID 1: Two magazine pages. The first shows several pieces of digitally painted concept art of; MK, a roughed-up couch, a game controller, a polaroid of an early design of Mei, and another polaroid of Monkey King from the film “Havoc in Heaven”. Below it is an image of a LEGO designer referencing a piece of concept art, one of MK flying on a hoverboard, to design MK’s minifigure, which is being drawn on his tablet. ]
[ID 2: On the left, between the text, minifigures of MK, Mei, Sandy, Pigsy, and Monkey King descend vertically. On the right is an ink sketch of Monkey King, who wears a crescent fillet and has a large forehead. He sits atop his cloud, below him is an early version of MK, who has a skateboard, spiky black hair, and a shirt with a star on it. Next to this image is a digital painting of Monkey King, who closely resembles his minifigure but has a full cape and golden sleeves. Under this is a picture of Monkey King’s minifigure, who stands on a LEGO cloud and wields his staff.]
Transcript:
The Characters
MK
Monkie Kid, the theme's titular character, Is chosen by the Monkey King to be his successor and defend against the Demon Bull. He's a brand new character in the story.
ΜΕΙ
Mei is part of the Dragon Family, a descendant of the legendary White Dragon Horse, which the monk Tang Sanzang rode down the Silk Road on his epic pilgrimage to India and Central Asia.
SANDY
Once a soldier, Sandy is now a relaxed, tea drinking nature lover. He's based on the character of Sha Wujing. the most kind-hearted, loyal and logical of Tang Sanzang's three disciples.
PIGSY
Head Chef of Pigsy's Noodle Shop, the character takes a great deal of pride in his kitchen. He's based on Zhu Bajie, a part-human, part-pig monster who embodies the sins of sloth, gluttony and lust in the original story.
MONKEY KING
After vanishing centuries earlier on a magical cloud, Monkey King is back to train the Monkie Kid. He's based on Sun Wukong, who like Sha Wujing and Zhu Bajie was forced to accompany Tang Sanzang on his quest by the goddess of mercy.
Developing Monkie Kid
It wasn't just name recognition that the Monkey King story enjoyed: it was also ripe for a LEGO adaptation. 'I knew something about the Monkey King and Journey to the West because key beats from that story have been reinterpreted in Hollywood so many times,' Simon says. 'When we were discussing retelling it, we were just listing out the big, iconic aspects.'
The biggest of all is of course the Monkey King himself. 'The Monkey King is such an amazing superhero because he can transform himself into so many different things. He can fly on a magic cloud, he's slightly cheeky, he slightly breaks the rules and he's not perfect. He's got that likable character; he's not the typical square-jawed hero that's just going to save the day.
'The team in China started saying, 'There's the Bull Demon and he has a wife that has this huge fan that creates tornadoes, and a son who can control fire, then all the other demons like the Spider Queen...' You just think wow, these demons are awesome and we can bring them to life in brand new ways.'
That early meeting set so much direction for the theme - not just for the villains, but also for the title. As with all great moments of invention, though, no one person can claim the credit. 'I wish I could remember who it was, but somebody said, 'It's the next generation of the Monkey King and he's just a boy,' and somebody said, 'The Monkie Kid.' That was the spark moment.'
Testing proved that children could identify with the Monkie Kid, or MK as he is also known, seeing the possibility that they could be the Chosen One.
Returning to Billund in September 2018, it was time to present the concept. 'We had a 'portfolio gate' as we call it at LEGO, which is where the senior team meets and we have to pitch what we have been working on, and get their approval to move forward. Everyone was like, 'Wow!' and the China team supported it 1000% - they gave us the green light to move forward and we went into the full development phase of sculpting new characters and building models.'
"HOW CAN WE MAKE SURE WE AREN'T JUST SPRINKLING A LITTLE BIT OF CULTURAL DUST ON TOP?"
#LEGO Monkie Kid#lmk mk#qi xiaotian#mei monkie kid#long xiaojiao#sandy monkie kid#sha dali#pigsy monkie kid#zhu da chu#monkey king#concept art#blocks magazine#mmb.png
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