#neither of them quite living up to the expectations of their mentor
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The Fraught Family Ties of the Rose-Xiao Long Household:
Sorry for the ramble, I wanted to share something born of a discussion I had with someone regarding the canonical relationship on the Rose-Xiao Long sisters & their father figures.
So, I often find Tai (& Qrow) propped up as good father figures who maybe just had some moments of weakness but either got better long before canon or during the show and who are super close with Ruby & Yang with very healthy relationships.
Given possibly my most popular post, (Yang & Ruby's childhood) I don't think this is a universal stance, certainly not these days, and I don't think its well supported in canon either.
This doesn't mean that love isn't there, but love and resentment can live in the same house and the Rose-Xiao Long household is far more complex than I think people give it credit for.
Now, some will probably highlight positive tones and references in the early volumes, but here's the thing. A child growing up around something can get used to a lot. Ruby & Yang are clearly very used to Qrow stumbling home utterly wasted, even carried by strangers and needing to take care of him. This is normal to them and neither show any resentment towards it until on their last nerve.
That is to say, Ruby and Yang are fine with Qrow's drinking and smile through it, riiiight up until they themselves are on the edge of snapping real hard over things such as in V6.
Neither of them express their trauma like say, Jaune does, who tends to be quite open with his resentment and prone to lashing out. The sisters smile through it, they may express frustration or anger at other things, but not their loved one's, which makes it easy to pretend everything is cool and normal.
Hell, keeping things light with humor is explicitly noted to be how Yang copes and Ruby is shown consistently beginning to show sadness before quickly bottling it up up. This is just how they handle negative emotions they cant comfortably express.
Thus, while Ruby expressing frustration at Yang giving Tai like advice in V1 doesn't indicate hostility, nor does her being all smiles around his presence in V3's opening indicate everything is super awesome.
After all, things are good at that moment, but let's take a look at the end of V3.
Tai is clearly worrying and trying to fuss over Ruby. But she is very neutral on the whole thing, mostly just trying to get intel on what the fuck happened from him and not being remotely upset when Qrow makes him leave. She show's a bit more vulnerability around Qrow, but is still very focused on the practical questions of what happened.
Its only when she's alone with Yang, that Ruby really becomes expressive with her emotions and more to the point, shows outright uncertainty in what to do. This leads her to being shocked when Yang is in no fit state t provide her with the guidance and support she clearly craves and expected.
Ruby also specifically addresses her letters to Yang and broadly speaking doesn't really seem to think about Tai all that much. Again I don't think she dislikes him, but given she openly acknowledges Yang as the one who raised her & Yang herself noted she had to keep the family together...
Well, I think that Ruby doesn't really perceive Tai as a parent, strictly speaking. In the sense that I don't believe she views Tai as someone to go to for comfort or advice or guidance.
He's her dad and she loves him, but he's less of an adult to her than Yang was. In that same vein Qrow is a Huntsmen, her mentor and uncle yes, but the former I think inform her behavior with him more than the latter.
Now, let's also compare Tai and Yang's relationship a little.
We know Tai taught her how to fight, but he doesn't show any real understanding of how her Semblance works or her fighting style given she has utilized plenty of blocks, dodges and clever strategies in the first three volumes. What's more him critiquing her for fighting that way and making it her fault when he taught her feels suspect to me.
(I would note it was Yang who realized Ruby needed CQC help before anyone else, so she clearly thought deeply on this stuff.)
But beyond that, we see Yang is heavily isolated, both from how the camera work frames her. But also because she us housed in a guest room and that Tai, while obviously unhappy about what happened overall seems far more focused on Ruby in terms of trying to provide some care. What's more, when she's clearly distressed he walks away and leaves her to stew.
Yang's shown still doing lots of work around the house, despite everything and his efforts to 'help' her are all about getting her back into the fight over worrying for her safety like he did Ruby.
This is a big thing for me, Tai was clearly deeply upset when Qrow wanted to speak to Ruby alone and terrified when she left.
Meanwhile when it comes to 'helping' Yang its all about getting back into the action and going after Ruby. He doesn't seem to mind the idea of sending her into danger.
Then there' show he hypocritically dismisses her trauma and depression while at the same time diminishing her maturity despite him having left her to raise Ruby and keep the family together.
He also makes his help for her conditional on her no longer "Moping" while its her teachers who barely know Yang that provide actually useful guidance on healing.
When alone he also frames 'caring for her' IE letting her live in the house and take care of herself, like its this heavy burden that is keeping him from Ruby.
This is despite the fact he ultimately does not go after Ruby.
You can claim its a budget thing the show we have is the show we have. Thus, he sends her off to parent Ruby instead of himself. Also Tai outright compares Yang to Raven despite them being radically different and honestly Ruby being a lot closer to even the positive traits he ascribed to Raven.
Thus I think there's an element of projection that leads to Ruby being preferences between the two but also Tai having come in too late to really be seen as the parent he wants to be perceived as.
Now, let's look at Qrow.
Both sisters are clearly used to him staggering or being carried home drunk and needing to take care of him, meaning they have been doing this since childhood.
This would have a hugely negative impact on their mental wellbeing and impact how they perceive him.
Beyond that, I am unsure how close he even is to Yang outside the superficial. Some of that may indeed be down to time, but there have been periods where they could have shown a deep bond and its not manifested.
When Yang is framed, her team, two of whom have only know her for a few months and have plenty of trauma that would make them rightly suspicious choose to believe her and sympathize with her.
Qrow meanwhile says she is either lying or crazy and does not express much in the way of real empathy or trust.
Rather than showing an interest in maybe trying to resolve the issue or help her through decides that maybe directing her to Raven might help. He obviously cares, but generally never shows much of the same concern or affection for Yang that he does for Ruby.
Granted even then Qrow requires caretaking from both his nieces.
What's more he often tethers Ruby to Summer. So while his mentorship of her does let her be a little more vulnerable with him than Tai its still an unbalanced relationship.
However outside of that, Qrow's generally fairly good with Ruby and her influence on him seemed to be the primary thing that stopped him drinking. He also shows a great deal of faith in her in general, though how much of that is projection likely varies.
But he mentored Ruby so its natural they are maybe a little closer.
Still, I think Ruby & Yang held Qrow in higher regard, at least as a Huntsmen than their father, there's a lot of baggage to the relationship at a minimum.
I also think Ruby & Yang's lack of communication seen in later volumes is sort of reflective of the families unhealthy dynamics evolving between them.
Yang being forced to raise a sister two years younger than her is already a heavy burden on both of them. Yang from having to step up and fill the roll of an adult as a child & Ruby because no matter how hard Yang tried it as never gonna be perfect but she couldn't exactly complain about it either.
So both just sort of smiled through the pain as they grew and came out fairly functional and happy if carrying a lot of baggage beneath the surface. This is why both respond to grief and trauma in a similar manner, pushing the issues down until they explode or collapse. It was how they got by.
They were also extremely close, for all that Yang talked of Ruby maybe trying to branch out onto other teams, she instantly tried to seek her out in the Emerald Forest, saved her a spot in the auditorium and generally tried to assist and advice her along with expressing great pride in her.
Ruby bore with with a mixed degree of playfulness and teen like annoyance, while still wanting to cling to Yang. She was also very comfortable early on with expressing her concerns around Yang, such as with Blake being so stressed and not knowing what to do about it & seemingly had total faith in Yang's ability to resolve things.
As previously outlined, when Ruby was seeking comfort and guidance after the Fall of Beacon she went to Yang and was shocked when Yang couldn't provide her what she needed and quickly began separating herself, clearly deeply impacted.
Yang remained the center of her homeward focus after that fact and when Yang returned she was able to express vulnerability with her.
Briefly.
However, Yang soon showed that her recovery was not as complete as she wanted to project and again Ruby was at a loss for what to do with a Yang who is upset.
Keep in mind she's entirely capable of comforting a drunk, hung over or otherwise very upset Qrow, but the prospect of comforting Yang leaves her shuffling nervously outside the door while Weiss helps her.
Ruby's perception of Yang seemed to have put her on something of a pedestal in the way a lot of children do their parents where its hard to start seeing them as a person.
& When Ruby did start seeing Yang as a person, her complexes regarding leadership caused her to see Yang as someone who needed protection.
This caused her to freeze Yang out of her issues, we see this with her rejecting Yang's efforts to comfort her in V8, responding instead with sullen silences or sharp emotional jabs to try and make Yang go away.
Yet at the same time, she didn't entirely try to keep the façade up, perhaps in part because she couldn't.
I also think there's a part of her that sort... Expected Yang to know what to do and to say for her even though Ruby has changed as a person and is no longer communicating clearly like she used to.
Which then causes her to resent Yang for not being able to say the right things and provide the right assistance like she did when they were kids. Even though Yang doesn't know how Ruby feels their relationship has changed and can't know with Ruby actively avoiding acting in a manner that would elicit her concern.
Basically, this is an extremely messy family.
It has four actual adults, the most competent of whom martyred herself. One of whom left because she couldn't handle it and two of whom failed when put to the test.
This left the role of grown up in the room to Yang who had to keep the family together and raise her sister. While Ruby had to basically become the least troubled child possible to make this easier on them all.
Raven cutting herself out of their lives and her ties to Yang, while Summer being a beloved martyr seems to have also rippled down to their kids.
With Yang almost being like the black sheep of the family. She's the one they expect to do something immoral or "crazy' and generally expected to take care of herself and Ruby without any kind of acknowledgement or significant assistance.
Meanwhile Ruby is regarded as a sort of proto Summer, this beacon of purity, which leaves Tai over protective but ultimately inactive leaving the task of helping her to Yang. With Qrow expecting the world from her which just applies more pressure.
I do think everyone of them love each other, but I also think there's also a lot of resentment, frustration and projection going on here, with many utter failures of parenting. These ultimately caused the families relationships to never developed into what they should be and are instead leaving them in an odd sort of limbo; with a lot left unsaid and unhealthy.
#RWBY#Ruby Rose#Yang Xiao Long#Tai & Qrow did not do a good job#Do not clown on this post#Family trauma#RWBY Analysis#Yang raised Ruby#Ruby had to be 'OK' all the time
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☠ , ☮ and maybe ൠ with Hollow?
HOLLOW MY BELOVED
☠ Angry/Violent headcanon
-Hollow is naturally extremely slow to anger and is very good at controlling said anger when it starts to kindle, but once they've properly gotten angry, it's all over. Expect a cold, calculative fury that is deliberatly honed to an edge by all their built-up grieviances, as well as a grudge that'll never quite go away. Their siblings get a pass to an extent in that they won't hate them forever if they be annoying about something, but Hollow will also never let them live it down. For actual hatred, though, just take a look at what they did to the Radiance in Dream No More, where they tore open her face and staring deep into her eyes as they held her in place to be ripped apart by their other sibling. That's what Hollow's anger looks like. They've got a long fuse, but the explosives attatched to the end of that fuse might as well be a nuclear warhead
As for the violence aspect of it- they've been trained to be a godkiller, and even if they failed bc the actual plan of attack was rather passive, that doesn't mean that they aren't any less dangerous. They won't ever feel the desire to turn that violence upon the civilians of Hallownest (unless they turn to the Radiance or otherwise be a problem), because they believe it to be their duty to protect anyone living within the caverns, but outsiders don't get that luxury and would be dead in a fight against them before they even had a chance to draw a weapon. Hollow's also got a deeply-buried hunting instinct as well, so there's a double layer of them viewing enemies as both adversaries and prey that makes them extra fatal in a fight
☮ friendship headcanon
-Hollow doesn't really make friends as much as people sort of be nice to them, and they gain increased loyalty to them in return, but I like to headcanon that the closest they ever came to having a friend was with Quirrel, back when he was young and Hollow was still an adolescent. Monomon and the Pale King were both friends (though PK himself didn't think of it as such), so as Monomon's apprentice/adopted son, Quirrel got brought along quite often. Eventually when he was around 15 and learning how to mentor others, he was given permission to practice his lessons on the Pure Vessel as a dummy student, and eventually began to talk to them just as a person and a confident when he was left alone while Monomon and PK did their research. He had no idea that Hollow grew to be quite attached to him in the process, and neither did Hollow- they just knew that they felt calmer and at ease when he was around, and that realization both baffled and frightened them
In post-canon aus, I like to imagine that they reconvene with each other while Hollow's still recovering, and form a closer bond as a god of the lost and their favored disciple. That sounds really fancy, but it's basically just a souped-up qpp that accounts for the fact that Quirrel and Hollow are alien to each other. I also like to imagine them as fwbs when Hollow begins to have heats again post-recovery because Hollow is aroace and trusts nobody but Quirrel, while Quirrel himself is easygoing and curious enough about his friend's strange nature to offer a helping hand
ൠ random headcanon
-This is entirely inspired by Broken Open, but I feel like Hollow would be a really good midwife and/or caretaker for those that are fragile and close to death. The Void is aligned close enough with endings for them to technically qualify as a death god, and they've had enough brushes with it for them to be able to identify it when it's close. More than that, however, I feel like as the God of Nothingness they have a naturally numbing/calming aura around them that stills the world into silence, which is very useful for soothing people who are frightened or in pain. I also feel like their protective nature would mean that they'd naturally fall into the roll of a caretaker, and that a profession opposite from what they were reared for would suit them well, even if they would never be able to fully shake their knighthood. They're a protector first and foremost- they don't know how to be (or want to be) anything else
#slimeel#yknow how tolkien had that whole 'the hands of a healer are the hands of a king'#yeah thats the sort of person i feel hollow to be- a protector and caretaker before a royal#the hollow knight#hollow knight#pure vessel#hollow knight headcanons#ask game#ask meme
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I mean, discounting everything that lead up to and happened in Kuro Neko as Maribug telling Adrichat to fuck off bc she doesn't need him is a super one sided and kinda disingenuous look at it.
All of Maribugs choices are stemming from her trauma. Trauma from heroing in general, from events like Chat Blanc in specific that make her wary of her own partner, and the trauma Fu accidentally passed onto her with both his own paranoia and sacrificing himself right in front of her.
Just like all of Adrichats choices, to hide his actual feelings for the sake of someone who's love he's been taught he has to earn, are stemming from the trauma he got from the massively abusive childhood his parents subjected him to.
Trauma isn't logical, or rational, so of course neither of these unsupervised fourteen year olds with the weight of an entire city on their shoulders are making logical or rational decisions.
And bc their issues match up in just the wrong way, Maribug losing her mentor and getting a butt load more responsibility dumped solely in her lap by said mentor who taught her not to trust her partner drop kicked her into a spiral that she unintentionally dragged Adrichat into by virtue of them being partners and working so closely together.
Maribug became Guardian out of nowhere, due to a tragic event she held herself responsible for. She'd been taught for an unknown amount of time, but presumably a few months, by a man who had more than a century to get stuck within a paranoid rut, and trauma specifically centered around her partner gaining information.
So when even more responsibility is dumped on her and her alone by her paranoid mentor, she's been primed for months to lean away from the partner who she should have been taught to trust and who should have been treated like her equal by their mentor from the start.
And Maribug leaning away from him unknowingly triggered Adrichat's own issues. He felt unheard and unnecessary as a hero and partner, just like he commonly felt at home with his parents abusive parenting styles, but bc he's been trained his whole life to bottle up his issues and be seen and not heard, that's what he tries to do with Ladybug.
And even though the actions Adrichat takes are more passive and quiet, verses Maribugs more active ones, they do just as much to aggravate both of their issues even further.
Maribug can't change her harmful behaviors if Adrichat is actively bottling up and hiding the pain she's causing from her, which meant she just pulled away from him even more without realizing how she was making him feel until he just quit, possibly seeming to her like it was a bit out of the blue, and actively adding onto the massive workload she's already been saddled with.
And these aren't issued that either of them should be expected to somehow get a handle on and get over and fix all by themselves at the age of fourteen.
Honestly Adrichat and Maribug just need one single, solitary adult in their lives who gives a shit about them and actually teach them to communicate and also get them into therapy.
Anyway, tl;dr, fuck the Guardians and Su Han in particular bc so much of this stems from their abusive ways of teaching that kicked off literally everything in the series and started the cycle of paranoia Maribug (and by extension everyone in her life, hero or civilian) is the latest victim of
Oh yeah no it's.
I totally get why they're both like that and don't think she was doing it just callously.
It's. It's basically how I write the Chloé/Sabrina cycle Up of trauma in HC/LL. They're a match made in hell because their trauma responses feed into one another.
Marinette's trauma response is to clam up and take on all responsibility herself, shoving away anyone who wants to help. Adrien's trauma response is to pretend things are fine and do whatever he can to please the people he cares about.
Which means that unless acted on by a third party, they're going to keep circling and getting worse
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Meet Stormclan
Since you guys wanted to see me play with Birchclan's future neighbors, let me introduce you to Stormclan. Both clans were built using a clan generator, and that generator gave two traits to describe the clan. Stormclan is the Nasty and Dainty.
They live the closest to a river, as well as to the moon ring, a ring of stones where cats go to connect with Starclan. These cats have a reputation for stealing prey, and being rather hostile to outsiders.
Stormclan's leader is the 52 moon old Nightstar, a rather adventurous tom. He and his mate Rainstone have 3 children in total, two of which are apprentices still.
The deputy of Stormclan is 41 moon old Wigeonblaze. I swear this clan is all torties and black cats. Wigeonblaze is the mother of the oldest apprentice in the clan, and the only other apprentice outside Nightstar's kits. The father of her only kit is unknown, however.
If it weren't leafbare in game, I wouldn't be sending all the cats to cas for screenshots.
Anyway, Stormclan's healer(med cat) is 91 moon old Blackbriar, a molly with very thin black fur and a no nonsense attitude. With the molly steadily approaching her 100th moon alive, she's thinking about taking up an apprentice once any new kits reach 6 moons of age.
Now, on to the warriors.
First is 69 moon Noonwatcher, a rather lazy senior warrior with a love for helping care for kits, despite having none himself. He's almost as excited as the expectant queens for the future kits to be born.
Next is 52 moon old Garlicbriar. She is Nightstar's sister, and the only pure white cat while her brother and father are black cats.
After Garlicbriar is 42 moon old Tansyfang.
And her sister, 42 moon old Rainstone.
Next is Wigeonblaze's sister Rowanface.
The youngest of the warriors is Nightstar and Rainstone's only son, Bitterwish. He looks almost identical to his mother, except for a patch of dark fur on his back.
Now for the apprentices.
The oldest apprentice, at 9 moons old, is Marigoldpaw. He is the son of the deputy and an unknown tom. Marigoldpaw has heard many a rumor that his father was some rogue or loner outside the clans, or worse... a Bugclan warrior.... While the young tom doesn't want to believe his mother had a relationship with their enemies, there aren't really many toms in the clan to begin with. His mentor is Nightstar.
The other two apprentices are 7 moon old Lighpaw and her sister Rookpaw. Lightpaw's mentor is Tansyfang.
While Rookpaw's mentor is Rowanface. Rookpaw was born rather weak and small, the runt of her litter. That, mixed with the expectations that come from being the kit of the leader himself, put quite a bit of stress upon the dark molly.
Next are the queens.
First is 42 moon old Brindlefang. She is the sister of Tansyfang and Rainstone.
The other expectant queen is 36 moon old Daffodilear. Neither queen is too willing to share who might be the fathers of their litters, knowing how the clan views outside cats. Daffodilear knows all too well how outsiders are treated, having been invited into the clan by the deputy Wigeonblaze. However, she has hope that her mate might be invited to join the clan as well before her kits are born.
Finally, we have the two Stormclan elders.
126 moon old Slugfur, the father of Nightstar and Garlicbriar
And 121 moon old Spiderleg, the father of Tansyfang, Rainstone, and Brindlefang.
That's everyone currently in Stormclan at the start of me playing with them. Next post will be Bugclan.
#warrior cats#warrior cats challenge#dove speaks#new tales of the forest#ntotf#the sims 3#ts3#sims 3 warrior cats
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We need a Flash adaptation in which Barry is dead.
That sounds harsh. Hear me out.
I haven't seen every Flash adaptation ever, or even most of them, but I have noticed a trend in recent ones, namely the CW series and the JL film that I made the mistake of watching. They feature Barry as the Flash, but neither of them really portray the character as he is in the comics, at least in terms of personality. The series gave him some of Wally's traits (and plotlines!). The JL movie decided to make him more like Bart, and not even in a good way.
Heaven only knows what was going on with that movie, but the series Wallified Barry so frequently perhaps because there's comparatively little material featuring Barry. He was created in the Silver Age, and most of his stories are very characteristic of that era's cheerfully chaotic and nonsensical approach to writing. That (presumably) doesn't translate well to twenty-first-century viewers. There are much fewer recently-written stories featuring him, especially when the 2014 series started, because Barry was brought back into the comics only rather recently. It was canon for twenty-four years that he was dead.
And what an impact that death had. It resulted in Wally's having to take up his adored mentor's mantle while struggling with his perceived inadequacy to live up to Barry--a major part of his characterization for a long time. Bart too has the legacy of his grandfather hanging over him; he's more removed from an angsty connection to it because he never knew Barry, but he feels the weight of the expectations placed upon him and has a complicated relationship with those expectations. Barry died saving the multiverse--essentially died a martyr by superhero standards--which puts him on a pretty tall pedestal to those left behind. The internal and external conflicts resulting directly or indirectly from Barry's death set the tone for the Flashfamily for a long time. And those stories from the late 1980s through the 2000s established a lot about the characters and mythos.
So in a continuity that brings him back...what do you do with him and with all these characters whose journeys have been built on his absence? Hence the Wallification of Barry in the CW series. Just transfer some of the more familiar characterization and plotlines to him, and there you go. (Which results in a flattening of Wally's character, so they give him some of Max's characterization, etc. etc.)
I think it would be a fascinating angle to explore stories that reflect the Post-Crisis state of the Flashfamily in which Barry is dead but still looms over everyone as the idealized representation of all that they must become.
An adaptation, say, of Wally's early years as the Flash as he grapples with feelings of inferiority that hold him back from reaching his full power--lots of flashbacks to his relationship with Barry, but colored through Wally's not-quite-accurate perception (his uncle wouldn't really want him to be so hard on himself! he wouldn't want to be remembered as an impossible standard of perfection!).
Or maybe an adaptation of the legacy struggle that ensues when Bart shows up and there's a possibility of Wally having to pass off the mantle.
Or an adaptation of Iris's Life Story of the Flash but framed in terms of the family's responses to and perceptions of Barry's life and how that affects them and interacts with who he really was before the lens of his martyrdom.
Say, a series of adaptations that sets all that up--and then, and only then, bring Barry back to life. Right in the middle of all that drama, of a family dynamic that's built around his not being there anymore. And let them all have to adjust to that.
The Flash comics have become at their heart a story about family. Barry's death played a vital part in getting the narrative to that point. So an adaptation that wishes to capture the dynamic of the family shouldn't ignore that. I'd like to see someone have the nerve to do it.
#comicsposting again#the animated YJ series kind of gets at this by killing off a beloved speedster#...just not the right one and it definitely produces a different dynamic and shuffles around characterizations to other characters#not saying it's ineffective...just different
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The blood of wargs soaks into the snow. There was no quiet to get here. No relief to weigh his back down.
And yet, this pilgrimage weighed heavier on him than any test of Inarius's.
He stared, for a long moment, at the humble little shrine. How long had he just let people call him a Priest of Rathma, without actually being one of the priesthood?
Any time he kneeled it was with annoyance or with no other choice... Except in the sanctum. The idea of holiness, faith, prayers, he didn't need that. He had the comfort of his servants, spoken with the dead... And what he had thought were his own views of balance.
He'd always wondered, how could anyone expect a living man, nephalem or not, could even hear prayers.
A bit different, now.
Is that what keeps him from kneeling now? That he might actually be heard?
He shifts his weight. Glances back to see his servants dutifully guarding the little grove. Blood staining their bones and weapons. They don't hesitate or stumble. And used to be, neither did he.
He turns back and clenches his fists, the scars of his own teeth on one finger. Whether or not he's answered, whether or not he's found worthy of the title, nothing could be worse than this treacherous, unbalanced edge he's found himself on.
The snow crunches under his boots, and then under his knees as he finally kneels. Wind whips through the branches around him, and his breath in his lungs is as cold as death as he prepares himself.
Only to pause.
His tongue still. His mind... Empty.
"...Hah..." Laughter falls dryly off his lips, "I can't even remember the words." His whisper, lost to the wind with his confidence. Emptiness fluttering in the wind with the effigies on the shrine.
His shoulders fall.
"Words don't matter."
A voice. He blinks once, then twice, then turns to look at the shimmering figure. A priest, long since passed, standing beside him. Arms folded behind his back, thoughtfully.
He remains silent.
The priest speaks again.
"I've waited for you. Quite a bit longer than most priests."
"...Who are you?"
"I am Maltorius. A teacher… one who’s devoted his entire existence to preserving the lessons of Rathma, our first and greatest necromancer." The spirit turns to him, his voice softening, "I've long heard the spirits whispering of you. They say you're a true friend of death and the shadows. Worthy of his greatest teaching."
"Worthy..." The necromancer's face tenses in an expression of annoyance. Of distaste.
"Rathma never cared for worship. Not that the cults of your home ever bothered to know that. What matters is that you find balance, in all things. Your bonds to the dead exceed many who would call themselves fanatics." The necromancer's lips pressed into a line, and he turns away, looking back at the shrine, "You seek out knowledge, not for your own gain, but simply for the sake of it. And you know when to stop. But this is no time to falter. This is knowledge long overdue to you."
The wandering words inscribed on the shrine catch his eye, but he does not read them. The frost that nips at his fingers grounds him, but does not call his attention, either. He listens, instead, to Maltorius.
"Rathma understood dead as a transformation, not an end. He saw the potential for transformation in all things..."
Unbidden, the image of Rathma's face takes over his mind. But instead of dead, he sees it curious, thoughtful.
"A pile of bones, with merely a spark of lingering life, to a cart of raw iron carved from the dead earth. From Rathma's theories rose the Golem."
Now, the image of his old mentor, a strict and irritable man, with a blood golem at her side. The imposing, intimidating aura it gave. Pressing down on him. His fingers tighten in his leather armor.
"It is time I pass you this final secret and induct you into the ranks of Rathma's priesthood. Properly."
The sounds of earth moving, bones scraping. With a soft laugh, the necromancer stands up and pulls his large scythe from his back.
"Twelve unbroken bones for the body. Then return here."
The scythe spins in his hand, and he steps forward with his servants into the fray.
Old bones easily fracture. A mere twelve unfractured ones, though, prove a touch easy for him to obtain. The spirits and their warden just a touch harder, if only for the confined space.
And...
That... That was it?
He stares at the urn, feels the spirits around him as a cat rubs their body against a loved one.
"You're ready. Present their vessel, and repeat after me; Spirits, i offer you this vessel. Protect us, so that we may protect the balance."
His hands hold out the bones, and the incantation comes as smoothly as any other.
"Spirits," attention rests on him, he can feel them acknowledging him, "I offer you this vessel." The bones in his hands begin to warm, to shimmer, as many unseen hands reach back out to him, "Protect us, so that we may protect the balance." Like a song, the air begins to hum. Like a dance, the bones rise from his palms.
His hands fall back to his sides as other things join the twelve core bones, swallowed briefly by the earth... Before a large hand reaches up from the ground, pulling itself up and out of the earth.
A bone golem. It turns its great skull to him... And then bows the same skull.
"It is done." Maltorius has not disappeared, "These spirits will follow you. Whether their vessel is bone, blood, or iron. Rathma's final teaching has been passed to you."
A soft sigh at hearing his name again. Rathma.
"He's there now."
"I know. Such a passing is hard to forget. Blessed, you are, to have walked his halls, priest."
"..." The necromancer makes a face, "You know, I don't think I'll be taking that title after all."
A chuckle that resonates in the walls around them, "And you would offend none doing so."
"Well--" A sarcastic smirk slid onto his face as he raises a hand with intent to correct, but he is interrupted with a kind-hearted smile.
"None of any importance. You are closer to Rathma than any who stood in your way."
The smirk fades into a little smile. Maltorius was right. He's walked in the Necropolis, has Lilith's blood in his veins. He'd only need a piece of Inarius now. He's half a mind to storm in and take a piece of him by force. Less to be closer to Rathma and more to enact some form of vengeance for his patron.
In fact-- but as an idea comes to mind and he turns to Maltorius, the specter is gone.
Hah. Well, the dead will be the dead, after all. His golem nudges his side and he sets a hand on its arm, "Alright, come on, then. I have a keep to purge of vampires."
#i was a bit over level 25 when i did this quest. totally forgot about it tbh#so#yeah#ALSO DO NOT GET ME STARTED ON HOW MANY FUCKING VIDEOS I HAD TO SIFT THROUGH TO FIND ONE THAT DIDNT TALK OVER MALTORIUS#this quest should have had more fanfare#more oomph to it#disappointed that Rathma's death didnt come ip#but thats blizzard's writing for ya!#ress writes#diablo 4#rathma#neglected space (fanfic)
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Clan Overview
Since we've now seen everyone's character sheets and bios, here they are in one place! I'm also showing you everyone's sprite, which is technically in the character sheets, but they're pretty small so here's an easier one to see.
Rainstar:
Our leader, Rainstar is cold and has only one friend- the deputy, Clayheart. She doesn't let herself get close to anyone nowadays, but Clayheart is an old friend she met as a kit. Since then, she's lived life as a rogue and been betrayed by too many cats for her liking. Perhaps, though, having leadership of a clan of cats who look up to her will change her disposition.
Female (She/they), Leader (Apprentice: Bleakpaw), 76 moons, lonesome, formidable fighter.
Clayheart:
No one was surprised Clayheart became deputy- except for those who expected her to be leader! She ran the rogues in her area with an iron fist, not that she cared about any of them, abandoning them easily to start Fruitclan. She knows a clan is different, though, and chose to be deputy herself, declining the role of leader, not feeling she'd do well in the role.
Female (She/her), Deputy(Apprentice: None), 122 moons, bloodthirsty, natural intuition.
Lotusfur:
Lotusfur was a simple kittypet, with no large ambitions until Starclan came to him in a dream. Understanding his purpose, he came to the newly budding clan swiftly. She has a strong dedication to her clan, wanting to keep them as safe and healthy as possible.
Male (He/her), Medicine cat(Apprentice: None), 52 moons, good mediator, loyal.
Valleydapple:
Having been an alley cat who was scared away from that life by a close friend dying, Valleydapple is slow to trust any of their new clan members. He does bond with Lotusfur over neither of them knowing any of the cats on occasion, though. Little is known about him.
Male (He/they), Warrior (Apprentice: None), 85 moons, troublesome, clever.
Pepperflicker:
Pepperflicker was a loner through and through, but his mate dying in childbirth and leaving him with two newborn kits drove him to seek out other cats to help him. And when one of the cats told him of a new clan forming, he knew it was where he had to go to help his children. By then, they were old enough to be apprentices, he knew, and had become quite the pawful. Then, when he found a 2 moon old kit abandoned and reminding him so much of his own sons, how could he refuse?
Male (he/him), Warrior (Apprentice: Ghostpaw), 110 moons, nervous, great kitsitter.
Bleakpaw:
The younger of the two twins, Bleakpaw got his name because of his father's fear for his and his brother's survival. He, however, has inherited none of that fear and is entranced by clan life and ready to learn everything!
Male (he/him), Apprentice (Mentor: Rainstar), 7 moons, adventurous, constantly climbing, quick witted.
Ghostpaw:
Ghostpaw was named after his pale coloring and lives up to his name, being a little poltergeist. He's full of mischief and always up to something. He is, however, very excited to be mentored by his dad.
Male (he/him), Apprentice (Mentor: Pepperflicker), 7 moons, bloodthirsty, picky nest builder.
Amberkit:
Amberkit remembers nothing of his birth parents and doesn't care one bit. He's happy to have been adopted by Pepperflicker and loves his new brothers. The experience has left him quite clingy, however, which annoys his small family at times.
Male (he/him), kitten, 2 moons, nervous, avid play-fighter.
And this is our final post before the story starts! I'm sure it will be very fun!
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Pixels of You by Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota, J.R. Doyle (Artist)
A human and human-presenting AI slowly become friends—and maybe more—in this moving YA graphic novel
In a near future, augmentation and AI changed everything and nothing. Indira is a human girl who has been cybernetically augmented after a tragic accident, and Fawn is one of the first human-presenting AI. They have the same internship at a gallery, but neither thinks much of the other’s photography. But after a huge public blowout, their mentor gives them an ultimatum: work together on a project or leave her gallery forever. Grudgingly, the two begin to collaborate, and what comes out of it is astounding and revealing for both of them. Pixels of You is about the slow transformation of a rivalry to a friendship to something more as Indira and Fawn navigate each other, the world around them—and what it means to be an artist and a person.
Review: My journey to this graphic novel began years and years ago. In my college days, I was a huge fan of Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh's webcomic Johnny Wander, which was collected into a massive tome titled Our Cats Are More Famous Than Us: A Johnny Wander Collection. (And if you haven't checked out Johnny Wander, I highly recommend that you do -- it's a delightful slice of life, everyday webcomic that will bring a smile to your face.) So I've been following along for quite a while, and when I saw that these two amazing creators were teaming up with J.R. Doyle, another artist I love, I was over the moon. I've been pretty excited for Pixels of You, full disclosure.
I'm not entirely sure what I expected of Pixels of You, but what I got was quiet, thoughtful, and surprising. It's a moving meditation on AI, technology, art, and ethics while also being a visually rich story following a cybernetically augmented girl and a human-presenting AI who butt heads but must work together during their photography internship.
To be honest, I don't think Pixels of You was fully my cup of tea -- but that's a matter of personal preference when it comes to graphic novels. It's ultimately a thought-provoking and powerful read. What really gave the story direction for me was the chapter openers highlighting AI and technological dilemmas and events that rang a little too familiar. Especially with how much AI has been in the news lately, it really brought issues of ethics and technology to the forefront of my mind.
If you're looking for a gorgeous and thoughtful read, definitely check out Pixels of You -- it's definitely relevant to the times we're living in. I'm looking forward to whatever these creators work on next.
Recommendation: Get it soon or borrow it someday.
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Then there’s Wilbur’s reaction to Phil's offer. How 1. He was expecting it, which fair, Phil was quite open about that intention from the start and we were basically already there with the “I would teach you” line 2 chapters ago. + the rest of the entire picture I’m assuming this is the manipulation/hidden intention Wilbur is looking for when saying Phil has to have a reason for giving him the room and so on. And technically he’s not wrong.
But he’s willing to believe that it’s genuine because 2. He wants it so badly. From the very first chapter, it’s clear that Wilbur wants to be more, wants to have more, and is perfectly capable of getting it, but he never acts on that need, because it’s not his place. It’s Tommy’s. Tommy’s throne and Tommy's planet and Wilbur is just an advisor and that’s the closest he’s ever going to get.
But now, he’s offered more, he’s offered something he has always wanted. The power, but more so the recognition. The fact that someone other than Niki can see his potential. The chance to actually prove himself and show what he’s capable of. But most important of all, a healthy environment. Because even if there’s so some manipulation at play and no way to know to which extent, it’s still so much healthier than Wilbur’s live on Eldingvegr.
He doesn’t get pushed to apologise to Tommy. He doesn’t face any open hostility (not anymore unless Techno decides to bring out the threats again). He gets time to work through his feelings and figure himself out. He doesn’t have to be useful to be allowed to exist. So of course Wilbur wants that. And all it would cost is his relationship with Tommy. Aka the one thing he doesn’t really have when the offer is made, yet still isn’t willing to give up.
Because as you have shown many times since the fight, neither brother can stop caring about the other. Both of them are so used to the other being there that they can’t fully without the other there. This is of course, because of the fight and all the resulting emotions and nightmares draining their energy. But at the same time, they need each other for support. Tommy because he’s always had Wilbur as his support system and Wilbur because he’s finally letting himself lean on Tommy now that they have started to process of making up.
And it says so much about Wilbur and how much he’s grown that he’s not immediately deciding to give up that future he really wants for Tommy. That now that he knows how bad Eldingvegr is for him, he won’g force himself to go back just for Tommy. But he’s still willing to talk things through with Tommy and make the decision together, even though, if he were to properly explain how bad his childhood was and how much he’s been hiding, Tommy would understand that taking Wilbur back there would be bad for him.
And Tommy already has the information that Wilbur was acting like a bitch because he was scared of being a bad advisor and disappointing Tommy, so if Tommy knows where that mentality came from he’ll be more likely to agree. Though at the same time, the reveal that Ranboo is a spy is in the way. Because Tommy would already have to be convinced that Zephys IV is a safe place for Wilbur to be with the nightmares and that Phil can be trusted. But now Wilbur needs to be convinced as well.
And I’m going to shut up now because this is way too long.
-🎄
yeah phil has been implying he wanted to mentor wilbur for ages now so it wasn't really a surprise to him, and it kind of confirms a lot of what he was thinking regarding the motivations behind phil's actions. but like you said, he also does think it's genuine. because he wants to.
wilbur said he wanted more in chapter 1. hell, it's part of the summary for the fic itself. but he doesn't believe that's the role he's supposed to play in life. because he was born a bastard, so he's not destined to be a great leader. tommy was the one born for that position, so he dedicates himself to the role of advisor to help tommy achieve his birthright.
but now he's finally being offered an alternative path. someone finally sees him for what he could be, beyond the circumstances of his birth. he could push past the role he was destined for and finally be something more. on a planet that actually respects him, under someone who might even genuinely care about him.
he would just have to give up tommy.
and that's immediately a no go, because wilbur loves his little brother. one thing I decided very early on in planning this fic was that while a lot of writers might take this kind of setup and choose to stir resentment between the older sibling and the younger heir, I wanted to emphasize that wilbur genuinely loves his little brother more than anything. yes, a part of him resents tommy for always being the golden child. for holding the power where he holds none of it. but he also loves him so deeply, he can't fully hate him for that and never will. they are the only true constant in each others lives, and one can't function without the other.
but yes! wilbur doesn't immediately give up on that future under phil's tutelage and instead wants to talk to tommy about it! he's finally recognizing that he could have both if he wanted. if he actually tries to communicate, he can work something out with tommy and get the recognition he wants, without sacrificing his relationship with his brother. he's finally able to see that there's more options than just one or the other.
yeah, the ranboo reveal screwed ALL of that up. because both of their confidence in the antarctic empire has been shaken. they both thought they finally knew what was going on and what their stances on AE were, and now everything has been thrown in the air again. so yeah, there's gonna be a lot to work through now. thanks ranboo.
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Media Diet, May
I realize that I mostly pull 'from x's rec!' links from DW search, but this doesn't work for if the post was flocked / recs I got off DW. HMMM, but I'm so bad at remembering where I got a rec from!
The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo: The story of the former empress is recounted to a cleric from an order dedicated to faithfully recording history. I enjoyed the slow reveal and the pacing was quite good, but the last chapter that explicated what had been strongly hinted at earlier was a little redundant; generally not as subtle as I expected going in? A short, interesting read.
The Thursday Murder Club: a Novel, by Richard Osman: Four people living in an upmarket retirement community come together every Thursday to solve cold murders, and when an actual murder occurs, set up to solve it themselves. Very ...witty is probably the right word for the type of humor. Funny in one-off sentences, but I found it somewhat difficult to read in one go as a result, and had to keep putting it down when it got repetitive. A fluffy sometimes amusing novel, with what reads to my USian eyes as rather conservative politics.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia A. McKillip: A fantasy novel with the window dressing of fantastical beasts, but really about consent, power, and fear. From dolorosa_12's rec! I thought the ending, though foreshadowed, was a little bit too deus ex machina to be fully satisfying? Beautiful prose without being self-conscious about it, such that the prose read in an effortless way. (Difficult to pull off!) I kept feeling like this was rather dark YA -- midway through, I decided I must be getting the wrong impression and this must be adult fantasy, but wiki seems to have it under YA? Anyway, short and packs a punch.
CW: sexual assault, child marriage
The Disordered Cosmos, by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: Discussion of racism in science, with dashes of popsci particle physics and autobiography. From chestnut_pod's rec. Could have used a stronger editor with an eye towards continuity between the chapters, especially what had been introduced already and what needed to be defined. The popsci explanations were a bit confusing IMO, but I did know most of the general ideas already, so I can't totally judge accurately. The meatiest chapters were the ones in the latter half, which centered around particular faces of racism in science, but unfortunately I did not find them particularly novel.
Once, It Was Love: Very short manga about a woman whose husband suddenly stops being able to see her. From x_los's review. I guess like a good thriller, I really wanted to know what would happen next. We get to understand the motivation of the female characters explicitly, but only ever the male ones through their actions; the stalker's motivations are clear, but the husband's never become so.
Under the Skin (猎罪图鉴) (2022): Mostly episodic cases as a forensic artist joins the police force and works with a captain who initially hates him for his role in the death of his mentor years ago. I think the problem is the best parts of this show were things like... extended art scenes and their bromance relationship once they get to know each other, neither of which was enough to compensate for what I disliked. Some of the characters were compelling and the pacing was pretty good too. I had a longer rant here, but I've cut for length: the gist was too much 'TV logic' leading to thin/unrealistic plots, asshole cop behavior, and weird cuts / cases not resolving satisfactorily. Although they tried to be sympathetic to the circumstances of female victims and perpetrators, it went too far into 'reveling in their pain' territory for me; additionally, having two male leads and a few stereotypical male and female cop roles meant the show overall landed more sexist than I think they intended. Episodes 17-18 were probably the strongest, doing a great job with tension and bringing in threads from earlier in the series; I especially liked how it recontextualized how surveillance was treated during the show. Also, the captain introduced in those episodes did an exceptional acting job. Overall, I think I should perhaps stop watching Chinese cop shows and the very constrained stories they can tell.
CW: gratuitous extended on screen domestic violence, tragic lesbians
Dream Boys 2006 Kanjani8 v KAT-TUN (DNF): I watch partied the first hour of this, and the juniors tap dancing was my favorite number. So much inexplicable plot happened in the first hour that I am scared what happens in the remaining 1.5.
Cyphstress: Online group puzzle in the vein of an escape room. The first half was too straightforward and tedious at points; the second half was occasionally frustrating. I think the problem was that (for me) there wasn't much of a feeling of satisfaction at solving the puzzles; just an 'I guess that's the solution...'? Still, it was fun to do as a group activity!
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The Ride to the Capitol | District 4's Siren |
TW: SUICIDE
Caspian and I were ushered into the Justice Building where we were told by the escort, whose name I learned was Jovian Lo. I was alone in a room with one peacekeeper for a few minutes before the doors suddenly opened revealing my mother. She didn't speak simply pulling my hand into her's and nodding softly "Good luck.", and with that she was gone. I huffed slightly at her incredulous behavior but didn't have time to dwell on it when my sister walked in. Tears freely streamed down her eyes as she pulled me into a hug. I held onto her just as tight as she did to me. "Promise me you'll come back, promise me you'll win.", despite her older age my sister looked so meek in comparison to me. I pulled away from her softly, smiling up at her "Did you ever doubt I would?". Thankfully my attempt to lighten the mood worked as she laughed. Aru pulled my down into her lap, we spent the rest of my time talking about anything, Matt, about our parents, anything we could think of we talked about. A gruff voice spoke that our time was up and we both turned to look at the peacekeeper standing by the door. Aru and I hugged one last time before she left. My shoulders drooped slightly as the peacekeepers ushered my out of the room, I caught Caspian's eyes as we were pushed out of the Justice building towards a car. We both got in and were told it would take us to a train station that would then bring us to the Capitol.
I looked over at the smaller boy seated next to me. His hands were clenched into fists against his pants as he tapped his feet against the car floor. "Are you alright?", it was a dumb question I knew that but I couldn't help but ask. Caspian turned to look at me his eyes wide as if he expected me to be silent the whole ride through. He offered me a lopsided smile "Yea!...Well..no...I guess I'm just nervous..Your name is Y/N right?". I couldn't help but notice how fast the younger boy spoke. "...yea I'm Y/N. What are you nervous about?" "I just...well I wasn't supposed to go into the Games this year right? It was supposed to be Gill right? So...I just don't think I'm ready." I nodded softly as he spoke "Well...you've got me right? And I was chosen to go in so that's gotta count for something huh?" I smiled at him as I spoke "I promise, I'll protect you in that arena Caspian.". He gave me a toothy grin as the car came to a stop and we were dragged out of it over to the station. We walked over together chatting about our home lives in District 4 when I looked over and caught sight of Jovian standing with two other people. I recognized them as previous victors Mags Flanagan, winner of the 11th Hunger games, and Finnick Odair winner of the 65th Hunger Games. Caspian seemed to follow my gaze looking at the trio ahead of us "WOAH" I looked over at the younger boy with shock in my eyes at his sudden exclamation "Caspian!" I whispered at him but I turned my gaze away from him at the sound of laughter. Both Mags and Finnick had smiles on their faces as they looked towards us . Jovian rushed over to us ushering us towards the victors "These two will be your mentors for the games this is-" "Mags Flanagan and Finnick Odair we know", Caspian was quit to cut Jovian off who looked aghast at such behaviors. I couldn't help but crack a smile at that. "It's good to meet the two of you, now shall we?", the older lady spoke gesturing towards the train.
Caspian and I got on the train first I looked around at how extravagant it was. We walked over to a table lined with various food items I'd never seen before. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Caspian sit down and immediately start eating. I sat next to him looking at the food in awe. "So we need to talk strategies, neither of you volunteered so I don't suppose you were the Academy's choice?" I looked up at Finnick who had taken a seat across from me next to Mags, who sat across from Caspian, Jovian was seat at the head of the table. Caspian looked over at me his mouth stuffed, getting the hint I spoke for the two of us "Actually I was chosen, I just got reaped instead of being able to volunteer. Caspian though....he wasn't supposed to come in." Finnick nodded softly his gaze flickering over to the boy, I couldn't help but stare at Finnick. People in District 4 talked, he was deemed the prettiest victor, the Capitol's Darling, and I could see why. I felt a kick at my leg and locked onto Finnick's eyes, he was now looking at me with a teasing glint manifest on his face. I felt my cheeks warm a little before I looked over at Caspian who spoke quietly "I'm a fast swimmer, I could evade the other tributes right?". Mags looked over at him with a maternal look on her face "Well, we can't know what the arena will be. There may be no body of water you can swim in." She trailed off as she looked over to Finnick who was now nodding "We'll have to work on your combat skills. And what about you?" I liked up from my now filled plate to see everyone staring at me. "Well, at the academy my best weapon was a trident, of course, but I don't suppose we can count on that in the arena." Finnick nodded "Probably not, your best bet would be a spear-". "Or a sponsorship right?" Caspian's childish voice cut him off, I looked over at the boy to see a toothy grin on his face. "That's how you got yours right?". Finnick hummed softly nodding "But I'm quite charming I don't know if you can rely on Y/N for that." "Hey!" My brows furrowed as I looked at the mentor with a sour expression, at my reaction he bursted out laughing electing a small chuckle from Caspian. My eyes softened when I looked at the younger boy but I rolled my eyes nonetheless.
I excused myself from the table deciding to explore the train. There were numerous carts on it filled with different rooms, some with peacekeepers inside and some just empty. I felt a hand tug at my dress and looked down to see Caspian. He looked upset as he spoke "I don't have a shot at winning do I?" I crouched down to his level "Caspian...you could win. Didn't Finnick win at 14? Why can't you win at 12 hm?" Caspian just shook his head at me "But Finnick was supposed to go in the Games, I'm not!" Tears were welling up in the twelve year old's eyes as I pulled him into a soft hug "It'll be fine Casp-" "I don't want to be murdered by another tribute" He mumbled softly into my hair. I pulled away from the boy but before I could speak he did "And I don't want to watch you die either.". He suddenly ran from me going through the carts in the opposite direction. I stood up wondering for a moment if I should chase after him. I figured I should leave him alone and continued my exploration through the carts.
I walked over to a room with my name on a nameplate. I briefly wondered how quickly they were able to make these, or did they always know who was going in? I walked into the room and was met with a bedroom. The room I was standing in was bigger than my entire house in District 4. I sat on the bad feel the way the soft sheets felt under my skin. I realized I was still in my outfit from the Reaping and walked over to what I presumed was the bathroom. I opened the door to a large room with a tub and shower. I looked at the array of soaps they had available and picked one that smelled like roses. Turning on the shower I sat at the bottom of the tub letting the warm water hit me as my thoughts consumed me. What if I did die in that arena? What if Caspian does, am I okay with that?
I mulled over these less than joyful thoughts before a pounding at the door pulled me out. I shut the water off pulling my dress back on and exiting the bathroom to open the room door. I was met with the sight of a frantic looking Mags who grabbed my hand and kept mumbling the word sorry. She dragged me over to another cart in this extensive train. We joined Finnick and Jovian who were standing outside a room door. "Y/N, I'm so sorry" Finnick's voice was light as he spoke, I looked at him with a questioning gaze. Mags, our hands still locked together opened the door to the room. As my eyes adjusted to the lighting change I gazed around the room before my eyes caught onto a figure hanging from the ceiling. Caspian.
A peacekeeper stalked over to Jovian whispering something in his ear. The latter jerked suddenly looking at me. Without a smile he spoke "We've arrived at the Capitol"
#thg#thg series#the hunger games#hunger games#finnick odair#thg finnick#finnick x reader#finnick x you#hunger games fanfiction#thg fanfiction#hunger games finnick
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SDC Month - December 2022 - Friday #5
"I know you not"
IX. Xibia
My son, she wants to say, I missed you so, but the words collapse upon themselves inside her throat, choking her. The truth — the bitter truth — is that she cannot bring herself to fully mean them, not even after an absence of seven years. Not when the youth standing before her is a stranger bearing the perfect likeness of the man who became the Gods, — They who took her from her child, her children — save for his widow's peak, the only trait fully her own. For an instant, she pictures a younger boy, softer of face and features, paler-eyed, running happily in her direction, laughing, and sighs wistfully.
Notes
Xibia is our eighth fanon character featuring this month (if you're displeased with how this month's canon-to-fanon ratio turned out, just remember the randomiser is by nature unpredictable — the situation could be reversed next June, for all we know). She was a non-main line, blood-rank two daughter of Qusata (and thus a half-sister to Nuhuron, Nurpayahras, Nayakarade and Tiye) and his purest-blooded child outside the main line. Due to this fact, she was seen as a highly desirable potential bride by many lords of the Great, but no matches ever materialised while her father was still God Emperor, due to a variety of reasons (bad blood between the Masks and the House(s) in question, better-regarded lords ultimately giving up because the match would be too costly and settling for other brides, etc.). She did, however, have two children within the Masks, two sons both sired by Nuhuron — Olenus, born in the waning years of Qusata's reign (-37/60 Qusata, more precisely), and Laren, born in the later months of the first year of Nuhuron's (-32). And yes, despite the two boys being full brothers, the timing of their conceptions made all the difference when it came to rank; Olenus was at the purest end of blood-rank two, true, but Laren, while still not exactly comparable to his main line kin, had a blood-rank of three.
Unfortunately, Xibia's expected happy years with her sons (before they grew old enough to join the world of men) were cut short by Nuhuron's decision to finally arrange a match for her, with his lifelong friend and mentor, Kirinya Prase (yes, this would be the one mentioned in a few epigraphs in the books — @suth-sardian and I decided he would be from the same generation as Qusata, and around a decade his senior). By this point, Xibia, already 30 years old, had become convinced a match with a lord of the Great would never come to pass, and endured being separated from her sons quite bitterly, her only comfort being the fact that Prase was an old man (nearly 77 at the time of the marriage) and unlikely to live much longer. However, the separation would prove permanent in the case of her younger son, when an outbreak of disease struck the Isle less than a year after Xibia's departure, and Laren, then only two and a half, became one of its victims. His death proved to be a traumatic event neither Xibia nor Olenus ever truly recovered from — the former hating Nuhuron, Prase and herself for having been away from her child at the time of his death, the latter (who had been a favoured non-main line son of Nuhuron until Kumatuya's birth) thrown even further into isolation by the loss of his only full sibling. Much like Jord in the matter of Nahanya's naming, but in the context of far more serious a situation, neither could truly turn against the main perceived culprit for their misfortune, so all negative feelings were channelled towards others, including each other — and inwards.
Ultimately, Xibia would return to the Masks once Prase finally died in -23/10 Nuhuron. By that point, however, the damage was done; much like Ykoriana in canon (even if their respective circumstances were still quite distinct), Xibia found in then-teenage Olenus a stranger she could no longer bring herself to love. They did both make attempts to repair their relationship during the following years, but it remained extremely strained for the most part, the two forever driven apart by their common trauma.
Like so many others in the Masks, theirs was a story with a tragic ending, but I believe that what came next is a story better left for another day, as it is of limited relevance within the context of this ficlet — and remember, Olenus himself has not featured in one of these yet; we need only wait and hope the randomiser chooses him sooner rather than later.
#stone dance of the chameleon#the stone dance of the chameleon#sdc month 2 2022#sdc 4 sentence fics#sdc december 2022 fridays#house of the masks
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ARC Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones (e-ARC and audiobook ARC)
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Publication Date: August 16, 2022
Synopsis:
Once upon a time, the kingdoms of Wales were rife with magic and conflict, and eighteen-year-old Mererid “Mer” is well-acquainted with both. She is the last living water diviner and has spent years running from the prince who bound her into his service. Under the prince’s orders, she located the wells of his enemies, and he poisoned them without her knowledge, causing hundreds of deaths. After discovering what he had done, Mer went to great lengths to disappear from his reach. Then Mer’s old handler returns with a proposition: use her powers to bring down the very prince that abused them both.
The best way to do that is to destroy the magical well that keeps the prince’s lands safe. With a motley crew of allies, including a fae-cursed young man, the lady of thieves, and a corgi that may or may not be a spy, Mer may finally be able to steal precious freedom and peace for herself. After all, a person with a knife is one thing… but a person with a cause can topple kingdoms.
The Drowned Woods—set in the same world as The Bone Houses but with a whole new, unforgettable cast of characters—is part heist novel, part dark fairy tale.
My Rating: ★★
My Review and Favorite Quotes below the cut.
My Review
Iwanted to love this one. In fact, I expected to love it like I loved the Bone Houses. But I just.... didn't.
It *should* be everything I like. Set in the same world as Bone Houses, a heist with magic, characters with mysterious pasts... But it just felt flat.
I tried reading the book and listening to the audiobook and neither one could keep my interest. In fact, it sent me into a bit of a slump where I just couldn't bring myself to pick up any book because I dreaded returning to this one. It just felt like a slog?
I'm finally calling it and DNFing at 60% of the way through. I mean, if you're 60% into a standalone heist novel and you're still slooooowly introducing characters / gathering the crew and none of them have been fleshed out enough to have personalities (and you can barely remember their names and certainly not what they look like) and you have almost no idea about the bigger picture or more than the sketchiest details about the characters' pasts or the heist itself then that’s a problem.
The one thing I did like was the relationship between Mer and her former mentor. There is obviously fondness there on both sides, mixed with quite a bit of mistrust on Mer's and a tendency for her mentor to go into teacher mode and/or fail to disclose critical pieces of his plot so that Mer has to follow him with a dose of blind faith.
In the end, too much is kept a mystery both from the characters themselves and from the reader. Mysterious pasts and gifts and magic and plans can intrigue the reader. But if so much is kept in the dark that all you can do is stumble around hoping to figure out what the heck is going on, it does not make for a pleasant reading experience.
The audiobook narrator, Moira Quirk, is one of my favorites. She has a great range of character voices and a good grasp of the pronounciation of the various Welsh names. However, even her excellent narration can't make up for the foggy vagueness that encompasses this novel.
*Thanks to NetGalley, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and Hachette Audio for providing an e-arc and audio arc for review.
Favorite Quotes
The third time a customer grabbed her, Mer considered drowning him.
---
“Cities like these, with all the people and the iron — both in their blood and all around them —it pushes back the old ways. Makes me wonder how things will fare in the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Fane said, “that humanity has a tendency to push into every corner of a place. And with their iron and their armies, it may be only a matter of time until someone like Garanhir turns his attention on Annwvyn.”
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The Love After (03)
03: The Love After
Pairing: Jungkook x (f.) Reader, ex!Yoongi x Reader
Genre/Tags: werewolf au; beta!jungkook x human!reader; angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, smut
Chapter (Series) Warnings: minor character death, grief and loss, depression, thoughts of one’s own death, animal attack, descriptions of wounds and injuries, heart attack, talk of death, almost fire, use of sex to cope, marking, sexual content (first times; fingering, breast play, oral (f receiving), handjob, unprotected sex) (18+)
Chapter Word count: 25.5k (oops)
Mini-Series summary: Every werewolf has a fate, interpreted by Amma and guided by the Moon. In this world, there are 2 Supreme Fates fully determined by Her - serve in the Wolf Warrior Clan or find your True Mate. You and Jungkook have neither. You both lost the loves of your lives to live out their Supreme Fates and it’s why you both hold resentment towards the mating system. Until the Ceremony happens and you and Jungkook are fated to each other, connected only by heartbreak, pain, and the long lost belief that you could ever love again.
A/N: Hiii it’s the final part! I cried, I swooned, I hurt, I loved with this, and I’m just glad I got to write something that I didn’t think I would and that you guys read it and enjoyed. I would also like to give credit to The Legend of the Smeraldo Flower. I needed something for that scene and realized later on how The Truth Untold just fits.
Thank you so much for reading and for all your lovely messages! Please stay safe and well 🥰
Series Masterlist
It’s quite overwhelming when you enter the pack house. There are a lot more people than you expect gathered in the living area, all restless and worried, perhaps surprised and concerned with their Beta suddenly going unconscious.
That doesn’t happen - to werewolves in general and definitely not to him. Only Alphas are immortal but those who aren’t are still difficult to kill, difficult to hurt, at least physically. Only dismemberment or having their heart pulled out or burning can end them; any other types of injuries are manageable.
You’re sure you’ve never heard of one falling off a cliff and then being unable to move, and you panic at what had happened to Jungkook for it to be this bad.
“___!” Mi-Rae yells.
You run up the stairs and fall into her hug.
“Can I see him?” You tremble.
She turns to one of the open doors where Jin-Ae is, and she shakes her head, prompting Mi-Rae to say no.
“I have to—“
“Not yet,” she interjects. “I mean, he just doesn’t look good. But he’ll survive, definitely. He’s just… not healing as fast.”
“What do you mean he’s not—“
“___, you’re here,” Namjoon bellows. “You should wait in the study; it’s more peaceful there.”
“I need to see him, Namjoon,” you demand. “He’s my mate. You need to let me see him.”
“Fine, just be ready, okay?” He gives in. “Just remember that he’s alive and he’ll be fine, even if it doesn’t seem like it right now.”
You nod and follow him to the infirmary, a room that could rival your town’s hospital in terms of equipment, and even service, as you see Baram and Inha, her mentor and one of the pack doctors, tending to Jungkook.
“You sure you want to see this?” Your sister asks worriedly.
You nod again and enter, your knees weakening at the sight of your mate in bed with what looks like broken legs and arms, gashes everywhere, and a bandage on his bleeding head. His breathing is slow, you can tell, as his bare chest barely moves.
It’s heartbreaking, seeing him helpless like this. It’s not in his nature to be, not just because he’s a Beta but because he’s Jungkook. He’s a lot stronger than this, you know that.
You stand there unable to move, not knowing what to do. You want to rip off the bandages and see the wounds heal with your own eyes to convince yourself that he’s fine. This isn’t the same man who had a laceration on his arm that looked like a scratch the next day, and then was completely gone the day after.
But you also just want to hug him until he stops hurting, until he’s able to breathe again and look at you with those questioning eyes of his, and you can be the one this time who’ll look at him with certainty and tell him that he’ll be okay.
“We’re gonna work on his legs now,” Baram says, still next to you. “That one isn’t gonna look nor sound pretty. Stay with the others first. We’ll call you when he’s looking better.”
You comply, knowing that your sister is trying to protect you from yourself and how the sight of Jungkook like this will just affect you further.
Jin-Ae walks you to the study and makes you tea.
“Here, to help you calm down,” she says, motioning towards your shaking hands.
“Thank you,” you try to smile, but your quivering lips are keeping you from doing so.
“Do… do you know what happened?”
She looks unsure, perhaps thinking of which details to spare you.
“Jin-Ae, please. I know you know. I know you were with him before he went on a hunt.”
You see her face fall a little, but you don’t bother to decipher what it may mean.
“I need to—”
“He was on the way back here,” you hear Namjoon’s deep voice, not realizing he’d entered. “But he saw the bear that almost attacked you, being close to town again, and I guess Jungkook wanted to send another message, or finish it, I don’t know, but the guys who were there said that they’d never seen him that angry.”
You let the Alpha’s words settle, unable to imagine Jungkook being that way. He’s strong and he kills only to provide, to protect.
“How did he fall off a cliff?”
“He was being reckless.”
You look up and see Seokjin in the room, his irate face a contrast to Namjoon’s sympathetic one.
“He was running on pure rage and wanted to kill that bear out of revenge even if he didn’t have the strength for it. Because he’d been so weak,” the Beta’s voice grows louder. “The beast fought back and overpowered him, pushed him over the cliff like some rag doll and Jungkook didn’t stand a chance.”
“What happened to the—“
“I killed it, or else it would’ve come for the rest of us.” Seokjin’s tone is cold, and you’re not quite sure what you did to earn his ire.
You feel the tension and you don’t want to be here. You just want to be next to Jungkook where you’re supposed to be.
“I’m just gonna go to his room. He should be healed by now,” you stand and make your way to the door, but Seokjin’s voice stops you.
“He isn’t.”
“What do you mean?” You turn towards him.
“They said healing could take a week,” he informs. “But that’s just his body. Emotionally? I don’t know.”
You don’t miss the bitterness in his voice and what his statement implied, but you try not to mind it.
“Why is it gonna take so long? Don’t things like that just take hours?”
“They do. Not when he’s weak, though. How could a werewolf - a Beta - who’s found his mate, be that weak, that slow?”
You know there’s an answer, but you can’t help but think that everybody in the room knows except for you. The silence is deafening, as if they’re waiting for you to say something.
“___,” Namjoon’s calm voice lets you breathe. “You haven’t been marked, have you? You and Jungkook aren’t bonded yet?”
It feels like a very personal question, one you wish you don’t have to answer. Outside of this town, you wouldn’t mind talking about your sex life with your friends; what you did was just casual and lacked meaning, anyway.
But mating for werewolves is sacred; the process is a given, it might as well be public knowledge. Taehyung did smell you the first time you and Jungkook did it; you wouldn’t be surprised if Namjoon and Seokjin, whose senses are far stronger, could detect it.
You look at the ground, unable to face them. “We uh, we mate but… he hasn’t… I haven’t been…” You trail.
You feel like it’s enough information for them to pick up what you mean to say, and they do. You just hope it wasn’t this quiet and you couldn’t feel their disappointed eyes on you.
“___, unbonded mating is just pleasure,” Namjoon states. “It doesn't mean much to our kind. It’s just… sex that takes up one’s energy, one that can’t be replenished. Not unless you’ve been marked and you two have been bonded, then there’s no strength to draw from, no emotions to share. It’s just him giving himself and not getting anything in return. That’s why he’s so weak,” Namjoon explains. “I asked Jin-Ae to speak to him earlier, ask how he’s doing and like we expected, he didn’t really say much, just that we shouldn’t worry about him.”
The pond, you remember. You’d seen Jin-Ae and Jungkook talk and you assumed it was old friends - lovers - just catching up. You know now why it felt too intimate; they were probably talking about you. She was probably comforting him about you.
You go back to what Namjoon had said and recall that first time that you let Jungkook take you. More like, that you took from him.
“But Jungkook said… he said it was okay, that he’s fine,” you try.
“Of course he would,” Seokjin retorts. “That’s how Jungkook is. I’m sure he doesn’t want you to worry; he never wants anyone to do that for him. His mate should, but clearly that’s not something you want to be. And that really sucks because he’s always worried about you, would spend days looking for a bracelet that reminds you of your former lover, would endanger himself to make sure you don’t get hurt again yet here you are, perfectly fine while he’s the one struggling to get through everyday because of you.”
“That’s enough!” Namjoon bellows, throwing Seokjin a heated look.
“You weren’t there,” Seokjin responds, voice sullen now. “You didn’t see it. It had him by the neck, it was ready to snap him in half. I was almost too late.”
The tears fall at the thought, at the image of Jungkook being helpless; one movement and he could’ve died.
And it would’ve been your fault.
Marking has always been part of the mating process, you know this. The bite seals the bond - something you’ve been avoiding all this time - and you hadn’t realized that being unbonded when a werewolf has found its mate can make them weak because you’re his other half that isn’t making him whole. Jungkook is living everyday with a big part of him missing even when you’re right there, and worse, you’ve been mating - taking from him selfishly, foolishly, without giving something in return. Not your strength, and definitely not your love.
You’d been so focused on your own pain that you haven’t been paying attention to his - the one that you caused because you aren’t ready; you didn’t want to be.
You remember Amma’s words from earlier, how you’ll know how to comfort him when you’re ready. You think about what Jin-Ae said to you near the pond, wishing that Jungkook could get strength from you.
“I’m so sorry,” you sob, unable to pull yourself together.
Jin-Ae comes to your aid, arms wrapping around you as you falter.
“Tell that to him,” Seokjin chides. “Let’s just hope that will be enough.”
It’s another 2 hours before you’re able to enter the room and see Jungkook. In the time in between, you forced yourself to eat the soup they offered you for dinner and cried some more, although you know it would take more than that to gain the energy you need to stay with him and give him what he needs.
You sit on his bedside now and watch his sleeping form. The bruises on his face and body are lighter but the gashes are still there, red and screaming. In the quiet, you gaze at the beauty you never cared to pay attention to - his long lashes barely fluttering against his caramel skin, his slightly big nose adding to his charm; pink, chapped lips you don’t know the taste of.
He looks so tired, even as he’s asleep, and you wonder how much more he has in him before he breaks, if he hasn’t already.
His torso is bare, a mere blanket draped over it. There are more abrasions on his chest and his limbs, and you trace the ones on his arms, wishing more than anything that you could touch all his pain away, let whatever strength you have left course through his veins this way.
Your fingertips graze his hand, outlining the veins and other scratches that are there. They’re so rough, so heavy, like they’re pulling the weight of the whole world with them, and that wouldn’t be an incorrect assumption. Jungkook’s been carrying your pain all this time, and there had been no one doing the same thing for him.
You turn his hand, palm facing up, and you gently fit yours in his. You hold him like this - start small, you think - and trace patterns with your thumb of all the things you used to love - the birds, the clouds, the moon, the sun.
You lay your head on the bed as you continue your motions, eyes drifting to sleep as you hum a lullaby you remember that your grandfather used to sing. Jungkook will wake up with you like this, and you can only hope that unlike you, he won’t pull away.
You wake up late the next morning with a warm hand patting your head, realizing it’s your mother, urging you to have breakfast after she heard you barely ate last night. You resist, but she wins, saying that Jungkook would need you strong and well when he regains his consciousness.
You wash up after eating with the rest of your family, Jimin, and your friends, and change into the clothes that Jin-Ae lends you. You return to Jungkook’s room with Baram taking notes, and she gives you a hug when you enter.
“Why isn’t he waking up?” You ask. “Shouldn’t he at least be conscious by now?”
“We’re not letting him,” she shares. “His wolf genes are helping him heal but he just needs to rest and sleep. He was restless when he woke up last night and wanted to get back out to kill the bear. We had to explain that Seokjin took it down and that you were safe in here.”
“He asked about me?” You quiver.
“First thing,” she smiles.
It comforts you somehow, but all the more you want him to wake up so you could apologize. But she’s right. You know Jungkook to be a very hardworking man. If he’s not on a hunt or patrolling, he’s fixing something in the cabin or cutting trees or chopping wood or creating something. He barely rests, and this may be the only time that he gets to.
“You know that he’s gonna be okay, right?” Baram says. “It looks really bad now but trust me, in a few days’ time, there won’t be any traces of his wounds.”
“I know. It’s his heart I’m worried about,” you mumble. “Werewolves don’t have the regenerating genes for that, do they?”
“No, they don’t.” Amma’s words echo in the room as she enters. “That’s what mates are for.”
“What if I caused it?” You ask.
“All the more, then,” she smiles, comforting you as she always does.
You savor her words and turn back to Jungkook, his breathing now seemingly normal compared to yesterday.
“I know you want to stay here with him but he’ll be asleep for a couple more hours. Why don’t you walk with me outside?” Amma offers. “The weather is nice for a stroll.”
You think you’ll probably lose your mind just staying here and being alone with your thoughts, so you go to the garden and bask in the feel of the sun’s rays on your skin, enjoying the last bits of spring before summer rolls around.
“I feel like I should apologize to you,” you start, shyly looking her way.
“And why is that?”
“You interpreted this, you called for him and me to be fated. I know that the mating process is sacred and I feel like I betrayed it, because we aren’t bonded. In a way, I feel like I betrayed you, too.”
“I supposed that was why,” she responds. “He comes out here every morning to check on everybody, and he hasn’t been looking well the past few weeks. I know it’s been hard for both of you since, well, since the Ceremony.”
“I was just upset and I—“
“You don’t have to explain it to me, ___,” she grins. “You and Jungkook are mature adults. I’m sure it’s something you both discussed and agreed on.”
“If it had been so bad though, he could’ve marked me if he wanted,” you muse. “When I fell in the river and I lost consciousness… He could’ve done something.”
“___, that’s not how marking works. It’s in the nature of werewolves to mark their mate but unless you’re on the verge of death, Jungkook can only mark you with your consent, with your readiness,” Amma explains.
“That’s what a bond is - it’s a commitment, my child; it’s about carrying what the other is carrying, feeling what they’re feeling, no matter how hard or painful. If your heart isn’t ready, your body will reject it, and that will hurt you, too. And you know he doesn’t want to hurt you, you’ve already been through enough.”
It hits you like a freight train. Jungkook never forced you. Of all the times you’d had sex, he was always so careful. You think now that the shift in his breathing and his restrained growls whenever he’d kiss your neck was due to the strong urge to mark you, but he never tried. He controlled himself every time because he knew what it would mean. Your body would go through changes that would be too much, you’d be tied to him for the rest of your lives and not unless you’re ready and willing, your body would react negatively.
The guilt hits you again, but this time, it’s paired with frustration. How could the two of you be fated like this? All it’s done is hurt both of you, especially him.
“Jungkook needs you,” she cuts through your thoughts. “Werewolves are physically strong but they need their other half to survive; they need that person to fill that other part of them. And that’s you. He needs you, ___. He needs your strength.”
It’s too much, it always was. You can’t even get yourself together; how can you be someone else’s source of strength?
“I’m not… I’m not strong, Amma.”
“You are, my child, you’ve always been. You feel things - your pain, your anger, your fears. You feel them all; Jungkook buries them.”
The words hit you. It’s something you’ve never thought about. You think you’ve been so weak this whole time, unable to move on, to be grateful for even living; unable to see the meaning of all this.
You’re reminded of all that pain and anger and fear that caused the hole within you that you allowed to get bigger, that left you cold and unwilling.
“Was Yoongi fated to die?” You ask the question that you’ve been avoiding.
“Yes, he was.”
It’s been months, but it doesn’t hurt any less.
“Yoongi never thought he was anyone special, but a person with a Supreme Fate isn’t always the one who stands out, or whom everyone notices. But they’re destined to protect their kind, to protect us.”
You want to disagree; Yoongi was all kinds of special; you knew the moment you laid eyes on him. There was just something about him that drew you in; his silence spoke to you in a way that no one else’s had.
“He was gifted with a brilliant mind, one that he sharpened. He had an extensive amount of knowledge of our history and of other creatures’, perhaps from all the reading he does,” she explains. “It’s what led him to discover some secrets of our supposed allies, exposing them for putting packs in danger and selling information to hunters. That's why they took his heart and killed him.”
The whole truth shakes your core, even if it’s one of the possibilities that Namjoon brought up when you begged him for answers. He wouldn’t tell you how or why Yoongi died. You’d tried to accept the worst of them, knowing that you can’t be any more hurt, and the confirmation does just that.
“Did he know?” You tremble.
“Yes, he did.”
You choke back the tears until you no longer can, and Amma takes you in her arms.
For the three years that you let yourself wither away and resent everything - the Moon, the fates, this town - Yoongi lived knowing that at one point, it would all end. He lived everyday knowing that he wasn’t going to see you again. He loved you so much, you know that, and you can’t imagine what he might’ve felt that whole time.
“He didn’t know when, but he thought he had more time,” she says. “He thought you would have more time.”
“To what?” You quiver.
“To move on from him leaving. To move on from him. It’s why he never sent letters, why he never called. He thought that the time and distance would make it easier for you to forget.”
“But it didn’t,” you cry. “I can’t forget, I don’t think I ever will.”
“Pain becomes a part of us, it’s how we know that anything is real. And he knew that. He lived with it everyday when he was away from you,” she says. “But what he wanted you to forget was how that pain took away the best parts of you - your energy, your joy, your love for the simplest things. He wanted more time for you to get those back.”
“How… How do you know all this?”
“He’d send me a letter every year,” Amma smiles, recalling how she looked forward to those, missing them now that he’s gone.
“The first one was about his anger, the second one was his understanding, the last one was his acceptance. He wanted you to be happy, ___. You were his great love, even if he wasn’t yours; he knew at one point you were going to find your mate, that you were going to find your great love.”
“How is this supposed to be my great love if I don’t think I can love anymore after I lost the first one?” You turn towards her, eyes begging for things to make sense.
“I… I care about Jungkook. I worry for him. But I don’t know how to love him. I don’t know if I can love him better, or more. He deserves that.”
“It isn’t about that, my child,” she says, wiping the tears that fall from your face.
“You’re meant to love Jungkook, even if you loved someone before him. It’s not about loving more or better or deeper. It’s about learning to love after. That’s what the love between you and him is about.
You love with all of you; that’s why it’s hard to let go of Yoongi; so does Jungkook, but that’s why he was able to let Jin-Ae go, because he knew she was meant to be something great, something with Namjoon, and it’s nothing like Jungkook could ever give her.”
Her warm eyes yearn for you to understand, to see your strength and ability to love as parts of who you are.
“You both love so hard, my child. There’s so much of yourself you could give, it could fill a hole as big as what Jungkook has in his heart because of a love that wasn’t meant to be. But so does he; he could fill the space caused by what you lost. That could only happen if you let each other heal, as one. As you’re fated to be.”
She hums as the birds fly by, momentarily soothing you.
“You still have love inside you, ___. You just need someone to give it to.”
Your heart is heavy, but it’s not all because of the pain this time, and you know with everything that happened, you can’t waste any more time resenting yourself and feeling guilty over what you’d done - hurting Jungkook - and what you didn’t - learning to love him. You know that will take a while. You feel like it’s something you have to relearn - you loved with the best parts of you; Yoongi reminded you that you need to get those back.
A part of you wishes you’d known all this sooner; it might have spared you and Jungkook the pain somehow, but you know it doesn’t work that way. Some messages only really come across when you experience the worst of things, and sadly, he had to go through it with you.
“Are you going to be okay, sweetie?” Amma asks, as your eyes wander far away.
“I hope so,” you mumble. “I just, uhm…”
“Take your time. You don’t rush things like this.”
You nod, finding comfort in her words again. You wish you had her patience. It must’ve been frustrating for her to know all this then watch you be stubborn and fall apart; it must’ve been too heavy carrying all this with her, absorbing everyone else’s heartaches and comforting them like she’s seen worse. And maybe she has.
“I’ll return to him now,” you smile, feeling like you’ve gotten what you needed. “Thank you, Amma.”
“He’s gonna need a home, okay?” She says before you walk away. “He’s empty and he’s gonna need a place where he doesn’t feel alone, where he feels loved. I hope you get to create that one day.”
Home.
Home was this town, then your parents’ house, then your room. You realize it’s gotten smaller and smaller. But even then, you had people around you - home became them; when you were alone, nothing felt like it.
While Jungkook always just had… himself.
He had Jin-Ae, until he didn’t, and then it’s just been him and his cabin. Before you, no one else would go there, you’d learned from your friends. Jungkook preferred to keep to himself, they said. You can’t imagine having so much space and feel like you’re trapped, all by yourself.
But he welcomed you, as he should, and you stayed there keeping your distance, using his warmth to ease your pain, but pulling away when he needed yours.
Home. You want a place to feel like that again. You start to think that it isn’t so bad if it’s with him.
You make it back to Jungkook’s room with him still in his sleeping form. You didn’t realize how much it would hurt to know how much pain he’s in, that in a split second, he could’ve been taken away from you, too. But he’s here and he’s alive, and you’ll stay next to him until he wakes up, until you get to tell him that you’re sorry.
You spot a pile of books on the bedside table and see a note on top.
You might be here a while. Might as well. - N
You smile at the thought. At least he’s not hostile, thinking that Namjoon has all the reasons to be angry at you for being the cause of his Beta’s weakened state. But he’d been understanding and even comforting, and right now, that’s what you need.
The books are not your usual reads. You often go for the ones detailing the character’s life at a farm or the city, or their inner turmoil after a tragedy, or their discovery of the meaning of life after their death.
But these are more adventurous, more fantastical. There’s a book about a war nurse who time travels centuries into the past; there’s one about a fisherman who discovers a city existing underneath the ocean; there’s another of a collection of creatures of the world, and the last, the one about a rich man with a beautiful garden and who never took his mask off; it’s the one you choose.
You settle on the seat next to the bed, already enthralled by the description of the castle and its exquisite garden in just the first few pages. You want to share it and imagine it out loud, and you suddenly think that if it’s about trying to make a home, you can start here.
Jungkook never asked you about the books you read, although you’ve caught him a few times looking at the ones on the shelf he built you.
“Take one, you might like it,” you’d told him once.
He had a shy look on his face then, and he shook his head no.
“I don’t really read. The words sound so lame in my head,” he’d said.
He may not be the reading type, but you have a feeling he’s the listening one.
So you read the story out loud. You read about the fountains and the large trees, the flowers that grew everywhere, and the rare ones that only bloomed in the man’s garden. You read about the man’s pain and loneliness, his mask to hide it all, and the woman he’d seen who’d snuck in and took interest in the blue flower that he loved, and how seeing her everyday brought him immense joy, her innocence and love of beauty captivating him.
It’s near sundown by the time that Jimin and Mi-Rae arrive, sending you dinner because you’d refused to go down for a meal and leave Jungkook. You’d spent the whole afternoon reading the story, getting immersed in the world between your fingertips.
“Sorry to disturb your moment but you need to eat, ___,” your cousin says, placing the food on the table.
“Huh?” You look up at him, closing the book and setting it aside. “What moment? I was just reading. Thought I could pass the time.”
Jimin cocks his eyebrow then motions towards your hand still clasping Jungkook’s.
“Oh.”
You slowly remove your hand, shyly smiling, as you hadn’t realized that you’d held onto him the whole time.
“Got carried away, I guess, and I thought maybe he could hear it.”
“He can,” Mi-Rae confirms. “Being in induced sleep doesn’t take away his wolf senses. Your voice is probably just faint but I’m sure he can hear it.”
You let out a satisfied hum, your heart warming at the thought that Jungkook might’ve heard you tell the story. You think it’s the only thing you could do right now, since there’s not much else you could help him with; you could at least entertain him or something.
The three of you eat your meals, with Jin-Ae and Namjoon joining you for a while. Taehyung stops by, too, before he had to leave for his night shift patrolling the town. The bear that attacked you and Jungkook might be dead, but Seokjin doesn’t want to take chances; he wants to make sure that no other wild animals wander too close to town.
The baked pastries become too overwhelming to ignore, and you nag Jimin to give you some despite having just eaten.
“Chicken hand pies,” he says. “Grandfather says that Jungkook liked them, and wanted him to have them when he woke up.”
“Grandfather likes feeding people, doesn’t he?” You giggle.
“Yeah, and well, Jungkook never left your side all those times. Think of it as a thank you of some sort,” your cousin replies.
You nod and savor the scent. Nothing beats your grandfather’s pies. You always loved how they just brought people together, and how he was so good at making those around him feel comfortable and at ease. You’re sure he’d done that with Jungkook over these same pies more than once.
“Feels like home, doesn’t it?” Mi-Rae asks.
This was part of her childhood, too. Her senses got so much stronger by the time she hit puberty and could smell something baking in your kitchen from her bedroom.
“It does,” you sigh. “I miss making them, too, actually.”
“You should, perhaps when you get back to the cabin,” she responds. “Might help make the place feel like it.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s a home. It’s what you both need. It’s what you both can make each other feel.”
“I don’t know how to do that,” you say, your voice marred with a tinge of sadness. “I don’t, uh…”
The embarrassment hits you harder than you’d expected, as you realize that you don’t really know Jungkook. You know how he is, but you don’t know him. Your heart and mind decided it didn't want to.
“I don’t know what home is like for him. I don’t know him well enough for that.”
Mi-rae looks sympathetic, and you already expect those vague words of you’ll know that you’ve been hearing from basically everyone else.
“Maybe he doesn’t know it, too,” she says, surprising you.
“When he lived in the pack house, he always looked out for everybody and had a role to play. Taehyung said that all Jungkook did was work - if he wasn’t protecting Jin-Ae or patrolling, he was in the forests collecting wood then making things. After he left for the mountains, he just lived there by himself, in a cabin so bare, devoid of anything other than what’s basic. I don’t think he knows what home is supposed to feel like, either.”
She smiles softly. “Maybe that’s why you’re here. The pack is a family, ___, we all look out for each other. But he’s a Beta; he’s meant to ensure everyone’s survival, including this town’s. That gets pretty lonely.”
She takes your hand in hers.
“You know how home feels like, and that means you know how to make one, too. For him, and for you.”
You merely nod, only half processing her words but it gives you hope that you at least know where to start.
It’s not long after when Jimin and Mi-Rae leave, and you return to Jungkook’s side after you’ve had your shower. You hold his hand and return to the story of the masked man and the flowers that bloomed, how he wanted to give all of them to the woman but he was afraid. His own loneliness scared him and he didn’t want it to scare her, too.
You read about how the woman wanted to steal the flowers so she could sell them, but she’d been too entranced by them and feared that those who’d buy them wouldn’t be able to truly appreciate them. She wanted to ask the owner of the garden about it but they never showed up; she’d only seen a masked figure but nothing more.
You finish the story quietly and close the book. Everything feels heavy, as the past days have thrown you in a state of fear and worry and regret that you suddenly don’t know how to manage. The truth about Yoongi, about your fate, about Jungkook, and what you’re both supposed to mean to each each hurt you. And oddly enough, it’s Jungkook that you want to hold you, but he’s unable to, so you hold his hand instead.
“I’m so sorry, for everything,” you whisper, as the dark envelopes the town and you have but a lamp next to you, giving you ample light to see Jungkook’s breathing form, his eyes still closed.
You keep in mind what your best friend had said, that Jungkook could hear your voice, though faint, and you think that is enough - to be able to apologize to him, knowing he could hear you, but not fully awake for you to see the pain on his face as you say the words.
“All I’ve done was focus on my own pain, and not once did I consider yours.”
You trace patterns on his hand with your fingers, hoping he could remember this, too.
“All you’ve done was protect me, understand me, help me grieve over a love that was long gone, and I blamed you for things that I couldn’t accept because I was so scared to let go. I harbored this anger for years and I resented you for being so kind because I haven’t been that to anybody, not even to myself.”
You wipe the tears that fall, the feeling of crying because of guilt, something new.
“And now you’re here, in this state, because of me. And my heart dropped when I found out what happened to you and I knew, even though I barely showed it, that I care. I care about you, Jungkook. I hope it’s not too late.”
You end up saying more than you expected, yet you’re still unable to stop.
“But I want to apologize, too, for not trying with you. I said I would but… so much has just been taken from me that I’ve got nothing left for myself. But I know that, uh, that’s why you’re here. The same way I’m here for you, because you’ve been in pain, too, and I hope one day I get to fill whatever’s missing.”
The words are hard to say, but you know it’s mostly because you’re still dealing with a lot. And no matter how much your friends and family comfort you, somehow, those don’t feel enough. A lot of things don’t, and your heart aches in a different kind of way as you realize that it’s because the man who can truly comfort you is right here, recovering, and you can’t wait for him to be okay.
You caress his hand again, and you can’t help but think that this feels nice. You think back to the conversations the past few days, and your lips turn into a smile.
“Wake up soon, okay?” You whisper close to him. “We have a home to build.”
You lay your head on the bed and drift to sleep, and you don’t see the tears that fall down Jungkook’s face.
Jungkook wakes up after the longest sleep of his life, and he’s not used to being bedridden and inactive for days. He knows this should’ve tired him, but it didn’t; in fact, he feels rested and ready to expend his energy. Perhaps he could run in the forest or collect some wood, he thinks.
He feels the warmth in his hand and turns towards it, seeing your limp body seated on the chair next to his bed, head and neck probably aching from your uncomfortable position. But he softens at the sight; you’d never held his hand like this; he has, but you haven’t, and he knows you’d been holding onto it these past nights.
“Hey, are you feeling better?” Baram cuts through his thoughts and approaches him.
She checks the wounds on his limbs and chest and smiles softly at your sleeping form.
“A lot better,” Jungkook responds. “It was a pretty good sleep, actually. How long was I out?”
“Not long,” Baram responds. “We were expecting that we’d need to keep you in induced sleep for a few more days but we noticed your wounds.”
She removes the bandage on Jungkook’s head, revealing a mere scar of what used to be a large gash that wouldn’t stop bleeding two nights ago.
“They’re healing faster than we expected,” she continues.
A deep breath escapes you before you wake up, head lifting and eyes squinting. You smile at your sister then turn to Jungkook, eyes now widening at the sight of him conscious.
“You’re awake,” you mutter. “You’re uh, you’re okay.”
Jungkook smiles and nods, unable to still form words at the sight of you next to him, your hand still in his, and he’s afraid you’d let go.
“I told you he’d be,” Baram says.
“Yeah but, Seokjin said it would take a few more days. And your wounds… they’re healing fast again.”
“Well, I think that helped,” she motions towards your hand. “You haven’t let him go.”
Your eyes follow hers and you suddenly feel flustered. You’re about to remove your hand but Jungkook grips it to keep you there.
“Please, not yet,” he whispers shyly.
You nod and tighten your grip again, and you’d missed the smile that forms on his face.
“So, does this mean that he can leave already?” You ask.
“We’ll give him another day or two. It’s still best if he gets to rest here, although I would advise for you to stick around.”
“I will,” you hum.
“Okay, good. I’ll tell Amma that Jungkook’s awake and have food brought up for the both of you,” Baram says.
“Just lay in bed, alright? You’re not yet fully recovered,” she turns to Jungkook, who responds to her with a nod, before she leaves the room.
It’s a little awkward, even if you’ve both spent days and nights in silence before. You don’t know how much of what you said last night actually reached him, but he’s looking at you intently and you’re getting a little nervous.
“What happened to the story?” Jungkook wonders.
It takes a while before it registers that he’s referring to the book you read to him.
“You really heard me?”
“It was a bit faint but I could make out most of the words,” he shrugs. “I vaguely remember the woman not showing up anymore and then you stopped. Did he finally reveal himself?”
“It actually ended sadly,” you mumble. “I just read quietly because it was a bit heavy. She, uh… she died, and the man wouldn’t have known that if he hadn’t left the castle and searched for her. He waited for 3 years, and she’d been dead just as long.”
“That’s… quite depressing. Is that a book you bought?”
You shake your head no. “Namjoon lent me a couple of them. It was the shortest one. I didn’t realize it was that sad. But knowing him, he was probably trying to tell me something.”
“Which is?”
“Don’t hide behind your pain? Give people a chance?” You meet Jungkook’s eyes. “Don’t wait too long to tell someone you care about them?”
“Is that why you, uh, is that why you cried?”
You nod, then suddenly realizing he’d heard your apology, maybe faintly, but you don’t want to bring it up, as you might’ve said them so softly that he probably barely heard it.
“I forgive you,” he says, and it’s the confirmation you weren’t really hoping for, although you’re glad that he at least knows you’re sorry.
“As long as you forgive me, too,” he continues.
“For what, Jungkook? I’m the one who’s so difficult to be with. Like I said, I blamed you for things you had nothing to do with.”
“I wasn’t honest with you about me. I should’ve let you know that I understood you, that I knew what that pain felt, but I just kept it all in. I guess I was scared, too. I should’ve done more,” he explains.
“Why are you so forgiving? Why do you burden yourself with this?” You ask, almost pleading not to let him take any of the blame for what happened to the both of you.
“I just don’t want to see you hurt and sad.”
“And I don’t want to be those things anymore, too.”
You both share a look of understanding, as if he’s telling you that he’ll help you, and you’re telling him that this time, you’ll help yourself.
“Jungkook, my child, I’m glad you’re well,” Amma’s soothing voice echoes in the room. “And you too, my dear,” she looks at you, glancing at your joined hand with Jungkook. “I’m happy that you seem to be doing well, too.”
You and Jungkook both bow in gratitude, sharing with her that he could leave by tomorrow, the earliest.
“Tomorrow? That’s fast,” Namjoon says, entering the room, as you hadn’t noticed him standing by the door.
“He’s doing better,” you let out a smile, but it fades once you see Seokjin enter, too, face still looking irate and distrustful of you, and you quickly let go of Jungkook’s hand.
“That has everything to do with ___,” Amma says.
“Acting like a mate now, finally,” Seokjin says bitterly, and you don’t miss his hardened gaze and clenched jaw directed at you. “Took you long enough.”
You see Jungkook’s face turn sour, so does Namjoon’s, who lets out a low growl towards his other Beta.
“I apologize for him,” Namjoon says. “He doesn’t know when to—“
“It’s okay, I mean, he’s right,” you stammer. “Seokjin saved Jungkook and he wouldn’t even need to if it wasn’t for me.”
You stand up, feeling unable to handle the tension, and excuse yourself.
“I’ll just get our food, you need to eat,” you tell Jungkook, then head out.
You make it to the kitchen and find Jin-Ae filling a bowl with soup.
“Hi, ___,” she chirps. “I heard Jungkook’s awake. I’m glad that he is. I was just preparing your food and was going to send them to you.”
“He is,” you smile, her warmth helping you quell the bit of insecurity you feel around her as Jungkook’s first love. “And it’s alright, I was gonna take it. It’s kind of ten—“
You’re cut off by growls and loud thumping from right above you, and you’re set into a panic until Jin-Ae tells you to calm down.
“That’s how those 3 argue, it’s normal,” Jin-Ae laughs. “This house can withstand them and their strength, don’t worry.”
“Why are they arguing?”
“Jungkook’s protective of you, ___, even to his own Beta, even his Alpha. I’m sure Jungkook’s giving Seokjin a piece of his mind, probably telling him not to disrespect you again.”
You frown, not wanting to be the cause of conflict among the three.
“It’s natural, Seokjin would understand,” Jin-Ae assures you. “They’re brothers; things like that happen. And werewolves are like that, you know?”
“Like what?”
“Loyal, faithful. They’ll protect their mate until their death, and they’ll stand by you even if it hurts.”
You stand outside the room, tray in hand, unsure when you should go in. The growling has stopped, but you could still hear raised voices inside, so you wait until those have died down, too.
The door opens and you meet Namjoon’s smile.
“You’ve been standing there a while,” he says. “Come in.”
“I, uh, I didn’t want to intrude. Seemed like a pretty intense conversation,” you explain, entering and setting the food on the table.
You try not to look at Seokjin but you could still feel his eyes on you. You look at Jungkook instead.
“I brought you food. You should have something to eat.”
“You can all leave us now,” Jungkook says, prompting everyone to do so.
You place a napkin on his chest, then, with a bowl in one hand and a spoon in the other, you feed him.
His look softens before he opens his mouth, and he suddenly looks like a little boy with a giddy smile on his face. It’s been days since he’s eaten and you’re sure he’s been waiting for this, too.
“Everything okay? We could hear the growling from the kitchen,” you say, giving him another spoonful.
“I just gave Seokjin a piece of my mind. He didn’t have the right to speak to you like that, and he admitted it wasn’t the first time.”
Jungkook’s face hardens, as he recalls the way his brother spoke about you, with such anger and resentment. He blames you for Jungkook’s state, something Jungkook didn’t take well.
“It’s okay. I mean, he has a point. I… I haven’t been doing my part. I haven’t been good to you.”
Your voice falls at the admission, and somehow it hurts more saying it like this to him, knowing he’d insist it isn’t your fault, even if you know that it is.
“___,” Jungkook rests his hand on yours. “Things have been hard for you. And I know you didn’t want this, didn’t want—“
You turn away at the words you’d said to him not long ago, words you’d said out of anger that you regret more than anything else.
“It’s a lot to ask you to learn to live with a stranger and act like things are fine. You were hurting, and I never blamed you for that,” Jungkook continues. “I can understand pain. Not like yours, but that’s exactly why. I couldn’t ask you for anything more.”
“I was being stubborn and selfish,” you admit. “I was just focused on how this whole thing affected me and what I could get out of it.”
Your head bows down at the reminder of another thing you never really apologized for, something you’re most ashamed about. “I was using you… and, uh, I didn’t realize how that was taking so much out of you.”
“I told you, I wanted that, too. You weren’t the only one wanting to feel something else other than pain.”
“Yes, but I didn’t let you mark me. I didn’t want you to,” you state, turning away again. “You got so weak and it was because of me. You could’ve… you could’ve died.”
You can’t help the tears that fall at the thought, the image that Seokjin gave you imprinted in your mind.
“I don’t… I don’t want you to die, Jungkook,” you whimper.
I need you. The words are hard to say, so you keep them locked in your mind, hoping one day you get to say them to him, too.
“I won’t, I’m okay. Look,” he insists, turning your chin so you could face him. “I survived and I’m healing. And it’s because of you.”
“But I put you there, and Seokjin is the one who saved you,” you remind him. “So please don’t be angry at him.”
“I’m not. I just, I just can’t have him treat you like that, even if I know he’s just looking out for me. I’ll always stand by you, you should know that.”
He’ll stand by you even if it hurts, Jin-Ae said. That’s all Jungkook’s felt with you - pain.
“Thank you, Jungkook.”
You give him another spoonful and he insists that you eat as well.
“After I feed you,” you say. “This is more important.”
He smiles and you go on like that, with you needing to ask for more plates of meat, and you’d almost forgotten that this is a werewolf who didn’t get to eat for days.
“You’ll need to get your energy back, okay? I’ll ask mother to buy things in the market for me so I can cook you food.”
“Yeah, like what?” His eyes widen in excitement.
“You liked the roast beef that she made. And Amma gave me the recipe for the rabbit stew we had during the Ceremony. And I can make the broiled pork. You liked that, too.”
“I did,” he smiles, his heart warming that you remember.
“And I’ll ask to buy more fruits and vegetables. You need those.”
His face sours and you laugh.
“Fine, as long as you’ll feed me,” he teases.
“I will, Jungkook. I will.”
You spend that last day at the pack house with Jungkook. You read him a book again, the one containing a collection of short tales and you get to at least 10 before you both call it a night. He insists on you sleeping on the couch this time, as he knows you haven’t had proper rest since you’ve been staying next to him, his hand in yours, making sure he’s okay.
It takes a long while before he falls asleep. His eyes settle on you and the way the moon shines over your features. You look more at peace than he remembers, and while he initially wanted you to sleep next to him, just so he could continue to heal - knowing that’s what your sincere and affectionate touch can do to him - he didn’t want to push it.
This is enough, though, as he could see you better you like this. He knows there’s still more he needs to do for both of you to get to where you need to be - love is created and nurtured, after all; in your case, he always knew that being fated as mates didn’t automatically mean you’d fall in love right away.
But now, he knows he wants to. He wants to know what it’s like to love and be loved again, assured this time that it will last because it’s meant to. But he knows it will take time, and he’s willing to wait until you’re ready, until you’re willing.
It’s the next day when you awaken to Jimin nudging your arm, telling you it’s late in the morning and that Jungkook can go home after you both have lunch.
You all head to the outdoor dining and eat with everyone else living there, and you can’t take your eyes off Jungkook, as you constantly worry he’s just forcing himself to be okay so you could both go home already.
But he gets through lunch with ease. His appetite is back and you’re just glad that he seems to have regained a bit of the energy he’d lost.
You go back to the room to freshen up and pack what little things he has, then head out, but Seokjin waiting by the door stops you. Jungkook protectively wraps his arm around you at the sight of his Beta, the elder not looking as furious as he had been the past few days.
“I’m not sorry for being angry, but I’m sorry for speaking to you the way I did,” he says, not meeting your eyes. “I should’ve been more mindful.”
“It’s okay,” you respond. “We say things when we’re scared and upset, and that’s what you were. Thank you for saving Jungkook’s life. I… I owe you for that.”
“He’s my brother. I couldn’t just let him die.”
You smile and nod while both men exchange looks of what seem to be forgiveness and assurance, but no other words are said. You feel lighter, as the weight of Seokjin’s blame and anger towards you dissipate.
You walk towards the car where Jimin is waiting, as he’s tasked to drive you and Jungkook back to the cabin.
“This place needs tidying up,” you say, as you arrive and look around and see the dust that’s accumulated and the kitchen you hadn’t cleaned.
“I’ll help,” Jungkook offers.
“No. You’re going to rest for a few more days, that’s what Inha and Baram said.”
“___, I’m a werewolf. I don’t… I don’t need to rest. I’ve just been in bed and I feel weaker when I’m not doing anything.”
“Fine,” you give in. “Just don’t overdo yourself.”
He follows and does what you ask of him. You both clean up, vacuuming the floors and wiping everything else, doing the laundry and fixing up in the kitchen. It takes longer than expected, as you had mid-afternoon snacks and dinner after, but you’re spent by the time you clean up, and all you want to do is have a good night's sleep.
You walk to the bed and see Jungkook on his back, his hands on his sides, and eyes wandering the ceiling. You wonder what’s gotten into him, acting a little awkward, until you realize that before his attack, both of you had been sleeping the way you did during those early days.
He eyes you warily, unsure what to do, but you lie next to him, on your back, then you take his hand in yours.
“You’re not yet fully healed,” you say softly. “This might help.”
It’s better than what he expected, which is you sleeping on your side again, your back towards him the way you had at the start and even recently, but that latter bit was also because of him. He was afraid to see the pain in your eyes but now, he’s still afraid; he’s just not sure of what.
“It will,��� he says, gripping your hand. “Goodnight, ___.”
“Goodnight, Jungkook.”
You wake up the next morning still on your back, but Jungkook is on his side, facing you. You’re still holding hands, and you remove yours because of the numbness yet he still doesn’t budge. You think he really is still trying to gain the rest of his strength back, so you just let him sleep.
You wash up and get ready for work, since Jungkook insisted last night that he’d be fine and can manage on his own; you’ve missed too many days already and you’re getting a little ashamed, given that your supervisor never minded your absences since you’re the Beta’s mate.
You prepare Jungkook enough food to last him until the afternoon, and you’re surprised to see him dressed by the time you enter the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” You ask.
“Garage, to work,” he says casually. “I still have to earn, you know.”
“Right,” you smile. “I’ll head out. I’ll be back right after work and prepare dinner.”
You arrive in the afternoon with food prepared on the table and Jungkook’s proud face. He tells you that he went on a run, assuring you that he only did so nearby, and he needed to, as he can’t go on too long without shifting. You resume your usual talks about what else you both did during the day, and end the night in the same position as the one before.
Jungkook closes his eyes but he’s not sleeping, wondering what could possibly be on your mind. He’s unable to read them, as you’re not bonded yet, and even then, he wouldn’t do it, even if he wishes he could, just so he’ll know what he should do.
You’re here next to him, holding his hand by your initiation, yet somehow, you don’t feel as close as he wants. There’s still that bit of distance, that detachment, and he’s afraid that once the worry and guilt have worn out, so will the affection you’ve been showing him.
He can hear you breathing, your heartbeat steadying as you fall into deep slumber, yet he remains awake at the multitude of thoughts in his mind. He can feel your warmth, one he seeks because it’s you, because you seek his as well, and the touch of your skin against his is making him feel the kind of comfort that he’s been longing for.
He knows he needs you. Your affection has helped him regain his strength, but he knows he needs more. He needs more of the little things you’ve been giving him.
He needs a home, the one you have and have built with your loved ones, the one you had with Yoongi. Jungkook had a peek into that home you made with your former lover through your stories - the books you used to read, the days exploring rivers and meadows that you used to have, the nights you’d spent snuggled next to each other…
Jungkook realizes now that what he had with Jin-Ae was only close to that, as their moments had mostly been while she explored the forest and chased lilies down the river. He’d usually be in his wolf form, as she held him tightly while he ran through the wind with her on his back, as she wanted to feel her oneness with nature that way.
They laid under the stars, too, traced constellations with their fingers, held each other at sunset before they had to go back to their respective houses, days ending with her gentle kiss on his lips behind one of the trees, before he watched her close the door and turn off the lights in her room.
They didn’t have what you and Yoongi had, but it still meant everything to Jungkook.
You’d spent nights in Yoongi’s cottage, on his bed, out in town and in the markets, hands clasped together as you walked about. He had meals with your family, probably kissed you as much as he wanted, whispered words of love in your ear that you returned.
You and Yoongi had a home that the Moon took from you. Jimin had told Jungkook that home stopped being a place for you; home just became people, the same people you left when you decided to stay in the city. And even when you came back to town, you weren’t with them, you were with him. You still are. In a cabin he built for himself, one that he didn’t think he’d have to share with you, but now he does.
It’s no wonder you don’t think of this as home. It doesn’t feel like one. And he knows that if he’s ever going to make any progress with you, he needs to start with what’s missing.
Maybe then he could start feeling whole again, as he knows you’d need to start feeling that way, too.
He needs a home. He knows that’s you. You just have to believe that he could be your home, too.
You’d told him that, one night as you held his hand, asking him to wake up soon. He knows you meant it; but maybe you’d forgotten what home used to feel like. He wants to help you remember what that’s like again.
The rest of the week continues this way.
You hold onto Jungkook’s hand every night because you’re scared he’d be gone again, as if it’s your body’s way of assuring you that he’s right next to you and he’s not going anywhere.
Much as you want to do more, you’re not sure what. You know at one point you’re supposed to love him - that’s what mates are for, yet right now, you don’t know what you’re feeling. You can’t go on with just the thought of what ought to happen; you need to be driven by what you feel, right now, yet that’s something you haven’t yet figured out.
Maybe you’re afraid to.
Maybe you’re afraid that you let yourself be too unbelieving, too unwilling, too broken to know what you feel, to know how to truly care and love another person.
But Amma’s words ring in your head one night, reminding you of the power of the bond, how it’s a commitment because you get to carry what the other is carrying, feel what the other is feeling. You’re so scared that you have nothing left of you to give but like what Amma said, you and Jungkook could fill what’s missing. You just have to be ready.
You turn to his sleeping form, his low snores telling you he’s deep in slumber. It’s become a comforting sound the last few months, you admit. A lot of the things he does seem to be, as if they fit yours in ways you never really thought about.
How his silence fits yours, so do his thoughtfulness and his care. How his strength matches yours; even his faith and your constantly questioning and doubtful mind seem to complement each other. How his appreciation for details of his work matches your appreciation for the details of your surroundings.
A smile forms on your face at the thought. You seek his warmth all the time because it’s what you’ve lost; he seeks your strength because it’s what he doesn’t have enough of.
You both lost parts of yourselves, and you need the other to get them back.
Most times you think that the universe just hates you. Or at the least, it hasn’t liked you the past few years.
You’re just about to pack up after work the next day, head to the market for the ingredients of the rabbit stew recipe that you told Jungkook you’d make for him, when your phone rings and you hear news that brings you to tears.
“Hi, sweetie. Your grandfather had a heart attack this morning,” your mother says. “He’s okay, just feeling a little weak.”
You silently cry as you demand why they waited all day to tell you, and why he isn’t in a hospital right now.
“It was just a mild one; he’d been cleared to stay home, and we didn’t want to worry you. It’s been a tough few weeks.”
You know she means well. You also know that your grandfather would’ve preferred letting you know when he was in the clear, but your cries are more due to the frustration that the people you care about keep getting hurt, and there’s nothing you've been able to do about it. You can’t seem to catch a break and you’re exhausted.
“He’s fine, he just needs a change in medication,” your mother assures you, given that your grandfather has always had heart issues.
You know that he took your grandmother’s death incredibly hard, and that’s how his body reacted. He’d told you not long ago that your birth helped him get through that, and when you left town to live in the city, he felt like a part of him was missing again. Knowing you were in pain and dealing with it on your own hurt him, but he didn’t want to let you know.
So knowing that his heart concerns are back is making you worried, and you want to be there for him this time, knowing all the times you weren’t.
“I’ll stay over for the next few days,” you tell your mother. “I’m on my way.”
It’s a hard decision because you want to be there for Jungkook, too, knowing he’s only just fully recovered, so it was difficult for you when you called on the way to your parents’ house, your sniffing sound giving you away.
“What can I do to help?” Jungkook asks, sounding helpless.
“Nothing, I’m fine, he’s fine. You don’t have to worry.”
But he knows the sound of your voice, and he hates that he can’t be there to comfort you the way he wants to.
“Are you sure?” He asks, his worried tone making you feel soft.
“Yes, Jungkook. But I plan to stay there for a few days just to make sure he’s okay,” you say. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, why are you apologizing?”
“I was supposed to make you rabbit stew tonight,” you reply guiltily.
He chuckles, a sound you haven’t heard in a while, and it makes you smile.
“Now you shouldn’t worry about me. I won’t starve, and I’ll be waiting for that stew when you get back. Just… just come home when things are better.”
The words linger in the air as you arrive at your parents’ house. You should be making a home with him, like you said you would.
“I will,” you utter. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
You drop the call and enter the house, running up to see your grandfather right away. As you expected, he assures you that there’s nothing to worry about, that it’s happened before and he’s survived it each time, and that you shouldn’t be here but he’s glad to see you doing better.
“How is Jungkook?” He asks.
“Stronger,” you smile. “Like nothing happened. He’s back to patrolling and carrying logs across the woods and eating like he always has.”
“And you?”
“I’m…” You pause, unable to make sense of things.
You’re worried about your grandfather, about Jungkook. You’re frustrated at not being with your mate, yet you feel inadequate when you’re with him. You find yourself wanting to know him more, to feel him more, yet you don’t know how or where to start. You’re also guilty because you’d let this drag on for so long because you’ve been selfish, and you hate that you’d taken so much from him, but you feel like there’s still not enough of you to give.
“I’m… I’m trying.”
It’s all you manage to say, but the smile on your grandfather’s face is one you don’t expect, and you can’t help but mirror it, too.
It’s after dinner when you’re back in the room, reading him a story, when you hear a knock on the door. After the second knock when the person hasn’t come in even if you told them to, you open the door and are surprised to see Jungkook.
“Hey, what are you doing here? Is everything okay? Have you eaten?”
“Yes,” he smiles. “I just brought you your blanket, figured you’d maybe want to have it while you’re here. I know you took all of them to the cabin.”
You nod, quite speechless, as he lifts the blanket up and you’re glad he brought it. But thankful, too, that he’s here, as you hadn’t realized that you needed to see him.
“Thank you,” you mouth the words.
Your grandfather calls Jungkook over and he promptly enters. He answers the older man’s questions about his well-being, if he’s eaten, if he’s feeling better.
“I’m sorry I’m taking my granddaughter from you. I told her she doesn’t need to be here but she insists,” your grandfather chuckles.
“She wants to be there for you,” Jungkook says. “You know she would.”
“Yes, but she’s here a lot,” your grandfather cocks his eyebrow at you. “She should be with you.”
“Well, this is her home,” Jungkook says, the words coming out unexpectedly.
They hit you just as hard.
“I understand,” he continues.
You turn away and bite your lips before they start to quiver.
Your grandfather takes Jungkook’s hand in comfort.
“Well, I know you came for her but it’s nice to see you doing better, son.”
“Thank you,” Jungkook bows. “I’ll get going. Just let me know if you need anything,” he briefly turns towards you.
You don’t meet his eyes but you say okay as he leaves the room.
“He’s a wonderful man, ___,” your grandfather says, and you’re ready for the advice or the lecture that you’ve been receiving, but he surprises you again.
“And I’m proud of you,” he takes your hand this time. “You’re finally opening your heart to him, and that takes a lot of strength for someone who’s been hurt too much. And I can say the same about him. No heart is ever too broken to be beyond repair. Don’t ever forget that.”
You hurry to your parents’ house after work the next day and find that your father had taken your grandfather to the plaza for a walk; he wanted to go out and feed off other people’s energy, he’d said, as everybody at home seems so sullen.
You pout, then realize he’s right, so you stay on the porch, legs curled up on the outdoor sofa with a quilt over them. The sun is just about to set and the glow it casts over the garden is spectacular.
You hear footsteps and look up to see Jungkook again. You don’t anymore ask why he’s here; you’re just glad that he is.
He sits next to you and takes your hand, feeling the slightest of caresses. “This might help,” he whispers.
“It will,” you smile, tightening your hold.
You both stay there, his touch soothing you, and no other words are said.
The porch door opens and your mother comes out with a tray and a pot of tea for two, and she smiles at the sight of you, seemingly comfortable, at peace, and not looking as worried as when you came here yesterday.
“I'm making some beef stew, Jungkook, so you should stay for dinner. I won’t take no for an answer,” she smiles.
“I’ll stay, thank you,” he responds.
She leaves you both and Jungkook watches as you sit comfortably, humming at the taste of the hibiscus tea, and watching the sun set over the horizon. This is your favorite place here, your family had told him. Out here, you get to see and experience everything - the trees swaying, the flowers blooming, the birds chirping… nothing like what you have in the cabin.
“Thank you for coming, last night and today,” you break through his thoughts.
“It’s not the same without you back there,” he says, chuckling to mask the seriousness of his words. “But it’s okay. You need to be here; your grandfather needs you. And this place is nothing like what we have.”
You don’t miss the sadness in his tone.
“You were away for years; this will always be the place you’ll come back to, and I don’t mind that.”
There’s a hint of acceptance in his eyes that causes a crack in your chest.
This is her home, he said last night. You’d told him once that it is, that what you both live in isn’t. You wish you could gather the strength right now to tell him that you’re ready for it to be him, too. But the words get stuck in your throat; you don’t know how to handle what will happen after saying them.
So you settle for this, and you wish he could read your mind right now so you won’t have to utter them. His smile is comforting, like he’s not trying too hard, as if just being here with you is already making him happy.
Your heart beats faster, a different kind this time, and you want him to hold your hand again. You don’t know how to ask him to do that, so you reach out, but the door opens and Jimin walks towards you and Jungkook, announcing that dinner is ready.
Maybe you can tell him next time.
The next time doesn’t come until 3 days later.
The morning after Jungkook’s second visit to your parents’ house, he messaged you to say that he left some meat on your doorstep after his hunt but that he had so much work to do so he couldn’t pass by again. He said the same thing the next two mornings, and he’d left some fruits and vegetables that some townspeople had given him.
Your grandfather insists that he’s feeling better. Baram had taken him to another hospital for a second opinion and he was told the same thing - change in medication and diet and more leisure walking. He has to be even more careful, though, as the next heart attack could be severe, but he assures you that he’s fine.
“I won’t let you stop your life for me, ___,” he says sternly over breakfast.
“How are you doing that? I choose to be here with you,” you counter.
“And you shouldn’t be. Your parents are here, so is your sister. You should be home, with your mate. Jungkook is who you need to be with right now, not me.”
You look down at your plate and glance at your phone, his message from earlier that he’d already dropped by left open without your reply. You didn’t see him again, and it’s getting increasingly hard to deny that that isn’t making you sad.
“Go back to him today, okay?” Your mother responds to your silence. “You can’t keep running from your fate like this.”
“That’s not what I’m doing,” you defend.
“Every time you need to heal from something, you’re here. Your source of strength is the one next to you, the one you keep pushing away,” she gently hits you with reality. “It’s not us anymore, sweetie. It’s him.”
You know they’re right, so you reply to Jungkook that you’ll return in the evening and he responds with an okay.
You end up leaving for the cabin earlier, as you’d gone to your parents’ after work but your mother just sent you packs of food for dinner then pushed you out. Perhaps you deserve that, so you took your scooter and rode up the mountain, ready to sort things out with Jungkook, whatever it is you need to sort out with him.
The sun has only started its descent and you arrive at the cabin, your eyes widening in surprise that you have to look around to make sure that this is the same place you retire to everyday.
You’ve only been gone barely a week but you don’t recognize it at all. You wouldn’t have known it’s the same place if not for Jungkook’s pickup truck parked on the makeshift driveway.
There’s a small porch on the front, framing the door; on the sides are planter boxes and birdhouses, none of which were here a few days ago, and you wonder if there are any more changes to surprise you.
You enter the cabin and place the food that your parents gave you on the dining table, and from there, you notice something outside that you hadn’t seen before, too.
The door creaks open, and you’re stunned at the sight of a back porch, not as large as what you have at your parents’, but spacious enough for some seating and some plants.
This used to be just a bare, flat space with one of the dining chairs you’d bring out for you to sit on, as you gaze at the tall trees that block out much of the sunlight. You’ve learned to find peace with that sight, choosing not to compare with what you’re used to back home. But somehow the view has changed, too, as the trees seem to be less than you remember.
The porch looks unfinished but it’s sturdy, and your jaw drops at the realization that it’s a wraparound, as the corners are open and more wood slabs are laying on the ground. It’s a mess in the backyard, with lots of tools and concrete and logs laying about. You wonder if this is the work that Jungkook said he had to do.
You hurry to the bedroom, hoping Jungkook is there, perhaps resting, if he’d done all this work in just the last few days, but it’s empty, and it’s the books about building porches and garden landscaping on his side of the bed that catch your attention.
You hear the shower turn off and it’s not long after when the bathroom door opens, revealing a stunned Jungkook with nothing but his pajama pants on.
You’ve had sex multiple times, had felt him naked against you, but you didn’t realize that you’d never actually seen him. You always mated in the dark, with the slivers of moonlight shining over parts of his body that you merely touch, not savor nor caress. Your eyes tend to be closed so you could focus on the pleasure, and not the one making you feel it. You didn’t really want to see him; you just wanted to forget.
But he’s here now, physically vulnerable in front of you, and he seems to feel that way, as he turns away when he realizes he’s half naked, his arms trying to cover whatever parts of his bare body that he can.
“I, I didn’t know you’d be back early,” he stammers. “I should prepare dinner.”
He walks towards the bed to get his shirt he’s been eyeing, but you wrap your hand around his wrist to stop him, catching him off guard.
He doesn’t move, his head still turned away, as if waiting for you to say something.
“Jungkook…” you start. “The trees.”
You’d seen a bit of the sun on its way down, something that rarely happens with the obstructed view.
“We don’t get a lot of sun,” he responds shyly. “You’d mentioned feeling a little stuffy out here. And I needed more logs, anyway. I just replanted deeper into the woods.”
“What about the porch?”
“You… you like sitting out on the porch. You could spend hours there,” he sighs, sharing everything he wasn’t quite ready to, not so soon at least. “I wasn’t sure which side you like to face so I just… did a wrap around. More options.”
“And the planter boxes and bird houses?”
“Those are things you love.”
The words hit you. This is what Jungkook had been doing; even if he wasn’t with you, he was doing something for you.
You walk closer to him, trying your best to make him look at you.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” you whisper.
You’re right, Jungkook thinks. He didn’t have to, but it’s been hard knowing that you’re not happy here, that you’re not happy with him.
Every time you’re at your parents’ house, the back porch is where he always finds you, marveling at the view of the sunlight over everything it touches. He can’t recreate that scene, but some things, he could. And though he’d wanted to be with you to comfort you, he just knew he had to focus on working on all this.
“I just want you to feel like this is home,” he says. “I didn’t know how else to do that.”
He looks away, like he’s ashamed. He thinks he’s trying too hard. This is nothing like the place you grew up in, and he doesn’t want to replace it, he just hopes you could at least feel it elsewhere; he’s just unable to say that he wants it to be with him.
“Jungkook…” you whisper his name with affection and care, taking his cheek in your hand and prompting him to look at you.
He does so briefly, but his eyes wander on the ground.
“I just don’t want to feel so alone anymore,” he admits, so softly and painfully, you almost miss it.
Jungkook wants this with you, you tell yourself, something he’d been showing through his little ways these past few months, perhaps even when this all started. He wants to make you feel safe, like this is home, that you can feel home with him. It’s gotten infinitely clear that you want that, too.
“You aren’t,” you assure him, thumbing his cheek. “I’m here. We could build this home together. I said we would, I just… I don’t know how to do that for you, either.”
His face softens and he breathes a sigh of relief. He snuggles his face to your hand, as if savoring your touch, then he takes it in his, bringing it down and caressing it.
“Then we can build it,” he smiles. “I still have to finish the wraparound, and polish the couch, and do a few more—“
Your body moves before your mind can process it, and you find yourself tiptoeing and crashing your lips onto his, cutting him off and catching him by surprise.
You feel him stiffen, and you pull away immediately.
“I’m sorry, I…” You bite your lips, feeling shy at the sudden show of affection, given that you’d made sure that both of you wouldn’t be in this position because you weren’t ready.
But your whole body starts to feel hot, especially as you realize how close you are to him. He smells of pine trees and vanilla, his breath is hot as he heaves, and his eyelashes are fluttering in disbelief.
“Did you really want to do that?” He asks worriedly.
For the briefest moment, he felt so light with your lips against his, and he wants more of it. Jungkook has recovered his strength, but he’d been spending so much time building this place for both of you, and that’s left him spent again, worsened by being away from his mate and not having any other source of strength without you.
“Yes, Jungkook. I—“
You’re cut off this time with his lips on yours, his hands cupping your cheeks, and your momentary surprise ends with your hands on his arms, trying to keep yourself steady.
You sigh into the kiss, and an overwhelming feeling of newness yet familiarity overtakes you. His lips are dry but they feel nice against yours, slotting with your own so perfectly, as if they’re meant to be there.
It’s gentle, as you both get used to it, the small movements giving you some room to breathe. You feel the tensions in his body loosen the longer your lips touch, and somehow, you feel lighter, too.
You pull away, as you try to make sense of the feeling, and you see his face falter just a tiny bit at the distance between you. But you want it again, the feel of his lips is something you yearn, as if you know that a kiss is supposed to feel like this, yet you’ve also never felt it like this before.
It’s like that first time he held you and you kept seeking his warmth after; suddenly, you’re searching for his kiss, as if no other being can make you feel this way.
It’s meant to feel like this, you think, as Taehyung and Mi-Rae often lose words when trying to describe their mateship. It’s indescribable, they’d said, and you understand it. Suddenly, the connection with Jungkook is stronger, like you’re gravitating towards him, feeling drawn to him with whatever movement he makes.
Jungkook eyes you, worried he’d scared you away but you’re panting from the kiss like he is, your eyes softening as every second passes by and you’re realizing that you need his lips as much as he needs yours like it’s his oxygen, like you won’t be able to survive without them.
He knows by nature of your being mates, he can’t survive without you, but this moment after sharing your first kiss, the desire has heightened, and he knows the only thing to do is to sate it.
You seem to be thinking the same, as you move forward the same time he does, your hands wrapping around his neck to pull him closer, while his wrap around your back to do the same.
Your mouths part this time, tongues gliding in, entangling. It’s like they have a life of their own, as your lips meld together as they should, knowing what to do, what angle to take, how fervent it should be.
The kiss follows a steady pace - slow enough to feel everything, but intense enough to let the other know that you want more.
And you do, so badly. He relaxes you, like there’s home in his lips that are ravishing you, in his arms that are keeping you grounded, in his hands that are gripping your shirt, in his bare chest that’s heaving and seemingly satisfied with your taste.
Your joint moans fill the room, and his get louder when your hands trail south, your fingertips grazing his chest and his pert nipples. His kiss intensifies and he tightens his hold, but there’s enough space for your hand to go further down, past the ridges of his torso and onto his aching length.
You palm him cautiously, and there’s something about the way he's clinging onto you and the way his body heaves that tells you he wants more. So you slide your hand inside his trousers, touching him there for the first time.
While he’s been inside you several times before, you’ve never actually touched him, and this new experience is making you feel lightheaded and dazed at the same time. He’s thick and heavy, one you've surmised based on how much he’s stretched you out, the pain and pleasure from how he'd felt inside you a good distraction.
His length is warm and veiny, as you wrap your hand around it, gently stroking the shaft, with your thumb sliding over his slit every once in a while. He growls into the kiss that hasn’t stopped, and you’re so lost in him, the way he seems to be lost in you.
“Jungkook,” you pant, coming up for air while your hand still rubs him.
“Hmm,” he grunts, his mouth reflexively moving to your neck, taking in your scent, and rumbling as he does.
“Jungkook, please,” you plead, prompting his carnal desire to heighten and the wolf in him to surface for the briefest moment, as he mindlessly rips your sweatshirt, the back of it shredding immediately.
He hears the sound and his movements stop, suddenly looking like nothing of the man who was ready to ravage you just moments ago.
“Shit, I’m so sorry!” He panics, bitten lips wanting to make you kiss them again. “I… fuck, I lost control. I…”
His eyes widen at your soft smile and the sweet laugh that follows right after. It’s rare for him to see and hear those directed at him, and he knows that he’s been missing out on a lot. He wants more of them, he’s absolutely sure.
“It’s fine,” you assure, removing whatever is remaining of your top, leaving you in your cotton bra, and your cheeks warm at how Jungkook doesn’t look away.
“Just be careful with my jeans, okay? They’re my favorite,” you giggle.
Jungkook feels like he’s unable to speak, but he feels the heat rush through his body, like he’s on fire, as the implication of your words seem to mean more than just your usual casual sex.
He tries to find the regret in your eyes, or any indication that this is still one of those instances that’s meant to just make you forget whatever you’re feeling, but you’re not avoiding his gaze like you usually do. You’re staring back at him, eyes asking him for something he’s trying to decipher.
You bite your lip, as if waiting for him to move, so he does. He walks towards you slowly and reaches out, stopping halfway because he doesn’t know if you want him to touch you like this.
You see his hesitation, so you take his hand and direct it towards your cheek, letting him caress you as your body seeks for his sensual touch.
He’s back to facing you, his eyes scanning your face and letting himself look at you the way he’s always wanted to, nothing like when you’re asleep or not looking, nothing like when he steals glances and hoping you don’t catch him. He looks at you, takes note of the little details of your face, how your lips part, how your eyes gloss over him, too.
“Touch me, Jungkook,” you whisper, but there’s certainty in your voice, and it’s the assurance he needs that he can take his time in getting to know your body even more, not just to please you, but to feel every bit of you that you’ve kept locked away.
His hand traces the outlines of your body this time, from your neck down to your chest, where you remove your bra and let him savor you bare like this. He’s gentle and slow even with his worker’s hand, sending shivers through your entire body. He cups your breast, thumb flicking your pert bud, and you let out a moan you can’t control.
He plants soft kisses over each breast, licking them gingerly, before he heads further down, his lips grazing over your torso. He undoes your jeans and slowly slides them down your legs along with your underwear, and he weakens at the scent of your arousal, clouding his mind and leaving him craving for you even more.
You smell different this time; he can sense your desire that wasn’t there before.
He leans his head against your pelvis, trying to feel more of you, taking in your essence that’s driving him wild inside.
It manifests in the growl he lets out, and you feel him stop himself from taking your cunt in his mouth, and he instead stands up again, cupping your cheeks and kissing you deeply.
He meets your forehead with his, his ragged breaths and tense muscles letting you know how much he’s controlling himself.
“Don’t hold back, please,” you say. “I can take it.”
“I can’t,” he clenches his jaw, glancing at your neck, knowing that losing himself in you will make the temptation of marking you even stronger.
It was so hard resisting it; he’d been able to fight the urge all those times. It helped that you’d fall asleep right after, unaware of the physical torture he’d experience over not being able to mark you, of not being able to have more. He’d shift into wolf form after to expel the pent up energy and emotions of not being able to take you fully, and you’d wake up the next morning, oblivious to all that went on his mind and that his body had to go through just because he couldn’t bond with you.
But you see the way he eyes that part of your body, the one he’s aching to sink his teeth in, the action that would bond both of you for life. You’ve deprived him of this for so long, and when things cleared and the wave of regret overtook you, Amma reminded you that even bonding finds its time. It’ll hurt you if you’re not ready, and you weren’t ready for a long time.
“You can, Jungkook,” you take his hand. “I want you to mark me. I want to bond with you. I want to feel your pain and I want to give you my strength.”
They’re the words he’d been waiting for but he didn’t expect to hear them. He’d been managing with your touches, and the kisses you shared earlier had caused an enormous amount of his energy - of himself - to return. He doesn’t want to force you, to trap you. Even with your willingness this time, he knows it’s not that simple.
“___, I know they’ve told you that’s how you can help me,” he turns away. “But I’m okay. Your affection is enough for me to get my strength back. Don’t do this for me.”
“But I want to, and I’m doing this for me, too,” you counter.
“I’ve lost so much and I almost lost you, Jungkook. I’ve been living on what if’s for years and I still am. What if you didn’t survive that night? What if I wasn’t so stubborn and just opened myself to you? What if I hadn’t been selfish and just let you in and let me share my strength with you? What if we could build a home together out of our broken parts, what if that’s what we need so we could heal?”
You meet his eyes and you can still sense the hint of hesitation, of fear.
“Don’t worry if it’ll hurt. It won’t because I’m ready,” you try to convince him. “Amma says I’m strong and that’s why I could give you some strength but I don’t think so, because I’ve lost too much of myself to the anger and resentment and I need your faith, Jungkook. I need you to share your belief, your trust in us with me. I can’t lose anymore.”
You caress his cheeks and you see him fall into them, finding comfort in your touch, letting himself chase it this time.
“I’ve held out for so long. I deprived you of so much, and I’m so sorry. But I… I need you, Jungkook,” you let a tear fall. “And I know you need me, too.”
He blinks a tear away, the first time he’d ever let you see him cry, but he nods and smiles, and it’s the last thing you see before your lips meet his again, in a kiss that is so intense, they speak thousands of words in a single movement.
With his superhuman strength, he carries you with one arm and takes two steps to lay you on the bed. Hand still wrapped around your back and the other taking your own and intertwining his fingers with yours, he continues to kiss you fervently, as if oxygen isn’t a necessity, only you are.
He nips and licks your mouth, and then his own travels to your breasts, swallowing you whole, nothing like the careful way he used to do it. He’s relentless in pleasuring you, as you hear nothing but your moans getting louder by the second.
With his body flushed against yours, he manages to find your clit and pleasure you further, tracing patterns over your throbbing nub and slipping two fingers to ready you. You’re heaving in pleasure by the time his lips reach yours again, his eyes filled with lust and desire, and that’s when he moves so he can align his cock against your cunt, your slick making it easy for him to enter despite your tightness.
You moan into his mouth, the pain and pleasure a feeling you’ve missed, as it’s been a while since you and Jungkook have done this. But it’s all different, as you’re savoring everything he’s giving you, and you want to satisfy him just the same. You wait for him to make it inside you completely before you meet his thrust, catching him off guard.
He tightens his grip on your waist as your kisses continue, his other hand kneading your breast, and his pelvis hitting your clit as he rams into you. Jungkook wants to make sure to pleasure you in as many ways as he can tonight.
His whole body moves with you, and he wants you to reach that high together, the perfect time for the bonding to happen.
“So good,” you moan when you catch some air. “So, so good, Jungkook. Please don’t stop.”
He grunts in your ear, and the way he sounds makes you even wetter, feeling as to how into it he is with you being as receptive and active as you are this time, what with your joint thrusts and your hand that’s pulling his hair, adding to his own pleasure.
He nibbles your ear lobe, then licks the expanse of your neck to get a taste. Your heart stops for the briefest moment, and he senses the tiniest bit of fear in you.
But you keep moaning his name, asking him for more, to keep going, pleading with him to mark you.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers, before he increases the pace of his thrusts, hitting the deepest part of you, and with the joint strokes of his hand on your breast, you feel your orgasm build up, and so does he.
So he continues, trying to reach his peak as you are, until it’s moans and screams and skin slapping skin that fill the bright room. He knows that you’re so close, and he hits an angle that sends both of you in a head spin, and that’s when he feels your heart rate shoot up and he knows it’s time.
Your mind fails to process everything at once - between the sharp teeth sinking into the juncture of your neck and shoulder and the intense orgasm you’re experiencing, you don’t know what to focus on.
Until all of a sudden, you feel hazy, like things are fading away, but you feel everything, all at once.
You feel pain and tiredness and frustration and anger; you feel desperation, worry, guilt, and an immense sadness that’s like a hole in your heart that’s exposed to even more hurt. You feel inadequacy, loneliness, powerlessness and loss of control. It’s a thrumming ache, like a slow ripping of your chest; suddenly you’re exposed and naked and vulnerable. It stings, you feel like you’re shattering into a million pieces although you’re still whole.
And then there’s calmness, then it’s all quiet and peaceful. And you can feel all the tiny shards of your heart come together one by one. It’s nothing like you’ve ever experienced before.
You feel Jungkook lick the mark, sealing it, healing it, and a wave of clarity hits you.
You turn towards him, your glassy eyes mirroring his, and not long after when your tears fall down like a waterfall, you realize the ache and the emptiness you felt that you knew was his, is a familiar one, it’s like the one you feel.
It’s all so overwhelming, as you continue to cry because the pain felt so vivid, but even with the familiarity, you know it was Jungkook’s, and it hurt so much.
They span years, from watching people he’d cared about pass on, to carrying the burden of protecting this entire town, to losing the person he loved, seeing her happy with someone else… to trying with you, watching you be hurt and empty, to almost losing you.
You felt it all.
You’re in shock, and Jungkook was told this could happen. Bonding is a very sacred and intimate act for wolf mates, and no amount of stories could prepare him for this.
He’d been told that a human could be overwhelmed from all the emotions that a werewolf feels. As a species, werewolves are vulnerable to all sorts of feelings; emotional pain is something they feel too easily, and he was afraid that everything he’d kept inside would scare you.
But there’s no fear in your eyes. There’s understanding, empathy, and even more, there’s apology, there’s care. There’s promise.
“Jungkook, I…” you quiver, not knowing what to say, unable to fully express and verbalize all the things you’re feeling.
He looks back at you, eyes finding comfort in yours, but at the same time assuring you that things are okay, that he’s okay.
“I recognize your pain. I’m sorry I didn’t do so earlier,” you cry. “I… felt everything. And I…”
You hug him, wail against his neck as you release all the guilt and regret, your body shaking as you do. He’d been carrying everything on his own, waiting for his mate to share all of them with because he can’t do it by himself, and you shunned him, used him, hurt him.
“It’s okay, ___. I’m okay. You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”
“What did you feel?” You ask.
“Everything, too. I’m so sorry,” he silently cries, thinking about the emptiness and the fear of losing more people in your life that he felt.
It was overwhelming for him, too, feeling all the things that made you hurt, then feeling that hurt himself. But he felt your strength, your joy, your contentment. You hadn’t lost them; they’re still there, just buried under everything else.
That’s why he kisses you, so he could share the good things that he felt in you, so you’d remember, so you won’t feel helpless anymore, or scared that there’s no more of you left.
And you feel it. You feel the happiness you used to have through him. You feel the dreams you once had, the strength that’s been passed on to you; you feel your ability to love and to move on and to once again be happy.
“Do you feel it?” He whispers. “They’re familiar, because they’re yours. You haven’t lost the best parts of yourself, ___. They’re still there.”
“I guess I just needed to feel them through you,” you mumble.
“I guess so, too,” he smiles, and it’s genuine and absolutely beautiful.
Jungkook is beautiful, as you gaze at his dark eyes that are soothing your soul at this moment. He has long lashes that flutter delicately against his skin; he has beauty marks in the softest parts of his face; he has the faintest of scars that still make him human. He’s stunning, you can now admit that to yourself.
You kiss him this time, tenderly and sensually, as you try to get used to feeling so many things every time you do this. But it gets heated again not long after.
Itching hands explore each other’s bodies, as the bond has just made you yearn for the other even more. You’re shameless in your desires, touching him everywhere, panting his name, leading his mouth to places where you want him to taste you.
He settles for your breasts, his mouth expertly sucking and licking them, as he fervently thrusts inside you again, and with the heightened thirst, you come that much easily, too.
You lie comfortably in bed, hands around Jungkook whose head is still buried in your neck.
You’re spent, and not just physically. You went through a rollercoaster of emotions in minutes, and all you want to do is have Jungkook hold you until you feel like you have energy again, because right now, though it’s calm and comforting, it’s just that much tiring.
You feel him relax, but you also feel him still hard inside you.
“Jungkook. You came, right?” You ask worriedly and he nods in response. “Because you’re still, uh…”
“Uh, well, not a normal human,” he laughs shyly, looking at you.
You think it’s adorable.
“Is it always like this? I mean, how many times do you need to come before it, uh… stops being like that?”
“Uhm, a few times.”
Your eyes widen, thinking how you could possibly keep up. You’ve had two rounds and you don’t think you can properly walk, yet Jungkook can’t even get his cock rested because it seems like it’s still raring to go.
“So all the times we did it before, you just…”
“Dealt with it on my own,” he shrugs, like it’s no big deal, whereas you stare at him, looking a little scared.
“Don’t worry, okay? It’s nothing, really,” he smiles.
“It isn’t. You’re my mate, we’re bonded now. I want to pleasure you, too.”
“You do, you have no idea,” he cups your cheek. “He’ll be tamed soon enough. I’ll just slip out so it won’t keep feeling you clench around it.”
“We can always go another round. I’ll just need to rest a bit and well…”
He pulls out, his hot and thick cum dripping from your core, leaving you in awe at the amount of it in you.
“Empty myself, yes. I might not have room inside for more of that,” you chuckle.
“Shit,” he huffs, realizing he’s been irresponsible about this. “I wasn’t thinking. I just came and—“
“Don’t,” you interject. “I’m on contraceptives. I’m… I’m sorry,” you say, realizing that mating for werewolves means bringing life into this world.
He senses what you mean by your apology, so he takes your hand and kisses it.
“No need to be. Small steps; we can talk about that another time.”
“Okay,” you mirror his smile, suddenly feeling like everything is new, including him and what you now share.
It isn’t just your pain; it’s so much more. This life, this home included.
You and Jungkook change the sheets and shower separately. You both finish the 3 nights' worth of dinner that your parents let you take home.
You’re laying on his chest as he has one arm wrapped around you, the comfort of being close to you like this overtaking him. He feels renewed, refreshed, like he’s a new being again. He’d always known that bonding completely changes things; he just didn’t think it would be like this.
You’re soft against him, and he just wants to hold you as close and as long as possible.
“Does it hurt?” He asks, as he sees you touch the mark every once in a while.
“It just stings a little bit, but that should go away, right? I mean, it’s normal?” You worriedly look at him.
“Your body’s just getting used to it. It’ll just be like a scar when you wake up in the morning,” he assures you.
“And you’ll be next to me when that happens?”
“I will,” he kisses you gently. “Good night, ___.”
You smile at him and he smiles back, and it’s a scene you didn’t think you’d get to be a part of. But you do, and you bear his mark that connects both of you in more ways than you imagined. There’s comfort in knowing you’ll have this everyday.
“Good night, Jungkook.”
Being bonded with Jungkook makes you feel all sorts of new things. You think about him all the time. You look for him every time you wake up, as some mornings he’d be out for a hunt or a run, while on some days, his limbs are entangled with yours, his breath warming your neck or your chest.
You wonder how he’s doing when you’re at work, and you get excited for him to get home from patrolling to dinner that you prepared for him. You want to kiss him all the time, want his fingers intertwined with yours, want to feel him bare and moaning for you.
Mi-Rae and Taehyung say it’s expected, as bonding lets you feel a kind of oneness with your mate that’s indescribable, that’s unique and special and long lasting. Feeling what they feel in a general way makes all the difference, as it helps both people develop a certain level of empathy that makes them yearn to be there for each other in whatever way.
The longing and desire form a big part of it, as the need to mate makes the bond stronger, and it’s natural for both to want the other in all ways possible.
You and Jungkook don’t talk about your feelings for each other. It’s a little odd, considering you’re both bonded, although your best friends assure you that the feelings are there, perhaps just faint. The bond is the end and beginning, they say, as it could either strengthen what’s already there or nurture what’s been created.
The feelings will come soon enough; you and Jungkook don’t exactly fit the mold of the usual fated mates, they remind you.
But it’s different, talking about actual feelings, knowing they’re supposed to be a fact as bonded mates, although it’s not something you’re completely sure of. Actual feelings borne out of a genuine connection is still not that easy to build and nurture.
You feel the seed of like and love springing forth within you, though, and you admit to yourself it’s not that hard to fall in love with Jungkook.
Aside from completing the wraparound porch and getting the wooden couch upholstered so there’s space for both of you to cuddle in at any time of the day, he also made a wooden tub for you, perfect for either a hot bath or a cold one, as your body prepares for its first transformation. You also said one time how nice it would be to have one post-sex, and you’d used it right after he made it, thinking about one day being comfortable enough to have one with him.
He’s also incredibly caring, mature, and genuine.
The night of the Ceremony of Fates took place, one year since both your lives changed. While you’d both been excited to attend this year as spectators - perhaps reminisce about how that evening went and laugh at how you snapped at him every chance you got - you couldn’t, as that night also meant your first transformation, being the first full moon since bonding, and it’s one that would be incredibly difficult for you to handle.
Jin-Ae spent an entire week guiding you through it, and while she couldn’t be there for you on the evening it’s supposed to happen, you could hear her voice in your head, telling you to breathe, to take the pain and just let go, and hold your mate’s hand when it gets too much.
You felt like your body was on fire and you heard every one of your bones crack. It was hours of grueling pain but Jungkook held your hand while Mi-Rae busied herself with all the things you needed.
He kissed your hand to soothe you, even read you a short story when you started to feel weak, and wiped every part of you that was drenched in sweat. He watched from afar when the Moon was at her peak and you howled into the air as you transformed, and Jungkook shifted and ran with you into the woods, as you felt the kind of freedom that Jungkook and your friends and Yoongi, at one point, talked about. It somehow felt even more special that on that first run, Jungkook was with you.
During that Ceremony, Baram was fated to Hoseok, and your family’s celebration was postponed so you could be there, and while you were frustrated that you missed such a special moment in your sister’s life, Jungkook made sure you didn’t feel too bad nor too alone, assuring you that Baram would’ve been happy with your first successful transformation, and that’s all that matters.
It was the next evening when you were looking at the bracelet that Yoongi gave you, something that you still wore and removed only briefly because of your transformation, and then wore again. You and Jungkook had sex that night, and you saw him glance at your wrist for a moment and though he didn’t say anything, you didn’t want him to feel lacking, inadequate, as you’d felt him feel those before.
He’d come from the bathroom when he saw you removing the bracelet and attempting to hide it inside your drawer.
“You don’t have to remove it,” Jungkook said, catching you by surprise. “I don’t mind. We said we wouldn’t forget,” reminding you of a conversation you had just days ago about the people you’d lost and needing to remember, especially you.
“Yes, but Yoongi gave this,” you trace the charms, ready to hide them away in a box stored somewhere you can’t always see. “I don’t want you to think that I still wish it was him instead of you. That’s, that’s not true.”
“___, that bracelet is you as much as it is him,” Jungkook knelt in front of you and took your hand, locking the hooks in place around your wrist. “These charms are all the things you love; maybe he gave them to you so you won’t forget, not just him but all the best parts of you.”
He caressed your cheek, a favorite thing of yours that he does. “Maybe Yoongi meant that you can still enjoy all those even without him. You and I have each other now but that doesn’t mean you get to erase him. He was your best friend, too. Maybe it’s about learning how to carry the memory while moving forward.”
You cried to sleep then, and though you didn’t show it, he felt it, that’s why he held you as you had your back on his chest, not wanting to show him how affected you were, but like he said, he didn’t mind. He just let you cry, then assured you that you weren't alone and he wasn’t going anywhere that isn’t next to you.
You think about that now, as the charms dangle against the tray that’s holding the beef you’re set to bake this morning. Yoongi’s memory remains, even if you’re living it with a new life that you’re content to have.
Jungkook is currently on an early run, and you wanted to prepare him lunch he’d take to work, so you marinate the meat and set the oven temperature while you cook some noodles. You should’ve expected that with the oven’s old age - as Jungkook said he’d just bought second hand appliances - it was bound to give up, and it did, halfway through the baking time.
You don’t know what happened, and you hadn’t expected the smoke coming out of it, quickly suffocating you from its thickness, nor the detector going off, making you panic. You know you’ll survive; it’s the cabin going up in flames that you don’t want to happen, but you haven’t yet explored your new abilities and you end up not knowing what to do.
Just then, you hear the door burst open, and you see Jungkook running into the kitchen. His eyebrows scrunch at the sight of the oven, which you notice has now caught fire, and he immediately gets the extinguisher from the cabinet and puts out the flames. He quickly turns off the detector then opens the windows to let the smoke out.
Then he turns to you, pulls you towards him, and wraps his arms around you. You can hear his heartbeat going a mile a minute, and you sigh into his chest the same time that he sighs into your hug.
Jungkook was still a few kilometers away, but he’d smelled the smoke from the cabin and ran as fast as he could. It didn’t seem like you were burning coal or wood; it seemed like something was on fire, and any thought of you being in danger made him panic. He can’t let you be hurt again. He’s glad it was just a small fire, but the way you’d looked nervous and afraid still made him scared.
“You don’t have to worry,” you say, knowing it’s what he’s feeling. “I’m like you now. I won’t get hurt.”
He turns you to face him and holds you by your shoulders.
“___, you can still get hurt. You’ll heal, but you can still feel pain, even if I’m here. You just transformed; your body hasn’t reached its full capacity yet; it’s still learning.”
You were being naive, but the way Jungkook looks at you, with so much concern, makes you a little guilty.
“I’m sorry,” you pout.
“Don’t be,” he hugs you again. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”
“I am,” you smile.
“What were you doing baking meat so early in the morning, anyway?”
“I wanted to make you lunch you can take to work,” you shyly admit. “I know that walking to the nearest cafeteria takes time for you and I just… I just wanted to make you something. But the oven gave out and now it’s broken and the meat is burnt.”
Jungkook’s heart swells at what you were planning to do, because he’d noticed you try to really make this place a home for him, for both of you.
You take time to plan what you’ll cook for dinner, usually something you remember he likes or something he’d mentioned in passing that he wanted to eat. You always make him fresh juice when you see him cutting wood. You’ve unearthed rare photos he has with his pack of when they were growing up, bought frames, then placed them on the shelves, too. Some nights when he’s tired and he sees you reading a book, he lays next to you and you read out loud, until he falls asleep. You even knitted matching covers for your wolf beds.
The cabin exterior is adorned with color and life, as you’d started gardening; the inside is just as vibrant, with flowers in vases and some art pieces you’d found in the market. It’s everything Jungkook never really imagined he’d ever experience.
“Thank you. I can do with cafeteria food or leftovers today,” he kisses your hand. “And I’m sorry for my crusty old appliance. That just means we need to buy a new one.”
Your eyes light up.
“And, uh, maybe a sturdier mattress, and a bigger couch, too?” You smile.
“Yes, definitely,” he chuckles. “Guess we’ll have to go to the lowlands and buy all those.”
“It’s a date, then.”
It was a domestic date more than anything, as you and Jungkook took the trip to the lowlands the next day and ended up buying more than what you planned. You got sales talked to get the entire kitchen set, and you attribute it to the big discount that got you both to agree. But you also got pillows for your living room and outdoor couch and some cozy linens and rugs.
Jungkook mentioned turning the storage room across the bedroom into a reading nook for you, and said he plans to build a second floor of the cabin for more rooms and a balcony that would let you feel the sun more.
It felt nice, sharing plans like that. It was all said so casually but you know he meant all of it, and you felt excited at how your new home would look like, how it would feel like.
You wait a few days before you ask him to another date. The new appliances had just arrived and you wanted to make him something special.
You’re dressed and ready for work while he’d just loaded the logs in his work truck.
“Hi,” you say, before he enters the bathroom. “Do you have plans for tonight?”
It’s a silly question but one you still ask.
“Uh, you?” He cocks an eyebrow then laughs. “I mean, nothing, just come home to you. Unless you’re doing something?”
“I’ll make us dinner. Like uh, like a date,” you beam.
“A date? Is there anything that I’m missing?” He briefly panics.
“Uh, new appliances?” You tease. “But I just wanted to make something nice for us, since, you know, things are okay. We’re happy, at least I am, and I just wanted to…” you trail, seeing his wide eyes and questioning face and you think he’s unable to wrap his mind around your proposition, considering that you couldn’t stand him at one point.
But this is a date you’re asking, Jungkook thinks. It feels a lot more intimate than just having sex, which for him, is all kinds of great. You both do it several times a week and he’s blown away every time, especially now with you having transformed; you’re able to take him a lot better and keep up with his pace and stamina, and that’s always led to more rounds in a night, with neither of you feeling spent in the morning because that’s what bonded mating is like.
But a date where you’ll prepare him dinner and you’ll both just enjoy each other’s company feels so special that your words take longer to process in his mind, and he’s left just staring at you, speechless. You tell him you’re happy, and the words get stuck in his throat.
“Anyway, I’ll see you tonight, at 7:30,” you continue. “Uh, okay, bye!” You wave him goodbye, passing up kissing his cheek because you rambled and are a little embarrassed, then you run out the door, leaving a still stunned Jungkook in your wake.
You make it home after work quickly and prepare the dishes that you planned, calling your grandfather several times to run through the recipes you got from him.
The rabbit stew is ready, the beef is baking in the oven, the roasted sweet potatoes are golden and crispy, and the key lime pie is in the refrigerator. And you’re dressed and made up, waiting for Jungkook to come home.
It’s 7:30 sharp when you hear the doorbell ring, and you rush to let him in, hoping he doesn’t think you’ve gone overboard with your plans.
You gush at how he looks in a black button-down short sleeve polo, thinking that he probably took that with him before he left this morning. His hair is pushed back, exposing his forehead and the rest of his features that you’ve come to appreciate. He looks at you adoringly and your cheeks warm at the way his eyes scan you and his lips part.
Jungkook hadn’t seen you dressed up since the Ceremony last year. You have on a short red dress, hair adorned with a red and white scarf. You have light make-up on, and you’re looking quite shy as you greet and smile at him.
“Hi. Too much?”
Jungkook is dazed, but he manages to say no before he cups your cheeks then kisses you deeply.
His lips are warm and soft and comfortable against yours. You’ve done this many times, as every moment you mate consists half of it just kissing. It’s not always that you do it outside of sex, and when you do, they’re mostly quick kisses or a peck on the cheek. But this one is so purposeful, you feel yourself getting lost in it immediately. If you skip the whole dinner, you wouldn’t mind it, either.
But he pulls away and apologizes, smiling shyly at what he’d done. You smile back then take his hand, telling him the food is ready, prompting him to comment on how good everything smells.
His eyes widen at the little set-up, complete with string lights and flowers, and dinnerware that you say your parents lent you, even more so when he realizes it’s all the food from the Ceremony when you were fated together.
“We didn’t really get to enjoy the food, then. Well, maybe you did,” you giggle. “So I thought it would be nice to enjoy them this time.”
“This is beautiful, ___,” he smiles, eyes glimmering from the lights above, his heart beaming with how you wanted to recreate that night, one with with a different ending.
“And so are you,” he says softly.
“Oh, thank you,” you heat up, feeling like a giddy teenager being complimented by her crush. And that wouldn’t be a complete lie. “You look really nice, too.”
You take out the food, one by one, and every time, his mouth waters at the sight. They all look and taste delicious, even more than during the Ceremony, and though you downplay that your grandfather helped you out, Jungkook knows it’s all you. They’ve been prepared and presented with so much care; he feels like he could cry with how elated he feels.
It’s odd, being mates, having bonded, and being shy yet ecstatic over homemade dinner that you prepared. You think this usually happens very early on in a relationship, but you and Jungkook are only experiencing them now.
It’s different, perhaps, because this was something you and Yoongi used to do together in his own place. You looked forward to these dates, and the reminder of what you used to have momentarily shakes you. There was comfort in those moments, and now, you think that there’s comfort in this one, too.
You’re with Jungkook, and you can no longer deny what you feel. You seek him, you yearn for him; you want so many things with him that are hard to describe. He looks at you like he has the entire night sky in his eyes and the softest smile, and it gives you hope that you’re not the only one finding herself in the odd position of falling in love with her mate.
Jungkook insists on doing the dishes while you wash up, and you spend the rest of the evening in your pajamas, snuggled next to each other on the outdoor couch, and enjoying some tea and the cool winter air that no longer leaves you paralyzed.
The conversations you had from dinner continue, which are mostly about your childhood and his, how your love-hate relationship with Baram was so typical of sisters, how she was always the overachiever and you were the wallflower, even if you’ve always been your grandfather’s favorite. Jungkook talks about growing up in the pack house with a bunch of other wolves, all the aggression and confusion leaving him to prefer being on his own, as being around people overwhelms him.
Beyond the pain you felt, there are so many other similarities. Jungkook likes the ordinary as much as you do, finding peace in being up in the mountains, with nothing but the sound of the woods waking him up and soothing him to sleep. He likes being in the background more than most, preferring the comfort of his own company than others’. It’s why it had been hard to connect with other people, and why it had been easy to fall for Jin-Ae, as she made him feel safe.
You both talk about the people who were the loves of your lives. And you shouldn’t have been surprised that he still regards her with so much respect, yet he speaks of her in the past, like it’s all over, like it’s a memory he doesn’t return to anymore.
Jungkook feels security in you being able to talk about Yoongi freely, knowing you don’t feel like there’s anything to hide. You may still wear his bracelet, keep the necklace and all the other things he left you behind in a box close to you, and trace the words he’d written on your favorite books, but Jungkook knows you’re smiling at the memory, not anymore wishing they were your reality.
There’s affection, missing Yoongi sometimes, but the longing isn’t there anymore, not at least when you cuddle next to Jungkook and sigh into his neck.
“I liked tonight, thank you,” you whisper, and he kisses the top of your head to let you know he feels the same way.
You move to the bedroom, and you’re lying next to him, both of you seemingly in a daze over how the night went by.
He’s taken aback when you ask, “can you read my mind?”
“I can, but I don’t want to. I try not to,” he responds.
It’s an ability that not all werewolves have. Even between mates, feeling what the other is feeling is natural; reading minds is altogether different. There’s power and responsibility that come along with such a trait, and Jungkook never used it on you.
“I’m giving you permission to read it right now,” you whisper.
He briefly hesitates but does as you ask. He takes your hand and gazes at you, savoring what he finds out.
“You, you like me. A lot,” he utters, feeling his heart swell at the thought he’d only kept in his mind.
You shyly nod and turn to hide your face on his chest, not wanting to look at him.
“Why are you shy about it? Why did you want to tell me this way?”
“I’m nervous to say it,” you mumble.
“Why?”
It takes some moments but you finally look at him.
“I like to read but I’m not good with words, especially if they’re about what I feel,” you admit. “And I guess, it’s easier to let you read it than me saying it; it’s less embarrassing if you don’t feel the same way.”
“But I do. ___, we’re mates.”
We’re mates. It had always been his reason for everything. You’re not sure if it’s giving you comfort right now; it just seems like it’s expected, like it lacks agency.
“We’re meant to feel this, right? We’re supposed to want each other, like each other. That’s what happens when we’re fated,” you reason.
“Do you not believe in what I feel? In what you feel?” He turns towards you, wanting you to see his face for comfort.
“I do… I just, I know this usually isn’t how they happen. People develop feelings and then bond, which is why it’s so sacred - it’s the culmination of the commitment they made when they started to love each other, when they were fated, when they first mated. But we…” you look away. “We did it all differently. People don’t hurt each other when they’re mated. We did. Well, I did. And I can’t take that back. And now, we’re here, feeling all this because that’s what we’re supposed to do.”
“You know that this is how it used to happen, right? Strangers were fated and learned to care and want each other. They bonded then chose to build a home together,” Jungkook assures you. “And though things have changed and that’s not the norm anymore, doing things differently doesn’t make our feelings any less real. That’s what I think.”
He tilts your chin to face you.
“I like you, ___. A lot. I knew I eventually would that night of the Ceremony, even if it didn’t feel like it. Even if I knew it would take a while for me to really believe it. Even if I was angry and doubtful. Even if I didn’t want it at one point. But that’s part of our fate, isn’t it?” He smiles. “You told me you’re happy, and so am I. And we wouldn’t have known that if we hadn’t known pain. We wouldn’t feel this whole if we hadn’t known what it was like to be apart from our other half, and to be hurt by them.”
You’re left speechless but you feel everything he says. You’ve read stories that left you emotional and satisfied, and those were often the ones that were unpredictable. Just like your story and Jungkook’s. You’ve found yourself stuck on how things should be, not realizing that how you and Jungkook came to be is exactly how it was meant to happen.
“Okay,” is all you manage to say. “I like you. A lot.”
He chuckles at your shy face, one he’s started to get used to seeing you have.
“Good. That just means I get to hold your hand whenever I want to, right? Kiss you as many times as I want and not feel shy about it? Tell you things like I want you and I need you and I can’t live without you?”
His words send you in a daze, as you hadn’t realized he’d kept this all to himself. But you feel it all, you want it all.
You nod in response. “Yes. That also means I can now ask you to have that bath with me in the tub you made and not be nervous about it, right?”
He heats up at your question, but laughs at your adorable look.
“Yes, you may,” he whispers on your lips, kissing them gently. “This also means I can let myself fall in love with you the way you’ll fall in love with me, too?”
“Yes, we can.”
You kiss him this time, fervently, and you submit yourself completely. You know that falling in love with him wouldn’t be hard; it’s not far from happening, either.
Winter comes and goes. Unlike the previous year, you’re much warmer, and you’re able to manage without constantly shivering and feeling like you’re going to freeze to death. It still doesn’t keep you from seeking Jungkook’s warmth, whatever the time of day, though.
He holds your hand and kisses you whenever, except when you’re with other people. Somehow the shyness when it comes to your affection hasn’t completely gone away, but neither of you mind, as you know that once your cabin door closes, it’s impossible to get your hands off each other.
It’s towards the end of winter and Jungkook is in the backyard, chopping some wood that he’ll use for another bookshelf for you, as he’s started to convert the storage room to your reading space.
Inside the cabin, you’re baking your walnut pies. You know he’s been working hard, so you get it cooled down and prepare juice to take outside.
You’re not used to gawking at Jungkook, especially when he’s half naked, or even naked. You’ve learned to appreciate his body by the touch of him, even if you know that he looks just as good and just as handsome, if you just take more time to appreciate him.
But it’s probably the cool air that’s countering how he is right now - jeans hanging low on his waist, boots giving him a rugged look, and body glistening in sweat under the mid-morning sun, as he takes his ax and chops the wood laying on the stump. He doesn’t seem to put much effort, as you know this is nothing to him.
He hacks the wood and merely grunts, something that you hear clearly, and the desire spikes up again.
“Hey, I baked you something,” you finally go out to the backyard, wanting more than just watching him and feeling your thighs clench at the sight.
“Smells good,” he looks up at you, a smirk painting his face and his hand combing his damp hair back like it’s nothing.
He releases the ax and runs towards the small table he’d set up for his drawing tools. It’s where you’re seated, pouring him a glass of lemonade and slicing him a piece of the pie.
“Here, have some. It’s been a while since I’ve made it,” you offer him a piece and watch in amusement when he finishes it in 2 bites.
He drinks the juice, asks for another piece, and you giggle and slice one again. He closes his eyes as he savors the taste, humming in satisfaction, and you laugh at the recollection of all the times he’d eaten in front of you so meekly, especially during the Ceremony where he’d waited for you to head to the washroom before he even ate.
You wipe off the crumbs that collect on the corners of his lips with your fingers.
“You’re a fully grown adult, Jungkook, not a little kid who can’t eat properly,” you laugh.
“Sorry, it’s just so good,” he huffs, finishing the juice this time. “I could eat your pies for the rest of my life.”
The words are familiar, and you let yourself not fully remember the way Yoongi looked at you when he’d said those words, before you come back to your reality, the one with Jungkook, your mate, the man who’s taken your heart when you didn’t think anyone else could ever again.
“You will,” you smile, your soft eyes making him a promise that you know you’ll keep.
Jungkook feels something, like another layer of you chipping away for him, baring more of you that you’ve kept hidden for a long time. He feels lucky he’d been able to see parts of you that you’d lost, and as the weeks pass of both of you learning more about each other, body and heart and mind and soul, he knows he’d go through all the pain again just to have this moment with you.
He kisses you, and you don’t mind his sweet taste as you kiss him back, tongues melding like pieces of a puzzle, your mouths slotting in so perfectly like they’re meant to do. It gets heated, and your hands trace his toned arms then down his bare torso, now dry from sweat but heaving in desire.
“Jungkook,” you moan, his lips now tracing your neck, open-mouthed kisses making you feel the slick pool in your core.
“I… I know this is a private property but I don’t really want anyone else to hear me scream out here.”
“Shit,” he grunts against your chest, as he’d taken to pulling down your sweatshirt to reveal more of your skin. “Let me take you inside.”
He lifts you off the table, carries you with one arm, shifting you so your upper body falls over his shoulder, then starts to walk towards the cabin.
“Jungkook, my pie!” You scream, knowing it will attract animals.
He groans and walks back, taking it in his other hand while you laugh at the silliness of this.
He shuts the door with his boot, places the food on the dining table, then lays you on the floor rug by the couch. He hovers over you, his arms supporting his half-bare body, looking at you so intensely, you feel like you could melt. But you look back at him, and there’s something more in his eyes.
You feel it, too, as the overwhelming emotion of love that you’d felt before, that you lost, that felt so distant and at one point, that felt unattainable, crawls back into your veins. You pull him down to kiss him, and you know at this moment that you don’t ever want to let go.
It’s later that night, after a few rounds of making love when you came the hardest you ever did, then a quick visit to your grandfather, that you let yourself be completely vulnerable to Jungkook.
The winter evening has a certain warmth in the breeze, and the Moon looks so beautiful that you just wanted a good look.
“Come, I know a spot,” Jungkook says after you look at it from the window.
You take his hand and follow him to the woods, towards the left that’s overlooking the town. The lights from the houses look like dots to you, but they make the Moon that much more captivating from here. There’s a bench to sit on and you know this place; you’ve been here before.
“This is where I promised the Moon I’d try with you,” Jungkook states, as he recalls the few times he’d come here, desperate for things to just work out so the hurt would stop, so your pain and his would stop.
“Hmm, this is where I promised her, too,” you respond, looking back at the nights you’d wandered out here, as the Moon called for you and you begged her for things to make sense, so the pain would stop, so you could live again.
Jungkook smiles, assured that all those months, he wasn’t completely on his own.
“I made this bench, actually.”
“What in this place have you not made? Even the people in the market were giving me free produce as a thank you to you for building their table or something,” you laugh.
“I had a lot of time in my hands then,” he shrugs. “It was easier to make other people happy because I didn’t know how to be.”
You take his hand and kiss it, a thing you do to assure him of something when words fail you.
You let the silence envelope you both as you stare at the Moon and marvel at her beauty. It’s hard to think that at one point, you couldn’t stand her, couldn’t stand what she’d done, what she’d taken away from you. But now, you look at her with a different kind of reverence.
“She’s ethereal, isn’t she?”
“She is,” Jungkook wraps his arm around you, “and she knows her stuff, too. Fated me with this woman who needed someone as much as I did, and I’ll always be grateful for that.”
“The Moon is never wrong,” you repeat the words you’ve heard too many times, they hurt at one point.
This earns you a chuckle from Jungkook but you understand it now.
Loss is something that’s hard for others to comprehend; so is Love. There are things beyond your human or werewolf capability, and you’ve accepted that things won’t always make sense; you take what you’re given, and you make something out of what you have. Life becomes more beautiful when you’re able to share that with someone. You’re just glad that out of all the people that the Moon thought to fate you to, it’s Jungkook.
He looks at you as you gaze at her, and his heart beats out of his chest at the words he’d been waiting to tell you.
“I love you,” he says, and you’ve never heard such words said with so much certainty and care and apology and fear and affection all at once.
You know this, because you feel that way, too.
“I don’t think I gave you permission to read my mind,” you smile at him.
“But I didn’t. Whatever it is you feel or don’t feel, it’s okay. I just need you to know.”
“I love you, Jungkook. I didn’t know that I still could, but I do.”
His heart stops for the briefest moment, the confirmation of your feelings taking his breath away, and as you smile at him, all he could think of is how lucky he is that he’d been fated to you.
“Are we making her another promise?” He smiles.
“We are, and we’re doing it together.”
It’s early in springtime when Baram bears her children - 2 pups who look just as joyful and maybe a little bit naughty as their parents. You’re happy for your sister, as she’d always talked about finding her mate and having kids and having grand dreams for them.
You’re celebrating their birth in your parents’ garden, with tables set up and an array of food to choose from. All your friends are present; Namjoon and Jin-Ae are here with their children, so are Seokjin and Inha, the pack doctor who’d helped Jungkook and you, at one point, whom he’s been seeing. Amma is joining in the celebration, too, enjoying the overwhelming display of love from everybody.
You’re in the porch, watching over your grandfather who’s gotten weaker the past few months, and though you promised him you wouldn’t be as worried since that stresses him out even more, you can’t help but stay by his side, as he opts to lay more comfortably on the couch, and letting people just go to him when they want to.
You stand by one of the posts as your grandfather takes a nap, and you look out to the garden where people are enjoying conversations and their mid-afternoon fill of cakes and pies. You see Jungkook talking with Seokjin when one of Jin-Ae and Namjoon’s sons runs and trips on the ground.
Jungkook runs to the little boy, seemingly asking him if he’s okay, the worried look on your mate’s face a constant already. Jungkook helps him up, dusts his knees, and smiles. Jin-Ae runs up to them, taking the boy in her arms, and thanks Jungkook.
There’s a moment they share, it seems, as they look at each other with affection, acceptance, happiness, at how different their lives turned out, yet how intertwined they still are.
In the distance, Jungkook could see you watching him and Jin-Ae, but there’s a calm smile on your face, the same one that’s on his and the woman he once loved. The little boy has her eyes, and the knot he’d felt at one point at the thought of that boy being his is no longer there.
Jin-Ae is happy. Namjoon loves her with all of him, Jungkook could tell, and together, the Alpha and Luna lead the town with compassion, as they should, as they’re meant to. Their children manifest the best parts of their parents, and Jungkook knows that the life he once dreamed and hoped for himself with Jin-Ae is but a memory that he’s buried for good.
Because all he could think of now is having his own children with the woman who’s taught him how to love again. You.
Jungkook looks at you briefly and you smile at him, knowing what he wants to say without words. He has a look of love when he looks at you, and you can read that look anywhere. It’s something you return, too.
“Your love is manifesting in all ways, my child,” you hear Amma say next to you. “It’s in your eyes, your smile, your voice, your touch… It’s wonderful to witness.”
“It took so long before I got to feel it again,” you turn towards her. “I didn’t know it was possible to know what that’s like.”
“It’s not always the one we expect, is it?” She smiles.
“I suppose it isn’t.”
“Some of the greatest stories are written that way, though - unexpected, unpredictable; most times painful, that's for sure. But they always end the way they should.”
She takes your hand in hers, her smile now reassuring more than it is comforting; the latter isn’t what you need anymore.
“You didn’t think you could love anyone else again after Yoongi. And Jungkook felt the same way about Jin-Ae but that’s what love is. It doesn’t compare, it’s just felt and shared. The love that you both share is great not because it’s the first, but because it made you believe in it again when you thought you wouldn’t be able to have it after you lost the first one.”
You tremble at her words, taking them all in.
“First loves are never forgotten, but not in the way you think,” she continues. “Yoongi will live in your heart, always, because he helped you learn the best parts of you; that won’t ever go away. Jungkook may bury the memory of what he felt for Jin-Ae but it’s his faith in all this that allowed him to let her go, that allowed him to learn to love you.”
You feel the tears form at the thought of how things fell into place. You’ll never love Jungkook the way you loved Yoongi - you were innocent and believing and so hopeful then. But that doesn’t make your love for Jungkook any less, or more - you’d learned to love him when you thought it wasn’t possible. You know it’s the same for him, too.
“Words of wisdom from Amma?” Jungkook approaches you and wraps his hand around your waist.
“Beautiful, as always,” you smile. “I think she’s proud of us, probably scratched her head too many times at how frustrating we were.”
The three of you laugh.
“You weren’t so bad,” she comforts. “If everything just happened the way they should, there wouldn’t be anything new to learn. We learn about ourselves and the world with the pain we experience; our humanity is marked by how we take that and turn it into something beautiful.”
You lean on Jungkook, knowing the truth in Amma’s words.
“Thank you for not giving up on us, Amma. We owe much of our love to you,” you say.
“Oh, my child. You owe it to yourselves for not giving up on each other no matter how hard it was. Maybe you loved each other long before you even realized it,” she smiles.
You lost your grandfather that summer. You were in denial for months, even as your parents and sister told you to be ready after he’d gotten weaker since his mild heart attack some time ago. He’d been having a hard time for years, you were told, but he’d tried to stay strong for his family, especially for you.
You’ve lost someone dear to you, but nothing can prepare you for the loss of someone who raised you, who took your heart in his hands and loved you with everything he had, who taught you all the things that made you, you.
You were devastated, but the difference that time was that you had strength to draw from. Jungkook held you tightly as you watched your grandfather take his last breath. Jungkook didn’t leave your side as you mourned, as you cried every night, as you remained dazed for days. He read you tales so you could fall asleep, laid on the grass with you to look at the stars, told you the stories your grandfather shared with him about you.
Jungkook reminded you every night of the love that your grandfather had for you, the one you held onto when things got hard, and Jungkook reminds you that his love for you is the one you can hold onto now.
Your grandfather told you once that there’s no clear moment when grieving ends. He lived the next 28 years without his other half, and he didn’t think he ever really stopped mourning for the loss of his wife. But he didn’t let that stop him from living. He had his family; he had you, and those had been enough to make the pain manageable.
He let your grandmother live in him, that’s how he survived.
That’s how you survived with losing Yoongi; that’s how you’ll survive losing your grandfather, too.
Memory is a delicate thing. It can hurt you if you let it. But it can heal you, too; you just need to learn how to stay far away from it enough to not let you live in the past, but hold it close enough so you never forget.
It’s midway through autumn when you find out that you’re pregnant. It’s towards the end of winter when you bear your children, their warmth reminding you so much of your grandfather.
You think of how happy he would’ve been seeing you with your family, but you let the thought comfort you more than anything. You will love your children the way your grandfather and your parents love you. And you will love Jungkook the way your grandfather loved your grandmother, the way your parents love each other.
That’s how you let those who have passed along continue to live, you realize. You nurture their love when they’re alive, and then you love the same way when they move on from this life.
“The Moon is so beautiful, mommy,” Eunjoo, your little angel of a daughter tells you, as you all sit on the bench in the spot that you and Jungkook have learned to love.
“She is. She’s the reason why you’re both here, do you know that?” You kiss her nose, then her sister’s.
“Why, mommy?” Hayoon asks.
“She guided me and your daddy to find each other, so we can live out our great love. That’s what made both of you,” you hug them tightly.
“You’ll both have them one day,” Jungkook assures your daughters. “It may be scary, but let our love make you believe in them, okay? It will remind you that it can happen, that it will all be worth it.”
“Thank you for reminding me everyday, Jungkook,” you whisper to him that night in bed as your little girls are squeezed asleep between you.
“Of what?”
“That it’s all worth it. I look at our angels and I look at you and you’re all I need. You saved me that day at the river, and looking back, maybe even before that; I wouldn’t have all this if you didn’t.”
You let a tear fall, one that he catches.
“And I’d save you a thousand times a day if I need to. You’re my great love, ___, and you always will be.”
Your grandfather loved reading you tales when you were a child, especially the ones about the lovers and the dreamers. He thought they were the greatest of stories; he believed in the great love that everybody was destined to.
He was right. And he never wanted you to forget.
You were 8 when he started writing his love story with your grandmother in a leather journal that she gave him. He wrote everything about her, about your mother and her brothers, about you and your sister. And when you left, when Yoongi died, and when Jungkook saved your life.
“He’s your great love. Don’t ever let your story die.”
Your grandfather meant for you to find this. He wanted you to continue writing his love story through yours.
And that’s what you do.
And it’s the story you tell your mate, the story you read to your daughters.
It’s the one about your first love who was a hero, but whose heart was so big it left a very big space in yours when he died. But it’s also about your love after, the one who let you believe in it again when you didn’t think you could.
And you know, like your grandfather read you all those years ago, this is your great love story.
To lose love and to gain it back - perhaps there’s no greater joy than that.
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JUST PROCCUPY
JA'FAR x READER x SPARTOS
Summary: The reader is hired by Al-Thamen to assassinate King Sinbad in Sindria. After disguising herself as a new member of his harem she has Sinbad’s fate set in stone until he offers her an unexpected request;
“There is somebody I’d like you to entertain for me.”
PROLOGUE:
No Conditions and Bad Decisions
It had been quite some time since you were granted access to enter what was commonly referred to as the Fire Pit. Most rooms in Al-Thamen’s Heliohapt branch were hard to gain admission to in the first place, but the Fire Pit was by far the most private of them all.
Placed at the top of the ten-story building, the Fire Pit was guarded by two mages cloaked in red stood on either side of the golden-edged door, which could only be described as a black void, sucking anyone who walked through the entryway into a place of chaos.
You felt like a school girl again, a life you only briefly remember living, sat outside the principal’s office because you’d decided to be a trouble maker. Perched on a simple wooden bench alongside the wall was your designated place to wait until you were called. Neither guard spoke a word to you, nor did you speak to them. There was a mutual agreement that nothing was to be exchanged, not one single word.
Minuets upon minutes ticked by until it felt like hours of just staring up at portraits of unrecognizable faces. One of them in particular intrigued you. It was a picture of a small child, pale and somewhat malnourished with long black hair braided in the most elaborate of ways. He was gaping past the frame.
The child looked almost innocent as if questioning why he was being painted in the first place. It would have been cute, if not for his red eyes and demented grin.
Click.
You’re head swiftly snapped to witness whatever was going on over in your expected destination. Another hooded figure, wearing the usual red attire, poked his head out of the Fire Pit to converse secretly with the other two mages, whispering things you couldn’t quite make out. The way they acted made you question what you were really doing here. Of course, you knew what you were doing here, in Al-Thamen’s Heliohapt branch bordering on the continent of darkness.
A future killer in the marking, you were chosen by Al-Thamen and trained at a tender age along with others, brought to the sand lands to be hidden and stored away until you were needed. Many of your mentors had spoken to you and the other children about missions.
What missions exactly? You weren’t entirely certain, though you had a haunch that if they were teaching you to throw knives and to identify poisons you weren’t exactly going to be working in a kitchen. At least not in the traditional sense.
It had taken blood, sweat, and tears just to survive Al-Thamens courses, others who were not so successful sold to slavery or killed as an example. But, to be quite honest, you had very little experience in the field, almost like they were shielding you . . .
The organization was smart not to let you mingle with the others as children; It meant no connections, no loyalty, no love. Just them and the empty promises they made. If you were being honest, you hated it here, but it was all you knew.
“My Lady.” It was the latter of the three men that addressed you, the two from before still staying silent with their heads down. “The Master shall see you now.” Now that he was looking directly at you, his face could be made out in the dim torchlight. He was an older gentleman, perhaps around fifty, even sixty. His kind smile did little to trick you, his eyes showing the murderous intent that everyone else around these parts carried. With that, he turned and shrunk back into the little gap he came out of, and then suddenly all the motions were put into place.
Clawing their nimble fingers around the golden hinges, the mages heaved the void the rest of the way open, the Fire Pit now exposed to your undeserving eyes. At first, the sheer intensity of the light inside blinded you. It forced you to swing your hands in front of your face, adjusting your irises.
“Enter, my child.” This time, the voice that spoke was different. It was no longer the third man cloaked in red, but a much deeper, strong voice, belonging to who you strongly assumed to be a male. Hands now to your side, you took careful steps into the Fire Pit, taking in all the surroundings. It took on a much different appearance from when you had last seen it all of those years ago.
Back then, you were just a ten-year-old girl told to circle around the cauldron in the centre of the room with the other unfortunate kids. The walls were black marble, the torches, which were a flaming sapphire blue, symmetrically placed on all five white pillars that led towards the lavish purple throne at the back. Everything was the same, except for a few minor details.
Firstly, the floor, sand-grained floor mind you, had a red carpet stretching all the way to the door, under the cauldron, and towards the throne. Secondly, on the walls now hung different scriptures you couldn’t understand a word of, their language unreadable to you. Thirdly, the light from the flames was much stronger, as if a force you’d never quite met before was fuelling their power, casting unforgiving shadows on the golden sand beneath your feet. Then, finally, at the end of the room sat on the foreboding throne was a person. Never before had you seen him, but it wasn’t hard to guess who it was, after all, you had just been told.
It was the Master.
For some reason, you did not expect him to be an actual civilian of the country this particular building inhabited. A man with tan skin, bright white hair, and a big beaming smile didn’t exactly read ‘I run a terrorist operation’.
If it wasn’t for the door slamming shut the moment you laid eyes on him, you wouldn’t have even flinched.
“There’s the promising one I have heard so much about!!” Unlike the others he did not wear red. Instead of wore robes of white, decorated with blue ribbons and golden jewels. It made you consider that the colour of clothes had more meaning to them than you had first suspected, considering all of the trainees either wore green, like you, or brown. Then, there were the Master’s underlings, covered in blood-red silk. “Tell me, child, what’s your name?”
As if on instinct, you were quick to spill the anticipated information to him. It made him chuckle gleefully, crossing his bulging legs one over the other like some esteemed noble in a palace. “Such a good listener, but I suspected as much. Commander Hashim has been watching you for a while now, we’ve been looking for someone. Someone strong and reliable. A soldier. Someone like you.” You assumed Commander Hashim was the one who had beckoned you in by the look of pride that had taken over his face. He snaked his arm around your own, swiftly tugging you to walk forward along the carpet with him and up to the cauldron. He only stopped making you walk when your noes was inches away from sizzling in the festering fire stemming from the object of witch-craft.
Silence. You took that as your cue to speak.
“What exactly have I been chosen for?”
“A mission.” Swooned the Master, dramatically waving his arms around in delight. “It’s a big one too, child. You should be honoured. I feel like such a proud father.”
“What’s the mission?” In the past, you had fought other rising assassins in the building, though never had you been assigned anything. The excitement from the Master’s face settled, replaced with a sombre look now, as he contemplated the delivery. It must have held great weight to it, for him to have changed his demeanour so drastically.
“Do you know why you wear green, my Child?”
“No Master. I do not.”
“Back in Kou…” Now, the heliohaptian man leaned forward, his great big blue eyes boring into your own through the flickering flames of the cauldron’s fire. “To wear green means to be a commoner. That my child is what you are here. A common assassin. What do some of your other friends wear hmm?” Friends was used sarcastically, almost in amusement, seemingly the Master took joy in every single one of his ‘children’s’ isolations. “They wear brown. A lowly, mucky colour. And why? Because they’re no good. They’re not common assassins, they’re broken ones. Unlike them you won’t be disposed of. You will be used.” Sitting upwards once more, the Master cricked his neck, a disturbing sound echoing from the walls. “Your mission is to assassinate the King of Sindria, Sinbad.”
Surely you couldn’t have heard him, right?
“The holder of seven Djinns?” You practically bristled, ripping your arm from the commanders hold almost in a panic. “I haven’t been trained for this, it’s practically suicidal!!”
“Only if you do it wrong.” Interrupted the Master with a laugh. “And we haven’t put all of our precious time into nurturing you for you to do it wrong. Child.” Commander Hashim now wrapped his wrinkly hand around your forearm before tugging it towards him, pulling out a needle and pricking it into your skin before you could blink.
You knew better then to resist, gritting your teeth as the droplets of blood fell into his free palm. Once satisfied, the old man released you, thrusting the loose droplets into the blazing fire and you watched almost in a daze as the crimson liquid combusted into ash, forming into a black figure that rose its head up high, revelling in the sensation of the heat as it thrusted to and frou.
Much like yourself, the figure was conflicted between escaping its invisible cage and staying put.
After all, if you were to deny the mission and leave you would be killed for insubordination, yet if you were to accept the mission and travel to Sindria, a place swarming with powerful enemies and a strong monarchy, you were likely to be executed. Either way you couldn’t win, but at least in Sindria there was a chance of success. Besides, like the Master had said, you hadn’t been taught to do your job wrong.
Out of everybody in your learning group you had excelled in all elements you’d been taught and relayed. They’d moulded you into a machine they believed could sneak swiftly into Sinbad’s chambers and out again without a single suspicion.
To throw away this opportunity was to throw away your life’s work.
With a new found resolve, you firm gaze met the Masters and you nodded swiftly. “I accept.” The Master found it endearing, finding it cute you answered as if you had a choice in the matter.
“Good.” The white-haired man hummed lowly; eyes now predatory.
“On one condition.”
“Oh?” That seemed to have caught his interest. “Does my child have a mind of her own? It seems like the Commander wasn’t entirely right about you, little bird. You seem much livelier than anticipated…” You didn’t give him much time to mull over if he should change his mind or not, opting to continue with your condition.
“I want to know what that was? What did you just do?” You were smart enough to know curse magic when you saw it. If a man takes your blood and throws it into a cauldron, what else was he going to do? Pulling a rabbit out of a hat seemed unlikely, especially for this kind of crowd.
As if your question had triggered some sort of beast, the figure in the fire let out an ear-piercing screech, wings feebly trying to hoist it up into the air yet the orange flames ate away at its body like puranas at the flesh of human skin. The sound did not disappear until the creature of ash was terminated, and once it was gone the flames swirled around like a dance before dispersing into thin air.
The Master made no sudden movements. All he did was nod his head, urging you to take a look inside the item of sorcery. You were hesitant at first, but curiosity killed the cat, did it not?
Inside the midnight cauldron lay an array of pumpkin tinted feathers, fluttering gently as feeble black eyes peered up into your own. It was a tiny orange bird. Despite the warmth that filled your chest, the scorching sensation on your forearm did little to let you revel in the attachment. It was quick, albeit painful, but once done indented onto your arm was a small black sun, fully in bloom as if it was at its highest point in the clear blue sky.
“Time is ticking little bird; you best be on your way.” You realized he no longer referred to you as child but instead little bird. Now, you were just his pet.
#magi#magi x reader#magi ja'far x reader#magi spartos x reader#magi the eight generals#magi sindria#magi imagines#magi story#magi sinbad x reader#magi judar#magi sinbad#magi labyrinth of magic#magi kingdom of magic#magi hinahoho#magi drakon#magi alibaba#magi aladdin#magi morgiana#magi masrur#magi sharrkan#magi sinbad imagine#magi ja'far imagine#magi spartos imagine#anime#anime x reader#magi kouen#magi ja'far x reader x spartos#it's been a while since i've wrote anything magi and suddenly i've decided to write a story lollollol
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Quarterly Fic Recs 2021 #2
Hello! I’m back with another rec list! Here are fics I’ve read, loved and thoroughly enjoyed in the second quarter of 2021! They are all very wonderful fics! Each story has its own genre, warnings (and are mostly 18+), so please take that into consideration before reading. If any authors would like me to untag them, please let me know. Enjoy!
Yoongi
before i leave you @hollyhomburg
summary: Yoongi Disappears- leaving behind a shattered pack. 8 months later, Jimin finds Yoongi in an H-mart of all places.
Hoseok
heart-on @junghelioseok
summary: my boss is always telling me how perfect her son would be for me and she promises he’s coming to the next holiday party and don’t worry he’s heard all about me too and ALSO there’s this dude i slept with once a couple of months ago and sometimes he still sends me dick pics when i ask him to at 3 in the morning cause seriously dude’s got a good dick
Jungkook
charmolypi @njssi
summary: Work and pleasure should never be combined — or so the saying goes. But you were never really one to follow the rules in their entirety and neither were the ones around you. Love, lust, interest. Five people. In the workplace. What could go wrong? Everyone just wants to get something, after all.
when you least expect it @johobi
summary: You’re in love with your childhood friend, Taehyung. The problem is, you treasure your friendship with him far too much to ever risk losing it. Oh, and he’s quite the Casanova. At your wits’ end with feelings you can no longer hide as diligently as you once did, you ask him to set you up with someone, anyone, in a last ditch attempt to avoid a heartbreaking conversation.
wherever there is you @jeonstudios
summary: you’ve been drinking, haven’t you?
instant gratification @dovechim
fuckboi@jungkook x cheerleader!reader
haze @yyooni
summary: So you’ve fucked the biggest fuck boy on campus. It’s a one and done. One night stand. A wham bam thank you ma’am. So why does it happen again?
OT7/Multiple Members
because i’m yours @minniepetals
summary: you should have known they’d never let you go after gathering the courage to ask for a kiss
blazed @ironicarmy
summary: Your friends try to cheer you up during Christmastime, but things go south once Hoseok appears with a mysterious brown bag.
Seokjin
one step @cutechim
summary: attending an ex’s wedding is never easy, but you might just have the perfect remedy—if you can pluck up the courage to take it.
platonic @joheunsaram
summary: Finding a new method for stress relief, you rope in your bestfriend/fwb to try it out with you.
show me yours and i’ll show you mine @ktheist
summary: you’re a horny bunny yet kim seokjin always seems to manage to slide out of your grasps like a fox every time.
Yoongi
before i leave you pt. 7 @/hollyhomburg
summary: Pack omega kim Seokjin knows how to handle things when they go south (or alternatively you get triggered, Yoongi has a panic attack, and it’s a good thing the pack is there to help)
Hoseok
risky business @yoonjinkooked
summary: The person who invented smart glass office walls knew what they were doing. Your secretary fucks you stupid in the office.
snapshot @xjoonchildx
summary: after a day at the beach, hoseok has some surprises in store for his longtime love
keep me warm @ppersonna
summary: camping is always a great time when you’re with your friends, but even better with your boyfriend, hoseok.
it’s you @jinpanman
summary: An accidental confession throws your years-long friendship with Hoseok into disarray.
Namjoon
love bytes @stutterfly
summary: It’s been a year since you first met Kim Namjoon, the passionate, talented English professor at the local campus. He’s always been clumsy and aloof, but he’s on a whole new level in terms of “technologically incapable.” One call to IT was all it took to pull you into his life, and with it a whole string of friendships full of flirtatious banter and undying support.
Your dating situation has been drier than the Sahara for years now, and you’ve wasted too many lonely nights drinking alone, so you try your hand at Tinder. But you’re not getting any bites. When the group finds out, they are more than willing to help–even Namjoon, though he finds it increasingly difficult to deny that he’s hopelessly smitten. You consider their opinions on potential Tinder dates while fighting off feelings you never knew were brewing for the caring soul who becomes the home you never had.
out of my league @/ppersona
summary: Kim Namjoon was never supposed to find out about your years-long hopeless crush on him. And he most definitely was not supposed to find out about it in front of all your coworkers in a company-wide meeting.
so this is love @jinpanman
summary: “So this is the miracle that I’ve been dreaming of. So this is love.”
problem solved @sugasbabiie
summary: Namjoon helps you with more than math problems tonight.
love is @hxseok-honee
summary: they say that love is supposed to transcend time and space and that it knows no limits. but putting an ocean and thousands of miles between two people won’t make things any easier, will it?
Jimin
potent pink @dntaewithluv
summary: The first time you see Park Jimin you’re instantly entranced by him. And it turns out he lives in the apartment next to the one you’re moving into, so even better he’s your hot neighbor. When the previous tenant confesses to you that he was the best hook up she ever had, you’re that much more intrigued. The first time you meet him, however, you’re deciding immediately that you hate him and want to stay as far away from him as possible. Jimin is determined to be a constant in your life though, and he definitely is that. Both a constant flirt and a constant pain in your ass. Is a ruined second impression enough to prevent you from ever giving him a second chance?
Taehyung
hush, yeah? @kithtaehyung
summary: the innocent accident that started it all
unfinished business @/dntaewithluv
summary: Besides wanting to catch up with some old friends, there’s only one reason you found yourself agreeing to attend your 10 year high school reunion. The boy you were in love with back then is going to be there, and you’re determined to finally make your move. Except, unfortunately, it turns out that Kim Seokjin is very much happily married. Kim Taehyung, however, is very much single and feels like he has something to prove to you after you turned him down all those years ago. One night is all it takes to make you realize you made the biggest mistake of your life.
under the covers @jessikahathaway
spy!au
darling @bloomsuga
summary: “go to sleep, darling.”
as endless as the stars ^
summary: he waited 160 years to meet you again, and now that he has, he’s not letting go. or: “i love you as deep as the ocean and as endless as the stars”
dirty dishes @jaysdimples
summary: when your boyfriend can’t seem to keep his hands to himself so he stirs up a little trouble in the kitchen while everyone else is a few feet away in the next room
devotion @/sweetbunnykook
summary: You and Taehyung were inseparable once. When you come back to your hometown after three years, fate pulls you back to him. And this time, Taehyung won’t ever keep his eyes off of you.
Jungkook
commercial break; twelve @1kook
summary: Anyway, if it was up to Jungkook, Kim Doyeon would not be a member of the Engagement Ring Committee.
tease @adonis-koo
summary:You came with the intentions of your best friend landing a job as a stripper. You never meant to catch the eyes of the king stripper of the establishment- Jeon Jungkook, yourself. With what was supposed to be a harmless way of paying off college debt faster you find yourself falling into a very odd and passionate relationship with your new mentor. Between infidelity, passion and jealousy there’s never a dull moment at Cherry Bomb.
jock!jk @angelguk
summary: going raw with jock jk
evolution of a lover’s heart @jeonstudios
summary: the rules are simple: first one to take the virginity wins.
euphoria @btssavedmylifeblr
summary: At the end of your life, you are given one day to live again with the man you loved. A lifetime’s love story told in a single day.
idealizations concerning real life relations @venusiangguk
summary: jungkook loves to be loved, but he doesn’t love in return.
relax @itsbuffsanta
summary: jk is antsy after the concert, so you help him relax.
employee of the month @/dntaewithluv
summary: Sometimes it truly amazes you how much of an idiot your boyfriend can be. But you also find it impossible to say no to him. Even when it involves letting him fuck you at his work on the same day that he gets awarded employee of the month…
ego 08 @suga-kookiemonster
summary: what’s a girl to do when her sweet, innocent baby lab partner isn’t quite so sweet and innocent? well, he’s a grown-ass man, and you’re about to learn that the hard way.
only you 10 @sweetbunnykook
summary: Jeon Jungkook, your wedding photographer, helps you escape on your big day upon learning about a secret your groom-to-be kept hidden. You soon fall for this young, passionate photographer. However, you underestimated just how much he was willing to reciprocate that love. Maybe, you think, he’s loving you just a little too much.
lunchbox lovers @jiminrings
stem major!koo x cold senior!y/n
crunchyroll & rail @/1kook
summary: Never mind the fact you really like Sailor Moon, or that you really want to pay attention to every little detail; the moment becomes Jungkook and his big smile and his red cheeks and the tiny box he produces from within his pocket.
only for you @jikookiekosmos
summary: It’s the night before your wedding and you should be happy…but a fight with your fiancé leaves you second guessing everything. A visit from the blue-haired boy of your dreams is just what you need to make it right.
lillies @dewykth
summary: “… white lines, pretty baby, tattoos, don’t know what they mean, they’re special just for you…”
bluekooberry @kimtaehyunq
summary: Your adoring boyfriend, Jungkook, surprises you with a brand new hairstyle before your trip to visit him for the weekend. He’s excited to see you, feed you, and give you exactly what you want.
bad reputation @noteguk
summary: in which you have to deal with some strange emotions for the first time.
not yet @bratkook
summary: jungkook feels the pang of guilt in his gut when you spot your recent ex out with his new girl, and what better way to make the jerk hurt than to have him believe you were now dating him, the neighbor he had been insecure about your whole relationship
incoming: elite chatboy @kookingtae
summary: welcome to Elite Chatroom, a sex chat company with a wide variety of services such as text messaging, phone call, and video chat. you signed up online for the most basic text service plan not knowing what to expect, but you certainly didn’t think you’d end up actually liking the man behind the screen.
ineffable @euphoria-vmin7
summary: your best friend Jeon Jeongguk has always been amazing and deserved the best, so you’ve hid your love for him. But unbeknowsnt to you, there may be feelings that could change everything between you two…
touch @gardentulips
summary: when you tease and please one another
Multiple Members
friendly fire @kpopfanfictrash
summary: The dynamic: Hoseok; your friend and previous fuck buddy. Jungkook; Hoseok’s roommate and subject of your massive crush. The scene: determined not to drunk-gush about your crush any more (to his face), you decide to seclude yourself from all campus parties. Until, of course, Hoseok guilts you into a favor. Things spiral from there.
the boys are back in town @/dntaewithluv
summary: Getting stood up by your date definitely hadn’t been on your agenda for the evening. Also definitely not on your agenda: bumping into Park Jimin and Jeon Jungkook. Together. On the same exact night. It’s been a while since you’ve seen your two best friends, as well as lovers on multiple occasions, from your high school and college days. A chance meeting, some drinks, and a trip down memory lane is all it takes to reignite the attraction between the three of you. Old habits die hard, but these two? They just might be the death of you.
ruin you @taegularities
summary: “His eyes hold unfathomable darkness that lures you in, captures your very soul, steals any air you are trying to draw. And you know without a doubt that you’re on the path to utter and irrevocable ruination.”
ruin you (once more) ^
summary: Taehyung and Jungkook can’t keep their hands off you. Not even in the elevator.
Seokjin
kairos @luffles424
summary: When your financial aid falls through for your last year of school, you fear you’ll have to drop out and postpone your degree. Until Taehyung gives you a suggestion to make a lot of money, quick. His idea can’t possibly end well, can it?
appetence @luffles424
summary: appetence (n.) - an eager desire, an instinctive inclination; an attraction or a natural bondIt’s time for Seokjin’s rut. Are either of you prepared for this step?
tiny lights, tiny lies @ggukcangetit
summary: you aren’t sure when exactly your best friend’s brother went from being an oddly annoying set of broad shoulders to the shoulders you frequently fell asleep against.
Yoongi
the little things @kimtaehyunq
summary: When the present isn’t exactly enough for you right now, Yoongi is here for you through it all. He makes sure you know you aren’t alone and that it’s ok to feel alone.
cyberslut @kimnjss
summary: he has no idea who you are… up front, you’re sweet and innocent - but in reality you’re the exact opposite. running your own nsfw account, where your favorite topic is his hands.
yoongi drabble @joonsgalore
life guard au
Hoseok
benefits @cutechim
summary: you and hoseok have taken the ‘friends’ out of friends with benefits, but exclusivity has its own perks.
Namjoon
namjoon drabble @lovetrivia
summary: You’re a hot girl on Twitch and Namjoon is an absolute simp.
Jimin
baby fever @writtenwhalien
summary: Jimin wants another baby, and much to your delight, he’s determined to give you one.
jimin drabble @/1kook
best friend au
small hands jimin drabble @lavishedinjimin
established relationship au
silk and lace @sunshyngal
summary: Min Nara is the newly dumped fiance to the Crown prince of Korea, Park Jimin. She’s not overtly upset , because at least now she can live her life without the pressure of the monarchy hanging over her head. Besides , Nara has a very dirty little secret. While she spends the day as the perfect high society girl with an impeccable pedigree , her nights are filled with lacy lingerie and webcams. Ignored by the man she’s meant to marry, she revels in the greedy lust of strangers on the internet. It’s her way of saying ‘fuck you’ to a system that sees her as nothing but a toy, molded for the future King. Park Jimin doesn’t know the first thing about his supposed fiancee. And he has no intention of learning either. He knows just what debutante girls are like and he has no patience for the kind. Besides, his girlfriend of three years, the elegant and independent Irene is everything he would ever want in a wife . Or is she?Because in the secrecy of his office , after the day’s work is done , Park Jimin has a very scintillating vice that he likes to indulge in : the beautiful camgirl who calls herself the Temptress. Jimin can’t get enough of the girl’s lush thighs wrapped in silk, the pretty pink of her nipples in see through bralettes and the glittering temptation of the jeweled plugs she likes to stuff herself full with.Jimin thinks she embodies everything he can never allow himself to have as a Prince : filth, sin and decadence , all wrapped up in Silk and Lace.
Taehyung
nip it in the bud @opaljm
summary: You’re not sure how you ended up here, but maybe a shitty ex and a horrible breakup had a hand in what placed you in front of the tattoo parlor. It was already a nerve-wracking experience, but what you never expected was seeing that the owner and artist giving you nipple piercings was your older brother’s best friend you hadn’t seen in ages. to make things even worse, he got fucking hotter.
taehyung drabble @joonsgalore
sugar daddy au
peanut @jungxk
summary: the making of peanut.
Jungkook
pretty kitty @venusiangguk
summary: you’re jk’s baby, his toy, and now his pretty little pet.
heavy metal @hisunshiine
summary: You come home from a trip to find your fuckbuddy has a… hole-y surprise.
devour @bloomsuga
summary: my sweet angel… i am going to devour you
grain of sand @jungkookiebus
summary: Blind since the age of 18 from a genetic disorder, Jungkook walked through life as if he never lost it, but on one fateful day seven years ago he literally almost runs into you. He fell in love nearly immediately. Fast forward to the present and it’s just another day in your quiet life with him by your side.
under the oak tree @mingoyeob
summary: as the eldest daughter of a duke, it’s your duty to marry at your father’s will. yet you didn’t expect to be marrying jeon jungkook, a knight of low status, especially when he departs for an expedition without another word after your first night. when he comes back three years later, this time as a renowned hero, how will you be able to face him and how will things change between you and your new husband?
jungkook drabble @1kook
dilf!jk
commercial break: thirteen ^
summary: Because for as much shit as you let him get away with, Jungkook is certain you’ll draw the line today.
sh. @wwilloww
summary: How could you say no to a month away in the mountains with your friends after six months of grueling quarantine?
jungkook drabble @lavishedinjimin
daddy!jk
OT7/Multiple Members
the end @jimlingss
summary: It’s been a habit of yours to vent in the form of love letters. There’s six in total. They’re kept secret, hidden in your closet. But on your 30th birthday, what you least expect is for each letter to become reality. All done by the whacky ghost of Christmas future trying to grant your birthday wish.
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