#on the one hand he must die because there are no good kings
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B Plot
Isabeau still can’t confess, and Siffrin needs to clear their head. Which means it’s high time for a sidequest.
Act 1, Scene 2. West Dormont. Isa’s hand hovers near your shoulder. You try to look inviting, but you must not be very good at it. He’s already pulling away.
Okay. This is it. Go time.
“You can touch me,” you blurt out.
“Wh— Hwhuh???”
No turning back now. “It just. Seems like you think you can’t? But—you can.”
(Full disclosure, this is literally just 5k words of Siffrin trying to flirt, because he's not the only one who needed a break. Spoilers thru Act 3)
You don’t make the pun for Isa. You don’t say hi to Loop, either. You just sit on the ground and stare at the grass.
“Wow, stardust,” Loop snorts, “thanks for the warm welcome. I missed you too! But tone it down a little, will you? All that enthusiasm could get a little overwhelming!”
Near your foot, there’s a leaf growing out from a fallen branch, glossy and bright like it thinks it’s still attached to the tree. Like it thinks it’s still alive. But of course you know better. It’s already dead. It just doesn’t know it yet.
“Sooo~, what’s up? Give me the scoop! The latest and greatest, teehee!”
The leaf is always growing out of the branch, and the branch is always on the ground, splintered and slowly drying. Does the loop last long enough for the leaf to dry out, too? Does it die every day, like you do? Or will it spend the rest of eternity in a state of blissful ignorance?
“You beat the King again, right? That’s cool! You’re getting pretty tough! Keep it up and pretty soon you’ll have nothing to be scared of! Aside from, you know. All the existential dread.”
You watch your hand reach out to close around the leaf. It comes loose with a gentle pop.
“Oh, come on, at least pretend to listen. You’re good at that, teehee!” When you still don’t react, their tone sours. “The silent treatment is really not a cute look on you, you know.”
Even with nothing to hold onto, the leaf still looks offensively alive. You crumple it between your hands and then shred it into tiny little pieces. There. Now it’s just like you.
—There’s a startling clap! as Loop claps their hands about an inch from your left ear.
“Stardust,” they say firmly. “I’m a patient star, I really am, but if you keep ignoring me, I’m going to get grouchy.”
Very slowly, you look up. “She didn’t know anything.”
“...The head housemaiden?”
You nod.
“About Time Craft, you mean?”
Another nod.
“Oh,” Loop says softly. “Well. I suppose that’s to be expected. Maybe no one does, anymore.”
You shrug.
“B-But you still have leads, don’t you? Didn’t you have a few more questions for the K—”
“I don’t want to talk to the King.” The last time you tried to talk to the King, your actors looked at you like you were something monstrous. Subhuman. Like something they’d scraped off the bottom of their shoes. You wound up letting him kill you just to end the loop faster. But you’d forgotten how much the King’s final blow hurts.
“Okay, but—”
“Will you stop?” you demand. You don’t want to talk about this. You just want—
—but there’s no point finishing that sentence.
The two of you sit in silence for a while. Probably you hurt Loop’s feelings. Somehow, you can’t bring yourself to care.
“Stardust,” Loop says at last, unexpectedly gently. When you glance up, they’re looking away, picking at the—not skin—the gummy celestial membrane that covers the pads of their fingers. They don’t have a mouth, but if they did, it would be frowning. “I think you might need a break.”
“Haha!!!! Ahaha!!!!! Do you think???”
“I don’t mean from the loops,” Loop says impatiently. “I just mean… Ohh, I don’t know. From fighting the loops? Of course I can’t directly relate, but—from an outside perspective, I think that trying to break the loop is probably sort of… not-good. Ah. Psychologically.”
You stare at them in stony silence.
“So maybe you need a B plot!”
“…A what?”
“You know. A B plot! Like in plays? It’s what the side characters get up to while the important people are off dying and falling in love and things!”
Wait. “You watch plays?”
“I am a star of culture, you know,” Loop sniffs. “I just think you could use a win! Take a break from fixing the laws of physics to focus on something a little more achievable, hmm~? Just for a few loops! Just to clear your head!”
Your mouth scrunches to one side. Unfortunately, they’ve caught your interest. “Like what.”
“Like, ah… oh! What about your touch therapy? That was fun, wasn’t it? Here, look, I could hold both your hands!”
“It doesn’t count,” you mutter.
“Oh, no? And whyever not?”
“It just doesn’t.” You can’t really explain why Loop doesn’t count. You just know that they don’t. The first time they elbowed you, you didn’t even flinch. To be honest, it barely registered. Like knocking your elbow against something not alive, or trying to tickle yourself.
Loop rolls their eyes. “I’ll try not to take that personally.”
* * *
They’re right, though. You need a break. But you’re not going to get it by holding hands with Loop.
* * *
You spend the rest of the day thinking about how to take a break from a temporal prison that is categorically, explicitly inescapable.
“Umm,” Isa whispers over dinner. “Sif? Are you, um, okay? You seem a little off.”
You probably should have expected this. Isabeau is always paying attention to what you’re doing and not-doing. But it never goes anywhere, because he’s too afraid to say it.
…Oh. Is that anything? You think it might be something. You already know that Isa wants to touch you. But he doesn’t, because he thinks you don’t want him to. Because you can’t tell him, and he can’t ask. So instead you’re both stuck here, not knowing what’s true.
What would it take to make him brave enough to say it? How obvious would you have to be before he could feel safe?
Your eyes narrow. Maybe you really do need a break.
You can read the rest on ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55543246
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I think there's something to be said for fanfiction that loves canon in a way that’s rude. Like thank you for this wonderful thematic tragedy made out of this character’s entire arc ending in death, it was emotionally and intellectually moving, but also fuck you fuck you fuck you they live, this time and every time they live, they never died, their flaws are not their undoing, actually they have no flaws, actually they save everyone, actually who cares about a story, any story, where this one dies, actually i cared about that story so much i made a new one, actually i cared so much i unmade the old one, you gave me morals and i left them for the mortal, but they’re mine now and i will never let them die, actually thank you, actually fuck you, strongly worded letter to follow
A kiss for canon and spit in its face all at once, it’s great
#my post#i use and plan to use the 'canonical character death tag' WAY too much to post this but still#fanfiction#everybody live nobody dies au#and a five#this is about your blorbo absolutely but before that it was about#robb stark#to crown him is to kill him#on the one hand he must die because there are no good kings#king of the north was the death knell of robb the good brother robb the good son robb the loving friend#on the other hand#he was the nicest sixteen year old in the world#on the other hand fuck you there sits the only king i mean to bend my knee too#what if king was just a name for a brother who loved you#love that story of thematic importance about the inherent devastation of feudalism#but fuck you he's perfect and he lives#fuck you let him be soft and let him be mine#in general im against sandpapering your blorbos but actually my blorbos are soft and round and perfect#boubas if you will#and who cares if theyre a little unrecognizable#the version of them that gets to live#resurrection and comes back wrong but with the multiverse of what if they lived fanfiction
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Ok we all talk about the Pevensies' trauma at returning to Earth at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and their trouble readjusting to life there again but think of all the funny/good parts too
They return from the country, and their mom is surprised when all her children hug her at the station. Even Peter, who thinks he's all grown up. Even Edmund, who went away surly and withdrawn. She doesn't know her children haven't seen her in over a decade.
They miss their dear Cair Paravel, but they absolutely do not miss its chamber pots. Indoor plumbing is amazing.
It takes a while to remember how modern technology works, though. How many heart attacks did the siblings give their parents or the professor because they walked into a dark room only to turn on the light and find the children sitting there in the dark. (They were by the window! There was still plenty of light from the sunset! They would have gotten a candle in a minute!) The kids sheepishly remember oh yeah electricity is a thing.
(Edmund has a new electric torch in Prince Caspian. He was so excited to get that torch. Almost more excited than you'd think a kid his age would be, and his parents expect Peter at least to tease him, but the siblings all agree light in your hand at the touch of a switch is terrific.)
Suddenly getting really high grades in some subjects and terrible in others. Their grammar, reading comprehension, spelling, vocab, even penmanship? Amazing. History and geography? They don't remember anything. One time in class Susan forgets Earth is round and wants to die.
Also they can never remember what the date is supposed to be because Narnia uses different months and years. They can estimate time really well by looking at the sun though, and Edmund at least can always tell which way is north etc without thinking about it (again, using the sun)
Okay but how many times did they go to pick something up or reach something and realize they are so much shorter and less muscled than they expect? It's a common sight to see Peter climbing on counters to reach a top cabinet, grumbling about how he's High King this is demeaning. (No he never takes the extra five seconds to grab a stool. He will climb that shelf.)
Peter and Susan being delighted because they are no longer almost thirty. (In a few years Edmund and Lucy will tease them about being old and their parents will not understand.)
Lucy doesn't have to deal with periods anymore for a few years yet. Susan might not either. Heck yeah
Lucy loves to climb into her siblings' laps and be cuddled. In Narnia she eventually she grew too big, but now she is small and snuggleable again. Peter is her favorite, and if she's upset, he'll tickle her and tell bad jokes until she's smiling again, but really she loves cuddling with all her family. She grew up without her parents; how many times did she just want to crawl into her mom's lap and her mom was a world away? Imagine the first time she realizes she can now. Or, imagine one day, a cold and grey sort of day, when the rain is pattering against the windows, and it sounds like the rain on the windows of the Professor's house, that first day they went exploring. It sounds like the day they played hide and seek. It sounds so like the rain on the windows of Cair Paravel, that if Lucy closes her eyes she can imagine she's back there, having tea and chatting with Mr. Tumnus before the fireplace of her room, and soon the rain will stop, and they will go out on the balcony and wave to the naiads and the dryads and the mermaids, who have come out to enjoy the rain and visit one other on the banks of the Great River winding past Cair Paravel down to the sea.
But if Lucy looks out the window, all she'll see is the rain over London, so it's not only a cold and grey sort of day, it's a lonely sort of day too.
Susan and Edmund are playing chess in the living room (and they must have studied with Professor Kirke, thinks their mother, because they certainly weren't that good when they left). Lucy goes over to Edmund, and oh dear, thinks their mother, now he's going to call her a baby and be horrible to her, but instead he picks her up and puts her on his lap without even taking his eyes off the chessboard; it's simply a matter of course.
"Doesn't the rain sound familiar?" says Lucy in a solemn, wistful way.
Their mother doesn't know what that means, but her siblings must, because Susan says, "Yes, Lu, it does,” and Edmund gives her a little hug with his free arm as she tucks herself under his chin to watch the chess match.
(Five minutes later there is a crash from the next room as Peter falls off a counter. Their mother does not understand the words he must have picked up from the Professor, but he's grounded for them anyway. His siblings have no respect for their High King, because they refuse to stop laughing.)
#the chronicles of narnia#narnia headcanons#peter pevensie#susan pevensie#edmund pevensie#lucy pevensie#helen pevensie#the pevensies#okay this did end up a little bittersweet at the end but I tried#let's all just focus on the high king falling off counters alright#and yes the siblings all picked up narnian swear words and i refuse to believe otherwise#i'm also suddenly wondering how much language drift there is in narnia#when the pevensies return in prince caspian are all the swear words/exclamations they learned outdated?#are they using the narnian equivalent of oh horsefeathers?#nova actually posts stuff#long post //#the higher the queuer#post lww pevensies#soft post lww headcanons
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𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆
DAY 14: LEG HUMPING
With: Ryomen Sukuna
Word Count: 4.4k (wow)
Warnings: Sub! Sukuna, Gn! Reader, Yuuji and reader r dating (Yuuji x reader), lots of threatening of death/small violent acts,, reader slaps him, sukuna has 2 cocks in his true form, heavy power dynamics, mention of subspace, previous cuffing, small mounts of blood
A/N: i feel like i wrote this while i was high, but i was sober. idk. this is unedited but i will edit it tomorrow morning
“I fucking hate you, you know that? Despise every cell of your body.”
You hold back a laugh, running your fingers through his hair, which earns another near animalistic growl. “Well aren't you dramatic, King of Curses. Where did my Yuuji go?”
Sukuna glares up at you, lips curling upward. He was kneeling, with his hands chained behind his back, while you sit on a chair, crossed legged. He was in the position Yuuji was in seconds ago. The position that Yuuji asked to be put in. Sukuna, obviously did not agree to this arrangement.
Yuuji must have lost control when he sank into the subspace. Just for a second, which was all the curse needed to arise. He was watching the entire time, snickering when Yuujis begs got too dramatic, or joining in on the unwelcomed degradation when the boy started to cry.
But the only time the king was silent was when you spoke. He would conjur himself on Yuujis arm, face, hand, and just listen.
His vessel was a pervert, really, and you were too. He watched the boy go through the most humiliating things, and still he would always end up begging for more. The curse would rather die than to steep as low as Yuuji did. It was pathetic, truly.
But sometimes, when Sukuna sticks around for too long, he finds himself hypnotized by your voice. It was always so soft with Yuuji, full of adoration, but he could not miss the authority that oozed from your tone. Strict rules that were meant to be followed, commands that were not dared questioned, and punishments that were no empty threats. He was there when Yuuji was also punished, in those rare times. They were not fun, even if the brat held a raging hard on through it all.
But overall, Sukuna was strangely enamored by your character. He was always top dog, the strongest, the king of curses, but what about you sends a shiver down his spine? Why does he want to hear your doting words? Not to Yuuji, but to him.
Sukuna realized not long after having these thoughts that he wants to fuck you. Or maybe just get a handjob while you whisper lewd things in his ear, the way you did to the brat. Or maybe you'll wrap your lips around his dick if he was to play nice for a bit.
It will be just a one time thing. Just so he knows for sure that he doesnt want you. Yuujis thoughts of you must be clouding his. Tonight he was here to confirm.
“Brats gone. You’ve broke him or something. Humans do that,” Sukuna pipes up, rolling his eyes, and glancing back at the cuffs he has on. He rips them off without hesitation, sending the metal falling to the ground.
Sukuna was lying. Yuuji barely was dipping into the subspace, and you know his limits well enough. Sukuna was out because he wants to be out with you. But alas, you want to see how far this will go, so you continue to play with him. A fake pout covers your face and you sigh. “Those were Yuujis favorite cuffs, was that necessary?” Not a lie.
Sukuna dramatically stretches his hands out, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. He still remains on his knees. “Annoying things. Not like they would work on me.”
“Yeah, because they weren't for you.”
He stares at you, flashing his teeth. “He could have broken out of them too.”
“But he wouldn't have. He is good.” Your foot presses on his thigh, where it was previously resting, and Sukuna raises an eyebrow at you. You were into this, he could tell.
But he wasnt going to let you know, that he was also strangely intrigued as to what was going on right here. So, he rolls his eyes, and shifts under your foot, but doesn't move completely. “Doesnt fucking matter. Whatever. Brats pathetic.”
“He’s not. Dont be an ass,” You sigh, leaning back into your chair, and cracking a smile at the ceiling while you think about the scene that is about to unfold. Never would you have thought he would be coming to you. You always had small fantasies of fucking Sukuna, but you would never act on them, frankly because you knew that the curse wasnt interested. He was the one to nearly spit on the two of you during these times. But now, the cards were in his hands.
Sukuna’s hands creep onto your lower leg, and you try your best to ignore it. His nails gently scratch over your skin, and you dont dare to move. Instead, you let out a dramatic breath, and then press onto his thigh again. “Now what do I do…” You, very obviously, prompt, and Sukuna wants to roll his eyes.
“You want me to fuck you, that right?” He in turn teases, seeing if you will take the bait. The both of you are teetering on ice, waiting for eachothers next move.
To this, you lean forward, resting your arms on your knees so that you are face to face with the curse. He doesn't even flinch, just stares with an amused expression, while your fingers trail along his jaw. “But thats not what you want, is it?” You purr, face nearly inches from his. “And besides…Thought you hated me?”
He grins at you, smile borderline predatory. “I do. You make my vessel do disgusting things.”
“You watch us a lot, don't you Sukuna?”
He falters for a second, and then suddenly he feels your foot moves from his thigh, and toward his boxers. Yuuji was only wearing his black briefs when he was sent to Sukuna's domain. “Do you get off to it?”
The familiar glare replaces the smile, and his nails dig into your skin, harsh in warning, but not enough to draw blood. “As if. You two make me sick. You are corrupting the brat. You're disgusting.”
He can tell he is beginning to tick you off, but he does not mind, especially the way your foot slowly begins to press down on his cock. “Then why are you here Sukuna?”
“To fuck you,” He quips, rolling his eyes as if it was the obvious – he did already tell you this. The hand on your leg doesn't let up, and he hitches a breath when you step almost uncomfortably hard on him. A shiver runs down his spine, and he loathes the fact that maybe he is getting off to this.
“And why would I allow you to?”
But alas, his pride would never let up. “Allow me to? You think you can tell me what to do all of the sudden. I could kill you in a heartbeat.”
You roll your eyes at his bared teeth and the narrowed red eyes that are looking up toward you. “You are the one kneeling before me.”
He doesn't move from his position and the two of you stare in silence. You restrain from voicing your approval, not wanting to piss the already tempermental curse off.
Sukuna sighs and taps on the skin of your leg, signalling you to continue. “Get on with it. I want to see how gross your desires can be.”
“Will you be good for me and listen?”
“Is that what the boy does?”
You cock your head to the side, fighting the urge to furrow your eyebrows at him. “Yuuji? You know the answer to that question, you voyeur.”
The curse pinches at his brow, obviously peeved by your statement, and you cant help but giggle lightly at hin. “Not a voyeur. Just want…Whatever. Now for fucks sake, do something. Yes, yes I'll listen, do you want me to bark or some shit? I am not as pathetic and moldable as your other toy.”
The slap comes quick, sending a stinging sensation to his cheek, and Sukunas eyes nearly pop out of his head. He slowly brings his hands up to his face, touching the now pinkened skin, before turning to you. He didnt even have time to process it, or get angry about it, before you spoke. "Enough with the insults to Yuuji. Are you looking for some sort of attention?”
“Fuc-”
Another slap directly to the same spot, and Sukuna knows this time that he could have blocked it. You were a human, your attacks were slow, weak. But he didnt block. He let you do this. He was going mad, he had to be.
His face stings, and your hand comes forward to grip at his jaw. He tries to hide a wince, but you watch him clench his teeth together. “Are you done?”
He had two choices in the matter. One to keep, willingly, Sukuna notes with much hesitancy, get slapped around, or he can get his dick possibly wet. He came for the latter, and so he will abide, even if it damaged his pride. He looks away, and that is the best answer you'll get. “Good. Well that was easy. Does your face hurt?”
Sukuna barks a laugh, and you raise your eyebrows. “Do you have any perception of how weak you are?”
You raise your hand up immediately to strike, and the curse flinches, preparing for what was to come next. But you just keep your hand there, eyes widening in glee, while Sukuna borderline growls. He doesn't say anything though, so you lower your hand, and rest it on his head. The act causes his whole body goes rigid, but he continues to remain silent.
“I want you to put your hands behind your back.” Your first command toward him, and Sukuna, as embarrassing as it is, feels his heart begin to pound. His mouth goes dry, and he slowly releases them from your leg and slides them behind him, his wrists crossing over.
A playful smile pulls at your lips, and you lean over to him, ruffling up his hair as if he was some sort of dog to be pet. “Good little curse!”
Sukuna's heart pounds in his chest, and he begins to grow restless. His cock throbbed pathetically at the words, and he was embarrassed to admit that the praise felt nice. Different than the deranged pleasure he felt from the slap, and the harsh tone, but….Good overall. He nods with a scoff. “Yeah, yeah. Can you fucking hurry up.”
His hips gently buck into the pad of your sock, and you try your best to stay calm. He was liking it, all of it was so weird, but endearing, so you didnt move to stop him. “Are you getting frustrated, ‘kuna?”
The nickname has him catching his breath, and shifting on the pads of feet. The tone of your voice was sickenly sweet, and if he allowed himself to, Sukuna could melt into it. He tries to hold some of his dignity. “N-No,” He stutters out, and then curses under his breathe of how stupid he must sound. He quickly recuperates himself. “What do you want from me, you sick fuck?”
“Anything I want?”
“Don't hold your breath.”
You slowly remove your foot from his crotch, and the curse bites his tongue to hold back a complaint. He watches your eyes travel to the ceiling, lost in thought, before you turn back to him with a small grin. “Take your boxers off, and then put your hands back where they were. Exactly where they were.”
Sukuna was not shy, and neither were you, so he is quick to remove the article of clothing. Though of course this was Sukuna, so it was unnecessarily dramatic. He slices the thin fabric open with a single nail, and then throws the useless cloth away. Then he sighs when he looks down. “Of course the brat is small.”
Yuuji was many things, but small was definitely not one of them. He is well over the average size, and it was borderline intimidating. If Sukuna was calling Yuuji small then you didnt even want to know what the curse was carrying. “Small compared to your inhuman-freakish cock?”
“-s”
Your furrow you eyebrows and hum in question.
Sukunas grin is cocky, his body reeking of arrogance, even if he was the one kneeling. “You forgot the “s”. Cocks. Plural.”
Your face controrts to first shock, fear, and then finally lands on distain. “That's disgusting.”
“You say that now but when you are drooling on them later–” Another slap across the face, and Sukuna actually didn't see this one coming. It stuns him speechless for a moment, but then he shivers, cupping his cheek with one of his hands. His eyes flicker to you, but they don't hold any disdain in them – he simply just watches, curious of your next move.
He fails to notice the glob of precum that falls onto the floor after the slap. “Ah, are you leaking Sukuna? Does getting hit turn you on?”
It may be the pain, or may be the psychological aspect of it all. If he says something wrong, he gets punished, and for some reason or another, that drives him insane with desire. He gulps, taking a deep breath to regain his composure. “Of course not. I am not the pervert here.”
“But I bet I could make you do some perverted things.”
His cock, as humiliating as it is, likes the sound of that. It noticeably twitches, and he hopes that more pre doesn't slip out before starting anything. His hands shift from behind his back, but he doesnt dare to move them. “Yeah? How far does your twisted mind go?”
“Far. But I dont want to scare you off too badly tonight,” You sigh, leaning back comfortably in your chair. Sukuna holds off a growl, peeved at how you worded the statement. “Guess you can just hump my leg.”
He laughs, loud and proudly, but your smile withstands. You rest your cheek on your palm, and you wait for the booming laugh to die down. It does, not after long, and slowly when he realizes that you arent joking, the curse glares as you. “Oh fuck off. I told you I am not to be your dog.”
You sigh, and stand up from your chair. “Guess we will end here for the night then. Send Yuuji back when he is well rested.”
A clawed hand wraps around your leg, and Sukuna bares his teeth at you. “Fine. I'll do it. Would you stop being so dramatic?” He gets out through clenched teeth.
You nod and sit back down in your chair, kicking your leg out. Sukuna eyes it, as if unsure of what to do. “Mount it,” You encourage, shaking your limb ever so gently.
“I know how to, you fucking idiot,” He bites, and then slowly uses his knees to push himself forward. His red eyes lock onto yours, and he stares at you the entire time as he straddles you. Your foot rests beneath his body, and his cock barely grazes your lower knee. One hand rests on the back of your leg for security, and the other onto the edge of your chair.
You gulp, and move your leg upward, pinning his cock in between his stomach and the skin of your leg. The curse doesnt dare to move, and he holds a wince when he glances at the glob that drips from his tip and smears onto your leg. A token sign that he is unbelievably turned on. “Drooling over me already? I'm flattered.”
He narrows his eyes at you. “Bite your tongue before I rip it off.”
You don't even flinch at the threat, instead applying more force upward, making the curse curl inward on himself as he tries to lift his hips upward, away from the foot. “Get on with it,” You command, leaving no room for complaints.
His eyes flicker toward you when he hears the strictness in your tone, and he blinks when you glare at him. He gulps, ignoring the pleasant shiver that runs down his spine. But he doesn't dwell on it, because you lower your leg again, and he is free to move. His hands feel strangely shaky, but he hides it well, not wanting to know how much power, Sukuna is discovering quickly, you have over him.
He lines his cock to the middle of your leg, and thrusts forward without much hesitancy. The skin is soft, and it glides over with little resistance, and Sukuna’s eyes are glued to the spot.
Its strange, not as pleasurable like all the previous women he has fucked, nor a warm throat, but for some reason or another, it sends his head spinning.
His hips retreat, and they push themselves upward against the plush of your leg. Eventually he falls into a steady motion, entranced by his actions. It's pathetic, and gross, but why did it feel so good? A leg shouldnt be pleasurable – it doesnt wrap around his cock like he wants it to, but it is strangely addicting.
He realizes quickly why it feels that way – Sukuna is no idiot. He likes the psychological part behind it. He likes that he is kneeling for you, and getting off to something so measly as this. It makes him feel gross compared to you – nothing more than skum, and you, must be some sort of god. It turns him on so much he can barely stand it.
His head falls forward, and it taps onto your thigh. His whole body seems to tremble, and the timing of his thrusts seems to pick up – they are quicker, frantic, and his cock nearly slides off more than it should.
Your fingers fall to his head, and this time he doesnt move, in fact he seems to melt into the touch. This was weird, and you were both intrigued, and slightly scared. “You really seem to be liking this, huh?”
He doesn't respond for a long second, maneuvering his fingers to hold onto the back of your leg with his thumbs left in front of the limp. It provides a makeshift “O” and finally the curse feels like he is actually fucking something, rather than just grinding. “There ya go,” He mumbles to himself, as if lost in a trance. His cock slides itself between your leg and his thumbs, and its driving him insane.
When he doesnt respond, you tug backward on his hair, forcing him to look up at you. To your surprise, he doesnt glare at you, nor let out a biting remark; instead, the curse moans. Its low, and holds a sort of vibration to it, but definitely there. “Oh you fucking freak.”
He lets out a lazy grin, neck uncomfortably craned upward. You watch the way he licks at his teeth, and he breathes out, “More.”
You press your leg deeper into him, and Sukuna in response lets out another gutteral moan, except this one holds a whine to it. The sound travels straight to your groin, and you sit up in your chair, eyes slightly widening. “What changed, king? Dont tell me your getting off to grinding against a mere human peasant like me?”
He lets out a small, breahthless laugh, but doesnt dare stop his motions. “Just this once. Just this once let me, and th-then I swear you are dead.”
Your leg is glistening in some small areas, from when he leaked and spread it into the skin with his tip. He stares at your face the entirety of it, even when you look away to glance at his cock. “But ‘kuna, whose leg will you frot against if you kill me? Aw dont tell me, youll find another to cling to. Y’know I am the only one who can take care of you.”
You drop his head and he goes back to resting his forehead on your knee. His pants are warm against your leg, and you feel him shake his head.
You are right of course. He would never dare show another this side of him to another. He doesnt want to either, even if he never would admit it outloud. “J-Just stop it. Please.”
Please was not in the king of curses vocabulary. Your eyes widen with glee. “How much do you like it? Tell me, does my leg feel good?”
“Does. Fuck. Fuck, I hate you. I hate you.” He nods his head into your leg, hiding his face. His body turns a shade similar to his hair, and it begins to glisten with sweat from his movements. He lets out small breathless moans, and stares at the tip moving up and down the fake color.
His body seems to curl around you your limb, as if trying to trap it in his hold. His lips, much to your surprise, press themselves to your knee and you can hear the smallest chant. “Love it. ‘S mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.”
You raise your eyebrows at the deranged, borderline creepy words. “So you hate me, but love my leg? Don't tell me you got some strange fetish.”
You feel his canines hover over the space just above your knee, a small warning from the curse. You blink at him, surprised by the small resistance, but dont do much. He licks at the flesh a second later, and pulls away. You have to bite back a laugh.
His hands by this point have dropped, and are instead clawing at your chair. He doesnt need them anymore, considering that he is so close to you that that his stomach and your leg are stimulating him on both sides.
“Fuck. I'm close,” Sukuna mumbles into your skin, pressing himself impossibly closer. You wish you had your phone to take a picture – he was basically cradling your leg as if it was some sort of prized possession.
“Are you asking me for permission?”
“N-No. ‘m not. Can I?” He paws at your thighs, nails threatening to dig into your skin. Of course he would never, at least not in this meager state.
“No.”
He bares his teeth at you and glares, but his eyes convey his true feeling: panicked. His pace doesn't slow though, and your leg is now sticky from the amount of precum lost. ���I-Im going to whether you like it or not. Fuck. Fuck you. I hate you. Ngh, can you just–just agree!”
His mouth is back onto your knee, sending it sloppy kisses, and small bites. His tip is pulsing red, and it begins to throb. His legs were beginning to tremble, and he tries to focus on not cumming. For some unknown reason, Sukuna wants you to allow him to.
“But you were a brat all day? Boys who threaten death, dont deserve certain privileges,” You hum, and then run your fingers through his hair. “But I am a mere human, and you the king of curses. Why would you listen to my commands?”
Sukuna bites his lip, immediately tearing blood. It dribbles down his chin, but he is quick to wipe it off, and reheal himself. His brows furrow and he scowls at the floor. The only noises let out are the grunts of his movements, and the moans that seem to get higher in pitch with each coming second.
He is lost in thought. The curse doesnt understand why he wants permission, but he needs it. He cant cum without it, it was bound to dissapoint you if he did. The thought leaves a sour taste in his mouth, and finally, the pathetic words that he has been thinking this entire night come spilling out. “Cause I want you to! Command me, give me orders, do something to me. J-Just I–fuck! I need it!”
“Why?”
He was growing frustrated and more panicked as the seconds go by. He was moments from cumming. “Because I–I ngh–Want to please you! Would you just fucking…” He warbles, praying that tears don't come. “Let me cum. I beg you. Let me. I'll do anything.”
Your heart pounds in your chest, and blood flows to your crotch. His watery eyes blink up at you, and he continues to rut against you, like some sort of dog. But thats what he is, or seems to want to be. So, you cock your head to the side, and provide him with a lazy grin. “Go ahead, Fido.”
His red eyes seem to light up at the approval, and he nods to himself as if bewildered by your agreement. But, he does follow through with the plea, and suddenly he is cumming. His whole body trembles, and he holds onto your leg with such force that you have to slide your hands on to of his, in a slight warning to be gentle. Cum shoots out onto your leg, but you can barely see it, considering his body has caved in on himself. He continues to rub himself out even through it all, as he pants into your knee. The curse wears a lazy grin through it all, and lets out small high in pitch moans.
He collapses backward, landing on his ass and panting to catch his breath. You glance away for a second, at most two, to look at the cum stained on your leg. A chuckle falls from your lips.
When Sukuna recovers, he goes straight back to scowling at you. In a heartbeat, he stands over you, borderline growling at you. His nails dig into your shoulders, and your eyes widen at the quickness of it all. Then he leans forward, a near inch away from your ear he whispers, “Don't get your hopes up. This will never happen again. Do you hear me?”
His nail presses uncomfortably hard into your skin, and so you are forced to nod. And with that your vision goes black.
For the next two weeks, Sukuna doesnt conjure up on Yuujis body anytime you are around. You dont mind it too much – it did save you from bickering with the arrogant prick. But to be honest, you were a little disappointed, having call his bluff.
You werent disappointed for long.
Low and behold, two weeks later from the incident, you find yourself faced to face with the King of Curses, who was already kneeling before you.
He glares at you, teeth on full display, as if he didnt realize what position he has put you guys in. “If you mention this to anyone, I will tear you to shreds.” Is all that he says.
But you arent too picky. So you grin, and hold your leg out.
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chaotic unhinged lines from 2022-2023 (prompt edition).
basically in 2021 i made a list of prompts inspired by lines in tiktok videos and instagram reels that made me laugh so hard i cried! and now i have returned with another list! these may provide an alarmingly clear image of what my sense of humor is (aka broken) but i figure a little levity is always a good thing! more prompts are forthcoming, but in the mean time: bon appetit!
knowledge has always chased you, but you've always been faster.
no... no, that was mango apathy juice. from the farmer's market.
of all these people, you are the one i understand the least. i want to get to know you better, but like, not that much better.
i-i will CHEW YOUR MEAT!! WHAT are you doing?!
ooooh god, no, you wouldn't be long getting frostbit!
you are evil. like a hobbit.
WHY MUST YOU FAIL ME SO OFTEN?!?!!?
i have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
AHEM!! fill my cup.
may god ignore you like you ignored my greetings.
i will avenge you mister van gogh.
call off work bestie, we need you to solve a murder. here's fifteen dollars.
you're not in love. you may think you are, you dumb fuck, but you're not.
go ahead and put the ranch away.
sadly, "hopefully" doth butter no parsnips.
forget school, i want to be an italian sandwich.
you shouldn't skip work, you are a lawyer and he is a hamster.
you can stop roleplaying now. you're free.
her coupon game was so fucking raw.
i'm sorry guys... he's making a salad.
you could get a straight guy here if you learned to make a good pasta. i'll teach you how to make a risotto that'll get you married and out of my basement.
hey, do you want me to get together a plate of roast beef and hide it in our room so we can have night meats?
it's not the most ethical thing in the world, but in a pinch you can hand off a cursed object to basically any baby.
no, children, you're wrong. once upon a time, there was a piece of wood.
and i'm not saying she deserved it, but i am saying that god's timing is always riiiiight.
hydrate or die-drate, ya DICK!
why did the monkey fall out of the tree? because it was DEAD.
new york city is a fictional place written up by someone with a sinister mind and a knack for comedy.
this is grindr my guy.
wait, i didn't finish teaching you the difference between human and wolf anatomy.
it's time to tell your grandmother that she was wrong. do not be afraid.
vanilla vodka... you fucking child.
without ash to rise from, a phoenix would just be a bird getting up.
you are fucking alive. do what you want.
why are you cradling me like a baby, friend? this isn't how guys of my generation hang out.
i hope a hedgehog shits in your cereal, you difficult person.
you know, i am not as mean as i would like to be. and i think people should appreciate that more.
see, i am not a kangaroo.
well, i'd like to help, but... you see... not as much as i'd like not to.
rest in peace you fucking onion fairy.
when god sings with all his creations, will a turtle not be part of the choir?
i fight for a seat in heaven, every. single. day.
map maker? can you find me somewhere on the map where this big man thinks he's the king?
you bald-headed demon...
so... there are 24 million pigs in australia... and 24 million people... so if you ever feel lonely, there's like, a pig out there that's sort of your cosmic twin.
remember, alcohol is god's apology for making us self-aware.
i'm straight!! stop CONFUSING me!!!!!
you guys want something to eat? because... i know we'll die if we don't eat.
he is a BIBLICALLY gorgeous man. i wanna feed him grapes. i wanna fan him with the frond of a date palm from the forests of Lebanon. i wanna find the alabaster vial of perfume oil that one woman broke for jesus and comb it through his hair. like... he's stressing me OUT.
i'm not sad! i'm freaking HUNGRY!
maybe, if we wait a little bit longer, a fuck will fall into my hand, and i can give it to you.
it's not my fault you thought you lived in this IKEA.
let's leave my mother out of this.
jason may kill people but he's not bad enough to kick a dog.
i run for LUMP!
oh no, i'm all out of caring, baby!
you don't think it mcbe that way... but it mcdo.
what is this enticing bowl of white?
serious question, do his nipples sparkle?
what in the reese's peanut butter fuck is going on here?
if your parents don't buy it, stop loving them!
i just hope you know just how much you've decreased productivity today.
that was poetry at its FINEST.
and if you let that motherfucker shenan ONCE, you best believe they're gonna shenanIGAN!
may god bless the dinosaur that died to make the fossil fuel that was treated to become petrol in the car that took her mom to the hospital to give birth to her.
that's modern milk for ya. what a time to be alive.
you have attachment issues. please fix it.
remember when people had secrets? we should bring that back.
the moon landing was an elaborate marriage proposal.
i don't like the cobra chicken.
i didn't know eggs were this expensive? it's time to lay my own, i fear.
so you're saying the reason i don't have a girlfriend is because i'm not a big enough threat yet.
god gave him a top lip, that's why he's so powerful.
it's a common mistake, but frankenstein was actually the author.
i finally got a pocket-sized diary!!! also i don't get the concept of life.
if a beautiful woman disagrees with me, i will immediately change my view. i've no principles.
how did you all end up married to such boiled potatoes?
if so much as one tear drops from their eye... i will slap you back into your mum.
you are ringing a phone that does not like to be rung.
look how Dr. doofenschmirtz had a fucked up childhood but didn't project his trauma onto his teenage daughter. he projected it onto a platypus.
it is mathematically impossible for you to get a wedgie.
i'm breaking up with you. i love you, it's just... i don't think you could protect me from a mummy.
if you can't do fractions....... you will fucking die.
that's right; in the year 1791, all of our bottoms were killed in a Big Bottom Massacre.
people always assume i'm mean. like CAN you BELIEVE THAT CRAP?! like WHAT would make you think i'm MEAN?! I'M THE NICEST PERSON ON THE PLANET!
the chocolate milk is strikingly overpriced and at the same time very easy to steal; another of god's little tests.
someone's gotta tell the waiter that i ordered mashed 'taters and it sure as shit ain't gonna be me.
if i had a week i couldn't list all the reasons that wouldn't work.
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Sins With Human S/O
✘Posted: 11/8/2023
✘Story Contains: Human gn reader, Asmodeus, Beelzebub, Mammon, Fluff, Nsfw, heartbreak, sins just loving their human partner.
✘Word Count: None
✘Author's Note: This has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while so I decided to finally write for y'all. Remember to eat a meal or a snack, drink some water, get some fresh air, take your medicine, and remember that you are loved. If you loved this story remember to comment, click or tap that heart button, reblog with tags, and blaze if you can. Always remember to support your local writers. ♡♡♡
Asmodeus:
You had met Asmodeus when you were trying to make a deal with a demon to get your ex back. You wanted a simple demon but you accidentally summoned the big man himself, Asmodeus, of course he was confused on how you summoned him. Because it’s usually a meeting thing but you summoned him upon command. He would have been mad because he’s a busy man; but when he locked eyes with you. He thought you were a sight for sore eyes so he asked you what you wanted and why you had summoned him. With teary eyes, you told him that you wanted your ex back, you told him how your ex cheated on you with your best friend. The reason he cheated and left you was because of your body, that you were boring, and annoying. Now Asmodeus didn’t know your ex but seeing that you were all teary eyed over some asshole made Asmodeus upset. The lust lord sat on your bed almost breaking it. But he patted a spot next to him. You tilted your head in confusion but sat down with him. Asmodeus took his time hitting you with harsh reality. “ You can’t force someone to be with you. Sometimes people will come into our life and stay while others leave. But it’s good when the bad people leave, and that guy you were dating is a real asshole; honey, you don’t need him at all. Let me be the one to show you what love actually is. Because I think you look beautiful just the way you are. “ Asmodeus offered his hand. You weren’t sure about this but you decided to give Asmodeus a chance - what started as a beautiful friendship and the king of lust showing you about what love really is soon turned into a relationship.
Asmodeus is no stranger or idiot when it comes to humans. So when he started dating you and visiting you. He would of course go up in his human form. The brown skin male with the long red and blue braids will always greet you with a smile. He’s still bigger than you, which you don’t mind. Though he does like going back into his actual form in the comfort of your home. Asmodeus loves your home, it’s cozy and quiet. He sometimes does his work here or reads a book there. He’ll bring you flowers everyday so now you have a little garden in the back of your home and a couple of flowers in your home, that don’t die. Asmodeus is always there to tell you good morning and goodnight. Sadly he can’t take you to Hell but he tells you all about Hell. “ Yeah, babe, it’s not really how movies depict it. “ He laughs at the questions or theories you have on Hell.
His guilt pleasure with you in the human world is when. It’s a cold day and raining, the two of you have the fireplace going and are snuggling on the couch in a large light blue heavy weighted blanket, drinking hot chocolate, and watching romantic comedies. Of course the two of you have the best snacks and foods on the table. Asmodeus loves to have you on his lap whether he’s in his human form or demon form. Moments like this make Asmodeus happy because he loves the rain and spending time with you. “ I gotta give it to you humans, you guys know how to make a good romantic comedy… sometimes. “ Asmodeus would place kisses on your head, neck, and cheek during the movie.
Your ex eventually shows up trying to get back with you. But when the door opened up, Asmodeus was standing there and he recognized your ex, when your ex asked who Asmdodeus was, the lust king grins. “ My name is Toby, I’m {Name}, boyfriend, you must be that shit ass ex they told me about. “ Asmodeus glared at your ex, who stood there looking up as Asmodeus who stood there in his human form. Your ex peeked in to see that you were wearing a long dark blue t-shirt that belonged to Asmodeus. “ {Name}! “ You ex called out for you, trying to get inside your home but Asmodeus blocked his way and pushed him outside. Closing the door behind them both; you stood there drinking from your mug hearing screaming that belonged to your ex. After a couple of minutes Asmodeus walked back inside. “ He shouldn’t bother you anymore. “ Asmodeus placed a kiss on your nose as you chuckled.
He eventually shows you pictures and videos of Hell. “ This is the ring of Hell. I owe the Lust ring, it always rains there. Here is a video of me and my friend Fizzarolli messing with some Imp because they were singing a love song at my place of business “Asmodeus laughed. But you looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “ I know I’m a hypocrite. “ Asmodeus crossed his arms. " But I had to keep a reputation cause Hell. " Asmodeus rolled his eyes. You kissed his cheek to let him know that you understand.
Sex with Asmodeus is fucking amazing. This man is the king of lust so he knows how to make your body scream and cream with pleasure. Sometimes you have to take a time out because you are a trembling mess. Asmodeus will cover you in hickies. But he's gentle with you when it comes to sex; he'll only be rough if you ask. He's also not afraid to test out any kinks yoi have. After sex, you'll receive the best aftercare. A bubble bath, while Asmodeus tells you how good you were during sex. He'll make you a nice snack and get you some water because liquids are very important after sex. He'll change the sheets and then place you in bed. After he cleans himself up, he'll cuddle with you in bed.
Beelzebub:
Your friends invited you to a party. You weren't really a party person but you decided to go because you could use a fun night out. So as your friends were dancing, you walked over to the snack table. The host of the party. Trevor always threw amazing parties because he was rich, so the snack table always had such delightful goodies. So when you saw that there was one last slice of cheesecake you went for it, only for someone else to go for it. You looked up to see a tall woman with long blonde mess hair that had some blue and pink streaks. She was wearing a pink shirt with a tye dye heart on it and some matching shorts. She was tall woman with crazy black eyeliner and beautiful pink eyes. " Oh? Did you want this, you can have it. " She let go of the plate of cheesecake. Her smile could light up a room. She gave you one last smile before grabbing another snack and walking off. You stayed by the snack table eating the cheesecake, after a while the party became too much for you. The music was now blasting, the colorful flashing lights hurt your eyes, and loud chatter was making you feel overwhelmed. You couldn't even find your friends, you began to panic until you felt someone grab your hand and pull you outside, away from the loud party. The night sky looked more peaceful, you looked over to see the woman you met earlier at the snack table. " You okay, small fry? " She asked. While handing you a water bottle. You smiled and nodded not knowing that this moment soon became a friendship and soon a relationship.
Beelzebub is the sweetest girlfriend. Even when she revealed to you that she was the queen bee of Gluttony when showing off her demon form. She expected you to run off screaming, but no you love her even more. You find her lava lamp tummy, really cool. Beelzebub tells you that she only comes to the human world to party with humans, she is the reason such amazing parties happen. But now she always comes up to see you. She always brings you food or snacks when she comes to hell and these are things from Hell. Which you become fascinating with the meals in Hell. Beelzebub understands that you don't really like parties so if you ever want to leave a party early, she understands and will leave with you.
Her guilty pleasure is playing video games with you. So the two of you have a game night. With the best snacks, you two play all times of games. She loves playing fighting games with you like Mortal Kombat or Smash Bros. " Shit, honey, you always win but one day, I'll win. " She teases. She also loves to do tye dye with you, a fun peaceful activity for the two of you.
She doesn't let anyone hit on you at a party or make you feel uncomfortable. Last creep that tried some funny shit got punch into the table by bee. " Don't touch, my damn partner! " Bee would try her best not to shift out of her humanity form because she doesn't want to scare anyone at the party.
Bee shows you pictures and videos from her parties in Hell. She wishes that she could attend these parties but humans aren't allowed in Hell. But she let's you taste some of Beelzebub juice that she made and it taste good. That you have a bottle in your fridge. Good thing none of your friends touch it because you ask them not to do so. Beelzebub juice does nothing to humans but make them have party energy.
Sex with Beelzebub is sweet as honey. She puts the sweetness in her love, you also know it's time for sex when Beelzebub appears behind you with a can of whip cream or sometimes honey. Beelzebub is sucker for licking and sucking things off of you. She's a pro with her tongue and fingers. She loves to be on top, to be dominant. She could be a soft dom or a rough dom, it all depends on what you ask her. Aftercare is always something Bee never forgets. She'll sit in the tub with you and wash you up while talking about what plans you two could have tomorrow. After caring for you both; she will cuddle up with you in bed while watching some tv.
Mammon:
You were having trouble with money, especially after leaving your parents home because you were sick of them controlling your life. The job you took wasn't really grand especially since your boss was horrible and a creep. So you ended up quitting so with bills piling up, you became desperate and decided to try and strike a deal with Mammon the demon of greed. After obtaining a book from a sketchy guy in a van. You went home and set everything up, after lighting the candles and doing the chant. You sat there for a couple of seconds and nothing. With a sigh of defeat you decided to heat up some leftovers; you walk into the kitchen but stopped when you saw a large jester like spider going through your fridge. You cleared your throat, and he turned around. " Oh! Hey there, you know your fridge looks pretty sad mate; probably why you summoned me, which I'm surprised that shit worked. " Mammon slammed the fridge close and walked up to you. When getting a closer look at you, his face felt hot. " You ain't so bad looking for a human. " He said. You weren't sure if you should be offended or not. " Well let's get this deal going, the more time I spend standing here, I loose money. " Mammon picked you up, not knowing this was the start of an interesting relationship.
Now you didn't expect to be dating Mammon and Mammon didn't expect to be dating you. But he didn't mind having you as a partner. You were quite sassy and took no shit from him. You knew all his bullshit and tricks. So he could never pull a fast one over. Mammon does spoil you a lot, to the point you don't really have to work. You always see that Mammon has some how put money into your bank account and that your bills have been paid. No tricks, just him being a sweet boyfriend with a shit eating grin. Anything you want he'll buy it so that you don't have to worry.
Has a human form like the others. The chubby Australian man loves holding your hand when you two are out in public. His black hair that had green streaks. He wore a long sleeve green shirt under neath his black jacket and had black pants. You thought he looked handsome, Mammon knows he's handsome. Cheeky asshole. But he takes you to any shops or food places you want or theme parks. " I should build a Disneyland in Hell. I'll call it Mammon world and charge $500 for a ticket. " He would go on about what it would have. You would playfully roll your eyes and listen to your boyfriend talk about his plans for this theme park and the outrageous prices.
His guilty pleasure with you, is doing absolutely nothing... Yup, Mammon is working man. But when he's with you, he gets a break so he loves to just lay in bed with you and cuddle. He'll rest in his face into the crook of your neck while sleeping. He holds onto you tight, but not to tight because he doesn't want to break you. But he enjoys these moments of naps and cuddles with you. Even if you are awake, he'll still be asleep by you.
No one should piss off Mammon, so when he hears about how your ex boss harassed you out of the store because you went to do some shopping. So that night when you fell asleep, Mammon paid your boss a visit. That morning when you were cooking breakfast for you and Mammon, you turned on the news and saw that your boss was murdered. You knew it was Mammon because he used your bosses blood to paint his symbol on your boss's office wall. You turned around as Mammon was whistling innocently. " .... He's in Hell in my ring, so he'll suffer more. " Mammon said and went back to whistling. You nodded your head went back to cooking not wanting to show Mammon your smirk.
Yes, Mammon is a greedy bastard but he's not greedy when it comes to sex. He loves to give you the best of the best. The highest quality of pleasure - he will use the four arms, because those four arms work wonders. Sorry but he can't control the honking during sex when he's pounding into you, so you'll have to deal with the honk when he's hitting it from the back or front. After sex, he'll give you after care and wash you up. " That was fun, we should do that again but next time on my web, I could tie ya up and maybe a blind fold. " Mammon could go on but eventually stops after you two end up in bed cuddling while Mammon places kisses on your head, telling you that you are the best thing that has ever happened to him and he wouldn't trade you for any amount of money.
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When the doors of the king's chamber slam heavily against the walls and Merlin enters with a tray in his hand and a frown on his face Arthur cannot say he is surprised to see his Court Sorcerer enter.
No one else would dare enter so blatantly.
Merlin does not say a word but looks at Arthur's new servant as he adjusts Arthur's shirt and Merlin places the tray with breakfast heavily on the table.
"Get out!" says Merlin in an imperious tone to the new servant and the latter, after casting a glance at Arthur and Arthur nods in assent, leaves with his tail between his legs.
Merlin wastes no time in approaching and arranging Arthur's clothes as best he can, muttering about the inefficiency of the new servants and how no one can do their duty decently.
Arthur observes Merlin's face and listens to his chatter and manages to relax his shoulders. They have not seen each other except at court meetings for days, barely able to exchange a few words, too tired in the evenings even to have a glass of wine in company. And Merlin must have made no small effort to be there at dawn, and his dark circles confirm this.
Arthur would like to raise a hand to caress those high cheekbones that have become even more pronounced because Merlin is not eating anything and is sleeping less and less (because of the delegation that is about to arrive) but, although his hands tingle to get up and do just that, he remains motionless listening to Merlin's voice complaining, while Merlin's hands fix his collar and Arthur finally feels the touch of a person he knows, feels the touch of a person whose touch he would like to feel every morning for the rest of his life, possibly.
"You missed me, huh?" says Arthur, because he wants to make sure, because it may be stupid but he missed Merlin so much that he wants to know if it is the same for the other.
It seems to be the wrong thing to say, however, because Merlin frowns and no longer looks him in the eye as he picks up his jacket and helps him put it on.
"Prat" hears him murmuring and Arthur knows (after all this time he simply knows) that he said the wrong thing, and he is so tired of these unspoken sayings, he is so tired of not being able to do what he really wants and he is so tired of not being able to see Merlin every day, of having a new servant, of not having Merlin's chattering anymore.
When he appointed him Court Sorcerer, he didn't think it would drive him further away. He thought they would reign side by side, discussing the kingdom yes, but also remaining good friends, if they could not be more.
Arthur steps forward and brings his arms around Merlin, holding him close and hiding his face in Merlin's neck.
Arthur feels as if he can breathe for the first time in decades and holds on tighter, inhaling and breathing deeply until he feels Merlin's arms around him with the same intensity.
"Then I wasn't the only one who missed you," whispers Merlin directly into Arthur's ear and Arthur laughs but doesn't loosen the hug because he's fine the way he is.
"I miss your chatter and the way you woke me up in the morning. Who would have thought that a competent servant would be so terrible to tolerate? He never talks to me and answers me by looking at the floor, it's like he's afraid of me."
Merlin snorts and Arthur hears him smile and isn't that the nicest thing that has happened in the last few days?
"He is obviously afraid of you. I have heard terrible things about how you treat your servants."
Arthur smiles back.
"I was used to you and the way you respond and react, habits die hard"
Merlin nods and lifts his face to look at him but neither of them turn away.
"…Shall we have a picnic when the delegation leaves?"
Arthur has it on the tip of his tongue you're such a girl, Merlin but, as already mentioned, he's tired of subterfuge and having to be impassive all the time he finds himself smiling and nodding.
"I think that would be a good idea."
#friends to lovers#merthur#merthur prompt#merthur fic#merlin bbc#bbc merlin#merlin prompt#merlin fic#merlin#merlin emrys#arthur pendragon#king arthur#my writing
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Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: MC-
Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: How are you doing?
MC: Are you asking because you are concerned? *tilting their head to the side while staring at him*
Barbatos: Yes. You must be uncomfortable. *seeing that all the furniture are removed, even pillows and blankets*
MC: Ah. I feel no discomfort at all.
Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: I know you're communicating with the real owner of that body.
Barbatos: We were in good terms even before they decided to leave.
MC: What are you trying to say then?
Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: Please pass this message to them.
MC: ...
Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: MC, I apologize that I couldn't do anything to help you.
Barbatos: Nonetheless, should you genuinely wish to bring this to a close, do not hesitate to summon me. I assure you of my assistance.
MC: ...
MC: They heard you.
Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: Do they have an answer?
MC: Yes. They hope you won't go back on your word.
Barbatos: I see. Thank you for telling me. *turned around and left*
Mammon: Oi, Lucifer! I thought you wanted to take care of MC, huh?! Why would you remove everything in the attic?! It looks like an empty cell now!
Levi: That's right! That's inhumane!
Lucifer: Silence! I wouldn't have done that if you were capable enough to watch over them!
Mammon and Levi: ...
Lucifer: If I had only missed one second, MC would've been dead.
His brothers: ...
Lucifer: We're lucky that they feel no pain. Nor that they feel weak after losing so much blood.
Lucifer: But they could still die.
Barbatos: That's right.
The brothers: Barbatos-
Lucifer: Did they talk to you?
Barbatos: Yes.
Barbatos: ...
Barbatos: MC would like to stay in the Demon Lord's Castle once again.
Lucifer: *nods* If that's what they prefer.
Luke: Why are you smiling, MC?
MC: Barbatos... He's really a kind demon, isn't he?
Luke: Hm?
MC: It's nothing. By the way, Luke?
Luke: Yes?
MC: I want to go where Simeon is. Do you know where is he?
Luke: He's at the Celestial Garden. But why do you want to see him?
Luke: *worried frown* He doesn't see you.
MC: I would like to know how he's doing.
Luke: ...
Luke: *smiles* Okay. Please come back immediately so I wouldn't be worried!
MC: *chuckles* Okay.
Simeon: *reading a book that tells prophecies*
Simeon: ...
Simeon: *looks concerned as he tries to interpret the message*
Simeon: This can't be. MC has been long gone.
MC: *who has just arrived to the garden and sees him*
MC: *smiles as they approach him*
MC: Here you are, Simeon. And what's with the gloomy face?
Simeon: ...
MC: *goes to sit next to him*
MC and Simeon: ...
MC: It's quite peaceful here. Just like in Purgatory Hall. *chuckles* Only Solomon was the one making a racket.
Simeon: ...
MC: *looks at him* *sadly smiles*
Simeon: ...
MC: *stood up* I must get going now. I don't want a certain angel catching me here.
MC: Goodbye, Simeon. *as they about to walk away*
Simeon: *grabbing their hand*
MC: !!!
Simeon: MC...
Lucifer: *has called Diavolo to ask if MC and Barbatos already arrived in the Demon Lord's Castle*
Diavolo: Huh? But Barbatos arrived alone, Lucifer. MC was not with him.
Lucifer: What?!
MC: The statue of the Fairy king.
Barbatos: Yes. I will bury you here.
MC: ...
MC: Heh. It's perfect.
#obey me#obey me nightbringer#obey me mc#obey me lucifer#obey me diavolo#obey me barbatos#obey me brothers#obey me luke#obey me simeon
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Please make a second part to your Sukuna grieving headcanon because I will physically hang myself and whirl around as a corpse since I cannot take this angst !!!
Your wish, has been granted! ⭐ I'm sorry if it's short
Grieving!Sukuna headcanons pt2.
Plot/Summary: Each year on your d3athdate Ryomen emerges from his temple to wreck havoc upon any and every neighboring town and village in a thousand mile radius or more. Many townspeople think it'd be better to put the King of Curses out of his misery, but the others have a different idea in mind. Resurrecting the one person that can tame this maddening beast...
Content: Fluff, Angst, happy Sukuna, Necromancy, pet names.
Word count: 🤷🏾♀️ sis ion know good luck.
Grieving!Sukuna Pt1
Grieving!Sukuna Who grumbled in agony after hearing your sweet voice call out to him. Thinking that it may just be another illusion of his, one that haunted him ever since the death of the love of his life.
Grieving!Sukuna Who slouched in his throne shielding his ears from your voice that called to him again. All he could think in that moment was the tears in your eyes and the way you fell cold in his arms as he held you that day.
Grieving!Sukuna who placed another hand over his own eyes because the mere sight of you pained him beyond belief oh, but when you climbed up the bones below his throne eagerly to greet your Lord, did he finally open his eyes-
Grieving!Sukuna who stared at you in disbelief as you greeted him in that strange way you always did- what was it? Ah, you always fell to your knees at his feet, taking the nearest hand of his to perch your lips upon. Oh did he miss the way your soft lips feverishly kissed the back and palm of his hand.
"Are these damned Eyes of mine deceiving me... Or"
He grabbed her face in between his thumb and pointer like he always did in response to your greetings. He chuckled, "Have I truly gone mad over these years."
Grieving!Sukuna who could almost feel his heart burst out of his chest from just hearing that sweet, sweet melody.. Your voice. But who could blame him for questioning your mere existence? You literally passed away right in his arms- he could still feel how cold your body had became after the hours he had held you.
"My Lord, How I wish this was all the trick of thee eye, but... When I arose from my eternal slumber there was a strange man with a staff over me- H.. He spoke that if I do not come to you, then there would be hell to pay! "
She took his large hand into both of her own and gently, but loving nuzzled the palm of the hand with her cheek. "So far seeing you in such a state is hell enough to me... I never thought I'd see the day where you shed a te-"
Grieving!Sukuna who sprouted an extra mouth in the palm of hand which he used to passionately and desperately kiss you with.
Grieving!Sukuna Who leaked such fluids from his eyes that Dampened his face for years in the sight of you. Yet his hand just wasn't enough he wanted to feel your lips against his own, Ryomen craved it as if he'd die without such a thing.
"Damn you, woman.. How I ached for you, grieved for you, craved you, and you just- *Silence* *Inhale & Exhale* There you are spouting nonsensical nothings of necromancy... Well I'll be damned if I didn't take advantage of it."
Grieving!Sukuna who sweeped you into his arms with the quickness. Holding you by the fat of your thighs, one hand around waist the other on the arch of her lower back. The kiss that he pulled her into was damn near suffocating~
Grieving!Sukuna who would barely let you break away from such a breathtaking kiss. Each time you attempted to pull back Ryomen would growl, grip you tighter as he bit onto your bottom lip to pull you back in.
Grieving!Sukuna who finally after a bit of coaxing pulled away, then hide his face in the nape of her neck so she couldn't see such an embarrassing sight... The king of Curses, crying.
"Y- You must NEVER speak of this to no man or be prepared to-"
"Meet my untimely demise, My Lord? I would Never utter a word!?"
All he could muster was a deep chuckle to try to cover up his obvious sniffling. "Good Girl, So you truly are my sweet concubine, my naive wife, my little pet~"
"My Lord, I was always yours... Even in death"
Sorry this probably sucked so much ass, but thank you for giving me a chance to write something I'm not very good at aka fluff!
#jujutsu kaisen#jjk#jujustsu kaisen x reader#jjk x reader#ryomen sukuna#jjk drabbles#ryomen sukuna x reader#sukuna x you#sukuna x reader#sukuna fluff
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what my 65yo father has to say about antis:
let me preface this by saying, i literally wish i had what just happened on video to go viral on TikTok. i was shook by this conversation down to my bones; and if you could see my father - a loud old Italian man with dramatic hand gestures - say what he had to say, i think this shit would blow up. but as i was obviously not filming him while we were eating, i will have to relay to you the story with my words.
so i'm sitting eating dinner at the coffee table with my father while watching TV, as Americans often do instead of eating at the dinner table, and since the news was on he started telling me this story that had been recently mentioned on TV once again from maybe ten years ago (it was in 2014, you can read about it here) where these two 12-year-old girls killed one of their friends as a sacrifice to the Slender Man. yeah, real thing. fucked up.
and so my father told me about how they interviewed one of the killer's mothers, and when questioned about where her daughter's motive could've come from, she said something along the lines of: you know, when i was a kid, i was into Stephen King and horror - and so when my kid was into that kind of stuff, i didn’t think it was a big deal.
so, of course, my response was "yeah, being into that stuff isn’t a big deal at all - it's normal - but being a sociopath and murdering someone is not normal; it's fucked up. but there's nothing wrong with being into horror stories - they're just stories meant to entertain - it doesn't make you a murderer to enjoy Halloween - but it would if you put on a Michael Myers mask and went out and stabbed people." and, of course, like any sane person, my father agreed with me.
then, continuing this line of conversation, i started talking about the concept of how "fiction isn’t reality," and how a frightening amount of people don't understand that; and i literally started telling him about antis - people on the internet who attack and harass others over "problematic" or "inappropriate" fictional interests.
i used well-known pop culture examples like: if you're into Game of Thrones and like Jaime and Cersei together or wanted Jon and Daenerys to end up together (i didn't think he would process the term "shipping," but clearly by the end of this conversation i think i was wrong), that people (antis) will say things like "you should die," and that you "support inc*st in real life," and that "you're disgusting."
i also used the examples of "toxic relationships" in pop culture, like the Joker and Harley Quinn, or Kylo Ren and Rey, and how if you’re into those kinds of fictional relationships that people (antis) will say that you "support toxic relationships," and that you are "glorifying abuse," and that it all "must be what you really want and believe is right or good."
and my fucking 65-year-old father literally goes: "I don’t understand. It’s a TV show. Don't they know it’s fake?"
queue my jaw dropping to the fucking ground because i'm like. YES. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT PRO-SHIPPERS ARE TRYING TO SAY AND THESE PEOPLE DON'T GET IT.
he was flabbergasted, my pals. the shock in his eyes was incredible to behold.
and, oh boy, that isn't even the best part, guys.
my father then says, "Don’t tell me it’s like that with anime too?"
and i said, "it's worse with anime."
and i fucking swear to you - no joke, on my life and baby Jesus' cradle - again my 65-year-old father looks at me and says, “It’s a fucken cartoon."
... ... ...
... i can't ...
i can't end this post better than that.
#anti anti#anti harassment#proship#proshipper#proshipping#pro ship#pro fiction#pro shipper#pro shipping#profic#comship#proship safe#comship safe#proship positivity#anti censorship#ship discourse#fiction is not reality#fiction is fiction#ship and let ship
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𝔗𝔬 𝔅𝔢 𝔏𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔡 ℑ𝔰 𝔱𝔬 𝔅𝔢 ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔢𝔡
Summary: Because of a past refusal, the god who once fostered and protected your village has cursed the land and left it in constant darkness and bloodshed. But years after the island's condemnation he visits the priestess in her dreams, claiming that he is once again willing to take a sacrifice in exchange for the people's salvation.
You are left to grapple with your reality when that sacrifice is announced to be you.
Notes: 26k words, so . . . grab a snack? Also, this has not been proofread yet so sorry for any errors and misspellings. Banner is credited @saradika
Warnings: MDI - 18+ content! AFAB, Sacrifice AU, violence, horror elements, the reader is drugged physically for ritual purposes but it doesn't affect her in the Dreaming? illusions to death, an animal is harmed but does not die, a small teaspoon of stalker Dream (sorta), hints of possessive Dream but he's also soft. Oral (F!receiving), he's a switch, a bit of soft dom Morpheus I suppose, sex outside but there is no voyeurism involved, unprotected sex.
The memories of your mother are vague at best. Like gazing up at someone while being submerged under water. But what you could remember, quite vividly at that is the wild fables and stories of gods and heroes that she would tell you, sending you off to sleep with images of great serpents slicing through the waves of the seas or the behemoth hound snapping at the tormented souls of the underworld with its many heads. And she taught you of the nymphs of the ocean and the wood, and the great gods that cloak the skies with heavy storm clouds and bind the souls of lovers together.
But perhaps one of the most important to your isolated village, the one who was vital to the people's survival was the deity Morpheus. Dream of the Endless, the King of Dreams and Ruler of Nightmares. The heavenly benefactor that assured you all prosperity and wealth. He was benevolent and caring, and to commemorate the god, murals were created in his image. Some portrayed him as both beast and man. With the lithe physique of a human, the textured, taloned feet of a bird and great wings pridefully expanding from his back, stretching high in a reaching arch and a head that you could not discern if it was intended to mimic a bird or insect. The protrusion from his face reminded you of the proboscis of a mosquito but it was jointed and colored like ivory like a bleached spine.
But on occasion the paintings depict the god as a striking statuesque man, clutching a group of blood red blossoms in one hand and fragments of pale sand poured through the fingers of an opposing upturned palm. And he seems to have his wings in this form also. And they are always with feathers the color of the night sky.
Your mother had told you that he was a kind ruler. But even kindness is not without its conditions.
The people had spoken of an offering that must be made to the Endless to appease him, an exchange for his watchful eye and shelter. A sacrifice must be given. A human one. The thought had terrified you as a child. But the villagers - even your own parents seemed to accept the requirement without any qualms. No complaints were made from the people. It was taken as a fact of life. The same as how the sun rises in the east or how fire burns when touched. No one fought when the shrine guards came in the morning. When the dawn was but a smudge of lavender in the horizon, knocking on doors and collecting any woman who was of age regardless of it they were already wives with families and duties.
Not even your father or mother had protested when they came to take her away to the temple. And you had latched yourself onto her hips, refusing to let go even when she assured you that this was a good thing. That it was a great compliment to be even considered for the choosing. And that if she was selected as the offering - to join the Dark God that it would bring honor not just to the village but to your house as well. But you had refused to listen, shaking your head while your tears dampened the fabric that covered her body. The hierodules had to tear you from her hips, and your father had to secure you in his arms as she left with the guards to the join the other women who had been collected from their homes.
The next passing days for you had been melancholic and distressing to say the least but the village was a kaleidoscope of colors and festivities. And despite the joy that thrummed across the air, the world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting the day for the Choosing when the head Priestess would reveal the offered woman that Endless had deemed worthy enough to be his sacrifice.
The ceremony had been held near dusk and a heavy quiet had fallen over the collective as you all look up to the priestess, desperate to hear which womans name she would utter. The anticipation was stifling as you all awaited who would become his bride, and your fingernails had dug into your father's hand so harshly that it must have stung, but he did not flinch or jerk away once, far too enamored with the event. And when the sister had revealed the Chosen the crowd had cheered and some gasped, but you had cried. Cried with relief and joy.
But on that day the Priestess decided to deny the dark god of his sacrifice and that decision would mark the fall and despair of your village for years to come.
And now you stand where your mother once did. But instead of the cover of a gentle twilight, the unforgiving heat of the sun wafts over you, engulfing you in a sweltering heat and pounds down on the crown of your skull. Voices clamor from down below, the frenzied cries of desperate people, and it has the women standing at your sides shivering like startled doe's. You could not blame them in the slightest. You too wanted to quiver and sob to expel your fear, but you could not bear to show any vulnerabilities. Not to the hungry crowd, too terrified in their own right to empathize with your distress.
The ritual is only in a few days' time and the atmosphere that looms across the village with a heavy sort of anticipation is a conflicted sort of energy. There was an obvious air of excitement, prickling at your skin and nearly leaving you breathless but there was also the underlying thrum of . . . fear. It pained you to look out to the masses and see their jostling bodies, waiting with bated breath to hear the name of the Endless' intended. To hear if he would finally accept a sacrifice again after so many years of anguish and terror.
They had decorated the thresholds of houses, and the columns of buildings with rich tapestries and fine wreaths just as had been done in the past. The people- your people frolic about in special fabrics- deep reds and blues to herald the Endless. Gorging themselves on the five-day long feast: the meat of boar and quail and an abundance of fruits. The flow of wine and spirits did not stop. It had only progressed if the slurred shouting and rumbunctious laughter that had reached you from behind the thick walls of the commune was any indication. Celebrating their lives. Celebrating your death.
Despite your circumstances you had been nothing but pampered since your forced participation. Fed only the finest meals and bathed in expensive oils and perfumes. You have been chosen by an ancient; a harsh voice hissed cruelly from the depths of your mind. The voice of the old sister. The woman who had sealed your awful fate. The one who claimed that the mind walker -the dark god himself had come to her in a dream and had spoken to her she had reiterated animatedly, sharp piercing eyes nearly rolling back in her skull from her mania. Her body had quivered from her passion and the other women that had been selected and forced into a reluctant row had nearly flinched back at the intensity of it. You all clung to each other, hands gripping the other for support. Something to tether yourselves to the ground. All of the eligible women had been wrangled up, torn from the arms of their families. Even women with husbands and children were taken away, no one was spared in the wishes of finally appeasing the god.
You had scanned the clamoring crowd in the hopes of finding someone who would be willing to help. Someone who would disagree. Perhaps a stranger would show pity or sympathy, but you found no one. They were all hanging on to the demented rambling of the old priestess. Their silence was palatable. The crazed joyous eyes of people with hope. Hope of reprieve from the decade long curse that had tainted the village. And unfortunately, one of the maidens- one of you that stood in that horrid line was the answer to their prayers. And when you found no sympathy, you looked past the commotion and the roofs of houses to the sea in the distance and imagined yourself taking to the dark waves and escaping under the tide and froth. Emerging somewhere new and wonderful.
Of course, there would be no freedom for you. Not when her horrid eyes strayed from the desperate crowd and pinned you in your place the air had been expelled from your lungs with a harsh gravity. The realization of your fate.
And then as if to perpetuate her point further, to drive the knife in deeper and twist, she lifted her crooked finger up in the air and pointed. Right at you. And the other girls that were clinging to your body for support and comfort had jerked from you as if you were dirty and blemished, sobbing with cries of relief while they fled in search of their mothers and fathers in the crowd. But some of them had sank to the dust and clasped their hands together as if in prayer, kneeling at your feet like you were sanctified.
"The Endless has found his Chosen." She crooned and the people had roared in a victorious cry.
They took you kicking and screaming, ignoring your cries of protest while they carried you off to the Sisters commune to prepare you and the townspeople looked on, watching you feverously with a horrid sort of enthusiasm. Relief you recognized.
You had been forced into decadent silks and decorated with jewelry that at one time you would have dreamed of wearing, but they might as well as have been hot iron with the way that they felt against your skin. Restricting, disgusting.
They paraded you around for days, making you the pinnacle of the festival while you watched them all sink into their basest desires, influenced from alcohol and the intoxication of relief. You tried not to blame them. To see past your pain and hurt and summon some forgiveness. After all, they were only afraid. The same as you had been, the same as you are now. Fearful of the Night King and his spirits. The horrible kakodaimon hoard that serve at his command and wreak havoc should their emperor be denied of his sacrifice. Some are little more than mischievous deities, entertaining themselves with otherwise harmless pranks: Stealing shoes and tying the hair of women into knots while they sleep unaware. The stuff of tales and bedtime stories. But he has other creatures. Monstrous, evil things that steal infants from their cribs and drain bodies of their lifeblood and chew bone.
The same horrid beings that have been tormenting the village for a decade now, arriving in the night to snatch up any poor soul who had been foolish enough to be caught outside during the dark. Many have died during the years since he's unleashed his army of terrors upon the village. The dark creatures snatching them up in their gnarled claws, as lethal as a sharpened daggers and carrying them off with the swift whisper of wings. All because he was refused.
And now finally you sit underneath the stars again, after being forced behind barricaded doors and huddling underneath the table and hoping that the creatures wouldn't break through the door and tear themselves inside with gnashing teeth to feast upon your flesh. Clinging to the hope that you would survive until daybreak when the blessed sun would rise from the horizon and banish them away. If only for a little while.
For the first time since you were a child you may embrace the dark and breath in the warm night air, feeling it sooth your lungs like a balm. You're as full of wonder as you are paranoia. Waiting for one of the nightmares to leap out of the shadows and steal you away. But even the weight of the silver and diamonds adorning your body and the deafening laughter of the feast couldn't tear your eyes away from the black expanse that loomed above. Stretching out like a horrible, beautiful black void that threatened to eat you alive. And you nearly felt crushed with how small - insignificant it made you feel. The unforgiving stretch of the cosmos looming above seemed to force your own mortality upon you with a harsh sort of grace. And it angered you that the dark god had stripped this sight from you for so many years. He had taken so much from you all and now they all once again chant his name as though he was a savior and not the reason for their strife and agony. Celebrating his image like he was a humble god that had not punished them and their children with beasts and terrible dreams. All because he was not given a woman who had been promised to him.
You had never felt so bare in your life, having been forced on the plush velvet cushions of a palanquin to be carried around on the shoulders of the temple guards and displayed around the village. There was no shelter from the prying eyes of the townspeople who had watched you with the same sort of desperate hunger as a pack of starved dogs, shameless and pitiful. They had been pelting you with the vibrant blossoms of violets and dark seeds, and the abundance had begun to collect atop the cushions, and you had been tempted to sweep the offerings off the side of the vehicle but as if sensing your intentions one of the priestesses had swiftly swiveled her head to glare at you from her place beneath you. You had been tempted to defy her regardless, to hold eye contact with her as you did so, but despite your petty desire you held yourself back.
They did eventually lower you from their shoulders and back down onto the earth, and a few women had emerged from the boisterous crowd -servants perhaps - to hand you food and drink. You had not wanted to accept it, too prideful to take what they had given you and make them believe that they had managed to placate you with a meal and wine, but eventually your stomach had won and you hesitantly abandoned your dignity. It had been too long since you had last had a decent meal, having survived off of measly scraps for too long. You had gorged yourself on the figs and fish and honey cakes, chasing it with the rich wine when you had become parched and soon your head had become light with the influence of the fermented liquid, and it allowed you to ignore the cajoling throng of people and the sisters' that observed you.
The priestesses surrounded you like a group of statues, pillars of death. Silent and watching. Guarding. They observe when the villagers approach you, eyes glinting hauntingly like they're waiting for one of the people to lash out and attack you. You hoped someone would and finally put you out of your misery. But instead, they all crouched down low at your feet, whispering their gratitude like you had asked for this purpose and placed bundles of red flowers on the earth to surround the palanquin. Even a child had approached you, thanking you for the salvation you offered. It had nearly broken you and tears had threatened to spill down your face. It almost disgusted you to look at them. Soft, delicate blossoms that were a harsh scarlet. Red like blood. Poppies you had realized. The flower associated with the Endless. It made you nauseous to be surrounded by his symbol. And suddenly they were not so pretty anymore and there were too many. Overflowing at your feet and pilling up so high that it felt like the people were trying to build a wall around you.
"Why must I do this?" You gasp, feeling as though you were being crushed. The sister to your right is the one who speaks but she does not turn to look at you, instead focusing on the roaring pyre that the villagers dance around under the guide of the drums and flute. "Because it is your purpose." The answer is cold and matter of fact, sparing you no sympathy. It is a sentence that you have heard uttered one too many times in the passing days, almost as though they believed you would come to accept your circumstances if you heard it enough. You just could not understand why they would be so easily swayed to accept the god who had turned his backs on them so long ago. Abandoned them and tormented them because of his own hubris. Scorned because the head priestess before had not given him her own daughter.
He had plagued your village for too long. Ravaging men and women and children with horrid dreams and dying crop. Except for now. Ever since the choosing ceremony, when you had been selected the gardens had blossomed seemingly overnight, overgrown with a prosperous harvest and the hunt had been successful after many moons of coming up with little more than measly rabbits.
They would always return to his dark embrace after the horrors that you have all been forced to endure. It did not matter if he demanded one maiden or a thousand, they would spare as many women that he demanded. Even if it meant finding shelter under the punishing hand that caused all of their pain.
But it still does not explain why he had accepted a sacrifice after so many years of silence and refusal. After turning his nose up at every attempt to reconcile and give an offering he makes his presence known now. But what had changed? Why you? Surely the god that presides over dreams and walks amongst the subconscious must know that you are no longer a chaste woman. A tainted old maid is what they would whisper about you. There was no sense to any of this.
"But why me?" And the fragile strings of jewelry draped around your neck clink against each other, but it is an annoying sound that has your nails digging into the rich tapestried cushions. It is the one to your left that speaks now. Her voice is deceptively soft, bubbling like a gentle stream. "We do not question the Endless. " She responds. And although her voice is much more welcoming than her sister's her words are just as indifferent. " You will be our salvation. Our forgiveness. You will save us. "
Any bit of protest had died in your throat before you could get them out. You focused on the festivities instead, watching the people chant and sing old songs. And dancers leapt around the fire, dressed in furs and leather and colorful fabrics to mimic figures from folklore and the very monsters that had massacred your village for years. Wearing masks fashioned from old hides and animal pelts, brandishing the horns taken from cattle and deer. They playfully leapt at the crowd that encircled the fire as though they were going to swipe. And some had constructed costumes to imitate the dark plumage of the raven, one of his coveted animals.
This was twisted. A mockery of suffering and pain. Pissing on the memory of the people who had fallen victim to the dream god and his nightmares.
How could they all forget so easily?
You could feel the sting of anger simmering within your chest, prickling at your fingertips. It made it difficult to breath around the weight of it all. You continue to watch them all despite the rage and sorrow that it induces. The horrible way they galivant around and clap and cheer. It's disgusting and awful. Even the children. The poor children participate, lunging at the false monsters with wooden swords and some are dressed as the dark creatures themselves.
To get some sort of reprieve you looked to the night sky, staring up at the full moon as though its goddess would hear your silent plea and save you from your fate. Whisking you from this starving mob and your doomed fate to her hidden island to frolic with the nymphs free from your crude duty. But the glowing deity did not appear, and you were left to stare at the lonely dark void of the night while the stars winked and fluttered as though their light might dim and die. It was foolish to believe that the goddess of virtue would appear for a woman like you.
But then you could feel it. A magnetic pull that tilted your head from its upturned position, and your eyes lower onto something gleaming with a pale light. Two shimmering pieces, shinning much like the moon hanging above. It is a pair of eyes you come to quickly discern. Reflecting the bright glow of the pyre in a way that is decidedly not human. Those are the eyes of a beast: An owls may do that, or a wolf's or a cat. Not a human. But the face that they belong to is very much a man's.
It is difficult to make out the features of his face past the way that the heat of the open flames warp the surrounding atmosphere and the smoke twists and coils into the open air like deadly serpents. But you can comprehend the sharp jut of high cheek bones and pale milky skin almost as though he was cut from a fine marble. His expression is not a joyous one or celebratory like the other villagers, instead it is stoic and serious. The intensity of his glare has you pinned in place. It is you; you realize. He's staring at you.
The world suddenly feels weightless, like you're suspended in a vacuum. You had heard a story from an old hunter once. One who had miraculously survived a lightning strike and he had been shunned by many of the others for his scars. After all he must have done something to warrant the strike. He must have scorned the Lord of the Sky himself. But you had spoken to him regardless and he had told you that he had felt it before it had hit him, even though it was only for but a second. His hair had stood on end and his skin had tingled strangely before his body was flooded with a numbing white-hot heat. And you could feel that sensation prickling over you now, like the whisper of a thousand fingertips brushing you all over. It made you shiver, and you adjusted yourself in your seat in an attempt to banish the feeling, but it never faded. If anything, the steady pulses persisted and seemed to thrum with even more intensity nearly making you gasp aloud. You wanted to look away from the strange man, but you could not seem to will yourself to turn your gaze from him, and some strange part of you did not want to. He was gorgeous in a haunting sort of way, but you could not figure out why. There was an unearthly quality to his countenance, like he was he was not a man but wearing the face of one.
It was then you noticed the color of his robes. Black. But that was not right. No one else was allowed to sport the Endless' color, no one else apart from the head priestess was allowed to wear his color, as a way to display her connection and loyalty. It was considered an extreme offence for any other person to bear a cloth in his shade. A punishable offence that would often result in public ridicule and the removal of the criminal's dominant hand. Some have even claimed that the accused may be haunted from night terrors for the crime until the passing of their natural human life. So who would be bold enough to flaunt around in public in such dark robes?
He must be a foolish man. Or at least an arrogant one. And as though he could hear your thoughts the corner of his mouth quirks in just the faintest hint of a smile. So delicate that it could be mistaken for a trick of the light. But you could see it in his otherworldly eyes too. It looked as though that it did not suit him, but he also wore the expression beautifully. It was an odd juxtaposition, and you did not know what to make of it. He looks like no one you had never seen before but is also painfully familiar, like an old memory.
Oddly enough no one else seems to notice his presence at all. A phenomenon that could be blamed on the alcohol and high spirits but what couldn't be wrote away by reason was the way that a drunk seemed to stumble through the strange man, causing him to vanish like a plume of smoke and the pale shimmer of his eyes was the last to fade, piercing some buried part of you before disappearing entirely and with it something clicks into place.
The sensation that had spilled over you leaves with him, releasing you from its hold and allowing you take a deep breath that you had not known you needed. That awful wonderful stare. . . Could that have truly been the nightmare masquerading as a man? They have been known to do such a thing before. Using the guises of people and loved ones to lure vulnerable victims out for slaughter. Then another thought trickles down to the forefront and it has a cold shiver skipping down the notches of your spine. What if it had been the nightmare king himself? Come to see you, his intended bride?
Surely you were hallucinating. It has never been mentioned before that the deity has ever made appearances before the ritual. None of the other past offerings have spoken of it. If it has happened, then none have ever cared to mention it.
It had a troubled sinking feeling plummeting in your gut and it stayed with you throughout the night until the priestesses had collected you from your place and ushered you back to your temporary quarters where the servants prepared you for sleep. Insisting that you bathe, pouring luxuries oils into the steaming water and combing your hair before bed. They fret about like ghost. Silent and always moving so they are often little more than glimpses in your peripheral vision. They hardly speak. Only enough to offer commands that are loosely guised as suggestions or to whisper softly amongst themselves.
They do not like you; you could easily tell. If the unabashed away that they gossip quietly while in your presence is any indication. But one of the women in particular does nothing to hide her distaste. Watching you with scorn in her eyes and a scowl on her lips. Neither of you had made any efforts to verbally communicate your hatred for the other, instead opting to passive aggressively telegraph the fact with petty gestures. Such as when she had decided to harshly pick through your hair while preparing you for the first feast. Clawing at your scalp with the teeth of the comb harshly enough to sting and throb for the entire night. The apology that she had given you was pathetically fake, contempt framed around a smile and feigned concern. She did not do it again when you had accidentally spilt hot tea across her hip when she was selecting your jewelry.
But even now you could feel the heat of her glare against the crown of your skull and the grip that she had on your hair was harsher than necessary, but you simply did not have the energy to reprimand the action. Not after being paraded around the feast all night like a prized brood mare, sluggish under the weight of silks and pearls that decorated you.
You feel her leaning over your shoulder before she speaks, the heat of her body irritates your skin and you find yourself tensing and trying to lean from her presence, but she is gripping your hair in a tight grip that keeps you from shifting. "You do not deserve to be touched by a god." She hisses, venom tainting her words.
"Clearly you do not either," you snap just as harshly, gripping the sides of the basin so that you do not twist out of her hold and lash out. The other maids do not so much as glance over at the altercation, simply going on about their duties as though the both of you do not exist. "Or else you would be the one bathing in oils and dining on fruits and wine. " The hold on the back of your scalp goes slack somewhat, allowing you enough leeway to peer over your shoulder and meet the heated gray of her eyes. "How does it feel to know that your god has no desire for you?"
She does not respond even though you can tell that she is actively biting her tongue to hold down her barbed words. It irritated you. The way they all acted as though they truly loved him. It was not affection they felt, but fear. You loathed the lying and the pretending all in the sake of appeasing the horrid god, and yet you could not find the courage to voice your opinions. It was a fruitless endeavor you knew to try and speak to these people. As tortured and hopeless as they were. And as much as you wanted to ridicule them their actions were not unfounded. You had seen firsthand what the Endless was capable of when he was denied of promises. You had watched you own mother be dragged away by venomous claws and terrible simpering fangs. There was no room for argument. At least not a sensical one.
And so, you had remined silent for the remainder of your bath and until the servants had retired for the night, settling underneath the soft linens, but you were unable to relax. Not when you could still feel that man's eyes searing into your skin. Not from the fear of falling danger to the night terrors and horrible dreams, even though you have been quite fortunate, having not experience a single nightmare in quite some time. But that dark figures presence felt like a bad omen. An awful warning for the things to come. What if he sends his demons to come and haunt you and drag you away in the dark? What if he means to punish you? You wrack your brain to try and remember if you could have ever possibly scorned the dark god but come up empty. Granted you have never particularly harbored pleasant feelings towards the deity but not a single soul in the village has since the day that he chose to curse it, tainting it with beasts and painful dreams. Sometimes tormenting the people with dreams so intense and horrid that some have passed away in their sleep, suffering from weak hearts or fragile lungs. Other have been driven mad from the vividness and the persistence of the nightmares to the point that they have lost all sense of self and reality, some noy just taking their own lives but even the lives of others in the midst their distress and agony.
He was a dreadful god whose love was built with conditions and lies. Boasting the promise of prosperity and protection but the only thing you need protection from is him.
An airy coo breaks you from your troubling thoughts, drawing your attention to the corner of the room where a familiar black shape trots out of the shadows, almost as though he had materialized from them.
"What are you doing here you silly thing?" You could not hold in the short disbelieving laugh that escapes you in a huff, affection growing within your chest. You are not even sure how he could have possibly gotten inside the Sisters' commune and found your quarters, especially considering that the trek from your cottage to the village was a decent walk. He must have found an open window or slipped inside when no one was looking. You would not put the feat past him, he always seemed to be skulking about.
You prop yourself up on your elbow to welcome the cat as he leaps onto your mattress, leaning into your hand with the tilt of his head. And you are thankful for the familiarity and the calm that washes over you at the feel of his long fur against your palm. It is a great comfort to have your companion back with again after being away from home for so long. But when your affection became too much, he slipped out from underneath your hold and retreated to the foot of your bed with a petulant flick of his tail, deciding to watch you with the piercing blue of his eyes instead.
"Oh, my dearest apologies, " you jest, pulling your blanket up higher around your shoulder and try not to take it personally as he moves from you. "I did not mean to offend you."
He blinks slowly, a very simple gesture but it always felt like it was done with an air of judgement. But then again, the animal always seemed to carry himself an imperious sort of way, even though he is but a cat, he manages to be rather expressive when he wants to be.
"Have you been taking care of yourself?" You ask as though you would get an answer. You hate the thought of him being out so late with the possibility of those dreadful creatures roaming the ground and skies, ready to snatch and gouge with deadly claws. You know that he could fend for himself. He is a feral cat at best, coming and going as he pleases. Often vanishing for concerning periods of time before reappearing at your doorstep as though he had never left at all. But not even the beasts - the regular forest dwelling kind or the godly ones are the only threats that roam the dark. People could be just as awful. You honestly do not how he has managed to survive as long as he has with all the dangers lurking about. It was the same thing that you had wondered about on the first day that you saw him wandering around the tall grass that surrounded your home while you were out tending to your stubborn garden. But the second thought and the most startling was the realization that you were even looking at a cat at all. There had not been a single feline spotted on the village since the morning after the failed ritual all those years ago. All of the cats had but vanished from the island without a trace. Gone as though they had not been here at all, like they had all piled onto a boat and paddled to the mainland or a giant hand had descended from the sky and plucked them from their homes and alleyways. But now there was one there, slinking through the tall grass, a whisp of black against the dead golden reeds.
It had you pausing from your task of searching for an unblemished vegetable that had not been tainted by worm bites or disease (which was proving to be a pointless endeavor) to watch the cat on its little journey. But despite your awe you had noticed the lethargy that seemed to slow its movements considerably. The usual feline grace that the animals typically carry themselves with was replaced by sluggish and jerky movements. The cat was all but stumbling between the tall stalks of grass. And in your worried study of the animal, you noticed a series of angry red slivers peeking through the thickness of his fur along its side. Four angry red wounds that would have been difficult for a human to endure, but for a cat you could not imagine the tole it was taking on its body to remain conscious. Especially through the pain no doubt.
It had been entirely upon reflex to jerk up from your place on the ground, concern overshadowing your tact and making you forget that it may be a feral and undomesticated creature. And your worry did not prove to be unfounded when the cats head swung over in your direction, freezing in its walk to assess you. The both of you held a long exchange of stares and you had wondered if you should try to approach it, but then it had bolted. Lurching forward on wobbly feet and your heart had jumped in your throat, entirely frightened that he would flee to the cover of the forest and succumb to his wounds. But the cat had only made it a few paces before it was crumbling to the dirt and collapses on its side.
You had barged through the gate of your garden leaving it to creak on its hinges while you approached the cat's body, hoping that he had not given into the trauma of the lacerations. But a glance over with your eyes confirmed that it was thankfully still breathing. You had whispered your apologies when you had noticed that he was watching you as well with a tired glassy stare, scooping him up as gently as you could and carrying him into your house to provide as much care as you could.
The cat's body was already making efforts to build scabbing, the thick red having coagulated along the edges of its wounds. But the blood was still flowing too much for your liking, staining the linens that you had folded near the hearth for the animal to rest on. You were going to have to sew. Unfortunately, due to the infertility of the soil and the bad luck with yielding a healthy garden you had little herbs or flowers for medicine. And truthfully you did not know much of cats and which plants and medicines that should be avoided or would help him recover from his ailments, but with no one to confide in you did your best. Making sure to cleanse the slashes with fresh water before you began to stitch. Having no choice but to settle for the needle and thread that you used to make repairs on your clothing.
"I'm afraid you aren't going to like me much after this, but I don't think we have much of a choice. " You had said, as you knelt down on the floor of your kitchen, settling in front of the animal with your thread in one hand and the needle in the other. It had peered at you from the corners of its eyes, too weak to move its head, but you had seen something flashed in its weary gaze that seemed a lot like irritation.
You had tried to be as nimble and delicate as possible, doing to your best to focus past your anxiety to steady the mild quiver of your fingers, especially when they had become slick with blood. You tried to softly sooth the cat as gently as you could muster whenever he would jerk from pain. And thankfully you were finished before you realized, and you wrapped a strip of clean cloth around his middle to keep it clean from dirt and possible infection.
He had laid there for several days, only moving when you had to change his dressings. And in the beginning, he had hardly eaten or drank, and you had feared for the worst. That despite your best-efforts illness had gotten ahold of him and stripped him of his appetite. But on the second day of you trying to persuade him to at least drink it seemed he had grown tired of you tapping your fingertips along the edge of the bowl or the way that you would defeatedly try to spoon-feed him water from the divot of a spoon and had lapped at the water from the edge of his linens before looking up you with a pointed glare. It took even longer to get him to eat, sharing with him pieces of rabbit that you had managed to trap.
And since his presence in your home the beasts outside had been more active than usual, as though they could smell the blood of his wounds and had taken to clawing at your door. And on some nights, you could hear the muffled thump of footsteps skulking along your roof. They had never been so eager before. So persistent. Typically, the thing that mimics was the only one that stayed so close to your home, often screaming throughout the night like an animal. It even cried like a distressed woman or an anguished child. Sometimes it's true voice slips through the glamour. The sound of thousands speaking in unison, of men, women and children. Stolen souls forced to speak through the maw that devoured them whole.
As terrible as it sounds a part of you has grown used to its presence. It had become routine almost, hearing the awful imitations pouring from its mouth from behind your front door. And you have spent many a night underneath the latch that you had made in the floor of your house, sleeping in burrow dug underneath the wooden planks with a dagger clutched to your chest. But when you had the cat in your home the activity seemed to increase, and you had spent every night spent underneath your floor with the cat delicately placed in the corner on his own bundle of blankets where he would lay without moving, too weak to shift or turn.
And they had returned the next night too with the number greater than the last, stalking around the perimeter of your house. Hissing and chortling in the night like a pack of demonic rabid wolves. It had been most cruel when a familiar voice had spoken from the other side of the front door, too distorted and inhuman to truly be your loved one, but similar enough to taunt you. A mockery of your father's voice begging you to let him inside. And even within your room underneath the floorboards you could still hear it. It talked for hours and spoke as both your mother and father until tears were prickling at your lash line and threatened to fall, and you had done what you could to distract yourself. Staring at the floor above you, finding shapes and faces in the patterns and shifting shades of the wood.
It was the first time that the cat had even attempted to seek out any sort of contact. Weakly perking up from his corner and settling on the length of your legs from above your blanket and he had stared up at the floorboards above you with a startling air of intent. The voices crooned out and the rasp of talons scratched along the walls of your house. Then mercifully the voices had stopped. Seemingly all at once a peaceful hush had fallen over the atmosphere and you finally felt as though you could breathe again. The monsters had not returned that night. Or on any other night. It was as though they had vanished entirely which you knew could not be true because you could still find evidence of their existence in the forest while you hunted or washed your linens in the nearby stream.
His health had steadily risen over the next few days. The wounds on his side had healed up nicely and he had quickly grown more restless. And he had taken to occupying himself by investigating you home and snooping around the rooms until one day he had slipped out from the front door when you were not paying attention and vanished into the tall grass. You did not heal him with the intent to keep him. A part of you assuming that he may have had a family eagerly awaiting his arrival somewhere on the island, but you could not lie to yourself that it had been nice to have company even if it was just a cat.
You had not seen him for several weeks after that and a part of you had feared that he may have fallen to one of the beasts in the wood. And the more optimistic side of you had hoped and imagined that he had found his family. Life had returned to its monotony without him at your side and you were once again alone while attending your chores. But there had been some promise, such as the abrupt but not unwelcomed revival of your garden, which had now begun to sprout bits of life again. You had been shocked when you had seen a green hue returning to the withered remains of the mint and thyme and beginnings of a humble pods growing along your fig tree, promising the growth of fruit. And then one day he surprised you with his return, trotting from the golden meadow while you were beating a rug of the dust and grime that it had been collecting and you had smiled and greeted him like an old friend. And he would begin accompanying you as you went about your chores, always sticking by you closely and observing, even if you ventured all the way around the other side of the island to hunt for oysters and scallops, though the harvest you returned with was always slim.
And you tried your best to name the creature, but he would not accept any of them. Not Akakikos or Thales or Arye. They were all promptly ignored when you had even tried to address him as such, and you were met with looks that could only be described as unimpressed. Of course, you could not find it in yourself to blame him. You did agree that none of them seemed to suit him all that much. But you could not call him nothing and so you had aptly christened him as 'Cat' which had been even less enthusiastically received as the others. But he would follow you everywhere despite the displeased looks that he would give you every time you addressed him as so, accompanying you when you washed your laundry in the nearby stream, and when you visit your parents' empty graves (you had never found their bodies) to tell them of your day. But he had especially surprised you whenever he would trot alongside you on your strolls down the shoreline of the ocean. It had shocked you to say the least, when Cat had wadded in the gentle waves after you, unaffected by the way that the water lapped at his paws.
A strange cat indeed.
It struck you suddenly, the realization that you would never see your home again. As empty and cold as it could be. Forced to live on the outskirts as a pariah, assuming that you would fall to your death underneath the claws of a nightmare. Many had perished living so close to the wood, and they surely had no intention of you surviving the forest on your lonesome. But you did and you made your vacant house your own, even with the bad blood-stained memories haunting the walls. You accepted your life alone rather early on and have even learned to love it in all of its solitude and freedoms. But they have once again bent you to their wills, selling you off like a lamb for slaughter to appease a selfish god.
You cannot fight of the stinging lump that has risen and lodged itself in your throat. Not this time. And it burns and pushed up tears that spill down your cheeks and stain the bedding. You could not stop yourself from mourning everything. The loss of your life, the waning humanity of the townspeople, the bloody deaths of your loved ones. You tried to clamp your teeth shut to conceal your sobbing, worried that the guards posted outside of the door may hear you. And even more crippling was the sudden painful awareness that tomorrow was the night of the ritual. You had been ignoring the date, too distressed to acknowledge it. But it was coming. It was coming at there is nothing that you can do to stop it.
There is the brush of something soft against your face, and it is not until your opening your eyes that you realize that you had even squeezed them shut. You look past the blur of your tears to see register two vivid blue irises watching you.
Your heart ached at the sight. Torn between a flicker of affection and your unignorable grief. But you smiled regardless of your tears and stroked his chin with your fingertips. It always surprises you when he chooses to crouch down against your chest, snuggling into your body. He was not always one to seek out affection, often preferring to lie somewhere near by while watching you finish up your routine chores and tasks. His favorite spot was the window seal of your kitchen where he would perch and observe you while you would knead dough or slice the vegetables for stews. But whenever your sleep was fitful, and you would wake with a layer of cold sweat dampening your clammy skin and the anguished cries of your parents still echoing in your ears he would scurry into your bedroom if he was not already there and curl up with you as he is now until you were able to fall sleep once again.
It troubled you to think of how he would fair for himself in your absence. You had been taking care of him for many moons now and you could only hope that in your effort to keep him from starvation that he had not grown to become too dependent of you. You could not bear the thought, that in your attempt to help and offer companionship that you had unwittingly ushered him closer to death. Would he go back to being alone after the Priestesses had sent your soul off to the nightmare god and all, but your lifeless body remained?
Would he once again wonder aimlessly with no one to care for him?
You could only hope that he would find someone else.
"I'm sorry." You whispered into his soft fur and clutched him closer to you and you remained that way until your grip of time had slipped and the only thing that told you that it was still the same night was the darkness that encompassed the room, most of the candles having long since burnt out of their wicks apart from one that was little more than a pinprick of light. Even with the pull of sleep turning your limps into heavy, useless extensions and the weariness burning at your drooping eyes you could not allow yourself to fall unconscious. You were desperate to keep as much time between yourself at the ritual as possible, even though it was a fool's errand of course, as the moon was still drifting along its path in the sky and the sun was still on its way to rise over the horizon. Tomorrow would come regardless of your distress and fate. Time was cruel and it stopped for no one. But still you could not let yourself sleep even with Cat embraced in your arms, and his body thrummed with a rare bout of purring. . . It was loud. Oddly so and you opened your eyes that you were not aware that you had even shut. And when you looked down, Cat was absent from his place against your chest even though he had just been there a second ago.
Worry broke through the exhaustion that sapped your bones and you were up in an instant, sitting up in the bed with the linens pooling around your waist while your gaze roves around the room and it does not pause until it finds a familiar shape in the darkness, watching you from a shaded corner. His eyes reflect the light from the dimming candle, and they bore into you with that pale shimmer. An unsettling chill trickles down your neck and raises the hair at your nape. The gleam of them disturbs some part of you, but you cannot place why. It is a look you recognize but it feels wrong and alien.
Its eyes. There is something wrong with its eyes.
"What are you doing over there?" You ask, and your voice is little more than a whisper, low from sleep and unease. But he does not so much as blink, continuing to stare steadily and the candlelight wobbles on its wick and the cats shadow flickers. It is a strange shadow, much too big for a creature so small.
Then without any warning he shoots up from his place, trotting across the expanse of the floor and slipping from the door that had been left ajar.
Had it always been open? No
You hardly question it before you are scrambling from the bed to take after him, harshly whispering for him to come back as you pick up what little bit remains of the candle to light your way before hesitantly peek your head between the open gap of the threshold and door, scanning the hallway. But there is not a single guard in sight. The hierodules that had been stationed outside of your quarters were absent. Another peculiarity that is brushed aside when you catch the tip of Cat's tail vanishing amongst the heavy shadows that blot out the hallway and you chase after him regardless, shielding the tiny flame with your hand lest it blow out from the hasty speed of your walking.
You are being watched you can tell, and your mind distantly supplies that it must be the murals observing you. The painted eyes of the old priestesses and spirits that adorn the walls in robes and vines made from strokes of scarlet and hunter and cerulean. But you could not let yourself look to their judgmental and buoyant faces.
"Come here!" You hiss lowly through gritted teeth and cast a wary glance across your shoulder to briefly study the black void behind you, hoping that there is nothing lurking within it.
And you walk for what felt like forever, chasing after the cats wavering tail that turns around twisting halls that do not seem to end, never catching up no matter how quickly you shift your pace. And it is not until you come across another bend in the corridor that the suffocating walls finally seem to open up into a massive room of dust and stones, and the light from the candle casts a glow across the space that was much too abundant considering the modest size of the flame. But he is nowhere to be seen, almost as though he has vanished from thin air.
The air is damp here, clinging to your skin like the spray of the ocean's waves but much less pleasant. It is much more akin to the sweat that covers you when under the influence of a sickness, you decide. And the aged earthy aroma that permeates the air is even more troubling. Musty and cloying like rancid grapes. It has your nose wrinkling, and you suppress the urge to gag while you investigate the room. It takes a moment for you to make sense of what you are seeing, making out the details of the great room from underneath the oily yellow glow of the candlelight.
There are large rectangular divots that had been crudely chiseled or dug into the stone near the base of the floor and the many burrows line above each other and descend up along the wall and towards the high tenebrous ceiling. But nestled delicately within each one is some sort of lump, gently wrapped in a rich red clothe.
That nasty sense of unease washed over you again, prickling at your skin and your heart skips a beat at the sudden burst of fear. But there is curiosity too. It emerges from the recesses of your mind and seems to take a hold of your body, nudging you towards one of the burrows, and with each step you forget why you are even here. The search for your wayward cat completely discarded. Your focus is completely arrested one the form hidden underneath the vibrant silks, and that apprehensive part of you dislike how large the hidden shape seems.
You mouth has gone dry and your tongue sticks uselessly to the roof of your mouth and a part of you wonders if you would be able scream should you need to. You feel helplessly trapped within your body, like a reluctant passenger, once again forced to be paraded around in a vessel that you did not want to sit upon. And all you could do was watch and feel as your shaky had rose over the red silhouette. You felt the silk underneath your fingertips, too soft and too smooth. Like water. Like blood. And your mind ceaselessly chants no, no, no even as your body refuses to yield to its commands and your fingers pinch the cloth in a hold and pull it back from the shape. And the blood in your veins seems to freeze despite the way that it races, and the pit of your stomach drops like a stone.
You want to look away, but your head is locked in place and every muscle has coiled inside of your body tightly. You are paralyzed and pinned where you stand, forced to stare down at the gaunt remains. The sunken eyes and withered, leathered skin pulled taught around its bones like the skeleton is trying to break free from its own body. And brittle hairs still collect around the skull, that once probably shimmered yellow like the rays of the sun but was no lackluster and dry, frayed in its braids. Pinned in place underneath the wring of a ceremonial crown. Vine leaves and olive branches that is embellished with the bright blossoms of poppies. The crown you would be forced to wear tomorrow to symbolize your union with the Endless.
A shaky exhale rattles out, a dry rasping sound that you would have easily blamed on yourself and the fear squeezing your body in a harsh grip if not for the way that you see the mummified bride's chest quiver unsteadily. She is still alive with her body forced into some sort of permanent sleep. You cannot help but wonder how long she has been held captive here. A hostage in this awful, animated state. And all of these other shapes swaddled in red silks are other sacrifices. And they too are all still awake you realize once you hear the dry whispers of their breath echo across the chamber.
You want to scream. You can feel it rising and clawing at your throat, but it never escapes, balling up harshly in your chest and just sitting there. But whatever spell had been casted over you finally slips and you stumble back from the burrow and the mummified bride, and your knees shake and give, and you fall onto the chilled floor, dropping the tiny candlestick on your decent. Your knees scrape the rough granite, erupting with streaks of red but you can't be bothered to care, too focused on crawling away from the looming walls, towards the center of the room while your eyes search from the entrance, but it is nowhere to be found. You spin on your knees ignoring the sting, expecting to find the threshold, but all you see are the cold painted walls, adorned with stars and poppy fields and strange beasts with wings and horns and some have the faces of men and the bodies of beasts. But even worse are the open tombs carved into the walls, and they suddenly seem like gapping, hungry mouths and the red silks that adorn the bodies seem more like lashing tongues.
The candle flickers unsteadily, melted wax pouring around the weak flame, threatening to drown it and douse you in darkness. You make to crawl towards it before it before it can be snuffed out, but your stopped short by a pair of gleaming eyes watching you. The dark fur tells you who it is but your gut lurches at the sight of the cat. And some buried instinct tells you that something is not right.
The eyes you realize, are tinged with a faint scarlet around the edges, staining the pale silver glow. And it was wrong. That was not the right color. This was not your cat. How did you not notice before?
It was an imposter. The face too narrow, its shadow too big. Too sharp.
Your heart flutters like a startled bird and your breath seizes in your lungs when the red silks bound around the brides starts to drip and flow down from the stones like liquid. Blood. Their garb has shifted into blood and is pouring and merging into a massive pool around the edge of the wall and it steadily grows.
The brides labored breathing whistles across the air, raising in volume until it hurts, harshly grating in your ears in a shrill pitch. And the sound mutates into a chorus of screams that you swear you can feel dragging over your skin like claws. You cover your ears with your hands to muffle the impact of the tortured shrieking, but it offers you no solace from the pain. And all the while the cat - the thing - stares at you from its place on the bloody floor, stained by the very red that is closing in on you from all corners, but you cannot find it in yourself to look past the agony to find strength and collect yourself from the cold granite.
The red pours around the remaining bit of the candle and the small flame at the end of the wick hisses and sputters at the liquids touch. The light emitting from it dims considerably, threatening to enclose the catacomb in a void. And the cats shadow seems to expand underneath the waning fire, stretching in a jagged way that looks like arms trying to tear free from cloth or skin.
And the cat - a mere extension of the true monster - steps forward while its eyes burn brighter. And the blood is upon you, threatening to touch you. Nausea churns in your stomach and all of the muscles in your body draw taught. You are forced to watch as the creature grows closer, and all you can do is try your best to prepare to fight it, as pathetic as your odds no doubt are. And the brides screaming warbles and shifts into a painful mocking laughter as though they could sense your thoughts. And it makes you feel like an animal caught in a cage. A bird pinned between jagged teeth and the jaws are closing in. The walls and shadows move in closer and their joyous howling and giggling rises in a crescendo, celebrating your anticipated death. You brace as best as you can, balling your hands into fists so tightly that your nails break the skin, watching as the monstrous shadow builds up and prepares to lash out with obsidian talons.
But the killing blow never comes. Instead, a pair of steady arms wrap around your body, encasing you against the comfort of a chest. And a rush of scents washed over you with its presence, and you struggle to place what it reminds you of. The musk of the soil after fresh rain, the salt of the sea, a calm breeze on a summer night; light and floral and earthy, but those descriptions also do no service to the fragrance that engulfs you. And with it something magnetic dances across your skin and it steals your breath away and your body threatens to melt against theirs.
Your mind can hardly catch up with what you are seeing. The bloody floor of the burial chamber dematerializes from underneath you, but you do not fall but your body tenses in preparation regardless. The walls shake with a tremendous groan, splitting under the seize and giving under spills of sand and the murals bleed with the fractures. And the air is electric with something heavy and alive and angry, and it courses across your skin and siphons the air from your lungs from the gravity of it. Even the beast made from shadows lurches back as if it was struck and hisses underneath the heat of the rage permeating the atmosphere, clawing against the wall that was rapidly disintegrating and losing tangibility. And the beast screams along with the brides as they vanish from existence. One final baleful cry that rattles your bones and shudders over you before it drowns out completely and with it the catacomb all but vanishes and instead of the blood-soaked stones you are looking down at the expanse of the night sky with stars spread out underneath your feet.
You brain fails to register that you appear to be hovering over a cluster of distant galaxies and you are left to stare down dumbly at the dark mass of the sky, taking in the stretch of the rich splashes of blues and stellar remnants and stardust gathered like clusters of diamonds and the scale of it nearly makes you forget about the press of someone's body along your back. Their arms around your waist in a tight hold, but there is also a sort of reluctance in their grip made known by the rigidity from the muscles of their arms and the narrow gap left between your bodies. But even between the space you can feel the low heat of them radiating against you. A part of you wanted to look over your shoulder, to discover the face of your savior but some pull in your gut warned you not. That you would not like what you would see. And so, you keep still underneath their embrace, staring off into the quiet breadth of the cosmos where comets drop across the darkness like crystalline tears. Seconds pass without either of you moving, as still as statues. As though if either of you so much as breathed the delicate emanation that cocooned the both of you would shatter. But despite your hesitation there was a prickle of curiosity tugging at you, and you could not deny the pull and you made to slowly turn your head in an attempt to sneak a glance over your shoulder.
You barely manage to twitch a muscle of movement before they seem to shed their initial diffidence and nestle their face near the nape of your neck, and you can feel the tip of their nose brush against your ear like they mean to hide their identity from you. Their chest expands against the flat of your back, and it takes a moment for your overstimulated brain to realize that they are drawing in a breath, taking your scent into their lungs and holding it there like its oxygen. For some reason it sends of thrum of heat over your body, and combined with the steady, pulsating hum of otherworldly power that courses through the air, it makes you feel as though you may collapse. That you might come apart and burst into flames. There is no chill of fear and disgust does not rise in your stomach like nausea instead their presence feels welcomed. And despite the foreign sensation of their touch, there is also a sense of familiarity to it. Like finally falling into the arms of an old lover.
They move their head from your by just a few scant inches, and a strange part of you mourns the loss. You wished that the hover of their lips would land on your skin, but they do not. The circle of their arms seems to press you in closer, like they cannot bear even the possibility of you parting.
For a moment the cosmos seems to halt, the intersperse collection of individual galaxies and stars pausing in their rotations and the night holds its breath and so do you. Then a sound purrs out, a heavy baritone that pours across the silence of the universe and fills you with honey and warmth. A deep, smoky cadence that you can feel curling inside the cavern of your chest and running deep across your bones and the nerves and sinew of your entire being.
"This dream is over."
You wake with a start. Sucking air into your lungs with a strained gasp while your hands reach around the bedding in a mindless scramble, struggling to orient yourself, but eventually you are able to at least prop your body up on shaky arms. Your eyes rove across your surroundings, no longer taking in the breathless view of stardust and nebulas but the dull clay walls of your vacant quarters and apart from yourself the bed is empty. A quick press of your hand against the stuffed mattress confirms that Cat - you're Cat had been there at some point in the night, the heat still trapped within the fabric from where he sat next to you. And you had shakily removed from yourself from the bed and searched the room for him. You had even approached the door, pressing your head against the wood and contemplated opening it but you could hear one of the guards shuffling behind it, trying to find some reprieve for their aching feet. And so, you returned to the bed with that dark voice still echoing in your ears. You could not sleep. Not even if you wanted. Not with that shadowed creature lurking and that familiar stranger invading your mind. The Nightmare Ruler, your brain supplied without forgiveness, and the thought sent a shiver down your spine.
And you lay there for hours, now awaiting the sunrise despite the threat that it posed, clinging to your own body with shaking arms as you stare into the darkness, waiting to find something looking back. But soon the maids are pouring into your room and scattering around the foot of your bed, and they must have noticed the panic on your face as a hint of curiosity bleeds through their blase expressions, apart from that single one who always seems to be plotting your demise.
"Is something the matter? You look troubled." And even in your tired haze you know that it is the voice of the one who openly dislikes you. The one with the sable hair and venomous words. Euthymia, you had learned her name to be. She makes no effort to hide the delight in her tone and in turn you do not even try to school the scowl that takes over your features, pinning her with an open glower, but it does nothing to extinguish the joyful gleam in her eyes. The other servants are ushering you out of bed, already cooing and gushing over the prospect of preparing you for the day ahead and you suddenly feel as though you have been tossed into a lake of ice. The five-day long celebration is coming to a close. The ritual is tonight.
They ignore your distress, urging you to shed your slip and climb into the bath full of steaming water and oils to prepare you for the ritual. And they had patted you dry when you had gotten out of the tub so that they could dap at your skin with lotions and perfumes. Running marjoram in your hair and something faintly sweet but heady and spicy beneath your jaw. Even spreading fragrances across your inner thighs and palm oil around your breasts. It had an embarrassed heat prickling across your face, and you nearly scoffed at their presumptuousness. And then they were guiding you to kneel on the cushions placed before the large, polished bit of bronze propped along the wall, using the reflection so that you may observe the process as they worked. You were in a fog as they combed your hair and set it and pinned it in a way that they deemed worthy, but you cannot stop thinking of that velvet timber and the feeling of being watched by concealed eyes prickles along your body. And you try to ignore the sensation, telling yourself that it is just paranoia.
But you could not dwell on your troubles for long before you had taken notice of the strip of fabric from the corner of your eye. And a better look had confirmed it was indeed that dreadful gown that had been laid out along the cushions. You stared from your peripheral vision and each time your head moved even the slightest degree out of their disliking one of the maids would jerk it back into place, scolding you underneath their breath, but your eyes did not stray from the pieces of clothing once. It would have been a gorgeous thing if not for the horror that is comes with it. A vibrant scarlet and intricate gold and black stitching and embroidery. But you could not marvel over its beauty, instead you eyed it warily as though it was poisonous. And perhaps it was.
It truly disturbed you. That horrid red thing that signaled the final chapter of your life, and you could hear the anguished cries and manic laughter of the brides from your nightmare echoing out from the depths of your mind. You could not suppress the way you shuddered. Was that meant to be your fate? A captive in her own body, suppressed underneath a spell of eternal slumber while her body wasted away in a forgotten tomb? You had heard rumors of what happened to the nightmare king's brides after the ritual. Presumptions truly, fabricated speculation that had no true foundation as the priestesses are very private about the affairs of the ceremony that do not require the presence of the villagers. And the townspeople are typically guided out of the temple after the connection between the Chosen and the Endless has been successfully tethered.
Most speculations were good natured enough. Painting the role of becoming one of the Dream King's brides in a lavish light. Something to be envious of, with many saying that to be one of his Chosen was to spend eternity of nights in endless pleasure, with the world at your fingertips.
But there had been other more sinister whispers, idle gossip that the unconscious brides were taken to a subterranean set of tunnels built underneath the temple. Dug to house the women as they slept on, not killed so as not to sever the link between them and the dream god but kept animated and sleeping within the icy tombs of the catacombs. Kept that way so that the deity could torment them in the halls of kingdom for all eternity. Feasting on their souls and flesh. But many refuse to believe the rumor, even your own father had rebutted the very possibility, as he was a firm believer that the Chosen were simply killed off after the ritual and their bodies were burned so that the ashes could be released upon the winds and lifted to the gods along with the plume incents and smoldering herbs.
But neither option fared well for you.
"You had seemed quite distressed when we came in. Did you have a nightmare, my lady?" Euthymia asks, voice sickly sweet with false sincerity. "How strange that the Dream King would allow his Chosen to be harassed by his spirits." And she pats the juice of crushed mulberries onto the rise of your cheeks to add color to your skin, but the push of her fingertips was much too harsh. You were tempted to lunge at her but restrained yourself.
"Not at all. In fact, I had a rather pleasant dream. " You reply cooly, not allowing her to see you shaken and you tilt your head, pretending to admire the way that they had dressed your hair and decorated it with flowers and pieces of jewels. " It was a rather pleasurable one."
"Pleasurable?" Comes her nonplussed response and her hand pauses, simply hovering.
"Oh, yes." You speak lowly, like you are sharing a scandalous story, and your tone is all smooth and honeyed. " It was not a nightmare that visited me, but the Dream King himself. " And you cannot help but internally gloat at the way that some part of her seems to waver, visibly deflating underneath your lie. " He had crawled between my thighs you see and ravished me with his tongue in ways that no mortal man ever could." Even the other ladies had halted in their routine, stopping to listen to your hastily spun fib. And you casted your gaze downward to your hands demurely, like you were shy or embarrassed that you had lost your manners. Scandalized, the other maids had bent towards each other and exchange giggling whispers, but Euthymia was less than enthused. And for the remainder of your time together she had been tightlipped and scowling, and you were surprised that a storm cloud had not been following her every move with how bothered she seemed to be.
But you could not deny that she made a good point. Why had you suffered from a nightmare at all? It had been sometime since you had. You could hardly recall when it had been last. Perhaps you truly had done something to anger the god. But that had been him, had it not? The one who had come to your aid and taken you in his arms and spoke to you with that smoky cadence. It must have been if the way that he had ended your dream so easily was any indication. And that primordial vibration that had surrounded you both; it was the same that you had felt at the pyre when that strange man was watching.
And perhaps tonight you would get the answers that you seek, but then you might not want them.
The rest of the day pours in a distorted stream, and you hardly register slipping into you into that disturbing red garb and you barely notice when the priestesses and temple guards arrive to collect you from the maids and guide you to the dinning haul of the commune where you are assisted down to the sunken floor in the center of the room as some sort of center piece, once again forcing you to sit underneath the eyes of hundreds. You feel exposed, as though you were not wearing clothes at all. Stripped for them to criticize and leer at. You were sure that every person in the village was here to enjoy the banquet. Even the servants were allotted freedom from their duties for the final night of the ritual and were free do dine alongside their masters as equals.
And once again they had provided you with the best meats and fruits and wine available. The finest of the bounty collected over the farms and orchards for you to gorge yourself on like a swine before its slaughter and because of that you could not bring yourself to eat despite the hollow pit in your gut that begged you to do so. And you could feel the Priestesses dozen eyes boring into from their place from above, no doubt taking your refusal to eat as not just an insult to themselves but to their god as well. Good.
But the townspeople did not seem to care, laughing freely and enjoying the festivities without pause and you had been forced to sit as time waned and the sun drifted closer and closer towards the edge of the earth, no matter how much you wished and willed for it not to. And once the townspeople had finished indulging on mead and wine and satiated their hunger, the shrine had collected you once more to climb upon the palanquin that awaited outside, surrounded by servants who prepared to march you across the town from the strength of their shoulders to the Temple of Morpheus where death awaited you. You had tried to struggle against the shackles of the hierodules hands that had seized your arms and shoulders like bands of steel. But you could not shake yourself from their grip and they were mercilessly placing you upon the extravagant cushions of the human-powered vehicle to be suspended high in the air.
And the townspeople congregated around you as you were carried from the walls of the commune and into the streets, lighting the way with burning torches. And many people had once again adorned themselves in the beastly costumes and danced and cavorted around the palanquin and through the crowd. The Sisters' lead the collective. And you had noticed in the head priestesses' hands, she cradled an obsidian bowl covered by a lid decorated by strokes of gold. A harmless item that on its own would have done nothing to inspire fear in you, but you had heard hushed conversation of its contents before. Some sort of vapor that smoldered from the extract of the poppy flower, and it would serve to tether you to the gods. Or in this occasion one god in particular.
And once again blossoms and seeds were being tossed over the procession in a celebratory display. In the hands of men and women and children alike people carried votive offerings for the Endless, such as figurines of animals and carvings of a humanoid figure. And in the cavalcade, musicians were present, playing from a kithara and an aulos, and a lyra. But even over the cheering and commotion and music you could hear a soft repetitive ruffle along the low breeze. You had jerked your head up to search the sky, nearly straining a muscle in the process but the pain had faded into the background at the sight of a dark bird coasting along the current. And a faint iridescent sheen had gleamed on its feathers from underneath the dimming sunlight and the Priestesses - and in turn the crowd had all rejoiced at the bird's appearance, as it no doubt heralded good fortune.
But you did not share their positive reactions. You heard all the stories, that the ravens were the dark god's familiars, serving as his eyes and ears when he himself could not be present. Your anxiety had not time to settle no matter how much you tried to swallow it down and the presence of the circling bird did nothing to quell the bubbling fear in your gut and bones.
And soon the procession ventured from the village and the pale marble of the temple seemed to rise from the hill behind the security of its protective wall. It was the only building that had been spared in the initial siege from the Oneiroi when the Nightmare King had abandoned the village in his scorn. It is just the same as when you had last saw it as a child. The ghostly white columns that reminded you of the remains of a skeleton, and the sculpted pediment that depicted beastly creatures in various poses; lashing out and snarling while some seemed to be frozen in the motion of dance. But in the center was a more human figure. No doubt the Endless himself. And the scene was painted in blues and black, with hints of red and gold embellishments.
And the closer you got to the temple the more your anxiety climbed, until you trembled where you sat, staring into the vacant eyes of the god's sculptured image. And even those they were not real they seemed to bore into you and flay you open until all of your emotions and shaky breaths poured out. Even the sheer fabric of your veil did little to lessen the feeling.
It was not until you felt hands circling the shape of your arms that you came to and were able to discern that you had been lowered to the ground of the courtyard and were being pulled from your knees, and you were wordlessly guided up the temple. But you did not feel the stairs underneath your feet and the music and laughter sounded as though it were coming from miles away, carried in on a foreign wind. And even when you stepped upon the landing and two of the sisters spun you around to face the crowd down below that had not felt real either. It was like looking at a tapestry of faded figures and blurred colors.
Then the head priestess stepped in front of you in a flash of black, blotting out your vision of the crowd like the moon obstructing the sun in an eclipse, but you were thankful for it. Then her voice broke out in a shrill bellow, the passion expelling from her cracking it around the edges. " Tonight marks the emergence of our return to grace and glory from underneath the compassion of our god! " She cried and the crowd cried along with her, waving their torches animatedly to show their elation. " No longer will we be shunned by His Sovereignty for we have been given a chance to correct a wrong that should never have happened! To bow our heads in humble plea and return to him which was stolen all those years ago!"
It made you nauseous the way they spoke of you. As though you were some frivolous token to be bartered. How they did not see you or any of the women before you as human beings with lives and wants and futures but as a cow to be slaughtered. A coin to be exchanged for lavish fabrics and abundant crops. And you could feel the stinging heat of anger filling your chest and pushing out heavy breaths from your lungs. But when the Head Priestess had shifted and moved from out of your vision it left you to make eye contact with the cheering masses; her voice had faded into a low, distant drone. And inside their crazed sort of jubilation, you could see every other emotion that you had felt since the Endless had descended his hoard upon the village in incessant torment: Loss, pain, fear, hunger, sorrow, confusion.
Many lives have been lost since the day that he had seemed you all unworthy of his gratitude and sanctuary. He had turned the land barren and dry and the animals that had once flourished here have all been culled by his nightmares and their numbers have suffered and dwindled greatly. But as much as you sympathized with these people, understood their plight, you did not owe them anything. Certainly not your life. Especially since they had casted you from your home without so much as a backward glance, forcing you live along the forest all because you were not a kept woman.
And in five years' time there would be another there would be another girl here, standing just as you do now, willing or unwilling to bear the collectives sins, to pacify the Endless for the good fortune. It would be a ceaseless loop. History repeating itself one poor soul at a time.
A part of you considered fighting free from the sisters' hold. Of running down the steps and out of the temple grounds without looking back. But even if you happened to make it past the massive crowd of desperate villagers and to the sea, there were no ships, no small rowboats left for fishing. All of the seafaring vessels had been all but demolished by his spirits to keep all of the locals who wronged him trapped on the island to endure the full brunt of his punishment. And even those who have managed to hide the construction boats - avoiding the Ruler of Nightmares many scrutinizing eyes and pushed their watercraft into the dark waves while underneath the shine of the sun, when his influence was claimed to be at its weakest had all disappeared into the heavy wall of fog that surrounds the coast. Only the remains of their boats would float back to shore, sometimes with blood staining the waves.
You truly were left to the fate that these people and their god spared you to.
Then the head priestess was spinning around in a flurry of robes, and you could not evade the fervor of her gaze, could not flee from, still immobilized by her sisters and their rigid hold of their hands. The gleam in her eyes was detached and wild; the darkness of her pupils swelling, eating up the colored rings around their borders until they were nearly gone. It was the expression of someone who could not be reasoned with. Poisoned by power and hope. But you did not waver underneath the weight of her fixed stare.
Then one of the sisters was gripping you by the nape of your neck, the movement unexpected enough to pull a startled cry from your lips. It did not give you time to register the obsidian bowl being lifted to your face, the lid being removed to release plumes of smoke. Even through the veil you could feel the warmth of the vapors caressing the skin of your cheeks. It is all so abrupt that you inhale a large lungful in the midst of your struggle, and the scent of it overwhelms you. Stuffing your mouth and nostrils full of something sweet and floral, tinged with the musk of the earth. It reminds you of flowers, of incents but also not at all. And your lungs are too busy heaving around the unexpected rush of smoke and your mind too confused and scrambled to feel or focus on the world around you, and the Priestesses voice was the last coherent thing to break through the fog: "Do not fight this, my dear. " Her voice crooned. Too sweet, to gentle for her cruelty. "To you we give thanks for your sacrifice for our prosperity."
And in your distress, you tried to think of anything to keep yourself grounded and present. Anything to keep you here in your body, terrified of crossing over and falling into the Nightmare King's gnashing teeth. So you think of your list of chores awaiting you at home; tending to the garden now that life was coming back to the soil, setting more traps in the forest, plucking wild strawberries from the small cluster that you had discovered growing in a small grove, seeing Cat again - the little beast refuses to eat unless you prompt him to (there is no one else to take care of him) - and walking along the beach during the sunrise. Feeling the sand and water underneath your toes and watching the sunlight reflect and dapple the surface. But soon the thoughts were drowning out underneath the impression of the fuzz and haze that blanked your mind. You felt as though your soul was rising from the casing of your body and floating up to the sky above the temple, but you could still feel your knees making contact with the cold marble floors, though the feeling was far off and dull. But there was still anger simmering through your veins. Hurt and betrayal. What were you mad about?
And the world around you is a rush of colors and blurred shapes and muffled sounds. But you do not want to focus on it regardless. You can't when the weightlessness is pulling at your fingertips and threatening to take you away with it (but you can't leave, what about him?) and deposit you among the stars, and the only thing that gives you even a scrap of connection to your own body is the repetitive pulse of your heartbeat coursing in your ears. The floral sugar and salt of the smoke still coats your tongue, and you can feel it in your lungs, heavy and syrupy. And the drag of your relaxed limbs seems to pull you down now instead of up, with the thrum of your heart doing little to center you anymore. But its less of a pulse now and more of pound -an angry crash. That's not right, is it?
You try to blink. To get some scope of reality, but it's difficult to keep your eyes past the blurred sting. Are you crying? No, that is not right either. It is no longer a steady beat, but a deafening layered rumble, muffled but also painfully loud. You can faintly see past the red sheer of your veil glimpses of black and blue streak across your vision, with peeks of flashes of tiny pale dots.
It is all to distorted and airy. Too muddled for your mind to make something tangible but then your body is being tossed by some unforeseen force. A sharp, unrelenting pull that moves your entire being like it weighs nothing and the air is snatched from your lungs, and you choke on something. Some deeply imbedded survival instinct awakens and your body flails, limbs dragging and reaching through the thick atmosphere in attempt to grab ahold of something. Anything to orient yourself and make sense of what is happening to you, but your hands come up empty. Your lungs twitch, trying to draw in a breath but instead they burn, and the sting is so potent that it licks a trail up your throat and the pungent taste of salt blankets you tongue.
Water, some faint thought breaches the cotton that stuffs your skull. You're in water.
And your body moves on its own, arms and legs kicking to propel in what you hope is the direction of the surface. In a glance upward you notice the distorted expanse of what must be the waves, and through the commotion above you see that glimpse of those burning pinpricks of light again and with no other alternative, fueled by an animalistic sort of fear you swim towards it. You can only hope that you make it up in time, with your lungs aching and burning like smoldering embers within your chest. You can already feel your limbs growing sluggish from the lack of oxygen and the heavy tow of your ceremonial robes, but you try your best to keep moving, dragging yourself forward with weak arms and legs. But death still hangs heavy in the back of your mind. And for the second time tonight you're terrified that this may be your final moments, with your legs flailing uselessly and the darkness clouding at the base of your senses like a layer of winter ice. It makes it difficult, but it is sheer instinct and panic and hope that burns at your muscles, reviving them of their vigor and pressing you onwards.
It is your hands that break through the surf first, quickly followed by your head and you could have sobbed with relief if you were not busy trying not to remain afloat and actively choking on the water in your throat. And you push yourself forward, even as the waves toss you in their angry roll against the shore. But blessedly under the current that threatens to drag you under and drown you it also serves to propel you forward towards the beach, jostling your body with their great power and you feel like a child's toy that had been lost over the side of a boat. It is on the pale crest of an angry wave that you meet the shore, being carelessly discarded on the sand and the rush of water pelts across your back, soaking you one final time before retreating back into the ocean behind you.
You gather as much as strength as you have left to prop yourself up on your hands and knees, carrying yourself across the beach with wobbling limbs while your abdomen and chest shiver and heave in a violent fit. The muscles of your body squeezing you tightly to expel the sea water from your lungs in a shaky grip that has you gasping and wheezing. And even though your lungs sting like a raw wound as you suck in a ragged inhale, the dim feel of oxygen filling your lungs is wonderful, like a healing ointment smoothed over a fresh burn. You allow yourself to collapse onto your stomach once you escape the reach of the sea, but it is difficult to see, to hear and even still hard to breathe with the thin fabric of your veil clinging to the shape of your face from the weight of the water pulling the material down, pressing it against the divots of your nostrils nearly waterboarding you with each breath.
You blindly yank at the veil, tearing it and your Stefana from your head with an angry huff, carelessly tossing it. You do not see where it falls but you can hear it land with an unattractive wet plap. You blink freely now able to take in your surroundings now that, that cursed thing is no longer tainting your vision. You deduce quickly that you are on a beach. Obviously. But it does not appear to be the one that you often find yourself strolling down on your free time, fantasizing about distant lands or the Isles of the Blessed, or the islands where the sirens live and lure sailors to their deaths. The sand was far too pale. Too soft. And when you moved it seemed to glitter like snow underneath sunlight. But it was a glance upward that confirmed your awful reality. The sky above was not yours. The scattering of stars not sparing enough and the expanse of it was not simply a dark backdrop but splashed with vibrant rich nebulas of azure and silver and pale golds against the black velvet of space. The stardust seemed to shift as though the heavens were a living breathing thing. And the constellations above you are unrecognizable. There is no Orion, lunging forward to strike or brace against the blow of a foe, and the scattered knot of the Pleiades is absent from the sky.
Your heart sinks to the base of your gut and a heated rock seems to lodge itself in your throat, rising with the threat of tears all from the bruising reality that you are no longer home. Not just the island, or your house, but the entire plain of your existence. Plucked from everything you have ever known by the hands of your people to appease a monster. Heartlessly thrown into the deity's domain. Forgotten and used.
You remembered the tales told by your mother and the words that had been passed down from priestess to priestess across the centuries that spoke of the Nightmare Ruler's world: The Dreaming, it was called. The place that served as the cradle of the universe's collective unconsciousness, housing the minds a mortal, beast and god alike while they slept. An extension of the Endless himself. The entire realm was a dream in its own right. That means that you must be able to wake from it. Perhaps you could will yourself awake if you concentrated enough. You have been never much of a lucid dreamer. Only able to do small feats of altering landscapes or changing the color of your dress. You had never been aware enough to wake yourself. But maybe here in the Dreaming you would be able to conjuror some sort of exit.
You centered your attention down to a single thought: Waking up. Of feeling the drag of consciousness slipping back into your physical body and opening your eyes. And you pushed that thought until your body responded with the ferocity of it, your muscles tensing under the strain of it, and you are left gasping, the same as you had when you crawled ashore. You think of your body, still and induced in that horrific stasis, being purified underneath the smoke of incense and wrapped in the red silk and voile fabric by the Priestesses to be carried and stuffed down in the catacombs like a forgotten relic. You thought of waking suddenly. Of tearing yourself from the cloth and fleeing home and dropping to your knees to burry your fingers in the soil there and crying with the relief that would swell within your chest and blossom with the joy of being home.
And you had found that in your desperation you had actually crumbled to your knees, but you did not feel the gentle earth beneath your hands but sand.
You take to pinching at your arm in a pathetic attempt to try and escape the Dreaming, twisting the flesh between your fingertips until it stung but to no avail.
And a low, heavy wind rumbled across the beach, howling over the waves and the field of crimson blossoms and golden wheat, punctuating the silence and the loneliness that hung over you like the aftermath of a tempest. Defeat weighed down your shoulders as you watched the thrashing ocean with a sense of detachedness. Then something in the air seemed to shift, pulsing with something alive. That distantly familiar alien thrum and you could feel it against your skin; a magnetic pressure that reminded you of a brief night in the cosmos, held in a tight embrace. You did not have to turn to confirm who the presence was. You did not know if you had the strength to. The fear and gravity of the beings pull nearly seized your lungs, and you clenched your hands into fist to bear the feeling of it. And then that velveteen rasp speaks out, moving down your body like a flow of water and smoke and you can feel the hum of it in your bones.
"I had no intention of your arrival being so distressful. Had you not struggled your coming would not have been so violent. " His tone is a placid timbre, but you swear you can detect sympathy - perhaps a sort of regret - tinged into the edges of his words. But it does little to placate you. His detached surprise at your anguish only serves to mutate your sorrow and defeat and it gives way into anger, searing at you like a burning fire that needs something to burn, and chars any remaining pieces of your self-preservation and wit, making you forget that you were in front of deity that has seen eons come and go in its lifetime and was currently holding your mind and possibly your soul hostage. But you did not care. Not now, with your entire life in an upheaval. And even then, you still can't bring yourself to look at it - the source of that primordial electric pulse. To confirm all of your fears, that home was truly out of reach, that you were entirely out of depth and in a plain that you did not belong in. There was a safety in your delusions, your self-imposed ignorance. And so you stared at the angry, rolling waves and pretended that they were your own, not daring to turn yet. "What was your intention? " You inquired, not even bothering to hide the scorn in your broken voice. Not caring of the consequences. " That you'd just steal me away from everything I've ever known, and I'd be content with it?"
"Look at me. "
It is a simple set of words, but the conviction of it beats across the very fabric that binds and creates the Dreaming, rippling over the sand, shifting stars and stirring the already tumulus waves to threatening heights and the power of it runs through your unconsciousness as well, tingling across your body and it commands you to move. An unwelcome reminder of your mortality and the scope of the deity and his domain. You turn slowly, helpless to ignore the order even while you dread looking upon him. Wondering if he would wear the skin of a monster to punish you for your ire. Perhaps contorted limbs and bloody jagged teeth or stretched flesh and the lifeless abysmal gaze of that otherworldly helm.
There is none of that. No cloak made of nightmares or terror. Just a man. But that is not right either.
Regardless of the glamour he had casted this was no man. Ignoring the information as told by the naked eye all of the minute tells became glaringly obvious, such as the way his skin was too soft and free from blemish or flaw, like the statues crafted in his commemoration; the messy tresses of his hair that appeared as though they were spun from the night sky itself and the impossible blue of his eyes that mimicked the shade of a crystalline sea, or perhaps they were a reflection of the very nebulas above you now. He is so beautiful that it is almost cruel. You have to wonder why he chose you specifically. That he has been watching over you since the night at the pyre. Long before that even. That, that same voice had spoken to you during your sleep and commanded you to wake, and once again you are unable to ignore it, standing from your place on the sand.
The brunt of his gaze is too much- scrutinizing. You felt like you were stripped bare. Every nerve, every want or worry or promise that you had ever made was laid out across the shore for him examine. You quailed underneath the breadth of it, the sheer intensity was maddening - that there seemed to be no secret that you could hide from him. The entirety of your mind held within the webbing of his domain for him study and toy with.
"Why do you fear me?" He asked, and you could laugh or cry at the question but neither would do proper service to express the severity of your emotions. The turmoil and confusion. He sounded so sincere. Just as perplexed as you even though his stance was devoid of any body language. Rigid and exact, with an almost clinical posture. But you could see it in his eyes. A small, fleeting glimpse of his own confusion, a slight furrow of an eyebrow, but it vanished just as quickly as it had appeared, erased and blotted out by that aloof expression.
You were not even sure how to respond, and for a moment your mouth hangs open silently while you collect yourself and find your voice: " I - just - all of the death. " You finally answer lamely, trying to swallow around the dryness of your throat. " The slaughter and starvation. The disease. The suffering."
"They broke their promise. " It was said so simply. As though it was enough to justify the atrocities and it made nausea bubble in your gut, and hatred too.
"All because of a woman." You cannot contain the way you scoff, shifting on your feet like you do not know whether to approach him or step away and create more space, your body prickling underneath weight of his aura and his unwavering observation. "You had hundreds slaughtered because you were not given one woman."
"That is the price for bargaining with an Endless and taking back your word." He replied easily. A simple matter of fact for him, like it was a natural law, a part of his nature that should be expected and understood without consequence, that all failures to comply could not be faulted on him. It was just another tough reminder that this was no mortal that you stood before and that he could not be expected to obey or sympathize with the jurisdictions of your human morality.
And there was a shift in his expression, something steely and resolute, and the distance between your bodies seemed to close in even though neither of you had placed a single step until there was only a scant space left between you. " I will do the same for you. "
There was no past tense used. And perhaps under different circumstances you could have seen it as an intimate declaration of love, but it was uttered with a conviction that you could feel and the threat - the promise was hauntingly clear. That he would lay waste to the remaining people of your village if you refused. And although his body remained unmoved, the pressure of his influence hummed and molded against you and robbed you of your breath. It felt like you were standing within the deluge of a summer storm, caught within spires of stardust and the heat of a nova.
"Their crime is no longer yours to bear. " He said calmly - soothingly like he was trying to placate you. " You will not be harmed. "
"Is that really true? " You ask, still full of disbelief and contempt and this time you do venture to take a step back and blessedly he allows you, and you cannot help but be thankful that he does not shift the sands to draw you in closer. "They tell stories of what you do to your tributes once you have them, I'm sure you've heard. That you mold yourself into the likeness of a beast and hunt them, chasing them down the halls of your palace and tearing them limb from limb for eternity: A cycle of death and pain."
And that pale animal gleam from the bonfire burns alight in his eyes and it does little to quell your steady stream of anxiety, but his indignation does not seem to be aimed at you specifically. " Is that truly what you believe?" And there is a gentleness to him, the annoyance receding as though he was more perturbed than angry, and a part of you nearly regrets having told him, but you squash that scrap of emotion before anything can come of it. "That I am some heartless monster than means to torture you for my entertainment." ��
"Well, what else am I supposed to be led to think?" Surely a being of his scope, of his age and power must realize the severity of his actions. The violence and heartache that has bleed across the island and tainted the soil at his command. The senseless slaughter and starvation, forced to helplessly watch as your loved ones succumbed to it. The horrid, twisted sleepless nights and soiled dreams, and then you can hear it again, that twisted vacant laughter, rushing blood and mutilated shadows. " Especially after you sent your nightmares out to trouble me."
"I promise that I have done no such thing" He assured, but it did little to soothe your frazzled state. " I gave them all specific instruction not to harm you, but they are not without their own free will, and I have delt with it accordingly." He spoke of his creatures as though they were misbehaving children. Simply spoiled and wayward, and not cruel, sadistic beasts. And perhaps he truly did not mean for one of his Oneiroi to haunt you in the night. After all, he did arrive to banish the spirit from your unconsciousness, to wrap his arms around your body in a secure embrace before ending the dream. But regardless of the fact, you could not forgive him.
"I don't care. I want to go home."
"Is that truly what you are clinging to? Those empty cold walls, vacant of family or companionship? Or is it them? The very people that so freely discarded you. Abandoned and out casted you as though you were a leper."
He was right of course. You were already well aware of the fact, but it did not make it sting any less to hear, and the old memories that rose up were less than welcome. A painful reminder that even your own father and mother had rejected you, not physically but the emotional disconnect had been there. A rift had torn between your dynamic like a gaping, festering wound that had never truly healed. They had never looked at you the same, the both of them loathing you for marring the family name and social standing. And the other villagers would all murmur and stare in disdain whenever you had ventured into town to collect fruits or fresh meats at the local market, all because you had slept with a man as an unmarried woman. And your alienation was palpable. But you did not want to give him the satisfaction of admitting it and caving in.
"No- they didn't-"
"But they did, didn't they?" You could not stand his confidence. How he held his head high with that resolute air of certitude and kingly ego, how the air pulsed over you and tingled at your flesh like a balm. "Leaving you all in alone in that quiet little house, hoping that you'd fall prey to one of my nightmares."
He steps forward crowding into your space with that pale wicked gleam in his eyes and the stars hanging in the sky behind him seem to warp towards his person, as though they were trying to leave their heavenly cradle to follow him. You heart speeds from apprehension surely, but you don't find yourself leaning away from his body or trying to flee. You are stock still, hardly able to spare any pieces of your attention on anything other than him. And then he is lifting a hand to brush against your cheek, featherlight but somehow still reverent in its glide and you can feel the life radiating from it. Ice and heat simultaneously, cosmos and earth.
"I can give you everything you crave. The life you've always dreamed of having." His voice that dark velvet purr, draping around you temptingly. "You will want for nothing." But you are hardly hearing his words anymore too preoccupied with the tender trail of his curled fingers; his knuckles tracing a blaze of warmth down your throat, slipping down dangerously close to the bit of your chest exposed by the low hang of the garment. But his hand pauses in its descent, stopping just a few inches from the valley between your breasts, and you cannot hide the way that your body shivers at the contact, a heat stirring within you. "But it is a decision that must be made of your own accord."
And then he is backing away from you, allowing the atmosphere to clear of its electrical charge and for oxygen fill your lungs, but your body mourns the loss of his touch regardless of your returned breath. And it is then that you are able to realize what he had said, and some bit of hope blossoms, and now it is you who makes after him, following his path as he glides through the field of red and gold.
"Wait? I can go home if choose to?"
"No."
"But you just sai-"
He turns to you so quickly that it is surprising, whipping around in a stream of darkness, and in the distant stars held within the fabric of his chlamys adjust with the movement. "You are a part of the Dreaming now. There is no place for you in the mortal realm - not anymore."
The revelation has the same effect as a pail of ice water being doused over you. Unforgiving, paralyzing. And this time you do not have the ability to respond, far too busy grappling all of the emotions that are clamoring for the forefront.
"Your home is here now. " He insists, lips pursed in a petulant sort of way. " Regardless of if you decide to take your place alongside me, this is where you must stay. Even if you were to leave this instant, time within the Dreaming does not abide by the same laws of your world. You would return to a point not of your own. Lost in a time entirely unfamiliar."
And the chasm that has been threatening to break seems to grow deeper, fissures and cracks breaking at the foundations. And you vehemently want to deny him. To call him out for lying. Surely, he must be, how good can the Nightmare Ruler's word truly be? Is he a being that can possibly be trusted? But if he is correct, telling the complete truth and you were able to return to your realm would you be able to survive it? The sight of your home now years, if not decades old crumpled and dilapidated from the unforgiving pressure of time might break you. He must notice that vulnerability wearing down on you, because something in his gaze softens and you wished that he didn't look like he cared because some horrid part of you - the same one that had preened underneath his touch - is comforted by his attention, left wanting for it even and you are finding it difficult to be revolted or angry anymore. You would like to blame it on remnants of that perfumed smoke being still in your system, but truthfully you have not felt its influence since you had been dunked into the ocean. The brackish water and chaotic waves seeming to have strained it from your system. Or perhaps it had been the Dreaming itself that had done so, assisted with the fact that you may not even be tethered to your body at all anymore, the effects of the smoke too distant to reach your spirit that has drifted too far from its body. Maybe you truly do belong to his realm now. And you wait for that coal of anger to burn again, but it never comes, leaving you feeling hollow and broken. Exhausted even while you stand in a world fashioned from dreams. "I'm just tired . . . " You mourn weakly, watching the reeds and blossoms sway in the soft wind.
"Then let me ease your burden. " His voice is much closer than it had been before, and when you jerk your head up, startled from the proximity of it, the point of your nose nearly brushed against his. You are immediately drawn into the all-consuming center of his gaze, and it feels like you are being held within it, called to the edge of something yawning and consuming, beckoning you to jump and you do not think that you have the strength to pull back from it. And you found that you did not want to.
He has not made any means to move, leaving it to you to close the distance and you do, the hesitation thawing. He tracts you as you draw near, seeming to hold a breath that he did not need, and he appears tense, rigid like he was physically restraining himself with a practiced sort of patience. And it might have frightened you earlier, but the fervor in them does nothing to dissuade you now if anything it only serves to motivate you. Inside those pale irises you see cyan and indigo and sapphire flaring like nebulas drawing you in like a flower leaning towards the sun, and for a moment you swear you caught a glimpse of something else lurking inside of them, a glimmer of his true self perhaps; something vast and entirely beyond you. It felt ancient and ever-expanding, ignited and twisting and looming. And you felt like you were on the horizon of making sense of it and both entirely too far, slipping through your muddled understanding like sand and smoke, scorching like a harsh ice.
It is the whisper of his nose brushing against yours that draws you from your fixation, a delicate sensation but it was blessedly enough to bring you back to the present, assisted by the rich rumble of his voice. "Come back to me. "
"I nearly fell in, " you murmur back. And it was not a lie, you had nearly lost yourself in the paradox and cosmos that created him but it was also said in an attempt to jest. And you succeeded it seemed if the light, barely there rise at the corner of his mouth way any indication. It all feels fragile, unsure but not unwelcome. Like life returning to the earth after a harsh winter, blossoms breaking through sheets of snow, guided by the tender thaw of sunlight.
"May I touch you?" He asks, tilting his head to just barely skim the fulness of his lips against yours, not kissing you but just enough to leave your skin tingling in their wake. It is a simple question, but it is enough to have that burning ache coming alive again, taking root deep in the base of your abdomen and you find yourself nodding. Frustratingly enough he does not move, ever a pillar of restraint and he leans his head back when you tilt to close the distance between you. And you catch the smug air that surround him, and you would have snapped at him if you had the gall to, if you did not want him to just kiss you already.
"Use your words. " That dark honeyed resonance tramples any semblance of a barb that you had even fleetingly entertained. The Dreaming has long since gone quiet, seeming to betray its creator's appearance of undisturbed control with the febrile energy that tangled around the both of you, fueling your own growing need with its charge. And you were unable to withhold the plead that leaves you, a floaty sigh: "Please touch me."
You do not compute him nearing, eliminating the remaining space that divided you to press his lips against your own, suddenly they just are. It is soft, explorative but not without longing. And the sheer need behind it has your knees going weak, and if not for the appearance of an arm around your waist you feared that you might have actually fallen. Your body thrums with a sort of unsuppressed elation, a syrupy heat spreading across your limbs and dripping down your spine, settling between the cradle of your hips from the swipe of his tongue against your bottom lip, silently asking for your permission. You thread your finger through the silken tresses of his hair and lightly scratch across his scalp. You can only feel the groan rumbling against your lips when you allow him to lick into your mouth and you immediately decide that you need to actually hear it. You are sure that the sound of that husky timbre breathing out in a rapturous moan will haunt you for the rest of eternity, and you could not wait to hear it.
He cups your face in a single hand, securing your head with the curl of his fingers, allowing him to slant the plush of his mouth against you in an angle that let him to pull you in closer, enfolding you into the warmth of his chest. And the remaining doubt and restraint that had seemed to hold you two back was quickly beginning to melt, giving way to carnal sort of urgency. And already you are left panting, sweeping your hands across any part of him that you can, gripping the watery flow of his robes to center yourself through it all.
You had not felt yourself tipping but your back is now pressed against the textured terrain of the Dreaming, the crushed stalks of reeds and flowers lightly digging at your skin, though it does little to take precedence over your current focus. And he is pulling away from your mouth to duck his head neath your chin, nipping and sucking at the skin there until its tender and you can tell by the way that he tucks your flesh between his teeth and licks that he is leaving marks in his wake, staking his claim upon your body and the mere idea of it has you lowly keening into the night; your body going lax underneath his. All things considered; he has not done much but your brain is already clouding with want, eyes glazing over. And then the heat of his mouth is sealing over your breast, the silk texture of your robe only adding to the pleasure as his tongue circles around your taut nipple. You can't help the way that you arch into it, seeking out more mindlessly but it is not enough. It is does little more than tease you, even with the way that he has draped himself over you he has himself suspended in a way that keeps you from being able to achieve the friction that you desire, stoking that heat inside you with eat nip and suck from his teeth and mouth.
You can hear him chuckling from above you, the vibrations of his low smug amusement tingling across your chest, adding to your pleasure. If you were not so preoccupied with thoughtlessly trying to grind against his abdomen like a whore, you might have snapped at him for it, but instead you are removing your hands from the rich earth to sweep through his unruly hair, holding him against you instead, melting underneath the feel of his tongue.
He does not let you have that for long either, releasing the swell of your breast and ducking from your grip, nuzzling a path down the plain of your abdomen and taking your thighs into the smooth glide of his hands, ignoring your protesting cry as he licks at your stomach from over the barrier of the silk. And once again you find yourself cursing that dreadful fabric, swearing into the night while you squirm in his hands.
"Easy, sweet thing. " He coos, the image of patience. And if not for the wild, glow twinkling in both of his eyes like a beast you would not even think he was affected in the way that you are. That burning light serves as a reminder that he is not normal man, that you are rabbit ensnared within the jaws of a wolf, a mortal lying with a god. But it does not frighten you anymore. Instead, it douses fuel over an already steady flame. And you find yourself hoping to be consumed, taken between the teeth of this dark, cosmic deity and eaten alive.
His descent does not stop, the point of his nose dragging down until it stops over your mons pubis and your whole body tenses in anticipation, waiting for him to move just a bit lower, to bundle your skirts in his hands and take you into his mouth. But he does not do any of that. He simply hovers there. His clutch on your thighs tightens, threatening to turn your flesh tender and you swear that you can feel the points of talons pricking at you, but it is too dark from the cover of the moonless night to see if he truly has grown claws in his passion - if they have drawn blood. Not that you would have minded if they had. You wanted it. Wanted his claim visible on your body, open to be seen by anyone who may gaze upon you. A trickle of concern does make it through the honeyed smoke of your want, as fleeting as it is, and it is quickly forgotten. Casted aside at the sound of a soft repetitive panting filling the silence. It does not take you long to realize that it is coming from him. He is breathing in your scent, hovering over the heat of you to take lungful's of your arousal.
It is completely debased. Dirty. But the sight of a this primordial being kneeling between your legs and drawing in the scent of you in this perverted display that you would expect from man and not a god has you moaning into the air. Your cunt throbs, clenching around nothing while you rock your hips near his mouth. His grip tightens once again, smarting your skin while he tries to pin your body even while he chases the shift of your hips. And for one moment you think that he may finally ease both of your discomfort, feed the hunger ravaging your bodies but then horribly, he is pulling from you, leaving you to pant into the open air in a confused daze. "Why did you stop? "
"Let me taste you. " He said thickly, and his eyes shimmer again like the stars suspended in the heavens behind him. "Let me drink from you- worship you."
His words have your mouth going dry and that aching heat pooling between your thighs. Never in your life have you ever known a man so desperate to pleasure you. To practically beg for it with a barely concealed avidity. That an Endless would ask for your permission. But he is no man after all. And you are nodding once again, but he does not move until the echo of that old sentence chimes in your head, use your words, you remember, and you manage to utter a rushed, "please" out from a shaky huff.
He rumbles in a pleased way, the Dreaming trembling lightly with the resonance of his satisfaction. You hardly have time to blink before your ceremonial garb all but vanishes, baring you to the soft breeze and then a soft warmth enveloping your wet cunt, leaving you to jerk in surprise and scramble to grab something, anything to tether you. You claw at the field, the soil, before combing them into his hair while you gasp. All the while he is completely immovable, fixed to you throughout your writhing, lapping at your slit to collect the taste of you on his tongue and drink it down with a content purr, before licking up so that he can suckle your clit into the clutch of his mouth. Prompting that heady warmth to drizzle up on top of itself within the base of your abdomen.
He alternates between that for a few moments, completely unhurried as he switches between lapping at your slit and sucking at your engorged bundles of nerves. And then his tongue is slipping inside of you, working along the walls of your cunt in a way that has your eyes rolling and your back bowing in a taut seize. But it does not stop. Extending into an inhuman length. It is thick and textured near its base, working so deep inside that you have to cry out. The repetitive drag and pull of it ushering you to roll your hips to match its delicious rhythm, building up a rising tide, dangling you over the precipice of something debilitating.
"Oh gods - I - "
But he is jerking away from you leaving your cunt to squeeze around the absence of his tongue, biting into the meat of your thigh like he has to preoccupy himself or else he will bury his face back into your heat like you so desperately want him to. You clumsily prop yourself up on your elbows to look at him and the intensity of his gaze would have been intimidating if you were not in your current position.
"Why did you stop?!"
"When you come in will be with my name on your lips, " and something possessive layers the rich rumble of his tone. It is heavy and bears no room for argument, but you have no wish to do so. "Say it."
"My Lor- " But his pointed glare is enough to cut you off, but you find yourself yelping from the reprimanding nip at your sensitive skin. It did not hurt but it took you by surprise regardless.
"My name." He repeats carefully, and laves his tongue over the dull sting to soothe it, all without breaking eye contact, keeping you within the scope of his watch. And it takes you a moment to sift through his abundance of monikers and titles, trying to think past the sensation of his teeth and lips on you, but you finally manage to settle the same one that the Priestesses would often whisper with reverence.
"Morpheus. "
A pleased hum greats you and then blessedly he is spreading you open with his thumbs to subject you to the calculated, blissful lashing of his tongue. And you allow yourself to fall back onto the ground in a boneless heap, easily falling back underneath the sway of that fuzzy Elysian pleasure. Unrestrained moans now freely spilling from you, but you cannot find it in yourself to be the least bit embarrassed by the way you openly keen and whine in bliss. You head tips as you toss in reckless abandon, staring up almost sightlessly at the star cluttered sky. And in your drunken haze your mind oddly remarks that the twinkling stars remind you of peering eyes. But before the thought can take flight a strange sensation is enveloping you, like the brush of water rushing over you. Rolling textured waves, feathered touches and the brush of fingers.
Hands, a distant thought supplies weakly. It does feel like hands. Thousands of them all scattered about your body. Running over your hips, your stomach, your chest, your throat. And then it feels as though a pair of mouths are taking your breasts into them, and you just barely manage to jerk your head up to confirm that Morpheus is still nestled between your thighs, slurping at your messy cunt even while those phantom hands and mouths stroke over your body, sucking at your nipples in a way that has a gutted moan tearing out of you.
He is watching you from his place between your legs and the gleam of his eyes are nothing short of smug, taking absolute pride in the way that he is unraveling you at the seams.
Your body moves as though it is possessed. Writhing like it can't decide which sensation it wants to arch into; the ghostly grasp of a thousand hands or the needy, warmth of his mouth.
And the squelch of his tongue is sinful, noisily plunging into you. Its passage completely frictionless with the combination of his saliva and the way your cunt drips around the intrusion. He takes the meat of your ass into his physical hands, guiding the jerky rock of your hips into something deeper while he drinks you down, swallowing the obscene slick of your coupling down his throat. And you are babbling now, unable to recognize or understand the scattered way that you beg and cry. Lost to drift in the ceaseless ecstasy, a willing prisoner forced to take it. It feels as though your mind is breaking around the edges, fraying from the sheer scope of your pleasure, leaving you a weightless passenger, no longer held within the restraints of your own body. You soul is alight, burning and drowning in a rapture so sweet that you have no choice but to sob from it all.
"Morpheus - " You choke around the raged heaving of your chest. And the hands on your body are joined by the phantom lapping of tongues, invisible teeth nipping at your skin and the mouths on your breasts pull and tweak at your nipples. The pleasure is too much, too great for you to fully comprehend and that wave is climbing once again, hurtling you towards that cliff. And now you are begging - pleading that he does not stop and leave you wanting. His name falls freely from you now, and endless mantra pleading for him to guide you into the sweep of fire and bliss.
You barely feel it approaching. Suddenly your body is tensing, going rigid underneath the curl of his tongue and your thighs clamp around his head while you sob through the convulsions wracking through you. Completely swept up in a tide of heat and electricity. But he has not pulled away from your cunt, still nuzzled between the clutch of your thighs while he drinks your come with a satisfied sigh. The vibrations of it combined with the idle way that he continues to lap at you despite the sensitivity and it has your muscles twitching in response.
"Morpheus, please. " You gasp underneath him, and he finally pulls back from you, albeit reluctantly before he is crawling over you, leaving gentle pecks across your body as he moves. And you can still feel those phantom touches across you, but they are feather light now, melting into the background as his lips meet yours in a hungry kiss. It has you moaning into his mouth, and even with your recent orgasm you can already feel a syrupy heat building up within you coaxing the gentle rock of your hips. You can taste yourself on his lips, earthy and somewhat sweet. The weight of his arousal presses against you from underneath his robes, heavy and hot and the Dreaming thrums with his want, the soil trembling beneath you both.
You reach a hand down to paw at him through the dark fabric of his chlamys and the smoky, ragged groan that escapes him is a reward all in its own. And you were right. The sound of his breathless, rumbling satisfaction is something that you will never tire of hearing, and you are already desperate to drag more from him. But what truly has your attention is the length of him. You are unable to see it from the cover of his robes, but you can feel it, the thickness of it, the length. And you drag your thumb around its head, the cloth clinging to the shape of his cock from the precum leaking from the tip. He jerks in your hand, breaking your kiss to duck his face into the crook of your neck, sucking at the skin, prompting you to moan breathlessly.
"I need you inside of me. " You whisper unsteadily.
"Take what you need. " Comes his response as he mouths along your neck, taking your ear lobe into his mouth and pulling it between his teeth. Just as yours had, his robes vanish from his body, baring himself for you admire. And admire you do. Gazing upon the milky hue of his skin. The lithe muscle that ripple and flex and the added detail of blue vessels spidering underneath his flesh. Your eyes drop lower, settling on his cock, and the tip has flushed red from his arousal, and you briefly entertain the idea of taking him into your mouth, tasting him on your tongue as he had done to you. But the throbbing heat that has settled between your thighs is the only thing that keeps you from doing so. You need finally feel him and so you are gently pushing at his chest, guiding him to remove his head from your neck and to lie on his back. And he allows you to so - a god obeying your wishes.
His gaze does not stray from you, even as he settles against the ground and allows you to climb astride his lap. Now that you are here atop him you find yourself wavering under the intimidation of your self-imposed task. It is a stupid thing to be fearful of. You have done this before. But those was a man, not an immortal deity that has seen centuries come and go, watched curiously as humanity's ancestors evolved and give way to empires the ultimately rose and fell. You are sure that he has lain with deities beyond your comprehension. Gods and goddesses, nymphs and spirits, pure divine beings from the heavens. How could you compare? How could you possibly please him? Would he want you even as a tainted woman?
And as though he can sense your discomfort, he sweeps his hands along your hips, the action breaking through your internal struggle, and he is once sitting himself up enough to plant a kiss between the valley of your breasts. And then he is guiding you to look down on him with the gentle brush of his fingers, fixing your attention solely on him.
"Take what you need. " He reiterates. But it is not said in a scathing or annoyed way, it is gentle, loving you want to believe, and you nearly melt against him. Those ghostly touches are back, no doubt an attempt to draw you out of your head. And it is working to stoke the fire, the fervor returning to your bones, but your mind still struggles to return you, still tangled within the confines of your insecurities. You could not manage to pin them down no matter how hard you tried to.
"Speak to me, " he murmurs against your skin. "What troubles you?"
"I - " you choke around the shakiness in your chest. You want to speak but it is difficult to do so around the rock in your throat, the disconnect between your head and your tongue stalling the words before they can even truly form. He begins to circle his thumbs against your hips. It is no longer sexual but completely tender, meant to coax your feelings from you rather than your desire and it does serve to ground you somewhat, offering you some clarity to articulate yourself. " I - you do know that I'm not . . . " You trail off and you attempt to meet his curious gaze, but you find your own quickly darting away, scanning the kaleidoscope fields that surrounds you like it might help you find your courage. " . . . What if I'm not good enough?"
His expression becomes stormy. Something menacing and severe and it is a stark reminder of the darker side of his nature. He had been so gentle and giving with you that it had been easy to forget the depths of his anger, and for a moment you had feared that you somehow managed to offend him personally. His lips have pursed in that cross way, his eyebrows pinched, and you would have anticipated him molding himself into wicked shadows and talons, if not for the flash of something soft showing through the cosmic blue of his eyes.
"Have I not worshiped you thoroughly enough?" He asks, but he does not necessarily sound affronted out of concern of his own pride but rather disappointed that he did not please you. The mere notion of that could make you scoff; you were certain that he ruined you for anyone else. No man would be able to touch you in the way that he had. And now you were opening your mouth to reassure him, but he is responding before you can utter a single word. " Then allow me to rectify my transgressions."
And you whole heartedly expect him to once again knock you on your back and take you, but he does not. He keeps you secured on his lap, grip firm but not controlling and fixes you with a stare that seems to hold you open and reach inside, melting at your frayed vulnerabilities. "Now. Take what you need." His voice has dipped into something deep and orotund, clearly enunciating to make sure that his intent is clearly broadcasted. And the intensity that he projects is enough to pull you back into the moment, his power coursing over the Dreaming and rippling at its seams. But it is more than that too. He has been nothing but gentle with you this entire night. Patient. Without judgement. And it is as though he has been plucking you apart piece by broken piece, stuffing you full of sunlight and helping you mend your shattered edges. Not fixed or magically repaired, but it is the closest you have felt to peace and adoration in a long time. And you feel like you are choking on the affection that he openly displays. The want and the need.
You become startlingly aware of the way that your cunt drips, come smearing the insides of your thighs while that warm honeyed ache steadily thrums within your abdomen. And it is difficult to ignore it now. The sheer scope of your desire could smother you, threatening to take you under and drown you. Everything else after that is instinctual -needy. You take his face in your hands, smashing your lips to his in a bruising kiss trying your best to project your emotions into the exchange of tongue and teeth, stroking the sharp edges of his cheek bones with the same reverence that he had shown you. And you blindly reach down to take the rigid heat of him in your grip, throbbing and wet with a steady flow of precum, and he rewards you with a heady groan when you circle your thumb around the leaking slit of his cock.
You are quick to line him up with your entrance, and without little fanfare sink down onto him. The relief that comes with the fulness of his girth tears ragged sighs from the both of you. And you give yourself little time to adjust before your already working yourself down his length, toes curling when the blunt head of his cock brushes against that devastating spot inside of you that has you jerking from him to gasp into the night. And unable to ignore the all-consuming passion that takes you over, the pulsing, electrifying power that permeates around Morpheus you draw yourself up with the strength of your thighs, using the push you can achieve from planting your feet on the ground to bounce on his cock in a hedonistic display.
It is debased and vulgar, fucking out in an open field, in the soil like animals. Completely lewd, but so right.
Morpheus lies back against the ground on his own accord, reclining like spoiled royalty and allowing you to plant your hands on his chest to assist you to deepen each thrust, letting you take from him. And already his name is spilling from your lips like a hymn while you watch the Dream King with rapt attention, enthralled by every minute expression that flickers across his schooled features. The way that his eyebrows pinch together, how dim but eager pants puff past his open mouth, the dazed sort of pleasure that shows in his eyes while he gazes upon you like you're a deity that has descended down from Mount Olympus, a nymph fashioned from Aphrodite herself to encapsulate his every wish.
And those delicious, invisible hands have returned to roam about your body in their sweet exploration, plucking at your body like it is an instrument that they have played for years. The sound of your coupling rings across the Dreaming, the smack skin against skin, your unrestrained moans. It all has that thick, deep-rooted ache spreading further throughout your body, reaching from your core and all the way to your fingertips and toes. But there is something missing, a nudge needed to push you over the edge. "Morpheus, " you cry weakly, thighs already beginning to sting from exertion, but you refuse to stop, continuing to drop yourself on his cock, working tight circles with your hips with each descent.
You can see something smug bleeding into his features, your neediness nurturing his hubris, and his lips quirk in just the faintest hints of a barely there smile.
"What is it, my love?" He asks, feigning ignorance and it irritates you how put together he sounds, voice having dropped into a low, rumbling cadence, but apart from that he sounds seemingly unaffected despite the glazed over quality to his gaze. You whimper around a particularly harsh thrust from him that has your back bowing, pushing your breasts into the palms of ghostly hands. Your eyes nearly go cross at the drag of his cock, but you manage to keep your concentration around the sweeping torrents of smoke and ecstasy.
"Please!" you keen drunkenly. "Please, I need you! "
A satisfied purr resonates underneath your palms and his pupils flash in that pale tantalizing, dangerous way and you cannot believe that the look of it had frightened you at some point. Now it only serves to pool more liquid heat down the base of your spine. A heaving mewl is all but punched out of you when he takes you by surprise, using his place along the ground to thrust up into you with wicked rolls from his hips. Fucking up into you with a ferocity that has you struggling to meet his pace, and you are hardly more than a passenger at this point. All coherence is stripped from you and your entire body feels like it has been doused in honey and fire, and the timbre of his raspy voice speaking out only serves to nudge you closer to your undoing.
"You'll stay here with me, won't you?"
"Yes!" You agreed in a slurred whine.
"And you'll give yourself to me?"
"Yes!" You are near sobbing now, body jerking and writhing atop him while the phantom touches roll your nipples between soft fingertips, and his cock pumps into you with depraved, filthy squelches of your combined arousal. And that primordial energy is pulsating around the Dreaming. The same power that creates the ground you both lay upon, that fashions the field and the sky above you too, permeating from the deity that is currently fucking every shred of a possible thought from your brain. And the power feels charged now, like it is growing and expanding into something great, seeping into your skin and soaking your bones. Then a transparent grip is taking your jaw between its fingers, directing your gaze to the god underneath you, and another slips down your stomach, reaching down to drag tight circles around your neglected clit.
"Then come." It is a command that your body cannot ignore, seizing up tight, trapping the strangled wail deep inside your lungs while your mouth hangs open in a silent scream. Your eyes roll into the back of your skull, stars exploding against the darkness there and you lose all sense of tangibility. Your sense of time, place and self slip from perception like water pouring through spread fingers, and now you are just floating. Caught in bursting cosmos, pinned before the scalding light of the sun, caught in a torrent of arresting, unyielding rapture. And your cunt clamps down his cock like it means to milk him for all he is worth, your orgasm ushering him into his own and thankfully your coherence begins to return to you in time for you to admire him while he is subjected to the throes of his pleasure. And you are still gasping and moaning while his thrusts become sloppy and uncoordinated, observing as his eyelashes flutter and his mouth opens for a long husky moan to escape him as the warmth of his release pools inside of you.
You all but collapse on top of him in a boneless heap and your cunt spasming weakly around his spent length but neither of you make any effort to move. Simply basking in the afterglow of your highs. It is your sense of touch and hearing that serve to orient you. The distant crash of waves rushing over the surf, the whisper of the breeze dancing across the grass and blossoms. And you can feel him underneath you. His chest is moving with a breath that you are certain is simulated for your own comfort, an attempt to appear more human. But he feels too heated and simultaneously too cold to be a person, like he has no idea which temperature to project. But you decide that it is not at all unpleasant, instead it feels good against your feverish skin.
But you still wait for the sting of disappointment to strike you - for disgust to bleed and taint the satisfaction now that the lust has died, but it never rises to meet you. And so, you rest, satiated upon your god. Pliant like melted wax. But there is the insistent nudge of something burrowing at you. Concern, you quickly identify. And it has your sluggish mind wandering back to the root of the thought, trailing after it until it finds the conclusion which takes that shape of a memory. The memory of perhaps the only companion you have ever known, and it is bitter and sour reminder that they may not even be alive anymore. That centuries may have passed during your brief stay in the Dreaming, and that they may have succumbed to the passage of time.
"What ails you now?"
You want to say that it is nothing, sweep it aside and ignore it while it festers and grows. But you know now that he will not accept nothing as an answer, not when he can possibly feel your distress across the threads of the Dreaming. You feel foolish in your answer, but it is the only one that you can manage. " My cat. "
"Your . . . cat. " He echoes slowly, and you are certain that amusement is lacing his tone. You bristle a bit preparing to defend yourself, your right for being worried, but he is nudging you from his chest so that you may see each other as you speak.
"I can assure you that your companion is safe. He's quite content." He says. His gentle mirth still very much alive, but you do not return his light-hearted attitude, waiting with bated breath for him to answer the question that hangs heavy in the air. And a part of you fears that he may have somehow managed to converse with Death of the Endless, or that he was still connected to the passage of time that operates outside of the Dreaming and was able to deduce that the feline had long since passed, joining Teleute in the Sunless Lands. But then he is brushing a hand along his side, drawing your attention to his ribs where the skin there ripples like the surface of a disturbed lake, and a set of angry jagged scars emerge from the mirage, appearing across his pale skin, spanning from his armpit down to the notch of his hipbone. It is hauntingly familiar. The placement, the number of claw mark left in stretched healed tissue. One, two, three . . . four, you count.
You understand what it is that he is implying. And betrayal sinks its enamel into your heart, but the bite is shockingly dull and not the unforgiving split that you were expecting. And you can tell that he is calculating something, surely waiting for you to lash out. To scream at him and demand that he take you home. Perhaps that is what you should do. But you do not. "How? Why did you- a cat?" Is all you manage, more perplexed than irate.
"I had been injured by an old foe of mine, " he explains, allowing you to curl into his side, curiously running your fingertips over the marred flesh. And you have suppress a shudder, wondering what sort of being could be strong enough to injure an Endless. A god. "As for why I assumed that particular form, I needed to conserve energy. It was small. Familiar. It served to save much needed strength. "
There has always been something strange about that cat and his watchful stare. Admittedly you had always swallowed down the suspicion that prickled at you whenever he had curled up within your house, but you had been too desperate for some sort of friendship to truly question anything. The barrage of emotions flooding you, making you a muddled unsure mess, but one thing that you do know for certain is that you are completely and undeniably relieved. And truthfully you are still far too tired, simply uncaring to have been tricked by the god. You are happy- actually well and truly happy to embrace the joy and serenity.
"And then there was you, " he murmurs in your ear, devout and soft.
The both of you remain there for an insurmountable length of time. Lounging in each other's embrace, delighting in your shared presence. Listening to the peaceful noise of the Dreaming and the warmth of your lover. And for the first time that icy gapping pit of loneliness no longer gnaws and tears at you. You finally feel at home, and the desire to flee and leave eludes you. Perhaps because you have finally found a place to belong.
Here with him.
#morpheus x reader#morpheus x you#dream x reader#dream of the endless x reader#the sandman x reader#the sandman x you#dream the endless#the sandman#netflix sandman
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I’ll Always Answer Your Call
Unexpected part 2 to Do What I Cannot
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Jason took Danny down to one of the smaller sitting rooms as Batman had suggested, he didn’t know what would be done with the bodies of Danny’s parents but he didn’t care. They had deserved to die for everything they had done to Danny, let alone the other ghost that had no doubt been victims of their insane obsessions. He wondered if they would become ghosts, if they did would that be good for Danny? He knew that Danny was the ghost king even if they both wanted to keep that bit of information from the other heroes for now. That would make his parents his subject, he would have every right to punish them however he saw fit, would he like that or would it be even harder on him? Maybe Jason could pass word on to Ellie about what had happened and she could pass it on to Fright Knight and Walker and they could deal with the Fentons instead, shielding Danny from all that nastiness.
That was a future problem though, it took ghosts a while to form in the ghost zone and they wouldn’t get out for a while after that, they could wait and still deal with it before it became an actual problem. For now the only thing he wanted to focus on was Danny, still curled up in his arms and sniffling slightly. He knew Danny was different now then he had been when he had lived, must be. Jason doubted when Danny was alive he’d had skin the colour of a lake covered in thick ice, a slightly elongated face, pointed ears and odd, uncanny, elfin proportions.
There was no mistaking him for a human anymore but he was so beautiful in his own way, it was one of the first things that had struck Jason about Danny, the odd unearthly beauty of him. Jason had thought he looked like the moon come to earth and given vaguely human form. He had been more right then he had known then, after seeing Danny’s even less humanoid forms, all taking after space in some way.
Jason sat down in one of the bigger arm chairs so Danny could comfortably sit sideways across his lap, Danny promptly curled up there, leaning against Jason’s chest while Jason rubbed his back, trying to sooth him while he cried. “They can’t hurt you anymore,” Jason murmured softly. “I won’t say it’s okay, because nothing about what they did is okay, but they can’t hurt you anymore, and I’m here.”
“I know you are,” Danny whispered against his shoulder softly. “You’re so good to me Jason, you have no idea how much I appreciate you. For always answering my call, I-I’m sorry I took control, I really didn’t mean to, I was just so emotional,” he murmured and Jason shook his head. He was wearing his domino mask under his helmet so he quickly took the helmet off and set it aside so he could lean his forehead against Danny’s.
“It’s alright,” He promised, “It let me know how badly you needed me. I would have come anyway, but I knew how fast I needed to go.”
“I’m guessing you still won’t let me break the band then?” Danny asked, chuckling weakly and Jason gave a crooked smile, taking one of Danny’s hands and pressing it against his chest.
“No, of course not. I was so lost before I heard your call, being with you like this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m happy to serve you as my king,” He murmured and kissed Danny softly, feeling the spirit sigh against his lips, cool arms wrapping around his shoulders.
“I’ll take responsibility for their deaths,” Danny whispered when they broke the kiss, a haunted look passing through his green eyes. “It was my will that caused it really, even if you would have done it anyway, I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“Fuck that!” Jason barked more loudly, lowering his voice when Danny flinched, it was an automatic response not true fear but Jason didn’t want to add to Danny’s distress in anyway. “I did it, I’ve killed people before for less and I’ll probably do it again. You’re not a killer Danny, and I probably could have stopped myself if I had really wanted to. You don’t deserve to have this put on you, you already told Batman I was responding to your emotions but that’s as much blame as you’re going to get. If B lectures me about this then so fucking be it! I stand by what I did.”
Danny gave him a rueful smile and nuzzled back in against his chest, Jason just held him for a while, quietly. “I don’t think B will actually disapprove that much actually. I mean he’s really firm in his no killing rule shit, but I think even he’ll be able to see that with the way those two acted they weren’t safe to leave alive and after what they did to you… I think any lecture will be performative more then anything. He’ll understand,” Jason mused as he combed his hair through Danny’s messy white hair, now laying almost flat since the emotional upheaval had passed.
“They were a threat to everyone around them,” Danny murmured in agreement. “We’ll have to talk to the JL about taking possession of all of their research and stuff quickly, the last thing we want is for it to fall into the wrong hands. I’m just… Jason I feel really betrayed,” he admitted, soft as a breath, Jason felt his heart drop like a stone. “Why were they here? Why did the Justice League want to talk to them at all?!” He asked, his voice getting a bit louder as emotions built again. “This tower is a safe space and they brought in two fucking mad scientists that would have tried to shoot me on sight whether or not they knew about those two being my parents. I don’t understand!”
Oh no he was crying again, Jason hugged him close and tried to make soothing sounds, his half formed core letting out a stuttering purr and broken little coos to try and sooth his lover.
“We didn’t want you to be our only line of defense between us and potential ghostly threats,” Jason looked up and glared, but not as hard as he would of if it hadn’t been Diana coming in. She was always one of the better one with people, with knowing what to say and when not to push. Jason probably would have drawn a gun if it had been batman.
Danny looked up and gave Diana a watery glare, which she returned with a sad smile coming to sit in the armchair across from them, a respectful distance away. “We didn’t believe a word they said, we simply wanted access to their research and technology so we might have a bit of a head start learning about this new threat.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me?!” Danny flared, anger puffing him up again for a minute. “You had a ghost right there and instead you went to do mad scientist ghost hunters with a history of fucking war crimes?”
“We didn’t realize how bad they truly were,” Diana said regretfully. “And we didn’t want you to be the only thing standing between us and potential disaster. We wanted to take some of this weight off of your shoulders, without realizing how much worse it would make things. I understand if you won’t feel safe here for a while, but please know that we did this with the best of intentions, we didn’t mean to hurt you, and we’re so very sorry for how this turned out.”
“It’s alright,” Danny said, slumping in Jason’s arms again. He was always to forgiving, at least in the opinions of Red Hood. “You should seize as much of their research and equipment as you can and quickly. As much as I don’t really want anyone to have them better you then the GIW or Vlad, just.. Please be careful. My parents were geniuses, but they were also fools. A lot of their inventions are very dangerous to ghosts and humans alike, fueled by unstable energy sources that can be catastrophic.
“It was one of their inventions that killed me to begin with, and they didn’t even notice for almost 2 years. They were fools, blinded by their own desires. They should have never had children.” Danny said, sounding tired and resigned.
Jason’s fingers twitched against Danny’s leg and back, and Diana looked sad. “You and your sister are unquestionable goods to the world, you have risen above your circumstances and we are glad to have you, but that doesn’t mean what was done to you was right, or ‘worth it’,” Diana agreed with a sigh. “I’ll pass on the message about seizing their research. Is there anything you need? Anything at all?”
“No, just Jason,” Danny assured causing a little flare of pride inside Jason. He was glad to be someone Danny could rely on like this, someone trusted.
“Alright,” Diana agreed and stood from her chair. “Batman would like to talk to you two later, when you’re ready,” she added after a moment of hesitation.
Jason growled unconsciously and Danny glanced up at him, pressing his hand more firmly against Jason’s hand and giving him a gentle smile. “Of course, but not today. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I need to get out of here, Jason? Take me home please?” He asked softly, giving Jason puppydog eyes he never could resist.
“Of course Starlight,” Jason murmured, stealing a quick kiss before he adjusted his grip on Danny and stood up, cradling Danny against him and heading straight down towards the Zeta-tubes so they could head back earth-side and try to forget about this whole mess.
#Jason Todd#Red Hood#Danny Phantom#diana prince#wonderwoman#dc x dp#dead on main#Danny/Jason#Maddie and Jack are bad parents#maddie fenton#jack fenton#Batman#ghost king Danny
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Merciless spanking? 👀
:ఌ¨ ♱ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 : nsfw, sub!muzan, dom!reader, brat taming, spanking, like a hint of anal play.
Muzan, while pliant sometimes, is usually determined to make a nuisance of himself. To make you work tirelessly for the honor of his submission, and you enjoy that about him. You quite liked the challenge and it made his eventual surrender that much sweeter. But sometimes he really did get under your skin with his insensitive remarks.
Even if you’ve acquired his favoritism, he was still the demon king, and a cruel one more often than not. He’s lived for almost a thousand years, and in that time his humanity has waned the more detached he becomes from his past self.
It was only a matter of time before you’d had enough of his behavior and resigned to put him in his place. He's bent over your thighs, cock hard and leaking a puddle of pre onto your leg as your hand claps down onto his backside harder than he thought possible. Your strikes are committed and solid, barreling into his pale flesh until it blooms a bright reddish hue.
It's easy to forget that you aren't a weakling since you tend to be soft on him, but the merciless spankings are a blaring reminder to the contrary. He hates how much he loves it when you punish him; how his body sings with every slap. You’d ordered him not to heal and now he knows why as his flesh reddens and becomes sore. Your strikes are no gentler even as he starts yelping and squirming around, humiliated tears pricking at his eyes when the bright sting only makes his cock harder.
He’s begun to pant, claws tearing holes into the sheet clenched in his fists.
“I don’t like to punish you, darling but you really piss me off when you say cold things like that,” you admonished, as if he were a misbehaving child and a growl slips out of him, but it’s soon overshadowed by a yelp when you spank him particularly hard. “Quit that! I don’t wanna hear it. You earned this.”
“Fuck you.” he’s begun to shake, and your eyes soften a fraction. you smooth a hand over his tender backside gingerly but he hisses and flinches hard anyways.
“My poor baby. You must be pretty sore, huh?” you continue to ghost your hand over his rear, admiring the scarlet handprints you’ve left behind on his ivory skin.
“Eat shit and die.” More aggression. You’d think he’d learn.
You grab a handful of his ass and he nearly leaps out of your lap, cursing when you only pull him back into position and fondle him more. He’s whimpering now, and a muffled sniffle is all it takes for you to be throbbing just as much. It’s hard to break him down like this, and your hand is sore from the spanking, but it’s worth it to see him crumble. He’s a powerful demon that could kill you in a million ways before you’d even know what happened, but he won’t. Because he needs this even if he won’t admit it.
“Are you ready to apologize and get your reward now or do you still need convincing, pet?”
Pet. That’s what he’s been reduced to. The nickname almost inspires him to bare his teeth at you, to make you work harder. But he’s exhausted, and sore, and you’re spreading him open already, thumb teasing over his rim. So he gives up, slumping over your lap.
“I’m sorry…” Muzan almost croaks it, voice sounding ragged from all the shouting. “i’m sorry, so make it feel better now.”
Not even a single threat i’m that sentence. You’re impressed!
“There's my good boy~ You definitely deserve your reward now. You’ll forget about that pain in a moment just you wait.”
#‧₊🦇˚⊹ ashi writes#alex <3#muzan kibutsuji x reader#sub muzan#sub!muzan#dom!reader#dom reader#sub kny#sub demon slayer#n/sfw
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Taming a Corrupted Slave Man - By Purple Village (8.5/10)
Love is off the table. Everything is a lie. Constant mind games. It's exhausting. Our protagonist is kind of a sociopath but I get it. Being the only woman with healing powers in the country is crazy stressful. The problem is everybody is crazy, and all of the love stories here end in blood. There's a surprise twist yandere too.
Aren is the only daughter of a very special family. Literally only the current king knows she has healing powers. It's a rare thing. Her family gets tons of royal cash because her existence is so convenient. She's VERY sheltered and her father loves her VERY much. He refuses to have more kids, because he loved his wife who died in childbirth. He spoiled his special daughter too much.
She dies at the hands of her fiance, Duke Daiman. He's a strong, brilliant Knight...with a heart condition. She cured his heart, because she fell for his good looks at first sight. Daimen took advantage of her. He is a genius with royal blood. He uses her family money to attempt to usurp the throne. He also brings in a lover named Lillian, because he thinks she's that stupid. He thinks she will let him have a lover, because she's so lonely and she loves him so blindly.
Her father died in war. Her fiance is all she has.
She stands up for herself.
She says she will not let another woman in.
She attempts to break off their engagement, and he stabs her in the back.
Why?
Well, he doesn't want her to marry into another family. She's too useful. Her healing powers are too valuable. If he can't use her no one can.
His lover smirks while she dies.
Aren basically wakes up evil it's wild. She values her servants. She adores her father utterly. She will not let him die in war. The law dictates that a man from every family must go to war, so she decides to adopt a "brother" into the family. A meat bag to be used so her beloved father may live. There's not even a whiff of romance.
Aren knows who the most talented swordsman is.
She goes out to pick him up.
It's a slave named Cassadim. He became a royal servant under the Crown Prince in her past life. He was known for his unreal beauty and his savagery in battle.
Aren feels a little guilty for like a second, but she uses the royal money she has to buy him. From then on there is zero remorse. Her father knows, by the way. She literally tells her father he should adopt a fake son to use, if he's still not willing to remarry. Aren and her father are both actually interesting because they're "nice" on the surface, but if you annoy them...well...bye? Aren is against(?) traditional slavery. Kinda. She doesn't like torture. She intends to let Cassadim live well as her brother. As a noble. If he doesn’t die in battle he will lead a charmed life...but omg buying him to take her dad's place is soooo messy. Evil ice princess dang.
(Also Cassadim was used for "night services" as a slave, so she does save him from that. She NEVER does anything sexual to him. She also uses her powers to fix his scars, and health issues that piled up when he was an arena fighter. He's getting a pretty good deal. A healthy body. The possibility to survive as a noble son. Yeahhhh. Slight problem though. SHE NEVER TELLS HIM. HE DOESN'T KNOW HE'S A WAR HORSE UNTIL IT HAPPENS. AH! but by then he is willing to die for the family so I guess...the plan worked...)
By the way nobody knows Aren is a healer. She of course steps in to save the prince.
Cassadim doesn't know EVERYTHING, but he knows. He doesn't trust Aren. He's totally right to be suspicious. He also uses her. He mistakenly thinks the King is the one who destroyed his home country. So he uses knowledge he gets from Aren's medical book collection to create poison. He goes to the ball with her.
He poisons the prince, Leon.
And now he's in love....not really. Leon thinks Aren is the most perfect and convenient wife. She says no and he gets pushy. Cassadim finally gets jealous. He likes living with Aren and being her brother on paper, but he doesn't know how to feel about her getting married. He starts to act immature for the first time. He has been spoiled, on purpose, by Aren. This is the way she wants him to be. Clingy. Protective. Willing to die for her.
She tells him she knows everything. She knows he poisoned the Prince. He did it because HE used to be a prince, but his country was burned to ash.
The King didn’t do it.
Duke Daiman's father did.
How convenient.
Aren jumps on the chance. She convinces Cassadim to go against the Duke with her. She pins the blame for the poison on the Duke too. Her revenge is perfect...Cassadim snaps for the first time. He accuses her of being a seductress. A liar. Someone who will never care about him as much as he cares about her.
He's sort of right. They fall in love later, but Aren is totally obsessed with revenge for half the story.
He actually attacks her.
Things get tense.
Then we get the classic yandere ramblings. Yes, after years of "love" Cassadim loses. He is putty in her hands. Unable to stand the thought of her getting married or even sleeping next to someone else. He starts begging her to use him when she has "urges", because he doesn't want another man to do it. The Prince, and actually lots of people, start to comment about how weird he is. His worshipful love is an open secret.
Aren grabs her last puzzle piece. Tol. A slave that was tortured by Daiman and his butler. Aren does a great favor for Tol. His tongue was cut out. She grows it back for him. Tol is grateful and he agrees to lie for her. Someone must be blamed for the poison incident.
The plan is:
Aren pretends to be a foolish girl in love with the Duke, who visits him in prison.
She will then claim the Duke encouraged her to commit treason and hide signs of his crime.
Tol will pretend to be a witness, as he has been a slave in the ducal house for a while.
She unleashes the plan when Daiman thinks he is safe. When he's out of prison with an alibi, at the Prince's royal birthday.
It goes off without a hitch. Daiman freaks out and has a seizure in front of everyone. Then, all of his enemies know about his secret weakness. If he doesn’t go to jail that's fine. One of his many enemies will take advantage of that weak heart of his.
Aren gleefully laughs about how she easily could have been his savior. He had the LITERAL ONLY MAGICAL HEALER in his grasp, and he chose to abuse her.
He falls from grace, and even the prince acknowledges how scary Aren is.
Plot twist.
Daiman was obsessed with Aren in their shared past life. He cut her off from the world. He kept her his secret and he coveted her power and he was madly in love...but he was a bad yandere. He was not openly affectionate. He enjoyed controlling every step of her day. He knew she loved him unconditionally, so he made her chase him and beg for his love when she was lonely.
He brought in Lillian, a random woman, purely to make Aren jealous.
When Aren lashes out for the first time ever Daiman stabs her because he sucks, and he doesn’t want her to leave him. He didn’t want Aren to hate him. He just wanted her to be lonely whenever he wasn't around. He stabs her the second she falls out of love with him.
Lillian desperately tries to seduce him to save her own life, but Daiman cruelly torments her before he kills her too. He blames Lillian for ruining his perfect Aren.
Cassadim is a little less crazy. He gets the right to wed Aren after he does well in the war.
The audacity.
.
#Taming a Corrupted Slave Man#yandere#male yandere#yandere male#yandere boy#recommendations#recs#rec#recommended#webtoon#otome isekai#otome games
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𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐕𝐀𝐋 𝐓𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐏𝐄𝐓𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐒 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒.
All of these sentences are mostly taking by my own mind and i'm not joking. It was hard finding material quotes regarding tournaments in historical or fantasy setting. Some are from shows or media but eighty percent is all from my own mind, please give credit if use these. Change pronouns, names, locations as you see fit. All of these involve the medieval event of a tournament and what happens around them.
I fear I am already bending far too many rules just by taking you, my young princess.
Show me your hands, you will have blisters soon.
Lady Eglantine doesn’t believe in love, only lust.
In the world of competition, only the strongest shall prevail.
A true champion is not defined by their victories, but by the obstacles they've overcome.
Victory is sweetest when it's earned through sweat, hard work, and determination.
Will you not participate in the tourney, my lord?
May I have the honor of wearing your favor today, my lady?
Good luck to you, my Prince.
The tournament is not just a test of skill, but a test of character as well.
Is it always this bloody? Will those poor men die? Someone must see them.
I want him to wear my favor. Only him.
If he wins, the knight has the right to name his Queen of Love and Beauty. And at the feast, they shall dance.
Be careful. A tourney is a grand place for courtly love, but also, for blood to rise and affairs to appear.
Call me what you like, say I'm without honor, I don't care. I'm not getting on any more horses to whack you people with a stick.
Kings may be chosen by God, but they still make the mistakes of men.
When even those who rule can sink this low, it is not possible to change anything.
It's my lucky charm, be sure to bring it back to me.
My favorite blue ribbon. Take it.
It will bring you good fortune and you will return from joust unharmed.
I was hoping to ask for the Princess's favor.
How about a kiss, for luck?
Courtly love was the culture around the performance of love at court.
And now, rather than admit these feelings, you're dancing around one another with this mind-numbing and frankly boorish mating ritual.
The knights take on the duties of shadows with pride.
Whoever wins the tournament, shall become the prince/princess’ new betrothed.
You want to marry my daughter? Prove yourself worthy.
Petyr survived only because I begged Brandon not to kill him.
When Petyr heard of my engagement, he challenged Brandon to a duel.
You do qualify to marry my daughter.
What matters most is who she will give her favor to.
Her face is one that can create dynasties or crumble empires.
I was hoping for a word before you rode on the tourney, my Prince.
My brother is the one competing against you, please be gentle with him.
The games are done for the day, please, feast and drink as you wish.
You have been staring all day, my lord. I was beginning to wonder if I had something in my face.
Any damsel that's in distress - she'll be out of that dress when she meets Jim West.
Great men do not seek power... they have power thrust upon them.
My daughter seems. . .infatuated with you. I have yet to see why.
The princess is naive and thinks any man who is kind means well. A tournament will only show her the reality of life.
You honor the arena with your combat. May your swords and shield preserve the peace.
In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.
I will be brave for Princess Pea.
As a squire, your first duty is to your knight’s armor. Your knight’s armor is more important than your own life.
You will be knighted and you will have earned your knighthood.
You are hurt. At least let me tend to your wound.
The men laugh and fight and the ladies search for husbands.
Nothing like a good tournament to find a husband, or a companion for the night.
Rumors are always spread with ease in these.
Can I have your daughter for the rest of my life?
You say I'll never get your blessing till the day I die.
We're married now, but we still haven't told your dad. This is the right time.
Are you promised to someone?
My sister's getting married. It's a love match. A rare thing. I’m not so lucky. My husband is to be chosen by who can hold a sword the longer.
Why can’t women participate in the games?
There are games for the ladies, Your Grace. But they are less. . .gruesome. And of course, the dancing.
Princes and Princess all over the realm and across the sea are coming for this event. You must shine brighter.
Let me help you with your armor. It appears loose.
As I promised, I return your favor to you, my lady.
The Prince never loses a joust. He will crown his queen and then all will be well.
I do not understand the appeal of this.
I spend days making these favors, let me stay a little longer.
My lady, I do not need your favor to win, but perhaps, a kiss of good faith.
I do not care who wins these games, your hand is already arranged for another.
Men are scoundrel, specially when blood runs hot after a good battle, stray away from them.
These games are done in honor of the king’s heir.
The lord’s daughter is said to have bloomed, and the man chooses to announce it like this.
A tournament is for men to boost their strength, fathers sell their daughters like mares and for affairs to happen.
I saw you on the stands today, my lord. But you did not participate on the games.
My brother wishes to dance with you, my lady. He is all too shy to ask himself.
You were injured. Have you allowed someone to heal them or are you too stubborn to let them?
Princess, you must not stray too far away.
Mother is too drunk and annoyed to care, she won’t mind.
#roleplay memes#sentence meme#( cali meme. )#rp memes#rp prompt#rp musings#roleplay prompt#medieval meme#tournament meme#tourney meme
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rewatched saltburn for the 5th time today so here are my rewatch thoughts! 🌟
- opening shot ollie is smoking a cigarette meaning that after all these years of felix being dead he still holds onto the habit felix bestowed upon him: smoking. (there will always be traces of felix catton throughout ollie’s life…)
- ollie saying how exhausted felix was cuz of how often he was chased and adored by ppl is literally just him projecting & being annoyed that felix wasn’t his from the beginning
- “but was i “in love” with him?” yes. yes you were. yes you are. yes.
- ollie looking like such a fucking nerd when arriving at oxford. like boy if you don’t take THAT DAMN SCARF OFF i swear to god
- ollie looks so good with glasses ughhhhhhh
- the way ollie says “meryside” 🤤
- i will never get over farleigh’s voice like it’s so perfect
- as much as i hate michael gavey i will always quote his “NFI me and you…not fucking invited” line
- ollie is rizzing the shit out of felix with his blue eyes during the bike scene and i’ll always respect him for that
- the way farleigh says “jägerbombs!” is so satisfying
- i love ollie’s slutty little chain he wears
- felix amica. felix amica. felix amica. felix amica. felix amica. felix amica.
- ollie & felix look so happy dancing together 😭
- felix having his hand on ollie’s thigh as he does eenie meanie makes my brain short circuit
- “was it awful?” my god felix really is like elspeth
- this modern love playing as ollie finds felix at the pub surrounded by all his friends and the lyrics that play are “what are you holding out for? what’s always in the way?” UGH.
- felix being the first person ollie sees when he comes out of the exams 😭😭😭
- felix could have so kissed ollie during the bridge confession scene
- duncan scaring the shit out of ollie when he first arrives at saltburn makes me laugh so much i love him
- the way the sunlight accentuates felix’s torso through his linen shirt makes my head spin
- felix definitely made ollie & him share a bathroom on purpose
- “darling you’re kind about everyone” NO HE IS NOT. FELIX IS NOT KIND.
- pamela’s jewelry is to die for
- “so i hope you didn’t pack anything scandalous” DO YOU WANT HIM TO FELIX?????
- ollie giving venetia his blanket under the guise of “oh you must be cold here’s this” is so funny because i know he did that on purpose due to him knowing how venetia feels about him
- i love how emerald made ollie having a big dick canon lmao
- all of them watching the ring is so cute
- ollie sleeping as him and felix lounge by the pool together 😭
- ollie eye fucking felix as he sucks on an ice pop is so real
- LOOOVE farleigh’s “dump him” shirt
- felix giggling as he has ollie on his knees drinking wine is so cute
- the way ollie inhales shakily as he watches felix get off is so 😵💫😵💫😵💫
- i absolutely love how eager ollie is when he licks felix’s cum from the drain like ohhhhhhhhhh…..
- also ollie softly moaning as he does it my god sedate me
- i will never get over how ollie practically puts his whole fist in venetia’s mouth + smears the blood all over her mouth and chest
- farleigh playing fuck, chuck, or marry with the kings is literally just an opportunity for him to tell oliver he would fuck him + to also read ollie as an insecure parasite that only lives for getting what he wants & obviously ollie picks up on it
- ollie crying after felix scolds him about lying is so sad my god that boy was heartbroken
- farleigh telling ollie “try harder next time baby” is so hot FUCK
- the transition from ollie blowing out his candles to the song lonliness is probably one of the best transitions in media ever
- “i just need you to understand how much i fucking love you” MY HEART IS BREAKING.
- felix would so have kissed ollie in the maze if he wasn’t shoved away
- elspeth’s sob when she finds felix dead is one of the most earth shattering things i’ve ever heard especially accompanied with the swell of the orchestra it is absolutely gut wrenching
- the grave scene is so beautifully shot it makes me cry poor ollie just wanted to be close to his felix one more time
- seeing ollie dance naked around the house is just so freeing and !!!!!!
thats all my silly little commentary, thank you for reading my word vomit 🤗
#saltburn#saltburn posting#oliver quick#felix catton#cattonquick#felix x oliver#lgbtqia#wormswurld posts 🌟
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