#prince's gold star posts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

we-are-maladaptive · 8 months

Text

Scraped Knees & Silk Sheets

Prince!Shouto ♡ Maid!Reader - Chapter 1 out of ??

-> You've always been kind, wanting nothing more then to spread warmth into a cold castle. When you were a child, you had given some of your kindess to a boy in need. It was because he recognized your kindess, that you live to tell this story today.

fiction contains: fluff, angst, romance, reader is almost executed because endeavor is a piece of shit, eventual smut, eventual pregnancy, assassination, pining, shouto is a little too in love with reader, shouto is also an extreme romantic, reader is almost killed again because, you guessed it, endeavor is a piece of shit, pining, izuku + bakugou are shouto's right hand men, little bit of violence chapter contains: nothing extreme worth mentioning, shouto n reader are so cute omgomg PROLOUGE

COMMENT ON THIS POST TO BE ADDED TO THE NEXT CHAPTER'S TAGLIST.

chapter word count: 4.4k

Flowers fall salubriously over the skies of Venora, the sun’s warmth spreading over the fingertips of anyone sauntering outside to perform their duties for that day…or to any of the many children that decided to skip around their village knee-level of the citizens with flowers in their hair, engaging in anything that excited their blooming curiosity. Venora is one of- if not the most flourishing of countries, being outstandingly large, and having one of the most capable and efficient militia. It is a strong belief here that everyone has their purpose in life, and everyone has their own “talent” or gift given to them to serve that purpose. Many people are aware of their gifts from an early age, some without, and have hairs turning silver and still letting life lead them in whichever direction the wind blows. All in all, it’s a safe country to live your hopes and dreams in.

Besides, you learned the punishment for breaking some of the laws can be quite severe, and said punishments are severe enough to strike terror into the citizens who consider tampering with them.

“Really?? We get to visit the palace??” A little child squealed into their mother’s lap, that child just so happened to be you. Playing princesses with your friends was entertaining, yes, but it couldn’t compare with the real thing. It played over and over inside your feeble brain, the diamond chandeliers, the gold-plated statues, the doors, the throne room. Just the thought would make any insouciant child like yourself shake with anticipation.

“You mustn't make a scene when we get there, dear. As much as I understand your excitement, the palace can’t be mistaken to you as a place of fun and games, it’s quite serious. Your father is attending a meeting, so you and I get to stay for a while to attend the holiday. If you’re lucky, you might be able to attend the ball with me.” Your mother almost immediately regrets the last few sentences of her speech, now having to deal with a squealing 5-year-old who cannot control their emotions any longer. After a long sigh, she scooped you off her lap, walking over to the bedroom to place you into bed. There were paintings with stars and sparkles adorning the ceiling above your bed, and you convinced your mother to help hang stars from the faded paint spots. The dim lighting in a shade of dark blue truly did make the stars sparkle, including the ones hanging in your room and the stars that dance together in the sky. It made you wonder if they had the same paintings on the palace walls, maybe even more. With a kiss to your forehead, she tucked you in your bed and tried to step away, but failed due to you reaching out your tiny hand to grab onto her yellow sundress. “Do you think I can be a princess? Like the ones in the big palace?” “I'm sure you can, and I bet you’ll be the prettiest princess ever. However… I'm afraid princesses get beauty sleep, and at this rate, you’ll turn into a gremlin with baggy eyes!” She smiled when your body immediately went lax, and you flopped onto your bed sheets and snored as if you’d been sleeping for over a hundred years. With that, she left your room.

Your father was in a state of alamort, putting in as much effort as his soul allowed him to move your family higher status and reputation, but to no avail. His majesty had barely spared a glance at him, and he hoped that this ceremony would be an opportunity to bring his family higher. Your family was by no means struggling with money or bringing food on the table, more so struggling to maintain the reputation that's been withheld in your bloodline for generations.

Nobility was a hard bargain. Your surname was well known in the village you lived in, but it didn’t advance any farther than that. The family’s worth compared to that as a bystander you’d see in royal events, just slightly over a commoner, nothing to ever be placed near the grand royalty of the Todoroki bloodline.

The annual Crescent Moon ceremony was taking place in just a small amount of time, a celebration to symbolize family, fertility, empowerment, and to appreciate life’s lavish graces. It most certainly wasn’t the most important of events, but the meaning behind it gave reason to be very…lavish, and thriftless. A perfect event for a child to witness, as it romanticizes royal life to the utmost degree.

So, in the restless dreams of a 5-year-old girl, you’d be sitting on a throne adorned with diamonds, and a version of yourself that you would assume is an older you. A crown so shiny that if angled towards the sun, would blind anyone looking in your direction. It sits atop your perfectly placed strands of hair, not a single one out of place. Maybe if you thought hard enough, you’d be able to visualize a chromatic ring wrapped around your 4th finger, followed by the lips of a handsome prince pressed against the front of your hand.. is there a prince at the castle? Even a little girl can be bashful sometimes, maybe he’d be like the books, with a prodigious sword attached to his hip and weighty boots that slammed against marble floors, signaling his arrival earlier than his presence could. So.. speaking like a 5-year-old girl, this place is gonna be super duper awesome!!!

This… however..was not very awesome. It'd been almost.. 5 hours now? The sun is still high in the sky, burning down at the wooden carriage you rode in. It was hot, and your mother said that if you whined one more time about the heat, she’d make sure you’d get none of the palace desserts when they got to the capital of Venora, also known as Solaris. It was the diamond of the country, and where the tremendously large castle stays solemn. It’s where the royal family of Venora has resided for years. There are neighboring castles, much smaller, reserved for the high nobles, and your mother promised you’d get to see them when the carriage reached Solaris. Some were located on the way to the main castle, but some were buried deep in the wispy green forests, lakes, and hills that were outspread in Solaris, practically smothering the land. The only exception being the main village, which is said to be the largest city in the country. Your mother said that it’s not the best or most habitable place to live in. Tourists, and merchants, all of them practically suffocate the city, leaving little to no room for long-time inhabitants. If you want to live close to the castle, it’s best if you build your own place.

“Are we there-”

“Don’t even start, missy.” Your mother quipped before you could finish your childish statement.

“But-”

“You know, princesses are very calm and patient people. They ride in royal carriages all the time, simply waving at passersby. How could you be a princess if you can’t even make it to the castle without whining, dear?” Comparing you to a princess is the only way she knew would always get you to behave, it always worked well, proven by the silence the rest of the trip.

However, the mind of a little girl never stayed quiet, and as you peered out of the lights that the wood would allow, you could see your father’s carriage right in front of your own. It seemed that he was a quiet man, always thinking, but never speaking. Unless it was towards your mother about mundane things, he was always in his study, thinking. You couldn’t fathom what he could be up to, what could be so interesting or demanding that a simple nobleman as your father would be locked up inside the silence of his stone-walled office.

Sometimes at home, you’d see fathers - laughing and playing with their children, but that was never the case with yours. In fact, he never really spoke to your mother either. In contrast, your mother was as warm as a white fur blanket, like the ones she said were common in the palace, but rare and expensive to find in your own village. She always spoke with you, seeing as you had no other siblings. Speaking of which, you asked her about that idea once, having siblings. Quickly your mother hushed you of the idea, saying that it wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, almost looking hurt at what you said, so you never mentioned it again.

Having many children was a miracle at this age, why was she so against it-

The sound of faded cheers and chatter dragged you out of the deep reflection of your thoughts. Are we there yet-?

You slammed a hand over your mouth when you realized you had said that last part out loud, slowly turning your gaze over to your mother, who narrowed her eyes at you. Yet the look on her face quickly softened as she sighed, and announced; “Yes, we are here!” Even she couldn’t contain her excitement, yet she quickly had to compose herself and grab you, as you were just about to leap out of the carriage. “We are in Solaris, not near the castle yet. I can’t let you go out into the village, it’s filled with people for the ceremony and you’d surely be trampled. If you want to view the commotion, simply watch through the carriage.” She simply grinned at you as you whined, and pressed your face to the carriage glass.

The sun was still in the sky, but much lower. You had made it to your temporary estate, and you were astounded at the sheer size of the exterior. It was nearly thrice as big as your regular estate, with gardens on each side with their own unique plants, your favorite being the dazzling lilies on the left side, and the charming gladiolus on the right. There was even a butler waiting for you, and you scampered up to him with a smile, which he gladly returned to you. Your mother was, discreetly, also amazed at the size, simply internalizing her emotions, with nothing but soft upturned lips and a slight sparkle in her eyes. Your father, though, had the exact opposite emotions. He looked rather displeased, evident with the slight scowl on his face, what could he be so upset about? You decided to tug on his suit pants, directing his scowl at you, but he loosened his angry face at the sight of your frown.

“Why are you sad, pa? This place is so big!” He lost his scowl completely, opting to look at you with a neutral face instead to not upset you anymore, and walking towards the front door of the estate, lamenting to himself instead “It could have been bigger.”

The inside was just as impressive, ancient paintings with gold plated frames, silverware decorated in intricate patterns and designs carved into the metal. The thing that caught your eye the most, was the stunning piano in the foyer of the estate. You had half the mind to climb the piano stool, and mash your little fingers against the keys, you were almost successful too, if it weren’t for your mother holding the collar of your dress. …

Much to your mother’s delight, the length of the trip ended up giving her a tuckered-out 5 year old. This was good anyway, the ceremony was tomorrow evening, and they wouldn’t be leaving the estate for another 3 weeks, anyway. This part seemed to be the only thing that pleased your father, maybe it was because this gave him more time to talk with The King himself.

Your mother had a very difficult pregnancy regarding your birth. Infact, the birth itself was a blur in her memory. From what the midwives had told her, the bleeding was what almost caused her death. Luckily, her having held onto the strings of consciousness for just a few moments longer was what caused her to recover just enough for the healer to arrive intime. Due to the heavy bleeding, it was highly encouraged, almost demanded of her, that she never conceive again.

This had angered your father to no end. He had at least one child, but it wasn’t a male..an “heir” to his legacy. No matter how many times you had promised him to carry on his legacy, he wouldn’t listen. His anger got so severe, he had almost forced himself onto your mother- completely disregarding her safety, all for the chance of an heir. From what little bit of morals he had left, he stopped.

This was the reason why he was quite desperate in his attempts to raise his family’s status and reputation, but in this day and age, a daughter and a title can only get you so far. He watched as his once peers outgrew him in their own rankings, no longer speaking to him and throwing away their companionships as if it had only been brought together by a scroll, waxed stamp, and word from the king.

Deep down inside, he wanted to be able to disregard people like that- and throw them away. He’d never admit it, though.

The sun hadn’t even risen yet, but the whirlwind of activity never slept on a day such as this one. Your estate was over a mile away from the bustling city, and yet the cheers could be heard as loudly as the chirping birds outside the windowsill. Your mother must have heard it too, as she appeared in front of your doorway.

“I'm glad that trip wore you out enough to have you sleep in early, I'm afraid that was all the amount of soundful sleep you're going to get until the cheers die down in a few days.” She smiled at your little pout, walking over to you and gently pushing your fists away from your eyes as you rubbed them.

“Nonetheless, I bet you’ll be glad to hear that we get to enter the palace early, so it’s best you get yourself ready now, that is if you want to be princess material.”

“…Do I get to pick out my dress?”

“Of course you do.”

The sun was now peeking above the horizon, almost as if it was hiding from the beautiful chaos to come. The fear collides with the sky in an ethereal array of colors, the exact same array of colors as your dress. A shimmering light yellow, something lighter and purer than golden honey, but just as divine. It’s adorned with coral-like pink colored designs, and the prettiest golden shoes to go along with it. A dress, truly, fit for a princess.

The maid finished the final touches of the curls in your hair, so defined that they bounced on your head whenever you jumped in delight, much to the maid’s displeasure.

The sun had finally crept from its hiding place, now sitting lowly in the sky. It’s still well before noon, and you were stepping outside the estate with your mother’s hand holding your own. She wore a dress similar to your own, but fully yellow. Your father stood in front of you both. He was..suspiciously quiet, to say the very least. It was one thing to be in your own head, but his eyes seemed dark, like he was thinking about one thing only.

However, he snapped out of it when he realized the carriage wasn’t coming as soon as he expected it to.

People with high reputations get invited to the castle far far earlier than commoners get the chance to even get close to it. The earlier you get in depends on your status, and clearly your father thought he’d be escorted by now, and his pride would not allow him to go back inside to wait. Even the butler was starting to get concerned, it had now been over an hour waiting outside. Your mother had tried to persuade him 30 minutes ago, but was met with a rather harsh lecture, and didn’t dare to press further. He wouldn’t allow you two to go back inside either.

Finally, after about an hour and thirty minutes, the carriage arrived at your estate. Luckily the sun still wasn’t high enough in the sky, and the air still had a slight chill to it, so you didn’t overheat too much, it was just a little bit too warm for your liking.

The carriage was beyond anything you’d ever seen. It was laced with gold and diamonds beyond comparison to anything you’d ever seen. It was lavish, and the seats were laced with cold silk, much to your delight.

There were no words to describe the castle, none at all. Well, if you could explain it in one way… large. It took nearly 30 minutes to just get out of the carriage, due to the huge lineup at the side entrance. That was another thing your father hated, that he wasn’t “noble” enough to use the grand front entrance. You couldn’t even register his anger though, as you stepped out of the carriage the only thing you could think about was the sheer size and elegance at the massive structure standing proudly before you eyes. You clutched onto your mother tightly, as it felt as though you’d get lost if you so much as moved an inch from her body.

This was the moment you separated from your father, as though he had other plans, and stuck to your mother, heading towards the ladies’ hall, a portion of the castle where all the noblewoman and their ladies-in-waiting sat together for tea, from what you heard. It was strange though, why didn’t your mother have her own lady in waiting?

When inside the hall, you followed you mother to the room where the commotion was coming from, and were surprised by the sheer elegance of the woman inside. Did they go to galas all day? The ballgowns and tiaras they wore told you so, there was no way they could sit in such attire all day without dying.

You were almost intimidated by them as the silence built up and your mother walked in with you in her grasp. However, a breath of relief washed over you as some of the women smiled at you and your mother with a courtly wave, and a small portion just simply decided to ignore your existence, and go back to whatever conversation they were having moments prior.

Your mother seemed even more relieved as you did, surely feeling the anxiety building up about her own place in the room. She was older, but still had the girlish tendencies of wanting to fit in.

One of the noblewoman was very welcoming, opting to stand up from her loveseat and make her way over to your mother with a warm smile and curtsey. She even smiled down at you, which made your heart leap at the thought of being greeted by a princess.

“I see you’ve come right on time, and you’ve brought us a gift, too.” notioning at you, “she’ll fit in well with all of our children, the little girls out in the garden. It’s safe here, if she wants to play with them.”

Your mother curtseyed back, “I’m sure she’d like that, do you want to go [Y/N]?”

“Mhm!” The lady in front of your mother giggled at you, and notioned her head towards the entrance of the side garden. Your mother nodded at you, giving you permission to go, and so you skipped off.

The garden was filled with children playing and flowers of all colors blooming from every direction. Some children opted to go a little too high on the large garden swing, others chased butterflies, which is what you did. You got along well with a blond-haired blue-eyed girl, her hair tied up in pigtails and wearing a bright blue dress with gold accessories on it. She had some freckles on her face too, as she proclaimed to be “the professional of catching butterflies”. She taught you how to do it as well, and ushered you to catch the white and red colored butterfly, what an interesting color.

So you followed it, as it fluttered away into the forest-like part of the garden, with trees for what felt like miles. There were no children here, except for you and the childish butterfly slipping from your grasp at every chance.

Well, you thought you were the only child, until you heard crying from a distance.

A boy, about 8-9 years old, was sitting under an oak tree with tears in his eyes.

You hated it when people cried, you always ended up crying with them, but you’d try to keep your composure for the sake of this boy.

A light tap on his knee had him flinching, looking up at the person who had just dared to disturb him and his privacy. Almost regretting it, as he didn’t want to scare the intruder with the horrid scar on his face, but to his surprise, you didn’t flinch or widen your eyes at all. He was even more surprised at the person who was in front of him-

It was just a child.

“…What do you want?”

“Why are you crying?”

He didn’t answer your question.

“Is it because you're lonely?” “..No.”

“Are you nervous about the ceremony? I know it’s pretty scary, but can’t you believe how big this place is? As long as you have your parents by your side, you won't get lost! What’s your name?”

You didn’t know who he was, he was sure of that now. Giving away his last time would reveal who he was. He’d never had an outsider talk to him like a normal person before, and he wouldn’t admit it, but he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the informality, in contrast to the formality that he was forced to drown in all his life, up until now.

“..Shouto. This place is big..but I am used to it.”

“Oh! Do you come here often?? Oh- and my name is [Y/N]!! Unlike you- I am TERRIFIED! I feel like I might get lost here! Like I might get sucked up into a painting or something!”

“..You can’t get stuck in paintings.”

“Of course not silly! I’m just joking!”

“Oh.”

“Uhm.. is it because of your injury? Does it hurt?” you pointed at the scar on his eye. Clearly this wasn’t the best thing to have said, as the boy looks like he’s going to cry again.

“No.. it doesn’t hurt..well..not in that way I don’t think.” His voice is wobbly.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry Shouto. I hope it doesn’t hurt at all. When you grow up, though, I’m sure people will respect you alot with that super duper awesome scar!

“…What?”

“Well..your scar, it looks cool!”

“It..does?” He looked at you like you had grown a second head. He’d never been told that his scar looked cool before. When the incident happened a few years ago, the only thing he was ever met with was horrid looks and fear.

“Of course it does! It’s like you battled one of those big dragons and came back to tell the story! Or- or you're an amazing knight who battled an entire army!”

“A dragon..an army.” He wasn’t frowning anymore, and maybe it was just your imagination, but you swore you saw his lips turn upwards just slightly, thinking about the idea.

“Yeah! Even better if you saved a princess along the way!” That striked an idea to your head, and you began to climb up the tree he was curled under a few moments prior. Only making it to the middle of the tree, you started to faux cry.

“Heeeelp me Shouto!!" The dragon is going to eeeeatt me!!! I’ll become dinner to a hungry dragon!!!”

He looked at you, “There’s no dragon?”

“You have to pretend, silly.”

“Oh, okay.”

He tried his best to climb up the tree, and to your surprise, he did it alot better than you did. He grabbed your hip and pulled you out of the tree, placing you back on your feet.

“You saved me! You are a true heeeero, knight Shouto! The king will surely reward you for your greatness!” with that, you attempted to flash him your best princess smile, you’ve been practicing.

He giggled at you, which nearly surprised himself. It’d been years since he genuinely smiled, let alone laughed at anything.

His laughter was cut short though, with the sound of someone calling your name, in a rather panicked fashion.

“Oh… I have to go..or my mama will be soo mad at me, Shouto.”

“That’s… okay.” He frowned. “You're going to the event, right..?”

“Mhm!” You beamed up at him.

“..What’s your family's name?”

“Uhm.. my last name?”

“Yes.”

“Ohh! It’s [L/N].”

“I see. [F/N],[L/N] is it?” He thought to himself for a moment, then looked at you.

“Yep! That is mee!” You smiled once, again this time he smiled back.”

“[Y/N]!!!” The voice that was calling you got louder this time, startling you both.

With a final wave and a “Goodbye Shouto!! I’ll see you at the ball!” you ran back in the direction you came from, or, where the voice came from? You hoped you were running in the right direction.

“..Goodbye..[Y/N].”

Now he was left by himself again.

Shouto had his own fears and insecurities, all bundled up inside his broken heart and he didn’t have the strength to piece them back together alone. The people alongside him didn’t do much to help, not even his own prestigious family, the ones who were always supposed to be incharge and handle the country with diamond crowns on their heads.

He knew that the same neglectful family would come looking for him soon after they found out he wasn’t isolated in his room like they had thought he had been doing.

And he didn’t think that the one who would even try to piece his heart back together would be a girl 4 years younger than him. That she would make him happy.

Shouto Todoroki was happy with you, and you alone. Even if it was just for a moment, he remembered it well, and he would for the rest of his life.

AUTHORS NOTE: aerhsbdv eliusbfdv awilsubdf fkdbv its 12:34am please i want to be tumblr and a03 famous i put my whole constanceussy into this

IF YOU WANT TO BE APART OF THE TAGLIST FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT ON THIS POST!

204 notes · View notes

inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 1 year

Text

Now I’m Covered In You [Chapter 1: Afternoon Light]

Series summary: Aemond is a prince of England. You are married to his brother. The Wars of the Roses are about to begin, and you have failed to fulfill your one crucial responsibility: to give the Greens a line of legitimate heirs. Will you survive the demands of your family back in Navarre, the schemes of the Duke of Hightower, the scandals of your dissolute husband, the growing animosity of Daemon Targaryen…and your own realization of a forbidden love?

Series title is a lyric from: Ivy by Taylor Swift.

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+), dubious consent, miscarriage, pregnancy, childbirth, violence, warfare, murder, alcoholism, sexism, infidelity, illness, death, only vaguely historically accurate, lots of horses!

Word count: 3.9k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

A/N: Not me pulling a Tom Brady by announcing my retirement only to immediately un-announce it. 😂😂 I regret to inform you that I am apparently incapable of not writing fanfiction. I had no ideas for a grand total of 1 week before this story showed up and possessed me entirely against my will...and then I fell in love with it. I’m still working on my book, but I had to get this out of my system too. I hope you enjoy it. 💜 I’ll tag some of my past readers, but I WILL NOT TAG YOU AGAIN unless you ask me to! 🥰

@elsolario @ladylannisterxo @doingfondue @tclegane @quartzs-posts @liathelioness @aemcndtargaryen @thelittleswanao3 @burningcoffeetimetravel @poohxlove @borikenlove @myspotofcraziness @travelingmypassion @graykageyama @skythighs @lauraneedstochill @darlingimafangirl @charenlie @thewew @eddies-bat-tattoos @minttea07 @joliettes @trifoliumviridi @flowerpotmage @thewitch-lives @tempt-ress @padfooteyes @teenagecriminalmastermind @chelsey01 @anditsmywholeheart @heliosscribbles @killerqueen-ofwillowgreen @narwhal-swimmingintheocean @tillyt04 @cicaspair418 @fan-goddess

He’s thrusting into you, but you’re miles away: a speck of an island in the Mediterranean Sea, the glimmer of an unnamed star.

His rhythm is clumsy but never rough. He smells like wine and sandalwood, lavender and bleak perspiration. You moan when he expects you to. Your body moves with his, compliant, complicit. You roll your hips and tug at his white-blond hair, corollaries of ecstasy you wish you felt. You’ve learned to feign pleasure convincingly. Aegon will stop if he thinks you’re not enjoying yourself, and you need this to be over. What do you want me to do to you? he’ll ask, cerulean eyes drunk and muddy, words slurred, body repositioning. Do you like it this way? How about this? You can’t bear his curious consideration, his invasive hands. You don’t really like it any way. You’ve grown to accept that. You’ve had time to get used to the idea.

The air is sharp with the mineral ether of sex. Spots on the sheet beneath you are wet, clinging, cold. When Aegon kisses you—sloppily, carelessly—your lips and tongue follow his, willing him to finish, your eyes squeezed shut as he gropes your face with ungainly fingers. And at last, it’s done: he shudders, groans, flops down beside you on the mattress.

“Well done, wife,” Aegon pants. He gives your disheveled hair one absentminded stroke and then gazes up at the canopy, cloth embroidered with green roses and spiraling gold dragons. He yawns, his eyes dipping closed. The rise and fall of his bare, glistening chest is slowing.

“Aegon?”

“Hm?” He is inconvenienced; he is already half-asleep.

You roll onto your side, turning towards him. Aegon feels the mattress shift. Reluctantly, he rouses himself, sighs, swallows the rest of the wine in the cup he left perched on the nightstand. “I’m so sorry,” you say softly.

“About what?” He peers at you, groggy and half-listening, stray beads of red wine like blood on his chin. “Oh, yes. That.”

That. What he means is three miscarriages in one year, all early, all excruciating beyond words, all destructive to both the body and the soul. “You have no idea how hard I’m trying.”

“Don’t worry yourself, wife,” he says, yawning again. He always calls you that—wife—with a vague, impersonal fondness. Aegon doesn’t know anything about you. He doesn’t seem interested in remedying that. He doesn’t see it as something to be remedied at all. He attempts to set his empty cup back on the nightstand and doesn’t notice when it tumbles off and clanks against the floor. He burrows beneath the blankets like a hedgehog. “We’ll get it right eventually.”

Eventually, you think with horror, as you are left alone in the candlelight; Aegon plummets into sleep and is silent except for his snoring. How long will I have to do this?

Twelve months of marriage and you are no closer to fulfilling your purpose here. You are told what to eat, when to sleep with your husband, how to lie still afterwards so his seed can take hold, which saints to pray to. You are offered tender-voiced morsels of advice until they feel more like palms cracking across your face than gifts. Every second of your existence is consumed by the desperate need for Aegon’s heir, for the Greens’ future. And each time you lose a pregnancy, the clock starts over again.

How long can I do this before it breaks me, kills me, drives me mad?

~~~~~~~~~~

When a northern pike glides through cool rippling currents, yellow perch and bluegills scatter; and that’s exactly what the courtiers do to you. It’s a bit like living inside a glass bowl: people press their palms to the arched walls and stare like you’re a captive animal—a leopard or an elephant or a white bear from the Arctic—but they don’t speak to you. None of them know what to say. There are whispers flying, women in gowns and men in tunics gossiping about how last night was the first time the prince returned to your bed since your most recent miscarriage. The tentative speculation can begin again, glances at your waistline and delicate inquiries about your health. Bets are placed on whether you will at last produce an heir this time: boy, girl, white-haired or not, early, late, alive, dead. The clock has been reset.

You do not allow anyone to see your pain, your desperation. You have no true friends here. You are allied with the Greens, yes, but that does not mean they are your friends. The Duke of Hightower, chief advisor to the king, was insistent that you bring none of your ladies with you from your homeland; and so the women who attend you are English, polite but not particularly devoted, dutiful but not reliably discreet. He wanted no weak links, no chess pieces that he could not entirely control, no loyalties that ran deeper than his ambitions for Alicent and her children. Now, the Duke of Hightower is fiercely disappointed with you. He’s losing his ability to hide it.

As you traverse the Great Hall of Westminster Palace—an island, a lone cloud roaming across a clear sky—Prince Daemon, smirking and wolflike, stalks into your path.

“Hello there, Navarre,” he says, circling with one hand on the hilt of his sword, his strange deep-set eyes flicking all over you. He likes to call you this, a reminder of where you came from, of why Aegon married you: for an alliance, for advantages in the inevitable civil war when King Viserys dies, for heirs intrinsically linked with the Continent. You were one piece of a far grander design. Helaena was married off to Castile, you were brought west from Navarre, and thus the Greens gained supporters in the Iberian Peninsula. Helaena has given birth to one healthy son so far, and by all accounts has found great happiness in her new life across the Bay of Biscay. Daemon never tires of drawing attention to the fact that you have yet to fulfill your half of the bargain.

You bow your head swiftly, without conviction. “Prince Daemon.”

“My, that’s quite an extravagant gown. What have you got hidden under it? Your father’s famed archers, perhaps? Gold coins and steel daggers? I know what Prince Aegon would want under his skirts.” Daemon grins. “Lady Joanna Montford. Or is it Mountford? You must forgive me, I’m always mixing up the details.”

“I’ll defer to your better judgment, you have far more experience with whores than I do.”

He offers you a single rose, dyed black. “I regret that I did not have the opportunity to properly express my condolences after your most recent loss. It’s become difficult to keep up with them, they’ve grown so numerous. I’m sure you understand.”

You take the rose; untrimmed thorns bite into the defenseless flesh of your fingertips, but you don’t let it show on your face. “Only one from you? Your wife sent me a dozen.” They were red, the color of Navarre’s flag; though the resemblance to blood did not escape you.

“Yes, it’s true, her heart remains rather tender, much to my chagrin.”

“And yours remains nonexistent.” You pluck onyx petals from the rose one by one and toss them to the floor. Courtiers watch this, chattering spiritedly.

Daemon is still grinning. He has won. It never matters what you say, what you do; until you give Aegon a son, in every interaction Daemon walks away the victor. “I hope you enjoy the rest of this glorious July afternoon. And I hope you enjoy your evening as well. And the evening after that, and the evening after that…” He prowls closer, his voice dropping low and sinister. “And all those countless, blundering, long evenings you’ll spend under your mortifying drunk of a husband.”

You rip away from him—not his hands, no, even Daemon would not deign to touch you in front of an audience, but from his suffocating antipathy—and continue on your way to the royal stables, courtiers dispersing in your wake like startled doves. The cobblestones of the palace gardens are weather-beaten and craggy as you sail over them, warm summer wind in your hair, the hem of your gown dragging. Herbs and spices grow high and vivid green: angelica for digestion, feverfew for headaches, St. John’s wort for melancholy, betony to ward off evil spirits, chamomile to bring sleep, rosemary to quell nightmares, pennyroyal to induce a woman’s monthly blood. You have the opposite problem. All you seem to be able to do is bleed.

Inside the royal stables, the world is reduced to hushed subtleties: hooves thudding against straw, nickers and huffs, the swishing of tails, cascading sunlight dotted with whirling planets of dust. You drift by each of the stalls, inhaling the scent of horses and mid-summer. King Viserys promised you an Andalusian, brought by ship all the way from your homeland, for each child born to you and Aegon; alas, none of the animals housed here are yours yet. There’s Sunfyre, an Akhal-Teke, small-boned and shimmering gold. There’s Caraxes, a temperamental blood bay Arabian, and Syrax, a Marwari, cremello with blue eyes and delicate ears that curl in towards each other. Tessarion is a dappled blue-grey Percheron, young but gaining height and brute force each day. Jacaerys and Lucerys have Marwaris like their mother, Baela and Rhaena own volatile Arabians like their father. Joffrey is still riding a slow, potbellied pony; little Aegon III, Viserys II, and Visenya cannot ride at all yet. Every time you blink, it seems, the Blacks have added another child to their ranks, another inheritor to carry their claim forward. Your stomach sinks beneath your skin and scarlet ropes of muscle, a basket full of rocks.

You stop at the last stall, twice the size of any of the others. Vhagar towers over you. She is an English Great Horse, and the largest one that anyone can remember knowing of; her coat is a dark, lustrous brown, her massive hooves feathered, her muzzle sloped and velvety when you lay your palm against it. She lets you do this, as she always does; more than that, you think, she welcomes it.

You remove the letter from your bodice, your true purpose for coming here. You want to read it where you can be alone, where there are no prying eyes to report back to King Viserys, Queen Alicent, the Duke of Hightower, Aegon, Daemon, Rhaenyra the Crown Princess. You must keep your composure, your dignity. It’s all you have left.

You unfold the letter, your gaze skimming across your mother’s words, the slopes and summits of her letters heartbreakingly familiar, her fears loud through the ink-and-parchment silence. You expected this, and yet the weight of it stacks up in your ribcage like the splintered wreckage of a ship.

Think, my love, the Queen of Navarre writes. Think of everything you do, see, say, and feel. There is something that is poisoning the children inside of you. Do not trouble yourself with court gossip or bitter rivalries. You cannot serve your husband’s family—your family, now—if your attention is divided and your heart heavy with doubts. Shut yourself away from all things impassioned. Commit yourself to prayer and needlework. Purify yourself, dear daughter, prepare yourself in body and soul. God answers the cries of those who have won his favor.

You crumple the letter in your fists and then rip it to pieces, not out of wrath but so that nobody else might read it. The fragments flutter away like autumn leaves. You cannot resent your mother for her cushioned reprimands. She means well, but she cannot hope to understand; she bore ten children, eight of whom lived past the cradle, with no exceptional difficulty. Your father has taken mistresses on occasion, but not until years into his marriage, and regardless of his dalliances your mother remains his confidant, his greatest desire, his heart. Your life is nothing like hers. Your future has become something you didn’t know existed. You feel as if you have stumbled into a mirror, a duplicate world where everything is the same but the wrong way around. Where is your own satisfaction? Where is your soulmate?

There are footsteps, and you spin to see Prince Aemond standing in the doorway. He immediately turns to leave, and this is unsurprising; he never speaks to you, rarely looks at you, glides out of rooms as you come into them. You had once hoped to befriend him before his aversion to the notion became clear. He is palpably disinterested in you. But this afternoon as warm golden sunlight spills down on him, for reasons you cannot fathom, he hesitates; and now he’s waited too long, it would be rude for him to flee so obviously from you. Slowly, Aemond walks into the stable. He is so much like Daemon, though lighter: not in color but in gravity, his steps quieter, his hands graceful and precise. You’ve never seen him without his eyepatch. The Blacks call the cause of his maiming a sparring accident, the Greens call it an ambush, King Viserys doesn’t call it anything; perhaps he has forgotten it completely.

You expect Aemond to demand to know what you’re doing here, to scold you for jeopardizing your health with unnecessary excursions. “I’m so sorry for what you’re going through,” he says instead, his voice whisper-soft like pattering spring rain, like a leaf of lamb’s ear threaded between your fingers. “I hope my brother has been…kind about it.”

“He’s very kind. He doesn’t mention it at all.” Not once has anybody said those three words to you: I’m so sorry. They lift a million pounds from your shoulders, an eon of stones from your belly. “In fact, no one speaks of it with me. They speak in my direction, they tell me what to do differently, they assign blame…but no one has any interest in what I have to say back. No one asks me what it feels like to…to…”

It shocks you, knuckles to the gut: your breath hitches, your lips tremble, you swallow down tears like poison. It’s humiliating, this display of helplessness, this shattering of regal poise. You shield your face with both hands so Aemond cannot watch you war with yourself. And surely he is repulsed by you, this prince who has been mutilated and unavenged and overlooked since childhood. You have never known anyone as self-possessed as Aemond Targaryen. He endures all of life’s trials without emotion, without weakness. He must be appalled that you cannot do the same.

Yet when you are at last confident that you will not weep in front of him, you lower your hands to see that Aemond has silently obliterated the space between you. He is close enough to touch, his palm pressed to Vhagar’s monstrous neck. He’s looking at the horse, but he is listening to you. “She likes you,” he says gently. “She doesn’t like anyone.”

You’ve never been in such proximity to Aemond before. He’s taller than you remember; his eye is watchful and intent, a paler shade of blue than Aegon’s, more clear, a river rather than a sea riotous with storms. When you inhale, you taste pieces of him: leather, musk, the smoke of a blacksmith’s forge. There’s an abrupt weakness in your knees and ankles that you pretend not to notice. “Most of my friends have hooves these days.”

“I never see you go out riding.”

“I’m not allowed to.”

For an instant, his brow knits with confusion, and then he remembers. Horseback riding is thought to be calamitous for pregnancy, and your chances are slim enough already. “But that’s something that you once enjoyed, back in Navarre?” You flinch when you hear the name of your homeland, a reflex, Daemon’s taunts ringing in your skull like church bells. Everyone knows that’s what he calls you. “Forgive me, perhaps that word has painful connotations now.”

“It doesn’t sound so bad when you say it.” And that’s true: it’s not a dagger but a murmur, a musing, a dream. “Yes, I used to love riding horses. And dancing, attending hunting expeditions, reading poetry, plucking olives from the trees…my brothers and I would even knock swords together sometimes in the courtyard.” You smile wistfully, then lose it like a gull feather on waves. “And now I don’t do anything.”

“What brings you happiness here in England?”

“Nothing,” you reply, meeting his gaze for the first time. He studies you, his eye blue like the mid-summer afternoon sky, searching. And suddenly, you’ve never felt more interesting, you’ve never felt such raw hunger to unearth everything you’re built of. You skate your palm down Vhagar’s face and confess quietly, shakily: “I always thought I would teach my children to ride horses.”

“You will someday,” Aemond insists.

“When you’re little, five or ten years old, you dream about growing up and all the miraculous things you’ll be. And then you finally become an adult and you meet the rest of your life and…and…” You don’t like it. “It’s so different from what you imagined.”

“Yes,” Aemond agrees, soft and mournful.

“But I’ve interrupted you,” you say. “You came here to take Vhagar riding, I’m sure, and now you’re caught in my little web of nostalgia and self-pity. Please, accept my apology, and don’t let me delay you any further.”

“I was planning to go riding,” Aemond admits. He’s wearing a black leather messenger bag, you notice for the first time. He pulls at the strap that hangs from his right shoulder self-consciously. You have never seen Aemond betray any sign of self-consciousness before this moment. In many ways, you have never seen him at all. He asks you pointedly: “What if I took Vhagar out walking you accompanied me?”

“I told you. I can’t.”

“Not riding,” Aemond says. “Just walking. We’ll lead her down to the edge of the forest, let her stretch her legs a bit and eat some of the fallen apples. You’re allowed to walk, aren’t you?”

“I suppose so.” You stare at him, perplexed. You almost ask why he would offer to do such a thing, why he would feel inspired to raise your spirits. But you don’t want him to change his mind. You point to his messenger bag. “What do you have in there?”

“Parchment. Quills. A bottle of ink.”

“What do you write? Battle plans? Letters to marriageable foreign noblewomen?”

“Poems,” Aemond confesses in a whisper you can barely hear, not looking at you.

“Could I read some of your poems?”

“No,” he says immediately, startled.

“Never mind. It was wrong of me to ask.”

He doesn’t reply; he just fetches Vhagar’s halter from the hook on the stable wall, black leather studded with sapphires the size of ladybugs. She allows Aemond to place it on her without any resistance. He attaches the lead chain—heavy silver links—but he doesn’t need it. Vhagar follows him out of the stables, her colossal hooves drumming like distant thunder, her jet black mane whipping in the wind. Aemond matches his pace with yours as the three of you cross the emerald green field that separates Westminster Palace from the tree line of the forest.

After strolling for a while—Vhagar chomping on apples, you stepping gingerly over felled branches and gnarled roots—you and Aemond sit beneath a sprawling cedar that blots out the sun, its limbs like the wings of a dragon. He recounts myths and legends of England, things that Aegon has not thought to share with you once in the past twelve months, weeks of which you spent in bed bleeding out his would-be children: King Arthur and Beowulf, Robin Hood and the Rollright Stones, Saint George the guardian of the royal family. And as Aemond speaks, at some point you stop hearing him and start seeing him, everything that brought him here, everything that will happen next.

Once upon a time, King Viserys named his daughter Rhaenyra his successor. She was his only surviving offspring, the last vestige of his cherished wife Aemma, dead in fruitless childbirth and cold in her tomb in Windsor Castle. The king then promptly remarried and fathered four more Targaryens, closer to afterthoughts than assets in his eyes: Aegon, Helaena, Aemond, Daeron. Rhaenyra is still the king’s favorite, and is much loved in Northern England, where her mother hailed from. She has the support of Scotland as well. Her marriage to their Crown Prince Laenor Velaryon was meant to consolidate the two nations under one ruling family, one flag. To reinforce this alliance, her uncle Daemon wed Laenor’s sister Laena. But then Laena died, and Laenor did too, and all those tragic pieces fell together for Rhaenyra to get what she evidently wanted all along: Daemon in wedlock, in her confidence, in her bed. Her sons with Laenor will soon marry his daughters with Laena, and each new white-haired child she produces with her uncle gives the Blacks one more dynastic pawn to play in the game of thrones.

The merchants of Southern England—the Duke of Hightower foremost among them—are aghast at the thought of Rhaenyra’s ascension. No woman has ever successfully ruled England, and she is sure to be malevolently influenced by her uncle-husband. The Pope will not sanction their incestuous union, nor those of their children, though this does not daunt the Blacks. They will make a new order here in the British Isles; they will not play by the Continent’s rules. In reply, the kingdoms of Western Europe—to varying degrees of zealousness—support the Greens and the coronation of Aegon II upon his father’s death. King Viserys is in fine health now, but that could change at a moment’s notice: with a fall from a horse, with veins darkened by infection, with a vial of poison, with a resurgence of Plague. When the king is dead, Aegon must have every possible advantage to offer England, including a clear line of succession. This was supposed to be your role. This has become your greatest failure. Yet here under a hundred-year-old cedar tree outside Westminster Palace, Aemond makes you forget that for a while.

Hours later, you are back in your bedchamber when your husband arrives to fuck you. That’s a crude word for it, but that’s exactly what it is: something he does to you, not with you. You gulp down a cup of your apple cider, the drink you like best here in England, not as thick and bitter as ale, not a poor imposter of the Continent’s red wine. It is bright, sweet, sometimes vaguely minty. It makes you think of spring and summer, of rebirth. It fills you with the undying ambition to bear fruit of your own.

You turn to Aegon, who is yanking off his white shirt with his back to you, his hair in disarray, his pores sweating out wine and indifference. He crawls into the bed on all fours, slapping himself lightly across the face, forcing himself to stay awake until the act is done.

And you think, for the very first time: I wonder what it would have been like to marry Aemond.

#aemond targaryen #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond one eye #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you #hotd fanfic

406 notes · View notes

anna-scribbles · 1 year

Note

hey anna! the wait for kwami’s choice part 2 truly is abysmal and it’s so hard to navigate through the tag with all the leaks about, do you have any fic recs to tide us over until gloob puts us out of our misery?

not only do I have fic recs, I also have way too much to do rn and therefore will spend an inordinate amount of time crafting a detailed rec list for you 😘 (we can also just consider this my 2022 ao3 wrapped lol)

goes without saying perhaps, but ANYTHING by @peachcitt is gold and also uniquely devastating, some of my particular favorites being:

metamorphosis - 97k, enemies, sleepovers, you get it. i'm normal

those benevolent stars - 23k, ladrien thief/prince/soulmates au. what more do I even need to say

chat noir's white french man hit list for feminist purposes - 7k, hilarious and devastating, this fic is a child to me

double dare - 32k, ladrien, absolutely everything. cemented my friendship w/ peach bc I had to scream at her everyday abt it

I thought the plane was going down - 11k, attuned to my tastes specifically, adrinette having a History while on airplanes

@carpisuns also puts out banger after banger like it's her dayjob, specializing in understanding the ridiculous nature of the lovesquare to such a degree and also being the funniest person alive. some of my faves from her are:

tell me something I don't know - 120k, the marichat fic EVER, mar's dissertation on lovesquare and guess what she's right

pink - 14k wip, adrien loves marinette, SOFT

two idiots and a hamster (collab with @botherkupo) - 24k, adrinette roommates, makes me cry laugh

@picayunearts is a goddess on earth. she bends word and image flawlessly to her will. recently she has enraptured me with

final girl - 41k, marichat, au where marinette succeeds in giving up her miraculous to alya in origins. INCREDIBLE marinette character study

@rosekasa invented ladynoir and i'm not afraid to say it. check out everything on her ao3 but just note the following

when things were good - 15k wip, breakup fic/post hawkmoth takedown, has been ruining me in a SPECIAL way

new marinette 12k, post-guardianship memory loss marinette, a classic

like poles of a magnet - 12k, enemies au, hurts my feelings

ya'aburnee - 13k, ladynoir, HURTS ME VERY MUCH. I'VE NOT RECOVERED

@buggachat's fics always feel like i'm attending a course on adrien and marinette's true characterizations explained to me by someone with a PhD in lovesquare and I walk away enlightened. she has an incredible gift for storytelling and just Getting It. anyway read

maintaining a professional distance - 43k, ladynoir hotel room shenanigans, god-tier characterization

when you're near 10k, ladynoir dating but adrinette have never met, a classic

@sha-nwa should honestly quit her career and write lovesquare fanfiction for me full time. proof:

the way I loved you - 68k, marichat break up fic, will be cemented into my mind forever

photograph - 1k, sweet adrinette, abby loves making me cry

things WOULD be amiss if I did not mention @officialratprince (carolinaa on ao3) bc their fics derailed my homework schedule on several occasions last semester, though I'll be honest that their fics are not for the faint of heart or those who wish adrien agreste to have a good time. my faves are

I will take it / it can't go wrong series - 3 fics at 16k, 25k, and 39k, adrien's journey through experiencing child abuse and his friends being there for him, culminating in gabriel's court trial

home sick - 14k wip, adrien gets pneumonia and Everything Is Really Bad

other various fics I love for various reasons:

how hawkmoth got his groove back series by @agrestenoir - 2 fics at 3k and 1k, one of my favorite crack fics i read last year. had me crying laughing

1 step forward, 3 steps back by agnes writes - 10k, breaks my heart every time I read it. also makes me legitimately angry at adrien while still keeping him in character which is a feat in and of itself

the last day on earth by reiaji - 10k, chat blanc keeps happening as marinette gets older, I am incapable of not recommending this fic

okay now go forth and don't do your work<3

#such a struggle for me to hold back and not just list every single one of everyone's fics.#looking at this list I realiize that I in fact read a lot of fanfiction #I cant even find it within myself to feel cringe about it bc these are all legitimately so GOOD #ml #miraculous ladybug #ml fic rec #mlb fic rec #anna rambles #asks

590 notes · View notes

yeetus-feetus · 3 months

Text

tangled au (WIP)

Inspired by this ↓ post

Created by this ↓ account

@dragonpyre (I hope this is okay, you just really inspired me is all)

So here:

Jason, second heir to the throne of Gotham, was a happy little boy with a very loud personality. A former street kid, he was adopted into royalty at the age of 3 following his mother’s death, much like his older brother Richard, by the current King of Darkness. Make no mistake by the title he holds, Bruce Wayne is a very Just king though he cloaks himself in the fine fabrics of midnight and gold emblems that glitter like the stars.

But the young prince Jason was a ball of energy with a smart mouth and a baby as he were, often got on the wrong people's nerves. There was one man in particular, the Jester of the court– who was perhaps something more than a simple Jester to the King, maybe even a friend– had joined the Royal staff after a terrible accident that disfigured him many moons before Jason himself was even born.

On this day, Jason was only five when he trod on the odd man’s toes. He can’t remember what he’s said to the man, but it was something with loud youthful ignorance behind it, maybe something about his permanent smile and moon-pale skin. It wasn’t anything nice, to say the least, but who can blame a child of such brutal, unthinking honesty without the better knowledge on how such things were hurtful.

Maybe a man with a soft heart, and the belief he could give everyone in his Kingdom a better life and a second chance, should be blamed on keeping criminals and the insane in his company. Maybe a toddler in bright mocking colours shouldn’t have been left unattended to in the palace halls after a silly disagreement regarding his mother.

The wicked Jester did not return to the King’s court after that night.

Nor did the young Prince Jason. The boy was found in a puddle of his own bastard blood in a storeroom downstairs by the cellar, in teeny tiny shackles with his small bones shattered, tear streaks still wet on his cheeks as he lay limp on the cold cement floor.

The King had wept, cradling his broken body close to him, wailed and begged for the boy to come back to him, pleading for forgiveness from a child who was no more. The King of Darkness caressed the soft face of a lifeless shell, and that was when the shadows spoke.

A deep eerie voice had filled his ears from all directions, reminding him of a tale he had believed to be only myth. The story of the moon when she wept for her own son once very long ago …

A single tear of moonlight had fallen from the heavens, and from this small drop of sorrow bloomed a magic, glowing flower. It had the ability to heal the sick and injured– and in extremely rare cases, even raise the dead if the moon wished it so.

“However, the Flower of Lazarus is protected by a Demon whom hoards it for its youth restoring power”, the low voice warned. “And you have only until the fourth day, beginning when the sun breaks over your Kingdom at dawn, to retrieve it. For when the sun sets on that day, the boy will remain in a tomb forever.”

Bruce, because he is no King down here with a dead son in his arms, remains speechless and confused. Before he could gather his thoughts and interrogate the validity of this supernatural voice, a flock of bats screeched and swarmed and then the voice was gone.

And a man was left in a cold empty room with his beaten bloody son, fear and determination filling his heavy heart. A hope that in four days time, his son will be returned to the earth and fill the Palace with his laughter once more.

⧫

The quest carried out by the King’s Guard had proved successful, and the magic of the Lazarus Flower, brewed into a glowing green liquid potion heals the dead Prince’s body on the morning of the fourth day. A new tale of rebirth bringing the kingdom together as the King launched a floating lantern into the darkness of the night sky, a symbol of prevailing hope and new life, to celebrate the return of his beloved young son.

For that one moment, everything was perfect.

And then that moment ended.

A cloaked woman had entered young Jason’s room that very night by way of the balcony, silently creeping towards the boy’s bed where he slept soundly, unknowing to the threat of her presence. The woman pulls back her hood and strokes a deadly gentle hand up over his face until she reaches his soft baby curls as she sings in hushed tones.

“Flower gleam and glow”

And glow the child’s hair did, a bright green hue filling the room. She pulled a long lock of the glowing hair taught between calloused fingers, reaching into the deep green of her garments for the jewelled hilt of a small sharp knife as she continued.

“Let your powers shine”

The blade glinted in the unnatural light as the woman’s tan hand brought the sharpened knife up…

“Make the clock re–”

But as the knife sliced through the strands of hair it turned lifeless and lost its colour, turning moon-white and powerless. The shock and confusion was clear on the woman’s face, a frown carving its way into her beautiful features as she realised what she must do in order to fulfil her father’s wishes.

Just like that, Jason was stolen. Gone.

The Kingdom searched and searched, but their attempts at recovering the small boy proved nothing but futile and the King lost all his hope. They could not find the Prince of Gotham.

For deep within the forest, in a tall hidden tower, far away from his home, the woman– Talia Al Ghul– raised the child as her own.

#tangled au #jason todd #jason peter todd #jayroy #bruce wayne #alternate universe #batman

55 notes · View notes

citricacidprince · 2 years

Text

In honor of the newest episode dropping take this doodle that’s been plaguing my brain for the past week

#citricacidart #toh #the owl house #toh s2 spoilers #toh spoilers #toh fanart #toh hollow mind #the owl house fanart #raine whispers #toh raine #toh darius #toh eberwolf #art #fanart #digital art #procreate art #prince's gold star posts

3K notes · View notes

adderess · 1 year

Photo

Find me where I am most ruined, love me there | Ao3 | inspired by this post

Aemond x fem!Reader

Spicy (but soft), blowjob, handjob, PIV sex, choking (Aemond being choked), breeding kink if you squint, soft!Aemond, hurt/comfort, Alicent being a good mother, Aemond being jealous but portrayed in a different way than usual, Aemond’s childhood trauma explored, internalised ableism, Aemond reciting poetry to Reader, seeing his sapphire for the first time.

*Lykirī, Vhagar, umbās – be calm, Vhagar, wait.

*Sȳz riña – good girl

*Avy jorrāelan - I love you

*Iksā se olvie gevie qēlos. Iksā se ōños hen ñuha ābrar - you are the most beautiful star. You are the light of my life.

*Avy jorrāelan sīr olvie - I love you so much.

*Iksā se jorrāelagon hen ñuha ābrar - You are the love of my life.

*Percy B. Shelley

*Ñuha ōños - my light

*Ñuha ābrar - my life

*Iksā ñuhon - you are mine

*Kessa, hae bisa, kostilus - yes, like this, please

* Chaucer

*Ñuha jorrāelagon syt ao zālagon jehikagrī hae perzys isse ñuha prūmia - My love for you burns brightly like fire in my heart.

@enchantedpendant @blue-velvet-valentina

_______

It’s the Night of Ghosts and Aemond is a haunted man. He wears a mask over a mask but it’s not enough to hide from others – from himself as his fists clench in his lap painfully, white-knuckled.

The prince doesn’t need to wear a mask to be terrifying, what with that eye of his, he heard earlier, two men standing with their backs to him and he relished in walking up to them and saying, his voice laced with danger: careful, he might hear you.

But it’s the Night of Ghosts and the words come back again and again to haunt him as he watches you dance with Ser Lannister. Recently, Ser Lannister has lost his wife and rumours have it he was searching for a new lady wife. He is handsome, Ser Lannister, his face unmarred by scars, golden hair falling about it and you laugh as he spins you around.

Aemond is a haunted man; feelings long buried in the tomb of his childhood grab him with their cold fingers and he can barely breathe. He wears a mask over a mask but underneath them, he is little again and hears Aegon say: the whores won’t mind you are a cripple, they’re paid well, don’t fret. Aemond remembers, after that whole disgusting affair was over and he was in his bed, crying himself to sleep over Aegon’s words. The whores won’t mind you are a cripple, they’re paid well. For someone to deign to touch him, they needed to be well paid.

Ser Lannister is no cripple and you laugh again as he whispers something in your ear.

Aemond clenches his teeth behind his mask, a dragon-face made out of scaly gold, separating him from everyone around him and he wishes, in a moment of absurd, detestable weakness, that it could stay on his face forever.

Ser Lannister’s hands are at your waist now and Aemond almost doesn’t feel his fingernails piercing the skin of his palms.

“Aemond?” His mother’s voice, soft, worried, pulls his head towards hers like by reins.

“Yes, mother?” he asks, his throat tight and it bleeds into his voice. His mother frowns.

“Are you quite alright?”

Suddenly, the truth bubbles up in his throat, scalding, and he swallows. He wears a mask over a mask but underneath them, he is little and he craves to be embraced by his mother. Aemond wants to shed that need like old skin, one that doesn’t fit him anymore, doesn’t fit onto his bigger, stronger body.

“Yes, mother,” he replies, taking a sip of his wine and catching Aegon’s sly gaze. Aegon leans towards him, splashing his own drink, and giggles. He is well into his cups and he eyes Aemond with uncharacteristic boldness.

“The Dowager is looking to have a lion between her legs tonight,” Aegon purrs in his ear, then adds: “Ladies like her grow bored, moving onto new prey. Just look at them, how well they fit together…” Aegon trails off and Aemond’s eyes find your silhouette and his throat constricts. At that moment, you look up from entertaining the Lannister and your eyes meet.

Rage runs through his veins like dragonfire and he is burning. There is something else beside the fury in his chest, the same thing that had been there when the whores touched him, something small and powerless, and he rails against it. He doesn’t know if he wants to rip it out of his heart or rip your heart out of your chest. Aemond abruptly stands up, his chair scraping loudly against the floor, and he walks quickly to the entrance as the crowds part before him. Once he is in the hallway, he rips the mask off his face, breathing sharply.

He is a dragon, he reminds himself, and nothing can hurt him unless he lets it.

Aemond desperately latches onto that truth as he walks to his chambers but he still feels like a corpse on the Silent Sisters’ table, cut open for all to see. He reaches his chambers and slams the door shut behind him, leaning against it and something squeezes itself through his throat and he gasps.

The whores won’t mind you are a cripple, they’re paid well.

He rides the largest fucking dragon in the world and the court fears him. He is a warrior, a dragonrider, and he is formidable. He saw power and took it for himself because he is a dragon and a dragon takes what’s his or the world burns.

He is a cripple and a second son and even his own father doesn’t love him.

Aemond bites his lip as he feels something wanting to escape through his mouth. His throat is tight and something big is stuck in it.

What violence it is, to be thrust into the childhood you tried so hard to kill.

A knock at the door startles him.

“Aemond?” He hears your voice and something in him splinters like a plank under too much weight.

“Go away,” he snaps.

“No,” comes the stubborn reply and rage rises in him like a fire kindled and it’s the dragonrider’s death. He yanks the door open and sees you standing behind it, leaning nonchalantly against the doorframe. “Has something happened?”

Aemond steps up to you, crowding you, and glares, wanting so many things: to rip you open until you bleed out, to take you right then and there and show you you are his and no one else’s, to pour himself into your heart until nothing is left in it but him.

“Have you grown bored of the Lannister? Or perhaps he has grown bored of you and now you’ve come to me like a cat comes for yesterday’s scraps?” he spits out and the words go through his chest like blades.

He is not the preferred meal but one that would do when one is starving.

He has never been preferred, not once in his life.

“What are you talking about?” Your confusion has him bare his teeth and walk further into your space. He feels so much rage he is certain you will burn in it as surely as if he said dracarys.

“I am just a plaything to you!” he snarls and the truth of those words has his voice breaking.

You raise your hand and go to touch his cheek, the one with the scar, but Aemond’s fingers wrap around your wrist.

“Don’t,” he grits out through clenched teeth, clenched so tightly he hears a thunderstorm in his head. And there is a storm raging in his mind and he feels like a child caught in it in a bare field, nowhere to hide from the lightning.

“Aemond, let me touch you,” you say calmly but you have not denied his accusation and he feels raw as if he was scraped in the bath one too many times.

He wants you to touch him. He hates himself for it.

Aemond breathes out shakily and lets go of your hand. You delicately brush his jaw with your fingers and Aemond closes his eye, your touch tearing him in two and he feels rapture and devastating pain both.

He wants what is between you to be true.

“You’re not just a plaything to me,” you say after a while and your fingers are now at the strap of his eyepatch and Aemond tenses and moves away.

“Let me see you,” you whisper and his whole body is rigid as if you’ve just pulled a knife on him.

Maybe you have come to slay him.

He would rather die than let you see him as he is.

“No,” he bites out, his heart beating in his throat, and there’s nowhere to hide from your gaze; he is laid bare before you, all his disgusting weakness, all the love he holds for you that you don’t reciprocate. He lashes out in a blind panic and says coolly: “go back to your Lannister! Or perhaps your eyes have grown tired of shooting him adoring glances? I expect it must be exhausting to work so hard.”

“What adoring glances? What are you talking about?”

“You stared at him like a desperate bitch in heat!” Aemond snarls, feeling small, small, small.

Your face melts from shock to fury and you take a swing and slap him so hard his head swivels to the side. He stays like this, his cheek smarting, his eye stinging.

“Fuck you, Aemond.” You turn away from him and start striding down the corridor but he catches your hand in his.

“Let go of me,” you say with such calm coldness he’s never heard from you before that he can only comply, startled and frozen to the bone. He watches you walk away and he calls your name but you don’t turn around, don’t spare him a glance and he is choking. Closing the door, he leans his forearms against it, his head bent as he pants, then he growls and walks to his nightstand, snatching the book he carefully put there and throwing it across the room. He takes the candle in its candleholder and hurls it against the wall and the candle falls out of the holder and breaks in two.

He is an animal caught in a trap as he demolishes his room, all the trinkets, books, even the mirror standing in the corner of his chambers and his right hand is bleeding.

His mask lies on the floor and Aemond laughs bitterly – some dragon he is – then, with the brutality of a sword torn out of a wound, a sob escapes him. He falls in a heap to the ground.

He loves you and you don’t love him back.

Aemond feels more sobs spill from his mouth. How could you love him, he thinks, crippled and disfigured as he was. You are just a worthless cripple and no woman will ever want to touch you, Aegon once told him in a fit of drunken fury before spitting in his face.

He allowed himself to believe you wanted him. When his head lay in your lap and you stroked his hair and told him with a smile he was beautiful, he almost believed you meant it.

My pretty boy, you would whisper in his ear whenever he was close to coming and it would unfailingly send him over the edge every time.

For all his intelligence, he was blind and stupid.

You are just a worthless cripple and no woman will ever want to touch you.

Aemond weeps, years of resentment and fear and hurt pouring out of him as he sits curled in on himself and drowning in shame. He feels like the little boy who was worthy only of a pig again. Small and defenceless and humiliated.

“Aemond?” He startles as he hears his mother’s voice but he can’t answer, choked by the sobs. The door opens and he turns away from it but, to his mortification and endless humiliation, he can’t stop crying. “Oh, Aemond.”

His skin crawls with shame and he hides his face in his palms. He feels so fragile and weak and he jerks as his mother gently lays her hand on his head and strokes.

“Shh, my child, I’m here,” she says, sitting down and pulling him to herself.

“Lea-leave,” Aemond sobs out and everything hurts. He doesn’t want to exist, not after his mother has seen him like this. He doesn’t want to exist, not when you don’t love him. He doesn’t want to exist, a scorned son who isn’t even worthy of being defended by his own father.

Alicent shushes him softly, carding her fingers through his silver hair and her touch burns. He craves it, he craves it, he craves it, he is unmanned.

“Come here, turn around,” she says gently, embracing him with one arm and he tenses like a stray cat grabbed by a warden but doesn’t fight her. “My child. What happened?”

His mind is spilled entrails and nothing can put the unsightly mess back in its place.

“Why is it like–like this, mo–mother? Why am I an un–unlovable cripple? After I’ve–I’ve been trying so–so hard to be some–something more,” he weeps, desperately trying to breathe through the sobs. He feels his mother’s embrace tighten and hears her exhale shakily.

“You are not an unlovable cripple, my child. You are a brave man, a strong man, and you inspire awe wherever you go,” Alicent says, then adds, in a kind tone: “look at me. Look at me, Aemond. Yes, very good.”

His skin sears with the shame of his tears but his mother’s eyes are soft and sad.

“You are not unlovable,” she repeats with a loving conviction and gently brushes his good cheek.

“Father–” Aemond chokes out and the wound that never healed splits open again and pained words gush out of his mouth like blood: “father doesn’t–doesn’t love me, he’s never–never had. He didn’t even–even care that my eye was–was gouged out!”

Something in his mother’s face breaks and it’s all the confirmation he needs as he curls into Alicent, sobbing so hard it hurts.

“Shhh, my sweet child,” Alicent soothes, gathering Aemond in her arms and swaying him, kissing his head, then resting her cheek on top of it. “My sweet, brave child,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

“Mother,” Aemond gasps desperately and Alicent shushes him gently.

“Do you remember the story of Symeon Star-Eyes, the blind knight with sapphires in his eyes? He was crippled but achieved much, known as a great knight forever hence. You, too, can be great. You’re a dragon and I am proud of you.”

“You’re proud–proud of me?” Aemond sobs and the words taste peculiar on his tongue. Alicent pulls him more tightly to herself and he clings to her like a babe, his hands fisting in the fabric of her skirts.

“Of course I am, my sweet boy,” Alicent responds and brushes his hair off his face, kissing his forehead.

Her admission shocks him out of his crying fit and his lungs expand around the tentative happiness he feels.

You’re a dragon and I am proud of you.

His mother’s words taste of patches of sunlight their cat liked to lie in and of the azure of the sky as he flew with Vhagar, his hair wind-swept. They taste of strawberry cake his mother and he used to share under the tree in the courtyard and of chasing Jaehaerys and Jaehaera across the verdant grass. They taste of his favourite fruity wine shared with you after you made love for the first time on the hills beyond King’s Landing and of the scented soap your handmaidens wash your clothes and hair with.

His mother’s words taste like a good memory and he lets himself smile tentatively.

The sky is a sea of grey frothing with sea-foam clouds of white and Aemond stands by Vhagar’s side, determinedly cleaning her flank with a hard brush. Time swam and a week has passed ever since he last talked to you and he felt not like a man but like weathered bird bones washed ashore, brittle and faded. All week, he left flowers and poetry tucked underneath your door and once tried to brush along your hand as you strode past him in a hallway but you ignored him. Whenever he thinks about your indifferent face, he is awash with pain so strong it’s like a wave hitting him.

Vhagar suddenly moves, raising her head.

“They told me I’d find you here.” He hears your voice and sucks in a startled breath, turning around. Vhagar’s great neck extends towards you.

“Lykirī, Vhagar, umbās*,” he says and Vhagar shakes her head, aborting her movement. “Sȳz riña*,” he adds, patting her flank hard. He faces you and takes you in, your light coat and breeches and long boots all hugging your curves. Your hair is braided off your face and your expression is guarded.

“Do you think poetry and flowers are enough to make an apology? Or maybe you think there’s no need for an apology?” you ask coldly when you come to a stop in front of him, your arms crossed in front of your breasts.

“No, I…” he hesitates, then ploughs on: “what I said and how I treated you was reprehensible and I apologise for that. I should have never hurt you like that. I didn’t mean to, I was just–”

“Jealous,” you interject firmly. “You were jealous and instead of talking to me about it like a grown man, you decided to insult me.”

Shame and guilt well up in him like a river overflowing.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. You narrow your eyes at him and his heart is measuring the stretching seconds of silence. Finally, you sigh and the tension in your shoulders melts away.

“Fine,” you say and come closer to him, slipping your hand underneath his chin and gently caressing his jaw. “Just because I danced with another man doesn’t mean I’m in love with him, Aemond.”

His eye flutters closed as you brush the right corner of his mouth with your thumb, then stroke along his lower lip. Your touch is tender and loving and his heart clenches.

“Do you…” he starts and stops, wanting to ask do you love me? but he is too scared.

“Yes?”

“Do you want to ride Vhagar? We could go to that meadow where we drank wine in the spring.”

“And do what there?” you ask slyly and he can hear the smile in your voice. He opens his eye, wanting to see it and his heart stutters. Your smile fills him with so much light he forgets how dark nights in King’s Landing can be.

“Whatever you want,” he answers, then hesitates and leans towards you, kissing you gently, once, twice, thrice, murmuring between each kiss: “your… wish… is my… command.”

He wraps his arms around your waist and draws you into himself, deepening the kiss and he moans when your tongue licks into his mouth. Your hand snakes between the two of you and he feels you cupping him through his trousers and he is burning.

“I’ve missed you,” you whisper against his lips and it hits him like a punch, reminding him this is only sex for you. He pulls away from you, his chest filled with blades, but you follow him and pepper kisses along his jaw and he shivers, his hand slipping onto your cheek and angling your head so that he can bow down and kiss your neck.

You’re mine, he wants to whisper and he sucks the skin of your jaw into his mouth, leaving a mark where everyone will see.

“Come,” he says, drawing back. “I will saddle for two.”

The ride to the hill is exhilarating as always but especially now, with you in his arms, and he dips his head down to kiss your shoulder.

He loves you, he loves you, he loves you. You’re a song, you’re a poem. You’re art that is meant to be lived.

Aemond puts his lips against your neck and blows into your skin and you laugh and twitch to the side. His arms tighten around you to keep you from falling off.

“Avy jorrāelan*,” he says into the nape of your neck, breathing in the rose soap scent in your braided hair and the wind snatches his words away. “Iksā se olvie gevie qēlos. Iksā se ōños hen ñuha ābrar.*”

Vhagar lands on the hill, taking up the entirety of it, and curls up like a big cat, tucking her wings to her body and Aemond helps you dismount. You climb down, his hands at your waist and when your feet touch the ground, he pulls your back into his chest and kisses your cheek.

“Avy jorrāelan sīr olvie,*” he murmurs into your ear and kisses the curve of it. You sigh against him and raise your hand to cup his cheek. Aemond leans into your touch, his entire body tingling from the tender gesture and his heart swells. “Iksā se jorrāelagon hen ñuha ābrar.*”

Flowers sway on their stems in the light breeze, opening their faces to the sun that peeks from between the clouds. He sits down, relaxed and tender-hearted, and you follow him as he watches you with a slight smile on his face. You are awash in sunrays, shining like a magical creature out of legends who grants the wishes of lost men like him. Aemond leans towards you, brushing your hair behind your ear and, as he looks at your face, love sharp as dragonglass pierces through his heart.

“The fountains mingle with the river/ And the rivers with the ocean,/ The winds of heaven mix for ever/ With a sweet emotion;/ Nothing in the world is single/ All things by a law divine/ In one spirit meet and mingle./ Why not I with thine?*” he whispers, staring into your eyes, caressing your lips with his thumb.

He lives for those stolen moments, those glittering moments of gentleness, when he is not a prince, not Aemond One-Eye, not a Targaryen but something else entirely, something that wounds him and elevates him both. It is sweet torture, to love you so deeply, to turn onto his back and show you the soft underbelly where you can either drive a blade or touch him with a gentle hand. With you, it’s both, your gentle hand holding a blade.

You kiss his thumb and catch his hand, peppering his palm with soft sweet kisses and you look at him through your lashes. Your lips open as if you want to say something but you close them again and he moves to you and kisses you.

“Ñuha ōños*,” he whispers, your lips touching, his eye closed. “Ñuha ābrar*.”

Your hands fly to his face, fingers biting into the soft flesh cushioning his teeth, and you kiss him fervently, licking his lips open as he moans into your mouth. You push him towards the ground and your hand slides down to his neck as you wrap your hand around it gently. This soft touch, this sign of ownership has his cock straining against his trousers and he grinds his hips up into you and catches your groan. His hands are at the buckles of your coat and he unclasps them, then slips his hand underneath your tunic, along your stomach up to your breast.

“Iksā ñuhon*,” he growls, pulling your coat off with your help, then yanking your tunic off. He slides down, kissing your shoulder, marking each stretch of skin as his and your body is a land for him to conquer; your lush hair he cards his fingers through, the plains and swells of your neck and jaw he gently bites, the fells of your breasts he kneads. “See the mountains kiss high heaven/ And the waves clasp one another;/ No sister-flower would be forgiven/ If it disdained its brother;/ And the sunlight clasps the earth/ And the moonbeams kiss the sea:/ What is all this sweet work worth/ If thou kiss not me?” he murmurs against your neck and you pull his head up by his sharp jaw, bowing down and kissing him. He hums into your mouth appreciatively, then sighs as your fingers sink into his hair, stroking his scalp.

“You are the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” you say quietly and he is overcome, feeling full of warmth like the sun, fire in his belly as if he really was a dragon, as if he was a fire eater in the night-cloaked market of King’s Landing. He doesn’t need the Seven, you are his goddess; you are his justice, his mercy, his courage, his strength, his innocence, his guidance, his death. Most of all, his death, and it’s slow but sweet.

“Let me worship you, my prince,” you murmur and soon you are both naked, lying among the flowers, and he moans as you kiss his nipple and pull it into your mouth. Pleasure shoots through him and his abdomen tightens as you brush your finger down his twitching cock. He mewls helplessly as you start stroking him and his hips cant up, thrusting into your hand as moans spill from his mouth and his neck arches back. “You are precious.”

“Please,” he whimpers but he doesn’t know what he is begging for. You suck on his nipple hard and his back curves up as desperate gasps leave him. He is dripping precum and you slide down his body, then lick the tip of his cock. Aemond props himself up on his forearms and groans as you stare into his eye, gathering the drops of his precum on your tongue as if his cock was the sweetest honeycomb. He gasps as you wrap your mouth around him and his hips stutter as he tries not to thrust too hard into it. It is a hard task, though, as his belly hollows out when you suck on him and start bobbing your head up and down. His hands sink into your hair, not pushing your head; he just needs to feel you.

“Kess-kessa, ah!, hae bisa, ah!, kost-kostilus! *” he sobs and your tight heat around his cock nearly drives him to madness. You speed up, fucking him with your mouth and he melts, a high-pitched moan leaving him when you squeeze the base of his cock. He loves it, he loves, he loves it, he loves being taken by you like this. He is at your mercy and he can only wail. It is rapture as precum seeps out of him into your mouth and he is close.

“Wait, wait,” he gasps, spasming, and you stop, pulling his cock out of your mouth with a pop and he almost goes feral at the sight of the string of spit and precum connecting your lips to him. “I want to come inside you, fill you up with my seed. Come here,” he says and gently tugs at your hair. You crawl up his body with a smirk that has his belly twisting and he sits up, taking you into his arms and kissing the crook of your neck. He longs to be inside you, he longs for you to take his cock and he positions you above him as you grasp his length. Rocking into you, he feels himself sinking into the heat of your cunt and he bites through your skin like an animal wanting to claim as you yelp. Your blood tastes like absolution and he hears you whisper: you’re mine, my prince and his cock pulses inside you as he moans.

“Say-say it again,” he whimpers, his forehead on your warm shoulder and your cunt is stretched around him, taking him so well.

“You’re mine,” you growl possessively into his ear, tugging at his hair and pulling his head backwards and he mewls as you bite him, breaking skin.

“Yes, yes, I am yours! Only yours!” he gasps, his hips thrusting into your hot core and he grasps your hip bones and angles you so he can hit that sweet spot of yours and when he does, he is rewarded. You clench around him and arch your back, moaning his name. Your fingers tighten in his hair and you ride him with animalistic ferocity, your hips rolling against his. But he wants to make sweet slow love to you and his hands on your hip bones grasp you tightly, aborting your movement and you growl. His cock aches, unmoving inside you, and he pulls out and slowly sinks into you in a long stroke, pushing into that spot again and watching your mouth fall open. Your face is beautifully flushed. Aemond wraps his arms around your waist, then lowers you to the ground, covering you with his body, your chests touching. His blood sings with how intimate you are and he loves it, he loves feeling so close to you, as if he could touch your heart with his. Propping himself up on his forearm, holding up his weight so he doesn’t squash you underneath him, he laces the fingers of his other hand with yours and puts your hand next to your head. Staring at you looking into his eye, your pupils blown wide, the thin sliver of colour around them like a ring of precious stones, he rocks his hips into you. The nails of your free hand sink into his back – you’re brutal even when you’re making love – drawing blood and his hips stutter as he fights with himself not to slam into you. Your cunt is pulsing around him and it is sweet and tortuous.

“Upon my word, I tell-tell you, ah!, faithfully/ Through life-life and after death, ah!, you are my queen*,” he gasps out into your neck, thrusting into you, and you grant him the loveliest long moan and claw at his shoulder blades.

“Aemond,” you slur and he raises his head to look at you. Your eyelids are heavy, your mouth red, and you’re beautiful. He tells you that and you close your eyes.

“Open your eyes, look at me,” he says, wanting you to see him, wanting you to know who is taking you. Not Lannister, not some other lord, but him. You are his, only his and his fingers tighten around yours. You are disobedient, as always, always wilful like a wild dragon and he knows it is a gift that you are letting him fuck you. “Come, open your eyes.”

Your eyes flutter open and air is smitten from his lungs as he stares into them, pretty obsidian swallowing them up, framed by a ring of crystals, set in opal. You are a vision of the old gods, wild and fierce and exquisite, and he worships you. He kisses you, inhaling your breath into his lungs; he would let you take his life, his life is yours, you are his life.

“Ñu-ñuha jorrāela-ah!-gon syt ao zāl-zālagon jehi-ah!-jehikagrī hae-hae perzys isse, ah!, ñuha prūmia*,” he moans, words slurred together to the point of being incomprehensible and he mewls as your walls tighten around his cock.

Suddenly, he is on his back and you are riding him, your throat exposed as your head falls back, your breasts bouncing. But it is not enough and he wants you close, he wants your bodies touching as if you could be melded into one. He pulls you towards himself but you resist.

“Please,” he whimpers and you raise your head to look at him. The sharp smile you send him nearly has him coming.

“Come here,” you say and he obeys, sitting up and grabbing your waist. He kisses you but it’s sloppy as he is nearing his peak, sheathed in that maddening warmth of your cunt, your hands clasping the crook of his neck, so close to where he wants them to be.

“Choke me,” he moans and your hand wraps around his throat, squeezing. His neck angles back and he is floating, elation filling his veins and his mouth falls open as he wails. Your walls clamp down around him and your entire body seizes and you are coming around him.

“I love you,” you cry out and this pushes him over the edge. He drives deep into you and stays there, shooting you full of his warm seed. Aemond mouths your neck, keening, and your cunt milks his cock until the last drop of his cum. Spasming, he slouches against you, burying his face in the crook of your neck as you both pant. He wants to stay inside you forever.

Minutes pass, his soft cock still inside you, and you’re as close as two people can be. He nuzzles into your cheek and asks:

“Did you… did you really mean it? Do you really love me?”

“Yes, Aemond, you idiot,” you laugh and he grins, his eye closed.

“Say it again,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss into your cheek.

“You idiot,” you chortle and he pushes you to the ground, pulling out of you and his seed drips out of you as he attacks you. He tickles you and you laugh hysterically, writhing, and an evil cackle escapes him.

“No, stop, ahahahah, stop!” you cry out but he doesn’t relent.

“Say it again,” he repeats, grinning and you howl with laughter.

“I love-ahahaha-I love you! Stop!” It’s better than flying Vhagar, it’s better than fighting, and it goes through him sharp as a blade, soft like flower petals. To be loved back is as terrible as it is delightful; to be seen and loved as terrifying as it is perfect. He leans down and slips his fingers under your chin, kissing you softly.

You stretch next to each other on the grass and he takes your hand and kisses the inside of your wrist.

“I…” he hesitates and you open your eyes to look at him. “I love you, too.”

You reach out with your hand and brush your fingers against his jaw.

“I know, my love,” you reassure him and he feels you know how hard it is for him to be vulnerable like this. Your fingers stroke up the side of his face and pause at the strap of his eyepatch. He tenses, his heart beating in his throat. “Let me see all of you,” you say so gently his heart clenches.

“It’s not a pleasant view,” he warns, hoping you would relent, fear choking the air out of him.

“Let me be the judge of that,” you reply and his skin crawls at the thought you will judge him and find him wanting.

Ugly. Disfigured. Monstrous.

He closes his eye as you slide the eyepatch off his head, careful not to pull his hair. Your fingers go back to his jaw and there is tenderness in your gesture as you stroke his skin. There is silence, you say nothing, and his hands start shaking and he can’t stand it.

“You are beautiful,” you finally murmur and the worshipful tone takes him aback. “Open your eye.”

He licks his lips, then obeys and your face is so soft and there is reverence there. His heart stutters in his chest and he is shocked out of his ability to speak.

“I think you look better without the eyepatch. It adds to your mystique, makes you look like a powerful warrior – which, of course, you are,” you state, then add: “the sapphire is beautiful, the way it reflects and scatters sunlight like the surface of the sea… You are beautiful and I love and cherish you very much, my pretty boy.”

It feels monumental, the way you speak about him in the same awed tone one has when looking upon a sculpture and he can’t believe he invoked such feelings in you. He whispers your name and you shush him, kissing him and he knows you will be the death of him – and he knows he will welcome it.

#aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond x you #aemond one eye targaryen/reader #aemond targaryen #aemond the kinslayer #hotd #house of the dragon #aemond one eye targaryen #aemond/reader #aemond targayrne/reader

618 notes · View notes

noahhawthorneauthor · 10 months

Text

Queer Books I've loved since returning to reading. 🏳️‍🌈📚🏳️‍⚧️❤️🎧

This is not a comprehensive list, and there are some authors that I've read their entire backlist but I'm only including one because SPACE.

I've been slacking on my #IndiePride2 posts, but hopefully this makes up for it. Honestly, I can't believe I kept up the consistent posts for as long as I did. Today's prompt is a queer podcast, which I'm no help with because I don't listen to podcasts. I have some saved in my 'to-listen' but I haven't gotten there yet.

Have you read any of these?

Books Listed:

A Strange And Stubborn Endurance by Foz Meadows.

How To Be A Movie Star by TJ Klune.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell.

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe.

Perfectly Imperfect Pixie by MJ May.

Initiation by Alethea Faust

Angels Before Man by rafael nicolas.

Malium Discordae by Ashlyn Drewek

Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

Cuffs and Carnations by Nikole Knight. (I love the entire series, but this is the newest.)

Find the Jinn by Maz Maddox

The Wolf in the Whale by Jordanna Max Brodsky.

Exhale by Joel Abernathy.

Prince of Sorrows by @skellygraves

A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers.

Lore and Lust by Karla Nikole.

The Eidolon by KD Edwards. (I have read this series four times...)

All that's left in the World by Erik Brown.

Odder Still by DN Bryn.

A Dream of Flame and Shadow by L. Eveland.

The Witch King by H.E Edgmon

Shield and Sorrow by J.E Ridgemon.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer.

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic.

Vicious by VE Schwab.

Coin Tricks by Willow Scarlett

A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland.

Lor by Lily Mayne.

Heart Haunt Havoc by @freydismoon

Kinship and Kindness by Kara Jorgensen.

#queer books #indie books #writers on tumblr #indie author #lgbtqia+#books to read #trans books #gay books #indie pride 2 #pride month #pride books #dark fantasy books #fantasy books #cozy fantasy

158 notes · View notes

dean-winchester-is-a-warrior · 8 months

Text

When the Stars Love You

(x)

Summary: Dean belongs in the starlight.

Warnings/Explicit 18+: Nothing really. Implied smut, angst, fluff.

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Y/N

Word Count: 1,028

A/N: So the beautiful @deanwinchesterswitch created the gorgeous aesthetic above as a request, and the original post can be found here. I was very inspired by this amazing piece of art, and with her permission I've written this little drabble in response to that inspiration. Thank you for this, Kym.

I'm placing this story somewhere in the 15th season, I guess. It's sometime after they realize that Chuck has been playing them all along, and that all he wants is one specific kind of ending. It sees Dean questioning everything in his life, and not sure what's real and what's Chuck. Y/N tries to help him through.

The beautiful divider below and at the bottom was created by @saradika

You loved Dean in the starlight. You were pretty sure the stars sparkled brighter when he was beneath them; they winked flirtatiously to get his attention. He'd turn his face up to them and they'd glow. You knew how they felt. When Dean focused his attention on you, you lit up too, bright and happy.

But tonight had been tough. You'd shouted and raged at each other, throwing words like daggers, seeing whose aim was the most true. As usual, in matters of skill, Dean was the victor. His words sliced sharp and deep, and made you bleed.

Even though you knew his heart - had connected it to your own with delicate stitches - his anger and desperate need to shove you away from him with both hands, often pulled the stitching loose, left your heart frayed and in danger of unraveling.

Sometimes you wanted to take scissors to them and cut him away from you for good, try to sew up the parts of you where he left holes.

But then you'd remember the way the stars watched him, the way they would shine down on him, and gild him in gold; the way moonlight washed over his face, and made it clean and soft - shadow and light dancing over his skin the same way it moved through his soul.

Now, you walked out into the inky dark and looked for him shining in starlight, bathed by the moon. You found him stretched out on Baby's hood, and the night was kind to him, it was his home; he'd lived his whole life there. So his breathing was easy now, fresh night air filling his lungs, and his heart was open once again.

You felt his pain, his regret, in the way his eyes wouldn't settle on your face. He sat up, and the lights of nighttime shifted, showing his sadness and exhaustion. The wind whistled around you, a cloud passed over the moon, and they seemed to chastise you for disturbing their midnight prince.

But the stars twinkled on. The lines of their movement, their path across the sky, reminded you that this man in front of you had been thrust into a destined life. He'd been told by god, by angels, all the heavenly host, even by a demon or two, that his reason for being, his sole purpose for walking in the waking world was to either die like a sacrificial lamb, or murder the boy he'd raised to a man.

Both brothers had been raised for slaughter, and all god wanted was to see which one would be slaughtered and what other would be left behind to dissolve into darkness, and, of course, he wanted to see just how much of the world would fall with him.

It was a burden you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy, and one you actively wished you could remove from the broad shoulders of the man you'd loved for most of your life.

Dean finally looked at you fully, his deep green eyes shadowed in the darkness, but so filled with pain that even the stars couldn't watch anymore, and let the clouds cover their face.

A sound of low thunder rumbled from the east as the first, sharp, stinging needles of cold rain pelted you both. You ran the last few steps to him, as he jumped off the hood and dragged you into his arms. His kiss was hard and determined, like he was stamping you as his, before he pulled away and yanked you into the car with him.

Your kisses turned frantic as the squeaking metal door slammed shut. Hands flew over skin and tore at clothes, ripping the sodden material off and sucking the dampness from each other's skin.

You were both seeking pleasure from the pain, apologizing for the words you'd used to skewer each other, by whispering beautiful, warm messages of love across cold, pebbled skin. Your hands sought forgiveness with each caress and you both gave it freely as your eyes locked and you fell together into the abyss.

The storm raged around you, and through you, fast and powerful, both tempests breaking on a scream of pleasure and a fiery bolt of lightning. The ecstasy ebbed, and the thunder grumbled its last, as the stars peeked out to brighten the aftermath.

Dean's voice was deep and gentle, imitating the retreating thunder.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm just…"

He sighed deeply, not able to find the words.

"Lost." You finished for him. "You're lost. Chuck is trying to force you down the only path he's left open for you, so now you're scrambling in the dark trying to avoid the road and smashing through anything you think might be an obstacle."

Dean shook his head, awe in his expression at your ability to read him and understand him so easily. "Yes." He said simply.

You shook her head and climbed into his lap. "I'm not an obstacle Dean. I wasn't shoved in your way to make you stumble." You took his big hand in yours. "I chose to be here and walk beside you."

You felt his uncertainty and squeezed his hand tightly. "I promise it's true, and I’ll prove it to you, because no matter what you say or do, I'm gonna stay here beside you, and we're gonna destroy Chuck together."

You rolled down the window and let the damp, cool air rush over your exposed skin, turning his chin with your fingers so he was looking out the window at the stars bobbing and weaving through the clouds.

"We don't have to follow Chuck. Let's pick a path in the stars and follow it. They'll lead us home."

The corner of Dean's mouth lifted sardonically. "Chuck made them too."

You shook your head, not convinced. "No, mother nature is stronger than him, and the stars love you. They're on our side."

Dean laughed softly. "You're nuts, woman."

But he kissed you softly, and you felt the kernel of hope bloom in your joined hearts.

So open your eyes and see The way our horizons meet And all of the lights will lead Into the night with me And I know these scars will bleed But both of our hearts believe All of these stars will guide us home

1 - Jensen RPF + Any/All characters Jensen plays. @lyarr24 @deans-spinster-witch @impalaslytherin @maggiegirl17 @akshi8278 @candy-coated-misery0731 @deanswaywardgirl @slytherinlyn314 @globetrotter28 @jensensgirl @perpetualabsurdity @tristanrosspada-ackles @djs8891 @muhahaha303 @kayyay1219 @emily-winchester @recoveringpastaaddict @maximumkillshot @mimaria420 @sacriceria @envyaurora95 @lacilou @jc-winchester @spnwoman @mimi-luvzyu

2 - Dean Winchester Fics Only. @carryonwaywardgirl

3 - Any/All Fics (regardless of fandom/character.) @kazsrm67 @sexyvixen7 @alexxavicry @nancymcl @spalady26

4 - Everything (includes fan vid/DOOL edits as well) @unabashed-lover-of-fictional-men @maliburenee @supernatural4life2022 @spn730015 @kickingitwithkirk @waywardbaby @foxyjwls007 @deanwanddamons @deandreamernp @deanwithscissors @myloversgone @snowlovespie @leigh70 @all-alone-he-turns-to-stone @charred-angelwings @hopefuldreamers-world @jensensgotyoudean @thoughts-and-funnies @magssteenkamp @princessmisery666 @eevvvaa @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @waynes-multiverse @mrsjenniferwinchester @bernasaurus @jensenslady79 @courtn92 @avanatural @ellie-andthemachine @this-is-me19 @roseblue373 @katbratsupernaturalwhore @fanfic-n-tabulous

#dean winchester #dean x y/n #dean x reader #dean winchester fluff #dean winchester angst #inspired writing #deanwinchesterswitch #beautiful aesthetic

108 notes · View notes

eudaimonia83 · 10 months

Text

@cursebrkr posted about Elain giving Lucien a Solstice present and I was like, well hell, I’ve got a fic for that 🥰

A tiny but important piece of background: Elain recently read in a reference book about hyraeths, light-butterflies of the Autumn and Summer courts who migrate across the border and are tended by air sprites in their mating groves.

Enjoy! 😁

——————————

Elain blinked, and the last of the darkness slid away. Before her was the erstwhile prince of Autumn, his hair braided and smoothly caught back at the nape of his neck, a bright blue coat with subtle gold threading outlining his broad shoulders. Even dressed relatively modestly, he gleamed, all color and light, all mischief and elegant trickery. So Fae. Even now it sent ripples up her spine, sliding along the knife edge between fear of him and trust in him. His golden eye glinted as he returned Feyre’s smile. “I wouldn’t miss your birthday for all the stars in Velaris,” he said, his voice light and teasing. “Not that even you could give those away.”

“Don’t put it past me,” Feyre winked at him.

Lucien turned to Elain, whose voice was as firmly caught in her throat as a burr stuck in a glove. “Good evening, Lady,” he said, with a slight bow. She swallowed, and nodded.

His good eye narrowed, ever so slightly, taking her in at a quick glance. “Can I get you a drink?” he asked, swinging his eyes back to Feyre, and smiling disarmingly. “The pair of you aren’t doing the party any favors sitting here without partaking.”

Feyre protested, laughing, but Lucien cocked his head and stared at her in mock accusation until she relented with a roll of her eyes. “Very well then. A half glass of the gold wine.”

He moved off toward the bar cart with a smooth stride. Feyre’s gaze shifted to Elain, whose hands were clenched tightly in her lap. What had he seen?

Feyre leaned in and said, her eyes dancing, “That’s a magnificent color on him, don’t you agree?”

Elain blushed from her ears to her chest, hating her sister for being so open, so obvious, so damn gleeful. It was confusing enough to be around him without everyone watching and whispering. She was trying to figure out what to say when he returned, a glass in each hand. He handed the wine cup to Feyre, who thanked him and then slyly slid away; he pushed a highball glass into her hand as they found themselves alone.

“Drink it,” he murmured, almost inaudible over the chatter of the party. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

She clutched the glass hard and stared at him.

“It’s only water,” he said, a trifle defensive. “You should drink it. It’s too warm in here and you’re flushed.” He leaned forward against the chaise, body language utterly relaxed — no one watching from a distance would think he was talking about anything but pleasantries — but a strain in his voice belied all that as he asked, “Did you just have…a vision?”

She put the glass to her lips and drank, the cold of the water a welcome rush on her tongue. The shock of it loosened her voice. She tried to stay as calm as possible, to imitate his nonchalance. “How did you know?”

His smile was tight. Pained. “Even if I hadn’t felt it here…” he touched his chest lightly, over his heart — “your face would’ve given it away.”

“How?”

“You…” He flexed his fingers as if they hurt. “You looked the same as…as back then. When you were first Fae.” He threw a glance at the fireplace with its evergreen bower and gestured at it, maintaining the small talk facade with ease. “Are you well?”

Surprised, she couldn’t help but turn and look him full in the face. “I’m…”

He turned his head, quizzical, as she trailed off. “You’re not well?”

“No, I’m all right,” she said, hurriedly. “But — you don’t want to know what I saw?”

Everyone always pounced when they heard she’d had a vision, starving for details, most of which she could never recall. But his eyebrows twitched together and back apart as he wiped the concern from his face, turning it bland and calm. “Not if you don’t want to tell me.”

Elain drew in a deep breath and let it out in a trembling sigh that turned into a laugh, tremulous and true — and even a little sad, if she was honest. He cast his eyes down and smiled at his hands, folded on the back of the couch. “Don’t laugh at me, Lady.”

“But you’re ridiculous, my lord,” she said, her humor finally cresting over the prickle behind her eyes.

“Eternally,” he agreed.

She was about to give him a pert answer when she noticed Feyre, standing on the other side of the parlor and grinning like the Mad Cat in their childhood storybook. As their eyes locked, Feyre seized Mor’s arm, and the two of them turned away at the same moment, leaning their heads together. Lucien followed her gaze and then looked immediately away, back down at his hands. “Being watched all the time must get tedious,” he said. “No wonder you guard your secrets.”

“I have none of consequence,” she murmured.

“Why, Mother of Mercy. Now you’re even bringing in lies. How enchanting.” His foxlike grin split his face. She couldn’t control the lurch in her chest. “I like you deceitful, Blossom. It’s intriguing.”

“Well, everyone else has their secrets,” she fired at him. “Can’t I have any of my own?”

“Certainly,” he said. He seemed utterly earnest. “I only ask that you promise to share with me the ones you ask me to keep.”

She paled. Was he going to give her away? An outright lie to Cassian and Nesta, a lie of omission to Rhysand and Feyre…they’d have her under the daemati claws in no time…there would be no secrets then, no mind left, they’d have it all and she’d be a shell of herself…

He extended his hand in a calming motion, seeming to sense her unease. “Not just yet,” he murmured. “When you’re ready. Til you instruct it, I’ll keep my silence.”

She couldn’t think of what to say, but he straightened up and nodded as Rhysand approached. She froze, feeling the sly rake of his claws across her thoughts, and focused hard on the half-full drink in her hand.

“Lucien,” Rhys greeted him, smooth and effortless as always. “Thank you for coming.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Lucien replied, and Elain was strongly reminded of the dukes and earls at the dances back in the human lands; that charm, the utter facility of sliding from one interaction to another. “Happiest of birthdays to the High Lady.”

Rhys nodded, immense satisfaction on his face as his violet eyes scanned the merry gathering. Cassian had Nyx on his shoulders; Nesta’s hand rested protectively on Nyx’s leg to keep him from falling backwards. Azriel sat by the window, shadows romping with the fluttering faelights, while Mor and Feyre argued playfully over a chessboard. And Amren stood slightly apart from the rest, her pale eyes surveying keenly. Rhys asked, a trifle absently, “How do the human lands fare?”

Lucien sighed. “The lands are buried under snow, as the seasons dictate. The humans themselves are…suffering.”

Rhys raised his eyebrows. “The fall harvest was sufficient. Once the crops come in in spring…”

“…they will still be suffering,” Lucien interrupted. “They cannot eat their seed crops if they hope to lay in the fields for next season. And yet they cannot starve. Everything there is restless. People who are hungry and sick and neglected will not tolerate it for long.”

Elain’s insides squeezed in shock. No one interrupted the High Lord. Not even Feyre, who always gazed at him with pride. But even more critically, his words burrowed through her surprise: the humans were hungry and sick. That was her village. Her friends. Mayfer, the bustling harbor city where she’d visited to wait for her father’s ships. Her former home.

Lucien continued, “Jurian has purchased extra grain stores from the continent. And Vassa took in several hundred of the country folk who would have starved otherwise, onto Lord Nolan’s estate.”

“Generous of her,” Rhys remarked. He sounded ever so slightly bored, as his eyes followed Feyre’s every move.

“Just keeping body and soul together,” Lucien replied, and his tone dropped. His expression remained mild as Elain glanced between the two males. But without even knowing how she knew it, she thought he is angry, before remembering to keep her thoughts focused on her glass of water. Angry at Rhysand. For what?

It could be any number of things, a small voice inside her head hissed, and she felt a tiny stab of shame, then covered it with thinking of how cold the glass was in her hand, beading with condensation.

“Clearly. Come see me in the morning and give a full report,” Rhys said, calm and unconcerned. But his eyes flashed as they settled briefly upon Elain. “And get Elain another glass of water. She’s parched, aren’t you, little sister?” His smile was thin and cold, and he moved away, sleek as a shadow, to stand behind Feyre, one arm draped lazily over her shoulder, fiddling idly with the knobbly handwoven string that supported the gold medallion around her neck. She reached up to stroke his wrist; the very picture of domesticity. Elain was pleased to discover that she could in fact distract him with obvious surface thoughts, to misdirect from her deeper misgivings — since she had no expertise in mental shields, that could be a useful tactic, even if it was flimsy. But warring with her satisfaction came a deep unease.

“Presents!” Mor called out from close to the fireplace, dragging a sack of brightly wrapped gifts out of a pocket realm, and everyone clustered around the couch for the exchange. Elain knew this would dissolve into spoiling the baby, and she was right; everyone competed for the best present for Nyx, who was getting a bit tired and cranky, and wanted only to play with the bright ribbons on the packages. Everyone had gotten one another gifts, and everyone exclaimed over the silk scarves, the sharp knives, the antique astrolabe that Feyre had sourced from the Day Court for Rhys…but, Elain noticed again and again, no one had gotten any gifts for Lucien.

She stole another glance at Lucien. He seemed unperturbed, smiling at the chaos of wrapping paper and mirth as Cassian opened a leather satchel from Mor with a suggestive shape. He howled with laughter as she winked and told him with supreme innocence that it was for use in the annual snowball fight. Nesta rolled her eyes, and Cassian stuffed the satchel into her hands with a hooded glance. Elain felt curiously voyeuristic, as though she’d witnessed something she wasn’t supposed to see; a tiny window into a private moment between her sister and the powerful male she was mated to. She thought of the little blue box, sitting on the table in the next room, and longed for the right moment to give it to him. But it didn’t seem appropriate, not here; not with everyone watching. She didn’t dare to give everyone else a tiny window into what was — or perhaps wasn’t — between her and Lucien. Not when it would be giggled over and teased and demeaned.

She broke away a few minutes later to gather all her presents together; jasmine soap from Nesta, tulip bulbs from Feyre, a box of expensive spices from Rhys, and found him in the hallway pulling his cloak off the hook.

“You’re leaving?” she blurted out, before she could think of anything better to say.

He turned, masking his surprise with a wry grin. “Overstaying a welcome is poor etiquette, I’ve found.”

“You’re welcome here,” she insisted. Was it her imagination that his eyebrows twitched in denial?

“Thank you,” he said, “but I think this party is for family now. And I’m not that. Whatever else I may be.”

“But…” — was she really going to say it? Her stomach clenched. Brave. Be brave. “But…I haven’t given you your present yet.”

He froze, comically halfway through securing the cloak buttons. “My what?”

“Your — your present,” she stammered. Gods above, untie her tongue from these hopeless knots. “I’m sorry no one else got you anything. But I did.”

As soon as she said it, it sounded false. Petulant. Like she was seeking a compliment.

“What for?” he asked, and he sounded bemused enough that she laughed, short and quiet.

“For Solstice, silly,” she said. She beckoned him into the darkened sitting area, turning on the lamp as she did. He followed, wary, keeping his distance.

She pushed the box at him, unsure of how to proceed, but now committed to seeing it through. He stared at it as though it was a trick, or a bomb that would explode in his face if he touched it.

“But you didn’t need to get me anything,” he said.

“I — I know,” she said, and her courage flagged. The box sank an inch or two from where she’d held it out to him. “But I wanted to. You did save my life, remember, so it’s only fair that I thank you properly.” She squared her shoulders, and in an attempt at being merry, said with a faint smile, “And I have a few Solstices to catch up on with you.”

He still didn’t move.

“Take it.” She moved two steps closer, til the box was within reach of his hand.

And with a brief hesitation, he reached up and took the box from her, pulled the ribbon off it, and opened it.

Elain was consumed with the strangest twirling in her gut, a spiral of anxiety and excitement. Gods. Dear gods. It was stupid. So stupid. Unutterably stupid, in fact. How could she have thought that it would be enough, when she had never accepted his gifts with anything but awkwardness, that this tiny thing would say everything she wanted it to?

Her cheeks flamed. She wondered if this was what it was to slowly choke…to asphyxiate under the weight of her own mistakes.

And still it was quiet. Finally, desperately, she dragged her eyes up from where her fingers twisted with anxiety and —

— and he was looking at her, his face a mix of gratitude and grief. Their eyes locked so tightly she almost heard the click of a key.

“A hyraeth,” he murmured, pulling the little pin from the box. The jeweler had fashioned it from a single piece of bright yellow amber that caught the light like honey, but also gleamed like sunshine on water. Elain had selected it herself. The etchings on the edges were done in black lacquer, faceting the surface of the amber just like the patterns on butterflies’ wings. The jeweler had done a lovely job, but her stomach corkscrewed into her legs nonetheless. Did he not like it?

“Well, not a real one,” she said hurriedly. “Just their likeness in a pin for your hair, or your lapel. But I thought you might like it…they’re from the Autumn Court,” she blurted, realizing she was babbling and cursing herself roundly for it, trying to lower her voice, which - drown her in the damned cauldron - was so much louder than was necessary.

“I know,” he said. “From the Vilderavian Groves, at the borders of Summer.” His voice fractured ever so slightly at the edges.

Her eyes widened. “Have you seen it?”

“Yes,” he replied, and there was a reverence in his voice that rippled through her like wind through grass. “Long ago. Just once. They alight on the great trunks of the hemlock trees in a shimmering mass. An ocean of tiny wings, all amber and gold and black, whispering among the green foliage. It’s a special place; the only evergreen spot in Autumn. And the sight — the whole forest alive with trembling light — is magnificent. There’s nothing like it.”

She nodded. “It made me think…” She spread her hands in defeat. That home is a journey, rather than a place. That it might not obey borders or rules, but seek its own way across barriers. That to find it, to keep it, one can endure unimaginable toil and turmoil. That there is magic in the smallest things. “…that you might someday find a place for your heart to rest. Unfathomable as that may be now.”

She could have sworn there was a gleam in his eyes, just for a moment. He closed his hand over the little pin. “It’s beautiful,” he said, softly. And then, so gently that had she not been straining toward him with every cell of her treacherous body, she would not have heard him: “I think you’ve fathomed me quite well, Blossom. Thank you.”

His eyes slid down to her lips, so close…the moment brief and shimmering, a bubble on the wind…

…and it shattered, burst by the arrival of Nyx, screaming in uninhibited toddler glee as Cassian mock-chased him through the hallway and past the open doors. Lucien started and stepped back. Elain very nearly followed him, so strong was the pull of the bond’s tidal undertow in her ribs, but she knew it was too late. Misery blooming in her heart, she turned to go.

“Happy Solstice, Elain,” he murmured.

She looked back over her shoulder, and saw him standing in the pool of light from the lamp. In that moment, he seemed aglow himself somehow. A living sun.

“Happy Solstice, Lucien,” she replied; and, unbidden, unsought, a smile rose to her lips. He returned it, shyly — and low in her gut, an ember, dormant under the ash of everything that had happened, flickered into a tiny flame.

It was nothing, she told herself sternly as she climbed the stairs to her room. So small. But even a tiny light could bring a traveler safe home.

#acotar #elain archeron #fanfic #lucien vanserra #elucien #prythian #sjm critical #azriel #high lady feyre

145 notes · View notes