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full-loup · 4 months

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Tales of Lipomancy: A Fit for a Beast

Another story/illustration combo, this one pretty long at about 15k words! Hope y'all enjoy!

If you prefer due to the length, here's an external link to a possibly easier to read format:

Chapter One

"I fucking hate mazes..." Cassius muttered as the group moved along.

His mother had told him stories of this place as a child, of the great Labyrinth of Ageláda. He always listened with apt fascination, yet his childhood was often plagued by reoccurring nightmares, of being trapped in a maze without end, constantly hunted by a monster he never fully saw, only catching glimpses of as he rushed around the next corner, and the next one, and the next one...

The other two either didn't hear or ignored him as they continued down the path, a wider avenue among the twisted corridors of the massive labyrinth. The badger grunted as he tripped over a broken column, nearly falling into one of the dark-leaved hedges that comprised almost the entirety of this awful place.

"Damn you!" He hissed, hopping on one leg as his sandaled toes throbbed with pain, "Damn this place! We're just walking in circles, aren't we?!"

"Relax," Marius Aurellius growled, the male's voice reverberating metallically through his enclosed helm, finely forged into the shape of a golden wolf, "I paid you wretches for a job, and you will not leave until your contracts are honored."

"Right, sorry Lord Aurellius..." The badger nodded, grinding his teeth as he followed along behind the warrior.

The third member of the group remained silent, but he could see her grinning out of the corner of his eye. He shivered as he thought of the raccoon. He wasn't fond of magic users in general, but something else rubbed him the wrong way about Bridget. He considered himself a mercenary, through and through, but he got the feeling she was doing this not for the coin, but for an excuse just to test out her horrifying talents. He hated sorcerers, but not nearly, he had recently decided, as much as he hated mazes.

"Gods, look at that!" The woman gasped as they rounded yet another corner, "Was that one of them, you think?"

Cassius felt his stomach turn as he caught sight of the gigantic skeleton lying in the middle of the path. The thing's bones were bleached white, but from the humongous horns that sprouted from the sides of its skull, he knew that it had to have indeed been 'one of them'.

"Minotaur..." He breathed.

"Looks that way, yes." Marius started, rattling off useless anatomical minutiae about the skeleton that would only confirm the obvious. Cassius was still in shock. All the stories his mother had told him when a child stated that the creatures were huge, but his imaginings still paled in comparison with the reality before him. The only time he'd ever seen evidence of such a beast of stature was in the library at Capitorvus where the skull of a full-grown dragon hung in its atrium, and even then it had been far enough away to seem in miniature...

"Did you hear me, hireling?"

Cassius pulled his gaze from the dead beast and looked to his employer, his helm's faceplate now raised, exposing the elf's delicate features, "Sure, yeah," The badger nodded.

"Then get moving! We've precious little time if we want to reach the center by nightfall..."

The soldier nodded again, grabbing the straps of his heavy pack and shifting it to sit more comfortably on his back, but lingered as his fellows continued onwards. He stared again, awestruck at bones, the skull alone towering over him at twice his height. He reached out, placing his palm flat against its forehead, trying to make the mythic beast seem real...

Thessala pulled her hand away from the skull as a chill ran down her spine. She felt as though she had just been touched by a ghost.

"Strange..."

The blond haired woman looked around the maze, but save the skeleton it was just as featureless as ever. This was hardly the first dead beast she had seen in this labyrinth, but it was by far the largest. There were a few strange ones, to be sure. A few had seemed strongly humanoid, possibly ogres, while others were more draconic, or even canine.

Most, however, had been unmistakably bovine.

"The Minotaurs of Ageláda..."

This bothered the cow woman greatly.

A part of her wondered what they must have looked like while alive, how similar they would have been to her. Were the legendary monsters somehow related to her kind? An evolutionary offshoot perhaps? Perhaps. She'd have to remember to ask one, if she ever found one that wasn't a pile of bleached bones.

She continued onwards, moving ever deeper into the maze. Or at least she was hoping she was heading deeper and not further out. There were no landmarks close by, at least none tall enough to be seen over the towering hedges, and her sense of direction had proven rather poor so far.

Or maybe it hadn't, it's not like there was any way to tell.

"Damn it..." Thessa growled, kicking a nearby column in anger. The stone pillar cracked on impact with her hoof, tiny fractures spiraling outwards from the point of contact. The bovine swore as the column collapsed, nearly crushing her. She had to be more careful around these ruins, apparently they were even older than they looked...

"This was a stupid idea, I'm never going to find the center... I'm never going to find anything in this dumb maze."

She might not even find the entrance again.

Thessa's heart began to pound as she looked at the various paths around her. They all looked the same.

"I have to get out of here, I can't take this..."

She moved forwards, not towards one of the twisting paths through the hedges, but towards one of the hedges themselves. She unsheathed her sword, prodding at the dark foliage of the plant wall, the color unlike any flora she had ever seen in nature. Almost pure, inky black.

Another chill ran down her spine as she raised her sword.

"I've tried everything else, might as well give this a shot..."

She brought the blade of her gladius down, cutting a path through the wall.

Another corridor of hedges lay beyond the portal she had made. She growled with frustration, moving onwards through the next barrier and cutting her way through that as well. Another featureless corridor of flora lay beyond that, and another beyond that, and another beyond that...

Thessa kept cutting, refusing to give up on her strategy, refusing to wander the endless maze like mindless cattle again. She hacked, she slashed, she raged her way through the labyrinth wall by wall, cut by cut.

Finally stopping as she reached a clearing, Thessa let out a sight of relief as she at last found something that wasn't a wall of leaves. The space before her was wide and open, taken up mainly by a large fountain, simple in its basic bowl-like shape, but elegant in the details carved into its surfaces. Many of these were worn down by age, however, much of the fountain covered by thick vines, the water having stopped flowing long ago, laying still in stagnant, algae-filled pools.

The sun was beginning to set now. She knew it wouldn't do her any good to be navigating the maze by night, not when she couldn't see. She cursed herself for not bringing any torches, wishing she had foreseen this predicament before she had gotten herself lost. Soon it would be night, and she might have to come back here if she couldn't find the center of the labyrinth soon. The clearing seemed a good enough place to stop and rest for the night as any, especially if it was potentially a reliable source of drinking water...

Thessa looked closely at the murky water, deciding it best not to risk drinking just yet despite how dehydrated she was from her exertions. Instead she drank from a flask she carried, the water sloshing about too much for her liking. If she didn't get out of here soon, she'd no longer have the luxury of choice when it came to where she could quench her thirst.

After resting a while at the fountain's edge, Thessa strolled across the clearing, beginning to hack her way through the hedges once again.

Emerging on the other side of the wall, the cowgirl stumbled, tripping over onto her stomach as she felt something grasp her ankle firmly. She grunted with exertion as she tried to pull herself free, but whatever she was snagged in would barely give.

"Come on..." She groaned, her flat, bovine teeth grinding, "Come! On!"

Suddenly she shrieked as she was yanked backwards into the clearing again. She clung tightly to her sword as she was dragged past the fountain, back the way she came, then sharply to the left, then the right. She shouted and cursed and kicked wildly as she felt her limbs snagging in the grasp of even more unseen snares, as though she were steadily being bound by ropes, until finally her mad, tumbling ride through the maze began to slow. Her surroundings became darker before Thessa realized she was being pulled down into a cave somewhere, the air cold and wet.

Her movement slowed to a halt completely now, the cowgirl thankful for that at least. The rough ride through the hedgemaze had left her battered, her leather armor torn and beaten in places, leaves and twigs sticking from her hair and the gaps in her clothing. Her pelt had fared little better, the blond fur stained with dirt and mud and even blood from the cuts and scrapes she had acquired while being dragged through the hedges and over the ground. Panting heavily, the cow was lifted up by whatever it was holding her, limbs all locked in place by the trap's grip, pulled spread-eagle as she was suspended in the middle of the cavern's maw.

Slowly, a large, purple plant pod loomed out of the darkness that filled the cave, the pod opening into a gigantic, beautiful flower. At that moment, Thessa realized that she was bound not by ropes, but the seemingly innocuous vines she had passed over in the clearing, all of them leading to this floral abomination. The tied-up cowgirl began to shout and twist in the creature's grasp.

"Let me go, monster!" She growled, spitting at the center of the flower as it drew closer, one of the several, thicker tentacles that surrounded the insides of the bulb beginning to snake through the air towards her body. The plant ignored her spittle, barely even phased as the tendril began to prod at her, the thick end of the stamen jabbing at the woman's belly, then up at her face. Thessa tugged firmly at her sword arm, but the plant responded harshly, the vine constricting her wrist squeezing painfully tight, causing the bovine warrior to both drop her sword and howl in agony.

As the woman's weapon clanged against the cavern floor, the tendril shot into her open mouth, making Thessa gag as it barreled its way down her throat. She groaned loudly in distress, her shouts muffled by the vine filling her maw as she struggled harder against the vines. Thankfully it didn't take long for her gag reflex to settle, her throat growing used to the vine lodged inside of it, Thessa still able to breath easily enough. Just as her throat was becoming comfortable however, panic filled her once more as she began to feel a new sensation growing within her stomach, a cozy warmth as though she were being filled with hot soup. Desperate, the cowgirl tried to bite into the tube in her mouth, managing to send a tremor through the strange plant, but also causing the vines binding her to tighten viciously.

Thessa sighed as the sensation continued to fill her belly, the feeling soothing despite the situation she found herself in. She'd been stuck in the maze for so long and was so exhausted it actually felt nice to have a satisfying, if unorthodox meal, though as her leather cuirass tightened around her abdomen, she wondered how long it would be before her guts burst from the pressure. There were worse ways to go, she supposed. She couldn't really think of any at the moment, but at least the liquid steadily filling her belly felt more comfortable than not. Slowly, cautiously, the captive bovine drifted off to sleep, completely, peacefully, resigned to her fate. Chapter Two

"LET ME GO YOU FUCKING WEED!" Cassius screamed.

Marius was knee deep in vines, desperately hacking away at them as they kept him from the plant's core. Cassius continued to writhe, muscles bulging despite the thickset badger barely loosening his captor's grip.

"Stop shouting, you fool! I'm almost there!" The elf spat, roaring in frustration as he found his own limbs quickly ensnared in the malevolent plant's grasp. Try as he might, there were far too many of the vines to cut a clear path through, and the warrior's heavy plate armor did little for his stamina, even without the things tangling him up.

Cassius groaned in dismay as the plant's flower opened up, blooming in an explosion of color that was somehow both sickening and breathtaking. Before long, the thing was shifting closer out of the gloom, the inner tendrils around the flower's face beginning to poke and prod at his body.

"Oh gods, oh gods!" Cassius cried as one of the tendrils began to jab at his face, the badger squeezing his eyes shut tight, "Please don't eat me, anything but that, anything bu-MMPHH!"

Bridget was still towards the mouth of the cave, attempting to scorch the vines away from Marius with her sorcery, when she saw the plant plunge its feeder tube down Cassius's throat. The raccoon didn't wait long, attempting to get the bulb of the plant within her sights and, by extension, her magic, but couldn't see past the badger's ensnared body. She huffed in frustration, biting her lip as she debated on what to do next. Deciding it was worth the risk, she changed tactics, focusing instead not on the vines attacking Marius but the ones binding Cassius instead.

The vines burned, but much slower than Bridget had hoped. A strange, guttural noise filled the cave, a shriek unlike any the three had ever heard, before it was soon joined by the muffled cries of Cassius. Bridget wasn't sure what was happening until she heard a loud crack above the clamor, then began to focus her mind, willing the flames to move down the vines towards where she thought the plant's core was, whether she could see it or not.

Apparently she had been successful, as soon after every last vine twitched and recoiled, retracting back defensively towards the monster's main body as Cassius was dropped unceremoniously to the cavern floor. Bridget's lips curled into a snarl as she glared at the burning plant, the flames reflected in her eyes, but Marius grabbed her shoulder firmly as he and Cassius rushed past her, breaking her concentration.

"Move, now!"

Begrudgingly, the sorceress broke off, tailing behind the two men as they fled the cave.

Once they were a safe distance away, the mercenaries and their employer regrouped, the badger clutching his right wrist and wincing. His paw hung at a strange, unusual angle from his arm, the sight of it almost sickening Bridget as she came close and held it gently in her grasp.

"Hold still." She commanded him, the soldier almost flinching away from her as she touched him, yet she paid his reaction little mind. As she held his paw steady, a green light shimmered from beneath her own hands, shining from between her fingers as loud crunching sounds filled the air. Cassius barked out in pain, but soon his wrist was back to normal, the male rubbing it tenderly as Bridget let go.

"Next time, try not to stop and smell the flowers..." She said as she examined the wrist before glancing up at him, smiling.

"Thanks..." Cassius said before looking down at his stomach, patting at it where it bulged under his leather armor, "Though I think I would have been fine if it stopped somewhere between the smelling and the tasting."

The raccoon laughed and slapped the stuffed badger on the back roughly, "You'll work it off, believe me! Lost a fight with a slime once. Was months before I could walk again without jiggling everywhere, you got off easy!"

The soldier smiled, trying to picture it as Bridget walked off. Judging by the woman's worn and ragged robes, he was sure she could have used the extra insulation at the time. He hoped this job went well for the two of them at least, she deserved better than the life of a hedge mage.

"Enough prattle! The both of you have wasted enough of our time, wouldn't you agree? We need to get moving now."

When it came to the party's third member though, Cassius wasn't feeling so thankful.

"Aurellius..." Cassius growled under his breath as he turned to face the elf.

Raising his lupine visor again, the warrior's blue eyes glared daggers at the badger, likely incensed by something completely stupid yet again, "Lord Aurellius, filth! You will address your betters as such, especially when you are graced by their presence..."

The soldier snarled as he stood before the elf, towering over him despite Aurellius's taller than average stature. Cassius may be considered the muscle in his line of work, but that didn't mean he was to be treated like some dumb tool, "And just how were you gracing us back in the cave, my liege? Doing some gardening with that fancy sword of yours?"

Shame flashed across the elf's face for the briefest of moments before his arrogance stamped it under heel, "You wouldn't need rescuing like some schoolchild had you not been caught in the first place, you cretin! Now get in line before I decided to cut the both of you loose and finish this job myself."

Cassius huffed, but backed down, his employer lowering his visor again as he turned and continued walking through the maze. The badger and the raccoon followed him, though by Bridget's face, Cassius could tell she was growing tired of this buffoon too.

"The dregs of society both of you..." Marius grumbled under his breath, his jab made all the more awkward by the distortion as it was filtered through his helmet.

"Beat on me all you want, Lord Aurellius, but if it wasn't for Bridget we'd be dead."

"The untrained sorceress? Bah! A witch deserves no respect, deserves little more, in fact, than to be thrown on the pyre! As for you, mongrel, when we're through with this job, all of us will be set for life. I'm sure you'll be able to pay off your bar tab then and finally achieve your life's dream of drinking yourself to an early grave." The elf sneered.

Hot anger flared up within Cassius at that, but he bit his tongue. Deep down he knew the elf was no better, a fallen noble cast out by the highest in the Empire, desperate to prove his worth to the elite once more. Before his fall from grace, he might have had an entire legion at his command. Now all he had was a single washed up legionnaire and a witch of the wilds, the only ones desperate enough to do his bidding.

But even they had their limits.

He glanced at Bridget again once Aurellius's tirade was through, and she gave the badger a knowing grin. Gold could buy loyalty in their line of work, but exploitation and abuse could buy nothing more than a knife in the back. The fact that they hadn't yet run into a living minotaur yet after all this time had seemed like luck to the badger, even more so considering he doubted a group this divided could take one down. If there was anything he had confidence though, it was in Bridget's capabilities as a sorceress, and the special tools he carried in his pack...

"By the gods..." Bridget suddenly gasped as she looked ahead once more.

"Do you see it!" Aurellius laughed, the noise tinny and inhuman, "Just over the hedge there!"

As the trio were drawn further and further from the cave, nobody was there to witness the shadow that now loomed before its mouth, nor to hear the unearthly shrieks of its sole inhabitant as it was torn out by the roots.

Thessa was sure she would be dead by now.

She almost wished she was.

Only the mountain gave her hope...

She glanced once more at the peak towering above the hedges. She couldn't be sure how far it was, but she knew where to go now, she knew it was getting closer. Most importantly of all though, her path was now clear.

The cow had awoken in a stupor, her mind foggy and clouded. She wasn't sure how long she had slept there on the cavern floor, but she knew immediately that she was now free of the plant's clutches. Stumbling clumsily to her hooves after a tremendous effort, she lumbered out the mouth of the cave and back into the winding labyrinth around it.

Thessa remembered thinking last night that she could barely imagine a worse way to die than to be engorged to bursting, like a ripe berry too full of juices. Now she was wishing that maybe she had instead, feeling it would be a much better demise than the slow one that now awaited her. Upon waking from her slumber, Thessa had immediately discovered her stomach had swollen immensely, the comforting warmth of the sap the flower had been filling her with having turned to twisting knives of pain in her over-distended stomach in the morning. The growth had been so extreme that her leather cuirass has actually burst its straps, her now boulder-sized gut bulging freakishly before her as though she were many months pregnant with a great many calves. Worse yet, the rest of her armor had felt much tighter as well around her body, and it was easy to see why. As she slept, the foul liquid the plant had filled her with was digested by her body, metabolizing with preternatural speed and being stored on her once athletic frame as heavy, sagging fat.

"This isn't fair..." She moaned as she clutched her still painfully swollen belly tightly, the orb of flesh bouncing with every slow, laborious step she took. The bovine was forced into an awkward waddle now, her stomach bulging massively before and beneath her, forcing her thighs to straddle it as she made her way ponderously through the labyrinth, "This isn't... f-fair..."

The vines had left her alone as she left the cave, their job now done. They didn't even bother her when she found the clearing again, letting her fall heavily onto her now cushioned buttocks as she rested by the fountain's side. All she could do was sob for the next hour, tears staining her plump cheeks as the exhausted, overstuffed cow cried herself to sleep once again.

Another day had passed, slumber gripping the heavy bovine like quicksand, the once healthy warrior having to struggle just to pull herself from her sleep. As the morning sun baked her bare belly, she gasped thickly, shock filling her bloated belly with cool dread.

Through the night, the belt that held her defensive skirt of pteruges had burst off of her, succumbing to the pressure of her swelling hips. Other straps, too, had failed as her body had piled thickly with blubber, her force-fed meal still wreaking destruction upon her body. Through the night, Thessa must have gained at least fifty pounds of pure fat, and her belly didn't feel the least bit emptied of that wretched, heavy fluid...

"Oh no..." She moaned, tears welling in her eyes once more, "This can't... this can't be happening..."

Thessa knew that as the days passed, her body would continue to fatten. More and more she would become burdened by her new form, more and more easily would she tire as she weakened and softened with time. As the days she would waste wandering aimlessly through the maze came to pass, she would grow slower and slower, making less progress with each new day. Moving would become more of a struggle as the cruelly massive stores of sap within her digested, until finally, at long last, she would be pinned to the ground by her own hideous bulk. Then she would truly find out if the liquid within her was as endless as she feared, her body smothered by its own weight. If that wasn't the case, then of course the sap would one day run out instead and Thessa would die, fatter than anyone she had ever known, by starving to death.

What a disgusting joke that would be.

Thessa began to cry again, sobbing until tears wouldn't come.

As she looked up, she saw something that sent a thrill of surprise through her body. At first, she had thought it was simply one of the portals she had hewn through the hedges before, but this one was much to large and, as she looked around, on a completely different wall, facing a completely different direction. Sighing, Thessa prepared herself for the now burdensome task of standing, and wobbled herself onto her hooves.

As she approached the hole in the foliage, another one slowly began to open up through the wall beyond that. Her curiosity now piqued, she waddled through and approached the new gap, only to see another appear beyond that one. The cow's belly bounced as she looked around, confused. Was this some kind of trap? The tactic seemed much too clever for the plant creature she'd encountered and besides that, she had little left to lose anymore anyways. Whatever was happening here, she might as well see it through to the end.

Without a second thought, Thessa began to journey through the maze again, this time following the path that opened up before her, walking through the walls instead of between them.

Days would pass, Thessa growing exhausted again and again. Before she was caught by the flower, she might have been able to make the journey within a matter of hours. Now, she could barely walk a mile without feeling like she would die. Every time she stopped to rest, she knew that she would wake up heavier and dreaded it, but she had nowhere else to go. Despite this, she was about ready to give up, convinced that the maze itself was trying to kill her with sheer exhaustion, when she saw it.

The mountain.

Visible on approach to the island, but hidden from sight once inside the outskirts of the labyrinth, the peak of Mount Tavros was the only real landmark one could find within the maze. Unfortunately the only way to see it was to get close enough, and few who dared enter ever did.

In spite of the weight that was piling onto her, that threatened to pull her to the ground, Thessa felt hope rising inside of her. Hope that filled her heart, that lifted her to her feet every morning, that drew her inevitably to the peak at the island's center. She knew she could get there now, it was only a race against time. If only she could reach that peak, then maybe she could find what she sought. Maybe they could save her life...

With her goal now before her, Thessa carried on. Even as the fat sagged from her body in rolls of meaty flab, even as her thighs became swallowed by thick blubber that caused them to chafe with every waddling step, she forged onwards. Despite her energy draining more with every dawn, or perhaps because of it, she pushed herself harder, unable to allow herself to be defeated now that she knew she had even the slightest chance. She would not be brought down before she found her answers.

Drawing closer to the mountain, so much so that its crags and cliffs filled her vision, another landmark bagan to come into view as well over the hedge walls. Thessa could see little of it beyond the highest parapets until she stood before it and, in doing so, she realized she had finally reached her goal.

There she stood now, at the center of the maze, the hedge walls finally opening up, parting to form a vast circle that enclosed Mount Tavros and the space around it. Standing before her, beautiful and majestic, loomed a castle. Thessa never would have expected to find such a thing here, especially not one that was so marvelous, so breathtakingly wondrous. Alabaster and marble colluded to form towers and balustrades that looked as though they were sculpted from clouds, golden ornamentation along the facade and over the ramparts making it seem a citadel fit for the gods themselves.

Thessa was frozen now, at a loss for what action to take next. She looked at the long, sprawling bridge that lead from the cliff she now stood on, over a massive, yawning chasm and to the castle's very gates. She was unsure if she should proceed. Did someone, something still dwell within those magnificent towers? Would she be trespassing once she crossed the castle's threshold, and if so, what resistance would she meet once inside?

These questions were meaningless, her hesitation a waste of precious time. Whether the castle was empty or filled to the brim with monsters or not, her entry into it was inevitable now, the only option she had left other than to meet a humiliating and obscene doom. The bovine warrior took a deep breath, her massively swollen and now bare breasts rising before her face as she did so, and reached for her sword...

Only to remember that it was gone, left way back on the cavern floor where her struggles had truly started within the maze. She still had her shield, and what few scraps of her leather armor that still clung to her shoulders and arms, but beyond that she was naked and defenseless.

So be it, she decided. If she were to find a fight before her, she would most assuredly be slain with little effort now, but it was better than waiting here.

Steeling herself, Thessa began to march across the bridge. Her body had grown enormously since she had escaped the cave, and by now she must weigh almost as much as a horse, but she couldn't let that stop her. Already she was worn out from the distance she had covered that day, and her breathing became strained. Already she felt exhaustion dragging her down into its clutches. She knew with absolute certainty that she couldn't give in, that were she to rest just one more time she would awaken immobilized, unable to stand back up. Only a day ago, her bloated stomach had grown enough to reach the ground, and now Thessa had to hold its sagging mass in her paws just to be able to move forwards. Within a day or two, her buttocks would surely join it, their exposed, titanic swell bouncing behind her with every step, the dimpled cheeks wobbling and rippling like gelatin as they crashed into one another. Her cascade of backrolls looked like a mountain unto itself, mirroring the peak that filled the horizon in front of Thessa and her breasts rose and fell before her with each strained breath, so filled with fat that they retained some of their perkiness, but so heavy that they sagged gravidly to the sides of her stomach's bulk. Her blubbery thighs crushed against one another as she shifted her legs forwards and back and her arms sagged with girthy flab, making it difficult for her to even hold her stomach in her grasp, despite its sheer size.

Her body, when it was fit and lean, was once one of her greatest assets as an adventurer. Now, it conspired against her at every turn. The bridge beneath her was built of solid rock and stone, but even that trembled slightly from her girth now, loose mortar spilling from its stonework underneath as the hooves on its surface and the burden they carried stomped across its span. Thessa's lungs were burning with each breath, her heart pounding and fluttering deep beneath her chest fat. Sweat soaked her fur now, weighing her down even more as it dripped from her corpulent body to the stones below, the setting sun that baked her in its heat doing little for her stamina, but she knew she couldn't stop. She already felt even fatter than when she had set out across the bridge, and if she were to rest, even for a moment, on her backside, she knew she would never get back up. If she couldn't reach the castle, then wherever she chose to sat would be where her story would come to an end.

That wouldn't happen.

Twenty paces from the door now. Thessa gasped thickly, spittle spilling past her plump lips as she gazed up at it. She was so close now, but her entire body burned, every muscle in agony, every nerve crying out. She feared she would collapse, that her knees would simply buckle under the pressure; that her heart, now thundering painfully in her chest, would explode at any moment. She couldn't stop. She wouldn't. Were she to die of exertion, then at the very least she'd have foiled the fate that abominable plant had intended for her. Just a few more steps, so very close to her goal...

She pushed heavily against the golden doors to the citadel, barely even taking in the reliefs upon their surface that depicted millennial of magic and history. To her astonishment, they parted, unlocked, nearly toppling the obese cow forwards onto her gut. She gasped and wheezed as she looked around the vast foyer before her, thankful for the shade, keeping her sweat-soaked body cool and giving her relief. She had made it... but now what?

The foyer was empty, its furniture and decoration covered with dust, strangled in cobwebs. She looked around the large room, desperate to find answers, to find her salvation, but only saw more paths. The sprawling staircase in front of her, the many paths leading off to her left, to her right. Corridors and corridors. Room after room. She had traded one maze for another.

"Puhhh... Pleeeease....!" She gasped heavily, her voice heavy, deepened by her blubber, reflecting the sheer mass she had gained since her journey began, "Some... S-Somebody! Anybody... I need... help..."

Nobody answered. Thessa was wheezing. Her heart was pounding with both exhaustion and panic now.

"Wuhhhh... where are... you?!" She bellowed thickly, rasping breaths burning through her lungs as she stumbled clumsily about in a circle, her entire body quaking in fear and dismay as the room spun around her, "Please! I came... I came so far! Phaedre! Where are... where..."

As darkness began to fill her vision, the cow's mind raced with fearful thoughts.

She was going to die here, not the heroic warrior she had so longed so be ever since she was young, but as a helpless pile of lard. She wondered what her family and friends would think of her if they somehow could see her like this, what her hero would think of her were she actually here... She would look like a slob, a glutton, a whale.

Shame was the last thing she felt before her vision faded, and she fell heavily to the cold, stone floor.

"You are so very brave, aren't you?"

"Phay... Phaedre..!" Thessa gasped.

The warrior's brown eyes shot open at the sound of the voice. She felt the soft mattress and pillows under her, the cool blankets that covered her body, and thought at first that she was home again. She hoped that the events of the past week or so had only been a dream, but knew that it wasn't by the size of the bed; by the size of herself.

Dread balled up in her gargantuan gut. In a fit of panic, she struggled to sit up, her fat-swaddled arms and legs flailing uselessly besides the rolls of fat that was now her torso. She wheezed heavily from the momentary exertion, already drained. She was still alive, but now she was helpless. This was it, this was her end.

"Please..." She huffed now to the voice, "Please, help me..."

A figure came into her view, cloaked, a porcelain mask beneath the cowl. A faux human face gazed down at her, its shining white features gilded and threaded with gold. She glanced at the sword sheathed at the side of his azure robes. Thessa didn't take long to realize that this stranger was not the person she had expected to find here at the labyrinth's center. Whoever this was was armed and disguised, and that should have unsettled her, but Thessa was calm as she stared up at the figure. There was little he could do to hurt her further now.

"Just do what you... what you must..." She said, still panting heavily as she caught her breath, gulping and puffing, "Whether you kill me now... or tend to my needs as I... as I lie here, it matters not... I care not... There is no hope for me... I was foolish to think there would be..."

"Such a dismal outlook, you must surely realize..." The man said from behind his mask. He held a small bowl in his hands, which he scooped into a basin of fresh water at the side of the bed, "Many would share such a viewpoint sadly. That's the way the world has always been. Nobody wants to see the positives in life."

Thessa's brow furrowed, dimples forming in her soft cheeks as she frowned, "Positives... P-Positives..?" She grunted, panting now not out of fatigue, but anger, "Look at me! Do you even know... huff... huuhh... know what's happened... what's happening to my..."

The man held a finger to sculpted lips, then brought the bowl to the cow's mouth. She felt then, suddenly, just how parched she was, draining the bowl quickly and eagerly. He would be her caretaker then, not her executioner. What a shame.

"I am well aware, even more than you are," He said with the calm of certainty, "Even in such a state as you are now, there is more good than bad."

Thessa clenched her sausage fingers, trying to suppress the rage that was growing inside her, though she was unable to keep her body from shaking gently, the tremble creeping its way into her voice, "You don't know. You've never had this happen to you, that much I can guess..." She sighed, closing her eyes as tears came to them once more, "You don't know how it feels."

The man paused as he was filling the bowl again, turning his expressionless face towards her, "You are right, I do not know that. What I do know is that, even though your affliction will inevitably kill you, yes, you still did not surrender to it. You still fought, you still made your way here and suffered as you did, even though you did not know what lay in store. Not many make it through the maze, and even though I guided you here, not many would have survived what you did." He remained silent as he brought the bowl again to Thessa's lips, and though she was still angry, she still drank, "You are so very brave, Thessala, and you now know that about yourself."

"I... I know..." She started, her lips trembling as she held her tongue. She wanted to argue against him, to say she had always known this, but did she? Did she ever actually accept it until right now? Her eyes were still squeezed firmly shut, but nothing could stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks, "How did you... did you know my name?"

The man didn't answer for some time. Once more, he refilled the bowl for Thessa and let her drink, but afterwards set it aside and moved away from her bed. When he at last responded, his voice echoed from across the chamber, "Magic is a pathway to abilities many would deem... unimaginable..."

Thessa tried to shift her body on its side, but it wasn't long before she found that to be impossible now. Instead she simply turned her head, eyes widening at what she saw. The bedroom was much larger than she had expected, opening up into a larger chamber that seemed to serve as a laboratory or workshop of some sort. The space was filled with equipment, workbenches, bookshelves and storage crates. Devices and specimens, many so exotic that Thessa couldn't even identify, let alone describe, littered tables and hung from the ceiling on wire. Greatest among these that she could see was the skull of yet another minotaur set against the back wall, though this one was even larger than any she had come across within the labyrinth. The cloaked figure was at one of these strange devices, something that looked to be a mix between a shelf and a column.

"So what... you... you read my mind?" Thessa huffed.

"In a way. The technique is very obscure and many such esoteric spells are both powerful and difficult for even someone as experienced as I to fully understand," As he talked, the man was operating small dials set into the shelf-device, and the glass surrounding it opened up, turning away to reveal many vials and bottles shrouded by a cool mist that leaked from within the mechanism. All of the containers seemed to hold the same sort of liquid, a red substance that glowed with a soft luminescence, "Forgive me, I haven't yet introduced myself have I? My name is Zayn Var'Navosh."

Thessa paused for a moment, stunned, "The... The great wizard Var'Navosh? Descended from the royalty of Luxumentum to the north?" The Bastard Bloodline, she thought to herself. She wouldn't dare say so, but his line was said to be cursed, descended from gods, but the wrong sort of gods. Still, he was known as one of the most powerful sorcerers to ever walk mortal lands. If there were any alive who could help her, he was one of her best bets, "Then surely, you could... you could cure me, couldn't you? There must be a... a spell, some magic that could... could..."

As she pleaded, Zayne took one of the smaller vials from the mechanism, setting it down on the table next to him. He turned to face her now, pulling back his cowl and removing his mask, exposing his real face to her. He stared at her with bright green eyes, dark strands of unkempt hair framing the human's features, "I'm sorry," He told her, glancing away from the woman, "You cannot be cured... But that doesn't mean you have to die."

The massively fat warrior let out a shuddering sigh, closing her eyes again as the wizard moved back to her side. He carried the vial now, and Thessa fought back her sorrow to look at it, as the man spoke, "You know of my lineage, then surely you know the darkness that taints it..." He began, "The creature that did this to you was a gift to me by a... cousin of mine, one who is much less human. A twisted form of one of her creations, specifically devised to kill a demigod. Were it not for the tainted sap of this creature then all we would need to cure you would be nothing more than lipomancy, but this sap infuses every ounce of fat on you now."

"B-But that still doesn't... doesn't make sense..." Thessa panted, trying to remain calm, "How did I get so big, so heavy? Only from just a... a belly full of that stuff... the gain shouldn't be possible..."

The man nodded and smiled, "Astute of you to take notice, but like many things involving my more extended family, the rules of our reality don't always apply. These pretender gods, or the Eldritch Aristocracy as you might know them, hail from a reality very far removed from our own. The caloric density of this sap is much greater than its mere mass would suggest, and while it is not limitless, you will not survive by the time all of it digests. Even now, your body is already failing from its sheer size. As I said before, the fact that you were even able to make it here is a testament to who you are..."

"Then get it out of me!" Thessa begged, "If the sap is what's killing me, then surely you can..."

Zayne held up his hand, shaking his head, "Removing it without killing you would simply be impossible. As I said, it has infused itself with your very body from the moment it began to digest. There is only one way to save you but... You can never be, at least physically, who you were before..."

Thessa feared that he meant she would be stuck this way for the rest of her life, bound to this bed, in this room, by her corpulent body. Before she could state as much, Zayne held up the glowing vial and began to explain.

"The maze that surrounds us is protection. Necessary to safeguard many of the things I have collected here, things that are desired by the greedy, by the cruel. This vial of dragon's blood is one such thing," He said, holding it to the candle light. The vial glowed brighter, its contents seeming to twist and blend both definitions of the term 'plasma'. As the light refracted through the blood, it turned Zayne's brown skin gold, his azure robes emerald, "It will stop the sap from killing you, it can turn the weakness afflicting you into strength, but it will also change you forever... in very drastic ways."

The cow's eyes flicked to the skull within the wizard's workshop. She understood now, understood much more than she wanted to, perhaps.

"Phaedre..."

The wizard's face darkened. He looked away from her.

"Ever since I was a girl, I looked up to a hero. Another cow woman. Phaedre Lytara. She disappeared centuries ago, but after years of searching, I found out she had come here to Ageláda... Then after more searching, I finally found this place," She looked at the wizard completely now, but he would not meet her eyes, "She came here, didn't she? She reached the center of the maze after all. There was no way somebody like her couldn't have. She'd never have failed her quest, and she never did."

"Yes," He said.

"Zayne Var'Navosh, great wizard," She continued, "Did you turn my hero into a monster?"

He wouldn't say anything.

Thessa held her face in her chubby paw, grimacing as she did. All this time she had hoped to find her, find out what happened to the woman who had inspired her. She wasn't a fool, she had assumed she had died long ago. She never would have thought she would have died as a beast, as one of the monsters that heroes like her were supposed to fight.

"Why?"

"Because..." He said, facing her at last, "She understood what needed to be done. Understood what was necessary. She... the others, they all protected this place just as much as the labyrinth I made, if not more so."

"She was a hero! My hero!" Thessa growled, "She was strong enough to protect this place without you twisting her into that thing!"

Zayne stepped away from her, throwing out his arms as he strode towards Phaedre's skull, "And how has that changed? She was strong, yes! But she always wanted to be stronger..." He said, looking up at the former cow woman's remains, "And I gave that to her, she chose it."

"She chose to be a minotaur, a mindless animal..?"

"Not mindless..." Zayne replied, shaking his head, "They are not as the fables paint them. Ruled by instinct like a beast, but it can be controlled. She controlled it. She had the might she always wanted and she used it to defend this place, to defend me, and maybe even more than that... When my cousin came to kill me herself, when she tainted this island, Phaedre gave her life to fight her. She sacrificed herself and stopped a demigod. Who among mortals can claim that?"

Thessa fought back her anger again as she listened to the sorcerer and sighed. Maybe he was lying to her, but she could see little reason for that beyond her own desires to see him as a villain, "So she died a hero after all..."

"She did..." Zayne said, placing his hand upon the skull. He stayed like that for a while, and when he turned to face her, he couldn't hide the tears, "You don't have to take the dragon's blood yourself. I'm not forcing you to make that choice. But I wasn't lying about your options. Either die as what you are, or live as something else. Whichever you choose to do, you will still be you inside. Whichever choice you make, it will not be the wrong one."

Thessa took a deep breath, then chose.

Chapter Three

The sun shone down on the clearing, a beast hunched over the fountain at its center. The creature chewed at bits of fleshy plant matter it held in its giant hands like cud, savoring the taste. It had drained the floral abomination dry, but still that wasn't enough. There was nothing left of it now, beyond shriveled vines and what now filled the minotaur's belly.

She snorted as she licked her lips, then dunked her snout into the stagnant waters of the fountain, drinking thirstily from the pool, washing down the vile plant's taste.

Someone was shouting nearby, the same voices that had brought her to the cave. She raised her head and snorted, water cascading past her lips and through the fur of her face, draining into the pool below as she looked around.

She was not cruel, but she had her duty. She would give them a choice.

"What makes you so sure?!" Cassius demanded.

If the Isle of Ageláda was legend for its maze and the monsters that guarded it, then Mount Tavros was known far and wide as the prize at its center. Beyond that, nobody knew what exactly the maze defended, nor the purpose of its construction at all, but there were plenty of rumors. Vast wealth, the secret of immortality, a wizard that could grant wishes. There was no proof of any, of course, no proof that anyone had even reached the center, or lived if they had to tell the tale.

"There has to be something of value, you churlish oaf!" Marius shouted back, extending his arm to gesture at the walls around them, "Why else would anyone fabricate... this!"

"To lure people in, trap them, you never thought of that golden boy?" The badger sneered.

Bridget waved her hands frantically in the air, shushing them as she did, "Quiet! Both of you! Listen, do you hear that?"

They all went quiet, listening to the rumbling that had begun to fill the air.

The noise grew closer, louder, and soon they could feel it. Not long after that, they could even smell it, a scent not unlike a stable of horses or a barn of cattle, mixed with a wild, musky stench.

All three of them waited as the giant rounded the corner before them, all of them stiller than statues.

They stood their ground, though Cassius found himself trembling in place now, his heart pounding as he looked up at the monster. The minotaur was a colossus, towering over them, larger even than the dead one they had found. It... no, not it... she... looked down at them, thick blond hair covering her face, brown eyes peering between the matted strands. The minotaur's body was not as Cassius had expected, coated with a thick layer of fat that strained against an outfit cobbled together with scraps of metal and leather and rope. Despite this, it was clear to anyone that saw her that she was sturdily built, the muscles beneath the softness strong enough to crush stone in her bare hands, strong enough to level entire buildings with the massive club she rested on her shoulder.

The blond furred beast looked down at them with an unmistakable expression of disdain upon her face, like anyone of normal stature might gaze at a mouse or a spider.

"Leave..." She grumbled as softly as she could, her voice sending vibrations through the ground, through Cassius's teeth.

All of them were shaking visibly now. All of them except for that idiot, Marius.

"Oh, I think not!" He laughed, twisting his torso as he did to face his fellows, "We came here to reach the end, and that's just what we'll do, so let me put this into terminology even a dumb brute like you will follow: Let us pass or taste my blade."

The minotaur snorted at that, mist spraying from her nostrils before she stepped closer, a single step that brought her directly before them all. Cassius wanted desperately to listen to the beast and turn tail, but it looked like they were committed to a fight now, and they had a plan for this at least. Reaching into his pack, the badger pulled forth a grappling hook and heavy chain, looking to Bridget who nodded to him as she looked back.

"Leave..." The monster grunted, louder now, loud enough for Cassius to feel in his bones, "Or die."

"Then blood shall be spilt, now!" Marius cried.

Immediately, Bridget raised her paws to the sky, the ruined columns and pillars about them rumbling. The minotaur looked around at the stones, confused, until dust and loose rock began to fall onto her shoulders. She looked up, eyes wide as a sculpted arch above her fell, but it was too late for the cumbersome monster to move out of the way. The heavy stone impacted against her back and head, sending the massive giant tumbling to the ground before her, the very earth quaking as she hit.

"Now, now, now!"

As one, the two mercenaries besides the elf moved. The grappling hook soared through the air as Cassius hurled it, arcing over the minotaur's shoulder while Bridget raised her hands in the air again. As though guided by invisible hands, the hook wrapped about the minotaur's shoulder and arm, binding it firmly before the hook was sent plunging into the ground. Once deep enough, a specialized device within the grapple opened, anchoring it firmly into the earth even as another was hurled at the behemoth. The creature tried to dodge but was already chained in place, grunting as she met resistance where her arm was bound, unable to resist as her left became ensnared as well.

"NO!" The creature bellowed, her voice causing the rest of the standing ruins about them to come crumbling to the ground.

Already trapped, the minotaur could do nothing as more hooks were thrown, all of them guided by Bridget's sorcery, all of them firmly anchored in place. When all was done, the minotaur was completely entangled in the chains, brought to kneel before the trio, her back hunched, enormous palms flat against the earth in front of her. She wasn't getting back up anytime soon.

Marius chuckled at his mercenaries' handiwork, strutting around the beast triumphantly as he unsheathed his sword, "My, my, what a prize we have here!" He laughed, slamming the blunt end of his blade against one of the chains, the metal rattling, the beast roaring, "I'm sure the scholars at Capitorvus would love to rip you apart! Or maybe the Emperor himself would take you for his menagerie? If I recall, he already had a male, but I'm sure the poor thing could use some company, don't you think?" He jeered, lifting the minotaur's massive chin with the tip of his blade.

The creature's muscles bulged beneath her fat as she struggled, snorting frantically, grunting and bellowing in fury. Cassius cringed as he looked at the captured monster, seeing for a moment not a beast, but a woman bound by chains. He saw a strange, feral beauty of the behemoth, the sentience as he looked into her eyes.

This wasn't a monster. This was a person they had seized.

"Leave..." The behemoth panted, her breath baking against the three.

"Let's just go..." He muttered, imagining her dragged through the city in shackles, beautiful white fur pelted with garbage and rotten fruit, "Just leave her, it'd be too much trouble..."

"Of course we're leaving her, imbecile! Then we'll take her back on the way out!" Marius said, turning to face him, his wolf-helm frozen in an eternal grin, "Unless you're suggesting we abandon our catch..."

"Leave..!" The minotaur bellowed, shaking her head in annoyance, straining uselessly against her chains, "Now!"

"No... It's just, she's... just look at..."

Bridget pushed Cassius aside, standing between him and the knight, "She might escape if we just left her is all! So why bother with the dumb thing! Right?" She said, glancing from Marius to the minotaur, "Let's just move on, it'll make a good story regardless, not many folks manage to bring down one of these!"

Marius was silent as he looked between them, one hand on his hip, the other opening and closing its fingers around the grip of his sword. Finally he turned back to the behemoth and stepped closer to her.

"Not many do, no..." He said, gripping his sword with both hands. He leveled the tip of the blade to the minotaur's forehead, then raised it above him to strike, "And how few can be said to have slain one?"

The creature roared as her muscles flexed, the chains binding her body all nearly snapping at once. Marius froze, unable to do a thing as he was seized in one of the beast's massive hands, the behemoth moving surprisingly fast for one her size.

"Wha-Let me go freak!" Marius screamed, voice shrill with terror. He tried to bring his sword to bear on the creature's fingers, but the angle was too awkward, his movement restricted by his heavy plate armor, "Put me down! Put me down! Help!"

The minotaur plucked the sword from Marius's grasp with her free hand, holding the blade between her fingers as she lifted it to eye-level. Cassius had always thought the sword looked more ornamental than practical with its golden gilding and faceted jewels, and this theory was lent credence when the behemoth snapped the blade handily between her giant fingers.

"Pathetic..." She snorted.

"Let me go! Please! I'll leave! We'll all leave, please let me live!"

"Let me put this... into terminology..." The minotaur groaned, a vicious smile spreading across her bovine lips, "Even a dumb brute... like you... will follow..."

Marius screamed as the gargantuan woman tightened her grip around his waist. The metallic cry soon turned into a stomach-churning gurgle as blood began to leak from between the elf's plate armor and dripped through the monster's clenching fingers. The two mercenaries could only watch, Cassius frozen with fear, Bridget either fear or apathy, as the fallen noble's body went limp in the giant's grasp.

"We sh-should..." Cassius began, "S-Should..!"

He screamed as Marius's bloody corpse was tossed into him, knocking him to the ground pinning him beneath it.

"Cassius!" Bridget cried as the minotaur charged her. The raccoon hissed as she leapt to the side, narrowly dodging a punch from the beast. As the monster turned and bent, reaching for the club she had dropped when she was captured, the hedge mage jumped at the giant, clinging to the rope that held up her loincloth and bound a strangely normal-sized sword to her waist. The minotaur roared in fury, desperately trying to shake the woman off of her and failing as the witch scaled her way up the flabby giant, clinging tightly to her back rolls, he claws sinking into the beast's flesh and drawing blood.

"I'll make you suffer, you big bitch!" Bridget spat, drawing a gnarled dagger from her belt, the blade glowing with a sickly green light as it was unsheathed.

The minotaur snorted in irritation before slamming her back into one of the nearby ruined pillars still left standing, knocking the raccoon helplessly to the ground and the dagger from her grip.

"Curse you..." The woman hissed as she got to her feet, flames sparking in her palms, the fire reflecting in her eyes, "Curse you all!"

Bridget hurled the flames at the minotaur and they split, landing on the chains that still hung loose from her swollen curves. The beast roared in pain and anger as the spell hit her, the chains igniting across her body as though doused in oil. The monster's fur began to smolder as it started to catch alight as well, but instead of trying to put out the flames, she charged at the raccoon again, horns leveled at the mage as she attempted to gore her foe.

"Hah!" Bridget cried with glee as she dodged out of the way, landing on her feet as the gigantic beast passed her by, "I'm too fast! I'm too fucking fa-"

Cassius finally managed to pull himself out from under his dead employer, just in time to hear Bridget scream. He looked up, seeing the minotaur's thick, almost draconian tail slam into the woman, sending the racoon witch flying into one of the nearby hedge walls. The sorceress shrieked loudly as the flames still flaring from her claws ignited the leaves around her, the entire hedge soon swallowed in a hideous inferno.

It was one of the worst ways to go Cassius had ever seen.

He had little time to morn as the minotaur turned to face him. He scrambled to his feet as she scooped up her club, her hooves clomping through the earth, sending dirt and grass flying into the air as the giant woman picked up speed.

Cassius ran, knowing that this wasn't the kind of nightmare you wake up from.

#fat furry #fatfur #weight gain

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vulpecular-draconic · 1 month

Text

howdy! this is my side blog where i ramble about my experiences being alterhuman. i don't feel comfortable linking my main blog yet, but i may sometime in the future. on this blog, you can call me vuldra. i'm genderfluid and i'll update my pronouns in my bio when they change.

i am a psychological alterhuman – i am alterhuman due to being neurodivergent. i tend to have pretty strong phantom limbs, and about average species dysphoria (although i don't believe those are necessary to be nonhuman). i’m always somewhat mentally shifted.

i always feel like all of my kintypes to some degree, but they fluctuate in intensity. my fox ‘types take the stage most often, and they’re the first critters i awakened to, so i consider them my core ones. i call myself a fox more often than my other kintypes.

i often get mashup shifts, where i have phantom limbs and sometimes impulses/mentalities from several different creatures at the same time. the phantom limbs/etc are usually frakensteined together from my already known kintypes, but they can also include cameo shifts.

the summer of 2023 (june or july) is when i awakened. i've figured out a lot since then, but i'm always learning about myself, so i'll update/rephrase this post every once in a while.

theriotypes

— red fox [vulpes vulpes]. specifically, the pearl fox color morph

— bat-eared fox [otocyon megalotis]

both fox shifts usually consist of at least a couple of these urges: to bite things/others, roll on the floor, wag my tail, curl up in a little ball, run on all fours, squeal, or growl. i can tell the difference between the species by which body shape matches my phantom limbs best, which coat color feels more like me at the moment, which habitat i’d feel most comfortable in, and a few other factors.

usually when i get fox shifts, i feel like an anthropomorphic fox. not quite like the way most modern furries are drawn – more along the lines of how an anthro fox in an old storybook would be drawn. i like having anthro shifts better, because it's less dysphoric than when i'm an all-fours fox.

otherkin types

– pocket dragon. i'm only about six or seven inches long from head to tail. my scales are blue with mottled silver, layered over atop each other, and most are that classic rounded triangular shape. my mouth is sharp and has no teeth. sometimes my tail has a feather-like fan of scales on the end, sometimes it doesn’t. when i get pocket dragon shifts, i feel the urge to scurry up trees, hide in tiny nooks, stop speaking, and eat berries and beetles.

— dragon [not pocket-sized]. this species is bigger and more sapient than my pocket dragon species. i’m still trying to figure it out.

— cryptid. i don’t have any specific appearance as a cryptid, since mashup shifts often co-occur with cryptid shifts. sometimes i feel like not having much of a physical form at all. hiding is my main cryptid instinct — i do not wish to be perceived, and if i do, usually only briefly and in a way that would scare people away.

— fae/changeling. some kind of archetrope maybe? this kintype is similar to cryptid, in that there’s not really a set appearance — no “true form” — but there are common feelings, instincts, and mindsets. (i’m currently writing a big post about those, which i’ll link here after posting.) being fae and being a cryptid are two sides of the same coin to me. very similar experiences, but definitely different. one example: instead of the cryptid instinct to hide, there’s the fae instinct to disguise.

hearttypes, questioning, confusion, and more!

— avian-person. i don’t know if this is a kintype, hearttype, reoccurring cameo shift, or something else. whatever it is, it’s part of my identity. i get bird-like phantom wings and a long feathered tail with a fan at the end, similar to the fan on my pocket dragon tail. my feathers (wings and tail) are grey with a smattering of darker grey speckles, and some feathers have shimmery blue on the edges. occasionally i also get digitigrade legs; sometimes more mammal-like, sometimes more bird-like. i often also feel bird-like scales on my forearms and talons on my fingers. other than that, i feel pretty much human.

— antlers. sometimes i have phantom antlers. i don't connect with deer/other irl antlered creatures at all, so i'm not sure what this is about. the antlers can happen by themselves, or they co-occur with other shifts.

— maned wolf [chrysocyon brachyurus]. questioning hearttype or kintype (leaning towards hearttype). i have a feeling that it may somehow be connected to me being a cryptid? — cecil palmer [from the welcome to night vale podcast]. hearttype. like my other alterhuman identities, this is psychological in origin (not that it makes it any less intense).

— tangled / tangled the series [world]. hearthome. not much of a way to expand on this.

tagging guide

disclaimers:

some of these words have different or more broad meanings than the way i will be using them for sorting — just know that i’m aware of that.

if i want the post to reach a wider audience than it would reach with sorting tags alone, i might add more than just what’s needed for sorting.

if a creature says they don't like to be called a certain label, i’ll try to avoid tagging my reblogs of their posts with that label (a rule that is most applicable on posts talking about personal experiences). but sometimes i’ll miss something. if i make that mistake, don’t hesitate to tell me!

# i say some stuff — posts where the op is myself, or where i reblog something and add my own thoughts.

# tags in which i ramble — for posts that are not my own, but where i add enough in the tags that i consider it worth knowing about.

# not my post — posts made by others that i reblog without adding anything to the discussion.

# therian — posts regarding earthly animal kintypes and therianthropy specifically.

# otherkin — posts regarding mythical/magical nonhumanity and otherkinity specifically.

# nonhuman — blanket tag for posts about therianthropy and otherkinity, as well as posts about nonhumanity. (aka, if you wanted to scroll thru my therian and otherkin posts at the same time with some extra posts about nonhumanity, you’d choose the nonhuman tag.)

# alterhuman — posts regarding forms of alterhumanity other than nonhumanity/therianthropy/otherkinity (ie, kithtypes, archetropes, fictionflickers, etc) and posts regarding the nature of the word itself.

# otherhearted — self explanatory. i will mainly use this term instead of the other variants (animalhearted, otherkith, etc).

# critter experiences — posts containing the personal experiences of any who fit under the alterhuman umbrella, both my own and others’. (alterhuman as in the real meaning, not the meaning as i’m using it for sorting up above.)

# critter origins — umbrella tag for posts regarding theories and beliefs on why folks are nonhuman, whether psychological, spiritual, other, or both. related tags would be #psychological critter and #spiritual critter. if the belief is a combo of the two, all three tags will be used, and if it’s neither, just the main one.

# critter questions and/or questioning — for posts where the poster is questioning aspects of their alterhumanity or has questions about alterhumanity, and posts that would help those who are questioning.

# critter info — posts about animal behavior, welfare, environmental stuff, or legends/myths/lore.

# critter community — any posts concerning the alterhuman community, both on history and modern-day phenomena. will sometimes overlap with the following tag:

# term discussion / term coining / term definition — a three-in-one tag that is probably self explanatory.

# critter shifts — umbrella tag for shifts of all types. since i have phantom and mental shifts most often, most posts will probably be about those.

# critter creativity — moodboards, memes, stimboards, ID packs, joke posts(?), poems, short stories, art, comics, masks, tails, etc.

# critter polls — umbrella tag for polls.

# critter ask game — umbrella tag for ask games (questions and answers).

# humanity — stuff about humans, humanity as a concept, or alterhumans’ relationships with humanity.

# [__] kintype # [__]kin — format for posts relevant to specific kintypes. first one will be for ‘types with two or more words, and second for types that are just one word. (because bat-eared foxkin looks clunky, but bat-eared fox kintype doesn’t. at least not to me.) some you will see frequently on my blog include: bat-eared fox kintype, pearl fox kintype, foxkin, pocket dragon kintype, dragonkin, cryptidkin, faekin.

# [__] hearttype # [__]hearted — same premise as above, but for otherhearted stuff.

# miscellaneous — self explanatory.

all post dividers by: @plum98

this post was last updated: april 7, 2024

#intro post #wooo new intro post!#tagging guide

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phoenixlionme · 11 months

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If you disagree with me, fine. But do not insult me in any shape or form. You want your opinions respected, then respect mine.

I wanted to give my personal two cents on both sides of the argument regarding the whole "woke" media. Personally, I feel both sides take it too far. And below I will give my reasons. But first I want to educate that the term "woke" was coined by the Black community to have other people in said community be aware of social injustices; it was supposed to be about vigilance. And somehow it got turned into an insult (mainly by the more conservative groups, even politicians), with many not being able to define it and thinking it's the end of all humanity. Look, humans have more important and urgent things to deal with than stupid culture wars and it be nice if said politicians got that but they don't. And that's the end of that, now I will begin my thoughts.

Anti: Just because something has diversity in it doesn't mean it's "woke". And (like I stated in the above paragraph) I don't think you can even honestly define it. Most people in these groups take things out of context in some moments to make your point. And I strongly believe that it's just performative outrage meant to get clicks so you can get money. You get bent out of shape if you see very brief political stuff (i.e., BLM) if that said stuff is opposite to your liking. You claim not to be bigoted but your content is mainly dragging down or outage porn over women, minorities, and the LGBT. You call the other side sensitive but look at your actions. Not to mention, you cherrypick any shows/movies that did fail with this "woke" content in order to provide "evidence". Getting some type of sick glee at watching it fail. You make some valid critiques over the problems with race bending and gender swapping but proceed to attack the creators and actors for essentially a fictional piece of work. Also, quit being an asshole to someone who genuinely states how seeing someone on screen who looks like them made them feel seen; it's not about them saying they relate to someone only because of surface level feature. It's about seeing someone who is like them in some way (race, sexuality, gender, etc.) who isn't made into a joke, criminal, sacrificial lamb, or diversity checklist. They are happy to see someone who looks like them in a role that they often don't see them in, and are written with respect and nuance. You don't get it, fine but don't be an asshole.

Pro: Diversity can't be the ONLY reason to watch a show and/or movie. There has to be good storytelling, characterization, plot, pacing, etc. to draw the audience in. Also, raceswaps and genderbends are (in my opinion) not great diversity examples. While I won't mind a few selections it's mainly for the former and still very limited. People of underrepresented groups should get original stories. And while it's okay to discuss social injustices in the work, you gotta do your research on it and not just hearsay from Twitter. You have to be careful and thorough thought into these moments and let it happen organically. And bragging to audiences about how inclusive you are makes you look performative especially when you start canceling actual good shows with great diversity. Also if you want to empower certain groups then given them actual stories from a variety of genres where they are fleshed out and given a personality. If they just show up mention their sexuality, race, and/or gender in some way with nothing else about them as a character it comes across as pandering.

Middle: Diversity and good stories EXIST. The Owl House, Arcane, Carmen Sandiego 2019, The Old Guard, Disney's original Mulan, Black Panther, ATLA/TLOK, Never Have I Ever,Everything Everywhere All At Once, Power Rangers, Steven Universe, The Dragon Prince, Star Trek, Harley Quinn TV series, Into the Spiderverse, Craig of the Creek, Dead End Paranormal Park, Brooklyn 99, Love Simon/Love Victor, Amphibia, Captain Planet, Dreamwork's She-Ra, Fullmetal Alchemsist, Paper Girls, Moana, DuckTales 2017, etc. They aren't mutually exclusive.

To summarize: Good storytelling can have diverse casts, people from underrepresented groups should get original stories instead of rehashed movies/series, fans are free to critique artwork and can offer valid criticisms but there are some "fans" who will behind the term "woke" to hide how they genuinely don't like a story simply because of their own bigotry (and might be profiting off of outrage porn). Everyone's entitled to their opinion but no entitled to be bullying, mean-spirited assholes.

#fandom critical #truth bomb #representation matters #my posts #personal rant #mymedia

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thatswaterdeep · 1 year

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Twice-Dead Dragons and an Unpleasant Portal

Previously, the Dead Specters had dispatched a Death Knight with some wicked spirit friends and were left with a pile of armor and its sword. Not being sure how to make its end more permanent, Top put the sword in the bag and they retreated to the secret passage to try to rest up. The time passed uneventfully, but when they returned to the room, the armor they had kicked around had recollected and the sword had reappeared next to the pile of armor. The party decided to simply leave it be and attempt to get their business done before it reconstituted.

They had obviously come through the back door of these chambers and the next room they visited was the parlor with a large tapestry of Waterdeep where all the flags had the Shadowdusk logo. In front of this display was a scorched human skull on a pillar. Smaller than the average human, but it did not appear to be a child. The party could only conclude that it was something symbolic from about the fire and rapid exit the family made from Waterdeep.

When they finally made it into the hallway, the Far Realm touched them again. Ilikoris and Q were no longer suffering their strange maladies, but Sychor suddenly felt much heavier and, unfortunately, slower. Tossa simply fell to the ceiling where her world was upside-down, but nothing else was. Deciding they can't wait it out and worrying that the Death Knight might revive soon, they press on into another round room that turns out to have a very large, very undead dragon. It welcomes the party to the show and attacks immediately.

Tossa makes an epic move via her ring to the chest cavity of the fiend. Holding on to avoid falling up, she is able to do damage where he cannot reach. He does exhale his deadly breath randomly to simply try to remove or kill this annoyance, but it is not enough. The party is able to put the beast down and moves into what is clearly the dragon's (or maybe Shadowdusk's) hoard. While they collect coin and a magic item, Top is attempting to dislodge a couple of teeth from their enemy. His wings begin to twitch.

The runes on the four pillars in the room glow and Ilikoris and Sychor attempt to damage them enough to cease the revival, but it is not enough. The creature resumes his attacks with one change. This time, the attacks of Ilikoris and Tossa don't seem to have any effect, but the epic damage that Sychor is doing does. They continue to hold the creature off and damage the pillars while Sychor does one devastating hit after another. Finally, the creature is done for good.

Undeterred, the party moves to the next room where they see a wizard who has been partially transformed into a giant beetle genuflecting before a morphing statue. He is screeching something unintelligible and simply attacks the party of strangers. After dispatching this creature and his two sidekicks, Q detects that there is something powerful inside the statue.

It takes a bit to discover that Force damage is the key and it is eventually destroyed revealing the phylactery of the blue demon next door. They know enough to know that it will only revive when brought to another dead dragon for it to reanimate. So, into the bag it goes!

Back across the large hall, Sychor and Tossa are returned to normal and the party begins to investigate the other side of the floor.

They enter down a long hallway that has old Shadowdusk family members interred in sarcophagi that Top and Ilikoris investigate. Top doesn't feel good about it, Ilikoris is making sure nothing hops up (and keeps an eye out for something special).

They open the double-doors into a hall where the pillars and floor seem to be warping while they watch. They are clearly getting closer to the portal and it is having an effect on them all. They discover some unused rooms including very nice, but dusty furniture that must have been from... before.

The next room is somewhat horseshoe-shaped and contains two very interesting things: a petrified Beholder and a gate. This gate seems to want a magic item, but it did not like what Q offered. Q was about to avoid some kind of retribution from the gate. Halaster starts whispering to them all to leave the Shadowdusks be and simply come to see him. The party cannot leave evil festering behind. Especially something that may put Waterdeep and more at risk.

In the next room is clearly someone's chambers and the room beyond contains a black obelisk whereupon the party starts to hear that sweet voice in their head that had called before. It tells them that regardless of their allegiance, they cannot let this portal continue to exist. If they only destroy the obelisk, this being will be freed and will assist. The party agrees to free the whisperer and destroy the obelisk. And out comes... a yellow frog... that talks. The party does learn from it that what had been their original idea of throwing the black tablet into the portal would have actually been a very bad plan. So, they're out of ideas, but the frog claims it can take care of it. It rides with Top as they move to the only doors remaining.

Those doors were guarded by invisible creatures that attack immediately. The party is able to dispatch these gelatin-like creatures and throw open the doors to some kind of hell.

They witness a gaping portal that dares them to look, but also seems to threaten madness if you do. They see another, taller Death Knight dragging Melissara to the portal while she begs them not to throw her in. The Knight tells her that it is her destiny to do so and turns her to face the portal and kicks her through.

At that, the Knight and his small army, turn to the party and decide they need to be dispatched.

While the party feels they can do some damage, it is unclear what the portal will do to anyone in this room. Nobody knows how to close it, other than what their new, tiny yellow friend claims. Nobody knows what to do with the tablet anyway. Nobody knows what will happen if they close the portal or if they don't. Oh, and even if they somehow clean this up? Halaster is waiting.

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sagaofstardustmkg · 2 years

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all games aspire to the condition of war, for here, that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all. | arianna | trial 2.4

[ cw death and euthanasia of wild animals, beginning and end of the relevant section marked with a star ⭐ ]

At the cracking of Nevros’s jaw and the bristling of their new teeth, a less stolid version of Arianna Sunchaser — the Arianna of a few years ago, certainly — would have pushed herself away from this table fast enough to knock over her chair. She has only seen one thing in her life to eclipse the terror of this one.

But the Arianna of today only holds her two-pound coin tight in one sweating hand and pretends she doesn’t feel her pupils suddenly, painfully contract to the same pinpricks Mayumi Hakamoto wore as her deathmask. She knows she is safe. It doesn’t help much.

(Rya wakes suddenly and rattles, contorts her body so it appears as big as possible, sways her head in a threat display.)

Ixododa magica. A tick. She’s pulled Nevros’s distant cousins out of Trouble’s hide with tweezers and dropped them into jars of alcohol, feeling a slight pang as she does. Her usual preference is to let insects go, but a tick will just burrow into something else nearby.

Just like a raccoon evicted from a human home will come back to the place it knows is warm and safe from the wind.

Just like a bear that’s eaten from a campground cooler — richer, easier meals than anything else available to a bear — will seek out more campsites, paw through tents, creep closer and closer until it’s lumbering its way inside cabins.

Just like dragons that have eaten human flesh, even once, even a corpse or a well-deserving poacher, will usually take another bite.

⭐

The most effective wildlife management technique in all these situations is to put the animal down. If it lives, it will try again.

Arianna always cries when she reads stories like this in the news. She was present, once, for the last moments of a greater dragon who had eaten a hiker, and she remembers sitting beside the huge, heaving, sedated thing and thinking about how miserably fucking unfair it was to everyone — hiker, dragon, the veterinarian tasked with putting it down. She stroked its flank and sobbed and spent the rest of the week being sick over it.

⭐

Because a dragon can only ever be a dragon. It can only do the things that dragons do. Same for bears, same for raccoons.

Same for ticks.

Same for Nevros?

Karma didn’t deserve to die, not at all. Sparing Nevros would feel like a hocking a gob of spit directly onto her grave. Nevros had attacked multiple members of their cohort and traumatized some of them forever. Arianna glances at Mizu and remembers how hurt he’d been after his confrontation with the other wizard. She’d been so angry inside, even as she held him and turned all her energy toward care.

But still — how responsible is a parasite for doing what parasites do? For responding to the urges hardwired into its brain and fumbling its way through an attempt at humanity, a thing it was not programmed to participate in and presumably never educated about in any kind of real way?

After the dragon, Mitch had looked at her with weary eyes and asked: Well, what should they have done? Leave it alone, let it get somebody's kid?

And she had shouted, strangled and helpless: None of this should have happened to begin with!

So when it comes to Nevros —

Her wide, horrorstruck eyes sting.

But Arianna is like all the rest. She can only ever be Arianna. She can only do the things Arianna does.

Fail. Clean up. Compromise. Disappoint herself. Sit here alone, empty seats on both sides, a woman not hard enough to jeer at a dying person and not soft enough to need or provide comfort.

She says nothing to Nevros as she votes for them.

(At first, after the state took her from her birth parents in the country and put her with her adoptive ones in the city, she used to pretend she was a wolf in the shape of a girl. It was her made-up explanation for how bad she was at talking to people or being in groups, how badly she always wanted to run from it. A wolf couldn’t be expected to understand all of this. A wolf should be let back into the uncomplicated wild.)

Under her breath, likely heard by nobody, she whispers again: “None of this should have happened to begin with.”

#ch2 #trial #arianna

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mrs-march-ahs · 3 years

Note

Hi! I have a request~ The Evans reactions to losing in any sort of game. Can be board games or video games 😅

The Evans Losing At Games

Headcannons for all, imagines for some!

Cute idea, thank you! I didn’t write much for Jimmy, I’m sorry Jimmy I love you<3

Enjoy:)

Tate

-Clearly a teenage boy who lets emotions build up a lot -Definitely cheats if he’s had enough -If he keeps losing in the same part of the video game and rage quits, it takes him forever to get back into the game - “Ohhhh… I forgot that’s where I let off… fuck it” (quits) -Much better and calmer at playing cards, and generally prefers games were the two of you can talk and he doesn’t have to focus too much

You laid on your bed, scrolling aimlessly through social media, and occasionally glancing at Tate playing a video game he hasn’t played in a while. When you started talking about games, and you told him you had it, he nostalgically reminisced how much he used to play it when he was alive, so you set it up for him. Every few minutes, when a red screen would pop up, Tate would sigh, and with every passing death, his sighs got louder and angrier.

After only maybe half an hour of playing, Tate clearly couldn’t take it anymore, and threw the control towards the floor, before stomping over to shut the console and TV off. The sound made you flinch, and you had never seen Tate angry before. Nor his body language nor face showed his emotions, just his actions, and when he flopped by your side, he looked fine. If somebody had come in right now, they would just see two teenagers laying next to each other.

“Uhhh… you okay?”, you ask, before rolling over to face him. You poke at his chubby cheek as he stares up at the ceiling and tease him. “Sore loser”.

“Shut up, it’s your fault. You reminded me why I wasn’t allowed to play this game for very long”.

“Wanna play something else? Together? We could play Dragon Ball Z?”, you ask quietly, before going back to your childish sing-song teasing. “Be nice, and I’ll even let you win a few times!”

Tate looks over at you and huffs, before sitting up and getting the controllers, “Good thing you’re used to begging me for mercy”

Kit

-Least sore loser out of them all -Always up for a rematch -He’s pleasant even when he does win - “Want a rematch sugar? So you can have another shot at beating me?” - “Ah you were close, you’re getting good” - “You’re a good rival” - “If I lose, you can drag me to that Rom Com you wanted to see” - “If I win, we make more babies” -Pretends to be competitive when he’s playing with the kids - “I would say Team Girls vs Team Boys… but that’s not fair, the two of you don’t even stand a chance, right Tommy?” -If one of the kids beat him, he’d act super dramatically to give them as much satisfaction of winning -Laser tag is 34 years before Kit’s time, but if he played something like that, he’d try to let the kids win

You ran around the garden and chased a giggling Julia. Because of current financial issues, the power was out, but not wanting to worry the children to much, and not wanting them to ask too many questions, you and Kit decided to make the most of the sun and tire them out before it got dark. Kit, being the big kid he is, suggested playing a tag-like game Thomas invented, where you each get three pebbles each, and try to get each other out by throwing them. Gently. Unless you were throwing them at Kit.

Julia started slowing down when she reached the corner of the house, hoping to hide from you, but you were right behind her, making her turn around and burst out in giggles. When the 5-year-old laughed, the only thing you could see was the missing tooth she donated to the tooth fairy last night. Once you circled all around the house, you come back in view of the garden, and see Julia hiding behind Kit.

“That’s cheating!”, he exclaims, trying to run away from her and toss a pebble in her direction, only for her to do it faster. The second Julia’s tiny rock hits Kit’s tummy and bounced, he put his hands over his stomach and held it like a gun wound. He dropped to the floor dramatically, leaving the two little kids to die of laughter, and you walk over to him, Kit peeping open one eye slightly to see if you were watching him, and then stuck his tongue out to play dead. You picked up a stick from the floor and poked at his chest, making Kit chuckle but quickly hide it.

“Is it dead?”, you ask.

Thomas leans in closer to look at his dad on the floor, before Kit opens his eyes and pulls Tommy to the floor with him, rolling over to be on top of him.

“I win!”, Kit announces, before kissing his son on the cheek.

Franken Kyle

-He doesn’t particularly play complicated games, but he isn’t too patient and gets frustrated with himself pretty easily -If on one of his educational games, he messes something up too many times in a row, he’ll shut off the game and throw the tablet on the bed -He’ll avoid even looking at it -If he loses a tickle fight he’ll sit and whine, straddle you and then tickle you until you beg him to stop -Whines even if he loses at rock paper scissors -He likes colouring and drawing, and because it’s good for his motor skills, the two of you made a really simple game together -You drew out a long snake shape on a big piece of paper and drew lines in between for the spaces -Kyle carefully coloured them in with pencil and with a marker you wrote occasional things like ‘Go back two spaces’ or ‘Go forward three spaces’ -Sweet little Ky would roll the dice, and take his time, pushing his little figurine, which was something like a pencil sharpener or a bottle cap, and counted out the spaces -Got super excited if he won, but wouldn’t mind losing -He would insist the two of you keep playing, and you’re only allowed to stop and go to bed if you end on him winning -Sometimes he would try to let you win so that you could keep playing -Whine and pout if you had to stop playing, and how are you meant to say no to him? -You would have to promise you’ll play tomorrow -You’d be able to slowly make more and more complicated games, until eventually he’d be able to play things like checkers or Ludo

Jimmy

-Lowkey a sore loser -If there were loads of different people playing, he would be a lot more friendly -If he lost, he would still be super annoyed, but just wouldn’t show it -But if it was the two of you, he’d be super competitive -The type of person to flip the board game if he was losing -But he’d apologise straight away and pout if you didn’t want to play with him again - “C’mon let’s play again, I’ll be nice this time” - “Loser gets spanked” -Loves playing games like beer pong

James

-Unpleasant loser but also not a pleasant winner -Bitter compliments if you win at cards - “Well done darling, who would have thought with your high school education you were such a poker master” -Only willing to play the same 5 card games, because if you teach him a new board game he is not familiar with and he loses, he’ll claim it’s only because he’s new to the game -Absolutely infuriated if he loses at Monopoly, since he built a hotel after all -Don’t even bother trying to teach him how to play a video game -And of course - “Only amateurs keep score”

“What are you doing, dear?”, James said, fascinated at your little character wandering around a shop, on the screen in front of both of you.

“I’m trying to buy this plant, but I don’t have enough money, I want to see if I can sell anything I have”, you explain, pointing at your backpack filled with items that you can exchange for spare coins.

“Nonsense, darling, why don’t you simply stab the storekeeper and steal what you desire?”

“Because this is Animal Crossing, James, there isn’t a stab button”

Kai

-Kai likes playing video games or board games with literally anybody apart from you -He likes playing with Ozzy because he’s a kid so most of the time Kai can beat him easily -Definitely not the type of person to let the kid win, even if Ozzy is sobbing and Ally asks him to let Ozzy win once in a while - “Winning fairly will feel so much better for him” - “He won’t appreciate success if he doesn’t first taste failure” -Sometimes instead of story time with his troops he’ll play some board games -At first, everybody will keep letting Kai win out of fear -But eventually someone will win, and everybody else will be fearful for them, scared Kai will be angry - “Finally somebody capable, somebody strong, not scared to show their true capabilities” -But if you ask him to play a game with you, he probably won’t -If you eventually beg enough that he will agree to play a game with you, he’ll tell you he’s only playing one -If you win, he’ll be like, “Okay, are you happy now?” - “Finally it’s over” - “I let you win, are you happy?” -But if he wins, he’ll try to get you to play a few more games - “Are you giving up already?” - “Don’t be a sore loser, rise up to the challenge” - “I assumed you wanted to win, not just to play”

- (Kai loses) “See… you have to give a humiliated man a chance to redeem himself in his own ey-”

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retvenkos · 3 years

Text

sprinting through cobblestone streets |

The Dragon Prince - Callum, Rayla, and Ezra, x Platonic!Reader, slight fluff requested by @biqherosix

tw: a mob, feelings of inadequacy

word count: 2.3k

prompt: “have you always been this idiotic?”

A/N: alright, so i know the request just said callum,,,, and i was going for that originally,,,, but then this happened. i hope you don’t mind? i was going to rewrite it but then it was 2k words and i couldn’t part with it.

Summary: Being half-elf, half-human, there was nowhere that (Y/n) truly belonged. But perhaps their luck would change, when they run into a group of idiotic travelers about to be run down by an angry mob...

Being half-elf in the Human Kingdoms was risky living. (Y/n) had been born on the human side of the Breach, and yet, every day was a danger - a possibility that fear would threaten their very existence. (Y/n) had known very early on how to live as an outsider; they knew how to hide their more telling attributes and how to stay away from towns. They lived in secret, away from everyone else and only stopping into town when necessity called for it, but there was always a low level of risk, to their existence. Not a day passed where (Y/n) wasn't constantly looking over their shoulder; there were always on edge, even in the comfort of their own home.

(Y/n) had been to Xadia once, when their elven parent begged their Queen to take mercy on (Y/n), for they were just a child and a victim to their parent's whims. It wasn't their choice to be half anything - all they had ever wanted was a place to be whole. The Lux Aureans turned them away, and before (Y/n) could return home, they tried to run away.

They had foolishly thought that other elves would take them in - that perhaps Xadia was a more just place than their family had feared.

They had made it far, but not far enough.

(Y/n) was brought back to the Human Kingdoms with their hood pulled over their head to hide their pointed ears. In Lux Aurea, it had been a horror that they did not have any horns. Here, in this place they would learn to call home, it was a blessing that there was less of them to hide.

(Y/n) had learned long ago to make no friends, to keep their head down and work hard, praying that perhaps, one day, they would be allowed into Lux Aurea as something other than the child of a traitor.

One day, (Y/n)'s parents had woken them in the middle of the night, pressing coin into their hand and telling them that it happened - they had been found, and they had to split up. They had kissed (Y/n) on their forehead, and it was the last they had seen of a friendly face for a year.

(Y/n) had run, only settling down to create roots when they had made it to Katolis - far from where each parent would be. They were careful, in this strange, new kingdom, settling in the thick of a wood where men rarely traveled, preferring to stick to the wider roads. For months, they lived without incident, only visiting villages for supplies twice - walking for days at a time so they weren't seen in the same place twice, and not coming from the same direction.

When supplies were running low once more, (Y/n) took the last of their coin and headed toward a new village - one further away, where no one would know their face. It had been a week's walk, but the burn in their thighs would be worth the protection. They slipped in amongst the crowd easily enough - the day was cold, the seasons changing to something with more of a bite and everyone had a thick cloak on, most of them with a hood pulled up, barely above the eyes. (Y/n) had found a villager to barter with easily enough, and it was when they had almost secured a reasonable deal that they heard the shouts that plagued their worst nightmares.

"You're an elf!"

Their blood ran cold.

(Y/n) had spun on their heel faster than lightning, their hand flying to the dagger they kept strapped to their side. Their heart was pounding with enough force to knock out any attacker they came up against, and despite the fear that struck their heart, (Y/n) kept a cool head. In a crowded marketplace like this, it wouldn't be long until innocent farmers became an angry mob, their ranks full of pitchforks and butcher knives. They expected to worst to greet them, but when (Y/n) turned, the horde of villagers wasn't looking at them at all, but three other travelers, one of which was unmistakably an elf.

"An elf? No way!" One of the travelers - a young boy with messy brown hair, chuckled nervously, projecting his voice in an almost comedic way, trying to wave off the villagers as the group slowly backed up, edging themselves towards the mouth of the street, where they might find a chance of escaping. "We're all very much human, here..."

(Y/n) slipped their bag of coin into their pocket, ducking and weaving through the crowd to edge their way closer to the ostracised group. If (Y/n) could find an outlet, maybe they could sneak off and save their own skin. But if they could create a distraction of some sort and pull the elf and her friends to safety, maybe they could be given some type of reward...

A reward that might earn them a place in Xadia.

"My human friend is wearing an elven costume! Y'know, for... a play?"

(Y/n) sighed at the lame excuse before pushing over a street cart.

The villagers were startled, caught off guard by the loud crash and apparent destruction, and it was just enough time for (Y/n) to rush forward, seizing the elf's arm and dragging her forward out of the crowd. The boys followed in suit, and together they got a head start, sprinting through the cobblestone streets.

"Hey!"

The villagers got their bearings quick enough and were only more enraged by the idea of a chase. (Y/n) took a sharp turn down the narrow street that they had originally entered into town from, ushering the group forth. A hay cart stood in the middle of the street, and (Y/n) picked up the young boy that held a glow toad by the back of his jacket to help him vault over the obstacle. The other boy from earlier - the one with the terrible excuse, jumped over with a fair amount of success - the adrenaline mixed with some quick thinking leading him to step on boxes nearby like makeshift steps, making the jump easier to handle. The elf jumped over with remarkable agility and (Y/n) followed in suit, the sudden movement pushing their cloak back, revealing their best-kept secret - their elven shaped ears.

(Y/n) cursed but didn't have time to scramble for the hood, instead choosing to press forth, leading their new allies into the woods, where they had just enough time to find a hiding place from the mob, the hay cart having been the perfect barrier.

Only half of the villagers passed by their hideout, judging by the cacophony of footfalls and heavy breathing, accompanied by the gruff voice of one villager, who decided to round everyone up and wait by the main road - they would have to get out, somehow.

The group had managed to stay exceptionally still, while their pursuers cleared out of the wood, but (Y/n) could feel three pairs of eyes watching them, their level of scrutiny unsettling.

When all was quiet, (Y/n) dared to venture forth, and they found the woods uninhabited. The three that (Y/n) had saved were slower to exit their hiding spot, and when they did, they turned on (Y/n) quickly - the elf already whipping out her swords.

"Who are you?"

"You mean other than your savior?" (Y/n) said, putting their hand on the hilt of their dagger - just in case.

"What are you, then?" The elf took a step forward, her accent punctuating her every word. "You're not human, but you're not elf either."

"I'm both."

And the revelation was just enough to stun the elf, allowing the idiotic boy from earlier to step up. "Well, thank you for your help back there. Right, Rayla?" —he shot a glance at the elf and she pushed her lips together, clearly still on edge— "I'm Callum and this is Ezran with Bait. And you are...?"

"(Y/n)." They crossed their arms against their chest, narrowing their eyes.

"(Y/n)," Callum repeated, nodding his head slowly as he shot wayward glances back at his friends, who were still assessing the situation. Ezran peered up at (Y/n) with a trepidatious kind of respect while Rayla still held her swords out, her brow furrowed, mirroring (Y/n).

"What were you doing in a human village, (Y/n)?" Rayla all but spat, tightening her grip.

"Apparently being smarter than you - have you always been this idiotic?" (Y/n) turned to look at Callum and he reeled backward, offended. "Going into a village market with an elf is a death sentence! You could have been caught."

"You went in there!"

"Because I had to! You are a human traveling with an elf - you could have easily gone without her."

Callum blinked, tilting his head to the side. Little Ezran walked up, tugging on his brother's sleeve. "(Y/n) has a point, y'know."

"Yeah, well, we just didn't think of it," Callum mumbled, earning a scoff from (Y/n), which elicited a glare from Rayla. "But in our defense, things were going smoothly until I tripped and pushed Rayla's hood back."

(Y/n) chuckled darkly, rolling their eyes, and Rayla took the opportunity to press forth. "What are you doing here, anyway? Shouldn't you be in Xadia?"

(Y/n) took a step closer, as though daring Rayla to make a move. "Shouldn't you?"

"Whoa!" Callum stepped between the two, gingerly pushing them apart. "Shouldn't we all be?"

(Y/n) shot him a suspicious look - one that they had been saddled with their whole life. It felt odd, almost, giving it to someone else. "Why would you be heading to Xadia? Why are you traveling with an elf, anyway?"

Callum chuckled nervously again, grabbing the back of his neck with one hand and pointing at (Y/n) with the other. "I mean, no better place than Xadia - right? The magic, the elves, the dragons..."

"Callum doesn't know what he's talking about," Rayla recovered, but there was a slight shake to her voice - a tell. "He's taking me to the Moonshadow Path - we're friends. He's not coming with me. Humans don't belong in Xadia."

But Callum winced at that, and Ezran looked down, his feelings hurt. If Rayla noticed, she found no point in disputing her statement, choosing instead to press forth.

"Do you?"

And (Y/n) thought of why they had saved this group of idiots in the first place... in the hopes that they would get the recognition needed to belong in Xadia. For a couple of humans, a glow toad, and a Moonshadow elf, they seemed pretty intent on making it to the magical world beyond the Breach. Whatever their reason, it must have been good, seeing as they banded together, despite the hatred that ran between their races. (Y/n)'s immediate reaction was to leave and never look back - face the consequences of saving these odd travelers and find a new village to buy grain from, continuing to live the way they always had - but they couldn't. For a reason that was beyond what (Y/n) had always thought to be true, a feeling that went beyond their mantra to make no friends and keep their head down, they felt the urge to stay.

Ignoring the voice in their head that screamed at them to not make such a stupid mistake, (Y/n) lifted their hand and pushed away Rayla's sword with the tip of their gloved finger.

"I don't belong anywhere. But I hoped that by saving you, maybe I could."

Ezran took a sympathetic step forward, coming out from behind his friends, and looking (Y/n) deep in the eye. There was something in his gaze that made (Y/n) feel like he understood them, despite their lives being so different. Callum put a hand on the younger boy's shoulder and (Y/n) noticed it was in his eyes, too. They turned to Rayla, and she looked away, but there was a fury in her eyes - a familiar wave of anger that had to be righteously earned from being cast out, from being an outsider in a place that should have been home.

Suddenly, it dawned on (Y/n) that this ragtag group of wanderers didn't belong anywhere, at least, not anymore, and were walking to Xadia with a hope that (Y/n) had lost long ago.

"You can belong with us if you want," Ezran spoke up, and his words seemed to have the conviction of one twice his age, as though he had been born to royalty. (Y/n) entertained the idea as they considered his words. He certainly held the air of a royal, and he had nice enough clothes to be in the nobility.

"Ezran." Rayla fixed him with a look, one that implied they had secrets to keep.

"They saved our lives, Rayla, we can't just leave them."

The elf hesitated, but Callum stepped forward, a bit of suspicion still swimming in his eyes, but something more hidden beneath. "What Ez means to say is that you can journey with us if you want."

(Y/n) raised an eyebrow. "And you're sure Rayla isn't going to kill me when my back is turned?"

"Not if you don't give me a reason to," Rayla said, and Callum turned to her with a poignant stare.

"We need all the help we can get, Rayla. We need to be safe if we're going to make it back to Xadia"

"Do you trust them with our cargo?"

(Y/n) cocked their head, and Rayla looked at them with a harsh glance. Callum sighed. "I don't think we have much of a choice."

"Alright, then," Rayla sighed, taking a step forward and extending her hand. (Y/n) hesitated for a moment before pulling off their glove, exposing their lack of a fifth finger, and clasping it with hers.

"You'll take me to Xadia?"

And Callum was the one to answer, shaking (Y/n)'s other hand with his own. "You can walk with us as long as you'd like."

-- taglist: message me if you want to be added to a taglist!

#the dragon prince #tdp #callum #callum tdp #ezran tdp #rayla tdp #rayla #ezran #callum x reader #rayla x reader #reader insert #platonic reader #one shot #imagine #tdp imagine #the dragon prince imagine #fluff #the idiot squad is here but is short one (1) member which is soren. he just steals the braincells #i blame this on seeing a headcanon set about a half-human half-elf character and craving angst backstories

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baejax-the-great · 3 years

Text

Something Something Dragon

Some Alistair whump. Read on AO3

Alistair's head throbbed. For some indeterminate amount of time, that was all he knew: the throbbing of his head just here above the eye, sometimes just a little knife stabbing, more often a great broadsword thrusting.

But at some point in his endless torment, a thought came to him, followed by an observation, and finally an opinion. He didn't know where he was, he was not alone, and it was a real shame that whatever had tried to kill him hadn’t finished the job.

"Maker’s breath, he's still alive.”

Alistair didn’t recognize the voice, but he couldn’t argue with the conclusion. Yet.

“Bollocks.”

Another stranger.

“He is! I swear I just saw him move,” replied the much more observant of the two.

Alistair groaned a little, just to be included in the conversation, and tried to drag himself to his feet. He succeeded in flopping over on one side.

The second voice—and much less pleasant one to Alistair’s ear— replied, "Just smother him with a pillow or something."

Ah. So there was still time to finish the job after all. He had all of three seconds to debate the merits of that. A pillow didn’t sound half bad, if he was being honest. A much softer way to go for a Grey Warden. But when Observant Thug bent over him, instead wielding a fluffy instrument of comfort, he unsheathed a blade, the scraping of steel against scabbard slicing straight through Alistair’s vision. And despite the haze of pain, he decided he was not for having his throat cut today and not by this idiot.

He reached up with a heavy arm and grabbed OT’s wrist, yanking him as hard as he could and propelling him straight off his feet to somersault behind him. He snagged the blade in the tumble and managed to get to his knees for the thrust straight into the soft bits of Observant Thug. He was rewarded with a grunt and a gurgle—a good sign he hit something vital—and the sound of a second blade being unsheathed by the still standing Murderous Thug.

Then Alistair gently toppled over to the side.

Which was good, because Murdery had taken a swing, and Alistair’s topple fairly counted as a dodge. Not much good he could do from this vantage, but two swift kicks brought the brute down to his level.

Alistair’s hand attempted to soothe the blacksmith hammering in his skull. “Quiet now,” he murmured, as Stabby got back to his feet. He was sure having an easier time of this than Alistair.

"We gave you enough poison for a druffalo," Bloodthirsty snarled, eyeing his fallen compatriot.

Alistair wasn’t one to ignore an opportunity— why the ruffian hadn’t slain him already was a bit of a mystery Alistair was in no shape to solve—and he got to his feet, only swaying a little, one hand still holding his throbbing head. "Next time try enough for a dragon."

It was less a lunge than it was a lurch, but Alistair was bigger, taller, and better at this, even half blind. Incompetent Thug dropped, and Alistair waited for five head throbs before deciding nobody else was on the way to finish him off.

Shame.

He tossed the sword and slid gracelessly to the floor, palm pressed firmly against his head.

A sliver of light roused Alistair with a fiery pain, and this time he just kept his eyes squeezed tight against it.

“Fuck.”

Oh, good. Darrian had arrived. Alistair could just go back to napping then.

“Tell me Alistair is the one still breathing.”

He wrinkled his nose as Zevran crouched next to him. Cologne. Since when did Zevran wear cologne? His stomach tied itself in a knot as Alistair jerked away from him.

“He’s here. Alive. Mostly.”

“Poison,” Alistair grunted, curling into the tightest ball he could. The scent of Zevran’s horrible cologne was replaced with the dog—first time Alistair had been grateful to smell him—and a thick, slobbery tongue bid his face a warm if disgusting hello.

“Are these Crows, Howe’s men, Anora’s men, or someone new who wants us dead?” Darrian demanded.

“Not Crows,” Zevran responded after a minute, shuffling through their pockets. He must have found something, because he announced, “Howe’s men.”

“Two less gits to worry about then. Well done, Alistair.”

He didn’t feel well done. If anything, he was raw.

“I had a good line against them,” Alistair said as the two elves attempted to shuffle his arms over their shoulders and heave him up. It wasn’t quite working, the way his feet dragged behind them when they stumbled forward.

“Oh?” Zevran asked, “Do tell.”

“He said something about poison and… an animal. Druffalo. And I said… something something dragon.”

“An impressive comeback indeed,” Zevran replied seriously while Darrian guffawed.

They couldn’t get him through the doorway, which was just as well because Zevran really was too short to prop Alistair up anyway. He leaned heavily on Darrian, long enough for the room to stop spinning. Same cologne as Zevran, just a little fainter.

“You’re turning green, Ali,” Darrian said.

“How is it,” Alistair grumbled, “That you sleep next to an assassin, but I’m the one poisoned?”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to accept beer from strangers?”

“No. Can’t imagine they ever expected anyone would buy me a beer.”

They made it through the door, somehow, Alistair’s eyes squeezed tight against the light of the sconces on the walls. “Tell you what,” Darrian said, shuffling him along, “Soon as you can walk on your own two feet, I’ll buy you as many beers as you want.”

“Are you sure about that, amor?” Zevran hissed, as if Alistair wouldn’t hear him, “You’ve seen him drink.”

“It’s the end of the world, Zev. What’s the point of coin if not spending it?”

“Prefer you spent it on a bed,” Alistair groaned, his last input on the matter. And they must have, because when Alistair next woke up, it wasn’t on a floor or in a camp or by the Maker’s side, as he expected it might be, but in a warm if lumpy bed in a room containing a second bed occupied by two elves and a dog. Alistair’s head wasn’t throbbing hardly at all anymore, and Zevran’s cologne, which he could still smell from here, didn’t seem half as bad as it did the night before. Funny, that.

Maybe he’d borrow it later. He’d smelled better himself, come to think of it.

#Alistair #alistair theirin #zevran #tabris #dao #dragon age origins #whump #hurt comfort #alcohol mention #poisoning #look it's simple I had a bad migraine so now Alistair had one #his is arguably worse tbh #I didn't have to kill anyone

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pixxiesdust · 4 years

Text

Favored by Fate • Dabi

Summary • Your boss has a business meeting at the annual fall festival, and you’re lucky that he’s given you the night off to explore on your own. Running into a masked stranger was not part of your plans for the evening, but it turns out the two of you share a common goal, and you can work together to reach it. Maybe fate is on your side.

Pairing • Dragon!Dabi (Todoroki Touya) x Water Sprite!Reader

Word Count • 8.7k

Tags and Warnings • Suggestive situations and dialogue, modern fantasy au, talk about murder, kissing, swearing, Dabi is Todoroki Touya, Todoroki Enji is not a good person in this fic.

Note • This is my part of the Attack on Academia’s Fall Festival collab! I had a lot of fun writing this, especially during sprints with wonderful friends haha. If you like this fic, please consider checking out the other Fall Festival fics written by members of AoA! If you’d like to join our server, feel free to join through the invite link on this post. New members are always welcome! Finally, I’d like to thank the wonderful @wakaoujisenhime and @prismaroyal for betaing this fic for me!

–

This annual fall festival is the largest one on the continent, so it’s no wonder that thousands of creatures congregate under the light of the full moon to celebrate the peak of the fall season.

High elves peruse the high-end stalls with ridiculously priced wares that suit their more expensive tastes. They try out weapons embedded with precious stones, made of the strongest metal alloys. Some buy the purest potion ingredients, sliding gold coins over the stall counter to the merchants, or swiping black credit cards across card readers.

A coven of witches stop by a candy stall on your right, pulling out their phones to record as the merchant—a fire wielder whose hands are glowing with red—drizzles melted caramel in elaborate swirls onto wooden skewers. As soon as the caramel leaves the metal bowl he cups his heated hands around, it starts to harden, turning from a light yellow to a darkened gold. The witches buy out the caramel swirl lollipops and continue on as they lick and crunch on the candy.

Elemental sprites try their hand at the game booths. Even though large signs are tacked to the booths that say “No Magic Allowed” in big, bold letters, you see an air sprite change the course of a ball as his friend throws it, so the ball hits the target. Then a crystal lights up red, and the centaur that runs the booth crosses his arms over his broad chest, large hooves stamping into the dirt. The air sprite sighs and lifts his palms up, before walking away and disappearing into the crowd.

The corners of your lips twitch, but you hold back the smile. You don’t want your boss to think that he’s the subject of your amusement—not when he’s Lord Todoroki Enji, the most powerful fire dragon in centuries, and you’re just you, a water sprite.

One fiery breath from him, and most water sprites will evaporate on the spot.

But you’re not like most water sprites.

“The stones,” Enji says, voice a demanding rumble. He towers over you. His human form towers over everyone, even the centaur by the game booths, and you have to crane your neck to look past the flaming red mask on his face to catch sight of his piercing blue eyes.

“Yes, sir.” You nod and open up the flask of water by your hip. With a wave of your hand, three glittering red stones are pushed to the surface of the water. You close your hand around them, a tingle running through you at the magical energy contained in these rubies.

Enji holds out a small pouch made of velvety black cloth, his large hands making the pouch seem even smaller. You drop the stones into the pouch, and he lights a flame on the tip of his finger and runs it across the wax on the inside of the opening. The wax melts, the flame dissipates, and he presses the opening of the pouch closed for the wax to harden on its own.

The pouch disappears, hidden somewhere on his red and black armor-clad body. He, like you and all the other creatures attending the festival, are dressed in the traditional attire of their own species.

“I have business to attend to. Do whatever you want, and meet me back at the entrance when the sun rises. But keep an ear open.”

He doesn’t have to finish his statement. You know he wants you to pay attention to any rumors, any unrest—anything that could disrupt his position of power.

So you nod again. “Understood, sir. I hope the deal will be made.”

The flames that burn at the edges of his mask flare, the only visible sign of his temper. “No need to hope. It will be made.”

As Enji strides away, the throng of people parting around him, a sympathetic expression slides onto your face. “Poor Yagi Toshinori,” you murmur into the air. “It’s not going to be pleasant for him when Enji is walking into this deal with some type of grudge.”

But you shrug and close the flask of water and let it hang from the belt around your waist. “At least I get the night off from being Enji’s assistant.” These types of days—or nights—are few and far between.

With the pleasant thought of getting to enjoy the festival all on your own, you smile to yourself and start walking, slipping into the crowd, your water sprite clothing a speck of bright blue among the rainbow of colors of the fall festival.

–

Your first stop is to one of the rows of food stalls. The air is filled with distinct scents; some sweet, others savory, but all make your mouth water and your stomach grumble.

You decide on something savory, first, so it’ll take the edge off your hunger so you can explore the rest of the festival. A stall that sells steamed buns catches your eye—and the scent that wafts from it entices your stomach. The two dwarves that run the stall are sisters, from the look of it, both with round cheeks and full lips, each wearing masks with vines embroidered on them. They bicker quietly among themselves until they see you approach.

“Here for the best meat buns in the festival?” asks the one on the right, dressed in soft browns.

“Or are you here for the best vegetable buns in the festival?” This comes from the one on the left, her traditional clothes in earthy greens. She shoots her sister a glare while waiting for your answer.

You look from one to the other, then purse your lips as you look at the wooden baskets that contain the steamed buns. It smells heavenly, and the buns aren’t too large, so you say, “I’ll have one of each, please. Who wouldn’t say no to trying the best meat and vegetable buns in the whole festival?”

That makes them smile, each pleased. As the sister in brown takes one of each bun out from the woven baskets, the other takes the two coins you hand her.

“Good choice, cunning fox,” the dwarf in green says.

You blink at her once, twice, until realization dawns. She means your mask. Although the designs are blue painted on white ceramic to match your traditional water sprite clothing, the opening for your eyes are distinctly fox-shaped, slanted and sharply cut at the corners. There are ears at the top of the mask, and a little snout over your nose, leaving your mouth uncovered.

“Ah,” you say lamely. Then add, “How am I able to choose when all of it smells so delectable?”

The dwarf grins, and her sister hands you your order wrapped with thin, brown paper. The heat from the buns sink into your hands immediately. It’s chilly out, and even though your traditional clothes are rather warm, your fingers still are cold.

“Thank you.” You dip your head to them before turning your back on the stall.

As you merge back into the crowd, the sisters wave at you and shout in unison, “Thank you for your patronage!”

–

The buns are long gone, devoured quickly as you wandered the food stalls. After getting a couple of other small snacks to eat, you leave this part of the festivals behind to explore the rest. Right now, you’re in a stall owned by a minotaur. One of your hands is wrapped around a cone of pixie sugar, a dessert made of thousands of spun sugar threads, wrapped like a fluffy cloud around a paper cone.

The other? It’s wrapped around the handle of a simple, streamlined dagger.

You stretch your arm out in a slow, smooth movement, testing the weight and feel of the blade. The minotaur, who is a blacksmith and made the dagger himself, watches on. A smirk graces his lips at the unexpected skill and familiarity you display.

“You like it?” he asks, his voice a deep rumble.

You nod. “The craftsmanship is wonderful; it’s very easy to handle. Sharp, too.”

“Can’t call it a dagger if it isn’t sharp.”

“How fire resistant, or, uh, heat resistant is it?”

This question makes the minotaur raise an eyebrow, but he answers it anyway. “Very. Fire sprites won’t be able to melt it with their flames. Even more powerful creatures can’t do it. The designs in the handles are runes, and they’ll keep the blade clean, sharp, and strong.”

“I see,” you say, pleased with his response.

“You plan on buying it?”

“Yes, but not right now. Will you hold on to it so I can purchase it later tonight?”

The minotaur eyes you for a moment, probably wondering if you’d stick to your word and return to buy the weapon. Then he nods, and you seem to pass his inspection. “Very well. I will keep this off the table so you can return to buy it.”

You smile at him in thanks and set the dagger back down on the table. “I’ll be back later, then.”

He waves a hand as he picks up the dagger, but you don’t see it as you’re already gone, pushing past the curtains that drape across the entrance to the stall.

The curtains fall behind you, and you step into the crowd, immediately slamming into a warm, hard body that makes you stumble back and trip over your own feet. Your arms flail out, trying to cushion your fall, but a hand reaches out to your own–

–and misses, closing around the cone of pixie sugar.

The sugar is crushed by the hand, compacted into nearly nothing. A tearing sound fills the air as the paper cone rips before your eyes, and you keep falling.

You hit the ground, hard. Your elbows smack against the packed dirt, pain shooting up to your shoulders, followed by numb tingling. At least your head didn’t make contact with the ground. Otherwise, you’ll probably spend the rest of the festival with a pulsing bump on the back of your head, and your hair would be coated with dust.

A groan escapes your lips as you sit up to shake out your arms. It doesn’t feel pleasant to have hit the nerves.

“Damn,” a rough, masculine voice says from above. “Took quite a hard spill there. Not as quick on your feet as an actual fox, huh?”

“Shut up,” you snap. “No one asked you. What the hell were you doing there, anyway?” You don’t look up, focusing on brushing the dirt off your blue sleeves.

There’s a hint of amusement in the voice as it responds. “I was walking, just like everyone else. You were the one who ran into me. I even tried to help you.”

“Yeah, and you missed, crushing my cone of pixie sugar instead!”

“I tried to help, and got thanked with a hand sticky because of sugar. Who’s worse off out of the two of us? Clearly, it’s me.”

Your mouth opens and shuts until your mind formulates the words you need to retort with. Pushing yourself to your feet indignantly, you brush off your pants too. “Clearly it’s you?” you mock, trying to imitate the way he delivered the sentence. “Listen here, you–”

You finally look at whoever you had the misfortune of running in to, and your mind stops working as you take him in.

His clothes are cut in the same way as traditional elemental sprite clothing is normally made, but the colors—black cloth that gives off a dark blue sheen under the light of hundreds of lanterns, and accented with bits of cyan—doesn’t match any of the four elements that normal sprites wear. They hang off his frame in such a way that his vest-like shirt shows off quite a bit of chest and arms. You notice scarred patches of skin, and staples that seem to hold the scars onto unblemished skin, but your eyes are more drawn to the dips and curves of his muscles.

You swallow, feeling a little warm despite the autumn chill.

Then your eyes move up his body until you see his dragon mask, and your breath catches in your throat.

His eyes.

They’re a beautiful, piercing blue, carrying the heat of the hottest flames as he stares at you. A shiver runs down your spine. Why do they somehow seem familiar? If you met someone like him before, you’d most certainly remember him, especially with the way he carries himself and the way his voice sounds when he speaks. He’s not one who can easily be forgotten.

“Listen here, what?” he asks, a smirk curling at his lips when your eyes flicker away, realizing that you’ve been caught staring. “C’mon, foxes aren’t known to be shy. What were you gonna say, doll?”

You have no response to give, so you just pout, drawing his attention to your lips—the only feature of your face that isn’t hidden by your fox mask. “Goodbye,” you say shortly. Then you cross your arms over your chest and turn your back to him, striding away to merge into the flow of the crowd.

Dabi stares after you for a moment, snickering. His eyes widen the slightest bit at the realization that you, a snarky, cross, quick-witted, pretty water sprite amuse him.

There are few things that amuse Dabi in life. If you’re one of them, he’s not letting you go that easily. So he hurries after you, quickly spotting you by the bright blue of your clothes. He has a mission tonight, a reason for being at the festival, but a bit of a detour won’t hurt.

He can always leave once you stop interesting him.

–

You thought walking away would be the end of that conversation, but a figure dressed in black falls in step beside you. You stop short, ignoring the grumbles of creatures that are disgruntled from your abrupt change in motion.

“What do you want?” you ask him.

Blue eyes gleam as he stretches out his right hand.

You look at it, then at him. “Congratulations, you have a hand. So?”

“A dirty hand,” he says, drawing out the words. “A dirty, sticky hand, thanks to your cone of sugar.”

“Ah yes, the pixie sugar that you destroyed!”

“Only to save you, doll.”

“To try and save me,” you correct. “What do you want me to do about it, hm?” You cross your arms over your chest and stand straight, staring him in the eyes. You seem to be doing that a lot around him, but something about his eyes just seems familiar–

“Clean it. What else? You’re a water sprite, aren’t you?”

“Yes, and you most definitely are not an elemental sprite.” You ignore the way his shoulders stiffen the slightest bit before he forces them to relax. “If I clean your hand, will you leave me alone so I can explore the festival?”

He only hums in response, but you open up your flask of water anyway. Even though he didn’t actually prevent you from hitting the ground, he at least tried, and it wouldn’t hurt to get the sugar off him.

You move your hand in an upward motion along the side of the flask, and water leaves the opening and gathers in a sphere in midair. Grabbing his dirty hand, you maneuver the water so it envelops the length of his hand, from the tips of his fingers to the base of his palm. He’s very warm, you notice absently. But you focus on swirling the water around his skin, picking up crystals of sugar until his hand is clean.

When that’s done, you withdraw the water, not leaving a single droplet behind. With another flick of your wrist, the water shoots through the air to an empty patch of dirt and sinks into the ground.

Dabi looks at his hand, swiveling his wrist. You must possess incredible skill to keep the water together, swirl it around him, and not leave any of it behind. His lips twitch. You only seem to get more and more interesting.

“Goodbye, then,” you say, and turn your back to him like you did the last time.

But as you take a step forward, his figure enters your peripheral vision. Another step, then two, three, and he’s still there.

You try to pretend that he doesn’t exist and look around at the stalls to see if there’s one you want to stop at, but his presence is impossible to ignore. Not when his body gives off a heat that you can feel through your clothes, not when his clothes are all black except for the cyan accents that only heighten the glow of his eyes.

Stopping at a stall that displays hundreds of beautifully packaged candies and small treats, you pick up a small, tin box of sweets that interest you. Pretending to look at the packaging, your eyes flicker to the side to catch him blatantly observing you with some sort of fascination.

“Okay,” you say, putting the tin back. “What do you want from me now? I thought you promised to leave me alone after I cleaned your hand.”

Dabi smirks at you and shakes his head. “I made no such promise. You really should pay more attention, little fox.”

You scowl at the nickname but focus on the more important topic. “You literally hummed when I asked if you’d be gone when I cleaned you up.”

“A hum, yes, but who said it was one of agreement?” He pauses, before adding, “It was one of contemplation—and then I decided to turn your offer down.”

You glare at him. With nothing more to say, you turn your back and leave again. This time, you don’t see him in your field of view.

Forcing a smile to your face, you look intently at the nearby stalls.

Somehow, it feels colder.

–

Dabi watches you go, noting the direction that you head in. He turns back around to the stall and picks up the tin of sweets you had looked at. He eyes the brightly colored label on the tin, then digs into a pocket to fish out a few coins. Sliding them across the counter to the witch that runs the stall, he steps back into the flow of people with the candy tin in his hand.

His long strides makes him easily catch up to you, staying back a bit to watch you look at a couple of stalls. When you pick one to stop at—a stall that sells spelled items, he notes—Dabi steps up and leans his weight against the counter, appearing in your field of view once again.

The figure dressed in blacks comes out of nowhere, but you’re not startled. Your eyes slide across to him, and you scoff to hide the flicker of happiness at the sight of him. “Miss me so soon?”

He snickers. “I should be the one to ask you that, doll. Hope being away from me didn’t hurt too much. I got held up by something I needed to get.” Without a warning, he tosses something at you.

You move quickly, hands flying up to your face, and you clap your palms together around the object. Glaring at him, you lower your hands, before focusing your attention on the metal tin in your palms. The label is bright and eye-catching, and you can’t stop your lips from curving up when you realize that it’s the tin of candies you were looking at before.

“See?” he says, pleased. “I’m not all bad.”

“No, you’re not,” you say softly. You look up at him, and the smile on your face combined with the softness of your eyes is nearly too much for Dabi to take.

You turn away from the stall and take a few steps forward. Then you look over your shoulder, at the not-an-elemental-sprite that leans against the stall. “Well?” you ask. “You coming or not?”

Dabi huffs out a quiet laugh, shaking his head slightly. You still somehow managed to surprise him. He pushes off the stall, tucking his hands into his pockets as he falls in step besides you. “Why the invite? Thought you were sick of me.”

You don’t answer his question, asking your own instead. “Why do you keep sticking around? Got nothing better to do?”

“I do have some business to do here,” he says, “but you interest me, little fox.” He reaches a hand toward you to flick at the ceramic fox ears of your mask. “And these days, very few things interest me.”

You don’t know how to respond, but finally settle with an awkward, “I see.”

The two of you walk on in silence for a bit, until he breaks it. “Are you gonna tell me why I get to accompany you? I would’ve thought that you’d walk away and never look back.”

“I just wouldn’t mind the company. It’s my first time being able to actually enjoy the fall festival. Usually my boss has a business meeting that I have to attend, but his meeting is actually at the festival this year. So I get to explore the festival, but it’s nice to do it with someone else too.” You pause, lips curling into a sly smile that tells Dabi you’re about to poke fun at him. “Even if it’s with a stranger who is dressed in elemental sprite clothing yet isn’t an elemental sprite at all.”

“Damn, you caught me,” he says, delivering the words in a flat drawl that makes you snicker. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know, scream? Run away in terror?”

He leans in toward you, lips by your ear. “Let me tell you a secret, doll. I don’t scream.” His breaths brush over your skin, making a shiver run up your spine. “But you certainly could.”

Your body suddenly feels a bit too warm, and you quickly turn to look at Dabi, putting his lips very close to your own face. “In your dreams,” you shoot back. You’re surprised that your voice comes out so steadily, when in reality, your skin buzzes and your stomach flips.

“Maybe,” he says, and straightens so there’s a bit of distance between the two of you once more. He moves on to a different topic. “What kind of a boss makes you work on the night of the fall festival? Who the hell has meetings at the fall festival?”

You snort. “Todoroki Enji, that’s who.”

If Dabi were anyone else, he might have flinched or his steps might have faltered. But he continues walking in time with you, and his voice is absent of the hate that runs through his veins when he asks, “You work for Endeavor?”

“Unfortunately.” Your voice is dry, and there’s no sign of affection for your boss.

Dabi feels a little relieved. Yet again, you’ve said something that surprises him, making his interest in you even stronger. “From all the things I know about the fucker, I’m not surprised you’re not the biggest fan of him. Why the hell do you work for him then?”

Your response is quick, even as your mind races and as pieces fall into place. “Money. He’s a dragon, so he’s had centuries to gather wealth. He pays well.”

Dabi definitely understands that. But that can’t be all. Not when it comes to you. “And?”

You look at him and hold his gaze, taking in his blue eyes as another piece falls into place. You sigh. “And there’s also a... personal reason.”

“Hm,” is all he says in response.

The conversation moves on to a different topic as you walk around this section of the festival, taking a closer look at stalls that catch your attention. You stop at a food stall and buy Dabi a skewer of juicy, fragrant grilled meat, glazed with a sweet and spicy sauce.

“For the candy tin,” you say, as you hold the skewer out to him.

His warm fingers brush against yours as he accepts it, letting out a “Not bad,” after he takes a bite.

You buy a little container of mochi for yourself to eat. Each one is made of sticky rice paste that envelopes various sweet fillings; red bean, strawberry, black sesame, and so on, the flavors a surprise until you bite through the flour-dusted outside.

Dabi finishes off his skewer of grilled meat and swipes a mochi from your container. He ignores your protest at his theft, and your following whine at the flour that falls off the mochi and dusts your sleeve. A snicker leaves him as he eats the mochi in two bites.

You look at him, glaring, and he pointedly keeps eye contact with you as he licks off the flour that dusts his lips. You quickly look away, and Dabi can’t help but feel a little pleased at the way your eyes had followed his tongue.

He pushes the feeling down, though. There’s now something that he wants from you, and he needs to get it from you.

No matter what.

–

Having finished your snacks, you lead the way to a trash bin at the edge of the festival. It’s a little dark, as the festival lanterns don’t stretch all the way out here, and the bin is nearly in the forest—nearby trees stretching up toward the moon.

Your mochi container clatters against the other pieces of trash in the bin as it hits the bottom. Dabi tosses his skewer in after.

You turn to look at him, tilting your head. He’s been a bit quiet over the past few minutes, not as much of a reaction to your teasing. There’s tension in the air that doesn’t sit quite right with you, but you keep your voice light as you push on. “Where shall we go next?”

Dabi’s arms hang loosely by his sides. He feels a finger twitch.

“Sorry, doll,” he starts off, voice equally light as yours. You think he’s going to say something along the lines of him not having a preference as to where you should go, but his next words come out dark, harsh, and angry. “You aren’t going to go anywhere. Tell me where the fuck Endeavor is.”

“W- wait, wha–”

His hands reach for you, clasping tightly around your wrists. They’re hot, but not painful, as he shoves you backward, making you stumble over your feet as he pushes you toward a tree. Two more steps, and you’ll be-

You regain your footing, and shove your shoulder into his chest, using his momentum against him.

In a mere second, you’ve reversed your positions. Though Dabi still holds onto your wrists, you’re the one moving him, pushing against him with all the force you have to slam him into the tree.

Rough bark digs into his back through the fabric of his clothes, and his head hits the trunk so hard that a steady throbbing starts up immediately. He groans and starts to move his head, but something cold pricks at his throat and he goes still.

One of your legs is pushed between his, your knee dangerously close to a vulnerable part of his anatomy. Though his hands are around your wrists, you have one arm pushing against his body to keep him against the tree. The other hand holds a lethal blade of ice—made from water that you pulled right out of the air.

“What the hell do you want with Todoroki Enji?” Your voice is flat. Cold, like the ice you hold to Dabi’s throat.

He lets go of your wrists and raises his hands slowly, showing you that he’s not moving to harm you. If it were any other person pinning him to a tree—which he’s still surprised as hell about—they’d be ashes a while ago, but Dabi is fond of you, he realizes. He enjoys your company, your quick retorts, the way he can make you flustered, and he knows that you aren’t completely enamored with Endeavor.

So his hands reach up to the dragon mask that covers his face. Before he moves any further, though, he speaks, answering your question in a confident drawl, voice deep and raspy with hate burning in his words. “I will fucking destroy Enji Todoroki.”

Your eyes grow wide, and the blade in your hand wavers, but Dabi doesn’t take advantage of the opportunity to break free. He has no reason to run from you.

Instead, he lifts off the black mask, pulling it off his head and letting his hands move back down to his sides. His eyes glow in the darkness, heated by inner flames. A smirk spreads across his lips, and he cocks his head to the side; you shift your ice blade to avoid cutting him.

“I’m the most wanted criminal, doll, the deadliest dragon. You must know me. I’m–”

“Todoroki Touya,” you breathe, at the same time that he finishes speaking.

“–Dabi.”

The words, the name that comes out of your mouth registers in Dabi’s mind. He jolts against you, and you push him back into the tree.

“You said Todoroki Touya,” Dabi growls, the words familiar but unused on his tongue. “How the fuck do you know that name?”

You scowl at him. “I’m the one with the knife here–” you pause to press the ice back against his throat, “–so I’m the one asking the questions. You just get to answer them.”

Dabi clicks his tongue, and sighs. “Should have known you wouldn’t make things easy, little fox. You’re quite cunning.”

The temperature rises around you, and the ice in your hand turns to water. You don’t have enough time to reform it into a blade before Dabi sweeps one leg at your own, knocking your feet out from under you.

For the second time at this festival, you find yourself hitting the ground, breath knocked out of your lungs—this time with a powerful fire dragon pinning you down.

Dabi has his hands around your wrists again, pushing them on the ground on either side of your head. His knees are by your hips, shins pressing down on your legs, caging you in and keeping you in place. You struggle against his grip, trying to wrench your arms free, but his hold is secure.

Realizing you’re not going to go anywhere, you finally still. “What the hell do you want?” you spit out, glaring into his eyes.

He tilts his head and a smirk spreads across his face as he uses your words from earlier against you. “I’m the one pinning you down, doll, so I get to ask the questions. You just worry about answering them, yeah?”

Dabi ignores your glare and your struggle against his grip on your wrists. “So tell me,” he says, voice turning from teasing to menacing, “what the hell do you know about Todoroki Touya?”

You hold his gaze for a long moment before huffing out a breath. If he really is who you think he is, he must only be asking this because he never expected anyone to make the connection. “I always thought it was strange, you know, that such a powerful dragon like Endeavor could have his son just disappear on him. The more I thought about it, the more it didn’t sit right with me. So I did some digging, asked questions, looked at old news articles from that time when you, Touya,” you say pointedly, “went missing.”

Dabi doesn’t confirm nor deny your accusation that he’s Touya, but his silence is confirmation enough.

You press on. “I read about the burns that Touya had. There were rumors that they’re caused by the strength of his flames—that his fire is too hot for his human body to contain. Even Endeavor’s flames never did that to him, so it isn’t a large stretch to think that Touya is more powerful than Endeavor is, even as a child.

“We all know if Endeavor feels that his power is threatened… he’ll eliminate the threat. Even if that threat is his son.”

Pausing, your eyes scan over Dabi’s face to try and read his emotions. His face just seems cold, hard, as if this is not news to him. But his eyes burn brightly under the shadows of the forest, heated from the fire he carries within.

“Go on,” he says, voice just as threatening as before. “If you know Endeavor is capable of such things, why the fuck do you work for him? No money can be enough to win you over after that realization, not unless you’re just a liar and don’t actually give a shit.”

“I did need a job at the time Endeavor was looking for a new secretary. But it’s more than that,” you add on hastily, when the hands around your wrists grow hot. “It’s not right that Endeavor gets to be this high and mighty Dragon Lord over so many of us creatures when he’s done such terrible things to his own son. But if everyone learns about it and tries to overthrow him, he’ll find a way to kill the protestors and seize their properties, only making him wealthier than before.”

You breathe deeply. “I won’t let that happen, not as long as I live. So I took the job, and have worked to gain more and more of Endeavor’s trust.”

Dabi’s lips curl into a sneer of disgust. “And do what with that trust? You’re just trying to play hero.”

Your voice is even as you reply, “Nothing is heroic about murder. And that’s exactly what I plan on doing to Endeavor.”

“You, little fox? Murder? You’re a water sprite. You do know what fire can do to water, yeah?”

You smirk at him. “You do know what water can do to fire, yeah? Besides, I’m no ordinary water sprite.”

And then Dabi no longer holds your wrists in his hands, nor do his shins press down on your legs. In a second, your arms turn to liquid under his grip, seeping out between his fingers and reforming outside of his grasp. Your legs, too, turn to water, only to become skin and flesh when you have them wrapped around his waist.

Then you grip his shirt in your fists, and heave him sideways, using your legs to force the lower half of his body to flip over.

You’re distinctly aware of the position that this leaves you in; hands gripping his shoulders, staring into his still-wide eyes, legs on either side of his waist as your weight rests on his abdomen. You feel warm, and it’s not solely because of Dabi’s higher than normal body temperature.

“You really think I can’t hold my own against Endeavor?” Your voice is smug, pleased at the shock that had flashed across his face when you liquified your limbs.

Dabi swallows, liking the way your mouth curls, completing the sly look with the fox mask over the top half of your face. He’s still reeling over the fact that you were able to do what you did—it takes immense power and control to have your skills, and you’re young, too. But his eyes move up to meet your own, and he is serious when he says, “You’re strong as hell, doll.”

Your lips part slightly at the raw honesty of his words.

He continues, and you listen attentively to him, letting the low, rough sounds of his voice wash over you. “What you can do is fucking astounding, and almost unheard of. But it’s not enough. Even in water form, if he breathes his flames as a dragon, you’ll turn to vapor. At best, you’ll be injured. At worst, you’ll be dead.

“Don’t risk your life for a boy who is long gone.”

You blink, and your vision blurs, holding unshed tears for the lost boy, Touya, and the man, Dabi, he had to become.

“But,” you say, and your words stick to your throat, so you have to swallow before trying again. “But he can’t just get away with it. I won’t let him. I’ll stop him.”

Dabi can’t extinguish the warmth that blooms behind his chest. It’s a warmth not of the flames within him, but from the care and passion you show about Todoroki Touya, a boy you’ve only heard and read about, a boy who has no connection with you. Yet you care.

“No worries, doll. He won’t get away with it.” Dabi pauses, and something settles in his chest as he makes up his mind. “We won’t let him.”

Your eyes widen, and you sit a little straighter on his stomach. “‘We?’ What are you–”

“C’mon, little fox,” he purrs, “you’re smart. We both want the same thing: to see Endeavor dead and gone. It certainly would be easier if the two of us were to work together, yeah?”

It doesn’t take much thought for you to reach your decision. You like Dabi, you’ve enjoyed his company all night. Even though he does tease and fluster the hell out of you, you can give it back just as well. And to learn that he’s the person you were doing all this for?

Your voice is confident as you agree with a simple “Yes.”

Dabi huffs out a quiet chuckle, before raising his right hand up between the two of you. “Glad to have you on board, doll.”

You take it, feeling the calluses on his fingers brush over your skin. “I’m glad, too.”

You shake your hands up and down once, then let go, but he pointedly drags his fingers over your palm before completely releasing you. A tingle runs up your arm.

“So what next?” you ask.

“First of all,” Dabi says, “I’d really like to get off the ground.”

You look down at Dabi. It takes you a second to realize that your whole conversation has happened while one of you is on top of or under one another. An embarrassed squeak leaves your mouth, then heat rushes to your head as you scramble off of Dabi and get to your feet.

Once you’re up, you offer a hand to help him up. He wraps his hand around yours and you pull, getting him to stand in one fluid movement. But you pull a little hard, and he ends up with his chest pressed against your own, with your arm sandwiched awkwardly between.

Dabi guides your arm down to your side before letting go of your hand. He doesn’t step away though. Instead, he slides his arm around you, pressing his hand gently against your back to prevent you from making some space between you.

“Second of all,” he says, the vibrations from his chest buzzing against your own skin, “I’d like to see who I’m working with. You did see me without my mask, little fox, so it’s only fair if I get to see you without yours.”

You swallow nervously. After a moment of silence, you nod. “Okay.”

His eyes light up, but he maintains a neutral expression as he reaches up for your mask with his free hand. Slowly, slowly, he lifts the painted ceramic off your face, sliding it up and over your head. He doesn’t toss it to the ground because it might break, so he presses the mask into your hand.

When your fingers curl around the mask, Dabi moves his hand back up again, snapping his fingers to create a flickering blue flame.

His breath catches in his throat as the light dances across the curves of your face. With his flame tinting your features blue, Dabi thinks you’re the most beautiful sight he’s ever laid eyes on. He’s seen a lot of horror in the past, but one look at you washes the dark images away.

“Fuck,” he breathes, the lightest breath brushing across your face. “You’re pretty as hell.”

The honesty in his voice makes you happy, yet also serves to fluster you. “You’re not too bad yourself,” you manage to respond. Your eyes travel over his face as he does the same to you. You take in his sharp nose, chiseled jawline, the scars up to his mouth and under his eyes. His eyes glow brightly, a blue as pretty as the flames he holds in his hand to cast light onto both of you.

He’s beautiful. Not despite his scars, but in light of them.

A smirk turns up his lips, making him look even more devastatingly handsome. “I think I’m going to like this partnership very, very much.”

You return the smile. Dabi thinks you look ethereal.

“Me too.”

–

You tell him that you have to meet back up with Enji at the festival entrance when the sun rises. Dabi nods while he slips your mask back over your face, fingers brushing against your cheeks as he gently pulls away.

Though he had intended to learn more about Enji and his business dealings at the festival today, Dabi doesn’t need to go after the dragon lord. Not when you are Enji’s assistant, someone who can spill his secrets. He says as much, and your voice is light and teasing as you respond. “And I thought you stuck with me because you liked my company.”

He rolls his eyes as he puts his dragon mask back on. “That means we get until sunrise to finish looking around the festival. You can’t get away from me that quickly.”

You smile at him as both of you walk past the trash can and join the crowds again. “As if I’d want to.”

Dabi’s mouth turns up in the smallest smile, and he moves a hand to rest on your lower back to keep you close. “Where to, doll?”

You hum for a moment in thought. “I need to stop by a stall and pick something up. The owner agreed to hold it for me.”

“Are you gonna tell me what you’re picking up?” When you shake your head, Dabi chuckles and gestures at the crowded path with his free hand. “Lead the way then, doll.”

–

You arrive at your destination and push through the curtains covering the stall entrance. Dabi follows suit. As soon as he steps into the stall and the curtains fall shut behind him, his eyes widen and he whistles at the variety of weapons displayed on the walls and on tables.

“Damn,” he says, eyes taking in a display of silver pistols. “What the hell are you buying?”

The minotaur approaches you with the dagger you had asked him to set aside. The blade is in its sheath, and together the weapon looks beautiful, almost decorative. But when you take it from him with a grateful smile, and unsheathe it, the blade is clearly sharp and shines brightly under the light of small lanterns in the stall.

“Thank you for holding on to this for me,” you tell the minotaur. You slide the dagger into its sheath and reach into one of the deep pockets of your flowy traditional water sprite pants. As you pull out your wallet, your hand bumps into the tin of candy from Dabi, which makes your eyes soften.

Following the minotaur to his counter, you slide your credit card through the card reader to pay for the dagger. It’s expensive, yes, but it has the exact qualities you’ve been looking for. Besides, Todoroki Enji does pay you a pretty nice salary, allowing you to have a decent amount of spending money in addition to your savings.

With a farewell to the minotaur, you nudge Dabi out the stall. You start to wander down the row of stalls as you adjust your belt, slipping the dagger on it to rest beside your flask of water.

“So?” Dabi asks as you peer into a spacious cage with a couple of brightly colored birds in it. “Why do you need a dagger for? From what I’ve seen, you’re more than capable of protecting yourself.”

“I can make my daggers out of ice, but they’re unreliable depending on the magic that my attacker can use.” You catch the smirk that starts to spread on his face, so you quickly speak again. “I thought of this way before I ran into you, got it? Don’t let it get to your head.”

Dabi brings a hand up to his heart, clutching his shirt as if your comment hurts him. He lets out a groan of mock pain.

You snicker at his theatrics and punch his arm; not too hard to seriously hurt him, but enough to sting the slightest bit. “Be quiet,” you order, then tug on his arm to look at another stall that catches your eye.

–

You spend the rest of the night this way, teasing and getting to know each other as you explore a good chunk of the festival.

Dabi buys you a new cone of pixie sugar. It’s at your insistence, but he gives in with relatively few snarky comments. You happily pull tufts of spun sugar from the fluffy cloud and place it on your tongue, the treat dissolving immediately in your mouth. When you lick at the sticky residue left behind on your fingers, Dabi can’t take his eyes off you until he runs into the corner of a table, the sting of pain bringing his attention back to the crowded paths.

You hide your snicker by pushing another mouthful of pixie sugar past your lips.

–

As the stars start to fade away, being washed out by the brightening sky, the two of you make your way toward the main entrance of the festival. You stand off the main path, more hidden in the woods than out in the open.

First you exchange numbers, smiling when you see the contact name he sets for you; the little fox emoji. You set his contact with the flame emoji in return, although Dabi complains that there isn’t a blue one.

Then you pull out your dagger, explaining to him about the runes in the handle that should make it basically fire-proof.

“Can I see it?” Dabi asks.

You wordlessly hand it over, careful not to get either of you hurt by the sharp edges.

“Huh,” he muses, feeling the weight of it. Then without any warning, he lets blue fire blaze from the palm of his free hand, and lets it envelop the length of the blade.

You cry out in surprise. “Dabi!”

A few seconds later, he extinguishes his flames and examines the blade. It’s exactly the same as it used to be, and it’s any warmer than before he let his fire loose. “You got the real deal, then,” he says, handing the dagger back to you.

You sniff and say, “Of course,” as you slide it into your sheath.

“If it withstands my fire, it can definitely withstand Endeavor’s. In our human forms, at least. But that’s good enough, because the fucker is weaker than me, and he’s old as hell.”

“Older and has more experience,” you remind Dabi.

“Yeah,” he admits. “But he doesn’t have you on his side.”

Your eyes widen slightly and you look at Dabi in surprise. He gives you an actual smile, slightly crooked and closed-mouth, but a genuine one.

Warmth wells inside you, and you smile back.

Dabi steps closer and closer to you until he can slide one arm around your waist, the other moving up to lift his mask off his face. He walks you backward until your back bumps against a tree. You look into his brilliant blue eyes, and he holds your gaze.

“Can I kiss you, doll?”

Your eyes shine happily, and you breathe out a “Yes.”

He leans in toward you, closing the distance between his face and yours, until your lips are nearly touching. Then he pauses, and asks, “Are you sure?” His voice is filled with amusement, and your eyebrows draw together in frustration.

“Stop teasing and kiss me, Dabi!”

And he does just that.

His lips meld against yours, a scorching heat that warms you from the outside in. He presses you harder against the tree as he deepens the kiss, the scars that reach up to his lower lip just a bit rough against your own. But he kisses so masterfully, stealing your breath with every brush of his mouth on yours, and though your chest starts to ache for air, you don’t want to pull away.

You finally draw back from him with one final pass of your lips over his, then take a deep inhale of the crisp autumn air.

Dabi looks at you, taking in the way your chest heaves for breath, the slightly dazed look in your eyes. He smirks, blue eyes burning with an intense heat.

Then a deep, rumbling voice can be heard over the sounds of the festival. Both you and Dabi stiffen, and he slips his mask back on his face.

“That’s my cue to exit, doll. I’ll keep in touch, yeah?”

You nod and step away from the tree. “You better,” you say, “or else you’ll have an angry water sprite hunting you down.”

“Scary.” He fakes a shudder. “I know just how terrifying water sprites can get. No worries then, I’ll text you sooner rather than later.” Dabi walks deeper into the forest and is enveloped by the shadows.

A smile lingers on your face as you stare after him. But as a towering figure steps into your field of vision, you school your expression into something more neutral. “Hello, sir. How was the meeting?”

“Good.” That means it was more than successful. “Your boyfriend?” Enji asks after a moment of silence.

Your eyebrow arches in surprise. You didn’t think he’d be interested if you ever were to get into a relationship—not with Enji’s strict rules on being professional. You don’t know how else to explain Dabi’s presence, so you settle with, “Ah, y-yes, sir.”

“You never mentioned him.” He turns his back to you and starts walking toward the main path, and you follow suit.

“It’s a bit of a, um, recent development.” Recent as in you just met the guy a couple hours ago and he isn’t actually your boyfriend.

“I see.”

That’s the extent of your conversation as you get into the car Enji has waiting for both of you at the entrance. As the driver starts the engine and pulls onto the street, your phone buzzes in your pocket.

You pull it out and enter the passcode, opening up the messaging app. There’s a message from a contact with a flame for its name, and your lips curl upward as you open up the message.

So I’m your boyfriend now?

You guess that means Dabi didn’t go too deep into the forest, but stayed close by to make sure you were safe. Warmth settles in your chest at the thought.

You open up his contact information and edit his contact name, biting your lip to stop the smile from spreading across your face. Taking a screenshot of it, you attach the image to a message that you type out. You send it, then shut off your phone, looking out the window of the car to see the rays of the morning sun stretch across the sky.

The soft light bathes everything in a gentle glow.

You smile, content.

–

Dabi’s phone buzzes not long after he sends the message to you. His fingers move quickly as he opens up the messaging app, pulling up the conversation with you. He reads your text.

We’re partners now, aren’t we? It’s only fitting.

He opens up the image you sent, and takes in the screenshot of his contact profile on your phone. There’s nothing there except for his phone number, but then his eyes move up to the contact name.

“Boyfriend,” he muses, “with a black heart next to it.”

Shutting off his phone and slipping it into his pocket, Dabi can’t help but shake his head and let out a quiet chuckle. He hasn’t felt this way in a very, very long time.

He looks up at the sky, where the first rays of sun are casting golden streaks against paleing pinks and blues.

And Dabi smiles, content.

–

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theshaofpride · 3 years

Text

“Wrathion is a good character who needs to be given more autonomy and individual appreciation by the fandom” and “Wranduin is a good, interesting, and meaningful ship” are two thoughts that can and should coexist.

I often get tired of people reducing Wrathion to Anduin’s friend/boyfriend/ex when he has such a rich, complex story of his own. When I try to bring this up, however, the people who tend to join in are those who dislike Wranduin and are looking for a reason to complain about it, which couldn’t be further from the truth for me.

Wranduin is easily one of the best ships in the WoW fandom. They complement each other and bring out the strengths and weaknesses in each other in interesting ways. Wranduin makes for a lot of interesting scenarios—with Varian or Genn, with the House of Nobles, with the Wyrmrest Accord—that lead to great storytelling. It would enrich the WoW story a lot were it made canon, and even though it probably won’t be, artists and fanfic authors continue to produce amazing content for the ship.

But all of that is enriched by treating Wrathion as his own character with his own wants, desires, needs, interests, and goals. Wrathion’s story has tragic beginnings and deals with the pressures he is forced to take on from birth. It’s an outsider’s story about making a name for one’s self beyond the shackles of their legacy. It’s about what happens when someone lacks meaningful support and turns to the wrong people in times of need, and then has to deal with the consequences of that turn later.

It’s unique as one of the few Warcraft stories where a redemption arc truly makes sense and feels earned, as Wrathion was young when he made his mistakes and did them out of concern for the fate of the planet. He was plagued by nightmares and forced into lonely leadership position without family or other role models who could guide him, and only took a co-conspirator role, not undertaking any particularly violent actions himself. He’s a prime candidate for meaningful growth, and between the journal in 8.2.5 and his role in 8.3 he seems to be on his way.

Beyond that, he’s a fun, unique character with a lot of intrigue that makes every scene with him memorable. The tension between the composed, almost arrogant face he puts on and the fears and insecurities rumbling beneath the surface gives him a depth rarely seen in WoW characters. He’s relatable. He screws up, he makes mistakes, he tries again. He puts up a front of composure but unlike most other characters, we actually get to see behind that front, too. From when he gets tested by the Celestials to his outburst at the end of MoP, to his shock at being called a friend by Anduin in War Crimes, then recently to the pain in his voice when he warns champions away from the Keep in the nightmare. Wrathion is one of the few characters we see in vulnerable situations that are actually relatable and intimate. One of the only other characters into who’s life we are given such glimpses is Anduin Wrynn.

I think, unfortunately, there is a tendency to see Wrathion as a stepping stone in Anduin’s story or a side piece to Anduin’s character, but that misses the main thing that makes these two characters and their interactions so great. From their relatability to the way they complement and play off of each other, both of them are great characters on their own, but even stronger together.

They’re alike in so many ways. Responsibilities thrust on them from an early age, focused on big ideals and curious about new possibilities. They were both manipulated by black dragons (Fahrad and Onyxia) when they were younger, and they both live in the shadow of expectations cast on them by their heritage. In Wrathion’s case, it’s about stepping out of that shadow and recasting it in a different direction. For Anduin, it’s about finding a way to measure up to that shadow while still being his authentic self.

Because of that, they also aren’t simply “opposites attract.” They are different in many ways, but their differences play out as two sides of the same coin. They are both young nobles at the same place in their lives struggling to do the right thing, living by their ideals, navigating between who they are and who people think they should be.

Anduin longs for freedom, while Wrathion’s life lacks support and stability. Anduin is surrounded by people who think highly of the image they have of him in their mind, while people’s notion of Wrathion is shaped by suspicion. Yet their paths cross, and they both offer the other something he desperately needs. Anduin gets to know Wrathion as a person, and, in turn, Wrathion gives Anduin a glimpse at the normalcy he’s rarely afforded. Wrathion freely gives his opinions about Anduin’s ideals, addresses him by his first name, and offers to take him away from the court on adventures. Anduin, in turn, stops seeing Wrathion as a Black Dragon and instead sees him as Wrathion, judging him according to his own deeds and letting his opinion of him be shaped by those alone.

But it also isn’t easy, and their interactions are better because of it. The reading of Anduin as a flawless character who can’t do any wrong and Wrathion as “shady” or “evil” misses much of this nuance.

When Anduin comes to the Tavern he is struggling with his feelings about Wrathion, in ways we rarely see Anduin struggle. Anduin, who has advocated for peace between the Alliance and the Horde, who saved Moira’s life after the coup in Ironforge, finally meets someone so closely related to his own life and traumatic experiences that it’s, at first, hard to see past it. He regards Wrathion with extreme suspicion until he doesn’t, until the day he comes to see him as an individual. When Wrathion fucks up at the trial, then, Anduin doesn’t fall back on Wrathion being a black dragon to explain it like other characters do, but holds him accountable as a person, as Wrathion.

Wrathion, moreover, cherishes those aspects of Anduin that make him uniquely Anduin, not the King of Stormwind or some other title that has been thrust upon him. He likes Anduin for Anduin’s sake, and even though he worries over what he perceives as Anduin’s naivety in MoP, it’s clear in BFA his worries come with an appreciation of who he is and why he is personally important. As he writes in his journal, “It is no easy task to stand alone against the darkness so that others may bask in the light,” yet this is what Wrathion does when he comes forward to protect Anduin from N’Zoth in 8.3, choosing to put himself at great risk to allow Anduin to carry on. The idea of Anduin becoming corrupted is so painful for him at the personal level, but likely also because he realizes what it would mean for Azeroth if one of the strongest champions of the Light were to succumb to the Void.

All of this is to say Wrathion’s and Anduin’s stories can be read as entangled and complementary without minimizing or reducing the importance of either character. Both characters add greater depth to the other because they are unique, nuanced, burdened, and flawed, because they feel like real people and their interactions are organic and genuine. Understanding and appreciating both of them makes the moments they are together and other imagined moments of them interacting all the more powerful.

#wrathion #anduin #anduin wrynn #wranduin

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thelegendofstella · 3 years

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Sephiroth’s true eye color (among other things)

Ever since I got into FF7 stuff I’ve wondered about Sephiroth’s rather inconsistent eye color over the media he’s appeared in (which is a lot), and I think I finally have an answer for it, as well as answers for other slightly unexplained phenomena. Warning you now, this will be fairly long and full of spoilers for multiple games in the series, yet hopefully informative.

Sephiroth is best known for his green, cat-pupiled eyes, among other things, and that’s generally the accepted eye color for him in fan works and such. But his eyes are actually light blue, and not just mainly in spinoffs. There will be a TL;DR in about the middle of the post for one interesting point, and another at the end for the whole post in general.

Disclaimer: This isn't intended to be a "this is the right way to portray Sephiroth's eye color" gatekeeping thing, this is just an analysis of an element of character design that went way too deep and is breaking Tumblr as we speak hfsdgyfudgfsd

Evidence, theories and such under cut-- all 63 images (yes, you heard me, be warned) either come from various wikis as official art/screenshots/etc. or are my own screenshots:

In Final Fantasy 7, where this mess all started, his iconic official art has green eyes:

But in all other art, models, etc. for the game, even the Ultimania scan, his eyes are light blue (or some sort of blue in general):

Of course, you could argue that Sephiroth’s official art also has blue eyes if you stare at it hard enough, but at first glance it’s more green than blue, and with the amount of green-eyed art I’ve seen, I’m sure many people have just accepted that his eyes are green and nothing more.

Several other games in the main series also portray Sephiroth’s eyes as light blue, sometimes borderline colorless depending on the lighting:

I particularly curse Advent Children for it’s washed-out aesthetic because in the darker scenes it completely masks Sephiroth’s real eye color. Thank the gods for HD screenshots.

However, there is a very interesting phenomenon that only seems to happen in Last Order, the 25-minute animated retelling of the Nibelheim Incident and Zack and Cloud’s escape 5 years after. No one seems to have noticed this yet, to my knowledge, so I’ll go through this as clearly as I can.

When Zack confronts Sephiroth in the reactor, the latter’s eyes are light blue:

It isn’t very obvious due to the mako glow tint and his face being in shadow, but I’d think green eyes would look different here, so they are light blue. They stay light blue for a while after this, until Zack begins to fight him and parries him onto the ceiling (anime physics...), resulting in this peculiar scene:

Light blue into green. Literally, you can see it happening in the actual video. This happens a second time when Sephiroth has Cloud skewed on Masamune, just more subtly:

Again, light blue into green(er). Definitely something funky going on here. It goes back to light blue when Cloud tosses him away, though:

And speaking of Cloud... he, too, shows very obvious eye color change directly after this scene, as seen below:

In the video they are visibly, animatedly glowing, it’s not just me discerning between two different flat shades of color. Keep in mind this is before he gets mako poisoned and Jenova-celled and whatnot, so this isn’t due to SOLDIER enhancements. What gives?

Here’s my take: it’s the Lifestream. People are made of Lifestream like everything else in in the FF7 universe, and it’s common knowledge that Lifestream/mako can do some pretty weird shenanigans. SOLDIERs are literally pumped full of the stuff and have seemingly superhuman abilities, and that’s just the lower-ranking ones. But the series has also placed a lot of emphasis on willpower, which Cloud post-experimentation struggles with due to the J-cells and stuff. A lot of people with particularly bright or “glowing” eyes have expressed an incredible amount of willpower, some of which include Cloud, Sephiroth (unsurprising), and Aerith:

Aerith’s eyes have always been incredibly bright in the series, regardless of which game you reference. Remake especially makes this obvious, as it seems like every close-up shot of her makes her eyes the centerpiece regardless of lighting, setting, etc.:

Like, seriously, they almost seem to glow they’re so bright. But here’s the kicker: Aerith is a Cetra, and the Cetra, obviously, communicate with the Planet... or, in other words, have an incredibly strong willpower that influences things. It’s been stated before by various people and media that Sephiroth and Aerith are two sides of the same coin, but not quite like this, I think. Cloud shows a similar phenomenon in his close-up shots as well, though the artificial SOLDIER glow is most likely contributing to most of it:

Compare these to younger Cloud in the Nibelheim flashback, when he was more innocent and had no need for incredible willpower, artificial or not:

Going back to Cloud in Last Order, the point we can make about him in particular is that when he was stabbed, literally at death’s door, he drew on his inner Lifestream for the strength to toss Sephiroth away. People have wondered for years about how this moment was even possible besides Protagonist Syndrome, and this may be the answer.

If this is the case, then this could apply to anyone: Aerith, Sephiroth, Zack, hell even Tifa seems to have slightly glowing eyes in the Remake sometimes-- and sure, it may be just the game engine making sure we can actually see their eyes in key cutscenes... but it ties into canon lore and actually makes sense, so I’m sticking with that. It’s also not a coincidence that Aerith specifically has green eyes, too, since the Lifestream in general is green-colored and whatnot.

Midpoint TL;DR: people with lots of inner willpower can call on their own Lifestream to give them strength, resulting in “glowing” or even color-changing eyes depending on how much Lifestream/mako they have in them. SOLDIERs, for example, would fall in the latter category... the most extreme being Sephiroth.

Now that's we're back at Sephiroth, another interesting point is that his eye color in Remake is consistently light blue, or some blue variation depending on the lighting, with green centers, as seen below:

Cloud obviously shares the same eye color pattern by this point because it's implied that he has the same if not slightly more mako in him than Sephiroth, which very conveniently also equates to him having the same if not slightly more willpower than Sephiroth.

An honorable mention goes to the Remnants, since they, too, follow the light blue with green centers pattern, appearing to fluctuate between the two colors at certain times:

With all of that said and done, I’ll wrap this up by going through Sephiroth’s appearances in side games and other franchises as quickly as I can:

1) The Dissidia series (Dissidia, 012/Duodecim, NT, Opera Omnia) almost always portrays Sephiroth with light blue eyes in art, renders, and models, occasionally with a hint of green in them:

A very interesting exception is NT Sephiroth's Safer Sephiroth costume, which has completely white eyes in all three of its alts. Yes, it's basically just a cosmetic costume, but it's still worthy to note for comprehensive purposes:

2) World of Final Fantasy’s Sephiroth has light blue eyes:

3) Record Keeper Sephiroth’s sprites are very obviously based on the original FF7 official art where he has green eyes (yes, I checked the colors by hand, they're all in the greener sections of the color wheel):

4) The Kingdom Hearts series is particularly unique because it features a blue-eyed Sephiroth but with an explicit reason for it. Kingdom Hearts 1 simply says that Sephiroth is part of Cloud’s past, but Kingdom Hearts 2 literally has Cloud saying “I'll get him. This time we settle it. Me, and the one who embodies all the darkness in me.”, and then explicitly clarifying that it’s Sephiroth he’s talking about. Sephiroth even shares Cloud’s facial shape, which is particularly obvious in KH2 renders:

All other Sephiroth appearances in the KH series also feature him with blue eyes, except for any usage of material from other media.

5) Itadaki Street games feature Sephiroth with green eyes:

6) Puzzles and Dragons features a rare teal-eyed Sephiroth:

And finally 7) All other Sephiroth appearances in spinoffs and other media feature him with light blue, blue, or rare teal eyes, except for sprites, which are (most likely) reused from Record Keeper:

And that’s FINALLY a wrap. All my evidence for Sephiroth’s actual eye color in one place, and even a theory on why it can potentially fluctuate between that and the iconic green.

Actual TL;DR: Sephiroth’s eyes are actually light blue in 90% of his appearances, and the remaining 10% either comes from temporary green-ness or partial green-ness thanks to mako/Lifestream stuff, or spinoffs.

There is one small point I’d like to make at the end of this, and that is the remaining mystery of why Sephiroth’s pupils are even slitted and cat-like in the first place. That... is far more ambiguous in terms of evidence than the eye color. Some series, particularly the Kingdom Hearts series, have them as regular round pupils, while others sometimes if not most of the time give him the cat-like ones. I may make another in-depth analysis post trying to figure it all out, but for now I’ll say that it may just simply be a result of the Jenova cells he has or something along those lines.

If you made it this far down and didn’t just instantly scroll past my massive log of images and sundry, thank you so much for reading all of this! If you did just instantly scroll past, I don't blame you. I guess I'm in proper Sephiroth hell now, lol.

I hope you have a great day and that things turn out well for you fhjksdgfyhughuhyudfs

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kettlequills · 3 years

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that world will cease to be: here in my shrine

For anon, who wanted a fic of Laat and Miraak exploring each other's bodies, and everyone who wanted a sequel to the soulmate au. Here you go: I tried. At the bottom there's a gloss of all the Dovahzul used, though pretty much all of it is contextually explained or translated.

This fic contains explicit n.s.f.w, sexual content, and is 1.8. +. Also: suicidal ideation, oral , b.d. sm, species dysphoria, light blood drinking, praise, overstimulation, abusive relationships, including featuring jealousy and possessiveness, and implied/referenced mind control and manipulation. Read at your own risk. Available on A03 here (and recommended, because this is Long).

There is an island where time does not exist. Or rather, where time has stopped, warped, turned half-counter-clockwise and decided that it would like to go four to the left actually.

Dead men stride ashfields that burgeon with last season's and four years of yesterday's summer crops. Their haunting cries part darkened smoke-clouds from a mountain that can't decide whether it has erupted and their dragon-claw boots leave no footsteps. No trace at all of them on silvery sand that thinks itself still a cliff, but a trail of dead netch and liquid-eyed nixhounds. Long-gone elves peer confusedly through gaps in ice-tunnels to a broken sky and thick air long distant from what their lips once tasted, trading the ancient pelts of great cats and wood-carved weapons made of some icy material that radiates magic with the commoners of Raven Rock. Sometimes, old Nords chase them through the snowfields up on the Moesring mountains, but that happens only in Sun’s Dawn, and everyone sensible knows to simply stay inside then. They will disappear on Tirdas, but it is Middas, all the time, until it is Fredas instead, shortly after Morndas afternoon (never morning). And that is not even starting with the month of Hearthfire, which as everyone in Raven Rock knows, is simply that time between ten and five o’clock where the sun shakes in what they have been generously describing as the sky.

The town itself is largely unchanged, for what could have been centuries now. Fethis Alor still tends his stand, the Retching Netch waits in a perpetual state of nearly closing down. Glover Mallory has yet to add a single wrinkle to his collection. Every so often, oldfolk come wandering out the barrows, shrivelled bodies that pay in ancient coins with flickers of life in death-blue eyes, but coin is coin, and if old Crescius has been working a thriving trade with the dead priest Zahkriisos in oil and coal, plenty of others in Raven Rock see no need to be stingy.

Occasionally, there are newfolk, outsiders. Furious bureaucrats from Morrowind, perhaps, come to see why their island flies colours that have not been seen since mighty dragons swept their hungry wings over every inch of Tamriel. Beggars, refugees, curious wizards, come to see the Temple. It is not often they last long before they are unmade from the fabric of expectation that links the threads of reality together, or they quite simply go mad. For the most part, though, even gods avoid Solstheim.

The Dragonborns are not known to be fond of gods.

It is best not to pay too much attention to the Temple or the dragons that live within it. Focus instead on the routine, the script, and know in your heart that time is broken and fate is a lie. Choose ignorance. The summer storms shake the ground from the Temple, Shouts of laughter and rage, growing pains, and dragons scatter from its roof like doves. It is a magical untime on Solstheim, and there are worse things than the total freedom of a world shaped by the expectant whim of two godsouled-mortals that keep for the most part to their temple and themselves.

Frea does not choose ignorance. She has been shaman of the Skaal for, at least, twelve generations, or maybe even three days, and the sight of the Tree Stone still turns her stomach. Sometimes long-dead friends are standing round it, smiling at Frea like nothing has changed at all (and it hasn’t, surely? The sun still rises on the day where Gjalund Salt-Sage brought the dragon-break into Raven Rock port), but Frea is tired now. Still young, still strong, she goes to make the same plea she always makes to the Last Dragonborn.

“When are you going to let us go?” Frea asks, over ale. This year’s season has been terrible for crops, but no one quite ever expects to run out, so the barrels remain full of thick Skaal ale that always tastes just like the last time Frea could remember having it.

She is growing to hate that taste.

Laataazin, the Last Dragonborn, is shorter than Frea, being one of those warm-blooded humans from across the sea. Their feet just lightly brush the ground from where they sit next to Frea on the fallen tree stump not far from the Stone. They wear the same armour they always have, as bright and well-used as it has been since the day they walked out of Apocrypha hand in hand with the murderer of Frea’s friends and broke the world. The only difference is their mask hangs from their belt instead of concealing their scarred spider-web of a face, its blank owl-eyes staring accusingly up at Frea.

They grimace at the ale Frea hands them, pulling the cork out with their teeth. Laat says nothing, but looks at Frea, the wisps of blonde hair that escape her hood, the air of terrible exhaustion that slumps her shoulders. They like the Skaal shaman; Frea is the sort of companion that Laat may have considered taking adventuring once, strong enough to keep up, quick enough to get out of the way, and wild enough to relish the months of uninterrupted travelling through the depths of Skyrim’s countryside.

But it has been a long time since Laataazin has gone adventuring, longer still since they have stepped foot in Skyrim. They miss it; the vastness of the wilds, the clear air, the promise of a fight and treasure to be won. Surely it must be time for a visit, soon? Laat cannot remember the last time they went. Beyond their beloved wife, there is little to draw them back there.

And I am here, Miraak presence brushes against their mind, like a touch on their arm. It is tinged with smugness.

Yes, Laat thinks, hiding their smile from Frea, you are. Did you not want privacy?

That is, after all, the reason they decided to hold their regular meeting with Frea today – it is not like Frea, not being dragon-souled, is aware enough of the passing untime to know if Laat reschedules. But Miraak has ushered them from the temple, claiming to want of all things solitude. This is impossible with their souls interlinked, but physical distance and polite-pretence is easy to arrange. It is unusual enough for Miraak to request it instead of Laat seeking the embrace of nature that it makes them immensely curious.

Miraak radiates discontent for a moment (you miss me, Laat’s chest warms), but withdraws. He is fussing with something involving water, trying not to get the sleeves of his robe wet. They do their best to leave him to it and focus on Frea.

“How long do you plan to keep us imprisoned here?” Frea is asking dolefully, as if rephrasing the question will compel Laataazin to give her an answer she wants to hear. “Trapped in this unliving existence, where no thing changes or grows as the All-Maker bade it?”

Unimpressed, Laat scowls at Frea. They kick the ash with their boots, digging with their heel a scar into the earth that exposes a scurrying beetle. That is change, right there. Not the same as the orderly march Akatosh imposes upon the land, but then, it is his rules that argue that two Dragonborn may not walk Nirn at once.

Laat is no longer inclined to listen to such rules.

Frea looks at the beetle. Something in her eyes flickers. Her loose hand drops the ale, which floods from the bottle, soaking the little scar where the beetle rapidly crawls to escape death by drowning. Curiously, Laat watches, but when the golden liquid gets too close they nudge a line of sand to dam it. The beetle, saved, disappears into the ash.

“I wish to return to the All-Maker,” Frea says, quietly.

A sudden surge of annoyance from Miraak catches Laat’s attention. Unthinkingly, they press into his mind. Through his eyes they glimpse Miraak’s bare hand – ink-veined and thin – clutching at a bar of soap, the dim outline of his body beneath the surface of the bathwater, even one knobbly knee, a hint of-

Laataazin, he chides, vexed. Laat blinks and with effort wrenches themselves away. Anchoring themselves to the feel of the wooden stump underneath them, they inhale the salty scent of seaspray and ashfall. Their boots scuffing the ash, Frea’s solid warmth against their side, the weight of their armour on their shoulders.

Are you all right? Laat asks. They are really trying not to think too much about the fact that Miraak is bathing, and that means Miraak is naked. He has never been fully undressed with Laat. They have seen only glimpses of his body beneath the robes when they have sex, his hands, and rarely, his face. Usually, Laat occupies themselves with something like hunting or sleep that distracts their mind when Miraak bathes, because Miraak is very sensitive to his privacy where his body is concerned.

Miraak is naked. And wet. Wet and naked.

Geh, he replies. I dropped the soap.

His indignation at their amusement tempts them to laugh out loud. They do not, because Frea with her gentle mortal-soul and fragile eardrums sits next to them, long legs not struggling to reach the ground at all. Cursed Nords.

Stop thinking about my naked body, he adds, and do not try to look.

Don’t be shy, Miraak, Laat teases slyly, doing their best to ground themselves in the moment, on the tree with Frea not in the bath in the temple, even as they poke fun at him. You’ve been inside me from the moment I awoke in Helgen, and I know you were still watching even when a gentleman might … look away.

They both know it is true, and though Laat is already well aware that Miraak watches them when they bathe, undress, or fuck, Miraak’s embarrassed defensiveness immediately confirms it. They have never minded - Laat has a soldier’s easy practicality about their body.

I was keeping an eye on you to make sure you were not taken advantage of in your many distractions, Laat Dovahkiin, he retorts. Laat has a vague sense of him splashing water over his face.

They roll their eyes and pull away.

“Dragonborn, do you hear me? I wish to die,” says Frea, intensely. “This is no way to live. You must know this, somewhere. Are you not tired of this unending nightmare?”

It is difficult to remain focused on Frea, because Miraak’s thoughts keep drifting to Laat like a ping on the edges of their awareness. They are soft thoughts, warm ones, shy-feeling, tinged with a little note of – is that arousal? Laat’s barely-restrained curiosity piques.

Is he trying to masturbate? It is rare for Miraak to do so. Admittedly, Laat doesn’t remember the last time he has tried without Laat sensing it and volunteering a… helping hand. No, the last time they have felt something like this from him, they followed him to the icy cell he prefers to sleep in when alone. In the memory, Miraak’s hand is hidden in the folds of his robes, but his masked face jerks towards Laat when they open the door, biting off a sound Laat is suddenly very eager to hear. Laat comes to sit beside him – ignoring his fluster, his demands – and murmurs to him about certain options they have. The night ends with Miraak writhing underneath them as they push into him, rocking him slowly against the bed while he gasps and begs, the echoes of his Voice he is desperately trying to muffle in the pillows sending shivers into the walls. There is no exact translation for ‘please, fuck me, please’ in Miraak’s preferred tongue of Dovahzul, but Laat learns that night several new ways to say it anyway.

Miraak sighs wearily, and Laat feels him cast an ice-spell in his bathwater.

Sorry, thinks Laat, sheepish.

“Please,” says Frea, somewhere distant. “Please hear me, Dragonborn. You are the only one who can wake us from this spell.”

Ni faas, replies Miraak, It is a memory I also … fondly recall.

Apologetically, they take a sip of their ale. They wince. Vile. The wines of Cyrodiil, where Laat likely hails from, are infinitely better. But Miraak enjoys the taste on their tongue, and they feel him hum where he lays in the bath.

Gripping Laat’s arm, Frea shakes them roughly. Snapped into their body, Laat blinks and glares at Frea. The Skaal is wise enough to back off, hands upraised, but her blue eyes are full of terrible sorrow when they look at Laat, no fear at all of Laat lashing out with a gauntleted fist.

“The Traitor has changed you,” Frea says to them. “He has changed us all. But you… I do not think any of the people you left behind would recognise you, Dragonborn.”

“You do not know me,” Laat signs, the shapes sharp and clipped. They are in Nirn now, after all, and their Voice would hurt Frea if not kill her if they spoke aloud. Dragons alone are strong enough to bear it. “You know nothing of the world beyond this island, girl.”

“I have heard tale of you, and when first we met… You slew Alduin World-Eater,” Frea shakes her head, slowly. “You would have helped us. You would know that what is happening is wrong.”

Laat rises to their feet, nettled by the reminder of their bitter fate, but Frea only stares at them, as if hoping something will happen. When nothing does beyond Laat’s glare, dimming into confusion at the odd look on her face, the light gutters out in Frea’s heart. Her shoulders bow, as if slumped by immense weights.

“I suggest,” Frea says heavily, “that you reflect on what it is that has changed in this time of unreality. And what has not. Tell me, what do you truly know of the lands beyond these shores that you have seen with your own eyes? Please, remember my words, Dragonborn.”

With that, she turns and crunches away over the snow.

Laat takes a step after Frea, rage bubbling in their gut like a noxious poison – Miraak, touching in concern the edges of their mind – but gritting their teeth hard enough to feel the bones creak, they drag themselves back. No. Laat likes Frea, they do not want to kill her.

They do, however, want to hunt.

Enjoy yourself, Laat thinks to Miraak, taking a moment to send him a soothing pulse. I’m going to go and catch dinner.

Don’t get something large, I have already prepared food for us, Miraak requests.

Full of surprises, today, aren’t you? He grumbles something about being much maligned that Laat ignores, already setting off at a light jog into the wilderness surrounding the temple.

It is a bitter day on Solstheim, with high winds and a brittle, icy chill. The animals are wary, and it takes Laat a few hours to find anything worth catching. Eventually, they manage to corner a small arctic hare. It is dead with a Shout, and Laat skins it with their boot-knife. The hunter in them unwinds at the kill, the blood on their hands.

Frea’s words echo through their mind. “Tell me what you know of the lands beyond these shores that you have seen with your own eyes.”

Laat considers. It has been a while since they have spoken to one of their dragon acquaintances. Odahviing and Venfokest avoid Miraak, but Odahviing at least is bound to come if Laat calls. Perhaps they will ask how Skyrim is doing.

Something about the prospect makes Laat feel a little uneasy, as if there is something they are forgetting.

When are you back? Miraak’s question is more a vague feeling of longing for their presence and a desire to know where they are than it is words, but Laat answers it anyway.

I am coming to you now.

They feel from him a definite tinge of bubbling excitement, and then again that strange anxious spark. Pruzah.

He is definitely planning something. Seething curiosity carries Laat home, to the great Temple of Miraak sprawling between towering fences of heaped dragon-skeletons, fused and warped together by thousands of years of moving ice and snow. Laat ducks under the tongueless jaws and over the fleshless claws, poised in permanent screams of rending agony. As always, they grimace. It is not their favourite of Miraak’s choice in décor.

The interior of the temple is much better, these days, its hard edges softened by the multitude of pelts that ripple along the walls like the sides of some great breathing beast. Laat has hunted all of these themselves, and it still plucks their pride to see the fruits of their work displayed so prominently in Miraak’s temple. The rabbit they pack in ice and leave in an empty brazier. It will not go anywhere.

You are skilled, he interjects into their thoughts. And also prone to cold.

Laat closes their eyes and goes to him, not needing to ask, not needing to see – Laataazin could find Miraak blind and deaf, robbed of all sense, even dead, even dying. The ties that bind them are beyond such petty things as flesh, as mortality.

Soul-of-my-soul, they think, trailing their fingertips over the thickly covered walls, the soft furs, the unyielding stone beneath. Breathing in the smoky scent of incense, the long-distant iron tang of blood and daedra. Always I come to you. Through Apocrypha, through storm, through time and fate itself, no creature could bar me from you that I would not tear asunder.

Do not keep me waiting any longer, Miraak answers, softly. Laat can feel his hunger.

He is outside in the room they usually use when sleeping together. It is fairly large, walled-off, but open to the great sky and set with wards to deter prying eyes and inclement weather. There is no furniture at all, save for a cooking pot in the corner by a fire, a small chest that holds additional blankets and other supplies, and a huge bed, made completely of stone in the Dwemer fashion. It is piled high with furs to make it soft.

The reason, of course, is Laataazin.

“Miraak,” they whisper, as soft as they possibly can, and their Voice shudders the air with a low sonic reverberation. Anything more fragile than stone would be destroyed in an exhale.

“Laat Dovahkiin.”

He is perched on the bed, masked face tilted towards them measuringly. Over his lap luxuriates a thick snow-bear pelt, his long fingers fiddling with something under it almost absently. They can just see a small glimpse of his foot peeking out of the shaggy fur, wider than Laat has expected, the curve of his arch flattening towards his clawed toes. He is wearing a robe of deep purple, belted tightly around his waist so that no skin shows in the fall of its folds around the tucked hood of his mask. But simply by virtue of how uncomfortably stiff he looks, Laat wagers his robe is only a layer thick, his gloves are nowhere to be seen, and he is not even wearing socks.

Laat starts to strip off their armour, hoping to join him in the plush furs. He shifts; his presence strengthens in their mind shivery and avid, like ghostly lips are under their skin caressing the tight strings of nerves as Laat’s fingers fumble over the buckles. An urgency makes itself known, whether it is his or theirs they cannot tell, only that it seems incredibly important that the bulky plate is gone, leaving Laat in their breeches and tunic.

“Are you hungry?” Miraak says in his rich, deep voice. “I made soup.”

“You made soup?” Laat signs, honestly taken aback. They scrub their hair with one hand, dissatisfied with the length of the limp strands. Time to cut it soon.

“I told you I did.” Miraak’s rejoinder is curt, but Laat can feel a storm of emotions inside of him, more nervousness, quiet sparks of hurt. Puzzlingly, underneath it all is vast breathlessness.

“I am sorry,” Laat signs, “I thought you meant you got someone else to cook.”

Like normal, they don’t add, but clearly Miraak senses their confusion.

“It is pea soup,” he adds, with all the snappishness of an insult, and then looks down at his hands like he is hoping they will wring his own neck for him.

Pea soup is Laataazin’s favourite. They like the warmth, the simplicity, even the odd green of it. It is the first meal they recall eating, served by Sigrid after their escape from Helgen. It is decidedly not Miraak’s.

Miraak acting strange, trying to make one of Laat’s favoured foods, wearing slightly fewer than his usual full robes, having just bathed –

“Miraak,” Laat signs, slowly. “Are you trying to seduce me?”

Miraak says nothing, but Laat can feel his frustration. Not for the first time, Laat wonders how they would have ever come to know him without a window into his soul, for his mask is expressionless, his body language has not changed at all, and his manner is anything but welcoming. Still, their heart squeezes at the thought of him taking the time to do something as simple and sweet as make their favourite soup.

“I am not hungry,” they sign, “but I would love to try it with you later.”

Laat takes a seat on the bed next to him. This close, they can see what he is fussing with in his hands. It is a coil of soft cotton rope, dyed black, and he is threading it through his hands again and again, rhythmic, hypnotic. His shoulders are tense. Understanding dawns as Laat gains a sense of what he wants.

“Want some help?” Laat signs.

The anxious movement of his hands pauses. His chin tucks close to his chest. The dim firelight plays over the gold surface of his mask, making the shadows jump and dance like the carved tentacles are twitching.

“Geh,” says Miraak. “I would relieve your curious mind.”

He trails off, but his mind does not, conveying a soft fear of exposure – unwanted, terrible, frightening, but at the hands of Laat, intriguing, even exciting. Another dragon-soul, who… knows, who has the most immediate window into how it feels.

No wonder he is being shy, Laat thinks, Miraak has never in all the time they have known each other reacted to having to remove his clothing with anything other than discomfort. To some extent, Laat even understands. They have times when their body feels wrong, too little, too soft, no teeth or claws or worst of all no wings, but for Miraak, that sense of not fitting his body never fades at all, and the marks of daedric corruption from years in Apocrypha has only worsened it.

Laat inhales. “You want me to take your robe off and touch you under it?”

They both feel the tug of arousal in his belly as Laat’s hands finish the signs. Laat’s approval at it makes the hair on the back of his neck prickle. The air electrifies, Laat’s blood warms. Already, Laat’s mind feels closer, overlapping with his, drifting in and out of seeing with their eyes or his. The rope seems to grow heavier in their - his - hands.

“Geh.”

Laat shifts to sit by his hip, trying to catch his eyes in the dark slits of his mask. Either he is avoiding their stare or the mask is at the wrong angle to penetrate the shadows.

“Tell me your watchword, Miraak.” Laat’s signs are firm but clear. They can’t hide their excitement from him, don’t bother trying, and his chest rises and falls a little quicker. Laat’s stomach quivers with butterflies.

He dithers, thinking through his choice, but when he speaks his voice is strong, steady, and confident. “Sikgolt.”

“Good,” Laat signs. They take the rope from him.

Miraak lifts his hands, and the voluminous sleeves fall to gather in indigo ripples around his elbows, baring his arms. Laataazin curls the first length of rope around his forearms and then just looks for a moment, memorising it. The contrast between the dyed rope and his sunless skin, stained murky ink-green-yellow like a slow-ripening bruise that makes Laat ache to dig their thumb in and push until it blooms purple. The green veins that fork through the softer skin of his wrists, the pulse-point that will hammer there if Laat tickles it with their tongue (and the groans that will fall from him, twisted, broken things, the bitten curses, the hungry ache).

There are scars there, just visible as thinned lines underneath the dark stipple of soap-softened hair, relics from a fraught past. His hands, thin and uncallused, a scholar’s hands still, offer up to the rope like the worshipful priest he still is (if to his own altar – Niid, zu’u losiil, he murmurs back), tipped by curving black claws that catch the light with a dim ebony sheen. He has filed them down, Laat can see the smoothed edges, the hint of dust caught under a nail that has escaped his washing.

Miraak has filed his claws so that he would not hurt Laataazin if he touches his fingertips to their bare skin, not even by accident.

The rush of admiration they feel for him is sudden, intense, and warm, warm, like the blush that climbs steadily into their cheeks. The arousal that sparks in one sparks the other, and Miraak is not as unaffected by Laat’s extended perusal as he is trying to pretend. Goosebumps raise where Laat’s eyes drag, and he grumbles and shifts on the bed.

It is false annoyance; Laat feels instead his anxiety, insecurity at having the marks of daedric corruption on display, his fear of exposure and powerlessness, the private worrying of his vanity.

Beautiful, Laat thinks, and politely ignores the confused feelings that flood through him as he catches their thought, all ending in an ember of lust. Miraak, despite his many conflicted feelings on his body, likes to be appreciated, but he finds Laat’s private, fond awareness of that fact intensely embarrassing.

“Laataazin.”

Laat’s shoulders shake in a silent chuckle.

They take his hand in theirs, smiling up at him. “Squeeze,” they sign with the other, and he obliges, gripping Laat’s hand until it feels like the bones creak. Laat makes a note of the pressure, then releases him with a gentle pat.

Loop by loop, they wrap the soft rope around Miraak’s arms six times, spreading the pressure out to protect his circulation. Checking the looseness with two fingers against his wrist, Laat tucks the tails around the loops, makes a knot, cinches it evenly, then knots it again for security. It takes a while, for Laataazin’s hands shake and tremble, and Miraak’s skin is sensitive to chafing. But as they work, Laataazin feels the rope’s increasing pressure acting upon him, the quiet, observant mood he settles into, dripped through with steady peace. His lassitude sinks soporific into the tired ache behind Laat’s eyes, and their head droops to rest on his chest.

“Not too tight,” he tells them, testing the rope. Laat skims kisses over his knuckles.

They allow him time to acclimatise to the ropes, feeling the minute tense of his muscles testing for give in the knots. They can hear the creaks of the flexing rope, his deep breathing metallic under the mask, even the distant wind blowing over the ashlands. Somewhere, a dragon roars.

Kruziikrel, Miraak identifies absently.

The fabric of his robe is silky and cool against Laat’s forehead. Beneath it, they can smell Miraak, old books, mouldy paper, spilt ink and the bitter reek of ash. From anyone else, it would be unpleasant – from Miraak, it is familiar, and thus, beloved.

Laat can feel the warm weight of their head on Miraak’s chest, the soothing hold of the rope, the robe shifting on his skin. He feels too warm, already, his breath fogging against his mask to blow soft as butterfly kisses against his dry lips. A little sleepy, too, wrung out by all the excitement and anxiousness of preparing himself for them.

“Ni faas. It was nothing,” Miraak rumbles. They can feel the vibrations through his chest when he speaks, the breath ringing in his lungs.

Their dragon soul.

It is tempting to indulge in the moment, lay their body across his legs like a pinning weight and allow them both to simply drift, hearts harmonising, breath mixing, until Laat has to untie Miraak’s hands and chase the blood to flushing. But they turn their cheek to the side, instead, so their breath skates into the opening of Miraak’s robe. He shivers.

It would be a shame to not take advantage of Miraak’s uncharacteristic willingness to be vulnerable.

Their fingers twist into signs. It takes Miraak a moment, either to parse it in his warm fog or to realise that Laat has signed, but when he does Laat relishes in the surge of indignation.

“I am not having a nap, and I am not that old,” Miraak huffs, and Laataazin laughs against his chest. It is nearly noiseless, but not quite. The furs tremble beneath them.

Wuth, they think to him. Old man.

“You’re the one whose – stopped,” Miraak snaps, and his voice loses its steadiness.

Must I do everything for you, Diist-Dovahkiin? Laat sighs gustily, teasingly, but they sit up and plant their weight square over his hips.

For a moment, they are both breathing through the sensations, Miraak’s heart thudding in his chest at the agonising burn of warm thighs squeezing his hipbones, the bend of Laat’s knees straining tight muscles from the hike to meet with Frea, the weight pressing his spine into the bed like a stone, even the arterial pulse he swears he can feel drumming his skin through the robe and their clothes pounding from the secret warmth of Laat’s inner thigh. The thought of all that blood, all that glorious heat, in their veins makes him dizzy.

Laat looks down at him and sees themselves mirrored in shadows over his mask and in his hidden gaze. The rolling slopes of their body encircle him, contain him, like a stopper in the narrow neck of a bottle. Their eyes smoke with intensity, flickers of amber red visible in the deep brown. In his eyes, they are handsome and powerful, beautiful as the killing edge of a new blade.

“You are so warm,” he tells them inanely.

“Let me see you,” Laat signs, bringing their hands deliberately wide in the movements so that their knuckles brush the blank gold face of Miraak’s mask. They want to show him his own face, his true face, the loveliness they find there among the ink-scars and exhaustion-wrung shadows.

Miraak hesitates. Old shames glare gluttonous at his vulnerability, and Miraak feels like shrinking into the safety of the mask. Is it not enough to let them do this? Must he lose every wall, every shelter, every defence he has against the rawness of this new Solstheim where bareness is unremarkable, and no one sings as dragons do? His face of flesh and skin does not even have majestic horns or tough scales - no, it is softened, wearied, by time and torture. The wrinkles he admires as they form on Laat and the steely greys of their hair remind Miraak only of the time he has lost to unwilling bondage on himself. They, after all, do not have the face of a prisoner of Apocrypha.

He is only a man. Despite the strength of Laat’s opinion of him, their dragon-soul, Miraak is only a man, and one beset by foolish vanity at that.

Laat says nothing, of course they don’t, but the swell of tender feeling is almost worse. This close, this hungry, the line between them is blurrier than it ever is. Without the mask, Miraak may as well … submit. Laat pursues the feeling, pressing into his mind, his body, until their touches feel mirrored and they are the hand that brushes and the skin that aches in response both.

Laat leans forward (catches Miraak’s irreverent thought about how so very warm they are, are they running a fever, against his bound wrists, his chest) and lifts the edge of the mask’s hood, revealing his neck. Old inkstains stripe his throat in greenish trails, splatters where he has coughed and choked on the fluid bubbling in his lungs, out his mouth. Laat can’t resist swiping their tongue over the arch of tendons, as if the coolness of their spit can smear such deeply-sunken marks. Tender kisses dot his shoulders, gentle lips mumble and mouth over the exposed ridge of his collarbones, blunt teeth threatening the bobbing gulp of the apple of his throat, sensations that spark fireworks behind his eyes. Laat’s lips tingle where they kiss him, his fragile skin papery and dry like the crumbling pages of ancient books.

They together feel his breathing fanning over his eyelids, penned in by the mask, as he tilts his head back. Exposes his neck to Laataazin, like a dog showing his belly to his master.

Beautiful, thinks Laat again, and Miraak swallows a groan.

Desire breathes like something living in the coil of his gut, drawing like a wave into his cock. The liquid movements of the robes over the sensitive flesh as Laat rocks back and forth over his hips while they kiss, sensuous, deliberate, rhythmic, just too far forward to grind against him, are exquisite torture.

Torture? Laat’s laugh is a sigh that ripples up to prickle the tainted skin under his ear. Miraak exhales roughly, flexing his wrists against the ropes to ground himself. They are edging ever closer to the lip of the mask, trying to steal it off without his notice. It is one of their more obvious designs. Not even close, soul-of-my-soul.

“What are you planning?” Miraak asks, more to reply than because he cares to know. Past experience has taught him that Laat is more than capable of using his anticipation as a weapon, stringing him on a teetering edge until he shatters like poorly blown glass in their hands.

You like it, Laat thinks, amused, indulgent as a cat in a sunbeam. Miraak, haughty, does not respond. He does not need to. The evidence that tells Laat they are right is beginning to rather eagerly tent his robe, after all.

This close he can smell the oil they use to clean their armour and weapons, and sweat, pure human sweat. Laataazin’s deals with daedra have been so much lesser than Miraak’s, and they barely have any marks, save for a wickedness in their grin as their hips roll against him that Miraak thinks must have come from straight from the Lord of Debauchery himself.

You know it didn’t, Laataazin contradicts. Their scarred nose bumps the underside of his mask as they lean forwards, palms pressing down heavy and soothing onto his chest. Hinting.

“Niid,” Miraak murmurs.

A flicker of disappointment, but Laat moves on from the mask without comment. They resettle their weight further over his hips, trapping his cock between their body and his. Miraak chokes, his arms twitching in abortive movement, like he could pull their body, their hands away. But Laat lingers, tracing the shape of his cock through his robe with heavy, palming strokes. It is so powerful a sensation that it hurts, hurts, like crackling lightning in his veins.

Miraak writhes, trying to unseat them, but Laat only rides him out like he is a bucking horse. His body undulates between their thighs and they grind down, eyes fluttering shut and mouth parting, a glimpse of their crooked teeth as they bite their lip.

Laat’s shameless pleasure in his struggle undoes him.

“Laat,” Miraak moans. They ground him with a hand to his chest, and his breath heaves like bellows against its firm weight.

Your arms are tied, Laat’s thought is involuntary, almost indistinguishable in heady lust, you just have to lie here and … take it.

They feel Miraak want to protest that he is not entirely helpless – there’s the Voice, there’s magic, they may be stronger physically but he could even flip them – yet his whole body is boneless, the ropes hemming him in sweetly, and they know if Laat just asks, he would take any amount of anything. To please them.

“Zu’u losiil, Laat Dovahkiin.” Miraak is shaky and breathless. I am yours. It is true. Without them, he would be a prisoner, lonely, bitter, still at the whim of the fates, bound to serve all his life in the hope for a taste of freedom. This service, he chooses. As they chose him, over the world.

“Good,” Laataazin whispers aloud, and the stone bed shakes. Somewhere distant, something smashes as it falls, shaken by the earthquake of their Voice.

Miraak’s eyes fly open to meet theirs through the slits of his mask, halfway through a ragged gasp. They see themselves as he sees them, scarred face is watchful, intent, their dark eyes alight with a rich glow.

“Laataazin.”

It is too much for him. Laat rubs his chest soothingly as Miraak’s head thumps back against the furs and his arms lift, futile, trying to cover his masked face, trying to hide. His knuckles meet only the coolness of his mask, smooth and hard, the antithesis of Laat’s body on his. He knows he is blushing, blotches of deep blue and yellow ink bursting like rotted flowers under the surface of his skin, knows that Laat could see it, if they open his robe.

The soul-of-his-soul thinks Miraak is good.

As if summoned, Laat deftly parts the folds of his robe and bares his chest. The bear pelt he lies on is so thick that the soft fur rises around the edges of his body like a wreath, his robe spread out beneath them like royal purple butterfly wings. The paleness of the fur and the richness of the silk all seem to exaggerate the archival yellow of his skin, warming to chlorophyll and indigo, like he is an unfinished painting given colour, depth, reality, by the paintbrush of his blush.

He is beautiful, and mine, they think, ghosting over pebbled flesh with indulgent, explorative touches. Miraak is thinner under his robes than he first appears, with jutting ribs from one-too-many forgotten meals to sustain a body that has not quite managed to process anything beyond ink with any reliability. His mottled skin is oddly smooth, hairless, and after a moment, Laat realises why.

“You shaved,” Laat signs, tapping his chest to get his attention. He lowers his arms cautiously, eyeing them through the slits of the mask. “Your beard, too?”

“Geh,” says Miraak.

Laat feels his embarrassed flush of self-consciousness. He shaved because he hopes Laat would put their mouth on him as they are so fond of doing, and does not want them to have to pick hair from their teeth. His hair grows very thick and all of it ink-soaked to dripping, leaving green stains on fabrics when he brushes against them. He worries; hardly thinks it’s beneficial for Laat to swallow any of Mora’s corruption that can possibly be avoided. Just as quickly, there is a fluster as Miraak tries to hide his thoughts from them.

Prickly and proud as ever, their dragon-soul.

“I wouldn’t have minded,” Laat assures him, their signs quick and fond at his worry. “And I certainly don’t mind you thinking of what I’m going to do to you.”

Their signs leave them free to smile, slow, wide, and Miraak shivers at the promise in it. Lightly they push on his elbows, encouraging him to lift his arms over his head so that his shoulders strain and his torso is exposed, like a sacrifice. Then, as Miraak has dared to hope, they lower their head and kiss his chest.

Laat explores, taking their time, feeling the raised lips of scars catch under their nails. He does not have many, all things considered, not half as much as they do, but there is enough to provide texture. Testament, they suppose, to his expertise with healing magic. Miraak runs cooler than they do, and as their searching hands find the secret, soft places that make him twitch and gasp (his sides are sensitive to broad strokes, but he jerks and hisses at gentle, featherlight circles over his hipbones, and the sound he makes when Laat licks a long stripe over his pectoral muscle and catches the edge of his nipple is so hungry it does not bear repeating), they feel him warm under them.

Sweat wells, bitter and acrid ink, in the dips of his collarbones, the dark hair of his armpits, his navel. Laat brushes the worst of it away and keeps going, ignoring the apocryphal reek and distracting Miraak from it before he can protest. They are determined to map his entire torso under their lips and tongue, the drugging strokes of their palms pressing against the heave of his lungs. His skin is soft and dry, curiously textured, delicate as vellum. When he blushes, sometimes the ink forms linear lines, swirls of no mortal language, as if it is trying to imitate the written pages of Apocrypha, like there are books not blood trapped underneath his skin. Laat knuckles his flesh until it fades into blotchy colours and pays it no attention at all.

They have no need for flesh-sunk knowledge and the words of magic lost to time. This is its own kind of lesson, and Laat will always rather be skilled in love than in secrets.

They hear the crackle of the fire, the wet noises of their mouth, Miraak’s moans and stifled cries. He whimpers when they give into the desire to suck on his skin until it bruises brilliant purples and blues, bright as an illustration commissioned by a master, so they do it again, again, until his nipples pinking with blood distract them. Laat torments the hard buds with quick, fluttering flicks of their tongue that make Miraak choke on a growl, and smile when they feel the tugging chains of arousal searing straight to his cock.

Miraak pants, half-wishing he let Laat take the damn mask off, because there doesn’t seem to be enough air and he feels like he is melting. It’s too much, he thinks, and Laat’s dark eyes flick up to his, measuring, probing for how he is doing, it hurts.

“Faaz,” Miraak gets out. You are hurting me. They must be.

Sensation so bright it might as well be pain has him arrested, senseless, sharp like needles in his lungs, and he is not sure where he is, only that the world is bound by the rope around his wrists, squeezing his thunderous crash of a heart into a mortal body that twists and rocks under Laataazin like it is possessed. He is aware that he is making noises, hisses and gasps and bitten off words that would embarrass him if he were more present, but Miraak is not – is gone.

He is, dimly, afraid of what is happening to his body, for he is fairly certain that sex has never been like this. With his nerves under-stimulated from years in bitter Apocrypha, Laat’s focused attention is utterly overwhelming. There are many reasons he prefers to remain clothed; safe concealment from the immensity of the world scraping at him like raw wool is one.

It always is like this, with Laat.

“You are fine, Miraak,” Laat tells him, knows he understands even if they are not certain he sees their signs, “This is not pain.”

He eases a little at their reassurance, but just to prove it, they bite him hard enough that their teeth carve welts into his flesh. Hard enough that the confused morass of sensation – pleasure, it is his and theirs, at the same moment – narrows into the piercing beam of pain, true pain. Miraak keens, and against him, Laat moans richly, reverberating.

If only – if only, but no, this truly is a rare opportunity. Laat needs to be gentle and relish the rare freedom of touching Miraak’s bare skin, not overwhelm him quickly.

Miraak bares his teeth. “I am not fragile,” he says, his pride bidding him ignore the quiver in his deep voice lodged somewhere in his stomach, and the nagging fear that he absolutely is, actually, and if Laat isn’t careful, his bones will shatter to dust like the ruined books that populate old tombs like monuments to impermanence.

“You blush so prettily when I treat you like you are,” Laat signs, cheeky. “Can you blame me?”

When they are done, though, their hands find his ribs again and push down, hard. Miraak wheezes a breath, but Laat only smiles at him, as if to say, See? We’re fine.

Miraak slams his head back into the pillows, hissing. Again with the praise. I am going to pulverise you in training later, Laat feels him think, and allows the ghostly curl of their amusement to thread like gold in his sternum.

Laat withdraws, gives him a moment to catch his breath. They check his bound hands briefly, then hum, satisfied by the strength of his grip. The break is barely a second, not long enough, just enough to admire his flustered state.

One hand tweaks his nipple, twisting it hard enough that the dull pressure will ache, the other smooths underneath the fallen robe around his hips and ghosts around the base of his cock. He reacts like their skin burns him.

“Niid,” says Miraak at once, “niid – Dovahkiin, saraan-“

The hand at his chest taps him. Laat does not move their other hand, not at all, allows Miraak to feel like he is dying, knowing that he will not.

“Your watchword, Miraak?” Laat signs. Their expression is serious, but their mouth is smiling, like they know a secret.

It takes him a moment, not to remember, for they feel the word come at once to the forefront of his mind, but to make his breathing cooperate so the word comes out steady and even. Always so proud.

“Sikgolt,” he says, at last.

“You know what to say, if you want this to stop,” signs Laat, “If not, behave.”

“I am not a pet,” Miraak tries to snarl, but his words are lost in an explosive cry when Laat spits into their hand and grasps his cock firmly with quick, rough strokes. Dry, it is just too much to be bearable, but Laat’s grip is workmanlike, brusque, and utterly unrelenting. Even when Laat smears his own ink-laced precome down his cock, it is not enough to prevent the agony of the friction.

Good, they think. Laat does not want him to be comfortable.

Miraak responds to that with a shattered sound.

Laat focuses on remaining in their own body, on the sweat-sticky shirt on their back, the slight grind and click of their wrist as they jerk him off, tries to distance themselves from the cacophony of Miraak’s thoughts. They want him to be overwhelmed, but not drag them with him to the point where they cannot be certain they will be able to watch him.

It is nice, they think meditatively, to be able to do this with him. They are surprised, but pleased, at how this night has gone, have not ever quite believed that Miraak would be capable of or willing to experience such a large amount of touch and vulnerability. After all, it took a long time of very patient compromises to reach the point of physical intimacy. Sex is studded with pitfalls, as having thick ink for blood means that Miraak’s arousal is not always reliable, and he regularly cannot bear touch, which his pride detests. Once they discovered they have a love of ropes in common and that Miraak can bring himself to ask for it, things became easier, and the rest Laat simply consigns to cultural differences he cannot explain in any way they understand, or the effects of his time in Apocrypha.

Still, Laat knows him well enough at this point to not need to think too hard about the movement of their hand on his cock. Dragging touches that form a circle for his jerking hips to thrust into, long strokes up the left side, switching to caress over the crease of his thigh and fondle his balls, rubbing that spot underneath that presses on the base and makes his eyes roll into the back of his head.

He is fracturing under their attention, their dragon-soul, twisting and shuddering on the bed like he can through movement plea for the violent pleasure to ebb enough for him to catch a breath. The mask shakes and casts golden reflections hurtling over the walls as he alternately thrusts his head back, then at once bows his body towards Laat, runnels of inky sweat pooling in the divots of his hips, staining the furs. He cries out, convinced they are hurting him, unable to register the intensity of the sensations he feels as anything other than pain.

Watching his anguish, Laat feels an erotic thrill. How glorious, to have a creature so ancient and strong under their power. They close their hand around his cock, caressing the sensitive underside of the swollen glans with their thumb. Miraak, sensing, perhaps recognising Laat’s warm appreciation, panics and jerks, his bound hands trying to interfere. Feeling indulgent, Laat lets him tug against their strength.

Laat squeezes his cockhead until he flushes turgid purple, then rubs their thumb against the dripping slit. They fuck him like this slowly, watching his balls flush and tighten up against the base of his shaft. It won’t take long. Cruel perhaps, for his mind is a mess and his body is not much better, but it always makes his cock throb.

Miraak howls like he is being murdered. His breathing is shuddering gasps and hitched sobs. He is being good, though, holding himself as still as he can through what Laat can tell is sheer stubborn will alone. His body tries to jerk away from their rough touch, and the sounds that fall so sweetly on Laat’s ears are utterly broken, but he does not wrench himself away. Miraak bears it.

He behaves.

A reward is due. Laat releases him to reposition themselves so their scarred cheek rasps against his cock and their arms are wrapped around his thighs and hips, holding him still. Miraak breathes heavily, they feel the muscles flex in his stomach and thighs as he strains to sit up without dislodging them.

“What -” His words crack off. He clears his throat and tries again. “What are you doing?”

“You’ll like it,” Laat promises. They dig circles into the bony jut of his hips, watching for his reaction. The hood of his mask hides his throat bobbing in a swallow, but Laat can see his shaky exhale. They can sense Miraak’s confusion, lust-fogged mind struggling to grasp what is happening, not even truly certain where he is, not particularly caring about anything beyond Laat, Laat, Laataazin. His thoughts are run-on strings of harsh dragon-words, difficult to parse, overshadowed by flashes of feeling and thought, lightning-bright among the seething sea of sensory overload.

Maintaining eye contact with the dark holes in the mask, Laat gives the bobbing cock in front of their face an exploratory lick.

Miraak jumps.

They do it again.

This time, he groans. Laat lowers their mouth to his cock and starts by licking him, flicking their tongue over the sensitive underside. When his hips start twitching and lifting towards them, they slip his cock into their mouth and go down, down, as if they mean to swallow him whole.

His bound hands fly to their hair, unable to get a grip on it, but Laat looks up. His mind is beset by visions of his cock hurting them, bruising their throat so they can barely speak, but Laat only shakes off his hands kindly, a strange feeling of warmth in their breast at his worry.

“I will not hurt myself,” they sign, “I have taken bigger than you before.”

So saying, their mouth envelops his cock. Their nose bumps against his hips, and they control themselves, drawing back just a little to gain a new breath, then back down. They swallow when they feel the head bump against the back of their throat, let it slide into the tight space there.

They catch an image flashing through his mind - young man, pale cheeks freckle-blazed, mask pushed up over frizzing carroty hair; “Quiet, quiet, do you want the whipping - you have to be quiet, Miraak!” Burst of coals against Miraak’s pinwheeling arm - incense and dragon rumbles overhead - “Vahlok- !?” - and Miraak rams his bound hands against his mask to cover where his mouth hides beneath it so hard Laat hears the metal ring.

Laat pushes in on his hips hard enough to bruise. They hum, quietly, but the shaking sound still catches Miraak’s attention, especially as the vibrations judder through his cock in their mouth. Name me, they think to him fiercely. Name who has you.

“Laat-aaz-in,” Miraak cries. The mask’s shadowed tentacles seem to curl and writhe like worms in the rain. His knuckles are reddening against the implacable metal, soft flesh, breakable, not enough to pierce it. They find themselves glad for once that it is there - they would not have liked to see him try to shove his hands into his mouth.

Make noise for me, my strong dragon, Laat thinks, bobbing their head even as their narrowed eyes watch him carefully, you can take this. It is for his benefit - he is still responding to their praise, to their encouragement, the iron core of his will soaking it in. It grounds him, earths him enough to birth a shattering wail rippling with the strength of the Voice.

“Niid!” Miraak tries to argue, “Laat – I cannot – I cannot-“

His mind is a mess, but they are confident he is present, that he knows where they are and what is happening. They can sense his watchword close to his mind, even lift their mouth for a moment to give him a breath to say it in.

Frustrated, Miraak jerks, and what comes out instead is “Aaz! Mercy - aaz, aaz!”

It is not the signal, so pleased, Laat continues. They are savouring the warmth of him, the throb and pulse of his veins through the soft, sensitive skin, his salty bitterness on their tongue, the reek of his sweat. A shame it would be to stop soon, for something as irrelevant as Miraak’s comfort.

“Zu’u losiil,” Miraak moans in a trembling voice at that thought.

They are reasonably certain that in the dark holes of his mask he is looking at them, so they sign to him, resting as much of their weight through their forearms to keep his hips still as they can. Still, he thrusts abortively when they try to take him down into their throat again, and Laat has to withdraw quickly to prevent choking.

“My strong dragon, I am here,” Laat asserts. “I will give you what you need. Shout if you need to, I have you.”

The wall stripes with the reflections of the mask in the firelight. He is breathing rapidly, his arms trembling lightly. His mottled skin gleams with the richness of his sweat. Miraak is trying, they can tell, but when they dip the tip of their tongue into the slit of his cock, curious to see his reaction, he breaks.

“MUL QAH!”

The thunder of his Shout rocks the room. Miraak’s Dragon Aspect roars into life, and Laat hurriedly yanks their hands back before they are pierced through by the sudden emergence of spines marching down his belly and chest, protecting his vulnerable innards. Frankly, given their choice of words, Laat is not entirely surprised. Still, the moment of distraction is all they need, and as Miraak stretches his resplendent wings, his iridescent tail, Laat swallows him down again. They hold their breath for as long as they can, encouraging him to rock into their throat.

“L- aaat,” Miraak manages. It is pleading. It has to hurt him, with how sensitive he is, how much this all is - the warmth, the wetness, the wet laps of their tongue, their breath, their humming, the flex of their muscles, the hungry pleasure of Laat watching him. If they allow him in their mind, they can feel it - the sharpness like the agonising piercing joy of being fucked with a needle, back and forth dipping in and out of flesh, pricks of red red blood lubricating the steely slide, back and forth, back and forth.

Swirling their tongue around him, Laat smirks. They grab onto the thick spines that jut razor-sharp from his hips and hold him still as they draw back up, hollowing their cheeks around him. Then down, to the accompaniment of his broken gasps and snarls. The spines make it much easier to keep him in his place. Despite his increased strength, Laat is always the stronger of the two of them. They control him like a wild animal breaking to the lash, Miraak’s power, his strength, his Dragon Aspect - they are nothing here unless Laat wills it.

You are going to take this until I make you come, they inform him. Miraak sobs.

His eyes are burning coals behind the mask, enough to shadow it. He is wreathed in horns, in fire, in the brilliance of his soul, the amber-blue scales that blaze over his chest, his arms, clinging the thickest to his scars in belts so bright it almost hurts to look at him. His bound hands are taloned and sharp, trimmed claws turned deadly knives, and Laat keeps a careful eye on them in case he tries to grab their head again.

They know he won’t. Miraak will behave for as long as they ask him to.

He slams his head back against the furs, in what Laat thinks is agreement.

It is thrilling. Triumphant desire burns in Laat, a thunderous need to break the shining, vicious, powerful creature before them, in their mouth, in their soul. His growls shudder their bones when they tease him, and his wings close around them like pressing hands on their shoulders, trying to urge them deeper even as he thrusts up. Laat resists the pressure, lets his cock scrape against their teeth as they rise up, a warning and promise both.

Miraak shudders a breath, his hands flexing into fists. His tail underneath Laat curls sinuously around their leg, angling for the fork of their legs. Laat moans as they suck him and grinds down against the muscular coil. They can feel the intoxicating ridged texture of his scales against them through their breeches, igniting sparks in the seething pressure in their belly.

They release his cock with a pop and sit up to rut harder against him, using the spikes thrusting from the bones of his hips to dictate his movement. They stare down at the slits of his mask with intense, dark eyes.

“Good,” Laat whispers, needing to vocalise their approval, and Miraak’s body locks up as he is ripped into orgasm.

All the grounding in the world cannot prevent the backlash of searing white that flashes across Laat’s eyes, the sympathetic clench in their belly and the heated lance of pure want that stabs into the base of their spine. Their hand fumbles at him, pinning his spurting cock to his belly with clumsy strokes, the other bracing themselves against the bed as it feels like shuddering waves rock the island.

Laat is even fairly certain that one of them briefly blacks out.

In the aftermath, Miraak shakes. His auroral wings curve around them both, like he is protecting them from the world. Shredded fur dusts his shoulders like snow from his gnashing horns. His come is sticky and warm on his chest, chased through with shimmering greens and blues. Laat, cheeks flushed and breathing hard, runs a finger through it, gathering some of the pearly fluid.

They lift their hand to his mask, intentions clear. Miraak’s bound hands scrabble at the edge of the mask, the deadly-sharp dragon-talons a hindrance, trying to lift it enough for them to reach him under the hood. In frustration, he tears it off. Laat hears it clatter to the floor beside the bed.

Exposed, Miraak pants. He is luminous with the Dragon Aspect, his eyes, the thinness of his veins limned as if he is lit from within, haloed by horns. Laat presses the finger to his lips and he lets it slide into his mouth obediently. He glows there, too, his teeth sharpened to lambent daggers of gold and blue. The gaunt arches of his cheekbones blaze with a green blush. His long, dark, wet hair is plastered to his forehead, dripping ink as it continues in a thick mane down his shoulders and back, speared by the flaming spires and spikes of his dragon-soul.

His curious eyes, double-irised, one malachite and ice, the other goat-pupilled and bronze, are dark with lust. Laat can barely make out his second irises behind the brightness of the Dragon Aspect. Fresh tears trace the paths of the stains on his face. When he blinks at them with his wet eyes, more follow. His thin lips hollow around Laat’s finger, and they can feel his tongue, forked in this aspect, soft, wet, warm, licking even as he draws back and releases them.

Laat cannot help the quiet, fractious sound they make at the sight of his tears, the dizzying pulse of lust. It rumbles between them like a stormcloud. His tail tightens around their leg, intangible muscles of light rippling around them like the coils of a vast snake.

“Beautiful,” they sign, “you are beautiful.”

The growl that rumbles out of Miraak is half-feral. His slitted eyes watch them, the tips of his wings brushing their back with ghostly caresses. Pulling off their shirt, Laat wipes him clean as gently as they can. They toss the soiled shirt over their shoulder, not particularly interested where it lands. Unbinding Miraak’s hands with just the slightest tinge of regret, Laat chafes them quickly to make sure the blood is flowing. If only they could keep him like this forever.

They try to avoid scratching themselves on the curving talons burning with the strength of Miraak’s Shout, but it is either that or the sharp scales that armour him like gauntlets. Pursing their lips, Laat stares at the small line of welling red across their palm.

“Hi los ahraan,” Miraak says, you are wounded, and then all at once his wings flare and his tail twists and his body surges, and Laat is slamming down onto their back. His sinuous length curls above them, flaming eyes narrowed at the cut like it is a personal offense. He leans down, great horns digging into Laat’s cheek, obscuring their vision.

Laat holds their breath, anticipation hot in their belly. His forked tongue flickers out and laves the cut. He is gentle, but it stings. When he pulls back up to regard them they fancy they can smell the tang of their blood on his breath. He rumbles at their approval, and they can feel the vibration all the way down into their breastbone. The heaviness of his perpetually wet hair falls about them like a curtain.

Laat tries to unwedge their hands, gives up and thinks instead, as strongly as they can, Remember, no magic, Miraak. It is only a little cut, not worth risking a seizure over.

“Geh,” he says. His voice is even deeper in Dragon Aspect, rough as untumbled stones creaking in ancient cliffs. His vast wings completely block out the surrounding world, until it feels as if the sky has fallen and they have been swallowed up into the gullet of Aetherius, as if Aetherius could ever be half as beautiful as the soul-of-their-soul. The wings of Miraak’s Dragon Aspect remind them of the skies of Sovngarde, flaring with impossible, vivid colours, martial flickers and deep, internal glow that cannot be tarnished by any amount of daedra.

Not for the first time, Laat feels a pang of jealousy. How come you get wings and a tail with this Shout, and I don’t? And with only two words?

“Zu tiid.” I have had time. “This Shout was my mind in my prison. Morah, Laat Dovahkiin.”

Meditate, Laat thinks sourly. You sound like the Greybeards. Can’t you just show me?

“Geh.”

But you won’t.

Miraak’s tail rubs along their leg, then twines round it like a thick vine. Trapped between their chests, Laat can feel the steady beat of his heart against their hands, the roughness of the patches of scales that fringe over his skin. They push lightly, and his wings spread as he lifts himself enough to free their hands. When he breathes, ghostly flames flicker and curl in his nose and mouth.

“Zu laan aam hi,” he says in his voice of a mountain, and Laat understands the sense of what he means from the press of feeling in their mind. He wants to repay the favour, to give Laat the pleasure they have given him.

They wriggle against him, considering, but their muscles cramp in fatigue. “That very much did for me too,” they sign, with a rueful smile, “I can’t believe you didn’t feel it.”

Miraak snorts, and pale flames shoot out to lick against Laat’s cheeks. They do not hurt, only tickle softly, like the soapy caress of water on dry skin. Well, he was rather preoccupied, they suppose, their smirk widening.

“You can give me a massage later, if you want, though,” they add, as his dissatisfaction with that answer is blatantly clear, “My back’s been giving me grief.”

“Geh,” he says immediately, with true enthusiasm, and they feel him twitch as if struggling not to flip them and begin at once.

Laat exhales in amusement. “What a dedicated servant you are,” they tease him. “If only I had a team of people half as devoted as you, I’d be living like an emperor.”

“Will this please you?” Miraak says, and before Laat can even sign his mind turns to practicalities.

His cult is the best place to start, though he is reluctant to lose many of them, but fewer than six servants is an insult of the highest degree to Laataazin’s status. Four, at least, Soskro and Mirdein were loyal blades - supplemented with Sulis and Ulf, all well-trained by Miraak himself and comely to the eye, which is important, should Laat wish a break from Miraak’s own charms. Then for variety, he could turn to Raven Rock, there is surely some soft-handed noble there craving the honour of serving Laat Dovahkiin (that Severin girl?), and perhaps that dashing sellsword that Laat enjoys, with the chitin armour and the handsome jaw-

No, no, Laat is laughing in breaths that shake the bed, No, I don’t need servants, Miraak, - sensing his mutinous feelings, they add swiftly - I don’t want them. And his name is Teldryn! He is attractive though, isn’t he?

“Geh, zu mindok,” says Miraak, unsure why they need to confirm the obvious.

“Perhaps,” Laat signs, “I’ll ask him to come join us one day, will you like that?”

Miraak’s wings tilt backwards like the ears of a startled Khajiit, and his cheekbones blaze emerald. “Rul laan,” he says, if you want, in a voice that strains to be noncommittal. But underneath that very interesting reaction there is a very real thread of baffling fear, and Laat reaches for him.

“I chose you,” they tell him, “I will keep choosing you.”

Miraak tilts his head, wary of his horns, so that their foreheads press together and their breath mingles. In that resonating voice, he murmurs, “This I know. We are the only ones who are real, Laat Dovahkiin. The others – their lives, their deaths, their pains or desires for freedom, it is less than nothing. I am here, you feel me in your soul, as I feel you in mine.”

Staring into those dual eyes, Laat cannot suppress a frisson of unease. They do not agree - how could they? It is as if he has reached down and found the darkest, guiltiest thoughts Laat regrets having, internal measures of their power against those around them, knowing, knowing, that all those who attempt to constrain them live in ignorance at Laat’s pleasure - but they feel him frown.

“Was it not I who sheltered you from the daedra in Whiterun, I who tended you when the Greybeards trained you in languages you did not know, I who comforted you in your solitude? As it was you who touched me in my cell in Apocrypha, brought me to Nirn and set me free. You alone, my equal. You would not have come to me in Apocrypha if you did not wish to stay with me, Laataazin.” Miraak pronounces each syllable separately, drawing it out as a dragon does. “You broke my chains, and now we are together, and so we will always be. It was not I who offered this choice, if you recall.”

“I do.” He is right in that. “Other people matter, Miraak. We all have lives, no one... is more real than the other. But you don’t have to worry. I still choose you, I am not letting go.”

Miraak’s nostrils smoke. “You will never have to, Laat Dovahkiin. My Voice sings your name. There is nowhere you can go that I cannot find you.”

Laat breathes out slowly and chooses to hear the devotion in his words rather than the threat to their freedom. If he does not fear their interest waning as he claims, they do not know what it is that he fears. They offer him a thread of their own affection, warm regard softened by their intimacy, and his slitted pupils dilate. His shimmering wings soothe against his back, and the Dragon Aspect flickers away.

With that, he rolls off them, casting an ice spell in one hand to cool himself. Frost sheens over his skin, crackling over the soaked robe. It melts in rivulets, taking his inked sweat with it, running down to freshly stain the furs, until he looks streaked with stripes of his natural paperiness like a painted statue in the rain. The sopping darkness of his green hair clings to his shoulders and neck, curls in long strands dragged straight by the weight down to his hips.

As Laat’s eye lingers on the exposed line of his thigh, loops of graceful text begin to appear out of the ink below. They tear their eyes away before their mind can convince them they understand it, and stare at his face until the itch of temptation subsides.

Laat is not certain what he is thinking of - they feel strange, deep musings turning over in his mind, in languages they do not know - but he seems content enough, if quiet.

They tap him to get his attention. “I wasn’t done touching you. Do you need to get dressed now?”

Miraak looks down at the robe clinging wetly to him like he has forgotten it is there. One hand rubs at the bridge of his nose, irritatedly brushing away a lock of hair that drips tears down the angle of his jaw. After a moment, his gaze rises to meet theirs, bolder than they would have thought without the mask.

“Niid,” he says simply. “How do you want me?”

Laat smiles and moves over the bed towards him, feeling his eyes trace over their bare chest, the softness of their belly, their strong shoulders, the slight sway of the relaxed muscle and fat of their arms. An ember of his appreciation warms the blood in their cheeks as they reach his legs.

Lifting his left foot into their lap, Laat kisses his knee. The shape of his bones are fine against their lips. He looks back at them, brows raised, but wedges some of the furs behind his back to support himself, and does not pull away. His foot flexes. The hard claws catch in the fabric of Laat’s breeches, pulling free a loose thread, and they pause to gently untangle him.

He has strong legs, muscled by years of dragon-riding. Laat runs their fingertips over the hard bumps and dips of the thick, crisscrossing calluses and scars that abrade the insides of his legs, imprints of dragonscales made permanent in his flesh. They rub the muscles they can feel underneath it, unsurprised to find them loose and limber. They kiss the soft crinkle of the side of his calf, just under his knee, smelling the warmth of his skin, his musty scent of books and scale.

Their tenderness affects him. Miraak leans towards them, wanting to touch, Laat watching the folds of his loose skin dimple at his waist. Obligingly, they shift closer, hip angled between his thighs, and draw his right leg into their lap instead, palm warm on his knee. He is cold from the ice spell, enough that their skin numbs.

His large hands reach for their face, drawing it to face him. His hands cup their cheeks – they feel him become aware, suddenly, of how small Laat is in comparison to him, how his palms almost eclipse their cheeks, his claws tangling into their short hair. Laat closes their eyes, sighing at the gentle scratch of his blunted claws over their scalp. It is unutterably soothing.

His thumbs brush over the thick spiderweb of scars patterning their face, depressing the cartilage of their nose. Their lashes brush their cheek, his exploring fingers over the thinness of their eyelids, careful of his claws. Lifting to encircle his wrist, not trapping, but touching, just touching, Laat squeezes him and they both sigh at the spreading warmth of lassitude.

“Can I kiss you?” Laat signs one-handed, their movements small and restricted by the circle of his arms. They know he can feel their subtle sort of longing, quite apart from sexual lust that burns like coals in their belly, and even a little nervousness. Nowhere to hide from the soul-of-their-soul.

Miraak hesitates. Laat winces at the confused storm of feelings washing over him, his desire to please and curiosity warring with old fear and instinct. Like any dragon, he does not, as a rule, like having his voice obstructed.

It is not the first time they have asked him, not the first time he has acquiesced. Nor even the first time that his face has been fully bare, not just Laat’s head under the warm darkness of the hood, the metal face angled up to let them just reach his lips. Quick brushes, sometimes longer, where Laat curls their hands into his robes and pushes against him, some bright sparking feeling in them, the forbidden soft warm wetness of their tongue ghosting along his lip, the brilliant spark of their blunt teeth scraping his lower lip until pain waxes, hot and hungry. But it never quite grows easier for him, even with the increase of pleasant memories.

His eyes soften. One hand drops, rubbing over their shoulder, admiring the round cup of muscle filling his palm, the indent of their tan flesh marking under his thumb’s claw. This is Laat Dovahkiin, who brought him from Mora’s cursed Apocrypha, who anchors him to Nirn, who keeps him company on his lonely island and wraps him in soft ropes like he is precious.

Laat is patient and radiates calm. They interpret for him the confusing signals of their bodies, the tightness in his gut that makes him feel like he can’t quite breathe (arousal, affection) the oversensitive pain of his hips and thighs (just a little muscle tiredness), and the throb of his airy mind (the pleasure of submission, soul-of-my-soul).

They know that he does not understand why they desire to put their mouths together so (to restrict his Voice? To gag him, to bite out his tongue? And thus disarmed, choke the air from his lungs? No, no, soul-of-my-soul, Laat whispers in his mind, for pleasure, only that…), but it is… important to them, and it is enough that they want it. For Laat Dovahkiin, he will do this thing.

Something in Laat melts when he thinks that.

“Geh,” says Miraak, unable to quite hide his trepidation.

He tugs them a little closer, his free hand trailing over the meat of their shoulder, stretching over the sharp forks of lightning scars on the back of their neck. Strokes over their muscled back, admiring the folds of their flesh. Laat is fat and warm where he is thin, ghostly, their solidity and weight as unquestionable as the earth. He moves the hand on their cheek to their chest, splayed wide over the ridges of their collarbones, the swell of their small breasts, feels the gentle movement of their breathing. It is only natural to crook his other leg around their body, holding them within the circle of himself, like they are a ship in his whirlpool. How odd, then, that Miraak feels as if he is being pulled into their orbit, not the other way around.

Affection brims in Laat at this thought. They reach into his mind, seeking to feel how he feels, measuring his reactions.

It is Laat that bridges the distance between them when Miraak is unable to, slow and patient with the unconscious reflex that has him jerking back before their lips meet. They simply wait for a beat, then close in regardless, hands squeezing his thigh meditatively. It is grounding.

They feel him think their lips are full, very soft and warm, uncharacteristically undemanding, treating Miraak as if he is a tender thing that must be lulled into peace. Soft, heady brushes of their lips over his closed mouth, sometimes diverting to dust along his cheeks, his jaw – once even, the tip of his nose, making him snort reflexively. Laat laughs at that in their silent way, the puffs of their exhales warm as their kisses on his lips.

Their eyes close when they kiss him again, and they feel him watch their face, close enough to see the near-invisible span of freckles buried under the scars, the faint gleam of sweat on their forehead, the rich curl of their eyelashes. The scraggy tufts of their hair dusting over their cheekbones, the warm shadows clinging beneath their eyebrows.

This is the good thing when they want to kiss him, Miraak thinks, for they come so close he can see every crinkle and crease of their skin, and he can fill his hands with their body.

He runs his hands up and down their spine, and their body yearns towards him like a plant in the sun. Laat sighs when he finds a tense muscle and undoes the knot with his thumb, and smiles when he lingers over their ribs, fascinated with the slow movement of their breath, the rolls and curves of their strength.

Close your eyes, Laat thinks, softly, softly, close your eyes, and open your mouth.

He obeys with a ripple of nervousness, but nothing happens for a long moment. Laat just keeps kissing him, close-mouthed, gentle, until Miraak eases. Their tongue, when it comes to flick lightly at the crease of his bottom lip, surprises him, but even more so is the hazy release of their exhale from their mouth and nose. Their breath is close enough that Miraak could breathe it himself. They feel his flare of excitement at taking and tasting the air that carries their Voice inside himself, and he clumsily nudges closer.

Laat obliges him with a speed that betrays their true eagerness, feels his head swims under the sudden influx of warm, warm approval, pride and pleasure, and their breath, tinted, he thinks, a little, with the power of their Thu’um. They stay like that a moment, Laat’s hands bracing on his stomach, breathing into each other. Miraak’s mind is clouded and warm where it tangles with theirs, as if it’s full of cotton.

Laat wants to kiss him so badly it feels like they want to devour him, greedy with their indulgence, wants his lips, his tongue, the warm wetness of his mouth. The urge to just take it, to fuck his throat with their tongue, is so strong, and they cannot help the way their hands dig into his sides, tense with their restraint. But this is good, they think, a little reluctantly, and there is no need to push on this. With this, Laat has patience on their side.

They pull back to let Miraak breathe properly, but do not go far. Their foreheads press against each other. Laat swears they can feel the hollow thudding of his heartbeat in their chest at the place where their souls meet like tributaries.

“I only moved slightly, there is no need for all this… excitement,” Miraak mutters, but his voice sounds a little destroyed, and Laat grins.

They move to pull away, but Miraak catches their face in his hands again, preventing them from going too far. Laat blinks at him, warm and steady like a cat, and sees their own face reflected in his eyes, his soul, their blown pupil, the way their mouth parts, almost automatically, at the proximity.

“You enjoy it so,” Miraak says, a little bemused.

It is not often that they manage to surprise one another, being as interlinked as they are, but Laat is truly shocked when Miraak furrows up his brow and boldly presses his cold lips to theirs. He has never initiated a kiss, not once, Laat has never thought he would. They feel his determination, shot through with threads of insecurity – am I doing it right? They are not responding – and, classically Miraak, his hands tighten on their cheeks, holding them in place, redoubling his assault instead of pulling back. It is a clumsy mishmash, and they bump noses and once clash teeth, but it is the best kiss Laat has ever had.

Afterwards, they lay down next to each other. Chilled, Laat wraps themselves in the furs they pull over from the drier side of the bed, sighing at the feeling of the cosy softness. Miraak presses up close behind them before they can roll back to face him, their bodies separated by the furs. Laat’s heart warms.

“Want me to fetch your robes and mask?” they sign, knowing he can see over their shoulder.

His nose against their hair shakes. “Niid. Like this I am fine.”

Miraak, insistent and affectionate as a cat, rubs and nuzzles his face against the back of their head and shoulders. His arm curves around their waist, pulling him flush against them. Laat can feel his warm breath against the shell of their ear. Involuntarily, Laat thinks of the warmth of his dragon-wings, how large they are. Larger than his arm, for certain.

Pulling back, Miraak’s lungs billow with air. He Shouts, and the shimmering wings Laat has just been thinking wistfully of drape over them like a blanket. His tail curves around them, hemming in their body against his. They can feel the bladed tip against their stomach, the point made dull by their thick swaddling of furs. It is immediately warmer in the safe cocoon of his wings.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Laat can’t help laughing as they sign, ignoring the stony bed vibrating underneath them, “It was only a thought!”

“Fah hi.” For you. The resonance of his voice echoed with the tenderness of the feeling they can sense in him seems to make his every word louder.

Laat is still for a moment. “I do love you,” they sign, eventually, the burning of their eyes making them glad that they are facing away. They clear their throat.

Miraak’s grip tightens. “Zu’u losiil, Laataazin.”

I am yours. Laat sighs, and wonders if he will ever learn that love and possession are not the same. Though they are not sure that Dovahzul has a word for love, not in the way that Laat means it. Is it even possible for him to return the sentiment in the language he prefers?

For some reason, this line of thought summons Frea’s face before their mind, her sanctimonious words, and Laat’s mood sours.

Sensing their disquiet, Miraak hums against them soothingly. “You are troubled.”

“Frea wants to die,” Laat signs. “I don’t know what to do about her.”

“Do you not like Frea?” Miraak asks, and they feel him turning faces and names over in his mind, struggling to recall which of the many people of Solstheim Laat means. The Skaal woman? He does not associate with the Skaal much - they are not overfond of him, and Miraak is likewise not fond of being called a monstrous traitor by people he must refrain from killing.

“I do.” Laat touches the twitching tip of his tail, as if to soothe his momentary annoyance.

“Then keep her,” Miraak says, as if the answer is obvious. “You will miss her if she dies.”

“But she is unhappy!”

They feel Miraak’s shoulders move in a shrug. “You know my Shout,” he says calmly.

At that, Laat jerks their elbow into his ribs and wriggles. Miraak’s enfolding wing lifts hesitantly, enough for Laat, sweating, to work their way down to lying on their back. Thus freed, they jab a finger in his face as they sign.

“That’s wrong, Miraak! It is immoral to compel someone to go along with you just because it’s easier!” Miraak’s fire-bright eyes blinks at the finger in his face, all four pupils narrowing to focus on it. Laat deflates. “It doesn’t last that long anyway,” their motions are jerky and frustrated, “it would wear off then Frea would cleave me in two with her axe, and I would certainly deserve it.”

“Only because you use it like a hatchet, Laat Dovahkiin,” says Miraak, gaze returning to Laat’s eyes, “blindly superimposing your mind over another. Bend Will works best as a suggestion enforcing a desire or pattern that is already there. Simply find what makes them happy, find what is a barrier to your will, and remove it. The Skaal girl wishes to live as she once did, yes, free to worship her god? Then with your words allow her to do that, and her mind will do the rest.”

Laat’s hands lowered. “I didn’t know it could do that,” they sign, meek, unsure whether the feeling in them is horror or awe.

“With time and patience, the limit to my Shout is your will and the breadth of your imagination,” Miraak explains. He lowers his wing again, slowly, as if fearing that Laat will push it away. “With skill, you could encourage a resentful Greybeard to become a career warmonger, or a compassionate enemy your staunchest defender to the grave, all of their own volition.”

Some strange tinge of unease roils in the back of their mind. Laat touches the wing, feeling the bony spur of the joint, the leathery membrane, unsure how to respond.

Miraak’s voice is quiet and persuasive. It rumbles like the song of earth into Laat, through each bone, each thought in their mind.

“What is worse,” Miraak murmurs, so soft, so low, so deep, “allowing a good woman that you care for to die, or bringing her many more years of happiness and joy through the use of one Shout? A lifetime of bliss with one you love, all for speaking three words? How could you deny her that?”

“I suppose,” Laat signs, but they cannot meet his eye for guilt.

They feel him observing them quietly, some strange dissatisfaction in him that they cannot identify.

“I will do it,” he volunteers suddenly.

“What?” Surprised, Laat glares at him. “No! It’s unethical! You cannot force someone to be happy, or to stay with you simply because you want them to! It would be nothing but a lie.”

For a brief moment, Miraak scowls, the jagged crown of horns and his glowing teeth making him look truly fearsome. But then his expression smooths. “Dismiss it from your mind, Laat Dovahkiin,” he says, gently. “It is simply handled, and already agreed.”

“Don’t hurt her,” Laat signs anxiously, searching his face, “You’re just going to talk to her? Don’t-”

Raising a taloned hand, Miraak clasps theirs to stop their words. He gives Laat a soft, odd smile. “She will not even remember we have spoken,” he promises. “Only where there was frustration and pain, there will now be joy and peace.”

He strokes their hands with the backs of his talons with immense tenderness, nuzzling in close to with his breath and careful rubbing of his sharp cheekbones caress the warm hollow of Laat’s neck. With his touch and his mind he lulls them, sending soothing waves of affection and warmth, feelings of safety, recalling to them the ache in their muscles from sex, the tender sweetness of their kisses. His nose fits under their jaw as if it has been made for him, and despite themselves, Laat sighs. It has never been wise, loving him. But how can they help it? He is the soul-of-their-soul.

“Zu’u aam hi unslaad,” he whispers, with the air of a promise, “rii se dii zii.” I serve you forever, essence of my soul.

They reach for his hair, combing the thick wet locks over his shoulder, avoiding the spines on his back. Droplets of ink run down their arms as they begin to braid, loose and messy.

“You worry too much about people that are not worth your time,” Miraak says, and by his smile Laat supposes he means it lightheartedly.

With a heavy heart, they allow themselves to be cheered, and offer him a small smile in return. “Who should I worry about? You?” they tease, not entirely how much they are joking.

He smirks. “You could.”

Despite themselves, Laat chuckles, hearing the distant crack of stone in their Voice. They tug on the messy braid of wet hair they’ve made, and Miraak goes, a tingle of arousal running through him at the sensation. Laat kisses his cheeks and nose, making his dual eyes flutter shut as he sighs.

“Why,” they sign one-handed when he opens his eyes at their lack of movement, fingers so close they brush his cheek, “you attempting to take over the world again?”

“Niid,” says Miraak, his taloned hand coming to cup their face with the tenderness of a man who knows he is touching something immensely precious, “I have the best of it here, and that is everything I desire.”

With thanks to thuum.org:

Geh: Yes.

Laat Dovahkiin: Last Dragonborn.

Ni faas: lit. no fear. No worries/it’s fine.

Pruzah: Good.

Sikgolt: lit. rune place. Library.

Niid: No.

Zu’u losiil: I am (emphatic) yours.

Wuth: Old.

Diist Dovahkiin: First Dragonborn.

Faaz: lit. (you cause) pain. You’re hurting me.

Saraan: Wait.

Aaz: Mercy.

Los ahraan: (You) are wound(ed).

Mul Qah: Strength Armour (Dragon Aspect Shout)

Zu tiid: I (have had) time.

Morah: Meditate/think deeply (upon it).

Zu laan aam hi: lit. I want to serve you.

Zu mindok: I know.

Rul laan: When (you) want.

Fah hi: For you.

Zu’u aam hi unslaad, rii se dii zii: I serve you forever/ceaselessly, essence/soul of my spirit/soul.

@argisthebulwark as promised.

#inkwrites #minors dni #my fic that world will cease to be #not safe for minors #tw possessiveness #tw jealousy #tw blood #laataazin #mind control #skyrim #tes #miraak #fic

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