#tremble and rejoice this day
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the resurrection account is full of fearful, trembling men and women. full of doubt, weak of faith. fear in the garden, fear at the cross, fear at the tomb, fear at the resurrection, fear even in the face of the greatest of news.
jesus loves well his fearful, doubting saints. he comforts them, he thinks of them, he cares for them, he cooks for them, he greets them by name.
#thomas peter john mary mary magdalene joseph of arimathea nicodemus#fearful saint you are in beloved company#jesus cooks for you and invites you to press your hands to his wounds#tremble and rejoice this day#faith stuff#my writing#i guess#jesus stuff
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𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐓𝐎𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟑
DAY 1: FREE USE
Roronoa Zoro 𝘹 𝘍! 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳
Requested by: anon ➡ sashi our smut queen, can I request a juicy fic for day 1 with zoro and fem! reader? thank youuu ~
tw: mdni. free use. unprotected sex. creampie. dominant zoro as hell.
𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
Perhaps it was his very own kink,
perhaps it was exactly and just how he really was… impulsive in his own way, deadly, scary, demonic.
Romanticism wasn’t for him; he didn’t even think about it in any case. He wanted you, your body covered in the irony smell of blood and sweat. Fight me and let me fuck you, whenever I want to.
Still panting, with your katana trembling in between your hands and a drop of blood running from your cheek to the commissure of your mouth, you look at him.
Zoro’s yukata only tied by the sash around his hips, hangs loosely. His sweated body, that scar that shines with the argentum bath of a huge moon up above the sky.
“Sex. Now.” he orders, ripping your katana off your hand and throwing it to the side. Because Zoro respects his own katanas, and all of the katanas… but not yours, he doesn’t care about yours.
You take a single step back, is not that you don’t want to please him… is that he is big. Zoro is imponent, Zoro is huge, Zoro is a demon.
Calloused hand lands on your delicate cheek. The thumb cleans the drizzling red fluid over your lips and then it takes it to his tongue. Like a creature whose vital force came from blood, he rejoices with the irony taste of it.
Zoro proceeds, then, to take his bandana off in a swift motion. It’s also covered in sweat, dampened by the hard work of his physique.
As he is a man of few words, and you don’t really need none of them to understand, you ponder if he is gonna use it to cover your mouth this time.
But you were wrong, what he wanted today was to keep you tied to the bamboo stick you couldn’t cut today while training.
“Lift your hands” he commands, pressing them together above your head and against the poorly injured bamboo fibres. Like an expert he passes the black fabric around your wrists and the stick, securing the knot with great strength. His chest, huge and prominent, dances dangerously close to your nose and lips, making you wanna suck, bite, taste, and drink.
When he is ready, Zoro backs up looking at you as a beautiful, crucified prey for a demon to devour. It feels like the bandana might be breaking the bones of your wrists, but still there is some movement that Zoro will use efficiently for his own pleasure.
He smirks, devilishly. Ripping after gloating, the fine silky fabrics that formed your yukata. Freed your breasts, your belly and legs, his hand instantly travels down his crotch.
“I should keep you this way for the rest of your life, like a hole for me to fill” he utters, with extreme calmness and still menacing demeanour in his voice.
You swallow. If he wanted to, he could. If he wanted to, you would let him do it.
Pumping his dick in between equally massive hands, he comes closer. Zoro first kisses your neck, and as you do you feel the throbbing hardness in between his legs getting pressed against your lower belly.
He bites your carotid, ripping a grunt from your throat in total pain but pleasure. You could swear that your feet are about to become wet from your need of him to fill you up. But you are there for him to use you, freely. Who are you to plead to the Daimyo of Ringo?
“I hope you are tight as you always are” he murmurs in your ear; with the raspy voice he uses for these cases.
You nod, making sure your insides are ready to welcome his violent intrusion.
And as his lips reach for one of your nipples, nibbling with no mercy, his sex search for your dripping wet core.
He growls the moment your walls receive him with spasming, wet and hot sensation. Zoro’s hand slaps the bamboo stick to which you are tied, shaking your whole body.
“Woman… damn you” he protests, as you begin exercising your entrance enough to pump his dick in milking motions. And even if your legs are becoming weaker because of his wide fulfilment, you accomplish your only job; please the daimyo.
His hips, however, take the lead and the ramming becomes violent. Vicious enough to break you in half. Your legs lose the fight against gravity, and you begin to slide up and down as he fucks you.
Zoro scoffs, grabbing you by the back of your thighs. Holding you up, he goes in and out, deeper every time. But it’s not deep enough for the king of hell, and when he is “tired” of holding you in such position, he lifts one of your legs up as if you were a doll.
Your right heel now rests on his chest, while your left leg hangs loosely down. He impales you back again, this time reaching places inside your body that aren’t supposed to be touched.
You moan, louder, perhaps sounding more like a mewling creature than a woman being fucked. And Zoro enjoys it, enough for him to hit your g spot so deadly as a reward.
You feel like exploding around his shaft, and even if you do, he won’t mind. He likes to fuck you until you lose conscious if it’s necessary for him to be satisfied.
And he does. He bites your lip when he can sense the pressure of your womb on his sex, the liquids spreading down his legs. And Zoro doesn’t stop.
Your eyes become white, his endless pumping motions are extending your climax and making your whole body to quiver. And the more you do, the more the green haired samurai fucks you until his own orgasm hits him.
“Ugh… you- take my cum” he growls, lifting your two legs up so that you look more like a container for his seed than a woman to be simply filled.
You can feel his release flooding your overly sensitive insides, getting pumped by his still rams, deep, deep into you.
Your rest your forehead on his strong shoulder, completely out of energy… accepting with a smile that this isn’t the end, and that he will freely use you for the rest of the night ~
taglist: @stephisokay @henrioo @shuzuiikoii @bullbonez @fengxinwifutobecalled @i-started-reading-fanfics-at12 @crimsonlikeshellsing @weebare808 @thestarwasborn @bookandyarndragon @cyberdazetragedy @uzxotic 💖
#kinktober#kinktober 23#roronoa zoro#roronoa zoro x reader#roronoa zoro smut#roronoa zoro op#zoro x reader#demon!zoro#op zoro#zoro roronoa x reader#zoro roronoa#pirate hunter zoro#one piece x reader#one piece x you#one piece x y/n#zoro x you#zoro smut#zoro imagine#roronoa zoro imagine#roronoa zoro fan fic#one piece#one piece fan fic#one piece fic#sashi ya#kinktober 2023
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never again
John Marston x F! reader
Spoilers: RDR2 ch1
Content: 18+ mdni, NFSW, m/f smut, drunk sex, praise, pervert warning, canon typical events / violence, possible unintentional spelling mistakes, grammar errors I couldn’t be bothered to fix.
Type: second pov / (wc - 1442) / pc: me
Summary: a night of drinking never goes unpunished
You stirred awake to a shadow looming in the tent. The soft clanking of metal, and clicking of spurs from unsteady steps made your breath hitch. Now propped up on your elbows, your heavy eyes managed to follow the man fumbling in the darkness.
Through your delirium, incoherent murmurs must have escaped you which warranted a response.
“jus’ me, hush.”
John’s whisper, soft like butter, melted your body back onto the bedroll. It only took three words from the man to bring you the security he offered, in more ways than one.
“s’alright.”
John reassured through a strain, knowing he startled you all too often— whether it was a late night drinking, or a guard shift.
Your shared tent was tucked behind the medicine wagon, close enough for John to keep an eye on you, but far enough for some privacy the man so desperately requested.
Soon enough his body was united with yours, a welcoming embrace of tobacco and whiskey that never failed to blanket you with comfort during the night.
His chest vibrated against your back as he hummed, rejoicing in the mutual comfort that he brought you. John’s hand ran down your side, calloused palms snagging on the fabric as he worked against it. Your torso trembled, anticipating his every action as he was soon consumed by a different high. His lack of rationalization from the whiskey radiated off him with a feverish heat that pulsed over you.
“c’mon sweetheart.”
The vague and needy words dissipated as quickly as they formed. Your eyes met his, a certain sadness sunk within his dull blue wells, glossed and masked over with the liquid dopamine he poured every night.
Turning to his embrace, your hands weaved through his shirt, both unclasping the buttons and beckoning him. An offer John gladly took as you positioned yourself for his body on top of yours.
With one arm propping himself over you, and the other tussling at his waist. His rehearsed movements in the dark had to be second nature by now.
The wind rippled through the fabric of the tent, momentarily welcoming in the moonlight. Allowing you to catch a glimpse of the man over you, the blue beams kissing the raw scars on his cheek.
There was no doubt John got off easy,
The wolves could have taken much more from him, but managed to be more forgiving than any BlackWater lawman could have been.
You let out an impatient protest as his hands continued to fumble, temporarily appeasing you with his lips.
His stubble dragging across your collarbone made you shutter. John’s kisses were usually coated in whiskey, only to leave you with a different high than the one he chased earlier.
“you’ve been eyeballin’ me all day, missy.”
He remarked against your skin, a slight drawl presenting itself as he freed your torso from your shirt.
You felt your cheeks heat up, both from his words, and your naked state. Despite John knowing your body just damn well as his own, everytime managed to feel like the first.
John always caught your eyes on him. Sweat beading down his forehead as he worked an axe effortlessly, it was almost as if the man was beautifully built for manual labor. You were infatuated with the way his biceps would flex while his toned muscles peeked through the shirt that clung to him with every move. He would eventually meet your indiscreet gaze with amusement, knowing very well he would be all over you at night's arrival.
Your eyes would simply linger a moment longer, despite being caught red handed. He couldn't help but to admire your boldness, a confidence hidden within you not needing to be boasted about for validation.
“Someone’s gonna hear—“
You cooed, your worries being thrown away by the hungry lips and hands that carassessed your breasts.
John grumbled, not bothered to remove his attention from your neck. Throughout his buzzed state, his hands became coordinated, grasping at and invading every part of your bare skin available to him.
How sweet he thought you were, a blank canvas only for him cast upon. A small gasp escaped your lips as you felt a small nibble on your neck. His excitement demonstrated through the smile plastered against your skin, along with a hard spot pressing against your leg.
“keep those little lips quiet, now.”
John commanded with a whisper, his rough fingertips ghosting their way across your waist to free you from your restricting garments.
His drunken staggering alone was enough to wake the others, but the man always blamed you for being too noisy.
Perhaps it was his own pride, cocky words he could not help but to boast— he reckoned it ain’t his fault he’s so good in the sheets. Hell, he can’t help how he makes you feel.
“such a good girl for me, ain’t ya?”
John murmured through a soft moan, just the thought of you made him ache, his body begging for the release you so willingly gave him.
His pants were finally kicked down and bunching up just below his knees. Before words could be spoken they were interrupted by John’s fingertips that raised to his lips, a dollop of spit being dispersed onto them.
A brash groan left his lips and graced your rosy cheeks while his hand stroked up the shaft of his cock— either unneeded preparation, or a ritual of his, you couldn’t tell.
Your torso knotted and quivered against him, impatience consuming your every move. Quiet moans escaped you as the head of his cock met your slick entrance, always proving his preparation irrelevant.
“Jesus, woman— this worked up over me?”
The man beamed with a husky chuckle, not realizing the volume of his voice until your palm smacked his chest.
More of a tease at your dismay, John couldn’t help but to always comment on it. Your wetness was a mere reminder he always took pride in.
His smug smile eventually twisted into a bitten lip as he eased himself into you, the lack of self control overrunning any wit to him he had left.
“that’s it,”
John praised gently, his jaw going lax as his length slipped further in you. A rugged hand clasped over your mouth as his hips began to thrust. His half-lidded eyes eventually meeting yours.
Your eyes held so much trust for him, trust he was never sure how he earned in the first place. How he wished he could hear the moans of his name, but instead focused on the shared pleasure you gave him. With your walls contracting and fluctuating around him, he thought it was nearly too much to handle.
“Marston! It's your shift!”
A nasally demand rang from outside the tent.
Through your ecstasy, you had no recollection of any steps approaching, and neither did John— god only knows how long the pervert was loitering outside the thin canvas.
“Christ!”
The shriek of horror that left John’s lips, you could have sworn he saw a ghost. Springing up at your feet, his pants were yanked up and manhood tucked away while you scrambled for cover.
John stormed out with a stumble, so many feelings of wrong and right flooding through and past him like the wind.
“Goddamnit— Williamson—“
He sputtered in disbelief, arms gesturing violently towards the man’s mug.
“If I didn’ know any better, I reckon you’d like hearin’ my woman.”
John barked at the man, the shock in his tone long erased by bitterness.
You hid in your palms, the embarrassment burning through your cheeks, and the airborn tension that managed to leak into the tent.
The silence John created was painful, if it wasn’t obvious enough already, the entire camp was now aware of you two.
The pause was eventually broken with a nasty hawk and spit, along with curses that ran off of John’s tongue. His pleasant night with you was quickly turning into a sober guard shift.
John trudged back through the tent flaps in defeat, retrieving his discarded gun belt at your feet with a frown plastered on his face, gently illuminated by the lantern he now held.
“never again in camp.”
The man scowled to himself, the risk of waking the others was long gone— if he had to be miserable, so did everyone else trying to sleep.
With John’s attention circling back to you, another kiss, just as needy as before, was placed on your lips, lingering for a moment before meeting his impending doom.
His boots were haphazardly pulled on with a struggle. You repeated his words, a small grin crept upon you in his state of frustration.
“never again.”
~
#john marston x reader#John marston headcanons#John marston#red dead redemption 2#red dead redemption community#red dead redemption fandom#rdr2 x reader#rdr smut#rdr2 smut#john marston smut
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Electric Dreams
Summary: Malleus’s 1000th birthday is coming up, and the Queen decides it’s as good a time as any to abdicate the throne. Plans for the coronation soon get underway, and when Malleus sits down to write a list of people he’d like to invite to the ceremony, he realizes that almost all of them are already dead.
Content Warnings: Major character death
Pairings: None
Length: 16k
(Header artwork from here)
You can either read it after the cut or on AO3!
I.
They bury Silver next to his father in the plot behind their dilapidated little cottage, just as he’d wanted. It’s a warm, sunny day, and the meadow around their home had lately exploded in yellow buttercups and golden cowslips and cool, hushed bluebells, as if the earth had flung its arms wide open in rejoice of the lone casket being lowered into its shadowy embrace. After they smooth over the last clump of dirt and the final eulogy has been read, the tiny procession splits up - some going to loiter in the garden, others heading inside the cottage to dab their damp faces and seek refuge from the heat.
Although Malleus and Sebek never did get to discuss the details of the funeral before Silver passed, they both feel confident in their choice of a modest ceremony – he never was one for frills and fanfare, after all. But even with the small crowd gathered, the cottage is livelier than it’d been in a long while. There’s a spread of traditional Briar Valley fare laid out on the tables – steaming dumplings heavy with ground veal and spices, piles and piles of roast pork and sausages, and fresh apple strudel topped with a blanket of powdered sugar - and Malleus and Sebek can hear the clink of tableware mixing with the murmurs of low voices all around them. But neither of them speak as they quietly sip on their tea.
After a while, Malleus gets up to refill his glass, and he realizes on his way to the kitchen that it’s Deuce Spade who’s been chatting with Kalim al-Asim outside in the garden for the past half hour. He glances at them through the kitchen window as he reaches for the kettle.
They’ve both aged considerably since the last time he saw them. The edges of Kalim’s eyes crinkle severely every time he smiles at something the other man says, but his laugh still rings out as loud and as true as ever. Deuce’s dark eyes crinkle in return, and his hair has frosted over to a dull white that rivals even Kalim’s near-translucent locks. He reaches out to pat a trembling hand on Kalim’s back once his laughter breaks down into a rattling cough.
Malleus turns away, frowning. He goes to rejoin Sebek in the living room, raising an eyebrow at the untouched plate of sausage still resting on his lap.
“Are you not hungry?”
Sebek doesn’t look up as he shakes his head. He sets the plate down on the table and rubs his arms as though he’s cold. It’s a nervous habit that has disturbed him since he was a child, and he scowls once he realizes he’s doing it again.
Sebek had lost his father a few decades prior. He remembers the funeral as though it were yesterday; it felt like he’d just finished washing all the dirt from his hands a few moments ago, and then he blinked, and it was already time to pick up his shovel again.
There are nights where he finds the black maw of the sky is somehow darker and infinitely vaster than usual. Its magnitude, its perfect darkness - blacker than obsidian, blacker than the purest coal, blacker than the gentle luster of a raven’s feathers – immobilize him. Only then, as he lies in bed, transfixed by the endless night, as whispered prayers begin to spill from his lips - at times haltingly slow, at times rushing faster than a waterfall - only then does he admit that he misses his father. The man’s death had ripped a hole in his heart that still hadn’t healed, and Silver’s passing had knocked him down right when he was finally ready to try and get back up again.
He never could comprehend how his mother had remained so stalwart and strong all this time, nor how she’s still retaining her composure at the funeral right now. He’s been watching as she flutters from one guest to another, thanking them for coming, and checking if they need their glasses or plates refilled. It’s striking how young she looks in comparison to his former schoolmates, and he wonders if everyone else felt just as shocked when they saw him and Malleus mingling with the guests earlier.
It takes a few moments for Sebek to put his thoughts together, and then he says, quietly, “I just… I just don’t understand why humans are put on this world for such a short time? What good does it do them - do anyone - to lead such short lives…?”
Malleus doesn’t know what to say, or if he should even say anything at all. He tries to think back on all the times Lilia had soothed his fears as a child, tries to cobble together an appropriate answer based on the bits and pieces of hazy memories that flit through the caverns of his mind. But he knows that nothing he comes up with would help.
Finally, Malleus replies, “Yes, that’s… That’s something I’ve long pondered, as well.”
Sebek balls his fists in his lap. “Damn humans!” he chokes out, his voice barely a whisper. “Damn them all!!”
Malleus places a hand on Sebek’s shoulder and gives it a gentle squeeze. If he cannot imitate Lilia’s soothing loquacity, then at least he can do this much for the boy, he decides.
The minutes turn into hours, and the small crowd begins to disperse as the sun dips low into the sky. The air is still warm when Malleus at last steps outside the cottage and begins to head home.
Sebek ends up staying behind the longest. Malleus can hear his sobs echoing through the forest all the way back to the castle.
The day he received news of Silver’s passing, a part of Malleus - a small part he never wished to think about or speak of - was surprised that he ended up living as long as he did. Malleus had always feared, in private, that the boy’s broken heart would claim him much sooner, and he never could decide if he felt saddened or relieved that Silver had waited so long before setting off to go join his father.
In the weeks leading up to the funeral, he’d often think of Silver. Sometimes, the Silver he remembered was just a tiny infant napping in his arms, and other times, he was a bright-eyed boy waving around a crude wooden sword in the air. Occasionally, he’d think back to their years at Night Raven College, and he could still clearly picture Silver’s entrance ceremony in his mind. Lilia was positively electrified that day - he trembled with excitement as he stood next to Malleus in the darkness of the mirror hall. The two of them exchanged proud smirks when the mirror announced the boy’s sorting into Diasomnia.
Malleus never liked to think of Silver in his final years.
As the decades passed, his once lustrous hair eventually faded to a lifeless gray, and wrinkles and worry lines tugged down at what used to be supple skin. And yet – even as he approached the twilight of his life, there was still that same glint in his auroral eyes, still that same air of nobility about him that hadn’t dulled in the slightest. And still that same stubborn streak he’d inherited from his father.
Even a weeklong shouting match with Sebek wasn’t enough to get the aging man to step down from the Imperial Guard. They’d both made great strides in their careers, and Silver was fiercely proud of his hard-earned title – the first ever human to attain the rank of Colonel in Briar Valley’s armed forces. But the aging man was struggling to keep up, some days failing to draw his heavy longsword without it crashing to the ground. And Sebek was quick to notice.
“You utter moron!” Sebek had snarled at him one evening. “You’re going to work yourself to death at this rate!”
Silver sighed. “You think I don’t know that? This is what I… This is what my father would’ve wanted, so…”
Any mention of Lilia always brought the conversation to a quiet end. And then night would fall, and then the night would turn into day, and their argument would begin anew together with the rising of the sun.
Malleus finally stepped in when he found out that Silver had cracked a rib while sparring with some of the new recruits during morning training. He signed the knight’s honorable discharge papers later that afternoon.
After Silver stepped down from the Guard, he and Malleus would often walk together through the young prince’s rose garden. They’d go early in the morning, before the sun had climbed too far overhead and her amber rays were only just starting to bleed into the hazy blue of the cloudless sky.
It was something they used to do from time to time when Silver was little. The rose seeds Malleus’s grandmother gifted him every year on his birthday were rarely ever the same - one year, he’d get a mix of floribunda and polyantha seeds; another, damask and tea – and he would hold the baby up to the rose bushes and point out all the different types of flowers. He’d tell him about how old garden roses differed from the modern varieties, and when and where to do your pruning and why it was so important. And the baby would listen and listen.
“Do you still remember how you’d try and help me prune the roses when you were little? I’d hold the shears for you, and you’d try to press down on the handles with all your weight, but they wouldn’t budge. Your entire body would shake all over with the effort and you had the most serious look on your face. It was always so hard for me not to laugh.”
Silver smiled but said he didn’t remember. He began saying that a lot as he grew older.
“Are any of the roses here the same ones from when I was a child?”
Malleus scanned his garden and pursed his lips before answering, “No, my oldest bush is only about 40 years old. Many of these flowers are the descendants of seeds I planted during your infancy, however.”
“Amazing,” Silver whispered. He reached out and traced a gnarled finger along the velvet petals of a young rose, still not yet unfurled.
“What is?” Malleus asked.
“Ah, I was just thinking about something I’d read in a book lately. It said there’s trees in Twisted Wonderland that are older than even the oldest living human. And I was thinking, long after I’m gone, those trees will probably still be standing there, right? And the planet will keep turning, and the sun will keep shining... It’ll be like I was never even here.”
Malleus furrowed his eyebrows in thought. “…And you find that amazing? You aren’t afraid to leave this world and miss all those things?”
“I’m trying not to be,” Silver replied, a tired smile tugging at his dry lips. “I guess I just...”
Silver searched for the right words. “…I just take comfort in knowing that your roses will keep blooming for you long after I’m gone, my Lord.”
Malleus had wanted to snap at him, wanted to whirl on him like a viper and spit, “But what will I take comfort in?”, but the words got caught in the lump forming in his throat. He turned away from Silver and cursed himself for acting so childishly.
At Silver’s funeral, Malleus’s eyes blurred as they lowered the casket into the ground. He tried to focus on something else, on anything other than the sound of dirt and rocks being heaved onto the wooden frame, and he clung desperately to the shard of a memory from what felt like a lifetime ago.
He’s standing in Lilia’s cottage, and Lilia offers Malleus to hold the baby for the first time. Malleus holds out his hands, but then draws them back in hesitation.
“And you’re certain I won’t injure him?”
“Oh, you’re such a worrywart. It’ll be fine…” Lilia thinks for a moment and then continues, “Ah, I know. Just think of him like he’s one of your roses! You’re always so gentle with them, aren’t you?”
Gentle. A word most would refrain from using to describe Malleus, what with all those rumors and stories of his awful powers. (The Halloween incident still hangs fresh in his mind.) But Lilia was correct – Malleus fawned over his roses like nothing else.
When he was little, he would cup their pleasant, pink faces in his hands with a featherlight touch and whisper to them the secrets of his child’s heart. And every year, when the juvenile buds slowly began to unfurl for him, stretching out their newborn petals in welcome of the boy’s fanged smile and glittering eyes, the joy that washed over him was gentler than any spring rain and warmer than any afternoon sun. They were more precious to him than all the jewels in the castle vaults combined - his own dragon’s hoard of living rubies, topaz, rose quartz, and garnet.
And so he nervously accepts the tiny infant that Lilia holds out to him and he shifts the child awkwardly in his arms. Be gentle. He’s like one of your roses. Be gentle, be gentle, be gentle.
The sound of Sebek loudly clearing his throat next to him ripped Malleus from his memories. He whispered a quiet “Thank you” and took the handkerchief from Sebek’s outstretched hand.
Malleus buried a piece of his heart together with Silver that day, and he buried yet another piece when Sebek passed away a couple of centuries later. And when a record-breaking snowstorm ripped through Briar Valley that winter and decimated his rose garden in its icy wrath, he found he simply did not have the energy to mourn any more.
II.
Malleus can tell that someone is standing outside his room. He figures it’s one of the young servants in training; he can hear her muttering the lines she must’ve been instructed to say as she paces back and forth for a few minutes.
Finally, a tiny voice squeaks out, “Umm, Lord Malleus...?”
Malleus looks up from the book he’d been reading and sees his door has been opened just a crack. A young girl dressed in a servant’s uniform peeks through, wide-eyed.
“Yes, what is it?”
Perhaps out of fear, or excitement – or a juvenile mixture of both – she hurriedly blurts out, “Her M-Majesty requests your audience at once!!” and then promptly shuts the door with a soft thud.
Malleus sighs and tells the closed door, “Thank you. I’ll go to her now.”
“You called for me, Grandmother?”
His grandmother, Queen Maleficia, smiles broadly at him as he steps into the throne room. She bids him to come sit, and he lowers himself hesitantly into the empty chair – the king’s throne - next to her. It’s seldom that he ever comes into this room, and rarer still he’s allowed to sit there. The hard armrests dig into his elbows, but he doesn’t complain.
“Malleus, I called you here to talk about something very important,” His grandmother says with sparkling eyes. “Your birthday is coming up!”
“Yes?”
“Your one thousandth birthday, my dear. A momentous occasion for us dragon fae, for you’ll finally become a full-fledged adult.”
“Ah.” The cobwebbed gears in the attic of Malleus’s mind begin to turn. He has an idea of where this conversation is headed.
“And as such, I’ve been thinking… I’ve ruled over Briar Valley far longer than I had ever intended. I meant to step down from the throne and let your parents rule after you were born. But of course, things didn’t quite turn out the way I had envisioned.”
His grandmother’s smile falters for a moment, and then she continues, “But now, I feel certain the time is right. My precious grandson, you have grown into such a wonderful young man. You are clever and resourceful, and you have a passionate interest in history and foreign affairs the likes of which I’ve never seen in any budding politician before.”
“I know you’ve faced so, so much loss in your young life already, and you’ve come through it with such grace and humility.” She reaches out to clasp his hand in hers, and Malleus shivers at the shock of her cold skin.
“There is no doubt in my heart that you are ready for this. And that Briar Valley is ready for you.”
Malleus isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say, so he just smiles and then whispers, “Alright.”
“Excellent!” His grandmother rises and claps her hands together loudly. “Someone, go fetch me the members of the royal planning board! We have a coronation to get ready for!” She turns to Malleus, and he rises, too.
“Do go ahead and start thinking about whom you’d like to invite, my dear. I’ll have the board reserve some seats up front for your friends.”
Malleus’s birthday comes and goes with much fanfare and hoorah, and once all the confetti is swept away and the banners and flags are taken down and he no longer has to dread passing a window and risk seeing an effigy of his awkward face staring back up at him from the town square, Malleus takes some time to think about whom he’d like to invite to his coronation. He sits at the desk in his room, pen and paper spread out on the table before him. He sits there for a while, as still as stone, until finally, like a petrified creature released from decades of slumber, he slowly, stiffly reaches out, takes his pen in hand, and starts to write.
He starts with whatever names come to mind first – his old classmates and instructors from Night Raven College, the people he met during his brief internship, the politicians and members of foreign royalty he’s had to endure countless boring dinners and stuffy balls with. His little list grows longer and longer, and he grabs another sheet of paper after filling up the first one. As he sets his pen down after a couple minutes of hurried writing, he’s surprised, but pleased, at how many names he ended up recalling.
And now the difficult part: He must choose the fortunate souls who shall be blessed to attend the coronation of King Malleus Draconia. He smirks and starts with the first sheet of paper, slowly reading aloud the name he’d written at the top. And then he frowns. No, you can’t invite Kingscholar; He passed away already. You attended his funeral, don’t you remember? He picks up his pen again and draws a black line through the name. And then he reads the next name and recalls Sebek once complaining about how the television programs wouldn’t stop replaying Vil Schoenheit’s movies for weeks on end after his death, and he strikes through it. And he does the same for the following name, and the one after that. His list turns into a jumble of scratchy lines, and then he moves to the second sheet, crossing out one name after the next. He realizes with a shaky sigh that most of these people are already dead.
But there is one name that he’s not so sure about, it’s the only one that stands unmarred in his clean handwriting amidst the mess of black ink: Ortho Shroud, younger brother of the late Idia Shroud. He can’t remember the last time he’d seen the tall, lanky figure of the elder brother, but he’s certain he wasn’t at Silver’s funeral. Only Ortho attended; he’d mentioned something about once treating some injury or other that Silver had incurred at the equestrian club. Malleus had smiled as he listened to the story back then, and he smiles again now as he recalls Ortho’s animated figure telling the tale.
He leans back in his chair and rests his chin on his hand as he thinks. Malleus never quite grasped just what the boy was, only that he wasn’t quite human, but not fully machine, either. If he truly was some form of inorganic creature, then perhaps there’s a chance that he’s still…
Malleus moves aside his stationery with a sweep of his arm and pulls out the laptop he keeps stored in the drawer underneath his desk. The construction of Briar Valley’s first nationwide power grid and internet network had recently been completed a couple of centuries ago, and electricity now thrummed throughout the land. It took some getting used to, especially for a folk so accustomed to their magic, but the citizens quickly grew to enjoy the novelties of television and the world wide web. Malleus had also recently learned of the wonders of online chess, and he proudly considered himself a bit of a gamer.
He opens up his email and begins his search. There is a faint memory that clings weakly to his brain of Lilia sending him a message not long after he’d departed for the Land of Red Dragons. There was a grainy picture attached showing Lilia’s pale, outstretched hand, his nails painted cherry red, pointing to some snowcapped mountains towering in the distance. If his memory serves right, Lilia had sent that email to a number of addresses, and one of them might’ve had Ortho’s name in it. He scrolls through his archived folders and clicks on the one he created just for Lilia’s old emails. It takes only a moment to find the message he was thinking of. He remembers now that it was the last time he’d ever heard from the man. He didn't see Lilia again until Silver dutifully retrieved his small body from those frozen peaks.
He doesn’t dare open the attached picture. He quickly scans through the list of names and addresses in the “to” field until he finds the one he was hoping to see, and with shaking hands, he begins a new email. He types a curt message asking the boy how he’s been and if he’d like to stop by for a few days so they can catch up.
He clicks “send”, and then folds his hands in his lap as he waits for a response.
III.
Ortho comes to Briar Valley later that week, and Malleus is surprised at the pure quietness of the boy’s arrival. He’d expected something more grandiose from a member of the Shroud clan, like dark clouds of smoke and exhaust and great explosions of light. But there is none of that – Ortho merely descends from the sky with all the whispered elegance of an owl gliding through a nighttime forest, and he alights a few meters away from where Malleus had been waiting for him in the courtyard.
They shake hands and say their hellos, and Ortho adds that the current director of Styx sends her greetings. Malleus raises a thin, black eyebrow at this.
His curiosity piqued, he asks, “Is she, ah, descended from your brother, then?”
Ortho laughs, high and bright like the aluminum wind chines that hang from some of the trees in the courtyard. “Oh, no! My big brother never got married or had children. After he passed away, another branch family in the Shroud clan took over Styx, and their descendants have been running things at the Island of Woe ever since.”
As they walk towards the castle gates, Ortho explains that the new management agreed to let him stay with them after his brother died, and he’s been spending most of his time the past few centuries overseeing the island’s security system. (Apparently, he can operate it remotely via “satellite”, but for Malleus the word only conjures up visions of the moon, and he tilts his head in perplexment.)
Malleus asks, “And you’re absolutely sure it’s alright for you to be here? I don’t want any problems with Styx, especially not so soon before the coronation.” His grandmother had scowled deeply when he told her whom he’d been planning to invite, and he was eager to assuage her concerns.
“Yeah, Styx is still as secretive as ever, but they’re pretty lax when it comes to me leaving the island. As long as I don’t divulge any top-secret info, of course.” Ortho finishes with a wink.
“I see. Good, then let me show you to where you’ll be staying.”
They walk together to Ortho’s guest room, and the castle servants scatter before them like a parted sea. Malleus knows they’re staring; he can see the white faces of the chambermaids peeking out from behind half-shut doors, but he doesn’t mind. He remembers how intrigued he’d been when he first met Idia Shroud and the little robot that always seemed to be hovering in his shadow. And how shocked he was when the device opened its mouth and began to speak.
Malleus, too, finds himself glancing now and then at the boy walking beside him. He doesn’t look much different from how Malleus remembers. He’s not grown any taller, and his fiery hair isn’t any longer than before. He still has that soft, round face, and those striking yellow eyes and that small mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth.
Later, while Ortho unpacks his charging apparatus and surveys the room for the closest outlet, Malleus asks the question that’d been pestering him since his guest’s arrival.
“Ah, it made my big brother uncomfortable whenever he saw my face, so that’s why I always wore either a visor or a mask while he was alive. Since he’s gone now, I don’t bother with covering up my face anymore.”
“What? Why would your face make him uncomfortable?”
Ortho looks over his shoulder from where he’s kneeling before the outlet he selected. He states plainly, “Because it reminded him too much of his little brother, Ortho Shroud.”
Malleus blinks. And then he frowns. “Wait…. Seeing your face – you, his little brother, Ortho Shroud – reminded him too much of his little brother…. Ortho Shroud. And that made him… uncomfortable?”
“Correct!” Ortho grins like an absolute imp, and Malleus wonders if he’d been studying up on fae humor before coming here.
“….I must say, the more I learn about your family, the more bizarre you all sound.”
Ortho laughs again. “You have no idea.”
Once Ortho is done packing, Malleus asks if he’d like to go tour the valley with him. He answers with an excited “Absolutely!”, and they make their way back out to the courtyard. The day is still young, and a sky as blue as freshly picked morning glories greets them once they step outside.
At the castle gates, Malleus asks Ortho to wait a moment. He squats before the boy and takes his smaller hands into his own. Lilia had once told him that children listen better when adults get down to their level, and Malleus wants to make absolutely sure that Ortho understands the gravity of what he’s about to say.
“Listen to me well, Little Shroud. Most of the fae here are kind and virtuous people, and I trust the castle staff not to lay a hand on you. But I cannot say the same about our townspeople and countrymen. I fear a young child of man like you… Yes, even one made of cool metal and not the warmth of living flesh and blood, will attract those who wish you harm. If, when we are away from the castle, I take your hand and draw you close to me, you must not let go, for it means they are near. You must not listen to their whispered temptations; you must not believe their siren lies. Do you understand? If they gaze at you with eyes of black fire, if they promise you Heaven’s greatest rewards, if you turn to them and see your brother’s face and hear his voice calling out your name, you must look away. Can you promise me you will do that?”
Ortho nods his head slowly, and they set off.
They begin with a cursory flight over the valley; Ortho using his machinery, and Malleus his magic. Malleus restricts his speed at first, concerned he might accidentally leave the boy behind. He’s pleasantly surprised to find Ortho easily keeping pace with him, and when he cries out into cold winds asking if they might go a bit faster, Ortho responds with a thumbs up and a sharp-toothed smile.
And so they race over the castle town, past the church, whose twin spires watch over the land like a pair of dark sentinels, past the cobbled streets and the timber houses of the residential districts, past the bustling marketplace and the quiet town square. Malleus explains how all the buildings radiate around the castle like the petals of a flower surrounding its pistil, and he points down to the linden trees - dull and naked in their meager spring attire - that line nearly every street. He tells Ortho that come summer, the whole town will be bathed in their flowers’ intoxicating perfume, warm and soft and sweet like honeysuckle. The cool breeze feels delicious on Ortho’s skin, and the low buzz of Malleus’s voice beside him is as tender as the overhead sun.
As they circle overhead once more, Ortho is surprised that no one seems to pay them any mind. Not the merchants behind their stalls, and not the townspeople passing by; not the swarm of children playing tag in the maze of shadowy back alleys; not the red-faced shepherd barking at his sheep to move, and not his perfectly unhurried sheep. None of them so much as glance their way as they fly by. Ortho glides next to Malleus and asks him why that is, and Malleus laughs. “My people are deeply intertwined with magic; it courses through our veins from the moment we enter this world. Seeing two people soaring through the sky is no more riveting to us than a toad that hops or a cow that lows. Many of us begin flying at a few months old, after all.” Malleus laughs again as Ortho’s mouth drops open in astonishment.
They leave the castle town behind them, flying faster and faster, beyond the evergreen forests and the rolling hillsides and the miles of grassy fields glimmering with white snowdrops and yellow daffodils. Malleus describes with a smile how beautiful the valley looks in the summer, when the wheat is heavy and ripe for harvest and the modest green farmland transforms into an ocean of gold. He loves windy summer days especially, loves how the acres and acres of wheat undulate and dance in time to the rhythm of the breeze, the entire countryside sighing and rolling like gilded waves as far as the eye can see.
They press on, and Malleus leads Ortho towards the mountain range that rises in the distance like the spikes on a dragon’s back. The farmland below transforms once more into lush grasslands and forests, and a massive river cuts across the valley plateau.
The sight reminds Ortho of a passage he’d read in one of his travel guides:
“Briar Valley is a relatively small nation, flanked on all sides by jagged mountains and bisected by a massive, winding river that many of the locals continue to worship as an ancient Lindwurm. The winters are bitter cold, and the summers are pleasantly warm; it is a fertile land, and the majority of the county’s foodstuffs is produced within Briar Valley’s borders.”
Ortho’s eyes follow the twisting body of the river, and he can easily imagine why the fae revere it as a deity - the mouth of the great waterway stretches infinitely wide like the jaws of a python as it spills into the freezing ocean. But it’s the mountains that truly take his breath away. They are a thousand times bigger and a hundred times darker than what he’d been envisioning based on the photos he’d seen, and their obsidian bulk nearly consumes the skyline.
Malleus points a pale, clawed finger at the angry mass of black rock and stone that rises up taller than all the others. “That is the Forbidden Mountain,” he shouts above the roar of the wind. “Legend says the Thorn Witch once ruled over the valley from atop its peak.”
“It’s amazing!” Ortho shouts back.
They stay there for a while, quietly admiring the black obelisks towering before them. Ortho almost wonders if the Thorn Fairy might still be lurking up there somewhere on that dark peak, the shadow of her terrible specter still searching in vain for the lost princess after all these millennia. He dispels the thought with a shiver.
Finally, Malleus turns to Ortho and says, “Come, let us return to the castle town. There’s a place I want to show you.”
Even from high above, the church had looked magnificent; and now, standing before it on the ground, it’s absolutely breathtaking. The fae’s connection with Nature - a glorious mixture of reverence and intimacy – is evident all throughout the building’s architecture. The façade is richly decorated with a host of stone creatures: rearing bucks locked eternally in battle, golden eagles and barn owls and songbirds frozen in flight, and foxes and hares circling each other in an endless hunt. From up close, Ortho now sees that the bulging lines he’d noticed winding around the twin spires are delicately sculpted rose vines, replete with thorns and all. Jagged spikes erupt down the spines of the flying buttresses, reminiscent of a beast Ortho doesn’t quite want to think about, and they stretch and yawn as they support the heavy weight of the towering walls. As they circle the building, Malleus happily points out all the different gargoyles that snarl at them from their guard posts up high; Ortho had nearly overlooked them in the forest of masonry and metalwork, and he stumbles as he tilts his head further and further back just trying to take it all in. All the travel guides that he’d downloaded had lavishly praised the church as the “Pinnacle of the Briar Valley Gothic style”, and now he understands why.
Malleus ushers Ortho towards the heavy bronze doors at the entrance of the church, and they head inside. A few members of the laity sit hunched over in the wooden pews within, murmuring prayers in a language that Ortho cannot understand. His eyes flick up to Malleus’s face, and then down to his hands, which lay unmoving against his side. After a moment’s hesitation, Ortho takes a step forward, and then another, and he quietly walks down to the end of the aisle, walking just the slightest bit faster whenever he has to pass one of the fae mulling about. Finally, he reaches the apse and the alter. He doesn’t notice Malleus joining him a moment later; he is far too entranced by the stained-glass windows that tower before him. The afternoon sun spills through the windows and pools onto the floor below, bathing him and Malleus in a shower of multicolored light.
In his mind’s eye, Ortho can see the master architect urging his laborers to keep building higher, to push the spires taller, up into the sky, closer and closer to the seat of Heaven’s mighty throne. He can see the sculptors playing with light as though it were clay, molding it in their calloused hands and transforming it into the countless stained-glass windows that crown the head of the altar. He thinks about the townspeople emerging from their dull and darkened homes and blinking into the bright light of the completed church for the first time. What must they have felt? Had their hearts ached for something they couldn’t find the name for, like his heart aches now? Had their eyes burned hot with the threat of strange and unfamiliar tears, like his eyes are burning now? Had they felt as overwhelmed and insignificant and small and suffocated as he is feeling now? Oh, and to think! To consider - how many weary pilgrims, how many desperate worshipers and weathered souls have stood in this very same spot before him, gazing up at these same venerated panes of kaleidoscopic glass and feeling what he feels; how many millennia upon millennia has this architectural wonder united the peoples of its creator in whispered awe and indescribable rapture!
Ortho takes a shuddering breath, and he steps back to admire the windows once more. He’s seen tracery like this elsewhere, in the churches of the Queendom of Roses and the cathedrals of the City of Flowers. The square sections of glass come together to create a series of fantastic images, and they remind Ortho of the illustrated fairytale books he used to read with his brother when they were little.
Ortho tilts his head back and focuses on the pictures up at the very top.
He sees:
The golden fields of corn and wheat that dot the valley’s farmlands.
Lush forests, twisting rivers, towering mountains, and azure lakes.
Smiling children - with horns and antlers sprouting from their foreheads and wings fluttering on their backs - dancing in a circle, arms linked together.
A fae mother sitting before her cottage and nursing her child, the baby’s tiny horns but white specks on its head.
Ortho’s eyes travel further down. The glass panes gradually transition from cool greys and blues and bright yellows to duller oranges and reds. Further and further down, the redder the panes become, like tongues of fire spilling over the window.
He sees an image of a human man and a fae woman holding hands, with shy smiles on their faces. Both the woman’s wings and the human are gone in the next image, and her smile has warped into a scream. He can’t quite tell what happens after that.
“What is that grey substance the humans are forging in that pane there?”
“Iron.” Malleus hisses the word, as though it burns him just to say it.
Ortho doesn’t say anything as he turns back to look at the windows.
He sees:
Human and fae armies marching towards each other with swords drawn and war flags raised.
Villages engulfed in flames.
A smokey battlefield littered with armored bodies.
Flashes of lightning splitting a crimson sky.
And finally, the last image: A black dragon, its wings spread wider than a hurricane. The glass surrounding it blazes as red as blood.
“Malleus Draconia… What… is this?”
“My people’s history. Our triumph.”
Malleus swallows thickly, and then he whispers, “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
All Ortho can do is nod. He dare not defile this place any further with his words.
It’s late afternoon by the time they return to the castle. They head to the dining room to get some lunch, and Ortho watches wide-eyed as a horde of servants materialize as soon as Malleus takes his seat.
Malleus lifts his hand, and a servant steps forward to slide the day’s menu into his waiting fingers. He contemplates for a moment, and then announces he will have the slow roasted pork shoulder served with shredded sauerkraut, potato dumplings, and gravy. A young chambermaid asks if Ortho would like any refreshments, as well, and he declines her kind offer with a smile. His oral intake unit isn’t equipped, and he doesn’t feel bothered enough to go fetch it from his room. He looks around the dining room while they wait for the food to be served. It resembles a grand hall more than anything else, with a massive glass chandelier hanging overhead and several huge windows lining the walls, and he figures the long table they’re sitting at could easily seat over thirty guests.
Presently, the head chef and sous chefs and other kitchen assistants march out in a line. The assistants all carry a silver cloche server in hand, and they remove the domed covers with a flourish as they set the trays down before Malleus. The pork shoulder has been roasted to a brown perfection, and a thick, crispy layer of fat sits atop each slice of meat. The gravy is dense and richly seasoned, and the sauerkraut is the most beautiful shade of lavender that Ortho has ever seen. A stack of steaming potato dumplings completes the ensemble. The head chef nervously searches the prince’s face for the slightest sign of approval or dissatisfaction, and his shoulders sag in relief when Malleus dismisses the troupe with the wave of a hand. The head chef bows deeply, followed in turn by the sous chefs and other kitchen assistants, and they file back to the kitchen as efficiently as they came.
The entire spectacle delights Ortho, and he kicks his feet in excitement while he waits for Malleus to finish eating. He imagines how the dining room must look like when the castle is hosting a party, when the heavy window curtains are pulled back and the rays pouring in from the evening sun dance across the rows of silver plates and golden goblets and the entire room erupts into light. And he thinks of gaudy princes and princesses discussing the silliest of things in their ridiculous costumes, and tireless knights prowling the castle grounds in search of hidden marauders and ne'er-do-wells, and he thinks of royal balls that last until the first light of dawn pierces the sky when it’s still not quite morning but no longer night, and other such things that tickle a child’s heart.
After lunch, Malleus resumes showing Ortho around the castle. They start with a tour of the Imperial Guard’s training grounds out back, and they stay and watch for a while as the young recruits spar with some of the captains. Ortho almost thinks he should cheer on the recruits, since they might like the encouragement, but he also considers taking the side of the captains, since they are so spectacular with their flashy jabs and stunning parries. The captains ultimately prove victorious, and as they turn to greet the prince, the sight of the small, fiery-haired boy clapping enthusiastically next to him perplexes them more than anything else they’ve seen the past few months.
Then Malleus takes Ortho to the highest of the watchtowers, where they can see the church’s spires jutting up not too far in the distance. And then he takes him to the castle archives and the library and Malleus’s private study. Ortho is especially fascinated by the library, and they spend hours going through ancient spell books and history books and collections of Briar Valley fiction and poetry. So many of these texts have never made it outside the small nation, and Ortho uncovers books about species of fae he’s never even heard of, and books written in languages he’s never even seen. He drinks it all in with sparkling eyes and toothy smiles. In his eagerness, he accidentally tips over a heavy bookshelf while attempting to extract one of its paper treasures, and Malleus laughs so hard that his eyes water when the boy ends up buried under a mountain of leatherbound tomes.
The heavy wooden doors of the library close behind them with a loud bang as they leave. They only make it a few steps before Ortho reaches out and tugs on Malleus’s arm.
“May we go see your rose garden now?”
Malleus blinks. “My… what?”
“Your rose garden! All the travel guides I downloaded mentioned it. They say it’s one of the greatest wonders of the valley, and that you can see it all the way from the forests that border the castle town.”
Ortho notices the frown forming on Malleus’s face and asks, “Don’t tell me something happened to it?”
Malleus sighs. “Indeed. Sadly, the whole garden was destroyed when we had that bad snowstorm not too long ago.”
“Bad snowstorm…” Ortho closes his eyes for a moment as he thinks. “Wait, I remember that! You mean that monster blizzard that struck Briar Valley over a hundred years ago? People were calling it the storm of the century!”
With a solemn nod, Malleus replies, “I do believe that was the one. …Has it really been a hundred years already? I suppose I just haven’t gotten around to fixing it up yet.”
In truth, he’d considered rebuilding his garden more than once, but he never could bring himself to do it. All the seed packets his grandmother’s been giving him for his birthday the past century have yet to be opened, and they lie buried deep within one of the chests in his room.
A week after that awful blizzard tore through their small nation, he and his grandmother gathered together around the dining table for the first time that winter. They both shivered as they ate, and at one point she looked out the window and murmured something about his “poor roses, the dear things”. Malleus was shocked. He hadn’t even remembered to go check if his flowers had made it through the storm. He’d stopped tending to them sometime after Sebek’s death. It was a gradual thing. He’d water them less often - once a week instead of twice, and then once a month, and then not at all. And then he forgot to tell the servants to purchase more fertilizer when his supplies were getting low. And then he didn’t bother deadheading the bushes in the fall. And then he just stopped going to the garden altogether.
There are times when he’ll wonder, where had that gentleness that Lilia had once spoken of, that love in his heart gone? Had that vengeful snowstorm ripped it from his chest and scattered it to the winds together with his roses? Or had it withered and died and returned to the earth alongside Silver and Sebek’s worn and ashen bodies? Or had it been stolen from his heart long ago, had Lilia taken it with him as he climbed those great mountains, up higher and higher, beyond the radiant clouds and into a world he wasn’t yet ready to journey to?
And there are other times where he’ll go look at the skeletal remains of his garden and he’ll wonder if those rumors about him being detached and apathetic and cold were true. He knew many in Briar Valley believed so. He knew they’d hesitate to even speak of him, as though his name were an ill omen. And he did not blame them. His love was never anything flashy or obvious, was never as bright and as brilliant as the shy half-smiles that Silver would reserve for his father.
No, Malleus’s love was soft and quiet, the glass of his heart opaque, not clear. It was often timid, often awkward, but his love was always there. Even now, even if he could no longer detect its gentle thrum coursing through his veins, his was still the love of that lonely little boy who’d hold his ear against the warm mass of his rose bushes and listen as the flowers revealed to him their perfect wisdom.
And the people he cherished in his heart of hearts were his roses, too. All of them – Lilia, Silver, and Sebek, his parents and his grandmother, and his dear friends from school. To try and rebuild his garden - to press those expectant seeds into the wet earth and wait for the tiny buds to emerge into the light of a January day, to look with bated breath for the sepals to fold open and reveal the sacred pink gems held tightly within their green grasps, to awaken to the sound of the cardinals heralding Spring’s arrival and race to the garden while the sky is still yawning off the night’s indigo embrace and to rejoice at last at the first newborn blooms - it felt blasphemous, like summoning the dead back to life. And his heart was simply too dark and too heavy still for such a thing.
Malleus watches silently as the light of excitement rapidly fades from Ortho’s eyes, and he snuffs out the last dim sparks with a shake of his head.
Ortho sighs. “Well, it’s too bad I couldn’t see your garden, Malleus Draconia. It always looked so beautiful in those pictures I saw. But I’m glad at least the castle and the town and everything made it through the storm okay.”
They resume walking, and Ortho decides privately not to mention the garden again.
Later, after the lilac night had blanketed the valley once more and a calm hush had fallen over the castle, Malleus stalks through the dark halls trying to shake off his restlessness. He passes by Ortho’s room and can hear him murmuring through the closed door. It sounds like he’s talking to someone, but Malleus can’t imagine whom. He hovers at the door for a moment, and then he continues on, not wanting to disturb the boy.
IV.
The next morning, Ortho and Malleus are to have breakfast with the Queen. Ortho wakes up early so he can hook up his oral intake unit in time, and he opens the windows before setting to work. The sun has just barely risen, and the sky is a pleasant gradient of pinks and oranges and yellows and blues. The chilly air is abuzz with thrushes and chiffchaffs singing their daily praises, and the loud cries of haughty wrens undercut the performance. March was in full swing in the valley, and before long the chorus would be joined by the excited twitter of the goldfinches and the sugar sweet call of the willow warblers as spring rolled on.
Just as Ortho finishes equipping his unit, Malleus knocks on his door and softly asks, “Little Shroud, are you ready?”
Ortho answers, “Yes!” and he goes to join Malleus in the hallway. They walk to the dining room together in comfortable silence. Ortho stayed up late last night, gripped with an innocent mixture of nervousness and excitement, but he’s still bright-eyed and brimming with energy. He knows very well that few outsiders are lucky enough to get invited to Briar Valley’s royal castle, and that even fewer still get to receive an audience with the Queen.
Two servants standing before the dining room pull the heavy doors open for them, and they go to where the Queen is waiting for them at the head of the table. She rises from her seat as they approach.
Ortho bows deeply, just as he’d practiced the night before, and says, “It’s an honor to meet you, your Majesty. Thank you so much for permitting me to come here.”
The Queen smiles. “And I thank you for accepting my dear grandson’s invitation. I hope you’ve been enjoying your stay.”
Ortho confirms that he has, and then he looks up and studies her face. The Draconia family’s resemblance is plain to see. She and Malleus have the same bright green eyes, long, black hair, and those sharp fangs that peek out when they smile. Only the thin crow’s feet around her eyes and the slight gauntness of her high cheek bones betray the difference in their ages. She’s a good head shorter than Malleus, but her presence is so much more intimidating. Malleus’s great aura feels like an April shower in comparison to the tempest of energy emanating from her body, and it takes every ounce of Ortho’s willpower not to crumple to the floor when she goes to shake his small hand.
The Queen bids them to sit, and they all take their seats, with her at the head of the table and Ortho and Malleus flanking her on either side. Bowls filled with wax-white sausages floating in steaming water sit before them. A gorgeous, herbal scent - a dazzling mixture of cardamom, mace, parsley, lemon, and other more deeply buried smells - wafts from the bowls. Their plates are decorated with large dollops of dark brown mustard, along with a number of soft, golden pretzels. A crimson-colored juice of some sort swims placidly in their goblets.
Malleus takes his fork and deposits some of the sausages onto his plate. “They’re filled with very finely ground veal and bacon - made from pork loin, rather than pork belly. Poached just long enough for the meat to turn this greyish-white color. They’re one of Briar Valley’s specialties,” he explains.
He waits for Ortho to fill up his own plate, and then continues, “The skin is edible, but we typically don’t eat it. Just take your fork and knife and cut the sausage open lengthwise, and then peel back the skin and eat the meat. And do be sure to try the mustard.”
The explanation finished, Malleus and the Queen take their cutlery in hand and begin to eat. Ortho watches how they expertly incise the sausage casings and extract the white meat as though they were performing surgery. He picks up his own fork and knife and tries to copy their nimble movements as he slices open the fibrous skin. He is pleased to find the meat tastes just as delicious as it smells, and his mouth pulls up into a smile from the rich blend of spices.
Ortho next dips a piece of sausage in the grainy mustard and gingerly takes a bite. He gasps at how sweet it is - he’d been expecting something spicy. It’s nearly too sweet, but only just nearly, and in a strange way he can’t explain, the sugary flavor perfectly complements the savory meat. He eagerly dips another piece of sausage in the mustard and brings it to his mouth, and then another, and another.
The Queen laughs at the boy’s exuberance. “Please take your time, my dear. There’s plenty more where that came from, and if you’d like another serving, just let one of the waitstaff know.”
Ortho begins to reply, but quickly remembers his mouth is full of food, and he shoots his hand over his mouth in embarrassment as he nods. He takes a sip of the juice and considers the flavor for a moment – it’s a pure, bright blend of various kinds of wild berries and other fruit, and the cool liquid somehow invigorates his appetite even more.
As Ortho sets to work on the pretzels, the Queen finally begins her questioning.
“Malleus tells me you went to school together at Night Raven College. I’d been envisioning someone a tad older when he told me that, so I was quite surprised to see just how young you are. I take it your species must age slowly, like ours does?”
Ortho chews contemplatively on his pretzel. “It’s not that I age slowly, it’s just that my appearance doesn’t really change as time goes on. I guess you could say?”
“Oh, really? My, how very interesting.” She takes a sip from her goblet, and her pointed tongue darts out to capture the stray drops trying to escape down her lips. “He also told me you hale from the Isle of Grief, from the Shroud clan. Is your family doing well these days? I haven’t heard from Zephyr in quite a while.”
“Ah,” Ortho says, but then closes his mouth. He’s not sure if it would be impolite to tell the Queen that Zephyr Shroud had passed away four decades ago, and that someone new is leading the family now. He pushes around the last piece of sausage on his plate as he searches for the safest answer. “The Shroud family is doing well. We…. recently got a new clan head, and she sends her greetings.”
The Queen continues, “I see. Please do send her my thanks and well wishes in return. And I hate to pry….” (Ortho privately thinks she does not) “…but are you involved at all with Styx’s operations, by any chance?
“They make my equipment for me, and I help run security at their headquarters, but I’m not involved in their research, no.”
“I see, I see. Good, yes, that’s good.” She nods, but Ortho can’t tell if the gesture is directed at him or herself. She pushes her empty plate away and folds her hands on her lap. Ortho sees a glimmer of hope, and he thinks this strange and awkward conversation might soon come to an end. But all his hopes are dashed when the Queen turns and asks one of the servants for two more bowls of sausage and another plate of pretzels. “Now, what do you mean by “equipment” exactly? And I noticed you hardly seem to have any traces of magic about you. How were you able to attend Night Raven College, may I ask? And is your hair actually on fire? I’ve always wanted to ask your family’s clan leaders, but it slips my mind whenever I see them, and I don’t remember until they’ve already passed. It’s as though each time I blink, you’ve got someone new in charge!” She finishes with a curt laugh, and her bright green eyes bore into Ortho expectantly.
Ortho glances across the table and gives Malleus a plaintive look, but he is seemingly far too engrossed in his pretzels to offer any help.
After breakfast, the Queen excuses herself to go attend to some royal matter or other, and Ortho and Malleus quickly retreat to the library. They wander up and down the rows of shelves for a while, only half paying attention to the books they pull out and flip through. When they happen to meander towards the same shelf and meet in the middle of the aisle, at last they talk, having recuperated enough for conversation.
Ortho starts first, and he exhales like a pierced tire. “That was…. Intense.”
Malleus sighs, as well. “Yes, my grandmother can be quite… severe in her inquisitiveness. I do apologize if she made you uncomfortable at all.”
“Oh, it’s alright. I remember my mom used to drill me and my big brother like that whenever we came home for the holidays, so it was kind of fun, in a way.” Ortho smiles to himself reservedly, as though recalling some precious secret.
“Anyways,” he continues, “I wish my big brother could’ve been here. I’m sure he would’ve loved to meet the Queen.”
Malleus raises an eyebrow. “You really think so? I always had the impression he wasn’t a very sociable fellow.”
Ortho laughs. “You’re right, he wasn’t. But her Majesty resembles a character from an anime he really liked, and I bet he would’ve gotten a kick out of meeting her.”
Malleus isn’t sure whether his grandmother has just been gravely insulted or highly praised, and so he resigns to simply hum in agreement. He tries to imagine how a meeting between the two would even look, but the image refuses to form, his brain balking at him like a stubborn horse. He gropes through a haze of hundreds and hundreds of years of memories and tries to conjure the elder Shroud’s face in his mind, but all he sees is a blur of white skin and blue hair and sharp teeth.
Finally, he looks over to Ortho and slowly admits, “You know, I can’t quite… seem to recall how he looked…”
Ortho flashes him a reassuring smile in return. “That’s okay, I will assist you.”
Some part of Ortho’s body emits a beep, and then his chest plates slide back to reveal a black lens at their center. Before Malleus can ask what he’s doing, the lens turns from black to bright white, and now Idia Shroud himself is standing before them. He’s dressed in the navy-blue coat with the white triangles down the sleeves that he’d always wear at Night Raven College, and his long, fiery hair undulates like waves around him.
For a moment, Malleus is stunned. And then his stupefaction quickly melts into hot anger. Necromancy is strictly forbidden amongst his people, and by no means will he permit this black magic in his own home.
“Wretched spirit!” he snarls. Dark emerald green energy swirls around him, and he raises a glowing hand towards Idia. The books piled around them fly open and the bookshelves begin to shake as a whirlwind of paper dances around the room.
Ortho runs between Malleus and his brother and waves his hands frantically as he shouts, “No, no, no wait! It’s just a hologram, Malleus Draconia! It’s not a ghost, it’s okay!”
Malleus’s slit pupils dart between the two brothers. He tries to focus on Idia for as long as his rage allows, and at last he notices the miniscule dust particles passing through the beams of light that make up the specter’s body. Malleus lowers his hand and dispels his built-up magic with a shake of his arm, and Ortho sighs in relief as he watches the green sparks dissipate into the air. The airborne books crash to the floor a moment later.
Malleus says quietly, more so to himself than to Ortho, “My apologies, I thought you’d…” He doesn’t trust himself to finish the sentence. He knows just speaking the words would stoke his wrath again.
Ortho quickly scans Malleus’s vitals and blot accumulation levels, and he can feel the tension seep from his own body once he confirms the storm of danger has passed. He looks over and sees Malleus staring at the floor, working his jaw in contemplation. Ortho waits for him to speak again.
Finally, Malleus plucks one of the thoughts swirling around in his mind, and he asks, “Can you… Can you project the other students, as well?”
Ortho nods, and the lens in his chest whirs for a moment before the room suddenly fills with a crowd of figures. Malleus scans the familiar faces. There’s Deuce Spade and Ace Trappola and the Child of Man together by one of the windows. There’s Leona Kingscholar, frozen in the middle of a yawn, surrounded by his pack members. And there’s Vil Schoenheit, a compact mirror in one hand, his other paused midair as he fusses with some miniscule imperfection in his mascara that even Malleus’s fae eyesight couldn’t ever hope to uncover. And then he sees them. They’re standing together in the corner of the room.
Malleus takes a step forward, and then stops.
“Do they… Can you make them move?”
“Yes, by taking the footage I recorded while at school and running it through one of my AI programs, I can configure the holograms to perform pretty much any action you can imagine. I can also simulate their voices, if you’d like.”
Malleus opens his mouth as if to speak, and then he closes it again. He shakes his head and says, “Ah, no. No, that’s fine. I’m not even sure why I asked, please don’t mind me.” His gaze lingers on the three of them while he talks. He continues staring at that spot long after Ortho shuts his lens off.
The rest of the day passes in a blur. Malleus has a fitting to attend to, and then yet another rehearsal for the coronation. The servants hurry and fuss around him like honeybees on a wildflower as they double-check and then triple-check their measurements. He slowly disappears underneath the long bands of white measuring tape, and Ortho tries his best to stifle his laughter while he watches, looking away guiltily whenever a surreptitious giggle escapes his lips. But Malleus doesn’t pay him any bother; his mind is too focused on other things.
The holograms have been haunting him all morning. He sees them when he looks into the mirror, he feels their presence when he’s alone. They’re always at the corner of his eye, always just out of arm’s reach. As though taunting him. He wonders if they plague him so because of how real they looked. He had seen movies projected onto screens before, and he still remembers the ghastly window projections Lilia would dig out every Halloween. But that footage was always so grainy, so dull and lifeless. The holograms that Ortho had conjured earlier were deceptively vibrant, they had breathed. They were alive. If Malleus had reached out and touched them, he scarcely doubts he’d have felt warm flesh under his hands.
The murmurs of the servants around him pull him from his thoughts, and he is gradually befreed from the prison of safety pins and sewing needles and measuring tape and color swatches. He turns slowly as he hears someone approaching, half dreading it might be another radiant phantom coming to vex him.
“Malleus Draconia, I’ve been detecting a delay in your response speed since this morning, as well as periods of increased heart rate. Is something on your mind?”
Malleus’s shoulders sag in relief. With a sigh, he answers, “Ah, it’s just you, Little Shroud. No, I’m fine. I’ve just been preoccupied with the preparations is all.”
Ortho smiles with all the innocence of a lamb. His barracuda teeth glint portentously. “…Did anyone ever tell you I can detect lies?”
“I am not-“
A chambermaid interrupts to ask if Malleus is ready to start the rehearsal, and he gratefully follows her to the throne room. He hears Ortho walking behind him. He tries to ignore the second set of footsteps he knows isn’t really there.
The cool reprieve of night is accompanied by a sudden rainstorm, and Ortho excuses himself to his room at the first crack of thunder. The blinding marks left behind by the lightning raking its great claws across the sky still terrify him after all these years, and he closes the windows and draws the curtains shut, not wanting to look at those awful flashes of light.
Later, Malleus passes by his room during his usual nighttime stroll, and he again hears Ortho’s excited voice floating through the wooden door. He stands there listening for a few minutes, and then finally knocks on the door. He asks loudly, over the pouring rain, if he might come in, and Ortho shouts back, “Of course!”
When Malleus opens the door, he sees Ortho reclining on his bed, and Idia Shroud sitting in a chair nearby. Malleus groans and closes his eyes, shaking his head. But Idia is still there when he opens his eyes, and he takes a hesitant step back.
“What’s wrong, Malleus Draconia?” Ortho asks wide-eyed, looking between his brother and Malleus. “Is my hologram bothering you again? Here, I’ll turn it off.” The apparition disappears without a sound, and Malleus takes a shuddering breath.
“My apologies, I just wasn’t sure if he was really…” Malleus shakes his head again. “No, it’s fine. What were you doing just now? I thought I heard you talking with someone.”
Ortho sits up and hangs his legs over the bed. “Oh, I was just talking with my big brother.” He watches as Malleus’s usually stern face scrunches up in confusion, and stifles back a laugh.
In his stupefaction, Malleus blurts, “And what were you talking to him about?”
“All sorts of stuff! I was telling him about our breakfast with the queen, and all the cool books we found in the library. Oh! And I’ve been showing him all the pictures and videos I’ve been taking so far.”
Malleus thinks for a moment. “Ah, so when I heard you speaking with someone in your room the other night…”
Ortho nods. “I was just talking to my big brother, yeah.”
“I see,” Malleus breathes out. And then, quietly, he murmurs, “I see… That’s quite surprising.”
“What do you mean?” Ortho asks.
“I suppose I hadn’t expected a robot to be able to be so sentimental, missing your brother and talking to his photo like that.”
“I mean, of course I miss him! But there’s nothing in my programming that makes me feel this way. It comes from my heart, the same as you.”
Malleus blanches. “You have… a heart? The literal organ, you mean?”
“Erm, no.” Ortho winces. “You see I’ve got this magical circuitry onboard and-”
“And there it is again,” Malleus sighs.
“What?”
Malleus crosses his arms. “To me, you have always been a very confusing amalgamation of machinery and human. And I fear I shan’t ever understand exactly what you are.”
During his time at Night Raven College, Malleus had only ever heard fragmentary rumors about the Shroud brothers. The other students would whisper that something terrible had befallen their family in the past, and that Idia had created the little robot in his grief. But neither of the brothers had ever offered to divulge their past to Malleus, and he never asked them to. He kept many things close to his heart, and he respected others who wished to do the same.
“Well,” Ortho says as he folds his hands in his lap. He stares at them for a moment, and after looking back up at Malleus, he continues, “I can try and explain it to you, if you’d like.”
“Only if you don’t mind, I don’t wish to pry.”
Ortho shuffles further down the bed and pats the empty space next to him, and Malleus sits down.
Ortho takes a deep breath, and then begins, “Well, this story starts a really long time ago. There were these two brothers named Idia Shroud and Ortho Shroud, and they always dreamed of going on adventures together…”
Malleus leans over, trying to grasp onto the shaky whispers that spill from his mouth like a confession. He had always thought of Ortho’s voice as bright and animated, like the titter of a goldfinch on a summer morning. But now, for the first time, as he listens to the boy talk, he finds his voice is very small. It’s as though his words have been crushed and shattered, the fine bits and pieces sent adrift like dust in the wind. He notices for the first time, too, just how small Ortho is, he notices the smallness of his hands. Is this not but a child’s body shivering hesitantly beside his? Is this not but a child’s tiny hand gripping nervously onto his own? For him to be carrying such an endless ocean of sorrow inside of him, how has he not drowned from its tremendous weight already? How has the earth not opened up and swallowed him whole, trapping him inside the same deep, dark pit that Malleus has been staring up from for centuries now?
The story comes together slowly, dripping like water, steadily taking shape like some great crystalline structure in a cavern long forgotten by time. And at long last, the pure light of revelation dawns before Malleus’s eyes. With a gasp, he tells the boy he understands now. Yes, that secret truth that has stood unnoticed before him for half a millennium, that has always slipped by him unheard, like a distant cry swallowed by the winds - now he sees it, now he hears it. Now he finally understands.
Exhausted, Ortho closes his eyes and sinks into the bed.
Malleus reaches out and cups Ortho’s cheek in his hand. A dim warmth emanates from the synthetic skin. As he sits there in the cold darkness, he wonders and wonders just what haunts the boy in his electric dreams.
V.
The rainstorm fades away into the black night as quickly as it had appeared. The next morning, the sun rises sluggishly, as though weighed down by the lingering dampness that hangs heavy in the air. The dawn chorus, as well, lacks its usual fervor, and only the intermittent cries of a distant blackbird accompany the horizon’s slow transition from black to red to blue.
If Ortho had been at all bothered by their conversation last night, he does not show it. He greets Malleus cheerfully when they sit down for breakfast, and they discuss only the drab weather and what plans they have for the day. When Ortho asks if he might accompany Malleus on his morning rounds, he readily agrees.
First on Malleus’s agenda is a violin recital. Sometimes he will perform for his grandmother, and he used to enjoy showing off a piece or two for Lilia, but as of late he’s been playing for only himself. The usual forlornness of the music room is somewhat stifled now that he has Ortho with him, and he searches for a chair the boy can use. Ortho watches him, shifting speculatively from one foot to another.
After Malleus locates a second chair and goes to take his seat before the music stand, Ortho timidly asks, “Remember when we were talking yesterday after your fitting, and that maid came and interrupted us?”
“…Yes?” Malleus replies, pausing as he picks up his violin case.
“Well, I still want to know if you’re doing okay. I keep detecting irregularities in your adrenaline and cortisol levels.”
“I assure you, I’m quite fine.” Malleus puts on his best smile as he unlocks the case and takes out his instrument. The smooth blend of maple and spruce feels reassuring in his hands, and he sets his jaw as he begins his tuning. “Now hush for a moment, please. I need to focus.” Ortho acquiesces, and he dutifully goes to sit in the corner of the room. The violin’s mournful voice somehow dissolves the tension that had been sitting uncomfortably in Ortho’s body since that morning, and as Malleus decisively strikes his bow across the pearl white strings for the final, piercing note, a firm resolve solidifies in its place.
Next is a morning meeting with the royal council, and Ortho resumes his endeavors while they walk to the council chamber. He breaks into a trot to keep up with Malleus’s long strides.
“Talking things out can help you feel better, you know!” Ortho implores.
“And that would be lovely,” Malleus huffs through gritted teeth, “- if only I needed to feel better!”
The servants passing by wonder to themselves if the boy is purely brazen, or if he’s just ignorant. They watch as the black column of their prince stalks faster and faster down the hallway, unable to shake off the white and blue speck following him.
The council meeting provides a short reprieve from Ortho’s questioning, and Malleus listens eagerly as the advisors, merchants, secretaries, and other council members take turns giving their rambling reports. The meetings were one of Malleus’s greatest delights; he was always eager to hear how things were going outside the castle, and the merchants would often bring back fascinating stories of what they’d seen during their travels. Most of the members pay no heed to the small boy sitting quietly next to the prince, but Ortho catches some of them glancing his way. Their blue and green and yellow eyes remind him of cat’s eyes marbles, and he admires how they catch the light. He ducks his head whenever they notice him staring.
Malleus’s excitement quickly disperses together with the conclusion of the meeting, and Ortho, in turn, swells up again with curiosity. The other council members file out of the room first, some of them still quibbling and grumbling over the issues they’d been discussing, and Malleus and Ortho bring up the rear. Ortho tugs on Malleus’s sleeve after they pour into the hallway.
“Are you-”
“I’m fine!”
For the rest of the morning, Ortho clings to him like a shadow, his perturbations hanging over Malleus’s head like circling buzzards. No matter how many times Malleus shoos him away, no matter how fiercely he glares, no matter how much venom he tries to inject into his refutations, the boy simply flutters back to his side moments later, as unbothered as a dandelion on the wind. Even teleporting to another part of the castle proves fruitless – Ortho’s location systems keep tracking him down within a matter of minutes.
Finally, around noon, Ortho corners him in Malleus’s study. He asks once more, “Are you sure there isn’t anything bothering you?”
Malleus sets down the book he’d been hiding behind and sighs. “You really aren’t going to let up until I talk to you, I suppose?”
“Nope!” Ortho grins.
“You’re truly vexing, you know that?” Malleus replies, a tired smile pulling at his lips. He gestures to a nearby chair, and Ortho sits down.
“Very well then. If you must know, it’s because of those…” He waves a hand in the air as he searches for the word. “Those holograms you showed me yesterday. I can’t stop thinking about them, for whatever reason. I don’t know if it’s just because I haven’t seen photos of them for so long or…”
“Them?”
It takes Malleus a moment to coax the names out of his mouth. “…Lilia, Silver, and Sebek.”
Ortho nods his head. “Oh, yeah. I remember you were really close to them.”
“Yes, they were like family to me…” Malleus murmurs, trailing off in thought. He licks his lips and asks, “…Does it not… Does it not make you sad, seeing your brother’s picture? And talking to him as you do?”
Ortho shakes his head. “It’s perfectly normal to feel uncomfortable when looking at pictures of your deceased loved ones. I just happen to be one of those people who doesn’t. And when I talk to my big brother, it helps me feel close to him. Everyone processes grief in different ways, after all.”
“Grief?” Malleus scoffs. “It’s been ages since they passed. Why would I still be grieving? It’s not like I hole myself in my room all the time, sulking about.”
“That’s not…” Ortho frowns. “Grief isn’t always loud and in your face. Sometimes… Sometimes it can be really quiet.”
“Mm,” Malleus sighs. He was familiar with that sort of quiet grief, the kind that would strike him faster than a cottonmouth, usually on still mornings or hushed nights, when his loneliness was at its most palpable. It always felt like an ambush, the way it would suddenly materialize in his heart like a rainstorm on a clear day. It was not like the burning, bone deep sorrow that had gripped his body after Lilia left, and neither was it suffocating, like how he’d felt at Silver and Sebek’s funerals. But it hurt him just the same.
“And how exactly does talking with his pict- his hologram make you feel better?” Malleus asks, genuinely curious.
“So my big brother and I had always wanted to travel the world together- Well, more like I wanted to get him out of his room, for once.” Ortho laughs, and Malleus smirks.
“But anyways, we never ended up being able to travel much since he was stuck dealing with Styx stuff most of the time. That’s why I like to talk to him and tell him about the places I go to, and the things I see. I know it doesn’t make up for the memories we never got to make together, but that hologram kind of helps me process all the stuff I regret not being able to do with him.”
“I see.”
Ortho takes his lower lip into his mouth and nibbles it pensively. “Is there anything you regret not being able to do with Lilia Vanrouge and the others?”
Malleus nods gravely. “Of course, for I never got to… Lilia was already gone by the time Silver and I arrived at his farewell party, and that has always weighed heavily on my mind. I know there’s nothing I can do about that now, but… I still would’ve liked to have at least spent one last night together with everyone.”
Malleus opens his mouth to continue speaking, and then closes it again. Ortho waits patiently, watching as Malleus furrows his brows in thought.
Finally, Malleus continues, “…I wished desperately, perhaps more so than anyone else at Night Raven College, to have the kinds of school experiences I’d always read about. I wished to have study sessions with my classmates, to go visit my friends and stay up late talking with them, to go to parties and other social gatherings… And yet, when I finally received the party invitation I’d always longed for, I didn’t even go. I still marvel at my foolishness to this day.” He finishes with a shake of his head.
Ortho crosses his arms and closes his eyes. “Hmm… I might be able to assist you with that. Could we reserve the castle’s ballroom tonight?”
Malleus blinks. “That shouldn’t be a problem… But why?”
“You’ll see!”
Later that night, after Ortho explains his plan, he instructs Malleus to go put on his old house warden uniform. It’s been ages since he last wore it, and the fabric feels alien to him. He tugs at his collar and fiddles with his gloves and fingers the lining of his coat, as restless as a snake eager to shed its skin. Even standing before the mirror, it feels like he’s looking at someone else, like the pale, awkward face staring back at him belongs to some unfortunate stranger. He clicks his tongue and turns to make his way to the ballroom. Ortho greets him when he passes through the towering doors.
“Now, it consumes a lot of battery power for me to run so much footage through this specific AI program all at once. I’ll probably be able to display the holograms for about two hours before I’ll need to stop. Okay?”
“Yes, that’s alright. I don’t imagine this will go on for very long, anyways.”
Ortho glides up to the gallery on the second floor, and he turns to face the dance floor. The plates in his chest once again unfurl to reveal the lens of his built-in projector, and in the blink of an eye, the ballroom is filled with the glimmering holograms of their old Night Raven College classmates.
“Is everything okay? May I start the music?” Ortho shouts from the gallery.
Malleus stills his nerves with a deep breath. “Go ahead!” he calls out, and the ballroom’s speakers start thrumming a moment later. At once, all the holograms turn and look up at him expectantly. Even from where he’s standing atop the stairs, he can easily pick out Silver, Sebek, and Lilia’s white faces peering at him from the crowd. Silver steps forward and offers his hand. Malleus rushes down the stairs and takes it.
The first few steps are awkward and offbeat. Again and again, Malleus moves his hands or feet too close to the hologram’s body, and his limbs pierce through the projected light like a clumsy blade. He winces, both at his inability to perform a simple waltz, and at the sight of his fingers halfway embedded in Silver’s waist. Eventually, Malleus figures out that if he counts the steps, it’s easier for him to move while hovering his hands just above Silver’s body. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three. Their steps finally line up with the beat, and they glide across the dance floor with confidence and surety.
For the first time that night, Malleus smiles, and Silver smiles back. How he ached to pluck that smile off the boy’s face and safekeep it in his pocket forever! Alas, all he can do is drop one arm and raise the other, signaling Silver to turn. He watches silently as Silver twirls beneath him, and their hands rejoin at the next step. After a few minutes, the music swells – it’s time for the swap.
Silver swings away and takes his father’s outstretched hand, while Sebek separates from Epel to come join Malleus. Malleus almost wants to turn around, to just stop right there and simply watch Silver and Lilia dance, but Sebek’s brilliant smile captivates him like nothing else. They move quickly, with Malleus leading the way, and Sebek forceful and heavy in his movements. Where Silver was reserved, Sebek is thunderous, and Malleus laughs as they whirl and race across the dance floor. When the music finally swells again, Sebek hands off Malleus to Lilia with a bow.
Malleus again fumbles for a few moments, having to adjust to Lilia’s much shorter height. He curses as his one hand shoots right through Lilia’s face and the other cuts through his shoulder. After a couple of hesitant steps, he at last finds his rhythm once more, and they move leisurely to the steady thrum of the music.
Like a pair of jubilant cranes declaring their great love, like the push and pull of the moon and the ocean’s tides, they take turns leading and following one another. The throng of students parts before them, clearing a path for the two to drift down. As the song races on, more and more couples stop to watch them, and soon it’s just Malleus and Lilia floating across the dance floor. Malleus can feel their eyes boring into him, but he doesn’t care. He has been bewitched. He grows more and more drunk on every turn, every dip, every carefully placed step and dizzying revolution. The floor disappears underneath him; the ballroom fades away. There is only him and Lilia and the music. Rapture’s final trumpet could’ve sounded in that moment and he wouldn’t have noticed.
As the last, winsome notes of the song gradually fade away, Lilia reaches up and ruffles Malleus’s head, and Malleus closes his eyes. For nearly five hundred long years he has lived trapped underneath the immovable weight of his sorrow. He has beaten his fists against it and kicked it and raked his claws down its sides, he has wailed and screamed and roared until his voice grew hoarse, he has cursed Heaven and Hell and begged for salvation from both, but he was never able to get it to even budge. The past few days, he finally felt it starting to shift. And just now, when that small hand he so desperately yearned to feel the touch of had reached out to him, it nearly disintegrated on the spot.
Finally, the song ends, the air stills, the spell is broken. Malleus opens his eyes, and the world reforms before him. He raises his hand and rubs his head where Lilia had touched him. He had almost felt it, almost felt those familiar, thin fingers running through his hair. Maybe if they just start the song over and go through the dance again, he’ll feel it next time.
“Little Shroud!” Malleus cries. “Please! Do it once more!”
“Okay!” Ortho yells from above, and the song begins again. The holograms disappear for a moment, and then reappear in their starting positions a second later. Malleus retreats to the top of the staircase. Then he turns around and takes Silver’s hand.
This time, there is no awkwardness, no clumsy missteps or fumbling movements. Malleus and Silver spin with all the grace of a courting swan, he and Sebek whirl as determined as a maelstrom. When Sebek releases him into Lilia’s arms, he handles the transition with ease, his hands finding their correct positions all on their own.
Yes, this time, when Lilia goes to pat his head, there is the slightest hint of the cool fabric of Lilia’s gloves ghosting over his skin. And as Lilia pulls his hand away, a scent not unlike one Malleus has smelled a thousand times before washes over him – it’s sharp like iron, and musky and sweet like jessamine. He’d always thought it fitting that Lilia smelled that way. The canary yellow bells that adorn jessamine vines were often mistaken for honeysuckle, and many a thirsty child had fallen paralyzed to the forest floor after drinking its sugary nectar. Its sweet smell was both a warning and a temptation, and Malleus found it purely intoxicating. He breathes in the air greedily.
Oh, if they could just try again! Surely, he’ll feel that hand’s tender caress next time!
“Little Shroud!”
Ortho restarts the music and resets the holograms again. And again and again, for hours on end. As the night marches on and the firefly lights of the stars begin to dot the sky, Ortho ignores the high-pitched beeping of his low battery alert.
It takes a few minutes for Malleus to realize the holograms have vanished. He’d been keeping his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he twirled Silver around the dance floor. When he finally opens his eyes, ready to take Sebek’s hand next, he sees only the dark, empty ballroom.
“Little Shroud!” he calls out, and then louder, when he doesn’t get a response, “Ortho!”
He teleports up to the gallery and finds the boy sprawled out on the floor, his eyes closed. He goes to check for a pulse, chiding himself once he realizes his simpleminded error. He flips Ortho onto his stomach and searches for the battery indicator light the boy had mentioned before, and he sees it blinking an angry red.
Malleus lets out the breath he’d been holding with a hiss, and he gathers Ortho into his arms. He staggers as he rises from the ground, the boy’s small frame proving much heavier than it belies.
He takes Ortho back to the guest room and deposits him on the bed. He fumbles as he hooks up the charging cable to the port on the boy’s back. Nothing happens at first, and Malleus worries that he’s done something wrong, but then a voice sounds out, “Time Until Full Charge: 3 hours and 42 minutes”, and a faint, green light begins to glow near the battery port. Ortho’s eyes open a moment later.
Malleus peers over him as he asks, “Little Shroud, are you alright? Can you hear my voice?”
“Malleus… Draconia…?” Ortho blinks a few times, and then sits up. “…Yes, all my systems are operational. According to my memory dump files, it appears I crashed due to a critically low battery. I’ll be good to go as long as I fully charge my battery tonight.”
“Ah, thank goodness…” Malleus exhales, relieved. “I do apologize, I was so absorbed in my own whims I lost track of time. I shouldn’t have put you in danger like that.”
Ortho looks away. “It’s okay... and I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?” Malleus asks, confused.
“I was trying to give you one last night together with everyone, but I went and ruined the whole thing…”
“You didn’t ruin anything!” Malleus exclaims, and then he clears his throat. Quietly, he continues, “You didn’t ruin anything. You gave me something I wasn’t aware my heart desperately needed. And I thank you sincerely for it.”
“Mm,” Ortho mumbles, only half listening. He blinks rapidly and looks around the room - at the door, at the bookcase, at the bedside table. Everywhere except at Malleus.
Malleus frowns. “Is something the matter?”
“I guess I just… I don’t know.” Ortho lets out a shaky sigh. “When I saw you dancing with those holograms, you looked so happy. And that made me really happy, too. But then I started thinking, you’re my last friend from NRC, right? One day, you’re going to be just another hologram to me, same as everybody else...” He brings his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around his legs. It reminds Malleus of how Silver and Sebek would look when they got upset as children, and a feeling he can’t find the name for begins prickling in his chest.
Perhaps encouraged, perhaps despaired, Ortho’s words pour out faster and faster. “I never asked my big brother to make me, but he did. And then he just up and left me behind. Everybody does. And there’s nothing I can do about it…”
His voice shrinks to a whisper. “…I guess I just don’t like that I never got any say in the matter.”
Ortho clears his throat, and then a heavy sob wracks his small body. The tears he’d been fighting so hard to hold back finally burst free and rush down his scrunched-up face. Malleus desperately wants to look away, but the moonlight reflecting off the boy’s tears paralyzes him.
He thinks back on all the times in his life when he had failed to comfort someone. He still remembers the night of Lilia’s departure with perfect clarity, he remembers the pure white of the snowflakes that fell on Silver’s face, how they mixed with the iridescent tears that spilled from his eyes, and how they melted from the warmth of his quiet sorrow. And he remembers the hard line of Sebek’s shoulder trembling under his hand at Silver’s funeral, he remembers how small the huge man had looked, crumpled over, folded in on himself, crushed under the immense weight of his endless grief.
And now he stands before this child who has wrenched back the heavy curtains of his heart and led him into the blinding light of the world for the first time in nearly half a millennium. At times, he viciously fought back against the small hand that guided him, refusing the open pastures before him like some forgotten creature long left to rot within the darkness of its cage. And at times, he was only eager to follow its gentle coaxing, desperate for even the slightest bit of reassurance that he really could escape the pit of his sorrows and the ground wouldn’t swallow him whole again.
Is there truly nothing he can do, nothing he can say to soothe the poor boy’s heart? Must he once again be rendered dumbfounded and dazed by those silent tears?
He decides this time will be different - it must be.
He sits down on the bed next to Ortho and takes some time to gather his words. After a couple seconds, he utters, “I see. Yes, I can certainly understand how you feel.”
“While I cannot say I agree with what your older brother did, I will say this...”
“When Lilia announced he was going to be raising a human child, I thought he had finally, truly lost his mind. I eventually figured out why he must’ve seen no problem with it, since he would far outlive the boy - he’d have his hands full for a couple of decades at most, and then be free to continue living his life as he pleased. I’m sure you can imagine what a shock it was when he ended up passing so much earlier than Silver did.”
“It wasn’t until I got older that I realized I had it all wrong. He must’ve known very well that he was going to die before Silver, and that’s precisely why he decided to take him in. For he knew that he couldn’t… He knew that he wasn’t strong enough to live in a world that had taken his heart away from him.”
“But he must’ve felt that I was strong enough, and that I can do what he could not. I suppose older generations always have such hopes for those who come after them.”
Ortho finally looks at him. He wipes the wet mess from his face and takes a deep breath. “Maybe my big brother felt the same way, that I’m strong enough…”
“Perhaps he did. I certainly think you are, at least.”
“…Thank you.”
Malleus stays with Ortho until his battery finishes charging. Ortho is due to return home the next morning, and they talk about all the things they saw and did together on his much too short visit. And then they talk about everything and nothing, about their memories from their time at school, about all the different people and things they missed, about all their budding hopes for the future. And finally, enveloped in the twilight darkness of that small room, they promise to always keep in touch.
They fall asleep to the sound of the cardinals heralding the dawn.
VI.
Malleus squints as walks with Ortho into the soft light of the courtyard. They stand still for a while, just listening to the gentle hum of the windchimes. The foul weather from the day prior has vanished, and the sun’s golden rays stretch triumphantly overhead. Ortho remarks that it somehow feels like it was both forever ago and only just a couple seconds ago since they last stood there, and Malleus quietly agrees.
He turns to Ortho and places his hand on the boy’s shoulder. It’s time for him to go home.
“And I will see you at the coronation?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
“And you will let me know when you’ve made it back safely?”
“Yup, I’ll email you soon as I get back to the island. And then we can schedule a time to play some online chess together!”
Malleus smiles, and Ortho beams up at him in return. “Good. Take care, Little Shroud.”
“You, too, Malleus Draconia.”
As he watches the lights from Ortho’s propulsion system dissolve into the amber sea of the early morning sky, Malleus strokes his thumb across the packet of rose seeds in his pocket.
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Choice ~ Aemond x Targaryen!Reader
request: The reader is daughter of Daemon and Laena and when her grandmother Rhaenys interrupts Aegon's coronation and it seems like she wants to burn The Greens alive it's her who jumps in front of Meleys not Alicent, because she loves Aemond? And she obviously chooses The Greens over her own family? 😊🐲 ~ @eddiemadmunson
note: I so enjoyed writing this, literally giggled & kicked my feet when I saw you requested, I love your work!! thank you so much for your kind words, I hope you enjoy friend 💚
warnings: spicy themes, nothing explicit
word count 1.4k
masterlist
The dragon must always have three heads.
You supposed the gods must believe that as well, as the Stranger claimed your mother’s life and that of your youngest sibling. Baela, Rhaena, and yourself. Those would be the only children spawned from the union of Laena Velaryon and Daemon Targaryen.
Your father Daemon had held you and your sisters as you wept into his chest, guttural sobs filling the early morning sky. You had just woken from sleep to the sound of silence.
Vhagar lamented loudly on the journey to Driftmark.
Your grandmother Rhaenys held you tightly to her side as you laid your mother to rest in the sea.
“Let me stay with you,” you had begged, clinging to her skirts. She will take Baela but not me, where is the fairness in that?
“Who shall keep your father company?” she had argued, stroking the tears from your cheeks.
The dragon must always have three heads.
That is what your stepmother said when she betrothed your elder sisters Baela and Rhaena to her sons Jacaerys and Lucerys.
“And you shall marry Joffrey, when he comes of age,” Rhaenyra had told you, stroking the hair on your head, and smiling fondly.
You remembered looking at the small babe who had yet to toddle. You would be much older than him when you married, well past the years of your maidenhood. You could not help but feel bitter, as your elder sisters rejoiced in their matches to the handsome Velaryons.
Your father wanted little to do with you or Rhaena, not out of anger but out of grief. He saw your mother’s face in yours with every breath you took, every word you spoke.
You left for the Red Keep when you first bled. You remembered walking into Rhaenyra’s room with bloodied sheets and a trembling upper lip.
“You are a woman now,” she had crooned, as tears filled your eyes, “you shall be brave, yes?”
Rhaenrya hoped your presence would placate Queen Alicent. Rhaena and you were very much alike, calm and collected, a juxtaposition to Alicent's sons. It was easy enough to live at court. You befriended your cousin Helaena rather easily, spending the majority of days in her company.
You enjoyed Aegon’s presence as well, he was fond of card games and wine and easy to trick when he had a bit too much to drink. You’d swindled him out of several gold dragons. Aegon was good for a laugh and did not mind you trailing along when he visited the taverns of King’s Landing for dancing and spirits. Only when he visited the brothels of Silk Street did he demand you stay behind.
It was Aemond’s company that pleased you the most. You spent endless hours with him cooped up in the library, legs sprawled across his lap as you both read. You enjoyed watching him in the training yard as well, your cheers were always the loudest when he bested Ser Criston.
It was hard to deny your attraction for the one-eyed prince, and his affections for you were apparent as well. He had heard you speak of missing Vhagar, and the days you joined your mother on dragonback. Ever since, Aemond would take you to the skies daily, reveling in laughter that spilled from your lips.
The first time he ever kissed you was on dragonback.
You knew you should not, that it was a disservice to your betrothed. But you could not stop the feelings in your heart, the blush that crept to your cheeks every time Aemond entered a room. How you shared this secret between you, telling no one not even Rhaena. Aemond would walk by you, letting his long fingers stretch to caress yours before continuing by.
The thrill was erotic and addicting. You gifted him your maidenhead; if he could not have your hand he would have that. You soon had him in every corner of the castle.
“I am yours,” you told him, threading your fingers through his silver hair, “and you are mine.”
Your appetite for him was insatiable, no matter how many times you had him it was never enough. You felt as though your very soul was desperate to tangle itself with his.
Tensions rise when your family arrives from Dragonstone, as the succession of Driftmark is challenged. Dinner is a battlefield and you play peacekeeper between both sides of your family.
“Y/N, come,” your father Daemon calls, staring down Aemond as he does so.
You hesitate a moment between the two Targaryen men.
Helplessly, you move to that side of the room, hearing Aemond grunt before leaving. Your father loops an arm around your shoulders, pressing a sweet kiss into your hair.
The following week is chaotic.
You awake to a locked door, and to the news, the King has passed. You wait in agony, clawing at the door, and attempting more than once to lower yourself from your balcony onto the cobblestone path below.
Aemond eventually comes for you, to escort you to the coronation.
“What of my grandmother?” you inquire.
“She is to remain here, for safeguarding,” he tells you and you stop in your tracks.
“As a prisoner, you mean,” you accuse and Aemond takes your hands in his.
“She is no prisoner, I assure you, my love,” he says, staring deeply into your eyes.
The coronation is a somber affair, Aegon lowers his head as though the crown is an executioner’s block. You stand off to the side, keeping your eyes on your prince. You know this is wrong in your bones. Rhaenyra was the heir, and she is being betrayed.
The dragonpit implodes, rocks and debris flying everywhere, dust appearing as though the smoke. The sound of panicked screams fills the air along with the call of a dragon. A call you have known all your life.
Lifting your head, you watch as Meleys appears, red like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Your grandmother rests on her back, a look of calm fury on her face. She always had that look about her, like the sky before a storm.
Meleys steps forward, crimson head rearing with vengeance. She opens her mouth, letting loose a terrifying wail. Aegon’s eyes are wide, tears beginning to stream down his face. Aemond has stepped in front of Helaena, in a protective stance. Alicent stands frozen, eyes wide with terror.
No.
No this cannot be happening.
Meleys continues to creep forward and you watch your grandmother’s lip curl, as though readying to speak the word that will scorch the green side of the family tree. This has to be done. In order for Rhaenyra to come into power, her siblings cannot live. This has to be done.
You say this over and over to yourself, but it is as though your heart and body have stopped listening.
This is a duty, this has to be done.
Your feet propel you forward.
This is necessary for Rhaenyra’s reign.
You step in front of Aegon.
He cannot be allowed to live.
Meleys face is inches from your own, she looks at you as though she recognizes you. Your grandmother’s expression is one of grief and rage. You hold your hands out to her, a prayer, a plea. Meleys screams, the smell of burnt flesh and dragonfire wafting over you. The sound of her wail pierces your heart, breaking it. You close your eyes prepared for the agonizing feeling of dragonflame.
It does not come.
You open your eyes and stare back into your grandmother’s, watching as the tears stream down her cheeks. You could have joined her, ran forward, and climbed on Meleys back. But you stay put in front of Aegon. Blocking him, protecting them.
Rhaenys’ expression says it all.
You have chosen your side.
As she flees the dragonpit you feel the warmth of Aemond’s hand against your own. You lean back into him, and he stays standing. The steadying force that holds you to the earth.
You watch the red wings disappear over the horizon, as though she is the sun bidding the world goodnight.
Aemond takes your hand, you feel his fingers interlace with yours. Aegon, who still stands behind your protective stance lowers his forehead to your back in relief. You can feel the weight of the conqueror's crown on your back.
You turn your head towards Aemond, his violet eye is wide.
You have chosen your side.
#aemond targaryen#aemond x reader#aemond x you#aemond x y/n#aemond x velaryon!reader#aemond targaryen imagine#aemond targaryen oneshot#aemond targaryen x reader#aemond targaryen x you#aemond targaryen x y/n#aemond one eye#aemond oneshot#aemond the kinslayer#hotd fic#aemond stannies
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the word intifada, in arabic, اِنْتِفَاضَة, literally means "shaking off." a shiver, shudder, tremour, trembling, shuddering, quivering. psalm 2:11 tells us to "serve the lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling (בִּרְעָדָֽה)." on the day of the lord in isaiah 13:13, the heavens and the earth will tremble: god is in the trembling. philippians 2:12 reiterates this psalm: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (τρόμου)." when the haemmorhaging woman of mark 5 audaciously touches christ's cloak and he feels his power leave him to heal her, she approaches him "trembling with fear" to confess what she has done, which he responds that her faith has healed her: "go in peace and be freed from your suffering." when jesus dies, there is an earthquake: the earth trembles at the moment of jesus’ death, the rocks split open, and the dead walk. what has been is shaken off. the crucifixion is not an end, but a beginning: a commencement, because god has commenced his intifada, his mission to free mankind from the human injustice which is the absence of grace and mercy.
throughout the scripture, trembling is the precursor to something else. it means god is in proximity; it means we are about to be touched by grace. shivering is the body’s natural reaction to an outside stimulus- an effort to get warm when confronted with cold, or the adrenaline in our bodies priming us to respond to danger. intifada is the natural human reaction to the outside stimulus: the body, the community, making an effort to get warm when left outside of justice, a response to danger. trembling is the work of god, a smudge from the fingerprint of his creation. when we shake, god is in the trembling. god is in the shaking of rage and tears. god is the fight against injustice. god is in the intifada. how much more does the earth quake for all those little ones.
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That post about Percy's son dying... SPECIALLY WHEN YOU LOOK AT THAT ASK WITH THE IMAGE OF THEIR SON!
God lord (Poseidon) have mercy (mercy not found)
Cause Percy hasn't mercy when you hurt someone she loves
Percy is just going to fight everybody until she has avenged her son's death... And that's never, Percy is never resting cause every day she wakes up knowing her dear son is dead for the same people she always fought for
(this is betrayal, this is worse than stabbing her, they had her soul and decided to celebrate when they crushed it. Percy is love, she was made of love and lived for love and now she learned true hate and it hurts her cause how can love change to something so evil)
And all the gods, all the Valkyries have to look at her, remember all the amazing things she did, how peaceful her presence was, how gladly she laughed with them, how she protected them from Poseidoin's rage and she taught her children about compassion and...
And know that falling means falling Percy, the kindness of Poseidon
The gods aren't kind, but they know about revenge and destruction
(Percy looks with dead eyes at Brunhilde, daring her to enjoy when a god gets hurt, daring her to smile. Percy holds her sword, just a smile, and she would kill all the living Valkyries, just to make her suffer a little of her pain. She puts her eyes on the little one at her side, which hides from her gaze. She's innocent. So was her son)
Poseidon stands at her side, one hand on her shoulder and the other trembling when he realizes that his son, the first child he really got to hold as a baby and that he knows since his time on her... Was dead
Now he wouldn't have his first son coming to him when he needed to learn about Atlantis or him showing his progress with the sword or try to make him as perfect as his mother
He closes his eyes and opens it again
He didn't have time for it
His wife and daughter was mourning and he had a fight to win, in the name of his love and his son
(Brunhilde was desperate. She knew they were over, humanity lost the only goddess that was able to stop the gods from destroying humanity by just asking and making all her husbands their enemy. Poseidon would just make her a new humanity, one truly made in her image, one kind that absolutely loved her)
Percy stood, sword in hand, and forced her way to fight and the human fighter had to look at her, knowing, that they were fighting the only one that always loved humanity
They connect eyes
Percy lost all her love for humanity
With all the rage from that "Get in the water" song, Percy is ready to make Noe´s canon event look like a little drama
i feel like percy won't give in to her anger and punish ALL of humanity + the valkyries... at first
percy's not a hateful, wrathful person. she won't immediately go to genocide once tragedy hits her. she rational, she knows that not all humans are to blame, knows that none of this would've ever happened had the gods just let humans be.
but the gods definitely won't allow that
once she "recovers", she'll first demand and beg for ragnarok to end already to prevent anymore deaths. the gods, poseidon included, will manipulate her (some know what they're doing, some genuinely dont realize they're being manipulated). they'll remind her of how the humans cheered for her son's death, how the betrayed her for rejoicing in her grief after all she's done for them.
percy's not that easy to manipulate, but when she's so emotionally vulnerable??? oh she'll be an easy victim eventually. soon the grief leaves and the anger festers, soon she'll start to obsess over how the humans cheered at her pain, and soon, she'll start to become just as hateful and genocidal as the other gods. and honestly, percy becoming this way is just as tragic 😔
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To break the chains
Father Matthew was a pious man. Of course, he believed in God, that was kind of a given for his profession. But he also, with all his heart believed in the humans around him.
This wasn't always easy, especially since he heard so many troubling confessions just about every day for 30 years now. There were people lying and stealing, men who cheated on their wives, women betraying their husbands. And, as father Matthew was painfully aware, these were just the ones actually making a confession. The vast majority of people didn't go to church, and probably didn't even consider that all of them made mistakes every day. He couldn't even blame them much.
Many of the rules his faith dictated him had to appear terribly outdated. Just today, a young man, probably around twenty years old, confessed with a trembling voice that he thought he might be gay.
Father Matthew sighed internally while tidying up his church. If Father Matthew were to make the rules, he would have told the young man to rejoice and be happy with who he was. But he didn't make the rules. That was a job for wiser men than him.
Still, or perhaps even because of these, he still believed in people. At the bottom of their heart, everyone always wanted to do good and be an awesome human being. There were just those, who let themselves stray from what was right. Or perhaps those people knew in their soul what was right but chose the wrong path to actually realize what was inside them.
He sighed again. He had told the young man to repent and pray to God for enlightenment, knowing full well that he wouldn't see that man again. This faith wouldn't give him the answers he was looking for, and sometimes, father Matthew wished he could change that.
But such thoughts were dangerous in itself and shouldn't be thought. Who was he to decide over the teachings of his faith?
Before leaving the church, he spoke a short prayer: "I wish, people were free from the chains that hold them from doing really good."
Unbeknownst to him, his prayer was heard, but not by the being he hoped. A mischievous sprite had flown by the window just in time to hear that wish and, after having a short look into the priests mind, chuckled to himself. Perhaps the good father should start with himself with his selfless wish.
"What?" Father Matthew asked confusedly as he turned back towards the church building. He looked at it carefully before finally seeing something strange. On one of the windows there seemed to be a small figure dancing away, waving its hands around. However, after Father Matthew shook his head and looked again, the figure was gone. Strange, but perhaps nothing more than a trick of the light. He shrugged his shoulder and started his long walk home.
After a few minutes however, Father Matthew began to feel strange. His robe didn't seem to fit as well as it used to and he had some trouble keeping his balance, using a street light to steady himself. Something was wrong with his robe! It should of course have long flowing sleeves, but right now, his thin and aging arms were bare, and the robe was sleeveless. Upon closer inspection, these weren't his arms as well. They had no freckles and the thin hairs he could see were dark and not gray like they should be. Also, the arms were far too muscular, like they belonged to someone who was used to physical labor or worked out a lot. Fascinatedly, he inspected his hands. They weren't rough and worked, but they were definitely young and strong - much younger than the rest of father Matthew, bare his new arms.
He brought his hands to his face and felt it. No wrinkles! His face had changed. The skin felt smoother and firmer, and apparently, he had a beard now. His hair was strong and had not receded. Judging from the color of his arm hairs, it was dark.
Suddenly, Matthew felt a breeze on his chest. When he looked down, he noticed that the top part of his robe had dissolved, leaving his torso bare. As he watched, however, he could see his body rejuvenating. His skin cleared up and at the same time, his chest and upper body became strong and firm with muscles. Matthew could see chest and body hair sprouting in, and a leather harness forming itself around his chest. What a curious piece of clothing!
His lower body was next to change. His legs grew thicker and stronger as did his feet. Soon enough, he saw that the bottom half of his robe also shift and change material. What had once been flowing fabric became hard and tight black leather, with a shine to it, as it became a form-fitting pair of leather pants. His shoes followed suit, becoming black leather boots.
Suddenly, Matthew felt a rush of testosterone. Before his very eyes, a large bulge formed in the leather pants, while he felt his underwear disappearing. The feeling of a stiff erection growing in front of him made him gasp with excitement. It wasn't just any kind of arousal though; this one felt different. This one felt... masculine. He moaned, as he couldn't stop himself thinking of sexy... men? He knew that wasn't right, but it was all he could think about. Why shouldn't it be right? He was gay, he was a gay man.
Matt gave his cock a playful tug through his leather pants. There would be enough chance tonight to get his dick wet. One of the patrons, or perhaps Jerome, the beefy black bouncer of the bar where Matt worked were always done for a good fuck.
But that was a thing for later - now it was time for work. Matt jogged the rest of the way until he reached the rainbow house, the gay bar Matt worked as a barkeeper. He loved his job, and he was damn good at it. People jokingly even called him "Father Matt" because he was such a good listener when people told him their problems. If there was one thing, he was certain of, though, it was that he loved people. They were amazing, all of them, at the bottom of their hearts.
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King Edward
In the months that followed King Wilhelm's demise, Windenburg seemed to be on a brighter path. One morning, King Edward called for an audience at The Tower of Windenburg, and the crowds gathered eagerly, their eyes filled with anticipation. At only 12 years old, King Edward wasn't even tall enough to reach the podium, so he stood on books to make himself appear taller. He was flanked by his mother, Dowager Queen Cordelia, who stood with a sense of quiet pride.
As the young king prepared to speak, there was a hush that fell over the crowd. Edward's voice, though young, carried a weight of authority and determination. "In a time of crisis, we must show compassion and resolve. Thus, I announced the conversion of The Tower of Windenburg and The Palace of Westsimster into infirmaries for those afflicted by the plague. Furthermore, I pledged to hire 1500 new plague doctors to aid in this dire hour. My vow is to protect my people, not to condemn them. Through employing more doctors and fostering care, we witness the slow return of hope as our afflicted brethren begin to mend." Edward stated. He employed more doctors, and slowly, people started to get better. The plague had seemingly run its course, though many people had died, it seemed that no one new was getting infected.
By summer, traces of the virus had vanished, and many of the traveling plague doctors went on their way. The streets of Windenburg were bustling with life once more, and the people rejoiced in the newfound sense of hope and optimism. King Edward's swift and decisive actions had not only saved countless lives but had also restored faith in the monarchy. The young king's compassion and determination had proven that age was no barrier to leadership, and his reign was marked by a sense of unity and progress.
On the fifth day of summer, 1350, crowds gathered around Westsimster Abbey for the coronation of King Edward. The Abbey was heavily guarded, and only nobles and a handful of lucky citizens were allowed to attend the ceremony. Edward, dressed in his finest clothes and wearing his custom-knit coronation robe that was 9 feet in length, walked beside his mother, Cordelia, toward the coronation chair. The robe trailed behind him as he moved, a symbol of the weight of the crown he was about to bear.
As they approached the coronation chair, Cordelia helped her son remove the robe, her hands trembling slightly with the weight of the moment. She looked at Edward, her heart filled with a mixture of pride and fear. Pride for the son who was about to become king, and fear for the challenges that lay ahead. "He is but a mere child," she thought to herself, her mind racing with worry.
"As my son ascends the throne, I can't help but fear the weight of the crown upon his young shoulders," Cordelia whispered to herself, her voice barely audible over the murmurs of the crowd. "Will he be strong enough to withstand the challenges that lie ahead?" Her mind was clouded with uncertainty, and she couldn't shake the feeling of foreboding that lingered in the air.
Edward sat in the coronation chair, a place where many of his ancestors had also sat before him, and waited for the crowning to begin. The High Priest of the Jacoban Church, Paul Leudemond, would be conducting the ceremony, despite his biases. Facing the crowd, Paul began his speech.
"Your Majesty, esteemed nobles, and beloved citizens of Windenburg, today marks a significant moment in our history. We gather to witness the coronation of King Edward, a young ruler who, despite his tender age, has shown remarkable wisdom and courage. As the high priest of the Jacoban church, it is my honor to preside over this sacred ceremony and to bestow upon our young king the blessings of our faith. Let us begin."
"I am here to affirm that Edward is not merely ascending to the throne by birthright, but by divine will. The Jacoban faith has long held that kings are chosen by the grace of the Almighty, and in Edward, we see a beacon of hope for our kingdom."
After saying a prayer to St. Jacob and anointing the new king, Paul placed the crown upon Edward's head, and everyone in the building bowed before their new king. Following that, Edward stood up to the side, and Cordelia was guided to the chair. Paul placed the Imperial Orb of Windenburg in Cordelia's hand and stated , "Your Majesty, it is my duty to present you with the imperial orb of Windenburg, a symbol of your regency. However, I must also remind you that this orb is not yours to keep. It is a temporary token of authority, entrusted to you until King Edward comes of age."
"I trust you are aware of the weight of this responsibility. You are not the rightful ruler of Windenburg, and your reign is but a temporary measure. I urge you to remember that, as you hold this orb, you are merely a steward of the throne, not its true sovereign. It is my fervent hope that you will fulfill your promise to relinquish the throne to King Edward on his 18th birthday. Your Majesty, I implore you to set aside any personal ambitions and act in the best interests of our kingdom."
Cordelia held the orb out in her hand and stated, "I vow to uphold the regency of Windenburg with unwavering dedication, ensuring the prosperity and well-being of our kingdom. I pledge to guide and nurture King Edward, preparing him for the responsibilities of the throne. On his 18th birthday, I will gracefully relinquish the regency, allowing him to ascend as the rightful king of Windenburg. Until that day, I will serve as a steadfast protector of our realm, honoring the trust placed in me by our people."
After that, Cordelia stood up, and both of them headed towards the crowd, stopping on the ledge to wave as many monarchs have traditionally. Behind them stood Paul, a look of resentment on his face. He would do anything within his power to remove Cordelia from her position. The crowds roared as Edward and Cordelia exited the Abbey, parties in the streets broke out, the people were overjoyed by their new King, despite his age.
Back at The Parish of St. Jacob, the Jacoban clergy met again in secrecy to discuss their plans of ambush. Paul, with a solemn expression, addressed the gathered clergy. "My brethren, the ascension of King Edward, a mere boy, and the regency of Queen Cordelia, a woman of Bagley blood, are affronts to our faith and to the very fabric of our society. It is an insult to the Jacoban church and to the traditions that have guided our kingdom for centuries."
Paul then turned his gaze to a guest he had called to the meeting, Lord Richard of Windenburg, the current King's first cousin once removed. "Your Grace," Paul addressed him, "The regency of Cordelia is a blight upon our kingdom, a threat to the very fabric of our society. We cannot allow her to continue to wield power unchecked. We must take decisive action to protect the sanctity of our kingdom and to ensure that King Edward is guided by the true principles of our faith."
Richard, with a furrowed brow, listened intently. He knew that the Jacoban clergy were prepared to go to great lengths to achieve their goals, and he was prepared to do whatever it took to protect the kingdom. "Your Holiness," he replied, "I understand the urgency of the situation. Cordelia's regency poses a significant threat to the stability of our kingdom, and we cannot afford to let her continue to wield power unchecked. I am prepared to do whatever it takes to protect the kingdom and to ensure that King Edward is guided by the true principles of our faith."
"As for Cordelia," Richard continued, "I propose a swift and covert operation. We'll stage the ambush when she's least expecting it, perhaps during a royal procession or a visit to a remote estate. The goal is to take her into custody without causing a scene, ensuring she's held in a secure location away from the influence of the crown. As for her fate, I advocate for keeping her alive but in captivity. Killing her would only escalate the situation and lead to further unrest. By keeping her isolated, we can neutralize her influence while avoiding unnecessary bloodshed."
Paul and Richard rose from their seats, their hands meeting in a firm handshake, a silent agreement passing between them. Their eyes held a steely determination, knowing that the ambush they planned would soon be set into motion. With a shared nod, they reaffirmed their commitment to the cause, understanding the weight of their decision and the consequences that lay ahead.
In Tartosa, the aging Dowager Queen Margaery of Windenburg sat in her chambers at Thebe Castle, a sense of nostalgia and longing filling the air. She sifted through the letters and correspondence that had arrived from overseas, her heart heavy with the weight of the past. The news from Lady Dorothea, a trusted confidante, struck her like a bolt of lightning. King Wilhelm V, her son, had passed away. Margaery's hands trembled as she read the words, her mind racing with memories of her son's troubled reign.
As she absorbed the news, a mixture of emotions washed over her. Grief for her son's passing mingled with a profound sense of relief. For years, she had borne the burden of his actions, the weight of his tyranny. Now, with his demise, she felt a weight lifted from her shoulders, a newfound freedom she hadn't experienced in decades.
Margaery's thoughts turned to her daughter, Empress Mary, who was unaware of the news. She called for Mary to join her, the urgency in her voice evident. As Mary entered the room, Margaery's eyes met hers, filled with a mix of sorrow and resolve.
"My dearest Mary," Margaery began, her voice trembling with emotion. "I have received news that will change our lives forever. King Wilhelm, your brother, has passed away. While I am stricken with grief for his loss, I also feel a sense of relief. For so long, I have carried the weight of his actions, the burden of his reign. Now, with his passing, I am free from the shackles of his tyranny."
Mary listened in stunned silence, her mind reeling from the news. She had not seen her brother in years, nor had she witnessed the turmoil of his rule. Her memories of him were from their childhood, a time when they were close and carefree.
Margaery continued, her voice filled with determination. "This moment marks a new beginning for me. For thirty long years, I have been estranged from our family in Windenburg. It is time for me to return home, to mend the rifts that have divided us, and to reconnect with our loved ones. Would you accompany me, my dear Mary? Let us reclaim our rightful place in the embrace of our family."
Mary's heart swelled with a mix of emotions as she looked at her mother. She knew that this journey would not be easy, but she also knew that it was necessary. With a nod, she replied, "Yes, Mother. I will accompany you. Let us begin this journey together, to heal the wounds of the past and forge a new future for our family."
#simsmedieval#royalsims#windenburg#sims4#royal#sims#gameofthrones#royalty#thesimsmedieval#simsstory#legacy challenge#sim legacy#ts4 legacy#sims 4 legacy#ts4 decades challenge#ultimate decades challenge#sims 4 decades#decades legacy#medieval#royal simblr#royalsim#royalty sims#royal fashion#tower of london#windenburg castle#tartosa#ts4#simblr#sims 4#sims 4 screenshots
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this isn’t finished but I wanted to post it for Xmas eve!!!! (Even though here it finishes soon). I will post the completed version soon!!!
This is part of the two sinners world
Gator has a Xmas present at readers house
18+ only!!! Mdni
Ok seeing Gator on Christmas Day is out of the question. He’s spending the day with Glenda and Roy reciting their favourite psalms and thanking the lord for a bountiful Christmas. Glenda goes all out at Christmas, it’s obviously her favourite holiday and she constantly updates her Facebook with pictures of a content looking Roy and an exhausted looking Gator. No doubt, Glenda will have made him a piece of her artwork and bought him some novelty socks. He’ll smile at her and press a kiss to her cheek but you rejoice in the knowledge that thoughts of your Christmas Eve are running through his head.
[sent at 13:30] You: got your Christmas present at my house. Door will be unlocked for when you finish at 6. I’ll be upstairs 🎁
[received at 13:42] Gator💩🐍: am i on the nice list?
[sent at 13:43] You: no. See you at 6 💋
***
His Christmas present is you- OBVIOUSLY. But it’s a version of you that Gator only really gets when he begs and even then, you don’t always give it him. He asks for this when you eat his ass or when he’s had a week of basically getting non stop shit from his daddy or Glenda.
He wants you to be in control and dominate him.
You’re wearing a red lace set with garters and pointy red heels. It’s nearly pitch black by the time Gator arrives. You’ve left on one lamp downstairs to guide him up but honestly he knows the layout of your home like the back of his hand. In the bedroom, your curtains are open with the twinkling of outdoor Christmas lights provide occasional flickers that illuminate your bed sheets. A cinnamon candle is glowing by the door and nearly blows out when Gator enters as dramatic as ever.
You’re sat at the end of the bed waiting for him and you smirk as you take in his expression- seemingly enthralled by your red look.
“Crawl to me, baby” your voice is low and by the way Gator drops to his knees without hesitation- you already know how tonight is going to go.
He’s slow in his movement, keeping eye contact with you as he crawls towards your open legs and stopping a few inches from your panties. His eyes are fixed on the damp spot on your red underwear and the shuddering breaths are filling the room. You run your hands through his slicked back hair as you try not to recoil at the unnatural feeling of brushing your nails through hair gel.
“Y’wanna taste?” He looks up at you with the most love sick eyes you’ve ever seen, he nods slowly as he brushes his tongue over his bottom lip. You grip his hair in your hand as you push him into your panties, “make me cum with my panties still on baby- y’don’t deserve to taste properly just yet”. He groans as he pushes his face further into your pussy. He’s messy with it and you can feel his spit dripping down between your legs. It feels so good and the knowledge that he’s desperate to please you brings you closer and closer to the edge.
“Take my panties off and make me cum on your tongue Gator, don’t let me down” you throw your head back on the bed as you feel Gator rip your panties down your legs and throw them across the room. He’s that desperate to make you cum he’s moaning into your pussy as he eats you out and you know he’s palming himself over his cargos. Your back arches as you clamp your thighs around Gator’s head and cry out as you cum.
He’s pressing hot kisses to your thighs as your pussy clenches around nothing, you can feel your breathing begin to regulate again as you come down from your high. Your hand smoothes over his ruffled hair, “that was so good Gator. You did such a good job…good to know you can do something right”. His smile drops at your final sentence. You stand on trembling legs and go to your closest to get the box that Gator both wants and dreads.
You can hear him kicking off his boots and unzipping his cargos.
“Did I tell you to get undressed?”
“No but uh- I thought…”
You softly kiss him, tasting the remnants of your cum on his plush lips. “Don’t think baby, I know how hard that can be for you. Just lie on the bed dressed how you are now- hands above your head”.
#gator tillman fanfic#gator tillman fic#gator tillman smut#gator x reader#gator tillman#fargo fx#fargofx#fargo season 5#fargoedit#fargo#roy tillman#joe keery x reader#joe keery smut#joe keery#gator tillman x fem!reader#two sinners works
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5. 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐈𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐲
Tags: bakugou x fem!reader, juxtaposition, angst, swearing, confusion,
The constant stream of thoughts is similar to the ringing of an old rotary phone. It’s a sharp, blaring, drawn-out noise. It comes again, and again, and again, and aga—
Quiet.
It’s too quiet.
No talking, no conversations, nobody.
Your fingers burn from playing the piano for so long. You don’t even want to go on anymore, but if you stop, the silence will return.
Why isn’t Katsuki here yet?
You reach into your bag, a last-ditched effort to find your earp. Just like the other 99 times you attempted, you come up with nothing. Of course you forgot to bring them with you today.
Quiet.
Quiet.
Quiet.
What are you doing here?
You draw your knees closer to yourself, slamming your hands against your ears. You know how it goes, but you pray, just this once, that it will drown out the noise.
Silence is loud.
Silence is so, so loud.
You’re so lonely.
Are you crying?
Pathetic.
Worthless.
Worthless.
Worthless—
“Didn’t I tell you to turn on the fan? What do you want, a heat stroke?”
Katsuki’s voice slices through your thoughts like a sharpened axe, and it grants you just enough time to exhale a shaky breath, pull your hands that are clamped on your ears off and fix your expression to a neutral one just in time for the curtains to be tugged aside to reveal ruby red eyes staring directly at you.
Part of you rejoices. It craves attention like a crazed, sugar-driven child and delights in the mere fact that Katsuki’s talking to me! Katsuki is looking at me!
The other part of you punches it in the face and flips yourself off mentally like any mature person would.
Your heart pounds in your ears and it takes little time for it to normalise as you smile sheepishly and tell him you forgot.
After an eye roll and another snarky remark, your hands stop trembling from behind the piano.
In less than a minute, the thoughts devouring you inside out are gone.
--
These spirals are nothing new for you, but they had eased off the moment Katsuki crashed back into your life. With each pull of the curtain signalled another day of bliss, another sigh of relief because it meant someone to talk to.
It meant that the silence would go away.
It meant that those voices, those calm, mocking, distorted voices would leave, even just a bit.
“You’re a good listener,” Katsuki had said once. “But this ain’t a therapy session. So spill. What is going on in your life? Unless being bad at math is your one personality trait.”
You laugh it off, and change the subject. Katsuki is on to you, and you know it. But you also know that he can read you well, so he won’t pry even if he’s on the edge of his seat.
It’s not that you don’t want to tell him about your day. You wish to tell him about that surprise test, or that weird philosophical essay question you have to do. You wish to tell him that you’d finished that question on circles, which ironically had more triangles than curves on it.
You wish you could tell him something that would stack up to his wild, exciting day, full of adventures you can never experience.
But you can’t, so you don’t.
Instead, you share little things: Your new assignment, your dead plant, those friends that are 5 years long gone.
It’s all to fish out the repressed chuckles and snorts because that is so, so much easier than poking holes at a fragile dam that’s bracing a lake of tears.
--
Worthless
Worthless.
Worthless.
Worthless.
Worthless.
Worthless—
.
.
.
Part of you is scared. Scared that one day you’d wait, and wait, and wait and nobody would look behind the thick drapes that conceal you to find you. Scared isn’t the right word.
Terrified is.
--
Before Katsuki, the silence was deafening. Thoughts were all-consuming, and you had panic attacks coming out at the most random instances. You wish you were busy enough to simply not have time for these lapses, but that’s what happens when you become a wallflower. No one means no care, and you’re trying to tightrope the line between insanity and lucidity.
I’m okay.
Earphones block out the noise.
The piano overwhelms the silence.
You wanted to be a performer, once, but that dream fizzled away the moment it came.
Do you really, though?
You were cruising along life like a small sail boat in a storm: coping, even if just barely. And then Katsuki opened that curtain, with his red eyes and gruff voice you’re no longer used to hearing. He came back.
Why did he come back?
--
Silence rings loud in the hall.
You stare bleakly at the curtains.
You can’t wait for Katsuki to come.
--
Author's notes:
This is my way of saying sorry. My posting schedule is scattershot and I'm running on 4 hours of sleep after 5 hours of getting my ass whipped playing badminton, but my stubborn ass refuses to give up this story.
#juxtaposition (Bakugou)#mha#mha fanfiction#my hero academia#bakugou katsuki#katsuki bakugō#bakugo x you#bakugou x y/n#bakugou katuski x reader#angst#bakugou x reader#bakugou angst
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𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 | blurb
summary—when he begins to dreak down after finally taking his revenge, tav is right there by his side
pairing—astarion x gn!tav
warnings—mentions of trauma, mentions of death, mentions of blood
word count—233
rating—pg
a/n—idk i'm just mad tav doesn't get the option to go to him and comfort him in this scene so i wrote a little something
Speckled with blood he falls to his knees, dropping the dagger in his hand. His old master lies before him—Cazador—dead at last. Blood still seeps from the body’s fresh wounds, deep punctures filling every corner of his torso. His lifeless eyes open as whatever was left of his decrepit soul slips from his body.
The room is deathly silent. Silent besides the choked sobs finally erupting from the broken spawn’s throat. Choked sobs which quickly turn to howls as he weeps.
It’s over. It’s finally over.
His companions stand still, frozen at the scene. At such a grand display of anger and violence. Revenge had finally been taken after no mere two hundred years of torment. Yet now he sobbed. He hadn’t expected that. No, he had been waiting for this moment for two centuries. He should have been rejoicing but all he could feel was this deep, wrenching anguish now that the deed was finally done.
They were there in an instant. Warm, gentle arms twining around him, holding him close. A soothing hand stroking his back. Nimble fingers carding through his bloodstained hair.
“It’s over, Astarion. It’s over.”
He only cries more, his endless tears spilling out onto his lover’s shoulder. His whole body trembles as he finally moves to hug them back. His arms desperate in the way they hold them, clawing at the back of their clothes as he buries himself in them. Craving the peace that always came with their warmth.
Tav only hushes him and holds him tighter, reassuring him that they are there, that he is safe. That it really is over. Finally, after all these years.
Cazador lays dead in a pool of his own blood and, for the first time since the day he woke up in the ground, Astarion is truly free.
#—warrenwrites ✦#astarion x gender neutral tav#astarion x gn!tav#bg3 astarion#baldurs gate 3 astarion#astarion bg3#astarion#astarion blurb#astarion angst#bg3#baldur's gate 3#baldur's gate 3 spoilers
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𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐓𝐎𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟑
DAY 15: WEDDING NIGHT
Basil Hawkins 𝘹 F! 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳
Requested by: @lady-winter13 ➡ Sorry I completely forgot to add the gender so let’s try again! 🙈 Could I please ask for kinktober 15. wedding night 🤍 with basil Hawkins from one piece? With female she/her. Thank you a sorry! 💗
tw: mdni. very romantic sex after the wedding. oral. penetration. mentions of pregnancy.
wc: 924
𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
Long locks grazing your face, there was nothing but him and you that night…
Both have said “yes, I do”. Both have decided to start a new journey, piracy would not suffice by itself if there wasn’t a person with whom share the One Piece with. The wedding had been amazing. You all drunk, partied, ate, and had fun.
Hawkins slowly peeled you off your white dress, with delicacy and love. Something like a wedding dress should be kept safe, but your skin is what mattered to him the most.
His permanent serious frown had been replaced by soften eyes, adoring, praising, your special lingerie. The finest white lace, a sexy second skin Basil is dying to rip too.
A sweet love, but still so passionate you couldn’t wait no more. His lips reached for yours, impertinently. And melted in one lustful kiss, you slowly walked back until your shins hit the bed.
Him and you fell to the mattress, where rose petals abounded. Your husband took your arms over your head, kissing after your exposed neck. In a delicate motion, he also plastered the pleasing pain of little bites.
“I love you, my wife…” he murmured, tickling your chest with his blonde wavy locks.
“I love you, my husband…” you purred, caressing his cheek with loving and protective touch.
Though having made love uncountable times, that time felt absolutely different. The ring adorning your fingers shone the brightest with the warm dancing lights of a thousand candles in that room. And the sound of the waves crashing on the shore so close to your love nest mixed perfectly well with desperate panting.
Hawkins kisses travelled the mountains of your breasts and the holly valley in between them. Down, down he reached your belly button where he stayed long enough to whispers how much he was dreaming of listening to a new heartbeat inside you.
“Soon, my love…” you murmured, trying to hold tears. It wasn’t necessarily urgent nor a reality, but how could speak louder about his love than wanting to bring new life with you?
The magician that enchanted your heart, with whom he only could let his guard down, kept lowering his kisses until your mound of Venus… he made you tremble with just breathing closely to your sex.
Slow pecks over the lace of your panties, that soon turned more and more see through… your wetness was taking over all of it. But as much as he loved how the lingerie looked on your beloved anatomy, he still preferred the natural taste of your skin.
Taking all of his time, Basil pulled your coverings down. Slowly, enjoying the graze of his hands from your hip bones to the bridge of your feet, he undressed you completely.
A kiss in your inner thigh, a bite then. You flinched, smiling.
A kiss on your entrance, then the tip of his tongue on your labia. You moaned, louder this time. And from the tip to his whole mouth, devouring you so deliciously, with taste buds rejoicing on the ambrosial taste of your intimacy.
Your hands reached for his hair, grabbing a fist full of it and pulling it along with your arching back, the more he indulge in your sex.
Several times you whined his name loudly and so lustfully, and perhaps bad words you couldn’t quite remember abandoned your lips too.
Basil, whose heart he could swear was about to jump from his chest, smiled the more you quivered and tried to close your legs trapping his face in between them. If the chances of surviving to such deadly pleasure, were no more than 1%, he would have taken them without a doubt.
And the closer you were getting to climax, the more you pleaded for him to kiss your lips. You wanted him, once and for all, inside you. So deep, and for the rest of the night…
“Come here, come here please” you begged.
Basil stopped; he couldn’t say no to his magical wife’s desires.
“But my love… you haven’t finished, yet” he murmured, still touching your sex but crawling on top of you.
“I only want to finish if I have you inside of me tonight, Basil…” you said, causing that man to shake. None of his predictions could have told him how magical your wedding night had turned…
He sighed, in pure need, in pure desire. And your toes helped his black trousers to slide down his legs. Your hands, to unbutton his ruffled white shirt.
Many were the scars his battles had left on his chest, and you loved each and every single one of them. And while you waited for him to finally bury in you, you traced those scars with the tip of your index finger.
He got greedy, though, and didn’t immediately penetrate you. He played with the wetness of your femininity, mixing the sprouting honeys one with the other’s.
You were burning; he was already moaning without even going deep into you. And your heels carved on the small of his back, because you couldn’t wait no more.
“Please…”
“Yes, my magic star…”
Slowly, steadily, securely, and lovingly, he let himself slide in. Both moaning at the first sensation of the intrusion. Your walls spasming, milking, getting tight around him. Him throbbing, getting harder, pushing against the pressure of your womb.
And maybe, just maybe and for the first time… his eyes filled with tears, of joy, of love… because that night had been the first of the rest of your lives living them as one… 💖
taglist: @stephisokay @henriooo @shuzuiikoii @bullbonez @fengxinwifutobecalled @i-started-reading-fanfics-at12 @crimsonlikeshellsing @weebare808 @thestarwasborn @bookandyarndragon @cyberdazetragedy @uzxotic @fushiguroshotwife 💖🙆♀️
#basil hawkins x reader#hawkins x reader#hawkins one piece x reader#basil hawkins#hawkins one piece#one piece#one piece x reader#one piece fanfiction#one piece oneshot#one piece scenario#kinktober#kinktober 23#kinktober 2023
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[ Soothe ] for Elucien 🤍
Elain slumped onto her bed, exhausted. It had been a hard day's work of gardening. Her muscles were completely sore. With little else to do in the Night Court, gardening had practically become her daily job. Not like they'd allow her to do anything else. Her request to scry in place of her sister had been denied. They'd rather an emotionally unstable Nesta try than her. It showed what little they thought of her. Bleh.
Elain rubbed her eyes. She been planning on going straight to bed, but how was she going to sleep with all of these sore muscles? So, she made an impulsive decision.
She was exhausted, but she got out of bed and went towards the wraiths' rooms. She knocked on Nuala's door, and within a few moments, her and Cerridwen had appeared beside her like apparitions.
Other people might find them creepy, but they didn't bother Elain very much. She was a literal Seer; she was the weirdo to most people. "Take me to Lucien's house," she said quietly. The wraiths tilted their heads curiously at her. Elain was no fool; she knew the wraiths had been set on her to spy on her, but at least she could befriend them and somewhat gain the advantage. Perhaps in time, their loyalty would be to her and not Rhysand. That would be hilarious. "Are you going to interrogate me, or are you going to do as I say?" Elain asked, a little bite in her voice this time. At her sharp tone, the wraiths linked their arms with hers and the three of them disappeared into the shadows. It wasn't quite like winnowing; no, it was far more uncomfortable. Like melting into the shadows before coming to be again.
"Don't wait up for me," Elain called back at the wraiths, watching them disappear. She walked towards the door to Lucien's house. The whorls of wood on the front were elegant, and Elain could not help but admire the beauty that surrounded everything that had to do with this man. You would never catch him lacking in style.
It was so goddamn attractive.
Before she could knock on the door, Lucien opened it for her. "Elain," he murmured, and Elain squeezed her eyes shut for a moment to control her visceral reaction to the low timbre of his voice. "Lucien," she got out. God, her voice was so breathy; she was doing a terrible job at controlling her instincts. He moved aside so that she could walk in.
"Why are you here." Lucien's voice was careful, restrained. Elain didn't fail to notice his hands flexing back and forth, like he was resisting the urge to grab her and do unspeakable things to her.
Elain blushed. She bit her lip, and Lucien's eyes focused on it. "Couldn't sleep."
"So you decided to sleep walk and somehow wound up here?" he drawled sarcastically.
Elain's spine straightened at his tone. "No, I decided to come here."
"Why? You had no problem avoiding me like the plague for the past several months." He stalked away, and Elain stormed after him. "I just thought-"
"You thought wrong, Elain," Lucien replied.
Elain snorted. "Feyre was right. You are an asshole."
Lucien whipped his head around to her, and Elain stumbled back a step at the expression on his face. His eyes glowed a brilliant deep amber as fire entered his body. The room heated up more with every second. His hands were trembling, fists clenched so hard the skin was paling around his knuckles. "Did Feyre ever tell you what I did for her?" he whispered.
Elain blinked. "N-no I don't think so."
Lucien laughed mirthlessly. "Figures. She always had a bit of a victim complex. Impossible for her to admit she's wrong in any scenario." He took a step towards Elain, who took another step back. "Did you expect me to rejoice at the half-starved animal who had murdered my friend taking his place? Even if it was for the sake of breaking the curse? How would you have felt, if I had killed Feyre and I'd replaced her in your house? Not so nice, hmm?"
Elain opened her mouth, but no words came out. It was hard to think of words when Lucien focused all of his relentless attention on her. She tried again. "No. Not nice." Such a lame response, but she had nothing else to say. Lucien snorted. "Either way, I warmed up to her in spite of everything. She seemed alright...for a feral human, at least. And Tamlin loved her, so when she showed up Under the Mountain, I swore an oath to protect her for him."
Elain shook her head. Feyre had never told her any of this. Lucien continued. "But then, Amarantha dragged me in front of Rhysand and threatened to have me killed. Feyre offered up her name in exchange for my life. Despite me nearly getting her killed a couple of times before that. True, I saved her a lot more, but..." Elain rolled her eyes at his addition, and Lucien took another step forward, "from that point onward, I wasn't just protecting her for Tamlin or Prythian. I was doing it for her."
Elain took another step back. Lucien smirked at her retreat, continuing his story. "She was forced to face this gigantic creature called the Middengard Wyrm. I called out the direction it was coming from, thus saving her life and nearly damning my own. Amarantha ultimately spared my life on the condition that Tamlin whip me instead. Twenty times."
Elain gasped as Lucien began unbuttoning his shirt. "What are you doing?" Elain asked breathlessly, unable to stop watching as Lucien slid his shirt off, turning his back to Elain. There were long, jagged scars going all across Lucien's back. Elain stepped forward to look at them more closely when Lucien shrugged his shirt back on. "Am I still the asshole, Elain?" he asked darkly, then he walked away. Elain nearly screamed in frustration. The urge to touch him, beg him to stay, was uncontrollable. But her legs were screaming again, and she sighed as she settled on the plush carpet in Lucien's living room. Her muscles were burning with lactic acid.
"Elain?" Lucien was by her side in an instant, hand on her shoulder. "Are you ok?" His tone was a far cry from what it had been a few moments ago, purely gentleness and concern in it. He cursed under his breath. "I'm so sorry, Elain, I had no idea-"
Elain laid her hand over his. "It's nothing life-threatening, Lucien," she assured him. "My muscles are just really sore."
Lucien blushed. "Well...I could, you know...?"
"Could what?" Elain asked.
Lucien muttered, "Icouldmassageyouifthatsnottooinappropriate."
"What's that?" Elain yelled, pretending not to understand.
"Oh, I know you heard me, lady," Lucien replied, a bit of a flirtatious note in his voice now. Elain smirked. "You may massage me." She sat up, offering her back to him. He placed his warm hands on her shoulders and began to rub them in circles.
Holy Mother, he was good at this; Elain didn't know how she was going to get through this, especially when his hands moved down her arms, and he turned her around, taking one of her legs in his big palms. "May I?" he asked softly.
Elain barely managed to whisper, "Yes." His hands began working their magic on her upper legs, and she bit back her moan. She really shouldn't be as insanely turned on by this as she was. It was only made worse by the fact that Lucien's body was completely tense, his scent revealing that he was having just as much difficulty maintaining control as she was. When his thumbs dug into her inner thighs, she couldn't control her gasp.
Lucien immediately pulled away. "I'm sorry," he muttered, his cheeks scarlet. "I'll take my leave, my lady." He jumped up, hastily bowing, before he began to walk away. Bastard! He dare work her up this much and then just leave???? Hell no. Elain stomped up to him, shouting, "Lucien! You come back here this instant!" Lucien turned back to her, his russet eye wide, his metal one whirring like crazy. How was he just so effortlessly handsome? It drove Elain mad. So, she did the logical thing.
She stood on her tip-toes, grabbed Lucien by the collar, and slammed her lips to his.
#sorry i escalated with this one#i just love them#they're so#jkndfjie#elucien#lucien vanserra#elain archeron#fanfic
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Manwë Week Day 7
His brother never came.
Day 7: Freeform - Arda Healed
Relationship(s): Manwë x Varda, Manwë & Melkor
Synopsis: Dagor Dagorath is over, and Arda is healed - or is it? While everyone else enjoys the new world, Manwë mourns his brother.
Warnings: Angst, loss of sibling, mentions of death, a bit of body horror, self-destruction of fána (not suicide, but you have been warned)
AO3
The Battle of all Battles was over. The final notes of the Second Music faded away.
Arda Marred had died, and Melkor with it.
Arda Healed was born, yet he was still gone.
Manwë stood upon the plains of Valinor, the place where everything had ended before it began anew, destroyed and remade like living memory rising from the ashes. It was silent save for the gentle breeze that ever accompanied him, and the sky was perfectly, brilliantly blue.
He was waiting, had been for a while. Many ages ago, when they had first built the world — it felt like an eternity now and perhaps it was — Melkor had come upon Arda like a blazing comet, bright and crowned with ice and fire; yet all Manwë had seen in this world was the occasional shooting star that Varda sent across the sky.
His brother never came. His brother had fallen one final time, it seemed.
He had hoped that his father would remake him and cure him of his evil so they could finally be together as they were always meant to be, brothers in the mind of Ilúvatar; but alas, it seemed as though this was the one grace he would not be granted. It was a selfish desire perhaps, to want Melkor back after his death had ripped Manwë's own ëala apart, severing what remained of their connection with cruel finality. Yet it was for his brother's sake as well, having seen his decline and grieved the potential that was lost.
Had he not been taught that redemption was possible for all? Had Eru himself not said that Melkor's discord would aid in devising wonderful things? Why then was there no happy ending for the first of them all, once the mightiest and brightest, one who could have been dearly beloved if pride and malice hadn't ruled his mind?
Nevertheless, Manwë continued to wait, as if he was attempting to prove that he was no faithless brother to the ghost of his memories of Melkor.
He knew not how long he had been standing there — unmoving like a statue, his gaze raised to the heavens in desperate hope — when Varda came to bring him home.
"He won't come," she voiced what he had been refusing to think.
"He was late in the other world too," Manwë opined, though the trembling weakness in his tone betrayed him. His wife was, as she had always been, so very wise and rational, while he was no more than an unquenchable wellspring of estel.
"Manwë," Varda said gently, taking his hand. "His evil is no more, and with it he too was unmade. I know you mourn his loss, but you cannot deny that he chose this path."
"I know."
She began to pull him along. Manwë stood still for a while longer, stubborn and petulant, but followed her in the end.
It most certainly wasn't her fault, and she was right as well.
"Come and rejoice with the rest of us, my love. In this world we will finally know peace."
"And Melkor never will."
"He never wanted to."
Again, Varda was right, but it did little to soothe Manwë's pain.
"If Arda was healed, why wasn't he?" he asked.
It was a question for his father rather than his wife, but patient and faithful as she was, she answered him regardless.
"I can only repeat myself: He never wanted to. You know that healing and redemption cannot come to someone who refuses it, right?"
Manwë nodded. Yes, that lesson they had learned indeed, and painfully so.
"Manwë." Varda spoke more firmly now. "Beloved, if you ever want to be at peace you must ask yourself: Did you truly love Melkor or did you love the idea of a brother? Did you love what you saw when you were watching Námo and Irmo?"
He remained silent. It was clear what the answer would be if he asked her what she thought, and he knew she wanted him to arrive at the same conclusion. Not out of malice, but out of love, for his own sake.
Even so, Manwë felt misunderstood. In a world where all was healed, his brother was missing, and with him a part of his own being. In a world where all had returned and loved ones surrounded him, he had begun feeling incomplete and alone.
—
Aside from his missing brother, Arda Healed was a lovely place. Manwë had been advised by Irmo to enjoy what was rather than what could have been — a concept he remembered all too well from the world that was no more — and he had taken the advice, even as he noticed the shadow of concern that lingered on the Fëantur's fair face.
Varda was the light of his life, as she had always been. They soared through the skies like they had done when they were young, painted it with stars and clouds, became one in body and spirit whenever they desired companionship.
Ulmo was his closest friend, and Manwë visited him often. They would make music together, in the clouds, on the shores, in the sea, carefree as they had been in their youth in the Timeless Halls.
The other Valar he went to see as well, determined to give them the time and attention he hadn't always had in Arda Marred — all except Námo, for he had gone on vacation and couldn't be found, something that made him glad to hear.
Whenever Manwë found himself in the company of Nienna, he was tempted to reveal his pain to her and seek her wisdom, yet restrained himself in the end; she had wept so much already, and he couldn't bear to cause her more grief.
Eönwë had worried him for a time, deeply scarred from the wars he had fought in his name — more guilt that Manwë knew he wouldn't be able to overcome any time soon — but at last it seemed as though he had recovered. To the surprise and amusement of everyone, his herald found himself in the arms of none other than the Maia once known as Gothmog, Lord of Balrogs, and he was happy that he would finally experience the joy of courtship, gladly leaving them alone.
Ingwë welcomed Manwë in his home as eagerly as he had always done, and it was wonderful to see that another old friend was well. Even Fëanor seemed amenable to his company these days, as he had found out when Finwë invited him to a family gathering.
"I hope the loss of your jewels burdens you no more," Manwë told the greatest among the Noldor. "Believe me, I would have never asked for your most beloved creations if it hadn't been necessary at the time. I was — and still am — truly sorry."
To his surprise, Fëanor merely gave a light chuckle. "There is no need to worry about it any longer, my lord. I bear no ill will; and in the end their loss has only made me realise that I possessed greater treasures all along."
Manwë sat beside him in silence then, engrossed in the Noldo's proud, beautiful face that suddenly reminded him so much of his brother.
—
He had travelled the world and seen everything he had always wanted to see, even walking among the Secondborn under the benevolent guidance of Lúthien. He had smiled and laughed and shared his songs and poetry with all that would listen. He had spoken to those who had never heard his voice in the old world, finally able to make himself known.
But it wasn't enough. None of his many encounters could soothe the painful longing for his brother, the one that always remained out of reach, now more than ever before. There was a gaping wound in Manwë's heart, one only he could see, and nothing could stop the bleeding.
Where would he find Melkor if he was here in Arda Healed, he wondered often. Would he visit him in his halls? Would they meet by happenstance in Irmo's gardens and enjoy sweet pastries and tea together? Would he come to see the world with him? Would he await him in some hidden location?
All these questions and many more did Manwë ask himself as his grief grew rather than lessened, as did dread and despair. Wherever he went, he always arrived at the same place, whatever he thought, he always arrived at the same conclusion: That his brother, his other half, whom he had never truly known due to ancient strife, was no more, and now he would never know him.
He wouldn't be able to tell Melkor that he loved him more than any crown or kingdom, that he had loved him from the first moment of his existence, that he had never given up on him. He wouldn't be able to show him his heart and his memories, to prove to him that he had always spoken true. He wouldn't be able to experience that connection he had longed for so fervently, to live in a world where their brotherly bond was not torn, where whatever love they had for one another was not doomed.
And this reality broke his heart.
Varda found him weeping on the peak of Taniquetil after yet another night of watching the sky and waiting in vain.
"Manwë..."
He covered his face and shook his head. There was nothing he could have said to her; perhaps his behaviour was foolish and shameful, but he had truly tried his best to heal and repair himself after a piece of his ëala had been ripped away from him.
"Beloved, why do you mourn him still?"
"I cannot stop," Manwë whispered, "I cannot forget. There are wounds that cannot be healed even by the arts of Irmo, Estë or this new world. I know you will tell me that Arda is whole and beautiful without Melkor, but for me a world without my brother will always be incomplete."
"Manwë, please –"
"If the only way to heal Arda was to unmake him, the only way to heal my spirit is to unmake me also."
Talons broke out of his fingers as Manwë's grip on himself tightened, tearing into snowy skin with blood-red fury.
"We were brothers, Varda, brothers in the mind of Ilúvatar. We were made from the same thought, two sides of the same coin. We were supposed to create together... and then were made to oppose one another. Melkor was the first being I ever perceived, his light was the first thing I ever saw, he was part of my purpose... and if I couldn't save him, what remains of it is also void."
His breath quickened. His fána shook like a leaf in a storm.
"I could only endure his banishment because I hoped — I believed — that when he returned from Void I could fix my mistakes and finally make everything whole again, as was Father's task and design for me. But I couldn't. I have failed him, Varda. And I am sorry."
"Come home with me. Please." Varda's voice was unusually quiet, pleading, imploring him, and Manwë felt as though he was drowning in guilt, knowing that he wasn't going to. He was going to hurt her too, and it was wrong and unjust, but he couldn't continue like this any longer.
The path he was going to take was his and his alone, and the only thing he could do was to hopefully make her understand why he couldn't come home with her.
His hands dropped to his thighs, wet with tears. Manwë stared at them for a few moments, gathering his strength, then lifted them to his chest and raised his head to face Varda. His robes were easily shredded by sharp talons and his fána gave way when his fingers dug deep inside his own chest to tear himself open until she could see his bleeding, weakly twitching heart.
"Behold what has been dying for a long time, kept alive only through duty and the love of others," Manwë whispered. "Yet no longer shall I be a burden and I will not appear again until my ëala is whole once more. What remains of my love, all that I have left to give, shall be with you. Forgive me, beloved."
Thus the Elder King himself at last abandoned the shape that had faithfully walked upon Arda since the earliest days, leaving all that remained of him in the hands of his queen, and vanished like a gust of wind.
—
Manwë couldn't tell how long it had been since he had passed the Walls of Night; time didn't exist in the empty and endless Void, just like within the cosmic cradle of the Timeless Halls whence the Ainur had come.
Neither did he know what he was hoping to find, knowing that his brother's days of wandering this realm were over.
Even so, it seemed like a good place to go for one as painfully incomplete as he was. At the very least he would be doing penance for what he had done to his own brother, carrying out the council's judgement after he had failed to bring him back from the path of evil.
Was this how Melkor had felt once? This never-ending pain of missing something? Was this what had driven him to rage and madness? Manwë had no answers to that, and the only one who could have answered him was not there.
The other Valar had attempted to find him, but he had evaded them. His words to Varda had been final, and he believed himself unworthy of rescue after his numerous failings. Even his father's commands he wouldn't be able to follow at this time, if he could hear him where he was. Eru had neither called upon him nor answered his prayers ever since the Second Music, and Manwë accepted it as another part of his punishment.
His spirit — first flying through empty space, then floating slowly — finally came to a halt. There was infinity out here, he knew, one couldn't search even if he had another eternity to do so, yet his strength was waning. Manwë was far away from the world he was bound to, weak and shaken after destroying his own fána; if the Powers were meant to be young again, he had failed at that too. The fatigue and exhaustion he felt was ancient like Varda's stars.
He yearned for them. He yearned for her. But Manwë knew he couldn't bear to stay in Arda Healed any longer, if ever again.
When he stood still, so did the only modicum of time. When he forgot himself, nothing existed out here.
Tempted by oblivion, Manwë thought of the Secondborn, their gift of death and how Námo had foretold that even the Valar would one day envy them. Had Melkor in the end understood what no other Ainu ever had? Had Eru attempted to show him mercy by letting him be unmade?
There was a light approaching him, too bright in the darkness of the Void. Manwë believed it to be a figment of his own imagination, recognising within it neither his wife nor his father, but something familiar... something soothing.
It reminded him of the first light he had ever seen.
Thanks for reading! ♡
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#manweweek#manwe week#manwe#manwë#manwe sulimo#varda#valar#ainur#silm fanfic#silmarillion fanfiction#silmarillion#cílil writes#my writing
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Last year my dad had the idea that him, me and my husband would go spend the day with my mom (his ex-wife) and my brother instead of being involved in Christmassy things. My dad had lost both his wife and his brother in law that year and his heart was just not into celebrating anything.
It turned out that it was the best idea he could have ever had because, as it turns out, it was the last time we would ever be all together with my brother on this earth. We did not know that, but God did.🕊️
Im grateful to have even able to have a few conversations with my brother prior to his passing - that in spite of his extreme struggles - the conversations caused me to know beyond a shadow of doubt that he had handed himself over to God and experienced a revelation of his acceptance and forgiveness.🕊️
My brother was a diamond in the rough, he was in the process of transformation, but in God’s eyes he was clothed in Christ - and that’s what saves a person.
It’s so important to know that.
The bible mentions in Philippians 2:12, that we are to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling,”
That isn’t saying that we are working for our salvation - the “working it out, and with fear and trembling” thing is for us. It’s how we come to the realization for ourselves, of whether or not we are His. God already knows whether or not we are His. But He wants US to know deep down in our knower.
Today may have been our last day. It cannot hurt to look at Jesus, consider Him, figure out what we think of Him, and figure out where we stand with Him. When we call out to Him, He hears us, and He will not turn away one who comes to Him to be saved. 🕊️
“For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” 2Corinthians 6:2
“It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Isaiah 25:9
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