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#Black Water: Abyss
zegalba · 7 months
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Yuko Morino: From the Abyss (2023)
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envosu · 8 months
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a meeting about water i guess
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lumashoes · 7 months
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Cookie Run Comic studio creations ‼️‼️
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Idek man.
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A tribute to what could have been…😔
(Click for better quality please)
Guys I tried SO HARD to get her costume and it just DIDNT. HAPPEN. Oh well, I’ll get over it soon enough… maybe…
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transolar · 1 year
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«☼»Abyss Stimboard
(pt: Abyss Stimboard /end pt)
x.x.x-x.x.x-x.x.x
☼ requested by anon
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Chapter 4: Black Tide Rising
Narrated by no one.
Narrator: Flo took one last longing gaze at the crumbling altar and murmured his final prayer to the ancient god.
Flo: Great Arionus, I will follow you to the ends of the world, 'til the forests die and the oceans dry up...
Narrator: With every word that fell from his lips, Flo's misty form dissipated bit by bit into specks of deep blue floating lights, like warm, passionate teardrops.
Narrator: The swaying sparks gathered around Mercury's hand, bleeding bit by bit into the azure gem.
Flo: Great Arionus, heed my prayers...
Narrator: Flo's last words faded away into the mist. The wisp that only remained for so long due to obsession finally accepted its demise.
Narrator: Elves, after all, were destined to come back to nature. Flo's dedication brought him prolonged pain, but he never stopped seeking his god even to the very end.
Narrator: What he never realized, though, was that the person who brought him the ray of hope was never a believer of the God of Water to begin with.
Narrator: Mercury's New Moon gem began to gleam, more brightly than ever before. A wild force surged in it as the ancient powers were finally ready to be awakened.
Mercury: The time has come to prepare.
Narrator: As the light dimmed, calm returned to the space. The last tear fell to the ground, trampled beneath uncaring feet on the way out.
Narrator: Mercury Group has always been highly efficient. Viper and his men fished the stele out of Lake Bovaly quickly, and Alan soon translated it.
Narrator: Hymns singing the praises of Arionus, the God of Water, were etched upon the stele, and contained many more clues toward awakening the god.
Narrator: The songs and poems of old are often nothing more than idle grasps at romance, but a sharp eye can divine the truth within them.
Narrator: The explorations of Lake Bovaly opened a viable path for Mercury, and the gates of the abyss shall likewise open for him with Arionus' awakening.
Narrator: Mercury heads to the open sea, to tell the Elves of Water that he has found where Arionus is sealed.
Narrator: Mercury vowed to the leader of the Water Elves to wake up Arionus, to break the blood oath between the Elves of Water and Light with the aid of the gods...
Narrator: ...and to lead them in a conquest to retake the continent.
Water Elf Leader: The friend of my people shall bring back our great ancestor, and reclaim our long-lost glory.
Narrator: The tribe, desperate for anything that would further their vengeance, has no reason to turn down his aid...
Narrator: ...and thus Mercury receives the scepter, passed down through the generations, from the leader.
Narrator: At the same time, Alan gives Ophelia the ancient Pigeon codex, which records Glory originates from flame.
Ophelia: The road ahead may be littered with thorns and traps, but I will forge ahead regardless and recover Pigeon's glory at the road's end.
Narrator: The puppet queen who will do anything to restore her kingdom's glory will not give up this opportunity...
Narrator: ...and will soon venture into the Mist Forest alone, in search of the altar of the Fire Elf.
Narrator: Everything is proceeding according to plan. All he has to do now is wait.
Narrator: The altar deep in the Mist Forest quickly lights up with blue and red flames.
Narrator: The Pigeon coast is beset by tidal waves as the Elves of Water await the return of their ancestor.
Narrator: The tides may be enough to rouse those slumbering nobles from their idle fancies, if only for a moment.
Narrator: Yet Pigeon's glory shall not be destroyed in this disaster.
Narrator: The Elves of Water are too proud, too strong. They've been broken down by too much despair, and are all too willing to place their trust in others.
Narrator: Sequestered away in the deep sea for centuries, they have precious little knowledge of the state of the world.
Narrator: The stronger their desire for revenge, the further they stray from their goals.
Narrator: Everything is prepared. Arionus, the God of Water, shall open the connection between Pigeon Forest and the Ocean of Memories.
Narrator: It lies there, in the heart of the forest, where the elven prince is already headed.
Narrator: As he's said from the beginning, this is all but an experiment to peer into the Abyss.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
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unikornu · 1 year
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Abyss One: The Magnus adventure, feat. grumpy Wuju 🔮
BDO Official Forum Gif Topic - BDO various gif sets            
[EU]Unikornu
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praetorqueenreyna · 1 year
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Had an edible and I'm going to watch a terrible crocodile monster movie that I bought at the dollar store
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the-blivyverse · 2 years
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oooooo
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I found this guy based off a barrel eye fish in my files while looking for something.
He was a background night terror of the Abyss character that I daydreamed about a while ago
Imma def work on him a bit more. Perhaps he could be one of the certain night terrors that turn up way later in a plot point i was experimenting with where Zira gets to get aquinted with others of her specific kind of demon...
He needs a name tho
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novelistparty · 2 months
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*fog billows across the stage* *lasers blast holes in the sky* *a voice surrounds everyone in the crowd. not a loud voice, not a soft voice; neither angry nor kind, but a piercing voice, both familiar and strange, burrowing itself deep into their souls* TONIGHT.... YOU WILL ALL HAVE F U N *Shake It Off starts playing*
#I never been to a TS concert#taylor swift#taylor nation#swiftie#tscreators#taylor alison swift#aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa#where lies the strangling fruit that came from the hand of the sinner I shall bring forth the seeds of the dead to share with the worms tha#gather in the darkness and surround the world with the power of their lives while from the dimlit halls of other places forms that never#were and never could be writhe for the impatience of the few who never saw what could have been. In the black water with the sun shining at#midnight those fruit shall come ripe and in the darkness of that which is golden shall split open to reveal the revelation of the fatal#softness in the earth. The shadows of the abyss are like the petals of a monstrous flower that shall blossom within the skull and expand th#mind beyond what any man can bear but whether it decays under the earth or above on green fields or out to sea or in the very air all shall#come to revelation and to revel in the knowledge of the strangling fruit#and the and of the sinner shall rejoice for there is no sin in shadow or in light that the seeds of the dead cannot forgive. And there shal#be in the planting in the shadows a grace and a mercy from which shall blossom dark flowers and their teeth shall devour and sustain and#herald the passing of an age. That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall#walk the world in the bliss of not-knowing. And then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you#and in the presence of the strangling fruit#its dark flame shall acquire every part of you that remains.#my blog
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esqrever · 6 months
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Queer Lisboa 27: Regra 34 e Peixe Abissal entre os filmes vencedores
Numa noite de celebração e reflexão sobre a diversidade e inclusão, Queer Lisboa 27: Regra 34 e Peixe Abissal entre os filmes vencedores. Confere toda a lista! 🎬🌈
Na noite de sábado, às 21h00, a Sala Manoel de Oliveira do Cinema São Jorge foi palco da Sessão de Encerramento do Festival Internacional de Cinema Queer Lisboa 27. Foram ali anunciados os os nomes vencedores das diversas categorias em competição, proporcionando uma noite de celebração e reflexão sobre a diversidade e inclusão. Regra 34 venceu prémio de Melhor Filme no Queer Lisboa 27 A…
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flamin-gring · 9 months
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Over bridge as I’m staring into the black abyss that is the water and I can’t help but feel that It’s calling for me, like an old friend.
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klineinie · 3 months
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𝐣𝐮𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐞 (𝐨𝐡, 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡)
⤷ jubilee, a celebration of the passage of time ( and how all this, the good and bad, brings luke back to you) / luke castellan x (gn + child of aristaeus) reader
⤷ friends to lovers relationship study, whump moments, first love (twice), luke lives but with amnesia au + all titles referenced from the jubilee album by japanese breakfast
⤷ notes; pheww first fic of 2024 and it's long, the lockwood to pjo pipeline got me bad... please note that while i did read the books (in third grade), i chose to selectively ignore canon and aspects of luke's character, so things might be ooc asf
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♫ — posing for cars (woke from a dream in which you left me)
There are words first— muffled, swimming through his eardrums in the way that conch shells catch a tidal song in the waves, or how the sand grains that pass through the fingertips of children are just ten million quarter-fragments of unrealized history.
It feels like a veil laid over his senses, being submerged in water for too long, the pull of sleep waiting at the abyss between dreams and memory.
A voice says, quiet and dark, the gathering clouds on a horizon, a promise of a storm, “Luke Castellan will carry on a hero, but his crimes must be acknowledged.”
Another, low like the pulling tide, “Indeed. My son was quite adamant about his fate— we gods owe a debt, and I know you well enough to understand that you are eager to settle things quickly, brother.”
A pause in conversation, like a break in script for the characters to ponder. The veil of silence scratches against his damaged ears, crackles in the empty space like collisions between hydrogen atoms at the beginnings of a star’s birth.
“I’ve reached a decision. Luke Castellan, son of Hermes, will have his memories and dreams revoked until this council no longer deems him a threat. It is a far less cruel fate compared to others over the eons.”
Not a single protest, no curves or bumps in an otherwise linear road. Sound lies dead in the still air.
“Very well then,” says the thundercloud voice contentedly, “let him return.”
( He won’t remember much when he wakes up, only the voices and dulling pain and light— pre-dawn rays that play over his lax face, shine through the flesh of his eyelids so that his sight can be granted the small mercy to have something to fade to black from. )
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♫ — paprika (lucidity came slowly)
It’s really like a dream about falling, in a way. The fact, fleeting when he grasps it, tells him that his body is shutting down faster than his mind can keep up with, so it must fire an abrupt signal through his neurons in order to jerk him awake.
Luke Castellan lands, back bouncing upon the springs of a mattress as he’s jerked to consciousness.
Eight billion people on the planet and the first thing etched onto the blank slate of his mind is the rise of your brow and the scent of medicinal honey.
The dawn brings with it rays of light that slip over the curve of your face and refract through your irises golden, Midas-touched.
Eight billion people.
You.
( Seconds can feel like lifetimes. He only needs two to commit all of you to memory, the curve of your nose and the slant of your lips and the shape of your eyes, how the sun tilts shadows and highlights over the geometry of your features. )
“You…” He searches for the words, sifting through the little information left in his mind to try to compare this situation to something similar. He comes back with nothing.
“You’re awake,” you finish for him, and your voice makes his eyes flutter, a viscous substance sinking him deeper into a space removed from lucidity. Your face draws in on itself. “It’s too early, go back to sleep.”
He finds two of your knuckles lightly tapping the space between his eyes before they roll back as he falls once again into the dark abyss of sleep.
-✦✦✦-
“Chiron,” you whisper once Luke’s breaths deepen, gazing into the dawn through a windowpane, fingers sticky with the gold honey you’ve been smearing onto gauze, “what are we going to do with him?”
The centaur only shakes his head mournfully. “Even I myself am not sure. The gods have their own reasons for this.”
“They’re terrible at reasoning, then.”
Chiron’s mouth is a steady gash beneath his beard. “I can’t say that I disagree, child.”
Your hum of acknowledgment is curt, short in the way a dagger’s blade is sharpened and shaped. Chiron’s reflection in the pane nods in a silent goodbye before his shadow fades away to check on the other campers.
The room is silent now, save for the occasional stirring breaths from Luke. He shifts ever-so-slightly, sheets rippling around the familiar curve of his body.
You stop momentarily to gaze at the way his lengthy limbs splay crescent amongst the honey-soaked bandages that grace his skin, knowing that when he wakes again, he won’t find familiar comfort in anything, a discordant note standing out in an otherwise harmonious symphony.
You let him sleep, a stutter in routine wrapped with mercy and forgiveness. Shadows flit past the pane once again, the Apollo cabin by the singsong way they talk amongst each other.
They’re here for the bandages slathered in antibacterial honey, the smell hanging tangy and sharp in the air; a few linger in the doorway to glance at you in pity, Luke in wariness. You expect everyone to know now about what their parents decided to do to him.
Will Solace’s eyes meets yours momentarily, the blue of them shining crystalline in the dawn like the shallows of a sun-soaked beach. They glitter when he blinks, once at Luke, twice at you, thrice in understanding as he offers a small smile of thanks; a wish of good luck is tucked into the secret fold of his lips.
( You’ll probably need it. )
Luke makes a strangled little noise in the back of his throat when he wakes. It’s a struggle for him to open his eyes— you know this because you’d administered to him a small amount of honey infused with a sedative when Chiron had first carried his limp and broken body through the door.
“You’re awake,” you repeat, a ghost of words, voice dipping low as to not startle him. Luke slowly claws his way out of the sheets, blinking dazed in the afternoon light. His eyes focus on yours in a haze.
“Who…”
“Am I, who are you, where are you?” you finish for him again, an old habit that never found its way to dying hard. He offers out his arm instinctively, trusting, when yours reaches out to pick at the corner of a peeling bandage.
Your fingertips, deft, are still wet with honey when you peel back the dressing wrapped around his underarm. The dagger wound there is nasty, but the draining ooze and pinkening skin means that it’s healing, and that the ambrosia worked.
“Yea,” he says around a cardboard tongue, reaching stiffly with his free hand to grasp shakily at a cup of water on the nightstand. He swallows it in a single backwards knock of his head and dabs at the corner of his lips with his wrist. “Everything you just said.”
Your mouth turns up, a beckoning lamp to his moth of curiosity. “Your name,” you start, “is Luke Castellan, child of Hermes.”
“Like the herald?”
“You remember your mythology. That’s good, it means you’ll have a better time adjusting.” Luke averts his eyes at the comment, ears shining pink. You continue. “I’m a child of Aristaeus, a minor god— he’s the patron of rustic stuff like beekeeping and home crafts, basically Demeter if she was a male who loved the cottage life.”
He snorts, childish, and it feels like you’re twelve all over again, rolling in the fields, mouths smeared pink with juice and strawberry seeds embedded in your tongues. The taste of your first summer with Luke still lingers unsoured at the back of your mouth.
“So,” he says while you pull off his old wound wrappings, “let me get this straight. You and I—” he gestures with a finger “—are like demigods or something, as in Perseus and Heracles?”
You nod. “Except Perseus and Heracles are—”
“Zeus’ kids, and we have different parents, yea.”
“I expected you to be calm, but not this calm.”
Luke’s face blooms into a tight grin, cracked and curled with a wilt at the edges, and it’s noticeable, the way his eye twitches. “I’m processing. Sorry, it’s just going so fast and I don’t know what to ask first, I…”
He sighs, frustration bleeding into his voice.
“‘How do I start’, you mean?”
Luke hums, a little sound that vibrates through the air, hangs like the first notes to a hymn. “Did we…know each other?”
“Everyone here knew you.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” and then again, “did we know each other?”
You turn to the window, silent, mind lingering on that grove a little ways from the strawberry fields, where the persimmons hang ripe during cold season and little camellias unfurl, an assurance of the coming spring.
“Yea,” you breath, a little puff of air that fogs the glass pane, like mist settling superimposed over the meadow outside, “you could say it like that.”
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♫ — tactics (memories of peaches, the sun on my neck)
You’d just turned fourteen when you first set eyes on him, all downy black waves of hair and dirt-smeared cheeks. He’s holding back tears, a glittering film of saline that obscures the deep brown of his irises; a little girl is tucked shivering into his side, wise eyes peering through dark curls— she can’t be more than six or seven. One of the newer satyrs, Grover, stands behind them, head tilted downward in shame.
Luke Castellan, Hermes, and Annabeth Chase, Athena, their names escape his mouth trembling like broken-winged birds trying and failing to flutter off south in the winter, but Thalia, she—
( There’s a new tree on the hill, looming tall amidst the gathering clouds that promise rain. Power radiates from it in waves, blanketing the camp in a humidity reminiscent of late Long Island summers. Ah, how uninspired of Olympus’ king. )
You follow in the wake of Chiron’s tail as he escorts them to the Big House infirmary, giving time to the Hermes and Athena cabins to prepare. Some of the Apollo kids are there already, restocking supplies; one with flaxen hair hands off two orange shirts and leather strings to the newcomers, and another with honeyed eyes dabs alcohol-drenched cotton over their lacerations.
“Do you want tea?” you ask when the old centaur’s tail flicks against your back, a signal to break the web of silence. “I have, uh…well, I only have chamomile right now.”
Annabeth nods quickly, lips pressed together as a chill passes through the infirmary window. Luke gives you a sidelong glance, wary. The curtains ripple in the night air, allowing the moon to lay soft on the curves of Luke’s face.
It gives him a somber look with the way the cold light paints his burnished edges, like clothes hung too long on a line, colors bleached away by the sun.
“What about you?” you ask, a murmur carried slow in the eddies of air left by the medics’ departing wake. “Honey, sugar, milk?”
“Whatever you want,” he responds curtly, mouth set in a line as hard as marble, bearing resemblance to the statues carved stoic in museums.
You huff lightly, already retreating to the kitchen. “Alright.”
Chiron clears his throat, steps forward and leans down kindly to meet Luke’s gaze halfway. They talk in quiet tones, secrets sewn into a memory only they will know.
Annabeth shuffles close behind you— she’s taller than you had been at seven, the top of her head just inches from your shoulder.
“Luke likes sweet things,” she admits, arms crossed in a loose defense, guarded when she glances at the dark windows. “I saw him eat three chocolate bars in a row before.”
“Really?” you laugh, soft in the way snow falls on Half-Blood Hill in the winter. “I never would’ve guessed.” She nods, lets down her arms. You step aside, making room for her to watch the kettle come to a boil, fascinated with how the dried leaves unfurl under the pouring braid of water. “First time having tea?”
“I had coffee before, it wasn’t that good,” she says. “Can I try it plain first, then add things until I like it?”
“Sure,” it’s a quickfire response. You’ve never met another kid so engaged in the art of tea making, whether they were acting or not. It’s a nice change of pace. “I think Chiron’ll live if we have a little sugar. Careful, don’t burn your tongue.”
Annabeth blows gingerly at the amber liquid, smiling at how the steam parts to make way for her slipstream breaths. She takes a small lap and you laugh at the face she makes.
“Wanna try some honey I made?”
She nods, eager to experiment. You grab a spoon, dipping it into the jar Chiron keeps at the counter, a gift from you to celebrate your claiming. Annabeth’s eyes glitter when the taste diffuses across her mouth.
“Hypothesis,” she offers, a true gem of intelligence, “I’ll like tea with honey only.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I think milk tastes gross, ‘specially whole milk. Chamomile is meant to be calming, so sugar would probably do the opposite.”
You grin, brows raised, when she hops to the cutlery drawer, pulling out a clean utensil to scoop more honey into her drink. She uses the spoon she’d already licked to stir, taking sips between additions to get a hang of the flavor.
Four spoons later, Annabeth nods in satisfaction. She studies the detailing on the utensil's handle, memorizing each cut in the silverware, curls bobbing along to each tilt of her head. “I’m remembering which spoon I used so I can get the same combination next time,” she says when you glance at her curiously.
“I’m happy you like it.”
She peers at you again, dark eyes flashing with a flame you’d find in someone older than their years. “I like you and your tea and your honey. You’re nice, a lot nicer than other older kids. Just like Luke.”
You smile at the compliment, warmth blooming in your chest, seeping past that ribbed cage of bone and spreading to the tips of your fingers. “Thanks.”
“We just met, but I think we’ll be really close, like siblings.”
Straight to a point, six steps ahead; that’s what you glean from Annabeth Chase. You can tell she’ll fit right in with the other Athena campers, maybe even make it to counselor; you know that the day she surpasses you is inevitable.
“I’d love that.”
-✦✦✦-
Luke can hear everything. It’s a thing he’s trained himself to do, a hunter’s skill honed, practiced, and perfected. Chiron only speaks a few words to him, condolences and basic camp rules. Says that his half-siblings will always be there for him, extend a guiding hand when the tunnel loses light.
( He doesn’t believe the centaur. )
He slides out from the doorway he’s been lurking behind, the shadows clinging to his shoulders, leaving their little imaginary claws in the fabric of his camp shirt.
Luke takes in the sight of Annabeth’s little form swathed in orange, perched on a chair with the toes of her shoes dangling a breadth above the floor. She’s sleeping, cheek pressed against the oaken table surface, cornerfolds of her lips sticky with content by the way they curl upwards.
The chamomile and honey combination must have done wonders for the demigod child. He’s glad, a joy that unfurls like tea leaves in his chest, that she’ll be able to sleep full nights at camp.
“Your tea’s starting to chill.”
Luke meets your gaze, irises overlaid with the warm tone of the ceiling lights, the dual beads wrapped around the leather of your necklace glimmering and gold-spun; Midas-touched in the way the sun shines through the veins of dappled leaves.
He threads his hand under the mug’s handle, cradling the warm glass in his cold palm. The tea is amber, the color of dried ichor, spilt godsblood, hazy with the addition of honey and sugar.
“Thanks,” he says, staring at how the liquid eddies with every tilt of his hand. “Chamomile, right?”
You nod, a light hum escaping the column of your throat as you slide into the seat beside Annabeth. You join her in resting your head against the table, watching her at peace, wood lacquer gleaming under your skin in a haze.
“It’s good for sleep. The Demeter kids let me pick some from their gardens,” you say, an offer for him to walk right into your life. “And I made the honey myself.”
“Who’s your parent?” he asks, curiosity an overwhelming tide that flows over him.
“A minor god,” you share, words pungent at the seams, a bite of rind. “Aristaeus. He does beekeeping and handy stuff— Chiron says that it’s close to something called smallholding.”
“You don’t have a cabin, then.” Your expression blooms into a bitter one; Luke didn’t mean for it to come out almost cruel. “Sorry,” he apologizes, stitching a tear before it gets too big.
“It’s okay, I’m used to it. I don’t really wish I had one to be honest, because I’d be alone in there. At least in the Hermes cabin, it’s warm at night ‘cause of everyone’s body heat. You’re a Hermes kid, aren’t you?”
“Yea.” The silence is a break in script so that Luke can finish his cold tea. The glass makes no sound when it’s placed back onto the table, beads of amber liquid distorted at the bottom. “It’s good. Sweet.”
“Annabeth told me that you had a sweet tooth,” you admit, tilting your head up to meet his gaze. His eyes are brown, the shade of toiled, nutrient-rich earth— the kind of soil that’d give year-round growth without tiring.
Luke chuckles under his breath, looking at the aforementioned girl with a swirl of fondness in his irises. “Snitch.”
-✦✦✦-
Two summers pass in a blur. You and Luke are sixteen, Annabeth, nine. She grows in height and prowess, climbing the ranks of the Athena cabin. You hear that they’re planning an election for the next counselor as the current one prepares to leave the nest for college.
“Don’t tell me you grew another two inches overnight,” Luke grumbles when Annabeth bounds up to the two of you. She’s fitted in a bronze chest-plate, blue paint smeared over it, and she grins when the boy tugs at the leather straps. “Wow, I wish I had this for the last game.”
Chiron strolls by, pats Annabeth warmly on the shoulder. “This is a good piece of armor. I can see it serving you well.”
When the centaur is far enough, Luke leans in between you and Annabeth, hand shielding his mouth. “I heard Clarisse’s new spear is electric. Travis got too close last Friday, said it hurt like a—” he looks past your shoulder to make sure Chiron is out of earshot; by the face he makes, wide-eyed and meek, he’s been caught “—ahem, he was out for the rest of the game.”
Annabeth makes a face. “I thought Hermes was Team Red last time. We beat and picked you for the next game, remember?”
“Yea, you did.” You cringe at the reminder, the unhealed bruise on your lower back throbbing purple and dark, a sore reminder of being pushed to the ground by a Dionysus kid. Luke thumbs his brow, the beginnings of a faint white scar carving its way into his skin. He says that he tripped over and cut himself on a prank wire that Travis and his newly-arrived brother had set up, in the middle of friendly territory.
The younger girl says, brows furrowing and lip curled in bewilderment, “Did Clarisse at least get punished? It’s against the rules to attack an ally.”
Luke scoffs lightheartedly, rubbing slim fingers over his knuckles. They’re bruised from hand-to-hand practice, little blushing peaks of tendon and bone. “Travis was just making a big deal out of it, you know how he is.”
You hum a note of agreement. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he knocked himself out on purpose every time Hermes had to play with Ares.”
“I think he’s been out— or at least let himself get captured— three of the last five times we’ve played Red.”
“No way. He should’ve been on dishwashing duty instead of me! I say ‘fuck’ once and I’m arms deep in lava, he cheats out of Flag and gets pampered in the infirmary?”
“That’s because Chiron caught you saying it in front of a six-year-old,” Luke laughs, jostling your shoulder with his, warmth pressing into your side. His lips are peeled all the way back in a grin, eyes crescent slivers of joy and lashes brushing soft against his sun-drunk freckles. Like shimmering crow’s feathers.
You manage to wrap an arm loosely around his neck, holding him in a headlock that you know he can easily worm his way out of, knuckles finding home against his scalp. Annabeth looks towards the sky in exasperation, rolling her leather cord in her fingers, the two beads clacking against her father’s ring. “And who was it that swept my feet out, huh?”
“Oh please, you knew you were going to lose, champ.”
“‘Champ’ this, ‘champ’ that— just wait ‘til my bees get their stingers in you, Castellan, just you wait.”
-✦✦✦-
“Did you…” Luke trails off, like the wispy end of twine after being pulled too tight, stretched too wide. A clear snap in the middle, two limp pieces of string; one for before the war, one for the aftermath.
He shifts a little in the bed, sheets crinkling paper-like, wound dressing gone save for the little sticky spots of honey and medical-grade adhesive. His mouth clicks damp when he opens it again. “Was I loved?”
“Very.”
-✦✦✦-
A quarter-mile off from the Big House is the Big Shed (real funny name, hilarious, in fact), smack-dab in the middle of the verdant strawberry fields. The wood panels are painted robin’s egg, the same shade as the house, blue in the way the sky passes over camp during high noon.
It’s spacious, interior lacquered dark, cobwebs in the corners gleaming like star-spun gold when you creak the door open on a midwinter dawn. Luke yawns from behind you.
“Don't know why it’s called the ‘Big Shed’ when it’s more like a ‘Mid-Sized Cottage,’” he says, voice already creaking at the edges with puberty. He’s already gained a few inches too. “If you packed them like sardines, you could fit all the unclaimed and minor gods’ kids in here.”
“You mention this to anyone and I’ll be the one attacking allies next flag day. Chiron’s letting me use the shed for beekeeping and stuff, I don’t need a would-be Ares wrecking it up.”
“You have an unusual animosity towards the Ares cabin,” Luke tells you, swaying around in the wide space.
The dust suspended in the air shines white, luminated by the sunlight streaming in through the two windows built into the shed-slash-cottage; it coats him in a sharp and angelic glow, like exposure and brightness turned too high on a developing photo.
“Annabeth taught you that word, didn’t she?” you sigh, flipping an old lance in the corner, using the butt-end of it to take down the spun-gold webs. “I only dislike Ares’ kids because they go for your ankles with the blade’s flat side. Makes them bruise, and then you can’t run very fast the next game.”
“Aw, poor you. Need me to kiss it better, champ?” he says with sarcasm dripping off the honeycomb of his voice, holding the sheathed end of his sword to bat at the ceiling corners.
“If you’re fine with licking the blood-n-sweat-soaked heel of my sock, then feel free to go wild, Castellan.”
It’s easy to be with Luke; oftentimes, you find that your breaths fall into perfect step with his. Even if one or the other of you goes a little faster, your beats still match, syncopation; a musician could keep a time signature or compose a romantic waltz to it, whichever of the two.
Luke breaks the silence first, cracks it in the middle like spiderwebbed ice under the quicksilver blades of a skater. “I’m…going on a quest. I’ll be gone by the time spring ends and come back in the summer.”
“Oh.” You wish you could say more, but suddenly you’ve become Sisyphus, punished by the divine with the boulder lodged in your throat that is too heavy to push through. All you can manage without the weight crashing down is a stupid, “You’re leaving?”
“Only for a couple months. I thought against it at first, but my dad offered me the quest and I couldn’t refuse,” he shares, sheepishly palming the back of his neck. “I can take care of myself, you know. You don’t need to worry.”
Now that you’re looking at him, somber in the pale morning rays, you can see every second of the sixteen years and ten months eroded onto his face. He looks older than he should be, burdened with the stress of being a demigod.
The light shifts over his features as the sun reaches greater heights, bruised shadows spilling out from the sharp angles that all of Hermes’ children have.
“No,” you stammer, “no, why would I be worried? I know you’re good, better than me, even.”
“Don’t say that. You’re amazing too.” Luke gazes up through his fan of crow’s feather lashes. You don’t miss the way they shine dimly, wet with unshed tears. He laughs through it, blinking quickly as to not let the saline film burst. “You’ll make sure no one steals my bunk though, right? And you’ll burn offerings in my place?”
“Yea,” you breathe, the word condensed into a puff of icy air. It billows white, clouds your vision momentarily in a blizzard-like haze. When you come back from it, Luke is still there in front of you, eyes red, Adam’s apple bobbing in a muddle of emotion. “Course I will. You’d do the same.”
“Thanks,” he whispers. A spot of water falls at his feet, washing away a small dot of the dust that coats the floor. “I’ll bring enough drachmas so that I can Iris Message you whenever I’m safe.”
“You better. When you’re back, we can hang out in here. I’ll have a proper beehive outside by then, and I’ll borrow a loom and a spinner from the Athena cabin so I can teach you how to make yarn. We can weave a blanket together for Annabeth in time for fall,” you muse, to which Luke smiles at the thought, soft like the snow that blankets Thalia’s evergreen needles.
“Threatening me with a good time, champ? I might just want to come back in one piece.”
You breeze past the joke, taking a gliding step towards him, closing the gap, bridging the abyss. You both crumple to the floor entangled in each other’s arms, your head pressed underneath the jut of his chin.
The three painted beads of his necklace tickle your lashes. From here, with your forehead against the column of his neck, you can feel how his jugular pulses faster with the pump of blood that keeps him alive. The wandering point of your nose, a compass, finds its true north in the hollow between his collarbones; Luke curls closer, words unspoken, the tracing shapes of his fingers against your back a promise in a language only the two of you understand.
-✦✦✦-
“I have this feeling,” he confesses suddenly, years into the future, soil-rich irises soaked in hope. “That we’re like opposite poles of the same magnet. Like I’ve seen you in a dream that I can’t really remember or you’re a face that I’ll always look for in a crowd. You know what I mean?”
-✦✦✦-
Silence in a hazy dawn, lit by the midwinter sun, dust angels dancing around your melded frames on the floor. Then—
“I’ll wait for you.”
It’s all he needs to cup your face, place his lips on your temple. Luke lets himself be selfish just this once, the bitterness in his chest simmering down as if you’re the dying flame controlling its boil. You leave a kiss on the corner of his jaw, just underneath the thin lobe of his ear where the sun shines through it and paints his neck a blushing red.
( To Luke, it’s a blessing from you, worth far more than his father’s. )
He doesn’t need to say I love you, nor do you. You both know it already, like a forgotten dream resurfacing at the right time, déjà rêvé.
-✦✦✦-
“Yea,” you breathe, the words diffusing through the still air of the Mid-Sized Cottage. The beehive outside buzzes excitedly, a light breeze from an open window twanging at the wool fibers hung taunt on the spinning wheel, brushing over the empty loom, its return to the Athena cabin long overdue. “I know the feeling.”
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♫ — kokomo (though it may not last, just know that i’ll be here longing)
Luke keeps his promise, comes back the next summer now seventeen years old with a dragon’s claw in his fist. A scar runs from his eye like a tear track, splits his cheek, a single bolt of lightning.
He wades through the whispers and rumors, swims through the crowd in a straight shot to the cabin so that he can flop onto the bunk you saved for him and drift off in a dream about weaving looms and wool blankets.
You jump up when the entire cabin cheers as he walks through the doors, silhouetted by the midsummer rays. Luke sees that you’ve changed too, a little wiser, spine a bit longer, eyebags deeper and new scars littering your fingers like a healing constellation.
Later you open your palm, a bead resting in the bed of your flesh like a pearl in an oyster— he pulls you close by the waist into a corner and kisses you in earnest thanks, for getting an extra bead for him and for saving his bunk, the offerings, the messages, your love.
“I took in a new hive,” you whisper to him that night, cradled under the feather-soft down of his duvet. His knuckles brush over your scars, like five little Halfblood Hills blushed pink with dusk scraping at a star-freckled sky. “They make a habit of stinging. And then it gets itchy after.”
( You’d told him sheepishly during an Iris Message that you’d given up your own bunk to a little kid no older than four; he had just smiled sweetly, knowing you could never resist a child’s puppy eyes.
You can sleep in my bunk, Luke had told you, shimmering crystalline in the rainbow’s refraction, prismatic. It’s one way to make sure no one steals it. And when I get back, it won’t be so cold at night.
Didn’t realize you were such a flirt, Castellan.
You remember that he had winked, cheeky, like he was the male lead of some Hallmark romcom. It’s the natural Hermes charm, champ. )
-✦✦✦-
You’re tracing the soft pink outline of his scar when it hits you like a freight train. You realize then that he’s changed, gone through some kind of metamorphosis during his quest; it had been so subtle and overarching that it’d completely washed over you for a good couple of weeks; the occurrences had become so common, unremarkable and predictable like a flock of geese flying south for the winter that you hadn’t thought anything of it.
It’s not like you don’t understand that people change as time ticks on.
You know that your skin has started to prickle with cactus needles as your abilities grew with the increase in risk; Annabeth’s behavior is trending on the moody side with every new camper, waiting still for the day she can prove herself— she likes coffee now too; hell, even Clarisse calms down, temper dimming down to a low, simmering boil.
And Luke…. Call it intuition, hypothesis, whatever— you only know, a fact engraved so deep in your dermis that it punctures muscle and scrapes bone, that something’s wrong. But you trust, still, that you both will hang on, hold fast, brave the storm like all the heroes that came before you.
But the thing is, heroes don’t live happy. Perseus will turn himself to stone with the very weapon that bestowed upon him glory; Heracles will die deceived, betrayed by the unwitting hand of his lover; Achilles will perish in a ruined city, the indestructible man shattered by something so little and insignificant as a spear-pointed arrowhead.
Heroes don’t live happy, but Luke isn’t a hero.
You know this, a memory from the night he came back, woven in the dark warmness of the Hermes cabin, a tapestry of sleep-mussed mumbles.
You remember how he woke with a bare, rattling gasp, the raw and sandpaper-dry tremble of it reminding you of the sound that people make when they’re close to death.
“I failed,” he whispers into your skin when the rush of it ebbs, a sanctuary of truth. Luke swallows gasps between his words. “I wasn’t ready, wasn’t strong enough. He sent me to Hesperides, y’know? Told me about the apples, said that if I could get one for him, he’d share it with me.”
You hum in sympathy— a comforting hymn, balm against a bruise, kissing it better— thread your fingers through his hair and watch how the moonlight shines on the black strands. White and black, a sneer of ink on parchment by a careless hand.
“You wanted immortality from it?”
“No,” he says, quieter, a little wet sound wrenching from his throat, and you know, in a reminiscent daze, that this’ll be the last you see of him like this, vulnerable. “I just wanted to see if he’d still be proud of me.”
Luke isn’t a hero, and the whole of camp knows this, locks it away in their Pandora’s box of open secrets. But Luke isn’t happy either, so the habit you’ve grown of burning extra offerings never dies.
You think of it as a cumulative toast, of sorts, to the gods that never cared, hopes mixed into the divine ash like poison in wine.
-✦✦✦-
Luke disappears midway through the field trip to Olympus. Your fingertips are left cold in your coat pockets despite the crackling energy generated by Zeus’ domain, and it’s not until later in the elevator ride down do they warm up again.
He slips through the gaps to fill the one beside you, slides his hand into your pocket and twines your fingers together; you don’t miss how his sword-calloused palm pops with static at the contact with your skin. You ignore it and try not to flinch at the quick, needle-like pierce of pain.
“Sorry, I had to use the bathroom. Ate something bad at breakfast,” he murmurs, leaning into your side to kiss your cheek, curls brushing against your temple. Luke rests an arm along the horizon of your shoulders, slim fingers toying with your leather cord, watching how the seven beads— two more than his own— slide back and forth on the string.
“Do they even have toilets up there?” you whisper, amusement bleeding into the corners of your voice. “Ambrosia and nectar don’t really get digested normally, so I just assumed that gods never really needed to poop unless they did it on purpose.”
“You’re right,” he says between breathy laughs, wispy with the winded heaves of his chest, “Zeus probably wouldn’t look so high and mighty if everyone saw him hunched over in the middle of a shit. And to answer your question, the seats are solid gold.”
“Absolute insanity.”
-✦✦✦-
Percy Jackson is a sprightly boy of twelve, everything about him cool-toned in the way the sun shines and refracts under the sea’s waves. When Grover stumbles into camp dragging the demigod by the armpits, shouting of Minotaur horns and flipped cars and moms dissolving into clouds of ichor-hued dust, people obviously take interest. Especially Annabeth. And on a sourer note, Clarisse too.
Even Luke, who’d been in a deeply sullen mood, had turned his face up to the angle where the light played over his eyes just right, irises shining a liquid gold, amber and gilded, Midas-touched with something you’d only learned to identify as a revelation.
What kind, you weren’t sure, but it stung as badly as taking in a new hive, to know that your efforts to cheer him up were undermined by something as commonplace as a new arrival.
Though, you swear to yourself then that you don’t hate Percy for that. You get where he’s coming from, the sinking feeling of neglection because he’s unclaimed, the anger that comes with it; you know, too well, how it feels to think you’re unwanted. You’ve been in his shoes for your first year and a half at camp.
But then he gets claimed by Poseidon, and that summer, Luke leaves for good. It’s a flash of events, like a too-fast slideshow that you can’t take notes on or a seconds-long flipbook that took months to complete; you recognize the familiarity of an out-of-body experience when reminiscing about a memory you can’t really remember, the alien tang of it bitter on your tongue.
They talk of his betrayal for months, about how he had tried to kill Percy and his siding with the Titans; the gathering clouds draw close to Thalia’s tree, a promise of a storm and the coming war, a warning to the lightning thief.
You’ve accepted, another fact carved deep enough to shatter bone, pierce your heart, that Luke made a choice, the wrong one; you convince yourself that you made the right one by not blaming Percy for the stares and the whispers, the shoulder-checking and glares that scream about your suspiciousness.
Still, you keep his bed in Cabin 11, burn extra offerings in his place, check the Big House’s fountain for missed Iris Messages. Hope is a bitter thing, like poison in wine. You had swallowed it down anyways.
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♫ — be sweet (make it up to me and know it’s better)
“Where do you go at night?” Luke asks, swathed in his red knit sweater. The weather’s gotten colder still, a far cry from the humidity that had rolled a suffocating blanket over Manhattan on the eighteenth of August— the day he came back to you. His fingers tap a song on the glass in his hands.
“What d’you mean by that?” you deflect, spine shaped gentle in a curve as you sit at the spinning wheel, wool slipstreaming between your deft fingers.
The device makes a soft sound, a shh shh that comes with each press of your foot on the pedal, like a mother hushing a child to sleep. It’s a calming song that he’s used to hearing in the in-betweens of the cottage.
( He doesn’t dream, hasn’t been able to since he woke up that day, but sometimes he thinks he can hear it in his sleep, the hush of wool, like the blades of a rippling meadow rubbing together under a blanket of sun or the friction of a cricket song in the quiet summer.
He thinks that once, you told him that you’d teach him how to spin and use a loom, that you’d weave a blanket together for someone special; as far as he knows, it’s only a figment of his imagination used to fill the blank spaces. )
His thumb strokes the glass arch of his mug’s handle, amber liquid trembling with every movement. “You come at sunrise to take care of your bees or spin yarn and tell me stories, bring me meals and sometimes Chiron comes, and then you leave. If this is meant to be your space, then where do you sleep when I use the bed? Are you being forced to sacrifice your time, caring for me?”
“No one’s forcing me to do anything,” you say quickly with no room for insinuation. Luke realizes the absence of the wheel’s shush, you having stopped to fully lend him attention. You sigh, and it’s heavy, a weight that pulls your chest downward with the exhale; he’s reminded of rain catching leaves and how they sink with each drop. “I sleep in Cabin Eleven. There’s someone I’m waiting on to return, and I’m saving a bunk for him.”
“Who?” he gathers the courage to ask. His chest pangs— is this how monsters feel when their physical essence is ripped apart by Celestial Bronze?
You smile, set down the unspun rove of wool, soft like the waking of dawn, bitter grief sewn into the gentle curl of your lip.
“You. I’m waiting for you, and I always have been.” And the pain ebbs away, assuaging the muscle in his ribbed cage of bone.
“You know,” he starts, staring down into the eddy of tea, swirling with sugar and the honey he had helped you make. The words waterfall from his lips, spilling, escaping like fluttering doves, and you listen patiently— that’s what he loves most about you, among other things. “That on the day I went with you to the cabins, I wandered off while you talked to the Apollo kids. There was this girl, tall with curly hair— she pushed me. And then a guy, he had blue eyes and four beads, helped me up.
“He told me that he forgave me, even though I made the wrong choice. He was with another girl, she had black and blonde braids, one was white— she said that I was a good brother, and to stay out of the inner camp until they get everything sorted out.”
“Clarisse, Percy, Annabeth,” you name them in an exhale, pulling your stool over. He thinks, briefly, of cradling you on the floor in the haze of a midwinter dawn. A dance of dust angels to a silent, harmonizing symphony. “That tracks.”
“What did I do to deserve this?” he mumbles, bringing the mug close to his eyeline. Stares from the glass lip into his warbled reflection, studies the scar he can’t remember getting, watches it twist with each watery ripple. Monstrous. “I can’t remember things for a reason— the gods took that away. I angered them, killed people or something, and they let me live at a cost.”
Your chin dips down in something he can only identify as a mix of shame, reluctance, and grief.
“You can’t dream because it’s how—” and then you fade for a moment like a rove spun so thin that the fibers starts to separate “—you were exploited for vulnerabilities. Your memories, the dreams, they’ve been sealed until Olympus stops seeing you as a threat.”
And then Luke looks down at himself; the pills of wool on his red sweater, how the knit cuffs of his sleeves peel away from each other; the thinned knees of his jeans, washed white with use; the striped socks that clad his feet and the scuffed, extremely creased house-shoes he’s shoved them in.
“I don’t see how I’m a threat.”
It makes you laugh in a huff. He nurses the mug, laps at the last residuals as you continue, maintaining sidelong eye contact.
“To start, Kronos visited your dreams and manipulated you into starting the Second Titan War.”
( You don’t even blink twice when Luke sputters into the glass. )
It’s not even the worst of it, because then you tell him, “You were also blackmailed into taking a bath in the River Styx, then you got possessed, almost revived the Titan King, and at the very end you stabbed yourself in the armpit and exorcised him and somehow, you didn’t die instantly so—” you pause to take a deep breath, winded “—they chose to save you and here we are.”
“You’re lying. There’s no way they’d lift a finger to help the same guy who tried to overthrow them.”
“I didn’t believe it either, but Percy was being serious. He vouched for you.”
“No way.”
You clamp your jaw, seal your mouth and give him a pointed look. It’s all raised brows and pursed lips, bunched shoulders and splayed, shrugging hands. And though he’s dyslexic, he can still read body language to know that your expression is telling him, it is what it is.
Luke makes a face regardless, cards a hand through his black hair, fingers catching on the singular white curl he has, like a smear of correction fluid. “Come on, champ, you really believe that the Olympians would bow down to some demigod?”
“I mean,” you manage, and there’s a faraway haze clouding your irises, reminiscent, scar freckled palms scraping his when you pull the empty mug away, “they did to Percy.”
You trace the lip of the glass absently as Luke folds his hands together, twines his fingers so that the pinkened Halfblood Hills of his knuckles form a pale little valley.
“Okay, okay. Say he did,” he sighs, cupping his face in his palms, the pads of his fingers pressing white into his eyes in the way he always does when he has headaches. “But if the ‘me’ before Kronos saw how much better camp is doing, I’d be less inclined to revenge.”
And then the beats click together, syncopation.
“You think, Castellan?”
“I don’t think, champ, I know.”
You smile, genuine this time, and he takes a moment to engrain that into his mind too, the way your mouth curls upward like the peel of an orange, how your eyes crinkle half-mast into little crescent moons, the lines that are drawn onto your face.
He thinks, that in a past life, you must’ve been a mortal that gods and poets and rulers fell for. His Penelope, Hyacinthus, Psyche, Adonis; your Odysseus, Apollo, Eros, lover.
And Luke says, a whisper that fills the space, gold seeping into the cracked clay of your soul, ichor from the veins of a sun, healing in a spiderweb of scars— kintsugi, “I think I loved you in a life before this.”
You hum, the note of it hanging in the air like a maestro’s hand before a symphony. The small faucet in the Mid-Sized Cottage rushes with life when you turn it on, spilling water into the empty glass, a riptide of bubbles like seafoam. You come back, flicking droplets from your hands, and he swears that he sees you reach into your pocket for something.
“You did— but Luke, you aren’t the same without your memories,” you tell him, voice low, and it feels like dying. “You might have loved me then, but do you now?”
He sinks into a moment of the in-betweens, thinks about honey and ichor-hued tea, the cottage, the loom and spinning wheel, how the hush of it quells the ugliness that rears its head on the bad days.
Remembers how his first seconds felt like eternities, how he’s already spent a lifetime and a half with you; he likes it, and the scar on his face burns with secret greed and shame for wanting.
It all echoes around him, some jubilee of the things he knows, remembers, daydreams about. The half-moon crinkle of your eyes, the strawberry fields at dawn, the cricket song on that late summer night when you stayed in the cottage for once, the silence of your foot lifting off the pedal to listen, and how he wishes to pour all this and more into a flask, get drunk on it every night and feel the high of your kisses.
You extend your hand to him, scars and old sting-marks freckling your skin like a constellation, an untold story that he wants to dive into and never leave.
Cradled in the bed of your palm are two leather cords. One with five beads, the paint flecking off at the edges, and the other blank like a piece of notebook paper ready to be scribbled on, a tale waiting to be written.
Luke folds the first around his wrist and loops the second over his head. He gets the feeling that he’s been here before.
“May I?” You nod and he reaches the pads of his fingers hesitantly to graze the cord that’s wrapped around the column of your neck, studies how the autumn rays overlay the eight beads warm and gilded. “I’m sorry for making you wait three years.”
“That’s alright, I’ve forgiven you already.”
He hates himself for the way your voice cracks easily, hooks the red sleeve of his sweater over his thumb to dab at the tears that gather in your eyes, pale flesh peeking through the soft wool stitches.
Luke promises to himself that though the action is just a smear of antibacterial honey on a gaping dagger-wound, he’ll spend his days patching it up if it meant your happiness.
His hands splays out, the fit of his rough palm against the side of your face like laser-cut puzzle pieces that compliment each other perfectly; he pulls you in gently, the guiding rope to a docking boat swathed in river mist, and presses a soft kiss to your temple.
Luke’s lips part, tongue clicking damp when he whispers into the sanctuary of truth that is your skin, “I think I’ll love you in this life too.”
“Yea,” you say, little more than a murmur carried slow in the eddy of air that surrounds the two of you, and you tuck yourself under the jut of his chin, letting the wandering point of your nose find true north again in the hollow of his collarbone. “I know the feeling.”
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⤷ post-script; 8.5k words holy… i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it!! if i do write more luke, i'm considering a collection (not series) that just focuses on these two and the in-betweens/before and afters, drawing inspo from jubilee ofc.... as always, reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated, i give you permission to respectfully scream at me :)
⤷ editor's note | 2/25/24; i ended up changing the ages of luke and jubi due to a misinformation issue regarding luke's show canon age that was incorrectly inputted in the official wikifandom way back in december, so now he's actually 19 as of tlt instead of the previous 16 yrs--and yes, i did read the books but i wanted jubilee's premise to be show-based bc of charlie bushnell. i made a little post abt it (warning; i swore a lot)
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historiaxvanserra · 4 months
Text
These Violent Delights | An Eris Vanserra story
Summary: At a ball in Hewn City, you meet your match in Eris Vanserra
Pairing: Eris Vanserra x Archeron!Reader (brief mentions of Azriel x reader)
Word Count: 7.6k
Previously called If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power. I changed the name to adapt if from a one shot into a series.
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You had been born on a night like this, you think. The storm-streaked clouds line the heavens like flowering hydrangeas as they dissolve into a black abyss and the moonlight shines like pearls on the water where the horizon meets the Sidra. 
Storm-streaked they had called you. 
When you were a little girl, your father had told you that you had come into this world in the same way as the old Gods had. Born from the merciless depths of some unknowable blue-darkness; cruel and beautiful, and fearless. 
Now fear is all you know. 
The crack of forked white lightening against the darkening horizon pushes you further into introspective thought. The visions come with the quiet; flashes of silver and gold and the icy embrace of the water. That infernal cauldron and what it had taken from. It haunts you, even in dreaming.  
Of late, the days seem to pass in a state of perpetual purgatory, marred by memories and the water– an unforgiving tempest that tears through you. 
The water cleanses but it also devastates. 
Your father had once called you water; the salt and the sea. 
You had always wondered what that meant. 
But here you stand-- a storm incarnate; volatile, half-wild and isolating. And who can become the water without inheriting its violence, or its loneliness?
The feeling of harsh violet eyes on you is enough to drag you gaze from your spot near the balcony and the storm as it rages outside. 
“Are you ready, Nesta?” Rhysand’s voice is velvet night as it reverberates around the small waiting room. 
A chill runs down your spine when you catch his eyes, glinting and violet in the dim light. You regard Nesta cooly as she tilts her chin upwards. 
“Let’s get this over with, shall we?” Nesta’s eyes are lined with kohl and looking at her is like looking into the eye of a storm.
She always had an austere kind of beauty that left you speechless. 
Rhysand only nods simply before taking Feyre’s arm and approaching the large doorway. Nesta and Elain fall into rank behind them with practiced ease. It is you who hovers awkwardly in the background for a moment before taking your place in the middle of the formation. A solitary figure amongst them. 
You swallow thickly and you catch the lingering scent of a night chilled mist as you bristle. A whisper of night wraps itself around you like a cold comfort. These days his scent seems to follow you like a shadow; though, you suppose when you’ve spent every night this week wrapped around him, trying to drown out your own thoughts, there is bound to be a trace of him that lingers there.
At last, the towering doors to the throne room yawned open. 
The throne room is lined with black candles and evergreen wreaths frame the doorway, and moonflowers climb up the high, onyx pillars like ivy. And on each side of the aisles there were two magnificent banquet tables, piled high with food enough to feed a city. Though it was not to be touched without express permission from the High Lord.
A ripple of dark power reverberates through the mountain as The High Lord and Lady enter the throne room. You swear you feel the mountain wail in their presence. It is a powerful thing and you feel something within yourself begin to stir with it. 
A cold rage as it makes a home in your chest. 
The courtiers pale as they approach, parting like the tide as their High Lord and High Lady brush through them, crowned in silver crystals and garbed in midnight black robes. 
Rhysand looks beautiful you think as your eyes find him in the procession-- he stands tall against you all, his hair perfectly quaffed and the rich scent of mandarin and night-blooming jasmine seems to follow him.
All that pales in comparison to Feyre; the dress she wears is like tangible shadow. Gossamer thin silk and tulle that glitters with flecks of silver starlight, all gathered about her waist with a thin belt that accentuates the swell of her stomach. 
The room beholds her with baited breath; a sense of awe and ire. 
She looks like the visage of some ancient Goddess of the moon; pale and beautiful in the silvery light. 
You sense a shift in the air as they approach the dias and Rhysand’s shoulders tense; he is a picture of male pride. There is a dangerous quality to it that chills you to the bone. A cold violence that feels almost kindred to you. Feyre’s full red lips part and she smiles until it seems to dampen Rhys’s anger as he reaches for her as they climb the steps of the onyx dias. 
Keir’s face is twisted in a half-grimace, somewhere between astonishment and anguish. Behind him the Eris Vanserra remains fixed in place, his face set in a painfully neutral expression as he regards the High Lord and Lady. 
Motion from behind you beckons you to move as Nesta and Elain fall into step with you and begin to pace the length of the aisle and approach the dias. 
All three of you are dressed in Night Court black. A symbol of your place amongst the royal family. A warning of the dark power which you all possessed. Stolen and gifted from that cauldron. A reminder of your value. It is a carefully rehearsed routine as Nesta takes her place between you both, the flare of her skirts bushing against the marble floor with each long stride. You and Elain flank her sides like two wraiths. 
Elain looks sallow in black, you think as you catch her eyes. A poor initiation of the coldness you wear so well etched onto her beautiful face and steely determination in her dark, rich eyes. 
Nesta outshines you all tonight-- her golden hair braided into a crown atop her head and a delicate crown glints in the lantern light, slender spikes jutting forward in a dark corona. Her wicked eyes glinted like cobalt in the light. She’s dressed all in black. The gown itself is skin tight and embroidered with intricate silver brocade, twisting vines and moonflowers adorn the velvet bodice, tracing the curve of her breasts and sinking low, to her navel where the silver thread gathers about a sapphire that matches the crystals on her crown. 
Nesta is a cruel beauty; enough to bring a God to his knees. 
And Cassian looks about ready to sink to his knees before her as you regard him on the dias. 
Nestas moves with a feline grace, expressive and smirking as she takes her place between Cassian and Elain on the platform. 
Feyre and Rhysand sink into their thrones with a measured grace and from your stop between Elain and Azriel you can see all the eyes in the room as they flit from one member of the Inner Circle to the next. 
But it is the strange amber gaze of Eris Vanserra that you meet in the gathering crowd. He offers you a courteous nod and the ghost of a smirk graces his full lips and you send a scathing look in his direction in return.
You hope he feels the bitter sting of your coldness as your eyes try to find anything else in the throne room to focus on. 
Azriel rolls on the balls of his feet as the silence settles in the room and he inches so close to you that you feel the scarred pads of his fingers brush the exposed skin of your back. 
“You look good in black,” his voice is impossibly quiet, almost inaudible as he dips low enough that he is speaking into the shell of your ear. 
A cold chill runs up the length of your spine.
“Thank you, Shadowsinger,” You say simply, a feral smile on your lips as you bare your teeth to him. 
A laugh sharp and cruel rings through you and Azriel’s hand tangles in the lengths of your hair tugging sharply. 
“You are most welcome,” Azriel agrees, his voice is like shadow and wind as it graces your ears “most welcome indeed.”
Azriel steps back into line as Rhysand stands to address the crowd. 
Your own spine straightens as though it is muscle memory by now. Obedience. To bend and break as the High Lord and Lady saw fit. 
Rhysand looks like Night Triumphant as he regards his uncle with a strange union of cruelty and cordiality. Recently Rhys and Feyre had softened slightly with the people of Hewn City. Keir in particular. They can’t afford to isolate him from court politics-- in case the need arises for his Darkbringers to fight again. Hence the fact Rhysand even abides his presence at all. Rhysand’s cruel gaze lingers just a touch too long though. A careful reminder of the fate he’ll earn if he ever decided to go against Rhys. 
It’s been months since you’ve been to Hewn City, longer since you involved yourself in court politics. Longer still, since any whispers of the Trove or Briallyn reached you. Though you aren’t naive enough to believe it is over. 
None of the Inner Circle are. 
That is why you find yourself in Hewn City tonight. Swathed in the sallow light, and painted like a pretty whore; all red lips and dark eyes, with trembling hands, wanting nothing more than to be back in that little cabin with your sisters by your side-- as you were when you were girls. 
Feyre rises to her feet to join Rhys and she addresses the crowd, “May the blessings of the Winter Solstice be upon you.” 
The crowd seems to hum in acknowledgement and then they bow in a show of deference. 
Or blind obedience. 
Your eyes meet the strange amber gaze of Eris Vanserra once more, and it is you he looks at when he kneels. 
Keir slinks forward, offering your sister a low bow, “Allow me to extend my congratulations, High Lady.” His voice drips with false flattery as he dips his chin in a show of esteem. 
Eris Vanserra moves like a predator as he stalks forward, offering your sister a devastating, cultivated smile that feels almost authentic. “And allow me to extend my sincerest wishes, on behalf of my father and the entire Autumn Court.”
Rhysand’s mouth curls into a wicked half smile, his eyes darken to an amethyst color as she speaks “I’m sure your father will be most pleased for us.”
The implication that hands in the air is a dangerous one and you can feel the color drain from you at the terse exchange. A few more beast of silence and--
“Music,” The High Lord calls out and the orchestra from behind the mezzanine begins to play lightly, the sounds of lyres and harps ring through the air. 
Feyre once again addresses the crown, every inch the High Lady, “Go--eat--enjoy.” The crowd of silent courtiers disperse throughout the room as they aim to take their places at the tables. 
Each banquet table is piled high with an obscene amount of food and you find yourself feeling ashamed of the blatant opulence before you. When once you had nothing. Now you live without wanting. It makes you feel ashamed. How your old self would resent this wasteful indulgence. 
Turning away from the feasting courtiers you turn inwards towards the thrones on the dias. 
Now only Eris and Keir remain standing before the High Lord and Lady. You notice how neither of the men has deigned to acknowledge Morrigan’s presence behind the thrones. She looks ethereal and savage as she smirks down at them, her lips look as though they are stained wine red. 
Blood red, you think. 
The Illyrain’s at either side of you and your sisters look more like beasts carved into the dark stone of the mountain than anything else. Azriel and Cassian are clad in black armor, each adorned in ruby and sapphire to match their siphons that glow faintly in the low light. The brothers look as though they are the visage of some Gods of old; statuesque and hard-faced as they regard the Autumn Prince.
Cassian in particular looks like he might invoke some of that ancient power to stop Eris from dancing with Nesta tonight. He had not objected but, how could he? Rhys was his brother and his High Lord. Obedience is easier than the alternative. 
And the fate of The Night Court-- his home-- could rest on Eris’ alliance. So he will bite his tongue in the knowledge that what Eris offers is a chance at defeating Briallyn and Koschei. 
From your spot you watch the Autumn Prince with piqued curiosity. He will not stop looking at you and it is infuriating. 
It brings a cold anger bubbling to the skin's surface; all biting fury and icy violence. 
The conversation between Keir and Rhys seems to come to a natural end and the lull in the conversation has the whole room falling into silence, waiting for their next order. Like puppets.
And your sister the puppet master, pulling the strings as she commands, her voice like thunder at midnight, “Dance--”.
The courtiers like a midnight sea part and pair off in swathes of dark silk and velvet. Even Keir retreats into the crowd and pairs off with a dark haired female. 
Eris turns on his heels, the wrap of his riding boots against the floor echo through your head. 
“Before you join in the merriment, Eris,” Rhy’s voice is a velvet drawl as he presents a long black box, “I’d like to present you with your Solstice gift.”
You swallow hard and step forward. Procuring the box from Rhysand you press forward, one long stride that brings you face to face with the Autumn Prince and for the first time you truly look at him. 
A night-kissed wind envelops the pair of you, enough to wrap behind Eris blocking the dias from view of the dancing courtiers. 
Eris Vanserra is devastating; he has a cruel sort of beauty, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones that look sharp enough to cut into you, but his eyes are soft and unwavering. He is a strange juxtaposition.
Eris arches a brow at Rhysand and you flip open the carved lid of the box. Eris stiffens, his voice low and dangerous. 
“What is this?” he asks, somewhere between disbelief and wariness. 
“A present,” Rhysand clarifies and you catch a glimpse of ruby and gold on the hilt of the dagger. 
You refrain from grimacing at the truth you are confronted with. Rhysand and your sister want to sell off Nesta like a broodmare and her Made weapons with her. 
A truly beautiful piece. And dangerous too. 
Like Eris, something in you calls.
Eris’ hand hovers over the open box and he sucks in a sharp breath.
“You sense its power, then?” Feyre asks voice dripping with a sense of smugness that does not suit her in the slightest. 
Eris nods carefully, his eyes flicking to the High Lord and Lady before finding yours again. 
“There’s flame in it,” he says, hand still hovering over the weapon. As if something in him senses its true power. He closes the lid abruptly. “Why give it to me?”
Feyre smiles lightly and shrugs, “You’re our ally.”
Feyre rests a protective hand over the swell of her stomach, “You face enemies that exist outside of the usual rules of magic. It’s only fair to grant you a weapon that operates outside of those rules too.”
You stand transfixed by the twitch of his jaw and the bob of his throat as he considers her words. 
“It is truly made then?” He asks, carefully. His eyes never leave yours and it is your voice that answers his question. 
“It is, My Lord.” your voice comes out all cold and gravelly, unlike yourself. 
Rhysand speaks again though the beating of your heart renders him almost mute, “From my personal collection. An heirloom of sorts.” 
“All this time,” Eris’ voice is dark and thoughtful, “ all these years you possessed a Made weapon and you kept it hidden.”
“Even during the war,” Eris says more to himself than anyone else. 
There is a dangerous sense of anger and skepticism in the air as Eris examines the weapon again, his hand once more runs over the length of the dagger, his fingers barely ghosting the cool metal. 
“Don’t take our generosity for granted,” Feyre offers in warning, her voice quiet and threatening. 
Eris stills and nods in acknowledgement. He extends a smile that looks courteous enough to be genuine and once more allows his finger to run over the smooth length of the blade. “Thank you,” 
“Might I leave it in your safekeeping while I dance, My Lady?” Eris’s voice seems distant and far away and it takes a moment for you to realize that he is speaking directly to you. 
You look at him coldly, unable to muster the warmth of genuine affection when he is looking at you like that. It is infuriating. That someone so cruel might also be so insufferably handsome. 
“Yes, My Lord.”
Feyre nods to Rhys and Eris in acknowledgement and against your better judgment you let your eyes linger over the graceful curve of his calves and up over the contours of his muscled thighs, all the way up over the broad expanse of his chest and finally becoming entangled in the unbound curls of copper hair as he sweeps it over his shoulder. 
Devilishly and devastatingly handsome. Sun-blood handsome. 
Feyre’s soft lilt brings you back to reality as she says “Use it well, Lord.” 
Your sister's smile curves into a soft smile at Eris and extends a hand to him, “Ordinarily I would ask you to dance, but my condition has left me quite unwell.” Feyre makes a show of looking between the two sisters who stand in line with Cassian and Azriel. 
Elain, at least, has the good grace to give the impression of seeming interested. Nesta though looks bored. As though she is only half listening. As though they hadn’t just given away the dagger she’d Made. 
Perhaps it was the way that Nesta’s grey eyes had drifted away from the dancing sea of courtiers, or the forlorn look on Cassian’s face as he stood on the dias, but either way it made you realize something. That maybe the Illyrian General meant more to Nesta than she would ever let on. More than that dagger-- more than magic or power or court politics.  
Feyre notes the direction of Nesta’s stare and then looks between you and Eris. The corners of her lips twitch in nervous anticipation as her eyes settle on you. 
“My lovely sister shall take my place.” Feyre nods to you and for a moment you let the icy wrath in your stare settle over her before dipping your head to her. 
Eris’ throat bobs as you assess him with that same cold gaze. A slender hand takes the Made dagger from you and you hold out a hand to him. 
He extends a sculpted arm out to you, his large hand wrapping around you as you yield to him. His long, deft fingers brush against yours; his skin is warm to the touch and even in the pallid light it is clear and pale, with golden hues that compliment the warm depths of his eyes. Your chest grows taut and you feel emotion course through you with the force of a raging tempest. 
You loose a breathy gasp and for a moment you exist somewhere outside of yourself. You hear Eris’ voice, a warm, low timbre as he utters your name. He offers you his arm as you descend from your spot on the onyx dias. The sound of your slippers echo in the silent chamber. Eris’s face is set in a painfully neutral expression and you try your hardest to mirror it. Hoping he will not see the storm raging inside of you. You think of Nesta and the way she moves with such thoughtful grace and so you copy it; your chin tilted high and each step becomes a glide as you reach the edge of the marble dance floor. 
The eyes of the courtiers fall onto you. 
You feel the heat of Eris stare as it burns into the side of your face-- you feel a pair of violet eyes on you too. A cold chill spreads through you when his talons scrape dangerously and then you see him in your mind's eye. What a dangerous turn of events. 
Dangerous? You had never considered yourself as something dangerous. 
Nesta might have seduced Eris, but you will bring him to his knees. Rhysand’s cold tenor rattles around your mind and for a moment you see him standing at the precipice of a cliff as the storm rolls in, and the jagged rocks below look like the opening of a Helmouth. 
There is no doubt that Nesta is more beautiful. With a feline sort of beauty; long legs and a graceful neck, all angular and steely eyed. Nesta had inherited the aristocratic sort of beauty that your mother possessed. You had always been half-wild, unapproachable and--
Well, it is your mother’s voice that resounds in your head, of two sisters one is always the dancer and one the watcher. 
Tonight the roles reverse as you take your place in the middle of the dance floor. You will bring him to his knees. 
You catch Azriel’s eye as the instrumental music fades into momentary silence. From his spot on the dias he looks like a dark God; and he looks like he might just tear Eris to blood ribbons when his hand wraps around your waist. 
Eris brings you so close to him that you're pressed against him and as the harp begins to play, high and sweet, he smiles softly at you. As if the notes of music wrap around you, you raise your palm to his flat and open, an invitation if he has even seen one. 
The low stringed instruments usher in the music like a coming storm, a summons to the dance in a rushing of music, like water. You remind yourself to smile wickedly at Eris as he slides a broad hand over the curves and divots of your waist and hips. You lift your head high and, looking up into his perfect face you bare your teeth to him. All ruby red lips and pearls and he smiles so wickedly that you’re not sure who is supposed to be seducing who. 
Those strange amber eyes-- so haunting in the faelight. 
The harps and lyres sing so beautifully in the air and when the violins begin to play, it feels like a siren song in the air. A beckoning. As your body moves with the ebb and flow of the dancing tide. 
Eris leads you into the waltz, he moves with practiced ease. He knows every note, every trough and swell of the music, each nuance and note. 
Nesta would outdance you everytime. This you know. She moves like the music becomes her. And in so many ways it does. Her body bends to the will of the orchestral sound, and it bends to her too. 
So you will have to play it differently. 
The music sweeps you up in it’s tide, and as the music swells you decide to surrender yourself to the water. Let it wash all over you. Your body, once rigid and taut, goes pliant in Eris’ arms. You let the orchestral sound drown out your doubts and give yourself over to it. To him. His fingers ghost the line of your spine and he pushes you further still, against him. So close that you feel your heartbeat in tandem and your body bends to his will. 
It is easier to bend than to break. 
Better to relinquish control than have it taken from you. 
Eris’ eyes widen and soften then-- as if he feels it too-- you feel his hands loosen before tightening again around you. Somehow different now. Somehow, strangely, comforting. 
He moves with such grace and skill, his body reacts to every fluttering note and pause in the music. And the whole time his eyes are on you. And you can’t look away. The dark, warm depths of his eyes like a slow-burning fire that consumes all in its wake. 
You find the faces of your family in the crowd and you see that their normally composed demeanor seems to have shifted, their eyes wide and jaws slack as you move with the tide. 
Tonight you are the storm and the fire will bend to you. 
You will bring him to his knees, you think. As the music washes over you. 
Has there ever been such a haunting and mournful sound in all the world? Your name falling from Eris’mouth perhaps.
The snippets of the music Nesta had described to you, from her memory of the Veritas, paled in comparison. It flows and swims around you, filling you like water, and if you let it, it could be enough to drown you. To sink into the depths of the high-arching song. 
Eris smiles again when you fall into step with him so effortlessly, like you are an extension of him. 
One soul in two bodies.
His broad hand tightens over the flare of your hip, his fingers flexing before digging into the malleable flesh. The smile you give him feels much too vulnerable and genuine to bring you any sort of comfort. 
Eris' amber eyes shine with feral delight and you see yourself reflected in his eyes; you look like sin personified. The dark material of your dress gathers about your waist, held in place only by velvet ribbon and a few embroidered onyx crystals. The deep cut of the dress is so low that it bares the ample curve of your breasts and your strain to catch your breath because of how tight the dress has been laced. 
The person you see in Eris’eyes looks like the incarnation of some ancient deity; dark and cold, and cruel. And beautiful. 
Eris’ broad hand spreads across the middle of your back, pressed firm between your shoulder blades and you burn beneath him. As the music lulls and flutters his gaze locks onto yours and flame simmers in those dark topaz eyes and a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth. Cat-like and feral as he dips you low, supporting your weight in his arms. His face comes to hover over yours and you’re transfixed by his unyielding stare. 
Beautiful and haunting eyes.
One hand is wrapped around his neck and the other you bring to touch his cheek with the tenderness of someone who has never truly been touched. His face falters and something akin to raw vulnerability flashes in his eyes. 
Bring him to his knees.
In one swift movement Eris sweeps you so that you are standing upright, pressed so close to his chest that you feel each groove and divot of his sculpted chest. You place that same hand over his blazing heart and as the music filters into stunned silence, Eris eyes you with feral delight. 
For a moment, as the heaving in your chest subsides you allow yourself to remain in his tender grasp. His fingers ghosting the curve of you hip and the small of your back, rubbing slow, deliberate circles into the skin there. 
The faces of the courtiers turn upon you. 
You, this once-human female, barely out of girlhood, who had been thrust into this world of dark power and politics. 
Who stood before them now, coloured in the murky green hues of Hewn City. 
Storm-streaked girl. 
It is like being born again and the mountain trembles in your wake. 
The eyes of your High Lord and Lady land on you and Eris at the foot of the dias. Rhysand rises in his seat and his violet eyes meet yours and something wicked and enchanting flashes in them. Feyre regards you with a wild smile and she laughs before tipping her head to you in acknowledgement. 
And in a show of secret defiance you plunge into the deepest curtsey you can manage; your chest still rising and falling with a dramatic flare, and your skirts pool around you like inky shadows as you sink low onto the marble. You dip your chin ever so slightly, never quite breaking eye contact with the cruel violet gaze that assesses you with a dangerous glint. 
A laugh of dark joy bursts from Eris beside you who in turn, offers his own small bow before capturing you again in his firm hold as the orchestra begins to play again. 
Your mother had always wanted a Prince for Nesta, and yet, here you were-- beautiful, cruel and merciless, with the Autumn Prince sinking into the cold depths of your eyes. 
Everyone who has ever loved you has underestimated you. But looking into Eris’ eyes you see something kindred to you. 
You will bring them all to their knees. 
Eris' amber eyes gleam with want as he takes you in again and you loose a shaky breath as he leads you into the next dance. 
The music is soft and light, the strings sing a song so aching and mournful that you feel once again overcome with it. All of your violent coldness, all that biting fury, rendered a useless ruse as the music becomes you. 
Eris might be the monster they all say he is, but looking at him now, in the soft light, you see something else. 
“Trust Rhysand to keep such a beautiful creature to himself.” Eris’ amber eyes study you carefully. 
You school your face to remain neutral, with just a touch of scorn as you bite back. 
“If beauty is all you can see, My Lord” You say, your voice dark and taunting, “I fear you have missed the point entirely.” 
“Intelligent too,” Eris chuckles darkly and wraps a wisp of your unbound hair around his forefinger, “and dangerous.”
You don’t deign to reply though Eris continues his assessment of you, his eyes trailing over you, afire with dark promise. 
“I’ve seen you before though,” Eris asks as he steps into the next part of the song, “haven’t I?”
His eyes narrow on you and you think back to the last time you saw Eris Vanserra. 
“At the High Lords meeting,” You say quietly, your voice thick with shame as you recall the meeting some months back. 
You had been little more than a wraith then, when the dreams of drowning in that cauldron plagued you nightly, a girl gulping on a woman’s grief. Now those dreams only come with the coming of a storm. A warning or some ill-fated omen.
“The time since the way has changed you.” It is not a question but a statement. 
You don’t smile at him like you should. Instead you meet Eris’ burning stare with a measured look of your own, “For the better, I hope?”
Eris thinks for a moment, as if looking for the right words to express his meaning. 
“You are a Goddess.” he says slyly gesturing to the dress as the skirts brush against him, baring the slit in the thigh to him. 
“Then kneel to me.” You say, not missing a beat as Eris laughs wickedly and brings his mouth to hover over the shell of your ear. 
“It seems you came to play the game tonight, afterall.” Eris says, his voice a low murmur in your ear. 
He spins you again, quick and violent before you crash back into him again, “don’t believe the lies they tell you about me.” 
“But I should believe you?” You ask, arching a brow to the cruel prince. 
“You shouldn’t believe anyone here, Little fox.” Eris tips his head towards the dias where Mor watches the pair of you from her spot besides the High Lord and Lady. 
“The Morrigan knows the truth,” Eris insists, “though she has never revealed it.” 
“Why?” You ask curiously. 
“Because she is afraid of it.” Eris’ voice is tempered and quiet and he casts the Inner Circle a look of his own, “they all are.” 
Your mouth twitches with the ghost of a smirk as you press yourself further into him, “You don’t do yourself any favors with this mask you wear.”
“Don’t I? I’ve managed to ally myself to this court, under constant threat of being discovered by my father-- do you have any idea what he’d do to me if he found out, Little fox?” Eris asks, the fire within him lighting and flickering in his amber eyes. “I ally myself with this court, I offer aid when I can, I placate Rhysand with ceremonies and shows of deference. Why do you think that is?”
Eris dips you again and the fan on his unbound hair brushes against your bare shoulders. 
“Because there’s something in it for you.” It isn’t a matter of question. You know it to be true and you see it in the way that Eris regards you with a mixture of fondness and caution. 
“Because there is something in it for me,” Eris confirms, “and tell me, what is in it for me?”
“What is it that you want, My Lord?” You ask, fluttering dark lashes at him and the music swells. 
“What is Rhysand offering?” Eris counters and leads you further into the center of the floor. 
“Nothing that I have the power to grant you.”
Eris laughs, the sound like silk on your skin and you shiver as he brings his lips to graze your ear, “I very much doubt that, Little fox?”
You swallow thickly and a surge of dark power pricks at your skin. You let him see it; all that cold rage, and the violence of the sea. 
Eris' face twists but not from fear and a strange look of reverence shines in his eyes. 
The waltz comes to a close and as the music fades into the chatter of the courtiers he whispers into your ear once more. 
“They say your sister Elain is the beauty, but you are something else entirely.” His breath is hot and sacred on your neck, and a broad hand strokes the bare skin of your back and you find yourself arching into him. 
Eris takes a step back from you, holding your hand above your head and turning you slowly as his eyes roam the curves and contours of your body, “You are wasted in the Night Court,” 
“Truly wasted.” His voice is a low whistle as you stop in front of him now. 
“And where might I be used more effectively, My Lord?” 
Eris chuckles again but before he can answer--
“Get your hands off her, Eris.” Azriel’s voice is like cold death that cuts through the spell that Eris has you under. His wrath comes off him in waves that crash against you, halting your movements. 
The dancing sea around you seems to cease to move as Eris and Azriel lock eyes. 
Eris straightens his back and he closes his hand over yours-- gently, almost protectively-- and he locks his eyes onto Azriel. 
Hazel and amber meet and shadow and light seem to dance in the air. The courtiers wait with baited breath. 
“I don’t take orders from the likes of you, Shadowsinger.” 
You stifle a snarl as you look at Azriel. Who does he think he is? He has no claim over you. He had made that much clear when you started this thing. A means to an end. A placeholder for another sister. 
“Am I to understand that you’d like to dance, Azriel?” You ask cooly, trying not to let your violet rage show in the darkness of your eyes. 
“Yes.” His voice is insistent and thick with jealousy and the promise of violence. 
Before you can pull yourself from Eris’ protective grip, Azriel is tugging on your wrist and bringing you into his side. 
Eris bares his teeth to Azriel and fire dances in those strange amber eyes. “Go sit at your master’s feet, dog.” 
Azriel laughs darkly and his shadows become a violent wisp of dark that wraps itself around you in a possessive manner. 
You swallow down the shame that you feel when Eris looks at you -- like all the power you had just moments ago has been ripped away from you, and now you are just another piece on the board to be bought and sold as your High Lord saw fit. 
A pretty whore, painted like some dark Goddess.
You band an arm across Azriel’s chest as he lunges forward in a flurry of movement. 
“It’s alright,” you offer Eris an apologetic smile, “I’ve taken too much of your time already.” You say diplomatically, taking Azriel’s hand in your own and pulling away from Eris.
Feyre and Rhysand had given up one of Nesta’s Made daggers in the name of Eris’ continued alliance, surely, one interrupted dance will not jeopardize it. 
Eris offers you a taut smile and he bows his head to you, “Very well then, we’ll play later, Little Fox.” 
Eris doesn’t so much as acknowledge Azriel as he ventures towards the dias again. 
Azriel holds you in place, one hand wrapped around your shoulders and he searches you as if looking for signs of injury. His touch is cold and biting. 
“Happy now?” you roll your eyes at him. 
Azriel stares coldly at you, his face set like stone, as if carved into the dark stone of the mountain, “not in the slightest.” 
You glance hesitantly over his shoulder and see Rhysand and Feyre each sharing a look of subtle fury. Azriel will no doubt be on the receiving end of a mental lashing. If Azriel has cost them this alliance it comes down on you too-
“He touched you and I-,” Azriel’s voice is weighted and serious at the same time you speak out. 
“Whatever has passed between us,” you say gesturing between you and him, “it has to end, Azriel.”
If Azriel felt anything at all but cold indifference his face does not show it. 
“Because of Eris?” Azriel asks incredulously, his tone full of venom.
“No, of course not,” You say truthfully, “because we are fools to think this will ever be enough.” 
A beat of silence lingers in the air between you.
“For either of us.” 
Azriel takes a moment to think about it and you see the recognition flash in his darkening hazel eyes, he looks over his shoulder in Elain’s direction. Carefully, measured, he looks at you again. 
“You want Elain.” You say matter of factly, even with a hint of sadness, “don’t deny it-- and I…” your voice trails into nothing. An errant whisper of power. 
“And what do you want?” Azriel asks, his voice once dark and cruel is something akin to familial. 
“I’m not sure yet.” you say thoughtfully, looking back to the dias where everyone regards you and Azriel warily. 
Azriel softens and he lets go of your arms and hides his scarred fingertips in the pockets of his dark colored tunic. He runs a hand over his face in regret and looses a shaky breath before laughing again. 
“Rhys is going to fucking slaughter me.” Azriel says and you laugh quietly, muttering in agreement as you link arms with his and lead him through the dancing sea of courtiers to the wine table. 
Azriel takes a goblet in each hand and offers one to you. The wine is dark and red and stains your lips like blood. The taste is woody and spiced, it tastes a little like Autumn. Azriel leans into the onyx pillar and angles himself away from the prying eyes of the courtiers as they dance. 
You’re at his side and move so that his body obstructs the view of Rhysand and Feyre, shunning their ire. 
“How pissed do you think they’ll be?” You ask grimly. 
“With you?” Azriel asks, cocking a brow in confusion. You only nod and wait for him to continue. Azriel swallows a large mouthful of wine, wiping his mouth with the back of a scarred hand “not at all, you did them a favor-- practically had Eris on his knees.” 
“Good.” You meet his eyes and for the first time tonight you feel as though you might just have something to offer. 
“Be careful with Eris,” Azriel says gently, his hand on your arm, “not everything he says is to be trusted.” 
“But I can trust you?” You ask, thinking back to what Eris had said earlier in the evening.
“Always.” Azriel says.
The orchestral music comes to a dramatic close and you see Nesta and Cassian dancing happily in the crowds. Elain remains on the dias and you catch her eyes as she watches you and Azriel with careful, wide eyes. 
“Come on, Shadowsinger,” You say defiantly, pushing yourself from the onyx pillar, “time to face the High Lord.” 
Azreil huffs indignantly and pushes away from the pillar, abandoning his goblet and stalking his way to Elain’s side on the dias. She smiles softly at him and you see some of the tension in Azriel’s shoulders dissolve into nothing but a contented ease. 
You approach the dias with a quiet reproach and as you meet Feyre’s eyes she croons at you, her smile is once of a brilliant radiant light that spills from her. A stark contrast to the cold darkness that you carry so well. 
Eris' voice is dark and serious as you approach The High Lord, his jaw tightens when Rhysand regards him with a cool violet gaze. 
“I have my reasons.” 
You’re not entirely sure what they’re talking about and when you take your place next to Feyre she places a hand on your arm in comfort. Though it does nothing to settle the acid churning in your stomach nor the storm that is raging inside of you. 
“Care to share those reasons with us?” Rhysand asks, picking at an errant thread on his beautiful dark tunic. 
For a moment his eyes glaze over, muted violet as he speaks mind to mind with the Autumn Prince.
Rhysand’s lips twitch lightly and you can see that whatever words passed between him and Eris has pleased him greatly-- at least given him the upper hand so that he doesn’t feel threatened but Eris’ commanding presence. 
Eris steps forwards again and adds, “Bestides, it is a bonus of course, that in doing so, I would be getting what has been owed to me even since my betrothal to Morrigan.” 
Rhysand studies Eris and then casts a fleeting glance along the line to you, standing dutifully at Feyre’s side. 
Like the docile, and obedient sister he wants you to be. 
A conduit of his dark power. A piece to be played in this game of power and politics. 
“Anything I want-- anything at all, whether it be armies from the Autumn Court or your firstborn, you would grant me it all in exchange for the Archeron girl as your wife?”
Azriel, still somewhat territorial, lets loose a low growl that rumbles like thunder through the air. 
Eris doesn’t deign to even look in his direction-- instead those haunting amber eyes linger on you. His eyes are soft and dark, burning into yours, and you find yourself caught in the unyielding, all consuming fire that is Eris Vanserra. 
Eris turns back to Rhysand. “Not as far as my heir, but yes, Rhysand. You want armies against the human queen? You’ll have them, and anything else you might ask of me.” 
“Just for her?” Azriel’s voice is cutting and suspicious as he hones in on Eris Vanserra. 
“The girl, and, when the time comes, you’ll aid me in seizing the Autumn Throne from my father.” Eris adds, his eyes shine with that slow-burning fire, “and then you’ll have all the armies you desire.”
Rhysand and Feyre share a look of pure delight, irreverent to anyone else but you see it for what it is. Feral delight at their victory. 
“I couldn’t very well let my wife’s sister go into battle unaided, could I?” 
I said bring him to his knees, darling. What dark magic is this? What have you done to him? Rhysand’s voice is like night-kissed air in your mind. 
Feyre’s laugh rings through you like birdsong and you can’t help the satisfied smirk that curls onto your lips.
You’re about to speak when you catch Eris’ eyes; those strange amber eyes. And then you feel it. 
A bond that grows taut and reverberates through the hall, like a ripple of power and a golden thread bridges the distance between your body and his. 
“Mate?�� Eris’ voice strains with the weight of it, and you feel like light goes all through you, as though you are little more than a shadow or a memory as you allow yourself to sink into the dark waters that live within your mind's eye. “My mate.”
Your name breaks apart in his mouth and in a flash of violet and murky blue you’re greeted by the storm as it breaks over Velaris. On the horizon, dark and ominous as it approaches. You reach the balcony and wade out into the violent night, waiting for the storm to stake its claim to you. 
You were born on a night like this, you tell yourself. Like the Gods of old; born from the storms and the seas, to withstand the hardships of this world. To be cruel and merciless and beautiful. 
You whisper it, until you feel that bond in your chest grow taut, strained with the distance between you. And as Eris’ emotions run like water into you, for the first time in a long time you allow yourself to feel. 
To yield to the storm as it breaks against you with all the force of a great tempest.
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darkdemeter · 1 month
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SIREN, BE BOUND TO ME
The DARK DEMETER WRITING CATALOGUE, BUCKY BARNES COLUMN (ONESHOT) #1 —
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—- not my gifs, credit to original posters! -—
Pirate! Bucky Barnes x Siren! Female Reader
A/N — Yes. Yes... YAAAAS! IM DOING IT! I'm frickin' writing a pirate Bucky! Mmmm! Fuckin' love pirate stuff, I'm just living for Bucky being a hotto potatoh commanding a vessel on the high seas.
WORD COUNT — 4.1k
READER DISCRETION — Pirate Bucky — semi dark Bucky — submissive/soft captive reader — possessive Bucky — SMUT 18+, Minors DNI! — P in V sex — memory loss/wiping via magic (reader affected) — light use of physical and sexual acts to avoid conflict — indirect breeding kink? — pet names — brief consumption of alcohol — I think that's it?
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SUMMARY — He is your captain. There is no place you'd rather be than by his side, nothing you could ever want for that is not him. You owe everything, your entire self, to him. And yet overboard and on the tide you set sail across in search for a great and ancient treasure, a song continues to seep through the cracks of your heart and soul... a song so familiar yet unknown. Forgotten. And Bucky reminds you yet again that there is no place else for you that isn't beside him, that there is nothing out there.
  There lays a song forgotten in your heart and soul, distantly faint as the receding tide to the shore. With each spare moment of peace you were given to dwell beneath the lapping waters, you spend a portion of it in search of that song. And what time remains within the falling sand’s glass, you bask in the blue and faded black abyss. 
  Tonight is no different. You could not remember the forgotten song that lulls you tenderly, pulling through skin and scale, calling you somewhere far, much too far, away from the balancing hull above. 
  You could not abandon your captain. Betray the trust between you both. After all, it was he who found you washed atop the rocky crevices of the island, who rescued you from a fate of drying out in the sun’s merciless heat. Who took care of you when there was nothing left of the life you once knew. 
  To break that earnt trust, to betray him, you can’t think of anything far more heartbreaking than that. 
“Time’s up, my Siren,” the voice of your captain beckons you. He calls you to the surface. 
  A sigh ripples through the water and your head tilts up towards the surface, the darkened slits in your milky white eyes shrink away from the moonlight penetrating through the waves. The long limb of your tail sweeps back and forth, thrusting you upwards, skin and scales shimmering brighter as you near the barrier between water and air. The breach pulls a lungful gasp of the night's chillingly crisp air, the only warmth coming from The Avenger. 
  Hair drench-pressed and thinned forms a curtain over your features as you peer up at the looming figure pridefully arching over the ship’s wooden rail. The slivered slits of your eyes grow wider as they focus on him, with a lantern beside him, glass scorched and worn by smoke, it illuminates the upper portion of his body. His white shirt ruggedly wrinkled and loosened to showcase a muscled chest, skin tanned by the sun’s heated kiss, sleeves rolled to the elbow, black ink painted legendary stories over his body in memorabilia. Stories forged into his flesh for all to study and cower in fear.
  He summons you with a kink of his finger and you obey his silent command with an all too eager nod. Around you, the water spirals into a column and rises up, pushing you higher to reach the wooden railing. Aboard the ship, the crew is merry in their celebrations. Another successful day of conquest and battle on the high seas, another amassed sum of gold and valuables to add to hull and reputation. 
  Of course spirits would be high and cheerful tonight. And of course, what was a conquest without the captain’s prize at the end of it all?
  Gathering yourself over the rail and onto the deck, the glistening shine of your tail morphs into two shapely legs, the milky hues of your eyes and other remnants of your true body hide in their human disguise. Your eyes find the hourglass on his opposite side, the sand all gathered in the bottom glass pit. Your captain holds something out for you and you graciously accept his gift, pulling the thin veil of your robe over your naked body. 
  His ocean blue eyes scan you up and down, the left corner of his plush, chapped lips turns upwards. 
“Did you find what you were looking for?” He purrs his question and it brings a cold chill to run up and down your spine, your lungs freeze with what little breath they had at that moment. 
  He turns his body properly to face you, burly shoulders and thick muscles straining the fabric of his shirt. His eyes fold slightly into a sharpened stare of interrogation. 
  “I–I don’t…” You shake your head, breath hitching. “I don’t understand, Captain. I search for nothing that is not you.”
  “Aye?” 
  Your gaze drops to the limb of his remaining flesh hand, the other limb itself brings an uncomfortable yet hazy familiarity, you dare not to look at it up close when in the awoken presence of his intimidating stature. Often you would question its being there and admire its raw and unique - mystical - materials, when your captain lay beside you fast asleep. 
  Wrapped tightly over and under the callousness of his palm, the golden chain twinkles in the pale moonlight, the larger pearl at its centre holstered by binding gold and tinier pearls, beneath the gilded net a more refined shape of a pearl dances on its link. 
  However, your mesmerised pupils flicker up in an instant, brought to the attention of your captain awaiting your obedient answer. A noise is pitched in your throat with the answer but it dies swiftly before its deliverance. 
  Your vision focuses behind him then, up near the ship’s helm, her fingers lace slowly in their hypnotic movement as the fabric of her scarlet magic is weaved together. A warning. You do your best to hide the distressed visage of fear, batting your eyelashes and brushing aside the death of your verbal response, you bow your body forward submissively to his that towers over you.
  When your lips touch his, he almost instantly devours yours in a hungry kiss, the soft caress of your fingers tracing the curves of his chest brings pride and lust to possessively reel you into him, your nude front colliding against the hardened wall of his own. 
  Your hands run their course of exploration up the swollen bulk of his arms until they find purchase and entangle themselves in his dark locks. His own hands ravage your body, kneading the flesh and slim muscle of your hips.
  He groans when you submit to his overpowering will, mouth parting to his eager tongue that shoots forward like a fired cannon, aimed to dominate you in every sense of the word. Your soft whimpers beneath him bring him unimaginable pleasure, the sort that drives him to seek it evermore, with no seeming end to his insatiable hunger for what is you; your entire being. Wolves are known to be ravenous beasts. It’s why he’s known by the moniker as the White Wolf. 
  His tongue fiercely dances over yours, swirling and his bottom teeth tease you by nipping your lip, earning a high pitched squeal from you. He chuckles, the sound rich and dark in its intention. Your core comes alight, burning hotly and the once cool air dissipates as heat courses through every vein and nerve in your body, your mind swimming in the ocean pools of his eyes. Eyes that at times are the only thing you need to be connected to the sea. 
  The prominent tent of his erected endowment presses against your stomach and lower abdomen. You finally pull away, however, in his caging embrace it’s not very far you’re able to move back. 
  “Wait for me in my cabin, little Siren,” he orders gruffly. Your mouth falls agape and you sputter in your rattled confusion. 
  “But I—” Still he penetrates you with that cold stare. It prods at you with radiant intensity, it matches the ominous scarlet glow that now burns brighter now as it moves down the upper deck’s stairs. Your eyes dart between the woman who controls the rolling waves of red magic and the ferocity of your captain’s hardpressed gaze. 
  Your head bounces quickly. “Yes...” 
  A few words of compliance are cut off by a gasp. As you attempt to follow his order and return to his cabin, he halts you within his metallic grasp and pulls you back in, curled lips mere inches from your own, in the clutches of his brazen hold, he commands your attention. Your hands are forced to rest over his chest. 
  He drawls with a warning growl, “Yes?”
  “Yes, Captain Barnes.”
  Bucky nods his head once and lets you go, his eyes flicker between the cabin door and you, silently instructing you to hurry along. Your bare feet barely make a sound over the wooden deck in your traversal towards the cabin, where you would await your captain to claim his prize. Treasure that he greedily gets to have all to himself. The conquest he takes glee in ravishing himself full of. 
  Once you’re tucked inside, exactly where he wants you, Bucky scratches at his stubbled jaw, his recent shave already beginning to grow in again. Wanda approaches his side, the fabric of her magic ceasing at her fingertips like embers passing over into lowly ashes. 
  “That was a close one,” Bucky growls, his tongue that savours your taste runs over his teeth. She hisses with a hushed tone, “With each outing she is given to delve into the sea, my magic weakens, Captain.”
  His eyes roll to glare at the woman beside him. She sighs with a bow of her head, eyes downcast as to not provoke him into thinking her words a challenge. 
  “All I mean to say is that you must reinforce her rules. She’s beginning to suspect far too much, and with each piece of recollection, my power is sapped by her own. Enforce her rules once more.”
  Bucky’s shoulders shrug upwards with an all too arrogant huff, haughty in his conviction. He idly tilts his flesh hand, admiring the piece of you he has wrapped up in his iron grasp. 
  “She will do well to keep in mind her place. She’s intimidated.”
  “She’s conflicted, Captain.” Her words bring about a scowl to Bucky’s face, lips coiled into a snarl and nose wrinkling, eyes thinning. “And it will be a matter of time before she is free of you, and you will be known as the captain who lost his siren.”
  The bridge of this knowledge leaves Bucky in a state of strife. An aspect to his notorious reputation was garnered by your captivity. The White Wolf known by all as the fearsome pirate captain who tamed a siren; held you in the oyster of his clutches. If he did lose you, then his reputation would be suffering a heavy loss. As if to sense his change of demeanour, her hands raise up with her glowing, magic tipped fingers. His nostrils flare and the harsh prestige that made him a force not to be trifled with, he commands,  “Do it.”
  Bucky struts off with a roll of thunder beneath his leather worn boots, swiping up a half drunk bottle of rum and swallows an animalistic gulp, joining in on the festivities of his crew. Wanda observes her captain for a moment before diverting her attention towards the cabin. Her hands fold over one another, and with her palms outstretched, the scarlet hue dances through the air in a thin, cloudy blanket, searching and finding the miniscule gap beneath the wooden door. 
  He pummels into you until your back pushes far into the mattress, eliciting sharp whines and sultry moans from your parted lips, breath caught in a pattern of shallow pants. He chases after his second high as he drives his cock deep into you, the sound of skin slapping skin perverts the cabin’s air and already you begin to feel your core tremble in its own pursuit for its fourth orgasm. With each powerful snap of his hips, his throat chokes out a grunt in his exertions, the girth of his cock sinks deep into the channel of your hot, velvety cunt. 
  “Fuckin’ hell,” he growls lowly with a hiss, “so fuckin’ tight! You feel so good, you’re— taking me so well.” 
  With an exceptionally powerful rut of his hips and he has you on the precipice of screaming, thighs quivering in their hold around his waist, heels digging into the dip of his large, muscular back. Any coherent thoughts and words die on the vine of your vocal cords, only able to procure sounds of pleasure, to chant his name over and over again. 
  “Captain Barnes!” you mewl with fervour. Bucky’s chest vibrates with a husky chuckle. “That’s right, scream my name, let the crew hear you, Love. Let them hear how drunk you are for my cock.” 
  His one palm is laced with sweat, thick and roughened fingers squeeze yours in a passionate display of his dark possessiveness over you. Your captain could be very jealous when another’s eyes lingered on you for even a second too long, many others had suffered the brunt of his fury - weapons ablaze - and you in the end suffered the brunt of his envy with his cock pounding into you for the next several hours. 
  To remind you to whom it was you belong to. 
  His lips suckle one of the erected peaks of your breasts, moaning as his tongue leaves a wet trail around it before passing over to the second to repeat the treatment. Your head turns to the side sharply when the head of his cock splits you open even further than you could previously imagine, hitting a hidden crevice that leaves you without breath. 
  He gauges your reaction, the colour of your eyes blurring, phasing between the natural milky white canvases and the hue of your disguise, your canines and incisors now elongated, all because of the pleasure that pools at the junction where your bodies meet. But for a moment, you catch the glimmer of gold still wrapped around his hand, glimmering metal gnawing and rubbing across his skin, you’re torn between your euphoria and clouded curiosity. 
  “Say it again,” he grunts with a hard thrust that makes his muscles ripple insanely beneath his skin.
  “C’mon, say it for your captain, Love.” 
  Your lips and tongue drag across the flesh of his wrist, the pulse of his racing heart beats through, you can almost taste the rhythm. His sweat tastes strong with his musk, a strong flavour of the salty sea, sandy beaches and gunpowder. 
  You moan softly, almost in a whisper, “Captain… C-Captain Barnes.”
  The effect you have on him is indescribable to him. Never has he been able to put it into words, all he can do is feel it; carnally. The repetitive pounding into that deeper and sweeter spot has your back arching up, the smooth layer of your sweat covered body rubs against his, able to feel each defining muscle, he uses his metal hand to grip hold of one of your thighs, angling you so that you’re spread further apart for him. Your eyes begin to fall heavy and roll back into your skull in your drunken haze, the shimmer of scarlet presently blooms from time to time in them.  
  “That’s right. You belong to me, little Siren. It’s my cock that has you dripping wet.” His thrusts become faster, losing the precise edge he had before, his climax inevitably as close as your own. Your nails embed crescent moons into the skin of his one hand while the other bites into his shoulder. 
  “I’m the only man— fuck! The only man who gets to have you like this. Shit… shit. ’M going to fill you up.” 
  “Please, please… Cap—”
  “Aye, I’m going to fill you up, have you nice ‘nd full until my cum is leaking out of your little cunt, Siren. Fuck… you want that, don’t you? I know you do.” 
  You gasp with each attempt to breathe, each push and pull of his cock strikes you like a match to light the powder keg, the explosion of your climaxes comes as a white hot flash in your vision, momentarily blinding you. Your hot walls squeeze around his large endowment, forcing him to thrust back and forth even harder, grunting hot breaths against the shell of your ear. 
  His seed is flushed into the channel of your pussy in thick, seething spurts that paint your walls that milk him for every precious drop. 
  What he gives makes your lower abdomen weigh a little heavier, a little bit fuller than you were before. His hips grow slower with each dissipating explosion from his tip. His large chest expands hugely with every intake of air to his lungs before deflating as a pleased groan. 
  In his reverie of contentment, having had his fill of his prize - for now - he withdraws his softening cock from your pussy, a moistened pop echoes in the emptiness of your thoughts. Bucky rolls off of you to lay at your side, atop the furs and silken drapes of the bed. Before you can make a move he uses his metal arm to drag you in closer, tucking you into his side, the coldness of his fingers skimming the delicate texture of your arm. 
  The soothing rock of the ship is enough to lull you to sleep, the lids of your eyes inching closer and closer together. 
  “Still deny that you found nothing?” 
  His question only brings your brows to knit together. You shake your head and huddle closer into his side, basking in the comforting warmth of his body. Why on earth would he ask you such a silly question? As if there was anything of importance that outranked him, by being at his side. 
  The answer you give is instant in its resolve, “I don’t understand, Captain. I needn’t find anything out there… I have you.” 
  Your answer, though unable to see it from your position, pleases him and his lips curl into a toothy smirk, long sweeps of his dark brown hair tousled about in his post sex state. You lay your head against his chest to hear the steady thrum of his heartbeat, eyes closing to seek rest and refuge in the arms of your beloved captain. The man that grants you safety, that promises you nights of passion followed by the comfort of his body next to yours. All he asks in return is your loyalty. Your devotion.
  For you to be his siren. 
  Behind the blurry curtain of sleep layered over your eyes, you awaken and by your estimation, only for around an hour or maybe a little more. The morn still hasn’t risen over the ocean’s horizon, the moonlight shimmering and shining over the waves. The candlelight that bathed the cabin with a sensual atmosphere had now burnt out. 
  Breaths of deepened sleep sound next to you, the chiselled sculpt of his chest you’d used as a pillow takes steady form, as he sleeps. It makes you wonder as to what he dreams about, sometimes a scowl is etched into his attractive visage and he becomes restless, leaving you to somehow comfort him. And other times, mostly after he’s spent drawing orgasm after orgasm from the two of you, he finds respite. 
  You take the time to thoroughly yet delicately rub your eyes, robbing the tiredness of its hold to take you once more. With a tilt of your head, hair coming over your shoulder to graze the top of your breasts, his other hand lay out over the bed, residing just over the edge. 
  The mysterious object that somehow you know is linked with you, but as to how or why, or its significance to you in any case, is still laced around his calloused palm. Despite its odd gleam of familiarity, you believe this is the first time you’ve seen it before, however, the tiny voice in the back of your mind says otherwise. Then you must have seen something like it before somewhere. 
  Something deep in the recess of your heart, you have to know. Is this somehow linked to the estranged longing to a home you can’t remember? Does this necklace bind you to the lost melody of times erased from your memory?
  You take caution in moving carefully, inching your way to lean over the sleeping form of your captain, skin brushing skin, you slowly rotate your hips and hoist a thigh over his waist. Heated crimson flushes into your cheeks as you analyse your newfound position, but also from the way his body stirs lightly, still enraptured by sleep yet his body adjusting to your core lining over his naval. 
  Thawed from your frozen idle of panic, you take a moment to calm the racing of your heart that hammers vigorously against your chest, your nimble fingers reach out towards his flesh hand that clings protectively to the mysterious necklace. 
  This almost feels… too easy. You swallow a silent gulp, fingers grazing against his palm when his body shifts, bumping up into yours, you pull your reach back so fast, your hand slaps against his ribs, doing your best to cover up your true intentions. His stills beneath you once more and your shoulders fall lax with a sigh of relief. 
  Again you dare another attempt to grab the necklace, this time you don’t risk breathing, holding it for what seems like forever until your lungs begin to swell with an ache that makes them feel like bubbles about to burst. 
  You work the chain until it's loosened and finally allow your held breath to escape you, the strain to remain silent proving far more difficult than you would have liked. The weight of your body shifts backwards, now sitting up, you allow your eyes to take in every detail of the object in your hands. The gold chain is light, ghostly as it graces your hands, your fingers lace and loop it around amidst the process of your conjuring thoughts. 
  Like a puppeteer pulling the strings you raise the necklace up by its precious thread. The pearl encaged by its makeshift net swings from side to side, as though even when you are completely still, it has a soul of its own accord. 
  Everything you knew about pearls is forfeit, the identity of this one brings the bevel between your brows to form in thoughtful wonder. Therein lies the piece of some puzzle, the missing notes to the melody to which you only recall the faint rhythm of the song. 
  It has to mean something of greater importance. But if it did, then why is your captain so adamant to dismiss your curious nature to find the answers?
  As if the pearl itself is the key, you hear within your heart and soul the song. Voices sing a tone that is calming to your senses, a sweet and endearing lullaby meant for you to hear whenever you find yourself in the loneliest of places, in the darkest reaches of the ocean, the connection will bring you somewhere you call home. 
  But your home is The Avenger. Aboard the ship with Captain Barnes. The man known as Bucky to his closest inner circle. So why do the voices mingling with the tide call you away from all that? With each passing second you become ensnared by the spell of the pearl, the voices of whom you somehow find solace in become louder, the softened chorus of their song echoes a hundred times over in your head. 
  Before you even give pause to reason, your own voice becomes paired with the orchestra of sirens. You have no words, and maybe you never did, all you did need is the pearl to help guide you in remembering the melody. The uncertainty of your humming eases, the unforeseen instructors aiding you, your voice is soft within its deep reverie when it all comes to an abrupt pause, a gasp severing the tune. 
  He has you by the wrist, fingers bruisingly tight and giving you no choice to pull away from him, as he often did whenever he saw you retreat from him without his say so. 
  Bucky’s eyes bear into yours, penetrating the barrier of the necklace, he stares you down the way a wolf does the lonely prey in its path. His eyes match the brooding darkness of a storm at sea, a breed of villainy that threatens those who dare to try him. 
  “Captain…” Your throat bobs with a nervous swallow.  “I– I wasn’t—” 
  Out of pure instinct to not tempt his fury, your hold on the necklace ceases and it gathers in the roughened pad of his palm, large thumb that has caressed your sensitive nub plenty of times now works against the spherical shape of the pearl, brows heavy in their judgement to assess your punishment. His movement is sudden upon the brink of your awareness, a sharp gasp that cuts into the tender muscle of your chest as he plants you flat on your back, hands both of flesh and metal pin your wrists on either side of you until the bruising ache becomes far too unbearable. But you do nothing to voice the level of your pain. He would not hear of it. His newly erected shaft ghosts over your entrance, the beginnings of your slick painting his already drooling tip.  “I’m beginning to think you like breaking my rules, Siren.”
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relto · 2 years
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i feel like this is my own fault for not noticing but i just learned that aethers standard accent color is black (via a quest where your player character shows up a second time) and its shaken me up for some reason
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