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dilatorywriting · 1 year

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The Prince & The Pauper Prefect

Gender Neutral Reader x Prince Stefan (Twst OC) Word Count: 5.9k

Summary: 'Dear Ramshackle Prefect, you are cordially invited to tour the Royal Sword Academy at your leisure. We hope our libraries may have something of use to aid in your journey home. And if perhaps you find our facilities to your taste, we would be more than happy to extend you a more permanent invitation.’ Clearly, nothing about this could go wrong at all.

A/N: A commission for the very lovely @thefiasco-onyourblock. I'm having so much fun with all y'alls ideas, and this is one of the few that was asked to be public, so I'm happy you all get to see it! It was a lot of fun to dive back into this himbo~

You’d just stumbled your way back onto Ramshackle’s sagging porch after your second third fourth foray into this wonderful new world of Near-Death Experiences when the letter arrived. It popped into existence in a pleasant burst of bubbles and sparks—a scroll of soft, cream, paper stamped with a shimmering wax seal that looked like it could have been melted down out of literal gold. You waved a hand under it, over it, all around the thing in grand loop-de-loop. The letter just kept hovering in place, occasionally spitting out another bout of multicolored sparkles.

“Hello?” you tried, cautious, and the thing crinkled at the corners. Like it was trying to wave back at you.

You glared up at the grey sky for a moment, daring whatever higher power existed in this stupid world to try fucking with you yet again, before reaching out to grab the ridiculous, magic, note.

It unrolled at your touch, like a cat stretching when you scratched along its spine. And instead of some horrible prank or wayward contract, you were greeted with an opportunity.

“POACHERS!” Crowley howled.

You sighed and rested your chin in your palm. “So can I go?”

“INTERLOPERS!” he forged onwards, waving the letter back and forth like a parent raging over a bad report card. “Who do they think they are?! Trying to swipe my most precious intern—student! My most precious and beloved of students!—out from under my nose?! As if I wouldn’t be able to see through something so—so—ACK!”

“I mean,” you grumbled miserably under your breath, “it is a pretty long nose. Could hide a lot under there.”

He turned on you with a gasp, like you’d just insulted his mother. Or… whatever the Headmaster’s no doubt vaguely evil and eldritch equivalent would be.

“It’s a mask! A mask!”

He crumpled the letter petulantly between his clawed fingers and went to hurl it to the ground, but the paper smoothed itself out with another one of those magical ‘pops!’ and floated up on an artificial breeze to land neatly in your lap. Crowley sneered at the thing like he was planning to light it on fire, and honestly, with how strange and ethereal this little letter was, you sort of wanted to see him try.

“I think it’s a perfectly reasonable opportunity,” Professor Trein shrugged, unbothered by his superior’s usual nonsense.

“It’s not as if the Royal Sword Academy is known for their treachery,” Professor Crewel added, sounding a bit like the acknowledgement had to be yanked out of his mouth with a pair of pliers. He glanced your way for a moment with those narrowed, steely, eyes of his before turning that glare back on the old crow. “And in comparison, I don’t think any of us can truthfully claim that Night Raven has provided a particularly safe learning environment for the Prefect.”

Crowley sniffed, indignant. “A sprinkling of danger is all part of the educational experience!”

Trein sighed and Crewel pinched at his brow like he was fighting the start of a migraine.

“They’re just offering to let me look through their library archives for more information on how I could find a way home,” you tried, and then leaned forward conspiratorially. “Which would mean less work for you, you know.”

For a moment you could see the calculations whirling behind those glowing, yellow, eyes—the promise of entirely unearned vacation time and accolades for tasks he’d had absolutely bupkis to do with. But then the sharp line of his mouth hardened in determination and he turned away from you with a huff.

“We’ll discuss this betrayal of yours later—when my poor, old, heart has had some time to stitch itself back together!” he harumphed and you sighed miserably. Then he snapped his fingers with a little ‘ah!’ and turned on you with a perfectly sunny smile. “And of course there’s the VDC to plan for! Do get on that, my favorite, little, busy bee!”

Afterwards you stood in the little alcove outside of Crowley’s office, the golden letter clutched tightly in your fists. The soft edges of the scroll lifted to curl around your knuckles, like a gentle reassurance. Before you could work yourself up into getting too upset about the unfairness of it all, Professor Crewel placed a hand on your shoulder with a heavy sigh.

“I’ll drop you off Monday morning.”

You fought the tremble that was doing its best to turn your mouth into a wobbling mess, and turned to launch yourself into his furs with a crushing hug. The alchemist patted your back with a great deal of aggrieved grumbling, but he didn’t bother to push you away either, so he probably didn’t mind you creasing his coat as much as he said he did.

Your assurance that this was just a jaunt through the RSA’s library had been… mostly a fib. Or at least, deceptive in the same way that the sweeping, cursive, missive was also sort of sneaky. You’d dealt with enough genuine schemers at this point to recognize subtle promises woven into the words of the well-meaning.

‘And if perhaps you find our facilities to your taste, we would be more than happy to extend you a more permanent invitation.’

You sighed and tucked the letter into your bag. It felt a bit wrong to be ducking away from your friends and your hovel of a home like a thief absconding in the night. But this was just… You were just looking. Spending a day away from the cloying, tarry, taste of pooling blot, and the endless runaround of all your little duties, and Crowley was not nearly the same as flipping your new friends the bird and fucking off into the sunset.

You repeated this to yourself ad nauseum as you pulled on your cleanest uniform, and then again throughout the entirety of the drive down the coast, and then more when Crewel waved you out of his car with a pointed look, leaving you at the RSA’s doorstep with a little shoo shoo gesture to get you moving.

Everything was so white. And not the gentle sort of lightness that came with nice things like fluffy sheep or foam off rolling ocean waves. It was sterile—so sharply bright in the morning light that it was nearly blue. The brick path beneath your feet was white, the guardrails lining the walkways were white, the walls of the looming castle, the impressive archways, the fluttering flags bearing the school’s regal coat of arms—all bone-bleached beneath the sun and shimmering like the architecture itself had literally been polished to a gleam. The only variation to be seen amidst the sea of monochromatic brilliance was the occasional pop of a cerulean spire—like some sort of awful party hat to top off the whole mess of it.

Say what you might about Night Raven’s gothic chic and whole ‘I mean, of course the cobwebs in the halls are Intentional’ aesthetic, but at least walking around the drab buildings there didn’t leave you feeling like someone had just set off a camera flash in your face. You felt like you were dirtying the roads by just existing near them. How did anything ever get done here without everyone having to constantly stop just to sweep up their footprints behind them?!

But such was the way of this dumb world apparently. Everything had to operate in extremes—nothing could just be normal. Real. It was all some fairytale recreation, varying only in if it fell hard on one side of the spectrum or the other.

You pulled out the letter with a sigh, and began roving over the contents yet again to see where exactly you were supposed to be headed. This whole fieldtrip turning into a miserable confirmation of your unintended loyalty to Night Raven or otherwise, at least you might be able to get some information out of these promised libraries.

You managed to cross a sweeping stone bridge, descend three separate flights of stairs, and follow nearly half a dozen signs with little, circled, stars on them before realizing you were probably only making things worse for yourself. You were still on one of those glistening, pearlescent, pathways, but now there were trees everywhere. It was a far cry from the twisting, black, forests smattered throughout Night Raven’s estate. Light filtered down pleasantly through the lush trees and the air was so nicely scented with flowers and pine that it was almost like someone had gone through with a bottle of Perfume de Forest and personally spritzed each and every plant. Which—ugh. Even the birds seemed to singing in tempo to some pre-orchestrated song. It was trippy.

But speaking of trippy—

You were so busy glaring suspiciously at a tree with a literal smiley face twisted into its bark that you didn’t notice the drop-off until it was too late. To be fair, it was still all very lovely—an overhang leading to a crystalline lake that bubbled gently under the roar of nearby waterfall. No jagged rocks at the bottom or anything. You probably wouldn’t even have to tumble all the way into the water, just into the little ditch about ten feet down. But of course, all that didn’t stop you from ‘eeping’ inelegantly in a panic as you stepped over the edge and started to fall.

And then you jerked back with a wheeze when something caught you around the collar of your uniform and tugged. You flailed wildly as you were hauled back up and into the air, and something behind you made a high-pitched, nervous, whinnying noise.

“Woah, woah, woah! Easy! Easy! You’re going to send all three of us over, you big baby!”

The huffing, angry, noises just got worse and you were dropped unceremoniously back on the pathway you’d wandered off from just in time to see a pair of hooves come crashing down precariously close to where you’d been dumped. You scurried back in a hurry, because you’d survived too much nonsense at this point to get taken out from something as mundane as a kick to the head.

The horse eventually got its singular braincell working well enough to realize it had to back away from the ledge, and you were finally able to look upon your savior without being too worried about taking a hoof to the face.

He was clearly an RSA student, what with the garishly bleached uniform and impeccably put together everything. There was a crimson cloak tossed over one of his shoulders though, which did more to break the monotony of colorless brightness than any other architecture in the entire campus, so well done him you supposed. There was a sort of effortless attractiveness to everyone in this stupid world, but your new acquaintance in particular seemed to fall hard into that ‘windswept, accidental model’ sort of look, with loose brown hair falling in a neat fringe over his forehead, and wide, warm, hazel eyes. He looked a bit like the sort of person that a school might slather on all their recruitment posters to be like ‘see! We have jocks that know how to shower and brush their hair! Look how put together we are!’

“Are you alright?” He asked, looking down at you with a canted head—curious. “You don’t look a student here.”

“I’m not,” you sighed, making your way to your feet with a sore grumble. “I have an invitation. I’m just trying to find the Headmaster’s Office,” you said, holding out the letter like a hall pass.

“Oh!” He chirped, brightening. “I can show you the way,” He offered. “Not that I’m in trouble enough to know the way there by heart or anything, but I guess just enough that there isn’t too much of a chance that I’ll get the both of us lost,” he winked and you narrowed your eyes suspiciously. Normally this sort of overly familiar banter meant you were about to get dragged into all sorts of Shenanigans.

Before you could decide whether to take the chance or politely decline, his stupid, too big, horse reared its head back with a frustrated huff. Mister Red Cloak took the mini-tantrum in stride, despite the fact that the thing had nearly just clocked him right in the face with a head that looked as solid as a boulder.

“Oh, come now,” he sighed, patting the beast’s neck. “We can finish the course later. Don’t be a baby.”

The horse made some sort of unpleasant shrieking noise like some nightmare creature from just beyond the gates of Hell that had you flinching back to avoid being Murdered, but its rider simply rolled his eyes and tugged sharply at the reins.

“What do you think, huh? Just this once?” he asked, leaning forward over the withers to talk to the raging horse in its face. Like a lunatic. “For an extra bucket of oats? And maybe, just a few—” cue an absolutely horrendous eyebrow waggle, “carrots?”

And then the horse tossed its head back with a whinny that should absolutely not have sounded anything like a ‘hell yeah! Whatever you say, dude!’ before turning and prancing around you in tight, bouncy, circles. You scrunched in on yourself, because the thing was still probably a thousand pounds of muscle and flailing limbs. Even if it wasn’t actively huffing at you anymore, now it was just getting closer faster.

“You really don’t have to,” you tried. “Just point me in the right direction and I can find my own way.”

“Nonsense!” he chirped, dropping down from the saddle to land before you in the grass with a heavy thud. He brushed at his trousers, as if he wasn’t expecting his hands to come back completely clean. There wasn’t a speck of dirt on him. “What sort of savior would I be if I let you get lost in the wild and wonderful woods of this grand institution?”

“I can see the castle,” you griped, pointing to the blue peaks over the trees.

“Last I checked, you can see it from the entrance too,” he smiled and gestured to the forested path around you, chuffing a bit like he was laughing under his breath. “Must’ve been quite a turnaround, to wind up here anyways.”

Instantly you felt your hackles rising and a familiar, prickly, heat work its way up into your cheeks.

“Thank you, for your concern,” you grit out and swiveled on your heel. “But I guess even I should be able to find my way eventually.”

The pleasantly amused expression on the brunette’s face instantly fell and he darted back in front of you with a grimace.

“Sorry—that was. Sorry. I guess I put my foot in my mouth,” he rushed out. A gloved hand came up to rub awkwardly at the back of his neck. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

You snorted and glared off into the trees.

“Now you really have to let me show you the way,” he laughed, stilted and bordering on too polite. “For making an ass out of myself like that. It’s the least I can do.”

You glared at him sourly for a moment before sighing and glancing back at the looming Andalusian still prancing along the tree line. “Will… that be coming with us?”

“Helios?” he asked, like you had any concept of what a ‘Helios’ was supposed to be. Probably the horse. “Oh, no, no, no,” he said, waving you off. “He can find his way back to the stables on his own. Right, boy?”

The horse made another one of those high-pitched, blustery, noises and you forcefully reminded yourself that you had faced inky goop monsters that were personifications of your classmates’ literal demons, and also kidnapping plots involving another of said classmates diving into your brain to rewire it like you were his own personal puppet. And in comparison to all those trials, Sentient Animals should not be creepy.

“Fine,” you huffed. “It’s fine. Just—let’s just get going.”

“Right!” he beamed, instantly bouncing back to his earlier enthusiasm. “I’m Stefan, by the way.”

You offered your own name in return, if only to be polite, and he smiled like the fact that you’d managed to grit out those familiar syllables was a gift in and of itself and not just, you know, generic introduction protocol.

“You have a lovely name,” he chirped, falling into step at your side.

You snorted, still a bit too bitter and sore. “You don’t have to try so hard to be nice, you know. To make up for saying something you feel bad about, I mean. It’s fine.”

His blinked his wide, hazel, eyes at you in way that looked a bit like you’d managed to surprise him. His eyelashes were long and soft, and they brushed against his cheeks with each shutter. Never trust people with nice eyelashes, you thought a bit petulantly. You’d known you were right to be cautious.

“You think I’m just saying that because I feel guilty?” he asked, not sounding particularly incredulous or insulted so much as genuinely curious. He tilted his head at you and some of his fringe slipped in front of his eyes, softening the sharp lines of his face. “Do people normally do that?”

You didn’t quite frown at him, but it was a close thing. You could feel your brow pinch.

“…I guess,” you huffed after a long moment, turning to stare back at the path ahead.

“Huh,” he mused, thoughtful. “Well, I really did mean it. And it’s a lot better than my name by far. I mean, really, Stefan? A bit on the nose, don’t you think? ‘Crown?’ Come on. Couldn’t my parents have been anymore original?”

You glanced over at him, a bit lost. “What does that mean?”

“Stefan?” he repeated with another one of those eyelash-sweeping blinks. “It means ‘crown.’”

“No,” you sighed, long suffering. “As in, how is that unoriginal? It’s a nice name.”

“Well, it’s because I—” he trailed off, gaze lingering in open astonishment. After a long moment of gaping at you like he’d just been clobbered across the back of the head with a baseball bat, he finally cleared his throat and looked back off into the trees with a tight shrug. “Nothing. It doesn’t mean anything I guess. Don’t worry about it.” He seemed to chew on that train of thought for a moment or two longer before turning back to face you with a wide grin that was just on the right side of smug. “You think it’s a nice name?”

“Whatever,” you huffed, cheeks starting to heat with something other than bitter chagrin. “Just please get me out of this forest before I fall over another cliff.”

Headmaster Ambrose the 63rd (the sixty-third! What in the nepo-nonsense was that?!) looked like a wizard straight out of some homey after-school-special, with silver spectacles perched on his rounded nose and a soft, pointed, cap atop his head that flopped endearingly at the tip. He was an antithesis to Crowley in every sense of the word—flowing robes replacing tight vests and formal wear, faded white accents rather than sharp black, and not a single bit of Sparkling Flair to be seen. Like everything else, as nice as he seemed, it was such a stark jump into the opposite direction that it had your hackles raised in caution.

“Our libraries are some of the most extensive in the country,” he smiled, warm and fond. It made the corners of his eyes crinkle behind the rims of his glasses. “I hope you’ll be able to find something that may be of some help to your situation.”

“Thank you, sir,” you said, fighting the insane storybook urge to do something like curtsy.

He waved you off with a gentle shake of the head. “None of that ‘sir’ nonsense. You’re a guest a here! I hope my students have been treating you well?”

Stefan rubbed at the back of his neck and shot his headmaster a sheepish smile that was entirely, unfairly, handsome.

“Doing my best, sir.”

“Good lad,” he hummed, something nearly mischievous sparking in those blue-grey eyes of his. But you were hesitant to label it anything of the sort now that you’d seen what real sneaky nonsense looked like. This was more like… Children’s Program Mischief. That kind that usually involved an adult thinking themselves very clever for being able to sneak some vegetables into an afternoon snack. He turned back on you with that shining smile. “Allow me to find you an escort for the afternoon, and then we can get off to the library.”

“I’d be happy to show them around!” Stefan piped in.

“Is that so,” Ambrose mused, that same little grin playing over his mouth. “I thought you were meant to be in Equestrian Studies at the moment, hmm?”

“Well, I mean,” he spluttered, before collecting his argument and squaring his shoulders with another one of those blindingly bright smiles, “how could I possibly have left someone in need to fend for themselves, sir? I would have brought shame down on this entire institution! Heroes are meant to be made not born, after all!” He boomed, like someone cheering a school’s motto at a sports game.

All of this sounded like the largest crock of self-aggrandizing bullshit you’d ever heard, and by the time you’d had a whole internal debate with yourself over the merits of NRC’s outright nastiness versus this… whatever it was supposed to be, Ambrose was gesturing between the pair of you and saying something that you probably ought to be being paying attention to.

“Thank you, sir!” Stefan grinned, and Ambrose waved him off in that same pleasant way he had you earlier.

“You’re in excellent hands, Prefect,” the Headmaster assured as you were rushed out the door by the guy who was clearly going to be your newest Problem. “Take care! And please let me know if there’s anything at all that we can help you with.”

And then you were back out in the hallway, with Stefan already steering you towards who knew what. The archives, you hoped. But knowing your luck, probably not.

“You must be hungry, right?” he asked, perfectly polite. “Why don’t I take you to the cafeteria before we head over to the library?”

“I’m fine,” you said, just as your stomach gurgled a very loud complaint. You patted at your traitor of an abdomen in a silent reprimand and sighed, “You can just show me the way. I don’t want you to feel like you have to babysit me the whole day.”

“Nonsense,” he beamed, intertwining his arm with yours and tugging you off down another hallway before you could protest. He was so tall, and it should have been hard to keep up with his longer stride, but it wasn’t. “I like spending time with you.”

“What?” you blinked, thrown. Because maybe you’d hit your head or something, but you were pretty sure the last half hour had consisted of very little other than you being grumpy and unpleasant.

He canted his head to look down at you and the corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile.

“You’re nice to talk to,” he said. “Honest, I think. Would be the best way I could describe it. Genuine.” His hazel eyes went a bit distant, wistful. “There aren’t many people here like that. It’s different. Good different,” he promised, the corners of his smile tugging into something a bit teasing.

Your gaze tracked down to the brilliantly blue carpet beneath your feet and then around to the perfectly white walls. Other students filtered by in their starched uniforms and shiny, black, dress shoes—all impeccably groomed and all chattering idle nothings about the weather, about classes, exams. You could see the muddy imprints from your boots trailing along the floor and a few errant bits of grass fell in clumps from where they were still tangled up in your shoelaces. Something tight in you eased a bit at the mess, and you turned back to your companion with a sigh that was bordering far too close on ‘begrudgingly fond’ rather than the properly ‘put upon’ you were aiming for.

“If you say so.”

You hadn’t thought it was possible for the guy’s smile to get brighter, but somehow he managed. You squinted into the warmth of it with a strange, squirmy, feeling in your stomach that you didn’t think had much to do with being hungry.

“Come on then!” he beamed, tugging you along. “We don’t want to miss the Feast!”

“Feast?” you echoed, incredulous.

“With dancing silverware and everything,” he mock-whispered, like a secret just for the two of you.

“What the fuck,” you gaped, brain immediately latching onto the most ridiculous aspect of all of it. “How do you eat anything if it’s dancing?”

Stefan threw his head back with a roaring laugh that had you wanting to sink into your collar with your shoulders hunched up to your ears. But no one stopped to stare, or point, or snicker into their palms at his open enthusiasm. There were a few curious peepers, but once they seemed to identify the source of the noise, they all went back to wandering the halls in their perfectly pressed uniforms with nary a sly comment or sneer to be seen.

“See?” he beamed, tilting sideways to knock his shoulder against yours. “Honest. Now come on—we don’t want to miss out on all the grey stuff. It tastes way better than it sounds, promise.”

The pair of you entered the cafeteria right at the start of things, with dishes and forks just beginning to fly overhead in waves of strange, blinking, lights and motes of golden sparks. More than a few people waved at Stefan as he walked in, and he returned the greetings with polite, buoyant, ones of his own before herding you to an empty table off to the side.

“You don’t want to sit with your friends?” you asked, brow pinching in confusion.

“Hmm?” he mumbled around a spoonful of something already shoved in his mouth. There wasn’t any kind of plate in front of him, so he must have snatched it right out of the air. He swallowed and reached up to grab another. “Oh, no. That’s fine. Here! Try this!”

You leaned away from the spoon he held up to your lips with a huff and some obligatory complaints about how ‘you could feed yourself just fine, thank you very much.’ You plucked the bit of silverware from his fingers with a wary frown and very tactfully ignored that lingering, fluttering, warmth in your gut that you still hadn’t managed to completely snuff out.

“Is this… grey stuff?”

“Right on the money,” he winked, leaning forward to snatch up another flying fork. “My family’s not usually a fan of more ‘modern’ cuisine, so it’s always a treat to be able to try all the different foods at the Feasts here.”

You looked hesitantly at the goopy mess of monochromatic paste smeared across the spoon, and then back up at Stefan who was casually digging into his own floating mountain of toxic waste with an absolutely enraptured hum of satisfaction.

“Remind me to buy you a grilled cheese or something…” you muttered under your breath, before bravely swallowing the entire spoonful of sludge. And—huh. That was actually… pretty delicious. How weird.

You spent the rest of the luncheon event picking at random bits of floating foods as they danced by. Occasionally Stefan would lean forward to point out his favorites and give recommendations. He was surprisingly observant, despite whatever initial impressions his jock’s jawline and guileless grins may have led you to believe otherwise—taking easy note of the things you pushed aside and the ones you nibbled at more enthusiastically.

“Oh—you missed the desserts,” he lamented as the last remnants of a picked apart pie flew over your head.

“That’s fine,” you said, but he only shook his head and began to drag you off again with another of those brilliant grins.

And so began a weird sort of pseudo treasure hunt, where Stefan would take your hand and haul you off to some random corner of the castle with promises of whatever seemed to strike his fancy, or more accurately you supposed, whatever he seemed to think you might fancy.

“No one really uses this vending machine anymore, but somehow it always restocks and it has the best ice cream bars I’ve ever had. It’s wild! I’m sure you’ll love it!—“

“Oh, it is pretty cold down here, right? I didn’t even think about that. But… hmm… Here! I know the best place to grab a hot chocolate! It’s just over this way a bit—“

“These walls are kind of a drab view, yeah? Here! If we go down this way there’s a great little area to sit where you can see the whole bay—“

By the end of things, somehow you ended up back at the stables with that terror of a horse of his. And despite the runaround and the vaguely exhausting fact that Stefan’s social battery never seemed to wear itself out ever, it wasn’t… it wasn’t that bad, actually. Sometimes people would wave him down to talk, and he always introduced you and left the proverbial door open for you to join the conversation, but never asked you to participate, which was nice. You’d taken to just sort of slouching against his side in a food coma like a lizard on a rock as he answered whatever mundane questions all the other students asked of him. But otherwise, it was just the pair of you bopping around all over the campus.

Helios saw his master and whinnied merrily, and Stefan made an odd sort of chuffing noise in return that had you laughing into your palm.

“What?” He complained good-naturedly. “You’ve never barked at a dog before? It’s the same thing!”

“Of course it is,” you droned, lips twitching up at the corners.

The next destination was someplace on the coast that he was insisting was the absolute best place in the world to sit and think. Which if you wanted to do research, naturally you needed to get your head together about where to start, right? The only problem was that it was a solid hour hike away, but Stefan assured you that on horseback it was a much shorter journey.

You leaned forward on your tiptoes to get a look down the sprawling corridor of stalls, each larger and grander than the last. And each of their occupants following that exact same trend. There even looked like there was a horse with wings, which was—ah. Not helping the intimidation factor, to say the least.

“You can ride with me,” he offered. “If you’re uncomfortable, I mean. Sometimes it helps to feel like there’s someone more adept at the reins.”

You blinked, a bit taken aback that he’d picked up on your discomfort so easily. But then then you focused on the rest of that offer and you and the horse shared a Look. And wasn’t that a trippy thing to notice. You immediately forced yourself not to think about it.

“I don’t know if that’s fair to Helios,” you pointed out.

“Nonsense!” Stefan waved you off, and Helios pinned his ears indignantly. “He’s an Andalusian. They’re war horses, you know? Built to be as sturdy and strong as any horse can be.” He said the last part with a sickly-sweet uptick to his voice, and leaned up against the beast’s flank like they were sharing an inside joke. “They say Prince Phillip’s legendary steed was an Andalusian, and they rode into battle against a dragon together.”

Helios’s grey muzzle twitched prissily and eventually the horse lowered his great head to thump against Stefan’s side with a gusty ‘harumph’ that had the man stumbling forward with a pleasant laugh.

“There you are, you big baby. I knew you had it in you.”

After giving the horse a firm pat pat on his rump, Stefan turned and offered you a hand.

“It’s easier if I help you up first,” he explained.

“Isn’t there like… a ladder, or something?” You tried, and Stefan grinned sneakily before ducking behind you and hauling you up on Helios’s back all in one go. You absolutely, positively, did not squeak, or anything else ridiculous like that. It was a—a squawk! The most indignant and put upon of noises!

Stefan laughed and waved off whatever terrible sounds you were making with a bemused ‘Sorry! Sorry!’ that was the absolute least apologetic thing you’d ever heard. And then he was swinging himself up near effortlessly into the saddle behind you and looping an arm around your waist.

“Sometimes it’s better to just get it over with,” he explained in your ear, like your brain hadn’t just absolutely Blue Screened at the new weight along your hips. “Like ripping off a bandaid. I know it can all be sort of intimidating for people who aren’t used to being around horses.”

When you didn’t respond, because you were still trying to sort cognizant thoughts of the mess of ‘!!!’ that was hard at work blotting out the rest of your brain, you felt him start to shift a bit behind you. His hands flexed a bit tighter, as if the idea of you not being secure enough in the saddle was in anyway the problem here. After another moment of your continued silence, Stefan leaned forward carefully to hook his chin over your shoulder and spoke in that same carefully polite way he had when he’d worried he’d insulted you all those hours ago in the forest.

“If you’re still uncomfortable I can get you down if you want,” he offered, voice dipping low in something that sounded like hesitance. “I know I—I mean, you don’t have to go riding with me, if you don’t want to. I just thought it’d be…” He cleared his throat, and you must have been going delirious because out of the corner of your eyes you swore you could see the tips of his ears turning pink. “I can… I can just take you to the library now, if you want,” he said. “I know I’ve already been pretty selfish with your time today.”

Helios shifted to stamp his feet and you twisted your fingers nervously into his mane. You really didn’t feel entirely great about being so high, on something so wild and big. And honestly, you had wasted a lot of time sightseeing with your impromptu tour guide. If you were being in anyway rational, you should demand Stefan dismount and take you to the library like he promised. But all the same… Today had been—all of it had been…

“Just don’t let me fall,” you huffed, fighting the urge to duck your chin down into your collar to hide the rising heat in your cheeks.

“Of course not!” Stefan beamed, straightening himself back up so suddenly that he nearly tipped the both of you from the saddle. You sent him a glare over your shoulder and he laughed, loud and boisterous. “Sorry, sorry. From here out starts the ‘of course not.’ That was just a test run.”

“Whatever,” you sighed, letting him maneuver your hands to better hold the reins alongside his.

Naturally, by the time you got halfway to the beach, Stefan remembered that the library closed early on Mondays, and that you’d well and truly missed your opportunity as you’d been off gallivanting with him and his ridiculousness all day.

But you know what? It was fine. You’d just come back tomorrow. And maybe the next day too.

#Twisted wonderland imagines #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twisted wonderland oc #twst oc #Prince Stefan x Reader #Twst OC x Reader #Commission #Heroes vs Villains #My Writing #The Prince & The Pauper Prefect #Dire Crowley #Divus Crewel #RSA #Ambrose

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plantboiart · 3 months

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Hello. List of what animals I believe each just roll with it pc I know would be. I am objectively correct but if you disagree please tell me anyways I crave other people’s opinions to steal.

Riptide

Jay: a bird, obviously. Saying she’s a jaybird is easy and low hanging fruit and extremely valid. Personally I think she’s maybe a corvid since very smart but also absolute fucking menace. Honestly? Could be a seagull. Loud and lives near water and also smart but also? Absolutely insane. Yeah sure I could say she’s something cool like an eagle or whatever but I think in our hearts we all know she’s a seagull.

Gillion: of course he is a sea creature! But what kind? Fish. More specifically? Swordfish. Of course. What else could he be (he could be a shark but shhhh im saving that one for later)

Chip: the bastard man himself! Which animals are the biggest bastards? Raccoons. Yes I am basic. He’s either a raccoon or a little dog. I am specifically thinking my mom’s 11 year old small dog who yells at men and tries to pick a fight with every single dog that is larger than her. That’s some Chip energy right there.

Goobleck: bro who knows like what the hell is that thing i do not. Hes whatever he ate most recently. Bros fursona is just straight up slime. He is an enigma.

Prime defenders (+Ashe I don’t care that technically he was just a guest he deserves to be here)

William: ravens, black cats, bats, butterflies, snakes, crows. All associated with death which makes sense for our little ghost guy! But of course we can’t forget wolves! He has two wolves inside of him after all. But also? He is not cool enough to be a wolf. That man is a black cat with a dream and sharp sharp claws.

Vyncent: I think it would be funny to call him a rat. Since he eats them. And also he just kinda is a rat. But no, I believe he is a deer. Don’t really know why, just….. vibes.

Dakota: my beloved son. He’s a yappy little dog. Bouncing all over the place and screaming at evil-doers. I believe in him.

Ashe: strong cat energy. Is william already a cat? Yes. But so is ashe. He’s like a fully gray cat with short hair :)

Apotheosis

Rumi/Elena: fox! Because Sunny :) also because I can’t really think of an animal that would be a good representation for an identity crisis

Peter: “lizard” no. Peter Sqloint is a mouse. Just a lil guy. I’m right fuck you he. Is. A. Mouse.

Thanatos: spider! Kinda scary and lots of people dont like but in reality just an awesome dude. Shoutout to my friend’s pet spider Mörkö I love them

Blood in the bayou

Rolan: shark!!!! Im right and i need to say it. That man is a fucking shark. I love sharks. Sharks are generally misunderstood as violent and evil but they are just lil guys. Fits Rolan being an evil alien monster but just also a lawyer. (Also i just really like sharks)

Rand: y’all ever cry about pigeons? How we domesticated them and then abandoned them when we didnt need them anymore? How they dont even know how to make proper nests because they didnt need to for so long? Yeah. Im normal about this campaign.

Kian: he’s so hard to figure out because like…….. honestly? In canon? Weve got no fucking clue what his personality is actually like. We dont get a single moment with all the masks off and just the person underneath. The closest we get is him admitting that hes not really a rockstar and even that is so short and just. Auehgeh. This is why im obsessed with him btw i love a mystery i know will never be solved. Also so much room for headcanons. Is he a cat? A butterfly? A dog? A snake? A songbird? A dove? Something else? I dont know!! Lets go with a moth

The suckening

They are all cats. I mean c’mon. Emizel is a feral street cat that hisses at everyone who gets too close. Shilo is an indoor cat with an anxiety disorder. Arthur is their mother. Im correct.

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cherubispunk · 9 months

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ICHOR. BLOOD. WATER. (part i // ichor.) - Din Djarin x Witch!AFAB!Reader

summary: stranded. alone. a traitor to your people, your family. aeaea is the prison of paradise you call home, and he is the prophecy you like to call an enigma. the 'man made from metal', forged in fire, melted by your spell that is no witchcraft on your part. he is the hunter, you will always be the prey. it is the way as the fates designed it.

a note from lucy: so, its back. i'm officially back! basically, I went through it. accidentally deleted my blog. had to start from scratch. repost it all. but! I'm here. you're here. we're all here! Greek mythology is a huge love of mine. I always like to add a small sprinkling into my fics where possible. and now im writing one based wholly of two greek myths: eros and phsyche, and circe. I've read Madeleine Miller's 'Circe'. I fell in love with it, it's genuinely one of the best books ive had the pleasure of reading --hence the fact that this is heavily based off it in terms of 'lore'. Din is the perfect character for these myths to be translated into fic. So, without further ado, I present to all you lovely people (again lol), my mythology!au; ICHOR. BLOOD. WATER. for @inklore and @psychedelic-ink's haunted hoedown. A three part fic with our beloved space cowboy. I really hope you enjoy it as I put a lot of time and thought into this. I love you all, you wonderful Pedro fanatics.

playlist

wc: 2255 Warnings: 18+ MDNI! DARK CONTENT! mythology!au, no use of y/n, reader is referred to as 'Circe' twice in this chapter alone, dubcon, smut, p in v sex (unprotected), reference to past sexual assault (very mild), cussing, mentions of witchcraft, voyeurism, mentions of drinking alcohol, mentions of food and descriptions of eating, choking, breath play, oral sex - f receiving, edging, orgasm denial, toxic relationships, dom!din/sub!reader dynamic, sex as a means for manipulation and control, manipulative!din, stockholm syndrome?

series m.list | m.list

You had done many things under the pseudonym of Circe. Bird. Crow. What your mother and siblings used as a knife to your throat. An insult in the form of a name. One that man whispered in myth around fires. One a sailor would call out in fear upon reaching the shore of any island in the vicinity of Aeaea. It clung to the disgusted curl of their tongue like the tang of sour fruits. Lemons of Sicily. Limes from crete. Wrapped in letter parchment, sweetened with ink.

Across from you is the god responsible for many of those tall tales. In his gold sheathed glory, olive skin gleaming with a ripple of muscle against the warmth of your hearth. Under it flows ichor, steadily. His winged sandals flutter in a twitch every few minutes. A subtle sound that is heard little too often over the lilt of his voice. Hermes. A deity you invited to your bed when he would visit, indulge in the stories of how he stole cattle as mere youngling, delivered messages of ruin to mortals. Travelled the planes of the underworld from the Styx to Elysium Plains. Hades and his sunken eyes on his throne. Where winged sandals would carry him overseas with his travellers cap and staff of entwined twin snakes.

He would sit upon your chair, open his loose lips and a drone would pour out, Maybe to a mortal he would seem all so interesting. One to dote hours of your day to the thick honey like pouring of his voice in your ear. But to you – the witch – a goddess in your own right, he was a mere drag. A rake. A god worthy of being turned to swine at the unjust sight of his curling smirk.

You would have drifted off it weren't for his voice picking up in interest, your ears perking up with it. The high buzz from his drone of white noise faded, ebbing into coherence while his lips drifted in voice. Practised and perfected movement the way any divine being did.

“The fates speak of a man. Made of metal.” He mused, studying his thumb and forefinger as a stand of your lionesses hair was snagged between it. You wished to singe it from his fingertips. “A warrior.” “From overseas of Greece?” Now, and only now, he had your attention.

“Further.”

You muttered a curse under your breath. Where would be further. “He will sail on a ship, strand himself on your shores engulfed with fire. And you shall do as you have before.”

“Take it?” You sneered, sitting forward in your seat, teeth bared at him. “I suppose I shall feed him before he sets his disgusting hands upon me.”

“Oh come now,” He smirked, “Were you not to take him to your bed regardless?”

“I shall sew your mouth shut for such accusations.”

Hermes sighed, rolling his eyes in all his dramatics. Lounging in his seat.

“Circe, you humour me with your feral tongue.”

“And you disgust me with your plight.” “Ah,” he held up a single finger, humour on his face at the top of his curled lip, “I may be bored. But at least I have the world. You, Circe,” he spat, raising a brow in sickening amusement, “have nothing.”

Your face drained of colour. Your heart aching in its chasm of a chest, ribs pinching. He was right. Your oasis was still a prison. Despite its bars of gold, it still held you. Contained you.

He stood in his victory over you, taking one last look around. “One last thing–”

“Oh, there’s more, is there?” You sighed, staying seated. For all his heirs and graces, he was no more worthy of your respect than the dirt caked to your bare feet in winter's first bite. The god merely crossed his arms, a diving wind rustling the blonde curls upon his head, wrapped in laurels,

“You must never look upon his face.”

You sat in a furrowed brow muddle. He had drifted to the wind, turned to a shimmering spectacle of dust, in nothing more than a blink.

—

He came with a blundering sputter. In a ship that was no ship of wood that sailed on tides. A hunk of chrome with spitting fans of fiery heat. A thwip through your cloudless skies to crash upon sandy shores.

He came…with a child. A green creature with pointed ears similar to satyrs, no taller than your mid calf, alien to you. Wide hickory eyes that masked his face with innocence, having seen things unspeakable to even brave sailors. And when they sat at your table, piled plentifully with sweet figs, legs of mutton infused with rosemary, steamed and seasoned greens, and honey in its jar, the man of metal left all deserted by his lips. His plate was clean, wine untouched in his cup. Never once needing an added refill. Nor did he speak kindly. Rather, reserved. Gruff, distorted by something in his helmet seemingly fused to his head. While the child chewed on the fleshy roasted bone of lamb.

Rhythms of autumn, songs of summer, ballads of winter watched over you and the meadows you walked. Gardens you tended to. Woods you roamed. And he did too. There was something within him. Under that beskar. It called, howled, growled in insubordination. A vulgar hatred of being vulnerable out in this position. Where you held an advantage of both terrain and power.

So he took in a way he knew. In carnal, biting desire paced by him. Phallically. Reversed the role of who won who, made you beg in your own bed, in the drowning pools of darkness. Never to see his face.

But oh so familiar.

The first time he took you was akin to a memory in the very moment it happened. A haze of something so absurd it couldn't possibly have been true. Played out the way it did. The Mandalorian watched while you bathed. In a creek not too far from the path. A rock for your lioness to splay out over, sunbathe and make her coat gleam gold like the ichor in your veins. Her ears pricked at a sound he made. One you did not hear with your head submerged under the clear pool.

She looked up, lifting her whiskered chin from her large paws, and her eyes met his. He did not fret. Nor did he stop and turn away from the great willow he stood below. Only glanced from her to the curve of your bare chest rippling above the crystal waters rippling surface.

From there, he had stalked you to the deeper parts of the forest where even your familiar did not follow. Watched as a wicker basket was tucked under your arm, flowers and mosses being picked from the ground as you went about gathering pharmakeia for your draughts.

He appeared, bringing his musk while his hand clamped down over your parted lips. Pressed your front firmly into the tree, hands scraped gold raw by the silver birch’s peeling bark.

“Don’t.” He growled upon your demand to turn around. “Face the tree.”

And you obeyed in tandem with the hiss of something– his helmet– as it dropped to the dewy floor by your bare feet. A single kiss, seasoned with sparse prickled hairs was laid to the nape of your neck, a wondrous dichotomy to the events yet to unfold, noises of restraint on the tip of his tongue, the back of his throat. The skirts of your dress were gathered in messy haste, undergarments pulled to the side, revealing the shine of your own slick. How you dreamed in secret nights of this very moment. His taking of you, his claiming of your cunt— grunting while he invaded the tightness of your walls, flayed you open forever like a sacred text, ready for him to read once again.

A large palm of his, gloved in leather, pressed to the nape of your neck where the notch of your spine ended and your skull began to curve, thumb pressed to flesh, fingers curled into gnarled hair. You gasped, cold air nipping the back of your exposed thighs, fully clothed still, yet bent to submission by the masculine will of him. Naked.

The orgasm was The Mandalorians. And the Mandalorians alone. You never questioned the burning ache of pending release. Merely let it simmer in the tight heat of your walls at the mouth of your cervix. His noise still stinging in your ears, shocking the breath from your lungs. He took no time. It was a rush for his release. His domination of the witch of Aeaea.

From that moment onwards, you imagined his lips, recited in drugged sleep to the egyptian cotton and goose down of your pillow. His irises. To write a poem on parchment about something you could not see, nor ever would per his and Herme’s telling. Fingertips itching to feel warmth of skin, not beskar. While his armour was smooth, buffed, polished to shine in rays of Helios's chariot, it was cold to the touch. You had his visage mapped in your mind. Well trodden by fingertips such as the paths by the tall cliffs. The Mandalorian. Nameless. Faceless.

He spent each night for a fortnight in your bed. The first, he parted your legs himself, and the rest they were already spayed open for his wanting. He snuffed the candles with his thumb and forefinger, unsheathing them from his gloves before doing so. You watched with intent from the sheets as his visage dominated the tall door frame. Shoulders broad and intimidating the negative space he occupied. Only when he was shrouded in utter darkness did he remove his helmet, climb his way up to your parted lips. Curating a careful path from them, over the column of your throat, descending your navel to the forbidden fruit gleaming, ripe and juicy for his lips. Ready for his first damning lick of your sex.

Like the apple in the garden of Eden, temptation on Lucifer's forked tongue, he delved deeper, rested his naked face between your tensing thighs. Broad arms, still sheathed in beskar curled under them, dragging you closer to his open mouth while your arousal, slick and thick as honey, drizzled out your weeping hole to his open, wanting mout.

His tongue drew ellipsis over the twitching bud of your clit. Thick and firm, the tip pressing into your cunt, following your hot seam down to your quivering hole. He dipped inside, curling it to draw the taste out. You couldn't see his eyes. But you liked to imagine they were open to feast on the sight of your quivering and naked chest the best he could without the guide of the candlelight. Now snuffed into curling stings of smoke. Staring while you were shaking under the pleasure rolling up from your centre and cascading like a landslide down your spine. It made you shiver. The soft plush of your legs swallowing his exposed ears, the small, neatly trimmed curls tickling the sensitive flesh. His coarse beard, scruff scattered in a smattering over his sharp chin scratching your skin.

A low groan rumbled from the back of his throat, your tang dancing with light feet over his taste buds And his nose bumped into your clit as he tasted more. Devoured your cunt like his last meal.

It wasn't long before you felt the burn behind your eyes replicate in knots in your belly. Tightening at the mouth of your cervix while he ate at you. A cry of his name bursting from your chest as he flicked his tongue with vigour. He had one aim in mind. To taste your release. The sticky mess that would coat his lower face.

“Give it to me.” He commanded. And oh, how you tried. You willingly left this realm while he licked at your pussy, his tongue languidly rolling up one side of your labia, up to your clit and circling it, then down the other side to plunge into your tight, clenching hole once more.

You nimble fingers curled into his hair. It was coarse, wispy at its ends where it started to coil loosely. And you gripped it as you ground your core into his face. RIding and grinding into his face that was exposed to your quivering cunt. Not ready to part with the way his ips enclosed around your clit and added enough suction for you to see Ouranos and all the stars that tattooed his blue skin.

You panted a chorus of heavenly oh’s. Breath came in heavy as he pulled back to spit. You felt it, cold in contrast to your own heat, drooling down to your slick entrance. It quivered when he added a finger, curling up from the second knuckle. It was merely one digit. But it stretched you out, had you reeling while he beckoned your orgasm closer to materialising in your belly.

He could smell the musk of you and it was divine.

He had your orgasm building and building into a near state of harrowing oblivion before he let it rip through you. The first wave was one of numbing pleasure. The one that fizzled through your legs until you were nothing but a mere speck for a second. And then it broke, like some great epiphany from him as an enigma.

He stood, replaced his helmet, leaving you boneless. A quivering, babbling mess of sweat and slick in your own sheets.

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a-halo-for-you · 7 months

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Grishaverse Tribute

I'm pissed. I'm vengeful. I'm going to march on Netflix.

The cancellation is uncalled for, now all we will see in return for the snubbing of one of the best series on Netflix, with one of the best fandoms, cast and creators another stupid documentary glorifying a serial killer, another shitty teen show with no plot but plenty of sex (because sexualizing children will be something they always get away with), and another over-marketed pointless action film with some former boxer or wrestler leading it who can't really act more than one type of nice-buff guy.

In my mournful and restless vengeful spirit, I have come up with another playlist dedicated to the Grishaverse, the fans, the cast and Leigh Bardugo. This breaks their hearts so much because we know how excited and passionate they were about telling this story, and to think now so many won't be able to go on and live their beloved characters through to the end. I can't stand it.

"None of this had been fated; none of it foretold. There had been no prophecies of a demon king or a dragon queen, a one-eyed Tailor, Heartrender twins. They were just the people who had shown up and managed to survive. But maybe that was the trick of it: to survive, to dare to stay alive, to forge your own hope when all hope had run out. For the survivors then, Zoya whispered to herself as the people before her knelt and chanted her name. And for the lost." - Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves

I got to dream through them, Shadow and Bone saved my Covid years, when I was alone in a dorm learning online, unable to be with anyone else, with no friends and no family. I had little to no confidence and was stuck in a place that scared me. But then I had Shadow and Bone, I had these amazing characters and when I dove into the books, I found so much more. (A found family is my favourite literary trope for a reason.)

“Kaz leaned back. "What's the easiest way to steal a man's wallet?" "Knife to the throat?" asked Inej. "Gun to the back?" said Jesper. "Poison in his cup?" suggested Nina. "You're all horrible," said Matthias." - Leigh Barugo, Six of Crows

This is a playlist for all of us who are mourning and for all of us willing to fight on. I've seen petitions already posted on change.org, lets sign them all, share them all and try our best to change this while we can. Warrior Nun got their season 3. Who says we can't? Who says we shouldn't? Brick by Brick we will build our season 3, or we'll go down trying.

“Have any of you wondered what I did with all the cash Pekka Rollins gave us?" "Guns?" asked Jesper. "Ships?" queried Inej. "Bombs?" suggested Wylan. "Political bribes?" offered Nina. They all looked at Matthias. "This is where you tell us how awful we are," she whispered.” - Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

Pardon the ecclectic taste of this long playlist, but there are so many types of song that I feel fit the plot, the charcaters and themes as well as their relationships to each other. This has sparked inspiration in me to create more playlists catering to the Grishaverse and I'll do that alongside my usual playlist posts.

I would also like to say that this playlist isn't just mine, it's for everyone and I would love for any fans of the show or books to let me know if they have any songs that they love to be added to the playlist and I will do so.

There are over 60 songs on this playlist, so I'm not going to write them all here for obvious reasons, I hope none of you mind that.

For our founding mother Leigh Bardugo. For the Six of Crows; Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Matthias Helvar. For our S+B crew; Alina Starkov, Malyen Oretsev, The Darkling, Baghra Morotzova, Nikolai Lantsov, Zoya Nazyalensky, Genya Safin, David Kostyk, Tolya Yul-Bataar, Tamar Kir- Bataar, Nadia and Adrik Zhabin.

Let the revival of Season 3 be our final grand mission.

Lets stream the show, post more art, more fanfics, more posts, more petitions. Let's fight for what we can.

No Mourners, No Funerals.

'Yuyey sesh'

'Ni weh sesh'

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mondstaub1 · 1 year

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Lucemond fanfiction: Better for our children

Alicent was horrified. She could not belive what just happened, could not belive what she had just heard. Once she would come to terms with the happenings of the last hour she would curse her father. He had sold her off to the king like a horse, she would not allow him to do the same to her beloved Aemond. No he would not suffer the same fate she did.

Her father wanted to sell her son to some old lady who apparently wanted a young man to relive her glory days and as arm candy. Her blood boiled. That woman was older then her father, for gods sack! This was not a match that should ever be even thought of, it was absurd. Pure madness! Just because the old crow had a lot of gold and a big army. They did not need an army or gold. She would not start a war, she would not challenge Rhaenyra, why would she? Aegon did not want to be king. Viserys did not want him to be king and Rhaenyra would be good queen. So why spill blood for no reason?

Now she needed to find a match for Aemond and quickly. Someone who would make her darling boy happy and not take him to far away from her. "It doesn't even need to be a Lady", she thought remembering the day she learned that all Targaryens could carry children. She shuddered thinking back to her fathers face when he talked about that detail. He looked disgusted and at the same time like he was cauculating how to make the most of it. He would use her son like he used her years ago. No! No more! So she did what she should have done all those years ago, she went to Rhanerya. Hurrying towards her friends rooms she was so bussy with her own thought that she paid no mind to her way, so it was little suprise that she ran into someone.

It was Lucerys, who had just come out of his mothers chambers. The young man apologized and hurried away. Alicent seight, she should not have let her resentment out on the boys, no wonder they avoided her. She went on and knocked on the door, after a few moments Rhaneryaś voice could be heard "Enter". When she entered she saw her old friend look up at her in suprise "Your Grace how may I help you?", she asked. Alicent cringed at her icy tone and the use of "your Grace". She desirved it but it didn't make it better. "Nyra I need your help", she answered silently. The use of the old nickname made the Princess raise an eyebrown but she didn't reply so Alicent continiued, "It is about Aemond. My father wants to sell him off to some old hag and force him into an unhappy marriage. I know I may have no right to come to you but he doesn't desirve this." "And what do you want me to do about it?", Rhaneyra asked a bit softer. "I need you to help me get Aemond out of this. I need your help finding another match for him. And covince the king of it. I should have come to you when my father.... I should have come to you all those years ago. But I didn't but now, I know I have been awful but please Nyra..." Alicent rambled. So much needed to be said and she did no know where to start.

"A new match for Aemond hm", Rhaneyra mumbled before meeting the Queens eyes. "I'll help you Alicent. No matter if I like it or not Aemond is my brother and I wish him happieness." Alicent breathed a breath of relive, good she would help. "Any idea who could be Aemonds match?", Rhaenyra asked. Alicent shock her head no, she had being so paniced, she hadn't thought about it. "No", she answered, "I don't really care who, so long Aemond is happy. And close by, if possible."

"In that case I might have an idea", the princess said. Alicent raised her eyebrown, silently asking who. The other woman chuckeled: "You see Alicent, Luke was here before you came and told my some very interesting thinks. It seems that, well our sons have become close again." Alicent was silent, she didn't know this, in fact Aemond seemed more obsessed then ever with his nephew. Could Luke know of someone Aemond was interested in? But Rhaenyra looked at her like she missed something. "Alicent with close I mean Targaryen kind of close, Luke and Aemond are chrushing on each other." Alicent's eyes widden. Luke. Lucerys Velaryon who was here and was heir to Driftmark, who was kind and gentle and young and pretty. Luke whose union could heal the rift between them. Luke who had taken her son's eye. "Are you sure?", she asked carefully. "All I know is what Luke has told me", the future queen answered, "So let's have a talk with them, you talk to Aemond and I to Luke. Let's see what they think of the match and them maybe a courting period or a long betrothal. Alicent agreed and left to search for her son.

--------------

Aemond was letting his fustration out on a trainings dummy, which was by now almost in pieces. Hours before his grandfather informed him of the match he intended for him. He had always known he would one day have to marry and make alliances, it was his dury to his house and family but this... The Lady was older then his grandfather, the thought of marrying someone like that, of what he would have to do... it made him feel sick and disgusted. Aegon had a plast when he heard, his brother had not stopped bullying and teasing him his unpleasent future. It made his blood boil. He was a prince of house Targaryen, a son of the king, the rider of the biggest dragon in the world, one of the greatest fighters in Westeros, jet he was to be sold to an old hag as an armcandy. The shame of it made him burn from the inside.

Secund son of a secund line, stand to inheared nothing, nothing but a empty title, Aemond One-Eye too terrified for Ladies to look at. His mind wispered hurtful but true words. Not like Rhaerya, fathers golden daughter, the realms Delight, the heir to the throne, not like Daemon, a famous figher, war hero and the prince and future king consort, not like Jacerys the furure king and not like Luke, sweet lovely Lucerys heir to his own seat Driftmark, one of the riches houses in the realm, loved by everyone, beautiful Lucerys whose egg hatched in his cradle. Lucerys with beautiful big eyes and soft locks, Luke who was completly out of his leage.

The thought stopped his onslaught on the dummy, he sight deeply and put the sword away. Ever since Rhaenyra had returned with her children he found himself drawn to his nephew. It had not taken all that long for him to realise that his feelings for Luke were not longer vile and hateful. He had changed a lot, gone was the small boy with chubby cheeks and in his place stood a young man of four and ten, still smaller then him but wiser, preparing for his role as Lord of the Tides, who was himself almost of marrying age. He gridded his teeth at the thought of someone else marrying his sweet nephew. Aemond had noticed some time ago that he did not show that kind of interest in women that his brother had, truth be told he found it hard to show interest in anyone but the was more drawn to boys and men then to girls and women. He had never really admitted it to anyone, not even himself but with Luke around denying his interest became harder and harder till he came to an rather unfortunate conclusion. He was in love with Lucerys! But even if he would have ever find the courage to confess to Luke and even when by some miricale Luke would feel the same there could never be anything between them because he was to be sold off.

So in his thoughts Aemond had not realised where his feet were taking him, so when he mentally came back to presents he found himself in the goodswood and there under the tree with a book in his lab and a bowl of frute by his side sat his nephew, sweet Lucerys. For a moment Aemond stilled unsure if he should make his presents known but before he could make his decition Luke looked up. "Oh hallo uncle", the boy said a soft smile on his face, "have you come to give me some company? Come sit with me." Aemond could not find it in him to correct Luke so he sat beside him and listend to his tale about the book he was reading right now. Aemond smiled, oh how he wished it was Lucerys he was set to marry.

This how Alicent found them. Setting beside each other and smiling without a care in the world. She could not hear them but the smiles on their faces said everything she needed to know. Rhaenyra had been right they would make a good match. She hesitated before calling her son, she did not want to disturb them in their moment of happieness but Alicent knew her father, she had to act quickly. So she walked over to them and asked her son for a moment of his time while telling Lucerys that his mother wanted to see him. Alicent pretended not to see the worried look Lucerys gave her. If she wanted them to be a happy family, she would have to try and fix the relationship with Rhaenyras children.

But for now she had to focus on her son. One obstical after the other. "Walk with me", the queen told Aemond as she towards the gardens. Once she was sure no one was around Alicent turned to her son. "I'm aware that the match your grandfather has planed for you is far from ideal", Aemond grimanced and she smiled in sympathy, "I've noticed that you have shown certain interest in Lucerys." Aemonds head shot up and she stared at him, it seemed that he thought she would disapproved but before he could open his mouth Alicent continued, ,,I've talked with Rhaenyra regarding your match and it seems Lucerys returns your feeling. But you surely know that already." Aemond blushed "I hoped he would. But would Rhaenyra even agree. Lucerys is her favourite son after all and I have no land of my own." Alicent took hand in hers before answering: "Oh none of that Aemond. Don't speak so lowly of yourself. Rhaenyra and I have spoken about Luke and you having a courting period or a long betrothel.

Aemond kept staring at her "You approve?", he asked confused. Alicent smiled and took his hands in hers before answering: "My son, all I wish for is your happieness. If this is what makes you happy and that is all I need to know." They hugged and then Aemond excused himself, no doubt wanting to talk to Lucerys. Alicent smiled while watching him leave before sighing in relive. Let's hope this would help aviod the disaster which her father had planed. She scuffed, his plans had always been stupid.

When Alicent went to the family dinner that evening she saw Aemond and Lucerys stitting next to each other wishering and giggeling like the lovebirds they were. Meanwhile Otte glanced at them disapprovingly like they were talking the vilest things. As she sat down she meet Rhaenyras eyes and the princess nodded. A feeling of relief sweeped through her body. She new that with Rhaenyras help she would get the king to agree to the proposal without problems, in fact her husband would probably be thrilled, oh how she would enjoy the look on her fathers face. When the desirt was surfed the princess stood up and raised her glass and Alicent find herself giddy with excitment. "It fills me with such joy to see my family together like this and hopfully we can keep such unity in the future. To this end I have a probosal to make, a union to bind our house together permanently." Alicent saw Viserys light up while Otto looked to but it politly pissed of. "I match beween my son Lucerys heir to Driftmark and my bother prince Aemond." Both Lucerys and Aemond lit up like dragonfire, grinning like they were trying to split their faces in half. "A wounderful idea my dear", the king said, taking his daughters hand before Otto distroyed the moment by opening his damn mouth. "Your grace, I already made a good match for the prince. Surly there are other ways-" before he could continue Aemond slammed his fists into the top of the table. Everyone when quiet while staring at her secund son "Absolutly not", he hissed fury on his face, "I will not marry some old cow so that you can still your lust for power that is not yours. I will marry Lucerys and no other. You have meddeled enough in the buisness of other people and my love life is none of your buisness, none at all hand or not! As much as might to like it you are not the king and you are no Targaryen, what makes you think you can control dragons you old fucking cunt. How dare you!"

One could have heard a pin drop when he was finished. Everyone was shocked and stared wide eyed at he prince. Daemon was grinning like the cat that had gotten the cream. To everyones suprise it was Luke who broke the silents: "Grandfather please, Aemond and I are very fond of each other and want to bind our family together. It just feels right. We hoped you would bless this union." Luke looked at his grandfather with his big innocent eyes that could meld the wall. The old man softend like warm butter and he nodded: "Of course Lucerys. If you both wish for it then it shall be so." Lucerys smiled happily turning to Aemond and giving him a small kiss on the cheek. Alicent smiled at the sweet display which calmed her son immediately. Her father was dumpstruck, seemingly not following with what just happened. The queen looked towards her childhood friend and when their eyes met both women grinned and lifted their glasses in a toast.

Inspired by

#aemond x lucerys #lucemond #arranged marriage #hotd #happy ending

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dracodazaii · 3 months

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Culmination Of Resentment

Team Neutral Critique Of HOTD Characters

A metallic clang sounds out beneath as heavy breaths echo throughout the room, encompassed with a silent terror.

An eerie absence of speaking only highlights the abnormality of the situation.

Until a voice finally shouts out, breaking the short moment of silence which were once dictated by pause of confusion and pain.

“How dare you?”, raged the voice with an authoritative voice bellowed out in distress.

“You preach on and on about duty while your dastardly son lurks into the night to claim the dragon of the women whose funeral we are attending! And you dare to attack me, your future Queen!”

Rhaenyra yells out her anger with the fury culminated from years of resent upon the girl she loves and hates both equally with passion.

Alicent Hightower; the Green Queen.

Her once-bestfriend turned rival as betrayal struck the Targaryen in her girlhood prime.

“You sit upon your throne beneath my naive coward of a father while you and your beastly father cower upon his body to feast like crows and spread rumours about me! Have you forgotten who betrayed who first? You snidely chat with your oathbreaker of a swornshield while forgetting that both he and you gained your position due to the Targaryens you despise so much!”

“I on the other hand haven’t dared forgotten how you snuck into my fathers bedcambers in your mother’s dresses, indecent for an proclaimed virtuous maiden, on the night of my mothers funeral.”

The crowd of white-haired onlookers begin to murmur as if reassessing their evaluation of the Queen of most holy and devout beliefs.

A dark-skinned man lurking in the corner of the Velaryon-Targaryen crowd stirs in anger.

Jealously in his eyes as he recalls his lovely daughter Laena who had lost her chance to be Queen to this miserly women and lost her life, only to have herself be disregarded at her own funeral.

Alicent screeches with anger “I was a maiden at my wedding! At least I can say that unlike you who lost herself in the thralls of brothels and sworn-shields, married to a sword-swallower birthing pug-nosed bastards!”

The retort blares out within the crowd as an onlooker of Velaryon heritage rages at the disservice done to his house, being reduced to a brown-haired unlawful child as heir to his house, ancestry desolated by a whoreson and his rogue of a mother.

“Enough of this!”

“ Alicent!”

“Rhaenyra!”

“Your feud has gone on too long. We are family! The bonds of our house must stay strong as our kingdom depends on us! Put aside your petty grievances!” King Viserys, the near-skeletal figure of a man clamours, fury moving his decaying body to stand with power.

“Our son has lost an eye and you’re call this petty! Your beloved daughter has called for the torture of your son and yet this matter is petty! How dare you!”

Alicent held his gaze, eyes bewildered in shame and wild in anger.

“You are the beginning root of all disservices done to us all! You wanted a son for heir but only from your precious Aemma. Whom you butchered like a pig for your heir for a day. You married me, the daughter of your friend. The age of your daughter!”

Viserys attempted to look down in shame but ceased as his eyes laid gaze upon Alicent, reminded of the once-youthful gaze in her eyes, turned erratic with this culmination of anger seeping through her.

“Then only named Rhaenyra heir out of shame and guilt, yet continued your mistakes of the past with your new family! Do you even remember our children’s names or are you too busy crying over your Aemma and playing with your Valyrian model to do so!”

The children, beaten and downtrodden look to their kingly ancestor, both brown-haired and white-haired alike glance to him with a judgement in their eyes. New-found for the grandchildren who have only regarded Viserys as a loving paternal figure, re-evaluating their thoughts on the shameful man.

A figure moves to the forefront of this moshpit, beridden with emulsing wrath towards all central individuals.

“Talking of sins, duty and respect while you desecrate my daughter’s funeral with this insolent feud!”

Rhaenys Velaryon stands firm in position, outrage fuelling her as she disregards the broken household in front of her gaze.

“All standing here have done a great disservice to my daughter and are debasing her further now. You’re son thought to claim my daughter’s greatest companion on the day of her remembrance!”

“And You!”

“Fornicating with your rogue of an uncle on his wife’s funeral, your own cousin and the sister of your husband!” Rhaenys snapped while the crowd of individuals loudly muttered.

Her husband stood beside her, towering over the others, portraying a tall statue of a man while his beloved wife let out her sequence of grievances.

“Cease the conversations now Viserys. This matter is finished and the Royal Household is to vacate Driftmark immediately.” Corlys commented in a calm yet commanding tone.

The children begun to cry, overwhelmed with the events unfolding and ushered out by their rageful yet tempered down mothers, focused on their children.

#asoiaf #hotd #game of thrones #got #rhaenyra targaryen #alicent hightower #laena velaryon deserved better #team neutral #team black #team green #house of the dragon #normalise loving most characters yet understanding they did wrong!!#fanfic #ao3 fanfic #ao3

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astarab1aze · 8 days

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➥ Deathbird

O' mother, o' mother, sing me a song, for the twilight has set and night has followed, and I shan't survive alone. O' mother, o' mother, look upon me with thine eyes of light, look upon me favorably and stitch mine soul into the fabric of life. O' mother, o' mother, why hast thou voice gone silent, thine eyes gone dim? O' mother, o' mother... why hast though forsaken me?

She is of death as she is of life; Of tooth and of talon, drenched in all-devouring shadow and bless'd by sightless eyes and song of lacuna. Shackled by offerings of flesh and divine will, servant of the Outer Gods - of the Fates - and through her, they punish the wicked, their discenters, the blood of Sanguinach, influence destiny as abyssal calamity; She is their sacred hunter, one of many, their strongest, their most beloved. She is a queen without her crown, dead and rotted upon her throne of boughs, soul rended from bone; She is the knife in the dark, a hunger for the light, the decay of sinew, and the spilling of blood - ever to serve, ever to march to the tune of a thousand hymns, to the beaten wings of a thousand crows.

O' Herald of Death! Daughter of the First and the Last, Lady of the Land of Storms, Mother of the Golden Child, She who was to be Our Hero, Our Queen - Lo, why hast thou forsaken us?

She listens with wounded heart and pride as she diminishes, as the Voidsong eats and eats and eats at her mind, as the Sightless Eye pierces her soul - It is she who bears the weight of a thousand deaths, a thousand lives. It is she who bears the guilt, who bears the blame, who acts in the name of cosmic wills, and it is she who must suffer a thousand screams, bathe in the blood of her men as consequence and reward. Choice, an illusion; Love, a betrayal; Fate, a lie.

What trickery of the Crones, what falsehoods spouted by the Witch and the Hollow Priestess of violet and gold? Widow-spun webs and tattered banners, promises made and broken - divine power stolen in place of starlight, what great sacrifice she has made, now compulsed purveyor of the end. Harbinger of Destiny's Flight, disallowed of her own. What have they taken, oh, what have they taken from her that she must do forever as they say?

Woe to harpy-kind, woe to the Outer Gods, woe to the Heavens and woe to the Hells, for they have taken all, and it shall never again be returned. For it is duty, it is diligence, it is chivalry, it is faith, it is truest love to serve eternal, to serve in deathly chains and shadow unending - to walk among the living a spectre and die in the twilight mourn in absolution tarnished, to never again know love nor trust, safety nor esteem, doomed in fell reward ever to fight on the battlefield of Fate until at last bless'd, borrowed un-life is robbed of her and she is no more.

In our darkest hour, why hast thou abandoned us? Are we not worthy of thy labors of love? Hast we dishonored thee so, that our fate deserv'd be? O' mother, o' mother, we beg of thee - forgive us our trespasses, save us, save us!

#☿ || Edits.#➥ Crovita.#♞ // Verse: Of Endless Suffering.#/ i'm going to nuke this website from orbit for messing with the quality but anyway--#long /#/ this is so pretentious but i had to try #/ i'm being very deliberate here #/ extrapolate what you will but there's a 'one true' interpretation to this #/ but the mystery and drama is more fun :^)

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aihoshiino · 8 months

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chapter 128 thoughts!

a little late because i have been fighting for my life against sleepy bitch disease all week but HERE WE GO

Right off the bat, the little power level rankings for everyone are such a cute visual while also being a great way to quickly and immediately get across some super important and interesting info about everyone's capabilities going into the chapter. I won't comment on everything but there is some stuff I want to make a note of before going into things!

Ruby's acting skills being ranked as D and accordingly as her biggest weakness is pretty interesting. I was worried that might be left hanging but I'm glad to see the story continuing to acknowledge how much is riding on the movie's success and how Ruby's acting might not be able to bear that weight. That combined with One Other Thing really does have me start to seriously wonder if we won't have a lead actress switcharoo on our hands at some point in the future.

Melt's acting skill being ranked as B (the same level as Aqua, even!) made me go <3. He really has come such a long way from where he first started and the blood, sweat and tears he wrung out of himself during Tokyo Blade seems to have really paid off. Melt, my beloved!!!

Moving onto the chapter itself, I was really surprised to see Aqua playing Kamiki! I guess I shouldn't be with how hard that family resemblance has been played up but for some reason, I was really certain he was specifically playing Ryosuke, not Kamiki... I guess because it was originally stated he was 'the culprit'? Anyway, Aqua playing Kamiki is part of why I'm starting to wonder if either he or Ruby will end up backing out of their roles – having a pair of twin siblings play a real life couple who Definitely Fucked seems like the sort of things that uh, might put a dampener on the movie's intended reception, just from an in-universe perspective!

This chapter also finally gives us a name for the Crow Girl - Tsukuyomi! I felt SUCH a thrill when I saw her use that name because I had wondered last chapter if her pointed reference to the moon might be some indication that's who she was but at the time it felt like a stretch, so I didn't voice it. Gah, I should've put it in my chapter thoughts so I could be extra smug about calling it!

In general, I'm really surprised by how many of my long-term issues with OnK were specifically touched on in this chapter to a really eerily specific degree lol? But holy shit! Somebody actually acknowledging the huge bombshell of Aqua and Ruby's connection to Ai! Akane, specifically, finally fucking acknowledging that Ruby was also traumatized by her mother's death! Akane acknowledging Ruby exists at all!! Akane interacting with characters that aren't Aqua!!! Thank god!!!

I'm also becoming increasingly curious about the DVDs the kids saw. They're a pretty transparent retcon and I imagine we'll eventually see them for ourselves but I'm still itching to know wtf Aka was even cooking when he added them.

For all that was good about this chapter, though, I do have a pretty major issue with the way a lot of the emotional stuff is being skimmed over purely to not let the reader in on the content of the movie too early. This info isn't necessarily new to all the characters but there are some major bombshells about the culprit and Ai's relationship with him that we get no commentary on from the characters.

The biggest and most baffling missed opportunity here is Taiki, honestly??? Based on what Aqua says to him and the fact that Frill is going to be playing Airi Himekawa we can probably guess that her abuse of Kamiki will be laid bare in the movie. If that's the case then Taiki has just found out, possibly just from this fucking script, that his mother is a child rapist and he himself is a product of rape. The fact that we do not see any emotional response from him about this information beyond "that's on my mom you caught her slippin" genuinely fucking blows my mind! Completely insane!!! Was there really absolutely no space in the story for Taiki to have literally any time or room to process an incredibly traumatic dump of information like that???

that said, for my complaints... I won't pretend it didn't kick me in the gut to see Ruby all dressed up as Ai on that final page. Definitely her mom's daughter.

Break next week..........................................

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk spoilers #oshi no ko spoilers #csa mention #sa mention

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heraldofcrow · 6 months

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CROW!!!

I demand headcanons for Milli Milli aka Millicent if you have any!

And if not, go have a lovely weekend you muppet!!! 🔥

YAYA BIM LET’S GO!! I’D LOVE TO TALK ABOUT OUR GIRL!

(SO SORRY FOR HOW LATE THIS IS!! My Elden Ring inspo hasn’t been at peak performance, I’ll be honest, but I hope this brightens your day, anyway!)

🍂 Millicent was an autumn baby, born of the Aeonia swamp some time after Malenia was delivered back to the Haligtree by Finlay. Caelid didn’t ever offer much in the way of seasons, but the rest of the Lands Between knew it was later in the year when Millie showed up.

🍂 She was, out of all her sisters, the most like Malenia and represented her truest heart, her nobility, and her desire to be an independent individual free of the bonds of her illness and Rot, the outer god.

🍂 Millie grew up with her beloved sisters, but one by one they each disappeared, setting out on a grand “journey” encouraged by their “father.” Millicent’s memories of her sisters eventually grew hazy because of the rot, but she did miss them dearly.

🍂 Millicent only ever knew Gowry as an adoptive father, and while he had relied on him as a child, she began to mistrust him as she grew older. Something about him was wrong and possessive. She gradually drifted away, straining her relationship with him and trying to live on her own.

🍂 Millicent liked to wander around the Lands Between and that’s actually how she met Malenia’s old mentor, the Blind Swordsman. He was very quiet and stern, speaking little of his old student, but he recognized Malenia in Millicent, and trained her in kindness.

🍂 Millie learn how to Waterfowl and use a sword, but she lacked the exact type of unalloyed gold tools to keep the rot at bay. For a long time she simply stagnated it through combat, rushing to protect villages and travelers should they ever be accosted by bandits or mercenaries.

🍂 A lot of wandering peoples throughout the Lands Between became aware of Millicent through this and how she brought back the memory of Malenia in a small way, especially the Albinaurics. They loved her.

🍂 This is actually how Millie met Latenna. They became friends 🖤

🍂 After a while, the rot slowly took its toll on Millicent and she became too sickly to travel. She reluctantly returned to Gowry in Caelid, asking for his advice. But he was cryptic and deceptive, telling her only to search for the needle. We all know how that ended up lol.

🍂 Millicent grew so sick by the time the Tarnished showed up that she lost much of her memory. Her past life and travels were blurry and Gowry himself was nothing to her anymore.

🍂 She set out on her journey out of some strange pull and instinct, having forgotten that her sisters had made the exact same choice long before. She was not aware of her direct relation to Malenia, but she felt a strong connection there.

🍂 Millicent regained many of her memories after fighting her sisters and withered in grief, realizing what had happened to them and Malenia alike. It was a moment of self-realization, and she took the needle out at once. She wanted to die whole and human, to die as her own.

🍂 Through this action, she redeemed her mother. She preserved Malenia’s true heart and will, dying in peace.

—

Some more easy-going, light-hearted headcanons include:

Millie LOVED Spirit Jellyfish. Whenever she saw them, she would run over to just sit and watch them float around with an enraptured expression.

She was also just fascinated by the sea and all its life-forms in general. The cool blue rush of the ocean was like a type of freedom to her, pulling her far away from the rotten, arid plains of Caelid.

Besides Altus Plateau, Millie’s favorite place to visit was Ordina. She was fixated on the beautiful phantom buildings and the way they glowed in the snowfall. She even went sledding around there a few times.

Latenna jokingly told Millie that was she part cat, mainly because her big yellow eyes tended to glow in the dark!

Millie was a sucker for broiled prawn. Nuff said.

Millicent liked to eat Erdleaf flowers too. She saw nothing wrong with it. She just ate them.

Out of all her sisters, Mary was Millicent’s favorite when they were young. There was a strange sorrow and solemnity to Mary that came from Malenia’s own grief, but it made for a very pensive and peaceful older figure in Millicent’s life that liked to tell her stories and old legends.

Yes, autumn was Millie’s favorite season and she often daydreamed of seeing the Haligtree in its full amber and golden bloom.

Finlay was Millicent’s person hero, and she went around asking different people to recount various versions of the tale regarding Finlay’s heroic act.

Millicent liked to sew and bead necklaces. It was one of her pass-time hobbies.

Millicent actually went to see the Radahn Festival one time and was a bit put off by the glorification of war that surrounded it, but she felt a lot of pity and sympathy for Radahn himself. She secretly hoped that he would one day regain his mind and sense of self.

Millicent met Melina once by chance and they bonded over their oddly similar life stories.

Finally, Millie had a pet turtle…errr dog, at one point and named him Montie. She never actually kept him, but he wandered around oddly close to Caelid and whenever she saw him, she would just yell, “MONTIE” with affection and then even the birds would stare at her in confusion lol.

Ok, some of these are just for fun, but it’s YOU, Bim! I gotta add some cheer to it! Heh, I hope you like em, mate! <3

#this was fun #once i got the brainrot back xD #elden ring #millicent #millicent elden ring #elden ring headcanons #asks #mutuals

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princeescaluswords · 4 months

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I always find there's such a stark difference between tgt fans and soc fans, and this is could possibly be because of the way the fandom interprets the texts. Six of crows is a heist novel, about people who aren't chosen ones and just live in Kerch. You don't have to be special to be worthy of getting your story told. Soc fans get that. But Darkling fans? Well, it just *can't* be that Alina chooses to be ordinary over being the Darkling's queen, so she apparently *must* end up with her abuser, even though she does not share his morals; even though she is the antithesis of everything he is because she will never see others' lives as expendable for a greater cause. Alina is compassionate and revels in being the 99%, and Darkling fans seem to hate that. Alina was never meant to be a power fantasy, but for Darkling fans, the idea of being normal was never an option - because to them, why would you not choose to be part of the 1%; why would you not turn this into a power fantasy, even when when the author always intended for tgt to be the opposite?

Unfortunately, I have only seen the Netflix adaptation of the Grishaverse. I don't know what "tgt" stands for. However, I can talk about the unpleasant intersection I find between power, status, and ethics that occurs in fandoms. When I refer back to Alina, the Darkling, and the other characters in the Grishaverse, you should bear in mind that it is constrained by my limited knowledge, and I welcome any correction of what you feel is a misinterpretation.

When it comes to many people in our culture, they may claim to want a good story, but they tend to be quite simplistic in their value systems when they think they're not going to be judged for it. Which means they want power fantasies, instead. The problem, of course, is that power fantasies don't make satisfying stories. It's like trying to survive on a diet consisting solely of cheeseburgers.

Let me give a concrete example. In my primary fandom, Teen Wolf, I recently came across an unlabeled post-season 2 story where Jackson Whittemore -- who, for those who don't know, is white, rich, good-looking, entitled and captain of both the lacrosse and the swim team -- is talking about Scott McCall (the lead protagonist in the show but not this story) in very negative terms, complaining about Scott's lack of decency in not telling Allison Argent that her mother was bitten by Derek Hale, an alpha werewolf, while Mrs. Argent was trying to kill Scott. The bite caused Mrs. Argent to kill herself, and, for a time, Allison blamed Derek for her mother's death.

Now, they set aside the fact that the show made it clear that Scott didn't tell Allison because, by the time he figured out what had happened (he was unconscious when Derek bit Allison's mother), it was already too late to change anything, so Scott decided not to tell Allison so that wouldn't be the last memory she had of her beloved mother. You would think that people would view this as an effort to be kind, right? Wrong!

Fandom sees this as an utter betrayal, because it is Derek Hale's feelings, as a white, rich, god-looking, entitled Alpha Werewolf, that should take precedence over Scott's girlfriend's feelings. It doesn't matter that while Derek did come to Scott's rescue, he had beat, manipulated, lied to, betrayed, and tried to murder innocents under Scott's protection for almost all of the first two seasons.

Also relevant is that this is the same Jackson Whittemore, who witnessed his next-door neighbor "kicking the crap" out of his son, Isaac Lahey, and said nothing about it to anyone. This is the same Jackson Whittemore, who when he got the Bite, dumped his girlfriend and told a homeless man to go die in another parking lot, before turning into a murder lizard slave. This is the same Jackson Whittemore for whom the only solution that Derek Hale managed to come up with when this happened was straight-up murder. This is the same Jackson Whittemore whom Scott fought to save from Derek. There is no hint in this fandom story that Jackson is being a hypocrite or being ungrateful or even aware of the contradiction.

The author chose this. Jackson's signature callousness and selfishness simply vanishes just long enough for him to condemn the person who tried to save him for not wanting to hurt his girlfriend's feelings. Why? Jackson is privileged, and he has that in common with Derek, so it is obvious that Jackson will take Derek's perspective in the matter.

Which brings us back to your example. Alina is the Sun Summoner, a living saint, and incredibly powerful. Of course she's supposed to take the side of the Darkling, who is also incredibly powerful. His creation of a slave caste for his kind, his manipulation and murder of countless others, and his creation of the Shadow Fold poisons her nation. This is irrelevant to power fantasy, where power should make her perspective identical to his.

In the modern day, our culture certainly talks about the dangers of the elite, but fandom gives its participants the way to celebrate a freedom from the ethical consideration when it comes to personal power. To them, since fiction =/= reality, they can indulge in their lust for power and status regardless of the consequences. To them, there is no reason for Scott McCall to value Derek Hale's feelings above Allison Argent's; Derek is more powerful, richer, and better looking (and a guy!) so Scott should choose Derek's side. To them, there is no reason that the Sun Summoner will choose a course in life that will prevent her power from corrupting her; if she allowed herself to be corrupted, she'd have all the status of the Darkling.

The problem they have is that the artists behind both the Grishaverse and Teen Wolf, which you are free to consider trivial, still examined the world around them and came to the conclusion that power doesn't supersede the necessity for ethical thought. In other words, the artists realized that power fantasies might give momentary pleasure, but in the end, they don't produce meaningful stories.

Some people have a problem with that.

#scott mccall #alina starkov #darkling #grishaverse #derek hale #jackson whittemore #fandom problems #fandom racism

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warrior-cats-rewritten · 3 months

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Oooooh could you tell us more about Moth/Leaf/Crow in your rewrite

Mothwing/Leafpool/Crowfeather

This trio! The world's most inconvenient polycule!

Leafpool is given the go-ahead by Bramblestar after Crowfeather shows himself at the border. He figures that Leafpool has done so much for the Clans, she deserves this. Crowfeather wants to be a part of Thunderclan, and after losing a large chunk of cats to The Great Battle and The Great Storm... They let him join.

Besides, is Starclan REALLY gonna try to punish Leafpool? The cat who discovered the Moonpool?

Yes, actually. They did. Moon Flight was FURIOUS.

But that's a story for another day.

Mothwing is having a pretty rotten time in Riverclan. She loves fish (and girl can make a MEAN Salmon Bun) and she loves her family, but Riverclan's general lifestyle (and political atmosphere) do not suit her. Where Hawkfrost is focused on staying out of the spotlight and under radars, and Tadpole is actively working to push things in a different direction, Mothwing's philosophy is "if it sucks, HIT DA BRICKZ"

Which she finally does, during TBC. Mistystar doesn't get the satisfaction of exiling her, Mothwing leaves before she can officially say it.

Thunderclan's atmosphere however, is even worse. Crowfeather got himself Dishonor Titled for simply talking about his dead mother to help another cat suffering with grief. Bramblestar having renamed him Lostfeather. A missing feather that doesn't seem to know its place. A drifting feather that will guide youth (his apprentice) astray.

Yeah... No thanks. Leafpool is wonderful, and their adventure together during Squirrelflight's Freedom was downright magical... But that is not worth it. Skyclan is staying neutral and rabbit makes Mothwing feel gross... Shadowclan ain't so bad, right?

Her strong bond with Leafpool stays strong throughout the books, the two openly affectionate with one another. She loves how quietly strong Leafpool is, how selfless she has been, and just how protective Leafpool is of her loved ones.

On Crowfeather's side of things, he leaves Windclan after The Last Hope, as a storm gathers on the horizon, he finally departs from the Clan he didn't want to stay in and joins Thunderclan, becoming Leafpool's mate and doing his best to bond with his children to varying degrees of success.

Lionblaze was a wee bit too busy at first, with Cinderheart going into a false labour making him the world's Most Anxious Man. Doesn't help that Crowf just... Cannot do labor. He is the man who faints moments after telling you to take deep breaths.

Jayfeather was in a depressive spell and didn't want to speak with anyone, especially after the death of Whitewing. He... really beat himself up about it.

Well... At least Hollyleaf made a joke about them being good night hunters thanks to their dark coats.

He is trying his best, and they do come around. He reassures Lionblaze that he'll be a great dad, helps Jay with his depression management and PTSD, and supports all of Hollyleaf's ambitions. (He also makes an effort to be good with Breezey-P.)

He isn't in love with Mothwing, and Mothwing isn't in love with him, they both love Leafpool, and they are good friends. He continuously works hard to be the best mate he can be to Leafpool, with gifts, assistance whenever it can be given, as well as lots of nice massages after a long day of medical work.

Now, on for the third member of our trio:

Leafpool! Now SAVED from a pathetic death and getting to stay alive during the chaotic events of TBC. She is also Dishonor Titled, given the name Mothpuddle. It's a strange name, one that sends a very clear message to her that "Bramblestar" knows something he shouldn't.

More on that later. She and Mothwing were also strongly bonding during The Great Journey, and she debated asking Mothwing to run away with her, only deciding against it because Riverclan didn't have another Medicine Cat, and it wouldn't have been fair to make Moth decides between her beloved career and a life out in the sticks.

She loves Crowfeather for his passion, his wit, and his soft side that emerged while they traveled together through the mountains. She loves Mothwing for her ingenuity, her grace, and her ability to take charge when needs be.

It helps that they love her kids. Mothwing gets along beautifully with The Three, especially Jayfeather.

They finally get together during Dark Times/ASC's ending, when Mothwing leaves Riverclan once and for all to enjoy a peaceful life in Thunderclan. The Clans are about to enter a very tumultuous time, with Skyclan being leaderless, Thunderclan and Windclan's new leaders not having their 9 lives, while Riverclan and Shadowclan's new leaders having been given a dark blessing off of gray wings.

#mothwing #leafpool #crowfeather #crowfeather x leafpool x mothwing #warrior cats #warrior cats rewrite #wcr #warriors #asks #relationship page

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margindoodles2407 · 7 months

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Margin's Zelda Playlists

I am reposting this because I've added like. 50 new songs and deleted at least 10. Call this the ship of theseus i guess

Anyway, these are each their own separate playlist but I have them all on one playlist to save room. :) Enjoy! And if you have any songs that remind YOU of a specific game let me know- I'd love to listen to them, especially if they're related to one of the games with only a few songs on the playlist! All of these songs can be found on Youtube; not sure if you can find them all on Spotify or Apple Music though :(

The Legend of Zelda (the series; also my Pre-Skord Playlist)

Gate of Time/Zelda's Lullaby by HyruleOrchestra

Ballad of the Lonely by trashyinferno

Rule #15: Four Aces by Fish in a Birdcage [EXPLICIT]

This Tragedy of Mine by Knight of Endale

They're Only Human from Death Note: the Musical

Nothing Changes from Hadestown: the Musical

I Lived by OneRepublic

The Call by Regina Spektor

No One Lives Forever by Oingo Boingo

Skyward Sword

Washing Machine Heart by Mitski

When You're Evil by Voltaire (it's a ghirahim mood)

Bruno is Orange by Hop Along

Curses by The Crane Wives

Anchorage by Marian Call

It's Alright by Mother Mother

Ophelia by The Lumineers

Icarus by Bastille

Something I Need by OneRepublic

Minish Cap

Dandelions covered by Bet

All the Small Things by Blink 182 (don't ask me why)

Flowers in my Hair by Wes Reeves

Four Swords

Open Up Your Eyes covered by Daniel Ingram

The Friend You Need from My Little Pony: the Movie (please ignore that these are both from mlp the movie okay. first of all i unironically enjoy mlp and secondly they remind me of shadow)

Ocarina of Time

The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel

Treehouse covered by Eric D

Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons [EXPLICIT]

Small Hands by Keaton Henson

King by Lauren Aquilina

You Don't Get to Know Her Anymore by Pedals on Our Pirate Ships

Achilles Come Down by Gang of Youths [EXPLICIT]

Emperor's New Clothes by Panic! at the Disco

Providence by Poor Man's Poison

You Turn the Screws by CAKE

Good Night, Demon Slayer by Voltaire

Go the Distance covered by BYU Vocal Point

River from the Sky by The Weepies

Time/Space by Alex G

Keep You Safe by The Crane Wives

Majora's Mask

Turn the Lights Off by Tally Hall

Twin-Sized Mattress by The Front Bottoms [EXPLICIT]

Home by Cavetown

Best Friend by AJJ

Rule #9: Child of the Stars by Fish in a Birdcage

Slow Down by Poor Man's Poison

Listen When You Miss Me by Naethan Apollo

Twilight Princess

Be Nice to Me by The Front Bottoms (the lyrics aren't EXPLICIT but someone does drop an f-bomb in a spoken background track)

Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show

Hell's Coming With Me by Poor Man's Poison

Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier

Sundown and Sorrow by Hank Williams

Hermit the Frog by MARINA [EXPLICIT]

Shadows and Regrets by Yellowcard

When the Wolf Meets the Moon by Confused Crow

Drinking Song by Haley Heyndrickx

Wind Waker

Rule #23: Birds of a Feather by Fish in a Birdcage

Joli Rouge by The Dreadnoughts

Kokomo by the Beach Boys

"That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen" from Pirates of the Caribbean (yes. the meme. not "He's a Pirate" the song, i specifically mean the meme.)

Rule #28: Sand by Fish in a Birdcage

Stand By You by Rachel Platten

If We Have Each Other by Alec Benjamin

Abandon Ship by Fin Argus

Welly Boots by The Amazing Devil [EXPLICIT]

Captain's Call by Derivakat

Leave Her Johnny by The Longest Johns

Phantom Hourglass

The Flying Dutchman by The Jolly Rogers (i am sorry that the playlist is only 1 song long :'{ )

Spirit Tracks

Stickshifts and Safety Belts by CAKE

Opening Up from Waitress: The Musical [EXPLICIT]

Ghost Grinder by Steam Powered Giraffe

A Link to the Past

Ghosting by Mother Mother

Welcome Home Son by Radical Face (PLEASE give me recommendations i need more songs for my beloved :'{ )

Link's Awakening

Dream Sweet in Sea Major by Miracle Musical

Hidden in the Sand by Tally Hall

Mary by Alex G (there is a clean version please look it up)

Dream a Little Dream of Me by The Mamas and the Papas

Bones in the Ocean by The Longest Johns

Oracle of Ages/Seasons

Shadow Stalker by Mercedes Lackey (again PLEASE i need song recs)

A Link Between Worlds

Mona Lisa by Mxmtoon

Banana Bread by Sarah Maddack

Tri Force Heroes

Fashion by Lady Gaga

Puttin' On the Ritz by Taco

The Hyrule Fantasy

Rule #33: Pyre by Fish in a Birdcage

Fairytale by Alexander Ryback

Parables and Primes by Danny Schmidt

Zelda II: The Adventure of Link

Snow by Ricky Montgomery

Seven by Sleeping at Last

Hyrule Warriors

Villains Aren't Born (They're Made) by PEGGY

The Red Means I Love You by Madds Buckley

OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH CIA MOVING ON

I'll Make a Man Out of You from Disney's Mulan

She's Kerosene by The Interrupters

Ain't No Crying by Derivakat

Burned Out by Dodie (@unclemoriarty I blame you for this one :] )

That Unwanted Animal by The Amazing Devil [EXPLICIT]

Inkpot Gods by The Amazing Devil

Battle Cries by The Amazing Devil

The Fall by Half Alive

Choke by I Don't Know How But They Found Me

Blossoms by The Amazing Devil

Breath of the Wild

House of Memories by Panic! at the Disco

Amnesia Was Her Name by Lemon Demon

The Distance by CAKE

The Cost of the Crown by Mercedes Lackey

The Mute by Radical Face

A Moment Forever Ago from Central Park

Waiting on a Miracle from Disney's Encanto

Rule #31: Calamity by Fish in a Birdcage

Frank Sinatra by CAKE

Seventeen by MARINA [EXPLICIT]

The Family Jewels by MARINA

Expert in a Dying Field by The Beths

Everglow covered by Remedy A Capella

Stella by Cereus Bright

She covered by Rob Wilson

The Horror and the Wild

Tears of the Kingdom

Rule #29: Throne Room by Fish in a Birdcage

Rule #15: Waterfall by Fish in a Birdcage

Pompeii MMXXIII by Bastille

@whyoneartheven

#margin rambles #margin's playlists #the archives

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saintsofwarding · 8 months

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BURIAL

Chapter 8

(You really think this one's gonna up and do what you say?)

"Shut up."

(That's not very nice, Donna)

"Bold of you to say that."

(Am I wrong? Look at her. Creeping through our house. Heavy and clumsy and full of so many fluids! Ohhh, she's a curious one, Donna, a curious little mouse, and you know what happens to mice around here)

"Don't you hurt her. If you do, this time, I'll-"

(You'll what? Say it. Say every terrible thing that's been festering so long in the black pit of your skull. Go on. You can't, can you? That's up to me, isn't it? I can do it, I can always do it, so you don't have to)

A cackle, ringing through the damp gloom.

(You did so much already. Poor little Donna. All alone once the silence came back in)

"Shut up, shut up!"

(And if I did? Would you be able to survive on your own? Little Dolly Donna, quiet as a mouse. You'd go insane with the weight of it. Well. Insane-er)

"Shut up!" She rushed forward with a howl, agonized, scraping up her throat; she tasted blood, felt her ruined face writhe in agitation, the fleshy pulse fast as her racing heartbeat. She gripped Angie's neck as the doll laughed and laughed and laughed, echoes ringing through the darkness until it sounded like she was surrounded by a hundred more of her, a chorus of cackles jabbing and tearing at her like crows' beaks.

She couldn't take it. She stuffed her fingers into the doll's mouth as far as they would go. Angie's teeth scraped at her knuckles- real teeth, real human ivory, milk teeth like a baby's- but the laughter went on and on. Of course. It always would. It didn't come from the doll, not really. It never did.

(Don't hurt me, Donna! You can't! You know what happens if you hurt me-!)

"I could do it. I could crack you open, smash you all over this floor-"

(Is that what you said the first time? Is this how it went?) The voice almost sounded frightened, almost hushed. Donna's hands began to shake. (You see? You can't survive alone. You can't. Donna, please, see reason. You need me. I need you)

The rage left her all at once. She slumped in a rustle of black fabric. The cold of the stone floor began to seep into her knees. She didn't cry. Her head hung. A puppet on strings. Her grip slowly loosened on Angie, and then she gathered her to her, suddenly, pulling the doll to her chest and hugging her as hard as she could.

Cold fingers stroked the sides of her face as she shook, rocking back and forth, feeling the faint warm pulse within Angie's head against her throat. A match to her own. Like it always was.

(I need you)

***

Peace had once been a church. An altar, a gilded portrait, kneeling in reverence to light candles before Mother Miranda's most holy and beloved icon. The knowledge, simple and unspoilt, that Elena was protected, that her father was protected, her neighbors, as long as they did what they were told. As long as they stayed obedient, their afterlife would never come to harm.

And how could it, when the Black God remembered all things in its infinite dream? It had been of comfort to Elena, after her mother had died, that she was remembered by the Black God, that one day Elena too would join her in that endless dark, comprised of everyone she had ever known and ever loved. That whatever pain would come to her, she would always have that to look forward to in the end.

And now?

Not peace. Never fully. Not when her father was held hostage by her obedience, not when she'd seen the horrors that lurked in this place. But the house seemed out of time, adrift, and there were days when Elena almost forgot to be afraid. Days of polishing tarnished silverware, or clearing snow from the porch, or of working in the garden, or listening to records, turning the gramophone volume high to allow the music to reverberate through the halls.

Days with Donna Beneviento somewhere in the house with her, mostly unseen but, at last, present.

She never removed her veil. Never went anywhere without her doll, Angie, the thing always perched in the crook of her arm, or sitting near her on a chair, or opposite her while she worked, and talked to it. Sometimes Elena overheard- well, listened, to be honest- entire one-sided conversations with Angie, Donna murmuring to her endless monologues about the weather, about the food, about Donna's projects, her dolls and her knitting and her intricate botanical illustrations done in ink and watercolor.

Elena liked to examine these when Donna wasn't in the room, liked to follow the exquisite lines of the drawings with her eyes like a maze in a puzzle-book, letting her eyes unfocus so the illustration became a chaotic blur of color and line, then focus again, allowing it all to make sense. They were beautiful. Everything Donna made was so beautiful.

They worked together when night fell, and it fell so early up here. The days shortened, Donna gradually spending more of her ever-lengthening evenings with Elena. They rarely spoke more than a few words to one another, but it wasn't awkward, wasn't unnatural. They simply sat in silence unless Donna had a question of aesthetics- "Yellow floss or white? Border it in black or leave it loose? What do you think?"- or Elena needed the definition of a word in a book she was reading. While she'd been well-educated enough, some of Donna's library was so esoteric she hardly understood what the books were even supposed to be about. Histories of people she had never heard of, waves of conquering invaders, a pagan people ensconced within this valley, beset on all times by distrustful neighbors, kings conducting rituals of sacrifice and enlightenment.

And Elena slept through midnight. Donna, it seemed, was done with her weeping. For now, anyway. Maybe she was wrong.

Maybe the monster really was gone.

Elena knew it was never good to hope, but she did, still, clinging on past reason, like she had such a tendency to do.

***

The blizzard having, for the moment, retreated, it became necessary to take the opportunity to get hold of more food. A mundane concern, but necessary- Elena didn't want to have to make do with canned things if another snowstorm hit unexpectedly. Donna had the same idea.

"My usual delivery will be on its way," she told Elena. "I put the flag up in the ravine."

"How do you...?"

"Get it to the house? You wouldn't mind doing it, would you? I have so much work to do."

What work, she didn't say. But Elena took the enameled box full of neat stacks of lei, the delivery list, and Donna's directions past the estate gates and set off through the pale gray mists. The day was white on white, pale sky, pale snowdrifts, only the vague shadows of trees to cut the sensation Elena was moving through a strange, echoing world, empty of all life except for herself.

The sound of eerie cries echoed from downslope- the direction of the castle, she thought, though she couldn't make out its spires through the thick clouds. She passed through the gates and to the bridge posts. It swung before her, buffeted by the light breeze, each creak echoing down and down through the ravine. Far below, she heard the by-now familiar sound of rushing water. A faint icy spray spackled her cheeks, numbing her already-cold face.

She made her way along the cliffside. For a while there was only trees, snow, and the edge, but eventually a shape swam up before her and consolidated into a structure, a single lantern hanging from a hook. A dock, as if for boats, but built right onto the edge of the cliff. A winch was built into it, and hanging from it on stout ropes was a large wicker basket. It swung back and forth, big enough to hoist a cow. A crank arm in the basket and on the winch told Elena its purpose. She peered down and saw an identical lantern glowing below. A black pennant snapped from a pole, sewn with the moon and sun, and behind a nearby tree a handcart waited under a tarp.

Elena figured this was hardly the way, but she needed to talk to someone from town. She clambered into the basket- it began to sway alarmingly back and forth, but didn't tip, it was nice and deep- and grabbed onto the crank arm, giving it a good push. Gears ground, and with the faint crackle of rust the contraption kicked into movement, and she glided downward.

The crank had a little horseshoe stamped into it. Had Lord Heisenberg made this? He didn't seem the type, though he did have a workshop in the village. Elena had never seen him use it, but no one went there all the same, and kept the gates well locked. Lords, however holy, tended to bring monsters with them.

Donna, too? Her most of all, Elena had to admit, though hardly the monsters she'd expected.

She still felt a sense of disbelief when her mind inevitably turned to Donna. She's Lady Beneviento? She's one of the great Four Lords? It didn't seem quite right, didn't quite add up. She kept waiting for Donna to grow teeth- so to speak- but as the week had stretched to two, then to three, and winter tightened its grip on the manor and its grounds, she never saw more than what had already made itself seen. Never saw more than a lovely, lonely young woman.

The lower lantern grew closer and closer, and soon a second dock came into view, built on the banks of a rushing river seamed with whitecaps. A boat rose and fell on the rapids, engine chugging for life. The man aboard gave a little start when he saw Elena, and whisked off his cap.

"Begging your pardon, Miss Lupu," he stuttered. "I...there's never a person what comes down in the basket."

"First time for me, too, Cosmin." He was one of the reservoir workers, usually busy trawling the deeps for flotsam scavenged from the sunken village, drowned years ago by an accident with the floodgates. Elena gave him a smile. "I thought I'd come down with it. Say hello."

"We...well, I'm glad to see you alive. We all thought you were dead, see."

Elena blinked. "Not yet."

"Good. That's good."

"How's my father? And Andrei? Are they all right?"

"Last I saw them. Your pa was out feeding the chickens and that boy was bothering him like he wanted both his ears."

Elena laughed. Heat pushed at her eyes and she hurriedly scrubbed them with the back of her hand, shaking her head. "Sounds right to me. Good. I...listen, Cosmin, I'm here for Lady Beneviento's delivery, but...would you bring this letter to them?" She held it out. "So they know I'm all right too."

"Of course."

"Good." She looked at the crates and sacks in Cosmin's boat. "Now I suppose this is what you really came here for?"

Loading took less time than Elena expected, with two pairs of hands at work. Soon the basket groaned under the weight of supplies and Elena was cranking it skyward, the mechanism hardly strained by the increased weight. She looked back down. Cosmin lifted a hand in farewell. Elena returned the gesture, but she wasn't sure, in the mist, if he'd seen her.

We thought you were dead.

That was how it worked, she saw. Once the villagers were chosen, they were dead, even if they still breathed. Because it was far too dangerous, far too unlikely, to hope otherwise. Better to usher them out with festivals and ceremony, with feigned gratitude and fervor, instead of grief. That way the inevitable death to come would never seem quite real.

But to be killed by Donna Beneviento? Loading the supplies into the handcart, Elena gave her head a disbelieving shake. Donna was weird, yes, sometimes inscrutable, sometimes almost childlike with her rhymes and her little tantrums, but she wasn't monstrous. She wasn't a nightmare.

This wasn't a nightmare.

Movement stirred on the far side of the bridge. Elena straightened, tense, in case it was one of those winged creatures that sometimes circled from the direction of the castle, a racket of leathery flapping and distant screeches, like some vast bird of prey. The reality was little better. He stood in the snow, smoke twining up from beneath his hat brim, hammer over his shoulder. There was no way he didn't see Elena, but Lord Heisenberg didn't acknowledge her. He just stood there, watching her, smoking, the scent of cigar smoke bittersweet on the still, cold air.

Doesn't he have anything better to do? He'd spoken about Donna with a strange mixture of contempt and fear, hadn't gone past her gate before. But on the riverbank...honestly, Elena didn't remember the events on the riverbank with anything close to clarity, but she remembered his use of Donna's name, the familiarity with which he'd addressed her. They were a family, holy and united, according to the books of the Black God Elena had listened to each week in church, so of course they would know one another above all others.

Still.

Elena didn't approach. He didn't move. Elena gave the handcart a shove, teeth grit as she heaved it and all its cargo through the snow and onto the road. She felt his gaze on her back for a long time, until the trees and the mist closed over him and he was gone again, left to the far edge of the ravine.

"You nearly had a visitor, today," Elena told Donna once the supplies were all cleared away. "The great Lord Heisenberg."

Donna stiffened. "What did he want?"

"I don't know. He didn't cross the bridge."

A soft exhale. "He never does."

"Why not? Don't you all confer with one another?"

"Mother calls meetings, which we all attend. Twice a year. That is when we take care of the business between us, officially."

"And...unofficially?"

Donna said nothing. She stood, silent, then all at once left the room in a swish of skirts. Music blared minutes later- the gramophone, played at full volume. As Elena did her nighttime chores, the music played on, complex symphonies and simple piano nocturnes and tunes for which she had no name all played one after the next without cease. And when Elena joined Donna in the sitting room to sew and mend and chat, the gramophone was off, and Donna mentioned nothing of it, nor of her visitor, not all that evening, nor the next day, nor any of the days after.

The next time Elena went down to the bridge- an evening free of chores, when the sky was a rocket-fall of colors like a festival skirt- the far edge was empty.

She checked for days on end, but Lord Heisenberg never returned.

Those weeks seemed almost like a dream, almost shameful, as if Elena had stolen them from time. She was healthier than ever, stronger than ever now that she was eating regularly and had access to such better quality food. No stones in the grain, not in Donna's bread, and the meat wasn't half gristle like the stuff left over from the village tithes. And more than that, her mind felt clearer. Cleaner. She'd seen so much more than she'd ever thought possible, had stepped past some invisible limit and into darkness. It was full of terrors, sure, but she couldn't help but feel a glittering thrill at the newfound unknown. The newfound horizons, not only of the world but of herself. Her own mind, her own thoughts.

There was something else, too, some undefinable change to her face. A fading of the dark bruises under her eyes, a softening of the hollow stare she shared with most people in the village. Once, she might have called it impassioned, but she now recognized it for what it was: starved.

Here, she didn't have to be hungry, or afraid of the lycans she heard howling from the lower slopes of the mountainside.

Here, Lady Dimitrescu wouldn't come a-hunting for her in the night, red grin and skin like a corpse's, made young again by a steaming goblet of fresh-spilled blood.

She didn't have to walk for hours through knee-deep snow in the hopes of sighting a single skinny rabbit, or listen to her father wheeze in the early morning when he thought she couldn't hear him.

I'll come back for you, Pa. Her hands clenched on her mending. I wish I could bring you here. The air would do you good. I wish you were safe. I wish all of you were safe. Oh, saints, oh, saints, when she thought about him, about the look in his eyes when she'd left him, it felt like she would burn, or burst, or tear her own skin off.

It wasn't fair.

It wasn't right.

But it was the way it was and Elena had no idea how to stop it, even how to slow it, and caught up in these simultaneous realizations she froze, hands hooked into claws, heart hammering, paralyzed with terror and with rage. Miranda would eventually figure it out. She'd know, if Elena went on feeling this way.

Miranda always knew.

And then-

She couldn't help but admit there was curiosity amidst her fear. And hunger. A new kind. Not just to survive, but to discover. This place was not done, yet. The question of Violeta, where she'd gone and who she was to Donna, remained unanswered. And this house, this mountaintop, severed from the rest of the world, its only connection a single, thin bridge clinging to a cliffside- when she pictured it, Elena saw a jewel-box, dusty and elegant, filled with gems and with hidden needles, sharp enough to draw blood.

Something deep inside.

The picture was incomplete. Blurred. She needed to bring it into focus. That was the only way forward.

But how?

The basement had to hold the answer. But Donna had warned her away from it, and somehow Elena knew she'd figure out if she had disobeyed her and went down there again. Many times she stood before the elevator grille, holding the brass key, telling herself go. Go. Who are you loyal to, anyway? The shadow keeping secrets from you or the Black God's prophet herself, keeping you safe all these years?

The answer should have been easy. Would have been, once. But always Elena found herself walking away, leaving the elevator behind.

***

One such time, she opened the door that led from the elevator room and into the kitchen and almost ran right into Donna.

"Oh!" She looked up, big tin box in her hands. She'd been rummaging through it. "Drat."

"What's the matter?"

"I can't find it." More rummaging. "I had such a beautiful packet of red silk embroidery floss. It was a gift from Mother."

"Your mother? Lady Beneviento?"

A pause. "No." A longer silence. "Mother Miranda."

"Oh."

"She adopted me. After..." Her words ground to a halt, her body stilling, too. Elena thought of a clockwork automaton the jolly merchant had once brought to some springtime market. He'd whisked off its velvet covering to reveal the torso of a little boy rendered in gleaming silver, clockwork find as beetle wings visible in the seams of its joints.

It had held a pen poised over a blank sheet of vellum, and when the merchant turned the key sprouting from the boy's back and wound him up, he sprang to life, fluidly writing out a bawdy poem onto the thick paper. But when the poem reached its end, and the mechanism wound down, and down, the silver boy's movements became jerky spasms, then stilled altogether, his glass eyes open and staring, all life gone.

The other children watching had clapped and cheered, and Elena had joined in as the merchant smiled and bowed and accepted their coins, but later that night she lay awake, staring into the corners, unable to close her eyes in case she'd see that boy again, see the way he shuddered into stillness. A thing alive that should not be.

"The dolls helped me act it out," Donna whispered. Behind her, at the table, Angie rustled; an echo of ghoulish laughter hissed through Elena's mind. She didn't look. "They stood around me. In a circle. One-two-three and then they all fell down."

"Act what out, Donna?"

A little shiver. She looked up. "Red silk," she said. "A present from my mother. Will you help me find it, please?"

"Donna, are you-"

"Will you help me? You said you'd help me before. Please will you?"

"I- yes. Uh- where did you see it last?"

"I thought it was here. But this is just buttons." She shoved the tin back on the shelf. "I think...maybe the attic? Or in the downstairs storage room...I'll look in the storage room if you look in the attic."

"There's not-" Elena took a breath. "Are there any surprises in the attic?"

Donna looked as aghast as someone could without their face actually being visible. "Good gracious no!"

Elena gave her a look.

"No," Donna pressed. "I'll give you one of my personal favorite special biscuits if you look in the attic."

"I don't respond well to bribes."

"Two biscuits."

"Done."

There was a flashlight in a kitchen cabinet, on the top shelf, so furred in dust Elena was half afraid it wouldn't work. But it clicked on and shone well enough, so, after untying her apron and arming herself with a broom, Elena made her way up the stairs and down the short hallway to the trapdoor that apparently led to the attic. She knocked down the ladder and pulled the light cord, but this one didn't work, and the square of darkness breathing cold and dust down on her remained absolute.

Elena clenched her jaw and climbed up the ladder, poking the broom handle through first and rattling it around in case any ghouls were lying in wait for her head to come up. She didn't want to lose any eyes or parts of limbs today. Nothing happened, so she climbed all the way into the attic, coughing at her first inhale full of dust.

She clicked on the flashlight and shone it around. The weak beam played off endless stacks of cardboard boxes, rolled rugs and broken lamps, a rack of moldering old clothes, a jointed dressmaker's dummy spattered in dark liquid. It stretched on and on, a maze of detritus and black mold and endless dust, shockingly-mundane.

Elena groaned. Of course Donna wanted one packet of embroidery floss. Why couldn't she have needed...dunno, an old chair or...or a piano? Both were there, the piano the more interesting of the two, shoddily clothed in a slipcover that left its keys exposed. Elena stood and went to it to press down a key, the antique ivory yellowed as bad teeth. The note twanged into the darkness, discordant and sour.

It faded as Elena faced the mess again. This place was as chaotic as House Beneviento below was neat. There was no obvious form of organization so she crept forward, stepping over boxes and buckets and old shoes, making her way toward a faint glow near the back. A window, she realized, a half-moon fan of stained glass so thickly-coated in dust it was almost rendered opaque. It would be gorgeous if it was clean, the glass all shades of deep midnight-blue and pale gold. Moons and suns, she noted. Again.

She drew the tip of her finger down the dust, clearing a stripe from the glass. Through it she made out the front gardens, the cliffside below. She was looking at the entrance to House Beneviento from above. This must have been the uppermost middle of the house, the very furthest away from the basement she could get. She could see the roofs, too, missing many of their slate tiles, a couple crows' nests clinging to the gables and turrets.

In the distance, amidst trees, she made out the glint of another roof- it looked like an outbuilding, somewhere in the direction of the gardens. A groundskeeper's hut, perhaps. The mountainsides looked beautiful from up here, cascades of blue-green pine trees sweeping down from great runs of untouched snow.

The urge seized her to throw the window wide, to bring the clean mountain wind into this still, dusty place. Would the window open? She found a latch, but it was fused shut. Maybe with some grease, some cleaning. She'd have to come back later.

Turning round, she nearly stepped on the dolls. She flinched back with a gasp, but they didn't move or jump out at her or start giggling. One was tipped over, but the rest were still in place, half-hidden behind an old steamer chest with a lantern set atop it. The chest was dragged out, away from the wall, forming a kind of nook with an old bookshelf and a rack of antique silk ballgowns.

The dolls helped me act it out, Donna had said.

Four dolls. Dark-haired, dressed in little gowns or harlequin ensembles, melancholy faces staring into the dust. Black mold dripped down their cheeks, like tears. They'd been up here a long, long time.

Elena stepped around the chest and knelt by them. There was more, she saw- a moth-eaten tartan blanket, rumpled as if someone had been sitting on it. A stack of books. A china plate with crumbs on it, and an old teacup, a sticky dark rime clinging to the bottom. A collection of dried petals was scattered around the skeletal remnants of a flower sprig in a vase. Maybe, Elena fancied, they had once been yellow.

A playhouse? She could see this as being an ideal hideout for a child. With the window, the old things, the darkness, it felt disconnected from the rest of the house, the rest of the world. With a little imagination it might be a treehouse, a cave, a ship full of heroes of legend, questing boyars hunting for the strange monsters of these pagan mountains, like she'd read about in Donna's history books. She tapped the dolls on their heads, lightly.

"One," she whispered, "two, three. Four."

The last doll lay face-down. Two others faced away from it, but one of them, a little girl doll in a black dress, stared at her fallen companion. Two dolls. Two girls, holding hands. To Claudia, love always.

So Claudia was Donna's sister. And she was dead. Elena thought of the big grave beyond the gatehouse, the dolls, the sweets, the candles.

A burial, for one beloved, a long time ago.

How old must Donna have been? Not very. Elena's throat tightened. Poor thing. Poor, poor girl. To lose a mother was bad enough. To lose a sister, a companion close to her own age, the only other child in this lonely place...she couldn't fathom. No wonder Donna didn't speak to anyone, isolated herself. A loss like that at a young age was like a blow to a developing bone. It left its marks, even when the healing seemed to be done. After that must have been when Miranda adopted her.

Why not adopt both girls, after their parents' deaths? She wished she could ask the dolls themselves. After what she'd seen it would seem like no unnatural thing for them to start chattering back at her.

But she thought she had an answer, or part of one, anyway. We all must play our part, Miranda had told her, back in the village church. Elena knew what that meant. We all must have a use. Or we become useless.

And then, like a rotten limb: cut off.

Had those two Beneviento girls been, at first, a useless commodity? The last scions of a dying family, left to die alone in this house that had become a tomb? But Donna Beneviento hadn't proved useless. She was a Lord, possessed of miraculous power. One of Miranda's chosen.

Right?

Oh, she didn't know. She rubbed her temple and rose, brushing the dust from her skirt and taking up her flashlight again. The dust was making her head ache. She turned, rummaged through some boxes, searching for anything that looked like embroidery floss. She found some old magazines, some dead insects, a taxidermied deer head with an extra eye swelling from its cheek, but no sign of floss.

There was a collection of old paintings leaning against a wall. She pulled one back to peer behind it in case the floss was hiding back there.

And stopped still. Even her breath shrank to a whisper between her teeth.

A face stared back at her, enclosed in an ornate gilt frame. A woman's. So pale the artist had rendered her in grays and pale greens, dressed in high-neck black with jet buttons, her hands set, gently, on the skirts of the bride doll in her lap.

A finger of light from the dusty window touched the paint, illuminating one of the woman's high cheekbones. Her black hair was pulled back from a heart-shaped face, lips set in a slight smile, dark eyes canted upwards at the corners. Fine-featured, poised, arresting. On one glance she seemed sweet, earnest, and on the next she became arch, that enigmatic smile slightly sneering. But whatever the look on her face, there was no mistaking her.

This was Donna, under the veil.

She was so beautiful. "Why hide this?" Elena whispered. She knelt before the painting, reached out, stopped, took a short breath. Her heart clattered against her ribs, a caged bird. Her fingertips trembled.

There was no one here to see.

She brushed her fingertips along the line of Donna's painted cheek. Along the loose strand of hair, falling from her fringe, as if she might tuck it back into place. Along her lips, as if she might feel their warmth, as if she might feel, for a gutless moment, the smoothness of them, the way they might feel against her own skin.

Elena withdrew her hand. Her head swam. Her whole body panged, electric, all sensation both distant and too-bright, too-strong. She knelt there and breathed, drinking in the portrait, every detail of her lady's hidden face.

Then she stood. She leaned the portrait back into place, got her flashlight, and retreated from the attic, closing the trapdoor behind her.

Donna was gone from the kitchen. Elena found her in the front hall, gathering up a large handbasket and a pair of shears.

Elena licked her lips. "Did you find the floss?"

"Oh!" Donna looked round. "Yes! It was in the storage room after all. Silly me. How was the attic? Any surprises?"

"...No. Where are you going?"

"This?" Donna held up her basket. "I must gather more herbs. For the medicines and chemicals I use in my work." "May...I come?"

Donna looked at her sideways. "I was hoping you might."

"I'll just be there to hold you accountable. I was promised sweets, you know."

"You're sweet enough already," Donna said, with a laugh, and mercifully turned away before heat flooded Elena's face, enough she knew she'd be a red, stuttering mess. She hurried to grab her coat and scrub her face and drink some water to cool herself down, half-afraid Donna would be gone by the time she got back.

She wasn't, and together they set out into the clear winter day, walking side-by-side, Angie nestled like a baby in Donna's basket.

Donna headed not down toward the gardens, but took a left, slipping between two rock crags and onto a path Elena had not noticed before, a thin trail wending upwards through the forest that descended down the mountainside to nearly encroach upon the manor grounds. The waterfall thundered somewhere amidst the snow-mist, great plumes of icy spume glittering in the sunlight. They ascended a short flight of stone steps chiseled into the path, worn-down and slick with ice. A rope handrail was bolted into the rocks, which didn't reassure Elena much.

As they turned a bend, Elena saw what they'd been climbing toward. Another red gatehouse, paint chipped and faded, a studded oak door leading, seemingly, straight into the mountainside itself.

"Where are we going?" Elena called over the sound of the falls.

"You'll see. Stay close," Donna said. She unlocked the doors with a chatelaine she produced from somewhere in the folds of her skirt.

Inside, the thunder of the falls faded to a vibration underfoot. The passageway echoed ahead, a natural stone cave reinforced with wood beams. Donna unhooked a lantern from a hook and lit it, the shivering light illuminating the cave some thirty feet on.

"Follow me," Donna said, and began ahead. Elena did as she asked. The darkness was full of the sound of water, the steady dring of it from the ceiling, rivulets trickling over the flagstone floor. After a few minutes of silence, of climbing flights of steps, of long passageways of nothing, she began to notice the niches along the walls, the black roots twining from cracks in the walls. Candles stood in the niches, burnt down to puddles of wax. Stacks of lei, too, and dried flowers, and chunks of crystal, like offerings given to the warding-saints.

Is this a holy place? The priests spoke of the inner sanctum of the Black God, and Elena had herself seen the ruins that surrounded the town, filled with the snarls and howls of lycans come night but safe to walk in during the day. Painted with images of the saints and glorified by shrines to Miranda and the Black God, they had the same still, reverent air as these hallways. But there were no images here, no shrines, at least not in the way Elena was familiar.

"What is this place?" she whispered, not wanting to break the hush. Her voice chased her anyway, echoes at her heels- is this place, is this place.

"There was once more to the Beneviento estate, Elena. Much more. My family...the family I had before Mother Miranda adopted me has been in these mountains for a very, very long time. Since the days of Berengario."

"Who?"

Donna paused at a fork in the passageway, then took the right-hand path. Elena memorized the intersection on the off-chance she'd have to make a swift exit. "We didn't always live here, in the valley, you know. Once there was a great crystal city, far, far underground. Such magnificence. Spires to scrape the skies, and living gemstones, and rivers of light, bright as the sun through stained glass. There was no hunger there, no pain or suffering. Paradise. But there came calamity, a terrible apocalypse, and the crystal city was sundered. Broken. Swallowed whole by the earth that had for so long embraced it. And all good things were lost."

She lifted her head in the darkness. "So the four kings of the city led their people from their shattered paradise and into the dark and the cold of the world beyond. One of them was Berengario. They say it was his cleverness that convinced the Black God to help their people. His words painted wonders of worship and the Black God lifted its power and made the valley. A safe place for the refugees to live."

"It made the valley?"

"That's right."

"How?"

A soft laugh. "I don't know. I wasn't there. It was a very long time ago. Thousands of years." She paused. "Before Miranda."

"Before- wait. No, Miranda has always been here. The Black God's chosen, that's what she says."

"She says a lot. Whispers a lot. But I've kept books from her, locked them away where she can't find them. History books, of the wars that shaped the valley, drew its borders. And she's not in them. She only comes later."

Elena let out a laugh of disbelief. "I...I don't know..."

"It's true. Maybe not the crystal city. That might just be a story. But it's a nice one. Can you imagine a place without hunger...without sadness?"

"No." Elena paused. "That's what Miranda wants, for this valley. A perfect place for us, one where everything is useful."

"Miranda wants many things," Donna said, so quietly her voice was almost lost amidst the echoes. "A perfect place for us is not one of them."

Elena looked sharply up at her, but Donna didn't say anything more.

They were winding up, and up, and up a long, corkscrew set of steps. The atmosphere had changed as they climbed, the air becoming softer, the darkness tinged with gold. Sunlight came into view, shining down from a narrow slit window above. They rounded another turn and came face-to-face with a rickety wooden door, chained in place with a padlock. Donna unlocked it and gestured Elena through.

She stepped from stone, and gloom, and echoes, and into sunlight, dense and warm on her upturned face.

The snow had melted here, the mountainside given over to the falling sunlight, and away and away, as far as Elena could see, spread an endless field of grass and wildflowers, swept by the wind like her glimpse of the sea. On and on, rhododendron and edelweiss, gentian and dianthus, countless flowers clinging to stony soil, cut by the glimmering thread of a few small streams flowing from some higher, hidden source. A few craggy upthrusts broke the surface of the grass, the remnants of old towers and stone walls, crumbling and wind-chapped and weathered by centuries of storms. They would be the first to feel it, up here, the first to drink the rain, to feel the sun.

Elena's mouth was open in naked awe, the wind pricking tears from her eyes; the wind rushed, and tore her hair from its pins, and filled her lungs, harsh and thrilling, full of the taste of ancient ice, of growing things, of a wild place far from the reach of the world.

She watched Donna step into the grass, parting it. She was the sole spot of black within the landscape of sun and grass and stone, but she wasn't a hole in the world, she was the focus, the linchpin. She waded into the knee-high field without hesitation, and Elena could do nothing, after a moment, but follow.

Through the grass, to the base of one of the ancient towers. It shadowed the landscape, one of many; the clouds moved across the sky, their great slow shadows rippling over the liquid expanse of the field. There were no rooms left, no halls, just the decayed echoes of what had once been buildings, but as Donna bent to the wall Elena saw the tangle of deep red plants growing there, heart-shaped leaves nodding in the wind.

"How do they all grow?" she asked, her voice hushed. "It's winter. Shouldn't they all die in winter?"

"I help them stay alive." Donna clipped them with the tips of her shears. "Take one..." she began. She placed the sprigs in the basket, leaving the rest of the plant in peace. "...And leave the rest to grow."

"What does this one do?"

"Many things. Poisons, cures. It all depends on how you treat it." She bent to the next plant, harvesting it with a few deft snips of her shears. "Want to try a leaf?"

"Trying to poison me? Are you sick of me that soon?"

"No," Donna said. "Never."

She moved on, and, eventually, silently, gave Elena a second set of secateurs. Elena fell into the rhythm of the work, her eyes soon sharpening to the bright spots of red amidst the shadows of the ruins, the heart-shaped leaves with their scalloped edges, their undersides like velvet. A sharp, spicy scent rose from them when they were cut.

Inhaling it, Elena's head swam, her mind drifting to distant places, to candlelit rooms, to glimpses of dark skies blazing with stars. There were other herbs, too, green ones with a scent almost like peppermint, and even blue ones, their leaves edged with a color so vivid it mirrored the sky. Each one seemed like its own small wonder, perfect and complete, the natural denizen of this impossible place.

And, later, she and Donna sat together in the lee of an old stone wall, sheltered from the wind, heads tilted back to watch the clouds move across the sky.

"I think I found what you sent me to the attic to find, after all," Elena said, after a long silence.

Donna didn't speak.

"I think I understand, now. About Claudia. You couldn't tell me about her. So you showed me." She paused. "Thank you."

"I wasn't strong enough to tell you."

"Are you now?"

"Yes." Silk rustled as she shifted. "She died."

Elena turned her head to look at her. Again, that glimpse of her profile through the silk, the shape of the nose she now knew, though had never truly seen. Of her full mouth, which she at once longed to see smiling, really smiling, full and sweet and true.

"She was my sister," Donna went on. "My younger sister. My only. I was five when she was born. And, oh, she was perfect. My mother doted on her. My father too. He even stopped making his dolls and puppets to spend time with her. And I...I slept by her cradle so I could listen to her breathing all night, so I could see her first thing in the morning when I woke up. And she grew, and she was so...right, so good...not right for this place. For that house. I always knew she was special."

She paused.

"And so did Miranda," she went on. "She came to us when Claudia was three. She wanted to give her the gift, even then. But she said she was too little. That she would come back. My mother...she was so afraid. But I didn't see what was so bad. When is a gift bad?"

When it comes with a price. But Elena didn't say anything. She suspected Donna already knew that.

"Mother Miranda wanted her," Donna went on. "And what Mother wants, she gets. She returned when Claudia was six, and by then she was sure. But let her grow, she told me. Let her grow a little longer. Like a flower in the sun. And Claudia was so happy, so honored. I tried to protect her. I tried. When Mama and Papa, when they...they fell..."

"Oh, Donna," Elena murmured.

"We weren't bad daughters. We weren't. That couldn't have been why. I saw them." She paused. "They jumped. Claudia cried. But I still had her. I still had her..."

Her voice faded.

There was more, Elena knew. And that was where the wound was, the real wound, the one that had made her. The one she was so afraid of, locked herself away from. The horrors she still could not face.

"Well," Elena said eventually. "You have me."

Donna turned her head so they looked at one another. "I do," she murmured, and reached out, and trailed the back of her fingers over Elena's cheek, her touch soft and warm as the afternoon sunlight, and just as keenly missed once it was gone.

***

That night, Elena woke not to the sound of weeping, but of music.

She reached for her shawl, paused, then reached for the green velvet dressing-gown in all its decaying finery and belted it over her nightdress. She left her hair loose, falling in waves and tangles down her shoulders.

She left her room and followed the music to the front hall, where it poured from the old gramophone player, filling the darkness with the warm hiss of its sound. Soft, meandering piano. It made her think again of the wind through the grass, the cloud-shadows and the sky. One minute it became melancholy, the next discordant. The next, unbearably sweet.

Donna stood by the gramophone, her hand poised on its casing. She looked up to watch Elena come down the stairs and stood at their foot, breath held, waiting.

Waiting.

Not for long. Donna lifted her hand.

"Do you dance?" she asked.

#resident evil village #re8 #re8 fanfiction #re8 fic #donna beneviento #elena lupu #karl heisenberg #mother miranda #donna beneviento x elena lupu #donna beneviento x oc #re8 oc #angie beneviento #claudia beneviento #gothic romance #gothic horror #resident evil #chapter 8

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