#I love that she fears no god nor death because she’s already seen and experienced hell so it’s like lol ok buddy add it to the pile | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

angellesword · 3 years

Text

SAVE ME | KTH (11)

Summary: You were determined to kill yourself, but what would happen when instead of ending your life, you ended up summoning the devil of death?

Alternatively:

The Devil: I’m here to ruin you, I’m here to save you.

Genre: Demon au, e2l, angst, fluff, roommate au

Pairing: Devil!Taehyung x Doctor!Reader

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: mention of death, kissing, and blood.

SERIES: CHAPTER 10 | CHAPTER 12

*unedited*

The sad thing about carrying the burden of guilt was that you felt as though you didn't deserve to experience good things.

"Who said you have to experience good things?"

The crease on Taehyung's forehead implied that he was looking for an answer, causing you to bite the inside of your cheek.

You honestly had no idea how to answer him.

"Let's just go home, Tae," you said after a long minute of silence.

It was better to give up when you were uncertain, sadly Taehyung was persistent. He wouldn't stop until you gave him an answer.

"You know you're being too hard on yourself, right?" His grip on your forearm was gentle, yet his tone was harsh.

"You know where I stand," your lips were pursed into a straight line. "I don't deserve to see him."

Him.

Him as in your father, or to be exact: your father's grave.

You and Taehyung were currently at Seoul cemetery to finally visit Cha Areum's grave. This was the very first time you went here.

You didn't have the courage to do so back then. However when things between you and Jeongguk started to get better, you realized that maybe it wasn't so bad to face your fear.

But fear was not the same with uncertainty.

Taehyung was suggesting that you should visit your father's grave as well. He said bringing flowers and trying to talk to him while you looked at his headstone might help you to somehow lessen the sadness caging your chest.

You answered him by saying that you were uncertain.

Uncertain if you deserve to experience good things.

Having the chance to talk to your father—even though it was only by pretending as if he could hear you from six feet under—was a form of redemption, like a way to free yourself from guilt of not trying to contact him when he was still alive.

You didn't want that because it would make you to feel better about yourself and feeling better about yourself was similar to experiencing good things.

Again, you felt like you didn't deserve to feel good things.

You didn't even think you deserve to mourn him.

You weren't like Jeongguk. You didn't get to be with your father and you most certainly didn't make him happy.

You didn't make your father happy so it was only fair that guilt was eating you alive.

Except you didn't think that. Deep down, you knew that it was unfair.

When the person you didn't get along with died before you did, other people would accuse you of being hypocritical if they saw that you felt bad.

You would also be left with a pang of regret because you didn't treat the now dead person better when they were still alive.

They didn't treat you better too. So why? Why were you the only one suffering? Why were you the only one left here to dwell on regret?

You hated that this was how the world worked. Couldn't bygones be bygones? Couldn't you really mourn your own father?

But most importantly, you hated that there wasn't any closure between you and your father.

You didn't get the chance to apologize.

And now that Taehyung was giving you the chance to say how sorry you were to your father, you were acting up—thinking that you didn't deserve to technically be 'forgiven'

It was all so confusing.

But you were more confused as to why Taehyung implied that you indeed didn't deserve to experience good things.

Was his reason the same as yours?

Well, it wasn't. Taehyung explained what he thought.

"You know what I come to love and hate about humans?"

You shook you head. You didn't know.

Taehyung pouted his lips, he was trying to light the candle placed on Areum's headstone.

You didn't see the point since the wind was blowing hard.

"It is their goal to always be happy." He groaned when the wind harshly extinguished the fire of the candle again.

He lit another match, refusing to give up.

"Humans are always striving to be happy," he repeated once more. Same thought, different words used.

He claimed that he loved this since he could use this unending desire to tempt them. But Taehyung also hated it because of the discontentment they felt despite having everything provided to them.

Humans didn't have any satisfaction, always aiming for better and greater things.

"Is that wrong?" You arched your brow.

"No." The devil lit another match. "I guess it's just tiring."

You felt like everyone around you kept on speaking things you didn't understand.

Were they complicated or were you just slow?

"Don't you feel tired? You always say you don't deserve good things, but really—" He momentarily stopped lighting the candle just to look at you.

"—it's futile. You associate good things with being happy, right? So what if you just stop." Taehyung dropped the box of matches.

"Stop trying to strive for good things. What if instead of happiness, you just simply seek what's tolerable?"

It was the first time you clearly understood someone without asking them to explain any further.

But he still did. He continued speaking his mind.

"You don't always have to be happy to say that you are living 'the life,' sometimes it's better to just aim for something that is not happy nor sad. As long as you can bear something, it should be enough, right?"

You honestly had no idea why such words were coming from a devil like him.

Was he possessed?

But wait—“Are you telling me to stop classifying things?"

"That's not what I said—oh." Taehyung smiled when he realized what you meant.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

If you didn't categorize what felt good and what felt bad, you wouldn't have to worry about the guilt you felt.

You would just do things because that's what felt right.

Visiting your father was something right.

You owed it to him, not to yourself.

You were apologizing for him and not for yourself.

"For someone who claimed to be the devil, you sure act a lot like you're human," you shook your head, a smile gracing your lips.

You appreciated the things he said even though you knew that he was only doing this to save himself. He probably learned all of this by reading books on how to deal with a suicidal person.

"Whatever," Taehyung rolled his eyes at you. "So what now? Do you wanna visit your father?"

"Probably. But not now,"

Busan was far from Seoul. You would need more than a day if you went there. That's not possible at the moment since you were aware that you had used all of your emergency and vacation leave.

It's about time you stop abusing your privilege as the niece of the owner of Cornelia Hospital.

Unless...

"You can teleport us to Busan, right?"

Taehyung's face crumpled.

"Yeah, about that..." He averted your gaze. "I can't."

"Why?" Was he lying? You had seen him teleport multiple times already.

"Because..." He was crossing his arms as if he was annoyed. "I'm powerless now."

Taehyung explained that it’s because he used all of his power to heal Cha Eun Hye and erase some of her memories from months ago.

"I thought you can only tempt people?"

You were confused. He said devils couldn't harm people without the permission of God.

"Yes, but we can erase memories of people when the reason why it happened was because of us," Tae caressed your left shoulder. "Cha Eun Hye isn't lying, you know? She isn't blaming you for what happened to Areum. She only said those mean things to you because I fed her with lies,"

Taehyung thought that it was only fair to erase those bad memories. This was the reason why Areum's mom kept calling you to make sure you were alright. She had been treating you as if you were her daughter.

She cared for you.

You didn't understand before why she was acting like that, but now you knew.

Mrs. Cha Eun Hye was a good person.

"The last time I used my power was when I teleported your brother back to your apartment. I considered erasing his memories because I know it isn't fair to drag him into my world,"

You agreed. All hell broke loose when Taehyung informed you that Jeongguk knew that the former was a devil.

You were so mad at Taehyung that day, luckily he convinced you that it would benefit your brother since he wouldn't be confused as to why Park Jimin was looking after him.

It all worked out in the end. Jeongguk called you yesterday to say that he was having a good time at Bangtan University. The presence of Park Jimin made his stay there even more fun.

"But I can't use my power anymore because—"

Taehyung wasn't able to finish what he was saying because instead of words, it was blood that came out of his mouth.

"Oh, my God!" Your eyes widened.

Your instinct as a doctor got the best in you. Panic and fear weren't in your system. You only did what you needed to do to help stop the pain he was going through.

"I'm okay," the devil said, stopping you from aiding him.

"This is okay." And then he gestured at his mouth.

You stopped to listen to him.

He explained that he had been going through this for months already. It was normal because he hadn't been back to hell for almost a whole year now.

Taehyung really spent his days by your side. Aside from this, he also hadn't collected any souls since his life connected with yours.

His power came from doing evil things, so now that he's acting like a good boy, his power was diminishing.

"So what should you do now?" You put your hands on your hips. "Do you need to tempt people? Or..." Your eyes dilated.

"Don't tell me you have to collect souls!?" This thought scared you.

You didn't think you could stomach the fact that he had to urge people to kill themselves.

"Nah," luckily Taehyung only let out a hearty laugh at your assumptions.

"It's true that I can just tempt someone, but I can also just give into one of the capital vices,"

The seven deadly sins were evil so it shall do the trick.

"Oh yeah?" The corner of your mouth quirked up. The worry you felt turn to mischief.

At least he didn't have to collect souls.

"What's your vice, then?"

Taehyung took in your appearance. He noticed your furrowed brow, your playful smirk, and the fact that you were just so...

...Beautiful.

"Greed." He simply said, void of any emotion.

You swallowed hard.

"Greed for?" You inched towards him.

Taehyung ran his tongue through his lower lip. Without a warning, he encircled his hands on your waist, pulling your body closer to him.

It caused you to let out a gasp, though he could tell that you weren't really surprised.

You wanted this.

You were playing with fire.

The look you two were exchanging was full of fire too, and this very moment made Taehyung smirk.

It was funny.

Funny that he had to associate bible verse and logic when he was trying to figure out why he wanted to save you.

But as it turned out, he only needed common sense.

What he felt towards you was simple. It was in his nature as the devil after all.

Greed.

Taehyung didn't just care for you.

Taehyung also wanted you.

It was proven to be true by his strong greed to hold your hand, the greed to be with you, the greed to see you, and the greed to...

"Kiss you,"

There was no time to process things.

Taehyung crashed his mouth against yours, finally giving into his vice.

You tasted sweet, just like he had expected.

You also tasted fire, something that was making his body felt hot.

You tasted like wine, making him feel drunk on happiness.

He was the hypocrite here.

He hated humans for always wanting more, but he was just like them—always craving more.

Taehyung craved you and boy he could only hope that you craved him too.

He didn't have to hope actually, at least not when you decided to kiss him back.

It was clear.

You were greedy too.

#ficswithluv #kim taehyung #taehyung fanfic #bts taehyung #taehyung x you #taehyung x oc #taehyung x y/n #taehyung x reader #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #taehyung series #taehyung devil au #devil taehyung #demon taehyung #taehyung fantasy au #taehyung roommate au #roommate taehyung

115 notes · View notes

rai-jin-andro-jin · 3 years

Text

Intimacy: An Aromantic, Queer, Storyteller's Perspective on Raya and Namaari's Relationship in RatLD

Ok, I know people have lots of opinions about Raya and the Last Dragon. (Please go watch it if you're able to, it's fantastic.) I'm not here to step on any toes, nor am I here to deny that Disney has work to do on openly queer representation. But I wanted to give my opinion on the subject because I've already seen some thoughts flying, and I've got my own too.

Note: potential Raya and the Last Dragon spoilers ahead!

Now, I'm here for queer women. (I'm so here for queer women that I'm queer for them.) I love Raya's depth, design, and arc. I love Namaari's depth, design, and arc (and oh my god, her face shape). I love the way the narrative treated these warriors: like warriors! I could talk all day about how this movie is such a brilliant step toward treating women as people on screen.

But I'm here to talk about the queer aspects.

Any queer person watching that movie saw a couple of baby gays. Anyone saw the tension between Raya and Namaari as adults, their distrust for one another, but also their recollection of how close they once were, how close they could have been, how similar they actually are, but they both don't want to admit it for one reason or another. I think that tension is done beautifully.

I also want to take a second to remind everyone that romantic attraction is not necessary to make something queer.

Sure, maybe you could view their interactions as having romantic undertones. I don't think that's necessarily wrong, but I also don't think that the movie needed a romantic subplot to work. The subplot was platonic, even queerplatonic. The subplot was about Raya learning to realize how similar Namaari was to her, in all the uncomfortable ways Raya wasn't ready to admit. Raya wanted to remain focused inward; she wanted to protect her goal from destruction, she wanted to bring her Ba back. And she didn't want to trust anyone again. She didn't feel like she could, and she didn't want to try, especially not with Namaari.

And yet, during their interactions, there is a sense of intimacy. No doubt, over the six (6) years after the gem broke, Raya and Namaari have run into each other on several occasions. It seems like they still know each other well enough to banter mid battle. Raya knows Namaari well enough to be able to easily "push her buttons" and distract her. There is an intimacy here that strays easily into frienemy territory. It has the potential of being romantic. It also has the potential of not being romantic at all.

And, as someone on the aromantic spectrum, I want to reiterate that romantic queerness is not the only queerness. Aromantic affection, queerplatonic affection, allosexual aromantic affection — all of these are valid and real queer identities and queer expressions.

So, while I agree that "Disney is a coward" and that queer people deserve genuine, wholesome, and healthy representation in movies — I also want to emphasize that you can remove romanticism from the equation and still retain the queer narrative (or, what we the audience read as a queer narrative).

(I personally think there is nothing straight about these two characters, but I also respect the possibility that cultural norms and expectations can change how queerness manifests, or what is even considered queer. I'm a white person from the USA; the way I read or express queerness may not be the same as the way someone of Southeast Asian descent would read or express queerness. That topic in itself is worthy of an entirely different mega post. But that is very important to note.)

Furthermore, I want to add that while, again, seeing Disney explicitly tackle a queer relationship on screen would be so amazing, I also don't think this particular narrative had room for it.

Raya and the Last Dragon has a beautiful story filled with strong cultural tradition and Southeast Asian communal values. Love for one's community and family is especially important, as the writers have expressed, and this value was purposely woven into the narrative as a centerpiece.

Disney has a long history of making that centerpiece romantic love. Movies in general, Disney included, have a very long history of using romantic love as an easy subplot. It is such a common thing to do in the industry.

Stepping away from that norm is a breath of fresh air, in my opinion. And I'm not saying that because I'm aromantic and I "hate romance"—I don't, by the way, and I'll show you why.

I have written romance in fiction for a long-ass time. I love writing it. And in my (self-proclaimed) professional opinion, adding romance into Raya and the Last Dragon would have been really forced. I don't think the movie needed it. It would have been narratively unnecessary, and the catharsis we received regarding the mending of Raya and Namaari's relationship was more than enough. Any romance would have been extra, and, more importantly, would have been distracting from the actual main theme of the movie. Remember, the takeaway from this movie is communal trust: building bridges to unite families and communities of people. This narrative values familial and communal love first and foremost. (This is not to say that romantic love can't intersect with familial, communal, and platonic love, but I'm making the distinction here because the story writers intended to make this distinction, too.) Putting communal love first also does not devalue any romantic or queerplatonic love that might exist under that umbrella — but that's just it; communal love is the focus here, and I'm glad the writers made the decision to keep the focus of the narrative grounded and organized. It keeps the story from wandering off in too many directions and becoming confusing. It keeps us from having too many loose ends. And it keeps the runtime from being too long — or worse, it saves the narrative and all it's subplots from feeling cut short.

And here's where I jump into my main gripe. Yes, Raya and Namaari have chemistry. At the very least, when they met as kids, they formed a nice first bond: they had a lot in common, they related to each other on several things, and they had empathy for each other. That's a good foundation for a lot of things: friendship, queerplatonic relationships, romantic relationships, business partnerships... What I'm saying is, they had a good beginning. But it was just one day. And they were kids.

They were both kids who were vulnerable to the opinions and desires of the adults around them.

Namaari was influenced by her mother to betray Raya in order to gain the Dragon Gem (ultimately to give her people the prosperity they lacked). Before coming to Heart, Namaari likely saw Raya and the people of Heart like her mother/chief did: Heart was rich solely because they hoarded the magic of the Dragon Gem, and they would lie and say the Gem didn't give them prosperity only so they could continue to hoard the gem.

Raya was influenced by people in her village too, though we don't explicitly see those influences. When her father mentions that the other lands are on their way to Heart, Raya immediately believes they are coming with evil intent. When her father asks her what she knows about the other lands, Raya lists qualities about each land that portray them in a dangerous light. She views them explicitly as enemies and outsiders, people to fear and distrust in order to maintain her and Heart's safety and prosperity. Namaari included.

When Raya and Namaari meet, there is a lot going on under the surface of their interaction. Certainly, they are both kids; part of them likely has a natural urge to trust and connect with each other, as they eventually did that day! But clearly, especially for Namaari, there still exists a level of distrust and divide. Perhaps because Raya had the influence of her father, who encouraged her to see the other lands as friends rather than enemies, Raya's guard was lower than Namaari's. It's doubtful Namaari had that kind of influence, as her mother consistently displayed distrust for other lands, and focused more on the protection of Fang's people. Namaari clearly experienced quite a bit of internal conflict during the time before her betrayal of Raya, trying to balance her own desires for connection and friendship with her desire to please and protect Fang. Having a connection with Raya at all, especially a deeper connection (rather than a false pretense of connection), was likely not the intention of this subterfuge plan. Connecting with Raya likely felt good, but it also felt like a betrayal of Fang; a betrayal of Fang felt like a death sentence, especially since not obtaining the Gem would mean that Fang (according to Namaari's mother and the people of Fang) would likely perish. Namaari chose to resolve the conflict by returning to what was most familiar and comfortable: distrusting Heart for the good of Fang. For Namaari, it likely didn't dispel the discomfort of knowing that she betrayed a friend, someone who felt so close and genuine, someone who was just as obsessed with dragons as she was (which seems like it was rare for Namaari, and thus valuable). But her choice to betray Raya did, in Namaari's mind, save Fang, a strong value instilled in her from birth.

The betrayal hurts Raya a lot more openly. She sees Namaari firstly as a potential friend, a connection. Raya was taught by her father to value connection with others more than preemptively distrusting them in order to protect herself. This is likely why we see their interactions mostly from Raya's perspective. Namaari's behavior is very conflicted in intention, bouncing back and forth between deception and genuine connection, and trying to balance those two in a way that remains faithful to Fang and herself. Raya, on the other hand, is fully genuine for this interaction, save for maybe a couple moments of brief, minor hesitation. But, that hesitation is short-lived and the desire for friendship ultimately wins over for Raya. She fully trusts Namaari (to the level that she is able to, given that they just met that day), up to the moment the betrayal occurs. She is blindsided, and in response, she also returns to the comfort of her original views (before her father tried to teach her to trust the other lands). This decision to abandon the friendship is not comfortable at all for Raya; it is forced. She must do it to protect not only her land, but ostensibly the world. She is fighting between protecting her "clan" and protecting outsiders. She is struggling to view other lands as part of her clan/community, and Namaari's betrayal only solidifies Raya's eventual choice to mistrust others completely. Once her father dies, so does Raya's trust. To her, (misplaced) trust caused the downfall of the world, and more importantly, the death of her Ba. And to her, that betrayal is embodied and personified by Namaari. Namaari becomes a scapegoat and a punching bag for all that went wrong with the world, and this is a consistent mindset Raya has throughout the movie, until it is openly challenged by Namaari during the climax. Raya is comfortable in an "us versus them" mindset; it rids her of blame and responsibility for her actions, her role in problems. She, like Namaari, chooses to believe that everyone else is to blame for her downfall, while excluding herself entirely from that equation.

It goes without saying that these characters are well-written. Their emotions, motivations, and actions are complex and whole. I could (clearly) write analysis for days about these two. But here's my point.

Romance is only a potential part of their relationship at the start, no more. It is budding at best, and not fully realized or invoked. It is not ever made explicit or agreed upon. And the foundations of trust between these two, for a massive portion of the movie, are severely damaged. Any intimacy they had as children is put on hold, if not destroyed. They only trust each other as far as their blades reach, and as much as they've crossed paths during the six (6) year time-jump (enough to banter, manipulate each other, and predict each other's strategies to a degree), and and no further than that. Where they left off, they still have a connection, even while they don't trust each other with their deepest values. This foundation is clearly not enough for either of them to warrant a more intimate relationship, be it in the shade of romantic, queerplatonic, sexual, sensual, or otherwise. If it was enough, they would have done so already. Their closest intimacy is for the purpose of evading each other's attacks and maneuvers in order to get the upperhand. Their main goals are not each other, even though they both likely desire deeper connection, like they once had as kids. That childhood connection was genuine; no one is arguing otherwise.

But, by the climax of the movie, these two are not in a position of full, deep trust and connection. At the climax of the movie, when the Gem has finally been restored, their relationship is effectively back at the beginning, right where they left off as kids: budding and new, unsure yet hopeful, and with initial chemistry. That may read as potential romance, potential queerplatonics, potential you-name-it. But it is still potential, not active, not existent in the moment. They still have work to do in terms of building a deep relationship. Trust is a first step — one of many, many more steps. They're still working on the friendship and trust by the end — they just reunited as peoples from different lands, and as old ex-friends. They're relearning to see other lands as friends and not enemies, and that includes the way they see each other. They've come a long way, no doubt, and they still have a long way to go before they're remotely deep friends with established trust. They're effectively rebuilding that damaged trust by the end of the movie.

I mean, seriously. Expecting a full on romantic relationship, or even the explicit beginning of one is a massive stretch. Like, did you watch the movie? They have a lot of things to work through and talk about together! I don't care that they worked together and sacrificed themselves to save the world together. That's step one. Step one going well does not equal the kind of deep intimacy seen in romantic, queerplatonic, or deep platonic relationships, especially not the kind of romance that some audience members expressed they wanted to see from the movie. Did we forget that a genuine, hurtful betrayal happened? Did we forget that a betrayal happened very early on in the relationship? That sort of behavior doesn't scream "healthy relationship," and Raya and Namaari's subsequent reactions to said betrayal and following said event don't scream "consent to intimacy." Like, sure, they were both kids when it happened, especially Namaari, who was partially manipulated into that betrayal. But being young doesn't dilute or negate any of the very real trauma and pain felt by either of them, nor does it take away autonomy and responsibility for actions. She may have been manipulated and taught an incomplete view of the world, but Namaari also made that choice to betray Raya herself, no matter how mis- or un-informed she was about the world at the time. She still made a decision that hurt Raya, and in the process a lot of others. That can't be glossed over if we're talking about the formation of genuinely deep bonds. If the movie had made Raya and Namaari explicitly a couple of any kind, I strongly believe that any romantic, queerplatonic, or any other type of intimate social behavior would have made their relationship and conflict-resolution come across as forced, rushed, inauthentic, and unearned. Gestures of romantic intimacy especially tend to imply (in narratives that want to portray a healthy romantic relationship) a sense of depth, bond, and trust that is developed over long periods of time, marked by continuous and explicit efforts toward mutual trust. Raya and Namaari might have cultivated genuine trust for each other, but they lack a history of that trust that would realistically allow for a believable and genuine romantic/queerplatonic relationship at the level of harmony most "romance-lacking" audience-complaints demand. Raya and Namaari are not at that point yet. Rushing them there doesn't make that bond authentic, nor does it create healthy and realistic queer representation, much less healthy romantic/queerplatonic/intimate representation in general. Furthermore, rushing that sort of thing on-screen and portraying it as perfectly healthy perpetuates pre-existing, unrealistic, and unhealthy ideals of romance, human intimacy in general, and amatonormativity. Preliminary trust is not enough to give someone access to you in totality. We shouldn't portray that idea to kids, and this movie is careful not to. Trust is an ongoing process, and teaching kids that intimacy is developed over time and through consistent respect and communication is paramount. I seriously wish this movie had existed when I was a kid. I wish I had learned what this movie teaches. Romance isn't the answer to everything; it's not the highest form of love; and it's not the highest form of queer representation either. The highest form of love is the kind that is genuine and realistic and respectful.

Plus, on the subject of amatonormativity, I want to restress that queerness is not defined by romance. No one is made queer by their queer relationships, or even their visibly queer relationships. No one is suddenly not queer when they're single. Raya and Namaari can still be queer representation without ever having a romantic, sexual, or even queerplatonic relationship. Does Disney still have a record of cisheteronormative-flavored cowardice towards positively portraying explicitly queer people on screen? Absolutely. But I also don't think the answer to cisheteronormative amatonormativity is queer amatonormativity. Queer people are still queer, regardless of their relationship status, and especially regardless of their romantic orientation. Queer people are queer by virtue of existing.

TL;DR:

This should be more than clear: I'm of the strong opinion that both Raya and Namaari are queer. I don't think any of my regular readership will disagree. But forcing a romance (or any sort of deeper, unearned intimacy) onto this particular relationship and narrative only has the capacity to muddy and ruin this valuable and beautiful storyline and it's themes. Such a careless choice perpetuates some very harmful and prejudiced cultural norms regarding love and it's expression, and such a choice runs the risk of directly teaching children to view the world — to view their relationships — in a limiting, destructive, and isolating way.

I wouldn't change any part of the way this movie portrays Raya and Namaari's relationship. Every ounce of their interactions: from their words to their body language, facial expressions to actions, motivations to desires, conflict to resolution — they all make sense and are fully earned in this movie.

Yes, they'd look super cute together. Yes, it would likely be super cathartic for my gay little heart to see them kiss. Yes, they have the chemistry and potential for really meaningful and fulfilling growth and intimacy down the line. That is kind of the entire message of of the movie: potential; growth seen as a process made up of steps, the first being the catalyst towards making that potential a reality.

Raya and Namaari are a queer-coded microcosm for the rest of their world. They are one of many microcosms teaching a lesson about the importance of valuing and developing communal, cross-border trust.

Please stop yelling at Disney to make them kiss. They're together in a way that matters just as much, and they're together in a way that, for once, doesn't make romance the highest and truest form of intimacy. Write your fanfiction, enjoy them as a pairing, write letters to Disney and tell them we deserve explicit and normalized queer representation (because we do). Do what you wish, and do what makes you happy! Enjoy your queer pairings! I encourage you! I implore you!

But please, please, please don't discount the importance, validity, and power of the connection they do have. This connection is no less intimate and no less important than romance, sex, or anything else. They don't need romance to be queer, and they don't need any label at all to be a beautiful, realistic, and healthy portrayal of human relationships, queer or not.

And for the record, they are very, very gay, and nobody, not even Disney, can change my mind.

23 notes · View notes

prettywordsyouleft · 3 years

Text

The Devil in Red and White

Pairing: Im Jaebum x female reader

World: King Of Demons

Genre: fluff / demon au / christmas-ish au (I know it’s January, don’t come for me)

Warnings: none, aside from if you’re not familiar with this world, then nicknames won’t make much sense.

A/N: I had this idea immediately when I started thinking about what to write for Jaebum’s birthday. Then I cursed it out for not coming to me earlier in December so it would make more sense to use it. But hey, Sheol and Earth never really line up with the same time and date, now do they XD (I also need to write this now before the next story for Princess and Jaebum in this world and since I plan to do that before Christmas 2021, please just humour me a little longer!)

Word count: 1321

King of Demons series: Havoc // King of Demons // Unfathomable // Sacrifice // King of Demons: The Return // In The Night // Identity // Prophecy // Someone // The Devil Contained // The Monsters Witch

Jaebum was more than ready to see you again.

It had been far too long, so he thought, since you had returned to Sheol, and this time apart especially had been harder to endure, knowing you were with child.

His child.

Still, to anyone who wasn’t close to the Devil himself, they would merely think of him as curiously awaiting the elevator from the Gatekeeper’s lair. The smirk on Mark’s face beside him, however, gifted Jaebum with the knowledge that his closest friend was amused by him.

“Now is not the time to taunt me, Mark.”

“I wouldn’t dream of doing such a thing,” the demon mentioned too airily and Jaebum eyed his friend carefully. “You might combust into flames if I were to try.”

“Am I that noticeable?”

“Only to me,” Mark answered with a wicked grin that gave Jaebum little assurance. “No doubt the servants of this area merely think you’re awaiting a new supply of mint chocolate chip ice-cream.”

“Perhaps Y/N will bring some,” he murmured, clasping his hands together, only to let them go a moment later. Jaebum sighed heavily, looking at Mark once more. “Do you think she’ll be much different?”

“Physically, or…?”

“I suppose there could be mental changes,” Jaebum replied, pacing the area until one of his workers looked his way. Silencing the attention with a glare, the Devil frowned. “I’ve read some on the topic.”

“Of how to become a father?” Mark openly questioned, and Jaebum’s eyes widen immediately. Mark and Jinyoung were the only two to truly not fear him in these parts, and for once, it irked Jaebum. He wished Mark’s easiness would damper down.

Then again, he was an experienced demon. Mark had spent far longer up on Earth than he had.

And Jaebum needed the advice. “You’ve seen pregnancy up there, have you not?”

“Can’t say I took it on as an interest. Perhaps you should have done more research before ending in such a predicament?”

“We all know my brother is hardly one to study,” Jinyoung stated upon arrival, and Jaebum glowered at the Prince of Sheol. It was not effective. “Come, brother. I’ve outgrown your glares, have I not?”

“Why is she taking so long?!” Jaebum exclaimed impatiently, throwing his hands up into the air. Flames sparked at the ends of his fingers, and he groaned.

He was evidently too worked up.

Just then, he heard the cranking of the brakes to the elevator down below, his hands reaching for his hair before smoothing down his silk shirt. Ignoring the sniggers from those awaiting your arrival too, Jaebum’s gaze grew earnest.

Just what was he to expect?

When the ancient elevator reached its destination, and the doors opened, all the nerves he felt evaporated when he saw your face. Your eyes connected with his and he rushed forward to your side, pulling you into a much-awaited embrace.

“I’ve missed you,” he murmured into your ear, now uncaring of how much affection he showered you in within the company of others. Whenever you were present in his world, Jaebum could hardly care for normalities and ranks.

You turned him into a vulnerable man, every time.

However, when he pulled away to inspect you properly, Jaebum was immediately concerned. You had bags under your eyes from lack of sleep, and your skin looked pallid. The size of your stomach was smaller than he expected, and yet, it seemed to be sucking the life out of you.

Whilst your death would end the constant separation whenever you were obligated to return to Earth, he wasn’t quite prepared to accept your heart stopping anytime soon either.

“My love…”

“First, allow me to get my things before you fuss, Jaebum.”

He blindly allowed you to turn back for the elevator, where a large suitcase waited for retrieval.

“What’s that, Princess?” Mark enquired for the three men watching on, Jinyoung stepping forward to help you when you struggled to get it over the lip of the door.

“Supplies.”

“For?”

“You’ll see,” you announced with a bright smile, returning to Jaebum’s side and taking his hand. “Will you take me to our quarters now? I think I need a rest before I begin.”

You had only rested until the evening when suddenly you had enough energy and wished to use it for whatever you had planned. Jaebum whined, hoping you could stay in bed with him just a little longer.

However, you were far too animated to contain.

Unlatching the suitcase, you started pulling out sparkly strings of tinsel and random ornaments, dashing around the room with them. It confused Jaebum greatly. “My Queen?”

“Yes, my King?” you hummed happily, dressing up the grand fireplace with something far too festive for his liking.

“Wasn’t it Christmas time last month up there for you humans?”

You turned to give him a pointed look, and Jaebum was ashamed that the accusing expression he held softened immediately. “Yes, it was.”

“Then why are you bringing such ghastly things into our home?”

“Ghastly?!” you echoed, your efforts doubling. You placed a plaid cushion on the armchair by the fireplace. “You have no regards for my feelings at all!”

“Your feelings are ones I regard above all,” he shot back, and you rolled your eyes.

“Once again, I spent my holidays without you, without our family down here. Whilst I understand the agreement made with the Gods for my travelling back and forth, it’s different now.”

“Why?”

“Because we have traditions to start!”

“In January?”

“As parents,” you corrected, and Jaebum frowned.

“I’m going to need more information.”

“Christmas is a joyous occasion, and our daughter will grow up knowing of it,” you insisted, and Jaebum nodded.

“That I agree with, but isn’t it a December thing? It’s a new year now.”

“So you suggest that we don’t celebrate it as a family?”

“No, I-”

“I grew up believing in the magic of Christmas, of Santa,” you explained, placing a red and white hat upon Jaebum’s head in the process.

He glanced at the pompom hanging off the end with some bewilderment.

You giggled then, and that eased the tension within the room. “You’ll make a fine Santa Claus one day.”

“Me?! Can’t we make BamBam do it?”

“So you’ll accept me kissing your Gatekeeper? I haven’t ever thought about doing that before but-”

“I love you,” Jaebum intervened, kissing you to compliment his statement. Rubbing your shoulders gently, he then sighed. “But I have no intentions of letting you kiss another, nor any understanding of what you talk of.”

“I know. Christmas is a human thing,” you mentioned, and Jaebum nodded softly.

“And one that is more in alignment with those in the heavens above, don’t you think?”

“Still, can’t you come on board with me about this? I’ll explain it to you more so you understand.”

“I’m already trying to comprehend parenting, which is a novel concept for someone like me. Surely, this Christmas thing can wait. And have you forgotten, much like what Christmas celebrations were started upon, I too have a birthday worth rejoicing over.”

“When is that again?” you teased, and Jaebum went to object when you popped a candy cane into his mouth. His eyes widened once the peppermint taste hit his senses.

The sweets of the human world never failed to impress him.

You smiled knowingly. “I want to have a belated Christmas party tonight.”

“Tonight? With everyone else?”

You nodded, and Jaebum grew glum.

“Were you hoping to keep me to yourself for days on end again?” Jaebum’s lack of immediate answer drew a soft chuckle from you once more. “Who knew the Devil could be this adorable?”

You cupped his face and eyed the hat still upon his head before smiling. “Let me tell you the story about Mummy kissing Santa Claus first. I think then you might be more willing to dress as the jolly man himself next Christmas.”

_________________

[GOT7 Masterlist] | [Main Masterlist] | [Request Guidelines]

#got7creators #kwritersworldnet #kdiarynet #jaebum fiction #jaebum fanfic #jaebum scenarios #jaebum fluff #jaebum au #got7 #got7 fiction #got7 fanfic #got7 scenarios #got7 fluff #got7 au #pwyl; king of demons #kpop fiction #kpop fanfic #kpop scenarios #kpop fluff

95 notes · View notes

hysterialevi · 3 years

Text

Veien Hjem - A Sigurd/Male Eivor Fanfic

Fanfic summary: After Sigurd single-handedly attacks a bandit camp in hopes of reaching Valhalla, he survives thanks to Eivor and realizes that his life is far from over.

Point of view: third-person

Pairing: Sigurd Styrbjornson x Male Eivor

Author’s note: Sorry if the title isn’t entirely correct. My Norwegian isn’t that great.

SOMEWHERE IN EURVICSCIRE

NOON

Sigurd sat lifelessly on the edge of the river bank, watching in silence as droplets of blood blossomed beneath the water.

At the moment, the river was littered with fresh corpses of bandits from the nearby camp, and had clots of red snow crumbling into its frozen embrace. Sporadic ripples danced above its glassy surface and carried fragments of ice with their delicate push, warping the broken reflection Sigurd found staring back at him.

...He could hardly recognize himself by this point.

Instead of the steadfast warrior who once wielded the Raven Clan’s respect and admiration, he now saw nothing but the desolate remains of a once great man, desperately holding onto the life he had ruined so long ago.

He just felt... so lost. So vulnerable. The world seemed to be doing everything it could to knock him down into the mud, and he didn’t know how to get back up anymore.

He had completely lost the will to fight, and without any reason to push forward, he saw no point in trekking further down this aimless road. He felt as if he had outstayed his welcome in this world... and that was why he tried to reach Valhalla today.

Like a madman drunk on blood, Sigurd had charged into the bandits’ camp with nothing but an axe in hand, prepared to fall in this tomb of ice and snow. He fought with the wrath of Thor himself, and tore his enemies apart in a hurricane of iron.

For a few moments, there had been nothing but chaos. He experienced no fear, no hate, no love -- not even pain. The only thing that had been on his mind was reaching the end of his saga, and greeting the Valkyries with open arms.

Contrary to what Sigurd expected though, he survived.

In spite of the numerous injuries that he now sustained, he remained the last man standing among this newly forged battlefield and sat alone amidst the mayhem, unsure of where to go from here.

He was freezing to the bone in the wind’s icy breath, and yet, he couldn’t push himself to get up. He had been completely exhausted of any motivation, and now, he simply waited for death to arrive, dreaming of what its shrill whispers would sound like.

Before that could happen though, another voice called out to him.

“Sigurd?” Eivor exclaimed in the distance, wandering through the woods. “Sigurd! Are you there?”

A series of footsteps crunched through the snow, leading Sigurd’s ears to perk up as his brother approached him.

“Sigurd...!” The man said with relief, somewhat out of breath. “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. What in Hel’s name are you doing out here? Are you alright?”

The older man offered nothing but silence in return, causing Eivor to step in front of him.

“Sigurd,” he repeated, his boots softly splashing through the water. “Brother? Are you listening to me?”

Sigurd remained seated on the ground, still staring blankly at the river.

“Hey,” Eivor said more firmly, gripping his brother by the shoulder. “It’s me.”

The other man uttered out a quiet response, barely shifting his gaze from the bandits’ scattered bodies.

“...I should’ve died with them.”

Eivor glanced back at the corpses in confusion, bewildered by Sigurd’s sudden change in behavior. “What? What are you talking about? Who are these people? Why were you fighting? Are you okay? You’re covered in blood.”

Sigurd looked down at his beaten body and clenched one of his hands into a fist, attempting to fight back the numbness that was starting to paralyze it.

“I’m not supposed to be here.” Sigurd whispered to himself. “I should’ve... I should’ve...”

Eivor knelt down in front of the man, growing increasingly concerned by the minute.

“Sigurd,” he said softly, “look at me.”

Tearing his eyes away from the chaos he had wrought, Sigurd slowly brought his line of sight to the face in front of him, breaking out of his trance-like state as a certain warmth returned to his skin.

“...Eivor?” He finally replied, his tone devoid of any emotion. “What... what are you doing here?”

The younger man’s brow crinkled in heartache. “Searching for you, of course. What else would I be doing? Gods above, Sigurd...” Eivor took a deep breath, “...do you have any idea how worried I’ve been? How long I’ve been trying to find you? When you disappeared from Ravensthorpe, I thought that you might’ve... that you might’ve been killed. Or worse. Why are you all the way out here? Why did you even fight these men? Who were they?”

Sigurd shook his head. “...I don’t know. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter anyways.”

Eivor gestured to the other man’s wounds. “What do you mean it doesn’t matter? Look at you. You could’ve died, Sigurd. There’s an entire army of them in these woods, and you attacked them alone. What if I never found you? What if--”

He came to an abrupt pause, suddenly realizing exactly what was going on.

...Sigurd never meant for Eivor to find him, did he? He never intended to be seen again.

There was a reason he had traveled so far out into the wilderness, and it was because he didn’t want anyone in Ravensthorpe to know where he had gone.

He didn’t want the world to stop turning because of his absence, nor did he want others to grieve for his loss. He didn’t want to say goodbye.

He didn’t intend to walk away with his life.

These bandits -- whoever they once were -- were supposed to be no more than Sigurd’s passage to Valhalla. He didn’t care where they came from, or if they even meant him any harm. All that mattered was the fact that they outnumbered him.

And yet, against all odds, Sigurd ended up on the winning side of the fight. He had persevered throughout the battle, and come out as the sole survivor. Though, in spite of his miraculous victory, it was clear that the mission hadn’t been a success. At least, not in his eyes.

Instead of earning a glorious entrance to Valhalla like he had planned, Sigurd remained trapped in this dreary realm, even more beaten than before. His body was riddled with all sorts of injuries, and now, he found himself at a dead end, uncertain of how he was going to proceed.

Even though he was confident that the two of them would be able to make it back home, Sigurd knew his brother wouldn’t dare take his eyes off him again. Now that Eivor fully understood what was going on, it was evident that the man was only going to be far more attentive from here on out.

He was almost like his protector in a way. Anytime something bad happened to Sigurd, Eivor was always there mere moments later, swooping in to rescue him. He was the guardian constantly watching over him, and Sigurd usually seemed to be the one in distress.

But he was tired of it being that way. He was tired of being a burden.

Eivor had other things to be concerned about. He had an entire clan of people to look after, and needed all the help he could find to pacify England. He was fighting a war, for goodness’ sake. He couldn’t afford to waste time fretting over a single man.

And yet, despite the never-ending list of matters he had to attend to... Eivor was out here. With Sigurd.

He had been worried enough about the man to completely abandon everything else going on in his life, and it was all for the sake of making sure his brother was okay.

...But why?

“Sigurd?” Eivor repeated, his voice much gentler now. “...You’re worrying me.”

The older man sighed, shutting his eyes in defeat. “That’s all I seem to do nowadays -- worry people. It’s the only thing they talk about when I’m not around. ‘Is Sigurd alright?’ ‘Is he doing okay?’ ‘Why is he so angry today?’ ‘What’s going on?”

Eivor’s face sank with empathy. “We worry about you because we care, Sigurd.”

“I know,” he said plainly, “but you shouldn’t have to. You deserve a jarl who can stand on his own two feet. You deserve someone who isn’t like... this.”

“What do you mean?”

Sigurd scoffed. “Are you joking? Look at me, Eivor. You know what I used to be like. You know how I once was. But this...” his shoulders slouched in despondency, “...this is pathetic. I am nothing more than a hobbling stick now. A wretch of a warrior. A mere fragment of what I could be.”

Eivor shot him a puzzled stare. “What you could be? I... I don’t understand.”

“I am so much more than what you see, Eivor,” Sigurd explained. “I carry the blood of gods within my veins. I saw it for myself when I was with Fulke. Despite her cruelty, she did open my eyes to an unfathomable truth. She showed me a place destined for people like me -- a home that I’ve never known. There, I was a great warrior. A lord of pragmatism and battle prowess. People called me brother. They admired me.”

Eivor automatically glowered at the mention of Fulke’s name. “That woman was mad, Sigurd. She knew nothing of what she spoke. She only saw you as a tool, and used you for her own benefit. Do not let her ravings distort your mind.” He stopped for a second, thinking about his last words. “...But this place you speak of; this home that you desire -- you already have that here, brother. With our clan. With me.”

Sigurd’s expression only seemed to dim at that. “You don’t need me, Eivor. You’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. You--”

“--No, I do need you.” He corrected. “You really think I came all this way just to find someone that I don’t need?”

The older man shrugged morosely. “What could you possibly need me for? I can hardly fight nowadays, my mind is stuck in a haze, and I bring nothing except hardship and confusion to the people of our clan. What would you lose if I were to disappear?”

Eivor’s eyes softened with sorrow. “...Everything.”

Sigurd fell silent at the answer, unsure of how to react. Part of him suspected that the younger man was only saying what he wanted to hear, but the pain in his voice told him otherwise.

“Listen to me,” Eivor continued, “I may not always understand what’s going through your mind, but I understand your fear. I know you’ve been in pain for a long time now -- even before what happened with Fulke -- and I know it’s been a battle. But you mean more to people than you realize, Sigurd. You don’t need to be a god or a warrior to earn our love. You already have it.”

He brought Sigurd into a secure embrace, holding the man tightly.

“I need you because I love you. We may have our disagreements from time-to-time, but a life shaped by your struggles will always be better than a life without you at all. You helped create who I am today, and I would surely lose that part of myself if I lost you.”

Sigurd rested his head in the crook of Eivor’s neck, doing his best to hide the tears that were gathering in his eyes.

“...You truly believe that?”

The younger man separated the hug, gently holding Sigurd’s face in his hands.

“I do. So please... come home with me. It doesn’t have to end like this. You don’t need to be alone in this fight.”

The other man looked away from Eivor, staring at the ground in desolation.

“...But where do I go from here? How will I survive?”

Eivor gave him a sincere answer. “I don’t know. That’s for you to decide. The only thing I can tell you is that it won’t be easy, and you won’t heal overnight. But no matter what happens, I’ll always be here if you need me.”

He stood up from the ground, extending a hand out to Sigurd as the snow grew heavier around them.

“Come, love. Your journey isn’t over yet.”

Gazing upwards at the man, Sigurd found himself at a loss for words as a thousand different thoughts collided with each other inside his head, causing him to come face-to-face with an epiphany.

He would’ve been lying if he said he felt any better than he did earlier, but unlike before, Sigurd now wondered if death was truly worth it. At first, he envisioned the experience as a solution, or as a way to pacify the unrest in his soul. He thought it would finally be the end to all of his pain, but now... he couldn’t help but question if death was really the answer.

After all, he saw how it affected Tove when Svend suddenly passed. It was just so... abrupt. So final. He dropped out of the world like it was nothing, and slipped free from this realm’s grasp without any warning. There was no goodbye; no closure, no glorious end to the tale.

It was just death. Plain and simple.

Sigurd couldn’t even begin to imagine how much it would damage Eivor if he went through the same thing. Despite the doubts that constantly crept into his mind, he knew that the man cared for him more than anyone else in his life. They were practically inseparable at this point, and if something were to happen to either of them, Sigurd knew it would devastate him.

He may have been desperate for a way to stop the pain, but no solution was worth hurting Eivor like that.

And so, with one last thought, Sigurd finally rose from the snow and grabbed onto Eivor’s hand, feeling determined to push through this once again. He didn’t know what sort of obstacles awaited him in the future, or how long this battle would carry on, but he could see now that it was fight worth pursuing.

Death was an inevitable face that he would have to greet eventually, but its time had yet to come. There was still an entire ocean of endless waves and ripples waiting beyond the horizon, and even though there was no guarantee that another storm wouldn’t hit, Sigurd hadn’t quite lost the curiosity to see what rested behind the fog.

He was just starting to write his saga, and the end would come when it was ready.

“...A-Alright,” Sigurd said quietly, his voice trembling slightly. “I’ll go with you.” He paused for a moment, gazing downwards in guilt. “I’m... I’m sorry for frightening you. I didn’t mean to worry you so much.”

Eivor gently caressed Sigurd’s cheek with the back of his knuckles, looking at him with a sense of love no one else ever had. “There’s no need to apologize. I’m just glad you’re still here.”

He planted a brief kiss on the older man’s lips, holding tightly onto his weathered hands as a shower of snowflakes fluttered down on top of them.

“Come on,” Eivor whispered affectionately, his words turning into clouds of mist. “...Let’s go home.”

#assassin's creed valhalla #ac valhalla #Sigurd Styrbjornson #eivor wolfkissed #eivor wolfsmal #eivor varinsson #male eivor #sigurd x male eivor #ac valhalla fanfic

38 notes · View notes

bonjour-rainycity · 4 years

Text

Odin’s Ward ~ Chapter 7

Link to previous part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/631916582484017152/odins-ward-chapter-6

Pairing: Loki x Female Reader

Word count: 3232

Warnings: Adult themes implied

Y/n: 18 // Loki: 20 // Thor: 24

Y/n’s POV

It’s been three weeks since Loki took me to the meadow. We have not yet been able to return, but the flowers in my room don’t die. In fact, they never even seem to wilt. This only solidifies my theory that Loki created the meadow for just the two of us. That means something significant, I’m sure of it. Since that time, I can tell our relationship has shifted. I believe that if I was not already promised a husband from my father, Loki might be interested in courting me.

It wouldn’t do though. Father has plans for me in Alfheim, and Odin has plans for Loki here. The knowledge that we can’t be together in the long-term makes me sad, but being around Loki tends to make that sadness go away. I just enjoy the time we have together and try not to think about the fact that, now that I am of age, I could be called to Alfheim at any moment.

A knock pulls me from my thoughts, and I smile to myself. That’ll be Loki, ready to take me to dinner.

It is to my great surprise, then, to find Thor waiting for me on the other side of my threshold.

He beams. “Lady Y/n, would you allow me to escort you to dinner?”

I blink. After an awkward silence, Thor offers me his arm as a reminder. “Oh. Yes, of course, Your Highness. Forgive me, it’s just that I was expecting—”

“Loki, I know. He escorts you to dinner every evening.” Thor’s voice is different now, a little…harder. I take his arm and allow him to begin the walk to the dining hall. “Lady Y/n,” he lowers his voice so I have to work to hear him. “I know that you and my brother are…close. But you both need to be more careful. It is not my business how either of you spends your nights, but I cannot help but notice how conspicuously the two of you are behaving.”

I swallow, nerves buzzing. We’re not even…. I try for some damage control. “Your Highness, I—”

Thor puts up a hand to stop my words, and I fall silent. “It is not my business, Lady Y/n. I am simply warning you as your friend. I do not wish to see your reputation tarnished, as I have come to care for you as a brother would care for his sister.”

Too many reactions run through my head, so I go with the one that is the most polite. “Thank you, Your Highness, truly. I appreciate your counsel.”

Thor nods, a kind smile on his face. “I wish the best for you, Lady Y/n.”

Despite my shock at this conversation, I try to return the smile, because he really does mean well. “And I, you.”

We enter the dining hall then. Thor walks me to my seat before walking to his spot at the other end of the table. Frigga sits next to Thor, Odin in the middle, there is a space where Loki should be, and then there’s me at the end. I stare at the table, not wishing to engage in conversation. Not that Odin would speak with me, anyway. Dinner begins without Loki. I pick at my food, not really in the mood to eat. If Thor noticed my and Loki’s…attachment…then maybe we really are being too conspicuous. Which is silly, because there’s nothing going on to even be conspicuous about!

With the creak of a door, Loki enters the dining hall. The tense frustration on his face breaks into relief when he meets my eyes. He takes his seat, first apologizing to his parents for being late, then turning to me.

“You did not wait for me.” There’s hurt in his voice that he tries hard to mask with indifference.

I immediately feel guilty for hurting him, even unintentionally. “I would have,” I murmur, still looking at my plate. “But Thor escorted me to dinner because he feels that we…well, that we are romantically involved and are quite obvious about it.” Despite my embarrassment at this topic, I look up so I can gauge his reaction.

It’s angry. He clenches his jaw and his voice is tight when he speaks. “That is none of his concern—”

I hurry to his brother’s defense. “He spoke out of friendship, Loki. We can’t blame him for—”

“Even if he was speaking with kindness as his motivation, he should have come to me rather than to you. You shouldn’t have to deal with—”

“Well, you shouldn’t have to deal with this, either! Besides, it’s not like we—”

Odin stands so quickly his chair screeches, effectively silencing everyone in the hall. The King utters two simple words, but the effects are immediate: “Frost Giants.”

The room erupts into chaos. People react mainly by screaming. Some draw weapons, some seem plastered to their seats, some make a break for the exits.

Thor stands, Mjolnir at the ready. Loki kicks into action as well, hastily taking hold of me and his mother. Our world goes black.

We reappear in what looks like Frigga’s chambers. Nausea hits me, but I try to ignore it and focus instead on the situation at hand. Because from what I can gather, Asgard is under attack.

Loki runs to the door and pulls two sentries into the room. “Guard them with your lives,” he orders, darkness in his voice. Finally, he turns to us. “I will come for you when it is safe. Stay hidden.”

Frigga nods gracefully from her spot in the middle of the room. Her shoulders are pulled taut, and I can tell she is worried for her son. I feel the same.

“Hey.” My voice is tighter than I want it to be, probably due to the terror currently working a hole in my chest. “Be careful.”

Loki’s eyes lock with mine, and I can see the fear and determination in them. No sparkle like there usually is. He swallows, nods once, and disappears.

Neither Frigga nor I speak.

From the far ends of the castle, I can hear the grunts and screams of people as they fight. I’ve never seen a Frost Giant, nor do I know what one sounds like, but I pray that what I hear is the sound of them dying rather than the Asgardians. Through many tense minutes of waiting, the sounds of battle get closer to Frigga’s room. By her body language, she knows we’ll soon be in imminent danger.

There’s a crash outside the door, and I jolt into action. I reach under my dress and pull my dagger from its home in the garter attached to my thigh. Frigga eyes me quizzically.

“I know I’m probably not supposed to have this. But…I do.” Given the situation, I’m not exactly sure what to say. For all I know, this is going to be my last conversation.

A tight yet somehow still kind smile briefly crosses Frigga’s face. “Worry not, dear Y/n. It is important everyone know how to protect themselves. I would have taught you myself had I not suspected my son was already doing so.”

I do my best to smile back as the clamoring gets nearer. A sparkle—the same sparkle I’ve seen in Loki’s eyes—enters Frigga’s as she reaches behind her back and unsheathes two long knives previously concealed by her cascading hair.

All I can say is: “woah.”

From our position in the middle of the room, we wait.

I’m hypersensitive to the sounds outside the door. The clashing has gotten louder, and I hear the sound of metal scraping against metal. The guards inside the room tense, ready for battle.

The door slams open.

Before I can react, Odin enters the room, surrounded by his guards. Frigga lets out a breath of relief and bypasses the guards to hug her husband. She exudes relief.

I exhale as well, lowering my dagger to let it hang by my side. I close my eyes, finally able to relax now that I’m not contemplating my death.

Absently, I register Odin’s words to Frigga. “It seems….” There’s pain in Odin’s voice, and my ears perk up. Has something happened? Is Asgard in trouble? “Loki has been gravely injured. We must go to his side at once…he is not expected to live much longer.”

My head snaps up. Without warning, the only sound I can hear is my jarringly loud breathing. I can’t blink. I can’t move. I can’t even react. I’m just…frozen.

Frigga lifts a shaking hand to cover her mouth. Then, she lets out a shriek of anguish that pierces through the silence and collapses into Odin’s arms. His face is drawn, his sadness is apparent, but he’s obviously trying to be strong.

“My love, we must go find our son.”

Frigga nods dimly, tears falling down her cheeks as she allows herself to be pulled to the door. On his way out, Odin’s eye catches mine, and he gestures to a guard. “Take her to her chambers and make sure she stays there. The castle is not yet secure.”

The guard obediently does as Odin orders. I don’t feel his hand on my arm, nor do I remember walking to my room, though we must have, because next thing I know, I’m sitting on my bed. The guard leaves me alone and I just sit. My body feels numb. Is that normal? I don’t know how much time passes, only that it’s enough for terrifying thoughts to run through my mind. Has Loki died yet? Or is he in agony, waiting to die? The image of Loki in pain, fatally injured, breaks me out of my shock, and I begin to shake with tears. I can’t stop crying. I sob until I nearly make myself sick. And once I’m out of tears, I fall to the floor in the midst of dry heaves and curl into a ball. Once again, my mind attacks me with unwelcome images of Loki lying on the ground, bloodied and waiting for death.

I should’ve been there.

Gods! I should have been there!

I grip at the rug in an attempt to bring myself some comfort, but the fabric offers nothing but scratches. Everything just…hurts. So badly. Imagining my life without my friend brings a deep pain that I never want to feel again.

“Y/n.” I hear a quiet voice from across the room and my head snaps to find the source.

He’s there.

Loki is right there, standing just a few feet away from me. We stare at each other, neither of us moving.

A leftover sob escapes me, and that seems to snap Loki out of whatever trance he was experiencing.

“Oh, Y/n.” Heartache thickens his voice and he hurries to join me on the floor, pulling me protectively into his arms. I cling to him and begin to cry once more.

“Your father, he said—he said—” I can’t even finish my sentence. I grip Loki’s shirt instead and cry into his shoulder.

“I know. I—I didn’t think he would tell you, I was just trying…” He trails off, seeming as lost for words as I am as he rubs my back soothingly.

I take deep breaths and work on calming myself down. It’s okay, it’s alright. He’s here now, safe with you. Loki produces a handkerchief and helps me dry my tears.

“It was just a trick.” His voice is quiet as he holds me. “I faced a particularly nasty situation and determined the best solution would be to cast a double to make the Frost Giant think he had bested me while I was secretly waiting to kill him. Well, after I had done so, more Frost Giants entered the fray and I was so occupied with fighting them that I completely forgot to dispose of my severely wounded double. When my father saw it, he assumed the worst and immediately told my mother…and you, it seems. Y/n, I am so, so sorry.” His voice breaks mid-apology.

I pull back so I can look into his eyes. The eyes that I thought had been taken away from me too soon.

Screw it.

I push myself so I’m sitting up in his lap and press my lips to his.

He makes a strangled noise of shock before tightening his arms around my waist and kissing me back. The kiss is hard and desperate, each of us pulling at the other to get them as close as possible. My hands find the ties of his armor and begin to tug them loose. Loki pulls back and stops my progress with his clothing.

“Y/n, we can’t. Your reputation—”

I look him straight in the eyes, absolutely sure of my decision. “Everyone here already thinks we do this. In their minds, my reputation is ruined. So why not make what they’re saying true?”

He swallows, seeing my logic. Then he shakes his head, thinking of another argument. “Yes, but what about your prospects on Alfheim? If your father finds out about this—or any potential suitors do—you’ll be shunned! I—I can’t do that to you.”

“Loki.” I take his face into my hands, holding his eyes on mine. “No one in Alfheim will know of what I do in Asgard. There are so few ways of communication. I promise that everything will be okay. I want you, Loki.” His eyes flutter closed, and I place a kiss on each of them. “If you want me too…then I’m yours.”

He opens his eyes, happiness and adoration shining through. He pulls my hand from his cheek and kisses my palm without looking from my eyes. Then, he stands, pulling me with him, and kisses me again, much softer this time. He places his hands on my hips and gently guides me onto the bed.

{***}

I wake to feather-light kisses on my neck. It tickles, and I can’t help but let out sleepy giggles. Opening my eyes, I find Loki staring right at me with my favorite mischievous smile on his face.

“Hello.”

A slow, lazy smile spreads across my own face. “Hi.”

He pulls one of my hands from its grip on the blanket to hold it in his. He kisses my palm lightly, one of my new favorite behaviors of his. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah sure,” my grin broadens. “Sleep.”

He laughs, pulling me and rolling over so I’m resting on top of him. “Well, I know you enjoyed that.” He winks cheekily and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear.

I roll my eyes but lean down to kiss him despite his cockiness. Too soon, he groans and pulls away. “I have to go. I just wanted to say goodbye before I left so you didn’t think I abandoned you or anything.”

I rest my chin on his chest, just enjoying looking into his eyes. “That’s kind of you.”

He rolls us again so I lie underneath him, but he thankfully keeps most of his weight on his elbows. “I will see you tonight to escort you to dinner.” His face darkens. “Unless my idiot brother beats me to it.”

I chuckle. “His intentions are kind. Besides, your brother—”

Loki stops me with a groan. “Okay, never mind. This is the last moment I want to be thinking of my brother.

I throw my head back in laughter, and he takes the opportunity to kiss my neck once more. My laughter falls silent.

“There.” He brings his head up with a satisfied smirk. “That takes care of that.”

I roll my eyes, but there’s no true annoyance in me. Right now, I feel perfectly content.

“Alright, I really must go.” There’s regret in his voice, and I do my best to ease that.

“Thank you for staying the night.”

Surprise colors his features, and he regards me with slight bewilderment. “Of course. I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else.” The honesty in his voice is apparent. He kisses me once more before standing up, dressing magically, and teleporting out of the room.

Once I’m alone, I grin stupidly and smush my face in the pillow. So that just happened.

Too soon, my maid, Dagmar, enters, curtsies, and gets to work. She doesn’t comment on my lack of clothing or the state of the bedsheets. It’s clear what I have done, but since I’m in the room alone, Dagmar can only speculate. She quietly goes about her job, and soon I am ready for the day.

Breakfast and lunch pass normally. I do my best to pretend as if I enjoy the company of the other ladies at Court, but only about three of them are truly tolerable. Lady Sif invites me to take a walk with her, and I consider telling her about my night with Loki. I stop myself just in time. People suspecting is one thing. People knowing is another. Instead, we discuss battle strategies and she regales me with stories of her latest adventures with Thor and the Warriors Three. I’ve barely made it back to my room when there’s a knock on my door.

“Come in.”

The clink of metal alerts me to the fact that I do not have one of my usual visitors.

“Lady Y/n, the King requires your presence in the throne room. I am to escort you there.”

A rod of panic slices through my stomach.

Oh gods. Odin knows.

I swallow, not wanting the guard to see my distress. “Alright.” My voice is breathy, and I try to calm myself down. Just don’t panic, Y/n.

The guard and I begin our walk to the throne room.

You have got to calm down. Just be brave and honest and then maybe Odin won’t expose you to your father.

My heart beats rapidly.

We reach the doors of the throne room. While we wait for the order to enter, I wring my hands together nervously. Oh, I wish Loki was here.

The massive doors swing open and I gulp.

Here we go.

The scene in front of me is not at all what I expected.

Odin sits on his throne with Frigga standing at his side. Thor has placed himself a few stairs below and to the right of Odin’s throne, and Loki is half-hidden behind it. Odin, Frigga, and Thor look pleased—incredibly so—but Loki…Loki looks like he is in agony.

I raise my eyebrows in surprise. The look on Loki’s face is nearly painful. I desperately want to run to him and comfort him, but that would surely seal our fate….

If us being together is even what this meeting is about.

A heavy feeling pools in my stomach as the early stages of understanding weigh on me. Oh.

“Lady Y/n, it is my pleasure to finally be able to tell you that we have received word from your father.” Odin’s eyes gleam with self-satisfaction. He has no idea of the storm of hurt, fear, and dread swirling within me. The King delivers the message I know is coming:

“Your father has found you a husband. It is time for you to be sent home.”

A/n Hello! Let me know what you thought and if you would like to be added to the tag list :)

Link to next part: https://bonjour-rainycity.tumblr.com/post/637789805440368640/odins-ward-chapter-8

Tag list: @80strashbag @dark-night-sky-99 @what-am-i-doing10 @chxrryycola

54 notes · View notes

king-finnigan · 4 years

Note

Could I request some cold calculating bamf Jaskier, like using poisons etc :O Thank you

CW: slight mentions of animal cruelty and domestic abuse. also straight-up murder.

Geralt doesn’t notice at first. It’s only when Eskel points out, one winter at Kaer Morhen, that the Count of Ironwick recently died in his sleep, apparently, that he starts to think that maybe something’s up.

It’s because he’d recently passed through Ironwick, before he headed to Kaer Morhen. Hell, he’d even taken a contract from the count himself, and the man had seemed in perfectly good health. Sure, Geralt can’t say he mourns the count’s death - the man was an absolute bastard, making his citizens pay way more taxes than was considered reasonable, only to spend it on concubines and golden trinkets - but it is suspicious.

But he decides it’s none of his business. It never is - he’s a Witcher, after all, and Witchers aren’t supposed to interfere with human politics. If he was, he would’ve run a sword through the bastard himself, but that is neither here nor there.

So he brushes it off.

---

The Alderman of Salthold dies a few days after Geralt’s passed through town. His cause of death is a topic of heavy discussion in the surrounding towns, for the next few weeks - which is how Geralt found out in the first place. Apparently, the man had tripped over a rug in his room, and had fallen from his fifth-story window.

A suspicious death altogether. When Geralt asks Jaskier what he thinks, the bard merely shrugs. “Don’t really care,” he says while he continues scribbling in his notebook. Got what he deserved either way.” His face darkens, and Geralt frowns. “I’m sure the horses in his stables are happy to have him gone.”

The shadow disappears from Jaskier’s face, and he smiles up at Geralt, changing the subject.

---

The Baroness of Crowside falls ill on the second day Geralt and Jaskier spend at her court. She seemed in pretty poor health when they arrived, but nothing to warrant her sudden and untimely death, a few days later. Sure, he’s glad to know that her heirs will at least pay Geralt for ridding the town of a pack of Barghests - because clearly the Baroness wasn’t planning on paying him or any of her servants - but it sure is... suspicious.

---

He starts to notice this pattern more and more often, after that. People meeting their untimely death after it is revealed to Geralt and Jaskier that they’re horrible people who do horrible things. He finds out after a few months that it’s not just nobles this is happening to; he just knew about those because they’re public figures, so their death is more noticable.

No, this is happening nearly every time they pass through a town and see someone hurting others or hurting animals, or something of the like. The farmer that malnourished his cows is found a few days later trampled by the very herd he starved; no one mentions the fact that his throat was cut. The healer in town who was using his position of power to take advantage of people dies in an explosion in his laboratory, even though he was highly-skilled and very experienced. The smith who beat his family gets crushed under the spare anvil he’d suspended from the ceiling, even though the metal chains were strong and brand new.

Suspicious death after suspicious death, in nearly a quarter the towns they pass through, only days after they left, sometimes even while they’re there, still.

It’s embarrassing that he doesn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together until he wakes up in the middle of the night in their modest campsite, and finds Jaskier gone.

He looks around, frowning, straining his ears to listen for any sound of the bard. The worry grows when he doesn’t hear a heartbeat, footsteps, or soft humming. Which means that Jaskier isn’t nearby.

Geralt gets up, gathering his swords, and he walks around the clearing. Finally, he smells lavender and sandalwood, to the south - heading back towards the town they left earlier that day.

He frowns again, quickly following the trail.

Why the hell would Jaskier go back to the town they were in just now? Why would he do that in the middle of the night? And without warning Geralt? What could possibly be so important? Maybe he’s under a curse of sorts, something that’s forcing him to go back. But that can’t be the case - Geralt doesn’t smell the familiar ozone scent of magic anywhere, and his medallion stays completely still against his chest.

Eventually, he reaches the town, right in time to see Jaskier scaling down a wall. Ah, so it’s just another one of his conquests. But... usually he doesn’t hesitate to just tell Geralt about the fact that he’s meeting someone, he’s never been so secretive about it. Not only that, but the window he climbed out of is completely dark and devoid of any sign of life - as is the rest of the house.

And, most importantly, this is the Alderman’s house. Geralt remembers it clearly because he’d been there earlier that day with a Drowner head to prove that he’d done his job. Even then, the Alderman had only paid him a quarter of what he’d promised Geralt, and had insulted Witchers straight to his face.

He remembers the outraged look Jaskier’d had, he remembers the bard asking him why he wouldn’t do anything about it - you’re ten times stronger than him, for goodness’ sake!

And then he remembers the suspicious deaths that seem to follow them wherever they go.

He narrows his eyes, the realization battling in his head with the image of sweet, kind Jaskier, with his sparkling, blue eyes and his easy smile.

But Geralt had seen that smile turn into a sneer, those blue eyes turn icy, whenever someone had insulted either of them, whenever Jaskier saw someone who couldn’t defend themselves get hurt, whenever they stumbled upon an injustice and Geralt had told him that he couldn’t do anything about it because he’s a Witcher, and Witchers aren’t supposed to take sides.

When Jaskier reaches the edge of the woods, Geralt steps out of the shadows. The bard doesn’t even visibly startle when the Witcher suddenly appears in front of him, though his heartbeat speeds up for a moment or two, before calming down again.

“Ah, Geralt! I was just taking a lovely evening stroll.” He taps the side of his head, smiling at Geralt conspiratorially. “Insomnia, you see.” His heart picks up again, and if Geralt hadn’t already known Jaskier was lying, he surely would’ve, now. “I hope I didn’t wake you up?”

It’s then that he notices a bitter twang under the familiar scent of lavender and sandalwood, and he inhales deeply. Poison.

Jaskier starts to fidget a bit under his unrelenting gaze, and smiles nervously. “Everything alright, Geralt?”

He scoffs, but nods. “Yes, I’m fine. But the Alderman isn’t, is he, Jaskier?”

Jaskier’s heartbeat picks up again, and Geralt can smell the unmistakable scent of guilt and anxiety emanating off the bard. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about, Geralt.”

Geralt crosses the distance between them, grabbing Jaskier by the front of his shirt and pulling him closer. “I’m sure you do, bard.”

Jaskier laughs nervously, hands in the air in surrender. “Geralt, I really don’t-” He pales when Geralt’s hand disappears into the bard’s pocket, reappearing with a small, empty vial. He uncorks it with his thumb, holding it to his nose. He inhales deeply, his suspicions confirmed, and throws it over his shoulder.

“I know poison when I smell it, Jaskier. The Alderman is dead, isn’t he?”

Jaskier’s fearful face falls, his expression hardening into something that sends a shiver down Geralt’s spine - a pleasant one, though, surprisingly. “Look me in the eye and tell me he didn’t deserve it, Geralt.”

“You can’t just kill someone for simply not paying us.”

Jaskier scoffs, rolls his eyes, his hands lowering from where they’d been hovering next to his face. “Oh, please, of course I can. And I have. And I would do it again.”

Geralt studies his face for a few seconds longer, and Jaskier stares right back at him. “How many?”

Jaskier raises his eyes to the sky, lips moving slightly as his fingers twitch, counting under his breath. He frowns, looks back at Geralt. “Just the ones that didn’t pay us, or the others too?”

Geralt blinks. “The... the others, too.”

Jaskier narrows his eyes, continues counting for a few seconds. “Do accidents count too?”

Geralt huffs in disbelief, looking to the side. “Sweet Melitele, Jaskier.” It doesn’t shock him as much as it should’ve - he feels like this is something he’s known deep down for a long time - but it doesn’t horrify him either, this knowledge that Jaskier has just been killing people left and right. If anything, it makes something hot and heavy settle in his gut.

“I don’t know how many, exactly, but I think... about forty to fifty people.”

“Good gods,” Geralt mutters, his breath catching in his throat.

He can almost imagine it, Jaskier with a poison vial in his hand, standing over an unsuspecting victim; with that cold look in his eyes as he pushes someone through a window; with blood spilling over his hands as he cuts a man’s throat.

“Can... can you fight? With weapons?”

Jaskier frowns, seemingly confused, but indulges him. “Yes, actually. Sword, dagger, crossbow, you name it. Perks of growing up royal, I guess.”

His heart’s hammering in his throat, mouth suddenly dry. “Tell...” He swallows thickly. “Tell me not to kiss you. Tell me not to take you back to our camp and show you exactly what you do to me. Tell me, Jaskier.”

Jaskier’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, his pupils growing ever larger, swallowing up the blue of his eyes nearly completely. “I can’t. I won’t. If you want to claim me, then claim me, Witcher.”

He pulls Jaskier closer, crashing their lips together in a kiss that’s all tongue and teeth, yet somehow absolutely perfect. He bends down a bit to grab at the back of Jaskier’s thighs. The bard gets the message and jumps up, wrapping his long legs around Geralt’s waist.

Geralt turns around and breaks the kiss, sucking red marks into the side of Jaskier’s neck as he starts walking back to camp, basking in the soft whimpering sounds Jaskier lets out.

Behind him, in the Alderman’s house, a woman screams.

#Anonymous #geraskier #the witcher #geralt of rivia #jaskier #cold bastard jaskier #cw murder #started writing it #had a breakdown #bon appetit #jk i actually liked writing this #but this is the only prompt im doing tonight cause i'm tired and i'm stressed because i'm starting my internship tomorrow #so #sorry #squish answers #drabble #kinda fucked up but like #good fucked up??#idk

58 notes · View notes

tatticstudio55 · 4 years

Text

Dany, ghosts and mythical figures

Pasting it under the cut because it’s a bit long. I wrote this for a colloquy that’s currently scheduled for the end of May, and I try to be optimist but it’s in France, I live in Canada, all our borders are currently closed and it doesn’t look like things are about to get better anytime soon, so... I though I’d try translating it into english (warning: it might not come off as too polished) and share it here, at the very least 😔. Que sera sera. Aaaaand tagging you @tomakeitbeautifultolive

The term "ghost" used here therefore refers to this role of intermediary, or passer, between the worlds concerned – Cécile Sakai

The loss, the mourning and the reality of the in-between, or intermediate states, occupy a fundamental place in Daenerys’s story. She was born in mourning, exiled from birth and leads a wandering existence from an early childhood. No matter where she goes, she’s seen as a stranger. She exists, but does not really belong anywhere. Her story is shaped by the reality and experience of the intermediary.

The first thing we notice about her, and from her first appearance in the novels, is the way in which the author uses the character's physical appearance to indicate a symbolic proximity to the ghostly, or the surreal: her pallor, her small size, her typical Valyrian features. Even the dress, chosen for her by Illyrio Myopatis, seems to enhances Daenerys’s “immateriality”:

Dany touched it. The cloth was so smooth that it seemed to run through her fingers like water. She could not remember ever wearing anything so soft. It frightened her. She pulled her hand away. "Is it really mine?" – AGOT, Dany I

The dress is meant as a reflection of the wearer. Daenerys’s eyes are the same color as the dress, (or a close match – amethyst and plum), her hair the same liquidity (“The girl brushed her hair until it shone like molten silver”), her body the same ethereal characteristics ("She is a vision, Your Grace, a vision," he told her brother. "Drogo will be enraptured." "She's too skinny," Viserys said.). Beyond the matter of the body itself, Daenerys shows some parallels with vampirism, ritually “absorbing” elements which quite clearly symbolize life forces. Pregnant, she eats a stallion's heart "raw and bloody", in accordance with the Dothrake custom that believes it will give the child strength, swiftness and fearlessness. The scene takes place in a nocturnal environment and the text very much emphasize the "bloodiness" of the ceremony. Daenerys later receives, and in more dire circumstances, her first “initiation” to blood magic with Mirri Maz Duur (blood magic resting on the vampirical tenet that only death can pay for life). And when Drogo's funeral pyre burns –

The flames writhed before her like the women who had danced at her wedding, whirling and singing and spinning their yellow and orange and crimson veils, fearsome to behold, yet lovely, so lovely, alive with heat. Dany opened her arms to them, her skin flushed and glowing. – AGOT, Dany X

Here she appears not quite “human”, glowing and feeding from the fire, whereas the flames are depicted in a very anthropomorphic way. The "dancers" spin, twirl and whirl in a vision that celebrates sensuality and physical vigor. Daenerys merges with the flames and is reborn from them, but her own body is no longer able to give life.

Subsequently, the books bring forefront the foils between the ever-growing physical presence of the dragons and the frail-like body of their mother. Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion fall into every physical extreme: extreme size and strength (getting there), the extreme amount of food they eat and the heat they give off. They "steam" in the cold, at night, while around them the khalasar disintegrate, Daenerys' flesh "falls away" and she becomes "lean and hard as a stick" (ACOK, Dany I). Drogon’s fire saves Daenerys from actual vampirical beings (the Undyings). The foils between mother and dragon(s) reaches a climax in Dany IX, ADWD, when Daenerys confronts an unleashed (and much larger) Drogon in the arena of Daznak:

In the smoldering red pits of Drogon's eyes, Dany saw her own reflection. How small she looked, how weak and frail and scared. – ADWD, Dany IX

Where Drogon is the “body” and Dany the “ghost”, the overwhelming physical presence of the former emphasizes and amplifies the stark opposite of the latter. Dany, like the first dress she was given, is akin to water and keep slipping through people’s fingers: those who hunt her, those who want her dead, those who want to marry her and those who want to use her.

Laughter erupted all around them. Even the old man joined in. "You saw her, then," said the redheaded boy behind them. "You saw the queen. Is she as beautiful as they say?"

I saw a slender girl with silvery hair wrapped in a tokar, he might have told them. Her face was veiled, and I never got close enough for a good look. – ADWD, Tyrion XI

Here, for instance, those who speak are on the hunt for stories, tales and rumors about the queen. Evasive, Tyrion withholds what he knows. At the same time, he is himself in the position of the frustrated chaser (she was veiled, she was too far away). The losses and bereavements already experienced by characters like Jorah Mormont and himself add an additional angle to the matter: Jorah sees Daenerys as a second Lynesse Hightower (the wife he lost) and Tyrion, while on his “grand travel” to Meereen, asks left right and center "Where do whores go?” (in reference to Tysha, the wife he also lost.) They are both haunted by the ghost of beloved women, which Daenerys gradually comes to replaces, as "perfect" and "ideal" as the first ones, but no less out of reach. Her geographical location in ADWD - Meereen is under siege by sea and land, boats no longer pass through Slaver’s Bay - reveals and hides a more metaphysical gap between Daenerys and her "pursuers": Jorah, Tyrion, Aegon, Euron, Victarion. Quentyn Martell is the exception, not that it ends well for him.

Orpheus and Persephone

-Orpheus

Dany is established very early on as a type of “psychopomp” (for lack of a better word) character: a character who passes from one metaphysical space to another (typically the "world of the dead" and the "world of the living"). Despite her belonging to the "living" world, Dany is pushed into spaces that are heavily associated with death, as well as in roles bearing resemblances with at least two psychopomp figures from Greek mythology: Orpheus and Persephone. Her overall narrative has an orphic tone ("If I look back, I am lost"), but the myth first really appears when Dany plea with Mirri Maz Duur to save Drogo's life:

Mirri Maz Duur tossed a red powder onto the coals. It gave the smoke a spicy scent, a pleasant enough smell, yet Eroeh fled sobbing, and Dany was filled with fear. But she had gone too far to turn back now. – AGOT, Dany VIII

The one rule that Orpheus must follow (to not look back at Eurydice) is meant to keep humans from witnessing directly god(s)’s doings. Mirri Maz Duur imposes the same rule on Dany:

"I will stay," Dany said. "The man took me under the stars and gave life to the child inside me. I will not leave him."

"You must. Once I begin to sing, no one must enter this tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them." – AGOT, Dany VIII

Like Dany, Mirri is a psychopomp figure with an ambiguous characterization (the author hints more directly of her ties to the supernatural than he does with Dany). The Lhazarean occupies two realms simultaneously, both intertwining and merging in her presence: a mythical realm from an immemorial time/space, and the realm of the ordinary:

Mirri Maz Duur chanted words in a tongue that Dany did not know, and a knife appeared in her hand. Dany never saw where it came from. It looked old; hammered red bronze, leaf-shaped, its blade covered with ancient glyphs. - AGOT, Dany VIII

The knife’s unknown origins can be interpreted in two ways. Dany does not know where and when it was made - the only conclusion she can draw is that it must be "very old" – nor does she know how (or where) Mirri managed to conceal the weapon. As a result, Mirri comes off as a symbolic embodiment of the mythical realm that’s intertwining with the “normal” space (the tent):

The tent was aglow with the light of braziers within. Through the blood-spattered sandsilk, she glimpsed shadows moving.

Mirri Maz Duur was dancing, and not alone. – AGOT, Dany VIII

The mythical space, however, ends up overflowing its confines - the walls of the tent - onto the ordinary realm, and effectively swallows it. The scenes inside and outside the tent, “bruised-red sky”, Qotho "dancing”, “arakh dancing with arakh”, the Dothraki shouting; Mirri’s “inhuman wails”, the dancing shadows, the brazier, the "bloody bath" inside, are all in perfect symmetry with each other. Then,

No, she shouted, or perhaps she only thought it, for no whisper of sound escaped her lips. She was being carried. Her eyes opened to gaze up at a flat dead sky, black and bleak and starless. Please, no. The sound of Mirri Maz Duur's voice grew louder, until it filled the world. The shapes! she screamed. The dancers!

Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent. – AGOT, Dany VIII

Here, for instance, the text really insists on the ever-growing presence of the mythical space. The last sentence of the chapter ("Ser Jorah carried her inside the tent") deliberately draws a foil between the reduced space of the tent and the immensity of the sky, somehow making the tent appears much bigger than it really is. And the more it grows, the more it pushes the boundaries of the ordinary space. When Dany open her eyes, the sky itself is remindful of the Asphodels. This is an initiation, i.e., Dany passing from one realm to another for the first time. The "behavior" of the mythical space (the tent) also bring up the question: is Dany the one moving towards said space, or is it the expanding space that’s moving towards her? The tension between the mythical and the ordinary is projected onto its two main actors, Daenerys and Mirri. There’s an underlying, thematic reciprocity established between them, one projecting a distorted reflection of the other, the first even going so far as to assume the role of the second after thanking her for her “lessons". Roles, identities, functions, times and spaces interpenetrate and repel each other, and Dany passes fairly fluidly from one state to another. We talked about how Mirri seemed to have a foot in an ancient, mythical time, but in her next chapter, it is Dany who finds herself trapped in a feverish dream filled with ghosts (her deceased brothers) and mythical figures. The dream is essentially a retelling of Orpheus in the underworld: chased by a cold shadow, Dany runs across a stone hall lined with specters, towards a tiny, faraway red door that’s presumably the only way out. She must reach the door at all costs without looking back, even as the ghosts of loved ones, dead or alive (Drogo, Jorah, Rhaego), appear and vanish before her eyes.

After the tent comes the Red Waste in ACOK, another hardly disguised “underworld” landscape:

“That way lies the red lands, Khaleesi. A grim place and terrible, the riders say."

The rivers they crossed were dry as dead men's bones. Their mounts subsisted on the tough brown devilgrass that grew in clumps at the base of rocks and dead trees.

The Dothraki began to mutter fearfully that the comet had led them to some hell.

The next pool they found was scalding hot and stinking of brimstone. – ACOK, Dany I

Not faring too well, the Khalasar soon turns into a procession of deads (the sick, the starving, the dying and those who died for real). In proper ghost fashion, travel is generally done at night. When they finally reach "Vae Tolorro", Irri ironically worries that the place might be haunted, while in fact they are most likely the “ghosts” there. The place is nicknamed "gardens of the dead", but no one dies there, except for a woman bitten by a scorpion. Coincidentally, Eurydice also died of a poisoned bite.

Seemingly, there’s a pattern with the underworld-coded spaces visited by Dany: each one is larger than the previous one. First a tent, followed by the Red Waste (and a brief “halt” in the HotU), then by Slaver’s Bay. Meereen is a grotesque look-alike of the greek underworld: located in desertic lands, rich in precious stones, with its own brand of Styx ("the slow brown Skahazadhan”), walls topped with “rows of harpy heads with open mouths”, peoples inside worshiping the gods of Ghis with blood sacrifices in the fighting pits. In ADWD, thousands of fleeing astaporian, crippled by hunger and illness, many of them on the brink of death, are crowding under the walls of Meereen. And Dany happens to be this underworld’s queen.

-Persephone

In ACOK, on the day the Khalasar reaches Vae Tolorro, Jorah Mormont visits Dany in her tent and gives her a peach. Then, at her request, he ends up telling her the sad story of his marriage to Lady Lynesse Hightower:

My home was a great disappointment to Lynesse. It was too cold, too damp, too far away, my castle no more than a wooden longhall. We had no masques, no mummer shows, no balls or fairs. Seasons might pass without a singer ever coming to play for us, and there's not a goldsmith on the island. Even meals became a trial. – ACOK, Dany I

The Hightowers are established in the Reach, the most fertile and greenest region of the Seven Kingdoms, and Jorah meets Lynesse in Lannisport smack in the middle of grand festivities. Lynesse is taken from her “flowery kingdom” to be the lady of a gloomy, dead-looking island. Jorah tries to coax her with various luxuries, including the food (“I lived for her smiles, so I sent all the way to Oldtown for a new cook”), but three seeds of pomegranate won’t do. Every now and then Lynesse must be brought back “up”:

I built a fine ship for her and we sailed to Lannisport and Oldtown for festivals and fairs, and once even to Braavos, where I borrowed heavily from the moneylenders. – ACOK, Dany I

Of course, the money runs out and they’re forced to set sail for Bear Islands. Not that it prevents them from leaving again later:

When I heard that Eddard Stark was coming to Bear Island, I was so lost to honor that rather than stay and face his judgment, I took her with me into exile. Nothing mattered but our love, I told myself. We fled to Lys, where I sold my ship for gold to keep us. – ACOK, Dany I

Their marriage eventually dissolves, but the story starts again with Dany in Lynesse’s position. We get an inkling of it with a simple scene (he brings her a fruit plucked from "in the gardens of the dead"), but which also harbors a predatory tone ("The lion pelt slid off one shoulder and she tugged it back into place. "Was she beautiful?" "Very beautiful." Ser Jorah lifted his eyes from her shoulder to her face. " / “Dany shivered, and pulled the lionskin tight about her. She looked like me. It explained much that she had not truly understood. He wants me, she realized. He loves me as he loved her, not as a knight loves his queen but as a man loves a woman.” – ACOK, Dany I). We spoke above of metaphorical “underworlds” visited, occupied or conquered by Dany: Mirri’s tent, the Red Waste, Slaver’s Bay. Not trivially, it is Jorah who carries her inside the tent, Jorah who advises her to go through the Red Waste, Jorah who persuades her to sail to Slaver’s Bay. Persephone’s myth being anchored in the duality of the fertile seasons (the summer months, when Persephone is reunited with Demeter) and the dead seasons (the winter months, which she must spend with her husband), its underlying presence in Dany’s narrative also evolves accordingly, here in relation to Dany’s fertility, here in her role as “Demeter” in Meereen (when she plants bean crops, olive trees), at a key time where Jorah (Hades) isn’t by her side. Hints pointing to Persephone and Demeter are all the more revealing because there seems to be a direct link between plant fertility, mother / child union and human fertility:

"I am the blood of the dragon," she told the grass, aloud.

Once, the grass whispered back, until you chained your dragons in the dark.

"Drogon killed a little girl. Her name was … her name …" Dany could not recall the child's name. That made her so sad that she would have cried if all her tears had not been burned away. "I will never have a little girl. I was the Mother of Dragons." – ADWD, Dany X

This "exchange" takes place in the Dothrake Sea, "paler than she remembered, a wan and sickly green on the verge of going yellow”. Dany, distraught by the death of a little girl, by the conviction that she herself will never conceive, and guilt-ridden for chaining her own "children" in a dark pit (another metaphor of Persephone chained to the underworld during winter), expresses her sorrow at the dying grass. Then, Jorah’s “ghost” returns to her:

Never, said the grass, in the gruff tones of Jorah Mormont. You were warned, Your Grace. Let this city be, I said. Your war is in Westeros, I told you. – ADWD, Dany X

The dying of the grass, crops and vegetation is always presented as the prima facie of the end of summer and the return of Persephone to the underworld. This is why the grass speaks with Jorah’s voice, and why Daenerys mourns her lost, forgotten or dead children in a dying grass sea.

Appearance and resorption of myths

We’ll try to tackle the character's role in a more general context here, because her narrative impact is currently limited to Essos. It’s through Tyrion that Dany and Westeros really intersect for the first time. From the fighting pits, Tyrion sees a veiled, “slender girl with silvery hair wrapped in a tokar” in the tribunes. This is not Jorah or Barristan, or even Quentyn Martell who, although tied to both sides of Planetos, do not play a significant role in what’s currently happening on the West side. Tyrion is another matter. He is the in-narrative eye of Westeros.

They’re about to unleash lions on Tyrion and Penny. As soon as she hears of it, Dany puts the breaks. Tyrion's memories of her make her akin to an apparition, or a mirage: veiled, indistinct, distant, soaring in a whirlwind of smoke on her dragon. It also happens in a place sharing glaring resemblances with the Red Waste:

“She had seen the fighting pits many times from her terrace. The small ones dotted the face of Meereen like pockmarks; the larger were weeping sores, red and raw.”

“The red sands drank his blood”

“Running, she could feel the sand between her toes, hot and rough.”

“He beat his wings again, sending up a choking storm of scarlet sand. Dany stumbled into the hot red cloud, coughing.”

“Black blood was flowing from the wound where the spear had pierced him, smoking where it dripped onto the scorched sands.”

“The black wings cracked like thunder, and suddenly the scarlet sands were falling away beneath her.” – ADWD, Dany IX

In ACOK, Dany and her Khalasar also encounter a mirage-like city in the desert:

"A city, Khaleesi," they cried. "A city pale as the moon and lovely as a maid. An hour's ride, no more."

When the city appeared before her, its walls and towers shimmering white behind a veil of heat, it looked so beautiful that Dany was certain it must be a mirage. – ACOK, Dany I

Vae Tolorro and Dany are not mirages, however. Vae Tolorro really saved Dany’s Khalasar from a certain death in the desert. Dany really saved Tyrion from the lions. The repercussions of her actions are too real, her physical impact on the story is too great for one to put her among the true "ghost" characters, such as Lynesse or Tysha.

Only, here’s the deal: Daenerys Targaryen is a character of exceptional circumstances, of one-time deals, and exceptional circumstances, 1) do not last, 2) do not happen again, and 3) are not recoverable. Circumstances such as these create myths, and myths are reproduced, or imitated, or preserved as legends, but they will never happen a second time like they happened on the first time. Vae Tolorro did exist once, but withdrew from the story once his function was filled, and Dany will likely never return there. Drogon did appear in the Daznak arena, causing an “unusual” disaster, but the incident is unlikely to happen again. What remains afterward of Vae Tolorro, of Daenerys and Drogon in the arena, are mirages, imitations and imitators. Dany is not at this stage. She is at the archaic stage of the first time (Mircea Eliade, The myth of the eternal return), where the gap between the mythical and the ordinary is the deepest, and where the resorption of the myth is the most brutally felt. Dany, a very human character in and of itself, suffers from these effects more than anyone. Immediately after the birth of her dragons (the mythical event), she must undertake a difficult journey in the desert, that leaves her physically worn out and, in a way, physically diminished (the resorption):

Dany hungered and thirsted with the rest of them. The milk in her breasts dried up, her nipples cracked and bled, and the flesh fell away from her day by day until she was lean and hard as a stick - ACOK, Dany I

And following immediately her first flight on Drogon (the mythical event) she gets lost in the Dothrake sea, which once again takes a physical toll on her –

It was afternoon by the time Dany found the stream she had glimpsed atop the hill. It was a rill, a rivulet, a trickle, no wider than her arm … and her arm had grown thinner every day she spent on Dragonstone. – ADWD, Dany X

- almost to the point of literally being resorbed into the earth:

My flesh will feed the wolves and carrion crows, she thought sadly, and worms will burrow through my womb. – ADWD, Dany X

There are therefore two fundamental elements one should consider with regards to Dany: the authentic myth, and the nostalgia of the lost myth. It’s part of what makes Dany’s narrative so compelling. The authentic myth belongs to an immemorial past. The memory of the myth belongs to the present. And Daenerys belongs to both. Should she reconcile these two parts? If so, is this reconciliation supposed to play a role in the outcome, not only of her own story, but of the entire series? We raise the issue because the myth / memory dichotomy is not exclusive to Dany; see, for example, the "Others" (the myth) and the three-eyed raven (the memory). It all remains to be seen. In any case, I’m intrigued by this tendency to bestow ghost-like characteristic to a character who’s frequently moving from one realm to another, whatever these realms are supposed to be: the world of the dead and the world of the living, the past and the present, the mythical and the real…

#asoiaf #asoiaf meta #valyrianscrolls #daenerys targaryen

79 notes · View notes

beyondthecosmicvoid · 4 years

Photo

~Henry VII: The Red Dragon’s Unlikely Triumph~

Henry’s victory to success is simply amazing due to how far down he was in the line of succession -if he was at all! Of all the Tudors, and don’t get me wrong I love them all! He had the most adventurous life! His life is the stuff of movies and you’ll see why. Henry was born to Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond and Margaret Beaufort, heiress of Lancaster in Philippa Gregory’s words. But she was far removed from the line of succession! The Beauforts derived their name from a castle John of Gaunt had in his possession in English occupied French territory. John of Gaunt married three times, the last to his mistress Katherine Swybford. When they married their children were already grown up but by no means less ambitious. In an effort to ingratiate himself with the shifty king Richard II, John betrayed many of his comrades and persecuted anyone who stood against the king, his nephew. In return for his good services, Richard II legitimized all the Beauforts but that’s it. No say if they were inthe succession or not. Later after John died, his firstborn, Henry Bolingbroke ascended to the throne after he deposed Richard. He didn’t overturn Richard’s legislation but added a new restriction: The Beauforts were legitimate in the eyes of the law of men but due to their revious bastard status they were excluded from the line of succession. So bye-bye ambitions. By the time Henry IV’s grandson had issue, this changed altogether. Their descendants were still seen as progeny of a bastard branch (albeit legitimized) of the House of Lancaster but their status had changed overnight as support build around the Duke of York and his Neville relations (who also descended from the Beaufort line, but through the female line). Henry VI betrothed his young relation, Margaret Beaufort to his half brother Edmund Tudor. He was thirteen years her senior and while it was common for women to be married at a young age, people still found it disturbing because the groom didn’t wait for her to grow up. As soon as she was 12, he married her and the next year she was pregnant.Edmund and his brother Jasper had supported the Duke of York on various occasions but when the conflict escalated to war, the Tudor brothers sided with their kin. Edmund was captured during battle in late 1456 and died in attenpts to escape, possibly of sickness. Margaret , thirteen at a time, was already a young widow and expectant mother. She feared for her safety and the safety of her unborn child so she started a dangerous sojourn to Wales, to Pembroke castle where her brother in law resided. There, she gave birth to her only child, a boy she named Henry.Henry did not have a lonely childhood like some Ricardians and fiction writerss love to depict, nor was his mother a crazy fanatic. She was the same as the rest of the women. Religion was not separate, it was part of women’s lives, especially the adoration of female saints and the virgin Mary from whom women kept relics and images to pray to so they could be safely delivered or to protect their young. Of this latter cult, Henry became a firm follower, worshipping the image of the blessed mother with the same fervor as his mother. Likely, the little boy had childhood companions like David Owen, the illegitimate son of his grandfather by an unknown mistress. In spite of her second marriage, Margaret was allowed to visit her little boy and spend hours teaching him, but then her fortunes changed when Edward Earl of March forced the Lancastrians to flee and was declared king by popular acclaim in March 4 1461. Margaret and her new husband now had to curry favor with the new regime and to prove their loyalty, they had to let her son go. Edward saw Henry Tudor as a potential threat and to neutralize this threat he gave his custody to a loyal Yorkist, William Herbert and his wife Anne. They raised Henry as if he was one of their own, and he had the company of the new Earl’s other wards. But Henry knew that a prison made of gold was still a prison. One mistake from his mother, his guadians or worse, his runaway uncle and he would be dealt with.After the Lancastrian Readeption which only lasted a year, Jasper Tudor was forced to flee yet again. This time he took his nephew with him. The deaths of every Lancaster made Henry a potential threat. Every male Beaufort was also gone. Margaret had to let him go once more, this time she would not see him for another fourteen years.Bad weather brought them to the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. There he continued his education, by the time of Richard III’s accession, he enjoyed the company of many English exiles, among them the formidable and staunch Lancastrian loyalist -Earl of Oxford. It was in Brittanny, that December of 1483 after it was clear that the princes were gone for good, that he made a promise to marry Elizabeth of York and become King of England, thus uniting both bloodlines, the Houses of York and Lancaster into one.The next year and a half he spent his time planning, borrowing money and now in the court of France, currying favor with the French king. He had tried to invade England but failed. What made Henry think, the French king and others told him, he could succeed? But they didn’t know Henry. He was by now an educated, cosmopolitan young man who was also confident that god was on his side. On July 29 1485, Richard III gave the seal to Barrow, one of his officials to carry out his orders in the counties nearby and prepare for war.To be fair, Richard III was the most experienced soldier here. He had known the horrors of war since he was very little and his life parallels Henry’s but unlike the latter he had been participant in many military campaigns and had the entire North at his disposal. Henry had mercenaries, disatisfied English exiles, Edwardian Yorkists and most of Wales with him, but that was not enough to beat Richard’s armies. On August 7, Henry’s ships docked on Milford Haven. According to Fabyan when he disembarked he knelt and thanked god, reciting the Psalm 43: ‘Judica me deus & discern causam mean’. -Judge me, Oh god, and distinguish my cause. The following days he spent recruiting, some of Richard’s most staunch supporters defected to Henry, others refused to fight and just stood by as the two armies clashed on August 22. Others like his stepfather, chose to intervene in his favor only when the tide turned against him. After William Brandon, his standard bearer was struck down, Stanley and his brother with his armies charged down, and with their combined forced Richard’s was cut down. Richard, according to various sources screamed 'traitors’ and refused to go, instead seeking to confront Henry, but he never got to. The enemy got to him and he was forced down from his horse and minutes later, killed. It was a glorious day for Henry Tudor, now Henry VII. He had won against all odds, but the war was from over. Henry would face many pretenders and plots against him, his mother knew and she cried tears of fear, likely anticipating all her son would have to endure. He died in 1509 after twenty four years of reign.

In relation to Paul Atreides from DUNE MESSIAH onwards …

While DUNE, the first published novel of Frank Herbert set in the Dune universe is the book every reader should start with; DUNE MESSIAH is the most crucial one of ALL Dune novels because rather than reading like a science fiction novel or another inclusion into this space opera, it reads like a narrative tale that is chronicling events that already happened. For a history buff, this novel is the deciding book in the series that sets the tone for the rest of the saga. Additionally, aside from being a deconstruction of the hero mythos, it is also a critique of history. From the onset, the book starts with one of many historians being killed simply because he wanted to tell the truth. But obviously, Muad’Dib, the grand emperor Paul Atreides with his ongoing Jihad spread across the Known Universe can’t have that. So … what does he do? He starts rewriting the past, allowing only a few historians (who in reality are propagandists and religious zealots) to tell his version of history. Irulan is (thankfully) exempt from this. Despite being made fun of by the ‘I do not need to read books because thanks to the spice melange and the superior breeding program of the Bene-Gesserit I am a product of, I can access all the knowledge stored in my super evolved brain to keep feeding my ego’ crowd, she stays a true historian until the very end. She doesn’t agree with Paul Atreides or his other crazy fam, but slowly comes to realize that what they are doing (while terrible) needs to be done to free humanity of pre-destination and oblivion. And due to being understimated by the pretentious Lady Jessica, her husband’s concubine and true love, the Fremen Chani, and of course, Paul and his whole band of Jihadists, she gets to write down history as it truly transpires. But she does it in a way that makes him look less of a tyrant and more of a reluctant hero.

This historical treatment is the same kind of treatment that was given to the Tudor Dynasty starting from its very first monarch, HENRY VII.

I long for the day that Henry VII is correctly portrayed on screen because the way that the Tudors have gone down in history is how the Atreides clan did in the Dune universe. For every history buff that has enjoyed Dune, I urge that likewise, Dune readers do a deep dive into Tudor history to further appreciate both fandoms and see how the two can be studied together and dissected. Currently, revisionist historians who want to restore Richard III’s reputation have not ended up doing that. Instead, they have swung the pendulum the other way. As DUNE MESSIAH teaches us (through Irulan’s writings and Alia’s observations), the best way to understand saviors and deified leaders is not by extolling or vilifying them. Rather, see them as individuals trapped within their time period who feel as though they are ahead of it, and have to do what they must because otherwise darkness will reign.

Paul and Henry Tudor started off as exiles. Their foes never expected them to beat the odds but they did. But part of the reason why they did is because of the element of prophecy. And I am not just talking about the whole Henry Tudor claimed to be the long lost descendant of Arthur Pendragon and what not. Edward IV and Richard III did that too (though it worked less for Richard). I am talking about the issue with the whole Welsh prophecies that supposedly predicted the rise of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Before he was born, a prophecy was sung that from his father’s line, the savior that the Welsh were hoping for would come. This prophecy in itself was a call back to a much older one which said that eventually one of the Welsh royal houses would rise to claim the English throne and unite all of the Isles. Well … Henry didn’t unite all of the British Isles but he did start the process when he married his eldest daughter Margaret to the King of Scots, James IV. Their descendants, from James VI of Scotland and I of England and Ireland, ruled all the British Isles.

In an interview, Frank Herbert said that he chose to take the direction of Paul Atreides and (especially) his son, Leto II’s stories in the way he did to caution about the danger of charismatic leaders who reach messiah or (in the case of Leto II) divine status. It’s not so much the power they possess or how evolved thy are that makes the Atreides so revered, it is their genius at how they present themselves and understand that the power of propaganda (be it religious, political or both) is the stronger force in the universe and what shapes human events. In studying the Tudors and Dune we learn that history is a collection of accepted events that are part factual, part propaganda, and part a reflection of the time period when they were written.

#Tudors #History #Relation to Dune #Dune Messiah #Science Fiction #propaganda is thy name of history #dailytudors

14 notes · View notes

aph1wonderland · 3 years

Text

Achilles Come Down(Songfic)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_V76Dm42bY

(by Gangs Of Youths) Happy late birthday Kay {1/11}]

Achilles

Achilles come down, won't you

Get up off

Get up off the roof?

She heard stories, how people get visions blessed by archons, when they know they have lost something dear to them. It's selfish for her to claim she has so much, but how can she bare face with the honorless daughter who selfishly granted a wish to her desperate mother? To be given freedom, but at what cost? The obedient daughter can no longer learn because her household refused her to excel in her gifts they sold her.

You're scaring us

And all of us

Some of us love you

Achilles, it's not much but there's proof

She could only acknowledge the sacrifices of her mother’s paranoia and insanity driving her to act out of her driven mind. Forced to push her first daughter gifted to leave the nest before the danger of a curse to seal her away. What a feeling she learned when fought as a child, not entirely understanding why her fragile and injured mother could dare teach her violent arts of breaking bones. No matter what she could with the trait passed down to obey like she did, the inhuman strength was supposed to be her brother’s. Was she supposed to be a man, or play a coward of a woman like she was last time she saw her.

You crazy assed cosmonaut

Remember your virtue

Redemption lies plainly in truth

Perhaps it was insane to teach her child to fight and out of turn for her to act this way on the day she was supposed to depart away to Fontaine. To run, a virtue truly from her heart, passion but plainly she didn’t know how to fly by herself if she nested warmly alone in her noble home. But maybe it was a better hesitation than she thought distracted by the differences of Liyue Harbor the sounds, the unknown to the factors of cultures shifted from them and herself.

Just humour us

Achilles

Achilles come down

Won't you get up off

Get up off the roof

She was bringing too much attention to herself. A distraction to few of the many bustling crowds, it did not help if she was holding her vision from Inazuma. The crafted origin of her homelands if only it was possible to cover it up, but she cannot do anything to god blessed item. Afraid to break such a glorified object that could possibly bring her even more fear brought among her. She could not say much but the expensive silks of her layers of clothing on her and mora tied as the side of her sash. Perhaps this was a better choice to exchange for more temporary stability.

Achilles

Achilles come down, won't you

Get up off

Get up off the roof?

Parting for her meticulous layers, as if she felt bare to foreign weather. It was an uncommonly shifted need to adapt. To live is to survive the world that felt dangerous in the as if shores she arrived at the port, soaking her soles. As the hydro element felt attuned as she gazed over it, perhaps she mistaken it for cryo for a few seconds. The newly acquired clothing felt perhaps embarrassing to be seen wearing it, but it must be done. Exposing skin could throw them off of her, needing eyes to attend too afforded a pair of glasses to wear. No longer blinded and blurred by the setback.

The self is not so weightless

Nor whole and unbroken

Remember the pact of our youth

She planned back to see the village of her mother, in which she thought would be best to rely on them for a settlement. As quick she wanted to live again, the feeling of the forest life once again she’ll dearly make it possible to work away her favor and honor. The face of her selfish wish from her mother’s demands, for once she’ll do her justice in living in the truth then the lie. She was the selfish one in the end to drink the god’s gift in the journey of living outside the box.

Where you go

I'm going

So jump and I'm jumping

Since there is no me without you

The hardest part was truly talking to the leader of the community of Qingce Village. Basic knowledge of contract is the word of the old in Liyue, for that it must be fair to do so as a way to be accepted. As long as she can work what she can there’ll be no one to stop her from becoming something unexpected. Perhaps if she’ll survive the jump she’s making herself take, someday she’ll see her mother smile once more. One day she will not need to hear rumors of the walls that could speak about her siblings and the warmth of the sun not the gaze of cold expectations.

Soldier on

Achilles

Achilles come down

Won't you get up off

Get up off the roof?

As if her eyes hesitated at the time she heard from the old woman, she warmly laughed off her noble character she played. She felt warm, her own layer of her mask cracking and her face wrinkling in confusion. Perhaps one day she’ll understand why she left, accepted into the community and warm tears to the location to her new home. Gazing at the moon and the stars among the indigo sky, on the roof. Feeling alone at the end of the ledge wondering why does she feel this sadness?

Loathe the way they light candles in Rome

But love the sweet air of the votives

Hurt and grieve but don't suffer alone

Engage with the pain as a motive

It had been an additional two years she had hesitated a few times to work her way into the community once again, when the old woman told her to visit the night of the lantern festival and live a bit. Scolding her for something as tedious as working too much for others and not herself. She wishes to stay, tending her home, to the children in the village. Listen over to the elderly and middle aged for things to do, when she returns from the commissions in the early morning before. She could not see herself anymore as a woman who could stand sitting looking beautiful in wealth in silken in silence without someone or a book in hand. Yet here she is fidgeting to do something in Liyue Harbor, gazing at the port away from the festivity waiting for it to end. Hands shaking over the candle lights, flashing sounds of fireworks behind her.

Today of all days

See

Leaning against the stone fencing far away from the peaceful cold tones wondering about Inazuma. Her 2nd younger sister, Kaori was already sent to Fontaine after her brother 3rd youngest Daichi was prepared. Who knows where, but hope the best for him. That his wife would not stop him from doing what he loved in the end. Becoming an alchemist and a doctor, something she felt taken from her life however perhaps this is the exchange of her natural build taking away his inhuman strength. She loved every single child born in that house. Chie, she has yet to entirely meet, but she must have been close to a mischievous child she was when she was younger running in the fields. Last time she remembered from her nanny telling her before sending her off from the interception of her mother that week she fled.

How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above

Thinking about it now she was alone on the side of this world, the chills returned. It felt suffocating and an uncomfortable delusion to find herself drowning in the sea of doubt. The constellation of her verse was a siren, or a mermaid. They long and lost their dreams and here she was living the dream not of hers but someone else's, what could she say now but choke back the mourning not of death but the new life given to her. Perhaps she’ll love the gods for this life for hers, the opportunities to breath in the beauty of Liyue. Live for the virtues of Justice, but for now she shall wait for the day to be taken back home, not alone but with others in strength.

Achilles

Jump now

You are absent of cause

Or excuse

She flinched when she turned to look to the side to see a tall man, he was beautiful. Awed at the sight of the strangely encapsulating man who was glowing entrancingly from the lights and the moon as well. Mostly his vision of his eyes from the mid ranged distance, she panicked once again when he caught her staring. Flustered in beyond her life had she met a man who made her feel so out of place. He was confused why she suddenly looked away, “Miss? Perhaps you are a traveler? Considering I have yet to see you before in this country? Have finished experiencing the festival in Liyue?” She froze, right the festival that is taking place right now. Was she dreading for so long to not realize the time?

So self-indulgent

And self-referential

No audience could ever want you

One thing is for sure she was embarrassed herself once again, no way to correct the fact she had nothing to tell this man to answer that. “Perhaps you are asking for an introduction from a stranger like myself, but it does not seem fair if you do not return the favor first. In all honesty I did not partake in the event, I tend to busy myself too much in working around Liyue as an Adventurer from the guild. Well I don’t know how to experience these events. It’s best for me not to attend and perhaps ruin it all. Good night Sir.” She shouldn’t bother this man at all, leaving was the only thing on her mind.

You crave the applause

Yet hate the attention

Then miss it, your act is a ruse

“Would it be possible for me to guide you through the festival? Of course I am Zhongli of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, a consultant, may I ask for the name of your Miss?” She stopped, “I would not mind if you were to show me the knowledge of yours of your beloved Liyue. I am Kay of Haru, please do not mind my hesitancy and not honor among me to be called anything as Miss. Kay is enough for me to be called in such a fluency.” Returning a feeble gaze up to him, taking him as her guide for that night to return alive that day.

It is empty, Achilles

So end it all now

It's a pointless resistance

For you

Achilles

Just put down the bottle

Don't listen to what you've consumed

Open to opportunities and refreshed and ready to work her life for another day to look for Mister Zhongli had inspired her to take on learning the world the best she can starting with Liyue. From the whole trip listening to him speak the loveliest tunes of a tone, enchanted possibly. Yet she began to notice how little time she spent on her commissions in which she decided to ask Katherine in a few hours for more things to do. In which she began to enjoy the thrill of control she realized of her life envirgated by the thought itself grew her confidence and growth in her skills. Passing 5 years had affected her bond with Mister Zhongli to increase in size on her personal affections to his personal side of feelings towards simple things in life. Someone who could answer her curiosities in the best way they could and confide, not once thought about leaving the country of Liyue.

It's chaos, confusion

And wholly unworthy

Of feeding and it's wholly untrue

Yet with few time he found her as often as he could in Liyue in finding her in returning to Katherine filing in the many commissions built as she carried on her shoulders. He gave her glaze lilies on her birthday each year, not sure how he knew, but perhaps the old woman told him. Cooking was one her specialties in which she began collecting recipes after trying to find a way to return back to Mister Zhongli to acknowledge his distaste in seafood as a reminder. Perhaps he was too addicting to let go, however was that alright to call him something close to a friend. Would that be alright with him?

You may feel no purpose

Nor a point for existing

It's all just conjecture and gloom

Yet she would miss him as much as she thought when Childe took on his arrival. Perhaps the fact alone that she took on now is the gnawing hunger, she was childish to share a desire of hers with him. Considering the truth, he always found her and never the other way around. She did not see him that much anymore, feeling like a distant memory that returns every week he does. Never once complained for the fact she enjoyed his company, for the returning fact, she was lonely.

And there may not be meaning

So find one and seize it

Do not waste your self on this roof

Perhaps for once a longing will not leave her and let her stay on the roof of her home given to her and the children of those who breathed in this village. The moon was always lucky to know it was never alone, possibilities of her insecurities to eat her. Was she not worthy to know the fact she is not considered in the spotlight, but entirely on being known? Still he gave her glaze lilies on her birthday.

Hear those bells ring deep in the soul

Chiming away for a moment

Feel your breath course frankly below

See life as a worthy opponent

Driven to bite back the petty thieves in Liyue with her strength reporting to the adventurer’s guild and stealing treasures and effort from others. She did not like them, she made sure to take note of base locations from each leader she fought, monsters she battled and planned meticulously in a clean beat down. Same old same old, spending Mora on things she could think of. To one she could tend to a bird; Kyu a loving bird with a blank expression but a silent affectionate one in the end of it all, who carries packages and wordless secrets of her loneliness. Perhaps her own feelings she can express is what tearing her apart over and over again. Life was hers to learn more of as her commissions made her wander to Monstadt’s region but never once thought about entering into the city of freedom.

Today of all days

See

How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above

Crowned by an overture bold and beyond

Ah, it's more courageous to overcome

She faced Childe in a confrontation when Mister Zhongli brought him over for dinner that week at her home. Why did it take a year for her to finally meet Childe, Mister Zhongli? She frowned, but bonded slowly with Childe, he was pretty sketchy around her, but nonetheless she wasn’t alone if Childe actually had something to confide with family. Considering they had similar visions from the same values of Justice but different archons blessed. He gave white lies with reason, sometimes it was cruel to keep to himself. While Kay herself was one who hesitates but nevertheless her strength is for the good reasons that are proven. Yet even the harder things get she won’t give in so easily she rather die fighting for things that are right, failing to do so does not mean she’ll stop. The moment she’ll stop if she dies breathing blood. Perhaps that’s why she talks with him often, even that does not satisfy her.

You want the acclaim

The mother of mothers (it's not worth it Achilles)

More poignant than fame

Or the taste of another (don't listen Achilles)

But be real and just jump

You dense motherf*cker (you're worth more, Achilles)

You will not be more

Than a rat in the gutter (so much more than a rat)

You want my opinion (no one asked your opinion)

My opinion you've got

You asked for my counsel (no one asked for your thoughts)

I gave you my thoughts

Be done with this now

And jump off the roof

Can you hear me Achilles?

Mister Zhongli lowered his visits to her compared to Childe who was able to find him whenever he needed to talk to him. However another person, the traveler, arrived in Liyue a few weeks ago. However Mister Zhongli had briefly mentioned her if they needed any assistance. Not sure how to feel if he was using her, unsure if their bond would be truly mended and here she was letting him into her own heart every time he came. Why does she hesitate when it comes to him? Someone who could destroy all her defenses and weaken her to the point she doesn’t help but stutter. She’s not sure if Mister Zhongli realizes as she doesn’t entirely, she is hurting. She is selfish to continue this cycle she let herself eat till he leaves her. This is not entirely healthy, she’s disgusted to look how encapsulated when it comes to him. Perhaps it’s better to give up before it ruins her, she thought. She’s selfish to think he would see her again. Does this mean she’s drowning by the sea with no shores for her to rely on.

I'm talking to you

Achilles come down

“Kay.” She stood by the cliffs and turned around to see Mister Zhongli with the Traveler. She is confused yet a bit sad by her own thoughts of self pity. “Mister Zhongli. It’s been too long hasn’t it?” The Traveler worriedly looked in between them. “Hello dear Traveler, I hope you’ve been well, I hope I did well to help you in Liyue.” She ignored the fact Zhongli was about to respond to her, but ended letting him continue since the Traveler nudged him to do so. “I apologize, if I left you too much in the dark. Perhaps we could mend for a few moments with a story to tell. I will confess the fact I was not honest in my reasons for disappearing too much.” Her eyes conflicted, whether or not he was truly speaking his mind, but knowing him for years regardless of his disappearance. She sighs, bitterly but allowing his invitation to tell about the salt goddess that late evening.

Throw yourself into the unknown

With pace and a fury defiant

Clothe yourself in beauty untold

And see life as a means to a triumph

Today of all days

See

One thing she could even do was not judge him, but comfort him as a human like she was born to do. Sure she was angry, but nothing could compare over the immortal and emotional wounds that cut deeply over time and left a swollen temperament of a situation. She cannot help but relate once again leaving her fragile over the fact she wasn’t smart enough to understand him, but connect through the empathic nature she was. In the end she knew she'd join the Traveler to Inazuma to finish her parting justice for her country. Perhaps one day she’ll understand to feel more, if they joined them. Perhaps she’ll tell people in Liyue about her choice in following the Traveler.

How the most dangerous thing is to love

How you will heal and you'll rise above

Crowned by an overture bold and beyond

Ah, it's more courageous to overcome

She loved this man to the end of her aging life, even if he would not take it for granted compared to her existence. After following her beloved traveler to the end of their journey, healing her country she must take over duties as next head with the revived honor of her clan. She realizes Mister Zhongli will wait for her, not the reason she wants to believe. In which she cannot return the sentiment that he plans to give back in the end. That is not the love she needed from him, nor can force it. For that she will settle for another, her children will remember the age or gods in her place. She will heal and forgive him over and over again. For she will love him to not feel forgotten for eternity. Perhaps he was right to compare her to glaze lilies on her birthdays.

#genshin impact #genshin impact oc #oc #songfic #angst #zhongli #the traveler #mc #oof #why did i take 6 hours #cause i started fking crying and shit #happy late birthday #sduhfkjvsiodjk

4 notes · View notes

minervacasterly · 4 years

Text

The Unlikely Rise of Henry VII

Henry's victory to success is simply amazing due to how far he was in the line of succession -if he was at all!

Of all the Tudors, and don't get me wrong I love them all! He had the most adventurous life! His life is the stuff of movies and you'll see why. Henry was born to Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond and Margaret Beaufort, heiress of Lancaster in Philipa Gregory's words. But she was far removed from the line of succession! The Beauforts derived their name from a castle John of Gaunt had in his possession in English occupied French territory. John of Gaunt married three times, the last to his mistress Katherine Swybford. When they married their children were already grown up but by no means less ambitious. In an effort to ingratiate himself with the shifty king Richard II, John betrayed many of his comrades and persecuted anyone who stood against the king, his nephew. In return for his good services, Richard II legitimized all the Beauforts but that's it. No say if they were inthe succession or not. Later after John died, his firstborn, Henry Bolingbroke ascended to the throne after he deposed Richard. He didn't overturn Richard's legislation but added a new restriction: The Beauforts were legitimate in the eyes of the law of men but due to their revious bastard status they were excluded from the line of succession. So bye-bye ambitions. By the time Henry IV's grandson had issue, this changed altogether. Their descendants were still seen as progeny of a bastard branch (albeit legitimized) of the House of Lancaster but their status had changed overnight as support build around the Duke of York and his Neville relations (who also descended from the Beaufort line, but through the female line). Henry VI betrothed his young relation, Margaret Beaufort to his half brother Edmund Tudor. He was thirteen years her senior and while it was common for women to be married at a young age, people still found it disturbing because the groom didn't wait for her to grow up. As soon as she was 12, he married her and the next year she was pregnant.

Edmund and his brother Jasper had supported the Duke of York on various occasions but when the conflict escalated to war, the Tudor brothers sided with their kin. Edmund was captured during battle in late 1456 and died in attenpts to escape, possibly of sickness. Margaret , thirteen at a time, was already a young widow and expectant mother. She feared for her safety and the safety of her unborn child so she started a dangerous sojourn to Wales, to Pembroke castle where her brother in law resided. There, she gave birth to her only child, a boy she named Henry.

Henry did not have a lonely childhood like some Ricardians and fiction writerss love to depict, nor was his mother a crazy fanatic. She was the same as the rest of the women. Religion was not separate, it was part of women's lives, especially the adoration of female saints and the virgin Mary from whom women kept relics and images to pray to so they could be safely delivered or to protect their young. Of this latter cult, Henry became a firm follower, worshipping the image of the blessed mother with the same fervor as his mother.

Likely, the little boy had childhood companions like David Owen, the illegitimate son of his grandfather by an unknown mistress. In spite of her second marriage, Margaret was allowed to visit her little boy and spend hours teaching him, but then her fortunes changed when Edward Earl of March forced the Lancastrians to flee and was declared king by popular acclaim in March 4 1461. Margaret and her new husband now had to curry favor with the new regime and to prove their loyalty, they had to let her son go. Edward saw Henry Tudor as a potential threat and to neutralize this threat he gave his custody to a loyal Yorkist, William Herbert and his wife Anne. They raised Henry as if he was one of their own, and he had the company of the new Earl's other wards. But Henry knew that a prison made of gold was still a prison. One mistake from his mother, his guadians or worse, his runaway uncle and he would be dealt with.

After the Lancastrian Readeption which only lasted a year, Jasper Tudor was forced to flee yet again. This time he took his nephew with him. The deaths of every Lancaster made Henry a potential threat. Every male Beaufort was also gone. Margaret had to let him go once more, this time she would not see him for another fourteen years.

Bad weather brought them to the court of Francis II, Duke of Brittany. There he continued his education, by the time of Richard III's accession, he enjoyed the company of many English exiles, among them the formidable and staunch Lancastrian loyalist -Earl of Oxford. It was in Brittanny, that December of 1483 after it was clear that the princes were gone for good, that he made a promise to marry Elizabeth of York and become King of England, thus uniting both bloodlines, the Houses of York and Lancaster into one.

The next year and a half he spent his time planning, borrowing money and now in the court of France, currying favor with the French king. He had tried to invade England but failed. What made Henry think, the French king and others told him, he could succeed? But they didn't know Henry. He was by now an educated, cosmopolitan young man who was also confident that god was on his side.

On July 29 1485, Richard III gave the seal to Barrow, one of his officials to carry out his orders in the counties nearby and prepare for war.

To be fair, Richard III was the most experienced soldier here. He had known the horrors of war since he was very little and his life parallels Henry's but unlike the latter he had been participant in many military campaigns and had the entire North at his disposal. Henry had mercenaries, disatisfied English exiles, Edwardian Yorkists and most of Wales with him, but that was not enough to beat Richard's armies.

On August 7, Henry's ships docked on Milford Haven. According to Fabyan when he disembarked he knelt and thanked god, reciting the Psalm 43: 'Judica me deus & discern causam mean'. -Judge me, Oh god, and distinguish my cause.

The following days he spent recruiting, some of Richard's most staunch supporters defected to Henry, others refused to fight and just stood by as the two armies clashed on August 22. Others like his stepfather, chose to intervene in his favor only when the tide turned against him. After William Brandon, his standard bearer was struck down, Stanley and his brother with his armies charged down, and with their combined forced Richard's was cut down. Richard, according to various sources screamed 'traitors' and refused to go, instead seeking to confront Henry, but he never got to. The enemy got to him and he was forced down from his horse and minutes later, killed. It was a glorious day for Henry Tudor, now Henry VII. He had won against all odds, but the war was from over. Henry would face many pretenders and plots against him, his mother knew and she cried tears of fear, likely anticipating all her son would have to endure. He died in 1509 after twenty four years of reign.

#tudor history #henry vii #wars of the roses #york #lancaster #early english renaissance

14 notes · View notes

verannaca · 4 years

Text

(One Last) Chance.

whoa, another fic?? someone better stop me

anyway, when i was writing Some Things Change, i’d had this overwhelming urge to delve further into everyone’s feelings and reactions, as disney has a tendency to half-ass human emotion?? there are consequences for actions; this is known. i wanted to explore consequences and how they’re dealt with - delving into Anna and Elsa like this isn’t something I’ve done before, but it was fun. hopefully it’s well done :’)

i’m definitely an anna fan (not just because we have the same weird name); she’s a character that helped me on a personal level when i was in a time of need. i’ve never really related to nor liked Elsa but i do try really hard to understand her perspective, and i like her more now that i’ve explored her character.

this fic is very pro Anna and Elsa! it does not favour one or the other. that said, if you are an Elsanna shipper, leave. This is strictly platonic and sisterly and i don’t want y’all fucking it up lol

Warnings - this fic contains: characters with ptsd, emotional trauma, mentions of neglect including child neglect, mentions of panic attacks, detailed anxiety attacks, mentions of severe loss/death, and details of grief. I know these warnings sometimes sound ridiculously intense compared to what the story really is, but i’d rather be overdramatic than underdramatic. (fic is about double the length of the last one, and it takes place after the events of Frozen2, so this is your spoiler warning??)

Also, I can’t believe the feedback on my last story?? i’m so pleased :’) anyway, i’ll shut up now. enjoy.

Anna had been Queen for a few weeks, but those weeks hadn't been peaceful. She had so much to say, and never the time to say it. Until, one night, it all comes out, and suddenly, Elsa is faced with a horrible reality: her sister isn't okay.

XXX

All she could hear was the sound of ice cracking and shifting. The sounds echoed throughout the ancient glacier; it was deafening. Only barely could the sound of footsteps be heard as she made her way across the ice. She knew it was too late. She was shivering; terrified— she'd never felt the cold before. Her hands were so cold, she could barely move her fingers. Her hair had turned white and her skin was beginning to frost over. Is this the end?

She had to do this. It's what's right. It has to be. This voice had been calling her for months; it was time to find out the truth. She could've told her sister. She should have told her sister. But she was afraid of frightening her. Afraid of bringing more trouble into her life.

That didn't work. Anna had to know these things. She had to. She couldn't function otherwise. Her anxiety wouldn't allow it. Elsa knew this, and yet, she kept another secret.

It would've been fine—Anna was understanding. It all would have worked out, but then Elsa did the unthinkable.

She pushed Anna away.

Again.

That was the last time they'd seen each other. They'd fought; Anna was desperate to protect her sister, and in the heat of the moment, Elsa was unable to communicate clearly. She couldn't explain that Anna couldn't come with. That it required magic; that it was dangerous. No. If Anna knew that it was dangerous, she definitely wouldn't have let Elsa go.

But Elsa needed answers. And now, she was alone. Unable to communicate with the living. She was freezing; dying; alone. Her guilt became overwhelming when she realised that she wasn't going to return to her sister. She had found what she was searching for, yes, but was this sacrifice worth it?

She couldn't move. It was dark, and so cold. Her legs were frozen; the ice was spreading up her body. Her hand froze in place; with her free one, she called out her sister's name and sent her an important piece of the past.

And then, she was gone. Frozen solid. Breathless. Dead.

The look of horror on her face was something that could never be unseen. This wasn't supposed to happen. She promised.

The glacier was still loud; the sounds of the ice became haunting. It was overwhelming. The voice of the siren that called to her began to fade back in, but that peaceful call turned into a scream. A loud, high-pitched scream.

A male voice faded in; “Anna! It's okay! You're dreaming!”

Anna’s eyes shot open and she bolted upright, gasping for air. There was a faint squeak in her voice with each breath she took. She was quickly wrapped in a tight embrace—this wasn't the first time she’d woken up like this. Kristoff had barely been sleeping these days; he'd hold her until she was asleep, then he'd watch her for hours.

Three years they'd been together, and he'd never seen her so distraught. They talked about this recurring nightmare of hers—there were two of them, set in two different caves.

She didn't know how she knew that Elsa suffered a similar fate that she herself did three years ago, but she knew. She knew in the moment; she felt it. She knew her sister died alone; that she'd experienced something so intense; something she could have never imagined. And Anna was devastated. It gutted her. All she wanted to do—all she'd ever tried to do was protect her sister. And she failed.

Elsa was alive. She was okay— she'd found herself. She had decided a few weeks ago to stay in Northuldra; she felt more at home there. Anna was happy for her sister, and more than understanding. She wished her all the best, and spoke to her often.

But what Anna always failed to mention or show was how angry she was.

Her fiancé knew. He had to hear all of it, all the time. He wanted to listen, though. He wanted to help her cope. It was important to him. He'd always put her first; to her, he felt like the first person to truly see her. To truly see and hear Anna.

She'd always been kept in the dark. She was always the last to know about anything and everything. It stung, badly, especially when she discovered her parents met their demise because they were searching for answers about Elsa's abilities—yet another thing that they failed to tell their youngest daughter.

Anna wasn't selfish. The exact opposite. She put everyone else before her. Always. When they found the shipwreck; when Elsa pulled up those memories, Anna was devastated for her sister. She knew how agonising it must have felt.

But Anna needed care, too. Those were her parents, too. And their last thoughts; their last exchange was about Elsa.

It hurt. It hurt more than she would've liked. And even after such a tragic discovery, Anna couldn't resonate with her sister. No, Elsa had to push her away, and Anna found herself alone again.

And god, was she angry. She had never been so angry.

How could she be left alone? After everything? Why would Elsa do such a thing?

It was in that cave that Anna hit her low. The lowest she had ever felt. She'd never felt so helpless; so pained. She was reprocessing the loss of her parents; she was trying to not be angry at them, but it was difficult. They left her with nothing. Then, she had to process the loss of Elsa. Her sister; her universe; her other half. The only person that mattered. And that thought hurt her in a different way. What about Kristoff? He mattered; he was her best friend, and she left him behind. And Olaf—the only good thing from her childhood; her last beacon of hope and light was gone. Because of Elsa's decisions.

Anger. A high level of anger that she couldn't seem to get past.

To add to it? She had no home to return to. She knew she had to break the dam; she knew her kingdom would most likely be wiped out.

She cried alone in that cave all night. She clung on tight to the satchel that contained her mother's scarf and what remained of her frozen friend, and she cried. She grieved. She may have slept at some point, but her dreams seemed to fade into reality. Nothing felt real. Nothing felt right.

And it was in that cave that Anna realised: she was worth fighting for. Yes; Anna was valid. Anna was worthy. Anna would be okay in time. She was more than a spare. She had to see that for herself. She had to stand for herself; trying to put motivation behind destroying her home was impossible. She couldn't get up for that.

No. She had to get up for Anna. Because Anna deserved better.

And so, she did. It was too much to handle at times; she fell over her own feet as she struggled to step. But she managed. She found her way out of the cave and tried to do the next right thing.

She never told Kristoff that she had contemplated her life. He didn't need to know. She was reckless; challenging death. She needed to see how close she could get. It was when she almost didn't stick the landing as she leaped off the falling dam that she realised she didn't want to die.

Mattias had saved her. And then, she was safe in her lover's arms.

Just as she was right now. In her bed, in her bedroom, in the home that wasn't destroyed, being held by the person she loved the most, and although her heart was beating too fast and her palms were sweaty, she did feel safe.

It was just a nightmare.

They stayed in silence for a while; they'd already discussed these events to the point where Kristoff was beginning to have the same nightmares. But his were about Anna being alone in that cave. He loved Elsa, truly, but he knew Anna was the one who had really suffered.

So, he held her. He held her until she fell asleep, then he laid her down and held her until the sun came up.

It was Friday. Kristoff had guided Anna through the morning and early afternoon; he was worried about her well-being. They'd agreed to be completely open with each other, and Anna was able to talk about her deepest darkest feelings, fears, and secrets, and not feel like prey. Elsa was coming that evening for their typical weekly catch-up and game night. The first few times, Anna had been excited to see her sister. They both had so much to share. But Anna was tired now, and Elsa was a reminder of her pain.

She didn't let it affect their evening. She wouldn't ever dream of making Elsa feel anything negative. She understood.

But sometimes, she wished Elsa paid more attention to her feelings. She wished her sister could be as loving as attentive as Anna was for her. Sadly, that just wasn't the case.

It had been storming all day, typical for this time of year. Anna and Kristoff had met Elsa just outside the gates, as they usually did. She greeted them both with pleasant hugs and greetings, excited to see them. Time flew by for her in the forest; the weeks felt like they lasted only a day.

It was during their reunion that Elsa made a quick comment; “let's get you both inside before you freeze to death!”

It was a half-hearted joke; a casual comment; completely harmless. Kristoff only noticed enough to chuckle; he and Anna were definitely cold, while Elsa wasn't even wearing proper shoes. The cold truly didn't bother her.

Anna wasn't so amused. In fact, the comment triggered something in her brain that made her scowl at her sister. Elsa was oblivious as she made her way to the castle, linking arms with the new queen as she walked. Anna forced a smile and went alongside her—now is not the time for a fight. It was just a comment; it was harmless.

It was careless.

As they'd began to warm up and make their way down the great hall, a light conversation had begun, though Anna barely said a word.

Freeze to death.

She pictured Elsa alone in that cave, turning to ice as life left her body. She pictured herself fighting through a nasty storm before she too froze solid. It sent a shiver down her spine. She could still feel that cold, even after three years. She remembered the sensation in her chest as she began to froze; she felt the ice burst in her heart before the world went black.

There was nothing funny or casual about freezing to death.

“Are you going to talk to me, or are we already playing charades?”

Another joke. It was light; pleasant. Anna looked at her sister, who had a warm gaze in her eyes, and a light smile across her face. But that smile faded when she felt the chill in Anna's stare. They slowly stopped walking and stood still, staring at each other.

“Is everything all right?” Elsa was concerned—she’d realised then just how exhausted her little sister looked. She was beautiful and made-up; her rich auburn hair was neatly tied in a bun, and although she wore no makeup (she never did), her eyes did seem bright and alert. But they were also very tired. Elsa tried to keep the mood light; “it's exhausting being queen, isn't it?”

Anna forced a smile; “it's not as bad as I thought it would be, but yes. The days are long, and the night's longer.”

They slowly picked up pace again. Kristoff stayed on Elsa's left side; Anna on her right. He’d remained silent to give them a chance to communicate, though he knew how to read his fiancée, and could tell how tense she was.

“You do get used to it,” Elsa replied, placing her hand on Anna's. Their arms were still linked.

Anna side-eyed her sister. She had so much to say, but mentally talked herself out of it each time. It would be so much easier if I didn't love you so damn much. She knew Elsa meant well, and she knew Elsa had suffered much on her own. That didn't change how Anna felt overall, but it kept her from saying something she'd regret. “I think we should keep things simple tonight,” she chimed in. “Maybe cut the evening a bit shorter than usual.”

Elsa didn't seem fond of the idea, but she also didn't want to intrude. “We can definitely play it by ear, if you like. I have nowhere to be; this is our night.” She pulled Anna a bit closer, tightening her grip around the younger woman's arm.

Anna pulled her arm back, though, to Elsa's surprise. The redhead instead crossed her arms over her stomach and kept her gaze away from her sister's direction.

Elsa wasn't a people person, but she knew body language—especially this particular stance. She grew worried. “Are you sure everything's all right?” she prompted, walking close beside the queen.

Anna nodded distantly, then looked at Kristoff. She took a breath and said, “I have some things to do that I forgot about earlier. Would you please escort my sister to her chambers for the evening?”

Elsa was quite taken aback. She knew how mature and capable her sister was, but Anna never spoke like a queen when it was just the three of them. Why would she? The blonde looked up at her soon-to-be brother-in-law with a questioning gaze—they exchanged a look for a brief second before he nodded at Anna; “of course.”

As the redhead began to head off, Elsa gave chase. She took Anna's arm and turned her around so they were facing each other; it wasn't aggressive, but was full of worry. “What's up with you? I'm worried.”

Anna almost laughed, but she contained herself. “I’m fine,” she said simply. “But I have duties to tend to.”

She tried to walk away, but Elsa held her tight, desperate for an explanation. “Hey, wait. We promised to communicate, right? Talk to me. Please.”

Anna raised a brow. Don't be mean, she thought to herself. Even to your sister. But her control was lacking. “You...want me to let you in now? Isn't it a bit late for that?”

Elsa—and Kristoff—could hear the sting in her voice. “Anna—”

“You expect me to drop what I'm doing just for you?” She hissed. It was accidental; her tone. She wasn't a mean person; she wasn't rude. But her anger was rising.

Elsa looked hurt, though her surprise outweighed her pain. “I'm sorry for whatever I did—”

Laughter. Anna took her arms back; “what you did? Jesus, Elsa, where do I even start.”

“Anna, maybe we should take a break,” Kristoff suggested, stepping in.

The sisters both replied with a mutual, “no, no,” but Anna's was a lot harsher than Elsa's.

“Should we start with the same old bullshit?”

“Anna—”

“Or is that history now? Yeah, I suppose we can bury thirteen-years of pain with three-years of companionship. That balances out beautifully. Oh, and how about recent events? That voice that you failed to tell me about? Or maybe that fact that we saw our parents last moments and it was all about you?”

Elsa had crossed her arms by this point; shoulders raised. Her eyes teared up more as Anna’s voice got louder. Kristoff stayed silent. She needed this.

“I suppose we also shouldn't then mention that I buried them alone! That they were my parents, too! That I'm not just your spare! But that'd be too much, right?”

Anna took a step closer to Elsa; her heels against Elsa's flats made them the same height, and they were able to make direct eye contact.

“You manipulated my love. You wouldn't stop for five fucking minutes to explain what was going on. I needed you just as much as you needed me. And how did you care for me? You pushed me away. Again.”

“I had to.” Her voice was soft; broken. She was pained—she hadn't seen Anna like this before. Ever. It killed her. Did she really make her suffer alone? How could sweet, happy, bubbly Anna be depressed? Anxious? Lonely?

“I know you think you did,” her voice was stern, but shaky. A tear managed to escape her eye and run down her freckled cheek. “But you have no idea what you put me through.” She didn't mean to yell; “I thought I had lost EVERYTHING.”

Elsa winced at the volume, but kept her stance.

“I had nothing. And you LEFT me ALONE, Elsa! The last time we'd spoken, we fought. That goodbye-hug lost all meaning after you'd forced us into that boat! I was so ANGRY! And not once—not ONCE did you ask if I was okay.”

“Gods, Anna, I—”

“NO.” The redhead held up a stern finger, silencing the older woman. “It's my turn. You shut up.”

“Anna.” Kristoff's voice was gentle and understanding. It grounded her. Pulled her back to reality just enough to make her aware of her words.

The queen took a deep breath; her finger curling in as she made a fist. She let out a shaky breath, not breaking eye contact with those glossy, ice-blue eyes. “My parents died. I was alone. You were all I had, and I didn't even know what you looked like. I tried so hard to be strong, but that was a darkness I never thought I'd get out of. And then...” she trailed slightly, anger turning to pain. “When I was alone. In that cave. After watching and hearing our parent’s final moments; Olaf, the only friend I had left—because I never thought I’d see Kristoff again after I left him to follow you... He flurried away. I watched him die. I held him as he died, Elsa. And he was all I had left—of my childhood, of my home, of you. And you were gone. Just like mama and papa; you left and were to never return. I thought Arendelle was gone. The dam had to be broken; I couldn't have ever imagined that you would've saved it.”

Elsa let out a soft, shaky breath. “You had nothing.”

Anna nodded ever so slightly, pursing her lips to hold back her tears. Her voice was barely a whisper; “nothing.”

The blonde lost her gaze as she became aware of her tears. She quickly wiped them away, holding her hands over her mouth as she stared at her sister.

Anna couldn't decide if she felt better. She'd said almost everything that she needed to say. She looked deep into Elsa's eyes, not wanting a response just yet. She wanted her to think. “No matter what, Elsa,” she said softly, “I love you.”

After a brief moment, the queen turned and walked away. Elsa and Kristoff watched her go, and although the older sister tried to follow, Kristoff held her back. “Give her space,” he said gently. “Let her breathe.”

Elsa looked up at her friend; “did I say something wrong? Tonight? To trigger this?”

He shrugged lightly. “Maybe. Maybe it was that comment about us freezing. She's been delicate lately.”

Of course. It had to have been that comment. Elsa placed her hand flat against her stomach as she felt it churn. “I have to talk to her. I have to make it right.”

“With all due respect,” Kristoff began, holding her attention to keep her from following Anna; “whether it's fair to anyone or not, there is thirteen—maybe even sixteen years’ worth of damage that has to be fixed. Anna loves you more than anything; she'd be willing if you are, but above all else, you have to remember that her feelings are valid.”

Elsa nodded, though she was rather lost in thought. All those years, she thought she was suffering alone. She thought Anna was being cared for; loved. But she wasn't? She was alone?

They worked. Their parents worked. They were royals, sure, but they were also dealing with Elsa's magic. Who raised Anna? Who taught her to be queen? Did she truly only have the portraits on the walls to talk to? Was she really neglected for all those years?

It hurt. It hurt more than anything. Elsa brushed away the original plan of a game night—that could wait. Fixing their family was far more important. She knew she had to give it time; she knew she had to think. Things wouldn't be resolved tonight, but she could start the process. She could prove to Anna that she cared. And they'd work at it again next week. And the week after. And Elsa could visit more often. This could work. This could be okay.

Right?

XXXXX

Game night didn't happen. They didn't even have dinner together. Anna had locked herself in her room; something that made Elsa's blood run cold. She'd knocked only twice over the course of four hours, desperate to be acknowledged, but the queen had no interest. She had more to say, but kept her words simple; “go away, Elsa.”

It wasn't meant as revenge. Anna wasn't trying to be petty. She just needed time. How much time; she had no idea. But at this rate, no conversation was going to take place before the end of the day. It was already long past sunset; the outside world was dark, cold, and quiet. A perfect place for Elsa to think.

She'd seen Anna open the door for Kristoff; the two disappeared into their chambers a couple of hours ago. Elsa wasn't one to eavesdrop, despite how desperate she was to talk. She couldn't bear to pace around the halls of this massive castle; so, she went outside. She’d made her way down to the water, sitting on the large rocks, watching the gentle waves. Snow was falling rather heavily; the temperature well into the negatives. Her dress was of her own creation, though a new design; her shoulders and arms were entirely bare, alongside a lot of her chest and most of her back. Her hair was still white from the events that took place in Ahtohallan, but it was a small change from the platinum-ash blonde it was before. Despite her thin attire, she wasn't cold in the least. She was shivering, but that was caused by the emotion she was struggling to hold. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but her cries were silent.

She loved Anna. More than anyone, or anything. She thought it was obvious. She'd always gone out of her way to make sure Anna's happiness was number one. What she'd failed to realise was that Anna had emotions other than joy. The redhead had always been a little ball of sunshine; Elsa wholeheartedly believed that nothing could dim that light. To find out Anna had been in pain for sixteen years of her twenty-one years of life...

Agony. It was agonising. Like losing someone you love. Elsa pressed her hands hard into her stomach in an unconscious attempt to stop the pain she was feeling. She still hadn't learned how to handle emotion—she was shut off from humanity for so long, she forgot what it felt like to be human. To just...exist. Anna kept her grounded; kept her real.

But that whole time that Anna was caring for her, she herself was in pain. She pushed her own feelings aside to care for Elsa, and the blonde had never noticed. She knew Anna was selfless, even before the at-the-time princess sacrificed her life for the sake of her sister and her kingdom. But this was on another level. This was nearly two decades of suffering that she endured for Elsa.

A sob escaped her throat so suddenly, it startled her. She shrieked and jumped in response, slowly crawling off the rocks and onto the snow-covered ground as she let herself sob freely. She’d hoped that the snow would muffle her cries; the last thing she needed was someone coming to check on her. No one ever checked on Anna.

The pain of those long years came rushing back. Oh, how badly she wanted to throw open that door and hug her sister. How badly she wanted to sing back to her; to tell her jokes and teach her and love her and tease her. She wanted to grow up with her, and that was stolen from them. She wasn't allowed to be the big sister she'd always dreamed of being. She wasn’t allowed to hold her best friend. They weren't allowed to discover the world together. They never got to roam the kingdom in their teen years and gossip about romantic interests. They never got to explore too far and get in trouble for it. They never got to laugh, or fight, or sing—they didn't see each other. They were strangers.

And then, suddenly, they were together again. And just as quickly as that, they were apart. That pattern seemed to continue.

Elsa thought heavily about their relationship; she tried to find the flaws on her side; things that she could control. She’d noticed a pattern of her own; it seemed that every time Anna tried to communicate with her, Elsa ran in one way or another. To Elsa, this was a simple defence mechanism—it was hard for her to communicate. Often times, she needed to take what was said and think on it before she could reply fairly. But to Anna, it was the same story: she was being shut out.

Elsa realised that she had to work hard to be different for Anna. Not to disregard her own feelings or history, but to meet her sister in the middle. You gave up so much for me; surely, I can sacrifice a few boundaries for you. I can learn for you, Anna.

She stared blankly across the fjord, though her view was obstructed by her tears and the falling snow. She brought a shaky hand up to her eyes to wipe them as dry as she could; she was a bit surprised that the tears weren't frozen. She'd never truly understood how her power worked; even after her discoveries and the comfort she found within herself, it was still difficult to understand something so otherworldly.

Anna never struggled to understand. Not once. Their problems were never based around Elsa's powers; when they fought, Anna didn't care about the temperature in the room. She didn't care if the windows frosted over. She wasn't afraid of her sister; Elsa's magic was just a part of who she is. It was that unconditional love and treatment that truly helped Elsa come to terms with herself. Hearing a similar message from her mother only added to that.

But now, she had complicated feelings towards her parents. If they neglected Anna, how could Elsa forgive them for that?

They were only human. They did their best with what they had. They tried.

And they're gone. That’s a history that can't be fixed. And most importantly, that isn't Elsa's responsibility. No; she has her own damage to fix. She can only control herself. And now, she had to make the first move.

XXXXX

She’d cleaned up a bit. She had to gather her thoughts. It was hard; finding the courage was so hard. She got a rush of anxiety every time she thought about knocking on that door again—being rejected by the person who had constantly tried to reach her hurt on a whole other level. What have I done?

She sighed and shook her head. “No. You can fix this,” she said quietly to herself. Verbal reassurance had always been more helpful for her. It pulled her out of her head, and eased her anxiety just a smidge. “Just talk to her. She needs you. You can do this, Elsa.”

A knock came at her bedroom door. Elsa turned, surprised; she called a delicate, “come in.”

A moment passed, then the door swung open and Anna stepped in. Elsa felt her heart leap into her throat, and simultaneously, her stomach dropped. Yet again, she failed to make the first move. “Anna. I was just coming to see you.”

The redhead seemed surprised, but it was gentle. “You were?”

Elsa nodded and gently hugged herself; “I mean, I was trying to find the courage to come and see you.” It was difficult to admit for some reason.

Anna smiled ever so slightly as she shut the door behind her. “Well,” she took a few steps closer and gently crossed her arms for comfort. “Beat you to it,” she half joked. She had changed into her nightgown; her auburn hair fell loosely in an elegant flow half-way down her back.

“Again,” Elsa said softly, defeated. “I'm s—”

“I'm tired of apologies,” Anna interrupted, voice still quiet. She’d failed to make eye contact as she spoke. “Words have lost meaning over the years. Certain words, at least.”

Elsa nodded distantly. She didn't know if she should speak, or listen.

Anna took a breath then looked at her sister, also defeated. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I've never lost myself like that before,” her voice faded out a bit on that last part. “I didn't mean to raise my voice; it was immature, and I'll make sure it doesn't happen again—”

“No.”

The queen tilted her head, slightly taken aback. Elsa's voice was stern. It surprised her. “No?”

The blonde moved closer, expression showing her desperation. “No, it will happen again, and that's okay. You have every right to be upset and you should never apologise for being human.”

Anna smiled lightly again. Those words were extra important coming from Elsa. “I just don't want to hurt you.”

“Your honesty will never hurt me, Anna,” she replied. “That isn't for you to worry about, anyways. You've got to speak up for yourself. Always. Even against me. I want us to be able to talk—gods, I want us to be able to fight and make up as sisters do.” She paused, then continued when Anna said nothing. “Things don't have to be perfect all the time. And things aren't going to fall apart if we have a falling out. We have to learn.”

Anna’s gaze fell as defeat rushed over her again, and Elsa noticed. It sent her into a panic, but she tried to contain it. Did she say something wrong? Is she missing something? What does Anna need? Is it ruined? Is it over? Anna's going to tell her to leave and they're never going to speak again? No, she wouldn't do that. Would she? If she decides she deserves better; if she decides that—

Elsa was ripped out of her thoughts when she was wrapped in a tight embrace. Her arms instinctively wrapped around her sister and they held each other close, relaxing.

“I have spent my entire life petrified that I'm going to lose those that I love, and that's all that seems to happen.”

Her voice was so delicate and pain-filled that it made Elsa's tears quickly return. She tightened her grip around Anna's petite frame, and buried her face in the crease of her warm, freckled neck.

Anna stared blankly towards the wall. It still felt weird to be in this room; to be on this side of the door. The weirdest part was that there was someone in that room all along; she hadn't spent those years just talking to a door. There was another lonely little girl on the other side, who lived to hear the voice of her baby sister.

Anna tightened her grip, too. Tears welled in her eyes, but she swallowed them as best she could. “You were my light, too. The only thing I lived for. The thought of someday meeting you was all that got me through those lonely nights.”

Elsa’s fingers curled in as she grabbed at Anna's hair and clothes; she tried to contain her emotions, but couldn't, and cried on her sister's shoulder.

Anna felt her move in her arms; she knew she was crying. It made tears escape her eyes, too. “I know you're broken. I know you've been through hell, too. I just wish we could walk through the flames together.”

Elsa nodded; “we will.” Her voice was broken and weak; she sounded nasally due to her crying. She held Anna even tighter, if that were even possible. “We will always do this together, Anna, I swear. I'll never leave you behind again.”

Anna wanted to smile at the thought, but couldn't. How could she believe such promises? The first day they'd spent together, Elsa said the same thing. Together. Then again as they travelled to the forest. Then again as they—

“Prove it.”

A beat passed, then they mutually pulled out of the embrace. Elsa kept a hold on Anna's upper arms, but the redhead took her own hands back and crossed her arms again. They looked at each other with tears eyes; cheeks red and puffy. Elsa looked genuinely upset, whilst Anna almost looked betrayed; broken and distrusting.

“Prove it,” the queen repeated. “Don't just say it.”

Elsa nodded distantly; “I will. But—”

“No buts.” She shook her head, clearly unimpressed. She wanted to be understanding. She wanted to be soft. But she couldn't let herself. Not this time. “I know you're learning, Elsa, we both are. We've had the same amount of contact with people; the same amount of practice. But I'm not a stranger. I'm not someone you met on the street; I'm your sister. And I know we grew up apart and we have much to learn about each other, but we spent the first five years of my life together, and I want us to be close again. And I know it's not realistic—we were young, but we could still—”

“Anna.”

The queen stopped. She’d started rambling. She did that sometimes. It was very Anna. She smiled sheepishly; “sorry; I get carried away.”

Elsa smiled warmly; “I want us to be close, too.” She thought for a beat, then when they made eye contact again, she continued; “I am sorry; truly. I had no idea. There are so many things that I wish I had done differently; for both of us. I wish I could take all your pain and turn it into something beautiful for you. I wish you hadn't spent so long alone— I'm so sorry for the consequences. For your anxiety and your depression and your fear of abandonment—for everything that affects your daily life, I am so sorry.”

“You get it,” Anna replied quietly, offering a weak, lop-sided shrug. “You get it because you feel the same in some way. We could understand each other. We could help each other. But I'm so afraid to talk to you sometimes; I'm so afraid that you're gonna shut me out again that I almost don't want to get close to you. I can't handle any more pain. I just can't.”

Her heart broke again. Anna was right about one thing: they do understand each other. That was one thing that really bothered Elsa, was knowing that the pain she'd always felt; the pain she'd always tried to protect Anna from had been there all along. They really were in the same boat. Elsa gently ran her hands up and down Anna's upper arms, then took a tight hold of her. She looked deep into her aqua eyes; “Anna.”

The redhead sniffled. She knew what words were coming; she'd heard it all before. It was different this time. Elsa was trying. Elsa heard her, and saw her, and accepted her. That’s a step. But was Anna really willing to give her another chance?

“I promise from now on we will do this together.”

Each word was fully pronounced; her tone was stern; she was serious.

“We will work through this together.”

One more chance to make things right. It was only fair; Anna herself had been lacking at communicating, too. It was a mutual ordeal. This chance would be for them both.

“Are you willing to try? To work at it? To truly let each other in?”

It would be a lifelong healing process. Or so she figured. There was too much history, and surely the future would only be busier. Anna was queen now; she did have duties to tend to. And, she was engaged. She was soon going to be a queen and a wife. She saw children in her future; her near future. It was easy to picture; life with Kristoff was more than ideal; they had incredible communication skills following their engagement. They’d sat down and talked out everything. They were always on the same page, even if they sometimes had disagreements.

A queen. A wife. A mother. A sister?

Could she handle all of those responsibilities? Was she ready? She was only twenty-one. Her future without Elsa looked easy, as much as that pained her. It felt easy; the idea of moving on. Building her own family and her own legacy. She was Arendelle's hero; this was her forever home. Did Elsa have a place in Anna's future? Elsa made it clear that Anna had a place in hers. Was that mutual?

The queen looked at her sister, and Elsa looked back at her, awaiting an answer.

Are you willing to try?

Anna smiled warmly. “Of course.”

#frozen 2 #fic #elsa #anna #frozen #i put spoilers in the tags last time #i won't do that this time lol #it was hard to write anna like this #but it's necessary #in my opinion #i'm happy with this #i hope it isn't too much lol #STILL NO SVEN #WHY AM I LIKE THIS #honestly tho #they all need a hug #kristanna #elsa and anna #anna and elsa

64 notes · View notes

stachmousworld · 4 years

Text

Dear Dad, fuck you.

Pairing: Stuckony

Summary: My take on Civil War, but with less property damage and as much betrayal and drama.

TW: abuse both physical and verbal but not sexual (thank you Howard for your A+ parenting skills).

Ok, so you may cry and hate me at the end.

Also: This is the first installment of my universe A. The two others are:

Dear Dad, fuck you Punishments

27 MINUTES AND 32 SECONDS AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

Tony would have never guessed it would have ended like it did. Not in a million years would he have thought that his dead dad would be his demise. He was dead for fuck’s sake. He couldn’t beat Tony, nor verbally abuse him anymore. He wasn’t there physically, and yet he managed, from the grave, to shoot him in the soul. Literally. There were no other words to describe the way he felt.

He couldn’t breathe, his head felt loud and light at the same time, he couldn’t stand straight but sitting down made the earth spin faster, if that made any sense.

Eyes closed his thoughts spiraled out of the control and images. No. Memories of his dad stuck to his retina, giving Tony a full 3D experience, sound included. And eyes opened, reality dawned him: Steve and Bucky didn’t want him anymore.

You are a worthless piece of shit, that’s what you are.

I should have made your mom abort you.

I won’t pay for any ransom.

Why can’t you die?

Funny how when everything goes to shit, his dad is the first one he hears. Always. Tony was long used to his voice in his head, muttering death threats, insults, or influencing his suicidal thoughts.

Tony finally decided to sit on the couch.

“JARVIS, lights out”.

He flinched at the sudden darkness. His left eye twitched. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea, after all. He’d rather suffer under the artificial lights than…his breath quickened and his thoughts spiraled. He could feel hands on his shoulders. A fist to his left eye. A blow on his lower back. A sharp pain to his right wrist…

The lights suddenly went on. Tony gasped, body shivering from the phantom pain, the adrenaline forcing him to stay alive through all his tortures, while shock and uncertainty chained him close to reality.

Focus Tony. You can do it, whispered a soft motherly voice. He wailed at the sound of her voice. She was the only one he heard when everything went to shit. Not his mom or Ana, Edwin’s wife. No. Hers. He called her mammina even though Howard would have had a heart attack hearing him. She was a nurse, who used to take care of him every time he was kidnapped. All 7 times.

She was a middle age black woman, who had worked as their personal nurse in case of emergencies. She had given him more love in the first few months after his first kidnapping than both of his parents in years.

She’d smell like vanilla and cinnamon and talk softly. She’d always have a twinkle in her eyes every time she’d tell him a story. Tony used to be so thrilled to listen to her. Whatever the kind of story, whether it was fairytales or made-up ones from her life, he’d feel as if he was a part of it. She never made him feel worthless. She even learnt Italian for him, calling him her Tesorio, when he’d show her his grades reports and inventions, Cucciolo when Howard or Maria were missing his birthdays, and Luce dei miei Occhi, whenever she saw him.

If he’d been her light, she’d been his sun in the darkest night. He couldn’t recall one moment when he didn’t hear her voice calming him, cheering him, reassuring him. Even she wasn’t here physically, she was still in his head. Always.

Her death had hit him hard. Harder than his parents. Harder than the Jarvis. She had always been his pillar. His guide in life. He could recall a thousand proverbs, phrasing, advice for each different situation in life. She had prepared him for the real world, and yet, he somewhat felt like a failure. After her murder (she was shot while going to church), he had totally lost touch with reality. His parents had been dead for a few years by then and Jarvis and Ana for less than 2 years.

Tony should have been seen it coming. Everyone died because of him.

He went to the funeral and sat in the back of the church, feeling like an intruder. He had jumped to his feet a few minutes in the ceremony and tried to run out, when his mammina’s daughter, Celestia, intercepted him, calling him in front of the entire church, his name resonating in the holy building. He could still hear what she said, loud and clear.

“Tony, my baby brother. Mom wanted you with us, your brothers and sisters. Don’t run, please. Luce dei miei Occhi, come back to us.”

It only took a few words for him to feel the sun. The light he hadn’t expected to see again.

At the end, he found more than a mom, he had a family.

And every year he went to each of their birthday. He had[AB1] two baby siblings, two older brothers and one older sister, nieces, and nephews and even grandparents. They all accepted him for what he was and never used him, nor his money. They welcomed him when he was down, teaching him how to recover with love, a lot of talking and proof of fatherly/motherly love.

To say he’d been surprised, when he had to witness an “argument” between one of his nieces and her dad, would be a euphemism. He had feared the violence, the insults and other dismissal, but had been floored. They both had decided to go to their room for a few moments, the time to cool down and then talked in the living room in calmed voices. Not ones had he experienced an argument in his new family, even the most vocal ones, which didn’t end up calmly.

Never in his life had he seen a more functional family. More props to burn Howard’s grave.

“Sir,” JARVIS urged him.

Tony focused on his surroundings. DUM-E held a poisonous smoothie under his nose. How hadn’t seen him before?

“No, thanks, DUM-E”, he replied softly. “I feel a bit…nauseous”

DUM-E chirped sadly but moved away.

“Sir, are you all right?” JARVIS enquired worried.

“Yes, thank you, J’” Tony replied softly.

Tony stayed down for a moment. His breathing was back to normal and his migraine was gone. Maybe he should go to his bed and take a nap. He didn’t dare ask Jarvis for how long he’d been awake. He’d work on the prototypes later anyway.

He stood up, wobbling on his feet and made his way to the doors.

You should keep Cap’s name out of your mouth, Boy. He was worth ten of you.

He never was slacking; you should take example on him…not that you’d be able to reach his level anyway.

You may be a genius, but you still couldn’t free yourself. What are you, 9? 10? You’re old enough to get away from these clowns. Kidnapping? I call it attention seeking.

At your age, Steve fucking Rogers fought against bullies despite his asthma and scoliosis. What’s your excuse? Go back to work!

Tony tried to tune out the voice, but they kept getting louder.

“Stop!” He screamed panicked.

“Sir? Your heart rate is to high, do you need Dr. Banner?”

“No!” He exclaimed. “No,” he repeated softer. “I’m okay”.

Lies. JARVIS’s silence spoke volume.

“I’ll…Where are the capsicle couple?” he asked uncertain.

“On their floor. They had restricted the access.”

Tony ignored the tug in his heart.

“To whom?”

J’ took his time to reply. It didn’t comfort Tony at all.

“Only me, huh?”

Silence.

“If I had wanted you to be silent, I would have put you in a coffee machine, J’. But thanks for looking after me.”

“It is my duty and my honor to do so.”

Tony went back to the couch, took his clothes off, staying in underwear and laid down. The lights went down to a semi darkness.

“Where are the others?” Tony mumbled, half asleep.

“With the Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, Sir.”

Tony snorted. J’ must be really mad at them to use their titles, he thought, dizzily. As he closed his eyes, he felt the embrace of his mommina and a kiss on his forehead.

DURING THE CIVIL WAR

Today was a good day, so Tony had thought. He wasn’t late in his projects, he signed contracts, surprising Pepper to silence (“No, I’m not going to die, again.” “Are you sure Tony?” Grunts in response.), he had even eaten his breakfast, lunch and snack. It was good day. Until Bucky came back to God knew where, dressed in a blue midnight suit. Steve was also wearing a suit. And by the look on their face, Tony believed he’d missed something and messed up already.

He probably had forgotten an anniversary. But even as he racked his brain he couldn’t think of a single anniversary. Christmas was in a few days and nothing remotely important happened in this month. Nothing worth being celebrated. So what?

“I’m sorry”, Tony said unsure. He didn’t even know why he was apologizing and couldn’t questioned J’. Glancing at the others, he could tell they knew about this “important” day. And what was it with the grim faces?

“Tony,” Steve called gently. “Are you not coming?”

“Where exactly are we supposed to go?” he asked in the same vulnerable voice. God, he hated that. The tension was torture. He half expected Clint to jump in front of him and admit it was a prank. No. Cap would never participate in this kind of activities. And Bucky had always expressed his resentment against suits and tuxedos in general.

“Tony” Bucky sighed. “The cemetery”

“Someone’s dead!” Tony exclaimed fear pumping in his veins. He looked sharply around trying to find clue. The others didn’t let anything show. Even Bruce who was bad a hiding his emotion.

“Stop joking, man,” Clint said calmly. “You can drop the mask. We are your friends too, you know. No one is going to judge you for mourning your parents.”

Tony’s laugh erupted. They…he…what now? He tried to stop himself as Steve’s frown went lower and lower and morphed into a disappointed face. Tony bit his lips and coughed for good measures.

“Tony, can’t you be serious?”, Natasha said coldly. “Have some respect. We know it is hard for you…”

“You know?” He failed containing his hysterical laugh. It kept bubbling and escaping is control.

“Yes, we know.” Bucky intervened. “He was not only your father, but our friends. One of our closest, actually. I…regretted more than anything murdering them. If I could…If I had been stronger…”

“Don’t Buck, it was not your fault,” Bruce reassured him. “There was nothing you could have done to prevent that.”

Tony laugh died somewhere between Buck’s guilt and regret. Tony’s right hand felt too heavy, hanging by his side. He crossed his arms to relieve the tension.

“I won’t go.” He stated firmly.

“Why?” Bucky asked with a small voice. “Is it because of me? Because I could stay in the-”

“No Bucky. If you can’t go, I won’t. But Tony, we’ve known Howard the longest. He was our closest friend, don’t do that. He had helped finding Bucky when he was tortured and helped me adapting to my new body. He provided us unique gears. He was there for us. He…he had respected me despite my small height, my sickness. He saw the soldier in me. He believed in me,” Steve pleaded.

Tony felt the glares from the others and shuffled on his feet. He resisted the need to give in.

Stark men are made of iron, but you are none that. I don’t know who your father is, but it is certainly not me. Always crying, complaining…(laughter)

Look what you made me do! Stopping the production of weapon to built this…(throws the object at Tony’s face). You should thank me on your knees, boy! No one would do that for a burden like you.

“It is not the problem, Bucky, Steve. It has nothing to do with their murder or your friendship. You can go, but I won’t. I wasn’t going to, anyway, so it doesn’t change anything.”

Silence. Tony’s eyes stayed fixed on his biggest “threat”, Steve. He was red, not the sexy, embarrassing kind. No. The ugly kind. Tony widen his stance preparing for the worst. Steve would not hit him. He was 100% sure. But his words had the same effect anyway.

“Can’t you be more respectful, Anthony. Some of us didn’t have the chance to live a lavish lifestyle with caring parents. I don’t even know where my ma’ and pa’ are buried,” Bucky deplored.

Et tu, Brutus? Tony’s head snapped toward Bucky. What the hell? And “Anthony”, really? Bucky’s face revealed discontent. His eyes were narrowed and he stood tall and strong.

“I beg you pardon, James” Tony hissed annoyed.

“Tony,” Steve warned him, inching to stand in front of Bucky. Tony’s eyebrow went so high he felt a strain in his left eyelid.

“What?!”

“After everything they’ve done for you (to you supplied mammina’s voice). And you couldn’t do that? Going to their grave and commemorating their lives should be the bare minimal. After all, if it wasn’t for them, you’d be (loved) nothing,” Bucky spat.

“No…nothing!” Tony spluttered indignantly. “They were never around me. I didn’t even call them mom or dad, they had always been Maria and Howard. They were never there for any of my birthdays, celebrations, school representations, not even the annual parents-teacher meeting. I. Made. Myself. I was born alone, and I’ll die too.” He ended up breathless. He hadn’t wanted to spill these details. Hell, he hadn’t even talk about the worse of it.

“All I heard was “poor rich Anthony Edward Stark, mommy and daddy worked too hard to make the Earth a better world for me”, “poor me, I seek attention…”

The rest of Bucky rant was lost. His father words came back in full circle.

Then Sunset’s words “you were always too much. Too needy. Always seeking attention”.

Tiberius “I don’t know what I’d done with this attention seeking whore. Really Anthony is only good when he opened his legs. I don’t see the genius in him.”

Obediah “God, Tony, lay low for a few months and seek help. Closing the weapon sector, but for what? My attention? You didn’t need that for me to care for you. Don’t be delusional, what would your father say?”

Maria “Anthony, stop, touching my dress, you’re ruining it. (She called someone behind the 3-year-old Tony.) Hey, you! Go take Anthony to his room and locked it. (She went back to her conversation). If I had known he’d be so clingy I’d have given him some sleeping pills in his baby bottle. (Laughter).”

Mammina “Tony, why are you so far from me, come nearer. You know you can always come to me. (Tony mumbles a few words). An attention seeker? Baby no, where did you hear these words? (Tony stayed silent) Cucciolo, I would never lie to you, you know that. You are the cutest little child ever, and I have 3 of them. You’ve met them and they absolutely love you. You are the perfect big brother, Tesorio.”

Tony closed his eyes, took a sharp breath and straightened his back.

“You can all call me by any name in the book: whore, worthless piece of shit...” Bucky flinched, panicked. He opened his mouth, but Tony kept going. “Warmonger, Merchant of Death, attention seeker --” He spat the name. “...but it wouldn’t change the fact that the person you knew as my biological father was a disgusting man, and my biological mother an air-head bint”. Tony approached slowly from the soldiers. He felt enraged. How could Bucky even say that? If he wasn’t so angry, he’d cry at the ice-cold words of his lover, but he was on a rampage. “I should actually thank you. Thanks Bucky dear, you made me a huge favor: to not be in the same world as them”, he finished with a deformed smiled. He knew he looked demented. And for the first time in a long time, he didn’t care.

Bucky’s expression went from guilty to confused. He pressed his left hand flat on Tony’s collarbone to push him away or hug him, Tony couldn’t tell. He brought his own hand on top of Bucky’s, moving the vibranium one to his neck. Immediately, Bucky backed off horrified.

“Was it with this hand you choked her to death? God, this stupid bint couldn’t shut up! How many times she drugged me, and put me to sleep, because I was “too attention seeking.” He screamed at the top of his lungs. Bucky stared at him with an unreadable expression. Tony may have lost his got damn mind, and he didn’t care at all. He strutted to the elevator facing them.

“Do you hear that Howard, you “made me” Tony cackled. “I’d blow your grave, if it wouldn’t give you satisfaction”. As he entered the elevator, belly cramped by his laugh, he yelled through his tears. “Burn to hell Howard and Maria! Burn…”

TEAM CAP

“What the hell was that?” Clint said in shock.

“Stark lost his goddamn mind, that’s what it was,” Natasha replied faintly surprised, which said something.

Bruce was the only one not saying anything. Tony’s act had reminded him of…himself. But, no…Howard could have never abused him. Bruce shook his head clearing his mind. No, Tony just acting as a spoiled child. A very insulting one.

“Should we go check on him?” Bruce asked with mixed feelings. Tony had the chance to have parents providing for them and he literally wish them hell. The Hulk pushed his walls. Bruce took a few deep breaths. Tiny tin man sad, Hulk repeated in his head. Bruce didn’t even try to explain the situation, Hulk wouldn’t understand the situation.

Bruce put his head in his hands. He could feel the headache creeping.

“No.” Stave said categorically. He had his Captain voice. “I don’t know who this man was, but I’m...” His voice broke. “...disgusted by this behavior. It was not our sweet Bambi,” Steve finished lamely.

Silence.

“I guess Natasha; you were right in your report on him,” Bucky commented defeated.

“And I was starting to believe that I had been mistaken,” she reflected disappointed.

“What are you doing to do?” Clint asked tired.

“What do you mean?” Bruce answered, head still down.

“Are you going to bench him? Because I don’t trust someone who could say that and act like a maniac. And what about your relationship? I know it’s not our business, but we are family. A fucked-up one, but still.”

Steve looked at Bucky and sighed. Bucky had this faraway look in his eyes. His left-hand twitching next to him. Whatever he’d say, he’d not be able to get out of the loop Tony had pushed him in. Steve massaged his own temples.

“Is it how you all feel?”.

Everyone raised their hand, even Bucky.

“Ok. He’s benched. I’ll tell him tonight at the dinner. As for our relationship…” He took a deep breath. “If we can’t trust him to have our backs on missions…” He left the rest unsaid.

“We’re coming with you!” Clint declared out of the sudden. The rest followed slowly, still under the effect of Tony’s outburst. “Give us 10 to change and we’ll meet you at the Quinjet or the car?”

“Quinjet. It’s quicker that way. They were buried upstate.” Steve answered quickly, as Bucky fled. Steve followed him worried. He waved at the rest of the group and entered the elevator, next to his lover.

“Do you think he is…ok? He looked like he’d do something crazy. And that laugh…” Bucky’s all body trembled.

Steve hugged him and kissed the crown of his head. Bucky went lax in his embrace. He sniffed a few times as Steve murmured sweet nonsense to his ears. It opened the gate for their tears. Steve didn’t want to end their relationship. Tony had been his home in this century, helping him and proving him wrong from left to right. But…he had to be strong for Bucky and, most importantly, the team. He resisted the need to go to the workshop, pounding on the tainted windows, and confront Tony.

It must be a big misunderstanding. It had to be.

Please Howard and Maria, forgive Tony, he found himself praying silently. He himself had wished for his dad to survive the war and his mom to see him become a man. Please God, let it be a big misunderstanding.

If Tony apologized tonight, Steve would take him back, no judgements. He’d be benched for a couple of days, but Steve would hold to him for as long he’d let him. The pain in his heart matched the distress in Bucky’s eyes.

“You know him, he probably is working to cool down. Anyway JARVIS is here to help him if he needs anything.”

“I would have never thought he’d blown up like that. I read the psychological report of Natasha but dismissed it. Tony had forgiven me and given me a new arm. He even went into a relationship with us. How couldn’t we that side of him?”

Steve shrugged. When he thought about it, Tony had never been particularly keen on talking about his parents. Jarvis and Ana, ok. At first, even Steve had thought they were his godparents, not the butler and his wife. And when Bucky told stories about Howard, Tony tended to shy away and changed the subject. Steve was now frowning. Something dark and ugly woke up in the pit of his mind.

“Well, I don’t know. At first, I thought he never liked talking about them because he missed them, but after what we’ve just witnessed, I’d say he really hates them.”

“Do you think they could have been more than distant parents? He said stuff about his mom drugging him and his dad being a monster. But Howard had never been like that, right Steve?” Bucky asked, guilt pouring in his voice.

Steve heard the rest of his questions loud and clear. Were we so blind that we inflicted emotional pain to our lover? And the most important, what if it was true? Steve couldn’t reconcile the image of Howard, sweet and joyful Howard, and the one from Tony’s memories. If Steve…he swallowed with difficulty. If he were to believe Tony, and a big part of him already did, because Tony had never seen so raw, begging for them to believe him through his rage, Steve would set the entire cemetery on fire.

So, he hugged Bucky tightly and tried to reassure him.

“Sweetheart, no. Don’t do that. You can’t guilt yourself for that. Even blinded by his anger, Tony didn’t blame you for their death. He was angry and lashed out. He would have done the same or worse if it was me.” Steve refused to talk about the thanks for their murder. What the hell, Tony! Steve thought anger flaring in his chest. It wasn’t fair for Bucky, his sweet love he shouldn’t have to relive his worst moments. They survived the Depression, war, ice/Hydra and they were still together. Has everything been a sham? They had given their life for a better future, putting their lives in their friends’ hands, who were supposed to hold the peace torch, when Steve and the other soldiers couldn’t anymore.

But, it also explained why Tony was so jagged, his control issues, lack of trust, insecurities, big mouth…

It wasn’t fair for him too, their Bambi…Steve contained his tears. The mere thought of little Tony being afraid, unsafe (Drugged, he said) and sad, made him sick and furious.

Steve deflated.

No, Howard couldn’t…he hadn’t…

“He thanked me…” Bucky said broken. He pushed Steve, bending and heaving. Steve massaged his neck slowly.

“He didn’t mean it, Babe. He wanted to rile us up. You’ve seen how hysterical he was…”

It took a few minutes for Bucky to come back to himself, and even then, his face had a greenish undertone. A fit despite the serum.

“JARVIS, could you tell us if Tony is not okay, please?”

The AI took a few moments to reply.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky nodded silently, while Steve cringed. What a fucking day.

POST CIVIL WAR

Tony woke up at the sound of an alarm. He groaned and covered his head.

“Sir, the others are already here. They have prepared dinner and request your presence.”

“What are the odd I could charm my way out of this trap?” Tony asked sarcastically.

“Slim to none. Emphasis on the none.”

Tony laughed and stood up. His left eye was blurry, but alas, he didn’t have the time to fix it, as well as his hand, which gave him hell. Stark men are made of iron, he said out loud to give him more strength.

The voice of mammina replied full of wit. “Oh, really? I don’t know about the Stark men but my little Tesorio is made of love. No one can take love away from you. It makes you fly, melt, explode, you feel invincible. Once you love, Tonio, you could rule the world, and bend any types of iron. I love you, my Luce. I’m proud of you, no matter what.”

Tony wiped his tears. I hope you are still proud of me. As he entered the elevator, his phone rang. One of his little brothers.

“What do you want Darius?” Tony asked upfront.

“Listen, listen. Go on, talk to him” Darius replied in a hush tone.

“’Onc’ ‘Ony! Onc’ ‘Ony!”

Tony cooed and felt his inside melt. His baby nephew, Anthony, was just a few months old and already a beam of joy in his life. He had more pictures than he dared to admit. Sue him, his nephew was the cutest, with his little dimples and crooked smile. But then again, his other niece and nephew had him wrapped around their chubby fingers.

“Hello big boy, Oncle Tony is so proud of you!” He cooed in his “I’m going to melt inside and have cavities” voice.

“Do you imagine our surprise when his first words were ‘Ony and then Onc’ Ony’. I swear to God, we won’t invite you anymore. That’s the third baby doing that stuff. Are you sure you don’t have any magic, bro?”

Tony laughed through his happy tears.

“I guess I have some magic left from mammina”.

“True, true”, he conceded. “Are you still coming for the commemoration?”

“Of course! I have never missed one and wouldn’t dare. I don’t want mammina to haunt me and whoop my ass.” Tony joked.

“Pfff. She’d never do that. You were always her favorite, didn’t know why. We knew she worked for a white and rich family (Tony rolled his eyes amused), and then we saw your scrawny ass and lost puppy eyes. Couldn’t resist this kid who needed to be our protector, even though, he was pocket size.”

“Hey! Although I liked the beginning of your story, the wording could be better. I never was pocketsize; we call it fun size.” He pouted.

“Who? The members of your “fun size” group”.

Tony grunted. Darius laughed and bid him goodbye in a hurry. Apparently, his nephew had taken his diaper off and was smearing poop on the white walls. Tony’s laugh resonated in the stilled elevator. J’ opened the doors as he placed the phone in his pocket.

The sight in front of him made him frown. He prepared himself to stay calm and have a mature conclusion to their arguments like he’d seen with his siblings. Mammina’s advice about love was about to come handy. They at least deserve the truth and some apologies. Hearing them talk about his parents so fondly had made him angry, jealous, then sad. Why was he not enough? Could he have done better, be a more obedient child… no. He wouldn’t go there. He had to stay clear-headed.

Steve and Bucky had changed clothes. They were now wearing hoodies and joggings. Their comfort clothes. Like him. He had found Steve’s hoodie and Bucky’s jogging, in one of his private stashes. He would deny taken them and some other of their items because it soothed him.

This was going to be long. He took a deep breath as he walked towards the kitchen. The rest of the team were standing up around the table.

Steve went on Tony’s left and Bucky next to Steve. Tony stared at them sadly. The fluffy conversation with Darius seemed like years ago.

“You had fun on the phone,” Clint noticed calmly. Almost too much. It was such a 180 with his jerk personality.

“It’s not every day that you nephew’s first words are “Onc’ Ony”. Well, the two others did the same. So, I was kinda happy.”

“Lying Stark? You don’t have no family left,” Natasha accused him, eyes narrowed.

“So, family is only the people from your blood, got it.” Tony replied without showing any annoyance. He took his phone, scrolled down a few family pictures and showed them one, where his papà was still alive. Before cancer took him.

He introduced each member, referring them as his baby brothers or older ones. His finger trembled as he reached the head of the family. Mammina and Papà. A little Tony could be seen standing proudly next to two smaller kids.

“It was my mammina.” He explained softly. “She was the best woman in the world. She took care of me when I got kidnapped. She was always here to help me, heal me. She built me.” He threw a glance at Bucky, who was frowning.

“Kidnapping?” Bruce asked in disbelief.

“Tony…Why would they kidnap you?” Steve asked, as skeptical as Bruce.

“I’m a genius. I was the one proofing Howard’s blueprint. By the age of 7, I had improved one of his Jericho. But people kidnapped me because of money. They thought Howard would pay them. He never did. (Tony raised a hand to cut the protestations.) J’ will send you all the medical reports and police ones. He will also forward my file from CPS. I know it’s hard to believe it. He was your friend and never showed his other side. When you both went down, he died too. He became…” Tony choked on his words.

“How can we believe you, when you were so maniac, this afternoon? You hurt Bucky and used his guilt to make a point.” Natasha asked, arms crossed.

“If you don’t believe the official papers, you should ask Coulson and Fury. They won’t lie to you.”

“What?” Bruce blurted.

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked concerned.

“I don’t have the envy, nor the will to go through the verbal and physical abuse of my parents. Coulson and Fury were there to retrieve me from Shield office after each kidnapping. They couldn’t do anything because my dad financed the entire organization,” Tony explained bitter. “Call me selfish but this woman and this man (he showed mammina and papà), were my real parents and those are my brothers and sisters, grandparents…They are MY family. They chose me when my real parents didn’t.”

The room grew silent. Tony tap his left eye and groaned in pain.

“Are you okay, Tony?” Bruce inquired, with a certain unease.

He waved at Bruce, brushing his concern. Gosh, it itched. Fuck it, they already knew too much already. With his right index, he pressed firmly his temple and with his thumb pressed the corner of his eye. He felt the prosthetic pop out, disconnecting from the electronical socket linked to his brain. After all these times, he still felt proud of himself. He had succeeded in something his dad could have never.

Everyone can create a missile Howard, but it takes a genius to create something so complex connected to the brain.

“Tony!”

Bruce’s voice bloomed in the room.

“The fuck!” Clint swore.

“Bambi?”

Tony finally paid attention to his surroundings. The lack of pressure on his socket almost made him come. If only he had his cotton swab and alcohol. He gritted his teeth to recede his pleasure. It wasn’t the right time to be distracted.

He turned blindly on his left and bumped against a wall. A human one. Tony raised his head and met Steve’s blurry ones.

“We are so sorry Tony. We didn’t know. It certainly explained why you didn’t want to talk about them.”

Tony frowned. They believed him, like that.

“Don’t you want to read the files, before trusting me?” He asked with a small voice.

Bucky shook his head.

“No, Doll. If you want, you’ll talk to us about it, but we won’t read anything. We trust you. Like you trusted me with my issues.”

Tony was left speechless. He had expected screams, fat tears and a few blows. It was anticlimactic at best. He tried to remember what Darius had told him about reconciliation. Now was his time to “apologize”.

“Ok. Ok. I have some apologies to say.” He held his hand to stop them, from interrupting him. “I should have talked to you frankly. If we had discussed about them, none of that would have happened. I should have understood that the people they were with you and with me were totally different. You’ve known them as your friends. And you wanted to visit your friends and not them as my parents.”

“That’s stupid, Bambi, and you know it. If we’d known what they did to you, we would have been pissed, and maybe broke a tombstone or two.”

“Steve!” Tony screamed flabbergasted. He glanced at Bucky who shrugged smugly.

“I told you he was a little punk.”

Steve didn’t even resent this affirmation. He was smirking (SMIRKING) proudly.

“So…you are okay?”

Clint looked so out of it. Natasha didn’t look like she really believed Tony. As if pulling his own eye wasn’t proof enough.

“What Clint meant, is that we still don’t trust you, Stark. And we had decided to bench you.”.

Tony step back, eye going from each of them to stop on Steve’s pleading ones.

“What?”

“We weren’t sur you were ok. What you said without context scared us.”

Tony’s left hand flew to his neck as a reassuring gesture. He massaged the place under his jaw. Bucky made a strangled noise, making him stop.

“I’m sorry, Bucky. I should have never done that and sorry for thanking you. Even though, I am still relieved they are dead. I wished it wouldn’t have been by your hands.” Tony apologized ashamed; face pinched in a pained grimace. He sighed deeply. “I understand all of your concern and I…would stay out until you deem me worthy.”

Bucky surged forward pushing a frozen Steve. He grabbed Tony’s face, pressing their foreheads together.

“You. Are. Not. Worthless” Bucky said through clenched teeth. “I don’t care what Howard or Maria said to you, but you are definitely not worthless.” Tony couldn’t avert his eyes and felt compelled to spill more truths, Howards truths.

“You should keep Cap’s name out of your mouth, Boy. He was worth ten of you.” He mumbled eyes now closed. He couldn’t handle to see the pity in those baby blue.

Steve gasped audibly. Bucky’s hand gripped tightly his face, pleading him to stop.

“Cap and Sarge were never slacking; you should take example on them…not that you’d be able to reach their level, anyway.”

Bucky’s breath hitched. Tony felt two additional arms around him.

“You may be a genius, but you still couldn’t free yourself. What are you, 9? 10? You’re old enough to get away from these clowns. Kidnapping? I call it attention seeking.”

Bucky stepped away, breathing loudly. You have done it, Tones, they are going to leave you. They’ll see that you are not good enough and leave you, he thought darkly.

“Buck!”

“Bruce”

Tony opened his eyes just in time to witness Bucky breaking his kitchen counter and Bruce’s departure. Clint and Natasha went after Bruce, leaving them all alone. What the hell just happened! Steve walked carefully to Bucky. He looked wildly around him, in defensive posture. Steve’s hands were raised in front of him.

“Bucky, everything is ok. There is no threat.”

“Tony,” he replied miserably before breaking down. He sobbed in Steve’s arms, eyes locked on Tony. He raised an arm to make it come. Anthony E. Stark would have deflected and made a run for it, then hid in his workshop, but Tesorio raised by his fierce mama sucked it up and approached. Steve let go of Bucky and embraced them both, crushing them both into his chest.

Tony hissed in pain. Steve backed away.

“What is wrong? Did we hurt you?”

Tony shook his head. His right wrist was, again, acting up. He should have never slept on it. He massaged his wrist firmly and waited for a little whirling sound.

Immediately, the servos in the socket released the prosthetic. Tony moaned as the pinched nerve in his human upper wrist relaxed. He held his right hand with his flesh one, as he kept massaging the injured one.

“J’, pull up the blueprint for the latest version of Dub 4 and add a note to look for any rust. And also contact Dr. Cho, for my usual appointment.”

“Done, Sir.”

“Thanks.”

Still in his thought, it took him more time to notice the heavy silence.

Oh.

Steve was again in his personal space, Bucky on his right. They both eyed him with awe and sadness.

“I was 7, my third kidnapping. They wanted me to build something or were mad at my dad for not coming nor paying them. Knowing I was a genius they had the brilliant idea to extract my eye. I was unconscious. I guess.” Tony explained while massaging under the eye pocket. “The hand came before I went to MIT. I had already won multiple engineering /robotic prizes. They had wanted me to build a missile, the first one. Guess Obediah was already dealing under the table. When I didn’t want, they severed my hand. I was conscious.” Tony stated numb. He hated thinking of his past defenseless self. He wished he could hug and protect his younger self.

Bucky pushed Steve aside and scooped Tony in his arms. He squealed but didn’t try to escape for once. Steve followed them briskly.

Once in their room, Bucky laid him in the middle of the bed and hugged him. Sweet nonsense pouring out of his mouth. Tony tried to ask Steve for help, but he joined them and did the same. Tony closed his eyes, fighting his weaker side.

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.

His persona broke piece by piece.

“I want my mammina,” he cried loudly, tears rolling down his cheeks. He missed her warmth, her smile, her scent. She should have been here instead of him. He destroyed so many lives building weapons while she was killed by them. Mammina, forgive me, please, he prayed in his heart.

“We know, Doll”

“We are sorry, Bambi”

“We’ll make it up for you”

“We love you”

Bucky’s strong body in front of him prevented him from curling on himself. He placed his head his heart, as Steve pressed his body in his back.

Soft kisses made him relaxed. She used to do that when he had nightmares, kissing his demons away.

“I ‘ove you, too” He confessed softly.

“Tell us about them, your family.”

When I was 3, I met this nurse. She was…

Notes: Two baby siblings one his Kareem, Ahmaud.

Two older brothers Darius, Joseph

One older sister Janice

Mother masterrliiiisssstt ✨✨✨🐱‍🏍

#part 1 of many #stuckony #tony stark #writing #marvel mcu #mcu #character of color #bucky barnes #steve rogers #bucky x steve x tony #tw child abuse #child abuse #angst with a hopeful ending #black woman #adoptee #family adoptive #black woman character #black characters

9 notes · View notes

crystallinecrimsonmoth · 4 years

Note

idk if ur still looking for a prompt but winterspider + “this is a five-hour-long plane ride, we’re sitting together and you’re deathly afraid of flying” AU would be real cute

Hello! Thank you so much for the prompt - I’ve been so bored and needed something to write other than my ongoing stories. I hope this is okay ^^

To everyone who sees this fic, anonymous or not, feel free to send more prompts ‘cause I am bored as shit right now and need inspiration.

p.s. Tony Stark is alive in this because I love him too much and refuse to write a fic in which his death was permanent :3

Peter had headed to the airport that day with no small amount of fear. He’d never been on a plane before, and despite having flown through the sky at faster speeds on his webs, the idea of being trapped in a pressurised metal container thirty-thousand feet up with no way out was not appealing at all.

The plan had been to travel Asia solo for a bit of life experience, so he didn’t take the offer of going on Mr Stark’s private jet, no. He decided to go on a public plane, on his lonesome, over the Pacific Ocean.

He’d travelled on his own before, sure, on ferries and in cars, buses - all on the surface of the planet. But flying was a whole new game, and he barely kept it together long enough to get through the doors of Newark Airport, only managing a slight smile to the lady behind the check-in desk.

‘Can I have your boarding pass and passport, please, sir?’ The lady with a kind face smiled at him, putting Peter somewhat at ease as he handed over the documents from his pocket.

His foot tapped on the tiled floor of the airport while she checked over his paperwork, worried that someone would question his age and why he didn’t have an adult with him. At seventeen, he didn’t need one, but May had warned him that they might still ask just to make sure he was okay alone.

He didn’t like the idea of being questioned but smiled anyway when the check-in lady, Olivia, asked him that very question.

‘I see you’re travelling alone today. We have escorts on call for young people like yourself if you’d like me to call one?’ She smiled, offering him his boarding pass and passport back as Peter lifted his suitcase up onto the conveyor belt.

‘No, I’m fine. Travelling on my own is sort of the point today.’ He insisted, glad when she didn’t ask any more questions and let him move on with his satchel over his shoulder.

Getting through security was leisurely since all he had on him was Tony’s glasses and the bag, which both scooted through the x-ray machine quite easily. Peter moved onto the lounge once he’d checked the boards for his flight number, glad when he found a Starbucks and rushed in there for something sugary to calm his nerves.

Two caramel frappes later and the teen was hyped up on sugar, bouncing around like he was five years old again as he waited another hour for his flight number to be called.

By then, the sugar had disappeared.

His knee was vibrating as he stood in the line of passengers waiting to have their boarding passes checked. The only thing calming his nerves at that stage was the music he had playing in his ears via E.D.I.T.H., the familiar tune of Mr Stark’s AC/DC playlist lulling him into a sense of security without the man there.

He knew Tony would be keeping an eye on him throughout the trip, he’d told him so the day before, so he wouldn’t have anything to worry about if something went wrong. And he had to admit, having the older man watch his back constantly like that was more comforting than invasive after the Battle of Earth.

‘Your boarding pass, sir?’

‘Yeah, here you go.’ Peter grinned when he got to the man at the gate, handing over the document as the volume on his music turned down automatically.

It only took a moment for him to be let into the jetway, but as he approached the aeroplane door and the bright-faced attendant standing beside it, all his anxiety came back. With shaky legs, Peter moved onto the plane, finding his seat and tucking his bag underneath it before looking out of the window, one hand gripping the arm of the chair tightly to prevent it from shaking.

He sat like that for about five minutes before louder than average voices started from the front of the plane, distracting him from his anxious thoughts about the fact that he’d be so high in the air and so fucked if the plane crashed with no way out.

‘For the love of God, Sam, stop talking!’

‘I’m just saying, man, if we’d gotten here earlier we could have had a better dinner!’

‘You were in the air force, you should be used to shit food!’

‘Well, I’d like to enjoy life now, I don’t have to eat crap anymore!’

Peter’s head lifted at the sound of the familiar voices and he winced at the sight of Falcon and the Winter Soldier. He still hadn’t spoken to either of them since Berlin, nor had he made eye contact with them during the Battle of Earth, so he wasn’t entirely sure if they liked him or not. He assumed the latter, considering what he’d done to them at the airport, but Mr Stark had promised him the pair didn’t hate him as much as he thought they did.

He tried to hide his face, regardless of Iron Man’s reassurance, hoping he could avoid being seen. If they even focused on him long enough in the fight with Thanos to know what he looked like. He hid under his fringe of brown curls, longer now since he’d been too busy to get a haircut, and held his breath.

The two older men sat down in the seats beside him, just his luck, but neither seemed to acknowledge Peter as they settled in and clipped their seatbelts on.

‘I swear to God, if you drink too much on this flight and force me to get out of my seat to let your fat ass past, I will kill you.’

‘My ass is not fat, it’s thicc.’

‘I’m going to kill Shuri too for teaching you that language.’

‘Whatever, bird-brains.’

Peter had to suppress a laugh at the friendly argument between the two, tapping the side of his glasses to activate his music again and relaxing into the seat, failing to notice his fringe fall to the side and reveal his youthful face to the soldiers sitting next to him.

For a few minutes, Peter’s peace went undisturbed other than the sound of the flight attendant going through safety procedures, but then the plane lurched into action, and his hands gripped the armrests with white knuckles.

‘Afraid of flying, doll?’

His eyes widened at the sound of Barnes’ voice, a somewhat pale hand coming up to rest on his clothed arm as it shook in place. Peter nodded, trying to stay calm, so they didn’t realise it was him, but then Sam spoke up.

‘Spider-Man?’

Hesitantly, Peter lifted his head, meeting the steel blue of Bucky’s eyes and gulping.

‘Hey, guys.’

‘Hey.’ Peter’s heart skipped a beat when Bucky actually smiled at him, like the airport never happened, and he saw Sam gesture to his hair at the corner of his eye.

‘You let your hair grow out since the battle. Suits you.’ He smiled too, and the teen was getting whiplash from how different their personalities were outside of fighting.

He nodded just a little, dumbfounded by how nice they were being, and feeling frozen in place by Bucky’s eyes.

MESSAGE ALERT

Mr Stark: Your heart rate just increased, what’s wrong?

Peter’s eyes widened more if possible and he flickered his eyes across the screen at different letters to reply.

Pete: Nothing’s wrong, Mr Stark, I’m fine!

Bucky’s face morphed into a brief frown as he watched Peter, clearly confused by the rapid movement of his eyes, but he leaned back into his seat soon after, facing forward with a sigh and letting Peter sink back into his chair.

The younger man was mortified, and he was pretty sure he was bright red in the face, and only then did he realise that they were already in the air and the window just showed giant white clouds now.

Fuck, he’d never been this high before. He couldn’t even see land anymore as he searched the outside with wide eyes, his hands shaking where they still gripped the armrest.

Nine hours into the flight, Peter woke with a startle. Somehow, he’d managed to fall asleep. He wasn’t entirely sure it was natural, having the faint memory of Bucky emptying something into his drink, but he went along with it nonetheless, feeling much better when he woke up.

Glancing to the side that didn’t have a window, the teen found both Sam and Bucky fast asleep too, Bucky’s face turned towards him. His nostrils fluttered with every breath he took in his unconscious state, eyes flickering underneath the lids, and pale lips pressed together loosely in a tired expression.

Peter gazed at him without shame now that he was asleep, fascinated by the man and every part of his history. He looked better without the beard, and while he had been gorgeous with long hair in the past, the short hair from his time in the war was a marvellous improvement.

The younger man hadn’t realised he had a crush on the soldier until a few nights after the airport fight, when his mind formulated a wet dream about that metal hand wrapped around his throat, forcing him to confront both his sexuality and the reality of how bad he had it for his superhero counterpart.

The lack of interaction in the Battle of Earth did nothing to stop his libido, the sight of Bucky’s new and improved arm doing bad, awkward things to his insides. He had to focus on more important things back then, but now the man was in front of him, breathing the scent of coffee onto his face and making him daydream about how it would feel to kiss him. So he did, pressing his lips to the soldier’s gently and enjoying the slight burn of new stubble on his top lip as he moved his mouth on his.

Then the plane lurched, and the flight attendant called out that they were experiencing some turbulence, nothing to be concerned about, but Peter was already hiding his face in Bucky’s chest, shaking and terrified of the violent movement.

His mind ran through a thousand different scenarios of how the plane could malfunction and send them all plummeting to their deaths. Only when five minutes had passed and he realised they weren’t falling out of the sky, did the teen realise that Bucky’s flesh hand was rubbing up and down his back.

He jumped so far back in his seat that the back of his head hit the window, and he stared at Bucky with wide eyes. The man stared back at him with wide eyes too, before his hand was reaching out towards him.

‘Is your head okay? Sounded like you hit it.’ He smiled, kindly, and Peter cringed from the memory of kissing those smiling lips while the Winter Soldier had been unconscious.

He crept forward to sit up straight on the chair, hesitant when Bucky tucked the curls that had fallen in front of his eyes behind his ear.

‘What? I don’t get another kiss?’ The older grinned and Peter felt his face burn with the confidence in his voice, the realisation that Barnes had both felt the kiss and asked for another one only making his blush worse.

He tried to play it cool, though, coughing and rubbing his eyes with a yawn.

‘I didn’t kiss you, Sergeant Barnes.’

‘Yes, you did, Peter Parker. Right here, with those soft lips of yours.’ Peter resisted the instinct to bite the thumb that traced his lips, letting Bucky touch him even though he was shaking under that touch.

‘I d-didn’t.’ He insisted, trying to fight back again, but then the plane went into another bout of turbulence, and the instinct to bite was replaced with the instinct to protect himself.

The teen buried his face in Bucky’s chest without thinking, his whole body trembling as the plane battered around, and he heard a faint chuckle from above.

‘’S okay, doll, I’ll protect you.’ Barnes pressed a soft kiss to the crown of his head, but Peter could only cower in response, still frightened of the rumbling cabin.

‘Only five hours to go.’ The soldier’s deep voice hummed in a soothing tone, and it wasn’t long before Peter’s terrified form slumped into a deep sleep from exhaustion, staying unconscious until they arrived in Tokyo.

2 notes · View notes

purpleswans1 · 5 years

Text

The Hosu Incident

Today’s prompt is “Fear.” Another part of my Villain!Izuku AU. Hope you enjoy.