#always wanted to open an animal sanctuary | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ranbitteeth · 3 months

Note

hiii i love ur art and ur fics!!🫶🏽

im desperateee for a reader rails mizu w strap fic😭😭 all the smut i see are of reader bottoming and that makes me hella dysphoric sigh

so so like reader stretching mizu out, lots of whimpering, mizu being nervous, mizu feeling full and claimed, just messy subby mizu taking big strap for the first time plssss😭😭😭😭 maybe some pussy eating foreplay idk, whatever u find best and fun to write. i just need mizu to be a subby bottom its plaguing my mind😵‍💫

A/N: Your wish is my command, dearest! Hhmmm I can never really tell if you guys want a modern/cannon compliant setting— but I find my words flowing easier for the latter. If this isn’t to your liking, I can always write another one! More modern and fluffy

Tags: Possessive!Reader, GN!Reader, Reader is besties w Madame Kaji, DomTop! Reader, Jealous! Reader, Straps, Tried to be historically accurate but one can only do so much research on ancient japanese dildos, takes place sometime before Mizu hops in the boat, Goodbye Sex, Misery.

About 3.8k word count, so I’ll highlight the beginning of the actual smut in red and a star! *

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Parting Ways— To London You Go

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

You despised him.

The Blue Eyed Beast of Japan. The onryo. The bastard half-breed that killed the Four Fangs and cut through the Shindo Dojo. Now that was a man that deserved a dog’s death. A humiliating, painful, wretched thing— so much so that pity would spread like disease among even the most hardened of men. A white man had no business in your country. Much less some impure dog, chasing ghosts of white men who had long since fled the island paradise. You believed this yourself, once. The village gossip and fantasies of his approaching death entertained you, excited you. You’d hear of his dishonorable death one evening and you’d think —‘good riddance’.

But no one told you just how much of a darling he was.

You remembered that night to picture clear, the image of his slumped body in the snow so clear in your eyes and memory. His face was twisted into a pained grimace, eyes screwed shut beneath the colored lenses of his glasses— he reeked of blood even in the snowstorm.

Unbeknownst to your family, you brought him inside, ordered your guards to gently place his body in your quarters. The servants made no protest when they saw your insistence on saving this stranger. The wound was seeping a crimson poison onto your floor, red and hot and stinking of blood.

The two of you were alone when his eyelids fluttered open, pained grunts and whimpered muffled by his own teeth against his bottom lip. And you saw it. Blue eyes— unnatural, wrong, and positively lovely. You’ve seen oceans and ponds and skies with less of a dazzling hue. It disgusted you, initially, as the realization of who he was suddenly and violently appeared in your mind.

You hadn’t expected someone so…normal looking.

He did not have a pig’s nose or clammy, sun-abused skin. He was not a beast, giant and ugly— but a man. An injured man, you recalled once his blood stained your palm. Stained your floor, your bed and his clothes. You distantly realized your hands were moving on their own as they undid the binds of his old kimono, and there, beneath the worn, filthy fabric were binds. Not of injury, not of a warrior— but of shame.

Alone in your chambers on a cold winter night amidst the worst storm you’ve ever seen— you knew. The blue-eyed, vicious animal that had earned all of Kyoto’s scorn was in fact a woman.

You adored her.

Your home grew to be a sanctuary to her of sorts. For a being so well despised by the nation, the comforts you provided were scarce luxuries. A bed. A roof. Some semblance of protection. You cared after her like one would a feral pet, a feat which did not go unnoticed. With a blade to your neck and blood painting her hands, she demanded your silence— a vow to never break. As if you’d risk losing such a treasure to the hands of bounty hunters of white men.

The two of you danced with hate for months.

She was a silent spirit, a brewing storm on the distant horizon. At times, you’d catch her eyes on you, other times, she’d notice you doing the same. At times, you’d reach your hand forward and caress the scars on her skin. At times, she’d allow you to– going so far as to present herself.

At times, you’d make love to her. Your depravity was no secret to anyone with ears and working eyes— but your status and wealth made you untouchable. No one but your servants would hear her cries echo from your chambers, and no one but you would see her in the throes of pleasure, head tossed back, expression screwed into one of hesitant bliss and ecstasy.

Or so you thought.

She often returns to you like a dog would weeks after leaving. Loyal, endearing and silent. Whether it was out of some misplaced desire of courtesy or a genuine attachment, you did not know. You’d tell yourself you did not care, but Man would never be born without sin. Madame Kaji, the wonderful hag, would bewitch you in letters with tales of her ladies in the delights her brothel would offer. She mentioned a certain blue-eyed beast in her company in her most previous message. Her letter was pointed, concise, and utterly enraging. By its contents, you would piece together your Mizu’s night with a princess– of all wretched things. After months of silence, alone in your palace with no one but the one and off prostitutes you’d hire and the servants you paid deftly for their loyalty, and the samurai goes off to bed and abandone a lady princess of the Tokunobu clan.

Mizu would not show her face to you until spring. By then, your anger had solidified and festered into an untamable typhoon. As your servants led her to your chambers, Mizu would be standing dead-center in the eye of your storm. Something in her was different. Stronger, yet weaker. Kinder, yet crueler.

“You show your face here again?” You ask cooly, and at least she had the decency to look ashamed, removing her hat. Like this, you could see her properly. (You’d never admit to your anger cooling, but it did.) She does not harden her voice in your presence, but it is quiet, timid, shameful. Before she could open her mouth to speak, one of your servant men approach, head bowed deeply.

“[Title and Name]”, he’d say. Your eyes glance over to him, humming as you granted permission to speak.

“There is a white man inside, bound and immobilized.” He says quickly, bowing his head deeper.

“I only wished for you to be aware.”

Your cold, steely eyes turn to fix Mizu with a chilling stare. She only looks at you head on, taking the challenge. Oh…

“Leave us.” You say, but not before giving an order to boil water over a fire. The door is smoothly slid shut, and the two of you are under the illusion of solitude once more.

“I am to depart for London soon.” Mizu says bluntly, abruptly. You couldn’t have expected anything less. You give no reaction save for a short sigh and two fingers against your temple.

“I am closer to my mission than ever before. I have an informant, I have a boat, I have names.” She talks as if to explain herself, stepping closer in light footsteps, hesitant. “I may not survive through this. I only wished to say goodbye before I leave.”

For a moment, you say nothing. Your mouth is rendered useless as your mind rushes with curses. To the world, to the white men, to Japan, to Mizu, to the hellsite that was London itself. The poisonous concoction of rage and envy that had been brewing for months was bubbling and prickling beneath your skin– only now with the addition of grief.

“This would have been much more convenient in scripture,” you say, voice like hot iron. Mizu’s surprise is tangible, eyes flickering around your features, searching for answers to her questions.

“I adore letters. You know this.” You begin to say, moving from your initial position and circling the room, retrieving several items and placing them on the large expanse of your sleeping bed. You open a box, massive with weight. Inside is parchment, pounds of it. “I collect them.”

You suddenly and harshly shove the box onto the floor, a flurry of parchment and ink spilling at your feet. Mizu seems to shrink, but refuses to cower. Gingerly, you retrieve one excerpt sent just a few months ago from Madame Kaji. You hand it to Mizu, surrounding her. You wait until you are certain she understands what she is reading before you begin to speak.

“Never took you as the brothel-dwelling type.” You say, watching as those demonic, off-putting, oh-so-lovely eyes scan the characters on paper. Your eyes stick to her lips before you remind yourself why you are angry. You imagined those lips entangled with another, and your blood goes cold.

“Nothing happened between me and the princess.” Mizu says, turning to face you. The genuine confusion in her expression is almost insulting. “She meant to kill me that night. Our duel meant nothing. Madame Kaji knows nothing that is true.”

“Not every conflict between you and a stranger is a duel and Madame Kaji is a dear friend of mine.” You reply easily. The hurt in your voice was becoming clearer with each passing syllable.

“You truly believe sailing the seas will come so easy? Do you know how many men I’ve lost in my trades on those voyages? Do you even know what awaits you in London?” You begin to demand these answers, losing the control you pride yourself in as you continue to speak. As a man and a woman, Mizu was nothing but a stupid, lost soul, wandering the earth without an object to attach to. You then gently cup her face in both hands, watching in delight as she melts into your touch.

*“Do you even know how much I’ve wanted you these past months?”

Mizu cannot answer. Her hands raise over yours, fingers brushing against your warmer ones.

“I meant no harm in my absence.” She concedes, round eyes rising to meet with yours. Just like that, the room had shifted. Your eyes darken as they raked along her face and figure, recalling what lay beneath the layers upon layers of fabric she’d use to protect herself.

“You can’t imagine…” You whine, gently undoing the bandages around her neck to expose the delectable skin that lay beneath. Untouched, unseen by all but few. You bury your nose into the crook of her neck before your tongue darts out just to taste flesh and the blood that pumped beneath. Mizu sighs, noticeably relaxing into you. Her arms move to wrap around your neck in a gentle embrace, a position you’ve grown to love and grieve for.

“Gods, how I’ve missed you…” you say, assisting Mizu’s hands and hurriedly undoing her kimono before your hands run hungrily along her skin. Scars, so many more than you remember. A different rage boiled inside of you, protective and not directed to Mizu in the slightest. The two of you move in sync of tangled limbs and warm breaths against open lips. You push her onto your cot, the rage you had felt previously spilling out in the form of hunger. You attack her neck with the teeth in your mouth, suckling and biting down on her white-man skin until cherry-red marks bloom across her neck. She whimpers, coyly craning her neck and exposing herself further– presenting herself. Begging for it. Gods.

“You were away so long I’d almost forgotten what a whore you are…” you coo, undressing her wholly, spreading her legs around either side of your hips. As a surprise to no one, you noticed the particular shininess to the downy hairs on her wet cunt, groaning softly at the sight. Her smell, her taste, her color– you’d spend innumerable nights recalling these things in exquisite detail, going so far as to seek her in other women and finding not one suitable substitution. Your hunger had been building up for months, and now here she was, just as enticing as you remember her. Her teeth nibble down on her finger as she groans into the air.

“[Reader], I haven’t..” she starts, but you shush her before she can continue. Her loyalty only endeared you to her further, and you wanted to remain somewhat angry.

“I know, puppy. You already know who you belong to, don’t you?” You murmured, practically salivating at the sight of her glistening pussy. A whine catches in her throat, allowing you to see in real time her strength and tenacity fail her beneath you. The demon man was nowhere to be found here. You tamed that spirit and contained her in your chambers. You reduced it from a spirit to a man to a moaning, wanton little tart.

“Keep your legs spread and I’ll give you what you came here for.” You order swiftly, to which she nods and complies, spreading her legs further apart. You eagerly adjust your position so that you are resting on your stomach, Mizu’s thighs on either side of your head and your mouth just above her wet cunt. With only an aroused groan as a warning, your tongue descends onto her slick folds, eagerly lapping up the wetness that coated her lovely skin. It was positively obscene, the color and taste of her, the slurping sounds across the room and her whimpering cries as months of stress and anger fell away under your tongue. The poor thing couldn’t even keep her thighs from squeezing around your head, effectively trapping you against her pussy— but it was no matter. Your tongue swirled and massaged what it could reach while the tip of your nose rutted against her clit. Slowly, surely, readily— her raspy, hoarse voice bloomed into something far sweeter, and you could feel the ice around your heart melting. This was the Mizu you knew, without the clothes and glasses and false identity. This Mizu was the one you owned.

You feel her getting close, as it was always obvious with her. You felt her thighs squeezing around your head, felt them shake and tense while her hips bucked against you and her breathing grew more desperate. You feel it, she feels it— she wants it so bad she sobs into her palm. You both know better.

You pull away with a wet, obscene sound, ignoring Mizu’s frustrated groan into her fist. Your lips and chin are wet with her taste and both of your bodies are shining with sweat.

“What? Were you close?” You ask huskily, readjusting yourself so that your body hovers over hers, your fingers pushing in and out of her gushing warmth. You start with two, massaging her insides into relaxation, molding her to your desires. She impatiently pushes her hips against you, holding you in a desperate embrace. You do not hurry, you don’t even respond as you take her lips in yours, letting her taste herself coating your tongue. It was a messy, depraved display— one that made her noticeably wetter around your fingers. Her nails claw into the fabric over your body, tugging it off.

“Take yours off too…” she says in between breaths, eyes half lidded and watery with want.

“You think you can take it already?” You ask slowly, dead serious. Mizu nods, a slow and deliberate thing. Who are you to argue now?

“It’s bigger than the other one. You sure?” You ask again, making slow, hard motions against her wet clit.

“[Reader]…” she gasps, carrying a note of exasperation, her hands now trembling against you. “Please…!”

You laugh, breathless, exhilarated. Your lips gently press against her forehead, a soft ‘wait here’ and a quick trip to the corner of your bedroom later, you retrieve it.

You commissioned this piece long before you knew Mizu would return. Your very own harigata, hard as a tortoise shell, ribbed and heavy in size and weight. You expressed your desire to be able to attach it to yourself to please your lovers and so the artist complied. You held it up with one hand, allowing Mizu to gauge at the weight and size before stuffing it with warm cotton dipped in the previously boiled water at your side. Mizu hasn’t even noticed the servant come in, far too immersed in watching you align the phallus to her soaking cunt. She feels the heat through the tortoise shell and whimpers, hips trembling before she spreads her legs further apart. The head was already pushing against her hole, oh so ready to slip inside. Just as you mean to push yourself in, Mizu makes a strangled little noise and you cease in your tracks.

“Yes?” You ask, already breathless.

“It’s big…” she says, repeating the words you said earlier. You laugh, endeared.

“Yes. You want it smaller?” You ask again, but she shakes her head no.

She licks her dried lips before she swallows. “Don’t hold back.”

Unable to control yourself, you laugh, head falling beneath your shoulders and against her collarbone. Fuck.

“Tell me when you’re ready.”

You feel her nervousness in the tension of her body. As aroused as she was, it had been some time since she’s seen you. You begin with slow, shallow thrusts to get her accustomed to the feel, not going halfway until you hear her get noticeably impatient.

“Hold on, puppy. I don’t want to hurt you…” you say, but you push yourself in deeper to quiet her whimpers. The ribbed surface rutting in and out of her wet heat had its obvious effects. Her knees shake where they are around your hips and her head arches back as she moans, voice breaking. The harigata was doing everything it was designed to do and more. Mizu was falling apart so beautifully and you weren’t even fully inside.

Slower thrusts, still quick but less shallow, and she moves her arms to wrap around your neck in a tender embrace, holding your back to keep herself present. With you.

Some time passes, and you push yourself in further. You feel some natural resistance, Mizu’s breath hitching. You pause and pull away somewhat to check for her expression, finding her eyes wet with tears dripping down flushed cheeks. Her chest is rising and falling in ragged breaths as she struggles to compose herself long enough to get a sentence out.

“No! No, don’t stop. [Reader], please don’t stop,” she whines, cradling your face. You obliged and continued, though far slower than the pace you were going before. Mizu openly whimpers at this loss before she intertwines her legs around your hips by her ankles, keeping you close.

“Could that princess give you what I can?” You say suddenly, still feeling that burst of envy possess you as you rut your hips forward with a precision that only hours of fantasies and failed attempts to recreate Mizu’s body could give you. A shuddering, wanton moan later, Mizu’s hand flies over her mouth. You take that hand by her wrist and pin it to the floor, still thrusting your hips against hers with purpose and vigor. Not all the way in, not yet. “Well?” You ask. You demand.

“N-no…no she can’t…” Mizu damn near sobs, and possession coils in your gut as you push the harigata to reach new depths. Her moans are pitched and broken, you feel and see her falling apart. The poor thing felt so full, unsure what to even make of the delicious stretch your phallus provided or the hot arousal that being beneath you gave her. To some degree, she was yours, and you both knew it.

Feeling pleased with her state as she answered, you finally and gently push yourself in entirely, making her back arch and moans echo across your chambers like they did so long ago. The harigata’s other end pushes against you, makes you groan at the pressure. You look down at her whorish expression, her inky black hair spread like a halo around her head. You see her flushed skin shining with sweat, you see the tremble in her body and think about how much longer you’ll have to go without it.

“You don’t even know what you do to me…” You begin to ramble without thinking, words flowing like water from your tongue while Mizu moans beneath you.

You can’t help the way your hips begin to plow against hers, you can’t help the strength and ferocity that possesses you when you think of the distance that will be between the two of you. When you think of who she could meet and compare you to. When you think of yourself in the future, in bed, alone, aching for a body that will not be there. You cannot control the desire in your body when your hips move in a way that can only be described as primal, and she takes it all. Mizu has always taken what you give her so well, and it wasn’t long before you were both panting each other’s name against your skins, the room now hot and stuffy and reeking of sex. Her voice reaches a certain pitch, her nails claw into the silken fabric of your kimono, and you can tell she’s closer than ever.

A warm flower of pride bloomed in your chest as you realized that one day, if all went well, you could keep her for yourself. You’d no longer spend the lonely nights in your palace inviting women of the night to give you company. You’d no longer need to bear the crushing loneliness in your bed — not when Mizu’s mission would fail and she’d realize her rightful place at your side. Safe and warm. Protected. Yours.

You imagine fucking her day and night when she returns until she’s sore and trembling, unable to stand without your assistance. The mental image and the emotions it ignites inside of you make you openly and shakily moan in sync with her, and the two of you cum in each other's embrace. She’s damn near bitten through the silk of your kimono by now, drool coating the luxurious fabric. By now, she’s hardly the image of dignified, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

You pull yourself off of her with nothing but a smooth roll of your hips and a near-violent shudder from the body beneath you. By then, it had all blurred together into a hazy memory of warm candlelight, golden skin, and warm, damp towels running along Mizu’s body and freshly fetched water poured into her waiting mouth. You only remember the rest you won for yourself that night, the two of you wrapped in a tangle of limbs and half torn fabric, warm.

But you wake up cold, and you recall why she came by in the first place.

“Would it be too burdensome to stay?” You implore, voice breaking with sleep and heartache. That worn, raggedy kimono is once again wrapped around her figure, her bandages back on. Her very aura is cold and distanced, and the weight of her decision truly settles into your skin.

“We can be happy, you know.” You say, almost pleading but with far too much pride to let it show. “I am in the mountains, far from the city. No white man could find you here,” You can’t being yourself to stand. You watch as her expression morphs from one of sorrow and pity to one of distrust, distaste, and near-resentment. Whether it is directed to you or her father, you cannot be sure.

With her back to you and her voice in the tone of a man’s, she bids you goodbye.

You find that— more than anyone— you want her quest of revenge to fail.

How you despised her.

And oh, how you missed her.

#blue eye samurai #bes #bes mizu #mizu x you #mizu x reader #blue eye samurai fanfic #blue eye samurai smut #mizu x y/n #lIGHTTT very light akemi x mizu #if you squint

205 notes · View notes

greyskyflowers · 8 months

Text

Soft Zoro brought to you today by greyskyflowers

Yes, hello. I have decided that I will not rest until the world has more soft Zoro.

I'll start with this.

Zoro is not soft.

For the sake of this I'm going to run with the whole tiger vibes Zoro thing.

Tigers are friend shaped. They have the cutest little ears and they're so pretty that I just want to squish their little faces up and call them baby. It's a tragedy that I will not be able to do this. It's also a tragedy that if I ever get a chance to squish a tiger's little face up and call it baby that I will die happy as soon as I try to do so.

I love when I see videos of caretakers for wildlife being reunited with the animals they once helped take care of. Not zoos, the perserves and sanctuaries and stuff like that.

I love it.

But...

Tigers are wild animals. I would not encourage anyone to go up to a tiger, squish it's little face and call it baby. Even those people who have the great relationship with them are alway a misstep away from being a chew toy.

To me, this is Zoro. This is what I want people to get from my stuff about soft Zoro or submissive Zoro or whatever else I spit out on here.

Soft is not weak. Submissive is not weak. Allowing yourself to be weak, is not a weakness.

A tiger is not any less of a tiger because it allows someone it knows and loves to pet it. It will take your fucking arm off if it wants to. It will kill you and then go take a nap.

Zoro is terrifying. He's strong and incredibly talented and he adapts to his environment very quickly. Him and Luffy should honestly scare the absolute shit out of people.

Plus he was a bounty hunter, and the demon stuff or whatever that is, I bet Zoro can be uncomfortable to be around. He probably has that predator vibe to him, gives you the feeling that something big and scary is watching you. Peacefully, for now, but that can very easily change.

I love the idea that Zoro is brutal and bloodthirsty and unhinged during fights.

I love the idea that he's intimidating and unnerving if you don't know him very well.

I love the idea that Zoro is none of those things with the crew.

I like him having a place where he was be relaxed, soft, open, and 100% accepted as he is.

So yeah, I want to see him napping in little puppy piles with the crew. I want to see him letting himself relax around them. I want him to let himself experience the beauty of loving someone enough to allow yourself to be vulnerable around them. I want him baring his throat and back and belly to them, comparable to a animal rolling over to show trust. A tiger showing it's belly for it's favorite humans.

Does that make him any less terrifying? Fuck no.

It should actually make him more terrifying. He is not a mindless violent entity, he is fully aware of everything and chooses to absolutely fuck people up.

There's always an awareness that he's letting them see him when he's soft. He is not the one powerless in a situation like that. At any moment he could snap at all of them and he probably has. I can very easily see him building up those walls again when someone does something stupid. Leaving the crew, fighting Luffy, or just being a dumbass.

He goes back to defensive, unsettling, distant. And that might be worse than Luffy's anger or disappointment, dealing with Zoro's distance. Especially after having it. No more naps with a always warm swordsman. No more easy affection or privilege of being one of the people to see a fully relaxed and soft Zoro. No more touches to surprisingly soft skin, and no more easily given vulnerable spots.

I said at one point that Zoro gave me tiger on a gold leash vibes and here it is.

He may call Luffy captain and follow him willingly but tame is not a word that should be used to describe Zoro.

Let him be soft and terrifying.

Let him rip apart a battle field and drop bodies like gifts at his crews feet. Let him go back home bloody and feral, and angrily headbutt them like a cat when they refuse to touch him until he's cleaned up.

Let him come back clean, blood and wildness washed off and wisked away down the drain. Let him lay over their laps, cuddle up, or anything else like that.

And someone write me a submissive Zoro fic, god damn, I'm dying over here.

#one piece #zoro #zosan #zolu #opla #straw hat pirates #mugiwara crew #here we go #poly and/or qp strawhats #i will drag all of you into poly and/qp strawhats eventually #tagging opla because live action zoro has ruined my life #let zoro be soft you cowards #let zoro bottom you cowards #setting sail with greyskyflowers

206 notes · View notes

imtryingbuck · 26 days

Text

Too Late part two

~ gif not mine credit to owner ~

Pairing: Steve Rogers x fem!Reader. Fem!Reader x Conrad (whoever you picture)

Summary: part two of Too Late

Word count: 2,613

Warnings: angst. fluff. lies? Steve makes an appearance.

Part 1

Masterlist

Now in the two years since she had left she finally felt at peace, she found herself.

~~~

For close to a year Conrad would visit Y/n in her little sanctuary that sat alone in the woodland area, for those months Y/n didn’t trust him of course she didn’t he was a member of Hydra, the bad guys who spend years and years destroying the goodness that was James Buchanan Barnes, destroyed and killed those that didn’t bow down to them and abide by their rules.

And while yes Conrad decided not to put a bullet in her head like she had asked for him to do, choosing to open her eyes to the betrayal, he chose to give her a second chance in life he was still the guy apart of a terrible organisation.

Even though she didn’t trust him she did have to admit that she appreciated his help, appreciated his company. Every time he visited he brought supplies and food for her, he even showed up once with a van that had a ray of different livestock in the back so she could start a little farm up like she had wanted to do.

Y/n tried, she really did try to not get too comfortable with Conrad but he was just so easy to talk to about everything and anything, she appreciated that he never once mentioned Steven and his betrayal with Natasha. She hated how funny he was, she hated how much she missed him when he left to go back to the monstrous organisation that was Hydra. Hated how he occupied her mind when he wasn’t there helping around the house fixing things and only accepting a nice cold glass of homemade lemonade from her.

She definitely hated how much he looked so attractive when he chopped fresh firewood for her.

She especially hated that.

It wasn’t fair, he was supposed to be the enemy yet he had treated her better in those few months than anyone had ever.

It had been exactly four months, three weeks and two days since Conrad had last been to visit and she hated it. Though she had the many animals to keep her company she had to admit she was kind of going a bit crazy.

Molly the cow would look at her like she was insane when Y/n would be perch upon on the wooden little stool that Conrad had made for her, talking to the cow as she milked her. Y/n swore that one time the black spotted animal rolled her eyes at the woman once.

Y/n walked into the pigpen fussing over the month old piglets that were the most precious little things she had ever laid eyes on. When her leg was knocked she looked down to see Grumpy, named perfectly for his grumpiness, she patted him on his head telling him to hold on for food, chuckling lightly when he snorted in response. The moment she finished putting the food in the trough she heard the unmistakable sound of a car coming up the gravelled driveway.

Nobody had ever come up to where she lived apart from…

“H-he’s back” she mumbled to herself before dropping the bucket with a clank and running out finding herself nearly tripping over her own foot when she had to turn back around to shut the gate of the pigpen.

Running to the front of the house she saw the same car Conrad always came in, her eyebrows pulled together when she saw two figures sitting in the front, as the car got closer her heart started beating faster as she noticed Conrad and another figure she had come to know because of Steve.

“Y/n-“ Conrad shouts as soon as he gets out of the driver side door “-god I’ve missed you” he jogs over to her and wraps his arms around her frame, pulling back when he notices she doesn’t hug him back but is staring at the other person who stands by the car. “I can explain everything I promise”

“It’s nice seeing you again Y/n.”

Two sets of eyes moved back and forth as Y/n paced around in front of them. One was nervous the other didn’t care about her reaction, well lack of one. Conrad went to speak but the other person in the room shook their head.

“Y-you lied-“

“I didn’t lie-“

“You didn’t tell me the truth!”

“Because I couldn’t, I’m sorry Y/n”

“It’s true Y/n. He couldn’t tell you the truth”

The truth being that Conrad was never a member of Hydra but a SHIELD agent. He had been undercover for four years. There were a handful of agents that were sent undercover and Conrad was one of them, the plan was to take Hydra down from the inside.

From what Conrad had said that it had worked, they had successfully captured members of Hydra one by one.

“Bu-but your meant to be the enemy”

“Yet you trusted him”

Y/n’s eyes squinted at the man sat next to Conrad “I understand that I’ve got real bad judgment when it comes to trusting men Fury”.

“I understand your confused but to be honest Conrad never lied to you-“

“I’ve been thinking he’s the bad guy from the moment he kidnapped me!”

“And yet you trusted him enough to let him come into your home”

“I-shut up. Okay so why are you telling me now?”

“I’ll let him fill you in on that. I’m going to go, it was nice meeting you again Y/n, truly. Goodbye”

Y/n watches Fury stand up fixing his trench coat before nodding to both of them then leaving. Taking the car with him. Leaving with a promise, promising her that Steve doesn’t and will never know that she’s alive.

Conrad’s eyes never moved away from Y/n, patting the seat next to him sighing a breath of relief when she sits. “I’m sorry for not telling you the truth about me, I wasn’t allowed to.”

“No I understand, sorry for overreacting”

“You didn’t-“ he chuckles “I missed you”

“I missed you too”

“So I erm I-I told Fury I want to retire and he’s accepted it, bu-but I was wondering i-if you would have me, here I mean”

“You want to say here? With me?”

“I haven’t got any family anymore a-and I feel happy here”

Conrad hated the silence that followed, he was about to tell her that it didn’t matter, that he would still come to visit, that he was sorry for overstepping when she finally spoke.

“We’ve got piglets. They are the cutest things ever, want to come look?”

“”We”?”

“Well yeah you live here now so…”

He moved so fast wrapping his arms around her, bringing her into his chest. Mumbling thank you over and over again.

In a way Conrad went off script when he took Y/n from her shared apartment with Steve, it was Hydra’s plan all along. The plan was to find a way to destroy Captain America. They had heard from a Hydra agent that was undercover with SHIELD that America’s golden boy had a girlfriend but was cheating on her with the black widow. The plan was to use Y/n as a way to get Steve to stop destroying their ‘hard work’. They were going to blackmail him, telling him that they won’t tell Y/n about his straying ways as long as he did what they said.

It was foolproof as the double agent told them that Steve was in love with Y/n.

Even though he had been cheating on her with someone she thought was her friend.

But Conrad knew that Hydra would hurt her just to get Steve to break. And that wasn’t something he could stand by and watch so he told the team he had been in charge of that he had gotten word that it was time to go ahead and kidnap Y/n. He did have to admit that it was admirable that she put up a fight against ten men who were ten times bigger than her, he hated it when Mitch punched her.

Due to having eyes on him he had to act as if the tears that were coming out from her pretty eyes wasn’t bothering him when she watched her boyfriend and friend sleeping together. When the Avengers showed up he couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling as Steve tries to make a pathetic attempt at explaining his betrayal. He did have to force himself to stifle the laugh that tried to make its way out when Natasha had tears in her eyes hearing that she meant nothing to Steve.

Conrad’s heart clenched at hearing that she was pregnant because she had already asked him to kill her, a thing that he agreed to do even if he didn’t want to. But hearing that she had lost her unborn baby made his heart clench even harder.

Getting her out of the rundown facility was easy as his team were to focused on keeping their eyes and guns trained on the Avengers. Getting her to the farmhouse that sat alone in the middle of nowhere was easy even if she was driving him mad when she kept asking him where he was taking her.

Fury found out that it was Conrad that had ‘killed’ Y/n a few months back when he had to meet the man to talk about how the progress was going. Fury was angry. He had met Y/n a handful of times he thought she was sweet, nice, definitely didn’t deserve to have her life to be ended the way it was. That was until Conrad told him the truth.

For the four months, three weeks and two days since he hadn’t seen her it had drove him insane he wanted so badly to reach out to her and let her know that he was thinking about her, that he was definitely coming back to her. Fury made him go no contact with her until the dust settled around them.

Conrad begged Fury not to let Steve know about Y/n being alive or where she was, Nick wasn’t a stupid man he knew that Conrad had clearly grown fond of Y/n. Finding out what Steve had done, he gave the man pacing around in his office his word. Steve would never find out.

“Con! We’ve got a runner!” Y/n screamed trying to chase after one of the pigs who decided to make a run for it. “She’s coming your way”

“I’ve got eyes on her! I’ve got her!” He cheered picking up the animal, who actually sighed in defeat.

“Shes so fast it’s unbelievable”

“I know, she was on a mission to get away” he laughed placing the pig back down into the pen.

“Her mission fail- what?”

“I love you”

“I love you too”

“Gimme a kiss- wait…”

It had been two years since Conrad had joined Y/n at the farmhouse after retiring, in those two years Conrad had confessed his feelings for her, he understood that she probably needed some time since how her last relationship had ended so he was completely shocked when she jumped into his arms and kissed him. Through them two years they lived happily in complete ignorance of the world around them.

“What?” Following Conrad’s eyes looking up at the sky she frowned. “That’s one of SHIELD’s jets Con…”

“I know. Stay close to me okay”

“Obviously”

They watch in silence as the jet lowers on the field just at the back of their home, the door comes open and the ramp begins to descend. They share confused glances at seeing no one making an appearance, when someone finally stands in the doorway Y/n gasps.

It’s been four years to that day since she last saw him. Those four years weren’t kind to him honestly. His hair was longer and he was even sporting a beard. He looked bigger in muscle though his face was slimmer, his once bright blue eyes were now sunken and dull.

“H-how did he find us?” She whispered unable to move her eyes away from him.

Steve Rogers had found them.

And unfortunately was now making his way down the ramp.

Since Y/n had her eyes trained on his approaching figure she didn’t notice the rest of the Avengers making their exit from the jet. Even Loki and Bruce were there.

“You-you made out that you’ve been dead for four years and yet here you are shacking it up with the enemy” his voice was deeper than it use to be.

“How did you find her?” Conrad asked standing in front of her, not liking the way Steve’s eyes moved up and down her body.

“You let me believe that you was dead baby, for four years I’ve-“

“What are you doing here?” She cut him off.

“Fury. He’s not as sneaky as he thinks.”

“Why are you here Steven?”

“I want you back” Steve states as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Not happening. Leave all of you”

“Baby I made a mistake-“

“Don’t come any closer Rogers. I mean it” it’s now Conrad’s turn to interrupt him. Steve cocks his head to the side and laughs. But does as the other man says.

“He’s Hydra baby-“

“He was undercover for SHIELD. Please leave now”

“Is that what he told you?”

“It’s what Fury told me. Leave”

“Just come home okay, I can be better please baby I love you”

“I’m already home. Tony, Bucky please get him gone”

Bucky looks at her with an unreadable expression on his face “it’s nice to see you again Y/n/n. Come on Steve she’s happy here let-“

“No. No because she isn’t. She can’t just run away and pretend she’s dead-“

“You was cheating on me Steven. With my so called friend as well. I’m happy here, I don’t want you anymore”

“Natasha meant and still means nothing to me baby, it was a mistake, one that I want to make up for. Please just come home”

“I don’t care, I stopped caring about you and her a long time ago. I won’t ask-“

“Just come home!” Steve shouts cutting her off.

“She is home! Just leave and move on”

Standing there Steve shakes his head slowly before looking back up to Y/n. “D-do you really love him?”

“I do”

“Does he make you happy?”

“He does”

Nodding, defeat and acceptance written on his face. “I really am sorry for everything I did Y/n, I-I never wanted to hurt you, I’m sorry truly.”

Leaving Conrad’s side she walks closer to Steve, standing in front of the man who she loved so much, the man who broke her heart. “I forgive you Steve, I’m happy now. Conrad is a great person and he makes me happy”

“I’m glad. I-I’ll always love you Y/n. Goodbye” Steve says before walking backwards and turning around to walk up to the jet. Everyone all except Natasha nods or waves to Y/n before following their captain.

Watching the jet leave Conrad moves closer to her wrapping his arms around her waist, kissing her neck. “You alright my love?”

“I’m more then alright, come on I’m starving and let’s not forget I am eating for two”

Hand in hand with Conrad she walks into their farmhouse seeing the positive side to seeing Steve again, it felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

At first Steve cheating on her was the worst thing that ever happened to her, but now four years later she was finally happier than ever before with the man who loves her and their unborn baby.

Tags: @imcinnamoons | @pigeonmama | @vicmc624 | @capsbestgirl77

69 notes · View notes

luboy7rt · 18 days

Text

What Animal Team Ghosts Would Randomly Bring Home To You (Headcanons)

(Remember This is just what I (My headcanons), enjoy reading!)(Could be seen as Platonic, Romantic?) (GN Reader) (Elias, Hesh, Logan, Keegan, Merrick, and Kick)

Elias Walker:

- Elias has.. habits. He brings home a lot of different animals throughout the years, Riley being the permanent house/military dog.

- Elias has definitely brought home any animal he thinks needs rescuing, one day it will be a cat, the next a little bird, then next a little mouse that needed saving from a mousetrap. You cannot stop this man, he has a mission in just rescuing animals as a unsuspecting side gig to being a literal military commander. (I like to think he's a animal lover, even if it's a ‘secret’)

- You point out a stray dog or cat? That's his now, (if the animal will allow it and wants to come with), Hesh and Logan have gotten used to their father bringing home random animals “...Can we even keep that, Dad?” Hesh would ask every time if it was a random animal that shouldn't be a pet. “Why Not.” Would be Elias's answer every. Damn. Time.

- Elias would also ensure to tell you, Hesh, Logan, to not touch the more aggressive or ‘spicy’ animals he brings home, basically makes sure you all respect the animals and ensure the animals wouldn't hurt you three.

- If any of the animals he brings home are ‘unfit’ To be around kids (yes, he still calls Hesh and Logan kids, and maybe even you too if you have that type of relationship) he would find a good animal shelter, sanctuary or a good home for the animal.

- Why do Hesh and Riley have a good relationship? Elias taught Hesh how to train Riley, ensuring that Hesh would always know Riley has his back, having Riley around brought a sense of security to Elias as he felt like his boys could be cared for by Riley even if he wasn't around.

- Elias would give a deep chuckle with a half smile as he walks through the front door, spotting you as he carried a small bird in his hands, he would offer a hello, and show you the small baby bird he was now keeping due to finding it injured in the driveway.

- Basically most people go to this man when they find a random animal, because somehow Elias is always good at knowing what animal, the species and what the hell is wrong If there is something wrong. Everytime Elias is asked about his knowledge, “Documentaries are nice, you should watch them. Maybe then you can learn something for once” He would respond by accidentally being brutal.

- “Do you feel comfortable? Or should I find a better home for this little guy?” Elias Would ask you, Hesh, and Logan every time he brings home a new random animal, the house has become a farm at this point. You want an animal? As long as you know how to care for it and it wants to or can be around? fine by Elias, do your research and show him you can care for it, and he'll make it happen.

- Yes, you have random animals cuddling up to you in the middle of the night, is it one of the cats? Or could it be the tortoise that Elias has had for years? Or maybe it was just Riley, you'll be in for a surprise if you left your door open.

David Hesh Walker:

- Hesh would bring home lizards, just imagine him coming home with a few baby lizards in his arms, Riley having one on his snout with wide eyes.. the dog was very steady in slowly creeping behind Hesh as to not drop the little lizard across his snout and head.

- “Oh, Hey..! didn't realize you were home” Hesh would sheepishly admit, as he adjusted the lizards in his arms, trying to get them to stop climbing everywhere. “...Surprise..? No welcome home..? Alright”

- If you don't like the lizards? He'll put them back outside, leave a little bowl of water incase they need it.. Poor Riley would waddle after Hesh, having lizards all over him, trying to walk but being so careful not to hurt any of them.. Riley ends up bringing the lizards in the house, Hesh laughing if you freak out.

- If you do like lizards? He'll put one on your shoulder or head, bonk. There you go, you got your own little guy.

- Your house gets taken over by lizards, Hesh doesn't find it funny after he found one in the washroom at 2AM the next morning, if you have a fear of lizards? Good luck, you scream? Hesh will come to save you, but Riley likes the damn lizards and keeps bringing them inside accidently and it becomes a big mess. Hesh apologizes about fifty times for it.

- “..This might be a little problem” Hesh would mutter as you smack or elbow his stomach, he would wince a bit and be grumbley he couldn't ‘tame’ wild lizards like his father could, awkwardly rubbing his hair as he would pat your shoulder and promise to deal with it.

- It took three weeks. Three weeks to get all the lizards out of the house, and Hesh only kept one bigger lizard, which he built a cage for and now cares for as it had a small injury.

- He gives a soft smile, and a tilt of the head, like a 'I did it' face, in the end, you both are relieved that the lizards are no longer all over your home.

Logan Walker:

- Logan brought home a large frog, well like a large overweight bullfrog, No questions asked, No answers given as he just plopped it in front of you. Like a silent, I brought you this.

- If you like the bullfrog? You can keep it, Logan would buy a big enclosure for her, and silently look proud of his work, he would feed, care and love this frog like it's his damn firstborn. Even takes photos to send to you, Elias, and Hesh. ‘Look at my frog. ignore she's a bit big, we are working on it'. Texts little updates about this frog every week.

- If he can't care for it? He’ll expect you to, please care for this man’s frog. You don't have to pick it up if you don't want to but feed her for him when he's away if you are still around the house.

- Logan would randomly just plop the frog on you (if you don't mind), frog on your head, frog on your shoulder, frog in your hands, frog on your stomach.. He would just randomly plop her on you, and smile.

- If you don't like the frog, he will give her to Elias for safe keeping, willing to just visit his frog but wanting to keep the peace between you two.

- Logan likes frogs, if he finds one interesting enough he will just catch it to show it off to you, a rare smile playing on his lips as he lets the frog poke their head out of his hand to show you. Like Logan is quietly and silently asking if you love the frog as much as he does. If you don't, that's alright, he'll find something else to randomly bring you as presents.. Logan always gently puts the frogs he catches back where he finds them.

- Frog catching was definitely a hobby, one Hesh got him into when they were young children. Hesh may have 'forgotten' about the competition about frog catching between them but Logan would never.

- Logan actually tries to start this competition with you, who could catch the most frogs? If you don't want to? That's alright, he'll show off the frogs from a decent way away. If you do? Get prepared to get dirty, this is war, mud was on both of your clothes, as you two had looked for frogs for hours and who do you think would win?

Keegan Russ:

- Keegan isn’t scared of many things in life, so when he brings home a large snake? Wrapped around his neck like it wouldn't hurt him, as he causally walks into the apartment, a wild snake around his neck.. You might be a bit hesitant as it's about 3AM, and Keegan just got home.. with a random big snake.

- Keegan gives a head nod as he put the snake down on the couch.. Like it wouldn't just slither off around the apartment, Keegan puts his hands on his hips, and glances at you before glancing back at the snake. “I have a pet.”

- Yeah, that's all he said to you, do you like snakes? If you are chill with it, Keegan's chill, Keegan will buy a large enclosure for the big guy and ensure he's well fed.

- If you don't like snakes..? Or are scared of them, Keegan will ensure the snake is kept in a large enclosure, and wouldn't take him out around you. But he does keep him, and nurses the snake up to full health again.

- Keegan would slowly get the snake used to his and your presence, feeding him well so there was no accidents, slowly getting the snake used to you both and making sure to do a tad bit of research about this species to ensure he doesn't fuck up.

- “Put this on” Keegan would say with a straight face and a quiet chuckle as he put the large snake around your neck, his hand not leaving but staying between you and the snake's head, and would tease you if you were scared.. but if you got to scared he would take the snake back and keep him away from you. Keegan wouldn't apologize but would make it up to you for scaring you.

- You always see Keegan with this snake, attempting to scare either Logan or Hesh, whoever was closest to him, maybe even put the snake in Kick's bed, having had ensured the other man had no weapons to hurt Keegan's beloved snake... But also giving Kick the scare of his life.

Merrick:

- Merrick brings home a small baby squirrel, holding her in his gloved palm, as she was covered in dirty rainwater, and oil. Merrick had just returned from a long mission, still wearing his gear as he accidentally woke you up at around 4AM.

- He would apologize quietly as if trying to make up for the fact he woke you up and asks you to start a little bath in the sink for the little squirrel.

- Merrick was a bit quieter in the morning, as he sat by the kitchen sink, not even taking off his gear, you both would gently clean off this baby squirrel.

- If you don't want to keep her, Merrick would be alright with that, very understanding as he would end up bringing her to a vet for them to figure out what to do.

- If you do want to keep her, Merrick would nod and do his best to ensure the squirrel would be happy and cared for. Merrick would pat your shoulder or head as a thank you, and find a nice spot to put the little squirrel, ends up just making a small bed in an old shoe box.

- Merrick ends up training the squirrel to bring him any amount of dollar bills, Merrick would grin when the squirrel would pass him a five dollar bill and give her lots of headsets and snacks. Merrick would give You a smug I told you I could do it look.

- You two end up having this squirrel for a long while, oh you're cooking something? Watch out Ms.Squirrelly might run past and try to steal your ingredients, you want five minutes alone in the shower, Squirrelly is outside the shower waiting for you, you leave the groceries out? Guess who ate them already.

- Ms. Squirrelly is very loved by all, even if she does steal money. She's a little thief, but Merrick adores her, and yes he keeps that money to buy you or Ms.Squirrelly a nice gift.

Kick:

- When Kick walks Into the house carrying a goat, what do you do when it screams bloody murder when she sees you? Kick was very straight faced as he looked at you, holding her up as if to show you nothing bad happened.

- Kick stole a goat. Who knows where he got the poor girl from, Kick wouldn't give You any details, he just walks into the house and puts the goat down in the kitchen, asking her to shut up as he put a plate of fruit in front of her.

- When you ask what the hell, or why he just shrugged as explains he found her alone while doing a test fly with a helicopter, claiming he just found her and took her home.. He basically just kidnapped a goat from who knows where.

- Kick and the goat don't even get along, she will follow him and you around, but the moment shes alone with Kick? she screams, she just makes the worse screeching noises around him, like he hates this man.. But she doesn't leave even if You give her the chance to.

- Yeah, the goat vibes with you, but it seems like Kick and her just despise each other, like if one of them are in a room, and the other walks in? One of them will end up leaving.

- Kick regretted taking the goat in, he dislikes loud things.. and this goat is loud, she hates him, and she makes sure to ‘tell’ Kick. Kick will look at you with a straight face.. every time, it just makes it funnier.

- You don’t really have much of a choice, unless it is necessary this goat won’t leave, Kick has tried. She just randomly pops back up in the backyard and you both have to keep her.

- The only time Kick and this goat get along is when Kick gives her food or ‘fights’ her, play fighting a goat, basically Kick has ran out of ideas but it makes the goat shut up for a while.

56 notes · View notes

l0velylecter · 1 year

Note

can i request headcannons for könig + 141 x reader! who is not in the military? maybe something like they are into arts, wants to live in cottage, have big family? i feel like it would be the opposite of the boys lol

— the men of 141 & könig + a civilian s/o ! characters : simon ‘ghost’ riley, john ‘soap’ mactavish, captain john price, kyle ‘gaz’ garrick, könig fandom : call of duty modern warfare ii tags : gn!reader, headcanons, some mild characterisation for the reader as i’ll put them into civlian professions / give them hobbies and interests rating : t for teen and up audiences , sfw!

01| If there was one word to describe Soap was that he's supportive. There was the initial worry that he wouldn't enjoy your lifestyle, that you'd be too different from one another. Yet, it doesn't matter to Johnny, even if he doesn't quite understand it. He's the type to enjoy anything his partner likes as long as it makes them happy. So it doesn't matter how busy he gets, he'd always be on the front row of your music recitals, urging the crowd to give standing ovations. And when you take him to museums to see paintings of Rembrandt or Vermeer, he tries his best to listen to every word you say, focused on how your eyes light up with passion. You also enjoy reading to him, running your hand against his scalp as he drifts off to sleep.

02| He had doubts about having a life outside the military, most days, Price felt more like a weapon than a man, a loaded gun ready to be recoiled and fired. After years of grueling fights and endless violence, it's hard to picture himself living a quiet and peaceful life. Yet, coming home to you gave him just that. You were both busy, so you would spend months and sometimes even a year apart. Yet the moment he comes home, he'd be all over you — following you around as you roamed your walk-in closet, undressing by the vanity table as he watched in quiet admiration. Once, when you were dozing off against his shoulder, you confessed to dreaming of having a big family. Of children's laughter ringing down the halls and sending them off to school every day. You didn't expect Price to cling to those words. " Someday," He mused, " Someday, love." He was wishful despite everything. And hope suits him. (Husband material, you once complimented, and he got too attached to the word.)

03| To Gaz, it doesn't matter what you'd be doing as long as you were together. All he wanted was to spend time with you, especially when moments were rare. And so he tries to keep up with your shopping, with all the bags dangling off his arms, taking you out might as well be an endurance test. Although, it does make him happy to see you show off your new bag, clothes, and shoes: nodding along as you explain the design. He'd be cleaning his gun, and you'd be on the other side painting your nails, the scene almost comical. He leaves the bathroom door open so he can still talk to you every morning. Afterward, he'd take the time to drive you to work, hand on your thigh lovingly as he soaks in the joy of doing ordinary, mundane tasks. 04| Dressed head to toe in black, all the farm animals crowded Ghost curiously, and while Simon looked terribly out of place against the lush, green stretch of pasture, the sight was enough to make you laugh. And you were sure he also enjoyed living in the countryside, even with you scolding him every hour about leaving his weapons around the cottage. (You nearly cut a basket of apples with his combat knives, dropping them when you realized where they've been.) If he's not helping you collect eggs from the chicken coop ( returning with a head full of feathers ), he's dozing off by the persimmon tree, the only time you've seen him this close to relaxing. Away from all the commotion and in isolation from any unwanted company, your life was a haven he finally lets himself indulge in, a sanctuary that reminds him to look after himself after every time he fights. 05| At times, König confesses to you that your entire relationship feels like a fevered dream, a silly fantasy he's conjured up in his head because he still cannot believe he's dating you. You assured him that you weren't that big of a celebrity, and he corrected you by pointing out your face on the billboard outside your apartment. He's flattered by all the gifts you spoil him with daily, somewhat flustered as you present to him a tactical watch that probably costs more than a car. Your lifestyles should have been impossible to co-exist side by side, especially when König does not want and cannot afford all of the attention you get on the daily. But apparently, being 6'10 in a balaclava means he doesn't mind being your bodyguard. Most of the time, it was enough to give you the privacy you both wanted, and it still awes him every time he sees you on the television, even on duty, halfway across the world; chuckling to himself when his teammates would point out how beautiful you were — if only they knew.

a/n : hi anon ! thank you for requesting, to be honest, i’ve been dying for someone to request this because i do love me some civilian x cod men content. i didn’t want to add too much specific details as i want to make it as open as possible for everyone to interpret ( i read somewhere that when reader! fics are too specific it ruins the fun because it seems very oc so i’m being very careful to be inclusive <3 ) i hope you enjoy it ! thank you again for the fun idea, hope it lives up to your expectations 💖 additional hc : → könig probably steals simon’s look and also goes out in a balaclava, simon’s heated and low-key offended ( don’t worry Si, you’re still the og trendsetter )

665 notes · View notes

theartisticpixelbit · 6 months

Text

We're so back! With another redesign as well! So here she is, Fluttershy!

════ •✧• ════

MIDDLE NAMES WORK THE SAME AS LAST NAMES IN MY AU, MOST CHILDREN TAKE THE LAST NAME OF WHICHEVER PARENT THEY WANT

════ •✧• ════ ┌── •✧• ──┐

Bio Name: Flutter 'Breeze' Shy

Nickname: Fluttershy, Flutters

Gender/Sexuality: Female (Demisexual)

Parents: Posey 'Breeze' Shy, Cirrus 'Cloud' Shy

Siblings: Zephyr 'Breeze' Shy

Partner: Discord

Children: Mandrake (Son), Xeranthemum (Daughter)

Other Relatives: Rainbow Dash (Distant Cousins) └── •✧• ──┘

┌── •✧• ──┐

HEADCANONS: 🦋 She lives in Ponyville with the rest of the Mane Six, still working in her animal sanctuary.

🦋 She tends to animals at her home, and once patched up, she lets them recover to their fullest in her Animal Sanctuary.

🦋 Even though she is a pony, an herbivorous mammal, she understands the full importance of meat for carnivores- and the cycle in which needs to pass for every animal to properly survive. She doesn't mind cutting up and handling meat to feed to recovering carnivorous animals, even though most ponies hate even the thought of eating or handling meat.

🦋 Fluttershy is still having trouble learning how to fly well, she's a weak flyer.

🦋 After the events of "Twilight's Kingdom" the mane 6 got those colorful strokes on their hair, Pinkie and AJ dye their hair back to their natural colors

🦋 When Fluttershy was young she would always stay close to her parents. She was definitely 100% spoiled however after her younger brother was born she became very distant from her family and would tend to isolate herself and wouldn’t open up much when she had problems.

🦋 She has anxiety

🦋 Her father and Rainbow Dash's mother are cousins

└── •✧• ──┘

#(✿~Autistic_Artist~✿)#(✿My_Art✿)#mlp #redesign #art #mlp art #my little pony #mylittlepony #fluttercord #fluttershy

125 notes · View notes

bunniekittiee · 7 months

Text

heaven beside you- johnny slaughter x reader

Warning: DEAD DOVE, suicidal reader, suicide, abuse, Johnny is a POS again.

18+ MDNI

The gentleness in those rough, calloused hands sickened her to the core. The same hands that mutilated her friends in cold blood were the same ones he used to give her pleasure, abuse her, caress her. He feigned innocence at the beginning of her capture, always being sweet with that Southern talk he made to reel her in. Made her fall in love. But that innocence rotted away like her friends did in that basement. As time passed, he began to show more and more of his untrustworthiness. He was only gentle when he wanted something from her, and she had no other choice but to obey.

It was hard when the only person she relied on was a monster. A monster who raked his claws into her body, savoring her taste and licking his chops. The monster that stared at her with steel, cold eyes. No signs of fondness. He only wanted her for himself, making sure the others knew she was not for them. It was isolating.

It took a toll. Eventually she slept through many hours of the day, barely awake when he was ravaging her body. Sleep was an escape, she dreamed of what could not be. She saw her friends, happy in a field of flowers, sunflowers. When she was dreaming, the emptiness dissipated. But as soon as she opened her eyes, realizing she was not with her friends or family, it seeped back into her body.

She was always tired. Tired of being stuck in that decaying room, tired of being chained up like a rabid animal, tired of being a play thing for a murderous man, tired of this life. She wanted to move on, she was not welcome in this life anymore as it had been overridden with tangled weeds. It was not hers anymore. But he noticed that his little bunny was not who she once was.

“Why are ya’ always sleepin’?” he asked her one day, tapping her face with an open palm. “Ya’ always asleep when I see ya’. I miss ya’.”

But she knew he did not miss her. The serpent was speaking his lies again into her ear, just as the serpent convinced Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit. She did not reply back, she stared at him with vacant eyes. And he stared back.

The routine had changed up for the first time one day. Instead of Johnny bringing her a plate of an unknown meat that made her queasy, it was Bubba. He sauntered in, a little nervous and she perked up immediately. Bubba was one of the more “nicer” ones of the family as he did not make an effort to make her more miserable. He grunted as he set the plate down, glancing at her.

“Hey,” she rasped.

Bubba looked at her, tilting his head slightly for her to continue.

“I have a favor to ask.”

He side-eyed the door, afraid Johnny would come in and see them interacting. Bubba heeded his warning and stayed away from his prisoner because he was afraid of what Johnny would do. He groaned worriedly.

“Kill me.” she said as she crawled to him. “Kill me now. Please, please put me out of my misery.” Her eyes were glossy, the first signs of emotion she had shown in a long time.

Bubba began to sound frantic. He shook his head quickly, stepping back away from her.

“Please, you don’t understand. I need to die. There is no other way to this, please kill me.” she begged. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

Shaking his head again, Bubba turned to leave the room. He ignored her weeping so he did not feel guilty. But he did anyways, he did not want her to cry. He felt like he was at fault for her outburst.

She cried just like she did when she realized all of her friends were dead. She sobbed for the girl who died in her, now left with an empty shell of a used, broken body. The boy did not play with his toys nicely, he liked to break them into pieces and glue them back together, only to break them again. Break the brittle porcelain and smile at the mess he made.

The thoughts of suicide never left her head. There was a lot of time to ponder and think about it before she was taken back to her sanctuary she created in her brain.

Johnny knew he broke her, and he viewed it as a success. To him, it was his usual game. Why show mercy for a play thing? He never played nice, he was known for that. Sometimes he wondered if it was even a good idea to have her in the first place, but he was reminded of the goodness of it when he sank inside of her. Nancy often pestered him to kill the girl, but he was not finished with her. She was an unfinished art project that needed a few more touches. Just as Bubba made masks and Nubbins snapped pictures, Johnny was an artist in his own way. He enjoyed defiling women and turning them inside out. The empty eyes of a broken spirit stroked his ego and made his body tingle in excitement. He got off on making individuals miserable, cackling at their pleas and the fresh, hot blood that spilled from the crevices of their corpse.

She felt like a corpse herself. The bunny stopped fighting when trapped in the jaws of the wolf, she accepted her fate. She wished he had killed her like he did her friends. They would be rotting together, whether it was in the bellies of her captors or where they disposed what was left of them. Johnny mocked her when she cried for her friends. He slapped her and told her to “close her damn lips before he glued them together”. The tears continued to fall, but the cries were quieted down in fear of him. He liked to throw his intimidation around and terrorize her when he could. Whether it was waving body parts in her face, forcing her to eat “jerky”, cutting into her body with his knife, or abusing her repeatedly, Johnny took pride in his creation. Sometimes he took pictures of her and stashed them away for his own viewing. She was his pretty girl, his own art piece.

There was a thought that crossed her mind that God did not shine his light upon the hellish beast that the Sawyers called “home”. Within it, it felt void of any saving, and with the amount of times she cried for the Lord, he did not answer back. The only Lord that answered her calls was his creation of man who laughed in her face.

“Ya’ think God is going to save ya’?” he giggled as he waved the knife in her face. “God doesn’t do any savin’ around here, the only God ya’ worship is me. There ain’t no God that will touch this place, for the Devil already marked it as his sanctuary.”

Debating on her thoughts, she stared at the ceiling unblinking as he slept peacefully next to her. Her lower half throbbed from his perverted touch and she could not sleep. Her brain was running a thousand miles per hour, wishing and hoping for a new beginning. Maybe she could grant herself that, she deserved it after all she put up with him. Her skin burned when he fondled her, like a demon would when a crucifix was placed upon their skin. The Devil snored quietly next to her like a predator would with his prey confined between its jowls. She wondered if he awakened during his slumber to watch her.

Maybe God did watch upon this Hell. Johnny released her from her restraints, saying she had been doing very good lately and would be granted just a small fraction of freedom. She was grateful, but her brain worked at the many ways she could leave. She felt guilty for feeling this way because some part of her loved him. When he was gentle for only mere moments, he kissed her softly, he smiled at her with amusement, he cuddled her close to him and left small kisses along her throat. Those times he did that, she wanted to stay. She wanted it to be like that forever. But just as quick as he could kill, he was just as quick at switching his moods. When he laid kisses upon her throat, he bit down to draw blood and shock her. When he kissed her, he chewed at her lip roughly and sucked on her blood. When he smiled at her, his smile morphed into an evil, dark smile. When he cuddled her, he dug his fingernails into her soft body and left claw marks. It reminded her that he was not someone to love, but someone to be terrified of.

It was a chilly November evening. They sat at the table together to eat dinner with the rest of the family. They studied her as she chewed slowly to prevent herself from getting sick. They were not used to her sitting at the table with them to eat after Johnny had kept her away from them for so long. However, he made it clear to not talk to you. You were only his, they did not need to converse with you. Sissy annoyed Johnny about it, getting under his skin on purpose and smiling at his clenched fists and the sharp clatter of his utensils. Bubba stole small glances at you but avoided your gaze. It was better he did not look, he did not want to anger the beast. Nubbins and Chop Top giggled at the table as they watched your frightened form shake as Johnny became more angry. He was like a bomb ready to explode as the vein in his forehead throbbed and his jaw clenched.

Dinner was a long ordeal, and it was very tense with the way the family continued to irritate the Slaughter boy. She was fearful. She knew that once the door to his room closed, he would devour her. And she was scared for the first time in a while. Clenching her wrist, he dragged her from her chair and upstairs, making her stumble along the steps as he hurriedly pulled her with him. His grip was tight, and it activated the rope burns that had melted into her skin like wax.

Throwing her into the room, he slammed the door shut. His breathing was uneven as his eyes glistened with animosity.

“All of this is your fuckin’ fault.” he spat as he wrenched a hand into her scalp. “If ya’ hadn’t come around here in the first place, I wouldn’t have ta’ hear my family’s yappin’.

She stayed silent. It was best to not argue back. He never took it too lightly.

“They want me to kill ya’. They wonder all the time why I haven’t killed ya’. I’m not so sure myself either.” Johnny bore into her soul. “There ain’t no other purpose to ya’ besides fuckin’ the stupidity out of ya’ and usin’ ya.”

Glistening with tears, her eyes did not let them fall. She knew this already. She knew he did not love her. He never meant anything he said. Yet, it hurt her, it deeply punctured her heart. She felt herself losing the ability to breathe as her heart cracked, her mind replaying his words over and over.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would have kept your other friend instead of ya. Or I would have killed ya’.” He watched to see her reaction to his words, but she did not want to give him the satisfaction. He enjoyed hurting her. But she could not hold back.

“I hate you.” she cried out. “I fucking hate you.”

He laughed. “Not as much as I fucking hate ya.” He pushed her onto the ground. “Did ya’ really think I loved ya’? Seriously, what ever gave ya’ that idea?”

“I don’t know, Johnny, maybe all the times you told me I was your ‘pretty girl’ or the times you actually treated me like a normal human being!” she screamed, her tears flowing down her face as he watched her breakdown. “You are fucked in the head. You are insane!”

“Tell me somethin’ I don’t know, bitch.” he replied as he began to take his belt off. “I don’t like this attitude ya’ suddenly developed.”

Rage. Rage filled her entire body to the brim and radiated off of her. She had so much pent up anger and she did not care what he did to her. She wanted him to be pissed, to be distraught just like her.

“Fuck you, you fucking dick!”

Johnny snapped his belt and frowned. “Bad decision, Y/N.”

She never received corporal punishment as a child, for she was a good girl. Even if she did cause issues, her parents did not believe in hitting their child. So she never experienced it before, until now. The belt cut into her skin as he slammed it onto her body repeatedly. Sometimes it got her face, her arms, her legs, her stomach, wherever he could hit. She tried to back up but she hit the wall, and he stepped closer to her. She wailed in pain and anger, like a pissed off cat in heat.

Kicking her feet out, she struck his shin. Hissing in pain, he threw the belt to the side. “Oh ya’ gonna’ get it now, ya’ fuckin’ bitch.”

“Fuck you.” she said sternly, not backing down. “Fuck you and your whole family.”

She could barely remember his fist colliding with her face. She thrashed her body around, kicking her limbs wildly as she did so. She hoped it would hurt him just as her nose ached from his punch. Warm blood poured and smeared across her face as he landed another punch on her face. Another one went into her ribs, knocking the wind out of her. She wheezed and she felt her lungs squeeze every last bit of air out. He was not done, but she was tired of it. He had done this long enough.

Charging up her elbow, she slammed it into his crotch. Johnny chomped down on his lower lip, immediately tasting iron in his mouth as he felt himself go dizzy. His face felt hot and the nausea tensed his stomach up. Getting into his knees, he tried to fight the nausea away. His vision was blurry as he could see her get up quickly from the floor and dash to the door. He reached out to grab her but failed, falling onto his face. His attempts of crawling were futile as he had to wait out his pain. He was pissed, but he could not act out due to the fact he could not walk currently. That bitch was going to pay.

The bunny hopped down the stairs while holding her ribs, her wide eyes searching for an exit point. She knew she could not escape with the condition she was in, but she knew that she could leave her vessel behind. The rest of the family were nowhere to be seen so far.

Sprinting out the back door the best she could, she made her way to one of the sheds they had. If Johnny could tie her up, then she knew they had what she was looking for. She was terrified of Johnny finding her. However, this life was not for her anymore. It had been consumed by the wolf and she could not take it anymore. He was so selfish. So vain.

Johnny stumbled to his feet, his sensitive area throbbing in pain and the nausea still present in his stomach. Walking down the stairs, he clenched his jaw tightly. He was going to sniff out his prey again and maybe this time end it once and for all. She had given him enough grief and caused too much turmoil in his life since she decided to come along. He noticed the back door was cracked and the demented smile that came upon his face hurt.

With very little moon light shining upon the shed, she had some difficulty finding what she needed. However, her hands wrapped around the coarse thickness of it. Rope. She chuckled sadly. This is what it had come down to. Her only exit out of this place that gave her full control of her body once again. She did not know what that felt like anymore.

She peeked her head out the door to see if Johnny had come outside, but she did not see any sign of him. Now, she only had to climb up a tree and tie the knot. Quietly walking, she crouched and carved her pathway to the one of the bigger trees that could support her decision without stopping her from doing so. Sometimes, branches were weak. Here and there, she heard rustling in the bushes which made her heart race and her hair stand on end, but she continued to make her way to the tree. Then, she finally heard him.

“Hey there!” he cackled from the back door, eyes glistening with rage. “Where do ya’ think you’re goin’?”

She took off running towards the tree, hoping and praying that she could make it in time to climb before he could. He was still a little a ways from her and it would take him a bit longer to get to her since she had hurt him. But she knew it wouldn’t be long.

“Get back here!” Johnny yelled as he started stomping towards her.

With some difficulty, she crawled up the tree like a tarantula escaping the sight of a human being. Her lungs ached, the cuts stung, her nose was sticky with blood, and she was exhausted. She glanced back and saw that Johnny was still making his way to her. She still had a bit of time. She settled in the highest trees branch that even Johnny would not be able to cut her down from the ground.

She moved her hands as fast as she could, tying the knots and securing it tightly. This would not fail her. She was going to get out of here. Not alive, but she would be reunited with her friends once again. Frolicking in a field of sun flowers together and laughing at random nonsense. Her eyes watered with tears as she began to laugh manically. Balancing on the tree branch, she began to walk to the edge of it to tie the end of it to the thick branch.

Johnny could not tell what she was holding in her hands, but he was extremely frustrated that he could not move any faster because of how much pain he was in. He tried running, but it hurt badly. The bitch really got to him, got the upper hand on him. He neared the tree but still had difficulty making out what she was holding or going to do.

Her success was nearing within the minutes. She looked down and saw Johnny was getting much closer now, so she had to act fast. Sliding her neck through the knot, she studied the ground as the tree branch creaked from the weight. Tears fell as she smiled. She would be free. She would be with her friends again. She would be at peace. No more Johnny. No more cannibalism. No more crazy families or bloodbaths. No more hurt. No more pain. She was looking forward to it. Lifting one foot and hanging it off the edge, she smiled once more before plunging down.

Johnny’s heart stopped. His breathing hitched as he heard that familiar cracking sound. The sound of a broken ligament. His eyes settled upon her hanging body, unmoving. He could not move right away. His body did not let him.

Until he let out a scream of agony, one that a person would hear from a mountain lion in the woods. It echoed back to him, the night sky glittered with stars taunting him. She was too far up for him to reach her from where he was at, so he hurriedly climbed up the tree. He forgot the pain in his crotch, what hurt more was the pain in his heart. One that he buried a long time ago.

He shimmied along the branch and slipped out his knife, sawing away at the rope. He felt like he was going to faint. Her body toppled to the ground with a sickening thud, but Johnny knew. He knew she was not there anymore. She was just a corpse now. But he wanted to believe that she was still there. Practically jumping off the tree, he raced to her body and fell to his knees, running his hands over her body to feel her heart beat. A sign of life. Yet there was nothing, nothing reflected back to him.

“Why…” he whispered. “Why did ya’ abandon me like this?”

Picking up her body carefully, he cradled her close to him. Something he never did when she was alive. Her head was moved to an unnatural position as the rope had snapped parts of her vertebrae and neck.

Sissy had heard his cry of pain, but she was not ready to be faced with her family member holding their “lover’s” body. Staring at the girl’s corpse, she opened her mouth to say something but Johnny pushed past her. He was shaking, whether it was from rage, sadness, or anguish, Sissy was not sure. But she was sure that the woman he held was not alive anymore. The rope burned itself into her neck and colored it blue and black. The girl’s face was pale, eyes hazed over with no signs of life.

“She… she abandoned me.” Johnny said as he laid her body on the table. “She abandoned me.”

Sissy stood in the door way when Nancy came into the dining room. Her eyes laid upon the body and she sighed. “I told ya’ she was a bad idea.”

Johnny’s eyes were glossy. “Mama… why did she abandon me? She left me…”

“Well sweet pea, her and ya’ other mother have somethin’ in common.” she replied flatly. “There ain’t no sense in worrying about it. She was just a girl. Nothin’ special about her.”

“She was my girl.”

“Yes, and so were about fifty other ones too.”

He stayed silent. His brain ran wildly. Why did she leave him like this? His biological mother left him too, just like Nancy said. Left him near a garbage bin to rot away. But Nancy, savior Nancy, saved the young boy.

Now, who would save him from this? He did not want another woman right now, he wanted the one he had adjusted to. He wanted her. But she was laying upon the dining room table with pallid, bruised skin and a broken spine. He wanted to cry but he did not allow himself to. Not here, not now.

“It’s best to forget her, boy. She was nothin’ but trouble. It was bound to happen, Johnny. Ya’ cant trust anyone outside of family. Otherwise, ya’ will be abandoned over and over.” Nancy said as a final warning to her son. “It’s not your fault, ya’ can’t control who leaves ya’.”

Her words stabbed into his heart. Johnny knew he was easy to abandon. His mother did it first, and now she did it. It made him feel helpless, like he had no control of his life.

Nancy left the room and Sissy continued to watch as Johnny picked the stiff body up and began to slowly tread up the stairs, his footsteps sounding haunting. She felt herself hurting as well. She was not sure why, but she did.

Treating her with more gentleness than he did when she was alive, he carefully settled her onto the mattress. The mattress she laid on waiting for him to come back from his chores. The mattress she slept with him on. Now, she was nothing but a memory.

“Why did ya’ abandon me?” he choked out, feeling like his younger self wondering why his biological mother left him to die. “What made ya’ think you could do that?”

No response.

“You left me…”

Silence.

Revolting silence.

“Why did you do this to me?”

#johnny sawyer #johnny slaughter #tcm johnny #slashers #slasher community #texas chainsaw game #texas chainsaw massacre #horror

98 notes · View notes

brujitaadinbo · 1 month

Text

I find it curious that many people who did not understand the "sanctuary" chapter in season 1 of The Mandalorian, have the luxury of criticizing chapter 22 of season 3 of this series without solid arguments.

Practically in "The Sanctuary" they show us a clear mirage of what Din longs for in the deepest part of his heart; belong and create bonds, have a house and someone who loves and waits for you. The point was that he couldn't take that temptation, that illusion, with Omera or Sorgan. Because he did not feel part of that world, Grogu came into his life, the changes began and his life began to get on track. It's not that I don't want it; He is waiting for the perfect moment and the right person.

It seems pathetic to me that they want to deny Bo katan, as a possible interest and connection to Din, just because of his "age, rank, status" when he himself told him that those things did not matter to him.

That they want to pigeonhole him to a "simple" life when practically being a Mandalorian is the least simple thing about SW. And by adopting Grogu, of course, the tasks grow.

It's stupid to want to fit Din with a character like Omera; when she was from the beginning a secondary character, that not even the creed could respect.

They see Omera as the prototype of a “submissive couple” and how sad that they pigeonhole her into that and worse that they say that Din needs or wants a partner like that; when we have seen that what Din is least looking for is a nanny or housewife (be careful, these roles should never be ridiculed because it is not correct)

But it is no coincidence that in an entire chapter like 22 Show us that Din and Bo work so harmoniously.

We see them as that team that seems to have known each other for a long time and in reality is not like that; there is synchrony. Then all the symbolism of couples that could have been; those that were not, those that are and those that will be. coincidence??

And love is really like that; It does not have a pattern or guide, it is not even tangible but it is felt. So; Why continue denying chemistry?

Just because Bo Katan has always broken with those stereotypes of "weak women" Bo katan is a warrior, helpful, a woman who has had to make difficult decisions, someone who fights for what she loves; It makes sense that Din would be attracted to someone like that, someone who has given him a greater purpose.

It causes me a lot of noise that at the moment the Duchess hands the key to Bo; a key that is a clear symbol of something that can open many doors, be the guardian of that something, on the planet of "Pleasure" They are given a symbolism of that size, a key so big

What do they want? Because something that size is not easily lost, unless it is stolen. Something that size stays very close to you. coincidence??? I don't believe it.

Then the Duchess closes with that "You can come back here whenever you want, you are welcome."

You really mean what? Invites you to return to the planet of "pleasure" How appropriate, don't you think?

Showing that bond between the three of them and then saying that they are not like a new family… my god, not even they believe that.

And worse, there are people who say that Din imposes motherhood on her; when she little by little became interested in the child at first to rescue him, even though she already had her own priorities. Afterwards she bonds with him and treats him as an equal, she doesn't see him as a stuffed animal, she sees him as a thinking and emotional being. And she takes care of him and is affectionate. For God's sake, you really have to connect your neurons before "criticizing"

It surprises me that there are still people who say "this boring season, what changed?"

God, did I pay you an appointment with the eye doctor? did you really watch the series?

I just want to close with this; Grogu is a sworn knight of the Duchess, from Plazir 15, coincidentally he is a sworn knight of Bo katan and this new shipment with his father…

coincidence?? I don't believe it this is the way.

#the mandalorian #star wars #dinbo #bokadin #this is the way #bo katan kryze #bo katan x din #din djarin #din x bo #clandetres #lucasfilm #loveislove #clan of three

24 notes · View notes

koyunsoncizeri · 1 year

Text

A lil maedhros animation.

I...am also finally sharing a lil fic? Ficlet with Mae x Oc - angst and fluff. Under the cut!

I would be SO grateful if y'all would tell me what ya think :') !!! Especially my writing mutuals!! ♥️

Dove彡

"Don't go…" he softly whispered to the small figure lying next to him. "You don't have to go, little dove…"

She opened her eyes slowly. She'd been awake for sometime, she'd feigned sleep to feel his hand smooth over her hair, and caress her cheek, just to savor the warm feeling he radiated.

"I can't stay, elf lord." she said slowly. He glanced away when their eyes met. She smiled. There was something so innocent and childlike about this otherwise intimidating elf.

"Don't call me that…"he sighed, and turned to lie on his back.

"I'm sorry…my lord." she grinned. He rolled his eyes but pulled her to his side. She pressed her body against his and rested her hand on his chest.

"Why?" he asked after some time, but there was a defiance in his voice. He still saw this as an argument he could win…and convince her to stay.

They'd met a week ago, when she asked for a sanctuary at their gates. It was apparent she was on the run for some time. He ordered them to open the gates and assist the human, which he later realized because she was tiny. The memory brought a smile to his lips and he turned his head to press a small kiss to her forehead. She opened her eyes, she was about to fall asleep in this elf's arms. She returned the loving gesture by kissing his neck, but a surprised gasp from him stopped her. Instead, she smiled gently at him, and assumed her former position.

"There is no life for me here,"she said.

He fell silent.

He knew she was right, she would be better off living as far from him, and here as possible, and yet… he wanted her, selfishly, irresponsibly. He frowned, he felt bad to even entertain the idea; this was not like him at all.

"There can be," He chastised himself as soon as the words left his lips, what was he saying? How could he promise something like that, when he had naught to offer, not his affections, nor security.

"I'm sorry my lord…" She leaned to him on her elbows, his eyelids fluttered at the sudden proximity. He held his breath when she reached for him, placing her hand gently on his cheek. His lip was caught between his teeth and he fought so hard not to turn his eyes away from hers. She caressed his cheek, then her hand combed lightly through soft locks of his russet hair. He sighed softly, and closed his eyes.

"I shall remember all that you have said, all that you have made me feel," she whispered, and pressed a soft kiss on his forehead, and he quickly opened his eyes. "I shall remember the quiet and kind laughter of yours and the soft touch of your hand."she kissed his cheek. "I shall cherish every moment you have kindly graced me with your presence, every glance you bestowed upon me." She cupped his face. "You shall forever remain in my heart, and I hope to be in yours at least for a while," she gently smiled, and wiped the tear that rolled down from his cheek when he tried to blink it away. She pressed her lips softly on his, and he welcomed her. He deepened the kiss as she let herself fall on her back and he followed her; covered her much smaller frame with his large one, trying to burn how good she felt under him into his memory.

Next day came too soon, and with that last goodbye.

"Farewell, my little Dove. May winds always favor you."

#silmarillion #the silmarillion #jrr tolkien #maedhros #maitimo #feanorians #sons of feanor #maedhros the tall #maedhros x oc #maedhros x reader

206 notes · View notes

why-animals-do-the-thing · 9 months

Text

To continue the theme of "wtaf is up with that sanctuary that feeds bears Twizzlers and camels Mountain Dew", here's another recent social media post I find rather concerning. Who the heck is giving cheetah - vulnerable animals with a very small population - to a sanctuary that is rabidly, openly anti-zoo and anti-conservation breeding?

The reason this stands out to me so much is that there just like... are not cheetah in sanctuaries in the US. Most cheetah in the US are part of a breeding program, either AZA's SSP or ZAA's AMP - it's not common to find them in even unaccredited zoos, much less newly moved to sanctuaries. Of the 400-some cheetah I found doing the big cat census in 2020, there were less than 10 in facilities that branded themselves as sanctuaries. So where did these cats come from?

What's more, okay, there's no trace of these ladies on social media before now. The Wild Animal Sanctuary is normally very open about their acquisitions, and no facility they've gotten animals from since their last USDA inspection has had cheetah. I haven't heard about any imported cheetah recently either, which is another thing you can check for this facility, because the majority of their rescues are imported from all over the world.

There's another weird thing about this post, too. Look at the language. It's all very "here's a cheetah! they're very happy outdoors in their nice habitat." And if you're not facility with this institution and their messaging, you might not catch why that's odd. This facility emphasizes, in every post they can, that their animals are rescued from horrible no-good very-bad abusive situations. Normally they name and shame if they can, or talk about how they came from the cub petting industry or private exploitation or such. There's none of that in this post, and it stands out because of it - especially because it's the first time these very rare, very charismatic big cats are being shared with their audience.

So where the heck did these cats come from?

Whelp.

Turns out the answer is AZA-accredited zoos. And whew, man, does that raise some questions.

Luckily these girls have some pretty distinctive names, so I was able to find them in the international and regional cheetah studbooks pretty easily. For both cats, the most recent listing in the studbooks was at AZA-accredited zoos in Texas: in 2020 Dahlila was living at Caldwell Zoo, and in 2022 Jaina was at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center.

Now, we don't know for sure that Caldwell and Fossil Rim are the facilities that chose to dump their cheetah in a sanctuary. There's some important context to know about exotic animal ownership and how animals leave AZA SSPs. General practice is that large charismatic mammals aren't bought and sold at AZA zoos, especially SSP animals, so animals sent out to other facilities for breeding or exhibition are moved around on loan. Sometimes their ownership changes with the transfer, but not always - it really depends on the species and how much control each facility wants to have over their animals. On top of that, the ownership of offspring sometimes alternates by litter or individual between the institutions that own the parents. When they're part of a cooperative breeding program none of that matters very much because all the animals are managed as a single population and moved as required for breeding and to fill empty display spaces. Where it's relevant is when an animal is removed from the SSP population - at that point it's totally up to the facility that owns it to choose where they live, as long as they send them somewhere AZA agrees is providing a reasonable standard of care. (This will be important in a little bit.)

So what we can tell from this situation is that Jaina and Dahlila were, for some reason, probably excessioned from the SSP in the last couple years. And whichever AZA facilities owned them decided to send them to The Wild Animal Sanctuary instead of finding a display-only placement at a zoo or safari park or similar facility.

Since I started writing this post, TWAS confirmed the origin of these girls in a Facebook comment.

I have real concerns about what appears to be an emerging trend of exotic animal exhibition facilities using sanctuaries as a "dumping ground" for their elderly or extra animals, in order to prioritize space for breeding or more desirable animals. I can't prove it yet, but there's been just enough weird transfers to have caught my attention. (In some cases, there's a good reason - sometimes all the habitats designed for the physical needs of elderly animals of a certain species already are full, and it's better for them to go somewhere they can exist more easily rather than trying to retrofit their current habitat - but it isn't every case). And here's the thing: many sanctuaries, like TWAS, message about how they have to exist to take all the discards from the zoo industry. In recent years that hasn't really been accurate, and historically, it did happen but not as commonly as it's portrayed. So... if that's true... and it's a bad thing... why are sanctuaries encouraging it by taking the animals zoos are transferring out to free up space? You'd think they'd want to say "find space in your own institutions and only call us if there's a crisis." (Money. The answer is money. Every new intake is used for marketing and drives additional donations.) Heck, why are zoos playing into that narrative, when they're frequently rebutting attacks claiming they discard the animals that aren't useful or aesthetic anymore?

All of this actually makes a lot of sense given how short on space all the AZA SSP programs are. Both in general, and for big cats, there are not enough spaces across accredited zoos to hold all the animals needed for sustainable populations. (This is why AZA just recently re-imagined their SSP programs, which is a whole other complicated mess that I am working on a writeup about). Recent political shifts within AZA corporate leadership have also discouraged collaborations between AZA-accredited zoos and non-AZA facilities, so while 20 years ago it would have been fine to move extraneous / non-breeding cats to smaller unaccredited facilities for display, that's less of an option. Which leaves sanctuaries as kind of the only politically appropriate option. This would also explain why the text of the post is so weird: there's probably a contract in place to prevent using their images to bash zoos.

The problem with sanctuaries as a solution for housing extra animals is, well, the quality of care they provide. If you haven't seen me say it before: sanctuaries are as varied in their expertise and function as zoos. In the case of The Wild Animal Sanctuary (and their other facilities, like the Refuge these cheetah are at) everything I have learned about them indicates that their animal care is highly questionable. Which is a problem, because - as mentioned earlier - AZA-accredited facilities are required to follow a responsible population management policy, which means ensuring that animals they send outside of AZA go somewhere that gives them high-quality care.

TWAS is an organization that prefers to feed big cats at multiple facilities frozen meat puree "frisbees" by chucking them over the fence. They don't have any way to separate co-housed cats to prevent conflict during feeding or resource guarding, because they don't build their enclosures with any sort of shift or lock-out areas. It's also unclear how they remove food waste without a way to shift animals out to go find it. (For bears they drive in on a truck into the habitat and then go on foot to clean, but I don't know if that's done with the big cats once they’ve been released from quarantine pens.

(These are my photos of food in carnivore habitats at TWAS this summer. Given the pest accumulation on the meat frisbee and the fact that I visited early in the day, it seems probable it was at least a day old.)

This is an organization that is ethically against training their animals for any reason: it's literally written into their statement of purpose as a “true sanctuary.” It's also described below, in a recent book published about the facility.

That policy means these cheetahs will not have a recall behavior, will not be trained for medical examinations or as a way to lower stress for procedures, and will not get the mental enrichment and interaction they're used to from regular training sessions. According to the book, medications are delivered on a long spoon / tongs tucked inside the cat equivalent of a pill pocket. (Which anyone with a pet cat knows falls apart as a plan if they're sick enough to not feel hungry).

I'm pretty sure there's no heated shelter for the large carnivores or bears at TWAS. The main shelter for animals at the Sanctuary is single-entrance concrete culverts buried underground far enough they're supposed to maintain a constant temperature all winter.

Sounds nice in theory, but with no second exit animals can get trapped down there, and there's no way to monitor them when they're inside. I don't know what type of shelter the Refuge provides, but it probably isn't much different. Even the quarantine spaces - smaller outdoor kennel-type pens with three exposed mesh panel walls - have no heat, and just an above-ground culvert block for them to curl up in. While cheetah are surprisingly adaptable to cold weather, winters in Colorado can be very harsh for prolonged periods of time.

As far as I know, most of the animals at facilities TWAS runs don't get regularly changed, novel enrichment. I've certainly never seen much in the habitats other than climbing structures when I've visited their main facility over the years, and most of their messaging around “toys” is semi-permanent furniture like giant telephone wire spools or a suspension bridge for climbing. I think some of the bears get balls? The messaging from TWAS is that their animal care is better because it's close to a natural life in the wild. Animals can be animals! When returned to their wild roots, animals shouldn't need anything from humans and are happier that way, etc.

When animals come to the Sanctuary (or the partner facility, the Refuge) they're literally chucked into a big fenced-off piece of land and left out there to "be cats" without human interaction except for feeding time and observations. Which is the polar opposite of what these cheetah are used to! AZA cheetahs, even those that aren't program animals, are intensely managed. They're used to regular human contact, frequent training, and constant enrichment. So what's "normal" for a wild cat is a far cry from what these cheetah girls have always known. That's not better - that's a loss of quality of life.

I don't understand how moving animals to places like TWAS is in line with AZA's Responsible Collection Management policy. I don't understand how AZA facilities think the type of husbandry the facility describes providing is acceptable. If another zoo utilized half the same care practices, they'd be drawn and quartered by their industry peers as well as by the public - and rightfully so. I don't understand why anyone wants to send animals there, based even just on what's easily observable. I don't have more information or really a conclusion, just that’s what's observable from an external vantage point is upsetting as heck and I worry for those cheetah girls.

#big cats #cheetahs #animal welfare #sanctuary politics #zoo industry politics #animal care #AZA #long post #this originally said cheetah are highly endangered which was a fact checking error #updated it to reflect that #bug tw

1K notes · View notes

theladyofbloodshed · 3 months

Text

SJM Romance Week - Day 5 - Favourite Tropes

@sjmromanceweek

Forced Proximity x Injury Recovery meets Sister Act

Two years. Two long years since Nesta had been given sanctuary by the priestesses in Itica after running from her life from Hybern’s beasts.

Even now, days before the anniversary of hammering on the doors with her bloodied hands, she remembered the thundering of her heart as she was herded by monsters. Remembered the soul-wrenching fear that kept her bare feet pounding across the rough stone even as it tore open her skin. She bore the scars from that day. Her feet had been in ruins. Her hands even worse.

On that night, her slumber had come to an abrupt end. A soft voice had whispered that she must open her eyes and when she did, a knife was plunging for her chest. If she’d not stamped on her instincts year after year, her magic would have flared out of her. It had spent too long locked away, so like a beaten animal, it was too afraid to emerge. Nesta had wrapped her hands around the blade, its kiss agonising. She didn’t know how many soldiers had burnt their way through the village, how many lives they’d ended. Nesta had leapt from the window, bones cracking on the impact and ran. Ran and ran and ran.

The Mother had always favoured her, people said. They were comments that she’d laughed at. Everybody wanted to be favoured by the Mother but it was another thing to truly be blessed by her. But that night, Nesta did not know how she could have survived without a soft, maternal hand pushing her along.

In two years, she hadn’t become a believer. Despite the gratitude she felt towards the priestesses and the acolytes for granting her sanctuary, despite whatever kindness the Mother had offered her, Nesta wasn’t moved by religion. She wore their garb - pristine white robes with a hood that covered her hair - and joined them for prayers as was expected of her, but Nesta still couldn’t muster her faith.

It couldn’t go on like this, she knew, hiding forever amongst the priestesses. One day, the world would remember Nesta Archeron, the girl who stole from the Cauldron and come looking for her to tear her heart from her chest and repair what was taken.

***

Another dead end. From the whispers and foreign tongues that they had managed to gather across the centuries, the feet of the Cauldron were hidden in temples.

Azriel and Rhys had sat with Amren for hours, collating information, trying to narrow down the search. Prythian was littered with temples. As was the Continent. And Hybern. They ruled out temples that had been built since the war, which only eliminated a handful. It was Azriel’s task to sweep through as many as they could, starting with ones they had associations with, no matter how weak they were. The words were too precious to put in a letter. Every night, he’d winnow to a new location then return at dawn to cross it off on their map. Each night, their disappointment grew.

‘Where to next?’

Amren drummed her painted fingernails on the table. ‘Hybern. It would make sense if all three feet were on a different piece of land. One for the Continent. One for Prythian. One for Hybern.’

Azriel raised his brows. ‘Are you sentencing me to my death?’

‘Don’t get caught, Spymaster.’

Once darkness fell, Azriel was away. A different tactic was needed for Hybern. He’d hit up as many temples as he could in an area lest word spread that he was spotted flying there night after night.

It was bitterly cold in Itica. Snow had already blanketed the craggy ground before winter had truly arrived. He tread lightly, flying as often as he could despite the pummel of wind. The first temple did not allow him entry because he was male. The second was made up of only males but when Azriel made excuses that he wanted to pray, he was followed. If the feet were here, his shadows would be trailed by the priests. The third and fourth temple were also a bust, but more and more attention was being shown to him although it was late into the night.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end even before he’d winnowed to the fifth temple of the night. If Azriel hadn’t been so committed to finding the feet, he’d have listened to his instincts and not bothered going.

As soon as he landed, the armed guards stood on the brass doors of the temple outside moved.

At the same moment his shadows enveloped him again, an arrow hit him in the wing. He felt the sting of ash sear through his blood. He could only get a short distance away and the guards were coming. Again, he winnowed. Again, another arrow sailed through the black sky, this time piercing his leg. Amongst a volley of arrows, his shadows swooped around him, taking him as far as they could whilst his magic was nullified. Another hit him, sinking deep into the flesh of his shoulder. In the distance, he could just make out another temple carved into stone. His wings and his shadows did all they could to get him there despite the pain racking his body.

***

Poppea’s rough wake up left Nesta shaking. It had brought back too many memories of that night.

‘Come. Quickly.’

Nesta donned her garb, pulling the hood up and over her hair. It was still pitch-black outside so it had to be an emergency. That was not good news. She dreaded running again. She’d spent so much of her life running.

The temple was quiet. A peaceful sort of quiet. The great, metal basin at its centre remained blazing with more candles flickering in their silver candelabras around the prayer room.

At a statue to the Mother which was veiled, Poppea paused.

‘There is a male here.’

‘He cannot be,’ replied Nesta, well-accustomed to their sacred vows even if she had never said them.

‘He is a male I recognise – a good male. Yasmeen has used what little healing power she has to stabilise him, but you are more learned in such matters.’

‘Healing?’

Poppea frowned, the deep etchings of her face worsening from the motion. ‘Males.’

At that, Nesta’s own brows drew together. Poppea had made it clear that Nesta's rude, uncouth behaviour had no business in her temple over the last two years. Often, she'd been sent to bed without supper for snorting during prayer or for cursing when she dropped an item. Now she was flaunting Nesta's history.

The high priestess cleared her throat. ‘Many of these females have never known a life beyond these walls. They have few memories of the fathers that gave them away. Many have vivid memories of the males that hurt them.’ Poppea rested a hand on Nesta’s shoulder. ‘The Mother brought you here for a purpose. Perhaps this is it.’

With support from the other acolytes present during the night, Nesta was ushered into the tunnel running beneath the statue armed with supplies. Yasmeen offered strict instructions on how to take care of the male. As the statue was moved back into place, she followed the glow of lights at the bottom of the sloping stairs to find her way. Nesta knew the route well. She had spent three weeks beneath the ground when she had first arrived because it was the only place that could guarantee protection and privacy.

On one of the beds, a male with massive, leathery wings was asleep although the slumber did not seem peaceful. Sweat beaded his brow despite the relatively cool temperature under the ground. Blood stained his skin. A hole was punctured into his right wing. His clothes had been cut away by Yasmeen and an arrow removed from his shoulder. It would scar through the intricate whorls of obsidian ink on his upper body. Yasmeen seemed to have balked at removing his trousers so had sliced up the length, leaving them flapping open all the way to his thigh where another arrow had likely hit him.

Nesta knelt down beside him and pushed his sweat-soaked dark hair from his tan skin. The moment she looked at him, she felt like she’d found something that had been lost forever, like he had been missing from her life until that moment.

‘Who are you?’

She ran a thumb over his brow, the skin burning beneath.

Whilst following Yasmeen’s instructions to clean and bind the wounds on his body, the judder of boots above her head had Nesta stilling. She remembered this moment. The absolute soul-gripping fear of discovery. How the gentle priestesses had the courage to look Hybern’s soldiers in the eyes and lie would always amaze her. For now, they hadn’t crossed that line in sieging a temple because their fear of the Mother held them back.

The male jerked away, hand reaching for his sheath which was now empty of its blade. Despite the pain, his eyes fixed on Nesta. Hurriedly, she bared her palms to him then pointed to the ceiling where the rough, low voices of the males seeped through. She pressed a finger to her lips.

He glanced down at the bandages she’d been winding around his thigh then relaxed slightly, recognising that she was not a threat. In a terse silence, Nesta continued Yasmeen’s instruction while they both listened keenly to any shift in the conversation above.

***

This female was enchanting.

Azriel had lost blood. Could still feel the ash coursing through his body. He ought to have been terrified of being found, of bringing death to this temple, but all thoughts emptied at the sight of this beautiful female dabbing the wound on his shoulder, silver eyes focused on his injury. She had an elegant, classic beauty – one that seemed criminal to hide away in a temple.

She grazed her knuckle along the bone of his wing and that motion had him biting down on the flesh of his palm.

‘Painful?’

Azriel shook his head. ‘Sensitive.’

‘I need to clean the wound.’ She added, ‘I’ll be gentle.’

That was almost worse, he thought. Azriel could feel every languid touch, every soft breath as she leaned close to the membrane. Her concentration had her lips pursing slightly, making her all the more enticing to look at.

Once the noise had died down, Azriel tried to stand but the female pressed a hand against his bare chest to keep him on the mattress. She was more forward, more physical than he knew acolytes to be when it came to males.

When she had finished, she carried a basket over to the bed. Inside were robes of differing sizes, all pristine white, and Truth-Teller rested on top. He felt better knowing the blade’s location.

‘How long must I remain here?’

She shrugged. ‘The priestesses risked their lives to keep you safe.’

Azriel bowed his head. ‘I’m grateful.’

‘Good,’ she replied, fighting a smirk from her lips. ‘And to answer your question, I was down here for three weeks when I arrived.’

Three fucking weeks?

Azriel doubted he’d make to morning before he was climbing the walls. Already, he was shaking his uninjured leg as the realisation that he was trapped in here settled in.

‘Are you going to do that all night?’

The female was staring at his jiggling leg, disgust curling her upper lip.

‘Who are you?’

‘Company for the foreseeable future,’ she replied. ‘There’s a small alcove back here with food for emergencies. Take what you need. There’s also a bucket that will be emptied when its safe for somebody up there to move the statue.’ She sucked in a breath. ‘Since you’ve bloodied up that bed, I will sleep in this one.’

Was he supposed to just fall asleep after being shot at by Hybern’s soldiers? Trust that these priestesses wouldn’t betray him or the soldiers wouldn’t come back and slaughter their way through the temple? The ash was still suffocating his magic preventing winnowing, preventing Rhys from reaching out with his mind.

‘What’s your name?’ The female was sizing him up like an apex predator.

‘Azriel.’

She gave a slow nod in response. ‘Poppea recognised you.’

The name wasn’t familiar. Azriel gave a shrug. ‘Where I live, we have a sanctuary for females who have been injured – similar to this temple. I help females find their way there.’

‘A hero,’ she said, not hiding her sarcasm.

Fine. That line had worked numerous times, but not on a priestess it seemed.

‘Your name?’

‘Nesta.’

As soon as she said it, her expression froze. A misspeak. She smiled tightly, the light not meeting her eyes.

‘Well, I was woken to be your nursemaid. I shall return to sleep.’

***

It took some tossing and turning, but Nesta eventually fell asleep. She had been hyperaware of the male definitely not sleeping in the bed opposite. There had been a lot of grunting from pain as he sloped off to the pantry then she’d spied him in the largest white robes they had to offer, with slashes in the back to force his wings through.

It was Azriel who woke her with his pacing like a caged beast. He dragged his injured leg across the floor and his wings rustled as he fought to keep them upright with the injury to his shoulder.

‘You need to rest your leg,’ she snapped.

‘I can’t be in here.’

Nesta sat up in the bed, her hood discarded in favour of comfort. ‘You have no choice. Get in the bed.’

If this male had a tail, it would be lashing. He stood at the foot of the stairs, staring up at the darkened tunnel.

Gritting her teeth to keep from yelling – her prickly nature never quashed by soft prayer – Nesta stormed across the room and dragged him by the hand back into bed. The skin beneath her fingers was odd, deeply set in some places or smooth in others. In the dim light, she could not make it out fully. She released his hand and pointed to the bed. ‘In there.’

‘Have they sent the most ferocious priestess to guard me?’

No, Nesta was on her final warning. She refused to say her vows, refused to commit herself to the Mother until her dying moments because she had to believe there could be more to her life. She’d not kerbed her bad habits; she still cursed, still blasphemed, still drifted elsewhere during services when the others sang. Poppea had made it very clear that staying was a curtsey if she was to remain a guest and it could be easily taken away.

‘Yes, I’ll smother you if you wake me up for a third time tonight,’ she replied shortly, before climbing back into her own bed.

‘It’s difficult for me to be here,’ Azriel said.

Nesta gave a short laugh. ‘Do you think any of us would choose to be here?’

Few of these females had dreamed of being the unwanted daughter given to the Mother because they served no other purpose or saying holy vows that committed them to the temple for eternity because they had nowhere else to go.

‘It’s different.’ Azriel eased himself back into bed with a groan. ‘I spent my childhood locked in a dungeon. I never planned to be locked up again.’

‘Nobody does,’ replied Nesta as she pulled the blankets up and over her shoulders. ‘I’m sorry that happened to you, but the females in this temple have risked their lives to keep you here. As soon as the soldiers aren’t watching the doors – and when your magic allows – nobody will stop you from leaving.’

In the morning, he was in a deep sleep. Nesta could hear his low snore as she opened her eyes. When she moved from her bed, he did not stir. She idled her time reading the book of prayers kept in the bunker for lost souls, not believing much of it. Faith was a strange concept to her. She’d grown up amongst mortals, her mother one, and they didn’t set much store in higher powers, not when the fae ruled their lives. Her sire – whoever he was – had to be fae for Nesta’s powers to be so great. They’d flared out of her one day when the soldiers came to the village to capture more slaves to be chattel for their army. Nesta couldn’t take the screams. Her magic had erupted in cold, silver flames that devoured. Since that day, Nesta spent her whole life running, never staying in a place more than a moon.

She perched on the edge of the bed near the male who was blanketed by shadows. They parted for her to press a hand to his forehead. The skin beneath burnt fiery. An infection had settled into his body during the night and she had slept through everything.

When the statue was removed for fresh water and food, she called for Yasmeen.

‘She is afraid to be here,’ replied Athilea. ‘You know what happened to her.’

‘This male is unconscious.’

Yasmeen would not go below again, but provided more tinctures and fresh muslin cloth to rebind his wounds.

‘The soldiers?’

Athilea nodded. ‘Still there. Still waiting.’

The male’s sleep was uninterrupted by the exchange. When Nesta returned to Azriel, shadows coiled around her wrist as she worked. It was wasteful to cut away his robes but she didn’t know how else to reach his shoulder. At Azriel’s nudity, she averted her eyes upwards and adjusted the thick, woollen blanket across his lower body. Nesta had seen males before. It was one of the hardest parts to give up when she entered the temple.

The wound on his shoulder was angry and swollen, the skin red around the entry. As she cleaned it, he stirred slightly with an incomprehensible murmur then a hand landed on her thigh.

Nesta spoke to him softly, explaining what she was doing in case a part of him could hear. His shadows were happy to curl onto her shoulders like little birds observing too.

For longer than she should, Nesta remained wedged onto a sliver of the mattress with him, a hand stroking against his black hair as she sang the few hymns she’d learned during her time in the temple. He was handsome, she decided. Too handsome. The sort of face she’d have made hers in a dingy tavern. The kind of face she’d want to wrap her thighs around.

Azriel blinked himself into consciousness, eyes adjusting to the dim light Nesta’s bobbing faelight offered. Could he have sensed those thoughts she’d just had? Surely not.

‘You were unwell,’ she stammered to explain why she cradled his head and had been caressing his soft hair for the last hour.

Azriel pushed an elbow against the bed to lift himself, teeth clenching together from the pain. ‘Were you singing?’

His shadows snapped between them, hiding her blushes. He waved a hand through the blockade, scattering them. ‘They don’t usually do that.’

‘I don’t usually sing,’ she countered.

‘Must be the effect I have on you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I mean, I’m a shadowsinger.’

‘I gathered,’ she replied, pressing her lips together. It was fairly obvious from the blanket of shadows that stayed with him, but she’d let him keep his mystique. ‘You have an infection. It will require regular cleaning.’

‘Am I naked?’

Her blush deepened, turning the apples of her cheek crimson. Nesta tried and failed to speak, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth. No man had ever found issue with her undressing him before.

A brow rose. ‘A nude male doesn’t affect the gentle disposition of a priestess?’

It had been a long, long time since Nesta had seen a naked male but not a single one had looked like this male with his face carved by the Mother’s hands or his powerful body. And those wings. It had been such an effort to keep her hands from those but she’d seen the effects they’d had on him yesterday when she cleaned the blood away.

She flicked his cheek, sending him back down onto the mattress. ‘I’m not a priestess. I haven’t said any vows. I was like you once with no place to go but the Mother’s arms. Your nudity is no cause for alarm.’

***

This female had to have been sent by the Mother herself. She was gentle with his wounds, diligent and compassionate, but she had a sharp tongue which was at odds with that gorgeous face. The notion that she had not yet committed herself to a lifetime of servitude to religion sparked something in his chest that he was trying to extinguish. Nesta did not need him panting after her. But gazing at her provided an alternative to spiralling in worry about being beneath the ground with no escape route.

As the days wore on, they became more companionable with each other. Still, his wounds needed tending to thanks to the ash making them heal as if he was mortal. Nesta was devoted in this. She cared for him as though it was her calling in life. Day and night his wounds were left to air in between bandage changes and she’d clean each one before. It could have been his imagination but Azriel was sure her fingers lingered longer than they needed to on his thigh. Once, she even ran a tender finger against the whorl of his tattoo. It had been damaged from the arrow but it could be re-inked in Illyria. Nesta enquired about their origins then listened intently as he spoke of Illyria.

'You came from there, but they aren't your people?'

Azriel swallowed, the knot in his throat pulling tighter. He wanted to tell her everything - about his beginning, his father, his mother, learning to fly - but Nesta was a stranger. A stranger who felt as familiar to him as his reflection.

'No. I have family but we aren't bonded by blood.'

There was no news from Rhysand. He had to hope it was due to the nullifying effects of the ash. Either that or they thought him dead or in enemy’s clutches so had gone silent.

There were still soldiers making the rounds but not as frequent so as soon as his magic returned, Azriel could leave. They'd strike when a blind eye was turned to the temple so he could pass the threshold and winnow. Ancient magic was imbued into the building's foundations preventing winnowing inside the walls.

He almost didn’t want to leave. What would his evenings be without Nesta dragging her bed close to his and playing cards or word games to pass the time? She had no fear around him – almost seemed to relish his company despite spending her life in this temple. The females that he’d ushered into the library were reluctant to be around him, their fear of males deeply rooted. This one had moved her bed alongside his for their games then ended up sleeping just inches from him ever since. Each night, Azriel wanted to close the gap and reach out for her slender hand. Sometimes Nesta's reached out to the end of the bed, daring him to hold it.

‘I think you’re cheating,’ she murmured, peering at her hand of cards. Nesta was cross-legged on the bed, hood pulled down. They wore the same virginal white robes but they suited her. Cassian would laugh himself hoarse if he could see Azriel in his.

Azriel let out a low chuckle. ‘It’s my shadows. I didn’t ask them to spy.’

Nesta dropped her cards on his lap. ‘Dirty cheaters.’

‘You dealt a dodgy hand yesterday, bending the aces. I saw you.’

She shrugged both shoulders. ‘No idea what you’re talking about. False accusations.’ She pressed her hands together in prayer. 'I am a devotee of the Mother.'

‘How does a soon-to-be-priestess know so many card games – and how to cheat?’

‘I told you,’ she replied, ‘I’m not a priestess. I had a life before but I was given shelter here two years ago and never left. I've visited enough taverns to know how to play and how to cheat.’ Nesta held out a hand for a shadow to sit upon. ‘I spent my whole life running. I could catch my breath here, but it’s not my forever. I just don’t know where to go next.’

‘What are you running from?’

‘The King of Hybern.’ Nesta swept her hair away from the top of her ears. They were curved like his, but he’d have sworn she was high fae. ‘My mother was mortal. I was raised by mortals. But I wasn’t like them.’ With her free hand, she let silver flames crawl across it. Azriel flinched, expecting heat, but could only feel a seeping coldness. ‘I escaped his dungeon and have been running ever since.’

The flames died out, sputtering with sparks as Nesta banked her power. He couldn’t imagine looking over a shoulder all the time, never settling, never building bonds. Azriel didn't want to think about what she'd endured at the King's hands. Hell, how had she even escaped?

This was a female who’d had her choices taken from her. She’d chosen safety over desire but that need to be immersed in life still blazed within.

Azriel didn’t know if it was the right thing, but he said, ‘I know a place you could go. A library. It’s safe and secret.’

‘I’d have to be there forever?’

No. He imagined her dancing with him at Starfall on the roof beneath a sky of stars falling for only them. Cheating at cards alongside him to drive Cassian wild. Shopping with Mor as they explored the boutiques of Velaris and showing him what she’d bought. Curling her head against his chest at Solstice when they were full of food and joy. Mostly, Azriel imagined her beside him like they were here, beneath the ground.

‘You can be in my city. It would be safe. Hybern would never find you.’

From her expression, Azriel knew she doubted him. He clutched her hand, the shadow scarpering. ‘I promise you this: I would keep you safe.’

‘You arrived here with three arrows sticking out of you,’ she reminded him.

‘Trust me.’

‘I don’t know you,’ she said, voice dropping to a whisper.

Azriel pressed her hand to his heart to feel the steady beating of it beneath. ‘You have the rest of your life to know me.’

#nezriel #sjm romance week

41 notes · View notes

separatist-apologist · 10 months

Text

Love Is A Lie

Summary: After her mothers death, Arina goes from the well-loved daughter of a nobleman to a servant in his home. She dreams of escaping to the coast and making her own way, and when she learns of a ball the King of Avalon is hosting to pick a wife, Arina sees her chance. With a little help from a fairy godmother, Arina agrees to exchange a favor for one night with the King.

But Eris Vanserra has other plans when they meet, and Arina isn't sure she's ready for the consequences of one night dancing at a ball.

Part Two of OUAT series

Read on AO3

Every morning started with a bell ringing. It was the one modification to Arina’s bedroom she loathed more than any other. Attached to a wire in the wall, her stepmother could ring for her anywhere in the house rather than call for her. Why treat Arina like a person when she could treat her like an animal?

Groaning, Arina pushed herself out of bed. Still exhausted from a night spent up way too late sewing another dress so when she met the King of Avalon a second time, she didn’t look so terrible. His sneering countenance was burned in her mind, his clipped words as he acknowledged her branded like an iron just behind her eyes. He’d been…well…he’d been everything, though she didn’t dare admit that. Even if her father hadn’t given in to her step-mothers ugliest impulses and Arina could have met him on even ground, he wouldn’t have treated her any better.

Why was she thinking about him at all? Maybe because his court was warm and open and the new king was making a name for himself as someone who took in those that had nowhere to go. Arina doubted she’d be welcomed into his home, but perhaps she could beg him for sanctuary so when her father came looking, he couldn’t just drag her right back.

All the girls she’d grown up with were married now, and her family kept her indoors to work off debts Arina had never seen. The dress was necessary to prove she was more than the flea bitten dog her father had paraded her around as. If the king could see her humanity, surely he’d shield her, right?

There was no reprieve for Arina in the mornings. Her step-mother ran her ragged, inventing chores when there was nothing left until night had fallen and Arina ought to sleep. Working by candle light for the last month, she’d begun stitching an intricate pink and gold dress for the upcoming ball. They said the king intended to pick his wife that night, which made it the perfect place for Arina to slip in, convince him or someone close to him to intervene on her behalf before she took off for a coastal city.

She’d take up work—ideally in a library if she could convince someone of her merit. She’d had to give up schooling almost ten years ago when her father remarried, and Arina, who’d once been a promising scholar, was likely lagging so far behind that no one would want her. She could always try sewing, she reminded herself.

In truth, Arina would do anything if it meant she never had to step foot in the musty attic she now lived in. No longer a lady, no longer a person. Arina was given no time to think about herself, braiding her thick, blonde hair quickly as she made her way down the stairs in old slippers so worn there were holes where her toes ought to have been, and a dress that desperately needed to be washed.

It would be another midnight bath in the river just behind the house, quickly washing her skin and hair before carefully soaping her dress so it didn’t unspool into thread. Arina shuddered at the thought of the cold, spring water. It was safer out there than in the house, where someone might report back that she’d been wasting water, which was another mark in her impossible ledger.

Food, too, though that couldn’t be helped. There had been a time where she attempted to forage in the woods for food and all she’d gotten for her trouble was miserably sick—a doctor cost money, too.

Besides, Arina never wanted to hear her step-mother breathlessly praying to the gods that Arina would die. All over Arina’s face—too pretty, too young. As if Arina could help any of those things. She had her fathers blonde hair and his green eyes, but everything else belonged to her mother. Unblemished, golden brown skin, and features arranged so pleasantly that even covered in soot, men still made marriage offers in the street when they saw her.

Arina knew the truth of it all, though.

Love is a lie, her mother had whispered on her deathbed, clutching Arina’s hand as fever ravaged her frail body. Her parents had been a famous love match according to the society papers—but behind closed doors, her father was cold and cruel. Indifferent at the best of times, vicious at the worst.

Marriage had done her mother no favors and Arina didn’t believe it would do her any, either. She could have escaped had she taken any of those men up on what they were offering, only to end up exactly as she was. A maid in someone's household, slaving away until she turned to dust.

No. Her plan was far better. She just needed one dance with the king. Surely she could manage that—it was rumored he would dance with every single lady who attended, and Arina had managed to secure an invitation on her way out of the palace, courtesy of the princess of Ellesmere. That piece of embossed paper was Arina’s most prized possession—if she lost it, her future was ruined.

“Good morning, mother,” Arina said, stepping into her mothers bed chamber with a silver tray filled with breakfast foods. None of which she’d eat, of course—the woman was constantly worrying about her appearance and fitting into her laced up gowns. It was all for show, a massive, monumental waste that made Arina sick to her stomach.

“You’re late. Lazing in bed again?” she demanded, pushing strands of brunette hair off a still pretty, yet aging face. There was no joy in those brown eyes, no light or warmth that could elevate her into the incandescent beauty she hoped for. Arina didn’t react, hoping to keep bruised from her face this week. Eyes down, Arina murmured a soft apology.

“Make sure you scrub the back flagstones well today. The king is sending one of his most trusted advisors to meet with your father and I will not be embarrassed by your incompetence.”

“Of course,” Arina agreed, heart thudding in her chest. The king wanted to work with her father? That didn’t bode well. Arina betrayed none of her fears, bowing out after breakfast was declared pitiful and unfit for consumption. The day was spent much as it always was. Arina did her regular chores before hauling soapy water outside to scrub the back patio. There was no chance the kings diplomat came out here, and yet Arina didn’t finish until the sun began setting.

Only then did she race to the kitchen to scarf down dinner while the rest of the gossiping staff fell silent. She couldn’t be one of them—she’d been born high above their station, even if now she was made to work among them.

And her father punished them if they tried to help her in any way. She was a liability, and she couldn’t even be angry about it. Arina merely ate over the sink before dashing out the door to bathe herself.

Just as she’d predicted, the water was frigidly cold. Her hair was half frozen by the time she trudged back to the house, draped in a thin sheet for a towel, her dress hung over her arm.

She needed a new one and didn’t want to ask. It would be more money she owed for something just as poor. It also meant she’d have to go to the local dressmaker who looked at her with such pity it made Arina’s stomach burn with humiliation. Once, her mother had taken there to be fitted for fine things.

Now Arina merely asked for the cheapest material possible and sewed it herself. She’d have to sleep by the fire, negating the bath and earning her nickname—Cinders. She smelled like ashes and was too often covered in them, too. She didn’t care. Carefully combing the knots from her hair, Arina dried it the best she could by the fire before turning to her dress. It was so nearly finished—Arina was merely sewing beads she’d been given by a rather nice boy hoping to earn her affection onto her bodice. She wanted to seem presentable, and wanted the dress to look expensive.

Nice enough to catch the king's eye and make him think she was a nobleman's daughter. Which she was, technically. She’d have four minutes to convince him of her plight before he moved on, and that was the part that held Arina up. She didn’t know what to say to him because part of her—the part that wasn’t so struck by how young and good looking he was—wanted to hit him across the face and ask him how he could let something like this happen in his own kingdom.

Afterall, Arina had heard the rumors about his own abusive, cruel father. Surely he must know how it felt.

But by the time Arina fell asleep, needle in hand, she wasn’t even sure that was true, either.

And her plan seemed more foolish than ever.

Days passed much in the same vein. Arina kept her head down and worked without complaint right up until the diplomat arrived. She’d been instructed not to be seen, to stay out of the common areas and generally not be a nuisance which suited Arina perfectly fine. She had a few coins, and was hoping to haggle a decent deal on a new pair of slippers for her gown. Her dress was long enough to hide her current pair, and something about it seemed wrong. A bad omen, to come in destroyed shoes and nothing to offer the king when she begged him for his assistance.

“Hello, lady Arina.”

Arina choked down her laugh when the butcher's son stepped onto the cobblestone street. He was filthy, too—bloody, rather than sooty, but the effect was remarkably similar. As far as men went, he wasn’t awful to look at, and he could be terribly kind. He always offered her something to eat when he saw her, and had never made a demand of her.

Though Arina knew what he hoped.

She smiled at him, heart fluttering when he blinked in response. He really was terribly good looking beneath the grime, with eyes so brown they were nearly black, and the curliest flop of chocolate brown hair.

He had a reputation for being kind, too—she’d heard others talk of how he fed the village beggar, and had once helped a widow and her children obtain room and board for a few nights. There weren’t many people in the world so kind. But Cyrus was.

“Hi, Cyrus,” she replied, pleased when he fell into step beside her. His hands were in his leather apron, likely trying to hide how messy they were, but Arina didn’t mind. The square was bustling, filled with people buying and selling or just milling about and enjoying the first cool day of Autumn.

“Are you busy? There’s a new shop just a few blocks up. We could get lunch?”

Arina’s stomach growled before she could say no, and judging from the warm smile on Cyrus’s face, he’d heard it. She ate once a day to minimize what she owed, but Arina was starving—and desperate enough to agree, knowing she was giving him the wrong idea.

He paid, like he always did, offering her a chair just out of the bright sunlight. “I heard the king sent one of his advisors out to meet with your father,” Cyrus began, watching Arina shovel rice in her mouth as quickly as she could. She still needed shoes, and if she was gone too long, someone would tell, and she’d get caught and her shoes taken from her.

Arina nodded. “Good for business, I suppose.”

Cyrus considered that, eating slower. “My own father is getting sick. He means to give me his business.”

Oh, no. Arina looked up at him, heart thudding for an entirely different reason.

“I ah…I know you probably expect better offers, but…but I was thinking that when my father gives it to me, I might like a wife. You wouldn’t…you wouldn’t need to work so hard. And I have money, so you could run the household. It wouldn’t be anything grand, but there would be food. And you would be safe.”

It was such a generous offer. The sort her mother had wanted her to consider when she died. Love is a lie. Cyrus wasn’t offering love, but security and safety, and it was tempting.

“Cyrus—”

“It’s probably a year off, so there’s time for you to think about it,” he added hastily, clearly not wanting to hear her reject him like she’d done so many others. “We could get to know each other? I don’t expect you to agree, but I think you could like me if you got to know me.”

What did it hurt to tell him yes, she rationalized? Of every offer of marriage Arina had ever been offered, this was certainly the best. Cyrus did have money, and he treated people well. There was no reason to think that wouldn’t extend to his wife, and whatever children they might produce. And sure, she’d be in the same town her father lived in, but she wouldn’t be subjected to his cruelty.

“I think I could agree to that,” she murmured, swallowing the rest of her food. After all—if the king told her no, having a backup plan still ensured her survival. Arina was likely to drown herself if she had to face an uncertain future in her fathers household.

Cyrus’s expression lit up, his smile brilliant. “I’m so glad to hear you say that. I…I’m not well versed in courting, but I will do my best by you.”

“I believe that,” she said, offering him her own smile. It was nice, and perhaps that had to be enough. There was no knight in shining armor coming to save her, after all. No prince to sweep her off her feet, no fairy godmother that was going to rescue her. If Arina wanted out, she’d need to do it herself.

Which meant leaving Cyrus to get her shoes—a soft pair of silver slippers with little beaded flowers on the toes—and rushing back home.

Just in time to find the diplomat on a shining, black horse with a glossy mane. He paused when he saw her, swinging his leg over the saddle to hop in front of her.

Auburn hair, russet brown eyes—he was part of the royal family, she realized. His fine clothes cut of white and red fabric, with that distinctive cape hanging casually over one shoulder betrayed him as such, even if he didn’t wear a crown.

“Lady Arina?” he asked, a smile touching his face.

What was a Prince of Avalon doing in her home? And how did he know her name?”

“Just Arina,” she blurted, offering a deep curtsey. There was no way her step-mother wasn’t seeing this. Arina’s stomach dropped. She was going to lose her shoes.

“I’m Connal, Prince of this territory,” he said, offering her his own bow before reaching with a gold ringed finger into his jacket to procure a stunning invitation she’d seen before. “This is for you. The king has instructed all eligible ladies receive an invitation to the ball in two days' time.”

“Oh…I don’t think—”

“That includes you,” Connall said firmly, pushing the invitation into her hands. Arina didn’t dare admit she already had one. “I’ve told your father, but he had no idea where you were.”

“I was…out…” she admitted lamely. Connall smiled, handsome in an elegant kind of way. Almost as good looking as his older brother, even.

“I expect to see you there,” he said, pressing a kiss to her hand like she was some great lady. Arina’s heart banged against her ribs as he straddled his steed. Connall offered her one last look, winking even, before he took off down the road.

Arina watched, dumbstruck for a moment. He’d just…openly defied her father and was going to get away with it because he was a prince. Arina scurried around the house, hiding her shoes in a tree to keep them from being snatched before she made her way up the back lawn and into the home.

And as predicted, she was immediately accosted by her step-mother, who ripped the invitation from her hands. “This is ridiculous,” he breathed, hands all but trembling as she stared at the heavy, embossed paper. “You! At a ball! What will you do, serve the king drinks?”

“The prince said my presence was expected,” Arina replied defensively, fisting her dress in her hands to keep from trying to grab the invitation back.

“And what, pray tell, will you wear? That dress isn’t fit for the kitchens, let alone the great Forest Palace.”

“I could find a dress,” Arina said, jutting her chin in the air. “And if I did, would you let me go?”

“And if you finish all your chores,” her step-mother conceded, thrusting the invitation back into her hands. It was slightly rumpled, but good enough.

“I will,” Arina said, determined she would, all the while knowing her parents were going to try and make it utterly impossible. But she would, and she’d wear her dress and her shoes and march up to King Eris Vanserra and convince him that it made more sense to free her of her parents than it did to work with her father. Surely, their family name was old, but there was little money left to back it up.

All her family really had was tradition.

Arina worked harder those next two days than she’d ever worked in her life. Every waking minute was plagued by that awful bell and the most absurd chores—Arina was made to wash gutters and windows, to get on the roof and into the crawl space. She dusted and mopped and scrubbed until her nails bled.

And at night, she put the finishing touches on her dress, staying awake until she was so exhausted she passed out with a needle in her hand. Arina even risked owing more by bathing in the house so she wouldn’t have to worry about mud beneath her toes or smelling like river water. She was practically vibrating when everything was done and she could dress herself with a mere twenty minutes to spare. She wouldn’t be the most elegant woman, of course, nor the most fashionable but she was passably decent and most importantly, pretty.

Too pretty, she realized when she made her way down the stairs. Her father paused, eyes wide when he took her in. “You look like your mother,” he blurted out.

It was the wrong thing to say. Her step-mother, clad in rather pretty yellow, strode forward and ripped at Arina’s sleeve. “Where did you get these beads? Are these mine?”

“Don’t—no!” Arina cried, but the damage was done. Her sleeve hung pathetically and the shimmering, clay beads clattered to the stone floor loudly, bouncing in every direction. It would take her forever to find them.

“You’re a little thief,” her step mother continued, ripping the fabric of her skirt again. The sound of tearing sliced through the air, filling Arina with dread. She jerked back, but another rip saw the rest of the pretty satin shred to the floor like an awful train. Too late, she realized, that she was never going to be permitted to go.

Her step-mother smiled. “You’re a disgrace. Clean yourself up…and clean up this mess.”

Arina looked at her father foolishly, wishing he’d say something. His expression was hard and unforgiving and when he turned his back to her, boots crunching her beads into the grout, Arina couldn’t take it.

This was misery. A sob escaped her throat as she turned and fled out of the house, ignoring her step-mothers peal of laughter or the looks of pity on their faces. Arina couldn’t stop, racing over the grounds into the cool air, though half the time she stepped on the tatters of her dress which only served to ruin it more.

Months of work, ruined. And for what? Jealousy?

“It’s not fair!” she sobbed into the night, falling to her knees in the little wooded area that separated her home from the river. “I did everything she asked me to…it’s not fair.”

Pulling her knees to her chin, Arina buried her face to sob. She was never going to escape. The king probably would have said no anyway, but maybe something else would have opened up for her. Or maybe he would have said no, but he would have been kind and she would have found strength in that. She could have gone home and waited for Cyrus—another thing her family was sure to ruin.

And she’d die here, because Arina couldn’t take it.

“I’ll do anything–”

“Anything?” A melodic voice murmured. Arina looked up, surprised to see a rather lovely, older woman standing in front of her. Her blue dress skimmed the ground while beetle black eyes watched her gulp down air in a pathetic attempt to catch her breath. She crouched, grazing sharp, blood-red nails over Arina’s cheek. “You’re a beautiful little thing, aren’t you, sweetheart? Why are you crying?”

Sniffling, and feeling quite pathetic, Arina said, “I was supposed to go to a ball.”

“Of course you were,” this stranger replied, picking up one of the pink, tattered pieces of Arina’s dress. “Where else would a girl like you be headed?”

“I can’t anymore,” Arina whispered, swallowing hard. “Not like this.”

“No,” the stranger agreed, dropping her dress distastefully. “How about a deal, sweet girl? In exchange for my assistance…you’d owe me a favor.”

Arina blinked, wiping her eyes on her elbow. “A favor? What kind of favor?”

The woman waved her hand. “Oh, nothing of consequence. Something small and easily accomplished…perhaps I’ll ask you to help me cross the street one day…or maybe I’ll need a bed to sleep in.”

That seemed reasonable enough. Swallowing, her heart racing, Arina asked, “And…and you’d help me get to the palace?”

She smiled. “I would do so much more than that. Stand up, sweetheart. Let me take a look at you.”

Rising to her feet, Arina let this woman circle her. She touched Arina’s shoulder, her hair, and her dress before standing before her again. “Do we have a deal? One night at the palace, where you’ll dance your heart out in exchange for a favor of my choosing in the future?”

What did Arina have to lose? This was her only shot out. Arina accepted the strangers hand, thinking she would feel something binding them together. Some string, some touch of magic. There was nothing but a rather sharp breeze, rustling the treetops over head and cooling her overheated skin.

The woman smiled. “Excellent.”

That was the only warning Arina was given before the woman snapped her fingers. She felt it, though, that time. Something warm touching her skin, drying the mud and salt from her face and transforming her once ruined dress into something beautiful. Arina could see, even in the dark, the gown was a soft, silvery blue color, beaded through the bodice and over the full skirts so it sparkled like stars. Cape sleeves fluttered in the breeze while her hair pulled itself off her face of its own accord. When she went to touch the heavy weight sitting atop her head, she found herself touching a jeweled headband. Her ruined, muddied shoes had been replaced, too, and when Arina lifted her skirts, she found pure, glass slippers conforming against her feet.

Arina looked at the woman, head cocked as she examined her handiwork. Another snap saw a choker at her throat and earring dangling from her lobes.

“Perfect,” she murmured, smiling broadly. “One night—that ends at midnight. That’s all you get.”

“What happens at midnight?” Arina asked, her heart thundering in her chest.

“You go back to the girl you were when I found you. What you do after that is up to you. But magic can’t last forever, beautiful as it looks on you. Be mindful of the time.”

“I will,” Arina promised. She only needed five minutes of the king's time.

Arina intended to be long gone by the time midnight struck.

ERIS:

Drumming his fingers against the table, Eris considered for the millionth time calling the whole absurd ball off. Beside him, Elain Archeron watched with narrowed eyes, waiting to pounce. This whole ball had been borne in her overactive imagination.

I want to see you settled, Eris. Happy.

Power made him happy. His father, six feet in the ground, made him happy. Hell, having her and his brother around made him happy. A wife wasn’t going to give him anything he didn’t have except for an heir. Which, he supposed, would be a useful thing to secure. One son from one of the many society women hardly seemed like a big ask. And it wasn’t as if there wasn’t interest. Every lady Elain had sent invitations to had responded yes.

Well—all but one.

“You’re going,” Elain interrupted, unaware of the slant of his thoughts. “You’re going to dance and you’ll be charming and then at the end of the week you’ll announce your new wife…assuming, of course, you don’t pick one on the spot.”

“Do I look like Lucien?” he snapped. He’d heard the tale of Elain and Lucien—and how his ridiculous, overly romantic brother had fallen in love with Elain on the spot. Rather than carve out her heart, he’d protected her and was rewarded in the end with the only good wife in the world.

“No, you certainly don’t,” Elain replied crisply. She put a hand on her stomach, an obnoxious gesture meant to remind him that she was doing what was expected of a royal woman married to a prince. Even if that bump was so tiny it was easily concealed in her skirts, it was still there. Mocking him for not doing the same. “If you wait too long, perhaps I might begin harassing

Lucien into challenging you for the throne.”

Eris sighed, exasperated. “I’m dressed, aren’t I? Why don’t you select my wife, since you’re so determined to have a friend at court.”

Elain’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t tease me, Eris. You know I would love nothing more.”

A servant slipped into the little alcove Elain and Eris were hiding in to inform him guests had begun to arrive. Eris still had time. He wasn’t expected for another forty five minutes, which meant he could sulk privately in his absurd white get up Elain had foisted upon him, insisting he looked like the prince of every ladies dreams. His red cape hung lazily over one shoulder, threaded by a gold chain across his chest while his medals of valor were pinned so everyone knew he could slay whoever crossed him with ease.

It was all ridiculous. How was he supposed to pick a wife in the five minutes it took to dance? With each passing second, Eris felt his anxiety spike until his temper threatened to spill all over himself and Elain. It was only her, reaching across the table for his hand, that settled Eris.

“If you hate every lady at the ball, you don’t need to force yourself to choose one. We can reach out to other kingdoms, even across the sea. There is someone who will interest you, this I promise.”

“Yes, true love, I have heard this all before,” he grumbled, but still Eris squeezed back. “Let's get this over with, shall we?”

“Let's find you a wife,” Elain agreed.

Only, Elain didn’t stick around to help him. Eris was announced to ridiculous applause in a room filled with women and their mothers and fathers, all hoping to secure a match for their children. Eris couldn’t recall the last time the ballroom had been so filled. A quartet played while hanging chandeliers threw twinkling lights over the white and black checkered floors. Everyone looked more lovely, and somehow exactly the same. Had they all conspired to order the exact same style of dress in varying colors? The same hairstyle piled atop their heads, and lips rouged to death.

The first dance was a misery. “Sire,” the girl breathed, lowering her eyes and thrusting her breasts forward. A passing servant was handing out champagne and Eris was tempted to down a crystal flute before continuing any further.

He took her hand, unable to care about her nice breasts or her mostly pleasing face. In his head, he could hear Elain urging him to at least feign interest. Ask her about her interests.

“Tell me, lady. How do you occupy yourself?” he asked, sweeping into the first steps of the evening. The woman in question, who had probably told her his name though Eris wasn’t listening, immediately began rattling off a list of the most boring hobbies he’d ever heard. Strolling through gardens? Was that an actual hobby?

As it turned out, it was the hobby of every woman he danced with in that first hour. Along with needle point and piano playing, which was also highly popular. Every woman who brought it up offered to play something for him privately. Eris wasn’t tempted, though he knew if he took them up on it, he was likely to at least get his cock wet.

Sullying a lords daughter seemed the surest way to get stuck in a marriage he didn’t want with a lady he didn’t even get to choose.

Elain was polite enough to at least rescue him after his eighth dance. “You look like you’re at a funeral, Eris.”

“Forgive me for being bored. How come you don’t play piano?”

Elain snorted. “Oh, I do, Eris. All well-bred ladies do.”

“And do you play for my brother?” he demanded.

A wicked smile spread over her beautiful face. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to. What if we…”

Eris turned his head to see what had caught Elain’s attention. The room itself was hushing to whispers, all looking toward the steps leading down to the ballroom. A last minute arrival stood at the very top, surveying the room like a queen.

“It’s her,” he murmured, drinking in the pale, blue dress cut against her body and all that thick, blonde hair half pulled off her face while the rest was left to cascade down her shoulders. She didn’t look like the other women, in their comfortable, safe gowns and their matching hairstyles. She looked like an individual person—though, in truth, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had come looking exactly like everyone else.

Connall’s invitation had arrived, then.

Ignoring everyone else, Eris strode across the room to wait for her to make her way down the stairs. Eris extended one gloved hand which she accepted with a blink of hesitation. But she was here—and just as beautiful as he remembered.

It was those green eyes, he decided. Still gazing upon him with familiar derision, as though she found him and everything about his ball, beneath her.

“Lady,” Eris murmured, bowing ever so slightly. “You made it.”

She curtseyed. “I—were you expecting me?”

“Hoping,” he admitted, leading her toward the dance floor. “You never sent word that you would come.”

“I…wasn’t sure I would,” she said, eyes darting around the room. Was she looking for her father? He had been chatting with other lords while his wife flitted about, gossiping over this and that while speculating who the prince might choose. Eris didn’t understand them—their daughter was beautiful and Eris had requested her attendance personally. Any other parents would have leapt at that kind of attention.

But what did he expect from a man who’d made his daughter little more than his personal servant?

“You’re here now…”

“Arina,” she said, finally looking up at him.

Arina. Eris could practically feel Elain’s smug gaze burning the back of his neck and he couldn’t bring himself to care. So what if Elain was right? Stupidly, Eris replied, “I’m Eris.”

A smile tugged at her lips. “I know. Everyone knows that.”

Right. Eris’s feet moved of their own accord, forgetting he had an audience. She swallowed, fingers digging against his shoulder as though she needed strength. “I came to ask you for a favor.”

Eris’s heart leapt into his throat. “A favor?” he asked, careful to keep his voice neutral. Was it wrong he half hoped her favor was marriage? That she’d come to ask for his hand, of which he might very well give her on the spot? That was insane—Elain had said he had a week to decide. He could spend the night dancing with her and perhaps in the morning try and lure her into his bed and see if they were compatible in the way that mattered most to him. Maybe give her a tour of the fucking garden everyone was so desperate to stroll around.

Hell, he’d even listen to her play piano if she offered.

“My father,” she began with a heavy breath, dashing all his hops just as quickly as they’d emerged. “I…I still live with him.”

“Most unmarried ladies do, to my knowledge,” Eris replied. Arina bit her bottom lip while Eris fought the urge to trace it with his tongue. Instead, he pulled her a little closer, the hand on her waist too tight to be considered polite.

“I don’t want to anymore. I’ve come to beg for your permission to leave his household.” Her eyes held such defiance in them, as if to dare him to say no.

“You’d ask me to defy one of the nobles in my court so you can…?” Eris prayed it wasn’t to marry another man. He’d have to kill him, which was unlikely to engender the sort of warm, romantic feelings he was hoping for.

“Live freely,” she all but whispered, eyes glazing over. “On my own terms.”

There was absolutely no way Eris intended to grant her this. At least, not how she imagined. He was decided, in that moment, that he’d make her his wife. Arina could have his whole country to roam as she pleased, his household to boss around, and maybe even expel her father from court, if it pleased her.

“And here I was, thinking you came for a husband.”

Arina’s eyes widened. “I wouldn’t—I mean—I don’t presume to think—”

“Why not?” he murmured, lowering his mouth so his lips brushed her ear. “Everyone else does.”

The song was ending, which meant his time with her was, too. Already she was pulling back, eyes pleading for him to make a choice.

“Walk with me,” he said, reluctantly releasing his hold on her body to offer her his arm. “Tell me more about this plan of yours so I can make an informed decision.” It was a flimsy excuse to spend more time with her. Eris ignored the sounds of someone shrieking loudly from somewhere in the room, hushed into silence by another guest he didn’t care about. Arina watched, though, trying to pull away.

“You should—”

“Walk with me,” he said again, this time with more authority. She couldn’t deny him, though her spine straightened ever so slightly.

“Of course, my lord.”

Gods, he wanted her. Eris didn’t bother to hide his smile, leading her back through the crowd toward the open veranda that led into the garden. He’d have privacy here, thanks to Elain and her green thumb and determination to remake the palace in her own image. Paved pathways were illuminated by pretty string lights hung overhead, making it easy to see Arina even in the dark. Eris couldn’t drag his eyes off her—she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Arina's gown sparkled like stars, making it seem as though her warm, golden skin was glowing. Maybe it was. Eris would have believed there was some kind of magic clinging to her, creating some kind of spell between them.

And she was trying to leave him.

“What would it take to convince you?” she asked just as soon as the music from the ballroom faded and only the sound of noisy crickets remained.

“A great deal, I’m afraid,” Eris replied, surprised that she didn’t immediately understand what he was after.

“I’ll do anything,” she said, desperation coating her words.

“A dangerous thing to offer a man you don’t know. We’re alone,” he reminded her. Arina didn’t flinch back, nor did she seem surprised.

“Surely you can have that anytime you like. Snap your fingers and half the ladies in that ballroom would unlace their underthings for you.”

“Would you?”

“If you snapped your fingers? No, I don’t think I would. But I will if that’s what you want in exchange for freedom,” she said, that pretty defiance returning to her features. The sight made Eris feel breathless, made him practically mad with desire. He wanted to kiss her and see what she tasted like.

He wanted to feel her fingers dig against his shoulder as he moved against her, chest to chest, burning with pleasure.

“If you’re going to disrobe for me, I’d prefer you did it of your own accord,” he admitted.

Arina sighed. “Do you mean to tease me, then? Tell me what you want—”

“I want a wife,” he lied. He didn’t, not truly. But he wanted her, and with the clock ticking in his head, he knew he’d either secure her or she’d slip through his fingers and he’d never see her again. “What if I promised you freedom, in exchange—”

“For a crown?” Arina asked, halting just in front of Elain’s swaying sunflowers. They were at least as tall as Arina, though not half as beautiful. It was tempting to push past the pretty rock border and take her in the grass where no one would see them. Eris resisted the urge to adjust his cock, half hard at the mere thought.

“That sounds like a shackle, to me.”

Eris blinked. “It is, sometimes.”

“Why would I want that?”

“Everyone wants it,” he replied, genuinely unsure what else to say.

“Then pick someone else,” she said, stepping toward him. She didn’t hesitate to press her palm against his chest, eyes pleading as she added, “Let me leave. Tonight.”

“Kiss me.” Eris curled his fingers around her wrist, pulling her closer. “Kiss me, first. I just…I need to know.”

“And you’ll let me go?” she asked. Eris shook his head no, even as he began lowering his face toward hers.

“I’m not promising that,” he replied. “I could give you anything you asked for.”

Arina was staring at his mouth. “I don’t want it. Please, your majesty—”

“Eris,” he interrupted, lips ghosting her own. “Call me Eris.”

“Eris,” she whispered. That was enough. He kissed her, one hand on her waist, the other holding her jaw. The soft, sweetness of her skin slammed into him, filling his senses with the scent of vanilla and lime. Her hand on his jacket fisted against her lapel, drawing him closer still so Eris could deepen the kiss.

He was greedy, tongue sliding against the seam of her mouth. Gasping, Arina yielded and Eris swept inside with a groan. He was decided, right then and there. Nothing else mattered, nor did he care about what she’d come for. Eris was going to make her his wife and would prove she could have the freedom she craved while he got the woman he wanted.

“Arina,” he whispered, arm snaking around her body. “Trust me.”

“I—” The chiming of the clock nearby drew a frightened cry from Arina’s lips. Ashen with fear, she slipped from his grasp. “Say you’ll help me,” she demanded, gathering her skirts in her hands. “Say it.” “I’m not letting you go,” he replied, taking a step toward him. Behind them, the bell tolled again.

Arina let out a quiet scream of frustration. “Take what I’m offering.” “I—” A third ring saw her bolt, running from the garden so quickly one of her slippers came off her foot. She didn’t stop, leaving Eris to snatch it from the ground. Still warm, and made of glass.

“Wait!” he yelled, chasing after her. “Stop her!”

His guards were too slow, letting Arina slip back into the ballroom before she could be apprehended. If he lost her here, Eris knew he’d never see her again. She wouldn’t risk going home, and though he could scour his kingdom in search of her, it was vast, and he couldn’t risk his seat by picking through every nook and cranny.

She’d made it up the steps and through the doors by the time Eris caught sight of her again. “Stop that woman!” he yelled a second time, his voice cutting through the chatter and music. Everyone went quiet as Eris added, “That’s my wife.”

He didn’t stop, though some part of him thought he was making a rather big fool of himself. Of course he’d want the only woman in the world who didn’t want him back. Elain was going to have such a laugh when he explained all this later.

Eris caught Arina in the drive, her pretty dress gone—replaced, strangely, with a ripped pink gown that likely had been beautiful once. Tears streamed down that pretty face of hers, her hair tumbling like a halo of gold. He'd worry about the strangeness of her appearance later. All that mattered was she was still here.

“Please,” she whispered, whipping around when his fingers curled around her arm. Eris didn’t respond, bending on one knee not so he could propose, but to put her shoe back on her foot. Arina shuddered when he pushed the hem of her dress up over her ankle, noting she’d cut her sole and was bleeding.

He stood, sweeping her into his arms with ease.

“I’m sorry, princess,” he murmured as she wept miserably against his chest.

But Eris wasn’t sorry at all.

Only relieved he still had her.

#just a little bridge between snow elucien and feypunzel #i think ill try and put vassa between feysand and nessian too #because i dont have enough shit going on #anyway #eris vanserra

103 notes · View notes