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comfortless · 2 months

Text

Only Other

chapter three of three.

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. historical au (set around 350BC); potential inaccuracies as i am no historian!, König speaks some German here (as opposed to Gothic), mutual pining & worship, smut (piv), sliiiight breeding kink, violence, as always König is horribly in love and says ridiculously worrisome things, reader feigns ambivalence but is equally unhinged and smitten.

notes: eternally grateful to @wordsbyvani for reading over my shoulder and genuinely being the sweetest throughout every part. ^^ and again to @writersdrug for giving me the idea to begin with!

wc: 9k.

<- previous.

König’s men arrive sometime in the afternoon, a few hours behind but carrying hoards of supplies. There are weapons you recognize to be from your city stuffed into bags, pelts and silks and twinkling stones, meats and fruits. They had not forgotten to bring along wine, either: two barrels to either side of a gray mare led along behind one of their rugged steeds by a length of thick rope.

You don’t ask how they found her, let alone how they managed to actually tame her down enough to follow amidst the chaos that broke out the night prior. A weak string of “thank you”s leaves your lips when you press your nose to the horse's snout, sobbing into her silver fur. She seems less bothered, huffing impatiently as she’s tethered up with the others against broad trees.

You’re not convinced that here or anywhere is safe anymore, and you don’t assist when the men begin to set up their camp. They’ve enough supplies and arms to do it themselves, anyhow.

Guilt, trepidation and confusion, haunt you: cast out for all to see by your forlorn stares and the tremor of your lower lip as you continuously fight an internal battle to keep yourself sane. And how could you? You’ve only come to reason that this has all come to fruition because of you, because of the things that you could not help. Your curiosity, fascinations, and impiety had all led you to be here, now, while everyone you once knew sleeps eternally.

You have condemned yourself to the life of a slave girl, and later to the darkness of the Orcus when you do die.

Though… men do not give their slaves the looks that König gives to you. You haven’t spoken to him in hours, and you do your best to avoid his glances, shoot down his smiles with the curved arrow of your own sullen frowns. Still… amidst setting up the tents and gathering wood for the fire to stave off the chill of nightfall, you catch the very stars reflected over a sea in his eyes.

There is love there, a too-uncanny and harrowing love, but a great devotion nonetheless. It burns like a fire of its own in your chest, inescapable and rampant. You know it in the spaces behind your skull, your ribs, that what he feels is another cage: roomier, softer, but you will never be free of it either.

König does not follow you to the tent when the moon rises. He sits by the fire, watching as you go with the pelt drawn up over your shoulders and curled around you. When you sink into the bed of fur that has replaced the straw mattress from before you find yourself somehow even more fitful here than outside. Sleep is evasive, leaving you tossing and twisting amidst the smell of sweat and animal fur. Not even the crackling fire outside defeats the quiet or the cold in the air.

There’s a sickly pit in your stomach, thorn seedling threatening to take root and spread the longer you stare up at the blackened abyss of the tent ceiling. If you’re to live a life torn, at the very least you could be warm; you take to König’s side in moments, joining him by the slowly dwindling flame.

The brute isn’t sleeping, either, just… lost. Lost like you the day that you met him.

“I need to look at your wound.” Your excuse comes weak and puny, doe limbs and fragile glances when you do sit at his side and speak. You’ve never been anyone’s ‘Göttin’, you don’t know what you’re doing, what blessings to grant or judgments to cast. Avoiding him only seems a punishment for you both, and you’ve had your share of those.

König is anything but small: even amidst the turmoil your silence has gifted to him, he still seems himself, all ego and cruelly cut silver, softened only by your words, your touch.

“Richtig,” he mutters, reaches out to pull you in, and you let him. Straddling his lap with only the moon above awake to witness, cast her curious gaze down and illuminate the expanse of his chest whilst you work to pull away the bandages.

There isn’t much to tend to, it’s healing well. The flesh that once seemed inflamed has only drawn back its redness to simmer to the natural color of his skin. When you begin your careful prodding, it does not hurt him. He doesn’t so much as flinch or huff at your touch.

When you dab your index in the sweet honey that serves as a salve, he grasps at your hand and brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss to your index and middle without hesitation. And you see it then: a glimmer of hesitation in the way his lips pull and his eyes search your own, a silent plea for vindication.

You’ve never been cold to him, not even as he spoke with so much self-importance when you first met, not when he rutted his blade between your parted legs, not even now after all that he’s done. In his own way of thinking, these things have all been some display of courtship. There’s never cruelty toward you, not in his touch, the words that he speaks, and especially not in those somber eyes. These things break down the last fraying edge of your resolve.

You press your mouth to his, sharing the taste of honey pressed to his lips, everything sugary and warm. Over and over until the night begins to close its way in, plump clouds drifting over the pearl hanging in the sky when you finally find yourself tucked back into the tent with König curled at your side. He holds you closer than he ever has, not from a fear you’ll take off under the darkened sky, but in the honoring of something far greater. Some love comes quiet like flower blooms, his comes with fire.

“Wolves pair in winter,” he says quietly, burying his face into your hair. It’s shy, almost, as though the man has not already embedded his scent into your very skin and toyed with your most sensitive parts. It’s truer, more heartfelt, than even his confessions of love.

“Is that what you see us as being?” You laugh, a slow, gentle chime that aches your throat, face still puffy from tears and voice scratchy from those thick clouds of smoke.

“Ja…”

“You really…” The words get caught up someplace in the spaces between your lungs and tongue. You don’t want to cry, not anymore, but you find it difficult not to choke up after so much comfort with a lifetime of so very little. “You do care for me, don’t you?”

He answers your question in a grumble, a string of foreign words only meant for mountain caverns and creatures that walk on all fours and somehow they make sense. A resounding yes, in three gutteral sounding words. The frayed ends of guilt and anger finally drift off as you settle into his hold like a den of pure comfort, warm and buried in a world of fur and a man blessed by trees and the earth rather than gods and myth.

When the breeze picks up outside, rustling sprawling oak limbs, momentarily silencing the fire, its as if they answer him in your stead. You don’t cry, though it aches, but you let go of the memories of all your begging to those that never seemed to listen. Here, in the dark you’ve found the only person that seems to understand without even knowing.

You drag the pelts up over the both of you, clasp your hand over his where it rests beneath them, and fall into a haze of contentment. He draws you nearer, breath filtering through your hair from where his head lies just above your own.

The dreams that come are no longer of places you can not reach, but only of the memory of a city that was never meant to house your spirit.

You wake to König’s pawing. It begins along your sternum, hand placed flat there only to glide further up and push at your tit. It’s gentle and testing, pushes fire into your very veins when for the first time he doesn’t seem to remain entranced there. It drifts, further up to cup your jaw.

“You are awake?,” he rasps, propping himself up to inspect your face where you lie, weakened and warmed by sleep.

“Yes…”

“Are you still bereaved?,” König asks in such a hushed voice, reaching toward you again. His hand seems to tremble when it finds your face, thumb brushing over your mouth with such trepidation it seems misplaced for him.

“Partly.”

You consider your dreams again: the open street, devoid of people apart from those that face down at you with contempt building in hollow eye sockets. Where grass once sprung up beneath the cracks in the stones, there were only small flames. And you do still grieve for those that were innocent in the entire affair, those trampled by cattle when they had only just had a taste of escape. Your very mind begins to darken at the thoughts, your body only tensing further, a bowstring on the verge of snapping,

“Is that why I can not have you?”

“I never said…” Your voice only grows thin, detached almost from the way you purse your lips to kiss the digit toying with you. Your heart is only thunder, the sound of those wretched hooves: yearning was dangerous itself, your own only seemed to take further shape with each passing moment. Claws and a waiting maw, just like the wolves he speaks of.

König hums, a deep rumble from his chest as he gives a slow nod of acknowledgement.

It all becomes tree sap, a sticky confectionery bout. His mouth descends upon your own as though starved, hurried and longing as he samples you, the you who certainly yearned for the bathhouses to clean herself properly. All thought seems to dispel when his hand leaves your cheek and neck to begin its painfully slow descent between your legs, burrow between wax and honey to pull soft cries from your mouth.

He only stills his dismantling of you when you’re trembling and doughy, squeezing around his fingers so tightly you wonder how he can continue to bury them inside at all.

Just as the other gods, Sol is lost here when König crawls over you, all shadow and wretched, led here with the promise of a prey that you are not. Only another wolf… the flame in his winter eyes is the same that’s settled inside of you.

His head dips to kiss into your hair while your leg is pulled to settle over his hip. You feel a kiss, a different sort, when the pillar of his manhood reaches between your bodies to settle over your sex, probing at your slit that only seems to pulse and beg under his touch.

You had never found these silly metaphors enticing with the men of the city, even the entertainers with their pretty words could have never lured you this far down. Yet, here is different, here is cold and lonely and wild: a culmination of all that he is, incarnation of the earth and man and a desperate hunt.

“You are ready for me,” your god hums, pleased, as he coats himself in your arousal, sticky like warm sap. The sounds of his toying with you are something you should be accustomed to now, with him, but still makes your face warm. Not with shame, only a quiet desperation. “Beautiful little goddess...”

It’s summer here; winter tears its claws right out of your flesh when the sun itself sinks inside. The turning of seasons is natural, so dreadfully normal you’ve never bat an eye until you could physically feel it: the strip of your own apprehension tossed into a steaming sea, the dewy wetness all but drowning you entirely.

And it’s König who loses himself first, a sound so pitiful carving its way out of him you would almost believe him to be hurt if not for the way he throbs inside of you. He feeds it, a stuttering twitch of his hips as he slowly brings you toward him by your hips. Far too large to properly bottom out but encumbered and ecstatic by the sensation around him. Tighter than any sheath, but a weapon pushes through you all the same- inch by loving inch, until he manages to fully fill you with himself.

“I don’t want to hurt you, little one.“ Each word is torn from him, punctuated heavily by the shallow movement of his body and the drag of a demanding cock. Restraint is a peculiar thing hovering over him, his brow pinched as though forcing himself to concentrate on not ripping you apart where you lie.

“You’re not hurting me..,” you sigh as your hands find his shoulders, fingernails dimpling the skin there. If anything the urgency is only shared.

When your hips push back to meet him, the lead is dropped, another surrender. Too much trust for a man deserving of none of it.

His response is a breathy groan, mouth finding your shoulder as his hands drift to pull your hips upward to better meet him. Teeth find purchase along your flesh, gentle as he can be, but grinding and desperate to leave a mark, a piece of him behind.

It’s almost with a fury that he stuffs himself into you then, his jaw going slack and eyes wild, hands grasping at every inch of your pillowy flesh that he can reach.

Never could König have looked more beautiful than now, once starved and now tasked, for and now with you. His gaze trails from where your thighs tremble around him, to where the sap pools and nature builds up its own obscene choir at your togetherness… and then, to your face where his gaze only shatters into softness.

Something bubbles right against your lash line, a stray tear, overwhelmed by the feel of the giant ravishing you, pulling you down from your world of jewels and pillars to his own devoid of anything but need.

His head dips immediately, tongue running up the length of your cheek, a hand falling away to pry open your already parted thigh as he licks at and fucks into you like something truly feral. He coos his praises against your mouth, parted and whining, claims a new kingdom all for himself in you, of you.

You feel how the temples must, trodden through and left with gifts, blood and honey and fire as the muscles of your thighs begin to tense. Instinct spurs you to catch his lip between your teeth, push your hips back to laboriously furl around him.

His pace comes to a halt, settling to only grind himself so deeply within you that you feel the last of the stars begin to die out in the recesses of your skull, dim and dumbly smothered until they reignite in a blinding wave of white. König does not give you the time to settle, only spears into you with a renewed fervor as you cinch around him, furthering your rapture to a point that is almost agonizing.

He chases his own end with the same famished glare as before, stares right into your eyes as you pull iron from his lip and cast it into the fire of your waiting mouth. The sting, the bliss, only makes him whimper, a sound so small and choked its unfathomable to have come from a man who slams into you as though you were paid for.

You lick into his mouth in a way so tentative and fragile he immediately crashes down, blankets you in the strength of his arms and kisses you in turn: so soft and chaste it’s uncanny in this moment. His groan of defeat only comes when he stills fully, buried to the hilt, thrumming and shivering through his own release. Honey and seafoam, the rise of a tide touching earth to brim and spill past your joining.

He chases the feeling for several moments longer, bucking his hips sloppily as he lies atop your spent form, barely coherent when he mutters nonsensical praises into your hair, against your neck, the corner of your mouth- any place he can think to leave a kiss.

“… everything,” he mutters when he lies atop you fully, satisfied where he nestles his head into the fur below you both. “Everything I have ever wanted.”

The day passes on like this. Even as his men maneuver about camp, preparing to hunt or practice with their stolen weapons. The only thing König seems keen on doing is bringing you to ruin, repairing you with kisses pressed into your hair, along your cheek.

He leaves you only twice as the day drags onward. Once to gather you a meal of something meaty roasted over the fire, what remained of a boar, a gathering of dried fruit, and water from a small flask. You’re famished and exhausted by the thrill of being shoved down into the fur to tolerate him three times over already. The twinkle in his eye is nothing short of mischievous when you do finally tell him that you need to rest after eating.

After a bout of playfully shoving him away, you only find yourself on top of him, then. He seemed entirely unashamed, more hurried and desperate than before as he bucks at you like a wild horse, voicing his praises and spitting out such sugary sweet nonsense about how you would carry his son and only ever experience him, you almost felt shy. A curled finger hooks under your jaw to force you to look down at him, lose yourself in the vast, uneasy sea of his eyes while he floods you with his seed again. Finally, he seems sated, pulls you down to lie atop him.

König promises you that he will find your mother, that he will take care of you as no other has or ever could, while stroking along your back. He tells you of the mountains, the trees, the animals and the men who live amongst them and inside of them.

He tells you of the sea when you ask, how the sand is softer and sticks as if it never wants you to go. In turn, you tell him that he must be like the sea then, never fully parting from you, leaving his trace imprinted upon your skin with teeth rather than sand. A sea that loves instead of hungers, one that presses you onto your back to wash over you to steal the very breath from your chest and push it back with a kiss.

— — —

The wilderness is cruel. Wild things lurk in the brush and occasionally you pass by other settlements. Less friendly than the small band you have grown accustomed to. You’re always urged to shush, then have yourself tucked further against König while he speaks low and threatening to any would-be bandits. Only once has that resulted in a death, but not to one of König’s own. You didn’t watch when the man with the red hair carved a hole through the trespasser, just squeezed your eyes shut and buried your face into a waiting bicep.

Days pass on horseback, your legs feel stiff and clumsy, and there are no amount of pelts serving as makeshift saddles that could ever help the ache that shoots up from your pelvis. It serves no aid at all that, when riding ahead or too far behind the other men, König takes this newfound intimacy between you two to be a liberty. Regardless of your formation, he never ceases looking at you as though his only wish is to devour you whole.

Those times are often quick, palm pressed over your mouth as he dutifully breeds you beneath the sun, in the softest patch of withering wild grass or barren land available. You melt into him, part your legs like a wife rather than some skittish woman that he himself has whisked away. Each time, he whispers his praises, professes his love in more creative ways, covers you in so many kisses you feel a bit dazed by the time the ordeal is through.

Then, you’re righted back onto the horse with König at your back, the most horribly endearing smile plastered upon his face.

It’s not much of a surprise that his men do start their caterwauling at some point during the journey to wherever— past dormant trees and approaching the silhouettes of hills so tall and vast you’re certain that they must be the mountains you have heard of, even if you had yet to properly see them. König had made it perfectly clear just what you are to him in his coarse words to his companions, but never directly to you. They do not mock your union, but they do often give you strange looks, particularly at your tummy while they discuss you with their leader.

There’s nothing there, you’re sure of that much, but you shoot them your angriest glare anyway and raise your chin to look forward instead. Their talk of the possibility of a little “prinz” does not distract you from your own thoughts, drifting up to scrape the sky just like the peaks of the mountains.

“So that is where the gods live?,” you ask, mostly to yourself as you curl your fingers into the horse’s reins. There’s subdued laughter from either side of you, and you almost shrink at the thought of making a fool of yourself before these brutes. It wouldn’t be the last time, surely. You couldn’t even bring yourself to fully commit to the idea of there being any sort of vast and ethereal field awaiting you when you die anymore; it was already here before you, painted in the color of evergreen and winter blossoms.

König doesn’t laugh, at least. Only places his palm over the front of your neck and guides your head back to look up to him, gives a toothy grin when your eyes light up just from the sight. It was difficult not to when you’ve been fed and pleasured incessantly by him. You reason that your punishment for forsaking all that you once knew must assuredly be your own mind deteriorating to feel the way that you do.

“They are right here,” he says, so quiet and sweet, gesturing between the two of you. He had no interest in your former gods, of what he seems to view as stories for children, but he listens as you tell him the significance of such lofty places cloaked in fog, mist and trees.

His hand finds your cheek, savors in the feel of your skin against his thumb while you tell him of your misplaced belief in him being some son of a war god that he’s never even known, much less prayed to. He then reminds you of the woman he seems certain could have been your mother, says that surely she must have been wed to the shallow of a sparkling lake to birth something as lovely as you.

The men regroup after some time, stilling their horses and your rowdy mare still tethered behind one of the others to speak, access the distance from here and their destination while sipping wine from leather flasks and putting weapons back in their proper places. You listen on, picking up on the few words you did understand from their language, but ultimately gather nothing from it all.

“Where are you taking me?,” you hazard as you try to push yourself forward in a subtle reminder that yes, you were there too, and woman or not you had a right to know.

“Home,” König gruffs simply in response, gathering you back into his arms and taking the reins from your hands. His chin rests atop your head, the fingers of his free hand petting your side in an attempt to snuff out any further questioning. “You will like it.”

Home. Home to the place he had claimed you would find your mother; to foreign woods and wild downs, sprawling hills and little shacks covered in sticks and leather instead of the villas with their terracotta tiles.

You didn’t even know that you had a place to return to at all, not now. Your eyes catch his, though, and you know then just what it truly must feel like to belong someplace. Never had home been Gaius, reduced to smoldering ash in some divine reckoning, but it had always been with someone you truly believe you have wanted. Had you ever even been allowed to want before him..?

Your brow pinches as you shift to rest your head against the broad back behind you, held fast by the iron grip around your waist. The clouds drift by above, the sun casts a warmth over your face and you fall into comfort, into promise.

— — —

Barbarian settlements are strange.

There are no paved streets here crowded with people and decay, no hallowed and looming temples hungry and waiting for sacrifices. The columns are tree bark and very much alive with twisting limbs and growths of green that never seemed to dull even in the winter, not the stiff and lifeless marble you had grown accustomed to.

The homes are pieced together with wood, clay, anything that could be used with no clear rhyme or reason to their architecture. Goats wander about, bleating out for food or ramming into one another for play. The children don’t sit in houses studying or wander from stall to stall snatching and scurrying off, they play and work. There is a strange contentment here, too, something that feathers on the wind as it does the same on each face that you pass,

Everyone seems to have a place, a thing to be, and you feel like the world’s most delicate and forgotten pearl amidst these people who do not even seem to pay you any mind. If anything, they only seem pleased to see the man with his arm cloaked over your shoulders. They smile to him, greet him in their strange words and dip their heads as though he truly were some king.

Maybe he was, to them, to the wild people with no true reasoning to have any sort of monarchy. They barely had land to claim, much less rule over.

You’re not paraded around as a slave: he cups your jaw and lifts your head when your gaze falls to the dirt and dust below your feet, chides you in a rough whisper about how a Königin should present herself. The people do acknowledge you then, with looks of awe and offerings of dried flowers pressed into your palms and tucked behind your ear, Roman bronze dropped at your feet. You look the part of a proper queen too, when you flash them all your loveliest smile and nestle closer to your giant of flame and earth.

Thoughts of your past in the city come to mind when you note their lack of conveniences. Even the dread of forsaking your own gods briefly leaves you halting midstep before a firm hand urges you forward. König’s warmth comes as a comfort now more than ever when your thoughts do eventually circle back to a guilt, heavy and dreadful: the picture of Juno’s altar forgotten and burned away weeks of travel behind you.

“You will like it here,” he mumbles, trailing the same hand up to the back of your neck as he repeats the words he spoke only days prior on your journey. You could, you will, but it all feels so different that your pulse seems to triple its racing.

Your fingers graze over the dried flowers in your hand, sweet smelling as you trace over each petal to center yourself, take back that prideful smile that was in place just a moment ago.

If you’re to run amok, you may as well enjoy it.

You settle, regain your pace and that forced look of utter contentment at his side.

At least, until he begins to speak again.

“I will kill them all if you prefer we be alone,” König whispers into your ear, has the audacity to nip at your lobe, and does not even bother drawing back as if those words were meant to make you wet and pliant for him. All sense of reason must have left you entirely, because a shiver rips its way up each knob of your spine. “Would that please you?”

“No… Do not jest,” you grit out, staring only forward and not offering so much as a glance toward the beast at your side, even as his hand drifts down to palm at your breast.

“I am not.” He laughs, breathy and low when he finds your nipple already hard, thumb grazing over it as though this act of exhibitionism was as natural as any of the other things his madness compels him to do. “I will give you anything. Even blood, meine Göttin.”

Surely… you should be flattered that his loyalty is reserved only for you, but there’s no appeasement held in the glare that you shoot him as you pry his hand away from your chest. He gives you the look of a kicked stray then, even a pout so foreign on a face so scarred, you may have even chuckled if you were in better spirits, but he does relent. His hand drops back to his side and he detached from you after pressing a soft kiss to the corner of your mouth.

You’re led to a shack larger than the others, but more or less in the same state. It’s simple, built solidly with thick carved wood and packed to prevent weather seeping its way in. It’s humble in a way, far more humble than any ruler’s you’ve only imagined. A bench, a table, a mattress likely stolen away from some Roman soldier’s tent. There’s nothing particularly special about it, but it smells like König, like the trees and the earth in a way that is comforting.

It takes a moment for it to fully register that this is what he had meant by home, not the people and their affairs outside, only this place. Only him. A temple all your own that you imagine he must wish to fill with love and children and an abundance of gifts he may steal away all for you.

His men bring in what little of the supplies remained, stuffed away in a corner and voluntarily relinquished; even if it means they’ll be fending for themselves like the others in the village rather than feasting on stores, they only seem happy. The red-haired one even flashes you a contented look of admiration on his way out, as though you just being there was enough to soothe and patch some void here.

That may have been the case.

When the door is shut and all falls to silence, the barbarian king kneels before you. His hands find your hips, thumbs grinding gentle circles along them and further down to your thighs, your calves, to everywhere that aches. A gentle sort of worship that coaxes soft sighs and a buzzing of flesh from you.

König brings you to the mattress when your eyelids begin to flutter, exhaustion settling over you in full when you’re lifted and brought toward his chest. You could fall asleep in his hold alone, but you settle to only rest your head there and reach up along his vastness to rake your fingers through his wild hair.

Your voice tells him that you do like it here, with him, in this strange place circled by withering ferns and trees so infinite that you could never hope to find your way away without him taking your hand and navigating through. Your touch tells him the words that you dare not speak, a kiss to voice that you too would burn away everything if it only meant that you could share in this at his side, a mimicry of his massage along his own shoulder to whisper a great confession of adoration and boundless promises.

— — —

When the ferns and flowers begin to grow again throughout the spring and into the summer, you find yourself accustomed to everything. You aid the women in caring for their children, though you begrudgingly swear that it is not for practice whatsoever. The stitching and cooking that is done here feels far less harrowing— you do not put it off and leave it in a heap upon the floor as you would have in the city. There’s no looming dread of what’s to come when you perfect your work: you’re gifted only smiles, blessings and gifts.

Though the woman König had claimed to be your mother is not here, you ask him to recount the way she looked and spoke to you often on quiet nights, where his hands drift over you and his voice comes in a whisper. She may not have even existed at all, some lost spirit amidst the trees that wails and cries and leads men like him to their destinies. Your heart only tears when you begin to wonder if Juno herself had imparted such a quest to him. Save the lost woman that she favored so much, grant him some divine luck and intoxicating charm to ensure your safety and happiness.

He does not understand when you gather up honey and blossoms to pray over, but he does sit at your side and listen when you whisper your thanks to this new altar. Kisses the crown of your head when you’re through and lures you back into an embrace where he reminds you that he knew what he needed to do the moment that you met at the stream. No other woman could have swayed him the way that you have.

His offerings are only to you, even after such a length of time has passed. There’s no goddess that he kneels for other than the one that sleeps at his side and tells him of her dreams.

The day he gifts you his seax is one that resonates more than even the necklaces and gowns of silk and linen. It feels heavy in your hands, the blade almost as soft as gossamer when your fingers trail along it, though it does not yield. It’s only well polished and freshly sharpened. The handle bears a strange carving in it now, one of two wolves staring up at a broad moon. It breaks something inside to know that even he does find some things sacred: beasts, the glow of an untouched paradise and you.

“Why are you giving me this?,” you manage to whisper as your diligently ghost over the carvings in reverent repetition. “Don’t you need it? For hunting and fighting…”

“You like it?” It’s impossible not to notice the cocky expression on his face that tells you full well he’s recounting that experience. You liked it then, certainly, but it wasn’t as if you had any use for it in such a way when he kept you satisfied enough with himself.

“Yes… but it’s yours.”

He shrugs then, a great lift of his shoulders as you’re pulled to him with a careful grip to the wrist holding the weapon.

“Will keep you safe,” he huffs against your neck, leaving a kiss there when you sheath the seax at the strap you had also been gifted pulled taught along your hip.

You didn’t even know how to use the thing properly, and you were not quite fond of the idea of chasing down rabbits or puncturing another human with it. Your concerns fall on deaf ears when you’re led out into the surrounding forest to a thicket of wild raspberries. Your wrist is steadied by a firm hand as König diligently teaches you to carve away limbs heavy with fruit without actually bringing any real harm to the plant itself.

There are many things to forage this season, some you had never even heard of before he explains their significance to your wonder-filled face. You hadn’t thought him stupid, not truly, but it still comes as a surprise that he seems to know so very much.

When you find yourself seated beside a slow-moving stream, a ripe berry crushed between your teeth, you’re finally allowed to put your new blade away and set it aside on moss-covered stones.

“You should keep it close. A bear might want to eat you, hm?,” he playfully chides behind you, lifting your drab little gown up and over your head. As if to further his point, his teeth rake over your pulse, applying just enough pressure to draw a whine from your lips.

“You are not a bear,” you huff and turn to pull away his tunic, pressing a kiss over the scar he now dons just above his heart.

“Ja…” He lowers his head again to kiss along your neck, trailing a heat up to your ear as he maneuvers you into the water to bathe.

Your foraging and banter go forgotten, and a different sort of howling fills the air shrouded in tree limbs. There are no wolves or wind, only two so feverishly desperate and in love that any other with their dowries and arrangements would find it even more compelling than the Empire itself.

He sinks into you when you’re brought to your knees, bellows his contentment when he brushes your wet hair away from your face and dives forward to cover you fully, bury you in a world of love and sweetness. Even when the act is done, König does not pull away, only lies you back along to shore and tucks you further against him.

You remain chittering and laughing until the sky begins to reflect the very stars you see in his eyes, glittering constellations that seem to flicker and echo the steady beat of his own heart as you lie against his chest.

The summer wedding that the fortune-teller had once spoken of seemed to already take place here. There’s no need for a lectus or some grand display to reveal to others that you’ve united, it comes in the stillness and shared contentment when your voices begin to quiet, and at last you resign yourself to tell him that you belong to him just as much as he belongs to you.

The final flurry of surrender comes out as a soft whisper, one that only leaves you with your knees folded back to your chest and an insatiable giant hugging his gratitude and love into your ear with each graceless snap of his hips.

He drags you down to your own ruin, spells his own with haste and what comes as a twist between a dispatch of tears and a sigh. You can’t recall ever seeing him cry, not even now as he burrows against your neck and shakily breathes against your shoulder, muttering such nonsense about how he would still take you up and into the sky if only you would continue to let him stay with you like this.

“Always,” you murmur fondly, cradling him as closely as possible. Inside, outside, embedded into your very flesh you feel him near. He does not pull out from you this night, only falls asleep in your embrace, cloaks you from the breeze over the water with his own heat. You follow suit, petting at him as though he’s far smaller than his massive weight suggests. He shifts just enough to not fully crush you beneath him, just as you begin to drift off.

When morning does come, König is already stood at your side, staring off into the distance with an expression that only foretells of something you’re certain you will want no part in. He shushes you when you part your lips to speak, nervously scrounging up your gown and the strap holding your gifted weapon. There are no protests from you, and only the babbling of the stream and sounds of distant yelling break up the silence.

You don’t need to ask to know what’s occurring. Just as you had predicted before the Romans had come to dismantle the village just as they had many others before, take the women as slaves and force the children to learn and take up arms for their empire. You had never thought of the violence before when it occurred, when you saw the faces of those miserable women at the sides of people they could never afford to feel any fondness toward. You had always been lucky and blind.

König, however, must have only known wraith. His fingernails dig into his palms, nostrils flared and expression pensive.

“Wartet hier.”

He does not even hesitate as he begins to move, leaving you behind along the peaceful shore. As if to spur you forward, the shallow water rises to lap at your ankles, and still you do not budge. Your hands feel heavy, encumbered by the seax still set in its sheath, and only then does it dawn on you that König had not even had a weapon his person. What good would he even be without one? When so many men armed with sharpened swords and spears had come for his head…

Though fear creeps in, subdues your limbs with its stiffness, rakes fangs of pure ice along every pulsing vein held within you… you can not bring yourself to flee or stay put. You follow, quiet as a wood mouse as you walk along the forest with trembling hands clutching a weapon you almost hope is not too late to save your home, your heart.

There’s no clear trail, no sign of König, not even a shadow or a whisper that may belong to him. Instead there are shouts and the heavy smell of smoke. The gray billows up, more imposing than even the oaks and pines. The only comfort you will yourself to take is the fact that the words you can make out are Germanic, not Latin. Not all is lost, not yet.

You steel yourself and push your resolve to the forefront of your mind, creeping ever closer with careful but steps far more swift. You wind past throning brush and sprawling vine, past trees but familiar and not until you finally cross over from forest to the tall grass lining the edges of the village.

There lies chaos you expect, and that which you do not. Some of the cabins have gone up in flame, fire that coils and spreads to set your nerves alight with memory and dread. There are men fighting at the heart of it all, weapons slick with blood dripping down to the fallen at their feet. The women and children have all fled or have been taken captive, you couldn’t be certain amongst all that was already occurring around you and beyond. You couldn’t even count your enemies, a smaller army no doubt, the arrogance of the Empire knew no bounds. Twenty men to take down one was substantial enough when the others could be used for further conquests.

And there is no sign of König.

You feel numb when no matter where you look you can’t seem to catch sight of him, and how easy a task that should have been given his stature. The seax is pulled from its sheath when grief begins to settle, and the tears that threaten to spill are forced back with a grimace. There was still some hope, you knew. The village was not so small that you could map all of it from the small lump of a hill, but that desire to find him, bare your own teeth and fight at his side to protect what was yours brims up and chokes back the fear harbored in your chest.

Lady or wolf, you cared not. You would lose your titles just as he would if it came down to it. When the histories speak of how that city burned, how a king without a name brought the Empire to kneel if only for a moment before they sought revenge, you would be written in ink alongside it. A devotion so strong echoed in each page, as a barbarian queen that chose to keep her heart and lose her head.

But it doesn’t come to that. There’s another woman stood at König’s side when you do find him, wielding a stolen sword from one of the opposing soldiers as sweat and blood paint his face.

Unharmed and unknowing of the presence at his side, a mirage carved of smoke she was, his eyes stared out towards where the blade struck while her eyes only settled over you. Your breath catches when your gaze moves from König to her and you do find a resemblance: the way that her hair, the same color as your own frames her face, her frame, the way that her nose shapes, even the expression upon her face.

The mother he spoke of, the feral love and protectiveness outspoken and proud in her eyes. You do not recognize this woman, even amidst the cluster of sparse memories in your mind. Not until now had you ever seen her, but the feeling you’re gifted then… a roaring settling in your chest to extinguish all apprehension tells all.

As the last of the Romans is struck down by König himself, a blade sunk so deep into the other’s stomach as the other man spits out a gurgled wail, the woman only seems to fade out into nothing, replaced by the backdrop of the trees surrounding. Nothing left behind in the wake of the place she once walked apart from fallen soldiers and a trail of blood and König, safe as he could be.

When you come to him, teary-eyed and fretful, your roaming fingers do not catch on a single gash. The blood painted over his face, neck, chest is none of his own. He’s well, just as the other men from the village as they rush to snuff out the flames and clear away the bodies.

Though König pants heavily and his eyes are still wild, mind momentarily lost to the thrumming adrenaline in his veins, your touch seems to settle him greatly. The sword falls from his hands to clatter in the dust and muck, curling around you to pull you in. You think he should be angry that you hadn’t listened when he ordered you to stay, but he only seems as grateful as you to find his other half alive and longing still. Always.

You tell him of the woman as you sob into his chest, describe her and her vanishing as best you could in your own muffled voice. He grins, strokes your hair as though he truly believes every word even with how ridiculous it all sounds. There are things far more demanding to focus on now, and eventually you fall to silence as he holds you there.

Your home still stands, built just far enough off from the rest that its managed to avoid the battle entirely. Untouched, except from inside. The altar you had dedicated to Juno is gone, vanished just like the woman you had seen before. The scent of cinnamon hangs in the air, misplaced and unannounced, but a comfort all the same. You smile to yourself, bittersweet but comforting, with tears drying upon your face.

— — —

The village takes time to rebuild.

You lose time just as much as you lose sleep helping out with the endless tasks. König, thinking himself chivalrous, or perhaps hinting at what your future may entail if he continues to ravage you as though he would die without your warmth, never allows you to carry anything heavy. Even clay pots filled with water from the stream are swiftly taken from your hands. Gods forbid you even attempt to aid in cooking over the fires, either. He pulls you away with a hand clasped over your mouth and nose, delicately caressing your face and reminding you to be careful.

Something has changed. What you knew to be love before only seems to double with each passing day. He fusses and dotes over you endlessly, ensuring that you’re well fed, trailing behind you to bathe and it isn’t even just for the chance to sink into your cunt.

Often, he sits with you in his lap, guiding a wet cloth up to gently wash you, toys with your damp hair beneath his fingers, tells you stories of his own adventures and the people who traveled alongside him. Not of the hundred wives his men had boasted about him having, a ridiculous statement only meant to make you pine for him more than you already had, you supposed. He even tells you, sheepishly, that most women seemed afraid of him, but never you.

When you do make love, it’s an act of endless desperation. Along the bank of the stream, your shared bed, against any tree he deems fit enough to not budge beneath your shared weight, and even once in a field of wild blooms you two had found along a foraging trek. The floral aroma had kissed your skin each place he had, left you more doughy and sweet even as you took to conquer him, straddled over his hips with your head thrown back to the wind. You laughed with him when it was through, curled your hand beneath his chin to you with the rough feeling of his unshaven hair.

Everything— each new thing you learn and see with König as your guide only seems to melt away any wall you put up. Your life before only seems to fade from memory, that lonely bitterness consumed by the well of love he’s pushed you into.

When autumn comes and the trees begin to turn, each wealth of green faded and given way for yellow and red, your mare has finally become more docile and tame. You’re not even sure who to thank for it, for the way she struts about with giddy children on her back and doesn’t fuss when even you will yourself to settle over her saddle.

The saddle like all else in your life only seems softer, stitched together with leather, a cushion made of a rabbit’s pelt and stuffed full with straw and down so soft you don’t even dread the idea of the long ride to come.

The mountains, here, surrounding the valley and the village are wild and beautiful, still layered near to their peaks in abundant fields of late-blooming flowers. The stars still hang above, twinkling and glittering as if only to silently deliver their blessings for your coming journey. It is only the sea that you’ve yet to venture toward, the last on the list of honeyed promises König has made to you.

Your luggage is packed and spread between the two horses, your mare and his stallion. There are blankets and preserved food, light posts to set up a tent someplace a distance from the shore, even a pearl dangling from a thin chain that König dutifully places on your neck. It’s no exchange of rings, but you clutch the little gem tight as you will yourself not to cry. There was no need to be so sentimental not now, not after you’ve already shared so many moments far more tender.

The seax dangles at your hip, catching the glow of the sun above when you pull it free and polish it alongside König as he does with his pilfered sword. He shows you how to use a whetstone, delicately maneuvering your hand to sharpen the blade before dousing the thing in oil, makes you swear not to accidentally nick yourself when you’re inevitably dragged in the throes of some hunt at his side.

You’ve yet to use it for that purpose, but going alone means you’ve no choice but to offer your support… even with the knowledge that he wouldn’t actually allow you to do much at all, frustrating as that was.

When morning comes, you say your goodbyes to the village. You’re thrown flowers both pressed and new, petals latching to the fur of the pelt tied over your shoulders. König receives wine, far more useful than the delicate little blossoms that you brush away with shy smiles and glassy eyes.

The language is easier to understand now, when the others offer you great fortune on your travels, the women speaking greatly of your fertility despite the way it makes your nose scrunch in distaste. They call you Königin, only that, never any name you’ve offered for them to use. Perhaps even above the name the people of the city called you by it is more fitting.

You settle into the saddle with König atop his stallion next to you, reach for the reins when he flashes you a wary look, tells you that you will ride slow and he will keep you safe in case anything does happen to occur. You only think to remark the same, gesturing toward the weapon strapped to your hip, smirking when he snorts in amusement.

“Are you ready to depart?,” you ask him as you reach a hand out to trail along his arm, heart thumping wildly when his gaze only begins to further soften. You almost fear he may begin to cry, just as overwhelmed and sweetly pacified as you feel now. “We can stay a while longer if not.”

“Nein… we still need to plan for the stars after,” he whispers as he takes hold of your hand, interlocks your fingers and brushes against each knuckle with the pad of his thumb before bringing it toward his chest.

The moment is broken when the horses begin to huff in anticipation. You don’t get the chance to remind him that you still see each constellation he’s shown to you in the glimmer of his eyes, but you know well enough by now that he would only tell you the same in turn. Always your only other.

#könig #könig x reader #könig x you #konig x reader #konig #konig x you #cod fanfiction #okay i lied two hours early but i’m tired of looking at words today #f: only other

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meidui · 6 days

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pre-serum steve fic recs

this rec list is a fill for the "pre-serum steve" square on my @steverogersbingo - it got long so the fics are below the cut ♡

the categories: *drumroll please...*

what steve's packing

modern non-powered AUs

historical AUs

steve isn't cap but tony is iron man

tony time-traveling to the forties and sexing up steve

medkink

omegaverse

❤️ what steve's packing:

Good Things, Small Packages by @ashes0909

Steve had a small cock and Tony was absolutely mad for it.

Packing Heat by @kandisheek

Tony always notices Steve Rogers, even when he's all but disappearing into the wallpaper at a party. It's time he does something about that.

Such a Softer Sin by @gotthesilver

Tony gets to his feet and steps between Steve’s legs. Running a hand up Steve’s neck, along his sharp jawline, Tony leans down and kisses him deeply, pouring all his feelings into the kiss until he can feel Steve relaxing. “I am so gone on you,” Tony says when he breaks away. “Whatever people have said to you before, whatever idiots made you feel this way, they’re not me. And I’m a goddamn genius, Steve, so trust me when I say, you’re gorgeous.”

❤️ modern non-powered AUs:

Your Reputation Precedes You by @vanilla-shoes

Tony agrees to watch the desk for the salon next door to his garage as a favor -- but when he meets the salon owner's fiery best friend Steve, maybe the favor is for Tony after all...

and you look so divine by @elcorhamletlive

Tony blinks a few times, seeming startled. “That’s – I mean, don’t me wrong, that’s great to hear. But, uh – Steve? That.... Kind of sounds like you think I’m dating you despite your looks.”

Steve just stares.

Tony’s eyes are wider than ever when he opens his mouth to talk: “Holy shit."

In Hindsight by @elcorhamletlive

Tony Stark knows very well how he screwed things up with Steve Rogers. He remembers it. Perfectly.

...Doesn't he?

sweet like honey by @elcorhamletlive

Steve wakes up in his boyfriend's Malibu mansion. However, Tony is nowhere to be found.

A fair match by @elcorhamletlive

Of course, Steve thinks. Of all the people in the world to get in trouble with, Steve had to do it with Tony Stark’s friend.

Steve gets himself in trouble - nothing new. He ends up arm wrestling with the most famous guy on campus, Tony Stark. That's definitely new, and it doesn't go exactly as he expects it.

i'll take care of you by @elcorhamletlive

“Hi.”

Steve blinks. The sound of loud thunder roars outside, but he doesn’t jolt, too focused on the image in front of him to be startled by the noise.

He has no idea what to say, and he isn’t sure if the shock is because of Tony’s absolutely sodden state – his hair glued to his forehead, his clothes dripping with water, forming a small puddle in front of Steve’s door – or because he wasn’t expecting to see Tony for at least three more days.

“Hi?” he says, a little tentative, before his brain catches up to reality. In his defense, he was getting ready to sleep when Tony knocked. He looks at what Tony is holding – a wet mess that seems to have been a flower bouquet at some point. “What are you doing here?”

❤️ historical AUs:

A Pirate's Life For Me by @bladeofthenebula27

When Steve joined the Avenger as the Cabin Boy, he knew being a pirate would be tough. He just never expected his duties would include warming the Captain's bed.

might be something by @stardating

Mingling with the upper class was not something one just did. Good thing Steve had no intention of just ‘mingling’. Not if he had anything to say about it.

a smudge of charcoal by @stardating

It was alright. It wasn’t like he didn’t need the stability. It wasn’t like he didn’t pour his heart and soul and last pennies into those paintings. Then Steve ran into someone and it was like the day wanted to get worse.

❤️ steve isn't cap but tony is iron man (from the series Art is Long and Life is Short):

Throw a Little Hot Rod Red in There by @festiveferret @sirsapling

Tony Stark was pretty sure that the absolute worst time to get asked out by an incredibly talented, good-looking artist, who likes to paint - and defend - Iron Man, is when he's dying of palladium poisoning.

Patience by @festiveferret @sirsapling

Try as he might, Steve just couldn't seem to paint the arc reactor quite right. And it was driving him crazy.

Some Form of Electricity by @festiveferret @sirsapling

Steve doesn’t know what he’d do without Tony, and thank god he has him, because after getting the phone call that Bucky’s alive, everything is a blur. But Tony gets him there, all the way to Germany. It isn’t until he’s watching his friend lie motionless in a hospital bed that it really hits him.

Bucky is coming home, and he’s coming home broken.

❤️ tony time-traveling to the forties and sexing up steve:

some days, you're the only thing i know by starkaspbrak

“He was right.” Tony whispers as he stares at Steve with what he could describe as affectionate.

“Who was?”

“My fiancé.”

“About what?”

There's a sparkle in his eyes as he responds, a soft smile on his lips, “That you’d still love me no matter what.”

Transient by @royal-chandler

There’s a 1A classification sitting on Steve’s bureau in his bedroom and he’s been so sick in his life, sick of many things; he’d like to no longer be sick of not having sex.

Like Whiskey on Cold Mornings by greyduckgreygoose

Tony/skinny!Steve porn

❤️ medkink:

ART for - Fever, Breathe Your Love on Me commissioned by Right_in_the_feels

I commissioned the wonderful Buukkin to create art for blue_jack's wonderful medical kink story Fever, Breathe Your Love on Me

A Cure for Every Ailment by @kandisheek

Doctor Stark is testing his new experimental treatment for erectile dysfunction on a group of volunteers. It works very well on Steve Rogers. Just not for the reason Tony thinks.

Or: Tony doesn't realize that sounding is a kink, and Steve never knew he had it.

Throckmorton Sign by MusicalKestrel

Steve has been having some very worrisome symptoms, even for someone with as many medical problems as he has. When he visits the ED, he finally gets some answers and the help he didn't even know he was looking for.

Delusion by LenkaVittoriaElisse16

Steve is scheduled for his annual PE, and the physician in charge is his boyfriend: the handsome Dr. Anthony Stark.

❤️ omegaverse:

Once or Twice by @festiveferret

It'd been flattering, at first, when Tony Stark - Iron Man, of all people - had shown Steve some attention, but it had become obvious pretty quickly that Tony was teasing him like all the other alphas at SHIELD did. Tony always pestered him every time he came to the SHIELD offices, harassing him for not having work done for ops that hadn't even been fully debriefed yet. He hung around Steve's desk and wanted to go over every tiny detail on every report which just meant that Steve's next reports were even later.

It was hard enough working his way up to Senior Strategy Analysis as an omega, and it was hard enough being around the unbonded alphas in the office who liked towering over his tiny frame, sneaking sniffs and smacking his ass as he walked through the breakroom. But Tony's relentless campaign of driving him crazy had made things even harder. Steve had even considered being transferred off the Avengers Initiative team, but he'd worked so hard to get there and he wouldn't let some knot-head bug him into quitting.

Two-Point Perspective by @festiveferret

Dear omega,

Congratulations! You've been selected. Alpha #95847872 has been assigned as your pre-bondee. A group bonding ceremony will take place on the 14th, unless other arrangements have been made by your alpha or their family. A valid bonding license must be submitted to Omega Services within 45 days of this letter or all services will be cancelled and any transferable benefits will not be applied to your alpha's package.

If there is some reason why you cannot be bonded on this date, please apply for an extension by calling 1-800-555-6827 within 7 days of receiving this letter.

Sincerely, National Omega Services

Stealing Your Heart by @bladeofthenebula27

Steve's had his eye on the Alpha he wants for a long time and tonight's the night he finally gets to go out and take him for his own.

Slut Era by @bladeofthenebula27

Tony never meant to become the campus bicycle but since that was apparently what was expected of him he figured it was easier just to lean into it.

He just never expected Steve Rogers would ever want to take a ride.

Peep Show by @bladeofthenebula27

“Alright there, Sugar?” A voice came from behind him and he whipped around to see an omega with a little box of tokens. “You know you got to put one in to start right?”

Steve felt his face heat. “Yes ma’am. I was just uhh—“

“First timer?” He nodded and she gave him an encouraging smile. “Well, don’t worry, there’s glass behind the curtain, so the omegas can’t bite.” Then she winked. “That costs extra.”

Steve’s face got even hotter. He certainly wasn’t doing that.

Steve knew he wasn't any omega's first choice, or hell, even third. But what starts as a visit to a seedy Peep Show in Manhattan ends up changing his life for good.

Marked You Mine by @avengersnewb

Omega!Steve and Alpha!Tony go undercover as a bonded couple for a mission. As it turns out faking a bond has some unexpected (mostly pleasant) side effects.

Clothes Make the Man by @fiftyshadesofstony

When Tony's status as the alpha in Steve's life is challenged, Steve sets out to show him how much he likes the idea of being Tony's omega. (PWP featuring Brock Rumlow being an asshole and some sexy shirts!)

In Tribute by @ms-meredith-milton

Tony Stark is an Alpha and Crown Prince of Manottan.

Steven--son of Roger, son of Grant--is a sickly omega and a nobody, even in his home of Brooklyne castle. He just wants to serve his country.

Things kind of go from there.

Small by My_Soul_and_Perfume

It had only taken him until the age of five to begin believing his father’s words, and he has repeated this mantra to himself for years in this very same spot. Yet, he had never grown desensitized to them. Words weren’t like the colors of sweaters. They wouldn’t fade away.

#there is so little else i love more than the fact that 'tony time traveling to the forties to sex up pre-serum steve' is a category #god bless us everyone #stony #stevetony #fic rec #*#steve rogers bingo #no serum steve

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gerec · 1 year

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I woke up with an idea that has utterly consumed my mind and I had to get some words out to see if it's going to go anywhere. Another alpha/omega historical au (I know I know) where Erik is the Crown Prince of Genosha and Charles his childhood playmate. What would happen if Erik's father the King decides to make Charles his new Consort???

-----

Azazel is waiting when he comes out from the wash tent, handing Erik his tunic and his scabbard with an easy smile. Nodding his thanks, he pulls the tunic over his head and scrubs his face and hair with the towel, relieved to get some of the dirt off his body after days of hard fighting. Their campaign in the west lands is coming to an end, at least according to General Frost, who has been leading the King’s Army against the rebels for the past six months. Erik had been dispatched by his father to join the fight, but strictly under the General’s command, and with instructions to learn the art of war from the respected and seasoned Genoshan leader.

It hasn’t been easy, as Frost treats him as she would any other soldier, and not as the Crown Prince who technically outranks her. But at eighteen, he’s barely been away from the castle and outside of Hammer Bay, with this deployment being the first real fighting he’s seen since he started training under Logan. He wishes his friend and mentor could see first-hand just how far he’s come, though of course the Captain of the King’s Guard must stay in the Capital to protect the King.

And if he’s being honest, what he really wants is to see Charles again and spend time with him, even if they can no longer run free all over the castle grounds. Though they’ve been close companions since they were young children, Charles’ freedom became severely curtailed when he turned fourteen, after his father’s death and his mother’s subsequent marriage to the traditional Earl Marko. In the two years since, their visits have been chaperoned at all times, as befitting their respective stations as alpha heir to Genosha’s throne and the omega scion of a noble house. And Erik’s complaints to his father largely fall on deaf ears, for by law Charles must obey his stepfather until he’s wed and bonded to his alpha mate.

He does not like how his warm and gregarious friend has become so reserved and distant of late, and vows to speak to his father again, for more time with Charles away from the eyes of Marko’s people. Erik is certain that Charles will confide in him given the chance again, and the close camaraderie they shared as boys will quickly return.

(And perhaps he’ll finally be brave enough to admit he’s in love with his best friend, and – assuming Charles feels the same way – will ask his father to arrange a formal betrothal.)

“You’re smiling,” Azazel teases, as they make their way to Erik’s tent, where a hot meal served in relative privacy is the one luxury he’s permitted. His personal guard has likely already taken his meal, though Erik is more than happy to share his allotment of ale. “Did you get another letter?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Charles has written only once since his arrival at the camp, though Erik has never stopped hoping he would send more. “I was merely thinking I would get to see him soon, since the General seems confident of an imminent victory.”

“The General knows of what she speaks,” Azazel says, side-stepping a deep puddle, the ground still wet from the morning’s heavy rain. “Though it’s still best not to count the chicks before they hatch—”

“Your Royal Highness!”

Erik stops mid-stride, his way suddenly blocked by the incoming approach of a messenger dressed in the King’s livery. The boy is very young and looks utterly exhausted, as though he’d ridden the five-day journey non-stop from Hammer Bay. Falling before Erik on his knees, the boy proffers the letter clutched in his hand; a note from his father bearing the King’s Seal, though the lettering on the envelope is clearly written by another.

Frowning, Erik tears open the envelope and scans the message inside, curiosity morphing quickly to horror at its contents.

Azazel leans close and murmurs, “What’s wrong?”

Hands shaking, Erik can barely form the words to express his shock and utter dismay.

“My father is planning a wedding,” he croaks. “He’s chosen Charles of House Xavier to be his new Royal Consort.”

#gerec writes #cherik #historical au #royalty au #a/o

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concerningwolves · 4 months

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A Long-Overdue Writing Update

I know things have been quiet on the writing front lately. I crashed and burned in December (/had been crashing and burning in slow motion for several months beforehand), and I've decided to stop trying to scrape myself back together with the reasoning that my writing brain probably needs some time to simply be a splattered unproductive mess. I haven't even had the spoons to put my newsletter together.

Ultimately, all plans and tentative schedules here could be purely academic (hah), because I'm starting a Certificate of Higher Education on January 27th and that's probably going to gobble up most of the time I set aside for writing. Also, top surgery is now rather closer than on the horizon, and don't yet know what to expect in terms of recovery time. Regardless, here's how things are looking writing-wise as of today, 11th January 2024:

The Kindness of Ravens (Wyrdseren, book 2)

The Kindness of Ravens draft 3 is so so nearly finished. It's also probably what took me out in the first place, so it's currently sitting there, shelved mid-scene. The final climax is done, which leaves me with the aftercare resolution to write, and then I can say this draft is finished.

There is really very little left to do to the story itself. I've got all the events ordered as I want them, and I'm finally back to feeling enthusiastic about it. (Which is particularly nice considering that at one point I was seriously considering pulling the plug on the entire thing!). Yes, I did take on more of a challenge than necessary, but I do think it has paid off and I'm genuinely so excited to (eventually) bring the finished story to everyone. Still don't want to give anything concrete by way of a release date/schedule, though.

The Blood Enigma

TBE got beta-read back in June/July. It's in fairly solid shape, and I've got a firm plan of action in place for it. Granted, said plan is on hold right now and I didn't manage to get the book released in 2023 as I'd intended because Ravens takes priority, but I'm not beating myself up over that (<- said through gritted teeth). Once I finish the current draft of Ravens and give the beta reader feedback another look-over, I'll be able to come up with the time-frame for the rest of the work I need to do on it.

Falling Stars (series)

In more exciting news, once TBE is published, I'm going to start drafting the first book in my (*deep breath*) high fantasy zombie apocalypse environmental horror slow-burn polyamorous romance series (more streamlined pitch pending). I felt like I had more to learn about handling fantasy and series in general before I could tackle this one, and I think the story has really benefited from having time to gradually congeal while I worked on other things. I'm unbelievably hyped to start working on it properly.

Misc. Updates

I'm slowly chewing over two more potential WIPs: first, I've made a tentative plan for adapting my short story The Seal Daughter into a novella or novel set in the same world as The Blood Enigma, because there's definitely more I want to explore regarding transgender selkies and the idea of "seal children" as opposed to seal wives/seal husbands.

Secondly, I've recently been highly enamoured with trying my hand at a historical fantasy, (or at least pulling history into a fantasy setting), specifically one inspired by the Viking age and viking culture. Do I have a plot? Possibly. Or at least, I have a first chapter planned out and I know what the consequences of the events in said first chapter will be. Mostly though, I have vibes and sea monsters, which I think is a great pairing to bring with me into the new year.

#just squeezing this out has made writing brain grumpy. time to feed it some treats 😴#the blood enigma #the kindness of ravens #writeblr

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elephant-in-the-pride-parade · 5 months

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12 and 14 please!

From the Unpublished Fic Asks? Sure! Lemme see..

12. How far have you planned ahead?

Usually this depends on how long the fic feels.

Feels like <20K I dont plan. I just start from whatever scene got me hooked and i spin the idea forward or back from there.

Feels like >20K. I usually write whatever scene got me hooked and then figure out the basic premise of every chapter. what are the major plot points i need to build out. I dont start writing anything else until I at least have all the tentative chapter titles and 1 big thing that will happen in them. Anything in the middle is usually pretty flexible but i need to know the ending or else i cant really get far.

Now where I get into trouble is fics like Out of Reach or Unbroken.

Out of Reach (Chakotay gets amnesia) I never thought it would get as long as it did and I had built it up to be quite big without knowing which ending i wanted. im still debating what i want there and how the characters can achieve it.

Unbroken (Basics rewrite) god i thought i had this one but the ending wound up being too vague. so that i had a hard time grasping the full shape of the story. and that's made writing the middle very complicated. i need the ending to make sense, have the gravity and impact that it needs to but that means the middle has to go just right. exploring that has been fun but definitely dont want to share more yet because i keep tweaking things.

14. Is there any unwritten/unpublished fics you planned on doing, but now you're feeling like you're gonna scrap those ideas?

Ive scrapped a lot recently...

mirrorverse-esque J/C. struggled with the characterization.

Pirates of the Caribbean AU J/C - it started as a killing game scenario but i really am not enthused by watching them lose. Then i thought it could be an interesting historical AU but the amount of research to give it the authenticity it deserves is more than I have time for. I think I'd still like to do it to see KJ Elizabeth Swanning all over the place. but maybe create it as its own unique holodeck adventure instead.

It's hard for me to say im truly scrapping any though because usually i canabalize the scrap heap and the ideas will wind up useful to some other fic. That was the case for my first Voyager fanfic. I envisioned Maquis Heart as a 3 part YOH alternate ending but while working on part 3 i realized i'd rather have it be the kick off for a longer story about what it was like reconnecting with Earth in Season 4. So i shelved that for later.

#that writing life #elephantwrites #fic asks #fanfiction #ask game #ask me anything #thank u for the ask!

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thethinkingcloth · 1 year

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For the wip asks, would love to know more about George's thesis!!

george's thesis!! this was an idea i'd had for a while and when i mentioned it to the poly co discord, everyone was very encouraging and told me i should write it. it's exactly what it sounds like - it's a fully-fleshed out (or at least it will be), fictional thesis paper written by george containing all of his research about The Problem. i can't imagine it will be very exciting to read, but it's a passion project for me and i'm very much enjoying the collaboration of thoughts and ideas with other members of the discord as i write :)

here is my (current) outline for what i want to write [BOOK SPOILERS]:

History of the Problem/Before The Problem

Visitors before The Problem

Iron, silver, and salt as historical defenses

Why rapiers? Why don’t crucifixes work?

During The Problem

Talent

Genetic component? How does it work?

Establishment of the first Agencies

Prestige & Talent in relation to Agencies and Night Watch

Supervisors

The Propaganda Problem

Official recognition of The Problem

Establishment of DEPRAC, Satchell’s, the Sunrise Corporation, Fairfax Iron, Brompton Lavender Works, etc.

Product invention

Metallurgy

University programs and studies on The Problem

Interference by Fittes and Rotwell

Sources on the black market

Relics vs. Sources

Relic-men (and woman)

Who buys Sources?

Visitors in Britain versus Visitors elsewhere

Ectoplasm and what it is

Ghost-touch, ghost-lock, and other dangers of agency work [see also: misclassification]

The classification system

The dangers of misclassification

Cluster cases

Experiments on Sources/Type Ones/Type Twos

Experiments on Type Threes

Theoretical questions

The Other Side

After The Problem

Dismantling of the agencies

Separating the physical world from the Other Side

Psychological effects on former agents

Societal effects of The Problem

Loss of life

Morbid ghost-lock

Technological development cast aside in favor of paranormal defense products

it's entirely possible that not all of this will make it into the final draft and/or some sections/questions will be changed. this is just my personal guide for everything i'd like to at least consider including. i've tentatively completed the section titled "Visitors before The Problem" and i'm currently working on "Iron, Silver, and Salt as Historical Defenses," although it's slow going because i have a lot going on at the moment

send me a title from my wip list and i'll share an excerpt or something about it!

#asks #ask game #pheonixfidelity #lockwood and co #lockwood & co #l&co #l&co book spoilers #george karim

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hrefgopuram · 11 months

Text

substack overview

In late 2012 I started a writing project I called 1000 word vomits, with the intent of writing one million words in 1,000 sets of 1,000 words. The idea is that they would be mostly unedited, mostly rambling streams-of-consciousness, and yet be at least somewhat mindful of taste and sense. As of June 2023, I’ve written 825/1000 wordvomits. I’ve learned a lot a long the way, become a much better writer, and one of the things I’ve learned as a result is the importance of doing reviews. The word “review” is unfortunately a bit cluttered conceptually. The etymology of the word means simply “to view again”, but it’s come to additionally mean “with a critical lens”, such that we expect book reviews and movie reviews to tell us “whether it’s any good”. Which isn’t necessarily bad, unless it’s all there is.

Still, words are worth messing around with, and I’d prefer to use the word “overview” – in part because I’d like to avoid the judgemental connotations of “review”, and in part because I’m enamoured with the concept of “the overview effect”.

Back to the importance of reviews or overviews – so one of the things that frustrated me with my wordvomits project is how much I repeated myself, kinda “senselessly”. My view on this is itself evolving – I was most recently struck by a quote from Marshall Mcluhan’s Understanding Media where he talked about how oral traditions tend to have very cyclical ‘texts’, where you could get the point pretty quickly, but the meta-point is to go around and around on the subject so that you really get into it from all angles

Even so, I feel like there are smart ways of doing this and not-so-smart ways of doing this, and I’d prefer to do it the smart way. And the smart way in my current view is to not leave things so much up to chance, but to re-visit, re-explore, re-discover. I was in a rush with my early word vomits to write as much as possible, and as a result I found myself… disoriented?

I might explain this more on second passthrough but for now why not let’s just do an overview of all the posts on this substack so far. It’s still small enough and young enough that it’s possible, so let’s do it while we can. (The sub-bullets are for my own future reference – things that I might want to write new essays about and link to.)

1. 🔥 We were voyagers – this essay just leapt out of me in one big burst after I had published my second book Introspect. I might say it’s about Nietzschean historical sense, or about Lincoln and Pericles and their ability to contextualize, to situate their people in the world. And I think that’s a very strong clue for what the essence of Voltaic Verses is going to be about.

2. The Essays I Have Not Published – looking back from the current context I would now describe this as a pre-view, a mapping of possibilities from where I stood. Looking at it now, it’s a pretty good mapping! Almost everything I write about here, is something I still want to write about in some shape or form. What’s interesting, I think, is a sense that the tentative shapes I have used, are probably not the ones I will be using. If they were the right ones, I’d already have used them. (mindpalaces, reconceptualization work, get really unblocked, growing pains, crossing of thresholds)

3. I don’t wanna! – in this essay I honor my resistance. I don’t want to fight the guy inside me that doesn’t want to write. I want to understand him.

4. nothing is edgier than earnestness – this essay meanders, and it opens with the Ted Hughes voltage quote that subsequently birthed the name Voltaic Verses. I talk about Ray Bradbury, Calvin & Hobbes… (digressions, inner critic, grief, X-Men: First Class, ATLA, edgelords, artful incompleteness)

5. dancing with constraints, pt 1 (grammar of tweets / constraint of mediums, multiple entities hot-desking the same meatbag, few hours of mental clarity...)

6. Santa is real – this was a seasonal post for Christmas, but it’s also very much about a lot of the things I care about: ritual, ceremony, meaning, belief, truth, process, social reality. Santa is a great, well-understood entry-point for thinking about all manner of beliefs and narratives. I find myself thinking there has to be a similar post to be written about talismans, and maybe I ought to pick the Oscars or the World Cup as a corresponding event. (KWML, ritual initiations)

7. 🔥 Are you serious? – I think this is currently the piece of writing I might be proudest of. Justo, Dashrath, Hokusai. Takes time to discern who’s serious. Not talking about solemnity. Silliness is sacred. Optimize for survival. The divorce mystery. (Advanced Stupid, LinkedIn World...)

8. resonance over coherence – I think this was inspired in part by the talk that I gave in New York, which reminds me I still haven’t published a post about that. Getting unstuck. Possibility space. People-shaped. Oof/crackle-boom surprisingly true. (indescribable mental motions)

9. yeet thyself – Bradbury again. Crackle-boom. Project management is about enabling collaboration. Workaholism. Living gloriously. (funhouse mirror misunderstandings)

10. branching paths – talking about Robert Frost, nominative determinism, information architecture, forgetting aids remembering, desire paths, ant colonies (narrative logic,

11. Breakthrough! in the DMs – helped someone “figure out what they want”, why I wrote Introspect, my dislike of Ikigai, Beyonce-Apple MVP, Meryl Streep inscrutability, Dinesh, the dynamism problem (asking people about movies, cartoon model of reality...)

12. interestingness on demand – the ayylmao tension of being creative for a living, Christopher Alexander, the psychology of tryhards, smart writing, clever little shortcuts, misframed problems, internally conflicted, Jim Carrey Golden Globes quote, (demonstrate interestingness, specialization and trade, perfect imperfection...)

13. witching hour writer patterns – Chrstopher Alexander, existence stack, William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence, Ted Nelson, old emotional meanings, cultural jank, technical debt, Orwell’s Politics, /my-creative-process/...

14. the tavern and the temple – Bradbury

tbc

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apinchofm · 2 years

Text

The Viscount We Loved

Requested by@lady-lazarus-declermont:

Diana and Phoebe in a while. They go on a search for them and find them binge-watching Bridgerton. They are totally absorbed in the show and getting all hot and bothered over the Duke of Hastings and the Viscount. Like all squealing and fanning themselves. Their mates get a tad jealous and bring out the regency wear to get their ladies attention back. 🤣🤣🤣

"It's up!" Diana urged Phoebe who had been making popcorn. She started episode one of the second season of Bridgerton. The two had become hooked on the show after the first season came out. Especially attracted to the cast. Phoebe's bisexual heart could not take it and Diana found Simon very attractive.

"Anthony, you idiot!!" Diana hissed when they saw him going after Edwina at the races, "It's obvious he's only using her for his weird perfect duchess scheme! She wants love!"

"And he wants to bang her sister," Phoebe concluded, "Which I understand, Kate's awesome. At least Simon was competing with a Prince. Not a single brain cell in that entire family. Like yours. Well, Benedict. Probably."

"You mean your soon-to-be family," Diana corrected playfully.

"Yes, I will be the winning brain cell in this family," Phoebe smirked and they resumed watching.

●○●○●○●○●○●

Marcus had not been able to find Phoebe for the past few hours. They were supposed to look at flowers for the wedding but she was not home. He did not panic and didn't smell any new scents in the house.

"Matthew, is Phoebe with you and Miriam by any chance?" Marcus asked, calling his father.

"No, I've been in the lab all day," Matthew replied, "Probably over at ours."

They found their women in the living room of Diana and Matthew's, cooing over a couple having a tentative dance.

"What are you watching?" Matthew asked, confused by the scene of the ball.

"Bridgerton. It's the best, the second season came out today, so we had to watch it." Phoebe explained, then remembered what she and Marcus were supposed to do, "Oh, I'm sorry. I told Miriam we cancelled. But I had to see if the show would still be good without Simon!"

"Simon?" Marcus asked.

"Hot. Capital R rake. Better looking than Darcy." Diana summarised.

"I was a capital R rake!" Marcus pouted and Matthew glared at him. It was not something he should be proud of.

"Oh my god, you guys would be like Kate and the Viscount!" Diana cooed.

"The Viscount? I am far better looking than this... man!" Marcus huffed.

"Are you?" Phoebe teased, then looked at her watch, "Work tomorrow, we'll continue Friday?" She asked Diana who nodded and the two hugged before Marcus and Phoebe left, the former arguing why he was better than any fictional rake.

"My darling, you do know I was alive in the 1800s. I could have told you the accurate details of the marriage mart?" Matthew said, sitting next to her.

"My love, what use is historical accuracy when it is entertaining?" Diana corrected, kissing his cheek, making him smile faintly, "Want to re-watch season 1 with me? I have some ideas for... reenactments?"

●○●○●○●○●○●

"Marcus?"

Phoebe returned home from work to an empty house. She had been teasing Marcus about her attraction to the Bridgerton brothers. He was not so upset he would leave.

Turning into the kitchen, she found her fiancee.

She laughed seeing him in full regency wear, leaning against the doorway. A blue silk waistcoat, black trousers and a billowing white shirt.

"Is that yours?" Phoebe was amazed. She knew her fiancee had been around back then, just not that he had the clothes and everything still.

"Yes. Why watch a rake, when you are marrying one?" He teased wrapping his arms around her waist. She grinned.

"Were you really a rake?" She knew she called him that when they first met.

"Oh, yeah. Stressed out Aunt Fanny. Had a lot of fun though." Marcus winked, pulling her to the garden, "Why don't I show you one of my favourite places to seduce a woman?"

"Why yes, my lord!" Phoebe giggled.

#adow x bridgerton #all souls trilogy #phoebe taylor #marcus whitmore #diana bishop #matthew clairmont #marcus x phoebe #adow fic #fluff #crack fic

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wouldnt-it-be-hilarious-if-i · 1 year

Text

New additions to the Reading List (Judaism edition)

currently listening to: mirrorball by taylor swift

Okay.

So, I'm currently reading Woke Antisemitism by David L. Bernstein and definitely realizing I can't avoid reading about Israel and Zionism if I want to understand anything about this topic on a genuine level. The book is super interesting, and I think it's a great read with a lot of very hot takes that are definitely at times a bit...questionable at first but if you hear him out, the points do make a lot of sense. I'm not talking about the antisemitism points, which I already agreed with. But some of his takes on white privilege, black culture, and feminism are a bit interesting.

One topic does keep coming up in the book, likely because it's very important. While I understand the points that he's making about how anti-Zionism, while not inherently antisemitic (from what I understand, like I said, I still need to do research), is often used as a vehicle for pretty blatant antisemitism on the left. He also talks a lot about how the left allows antisemitism to run rampant because of some of the topics I named above, and I actually agree with him. I can definitely see how an oppressor/oppressed hierarchy leaves out a lot of grey areas that Jews would historically fall into. It's an interesting take, and I'm glad to read it and get closer to understanding a bit about what it must feel and be like to be Jewish today. Obviously, this is only one man's opinion, but I do value every opinion I read because it matters to me that I read about this from every angle that I possibly can so that I am well-informed on how to be a better ally. To add to that, this man isn't just some guy. He's extremely qualified to speak on these issues, not just because he's a Jewish person living in the world today experiencing these issues, but because of his education and experience as well.

In 2016, He was President and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), Executive Director of The David Project ( from August 2010 to September 2014, and held senior roles with the American Jewish Committee (AJC). During his undergrad at Ohio State studying Philosophy and Jewish studies (he later goes on to get his masters in International Relations), he served on the National Jewish Student Leadership Board and was a huge pro-Israel activist on campus. Just after undergrad, he worked with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. It goes on an on, and his work has been centrally about progressive values, diversity and inclusion. He has also written tons of articles about antisemitism in the left since at least the 80s, and did a 44 minute interview regarding his book with a talk show.

His book heavily focuses on antizionism being used as a way to be antisemitic in the left, so I'm not even more interested in reading more about this subject than I was before so that I can understand his arguments more critically. I can't really form an opinion on something that I am neither affected by or know very little about, but I can say that his book is an incredibly insightful starting point (so far, I'm only on chapter 5 of 16) for anyone that wants an idea of different things to look into and research independently in order to gain a better understanding of the issues he's discussing (not just Zionism and Israel, but also Jewish life in the United States specifically).

Anyway, online, I found a few videos that explained the Israeli-Palestinian conflict really concisely, but I'd rather read about it a bit more than just depend on a few videos and documentaries on YouTube. I asked my friend about any suggestions she may have, and she told me that Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi was a good one (but warned that it wasn't a great intro book to everything), so I've added it to my list.

With that, here are a few books I found that (tentatively) seem to explain some things. I really want to have a well-rounded view of this subject, so I'm looking for books that discuss Israel and Palestine from all sides of the conflict. In this list, I'll separate Zionist related books from books that have to do with Israel, because from what I understand the two get conflated often even though they aren't interchangeable (as in the terms 'Jew', 'Israeli' and 'Zionist' are not often used today to mean their respective definitions, but rather the same thing, which they are not).

These books are a mixture of like textbook explanations and narrative accounts, since I like to get an idea of both the academic aspect of sensitive issues like this and the personal accounts from real people who are experiencing these things or who believe in specific things.

Books about Israel/Palestine and the conflict

Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor by Yossi Klein Halevi

Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi

The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Hardcover by Ilan Pappe

Stealing the Atom Bomb: How Denial and Deception Armed Israel by Roger Mattson

Blood Brothers: The Dramatic Story of a Palestinian Christian Working for Peace in Israel by Elias Chacour

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby

Palestine 1936: The Great Revolt and the Roots of the Middle East Conflict by Oren Kessler

Books about Zionism

My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit

Zionism: A Very Short Introduction by Michael Stanislawski

A Short History of Christian Zionism: From the Reformation to the Twenty-First Century by Donald M. Lewis

A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel by Walter Laqueur

Notes:

I mostly chose the Short History of Christian Zionism so that I can examine my own bias in regard to Israel. I come from a conservative-lite, Catholic/Baptist, German (and African)-immigrant family, so when I was growing up, the only thing I learned about Israel was that it rightfully belonged to the Jews and was given to them after the Holocaust because of their suffering. My mom really stressed to me as a child and teenager that this was promised land.

That being said, I never learned anything about Palestine, or the conflict. A large portion of this was explained to me when I was like ten. If I did learn anything about Palestine, I think it was usually along the lines of, "Well, some people don't believe that, and they're very mad about it." Very they can stay mad sort of energy.

Now, this was my family's opinion. If I'm being honest, I didn't care one way or the other when this was explained to me as a child. But I did think, since this was the only real contact I had with the subject, that it was nice that Jews got to have Israel after so much suffering, and that they were very deserving of it since the Holocaust was so horrific. So, this was my thinking for many years until, honestly, I think when I got to college and met actual Muslims and Jews. At that point, I was actually incredibly shocked to learn that there was a whole conflict, it wasn't half as simple as it had been explained to me, and that conservative families straight up do not prepare their children for any real world understanding of international relations.

Anyways, so now here I am playing catch up to the rest of the world, per usual.

The title for The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 by Rashid Khalidi interests me because of the use of the words "settler colonialism." In a quick google search, I found that one argument is that "Jewish Israelis are 'settlers' who want to conquer more and more Palestinian land." I have no idea if this is true, but the term used in the title is a big part of why it's on the list, because you can immediately tell what the author's stance is and how the book may be framed. I chose My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit for similar reasons.

As I've said many times, I know very little about this and have no personal opinions about it as a result (meaning that I literally am not neutral, for or against anything rn because I need to do more research. My goal is just to understand rn.), so any titles that I choose are purely because of the reviews, popularity of the books, and/or any possible bias that I can detect naturally rather than from any real understanding of the issue. That's also why I chose a book on Christian Zionism as well, because I'm interested in how Evangelists have affected this issue as well and want to make sure I fully understand the thinking behind what I was taught as a child. Quite a few of the books I've chosen written by Israelis appear to be rather biased as well, so I think I'll be learning a lot historically and politically about this topic in such a way that I'll be able to really understand a lot of it from many different points of view.

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rebeccajk · 1 year

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So, uhhh, I may have just inadvertently started writing a children’s novel. For real. It was an accident, I swear!

In case you need the context, I’m currently working towards a masters in library science, with a concentration in Youth Services, and to that end this semester I’m taking a YS classes by the name of Resources and Services for Children. And one of this week’s two assignments for that class turned out to be to write the first 3 paragraphs of a hypothetical children’s historical novel about time travel.

And I’ll admit I groaned a little when I first read the assignment because I’m also in the middle of working on a 20-page research paper for another class & that is already occupying so much of my mental real estate. I always tend to struggle with research papers and it just felt like adding in writing fiction on top of that would be too much. I mean it’s been years since I last seriously touched the stuff.

And trying to come up with ideas over the week. I just kept hitting a wall. Finally having reached a stopping point on the paper for the day (I’d written 4 more pages taking the paper up to a total page count of 14 pages) - I decided to just wing it & bang out 3 paragraphs of nonsense as quickly as possible. I was determined to spend no more than 10 mins at most completing this assignment as it had been a long day (having also completed a weekly quiz and the other assignment for the YS class) & I just wanted to be done & able to relax for the rest of the night. An hour and a half later…

Yes, really, I got lost in the writing process for like 90 minutes & upon exiting my apparent fugue state realized I’d written 6000 words/the first 3 chapters of a book along with 3 pages of notes tentatively planning out the rest of the story. And my brain is currently still fizzing with more ideas - all demanding to be let out. And also there’s like a month and a half break between the end of this semester, and the start of the next starting on Dec 3rd that would be the perfect time for indulging in some “recreational” writing. As my brain is currently reminding me of every few seconds. My traitorous, wicked brain. I’m feeling inspired to write in a way I’m not sure I ever have before. I may have a problem… or an opportunity? Something to revisit in December at the very least.

So coming eventually (?) (🤷🏻‍♀️): Lilly Pfeiffer & The Twisting Sands of Time - a queer/trans historical adventure for all ages by Rebecca Kronenfeld.

#librarians #Children’s literature #historical fiction #novel #library science #librarian

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xtruss · 10 months

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Fireflies and Lighthouses: A Tour of Maine’s MidCoast

Photographer Acacia Johnson savors oysters, retreats to a lakeside cabin, and captures the magic of Maine in a statewide tour.

— By Christina Nuñez | Photographs By Acadia Johnson | June 28, 2023

Joel Osgood fishes on the shore of Pemaquid Pond at Otyokwa near Bremen, Maine.

There's something about the light in Maine. During the day, sunshine reflects off crisp blue waters, casts angles across tidy seaside cottages, and illuminates curious creatures in tide pools.

The shoreline of Pemaquid Pond in Bremen, Maine at Otyokwa.

But it's the darker twilight and clear night skies that captivated Acacia Johnson when she first visited Maine as a photography student. Spending the summer in Rockport as an intern with Maine Media workshops, she experienced nights dotted with fireflies and stars, warm enough to take a lake swim. For Johnson, who grew up in Anchorage, Alaska—where summer is midnight sun season—it was a revelation.

"When I think back on that first summer in Maine, it was this experience of childlike wonder at things in the natural world that were actually very simple but, to me, seemed totally magical," Johnson says. The documentary photographer recently revisited Maine for a statewide tour. The journey reminded her, among other things, of what it was like to play with that remarkable light as a photography student years earlier.

"Being able to have these dreamy blue hours and colorful transitional light experiences almost every day in a variety of landscapes, everything from coastlines to mountains to pine forests and lakes—there was just so much there," she recalls. "It was very inspiring to me at the time."

Fresh, Delicious Wonders Along the Coast

Johnson's trip began in Maine's MidCoast and Islands region, where she boarded an oyster boat in the village of Pemaquid with knowledgeable captains to learn how Johns River Oyster brings its oysters from nursery to market. The farm tour is one of many available along the Maine Oyster Trail, where visitors learn and taste their way through the state's four oyster-producing regions.

Oyster farmers David Cheney and Charles Rose collect oysters at the Johns River Farm South Bristol, Maine. The two lifelong friends have been working in seafood here their whole lives.

The trail encompasses at least 75 businesses and offers oyster lovers rewards as they wend their way through raw bars, shuck trucks, and tours accessible both by boat and on foot at riverside farms.

"I had no idea how little I knew about oysters before this experience," Johnson says. "It was fun spending time with people who had a lifetime connection to the place where they live and work. It added a layer of depth to the time there."

A Peaceful Lakeside Retreat

Johnson also loved staying at Otyokwa, a former boys' camp for city kids established in 1935. Today, the 40-acre property next to Pemaquid Pond offers stays at its lakeside cabins, farmhouse, and two houseboats.

“My favorite photos were from the edge of the water at Otyokwa during an evening there. At twilight, the surface of the water turned silky and reflective, merging the clouds with the colors and depth of the lake. It was serene.” — Acacia Johnson National Geographic Photographer

The stay at Otyokwa, with the chance to go canoeing and swimming and just generally be immersed in that incredible light, Johnson notes, is part of what made the spot so special.

A historic boys camp established in 1935, this group of cabins has now been transformed into a lakeside retreat.

Special as it is, Otyokwa is one of many lodging options that give Maine visitors a way to slow down and appreciate the views. You can pitch a tent on spectacular campgrounds, stay at a bed and breakfast, or take on an outdoor adventure resort.

The scenes took Johnson back to that first formative trip to Maine. At the end of that summer, she channeled that "blue hour experience energy," as she calls it, into an Arctic photography expedition that became her first successful project.

"It was this immersive sensory experience that, in many ways, sparked so much of the rest of what happened in my photo career," Johnson says.

Lighthouse Views

At 3,478 miles, Maine has more coastline than any other state in the contiguous United States, giving it a wealth of both vistas and delicious seafood. Visitors to MidCoast and Islands find not only oysters but lobster shacks, storied dining destinations like The Lost Kitchen, and classic spots like Wasses, famed for its hot dogs.

Johnson also visited Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park, with its Fishermen’s Museum and a light tower originally commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1827 that is still active today. The museum preserves the fishing and marine heritage of the Bristol area, including captains’ logs and photos.

The Pemaquid Point Lighthouse faces out towards the sea in Bristol, Maine.

Pemaquid Point’s tower is one of more than 60 historic lighthouses in the state. Some of them are only accessible on Maine Open Lighthouse Day, which is held annually in September.

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hoodoobarbie · 3 years

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The mythology of the Siren, Mermaid, Water Spirits & Mami Wata and it’s origins within black feminity.

Today I had to listen to other another black woman rant about how mermaids/sirens/mami wata are evil low key. So this educational post was born in response.

Did you really think the divine essence of the black feminine wouldn’t protect itself ? That energy exists for a reason. Suddenly it’s evil, to have teeth and protect yourself from predators. Water is a precious resource. You will be tested to see if you are deserving of it or not. Also these spirits will defend natural resources so they don’t get fucked up by human greed.

It’s common for some places in Africa for people to offer the Sirens/Mami Wata/Water spirits or make an offerings/contracts with them in order to use the resources on their land. It also keeps the white ppl away too because they cause so much trouble.

Sirens are also associated with being the killers of children and men, but often this is completely misrepresented intentionally.

Men fear the power of the siren because she can override the patriarchy at core and can completely unravel them. The orgins of many water spirits lie in matriachal societies, temples divine feminine and motherhood. This is why temples and sacred magikal knowledge was intentionally destroyed and stolen, especially to empower the white patriarch.

Sirens are also described as thiefs of children and child killers. Sirens have been known to kidnap kids who were being abused or have were murdered near water and take them to their kingdom to restore them.

Sometimes the child returns, sometimes they are not. However in general they are big on kidnapping people, mostly women and giving them powers, if they decide to return. The idea of them eating and killing children, was a lie perpetuated by Greeks to cover up some truly horrific acts. Unfortunate these false accusations have been allowed to continue to perpetuate.

If a siren is acting in a predatory way, there is a reason why as their energy as been disturbed. Sirens are natural guardians.

So the real question is . . . what did you do ? Did you destroy their habitat ? Abuse a child or a person ? Commit an egregious act against a woman ie rape/murder etc ? Disrespect a sacred place, the land, the seas or rivers ? Steal precious resources that weren’t yours to take ?

These sacred traditions are more than just deities, spirits and our ancestors. All forms of ATR are access to our spiritual mind state as an entire community. When you move in Vodou, you can sense the whole of black consciousness and all of our problem spots, specifically areas that need healing.

Oxum-Oshun, Olokun, Yemaya, the Mami Wata, La Baliene, La Siren, Met Agwe, The Simbi - these are all spirits with a connection to waters. Water is life and has always been inherently associated feminine energy. I’m not going into detail about all these cross connections but let’s chat about La Sirene, specifically.

La Sirene, Queen of all Mermaids is more than just a powerful sorceress and queen of song/music and dreams, she is also a keeper of secrets an a guardian of sacred memories & knowledge.

Many of the souls of slaves, from the Transatlantic slave trade that were thrown off the boats into the ocean are her children, citizens and warriors now. She comforts them eternally & they live in paradise. That doesn’t mean all of these souls are at rest, plenty continuously ask their mother if they will be avenged, especially the young children. She also has a close connection with the Indigenous Taino. The isle of Hispaniola also known as Haiti (Ayiti) & the Dominican Republic is her most known domain.

Let’s not act like slavery and colonization was a cake walk. Rape was common place and mermaids, water spirits offered African and Indigenous women protection and power over men. They became demonized overtime for their hypnotic powers and killing men, who often overstepped their boundaries. Women could leave offerings to these spirits, work or commune with them and be quickly avenged or gain great power and wealth. All of this was threatening to the white patriarchal standard.

La Sirene’s presence in Haiti and other merfolk tales that float around the Caribbean/West Indies, is not without purpose. She has ties to many people and many different cultures. Her sacred symbols are global. This is why I speculate she is much older than people think. La Sirene, is a fairly young evolution. She clearly has ties to much older things. Her older names might have been lost but she has evolved, to save her self and also document other forgotten elements of history in the process. There are those who speculate that La Sirene is the embodiment of a cross mixed culture, the evolution of Indigenous & African water spirits combined, due to the excess trauma of colonization and so the Mermaid Queen was born. Others will argue that she is the Orisha Yemaya but a newer avatar of her. I hate to argue semantics but I will say this, she exists and her presence is felt to this day, all around the world.

La Sirene is often depicted as a mulatto woman with eyes like the sea but if you have been blessed to see her in dream state, she does appear sometimes as a brown or dark skinned skinned woman of possibly mixed Indigenous/African ancestry with glowing hypnotic eyes. Alot of her older depictions, deal with colorism and slavery, but as things have grown in the modern world this imagery has begun to change. However mermaids, are known for their shapeshifting powers - to truly behold her true form, is a gift reserved for the rare few.

As a keeper of the mysteries, La Sirene also access to many forgotten things in the black subconscious. The element of water is an intensely psychic sign. Water is her domain, and what is the human body 80% of? WATER! The truth does not hide from her hypnotic eyes. This sacred connection to water and her essence, also means you can track forgotten elements black history and connect to other deities/cultures who’ve had contact with her & her whole court or other black water spirits as a whole. So let’s take a short historical trip down memory lane.

The Greeks & Black women. Sirens, Aphrodite, Sibyls and other Children of Water 🧜🏾‍♀️

The deity Aphrodite/Venus is of Grecian and Roman legend.

A little known magikal fact is that Aphrodite/Venus is half siren. She is a child of the water, she was literally birthed this way after Uranus got his balls cut off & thrown into the sea. Much of her Venusian influence and powers of love and beauty come from this element. Now my Mambo doesn’t like mentioning it but Aphrodite, is tolerated by the oceanic court of sirens/mermaids. Any child of water, falls under the domain of the queen. La Sirene has a sort of strange fondness for her and so does Aphrodite for her. However this doesn’t mean they are best friends. It’s tentative friendship at best and comes with some perks. Aphrodite works quickly for children of water sirens and often will send mermaids to her devotees who misbehave. She has deliberately placed me around her people have pissed her off, to cause mischief. She’s quite petty but also very generous. I won’t go as far to dare and say she is in the queen’s court, but she does curry favor with the queen. Being born of water, her half siren/mermaid influence has definitely attributed to legends of her beauty in myth but also her treachery with men 🧜🏾‍♀️😂. She clearly also has some sort of homesickness for the world underneath the water, because many of her offerings are gifts of pearls, kisses, sea shells, beauty products etc. Anyone who serves the Mermaid Queen knows the meaning behind those gifts. If you’re a black gyal with water or siren energy and decide to work with Aphrodite, do it! If you ever irritate her, the least she’ll do is give you pimples and fuck up your skin, she won’t have the full power to completely fuck up your love life like she does with the white girls. And let me tell you, she has completely ruined some white girls lives by giving them terrible lovers or men.

The trident 🔱 is known for its connection in Greek and Hindu cultures. However La Sirene or other African water spirits are depicted carrying it, which is largely ignored in the occult world.

You can track the trident in Hinduism, with the serpent spirits, the nagas or Lord Shiva but let’s focus on it’s Grecian connection. The usage of the trident and Poseidon, even in mainstream society today is associated with him. This lets us know there is a connection between the mermaids, merfolk and La Sirene/African water spirits. Poseidon’s trident was rumored to made in Athens by the Cyclops - this is the city of Athena. So now we can track an element of black history all the way to Poseidon & Athena. Keep that in your thoughts we’ll come back to that later.

Tridents were also used ceremonially in Africa & India as well, as scepters, tribal weapons and religious symbols.

They were also associated with the sea faring people and fishing. It’s highly likely the origins of the trident are cross mixed between these two societies. Indo-African relations, go back to the Bronze age and the Indus Valley civilization. Which means traveling over by sea to reach each other was necessary. There is historical evidence of African millet being found in a Indian city Chanhudaro, including a cemetary or burial ground for African women. Maritime relations between these two groups existed before Grecian & the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasties.

Now of course there are some deranged historians that will try to whitewash history and say the trident has its origins from the labyrs but the Ancient Greeks & Africans/Indians interacted regularly. The trident also looks nothing like a labyrs, which is quite literally a double sided axe. This is one of the more painful obvious pieces of white washing and historical revisionism.

Regardless, the trident is associated with water, ceremonial/religious purposes, fishing, battling in the coliseum and the symbol of power for a few African, Black diasporian an Hindu deities.

🧜🏾‍♀️ Oracles & Sibyls

Some sibyls/oracles were known to be African prophetesses/Mamissi to the Mami Wata/Sirens in Africa, some were stolen or captured by Greeks or Romans, sold into slavery and made to be oracles, some of whom became quite famous in legend. Their connection to these water spirits, is what gave them their gift of prophecy. Not every sibyl or oracle was African but SOME were. This lead to the sharing and theft of sacred knowledge. It’s likely these women shared this sacred information, with their colleagues, some whom may or may not have been enslaved or kept in these temple and likely this information was traded, for their freedom, power or money etc. This gave way to the usage of sacred spirits and magick being used by men. A great example of this is the snake spirits of the genii, genius spirits (not to be mistaken with genies) and which then evolved into a diluted lesser energy in Greek society being known as daemons (not to be confused with goetic demons) Instead of a woman commanding these specific energies/spirits, the patriarchs decided that these specifics powers were only worthy of being used by men. These spirits were whitewashed, adopted into their religious practices and said to only be given to men at birth. No woman was allowed to possess them anymore.

🧜🏾‍♀️ The whitewashing of Medusa & Lamia.

In mainstream society these two women stories have been white washed but also to hide a very shameful history and narrative. These two were beautiful women, in older stories of black black mythology were known to be black and they were children of water & daughters of the powerful water spirit/snake/siren divine mother/feminine goddess.

Medusa was raped by the GREECIAN GOD OF THE SEA, POSEIDON and Athena covered it up, refused to avenge her and punished her by making her ugly to everyone. It’s speculated in several magikal circles that the snakes in her hair were actually dreads, due to their lack of understanding of black hair and also allegorically might have been a reference to her devotion to the fish or water snake, great mother goddess. A child of the divine feminine, mother goddess was assaulted in a temple by a man and a woman covered it up & celebrated it.

Let’s start there ... cuz this story says a lot! It’s one of the first historical cases in myth that really documents the issues that surround the black feminine specifically and it was intentionally whitewashed. Then to add insult to injury, Athena made her hideous to all men and her chopped off her head and used as a symbol of protection but also a subtle sign of disrespect to the fullest. This still goes on to this day.

In fact ALGOL, the demon star, which is considered to be strongest protective magick talisman in the occult world today is the HEAD OF MEDUSA. The child of water! BITCH! This energy is invoked constantly and the spirit of medusa is never allowed to rest.

However these egregious acts did not come without a price. Athena at time was a goddess of fertility. However desecrating a child of water or the sirens, is seen as an attack by the divine feminine and can will cause people to be afflicted with fertility and other mental health issues as well. This is speculative but it’s also likely that after this they were constantly visited by droughts, floods or repeating issues with water sanitation & purity after this. Lowered fertility rates and miscarriages might be more prominent, for Athenians and Athena devotees & likely continues to this day.

Devotees of Athena may also develop severe issues when it to their mental health because of this connection. They completely lose touch with their feminine energy and become extremely misogynistic after continued work with her.

Not only did Athena, cause Medusa to be seen as hideous throughout the land but she celebrated when she was murdered and proudly wore Medusa’s decapitated head on her shield. From the feminist eye this virgin deity/woman was extremely male identified and adhered to the patriarchal standard. She was tested by the divine feminine and failed.

Even more strange, Athena’s birth allegorically proclaims her essential character: her wisdom is drawn from the head of a male god; the bond of affection between father and daughter; her championship of heroes and male causes, born as she was from the male, and not from a mother’s womb. A dreaded goddess of war, she remained a virgin and a servant of the patriarchal society and remains so to this day. She is the misogynistic cool girl and very asexual at the core. In fact if you explore more of her mythos, it becomes very clear she hates women. I’m bewildered at how she has become associated with lesbians and the feminine at large, when it’s been very clear that she was intent on transcending her gender from the very beginning, but never managed to escape it.

To top it off, I’ll leave you with this quote from Aeschylus’ Oresteia by Athena:

“There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth, and, but for marriage, I am always for the male with all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side. So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord of the house, her death shall not mean most to me.”

Queen Lamia was a said to incredible beauty who seduced Zeus, (a literal man whore) which as made Hera jealous. Hera cursed Lamia with infertility and insomnia. She went insane and is said to have killed her own children and ate them. Zeus is said to be the one who gifted her prophecy and gave her the ability to take out her eyes, so she would not be irritated at the site of other happy mothers.

She became associated with a child eating monster who was half woman and half snake, which ties into the Libyan snake cults. She was associated with phantoms, the shapshifting laimai or empusai and the daemon spirits.

Medusa and Lamia were Libyan by heritage and came from a place in Africa where temples to the water snake mother goddess & divine feminine were common before they were destroyed by invaders intentionally. These women likely had extreme gifts of seduction, mind control and other abilities etc. It’s highly likely that Queen Lamia used her powers of seduction, at the behest of her people to save them from colonization and was demonized for it. Zeus’s temple was in Cyrene in Lybia, so this is far more than an allegorical story. This may be a real life story that was disguised in mythos. Unfortunately deeper research into this subject has turned up many dead ends for me. It’s highly likely Medusa was a priestess of the the matriarchal Mami Watas or water goddess/snake spirits and was likely raped intentionally in Athena’s temple, as a show loyalty to the rising patriarchy by descrating the symbolism of the great mother and the divine feminine. This was likely an attempt to lessen power and status of the matriachal societies that existed at the time. Rape was common war tactic amongst colonizers and news of such disgrace would likely spread like wildfire. This also solidified Athena’s place amongst the male gods and gaining her their respect. Athena and her devotees went a step further to show their allegiance to the patriarchy, by stripping Medusa of her beauty supposedly and exiling her, then parading her decapitated head on shields, when going into battle likely with Libyan enemies.

This is just a brief explanation of a few horrific acts in history, which were whitewashed & explain why the essence of the black feminine has evolved to become more protective, predatory and fierce. She learned to defend herself. Now she kills those who threaten her.

Fun history tip: Usually anytime you see a snake in Grecian mythology, just know something got whitewashed, because the truth was really fucked up, made them look really bad & a black woman was there.

🧜🏾‍♀️ The black feminine is capable of more than you know.

Yes, mermaids/sirens/snakes & the mami watas can be scary at times but that’s what stepping into mysticism of deep waters is like. Water is capable of many things, it is one of the most powerful elements on earth. It can nourish you and kill you, and that’s the beauty of it really.

We should all be grateful the black feminine is so beautiful, fierce & scares the living daylights out of everyone.

You would be dead if it wasn’t.

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dwellordream · 3 years

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“...Where the show had sensibly added yurts and merely forgot to have any way to move them, Martin has the Dothraki live in “palaces of woven grass” (AGoT, 83) which I assume the show did not replicate because the moment someone described doing that everyone realized what a bad idea it was and moved on to something more sensible like a yurt covered in leather. Grass and reeds, of course, can be woven. However, as anyone who has done so will tell you, the idea of trying to weave what is essentially a grass basket the size of a tent in a single day is not an enviable – or remotely possible – task.

Trying to move such a giant grass basket without it coming apart or developing tears and gaps is hardly better. And at the end, a woven-grass structure wouldn’t even really be particularly good at controlling temperature, which is its entire purpose! It is rather ironic, given that unlike the show’s Dothraki, Martin’s Dothraki do seem to use at least some carts, because Viserys is forced to ride in one (AGoT, 323) and so could bring yurts with them. They just don’t.

More to the point, it is very clear that Martin imagines the Dothraki subsistence system to consist almost entirely of horses. The Dothraki ride horses, they eat horses, they drink fermented mare’s milk. The Dothraki – as in the show – are presented as eating almost entirely horsemeat. They eat horsemeat at the wedding (AGoT, 84), and Daenerys’ attendants are surprised that she asks for any kind of meat other than horse (AGoT, 129), although Daenerys herself seems to have access to a more agrarian diet (AGoT, 198) and other characters observe that the Dothraki prefer horsemeat to anything else (AGoT, 272). There is no mention of herds of anything except people and horses moving with the khalasaar.

There is also no sense that the Dothraki are hunting big game like one would in the Great Plains; Drogo kills a hrakkar – a sort of lion, apparently – as a display of bravery (AGoT, 495) but there is nothing that would suggest the kind of bison-based subsistence system (at the very least, if that was the system, Daenerys would be well aware of it, because the camp would be awash in bison-products). I found no references to larger game and the Wiki only offers, “packs of wild dogs, herds of free-ranging horses, and rare hrakkar” which is, needless to say, not enough to make up for the absence of large herds of bison, especially for trying to feed Drogo’s camp of perhaps a hundred thousand people (or more!).

They clearly do not herd sheep. This becomes painfully obvious with the raid on the Lhazareen village. The Dothraki – Khal Ogo’s men – in raiding a sedentary pastoralist settlement, kill all of the sheep and leave them to rot. Dany sees them “thousands of them, black with flies, arrow shafts bristling from each carcass” and only knows that this isn’t Drogo’s work because he would have killed the shepherds first (AGoT, 555). And we are told that the people there “the Dothraki called them haesh rakhi, the Lamb Men….Khal Drogo said they belong south of the river bend. The grass of the Dothraki sea was not meant for sheep” (AGoT, 556).

We are told that the Dothraki have “vast herds” but this can only mean herds of horses, given that they apparently take offense at any other animal being grazed on the Dothraki and look down at shepherds in general (AGoT, 83). To be clear, for a nomadic people moving over vast grassland to spurn the opportunity to capture vast herds of sheep would be extraordinarily stupid. At the very least, thousands of sheep are valuable trade goods that can literally walk themselves to the point of sale (we’ll get to this idea that the Dothraki also don’t understand commerce a little later, but it is also intense rubbish; horse nomads in both the New World and the Old understood trade networks quite well and utilized them adroitly). But more broadly, as I hope we’ve laid out, sheep are extremely valuable for subsistence in Steppe terrain.

But Martin does not even do horse-string logistics right. While Daenerys eats cheese (AGoT, 198), we never hear of the Dothraki doing so. The Dothraki do have an equivalent to qumis, but no qulut, no yogurt. Even the frankly badass bit about drinking the horse’s blood as a source of nourishment does not appear. The horses themselves are also wrong. First, Daenerys and Drogo each have one horse they use, seemingly to the exclusion of all others. If you have been reading this long, you know that is nonsense: they ought to both (and Jorah too, if he intends to keep up) be shifting between multiple horses to avoid riding any of them into the ground. Moreover, Martin has imported a European custom about horses – that men ride stallions and women ride mares – into a context where it makes no sense. Drogo’s horse is clearly noted as a red stallion (AGoT, 88) while Daenerys’ horse is a silver filly (AGoT, 87). But of course the logistics of Steppe raiding revolves around mares; in trying to give Drogo the ultimate manly-man horse, he has actually given him the equivalent of a broken down beater – a horse only able to fulfill a slim parts of its role.

Finally, the group size here is wildly off. For comparison, Timothy May estimates that, in 1206, when Temujin he took the name Chinggis Khan and thus became the Great Khan, ruling the entire eastern half of the Eurasian Steppe, that the Mongol army “probably numbered less than a hundred thousand men” (May, The Mongols, (2019), 43), though by that point his army included not merely Mongols, but other ethnically distinct groups of steppe nomads, Merkits, Naimans, Keraites, Uyghurs and the Tatars (the last of which Chinggis had essentially exterminated – next time, we’ll get to the nonsense of the Dothraki being a single ethnic group).

That is, to be clear, compared to the armies of sedentary empires of similar size (which is to say, huge) a fairly small number! We’re going to come back to this next week, but the strength of Steppe nomads was never in numbers. Pastoralism is a low density subsistence strategy, so the steppe nomads were almost always outnumbered by their sedentary opponents (Chinggis himself overcomes this problem by folding sedentary armies into his own, giving him agrarian numbers, backed by the fearsome fighting skills of his steppe nomads).

Khal Drogo’s khalasaar, which moves as a single unit, supposedly has 40,000 riders (AGoT, 325-6); Drogo is perhaps the strongest Khal, but still only one of many. With 40,000 riders, we have to imagine an entire khalasaar of at least 120,000 Dothraki (plus all the slaves they seem to have – put a pin in that for later; also that number is a low-ball because violent mortality is clearly very high among the Dothraki, which would increase the proportion of women and children) and probably something like 300,000 horses. At least. Of course no grassland could support those numbers without herds of sheep or other cattle. As noted above, Isenberg’s figures suggest much lower density in the absence of herding – just under 70,000 nomadic Native Americans on the Great Plains in 1780 (and less than 40,000 in 1877), including women and children! But more to the point, no assemblage of animals and people that large could stay together for any length of time without depleting the grass stocks.

Even if we ignore that problem and even if we assume that the Dothraki have Mongol-style pastoral logistics to enable higher population density on the Dothraki Sea, my sense is that the numbers still don’t work. Even before Drogo dies, we meet quite a few other independent Khals with their on khalasaars – Moro, Jommo, Ogo, Zekko and Motho at least and it is implied that there are more. Drogo’s numbers suggests he should be roughly at the stage Chinggis Khan was in 1201 or so – with Chinggis controlling roughly half of the Mongolian Steppe, and his old friend and rival Jamukha the other half. But Khal Drogo has evidently at least a half-dozen rivals, probably more. It is hard to say with any certainty, but the numbers generally seem too high. Having that entire group concentrated, moving together for at least nine months (long enough for Daenerys to become pregnant and give birth) would be simply impossible inside of a grazing-based subsistence system, sheep or no sheep.

In short, no part of this subsistence system works, either from a North American or a Eurasian perspective. This isn’t actually much of a surprise. Martin has been pretty clear that he doesn’t like the kind of history we’re doing here. As he states: I am not looking for academic tomes about changing patterns of land use, but anecdotal history rich in details of battles, betrayals, love affairs, murders, and similar juicy stuff.

That’s an odd position for an author who critiques other authors for being insufficiently clear about their characters’ tax policy (what does he think they are taxing, other than agricultural land use?). Now, I won’t begrudge anyone their pleasure reading, whatever it may be. But what I hope the proceeding analysis has already made clear is that it simply isn’t possible to say any fictional culture is ‘an amalgam’ of a historical culture if you haven’t even bothered to understand how that culture functions. And it should also be very clear at this point that George R. R. Martin does not have a firm grasp on how any of these cultures function.”

- Bret Devereaux, “That Dothraki Horde, Part II: Subsistence on the Hoof.”

#the dothraki #grrm critical #bret devereaux #history

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dat-town · 3 years

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poison like you

Characters: princess!you & guard!Xukun feat. king!Yixing

Genre: historical, fantasy, royalty, bit of enemies to lovers, bit of childhood sweetheart to lovers, bit of i’d die for you, angst with hopeful open ending

Warnings: blood, violence, murder, poisoning and death

Summary: If you wanted to kill the last son of the Dragon Clan, first you needed to get through his right hand man. Too bad he knew you too well but it felt like you didn’t know him at all.

Words: 11.1k

Author’s note: please note that even though this historical fantasy is inspired by ancient China, it is not historically accurate because it isn’t set in any certain era or even at any existing place. the governor structure and politics might be confusing but this is basically about a lot of small kingdoms (called clans) having a never ending war for more power over the area. Chinese mythical creatures exist in this world but have gone almost extinct during the wars. to know how i imagine this world, watch Lay’s Lit mv!

for the one&only @lily-blue 💕

As the only daughter of the Jade Clan's head, you had your responsibilities. To your father, his men and all the people under them. Most importantly, you had to do everything in order to protect the Clan. When the Dragon Clan started expanding its territory, winning over more and more land, becoming more and more powerful, you knew that no army could fight theirs, so you had to go to the war with wits instead of swords.

When your father proposed the idea of a reunion between the two Clans by marrying you to the son of the Dragon, you hated it. The other Clan was everything you despised: ruthless, brutal, selfish and while you knew arranged marriage was your future, you didn't want to rule next to a tyrant. But when your father said that this would be the perfect chance for you to kill their leader and rule over the united clans yourself, it suddenly wasn't that bad of a plan. Although you never wanted a huge empire and you didn't want the responsibility over so many people, freeing them from a bloody rule sounded like the best you could do. Especially now that the man needed an heir to secure his bloodline and power.

It took ridiculously few letters between your father and Zhang Yixing before you were off, on the road with only a chest of your belongings and another one full of gold and other jewels as marriage gifts. You had your most trusted maids and soldiers with you but otherwise you were alone, alone with your plan to poison your husband-to-be. Surely, you didn't think it was going to be easy while being surrounded by his people in a palace but getting there, the dark monstrum of a building wasn't like how you imagined your future to be. Everything wore the pattern of dragon scales, the city burned in the colours of fire and ash, even the waters were dark. People wore black clothes and wore their hair down without many accessories but despite the grayness of the place, the men and women you ran into didn't seem unhappy or living in fear. They must not have known any other life, so you felt sorry for them.

You were escorted to a chamber right away and compared to the light flowery room you were used to at home, this was very different but you didn't complain. Instead you inquired about Zhang Yixing's whereabouts and when you could meet him but the maid told you that he had a meeting with his generals, so you couldn't see him until the next day when you were supposed to have lunch together. You thanked her for enlightening you and after blaming your fatigue on the long voyage, you requested to be left alone. Opening your box of accessories, you pulled out a small glass bottle with yellow liquid inside. A few drops of it was enough to put a man to sleep, a whole spoon was surely death, so your only job was to get time alone with your fiance. Until then, you needed to play your cards well.

You were quite restless and maybe a bit paranoid but you couldn’t sleep during the night fearing that someone might attack you. Even though you knew you were now under the protection of the ruler of the Clan just by being Zhang Yixing’s fiancée, it didn’t calm your traitorous heart. You have seen enemies in every corner and yet, you raised your chin high, confident and proud when you were called to that lunch with your man to be.

Followed by a bunch of maids, you walked to the room on which Yixing decided and you took your seat on the opposite end of the long table full of delicious goods. The young king was already there, his pitch black hair falling into his almond-shaped dark eyes as he looked up at you sternly, eyes narrowing as if he wanted to see through you. His skin was pale against his black clothes that were simpler than you would have thought of a tyrant. You had never met him before but you heard stories of him and you heard descriptions of his looks. However, he was younger than you had expected, only a few years older than you, but with his defined jawline and rigid expression you could imagine him being the one behind the destruction of your neighbours.

He didn’t greet you but signalled that you should start eating and tentatively you reached out for the rice, chopsticks freezing in your hold as soon as he spoke up in a raspy voice.

"It's quite unexpected, your father's wish to join hands," he said calmly and it sounded like a challenge or a test, you couldn’t tell but you didn’t like the tone he was using to talk about your father. As if he was a weakling crawling to his feet.

"Is it?” you raised an eyebrow, daring to look straight into his cold eyes, watching his every move, every twitch. “I think it's a very reasonable timing. After all, you just reached our borders," you explained because he must have known there were not many choices you could take: it was either seeking peace or a war and your nation was a peaceful one, hence you would have done anything to keep it that way.

“Is your father afraid of me?” Yixing questioned and you bet he wanted to believe that, that he could scare the Jade Clan’s head. But your father was a born strategist, he always had a plan.

“Isn’t that why you’re doing this? You want other nations to fear you?” you counterattacked with a question, knowing the lesson yourself as well: If you cannot be loved, you must be feared.

You were well aware that it was a reckless thing to challenge the king. He might have been your fiance on paper but he could have just lifted his hand and have you killed and everybody you had with you to make it look like you were attacked on the road, never reaching his palace. However, for the first time since you had seen him, the man ahead of you looked amused, the corners of his mouth curling upwards.

"You have a sharp tongue for a princess," he said and it almost sounded like a compliment. You took pride in that with a raise of your chin.

"I'm the only child of the Jade Clan's head. I have learned how to wield any kind of weapon," you answered confidently. You might not have been an undefeated warrior but you had learned how to protect yourself and you knew too well that spoken words could cause just as harm as knives sometimes. But still, it seemed to make the young king interested as he bobbed his head towards you, leaning forward with his elbows balancing on the table.

"We could test that. Are you good at archery?" he asked, probably with the intention to invite you for a game. But his smugness irked you because he made it sound like he expected you to lose no matter what. So you did the least princess-like and least wise thing you could have done in that moment: you pulled your hairpin out, letting your long locks fall onto your shoulders before swinging your arm forward and letting the pin fly forward.

In the next moment two interestings things happened. Not only Yixing’s guards weren’t by your side, forcing you down or even killing you for your brazen act but he himself didn’t move. He looked into your eyes without fear and without anger. At the same time, you saw a shadow move so fast you didn’t think it was possible for a human and his sword hit you hairpin out of its path before it could have landed in the painting behind Yixing’s throne, hitting the dragon on it in the eye. The soldier, guard or whoever he was, wore black just like his ruler but there was a textil mask in front of his face, so he must have been a special kind of warrior. Not that you cared, your attention was back on Yixing immediately.

"You tell me... do you think I would be good at it?" you asked, finding the silence a bit unsettling, it was almost like the calm before the storm. But then the king laughed and you were baffled.

“What a bride you will make,” he tilted his head and then finally, you started eating.

You were aware that you were lucky that you hadn’t been executed for that bold move you had made but it only ensured you that Zhang Yixing needed you. Or at least what you represented: the peace deal with your nation and a secured future bloodline. He could have probably forgiven as much. Or was he really that sure that either you miss the target or his guard would save him? You weren't sure but since you needed to know about his most trusted men anyways, you asked your maids about the masked figure. They didn’t know much, so you gave them the task to ask around among the Dragon Clan’s servants. You needed to know who your enemies were and where they laid. You also needed to know the palace as best as you could in case you needed an escape route or a secret passage to get to Yixing faster than anyone.

Hence, your night escapades started: once night have fallen, you pulled out a dark, comfortable clothing usually men wore and tied your hair high to not get into your way as you climb out of your window, up to the roof from where you could see the U-shaped building complex, knowing exactly where you should go: towards the king’s quarters. Running from rooftop to rooftop reminded you of your childhood when you practiced hide and seek in the palace back home. Your father had taught you how important it was to remain invisible and his advice still stayed with you as you made sure to dissolve into the shadows as you jumped to the gardens: step lightly, breath lightly like air in the morning but listen well and open your eyes because the smallest sounds, the smallest movements can be your enemy’s.

There were two guards in front of what you thought was Yixing’s suite but you didn’t care about that. You were more interested in the room where he planned his strategies to see if he really wanted to march through your home and bring war there just to conquer your other neighbours too. But before you could reach for the wooden door, you heard a shush and you crouched down just in time for the dagger to land in the wood instead of you. You bolted immediately, making a run for it, stepping up on a barrel you jumped onto the roof, so you could find a hiding place. You were prepared for such a thing. If things went South, you just needed to sneak back to your room, under the blanket and act alarmed when they banged on your door. You might have been from another Clan but nobody would have disrespected a princess by checking what she wore while sleeping and none of your maids would have said anything against you.

But you didn’t reach your quarters. No matter how lightly and in the shadows you tried to step, the one who followed you must have been really good because from one moment to another you felt yourself being hauled down from the roof, onto the ground. You and the man (based on his build) fell down together and lucky for you, it was him whose back hit the grass first with you on top of him. It gave you a bit of advantage to get to your feet immediately but you didn’t get far away. Dodging the man’s attacks, you had to admit that his training was very good, no fighter made it so hard for you to get even one hit and you grunted in annoyance when your back hit the wall of the stable. It was a full moon, so it was dark, only some tinkling light illuminating the palace for which you were grateful but it also gave you disadvantage because unlike your attacker you didn’t know this place. You felt a sudden pressure on your chest as a strong arm was pressed against it, a blade close to your neck but you only saw a silhouette.

“Speak, are you just a thief or a spy?” he asked, his voice sounding younger, softer than you expected but there was something dangerous to it. You didn’t wait enough to find out what it was. You tightened your grip around the ceramic cup you had picked up earlier and smashed it against his head. You had indeed learned how to use everything as a weapon.

For a moment, it looked as if the guard’s eyes flashed gold in the moonlight but you were too busy running away, into the stable, scaring the horses and hiding behind a straw pile, controlling your breathing until the man who had come after you gave up and left.

You hissed when you touched the wound on your fair skinned neck. It wasn’t deep and didn’t hurt a lot but it was obviously a blade wound, one that a princess shouldn’t have. So to hide it, you brushed your head over your shoulders before you left for your archery practice with Zhang Yixing who wished to see your skills for real. He greeted you with an expectant smile to which you bobbed your head politely.

You didn’t talk much while taking turns, shooting arrows but you carefully and discreetly eyed his guards when it was the king’s turn, wondering if one of them was the one from the day before. Not that you could have told with their masks on.

After practice (you lost but only because you didn’t try too hard), you went to eat fruits in the gardens and you learned that Yixing was about to leave to check on his Eastern borders. He would be away for at least a week but promised to get the wedding preparations started with his servants. You knew that was why you came but still, it made you nervous as it meant you had less time.

“Princess!” A sudden, unexpected voice called after you when you were ready to leave with your maids. Nobody other than Yixing had initiated a conversation with you since you arrived, everyone waited for you to step first. So you were curious what this man, one of the king’s closest guards, could have wanted from you. Turning around, you saw him holding out your hairpin, the one you had thrown towards Yixing the first time you had seen him, the one someone dodged, could it be…

You looked up at the young man, his hair, somewhat ruffled in his forehead, mask covering his face under his eyes. He didn’t look at you, he casted his eyes down like a good servant would.

“Thank you,” you spoke up, a bit uncertain and there was a flicker in the guard’s eyes the moment he glanced up at you after his gaze lingered on your neck: something familiar yet scary but you blinked and it was over. You took the hairpin and left, your dress sweeping the floor behind you. That guard made you feel uneasy for some reason.

The next day Yixing indeed left and when you didn’t bump into the man from the other night for the next three days you were starting to think that he went with the ruler as well. It was only after you managed to sneak into the king’s room and out when you had to realize just how wrong you had been. You knew something was off the moment you stepped into your quarters. Your guards weren’t outside of your doors and the candle you left there lit up burnt out. It was already cold to touch when you lit it again which meant it must have blown out when your intruder opened the door earlier. You pulled out your sword and pointed it ahead of you, alarmed. Your shadow danced on the walls as the candle light flickered.

“It’s been a while… Princess,” the intruder spoke up much too calmly for someone who broke into a royal’s room. You could have gotten him killed for that but you froze. Not only because he must have known about your night adventures but because the playful tint of his voice was somewhat familiar.

The shadow stepped out from the corner, hands held up, defensive, revealing the guard from earlier. You furrowed your brows, not lowering the sword, not until the other pulled down his mask and the man you faced made you gasp.

“Xukun...” you whispered, almost whimpered, and you felt your knees weaken. But he– you thought he was dead.

“I think we have a lot to talk about,” he suggested with a hint of a smile and you couldn’t agree more.

You could still barely believe that it was Cai Xukun in front of you, alive and grown up unlike the boy you had last seen him as. The boy you practiced fighting with, the son of your father’s general, your childish first love. He had never known, of course, you never had a future to begin with but still. You remembered being sixteen and so in love, secretly gushing everytime he had brought you wild roses saying they reminded him of you. But then at eighteen, he had gone off to a battle and never came back. You remembered the crinkle around his eyes as he joked, telling you not to worry, he wasn’t that easy to kill. Apparently, he was right but you didn’t understand what he was doing in the Royal Palace of the Dragon Clan as one of the high rank guards when he was supposed to be back at your home. If his father still lived, what would he have said about his son becoming a traitor?

“I knew it was you,” he spoke up, eyes a mixed colour, mouth in a thin line. You looked at him questioningly. Then he pointed at your neck without a word and you reached for the now scar on your throat. “Obviously, I didn’t know then. Sorry.”

“Why didn’t you report me then?” you asked directly, looking straight into his eyes and you let your gaze linger on the slope of his nose, the corners of his mouth, the sharp line of his jaw. He had grown up, he was more handsome than ever. “Or why didn’t you kill me during the past two days when you were following me?”

“So you knew,” Xukun nodded at you, impressed but you just raised an eyebrow. You had a guess. Everything was too easy, too quiet. When you didn’t answer, the once boy now man standing in front of you sighed as if he carried the weight of the world with him. “You should know I would never hurt you.”

You scoffed at him. You would have been naive to believe him and you weren’t a child anymore. Hell, you came here to kill the king.

“How could I be sure? It’s been years, Xukun, and you were nowhere! You gave no signs that you were alive and here you are, in an enemy clan serving their ruthless ruler?!” you spat at him and you knew that your words were harsh, that your tone was cold but honestly, you knew a barely 18 years old boy and not the young man who was in front of you. You were conflicted to say the least.

“Zhang Yixing isn’t ruthless,” Xukun corrected you. Of all things you said, he found this the most obnoxious thing you had told him out of all, he decided to correct that. You wondered why. Why was he loyal to him? Why when you had only known him to be a murderer and someone who dared you to show him her best shot?

“Isn’t he? Then how does he keep destroying these nations around us? He burnt the Moon Clan to the ground for the deities’ sake!” your voice rose by the end and you had to remind yourself to stay quiet. It would have been a scandal if someone knew you had a man in your room while your fiance was away. Your whole plan would have gone down the gutter if your reputation was ruined just like that. But you heard all the stories: the massacre in the West, the burnt towns in the South, the sunk ships at the sea. They were his doing or so people said.

“That… that wasn’t him,” Xukun objected, so sure of himself that it almost made you feel sick. “And it’s a war either way. There are no saints here. Your father isn’t one either.”

You knew how wars were fought, you knew that everybody including you was a sinner, you had both grown up in a world where you knew nothing but neverending fights, losing loved ones and never knowing safety. Yet, when the boy who your father thought of fondly dared to call him out, anger flared in you.

“My father sent his only daughter to marry a tyrant to save his people from suffering, so don’t talk about him like you knew him!”

Maybe it wasn’t what you said but how you said it, the sword you still hadn’t let go of trembling in your hand but Xukun paused, licked his lip in consideration and his voice was softer when he continued:

“I can prove that Zhang Yixing isn’t as ruthless as you think he is,” he claimed but you didn’t really care about that. You wanted to know why he was there, in the Dragon Clan instead at what you had known as a home.

“Does it have something to do with why you never came back? Like you promised,” you reminded him, sounding bitter at the memory. Gosh, you had been such a child. But who could have blamed you? He smiled and it tipped your whole world back then. But he just visibly gulped now, so you must have been right.

“I owe him my life,” he said curtly and you sucked in a breath, wondering whether he meant it figuratively or literally. You didn’t have to ask, Xukun kept talking as if now that he started, a river flood. “When the Phoenix Clan attacked us 5 years ago, I was captured. They must have known that my father was a general and they wanted to get to him. When they took me in front of their leader, Yixing was also there, barely a boy not much older than me, caught while sneaking into the tent while stealing maps on a mission for his father. They confused him for someone from the Jade Clan and thought he came for me. They let him go to pass a message to my father and then they left me in the desert far enough from the battlefield with an open wound. I was so sure I would die.”

You had imagined before how it happened. How he died, or so you had thought. You’d had nightmares about it. Seeing his beautiful eyes wide open in shock and pain. You’d imagined it on the battlefield but his body was never found. The nearby river had been red though, so you thought maybe… But it was all wrong. He was never really there.

Xukun unconsciously touched his abdomen with a grimace on his face and you wondered whether he felt the phantom pain of the stab but he kept talking without addressing that.

“The next thing I remember is waking up to being carried on horseback and Yixing yelling for a medic. I wouldn’t have thought he would come back for me, we didn’t even know each other after all,” he stopped short at that as if he was still dumbfounded that the heir of the Dragon Clan saved him then. Honestly, in his place you had been too. Maybe Yixing hadn’t had his reputation back then but you were still enemies. “When the royal medic told him I’m a lost case, he took me to a shaman and they made me drink something that cured my wound by the next day.”

“Dragon blood,” you whispered in shock when Xukun gave you a meaningful look.

There was no other way but the magical powers of dragons. Although there were more rumours than credible sources on that, nobody denied that any essence of the heavenly, snake-like creature could save lives. But there were too few of them, maybe exactly because humans dared to hunt them down for either their scales, antlers or their blood, you wouldn’t have thought it was still possible. Yixing must have paid a fortune to save someone whom he barely knew.

“See why I can’t go back home?” Xukun asked and mouth open in agapé, you casted your eyes down.

Such medication… such witchcraft was illegal in Jade nation. He would have been branded as a monster and exiled even if he went back. Dragons and creatures like that were considered sacred in your home.

“Where did they even get dragon blood from? Nobody has seen a dragon in years,” you took a shallow breath, trying to work through your messy thoughts.

“What do you think caused the fire at Moon nation?” Xukun asked knowingly and with hope in his eyes resembled the boy you had once known. He hoped you would believe him and you did but it wasn’t easy to digest all this new information.

The two of you just looked at each other in silence, a heavy one, before the sounds of the midnight patrol startled you. Hushed, you blew out the candle light, leaving you in the dark, speaking in hushed voices.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to do but… please, don’t go against Yixing. I might not be able to save you then,” Xukun spoke up, his deep voice echoing in the room, you clenched your hands in fists. As if he was there to save you in the last years when you would have needed him.

“I don’t need you to save me,” you told him, hurt clear in your voice but he didn’t say anything. He left without saying a word, wind whizzing into your room as he became one with the shadows outside. His last words left you wondering. Would he have died for Yixing, even in his place even if the weapon was in your hands?

You told yourself it wasn’t because of Xukun but you didn’t sneak into the king’s quarters in the next few days. Instead you wrote a letter to your father telling him about recent events and what you have found out about the Dragon Clan’s plans based on what you had found in the strategy meeting room. You entrusted one of your best guards with the letter and sent him home.

Days had passed uneventfully then but only until Zhang Yixing and his men came back with news that knocked air out of your lungs: the Eagle Clan attacked the weakened eastern wing of your nation. You knew they had become daring lately no matter how your father wished to keep it a secret from you but it was still all too sudden. Your army wasn’t ready to not only stand guard in case you got attacked from the South but now from the sunrise side as well.

“You cannot tell me to just wait it out!” you rose from your chair at lunch when Yixing told you the news. You felt offended at how calm he was. It must have been just another attack for him, but for you, it was your home.

“What else could a princess do?” he raised an eyebrow at you challengingly and you would have liked to sneer at him.

“I’m not the type of princess you think I am,” you claimed, hating that he probably thought you were used to letting other people fight your battles for you. Just because your father didn’t let you go into the war because you were the sole heir of the clan, it didn’t mean you couldn’t have. But now, as Yixing’s fiancée you didn’t even have much choice. You knew you shouldn’t go against his words or he might dance back on his agreement with your father. But you panicked, so you did the only thing you could possibly do in such a situation. “What do you want? Do you want to marry immediately, so you would help? Or would you let them destroy my home even then?”

You were desperate, so you would have agreed to anything only if he sent a handful of soldiers to help your people. Hell, if you had become the queen you could have commanded them yourself. But the king seemed to have different ideas.

“I will help. On one condition,” he said slowly, tasting every word and you were holding your breath, waiting for him to reveal what he wished from you. “Show me what type of princess you are then. Let’s not lie to each other about these things, Princess.”

Well, you certainly did not expect that.

“What do you mean?” you stuttered and your heart skipped a beat when the man slid an overly familiar envelope onto the table. You were smart enough to not be obvious about what you wanted to discuss with your father but there were still hints in your letter about things you shouldn’t have known if you were just picking flowers and practicing embroidery like an ordinary princess would have.

“You don’t want to marry me,” the man said and even though it was an accusation, he didn’t make it sound like one. And yet…

“You don’t want to marry me either but it hardly matters what we desire. We come from the bloodline of royals, we have our responsibilities to our people. And my people need me,” you slammed your hand on the table, spilled rice wine pouring like melted snow. You caught one of the masked guards - probably Xukun - turning his head towards you at that.

“You don’t want to be a princess,” Yixing continued and it baffled you. As if you had a choice! “You have the heart of a warrior.”

Well, you couldn’t argue that, so you just gulped, looking over the table, at the man who was a mystery to you. What did he want you to say? You couldn’t possibly admit that you planned to kill him.

“Come with me,” the king said as if it was his ultimatum and there was something knowing in his dark eyes when he explained: “Come with me to the front. Fight with me and then I’ll help the Jade Clan.”

His offer was an interesting one, you didn’t quite get his reason but you nodded anyway. You were ready to fight alongside your people but you didn’t even have to look at Xukun to know he was frowning.

You left the next day, at dawn. You took all your guards with you and Yixing added his own as you departed towards the North… your home. You wore your comfortable man clothes, hair swirling in the air around you as you galloped on your horse next to the others. It took about two days to reach the endangered border, so on the night when you had to set up a tent you could be finally alone a bit. Since you were the only woman you got a separate place and nobody should have bothered you but the tent wasn’t empty when you got in there. Gosh, were your guards so imcompetent or how?

“Reckless of you to sneak into my tent. What would your king say?” you asked, words a bit biting. You didn’t have a chance to talk with Xukun ever since that night in your room and you knew, it could have been indecent to exchange words in front of others even if you explained that you knew each other from before.

“I came exactly because of that,” the once boy explained, sitting near your small table as if you had invited him over for tea. Only because you had known him before you noticed his fidgety fingers as a sign of nervousness. “Did you write about me in the letter he got his hands on?”

Oh. So that was what he was worried about. Disappointment made you taste bile in your mouth. You hated this feeling.

“I’m not stupid,” you told him curtly and turned your back on him to indeed pour some boiled water over tea leaves to soothe your nerves. Honestly, you thought about telling your father about Xukun but then you realized you didn’t know what to write. You weren’t sure what you should have. It wasn’t your place to decide and maybe it was for the better if your father still thought that he was dead.

“He… he has a man watching you. He told me he can’t trust me with that,” Xukun who once had jumped to hover above you when a wooden house fell upon the two of you during a heavy storm sounded pained admitting that. You gulped hearing his words and the worry lacing through them. You didn’t want to think of him caring. He disappeared from your life years ago, he didn’t get to worry about you now.

“Why are you telling me this?” you asked, slowly, tentative as you sat by the table across him, putting cups of tea between you. Xukun waited until you looked up, into his deep brown eyes that had the most beautiful golden specks in them you had ever seen. Maybe it was just the lights’ doing but he still took your breath away, unfairly so.

“You need to be careful. He knows you’re up to something,” he pressed, desperate and you forced a smile, a charming, confident one. Oh, Zhang Yixing had no idea what was coming for him if he betrayed you.

“If he helped my people, our people, I wouldn’t have a reason to plot against him, would I?” you voiced out your thoughts, the decision you made on your own. If the king proved to be not as ruthless, just as your old friend claimed, maybe he deserved another chance. So you meant it but Xukun didn’t look convinced.

“Princess, I have something to discuss,” the cold, authoritative voice of the Dragon Clan’s head could be heard from outside and the pace of your heartbeats picked up, whipping your head towards the entrance of your tent then back to Xukun… or where he had been just before. Now, nothing but a smell of smoke lingered after him. You had no idea how he did that.

As it turned out Yixing wanted to discuss the reports he had gotten from the battle and if he had noticed the two cups of steamy tea, he didn’t make a comment on it. The situation was quite bad, the enemy had already gotten over the walls you had pulled up all those years ago. He had already had a man of his own let the Jade Clan general there know that Dragon soldiers were coming to rescue and not to attack, so if things worked out, you could crowd out the attackers from two sides. If you were lucky enough you could bait them towards the river where they were more vulnerable. It didn’t sound like a bad plan at all and hearing Yixing’s strategies, you understood why he had won so many battles but what surprised you was that he didn’t intend to drown everyone in the river or kill them on the spot, he sounded like he hoped they would give up and retreat. You wouldn’t have thought that of the ruthless Zhang Yixing.

Knowing how wars worked was different than being there, in the middle of a battle, sweaty, limbs tired, blood dripping from the end of your sword and a painful bruise blossoming on your left shoulder. You saw red and adrenaline carried you as you shouted and attacked the next man with mace in his hand coming at you.

“Princess!” Someone screamed and you dodged the sword aiming at you just in time but its owner stepped closer, pushing you backwards on the slippery ground. You weren’t strong enough to push him back.

“Princess, huh? How interesting,” the man, covered in dirt and blood not his own, grinned at you, a hand clasping his hand around your throat, squeezing hard. You gasped, clawing at his arm with your free hand because he pushed the one that held the sword close to your chest with his. For the first time in your life, you felt powerless even with a weapon in your hand. You tried to kick and get away from the soldier but you couldn’t and felt disgusted by the names this disgusting leech called you.

You didn’t know how long you had fought back but the noises of the battle started to fade out when suddenly the man was yanked away from you but you still felt his blood splatter across your cheek as a sword pierced through his chest. Panting, gasping for air, you stared at Xukun behind the fallen soldier and he stared back at you, eyes glowing dark and golden. You smelled something burning...

You heard the screams before you had seen the source of sudden panic and shock.

You looked up to where everybody was pointing while running and you had seen a huge dragon appearing above the walls of Jade. Its fur and scales were dark like the night sky except a few gilded ones that looked like burning fire from afar while his antlers were long and ivory. It was terrifying yet beautiful. Its honey-coloured eyes gazed down upon you mere humans and it seemed to have a concrete target in its mind as it flew above you rippling the water and air behind.

Xukun grabbed your arm, trying to pull you away but his touch felt burning too and you couldn’t take your eyes off the dragon that halted in the air, levitating just above the ground, its huge head merely an arm away from Zhang Yixing who stood there alone, unmoving. It reminded you of the day when you threw your hairpin at him, how calm he was and you still couldn’t believe what you saw when the Dragon Clan’s leader lifted a hand and put it on its head as if he was trying to discipline a dog.

Thunder roared above and Xukun managed to pull you away now that everyone had scattered all over hell's half-acre. He took you farther, inside the wall of your nation and you only noticed that he must have been hurt when he stumbled and you had to catch him before he fell.

“Kun!” you shrieked, scared, the old nickname slipping naturally as you put his arm around your shoulder and pulled him inside of a half-destroyed house nearby. Your hands trembled as you let him sit down and then looked around to look for a lantern to light it.

In the dim lit room you kneeled next to the guard, his clothing soaked with his blood and you could see sweat forming on his forehead. How did it happen, you questioned, but it wasn’t the important thing. With a shaky breath, you reached out to peel off the bloody material from his chest to see the sword cut across one shoulder. You hissed seeing the fresh wound and all that blood. You cursed in frustration.

“Shh… it’s okay,” the boy whispered with droopy eyes, taking your hand, weakly pushing it away from the cut.

“It’s not okay,” you argued and you could feel tears in the corner of your eyes. Did he get hurt while trying to get to you? Did he forget to pay attention to himself because he saw you? You felt guilty and you hated that, you didn’t want to be the reason why he was hurt.

“There’s something you should know…” Kun coughed and grunted at the pain flashing through him. He had his eyes shut, teeth clenched and it hurt to look at him. “I– I heal faster than normal… The dragon blood that saved me…”

“I know,” you cut him off, not wanting him to exhaust himself with speaking. You could see him struggle, his eyes bright gold when he opened them briefly. His blood was working its magic.

To be honest, you didn’t know, you just had a guess up until now. His golden flashing eyes, the warmth radiating off him, how fast and soundless he could move or disappear leaving only smoke behind… It was because of the dragon inside of him.

There were legends saying that if a person spared a dragon, it would be bound to him for life and the blood of an alive dragon in a human would create a connection between the two. A connection that could call the other half if one felt threatened. Although it was just a theory, with the intensity of Kun’s eyes on you, the beautiful burning fire in his pupils made you believe you were right, that the dragon appeared because he feared for you.

There was a short cut growl leaving the boy’s mouth and you grabbed his hand, letting him squeeze yours while you could see his skin basically knitting itself back together, the wound closing in as if it had never been there. It might have been only a few minutes but it felt too long with how much it seemed to hurt the boy you had just saved your life. When it was over and he opened his eyes, they were plain brown again – your favourite though – and he looked tired.

Oh, thank the deities, you let out a relieved choked sound and you didn’t even notice you had been crying until Xukun didn’t wipe your tears off your cheek. He looked at you as if he had seen you for the first time, properly at least and you felt your lips tremble. Heavens, you had mourned him once and now you almost lost him again. Suddenly, a rush of emotions rippled through your body, your fingers tentatively touching the freshly healed skin.

“You’re so warm,” you whispered in awe since his skin was hotter than expected and you knew it wasn’t fever caused by the wound.

“Princess...” he muttered oh so gently and his hand, wet with your tears, slipping from your cheek to your neck, caressed your skin just like his voice caressed your soul.

“No,” you stopped him firmly and when confusion flashed in his orbs you told him to call you by your own name. It was a command, a request, a plea. It was everything and a sweet little nothing at the same time.

Kun’s eyes widened at the permission but pushed himself away from the wall to lean closer and he sighed your name into the seam of your mouth. You closed your eyes feeling his hot breath tingling on your lips and when he kissed you, you melted against him like wax melted near fire.

Once the storm passed, you could still feel Kun’s touch on you. It was like a vivid memory and it tasted sweet on your tongue even if you knew you were being naive.

You didn’t talk about it. About what it meant because you both knew you couldn’t. But you were stupid enough to forget about your other problems when you had seen the retreating army. Your people could be a bit more safe at least for a little while.

“Cai Xukun!” Another guard called out when he caught sight of his comrade next to you. He looked panicked and it scared you. What now? The man walking up to your duo looked at you warily before answering the question about his worried expression. “The king is injured.”

Oh. Interesting how it was what you had wanted since you had left home but now that Zhang Yixing was bedridden, you found yourself worrying and by the looks of it Kun too. The two of you were escorted to the king who lay on a makeshift bed, chest wrapped with a cloth that he had already bled through.

“What happened?” you questioned, looking from one soldier to another. This didn’t look like something caused by the dragon’s claws or teeth, it was definitely a human-caused injury and your guess was confirmed when one of the men told you that while he was trying to calm the dragon, someone from afar shot an arrow through him. It made you anxious because what if they captured the dragon? What would that have meant to your people, to Kun?

“And the dragon?”

“It chased them away and is probably in the mountains,” the man said and that made you a bit relieved even though you weren’t sure you were allowed to feel that while your fiance was bleeding out only a few steps from you. You nodded in acknowledgement and made a hand movement to excuse the soldiers. Soon, you were left with only Xukun in the room.

“Why isn’t he healing? Doesn’t he...” you looked at the boy, not understanding why the injury took its toll on the king when Xukun healed within an hour. Was it some kind of special arrow damped in poisonous liquid? Was it...

“No,” The guard cut your words off but you could already tell by the look on his face that it wasn’t how you thought. “He saved the dragon and it now serves him but he never got its blood and I… I think the dragon is hurt, too.”

“What?” you were dumbfounded how he could tell something like that when you had left the field together, so he couldn’t have known about this. Not by seeing it happen. But as Xukun clenched his hand in front of his chest as if he was hurting, you started to understand. They were indeed connected after all.

“I can feel it. I can’t explain but its energy...”

A hurt dragon in the mountains. A hurt king in the desert. Gosh, things really weren’t on the path you hoped them to be. You suddenly weren't sure what worried you more.

“Do you think the dragon is in danger?” you turned to Kun, fingers fidgeting with the handle of your sword by your side. If those from before knew that they managed to wound the creature, were they looking for it? Anyone who got control over a dragon could have immense power, you didn’t even want to think about it. Especially the dragon that had this special connection with the boy beside you. “Go then. Help the dragon!”

He seemed surprised and conflicted at your nudging. He didn’t move, eyes flickering to the bed behind you.

“But Yixing...” His protest fell short when you quickly explained:

“I will stay with him and wait for the medic,” you promised but weren’t sure Xukun trusted you with something like this until he reached out to take your hands in his. His palm was warm like every other part of him too, his fingers felt nice against your dirtied, dry skin. He squeezed your hand gently in agreement.

“Call for a shaman, too,” he added and you nodded with a lump in your throat. You needed to get prepared for any kind of situation.

You could have been called a loyal fiancée based on how you spent day and night next to Yixing, watching over his recovery. However, he didn’t get much better over the course of days and you didn’t hear about Xukun either. The only reassuring thing was that you weren’t attacked there, at the border of three Clans. You couldn’t leave either way because the king wasn’t well enough for such a long voyage and you wanted to be as close as the mountains anyway.

The medic said the arrow hit Yixing so close to his heart that it was a miracle that he was still breathing and it scared you more than you had expected. You let him change the bandage and stayed by the unconscious man, putting fresh wet cloth over his feverish forehead.

That night, marking the third without Xukun, the king stirred awake.

You looked up from your place beside his bed, startled. It was the first time he seemed more conscious than just to drink a bit of water or ginger soup because his eyes looked alert. For the first time since you had met him, he seemed scared.

“The dragon...” he croaked out with a hoarse voice due to not speaking for days.

“Xukun is looking after it,” you told him reassuringly and held a metal cup to the king’s chin, urging him to drink a bit. He gulped down the fresh water as if it was healing potion and once he finished with the entire cup, he fell back onto the sheets with a painful sigh. Closing his eyes, he traced his ribs until he reached the bloody bandage over his wound and hissed. He must have suffered more than he showed.

“I would have never thought I would have my fiancée look after me after a battle,” the man whispered, deep voice weak and uncertain, a little playful though. Although his words were conveying the truth, it made you feel like someone who committed adultery. You knew you didn’t swear either loyalty nor love to each other with the king but after learning how he had saved your first love from certain death, you didn’t want to do something like this to him. You needed to come clean even if the timing was quite off.

“With all due respect, Zhang Yixing, I’m afraid I can't marry you,” you said quietly, expecting a frown or a scolding but none of it came. Maybe because he was injured but he didn’t react at all and for a moment you thought he had fallen back asleep but then he slowly opened his eyes again and turned his head to be able to look you in the eye.

“I had a feeling,” he nodded calmly. He didn’t seem angry nor disappointed. He had already said your father’s proposal was an odd one, one with interesting timing. There was nothing interesting about it, it was just a strategy, a plan you didn’t want to follow anymore. But before you could have spoken up, to apologize, to ask whether it meant your alliance was off, Yixing continued: “Xukun treasures you too much. He was the one who urged me to trust your father.”

“He… Did he tell you about me before we met?” Words stumbled out of your mouth before you could have stopped them. You were more than dumbfounded to know that. Had Xukun known about your father’s wish to marry you to Zhang Yixing even before he agreed? Was it him because of whom the king agreed at all? And here you thought that he had been just another guard, loyal to his king until death.

“He talked about you all the time,” the man reminisced with a faint smile on his lips as he stared at the ceiling. “He always says how I saved his life back then but with him here, not being able to return home, I feel like I have taken his life instead. Taking you from him would have been even worse.”

You cast your eyes down bashfully as you listen to him talk. Yixing’s side of the story was an interesting one as well. Learning how he didn’t save Xukun out of the kindness of his heart but because he wanted intelligence was something you could understand, something you could relate to as you lived in a world like that after all. You couldn’t even be angry, not when he told you how they had become friends over the years. As the king drifted back to sleep, you thought that maybe you could become friends as well, maybe you could still be allies. You didn’t necessarily have to be enemies.

But once being enemies, it was hard to forget and not everybody had the same insights as you.

You woke up to a small noise, only to open your eyes to see one of your own soldiers from Jade Clan stepping inside the tent. You had always felt safe next to your guards but this time, something was off.

“What are you doing here?” you questioned as you sprang to your feet from the seat you accidentally fell asleep in.

“Princess,” the guard bowed with respect. Though, he was clearly surprised to see you still there and you could see the hint of hesitation in his eyes before he answered. “I am here as per your father’s wish.”

You furrowed your brows. You hadn’t been notified of anything like this.

“My father’s wish?” you raised a brow, looking at the man expectantly but he didn’t reply, not with words at least. Instead he took out a small glass bottle with familiar yellow-ish liquid inside. It made the blood freeze in your veins.

“That wasn’t the plan,” you reminded the man even though you hadn’t even known your father told anybody else about it. Didn’t he trust you or…

“It wasn’t your plan but your father had doubts whether you could do it with a cold heart. That’s why he sent me,” your guard informed you dutifully and your brain kept coming up with reasons why this was a terrible idea. It would have been much easier if Zhang Yixing was indeed the tyrant you had imagined him but after learning about his personality and starting to form an amicable acquaintance with him, it just didn’t make sense.

“I’m not the queen yet,” you objected but the guard didn’t seem to care.

He explained how the public sentiment had changed in your favour just because you stayed with the injured king in the last few days and there was something in his explanation that was quite logical: if Yixing passed away now, nobody would have looked for a murderer because he was already on his deathbed. Nobody would have known he didn’t die from the arrow. Nobody needed to know. But… it wasn’t the plan. If he died then, without a queen or heir, the Dragon Clan would remain without a leader and neighbouring nations would all want their pieces of it. If they got to know about the dragon too…

“It’s a chance we can’t waste. We need to prioritize the safety of Jade Clan,” your guard reminded you and for a moment you were stuck. If it hadn’t been for Xukun, you might have done it within a heartbeat, not even considering other options because Zhang Yixing was a dangerous man but now… you were torn, unsure what to believe. Your uncertainty must have been written on your face because your guard pushed the bottle into your hands, encouraging you to make a move and you gulped, too busy with your internal turmoil to react fast enough when you got company.

Four of the masked guards of Yixing stepped into the tent, one of them immediately slicing the throat of your man which made you scream. Two guards held you back from behind, not letting you move, to get any weapon while another one walked up to you, his dark eyes trained on you, his bloody dagger aimed at your throat. He forced the little glass bottle out of your hands.

“There was always something off with you, Princess. You should have been hung the moment you dared to fling your hairpin at the king,” he said, disgusted and you couldn't quite blame him. You raised your chin though, proud because as a royal it was expected of you even when you looked into the eyes of death. You weren't afraid of dying, you had walked out to the battlefield earlier with that mindset too, it was just… you wished you could have said goodbye to Kun.

You knew that the only reason the guard didn't kill you off like he did with your man was because you were a royal. If you died by a hand of a guard of the Dragon Clan, you knew your father would have gone to war against them and you also knew he would have lost which broke your heart even more.

"So what now? Will you kill me too, in the name of justice because one of my men blabbered? You have no idea what we even talked about!" you accused the guard of making a scene over nothing because as of now prolonging the conversation was your best chance. Either Yixing could wake up and stop them, if he believed you didn't want to hurt him any more, or your other guards could show up as well.

"I have a good enough guess, Princess, but of course, you can prove your innocence by drinking this. If it isn't poison, you have nothing to lose, am I right?" the man turned the small glass bottle between his fingers. You didn't show reaction to that even though you knew you were going to die if you drank it all. But at least it was said to be a fast killer. You were contemplating whether you should have taken it and then spit it out saying it was bitter for your 'princess taste' because he wouldn't have been able to prove anything then. He could still kill you though but maybe it was worth a chance.

However, before you could have decided the tent's entrance flew open and a very dishevelled looking Xukun showed up. He looked like he was running and hadn't slept properly in days. The presence of guards, his comrades, seemed to surprise him, the dagger at your throat even more.

"What's going on here?" he asked in an authoritative voice even though you weren't sure he had a bigger rank just because he was friends with Yixing.

"The princess and her guard were caught trying to poison the king."

"That's not true!" You protested heavily looking for eye contact with Xukun, hoping he would believe you. It was all just a terrible misunderstanding. Once you might have wanted to cause harm but you had no reason anymore, not if you signed the Lotus pact with Yixing like you had agreed. When you met Kun's gaze, it was confused but not unkind.

"Then prove it, Princess," the older man said and pushed the blade closer to your neck where your earlier scar was still visible. The situation seemed to scare Xukun but you didn't want him to save you again, you only needed him to believe you. He seemed to think differently though.

"Let her go and lower your weapon, we don't have time for this," he stood in front of you pushing the man's hand away and flashing his golden eyes at the guards you kept you caged. Their hands immediately loosened their hold as Kun lifted his bag. "I have the dragon blood. Where is the shaman?"

One of the guards ran off with the bag to fetch the shaman but you could only breathe peacefully for a moment. Then the masked man with a slit across his eye crowded you and Xukun into a corner.

"My bad. Why would I have thought that you of all people can be rational? Do you think you were so discreet about disappearing, just the two of you? Are you maybe in it too? Did the two of you, Jade bastards, plan to get rid of our king to take over?" With each of his words, he poked Kun's chest with his index finger until the younger swatted his hand away. His voice didn't waver as he answered:

"If you really think that after all the fights we fought together, I feel very distraught," he said with his voice so cold like you never heard it before. Xukun's pride must have been on the line with his loyalty being questioned just because of his connection – maybe affection? – to you because the next thing you knew was him grabbing the glass bottle out of the other man's hand. "You know what? I'll prove it to you!"

“Kun, no!” You grabbed his hands in panic, closing your fingers around his, so he couldn't lift the poison to his lips. Was he crazy? Did he want to die just for you to follow?

Or oh… he believed you. He really believed you and that it wasn't poison in the first place or maybe he believed you had nothing to do with it and knew nothing of it because when his eyes locked with yours, he seemed surprised that you stopped him.

You were both startled when the shaman arrived with the finished potion but before he could have stepped to the injured king, the man in front of you lifted his hand. Although you couldn't see his mouth, you would have bet he pulled it into a malicious smirk.

"Ah look at that, trying to save him from harm, how touching," he tsked, mocking before he pointed at the potion in the shaman hands and then at the bottle in Xukun's. “How about this? One cup has dragon blood that could save the Dragon Clan’s last son. The other which you claim isn't poison was retrieved from your room by your own guard. Choose wisely, Princess, what to give our king because your hero will drink the other one.”

“Why are you doing this?” you shrieked, having enough of this mind game of his. You knew he was just a loyal guard of Yixing and you couldn't blame him for not trusting you but did he have to go this far to make you suffer?

“I cannot let the filthy Jade Clan take over the Dragon Clan. So you either save him or be executed for killing him which was your original plan, wasn’t it?”

"Save the king, Princess," Xukun told you, determined and maybe he had a plan, a better one than you or at least you hoped. You looked him in the eyes mouthing Please don't at him but he just smiled. How could he act so nonchalant? "Trust me," he whispered.

You let go of his hands and maybe it was a mistake because he had told you: he owed Yixing his life. You barely stepped to the bed of the king, lifting his head to help the shaman give him the potion when you heard glass breaking. When you lifted your head you saw Xukun swaying, barely grabbing on a chair to stop him from falling and the broken glass was by his feet. The liquid from inside was nowhere which meant…

"Kun!" you screamed trying to run up to him, to help, to do anything but the guards turned towards you with their sword out and you could only do one thing, listen to the boy who had once saved you when the stable's roof collapsed onto you, he hovered over your body with his to save you from the impacts of the falling pieces. He always did.

So when Kun told you to run, you ran. Back to your own tent to get your sword to be able to fight off and it was ridiculous how only a few days ago you fought alongside these men but now they wanted to kill you. Oh, how fast the tables turn but maybe you deserved this, maybe you deserved to die for killing the boy you loved since you had been 16 and had given him your first kiss under the stars. You might not have a future but you wanted to believe nevertheless, but you ruined it all.

You felt tears running down on your cheeks as you dodged the daggers and swords coming your way, hissing when one managed to cut your arm. You ran, you didn't look where, you just wanted to get away. If you killed Yixing's men, peace wouldn't have been an option, so you needed to escape, that was the only way to stop another war.

You stumbled when a huge shadow overtowered you and heard the scared muffled sounds of the soldiers following you as well. Gulping, you looked up at the majestic dragon in front of you, its nostrils flaring and smoke coming out of its mouth as it huffed. It stood above you, staring at the soldiers behind you as if… as if it was protecting you. It made you feel safe, like Xukun, and gosh, you just cried harder because he was trying to save you even now. You fell onto your knees, not knowing what to do with this information and then…

"It isn't nice of you to chase my fiancée away from me, is it?" Yixing roared in a forever calm voice and through your tears you could barely believe your eyes when you saw him walk towards you. And not just him, it was Xukun who helped him move because he must have still been in pain. But how?

The masked guards seemed just as flabbergasted as you were. But Kun, oh the deities, Kun looked almost smug as he passed by them after Yixing pushed him towards you. Then he ran, ran until he knelt next to you, taking your face into his hands. You touched him as if you didn't believe he was real.

"I didn't want to…"

"I know," he assured you with a stupid smile on his stupid face like he did back in that ruined house where he kissed you like you were his life line.

"I can't believe you drank the poison! How could you be sure your blood would fight it off?" you whisper-yelled at him, hitting his chest all too weakly and he laughed, too. The nerve of him!

"I wasn't but Princess, I would drink poison over and over again if it tasted like you," he said with a smirk and you would have bet Yixing told him about your agreement because otherwise he wouldn't have been so daring. Or was it the near death experience? Or the thought of losing each other all over again? The wars might have been still messy, politics stressing, but in that moment, you didn't care, you just closed your eyes and kissed Kun back when he pressed his lips against yours, happily burning with him.

#cai xukun x reader #xukun x reader #cai xu kun x reader #stories #fantasy au #royalty au

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