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darlingdekarios · 1 year

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shining armor.

rating: explicit. 18+ only. length: 17,649 content: Ser Criston Cole x f!Stark!reader, reader is a Stark, forbidden relationship, secret relationship, yearning, mentions of animal hunting/death, smut [f receiving oral, unprotected p in v]

Criston Cole is faced with the reality of a life falling for a lone wolf.

Early Winter, 112 A.C., The Crownlands

Due to the warm nature of the southern part of the kingdom of Westeros, it was not a hindrance to hunting parties when the winter months rolled around, the weather staying pleasant enough to set out on exhibitions. It was just after the turn of the new year, and a colder-than-normal winter in the Crownlands offered a unique opportunity for the crown on the youngest of King Viserys I’s youngest son’s name day. As could only be expected of the occasion, houses from across the kingdoms sent forward representatives to partake in the hunt, keen on gaining favor with the crown.

Very few of those present had any real interest in the hunt itself, the only trophies the group holding valuable thrones, crowns and castles.

A day into the festivities after the sun had set behind the trees the sounds of heavy hooves could be heard over the rain through the coverings of tents, signifying the unexpected arrival of two additional guests. Emerging from the tents the king and his company came to face a flag they had long-since seen: the banner of House Stark. Carried by two large black horses, built as such to endure the winters in their native lands, the strangers who wore sturdy armor and various furs emerged from the fog to approach the king.

“Bennard Stark, son of Lord Benjen Stark and Lady Lysa Locke, accompanied by Ser Grandin Rane, your grace,” the knight on the left spoke, removing his helmet as he spoke. Ser Grandin was an intense man, every bit of what a northerner was expected to look like with long, dark hair and beard, pale from the longer, harsher winters. “You’ll have to excuse Lord Bennard. He has suffered an injury on our long journey to you and finds himself unable to speak, and the current state of his face…well, sadly, it would upset the sensitive among us. We apologize for our late arrival, without the injury we’d have been here on time.”

The King analyzed the image before him in full, at a loss for words at the implications an event like this meant after years of House Stark remaining passive toward the crown. The youngest son of Lord Stark held tall mounted atop the horse, small for a boy from the North, which the king passed off as a probable result of age. To the right of the Lord now stood a massive black animal with fierce reflective golden eyes, the symbol of the house itself – a direwolf. Rumors that the house currently had four of the animals in their possession had been shrugged off as simply that, but taking in the animal before him was a wonder – the king had never spent much time in the colder areas.

A glance at Otto Hightower, his still-trusted Hand at the time, confirmed the many thoughts racing through his own head were likely shared by everyone present, and yet no one could bring themselves to voice any of them without a private conversation. The knight, noticing the apprehension on the faces before him, jumped from his horse to slide to a knee.

“As a sign of good faith between the house and the crown,” he bowed his head, which was mirrored by the young lord who remained atop his horse in favor of staying out of the mud. King Viserys nodded and motioned for the knight to rise before gesturing at the large animal. “As much as I am sworn to protect the House Stark, that animal is as well. It will listen to the lord, you needn’t be fearful of it.”

“I am…truly overjoyed to see this day between our houses, Lord Bennard. Many thanks to you, Ser Rane, for escorting the young lord this long way. Please send my regards to the Lord Stark upon your return,” King Viserys spoke, his words careful and as calculated as something on the spot like this could be. “I am afraid we were quite unsuccessful in our hunt this first day, and while we can certainly feed the two of you after this long journey, we do not have the excess to feed such an animal.”

The knight from the north couldn’t prevent the small chuckle that fell from his lips, shaking his head in response as the young Stark made a gesture with a gloved hand, the large wolf immediately bounding off into the forest. The knight’s tone was amused, and yet still respectful to maintain the good spirit of the conversation. “The wolf can feed himself. He will hunt far enough to not affect our excursion, and he will return in the morning to protect the camp as the party sets out. He is of benefit to stay, and the lord will vouch for him. They are as much connected as your grace to dragons.”

The comparison landed and soon the newcomers were welcomed in, put aside in a spare dry area to settle in for the night before the morning, and sent to beds with plates of bread, fruits, and cheeses that remained from the earlier feast. The remainder of the camp had fallen to sleep as the two had changed into warm clothes, hold for those on watch. The night was loud with the rain yet everyone found peace enough to sleep through the night.

The next day’s events wrought similar results to the first day – while the party had a long day in the forest searching for a worthy beast to kill in honor of the young prince, they returned to the camp as the sun began to set with nothing more than a few wild turkeys. With better weather and worse moods than the night before the party found themselves drunker on this second night, seeking anything to soothe their wounded egos. It was well into the dark night when Ser Criston Cole observed the silhouette of a rider on horseback disappearing into the trees, a large wolf following closely behind. With permission to relieve himself of his duties since the king and his family remained in good company, he gave into the curiosity and pull to follow.

His own horse was large but lean, and moved silently through the woods after the scarce prints that littered the remaining mud from the rain the day before until he could see the figures once again, now waiting beside a riverbed. Stilling his horse far enough back to seem only as another animal in the woods moving about, the Dornish knight observed as the Stark child removed his helmet. He was met with you instead.

It had long been a favorite game of yours, to don the clothes of your brothers and come up with an absurd plot with the aid of your sworn knight to do the activities you desired. While initially the schemes only resulted in small adventures in your home, it had since elevated into hunting trips, tours of Castle Black and the Wall, small sailing excursions in the cold waters, and even the occasional wedding. This was your largest and most irresponsible scheme yet, and the fact was thrilling.

When you removed your helmet for the first time since the early hours of the morning to feel the fresh air against your face, Criston found himself in complete bewilderment as he watched hair come toppling down out of the helmet. The unmistakably feminine features illuminated in the pale moonlight that managed to force its way through the thick trees caused a tightness in his chest, and a confusion in his mind. The sight before him was no son of Benjen Stark.

It was an impressive sight set before the knight as he quietly followed you through the Crownlands that night – hours spent silently watching as you slid from your horse to observe tracks around you, silently communicating with the wolf beside you who was quick to bound off into the trees at your command. Eventually, Criston watched on as you took down a large moose with an arrow from horseback, smiling a confident and beautiful smile in celebration to yourself. When the wolf returned he held a rabbit in its jaws, which he was instructed to eat.

He decided then to return to the camp, aware that he had already pushed his luck following you for so long and abandoning his sworn duties to follow a woman through the woods. Fortunately, he still made it back long before a majority of the camp had risen, and so he’d sat by the fire enjoying the last remaining hours of darkness running through what he’d witnessed that night.

You were a skilled hunter – not just in the sense that you managed to be lethal with a bow, a silent killer, but you were also a capable tracker. Despite communication with your canine companion, he swore he didn’t recall a single sound out of you within the hours that had passed. The more he thought on that fact, the more he wished to know the sound of your voice. The more he wished to hear you speak, the more he found his thoughts lingering on the pieces of the real you he’d gotten to see.

You were beautiful, with wild hair that you had attempted to tame into a braided hairstyle, though throughout the night it became more and more disheveled and he found himself, often, wanting to run his fingers through it. You’d taken the gauntlets off of your hands and forearms in order to properly wield your bow, showcasing soft hands that would undoubtedly feel like bliss against his skin. His thoughts focused most on a pair lips that begged to be kissed. Suffice to say, his mind suffered more consequences from his excursion than could have been anticipated.

After some time others began to emerge from tents, already dressed for the day in armor to begin a third day of hunting. Though he knew a successful kill was on its way back to the camp, he kept the information to himself – including the information of who was truly beneath the youngest Stark child’s helmet; the middle child, a daughter.

When the sun began to rise and warm the camp for the day is when you made your grand re-entry, leading your horse on foot as he dragged the massive kill you’d made back to camp, your brother’s helmet once again on your head and his identity assumed. Your wolf, the animal you could vouch for better than most people, trailed behind you with a happy step this morning, fully satiated from his time in the woods. He stopped next to the tent that belonged to you where it was noticed that he also carried several turkeys on his back. It was here that Ser Grandin joined you once again.

It was obvious from body language that you were being scolded by your sworn protector and Criston had to sympathize with the man, though he wondered if you held a mischievous smile at the chastising. Soon enough you had halted in front of the awaiting King Viserys, dropping to your knees slowly and gesturing behind yourself at the animal dragged by your horse.

“Lord Bennard would like to present his prize to the one true king in a show of good faith between House Stark and the crown,” Ser Grandin spoke clearly for you, and Criston had to wonder how often he fell into these schemes with you. In a way, it was admirable that he was so committed to his vow to you that he partook in these games, clearly, to ensure there were no slip-ups and your safety was secure. Admirable of your obvious insistence to live life your way, he still had to admit a scolding was technically deserved – putting yourself in danger by going out alone, wolf or not, was irresponsible.

“Rise, my boy,” the king spoke after momentary contemplation, walking forward to put a hand against the cheek of the helmet. “The camp is indebted to you for this. You handled this feat alone?”

“Himself and the wolf, your grace,” the knight responded, coming forward to stand beside you. “The young lord often finds himself in the woods late at night hunting, much to my behest. Nevertheless…he is a successful hunter, to be certain.”

You must have felt touched by his pride toward you as Criston noticed your head turn for you to glance at him before quickly bowing again out of respect. The king smiled – a seemingly rare thing these days – and nodded before stepping back to speak louder in addressing the camp.

“This young hunter from the North is the reason we will eat well today, my friends,” the king announced, resting a hand on your armored shoulder to turn you to face the awaiting company. “And instead of glory for being the best among us, he wishes to gift the impressive kill to me in honor of my son.”

Everyone knew when the king wanted an applause, and sensing that now was one of these times when he wanted to give credit where it was due everyone gave a polite applause. Everyone present was careful not to carry on too loudly or too long in order for the king to be heard again when he wishes.

Criston found himself drifting closer to you throughout the day, hanging around you close enough in the hope that he’d hear even a single word from your lips or be offered another look under the helmet. Unfortunately, Ser Grandin, the king, and the queen did not leave you alone very often for the remainder of the day, leaving the Dornish knight no opportunity at being alone together.

Later that night when the company found their way back into their beds, you and your sworn protector left under the cover of the darkness, the long road back to Winterfell beginning.Ser Criston Cole would not see you again for many weeks thereafter, but not a single day would pass that you did not enter his mind.

Ten Months Later , Winterfell

A bellowing roar signified the visit of a creature that had long avoided the North, and as those sitting within comfortable castle rooms made their way to confirm what they already knew to be true, the gates opened to present a small company of knights, accompanied by Ser Criston Cole. Outside of the castle and a safe distance away, the princess Rhaenyra landed her dragon before walking the remaining distance through the gates. Ser Criston was alight with excitement as he waited for what he could feel in his heart to come, and his teetering patience was beautifully rewarded once he saw you make your way down a set of stairs behind your father.

Wearing your brother’s armor had done no favors to your appearance, but this elegant, shimmering silver gown that cascaded in a sheer train behind you clung onto every part of you he now wanted to grab. Atop your shoulders wrapped a fine fur, smooth and from what looked like a silver fox. Your hair was much better tamed today than he’d last seen it – recently washed, braided intricately, but enough of it let down that immediately made him imagine running his fingers through it.

Criston had never found himself to dwell on the beauty of a woman long, his sense of responsibility taking over his thoughts before they could stray for long. It would be a lie to state that he hadn’t thought of you, and often, throughout the last 10 months without seeing you. He often wondered about the subtle colors to your features if he had the chance to get closer, and while he was soaking in what he could from this distance, being this close to the real you only made him want to be closer. He found himself scrambling to remove his helmet, unhappy with the slightly difference it made to his vision. He needed to see as much of you as you offered, and it needed to be unobstructed.

When you reached the bottom of the stairs behind your father you bowed your head, eyes staying toward the ground in politeness. Criston saw the princess’ eyes linger on you before landing once more on your father, a light smile crossing on her features.

“Lord Stark, the Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, Princess of Dragonstone, heir to the Iron Throne and future Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and First Men,” Criston found his voice to introduce the woman who should have his full attention, though he still hadn’t pulled his eyes away from you. Your father made a show of respect by kneeling, but before you could follow Rhaenyra held up a hand with a light smile.

“Please, don’t soil yourself in mud and snow on my behalf,” the princess spoke to you, ever one to respect a woman before a man. Your father stood at the instruction, bowing his head as yours raised to smile the most tantalizing smile in their direction. Criston was glad he had found himself capable of speaking when he was needed, because he was certain it was an impossibility now. “My family was appreciative of the gesture for my youngest brother’s name day this past Winter. Your youngest son is quite the adequate hunter. We wished to repay the gesture with a gesture of our own.”

Criston noticed the way Lord Stark’s eyebrows furrowed together and the subtle glance he threw your way, and how you avoided the gaze with unphased intent. He had to wonder if your father knew the kind of trouble you liked to get into, but if the older man was mentally wondering about the situation, his voice didn’t waver. Criston had not broken your secret to anyone in the time since he’d discovered it.

“An unnecessary gesture, Princess. It is the head of a House’s responsibility to ensure good relations with the Crown, not the other way around,” your father’s deep voice spoke, his eyes taking in the people before him and the dragon in the distance. “It is my hope we can be good hosts to you for however long you wish to stay in the cold North. My sons return in the morning from a long journey to the Iron Islands.”

“We have brought food, and money in exchange for any livestock potentially used to feed Syrax, my dragon, before she flies back to the warmer climate in my stay,” Rhaenyra was getting better and better at speaking diplomatically. “After a long journey for my escort, I am certain we would be happy with a meal prepared in your kitchen and the company of you, your Lady, and your daughter for the evening. Tomorrow we shall feast in honor of our houses.”

Rhaenyra stepped forward to approach your father and so Criston followed, his brown eyes returning to you once more due to the irresistible draw. This close he could see the blush on your cheeks and nose from the cold, and the small flecks of color that scattered in your eyes. Whatever words were spoken between the princess and your father went unheard by him as he found himself transfixed on you, completely bewitched by you.

“My escort, Ser Criston Cole, a knight of the Kingsgurad,” he heard Rhaenyra speak, his name snapping him from his trance. He hadn’t even realized you were returning his gaze. “You’ll excuse his manners, he is from Dorne and this may be his first snow.”

The Princess’ words were teasing, Criston quickly moving his gaze back to your father with a nod. “I am afraid I’m used to quite a bit more heat.”

“In our hall there is a large fireplace, it would be my honor to escort the future Queen and the good Ser to somewhere far warmer.”

Your voice pierced through him like an ice dagger straight through his heart, his eyes finding you again as the perfect sound finally filled his ears after months of yearning to know it. It was better than anything his mind could have imagined for it, and he was glad the armor covering his body hid the goosebumps on his arms from view.

Rhaenyra smiled and agreed, of course, offering an arm to the Stark daughter in a friendly gesture, much warmer than Criston had seen her in years in the snow of Winterfell, of all places. Your father excused himself to see to the preparation of a meal and the feeding of the dragon, and thus left you to escort the Knight and Princess yourself.

As you made your way through the much-more-modest halls of Winterfell you made pleasant conversation with Rhaenyra, and Criston followed closely by clinging to every word. You were effortlessly endearing as you spoke, even pulling laughs from the normally-serious Princess and pulling her into a conversation sparked by your curiosity about dragons in no time. When the trio arrived to the main hall, Criston made a move to stay outside the door, immediately taking up his post to protect the Princess. At that moment a Knight they already knew emerged, his helmet held under one arm.

“Please join us inside the hall, Ser Criston,” you spoke, turning to face the taller Knight with a smile that warmed him plenty. “My sworn sword knows these halls well and can withstand the cold. Allow him to watch over the Princess in your time here, so you may recover from the journey.”

He found himself simply nodding, the brown pools of his eyes gazing into yours once more as he agreed to whatever you propositioned to him, knowing he’d never be able to refuse you. He missed the knowing smile that crossed Rhaenyra’s features as the three of you made your way to waiting fur-covered chairs before the fire. A small table sat to the side, holding glasses and an offering of mead, plus a plate of cheese, meats and breads. The North could be hospitable with the right people seeing to it.

“Help yourselves to refreshments and the fire. I will have a word with Ser Grandin and rejoin you.”

You excused yourself to the hall again, entering into a hushed conversation with the other person on the planet that Criston knew also held your secret with certainty. Before his thoughts could be swallowed by you again, Rhaenyra broke him from the trance with a playful tone as she handed him a tankard of mead. “You must stop staring at the Stark girl, no matter how beautiful she is, Ser Criston. Perhaps stories of witches in the North have some truth to them.”

The remainder of the evening would pass by in a flash, a hearty meal settling into the company’s stomachs with thankful welcome. Despite the many differences a family of the North faced, the Starks were hospitable and pleasant company to keep, and it was only safe to assume the sons would be the same when they returned. After a large meal and a hot bath Rhaenyra retired for the night, Ser Grandin taking his position for the time being outside of her door while Criston was meant to be settling into bed as well. Instead, he had donned his armor once again and wrapped himself in furs provided by the kind Lord, making his way throughout Winterfell to familiarize himself with the map of his surroundings.

When he made his way to an outdoor walkway he heard the unmistakable noises of a horse making its way toward the front gate slowly, attempting to be as quiet as possible. Rushing to find his own horse he climbed on swiftly, steering his horse through piles of snow to mask the sound of hooves following behind. Once you’d passed through the gate on horseback you stopped, and Criston pulled to a slow stop behind, wondering where you were going and why you insisted on doing these reckless things alone.

“Would you care to join me, Ser Criston?” your voice rang clear in the silent night though it was quiet, the only ears around for it to fall on being the horses and the named man himself as everyone sheltered from the cold. His breath caught in his chest as he realized he’d been caught, and not only caught but confronted.

“I am sorry, m’lady,” he breathed, urging his horse forward to join you at your side. When he came to a stop again he turned his head to face you, meeting your gaze and feeling the nerves lift from his chest at the sight of your smile. No one angry at him for following could smile at him so sweetly. “I thought since Ser Grandin protects the Princess, I might take his place. It will help me learn the area.”

Your smile widened and brightened your face, your eyes lightening as a small laugh fell from your lips. Once again he found breathing an impossible labor at the sound, and the playfulness your tone took only encouraged him. “You think me safer with you than alone, Ser Criston? Do Dornish even know how to walk in the snow?”

Your teasing pulled a quiet, short laugh from his chest as he shook his head, wondering where all of the politeness you displayed for him before your father and the Princess before had gone. “Perhaps not. But I’d like to learn.”

You smiled again and turned your horse back through the gate, heading back to the stables and motioning him to follow. “The first lesson is: your horse is far too small for the terrain we’re going, and isn’t used to the cold. You can borrow my brother’s horse, Titus. He is the gentlest of giants and will take good care of you.”

He followed behind immediately, mentally admitting he could feel his horse struggling in this new environment. Before long he was mounted on a considerably larger animal, white and easy to spot in the night, which you insisted was important going into the woods with you. As the two of you set off into the darkness again your wolf joined by your side again, the same black one that had supposedly belonged to your brother. He supposed you got away with things like this because few visited the North – but still, it was reckless.

“Your wolves are impressive animals, m’lady,” he complimented in a soft voice from beside you as you set off on a trail you knew well. “I remember Ser Grandin describing the bond between them as similar to dragons and their riders. Is this true?”

He caught the smile you offered his curiosity and the curt nod you provided before speaking, your tone and body language more relaxed now that you were beyond the walls. The leather pants you wore clung to your legs in a way he wasn’t used to seeing a woman dress, fur covering the majority of your torso with a hooded cloak. He was glad the cold wasn’t so bitter you had to cover your face, preferring you weren’t hidden from him.

“It is true, in many ways,” you explained, turning your gaze to him as you trusted your horse to continue down the path it had taken many times before. “While the direwolf can live a longer life than that of a normal dog, we certainly don’t share cribs with the animals and then grow old with them. But while Man Eater is alive, he will be my closest companion. He is only two-years-old and already I can’t imagine life without him.”

“You named the beast Man Eater?” he pondered aloud, an amused tone slipping through his words.

“As the middle-born daughter of the Northern Lord, I will never know any real power,” you started, feeling comfortable with his eager and genuine questions. “I have figured the next best thing is to see the fear on men’s faces when they see such a large animal named so fearfully. He enjoys scratches behind his ears and the occasional fruit.”

A genuine, loud laugh came from the Knight and you couldn’t help but join him, the sound of you two laughing tomorrow forming a beautiful chorus in the night. It was immensely validating for him to know the woman he’d spent 10 months pondering was worth every thought he’d given you, as you were turning out to be just as interesting as his mind had hoped you to be.

The conversation remained playful between the two of you as you made your way down the trail, Criston quickly coming to the conclusion that this excursion wasn’t for you to hunt, but instead simply enjoy the night. It had been a long time for Criston to be able to speak with such honesty with someone, and he found the casual conversation resulted in his hard exterior melting away to expose the man he was inside.

You were every bit as enamored in the man, enjoying his questions about your home and living in the North, hanging onto every word he offered about his own home when prompted. He grew to open enough to enter a comfortable banter with you, and soon the conversation was so casual and natural between the two of you, he was certain he could ride to Kings Landing and back before he grew tired of your company.

After several miles you announced it was time for the two of you to walk (if he felt like he could handle the snow, as if he could say no) the rest of the way, and he found himself hurrying to dismount his horse so he could reach for your waist to help you down. The brief feeling of your hips in his hands made him want to pull you in closer but he resisted, maintaining the gentleman’s mask and returning the smile you offered as he let you go. The flush to your cheeks at his firm touch did not go unnoticed.

As you tied the horses to a tree to secure them you instructed the large wolf to keep watch, throwing him the leg bone of a cow that you’d attached to your horse in offering. Before long the two of you were maneuvering on foot through thicker trees before you reached a frozen waterfall, turning to smile at him happily. “This was my favorite place to come when I wanted to get away as a child.”

The intimacy of what you were sharing with him sank in and he felt the smile that came to his face, glad he’d somewhat gotten the snow-walking down so he could keep up with you at a better pace as you made your way toward the frozen water. You reached a thin ledge next to one of the massive sheets of rock and began shimmying across it, making it only a couple of steps before he grabbed your arm, halting your movements.

“My lady,” he breathed out in a rushed tone, grasping onto you like you would slip away from him at any moment. “Have you always insisted on putting yourself in harm’s way, or is this a new hobby?”

“I have done this hundreds of times, Ser Criston,” you taunted, reaching across with your free hand to rest your leather-gloved hand against his. “I’d think that you would know that I can handle myself after you saw me hunt the moose at the young Prince’s name day just this year.”

His hand dropped from your arm as he cleared his throat in awkwardness, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to find a way to proceed, unable to form appropriate thoughts as every thought in his mind wondered how long you’d known. All he could bring himself to do was watch as you made your way across the ledge, disappearing behind the waterfall. Unwilling still to leave you alone, he hurried to follow after you, being just careful enough not to fall. Before long he had joined you in a small, icy cave where some furs and old books lay about. It was clear this was a place entirely your own.

“You said nothing about my presence for hours that night,” Criston finally pondered aloud when he joined you, only to be greeted in response with a small laugh.

“I had no clue what could even be said. I thought you were going to turn me in to the Crown…and today when I heard the dragon, I thought it was certain that you had finally confessed what you saw. I was, for a moment, afraid of what consequences I was to face. Of the shame I’d caused my house.” You were admitting deep feelings to him with no real understanding as to why it was so easy to do so. All he could do was watch you in wonder, brown eyes fixated on yours as he listened. “But Princess Rhaenyra doesn’t know, does she? You haven’t told a soul.”

“I haven’t told a soul. It is a secret I hold to myself.”

“Why? Why do you do that?”

You stepped further into the caves to coax him in with you, away from anything in the woods that could possibly hear the two of you and be disturbed. Your questioning did not come from a place of anger, he noted, and instead you sounded almost affectionate. It was easy to tell you the truth, no matter how shameful it was.

“I’m afraid I do not have an answer for you, m’lady,” he began, drawing in a deep breath. “I can’t begin to explain anything you’ve done to me since I saw you remove that helmet, or take down that moose with a single arrow from your bow, or walk down the stairs in that gown. I -”

His would-be passionate monologue was cut short as he attempted to step nearer, straying from your path and hitting an icy patch. His foot began to slip beneath him and as you stepped forward his hands reached out, grasping your hips and holding onto you tightly to steady himself, pulling you flush against him. Despite the thick furs and leathers you wore you could feel the cool of the metal from his armor, and it sent a chill down your spine, no matter how badly you wanted to be this close to him.

Your hands grasped at his armored shoulders, thankful for the thick gloves against the metal, in an attempt to steady him further. You smiled at his clear attempt to get closer to you, tilting your head back to look into his face.

“It must have been hard for you in the Dornish Marches since you’re so horrid in the snow. Isn’t it quite cold in the Red Mountains?”

This close, you found yourself unable to resist thinking about what his golden skin would feel like against yours, finding it near impossible to resist reaching forward to run your fingers through what looked like incredibly soft waves. A quiet laugh fell from his lips at your subtle accusation, his grip on your waist tightening slightly as he stood back to his full height.

“You’ll forgive me, m’lady. I couldn’t resist an excuse for time alone with you,” he conceded, silently admitting what you already knew in your heart. Over your clothes you could feel his thumbs rubbing circles into your hips, and whether he was aware he was doing it or not, you certainly made note of it. “I thought the Targaryens were interesting when I first met them, but they’re really all the same. You…are truly one-of-a-kind, if I may say so.”

Your cheeks burned despite the increased cold in the dark, icy cave – a near-impossible invitation for him to remove his gauntlets and reach out to touch them. He wondered if you would be cool or warm to the touch…he wondered if your lips would feel the same against his, about how soft they could possibly feel. Before he could give into a temptation there was no coming back from he withdrew, releasing a deep breath from his chest as you looked at him with a flustered look.

“It grows colder, m’lady. I should return you to the warmth of the castle before we both freeze where we stand.”

You didn’t fight with his logic, embarrassed by the moment you’d caught yourself in with the man. Withdrawing from him entirely you made your way back out of the cave, placing your hood back over your head as you awaited him to join you in the journey back to the castle. The awkwardness of the fleeting moment soon passed and the two of you found yourselves in a comfortable conversation once more as you made your way back to Winterfell. Every moment that passed with you he learned something new that made him wish he had connected his lips to yours, and yet, a small dutiful voice in the back of his mind insisted on reminding him of his vows.

He learned of how you’d learned to hunt and exist with the wolves, and how despite your slightly-older twin brother’s skill – you were undoubtedly the best in the family. While your brother had been wed for a couple of years now, one child already running free beneath his legs, you remained uncoupled.

“My betrothed was killed. In the Stepstones,” you explained, no sadness truly found in your voice. “It was years before we were meant to marry, but there have been no…suitable matches offered since. He was the future Lord Bolton, and my father…you met him. He is quite the intense man.”

“It is a shame to the realm if you do not find a suitable husband, m’lady, though I am inclined to agree with your father. Perhaps no man in Westeros deserves you.”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his continued playfulness, the serious moments between the two of you never lasting terribly long. As with most passage of time, the return to your home passed entirely too quickly, and all too soon it would be time for the two of you to part. It was only just before sunrise by the time you two made it back within the gates, taking advantage of the remaining darkness to place horses in their rightful places. You went your separate ways once inside, wishing one another a good night before retreating to a solitude that seemed much lonelier than it ever had before.

The following night, after you had slept most of the day away, gone for a brief hunt with Man Eater, and enjoyed a hot dinner standing in the kitchen alone, and relaxed in a hot bath, you found yourself wandering the halls of the castle in a light dressing gown, a long, elegant robe wrapped around you. The third time you’d entered the hall closest to the room he was staying in he was waiting there for you, full armor minus the helmet as per usual. Tonight, however, he wore a new wrap across his broad shoulders – the pelt of a red wolf. The view of the color set against his skin did nothing to satiate the thoughts you were harboring toward him.

You were not alone in your struggle. Your hair had dried as it naturally did after your hot bath, no braids hiding the locks from his full view. Your dressing gown and robe were black, making it perfect for holding in heat, and yet the sheer fabric left very little out of his sight. It was potentially disastrous of him to show you the appreciation he felt you deserved, and yet he was no longer certain of his normally unwavering self-control.

“I thought I might join you as I take a final look around the castle,” he explained, his eyes meeting yours in a hopeful gaze that was impossible for you to deny. Your lips curled into that beautiful smile once again, a nod of your head giving into him. He joined you at your side as the voice he’d missed across mere hours filled his ears once again.

“You may escort me back to my chambers, Ser Criston.” The smile on his face was unmistakable, a hopeful bubble rolling in his stomach at the mere thought of what you were intending by so clearly seeking him out. Still, he set a casual pace as the two of you walked, falling into your normal ease once again. “That is a fine fur you’ve been gifted with, Ser.”

“From your twin, m’lady,” he smiled, his head turning to meet your gaze momentarily. “While beautiful, I must admit a fox is a less impressive trophy than a large moose.”

You couldn’t help but smile at his flattery, his willingness to build your confidence, his acceptance of how you chose to live your life. While he expressed his unease and worry for your safety and future several times, he never seemed to push, seeming to understand your sense of adventure and that you could, certainly, control yourself. While the conversation flowed easily between the two of you like had become the norm between you, there was still a tension in the air – the tension of a kiss that didn’t happen. You took the longest route possible to return to your room, and once outside the familiar door, the conversation took a serious turn.

“The Princess received a raven this morning and we must begin our return to Kings Landing tomorrow,” he explained, the disappointment evident behind his voice and gaze. The frown that formed on your features immediately pulled at his heart, hating the feeling of being your source of disappointment. “But…she would like to invite you to be a guest of the crown this Spring, when the snow has lifted from Winterfell. Will you join us there for a tournament? I will partake and I would enjoy your favor.”

You blushed again and found a bashful giggle passing your lips, biting at your bottom lip lightly as you nodded in agreement. You turned your gaze to meet his, finding the excitement lightening his normal seriousness behind then, and you felt another moment of bravery, a moment you’d wished you’d had the night before. Reaching behind you you opened the door to your chamber, happy to immediately feel the heat from a recently-lit fireplace radiating from the room.

Stepping inside you beckoned him in, glad to see it didn’t require much convincing as he glanced around himself once more before following, closing the door quietly behind him. He was soon standing before you in front of the fireplace, the glow of the flames illuminating him in the most beautiful fashion.

"The Princess has requested my presence in the Spring..." you began, stepping closer to him as fixing your gaze on his once again. "But what of you, Ser Criston? Do you request my presence in the Spring?"

"I would request it sooner, m'lady," he explained quietly, giving into the feelings he was experiencing around you now that you were behind a closed door. His affectionate reply faltered your normally playful confidence and he found himself stepping forward to close the distance between the two of you. As he spoke next, you were already reaching for him before even being invited. "All the more reason for me to see you tonight."

Gently removing a gauntlet from his right hand, your eyes met his once again, dropping the heavy metal on the fur rug beneath your feet. The soft, cold skin of your hand greeted his in warmth as it soaked in the heat from his own skin, your fingers lacing between the two of you as he fought himself mentally, mind spinning with the possible consequences he could face if he gave into the desires you presented him with. Sensing his apprehension you rose on your toes to reach him, your lips covering his in an encouraging and earnest kiss. All rational thought melted at the softness of your lips against his.

He pulled his other gauntlet off himself then, desperate to cup your rosy cheeks between his hands as he returned your kiss, holding you to him as he fulfilled a waking dream that had clouded his mind for months. A happy sigh released from your chest and onto his lips as you felt him hold you close, the warmth radiating between the two of you as your hands found their way to the back of his head. Once they’d reached their destination your fingers laced into his slightly-curled locks, giving a light tug which you were rewarded for with a quiet, barely audible groan.

It was then he felt a bit too much of his remaining self-control falter, his hands sliding from your cheeks to slide under the thin robe covering your body, landing on your hips. The sheer material did very little to cover you from him and the warmth radiated from his hands against your cool skin, his fingertips digging in deeper as his tongue slipped into your mouth. The deepening kiss was too much for either of you to handle and in perfect synchronization you sank to your knees, following his lead as he pulled you to straddle his lap.

Ser Criston was not always talkative, and now was one of those moments as he focused his attention on enjoying this moment, on savoring what he'd craved since first seeing you all those months ago. Sliding his hands to push your night gown up your legs ever-so-slowly he took in the feeling of your soft skin beneath his fingertips, pulling back for a deep breath. As you took advantage of the moment to breathe he recovered quickly, immediately beginning to trail kisses down your neck.

The small whimpers that left your mouth put his mind in a fog, covering any voice within him that may had argued at the moment. Finding himself unable to resist curiosity again he leaned his head back to yours to reclaim your lips, slowly pushing your underwear to the side and running a finger along your slick folds, finding where all of the heat in your body remained. A groan left his lips again at the confirmation of how wet you were for him before he slipped that same finger into you experimentally, enjoying how you gasped against his lips but did not break the kiss.

All-too-soon he removed the singular digit, pulling away from your kiss to slide the finger into his mouth. A deep moan, combined perhaps with a growl, broke free of his chest as his eyes fluttered closed, savoring every drop you'd offered him. You were irresistible, almost as a forbidden fruit — he knew within his logical mind he could not have you and yet, he found it was the only thing he could yearn for. His mind flooded with scolding thoughts about his behavior, and yet he couldn't help but feel the action was worth it - no matter how badly it made him want more.

"You will be the end of me, m'lady," he cooed, leaning upward to press a kiss to your forehead before helping you back to your feet with him, making an obvious attempt to steady your breathing. As he escorted you to your bed he placed gentle kisses against your lips, desperately attempting to bury the thoughts that were begging to burst through again. "I will see you in just a few months' time, m'lady. Until the next."

With his absence, you immediately got to work rebuilding the emotional walls you usually fortified around yourself, unwilling to feel the emptiness and disappointment of him leaving in the morning. You would see Ser Criston again in the Spring.

Spring, 113 A.C., King's Landing

The half-a-year that passed before the Spring tournament in Kings Landing was excruciating, each day bringing a previously unimaginable level of longing forth in two people with weeks between them.

Ser Criston Cole was dutiful, as always, and fulfilled his vow to protect the crown day in and day out, but his duty was no longer the primary occupation of his mind. There was always the thought of you – always a reminder of your radiant smile, the whisper of your voice on the wind, the occasional mention of your House. Often, he wondered if thinking of you so often was his punishment for his temptation for you, because often it was akin to torture to have every moment so full of you, and yet so empty.

You’d never noticed how cold Winterfell truly was until Criston had left, taking with him what seemed like every bit of warmth. It went unnoticed by your family how frozen over you became, blatant and longer excursions into the forest becoming a pattern they were forced to adapt to. Time passed differently in the thick, lonesome darkness of the forest, and not knowing how long it had been since he had kissed you was often preferable. You were often desperate to forget how long you had to wait still to see him again.

It was the sweetest relief you had ever felt when Ser Grandin had announced the pair of you would set off for the journey to King's Landing in three days' time. When the raven arrived in the capital to announce that the young Lady of House Stark had embarked and was eager to join the Princess, Criston was present to hear the news. It was the most peaceful sleep he had been graced with in months to know you would be within his reach again soon enough.

It did anger him initially when the Princess flew on Syrax to a mid-way point to check-in with you and your Knight escort, because all his mind could focus on was the jealousy that filled him. When Rhaenyra returned to the castle and reported you were in good health and had bid her to tell him “Hello,” anger was the last thing on his mind. All he could think about from that day forward was the day he could return your greeting. The day you arrived is the day he knew his life was never going to return to what it had been before the young Prince’s name day.

It was the early hours of the morning when the call came to assemble in the throne room. Knowing what day had finally come made Criston rush through putting on his armor, wishing to get to his position as quickly as possible, unwilling to risk even a moment of missing you.

When your arrival was announced by Ser Grandin, your stomach was bubbling with excitement on the other side of the door, knowing you were about to see him again. When the door swung open for you and you stepped your way into the throne room, you were overjoyed to see that only a small assembly awaited you – with Criston within your sight immediately. It didn’t matter that he was covered by his helmet – it was him, you could run to him in seconds, and that was enough.

He could never forget how beautiful you were but seeing you again now it hit him all over again, the only image of you living in his memory. The familiar tightness in his chest returned as he took in everything about you, thankful his wandering eye was hidden from anyone who may be looking his way. You’d done the best you could in wearing your lightest gown, though your gowns had thus far been reserved exclusively for wear in the North, so even your lightest was too heavy. It trailed behind you, long and black, with your usual silver fox fur wrapped lightly around your shoulders, and your hair freshly washed and un-styled thanks to your travel with only a man. Criston preferred it this way and hoped it would remain such long enough for him to get you alone and run his fingers through it – though he knew it was doubtful.

You managed to resist averting your gaze to the one man you wanted to as you walked closer, ultimately sinking to a knee and bowing your head before the King with a light smile on your face. It made sense that your first smile would be for the King, but the jealous twist of Criston’s stomach was difficult for him to ignore – it should have been for him. When the King instructed you to rise Rhaenyra stepped forward, extending her arms to you for a light embrace. Being a Targaryen and being able to have and do exactly what you wanted was something Criston was finally growing to understand the envy of.

“Ser Criston,” came the familiar low grumble of Ser Grandin beside him, an impressively quiet arrival for such a large man. His voice remained quiet, reserved only for the member of the Kingsguard. “My Lady bids you good morning and wishes you well in the events today.”

Criston, once again glad for his helmet, smiled in content, reminded that no matter how important the people you currently held conversation with were, to you the best thing about being here was being close to him again. Absent-mindedly he took a step forward toward you before remembering himself, stepping back beside the Northern Knight. Instead, he settled on a quiet voice, taking what he could from what was presented to him. “Did she travel well, Ser Grandin?”

A barely-there laugh sounded in the other man, his tone mockingly annoyed. “She traveled well and eager. I could hardly get her to take a day of rest. Without me, she’d have arrived a week ago.”

He wouldn’t get a moment alone with you before the day began, but he was thankful for at least a moment with Rhaenyra, who had expressed that he should request your favor for the tournament. She had insisted on the matter, in fact, stating that it would be an excellent sign of friendship between the Crown and the North. When Ser Criston rode the first round of the tournament and won (naturally), he brought his horse around to where you now sat next to the Princess.

Helmet removed as he approached, he could now look you straight in the eye for the first time in half-a-year, and the simple action knocked the wind from him more than any lance could. A small smile played on his lips as he held your gaze, if only for a moment too long.

“My Lady,” he greeted, bowing his head slightly. The heat had created a layer of sweat over his skin, his hair slickening under his helmet, and the sight caused a blush to creep over your face. “It would be my honor to fight in your name today.”

The blush across your face deepened, a smile spreading just as quickly as you rose to your feet, walking to stand before the railing that separated you from him. Over the crowd, your verbal response was heard only from him. “If you are to fight in my name, Ser, then I should hope you win it all. I would hate for a loss to soil my name.”

The amused smile that spread across his features reached his eyes, a mischievous glimmer playing in the pools there. A stiff nod accompanied his words. “Yes, m’lady. I would not dream of tarnishing your good name with failure.”

As you reached for the longer of the two chains that hung around your neck, the contents at the end of the chain tucked within your dress, your eyes stayed locked with his in silent communication. There were no words to explain the happiness of seeing him once again, of feeling his gaze on you. You pulled the often-hidden necklace from your neck and handed it slowly to him, Criston immediately taking in the large tooth that was attached at the end.

“From my first kill,” was the simple explanation, the four words carrying enough weight for him to understand. This was important to you, and it was a much better token of your favor than any fine piece of fabric could be. Placing it around his own neck he tucked it under his armor, an appreciative smile falling on his features again.

“I will not disappoint, m’lady,” he promised, the glimmer in his eye growing with each second he looked at you. With a final smile he replaced his helmet, riding back to await his next round.

Losing was not an option for Ser Criston Cole during the day’s events. One could make a compelling argument that the man regularly went overboard on his opponents, none of them standing any real chance. The final round showed Ser Criston Cole facing the current Lord Bolton and remembering your former betrothed had belonged to that family, Criston took extra care to embarrass the man. The words he’d spoken to you rang through once more, his point proven – none of them were worthy of you.

Following the excitement was to be a celebratory feast in the castle with you as the guest of honor to the Crown and Ser Criston the winner of the day. As you made your way through the halls of the castle again beside your own escort again, you were soon in front of the door to your borrowed chambers for your time in the Capital. In front of your chambers, however, awaited the winner himself.

“I will take place at the end of the hall, my Lady,” Ser Grandin spoke, immediately turning to walk back to the end of the hall for a moment’s privacy between you and the Knight. As you rushed to close the distance between the two of you his helmet was removed, dropped to the floor with little care of the noise it would create as he welcomed you back into his arms.

The armor that separated him from you fully was an extreme annoyance but feeling held by him would have to be good enough, even if it was against metal. His forehead lowered to meet with yours in a tender gesture, both of you closing your eyes as a moment of peace finally passed over you.

“I have missed you, m’lady. You have haunted my every thought and dream since the moment I left you,” he whispered only for you, his hands sliding to your lower back to pull you closer.

“Each day was a week, and each week an eternity,” came the sweetest reply from you he could have imagined, his lips pressing to yours in a kiss while a quiet hum rang in his throat.

“The pain grew by the day,” he whispered, his lips moving against your skin as he found himself completely unwilling to pull away.

“I did not know a moment of true peace until I saw you this morning,” you admitted, finding sharing emotions with him came as naturally as breathing. Your own lips pressed against his nose gently, the soft action sending his senses alight. He stood there like that with you for so much longer than he should have, holding you and enjoying the mere fact of having you in his grasp again.

Eventually the light kisses to your forehead weren’t enough and he lowered his head to press his lips to yours softly in a chaste kiss, his hands sliding to hold the sides of your head gently. You returned his kiss happily, hands reaching to hold his wrists as a blissful sigh passed through your lips. He smiled into the kiss, pulling you closer momentarily before withdrawing, kissing your forehead once again as he went.

“If the Crown asks me what I would like for my win today, I will name you as my prize, m’lady,” he spoke, masking the honesty and yearning in his words with a lining of humor. “The Treasure of the North, all for myself.”

The laugh that fell from your lips was award enough for his efforts today, the light reaching your eyes as you stood on your toes to kiss him once more. You sank to your knees slowly and quietly, eyes never leaving his as your hand reached to grab the helmet he’d discarded to the ground before standing back up, placing the helmet back in his hand. “I will see you at the feast, Ser Criston.”

With a gentle squeeze to your hand, he fully released you, turning to exit down the hall as you stood in momentary silence before entering your borrowed chambers. After another cool bath to tame your body temperature you were joined by various handmaidens who all doted on perfuming and styling your hair, manicuring your fingernails, and helping you dress in a gown that had been sent by the Princess herself. Once the dress was secured and you were left alone to look at the results, you had to wonder if Rhaenyra had a plot of her own this evening.

The gown was so light and fine it seemed to flow about you almost as a liquid, the white fabric shimmering like snow with every movement you made. The arms and high collar were made up of a separate lace, sewn together by someone with care. Finally, a true sign of your house draped across your shoulders and upper back, the fur of a wolf shielding more of you from eyes that would pry.

“My Lady, the Crown will not thank you if you are late,” Ser Grandin’s rough voice greeted from behind you, his masked face waiting for you as you turned around. With a smile you clasped your hands together in front of you, eyes still shining with their normal mischief.

“Let us walk then, Ser,” you teased, your formal words pulling a laugh from your sworn protector’s chest as he held open the door for you. Once the two of you were well on your way to the gathering outdoors, he opted to voice his concerns with caution.

“You must be careful, my Lady,” he spoke plainly, knowing you would tell him to do so if he had asked permission. You turned your head upward to glance at him before carrying forward, waiting for him to continue. “That boy isn’t a nobody squire running around the halls of Winterfell, with only your father’s wrath to face. He’s a member of the Kingsguard, and Targaryens are not known for their forgiving nature.”

Pulling your bottom lip between your teeth your eyes glanced over to him, taking a deep breath to contemplate your words. “There’s no need to worry yourself. He is just nice company to keep, Ser Grandin.”

“Oh, he seems wonderful, my Lady,” he teased, leading you around the next corner. “The echoing sounds of your kissing in the hall behind me indicate he is very nice company indeed.”

A stifled giggle sounded from your lips as you shot him a pointed look which was met with nothing but the smallest smile as he walked through massive double doors to introduce you to those who had already assembled. When you followed behind you offered a small smile to the royal family, taking a knee and bowing your head slightly. With a delighted smile Rhaenyra invited you to rise and take the seat with her, and thus the feast could properly begin. It wasn’t long before the newest member of the Kingsguard removed his helmet, eyes meeting yours from across the room with a smile.

The feasts in Winterfell were never as lavish as anything the Red Keep could offer, and it was easy to indulge in the food and drink they had to offer to the point where when the dancing started, you were hardly sure if you could join. Rhaenyra insisted, of course, and as she was the heir to the throne it would not be wise to turn her down. Throughout the night you stole several looks at Criston whenever your eyes could find him, only to be pleased to find his eyes sought yours just the same. The stolen glances did not remain unnoticed, though the eyes that saw them did not care.

It was when he noticed the elder Lannister brother ask you for a dance that his fingers curled, hands balling into a fist as he watched you politely oblige the wealthy Lord – the wealthy Lord who could give you gowns, and castles, and children. Feeling the distaste that covered his face he placed his helmet back on, seething into the hot metal and unaware of the Princess as she joined at his side.

“The Lannisters may be wealthy, but they are certainly not graceful,” she joked, her eyes glancing upward toward the taller man. “You have no need to worry, Ser Criston. She seems quite taken with you, as well, I am certain your affections are returned.”

His helmeted eyes turned toward, his head facing her to communicate his seriousness. “I don’t have affections, Princess,” he responded coolly, turning his head forward again to watch your movements in secret. The Princess smiled, shaking her head slightly at his foolishness before facing forward herself.

“You should not lie to the Princess, Ser Criston. I must be able to trust you, after all,” she continued to joke, enjoying the subtle huff that sounded through the metal. The sound pulled a small laugh from her, the mischief glowing in her eyes as she pressed on. “You could just admit it, you know. I am someone who understands that cruelties of obligation.”

He did want to admit it. In his heart and mind, he knew that you were the answer to a question he’d long been asking, the tightening in his chest every time he thought of you confirming you were the woman meant for him. He had fallen for you in just over a year since he’d met you, your simple existence haunting his dreams and tormenting every waking moment of his life with the sheer reminder of you, just out of reach. And here now he wanted to admit it more – to stand on a table and proclaim his love for you; to grasp you away from the Lannister who was stalking around you like prey; to announce to the world that you were his. The woman to his side just served as a reminder as to why he could not.

“It is an honor to serve the Crown, Princess,” he attempted to bury it all again, only managing to pull his eyes away from you for a moment. The longer he dwelled on you, the more his mind strayed to the fact that for the first time since being chosen for his position he wanted to break the most important vow he’d ever made.

“It is a shame, then,” she started, finishing her drink as the Lannister placed his hands on your shoulders in an affectionate gesture. “There is a large bear in the Crownlands that must be handled. I had hoped to send you to address the task…with the assistance of our guests from the North. They are used to animals of its size, and her wolf could prove a worthy hunting companion.”

He was thankful once again for his facial coverings, knowing his mouth fell open slightly as he turned to look at the Princess, who was already facing forward again with that same playful smile on her lips. There was nothing to mask the surprise in his voice. “You would send me away with her and her knight to hunt a bear?”

“Oh, Gods no, Ser Criston,” she replied, the appalled tone to her voice obviously false. “I would hope that he will stay behind and the two of you can handle the beast yourselves. He’d just slow you down.” A proper response evaded him, instead removing his helmet once more so she could see the emotions behind his expressive eyes, silently questioning and thanking simultaneously. “I will take that as a yes. You will leave tomorrow before I can change my mind.”

With that the Princess left his side, removing you from the Lannister’s grasp with the request of joining her for a walk in the gardens with your wolf before turning in for the night. The Lannister was clearly disappointed but bowed his head respectfully to both of you before departing. To Criston’s joy, he caught the way your lips moved in a simple “thank you” to the Princess, presumably for taking you away from the golden-haired man. Criston watched as Ser Grandin joined the two of you from behind and resigned to finishing the events in the hall, content with having his thoughts to himself for a moment. The moments passed quickly with you burned into his mind, and before long his feet had once again carried him to the door of your borrowed bedchamber, the older knight excusing himself at his arrival.

A light knock startled you from where you sat brushing your hair, but assuming something was needed from you from your knight you pulled the thin robe around yourself before walking to the door. Criston’s handsome face was a much more pleasant surprise, and you felt the smile spread across your face immediately. His head bowed slightly in respect, a light smile playing on his lips as his gaze found yours as soon as it could. “M’lady, forgive me for the intrusion so late.”

“Ser Criston, have you come to claim your prize from your win today?” Your playful question was enough to draw him closer to you, his cock beginning to strain slightly under pants and armor at the mere insinuation of your words. His hand found your hip as his eyes glanced the length of the hall again before he leaned forward, placing a small kiss to your lips.

“I have come to ask for your company on a hunt in the Crownlands,” he began, certain he needed to get the question out before the logical side of his mind could take over his decision-making process. “Princess Rhaenyra says there is a large bear that is becoming troublesome, and it is her opinion that you would be valuable to take along…as you are used to large bears in the North.”

The smile on your face softened a bit, your nose brushing against his as you stood on your toes to ensure your closeness to him. He took some of the strain off of you by wrapping an arm around your waist tightly, holding you up and against him as gently as he could. He was certain the expression in your eyes mirrored his own, and somehow the fact made everything significantly harder. “When would you be whisking me away, Ser?”

“It would be nice to leave the city before the sun rises, m’lady,” he started, his free hand sliding to cup your face and hold you closer. “It is my preference that the city is still asleep when we ride through it. I would worry myself sick about you if it were awake.”

A soft kiss from you silenced his anxiety, your gentle lips coaxing him back to calm as he returned it tenderly. You couldn’t bring yourself to pull away from him, so you spoke your answer against his lips quietly. “I will go with you, Criston. I cannot worry myself over you getting eaten by a bear in your absence.”

Only hours would pass before you would be awoken by Grandin, the disapproval clear in his voice as he told you to get dressed and quietly join him in the hall. As the two of you walked through the castle together, he felt it was his duty to try to persuade you back into reason before he accepted your mind was made up, instead choosing to focus his time on giving you additional hunting pointers. The walk was leisurely in the early morning, and as Criston waited to be reunited with you, he waited in agony. These hours passing without you served as a taste of how it would be when you were taken back to the North, away from him again, and the thought was already plaguing him.

He’d almost convinced himself that you weren’t coming, imagining foolish scenarios where your other suitor from the evening had made his way into your chambers. It was a relief when you approached in the dark, a long and hooded cloak covering your body to conceal who was sneaking about the Red Keep at this hour. It made his stomach warm to think that you’d gone to all the trouble for him.

“Good morning, m’lady,” he greeted softly with a smile, his expression doing nothing to hide how happy he was to see you. Shrouded by the darkness and the stable walls he walked forward to claim your face in his hands, placing a much-needed kiss to your lips while his thumbs brushed over your cheeks. “You’re confident you still want to join me?”

His lips were still so close to yours they brushed yours as he spoke, and he could feel the smile that formed at his questioning. “Yes, Ser Criston. You’re not getting rid of me now.”

“I should hope not,” he relented, reaching to press his lips to your forehead. His thumbs brushed against your cheeks still, and you hoped that soon you’d be alone once more and able to feel the warmth of his skin against yours.

“Grandin left with Man Eater hours ago. They will meet us at the tree line, and he’ll return to the castle to guard my door for a few days…I am terribly ill and should not be disturbed, after all. The Southern heat getting to my delicate Northern self,” you explained, pressing your lips to his nose gently before pulling away. Climbing onto the horse waiting for you, already saddled and loaded with gear thanks to the man before you, you adjusted your hood to cover more of your face and waited for him to join.

The two of you set off before the sun had painted the sky, intent on making your way through the city before its inhabitants began bustling for the day. You were quiet while in the city, silently passing bread, fruits and cheeses back and forth along with your stolen glances. Once free from the clutter of the city and prying eyes, you were able to lower your hood and turn your head to meet his gaze fully with a smile.

“I am relieved to be alone with you again, m’lady,” he admitted, the seriousness that normally laced his tone still present but lighter now that he was removed from his responsibilities. You pulled the horse you sat atop to a slow stop, waiting for him to mimic the action. As he stopped and turned to face you, he was greeted with you removing the thick cloak, revealing the plain white blouse that you’d surely stolen from a brother and tight riding pants that hugged your waist. While the lack of armor showed more of a risk than he was comfortable with when it came to you, he was appreciative to see you how you were the most comfortable in the golden light of the morning sun.

Once you’d met with your trusted protector and reunited with your closest companion, Ser Grandin excused himself back toward the city as the new trio made their way into the trees, disappearing from prying eyes for however long you could get away with. The two of you rode that way for hours, side by side as you discussed your childhoods, your passions, your hatred. Criston found that these conversations only made him fall for you even more, the person hiding far beneath the surface deserving of much more than the world could offer you.

And for you, Criston represented everything you had dreamt of for your life. He had seen so much in his time in combat, already seen far more of Westeros than you probably ever would, and now held the opportunity to live a comfortable life alongside the Crown. He was charming, and consistently attentive to you as you spoke, his eyes giving away how entranced he was by your stories and his smile confirming his growing affection. You were the new center of his world, and he was unsure if he was willing to allow it to be off-balance ever again – he needed you to ground him.

The conversation was effortless as always and it seemed like no time at all before the sky began to redden, the sun beginning to set. As you dismounted your horse to set up camp with Criston in a small clearing you sent Man Eater out to hunt, keen on having him return to camp before it got terribly late. As Criston set in on the tent assembly you excused yourself to hunt for dinner, managing to bring three rabbits and some berries back to the camp in what seemed like no time at all. To your surprise, only one tent was raised – though you didn’t mention it. After nurturing a fire together and finishing a perfectly roasted dinner the two of you sat leaned against a large rock, a thick fur beneath you for comfort as you soaked in the warmth from the fire and one another. Eventually you leaned against him, soothed by the crackling of flames and warmth, only to be pushed away gently.

“I’ll…remove my armor, m’lady,” he stated, his words soft and gentle as his eyes met yours. Your bottom lip pulled between your teeth as you shook your head slightly, your hands slowly reaching forward to remove one of his gauntlets as it had already done so many months ago. His eyes stayed transfixed on yours as you began to work the armor free from his body, eventually leaving him clad in only a loose white shirt and black pants.

It was a test of his will to not claim your lips in his once again as those tender moments passed. Your soft hands lingered in too many places he wanted them to stay longer, his mind alight with the possibilities of being alone with you, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to silence his mind forever in this setting.

But it was your eyes – so soft and sincere and content to drink in every new inch of him that was exposed by the discarding of armor – that made him lean down to press a kiss to your lips. With no one else around to hear his words, he whispered against your lips the confession that had tormented him for so many months. “M’lady,” he began, the slight shake to his voice already showing itself despite his best efforts. “I must admit that you have plagued my thoughts all of these many months since we first met. It is causing me much grief; despite the happiness you bring me. I have never before questioned my vow the way I do now with you.”

Your hands found their way to either side of his face, the stubble growing there scratching against your thumbs as you ran them across the expanses of his cheeks. A sympathetic nod encouraged him to continue, his nerves faltering at your gentle demeanor. He swallowed noticeably, and you couldn’t help but wonder if he had ever spoken about his emotions like this with someone before. “I think of you every waking moment, and as if that is not enough torment itself, you also walk through my very dreams every night. Meeting you so many months ago…it has set my heart and soul on a path I fear I can never stray from.”

The smile that grew on your lips and reached your eyes was enough to comfort his busy mind, and when you leaned forward to press your forehead to his in his favorite intimate gesture, any resolve he had left melted away for whatever time the two of you would be allowed to share during the hunt. Tipping his head slightly his nose bumped against yours, eliciting a small laugh from your lips that could soothe even the wildest of dragons. Your voice was all cool and collected, a contrast to the burning fire felt in his chest at the closeness to you, at his untamed desire for you.

“I have heard it said often that one should not travel alone,” you began, choosing your words carefully as his lips gravitated toward yours ever-so-slowly. He was so close that when you spoke next, your lips lightly brushed against his – only coaxing him closer and closer to collapse. “Perhaps it is a good thing I have started down this path with you, as well, Ser Criston.”

It almost pulled a whine from his chest, the tenderness you displayed for him – the continued proving of his suspicion that he was brought into existence to love you. The curve of your lips in a smile was felt against his, your eyes gazing into his and sparkling like something forbidden. He spoke barely above a sigh, his mind more focused on other tasks for his mouth than talking. “You are a temptress, m’lady…”

His lips claimed yours then, swallowing the soft sound of approval that passed in the brief moment before you returned his heated kiss. His hands finally claimed your hips, pulling you against him firmly as goosebumps raised over his arms, the quiet whine now releasing from his lips at the feeling of you against him. Noticing your strain to reach him, he sank back to the ground, pulling you with him until you were straddled in his lap comfortably.

This was the first kiss that had been allowed to grow to this intensity between the two of you and was perhaps the first kiss in your life to leave you as breathless as this with a pounding heart. Sensing your need for air he released your lips, opening his eyes to appreciate the red hue to your cheeks before he began to lower his head, trailing gentle kisses down the soft skin of your neck. One of his hands hesitantly slid to start at the laces of your shirt and when you didn’t stop him, he continued until they had been worked free. His slow movements were soon mirrored by you and eventually snowballed until the only clothing that remained were thin undergarments, most of your skin barred to the cool night air.

He leaned you backward then, taking place between your thighs as he desperately sought your lips again, his tongue taking advantage of the quiet moan that left your lips to slip into your mouth. The heat pooling at your core so intensely it was making you desperate for friction, a sentiment echoed by him. Experimentally he ground his hips down into yours, his throbbing erection growing impossibly harder at just the feeling of rubbing against you. A newfound impatience overtaking him he thrust the black hose you still wore down your legs with one hand, seeking to reconnect his hand with your core immediately. He was encouraged by the soft moan the fell from your lips, your eyes opening to soak in the enamored look he gave you.

Running a thick finger through your drenched folds he ran his tongue over his lips, eyes transfixed on your face as he dipped the same finger into your awaiting hole just slightly. A quiet whimper and the gentle bucking of your hips into his hand encouraged the finger to sink in deeper, the solitary digit welcomed by warm, tight walls that were so sensitive they clenched around him tighter and tighter. When there was nothing more for him to add he curled the finger slightly, seeking to rub against the sensitive patch within you he knew was there from prior experience with women – all while he lowered his head to press gentle kisses across the expanse of your chest.

When he sucked the first of your nipples into his mouth the tip of his finger brushed against the spot, and his name passed through your lips in a reverent moan, a tone that would replay in his mind forever. Suckling the sensitive bud into his mouth he began to pump his finger into you, eyes flickering up to ensure your face displayed no hesitancy still, only to be met with your head thrown back in bliss. He knew, though, that he could do better – that he could bring you to the depths of pleasure that you deserved.

Releasing the hardened nipple from his mouth and moving to place a gentle kiss to the other, his kisses found the perfect trail down your soft skin by way of your stomach before he reached your hips, pressing a light kiss to each of them as well. With one last glance to your face, he lowered his head, almost hesitantly running his flattened tongue through your folds and to your clit and waiting for you to respond. The response he earned by the simple motion was almost a scream, your hands immediately grasping at the back of his head and fingers entangling in his curls. He couldn’t hold back the smile that formed on his face briefly before he continued in his chosen task, removing his finger to carry on how he wanted.

Running his tongue back through your folds he prodded at your tight entrance, licking around the hole to savor every bit of your honey-sweet nectar that had dripped from you for him. His hand slid higher to connect his thumb to your swollen clit, rubbing a gentle circle on the sensitive nub as his tongue fucked into you desperately, no taste of you enough to satiate his hunger. Your moans were readily soaked in by his ears, his quiet groans against you in response sending vibrations to your body that had your walls clenching around his tongue faster than anticipated.

Your thighs came in closer to his head, holding him where you needed him most as they began to shake on either side of him, your fingers clutching his hair tighter. As your breaths shortened and became laced – each one of them – with quiet moans at the end he knew his tongue was bringing you to ecstasy and his cock continued to grow harder in his underpants. His thumb rubbed more intense circles around your clit as his free hand reached to push the restraints down, moaning against you at his throbbing cock finally being free.

Pulling back slightly and reaching to suck your clit into his lips gently he began to jerk his cock hard, uncaring about the act itself and only focused on being able to reach euphoria with you. A whimper from your lips communicated your disappointment and his resolve nearly melted before he spoke. “I…want to finish with you, my love. Please…just hold on for another moment for me.”

Despite the frustration of remaining with one foot off the cliff and wanting to complete the dive, you did your best to hold on for him, fixating your eyes on his and silently communicating all of the thoughts you wished you could speak aloud. He connected his mouth with you again when he felt himself approaching the edge, rubbing your clit once again as his tongue fucked into you, desperate to drink whatever you would offer him for his efforts.

“Criston…I…I can’t…I have to…” you panted, your nails digging into his scalp slightly as you fought hard to remain composure so you could fulfill his desires. He nodded the slightest confirmation he could, glad once again to be alone with you as your moan echoed through the trees for him. Your thighs shaking again, your walls clenched around his tongue as he began to spill his seed into the furs, unbothered by the mess he was creating as he drank every bit of your orgasm from you.

When both of you had finished and exchanged several bashful glances and kisses, an unspoken adoration passing between the two of you, he rose to his feet with you in his arms to carry you toward the tent. It was at that moment Man Eater emerged from the shadows to tuck himself outside of the tent for the night, the sight a comfort as Criston laid you atop the elaborate arrangement of furs he’d laid before you. As you continued to fight for a steady breath, he laid behind you, pulling you back against him and nestling your body into the curve of his. As he had always suspected, your bodies fit together like art, and soon the most peaceful sleep of your memories passed over you both as a final kiss was pressed to your shoulder.

It came as no surprise when it only took a day to be successful in the hunt, the three of you becoming the perfect hunting team and taking down a particularly large and nasty bear with seeming ease. Both of you elected to camp again for the night, using the excuse that it was unsafe to ride through the night – though the truth was soon revealed as the activities from the night before repeated themselves, only changing to include you accepting as much of his cock into your throat as you could take. At that point he already held no doubt that he could never be without you again, but when you’d elected to swallow his seed – holding him to you with your hands on the backs of his thighs – he decided you were with whatever turmoil was going to come his way due to his actions.

The following morning the two of you had set out once again, returning to the Red Keep under the cover of darkness with the bear’s head and pelt carried by your horses, a vibrant glow on both of you covered by armor and cloaks again. Returned to his duties he immediately began to wish he could have prolonged the hunt with you, because from the moment Princess Rhaenyra heard you returned to the castle, he could not get a moment alone with you – and such was the trend for days. The tension began to build in the air around the two of you soon, and you knew that Rhaenyra had to have taken notice of the stolen glances when she would choose to ask you once again if anything interesting had happened on the hunting trip.

“It is treason to lie to the heir to the throne, you know,” she joked one evening over a private dinner with you, her eyes flashing with knowing mischief that matched her smile. With a quiet sigh and a giggle, you shook your head, taking another drink of the rich Southern wine in front of you as you met her gaze.

“I have often heard it said it rude to share ones’ personal…happenings with others, your Grace,” you replied coolly, your eyes meeting hers and communicating your shared playfulness. She raised an eyebrow knowingly and smiled, raising her glass slightly before leaning back in her seat. The words would remain unspoken, and whatever assumption the Princess made may have been wrong – but ultimately, any exaggeration would not remain untrue for long.

When she excused herself to her bedchamber for the evening, she requested for your sworn protector to join her, stating she had begun to feel comfort around the man. Not one to refuse the Crown or a friend you gave in immediately, and though you were believed to set off for your own bedchamber – Rhaenyra called over her shoulder before her exit the directions to get you to your true desired location. Without so much as a second thought you found yourself rushing to Criston’s door, eager to reunite with him privately again.

The light knock against his door pulled him from his bed with a groan, expecting to be forced to return to his duty far sooner than intended and with far less sleep than needed. Bare feet carried him to the door as he pulled a shirt over his head, fingers adjusting his hair into a more presentable state before he swung the door open. Rather than a handmaiden or knight, he was greeted with the face of the one person his chest swelled to see.

Your hair was completely untamed, wild around you in a way that indicated you’d attempted to sleep as well, only to be met with unease. The long gown you’d been gifted to sleep in was more like something from your own home in color – silver – but it was so light and thin it was almost like there wasn’t anything there at all. Seeing your wide, wondrous eyes staring up at him with desire just outside of his door was the final spark needed for the flame that had been forming for over a year now to engulf him.

His hands reached for you before he could give himself the chance to be talked out of it, pulling you into his chambers and against his chest as he connected his lips to yours. Wrapping an arm around your waist and holding you against him he smiled into the kiss as he reached his free hand to lock the door. Your voice was already breathless and light, quiet and unsure in a way he hadn’t heard from you before.

“I couldn’t stay away,” you confessed on his lips, leaning your head back as he began to trail his kisses to your jaw, breathing in the combined smells of florals and furs that was so entirely you.

“I didn’t want you to, m’lady,” he confirmed, sitting on the bed when it hit the backs of his knees and lifting you to sit in his lap. Straddling his thick thighs required the gown to slide up your body, baring your thighs to him once again which were quickly claimed by his hands with a firm squeeze. His hands trailed up, sliding until they cupped your breasts eagerly. “What can I do for you, my treasure? What brings you here at this hour?”

As his thumbs lightly feathered over your hardening nipples you gasped, your eyes wide and dark with lust as they met his gaze again. He brought his lips to yours in a soft kiss, encouraging a response from you, needing to hear the confirmation of your desires. Your voice was already little more than a whimper, the intensity of his gaze alone enough to melt you. “Your tongue is better suited to occupations other than speaking, Ser Criston.”

Your gentle teasing pulled a laugh from him, the words you’d chosen enough. Desperate to be reunited with the taste of you he grasped your hips, lifting you once again to push you down onto the bed on your back, pulling you so your lower half was barely on the soft fabric. He stood for a moment still, pulling his shirt back over his head and tossing it to the side with little regard as to where it landed. Your gown would have to be removed eventually, but for now he was content to roll it up to your waist as he sank to his knees on the hard ground.

Suddenly shy again you kept your legs together, a quiet gasp falling from your lips as he leaned forward to run his warm lips up your right leg, his left hand following suit on the other. When he reached your knee, he gave a light nudge to push them open as he pressed a kiss just above your knee, silently begging for access. When your legs fell open at his bequest he inhaled, running his lips up your thigh as he sought out your already-dripping cunt. Keeping his right hand on its hold at your hip, his left found your core first, his index finger sliding against your folds tenderly to gather up the slick that had begun to pool between your legs.

“All this for me?” he pondered, trailing his kisses higher and higher as his finger barely dipped into you. A quiet moan slipped from your lips at the slight entry, a broken plea spoken into the night. You felt his lips curve into a smile as he placed another kiss tenderly against your thigh before turning his head to flick his tongue across your swollen clit as he buried the remainder of his finger in you.

His name fell from your lips again, louder this time, and was thanked with a groan of his own as he connected his lips around your clit, sucking gently on the sensitive nub as his finger curled within you. His new driving force found in hearing you come undone for him, he set out on his task with insatiable enthusiasm. Adding a second finger to you slowly elicited another gasp from you, his thick fingers beginning to work you open as his lips sucked against your clit gently, his tongue flicking in perfect sync with the movement of his fingers. You’d missed his mouth on you and it took no time with the combination of his fingers to make your thighs begin to shake, your breaths coming breathy as you approached an orgasm.

“C-Criston, please…” you whined, your eyes rolling into your head as he removed his fingers, making your upset at the loss of him known. He moved his hands quickly to flip you over, adjusting your position so you stayed up on your hands and knees while he pushed a pillow under your face.

“Bite, my love,” he instructed, brushing the hair out of your face and ensuring you’d still be able to breathe. “We can’t wake the castle while I drink everything I can from you.”

Any negativity you’d felt at the loss of his fingers was soon buried as he dipped his head again, licking a thick stripe against your folds before fucking his hot tongue into your leaking cunt. His fingers that were still slickened with your arousal reached around to rub your clit as he groaned into you, savoring how sweet you were for him and falling impossibly harder for you knowing that seeing you like this was a privilege all to himself. With his objective in sight, he wasted no time tipping you over the edge, grasping at your thigh as you gave him exactly what he wanted yet again.

His tongue eagerly swept up every bit of your nectar that he could find before he sucked against your clit once more, his eyes seeking to connect with yours as he flipped you over again. Instead of being met by your gaze he was gifted with the look on your face as you glowed with pleasure for him, your eyes closed in euphoria as your chest fought to catch breath. A gently placed trail of kisses to your lips gave you the time you needed, and by the time he reached your lips he was desperate. Your hand reached to find the laces of his pants and instead found his hands already there, untying and working to free himself of the restraints.

As you began to remove yourself from under him, intent on crawling down his body to wrap your lips around him once again, one of his hands reached to still your movements, pushing against your chest lightly to keep you lying back against the bed. His voice was barely above a growl as he gave into the desires he had vowed not to. “It’s not enough.”

Biting at your bottom lip as he stood from the bed to remove his pants your eyes found his again, the gentle affection blossoming in them enough to reaffirm the decision he’d made. Crawling onto the bed and back between your legs he pressed several gentle kisses to your lips as one of his hands cradled the side of your face.

“I would have never taken my vow had I known you were in the world,” he breathed, his forehead leaning against yours in the intimate gesture that was becoming a repeated motion for the two of you. As both of your eyes fluttered closed, he reached to rub the head of his cock against your folds, gathering up enough slick to well lubricate himself.

“Whether you take me or not,” you began, your voice laced with a quiet whine as he continued to rub his cock around your entrance, his breaths becoming heavier as his mind became fogged by you. “I am yours, Criston.”

The vow that fell from your lips shattered any promise he’d made before you, slipping into you without another thought with a quiet groan as his lips connected with yours. You returned his kiss the best you could as you gasped, feeling him stretch your walls as he exercised just a bit more patience to claim each inch of you slowly. Stretching your walls inch by inch he soothed you with soft kisses, quietly muttering praises as he worked his way into your impossibly tight cunt.

“All mine,” he finally confirmed as he bottomed out within you, moving to press his lips to your forehead as he stopped his movements to give you any time you needed to adjust. As one of his hands found your hip the other slid up your body until it rested at the side of your neck, holding you close as he finally fulfilled what he most desired.

It took a moment, but finally your body gave into him and relaxed, one of your legs moving to wrap around your waist to encourage him in just slightly deeper. The simple action brought forth a groan from his chest as he ground his waist against yours, desperate for movement between the two of you. His lips lowered to yours again as he slowly dragged his cock out of you to the head before tenderly sliding back into your wet heat. As his tongue dove into your mouth, he swallowed the moan that came from your chest, his hand on your hip grasping tighter and he repeated the motion again.

After several slow, rhythmic thrusts the head of his cock found the extra sensitive, spongy patch deep within you that elicited his name from your lips. Finding the spot several more times caused your walls to tighten around him slightly, his control faltering as he pulled away from the kiss to catch his breath as he stilled for a moment. His voice was low and breathless as he slowly circled his hips again, grinding down into you rhythmically.

“No one will keep you from me,” he promised, his new vow spoken into the night and followed by a groan as he increased his pace into your dripping cunt again. Sliding the hand that rested on your neck up further and into your hair he pulled you into another kiss, a breathy groan covering your lips as your walls tightened around him again. “Fucking…exquisite,” he breathed out, his other hand sliding to raise one of your legs over his shoulder. The deeper angle pulled a deeper, more primal groan from his chest as he seemed to push in impossibly deeper. “Oh, gods, I could bury myself in you every day…”

You found yourself unable to respond to his praise with adequate words, instead thanking his kindness and showing your appreciation of the new angle by moaning his name and nodding in agreement. Tightening his hold on your ankle and burying his face in your neck he began to thrust into you again, releasing a wanton groan into your neck as his lips curved into a small against your skin. A shaking hand belonging to you raised to push his chin up, claiming his lips in a kiss again before your fingers slid back into his hair. The heat of your kiss melted his smile and was returned with immediate passion, as would every kiss you offered him from there forward.

As your thighs began to shake around him again and your walls squeezed him slightly tighter, your breaths becoming more desperate, he knew the end was approaching for you just as it was for him. As he removed his lips from your kiss to lean his forehead against yours once again, he was greeted with the ethereal sight of you glowing for him, your mouth falling open in bliss as he slid a hand to connect a thumb to your clit and rub leisurely circles.

“Criston…I…”

“Yes, my love,” he moaned, picking his pace up again as he nodded, breathing out heavy onto your lips. His thumb began to work faster circles on your swollen clit as he positioned his cock to slide against the sweet patch within you, pressing gentle kisses to your lips as he coaxed another orgasm from you. He knew it was wrong, completely so, and yet he couldn’t stop his mind from wandering toward a future of possibilities, of the possible consequences of his broken vow; of watching you swell with his child. As your walls clenched him impossibly tighter your orgasm washed over you, your combined moans were swallowed by his kiss as he spilled himself within you, unable to hold himself back.

When he’d finished painting your quivering walls he leaned his forehead down against your shoulder, holding himself up so he didn’t crush you but clearly unwilling to pull away from you. His mind wandered to the possibility of soon seeing you swell with what would be his bastard child, and he immediately felt guilty knowing that you deserved far better than the life of a woman with a bastard child. Even still, he couldn’t deny the truth that was that he wanted to see you birth his child – a thought that had him leaning to press repeated kisses against your lips in adoration.

Though he still fought for completely normal breath, his new vow was spoken with purpose and taken as gospel by the one person he could truly ever devote himself to.

“I will find a way for us to truly be together, my love. I swear it.”

masterlist.

#ser criston cole #criston cole #criston cole x reader #criston cole smut #criston cole fanfiction #house of the dragon smut #house of the dragon fanfiction

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phagethemage · 3 months

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"Their smile, the Morning Dew"

Their smile is much like the morning dew

Something so fleeting yet easily admired

You would woke early in the morning

Going about your way not giving a second glance

Life is always so terribly rushed

Yet on an unexpected day of rest you may awaken slowly

Walking out to see the glimmering field of dew

Graciously there to greet you as the sun shines upon it

Session after season, always there

Whether fresh from rain

A gentle morning fog

Perhaps even in the frost of winter

Much like the morning dew, their smile may seem a constant

Something ever existing regardless of the passage of time

Yet, moment after moment, their smile may be shining

A glimpse of warmth and comfort

Joy and peace

That is indeed fleeting in time

Why wouldn't we wish to pause everything and savor seeing it

Something so simple yet blissful

Just as any morning, that begins with the shining

Of the morning dew

I cherish those moments

Do you?

#poetry #my work #my writing #my post #hope you enjoy it #happy Tuesday i suppose

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pcttrailsidereader · 1 year

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Surprises and the Unexpected

Everyday each of us encounter the unexpected or a flat out surprise. The weather report suggests rain but the sun didn't get the memo and the day is gorgeous. My phone messages me that someone from my past is trying to reach me or I think I can only do this but am surprised by doing so much more. Imagine that! Surprises and the unexpected...

Over all of the years I have been walking the PCT there have been more surprises and unexpected outcomes than I can completely cover here. Here are a couple of the more notable.

My earliest surprise on the PCT took place south of Snoqualmie Pass back in the summer of 1981. My hiking companions and I had seen the weather turn from summer like to what seemed early winter like. A fog rolled in and got so heavy that it was more a light rain. Visibility deteriorated. We were hiking in snow and in the foggy whiteout conditions we had lost the trail. We split up in search of our route. Here is where the surprise occurred. I took a step on what I thought was more or less solid snow and suddenly was on my back sliding downhill. I went over a cornice and continued a short distance before I stopped by digging my heels into the softer snow. Once I stopped I went through a silent checklist of my body. All appeared fine much to my delight. Jim and Rees must have heard me as I sailed down. I was likely uttering something close to a scream. They called out, "Are you alright?" I called back, "I am okay, but don't come this way!" Later and ever since we have had some real laughs over that call and response.

Fast forward several decades and I am still chipping away at the PCT with the hope to finally complete all the sections. My friend Billie had joined me in Tehachapi to walk to Walker Pass. Along the way our first surprise was getting snowed on May 1st...an honest to goodness May Day! As in "we might be in trouble here". We weren't but we were cold, wet, and used up a lot of calories staying warm. We overcame the challenge and carried on down the trail. That was a kind of pleasant surprise.

The real surprises happened as we arrived at Walker Pass and afterward when we got to Bakersfield to eventually go home. At the pass some trail angels had set up a classic reception for PCT hikers. It was fun to get in on that and share the experience with Billie. We even snagged a ride from one of the angels to where we could catch a bus to Bakersfield. A series of surprises unfolded before us.

Bakersfield gets a lot of bad press. In this case it won me over. Once we got settled in our accommodation, showered, did some laundry and had some food we were ready to wander around town. Off in the distance was a notable landmark of a tallish tower sticking up with the word FOX on it. Our curiosity led us in that direction. The tower belonged to the historic Fox theater. There were at least two big busses parked in the street outside along with a crowd of milling people. We couldn't quite make out what was going on.

Fox Theater Bakersfield

We noticed stenciling on some packing boxes with NYCH written on them. Asking around we soon realized NYCH was Neil Young Crazy Horse. Young is one of my favorite musicians and Crazy Horse is his long time back up band who are equally incredible. We were feeling like we were so close but so far away from getting in on what was a unique and totally unexpected concert. Surprisingly two tickets became available for a reasonable price. We jumped at the chance and the rest is history.

NYCH...

Surprises happen. Some say "expect the unexpected" and those are good words to live by. The Pacific Crest Trail is full of surprises no matter how much pre-planning one does. Anyone you talk to who has spent any time on the trail will likely share a surprise or two of theirs with you. Surprises come at unlikely moments and from unlikely places. If they were expected they wouldn't be surprises and it is those experiences that help punctuate the time we spend on the trail. I have a few more surprises to share in future posts and maybe you have a few of your own. Please share them with us so we can post them here. You can contact us at: [email protected]

#Walker Pass #Bakersfield #Snoqualmie Pass #Neil Young

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fict1onallyobsessed · 2 years

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Raining White

Nᴇʙᴜʟᴀ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

Sᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ - she’s never been to earth

Much like Gamora, Nebula had barely been to earth. At least not enough to know that every couple of months, the weather depended on the way the earth was tilted.

So when you and the rest of the Guardians got invited by Tony to the Avengers compound for a week, she was highly confused at the whiteness and coldness of everything. She didn't say anything to anyone when she stepped off of the jet, but was clearly confused. She looked down, brows furrowed as her feet walked through the thin layer of snow. It was deep enough to make half a shoe disappear, but not enough to actually make a snowman.

Not yet anyway. Winter in America was unexpected, so there was a chance that it snowed later was high. You looked over your shoulder, watching as Nebula watched the snow make a path from the jet to the front doors of the compound. The sound it made surprised her too. It felt funny under her feet, the indescribable crunch of the white blanket hovering over almost everything made her look up at Gamora, Peter and you who were way ahead of her.

You gave her a smile, waiting until she caught up with you. Eventually, she did, walking beside you silently while staring at the trail her feet left in the snow. You just admired the way her eyes lit up, confusion clear in her face despite the silence she kept. You decided to wait until she asks to explain, purely because of how intrigued she looked.

The Avengers greeted each one of you, leading you to your designated rooms to unpack and get comfy before you could go and spend some time with the team. When you walked to the main area, Rocket and Groot were talking to Bucky, who's brows were furrowed in some type of offense as he cradled his metal arm close to his chest. Natasha and Gamora were talking on the sofas, so you decided to join them.

“Hey,” Natasha smiled just as you fell onto the leather sofa. The three of you started talking about the month that you hadn't seen each other, but the longer Nebula didn't turn up, the more confused you became.

You looked out of the massive penthouse windows, watching as white spots of snow fell down onto the window and instantly melting. You instantly thought of Nebula and the idea of her watching the snow fall for the first time made you smile.

You'd have to show her later when it happens again. The group soon departed into their rooms, tiredness now settling in. Yet, there was still no sign of Nebula. You brushed it off, thinking it was just her being tired so you also made your way to your room, getting your outfit ready for tomorrow and finally falling asleep.

The light from your window woke you up pretty early. Deciding it was all you were gonna get, you stood and got changed, heading for the kitchen almost immediately after to get some food into your system. To get into the kitchen, you had to walk through the room with the big windows, and to your surprise, Nebula was already awake.

You halted for a second before slowly making your way to her, standing silently beside her and watching her wide eyes. Her breath almost fogged up the glass with how close she was, staring at the snowflakes descending onto the floor.

You knew she noticed your presence because he looked at you for a moment before looking back into the outside. You smiled, grabbed her hand and gently pulled her closer to the lift where you pressed the button to the first floor where you could take her outside.

"Where are we going?" She asked just as you reached the doors.

“Outside, duh." The main doors opened and your nostrils caught a whiff of the coldness that floated around, your face already stinging red from the temperature change. Nebula looked up amused, scanning her surrounding before walking into the whiteness that consumed the whole land.

"Why does it rain white here?" She asked. kneeling and picking up some snow with her fingers. “Gamora showed me pictures and it wasn't this white. It had colours and the trees had leaves."

You chuckled, watching at the woman before was totally pulled into the idea of snow.

“It's snow." She looked over her shoulder, confusion written all over her face again.

"Basically once a year, for a couple of months, the weather is so cold that it freezes the rain as it comes down from the clouds.”

She still played with the snow, getting a handful and forming a ball. You noticed what she was doing and did the same, quickly throwing it at her before she could to you.

"HEY I WAS GOING TO DO THAT!" She huffed right before throwing the snow at you. You giggled, collecting more snow and forming a ball to throw at her. After about 3 hours out in the snow, the front of the compound was a mess.

Snow was pilled up in certain areas while in others you could somehow see the grass. Gamora and Natasha looked at the two of you, laughing your asses off while making a snowman which just seemed to always want to fall apart.

“They're dumbasses."

“They’re cute,”

THE END

Taglist: @emily0013 \\ @xxromanoffxx \\ @emilyprentisslittlewhore \\ @d14n4ol \\ @marvel2024

#nebula x reader #nebula #guardians of the galaxy #guardians of the galaxy x reader #nebula Mcu #mcu x reader #mcu x you #mcu x y/n #gotg vol 3 #gotg x reader #incorrect gotg #gotg #gotg vol 1 #gotg fic #gotg vol 2

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cherrysung · 4 years

Text

pairing: soulmate!jaemin x reader

genre: guardian angel au / fluff / slight angst

warnings: language, sad themes, character death (car crash), suggestive (not explicit, I suck at smut), my shitty writing (I’m so sorry)

summary: the glimmering boy from the accident would often visit you in the depths of your dreams with eager eyes, your imagination the only place where he could allow you to see him. that is, until you finally became an adult.

word count: 10.2k

note: this is my first time writing a long fic, it might seem rushed or confusing but I’m sure I’ll improve with time, so feedback will be greatly appreciated. anyways, I truly hope you enjoy the story from the bottom of my heart! also, thank you @glossyjaems for hyping me up on this!

cherrysung’s navigation

The rain poured violently, hitting the car windows in near agression as you mindlessly watched the drops race down, ‘till they eventually disappeared from your view. The roads were hugely engulfed in a sea of haze, and it was complicated to decipher the direction in which the car was heading towards, amidst all the fog surrounding. You remember a gentle song playing quietly from the radio, and if it weren’t for the furious banging of the weather, you’d be fast asleep. Asleep, in the warm arms of your mother, who held you so dearly. No one expected what was to come. The anxious stirring from your father, the deafening crash, the cries of the woman who now held you tightly with fear, or the pitch black darkness that consumed everybody in an instant.

Four years, you were only four years when you lost your entire family; and you were supposed to leave with them. Softly, the song kept playing, when you caught a gleaming silhouette in the distance. Just like that, consciousness slipped away from you.

Years went by quickly, time left but memories stayed. The helpless screams of your father and your mother’s tears that fell onto your chubby cheeks; you remember them vividly. You thought memories were supposed to be cherished, but yours only managed to haunt you every progressing day of your life. A life that was meant to be taken away from you, a life that was meant to be spent with your loved ones. You lost one option for the price of the other and you weren’t sure what was worse, there was no way an answer from something as intricate as existence could be obtained. All you knew was the shimmering light before blackness tugged at your vision. Tall, lean and majestic; you wished it would’ve been one of the few memories that did stay, but it seemed like it was fading away more and more as the clock ticked by.

Attached to several tubes and beeping machines, you had woken up disoriented that day, completely unaware of your surroundings. So confused, you couldn’t even process or fathom what just had happened; the death of your parents, or the cuts and bruises that stung your delicate, baby skin. A nurse was walking by the room you were in when she noticed the small of your figure sitting up on the hard hospital bed, immediately bursting through the door with shock plastered on her young face.

You were not expected to survive a coma. You were not even meant to survive a deadly car crash. No one was really expecting you to wake up. In the midst of all the chaos that had eventually formed by the surprised nurses and hospital staff, you could only stare through the small-framed window, at the bright spark that shined outside in the empty streets. Only for your eyes to see.

Growing up with your grandparents had its perks. They were very pure beings; always trying the best they could to keep a content smile on your bruised face, always trying to show you the love their own children couldn’t. Their mythical, fantasy tales were your favorite; the ones where everything and everyone was magical, where anything could happen because suddenly animals and plants could talk, and the Earth wasn’t as soulless. Your lovely storytellers successfully distracted you from the harsh truth, that an innocent child like you had to learn at a very young age their family; the woman who birthed you and the man who held you in his arms for the first time, were gone. Just like they had left, the time came where their own parents had to step off the journey of life, too. This time, you were fully alone to face the frightening reality and malicious threats of those who weren’t happy. Fifthteen years old, you were now totally by yourself.

Or so, you thought.

Forming part of your grandparents’ usual anecdotes and short stories, was the tale consisting of soulmates. Soulmate, someone destined to be by your side forever. You knew they loved talking about myths and legends, so believing that something as harsh as life already had prepared an individual to cherish you, seemed impossible. More so, when it took your parents from you in the worst way possible. Naturally, you brushed the thought aside despite your grandmother’s last words, asking you to wait for the letter, one that was soon to come. You didn’t know what she was talking about, and quite frankly, you were too distressed to care; helplessly watching the world take yet again, someone from you.

Every night after the accident that almost took your life, images began forming in your head. What were images turned into short dreams, and soon, they were a common occasion every time you slipped off into slumber. After giving a final goodbye to your grandparents, those visions only seemed to increase. There, you would always meet him. The boy with excited eyes, somehow he always appeared remarkably delighted to see you, although you couldn’t understand why. Who was he? Why was he in your nightly thoughts all the time? You didn’t know, but you didn’t mind either. He was divine, always formally dressed in a white suit; black, lustrous shoes and hair combed back so carefully accompanied by a slight part enough to show some of his forehead. A person so tremendously handsome, you usually wondered how your young mind was even able to create such a heavenly man.

You never failed to meet him in your dreams. Enveloped by all the loneliness you had been left with, you looked forward to see him until the sun decided to rise from within the towering mountains and over the vast horizon; the sultry warmth of a new day bringing you out of the place where only the two of you knew. Life was mostly dull unless you were having your fair share of time with the celestial boy in the depths of your imagination.

Age seventeen came through, gifting you with the fading of majority of the scars that had been left on your skin as a daily reminder of what happened years ago. One of them, though, chose to accompany you forever. It was fine, you assured yourself, no matter how dark it sounded, it was the closest thing to your parents that you had. Rather than despising it, you’d enjoy it.

The town you lived in wasn’t all that special. It was small and far from the bigger cities, home to a low population of friendly people. Everyone knew each other; and everybody knew what happened the winter of 2006, when your parents died. The year your whole world came crashing down; like the angry ocean waves would hit at the random, jagged rocks that stuck from beneath the water. In spite of the tragedy you had to endure, nobody treated you with shameless pity, and instead taught you that yes; life can be threatening, but it can also be marvellous. You realized that living is unexpected; one day you’re breathing, the next one you could be gone. It’s difficult to accept the fact that everybody’s fate is exceptionally different. Sometimes they might leave with pride, sometimes they might leave with fear. Of course you didn’t know what the world had in store for your future, but you certainly didn’t want to keep drowning in your sea of miserable grief.

Sighing, you put an end to your train of thoughts as you plopped down on your bed’s soft mattress. Your grandparents’ wooden house was the same as it was the day they left; cosy, warm and vintage. You would often dream here about what the actual cities looked like, your last time catching the bright, colorful lights being the same day of the accident. Grandma didn’t want to tell you much as she usually avoided describing the occurence in detail, but she did admit you were on your way to visit her and the rest when the early winter storm caught up with the unplanned trip. Maybe, if your father would’ve chosen to spend one last day at your old house, they would be here today.

The endless questions and memories that consumed you everyday were enough to lull you off into a deep sleep.

Suddenly, everything around you looked magical and extraordinary in the sea of green, healthy grass that kissed at your bare feet oh so tenderly. Several flowers that accompanied the slightly flowing ocean of emerald were colorful; blues, pinks, yellows, purples. Every single shade thinkable was present. A sky so heavenly azure, and a small amount of white, fluffy cotton clouds decorating it beautifully. You discovered, you were no longer in reality. You were in your dreams. Far off in the distance, your eyes spotted the same white suit you had grown accustomed to seeing, and your feet immediately headed in the direction of the clean attire. There he was, the same boy who was nothing but absolutely ethereal, sitting on the soft field of tulips and roses under a large oak tree. He didn’t have to search to know you were there; he felt your presence from miles away, even when you were not meeting him in your lovely thoughts. After all, he had always been there with you. You just weren’t aware of it.

Despite the tall grass that occasionally tangled with your feet, you reached him easily, quietly taking a seat next to him on the velvety ground. “Hello.” He simply greeted, still looking off into the horizon as he slowly grazed his hands through the flowers surrounding him. Features so enchanting, his face looked like it had been sculpted and carved by the gods themselves. A defined nose and jawline, narrow eyes that only conveyed pure compassion, with a final touch of the smoothest skin you had ever seen before. He was literally glowing with beauty.

“Hi,” you replied shortly with a small smile, “we meet again.” He turned to glance at you, his eyes surveying lightly over your own features. He thought you were breathtaking.

He slightly nodded his head, the setting sun offering a nice dew to his warm skin. “We do.” A pause took over, and you wondered why he was so quiet today; usually, you were used to him being more talkative, even flirty. Before you could say anything else, he spoke up with a graceful smile. “You’re turning eighteen soon, right?” You could only nod, a huge knot forming in your chest at the thought of spending yet another birthday without the company of your family, you wished they would’ve been able to watch you turn into an adult. “Don’t be sad, just because they’re not with you physically, doesn’t mean they’re also not with you emotionally. If you think about it, they have never left.”

It had become a common feeling to be taken aback by his sudden rightful guessings of your thoughts. You never understood how he was able to tell what you were currently thinking, and honestly, it didn’t seem like you’d ever know, for his answers had always been along the lines of having a strong intuition.

By now, the bright sun had almost completely set behind the horizon, engulfing the vast grasslands with warm hues of oranges, yellows and reds; while the quick approaching night brought with itself a sea of blues, purples and pinks. The colors mixing together created a stunning evening sky, a view so captivating you could misinterpret it for a famous Italian painting. “I guess you’re right,” you agreed with his previous statement, “but I just wish I was able to spend a day meant to be so special with my family. In the flesh, I mean. I’m tired of spending my birthday by myself. Turning eighteen was supposed to feel exciting, but I can’t seem to find eagerness anywhere within my emotions when I know I’ll be on my own again.” Exhaling with slight disappointment, you softly pulled at a honeysuckle beside you and allowed yourself to savor the sweet taste of the nectar that it gingerly left on your tongue. You wondered if there was anything else more sugary than the tasty honey of the tiny flower.

“I understand.” He replied with a slight nod as he watched you grab another honeysuckle. Then, he did something he had never done before, and his hand grasped yours delicately. You were certain this was only a dream, still, you could feel him. You could feel his skin and the warmth that radiated from his hand, along with the creases on his much bigger palm. Somehow, the skin there wasn’t soft like you imagined, in fact, it was sort of rough; either way, they still managed to feel silky as they held your own. “But hey,” his eyes twinkled with happiness as he beamed, “I promise you, you won’t be spending your eighteenth birthday alone this time. I promise, really.”

“I hope you’re right,” you let the boy intertwine his fingers with yours, “I’ve been meeting you in my dreams for the longest time. Things like this don’t happen, so I believe you might be telling the truth.”

His eyebrows furrowed adorably as he shook his head, “I always tell the truth, lying is wrong. Besides, I would never do that to you.”

“Indeed.” You grinned lightly, and only now had you remembered this had been the first time in a while where you had shown genuine merriment. Night had taken over, and now the dark sky was covered in multiple little stars that, although from your perspective they barely sparkled, you were sure they glowed the brightest if close enough. Sometimes, what shines the most is not always the first thing noticed. The boy holding your hand frequently questioned why you couldn’t see that on yourself; why you couldn’t see how dazzling you really were, like the twinkling balls of fire that called themselves stars. Sighing with joy, you kept staring up at the endless heavens, the lively moon being your only source of light. “Hey?” You spoke up again, earning yourself a hum from the handsome boy. He didn’t seem to age, he still looked the same as he did the first time you ever saw him in yours dreams. Now, you realized his features resembled the same as a regular teenager like you, except he was obviously striking. “I’ve been meeting you here for as long as I can remember, but I never got your name.”

He chuckled, thinking you sounded cute. His free hand gently pulled at a fully bloomed rose, its scarlet red shade so bright and vibrant in the scarce night light. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that yet, love.” He shook his head, releasing your hand and instead replacing his own with the beautiful rose. “Don’t worry, you’ll find out soon enough, you just have to wait a little bit more. Then, you will get an answer to all your questions. They say patience is key.” Standing up, he carefully pulled you up with him too, pressing a faint kiss to your forehead. “Lovely, it’s time for you to leave.”

“But I don’t want to.” You muttered, not quite looking forward to another lonely day.

The boy laughed lowly as he began walking in the opposite path from where you initially came from. “Dont worry, you see me here everyday, right? I’ll be waiting for you here on your next dream. And the next one, and the one after, and the one after. I will always be waiting. Just do me a favor, will you? Take that rose with you, consider it my early birthday gift. Keep it, and care for it. Also, remember my promises, I won’t ever break them.”

Just like that, he disappeared in the multitude of blooming flowers, as you felt yourself fade away from the world you wished was your reality.

You woke up from your deep slumber, a smile etched across your face as you thought of your little secret, who you always encountered in your dreams wearing the same white suit. Your conscious itself was still adapting to the daylight of a new day and the comforting heat radiating all the way from your window. Hair disheveled, and eyes puffy from sleep, you had not woken up yet completely. As your senses adjusted, strangely enough, you felt something smooth against your arm, only then noticing the red rose resting nicely next to you while its petals softly kissed at your skin. A gasp left your lips instantly, and you quickly scurried off the bed as fast as lighting to stare incredulously at the flower laying on it. You were a hundred percent sure that was not there before drifting off. Yet, as freaked out as you were, the boy’s words filled your mind, and you reluctantly picked up the gorgeous plant to place it in a vase of fresh water.

The brand new day carried on as always, unwanted and repetitive. Many outsiders who traveled from the bigger cities claimed your small town was breathtaking; here, they didn’t have to deal with the awful sounds or smells that the multiple factories over there emitted, they didn’t have to deal with the large streets full of traffic and impatient car horns from people who were desperate to get home. Here, your town was everything but the opposite. Streets were not paved, instead, they were nice dirt paths created by the town’s own people so cars could drive by easily. It was mostly rural; adorned with greenery, flowers, crops and the overall touch of unbothered Mother Nature. A huge pond occupied by different, colorful fish was located in the center of the town, also serving as a usual meeting spot for friends or couples who wanted to have a lovely day out. Lastly, the most special detail; a large river stream ran through, which had been decorated between the passing years with several tiny shops and homely bakeries that had slowly started forming alongside it. Generally, it reminded you of pictures from Venice, Italy that you’d see on the internet.

In spite of how gifting your little town was, it’s not like you could enjoy it when you had no one to explore it with. You had your fair shares of adventures around it when you were young, but as you inevitably grew older, so did the cravings for companionship, for a friend. A friend you didn’t have. Growing up without any parents somehow prevented children at school from befriending you, claiming it was weird to not have a mother or a father. You never blamed them, nor did you resent them; they were merely young kids, who were almost just as clueless as you.

Due to many unpleasant experiences, you began believing this town had nothing else in store for you other than remind you of the unforgettable truth, so you often refrained from going out when it was unneeded. Living alone had also slowly become bearable; either way, you had to learn how to because there was nobody else who would be able to guide you through life. There was no choice but to become independent at an early age.

After taking a warm shower and placing the unexpected rose in a vase, you decided to make yourself some chamomile tea. While waiting for the water to boil, your eyes spotted a rusty note that was messily folded, laying on the kitchen counter. It appeared almost crumpled, like it had been bunched up in a rush. You confusedly stared at it for a short moment, trying to remember whether there had been a note there last night when you cleaned the kitchen isle. A sudden whistle interrupted your puzzled thoughts just as you were about to open up the strange looking letter, bringing you out of your daze as the loud hiss reminded you the boiling, hot water was finally ready. Cursing under your breath, you quickly whipped around in a hurry to turn off the stove, forgetting about the wrinkled paper altogether.

The rest of your day went by unbothered, the night sky catching up quicker than you had presumed. Regardless, it didn’t faze you. Rather than upsetting you, it only caused a huge wave of excitement to travel along your body; you knew what the night meant. You let out a squeal that bounced off the walls as you observed through the window the dark sky that had engulfed the whole town, decorated by the bright moon that had replaced the yellow, warm sun. It was only seven at night when you read the time on the digital clock hung on the thorough, wooden walls. You hurried off to your room, where you quickly readied yourself for sleep.

Not long after, you found yourself barefooted in the same place as always, although this time autumn season had began. Unlike reality, time worked distinctly in your dreams. When it was nighttime in the real world, it was daytime in your thoughts. Yet, you couldn’t understand why the season suddenly changed, you weren’t quite sure this had happened before. Right in front of your eyes, the oak tree you were so used to see standing gracefully with flowing, vibrant leaves, was slowly becoming leafless while the few ones that did manage to stick to the branches jumped between different, several warm and golden tones. The grasslands that were once a blanket of only verdant green with the occasional colorful flowers that would stand out, was now an ocean of faded orange mixed with a faint tint of pinkish red. Underneath the oak tree sat him, but this time he was not dressed in the same white suit from always; he was wearing casual clothes, and his typical perfectly brushed hair was left down and fluffy, covering most of his forehead.

White denim jeans paired with a white denim jacket, and a loose light, grey t-shirt tucked carelessly inside his pants; he seemed to already know what you were wondering, and answered your question before you even got the chance to take a seat on the dried autumn grass. “Everything is different because something important is nearing. No,” he giggled when he noticed you lean forward with a new question ready to be asked, “I can’t tell you what the special occasion is. Chill, you’ll find out in no time.”

Whining, you slightly sulked with an annoyed look plastered on your face, “I’m tired of all these weird clues.”

“Don’t worry, the answers are closer than you think. Quit sulking, drama queen.” He grinned warmly. The scenery appeared ridiculous when compared to his radiant smile, it was a battle he’d win right away effortlessly. A sudden breeze passed by, offering a pleasant warmth that felt sensational as the air slowly became cooler every time the season developed more. Whenever you met up with him, you always had new things to interrogate him for, but just recently your inquiries had gotten much bigger as you found yourself in stranger situations leading towards him. You turned to glance at him, despite his side profile being the only sight you could get from your current view, you knew he still looked unreal as ever. “I noticed you kept the rose.”

Your eyes widened in surprise, “how do you know?”

“Can’t answer that either.” He shrugged with a cheeky grin, exhaling with calmness as he rested on his elbows, basking in the warm, soft breezes that blew by every now and then. His chestnut brown hair moved fluidly along with the infrequent winds too, letting his forehead show up for a split second. You thought he seemed so peaceful like this. Truthfully, he always looked peaceful, but today his features were particularly serene as they emitted a feeling of tranquility, even you felt it. He hummed, opening his eyes for a short moment before closing them again, “you forgot to read the note. I’ll get rid of that one and send a new one when you wake up. Make sure to read it, no excuses.”

A small huff of disbelief escaped your lips, as they soon turned into a smile. “Are you sure you’re not a witch? You were the one who put the rose on the bed, right? Because how else would that magically be there? Please answer me before I go insane.” You massaged your temples gently to simmer down all the jumbled emotions that had fallen upon you. “I thought you were just part of my imagination, but I’m doubting that now. Oh my God, what are you? There’s literally no way I can bring a flower out of my dreams-”

“Just part of your imagination, what am I? An imaginary friend? Sorry,” he laughed, “I’m not that. Yeah, I was the one who placed the rose next to you; but no, I won’t answer how.” You could tell he was having fun watching you experience an existential crisis in the middle of your dreams, it entertained him more than he would like to admit. “Today you seem very curious, that’s no good. So, we will be parting ways sooner than we usually do.”

“Wait, no, what-”

With only the snap of his fingers, it was nighttime, like a light switch had been flicked and suddenly the brightness was turned off. Due to the fast approaching winter lurking just around the corner, it was freezing cold, the temperatures so low you stared at the unfazed boy like he was crazy. You immediately began shivering, and he calmly took the time to place his denim jacket over your trembling shoulders. Honestly, the piece of clothing didn’t really provide you with much cover, but the warmth of his body that had stuck to it was enough to decrease the clattering of your teeth and the goosebumps that had formed on your arm the moment the temperatures abruptly dropped. “You can take that with you. For now, we have to go. Goodbye lovely, we’ll see each other soon.”

Your body shot up on bed in shock, anxiously feeling around your shoulders where indeed, a jacket comfortably rested on. His jacket. You felt like crying from all the utter confusion, so many questions swirling in your head that you wanted to desperately ask. Breathing irregular, you stood up with a slight stumble as you made your way towards the bathroom with a failing vision until you were able to grip the small counter, your reflection showing back on the flimsy mirror. There was no tone to your skin, which was accompanied by a light dampness; your throat felt like it was stinging and your nose was extremely runny. Was this a cold? A sharp pain hit at your temples before a grunt left your lips, demanding you to get some rest. Using all the strength you could muster, you went back to bed, falling weakly on the soft mattress.

“You fucker, now I’m sick.” You gritted through you teeth with irritation. As if on cue to your words, another crumpled ball of paper flew onto your forehead, gently bouncing off and onto the bedsheets. You cursed again, rolling your eyes before opening up the letter. It looked old, the delicate paper was covered in several creases and ink stains that were smeared all over the page; inside, was the messiest handwriting you had ever seen before. Squinting, you tried your best to make out the tangled words that were scribbled down.

Before I even start; you got to stop cursing young woman. The Heavens are watching and won’t be happy at you. Now, off to the actual letter. You must still remember your grandmother telling you about it, this was the note she was talking to you about. How are you? I hope you’re dealing alright with that nasty cold, honest, I knew you’d catch one after that weather. It’s alright though, it won’t last longer than three days, enough for you to spend your awaiting birthday without any bothersome sicknesses. How does it feel to be turning eighteen years old in four days time? Maybe you didn’t believe me, or maybe you did, but I’m still keeping promise to my words, and I assure you; your eighteenth birthday won’t be spent alone, neither will be your other birthdays to come. You’ve come so far in life, you have battled so much and yet you’re still overflowing with strength. You definitely deserve answers to all the questions you’ve often wondered about.

Remember all those fairy tales you would hear all the time from your grandparents? The ones you loved so, so much? Many of them were really only that; tales and nothing more, just something to keep you entertained, except for one. No, soulmates are not a lie, or merely another created narration from your lovely storytellers, they’re a real thing. You’ll meet your soulmate soon, I promise. I could tell you who it is, but I’d rather wait and watch you find it out yourself. For the meanwhile, you can look at your wrist the day you turn eighteen, you’ll notice some words engraved on it. They’re meant to be your soulmate’s first words ever said to you; in person, so the flesh and bones. I feel like I gotta make that clear because you’re so dense. When you do finally meet them, the words will fade away. Overall, you’re going to get a gut feeling when you meet the right person, you won’t even need to check your wrist to know. Everybody is destined to meet their soulmate sooner or later, you would know about it more if you ever left the house, lazy. Since you don’t, you’re not really aware of how many people out there have already found their fated lover. Even your folks were destined soulmates. Everybody is.

You certainly are curious. No, don’t be scared, stop thinking I’m a witch, I’m not. Yes, I can read your thoughts and I can feel your emotions. Yeah, even though I wrote this way before you read it. I can already decipher them from days, hours, minutes and seconds before. What’s up, I hereby officially present myself to you as your Guardian Angel. Just as one gets assigned a soulmate, they can also get assigned a Guardian Angel, way before they’re even born; life is weird. Truth be told, your family already knew me. This is why your grandmother asked you to wait for the letter, otherwise she knew your stubborn self wouldn’t have budged. Someone like me can only do much, I don’t really form a part of what The Heavens decide; therefore, I wasn’t aware that you were involved in a car crash along with your parents. As your Guardian Angel, I can only save the one assigned to me, that being you. And, as far as decisions go, it had also already been determined by The Heavens they would be taking your parent’s lives early. I don’t know why, but they must have their own reasons. One thing I can assure you though, is that their last breath was peaceful. All they wanted was for you to be fine, and they knew you’d be.

No one from your family had a Guardian Angel for themselves because it’s actually a rare thing to get one assigned. You were part of the small percent who did attain one. I’m not just a creation from the depths of your dreams, but it was the only place through which I could communicate with you for the meantime. Our situation though... it’s a little complex, or different, but very special since it barely ever happens. Little to no chances, I mean. Again, I’ll leave that for you to figure out. Look out for my visit on the 28th, your birthday. Once you turn eighteen, I’m allowed to see you. Not in your dreams, or thoughts or imagination, just reality. See, right? I promised you. You won’t be spending your birthday alone anymore, and I never break my promises.

I also want you to know, your parents and grandparents; they’re fine, they’re resting well. I really am sorry that I was not able to do anything to save your parents, trust me, if I could have, I would’ve. Thank you, for always thinking so fondly of me and calling me your hero when you were young, even though you didn’t even know what I was. I’m glad you looked up to me. Don’t worry, and don’t cry, remember I can feel when you’re unhappy; I can already tell as I’m writing this letter that you are in tears. Don’t be, I know you frequently worry about your family, if they left happy or sad; or, if they left in peace or not. They’re totally happy in The Heavens, where nobody suffers. You don’t have to be concerned over them anymore, they’re in peace and their wish is for you to be too.

Yes, silly, Guardian Angels can age. Mine was just frozen at twenty until I meet you. I still have a lot of explaining to do but you have to figure out the important part first.

I hope this letter answered all your big questions, it seems like it did. I apologize again, that I couldn’t save your parents. But, do believe me, they’re all fine. Stop crying, it makes me sad too. I can’t wait to finally meet you, I’ve been already waiting more than eighteen years. Anyways, I’ll be ending this here, lovely. I know your grandma said it was only a note but this got longer than I had planned, oops. See you soon,

Na Jaemin, your Guardian Angel.

Your hands shook as the crippled letter fell from your trembling grip, tears running down your face uncontrollably. You wouldn’t say your cries were of anguish, but rather, peacefulness. Peace because now you finally knew your parents were fine, and peace within yourself after that discovery. It was a question you initially thought was impossible to get an answer for. For the longest time, you had felt guilty you were given a second chance while they were not; but, although you still firmly believed they were taken unfairly from you, at least you knew they were okay. Words were not enough to express how you currently felt. So, the world that you thought to be so ugly and malicious actually had things such as soulmates and Guardian Angels? You always doubted they existed, much less were you able to process you were gifted with the two. It never crossed your mind that the boy in your dreams, Na Jaemin, was the reason why you were even alive.

You always told yourself the world had so much to make up for after taking away your loved ones. Little did you know you had been meeting with the most important person in your life for the entirety of it. Suddenly, it was you who had to make up for so much. The question was, how would you do something greater than what Na Jaemin did for you? He was after all, your literal savior.

And you’d be meeting him soon.

November 28th finally arrived, your cold long gone as the time hit twelve o’clock at midnight. Anxiously, you looked down, and time felt like it had slowed. Although the seconds kept counting down just fine, you couldn’t help the shock that ran through your veins as you watched black, cursive words gradually show up on your wrist. ‘Hello, lovely.’ You exhaled with a shaky breath, gliding your finger over the words swiftly; they looked like they had been tattooed on your wrist for a long time now despite their recent appearance. Astonished, you cursed before glancing around your bedroom, unsure of what to do and completely ignoring the angel’s previous scolding for your bad habit of swearing. It all seemed unreal to you, but the constant burn of the pinching you inflicted upon yourself assured you it wasn’t. Your heart rate was beating at rapid speeds, and you began wondering if it would eventually thump out of your chest to escape from all the unstoppable adrenaline rushing chaotically through your entire body.

“Alright, calm down, fuck.” The angel could only watch you in amusement from afar, shaking his head at your raw language.

The midnight winds were tremendously cool as the winter temperatures continued to drop, the heater or the cosy clothing you currently wore were not enough to fully rid you of the icy atmosphere. You wished you’d meet the angel in your dreams, so you could be welcomed by a warm and sultry weather. Unfortunately, you had not gotten to see him after the day you read the long, messy letter he wrote. It was weird to not have the daily visions you had grown so accustomed to.

Somewhere during the very early hours of the morning, you managed to drift off into a deep sleep, unable to meet the angel once again. You woke up to a much more pleasant climate air, and you would’ve been happy about it if it weren’t for the many doubts you awoke with. It had been four days since you had last seen him. The usual scenery you always magically appeared in with the help of your brain didn’t develop in the deepness of your thoughts; you didn’t care about your birthday anymore, you cared for the boy from your dreams. You still had to learn to call him by his actual name, but it was harder than you expected when he had basically been nameless for most of your life. Na Jaemin, you had never heard that name around your town or anywhere else, it was just as unique as him.

“I heard you calling?”

You shrieked, tumbling off the bed and onto the hardwood floor as your chest heaved up and down in fear. Quickly, you stood up on your feet, where you locked wide eyes with the charming smile you always admired, a grin beaming with pearly whites showing through that could light up the whole world. There he stood gracefully, unlike you, wearing the same attire he had been sporting the last time you saw him; of course, minus the denim jacket you occasionally hugged to sleep. Instead of the same brown hair he always had, it was now a light shade of blonde, to the point where it nearly looked silver. Eyes still widened in alarm after his unexpected arrival, you carried on taking in his features and tall figure; lean and majestic, exactly as you had described him the first time. He was absolute breathtaking, and his beauty only seemed more glorious face to face; you were utterly speechless.

An almost quiet giggle went past his lips, a smile still adorning his features as he carefully approached you upon noticing your frozen state. There was a slight glow that outlined his physique, similar to the one you always caught sight of as a child, but not as strong. With gentle movements, his hand softly came up to cup your cheek, tenderly caressing at the skin before pulling you into a warm embrace. You gasped, his swift actions successfully bringing you out of your daze; and ultimately, with shaky hands, you wrapped your arms around his torso tightly as well. He hummed lowly in satisfaction at the feeling of your returned hug, already loving how it felt to finally be held by you.

Hugging him felt oddly nice to you, there was an emotion inside that you couldn’t quite describe, but you knew for sure it was a feeling you had never experienced before. You felt free and no longer alone, like you had known him your entire life; not just because of the dreams where the two of you conversed, it was a feeling more personal than that, like he had always been there with you. Not all your senses worked in your nightly thoughts, and only now were you able to bask in the sweet smell that engulfed him; he smelled like home. Like the tall, grassy grounds he was always sitting on under the same familiar oak tree as he waited for you. Like the roses and tulips that were fully bloomed in all their grandeur by summer time, and like the warm sunrays that never failed to make his skin naturally glow with dewiness. You had never smelled anything in your dreams, because it simply was impossible, but you didn’t have to; you knew right away he was the epitome of the place where you always met up, in all the five senses. The enthralling landscape, the soothing sounds of nature, the sweet taste of honeysuckles, the feeling of the flowing grasses, the earthy scent of threes and flowers; all put together into a human body.

Not only did he feel like home, but his embrace also provided a sensation of comfort and safety that nobody else could emulate. Your heart was beating rapidly, but this time it wasn’t out of shock, it was nervousness. You felt like you had made the biggest discovery ever, yet you were not sure what the find was. Still, everything somehow felt right amidst the thundering thump of your chest that rang loudly in your ears.

“Hello, lovely.” He whispered in your ear, feeling the smile on his face as his lips gently pressed against the side of your head.

Overcome with emotion, a tear ran down your cheek before slightly pulling away so you could properly look up at him. “Thank you, for saving me. Thank you so much... Jaemin. How will I ever repay you?”

“Silly,” he simply chuckled, “you don’t have to repay me with anything, meeting you is enough.”

You nodded as he ran his fingers through your hair, confessing, “I feel very comfortable around you, even though I just met you. Well, in person, I’m still confused.”

“It’s totally normal,” Jaemin replied as he pulled away from his tight embrace, softly patting your back, “technically, I’ve always been here, you just couldn’t see me. Reminds me; happy birthday, lovely.”

Heart fluttering at his words, you began feeling all giddy and fluffy inside despite not understanding the reason why. You could not fathom why he was having such a huge impact on you already. “I have a question.”

“Not surprised.”

“Do you, perhaps, have any wings or a halo?”

Jaemin giggles in amusement at your question, shaking his head. “I don’t, but I used to. We only have wings and halos when we’re in The Heavens, not on Earth. I’m meant to form part of Earth from now on, so I can’t really show you, except for the glow around my body. That, I choose whether I want you to see it or not.” You opened your mouth to speak, but he beat you to it. “Yeah, I’m still a Guardian Angel, your Guardian Angel specifically.”

Your cheeks flushed a faint tint of pink, muttering as you looked down at your feet, “stop reading my thoughts.”

“What? Are you scared I’m going to hear something naughty or weird one day? Don’t worry, I’ve heard plenty of those. Also heard multiple times you think I’m god-worthy handsome. Thanks, by the way. Its okay, it’s normal for me now. Just keep your thoughts in check, where did you learn all those dirty things, young lady?”

“Jaemin!” You screeched in embarrassment, your cheeks only becoming redder than they previously were, his grip tightening around you lovingly.

The boy shook with laughter, a melodious sound to your ears that you wanted to keep hearing for the rest of your life, and if it weren’t for the awful embarrassment you were experiencing, you would’ve surely relished in the contagious cackles more. Being with Jaemin was natural, it didn’t feel awkward at all, you instantly knew you could trust him with anything; besides, meeting him in your dreams for the past fifteen years was enough time to warm up to him.

“Come on,” you grabbed his hand, letting go not long after when a jolt shot through your arm. “What the hell! What was that?”

“You better stop cursing around me,” Jaemin jokingly warned, narrowing his eyes at you, “you have to find that out for yourself. I never thought you’d be this clueless, to be honest.”

“And lastly, this is the basement; tour is finally done! This used to be my grandparent’s house from mom’s side, where I spent my whole childhood in. My dad’s parents lived a little farther away and their house wasn’t roomy enough to take me, but they still visited here constantly; it felt like they all lived together, honestly.” You explained to the tall boy. You had decided to show him around, still rocking your hideous pajamas, but he didn’t seem to mind.

Jaemin hummed as he listened to you, eyes skimming over the wide, empty room; of course, he already knew every single part of your house like the back of his hand. He had been watching you your entire life, chances are he even recognized it better than you. Though, as he gazed at you with loving eyes, you seemed too excited showing him around so much that he chose to remain quiet and carry on pretending he was unfamiliar with everything surrounding him.

Your grandparent’s house was extremely welcoming; as most houses in your town, this was also built solely out of pure wood. It wasn’t exactly a cabin, but rather a small suburban home. Everything inside consisted of mostly vintage items left behind by your folks, the only modern objects around being the ones they had bought for you. As for the backyard, it wasn’t really spacious, but it was well appreciated and cared for since majority of the homes in the town didn’t have one. Your grandmother was always making sure her garden looked appealing at all times; and in memory of her, you would regularly keep it neat in spite of your hatred for gross bugs and itchy plants.

“I used to always come down here when I wanted to play with old stuff, like landline phones or typewriter machines, I thought they were quite fun.” You smiled automatically at the fond memories. “Oh! I also remember accidentally catching Grandpa and Grandma kissing, it was disgusting.”

Jaemin laughed, recalling the time you found your grandparents being way too romantic for your young mind to comprehend, and your startled eyes before running off as soon as you had identified the scene in front.

You sat down on the dusty wooden floors that were in strong needs of some good polishing and sweeping as you called Jaemin over. Complying, he took a seat next to you, creating a feeling of familiarity just like you would usually sit together in your dreams; except this time, the two of you were in a basement desperately screaming for a deep clean. You were certain his white clothes would be totally dirty by the time you left the room. “I forgot to tell you, you were right about the whole soulmate words thing.”

“Did you think it was a lie?” He cocked an eyebrow, paired with a sly smirk.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant!” You waved your hands in the air fearing he had gotten the wrong idea.

Giggling, he nodded and brought your hands down gently, “I know what you mean. Tell me about it.” He might’ve been a holy being, but he had never experienced love for endless decades. Now that he finally found you, he couldn’t stop the crazy thumping of his heart.

“Okay so, I stayed awake until midnight yesterday - well, today, actually... anyways - besides the point.” Jaemin smiled adoringly at your cute stutters and fumbled ranting. He had learnt years ago that you stumbled over your own words when you were ecstatic about something. Hearing your thoughts in the distance was nearly impossible when he was so close to you, and it was inevitable to catch what your mind was currently thinking. You were talking, but your mind kept saying he looked ethereal right now next to you, going as far as comparing him to the most prepossessing events from Earth itself and claiming he was still prettier. “So, as I was telling you, I stayed awake ‘till midnight and you were right! I couldn’t believe my eyes when I noticed small letters appear on my wrist out of the blue, it was freaky to see it firsthand. Do you want to see?”

A cocky smirk was threatening to show up on Jaemin’s lips sooner or later, whether it be for your thoughts about him or what you were about to find out; yet, he fought the feeling and simply agreed at your request. It felt like euphoria was devouring him whole, but outside, he maintained a serene stance when you raised your wrist up to his eyes. As expected by him but not by you, the words were no longer there. A piercing shriek that hurt his ears left you upon realizing your wrist was not marked with the cursive letters anymore. Jaemin could only internally crack up at the sight of you scrambling away in panic, rushing towards the small window on the wall to get a better look of your arm with the aid of the sunrays. There was, in fact, nothing there.

The angel pondered playfully, humming specially loud so you’d be able to catch the mischief in his tone, “I thought you wanted to show me something? I don’t see anything there.”

Eyes wide like they were about to jump out of their sockets, you turned to look at him with a frightened expression, whining. “What do you know that I don’t?”

With a grunt, Jaemin got up from the floor as he brushed off the dust on his clothes, rolling his eyes at your question. “Silly girl,” he approached, your feet moving backwards the closer he got, eventually stopping when your back hit the wall behind you, “you’re so bad at this game.” He smiled cheekily before flicking your forehead.

“Ow!”

“Lovely, what did I explain it meant when the words faded away? Do you remember what I first said when I arrived?”

Oh. You realized what the current situation was. Jaemin was your fated soulmate, and as always, you did not notice because you were distracted; unsurprisingly, distracted by him. “But you’re not exactly human? How is it possible?”

He shrugged, running a hand through your hair, “Heaven and God are complicated. Angels can have human soulmates if that’s how The Heavens decide it, the only benefit you get, is you get to know when you’ll meet them - unlike humans who have no idea if they’re even gonna be fated to somebody or they’ll leave the world tragically because of their wrongdoings. The downside is that angels can take thousands and thousands of years to meet their soulmate; I was lucky to only have to wait three hundred.”

“Three hundred years!? But how come you’re twenty years old, how did you become an angel? Does me feeling all happy and sappy around you have to do with all this?” You were freaking out, but you didn’t want him to misunderstand.

Jaemin nodded, pulling you down onto the floor with him again, “there are two different types of angels; angels and Guardian Angels. Angels are people that died before their innocence was tainted which is basically all newborns or young children; teenagers and adults can too, just not as often. Guardian Angels are beings created by God himself, so unlike angels, we never existed in Earth first.” His hands were fiddling nervously with the end of his t-shirt, fingers adorned with a few silver rings. “We’re only allowed to meet our soulmate until they turn eighteen, so our age freezes at twenty while we wait. Angels can’t see their soulmate like I did in your dreams, but since I’m your Guardian Angel, I’m required to watch and care for you at all times. So, it’s acceptable to reveal myself to you discretely. And yeah,” he sheepishly giggled, “that’s why you feel all happy and sappy around me. I do too.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I guess. Someone dumb like me can only handle so much information, Jaemin.”

He snickered. “Yeah, you’re right.”

You pushed him away playfully, a small smile lingering on your lips before a blush took over your features. You never had a boyfriend previously, and you had no idea what to do from now on. Jaemin looked lovely as ever, the attraction you had for him only heightening as the bond became stronger. His once fully white clothes were now slightly covered in dust, as so was his face. Despite that and his tinted cheeks that you assumed were like that because he intruded your thoughts once again, he was the same handsome boy from your dreams that never failed to make you smile. Now, he’d be by your side for more than your usual six hours of sleep, and you were thrilled, to say the least. Meeting him for real got your heart rushing and doing flips, you didn’t know what that initially meant; but now you were sure it had to be love. It felt strange to feel something as deep as love for someone you met minutes ago. Then again, Jaemin was more than a soulmate; he had basically been with you the entirety of your life, your love went higher than a mere soulmate bond. “So, what do we do now?”

Rosy cheeks, the angel was still not able to look at you after listening to your thoughts. He knew he had to stop doing that, but it wasn’t easy when they sounded so loud and tempting in his ears. “Can I kiss you? I’ve really wanted to kiss you the moment I saw you.”

A series of wild coughs took over you upon hearing Jaemin’s confession, your reaction only making him feel giddier than he already was. “I - sorry,” the attack in your throat gradually slowed down, “I’m just, Ive never had my first kiss before, I’m new to all of this.”

He scurried closer with cheeky eyes, the darkening daylight that managed to show through the tiny window in the room signaled that the sun was beginning to set, the basement now drowned in a vibrant, saturated mandarin shade. Your breath hitched instantly when he cupped your cheeks, his eyes fully sparkling with love and adoration for you, gaze traveling down your features until it landed on your lips. He wet his own unknowingly, slightly parting them as light, irregular puffs of breathes left him. Jaemin leaned in, closing the short gap that was once between the two of you until the same jolt of electricity from before warmly hit you.

His lips tasted sugary sweet, like he had been previously sucking at the nectar from the honeysuckles you loved to have in your dreams. Now, you were certain that there was indeed something sweeter than honesuckles. Not only did he taste sweet, he felt sweet too. His mouth moved against yours slowly, the rhythm at which you two kissed was a little bit sloppy, but neither of you cared about it; hands still gently holding your cheeks while your own found their preferred location, lightly grabbing at his shoulders. Jaemin pulled back, chest heaving with pants as he attempted to catch his breath, leaning in again after whispering lowly against your lips.

“Hadn’t had my first kiss either.”

“Na Jaemin, you’re supposed to be an angel from Heaven!”

The boy ignored your protests, keeping you trapped between his body and the wooden wall as he continued a fiery assault on your neck, lips trailing all the way down to your collarbones where he mercilessly sucked hard reds and purples at the delicate skin.

Months had quickly gone by after finding out the angel was your fated special someone, and time flew peacefully as your feelings for each other grew more and more at rapid lengths, if it was even possible to be any more infatuated than you already were. A lot of remarkable things had happened once Jaemin officially stepped into your life; you weren’t low-spirited anymore like you used to be, coming to terms with yourself that Jaemin was happiness itself, it was impossible to remain miserable with someone as bright as him around. Although your biggest dream had always been to visit the wonderful cities that you knew awaited outside your small town, you decided to stay here; often reminding you of the views you’d always encounter in your imagination whenever you met up with the angel, instead of your parents like you used to believe.

Christmas was the best holiday you had spent, drowning in all the love Jaemin cherished you with while his arms held you tightly to his body as you both cuddled in front of the warm fireplace, under large, fluffy blankets. Or, the softness of his lips that pressed against yours in utter passion after he had shamelessly placed random mistletoes all around the house as an excuse to kiss you all throughout winter. It was little things like that, that made you fall deeper for him. Spring was slowly coming to an end as summer prepared to engulf everybody in the heat of its shining sun and the hot temperatures that gradually became warmer every day. You couldn’t wait for the orangey sunsets that were soon to come so you could take Jaemin out to the small shops located along the river, accompanied by the relaxing sounds of the streaming fresh waters and forgotten 70’s songs that the old ladies from the stores never failed to play.

With time, you found out Jaemin was tremendously clingy and overwhelmingly sappy. For a while, he seemed absolutely pure, the tittle well deserved since he did belong to the vast heavens that he described as divinely glorious. You believed him, for his looks and personality where the exact same. Though, your perception of innocence that you had for him might’ve gone overboard, because even a harmless angel like him could sometimes overflow with a burning fire of love and want.

“Are you even allowed to do things like this?” You whined under his towering frame, refusing to let out any sounds of satisfaction. He was supposed to be a holy and saint being, yet here he was, licking and biting at your skin with no remorse. No matter how hard you tried to keep quiet, the shocks of pleasure that his naughty kisses sent throughout you entire body were inevitable and tough to neglect, when the feeling was so exquisite.

He was panting with need, wasting no time in taking off both your shirts as his hands instantly began roaming around your unconvered, warm skin, pulling you impossibly closer to him, “it’s fine.” His hands slowly moved up towards your flushed face, taking their own sweet time to run over your tummy and all the way up to your chest, which received special extra attention, until he eventually reached your cheeks and brought you into a rough kiss. Jaemin’s lips devoured you like there was no tomorrow, like he was a starved man, occasionally biting gingerly at your lower lip before lightly swiping his tongue across, engaging the wet muscles in a battle he would surely win. “Please, touch me.”

You pulled away shortly with ragged breaths, lips a cherry red and fully swollen from all the endless sucking he had inflicted on them. “Na Jaemin, are you sure this is right? I’ve never done anything dirty yet I swear I feel like I’m corrupting you so bad-”

“Stop swearing, it’s wrong.”

Jaw dropped in disbelief, you glanced up at the shirtless boy who still had you pressed against the wall with no way out, “I - you’re saying that while trying to get into my pants! I’m pretty sure swearing is the least of concerns here.”

“I’m not the one who’s thinking about sex all the time, you expect me to go through my day calmly when you’re thinking such naughty stuff?” Jaemin whined with a pout, running his fingers through his blonde locks in frustration before unexpectedly picking your flustered self up. He hurriedly carried you towards the bedroom, ignoring your loud screams demanding to put you down as he gently threw your body onto the soft mattress. “I’m literally a teenage boy, I have needs and your thoughts don’t help,” he kept complaining, “this is totally normal, it’s fine as long as it is with your soulmate, I promise. Now, please, woman.” The angel proceeded to leave a trail of feathery, wet kisses down your neck again, eyes landing on your bra straps before they locked with your gaze and wordlessly asked for permission.

Nodding slowly, you pulled Jaemin down and locked lips once again; though, this time it felt like all your unsaid emotions were pouring out into the desperate kiss, love being the biggest one swimming in the pools of several, different sentiments. He returned the kiss delicately as your hands slightly tugged at the little hairs that rested on the back of his neck, eliciting tiny moans and groans that rumbled in his hard chest. Breaths of pleasure that you swallowed escaped his mouth, the kiss progressively becoming messier and harsher as you allowed yourselves to get lost in the euphoric feeling of your bodies pressed close together, the warmth the radiated from your bare skin igniting a huge fire of arousal within the two of you.

“I love you. So much.” Jaemin pecked your lips one last time with a sincere smile, hands gliding over your shoulder blades as they unclasped your bra, gently sliding off the straps with eyes that twinkled with nothing but absolute love, lust and devotion. “I’m gonna take you higher than Heaven.”

“Jaemin! Don’t be rude!” Right then and there, you knew you were exactly where you were meant to be; in the arms of your lover as he showed you a deeper intimacy than you had ever shared before. Despite all you had gone through, life gifted you with the greatest present, Na Jaemin. You didn’t have to dream anymore to feel at home, he brought it with himself.

A celestial angel, indeed. Life was no longer unbearable for you, it was the best thing ever; and you were ready to live it at its fullest.

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tackyink · 4 years

Text

The only reason I've decided to post this is that I think unless I do I won't stop anxiety-editing it and I'd like to move on to something more interesting. And maybe pick up Veleta again, because I had written more than what I posted here and I want to keep working on her.

I can only offer for context that I hail from real life Dressrosa and one day someone asked me what, as a historian, I would do if I ever came across a Poneglyph in the OP world.

— — — — — — — —

Chapter 1

In a remote corner of Paradise, outside of the main travel routes, there was an autumn island called Harlun, and on its shores there was a place called Duster Town, remarkable if only for the fact that every day was exactly the same and nothing of interest ever happened.

Duster Town was acceptably hot in summer, relatively cold in winter, and unavoidably wet and muddy the rest of the year. This had been a big reason for Alex’s stay to last as long as it had: five years and counting. She was fond of the weather because that was what living in summer islands for nearly twenty-two years did to a person.

She had been working in Duster Town’s old, old library since she had arrived there, having secured the job through contacts she had made while studying. Alex was a historian, and there weren’t a lot of secure jobs for people in her field unless one wanted to work under close supervision of government officers. She had never liked research that much, anyway – or rather, she had liked sticking her nose in archives for the sake of it, but the actual process of searching for documents, putting the pieces together and then writing papers sucked. Learning to satisfy her own curiosity was fun, being forced to share that knowledge was not. Besides, if there was an area of research that grabbed her attention more than anything else, it was that conspicuous century-wide blank in human history, and everybody in her profession knew what happened when someone tried to look too closely into that. Ohara was the biggest ‘accident’ that came to mind, but it wasn’t the only one. Things happened to people who knew too much. Everybody was aware of it, but complicit silence was a healthy tactic that her sensible colleagues employed.

Alex had opinions on that, as, admittedly, did most historians she had met, and since opinions were like assholes, she wasn’t going to be the gross weirdo showing hers to other people. Figuratively speaking or not, it was liable to get her in trouble with the law, and that was the last thing Alex wanted.

She liked her library, and even though she was incredibly disappointed that she’d never be able to set foot inside the Tree of Knowledge due to the unfortunate circumstance of having been born too late. Her job was quiet; since she wasn’t a librarian proper, they had put her at the entrance desk to check out and retrieve books, and she handled the petitions for documents researchers sent to the library. The building in which she worked dated back to several centuries, and the foundation upon which it was built, and which housed the local archive, suggested an even earlier date. It contained one of the biggest and best preserved documentary collections in that half of Paradise, so she spent a lot of time digging inside the archive to fulfill the researcher’s requests.

All in all, she thought she had had an amazing run so far, lending books, persecuting tardy neighbors to retrieve them, memorizing catalogs from too much use, and sending informative material to researchers who were actually doing important things with their lives, unlike herself. Her coworkers were few and not very nosy, which she appreciated, because she loved her time alone and wasn’t too fond of talking about the past.

She could see herself growing old in there and getting cobwebs, if sudden changes in the town hall didn’t run her out of the island, and the way things worked in moderately small towns like that, where everybody knew everybody and keeping a job was more a matter of knowing the right people and having been there for a while than being actually competent at it, meant that her position was likely secured in the long run. That said, the local mushrooms by themselves would have tempted her to stay, even without the rest of advantages. Not many of those in her hometown or Sabaody. Lots of heat and not nearly enough rain.

The sun wasn’t yet up when she woke up with an itchy nose in the small apartment she lived in, and a flurry of sneezes alerted her that she should have taken her allergy meds the night before. Navigating the place with closed eyes, she threw on the same skinny jeans and oversized sweater that she had left on a chair two days ago for yet another day at work. It took more effort than someone who had slept so many hours at her age had a right to. Like nearly every morning, really.

The last remaining days of winter had brought the cold in full force, at least for her summer island sensibilities, and after having a steaming cup of red tea that fogged up her glasses, she bundled inside her black coat and red scarf, put on a pair of burgundy gloves, and headed for the library with a thermos full of more tea, making the usual stop at the nearest bakery to buy a croissant. Her hands ached with the chilly breeze.

(She kept a kettle in the library, but there was never too much tea, in her humble opinion, and the thermos kept her freezing hands warm on the way.)

The sun had barely risen when she arrived at the building, an old stone structure that casted its shadow over a private square, though the tall iron fence was open at all times so the people of the town could use the benches and the fancy stone fountain in the middle of it. According to the records Alex had read, the whole area was built four hundred years back or so as the private residence of some rich family that eventually lost its fortune. The basement that doubled as the archive, though, was considerably older, but records stopped around 700 years back, like everywhere else, and so she couldn’t tell how old the foundations were, or what sort of building used to be there in the past without digging a trial trench in the square, something the town hall had been vehemently against when she suggested it. The refusal only made her want to do it more.

She crossed the fence and was halfway through the square when she saw someone in front of the library’s massive oak doors. That was so unusual it made her stop in her tracks. She wasn’t ready to interact with human beings this early in the morning. In fact, the baker was so used to her being absent at that time of the day that the only things she needed to say when she picked up her breakfast were ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you.’

She repositioned her glasses to peek above them and tried to focus her teary eyes on the figure before approaching it. It belonged to a man, obnoxiously tall as many in these seas had a tendency to, who wore a long black coat with a yellow pattern around the hem and a fluffy spotted hat that looked quite ridiculous but also warm, so she wasn’t going to judge in a morning like that. Since he seemed to be looking for something and having no luck, she did what she was paid for, though she was still off the clock, and approached him.

“Hello,” she said to catch his attention. Her voice came out raspy because this was only the fourth word she had uttered since waking up, so she immediately wanted to jump in one of the flowerbeds and melt into the muddy soil. She cleared her throat softly. “Is there anything you need?”

He turned around to look at Alex. He was in his twenties, and his face was kind of familiar. His earrings caught her attention, but then again, she had a bad tendency to not pay much attention to people’s faces and fixate on irrelevant details. This individual’s entire ensemble and circumstances, though, made him difficult to forget overall.

“Do you work here?” He asked.

She barely registered the question, because it was about then that she noticed the smiley yellow faces on his coat and the long-ass sword he held against his shoulder. She hadn’t been able to see them from behind, and if she had, she sure as hell would have kept her distance until he left.

That… had the potential to be really bad.

“Yes,” she said, thinking she should have not, but it was stupid to deny it when there was nowhere else to go in the plaza, she had offered to help, and the only place she could hide in was inside.

After she unlocked the building.

With the keys she was carrying in her hand.

Yeah, honesty had been the right move.

“What are the opening hours?”

That was also unexpected. “Nine AM to eight PM. It’s on the plaque—” She pointed to the side of the door, and she saw someone had vandalized it with rude graffiti. “Not again,” she sighed to herself, and then back to him, “Nine to eight.”

There were still thirty minutes to go, and she hoped to god that he didn’t plan on sticking around until it was time to open.

“I see,” he said, looking pensively at the door. “I’ll be back later, then.”

“Of course,” she replied, smiling, relieved, and then panicking inside because there was a pirate planning on coming to her workplace that morning and this was an anxiety factor she hadn’t asked to be burdened with. He had to be dangerous. People who weren’t dangerous didn’t carry swords around. Not that people who were dangerous sometimes didn’t carry weapons, but at least those had the grace of not putting every stranger around them on edge. And wait a minute, were those tattoos on his fingers? She couldn’t see all the letters, but she could guess, and after she did, she wished she hadn’t.

When she thought he was already done and about to go, she made her even more nervous by saying, “Just to make sure, I heard you have a sizeable medicine collection.”

Ah, so he was looking for something specific. It made more sense than him simply waltzing in for some light reading, she supposed. “You heard right. It’s not updated often, but it was until ten years ago or so.” Then they ran out of funding. “If you’re looking for recent studies, you may not be in luck.”

Medicine. Why medicine? This man was a pirate. Was he a doctor in his ship? She regretted more than ever having such a bad memory for names and faces. She should take a look at the newspaper archive when she went in, just in case.

“Lucky me, then. What I’m looking for is older than that.”

She noticed a bit of a northern accent. He sounded… not quite polite, but not aggressive, either. Clinical. At the same time, it made the innocent statement sound vaguely threatening. She was curious now about what he wanted to read. What if he was one of those weird pirates? There was a chance, she supposed. Like winning the lottery twice, which she didn’t count on.

“That’s good,” she replied awkwardly, and then added in a valiant effort to be left alone, “There’s a café around the corner that’s already open, if you need to kill some time.”

He looked slightly surprised at the courtesy, and nodded before going off.

And when he was far enough to be a very stupid but not totally unsafe to say, she spoke a little louder to tell him, “Excuse me! Weapons aren’t allowed inside the library!”

The dude seemed amused when he looked over his shoulder to look at her, and he didn’t say anything as he walked off.

Nobody could say she hadn’t tried.

❦

Unbearably jittery after the encounter, Alex went on to switch on the lights of the entire building, put the last few books she hadn’t returned to the shelves the day before in their place, and picked up the day’s newspaper to sit down at the front desk to scarf down the croissant and hopefully wash down all that nervous energy with a cup of tea.

If her first encounter in the morning was a sign of what was to come, she could tell her day was going to be shit. She should have known when her own sneezing woke her up.

Alex wasn’t sure when or how her anxiety had started. It just had, a few years prior, seemingly unprompted, and though it wasn’t severe, thankfully, it had a tendency to assault her when she least expected it. Like a pirate. Pirates did that, right? Not all of them, but according to her limited experience there was a fifty-fifty chance that he would, at the very least, turn out to be a pain in the ass.

Still, without any additional intel, she couldn’t think of any ulterior motives for the guy to come to the library. Since she couldn’t do anything to stop him, for her peace of mind, she decided to be willfully optimistic and believe.

Or at least she could try. She had never been too good at this denial thing.

A several bites into her pastry and a few pages into the newspaper, she came across an article about a sunken Marine warship by a pirate submarine, and she choked on her tea when she saw the same smiley face on the picture that accompanied the article. On said submarine. Accompanied by the word “DEATH.” Good on her for guessing what was on his fingers. At the same time, a coworker arrived, and blanching, she said good morning, got up from her seat and made a run for the newspaper archive, where they also kept in storage a copy of every bounty the Marines distributed with the World Economic Journal.

She didn’t have to look too far to see that yes, the face was familiar because it was supposed to be. She had classified it a few times in the last months – every time the guy got a bounty raise.

Surgeon of Death. Heart Pirates. Captain of one of the several rookie crews that were stirring up trouble that year. Those were the worst, they thought they were at the top of the world just because they had made it into the Grand Line. She could deal with older pirates, but she had yet to come across a newbie that wasn’t an unrestrained asshole.

She thought she saw something about dismemberments in the poster, did a double-take because she had surely read wrong, and by the time she was done with all the crimes attributed to the guy she just put the bounty back in place, went to the front desk once again, and told her concerned coworker, “A famous pirate will probably show up today. Don’t mind him. Let’s hope he just wants to read.”

She looked a little frightened. “Should I call the Marines?”

“If worst comes to worst. Let’s try not get involved if we can. He didn’t seem aggressive.”

“Okay,” she replied, sounding relieved. “Good luck out here, I’ll be in the back tagging the new arrivals.”

“Some people are lucky.”

She sighed and turned the page. Sipped on her tea. It was getting cold. Sipped on it again. She just had to play it cool. She was a professional. The guy had been okay to her.

She just hoped he would come soon, because she wasn’t so sure she could drown her nerves in tea anymore.

It was okay.

Everything was surprisingly okay.

The pirate, the day, the lunch she had at the café around the corner – waitress said the guy even tipped – but yes, everything had gone fine.

Alex didn’t move a lot from the lower floor because she often had to come and go from the front desk to the archive, but she made escapades upstairs to make sure everything was still standing.

She had seen the pirate sitting next to a window in the medicine section reading one of those thick tomes that looked very interesting but made her dizzy because she suffered from having a very graphic imagination.

Her coworkers, who roamed up there more often than her, gave her periodic reports, and one of them remarked that he was kind of hot, didn’t she agree?

No, she did not. The radiator was hot. The kettle was hot. The adjective could hardly be applied to a man unless he was on fire.

Though perhaps he was not a human man, because he had spent all day long sitting in the same position, staring at that book. She had to admire that attention span, if nothing else. She was pretty short on that, lately.

And so, having avoided any type of incident during a day in which she was very tense for no reason after all, it came time to close shop.

The pirate was still there.

Her coworkers were, very conveniently, not. She was sure it had nothing to do with the fact that someone had to remind the wanted man that it was late and he had to go.

As much as she wanted to go home and have dinner, the temptation to stay in her post so she didn’t have to interact with a criminal that hacked his victims to pieces was strong, and no one could blame her for it.

But then he appeared.

The massive door in front of her began to open, and Alex thought it was one of her treacherous coworkers returning to pick up something until a head peeked inside the hall.

“Hi?” The newcomer said shyly.

Alex wasn’t sure if the gross amounts of tea she drank every day had finally caught up to her and were making her hallucinate, because she was seeing a polar bear’s face.

“Hi?” She replied, to busy processing what was in front of her to come up with words of her own.

It seemed that that was enough for the bear, because it – no, not it, he? She? How deep was a female bear’s voice anyway? – pushed the door open some more, becoming more visible. A bright orange jumpsuit was not what she was expecting, but the smiley face on its chest and the sight of the sword the pirate had been carrying that morning didn’t leave a lot of room for imagination.

The creature in front of her eyes was a bear walking on two legs. A pirate polar bear. Probably a boy, with that size. Was he a mink? She had never seen one so up close.

“I’m looking for my captain,” he said, clutching the sword against his body. “Is he around?”

Words decided to come back to her, although in a rather clumsy manner. “Oh. Yes. Yes, I think so. He should be upstairs, reading.”

The bear smiled and she melted at the sight. “Can you… tell him to come?”

“Sure,” she said, sealing her fate. She had to face it sooner than later, she thought as she rose from her seat. The bear was still half-hidden by the door, his boots barely touching the tiles of the library. Curious. Was he that shy? “Why don’t you step inside?”

“I thought you can’t enter the library with weapons.”

His reasoning hit her in the solar plexus with the force of a herd of rainbow ponies. “Right,” she breathed out, wondering how something in the planet had managed to be so big and cute at once. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll go get your captain.”

“Thank you!”

Alex walked as fast as she could towards the stairs until she was out of sight and covered her face to keep her reaction under control. So. Goddamn. Cute. Was that how those pirates lived? Trying not to squeal whenever the resident polar bear was being sweet?

Steeling herself, she walked up the remaining steps, hoping the captain had somehow vanished while she wasn’t looking.

No such luck.

She stepped a little more forcefully than necessary as she approached him from behind a shelf, always staying at a safe distance, to try to catch his attention, but he didn’t move.

(The annoying voice in her head told her that the only safe distance from that man was a sea away.)

Could he have been asleep? That would have explained things. What was his name again?

“Mr. Trafalgar?” She tried. She wasn’t sure if she should have made known that she knew who he was, but the deed was done. He looked up. “It’s about time to close and… there’s a polar bear looking for you in the reception hall.”

“Bepo’s here?” He looked in confusion at her, and then at the window. It was dark outside. “I hadn’t noticed it had gotten so late. Eight, right?”

He stretched in the chair. Between the movement and the spotted hat and jeans, he reminded her of an overgrown leopard.

“Almost,” she offered.

He glanced at the book, frowning. Granted, his face seemed to be stuck in a perpetual frown and he didn’t sound angry. “Do you have the same hours tomorrow?”

“Oh, no, we don’t open on Sundays,” she replied, wondering if this was the exact point where the conversation would go downhill. She attempted to make it better. “But you can come on Monday if you want to keep reading.”

He grimaced, this time for real. “Can’t do. We leave on Monday morning.”

“Oh.” A quick stop, then. It was a thing that happened often. The recording time for the Log Pose was less than a day in Harlun. “Well, we could make some photocopies, but…” The book was way too long for that, and he seemed to be about halfway through.

“Can I take it out tonight and give it back to you sometime tomorrow?”

She appreciated wholeheartedly that he wasn’t getting mad at her, but the thought of the book going out of the library like that made all her alarms go off. “Not without a library card.” Which was only for residents, obviously.

She braced for retaliation, but it never came.

The pirate looked kind of conflicted. She didn’t know what was so interesting about the book that he couldn’t find it in another island, and she didn’t need to know the options that were crossing his mind to realize that she probably wouldn’t like them.

Since idiots had to find ways to console themselves, she would tell herself during the following hours that the only reason she made a tremendously stupid offer was to avoid the much worse alternatives.

“I’ll actually be working here tomorrow. The library is closed, but if you’re really that interested, I can let you in.”

Or maybe she was a fucking bleeding heart who couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make someone’s day better for free. But ironically, at what price.

She recognized the emotions on his face. First surprise, then suspicion. “Why would you?”

Because she really was that stupid, she wanted to say. “You’re a doctor, right? I don’t want a dead patient on my conscience because you couldn’t finish a book you needed. Anyway… you’re free to come tomorrow.”

And she left him there, quickly making her way down to retrieve her stuff. The bear had come inside, at last, and he looked up from the documents on Alex’s desk. She would have been surprised if he could read that handwriting.

“He’s coming,” she said with a small smile, but she didn’t know if it showed. She had, on occasion, been asked why she was angry when she tried to smile. “I’m going to pick up my things inside.”

He looked pleased, though. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

She went into the back room, taking extra long on purpose until she heard movement outside and the sound of the door closing. By the time she found the courage to crawl out of her hole, the pirates were nowhere to be seen.

She left a note in her desk’s drawer, just in case, saying that if she disappeared under mysterious circumstances, Trafalgar Law was to blame. She had thought about phoning a coworker to alert her, but she wasn’t supposed to let anybody in on Sundays, much less a wanted man, and she didn’t want to risk this incident reaching the ears of the mayor.

For the first time in years, her stomach couldn’t handle the tea and she had to throw most of her cup down the drain. Damn nerves. Her hands were acting up more than usual, to the point where the warmth of the thermos wasn’t doing a lot to soothe the pain. She would have worried about that if it weren’t because of more pressing matters.

❦

Even earlier than the day before, he was already waiting for her at the door when she arrived.

Alex would admit without missing a beat that she had been an idiot for offering – never mind the very real possibility that the guy could have broken in to retrieve the book and left damages the library couldn’t afford to repair – but he was either equally dumb or exceedingly confident for having shown up. Alone. Alex could have called the Marines, for all he knew.

She didn’t miss the sword he was carrying, this time around.

She put two and two together then. Of course. He had appeared before the hour to check that the surroundings were safe.

“I didn’t expect you to actually show up,” he said as a greeting, and she reached for the key in her pocket. His tone was impressed with a good dash of mockery. “Do you know who I am?”

He already knew the answer, since she had called him by name the day before. With only two sentences, he demolished most of the halfway positive impression he had made the day before, and Alex, already predisposed to think he was a dick, decided he was exactly that.

She was tired and anxious, so she couldn’t muster up any facial expression as she said, “Should I care?” Upon noticing that had sounded even worse than she meant to, she added in a hurry, “I mean, what’s the point of asking that? Do you want me to turn around and leave the door locked?”

He didn’t seem to take it badly, thank the heavens. He looked a bit amused, in fact. “I don’t need you to unlock a door.”

“I’m well aware,” she replied in a monotone. “I appreciate you had the courtesy of waiting.” The budget was tight and changing the lock would have been a royal waste of money.

She opened the door and went in first to turn on the lights. He closed the door after going in, and she would have usually locked it again, but she really did not want to be stuck alone inside of a building with a stranger, even if the state of the lock wouldn’t make much of a difference.

“I’ll be working downstairs.” She pointed to an old, reinforced door on the wall behind the front desk. “Give me a heads up when you’re done.”

That sword was making her unnecessarily jumpy. He didn’t need to have it with him.

“Alright,” he said, glancing at the staircase to the second floor, and then he must have noticed that she was giving the sword the stink eye, because he tapped it against his shoulder and smirked. “Got a problem?”

Yeah, one about two meters tall. “None as long as you don’t use it.”

“As long as you don’t give me a reason to.”

She wanted to say a lot of things. That they were alone, that he was kind of a dick, that yes, she was as dumb as he was thinking, and to please leave her alone until he was done and only then appear to say goodbye and thank you.

Instead, she picked up a folder from her desk drawer and a lantern from the wall and left it at, “Enjoy your reading.”

He took the hint and left, and so did she.

The door to the archive closed behind her with a heavy thud, and she lit the lantern.

It was a fire hazard in a library, but it was inevitable, because the basement didn’t have electricity. After many years of pressuring the city hall for a budget increase, the council had seen fit to make renovations and extend the electrical installation to the basement. She just had to keep herself from setting the archive on fire for a couple months and the risk would be no more.

She went to the farthest area from the entrance and set the lantern on an ancient wood table. The basement was pure grey stone from floor to ceiling, making it permanently cold. She hadn’t bothered to take off her coat and scarf, but the gloves had had to go and she wasn’t happy about it. She had icicles for hands as every winter, and this year they had begun to hurt earlier than usual.

Alex had decided to put in some overtime that week because she was researching a family tree that a cousin of the mayor, a pretentious git that paid very well, had commissioned. Something about proving a blood relation to a noble family from a nearby island to have a claim to somebody else’s lands. Alex didn’t care. She had been trained for this thing, a job was a job, and she was going to do it to the best of her ability. Even if she had absolutely loathed genealogy back when she was still a student.

She didn’t think her employer would be too happy with her findings, though, because so far she’d only found a mess of marriages that didn’t bring her any closer to the neighboring island. She even found some records of a family branch that had one of those pesky Ds in the name and then disappeared from record. She supposed they just left the kingdom. She had noticed that every D. that rose to prominence was an outright weirdo, and she wasn’t sure if it was just confirmation bias because boring people didn’t make the news, but damn it they didn’t seem to crop up in the most outlandish incidents. There was the infamous Monkey D. Dragon, his father Garp, who she had seen a couple of times in person and seemed frankly overbearing, the guys in Whitebeard’s crew… And the biggest weirdo of all, of course: the King of Pirates. She’d heard from an acquaintance funny stories of him to last her a lifetime. A lot of the mystique around his figure was lost, but that was one of the things that made history interesting, in her opinion.

Sitting down on the floor to open the cabinet on the lower part of a bookcase, she took a look at the bundles of papers there. It was a seriously old part of the archive, housing documents from six hundred years back, but thanks to the cold and darkness, they had stood fairly well against the tide of time.

She reached inside and pulled out the dozen of tomes at the forefront to make sure noting was trapped behind. That part of the archive had been catalogued way before Alex’s time, after all, and not every archivist had been as careful as they should have. She had learned that the hard way, finding folders that didn’t match the catalog and misplaced pages centuries into the future. Whenever that happened, she passed the mess to her coworkers, the actual archivists, who had a tendency to curse her incessantly until they fixed the issue, but it was all in good humor.

Very carefully, she took the lantern and approached it to the cabinet. She looked inside and stared at the darkness. In fact, she had to stare for a very long while before realizing that she wasn’t looking at the back of the cabinet or even the wall.

There was an empty space there.

A secret compartment?

Work forgotten, she had a good minute of doubt, sitting on the floor. She was severely allergic to dust mites and exploring further was a health hazard. There could be spiders or rats or fungi or lethal mold. She could wait until the next day and ask a coworker to check it out in her stead.

But the temptation. There was only so much willpower she could exert in less than twenty-four hours until she ran out.

Please let it not be rats or fungi, she thought as she peeled off her coat and scarf to avoid getting them dusty, and dived in.

❦

It had been eleven years since he had any anything to remember his parents by other than the bitter memories of how Flevance had gone up in flames.

If someone accused Law of dwelling too much in the past, he would have denied it with full knowledge that he was a liar. But there was a hint of truth in that, and that was that he didn’t think of his dead family often. It was another particular piece of past that haunted him.

There was nothing left of Flevance but ashes and ruin. He knew it well, and that was why he avoided revisiting those times.

And yet.

He closed the book he had just finished, running a finger over the cover. He remembered the nights his parents spent locked in their study, writing the results of their investigations in order to share their knowledge, hoping that a cure could be found in time.

He had spent the last two days reading every word in their voices, surprising himself when he could still recognize in the wording which parts had written who.

He’d been thinking from the moment he’d found the book, the first time in over a decade he had found a copy of it anywhere, that he’d have to let it go, but he wasn’t willing to. He had considered offering to buy it from the librarian, but given she hadn’t even let him take it out the day before, he had a feeling that she would refuse. She was understandably wary of him.

Well, he was already going to hell, so proving her suspicions right wouldn’t make a difference.

He slipped the book inside his coat and went downstairs to find her. He’d at least say thank you before she could find out what he had done. He was mildly curious about her reaction, but he’d make sure to miss that.

He opened the door to the place where she’d said she’d be to be greeted by darkness and a faint light, and he immediately tumbled down half a set of stairs when he set a foot down and only found air.

Cursing under his breath, he fought against the urge to leave unannounced and, going against popular advice, he followed the light at the end of the tunnel. It got increasingly brighter the more he advanced, passing bookcase after bookcase. The way they were set made the basement somewhat labyrinthine, and he was unsure he’d be able to find his way upstairs again if he had to follow the same path he was taking.

And right as he reached the source of light… it disappeared. Briefly. As did half of the librarian’s body inside of a low cabinet in which there was no human way an adult’s torso could fit.

How interesting.

He cleared his throat, and she visibly jumped, hitting her head with a resounding plunk and an ow. She pulled out of the cabinet, looking pretty embarrassed when she faced him.

“Um, oh—Are you heading out?”

“That was the plan.”

“Okay, then,” she said like nothing had happened. Her hair, brown and chin-length, was covered in dust bunnies, as was her sweater. She took off her glasses to clean them with her clothes, revealing a set of dark circles under her eyes that could rival his. When she noticed she couldn’t wipe anything with what she had available, she discarded the glasses on top of a nearby table. “The door’s open, so—”

“What’s in there?” He asked.

“Oh, nothing important,” she said calmly, and rubbed her nose with the back of a hand. “Just old registries.”

She watched her watch him. She wasn’t budging under his stare, but Law could detect lies from miles away. Also dust allergies. He hoped she was getting medicated for those, because this town was supposed to be a quick, relaxing stop, and he wasn’t in the mood to get the corpse of a librarian added to his list of crimes. “Inside the wall?”

“I guess someone saw fit to build a compartment in the cabinet?”

“A compartment where an adult and a lamp can disappear into?”

She spread her arms, as if to make a point. “I’m fairly small.”

“Don’t you say.”

Her expression went from neutral to mildly annoyed as she dropped her arms and the pretense altogether. “You really don’t have anything better to do in town?”

The question would have been fair had there been anything out there other than mud and the tavern his men had occupied since the day they arrived. “Any suggestions?”

She conceded the point. “No, not really.” With a sigh, she nudged her head towards the cabinet. “There’s no wall. I think there’s a hidden room in there. Too wide for a passage.”

“Is this something common in libraries?”

“No, but it is with old buildings, to an extent. And these shelves may be old, but they sure as hell aren’t as ancient as the basement.” She knocked on the wood. “Someone hid that room when this basement was repurposed as an archive.”

Consider his curiosity officially piqued. “Any idea of what’s inside?”

“I was about to find out.”

“So?”

“You want to check it out?” She sounded confused and like she didn’t want to hear the answer to that question.

Too bad he wasn’t feeling charitable. “Sure. You never know where a treasure may be hiding.”

If she had been tense until then, at that moment she looked ready to shove him out with her own hands. “Any objects that may be in there could be historical artifacts and need to be treated as such.”

“And are you going to stop me if I decide to take something?”

Her frown deepened, but there was little else she could do. She had to know that, even if he left just so they wouldn’t have to put up with each other any longer, he could come back any time he wanted, key or not.

There wasn’t as much bite in her voice when she relented. “Be my guest,” she said, offering him the lamp and gesturing towards the cabinet.

“Ladies first,” he replied, which didn’t win him any points, going by her huff, but she didn’t waste more time arguing and headed inside.

And then he was left without any light on his side.

“Well?” She asked, sounding a bit nervous.

“Are you in a hurry?” He said, feeling his way down the cabinet until he found the opening. There. He saw a faint light on the other side.

“Do you enjoy making people uncomfortable?”

“It’s a job perk, so might as—” Thud. His hat fell off his head and rolled to the other side. “—well.”

“…Did you hit your head?”

“No,” he lied, crawling out of the cabinet and picking up his hat.

“That’s why I tried to give you the lamp,” she said with obvious satisfaction, ignoring his reply, and holding the lamp higher to cover as much terrain as possible with the light. “The floor and walls look the same as outside. This is an extension of the basement, built at the same time as the rest of it, by the looks of it.”

“Why do you think someone would block the entrance?”

“To hide something or someone, so there’s a good chance there’s going to be a corpse instead of treasure. In fact, I hope it’s a corpse,” she sentenced.

“You have strange hobbies.”

“You wouldn’t try to steal a corpse. At least I’d avoid a pointless argument.”

Well, that depended on its state. He was bored, and it couldn’t hurt to take a body part back for closer inspection.

“…You wouldn’t, right?”

“Technically, it wouldn't be anyone's property.”

“Just saying, you have no right to judge anybody else’s hobbies. Hm?” She walked forward a few steps, and the light revealed something square standing in the middle of the room.

“Doesn’t look like your corpse,” he said.

“Doesn’t look like your treasure, either,” she replied, but she seemed to tune him out as she approached the object, and by the time she was standing in front of it, her eyes were wide open and her mouth fell a little bit.

Law waited for her to say something, but she was too caught up inspecting the thing. He took a few steps forwards and saw a perfect stone cube with etched inscriptions that covered one of its sides completely, and whatever it was, the librarian must found it fascinating. She was running her free hand over the symbols, leaving trails in the dust, and looking at them so up close that she may as well have been head-butting the stone. He was fairly sure that he had forgotten he was there. And that had to mean something, since she had made clear that she didn’t want him there.

“What is it?” He asked. There wasn’t anything interesting to him about that stone, and the fact that she had the lamp he had refused to take just to be a smartass meant that he couldn’t inspect the rest of the room while she did her thing.

She wasn’t brought out of her reverie right away. When she finally spoke, she took a couple of steps back to look at the entirety of the cube. “It’s a Poneglyph. It makes no sense, but it has to be.”

That didn’t answer anything. “And what’s that supposed to be?”

“A Poneglyph’s a… a record of sorts. There’s an indeterminate number scattered across the world, and they contain… well. Historical records.”

“So something that makes sense to have it in an archive.”

“Well, yes, but no. Poneglyphs contain forbidden knowledge.” Her stare could bore a hole in the stone if she kept it up. “You know the Void Century? Have you heard about the tragedy of Ohara?”

“On passing.” He recalled the news about the Tree of Knowledge burning and the scientists being declared enemies of the World Government. “One of the people involved has joined a pirate crew recently, hasn’t she? Devil Child, they call her.”

“Do they?” It seemed to come as entirely new information for her, and that made her look at him, at last. Without the glasses and under the light of the lamp’s flame, her eyes looked yellow. “I don’t pay that much attention to pirate news. No one ever comes here.” The question of why was he there was left unspoken, and thus unanswered. “Anyway. They are the only remaining records of the Void Century, and its study is prohibited by the World Government. Rumor goes that Ohara’s experts were working on them.”

“World Government covering up stuff then. Nothing new.”

“Indeed.” She switched the lamp to her other hand and glanced back at the Poneglyph. “I wonder why there’s one here. They are supposed to be extremely hard to find.”

“What does it say?”

“I don’t know. Nobody can read them. Maybe the people of Ohara could have, but…” She shrugged. “We’re twenty years late.”

She stared pensively at the Poneglyph, the lines of frustration etched on her face showing more emotion than anything he’d seen so far from her. Then, unexpectedly, she offered the lamp to him. “You want to take a look around, right?”

Their hands brushed for a moment when he took it by the handle, and she turned again towards the stone and crossed her arms.

He was still curious.

“What are you going to do?” He asked.

“Hm? About what?”

“What do you think?”

“The Poneglyph? Did you not hear what I said? Its study is prohibited.” He tone became despondent. “And… the city hall is going to know it’s here in a few months.”

“Why?”

“Renovations. We’re supposed to get electricity in the basement. Lamps are a fire hazard.”

“So it’s your only chance. Could you decipher it?”

“With years of work and research, maybe. But that’s—nah, no way, they reduced an island to bits because of this. It’s not worth the risk. I couldn’t do it anyway.”

“Sounds to me like you’re just making excuses, but what do I know? I’m just a pirate.”

And he started walking around the perimeter of the chamber, in hopes of finding something. After a few minutes of continuous disappointment, the librarian spoke up, and she sounded oddly polite.

“Could you wait here a moment? I want to pick up some material from outside.”

It was his turn to be suspicious. “Won’t you need the light?”

“No, I can navigate this place in the dark. I’ll be right back.”

He supposed that this was too convoluted to be a trap, but he felt kind of naked having left Kikoku in the archive. He didn’t feel uncomfortable for long, though, because true to word, about a minute later and after bonking her head on the way back in, she reappeared in the room with large sheets of paper and several other packs that she stacked up in front of the stone.

“Is that carbon paper?” He asked as he approached her. He hadn’t found anything else in the room, but damn if the library’s resident gremlin wasn’t a welcome entertainment.

“That’s right.” And she climbed on top of the unstable pile of papers and started to smooth the carbon paper over the stone. “I’ll transcribe it back home.”

This was a turn of events he hadn’t seen coming. “What happened to ‘it’s forbidden?’”

“All the good things in life are unhealthy for you.” With one hand, she pulled out a roll of adhesive tape and cut a few pieces with her teeth to stick the carbon paper to the Poneglyph. “Besides, fuck the government.”

Law couldn’t help but smirk at that. “A commendable sentiment.”

“Why, thank you!” She beamed at him, whether sarcastically or not, it was hard to tell. With considerable effort, she kept sticking pieces of carbon paper to the surface. He guessed the plan was to cover it entirely.

“Do you need help?”

“Are you offering?”

For someone who had been so wary of him a few hours earlier, she was a bit of a smartass, herself.

“Good question.”

He thought he heard her snort, but he couldn’t tell if it was because she was annoyed or amused. Probably the former.

“That stack of papers looks very unstable,” he commented.

“Yes, thanks for mentioning it.”

“You aren’t tall enough to reach the corner of the Poneglyph.”

Silence, resignation, and the telltale look of someone who was looking at an infestation beyond the capabilities of pest control. “I don’t suppose you would help me?”

“If you asked nicely.”

She looked at him with a strange face, one that indicated many thoughts and the inability to pick a single one and answer accordingly.

“No?” He tried.

Her eyes narrowed as she motioned to one of the papers. “Can you hold this up for me, please?”

His reply, however, was immediate. “I’ll think about it.”

She sighed, determined to ignore him, and returned to her work like she hadn’t expected anything from him at all, which he thought was a great attitude to have. But again, because he didn’t particularly care to see her slip and crack her head against the stone tiles, he did the tremendous effort of lifting up an arm to hold the paper in place.

She paused to look at him. Stone-faced as she was, it was hard to tell if there was any surprise in there or just mere curiosity, but she smiled a little when she said, “Look at you. Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.”

He let go of the paper, but since she didn’t stop chuckling to herself, he nudged the stack under her feet to remind her who was in control here.

❦

Alex said goodbye to the pirate that had managed to surpass her admittedly low expectations, but not before filing him under the pain in the ass category. Her classification system stood the test of reality so far.

Relieved at being alone again, she locked the door, did a few stretches, and decided that she’d had a lot of emotions that day and deserved another cup of tea.

One hurdle overcome. The pirate had seemed a way bigger problem before she’d found a fucking Poneglyph in the basement. Now she had no clue what to do with the new one.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she was fucked, no matter how she looked at it.

She felt oddly calm about it at that moment. She supposed it had something to do with the shock of the discovery and that the danger was still nebulous, if certain.

She sipped on her tea.

She was the only person that ventured regularly into that art of the archive, but alerting about the discovery herself was out of the question. If they knew she knew, they’d probably make her not know anything anymore.

The problem was that the construction workers would surely find the door, and now that she and Trafalgar had been walking around the room, there was obvious tampering. Cleaning the dust would get rid of the footprints and marks on the Poneglyph, but the lack of dust would be as suspicious as the sets of footprints.

The next gulp of tea scorched her throat.

So, only two options remained: stay, wait patiently and leave up to chance whether an accident happened to her, and probably the whole library with its workers, or quit her job, take a boat somewhere else and drop off the radar. The first one wasn’t worth the risk.

Two things to take into account with the remaining option: anybody with half a brain could suspect that her sudden departure had something to do with the Poneglyph, and in that case, all suspicions would fall on her. The plus side was that her coworkers would probably be spared.

What to do? It was a long way to her hometown. She could settle back there if she was spared from the government’s suspicions. If not…

Well. There was Sabaody.

Which was stupid for several reasons, the main one being that it was on Marineford’s and Mary Geoise’s doorsteps.

The ache in her hands felt especially acute, even through the heat radiating from the cup.

It would come down to luck, no matter what she did. Maybe she was overthinking the situation and nothing would happen. Workers would move the Poneglyph in the middle of the night, or seal it away while no one was looking, and that would be the end of it.

But assuming a best case scenario would most likely spell death in this situation, and she’d like to avoid that. She may not have had a super interesting life, but she was quite fond of having it.

Reality started to sink in then. Oh, god. She had to make a run for it, didn’t she?

She left the cup aside on her desk and started pacing around and up the stairs to burn energy. She could tell the city hall that a family member was ill and she needed to go back home. That would be sensible, but all the paperwork and finding a replacement for her would take weeks. At least one month would go by before she could leave the island without raising suspicions. Being able to cross the Red Line depended entirely on travel time and the wait for permissions to traverse the Holy Land, both of which would take money she didn’t have. She could probably cover the expenses to get to the Red Line, but not the rest of the way.

She’d need to pick up a quick job in between to replenish her wallet, then.

Why couldn’t she go work to a normal library? Why had this happened to her?

She hurried towards the medical section to put the book back in its place, and when she didn’t find it in the cart, she went to check the desks. All empty. Maybe he had put it back in place?

But all there was where the book should have been was an empty space, and a nervous heat started to rise to Alex’s cheeks as she realized that she had been duped and the son of a bitch had stolen her book after she’d had the generosity to open the door for him on a Sunday so he didn’t have to break and enter.

She was too full of anxious energy, with all that had happened, to sit still and fume silently. She’d never been prone to resignation where there were still options left to try, and if what her near future held for her was a one way trip to Impel Down, getting murdered by a pirate wasn’t the worst that could happen.

Harlun wasn’t big, and it was muddy outside. Very much so. Enough that Alex picked up her belongings, went outside, and, for once, was grateful that the roads were made of dirt and not pavement.

She hurried through the private plaza, carrying her bag on her shoulder, boots stomping on the cobblestones until she reached the road and saw a recent pair of shoe imprints that headed down the street.

With her black coat open and billowing in the wind, she went on Trafalgar Law’s pursue and, to her relief, his trail didn’t lead to the port, but rather to the tavern where every single sailor that stopped in Harlun seemed to spend their days in. Not like they had much of a choice.

A friendly face saluted her from behind the counter as she crossed the door. “Long time no see, A—”

“HiAl,” she said to the bartender so fast that she wasn’t sure if the words came out properly, but she didn’t care, because the bastard she was looking for was sitting on a barstool right in front of her. She couldn’t interpret the look on his face, but what she could tell for sure was that she wanted to deck him in it. “You,” she said, accusatory.

He smirked, and her irritation only grew. “What a coincidence. Here for a drink?”

She inhaled deeply, angrily, walked up to him and dropped her bag on the nearest barstool. Damn, he was tall, and so was his seat. Even sitting down, he towered above her. Not that it mattered, because most people tended to be taller than Alex, so this didn’t register as an intimidating factor. “You know what I’m here for.”

“I’m afraid not.”

“You stole my book.”

“Your book?”

She had come here to embarrass herself, hadn’t she? Too late to turn back now. “The library’s book.”

“What makes you think I did?”

Oh, he was insufferable.

“Do you take me for an idiot?” She retorted. “You’re the only person who could have taken it.”

“How so? The library’s closed today.”

Alex’s mouth fell a little bit open at Law’s flippant answer under the curious gaze of Al. “Really?” She said, unimpressed. “I can’t make you return it even if I try, and that’s how you’re going to play it?”

He wore a self-satisfied smile, and he wasn’t even looking at her. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She considered what to say for a few seconds. “Okay,” was the best she could do. She didn’t know why she felt so disappointed. It wasn’t like she had expected anything good from him, from the start. He was right if he thought she was an idiot. “Serves me right for trying to help,” she said, yanking on her bag to retrieve it and turning around without facing him. “Bye, Al.”

Being taken advantage of was the worst feeling.

She hadn’t taken a second step away from him when a hand grabbed her by her left arm and pulled her back.

“Wait,” she heard Trafalgar say. When she turned around, he wasn’t smirking anymore. “What’s the name of the book?”

“You know the name,” she said irritated, confused, and offended that he was invading her personal bubble.

“Do you?”

“Effects of heavy metal poisoning on the cardiovascular system, I think?” She said, punctuating the sentence with a tired sigh. “Do you need the reference too?”

“No. The authors.”

“Are you getting at something or are you just laughing at me?”

He let go of her to search for something in the coat he had discarded on the barstool to his other side. The book she was looking for. He held it up for her, but didn’t offer it, and Alex didn’t try to take it by surprise because there’s no point in stealing when you can’t make a swift escape with the loot.

She looked at the names written below the title. “Doctor…” She muttered, and then she read the surname, and the surname below it, and she blinked a couple of times before redirecting her attention to Law. “You aren’t old enough to have written this book.”

It said Trafalgar. Twice. Family? Was this a con? Did he come from a line of doctors?

“Obviously.”

“A parent?” No, there were two. “Parents?”

“Bingo.”

Alex’s indignation and disappointment fizzled against her will. He was a thief, he’d taken advantage of her good will and was waving the prize in front of her face, she should’ve been furious!

And yet, she had to be a bleeding heart again. “And I don’t suppose you can ask them or the printing press for another copy?”

His response wasn’t immediate, but when he gave one, it was silent. He opened the book from the back, and showed her the words printed behind the back cover:

Printed in Flevance.

That was a resounding no if there ever was one. But did that also mean…? No, he couldn’t have anything to do with that incident, there wasn’t anybody left from Flevance. Perhaps his parents had been working there when war broke out. It was safe to assume that the son of two doctors wouldn’t become a famous pirate if he still had a family to fall back onto. This was a huge can of worms that she had no intentions of opening, though.

“If you’re a liar, you’re a very convincing one,” she admitted. She couldn’t even get rightfully enraged without the universe throwing her a curveball, huh? “All right, keep it. Not that you need my permission.”

With a satisfied smile, he put away the book. “Will you get in trouble?”

“Why do you—” She cut herself short. Not worth asking. “No, I’ll blame you if anybody notices,” she replied. “Al—”

“Not a word.”

“Thank you.” She nodded, and then looked at the pirate once again. “Well, Mr. Trafalgar, it’s been…” Not exactly a pleasure. “Interesting.”

A short laugh escaped him. She had to wonder if it was the alcohol what had him in such high spirits. “Leaving so soon?”

“What, you steal from my workplace and want me to stay for the party?” She asked with incredulity.

“Is it theft if you’re allowing it, though?”

The gall of this dude. “No, thank—”

Suddenly, a red haired man wearing sunglasses indoors and a white jumpsuit entered the scene, putting an arm around Law’s shoulders. “Hey, Captain! Who’s the girl?”

“She’s…”

“A librarian,” she offered. “Just a librarian.”

“Oooh, the librarian!”

“…What—”

“Penguin, come here! It’s the librarian!”

His friend, who wore a cap with the word ‘penguin’ on it that concealed his eyes, but otherwise was dressed exactly like him, walked up to them, “Nice to meet ya!” He wave at her. “You’ve got guts!”

She sensed her chance to make a swift exit was gone. “I think I’m a little lost.”

“Captain said you opened the library just for him.”

“Oh. That.” She was still regretting that. She should have never woken up. Sundays were meant for sleeping. “That’s not guts, it’s being a dumbass.”

The two men laughed, and the first said, “Aren’t they the same?”

She tilted her head, conceding the point. The tilt of their voices was similar to the captain’s, she noticed. Northerners, too. She felt small thinking that they had travelled from practically the opposite side of the world until she remembered she had done the same. The difference was that she had managed to make it boring.

“So what brings you here?” Penguin asked. “Come for a drink after work?”

“No, not really, I was just about to—”

“Come on, have a drink with us!”

“Um, I should really—”

“You live here for long?” The redhead intervened. “I wanna hear about this town. Is it as boring as it looks? Because we’ve been trying to find something to do since we got here.”

“There has to be something.”

Alex smiled a little despite herself, feeling their plight until she remembered the Poneglyph in the archive. “There’s nothing at all.” She turned her head to look at the tables for a moment, hopefully find an excuse to escape. As expected, she saw about a dozen people dressed in the same kind of uniform as those two, but she did a double take when she saw someone clad in orange.

There was the polar bear again, toasting with his friends.

“Is he a mink?” He asked the guys, who grinned at her. She saw Law hide a smile behind his glass before returning his attention to the bear.

He was laughing as he lifted a companion from a chair one handed. Everyone looked so… happy.

“Woah!” Penguin exclaimed. “Second person—”

“Third.”

“Right, third – third person who’s realized what he is since coming to the Grand Line!”

Not surprising. She had never seen any so far from the Red Line. “Is he part of your crew?”

“Yeah, Bepo’s our friend.”

“And our navigator,” Law added.

Aw. Oh, she was getting soft with age.

“Wait here,” said the redhead, “we’ll introduce you!”

“Oh, no need, we already—”

But the two were gone before she could finish her excuse and leave. She supposed there wasn’t any harm in staying a while. She had already demolished her life in a matter of hours, and she didn’t see how this could make it worse. They seemed friendly people, even if their captain was kind of an ass.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” she said quietly, more to herself than anybody else.

Law replied, though. “There aren’t many of them around.”

“No, I’ve seen minks before. I meant a free one.”

Law regarded her with a brand interest that she hadn’t received from him yet. “Are you talking about slaves?”

“You’re headed to the Sabaody Archipelago, right?”

“Eventually.”

“Be careful. Minks aren’t safe there.”

He snorted. “I assure you Bepo can take care of himself.”

Raising her eyebrows at her dismissal, “Don’t underestimate what those people are willing to do to get their hands on a novelty slave.”

“How do you know? Have you been there?”

For longer than she had ever expected to. “Some time ago,” she replied noncommittally. “And it’s dangerous enough for boring people with the kidnapping crews, the human auction, the Celestial Dragons and the Marines so close. You already stand out, but your friend? Keep an eye on him.”

He sounded disgruntled when he said, “You don’t need to tell me,” but it sounded as close to a concession as she thought she was going to get from him.

“Coffee?” Al interrupted to offer one to her. He already had a press in hand.

“Sure,” she said, giving in. She wasn’t going anywhere soon, it seemed, so she climbed on a barstool. “How did you even meet him?” She asked Law, who seemed amused by her interest in his friend. “Don’t they live in the New World?”

“North Blue. We met eleven years ago.”

That was about the last answer she expected. “He’s been with you all along? Wow.”

She felt kind of jealous. She didn’t have any friends from when she was a child. She knew people, sure. A lot of people. Some she liked, many she’d rather not have met at all. A couple of true friends here and there, but no one close by. As much as she enjoyed being alone, and she couldn’t recall a moment in her life she’d felt lonely, she had to wonder how it was like to have such good friends around all the time. It sounded exhausting and fun.

“Yeah,” he agreed, though she hadn’t expected him to, and the admission made her smile a little. “My thoughts exactly.”

#degrees of separation

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runenc03 · 3 years

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Mirror

Writing date: January 2021

Genre: I...don’t think this is fluff. It’s more angst I guess? Idk I normally only write fluffy things lol

Warnings: bad self esteem, like, very bad one. A very insecure character

Word count: 1k words

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

She looked at herself in the mirror.

The sight that greeted her was one of terror, despair, darkness. Her hair was an unpredictable wildfire in its volume, sticking out at all angles, the quintessential image of drought, visible frizziness framing her face. Her skin looked pale, almost grey, the colour the sky holds when the rain is contemplating when to fall. Her eyes trailed to her forehead, where indelible remnants of acne scarred her skin, leaving dents like hail on cars during an ice storm. Her eyebrows weren't much better off, bushy and today especially misshapen, like unexpected flashes of lightning during the darkest of thunderstorms. Her cheeks, too chubby, were like a thick layer of heavily clouded sky was plastered over her bones. Her eyes found the reflection of her lips, trembling uncontrollably, like old trees during an earthquake, desperately trying to stay upright while the pressure overwhelms them, eventually accepting their fate, waiting until their trunks will break. Her chin wasn't outlined, and had she had any energy left, she would've manipulated the image in front of her, craning her neck in odd directions to create the sharp contrast between chin and throat she so desperately wanted. All she was given was a slightly protruding bone, like the top of an upside-down volcano, with and underneath it, a wobbly line of skin that was supposed to be her neck, to her resembling flows of lava, coating herself in vicious, molten substance. Suddenly, her airway felt constricted, hot, in a way, as if the scorching lava heat had penetrated her throat.

For just a moment, her eyes found the eyes of the girl in the mirror, sunken, hollow. She searched, but there was nothing there, the kind of nothing that is left after tornadoes, or hurricanes. The kind of nothing one finds at the bottom of a polluted lake, or in the middle of a cold desert, or surrounded by loudly honking cars, forced to fill lungs with gasses. The moment was over as quickly as it had come, her eyes filling with a familiar layer of tears, an almost comforting wall to protect her against the cruel image in front of her. It was like fog on a cold winter morning, trapping you in, and to some people that might feel restricting, but to her it meant she couldn't look anymore, and somehow, that was what saved her time and time again.

He looked at her as she looked at herself through the mirror.

The early sunlight streamed through the room, bathing her face in a golden light. He saw the blush on her cheeks rapidly moving over her skin like the northern light in the sky during the darkest night. Her nose was covered in freckles, a mix of constellations he would forever be fascinated by. He let his eyes trail further along her face, stopping at the curve of her lips. To him, the curves looked like the young leaves of an oak tree, gently swaying in the breeze on an early spring morning. He saw her eyes concentrate on her hair. She was frowning. To him, however, her hair looked perfectly fine. It was one of the physical things he loved most about her. It was a bit frizzy this morning, but he found that that complemented her fiery personality that much better. Her voluminous locks cascaded around her face, untamed, like that time when they had danced in the rain. She'd laughed about the messiness of it all. She could laugh back then. He looked at her eyebrows, the way they curved above her eyes, like rainbows seemed to curve around the world, when the sun was close enough. He studied her eyelashes, the way they reached to her eyebrows, like flower petals stretched toward the sky after a rain shower. And then there were her eyes. They used to be his favourite feature of hers, before the pain had nestled itself there, before they had started looking empty. He knew they could be so expressive, so radiant. They were clear, and again, just like every other part of her complexion, elegantly shaped. He got lost in there whenever they were together, whenever she allowed him to look her in the eyes and tell her what he saw. He had told her all kinds of stories that way, while gazing into her eyes and describing what he saw. They were the windows to her soul, a soul that was once full of adventure, and imagination, and a will to live life to its fullest. He so wished to get that back. But even with the tears in her eyes, and the frizziness of her hair, and the acne scars on her forehead she so often complained about, she was beautiful. Not the kind of beautiful you see in a building, or on a painting, or even in other beautiful people. No, she was the kind of beautiful that you could only witness outside, the kind of beautiful one finds on top of a mountain, looking out over landscapes full of rivers and trees, the kind of beautiful one experiences after resurfacing from the water and letting the sun run itself over their skin, the kind of beautiful one feels by walking over grass barefoot. And he knew that the way he saw her wasn't completely accurate, that the love he felt for her coloured his vision. But the way she viewed herself was far further away from the truth, because she constantly hid herself in a well full of tar, or behind a wall made of tears. It was in that moment that he vowed that one day, he would let her see. She would wake up, look into the mirror, and discover all the beautiful nature right in front of her. The birds would sing in victory, the sun would shine in joy. And she, she would wipe the last remaining tear from her cheek, and realise that the potential had been there, all along.

#crushxreader #imagines #oneshot #love #insecutiry #mirror #oc #insecurity #perspective #drabble #short

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sasorikigai · 5 years

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Muse Aesthetics

Scorpion; faded yellows, crimson-stained trail, cobblestones, essense of wisdom, handwoven baskets, a single candle flame in a dark room, meditation, anger, callused hands, bruised & burnt flesh, bared & bloody teeth, warm sunshine, a controlled bonfire, the smell of sulfur after having put out a match, strong soft voices, soft sleek hair, an obsidian statue with a golden skull inlaid in the stone, eagles, white skies, frozen tree branches, ancient temples, dragons, silver, compassion, the will to survive, miracle of life, finding hope beyond the unwelcome consequences of his own desires, adamantine bones, the blinding rays of summer sunset, the horizon blending into the sky, conversations that last too long into the night, the warmth of smoky voice, endless spring rain, echoes that never cease, brightness, warmth, a slight breeze, impromptu inspiration, whispered dreams and hopes, dimly-lit evenings and soft whispers, scorching summer sunlight, familiarity and warmth, stones warmed by sunlight, sunlight glinting off windows, the wind rustling in the leaves, an encouraging smile, comfort, reassurance and love.

Sub-Zero; frozen over lakes, blood stained cobblestone, frostbitten fingertips, loud & heavy winds of a snow storm, dusty blue, dented & scratched silver armor, peace, cold marble floors, long sharp thin icicles dangling from the roof, misty breath on a cold morning, unexpected chills, fireplaces, tiger's eyes stone, dusk, incense sticks, red gladiolus, enhanced loneliness, crystallized breaths, freezing and thawing heart, bleeding memories of the past, ice dragons, supernova spilling out into stars, empty chasm of space, a thousand unsaid words, innocence of a child forever lost, stern indifference, empathy, early morning mist and fog, winter frost glinting on green grass, comfortable silence, a promise full of hope, sunlight filtering through evergreen, winter-dusk, frozen in time, tears of anger and grief, an industrial naturalness, hope as an identity, glacial warmth, utter stillness, the first snowflakes drifting from the winter sky, a soft, hopeful smile, fluffy white clouds and the bluest of skies, and slipping away into dreamland.

#✗ obsessive cathartic (headcanon)#✗ the ineffable testimony of spawned hellfire (scorpion)#✗ bone-deep chill of despair (sub-zero)#(updated regularly)

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uberwolken · 5 years

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Rules: Answer the soft Q&A’s and tag 5 people. I was tagged by @kingfomyheart - vielen Dank!

1) What’s the smell of your shampoo?

Coconut

2) What’s your aesthetic?

Glowing lights in dark cities, blinking neon signs, abandoned brutalist buildings, frozen streams, morning fog, snow falling at night, dying light through dirty windows, old pictures with blurry lights, wind swollen curtains

3) What is your favourite time of the day?

Early evenings in the winter, and nights in the summer

4) What do you like most about the beach?

Standing on cold sand when a storm is brewing

5) What do you worry about constantly?

About so many things, but mostly about what I am going to do next year

6) What is a song you’ve cried to before?

Live versions of Frühling in Paris always get me

7) What are some relaxing tips for your followers?

You can’t go wrong with a bath, candles, a good book and a glass of wine

8) What are some things that make you tear up?

I don’t even like kids, nor want any, but stories of abused children always move me. It takes a special kind of low to purposefully hurt someone you are supposed to love and nurture.

9) What is your favourite from each of the five senses?

Smell: pine trees

Sound: howling wind, rain on windows

Touch: warm, scented baths after a long day

Taste: pomegranates, berries, beer

Sight: the hardest one in my opinion… but I will never tire of early mornings and candlelight

10) What is one alternate reality you’d want to be in?

One where I am sitting in Till’s lap ;)

11) What are some troubles you face on a day to day basis?

Finding motivation to make my way through academia

12) What is one scene of a book that’s made you really sad?

“La fin des combats” is one of my favorites, and it’s really moving. The protagonist’s friend, an aging man, bows in front of her. Their love is young and blooming, but as he bends down, she notices hair balding on his head, and is suddenly reminded of their age. She thinks it’s stupid to start over, at their age, in this time, in this place, and realizes there is nothing to look forwards to anymore. It is sad but not unexpected, and it marks the end of the fighting, the end of youth, of love, and of hope. It is the start of the end, and it is said so casually, so naturally, that it feels unavoidable, and in a way, it is.

The whole series was heart-wrenching, but amidst all the turmoil, the political unrest, and the pain, this particular scene was really telling, as the end of the last hope for a sliver of happiness.

Say something to all your followers:

Kudos to y’all for sticking with my unruly mess of a blog and my thirst for Till! Ich hab euch lieb!

Tagging @thegothicviking. @fruhlinginparis, @milliglock and @herzeleid-rammstein

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shardclan · 6 years

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A Moment in the Summerlands

The granary serving both Aphaster and Feldspar is filling as the fields empty.

Queen Rebis stands in the reaped remains, alone save the quiet presence of Nayvadius. Though she went there knowing that it was the same place her predecessor often stood, her mind is not on Telos. She looks at the easternmost grasslands dourly, knowing that they have been harvested early. Dragons and beastclans alike are preparing themselves for an early winter courtesy of the changed winds. The possibility of a food shortage is so likely that she considers it already a reality.

For the first time, she feels relief at the thought of a satellite clan that will diminish the capital's numbers. The promise she made with Lightweaver still burns, but the partial banishment of her attachments means fewer mouths to feed. There are comparisons to the rule of the Investor already reaching her ears. The climate change and the food storage it will bring is not an unknown, and the clan is braced for rationing, closed borders, and all manner of restrictions.

She worries that she is naive to think she will be able to winter their clan without doing anything drastic. Her upbringing was idyllic, her image of Aphaster idealized by a lack of conflict. She is grown enough now to understand that may not have been for the best.

She emits a quiet prayer to the high noon sun that her choices will be the right ones.

Arcanus sets down the Sunbeam Sentinel and closes his eyes. Across from him, he can feel Carnelian watching him.

He has already admitted that he toasted to Telos' departure with Gethsemene. That was supposed to be it. That was supposed to be enough. But Carnelian is not Gethsemene. While she and Arcanus were sure to grow closer from now on, she was tangential to all that had happened since Aphaster came to be, and to who Arcanus had become since then.

Carnelian is integral--an attachment that Arcanus gained that grew with him. He knew everything, and even though they have not seen each other for eons, Arcanus feels that Carnelian still knows even the most remote corners of his heart.

Carnelian would never actually prompt him to be honest, but the untouched cigar gently smoking in its tray, the unpoured liquor, and the carefully neutral expression are all glaring to Arcanus. Expressions of compassion from a difficult man.

Resentment stings him, and embarrassment on its heel. It's only a fleeting feeling, but he is angry that someone as opaque as Carnelian can see through him so easily. He has walked through Aphaster with his head high, his mission accomplished and promise kept, and yet Carnelian pierces through it without a word.

Arcanus lets out a sob with only the most passing attempt to restrain it.

He has missed Aphaster so much. He is so happy to be home.

But Telos is not there anymore.

With as little sound as possible, Carnelian closes the blinds, and sits with him in the dark. The sound of the guardian's grief passes over him and fills his home as inescapably as rain.

"Telos would never have allowed it," Dantalion spits.

"Telos had to make other allowances," Heaven points out meekly. "They just...didn't affect us."

Heaven has never seen him so furious. Dantalion is within arms reach, holding tightly to himself and seething, and Heaven feels as though the Sea of a Thousand Currents is already between them.

"Our life is here," he grits. "Your family. Our family. You shouldn't have to leave just because of some ambiguous demand from Lightweaver!"

"Lion..." Heaven tries to soothe. "It's not ambiguous. I have to go because Rebis is attached to me."

"I'M ATTACHED TO YOU!" Dantalion explodes.

The air between them buzzes, a rushing vibration that both can feel in their bones. Neither is sure if it is the unexpected anger, or his thick witch's blood calling something into their home.

"I'm attached to you," he forces himself to say more calmly, but he is trembling. "But everything else I'm attached to is here, Heaven. Everything you're attached to is here too. There's nothing for us in the Isles. Just a bunch of bad memories. A place where I fucked up and didn't recognize a dragon made to masquerade as a spirit, and a place where a bunch of our clanmates who are either dead or gone used to live."

Heaven swallows. The attempt nearly chokes him, but he manages to whisper, "I still have to go."

"I know," Dantalion admits wearily. He rubs at his eyes. "But I don't think I can go with you."

Lavi finds Carnelian standing at the door. He drops, holding onto his knees and wheezing as he tries to catch his breath.

"He's--he's here, right?"

Carnelian nods, but he is quick to throw a blocking arm in the way to prevent Lavi's passing. They meet eyes, and a spark of irritation jumps between them.

"I don't think he wants you to see him right now," Carnelian says with unusual patience. "Not like that."

"But you have seen him," Lavi shoots back. "In whatever state he's in. He came to you first."

"He came to a place where he doesn't have to deal with echoes of Telos first," he corrects with an arched brow. "I didn't think you were the jealous type."

"I just--" Lavi blusters, immediately ashamed of his cattiness. "I just want to see him... Please."

"Let me say it again, but so you can hear it: Your father wouldn't want his son to see the kind of grief he is dealing with right now."

It amazes Carnelian how easily diffused Lavi is by the acknowledgement that Arcanus considers him a son. Lavi is Imperator, and a half-feral that towers over the other glamours that the clan has accustomed itself to using, but he is also only a young drake who hasn't seen his father in half a cycle. Playing on that leaves a surprisingly sour taste in Carnelian's mouth.

"You come running to where he is every time," he offers peaceably. "One man to another, he needs that right now, but that's not something I can do."

Carnelian's strange softness jars some suppressed emotion loose in Lavi, to the older dragon's chagrin. "I was supposed to take care of things. I was supposed to have really good news for him, but--!"

"Gods, shut up before you piss me off. You're just like him; you'd do the right thing even if it killed you."

From inside, a muffled croak: "He means that you've done your best and shouldn't worry so much..."

The imperial and the guardian meet eyes again, and with a tired roll of his eyes, Carnelian opens his door and watches Invigilavi run in and leap into Arcanus' waiting arms.

Carnelian closes the door to leave them alone and wanders off into the fog of Bramble Step without a care. They need each other, and Arcanus knows the locks. They'll be fine.

The moment plays over and over, no matter how Azricai tries to get past it.

It was sad, but peaceful to watch Kea go. She had seemed a little confused that Azricai had specifically come to say goodbye to her. The remnants of Tawhiri respectfully parting, maybe? She took Azricai’s hand anyway.

Kea was warm. She was so, so warm.

"Azricai helped lift the stigma around you from your grandmother's exile."

The words were said coolly. Not blurted. Deliberate. Equinox' emotional geography was smooth and stone still beside Azricai. She had never seen it coming.

In her moments of clarity, Azricai knows it was a betrayal of her trust. But she also knows she would have done the same--she just had the benefit of so much practice that she would have picked a better time. She would never have let anyone feel the way she had in that moment.

"She's been looking out for you since she joined the clan. You're the reason she became the Gale Wolf. She first learned how to be the person she is now with you, Kea." Equinox moving, letting Azricai go. She knew they couldn't remain together after that. "The Gale Wolf was created for you."

Kea had no reason to disbelieve Equinox, even though it was unbelievable. But if she had, Azricai's stumble would have given her away. The naked expression on her face. The way she yanked her hand back, covering her face as though she could somehow put her impenetrable persona back together by hand. The anxious horror of watching Kea piece her memories back together. Re-contextualizing. Shedding light on places inside her that hadn't come to the surface in eons to see where this new information came in.

"I..." Control of the situation had been wrenched from Azricai's hands. She had never felt so vulnerable. Not even when Lavi had asked her point blank if she loved him. "I did not want you to feel manipulated. I didn't want you to think less of how far you've come for my involvement."

Kea's eyes had softened with understanding Azricai had not ever dared to think about. "But that's the point of you isn't it? You only ever push forward what's already there. Like you did for Iblis. For everyone who has ever come to you troubled." A warm blush had spread across her cheeks. "Though I guess it's a little embarrassing that I was the guinea pig."

"You weren't!" Azricai cried. "You were never any such thing! You were my family, and you deserved better! That's all it was ever about!"

It embarrasses Azricai now. How she must have looked. Crying out and weeping before a woman who, until that moment, had never been aware that Azricai cared for her. Much less considered that somewhere in those unknowable depths, Azricai was genuinely attached to her--that she had been from the start.

But Kea had smiled. The way she only did with Iblis. With Camellia and Kiele and her children. With dragons she considered Family. The open gates of the Observatory awaited, and she would not go back on her decision. But she had spared a moment to embrace Azricai and say the only words that she thought needed saying.

"Thank you."

The words are still lodged in Azricai's heart. She sits alone inside the hollowed marble pillar she has called home since their first days in the Sunbeam Ruins.

Rebis needs her. Lavi needs her.

But no matter how many time she closes her eyes, the conversation replays, and the strength to do anything but curl deeper into her pillows eludes her.

#Flight Rising #c: invigilavi #C: Arcanus #C: Rebis #C: Azricai #C: Carnelian #C: Heaven #C: Dantalion #In which there are Stages of Grief (tm)#Aphaster Stories

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thepunisher · 7 years

Text

A Bottle Marked ‘Poison’

Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes | E | 3842 words | 1/? |

ao3 link

Summary: The headstones are clean and well preserved and surrounded by fresh, colorful flowers when he reaches them. Not lilies, never lilies. But roses and sunflowers and violets. Someone has been taking care of them for years. (Not him. He can’t even take care of himself.) There’s names and dates and pictures. There’s quotes. Beloved mother. He has a split lip, his eye is a nasty shade of purple and he’s still nursing three bruised ribs. Somehow this hurts more. OR On the anniversary of their deaths, Tony visits his parents’ graves. He has an unexpected encounter. Things go downhill from there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can you believe I started writing again? Yeah, me neither! Many many thanks to @superbatfleck for being the awesome friend that he is and betaing this and to @timmyjdrake and @imissyourbattlecries for always being so supportive and kind. I love you guys and I don’t deserve you ❤

Chapter One: Loss

At the temple there is a poem called “Loss” carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it.

Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

He’s close to having a major breakdown, so it’s just typical that a squirrel is giving him the stinky eye. A man like him can’t really fall apart without a judging audience. Everyone’s a critic. Go figure.

It’s a sunny day, the kind where birds are annoyingly chirpy and the wind can’t seem to stop blowing against trees leaves. The kind you fool yourself into thinking it’s going to be warm enough to taste like spring and yet the cold actually seeps into your bones and consumes you from the inside. The kind where apparently even squirrels are not above mocking you when you’ve been sitting pathetically in your car for over half an hour, too afraid to face your demons.

Squirrels can smell cowardice, who knew.

Tony doesn’t know if it’s fitting or not. The sun, the peace. Even the peanut gallery. He’s always lived under the spotlight, after all. But he supposes that rain or hail or fog would have probably been better companions to his mood.

It takes him another ten good minutes, mostly spent with his hands holding the steering wheel way too tight, before he finds some sort of resolution and he gets out of the car.

He feels a couple of stems dent under his vice-like grip and curses when he notices that he ruined the flowers already.

He’s terrible at this, no wonder he never did it before. He’s not even inside yet and he already fucked up.

(Not unusual, he fucks everything up.)

The lilies are delicate and beautiful, and their smell feels like a punch to the stomach.

Maria loved lilies and breathing them in is like jumping on a time machine that takes him back forty years in one second.

Their mansion in New York, the one that sat uninhibited for over two decades, would always smell like lilies, like her. Jarvis would put fresh ones around almost daily.

It doesn’t now. Not anymore. It doesn’t smell like home either.

If the guard at the gate recognises him, he doesn’t show it. Whatever the reason, Tony is glad for small mercies. He battled intergalactic aliens hellbent on ruling the universe and shook the hands of people who stomped on his broken heart this past year, yet he doesn’t think he could master faking a smile for a stranger right now.

(Untrue. He’s been faking his whole life.)

The cemetery itself is mostly deserted, which is a relief. The atmosphere is creepy, with a touch of horror movie beginning, probably, but at least there’s no one to witness his sorry ass.

Maybe it’s the early hour. Maybe other people have better things to do so close to Christmas than chase ghosts at dawn.

(He wouldn’t know, he’s always been haunted.)

There’s an overabundance of marble, of angels, of those stupid birds still chirping way too happily for his own taste, but his mind is too loud and racing to focus on anything around him.

You’d think a grown man wouldn’t have to struggle at the thought of visiting his parents’ graves.

(You’d think the fact that he’s considered an adult wouldn’t be hilarious.)

He doesn’t know how people do not get overwhelmed walking among rows and rows of headstones, of grass, of stories ended sometimes too soon, sometimes too brutally.

He hates every second of it.

Perhaps it’s a matter of practice. He wouldn’t know. The last time he visited the cemetery was the day he put his parents and his youth six feet under. That was twenty-six years ago.

He takes at least 4 wrong turns, and he tells himself it’s cause this place is a fucking labyrinth, but he knows he’s just trying to stall. Again.

(He’s always been a coward.)

The headstones are clean and well preserved and surrounded by fresh, colorful flowers when he reaches them. Not lilies, never lilies. But roses and sunflowers and violets. Someone has been taking care of them for years.

(Not him. He can’t even take care of himself.)

There’s names and dates and pictures. There’s quotes. Beloved mother.

He has a split lip, his eye is a nasty shade of purple and he’s still nursing three bruised ribs. Somehow this hurts more.

He sighs.

The lilies’ stems are ruined, but he still sets them carefully inside one large vase. He doesn’t think Maria would have minded, their whiteness stark against the other flowers.

There are benches nearby. Iron things with pointed and curly embellishments and peeled off paint and marble flat things that look uncomfortable as hell, but he just bends his knees and sits on the floor, the ground under him cold.

He sits there for a long time, his elbows resting on his knees, grasping his hands, breathing in the scents of winter and grass and mourning.

He knows a lot of people come to this place to talk to their loved ones, but Tony finds himself speechless.

He doesn’t think Maria would have minded that either.

And what to say anyway? Hi, mom. Not dead yet and not for lack of trying. You proud?

It all feels so anticlimactic, he’s a bit disappointed.

For all the courage it took to bring him here, now he’s unsure of what to do.

He looks at the grass, green and growing over his father’s grave and all he can remember are his ever disappointed eyes. All he’s ever felt and all he thought he would ever feel for him is resentment.

He looks over his mother’s grave and he’s struck by the sudden realization that he can no longer remember the sound of her laughter.

Tony doesn’t know how long he stays there like that. His ass is a bit numb and sore and the sun is starting to bathe everything in its pale light when he feels it.

Goosebumps raise across his flesh, the hair at the nape of his neck going straight. It seems even the chirping has died down.

Prey have a preternatural awareness; they always know when a predator is near.

He doesn’t have enhanced senses, but he knows he’s being watched.

It’s a feeling he experienced a few times since everything went to hell and then somehow it didn’t. Since they defeated Thanos.

His stalker is a quiet shadow. He always is. So much that Tony thinks not for the first time that perhaps it’s all just inside his head. The fruit of his twisted imagination, the product of his wary paranoia, the delusion of his alcohol ruined brain.

(In his nightmares there are always shadows.)

But he knows the feeling of those eyes on him and for as much he wishes he were, he’s not deluded.

(Would he know if he truly were?)

He is angry though.

It took effort and courage and willpower to come to this place, to march across this sea of emptiness and face his monsters. How is he to battle another one when he’s already so unprepared?

His blunt nails are biting the flesh of his palms and as usual, pain is his anchor.

He’ll go away in a while. He always does.

He just looks and looks and looks, his eyes like coals burning Tony’s skin each time it happens, but he always leaves.

Tony is thankful for that cause he doesn’t know what he would do otherwise. What he would say.

He knows what he should say and he knows what he can’t say. But he doesn’t know what he would actually do, given the chance.

So he stays where he is, pretending he has things to say to his parents, waiting for him to just go, so he can go back to clawing at the scabs of his heart.

He doesn’t.

Tony waits and waits and waits but his shadow doesn’t vanish.

There’s rustling eventually, and then like gravel crunching under boots. It’s not loud, but it’s hard to miss in the silence around them. He knows it’s deliberate.

A cold blooded assassin doesn’t make any noise unless he wants you to hear him.

Tony’s heart speeds up when sees him approaching from the corner of his eye, a blur of dark clothes and purposeful strides.

He briefly thinks of the suit in the car and the gauntlet watch he has on his right wrist, its weight a mute comfort. He feels stupid for even contemplating it, cause it’s not like the Soldier is here to kill him. He’s hanging with the heroes now. Living with them and all.

(He doesn’t. But then again he’s never been a hero.)

The urge to laugh a bitter laugh is strong, but Tony manages to contain it. He bets he already looks mad enough, sitting on the floor of a cemetery at the break of dawn.

He is tired. His bones feel hollow and his chest numb. Maybe that’s what finally drove him here.

Weariness.

This conversation has been a long time coming and perhaps they both dragged it out for longer than they should have.

There’s no point to rage, resignation taking its place.

He doesn’t turn even when the Soldier stops only a few steps away from him. From the grave of the people he murdered.

Tony’s brain gingerly supplies the footage of that fateful night, his mother’s anxious, broken voice calling for Howard on a loop in his ears.

He wonders if the Soldier hears that too sometimes. If it keeps him awake at night. He wonders how many such screams he must have heard in his lifetime as the Grim Reaper.

None of them says anything for what feels like hours.

Tony can see the Soldier’s -Barnes, his name is Barnes- shoulders tighten every once in awhile. His breath hitches as if he’s about to speak, but no words ever come out.

Ignoring him in the hope that he’ll disappear like a figment of his imagination doesn’t seem to be working, and so Tony dares to look at him.

It feels like he never really did that. He looked perhaps, but he never really saw.

He certainly didn’t the time they almost killed each other. All those memories are tinted in red, and he doesn’t remember much of that trip to Siberia beside the agony tearing at his chest, the cold taking residence inside his bones and the mute sound of Steve’s boots when he left him behind.

He didn’t really pay too much attention to him when they were all fighting for their lives against Thanos either, too busy trying not to die. They crossed paths a handful of times after that, but it’s not like he was really looking.

He’s tall, as tall as Steve, but he’s hiding his hands inside the pockets of a black hoodie, shoulders hunched down. Tony can’t really say if it’s to make an effort to appear smaller, less intimidating or to conserve body heat since it’s fucking freezing and the man is not even wearing a jacket.

It’s December for God’s sake.

His hair is longer than he’s ever seen it, kept in a messy bun on top of his head, strands falling in front of his eyes, dark stubble dusting his face and dark circles under his eyes that look like bruises.

Tony has pictures of him from before. Pictures of the Howling Commandos, Howard’s mementos. Moments of laughter stolen among the cruelty of war. There’s one in particular that used to be his favorite back when he was young and stupid. Rogers is laughing at something that maybe Barnes or maybe the person behind the camera must have said. Barnes is smiling, a small genuine smile that reaches his eyes and lights up his whole face.

Tony always thought they both looked so damn handsome then. Unreachable.

There’s not much of that man left in the man in front of him now. One sits on top on the other like double exposure, two images overlapping, no neat edges.

He doesn’t think Barnes smiled in a very long time.

He looks tired. Like perhaps he hasn’t slept in a century. Maybe he hasn’t.

Tony can almost relate.

Barnes meets his stare nearly unblinking. Tony is surprised when he’s not the first one to look away.

After that, Barnes takes two more steps and sits right there, a few feet away from him, in one graceful moment.

Tony stills, unsure. Barnes has never attempted to interact with him before. They always skirted around each other the few times they’ve been in the same room. They never even acknowledged the other’s presence. And for how often he’s felt him lingering just around the corner of his mind, the idea of actually talking to the man has always felt alien, distant. As if it belonged to a different man. One who would know what to do.

He never prepared for it, something for which he feels very stupid now, considering how inevitable this moment has always been.

He becomes suddenly very aware of his hands, of his breaths. Of how uncomfortable is the ground under him.

It’s a long time before any one of them speaks.

“I lied,” Barnes says eventually, his voice both raspy and soft, as if he hasn’t used it in a while.

Tony closes his eyes.

“I lied,” Barnes repeats. “Before. When you asked-” he takes a deep breath, releases it slowly as if to steady himself. As if this is hard for him too. “You asked me if I remember them. I said I remember all of them. I don’t. I lied.”

Tony turns his head to face him.

He’s as unmoving as the statues around them, his profile a beautiful thing of soft lines and long lashes.

He’s looking in front of him, but Tony is almost certain he’s not really seeing the headstones, not really seeing anything.

He has a faraway look in his eyes like he’s not really here at all. Tony wonders where he is. He narrows his eyes, pissed at the wayward thought. He doesn’t care.

They’re both silent.

Some time later Barnes turns his head towards him, and it’s like he focuses again on where he is, what he’s doing, who he’s talking to.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Tony stays quiet. He puts one hand on the ground, picks up some gravel, a few small rocks. He rolls them in his palm. He sighs. “Okay,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

He has the most delirious thought that breathing is the easier thing in the world until you’re aware you’re doing it. Then somehow it becomes impossible, the muscles not responding properly, as if they’ve forgotten how to do it on their own.

Words of forgiveness are stuck on his tongue and he’s not brave enough to say them.

(He’s not brave at all.)

Intellectually he knows, he knows it’s not Barnes’ fault.

Nothing that ever happened to him is his fault. Nothing he ever did was his fault. He’s as much a victim of Hydra as all the people he killed.

He doesn’t even need to ask or guess what they did to him, what he was forced to endure, how he was transformed into a mindless weapon. He’s seen the videos. He’s spent one too many nights throwing up hugging the toilet after watching them. He knows.

He knew even before that, really. He knew once the blood in his veins had stopped boiling, cooled by the cold of Siberia. Once the rage lifted its veil from his eyes.

Anger is a terrible fuel, really. It burns too fast and it leaves you barren and it doesn’t really take you anywhere.

And yet. And yet, he is still the executioner. His is still the punch that hit his father’s face until his bones caved in. His is still the hand that took the air away from his mother’s lungs.

He’s the truth that washed away a lifetime of rancor based on lies.

If he forgives Barnes, he has to forgive Howard. And if he forgives Howard, he has to learn how to forgive himself and he doesn’t really know how to do that.

He doesn’t think he can.

(How could he ever forgive himself?)

But Barnes seems content enough, like he doesn’t really expect Tony to say anything at all. Like he only wanted to get those words off his chest, as if they sat there for too long.

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” Barnes says, when it’s clear that Tony is not going to fill the silence, and then he takes one hand off his pocket and goes as if to run it through his hair only to stop halfway there. It’s his left hand. New and shiny and made of vibranium. Barnes stares at it for a second before putting it back into his pocket.

He clears his throat.

“I didn’t mean to intrude. I know this is a private moment. Especially today . God, I-” he looks at Tony. “I am. Sorry. I’m sorry. For this too,” he says, though he makes no move to leave.

He takes both hands off his pockets then, and he shoves his fingers through his hair, almost yanking it out.

The act is so human, it takes Tony by surprise. His words, his gestures, are the first things that make him look like a real person. Tony doesn’t know why, but it makes him mad.

It’s so much easier to hate him when he thinks of him as something else.

“I like it here. It’s quiet,” Barnes says some time later, and Tony realizes that the more he talks the more he can hear Brooklyn in his accent.

A few indelicate comments about that statement cross Tony’s mind in rapid succession. Sarcasm has always been his first language.

“I haven’t been here since their funeral,” he blurts instead and he’s so bewildered he hastily shuts his mouth as if afraid some other shameful confession will escape.

But Barnes nods almost solemnly, as if what he just heard makes perfect sense.

“I used to have a sister. Before. Her name was Rebecca. I read about her,” Barnes says, what must be minutes later. “I don’t remember her. Not really. Sometimes I think I can almost-” he does a little motion with his flesh hand, his head turned sideways, eyes squinting. “I remember… singing. I think she used to sing. She had a beautiful voice.”

Tony is staring when Barnes turns towards him.

“She died. Some time in the 80s. I haven’t gone to see her yet.” He looks at his hands. “I can’t.”

Tony doesn’t reply.

Of all the ways he thought this conversation would go, he never thought it would be this.

Of all the people who would get it, he never thought it would be him. He hates that it’s him.

“And yet, you’re here,” he says, eyebrow raised, perversely hoping to hurt him.

He feels like a bastard for it, but he can’t help himself.

“Yet, I’m here,” Barnes agrees.

“Why?” Tony asks and there’s no concealing the sudden fury in his voice.

“Why I’m here?”

“What are you doing here? Why today of all days? Why them? Why… her? God, why her ?” Tony says. It’s not what he meant to say, but the words slip out so fast it’s like he’s been waiting his whole life to know. He has. “What do you want from me? What do you expect me to say?”

Tony shakes his head before putting it in his hands. He sighs. It seems like that’s all he’s been doing since he got here. “If it’s forgiveness you want, I can’t give it to you.” He turns towards Barnes. “I can’t .“

Barnes looks at him, and Tony is almost afraid of what he might see. He feels like all his nerves are raw, uncovered. As if a gust of wind might undo him. The day started out as an emotional roller coaster and he can’t wait to get off of it and throw up.

“I know,” Barnes says, and he sounds sincere, earnest. “I know you can’t. That’s not why I said it. I just… I needed to say it. I needed you to know it.”

Tony says nothing.

“I come here sometimes.”

Tony’s head whips around so fast he’s sure he strained something.

“It’s peaceful,” Barnes says again. “Not sure Howard ever did peaceful, to be honest. He used to be so… loud.” A soft chuckle. “But I didn’t know him all that well. He was much closer to Steve, I think, than he was to me. I don’t know. I don’t really remember.”

He seems to somber up, the half smile on his lips turning into a grimace.

“He made a working version of the serum. Like Steve’s. Well, more like mine, I guess. Hydra wanted it and they wanted him dead. That’s why. She…” He looks Tony in the eyes, draws in a deep breath. “She was just collateral.”

Tony closes his eyes, his hands fists so tight his knuckles are white. “Collateral,” he says, his tone as dead as he’s feeling.

His mother. His beautiful mother, with her kind smile and her smart eyes.

“Yes.”

Tony exhales. He can’t do this. He thought he could, but he can’t. He can’t have this conversation. Not here, not today. God, not today. Perhaps not ever.

He stands up, dusts off his slacks, starts to leave.

“Stark,” Barnes calls, and Tony wants nothing more than to reach his car and get inside his suit, inside the only place he ever felt safe, and fly high, so high the city, this place, this pain will all be too far away.

(Let go, let it all go.)

He wants to scream. He wants to wreck havoc. He wants to cry.

He needs to leave.

He doesn’t. He stops, but he doesn’t turn. He can’t look at Barnes. He can’t see the regret and the guilt he’s sure he’ll be able to read on his face.

“I know you hate me,” Barnes says. “You have every right to. Hell, I hate myself.” A self-deprecating chuckle. “I know it’s not worth anything but… I am sorry.“

Tony closes his eyes again. He thinks about his mom saying goodbye that day. He thinks of all the things he never told her.

He thinks of the 611 million dollars he spent to try and get over it.

He thinks of Obadiah showing up in the middle of the night. Of his face when he told him they were gone. Of the four years he spent on a drinking binge. He thinks of Rhodey, plummeting towards the ground, too fast for him to stop it. He thinks of Steve and his arc reactor crunching under his shield.

He thinks of his whole world falling apart.

“I know,” Tony says.

And then he leaves.

#winteriron #buckytony #tonybucky #starkbucks #bucky x tony #mcu #winteriron fic #fic**#my fic**#long post

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