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heyovivi · 3 years

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Gwyn and Azriel and Prejudice

Hello, back again with some possible theories and this time it's about one of my favorite Valkyries, Miss Gwyneth Berdara and some more controversial subjects such as the prejudice that surrounds her and other characters.

Now I'm sorry I haven't been posting a lot--though I'm sure not people even notice seeing how we have a large community of readers who also come up with some amazing theories! But I needed to slow down on posting my wild theories and imaginations because I felt that some of my readers who read my fan fiction were starting to catch onto the plot of "A Court of Shadows and Scars"--but I've been waiting to post about this one because I think it's important and because I've already addressed it in my story.

Moving on.

Gwyneth Berdara.

Although she was very much a newly-introduced secondary character to Nesta's story she is oh-so important and beloved by our reading community. Gwyn has stolen the hearts of many with her wit, charm, and inquisitive personality--and not just readers but her fellow characters as well.

All except a very few including Merrill and the main antagonist of ACOSF, Queen Briallyn--though there are many others I could mention, such as the Illyrians, but my main focus will revolve around Merrill and Briallyn and their prejudices against Gwyn along with other characters with their own prejudices such as Beron and even our own brooding shadowsinger, Azriel.

Yes, Azriel.

Now we know the story of Gwyn and we also a know a bit of her past as well.

Gwyn's grandmother was once a river nymph who seduced a High Fae male hailing from the Autumn Court and fell pregnant with Gwyn's mother who was sent to be raised at the temple of Sangravah because she couldn't dwell in the rivers of Spring Court and was too wild to be confined in the Forest House of Autumn Court.

"My mother was unwanted by either of their (Gwyn's grandmother and grandfather) people. She could not dwell in the rivers of the Spring Court, but was too untamed to endure the confinement of the forest house of Autumn. So she was give in her childhood to the temple at Sangravah, where she was raised..." (Gwyn Berdara, A Court of Silver Flames, pg. 316)

Now what we know about nymphs is extremely limited in the ACOTAR world. But in Greek mythology--from which they hail from--nymphs were idolized as guardians of nature. They were revered as the spirits of specific natural features and were often identified with parts of nature such as the Oreads (mountain nymphs) and the Hamadryads (tree nymphs).

The name "nymph" comes from the Greek word that means "young woman", and so naturally these beings were considered to be female. Indeed, they were represented as young, beautiful, musical, amorous, and gentle youthful creatures. And while there is some question about whether they were immortal or not - Hamadryads in particular were linked with the lives of their chosen trees - it is believed that they were extremely long lived.

A beautiful, ever-young creature that inhabits the lovliest of all wilderness places including clear lakes, streams, and crystalline caverns. They do not like any form of intrusion but there is a 100% that a nymph will be friendly if approached by another good creature. Nymphs are exceptionally intelligent and are very rarely found.

Gwyn's lineage of nymph, according to Greek mythology, would be categorized as a Naiad, the nymphs of streams, rivers, and lakes. The Naiads, or water nymphs, dwelt beside running water. Like their cousins, the Nereids and Oceanids of the oceans, the Oreads of the hills and the Dryads of the forests and trees, they were usually sweet, benign spirits. Naiads, especially, were helpful and healing, nurturing fruits, flowers and mortals. Yet the youth Hylas who went to draw water from a pool was lured by the nymphs into the water and was never seen again--meaning that despite being creatures of nature they also possessed darker roles in certain legends.

I interpret this as Nymphs being hostile around creatures who were unwelcome in their lands for being ill-intentioned.

Many times in Greek mythology, nymphs were often seen as the symbolism of beauty and love; such as Aphrodite--and because they were always describe to be beautiful and graceful women with soft, sweet appearances they often drew the attention of the Gods creating legends of romantic affairs and infidelity.

Their very beauty caused the Gods to lust after them to a ravenous extent, making the Nymphs sometimes turn to the Goddesses for help. However, not all Goddesses were kind towards the nymphs--such as Aphrodite or Hera who grew jealous of their beauty when their very beauty and natural loveliness challenged the fidelity of their lovers.

In this case, let's assume that role of Gods, of higher beings, were the High Fae in the ACOTAR realm.

In the ACOTAR realm, it's easy to assume the nymphs are somewhat--if not--wholly the same as they are described in classic literature. When Gwyn tells the story of her grandmother she states that her grandmother seduced a High Fae, resulting in the birth of her mother. If this is the case then I think I can understand why characters such as Merrill and Briallyn look down on her lineage so much because again, Nymphs, in the eyes of major Goddesses such as Aphrodite and Hera, were essentially home wreckers (even though many confrontations with Gods and Nymphs were not always consensual).

With the reputation of being male-thirsty seductresses, nymphs are looked down upon as lower-beings, that and their lack of immortality (more often then not Nymphs linked their lifelines to an object in nature: a tree nymphs links their life to a tree, water nymph links their life to a stream (but I suppose that makes them immortal?)).

With this devious reputation placed on her lineage, Gwyn is often the butt of insults with being call half-breed and all by the likes of Briallyn and Merrill.

"But you made it easy for me: you went right to her house in Windhaven. Spared me the trouble of luring you. I let those witless Illyrians take her and the half-breed as an amusing bonus." (Queen Briallyn, A Court of Silver Flames, pg. 721)

"I am descended from Rabath, Lord of the Western Wind...Unlike Gwyneth Berdara, I am not lackey to be dismissed." (Merrill, A Court of Silver Flames, pg. 315)

Merrill glanced between her and Gwyn before saying, "get back to your work, nymph." (Merrill, A Court of Silver Flames, pg. 315)

Okay--so Merrill doesn't specifically call her a half-breed, but dismissing her as a lower race and simply calling her "nymph" is basically comparable to an insult.

Now, that we've got Gwyn out of the way, let's move onto Autumn Court, more specifically Beron.

Beron is an ass--plain and simple. He is the personification of a conservative abuser and is honestly one of the most disgusting characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading. However--I suppose the problems he brings do push certain character formulas forward such as Eris and Lucien. Such as executing Jesminda for simply being involved with Lucien and for being anything but High Fae.

"Lucien fell in love with a faerie whom his father considers to be grossly inappropriate for someone of his bloodline. Lucien said he didn't care that wasn't one of the High Fae, that he was certain the mating bond would snap into place soon and that he was going to marry her and leave his father's court to his scheming brothers...His father had her put down. Executed, in front of Lucien, as his two eldest brothers held him and made him watch." (Tamlin, A Court of Thorns and Roses, pg. 160)

I don't think I need to go ahead and explain Beron and his prejudices against those who are not High Fae--his actions speak enough as is. But what I do want to do is go back to the specific wording Gwyn uses when explaining how her mother ended up in Sangravah, she says: "She could not dwell in the rivers of the Spring Court, but was too untamed to endure the confinement of the forest house of Autumn."

Confinement.

Not dwell. Not live. Not prosper. Confinement.

Now, we haven't navigated Autumn for all it's beauty and culture. We've only seen the Autumn Court through the eyes of Feyre when she is traversing through the courts in ACOWAR.

But I wonder how he approached with dealing with those who are not High Fae? What if the Autumn Court is much like the Summer Court where the court works around a system of class where High Fae are put at the top and anything but is put at the bottom? Therefore assuming that the treatment of such beings is cruel and unjust, creating a defining line between the races in which they can never reach equilibrium.

If that is so that brings me to the idea that many courts outside the jurisdiction of Night Court have assumed systems such as this, making there a limited amount of options for people like Gwyn's mother to prosper peacefully. Because we already know that the main reason why the first war with Hybern happened was because Hybern demanded to keep human and low fae as slaves, placing High Fae at the top. Spring sided with Hybern, because remember Amarantha and the former High Lord of Spring were close friends, Summer Court most likely fought to keep slaves as they still continuously oppress lesser fae, so I imagine it was worse for humans. And let's be honest, Autumn remained "indifferent" but one look at their current High Lord tells me that they weren't that indifferent--not unless Beron wasn't the ruling High Lord at the time.

So with that in mind, Gwyn and her family couldn't flee to Summer, nor Spring or Autumn. Night was probably never an option--as their reputation of being dark and gloomy more than likely frightened the idea away. Winter Court was obvious seeing how it's a winter wonderland of frozen lakes, streams, and rivers. Then there is Day Court which based on their current High Lord and aesthetic, is a desert land of sand and heat--with little to no water supply for any Nymph.

However there is one court that still remains. Dawn Court. From what we know they are a more than neutral court among the courts of Prythian and mostly value innovation. Geographically, Dawn is a lush, eternal countryside rich with the weight of summer upon it. The towns were red-roofed villages with sparkling rivers--a perfect destination for any relocating half-nymph- half-High Fae born child. However we also have to take into account the time period of when Gwyn's mother was born. Remember, prior to ACOTAR, Prythian was under the rule of Amarantha for fifty years--and even if that wasn't the case Summer was under the rule of a High Lord who didn't harbor the same compassion to change the unequal class system like Tarquin did when he assumed his place on the throne. Autumn was being ruled by Beron by that time already who'd probably have her confined. And Spring was under the traditional rule of Tamlin--and despite that Gwyn's mother would've still be considered as unwelcomed by the other nymphs.

If you take the time and current dilemma of Prythian--then there was really no where to go but Sangravah--putting into question the prejudices certain courts have against beings that are of the Low Fae variety.

I predict that despite being beautiful, charming, and compassionate, Gwyn still faces so much prejudice for simply being 1/4th nymph--which to the High Fae is a stain in her lineage to be a descendant from such a deviant being.

Now, let's move onto Azriel.

Azriel, as we all know, has his own conflicts with the Illyrians. Of course, that is to be expected, especially after learning of his backstory with being abused by his family and then later forced into training with the Illyrian army. The only comfort he had ever received was from the likes of his chosen family and so I believe he is projecting his own, personal experience of being an Illyrian into his hatred of Illyria--seeing the Illyrians as no more than a means to end due to their constant reluctance to move on with the times.

Don't get me wrong, I love Azriel. But I think a big part of his character is accepting who he is. He is an Illyrian--and I believe that with the combine power of him, Cassian, and Rhys they can bring the kind of change that Cassian had only ever dreamed of to Illyria. Yet, his own prejudices against his people hold him back and that's probably because he hasn't fully faced his trauma and instead skitters back at the mention or thought of it. I think if Az was healed he wouldn't be so reluctant to visit Illyria or wish for it's demise.

"A rare visit from the shadowsinger. Both myth and terror. Az looked just as displeased to be here, but he'd come when I asked...It was healthy, perhaps. For Az to sometimes remember where he'd come from. He still wore the Illyrian leathers. Had not tried to get the tattoos removed. Some part of him was Illyrian still. Always would be. Even if he wished to forget." (Rhysand, A Court of Frost and Starlight, pg. 222)

"Cassian rolled his eyes. But they both knew Azriel would sooner disband and destroy Illyria than help it. Convincing their brother than the Illyrians were a people worth saving was still a battle amongst the three of them." (Cassian, A Court of Silver Flames, pg. 42)

Now, moving onto the conclusion, finally. If Gwynriel's story was to happen, I think there is a sufficient amount of evidence to claim that Azriel's plot would revolve around the Illyrian conflict.

I'm just going to drop down this link: https://yazthebookish.tumblr.com/post/648449405425516544/the-illyrian-conflict-being-set-up-in-acosf-along

@yazthebookish highlights textual evidence that hints at a possible story arc for an Illyrian plot line because yes, there is still so much to uncover in Illyria and although I believe a large part of that was suppose to be Cassian and Nesta's story I also understand why it could go to Azriel.

Azriel needs to learn to accept his race, and the Illyrians need to learn how to accept change. I think they can learn something from one another and I believe Gwyn will play a role in Azriel's adventure. Do I think she's going to be the face some enlightenment in Azriel's journey--no. That's stupid. And if you twist my words, read it again. I believe because of Gwyn's past with prejudice against her and what she is, she can level with Az and understand him in a way that can potentially help him develop better as a character. Yes, she might be there for guidance or to give Azriel counsel, but in the end I think it's Az's job to tackle down the Illyrian conflict while Gwyn, with the help of Azriel, tackles down her own, whether that be discovering her lineage or where she came from or even healing from her trauma as a SA victim.

Please be respectful and leave your thoughts in the comments.

#gwyneth #gwyn berdara #pro gwyneth berdara #gwyneth berdara #azriel berdara #azriel #azriel shadowsinger #shadowsinger #a court of thorns and roses #a court of frost and starlight #a court of silver flames #lucien vanserra #eris vanserra #beron vanserra #gwynriel #azriel and gwyn #gwyn x azriel #prythian

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 3 years

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Eccentricity [Chapter 14: Love Keeps The Monsters From Our Door] [Series Finale]

A/N: Thank you for your encouragement, enthusiasm, laughter, rants, screeches of anguish, and unapologetic thirsting for “sexy undead Italian man” Joseph Francis Mazzello. I hope you love this conclusion more than Baby Swan loves pineapple pizza. 💜

Series Summary: Potentially a better love story than Twilight?

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Til I Die” by Parsonsfield. (The #1 song I associate with this fic!)

Chapter Warnings: Language.

Word Count: 7.7k.

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii @bramblesforbreakfast @maggieroseevans @culturefiendtrashqueen @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark @escabell @im-an-adult-ish @queenlover05 @someforeigntragedy @imtheinvisiblequeen @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee @deacyblues @tensecondvacation @brianssixpence @some-major-ishues @haileymorelikestupid @youngpastafanmug @simonedk @rhapsodyrecs

Mercy

We have to stay in the Vladivostok palace until her transformation is complete, and I hate it.

The floors are cold and sterile and every clang of noise ricochets off them like a bullet. The earth outside is stripped bare and hibernal. There is no green to interrupt the bleakness of the sky, the cruel absence of color: no spruces or hemlocks or bigleaf maples, no evergreen forests, no verdant fields, only a grey that bleeds from the sky in sheets of hail and driving rain. This land is a stranger. So many of the faces, too, are strangers, although they try. Honora sits with me—her large dark eyes, like mirrors of mine, polished and wet with aching pity—and braids my hair. Morana invites me to bake homemade bread with her. Austin tries to make me smile. Cato visits me as much as he can, because he feels responsible; or maybe he would do it anyway, maybe lessening suffering is as instinctual to him as bloodshed is to so many of our kind. And when Cato is with me, I do feel a little better, like my story might belong to somebody else, like it’s a name I can’t quite remember, like it’s a transitory moment of déjà vu I can catch glimpses of but never touch. And yet, still, I send him away.

I don’t want to be with Cato. It’s painful for him to be around me, I can see that. It’s painful for Rami, and for Ben, and for Joe, and for Lucy and Scarlett. It’s even painful for the Irish Wolfhounds that Cato found locked up for safekeeping in Larkin’s study; they skulk around the palace vigilantly but leave great swaths of uninterrupted space around me like open water. So I conjure up a mask of brave, hopeful acceptance and wear it everywhere I go.

Joe says very little, never leaves the girl he calls Baby Swan’s side, dabs her scorching skin with washcloths soaked in ice water and murmurs in sympathy when she screams through the unconsciousness, from beneath the ocean of fire we all know so well. He nods off sometimes, snatching minutes of sleep like fireflies in a jar, before jolting awake to make sure her heart is still beating. When Ben isn’t checking on them, he’s with Cato, helping to draw up plans for the future, reminiscing about the past with slick eyes and clinking midnight glasses of whiskey. Scarlett sprawls across the desk in what was once Larkin’s study and spends hours on the phone with Archer as she gazes up at the ceiling, telling him how to care for the farm animals and the garden, reassuring him that we’ll be home soon, whispering things to him that I try not to hear; and I know she wouldn’t want me to anyway. Lucy weeps delicate, ceaseless tears as she perches on the staircase landing and Rami entombs her in his arms, never having to ask what she needs from him. And I wander meaninglessly through the echoing, unfamiliar hallways like a moon without a planet.

I know what they all think about me, perhaps even Rami, for I keep it buried as deep as all skeletons should be: that I’m irrevocably kind, effortlessly forgiving. That I’m as incapable of bitterness as I am of aging. But they’re wrong. It’s a choice, and it always has been, ever since a late-November dusk in 1864 when madness eclipsed mercy. Every day I choose whether to surrender to the beckoning, malignant hatred that lurks in the back of my bedroom closet, in the dusty and ill-lit loft of the barn roped with cobwebs, in the twilight tree line of the western hemlocks crawling with shadows that whisper through fanged teeth. Every day I decide whether to become a monster. And it has never been harder to remember why I don’t.

My future is unimaginable. The nights are endless. I feel black, razored seeds of what I am horrified must be bitterness burrowing beneath my skin and taking root there. I am consumed by infected, fruitless questions that I can’t silence: Why Gwilym? Why Arthur? Why Eliza and Charlotte? Why is it always fire?

The first words that Gwilym ever spoke to me, as I unraveled from unconsciousness under a grove of sycamore trees with smoke still clinging to my unscarred skin, rattle around in my skull like windchimes beneath thunderous skies. His voice was colored with an accent I couldn’t place, and yet it sounded like home: You’re in a dark place right now. But you don’t have to stay there.

That might have been true once. That might have been true in the ruinous autumn of 1864. But now I can’t find my way out.

Seventy-three hours after our arrival in this barren corner of the world, Charlie Swan’s daughter wakes up as a vampire. Her heart is perfectly still, her skin faultless, her senses sharp, her mind as impenetrable as ever; at least, that’s what Lucy says when she finds me. And Lucy tugs at my hand, wearing her first smile in days, insisting that I have to come meet the newest member of our coven, to welcome her. I don’t know how to tell Lucy that I’m afraid I don’t have it in me to love this girl, that I don’t have it in me to love anyone but ghosts. And yet—compliantly, yieldingly, expecting nothing but disappointment in the monster I have become—I follow her.

The door is already open to the Swan girl’s room; chattering, beaming vampires flood in and out like the tides. I step inside. And I see the way that Joe looks at her, the way that Ben does; and all those seeds that I had feared might be bitterness blossom into nothing but open air.

It’s Not A Fucking Wedding (A.K.A. 13.5 Months Later)

The ocean is a universe. Its arms are not ever-expanding, spiraling galaxies of suns and planets and nebulae and black holes, this is true; its belly is not a vacuum of inhospitable oblivion, its bones are not invisible strings of gravity, its language is not a silence older than starlight, older than eternity. But the ocean is a universe nonetheless, its borders tucked neatly around the seven continents, slumbering there until the next hurricane or tsunami or ice age comes conquering; and inevitably equilibrium is restored—like defibrillator paddles to a heart, like naloxone to an addict’s blood—and our two worlds can coexist side by side once again.

The ocean’s arms are sighing waves, bubbling and brisk, grasping and retreating in the same breath. Its belly is swollen with life from immense blue whales down to swarming clouds of single-celled, sun-hungry phytoplankton. Its language is ancient whispers; not parched and blistering and brittle sounds like the desert’s but cool, serene, supple, engulfing. And I can hear them all, if I listen closely enough. I can hear the sentient whistling of orcas, the breaking of waves against rocks, the scrabbling of sand crabs beneath the earth, the gruff distant barks of sea lions, the rustling of evergreen pine needles in the breeze. And I understand now why it was always so easy for vampires to be introspective, to lapse into thoughtful, unhurried silences. I could imagine spending decades just sitting here with my knees tucked to my chest and my hair whipping in the brackish wind, watching the seasons roll by like a wheel.

Joe was coming back from the gravel parking lot. I turned to watch him: red U Chicago hoodie, messy dark auburn-ish hair, a pizza box clasped in his hands. The GrubHub delivery driver was returning to his car with the toothiest of grins.

“Buon appetito!” Joe announced, dramatically presenting me with the pizza box. It had become our post-finals tradition each semester: pizza at La Push beach, half-pepperoni, half-pineapple.

“Grazie, sexy undead Italian man. Your accent is getting so good!”

“I know, right?! I’m on a twelve-day Duolingo streak. I can’t let that little green owl dude down.”

“I’m impressed, I’ll admit it. I gotta brush up on my Welsh. Why’s the GrubHub driver so cheery?”

“I tipped him $500.”

I smiled, opening the box and lifting out a semi-warm slice of pineapple pizza. Elastic strands of mozzarella cheese stretched like rubber bands until they snapped. “Aww, really?”

Joe plopped down onto the cool, damp sand beside me. “No. I lied. We’re actually having a torrid love affair.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “How could you possibly have time for all that?” Between school, business ventures, family activities, and me, Joe was very rarely unoccupied. And he preferred it that way.

“I’m so glad you asked. I’m very speedy, if you recall. And that’s just one of the exclusive services I offer. I am a man of many talents. I make people’s wildest dreams come true. Who am I to deny the GrubHub delivery man the wonderland that is my spindly, annoying body?”

“You are the fastest,” I said, winking.

“Oh shut up! I mean, uh, uhhh, silenzio!” He pointed his slice of pepperoni pizza at me reproachfully. “That’s not what I meant. I’m not the fastest at everything.”

“Whatever you say, mob guy.”

He lunged for me, pinned me down in the crumbling sand, both of us laughing wildly as the crusts of our pizza slices bounded off and were snatched up by diving, screeching seagulls. He growled with mock savagery, braced his hips against mine, kissed his way from the corner of my jaw to my lips. That oh-so-familiar commanding, craving ache for him came roaring to the surface; and now there was no bittersweet edge to it, no inescapable backdrop of lambent numbers ticking down from five or ten or fifteen years to zero. Now there was only the calm, unurgent promise of forever.

“Joe—!”

“You have besmirched my honor, Baby Swan. I am left with no recourse but to refresh your clearly flawed memory and prove you wrong.”

“Public indecency? That’s illegal, sir.”

“Okay, you gotta stop stealing my catchphrases. It’s extremely difficult for me to come up with new ones. I’m almost a hundred years old, you know.”

“Alright, I guess you’re not bad in bed for a basically-centenarian.”

He smiled down at me, his dark eyes alight, the wind tearing through his hair, one palm resting on my forehead, uncharacteristically quiet.

“What?” I asked, worried.

“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just really glad we’re a thing.”

“You better be. You’re kind of stuck with me now. You’ve stolen my virtue, you’ve made me fall in love with your entire demented family, you’ve forced your torturous immortality upon me. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you ever stop funding my pineapple pizza addiction, of course.”

Joe chuckled as he climbed off me and took my hand in his, pulling me upright. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, by the way. Your insistence on being a sort-of vegetarian. It’s embarrassing. You’re the wimpiest vampire ever. You’re a disgrace to the coven.”

“I eat animals!” I objected.

“Yeah, when you have to.” And Joe was right: I steered clear of flesh outside of the two or three times a week when I hunted. For environmental sustainability reasons, I mostly consumed deer or rabbits; although the very occasional shark was my guilty pleasure. Joe gnawed on his second slice of pizza and peered out into the overcast, dusky horizon, wiping crumbs from his stubbled chin with the back of his hand. “We only have one more of these left,” he said at last, a little sadly. “One more finals season at Calawah University. One more celebratory dinner at La Push.”

“We’ll just have to get used to a new view. Pizza by the Chicago River, maybe.”

Joe looked over at me, thoughtful again, smiling. He had received his acceptance letter to the University of Chicago three weeks ago. I got mine eight days later. “It won’t be hard for you to leave Forks?”

“It will be. Once upon a time I didn’t think that was possible, but I will miss Forks. And not just because of Charlie and Archer and Jessica and Angela and all the Lees. But it was hard to leave Phoenix, and I’m sure one day it will be hard to leave Chicago. Just because change is hard doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do.”

Joe nodded introspectively. “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

“Don’t quote classic rock songs at me, mixtapes boy.”

“You love my mixtapes,” he teased, circling his left arm around my waist, pulling me in closer, touching his lips to my forehead. Mint and pine and starlight sank into my lungs like an anchor through the surf. “And that saying actually goes all the way back to Seneca, my dear.”

“Don’t tell me he’s still philosophizing in some cloudy corner of the world somewhere.”

“Not to my knowledge. Although that’s an intriguing thought. We need more famous vampires. Caligula would have made for very interesting conversation. Lincoln, Napoleon, Cleopatra, Shakespeare, Dante...I guess it’s possible that anyone is still around. Maybe we should turn Meat Loaf. You know, for the good of posterity.”

“Is it not enough that they’re already cursed with student debt and global warming?”

Joe cackled, took my face in his palms, kissed each of my cheeks one after the other, then nudged my nose with his. “You ready to go, Baby Swan? I suspect we’re expected to participate in some holiday festivities tonight.”

“I’m ready,” I agreed. We threw our leftover pizza to the seagulls, disposed of the grease-spotted cardboard box, and walked back to my 1999 Honda Accord with our pulseless hands intertwined.

The evergreen trees along Routh 110 fled by beneath a sky freckling with stars. Sharp winter air poured in through the open windows. And I could feel that it was cold, in the same way that I could feel the warmth on Forks’ rare sweltering days; but there was no discomfort that accompanied that knowledge. Pain only came when the sky was unincumbered by thick clouds churning in off the Pacific, and then it felt something like staring into the sun had as a human. Sunglasses helped, but the surest remedy was avoidance, was surrender. And what an inconsequential price to pay for forever.

“Wait,” I said, spying the mailbox that marked the start of the Lees’ driveway. “They still deliver mail on Christmas Eve, right?”

“Uh, I think so, why...?” And then he remembered. “Oh, yeah, let’s check!”

I pulled up beside the mailbox and Joe leaned out, returning to his seat with a mountain of Christmas cards and business correspondence and advertisements from Costco and Sephora. He sifted through them until he found a single white envelope from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. It was addressed to a Mr. Benjamin August Hardy. Joe held it up to show me as we drove down the driveway, the Lee house coming into view and ornamented with a frankly excessive amount of multicolored string lights and inflatable reindeer.

“Oh my god!” I squealed, drumming the steering wheel.

“You want to be the one to give it to him?”

“Are you serious?! Yeah, can I?”

Joe passed the envelope to me as I parked my geriatric Honda, which Archer had pledged to keep alive as long as physically possible. In return, Ben let him and Scarlett borrow the Aston Martin Vantage no less than once a week. I dashed out of the car, up the steps of the front porch, and into the house that bubbled over with the sounds of metallic kitchen clashes and frenetic voices and Wham!’s Last Christmas.

“Ben?!” I shouted.

“Hi, honey!” Mercy called from the living room, where she and Lucy were putting the final touches on Scarlett’s gown. Scarlett was playing the part of semi-willing victim, wearing gold heels and an impatient smirk and her hair out of the way in a milkmaid braid; her train of vivid red lace billowed across the hardwood floor. From the couch, Archer and Rami were playing Mario Kart on the big-screen tv and nibbling their way through a tray of homemade gingerbread cookies.

“Oh wow,” I said, clutching the envelope to my chest, mesmerized. I kept waiting for Scarlett to start looking like a normal person to me, and it never happened. Tonight, in the glow of the flameless candles and kaleidoscopic Christmas lights and draped in lace the color of pomegranate seeds, she was Persephone: a goddess of resurrection, a face that death himself could not pass by unscathed. “You’ve outdone yourself, Lucy. Seriously.”

“One day I’m going to get you out of those thrift shop sweaters,” Lucy threatened me, placing a pin in the fabric at Scarlett’s waist.

“Yeah, okay. Let me know when that shows up in one of your visions.”

“Bitch,” Lucy flung back, snickering, knowing how improbable that was. I still appeared in her visions extremely infrequently, and then only when I happened to be standing next to whoever the premonition was actually about.

“Language, dear,” Mercy tutted, inspecting the hem of Scarlett’s gown.

Joe arrived beside me, his arms still full of mail. “ScarJo, I almost didn’t recognize you! Why do you have, like, no cleavage or fishnets or thigh slits?”

“Why do you have like no eyelashes?” Scarlett replied. “See, I can ask unnecessary and invasive questions too.”

Joe frowned, wounded. “What’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“Lucy, darling, I think it’s just a tad uneven on this side,” Mercy said, showing her. “Maybe by half an inch...?”

“No, seriously, what’s wrong with my eyelashes?!”

Mercy replied distractedly: “Nothing, honey, you’re perfect just the way you are.”

“Mom!” Joe groaned.

“It really is gorgeous,” Mercy marveled as Lucy flitted around her to investigate the hem situation. “And so Christmasy. So perfect for the season. Scarlett, dear, you were right after all, and I’m so sorry for doubting you. I’d just never heard of a red wedding dress before.”

“Mom, it’s not a fucking wedding!” Scarlett exclaimed, for probably the thirtieth time since Thanksgiving. “It’s a nonbinding, informal celebration of an egalitarian romantic partnership. Will somebody please inform this woman that it’s not a wedding?!”

“Yes, yes, of course, whatever you want, sweetheart,” Mercy conceded dreamily.

Joe pointed to Archer. “Isn’t he supposed to not see the dress until the day of or something?”

“What a great question!” Archer replied, still deeply invested in Mario Kart. “You see, that would be the case if this was a wedding. However, I’ve been informed in no uncertain terms that it is most definitely not.”

Scarlett grinned triumphantly at Joe. “There you have it.”

She might snap petulantly, and she might complain, but Scarlett wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t want to; we were all intimately familiar with the futility of trying to force Scarlett into anything. The not-wedding, as improbable as it seemed, had been her idea from the start. And she wasn’t doing it for herself. She wasn’t even doing it for Archer. Scarlett was doing it for her mother.

The first six months had been hell for Mercy. She didn’t resent me, as I had feared she might; Mercy made that clear, and Rami confirmed it. But she was gutted. She wouldn’t speak of Gwil, wouldn’t listen to us talk about him, locked every photograph of him away in dark drawers, wandered around with a remote, uncanny, unseeing smile until she walked straight into walls; and then she would blink inanely up at them, as if they had dropped out of the sky rather than been built by her own hands. She baked hundreds of cakes and almost never slept. She told us she was fine every time we asked, which was more or less constantly. But on the very rare occasions when she was left alone, Mercy would unfailingly end up in the field behind the Lee house, gazing out into the forest of western hemlock trees with tears snaking silently down her cheeks, the muted light of the cloud-covered setting sun flickering red and furious on her face like wildfire.

And then one afternoon, a package had arrived from Arviat, Canada, where Cato and the rest of the surviving Draghi had relocated shortly after the rebellion at Vladivostok. It was five feet tall and another three wide, and what we found after carefully peeling away all those layers of foam padding and packing tape was a portrait of Gwilym so skillfully painted that it could have been mistaken for a photograph. Mercy had stared at it for a long time—ignoring Lucy’s attempts to guide her away, deaf to any of our concerns—until she at last picked up the portrait herself and said, quite evenly: “I think we should hang it in the living room, don’t you?”

Things had been better since then—very, very gradually, and yet unmistakably—and Gwil’s portrait remained mounted above the living room couch like a watchman, his eyes sparkling and blue, his faint smile stoic and fond and omniscient. But even in the wake of Mercy’s continued improvement, none of us kids were about to risk another agonizingly despondent Christmas. So the solution was obvious. We would keep Mercy preoccupied with what thrilled her more than absolutely anything else: the pseudo-weddings of her children. Rami and Lucy had already secretly volunteered to go next year...and after that, who knew? And there was one other thing that was making Mercy’s burden a little lighter these days.

Charlie sauntered into the living room, wearing an apron covered in cartwheeling Santas and wiping white dust like snow—powdered sugar? flour? baking soda?—from his ungainly hands. He was palpably proud. “The sugar cookies are officially in the oven. And I managed to fit them all on one baking sheet, isn’t that great?! Cuts down on dishes!”

“Why, yes, I suppose it does!” Mercy said, alarm dawning in her eyes. Had my beloved father placed the globs of dough too close together? Would we end up with one hideous, giant monster-cookie? Only time would tell. Providentially, Archer and Joe could be counted on to eat just about anything.

Joe sniffed the air, his forehead crinkling. “What’s burning?”

“Nothing should be burning,” Mercy replied, almost defensive, forever protective of Charlie and all of his profound, incurably human imperfections. Sometimes I thought that she preferred him that way, that he was a link to a simpler world in the same way I had once been, that he was a puddle of memory she could drop into, that maybe he wasn’t so unlike her first husband Arthur. “Not yet, anyway. The cookies need at least ten to twelve minutes at 350.”

“Wait, 350?!” Charlie exclaimed, horrorstruck. “I thought you said 450!”

“Oh, this is tragic,” Scarlett said.

“I can fix it!” Mercy trilled buoyantly, breezing off to the kitchen as Charlie followed after her with a fountain of apologies. She shushed them away affectionately, patting his chest with her soft plump hands, chuckling about how luckily they had fire extinguishers stowed away in almost every closet just in case. And there were other reasons for that besides Charlie’s perilous baking attempts, but he didn’t know them. Now the record player was belting out Queen’s Thank God It’s Christmas.

Archer lost another round in Mario Kart and exhaled a great, mournful sigh. “Hey, Baby Swanpire, can you do something about this guy?” He nodded to Rami. “This is criminal. It’s nowhere near a fair fight. He knows every freaking time I’m about to toss a banana peel.”

Rami smirked guiltily up at me from the couch, not bothering to deny it.

“Do you mind?” I asked him.

“Not at all,” Rami replied. “I want to show this loser I can beat him even without the benefit of mega-cool extrasensory superpowers.”

“Rude!” Archer cried.

“So rude,” Scarlett agreed, smiling.

“Okay, here we go.” I sat down beside Rami, still holding Ben’s envelope in my right hand, and laid my left against Rami’s cheek. And I felt a fistful of numbness—like instant peace, like milk-white Novocain—pass from my skin into his, rolling into his skull, deadening whatever telepathic livewires had been ignited there in the August of 1916. The effect would last anywhere from thirty minutes to a few hours; and it worked on every vampire I’d met so far.

“Whoa, trippy,” Rami murmured. “It’s still weird, every single time.” He peered drowsily around the room. “It’s...so...quiet?! You guys really live like this? No one is constantly bombarding you with sexual fantasies or romantic pining or depressive inner monologues? How do you function?! Now I’m alone with my own thoughts, that’s actually worse!”

“Hurry up and beat him while he’s all freaked out and vulnerable,” Scarlett told Archer.

Archer laughed, picking up his Nintendo 64 controller, radiant with the promise of vengeance. “Yes ma’am.”

“Any good mail?” Lucy asked Joe.

“Yeah. Coupons and a ton of Christmas cards from random people. The vet sent us one with alpacas on it, so that’s cute. Oh, and here’s one from our favorite Canadians.”

Joe held up the card so we could all see. The picture on the front showed Cato and Honora sitting on a large velvet, forest green couch with a hulking Christmas tree illuminated in the background. The others were arranged around them: Austin, Max, Ksenia, Charity, Araminta, Akari, Morana, Phelan, Aruna, Adair, Zora, Sahel, and a few new faces I couldn’t name yet. They were all wearing matching turtleneck sweaters. And every single one of them was smiling.

Joe cleared his throat theatrically and read the text on the inside of the card:

“Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

(Oh, and Scarlett, congratulations on your not-marriage.)

- Cato Douglass Freeman”

“That bastard,” Scarlett muttered.

Rami offered me his controller. He had just slipped on a banana peel and rocketed off a cliff. “You want a turn?”

“No, thanks though. I have to talk to Ben. Is he around?”

Rami shrugged ruefully. “I would help, but my brain is temporarily broken.”

Scarlett rolled her eyes, taking a gingerbread cookie from the tray and biting into it as Lucy batted crumbs from the red lace dress, exasperated. “I think he’s out in the hot tub.”

“Cool. I shall return.”

Joe took my spot on the couch as I departed, shoveling cookies into his mouth, seizing Rami’s controller and kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

I opened the door to the back porch, and frigid December air rushed in like an uninvited guest. The field was coated with a thin layer of snow, the animals safe and warm in the barn, the garden slumbering. And in the spring and summer, when blossoms of a dozen different varieties came open beneath the drizzling grey skies, Mercy’s calla lilies didn’t bother my allergies at all. Nothing did anymore. Ben was indeed in the hot tub, puffing on his vape pen, wearing only a beanie hat and swim trunks.

“What flavor is that cartridge?” I asked as I approached. “Gummy bear?”

“Close. Strawberry doughnut.”

“Ohhhh, yum!” Ben passed me the vape pen, and I took a drag as I kicked off my boots and sat near him on the rim of the hot tub, slipping my bare feet beneath the steaming, roiling water. Then I handed his vape pen back. “So. Guess what I have for you.”

“Uh.” He glanced at the envelope. “Jury duty.”

“Better.”

“Someone I hate has jury duty.”

I flipped the envelope around so he could see the University of Chicago logo on the front.

“Oh god,” Ben moaned.

“Don’t you want to see what it says?”

“Not really,” he admitted, grimacing.

“Come on, Ben. Open it.”

“Nah.”

“Why not?!”

Ben sighed. “Look, if I open it and it’s bad news, it’s gonna make Christmas weird. Rami will know. They’ll all know. They’ll all feel bad for me and it’ll be pathetic and depressing and awkward. You can look if you want to, just don’t tell anyone else yet.”

“It’s not going to be bad news,” I said, tugging at the floppy top of his beanie hat. He swatted my hand away, but he was smiling grudgingly.

“You have positively no way of knowing that. Unless Lucy’s had a vision I’m unaware of.”

“She hasn’t. You know she never sees anything important.”

“She saw you coming,” Ben countered.

“She saw human-me and Joe in love and gobbling down pretzels at a Cubs game. So I’d say there were at least a few minor details missing.”

“There’s no way I got in,” Ben said, his green eyes slick and fearful and now fixed on the envelope. “We can’t all be geniuses like you.”

“That’s an unfair accusation. I’m far from genius. I’m just obsessed with the ocean.” I’d written my senior thesis on the feeding habits of Pacific angelsharks, and my advisor was still trying to figure out how I, an amateur scuba diver at best, had managed to get so many quality photographs with my underwater camera. The secret, of course, was superhuman agility and not needing to breathe.

“I fucking hate calculus. The MCAT wrecked me. I got a 517.”

“And their median score is a 519, so I’d say you still have a fighting chance. Plus you have like eight million volunteer hours.” Ben had spent the vast majority of the past year either in class or at the hospital. The psychiatrist-in-chief, Dr. Siegel, had been more than happy to take one of Gwil’s foster children under her wing. Every human in Forks except Archer believed that Dr. Gwilym Lee had drowned in a tragic boating accident while he and Mercy were on vacation in Southern California, and that his body had never been recovered. The town had held a wonderful remembrance ceremony and dedicated a free clinic at the hospital in his honor. “Now open it.”

“You do it,” Ben relented finally. “My hands are wet. Go ahead, open it up and tell me what it says. And then kindly euthanize me to end my immortal shame.”

“That wouldn’t work,” I pointed out, tearing open the envelope. I pulled out the tri-folded piece of paper inside, flattened it against my thighs, and read the typed black text.

“...Well?” Ben pressed, vaping frantically.

I looked up and smiled at him.

“No way,” he whispered.

“I hope you like pretzels and bear-themed baseball teams, grandpa.”

And for a second, I thought he might bolt up out of the hot tub, hooting victoriously, splashing water all over the back porch as he danced around bellowing that he’d gotten into one of the best medical schools in the world, that he would be following me and Joe to Chicago. But that wasn’t Ben. Instead, a slow smile rippled across his face: it was small, but perfectly genuine. Pure, even.

“Goddamn,” he said, watching me. Venom doesn’t just resurrect or ruin; it forms a bond that is simultaneously intangible and yet immense. It’s an evolutionary adaptation, a way to facilitate stability and the building of covens in an often violent and ruleless world. And now that he had turned me, Ben had family here in Forks in more ways than one.

“Gwil would be so proud of you, Ben.”

“I hope so. I really do.”

The back door of the house opened, and Joe stepped outside. He studied Ben for a moment, and that was all it took for him to know. “Benny!” he shouted, elated.

“I know, I know. Fortunately, I look amazing in red. Thanks, supermodel genes.”

“This is going to be so fun!” Joe said, sprinting over to wrap Ben—who was characteristically lukewarm on this whole physical displays of affection business—in a hug from just outside the hot tub. “We’re going to go furniture shopping, and eat deep-dish pizza, and find apartments right next to each other, and mail home Chicago-themed care packages, and get you hooked up with some gorgeous Italian woman...or whatever you like, I guess I shouldn’t assume. Women. Men. Gang members. Marine mammals. Jessicas. Whatever. There are options.”

Ben laughed as he playfully shoved Joe away. “Sounds like a plan, pagliaccio.”

“Oh my god, stop learning Italian without me! You realize you have to tell Mom now.”

“I will,” Ben agreed, with some trepidation. “I’ll wait until after Christmas.”

“It’ll be hard for her,” I said. “But she knows it’s what you want. She knows it’s what’s best for you. So she’ll get through it. I think it would be worse for her if you didn’t get in, if she had to see you unhappy.”

Ben nodded, exhaling strawberry-doughnut-flavored vapor, gazing up at the stars, Orion and Auriga and Lynx and Perseus reflected in his thoughtful jade eyes. “She’ll still have Rami and Lucy and Scarlett here with her. And Archer. And Charlie.”

“Especially Charlie,” Joe said, grinning.

Mercy would have to leave Forks eventually, of course. The Lees had already been here for nearly four years; they could stay another ten, perhaps fifteen at the absolute maximum. And there had been a time when ten or fifteen years seemed like quite a while to me, but now it felt like I could doze off one afternoon and wake up on the other side of it, like swimming a lap in the sun-drenched public pool back in Phoenix. We would find a new home somewhere after Joe and I finished our PhDs, after Ben finished medical school, maybe Vancouver or Buffalo or Amsterdam or Edinburgh or Dublin or Reykjavik. Wherever we went, I hoped it wouldn’t be far from the sea. But Mercy couldn’t bear to leave Forks yet. It was the last home she had shared with Gwil, the last house they would ever build together, and leaving it would make his loss all the more irrevocable. She would be ready to leave someday, but not today.

In the meantime, there would still be visits for breaks and holidays. Scarlett and Archer had the shop to keep them busy, a brand new eight-car garage that held a virtual monopoly on both the Forks and Quileute communities. Lucy had opened a bohemian-style clothing boutique downtown, which confounded most of the locals but attracted more adventurous customers from as far away as Seattle. Rami was interning for a local immigration lawyer and entertaining the possibility of applying to U Chicago’s law school in another few years. And Mercy had the farm; and she had Charlie. He had asked her for cooking lessons to try to help rouse her a few months after Gwil’s death, and it had grown from there. If it wasn’t romantic just yet, I believed it would be soon. And there were moments when I thought my father might have figured something out, when his eyes narrowed and lingered on me just a little too long, when his brow knitted into suspicious, searching lines, when the hairs rose on the back of his neck and some innate insight whispered that we weren’t like him and never could be again. But then he would chuckle, shake his head, and say: “You’ve gotten weird, my gorgeous, brilliant progeny. But Forks looks pretty good on you.”

“Can I talk to you upstairs?” Joe asked me suddenly; and did I see restless nerves flicker in his dark eyes? I thought I did.

“Sure,” I replied, climbing down from the hot tub. “Ben, are you coming inside? My dad is trying to bake Christmas cookies and failing miserably. It’s pretty hilarious. Not that you should be the one to critique other people’s kitchen-related accidents.”

“I do enjoy your company a lot more now that I don’t want to murder you and slurp you down like a Chick-fil-A milkshake,” Ben said. “Yeah, give me a few minutes and I’ll be there.” And as Joe and I headed into the house, I saw Ben pick up the acceptance letter that I’d left on the rim of the hot tub and read it for himself with incredulous eyes, grappling with the irrefutable fact that it was his name on the opening line, that he had somewhere along the way become the sort of man who dedicated his immortality to saving lives rather than ending them.

In the living room, Scarlett was back in her yoga pants and absolutely brutalizing Archer in Mario Kart. Rami and Lucy were entwined together on the loveseat, murmuring, giggling, feeding each other pieces of gingerbread cookies. In the kitchen, Charlie was leading Mercy in a clumsy waltz to Meat Loaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love, and each time he fumbled his steps or mortifyingly trod on her feet she would cry out in a peal of laughter brighter than the sun she had learned to live without. Joe spirited me up the staircase, into his bedroom—which, honestly, was more like our bedroom now, in the same way that my room in Charlie’s house had become Joe’s as well—and closed the door.

“You’re in luck,” he said. “Your dad totally ruined our song. Now I can’t hear it without thinking about some moustached guy in plaid trying to seduce my mom.”

“It’s the best Christmas gift I could ever ask for. Meat Loaf is vanquished. Oh, just so you’re aware, Renee and Paul are getting an Airbnb and coming up for New Years.”

“Cool. Do they still think I have a super embarrassing sunlight allergy and will break into hives and asphyxiate and that’s why we can’t visit them in Florida?”

“Yup.”

“Spectacular. Also, can you please tell me what’s wrong with my eyelashes?”

“They’re just a little sparse, amore. But I still like you.”

“Well, I am only moderately attractive, you know.” Then Joe steeled himself, taking a deep breath. Uh oh. He was definitely nervous. I still couldn’t believe I had the power to make him that way, but here we were. “So I get that we’re doing presents with the whole family tomorrow morning, and you do have some under the tree, so don’t worry about that. But there’s one I wanted to give to you alone. You know. With just us. Without an audience. Or whatever.”

“...Okay...?” A secret gift? A naughty gift? “I hope it’s a new vibrator.”

“Shut up,” Joe begged, laughing. “Here.” He reached into the drawer of his nightstand—our nightstand—and produced a small blue box topped with a turquoise bow. It wasn’t a ring, I was sure of that; I didn’t feel especially attached to the idea of marriage, and neither did Joe to my knowledge. How could rings or papers seal commitment when you already had eternity? I was right: the mysterious present was not a ring. When I removed the lid and emptied the box into my palm, what appeared there was a small plastic airplane.

“What is this?” I asked, amused but puzzled.

“Are you not college educated? It’s a plane.”

“Well, yeah, I can see that. But it’s also like two inches long.” I scrutinized the plane. “Are you magically transforming me into a tiny, tiny, little plastic person? Is that my gift? Because I actually got you something good.” And I really did: there was a collection of vintage Chicago Cubs photographs from the 1910s and 20s downstairs under the Christmas tree, packaged in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer wrapping paper.

“We’re going on a trip,” Joe said, grinning. “The day after Christmas. It’s just a short trip, nothing huge, don’t get too excited, we’re not going to Mt. Everest or Antarctica or anything. I think you’ll still like it. But I don’t want you to know where we’re going until we’re there.”

“How will that work? Considering the tickets and signage and pilot announcements and obnoxiously noisy other passengers and all.”

“ScarJo’s going to fly us.”

“Really?!” We were taking the jet. We almost never used the jet. “What’s in it for Scarlett?”

“She found out that Archer’s never had In-N-Out Burger before and is very much looking forward to initiating him into the cult of deliciousness.”

“Oh nice. I could go for a vanilla milkshake myself, now that Ben mentioned them.”

“Obviously I’m gonna buy you all the milkshakes and animal-style fries you want. Bankrupt me, bitch. But we have to get one other thing taken care of first.”

“So it’s somewhere they have In-N-Out Burger...” I pondered aloud. California? Texas? Las Vegas? I felt a brief but unambiguous pang of homesickness for Phoenix. But there was nothing there for me anymore.

“Stop,” Joe pleaded. “I’m sorry. I’ve already said too much. Please forget that. Get a traumatic brain injury or oxygen deprivation or something.”

“I hate to disappoint you, but I’m rather indestructible at the moment.”

He smiled wistfully. “I wouldn’t want you to be any other way.”

There was laughter downstairs in the living room. I could detect the aroma of a fresh batch of sugar cookies baking in the kitchen, mingling with the cold night air and pine trees and peppermint candy canes. I loved Christmas. The entire world smelled like Joe. The U Chicago décor, classic rock posters, and Italian flag were now interspersed with National Geographic pages and photos of the two of us together. The Official Whatever You Want Pass hung in a small, square picture frame on the wall above Joe’s bed. Our bed.

“How real is it, Joe?” I asked quietly. I climbed onto my tiptoes, linking my hands around the back of his neck with the tiny plane still tucked between my fingers. “Seriously. The wishes thing.”

“The world may never know. Akari never met me as a human, so she wouldn’t be able to say. But if I had to place a bet...” He shrugged, grinning craftily. “Kinda real. Kinda not real. Just like vampires, I guess.”

“I am alarmingly glad that you’re real, mob guy,” I said, abruptly somber. “I never thought I’d meet someone who saw me as remarkable, who could make me see myself that way. And it’s miraculous. And it’s terrifying too, honestly. Being a thing with you. Falling for someone you could have for centuries and lose in a second.”

“It’s the scariest thing there is,” Joe concurred, taking my hand to lead me back downstairs.

Joseph

Scarlett looks like a goddess, and she knows it. But she’s not one of those magnanimous, fragile, harp-plucking, pastel-colored goddesses. She’s ferocity and wildness and crimson like blood, and that’s exactly why Archer loves her. And as they stand in front of the Christmas tree with their hands clasped together—ivory on bronze, snow on sun—with matching sprigs of holly in Scarlett’s hair and pinned to the jacket of Archer’s suit, reciting truths but no promises, I can’t help but watch the other faces in the room: Rami, Lucy, Ben, Charlie, Mom with her beaming smile and shining eyes, the woman I met sixteen months ago and now can’t fathom life without. And it occurs to me for the first time that love, in its cleanest form, isn’t something that changes people as much as it allows them to become who they truly are.

On the evening of December 26th, as soon as the sun dips beneath the western horizon, we board the jet in the Forks Airport hangar. It’s much easier for Scarlett to fly at night; otherwise she has to wear two or three pairs of sunglasses on top of each other, and even then it’s still painful, it still feels like blinding needles burrowing into the jelly of her retinas. That’s not a wrench in my plans or anything. It needs to be night where we’re going, too.

Vampire hyper-acuity notwithstanding, FAA regulations require Scarlett to have a copilot, so Archer joins her in the flight deck with his newly-minted license and spends most of the journey flipping through the latest issue of Motor Trend. As we begin our descent, he peeks back at us and teases: “It’ll be your turn eventually, guys. Scarlett and I did our time. Rami and Lucy can go next year. And after that...unless Ben happens to find someone worthy of a not-wedding...” He wiggles his black eyebrows.

“Bring it on,” I reply casually. “Fake wedding are my jam. It’ll be ocean themed. Or Roaring ‘20s themed. And we’ll all do the Cha-Cha Slide in the living room and shame Ben as a bonding activity.”

“Mercy can set up a mashed potatoes bar,” Baby Swan adds.

“Yeah. With pineapple.”

“No. Not on potatoes.”

“Yes on potatoes.”

“Over my dead body.”

“Too late,” I tell her, touching my lips to the knuckles of her cool, steady hand.

We touch down at a small noncommercial airport just outside the city, and Scarlett and Archer stay back to secure the plane as Baby Swan follows me outside. And she realizes where we are as soon as the wind hits her, as soon as her eyes soak up the sand and cacti and cloudless night sky like rain swallowed up by parched earth.

“Phoenix,” she whispers, smiling like a child.

“But wait, there’s more!” I announce in my best Billy Mays voice. I take the little glass bottle from my pocket, walk across the runway to the naked desert, crouch down when I find a suitable spot, and fill the bottle with dry, sandy earth that crumbles in my palms. Then I seal the bottle with a tiny cork and bring it back to give it to her.

“I know what it’s like to have to leave home,” I say. “You’ve had to say goodbye to Phoenix, and soon you’ll have to say goodbye to Forks, and next will be Chicago, on and on forever. You’ll always be leaving the places you learn to call home. Every five or ten or fifteen years, we start over again. Like a snake shedding its skin, like a hermit crab swapping shells. Like the water that travels from rain to seawater to mist and then back again. But now you can always have a little piece of home with you, and maybe that will make it easier.”

She takes the glass bottle and shakes her head in disbelief, in wonder. Because this is exactly what she wanted, what she needed, even if she didn’t know it yet. “Joe...how did you...?”

“What’d I tell ya? I’m a talented guy. Now you have to dance with me.”

She laughs. “Oh no. Hard pass. I don’t dance.”

“When we’re alone in my bedroom you do. So just pretend we’re alone now. In, like, a really really spacious, sandy bedroom. With probably some lizards.”

“Fine. But only because I’m willing to degrade myself for milkshakes.”

She slides the glass bottle of Arizona earth into her pocket and takes my hands. She’s still a pretty terrible dancer, honestly. She hasn’t lost that. And I love that about her. I love damn near everything about her. And it took me a long time to figure out what exactly her subtle yet peerless cocktail of fragrance is, because it wasn’t somewhere I’d ever been. The scent that drifts from her pores—the scent that now lives in my bedsheets like a shadow or a ghost—is sunlight and heat and clarity and resilience and wisdom older than the pyramids. Her scent is the desert.

Now she’s mischievous, her eyes gleaming with the reflections of the Milky Way and the full moon and the stars that are dead and yet eternal, just like us. “So what, you think you’re Vampire Boyfriend Of The Year material now or what? Some dirt and In-N-Out Burger? That’s the height of your game? Is this what I have to look forward to for the rest of my perpetual existence? I totally should have pursued that polyamorous triad with Scarlett and Archer when I had the chance—”

“Yeah,” I say, very softly, smiling, tilting up her chin to kiss her beneath the universe and all its eccentricities. “I love you too.”

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tomtenadia · 3 years

Text

Island dream - chapter 24

Chapter 24 has finally landed. It took me a while but it's here. Sorry it took me ages, life happens.

but now it's here and something big happens.

Have fun and enjoy <3

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The holidays had passed and Aedion and Lysandra had gone back to London but Aelin knew this time it was not for long. Her friends were coming back for good and that had been the most perfect present, Rowan’s proposal aside. That had been her most treasured memory of the holidays and probably of her entire life. Malcolm had thrown a Hogmanay party and the four of them had all been invited and they had great fun and welcomed the new year together knowing it was going to be a new year full of future great moments.

It was now January and life had slowly gone back to normality. That morning Aelin woke up and again she felt like death. She had been feeling like that for a while now and she just blamed it to work. She rolled over in bed and slammed the alarm off, then realised that Rowan’s side was empty. He was probably up already as his usual. Slowly she forced herself to roll out of bed and walked to the kitchen in nothing but one of his t-shirts. Rowan was preparing breakfast and packing her lunch as well. He had decided that cafeteria food was not healthy so he had taken upon himself to pack her some Rowan approved lunch. She complained for the first two days then she gave up. The food had been amazing and he actually loved doing it, so she let him fuss. She hugged him from behind and leaned her head against his back and groaned. She would have gladly slept for another week. “You look terrible again. Are you sure you should go to work?” He turned in her arms and faced her. Aelin let out another savage groan “I feel like I was at a party and I got pished pretty hard last night.” Rowan roared with laughter “That’s a very Scottish word.” “Aye, I am surrounded, of course I pick up things. And Malcolm is a bad influence.” She tried to smile but noticed his worried expression “I’ll get better in a few days. Stop being a worrywart.” “You have been saying that for a while now.” He pressed his hand on her forehead followed by his lips “you definitely are not running a fever.” He passed her a mug of coffee and a plate with bacon and eggs, their Saturday treat. Aelin took a bite of bacon but put the fork down when her stomach protested quite aggressively and she ran for the toilet where she felt sick. Rowan was behind her a moment later. Worry deep in his features. Aelin managed to get up and went to brush her teeth “It’s just a stomach bug. I will be fine.” “You should not go to work.” She ignored him and went back to the bedroom to grab some clean clothes “I am going for a shower and I am going to work wether you approve or not.” Rowan sighed “At least have one of your colleagues have a look at you. This is not normal.” “Fine.” She brushed him off irritated “As long as you shut up about it.” And she slammed the bathroom door in his face. Rowan sighed and went back to the kitchen. She had been very irritable as well during the last week and they fought more than they normally did and she had been constantly exhausted for a while now. He had bought her vitamins hoping it would help but it did not. And now she was sick as well. There was something going on and he was really getting worried. But she was not listening to him and kept telling him that it was just an innocent bug. Half an hour later Aelin reappeared again all ready to go. Rowan handed her the thermos bag with her lunch. Her arms went around his neck “I am sorry.” She said, burying her face in his neck “I didn’t mean to…” she sniffled. “Shh… I know, mo chridhe, we are good.” He kissed her head in reassurance “Just get checked, please.” Aelin nodded and lifted her head to kiss him. He pretended to refuse the kiss for a moment then lifted her in his arms and his mouth crushed on hers. “I love you.” “Go, I’ll se you tonight.” She left and he sighed.

It was an half hour later when she reached the hospital and went quickly to her office. She was in charge of the A&E and she went to get the roster for the day and started making plans where to place the two new intern who joined the team two days before. She loved her job. The pace was different from London but it allowed her to actually have a life outside work and she was happy for that. She was flipping through her diary looking for something else, when she noticed something amiss and everything all of a sudden made sense. She flipped a bit more pages and panic rose swiftly in her. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.” She ran out of the office and back into the pit where she saw Malcolm, grabbed him and pulled him to an empty bed, then closed the curtains. “What’s happening?” Aelin grabbed one of the carts in the corridor and took out a syringe and a vial and homeostatic elastic “Fill this up for me, please.” “Are you okay?” He asked while donning his gloves before proceeding to draw blood from her. Once he was done Aelin looked at him “No. Yes. Maybe.” She needed to calm down “I was flipping through my diary to look for something when I noticed something peculiar.” “How peculiar are we talking about?” “I missed my period. Then I went back another month and I realised I missed two.” “Oh.” Was Malcolm first reaction “Not to be judgmental, but how can you miss it? I have a sister and I am told it’s quite difficult to miss.” Aelin sighed “I was on the pill. Then I stopped because it was giving me issues. After quitting the pill it goes off kilter for a while so I was not too bothered about not having it.” she explained “Then once I saw the diary it all clicked. All of it. I have been moody. I have been constantly tired and now sick as well and my boobs are killing me. I did not miss my period because I got off the pill.” She explained frantically. “You and that man you yours have been naughty?” His smile was wicked. Aelin folder her arms at her chest and stared at him sideways. “I am just saying…Now, do you need a sex-ed lesson?” He joked, while sealing the vial with her blood. Aelin blushed savagely “a few times Rowan and I might not have been… careful.” “Oh, the savage passion… I hope the wall is still standing.” She and Malcolm had developed a wonderful relationship and they could talk about anything “The house is still standing.” “Good,” he gave her a wide smile and his dimple made an appearance. Malcolm was good looking. There was a high number of nurses who were crazy about him. He was tall, blonde and with beautiful grey eyes. A heart attack on two legs. The first time she saw him she was the one who had almost smashed into the glass door. “I guess you want me to take this to the lab and check for the p word?” Aelin sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder and his hand was on her hair “You are panicking.” “I will be fine.” She took a deep breath and jumped off the bed. “I will take this to the lab and I will let you know as soon as I know something.” She kissed him on the cheek and disappeared back to work.

Aelin tried to go back to her job to keep her mind occupied. She knew the answer already but she had to wait for the test. All the signs had been there for a while now. She was just worried how Rowan would react to the news. She knew he wanted kids, but perhaps this was a bit too early. She sighed and responded to the page and went to help her intern.

It was in the afternoon when Malcolm pushed her into her office and closed the door. He waved a piece of paper in front of her. “Is that it?” The man nodded and Aelin sat on the edge of the desk, her heart hammering “It’s positive, isn’t it?” “It is.” Malcolm gave her the paper with the results and then studied her “You don’t seem happy, I thought you and Rowan wanted a family.” He sat beside her. Aelin started pacing “We do. I do. Mal, we got engaged two weeks ago, we have been together less than a year. I just wan’t expecting it this soon.” “Are you afraid he will be mad?” Aelin scoffed “No. No, knowing him, he will be ecstatic and then probably put me under house arrest to prevent me to overwork myself.” “If he is a bit overprotective it’s just because he loves you and wants to look after you.” She turned to him. His gaze had gone sad all of a sudden “You are quite the protective type as well.” His face went dark and she felt as if she had said something wrong. Shit. “Mal…” “It’s okay.” He said, placing a hand on her knee “you could not know.” Mal took a deep sigh “He was a pilot. I was on an aircraft carrier. I was the medical officer. He was the commander of the air group. We started it off a bit rocky but then we began to get along quite well. Later on in our deployment, I realised I had feelings for him. Then I discovered he felt the same. After a while we got together and we were an item for a while.” He explained “I knew he was good at his job, but as a doctor, well, I had seen my share of accidents and I used to worry about him every time he would go out with his squadron. If I had an empty med bay I would go on deck and wait until he landed back. He would joke saying that I fussed too much.” He tries to laugh a bit “Things got serious between us. Sometimes we were lucky to be together but quite a lot we were posted in different locations. We always worried when one of us would go on tour without the other. Eventually we had decided to deploy one more and then both retire. He never made it back. After his death I went on one last deployment. ” he sighed heavily. Aelin gasped “Mal, I am so, so, so sorry.” “What I wanted to say is let him fuss over you. That man is madly in love with you. I wish Matthew was still here for me to fuss over him for being late or being ill. I miss it. And I miss him.” She turned and hugged him fiercely and he hugged her back. “Nurse Helen and I will look after you. We will find you a hot sexy man.” Malcolm laughed “Yeah she has been trying to set me up on dates for a while.” Then turned to her “No one knows about Matthew, a part from some of my ex Navy colleagues. I don’t want anyone’s pity. You can set me up on all the dates you want not because I am alone but because I am still here, still alive and I can’t waste such gift by wallowing forever, he would not want that. I will always remember him but life goes on.” Aelin nodded “So tall and dark-haired? Muscles? Rowan might have some swimming buddies available.” Malcolm stood “I am very picky.” “I will keep that in mind.” “Good. Now I best go back to my patients before they start to feel abandoned.” He took a step to the door the turned to her “Aelin, thank you for being my friend” and he left.

A few hours later Aelin was on her way to Yrene for her ob/gyn appointment. After the results she had phoned the ward and asked to book an appointment. She had been feeling nervous all day and still coming to terms with the fact that she and Rowan were going to have a kid. She had no idea if she felt ready or not. Once at the reception she told the secretary she was there for her appointment and she was invited to take a seat. She lasted five minutes before she had to dash to the bathroom and be sick. She felt like death. It took her ten minutes to get out of the toilet. When she got back Yrene was waiting for her “You look terrible.” “And I feel even worse.” Yrene invited her in in her office and told Aelin to lie down on the bed. Yrene smiled and pulled the ultrasound machine closer. Aelin lifted the bottom of her scrubs exposing her belly and Yrene spread gel on it. “Take a deep breath.” Aelin was getting more nervous by the minute which was not working well for her already upset stomach. “Let’s see…” Yrene placed the scanning wand on her tummy and looked at the screen. A very strange sound came from the machine. “That is not a regular heartbeat.” Said Aelin terrified, but Yrene smiled. “It’s not because it’s two heartbeats.” “Twins.” Yrene nodded. Aelin let out a ragged breath. “Are they okay?” “Both foetuses look fine and the right size for now. You are about eight weeks pregnant.” Aelin did the math. The getaway. She laughed. “Something funny?” “Yes,” Aelin said brushing her hand in her hair again, she was so nervous “I did the math and it was the first time Rowan and I had sex. And considering the amount of times, well… I am not surprised.” Yrene grinned. “We got… carried away.” Yrene’s hand was on her shoulder “I have seen him. It’s perfectly understandable.” The Yrene’s tone changed “You know the risks with multiple pregnancies.” Aelin nodded . “Hypertension, Preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, intense sickness.” “Definitely the last one is starting to appear.” Said Aelin leaning back on the bed. “I want to follow you.” Aelin nodded. She had worked with Yrene and really liked the woman and had discovered she had an amazing experience. “Good.” She cleaned Aelin’s belly and covered her back. “I will see you in three weeks. I want to run some tests. Just to check how you are doing.” “Thank you.” Said Aelin getting up and then she felt sick again and ran for the bathroom.

Going back to work had been tragic. She had spent a good twenty minutes in Yrene’s office bathroom. And left on very shaky legs. “What did Yrene do to you? You look like death.” Malcolm’s voice welcomed her back to the A&E. He gave her a ginger biscuit “This should help.” “Thank you.” Thanks to Malcolm’s ginger biscuits she did manage to finish her shift and she was now on her way home. Her mind kept thinking about ways to tell Rowan. Then an idea hit her. Before heading home she took a detour to the bookshop. Luckily it was closed already and she could get in and grab the book she needed for her surprise to Rowan. She would pay for it but she had to acquire it first without him knowing. Once she was done she drove home and a sense of happiness finally settled in her. The panic had finally dissolved. It would be okay. They would be okay. When she got home she noticed Rowan was not in the living room, and when she heard the shower, Aelin smiled. Perfect timing for her to quickly wrap the book and prepare the present. Ten minutes later he emerged with just a towel around his waist and she almost fainted. No matter how many times she had seen him like that, the vision had the power to kill her every single time. “You should stop showing off.” “Says the one who wanders around the house in super tiny nightgowns.” She grinned and closed the distance to him. Her arms went around his waist and pinched his butt in reply. “Come and sit.” “I should go and change.” “No way…” he sat on the sofa and she straddled him and kissed him, brushing her hands in his wet hair. She could not get distracted. She had to tell him first, then they could indulge in other activities. She pulled back a bit and grabbed the wrapped gift on the table “Very late Yule present.” She joked. “You already gave me my present.” He told her while grabbing the packet. “Just open it and shush.” Rowan did that and his face was puzzled when he noticed the book “What to expect when you are expecting…” Aelin grinned savagely when his smile morphed into understanding. “We are pregnant.” She whispered placing a gentle kiss on his mouth then she opened the book and showed him the picture of her ultrasound “Baby A and baby B.” She explained pointing at the two blobs. “Twins? We are having twins?” There was utter joy in his voice and her heart seemed to finally relax. “Is that why you were not well?” His arms wrapped tightly around her waist. Aelin nodded. He pulled her close to him “I love you so much.” “You are not scared or worried?” He kissed her “not in the least. I…” he took a breath “I want kids in my life, Aelin. I never brought up the subject because I wanted to give you the time to make up your mind on the topic and enjoy your career.” He looked her in the eyes “Truth is… I have been brooding for a while now.” Her hands were in his hair again “I was terrified when I realised I was pregnant.” Her forehead leaned against “Until I saw the ultrasound and I saw the twins on the screen I was panicking. Then something clicked in me and I stopped being nervous.” “We’ll do this together. I will be at your side, I will support you and do all I could for the three of you.” Aelin leaned forward and kissed Rowan’s head. She knew he was going to be the most amazing dad ever. “Guess when it happened?” “I don’t know, considering how active we have been…” Aelin smiled. That they had. After they got back from the getaway, they had troubles keeping their hands off each other. They had tried every possible surface in their house that could hold them. And she discovered that Rowan was creative too. She kissed his nose “The getaway.” Rowan laughed “we are going to have a big family,” he leaned against her, their foreheads touching. And for a while they just hugged in silence and all the fears Aelin had during the day had melted away once and for all. “I got the book from our shop. I will pay for it. I swear.” She broke the silence. Rowan laughed “It’s okay, Fireheart, for such an amazing gift, I will forgive you.” He grabbed the book and pushed her off her lap and started reading but Aelin had another idea in mind. The book disappeared form his hands and ended up back on the table and she straddled him again. Then she grabbed the hem of her scrubs and remained in her bra in front of him. “We’ll read later, Buzzard.” she kissed him while her hand travelled south. “We shouldn’t” he said pulling back from her. Aelin rolled her eyes “we have been doing it for two months now. No issues. It won’t hurt the babies. Believe me.” And went back kissing him to try and convince him. His hands trailed up her sides, brushing the band of her bra. Aelin’s arms went behind her back and freed herself. She felt his hands palm her breasts and leaned into the touch. With a swift motion she pulled away his towel, leaving him naked and a smile appeared on her face when she noticed him ready for her. His mouth locked on hers and her hand trailed south, grabbing him. Rowan gasped against her lips. “I thought—“ he stopped after her hand did something wicked to him “You feeling better, I reckon?” “I have to apologise for the past few days.” She breathed against his lips. “Do you?” “Stop talking Buzzard and use your mouth in the wicked way of yours.” Rowan did not complain. He lifted her in his arms as he stood. Her hand reached for him again and this time he moaned as his lips met hers again. “I can’t deny a pregnant woman her wish, can I?”

The next morning Aelin had started the day with her head in the toilet. She had been there for a good twenty minutes when Rowan finally walked in and sat beside her. She leaned against him exhausted. “Are you sure you have to go to work?” “Yeah,” she breathed getting up. His arms went around her to help her stand. “There are loads of ginger biscuits ready. I have packed some in your lunch. A very light one with vegetables and other ingredients that should not make you sick. There are a couple of bits of fresh ginger that you can use for your tea. Apparently it works. I read it in the book you gave me.” She leaned against him. “How did I end up with such an amazing man?” “You came into my shop and stole my heart.” He kissed her head. “Gee, Whitethorn, you can be so damn cheesy sometimes.” His nose scrunched up “All your fault. I was leading the charts for most unpleasant man in Stornoway and then you came along.” They reached the breakfast table and they sat down. Rowan had prepared a strawberry milkshake for her. He was planning on keeping track of all the food she did manage to eat and the one that caused discomfort. “Let’s try with toast with jam this morning and see if you can keep it down.” He offered her the food and Aelin made an attempt at eating. “You should discuss with Malcolm the possibility of him having to take most of your night shifts.” Aelin stopped eating and stared at him in disbelief “I can’t do that.” “You are pregnant.” “So what? It does not mean I can’t do my job. I sleep during the day like I usually do and do it. We have on-call rooms. I can still sleep and rest.” He was not convinced and glared at her. “Eventually you will have to go on maternity leave. Someone will have to cover for you. They can easily start doing it now.” His tone had turned to annoyance and Aelin braced for a fight. “That is months away. I can work now.” She shouted “Being pregnant does not mean I can’t do my job.” “If you can keep your head out of the toilet long enough.” He fired back “and if you can manage to reach the patient while your big bump is in the way. Or spend the entire day running around the A&E while your ankles double in size. Sure, go ahead. Be my guest.” Aelin scoffed “I can do all those things.” She snarled back. “You are carrying twins.” He added through gritted teeth “Do you have any idea of all the possible issues you might encounter?” He crossed his arms at his chest in defiance. “I am a doctor, of course I know.” She shouted back not willing to lose that battle. He grabbed the plates and started washing them ignoring her on purpose. She stood and slammed her fork on the table “This is why…” she shouted, but then she stopped. No, she could not say what she had just thought aloud. Rowan was not Chaol. She could not go down that road of hate and resentment again. Not with him. “I need to go to work.” She said much more calmly. She gathered the food containers he had prepared for her and all the biscuits. Then took a step to him and kissed him “Thank you.” She was a weakling but she could not stand the idea of fighting with him, of being mad at him. He grabbed her arm gently “Take it easy, please.” Aelin rolled her eyes and left the kitchen in silence. Rowan sighed and went back washing all the dishes.

Rowan had a quiet morning in the shop. He had changed the main display in the window and had gone for a winter theme and had selected books that had a wintery theme or were set in that season. He had added a few props and he was quite satisfied. Then he had taken some pictures and shared them as Aelin had showed him. His social media accounts were working and, especially on Facebook, people were engaging with him. Aelin was still the admin of the page and she would still manage most of the content for him. He browsed through the page and marvelled at the amazing job she had done. Then he looked at his followers and found her, Lysandra and Aedion and smiled. Out of curiosity he clicked on her profile and studied it a bit and the first imagine that appeared made him smile. It was a picture of her holding her ultrasound scan of their babies. He read the comments and laughed, although he assumed Lysandra had found out a moment later after he did. Scrolling a bit more he saw a picture of her bragging about her engagement ring and her upcoming pagan wedding. She was always smiling in her photos and he could not keep his eyes off her. Her smile was the first thing that had floored him the day she walked into the shop. He sighed. It felt such a long time ago and he could not believe how much it had happened already. He kept scrolling through her profile and noticed she had been sharing a lot of her life in the islands and also a lot of the posts he had made from the bookshop profile. And then a wild idea hit him. His hand clicked on create profile and step by step he created his profile. As a photo he used the one of a buzzard he found online. A joke that only Aelin would get. Then he went on her profile and added her, Lysandra and Aedion as friends. And that was it for him. He was not interested in more. A moment later a notification appeared saying that Aelin had accepted his friendship and at the same time his phone went off. “Hey.” “Did you just joined Facebook? Did I create a monster?” On the other side Aelin sounded shocked. “I was posting my new display on the bookshop page. Then I saw that you follow the page and had a nosey at your profile and got curious and created one myself. But I am only having you three as friends. I am not sure I will like it.” “I love the profile photo by the way. You two look very alike.” “How are you feeling?” He changed the subject. “Your biscuits are helping a lot and I made the tea as well. I haven’t had nausea since. And don’t worry. Malcolm has been fussing like a mother hen.” Rowan laughed and decided to thank the man next time he saw him. “I got to go. Sorry. Love you.” Rowan hang up and went back playing with Facebook. The store was quiet and all the paperwork was done. He could indulge in a bit of silliness. He had noticed that both Lysandra and Aedion had accepted his friendship and Aedion had also messaged him. They had started chatting and found out that he and Lysandra were working hard on their plan to move to the islands. He had applied to some jobs and was waiting for a reply. He did not realise how much he had spent talking to Aedion until the door opened and Aelin appeared. “Hello you.” He said, coming out from behind the counter. She slammed into him for a hug with just one arm. The other one was holding a bag full of food. He frowned. He took the bag and placed it on the counter and went back to Aelin. “Hi you.” His voice was soft as he cupped her face with one hand. “I brought cake as a peace offering.” “Why?” Aelin sighed “I was not nice this morning. You were just looking after me and I shouted and I almost said things that I would have regretted forever. It’s just…” she looked away for a moment “The hormones. I realise I have been moody lately. We haven’t fought as much as in the past few weeks. But I still need to apologise.” “We are fine.” Rowan kissed her “I am not worried about our fights. They are more spats because we are both stubborn. They are not out of hate and we are not trying to hurt each other with words.” Aelin looked down “I almost did this morning.” Her hands gripped his t-shirt and tears started to flow “I thought something horrible but I stopped because I can’t hurt you.” Her tears became sobs and Rowan’s arms tightened. “I had enough of those fights with Chaol.” “Shhh… “ Aelin kept crying and he rocked her gently. “I am a mess. A patient gave me a hug because I helped her dad and I cried. I am happy, then sad then angry, then back to sad. I am going insane.” Rowan held her tight “then I hid in my office sobbing when I realised we can’t get married on Beltaine.” He looked down at her “Why?” “Have you ever seen a woman pregnant with twins at five months? I’ll get huge. I will not fit in the dress and will not be able to dance with you at the ceilidh.” Her sobs intensified “And I want to do all those things.” “Hey, we can wait.” His hand caressed her head “we’ll get married whenever you feel ready.” She finally stopped crying and looked up at him “but our kids will be there too.” Finally a smile. “We are a scandalous couple.” He joked and she looked at him puzzled “kids out of wedlock? You ruined me miss Galathynius.”

***

Slowly the winter months had passed and spring knocked at the door and March arrived. Rowan was on its way to the hospital to meet Aelin. On that day they had and appointment with Yrene and they hoped to be able to find out the sex of their kids. They had tried on a few previous appointments but the babies were never in a favourable positions. He hoped this time was the right time. Especially because they had a bet going on. Rowan was sure it was one of each, Aelin was positive it was two girls. If Rowan won, he would eat two slices of one of Aelin’s favourite super sugary cakes, whether if Aelin was the winner he had promised a sexy massage with oils. Aelin really wanted to win. He got to Yrene’s office and noticed the woman was alone. “Hi Rowan, Aelin has been held up. She will be here soon.” Rowan sighed and used that occasion to talk with Yrene. “I have some questions.” “Absolutely. Ask away.” Rowan nodded “I have been reading some books on childbirth and I read that multi pregnancies can be a bit more challenging, which makes sense. But I am worried about some of the things I read.” “That is normal. And I know it can be scary. I am planning on testing Aelin today for pre-eclampsia. Aelin’s babies share a single placenta, so you will have identical twins. This means her scans will be more frequent as there are other issues that might arise.” Yrene explained “Chances are they will be premature, but we can discuss a planned delivery as well when Aelin comes back.” “Is that the safest options?” “Yes. It’s the one I’d recommend.”Yrene suggested “but if she doesn’t want she can try and deliver naturally. I will try to get her as close as possible to term, but her body will decided when it’s time. There is a possibility that she will be confined to bed rest.” “She will not like that.” Added Rowan, worried “Is there anything I can do to help?” “Be supportive. Make sure she doesn’t tire too much and that she eats healthy. She is her second trimester so her hormones are probably running wild. Just don’t take it personally if she shouts at you. The more the pregnancy progress the more uncomfortable she will be.” Another question popped in his head and he felt embarrassment rise “Aelin wants to… do stuff. I am just nervous that it might not be a good idea.” Yrene nodded and smiled “that is up to you two. Right now it is still possible but soon it will be quite difficult for Aelin. There are no risks for now but I will not exclude a no sex policy later on, it all depends on her health. Always let her decide, see what she is comfortable with.” “But it’s not dangerous for the babies… I mean my…” he was now red with embarrassment. Yrene laughed out loud “I will be frank, Rowan. Now matter how well equipped you are, there is no chance you’ll get that far up.” His blush was now savage. “Just wanted to be sure.” “Of course.” In that moment Aelin joined them and laughed at Rowan’s state “why is Rowan blushing?” Yrene laughed “he asked if his downstairs friend can hurt the babies during sex.” Aelin roared in laughter “You are perfect, but let’s be realistic.” And the two women laughed. “So, are you ready for the big reveal?” Yrene announced changing the subject and giving a chance to Rowan to recover. Aelin smiled and slowly dragged herself to the bed, and Rowan helped her when he saw her struggle. “Hopefully they are in a good position.” “I hope so, I have a bet to win.” Aelin grinned laying down and exposing her swollen stomach. Yrene spread the gel and began her job. Aelin stared at the screen and tried to brush up her skill from her ob/gyn rotation to remember how to spot the sex. She sat on her elbows and gasped “Is that a girl?” “Well spotted. She is very clear.” Rowan stared at the screen and felt stupid when all he could see were blobs. He trusted them. “The second is hiding,” said Aelin caressing one side of her belly “come on darling, mama wants to know.” Rowan moved at her side and placed a hand on hers on her stomach “dad too.” They waited for a while but it looked like the second baby had no intention of moving. Yrene was about to call it quits when Aelin shifted and the baby shifted as well and in that second it revealed itself. Aelin screamed in delight “Two girls! I win.” “Yrene hasn’t confirmed it yet.” Said Rowan. The doctor laughed “It’s two girls, Rowan.” He had a massive grin. He lowered and kissed Aelin. “I want my prize tonight.” “Yes, my Queen.”

“Twin girls,” said Aelin dreamingly while they were both walking back to the A&E. “And Yrene said they are identical as well.” Aelin nodded “I knew that.” She turned to him and smiled “we’ll have to find a way to tell them apart.” He kissed her head. They reached the pit and Malcolm was walking to them “so, who won the bet?” “This girl here is having a sexy massage tonight.” Malcolm smiled “so it’s two girls.” Rowan and Aelin nodded proudly. “Congratulations, guys.” And he hugged them both. “Aelin, patient in bed 4 needs your care again.” Aelin swore and turned to Rowan “I have to go.” She kissed him and Rowan placed a hand on her belly. “I love you. And I’ll see you three tonight.” She waved at him and left, leaving Rowan with Malcolm. “Look after my girls, please.” Rowan asked to the man “Asking Aelin to slow down seem to be an impossible challenge.” Malcolm patted his shoulder “I have a plan. I will keep an eye on her while she is here.” “Thank you.” Then Rowan said goodbye and went back to work at the bookshop.

Aelin came home at a decent time and Rowan was in the living room reading a book while waiting for her. Aelin noticed his wicked smile and walked to him. “Someone looks naughty.” He kissed her in response and she straddled him. His hands went on the bump and lifted her scrub to reveal the swollen belly. He leaned forward and placed his hands on the side. Aelin had felt the girls move but he hand’t been able yet and he was dying to feel them kick for the first time. “My three girls are finally home.” And kissed the belly. Aelin stood and smiled at him and then disappeared in their room. A moment later she called him and he followed. Once in the room he noticed she was wearing a long blue gown. She took a step to him “I am very tired.” She undid the sash of the gown “I won a massage…”slowly she lowered one side of the gown, exposing her right shoulder and the top of her breast “A sexy one if I remember correctly.” Another step and now the gown was low on her arms, exposing her upper body “I am so very tired.” She repeated letting the gown pool at her feet standing in front of him naked. Rowan went to his drawer and took out something, then pointed to Aelin to get on the bed. She sat on her knees and he took position behind her. He undid her braid and took in her scent of jasmine and lavender. He pushed the hair on one side and kissed her neck and she leaned back into him. “You are gorgeous.” “I am a whale.” She replied stretching her hands behind her to touch him. “You are stunning.” His hands traced her arms up and down, then took her hands and placed them on her bump with his, his mouth kept tormenting her neck. Then he removed the hands and grabbed the small bottle at his side. He dropped some of the liquid in his hands and began his massage from her shoulders. “Is that pine scent I smell?” Rowan nibbled her ear “correct.” “Are you marking the territory?” She joked. “Of course.” He licked her neck “you are my woman and now carry my offspring. It’s my role as alpha male to mark what is mine,” he laughed. “Territorial bastard.” Rowan kept massaging her shoulders and back kneading the sore spots and Aelin moaned “oh yes,” she exclaimed when he hit a spot on her lower back “your hands are amazing.” “I was thinking…” he said while his hands moved lower “what about names?” Aelin’s eyes were closed and she was enjoying his treatment “Do you have ideas?” His mouth was on her neck again “I thought about it, today at work.” He grabbed a bit more oil and moved to her arms and her sides, with fingers brushing her breasts. “Tell me,” she sounded breathless. “Freyja.” “The goddess of love and fertility. She is quite badass.” His hands finally found their target on her breasts and Aelin moaned. She was hypersensitive and his touch sent her reeling “I love it.” She managed in the end. He continued his massage. “What’s the second?” He palmed her breasts one more time and Aelin moaned throwing her head back on his shoulder. “Don’t get mad. I just really adore the name.” “What is it?” “Morrigan.” Aelin chuckled “the goddess of war.” Her hands covered his “big expectations for our daughters, I see?” “I just like the names very much, but we will look for others if you don’t like them. They are just ideas.” “I love them.” She half turned her head to meet his eyes “They are epic. I adore them.” “Are you sure?” “Positive.” “Sit against the head of the bed.” She did that and he stood on his knees between her legs. He smiled tenderly at the image in front of him. To him it did not matter if Aelin called herself ugly because of her big bump, she was beautiful in his eyes. He grabbed a bit more oil and continued his massage at her sides down to her hips and then back up moving then on her bump. He concentrated on the bump for a while. “The girls are loving it.” “Are they moving?” Aelin nodded. He touched the bump but felt nothing. He continued his work along her legs, brushing gently her inner thighs and Aelin’s legs jerked at the touch. “I think you missed a spot.” She laughed and a wicked smile appeared on Rowan’s face. “Saving the best for last.” He leaned forward and kissed her. In that instant his hand went between her legs and Aelin moaned “about friggin time.” He was busy teasing her when Aelin stiffened and he stopped. “What?” She grabbed his hands and placed them on one side of her belly. Rowan waited for a moment and then he felt it. A kick. A powerful kick against his hand. “Guess our girls approve of their dad giving their mum a good time.” Rowan glared at her, then lowered on the bump, his hands still on the spot where the kicks were and he kissed it as well “Your mum is very naughty.” “And you haven’t finished worshipping me,” and Aelin spread her legs but Rowan was far too busy feeling his daughters. “This is amazing.” He whispered, caressing the bump. Aelin’s hand twined in his hair “Come here.” Rowan leaned forward to her while his hand was firmly on the bump. Feeling his girls kick was an incredible feeling and he didn’t want to miss a single moment of it. He kissed her deeply “Did I tell you how happy am I?’ She shook her head and he kissed her again. Then he moved at her side and leaned against her shoulder, with his hand still on the bump “A part of me was for a moment terrified when you told me we were having twins. I was elated at first but the next day all the panic started to hit me. What if I was not ready? what if it was too soon? What if I was not going to be a good dad?” He let his feelings go “And I am terrified. I read all about how multiple pregnancies can be dangerous. That’s why I am fussing. I want to make sure you three are okay. I can’t wait to meet our girls but I am terrified at the same time.” He looked up at her. “I am scared too.” She admitted brushing his hair “I spoke to one of the nurses who had twins a year ago and now I am just as terrified as you are.” She kissed his forehead “and we will be fine and I know you will be the most amazing, most caring dad our girls could have.” He kissed her shoulder “I have an idea to run past you.” He confessed and she nodded. “I was thinking about our housing situation.” He started and grabbed her hand “As soon as the twins arrive, the house might become a bit too small. We can use your old room for them until they are little and sleep in a crib but after that, the room might be a bit too small for two people.” He explained “So I did some research and I found a great place. A lovely croft in great conditions just outside Stornoway. It has four bedrooms, a kitchen that is huge, two floors and a bathroom on each level, and on the ground floor there is a massive room that can easily become our own library. It comes with a nice whack of land that we can use for planting veggies and fruits or for animals if we want a wee farm.” He told her and saw Aelin’s face lit up in joy “There is plenty of space and nature.” Aelin was now in tears which he hoped were tears of joy “I love it.” She whispered. “I can sell my house and I have savings too. We can buy it and renovate it to our liking.” Aelin nodded “I have saving too and I can help. This is something we do together. It’s not all on you.” “I went to see the other day while you were at work and I took some pictures” and he took his phone from his pocket and began showing her the images of the place. “It’s perfect.” “Are you sure? We can look for something else. I went to see it because I was curious. It seemed like a good deal. I didn’t tell you anything because I wanted it to be a surprise.” She brushed his hair again “It’s perfect. And I love the idea of having a library.” “Oh yeah.” He kissed her “we have a book problem and when I saw the gigantic room on the ground floor I knew it was the perfect place.” “Can you take me there?” Rowan nodded “Next time you have a day off we’ll go and see it.” “Good.” And she kissed him “now go back to your job, Buzzard. You haven’t finished your massage and definitely missed a spot.” And Rowan eventually finished his massage leaving Aelin very happy she had won the bet.

Tag:

@rowaelinismyotp sorry it’s a day late. I forgot.

#rowaelin #rowan x aelin #rowan whitethorn #aelin galythinius #fanfic #Throne of Glass series #fluff

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monstersandmaw · 4 years

Text

Male orc x male reader (1st person) sfw

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This was posted, completely unedited and hot off the keyboard, to Patreon at the beginning of June. It’s first person for a change, but male perspective.

Reader is the crown prince of a high fantasy kingdom, who was never expected to become king. His older brother was killed in action when he was 13 and he suddenly found himself shifting from the role of scholar to the role of soldier, a role for which the king things him ill-suited. It opens with him at aged fifteen, first meeting the orcish son of a local war chief, who accompanies his mother to the castle for peace talks with the king. Vilugh is about ten years older than the reader. The reader doesn't have it easy, and is extremely lonely, as I would imagine a lot of royals and people with important families would be, beneath all those expectations and responsibilities.

Hope you like it - I have more written and more I want to do with it. I know it's orcs, which isn't very non-humanoid (Patreon folks said they wanted more non-humanoid monsters), but I really enjoyed going with the inspiration for this one and was excited to share it with you first. Sorry for any mistakes - as I said, it's still mostly unedited.

(The orc’s name is pronounced ‘vee-lug’)

I was fifteen the first time I saw Vilugh, and my jaw dropped the moment he entered the castle bailey beside his mother. They both rode enormous war boars with tusks and ears as decorated as their orcish riders, and his mother’s had a great, spiked chain that dangled between them.

The War Chief swung down from her mount, landing light as a sabre cat in the rocky outcrops beyond the castle, though the myriad ornaments adorning her head gear and garlanded around her neck jangled and clinked. The blade of her double-headed axe flashed silently in the holster across her back. Bone and steel, ivory and gold flashed in the sun. Beside her, astride a colossal, russet boar with a great bristle-back mane and flashing, mismatching eyes, rode her eldest son. The orc was huge, even for young adult. With orcs and humans ageing at about the same rate, he had to have been in his mid twenties, in the absolute prime of life, and I was awestruck by his presence.

Silent, built like a bulwark, and with eyes that took in everything and revealed nothing, Vilugh glared around the courtyard. While many orc’s eyes were light as amber, his were a deep, colourless black from that distance, and I licked my lips as my heart rate shot up like a winter solstice arrow into the sky. He stared straight at me, unmoving. Evaluating me, with my scrawny arms and less than impressive physique, no doubt. He quickly dismissed me, assuming I was some kind of page boy, no doubt. His surprise when I was formally introduced to them later as the Crown Prince was certainly enough to draw a tiny, knowing smile from my lips.

They were here to begin peace talks, and, to everyone’s surprise, they went astonishingly smoothly. Few humans made snide remarks about the orcs, and none of my father’s people were decapitated in retaliation.

The orcish party came, spent hours walled up with my father and the royal council, I lingered around the door and behind the wood panelling in the great hall, scuttling along the wainscot like a stray castle mouse, sneaking scraps of conversation instead of cheese.

I couldn't take my eyes off Vilugh though. He sat with the presence of a dormant volcano; all that power barely contained within each gesture. Like his mother, he wore a mix of leather and fur, with a swathe of his large, green-skinned chest exposed beneath the cross of leather that just about covered his nipples and went up over his huge traps and down his back to meet at the waist of the loose leather riding ‘skirt’ favoured by orcs. Really though, it was more like rough linen covered with tattered layers of studded, off cuts of leather.

As a gesture, everyone left their weapons outside the doors, and as I passed by - bored after two hours of talking - I paused and stared at them. A royal guard eyed me cautiously, as if I were about to cause mischief that would get her into trouble, and her orcish counterpart standing on the other side of the small weapons cash narrowed his eyes at me. This orc was older than the others in the chamber, and stood at seven feet tall, with colossal shoulder muscles. Perhaps the most startling thing about him to me at that age was the fact that he had only one arm, and one of his tusks was missing on the same side. He sneered down at me and I balked. I’d never seen anyone with injuries like that, and it shocked me deeply that someone could endure something like the pain of losing an arm.

I’d known orcs were tough, but that somehow helped to drive it home to me.

I had made it no further than six steps down the corridor that led away from the Great Hall when the doors creaked open and my father strode out, the orcish War Chief at his side. Trying not to look like I was on the verge of crapping my pants - which, I am ashamed to admit I probably was - I watched the party file past me. My father gave no indication of having even seen me, and marched past me as if I were no more than another rusty suit of armour gathering dust in the miles of castle corridors.

Vilugh, however, turned his gaze sidelong to me as he followed in silence, brooding as a thunderhead and twice as frightening. I managed to conjure a smile from somewhere, and he looked away. Everything about him looked dangerous, from the sheer size of his boar-like tusks to the massive curve of his shoulders, the definition of the muscles visible on his back and sides, the black rope of plaited hair, thicker than my two balled fists put together, that hung down to his backside, and the predatory set of his gait. Oh, and the two-handed axe now strapped to his back didn’t help much to soften him.

The orcs stayed in the castle - a first, I was informed in passing by Rigmore, the castle steward - but I didn’t eat with them. For some reason my father seemed ashamed of his scholarly son. My late brother would have been perfect for this; he’d been the warrior prince, the kingdom’s golden boy, the one destined to rule after father was dead. But Dannan was gone, and the kingdom had me now. I’d taken after my mother, apparently, though she’d died birthing me, so that was another thing my father seemed to hold against me.

I had expected to spend the rest of the day alone in the library, since it was the one day in the week when I wasn’t expected to be out in the training ring with the castle’s master at arms, trying to bulk up a body that didn’t want to take on muscle the way my brother’s had. Big burly Dannan with his head of golden curls and his biceps as big as an orc’s… Then there was me. The scholar-son. I was lean and toned after two years of trying to fill boots that would always be too big for me, but I showed no signs of developing any brawn to go with my brains. Too much of my mother’s side of the family in me, or so my father said.

With my head bent over a tome on the ancient language of our distant forbears, I didn’t hear the door open, but when a young page boy cleared his throat and squeaked at me, I jumped and spattered ink up my arm and onto my dark green linen shirt.

“Sorry, Your Highness,” the boy chirped, nervy as a sparrow.

“It’s fine,” I smiled, trying to reassure the kid. He was probably not even half my age. “You have a message for me?”

“Yes, Highness,” he said, bowing. “His Majesty says you’re to ride out with them. They’re going through the castle gardens and out into the deer park.”

“Oh. When?”

The boy grimaced. “Now.”

“Now?” I cursed and the boy blushed. “Thank you. I don’t supposed it would have killed my father to give me a little warning?”

The page boy didn’t know what to say to that, so I thanked him again and dismissed him, folding up my notes into the book and hurrying to my chambers to change into my riding leggings and something a little warmer.

By the time I jogged out of the main gates into the castle bailey, the party was just mounting up, my father swinging easily onto his enormous grey stallion as the beast pranced by the mounting block. My father was a soldier-son, first born and in the saddle before he could walk. I’d started a little later, but I wasn’t too bad. My mare was brought out to me, gleaming and brushed and black as midnight. The orcs were mounted on their boars and, despite the horses innate fear and hatred of the beasts, there wasn’t too much fuss about that.

The stable boy who led Starling out to me didn’t take her to the mounting block but brought her directly to me at the foot of the castle steps. Lean and light and fifteen years old, I sprang into the saddle and took the reins from him with a nod of thanks, nudging her forward with the merest squeeze of my lanky calves to join the others.

“Took your time, boy,” the king growled at me.

“I came as soon as the message was relayed to me,” I retorted sullenly. “I was in the library.”

“So I see. You’ve got ink on your lip,” he said as he reined Spectre around sharply. “Try to keep up and don’t fall off.”

My face heated at the comment but I ground my jaw. There was no point arguing. I risked a glance at Vilugh and found him staring with his unreadable expression at me. I flashed him a wide, boisterous, childish grin and asked Starling to go from a standstill to a fast canter with one easy command. She leapt forwards, following my father as he cantered away over the flagstones and out onto the sandy track that led from the castle around to the apple orchards and formal gardens, and beyond them, the deer park.

We were clearly not hunting that day, since no servants joined us, but the orcs still wore their axes strapped to their backs. Three joined us in total: the War Chief, her son, and the one-armed orc I’d seen outside the chamber. I’d obviously underestimated his significance, thinking him little more than a servant as he’d guarded their weapons and not been party to the peace talks within, but for him to be selected over the others in the party indicated otherwise. My trained mind quickly refiled the information and put it to one side.

My hair was growing floppy now that I had stopped cutting it. No one had noticed, and it now brushed my shoulders if it wasn’t tied up. In the library, I’d scraped it back into a ponytail where it bobbed playfully like a young plant’s first leaves, and now as we rode, it came loose, the little leather strap falling away to get trampled by the enormous hooves of the giant boars behind me.

Starling flew like her namesake, wild and graceful, turning at the slightest touch like a bird on the wing. I loved riding. I wasn’t permitted to go out alone, and no one ever had the time to escort me, so I only got to do it when my father decided he needed to skewer something deadly to let off steam, and now as we all picked up our paces, the horses keen to stretch their legs, I couldn’t keep the savage grin off my face. I felt feral for just half a moment, and it was glorious.

When we finally reined our horses back after a lovely canter along the smooth grass of the orchard road, I sat back a little and Starling responded by slowing her pace to a steady walk. I gave her her head, letting the reins fall loose and dangle, while Spectre pranced and jogged up ahead, snorting and tossing his head. My father always kept his reins too short, thinking it made his stallion’s crest of muscle look bigger. All it did was irritate the horse, but far be it from me to correct a king.

I glanced back and saw Vilugh’s boar raise its huge, pierced snout and let out a scream of what seemed to be like joy as it trotted along behind. My father’s horse spooked a little, and Starling skittered sideways. I went with her, absorbing the motion with my hips before she settled under my palm and voice. “Easy, they’re our friends now,” I crooned to her, and caught the flicker of her ears as she picked out my familiar voice. “There, see… just a big piglet. Nothing to worry about.”

At that, I heard Vilugh snort behind me and turned to grin at him.

“Shh,” I said conspiratorially. “She doesn't need to know what they can really do.”

His harsh face cracked a little at that and he nodded with a little smile. He probably saw me as a little child, I realised, and my face flushed again. I looked away and didn’t try to speak to him for the rest of the ride.

The orcs’ visit was brief, but it marked the beginning of an uneasy peace with their kind. I grew in my duties, becoming ever more isolated. I had no friends among the court, my father ignored me until he required me to be present for something, I trained, I rode my horse, I studied, I ate, I slept, and I read. For three years, the orcs did not return to the castle, though my father made one trip alone to visit them on neutral ground somewhere out on the plains.

When he returned, he seemed pensive, and I caught him staring at me a few times over supper that night, which unnerved me.

The year I turned eighteen was the year I discovered my new nicknames among our people. The “Silent Prince” and the “Royal Monk” had become my monikers, and my father hated it. Personally, I thought it rather fitting. I was still skinny, unable to put on muscle no matter how much meat I was given at supper or how many boars my father sent me to bring down. Of course, I couldn’t bring one down alone, but I managed once or twice with the help of a retainer or two. I wasn’t a complete disappointment. But I wasn’t Dannan.

My twenty first slid by, and my father showed no signs of slowing down. He expanded his territories to the east, and I saw war for the first time. Of course, I didn’t see it from the front lines. What I saw was strategy and numbers in the tents, and my tactics and suggestions won us three battles. They lost us one too, but to my surprise, my father started to take note of me then. He never said anything different, but he included me more in his business than he ever had. My hair grew a little longer, though I had it routinely hacked off when it got below my shoulder blades. It was nothing like the luscious head of curls my brother had had, so I could wear it long without it looking feral. Dannan’s had practically been a halo for him.

One morning, over our habitually silent weekly breakfast together, my father cleared his throat and announced, “Son, you’ll be heading off to train with Khraxh and her war band.”

I choked so hard on my scrambled egg that a servant actually had to step forwards and slap me on the back. “What?” I croaked the moment I had air enough in my lungs to articulate the word.

“You heard me,” the king said, his grey-blue eyes drifting down a list in front of him, the contents of which he had not deigned to share with me. As usual, I had brought a book with me to the table to entertain myself until he rose and left.

“I did, but… why?”

“I believe it will be good for you. Her son, Vilugh, will be here tomorrow to escort you.”

“I’m going alone?” Stupid question. I was always alone.

“Yes,” father chimed carelessly. “It’s time to toughen you up properly. Six months with them ought to do it.”

My mind went blank. “Six… Six months?” I stammered. “You can’t be serious.”

“What? You have something better to do than enhance our diplomacy with those beasts?” he sneered.

I was in the middle of translating one of the great Eddic collections of our people into the modern tongue for one, but I didn’t mention that. “Apparently not,” I said coolly, rising from the table after one last swig of water to wash down the startled remnants of my breakfast from my throat. “Excuse me,” I said, not waiting for his permission to leave.

Part Two

___

Please let me know if you’re interested in more! Some of the patreon folks were also interested in the one-armed orc, and don’t worry, he’s got more of a role to play too in the future.

I really hope you folks enjoyed this one! Don’t forget to let me know if you did enjoy it by leaving a like and/or reblogging it!

For all early releases, character art and bios, upcoming story info, and much, much more, join me over on Patreon!

You’ll have access to stories before anyone else, and you’ll get instant access Patreon-only content as well, including polls and an exclusive monthly story for those on the Pixies and Goblins tier!

#exophilia #orc x reader #orcs #orc #male orc #male orc x male reader #first person narrative #1st person #wip #work in progress #hey look a new(ish) story!#tw: death of sibling #mentioned #strained father-son relationship #prince #prince reader #male royalty #orc x prince

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redhawtriot · 4 years

Text

Highhh School (MHA x Reader)

Tip Jar ☕- Not expected but always appreciated💞

Uh? HELL 👏YEAH 👏

Okay this isn’t an imagine necessarily but it folllows a school day?? Can I get a pass??

I just needed a shit post after all the angst I’ve been writing recently lol🤣

Sero:

He is most definitely the one who smoked you out.

He was so excited to show you his world. *cue Aladdin music*

He is practically a graduated expert on weed classifications and strains, but as he is going on about Indica and Sativa, all you could think about is how come you never thought to ask him sooner?! ‘Cause he has BIG pothead energy.

He would be the friend to stay mostly sober when you smoke so that he could make sure that you were okay. He would straighten you up if you started leaning to the side, or give you water when you kept licking the roof of your cotton mouth.

You two smoke before class one day, but you don’t feel anything when you first smoke it, “Uh, Sero, no offense but are you, like, sure about this stuff? I feel about as high as a tree. Like-- kinda of higher than usual but not like high in the grand scheme of things. Like if you look at plane or kites or clouds and stuff, they make trees look so small. Like itty-bitty ants and…” you stop yourself because you forgot where the tangent even began, “ Ohhh….”

“See?” Sero would laugh his ass off as he gave you a knowing smile, “Good shit right?”

“I am high as hell, bruh.”

Iida:

No matter how much you pray before hand, you just knew that your class rep. would be the first one to greet you in a school day, but that doesn’t stop you from trying to avoid him like the plague.

“L/N! If you and Sero would find your seat quickly, so we can prepare for the day’s activities!”

He would certainly recognize the symptoms of being high, but wouldn't correlate it to his classmates because not in his good ‘plus ultra’ household, no sir.

Smoking is for delinquents and nonconformists and his peers are neither!

He just assumes that you are sick.

“Uh.. L/N are you feeling well? You seem ill.”

“I-I’m okay.” You feel your mouth move in slow motion. You pray to god that you weren’t actually moving at a snails pace.

“I could very easily arrange for a nurse’s pass for you! We want you to be in tip top shape for today’s ventures! After, all we have to meet the high expectations set for us as U.A. students!”

Oh, Iida— so young, so foolish. You were high enough already.

Izuku:

His seat is next to yours.

He is completely oblivious to the signs of being high, other than what he was taught in school (so basically, not shit).

He would notice your attributes and become very concerned for you,

“Have you been crying? Your eyes are really red.”

“That’s your third bottle of water are you sick?!”

“Holy woah! You’re about to fall over L/N!!”

COT DAMMIT, this boy is calling you out like it’s his job!!! But it’s just because he cares ❤️

You would just want him to stop being so damn precious and to also stop drawing attention to your altered state.

But baby boy is too pure to realize that he is thoroughly fucking you over.

Todoroki:

You try to stay close to him for most of the day so that your behavior doesn’t seem out of place.

He always seemed faded with his calm demeanor and slow responses, so you would blend in much better with him by your side, rather than with someone hyperactive like Iida.

Smile and wave, boys. Smile and wave.

He wouldn't even question your off behavior. Even if he notices, it he probably just thinks you’re extremely tired.

Are you Mr. Aizawa’s secret love child or something

You could also have him make ice cubes for you to chew on. That would be really nice.

Bakugou:

This boy is too damn perceptive.

He knew as👏 soon 👏 as you walked in the class that morning, that you were higher than high.

He would never ingest the devil’s lettuce, but he couldn’t care less if you ruined your lungs.

but okay maybe he cares a little.

“You damned idiot, How the hell are you going to get through the quiz in English today, if you cant even read in a straight line?!”

He would try to help you with school work but cuss you out for being stupid in the same breath.

His voice seems like 100x louder than usual.

He wouldn’t do extra shit for you-- like getting you water or anything. It’s a tough love lesson to teach you to make better choices.

Kaminari:

Would be offended as fuck that you didn't smoke with him

“What the fuck? You and Sero blew a beezy without me?!”

who the fuck says blow a beezy?

He would be more upset at Sero.

“BUT WE ALWAYS VAPE ON TUESDAYS” energy.

The nerve of some people! After that, he gets ‘Trust No Bitch’ tattooed on his wrist.

Aizawa:

Never in life would you be more terrified, than when you were being called to meet with Aizawa after class.

Oh God, you were going to get expelled from class, and have to move out of your house-- maybe even the country, and sell pirated movies from the back of your car in a Walmart parking lot in Florida, and--

“Do you want to borrow one of my eye drop capsules?”

“W-what?”

“Your eyes. They are red,” he wouldn’t even blink.

You would be terrified to take it. Would accepting his gift be incriminating in some way? Like a confession of sorts?

You would reluctantly take it anyways and thank him, but as you would walk away--

“Oh, and Y/N?”

“Y-yes, sir?”

“Come into my classroom under the influence again and you will find yourself immidiately expelled.”

HOLE. LEE. FUUUCK!!!

You have to catch your soul from escaping from your body.

Jirou:

She would be the one to come up to you after the school day is over and ask you where you got your weed from.

She would reluctantly and abashedly admit that she would like to smoke with you next time.

Achievement Unlocked: Delinquentify your Peers!! + 800 xp

You’ve converted more of your friends to the “dank side.”

Your Sith name is Darth Cannabis

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alfafilly · 3 years

Text

New Year New Me

I want to make a small New Years Resolution this year aimed specifically towards my role in the Sly Cooper fandom. It’s gonna be kinda long and venty so warning!!

As a bit of backstory, I haven’t been in a fandom/actively drawing fanart since like... 2012 maybe? Like in terms of drawing fanart for the same series routinely. I went through a really stupid phase where I thought fanart was a waste of time because I had been hounded over and over again by peers and those I looked up to that only ORIGINAL © DO NOT STEAL content mattered. I looked down on fanart and used every excuse to belittle fanartists. I dunno if this was also in part due to the last fandom I was in being extremely toxic (that being the Invader Zim fandom. Booooois them 2006-2008 deviantART IZ days were something else) and my college experience constantly telling me “fanart in your portfolio is stinky bad no do that” (which is hotly debated btw).

Anyway... jumping into the Sly Cooper fandom has been extremely positive for me and helping me shed a lot of that negative attitude. Dare I say there was character development?! And while, for the most part, Sly fandom isn’t that toxic, there are elements of it that have caused much chaotic negativity within me that I am hoping to get rid of.

Maybe it’s a result of my former opinions about fanart, but I have always felt a sense of inadequacy, or as if I NEED to make my place in the fandom for me to be relevant and to matter. I have vented about this in the past. My first fanart piece was a compilation of my interpretations of the cast, and it was well received, and everyone talked about how they wanted me to draw more characters, to see more designs, etc. Which is why I said I wanted to redesign ALL the cast because the people DEMANDED IT!! This could be my way of placing myself in the fandom!!! HELL YEAH!!!

But it didn’t make me... happy, I guess? I DO enjoy redesigning, but when I do it under my own terms, with no pressure. I think coming out of art school made me put on blinders and tell myself what I used to believe in: “If you’re going to waste your time on fanart, better make it good. You know, people can hire you if you show good fanart! These redesigns could get you a job in the industry! You gotta ONLY do work that will benefit your end goal and nothing else!!”

This often made me feel extreme guilt when I started drawing more of my Arpeggio content, or my Arpeggio AUs because despite how much fun I was having, that little voice in the back of my head was saying “No!! Stop drawing that!! Draw stuff that everyone will care about besides just you!!! You’re not going to get anywhere with this!! Drawing sexy Arpeggio won’t get you a job in the industry KJSNJKGNSKNGKJNAJ!!!!”

This mentality also crafted some uhh... extremely negative competitive attitudes towards other artists in the fandom. Certain artists would piss me off every time they posted to the point I would have to block them to stop seeing their work just to prevent these feelings. There is a notable artist I won’t name, but they do Sly redesigns too. I was fine with them initially, but after they blatantly stole one of my designs without crediting me I was LIVID. I called them out and they did apologize and changed the design, but every time I saw their work from then on out I had this insane urge to “beat them”. It was a sick competitive game. I felt jaded they ripped my design and kept getting popular anyway. TBH it’s rather petty and I am trying not to harbor any ill will towards them because I don’t think they meant anything by it and the design was rather insignificant in the whole scheme of things. But I still have them blocked or muted everywhere because I am still struggling to ignore that great urge every time I see their designs to drop everything I’m doing and draw my own redesigns out of unhealthy spite.

And I’m only briefly going to go over the god damn Deceit of Thieves drama. Apparently they are still making it into a legit game? They have a Patreon apparently and are posting stuff about it? I found out about that and the same sort of fiery rage filled me. But this was much less personal. Sure, I had given a critique to them but I honestly wanted the game/story/whatever to flourish? After seeing their poor reactions and being attacked by their white knights, my taste towards them grew bitter and I think my fellow Sly fans having the same bitterness fueled me to flat out grow a hatred for them. That’s kind of awful? I never expected to want another member of the fandom to have their project fail. What kind of asshole am I for wanting that?? I don’t want that. I want them to learn from their mistakes and make something great. Not hold some ridiculous resentment. I can decide not to support them if I wanted, but wishing failure is a whole other horrible thing.

So realizing this I knew I needed to... change my perspective on how I see myself in the fandom and how I process my feelings towards it. I don’t want to be here to produce soulless portfolio worthy content. I don’t want to compete with other artists or wish them ill. I just want to draw some god damn fanart of a series I love and that makes me happy!

I’m posting this here as a way to hold accountability to myself and be honest. I started drawing Sly stuff again in 2017 so it’s been an issue appearing on and off the last 4 years and that’s... sad. It needs to end! I appreciate everyone in the fandom who has supported me in my endeavors, as ridiculous as they are. I can’t believe drawing and writing about a dumb bird man and cat lady and throwing my stupid OCs into the fray for my favorite childhood game has made me learn so much about myself, my work, and gained me so many great peers and friends. I definitely don’t want to stop any time soon! And I apologize profusely if I ever hurt anyone in some way because I lost sight of that (or was just a dick for whatever reason).

Thanks for your support, and I hope 2021 will bring me loads more positivity into my content!!

#sly cooper #vent #rant #text post

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magesup · 4 years

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hello! i uhm well so… i wanted to send in an anonymous ask but i don’t think it’ll let me say as much as i wanted to say, so uhm… im gonna carefully write this post and hopefully it’ll make you happier!! ahah so basically first of all, congrats on 10k!! you deserve this and much much much much mUCH more!! im a new follower… it’s been a few weeks since i chanced upon your tumblr account, and i just saw that you had a twitter account and now i follow you on there and here as well, and well!! hehe im so happy i decided to follow you cause i just love your art style (ill talk about this in a bit fasdf im sorry this is gonna get like really really really long;;) and your comics. but anyways, thank you for working so hard!! i have like zero artistic capability so people who can draw really well just amaze me like woah…. woAH!!! WOAH!!!! WOAH WOW WOW OH MY GOD !!! HOLY SHIT !!! like oh my god the talent, the artistry, the beauty, the love, the etherealness. no but seriously like artists amaze me, and your art is so precious and pretty and i just LOVE how you draw in general. like i personally will never probably get the work that goes into developing an art style that like you are okay with and then drawing and creating ocs and then like coloring and shading and then like line work, but also like other features like hands and bodies and then like the face and the hair as well, so like thank you for your hard work!! like really really really thank you for your hard work ahsdjkfahsdfh

oki but like. this is truly getting longer than i expected, i am sorry if this creepy;; ahskjfahsdf but anyways, you’re really one of my favorite artists ever i think mhm cause !! i just really adore the way you draw like everything like !!! and i also adore how you color things like it’s really unique ( or well at least to me it is ). the way you draw eyes is extremely unique and i just really really really really love it like!! idk how to explain it but like it’s so pretty and i love how you color the eyes like ??? it’s like kinda a gradient towards the inside??? like it’s a darker color to the inside color lines the outer part of the eye and then like a lighter color is inside and then a small white + black circle-like thingy!! and i just. im in love. hfsjkdhfjshdf and also the way you draw the noses and ears ( like you draw ears so well and prettily and lovely ) !! like it’s so cool and just!! you draw hands really prettily too and your clothing is always like on POINT! like the way you color the clothings and htne draw it and all the little details and shadings like … oh my god hKJSDHFSD i just love it so very much!! and i love when you do like chibi(?) form when you make comics. i think it’s the cutest thing ever and im once again so very much in love hKJSHDFDSf like the blush!! and like the eyebrows and like the small circular hands in chibi form. it’s so very cute!! and like your art is just super expressive like you express the emotions of the people who draw so well in your art and i find that wonderful and fascinating hSKJDFHKSJHDf anyways. thank you for always working so hard and for giving me the honor to look at your art and thank you for posting your art!! hehe and anyways im sorry this is really long lmao HKSJDFHKSHD please do not feel the need to post this ahsjkfhkasjdhf it got super long ;; im super sorry!! but once again thank you for your hard work and i really truly sincerely love your art!!

oh shit wait I FORGOT SOMETHING !! I LOVE THE LIGHTING IN YOUR ART !! AND I LOVE HOW YOU UTILIZE THE COLOR WHITE IN YOUR ART LIKE I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!! ALRIGHT IM REALLY SORRY HSDKJFHKSDJFHSKJDHF

oh,,,omg…ive received a lot of messages on here but this one is just on a whole other level,, ITS IN THE STRATOSPHERE :OOO!! i dont even know where to begin but first off THANK YOUU ??? OMG????? LOL DA HECK THIS IS SO NICE AND SWEET??? WHO RAISED YOU TO BE SO KIND!!! i was smiling so hard the entire time while reading this and each sentence made my smile grow even wider omg i will never get over this. please ive read this like 3 times over and over the best way i could describe my emotions while reading this is it looks like an exponential graph skyrocketing up TOT <3

i will now address every sentence you made in a bulleted list please join me under the cut

*loses self composure* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!! if i could manifest my gratefulness right now it would be the size of the sUN omg i seriously cant tell you how happy this made me cAN I KITH YOU??? *gently kiths*

*coughs* asdsj moving on

the acknowledgement of all the work that goes into creating ??? omg you are a true art enthusiast :,) i too overanalyze my favorite artists styles and can spend literally hours just looking at them in awe so dont feel bad about the long message i love every sentence you wrote TOT and yeah *looks back* it took a long time to get where i am now but im happy where my current level is at! earlier this year i would say my style was at the lizard stage but now i can comfortably say it is at the monkey with a hat stage :D

“favorite artists ever“ *FALLS BACKWARDS* *ANGELS SINGING AS THEY CARRY MY SOUL TO THE HEAVENS* OMGGGGG <333 nuff said that was the final blow

and reading the whole second paragraph, i was CONVINCED that you knew my own style better than i did 0_O like the way you described how i draw eyes i had to look back at my own stuff to check if it was true shdfjkh

and “unique” *doubles over* *clutches heart* thats one of my weaknesses TOT <3 that means so much to me im sure i mentioned this before but i think my styles pretty generic :,0 so hearing this makes me super happy (but i feel like every creator thinks that so its all good :D)

and noses, ears, and hands!!! bruv all the detail you pay attention to is just *ugly sobbing* im so touched omg TOT i love drawing ears and hands :,)

and thank you clothing is my favorite part to shade!!! just getting in all those folds is *clenches fist*,,,so satisfying

and thank you so much for loving the chibis TOT in all honesty i just do most of my comics in chibi cause im too lazy to draw them in my regular style skdskd the blush, eyebrows, and circle hands are critical to make a good chibi TVT circle hands >>> regular hands

and expressions!!!! omg you really think that?? bruv thats so sweet oh my god. i only know how to draw like 3 types of smiles TOT i think the fact that when i draw a certain expression i also emulate expression on my own face helps somehow ahahaaa

AND AAA THANK YOU!!! i love using white lighting it makes the colors pOP 0_o (although lately i have been lazy in using it adfsjd) (and i also have too many arts with just white backgrounds TOT)

and no please dont apologize!!! thank you so much for sending such a long heartfelt message omg it made me really really really really really happy T_T i will continue to work hard and get better and post more art!!! (ง •̀_•́)ง as soon as my sats and college applications are over my power limiters will be gone and i will draw myself into an oblivion :D

(also sorry this took so long to answer i wanted to accurately show my gratitude and appreciation for your message *tears up*)

#i say that as if i havent taken longer to answer to asks before T_T #sincerely from all of my heart thank you once again omg this made me smile so much #thanks for the ask~#nctyz #thanks for the submission~#theres no way i can possibly convey how thankful i am through just words on a screen but im sending you all my love <3 #submission

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joonies-babyy · 4 years

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Hi! This is my first ever post and my first attempt at smut( its not in this part but its in the next one) I hope that if anyone reads this they enjoy it!!!! Also please leave comments and feedback. Might it be positiveor negative I will truly appreciate.<3

𝗪𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀: 𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗺! 𝘀𝘂𝗯! 𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀, 𝗱𝗼𝗺!𝗸𝗻𝗷, 𝘀𝘂𝗯!𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿, 𝗷𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁, 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗽 𝗰𝗹𝘂𝗯𝘀, 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗯𝗶𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗱𝗮𝗱𝗱𝘆 𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗸, 𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗸𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘃𝗼𝘆𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀 (𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁), 𝗜 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝗜 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗽𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄!!

Also big thanks to @kimnjss for helping me on this. I appreciate you so much. Thank you 💖💖

Word count:1.5k

--------------------------------------------------------- You and Namjoon were sitting on the couch with your limbs intertwined with each other.

''Jonnieeee, I'm bored. Let's do something yeah?''. ''What do you have in mind my love''.

''Let's go out. An impromptu date.'' You anticipated his answer knowing that if he said no your plan would go to shit. ''Sure babe, whatever you want to do im fine with. Go get dressed and we'll get going''. You begin leaving small little kisses on Joon's face and then got up to go start getting ready for your date night.

You slowly walked back down the stairs while Joon's gaze was locked on your curves being hugged by your dress. You were wearing a red,skin tight dress that sat alittle above your knees. You knew this was Joon's favorite dress on you. Hell, this was your favorite dress on you...You looked absolutely decadent. When you caught her lovers eyes focused on you, you smirked, knowing that it was always hard for him to resist you when you looked this amazing."Do you think I look pretty baby?''. ''Yn, you're the most beautiful girl I've ever meet, and this dress, lord you know I love this dress. Where are we going tonight where you need this dress, because I could gladly stay here and rip this off you.'' You smiled wrapping your hands around Joon's neck ''We're going out. When we come home we can do whatever you want, k?''. Joon grabbed your waist pulling you unbelievably closer. ''You'll be lucky if i even last that long. Just wait till I get my hands on you''. With that you pushed Joon's chest to detach yourself and started pulling him out of the front door. Namjoon didn't even care to change. The quicker you he left the quicker he could come home and have his way with you.

You never liked to drive. In the 5 years you've been with Joon you have had to drive a total of maybe 4 times. So just on instinct Joon got into the drives seat and you into the passengers, dress riding up as you sat down. Joon noticed. He always notices, but he decided to ignore it for now. He started the car up but soon realized he didn't know where he was driving to. "So... how exactly am I supposed to get to the location when I have no clue what the plan is". You smiled to yourself. For someone with a 148 iq he sure doesn't think. " Well I, of course already have this planned out. I put the location into the GPS. Tap it, follow the instructions and we'll be there in no time" You leaned over and left a quick peck to his cheek as he pulled out of the driveway knowing not a clue of what was in store for him tonight.

The GPS soon notified you that you we're only 5 minutes away from your destination. Your body shook with anxiety and excitement. Joon took one hand off the wheel and placed it on your thigh. You could feel the wet spot forming in you lace blue panties(his favorites). You're face began to warm up with embarrassment. It was a simple move he always did that always seemed to calm your nerves, but tonight it was different. You knew that after this date you and you pussy were done for. Just thinking about all the ways he could wreck you made you roll your eyes back in your head. Without even realizing you let a small moan slip past your lips. Joon started rubbing your thigh, asking if you were ok. The question suddenly snapped you out of your thoughts. "Yea i-im ok, just um... excited. I really want you to like what I have planned" you said while taking shakey breaths. "I'm sure I'll love it Yn. You know I always love our date nights" You smiled to yourself hoping he would love this one as much as he had loved all the previous ones. The GPS said the destination was on the right and Joon began to pull into the buildings parking lot. You were in for a long night.

"The castle? What is this Yn." "Don't worry you'll like it." You reached into the backseat of the to grab a duffel bag that Joon failed to notice was in the car. "You seem to have put alot of thought in to this love." And of course you did. 2 weeks of finding the location. 2 weeks of waiting for you application to go through. 2 weeks of making sure everything was set up just the way you needed it to be. "I just want tonight to be fun. I want you to relax and enjoy yourself. Just enjoy yourself and go with the flow ok?" Joon just looked at you and muttered a small "ok". With the reassurance that you needed you got out the car and urged Joon to get out too. You got to the doors of the building and felt more giddy than ever. The bouncer guarding the doors looked you up and down, asking for your name. "Yn" you quickly responded. With a small nod he opened the doors and you quickly walked in pulling Joon behind you. Joon wondered how long you had this plan under you sleeve. You quickly sat him down on one of the plush couchs close to the stage. Joon could no longer take it. The urge to ask questions overcome him. "Love, what is all of this? How long have you been planning this? More importantly what the hell is this so called castle?" You giggled to yourself as you looked up at Joon, confusion written on his face. "The castle is a strip club. Thats all you need to know for right now. Just enjoy it Joonie" You slid yourself into his lap and kissed his perfectly sculpted jaw. "OK baby, ill enjoy myself".

A man's voice came over the speaker starling you right off of Joons lap. "30 minute call for all performers. I repeat 30 minute call." You grabbed you bag and set off to the back of the room. Before you could get away Joon grabbed your wrist. "And where exactly do you think you're going" he whispered in your ear not knowing he was causing you to leak more into your panties. "They called for performers. Im performing." You replied in a nonchalant tone. "Performing! Yn what the fuck are you talking about". You snatched your wrist away from him but his hold was too strong. "Joon... can you please not draw attention to us. I have to go but ill be back before you know it. So for the love of God, can you sit the fuck down and try to atleast enjoy yourself. I did put alot of effort into this ya know". "You owe me an explanation when you get home, do you understand me?" You stood on the tip of your toes leaning up to press a kiss to his nose. "I'll give you whatever you want when we get home, but you gotta let me go." He dropped your wrist and pressed a kiss to your forehead. "If people know i have a boyfriend they won't buy me for the night!" As soon as you say Joons expression you knew it was time to scurry off before you could be stopped again.

You were sat in the back apply makeup when your phone started going off with the ring tone you set for Joon.

🥰ᴍʏ ᴊᴏᴏɴɪᴇ ʙᴀʙʏ🥰

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

Y/N... WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS ₁₀:₅₂

ANSWER ME!! ₁₀:₅₂

Y/N Y/L/N ₁₀:₅₄

You have 20 seconds to respond to me ₁₀:₅₄

I CAN SEE YOU READING MY FUCKING MESSAGES. ₁₀:₅₆

Oh, you're in for it tonight. You know not to make daddy mad. Don't you baby? Or are you just living up to your title of being my bratty little slut? ₁₀:₅₆

Your face lit up. That was your whole goal of tonight. Make him mad so he can fuck you senseless like the good slut you are. God you loved making him mad. You were daydreaming of him pounding into you when the intercom shot on again. "All performers to the stage. Auctions will begin in 5 minutes". Oh this was gonna be good.

You step on the stage with your dress still on while most of the other performers where all ready close to naked. You could care less about the rest of the eyes on you. You only needed Joons eyes on you. And oh were they on you. He eyed your body the second you stepped on stage, noting how good the lights made you look. Even from the stage you could see that his jaw was clenched. God you loved when he did that. A microphone boomed over the speakers and shook you from your thoughts. "Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to present... The ladies of the castle".

#bts smut #bts rm x reader #bts rm smut #bts x y/n #bts fake texts #rm smut #rm bts #bts rm

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umbrylcrow · 3 years

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It’s extremely disheartening as a fic writer to receive a message saying you’re not uploading enough. That somebody is taking away their subscription and bookmark from you. That you aren’t taking your writing seriously and that you’re lazy. That you should only focus on one fic at a time.

First off, this is a hobby not a job. I am providing you with free content and not getting paid at all for it. Secondly, I take my writing very seriously. I have to, especially when I want to be an author.

Since I uploaded my first fic in two years on my new AO3 account, I have been posting extremely regularly. In the last month I have uploaded a one-shot and a total of fourteen chapters across four different fics. Two fics have five chapters currently, another two have two each. In total, I have written nearly 60,000 words. That is a lot of writing to get done in a short amount of time. Chapters tend to be released anywhere from one to five days of each other across my fics. If I upload a chapter for one fic one day, another will crop up soon after for another fic.

Also, I can work on as many fics as I damn please at once. I have three for The Old Guard and three for Trust (two of which are semi-crossover fics between those two fandoms) that are currently ongoing (the one-shot was for Trust as well). I’m not neglecting any of them, I love them all very much. My fic ‘ali di un corvo’ is top priority as it is extremely plot heavy and will absolutely be the longest of the current four I have going. I have also had it in my head since about a month and a half after watching The Old Guard. I am constantly plotting/planning/scene writing all over the place for that fic, trust me.

However, I am not a machine so stop treating me like one. Stop treating any fic writer like your own personal writing machine.

The thing is, I’m writing as often as I am because I want to and because I have the spoons for it. I only won’t write when I lack them which can happen, especially when I suffer from mental illness. Speaking of which, I have ADHD. It is bad. If I were to focus on solely one fic at a time, I would get bored and then never touch it again because I will have burned myself out. I know because it’s happened in the past on my old AO3 account :). It’s the reason I stopped uploading for two years.

And here’s the thing too. It’s not just getting messages like this that are disheartening, it’s also not getting comments. People have such an issue with leaving comments on fic and I am so lost as to why exactly.

I pull in pretty decent numbers (I think) each chapter I upload for my fics, with ‘ali di un corvo’ being the biggest draw for people, and still struggle to get maybe two comments. I’m not trying to guilt anyone into commenting for me but please keep in mind that fic writers as a whole want you to comment. Even if you have nothing to say about the chapter itself, just giving us a ‘good job’ is enough. It literally keeps fic authors going. Without much feedback it’s pointless. And it’s not that we don’t appreciate the one or two people, we do a great deal, but it’s always nice to get more.

Comments sustain authors, it lets us know people are pleased with our product and given many authors suffer from low self-esteem and such (like myself) it’s honestly thrilling to see that number next to our inbox go from 0 to 1 or more.

So really that on top of people acting like authors are product factories really sucks and I think we need to seriously flip the culture of how we treat and interact with artistic content creators.

#fics #writing #fic authors #salt #the old guard #trust fx

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yoonlixstars · 3 years

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Enemies To Lovers Hyunjin ff pt 2

Pairing: Hyunjin x reader

Genre: Idk hate to love(?)

word count: idk

Note: Im sorry it took so long for me to write this, also yes i am copy and pasting this from my wattpad. so im sorry if theres any mistakes. but yea also last time. on the part 1. i noticed i forgot a part. so lemme explain. in that scene y/n’s friends which are blacpink approach her. (blackpink hates hyunjin too. not in real life, just in this fan fiction) and they talk and then they go to class. yea all that. and if i end up forgetting a part. ill say it in part 3 (if there will be one). okay yea thats all. enjoy this story! and i saw i got 12 notes on my skz reaction thank you so much! it means a lot to me♡

You walked out of the classroom, head hung low and disappointed at yourself for getting in trouble by Hyunjin again. Meanwhile in the classroom.

Hyunjin's pov: I was thinking of y/n and I started feeling kinda bad, I mean, she's in detention cause of me, and i always caused her trouble.

Hyunjin then raised his hand. As he was planning out what he was going to do when the teacher saw him. "Hey ugly!" He all of a sudden shouted, the whole class turning to look at him. The teacher also turned around, with a shocked and angry look on her face. "Hwang Hyunjin repeat that and you will get detention for 1 week straight!" The teacher shouted, her face was red as a tomato, but she wasn't blushing, she was mad af, Hyunjin smirked and once again said "I said hey ugly!" The teacher was now breathing heavily, "HWANG HYUNJIN, TO DETENTION, NOW!" Hyunjin was now glad he achieved what he was planning. Hyunjin got up proudly and started walking out of the classroom. Ready to see you in detention.

y/n's pov: I sat down in a chair, waiting for a teacher to come in. I then heard the door open. I thought it was a teacher until i turned around.

Hyunjin entered the empty classroom. The first thing that his eyes spotted was you, sitting down in a chair while drawing in your sketch pad.

You turned around. But instead you saw Hyunjin. Your face was showing visible confusion. "Don't ask, I just felt bad." (ˢᵖᵒⁱˡᵉʳ: ʰʸᵘⁿʲⁱⁿ ˡⁱᵏᵉᵈ ʸ/ⁿ ᵃⁿᵈ ʸ/ⁿ ˡⁱᵏᵉᵈ ʰʸᵘⁿʲⁱⁿ)

"Yea right." You said that while rolling your eyes. "you 'felt bad'." You glared at him. As he took a seat next to you.

You resumed working on the drawing on your desk. But you felt like someone was staring at you. You looked to your side to just see Hyunjin gazing at you. "W-what? Is there something on my face?" You stuttered saying that. His gaze was making you loose your mind.

"There's nothing on your face." Hyunjin responded. His lips curving into a smile. After he said that. Everything seemed awkward again. Until your stomach growled. You felt kinda embarrassed he had to hear it too. His soft chuckle filled the room. "Here, i brought a sandwich." He said. His hands digging in his school qbag until he found the sandwich he was talking about. But you were shocked. That was the first time Hwang Hyunjin a.k.a your enemy, has been nice to you.

"Here, i found it." He offered the piece of food. You stared at it. Wondering if you should accept it or no.

"Do you want it?" He asked.

You were about to say no. But you were too hungry. And gladly accepted it.

A smile once again appeared in Hyunjin's lips. Wondering why he has been mean to you, all of these years. Instead of becoming nice friends. He decided to be like this to you. He was staring at you once again. Not noticing for how much time his eyes were glued on to you. Until you finally noticed it again. “Why do you keep staring at me?” You asked, but he just said nothing. “Are you hungry too?” You asked him, offering his sandwich back, which was almost done. But he replied with a “nothing, wanna hear a joke?” (a magical 15 minute time skip.” You and hyunjin were now laughing a lot with each other

Just talking about random stuff and funny moments that happened to one another

You actually never knew hyunjin could be like this

You always thought he was just some jerk. But now that your actually getting to know him,

You realized you were wrong.

He then stopped laughing and said your name.

“Hey y/n?” you looked at him, and just hummed in response.

“Can i confess something?” You once again a hummed a yes. Curious at what he was going to say.

(Im not good at writing confessions. so you could make up your own, i will still write a short one.)

“Y/n, i like you, i mean, love you. i know you wont believe me since i have been awful to you all these years but the reason why i did that, is because i was afraid you wouldnt be friends with me. so thats why i started bothering you. its okay if you dont feel the same way i und-”

you cut him off with a passionate kiss. (magical 30 seconds time skip)

he was the first one to pull away. He was blushing and you found it very cute. “S-so does this mean you like me too?” He asked, and he started looking like a tomato.

“Of course silly!”

You smiled at him, and he returned it back with a warm smile, he was starting to lean in for another kiss but it got interrupted.

“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING ON THE FLOOR?!” You and Hyunjin quickly stood up, looking nervous as hell. “u-um, we were-” The teacher cut you off. “I DONT CARE YOU WILL STAY IN HERE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY, AND ON SATURDAY YOU ALSO HAVE DETENTION!”

You and hyunjin both looked at each other, and shrugged.

I mean at least he got to stay with you?

okay and then you and hyunjin started dating, your friends were shocked but soon they became friends with him too and yea okay The End.

also there wont be no part 3, i finished the whole story in this part even tho there was gonna be more :(

and this is not proof read so sorry for any mistakes. also after this i might post another skz reacting to their s/o because the last one got like 22 notes i dont remember but yea i hope you enjoyed this story!

#hwang hyunjin #skz hyunjin #skz #stray kids #hyunjin #stray kids hyunjin

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catharrington · 4 years

Note

12 and 128 with billy and Steve?

Y’all really really do be trying me with this domestic stuff. I’m so sorry but I just don’t write mpreg so I’m changing it up a little. I was playing around with tags on this post and @thinger-strang asked where’s the meat?? Here it is bae!! Dedicated to U ;)

***

12- “I’m pregnant.” && 128- “Don’t touch me. We’re fighting.”

Steve has never been to a gym before, really never wanted to. He has always played sports. Outside! In the sunlight and fresh air, not inside a stuffy box crammed with sweating dude bros who didn’t seem to like using the showers for their functions. He’s here, at Robin’s request, with an overpriced membership to Planet Fitness Gym, only because he’s a good friend.

“Okay! I am so, so done,” Robin huffs out as she throws the exercise ball she was using, it bounces against the mirrored wall and almost comes crashing back into her. She turns to Steve with a grimace. “I’m going to use the last bit of time just running. You coming?”

And of course Steve was joining her, she’s the only reason he’s suffering in this place. “Sounds fantastic.”

So Steve slips back on his loose hanging tank top while Robin cleans up their area. Then she’s leading out to a slightly raised running track that winds around the whole gym floor. It takes the runner past each area and room then loops back around to make a lap. Robin’s pushing her headphones on her fluffed up hair, the grimace still on her face.

“How much longer, exactly?” Steve asks innocently, but she’s already started off without him.

Steve has to run to catch up then settles into a soft jog next to her. He didn’t bring his headphones, why didn’t he bring his headphones. He could be zoning out as much as Robin is now. Instead he’s submitted himself to the entertainment of the gym around him.

And sure, it’s interesting. Lots of girls with ill fitting training bras bouncing, lots of tshirts with funny inspirational sayings. Lots of people struggling through their workouts with even funnier faces.

It’s especially interesting when they get to the weight lifting area. The equipment set up around the clean white floors and walls look like torture devices, Steve couldn’t bring himself to image how they worked. Jogging past he noticed one that you moved like wings and one that you kicked out, all with wires and huge metal weights, all with jacked out super serious people working them.

One guy is slinging two lengths ropes up and down, then stops to take his shirt off to wipe his forehead. An oh, Steve doesn’t mind that so much.

Then he jogs past to the last room before a curve and it’s a simple one, Mostly empty, except for a few standard lifting benches. And there’s only one guy occupying it. He’s looking at himself in the mirror and God, Steve is looking at him too.

This guy could be Adonis turned rock star, with his long curled blond hair pushed back with a folded bandana in replacement of a sweatband. He’s shirtless with only the smallest of small cotton shorts on and he’s flexing in long languid sweeps of his arms. Poses, moves, poses, Steve’s glued.

Then the guy flexes one bicep, just the one closest to Steve of course, and happens to turn over his shoulder to admire himself. And their eyes meet. And Steve’s still glued, still looking, his mouth must be hanging open he’s so embarrassingly staring.

And this guy, this Greek god, a total babe, keeps his eyes locked with Steve while he leans down to plant a wet, open mouthed kiss on his taught, sun-kissed muscles.

Steve’s heart stops, full stops, but his feet do not. They twist and collide one after the other like a car crash, and he sends himself tumbling to the ground with a squeak.

In a weak attempt to stop, Steve stretches out his arms. But he only manages to grip the back of Robin’s baggy shirt and bring her down with him.

“You are a complete dingus!” She screeches as she shoves Steve’s lanky limbs off her.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers softly, scrambling to his knees. He pushes his hands through his sweaty hair. And yeah, he can feel how flushed his skin is. He knows he is blushing tomato red. Steve doesn’t, he can’t, look back over at the guy who caused all this by being so amazingly distracting.

“I’m sorry,” Steve mutters again. Robin throws her hands up. Then she’s stomping off towards the ladies’ locker room. Steve has nothing to do but trudge off towards the men’s locker room, his tail between his legs.

By some grace Steve is saved meeting eyes with anyone else, and the locker room is empty. He rips into his locker to collect his towel. Steve pushes his sweaty face into the material and just screams.

“So smooth, so smooth you idiot!” He scolds himself.

There’s no way that guy is going to see Steve as anything other than a joke, a weirdo who tripped over his own feet. Maybe Steve will even have to quit the gym membership after only one day. Maybe he’ll just tuck himself in bed and never come back out.

Sitting on the benches, Steve’s hanging his head in defeat. His towel around his neck and hair in a messy curtain over his face.

He doesn’t see the door to the locker room open up. “Hey,” some guy calls.

Steve is seized with fear, yeah he’s really about to get kicked out of this gym for being a bisexual disaster. He brings his head up slowly.

“Oh,” he gapes as he sees the same Adonis as before, now standing only feet in front of him. Still shirtless, Steve notices. He’s even better looking up close.

“Wanted to say sorry about that,” the guy is smiling and Steve wants to die, “I didn’t mean to distract you or make you fall down. I was just being an asshole.”

“Nah it’s okay,” Steve stutters out. Then he notices how this guy has thick eyebrows; just as thick as his thighs glistening on display. His brows have a cut down one. And the other is currently raised a little in question.

“Oh- oh no! I don’t mean you being an asshole is okay! It’s just ah,” Steve feels his face flush red again. “I’m just a clutz naturally, I likely would have eaten shit on that track with or without a seriously hot guy with great muscles- oh. I didn’t mean to say that. Shit.” Steve has to stop talking too fast. He sounds so dumb sometimes, he scolds himself more as he buries his face back into his towel.

“It’s okay,” the guy is laughing now, laughing at him. But he keeps talking. “You were really... cute.”

That has Steve lifting his face from his towel. Scoffing a little chuckle himself, he pushes his hair back out of his face and sits up straighter. “How rude of me,” he stands up to hold out a hand, “I’m Steve Harrington.”

“Billy,” the guy, Billy, slides forward easy to take his hand in his. It’s big, warm, rough in lots of spots, and his fingers are thick just like every other damn thing on him.

“Hello Billy,” Steve says. The shake is quick, don’t make it awkward, but Steve misses his hand as soon as it’s gone.

“Sorry, again, I made you take a tumble back there, Bambi.” Billy stops Steve’s heart for a second time, but the wide hungry grin he’s wearing starts it right back up. Shocks Steve to his core with the electric power he has.

Steve doesn’t want to look away from Billy’s bright blue eyes crinkling in the corners with the force of his smile, his smile for Steve, oh wow. But he does glance down when Billy sips a piece of paper out of his shorts pocket to offer him.

“If you want those pretty doe legs worked out a bit, I’d be happy to help with some tips in exchange.”

What Steve wants is to scream. Wants to spin in a circle. Instead, he casually takes the paper. Glances it over. Nods. Internally faints. It’s a folded paper with information printed out for a beginners lifting class, ‘any size & any age’ it reads. And under the slogan, in the margin between room number and time, is a hand drawn cartoon of Billy lifting a barbell with one arm. His bicep curvy and huge, and one of his cute little cartoon eyes closed in a wink.

Under the drawing is a hastily scribbled phone number. Billy’s phone number. Steve is shaking with effort.

“Give me a call, Bambi. I’ll reserve a spot for you,” Billy calls over his shoulder as he walks back out of the locker room.

Steve has to close his eyes to remember to breath after Billy walks out. He goes to spin around to his locker again, already dreaming about all the nicknames and emojis he’s going to put next to Billy’s contact name, when his shin cracks against the wood of the bench. He goes crashing to the floor. Second time in one day. At least Billy isn’t here to see it this time.

After Steve showered and nursed his bruised ego enough, he slips out of the locker room. Phone in hand as he looks fondly down at his new contact.

Billy God of Hot Bod 👅💦💪🏻

“Robin, guess what?”

“Don’t touch me. We’re fighting.” Robin shoves off his thin finger jabbing into her side.

He shrugs. “Oh so you don’t want to know?”

She shoots him a hateful glare over her shoulder. They walk out to the parking lot and stop at Steve’s car, standing flush up on the doors and talking over the roof. “Know what?” She finally bites.

“The good news?” He wiggles his phone for her to see.

Robin furrows her brows as she tries to read the phone. “Good news?” She mimics.

“I’m pregnant.”

Robin almost screams at his terrible joke. She slams the door as she climbs in the car and orders Steve to take her home now. While they drove Steve might have talked the whole time about how Billy’s fingers felt, but who could blame him.

#its thirsty for billy hours #its projectiing my messy bi ass on steve hours #but lets be real this is who steve is #this is the most in character my steve has ever been #harringrove #harringrove fic #my fic #harringrove fanfic #steve/billy #prompt fill

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