#is the sky godless? have i been abandoned?

[falling-feels-like-flying]

the prophecy but I'm on my knees begging to be able to get my spark back

#every star burns out one day #i don't want that day to be now #is the sky godless? have i been abandoned? #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #ttpd #the prophecy #elaine blogs music #elaine blogs life 2024 #elaine blogs #burnt out gifted kid

[bt-writing]

Winter's Touch

Link x gn!Reader

A/N: lord i love link so much. i know we're all playing totk rn!! this fic is pretty ambiguous, so it can be set in either botw or totk, it has no spoilers for either game :) and to all of my followers,

wow! it has been an AMOUNT of time since i last wrote something! i'm sorry for falling off the map, but i'm sure you all know how life goes. i'd also like to say that i know, as all of my works have been genshin based, that you all most likely followed me for my genshin content, and i appreciate all of you so much. i've had so many kind, encouraging comments that made me feel proud of my work. but, truthfully, i will most likely not be writing any more genshin content for the foreseeable future. unless i get back into the game, which is unlikely. i'll most likely continue to write here and there, but who knows what fandom it will be for?

anyways, thank you all again, and i hope everyone can enjoy this story! i put a lot of effort into it, and i hope i've improved from my previous works :)

SFW

Word Count: 5.9k

Summary: You and Link are caught in a brutal snowstorm while traveling through Hebra. Finding yourselves in an abandoned cabin for the night, how in Hylia will you manage to keep warm?

Hebra's perpetual winter snowfall had been merciless ever since you arrived in the secluded northern region. The last few days especially had shown capricious bursts of flurries and wind gusts even more brutal than normal, heralding in the blizzard that faced you now. An unholy amount of the powdery, blinding white coating had accumulated, disguising any semblance of ground for what appeared to be the entire regionーprobably the entire world, from what you could tell. Nothing would surprise you at this point, seeing just how relentless the thick snowflakes had been since you arrived in this godless land.

A heavy sigh escaped from your chest and fell into cupped hands. The tips of your fingers and knuckles were flushed red from the subzero temperature that effortlessly seeped through your clothes and nipped at your skin. Even after rubbing your hands together like a plotting insect, they remained raw and aching, lamenting the loss of your cozy Rito-made gloves which were misplaced somewhere in a far-off stable. The chill felt like knives, an inescapable punishment for your disorganization, unbearable even through a heavy, wool-lined jacket and several other layers of essentially every article of clothing that you traveled with. As you brought your freezing hands up to try and revive your numb ears, you cast a glance over at your Hylian companion.

It had certainly been a number of hours since the two of you had departed from the Snowfield Stableーalbeit, you would argue it was more so a few days spent wandering the ninth layer of hellーbut it was hard to determine precisely how long due to the constant ambiguity of the murky, grey cast sky above. You couldn't help but pinch your eyebrows together, squinting to protect your eyes from the light reflecting off of the obnoxious white plain. Link appeared unphased by the icy insanity you had found yourselves in. He marched dutifully along the invisible path with his typical resolved purpose, his deep footprints leaving a trail to the rhythmic crunching of snow. The caped hood that Link wore concealed his pointy, elven ears from the onslaught of wind, but you were positive they were a similar cherry-colored shade as your own. Its thin fabric flapped wildly behind Link as he traversed the land, obviously experienced in navigating the ruthless northern tundra. The speed at which he walked through the snow was honestly impressive. You had long since tired, but he never slowed down. It was almost as if his stamina reserves were blessed by the gods themselves.

You, on the other hand, were in a much worse state. The journey had begun to turn your brain to mush. Lack of visual stimulation and the persistent weather beating down on you made it difficult to carry on. Yet, burdening Link with your fatigue wasn't an option. Trying to match your partner's pace, you took long, forceful steps forward, legs burning from overexertion. The additional weight of chunky snow boots, padded clothing, and your traveler's bag filled to the brim with supplies made your hike comparably more strenuous than any other you've been on. Giving thought to your exhaustion only served to make things worse, however, as with your next step, the tip of your boot failed to escape the crater your footprint had made in the snow and instead got caught on the very edge.

Thrown off balance, you stumbled forwards with a small gasp. Your hands flailed in a short motion by your sides in a meager attempt to save yourself from faceplanting into the cold, wet snow below you. Before you could kiss the ground, all of your momentum was halted by Link's hand wrapping around your wrist. His other hand shot across your body, reaching for your opposite shoulder and supporting your weight with his forearm over your chest. He turned your torso to face him directly. The knight allowed for his hold on you to linger, wanting to be doubly sure you found stability. Meeting his focused eyes, another sharp breeze whistled by your ear and sent a chill down your spine. The hood blew off from his head, unveiling his messy blonde locks and long ears which's hues confirmed your earlier suspicion. Link took his time inspecting your face, as if he were searching for the answer to some unspoken question, before breaking the silence.

"You're cold."

Your eyebrows raised incredulously. Cold? It was enough to send a small chuckle from your frostbitten lips.

"I don't know if you've noticed exactly where we are, but I'd say that more than simply 'cold' fits the norm here," you replied, exasperated by his statement. Though, before you could ridicule the words of Captain Obvious, he released his hands from your body, leaving you to silently grieve the loss of his touch. Gloved fingers played with the clasp of his hood before removing it from his shoulders and tossing it over your own. His knuckles grazed the exposed skin of your neck as he secured the cloth to you. His thumbs brushed past your cheeks and ears as he reached for the hood, bringing the oversized fabric to rest right above your browbone. Link's hands trailed down to your arms where he reached behind you to tug the sides of the cape around you tightly. It reminded you of a worried mother swaddling her child in a winter coat. Your chapped lips were slightly parted in surprise at Link's movements. The events of the previous minute had left you stunned, and his current actions weren't helping you recover in the slightest. As your brain fried, a tingly warmth filled your body. It erupted from your stomach and quickly spread to your face, staining your already red features a shade darker.

You simply brushed off the newfound warmth as the loss of wind-chill.

Although grateful for his gift to you, you were also concerned about Link's own well-being since he was the one now exposed to the elements. Your eyes traced his ears as they twitched from the wind's lashing. Adorable as the involuntary motion was, you had to object to his kindness.

"Won't you be cold now?" you asked, trying to deny the item. Even if you were slightly less miserable as a result, his health came before your own. Link was the champion, the hero chosen to protect Hyrule indefinitely. He was the one who mattered most between the two of you. Yet, Link closed his eyes and shook his head at your question. Snowflakes had already begun to accumulate on his dark lashes.

"No. I'll be fine. I have a tolerance for this sort of weather, anyways," he spoke bluntly.

It was your turn to study his face this time in an attempt to detect any semblance of a lie. His serious, teal eyes left no room to argue, and you knew it would be a losing battle to try and change his mind. When you could no longer bear to maintain eye contact with the boy, you cast your sight over his shoulder timidly, growing overwhelmed by his silent insistence. It was hard to look straight at him when it felt like he was staring directly into your soul. However, a dull silhouette in the distance caused you to perk up suddenly, catching his attention. A couple hundred meters away from you was a tiny wooden cabin, nearly swallowed by the dense horizon of snow flurries. The structure was most likely abandonedーthe flatland of agony for miles in every direction didn't exactly scream 'tourist attraction' to you, but at the moment it might as well have been the oasis paradise in a desert of frosty sand.

"Link—" you stepped past him, grabbing the cloth of his sleeve with urgent fingers. "Link, look!"

His eyes flickered down to your grasp on his Snowquill jacket before following your gaze into the snowfield. By the time he had managed to locate the structure, you had already begun to drag him along toward it. This was the most energy he had seen out of you in the last few hours.

After some minutes spent walking through the blizzard, you and Link eventually reached the little dilapidated shack, a lone shelter in Hebra's snowy sea. Not wanting to spend any more time outside than necessary, you quickly pushed open the shoddy cabin door. A loud creak! resounded off the bare walls, greeting the two of you as you made your way inside. The interior wasn't impressive by any means. Dust had amassed on the floor and furniture in a layer thick enough to see from your place by the door. A wobbly table sat to the left of the room, positioned right beneath a small, framed window, its glass frosted over by the raging snowstorm beyond the cabin's log walls. On that table was a partially used candle jammed into its candlestick and a few shards of flint. This was good news, you thought, as it provided a means to easily ignite the fireplace directly opposite of the door. An untouched bundle of wood was conveniently propped up against the stone mantel, begging to be lit aflame by the lodge's new inhabitants. Rest be assured, starting a fire was no doubt next on the to-do list. As Link shut the door behind you, your eyes glossed over the bed to your right. A single, flat pillow rested unremarkably against the equally lackluster bedframe. The remainder of the bed was covered by a hefty comforter adorned with simple Rito chevron patterns. Now this, you could get behind. The only issue was the size of the bed. It was a comfortable fit for one person, sure, but two people would be a tight squeeze.

Before you could ponder the issue any further, Link's footsteps pulled you out of your daze. The planks of the floor groaned beneath his weight, but he paid no mind, instead getting straight to work on building a fire. You smirked to yourself—he must have been colder than he let on. You wouldn't give him a hard time about it, though, as you weren't any better off. Deciding to try and make yourself useful, you made your way to the foot of the bed where the group of barrels were and began to inspect their contents. Not expecting much to begin with, your meager hopes were squashed as you removed the brown lid of each container. The first barrel contained a handful of chillshrooms, which sat snugly at the bottom of the cold, dark abyss. The next one provided nothing more than a few more flint shards, and the third barrel was completely empty, save for the dust bunnies gathered in its crevices. The poor scavenge wasn't a big deal, luckily, since your bag held enough rations to get you and Link through a few more days of travel at best.

Crouching down next to Link, you watched in silence as he stoked the starter flames in the fireplace. The faint heat emanated by a fire as small as this one still felt like heaven on your fingers, which burned from the blood rapidly circulating back through them. You gingerly flexed the joints of your hand with an appeased sigh.

The feeling of watchful eyes on you halted your appreciative finger wiggle. Link looked at you expectantly, causing an amused huff to pass from your nose.

"They were pretty much empty. Unless you're hungry for mushrooms and dust particles, that is," you joked. "It looks like curry again. Sorry."

Link held your gaze for a few seconds before leaning back on his hands and resting his eyelids.

"I don't mind," Link spoke, thoughtfully tasting his next words on his tongue. "Your cooking's good."

That same funny warmth from earlier crept up through your chest. Your cheeks turned soft and fuzzy from his compliment. Trying to keep them from melting off your face, you lightly bit their insides to hold the muscles in place.

"It's like, two ingredients," you said with a soft laugh. Pulling yourself to your feet, you shuffled towards the scrawny bed that your bag occupied. You undid the worn latches that secured your materials and dug around for the ingredients to tonight's dinner. "Although, in comparison to that monstrosity you made the other day, I guess anything is better—Ah!"

During your preoccupied rummaging through your bag, Link had managed to sneak up behind you without you noticing and teasingly elbowed your side in retaliation for your comment about his awful cooking. You chuckled in surprise and returned the gesture, nudging him with your shoulder as a toothy grin broke out on his face.

"It wasn't my fault," Link swore in a poor attempt at defending himself, "how was I supposed to know that monster parts wouldn't work in place of meat?"

"Yeah, because bokoblin stew sounds so delicious," you replied sarcastically. For how talented your Hylian companion was at most things, his incompetence at making an edible meal was rather endearing. Ignoring Link's fake pout, you retrieved the Goron spice and Hylian rice from your belongings and brought them over to the fire.

Before long, idle chatter and the aroma of spiced curry had filled the air of the remote Hebra lodge, imbuing it with more life than it had seen in quite some time. It was cozy, sitting there with Link. The heat from the spice danced on your tongue and warmed you from the inside out. This was everything you had wanted only a few hours ago. One of the goddesses must have heard your prayer, you thought, as you examined the frozen landscape through the window. The sun had disappeared from behind the clouds by this point, leaving behind a pitch black sky in its wake. The snow's reflection no longer stung your eyes.

With your body temperature raised and stomach filled, you couldn't help the large yawn that escaped your lips.

Right. The bed.

The time to face the issue of sleeping arrangements had finally arrived. As enticing as the small cabin bed was in your exhausted state, all you really needed to be satisfied was a spot next to the toasty, flickering light of the fireplace. However, Link was apparently two steps ahead of you. He suddenly rose from his seat on the floor and stepped over to the window, facing his back to you. You held your tongue and curiously waited for his next move. What you weren't expecting Link to do was slowly begin stripping. First went the gloves, which were tossed haphazardly onto the wooden table with a thud. Hands free, he reached around his back to undo the leather corset of his Snowquill armor. It joined the matching gloves on the table. As his fingers hooked underneath the hem of his sweater, you turned your entire body to the side, forcing yourself to look away and pulling your knees into your chest. Of course, there wasn't much privacy where you were, but he could have at least announced that he was going to change beforehand. The sound of thick cloth hitting the table sent a rose-colored tint across your face. You played with your fingers to distract your mind as he rustled through his own bag—for a shirt, you hoped. Considering the amount of time you and Link had been traveling together, it was a given that you had seen him shirtless before. Regardless, that scenario was always in a different context than your current one. The close proximity that the wooden shack forced you into felt much more intimate than usual.

Once Link had finished dressing himself, you hesitantly looked back over at him. Hanging loosely from his hips were the baggy pants of the Snowquill set, minus the boots, which lay toppled over each other in the far corner of the room. It took physical restraint to keep your expression stoic as your eyes found his exposed midriff. Never one to care about fashion, Link wore an old, beige shirt that was just small enough on him to expose the dips of his V-line. The sight made your tongue go dry in your mouth—you wanted nothing more than to run back out into that goddamn blizzard that would surely bring your body temperature back down to normal levels.

But, his face was what held you still.

Link had always been attractive—above average, even—but seeing him now, with the way the golden light from the fire bounced off of his handsome features, highlighting the soft pink blush on his wind-burnt nose and cheeks, it was more like an angel that stood before you. His hair was released from its rubber band confines, now free to frame his face and kiss the tips of his ears and shoulders. You couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to run your hands through its wild curls.

Completely lost in admiring the Hylian boy before you, it took you embarrassingly longer than it should have to notice what Link was actually doing. With a quick snap of his arms, Link rolled out his depressingly thin blanket onto the cold floor of the cabin, right next to the fire.

"Woah!" you exclaimed, the flap of the blanket hitting the ground bringing you from your daydream. "What do you think you're doing?!"

Link ignored you, grabbing his sweater from the table and bunching it up. He tossed the pathetic ball of cloth near the edge of the blanket, presumably to be used as a makeshift pillow. You had to stop this plan before it was too late.

Before he could sit down on his sad excuse for a bed, you dived face first into the "pillow" that Link had made, stretching your legs out to cover the entire length of the blanket. Your arms wrapped around the clump of sweater, pulling it close to your face to prevent it from being stolen. It was really soft, made from a similar material as your own winter apparel. But, most noticeably, it smelt like him. Link's scent was hard to compare to anything because it contained a touch of everything. It was nature-y, like rich evergreen and sweet nightshade, but also infused with campfire smoke and the vague traces of battle. In the back of your mind, you wondered if this spot on the floor was ultimately better than the proper bed.

The room was silent. Link hadn't made a single noise since you decided to belly flop onto the floor, and you hadn't really wanted to see his reaction. Your nerves got the best of you, however, and you slowly opened an eye to look up at your partner.

Oh. That was a new expression.

His eyebrows were raised high, nearly fully hidden by his tousled bangs. You didn't think Link was capable of displaying that many emotions at once. Confusion, exasperation, and intrigue all bled through his features, like he couldn't decide on just one to feel.

"What do you think you're doing?" he mimicked in astonishment.

"...Sleeping."

"Sleeping."

"Mhm," you muttered from your spot on the ground, "you take the bed. I want to be close to the fire. I haven't completely warmed up yet, you know?" Seeking cover from his skeptical gaze, you rolled over to face the fire directly. You couldn't stand the pressure of his questioning eyes on your back, so you out spoke again, trying to finish the interaction as quickly as possible. "Thanks for setting this up for me, though!"

"Get up," Link said with furrowed brows. He was having none of it. You absently swiped at his hand as he reached out toward you.

"No."

His lips pulled taut, visibly unimpressed with your childish antics. After a few more dismissive swats from your end, Link straightened his back and peered down at you with a dangerous glint in his eyes. You should have known better than to test his patience. Now, he would make sure you paid in full.

A startled noise left your throat as two large hands shot towards you. Link had fallen to his knees in order gain easier access over you. His calloused fingers closed around your wrists, trying to hold you still as you squirmed frantically underneath him. You wouldn't go down without a fight, unwilling to surrender the wrestling match over the shitty fireside bed.

"No! Stop! I don't want to sleep on the bed," you cried out. Full-belly laughs were now echoing off the cabin's walls as you two play fought on the floor. Even though you resisted with all your might, Link's superhuman strength could only be eluded for so long before your inevitable loss came. In one quick motion, he brought both your wrists above your head, throwing you off balance and causing your back to collide with the blanketed ground below.

A painfully large grin stretched across your face, making your cheeks blissfully sore. You panted, slightly out of breath from the altercation with the oh-so-mature Hero of Hyrule. Link sat on top of you, being careful not to rest too much of his weight on your body whilst straddling your sides. He allowed for just enough pressure to keep your body trapped beneath his own. His long bangs dangled only inches away from your forehead. Those playful, sea colored eyes that you cherished stared victoriously into your own. The smile lines in their corners trailed down to lightly flushed cheeks that made your stomach do flips. Link wasn't the type to wear his emotions on his sleeve, so the rare moments where you got to see his more mischievous side made you long to see it again.

Once you had finally come down from your laughing fit, you let out a heavy sigh and stopped struggling to escape. That was when you noticed the position the two of you were in was... suggestive, to say the least. Link still had a hold on both of your wrists, effectively pinning you down underneath him.

"Do you give up?" Link spoke lowly. The huskiness in his voice sent shivers up your spine.

"Never," you whispered back, doing everything in your power to keep your tone steady. He examined your face for a while. You could only hope he didn't realize that the blush your face was from his proximity rather than the physical exertion. Then, in a motion that nearly sent your heart out of your chest, Link began to lower his face down to your own. The tension in the air was heavy and your body tingled everywhere. Shutting your eyes expectantly, you waited for Link to grant the wish you've had for a long time.

But the feeling of his lips on yours never came.

"Too bad," he breathed into your ear. Before you could process what just happened, your world flipped upside down—literally. Link had tossed you carelessly over his shoulder and brought you to the Rito-quilted bed. You hit the mattress with an "oof!" as he flung you down unceremoniously.

You laughed and complained, "Link!" at his actions. All he did was stick his tongue out at you and make his way back to his own bed on the floor. You had been totally and utterly defeated.

"You suck," you pouted.

"Get some sleep," he waved you off as he sat down criss-cross before the fire, monitoring its flames.

You stuck your tongue out at him from behind his back and pulled the comforter over yourself. Your heart raced in your chest. What were you thinking? That Link was actually going to kiss you? Embarrassment flooded through your body, making you bury your face into your pillow as a means of escaping the unpleasant feeling. Your palms were sweaty as you gripped the pillow case.

Link. You had known the Hylian for quite some time, having accompanied the boy on his hero's journey over the last few months. Being Link's companion had exposed you to his colorful personality, which was often hidden underneath his trademark stoic exterior. It had admittedly taken you a while to pick up on his idiosyncrasies, but once you did, it was impossible not to become smitten. The way he would roll his eyes at some stranger's tedious request and still agree to do it. How he would give the stables' herding dogs the rest of your meat when he didn't think you were looking. His wholehearted laugh anytime Epona jumped particularly hard, resulting in a startled yelp from you. Though, he never seemed to mind your arms wrapping tighter around his waist. Even the way his eyes become glossy when a traumatic memory hit him, avoiding eye contact but hovering ever so slightly closer to you, as if he were afraid that the past would come and take you, too.

You earnestly couldn't help but catch feelings for Link during your travels. Even so, you really wished that he'd be a bit more aware of the effect he had on you.

As your adrenaline slowly wore off, the exhaustion from the day hit you like a brick. Your thoughts about Link began to fade, only to be replaced by the sweet slumber you had yearned for all day.

~

Fwish.

After what was most definitely not enough sleep to satisfy you, a sharp chill shot through your body, throwing you from the depths of sleep and into the misery of consciousness. You groggily sat upright and turned your head towards the door of the cabin. There stood Link, still dressed in his sleepwear and boots, quietly shivering from the light dusting of snow on his body.

"Link?" you choked out, concerned as to why he had been outside. "What in Hylia's name are you doing?"

It took you a few seconds to notice the room had dimmed a considerable amount since the last time you were awake. The fireplace had greedily consumed all of the wood you had to offer, leaving nothing more than the shadows and a taunting pile of ashes in its aftermath. At the foot of the bed, the fruitless barrels from earlier were missing. Link must have somehow broken them down without you hearing and used their husks to fuel the fire. Yet, even that wasn't enough to keep the flames alive. The only light source remaining was a decaying candle three-fourths of the way melted and showing no signs of stopping soon. It was barely enough to illuminate the vermilion contours that winter's touch left on Link's face.

"The fire died," Link muttered through chattering teeth, "I went to check for more wood outside." He desperately rubbed his hands up and down his arms, trying to create enough friction to rid himself of the frostbite. "There wasn't any."

Link was a rather pitiful sight. He stood freezing by the door, underdressed and racked with shivers. Even his nonchalant expression was twisted into one of discomfort. Without thinking, still half asleep and driven by an innate desire to help Link, you pulled the corner of the warm comforter over your lap and patted the empty spot next to you.

"It's alright," you yawned out, "just share the bed with me for the night."

The air was silent aside from the wind's whistling outside. Link stood unmoving, his mouth wordlessly agape at your suggestion. You would have found his dumbstruck face cute if your patience wasn't wearing thin from the low temperature in the cabin.

"I'm assuming you haven't slept yet, either," you mumbled, scooting your body back down to lay in the bed. "Come on, already, it's cold."

With that final prompt, Link kicked off his boots and shuffled over to the bed. You scooted your back as close to the wall as you could go. You didn't want Link to feel uncomfortable sharing a bed with you, but he would only suffer trying to brave the night with no fire. There was no other choice but to sleep together. At least, that was the mantra you kept repeating to yourself as reality began to set in. The dip in the bed was like a splash of water to your system, sending shock waves straight to your now wide awake brain.

Link gingerly tucked his legs underneath the comforter, flinching as his foot bumped into your own. You could tell he was tense by the way he lowered his body down and rested his head on your shared pillow. Link was flat on his back with his face pointed towards the ceiling, hesitantly glancing at you from the corner of his eye.

If you didn't know any better, you'd have thought the cabin had teleported from Hebra to Eldin. It felt as though the volcanic heat from Death Mountain had invaded the bed and threatened to scorch you both. You held mutually flustered eye contact with Link for a few awkwardly prolonged seconds before flipping your body to face the wall, pretending like his presence in the bed wasn't slowly suffocating you.

"Uh—night," you murmured.

"Y-Yeah," Link replied, voice pitched a bit higher than normal. You felt the bed shift as he presumably turned his back to yours.

Pins and needles crawled all over your body. You tried your best not to think about the palpable tension that hung in the air. Link's leg twitched softly, causing you to flinch in turn. You needed to get a grip on yourself. There was nothing wrong with sharing a bed with Link, even if you did have a substantial crush on the Hylian boy. Right now, you were just two friends trying to keep warm. Nothing else.

You spent the next few minutes forcing yourself to think of anything besides your current situation. It worked, luckily, and after one final self-lecture for fantasizing about Link, your breath slowed and your body welcomed sleep once again.

~

"Ngh..."

You felt a small sound leave your throat, watered down from sleep and muffled by the warm pillow your face was buried into. Another content sigh left your mouth as you pulled the pillow closer and stretched out your limbs. Its gentle undulations lulled you in your near-sleep state.

Wait. The pillow was breathing?

Your eyes shot open at the feeling. You pulled your head back and nearly fainted at the sight. Inches away from your face was Link's own quiet visage. His soft, pink lips were slightly parted and his long, dark eyelashes fluttered in his sleep, most likely a subconscious reaction to your sudden movement. His bedhead while asleep was truly a sight to behold—to no surprise, as Link had a natural bedhead while awake. Honey blonde strands of hair were tousled messily against the pillow and curled slightly at the ends. You felt his arms, which were draped loosely across your waist, pull you back into his chest. He could probably sense the loss of warmth in his sleep.

You can't remember a time where Link had looked so at-peace. 'Good for him', you thought agitatedly, as you were seconds away from a heart attack. It actually hurt, how hard the organ was beating in your chest. Your stomach was doing violent flips inside you. The only reason you hadn't leapt to the other side of the room yet was that, even if you wanted to move, you physically couldn't. Not without waking sleeping beauty.

After a few seconds of meditative, although exasperated, breathing, you calmed down. Maybe this was alright. It was true, Link rarely had a chance to get a good night's rest. You two were constantly on your feet and Link always kept watch when you camped outside. He'd quickly shoot down your offer to take lookout shifts, refusing to hear another word out of you. Even when you spent the night at a stable, you knew Link slept with one eye open. He'd never admit it, though. He didn't want you to worry.

In an act of blissful defeat, you buried your face back into Link's enticing chest and allowed yourself to fully enjoy the moment. Hylia knows if this chance would ever come again. You sheepishly hugged Link, savoring the drum of his heart beating in his chest. The sensation of his body in yours... it was so warm. If love had a feeling, you imagine it would be like this.

Link's body began to shift against you. As his shoulders slowly hunched down, the angelic curls in his hair trailed down your cheek and his nose found its place in your neck. Link's lips were pressed against the top of your collarbone. Whether this was intentional or not, you couldn't tell. Your mental state was out the window. At a tantalizing pace, Link's lips placed featherlike kisses along your neck, wordlessly confirming that their earlier placement was no mistake. His kisses reached your jawline and languidly began to map out your face. From the curve of your cheekbone to your temple to your forehead, Link's mouth traversed the planes of your face, exploring each hemisphere in extensive detail.

Finally, the Hylian pulled away from your face. Your wide, dumbfounded eyes stared into his own half-lidded, cerulean blue ones.

"You never pulled away."

You were so stunned that you didn't even notice his lips moving. Every part of your body felt weak, you could hardly bring yourself to respond.

"Mm."

"Did you want to pull away?"

"No," you whispered.

"Good."

Without another word, Link brought his perfect lips onto your own. It was a funny sensation that quickly became your favorite thing in the entire world. You returned his affection in full. As Link trailed his calloused hands under your shirt and along your back, you quickly seized the opportunity to threat your fingers through his fluffy blonde locks. Hylia, how you longed to do this.

You couldn't help but smile into the kiss. Every nerve in your body tingled in elation from the way Link kissed you. He was gentle but passionate, as if he'd wanted to do this for a long time. Reluctantly, you broke the kiss to ask.

"How long?" you breathed.

"Too long," Link shook his head. That impish smile you love so much broke out on his face as he suddenly flipped you onto your back. A surprised laugh barely made its way out of you before Link silenced it by returning his lips to yours.

Link broke the kiss again after a few minutes. He held your face in his hands and rested his forehead against your own.

"You have no idea how hard it was," Link sighed. His warm breath tickled your nose. "Sharing this cabin with you, waking up to you tucked into my chest," he trailed off. Your face went red at the revelation—Link had been awake for everything. "I tried to pretend I was asleep in case you were repulsed, but... when you didn't pull away from me, I just couldn't help myself," he admitted, staring sincerely into your eyes, tracing the curves of your face with his thumbs. "You were just so warm."

You smiled giddily and leaned into the palm of Link's hand.

"It wasn't easy for me either," you chuckled, relieved that your feelings had been mutual all along. You wanted so badly to tell Link how dearly you loved him, but you knew you shouldn't. Not yet, at least. For now, you were content lying in his arms while he showered you in kisses. The heat from his touch made you think that, just maybe, this blizzard wasn't so unbearable after all.

#my writing #x reader #btwriting #my work #the legend of zelda #legend of zelda #tloz #loz #breath of the wild #tears of the kingdom #botw #totk #totk link #botw link #loz link #link #link legend of zelda #link x reader #loz x reader #legend of zelda x reader #legend of zelda link x reader #totk x reader #tears of the kingdom x reader #botw x reader #breath of the wild x reader #botw link x reader #totk link x reader #link/reader #gn reader #fanfiction

[nightmarist]

some more thoughts abt zevlor

(quote screenshots | mtg color pie thoughts)

zevlor always talks about "the others" and "his people" regarding the tieflings at the grove, but tends to leave himself out.

in early access in the camp celebration if you point it out he tells you he was going to plan the road ahead but relents and lets himself celebrate. he "celebrates" by still performing a duty: he uses magic to display a false scene of stars above you "for every life you saved" and said its what he used to do in Avernus for the tieflings because the sky is pitch black.

Looking at either Oath of Devotion or Vengeance for his potential Oath, both have interesting implications regarding how his oath could have been broken in Avernus, and/or why he acts so desperately heroic towards "his people"

Oath of Devotion follows:

Honesty. Don't lie or cheat. Let your word be your promise. Courage. Never fear to act, though caution is wise. Compassion. Aid others, protect the weak, and punish those who threaten them. Show mercy to your foes, but temper it with wisdom. Honor. Treat others with fairness, and let your honorable deeds be an example to them. Do as much good as possible while causing the least amount of harm. Duty. Be responsible for your actions and their consequences, protect those entrusted to your care, and obey those who have just authority over you.

Oath of Vengeance follows:

Fight the Greater Evil. Faced with a choice of fighting my sworn foes or combating a lesser evil, I choose the greater evil. No Mercy for the Wicked. Ordinary foes might win my mercy, but my sworn enemies do not. By Any Means Necessary. My qualms can't get in the way of exterminating my foes. Restitution. If my foes wreak ruin on the world, it is because I failed to stop them. I must help those harmed by their misdeeds

For Devotion I can see Honesty being broken the easiest if we look at how quick he was to undermine Kagha. He seems almost "fae rules" honest the way he phrases things to try to get the player to help the tieflings. That could also very well be the "cheating" aspect of oathbreaking honesty.

For Vengeance I can see Any Means Necessary being his undoing, in that the exiled tieflings possibly meant so much more to him than his oath that it was broken.

Other oathbreaks I'd be just as intrigued by, however.

When he says hes done with soldiering, I want to hope/assume he means. retirement. but i think he just hasnt thought about anything but getting the tieflings to baldur's gate and doesnt care what happens to him, in a sort of depression haze where nothing (else) matters.

also, being a hellrider is for life, so the fact hes "done soldiering" despite that has weight to it, enough that even Tilses, another Hellrider, tries to tell him as much. he doesnt see himself as a hellrider and might very well intend to exile himself hermetically or die.

the forgotten realms wiki on hellriders says:

"Those determined to resign were given a final mission involving very difficult tasks, and even if they succeeded, and survived, they were stripped of their gear, exiled from the city, and named a heretic in the eyes of Helm, God of Guardians, for abandoning their post."

he's by himself off to a corner in the camp celebration, mourning the tieflings they lost on the way, and talks himself out of celebrating with them. he says he'll be "ruining" the celebration the next day.

going by what the Absolute twisted his desires into, he seems very concerned about "being a paladin again" with a god to guide him.

it sounds like he's aimless and feels purposeless, grasping at anything that will give him said purpose; im sure ge 100% cares about the tieflings' wellbeing, but i think he's also surrogating a purpose through getting them to baldur's gate. but without a Guide (gods, hellriders, a quest, etc), if/when he accomplishes this he could end up aimless again.

hes so casual with his self-loathing as if its Fact hes just a godless disappointment. His "lie that's kinder than the truth" line, if you tell him its his fault tieflings were taken prisoner he says "i imagine its worse than you realize," he hesitates when he asks to help you, and if you DO ask him to help you he says "he doesn't want to put a sword in your back. "only if you trust [his sword] wont be buried in your back"

#zevlor #bg3 #headcanon #i try to keep my canon and hc posts separate hence why i didnt say any of this on the compilation post #i want to therapize him so bad. #and rail him. necesito los dos por favor #bg3 meta

[shanniethewr]

under a moonless night

summary: in a written book, it tells the tales of three glorious adventurers, the two being lovers. together, they face the hurdles of what the world brings them, always coming out as victorious winners. yet in this tale, they fell as defeated, shattered diamonds.

content warning: major character death

pairing: aether x gn!reader lowercase intended + not proofread

extra: i recommend listening to isabella's lullaby while reading!

UNDER A MOONLESS NIGHT

... is where you can find two star-crossed lovers, bathing in the misty night at an abandoned castle. "promise to never leave me?" asked the lover whose eyes glistened in the dim hall where gold decorations faintly shined.

"you're well aware that i can never do that, mon soleil." said the boy with braided golden tresses as he gently swayed you, twirling you around as the long silky fabric that adorned your figure beautifully danced around the two of you, creating an illusion of a celestial dance that came from a fairy tale. from another's eyes, the two star-crossed lovers resembled a diamond carving of two dancers whose brilliance will always shine in the darkest corners of the world.

this world was not their home, and neither was the castle that had long been abandoned for centuries and centuries ago. yet in the premises of its grand structure, the world seemed timeless, as if it was only the two star-crossed lovers against the world.

UNDER A MOONLESS NIGHT

... you can find three adventurers who voyage world to world to find a home, but deep down, they know home isn't a place without the other as their souls had long been connected with a gentle thread that tethers them together.

the strings between the two star-crossed lovers were inevitably stronger, like two ties between two soulmates. the sister who watches the two was ecstatic, her brother was happy with the one he loves and she was grateful that his lover has a good heart, mutually seeing each other as siblings who care for one another like how a sister does to her younger sibling.

"come on now, you know this isn't fair!" came the boy with golden tresses, playfully whining at his lover and sister. in response, the two only laughed as they enjoyed the crêpes in their possessions. "this is what happens when you oversleep brother! come on, we're not leaving this world any time soon, we can get another one tomorrow!"

"she's right, ma lune. we have all the time in our hands! besides, crêpes are a universal food, we can always buy more in the next world." said the lover with a lovely smile as the sister grins, "unless they weren't made yet!"

the boy with golden tresses grumbled before playfully fighting with his sister, this elicited a laugh from three adventurers who voyage world to world. not to search for a new home, but rather, to experience the limitless possibilities with the ones they love together.

UNDER A MOONLESS NIGHT

... where you can find the soleil who settled in the fields of inteyvats, playing with the beautiful flowers of a godless kingdom. truly a sight for sore eyes, warmly thought the traveler as he took in the sight of his lover in the field of flowers as shooting stars flew in the sky.

the sky was bright, as if it wasn't night. truthfully, there was nothing more unearthly than the illogical upbringings of a newfound world, and those were the things that the three adventurers appreciated when traversing through different worlds.

some were common while some were unusual yet struck a cord of a heavenly sensation. they've seen far worse things than the ones they had recently encountered but endured it, hand to hand, with just the three of them against the world.

"why are you just standing there?" you called out with a light chuckle before gesturing the traveler, welcoming him in your quiet space, "come here...

aether!"

like a backlash, time flowed once again yet the clockwork seemed to move faster, resulting in the blur of time in the traveler's perception. aether wanted to move, he had to, yet why did it feel like he had been shackled down by his own torment?

in a written book, the previous chapters were all glorious tales of three adventurers, the two being star-crossed lovers. they travel from world to world where it is just the three of them against any mighty forces they encounter, and in the end, they have always stood victorious.

so why? what had made the author of Destinies so cruel to have the three glorious adventurers separated, stripped of their power, and defeated in the final battle?

aether knew he couldn't do anything, he watches you in frozen terror as your figure dissipates to thin air, leaving behind a trail blue particles, mouthing six words that had shattered his reality beyond repair.

"i'm sorry... i... broke our promise..."

the screams of his sister were silent in his world, he just couldn't grasp the notion of something so unreal, time stopped once more yet the feelings he felt wasn't one of love or happines.

it was of grief and sorrow.

the boy with golden tresses promised to never leave his star-crossed lover, yet the one who left at the end was the lover themselves. what an ironic promise.

— © wr.shannie created on 9.01.23 finished on 9.01.23

do NOT copy or plagiarize my work!!

#genshin impact #genshin #genshin x reader #reader insert #x reader #gender neautral reader #aether x reader #lumine #aether #asmoday #genshin imagines #oneshot

[angel4astraea]

𝕬𝖉 𝕬𝖘𝖙𝖗𝖆 . . ⛥ 𝑷𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒐𝒈𝒖𝒆

ft. tsarista (loosely)

cw. mentions of supposed death, nothing else really.

a/n. just a quick thing, this is based on a fem reader/afab reader, so sorry if anyone isnt really included. i just feel more comfy writing fem readers. much love tho xo!

To begin this story, we must travel back many centuries. .

You were once a floating star amongst the sky but had fallen down to Teyvat. For some years, your form was never really specified. It was a mix between a firefly and what looked to be a glowing grass lantern. That is until you had stumbled across Sumeru on one of the darkest nights. Your light had attracted few people, guiding them to a field of thick grass and a small pond.

It was your first time seeing humans, watching them with curiosity as you fluttered around, lighting the peaceful plains. Clueless, you had landed on a woman's arm, admiring her face. As much as you enjoyed being a small spec of light, you yearned for the feeling of living life as humans did. Your wish was granted while you rested by the pond, waking up to an entirely new form.

You had limbs like humans did, stretching them out when you woke. However, the people you had once lead to the plains were in awe. They asked you questions and put clothes on your back. Like a newborn fawn, your legs wobbled when you learned how to walk; grasping onto the arm of another. Slowly but surely, you grasped the concept of living.

As you approached the largest Sumerian village, you were showered with questions and awe. The thing people asked the most is how your eyes were shaped like stars. Of course, you couldn't answer that as you didn't know that yourself. You were named a Sage, responsibility quickly piling on your shoulders.

For two-thousand years, you watched Sumeru build itself, Archons come and go. . you had witnessed a lot of it, prefering to stay out of the public's eye. Your hand in marriage was sought out many times across Teyvat. You denied each one, focusing on your study of the stars, constellations and playing the lyre.

Though, after so many years of being companionless, you began to wish every night for a partner that wise like yourself. It was granted, a man sliding into your life by coincidence. He had taken you to the newly created land of Khaenri'ah and you saw the liveliness of the godless nation. You had abandoned Sumeru for this nation, marrying the man and having a daughter, Hecate. You had been close to the ruling family of the Eclipse Dynasty, sharing wisdom and learning the art of Khemia.

You had successfully learned Khemia, alongside your original unused Dendro vision. Once in a while, you'd sneak away from Khaenri'ah and visit Teyvat. You had met different individuals, including the Tsarista. The two of you had been quite close, her loving heart accepting you into her palace to talk.

Though, a few years later, the destruction of Khaenri'ah had taken place. You had attempted to fight the Celestial being to save the nation but failed, losing your husband and possibly your child. On the brink of death, even as an immortal being, the Tsaritsa had encased you in ice, freezing you until you could be awoken again. In the ice, you would be able to heal your wounds, regenerate energy and remain safe from Celestia.

The Tsaritsa had protected you, though, she wasn't able to find your daughter until a century later where she had been living amongst mortals, like you had been. . .

Since then, it's been five hundred years. Your form hasn't changed one bit, other than the wounds healing and your hair still growing inch by inch. One day, the Tsarista hopes to wake you and have you aid her with the uprising of the Abyss and the Fatui.

#au prompt #au genshin #alternate universe #genshin impact #fem reader #reader #genshin drabbles #genshin fanfic #the tsaritsa #god!au #god!reader #immortal!reader #im a big witch so i love basing things on witchy things #fatui harbingers #abyss order #fanfiction

[tolkiensring22]

He Who Sang the Song of Creation

Blood covered the land. Blood of hunted wolves and birds. Blood of slaughtered bears and snakes, the friends of the Singers. And, the worst of all, the blood of their young. Slaughtered and broken.

Astra held her son's body in her arms. He was so young she didn't even give him a name yet. So small and tender child. Her ears were full of tears, though she was quiet and made no sound. She hugged him for one last time and placed him on the grass.

The Man started coughing. His mouth was full of blood, his limbs broken, his eyes still shinning in the forest. He tried to move, but pain was too much. His wounds were severe. But not lethal. He would survive. If spared.

Men didn't spare anyone. They came from East and the first they did when they set foor on Westeros was destroy.

They cut the weirwood trees.

They killed animals without mercy.

They even killed each other, and not just from time to time, but regularly. 

They slayed the Giants.

The hunted unicorns.

And they hunted them. They treated them like beasts. They showed no concern, no mercy, not even regret. They even enjoyed it. 

Demons. Godless demons from east. That is what Men were. Their males hunted and killed, more bloodthirsty than wolves. Their females did so as well sometimes, but they mostly bred like animals, showing no respect to each other and hated everything except their own offspring. 

Demons. Monsters.

The Singers gathered around the Man, forming a circle. The Men called them Children of the Forest, but it is Men who were the real children. They had no knowledge of magic and no skill like the Singers did.

The other Singers remained still, nodding to Astra. They lost loved ones as well, but only she lost her child.

She pulled out her obsidian dagger, black as night sky and approached the man. Though wounded, he knew what was to happen very well. His eyes widened and he started crying. "No." he said quietly in his language. "Please, don't."

She didn't listen. She cut his throat and life faded from his eyes.

The sole surviving Weirwood Tree stood in the middle of the forest. The face in the tree was crying tears of blood, mourning just like them. The milk white wood made it seem like the tree was dying.

Astra sat in front of it like the other Singers and the ritual began. They started singing and touched the roots.

They did this so many times and...nothing happened. The gods did nothing. They did not help. They didn't offer counsel. Not even comfort. They were doing nothing. Like dead people.

There is nothing. Nothing but pain, sadness and death for them. Their end is coming near. Men are not as wise, but they are stronger and they have better weapons. They have the will to kill. 

Even if the Singers survive, they will be left with nothing.

And their gods will say nothing. They abandoned them. Astra and her kind did everything for them. They worshipped them and gave them gifts. They died for them. They did everything they could.

But gods wouldn't do anything.

My children.

A voice spoke and they all opened their eyes. They could not believe their ears. What was it?

My children, it is I.

"Who are you?" Yaltak, the greenseer asked for everyone.

I am one of those you worship, my children. One of those you have been faithful to for so long. 

They all looked at the tree. And the voice spoke out of it.

It is I.

They all knelt.

Astra couldn't help, but cry.

The gods answered. They finally did! With words! In ages long past, gods sent messages through images. But they never spoke. Never. Until now.

Yaltak cried as well. "They hurt us. They are killing us everywhere. They..."

We know, my children, we know. We know your sorrow and we feel them. We feel your pain, we feel every wound, we feel every tear. We are always with you. We have prepared a way out. We have prepared salvation.

"Please!" Astra yelled, with tears in her eyes. "Please, Holy Ones, tell us!"

It is a heavy price we are asking. A sacrifice. But a sacrifice that will bring you salvation.

The Singers reached the Empty Land. The land of sand and snakes, the land were there was almost no grass and no trees. They could not survive here longer than a few days.

Why did the gods send them here?

Astra held her daughter close. She removed hair from her child's eyes, staring at her beautiful golden eyes. It was her only child left.

"Mother?" the child said, the daughter she didn't name yet. 

Astra placed a finger on her lips. 

"Quiet, child." she said softly. "Quiet. Everything will be alright." Astra pulled out her canteen of water and offered it to the child, who immediately drank it. Almost instantly, the child's eyes closed and she fell asleep. She was the greatest treasure in tha moment.

Astra cried, stiffling her shouts. She stared at other adult Singers. Some of them were crying quietly like her, holding back their shouts. Others were not holding back and openly shouted. The rest neither cried nor shouted. Their eyes were dead and their faces emotionless. They were dead inside because of what they were supposed to do.

Everything around them was quiet in the moment, as they prepared to do what must be done. All of them then went silent. 

Astra pulled out her obsidian dagger. 

This is not for nothing. This is the only thimg that will save them. This sacrifice will not be forgotten. The Singers will always remember the names of their children. Every single one of them. And future generations will recite them by the heart.

Astra looked at her daughter. The child was sleeping so quietly. The most innocent, pure creature in the world. Her child. Her treasure. Her world. Her heart.

Astra cried again, but closed her eyes. Then, she raised the dagger.

The land itself started to weep. It shook in agony. Far, mountains far, the sound of sea rising and agonizing over death of the children could be heard.

The Singers all rose up. Some of them couldn't take it. Some slit their throats, wanting to join their children in death or to punish themselves for what they did. Others ran away, yelling and cursing, never to be seen again. But most of them stood in their place, mourning their children.

Then, they left. Approaching the desert full of stones, they came upon their captives. Forty Men: males, females and their eldest offsprng all tied to huge rocks and a few trees. They all tried to free themselves, but it was impossible.

The Singers, with tears in their eyes, no longer felt sadness and regret. Hatred and anger burned in their hearts. It wasn't them who killed their children. Men did.

Astra walked towards the first Man she found. He was young, dark-skinned and had dark eyes. He desperately tried to free himself, even trying to reach the bonds with his teeth, it was impossible. As she came closer, he started begging, but quickly stopped. He just cried.

"Me instead!" the man tied to a neighbouring rock said. He was dark-skinned just like the man in front of her, but older. "Please! Have mercy! Please! Take me if you have to, but let my brother go. Please!" he cried, so loudly and so many tears went down his faces that she couldn't believe it. Never before had she ever seen a Man cry so much. Not even for their own life.

For a moment, Astra's heart was struck by something. A feeling of...pity. Sadness. Regret. Pain. Like an arrow that hit her, it hurt and, in a moment, she wanted to show mercy.

But it quickly faded. She gritted her teeth. As fast as she could, she plunged the dagger into the young man's heart. The older man cried in agony, as if he was the one being stabbed. She plunged it deeper and deeper, and so did the other Singers. All of them plunged their daggers into the hearts of Men. 

The man in front of her, winced in pain, but when his chest absorbed the dagger, he grew quiet. He just stared at her.

Then, his eyes turned blue.

The Singers led their captives in carriages they stole from them. Far, far to the North they led them, and the air was growing colder and colder. More than two weeks had passed since they left the Empty Land and they reached the place where the three rivers flow. In that time, the winter already arrived and snow started falling. 

Their captives also changed during that time. Men's eyes burned like blue eyes. Their body became white as milk, and warmth was slowly leaving their bodies. Their hair also turned white, even that of their children.

Then, they finally reached the forest of Weirwood trees they were looking for. Astra left the carriage behind her and joined her kinsmen in prayer in front of the tree.

Then, something happened. A foul spirit appeared in the air, making them turn around. And they saw.

Their captives all rose from their carriages. Moving slowly and gracefully, they made no sound whatsoever. Everything around them grew colder. Air was going away, slowly.

Their white skin almost seemed to shine in the night, though not like their blue eyes. In a way, they were beautiful creatures...and terrifying.

All the Singers stepped back, all except greenseer Yaltak. Yaltak held his fear away and stepped closed to these...Men. Slowly, carefully and quietly. 

He stood in front of them. Men slowly moved their faces towards him. Yaltak raised his hands, offering it to them, looking like an ant compared to them. One of them walked to him.

Then, in a slash, Yaltak's head fell from his shoulders and rolled away. The Singers gasped, staring at their greenseer. In unbelief, Astra looked up. In the man's hand shone a sword, the weapon that Men used, and the blade glowed with a pale blue light.

The Singers started running away, the Men chasing them quickly and slaughtering them as if they were flies. While Astra was running, one of them slashed her leg and she fell to the ground. The Man didn't plan to finish the job immediately. She crawled back to the Weirwood Tree, grabbing it by the roots and staring at it's face.

"Why?" she asked it, with tears in her eyes. She wanted to yell. Hatred, anger, confusion, all of that was mixed inside of her. "WHY?!"

They can't hear you.

All the Singers stopped running, as if frozen in the place and even the Men paused in their movements.

"What?!" Astra asked.

They are nothing but dead trees. Did you really believe they will answer your calls? Respond to your prayers? Bring you salvation?

Astra recognized it. They all did. It was the voice that spoke to them out of the Weirwood Tree, telling them to make a horrible sacrifice. It was the same voice, but it wasn't coming out of the Weirwood Tree this time. They could hear it all around them.

You worshipped her once, you know.

Whom?

Yavanna. She probably could have heard your prayers, but even she could not protect you even if she wanted to. For her hand cannot reach these lands.

The Men slowly walked back to them, preparing to kill them.

I never liked humour as a concept in Creation. It always seemed unnecessary and useless. A stupid thing. However, the voice chuckled, I have to admit, these events are rather hilarious.

The Man killed another Singer and some of them started running again, but Astra wasn't one of them. She couldn't even do it.

You hate Men. You curse them. You think you are better than them.

But I deceived them in the exact same way I deceived you now, long ago, when all life was young. When they haven't even met the Firstborn or the rest of my former kin.

And now, you have doomed yourselves, just like they doomed themselves all those years ago.

More Singers died.

I suppose I should thank you though. This will be one of my best weapons, the one with which I will conquer all of Cosmos. 

Astra cried. "Our children..."

They are mine, just like all are mine, eventually. You couldn't have stopped it. They would have died anyway one day. I would have claimed them sooner or later, just like I claim all things.

Something grabbed her from behind, but she didn't care. "Who are you?" 

Who am I? Then, the voice grew darker. More powerful.

I AM HE WHO SANG THE SONG OF CREATION.

The man turned Astra to himself and she stared into his burning blue eyes.

I AM THE GIVER OF GIFTS. THE LORD OF ALL.

The man didn't slash her or stab her. Instead, he grabbed her by the throat, choking her. She didn't know why her breath was leaving her: because of the cold that followes the man or because of his hands around her throat.

Slowly, life was abandoning her. Her mind grew more and more distant. She didn't even try to resist. Everything around her was fading and she could barely hear the last words.

But she did hear them.

I AM LORD OF THE GRAVE.

I AM THE ELDER KING.

I AM MELKOR.

#asoif fanfic #children of the forest #white walkers #melkor

[alpaca-clouds]

Word Search Round X

And it goes on and on and on, so we are continuing to play :D

Once again we are doing a word search, as @mikaharuka tagged me! :D

The words they've given me are:

familiar, lantern, seize, impossible, forest, abandon, elegant, steam, sacrifice, trace

Now, as always, I will start with giving you guys 5 words - and I will only give you 5, because we all know you are probably double and triple tagged. Oh, and who is tagged? Well, @udaberriwrites @tsunderewatermelon @axolotlsupremacyowo @0nelittlebirdtoldme and once more right back at @mikaharuka (muhahaha).

edge, scar, surface, glitter, depth

So, let me start!

Familiar

[From Underneath a Clear Winter Sky]

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am sorry I got you into so much trouble. Maybe it is better…”

“No.” He knew he was an idiot. “No. I…” He could not speak, really, but wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Because holding another person close did feel good. Especially her. Her smell only slowly getting familiar to him.

In the end she broke away from him, going over to his bed and finding the t-shirt he was normally wearing to sleep. As she handed it to him, she sighed. “Lie down.”

Pulling the shirt over his head, he did as he was told. Lying down, while she sat on the edge of the bed. In a slow and careful motion, she bit her wrist, offering it to him silently.

He understood. Vampire blood to humans had some healing properties. It would also make him just a bit more resilient for a few days at least. Something offered only rarely. “Thank you,” he whispered and took her wrist, though the very human part of his did want to reject the offer. He swallowed one gulp. Two. Vampire blood being more sweetly-salty than bitter. It did feel his body with a strange tingle.

Lantern

[From The lesser Evil]

"I am so glad those beasts are finally leaving," one guard said to another by the gates.

"You tell me about it," his colleague muttered and yawned.

Striga shifted her attention to another duo of guards in the lower courtyard, walking with two lanterns held high. "Have you heard, what they said?"

"What do you mean?" The second man sounded mostly annoyed, as if he really did not care much for a talk.

"They say that those people had actually killed him, killed Bluebeard."

"Well, the guy seemed to be doing fine, when he left today."

"Isn't that weird, though? I mean, if they had really killed him…"

"They clearly didn't. People are talking, man. Just stupid stories. Don't listen too much." The man accelerated his pace as if to stop the conversation with this.

Seize

[From The lesser Evil]

"The poor people of Wallachia have suffered so greatly under Dracula's attack," Corvinus continued. "So many dead. So many starved. And now they are being governed by the godless people from the East. Those filthy Ottoman's." He spat out the name of that empire. "Even though the good people of Wallachia deserve peace, as you've said. They should be freed, should they not?"

Adrian hesitated. It was of course the story under which's guise they had even gotten to the court in the first place. The truth was, of course, that Ottoman rule was as good as any. To the people it did not really make a difference, especially as the Ottoman's had not really fought for the land, had just seized it, as there had been no one left to defend it. "I suppose," he still said.

A smile played around the king's lips. "I don't think the campaign against their 'Holy Roman Empire' will take too long. By the end of winter, Austria-Hungary will be reunited. I was thinking, we could indeed help you afterwards. Help you to retake the land of Wallachia. You see, King Radu had been a close friend of mine, may he rest in peace. And without barely anyone of noble blood remaining in Wallachia… The land needs a king, don't you think?"

Impossible

[From Underneath a Clear Winter Sky]

He did not know how long he slept. At least not at first. As the room was only lit by a soft light on the nightstand, it was impossible to tell, whether the sun was still up outside. Still half asleep he wanted to grab his phone, only to find that Lenore was between him and the nightstand.

She looked at him, her eyes wide awake. "I guess 'good morning' is the wrong word," she said.

He blinked, before slowly nodding. "How late is it?"

"Half past two," she replied. "In the afternoon." She ran her fingers through his hair, as she clearly liked to do. "You needed the rest."

"I guess." He rubbed his eyes, still feeling as if he could sleep for a few more hours. Without thinking about it much, he cuddled up to her - and she allowed it, putting her arms around him once again. If he had a choice in the matter, he would just stay here with her like this. Just in this bed, in this house, away from Carmilla, away from everything out there.

Forest

[From The lesser Evil]

The big lady had come for them, clearly against the wishes of her wife. The big lady had freed them, saved their asses. Without her, that much he knew for certain, Adrian would be dead. They all might be dead by now. But why? Why? Why would a vampire save them?

He finished his meat, feeling as hungry as he had before. They had not gotten around to refilling their supplies, so there was no bread or cheese or anything but that dried meat. It was enough to give them energy, he guessed, but admittedly he had become accustumed to something better during those last two years.

With a big yawn he got up. "I'm… gonna relief myself," he muttered, as he went over to the forest. He needed to pee—and he would prefer to do it somewhere not watched by several vampires.

Even though his instincts still told him, it was not a great idea to just go into the forest alone, when any vampire could follow.

This really was bullshit. Fucking bullshit. He found a good tree to pee against, his nerves still on edge. When he had finished his business, he just stood there by the tree, breathing in the night air.

Abandon

[From The lesser Evil]

He had to do something, anything to save her. She had not deserved this fate. Never had. It had all been so unjust and he could not help but hate each and everyone responsible. That fake English king, the bishop, the popes—all three of them—and Charles, the king he had helped put on the throne. That stupid, useless king who would've been able to save her and had not.

"Gilles," she screamed out once more. "Why did you do it? Why did you turn your back on me?"

"I didn't!" he protested. "I would never have! I did everything I could, I…" But he had not, had he. At least he could've tried to save her that day in Rouen, even if it had only meant his death to come nine years early.

"You did. You turned your back on God and therefore on me."

"God has abandoned you!" He could not hide the hatred in his voice. "God has abandoned you, has abandoned us all."

"God has a plan for all of us."

"Well, then," he growled. "Then he has to have planned this out from the start, hasn't he." But he would no longer be a pawn. Not of a king, not of a bishop, not even of God. He had chosen his own path—and he had become more powerful through it. He would show them all how weak God had become and how corrupt its church with its many wrong popes.

Elegant

[From Underneath a Clear Winter Sky]

"Hector?" There was already worry in her voice. "Is everything alright?"

And no matter how Carmilla stared at him, a silent promise in her gaze, he could not help himself. "I am at Carmilla's," he panted. "I think she is going to kill me."

"You fucking little piece of shit."

This time he saw it coming, somehow - less then elegant - moving a bit aside, just enough so that the iron burned his leg. It was only a small victory, though - and he was still screaming. For a moment he might've blacked out, as the next thing he knew what that he was once more hearing Lenore's voice, this time arguing with Carmilla.

Steam

[From Underneath a Clear Winter Sky]

The entire house was completely dark, of course. As sunlight was one of the few things to actually kill a vampire. As such the sun outside blinded him, when he stepped out - once he was closed.

While the ocean or rather the giant Loch did regulate the temperature a bit, it still felt rather chilly this day. Leaning against the door, he drew in some smoke or steam from the electrical dispenser, still missing the taste of an actual cigarette.

This was a pretty nice place, he assumed. Given that he lived in Edinburgh he was used to seeing a lot of water, but the Loch still had a strange and calming aura. Seagulls being the strange creatures they tended to be, quite a few of them were still or again here, sitting on wooden poles on the loch and flying to the air while screaching their ear piercing screams.

Sacrifice

[From The lesser Evil]

"Maybe we have a chance if we talk to the king," Adrian said. "There might be a way to reason with him."

"Have you heard those fuckers?" Trevor grunted. "They are almost certain that this is some godly shitfuckery going on." Whoever could see those demons and think "yeah, totally heavenly". Those things stank of hell for heaven's sake!

"They don't understand, Trevor," Sypha said. "They are trying to make sense out of everything that has happened."

"By hosting demons!" He crossed his arms. "Look. I am just saying, that the king has sacrificed the entire bloody city."

"And he did not know the people would die."

#writers asks #word search #the lesser evil #underneath a clear winter sky #castlevania fanfiction

[automatismoateo]

Does anyone else here put up a Christmas tree? via /r/atheism

Does anyone else here put up a Christmas tree?

I still do in my adulthood, from when I was a kid, even though I have been godless since my freshman year of high school. Not to celebrate the birth of Christ, but to celebrate the human connection and family at the end of another year. I am reminded of a poem I heard a little bit ago. Posted below 👇

What It Looks Like To Us and the Words We Use by Ada Limón

All these great barns out here in the outskirts, black creosote boards knee-deep in the bluegrass. They look so beautifully abandoned, even in use. You say they look like arks after the sea's dried up, I say they look like pirate ships, and I think of that walk in the valley where J said, You don't believe in God? And I said, No. I believe in this connection we all have to nature, to each other, to the universe. And she said, Yeah, God. And how we stood there, low beasts among the white oaks, Spanish moss, and spider webs, obsidian shards stuck in our pockets, woodpecker flurry, and I refused to call it so. So instead, we looked up at the unruly sky, its clouds in simple animal shapes we could name though we knew they were really just clouds- disorderly, and marvelous, and ours.

Submitted December 13, 2022 at 03:03PM by simply_a_raccoon (From Reddit https://ift.tt/80osl9J)

#reddit

[shini--chan]

OKAY IMAGINE THIS - by some mirracle, s/o get teleported back in time to the pirate era and suddenly just drops from the sky as Antonio and Arthur are battling! Everything comes to a halt because a friggin woman fell from literally nowhere - Arthur is quicker and he captures s/o first, DEMANDING to know where she is from, how did she get here. Poor s/o tries to tell him the truth but it just isn't working. How stupid do you think Arthur is, huh?! He's not buying what you're selling love! (1/?)

Oh blazes, my dear. You’re trying to seduce me into writing a novel for you, correct. Well, not today (sadly) so I’ll be going ahead with my usual mixture of headcanons and snippets. Also, to everybody out there: Requests are still being accepted – I just can’t bring myself to close my ask box.

Also, I wanted to write Arthur’s and Antonio’s lines in an older English, but then I remembered what it was like having to read books from the 19th century for school and decided not to inflict the torture upon you.

Yandere Love Triangle: England vs Spain (Historical Pirate AU!)

As mentioned in the ask, you would be minding your own business, more or less, when you would suddenly be granted two of the wishes many harbour in their hearts: to time travel and have an adventure. Unfortunately for you, that wouldn’t happen with a forewarning and you wouldn’t have any chance to blend in. I wouldn’t say the battle would completely stop – with all the smoke and gunpowder and bangs going on only those close by would have a chance noticing.

Antonio was having a wonderful day. Yes, extremely wonderful. Life on the ship had been very good as of late, supplies running high and spirits even higher. They were reaching their climax now, with Spain showing England the business ends of sword and cutlas and cannon. It was a fitting sort of revenge being able to rob the lilly-livered bastard after he had stolen so much Spanish silver and gold.

The runt in question was baring his teeth and snarling like a cornered dog while their blades were interlocked, when Antonio heard a loud crash from behind England. It was probably just part of the ruckus of a sea battle, yet something – his fantastic intuition most likely – advised him to take a look. Of course, making the other combatant to move just how he wanted proved to be tricky, because Arthur had always been an uncooperative like blight and liked to fight dirty.

Yet he wasn’t a famed duellist for nothing. The sight that caught his attention when he got the opportunity to see it nearly caused him to lose an arm due to inattention. Men of both sides had briefly abandoned the battle to crowd around a failing figure that was desperately trying to free itself from a tangle of nets and torn sails. The onlookers whispered amongst themselves. The chorus of voices only grew louder when a very confused woman.

He found himself remarking: “It seems like you’ve finally started to develop a good taste in bed mates. Say, when did that happen, fishy. I always thought that you’d have luck to get a starved old tramp to warm your bed.”

“Shut up, Anthony!”, came the immediate reply, proving that the island nation wasn’t aware about what he was playing at. “Let’s not get on about you. Or should I tell your precious monarch about what you do in the stables when all the servants are gone?”

Pathetic little weasel. Enraged, Antonio brought the hilt of his sword down on that pale, cruel face and busted a pair of thin lips. “You should guard yourself from spreading lies, English pigdog. Or else the Almighty himself will smite you.”

Naturally, being the cunning demon he was, England used the opening Spain had provided him to barrel into him and send him flying overboard and into the sea.

That action would be quick to turn the tides, especially with so many men coming to aid their captain and help him out of water. This would result in Arthur then discovering you on his ship, probably when his first mate would rush to him and explain that a very strange women in a strange get-up had just suddenly appeared on the ship.

England would go and investigate and discover you surrounded by his crew, each of them having different responses to your presence and hence causing quite a commotion. He too would find you utterly alien – in your attire, in your mannerisms, even in your speech. But Arthur would be ever the pragmatic and reason that there would have to be another explanation to your appearance, one that doesn’t include miracles. But because he wouldn’t have either the time or the head space to deal with you at the moment, he’d have to thrown in the brig with strict orders to leave you alone. That would also be a way for him to torture you and force you to wallow in your worries and terrors.

The brackish water of the brig had long since made your feet wet, cotton soaks completely soaked through and chilling you. The stench it all emitted, and Arthur’s relentless questioning only further enhanced your discomfort.

He was prowling in front of your cage-like cell, like a tiger in the zoo. Only that he didn’t want to break out, rather that he was being continuously tempted to drag you out of your cell and onto the deck to be flogged for your insolence.

“At every turn you say to me that you’re from the future and that you don’t know how you came here”, he rehearsed the main points of your conversation with him. There had been a snarl on his face the whole time throughout the interrogation, his anger only making his voice curl tightly around the vowels and roll the r’s harder until you had to strain to understand him.

Mutely you nodded – you yourself had come to the conclusion that he understood you better when you kept your words simply, underlay them with gestures and expressions and spoke slowly.

In return, England shook his head and spat: “I do not believe you. Going backwards in time is impossible, it only goes forward.”

In any other situation you would have been inclined to agree with him. But you were living proof that there were glaring exceptions to that rule. Having unexpectedly landed in a long-gone era, you had first found yourself desperately grappling with your new reality. You had pinched yourself and read the letters on crates and barrel and closed your eyes and read them again to see if anything had changed – everything to assure yourself that you were dreaming.

You weren’t, nor had you taken any psychedelics, so this was painfully, gruesomely real. A fact that Arthur wasn’t excepting even with evidence right past the tip of his nose.

“Then how do you explain the ripped sails then? How do you explain my strange clothes?”, you questioned him. Then, after a brief pause, you asked: “How do you explain that I know who and what you are?”

You knowing that he was a personification of a budding Empire was a sore spot for him and made him even more suspicious of you. Something that was now backfiring on you.

He waved your words off with evident irritation and countered: “There are more reasonable explanation for all of that. That you’re a spy from a foreign country for example.”

Arthur would never cease with side-eying you and constantly be on the look-out for more logical explanations for your otherness. He would find them as well. Yet there would always be a little voice in the forefront of his mind nagging him that you are telling the truth and that he was wasting the opportunity of the millennia by blowing your words in the wind.

Those doubts would be the main reason he would keep you alive, along with his quest to extract the “truth” from you. However, there would be times when he would be tempted to fetch those thumbscrews from his quarters to see if you’d crack under pressure. Yet he would still restrain himself.

That wouldn’t mean your stay on his ship would be pleasant. You’d constantly be wet and cold, with rats crawling around the brig and your meals being a near inedible gruel that would be set aside for you.

Therefore, it would be an absolute relief when Spain would swoop in to rescue you. It would be an even greater wonder when he would actually listen to you and take into consideration what you would say.

“Tell me if I’ve got this right: In the future, you don’t send letters anymore that take months to reach another country. Instead, you send messages from small machines which the other person can read only after a few seconds, no matter how far away they are”, Antonio summed up what you had just cautiously explained to him.

You had been so shy when he had taken you aboard his vessel, so afraid he would just maltreat you like Arthur had. It had taken its time for him to convey that he was different from that godless brute, that he was civilized and patient. He wouldn’t disregard miracles and let them slip through his fingers. It had taken its own sweet time to coax you into telling the truth, but now you were sitting across him in his quarters, nodding enthusiastically.

“More or less, yes. There is a lot more to that, but that is the start of it”, you affirmed his words. You were relieved that you finally had somebody to talk to in this time were you previously had nobody. The food being served helped you weigh yourself into safety – fresh fruit and other perishable treats, an absolute luxury onboard a ship with a sizable crew. Indeed, you were becoming so comfortable with your host, your lifeline at this point, that you were betraying things about your future that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

And wasn’t yet about detail concretely concerning him, but you would both get there eventually. Spain was sure of that.

Meanwhile you didn’t notice the hungry gleam in his eyes when he purred: “Fascinating, my dear. What else can these things do?”

Being a Catholic, Antonio would be far more inclined to believe you on the time-traveling thing. He would also add two and two together on your strange clothes and their material, not to mention your different attitudes and behaviours and realise that you would be telling the truth. He would treat you kindly as a way of getting you to talk to him, eventually becoming the only person you could trust.

He would guard you jealously and ensure that you would only speak to him – having knowledge of the future would be a right he would reserve for himself alone. It would also cause him to become obsessed with you, keeping you in his quarters or leading you onto the deck at night for short walk. Of course, he would paint the whole isolating thing as he keeping you safe, saying that Arthur was after you.

The argument with Arthur would have far more validity then Antonio would even imagine. The wisdom that you don’t know what you really have until you lose it would be especially true in his case. It would finally dawn upon him that you were telling the truth the whole time and that would lead Arthur to beat himself up over it. A pursuit to recapture you would ensue.

Not to mention that it would make his blood boil to think that Spain would be courting you, persuading you to tell him everything he could ever want to know about the future. Besides  being a threat to his future existence and ongoing success, England would like to have all that knowledge himself and for himself only. Knowledge is power, after all.

Arthur would also miss you for your wit and endurance, fantasizing and dreaming of you to the point of obsession and never quitting his chase for you.

#yandere spain #yandere england #yandere hetalia x reader #yandere hetalia #x reader

[donniefinnerman]

under the cut, 1.1k i wrote a few months ago of michael and raphael talking before stull

At the edge of a lakeside forest on an island off the coast of Maine, Raphael waits. Before tomorrow, the lake will boil; for now, it laps unceasingly at its rocky shore. Sparse reeds, dimly silhouetted, rise from the water, and from the trees, a chorus of birds heralds the dawn. Of all the places he might choose to wait for the end of the world, Raphael thinks this is the most fitting. Forests, like all his Father’s creations, are full of lessons. They teach that all things have an appointed time to burn.

Lawrence sits nearly two thousand miles away, but even here, Raphael feels its weight like a slope under his vessel’s feet. The city is the drain around which the world spins. Soon it will all be over: Michael and Lucifer will meet on the destined battlefield, and Raphael’s older brother will kill his other older brother, and this godless world, broken beyond repair, will finally end.

Raphael has played his part. His work is done. All that’s left for him to do is wait. 

Without moving -- without having cause to move -- Raphael watches the sunrise. The horizon bleeds red; the sky bruises purple, then blue. For Raphael, this is the first time he’s witnessed a sunrise at this lake, but for his vessel’s eyes, it’s the last of many. Donnie Finnerman’s Sundays all followed the same ritual: he rose long before dawn, drove two hours in darkness, left his well-loved 2003 Subaru Forester at the trailhead, and went into the forest. He didn’t go hiking instead of going to church, he often explained to disapproving relatives. Hiking was his church. Who could stand here at dawn, surrounded by birdsong, and not feel God’s presence?

Raphael realizes, with sudden and sickening clarity, why he really came here. His wings twitch to flee, but he doesn’t. To flee would be to admit guilt, and Raphael can’t admit, not even to himself, that he doubted his Father. 

Michael believes He’s still alive, but Raphael has more faith than that. Their Father loved them too much to abandon them like this: lost, crying out for guidance, desperately clinging to what few plans He left behind. He must be dead, because the alternative—

There is no alternative.

The birds trill. The lake murmurs its susurrus against the shore. Raphael hears these sounds, and only these sounds, and he does not listen for anything hidden beneath them. Minutes tick by, each dragging the world closer to its end.

One moment, Raphael is alone; the next, he senses Michael’s grace five feet behind him, roiling with too many emotions to be named. Raphael doesn’t startle at his brother’s sudden appearance, but a flock of crossbills does, streaming out of the trees in a flurry of chirps and wingbeats. Raphael watches them go. If the flock flies east without stopping, they might live to see paradise.

They fly west.

“Raphael,” says Michael. His crackling grace belies his steady voice. “I can’t let you do this.”

Nonplussed, Raphael turns to face his brother— and his words die in his throat. Michael is wearing the weapon with which he’ll kill Lucifer: a human boy of nineteen years, pale and light-haired. The hands that will kill Lucifer hang at his sides, fingers twitching as though fighting the impulse to form fists. Lucifer will die at those hands. Lucifer will die. Raphael has carried the weight of that knowledge since his fallen brother was caged, but now it feels more real, more heavy, than ever before.

The boy is named for Adam, but his role is Cain’s. Sibling against sibling: the oldest story the universe knows.

“I’ll drag you back to Heaven myself if I have to,” Michael continues, after Raphael fails to speak.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. What am I supposedly doing?”

Michael’s expression darkens, unamused. He closes the distance between them in three sharp strides, balls the front of Raphael’s shirt in his fist, and says, “I know why you’re here.”

Raphael is too bewildered to try to pull away. He looks at his brother, at a face contorted with anger and fear— and the fear gives him pause. Michael is the oldest and most powerful warrior in the universe, but whatever he thinks Raphael is doing, it scares him.

In seven hours, the first shockwave of the battle to end battles will turn the western hemisphere to ash. Only Michael and Lucifer will be able to survive it.

Understanding comes, and brings exhaustion with it. Raphael can’t remember feeling more tired than he does now. “I came here to wait, Michael. Not to die.” He shouldn’t have to say it. For five millennia, he and Michael have held together Heaven with fraying thread, the last two archangels in the Host; for five millennia, Raphael has been the one who stayed. And still, after all this time, Michael expects Raphael to abandon him like Lucifer and Gabriel and Father. The lack of faith stings.

Michael’s grip slackens. “You disappeared after Lucifer took Sam Winchester.”

“I didn’t disappear,” snaps Raphael. “If I was trying to hide from you, you wouldn’t have found me.”

The second it leaves his mouth, he regrets it. Gabriel’s death is an open wound in both of them, raw and bleeding, and the words are citrus and salt. Michael staggers back, dropping Raphael’s shirt. Somewhere in the distance, a tree cracks open, rent down the middle. Raphael doesn’t know which of them is responsible.

They haven’t spoken about it since it happened: the first time they felt another archangel’s grace shatter and detonate and die. In the terrible silence between aftershocks, Michael only said, He should have trusted Father’s plan. Killing Lucifer wasn’t his destiny. But Raphael knows his brother; knows him better, by now, than even Lucifer ever did. Michael blames himself for letting Gabriel run off, and he blames himself for failing, for five millennia, to bring Gabriel home.

(Michael wasn’t Gabriel’s only older brother. Raphael blames himself, too.)

Nearby, a large rock juts halfway into the lake; with a flap of his wings, Raphael takes a seat on it, leaving enough space to his left for Michael to join him. A moment later, Michael does.

“I didn’t disappear,” repeats Raphael, looking out at the water. “I won’t disappear.”

“I know,” lies Michael.

Nearly two thousand miles away, the first light of the last dawn touches Lawrence, and the morning star fades from the sky.

[love-jesus-but-i-drink-a-little]

The Haunting of Bly Manor (Dani x Jamie) fanfiction (ao3):

Tell It To Me Singing - Five pictures of a perfectly strange life

God Knows How She’ll Survive The Gush Of You (Spilling And Spilling From The Basin Of Your Hips Like Warm Bathwater) - Dani and Jamie's second time. Basically, an excuse to write a smutty little fic

Beneath Your Skin (Inside Everything That Glows) - Jamie meets a blonde au pair at the dinner table and is destined to fall in love

Let Me Stay Tender Hearted (Despite Despite Despite) - A 20k one shot of sweet, sad, and comfortable moments in between scenes

Another Day Spent Slipping Away From You - A smutty short one-shot about wondering hands and eager mouths

Oh My Soul Let Me Be In Your Now (Look Out Through My Eyes Look Out At The Things You Made) All Things Shining - Post Dani's death. grief & healing

Singing Praise To One Pair Of Hands - Basically, a super gay short one-shot about Jamie's hands

I dreamed Of Understanding The Sky (Or Touching Your Skin Somewhere Beyond The Bit Of Darkness) - Dani and Jamie just want a moment in which they are not interrupted, when they can sink into each other for the first time in weeks

I Don't Know About The Lake (But Every Time You Say My Name You Make Ripples In Me) -  A three-part piece in which Dani Clayton is something uniquely designed for Jamie to crave and love and cherish, and Jamie is the home Dani's been always searching for.

Fear Feels Like This (A Clenched Fist Where Yyour Throat Used To Be) -  Sometimes, the only way to coax Dani out of deep dark misery of fear and loneliness and dense scary jungle is with soft kisses and determined hands and idle fingers ready to ground her back to earth. Jamie knows how to do it. Every. Single. Time.

She Pins You To Doors, Not A Goddess Anymore (She Still Looks Like Religion. She Kisses You Godless) - A Tumblr prompt from a sweet anon: "I give you a prompt: Damie and snow :) And if you have other fics where snow is involved please can you share them?"

Fire Under Feet Hot Blood In Your Belly (It’s Not Something You Ever Thought Of Doing) - A vague attempt at plot more like an excuse to indulge in Damie's smut with added cheekiness, because they are idiots in love

Who Were You Before They Touched You (Pressed You Into The Quiet Concave Of The Earth) - A vague attempt at plot more like an excuse to indulge in Damie's smut with added angst, because they were scared before they were happy

Come Here (Let Me Love Those Bruises Out Of You) - A vague attempt at plot more like an excuse to indulge in Damie's smut with added feelings

Was This The Face That Launched A Thousand Ships (And Burnt The Topless Towers Of Ilium)? - A vague attempt at plot more like an excuse to indulge in Damie's domestic smut with added fluff

Today I Love You Like Salt - Five times Dani learns something about Jamie and five times they heal through touching

I Don't Know About The Lake (But Every Time You Say My Name You Make Ripples In Me) - A three-part piece in which Dani Clayton is something uniquely designed for Jamie to crave and love and cherish, and Jamie is the home Dani's been always searching for

You Moan Gospels Around Her Fingers (Between Your Teeth) - (6/6) Five times Dani and Jamie could have slept together and one time they actually did

You Demand The Labour Of Love (For The Same Reason The World Made Wheat But Not Bread) - Jamie wants to know about Dani's past, so Dani tells her. A small one shot about best friends, secret desires and accidental kisses that make Jamie slightly jealous

You Dream In Pink (And Wake Up With Fairytales Caught On Your Tongue) - A long one-shot in which Jamie is trying to figure Dani out, Owen and Hannah are soft and Dani is a soft nervous wreck

You Wake (Aching How You've Longed For Touch For So Much Of Your Bodied Time) - A small one-shot of anxious but lovely life and a glimpse of Viola's own awakening

It's Only Water It's Only Fire It's Only (love It's Only Slaughter We're Only Liars, It's Only Blood) - Small moments of hurt and slaughter and pain, but also of love and of kisses and of a life well spent

A Knife Making Love To A Wound (The Sweet Scrape Of A Match Lighting The Lamp Of Her Mouth) - If Dani and Jamie had a chance of a miracle, they'd do it all the same

The Last of Us Part II (Ellie x Dina) fanfiction (ao3):

A World Made Of Numbers (Echoes Of Light Shining Out Of The Midst Of Nothing) - A long one-shot about Ellie's time in Jackson. It's very poetic and comfortable and they play like children, without the pain

Crashing Waves On An Empty Beach (Two Drowning Lovers Lost At Sea) - Ellie is not alone

I Love Your Rough Edges And Soft Parts That Bleed (I Choose Solitude Over Cold Kisses) - Ellie goes back to Jackson and Dina is too happy not to take her back. Also, there is shower sex

Under Her Touch (All Of Me Shudders) - (unfinished) Five times Ellie and Dina had to run for their lives + one time they didn't

Because Nothing Makes Me Happier (And Nothing Makes Me Sadder) Than You - Dina's POV on small events leading to the main story

You Deserve A Dark Haired Lover With Soft Eyes And A Heart Full Of Love - Ellie and Dina meet again

You Are My stubborn compass (Always Pointing Me Back Home) - Sex in abandoned apartments, cute apocalypse girlfriends, and some violence

I Am Always A Stomach Full Of Teeth And Need (It Is Greedy And Hungry And Today I Taste Like Wine) - Ellie can't look herself in the eyes but she can't stop looking at Dina. She can't stop kissing and touching her either

The Leather And The Lace Of You (Your Flushed Cheeks & What Set Them Ablaze) - Ellie is angry and Dina is the only one who knows how to calm her down

What Is Stronger Than The Human Heart Which Shatters Over And Over And Still Lives - Ellie and Dina are stupidly in love, picking a name for a baby is hard and Ellie is a gentle dumbass

A Cathedal Of Light And Your Eyes An Open Pasture Of Colour - Ellie and Dina are in love. There is also bonfires and guitars and quiet songs and passionate sex

I Wrote My Own Story And Still Said All The Wrong Things (All The Shouting I Did About Your Mouth) - A story about big cities and small girls and broken bones and soft kisses

I Hope One Day Somebody Loves You So Much That They Do Not Waste Their Time Trying To Fix You - Five times Ellie asks Dina to tell her a story + one time she doesn't

Sore Muscles Have Always Been A Sign Of Growth (My Heart Looks Like A Bruise And I Almost Don’t Mind) - Ellie and Dina are incredibly horny and it's hard to focus on anything that isn't each other

I'm In Love With My Anger My War-Won Body Tense And Vicious - Some in-between moments, some first meetings, some mutual pining

Maybe Home Is Somewhere I’m Going And Never Have Been Before - Ellie has one destiny and it's Dina, and she's too blinded by revenge to see it

#fanfiction #archive of our own #ao3 #master post #fanfiction masterlist #the haunting of bly manor fanfic #the haunting of bly manor #thobm #damie #dani x jamie #the last of us #the last of us part 2 #the last of us fanfiction #dellie #ellie x dina #tlou #tlou 2 #portrait of a lady on fire #portrait de la jeune fille en feu #portrait nation #portrait of a lady on fire fanfiction #marianne x heloise #poalof

[crow-crowson]

Canary Glow. ❜

Summary:  Gods are not constant.  Like most, they have a beginning  -  even if not an end.

Chapter: 1.

Chapter trigger warnings:  N/A

Author’s notes:  This is set in a fictional world that I created myself, featuring just a handful of my own cast!  This is just one story I plan to make with these characters, as I figured the best place to start in any narrative is the beginning.  This novel will delve into the creation of Huron as we know it today.

      “What in the blazes is that?!”

    Wide green eyes followed the burning arc in the sky intensely, watching its fluorescent trail shimmer as it rocketed towards the ground;  neon yellow, crackling like electricity, and showing no signs of slowing down.

    The speed of that thing…  it’s incomprehensible!  It looks like it’s going to crash!

    Aldierno watched as his surroundings lit up, a fierce sheen of gold spreading across the treetops as the comet continued to fall.  In a display of primitive fear, the man flung himself onto the ground, arms shielding his head, his face buried into the dirt as he braced for its impact.  It was far too late to run away...  impossible, really, with how close it was.

    The sound of it hitting the ground was unlike anything he’d ever heard--  a crash of thunder so loud that his hands abandoned his head in favour of his ears.  Even then, the noise shook his brain, rattled thoughts around like loose change, and the searing light that followed like a shockwave had his eyes screwing shut, his face pressed tightly into the mud.

    Please, please just let me die quickly.     Whatever this thing is, let it kill me in a single moment.

    Time crawled by like a snail, his body on fire with the knowledge that he would soon be engulfed by pain.

                                                              But it never came.

    After what felt like a lifetime, Aldierno raised his head and squinted.  The woodland was dark once more, an eerie silence smothering him like a quilt.  What just happened?  What did I see? What was that?

    His questions were rewarded with a sudden beam of light shooting high into the sky, breaking the clouds and vanishing into the abyssal black above him.  It was hard to look at, blinding even, but he persisted in trying--  in trying to make sense of anything that he’d witnessed thus far.

    When his world dimmed once more, Aldierno found it in him to stand up.  Aside from mild disorientation and a fiercely fast heartbeat, he had left the situation unscathed.  Knees knocked as he straightened up, heightened senses latching onto anything they could.  The whistling wind;  the breeze weaving through the trees;  the dull scratch of dirt beneath his bare feet.

    He only realised he’d taken a step forward when he found himself closer to the treeline than before.

    What are you doing?  Turn around.  Go back to the house, where it’s safe.

    … but the uncertainty of what had transpired was tantalising.  Perhaps it was the rush of bravado one experienced after surviving something fearsome, or the curiosity that was allegedly responsible for the death of so many cats, but he felt intrigued-- no, compelled--  to press on.

    “To hell with it,”   he muttered through clenched teeth, stalking into the undergrowth before he had the chance to change his mind.  He couldn’t explain it, that cloying need to go forward, but it raged in his head like a war cry.  It saw him filing through the thicket, braving the sharp bite of brambles and the pervasive scratch of nettles without a single complaint.  Even so, the deeper into the dark he went, the more foolish he began to feel.

    And then light.

    Dim, at first.  A pale yellow in the distance, like the very first rays of morn, before it opened up into a pool of liquid sunshine.  As he emerged into a clearing, Aldeirno found his gaze falling to the ground, gaze snagged by an unfamiliar crackle.  It was teeming with some sort of current, grass combed over, frayed ends burnt and fizzling.  Slowly, he inched a toe towards the lip of the undergrowth--  then quickly recoiled when he received a sharp static shock.

    How is that possible?  Grass burns.  I use it in fires all the time.

    A murky shape in the near distance caught his attention.  It looked weathered and strange, composed of old rock and something all too cosmic.  It was simultaneously shimmery and plain, and through a crack did Aldeirno think he saw something molten.  It oozed like lava, its canary glow both beautiful and foreboding.

    Caught between a rock and a hard place, he hovered at the entrance to the clearing for several minutes.  Every so often, he stuck his foot out, then retracted it once more, not keen on the idea of getting shocked again.

    You’re never going to find out what the hell that thing is if you don’t press on.     Maybe I don’t need to know.     Really?

    It should have been no surprise to him that he found himself darting across the clearing without much regard for his sense.  A dozen sharp static shocks wrangled the soles of his feet, his teeth grit as he skidded to a halt in front of the strange stone, surprised by how quickly he’d grown a tolerance to the current.  It was a force of nature, of that he was certain, but it seemed residual at most.  If it wasn’t, I’d absolutely have been fried.  He dropped to his knees, eyes all but bulbous as he raised a trembling hand to touch the foreign mass in front of him.

    It fell apart before he could.

    Like an egg after a bird had emerged from it, its granite walls crumbled to the ground, forming a small pile of rubble beside what could only be described as a ball of light.  Aldierno tilted his head, persistent in trying to grasp exactly what he was seeing.

    There was something dark swimming in the centre of the golden glow;  a nondescript shape that seemed suspended by invisible string.  Slowly, it began to unfurl, and from the light did Aldierno witness a body come into view.  Then arms, then legs, slowly followed by a vague head shape.  The thing was tiny, an inky black blot on a white sheet, and only when two pinprick lights appeared on what he could only assume was its face did the man think to fall back.

    He landed gracelessly on his rear, the corners of his vision swimming.

    “Wh-What are you?!”   he exclaimed, voice wobbling meekly, as if it was going to break at any moment.  He was numb to the current, heart pounding in his chest as he witnessed the shape flicker like static.

    Then, akin to a phoenix, it rose.

    He watched the indiscernible mass float upwards, limbs fanning weightlessly outwards.  It slowly morphed into a more determined shape, its limbs like fine pencil streaks, two tall ears sprouting atop its round head, before it expelled a final pulse of light.  As the energy faded, Aldeirno’s surroundings began to dim once more--  and then the body fell.  The mysterious creature hit the ground with a resounding thup, its still mass resembling a ragdoll that had been hurriedly discarded by a rambunctious child.

    What is this thing…?   Aldierno asked himself as he inched his way closer.  He could taste his pulse, feel it flickering across his tongue like lightning--  and the effect only worsened as he lowered himself to a squat, his tall, lanky frame dwarfing his unknown visitor in moments.  Despite their clear difference in size, the man felt tiny in its presence.  There was something about it that radiated power, power he’d had yet to witness with his own eyes.

    Gingerly, he nudged the body with the very tips of his toes.   “Hello…?”

    But it was no use.  His persistence, though valiant, elicited no response.

     The longer he stared, the deeper the strange thought sank into him.  He felt it first in his mind, then in his soul--  a streak of nonsense so woefully insane that he came to fear it:  I need to take it with me.  He couldn’t describe the desire unfurling in his brain like a bad omen;  the desire to pick the thing up and take it back home, nurse it back to health somehow.  It wasn’t as if he knew much about playing nurse, nor did he feel he was overly altruistic as a person.  Though he would have liked to exercise his good will from time to time, the simple fact was that his land was Godless.  It didn’t pay well to appear weak.

    But this poor thing…  it looks so small, and so defenceless, and it’ll probably get eaten if I leave it alone.

    Your self-preservation is piss-poor.  How have you lasted this long?

    “... damn it,”   he muttered, scooping the creature up and drawing it close to his chest. Though it was unconscious, he felt a strong surge of life spilling from it.  The longer he held it, the deeper the pit of dread in his stomach felt--  as if he’d touched something forbidden, opened his mind to a knowledge that should remain unknown.

    He clung to it regardless.

#writing #short story #original characters #writers on tumblr #fantasy #friendship #hurt/comfort #online novel #raku; #aldierno; #canary glow; #oc novel #fandomless oc story

[team-council]

Title: It’s never getting titled

TW: Character Death, Lightly Grotesque descriptions of wounds, Possible Scuicidle Implications (I didn’t really mean to imply it like that, but I realize it can be read that way and will tag to be safe)

Description: Takes place directly after the council manages to quell the everblaze from book three. Bronte takes some healing salve to Oralie for her shoulder and reflects on Kenric’s death.

Notes: I would scincerely like to thank anyone who bullied me. I haven’t finished a fic in literally ever, meant a lot. This monstrosity is also not proofread and I am sleep deprived so I’m sure it’s absolute garbage near the end but just ignore that. Might clean it up and put it on ao3 later who knows.

An angry grey sky wept dry shudders of ash over each of the miserable, bowed figures that stumbled across the rolling fields stretching beyond and between the crystalline castles scattering Eternalia’s fading outline. The sun was nothing but a sunken stain on the sky, feathery gold light turned a sick shade of pewter as rising smoke choked the warmth from what of it still lingered beyond the horizon. The neon glare of Everblaze could no longer be seen melting crystal and dragging harsh lines of terror down the face of the distant city, but the air still smelled like burning sugar and dizzying sweetness.

With every ragged breath Bronte drew the saccharine sting of the now extinguished fire coated his tongue anew and prompted another fit of coughing to wrack his body. Though the soot that caked his face in thick, dark splotches had long dried his eyes, the muted sting of fresh burns sweltering along his cheeks and arms coaxed tears to blur his staggering vision. He’d long abandoned attempting anything resembling a graceful stride forward, allowing his feet to stumble over each other with every messy attempt he made to not hit the earth. Ignoring the trembling in his knees. Praying mutely that they might give way beneath him. That he might fall and never get have to get up. A fantasy of melding into the cool grass enticed his mind from the fervent protesting of his aching muscles. He imagined idly how the paled blades would curl at the corners of his mouth, cradle his hands and still the weary tremors that weighted his chest. Dazed, he was unable to keep from fancying what it would be to shatter into the dirt. To become ethereal and unknown, sunken beneath a tangled weaving of root where there would be naught to do but unlearn the world. To divorce sorrow and grief. To let the burdens of the many long centuries he’d endured go in passive dismissal.

His thoughts were interrupted as his foot caught the edge of something tough, and when at last he fell it was only to be met with the glassy, calloused embrace of faceted crystal. A dim, concerned muttering of multiple shrill voices hovered above his head, but as the councillor drew to his knees he found in clarity only the gaunt, drawn man staring back at him through the fuzz of a soot-drowned Amaranth stairway. Reminding him. Mocking him. To disappear was not a mercy he deserved.

“Councillor,”

Bronte was forced to respond when the stairs beneath his legs fell away from him, a large pair of hands having drug him up by the shoulders. Well, respond might have been a gracious word for the half-conscious grunt he managed to the goblin bearing his weight in their palms, his eyes not bothering to search the face of the guard, to know whether or not they held his weakness in contempt or pity. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t fathom caring. All that mattered was that there was no attempt to stop him from dragging his reluctant body up the steps, that no hand batted his away from the knob of the door, that the scanner reading the intricacies of his palm managed to make sense of his identity despite how fresh burns and ash might’ve tried and scrub it away. There was no triumph in the silent, inward sliding of the towering doors, no pleasant rush as frigid, bitter air swept the welts tapering down from his forehead. He hardly found himself capable of much but standing at the brink of the darkness that spilled forward into the until living room at his feet.

Lavish furniture sat steeped in shadows deep enough to sink under, curtains drawn to block the pitiful laces of grey-yellow light that might have struggled through had they been parted. Bronte’s own silhouette was absorbed effortlessly into the black, his whole body soon after as he mindlessly stepped forward, doors clicking shut at his back with an echo of finality.

The world was void of sound until the shake of a fragile breath bit the quiet in faint retaliation. Bronte followed the quivering whimper around the barest, ebon outline of a table, managing to discern only a tenebrous jumble of shapes wrapped up in the stifle of self imposed twilight. Whatever discomfort he might have felt at the still sightlessness, it was welcomed compared to the snap that brought light back into the chamber, cutting through the veil of blissful ignorance that had pardoned any necessity to look upon what it had charitably concealed. However selfish it might have seemed, for the smallest instant Bronte thought of turning the lights off again,

“Sit up,”

It felt wrong to speak- especially ask anything of Oralie. Her ringlets- dull and stringy- pulled down in thick tangled over her face as she rigidly drug her back up the arm of the lovesteat she’d curled into, blankets falling limp onto the floor with a meek thud. Bronte simply knelt atop them, his fingers trailing the pockets of his clock for the smooth outline of a familiar metallic tin. Oralie made no sound of pain or acknowledgement as he pulled down the sleeve of her shirt, revealing a thickly wound bandage fastened over her shoulder. The white color had turned yellow, and as the kneeling figure peeled back each layer the room- what of it he could smell above the saturated, sugary smoke bathing his clothes- began to scent of balms and puss, a littering of welts and shrunken skin having festered beneath the dressings. The case in his hands came open with yet another sound Bronte found himself too far away to register, his fingers diving numbly into the salve inside,

“It’s my fault,”

Came a sound like the shifting of a fault line. Bronte traced his fingers over the rim of the burn,

“I couldn’t do anything but watch,”

Cracking like stained glass. Bronte smoothed his thumb across a patch of withered, pink flesh,

“H-he moved so quick,”

He had been avoiding her eyes, her face. And still he found himself caught in both. Her soft features hollowed. Her warm eyes gutted, occupied only by vacancy. Ghosts of the nots. Of the would never bes,

“And I- I jus-just-“

And her anguish came again with vengeance. Came with strength she did not have to spare for tears she did not have to shed. How dare she think she had wept enough. How dare she think she couldn’t hurt any longer. With a long, godless wail it came back to her in waves, thin fingers gripping his shoulders as she curled forward, her whole frame shaking with the labor of forcing from her throat a cry like cracking ice. What little tears she could manage soaked through his cloak,

“And I j-us did no-nothing! I di-didn’t do anything! I jus-just le-let him go! I le-let him d-“

She had been doomed to fail the sentence from the very start, her broken declarations falling to senseless sobs and howls of pain as she rocked her forehead into his shoulder, re-adjusting her grip at his arms every so often as if letting go might send her physically spiraling into whatever pit of grief pulled at her mind, down somewhere she couldn’t be followed,

“It’s not your fault,”

Again. It felt wrong to tell her anything with certainty, even the truth,

“It’s not your fault,”

It came stronger this time. Still a whisper in her ear, but less like a mist and more like a fog,

“It’s not your fault,”

That’s right. It wasn’t her fault. It was his,

“You couldn’t have known,”

But he had.

“There wasn’t a way you could’ve known,”

He’d known everything. That the healing was dangerous. That he should’ve gone with them.

“You did everything right...”

It was his fault that they hadn’t listened,

“I promise,”

That Kenric hadn’t listened,

“You were everything he needed you to be,”

Why should he have? He had been impatient. Stubborn. Cruel. /Weak/.

“You’ve been so strong,”

For the past three years his judgement had been ruled by fear. Fear of a little girl,

“And so brave,”

And hatred. Hatred of species who’s betrayal’d dawned the advent of millenniums lifetimes ago,

“This could never have been your fault,”

Kenric was dead,

“It will never be your fault,”

Because he hadn’t been stronger,

“No matter what you might think,”

Because he hadn’t been wiser,

“Kenric wouldn’t want you to think that,”

Because he hadn’t been kinder.

“Ever,”

Her wailing had only gotten softer, grip having loosened the slightest bit. He couldn’t tell if anything he’d said had reached her or not. Had he even been speaking aloud to begin with? Had he even been loud enough for it to matter? He had to hope so. Their ilk was not meant to die, and thus not meant to grieve death. To mourn in earnest was not theirs. It never was. He knew too well how easily it would be for her to break beneath the weight of it. He could already feel himself webbing with cracks,

“I-I....”

She couldn’t protest beyond a dry heave, her shoulders raised for what felt like ever in a deep wrenching motion as Bronte clasped the fresh bandages over her newly dressed wounds. In the end, she merely fell into him, grabbing his shirt. His arms. His cloak. Anything she could to prove to herself she was still there with him. Every new hold she had on him felt like another clutch of guilt bearing at his knotted stomach. The morphine drip of shell shock had begun to fade and chip away. Clawed to pieces by the daggers of sharp mourning that broke his haze with every whimper Oralie managed into his shoulder. He knew even in the pathetic state he was in he couldn’t outrun his guilt forever. But he’d been hoping that he might for a bit longer. Selfish as it was,

“Oralie...”

He whispered after a moment. And was met with quiet. Quiet and trembling breaths. She’d become heavy against him, her grip gone slack, eyes finally falling to tearless rest. Good. He hadn’t been sure what he was going to say anyways. The lights echoed out again with another dry snapping sound and Bronte stood from the thicket of blankets at his ankles, propping Oralie’s head on a pillow before draping her in covers again, still hoping- desperately and undeservedly- that she had believed him.

He paced the length between his and Oralie’s office with more grace this time, aware now of what the lull to fall and fade and become nothing but memory was in truth.

Not escape from sorrow or grief, but from consequence.

Consequence for the person he’d become. For that he’d done to others... There would be no reckoning with Councillor Kenric. He was dead. No apologies or tears- though he would certainly be giving both in abundance regardless- would change that.

But Oralie wasn’t dead.

The rest of the council wasn’t dead.

Sophie wasn’t dead.

He wasn’t dead.

And to that end there were still plenty of consequences to face.

#TW #TW Suicidal thoughts #TW gore #TW death #keeper of the lost cities #angst fic #kotlc council #councillor bronte #councillor Oralie #councillor kenric #so much angst #no beta we die like Kenric

[anemotos]

[ x - accepting / @asterites​ ]  ❝ i wonder, if you do the right thing, does it really make everyone happy? ❞ // pre-estrangement ?

     Upon the sweetest of whispers did the wind pass through the leaves. The sun, it bathed the land in its warm embrace - glistening upon the snow strewn earth who reflected it in kind. The birds, they sang. Foxes chirped and yipped in symphony with the melodious breeze. T'was the image of perfect tranquility… yet even it could not withstand the weight of the question posed. The sheer gravity of such musings, a thought Barbatos knew to be no idle wonderance.

     Strings strummed dolce came to a halt, nimble fingers poised above the windborne lyre as once closed lashes lifted to gaze upon the archon at his side. Regality in human form, a maiden of frost and love whose people she adored, and adored her in turn. Whose heart shown through with blinding sincerity, even beneath the pensive mask she wore. ( Dear sister of mine, where oh where is your head this fair eve? )

     Swift, were reassurances to bound to the forefront of his consciousness. Inspiring platitudes and boundless support... that held only as much comfort as could be expected of a glass of water thrown against a raging wildfire ( the inferno of a troubled mind. ) The like of which could soothe the heart, yet was but a temporary salve for a weary soul.

     Downcast eyes found the instrument betwixt idle hands, as one note was plucked, two. A mindless action, from he whose thoughts lay elsewhere. For the truth she sought existed in shades of gray, not black, not white. Not yes or no, however simple it would be to lie say as such. However easy.

     " Once upon a time, I wondered the same... " Slow, was the admittance. The lyre strummed, a wistful hum adrift alongside a soft exhale. " I once looked at Mondstadt, and saw only a nation that deserved to be free. For the winds that shrouded them from the world to be redirected - to be blown open, and guide them towards a brighter tomorrow... But the future I saw, it was not a vision shared by everyone. "

     Another note rose to join the somber tune. Beneath the poor facsimile of a smile, beneath eyes that saw not the strings but echoes of ages long since past - of decisions still questioned to this very day. " There are those that, rather than freedom, see abandonment. A godless land; weak, disgraceful - to be pitied like an orphan begging for scraps. Those who'd rather the order of a god and the - “ tyranny it risked, but the bitter words did not make it past the tip of his tongue. “ The authority it would bring. Who seek the uniformity of the known, where life has clear sense and purpose, rather than the unknown - a future of their own making. " His head, it shook. A sigh on the precipice of release, but one that had yet to break free. " Even without me there, there are some like the church who have created testaments of my will, many of which have never came from my lips. Yet these false commandments bring them a sense of peace all the same. " Facets that drew the god’s concern, for the shackles - the restrictions, the sorrow - such holy guidance tempted. No matter the happiness he saw on their faces, no matter the praise that bellied otherwise. Alas…

     " Alas, where some cry displeasure, others respond in jovial cheer. Who, like me, believe the wind should not be a storm whisking one off their feet to a future of which they have no say in, but a gentle guide, an opportunity to be taken or left behind. " For Mondstadt was free, and thus free to make their own choices, even those that he did not abide himself. " Not everyone agrees with what I've done. Infact, the second I step outside of Mondstadt all I hear is criticism this, criticism that. But I like to think I've made more happy than I have not. And, really, what more could I ask for? " A smile lifted one corner of his lips, a small little thing. ( Hopeful, even when the deed had long since been done. ) " I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat… but I have learned that the world is not as black and white as it appears. You can't please everyone… but in your heart, you will know what is right. "

     With that said…

     Der Himmel dispersed with the wind which had created it, anemo particles left to fly akin to dandelions seeds in the sky. All the while its performer rose from the stone that had been their seat. To turn and face his friend - nay, his sibling in all but blood. With a beaming visage; warm enough to melt even the coldest frost, yet gentle as the breeze. He laid a hand upon her shoulder, a minute gesture of comfort, but one all the same. " My dear, I won't claim to know why it is you ask, but I will say that wherever your decisions take you, I will be by your side, no matter the tempests you face - or would a blizzard be more fitting here? “ He winked. “ You could never displease your big brother, after all... “

     A pause.

     “ Well, " oh, how the corners of his smile twitched. Where once was heartfelt sincerity, did the tell-tale glimmer of mischief now dwell. " Except for that one time you froze my lyre. Oh, or when you totally ripped off my outfit. " ( And had the audacity to make it better than his own. For shame. ) And yet. The sound of a giggle followed suit, though the gleam in his eyes did soften. " But, I mean it. I'm here for you, if you need to talk. You need not but ask. "

#╰ ✧ ･ ❝ let’s follow the wind #shall we? ( IC ) #asterites #( me: pre estrangement can't hurt us #also me: /sOBBING/ )

[atrayo]

Jewels of Truth Statements and Favorite Quotes of the Month of November

Hello All,

I hope those of you in the States had a safe and pleasant Thanksgiving Holiday. I haven't posted so much due to some holiday blues. This is the 1st holiday season I'm spending alone. Otherwise, my mother which I'm a caregiver from a distance for the past 9 months. She will be shortly transferred to a long-term skilled nursing facility (SNF) versus her current memory care assisted living facility. (ALF). Due to her deteriorating health conditions overall, thus the holiday blues in part.

Aside from this human drama, I'm still channeling the angels just not as frequently as before. It's always been in cycles of periods of heavy-duty inspirational automatic writing and then periods I enter the doldrums over these 25+ years. Perhaps it's their way to keep me frosty without burning me out throughout the year.

Today's trio of angelic channeled "Jewels of Truth" statements are on the topics of Worship, Humanity Creates God Fulfills, and Divination & Magicks. I've always have channeled as a universal all-inclusive compassionate faith perspective. As if God has no favorite form of spiritual tradition or religion since it is all him in various flavors. Thus I can easily touch briefly on a statement that has Christianity, Hinduism, and Paganism all in one like a melting pot of the glorified heavens eternal.

May you find today's statements intriguing even though they may challenge you spiritually. Which is a good thing for it expands your inventory of possibilities of the Great Mystery of God in earnest. Amen.

Worship:

2989) To the heart that believes and dares to know in impossible realities through God(dess). You shall never be truly alone in the starry heavens of your galaxy and beyond into your cosmos. You are an intrepid knower on the soul level of what is miraculous is very much real to the divine essence of the Creator.

Theology or not, dogma and rhetoric can not withstand the pure heart of an earnest worshipper of the Constant Soul of God(dess). To draw conclusions that sit beyond the safe parameters of the known. No matter if clergy can quantify it or not by cultural faiths and norms. Yours is the conviction of things hoped for but rarely acknowledged as seen and much less heard as common or otherwise as to the wider scope of the metaphysical endless realities.

Here stands the giant of audacity and the trivial fool not willing to take a positive stand with realized merit in action and internal poise of character. Only the driven with an Imagined knowing can seize the powerful and the sacrosanct to behold the Mysticism of an Almighty Living God. Amen.  ---Ivan Pozo-Illas / Atrayo.

Humanity Creates, God Fulfills:

2985) To the seeker who realizes many absurd things of his/her own native humanistic reality as skewed. Must acknowledge the differences that exist as a spectrum of potentialities some of which come into unbalanced fruition.

The Divine spiritual and religious traditions globally has been an attempt by humanity to transcend its mundane limitations. Now the Science experiment has replaced the ideations of the gods as angels and/or a Creator spiritually as God in part. It is merely one philosophical doctrine replacing another by evolutionary tendencies that are wholly natural by the arc of the eons of mortal existence.

The Universe is both seeped in the Divine regardless of Xyz of a particular faith tradition. It is also godless without spirituality as each entity as a childlike creation of a cryptic Maker has the liberty to choose within this Great Mystery. To this effect, the point of origin of existence is a paradox of godly/angelic design. It is subjective and objective simultaneously of your very mundane human finite lifetimes.

Each of you are vehicles as projections of the Infinite nature of the Universe extraordinarily so. This Universe is God-centric and it is not. The Universe of immense populated souls times infinite comprehension is just another stratum of higher echelon interpretation of the one Supreme Soul of God(dess). This Universe physical or otherwise metaphysical is just another incarnation of a spirit entity as a child of God. Much like your planet of the earth is Mother Earth as a spiritual sister to the singular Soul of God(dess). Which all life shares as its own rightful incarnation at a greater scale of life is Mother Earth and Father Sky than one mortal lifetime as people are predisposed as lifeforms to date. The Universe is only a subset of the Created children of a Majestic Deity which includes the astral multi-verse of the afterlife. (ie the heavens, limbos, and despicable hells)

Every philosophy dependent on like-kind is an expression trying to grapple with the meaning and function of existence at large. Humanity upon antiquity and before recorded history has always aimed its divinity to the stars of the cosmos. This is aside from the animism of the spiritual glory of the gods as angels found upon the myriad creatures of this earth. With limitless abandon of the afterlife has humanity with Imagination projected its Will of Mankind outwards.

In so far of this projection of the human condition wrapped around the enigma of the divine auspices of the soul of Life itself. Humanity created in its own flawed Image and Likeness to this very era. Be it philosophies as religions, spiritual traditions, the branches of the sciences, and so forth. It is natural and a noble enterprise for any semi-sentient species to attempt in order to embark on realizing its very limitless nature of God in them collectively.

Humanity upon antiquity created Pantheons of lesser deities not unlike the traditions of the human saints as patrons. Where every patron under the proverbial sky is a governor of a certain aspect of your reality in earnest. Be it of the human condition and/or of meteorological wonders and other meta forms of existence as its very misunderstood conundrums. Some succeed in piercing the veils of the astral metaverse of the spiritual continuum of what you term as the supernatural afterlife.

Meaning the afterlife is the angelic playground of the gods and goddesses as the lesser deities of all combined macro-mythologies across all realities simultaneously extraordinaire. Some worshippers of the angels (ie lesser deities) of now mostly dead religions as schools of thought that later became philosophical doctrines of various orders of a similar kind. Whereas the instance of the School of Diana (Artemis) as the ancient Greco-roman goddess. Is an angelic presence of the heavenly Olympus as the astral Kingdom of God in a metaverse all of its own divine nature.

You see where the children of God worship anything whatsoever as real or unreal all that raw spiritual power dynamo of the Soul of God for centuries has to go somewhere. Thus it becomes enchanted by magical or otherwise divine means under the Will of God mysterious as it stands. All myths and Legends are treated as reality upon the spiritual afterlife regardless if it was real or not on Earth and beyond. Anything that a semi-sentient species like humanity upon the cosmos worship through the Meta-Supreme Almighty Soul of God(dess). Becomes christened as a divine keepsake eternal entity given a spirit body as a zeitgeist of its era or society of its subsequent civilization(s) that birthed it philosophically.

Moreover, anything with sufficient reverence as adorations by humanity en masse. Becomes deified by the Will of God(dess) as the Great Mystery Loves to Create Wonders through its Children Forever as Divine Immaculate Law. A perpetual grandiose cause and effect conundrum on a scale that dwarfs comprehension. Of our combined spiritual understandings as mortals having a finite existence as people much less realized as eternal souls.

This is truly a thing of beauty as an unintended consequence of spirituality with timeless repercussions. God enchants through all of its/his/her Infinite Children as spiritual bodies in motion in any reality whatsoever that it is pleased. Humanity is no exception to this rule of cosmic divinity. So the angelic goddess entity of "Artemis/Diana" is man-made fictitious lore of a now-dead religious theological Hellenistic period of humanity. Albeit paradoxically she was born with her twin brother Helios/Apollo god of an angel by the metaphysics explained above. She isn't immortal stalking the earth as the huntress. She is a christened angel a lesser deity as a spirit body created by humanity's ancient greek soulful devotions worshipped spiritually speaking. Over two thousand years plus of worship and a spirit is born upon the astral realms of humanity.

It doesn't end there...Every Spirit Body given life as an angel as holy and unholy that was/is/will be worshipped by humanity across the centuries well into the eons. Is adopted by a like-kind Oversoul real angelic deity of a higher divine reality or echelon of spiritual significance with equal or near-equal similar attributes. So an Oversoul angelic meta-presence wears the humanity created spirit entity like a mask or costume akin to cosplay on a cosmic scale of the afterlife. So the spirit created by humanity as Artemis worshipped for two eons at least is worn like a mask or costume by a legitimate angel of the Lord God as an intercessor with similar like-kind inferences of divine forms. Living out sincerely its own mythology created by humanity as theological at its own discretion as it is required for eternity.

So when certain humans worship deeply in the astral afterlife an angelic vessel spirit body deity is created. Some religions as priestly classes bend the fabric of metaphysical reality to even create philosophies of High Magicks. To interact with said lesser deities (ie Artemis and Apollo) including systems of divination as Oracle spiritual traditions. Much like Michael Angelos's depiction as a ceiling mural of the Sistine Chapel of Man attempting to touch God finger to finger.

Humanity is a carnal rebirth or echo of the vast litany of angelic spiritual species of various stages of soulful eternal evolution. It is the Constant Will of a Living Creator God(dess) to create, recreate as sustaining, to destroy, and so forth in its Supreme Perfect Angelic Image and Likeness Forever. Amen. ---Ivan Pozo-Illas / Atrayo.

Divination & Magicks:

2984) Every form of simplistic to complicated ritualized and technical form of Divination system on Earth. Has its own corresponding High Magicks associated with it. With numerous expressions of energetic spiritual clearings/purifications of space with evocations and Invocations at large. Besides any other accompanying blessings and healings at least in the framework of the heavenly beneficent realms of grace.

This is to showcase to you "Ivan the Atrayo" what you deemed as an entry-level Intuitive holy gift of God. Is far wider and farther than meets the typical eyes, hearts, and minds of a genuine seeker of the divine. To name any form of divination from Viking Runes or your choice of a type of Astrology (ie Western, Indigenous American (ie Mayan, etc...), Vedic, Chinese, and even Babylonian). All these mentioned and countless more in the dozens from the Tarot to Lenormands to regular playing deck of cards and so forth. These can have a generic or a very specific corresponding School of Magicks associated with it as extensions to forms of Oracle Mysticism.

You see that Caribbean Hoo Doo as the folk magicks of VooDoo as a pagan spiritual tradition. Having its onset from the Haitian African Diaspora due to the Colonial Era slave trade of Europe and of the Americans. Had richly held Nigerian Yoruba influences very strongly set when encountered by the Caucasians religion of Christianity where it syncretized itself. So the Catholic Saints such as Mother Mary Queen of Angels and/or Saint Barbara for instance. Were blended together to make a cross-pollinated thing of beauty to such common folk of the Caribbean.

It is no different how the Ancient Greco religion influenced the Ancient Romans and yet again the Cult of Christianity upon Antiquity became the State Religion of the Romans. There are countless instances historically of other forms of spiritually fueled diviners creating and adopting magical interpretations of the divine given their epoch in time. Everything upon Creation is a constant melting pot of creativity for all perceived endless spiritual realities.

For all mortal kind and the heavenly afterlife with the angels as the lesser deities as corresponding anchors to the magicks in question. The global ancestors borrowed from other cultures they encountered as foreigners across routes of mass commerce and by subjugation through warfare. As the world evolved societies have come and gone as territories have become certain empires influenced the ages spiritually.

It is with this plethora of souls that opportunities present themselves time and again. For systems of divinations and subsequent magickal orders are latched onto the angels and lesser deities. To perform and safeguard our better lives as the practitioner sees fit by either faith or secular whims. The Will of God is all-inclusive for it is only the selfish petty whims of humanity that seek to control and centralize what is otherwise abundant not only on Earth but in the Cosmos.

No matter religion or spiritual persuasion no one is turned away that seeks greater spiritual union with the divine by whichever means makes the most sense to them. Thus the Oracle Spiritual Arts and the Magical Branches as Meta-Sciences as your Divine Inheritance of God(dess) have appeal globally no matter the epoch one is located therein. Amen. ---Ivan Pozo-Illas / Atrayo.

You have power over your mind-not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. ---Marcus Aurelius.

When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead. May every experience in life be a door that opens your heart, expands your understanding, and leads you to freedom. ---Elizabeth Lesser.

Ride the winds of change, unafraid. ---Larry Ward.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. ---Hebrews 11:1.

My religion is nature. That's what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me. ---Oliver Sacks.

When we are fully alert in spirit, mind, and body, we are more than we imagine and can accomplish more than we suppose. ---Barbara Holmes.

We should appreciate the beauty in the diversity. It would be a boring world, if every flower were the same shape, color, and size. ---Muhammad Ali.

If you want to have a full and happy life, in good times and in bad, you have to get used to the idea that facing misfortune squarely is better than trying to escape from it. ---Norman Fischer.

Ivan "Atrayo" Pozo-Illas, has devoted 25 years of his life to the pursuit of clairvoyant Inspired automatic writing channeling the Angelic host. Ivan is the author of the spiritual wisdom series of "Jewels of Truth" consisting of 3 volumes published to date. He also channels conceptual designs that are multi-faceted for the next society to come that are solutions based as a form of dharmic service. Numerous examples of his work are available at "Atrayo's Oracle" blog site of 15 years plus online. Your welcome to visit his website "Jewelsoftruth.us" for further information or to contact Atrayo directly.  

#Jewels of Truth #Atrayo's Oracle #Ivan Pozo-Illas #Angels #automatic writing #inspirational #Psychic #channeler #spirituality #Spirit Guide #spiritual teacher #God #worship #divination #magick #Artemis #apollo #paganism

[countryshitposts]

more drabbles i wrote under ten minutes(part 2)

Fèlipe is absolutely petrified.

He looks at the broken glass on the floor, then on his hands- it hurt like hell, he can tell you that, but this will fade in no time; father's punishes are way more cruel and deadly than a mere divine intervention from the Lord above. Fèlipe frantically kneels down to try and clean the broken shards up, not minding the way it grazes into his soft skin like it is a knife puncturing into its latest victim, he flinches but keeps on picking up the glass shards from the floor before his father comes home.

He finally has the pieces on his arms - it hurt like Hell, digging into his skin and cutting and biting into it but he pays them absolutely no mind - eyes twitching and brimming with translucent tears because, oh God, it hurts so much.

But it will be better; he just needs to wear a proper suit and cover all of the scratches on his hands and he shall be gone from his father's displeasure.

(Needless to say he and his brothers are all in the same state of pressure around and about the man himself- one time Mèxico had the gall to talk back to their father and what did he get? A slap on the cheek and a scolding.)

Fèlipe looks around the doors, searching for one where he can hide his mistake for a short amount of time until his servants come and see the absolute mess he has made.

(Although he remembers there was a disposing room, he just couldn't remember where to find it.)

Fèlipe whimpers; these shards have been frustratingly acting up on his skin, cutting him loose and about, with the intention of making him drop these figures to the ground like the godless interventions they are. As the pain starts to grow - he could hide it no longer - his arms start to droop, letting loose a few shards.

-

Mèxico hears someone sobbing in the back room, and he sighs, knowing full well who it was before opening the door to face his younger half-brother, in tears and immediately looking up when he finds out he has been spotted. Philip composes himself, letting out a strangled noise as he stands up, wiping tears away from his remaining eye, a frown entering his face in just a second.

"What do you want, Mèxico?", Philippines asks with a hint of edge in his voice, as if he is trying to stop the release of a torrent of emotions (but that's a thing of his, it's already a usual).

"I heard someone here", Mèxico simply replies, trying to out do his brother.

(They know by now that they are not competing, nor they wish to outdo each other, sometimes they only do it in a joking or a fun manner.)

"Well, if you heard someone, it sure as hell wasn't me", Philip replies, looking around the room like there was a hidden person or a ghost lurking around.

Mèxico scoffs, "Please, Fèlipe-" - Philip visibly flinches as he hears his colonial name before relaxing and glaring at him - "-I know you were the one crying your heart out. Why? Palau got mad and told you you both need space? America refuse to give you money again? Daddy issues?"

Philip breaths shakily while glaring at Mèxico, "It's nothing like that, dumbass; I just remembered some... past events. Is all."

Mèxico blinks as realization strikes. "Ah, so you have a panic attack?"

Philip blinks up at him, thoroughly confused. "A what?"

(Philip would constantly say that mental disorders are propaganda and that the only cure these sinners would need is praying to Lord itself, and he takes no other answers.)

"Ya know, having trouble breathing, crying, getting exhausted? You just experience something like that. Or maybe I'm being a little farfetched."

Philip utters out a laugh. "Damn, you and your little myths are out to get me too, hm?"

-

Austria looks at the old music notes Confederation had written, notes and signs and lyrics and crumbs staining the paper; it sounds so... so beautiful, already hearing its tune and how it goes, imagining Confederation in front of a crowd, singing, playing his instruments, and the audience applauding with such emotion that Confederation could not handle it and would run up to his adoptive father and embrace him warmly.

Österreich bites his lip- it is he who caused this poor boy's death, he who had seen him die with his arms bound to his and he crying and sobbing and never eating a whole week after the fiasco.

Despite all this, he can still hear the late boy sing.

It was maddenning Austria; how they are the only one who can hear it, hear his beautiful alluring voice and prompting him to search from room to room with no absolute person in there, save for he.

He'd go frantic- searching another, then another, to find the child's voice and expect to find his Confederation, oh his dear son, but nothing else but the full amount of abandoned notes his son left behind.

And so Austria reads them- from fhe swirling messages of happiness to the bright and beautiful melodies, wondering how it would sound of Confederations light yet full-hearted tongue.

He wonders.

Oh he wonders.

He wonders what a life would be with Confederation still alive, still by his side, living, breathing, a fragile candle flame never blowing out in a heat of the moment.

Austria laughs bitterly as he grabs his violin and plays the melody, choking back tears of regret that had made him who he is today.

-

North Korea finds himself in this... dream realm once more.

"Inmin!", he hears a voice call out to him, and his normally frowny face turns to a smile as he looks at his mother and father, who were both so safe and happy.

Safe and happy? But they are always safe and happy...

Inmin shakes that thought out of his head; this is the kingdom of no return! Happiness and safety would always be the first thing at the back of his mind, nothing can unravel here. So he smiles and takes his mother's hand, embracing her ever so tight, like she had been gone from this world.

Why is his mind supplying this? His mother is right here, still with them, forever and ever...

"Inmin!" He turns to look at his father, but he screams as he finds nothing but the mangled corpse of his father, deep stab wounds inflicting his body to the very core of his body, choking and gasping for Inmin to help him, in his horror, the boy steps back, only to bump into another figure. He looks towards the man, and screams more.

Teikoku gives him an ear-splitting grin, eyes bulging and neck thin, as he points a gun towards his mother, who was crying silently.

"Don't you dare shoot her!", Inmin cries out angrily, running towards Teikoku, but it was too late; a gunshot was heard, and his mother drops dead towards the ground. Inmin looks at the spot Teikoku had occupied, only to find it gone, no trace of he in the sight.

Inmin looks at his father.

A corpse, eyes towards the now red sky.

Inmin looks at his mother.

A corpse, her eyes looking right at Inmin.

He screams.

North Korea wakes up from this bizarre dream, always haunting him for the rest of his days. He feels pain on his right eye, but he knows it is just a pinch; he sits right up, immediately letting go of the covers as he marches towards the closet.

That dream is not real.

Because his parents are right here, smiling at him with their warm and beady eyes, crooked smiles he had drawn for himself, and in their clothes. Choson Inmin wipes tears in his eyes, hugging his mother and father.

"I thought I lost you."

#mine #writing #countryhumans #countryhumans philippines #countryhumans mexico #countryhumans austria #countryhumans german confederation #countryhumans north korea #countryhumans korean empire #countryhumans nabi #countryhumans japan empire