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queenshelby · 3 years

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THE SECRET - part one of three

Featuring: Cillian Murphy x Virgin!Reader

Summary: You are a new cast member, playing Tommy Shelby’s love interest. During filming, you fall for your co-star Cillian Murphy.

Words: 6,556

Warning: Smut, Age Gap

Notes: For the purpose of this fic, Cillian is single.

Tag List: @lilymurphy03 @deefigs

@chrisevanshoeeee @desperate-and-broken

@weepingstudentfishhorse @fookingshelby @livinginfantaxy

@atomicsoulcollecto @datewithgianni @mariapaiva13

The Scene

You were nervous. This was your first role in a popular TV show.

You had been on small production TV shows in your home country of France. But this was different. The show had international success and you couldn’t believe that the producers of the show had chosen you for the role of 27-year-old Yvette L’mare for the series’ final Season.

You spoke fluent French and English and had experience in scenes with extensive dialogue due to your theatrical experience since you were 12.

But, you were by no means as experienced as some of the other candidates they had casted. After all, you were only 19.

You read the scripts over and over again after your successful audition and made yourself small rehearsal cards for each scene. The dialogue heavy scenes didn’t concern you. But, there were some scenes which were out of your comfort zone.

Your script included two intimate scenes with the actor who played the main character of the show, Thomas Shelby.

The first scene was simple enough, not much more than a kiss. The second scene, however, was to be filmed under closed set. Neither of you were going to be clothed in more than underpants, which meant that only the director, one assistant and the camara man would be present.

Before the audition, you watched the last two seasons of Peaky Blinders and you re-watched them just a week ago as part of your preparation and to give you an idea what the director will look for when filming these kinds of scenes.

Before that, you hadn’t paid much attention to the show.

From watching some of the series, it was obvious to you that your co-star was experienced. He portrayed Thomas Shelby impressively well which was something that made you even more nervous.

Will you live up to the standards of the director? Or will you fail miserably with these challenging scenes?

It didn’t matter. It was all too late now. You signed the Contract and were on your way to England.

You arrived a day before filming started in order to settle into your apartment.

The apartment was located within a hotel residence that was booked out for the cast for the entire period of production.

You shared a small two-bedroom apartment with another new cast member named Emma. Emma was from France as well and, ironically, portrayed your sister in the show. Emma was 24, slightly older than you and quite attractive. You immediately got along. She was focused, didn’t care much about partying and was down to earth.

For the first evening, after everyone arrived, the producers organised a dinner to introduce the new cast and crew members to everyone. This was when you first got to meet your co-star, Cillian.

Since you had several scenes together, the director of the show took the time to personally introduce you to Cillian.

Cillian greeted you with a big smile and you knew immediately why so many women were smitten by him. You recalled that, when you told friends and family about your audition, they wouldn’t stop talking about Thomas Shelby and how insanely attractive he was.

They were not wrong. But, what impressed you the most about Cillian was that he was so easy going and funny.

You talked to him for a while, about the most random topics, ignoring everyone else for at least 20 minutes until it was time for you to meet the other cast members.

‘Looks like you two have a lot to talk about?’ Anthony said jokingly.

‘Talking about wine’ you smiled, rather shyly.

‘Yeah, I got carried away talking about the wine production in the province. Did you know that Y/N’s parents own Bessiux Wines?’ Cillian asked, catching Anthony by surprise. ‘His sister got married at your parents’ estate last August’ Cillian added, causing Anthony to nod.

You talked about your parents’ winery for a little longer before Anthony asked you to meet the other cast members.

‘I am looking forward to working with you Cillian’ you said as you walked away and he responded with a smile and comforting ‘Likewise’.

After your encounter with Cillian you were introduced to Finn Cole and Natasha O’Keefe. You heard about Finn from your new roommate but only just then realised that he portrays Michael Grey.

You talked to both Finn and Natasha for a while and, whilst you enjoyed their company, you wished that you had some more time to talk to Cillian. Unfortunately for you, he left rather early that evening.

The next day, you picked up your schedule for the week and noticed that the scenes you prepared for were to be shot completely out of order.

In fact, your most intimate scene was scheduled for 10am on Day 2 of Production. You couldn’t believe it. You were by no means prepared for that.

Your first day on set went well and the director of the show complimented your work on several occasions. But, when filming was finished for the day, your nervousness sat in.

‘Are you alright Y/N?’ Emma asked as you were picking on your salad and looked at tomorrow’s scripts.

‘Yeah, just a bit nervous’ you sighed.

Emma looked over your shoulder to read your script.

‘Wow, they are throwing you right into the deep end’ she giggled.

‘Yes, they are’ you said with a shy smile before listening to some advice from Emma, who had more experience than you acting on screen.

That night, after reading your scripts at least ten more times and letting it play out in your head, you could not sleep and your lack of sleep was evident on set the next day.

‘Are you alright Y/N?’ Cillian asked concerned, noticing your yawning and your hands shivering slightly.

‘Yes, I am fine. I am just trying to think how to act the next scene. From reading this, it isn’t very clear to me what exactly I need to do’ you said concerned.

‘These scenes are scripted in a way to allow for improvisation. From experience, actors often fail to act these kinds of scenes directly to script, that’s why’ Cillian laughed.

‘Right, so the script is lacking the details on purpose?’ you asked.

‘Correct’ Cillian said. ‘John and Anthony will tell us what to do and in which direction to face so that you are covered. You don’t need to worry’ Cillian said reassuringly, causing you to giggle.

‘I am not worried about anyone seeing my breasts or something. I just don’t know what do, where to put my hands, my face, any of that’ you explained with total embarrassment.

‘Well, I suppose you just pretend to do what you would normally do when you are getting down to business’ Cillian said with a chuckle, not knowing how else to explain it.

‘Well, my experience in this department is limited. So, I apologise in advance for any awkwardness’ you said, your cheeks flushing even through the dense make up.

‘Y/N, these scenes are awkward even for the most experienced actors. If it gets too uncomfortable, we can postpone it, alright’ Cillian said, keeping a relaxed approach.

‘Alright. Thanks Cillian’ you said just before it was time for you to get changed into your gown.

The next time you would see Cillian was on the closed set, pretending to make love to him on the large cedar bed.

Just as you were getting undressed in the change room and put on the skin-coloured panties and robe you were given by the set assistant, you topped up your perfume.

You were going to be so close to each other, at least you wanted to smell nice.

After you were done, the set assistant applied some more lipstick and fixed up your hair before you sat down on the large bed. You were nervous, your heart pounding.

Cillian was much more relaxed sitting next to you in black Clavin Klein briefs. There was no need for a robe, his intimate parts were well covered, unlike yours.

His freckled skin was highlighted by the light which had not yet been adjusted and you couldn’t help but look at him while you made an effort to keep your small breasts covered from him at this point.

The cameraman was angling the camera while the director discussed the scene with you and Cillian.

You knew that this was going to be a disaster. The issue wasn’t so much that you were naked in front of the camera and the director, but more the fac that, as part of the scene, another man who you felt somewhat attracted to was about to see you like this, completely vulnerable. He was about to touch your naked skin and kiss you, but not out of his own accord. It felt absurd to you, yet you knew this was part of the job.

Finally, after the director gave his instructions, you got yourself into position.

With some embarrassment you handed the set assistant your robe and lied down on the bed.

You were waiting for some kind of joke from Cillian to lighten up the mood, but Cillian was very professional.

He sat down right next to you and you could tell that he was trying very hard to look away from your breasts.

Before he climbed over you to get into position, he gave you a warning. Regardless of the warning, you stopped breathing for a minute as he positioned himself on top of you.

‘Are you alright?’ he asked as he could see the nervousness on your face.

‘Yes’ you nodded, taking in a deep breath. He was so close that you could smell his skin and the scent of his aftershave.

‘Sink down a bit on the left forearm Cillian, we want to keep the rating below R18’ the director said with a laugh because your breasts were fully visible on camera.

‘We do?’ Cillian chuckled, causing you to laugh just before Cillian adjusted his position as instructed. For a short moment, his chest brushed against your left breast.

‘I am sorry’ he said politely.

‘It’s alright Cilly’ you said.

‘I think we are good now guys, I will count to three and we start the first part of the scene’ the director said.

It felt like an eternity with Cillian on top of you by the time the director called action.

In this scene, Tommy and Yvette were having sex. It was to start with a kiss followed by the obvious act.

There was no practice for a scene like this and, as soon as you heard the word action, Cillian’s lips slowly met yours. You closed your eyes and caressed his face with your hands as you let him take the lead. The kiss lasted for what felt like an eternity until he pulled away from you.

His body was soon grinding against yours, but without your most intimate parts touching. He made sure of that. Regardless of this, you could feel his legs in between yours and his chest brushing against your breasts. The sensation sent shivers down your body and small little goosebumps began to cover your chest. How embarrassing you thought and, unfortunately for you, your embarrassment was evident on your face and the cut was called.

You attempted the scene again several times. You kissed over and over again and your hands moved from his face to his arms and chest, exploring his skin while his body was grinding against you.

But, this wasn’t enough for the director who picked up that the movement of your hands and the expressions on your face weren’t giving the viewers the impression that this was real. Your biggest problem was that you were attracted to Cillian and you realised this more than ever during this scene and tried very hard to hide it, making you look nervous and embarrassed.

After a few more takes, the director suggested a break.

‘I am so sorry Cillian’ you said as you sat next to him in your dressing gown.

‘Don’t be. You are doing fine. These scenes can be tricky and really shouldn’t be scheduled for the second day of filming’ he said with a warm smile before excusing himself.

He was gone for about ten minutes while you had some water and waited for further instructions from the team.

When he returned, he informed you that he agreed with the director that the scene be postponed.

‘Cillian, I can do this, really’ you said upset about the postponement.

‘I know you can, but like I said, it’s the second day of filming and it would probably be easier once we had a few more scenes together’ Cillian suggested.

‘Is that not going to be a problem with the set up?’ you asked.

‘No, the prop can stay here for another month and one of the perks of being a producer is that I get a say in this stuff’ Cillian smiled.

‘I feel like such a failure’ you said embarrassed.

‘You are not Y/N, you are doing great, really’ Cillian said, his hands touching your arms.

‘Common, time to get ready for more scenes’ he said with a warm smile and you followed him to get changed, separately of course.

Mr Matchmaker

Later that night, some of the cast members were heading to the pub for dinner and you sat down next to Natasha and Emma when you arrived.

You told Natasha and Emma about what happened on set. You were still upset about it.

‘Oh gosh, don’t worry Y/N. Cillian is very easy going and Anthony is very impressed with your scenes from the first day so you have nothing to worry about. I remember my first sex scene with Cillian and it took nine takes and a lot of laughter to get it right’ Natasha said.

‘How do you know when it’s right though? It’s extremely awkward’ you said.

‘If it looks like you are having sex then it’s right’ Natasha laughed. ‘I actually think about the man in my life and just switch off throughout the scene. So, if you have a boyfriend, think about him. That might help with the comfort level’ Natasha said.

‘I am happily single’ you said with a smile just as Cillian arrived at the table.

‘You are late’ Natasha said, noticing the frustration on his face.

‘Sorry’ Cillian said as he sat down next to you.

‘Still dramas with Nadine?’ Natasha asked, causing you to wonder who Nadine was.

‘Yes’ he responded just before he ordered himself a drink.

Throughout the conversation you learned that Nadine was Cillian’s ex-girlfriend with whom he broke up as little as six weeks ago. Him and Nadine were together for three years and shared a house in Dublin until recently.

Your group was soon joined by some more cast members, including Finn Cole and everyone seemed in a pretty good mood.

You talked to Finn for a while until you excused yourself to get another drink.

As you walked to the bar, you noticed Cillian following you and engaged in a conversation with him.

‘Just in case you haven’t noticed, Finn seems to like you’ Cillian said as he stood next to you at the bar.

‘Oh, what makes you say that?’ you asked.

‘I just know. My matchmaking abilities are impeccable’ he joked.

Whilst you felt flattered, you weren’t interested in Finn and little did Cillian know that he was the one you had your eye on.

‘Really?’ you asked.

‘Yes, really. You should probably consider him. He is a nice guy, down to earth, good looking, the right age’ Cillian said cheekily.

‘I have my eyes on someone else Cillian, but thank you for your efforts’ you said with slight embarrassment and a hint of humour.

‘Now I am intrigued. Who is it? Someone on set?’ Cillian asked.

‘None of your business Mr Matchmaker’ you laughed.

‘Well, if you ever require my services, you know where to find me’ Cillian said, causing you to raise your eyebrows.

‘Services as in setting you up with someone from the crew, discreetly of course’ Cillian laughed, realising that his comment may have been received by you in the wrong way.

‘Right, you got me excited there for a moment’ you said jokingly.

‘Did I?’ Cillian joked. ‘Now that makes me feel good at my age’ Cillian added.

You knew how old he was. You googled him, just before you came to the pub, because you were curious about him, his background, things he doesn’t talk about. But, to your surprise, the fact that he was nearing 45, didn’t bother you the slightest and it certainly didn’t dampen the attraction you felt towards him.

You also knew that, being 19 years old, you would have no chance with him. He wasn’t the type of actor who was chasing young models like many other celebrities his age.

You and Cillian talked and joked for another 20 minutes before he excused himself. He had a busy day filming ahead of him and needed to get some rest.

Over the next few days, Cillian and you had several scenes together and spent some of your breaks together. You enjoyed his company and he clearly also enjoyed yours.

On Day 9 of Production, you even went as far and asked Cillian whether he wanted to watch the Liverpool game with you and Emma.

He accepted your invitation and you were quite excited. Emma was confused as to why you invited him over but didn’t think much about it until there was a knock on the door and she opened it.

To both of your surprise, Cillian had invited Finn along. Was he really so oblivious to the fact that you were attracted to him that he had to bring a sidekick, you thought?

The evening went rather slow and with you sitting in between Finn and Emma, you felt somewhat uncomfortable.

The next day, on Day 10 of Production, you had another somewhat intimate scene with Cillian. It wasn’t more than a kiss and some touching. Regardless, you were nervous but not nervous enough to first ask him why he invited Finn.

‘He invited himself when I told him about it’ Cillian chuckled. ‘I told you, he likes you’ he added.

‘That’s just great because now Emma thinks that I have a thing for him’ you said laughing.

‘These Rumours. You got to love them. Sometimes I seriously feel like I am back at school working here’ Cillian laughed.

This conversation led to an interesting question from Cillian. After you had time to talk about your days at school, he brought up your upcoming birthday. You seemed to have referred to school as a recent event, so he couldn’t help but ask how old you were turning.

‘I am turning 20’ you responded, causing Cillian to look at you almost like he had seen a ghost.

‘You are 19?’ he asked.

‘You seem surprised. How old did you think I was?’ you asked.

‘Not sure, mid or late twenties maybe?’ Cillian said just as the set assistant called you both to the scene.

Your nervousness set back in as you took your position in Thomas Shelby’s office.

The scene started of with a dialogue between Thomas Shelby and Yvette which went smoothly, as expected. The next part of the scene involved Thomas lifting Yvette onto his desk and kiss her passionately while running his hands over the back of her body.

The first attempt resulted in Cillian and you both laughing as he lifted you up. It was awkward and it didn’t help that you were ticklish.

The next take went smoothly. Cillian lifted you on to the desk gently before his hands ran down your back while he kissed you. Your hands caressed his face as he did and the director had to call the cut on the kiss.

You enjoyed it, and to his surprise, so did Cillian. He felt uncomfortable about enjoying kissing you or even spending time with you outside of work. Not only were you a co-worker but you were also much younger than him.

A sense of guilt ran through his mind right after the scene now that he knew your age. Kissing you shouldn’t feel good, it was wrong.

The director was happy with the scene and you hopped back off the table before asking Cillian whether he wanted to have lunch with you.

Little did you know that your lunch date was going to be your last with him for while as Cillian was trying hard to keep his distance from you thereafter.

Birthday Surprise

But this all changed another week later, on your birthday, which was Day 17 of Production.

By that point, filming was getting to you and you were tired and, therefore, declined the offer from Natasha to organise a birthday party for you.

Instead, you and some of the crew and cast went for dinner at a nearby restaurant.

The food was amazing and you spent two hours at the restaurant after a rather long day of filming. By about 8.30pm half of the crew and cast had left and it was only you, Cillian, Emma, Sam and Finn who stayed.

Finn was going to meet some friends at a nearby pub at 9pm and invited you all to join him. Whilst Emma and Sam agreed, you and Cillian weren’t keen and made your way back to the apartment complex.

‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ you blurted out all of a sudden just as you were both getting into the elevator. This question took all of your courage after Cillian had been avoiding to spend time with you.

‘I think the hotel bar is closed already’ Cillian said.

‘Well, as it happens, I am holding a bottle of red wine in my hand’ you said cheekily holding up the birthday present from Natasha.

‘I am not sure Y/N, we have to be up early’ Cillian said.

‘Common, it’s my birthday’ you said convincingly, causing Cillian to laugh.

‘Alright, I suppose why not’ Cillian said as followed you down the hallway.

‘Your place. Emma is determined to pick up a date at the pub’ you laughed.

‘Yeah, I don’t want to be there for that’ Cillian joked as you walked further down the hallway. Your apartments were on the same floor.

You walked into Cillian’s apartment and took off your jacket before sitting down on the small lounge.

Just after Cillian poured two glasses of red wine and sat down next to you, his phone rang.

The display showed ‘Incoming Call from Nadine’ and he turned his phone to silent.

‘You should let me pick it up, it might solve all your problems’ you joked.

‘It just might’ Cillian laughed as he pressed the ‘Ignore’ button and put the phone down.

Just after the short interruption, Cillian and you began to talk about your work, travelling and some other things until he brought up an uncomfortable topic.

‘Do you remember two weeks ago when I tried to talk you into going out with Finn?’ Cillian asked.

‘Yes, Mr Matchmaker, I remember. Why?’ you said.

‘You said that you had your eyes on someone else…who is it?’ Cillian asked with a laugh, causing you to take a deep breath.

‘Oh god, are you still going on with this?’ you said with a laugh. This was the fourth time Cillian had asked you this question since you mentioned it to him.

‘Common, I have been pondering about this for weeks now. Tell me’ Cillian said.

‘No’ you giggled.

‘I promise I won’t tell anyone’ Cillian said.

‘Stop it’ you responded.

‘Alright, I will take a guess’ Cillian said before taking a pause. ‘Harry?’ Cillian asked, causing you to shake your head.

‘Daryl?’ he asked, causing you to shake your head again.

‘I don’t know then. That’s literally everyone who is around your age’ Cillian laughed.

‘Who said he’s around my age?’ you asked, causing Cillian to raise his eyebrow.

‘Paul?’ he then asked, causing you to shake your head again. Was he really that oblivious?

‘Everyone else is married, I think’ Cillian said.

‘You are not’ you said shyly after taking in a deep breath.

‘Me?’ he asked after taking a deep breath while his blue eyes looked at you, full of questions.

Your heart was pounding, your hand shaking again. There was no turning back now.

‘Yes, you’ you said nervously, looking at him almost fearful about his response.

He drew another deep breath while, in his mind, he was thinking about what to say.

‘Y/N, I feel humbled and it’s not that you aren’t a beautiful and smart woman, but I am more than twice your age’ he said.

‘Ignore the age difference for a minute and tell me that you don’t feel the same, that you don’t want me’ you said.

‘It is irrelevant what I feel and what I want, it still doesn’t make it right’ he responded.

‘But, are you attracted to me? It’s a simple question’ you asked nervously and, after drawing another deep breath, Cillian responded.

‘I’ve been trying very hard not to be...unsuccessfully so’ he sighed, causing you to smile.

‘Alright’ you said with the biggest grin on your face.

‘Alright?’ Cillian asked surprised by your response. This didn’t mean that he was going to give into you just like this and ignore his concerns, or did it?

‘So, what do you propose we do now? This will make things very awkward on set’ he said concerned.

‘This’ you said as you leaned in and pressed your lips onto his. His lips were just as soft as the last time you kissed on set, but this time there was an intensity and urgency between you.

He gave into the kiss as if there had never been any doubt and, unlike previous kisses you shared in a professional capacity, this time, when his lips parted, you could feel his tongue slip in between your lips and it wasn’t long until your tongues moved in sync with each other.

The kiss lasted for what felt like an eternity and you wanted so much more than taste his lips.

‘This is wrong Y/N’ Cillian said as your lips finally drifted apart.

‘Do you want me to leave?’ you asked, caressing his face, staring at all of the freckles which covered him.

‘No’ he said, earning him a smile from you just as he reached beneath your shirt and pressed his lips back onto yours.

His warm hands ran over the sides of your abdomen, up and down, until he lifted your t-shirt over your head.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen you like this before, but it felt different. His eyes didn’t have to shy away from your breasts and the rest of your body this time.

With his hands cupping your breasts, which were still covered by your black lace bra, the kiss intensified. It became more urgent and more passionate.

Your hands soon found their way beneath Cillian’s t-shirt also and, this time, touching his skin didn’t feel awkward or inappropriate.

Within seconds, his t-shirt landed on the floor next to yours just before Cillian’s fingers had found the clip of your bra.

It didn’t take his skilled fingers long to unclip it and let it join the rest of the clothes which you had already gotten rid of.

He took a moment to look at your breasts, right there in front of him yet again.

‘What’s wrong?’ you asked concerned as you noticed him stare at them.

‘Nothing, just taking in the beautiful view without feeling guilty about it’ Cillian smirked.

‘You checked out my breasts when we were filming, didn’t you?’ you said sheepishly.

‘Of course not’ he said with a laugh before he guided you backwards and down onto your bed.

You both were quick to remove your jeans and, moments later, there you were again, on the bed together wearing nothing but underpants. Just this time, there were no cameras. You were free to touch and kiss each other the way you pleased. It didn’t feel awkward. To the contrary. It felt right.

Hoovering over you again Cillian began to gently kiss your neck while one of his hands ran over your firm breasts. Finally, he was able to touch them, feel every inch of them.

Cillian soon worked his way to the lobe of your ear, playing with it using his tongue. Lightly sucking on it as his hand moved to your other breast, squeezing your nipple gently.

You didn't want this to end, and with a soft moan, you signaled Cillian to continue exploring your body. And so he did. You had never been with a man before, but in the moment, this felt comfortable, felt right.

As he continued to cast his spell on you and work his magic, your body responded. Your lace panties were soaking and your muscles began to vibrate with an unfamiliar feeling.

As Cillian’s lips moved back to your mouth for another passionate kiss, one of his hands wandered further down your body. But he was in no hurry, taking his time explore all of your body.

Cillian’s tongue began to gently drift between your lips and you responded with yours. Your arms wrapped around him, pulling him even closer to you as his hand reached the top of your lace panties.

Pushing your panties aside slightly, he ran his fingers over your wet entrance, slowly and gently while his lips never left yours.

You moaned into the kiss just as the tip of one of his fingers dipped into you slightly.

You took in a deep breath and broke the kiss for a brief moment.

‘Cillian, I never had sex with anyone’ you said, causing him to remove his hand from your wet mound.

‘It’s alright. We won’t go that far until you are ready’ he said reassuringly.

‘That’s so embarrassing, I am sorry’ you said.

‘What is?’ Cillian asked, slightly confused.

‘I am 20, it’s weird don’t you think?’ you said shyly, your face flushed.

‘Don’t be silly Y/N. There is no rush’ Cillian said as he ran his hand over your cheek. ‘If it is any consolation to you, I didn’t expect any of this, tonight, with you and I am enjoying every moment of it even if we don’t have sex’ he added.

‘So am I Cillian’ you smiled.

‘Good’ Cillian said before kissing you again gently.

The kiss soon became heated again but Cillian wasn’t taking it further, giving you the chance to set the pace at which you were willing to move.

But, you enjoyed him playing with you, teasing your most intimate parts and, after several more minutes of passionate kisses, you guided his hand back in between your legs.

Your actions earned you a chuckle from him as his lips moved from your lips down to your breasts slowly.

As Cillian was gently trailing kisses over your breasts, your hand made it’s way in between your bodies where it found the elastic of his Calvin Klein briefs.

Cillian moaned briefly against your breasts as you slipped your hand beneath the elastic, gently taking hold of his erection.

His cock was warm and firm and his tip slightly lubricated from the precum that had pooled there.

You moved your hand up and down his shaft, stroking him gently while his fingers began to circle over your clit, making you moan loudly.

Your panties were getting wetter and wetter with each stroke of his fingers and you were grinding against his hand, wanting more.

You were panting and moaning in pleasure as he kept stimulating you with his fingers, until, all of a sudden, me removed his hand making you squirm in protest.

His mouth soon wandered from your breasts down to your stomach, forcing you to let go of his hard cock.

But, as your body responded beneath his, your mind couldn't catch up to the events unfolding between the two of you.

You surrendered and let him take control and it wasn’t long until his lips had reached the top of your panties.

‘Oh god’ you moaned in anticipation just as Cillian took hold of both sides of your panties before slipping them down.

‘Do you want me to stop?’ he asked, unsure about your reaction.

‘No, please don’t’ you said, your hands falling onto the top of your head.

Admiring the view, Cillian let his fingers run up and down your slit slowly and gently, taking the juices leaking from it and spreading them up to the hood over your clit.

You moaned loudly at the sensation as, suddenly, you could feel Cillian’s tongue join his fingers, playfully darting closer to your opening, but not quite getting there.

‘Cillian, fuck’ you moaned as energy was coursing through your body, wanting to release, but not quite getting there. He apparently had received a masters degree in how to play your body.

Suddenly his tongue was there, licking up the sides of each of your lips. Inspecting the crevices.

Your head began to thrash, your hands flew out and grabbed the bedding.

‘Let me know if I hurt you’ was the next thing you heard but didn’t pay much attention to as you felt one of his fingers enter you.

With the mildest of discomfort, you arched your back while moan after moan left your mouth.

For several minutes, his finger went in and out of you gently while his tongue was licking you, circling over your clit.

He wasn’t sure whether or not to add another finger, but he decided to try his luck after reminding you to tell him if he hurts you in any way.

Moments later, he inserted a second finger while continuing to circle your clit with his tongue.

‘Oh fuck’ you moaned. There was a slight discomfort but it didn’t last very long before you felt nothing but pure pleasure.

Cillian’s fingers began rubbing inside of you as he placed his mouth around the hood of your clit and began to suck.

‘Holy Shit Cillian’ you moaned. You could feel him smile against your mound.

You began to squirm but he would not let up and your body began its final ascent.

Waves of electricity were crashing through you and your hips were grinding and bucking under his direct tutelage as your orgasm washed over you.

You were a shaking mess by the time he was done and, when you finally came down from your high, Cillian moved up and gave you a passionate kiss.

You could taste your juices on his lips and it was possibly the most erotic moment you had ever experienced.

‘Your turn’ you smirked before pushing Cillian onto his back against the stash of pillows.

You comment caused Cillian to chuckle just before you leaned over him to kiss him.

‘You know you don’t have to Y/N. There is no rush’ he said, running his hand over your cheek as your lips drifted apart.

‘But I want to’ you said with determination. ‘I might just need a little guidance’ you said shyly before descending down on his body, trailing gentle kisses over his chest and all the way down to his stomach.

You adored his body, it was perfect. He was the most attractive man you ever met.

As you were gently kissing his stomach, your hands moved beneath the rim of his briefs before pulling them down.

His erection sprung up almost instantly as soon as the briefs cam down and you couldn’t help but stare at him for a moment.

‘I think I will just go for it and you tell me if I do something wrong’ you said with a smile as you pinned back your hair into a bun with the hairband that was wrapped around your wrist.

Your comment made Cillian laugh for a moment until he could feel your warm lips on the tip of his cock, at which point the word ‘fuck’ was all that left his mouth.

Moans soon began to escape him as you used your hands to stroke him, up and down, while the head of his cock lolled uneasily on the top of your tongue.

You took him deeper into your mouth with every stroke and, as the third inch made its way into your mouth, your lips were being stretched.

You soon managed to take him in all the way, although it was a struggle.

‘Fuck, Y/N’ Cillian moaned as his length disappeared in your mouth.

His comment made you stop and ask whether something was wrong.

‘No, you are doing it perfectly’ Cillian reassured you just before you returned your attention to his very hard cock.

By this time precum had pooled on the tip as you took him back into your mouth. It tasted sweet but yet salty at the same time.

Your tongue began circling around him and then up and down his shaft before returning to the bopping motions.

Cillian leaned back and relaxed as you improved your technique minute by minute.

Each stroke of your tongue was now driving him crazy.

Looking up at him occasionally, you could see that he was enjoying whatever you were doing.

Your tongue was moving like a snake, coating every inch of his velvety soft, yet hard cock with a fine patina of sweet, warm saliva.

It wasn’t long until you could feel Cillian’s cock throb inside your mouth and his breathing was becoming laboured.

His hand was tangled up inside your hair as you continued to bop your head up and down firmly.

‘Y/N, I am close, you might want to stop’ Cillian said, trying hard to hold back.

‘Come in my mouth’ you said confidently before you continued your movements.

Your comment caught Cillian by surprise but he didn’t dare to argue and let go.

Just as your mouth bopped down on his hard shaft again, you could feel him pulsate inside your mouth and, with one loud groan, his warm cum spurted on the back of your tongue.

You continued to bop your head and collect all of his cum until he began to relax.

‘Did you just?’ Cillian asked, and before he could finish his question, you interrupted.

‘Swallow? Yes, what else do you normally do with it?’ you asked with a smirk.

‘I hate sleeping on dirty sheets and I was planning to stay the night, so that seemed like the best option’ you laughed before laid beside Cillian, his arms gently wrapping around you.

‘Hey, I am not complaining’ he laughed as he ran his hands gently over your arms.

‘Didn’t think so’ you said before kissing him again gently.

You fell asleep pretty soon afterwards, curled up against Cillian’s chest.

You both slept well and deep until, at 6am, Cillian’s alarm went off.

‘Oh goddam, what’s the time?’ you asked.

‘6am, why?’ Cillian said as you jumped out of the bed and collected your clothes, trying to put them on as quickly as you can.

‘Y/N, we don’t have a scene until 7am. There is plenty of time’ he said.

‘Yes, but Emma starts at 6.30am. She will notice me not being there’ you explained.

#cillian murphy #cillian murphy smut #Cillian Murphy x Reader #cillian murphy imagine #thomas shelby #Peaky Blinders

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garc-i-a · 3 years

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Why JATP Is Taking a While to Get Officially Renewed

Thought I would put my thoughts into words on the renewal situation. We know that the show was released on Netflix on September 10, 2020. As of today, it has been 242 days (10 May 2021). Julie and the Phantoms was released under Netflix Family, marking it as a children’s show on the streaming service. It was released in the middle of the second wave of the coronavirus (in the US) that has swept the world over. The show was created by Kenny Ortega, legendary choreographer and director.

To start off, we have to acknowledge that we ARE in a pandemic. Due to that, things have been touch and go in so many industries. That includes the TV/Film industry as well. The US and Canada, the two countries involved in making the show, have to follow the rules and laws related to COVID regardless of what people in the industry want. With that, we have to pay attention to what is going on with the pandemic to know how to go about filming.

As of right now, Canada still has closed borders from the US to nonessential travel. To get into Canada as a foreigner you have to be going for a specific reason and follow all the Covid related travel rules. To read more about this, you can go to canada.ca and type in for traveling during the pandemic. Not to mention that for a lot of areas in Canada, they are still essentially in lockdown because of the now rising numbers in the country. Charlie’s home province of New Brunswick is still pretty restricted.

Regarding vaccinations, although the United States has been slowly getting people vaccinated, Canada has had issues with getting vaccinations and don’t nearly have as many vaccinated. It is only just a few days ago that New Brunswick started administering vaccinations in the last few days. The vaccinations are only for people who are 50+ who fall into specific medical condition guidelines. For British Columbia, where the show is filmed, vaccines started getting administered the third week of April. It is believed there is a chance of getting all* adults vaccinated by mid June. My source for this information is from a native New Brunswicker and a CTV News article.

For the cast, getting vaccinated is paramount. Owen is already vaccinated. Madison’s dad is also vaccinated so it is likely she is as well or part way there. Now for people who are NOT vaccinated yet, most vaccines are administered in two doses. The doses are done about three weeks apart (I am partially vaccinated and my first dose was already done and second is next week). This knowledge is important as people need to be aware of the timing of these things. The amount of time between vaccines and for everyone in the cast and crew is essential for everything to go smoothly with filming.

One of the big things that I have seen a lot is the outrage at other shows on Netflix being renewed before Julie and the Phantoms. There is a two fold answer to this. To start off, we have to remember that because of this pandemic, things take longer to process to be extra diligent and that more money is be used to cover for reconstructions and accommodations due to Covid. Knowing these two things, let’s delve into the renewals of other shows.

Some of the other shows that have been renewed are Fate: The Winx Saga, Bridgerton, Ginny and Georgia, and Emily in Paris. The big difference between these shows and Julie and the Phantoms is the fact they are not in the Netflix Family category. They are considered content for adults or young adults. Netflix has different rules on their shows that are put out on the regular platform versus the family section. Netflix Family rarely posts when a show is renewed so far from its premiere date for the next season. So in that respect, Julie and the Phantoms wouldn’t be given a huge announcement for the next season’s renewal if it follows the pattern of Netflix Family’s marketing.

Tying into this the matter of where the rest of the shows are filmed and the backing behind them in regards to production. The Winx show and Bridgerton are filmed in the UK, Ginny and Georgia is filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and Emily in Paris is filmed on location in France. The reason that this matters is because these places have different rules for working during this pandemic, the vaccinations levels, and the threat of getting sick from Covid. These shows are also connected to larger properties or influential individuals*. Vancouver is a popular city to film in, of course, but it has been dealing with an uptick in cases as well as in a different province than Ginny and Georgia, and as such has their own rules. We cannot take into the likes of Riverdale or other shows that are filming right now in Vancouver. Lots of these shows were renewed and set to film already when the pandemic hit. They do not factor into things.

The last part of this is the production costs for making the show. As mentioned before, Vancouver is a popular city to film in. Due to the pandemic, it costs more to film because the need to have extra precautions, regular Covid testing, and etc. We know that there were shows that were initially renewed by Netflix but then canceled after the fact. The reason for this is that Netflix likely realized the cost to produce the shows would be too much and not in the best interest of the cast, crew, and any companies involved in the middle of such a huge reaching pandemic.

Compared to other shows in the Netflix Family section, Julie and the Phantoms has a high production level. I did some research on the Netflix originals in the section and the shows on there are either very low budget or have a backing from a franchise/company (ex. Baby Boss, Fast and Furious, Jurassic Park). Julie and the Phantoms does not have that. It is not connected to an established franchise or a large company. It is simply made by the likes of Kenny Ortega who does not skimp on anything in his productions. Kenny has stated that he is not willing to let the grandness of the show suffer because of the pandemic. The show has many crowd scenes and dancing sequences that require a lot of people. The show won’t be what it is without this. Based on this, we know that Netflix wants to be absolutely sure they can go forth with filming before announcing a renewal.

And there you guys go. All the information that I looked into and checked for this piece. I hope this helps many people understand what is going on why it is taking longer for the show to get renewed. It is not that Netflix doesn’t want to renew it. It is a matter of HOW and WHEN. If that makes sense. If you have any questions about what I wrote, you can leave a comment or DM me.

all*- Some individuals may not wish to be vaccinated

influential individuals*- There are people connected to some of the shows that have a standing within the media and the finances or awards to warrant being a part of the show or it being made at all.

Amendment

I was informed by my source in New Brunswick that vaccines have been administered since January but the qualification for who is eligible for the vaccines can change from week to week.

Amendment 2

Reuters has reported that children aged 12-15 are able to start getting the vaccine today (13 May 2021). So that means that Jadah and Sonny (15 and 13, respectively) will be fully vaccinated by the middle of June.

Amendment 3

A few days ago a local upstate New York newspaper wrote about Canada starting the process of opening up borders again. The process is in the beginning stages so there is no announced date(s) on the border reopening but it is in the works.

Amendment 4

A show called Firefly Lane has been renewed for a season 2. This is important because Firefly Lane is filmed in the same area of British Columbia as Julie and the Phantoms. British Columbia is getting better in regards to vaccinations and so this proves good news of a season 2 announcement for Julie and the Phantoms.

Amendment 5

It was reported on 21 or 22 June 2021 that Canada will relax quarantine rules for vaccinated Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and foreign nationals for essential work. This new system will go into effect 5 June 2021. If you are fully vaccinated and pass rules set by the government, you will NOT have to abide by the hotel quarantine steps when entering the country. That means that the JATP cast and crew can get to filming right away instead of quarantining beforehand. To read more about this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.lonelyplanet.com/amp/articles/canada-border-reopening

Amendment 6

On Charlie’s live yesterday (28 June 2021), Madison said that she got the second dose of the vaccine earlier in the day. In 14 days, she will be good to go on going out and such. Hopefully Jadah and Sonny have gotten at least their first dose. Gets us closer to being able to have the cast and crew together for the show.

Amendment 7

The National Law Review published an article on 2 July 2021 saying that fully vaccinated individuals will be able to travel between Canada and the US on 21 July or possibly sooner. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he wants 75% of Canadians to be fully vaccinated before allowing the border to be opened. With current numbers, it is believed this will be achieved in a few weeks time.

Amendment 8

The New York Times just reported that fully vaccinated Americans could be allowed into Canada by mid August and that people from other countries could be allowed to enter by September.

Amendment 9

It was just reported about two hours ago that Canada will allow vaccinated Americans in on 9 August. That is exactly 3 weeks from now on a Monday. Now all we have to focus on is protocols for safety while in Vancouver while filming.

#julie and the phantoms #julie and the fat ones #julie and the himbos #jatp #renew jatp #renewjatpfors2 #madison reyes #charlie gillespie #owen patrick joyner #jeremy shada #jadah marie #savannah lee may #sacha carlson #booboo stewart #tori caro #cheyenne jackson #kenny ortega

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awkward-teabag · 2 years

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Decided to make a list of WTF events from my province regarding covid, in no particular order:

It is not Public Health's job to prevent the spread of disease.

The top doc says you don't have to worry about getting sick if you're healthy.

The top doc thinks medical models are useless.

The premier is high-risk (older, cancer, chemo) and enforces a masking bubble around him... but the top doc is exempt. And this doesn't extend to the rest of the province.

Top doc and ministry of health have said less info is better re: cases, spread, etc.

Regional top doc said masking directly leads to kids turning to hard drugs.

Multiple attempts to rewrite history.

Top doc scoffed at the idea of making rapid tests available to the public.

If you test positive for covid, to just keep doing things like you normally do.

Ban air purifiers from classrooms unless the government buys them.

Spend years talking about how "mild" covid is in kids then goes shocked pikachu face when parents didn't see the urgency in getting their kid vaccinated.

Top doc says it's misinformation to say omicron is mild. Immediately follows up talking about how mild omicron is.

Top doc personally interferes in Freedom of Information requests to block them despite it not being her department.

Lost count of all the conflict of interest happenings around the top doc and co.

Top doc had it put into her contract that the government would cover all her legal fees in the event of an inquiry or other legal action against her.

Having reporters in the room for briefings is bad because it's too risky and reporters have to jump through hoops to get approved to enter the room. Meanwhile the top doc is more than happy to go to an event in a small room packed with hundreds of people—nearly all unmasked—because they're there to tell her how amazing she is instead of asking her questions.

A Freedom of Information request about hospitals last year had dozens of fully redacted pages. The document itself was just 77 pages.

The government suddenly decided to start charging for Freedom of Information requests after spending years mocking the previous government about how much they feared FOI requests "because they had something to hide".

Private schools got more rapid tests than first responders, prisons, long term care homes, public schools, etc. combined.

Top doc and multiple regional top docs talk about how great it is that people get infected even when they're vaccinated because it "gives people super immunity".

Tons of racist as FUCK dogwhistles and propaganda, including talking about how "masking isn't our culture".

Lots of propaganda in general, such as papering walls with the top doc's (most likely illegally written) book in vaccination centres.

Weaponizing disability and mental health to gaslight and pressure people into not wearing masks.

Top doc giving ski hills a blanket exemption because the government gets a kickback from the biggest ski hill company.

Moving briefings to be an occasional event that features numbers that are a week or more out of date.

Saying people don't need to know the numbers of cases in their area because "it doesn't matter".

Telling healthcare workers it's their job to work while sick.

Refusing to test patients for covid.

Putting covid patients in rooms with non-covid patients.

Saying it's up to businesses to figure out restrictions because "it's not her job".

Claiming rapid antigen tests and lateral flow tests are wildly different and only lateral flow tests can be trusted.

Boasting about how the province can do 20k PCR tests a day. That only happened a couple days last year and now it's below 8k, most of which are private.

Private and public tests are shoved together when it comes to reporting the daily test numbers.

Claiming there's only several thousand people in a province of over 5 million that are high-risk.

Top doc saying she never considered how people with AIDs are being affected.

Top doc and co. talking about how they're being advised by disability advocates. The one (1) advocate is a government entity that promotes and pays for ABA and disabled people aren't allowed near the board of directors.

Top doc saying cloth masks are better than N95 masks.

Healthcare workers being banned from wearing N95s.

Vaccination and testing clinic staff also banned from wearing N95s.

Premier saying the province is the most transparent jurisdiction in the world and only follows science.

Said people should stay off social media and only listen to the top doc to get their covid info.

Gonna bring up the (likely illegally written) book the top doc wrote again. A book in which she admitted to taking gifts (breaking the law) and showing confidential government info to a non-government person (breaking the law).

Minister of health saying it's no big deal that surgeries are being canceled and that no one has died from a delayed surgery.

Minister of health boasting about how many surge beds have gotten added without talking about who would staff them.

Entire hospital emergency rooms being shut down for days because of so little staff.

Vital transportation routes essentially being shut down for hours every other day due to staffing shortages.

(Probably illegally) testing people's blood for covid without notifying people or getting consent in the first place.

Saying people should get Paxlovid ASAP but it's nigh impossible to do so unless you're a government official.

The only studies cited by name and location come from a "non-political" government entity here in the province and occasionally a partnered study from Quebec. Most of the time authored by someone with direct ties to the government and/or funded by the government.

Reporters are allowed to jump the queue to get vaccinations/tests provided spread propaganda and never ask "hard" questions.

"You don't die FROM covid, you die WITH covid."

Saying at least 50% of residents have had covid and framing that as a good thing and not an utter failure on their part.

Continued denying that people can get covid more than once.

It is your personal responsibility to protect yourself and judge your risk. But if you continue to wear a mask you're "just anxious" and need to do yoga.

Gave out a mental health support phone number. The number was for a garden centre.

And so, so much more. I'll add to this but for now it's long enough and I feel like I need to go smoke even though I don't smoke.

(And BTW if you think this is Alberta or Ontario because Kenney and Ford are chucklefucks, you would be wrong. This is BC which supposedly has the most left-leaning provincial government and has handled covid better than most provinces. At least that's what the propaganda says.)

#i'd say this list is only about 10% of happenings thus far #it is very bad #i heard reports of freezer trucks being brought in #with morgues and funeral homes being at or over capacity #but haven't been able to verify those yet #but the government literally uses trump logic word for word #in that testing would bring up the numbers #and bigger numbers make them look bad #so not testing will make them look good #thus there should be minimal testing

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telomeke-bbs · 2 years

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BAD BUDDY FILMING LOCATIONS 2

This post is a continuation of my earlier one (Bad Buddy Filming Locations), and covers a few more filming locations (including some I never thought I’d find) and ironically still missing a couple that I had thought would be easily uncovered (but obviously are not).

One filming location that I had thought would remain forever a mystery (unless you were privy to insider information) was Pat and Pran’s family houses – but with patience and deductive guesswork, Google Maps was amazingly kind enough to show where they were set…

Scenes at the Siridechawat home (Pran’s) and the Jindapat home (Pat’s) were shot at Mason Studio (โครงการ 6, เลขที่ 55/159, Ek Charoen 10 Alley, Lak Hok, Mueang Pathum Thani District, Pathum Thani 12000, Thailand, not far from Rangsit University). Mason Studio is a cluster of houses that are rented out as residential film sets. I only managed to find this location after realizing that a lot of Bad Buddy’s filming took place within a 35km radius, around the city/neighborhood of Rangsit in Pathum Thani province (also considered part of the Greater Bangkok metropolitan area). Scouring Google Maps’ Satellite View of Rangsit (after having identified a few other nearby filming locations) led me to this group of large houses whose roofscapes looked to be a match. Unfortunately, there is no Street View available, but Mason Studio does have a Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/masonstudio.th) – the albums titled Main House and Timeline Photos have a lot of corroborating images (including actual stills from Bad Buddy).

The studio’s Facebook photos suggest that the red-roofed main house with its mock-hacienda architecture is the one that is most often rented out, and it was used a lot for Bad Buddy. Its front façade represented the exterior of Pat’s family home (e.g., at Ep.12 [3I4] 5.29), while the house to its east (the one with a gray-brown roof) was used for the exterior of Pran’s family home (e.g., at Ep.12 [3I4] 13.55). The two houses aren’t separated by much space (there doesn’t seem to be any wall or fence between them either), which explains how Pat could cross over so easily from his bedroom to Pran’s. It’s not clear if the house to the west (the one with a taupe-colored roof) is part of Mason Studio, but the one with the dark gray roof to the north (ringed by canals and the two confirmed Mason Studio houses) most probably is – access to it would be impossible otherwise (unless you went by boat, canal-side).

The houses are impressively-sized and the main house at least seems fully-furnished – but Bad Buddy added its own interior stylings, and the furniture of the series isn’t always consistent with what we see in Mason Studio’s photographs of other productions, although there is overlap. We can also tell from the Facebook photographs that the interiors of the main house were used to represent both the Siridechawat and Jindapat homes, even while its exterior was designated solely for Pat’s household. For example, the grand, arched doorway that we see inside the entrance lobby of the Siridechawat home (where Pran and Dissaya had their confrontation – Ep.10 [4/4] 7.45) is actually a match for the doorway on the exterior of Pat’s family home (see Ep.12 [3I4] 5.44), not Pran’s.

Likewise, scenes at the living and dining rooms of both households (the Jindapats’ at Ep.12 [4/4] 0.25 and Ep.1 [1I4] 12.13, and the Siridechawats’ at Ep.12 [4/4] 4.42 and Ep.1 [1I4] 11.32), Pat’s bedroom and balcony (e.g., Ep.12 [4/4] 8.59, 9.23, 12.58) as well as the study in Pran’s house where Pat and Pran search for clues to their parents’ high school relationship (Ep.10 [2/4] 8.02) were all filmed at the main Mason Studio house. The only exception is Pran’s bedroom (e.g., Ep.12 [4/4] 7.50, 13.01), which looks like it really was set and filmed in the eastern house.

(top left) The Siridechawat entrance lobby; (top right) the exterior of Pat’s family home with its large arched doorway; (middle) this room is a match for the Jindapat living room; (bottom) this room was likely the setting for the Jindapat dining room, with the sofa set switched out for a dining set – the windows and light fittings are a match

(top left and right) Two views of the Siridechawat living room – for Bad Buddy the dining set was replaced with living room furniture and a small dining set, but the faux stone feature wall and its decorative wall ledges are nonetheless a match; (middle) the setting for the Siridechawat dining room, off the main entrance and between the kitchen and living room – the large rectangular dining table looks like it was moved to Pat's family dining room instead and was replaced in the Siridechawat family home by a smaller round one, but the light fitting, false timber-joisted ceiling and even the artificial white and blue flowers in the vase on the counter are a match; (bottom) this room was likely the setting for the Siridechawat study – the shelving, recessed ceiling, doors and even the balcony railings outside are a match

From the various views of the houses (especially the Satellite View on Google Maps and Ep.12 [3I4] 14.21) we can tell that it would have been impossible for Dissaya to have seen Ming re-delivering their misdirected mail at Ep.12 [4/4] 7.02 (at the angle presented, she would have been looking into Pat’s room/balcony, or the Jindapat front garden; to have seen Ming she would have had to crane her neck out the window and use X-ray vision to see through the hedge and boundary wall 😂). Likewise, it would have been almost impossible for Pa to have seen Pran from the Jindapat living room at Ep.12 [4/4] 0.49, given her angle of view. But no matter – it’s all storytelling anyway, and the deft editing allowed the scenes to deliver their powerful messaging on shifting inter-personal dynamics much more succinctly.

According to Director Backaof in the Soon Vijarn Ep.12 recap video on YouTube (RECAP [ENG/CH/JP SUB] แค่เพื่อนครับเพื่อน BAD BUDDY SERIES EP.12 | ศูนย์วิจารณ์ EP.26.2, timestamp 4.41), the Bad Buddy team had searched all over Bangkok for two houses that best fit the bill (close enough for Pat – even as a kid – to cross over into Pran’s room). This suggests that the houses (as they had been so hard to find) once confirmed became the notional hub for the main filming zone (which would have made sense for logistical reasons: less traveling for cast and crew, especially if they were holed up together or in groups during the pandemic – although I have no idea if they actually did self-isolate for filming).

Fun fact: the music video for Mew Suppasit’s song “Thanos” and the original trailer for the PondPhuwin vehicle “Never Let Me Go” were both filmed here at Mason Studio.

And if PatPran’s family homes had been hard to find, another filming location that was even more elusive was the Bad Buddy student bar (Ep.2 [3I4] 2.16, Ep.4 [3I4] 1.32, Ep.9 [3I4] 6.24, Ep.9 [4/4] 4.41, Ep.12 [3I4] 9.43, etc.). Scenes of this nightspot were filmed at the old Sweet-Duck 3 Bar and Restaurant (a sprawling nightlife behemoth, replete with full dine-in service, drinks, live music and sexy waitresses/hostesses), when it used to be on Ek Thaksin Road. It appears that there may be more than one Sweet-Duck outlet; the current Sweet-Duck 3 (as large and raucous as ever, it would seem) is still in Rangsit, but it moved away from Ek Thaksin Road at the end of January 2022 (referenced on their Facebook). I can’t find the building/lot numbers, but the old location of Sweet-Duck 3 was diagonally opposite the Shinkanzen Sushi Restaurant (which is located to the southeast of the Muang Ake Golf Course on Google Maps, about 1km from Rangsit University).

The Street View images on Google Maps mostly show the site vacated as at February 2022, but due to a glitch in the matrix, at one point of the road intersection there is also a view of the old Sweet‑Duck 3 exterior dating back to December 2017. 😊 Interior views of the old Sweet-Duck 3 that match Bad Buddy’s bar scenes can be found on the Sweet-Duck 3 Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/sweetduck3/photos/?ref=page_internal) and on Mapsus (https://mapsus.net/TH/sweet-duck-3-101782).

(top left) Sweet-Duck 3 in December 2017; (top right) the Sweet-Duck 3 site vacated in February 2022; (middle) an interior view showing the same stage seen in Bad Buddy, e.g., at Ep.4 [3I4] 3.09; (bottom) note the large mural of a face (Angelina Jolie's?) and the spherical light fitting in the far background on the left – these are a match for what we see at Ep.9 [4/4] 4.44

Mapsus has far fewer images of Sweet-Duck 3 (not reproduced here) but its website has one very clear photo of the main stage (the third image from the top on its website) that has a lot of corroborating detail for Bad Buddy – you can see the same air-conditioning FCUs, white conduits and fair-faced brick backdrop. The black-clad Elvis figure that we see at Ep.4 [3I4] 3.15 is also visible there (in Bad Buddy it has been moved off-stage nearer the door).

(top left) The red car that we see on stage in Bad Buddy at Ep.4 [3I4] 1.33 was part of the décor at Sweet-Duck 3; (top right) the Incredible Hulk was lurking about too, and can be seen in Bad Buddy at Ep.5 [3I4] 14.00; (bottom) this image is a match for the bar counter at Ep.8 [2I4] 13.18 where Pran consoled Wai about Pa over beers – the corrugated metal wall at the back, the air-conditioning FCU, the beverage chillers, the Hoegaarden beer tower and the cord for the bottle opener are all corroborating details

The visual clues in Bad Buddy’s bar scenes (some of them quite misleading) had me hunting fruitlessly all over the Internet for weeks, before Sweet-Duck 3 finally revealed itself. For example, Google translates the illuminated text of the bar signs (ร้านเหล้า หน้าเสาธง – see Ep.9 [3I4] 6.23) as “Liquor shop in front of the flagpole”, and there’s even a little flag logo alongside the wording (so I’m calling it the Flagpole Bar from now on). This had me combing through maps of all the university campuses in Pathum Thani (there are at least eight) looking for flagpoles with bars in front of them – in vain (of course). And the Hulk statue that we see at Ep.5 [3I4] 14.00 had me searching high and low for establishments with effigies of Bruce Banner's alter-ego – only to realize that Bangkok is full of Hulk statues, all over the place (so that was no help at all 🤦‍♂️). Another red herring: the tight shots and limited camera angles of Bad Buddy's Flagpole scenes led me to think the bar would be an intimate, student-focused space in real-life (and I hunted down as many I could). To no avail, of course, because the exact opposite was true – Sweet-Duck 3 in reality is one hulking colossus of F&B. 🤣

In truth, the key to locating Sweet-Duck 3 was actually in the Behind-the-Scenes video on YouTube ([Behind The Scenes] เพื่อนแฟนมีเรื่อง ก็ต้องไปช่วยดิค้าบ | แค่เพื่อนครับเพื่อน | BAD BUDDY SERIES). You can catch the briefest glimpse of the Sweet-Duck signboard at timestamp 2.52.

(above) The Sweet-Duck signboard visible in the Behind-the-Scenes video

The video also suggests that many (if not all) of the bar scenes were likely to have been filmed on the same day/night – the girl wearing the white top at timestamp 0.00 (while filming for a scene in Ep.9) is the same Archi girl who shoots down a cheeky Engine flirt with an insult about his dad at Ep.12 [3I4] 11.25 (unless they made her come back on another day wearing exactly the same outfit for a different scene, which seems unlikely).

The Behind-the-Scenes video also indicates that the car park fight scene (Ep.9 [3I4] starting at 11.01, where Pat got shot) was filmed on the same night as at least several of the bar scenes. That tells us its location couldn’t have been far away – and in reality it was filmed not in a car park but on the street right next to the old Sweet-Duck 3 Bar and Restaurant. This short street isn’t named on Google Maps, but it is the one that connects the mid-point of Ek Thaksin 1 Road perpendicularly with Ek Thaksin Road. If you look at the Street View on Google Maps, one end of the street faces the Shinkanzen Sushi restaurant, and the other faces the house marked 51/142 on Ek Thaksin 1 Road (both are briefly visible in the Behind-the-Scenes video at timestamps 0.46 and 2.26, and in Ep.9 [3I4] at 11.22, 11.44 and 11.30).

(middle row, left) the Shinkanzen Sushi Restaurant; (middle row, right) house 51/142 on Ek Thaksin 1 Road; (bottom) the side of Sweet-Duck 3 without the corrugated metal hoarding

The corrugated metal hoarding that we see in the background of the car park fight scene at Ep.9 [3I4] 11.04 has been taken down as at February 2022 (it’s no longer visible on Google Maps Street View), but the building behind is a visual match with Ep.9 [3I4] 11.12 and the Behind-the-Scenes video at timestamp 2.16.

Not far away from the above locations was the Jae Si Curry House, where Pat had to hustle his friend group away to avoid them meeting Pran’s (Ep.2 [1I4] 5.27); where both groups separately discussed the anonymous dumpling-assisted courtship exchange going on between Pat and Pran's student apartments (Ep.2 [2/4] 0.17 and 0.53); and where Pat reminisced about Pran cooking curry for him while dining with Korn and Wai (Ep.12 [1I4] 6.33). The location for this restaurant was the Nabnuer Meat & Co. Steakhouse – a smart casual eatery serving a wide array of mouthwatering, mainly western, dishes. See their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/nabnuer/ for more information – although there’s no sign of Jae Si’s Japanese-style curry rice anywhere. 🤷‍♂️

(middle) Street View of Nabnuer Meat & Co.; (bottom) the interior is a match for Ep.12 [1I4] 6.36

I can’t find the exact address, but Nabnuer Meat & Co. is located on Ek Thaksin Road, opposite the SaM Steak and More Restaurant and The Rabbit Hole Bar and Restaurant. Like Sweet-Duck 3 was, it is part of a street where residences look like they have been converted to commercial/F&B.

Director Backaof confirmed in the Ep.12 Soon Vijarn Reaction video on YouTube (REACTION [ENG/CH/JP SUB] แค่เพื่อนครับเพื่อน BAD BUDDY SERIES EP.12 | ศูนย์วิจารณ์ EP.26.1, timestamp 7.57) that the restaurant was a real one, and this led me to look all over Bangkok for curry houses named เจ๊สี่ (“jae si”, meaning JC, Jessie, or Fourth Sister, Google tells me) – this is what we see on the door (Ep.2 [2/4] 1.34 and Ep.12 [1I4] 6.33), on the menu (Ep.2 [2/4] 1.21, 1.51) and on the gate (Ep.2 [1I4] 5.31 and Ep.2 [2/4] 1.27).

But the Facebook photos show that Nabnuer Meat & Co. was already in operation well before the filming of Bad Buddy – so while it was a restaurant like Director Backaof said, it just wasn’t one named Jae Si Curry House. 🤦‍♂️ The Jae Si menu appears at Ep.2 [2/4] 1.23 and 1.36 all kitted out with photographs of dishes and descriptions – unless they lifted the menus off an existing/defunct curry restaurant (which I can’t find any trace of), this again shows how crazily detailed the production team were with the props.

After all that searching, I only managed to track down Nabnuer after noticing that the boundary walls/fencing that Pat and his bros pass on their way to the curry house at Ep.2 [1I4] 4.17 matched the (probably developer-built) walls and fencing all around this neighborhood. From that point it was only a matter of matching landmarks on the streetscape with Google Maps Street View to arrive at Nabnuer.

That's all for this instalment – at time of writing the number of images per post was limited, so for other filming locations please refer to the full list:

Part 1 – The legendary rooftop, PatPran’s student apartments, their high school, the white arches behind the Engineering Canteen, the Zero Waste Village and various seaside scenes, their honeymoon suite, the hospital where Pat was treated for his gunshot graze, and the high school reunion.

Part 2 – Pat and Pran’s family homes, the Flagpole Bar, the car park fight location, and the Jae Si Curry House.

Part 3 – Various locations at and around the rugby field, including Pat’s photoshoot with Ink, the rugby bleachers, the iced milk tea (and green tea wave) picnic table, InkPa’s photography picnic, the old bus stop and the new bus stop. Also Khun Noppharnach’s pharmacy.

Part 4 – Pat’s Engineering Faculty (in and around Rangsit University’s College of Engineering).

Part 5 – Pran’s Architecture Faculty (Rangsity University’s School of Architecture).

Part 6 – Various F&B and commercial locations (eateries, shops, malls and a market).

Part 7 – Pat’s post-graduation apartment and Pran’s residence in Singapore.

Part 8 – Various campus locations filmed within Rangsit University’s Digital Multimedia Complex, including the auditorium and the Freshy Day Song Contest.

Part 9 – The LogTech Building and Pran’s architectural office in Singapore.

Part 10 – Locations for the Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy special episodes.

Part 11 – The apartment for rent that Pran went to view in Ep.2, the elevator scene with Pat just after the viewing, and Wai’s apartment.

Part 12 – PatPran’s elementary and high schools, as well as the location of Pa’s near-drowning.

Part 13 – Random locations (Pran searching for his lost earphones, the covered car park where Wai spied on Pat serenading Pran with Nanon's Love Score, the airport car park, the SouthTech U Library, PatPran's rainy day ointment interlude, their motorbike and truck rides in Hua Hin, the approach road to Uncle Yod's bar, the filming location for the music videos Just Friend? and Our Song, and Pran's street address in Singapore).

Will update this list if I can track down the hardware stores – the one remaining location still unidentified! 🤣

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#bad buddy filming locations #bad buddy locations #patpran #telomeke #bad buddy analysis

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fandom-collective-writers · 4 years

Text

The Cries of Lovers (Nobunaga Oda x MC)

Fandom: Ikemen Sengoku

Pairing: Nobunaga Oda x MC

Prompt: ghosts, full moon, ghost stories

Warning: Smut!

Intended Audience: Female Audience

Word Count: 5,632

Requested by: anonymous

Written by: @lordsisterxotome (Click here to support me on ko-fi!<3)

Disclaimer: I do not own Ikemen Sengoku or any of its characters. All of that goodness is the property of Cybird. I do, however, own the plot of this fanfic. Please do not repost this on any other website.

Something tickled her cheek, her hand batting aimlessly at the sensation as MC turned away in her sleep.

The tickle came again, more insistent this time, and she made a soft noise of complaint, brows furrowing as she turned over again.

A soft breeze made her shiver...but had she left a window open?

The quiet shattered around a scream, felt more than heard as it set every nerve alight with the urge to flee, violently jerking her from the safety of sleep.

MC gasped deep lungfuls of air as she shot up, meeting the man beside her halfway as he reached for her. “Nobunaga-!” her voice trembled with fear and adrenaline as she clutched at him, eyes wide as she peered at him in the darkness.

“Shh, it was just an owl.”

“An owl?” Sure, she wasn’t familiar with owl calls, but she could’ve sworn the sound had come from something human...or something that had once been human. She swallowed, shivering as she asked, “Are you...Are you sure?”

Nobunaga nodded in the darkness, but his reassurance did very little to calm her racing heart, still thumping hard in her chest.

Settling back into the covers, she shivered as she curled closer to him, seeking his sturdy warmth. His fingers carded through her hair, but her mind refused to calm, still suffused with fear. Every touch against her skin felt like it could have been a thousand spiders, her hands reaching to nervously brush stray hairs away from tickling her cheeks.

More than anything, MC wished she was back home in Azuchi, in their bed in the tenshu. Hopefully Nobunaga would be able to finish his business with the daimyo who lived here soon. She didn’t like this place. It was colder than Azuchi, a strange loneliness clinging to the walls and making her skin crawl as she walked the halls. Every noise made her jump, her steps quickening as she nearly ran in search of her lover.

She had never been the superstitious type, but something felt wrong about this place, a strange heaviness to the very air she breathed. The people seemed amiable enough, but it clung to them too, this weight. Sometimes she swore she caught the hint of a more desolate expression beneath their careful smiles, like peeking beneath a mask.

When she had mentioned it to Nobunaga, hoping he could assuage her anxiety after they had been escorted to their room for the evening, she felt her heart do a little fearful dive in her chest when his eyes had narrowed, lips curling down in a frown as he said, “You noticed it too?”

Burying her face against his chest, she tried to focus on his steady breathing, on the beat of his heart, letting the comforting, strong sound calm her as she slowly sank back into the sweet embrace of sleep and dreams of home. She wanted to leave soon...

MC woke from a fitful sleep the next day, stirring when her boyfriend’s warmth left her side.

“Nobunaga?” she called, searching for him through sleep-bleary eyes.

“I want to get an early start on today’s business,” he answered, sitting down beside her on the futon, fully dressed. Her head rested on his thigh as he ran his fingers through her hair, almost lulling her back to sleep. “The sooner we’re finished here the better.”

“Agreed.”

His hand gripped her chin and she tilted her face to meet his as he bent to kiss her. She was grateful for the affection, for the warmth it spread through her tight muscles. “You may sleep longer if you wish. It’s still early,” he murmured against her mouth.

“No. I don’t think I could sleep without you.” The thought of being in this strange room alone with the walls was more than enough to drive the last of the sleepiness from her form. “I’ll be with Lady Yamayo all day.”

“Enjoying tea ceremonies?” he chuckled. The daimyo’s wife was obsessed with tea ceremonies. MC hadn’t even thought that was possible until now.

“Let me restrain my excitement,” she grumbled. Maybe she would take her chances with the walls and the eyes that seemed to follow her every move. They would be more interesting company, that was for sure.

“Retreat to me if it gets to be too much,” he said, punctuating his words with another kiss.

She couldn’t help but smile as he rose from the futon, the constant prickling at the back of her head momentarily forgotten. “I love you.”

The smile he returned had a pure, delighted edge to it as he answered, “I love you, too.” Nobunaga could deny it all he wanted, but she knew he melted inside when she said it. “I’ll see you later.”

She waved him out and then rolled over onto her back, blowing out a long breath as she stared up at the ceiling. Even the wooden beams looked too dark, as if damp from the inside out, and she half expected to see centipedes crawling among the shadows.

It had happened several times throughout their stay that MC had caught sight of some phantom movement out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned to see what it was, there was nothing there. The first few times it happened, she dismissed it as nothing more than her eyes playing tricks on her, but as the occurrences increased, she began to grow more suspicious. A couple of times, she thought she felt a tug at the hem of her kimono or a movement under her foot, but again there was nothing there. It didn’t help her nerves at all, but she wasn’t about to hide away in bed all day like a child and wait for the ghosts to get her.

Throwing off the covers, she dressed and freshened up, giving her cheeks a few pats for strength. She tried to keep her paces even as she walked down the hall to take her breakfast with Lady Yamayo, a smile on her face as she made small talk with the older woman.

She only had to suffer through a couple of rounds of tea ceremony before lunch, and then something odd occurred.

Honestly, she had very little in common with Lady Yamayo, the woman’s values a little more traditional than her own, but she got along with her well enough as long as she didn’t accidentally try to discuss deeper topics like the recent rice shortages in the neighboring province or the new irrigation systems used in the fields bordering Azuchi. No, the most important subjects she discussed with Lady Yamayo included new designs on porcelain, new strains of tea from China, and, worst of all, when she would bear Nobunaga children.

They were in the middle of a discussion *cough* interrogation *cough* concerning the last topic when MC had taken a glance outside and caught a glimpse of the nearly full moon hanging in the evening sky. A second later a shatter broke the murmur of conversation, making her jump in her seat. Lady Yamayo’s face was stuck in a look of fear and horror, her hand trembling in the air where she’d once been holding her cup.

“Are you alright?” she asked, making the other woman start.

“Y-Yes, my apologies,” she stuttered, patting her pale cheeks. “You’ll have to excuse me, Princess, I’m suddenly not feeling well.”

“Yes, please, I hope you feel better,” MC called after her as Lady Yamayo stumbled from the room, nearly tripping over the hem of her kimono in her rush. She continued to stare after her as a maid came in to take care of the mess, a basket under her arm.

“You’ll have to forgive my lady,” the young woman spoke softly, an apologetic look in her gaze as she knelt on the tatami floor. “We’re all a little anxious with the tenth full moon approaching.”

That made MC blink. “The full moon?”

The maid’s face pinched in a look of confusion as she regarded MC with a mix of surprise and anxiety. “My lady, you haven’t heard the story?”

Warning bells went off in her mind. Of course there was a story. There had to be a story to add to the creepy feeling. If this didn’t feel like some horror story already, it sure was beginning to feel that way now. She debated whether she really wanted to know as she asked, “What story?”

The maid busied herself with the bits of broken pottery, fiddling with them as she placed them in her basket. “It happened many years ago. Lady Inume, the previous daimyo’s daughter, was betrothed to the lord of the neighboring province. She was a lovely woman, graceful in all things, so it came as a surprise when she revealed that she had fallen in love with a farmer’s son.” Scooting forward, she helped with the smaller pieces of pottery as the maid continued. It was too easy to see where this was going. “The daimyo was outraged and banned them from ever seeing each other again…” she trailed off.

“And then?” she urged, her voice quiet.

“On the day of Lady Inume’s wedding to the lord, the farmer’s son appeared to rescue her, but he was killed by her father in the attempt.” MC felt her jaw drop, her worst fears about where this story was going confirmed. “Lady Inume found out, and, before the priest, her betrothed, and all those gathered, she took out a knife she’d hidden in her wedding robes and laid a curse on the daimyo and this manor before taking her own life.”

Her heart dropped in her chest, a burn forming in the back of her throat in sympathy for the poor young lovers, driven to such lengths with their love on the line. “That’s awful,” she said, and the maid nodded in agreement.

“It was a terrible tragedy, to be sure, but no one took her curse seriously...until a month later, on the night of the full moon, the tenth of that year.” The maid’s hands gripped the edge of her basket hard.

“What happened?”

“A yurei in blood spattered wedding robes terrorized the halls, tearing up the floors, flinging doors open, and wreaking havoc. Her screams for her lost lover could be heard in all corners of the manor. Lady Inume’s curse embedded itself in the house, in the walls and floors. The daimyo was found dead the next morning, scared to death. Several have tried to destroy this manor to rid it of the curse, but it remains even if every piece is burned to the ground, simply renewing itself when the manor is rebuilt. Holy men have been called from far and wide to try their hand at it but none have succeeded. If anything, they simply irritate Lady Inume’s yurei further. Every year since, on the tenth full moon, she roams the halls again, searching for her lost lover in her wedding garb.”

“But then that would be this full moon. The one happening in a couple of days?”

“Tomorrow,” the maid corrected, the word heavy with dread. “Pray that your business here is finished by then, my lady.”

The maid’s words stuck with her for the rest of the day, and she suddenly felt more in tune to the sense of disquiet that grew among the staff and daimyo’s family as the moon rose higher in the sky, so close to being full. It was a relief when the sliding door of their room finally opened to admit her lover, crimson eyes meeting hers.

“Nobunaga!” Scrambling to her feet, MC ran to give him a hug, her shoulders loosening in the safety of his hold. Her eyes sparkled as she tilted her head to look up at him, smiling wide. “Welcome back! How was your day?”

“Fruitful enough.” Leaning down, he gave her a soft kiss. “I imagine we’ll only need to stay here another few days. And yours?”

A few days? Then they would have to stay through the full moon after all. Parting from him, she sat down on the futon while he changed into his night clothes. “Listen, I heard a story about this place today, about...why it is the way it is.”

Peering over his shoulder at her, he lifted a curious brow. “Oh?”

Nobunaga listened attentively while she recounted the story of Lady Inume and her love, her curse, and her ghost, his expression narrowing as he hummed occasionally. “Do you believe it?” she asked when she’d finished the grim tale.

“Do you?” he responded.

Biting her lip, she tried to put the feeling she got from this place into words. “I’ve never been the kind to believe in ghosts, but this is a strange place. Something doesn’t feel right here.”

“I see.” He was silent for a couple moments, contemplating, before he suddenly smirked. “Meet me at the old shrine up the hill at sunset tomorrow.”

“The old shrine?” The maid had told her that after the incident with Lady Inume, the structure had fallen out of use, everyone in the area too afraid of the woman’s yurei to care for it. “Why?”

“I have something in mind, something that might appease whatever rattling spirits may or may not be causing a fuss. Either way, I promise it’ll be enjoyable for us.”

MC gave him a suspicious look as he joined her at the futon, tugging her into his arms as his smirk widened, turning downright mischievous. “Nobunaga, what do you have planned? You better not be messing around, especially with these poor people scared out of their minds.”

“It’s a surprise, but I promise you I’m not just doing this for entertainment. You’ll just have to trust me on that.”

She regarded him through a playfully narrowed gaze for another moment or so before sighing. “Fine. I’ll go along with whatever it is, so long as we don’t get in trouble, okay?”

“Deal,” he said, satisfied. “So what did you and Lady Yamayo do today?”

Groaning, she turned her face into the blankets. “You’ll never guess how many times she asked me why I wasn’t with child yet.”

Nobunaga’s deep, resounding laughter made the room a little less dark, the shadows retreating a little further into their corners.

Sure enough, the next evening MC found herself climbing the short incline up to the shrine at the top of the hill behind the manor, the trees bathed in an orange-red glow as the sun sank closer to the horizon behind her. The manor itself may have been dreary, but the surrounding forest was actually quite spectacular, animals chittering in the trees turned orange by the amber hold of autumn. No shadows lurked here, no eyes to watch her or phantom hands to reach out to grab at her. She could breathe here.

“Nobunaga!” she called his name when she reached the end of the overgrown path, beholding what once must have been a beautiful shrine. Nature had since set itself to reclaiming the structure, grass and vines climbing over the peeling red wood. One would never have guessed what terrible event had happened here so long ago.

“I’m here.”

She looked over to see her boyfriend rise from where he has been sitting at the shadowed edge of the wooden steps, the setting sun lending his hair a red tint and highlighting his strong, masculine features.

“Will you tell me what you’re planning now?” MC asked as he came closer. “We should probably get back before the moon rises.” She had barely been able to leave with the maids and Lady Yamayo warning and fussing over her.

“We won’t be returning to the manor tonight,” he rumbled, and she blinked at him as he offered her his hand. “Come,” he ordered when she looked at it questioningly, “There’s nothing to fear so long as I’m at your side.”

Without another thought, she placed her hand in his, following as he led her up the creaky steps of the shrine. She half expected to see blood stains covering the floors and walls, overturned bottles and cups hinting at what had occurred here, but the sight that greeted her was much more surprising. A gasp fell from her lips as she took in the room with wide eyes, new colors and scents greeting her with each turn of her head.

Flowers burst through the wooden floorboards and rotten tatami mats, of every brilliant shade and variety, perfuming the air. Lush vines climbed over the walls and stretched across the ceiling, draped with lengths of sweet, purple wisteria. Butterflies fluttered here and there, resting on the blooms.

How such a garden had grown, she didn’t know, but everywhere she looked, there was life, growing and vibrant and, most importantly, gentle. The maid had said that the shrine had been abandoned due to the curse laid upon it, but there was no malice here. Instead, all she felt from this place was-

“Love.”

She spun to look at Nobunaga. “What?”

“There’s nothing but love in this place,” he clarified. “Don’t you think so?”

Squeezing his hand, MC leaned into his side. “I do. It’s beautiful.” Heartachingly beautiful. “How do you think it grew so well?”

“I imagine it’s simply the course of nature and its mysterious workings, but if you wish to put it in terms of what happened here, I would say this too is part of the curse.”

“As a remnant of Lady Inume’s love?”

Nobunaga nodded. “Precisely.”

“She laid the curse as a result of her heartbreak, but behind it all was love,” she said idly, before smiling at the man beside her. “I’m surprised you thought of that. It isn’t like you to be so sentimental.”

He smiled in return, chuckling, “Of course, I don’t believe in such things as curses.” Looking back at the garden, he continued, “But when I realized this was here, I couldn’t help but think of you. When you told me the story of this place, I had to show it to you.”

She felt the love in her gaze as she looked at him, wrapping her arms around his waist as he encircled her in a strong arm. “Thank you.” The disquiet she’d felt since they’d arrived had all but disappeared, evaporated by the warmth spreading through her chest. All she felt now was love, from the inside and out.

Leaning up, MC planted a soft, lingering kiss on his waiting lips, feeling him groan when she pulled away.

“Kiss me more,” he murmured, “as my thank you.”

“Here?” she laughed, kissing him again.

“It’s better than the madness that’ll most certainly take hold of the manor tonight. So.” Taking her hand, he guided her through the flowers to a small back room she hadn’t noticed before. “Will you stay the night with me in this cursed place?”

“I can’t think of anything I would like more.”

The back room was dim in the evening light and a little dusty, but warm and comfortable. Some of the wilderness that dominated the main room had spread here as well, growing up the walls and blanketing the floor. The sweet smell of wisteria made her sigh, her muscles loose and relaxed under her lover’s hands as he caressed up and down her body behind her. Leaning into his hold, she reached back to tangle her fingers in Nobunaga’s hair as his hot mouth attached to her neck, sucking and nipping at the skin. Strong fingers smoothed across her hips to her obi, loosening the chords before letting the whole garment fall to the floor.

Slipping her kimono down her shoulder, he kissed at every inch of new skin that came into view, leaving love bites in his wake. The kimono soon joined her obi on the floor, and she turned in his arms, completely bare. Her hands went to his haori and slipped it off his broad shoulders as he pulled her close to him, swallowing the soft noises she made as he kissed her, licking past her parted lips.

Her hands smoothed over the bare skin of his chest as MC parted his robes, letting his clothes join hers. She whimpered as his naked erection pressed against her hip, squeaking when his hands gripped her rear and hoisted her up, instinctively wrapping her legs around his waist.

Night had almost completely fallen by now, only a smudge of orange light left on the horizon, but the back room was already dark, the shushing sound of cicadas in the forest beyond. The flowers and grass were soft against her back as Nobunaga laid her down, his weight between her legs as he kissed across her jaw and down the column of her throat. She moaned as he lavished her collarbones in love bites before moving on to her breasts, taking her nipple into his mouth as his hand made itself busy with the twin globe.

His groans vibrated pleasurably against her skin as he sucked the hardened peak, slowly grinding his erection through her dampening heat. A cry fell from her lips when the tip of his cock prodded her clit, her body arching into him as her arms wrapped around his neck, hugging his face closer to her breasts.

“You make such beautiful sounds for me,” Nobunaga panted, releasing her swollen nipple with a wet pop. He lavished the same attention on the other nipple, teasing the sensitive bud after his fingers had pinched and twisted and rolled it to his satisfaction.

“Nobunaga, please!” she whined, rolling her hips against his to create more of that delicious friction. An ache was beginning to form in her lower belly, her core clenching around nothing as his thick length slid through her folds and coated the hot, velvety skin in her slick.

He chuckled, hot breath fanning against her cheek as he nipped at the soft spot beneath her ear. “Patience, fireball, I’ll take you soon enough, but I intend to bring you to the brink of pleasure first, until you’re begging for me to shove myself inside of you.”

Whining, MC writhed under his hands as he groped down her body, hoisting one leg over his hip while the other spread her other leg to the side. She felt his stare in the darkness, spread open for his taking, and his growl echoed through the small room. “You’re positively glistening, my love. You have no idea how much I desire you.”

“Then take me!” she whispered, biting her lip. She could feel her arousal seeping through her folds, drenching her inner thighs.

His fingers brushed through the delicate petals of her entrance, gathering her sweetness on the digits. “So wet for me,” he rumbled as she trembled under the touch, rolling her hips into his hand. “And so sensitive,” he finished, his voice a deep, satisfied purr.

Without warning, Nobunaga sank a finger deep into her heat, his thumb brushing her swollen clit as her back arched and a cry of pleasure filled the room. MC almost feared disturbing the flowers with the sound, but she could barely bring herself to care with her lover crooking his fingers so deliciously inside of her, rubbing harshly at her clit as he did. The pleasure made stars bloom across the dimness, her hands running through the grass and stems at her sides in search of a handhold.

“Ah!” His fingers found the sensitive spot inside of her, her hands flying to his shoulders to dig her nails into his muscles. “Yes, right there!”

She felt his smirk widen against her breast, mouthing at the skin as he continued to rub that spot inside of her, scissoring his fingers in preparation for something much larger. The lewd sounds of his digits disappearing inside of her filled the space, and the grass scraped softly against her back as MC moaned and twisted, the smell of her lover and wisteria filling her senses in a heavenly combination.

She was getting close, so, so close, her pleasure intensifying as her climax approached. Tears of pleasure beaded at the corners of her eyes as his thumb swiped against her clit again, sending shockwaves through her body. “N-Nobunaga, I’m-!” she whined, feeling herself approaching the brink of her climax, but just as she thought it would overtake her in sweet ecstasy, his fingers pulled out of her, making her cry out in frustration as her orgasm fell away.

His weight fell over her, skin to skin, and she screamed his name as he sheathed himself inside of her in one smooth stroke, his fingers digging into her hips and rumbling a groan of her name as her clenching heat welcomed him. Sensitive as she was from his foreplay, her climax seized her at the feeling of his thick, hot weight stretching and filling her so perfectly, the vein that ran along the underside of his cock pulsing against her g-spot.

Nobunaga grunted and growled as she came around him, drenching him in her release. His fingers tore at the grass next to her, dropping his head to the crook of her shoulder as he gasped. Breathless chuckles fanned against her skin as he leaned back to look at her, a bead of sweat running down the side of his neck. “You almost made me come there, fireball.” Reaching up, he brushed her hair away from her sweaty forehead. “So tight and sensitive for me…”

MC had barely recovered before he pulled away to thrust back into her hard, drawing screams from her in the aftershocks of her climax. “Too much!” she cried, holding on to him for dear life as he plunged into her again and again, pounding her into the soft bed of flowers.

“Take it,” he grunted, grasping her hips to pull her impossibly closer, impaling her on his cock. His lips captured hers in a sloppy kiss, brimming with passion and need as he dominated her mouth. “Take it all!”

Here, in this backroom garden, it felt like they were the only people in the entire world, just them and the flowers and the ghosts of a time long passed, the proof of those old lovers’ bond in the air and ground and walls.

In the arms of the one she loved most, flowers caressing her cheeks and tangling in her hair, MC cried with love and need, her body aglow with the heat and intensity of her ardor. She needed him like the air she breathed, a part of her just as her heart and mind were.

“I love you,” Nobunaga murmured, his voice heavy with emotion. “I need you. You’re my better half, my reason to do good.” His lips brushed the corners of her eyes in a rare show of tenderness, kissing her pleasured tears away. “Everything good in my world stems from you.”

There was something desperate in his voice, echoing from a fear of loss buried deep inside of him. Faintly, her mind wandered to Lady Inume and her farmer, to the troubles they were unable to overcome and the tragic ending that awaited them. It was too sad to think they were never able to be together even in the afterlife. She and Nobunaga had been through their fair share of troubles as well, but through pain and love and sheer force of will they’d managed to work their way through it. If she had been in Lady Inume’s position, if Nobunaga had been that farmer’s son, would she have had the strength to do the same?

Biting her lip, she drew her lover impossibly closer, wrapping him tight in her arms. If she could’ve she would’ve never let him go, kept him safe from everything and everyone that would dare harm him. “I love you, too,” she panted, gazing into those wide red eyes as she cupped his cheek in her palm. “Never let go of me.”

“Never,” he vowed, and she mewled and cried his name as the angle of his thrusts changed, turning more forceful as he hilted inside of her, branding his name into the deepest parts of her. She nearly came when the tip of his cock slammed into the sweet spot deep inside of her, ramming into it again and again as he worked her closer to her climax.

“I won’t last much longer if you keep squeezing me like that,” he growled, his hips moving with primal, wild abandon and his balls smacking against her ass. The sound of skin against skin echoed around the room, almost too loud in the quiet of the night.

“Please! Hah…! I’m - I’m so close! Don’t stop!” she begged, the heel of the leg wrapped around his waist digging into the base of his spine, urging him to keep going.

“Give me all of your pleasure,” he demanded, biting at her neck and shoulders, “Give me everything.” With a rough pinch to her clit and another deep thrust, MC came around him, her scream echoing off the ivy covered walls of the small room. Nobunaga followed close behind, rocking into her through his orgasm as he muffled his grunt against her skin, shooting his seed deep into her core.

Strong arms wrapped around her, keeping her close as he rolled off of her. Neither of them said anything, exhausted, but the soft kiss he placed to her forehead conveyed more than enough. The sweet scent of the flowers and their lovemaking filling the air around them, they fell asleep in each other’s arms, comforted on a bed of flowers.

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Later that night, MC found herself sitting on the steps of the shrine, having left her lover peacefully sleeping in the back room.

The full moon had risen high in the sky, illuminating the manor at the base of the hill. From here, she could see that there were lights on inside the building, and she wondered if Lady Inume’s yurei had indeed appeared as they had feared, the pain of losing the one she loved reaching beyond the grave.

“What are you doing out here?” Turning, she smiled as Nobunaga emerged from the shrine, a frown on his face. “I was cold, sleeping without you.”

“Sorry. I just wanted to look at the moon.”

“Hmm.” Taking a seat behind her, Nobunaga wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning forward to rest his chin on her shoulder. “Do you think the yurei appeared?”

“I hope not,” she sighed, snuggling into the warmth of his hold to fend off the night chill. “And I hope they aren’t worried when they find we haven’t returned.”

The man behind her scoffed, kissing one of the marks he had left on her neck earlier. “Pay that no mind. Just think of me right now.”

“As you wish,” MC chuckled, expecting more kisses, but just then she felt him stiffen behind her, his grip on her tightening protectively. “Nobunaga?” A large hand covered her mouth, silencing her. A little annoyed and more alarmed, she raised a brow at him over her shoulder, but he wasn’t looking at her, his eyes fixed on something on the path ahead.

Turning to see what he was looking at, she gasped and pressed back into him, clutching at his arms around her.

The forest had gone completely silent except for the sound of dead leaves scuttling across the ground, carried along by a cold wind. Standing on the path, just in sight of the shrine, was a pale figure clad entirely in white. She stood far away, but it was obvious she was looking their way, locks of wispy black hair blowing in the breeze. It was impossible to make out her expression or any features, but a dark smudge marred the front of her white wedding robes, stark in the light of the full moon.

The woman stood like that, staring at them, for several moments, and MC thought she could surely hear her heart pounding in her chest, hear proof of the life rushing through her veins. The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up and she could feel goose bumps rising on her arms. The logical part of her tried to reason that it must be one of the villagers or someone from the manor, out for a late night stroll, but the other, more instinctual part of her screamed, urging her to cower and run from this being that she sensed as inhuman.

The stillness almost grew to be too much, nearing its breaking point, but as they watched, a second figure appeared from the treeline along the path, drawing the woman’s attention. A tall male approached her without fear, clad in simple brown robes. They seemed to exchange a few words, too distant to hear, and then he took her hand, drawing her close to him.

With a last look at Nobunaga and MC, the couple disappeared out of sight down the path, fading into thin air. She held her breath long after they were gone, the sounds of the forest steadily coming back to life.

When she tried to speak her lover’s name nothing came out, so she turned to curl into him instead, shaking.

“Gods,” he invoked quietly, his voice a little strained. “That had to have been one of the villagers,” he grunted, “Or a trick of the eyes?”

“That we both saw?” she whispered.

Looking at each other, a couple of heartbeats passed and then they burst into laughter, the kind tinged with adrenaline and relief, hearts beating madly in their chests as a reminder that they were alive and real...even if what they had just witnessed was questionably so.

Somehow MC didn’t think Lady Inume’s yurei was all that vengeful anymore.

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bangtanreadingcorner · 3 years

Text

despite it all • park jimin

chapter one — bandaid

plot — you never could ignore someone who needs help. not even a gang member.

words — 3.1K

You were walking home from a night out with friends, the pleasant buzz of alcohol in your veins making you feel giddy and floaty as you hummed softly. The street was quiet but in the distance you could hear people laughing, sirens of an ambulance, a barking dog and it gave you a sense of security and familiarity.

What was most definitely not familiar was the man rounding a corner, and almost slamming into you. You yelp, taking a quick step backwards, heart stopping before it skyrockets. You have apparently underestimated the amount of alcohol you've had to drink because that quick step causes you to loose your balance, and unable to regain it, you fall to the ground, landing ass first.

You contemplate just sitting there until the morning but when the man you almost bumped into lets out a pained groan, your eyes flicker up to him. Horror fills you as you take in his blood stained appearance. There is blood on his shirt, his pants, his face. His one hand was holding his side and his knuckles are bloody.

You scramble to your feet, suddenly much more sober than you were two seconds ago, "Oh my God, are you okay? Ah, nevermind, stupid question. You're covered in blood, you couldn't possibly be okay. Is there someone I can call for you? Ohhh, I know, I can call an ambulance."

A hand grasps around the wrist of the hand going for the phone on the inside pocket of your jacket, fingers strong and grip tight. His voice is low and husky when he speaks, "No. No ambulance."

Trying to press down the mounting panic in your chest, you swallow thickly. "Dude, not to be stating the obvious, but you are covered in blood."

"Most of it's not even mine." He says around a cough, eyes drooping, bracing himself against the wall.

Your eyes widen when you process his words and you twist your wrist in his grip, wanting to pull away and run. You clear your throat, running your eyes over him. "Well you look like you're going to be fine, so I'll just go."

He nods tiredly, letting go of your wrist, a strand of his blonde dyed hair falling into half closed, exhausted eyes, his breathing hard, and your heart twists. You want to help him and you're about to offer, when you remember his words from just seconds ago.

Most of it's not even mine.

Which means that he probably hurt whoever's blood is on him. Which means that this is a dangerous person, the kind of person you run from, not help. Judging from the tattoo in his neck, he's in a gang. You don't know what exactly everything about the different gang tattoos and what every stripe or cross means but everyone knows that anyone with a serpent tattoo is part of the most dangerous gang in the province. Maybe even the country.

You walk past him, intent on going home and forgetting about this incident. Your try putting it out of your head as you cross streets and your small apartment comes closer, but it doesn't work. At the next street you have to cross, you look back, and see the man still bracing himself against the wall as he walks slowly. He stops, resting with his back against the wall.

You bite your lip, your heart at war with your head, torn between doing the right thing and the safe thing. You look at the man again – gang member or no, he's still a person who needs help – and your heart wins the fight.

"Fuck it." You mutter to yourself before taking of in a light jog, back to the injured man. His body tenses up, like he's preparing for a fight, and his eyes snap open when he hears you approaching, hard and cold and it terrifies you a little. It's almost enough to make you turn around again. But then recognition flashes in his eyes and his tensed shoulders relaxes. You look at him silently for a moment and then you blurt out, "Where are you hurt?"

"None of your fucking business." He breathes, moving his eyes from you to the night sky.

"Rude." You clack your tongue at him, risking a step closer. "Are you bleeding anywhere? Or is all of this blood the other guy's?"

He looked at you again, something feral and definitely dangerous glinting in his eyes. "Who says there was just one?"

Instead of fear, you can feel your annoyance rising, "Can you answer the question and stop deflecting?"

His brows furrowed, clearly confused. "What are you doing here? Weren't you on your way home or something?"

Fully annoyed now, you glare at him. "I'm trying helping you, you ungrateful ass."

Amusement flickers in his eyes, "Well you're not doing a very good job of it."

"Well, you're not making it very easy." You retort, deciding to just take matters into your own hands. You step close to him before taking his arm and bringing it around your shoulders, noticing that he winces when you lift his arm. "Let's go." You tell him, tugging gently until he starts walking in the direction he came from and where you're going.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" He asks. You glance up at him, seeing a smirk on his lips.

"I have some idea." You say, giving a pointed look to the tattoo in his neck.

"So, you know I'm in a gang." He concludes. "And that I most likely got my injuries from doing something illegal."

"Yes." You nod. "And speaking of injuries, are you bleeding?"

"Not that I know of." He answers. He wobbles a bit and you stop, waiting until he regains his footing before continuing. "And you don't care?" He asks curiously.

"Of course I care and in normal circumstances I'd probably call the police, but you're hurt and you need help, not the police. So, I'm going to help you."

"What if I'm an assassin with a thing for cutting woman into pieces?" He sounds amused, like this whole situation is a source of entertainment for him.

"Wouldn't that be a way to go." You deadpan.

He snickers and then goes quiet for a while before asking, "Are you going to call the cops?"

"Are you going to hurt me?" You ask instead of answering.

"No." He sounds like he means it but that doesn't really reassure you. "Not unless you give me a reason too." And that actually does make you feel a little better.

"Well, there you go then." You tell him.

"I should just take your word for it?" You can feel him looking at you, but you ignore his gaze, focusing on watching your step. He wasn't resting all of his weight on you, you could tell, but the added weight still slowed you down and caused strain on your muscles but you ignore it, intent on helping him.

"Considering the fact that I'm taking a stranger who is a literal gang member and a potential killer into my home, you really don't have any ground for that argument." You inform him matter-of-factly. You rewind your words and lament that maybe your are as crazy as your cousin accuses you of being.

"Your home?" He whistles, but starts coughing halfway through. "Buy a guy dinner first."

"Hah!" You scoff, ignoring the way your cheeks burn from his teasing. "I'm helping you. If anyone is going to be buying dinner, it's going to be you."

"I'm Jimin, by the way. If you're going to help me, the least I could do is tell you my name." He says, and when you look at him, he looks sincere and a little shy.

"Y/N." You tell him.

You reach your apartment without any incidents or without running into anyone – a man covered in blood would have raised questions – and you navigate it in the dark, leading him to your couch before going back to the door and locking it and flipping on the lights. You turn back to him, watching as he looks around your place. You couldn't help but feel a little self conscious. "I know it's no palace, but it's mine and you're only gonna be here for one night. Unless you plan on leaving directly after I help you."

"I like it, it feels comfortable. Like a home." Jimin tells you, face softer than its been since the moment you met him. You stare a little, but then you notice the blood on his face again and you look away.

"You should go and take a shower. I'll give you the biggest clothes I'll have, so don't worry about that. I'll wash yours and put it in the dryer, so it will be clean for when you leave. I'm pretty sure if you walk down the street with blood stained clothes in broad daylight, someone is bound to call the police." You are rambling and you're perfectly aware of it, but you're nervous.

He nods and gets to his feet, wincing. "Which way is the bathroom?"

You point, "Down the hall to your left. Do you need help?"

Jimin gives you a slight smile, "I'll manage."

You wait until you hear the shower running before you go to your room, hunting down your biggest hoodie and pair of sweatpants. You knock on the bathroom door, letting Jimin know you're leaving the clothes outside the bathroom door.

You wait on the couch for Jimin to finish, wondering what your mother would say if she could see you now.

You bite down a smile when Jimin comes out of the bathroom, towel drying his hair. The sweatpants are obviously too small, ending high above his ankles, the fabric stretching over his thighs – and if you spend an extra second looking at those muscular thighs then it was no one's business. The hoodie seemed to fit just right, but he didn't zip it up. Your eyes is glued to his chest, not because it was eye-catching – oh and it was eye-catching alright, a defined six pack was waving at you almost mockingly – but because of the bruises.

"Like what you see?" Jimin's teasing voice brings you out of your staring stupor.

"I-" You cut yourself off, suddenly choked up by emotion.

His eyes widened and he walks as quickly as he can to you. "Hey, no, no, it looks worse than it is. You should see the other guys."

"That doesn't really make me feel better, but thanks for trying." You tell him, blinking hard, and getting up from the couch. "I'm going to get my first aid box."

While in the bathroom, you toss Jimin's bloody clothes into your cleaning bucket, making a mental to wash it as soon as you're done helping him.

You walk to where he's sitting on your couch, going down on you knees so you could face him. You notice the gun laying next to him and your heart almost jumps out of your chest. You give him an unimpressed stare, "Seriously?"

He gives you a smug smirk, "It's for protection."

"From what? My bandaids?" You ask sarcastically.

"Gang member, remember?" Jimin says, like you need the reminder, and you pull a face at him.

You ignore his chuckle to inspect his face, and the first thing you notice is how attractive he is. (But that doesn't matter because you're only helping him and then he's leaving.) The second thing you notice is that there is just a few scratch marks on his face, nothing too serious. You clean it up with some antiseptic, a little impressed that he doesn't even wince.

"Okay, I need to take a look at your chest now, make sure none of your ribs are broken, so will you sit a little forward?" You ask him and Jimin does as he's asked.

"You don't seem too bothered by the presence of a gun." Jimin comments, obviously curious as you run your hands over his ribs (he tenses for the first five seconds then relaxes), pressing against it, feeling carefully.

You shrug, "My dad was a cop, and while he didn't parade his around, I got used to them nonetheless."

"Past tense." Jimin observes, eyes on your face. You can feel his gaze and it causes goosebumps to rise on your skin. "Is he dead or retired?"

Your hands falter for a moment at the blunt question. You swallow thickly, continuing your path over his ribs. "He died in the line of duty."

"What happened?" He asks.

You look him in the eye, "He got caught in the crossfire of a gang war."

"Oh." Jimin sounds like someone knocked the breath from him. Silence falls around you and it lasts until you finish your exam of Jimin's chest before he says, "I'm sorry."

You look up, "Are you really?"

"What's that suppose to mean?" He frowns at you.

"Don't say something you don't mean. I'd prefer it if you said nothing at all." You eye the bruises on his chest, wondering how people can do that to each other. "There doesn't seem to be anything broken but you definitely cracked a few of them and it's gonna hurt like a bitch, come the morning."

"How do you know all of this?" He questions.

"I'm a paramedic." You answer, reaching for his left hand, remembering that his knuckles was bloodied before the shower.

"That explains a lot." He grabs your wrist with the hand you're not holding, holding onto it almost gently. "Look, about what you said just now, you're helping me despite the fact that it could have been one of my people that killed your dad." He squeezes your wrist, looking into your eyes imploringly. "I mean it."

You shrug, tilting your head. "Yeah, well, my mom always said I can't hold a grudge to save my life."

When you're done cleaning up and bandaging his hands, you pick up the bottle of pills you brought with you. You shake out a few pills before standing to go and fetch him a glass of water. You held out the water and the pills onto him, "Here. You've got to be in a world of hurt right now."

"What is that?" He asks, eyeing the white tablets laying on your hand.

You sigh, "Just some paracetamol. It's all I have. Just because I'm a paramedic doesn't mean I keep hospital grade medicine stocked in my home."

"Four of them?" Jimin's eyebrows went up. "Are you trying to overdose me?"

You squint at him, "Don't be such a baby. I take three at a time for my headaches and I am willing to bet my right kidney that you're hurting worse than my headaches usually are."

You pack up your first aid box and when you put it away, you bring the bucket with Jimin's bloodied clothing. You filled it halfway with water and then walked to the kitchen. You empty half your salt supply into the water before using your hands to rinse the clothing.

"Why are you washing my clothes with salt?" Jimin's voice comes from behind you.

You startle for a second before taking a deep breath and answering him, "I'm not washing it, I'm rinsing it with cold water and salt, to get the blood out of your clothes."

"Seriously? That works?" Jimin asks, surprise clear in his voice.

"Yep."

"I could have saved so much money that I wasted on new clothes each time I had a bloodstain on something, if I had known that." He whines and you look over your shoulder, finding yourself strangely endeared when you see the pout his lips is pulled into.

"I'd rather not know." You snort, shaking your hands off and heading to the sink to wash them. You dry your hands, leaning against your counter as you let the clothes soak for a bit.

"You haven't asked." Jimin says out of nowhere. He was leaning against your fridge, looking exhausted, but his eyes watched you intently.

You know what he was talking about. The bruises, and where he got them, the other guys he mentioned. He had been expecting you to ask, and you never did. You cross your arms over your chest. "It's none of my business."

"It's not." He agrees.

"See." You give him a slight smile.

"Still. Most people would ask." He says, tilting his head as he looked you up and down.

"Yeah, well, I figure I'm better of going down Plausible Deniability avenue and Better Of Not Knowing street in this case."

That gets a genuine laugh out of him, his eyes scrunching and a breathtaking smile on his lips. It's bright and cheerful and your stomach swoops. You are unable to not smile back at him.

After rinsing his clothes and putting it in the washing machine, you go back to the living room, only to find Jimin fast asleep on your couch. Something inside of you goes very soft as you watch him sleep. He looks years younger, completely relaxed.

You take the step ladder from your kitchen and tiptoe back to your room, getting the extra duvet from the top of your closet. You grab one of the four pillows on your bed and you head back to the living room. Gently, you lift Jimin's head and slip the pillow underneath it, half afraid he would wake up. When he doesn't, you breathed a quiet sigh of relief and throw the blanket over him. As you tuck him in, you spot the handle of his gun, pressed into the back of the couch.

You hope the safety is on.

***

When you wake up the next morning, Jimin is gone.

Placed on top of the pillow and folded duvet stacked on your couch, is a piece of paper with writing on.

Y/N,

I put your clothes in the washing machine after getting dressed, so you just have to dry it. I figured it was the least I could do after all the trouble I gave you.

I mean what I said last night, I really am sorry about your dad.

If you ever need my help, doesn't matter if it's something dumb like a lift somewhere or something a little more serious like taking someone out for you, you can find me at the bar on 17th Street. Chances are, I'll be there. If not, ask for Taehyung and tell him Jimin sent you.

Thank you for everything.

- Jimin -

P.S. I hope I see you again someday.

***

chapter 2

A/N: this is going to be a multi-chapter/part story. I don't know how many yet, just that there will be more!! Also, I am not a medical professional, so just go with the medical inconsistencies. I promise they won't be too far fetched.

#bangtan #bangtan fanfic #bts fic #park jimin #bts jimin #jimin imagine #park jimin x oc #park jimin x reader #park jimin x you #jimin #jimin x oc #jimin x reader #jimin x you

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thelioncourts · 4 years

Text

title: into the trees with empty hands fandom: captive prince pairing: damen/laurent rating: not rated words: 22k tags: Witch!Laurent, Witchcraft, Minor Damen/Jokaste, Discussion of Abortion, Don't go into this expecting spoopy, Kingdom Politics, Minor Violence, Kastor/Jokaste

Summary: Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos' betrothed has gone missing. The Northern Steppes call to him with promise. The Witch of Vere calls to him with answers.

_____________________________________________________________

As far as Damianos was aware, everyone across the continent knew of the Witch of Vere. But not everyone agreed on what was truth and what was fiction regarding his existence.

Some would say that the Witch is a kind soul, a wielder of magic who uses his potions to heal and his enchantments to bring luck. Some would say that the Witch was colder than a Kemptian winter, a sorcerer who casts curses with a wicked tongue and communicates with the dead through the act of the seance.

A Veretian woman living in the now-Akielon, and rightfully Akielon, province of Delpha had once told a story of the Witch helping mothers and children after the loss of a husband or father in battle. A Patran warrior relayed a tale of the Witch not only stitching up and preventing infection to a wound, but also teaching how one could further patch themselves up should they not have the time or means to travel to him. An Akielon man from the north told of the Witch charming the lands of poor farmers, leading their farms to provide produce enough to feed their families and other people of the land whilst also making plenty a profit for themselves to guarantee their future.

There were other stories of the Witch of Vere, however. There were stories of the Witch eviscerating men with more than just his spells. There were tales of him cursing entire families, damning their line for all of eternity. There were tales of him creating poisons with his books and knowledge, poisons that killed people, animals, that may have killed an entire village. There were tales of young boys coming into his home and never coming back out.

There were even darker, more whispered tales that the Witch had murdered his own father, mother, brother, and uncle, the only family he had ever had.

The Crown Prince of Akielos found many of these stories, these rumors, to be outlandish. Even if it were all true, no one, not even a witch, would be allowed to continue living undisturbed, unhunted, if they had committed such heinous acts. If anything, Damianos had often found the stories to be a great form of entertainment around a fire. But even he was aware how the stories impacted most, how each story, however small, was enough to incite fear in the hearts of those who listened.

Only two things ever spoken of the Witch remained consistent in every story told. The first was of his beauty, which according to all, was such a sight to behold that he could bring any and all to their knees with a blink of his eyes underneath the fan of his lashes. Some rumors went as far to say that he was so beautiful that his own blood was used to make the most effective love potions the world had ever seen.

Some rumors said that he was so beautiful that it was dangerous to be in his presence as he could tempt one to do anything he wished.

But the second thing, the thing that made Damianos wish to believe that this enigmatic being was as real as people said, was that he was powerful. Damianos could desperately use that right now.

***

Never in his life had Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos intended on pursuing a witch. The hunting of evil and magical creatures had been a fun game to play as a child, subjecting one poor friend to chase all the others in order to turn them all into fellow witches. But it was just that: a child’s game. No one would willingly put themselves at the mercy of a true witch.

But, as fate would have it, Damianos found himself with no other choice.

It had been difficult, at first, finding someone who had supposedly met the Witch of Vere. Good or bad, people were often reluctant to admit to having been in contact with a witch. It was even harder in Akielos as the Witch of Vere was an outsider, already considered evil by many due to his proximity to Vere, let alone his deeds. Eventually people talked, they always did, and after asking in the rural lands of Sicyon and Thrace, Damianos had a place to begin.

As the Crown Prince, sneaking out of the palace took some navigating, but once out, his getting around and across the border proved easier than he could have imagined. As a lone traveler, all he had needed was passageway in a merchant’s cart — something provided with gratitude because of the half pound of gold Damianos put in the man’s hand — and he was in Alier where the mountains gave way to jagged land not two days later.

Briefly he worried of Vaskian mountain raiders, but even they would not see much purpose in attacking a man covered in a ragged cloak and owning nothing but a large bag filled with traveling essentials and the sandals on his feet.

His entire journey along the mountain border was rough. For days and for nights he walked, occasionally stealing away in unsuspecting carts at night, roaming a land that was unforgiving. But he had gone this way for a reason, the reason being that unforgiving meant uninhabited.

Even with the sloped and rocky ground that gave way into frigid and frozen soil, Damianos walked quickly and before he knew it, he was in Lys, then Toutaine, and lastly Varenne. And at long last, a five days’ hike to be exact, the Northern Steppes were laid out before him.

With only minor trepidation, he entered the Great Northern Forest.

[Continue on AO3]

Unlike his arrival in Alier days earlier, Damianos did not immediately begin walking. First he sat his bag on the ground and retrieved a multitude of things he had packed along for the fear of the bitter cold. Not familiar with winter personally, but knowing of it, Damianos had packed a second cloak that had a hood to cover his head and that fell down to the middle of his calves. It was lined with fur, the same kind of fur that made up the inside of his packed gloves and boots. A quick test showed Damen that he had underestimated the winter for this wasn’t enough. But it would have to do. He was so close.

There were creatures in the Steppes that Damianos had never seen before. During the day, as he trekked along, he came across tiny, thick-furred animals. Some of them were so small that they created shelter in packed snow banks or underground in tiny burrows. All the small ones were white, a camouflage to protect them from the bigger, more dangerous beasts. On Damianos’ first night, he felt lucky to not see one of those beasts. Not knowing them, he had no inkling as to how they would appear, but once, when the moon was highest, he heard them, howling and growling in the distance.

The next morning, after ten days total of travel, he at long last came across the cabin.

The first thing he noticed was the fire roaring inside. It was a proof of life, of someone’s existence, but it also brought forth to Damianos a great rush of envy. What he would give to feel his hands and feet again. There were other things he noticed about it afterward, things like how normal it looked on the outside, like the branches with live blooms hanging by the door, the plants magically living in the snow, or like the well-worn pathway leading up to it, or like the lack of movement inside.

For a moment, Damianos contemplated what would be his best move; he could leave now, set up his own camp in a nearby clearing and rest in order to regain some of his strength, or he could attempt to make contact with the Witch now. His eagerness to see if the stories were true in any capacity took over him though, and he shucked his bag to the ground and took a deep breath.

A village woman in Thrace had told Damianos of what to do once he reached the cabin, should he find it. He felt a bit foolish, but he went about it with as much confidence as he could muster, which, in truth, was quite a lot. Determined steps brought him to the door where he knocked four times before immediately retreating back to the stones that marked the path like a gateway. Once there, he waited a beat before announcing loudly into the air, “My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide.” From there he bent down to fish through his forgotten bag in order to pull out handfuls of gold. “I have brought gold.”

Damianos waited, fully expecting the door of the cabin to open wide, fully expecting to be face-to-face with the Witch of Vere. But nothing happened. Nothing happened at all.

For an entire hour, Damianos waited patiently for the Witch to come and greet him. For another hour, Damianos waited less patiently.

Unsure of what was going on, Damianos repeated his earlier actions and walked up to the door to knock four times.

“My name is Damianos,” he said once more after retreating back to the stones. “I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought gold.”

Nothing.

“I have brought much gold,” Damianos continued. “Enough gold to satisfy any Kyros in Akielos and certainly any council member in Vere.”

Still, nothing.

For one more hour, Damianos waited between the stones. He was half-tempted to go and try to open the door anyway, but instinct told him nothing good would come from that. But three hours of standing in the cold was too much and Damianos was weary from his travels. With one last look at the cabin windows which had shown no movement in the time Damianos had stood, he finally left, finding the clearing he had spotted earlier and beginning to set up a makeshift camp.

His own fire started surprisingly easy, and the tent he had manufactured wasn’t pretty but it did its job, and when night came and went, he awoke without answers and a noticeably dwindled food supply from his nearly two weeks of travel.

So he tried again.

“My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought gold, and much of it.”

For three more days he repeated this ritual, knocking and retreating and announcing and waiting. By the fifth day of standing outside the Witch’s cabin, Damianos’ patience was nearing its end and he was beginning to think he was quite idiotic for believing in such a fairytale.

“My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought gold, and much of it.”

This time, he said it with clear frustration in his tone, frustration that had him half-heartedly kicking at the stones.

“I have heard your announcement many a time,” a voice sounded out suddenly from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Damianos jumped back from the gate, eyes searching the cabin and the skies, and the voice continued. “Though I find it all quite redundant, I do admire your relentlessness.”

Fumbling, Damianos tossed his bag to the ground and fell to his knees beside it, scrambling inside of it for his gold that he had days earlier quit bringing out. His bare knees were bitten numb by the snow. With his arms outstretched and his eyes still searching, he repeated, “I have brought gold in my request for your assistance.”

“So you have said,” the voice drolled. “I fear, Damianos of Akielos, that you lack understanding of my demands.”

It was easy to get lost listening to the Witch’s voice, honing intently on the clear tone of it, honing intently to its pitch and control.

“You have not made any demands of me,” Damianos said. His arms fell to his sides.

“Do not play a fool. All who find me know of my demands. They are very simple, too: approach, knock four times, return to the gateway, and make an offering of value.”

“I have done all that,” Damianos said after a beat, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “I have done all that repeatedly.”

“I know who you are, Damianos. You are no mere Akielon citizen. You are the Prince. Of what value is gold to you?” the voice asked him. It sounded genuinely curious.

“Gold is of value to all.”

“If you can casually give to me as much as you are offering, gold is of little importance to your life. Bring to me something of value.”

Every part of Damianos wanted to argue, but with patience he had demonstrated thus far, he waited to see if the Witch would speak again. When there was no noise beyond the rustling of dead leaves in the trees to accompany Damianos’ loud heartbeat, he made the familiar journey back to his camp to think.

After a restless night of deep contemplation, he had a solution.

It took almost two full days to fashion together his offering. Gold didn’t melt easily and finding something to shape it around proved near impossible. By the time it was completed and cooled with the abundance of snow, Damianos slipped it on.

It wasn’t beautiful, not in any way, but its purpose would be evident.

His seventh day in the forest, Damianos once again approached the unchanged Witch’s cabin. Inside he could see that the very same fire was going strong and it burned within him a necessary conviction. Repeating the ritual for what was hopefully the last time, Damianos walked to the door, knocked four times, went back to the stones, and announced, “My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I require assistance and answers only he can provide. I have brought, in offering, my freedom.”

Outstretching his arms from the warm cocoon of his cloak, Damianos bared the cuff shackled to his right wrist.

He had not been certain in the last two days if the Witch was familiar with slave practices across the continent, but with his reputation for knowledge Damianos assumed the message would be clear.

The voice laughed, an unkind laugh that felt mocking. “You liken to extremes, do you not, Prince Damianos?”

“I am desperate,” Damianos answered.

When nothing happened, Damianos felt his patience lose its last hold all the way in his fingertips. “Do you accept or not?”

The door to the cabin opened wide.

***

Inside, the cabin was unnervingly dark.

It was the first thing Damianos noticed, though secondly was the stifling heat. The fire, which had been roaring high the entire time Damianos had stood outside was suddenly nothing but smoldering embers, yet the remaining heat was almost painful in its relief on Damianos’ skin, stinging like a burn that seeped all the way into his bones.

Damianos had never given thought to what a witch’s cabin should look like, but if he ever would have he definitely would not have imagined this. The entire room smelt of lavender and cinnamon, and fresh herbs were gathered in clay pots that sat on the sills of the windows, drowning the blue hue of the streaming moonlight in greenery. Rugs lined the rough wooden floors and books of all kinds littered the tables and shelves, the only clutter in an area otherwise so organized.

But the cabin’s almost welcoming appearance didn’t take away that there was something to be fearful of in here. Damianos startled when the cabin door slammed shut from somewhere behind him, done so with no force from another physical person. Then came the unmistakable click of the lock.

“How desperate are you?” the voice of the Witch asked, and it sounded as though it was only inches behind Damianos. Damianos whipped around, eyes searching even though they hadn’t quite adjusted to the dark, but all he found was the blank slate of wood that made the door from which he had entered. “You have offered me yourself. Is the significance of that lost on you? It is near the equivalent of offering the devil your soul.”

“Near the equivalent, but not exact in its likeness,” Damianos said. The voice hummed thoughtfully.

“If it is not exact, then you must have only heard the good things about me.”

“I have heard many things about you,” said Damianos, “but I am to be King one day. To rush into a decision based upon only the words of others could be detrimental. I would much rather make decisions upon my own observances.”

“But if you are here then you must believe the words of someone, yes? After all, my ego is not so large to assume that knowledge of my being has crossed into the barbaric lands of Akielos unscathed.”

Movement caught Damianos’ eye, but it was an animal of some sort, one that scurried underneath a table by the far wall.

“For how long are we to speak in circles?” Damianos asked instead. His finger was tapping incessantly at his thigh.

“However long I wish. You offered me your freedom.”

There was silence, and Damianos took it as opportunity to continue to observe. The animal that he had spotted emerged its head from underneath the table it had disappeared under. It was a white darling cat with brown marbled in its fur. It had large blue eyes.

“Tell me what you have heard of me. Then tell me what you believe. Should your answers be adequate, we will continue on to the answers you seek.”

Damianos turned from where the cat was still sitting, watching him, and faced instead the emptiness of the room.

“I have heard many things about you, Witch of Vere. I have heard praises sung of your good deeds and your kindness. I have also heard awful things. I have heard stories of young boys walking into this very cabin and never leaving it again. I have heard of girls cut open on your dining table, their children taken violently from their wombs. I have heard you were cold enough to murder your own family without regret. I have heard many things about you.”

The words were honest as they tore themselves from Damianos’ throat. When the voice did not speak after a moment though, he continued.

“Only two things have remained consistent in all the accounts I have heard, and those are the two things I choose to believe. The first is that you are beautiful. There are stories, implications, that have followed that, however. Stories that you bathe in the blood of virgins to maintain your youthfulness. But it is the second as to why I am here, for I have heard from all that you are the most powerful witch to have walked the continent since Agnesot of the Artisan Empire nearly four hundred years ago.”

For the first time since entering the cabin, Damianos heard a noise that was not the voice speaking nor the crackling of the embers burning hot in the hearth. He heard the creak of wood from a singular staircase that ascended near the very hearth and he watched with bated breath as a figure approached.

Immaculate boots caught the moonlight with their shine and it was something that took Damianos aback for it was not what he expected from a witch, or anyone this secluded from the rest of society. Up, Damianos took in the fine material of the pants, the intricate laces, winding their way up and down the lean body’s torso and arms, and the collar of the shirt and the length of the sleeves, both of which covered nearly all skin in a shield to protect it from onlookers’ eyes. Finally, facing forward, Damianos set sight on the Witch’s face.

Tales of the Witch’s beauty were true. Damianos felt horribly aware of his own shaky intake of breath, of the slackness of his own mouth, but he was impossible to stop it. The Witch’s skin was a near match to the unblemished porcelain of the snow surrounding them outside. It was accompanied by ice colored eyes that were unreadable in expression, yet framed with curled lashes that brushed the tops of cold-flushed cheeks whenever the Witch blinked. The flush matched the color of the pink fullness of his mouth, and both things were the only contrast to his otherwise cool-toned, sharp features. In fact, those two things softened him into something almost precious. Or perhaps it was the halo of gold surrounding his head, his hair shining like the sun on the waters near Isthima.

Damianos took an involuntary step forward before catching himself.

“Well?” the Witch mused, blue eyes never leaving the Prince’s face.

“You must bathe in the blood of virgins,” Damianos managed to mutter. He swore the Witch’s eyes gleamed at that.

“I am not concerned with one’s number of sexual encounters,” said the Witch. “My concerns lie in other matters, such as the Prince of Akielos’ presence so very far from home.”

“Yes, it has been a long journey,” Damianos agreed, still searching that beautiful face.

“How are you taking to the cold?” the Witch asked. He was speaking as though they were friends, as though there was not a strangeness to this all so present it was palpable in the air surrounding them both.

“The snow is beautiful. I am not sure I enjoy the freezing of my limbs, however.”

The Witch made a noise and he walked toward the cat. “I do suppose the snow is beautiful. I am quite accustomed to it. But it brings with it a peace, does it not? I do not know what I would do if I were to be surrounded by the warmth of sunshine instead.”

“Akielos will be void of sunshine if I do not receive answers soon,” said Damianos. The feeling shifted as the conversation returned to its proper track.

The Witch circled him and Damianos stood very still. Briefly, he thought the Witch was akin to the nameless beasts he heard growling in the forest at night, and Damianos was one of those small white creatures in the vulnerability of an open clearing.

“Void of sunshine? My, what cynicism. Do tell me why. Do tell me how. Such a thing cannot happen in as short a time as the turning of the moon.”

“But it can and it shall,” Damianos started. “My betrothed has gone missing. If she is not found, if she is not returned, I fear Akielos will face terrible hardship. I fear, worst of all, its entire structure could fall apart beneath us.”

“You put quite a value of importance on one woman.”

Damianos interrupted the conversation he had started. “Please allow me to call you something. I cannot address you as the Witch, but it is all I know. What is your name?” He was dizzy with the conversation already, dizzy with the weight of his own tongue in his mouth.

“Unlike you, Prince, I know the power of gifting things away. I am not so quick to make a deal with a devil,” the Witch chastised, but he was smiling. It was a cold smile. It was cruel. “Continue.”

“The wedding has been scheduled since the week of her birth. As it was written and as it was signed, our wedding was to be on the day of Midsummer, when the sun spent longest in the sky, and in the year in which the five planets aligned. That day is in two months. But she is not in Akielos. She is not anywhere. She vanished in the daylight three months ago and her father is ready to begin a war for her.”

“A war against Akielos?” asked the Witch.

“Not as of now. The man is a great noble from Aegina. It is one of our farming provinces. But should he wish to go to war, my father will support him. He has been raging about Vere and the Vaskian tribes for weeks.” Damianos started to pace. The Witch was watching him. He allowed Damianos to continue on. “There are many things that could have happened, but I need to know the truth. I cannot, will not, engage my armies in a war over one woman unless I have absolute proof she has been taken, as some of the nefarious rumors have implied. But should I refuse, I fear something even worse than a war with Vere or Vask; I fear civil war. Her father is popular in the north and if there was ever such an area to begin unrest with the capital...” Damianos looked pointedly at the Witch. “I must figure out the truth or I will have no kingdom to rule.”

“You sound far more invested in the welfare of your kingdom than in your betrothed,” the Witch said. “Is she such a hideous prospect?”

“She is beautiful. But her beauty does not matter. Our betrothal was political and she is political. I once thought…” Damianos trailed again, but he shook himself out of going down that path.

“She is political,” the Witch started curiously, “and you are more a romantic. You wanted to love her, and her love you in turn, when you got married.”

“Yes.”

“Why would you think I have answers about your betrothed?” the Witch then asked with a different kind of curiosity.

“Initially I believed such a thing for there were rumors she came to you. Each was different in its reasoning for why she would come here, but it was something I heard from several of my people,” Damianos admitted. “But upon questioning those people further, and finding more people to question along my journey here, I no longer believe that. There are many that confirm she traveled by the Ellosean Sea. She could not have gotten here traveling in such a way.”

“That’s not true, Prince,” the Witch said. “If she took the sea, she could have landed in the province of Marches in Vere before traveling innocuously along Vere’s border, by the palace in Arles, and into the Great Northern Forest. She very much could have been one of the many virgins I bathed in the blood of.”

“She is no virgin.”

“You said she was political, however. By what do you mean?” the Witch asked.

“She seeks power. It is the only reason I believe she would not abandon our betrothal willingly. To be wed to me, to be the Queen of Akielos, would be too much for her to pass up on. And yet…” Damianos trailed one last time, “I am uncertain of everything.”

“Prince Damianos of Akielos,” the Witch said, his tone indicating to Damianos’ ears that this conversation was coming to a close. “We will begin the process of trying to answer your questions at another time. But until then, I suppose I shall give you menial tasks to complete.”

“Tasks?”

“You are mine, are you not”

***

Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos had worked hard for many years on all things related to battle. But never in his life had he had to do basic chores for a household. The next morning, upon awakening in his campsite in the forest, Damianos had stood outside the Witch’s cabin for some time contemplating if he was to still knock. The Witch answered that query for him, opening the cabin door as he had yesterday to bid Damianos inside. From there he had given the Prince a list to complete; tend to the plants, gather and chop firewood from the forest, feed the cat (which Damianos had deemed to be the devil the Witch kept bringing up in conversation).

While Damianos completed such tasks, the Witch was nowhere in sight. In fact, Damianos was certain the Witch was not in the cabin at all. Still, Damianos worked and when evening came about, the Witch reappeared with two gifts for Damianos.

“You may sleep here,” the Witch told him as he began preparing a hot meal for the two of them. “I know this is not your normal standard of accommodation, but I truly cannot have a future king dying of starvation or frostbite whilst owned by me. It would be dreadful for that to get about.”

Damianos could not tell if he was joking or not, but he was grateful nonetheless.

The sofa near the hearth was surprisingly comfortable, though Damianos wondered if that was due to his weeks of sleeping on the cold forest floor, but when he awoke he was startled by two things. The first was the feeling of waking and not knowing where one was, and it rocketed his heartrate until memory returned. The second was the feeling of weight on his chest, just above his ribcage, that made it difficult to take a deep breath. That was resolved quickly, however, as Damianos opened his eyes and found the cat sitting on him and staring unblinkingly at the subtle expansion of his breaths leaving his open mouth. Damianos jolted awake and the cat meowed as it was forced to move, to jump away and onto the ground.

Damianos stumbled as he tried to stand to full attention with dignity, and that’s when he saw something that threw him into a near panic. In the hearth was a pot and in the pot was a ladle that was stirring the pot’s contents all on its own. Damianos turned his head like a dog trying to make sense of a human’s incomprehensible jabbering.

“This trick was not intended to evoke fear,” the Witch said from the table near the window. Damianos turned to give the Witch his attention and found him with a book whose writing was gibberish to Damianos’ eyes and a steaming cup with a spoon doing the same trick as the pot with the ladle.

“I am not afraid,” said Damianos. His voice was gruff.

The Witch gestured to the empty seat across from and it was only with minor hesitancy that Damianos accepted. Then nothing happened.

“Do you suppose your drink will simply appear before you?” the Witch asked, his eyes never leaving his book.

“I thought,” Damianos fumbled, “I thought that —”

“That I would get it for you as you have never had to do such a thing on your own? Oh, my dear brute, you are forgetting your position here already. You may fetch it yourself.”

So Damianos did. And when the Witch tasked him with getting more wood, Damianos did that as well. After another day of doing work, the sun set and the Witch began supper. It was then that Damianos asked, “What of my betrothed?”

“In time,” said the Witch.

The next morning, Damianos’ third day since entering the cabin, began much as the day before. He made it to noon before the lack of communication wore thin each of his fried nerves. He couldn’t stop thinking of Akielos.

“I do not understand you,” Damianos said loudly after having ground up spices for nearly an hour. “I have done all you have asked with no complaint. I have offered you my very self and yet all you have done is require me to clean and fetch us both hot tea. I am beginning to believe your magic does not extend beyond stirring stews and reading in languages others cannot understand.”

The Witch looked at him steadily from where he was rifling through a stack of unrecognizable papers.

Then it started.

It started slowly, crept in like a storm front. He felt it first in the center of his chest. It was the same feeling he had felt when the cat had sat on him that first morning, like a weight preventing a deep breath. Then he felt it in his head, an ache behind his eyeballs. The feeling in his chest swelled, moving until it took over his entire body. Blackness blurred the edges of his vision and it was without fault that he fell to his knees, hands grasping at his throat as if he could pull the blockage from himself, as if he could push air back into his lungs.

He was going to die.

Horrible noises were leaving him, wounded sounds, and he could barely make sense of the Witch’s figure looming over him, his blond hair hanging like the invisible rope tight around Damianos’ neck as he lost his ability to breathe.

Then, like nothing ever happened, the feeling stopped and Damianos fell forward even more, gasping in broken sounds as air returned to his body.

“You would do best not to insult me, Prince,” the Witch spat. The last word left his mouth as though the action was venomous. “Now finish with your tasks.”

The Witch disappeared, exiting the cabin, the electricity of his power still lingering in the air, and it took Damianos several minutes to pull himself up to his feet. When he did, he saw that while proving his power the Witch destroyed several items in his own home. Books and papers were strewn haphazardly, all far from where they had been sitting, and several pots that the plants sat in were shattered, the soil all over the floor and other surfaces on which they rested.

Hours later, when the Witch returned, Damianos’ head was still somewhat fuzzy.

While the Witch had been gone, Damianos had done his best to restore everything back to its place as well as begin on his tasks should the Witch wish to direct his rage once again. But when the Witch came back he barely glanced at the room or at Damianos. He went straight for the table by the window instead and, with a sweep of his hand, pushed everything to the edge where the table met the wall.

“Sit,” he demanded.

Though each part of him screamed to keep distance between himself and the Witch, Damianos listened and sat himself across from the Witch at the table. He reminded himself silently and none-too-gently to hold his tongue. He watched raptly as the Witch gently untied the strings of a black velvet bag. From it he drew out a deck of cards. The cards were blue, the kind of blue Damianos had only ever seen in the meadows of Karthas, or perhaps the very blue of the Witch’s eyes. On the cards’ backs was a symbol, but of what Damianos could not tell. He could only see golden spikes.

With an elegance, the Witch placed the deck of cards on the far left end of the table. Then, with his magic, he spread them out in an arch until the cards were just overlapping at the edges.

The symbol became clear to Damianos in that moment: a starburst.

“What are these?” he asked.

“These are cards,” the Witch answered simply.

Damianos had to bite down on his tongue so as to not reply to that. He left himself with an achingly familiar twitch of annoyance at the Witch’s evasive nonanswers instead. “Yes, I can see that. But what is their significance?”

“These are cards about you.”

Fast as lightning, Damianos’ eyes went to the Witch’s face. For his part, however, the Witch was not paying him any mind. His blue eyes were focused solely on the display of cards, on the closeness of their edges to Damianos’ own fingertips.

“How could you have cards about me?”

“I have cards about all peoples,” the Witch said. “Even myself.”

“And what do your cards say?” Damianos could not resist asking.

“Telling you would mean nothing. Not yet. You do not even know which cards are yours.”

“Then pick them out or let me pick them so you can tell me.” His fingertips that were only inches away from the cards went to snatch at them, but the Witch physically slapped them away. It did not hurt, but it brought on a kind of shock. It was the first time they had touched and Damianos wasn’t surprised the Witch’s hands were cold.

“You cannot just pick the cards,” the Witch said. “They pick you, Prince.”

The two of them stared at once another. Again, Damianos’ chest began to feel tight and he almost began to yell out at the Witch, to ask what he did to warrant a repeat performance, but he realized quickly it was a nervousness and not the Witch at all.

“Now,” the Witch began again, “there are three cards lying here about you and your betrothed. One card is about your past, one about your present, and one about your future. You need to think hard about your betrothed. Think about everything you know about her, think of everything she has done, think of every feeling she has ever evoked from you. Think about everything about her and hold your hands above the cards. Yes, like that. Listen to them. There are three and they will find you.”

At first Damianos felt absurd, both hands floating aimlessly over the blue and gold of the cards, but, suddenly, a sense of calm overtook him, washed over him and unwound the tightness of his chest. Through his palms he could feel something radiating, calling for his touch. With as gentle a hand as he could find, he extracted one card, then another, then one more.

“Listen to them before you hand them to me,” the Witch said, whispered as to not break the magic in the air. “The order matters. The direction matters. The cards will tell you.”

When Damianos finally handed the cards over, the calm rushed away from him in the same way his air had earlier left his lungs, and Damianos held his breath as the Witch flipped the three cards over so that the starbursts were tableside.

Of the three cards, one was upside down, its figure facing the Witch and not Damianos. It was on Damianos’ right and it showed a man on a throne. The graying beard on his face reminded Damianos of his own father and the scepter in his hand gleamed gold in the light. Its text said ‘The Emperor’ in shimmering letters. Next to it, in the middle, was a card with an Ektoryn. In myth, Ektoryns were said to be the speakers of the gods. In the case of this card, the Ektoryn appeared to be Gilead, the one that announced fate with the declaration of a trumpet. The card said ‘Judgement.’ It was the final card, or the first card, though that made Damianos suck in a breath. Typhon, the Devil, could never be a good sign. With horns and fire decorating the intimidating figure, Damianos could not see how.

“Do not fret so heavily over the Devil,” the Witch told him with such ease that Damianos’ shoulders relaxed without his acknowledgement. “He is not what concerns me here.”

“What do they all mean?”

It felt as if these cards suddenly held the entire future of his kingdom and Damianos felt such a horrid feeling that he desperately needed alleviated with the Witch’s words.

“We shall start with the Devil to ease your mind, Prince,” the Witch said, delicate hands pushing the card and its figure closer to Damianos. “The Devil, when facing you, is often there to signify entrapment. You two were betrothed at birth, were you not?” Damianos nodded. “This betrothal, paired with her political motivation and your more romantic inclination, have led the two of you to feel in such a way. The Devil, here to your left, is the past, showing you how the two of you came to be.”

With the same delicate hand, the Witch pulled the Devil back toward himself and pushed forward instead the Ektoryn, Gilead.

“Facing you, the card of Judgement is the signifier of self-reflection. Similarly to the Devil, Judgement shows a changing point you both had at a very recent time in your lives. You trailed off once about how you perhaps thought a romantic attraction was possible with the two of you, but something changed that, didn’t it?” Damianos nodded again. “Something of the same significance must have occurred within her as well.” Then, almost as a warning, the Witch continued. “Make no mistake of the implication of this card. While self-reflection sounds like a good thing, it does not always have to be about bettering oneself. In some cases, it could be a way of finding how to get ahead with what one has.”

Damianos took in the open and simple face of the Ektoryn, and he took in its outstretched hands that were searching for answers. He saw himself in that image and thought, yes, he could see what the Witch meant.

“But this card,” the Witch interrupted his thoughts, pushing the last card to Damianos, “this card brings me great trepidation, Prince.”

Looking at the Witch with concern, Damianos asked, “Why? What does it mean?”

“Upside down like this, the Emperor is tyrannical. With a position in royalty such as your own, Damianos, you can understand the fear of tyranny.”

The two of them fell quiet. Damianos waited for the Witch to continue to explain the Emperor as he had explained the Devil and the Ektoryn, but the Witch was only staring at the cards. His blond brows were furrowed together, his blue eyes scanning, when suddenly he sat up straight with rigid shoulders and shuffled the cards together as though that could hide what he had just realized or seen.

“What is it? What did you find?” Damianos asked quickly. His hands were gripping the edge of the table.

“You will know,” the Witch mumbled. “You will know in time. Probably faster than you’d like.”

Fury filled Damianos’ veins then. In time, in time, he thought bitterly to himself, wanting desperately to lash out, to sweep all the cards onto the floor, but he didn’t. When he finally felt as though he wouldn’t throw a punch in his anger, Damianos looked up only to find the Witch watching him, looking amused.

“You do quite well at reeling in your most volatile of emotions,” the Witch said, and Damianos wanted to hit him all over again. “But there is one more card for you. Think of yourself as this one finds you. Think of yourself and no other creature.”

There was an ache in Damianos’ jaw from clenching it so tight. The muscle was twitching, a striking feeling, and it was then Damianos realized his fingernails were biting half-moons into his palms. He watched with dark eyes as the Witch finished shuffling the deck of cards and once again placed them in a gentle arch for Damianos’ eyes.

“There is one for you,” the Witch repeated, “and only one.”

Concentrating on what lay before him, Damianos focused on his breathing, focused on settling it, focused on the rhythmic boom ba-boom boom of his heart in his ears. Then, like before, he lifted his hands and waited for the card to call to him.

When it found him, he handed the Witch his card and the Witch flipped it over. Damianos laughed acridly and almost expectantly at the image it beheld.

“What does this mean for me? Beyond the obvious, that is.”

“What is the obvious?” the Witch asked him. Damianos had expected the Witch to laugh, had expected that cruel smile he had seen more than once to appear, but the Witch looked at him with a kind of curiosity instead, something entirely new on his face. It made Damianos’ stomach flip.

“The Fool,” Damianos said, gesturing somewhat wildly at it. “What else could it mean but I am unfit for my position? That my journey here was useless and unnecessary?”

“So that is what you believe it to mean? That is not what it means at all.” The Witch held the card between two long fingers an examined it with a light behind his eyes. “People so often become obsessed with the names of these cards that they do not take into consideration the meaning at all. The Devil, as example, emits such a fear that it sends people into a panic before they come to the realization that it is not an inherently evil card. The Fool, facing you as he is now, is a lovely card to draw.”

“What does it mean?” Damianos asked, softer this time.

“The Fool means innocence. It means you are to start on a new journey. Whatever that may be.”

***

After the reading of the cards, the Witch went about making more tea and hot broth for dinner. It was silent in the cabin, at least between Damianos and the Witch, and as the Witch busied himself Damianos petted absently at the cat that liked to nestle into the crook of his elbow.

As he ate, Damianos couldn’t get the images of the cards out of his mind. Like a nightmare, the Devil, the Ektoryn, the Emperor, and the Fool all flashed behind his eyelids like some unstoppable force couldn’t help but replay them over and over again

“You’re aware I realized something whilst looking at your card of the Emperor, yes?” the Witch asked after hours of quiet. The question brought Damianos out of his own head and, just like earlier, he nodded. “I have a confession, Prince.”

Expectantly, Damianos waited, wanting to know what had the Witch so visibly uncomfortable after having read the Emperor. What he said brought on the most conflicting set of feelings Damianos had ever experienced at one time.

“Your initial assumptions of your betrothed’s disappearance were correct for she was here but just over a month ago.”

The confession startled Damianos so much that he almost fell forward, words tearing themselves out of his mouth before he could stop them. But the Witch only talked over him, beckoning him for silence.

“I did not realize it was her, not until I was looking at your cards. She did not offer her place of origin and I did not ask, only assuming by her coloring and conduct that she was Veretian. It appears now, however, that she was Akielon.”

“Start from the beginning,” Damianos said. “Please.”

“Yes, yes. But you need to sit down. I fear you are not prepared for what I am about to say.”

They both sat on the sofa in front of the hearth and momentarily Damianos got lost in how the warm glow of the fire changed the Witch’s appearance so.

“Your betrothed, Jokaste, arrived outside of my cabin early in the day. She was quiet, offering me no extra information and asking none of me. It appeared at first as though this was going to be like any other exchange of services and goods, but it was when the pain settled in that she began to ramble. She damned herself, she said she was not careful enough. After several minutes of going on in such a fashion, she began to shake as she said she was afraid she would lose everything with such a mistake.”

“When the pain settled in?” Damianos repeated, wide-eyed. “Why was she in pain?”

“Some of the stories you have heard of me are true, Prince. When asked, I do rid women of children they cannot bring into this world, whatever their reason. That is why your betrothed was here.”

The ground crumbled underneath Damianos’ feet.

It didn’t literally, of course, but his entire being felt like it was impossibly falling into an abyss of uncertainty. Words escaped him in his fall.

“I came to the understanding that her soon-to-be was powerful, but I never would have jumped to the conclusion that they were a prince. Was the child yours?”

Damianos looked into the fire. “No. My father ordered her out of my bed a year ago, for propriety’s sake. He did not want us siring a bastard, even with the intention of wedding. Best to avoid any kind of scandal.”

“I fear she did not seem to have the same kind of preservation in mind,” the Witch said.

The room grew quiet, Damianos processing and the Witch allowing him to do so. It wasn’t a hurt Damianos was feeling, he concluded quite quickly. Jokaste was beautiful, was intelligent, but the draw of it all was that she was to be his Queen. They had melded together, carnally, in those earliest of days, seeing each other only when the moon was high, and by morning she’d be gone and Damianos would think nothing of it. Yet, this was a betrayal. It wasn’t as though this was the situation of his father and mother, where they were loyal to one another for a decade before it became evident Egeria would not be able to bring to life an heir. Only then did his father begin his relationship with his mistress, resulting in the birth of Kastor. No, this wasn’t that; Jokaste didn’t even give their marriage a chance.

“Do you know where she is now?” Damianos asked after minutes of that quiet.

“I offered for her stay here as she needed to recover. She declined, citing a place she knew she could seek refuge as she rested. I know not where that place is.”

“Can you find out?” Damianos asked.

The Witch sighed. “I can. It will take but an hour. However, I must advise against it.”

“Why?”

“Nothing good ever rises from emotions such as your current own,” the Witch said, sounding almost as though speaking from experience.

“Finding her is not about me. It is about preventing war. If I can bring her back to Akielos, show to her father that her leaving was of her own doing and not of Patras, Vask, Vere, and most definitely anyone in Akielos, he will have no reason to continue his push for violence. I will not have to lose any of my men.”

The Witch stared at Damianos’ face. Up close like this, Damianos could see the reflection of the fire in the Witch’s blue eyes. Damianos could see that the Witch had recently wetted his lips for they shined.

“What will come of her in her return to Akielos?”

“She will probably be exiled. My father will not take her conceiving with another man, not after the signing of our betrothal since birth, lightly.”

The Witch stared a minute more. “Come. This will take some time.”

It was fascinating, watching the Witch prepare to use his power. The first thing he did was gather ingredients. He plucked leaves off of a rowan tree twig and crushed them, the mortor and pestle granites meticulously rasping against one another. From the leaves green leaked and it was only when the leaves were but a mush of wetness that the Witch added a red powder from a jar on the desk. Together the two created a paste, a muck of sorts that the Witch scraped off to one pile in the mortor.

Then, with expert fingers, the Witch snipped off a line of twine from a roll and began a new preparation of leaves and herbs. Damianos didn’t recognize most of them. Some were long, predominantly stems with tiny buds or leaves decorating their length, while others were shorter, fuller plants with large leaves and even some flowers. One flower was gold. If slipped behind an ear, or if tucked into a plait of braids, the flower would blend perfectly with the Witch’s hair.

When the twine was tied, the plants secured, the Witch stood and opened a cabinet above the desk. Inside, Damianos spotted a large stack of papers, so large it nearly touched the top of the cabinet, and stuffed in beside it was a book. Damianos assumed the Witch would reach for the book, but he didn’t; instead he pulled at one of the papers lowest in the pile.

It was a map of the continent.

It was written in Veretian, its Achelos almost startling on the page. The Witch spread it out flat on the table in front of both himself and Damianos. Raptly, Damianos watched as the Witch scooped the paste from the mortor into his hand and began to spread it all around the border of the map. The Witch then grabbed the bundle he had created and stood.

“Descendre.”

The bundle burst into flames. Damianos jumped back, the chair he was sitting in raking loudly on the rough wooden floors. He went to look at the Witch, to ask what was happening, what this would do, but when he looked the Witch’s beautiful blue eyes were entirely black from the pupils to the once-whites. Damianos stayed silent.

Gently and unhurriedly, the Witch placed the fiery bundle at one of the corners of the map. When he did so, the map also began to burn, but it did not burn as paper often does, the flame climbing to consume from the point of first touch. No, instead the map began to burn solely along the border where the paste was smeared.

Lowly, the Witch began to speak in a language both familiar and not. Damianos recognized some of the words and in turn recognized the language. It was the language of the Artisan Empire, a language dead for three hundred years. Yet here, in this cabin, the language was alive, and it brought magic with it. The flames that were controlled to dance the path of the border began to move across the map’s entire surface. But it wasn’t burning it all into ash. It was simply moving toward something.

When the Witch was done speaking and the flames were done crawling, all that was left of the map was a tiny section of the northern part of the province of Ver-Vassel in Vask.

“She is here.”

It made sense. The Vaskian tribes were predominantly women, warriors that would welcome a woman into their midst without much apprehension. It also was one of the most difficult places for Damianos to go to. Still, the certainty, the knowledge of it all had Damianos immediately eager. He wanted to deliver peace to his kingdom and that meant delivering Jokaste to both of their fathers.

“You truly must be descended from the gods,” Damianos said to the Witch. “I do not know how to repay you.”

“You have done all that was asked of you,” the Witch said.

“It does not feel like enough. This solves everything. This prevents war. Will you take coin or gold? Do you need coin or gold?”

“I will not and do not. You offered me your freedom and I took it. Now it is restored to you alongside this knowledge. All I ask of you now is to be wise. Should this take a turn, I fear for the entire continent.”

Damianos’ eagerness faded some at those words, his face taking on an open display of confusion. “Should this take a turn? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I believe you are looking at this too simply. The Emperor. I think there is more to this than what you’re seeing,” the Witch said.

“What else could it be?”

“That, Prince, not even a spell could tell me.”

There wasn’t much to say or do after that. The Witch seemed content to speak in circles and riddles and Damianos was more than ready to trudge out into the snow to begin his second journey, this time across the mountains before going back to Akielos. Though it was dark out, the sun would be rising in a few hours and Damianos didn’t have time to wait. He packed together his bag, donned his warm cloak and boots, and went to the cabin door. Before opening it to the snowy exterior he turned to the Witch and found him watching with a look of contemplation.

“I ask one last thing of you,” Damianos said. The Witch raised one delicate brow.

“It may cost you.”

Damianos couldn’t help but smile. “Since you won’t allow me to thank you with anything tangible, let me thank you personally.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What is your name?” Damianos asked back in response. “If I know it I can then thank you personally.”

The Witch smiled too, not a cruel smile this time, but a smile that did something wonderful to his mouth. But even with that smile, Damianos thought for a moment that the Witch wouldn’t give away that secret still. He was wrong though.

“Laurent.”

***

War had been prevented upon Damianos’ return to Akielos with Jokaste in tow, yet the kingdom had still fallen into shambles.

Theomedes, Damianos’ father, had been furious and his furiousness caused a domino effect of fury across every province of Akielos. As Damianos had expected with a civil war, the south was filled with rage at Jokaste’s infidelity and the north believed the south to be unjust in that rage. That feeling from the north only intensified when Theomedes immediately cancelled the wedding and ordered Jokaste into the cells of the palace of Ios to await trial for her exile.

“There’s not even going to be a trial!” Jokaste’s father had screamed. “Her fate was sealed the moment your son forcibly dragged her to you, crying over his broken heart.”

“Her fate was sealed the moment she spread her legs for another man,” Theomedes said calmly. His hands had clenched the arm rests of the throne.

Tension only had gotten worse when the southern provinces of Kesus and Mellos brought forth the daughters of nobles, vying for a new betrothal contract.

There were other problems beyond the obvious, however, problems Damianos hadn’t anticipated in any regard. The first was his father’s repeated fury aimed at him upon confessing he did not want a betrothed at all. Though the betrothal to Jokaste had been planned, it had never been a topic of conversation among the household of the palace. Damianos had always assumed his father arranged the betrothal because it was what he was expected to do. Yet Damianos’ innocuous profession of “I would like to wait to marry until my time to be king draws nearer,” had been met with near-contempt. The second thing was his father’s illness which had began in the weeks Damianos had been away from home. The King was weak, fatigued and coughing and unable to keep more than bone broth and tea in his stomach for an extended period of time.

“Now is not the time I need your strong head rammed down to defy me,” Theomedes had told him on the second day since his return, just after Damianos had said what he needed to about another betrothal. “Your time as king may be but around the corner, my son. We must prepare for the future now.”

“Let us focus on you, and the you in the present instead of the maybes of the future,” Damianos had pleaded. “You will recover.”

“You are now speaking of maybes.”

As of today, Damianos had now been back in Akielos for over a week and the chaos continued around him at a more settled pace. He decided he was finally ready to face Jokaste.

Their duel journey back to Akielos had been silent. Jokaste hadn’t appeared surprised when he turned up at the outskirts of the Vaskian tribe she had taken refuge with, and she came willingly, hands bound and everything, and not bothering to even ask how he had found her. On the evening of their return, Theomedes had her taken to the cells and she had been there since, left alone except for the guards at the cell’s entrance.

As he descended the steps, Damianos was struck by how little time he had spent in the cells of his own palace. All in all, he guessed that was probably a good thing, but it meant he couldn’t take his eyes off of the damp stone walls and floors, of the slivers of light peering in at odd places, for it was all new. The guards at the entrance bowed deeply at Damianos’ approach before moving out of the way in a soldier’s march.

There, alone on a bench in a cell, was Jokaste.

Her hair was tied up out of her face and her dress was wet at the hem. Still, she looked effortless and she smiled warmly at Damianos’ presence. Then, with an appreciative gaze, she looked him up and down.

“I am quite the damned fool, aren’t I?” she asked.

Instead of bringing to the surface a kind of regret, her words only brought with them a memory of what the Witch — what Laurent — had said: “It appeared at first as though this was going to be like any other exchange of services and goods, but it was when the pain settled in that she began to ramble. She damned herself, she said she was not careful enough. After several minutes of going on in such a fashion, she began to shake as she said she was afraid she would lose everything with such a mistake.”

“Why did you do it?” Damianos asked her. “It’s not like you to be so careless, and especially but months away from the wedding.”

Jokaste kept her smile as she leaned back on the bench, palms flat behind her, legs extended in front of her, and breasts purposefully lifted, making her figure all the more alluring. “You not in my bed made me restless.”

Damianos ran his tongue across his teeth. “I don’t quite believe that. You’ve never had any difficulty entertaining yourself through other pursuits in the past.”

“I don’t think entertainment, or a lack thereof, was the problem, Damianos. Only perhaps that my entertainment got away from me. For what it’s worth, none of this was ever my intent.”

Neither of them had much more to say.

That night, Damianos dreamed of Jokaste’s hands reaching beyond the bars of the cell and grabbing him. He was certain the dream would have continued, would have grown into a nightmare no matter the direction the struggle took, but he was awakened by the feeling of a presence in his room. His eyes opened, immediately looking to find his sword, its blade sheathed and its handle shining, but a voice spoke out, “Don’t think about,” and Damianos turned over in a hurry to peer at the figure.

“Laurent,” he breathed, heart beating fast in his chest. He willed it to slow down. “What are you doing here?”

In a way with which Damianos was somewhat familiar, Laurent stayed silent. He was bathed in the moon from Damianos’ open balcony that overlooked the sea, and its light from behind him shadowed his face. Unlike how the fire of the hearth had made his hair golden, the light from the moon made it appear white, looking much like the enigmatic figure the stories of him made him to be. He was still dressed in the same tight-laced clothes he had worn in the cabin and the salty wind from the ocean made his hair and the ends of his laces dance. For the smallest of moments Damianos wondered if he was still dreaming.

He was going to ask, in the silence, how Laurent had gotten by his guards, but, las though Laurent was reading his mind, he beat him to it. “Your guards are useless.”

Damianos pushed himself to sit up. “What are you doing here?”

“The entire continent has caught news of Akielos’ current predicament. They’re all looking for the weak spot to strike.”

His words and his presence still confused Damianos. “What of it? Akielos is plenty strong to take on the armies of Vere, Vask, or Patras. A war is not ideal, it is why I came to you in the first place, but if it happens, Akielos can handle it.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that. But it’s not just Vere, Vask, and Patras looking. I hadn’t been lying when I said that I believed there was more to this than what you were seeing. Things are not alright in your kingdom, Damianos. Bringing Jokaste back may have only brought the war on faster.”

Laurent turned and walked out onto the balcony overlooking the sea and when nothing else happened Damianos knew he was intended to follow. He swung his legs over the side of his bed and held the sheet tight around his waist as he walked out onto the balcony as well. The night air felt refreshing on his skin, cooling it from its sleep-warmed state. Laurent was waiting for him, sitting on the stone railing. Now Damianos could see his face and he swore the Witch’s cheeks were flushed red. He wondered if it was from the Akielon heat.

“Do as you did the first time and find three cards about you and Jokaste,” Laurent said, getting out a familiar blue and gold starburst deck of cards.

“Would it be any different than it had been weeks ago?”

“It can change always. Now that your past is known, it is time for what’s next. Three cards.”

After a deep breath, Damianos did just as he had last time and, like then, he felt his three cards call out to him, their energy tangible, their powerful intention clear. He plucked them from the pile and handed them to Laurent slowly. The Witch kept his eyes trained on the reflective gold and he himself took in a deep breath before flipping over the first card.

To Damianos’ left he began and the card was achingly familiar for no one could forget the face of Gilead. The second card, the one in the middle, was also achingly familiar. The Emperor kept his tyrannical position on the throne strong. But it was the last card that brought great fear into Damianos’ heart for when the Witch flipped it over he gasped, a quiet and pained sound. The Tower, climbing high into the sky.

“It is as I feared,” Laurent breathed.

“The Tower? Why the Tower?” Damianos asked, impatiently.

With a sweep of magic that made the hairs on Damianos’ arms stand up, Laurent vanished the cards away and turned to face the wine dark waters of the sea.

“What do you know about your brother?” the Witch asked instead of answering Damianos’ question.

It definitely had not been what Damianos had been expecting to be asked.

As far as he knew, the Witch — Laurent — had no reason to truly know anything about Damianos’ brother, Kastor. He may have known Kastor existed, but Kastor hadn’t been brought up once in the days Damianos was at the cabin.

“He’s my brother,” he said simply instead of trying to fake anything else. “What is it you wish to know about him?”

“Has your brother paid visit to Jokaste in her cell since your return?”

“What? No. Of course not. Why would he?” Damianos asked, taken aback. Every question of the Witch’s brought forth more questions on Damianos’ end.

“Ask your guards,” Laurent told him, turning away from the sea. “Ask them how many times he has traveled down the staircase to the cells in the week since Jokaste was sent to be held there.”

“Why?” Damianos asked. He felt like a child constantly repeating the question of ‘Why?’.

“Do you not find it odd that your father’s health is worsening each day?”

Like at the cabin, Damianos was angry and frustrated at Laurent’s speaking in riddles. He voiced those feelings yet again. “Speak plainly, Laurent. I cannot make sense of anything when you answer each of my questions with a question of your own or in an indirect, unspecified way.”

“You wish for me to speak plainly? Fine,” Laurent said, sounding as depleted as Damianos felt and standing up off of the stone balcony to dust off his pants. “Jokaste was pregnant with your brother’s child and the two of them are planning on murdering both you and your father. They have almost succeeded in the latter.”

A physical strike to Damianos’ body would have hurt far less, would have been less jarring in every way.

“Leave.”

Laurent didn’t move.

“Go back to your forest, to your seclusion, to where people can seek you out if they want your opinion. Leave me and my kingdom be, we have more than plenty to deal with right now. No one in Akielos needs your guesses.”

“Are you truly ready to be king so soon? Your father only has weeks to live, Damianos,” Laurent responded.

“Leave,” Damianos repeated, voice hard.

Laurent looked like he wanted to say so much more. His expression almost looked like pity and it angered Damianos even more. They stood, at a stalemate, for moments, but Laurent finally turned toward the room and walked. Just at the threshold of where the moonlight turned into darkness, Laurent turned back and said, “Talk to the guards,” before he vanished, the act of it sending a rush of electricity through Damianos’ being.

Damianos spent the entire rest of the evening tossing and turning in his bed. He didn’t want to dwell on all Laurent had said, but it was impossible not to. Jokaste and Kastor? Murdering his — their — father? No. Jokaste would have been a bit more understandable as an outsider, but even then it seemed impossible; why would she risk execution? But Kastor...no, that couldn’t be true. Kastor wouldn’t betray him, them, in such a way; Kastor wouldn’t kill their father.

And yet…

When the sun was finally over the horizon, Damianos got out of bed. Tiredness had escaped him for he had so much to think on, but he had only gotten three or four hours of sleep.

At this early of an hour, the only people awake in the palace were slaves, guards, and cooks, all preparing for the day in different ways. It was unusual for a prince to be awake at such a time and so many fell to their knees in surprise as Damianos walked by. He paid them no mind. Instead he walked until he was at the staircase that winded down to the cells. The guards there moved with respect, but Damianos stayed put, not yet descending.

“Has my brother been down to these cells to visit the prisoner Jokaste?” Damianos asked, addressing both guards.

“On the first day of her being brought here Prince Kastor did go to the cells, but he was only there for a handful of minutes at most,” the guard on the left said, eyes never looking directly at Damianos.

“And the rest of the week?”

“No, Crown Prince, he did not come back to the cells during the rest of the week.”

The words brought such relief with them that Damianos almost fell over in his sudden exhaustion. The Witch had been wrong. Kastor and Jokaste knew each other as they always had, in passing through interactions related to Damianos and Jokaste’s arranged marriage, and Kastor would never hurt their father, wouldn’t --

The guards were not inconspicuous as they shared worried glances back and forth.

“What is it?” Damianos asked them.

The guard that hadn’t spoken yet swallowed, the act of it audible in his nervousness.

“Well?”

“Prince Kastor came down the first day for only a handful of minutes and was not here the rest of the week,” the second guard said, repeating knowledge already known. “Until yesterday, that is. Yesterday he came down as soon as you had left, Crown Prince, and he was down there for almost an hour. Then he came back. He came back five more times, the last time being just this morning after midnight.”

Impulsivity drove him immediately to Kastor’s chambers.

He should have waited, waited to collect his thoughts, but Kastor’s chambers were nearby and Damianos’ head had been spinning for hours.

He didn’t bother to knock because he was Damianos and Kastor was his brother, and inside Kastor was being dressed by slaves. One was tying and pinning his crisp chiton around both his waist and his shoulders and the other was knelt on the ground, buckling his sandals with precision.

“When you are finished, leave us,” Damianos demanded of the slaves promptly. Their movements hurried and they both prostrated themselves on the ground in front of him before scurrying away.

“Commanding my slaves, brother?” Kastor asked, looking questioningly at him.

“Why have you been paying Jokaste visits in the cells?”

If Kastor was surprised by the question, he didn’t show it. Instead he adjusted his chiton where it draped across his chest and said with utmost sincerity in his voice, “I’m trying to understand why she would betray you in such a way. Any good brother would wish to make sense of why their own blood must suffer as she has made you suffer.”

It would have been easy, in that moment, to take Kastor’s words as truth, to walk forward and slap him on the shoulder for an embrace, to go back to his own chambers and get actual rest. But Laurent’s words were ever present in his mind and, like before, he heard in clarity, “I hadn’t been lying when I said that I believed there was more to this than what you were seeing. Things are not alright in your kingdom, Damianos. Bringing Jokaste back may have only brought the war on faster.”

“The guards say you went down once the very first day she was brought there, and that you went down six times not but yesterday. That seems like an excessive amount of times to visit a person for that reason alone.”

Kastor laughed. His laugh was booming like their father’s. “I’m afraid you’ve become paranoid, brother. It’s understandable, of course, given the current situation, but you need not be afraid of me. We are blood, Damianos. Now, I’m off to get breakfast. Would you care to join me?”

“I cannot,” Damianos told him, his stomach still turned despite Kastor’s attempt at comfort. “I did not sleep well last night and —”

“Then go rest. I will see you at dinner.”

There was no time to rest, not when things were getting stranger and stranger and there was something Damianos wasn’t seeing. Kastor was no help, none at all, and that left Damianos with one person. Like she had been for the last seven days, Jokaste was in her cell, smiling warmly once more at Damianos’ entrance

“Again? Do you miss me that much?”

“I know everything,” Damianos said, not sure of anything at all.

“Oh?”

“I know you rid yourself of child. I know that’s why you were gone. We didn’t talk about it, we never have talked much about anything, but I know this to be true.”

“It was not his information to tell you,” Jokaste said, her features changing for the first time in all the days Damianos had seen her.

“The Witch is not obligated to keep your secrets, especially from me.”

“The Witch?” Jokasted asked, blonde hair tumbling forward as she leaned toward him from the bench.

“The Witch told me everything I needed to know when I first found him, but so much is still unclear. You must tell me why my brother has been to see you. I don’t believe the words out of his mouth,” Damianos said.

“Who said your brother has been to visit me? The Witch?” Jokaste asked, almost mocking. Damianos’ jaw clenched.

“Yes.”

“Witch’s can lie, Damianos,” Jokaste said. “How do you know he is not?”

“Because he has been right in every way thus far.”

“Well, if he is telling you truth then my word means nothing. Your decision is already made, after all.”

“So you won’t speak?”

“I won’t.”

Damianos nodded. “Then I will make sure your exile is further away from all civilization than you could ever imagine.”

***

The next two mornings went by uneventfully. Kastor was anywhere but the places Damianos found himself, Jokaste was remaining silent in her cell, Theomedes was bedridden and beginning to cough up blood (the physicians feared consumption but said nothing to the poor stressed princes, not yet), and Damianos was restless. He spent the previous two evenings staring blankly at the high ceiling or out at the balcony, wishing he could summon Laurent back. He had been rash in sending the Witch away, allowing his emotions to consume him in that moment and not thinking rationally. Now he was left with more questions than ever before and no one to answer them.

By the third evening, sleep deprivation won in the battle and, though it was not a peaceful sleep Damianos fell into, he slept. He was terribly groggy when he awoke to the feeling of a presence in his room and as he did all he could to pry open his eyes. He expected Laurent at the balcony once more, silver and blue in the moonlight. But there was no one at the balcony. The presence was at his bedchamber door.

There stood Kastor, his features strong in the torchlight that the group of guards around him were carrying. Damianos pushed himself up onto one elbow, rubbed at his eyes too hard, and asked, “Kastor? What’s going on?”

“Seize him,” Kastor commanded of the guards and they all rushed forward.

Adrenaline spiked in Damianos’ blood immediately at the action and he sprang up as to not get overwhelmed in such vulnerability. The first guard to reach him lunged too early and Damianos dodged the grab before lashing out with a fist in the guard’s left side, no doubt breaking a rib or three. The fall of the guard’s body gave Damianos enough time to reach his sword and unsheath it. The second guard never even saw the blade before it plunged into the open expanse of the inside of his thigh, cutting through an artery that would bleed out in mere minutes. The third guard came from behind and Damianos was skilled enough to twist his sword in his grip and stab it backwards underneath his own arm and into the guard’s chest. But then the fourth and fifth guard were on him at the same time, followed without delay by the seventh, eighth, and ninth guards that eventually all took Damianos down onto his knees and lashed his arms tightly behind his back.

Above him, Kastor stood, intimidating at such an angle.

“Kastor,” Damianos struggled out, a guard’s arm wound around his neck, “what is the meaning of this Kastor?”

“You have committed treason, Damianos,” Kastor began, sounding almost sad. “You have committed treason through your conspiring with the evil Witch of Vere to kill our father and take his crown.”

“What?” Damianos asked. “You know that’s not true.”

“It pains me to do this to you. You are my brother. Yet,” Kastor paused to sigh, “we may lose our father because of your selfishness and greed. Such an act cannot be overlooked. The Akielon people will not be able to stomach it.”

“Kastor, you’re lying,” Damianos yelled.

“Take him to the cells,” Kastor said, ignoring Damianos on his knees. The guards began to drag the Crown Prince away, his skin scraping unkindly on the floor.

“Kastor! Kastor!”

Hours went by in darkness. The fragments of light within the cells seemed even less today, tonight. Damianos had forgone the bench, opting to sit on the dirty floor right by the cell’s entrance. His head rested between his bent knees and his hands were bloodied from his fights. His mind was blank for the first time in days. That’s when he heard footsteps.

There was first the unmistakable click of loose sandals, the kind women wore when they did not have to be working. Damianos looked up to find Jokaste staring at him in a strange turn of events. She had recently bathed for her shampoos and oils that smelled like jasmine blossoms wafted through the cell bars.

“I must thank you for my freedom,” Jokaste said.

“I didn’t free you,” Damianos said back. His voice was hoarse.

“You did though,” she said, beginning to walk the length of the cell door and back. “Without your own indiscretion against your kingdom, I may have never stepped foot outside of these cells again.”

“I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“You conspired with a witch,” Jokaste said. “You discovered I was pregnant and forced me there with threats. When I didn’t return out of fear for my life, you went to the Witch and bought his assistance with promise of a position of power here in Akielos. You returned with me in tow, guaranteed exile where I couldn’t speak of your heinous acts and your father slowly began to die.”

“None of that is true. And none of it would make sense even if it were true. Why would I force you to the Witch?” Damianos asked, baffled.

“Why, because it was Kastor’s child. He took me in when you began your descent toward all things evil and depraved.”

“My father demanded you out of my bed lest we did end up with you pregnant before the wedding and caused a scandal.”

“Your father will be dead soon. No one will know the truth.”

“You have no proof about any of it,” Damianos said, pushing himself to stand. Jokaste didn’t budge from her close proximity to the cell.

“I don’t need proof.”

***

The trial against Crown Prince Damianos of Akielos was rushed.

The very night of his detention, riders were sent out to all the provinces of Akielos, sending for each Kyros to venture to the kingdom’s capital of Ios to be judges. Quickly the Kyroi began to file into the palace, all at a loss as what to think, all except for Nikandros, the Kyros of Delpha and Damianos’ best childhood friend. Nikandros was vocal from the moment he entered the gate of the city as to what he thought of such a farce, but all the others looked at the palace with its almost-dead King, its Crown Prince in chains, and its other Prince somber and broad shouldered, comforting the visibly upset woman that had once been the crown prince’s betrothed and wondered if this was just as it appeared to be.

Formally, the first day of the trial was spent with each Kyros taking an oath to uphold their kingdom’s wellbeing before all other things, followed by an introduction of those testifying and then the reading of the charges against Crown Prince Damianos.

Damianos felt like a gladiator being told to fight to the death, only he was given no weapons and his hands were tied behind his back; the Kyroi were all seated in the spectator seats of the throne room, their seats elevated so their wide-eyed stares were turned downward to face where Damianos was dragged center on the floor, his shackles clanging behind him with each step. Like a blur the days went by. Jokaste testified first on the second day of the trial, weaving together a weeping tale of Damianos telling her he had grown bored with her, a tale of Damianos threatening her should she run to her father about that. She then told of Kastor listening to her when she felt alone, building safeness for her in a palace so unwelcoming. She talked of falling pregnant with his child, knowing it was wrong due to her betrothal, but how it felt right, and of Damianos finding out and forcing her to the infamous Witch of Vere who could rip from her the would-be grandchild of the King. Kastor testified the next day, Damianos sitting there through it all in shock, as Kastor talked of Jokaste’s fear and of their excitement to be parents. Kastor talked of the terror he had experienced as Jokaste vanished and how that terror worsened as Damianos went after her, but not before their father came down with a sickness. Kastor remained steady, but the emotion was there as he talked of losing his child and of almost losing his love and his father.

It was hard to figure out which was worse, the idea that Damianos’ own brother could lie about him so easily or the fact that the Kyroi seemed to be buying it all. Their belief in these lies only intensified as, on the fourth day, witnesses were brought forth to continue to destroy Damianos’ name and reputation.

“Never have I witnessed such a cruelty,” Adrastus, the Keeper of Slaves, spoke, “as the cruelty that lies within the heart of Prince Damianos.”

“The things Prince Damianos has said about his own brother and his betrothed haunt my sleep each night,” Mykara, one of the royal cooks, said with a hand over her heaving bosom.

“His behavior has had Exalted concerned over the last several months,” Timon, one of his father’s advisors, began. “In fact, Exalted has been so concerned he had been working out a date to meet with the Kyroi about removing Prince Damianos as the next in line purely for the kingdom’s wellbeing.”

“This slave has been at a loss,” said one of the slave attendants that often served at dinners, tears shining in his eyes. “Prince Damianos handed this slave the vial of deadly poison and said to put it in Exalted’s wine over the next few evenings or he would have this slave beaten beyond recognition.”

In that moment, Damianos realized he was hanging by his fingernails to the ledge of the daunting tower.

On the seventh day of the trial, Damianos was to be sentenced. He wasn’t quite certain why they had dragged it out as long as they had, for by day three over half of the Kyroi believed what they were hearing, and by day five all of the rest, all but Nikandros, believed too. Perhaps it was for the humiliation of it all, perhaps it was to make it seem more legitimate when they inevitably had him, the crown prince, executed for treason.

Damianos had no defense. All he could say was the truth which he had no proof of, and even if he had it was his word against the synchronised fabrications of a dozen others.

“Today is a sad day in Akielos,” began the Kyros from Thrace, Ignion. “Never had anyone suspected such evil could live behind these palace walls. To do to your family what Prince Damianos has been accused of is unthinkable. Do you have any words for yourself?” he then asked, turning to where Damianos was still chained in the center of the room.

“None that would change the opinions of this senate,” Damianos said, voice unused for days.

Ignion looked at him sadly. “Then it is time to take a vote. We, the Kyroi of Akielos, stand in this room to —”

“Stop!”

The voice was not a pleading voice, but a commanding one instead. Almost as though they had seen a ghost, everyone in the room stopped, stood completely still as they watched their king, Theomedes, walk into the throne room.

It seemed like an eternity, though it was truly only a minute, before the whispers started and all fell to their knees, all except for Damianos, Kastor, and Jokaste, who each looked as though such a revelation could have them keel over in an instant.

“Father,” Damianos breathed, the sound so quiet he almost didn’t hear it over the beat of his own heart, over the sudden rush of blood in his ears.

Tall, King Theomedes walked toward the front of the room where his still-empty throne sat. He walked head high and eyes straight ahead as though the piercing stares of all in the room didn’t bother him. Watching him, it was hard to think that this was the man that had fallen into coughing fits but three weeks ago, who had gotten worse each passing day, paler and thinner and frailer, all until the blood began to seep into his handkerchiefs, for now he was full of color and life. Yes, he was still a little thinner than he had been in the months past, but that could be amended. He looked like the King he had always been.

Once at his throne, Theomedes turned to address his people. “I am here to speak on my own behalf, for none know the truth. I am here to say that you have shackled to these great floors the wrong son. Damianos is innocent in all that he is accused. It has been Kastor who has tainted the land. It is him who began to poison me.”

All those on their knees began to rise, gasps and wide-eyes taking over their expressions. Across the room, Kastor had long visibly whitened and he stared unblinkingly at their father in fear.

“I will provide proof, something that has been greatly lacking in this mockery of a trial, but I must iterate to you all first, my people, that Kastor did not act alone. The idea was planted into his head by true evil and he believed it because of his own greed. Kastor and the Lady Jokaste are responsible for my near death and the planned death of my son, Damianos.” Theomedes turned his body from facing toward the very ‘all’ he had been speaking directly to so as to now face Kastor, Jokaste, and their flock of witnesses that hadn’t witnessed anything at all. “Kastor, my oldest son, I cannot begin to atone for the deeds you have committed. Such a thing is unthinkable and yet it has happened. Lady Jokaste, why you could not be content with the guaranteed position as future queen is truly a mystery. I regret in all ways the day I signed the betrothal agreement with your father. And the rest of you, I know you did what you did because of threats or promises, and I shall deal accordingly with each of you dependent on such things soon. But other matters are more imperative now.”

“Father, you don’t understand,” Kastor said, trying to move forward but Jokaste’s hand was holding him back by the arm.

“I don’t have anything to hear from you,” Theomedes said coldly. “Now unshackle the Crown Prince of Akielos.”

“Exalted” began the Kyros of Ios, an old man named Stavos, “my heart leaps at your recovery and it aches at your words. I very much want to hear it all, for your wisdom and leadership were beyond missed in this troubled time, but I believe we all have to know, before anything else, how you have recovered in such a manner if Kastor has been poisoning you.”

“The Witch of Vere has healed me.”

If the gasps of surprise had seemed loud when Theomedes had walked in, it was nothing compared to the gasps heard now.

“The Witch of Vere!”

“Exalted!”

“The Witch is real?”

“The Witch is here?”

This time it was Jokaste that visibly whitened.

Damianos, for his part, found himself almost weak at the words, weak as what they truly meant washed over him.

“How did this happen?” asked a Kyros from somewhere in the massed throng of people now on their feet.

“The Witch came to me in disguise,” began Theomedes. “He disguised himself as a slave and began tending to me. It was only when left alone, when he had been tasked with feeding me the broth, that he whispered his truth. At first I was disbelieving for I had no reason to assume different, but when he revealed to me his true form and his power I could not deny. I expected death then, but it never came, and as I went to yell for help, the Witch stopped me and said he only wished to help. He said my kingdom was in great danger and it would only be my survival and my word that could save it. As the days went by, he began to heal me and tell me of the horrible things that had happened.”

“The Witch of Vere has cursed the king!” cried out one of the other Kyros, voice enraged.

“The Witch will control the entirety of Akielos!” cried out yet another.

Uproar.

None of them had truly listened to what the King had to say. They took it as a confession of the Witch’s meddling only. Damianos watched, helpless, as fear overtook the throne room. Like animals sent for slaughter, the Kyroi began to venture forward in a wretched herd of panic, eyes scouring every inch of the palace walls and floors as though waiting for a hellish witch to appear from the cracks in the stone. Then Damianos’ own panic settled when he felt hands on his shackled wrists.

“Hold on,” said Nikandros directly into his ear so he could hear him and Damianos could have cried with relief. He didn’t, of course, and instead kept his eyes on the chaos ensuing. It took a moment and there was a scraping of metal on metal, but Damianos quickly realized Nikandros was using the dagger Damianos had gifted him with in congratulations for being honored the title of Kyros of Delpha to unpick the locks.

Just as Nikandros was helping Damianos step out of the shackles around his feet did Theomedes’ yell reverberate off of the walls, bringing the crowd to yet again another halt.

“Enough! Do you dare call me liar? Do you dare defy my order? I am your King. Has that changed in the weeks since I had fallen ill?” Fire filled Theomedes’ eyes and his voice. Damianos rubbed at his raw wrists.

“You were so quick,” Theomedes started once more, “to believe a story brought to life through endless lies, a story made extraordinary with tears and tales of heroics. But I told you, I have proof.”

“Then bring it forward.”

With a steady hand, Theomedes motioned for someone in the crowd. It was a slave boy, his brown eyes big and dark hair cropped short, but he walked unlike any slave and did not look down out of Theomedes’ stare. Once the boy was at the king’s side, the room fell into a dead kind of silence, the kind so quiet the sound of a pin dropping could be heard like a shout. Then, like magic, the boy transformed.

It was a fast transformation, so fluid in its movement that the intricacies of it could not be kept straight with the human eye. But all anyone in the crowd knew was that at one moment the boy had been a young Akielon slave and now he was tall, blond, and staring at them all with unreadable blue eyes.

“Laurent.”

Damianos had earlier whispered “Father” and it had gone unnoticed for there was so much happening in the room. But now he had whispered a single name and it was heard by all.

The Witch of Vere was standing next to the King of Akielos in the throne room of the palace in Ios and wearing still a traditional slave chiton, one stark white that fell mid-thigh in youthful fashion. Damianos could look nowhere else.

“The Witch has all the proof you will need to see what has happened, to see the injustice that was almost sentenced.”

“This is ridiculous,” Jokaste said, her first words since Theomedes’ unexpected entrance.

“You will be silent or you will spend an eternity in the cells, left to rot into nothing. No death, just permanent incarceration,” Theomedes told her. He didn’t even spare her a glance. “Witch, tell us everything you know.”

***

Hours later, Damianos fell face first into his cushioned bed, wearing still the chiton he had been captured in. The exhaustion he felt was not just physical from the standing he had done during the weeklong trial nor even the result of sleeping restlessly on the cold, damp floor of the cell. No, the exhaustion he felt was bone deep, the conclusion of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion.

Damianos slept for nearly an entire day. In his long sleep he dreamed, flashes of what had occurred but yesterday. He dreamed of his father walking into the throne room, strong and steady as Damianos had always known him. He dreamed of his father’s commanding voice ordering him unshackled. He dreamed of Nikandros’ never-wavering loyalty in him, in Nikandros’ quick work of the locks on his wrists and ankles. He dreamed of Laurent adorned in white, of his skin dropped against a background of white pillars, of his blue eyes that looked once, twice, three times at Damianos with what he would almost call concern or relief or both.

He dreamed of Laurent’s surety as he provided his proof to the Kyroi. He dreamed of the deathly silence that fell over after Jokaste’s father tried to interject, screaming that the Witch hadn’t taken any child, and Laurent said calmly he could show the man the bloody clump of cells if he wished. He dreamed of Laurent’s explanation of Jokaste’s visit that inevitably led to Damianos’ own, of the way in which he realized the doom Akielos would face in the days to come. He dreamed of Laurent bringing forth letters written in both Kastor and Jokaste’s hands, letters that, once put together, told of their plan to rule together. He dreamed of Laurent’s telling of how he had to heal the King slowly for the amount of potion needed to heal him would have put him in a week long sleep of recovery if given at one time. He dreamed mostly of Laurent, the Witch of Vere, standing in the land of Akielos where he was hated and defending it still.

It wasn’t a surprise when he then first woke up to see Laurent sitting on his bed for he thought he was still dreaming. When he realized he wasn’t though, he scrambled up, breathing once again, “Laurent,” and halting altogether at Laurent’s gentle touch to his shoulder.

“Stay still,” Laurent said, voice barely above a whisper.

“Laurent,” Damianos breathed again. “You’re still here.”

“I am.”

Damianos couldn’t take his eyes off of the Witch, even as he went to settle back into the pillows and blankets. “I have so many questions.”

“Then ask. I’m afraid, however, your cards cannot assist this time,” Laurent said. Damianos smiled, a small and sleepy upturn of his mouth.

“Why did you help me?” he began. “You did all I asked in first helping me locate Jokaste. You didn’t have to come to Akielos and stop this, yet you did.”

The Witch trailed a finger down one of the prominent lines of stitching in the blanket as he contemplated his answer. “You remember my cat, yes?” he asked. Damianos nodded. “For witches, animals are not merely animals. They are part of our magic in a way, in tune with the elements. Often they are called familiars. When you were in the cabin, my familiar took quite kindly to you. He slept on your chest, he allowed you to provide him with food, he sought out your pets. When your once-betrothed was paying her visit, my familiar was horribly on edge. He hissed when she walked too close and his hair was always up in defense. It might sound silly, but I trust that judgement greatly. It made me nervous once I realized who she was to you, once I realized the connection between the two of you. I couldn’t not let that go unchecked. You were — you are — good.”

“Why did you stay after I told you to go?”

“Because your father was dying and only he could clear your name. I had to help you, even if you wouldn’t help yourself.”

“But what did this do to benefit you at all? Akielos must be far from your mind.”

“The four kingdoms are currently surviving in harmony. Yes, Vaskian mountain raiders cause problems here and there, and yes, Vere and Akielos continue their feud over the land of Delfeur —”

“Delpha.”

“But there is no war. No war is good for all, even witches living in the Northern Steppes,” Laurent told him. “Believe me when I say this wasn’t purely out of any goodness, but out of necessity.”

“I believe some of it must have been out of goodness though,” Damianos said. “What you did was good, Laurent. You saved not just me and my father, but our entire kingdom.”

If the Witch heard him, he didn’t acknowledge it. His blue eyes were focused elsewhere, looking anywhere but at Damianos, and the two of them eventually fell into silence. It was a comfortable silence. The air outside was warm and the breeze was strong, bringing with it the salt of the ocean and a cooling air. Quietly, as not to disrupt the peace more than necessary, Damianos began to speak again.

“I still don’t know why Jokaste went to the lengths she did,” he confessed. “It wasn’t love between us, no, but we got along I believed. We could have made being wed such an easy thing, especially when compared to other arranged marriages I have known of in the past.”

“Jokaste is a kingmaker,” Laurent said as though that explained everything.

“I am to be King,” Damianos said, confused. “I don’t —”

“In her time away from you, following your father’s orders, it began to become evident to her that she may be Queen married to you, but she would never rule. You were proving with each passing day that you would not be controlled and she couldn’t stand by that. Your brother, on the other hand, was easy. All she had to do was whisper praises into his ear, telling him he was better than you, then she would tempt him into her bed, in action which he followed with eagerness. She could marry you, kill you, and be established as Queen and face no opposition when she proposed your brother as her new husband for, though he is a bastard, he would be the last surviving son of the King.”

“Oh. How do you know that?”

“Kastor told all. It was after you left. He was begging for his life.” Laurent paused to let Damianos take that in. “She did make a mistake in falling pregnant with his child though. It was the thing that ruined them both.”

The breeze picked up in strength. Not by much, but enough that it began to play with the golden ends of Laurent’s hair. It moved some of the strands out of his face and bared to Damianos the clearness of the Witch’s eyes, bared to him his flushed cheeks from Akielon heat.

“Akielos has some recovering to do, but we can come out of this stronger than before. I can’t thank you enough,” Damianos said, catching his breath. “You have done more for me than I could ever repay. What can I give you? I’ll give you anything you ask for.”

“You do enjoy playing dangerous games,” Laurent told him, looking amused like he often did when Damianos made offerings. “Offering witches your freedom and offering to grant them anything they desire could truly be your downfall.”

“Not with you.”

“You didn’t know that when you offered to me your freedom.”

“No, but I know that now. What can I give you?”

Introspection overtook Laurent’s expression and his mouth opened once and quickly closed again, as though he had thought of something then thought better of it. “Give me one more opportunity to read to you a card,” he said finally. Magically, the cards were sweeping and present and Damianos almost rolled his eyes.

“But —”

“Find your one. Just one. Think of anything you wish and find your card,” the Witch told him. Damianos sighed.

The card came to him quickly. Before it was flipped over, he couldn’t resist saying, “I don’t seem to have great luck with these. What if the card says I am to die tomorrow?”

“Then you die tomorrow,” Laurent said, taking the card from him. “But I doubt that’s the case.”

Gently, Laurent turned the card over in the same direction Damianos had handed it to him. There, in gold and blue, was a pair of people, their hands clasped together, a heart floating above them like a beacon. The Lovers.

“You truly are a romantic.” Laurent started. “It appears, Damianos, your betrothal was not necessary at all. Love is near, a love of balance and unity. Hopefully this time it is with someone who does not try to kill you.”

Damianos couldn’t quit staring at the card. When he finally did manage to tear his gaze away, it immediately found Laurent who was looking back at him with something akin to curiosity.

“Would you like to keep the card?” Laurent asked him after a moment.

“But then your set will be incomplete.”

“Believe me when I say I have plenty of cards at my cabin. Often they are lost or appear in the strangest of places. The Lovers exist elsewhere. Keep it.”

Like Laurent, Damianos grabbed the card with a gentle touch. Then he watched with a feeling like despair as Laurent stood up from his bed. “Finding a card for myself surely can’t be equal repayment for all you’ve done,” Damianos said, moving closer to the side of the bed the Witch had just stood from. “What else can I give you?”

“Let’s not change the tone; one kiss and we’ll call it even,” Laurent said, laughing almost as though he thought he was quite funny, pointedly casting a glance at the card still in Damianos’ hand.

It hadn’t been said seriously because it couldn’t be, which is why Laurent was turned away when Damianos’ hand not holding the card enclosed tenderly around his fine-boned wrist and tugged the Witch back towards him. Immediately Laurent’s knees hit the edge of the bed and his hands found Damianos’ shoulders for balance. Though the breeze was still sifting through from the balcony and the air was cool, the atmosphere around them changed, got heavy with heat.

Laurent’s lips were parted ever so, out of surprise or anticipation or with the death of something to say, and Damianos couldn’t not flick his gaze toward them, couldn’t not lean in until his own lips were but a breath away. “Tell me no,” he whispered, the words warm against Laurent’s mouth, and the longest of seconds passed with nothing said, with not a breath taken. Damianos closed the distance.

Laurent’s lips were warm and his fingers, still resting on Damianos’ shoulders, clenched almost painfully on the skin there as though afraid he would fall. Damianos made no sudden movement, relished in the weight of Laurent now half atop his thighs, relished in the heat of him surrounding all of Damianos’ senses. After a minute, the fingers on his shoulders lessened their grip and, in turn, the rigidness of Laurent’s spine eased away until he was putting all of his weight on Damianos, until one of his hands moved into the curls at the nape of Damianos’ neck.

Only then did Damianos move, his own hands instinctively finding Laurent’s hips, steadying him there until the Witch was straddling his lap, his bare legs on either side of Damianos’ own. Softly Damianos went to deepen the kiss, bringing forth an involuntary gasp from Laurent who tensed ever briefly before melting into it, his mouth opening, his hips shifting.

At the cabin, all those weeks ago now, Laurent had, quite literally, taken the air out of Damianos’ lungs. Now he was doing so again, only this time Damianos would willingly lose it all if it meant Laurent would stay right here forever.

Damianos moved in a miniscule way, just enough away to worry Laurent’s bottom lip between his teeth before soothing it with the gentlest of touch. Laurent shuddered against him, full body movements that ended with them pressed so tightly together it was impossible to tell who began where. A sound escaped Laurent then, so quietly, and Damianos wanted to hear it over and over and over again.

But things end. They always do.

Laurent pulled away, chest heaving against Damianos’. He could feel their individual heartbeats through their skin. Damianos almost didn’t open his eyes, afraid of breaking the magic of the room, but he was grateful when he did for he got to see Laurent’s heavily lidded eyes, he got to see the redness of his mouth, he got to see the haze of his expression as though unable to pull himself out of a spell.

“Goodbye, Prince Damianos,” Laurent said, still breathless. His voice was lower than Damianos had ever heard it before.

“Goodbye, Laurent.”

In an instant, Damianos almost staggered forward off the bed for Laurent disappeared. Somehow, in the fervor of it all, the Lovers had fallen onto the floor in the same direction they had found Damianos.

***

The executions of both Kastor and Jokaste were done quickly in the days following the trial. Their official sentencing had found them guilty of attempted murder of King Theomedes and conspiracy to murder Crown Prince Damianos.

Though it had been hell, the false accusations Damianos had faced from his brother and betrothed, there was still mourning that he had to wade through. All of Akielos was quiet with it, actually, a feeling of disbelief long given way to an unnamable kind of grief.

Weeks went by like this, Damianos wary of almost all that came near him or his father, and his vivid dreams had him sometimes thinking of Kastor’s hand shooting out of the ground to pull him down.

Eventually his father couldn’t keep silent on it all. “I think you need to get out of Ios,” Theomedes told him one day after breakfast. “Go clear your head someplace else.”

“I don’t want to leave you alone again,” Damianos had said back.

Theomedes had smiled indulgently and placed a hand on top of Damianos’ head like his son was a young child once more. “I think we are safe once again in our palace walls. Visit Nikandros in Delpha for a week, for two weeks. Train with the men, strategize, drink. It will do you good.”

After a little more convincing, Damianos finally gave in to his father’s request and prepared for travel to the land of Delpha. He wrote ahead a letter as to not surprise Nikandros too suddenly before he ventured off with a single guard. They rode at a leisurely pace, taking in as much of the fresh air as Damianos wished, and after several days they finally found themselves but another day’s ride away from Delpha’s gate.

It was only when they were strolling through said gate that Damianos realized that this was not at all where he wanted to be. He told Nikandros such a thing that night over a cup of General Makedon’s griva.

“It is not that I am not thrilled to see you, friend,” he said, making a slight face as he swallowed yet another mouthful of the drink. “But I believe I need to get out of Akielos entirely. For only a while.”

Nikandros looked concerned. “Where will you go? Patras would maybe be agreeable, but neither Vask or Vere would be safe for you as the man you are.”

The answer was so simple that Damianos almost laughed at himself, wondering how he was unaware where his body wanted to take him the entire time. He looked at Nikandros, still almost laughing. “You wouldn’t happen to own a cloak and boots meant for snow, would you?”

He left in the dead of night to avoid his guard escort who was still long asleep. Damianos made sure to leave a letter for when his father inevitably panicked and sent people after him in Delpha. No one needed to get in trouble for Damianos’ exigency to get away.

It was easy to take almost the exact same path he had taken the first time. He stowed away in multiple merchants’ carts, sometimes with permission and a gift of gold, and sometimes sneakily whilst the merchants slept in inns. He made it to the Northern Steppes a little faster this time because of it, and when his boots first touched snow he felt invigorated; two more days of travel.

Those two days went by quickly and uneventfully. Then the cabin was in front of him.

There was a fire roaring inside, its flames visible through the window. Nothing had changed in the weeks, months now, since Damianos had first paid visit. He didn’t know why anything would have changed, but there was something comforting at the unchanged appearance. The stones marking the spot for a gateway almost seemed to glitter with Damianos’ arrival.

Damianos walked forward, knocked on the cabin door four times, retreated back to stand between the two stone markers and said, “My name is Damianos. I have traveled here from Akielos seeking the Witch of Vere. I offer to him my undying loyalty.”

The door opened wide.

In the threshold stood Laurent, arms crossed over his chest. He was back to wearing his laced up clothing that covered him neck to foot and Damianos hadn’t ever seen someone look so beautiful and annoyed all at once. A smile fought its way onto his face as he began to walk the pathway again, toward the Witch giving him a stormy look.

“You can’t just show up here each time you have a question you need me to answer,” Laurent said.

“I have no questions that need answered,” Damianos said. He was now inches in front of Laurent, the two of them nearly toe to toe.

“Then why are you here? Need a love potion to pair with your card?” Laurent asked looking up at him.

“I only wish to talk to you,” Damianos said.

“And you just casually offered undying loyalty?” It was impossible to miss Laurent’s delicately raised brow.

“I suppose that wasn’t a good enough offering,” Damianos said after pretending to think about it for a moment. “After all, I can’t offer you something you already had.”

Laurent looked at him. “Are you going to come inside?”

“If you’ll allow me.”

It was blazing hot inside the cabin, just as it had been when Damianos had entered here the first time. The cat, the very same white darling, immediately found Damianos’ feet and curled around his legs, purring and warm where it pressed. Laurent looked down at it helpless.

“What do you want, Damianos?” Laurent asked of him again.

“I told you. I wish to talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About you.” Damianos invited himself to sit down at the familiar table and the cat followed, jumping up on the table’s flat surface. “I realized in the days since you left that you left knowing so much about us, about my family and myself, and yet I left knowing only the same things I arrived here knowing.”

“And what were those things?”

“That you are powerful and heartstoppingly beautiful,” Damianos said truthfully. Laurent flushed under his steady gaze. “But I want to know about you.”

“You didn’t have to come all the way here,” Laurent said after a beat.

“Oh, was I supposed to send a letter? With what carrier?” Laurent’s flush turned into a glare. Damianos smiled again. “Tell me about you. Tell me anything, tell me everything.”

Laurent’s gaze turned to the ceiling as though it would give him answers. “Why?”

“Because everything you have done has been more than I thought possible in this world. Is it so strange that I would wish to know better the man that did all you have done?”

“It will probably take time,” Laurent said.

“That’s fine,” Damianos said, getting comfortable in the chair. “That is my true offer to you then: time. Take all my time if you like.”

“You’re so —” Laurent began, looking at Damianos as though he had never seen anyone quite like him before. “Fine.”

Laurent’s life hadn’t been what Damianos expected. He hadn’t expected a story of a witch from the northernmost part of Kempt journeying south to the Veretian province of Belloy to retrieve ingredients for a healing spell and whilst there falling for a noble named Aleron who proposed to her, knowing her truth and all within a week. He hadn’t expected a story of the two of them, Aleron and the witch Hennike, to have had two children, the oldest child having no magic in him at all and the youngest being full of it. He hadn’t expected Aleron’s brother to have been a predator that waited impatiently to be left alone with Laurent, who was but the mere age of eleven, and he hadn’t expected Laurent to tell how his magic had protected him, lashing out to hurt his uncle quite severely. He hadn’t expected the tragedy that began to befall then, of Laurent’s brother, Auguste, asking about their uncle’s injury, of Laurent clumsily explaining what their uncle had tried to do. He hadn’t expected Auguste to go after their uncle with intent to kill, hadn’t expected their uncle to come out alive instead, Auguste murdered by his hand. He hadn’t expected Laurent’s powers to flounder out of control with his grief, killing their uncle in turn, and he hadn’t expected the townspeople to go after Hennike and Laurent with such rage that Aleron and Hennike both died trying to protect their son who was run out, forced to survive orphaned in the Northern Steppes, relying on magic to keep him alive those first months.

“Don’t look at me with pity,” Laurent told him after he finished. “I don’t need it.”

“I’m not,” Damianos lied. “But, Laurent —”

“Yes, it was all quite traumatizing. But it is long in the past now.”

“It can’t be that long in the past,” Damianos said. “You have to only be but twenty-one years of age.”

Laurent smiled. “I’m turning twenty come spring.”

“Twenty? Laurent,” Damianos said with a sigh this time.

“Is that all you wanted? I’ve told you about myself. It wasn’t fun so I very much assume you regret your long journey out here just to hear such sadness, but it is my life.”

The wind was howling outside, blowing snow off of the cabin roof, blowing it off of the trees to join the piles already on the ground.

“You must be lonely,” Damianos said, his eyes trained outside.

“I’ve managed.”

“Laurent,” Damianos repeated for what seemed to be the hundredth time since he learned the Witch’s name. “Laurent, why do you stay here?”

“Magic has a bad name everywhere. I know what they say about me, about those like me, across the continent. What should I do? Try to fit in with society only to eventually be outed and ran out once more or, worse, killed?”

“People say what they think they know to be true. If you show them otherwise by —”

“By healing? By performing good deeds? What is it you think I’ve been doing the last odd something years? I’m still hated. I’m still feared.”

“Then come back with me,” Damianos said, leaning forward in the chair. “Come with me to Ios. Be part of Akielos. Live in the palace, I can ensure nothing bad comes of you.”

“Your people will not take kindly to a witch living alongside the King and Prince,” Laurent rebuffed.

“My people will listen to my father and I, the two people you saved. We are indebted to you. Let us, let me, do this for you.”

“Other kingdoms may look at me as a weapon of war,” Laurent said. “That war you’ve worked so desperately to avoid may occur anyway.”

“You will never see a battlefield. We may ask you to heal if you could should we ever go to war, but I would never ask of you to use your power to benefit us unfairly. We Akielons are not like that.”

“What about —”

“Laurent! Please. Selfishly I ask this of you. Come back to Ios. Live in Ios. Live surrounded by people and life and experience once again what it is like to be with those that adore you, not fear you.”

“Damianos,” Laurent said, standing. “This makes no sense. None at all.”

“Why not?”

“I am a witch, a being of misunderstood magic. You are a prince, set on path to be King. Please look at the picture we make. This is silly. This is the unchecked notion of jubilation for I have assisted you and your kingdom. I understand you’re appreciative and I don’t regret what I’ve done. But you must see this doesn’t make sense.”

Damianos stood too, walked to stand behind Laurent who had turned to stare at the dancing flames in the hearth.

“None of your cards have been wrong before. Not for me, and I doubt for anyone else. It was not a coincidence the card of the Lovers was meant to fall into my hands as I found myself falling for you.” He put a hand on the subtle curve of Laurent’s hip, felt him melt a little. “Allow me this. Allow yourself this if you want it. If you don’t, that’s a different story, and tell me now and I’ll —”

Laurent turned into the circle of his arms.

The fire was behind him now and Damianos knew its flames were reflected in his own brown eyes. It was too much and not enough at once, having Laurent so close again, and he found himself in familiar fashion waiting for the right time to breathe.

“If you mean this, I ask one thing of you.” Laurent’s hands were fisted in Damianos’ cloak as though fearful the Prince would disappear at any moment.

“Anything.”

“Actually, two things.”

“Anything.”

“They’re two things you have already given me before.”

“Of course.”

“I need time. Time to figure out what to do with my cabin, time to create a schedule for I will have to return here at times, and time to come up with a plan to escape Ios, Akielos, and the continent if I need to ever.” Damianos opened his mouth, but Laurent cut him off. “I must do this, and you must not know of it. It is the only way I will be comfortable in guaranteeing my own survival. Perhaps one day…” he trailed. “But not now.”

“And the second thing?

“One kiss,” Laurent answered with his own smile.

“Oh,” Damianos said, voice low, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to do that for you.”

Laurent immediately went to pull back, confusion evident on his face. Damianos held on a little tighter.

“I can’t just give you one kiss. Perhaps a million instead.”

***

Over a year had gone by since the end of the infamous trial in Ios.

Akielos was in the crux of summer, its temperatures high and the sun always blazing. Crown Prince Damianos was dripping in sweat. He’d been out in the always-blazing sun since the early hours of the morning, training with his men. It felt good, truly, the bone deep exhaustion of many days of hard work, and the men were in better shape than ever, their lines steady and their form impeccable.

It was good for the soldiers to have their Prince train with them. It made them feel as though their hard work was not for the sole protection of the royals, but for the kingdom, a place that they all wished to keep safe. Damianos knew this, and had made it a point to train with the men more in the last years. But it wasn’t the main reason he was training today; actually, it wasn’t the main reason he was training at all this week.

Selfishly, the Crown Prince was training to keep his mind from wandering to Laurent who was currently back in the Northern Steppes, collecting ingredients, retrieving more of his books, and escaping the summer heat if only for a while.

Yes, the Witch had become part of Akielos in such a way that it still seemed surreal. The citizens were nervous at first as word that the Witch would be living in the palace got out to them all, but the people of Akielos were not near as hard-set as the Vaskians nor as twisted as the Veretians; when King Theomedes stood before the city of Ios to explain in detail how Laurent had saved them all, they welcomed him into their kingdom with the most open of arms.

Laurent could not walknow around Ios without being stopped by a hundred people. Children ran to him, begging to see magic tricks and delighting as coins vanished and reappeared, as apples turned to butterflies, as his blue eyes changed hue to green to purple to brown and to yellow. Those working booths at the markets asked about potion ingredients, asked if they had anything he would ever need, and made certain he knew to come to him should he ever find himself searching for a particular plant or herb. Some of the older women, who had came quickly to the conclusion Laurent was here alone for he had no family, had taken to mothering the Witch who didn’t quite know what to do with such an outpouring of affection.

Several — and several meant far more than several — men had taken to Laurent as well, trying their best to woo over the striking being now walking their sandy streets. One man, a merchant, had proposed with a cart full of silks and gold-printed fabrics only to be left quite disappointed when Laurent magicked his own silks and gold-printed fabrics of much richer color. Another man, a blacksmith, had made an impressive sapphire-stoned scepter to hone tangible magic through. The man’s gift was welcome and Laurent was polite as he declined, but offered to buy the gift still for it was very beautiful. Yet another man, a drunk, had been less polite in his soliciting and found himself instead dangling over the palace cliffs that overlooked the ocean.

Luckily for the Prince and the Witch, the two of them only had eyes for one another. Since Laurent’s arrival in Ios, they had been near inseparable, taking time apart only for duties the other simply could not attend, such as some of Damianos’ court meetings and Laurent’s witchly activities of incantations, readings, and other still unknown things to Damianos.

Despite their inseparability, the romance did not begin right away. Attraction had clearly been present, had been something Damianos couldn’t help but think about as he thought of the blond but a hallway away at night, but Laurent had initially had a hard enough time accepting that his presence in Akielos wasn’t just a trick to put him in chains or kill him, let alone accepting that he was wanted in ways that extended far beyond that. Damianos was patient, did all he could to show Laurent how much both he and his people wanted him there, to show Laurent how much he wanted him, and Laurent, when finally ready to believe that, crawled into Damianos’ bed and pressed against him to sleep.

Now though, Damianos was impatient in his want. He wanted Laurent in his — it was theirs now, but Laurent hadn’t quite gotten around to calling it that — bed right now, wanted to lie there with the breeze rolling over them, wanted to talk about nothing and everything, wanted to watch Laurent create light from his fingertips and trace the patterns of the constellations right above their heads. But Laurent wasn’t here, wouldn’t be back until sometime late next week, and —

Damianos stopped at the entrance of the palace.

Laurent was leaning on one of the stone pillars, back in a crisp white chiton, all of which lately seemed to be shorter and shorter, and smiling at him with a flushed face.

“It’s getting harder to leave and even harder to stay from here,” Laurent said.

“You weren’t supposed to be back until next week.”

“Am I disrupting your plans?” Laurent asked, eyebrow raised. Damianos grinned, wiped at the sweat spilling down his temple.

“You’re quite lucky I’m a considerate person,” he started, “for in any other moment I would pull you to me in a horribly embarrassing public display. But I need to bathe, so you’re free from such a thing. For now.”

“Bathe? I’ll join you.”

At the baths, Laurent sent away the servants who listened truly with the nod of Damianos’ head. In the summer, the water was kept cool, with a warmer spring off to the side, and Damianos watched, enraptured as Laurent unpinned his chiton before pulling at the string on the side. The white fell to the floor in a puddle, leaving the Witch in nothing. When he felt Damianos’ stare, he walked toward the Prince almost predatorily.

“Do you require assistance?” he asked. His fingers were already toying with the pin at Damianos’ shoulder.

“I was mostly admiring the view.”

Laurent never broke eye contact as he undid Damianos’ chiton in the same fashion he had undone his own. Only when both were on the ground, second thoughts to anything else anymore, did Laurent link their fingers and walk into the water. Immediately Damianos felt some of the heat trapped in his body from the sun’s rays disappear. He wouldn’t be surprised if the water had absorbed it and warmed a degree.

“How was your journey? How was the cabin?” Damianos asked after they had settled.

“It was good. It was all good. Gus loved being back in the snow,” Laurent said, referring to his cat that had, of course, taken over the palace since arriving. Even Theomedes bowed to the cat as he passed it in the halls doing whatever it pleased. “But. It’s lonely there. It is only nice for but a day or so. After that --”

“You miss me?” Damianos teased.

“Yes.”

The confession was so serious and vulnerable that Damianos couldn’t not look down at Laurent’s face, only to find him already looking up.

“I still find it unbelievable to be in this place. To not fear the person that knocks on my door. To feel wanted. In a multitude of ways too.” The flush on his face was still there, but now it was from speaking and not from the heat. “I don’t tell you enough how grateful I am for your invitation to bring me here. I also don’t tell you enough how stupid that was because you definitely should not make a habit of inviting witches into your home. But I am grateful. I wake up everyday feeling as though this could vanish at any moment for it’s so perfect, like a dream.”

“Laurent.”

Damianos couldn’t not put both hands on Laurent’s face, couldn’t not brush his blond hair from in front of his eyes, couldn’t not sweep his thumbs underneath the spot where eyelashes fell, couldn’t not press a kiss to his forehead, his nose, ever so gently on his mouth. Laurent’s hands came up to cover Damianos’ own, turning his head to press his own ever so gentle kiss on Damianos’ palm.

“I promise you I came out with the better deal when I met you than the other way around,” Damianos said. Laurent laughed, leaned further into Damianos’ warm touch.

“You’re quite wrong. You have offered to me priceless things since the day we met.”

“Laurent.”

“Damianos.”

“You are the most priceless thing.”

“That’s so mawkish. Beyond mawkish actually.”

“I can top that.”

“Oh, can you?”

“Yeah. Are you ready?”

“Most definitely.”

“I offer to you one last thing in hopes to entice you to stay here forever.”

“If you say your heart, I’m leaving. Going back to the cabin and burying myself in the snow.”

“No, not that.”

“Then what?”

“Laurent. The Witch of Vere. I offer you everything.”

“Damianos.”

“Yes.”

“Quit talking and finish bathing so you can take me to bed.”

That night, Laurent drew constellations above their heads, his right leg thrown over Damianos’ waist.

Everyone across the continent knew of the Witch of Vere. But not everyone agreed on what was truth and what was fiction regarding his existence. Now though, Damianos didn’t care any longer what was agreed upon for now he knew the truth. He tightened his hold around Laurent just a little more and Laurent, almost as if sensing what Damianos was thinking about, intertwined their fingers.

With his free hand, Laurent, with magic kissing his fingertips, drew above them a heart.

#captive prince #captive prince fanfic #laurent of vere #damen of akielos #capri #my writing #happy halloween month!

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