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#male lich x female character
monstersandmaw · 3 years
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Male draugr/lich x female character - Part One (sfw)
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Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.
A slight departure from my usual reader inserts for you in this ‘part one’ of a number of chapters. It’s currently a 20k word WIP (as of 15th May 2021 anyway) so if you’d rather wait for the whole thing to be finished, keep an eye on my masterlist, I guess? Otherwise, let me know if you’re enjoying it, and I’ll continue to post it. Thank you very much to those who did express a desire to read it now as a WIP. You’re all superstars.
I really hope you folks like it anyway. I’m oddly nervous about sharing it, since it’s come to be a very special story for me with lots of feels and adventures, but here we are. (Part Two will feature our main character’s two best friends: an enormous werebear and his elven husband, Mythlas).
Content: fantasy-typical violence/threat/sword-fighting, cursed treasure, and (mentioned) a best friend in a critical condition with a serious illness.
Our female adventurer delves deep into a long-forgotten tomb, looking for a mythical amulet that will supposedly save her best friend, who lies back at his farm, clinging to the very edge of life. Exhausted, and outnumbered by swarming draugr, an opportunity for escape presents itself, and she must make a leap of trust on the spur of the moment...
(featuring a shy, bumbling cutie lich, and set in a world that’s basically Skyrim but without direct mention to anything from the game other than a vague ‘dragon priest’ and the term ‘draugr’ (which are Norse zombies/liches anyway).
Wordcount: 6209
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Sword drawn, she inched around the corner of the twisting, downward-sloping stone passageway, breath held.
The damp and cold of the tomb had long ago seeped through her clothes and into her skin, slowing her movements and making the fingers of her sword-hand clumsy around the hilt. Her breath fogged in front of her as she slowly released it, and she strained, listening for the shuffling sounds of the undead, stirred from their tombs by her arrival. Perhaps, if the book she’d read on the draugr was to be believed, they rarely slept at all, and wandered the meandering passageways of the old crypts forever, day and night. The book had also said they tended to the tombs, even keeping the spells going over the perpetually-burning, enchanted candles.  
The thought of this network of interconnected tunnels constantly thrumming with the restless undead, like some grim anthill, made her stomach turn over.  
Forcing the nausea down, she inhaled the damp, green smell of the stale air to steady herself. Rising up on either side of her, the rough masonry of the rounded tunnel’s supporting walls glistened in the eerie, ever-present torchlight from brackets on the walls. Here and there the stones turned slick and green with algae, and a rivulet of melting snow trickled down through the mountain along the seams between the colossal blocks of hewn stone supports. Above her, the raw, natural rock of the mountain had been left to form a fairly intimidating ceiling, but beneath her feet, the flat flagstones made her soft-soled boots only a mere whisper away from silent.  
Finally after what felt like an age of dithering at the corner, she stepped out into the room beyond and immediately cursed.
Standing in the centre of the torch-lit space, with eyes blazing an unnatural blue, an emaciated draugr spotted her and snarled at the living intruder wandering this realm of the dead.  
It lumbered towards her on stiff, withered legs, raising an ancient war axe aloft as it moved. It wore the distinctive leather armour of the ancient people who had built these tombs, and although it had to be nigh on a thousand years old, the axe and armour looked in almost perfect condition, while its owner had atrophied away over time to a desiccated husk.  
She ducked low beneath the swing easily enough, and sliced off the creature’s arm before it could go for her a second time, but unlike the three she’d already faced on her descent into the ancient tomb, this one apparently had some magic, because it raised its other arm and blasted a wall of frost magic straight into her face.  
Screeching from the sudden pain and the shock of a face full of tiny ice shards, she floundered and reeled backwards, arm up protectively across her eyes. Her heel caught on an uneven stone and she hit the deck hard on her backside. Winded, another curse escaped her and she rolled sideways, dodging another spray of frost magic. She knew she needed to get in close so she darted inside the draugr’s reach, drew back her hand and sank her blade point-first into its chest. The thing writhed and wormed around the steel for a moment before the unnatural blue light went out in its eyes and it crumpled sideways to the floor.  
In the aftermath, she stood a moment to catch her breath, chest heaving, heartbeat thudding in her ears, and looked down at her sword blade. The steel was clean; as if it had never pierced the creature’s flesh. “Bloodless,” she murmured, her husky alto seeming disproportionately loud in the now still, stone chamber. Looking around, she realised with a jolt of horror that it was an embalming room, and as her gaze snagged on the hooked tools and sharp, slender blades of the embalming utensils scattered across a stone table, she heard a flurry of footsteps from the passageway beyond.  
“Shit,” she hissed and ducked behind a thick pillar carved with swirling patterns and circles. Four draugr stumbled into the room moments later, followed by a fifth who seemed more alert and intelligent than the others. The movements of that last one were quick and almost nimble, and it surveyed the room with calculating eyes as it took in the fallen draugr at the centre and the spray of cold ice on the floor.  
Loosing a slow, silent breath, she rallied her courage and tightened her sweaty grip on her blade.  
Five draugr could very well amount to four draugr too many for a single combatant to take on alone, especially in such tight quarters. If they spotted her where she currently stood, she’d be hemmed in immediately and torn to shreds; if she moved and bolted for the corridor, they’d be onto her like hounds on a hare in a moment.  
Before she could spend any more time thinking on a plan, the more intelligent of the draugr froze and her heart stopped.  
It turned its shrunken head slowly towards her corner, nose raised, lips bared in a rictus smile, teeth revealed by the slow passage of time as the body shrivelled up. The creature tilted its head and opened its jaws. It was onto her. Beneath the floating, wisp-like wrappings that covered the creature’s torso, she could see the remnants of breasts in its atrophied musculature, and the features of the face seemed a little more slender than the others. This one was probably female then.  
Unthinking, she moved, following instinct and relying on her years as a city guard and then a mercenary.  
Her blade hewed the head off the nearest and slowest draugr before it had even had time to draw its axe, and the two creatures beside it went down with a snarl a few seconds later as she cut their hamstrings and plunged her blade into the chest of one and lopped the head off the other. Spinning away like a leaf and breathing hard, shaking with adrenaline, she turned, blade ready as she faced the female and the one remaining thrall.  
Exhaustion bit at her muscles and burned her lungs but she snarled at the draugr standing before her in the dancing torchlight.  
The female draugr only laughed.  
A voice like shards of ice filled her ears and robbed her instantly of breath and thought as the draugr uttered a spell that engulfed her completely in a heartbeat.  
Her blade clattered from her fingers as cold dread blasted through her like a winter storm; the spell had disarmed her, weapon and mind, and it left her staggering, vulnerable, terrified. The draugr laughed again, the sound raw and heartless, and pointed a withered finger at her. The remaining thrall limped towards her and she could do nothing but stare at it, terror-struck and shaking as it raised its blade.  
“Please, Divines,” she prayed silently, unable to move even her lips. “Don’t let me die down here. Don’t let me fail… Not now. Not when I was so close to finding it…”
The thought of failing — of getting this far and then dying; of enduring the endless, sapping cold alone, night after night; of trekking through waist-deep snow drifts and evading prowling sabre cats and packs of winter-hungry wolves; of researching in draughty, arcane libraries in the north for references to the amulet that would save her friend — only for her to die now, at the mercy of this shrivelled, walking carcass, tore a long, ragged howl of rage from her lungs.  
Whether by force of will or a hidden resilience to magic, she would never know, but the spell holding her on the spot shattered and as her roar filled the hemispherical chamber, and the conjured fear dissipated, leaving in its wake a boiling, desperate rage. She skidded low on the flagstone floor, bruising her hip as the thrall lunged awkwardly for her, and she snatched her sword up from where it lay abandoned on the stones as she sprang to her feet behind the creature.  
The thrall crumpled as she reversed her grip and stabbed it in the back before switching grip again and swinging at the female. She raised a pathetic little iron dagger which rang on the rock as it was knocked from her emaciated fingers, and a moment later she too fell with a snarl.  
She fled deeper into the complex.
Down and down, she skittered along slippery stone staircases and carefully nudged heavy, iron doors open until she was sure she had to be nearing the heart of the tomb. It had been carved into the mountain like a warren, starting at the top and working right the way down into the heart of the lonely peak. Excitement and fear built inside her, driving her on, ever on.  
With her desperation though came a touch of recklessness. She encountered no more wandering draugr until she shoved open a door and stepped heedlessly out into an enormous, open crypt with stone walls groaning under the weight of shelf upon shelf of prone corpses, some wrapped, some simply reclining. It was like the Halls of the Dead beneath the capital cities of each hold, with row upon row of niches carved out of the rock, except here, these corpses were not truly dead.  
The moment she entered the cavernous chamber, figures began to stir in the shadows and stark blue eyes blinked from the shadows like wisps in the night.  
“Shit, shit, shit,” she hissed, backing out again in the hopes that they wouldn’t spot her, but it was far too late for that. With a grunt and a snarl, the closest draugr saw her and with the alarm raised, it ran for her. Its gait was awkward, lumbering, lopsided, but it was still alarmingly quick. She staggered backwards, looking around for some way to bar the door she’d just opened, but it was no good.  
Panic threatened to overwhelm her as she bolted back up the long, sloping passageway.  
There was no way she could take on the fifteen or twenty shambling draugr that were coming after her now. Not alone. She was going to have to rethink this stupid, harebrained plan. She was going to need money. She would have to hire a crew of mercenaries somehow. The flawless diamond she’d unearthed from a burial urn would go a long way towards covering that, but she had to get out of there alive first. But there might not be time anyway. He might not have time. This had already been their last-ditch attempt to save Mythlas from an excruciating death, and she wasn’t going to make it.
She was going to die.  
She was going to die alone, terrified, and torn to pieces by rabid corpses deep underground.  
At least Mythlas would meet her in the afterlife then. Maybe he was already there, waiting to welcome her home. “I hope I cross over in one piece,” she thought as she skidded around a corner and set off at a staggering spring, oddly concerned with her appearance in the afterlife for someone still very much alive and fleeing a small regiment of the undead.  
A rumbling of stone up ahead nearly made her crash to a sudden halt, but the sound of tramping feet behind her drove her onwards.  
She burst out onto a frustratingly familiar, broad, stone corridor on a level above the crypt and paused, chest heaving, ears straining. The snarls and grunts of the draugr below seemed distant and warped by the echoing stone, but they were very obviously still after her.  
Only a small number of torches burned here in the brackets on the wall, casting long, flickering shadows that danced disconcertingly before her eyes and left great pools of darkness between the carved, monolithic columns of the hall. As she looked around frantically for somewhere to hide, she caught sight of an unlit passage she must have missed on the way down. A small cloud of dust was settling at the threshold, and she frowned. Surely that had just been blank, stone wall before?
As she blinked, trying to decide whether to take this new passageway or to continue the long sprint for the surface, something moved in the depths of the narrow corridor and she recoiled.  
A figure stepped out from the shade into the dim torchlight at the mouth of the new passage like a spectre and she screamed, as much from surprise as horror, and when she took in the leathery, desiccated skin of a draugr, she raised her sword. Something gave her pause though, and she blinked, confused and torn. She had to keep moving. Staying still would mean death in mere moments.  
The figure was unmistakably another draugr, only it was clad in a manner unlike any draugr she’d ever seen. She found herself reminded of an illustration of a dragon priest she’d glimpsed during her research weeks ago, though it had no crown or staff, and no mask to hide behind. The dragon priests had all been male, and vicious tyrants if the histories spoke true all these centuries later. This one wore a long, faded purple robe with a hint of gold thread at the cuff and high, close collar, and his feet were bare. Long, lank, black hair hung around his shrunken face and, unlike most of the ancient draugr, he was clean-shaven. His eyes still burned blue, however, and his lips had been pulled back to reveal a grim smile as his skin had dried and his body shrivelled.  
To her astonishment, he pointed behind him, down the corridor the way he had come, and motioned quickly with his other hand for her to go that way.  
“What?” she hissed, tensing and raising her blade again.  
“Go,” he rasped. “Hide down here. I can show you to the amulet.”
“What the fuck?” she whispered and took another half a step backwards. Draugr didn’t talk like that. They didn't speak a language that anyone nowadays knew, and they certainly didn’t offer help to the people who disturbed their tombs.  
His acid blue gaze glanced over her shoulder and he growled like a wolf. “If they find you, they will kill you,” he said in a papery, scratching rasp. “And there’s a Death Lord with them. I cannot control the Death Lords. Only the lesser draugr… please… hurry.”
The fact that he was talking to her in coherent sentences only truly registered as she bolted past him like a rabbit down a hole, straight into the pitch black of the hidden corridor. His bony fingers reached up and pulled down on a lever embedded in the wall, and the rumbling she’d heard earlier sounded again as a counter-weight was set free and a stone doorway rose from the floor to conceal the entrance, leaving them encased in absolute, pitch darkness.  
For a moment, all she could hear was her own heartbeat thundering against her eardrums and the slow, steady rattle of the draugr’s breath nearby. Then a shout of command went up from the hallway outside in a language she didn’t understand, and the twin burning pinpricks of the draugr with which she had just entombed herself blinked to life in the blackness.  
Oh what in the name of Oblivion have I done? she thought frantically as she scrabbled to raise her sword again.  
“Wait,” the draugr hissed. “Please. I won’t hurt you, but you have to remain still until they’ve left. They won’t search very far… They’re not… the sharpest tools in the embalming kit after all.”
Unexpectedly, she snorted a short, slightly hysterical laugh and thought she heard it echoed by this most unusual of draugr.  
After only a minute or so, though panicked time seemed to stretch forever, the sounds of pursuit disappeared and the search seemed to have been called off. She tried not to let herself slump back into the curved wall of the tunnel in relief. She was still locked in the dark with a revenant after all.  
“Who are you?” she asked as the figure’s eyes rose to meet hers again. “Why did you help me?”
As he approached, she drew back, pressing herself against the smooth walls of the tunnel, but he passed her without a word. His gait sounded awkward, careful, as though his joints were painful and stiff, and he had a syncopated limp.  
“So what now?” she asked. “Should I just wait here and then pull the lever and go?”
“I thought you wanted the amulet?” he said casually without turning around or stopping.  
“I do,” she said, raising her chin and trying to summon a few more ounces of courage from the dregs of her exhausted reserves.  
“Then follow me.”
“I can’t see a bloody thing!” she hissed, one hand pressed to the tunnel wall to keep herself anchored. “How do I know you’re not going to lead me into some pit and feed on me for the next few months?”
He froze, let out a long, rattling sigh and then turned laboriously around to look at her. All she could see of him were the two points of blue light for his eyes, but she got the distinct impression he’d raised an eyebrow at her. A moment later, a ball of magelight flickered to life in his palm and rose to float above his head. It cast a stark, cold light down around him and made his face seem even more skeletal and gaunt than it already was. He turned away again.  
She did not follow as he set off again, and contemplated running for the lever.  
“The Death Lord remained behind in the passage,” he said in his scraping whisper. “If you leave now by that route, you’ll have to face him.”
“Fuck,” she spat. “How do I know you’re any better?”
He shrugged. “You don’t. However, I am unarmed, slow, and have no desire to hurt you. I can also take you to the chamber where the Amulet of Birger is kept.”
“There’s a shortcut to the priest’s burial chamber from here?” she asked, tripping a little in her haste to catch up with him.  
“No. The one around the sleeping priest’s neck is a decoy. Cursed too. The real one is kept in a vault and can only be opened with ancient magic and —” he paused and looked back at her. He definitely had one thin eyebrow raised at her now. “— you don’t have a scrap of magic in you, so I don’t know how you plan to get it.”
She raised her lip and snarled at him. “Why would you even want to help me find it?” she demanded. “This has to be a trick. And what the fuck are you? I’ve never heard of people having conversations with draugr. You’re not even supposed to be able to speak our language.”
“You’re not the first visitor I’ve had in the last thousand years,” he said dryly. “Though you are the first this century. Forgive me if my vocabulary feels a little archaic; it’s been a while since I’ve had someone with whom to practice. As you say,” he added with a smirk, “Draugr are hardly known for being stunning conversationalists.”
She stood there, staggered and with her jaw slack. His voice was reedy and wheezing, and it sounded almost painful for him to speak, but he was clearly something very different from the draugr she’d encountered elsewhere, and even here in this royal burial complex.  
“Again…” she said as he regarded her with his glowing eyes. “What the fuck are you?”
“I was an acolyte of the dragon priest,” he said, as if that should explain everything.  
“So…? You’re like a dragon priest then?”
“Yes and no. The priest himself still slumbers, feeding on the energy of the draugr buried here with him.” His words were slow, and his consonants slurred because of the way his lips were pulled back beyond his teeth. He also broke off frequently to draw ragged, shuddering breaths. “I was chosen to maintain the wards on the tombs. He needed someone with magic to help with his eventual resurrection, and he needed me to have my full faculties… in case something were to go wrong between the time of his interment and the time of his resurrection.”
She stood there in the blackness of the tunnel and stared at him. “I’ve never heard of a draugr like you…”
“There aren’t many of us, as far as I know.”
“Still, why would you help me take something from the priest you serve?”
“He is not my master,” the acolyte snarled, teeth flashing in the harsh blue light from the sphere floating above him. His eyes flared white hot for a moment, and magicka crackled at his skeletal fingertips. “And I do not serve him willingly.”
“Sorry,” she muttered, taking half a step back from him.  
The draugr laid a hand on the wall for support and shook his head. “I apologise,” he gasped, trembling visibly. “I… I should not have spoken to you like that.”
She shrugged. “Alright. Well, how about you get me the amulet and show me the way out of here, and I’ll leave you in peace?”
He looked up at her and the light in his eyes dimmed. He stared for a moment too long, and her heart skipped a beat though she hardly knew why. “Very well,” he murmured, turning and shambling up the rock-cut corridor once more.  
They emerged after a few minutes into a small, circular chamber with a hearth in the wall on her left. A fire danced in the grate and she blinked, staring at the light that made the stone room feel almost cosy. The draugr acolyte had come to a halt beside another doorway on the opposite side of the room from the fireplace, and had his back to her. The ball of magelight was nowhere to be seen now.  
His faded purple robes brushed the stone floor at the back, but the hem hung a few inches higher at the front, revealing bony ankles just barely covered by mummified skin. She wondered fleetingly if his feet were cold.  
To distract herself from those odd thoughts, she let her gaze wander around the room. Surprisingly, bookcases lined the walls, and every shelf was stuffed to groaning with leather-bound volumes. A colossal, rectangular stone table occupied in the middle of the round chamber, and the great slab that made up its surface was covered without an inch of space with books, rolls of parchments, clay tablets, bottles of ink, quill pens, and sticks of charcoal.  
Even from a few yards away, she could see some incredibly intricate drawings — mountains, sunsets, enormous statues of the Divines, studies of apples and burning candles — and resting precariously at one corner of the table was a small, stringed instrument a bit like a lute.  
“You’re quite the scholar,” she said, turning to look at him.  
“This way,” he croaked, raising his emaciated hand and gesturing at the passageway before him.  
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
She thought she saw him smile, but he turned his back on her fully and disappeared up the corridor before she could be sure.  
This time, the passageway was lit up with torches, and as she followed him, she noticed how slowly and carefully he moved. His right foot seemed to drag a little on the stones and his joints wobbled minutely with each step.  
“Thank you for helping me,” she said and grimaced immediately at how awkward she sounded. “I mean… You could have just let them get me.”
He stopped and half turned to look at her askance. His cheeks were startlingly gaunt, the bones of his skull standing out in stark contrast, but there was something undeniably and bizarrely attractive about him. That last observation took her by surprise. Perhaps it was the delicate, deliberate way he moved, the slow, gentle way he blinked, or the wry twist to his mouth that might have had more to do with the way his skin was pulled tightly across his withered muscles and skull than his sense of humour, but somehow she didn’t think so. “You could have fled,” he said. “Or cut me down. I suppose I should be thanking you for trusting me, even though you know exactly what I am.”
“Believe it or not, you’re actually not the strangest being I’ve met on my travels.”
“Oh?”
She snorted. “No. I had a spriggan follow me through the woods for a solid week, creating a carpet of celandines beneath my feet wherever I walked. It was… embarrassing to say the least.”
To her surprise, he barked a laugh at that. “I’ve never heard of a spriggan doing anything like that.”
“I’ve never heard of a kindly draugr who likes reading either,” she said pointedly. “Seems there are more things out there than we know of.”
“Indeed. Can you tell me something?” he asked, straightening a little from his stoop and turning to look at her fully.  
“Sure?”
“The amulet is not for you, is it? I mean, you don’t want it for yourself.”
She paused, eyes narrowing. “No,” she replied, walking a little closer to him. He didn’t carry on - just watched her approach. As she stepped into the air around him, she caught the soft hint of incense that hung around him like perfume. “In a way, I suppose it is, but it’s not for my personal use. Is that enough for you?”
“Yes,” he said. “Come.”  
The chamber hiding the amulet sat behind a perfectly round, cast iron door covered with intricate markings and curling patterns. The draugr acolyte raised a finger to the surface and she inhaled softly when she saw that the skin of his skeletally thin hand had actually been worn away completely to reveal bare, naked bone from knuckle to fingertip. It hadn’t rotted away, but like a sheaf of leather, had been worn away over the centuries. She wondered if one day he’d be nothing but bones, and whether he would be able to move at all if that happened.  
With a tiny smile, he looked back at her while he continued to feed a sliver of blue magic into the iron patterns on the door. It wove through the knotwork like morning mist until it reached a tiny hole in the top section of the door, shaped like a dragon’s maw. “I can feel your curiosity from here,” he chuckled. “I wonder: is it about what I’m doing, about the door, or about me?”
“A bit of all three?” she said, feigning a lightness of spirit she didn’t feel. Her hand had found its way to her sword hilt again. She was so close to finding it. It wouldn’t pay to let herself get distracted and meet a sudden and unpleasant end now.
“When we’re done in here, you can ask me anything you like, but I must ask you to wait for now. My strength is waning already and I don’t want to let you down before I’ve told you the way out.”
That struck her as immeasurably kind, and she nodded in silence and let him work, chastened. She did not, however, let go of her sword.
The tendril of ghostly blue magic disappeared into the opening and the door shuddered before rolling slowly to one side like a coin across a tabletop. The sound, however was almost deafening. It finally disappeared into a special slot in the wall to reveal a pedestal of pure, blue crystal glowing softly in the centre of the circular room beyond and sending refracted light glittering off piles of cut and raw gemstones and heaps of cast gold ornaments and jewellery.  
“Holy… shit,” she hissed, peering over his shoulder.  
“Touch none of it,” he warned, voice suddenly severe despite the fragile wheeze. “It will serve you no good, trust me.”
“Cursed treasure?”
He nodded.  
“I’ve heard of that before. Don't worry; I’m just here to bring the amulet to my friend.” She thought suddenly of that diamond in her pocket. It was the size of a hen’s egg, cut and flawless, and would fetch her more than a lifetime’s earnings as a mercenary if she found the right buyer. The Thieves Guild seemed like a good bet with her connections. “Is… uh… Is all the treasure in the burial complex cursed?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as concerned as she now felt.  
Laughing quietly as he hobbled away into the room, the acolyte shook his head. “Take what you like from elsewhere, but I’d stay on that side of the door if I were you. This room does strange things to mortals of all races.”
“There speaks the voice of experience,” she muttered.  
“Unfortunately,” he said and pointed to an orcish skull in the corner.  
She stared, transfixed by the horror of the empty eye sockets and the curved tusks, still adorned with their silver ornaments. “Right. Staying put.”
A moment later, the acolyte murmured a spell and the light in the crystal pillar died. Then the draugr lifted a small, dragonbone amulet free of the pedestal and held it up, turning it gently in his fingers. It dangled on a simple gold chain and she stepped back as he left the room and gestured with his hand. A moment later, the door rolled back into place and he handed it to her.  
She faltered.  
“It’s perfectly safe, I promise,” he said. This close to him, she could see the withered skin around his eyes, papery and delicate, and the scent of incense wafted gently around him. It was almost calming.  
“How… How do I use it?” she asked, refocusing her attention. “The books… they’re all so vague. Most of them don’t even believe this place really exists, let alone the amulet.” She stared at the oval pendant hanging in the air between them, rocking back and forth slightly from the steady tremor in his fingers. “I’ve… I’ve searched everywhere for it, and… and now I actually have it, I don’t even know how to use it to save him.” She looked up straight into his unnatural blue eyes and her vision swam with tears. “What do I do?” she choked.  
Impulsively, the draugr reached for her arm with his empty hand and gripped her gently. Her padded leather jerkin creaked softly beneath his hold. “Have courage,” he said. “This is a relic far older than the dragon priest who once claimed it for his own. It belonged to a mortal beloved by a dragon which died to save him, and it was carved from one of the dragon’s ribs. It knows its purpose. If you truly want to save your friend, take it to him and lay it around his neck. It might help to guide the magic if you think about every good thing you love in your friend, but the amulet will know what to do.”
A single tear rolled down each cheek and she sniffed, trying to keep herself together as exhaustion and relief shoved against her fracturing self-control in a crushing wave. “That’s it? That’s all I have to do?” It sounded like a fairytale; too good to be true.  
“Were you expecting a mass-sacrifice?” he smiled almost fondly, releasing her arm and taking up her hand in his. “Here.”
His fingers held her so delicately that she gasped. His skin was warm and smooth like tanned leather, and she felt as though her body glowed where he touched her. The feeling was so strong that she had to look down, but when her eyes fell on the bare bone and the remnants of withered flesh, tendons moving beneath paper-frail skin like lyre strings, he let go of her and stepped back, snatching his hands back.
He lowered his gaze and turned away. “Come. I will show you the way out.”
Unexpectedly, she yawned and swayed on the spot. After the gruelling ascent up the mountain to the tomb’s entrance, the skirmishes with the draugr, and that final flight back up the corridors from the deep crypt, her muscles felt like lead. She rocked slightly as she breathed out a long, slow breath at the thought of the exhausting trek down the mountainside.  
When he paused and looked questioningly at her, she smiled. “Long way down, that’s all,” she said, kicking her feet into action. “Still, if I don’t get going now, I might never start up again.”
“You could… rest here?” he said tentatively. “Sleep for a few hours. You look exhausted.”
“Thanks,” she scoffed. He was right though; she was wiped out, and the smile that followed quickly became another yawn. “It was a bloody long climb up here, and those draugr you rescued me from weren’t the first ones I met. I knew it would be tough, but still…”
“The upper chambers are well guarded,” he agreed. “You were lucky to make it so far down uninjured.”
“Or skilled,” she countered with a grin.  
He inclined his head. “I thought that went without saying,” he replied.  
As she caught up with him in the tight space of the tunnel, she looked up at him and realised he had a few inches on her. Normally the draugr were smaller than she was, if not by much. With centuries spent mummifying beneath the rock, they shrank, the cartilage and connective tissue shrivelling to leave bone grinding on bone, and shaving inches off their height.  
“What?” he asked as they made their way together back towards his study chambers.  
“You’re pretty tall,” she shrugged.  
He shot her a look.  
“If you say it’s because I’m small, I will cut your knees out from underneath you,” she said with a slightly feral smirk. “I’m not small.”
To her unexpected joy, he laughed and shook his head. “No, you’re right again. I am tall. Freakishly so, or so my contemporaries would have had you believe. The men who roam these lands now are taller than they were in my… uh… lifetime, I suppose you might say.” He glanced at her and added, “Are you tall for the women of the time?”
“Not especially,” she shrugged. “I mean, I’m not short, but I’m not super tall either. Just, you know, average.” Average in looks, talent, intelligence, and height, she thought.  
“You have to be slightly more remarkable than ‘average’ to find a long-lost dragon priest’s tomb, escape death by feral undead, and win over the keeper of the amulet so easily, surely?” he asked, ushering her back into his study before her.  
She rolled her eyes. “Listen, I probably should be going, but I have no idea how late it is now, and I’m so tired that I’m honestly not sure this isn’t all a hallucination. Would you mind if I crashed in a corner for a few hours’ kip?”
“Please,” he said, shaking his head and gesturing towards the other side of the room. “I have a bedroll you can sleep in.”
“A bedroll? Where the heck did you get that from?” she said, a spike of fear playing up her spine. Was it a grim trophy from all the previous adventurers he’d duped into accepting the amulet? Did he have a whole room full of trinkets he’d stripped from their corpses after luring them in with his affable nature and harmless persona?
“I told you,” he said evenly. “You’re not the first to come down here.”
“I’m just the first to charm you into giving up the amulet?” she asked, panic rising. “Or did you let the others sleep in here too and, what, slit their throats while they rested? You know what? I think I’ll leave now.”
Hurt flashed across his face at her sudden change of mind, pain twisting his features for a moment, and he lowered his head. A heartbeat later, he gestured limply towards a door on the far side of the room. “Take that passageway until you reach an external door. It will take you to the eastern slope of the mountain, and a twisting pathway back down to the river in the valley below. You should be among civilisation again within a day.”
And with that, he turned away and crossed to the hearth. He did not look around at her again but stood with his head bowed, one arm braced on the fireplace lintel, apparently staring at the flames while she made up her mind.
For a moment, she stood there, frozen by indecision and guilt.  
Then she closed her fingers about the talisman in her hand, feeling the warmth of its magic, and she hardened her heart. He was a draugr, for crying out loud. Besides, she couldn’t let another moment of a living person’s life slip by to spare the feelings one of the undead. And who knew if Mythlas even had moments to spare? She had to leave, and she had to leave now.
She did not look back as the iron door closed behind her, and the wind bit instantly into her exposed face.
Part Two --->
___ 
I really hope you enjoyed this one! If you did, please let me know by reblogging and maybe leaving me an ask, otherwise I won’t know if there’s interest and I won’t continue to post it. I’m very much aware that neither character has their name revealed in this part. That comes later, I promise!
I’ve got at least four more parts, if not more, basically ready to go, but it all depends on the reception this gets. If I get no feedback, it won’t be worthwhile editing and posting...
___
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beaulesbian · 6 years
Note
For the Fandom thing: The Adventure Zone!
YESS THANK YOU ♥♥ i was hoping for this fandom
(i will answer this for taz balance, bc i dont know the guys from commitment that much yet)
Favourite Female: LUP omg i love lup so much
Favourite Male: Taako
3 Other Favourite Characters: sloane, kravitz, lucretia (and magnus and merle and basically all of them?? im like really in love with this whole podcast)
3 OTPs: hurloane!!, taakitz, blupjeans, magnus x julia
Notp:??idk
Funniest character: garfield the deals warlock, also taako ofc
Prettiest character: taako ? lup ? kravitz ? all of them?? yeah ok probably kravitz
Most Annoying Character: um maybe the liches from suffering game? but they were also really interesting, but they hurt my guys :/
Most badass character: lucretia ♥ and lup, but lucretia omg i admire her so much
Character I’d like as my BFF: barry bluejeans, hes that kinda guy who would never give up on a friend? hes so sweet
Female Character I’d Marry: lup !
Male Character I’d Marry: hmm i honestly dont know?? who isnt gay there from the guys? magnus maybe? but i would feel bad, i think he will only ever love julia and thats fine, maybe kravitz if hes bi?
Character I hate/dislike/least like: that orc boy who helped destroy phandolin, and again the liches from suffering game
leave a fandom in my ask
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monstersandmaw · 3 years
Text
Male lich/draugr x female character - Part Three (sfw)
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Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.
Thank you to those who have reblogged and enthused about this story so far! I’m really happy even one person likes it to be honest! Kalle has come to mean quite a lot to me, as have Raena, Grim, and Mythlas :)
Here’s part three for you! The chapters will start to slow down a bit now, as I’m almost caught up to where I stopped writing... Hopefully you’ll stick around anyway.
Contents: fluff, friendship, and a bit of violence/injury/danger to Raena.
Wordcount: 4545
Part One (sfw) | Part Two (sfw)
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When Raena next stirred, the fire was still crackling away in the hearth beside her, and she blinked herself to full wakefulness and found that she was alone in Kalle’s quiet, cosy study.  
The peace of the place suddenly washed over her, and she lay there on her back, snuggled in the warm bedroll for a long time, just tracing the cracks in the ceiling with her eyes and thinking about the fact that she had slept better here in a draugr-filled tomb than she ever had back in Lydia’s spare room. Admittedly, there was only one draugr in this part of the complex, but still.  
After an age of daydreaming and mapping the labyrinths of cracks and shadows on the ceiling, she slowly sat up and let the bedroll fall down to her waist while she looked around.  
Before setting off, she had packed some spare clothes in her bag, but there was a lingering, dusty kind of stickiness to her skin after her efforts on the arduous ascent the day before, and she didn’t exactly fancy putting clean clothes on a dirty body. Kalle would have to lend her a bowl and a cloth to wash herself off. That got her thinking about whether there was even a water supply here, or whether she’d be melting snow from the mountain slopes outside. “Something else to ask him,” she murmured, stretching; curiosity rising.  
Thinking of Kalle, she wondered where he had spent the night. Did he have a crypt like the other draugr? Or a coffin like a vampire? She pushed back the bedroll and stood, rolling the tension from her spine and neck in a series of pops and clicks that sounded loud in the otherwise still room. It reminded her a little of her father’s inner sanctum as a child and the same bubbling excitement rose in her as she looked around and wondered what treasures she might find if she were to start poking about in dusty corners.
She hadn’t taken in much of the study the previous evening beyond the enormous table in the centre, the fireplace, and the bookshelves, but now that she had the liberty to explore a little, she wandered around, blinking and yawning and trying to straighten her hair back into some semblance of normality. Pausing to splash her face with the dregs of water from her waterskin, she straightened again and patted her cheeks dry on her top. Her thick, fur-lined winter jacket had been slung over the sharp corner of a bookshelf to dry off, though she didn’t remember doing it. The thought of the draugr picking up her abandoned clothes seemed oddly domestic and rather sweet, and she smiled.  
Kalle was undoubtedly strange to look at, with his hollowed cheeks and leathery, desiccated skin, his skeletally-emaciated body, atrophied muscles, and those burning blue eyes, but he was also obviously kind, interested and curious, and she wasn’t surprised to find herself drawn to the graceful delicacy of his unusual body. He moved like a spider at times, spindly and careful, but with a poise that could only come with centuries of existence.  
Only once or twice in her time since leaving the jarlsguard had Raena had encountered draugr like him, who weren’t the lumbering, stiff, barely-mobile corpses that patrolled the corridors of lesser tombs like rats — the Death Lords moved like living warriors, with just as much power and flexibility — but she’d never seen a draugr with quite so much such care and precision to his movements. She’d also never come across one capable of holding a conversation, or who’d been interested in anything other than trying to eviscerate her as quickly as possible.  
As she stood there thinking about his hands, with the exposed of his phalanges that clicked softly from time to time, and the rest of his strange body, she found herself surprisingly curious about what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that touch again.  
Her hands tingled faintly as she recalled the way he had pressed the Amulet of Birger into her palm and closed her fingers around it with his own. His touch had been whisper-light, but it had left her aching in a way that the touch of no other ever had. 
She cleared her throat, thighs tightening together for a moment, and in an attempt to distract herself, she set about exploring. 
Following the small corridor which led to a storeroom, she discovered what appeared to be the beginnings of an entirely new section of the complex. The main stone corridor from his study led gently downwards, but she could see a number of doors leading off from it already. The first on her right was a dusty storeroom, with bottles of wine, wooden crates and barrels, and a lot of unlabelled, clay jars.  
The door opposite that storeroom revealed chamber which appeared to be completely devoid of furnishings or decoration, and she almost left without noticing the one thing of interest in the room. On the wall to the left of the door, a large, arched niche had been carved into the entire length of the short wall. Lying on the stone shelf, without pillow or coverings other than his faded purple robe, she found Kalle.  
He had his strange, delicate hands folded tidily over his solar plexus, and his eyes were closed as if in sleep. His chest, however, was not rising and falling, and he looked for all the world like a corpse laid out in a mausoleum. In a way, she supposed, he was. Leaving him undisturbed for the time being, she backed out of the room and wandered off down the corridor.  
She found a few more rooms full of books and scrolls, and supposed that the constant temperature and humidity there, even without the stasis spells, would have kept them almost perfectly preserved for millennia. If the scant fragments she’d found about this burial complex had been accurate, this whole place had to have been nearly a thousand years old already, and Kalle had certainly indicated as much during their conversations so far.  
Her fingers traced the carvings on the rounded door frames — endless labyrinths for the eye or the hand — and she smiled to see that the same artistic tastes had lingered on in the cultural memory, even if most of everything else had been forgotten.  
“What wonders could you could tell us about?” she whispered to the stones, her voice sounding oddly loud in the muffled silence.  
From behind her, Kalle’s rasping voice made her jump. “I could say the same for you in this age, no doubt.”
She twitched and spun around, pressing her hand to her chest before her shock dissolved into a giggle and she sagged into the stone doorframe.  
“Sorry,” he said, but she got the distinct impression he was smiling.  
“Don’t be,” she replied. “I’m sorry for snooping.”
“You can wander where you like up here,” he shrugged, turning away and making his way carefully up the corridor towards the study, which seemed to be the hub of these interconnected tunnels. Four main corridors led away from it: one down to the chamber where the amulet had been stored; one out into the world beyond through the iron door; one in which she was standing and had no idea where it ended; and the last would take her back to the main complex teeming with restless draugr.  
“Where does this go?” she asked, jabbing her thumb back over her shoulder at the endless, shadowy tunnel.  
Kalle paused in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder at her. “Eventually, it leads down to the baths, but it passes the great library, and the upper feasting hall.”
Her jaw dropped a little. “Baths?” she gasped.
At her stunned expression, he chuckled. It sounded like crackling parchment, and, bizarrely, it went straight to her core. “This whole place used to be a royal palace for the living before it became a burial complex. It was established as a bastion of learning and study, but the ruling dragon priest lived here like a king.”
“Incredible,” she breathed. “Don’t suppose the baths have hot water anymore though, do they?”
“Sure they do,” he smiled, the light in his eyes dancing. “The hot springs beneath the mountain are plumbed up through the building. I use them regularly. It’s glorious.”
She knew she was goggling at him, but she couldn’t help it. She saw the bones of his shoulders beneath the royal fabric, and the sharp jut of his hip bone against the purple material, and couldn’t help wondering what he looked like beneath. She’d seen the bodies of draugr before though, and surely the water wouldn’t be good for his body?  
Kalle clearly read her question in her expression because he laughed again. “If I were an ordinary mummified corpse, soaking myself in water would not be advisable, but since magic keeps me from disintegrating or decomposing, it also keeps me from soaking up the water and dissolving like papyrus.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”
“I know,” he chuckled. “And you weren’t. You can ask me anything you like. I’ve had nearly a thousand years to acclimatise to what I am. I know what I must look like to you.”
Something clenched in her chest at that, foreign and almost painful, and she shook her head. “Honestly…” she began, unsure quite how to finish the thought. “There’s something… something about you, Kalle. I don’t know how to… to articulate it, but it feels ‘easy’ around you. You make me feel…” she shrugged and looked away. “Easy.”
Kalle kept silent for a long pause and then exhaled roughly. “Whatever I thought you might say, it wasn’t that.” He cleared his throat and snorted privately. “Have you eaten yet? I promised you yesterday that the food was as fresh as the day it was made.”
Smiling, she shook her head. “I still can’t believe that. Last night I drank wine that was made from grapes nearly a thousand years old, and now you’re offering me breakfast from the same era and it’s not just… dust…”
He inclined his head. “Magic is a wonderful thing.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she laughed. “You said it yourself - I don’t have a scrap of magic in me.”
“You seem to do just fine without it. Some of us have grown rather dependent on it though. Come, I’ll bring you some breakfast. How does bread and butter with honey sound?”
Her stomach rumbled again and she looked down at it conspicuously before meeting his eye and raising her brows. “Pretty good, by the sound of things.”
Kalle laughed again, his head tipping back slightly to expose the corded muscle of his neck, and a moment later he stepped out of sight into the store room.  
After she’d eaten while he’d stood over the table, leaning his hands on the surface and tracing his fingers idly over a map, he asked, “Would you take a look at this for me and tell me what has changed? And how?”
“Of course.”
Setting the plate to one side for the moment, she crossed to the table and came to a halt beside him. She stood close enough that her hand could brush the back of his while they stood together, and a silent thrill ran through her. Being around Kalle felt unlike being around anyone else, and she ached for it.  
The places marked on the map had mostly familiar names, though one or two used archaic forms that had evolved into something else, and as she pointed each change out to him, he added a note in a tiny script above each label.  
“What language is that?” she asked. The spiky lines and dots of the script were completely unfamiliar to her and she watched in fascination as his metal-nibbed quill flicked across the parchment.  
He looked sidelong at her and her breath caught for a moment. The irises of his eyes glowed with the blue brilliance of the ice cliffs in the far north, the light completely eclipsing the rest of the eye at a distance, but now that she was so close, she could see that the sclera were not white like a living human’s, but dark as ebony.  
Apparently embarrassed by the scrutiny, he let his gaze fall back to the map. “It’s the language of the dragons. We used the common speech of the time then as well, but I was raised in the sanctuary by the priests, so it was the first language I learned.”
“It’s fascinating,” she murmured, cheeks flushing. “I’ve never seen writing like it.”
“It’s syllabic,” he said, pointing the metallic tip of the nib at the words he had just written. “And the words themselves are constructed in such a way that, when combined, they form new ones; new concepts.”
She smiled. “I wonder if my father ever studied the language,” she mused aloud. “I know there are scholars nowadays who can read it. The Greybeards are the only ones who really speak it now, I suppose.”
“The Greybeards?” he asked with a frown.  
“Stuffy old monks who live at the top of a mountain and study dragon stuff…” she shrugged. “I don't really know much about them. Most people don’t bother with them since they have to climb the ten thousand steps to get to the monastery iteslf. They don't really welcome visitors much either, so there’s no guarantee you’ll actually be able to see them, even if you do make past all the wolves and trolls and stuff.” She twitched a shoulder again and then cracked her neck softly. “Divines, I hate trolls,” she added with a shudder.  
“So much has changed,” he whispered, more to himself than to her. “What seems old to you didn’t even exist when we had contact with the outside world.”
“Let me know if you want me to tell you about anything,” she said, and began to pace the room.  
“Raena?”  
She halted beside a bookcase and looked back at him.  
Kalle was now leaning with his hips against the table and had folded his arms across his chest. It revealed the extreme emaciation that his body had undergone, and showed the bones of his wrists as the sleeves tugged down a little way with the action.  
“Mmm?”
“How long do you intend to stay here?” he asked softly.  
Again, she shrugged. “’Til you kick me out, I suppose. Or ’til I eat all your ancient food… That bread was delicious by the way. You know, there are stories about Divines who trick you with enchanted food and then you can never leave their realm again?” she laughed playfully and bobbed up onto the balls of her feet, arms waving slightly for balance. “Maybe you’re one of them, and I’ll never leave now…”
The smile he offered her struck her as distinctly sad. “You’re free to leave whenever you like. I wouldn’t try to keep you here.”
“How about ‘free to come and go as I please?’”
Kalle swallowed thickly and struggled visibly with some emotion she couldn’t quite read. “I have to say I like the sound of that,” he rasped, and she beamed back at him.  
Over the next three months, Raena returned to him whenever she finished a contract.  
Most of the time, she found herself employed by caravans of traders looking for a sword for hire against the bandits who roamed the rocky passes along their routes in and out of the kingdom. The journeys themselves usually took no more than a couple of weeks. The caravans were slow, moving at a steady walking pace, but if she took the mare she had bought from the hamlet (of which she had subsequently grown rather fond), she could move more quickly and cover more distance alone on the return trip. Usually she escorted merchants and their goods out of the country and then walked, trotted, and cantered her way back along the roads to the hold capital on the plains, where Mythlas farmed and Grim fired his pots.  
Mythlas grew in strength until two months after she had fetched the amulet, he was back to his former health. They feasted with Grim and Lydia and welcomed in the summer harvest together, and afterwards Raena stepped out to stare up at the moons. She let her thoughts turn to Kalle, and Mythlas slipped silently out into the night to join her.  
“You’re thinking of him again, aren’t you?” he asked and she nodded.  
“I’ve never known anyone like him, Myth,” she whispered. “In a lot of ways, he’s like you, but…” she petered off with a sigh and put her hands on her hips. “I don’t know.”
Myth shot her a knowing look. “You’re falling in love with him, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. Maybe? Is it weird?”
It was the turn of the elf to twitch a shoulder uncertainly. “Is it any stranger than loving a man who can turn into a bear?”  
She smiled. “I guess not?”
Mythlas slid his arm around her waist and hugged her, and a moment later Grim stepped out behind them and put his huge arms over her shoulders, resting his chin on the crown of her head. “You’re both thinking too loudly,” he chuckled. “Come inside. Lydia brought some Blackbriar Mead, and it’s delicious.”
The first time Raena returned to the mountain tomb, Kalle seemed genuinely astonished that she had come back to him, but the second and third times she made it up the mountain, she was met with laughter and open arms, and fell all too willingly into his embrace. And it felt so divines-damned right each time he swept her into a bony hug that she never wanted to let go of him.  
Every time he smelled of parchment and the slightly ferrous hint of ink, and as always, his robes and skin smelled of incense and faintly leathery. She loved it. It felt more like coming home than returning to the guard barracks or staying in at the Drunken Huntsman in town ever had, and each time she saw him, he seemed just a fraction more animated, lasting longer before his body tired and he had to sit quietly to listen to the tales of her adventures.
He seemed fascinated, and asked her endless questions until she laughed and yawned and he relented, and they lapsed into companionable silence by the fire. Never in her life had she felt so at ease with a person, except perhaps for Mythlas and Grim.  
The peace was not to last, however, and on her fourth ascent back up the mountain to Kalle’s secret door near the summit, Raena encountered a troll for the first time in those woods.  
Careless and distracted by thoughts of seeing Kalle again, and by the gift she had wrapped up for him in a scrap of linen in her pack, she had marched right into the ring of pine trees at the foot of the mountain before she even saw the bloody thing. Given that she was upwind of it, she hadn't even smelled it until the white, furry creature rose from the rock where it had plonked itself for a moment of rest in the centre of the clearing.  
She froze as it spread its arms wide with a primal roar that flooded her whole body with fear.
For a moment, her mind went blank at the sight of it.  
It was huge.  
Towering over her at nearly twelve feet tall, the beast roared again and then dropped to all fours to lumber over on its knuckles, grunting and snarling and furious. Raena didn’t even have time to draw her blade from its leather scabbard before the troll was on her.  
With a bellow, it swung its fist at her and backhanded her in the ribs, sending her flying into a snow-dusted bank of rock and twisted pine root. Pain exploded across her ribs and she cried out as the air was beaten from her lungs by the impact. She wasn’t sure that the collision hadn’t shattered her ribs completely, but she had no choice other than to fight.  
On trembling legs, she tried to shake the ringing from her ears and staggered upright to draw her blade.  
Ignoring the pain was just about manageable while intense fear still coursed through her, but she knew that the moment the fight was over — if she even survived it — ascending the last stretch of the mountain path would be excruciating, and quite possibly beyond her.  
“Focus,” she snarled at herself as her mind wandered away from the fight. “Survive this, then think about the climb.”
The troll hurled a large rock at her, and the spray of snow that sloughed off it as it arced through the space between them nearly blinded her. Crying out as a blinding pain shot up her left side, she ducked low and drove her blade into the creature’s gut before stepping back and getting out of its range again. Darting in and out like a wasp while the lumbering creature thrashed and bellowed, wallowing in muddy snow that quickly turned pink from the blood that spilled and sprayed out of it, she finally hamstrung it and dug her blade into its neck as it went down, severing the spinal cord and felling it at last.  
In reality, the fight had probably only lasted a few minutes, but it felt like she’d been battling for an age as she struggled to catch her breath in the clearing.
Darkness pressed in at the edges of her vision and points of light winked like fireflies. Raena staggered and slipped on the bloody slush at her feet, and she went down with a cry, clutching at the left side of her ribs with one hand. She didn’t even register the pain of the impact her knees took as they hit the rocky ground.  
“Fuck…” she wheezed, hand to her side, bending forwards slightly. “Oh gods, oh fuck, that hurts…” Tears welled unbidden and she blinked them back furiously to little effect.  
Even taking shallow breaths proved excruciating, but she tried to steady herself by counting the inhales and exhales. It took a long quarter of an hour before she stopped shaking. The combined shock of the unexpected encounter and the pain of the injury threatened to overwhelm her, but she dug her sword point-first into the ground and used it to lever herself upright.  
“Don’t stop, Raena,” she hissed even as she swayed. “If you stop, you’ll freeze to death.” If the ribs were indeed broken, she could very well puncture something on the way up, but she would just have to hope Kalle knew enough healing magic to help her out. “Keep going.”
The climb turned out to be even worse than she had feared.  
Her hands, slick with blood and numb from the cold, slipped on the rock as she scrambled up the steepest section, and every time she tried to reach with her left arm, pain burst across her torso and wiped her mind perilously blank.  
Dusk was beginning to fall by the time she finally fell onto the ledge at the top of the twisting path. Blood — mostly the troll’s — had soaked her trousers from the knee down and she had cuts and scrapes across her hands and face, and her scalp was bleeding sluggishly. A stark trail of sticky blood slithered down her cheek from just in front of her ear. Tearful, exhausted, shaking, and half-blind from blood and pain, she pushed the door open and stumbled down the passageway.  
“Kalle?” she whimpered as she saw the flickering light beneath the wooden door. Practically falling through it, she staggered out into the study beyond and Kalle, who had been seated by the fire with a book in his lap as usual, lurched to his feet with a cry of horror.  
“Raena? By the Divines, what happened? Where are you hurt?”
“Ribs… Head…” she gasped, fighting off tears again as relief washed through her with the warmth of the fire in the hearth and the touch of his hands at her face. She began to shake all over as his fingers fluttered like dusk moths around her peripheral vision.  
“Sit down,” he said, steering her into the chair he had just vacated. “Easy. Hold still…”  
“Magic?” she asked and he nodded grimly. “Please, fuck, it hurts so much…”
“It will accelerate the natural healing,” he said in a blessedly calm and practical voice. “It will leave you drained, but I can stop the damage. Here…”
“Thank you…” she sobbed. “I was so stupid… I stopped paying attention, I —”
“Hush,” he chided and brought his skeletal hands to her head, tilting it back just a little to examine the cut in her scalp. “That one looks much more dramatic than it is. I think I’ll start with your ribs. May I touch you?” he asked.  
Instinctively she nodded and he pressed his palm to her side.  
Immediately, searing pain flared around the contact, but before she could even suck in a breath to cry out, a warm, golden light filled the air between them and his eyes began to glow white instead of blue.  
In the warm wake of his healing magic, which flooded through her whole body at his feather-light touch, came a wash of pleasure so intense it took her completely by surprise. A broken gasp left her and she bucked her hips up a little, crying out and panting. “Gods, Kalle,” she laughed as it subsided a moment later. “I was not ready for that…”
He looked at her oddly and then offered her a smile that was a little bashful. If he could have blushed, she suspected he might have done.  
“Let me see the cut on your head,” he whispered, returning his delicate fingers to her face and turning her head by the chin. She felt her body go slack beneath his touch and she closed her eyes with a soft smile.  
As the tingling began again — this time not accompanied by a blinding rush of euphoria but a pleasant, thrumming warmth — she hummed softly and felt a little fuzzy around the edges. She sighed deeply, her body succumbing to the exhaustion of the fight and subsequent injury, and the gruelling ascent to the iron door.  
A thought buzzed through her brain as she sank further towards sleep and rest, and she mused vaguely that she should let herself get hurt more often if being healed by him felt like this.  
“Don’t say that,” he growled, his fingers tightening on her head for just a moment before his touch vanished entirely and he drew away from her. For a long moment, she felt no contact, but right as she slid into blissful unconsciousness in his chair, she felt the brush of his bone` fingertips through her blood-encrusted hair, sweeping it back off her face.  
“Rest,” he whispered and she slumped the rest of the way to oblivion with a smile on her lips. 
Part Four --->
___
I really hope you enjoyed this one! If you did, please let me know by reblogging and maybe leaving me an ask, otherwise I won’t know if there’s interest and I won’t continue to post it.
Next time, Raena and Kalle get even closer...
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229 notes · View notes
monstersandmaw · 3 years
Text
Male lich x female character - Part Two (sfw)
Tumblr media
Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.
Well, thank you very much to those lovely folks who said they liked Part One and wanted more from our shy bumbling cutie lich friend! I made the time tonight to edit it and get it posted, so this is for you!
This time we learn our main characters’ names, meet our werebear and elf besties when we take the amulet back to their homestead, and make a decision about what to do next...
Wordcount: 6778
Part One (sfw)
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By the time she staggered into the tiny farmhouse on the outskirts of the wide, grassy plain’s hold capital a few days later, she was half-delirious with exhaustion. Without the horse she’d managed to barter for in a tiny little riverside hamlet, she never would have made such good time, and she practically dropped face-first off the animal outside the house. As she fumbled with the rope to tie the mare up, she fought off desperate tears.  
“Divines, please don’t let me be too late,” she prayed and stumbled towards the front door.
The man by the fire rose to his feet as soon as the door opened. The motion brought with it a swirling flurry of snowflakes that melted over the humble wooden floorboards and a wild-looking woman with a sword at her hip and a lumpy pack on her back. She’d stashed her pack near the foot of the mountain on the way up to the tomb entrance, partly to lighten the load for the ascent, and partly to leave her more mobile for fighting the draugr she knew would be lurking in the tomb. It had been easy enough to pick it up on her way back down.
“Grim,” she croaked as she closed the door behind her and her huge friend visibly relaxed. Her eyes darted to the bed where Mythlas lay, ash-grey and stippled with fever sweat. He looked a hundred times worse than when she’d left, and he’d looked like death warmed up even then.  
“You have it?” Grim asked in an incredulous, bass rumble, striding over to her and clasping her shoulders in his massive hands.  
Grim was well named: a huge werebear, with a face set in a perpetual scowl no matter how good his actual mood, shoulders as broad as a bull’s, and a solid paunch at his middle, and as intimidating as a giant when roused to genuine anger. Mercifully, the man was a potter, and generally placid, and the need for violence was relatively limited on Mythlas’ little smallholding on the outskirts of the hold capital.
She nodded and fished into the inner lining of her leather jerkin, drawing out the amulet from the safety of the pocket. “Put it around his neck,” she said as she stared at the ivory pendant, similar in size and shape to a peach stone but smooth and polished like a river pebble. “I… I was told we should think about all the things we love in him.”
“And that will work?” Grim looked sceptical but, like her, willing to try almost anything while the love of his life lay at death’s door.  
She shrugged. “It has to.”
The dark-haired man nodded once and took the amulet from her, striding across the room and stooping low over the bed. He laid the talisman around his lover’s neck, cradling Mythlas’ limp head. As he lifted it from the pillow, the elf let out a pained whimper.  
“Shh, love, it’s alright. You’re going to be alright…” Grim breathed, screwing his eyes shut and hunching over where he sat sideways on the edge of the bed. It was hard for a man of his size and stature to look small or vulnerable, but in that moment, he looked fragile as spun glass.  
She joined him and knelt on the floor beside Mythlas’ head.  
“How will we know if it’s working?” Grim asked in a whisper, as though afraid to break the strained silence of the sickroom.  
“I don’t know,” she replied.
With her own eyes closed, she prayed. She prayed harder than she had ever prayed for anything in her whole life. After only a few seconds, she sank her teeth into her lower lip and let her face scrunch up as tears squeezed from her eyes.  
“Please,” she sobbed. “Please…” They had nothing else they could try now. No healer’s herbs or tinctures had eased his illness, no priests’ prayers had broken his fever. This amulet — and the promise of a draugr who had been locked away underground for a thousand years — was their very last hope.
A hand landed atop hers where they were both balled into fists on the blankets and she jerked her head up and stared at Mythlas, who still looked awful. The hand was too big to belong to the elf anyway, and she looked up into Grim’s black eyes. She flipped her hand over and clutched at him, tears spilling over and rolling down her wind-reddened cheeks. For a moment, her heart hurt with how much she wanted the elf to be cured, but her thoughts turned unbidden to the draugr acolyte a moment later. It was almost as if a cold breeze had blown in through the door and driven all other thoughts from her mind.
In her head she heard his gentle, rasping voice and his laboured breathing, and saw again the intelligence and compassion in his burning blue eyes. And the open hurt that had seared across his expression at her accusations. “I shouldn’t have left like that,” she murmured, and Grim frowned. “It was wrong.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Left where like what?” After only a second though, his dark eyes slid back to his lover’s face, and he lifted a strand of the elf’s dark blond hair off his sweaty forehead. Behind his lids, Mythlas’ eyes tracked ceaselessly back and forth.  
“Long story,” she said, following his gaze. “Come on Mythlas… Why isn’t it working?”
“Perhaps it is,” Grim rumbled. “Give it time.”
“He doesn’t have time, Grim!” she said through clenched teeth. “Look at him. He —”  
Mythlas grunted and took a deeper, slower breath, shuffling slightly.  
“Myth?” Grim said, black eyes suddenly wide with a hope he dared not voice.  
The elf took another steady breath and then another, his eyes slowing their restless shuttling, and his thin lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.  
“Mythlas?” She reached forwards with trembling fingers and laid the back of her hand on his forehead. “Does he seem cooler to you?” she asked in a whisper.  
Carefully, Grim mirrored her movements and then gave the barest of nods. “Maybe. He seems less fevered.” After another tense few breaths, Grim looked down at her. “What did you mean about ‘leaving like that’?” he pressed. “Leaving where?”
“The tomb,” she said, straightening and levering herself to her feet. Bone-tired after the her gruelling weeks on the road, researching, hoping, seeking, fighting, she crossed to the fire and began to pace the hearthrug. “The dragon priest’s tomb. I found it; the one that was supposed to be nothing more than legend…” she smiled minutely but continued to stalk back and forth before the fireplace.  
“You’ll wear that rug out. And sit down before you fall down,” Grim said with a grunt as he rose and crossed to join her. “Here,” he said. He snagged a clean tankard from the table in the kitchen area of the small, one-roomed ground floor and filled it from a keg on the side.  
“Thanks, Grim,” she sighed as she practically collapsed into the chair behind her. It was the one usually occupied by Mythlas in the evenings, and it bore a green cushion that he’d embroidered with golden filigree leaves.  
They both continued to glance relentlessly over at Mythlas in the bed while she told Grim of what had happened on her expansive journey, and then finally with the draugr in the tomb. She looked up at him as she finished, throat raw from speaking for so long, and found him looking even more morose than usual. He scrubbed a callused hand over the short, black beard that adorned his anvil jaw, and then raked both hands through his curly hair. It bounced back into place almost immediately, and he sat back heavily in the seat opposite hers.  
“What are you thinking, Grim?” she asked before downing the last dregs of the weak beer.  
“Sounds like a lonely life… trapped in a tomb with no one but dumb draugr for company…” he said at last.  
“You think I should have stayed a bit longer? Grim, if I hadn’t left when I did, it might have been too late for Myth.”
“I know,” he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl.  
On some unspoken cue, they both looked over at him. “Is it my imagination, Grim, or is the colour coming back to his cheeks?”
Grim rose and she watched the massive man go. Even as her hopes clung to a thread as tenuous as gossamer, her thoughts stayed with the draugr acolyte. Was his a lonely life? Undoubtedly. She closed her eyes and bowed her head, and as the flames crackled in the hearth beside her, she made a silent vow to the Divines that no matter the outcome with Mythlas, she would return to the acolyte.  
The moment she made the vow, her heart lifted like a hawk taking flight and she opened her eyes as a laugh bubbled out of Grim. It had been so long since she’d heard him laugh that she almost didn’t recognise his earthy rumble. She darted across the room and found that he’d scooped Mythlas up in his arms and had buried his face at the elf’s neck, sobbing.  
Over the colossal curve of his shoulder, she saw Mythlas smiling weakly, his green eyes open and clear. “Hey,” he croaked.  
“Grim, he can’t breathe,” she snorted, smacking the werebear up the backside of his head.  
Grim pulled back and laid his love back down. The elf was clearly weak as a child, but he smiled again and swallowed thickly. “How… How long have I been ill? You both look terrible, by the way.”
“We thought you weren’t going to make it, Myth,” she said honestly. “You nearly didn’t.”
He frowned.  
“You’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for five and a half weeks,” Grim said as he pressed a wooden cup to Mythlas’ lips and helped him sip. “And sick for longer than that.”
“What was it? What was wrong with me?”
“No one knows,” Grim said, shuddering. Fat, glimmering tears began to roll down his cheeks and into his beard, and he buried his face in both hands this time.  
She rubbed his shuddering, heaving back and he rocked sideways into her for a moment, overcome with relief and joy.  
Mythlas looked from one to the other and then offered her a watery smile. “Thank you,” he croaked. “I don't know what you did, or —” he faltered and then glanced down at the amulet on the long chain around his neck. “— or what this is, but… I’m sure you had something to do with it, and I’m sure you’ve kept my big beautiful bear out of trouble too.”
Grim continued to sob uncontrollably, and she pushed him gently upright again.  
An hour or so later, she rose from her seat by the fire, glad beyond all words that Mythlas was awake again and had had something simple to eat and drink.
“I’ll leave you two alone now,” she said to Mythlas, who was fading and in need of a little more sleep after the excitement of returning from death’s door. Grim hadn’t let go of his hand or moved from his vigil beside Mythlas’ bed all evening. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll fall asleep in this chair and I’ll regret it tomorrow. I’ll stay with Lydia in town.”
She cracked the tension from her neck and stifled another yawn.  
“I’ve got a mare to stable properly as well — I wouldn’t have made it here so quickly without her. I owe her a comfortable night in the city stables. Lydia’s thane is hardly ever around,so I doubt she’ll mind the company.”
“Come back for breakfast tomorrow?” Grim asked between wiping his nose on a handkerchief the size of a small bed-sheet and beaming down at Mythlas.  
She left with a promise to do just that, and headed off into the walled city to stable the mare, and to find her childhood friend and a place to sleep for at least the next twelve hours if possible.  
In fact, she slept for fifteen hours straight, and arrived back at Grim’s doorway well into the morning. To her surprise, she found Mythlas sitting in his chair by the fire. The elf grinned at her when she came to a halt so abruptly that Grim, who had lingered to close the door behind her, almost flattened her. Her pack slid from her fingers to clatter onto the floor.  
“Myth,” she gaped. “You’re… You look so well!”
Grim snorted and rested his hand briefly between her shoulder blades as he passed. “He’s weak as water, but yeah, he’s…” he choked up momentarily and then laughed it off. “He’s back.”
She crossed to her best friend and flung her arms around his neck, hugging him.  
“Sorry I gave you both such a scare,” he whispered, kissing the side of her head. “Grim told me what you did for me.” He shook his head and tried to pull back slightly so he could look her in the eye. When she just clung to him all the more tightly, he laughed and resumed the hug until she was ready to let go. “Thank you,” he said.  
“Anything,” she hissed. “Anything for you, Myth.”
“Well, luckily all it took was a priceless, mythological amulet that no one will believe is real. What happens if I take it off, by the way?” he added, plucking at it as she straightened up from the hug.  
“No idea. Maybe don’t just yet?”
“Yeah,” Grim agreed heartily, pressing a fluffy white roll packed with crispy bacon into her hand. “Saved you this. You’re late by the way.”
“Overslept,” she grunted, stuffing a huge mouthful into her face and flopping down onto a comically tiny milking stool between the two fireside chairs. “Oh my fuck… this is divine, Grim.”
He twitched his eyebrows at her in a way that clearly said ‘of course it’s fucking divine; I made it’ and turned back to look at Mythlas. His eyes turned soppy and she rolled her own with immense fondness for the pair. They deserved to be happy, and Mythlas was clearly the light of Grim’s life.  
“So…” the elf began, “Grim also told me about the acolyte. Are you going to go back?”
She swallowed down a great clog of bread and bacon and nodded slowly. “I think I should. He helped me when he really didn’t have to, and I was pretty rude to him. It doesn’t feel right.”
Mythlas nodded slowly and finished plaiting his shoulder-length hair off his face. “Will you give him something from me when you go?”
She frowned. “Sure, unless it’s super heavy… It’s a really long way up that mountain, you know?”
The elf rolled his eyes and rose carefully from his chair. Grim tensed, ready to catch him if he wavered, but it wasn’t needed. He crossed to the bookshelf that stood against the same wall as the bed and drew out what looked like a diary from among the treasured volumes.  
Grim’s thick eyebrows rose when he saw what it was. “Myth, that’s your farming journal,” he said.  
“Mmm,” he nodded, letting the leather bound book fall open in his bird-like hands. Mythlas had not been exactly sturdy-looking to begin with, but the illness had sapped all his vitality and strength from him.  
He handed the volume to her once she’d wiped off her fingers on her trousers, and she looked down to find an exquisite, hand-drawn illustration of a dragon’s tongue flower on the page open before her.  
“I figure if he doesn’t get out much, he’d like a book on plants and current farming practices. Or he can use it for kindling,” Mythlas shrugged, though the slightly frantic look in his eyes told her he hoped the draugr wouldn’t treat it so callously.  
“I won’t let him do that,” she said as she turned the pages. “Mythlas, this is really beautiful. Are you sure you want to part with it?”
He nodded and tapped his temple as he sank back down into his seat. “It’s all up here anyway. I could make another one if I wanted.”
“I’ll make sure he gets it,” she said. She rose and crossed to where Grim had stowed her pack neatly against one lime-washed wall.  
“You’re leaving already then?” Grim asked. “Not going to take a few days to recover? You were pretty out of it last night.”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Before he forgets about me.”
Mythlas shook his head. “No one could forget about you, sweetheart,” he smiled. “I’m pretty sure your acolyte has been pacing his room and drawing pictures of you since the moment you left.”
Her two best friends exacted a promise from her to return before too long, and they packed her off that afternoon with supplies for the road from the farm, and enough hard cheese to open her own roadside shop if she wanted.  
Knowing the route, she planned to stop at places she’d noticed on the way back from the tomb, and guessed she’d be there in a couple of days. She’d pushed herself almost beyond her limits to get that amulet to Mythlas in time, but now she could take it a little more steadily. She’d also left the mare back at the city stables since there was no way the horse would be able to make it up the mountain path to the secret door, through which she’d left in such a crazed hurry.  
Camping beside a lazy bend in the river that night, crickets singing in the pines, she stretched out and looked up at the stars and the twin moons above.  
“I wonder if the stars look the same to me now as they did when you last saw them?” she mused aloud, thinking of her nameless acolyte. Come to think of it, he didn’t know her name either. She tried a few options for him out on her tongue, but none of them seemed to fit, so she gave up, curled deeper into her soft, sheepskin bedroll, and closed her eyes.  
Sleep found her instantly, but she dreamed vaguely of dragons and enormous diamonds and woke groggy and stiff with the dawn.
After a few hours’ walking, she passed the scruffy little hamlet where she’d bought the mare — hardly more than a few houses and an inn arranged along the road — and stopped to buy a sweetroll and a mug of black tea from the inn for her breakfast. The heat from the long fire in the pit at the centre of the hall drove the damp and the chill from her bones and she set off feeling looser and more cheerful.  
She passed signs of a troll in a clearing on the shoulders of the great, snowy mountain, but neither heard nor smelled anything. All the same, she slunk along much more carefully after that, searching for the way up the mountain to the hidden door.  
The climb up what was little more than a goat track had her sweating and panting after a mile of switchback turns, despite the icy wind that snuck its horrid fingers down the back of her damp neck. The route that she’d taken up the other side of the mountain first time round had been gentler and less exposed, sheltered by massive pines that whispered encouragement in her ears as the wind blew through the needles, but on this side, the wind shrieked and blew snow up into her eyes, and she stumbled and scuffed her palms as she reached for the next foothold.  
“How the hell did I make it down here in the near dark last time?” she growled as she spotted the hidden doorway up above her.
Taking a moment to catch her breath first, she turned and gazed out at the view.  
“Well, if that doesn’t make it all worthwhile,” she exhaled, hands on hips as the sun gilded the buildings of the far off capital on the plains miles below, making the rooftops look like burnished copper in the dying light. In the very far distance, the jagged peaks of the mountain range looked like little more than foam on a far off shore, already sinking into the gathering purple dusk.  
The last stretch didn’t take long, and she wiped her forehead on the back of her sleeve as she paused in front of the rather intimidating iron door. Would she even be able to get in? He’d never said she could get back in this way after all.  
“Fuck,” she whispered. Then she set her hand to the door and pushed.  
It didn't budge.  
“Fuck!” she spat again and kicked at it half-heartedly. There was no hand hold to see if it swung outwards either. “Come on. Please… I did not come all this way up just to go back down again.”
The outcrop formed a natural kind of porch around her, and once she’d unslung the pack from sore shoulders, she dusted the snow off a conveniently flat rock nearby and sat down heavily, head falling into her hands. “Guess I’ll have to spend the night here and descend in the morning.”  
With no means of building a fire, she found it hard not to let her spirits sink, especially when the gathering night grew bitterly cold and her breath billowed around her cupped hands. Her sleeping roll should be cosy enough if she kept all her clothes on though, and with a belly full of Grim’s cheese and a now-slightly stale bread roll, she’d just have to manage for a night.  
Having made the decision to stay put, she unslung her sword belt and pack, and began to feel a little more settled and calm, telling herself that it wouldn’t be so bad to stay up here out of the way of the wind and the snow for one night, even without a fire. She had just begun to root around in her pack for some food and her waterskin, however, when the iron door in the mountainside clicked and swung silently inwards.  
She froze like a rabbit in the path of a hawk but the passageway remained empty and dark beyond.  
“Hello?” murmured, and was met only with empty blackness. “I don’t know your name, but if… if you’re the acolyte who helped me out, I’d appreciate it if you showed yourself…”
Her hand went slowly to the long knife at her belt and she cursed herself for having unbuckled her sword belt already.  
No one stepped out into the night, and the door remained stubbornly open.  
“Oh, fuck it,” she growled, snatching up her blade from the ground, frozen fingers fumbling with the fastenings. After another few frantic movements, she had her pack back on and had slipped inside the mountain tomb. The door swung slowly shut on its hinges behind her and plunged her into complete darkness.  
She cursed her reckless stupidity again, took a deep breath, and prayed she had remembered the tunnel correctly: a single, smooth-floored passageway with no branching passages until she reached his cosy study room.  
By the time a faint orange glow illuminated the flagstones at the end of the tunnel, her heartbeat had settled just a little, but her confidence had waned. What if he took this as an intrusion? What if he didn’t want her back here again? What if her presence put him in danger from the Death Lords who patrolled the tombs? What if —  
She stopped in the doorway to his hemispherical study and found herself smiling.  
There, slumped in a chair beside the fire, with a book cradled in his lap and skeletal fingers resting on the page open before him, sat the acolyte, and he appeared to be fast asleep.  
His head was bowed and his chest wasn’t moving, but she knew from her admittedly limited experience of draugr that they appeared completely dead until disturbed.  
She closed the wooden door to the passageway behind her with a quiet click and took the liberty of removing her pack. Then she crossed to the fire and knelt beside his chair in full view, and hopefully in a manner he wouldn’t find threatening or startling. She knew he had magic, and had no desire to be burned to a crisp or encased in a block of ice for surprising him.  
When he didn’t stir at her presence, she laid a hand on his forearm. Little more than bone shrouded by his faded purple robe, the limb seemed so fragile, but the moment her fingers closed around his arm, he jerked awake with a heaving gasp, eyes flying open and flaring blue.  
“It’s just me,” she said, releasing him and standing. She took three steps back with her hands raised slightly.  
His chest spasmed for a moment before he regained control of his body and to her relief, he slumped back into the chair with a soft chuckle. A moment later he opened his eyes once more and looked at her sidelong. “I would say that you… scared me to… death,” he wheezed, “But…”  
“Oh my gods,” she snorted, relaxing. “Undead puns already? I’ve only just got here.”
He laughed again - a real, genuine laugh that filled the room and lit him up from the inside - and he closed the book in his lap. “You came back?” he asked, going suddenly still. “Why? Did…” his expression shattered and he tensed all over, sitting forwards in the chair. “Did the amulet not work?”
“It worked,” she smiled and began pacing, unable to contain the bubbling joy inside her. “Thank the Divines. It worked. Mythlas is… Gods, it was remarkable. He had to have been only hours from death when I got back, and it brought him back in minutes.” Still overwhelmed by the miracle, she choked up, but forged ahead all the same. “He was still weak and drained from being ill, but he was sitting up and laughing the next morning. It was miraculous, and… I couldn’t have done it without your help.” She turned sharply to face him. “I’m sorry for what I said before I left.”
He blinked slowly and shook his head. “You had no reason to trust me,” he said. “Not really. I thought about it a lot after you’d gone. I don’t hold it against you. I… I can’t say I would have behaved any differently in your shoes.”
“You don’t wear shoes,” she countered and he inclined his head. “Don’t you get cold?”
He shook his head. “Don’t feel the cold. You, on the other hand, look half frozen to death.”
“I was kind of planning on sleeping on your porch,” she said. “Until the door opened on its own. I thought maybe you’d had something to do with that?”
He shook his head and stood carefully. His whole body had a very subtle tremor to it. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “Believe it or not, there is actually food here.”
“Edible food?”
“Food is, by definition, edible.”
“Yeah, ok smart-arse. I meant… like… not mouldy and a billion years old.”
“This whole place has a stasis spell on it. Why do you think the candles never burn out?”
“I suppose I’ve never really thought about it. Too busy looking out for shambling corpses wielding axes…”
“Fair enough,” he said. “How about shambling corpses wielding bottles of wine?”
“Infinitely better,” she grinned. “Listen though, before I forget, Mythlas asked me to bring you something.”
At that, he tilted his head and she smiled. For all that he was gaunt and withered, with those inhumanly blue eyes, she had to admit that Grim may have had a point. This did have to be a terribly lonely existence.  
“Here,” she said, bending and rummaging around in her bag for the journal.  
When she returned to him he took it from her with intrigue and trepidation in his face.  
“Myth thought that you might like it since you’ve been walled up inside for so long. It’s his own journal and notes from the farm. He started it ten years ago when he and Grim bought it and turned it from a barren field of flints into a thriving smallholding. I —” she broke off when she saw tears rolling down his leathery cheeks. She didn’t know draugr could cry. “Are you alright?”
He nodded. “It’s… I don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful…” Had she given him all the wealth from all the hold capitals, he could not have looked more stunned. He swallowed thickly and looked up at her, gripping it with tenacious fingers. “I will treasure this. He cannot know what he’s given me; not truly.”
“A glimpse at the world as it is now?” she ventured, and he smiled.  
“Precisely.”
“By the way,” she added on a whim. “I don’t know what to call you.”
“Oh…” he breathed. “Aamaak,” he rasped a moment later, though he looked like the name left a bitter taste on his tongue. “They named me Aamaak.”
She frowned. “They named you?” she quoted. “So, what, they give you another name when you joined the dragon cult?”
He nodded. “The priests believed names, like spells, have power over a person. They name themselves things like ‘hateful shadow’ and ‘wrathing the Dragon Tongue to instill fear into the minds of their followers.”
“‘Aamaak’…” she murmured, the vowels rolling slowly across her tongue. “What does it mean?”
“It means ‘to serve as a guide’,” he said. “Not the worst thing they could have named me, all things considered.”
“Huh,” she laughed and nudged him in the ribs. “They must have known that all these centuries later, I’d get lost down here and need your help.”
He fixed her with an odd look but only shook his head a little.  
“So… what should I call you then? I’m assuming you don’t exactly choose to go by the name given to you by a cult you apparently loathe…?”
He paused. “Kalle,” he said, his ancient accent bouncing over the two syllables of the word like a dance. “The name my mother gave me is ‘Kalle’.”
“Would you like me to call you that then?”
Slowly, he nodded. “I think… I would.”
“Kalle it is,” she smiled, and he shivered slightly. It must have been centuries since anyone had used it.  
“And you?” he asked, turning Mythlas’ journal over in his hands and admiring the simple, leaf-shaped tooling at the corners. “What should I call you?”
“Raena,” she said and stifled a yawn. “Sorry.”
“‘Raena’,” he repeated. “That’s a name familiar to me from my own time. It must seem old to your people.”
She nodded. “Terribly out of fashion, I’m afraid, but my father was a scholar and he insisted on something ‘as old as the land’ or some such bollocks.” Kalle seemed quietly fascinated, so she rolled her eyes and said, “I’ll bore you about my family to… well… un-death, I suppose, over a glass of your enchanted wine if you like.”
“I’d like that very much,” he said. “Make yourself at home.”
She stood and watched him putter about, but not before he set the journal on a table beside the fire to peruse later, and then he returned from what appeared to be a storeroom with a goblet of wine.  
“You’re not having one too?” she asked when she took it from him. On a corner of his study table, she’d set out the remnants of her supplies from Grim, though there was still enough bloody cheese in her pack to feed a small family for a fortnight.  
Kalle shook his head. “The need — and ability — to ingest for sustenance or pleasure withered away a long time ago, I’m afraid. I’ve been meaning to clear out that storeroom for a while, but now I’m glad I didn’t.”
She sniffed the goblet ostentatiously and asked, “Just how good are these stasis spells anyway?”
He snorted and sank down into his chair again before his eyes went wide and he obviously realised there was only one seat. She was still standing awkwardly in the space between the long trestle table and the chair beside the fire.  
“Wait, I’ll…” he wheezed and she set the glass down on the table.  
“I can get a chair if you tell me where to look? Or I can sit on my bedroll to keep the cold out of my backside. I don’t mind…”
“I’m so sorry,” he muttered, one hand gripping the arm of his wooden chair. He struggled to stand for a moment before looking up at her with a look of anguish on his face.  
“Seriously, it’s fine,” she insisted. “It’s not exactly as if you’re entertaining regularly, huh?”
With a chagrined grimace, he nodded. “There’s another one in the library, but it’s… it’s down a spiral staircase. I can levitate it up here for you if you give me a moment. I don’t have much physical strength any more, but it recovers quite quickly.”
“How about you get it for me tomorrow,” she said, unfurling her bedroll right beside the fire near the foot of his chair, “And I thaw out right here for now and talk your ear off about my family.”
So she did.  
She told him everything, from her slightly feral childhood on the streets of the hold capital, playing with the other children while her mother worked in the jarlsguard, and her father wrote his books on the history of the various peoples who had occupied the land. And Kalle sat enraptured until she talked herself almost as hoarse as him.
“He sounds like quite the scholar,” Kalle said when she finally stopped to draw breath.  
“I think he always hoped I’d follow in his footsteps, but he never complained when I joined the jarlsguard as a raw, sixteen year old recruit. He died when I was eighteen, and mother didn’t last long without him. She just…” she gestured vaguely with her hand and took another mouthful of the rich wine. It rolled across her tongue, smooth and dark and seductive, and she savoured the taste. “This is really good, by the way,” she said. “Grim and Mythlas make amazing mead, but I haven’t had wine in ages.”
“I’m glad to hear it’s still good,” he smiled. “If I remember rightly, it was one of the finer vintages.”
“You have to tell me what it was like back then,” she blurted. “I mean, how long have you been down here? It must be, what, close to a thousand years? Do you know how much history we’ve lost? We’ve had invasions from the Empire to the south, then reclaimed the land for ourselves, and been embroiled in a stupid civil war for decades. This kind of tomb is now either in complete ruins or has been lost forever beneath the snow. We only have fragments to piece together about what it was like under the dragon priests.”
“It was horrific,” he said quietly and her heart dropped. She fell still to listen. “There was order under their rule, but it wasn’t civilised order. It was tyranny and fear and control of the masses by sheer threat of violence. It wasn’t always like that though. The dragon priests rose to power relatively quickly over a period of perhaps twenty years.”
In the silence that hung in the wake of his words, she finally asked in a breathy, awestruck whisper, “Were there really dragons? I mean… real dragons?”
Slowly, he nodded. “They were incomprehensibly powerful,” he said. “Like a landslide and a hurricane and a wildfire… I’m glad their kind is gone,” he snarled. “And may the dragon priests rot in their sarcophagi.”
At that, Raena raised her eyebrows.  
“Although,” he added, “Without the dragon priests and their necromancy, I never would have met you, so I suppose I shouldn’t curse them too harshly.”
She nearly snorted the dregs of her wine out of her nose at that. “I can’t imagine that five minutes with me is enough to counter a millennium locked away on your own in a tomb. You must have all these books memorised by now…”
He looked at her oddly for a long moment and then exhaled slowly, turning to look at the bookshelves that lined the walls of the circular space. “I could probably recite any page from any volume in this room, and locate most of the books in the library without use of the catalogue. I also taught myself fifteen dead languages and reconstructed two.”
“How have you not gone mad?” she asked with genuine reverence.  
Kalle swallowed and rested the back of his head on his high-backed chair. In the dancing warmth of the firelight, he looked suddenly very human, save for the piercing eyes and his atrophied figure. “After you left, I thought perhaps I had finally cracked…” he rasped, consonants slurred by his immobile, withdrawn lips. “Dreamt you up entirely. I even went back down to the vault to check that the amulet really had gone.”
He looked her in the eye and laughed bitterly, a sound like two stones scraping together.  
“Met the Death Lord who had been hunting you afterwards too. He was even more unpleasant to me than usual, which went most of the way towards convincing me that you were in fact real. Then he asked if I’d seen a human wandering the halls, and I told him the last thing I’d seen, before running into his immense atrociousness, was a truly enormous rat with an elven tibia in its jaws.”  
He leaned back in the chair again and turned his gaze to the ceiling, and she watched him closely.  
“Technically it actually wasn't a lie.” He sounded strangely pleased about that, and when he glanced back at her and caught the expression on her face he added, “Small victories and rabid partisanship are all we draugr have remaining to us these days.”
“So the Death Lords are more sentient than the other draugr?” she asked, stifling another yawn. “Could they…” she looked around, wide eyed and suddenly alert, “… get in here?”
“How about I tell you more tomorrow?” he smiled. “You should rest. But no, they can’t get in here. It takes my magic to open any of the passages into this part of the complex, or a special key, neither of which they have.”  
It struck her as odd that she could tell when he was smiling. His facial muscles had atrophied so much that he barely had any movement left, and his head was hardly more than papery skin stretched over bare bone, lips drawn back to reveal his teeth like an ordinary, mummified corpse, and yet… he was somehow so expressive all the same. Perhaps it was the little wry twitches of his head or the way he rolled his eyes, but she found she could read him as easily as he could apparently recite any of his books from memory.  
“Sounds like a deal,” she murmured, finally allowing herself a full yawn and covering it with the back of her hand. “Where shall I put this?” she asked, gesturing with the silver goblet.  
He rose stiffly from his seat, carefully cricking the tension out of his spine, and said, “Here. I’ll take it.”
As he stretched out his hand to take it from her, he must have noticed the way her eyes lingered on his bare hands, the fingers little more than exposed phalanges, and he twitched back.  
“Kalle, it’s fine,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you any more. I know you’re not like most draugr.” She swallowed and looked up at him through her lashes. “And I know you’re not going to hurt me.”
He took a slow, wheezing breath. “It’s hard not to feel abhorrent in the face of someone so…” he blinked, and apparently settled for, “… alive.”
She smiled and pushed the goblet into his hand. This time he took it, and he limped away while she opened the toggles of her sleeping roll and took off her boots. The floor beside the hearth was warm. The stones seemed to have soaked up the heat from the fire like boulders in the sun, and she sighed contentedly as she sank down into it.  
She was asleep almost before her head came to rest on the soft fleece of the inside of the bedroll. 
Part Three --->
___
I really hope you enjoyed this one! If you did, please let me know by reblogging and maybe leaving me an ask, otherwise I won’t know if there’s interest and I won’t continue to post it. Next time, Raena spends some time with Kalle (pronounced kal-eh), their unlikely friendship grows, and there’s a teeny bit of drama/danger... stay tuned! 
___
| Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)
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monstersandmaw · 3 years
Note
I love your lich series! It’s so well made that I feel like I’m reading a published book! I love the amount of detail you put in to describing the surroundings and the appearance of the lich. It’s really a fun read! -🐝
Thank you so much! That was the first story I wrote after my complete burnout, and I wrote it over the course of a few rather frantic days. Kalle came to mean a lot to me :). I'm so happy to hear you're enjoying it!
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to leave me this :)
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monstersandmaw · 3 years
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Male lich/revenant/draugr x female character (3rd person)
A wip extract for you from what is probably going to be a short novel length story:
He was undoubtedly strange to look at, with his hollowed cheeks and leathery, desiccated skin, his skeletally emaciated body, atrophied muscles, and burning blue eyes, but he was also obviously kind, interested and curious, and she wasn’t surprised to find herself drawn to the graceful delicacy of his unusual body. He moved like a spider at times, spindly and careful, and with the unexpected elegance of a spriggan.
More than once in her time since leaving the jarlsguard, she had encountered draugr who weren’t the lumbering, stiff, barely-mobile corpses who patrolled the corridors of lesser tombs like rats — the Death Lords for example moved like living warriors, with all the flexibility and power that an orcish chieftain or an elven archer might possess — but she’d never seen a draugr with such care and precision to his movements. He reminded her of an arcanist or a jeweller. Every time he set something down, it was with a deliberate and calculated motion, and as she stood there thinking about his hands, with their exposed phalanges that clicked softly from time to time, and the rest of his strange body, she found herself curious to know what it would be like to be on the receiving end of that touch again.
Her hands tingled as she recalled the way he had pressed the Amulet of Birger into her palm and closed her fingers around it with his own. His touch had been whisper-light, but it had left her aching in a way that the touch of no other ever had.
She cleared her throat, thighs tightening together for a moment, and in an attempt to distract herself, she set about exploring.
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If you like this, stay tuned. The story itself is set in a world that’s basically Skyrim, but not explicitly so. It features an elf best friend and his enormous yet gentle werebear husband, a lich who’s not quite like the rest of the revenants who guard a lost dragon priest’s tomb, and a few twists and turns along the way.
Let me know if you like a lich, and if you’re excited to read the whole thing!
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monstersandmaw · 2 years
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Monsters & Maw Masterlist - Part Two
Since I appear to have maxed out the number of links in a single post, here is the continuation of my Masterlist.
I’ll format it in the same way, that being chronologically, rather than by monster or reader ‘type’, and the rating (sfw/nsfw) will be added to each part/story.
Newer stories at the bottom. Be sure to check the original post (not just reblogs) for updates!
Masterlist Part One here.
Masterlist of Shorter Stories and Drabbles here.
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Male werewolf x female character (Gabe & Odessa) Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), Part Four (sfw), Part Five (sfw), Part Six (sfw) Part Seven (sfw), Part Eight (sfw), Part Nine (sfw), Part Ten (sfw), Part Eleven (nsfw), Part Twelve (sfw), Part Thirteen (sfw), Part Fourteen (nsfw), Part Fifteen (nsfw), Part Sixteen (nsfw), Part Seventeen (sfw), Part Eighteen (v. light nsfw), Part Nineteen (nsfw), Part Twenty (nsfw), Part Twenty-One (nsfw), Part Twenty-Two (season finale, sfw). Gabe’s POV between seasons (sfw)
Male orc x male character (Victorian era fantasy) Part One (WIP, posted on Ko-fi)
Male merman x reader (nsfw)
Male mothfolk (Elis) x male reader (very light nsfw at the end)
Female selkie (Meg) x female reader (sfw)
Male each-uisge/sea kelpie (Rhion) x reader (sfw) *Mermay*, Part Two (changed to cis female reader) (nsfw)
Male wyvern (Askaen) x male reader (nsfw)
Male dragonborn (Yrdan) x trans female reader (nsfw)
Male dremora (demon) x female character Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), Part Four (sfw), Part Five (sfw), Part Six (sfw), Part Seven (sfw), Part Eight (sfw), Part Nine (nsfw)
Male yeti-shifter dad x reader Part One (sfw), Part Two (v. light nsfw), Part Three (nsfw)
Male goblin (Gil) x gn reader (nsfw)
More below the cut
(old) WIP Male vampire x female character - Part One (sfw)
Male goblin x gn reader (nsfw)
Male witch x male goth (non-monster romance story) ‘Like Moon and Tide’: Part One, Part Two, Part Three (v. light nsfw), Part Four (nsfw), Part Five (Final, nsfw)
Male cerberus boyfriends x gn reader Part Two (nsfw)
Male scarred werewolf (Rhett) x female reader Part Five (nsfw)
Male ‘yautja/feral predator’ inspired alien x gn reader: Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), Part Four (sfw), Part Five (sfw), Part Six (nsfw), Part Seven (nsfw), Part Eight (sfw), Part Nine (sfw), Part Ten (sfw), Part Eleven - final (nsfw)
Male yautja x gn reader (implied poly) (sfw)
Female ghost x gn reader (sfw)
Male scarecrow x gn reader (sfw)
Dragon Heart (non romance, dragon & human story, sfw)
Male drider pirate captain x gn reader (mild nsfw)
Male orc (Guthlak) x gn reader (light/fluffy nsfw)
Male sharkman (Titus) x male reader (nsfw, light D/s undertones)
Male fox spirit (Rowe) x female reader (nsfw)
Male werewolf (Beorn) x trans male reader (nsfw)
Male werewolf x male human (3rd person POV) (nsfw)
Male uruk hai x gn human (sfw)
‘Protector’ - short story featuring a male gargoyle and a female witch (sfw)
Female vampire x nb/gn reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Male naga x nb/gn reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Male swamp monster x female reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Male dragon x trans male reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Female drider x female reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Male vampire x male reader (sfw) (drabble)
Male swamp monster x nb/gn reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Female vampire x female reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Male bugbear x male reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Non binary tiefling x plus sized female reader (nsfw) (drabble)
Female knight (Vika) x lady (Elayne) - Part One of an abandoned WIP (sfw)
Werewolf farmer (Rowan) - Stardew fic, WIP extract (sfw)
Laces for a Lady - poly shifter romance story set in 18th century smuggling Cornwall, with a male bucca (eel monster) and a male selkie and a female human. Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), (bonus Locryn & Ned chapter post Chpt3, sfw), Part Four (sfw), Part Five (sfw), Part Six (sfw), Part Seven (sfw)
Snowfall - m/m/m poly story (elf, vampire, lich). Part One
Male gnoll (Cade) x gn reader (nsfw)
Male orc (Rhuarc) x female character - Part One (sfw)
Male dullahan (Pumpkin) x gn reader (sfw) (commission)
Male orc (Rhokann) x gn reader (light nsfw) (commission)
Male drider (Feluän) x trans male reader (nsfw) (commission)
Male dragon x male knight (3rd person, nsfw) (commission)
Male centipede alien x transmasc nonbinary reader (nsfw) (commission)
‘Changing Tides’ - male human ‘cursed’ into merfolk body (no romance, sfw)
___
Date updated: 04.11.2023 - UK date order: Day, Month, Year
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monstersandmaw · 2 years
Note
Hi I'm just a bit fan with a question. Will u be continuing the ,,Male lich/draugr (Kalle) x female character (Raena)" story ?
Thank you 😊 have a great week ❤🧚🏻‍♀️
I had so many ideas for that story! I'd love to continue it, and I'll bump it up the list now I know someone's keen :) Thank you. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you as well!
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monstersandmaw · 3 years
Note
I'm new and I was wondering what you're currently working on so I could catch up or whatever. By the way I love the gnoll story and the kelpie one too
First off, welcome! Lovely to have you along!
Secondly, I’m... kind of on a creative hiatus at the moment because I got completely burned out and generally disenchanted with posting my writing on Tumblr, but my masterlists have a lot of content that should keep you going, at least for a little while. Having said that, I fancied playing around with something for Halloween, and I’m either going to do a lich x female reader or a male vampire x male character.
Masterlists:
Full length stories
Shorter drabbles and snippets
Patreon masterlist (free to browse). Patreon is paused at the moment, and existing patrons are not being charged, but any new patrons will be charged once upon joining.
I’m focusing on my fantasy novel once I finish recharging. I’m doing it for NaNoWriMo, and you can follow along on my dedicated blog @weaverofthreads or on my instagram @r.n.peacock.
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monstersandmaw · 4 years
Text
Stories from 2019...
Here’s a list of all the stories (40!) that have gone up on my Tumblr long stories masterlist since the start of 2019. There may be more bits that I’ve missed, but here’s what I found. Feel free to browse in case you missed something! Don’t forget that there’s also the short stories masterlist too!
Thanks for making it a great year and for inspiring me to do more and be better all the time!!
Male orc (Dragh) x female reader (nsfw)
Deaf male tiefling x female reader (sfw) Part Two (sfw)
Male scarred werewolf (Rhett) x female reader (sfw) Part One, Part Two, Part Three (nsfw), Part Four
Male minotaur x female reader *commission* (sfw + fluffy)
Female space pirate x female reader *commission* (nsfw)
Male minotaur x female reader (sfw and disgustingly fluffy)
Male gnoll (’Poodle), precursory drabble prompt (sfw)
Lich, no gender mentioned, monster’s POV - prompt “Housekeeper wanted; living or dead”. Sfw
Male orc dom x female reader sub (sfw, early stages, meeting up and working it out) Part Two (sfw) *ko-fi commission*
Homeless male merman x reader (sfw) Part Two (nsfw), Christmas Special (nsfw)
Non-binary trickster spirit x reader (sfw)
Poly male minotaur x male orc x female reader (nsfw)
Male dom orc (Bresz) x female sub reader (nsfw)
Male changeling/fae (Mhorrin) x male reader (nsfw)
Male orc (Dhurak) x reader (sfw)  *Starfall Springs*
Male tiefling (Killygren) x male reader (nsfw) *Starfall Springs*
Male orc (Noah) x reader (nsfw) *Starfall Springs*
Male reptilian fae (Adan) x female reader (nsfw) *commission*
Female selkie (Bess) x female reader (nsfw) *Mermay/Starfall Springs*
Male merman (Connor) x male reader (nsfw) *Mermay/Starfall Springs*
Male octomer (Caspian) x reader (nsfw) *Mermay/Starfall Springs*
Male hermit crab mer (Leo) x reader (nsfw) *Mermay/Starfall Springs*
Male selkie (Dennek) x reader (very light nsfw) *Mermay*
Male each-uisge/sea kelpie (Rhion) x reader (sfw) *Mermay*
Mothman (Fitz) x male reader (sfw) *Starfall Springs*
Male vampire (Ruben) x trans male character (sfw) Part One, Part Two and a slight AU feel extract (reader insert, sfw)
Male white tiger rakshasa x female reader (sfw)
Male scarred fae (Winter) x female reader (Violet from Brenn’s story - see above) (nsfw)
Male samebito (sharkman) (Tai) x male reader (sfw)
Male centaur (Jaime) x reader (nsfw) *Starfall Springs*
Male lizardfolk (Bik) x female reader (nsfw) (commission)
Male lich (Rhae) x reader (nsfw) *Starfall Springs*
Male half-orc (Tamas) x male character (Josslyn) (nsfw) *Orctober*
Male orc (Arikh) x male human (nsfw, D/s) *Orctober*
Female orc (Rakasha) x male character (Virion) (nsfw)
Male ice orc (Reshi) x female reader (nsfw) *Orctober*
*Male triton Fae (Kaerio) x female character (sfw) *commission*
Male fae (Winter) x female character (sfw) *modern policeman AU for Winter!*
Mute male siren x female reader (nsfw) *Starfall Springs*
Male Uruk-hai x reader (nsfw) *Orctober*
Patreon - Browse my Masterlist here
More stories below the cut to save scrolling thumbs... 52 stories and drabbles in total... plus all the Discord drabbles which aren’t listed on there.
Monthly exclusives
January - male kelpie x female reader (Dolen) (nsfw)
February - male living armour x female reader (Berion) (nsfw)
March - android x reader (Iru) (sfw)
April - non-binary alien x reader (Mith'in) (nsfw)
May - male shark mer x reader (Requius) (nsfw)
June - male naga x male mummy x reader (Vashett & Akah) (nsfw)
July - male naga x female reader (Nila) (sfw)
August - male minotaur x female reader (Will - *Starfall Springs*)
September - non-binary demon x reader (Ilya, *Starfall Springs*) (nsfw)
October - non binary leshy/leshen x reader (nsfw)
November - patrons not charged, no story
December - interdimensional eldritch entity x reader ('the Dark' *Starfall Springs*) (nsfw)
Weekly Episodes of Embers, a dragon shifter romance (x reader)
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Orctober specials 2019 - using the Inktober 'official' prompts
1. 'Ring' - male orc (Liam) x plus size female reader (very light nsfw)
2. 'Mindless - female orc (Khara) x male reader (nsfw)
3. 'Bait' - male half-orc (Tamas) x male character (Josslyn) (nsfw)
5. 'Husky' - female orc (Renasa) x female reader (sfw)
6. 'Build' - male half-orc (Tamas) x male character (Josslyn) (sfw)
10 'Pattern' - male orc (Arikh ) x male human (Kit) (D/s & nsfw)
Giveaway drabbles *New Category*
#1 - male orc x f/nb reader (domestic, nsfw fluff)
#2 - Male naga x female reader (sfw)
#3 - Storniel x Rashel x reader (nsfw)
#4 - male hellhound x reader (sfw)
#5 - Astriah (arachne) x male reader (nsfw)
#6  - male reader x male centaur (light nsfw)
#7  - female reader x male gnoll  (sfw)
#8 - male shadowborne fae x female reader (nsfw)
#9 - male mershark x female reader (nsfw)  
#10 - female banshee x male orc (nsfw)
#11  - male mothman x male reader (sfw and fluffy)
#12 -  genderfluid demon x reader (hurt/comfort nsfw)
#13 - male shadowborne (Shaer) x female reader (sfw and fluffy)
#14 - non binary shadow monster x ace female reader (sfw)
#15 - shy male scholar x female albino dragon (nsfw)
#16 - male orc x female reader (sfw/comfort)
#17 - male werewolf x female reader (sfw/fluff)
#18 - male naga x nb reader (sfw/fluff)
#19 - male drider x reader (sfw)
#20 - male melanistic chimera x female reader (sfw)
and a few more doodles and drawings and character profiles, plus endless polls etc. which I didn’t pop onto this list!!
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monstersandmaw · 4 years
Note
Do you know of any terato blogs that write from the perspective of the monster? Or role players? I recently remembered seeing one a while ago, but I can't remember the name and can't seem to find it :( I hope you have a nice day/night and sorry if this bothered you :x
Not a bother at all, anon! :)
Check the exophilia masterlist which @thetravelerwrites ​painstakingly put together (linked on her blog), because some of those blogs might have what you’re looking for.
My only four (I think???) stories from the monster’s point of view are:
Swamp king short fic (sfw)
Female gnoll reader x female human knight (Leä) (commission) 
Lich, no gender mentioned, monster’s POV - prompt “Housekeeper wanted; living or dead”. Sfw
Male vampire (Ruben) x trans male character (sfw) Part One, Part Two and a slight AU feel extract (reader insert, sfw)
Good luck in your quest, and I hope you have a good day/night wherever you are too!
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monstersandmaw · 4 years
Text
Monsters & Maw Patreon-Exclusive Masterlist
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I’ve done these before, but here’s the most up to date list of everything that’s up on my Patreon, 99% of which is not on Tumblr.
Updated 01.10.2019 (UK date format)
Patreon Exclusive Monthly Stories
2018
May – male naga x male reader (Chu’a) (nsfw)
June – male alien x reader (Kirthn’hul/ ‘Kith’) (nsfw)
July – male fairy x male reader (Jinx) (nsfw)
August – cherry blossom dryad x female reader (Cera) (nsfw)
September – male tiger rakshasa x female reader (Bhisaj) (nsfw)
October – male satyr x female reader (Kieran) Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
October BONUS – Orctoberfest female orc x female reader (Khasha)
November - demon prince x reader (nsfw)
December - female kitsune x female reader (Yuki) (nsfw)
2019
January - male kelpie x female reader (Dolen) (nsfw)
February - male living armour x female reader (Berion) (nsfw)
March - android x reader (Iru) (sfw)
April - non-binary alien x reader (Mith'in) (nsfw)
May - male shark mer x reader (Requius) (nsfw)
June - male naga x male mummy x reader (Vashett & Akah) (nsfw)
July - male naga x female reader (Nila) (sfw)
August - male minotaur x female reader (Will - *Starfall Springs*)
September - non-binary demon x reader (Ilya, *Starfall Springs*) (nsfw)
Weekly Episodes of Embers, a dragon shifter romance (x reader)
One, Two , Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine,
Orctober specials 2019 - using the Inktober 'official' prompts
1. 'Ring' - male orc (Liam) x plus size female reader (very light nsfw)
Giveaway drabbles *New Category*
#1 - male orc x f/nb reader (domestic, nsfw fluff)
#2 - Male naga x female reader (sfw)
#3 - Storniel x Rashel x reader (nsfw)
#4 - male hellhound x reader (sfw)
#5 - Astriah (arachne) x male reader (nsfw)
#6  - male reader x male centaur (light nsfw)
#7  - female reader x male gnoll  (sfw)
#8 - male shadowborne fae x female reader (nsfw)
#9 - male mershark x female reader (nsfw)  
#10 - female banshee x male orc (nsfw)
#11  - male mothman x male reader (sfw and fluffy)
#12 -  genderfluid demon x reader (hurt/comfort nsfw)
Twelve Days of Monstermas Special Series!
Day One: (male reindeer cervitaur x reader - NSFW)
Day Two (female gargoyle x male reader - NSFW)
Day Three (trans female tiefling x female reader - NSFW)
Day Four (male alien x reader - NSFW)
Day Five (male octomer x reader - NSFW)
Day Six (female demon x male reader - NSFW)
Day Seven (male orc x male reader - NSFW)
Day Eight (male minotaur x female character - SFW)  
Day Nine (female rakshasi x reader - SFW)
Day Ten (non binary avian x reader - NSFW)
Day Eleven (female banshee x reader - SFW)
Day Twelve (male yeti x female reader - NSFW)
Commissions *New Category* (also posted to Tumblr)
Female space pirate captain x buff female reader (nsfw)
Male minotaur (Axel) x female reader (sfw)
Prince of the Court of Night (Naeryn) x female reader (nsfw)
Prince of the Court of Night (Naeryn) x female reader - Part Two (nsfw)
Male shadowborne warrior (Shaer) x female reader (nsfw)
Male reptilian fae (Adan) x female reader (nsfw)
Starfall Springs *New Category*
Introductory post with logo art
Preliminary map of Starfall Springs
Early list of characters so far...
Centaur farmer concept art and info (Jaime)
Orc blacksmith concept art and info (Dhurak)
Skeletal lich mage concept art and info (Rhae)
Woodcutter and carpenter minotaur concept art and info (Will)
Tiefling innkeeper concept art and info (Killygren)
Story #1 Dhurak (male orc x reader, sfw)
Story #2 Killygren (male tiefling x male reader, nsfw)
Story #3 Noah (male orc x reader, nsfw)
Male vampire & male kelpie best friends (sfw fluffy)
Fae Realm *New Category*
Jaerhin - Prince of the Court of Fire aesthetic and info
Inikeira - Princess of the Court of Air aesthetic and info
'Poster boy' for the Fae Realm doodle
Fae Courts - 'wiki' style info post
Ystlynn - younger son of the Court of Spring, aesthetic and info
Cirdan - Prince of the Court of Winter, drawing and Fae Realm info
Fae seer/priest aesthetic, ideas, and fae world concepts  
Concept art and drawings
Volcanic elemental drawing
Half orc cinnamon roll (Tuk)
Hades on his way back from the baths...
'Creepy' kelpie (Dolen) doodle
Claude - Belgian draft centaur boy
Náin (or Nathan) Cadash - dwarven Inquisitor
Deor - Legolas' fictional son
Eldarion drawings and info
Eldarion and Deor
Pensive Hades
Finnok the goblin sketch and story concept
Dullahan sticker
'Really?' Persephone pins a flower in Hades' hair
Persephone playing 'fetch' with Cerberus
Persephone doodle
Hades portrait
Hades studies
Hades doodle + ramblings
Bashir - lich boy
Luai - demon guardian
Mauhir - male uruk hai concept drawing
Laughing triton drawing - different style
Female tiefling
Faun drawing
Storniel - male antlered reaper demon from November's story
Male satyr - Kieran
Male satyr - Kieran (Inktober drawing)
Fen’an – non-binary desire demon/incubus (to be renamed...)
Gawain – faun boy
Effie – female moth monster
Japanese-inspired shadow demon
Lokh – male living wraith
Male cervitaur (deer centaur) + bonus story snippet
Male mutant (nsfw)
Kith – alien from June’s story
Laughing triton
Character Profiles and story concepts
Blind Seelie Prince aesthetic and long, multi-part story plan
Female undead house of horrors actress - aesthetic and story plan
Male police centaur - Josh
Female orc - Amber
Modern day police minotaur - Soli
Fenan, duskan elf - massive character bio, background, and story plan
Female zebra warrior centaur
Genderfluid näcken -  Ealjá
Spooky haunted locket
Black fox kitsune - Garrett
Symbiote aesthetic
Minotaur ‘lord of the manor’ - Edmund
Male mutant aesthetic and story concept
Hydra girlfriend aesthetic
Winter and Violet's aesthetic (characters from gnoll boy Brenn’s story)
Ice fae/demon aesthetic
Centipede alien aesthetic (nsfw + oviposition!)
Male mummy x reader (sfw) extract and aesthetic)
Male kitsune aesthetic and info
Android/human hybrid (Calum Fairburn) aesthetic and background
Necromancer lich
Modern witch aesthetic (Phia from orc boy Lasca’s story)
Selkie boyfriend aesthetic
Male tiefling doctor and story notes (long)
Ghosti’s extensive headcanons on fairies…
Jackal-headed/'Anubis' monster aesthetic and ideas
Whale shark girlfriend aesthetic (Rhinca) and story notes
Female eldritch horror aesthetic
Big modern orc boy aesthetic and ideas
Patreon Exclusives
New series, premiering in June - Hunter's Choice - a mlm vampire x hunter action adventure story!
Non-binary trickster spirit (Locke) x reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (nsfw)
Male goblin x female reader (Valentine's special)
Male wraith x reader Part One (sfw) (Lokh) Part Two (sfw)
Male mutant x male reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (sfw)
Male vampire x trans male reader (sfw) long WIP extract
Prince and his bodyguard (sfw) (mlm; long, non-terato story extract)
Writer's Corner - Blog posts on Creativity
Writer's Corner #1 on Writer's Block
Writer's Corner #2 on 5 types of writer and their quirky habits
Novels: ‘Weaver of Threads’, ‘Riftgard’, and other extracts
Weaver of Threads - extract, in which Tomas and Kai discuss soul-bonding
Riftgard Chapter One (full!)
Weaver of Threads – Chapter One (extract) + aesthetic
Weaver of Threads - General Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads - Schools of Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads – World Map
Weaver of Threads - Map of Varden City
Weaver of Threads - Schematic of the Black Citadel
Leirym (prologue)
Other (including video content!)
Tour of the Workshop with Ghosti - Video!
Ghosti answers your questions in a video!
Japanese metalwork blog - making and carving a tsuba
Metalwork update – ginkgo tsuba
A glimpse into the workshop and command central!
For access to all this and future works, become a Patreon supporter!
93 notes · View notes
monstersandmaw · 5 years
Text
Monsters & Maw’s Updated Patreon Masterlist
Tumblr media
This list is public and free for anyone to browse, so you don’t need to be a Patron to at least see what’s up there. Hopefully something might entice you! This list comprises everything that is unique to Monsters and Maw’s Patreon.
It does not include early release posts which are also found on Tumblr, links to polls and updates, paid commissions, or super tiny sneak peaks. Please let me know if any of the links aren't working.
Updated 06.08.2019 (UK date format)
Patreon Exclusive Monthly Stories
2018
May – male naga x male reader (Chu’a) (nsfw)
June – male alien x reader (Kirthn’hul/ ‘Kith’) (nsfw)
July – male fairy x male reader (Jinx) (nsfw)
August – cherry blossom dryad x female reader (Cera) (nsfw)
September – male tiger rakshasa x female reader (Bhisaj) (nsfw)
October – male satyr x female reader (Kieran) Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
October BONUS – Orctoberfest female orc x female reader (Khasha)
November - demon prince x reader (nsfw)
December - female kitsune x female reader (Yuki) (nsfw)
2019
January - male kelpie x female reader (Dolen) (nsfw)
February - male living armour x female reader (Berion) (nsfw)
March - android x reader (Iru) (sfw)
April - non-binary alien x reader (Mith'in) (nsfw)
May - male shark mer x reader (Requius) (nsfw)
June - male naga x male mummy x reader (Vashett & Akah) (nsfw)
July - male naga x female reader (Nila) (sfw)
August - male minotaur x female reader (Will - *Starfall Springs*)
Twelve Days of Monstermas Special Series!
Day One: (male reindeer cervitaur x reader - NSFW)
Day Two (female gargoyle x male reader - NSFW)
Day Three (trans female tiefling x female reader - NSFW)
Day Four (male alien x reader - NSFW)
Day Five (male octomer x reader - NSFW)
Day Six (female demon x male reader - NSFW)
Day Seven (male orc x male reader - NSFW)
Day Eight (male minotaur x female character - SFW)  
Day Nine (female rakshasi x reader - SFW)
Day Ten (non binary avian x reader - NSFW)
Day Eleven (female banshee x reader - SFW)
Day Twelve (male yeti x female reader - NSFW)
Commissions *New Category*
Female space pirate captain x buff female reader (nsfw)
Male minotaur (Axel) x female reader (sfw)
Prince of the Court of Night (Naeryn) x female reader (nsfw)
Prince of the Court of Night (Naeryn) x female reader - Part Two (nsfw)
Male shadowborne warrior (Shaer) x female reader (nsfw)
Male reptilian fae (Adan) x female reader (nsfw)
Starfall Springs *New Category*
Introductory post with logo art
Preliminary map of Starfall Springs
Early list of characters so far...
Centaur farmer concept art and info (Jaime)
Orc blacksmith concept art and info (Dhurak)
Skeletal lich mage concept art and info (Rhae)
Woodcutter and carpenter minotaur concept art and info (Will)
Tiefling innkeeper concept art and info (Killygren)
Story #1 Dhurak (male orc x reader, sfw)
Story #2 Killygren (male tiefling x male reader, nsfw)
Story #3 Noah (male orc x reader, nsfw)
Male vampire & male kelpie best friends (sfw fluffy)
Fae Realm *New Category*
Jaerhin - Prince of the Court of Fire aesthetic and info
Inikeira - Princess of the Court of Air aesthetic and info
'Poster boy' for the Fae Realm doodle
Fae Courts - 'wiki' style info post
Ystlynn - younger son of the Court of Spring, aesthetic and info
Cirdan - Prince of the Court of Winter, drawing and Fae Realm info
Fae seer/priest aesthetic, ideas, and fae world concepts  
Concept art and drawings
Volcanic elemental drawing
Half orc cinnamon roll (Tuk)
Hades on his way back from the baths...
'Creepy' kelpie (Dolen) doodle
Claude - Belgian draft centaur boy
Náin (or Nathan) Cadash - dwarven Inquisitor
Deor - Legolas' fictional son
Eldarion drawings and info
Eldarion and Deor
Pensive Hades
Finnok the goblin sketch and story concept
Dullahan sticker
'Really?' Persephone pins a flower in Hades' hair
Persephone playing 'fetch' with Cerberus
Persephone doodle
Hades portrait
Hades studies
Hades doodle + ramblings
Bashir - lich boy
Luai - demon guardian
Mauhir - male uruk hai concept drawing
Laughing triton drawing - different style
Female tiefling
Faun drawing
Storniel - male antlered reaper demon from November's story
Male satyr - Kieran
Male satyr - Kieran (Inktober drawing)
Fen’an – non-binary desire demon/incubus (to be renamed...)
Gawain – faun boy
Effie – female moth monster
Japanese-inspired shadow demon
Lokh – male living wraith
Male cervitaur (deer centaur) + bonus story snippet
Male mutant (nsfw)
Kith – alien from June’s story
Laughing triton
Character Profiles and story concepts
Blind Seelie Prince aesthetic and long, multi-part story plan
Female undead house of horrors actress - aesthetic and story plan
Male police centaur - Josh
Female orc - Amber
Modern day police minotaur - Soli
Fenan, duskan elf - massive character bio, background, and story plan
Female zebra warrior centaur
Genderfluid näcken -  Ealjá
Spooky haunted locket
Black fox kitsune - Garrett
Symbiote aesthetic
Minotaur ‘lord of the manor’ - Edmund
Male mutant aesthetic and story concept
Hydra girlfriend aesthetic
Winter and Violet's aesthetic (characters from gnoll boy Brenn’s story)
Ice fae/demon aesthetic
Centipede alien aesthetic (nsfw + oviposition!)
Male mummy x reader (sfw) extract and aesthetic)
Male kitsune aesthetic and info
Android/human hybrid (Calum Fairburn) aesthetic and background
Necromancer lich
Modern witch aesthetic (Phia from orc boy Lasca’s story)
Selkie boyfriend aesthetic
Male tiefling doctor and story notes (long)
Ghosti’s extensive headcanons on fairies…
Jackal-headed/'Anubis' monster aesthetic and ideas
Whale shark girlfriend aesthetic (Rhinca) and story notes
Female eldritch horror aesthetic
Big modern orc boy aesthetic and ideas
Giveaway drabbles *New Category*
#1 - male orc x f/nb reader (domestic, nsfw fluff)
#2 - Male naga x female reader (sfw)
#3 - Storniel x Rashel x reader (nsfw)
Patreon Exclusives
New series, premiering in June - Hunter's Choice - a mlm vampire x hunter action adventure story!
Non-binary trickster spirit (Locke) x reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (nsfw)
Male goblin x female reader (Valentine's special)
Male wraith x reader Part One (sfw) (Lokh) Part Two (sfw)
Male mutant x male reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (sfw)
Male vampire x trans male reader (sfw) long WIP extract
Prince and his bodyguard (sfw) (mlm; long, non-terato story extract)
Writer's Corner - Blog posts on Creativity
Writer's Corner #1 on Writer's Block
Writer's Corner #2 on 5 types of writer and their quirky habits
Novels: ‘Weaver of Threads’, ‘Riftgard’, and other extracts
Weaver of Threads - extract, in which Tomas and Kai discuss soul-bonding
Riftgard Chapter One (full!)
Weaver of Threads – Chapter One (extract) + aesthetic
Weaver of Threads - General Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads - Schools of Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads – World Map
Weaver of Threads - Map of Varden City
Weaver of Threads - Schematic of the Black Citadel
Leirym (prologue)
Other (including video content!)
Tour of the Workshop with Ghosti - Video!
Ghosti answers your questions in a video!
Japanese metalwork blog - making and carving a tsuba
Metalwork update – ginkgo tsuba
A glimpse into the workshop and command central!
Rewards include access to our private Discord server, early release on all Tumblr stories, monthly exclusive stories, character bios and drawings, polls, and relatively freequent Discord drabbles/free requests.
85 notes · View notes
monstersandmaw · 5 years
Text
Ghosti’s Patreon Masterlist (edit ALL LINKS NOW DEAD)
Ok, here is a link to everything that is unique to Monsters and Maw’s Patreon. Buckle up, it’s a long post I’m afraid.
Tumblr media
This does not include early release posts which are also found on Tumblr, links to polls and updates, or super tiny sneak peaks. Please let me know if any of the links aren’t working. I will tag this on Patreon as ‘masterlist’ and it should appear in the 'featured tags’ area on my 'posts’ page, and it will be linked in my Patreon bio.
(Almost all of this is available to those on the Pixies and Goblins tier and up)
When I hit 100 patrons I will be doing a sticker and handwritten postcard giveaway to those who want them!
Monthly Stories
2018
May – male naga x male reader (Chu’a) (nsfw)
June – male alien x reader (Kirthn’hul/ ‘Kith’) (nsfw)
July – male fairy x male reader (Jinx) (nsfw)
August – cherry blossom dryad x female reader (Cera) (nsfw)
September – male tiger rakshasa x female reader (Bhisaj) (nsfw)
October – male satyr x female reader (Kieran) Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
October BONUS – Orctoberfest female orc x female reader (Khasha)
November - demon prince x reader (nsfw)
December - female kitsune x female reader (Yuki) (nsfw)
2019
January - male kelpie x female reader (Dolen) (nsfw)
February - male living armour x female reader (Berion) (nsfw)
March - android x reader (Iru) (sfw)
Twelve Days of Monstermas Special Series!
Day One: (male reindeer cervitaur x reader - NSFW)
Day Two (female gargoyle x male reader - NSFW)
Day Three (trans female tiefling x female reader - NSFW)
Day Four (male alien x reader - NSFW)
Day Five (male octomer x reader - NSFW)
Day Six (female demon x male reader - NSFW)
Day Seven (male orc x male reader - NSFW)
Day Eight (male minotaur x female character - SFW)  
Day Nine (female rakshasi x reader - SFW)
Day Ten (non binary avian x reader - NSFW)
Day Eleven (female banshee x reader - SFW)
Day Twelve (male yeti x female reader - NSFW)
Commissions *New Category*
Female space pirate captain x buff female reader (nsfw)
Male minotaur (Axel) x female reader (sfw)
Prince of the Court of Night (Naeryn) x female reader (nsfw)
Prince of the Court of Night (Naeryn) x female reader - Part Two (nsfw)
Male shadowborne warrior (Shaer) x female reader (nsfw)
Male reptilian fae (Adan) x female reader (nsfw)
Starfall Springs *New Category*
Introductory post with logo art
Preliminary map of Starfall Springs
Early list of characters so far...
Centaur farmer concept art and info (Jaime)
Orc blacksmith concept art and info (Dhurak)
Fae Realm *New Category*
Jaerhin - Prince of the Court of Fire aesthetic and info
Inikeira - Princess of the Court of Air aesthetic and info
'Poster boy' for the Fae Realm doodle
Fae Courts - 'wiki' style info post
Ystlynn - younger son of the Court of Spring, aesthetic and info
Cirdan - Prince of the Court of Winter, drawing and Fae Realm info
Fae seer/priest aesthetic, ideas, and fae world concepts  
Concept art and drawings
'Creepy' kelpie (Dolen) doodle
Claude - Belgian draft centaur boy
Náin (or Nathan) Cadash - dwarven Inquisitor
Deor - Legolas' fictional son
Eldarion drawings and info
Eldarion and Deor
Pensive Hades
Finnok the goblin sketch and story concept
Dullahan sticker
'Really?' Persephone pins a flower in Hades' hair
Persephone playing 'fetch' with Cerberus
Persephone doodle
Hades portrait
Hades studies
Hades doodle + ramblings
Bashir - lich boy
Luai - demon guardian
Mauhir - male uruk hai concept drawing
Laughing triton drawing - different style
Female tiefling
Faun drawing
Storniel - male antlered reaper demon from November's story
Male satyr - Kieran
Male satyr - Kieran (Inktober drawing)
Fen’an – non-binary desire demon/incubus (to be renamed...)
Gawain – faun boy
Effie – female moth monster
Japanese-inspired shadow demon
Lokh – male living wraith
Male cervitaur (deer centaur) + bonus story snippet
Male mutant (nsfw)
Kith – alien from June’s story
Laughing triton
Character Profiles and story concepts
Blind Seelie Prince aesthetic and long, multi-part story plan
Female undead house of horrors actress - aesthetic and story plan
Male police centaur - Josh
Female orc - Amber
Modern day police minotaur - Soli
Fenan, duskan elf - massive character bio, background, and story plan
Female zebra warrior centaur
Genderfluid näcken -  Ealjá
Spooky haunted locket
Black fox kitsune - Garrett
Symbiote aesthetic
Minotaur ‘lord of the manor’ - Edmund
Male mutant aesthetic and story concept
Hydra girlfriend aesthetic
Winter and Violet's aesthetic (characters from gnoll boy Brenn’s story)
Ice fae/demon aesthetic
Centipede alien aesthetic (nsfw + oviposition!)
Male mummy x reader (sfw) extract and aesthetic)
Male kitsune aesthetic and info
Android/human hybrid (Calum Fairburn) aesthetic and background
Necromancer lich
Modern witch aesthetic (Phia from orc boy Lasca’s story)
Selkie boyfriend aesthetic
Male tiefling doctor and story notes (long)
Ghosti’s extensive headcanons on fairies…
Jackal-headed/'Anubis' monster aesthetic and ideas
Whale shark girlfriend aesthetic (Rhinca) and story notes
Female eldritch horror aesthetic
Big modern orc boy aesthetic and ideas
Patreon Exclusives
Male goblin x female reader (Valentine's special)
Male wraith x reader Part One (sfw) (Lokh) Part Two (sfw)
Male mutant x male reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (sfw)
Male vampire x trans male reader (sfw) long WIP extract
Prince and his bodyguard (sfw) (mlm; long, non-terato story extract)
Novels: ‘Weaver of Threads’, ‘Riftgard’, and other extracts
Riftgard Chapter One (full!)
Weaver of Threads – Chapter One (extract) + aesthetic
Weaver of Threads - General Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads - Schools of Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads – World Map
Weaver of Threads - Map of Varden City
Weaver of Threads - Schematic of the Black Citadel
Leirym (prologue)
Other (including video content!)
Tour of the Workshop with Ghosti - Video!
Ghosti answers your questions in a video!
Japanese metalwork blog - making and carving a tsuba
Metalwork update – ginkgo tsuba
A glimpse into the workshop and command central!
112 notes · View notes
monstersandmaw · 5 years
Text
Ghosti’s Patreon Masterlist - *updated*
Tumblr media
Ok, here is a link to everything that is unique to Monsters and Maw’s Patreon.
This does not include early release posts which are also found on Tumblr, links to polls and updates, or super tiny sneak peaks. Please let me know if any of the links aren't working. I will tag this on Patreon as 'masterlist' and it should appear in the 'featured tags' area on my 'posts' page, and it will be linked in my Patreon bio.
(Almost all of this is available to those on the Pixies and Goblins tier and up)
Updated 05.01.2019 (UK date format)
Monthly Stories
2018
May – male naga x male reader (Chu’a) (nsfw)
June – male alien x reader (Kirthn’hul/ ‘Kith’) (nsfw)
July – male fairy x male reader (Jinx) (nsfw)
August – cherry blossom dryad x female reader (Cera) (nsfw)
September – male tiger rakshasa x female reader (Bhisaj) (nsfw)
October – male satyr x female reader (Kieran) Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five
October BONUS – Orctoberfest female orc x female reader (Khasha)
November - demon prince x reader (nsfw)
December - female kitsune x female reader (Yuki) (nsfw)
Twelve Days of Monstermas Special Series!
Day One: (male reindeer cervitaur x reader - NSFW)
Day Two (female gargoyle x male reader - NSFW)
Day Three (trans female tiefling x female reader - NSFW)
Day Four (male alien x reader - NSFW)
Day Five (male octomer x reader - NSFW)
Day Six (female demon x male reader - NSFW)
Day Seven (male orc x male reader - NSFW)
Day Eight (male minotaur x female character - SFW)  
Day Nine (female rakshasi x reader - SFW)
Day Ten (non binary avian x reader - NSFW)
Day Eleven (female banshee x reader - SFW)
Day Twelve (male yeti x female reader - NSFW)
Concept art and drawings
Claude - Belgian draft centaur boy
Náin (or Nathan) Cadash - dwarven Inquisitor
Deor - Legolas' fictional son
Eldarion drawings and info
Eldarion and Deor
Pensive Hades
Finnok the goblin sketch and story concept
Dullahan sticker
'Really?' Persephone pins a flower in Hades' hair
Persephone playing 'fetch' with Cerberus
Persephone doodle
Hades portrait
Hades studies
Hades doodle + ramblings
Bashir - lich boy
Luai - demon guardian
Mauhir - male uruk hai concept drawing
Laughing triton drawing - different style
Female tiefling
Faun drawing
Storniel - male antlered reaper demon from November's story
Male satyr - Kieran
Male satyr - Kieran (Inktober drawing)
Fen’an – non-binary desire demon/incubus (to be renamed...)
Gawain – faun boy
Effie – female moth monster
Japanese-inspired shadow demon
Lokh – male living wraith
Male cervitaur (deer centaur) + bonus story snippet
Male mutant (nsfw)
Kith – alien from June’s story
Laughing triton
Character Profiles and story concepts
Blind Seelie Prince aesthetic and long, multi-part story plan
Female undead house of horrors actress - aesthetic and story plan
Male police centaur - Josh
Female orc - Amber
Modern day police minotaur - Soli
Fenan, duskan elf - massive character bio, background, and story plan
Female zebra warrior centaur
Genderfluid näcken -  Ealjá
Spooky haunted locket
Black fox kitsune - Garrett
Symbiote aesthetic
Minotaur ‘lord of the manor’ - Edmund
Male mutant aesthetic and story concept
Hydra girlfriend aesthetic
Winter and Violet's aesthetic (characters from gnoll boy Brenn’s story)
Ice fae/demon aesthetic
Centipede alien aesthetic (nsfw + oviposition!)
Male mummy x reader (sfw) extract and aesthetic)
Male kitsune aesthetic and info
Android/human hybrid (Calum Fairburn) aesthetic and background
Necromancer lich
Modern witch aesthetic (Phia from orc boy Lasca’s story)
Selkie boyfriend aesthetic
Male tiefling doctor and story notes (long)
Ghosti’s extensive headcanons on fairies…
Jackal-headed/'Anubis' monster aesthetic and ideas
Whale shark girlfriend aesthetic (Rhinca) and story notes
Female eldritch horror aesthetic
Big modern orc boy aesthetic and ideas
Patreon Exclusives
Male wraith x reader Part One (sfw) (Lokh) Part Two (sfw)
Male mutant x male reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (sfw)
Male vampire x trans male reader (sfw) long WIP extract
Prince and his bodyguard (sfw) (mlm; long, non-terato story extract)
Novels: ‘Weaver of Threads’ and ‘Riftgard’
Riftgard Chapter One (full!)
Weaver of Threads – Chapter One (extract) + aesthetic
Weaver of Threads - General Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads - Schools of Magic 'wiki' style information post *story-spoiler-free*
Weaver of Threads – World Map
Weaver of Threads - Map of Varden City
Weaver of Threads - Schematic of the Black Citadel
Other
Tour of the Workshop with Ghosti - Video!
Japanese metalwork blog - making and carving a tsuba
Metalwork update – ginkgo tsuba
A glimpse into the workshop and command central!
72 notes · View notes
monstersandmaw · 5 years
Text
Ghosti’s Patreon Masterlist
Tumblr media
Ok, here is a link to everything that is unique to Monsters and Maw’s Patreon.
This does not include early release posts which are also found on Tumblr, links to polls and updates, or super tiny sneak peaks.. I will tag this on Patreon as 'masterlist' and it should appear in the 'featured tags' area on my Patreon 'posts' page, and it will be linked in my Patreon bio, and on my Tumblr too.
Updated 09.10.2018 (UK date format)
Monthly Stories
May – male naga x male reader (Chu’a) (nsfw)
June – male alien x reader (Kirthn’hul/ ‘Kith’) (nsfw)
July – male fairy x male reader (Jinx) (nsfw)
August – cherry blossom dryad x female reader (Cera) (nsfw)
September – male tiger rakshasa x female reader (Bhisaj) (nsfw)
October – male satyr x female reader (Kieran) Part One, Part Two
October BONUS – Orctoberfest female orc x female reader (Khasha)
Concept art and drawings
Male satyr - Kieran
Fen’an – non-binary desire demon/incubus
Gawain – faun boy
Effie – female moth monster
Japanese-inspired shadow demon
Lokh – male living wraith
Male cervitaur (deer centaur) + bonus story snippet
Male mutant (nsfw)
Kith – alien from June’s story
Character Profiles and story concepts
Minotaur ‘lord of the manor’ - Edmund
Male mutant aesthetic and story concept
Hydra girlfriend aesthetic
Winter and Violet's aesthetic (characters from gnoll boy Brenn’s story)
Ice fae/demon aesthetic
Centipede alien aesthetic (nsfw + oviposition!)
Male mummy x reader (sfw) extract and aesthetic)
Male kitsune aesthetic and info
Android/human hybrid (Calum Fairburn) aesthetic and background
Necromancer lich
Modern witch aesthetic (Phia from orc boy Lasca’s story)
Selkie boyfriend aesthetic
Male tiefling doctor and story notes (long)
Ghosti’s extensive headcanons on fairies…
Jackal-headed/'Anubis' monster aesthetic and ideas
Patreon Exclusives
Male wraith x reader Part One (sfw) (Lokh) Part Two (sfw)
Male mutant x male reader Part One (sfw) Part Two (sfw)
Male vampire x trans male reader (sfw) long WIP extract
Prince and his bodyguard (sfw) (mlm; long, non-terato story extract)
Novels: ‘Weaver of Threads’ and ‘Riftgard’
Riftgard Chapter One (full!)
Weaver of Threads – Chapter One (extract) + aesthetic
Weaver of Threads – World Map
Other
Metalwork update – ginkgo tsuba
A glimpse into the workshop and command central!
37 notes · View notes