#pair; Enoch x shio

[achilleid]

#FridayKissTag!!!

Shio turned to face her next enemy with a ragged scream, her blade a flicker of light in the darkness as the lumonium caught and splintered off what parts of its surface were not blackened with blood and gore.

It was not the thunk of flesh and the wet resistance of muscle that met her sword, but the solid, unmovable surface of another blade. Shio had not even the time to register the clang of metal as she drew her arm back and struck thrice more, the madness of battle, of survival, still thundering in the pulse of her temple.

Her breath nearly rushed from her lungs when at last her eyes registered who it was that met her blows– who parried them with the practiced ease of familiarity.

All at once the fight went from her arms. The sword clattered from her hand, her knees buckled and she would have hit the hard rock floor soundly were it not for his hands that relinquished their own steel to catch her.

“It’s you– it’s you…” Shio sobbed, hands curved into claws as she tore at Enoch’s shirt, at his arms, forcing herself up so she could look at his face. Warm, dark brown eyes met her own, wide and wild, the same exertion that panted through her own lungs heaving from his own.

“Are you hurt?”

His voice. His scent. His warmth. Things she had never thought she would miss now crashed against her so fiercely she cared nothing for her wounds. Nothing for her hurts. Only that he was here.

Shio shook her head, too overwhelmed to even try and form words. She slid her palm over his face, felt the coolness of his skin beneath her fingertips before seeking out the silky softness of his hair. Enoch was equally preoccupied, his own hands moving over her arms, her shoulders, eyes checking off each place she might be injured. She felt his sphere fall over her like a warm rain, cleansing the ache from her sore arms, the sting of cuts and at last finding the painful mass of bruises around her ribs.

“Oh Shio… three of your ribs are cracked,” Enoch said, his voice broke with a wince of sympathy, “And your shoulder…”

He had discovered the damage there no doubt from her resetting the joint.

“I will live,” Shio croaked and smiled crookedly up at him, hoping to make him laugh. Hoping to clear the storm clouds that thundered around him and darkened his eyes. Instead, he kissed her, brief but warm, on her lips.

He pulled back to speak against them, every word ticklish, “...Don’t ever do that again.”

“Fall into a chasm?”

“Leave me.”

In those two words was more than a simple request. Shio felt the weight of them, heavy and purposeful in the way he said them and the way he looked at her now with the face of a man whose heart had been hanging, halfway between whole and broken… waiting to know if she had lived or died.

“I will never leave you,” Shio whispered fiercely, watched as her words lit a flame behind Enoch’s eyes.

She kissed him. Bit him. Marked that promise into the soft yielding skin of his mouth. When she pulled back there was a demand there in her eyes. A question. Awakened from the daze her touch had left him in, Enoch at last seemed to understand what it was she wished to hear.

“...I believe you.”

#wip; epyllion #wip; empyrean #pair; Enoch x shio #Friday kiss tag #my writing #long post #I hated this when I first wrote it but now rereading months later like damn #shit bangin #this takes place in book two when they are venturing in the below and Shio ends up separated and falls through a cave in

[achilleid]

I love how Enoch and Shio’s romance was originally planned as very much a slow burn rivals to friends to enemies to lovers… and then it literally just became “two young people who obv are attracted to each other emotionally and physically proceed to be too Traumatized™ to overtly acknowledge this fact for 3/4th of the duology despite constantly exchanging dramatic professions of loyalty and devotion and oh yeah the k i s s i n g”

#pair; Enoch x Shio #wip; epyllion #these two literally out here in their own personal romantic drama #while everyone else is being normal and worried about ya know WAR #writeblr #Enoch was originally supposed to betray Shio and dip to the other side #but he looked me in the eyes and said ‘I simply will not’ #so that got thrown out but honestly it’s better that way #THEY KISS MULTIPLE TIMES AND JUST— #NEVER ACKNOWLEDGE IT FOR A REALLY LONG TIME

[achilleid]

#FridayKiss Tag Game!!!

Tagging: @faelanvance @ladywithalamp @reowrites @chazzawrites @blueinkblot and @thanatostouch (no pressure!)

I was tagged by @bebewrites so have Enoch and Shio’s first kiss~

“I…” Enoch began, his eyes moving from her eyes to her lips and back, “...accept your oath.”

There it was. No matter what happened now, Enoch was her king. She would keep this oath. She would honor it. She would not lose anyone else.

She kissed him once, lightly on the mouth. It was not meant to be anything more than an act of ceremony. A gesture blending Heng and Mavronian custom into one.

Shio had been kissed before. Cal was the first, a young Zenith boy who had done so when they were little more than children, play acting at love. There was Shugen when she was seventeen. They had spent seasons stealing away in shadowed corners, trading touches and kisses where no one could see. There had been Nikola too, cold and obliging, leaving her shivering and not in that tingling pleasant way she had heard other girls describe. Innocent. Safe. Passionless. That is how Shio would have described them each.

None of those words could express what kissing Enoch felt like.

It was as if she had broken the dam. The second kiss spilled forward in a rush as they both met in the middle. ​​It was every hot rush of adrenaline before a sword-fight. It was the heart-pounding mix of fear and power Shio had felt when she challenged him the first time, a memory that felt a lifetime ago.

Their lips slid from one kiss into the next, and the next, until her tongue was curled behind his teeth and his arms were locked around her. Enoch was everywhere. His sphere engulfing and somehow still sharing the same space as her own. She felt his influence pull through her veins, sliding through the valves of her heart as if he were memorizing every beat, every breath.

This…

Either from sensing her tension or for need of breath, Enoch drew back.

“... this is a terrible idea,” he whispered, awed. Somehow he was once again speaking aloud what she too was thinking.

“Yes,” Shio said, feeling the thunder of his pulse in time with her own. There was a pleasant tingling on her lips, a warmth curling and lancing through her core– a sharp pang. It was nice– distracting. It was hard to think of anything else when she was full with this feeling. She didn’t want to think of anything else. He held her face in his hands and brought her near again— so close when he spoke his lips brushed hers.

“…Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

“Are you cer—“

She kissed him— or rather bit him. Catching his bottom lip with an impatient nip. Whatever resolve Enoch had left faltered.

#tag game #writing excerpts #writeblr #wip; epyllion #pair; enoch x shio

[achilleid]

Rivals to begrudging friends to forced spouses to begrudging friends to lovers—

Tag list: @ladywithalamp @bebewrites @faelanvance @reowrites @twoseeds

“Why stay?”

It was as good of a time as any to ask. If he felt like being honest, let him be honest about this.

“You made your dislike of me known often enough. So why stay?”

“I told you before that wasn’t the case,” Enoch mumbled.

“Then why?”

“... I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Shio repeated flatly, “That’s not good enough.”

Enoch’s brow pinched. He pushed a hand roughly through his hair and huffed out a sigh.

“That’s the problem isn’t it?” he spat bitterly, “You’ve answered it yourself.”

“Is that what you think?”

“It’s what you think. It’s what all of you think.”

“Don’t tell me what I feel,” Shio snapped back, “You don’t know how I feel. You never asked me. You never even tried to know me or talk to me before all this. You– you laughed at me. Attacked me. Made me kneel to you.”

At the mention of what he had Ires do to her, Enoch looked away. He could not meet her eye even as he spoke.

“... you knew what I was. Don’t pretend it didn’t matter to you. Not when you used it against me. Not when you called me ‘bastard’ as surely as anyone else did.”

“Anything I ever did or said to you was in defense of myself,” Shio pressed, her voice raised, “What else would you have had me do?”

He said nothing.

“Do you think I genuinely care at all about that? It does not matter to me, Enoch,” Shio found now it was her turn to look away, “... it has never mattered. You are an incredible sanguis. You are clever, but above that you are intelligent. Tactical. And you can even be quite amusing when you aren’t being insufferable.”

Shio shook her head, “And when it mattered, you stood and you fought. Despite everything, you defended those Heng soldiers. You could have run, could have used the confusion to escape but you– you stayed.”

There was a stretch of silence. Shio did not dare look at him, not then.

“... of course I stayed,” Enoch said, his voice tight, “Of course I stayed. How could I not after–”

The ships of refugees. Their friends, their people– the stories they told of ash and smoke. Of the city of Argo– fallen.

“You are an ass, Enoch Volkov,” Shio said, a faint lit of humor in her voice, “... but you could be a good man. A good king.”

Shio looked up to find Enoch looking back at her, a wry smile on his lips. His dark eyes, always hard and sharp, appeared to her to have a gentleness in them– fondness even. She flushed under his gaze.

“Well– maybe.” she amended. He laughed.

“Even if I told you that wasn’t true, you would simply argue with me, wouldn’t you? Stubborn as you are,” Enoch said and crossed the distance between them, “Everything I’ve done has been for myself, has it not?”

He tilted his head slightly, tapping his index finger under Shio’s chin to get her to look up at him.

“Maybe I only stayed and fought because I have nowhere else to go.”

“Neither do I,” Shio countered. She didn’t know why, but it made something flicker across his expression. A small fracture. A tiny break.

“You are…” Enoch began, his voice fading in a sigh, “... so unbearably constant.”

“Which is just a nice way of calling me stubborn again.”

Enoch huffed another laugh to himself.

“I will wear on you eventually.”

“You wear on me now.”

“That’s marriage I suppose,” Enoch said with a feigned air of thoughtfulness, “Good thing I am so devastatingly handsome, yes?”

“Your attractiveness does not absolve you of all your less pleasant attributes.”

“So you agree, you think I am devastating,” Enoch grinned, delighted at his victory. Shio tried to ignore the heat inching up her neck.

“I agree to nothing.”

#writing excerpts #writing excerpt #writeblr #pair; enoch x shio #post fight banter~ #imagine they are both very tired and roughed up fhhh #this scene probably won’t appear until book two #wip; epyllion

[achilleid]

He kissed her, licked her blood from his lips and kissed her again.

There was that familiar pull in her ribs— as if he wanted to rend apart her chest and crawl inside. His sphere pulled and palmed at her veins as surely as his hands slid up her sides. He fisted her shirt in his hands, crushed her to his chest. Every stab of pain was precious proof they were here. They were alive. They were together.

Her hand trailed up from his chest to his throat. She let her fingertips card up the nape of his neck, silky black hair curled around her knuckles.

Shio leaned forward, pressed her mouth to his shoulder and bit. The fabric of his shirt was dry against her tongue, the body beneath warm and solid. She didn’t know why she had done it. She didn’t know why it felt right.

“Ow,” Enoch sighed, heavy and content.

#wip; epyllion #pair; Enoch x Shio #writing excerpts #i imagine it as a kiss that might happen after one of the bigger conflicts in the story #like after the attempted raid on her uncles house #kiss scene #romance scene #shios motif is a wolf and Enoch’s is a hare #so she has??? cuteness aggression LOL #or romance aggression whatever #she always wants to get her mouth on him— a fact Enoch makes jokes about

[achilleid]

He didn’t speak, breath held tight in his throat. A thousand expressions were working across his face, the tight resolve he held in his back and his shoulders fracturing and splintering down his spine until it seemed any moment he would simply split open.

“… I can not lose you.”

The words broke from his lips with a shaking exhale.

“You haven’t. You won’t.”

Not me stealing a line from one of my own fanfics to use in my other writing!!!

#writing excerpt #wip; epyllion #pair; enoch x shio

[achilleid]

#wip; epyllion #writing excerpts #writeblr #pair; enoch x shio