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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months

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When The World Is Crashing Down [Chapter 9: We’re Friends When You’re On Your Knees]

Series summary: Your family is House Celtigar, one of Rhaenyra’s wealthiest allies. In the aftermath of Rook’s Rest, Aemond unknowingly conscripts you to save his brother’s life. Now you are in the liar of the enemy, but your loyalties are quickly shifting…

Chapter warnings: Y'all, you are not ready for this one. Language, warfare, violence, serious injury, alcoholism/addiction, sexual content (18+), murder, Aemond "there are other Targaryens" Targaryen having feelings again (good ones?? not good ones?? both?? who knows bestie, not me!), an unexpected family reunion, must be the season of the witch... 👀

Series title is a lyrics from: "7 Minutes In Heaven" by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter title is a lyric from: "Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued" by Fall Out Boy.

Word count: 8.4k.

Link to chapter list: HERE.

Taglist (more in comments): @tinykryptonitewerewolf @lauraneedstochill @not-a-glad-gladiator @daenysx @babyblue711 @arcielee @at-a-rax-ia @bhanclegane @jvpit3rs @padfooteyes @marvelescvpe @travelingmypassion @darkenchantress @yeahright0h @poohxlove @trifoliumviridi @bloodyflowerrr @fan-goddess @devynsficrecs @flowerpotmage @thelittleswanao3 @seabasscevans @hiraethrhapsody @libroparaiso @echos-muses @st-eve-barnes @chattylurker @lm-txles @vagharnaur @moonlightfoxx @storiumemporium @insabecs @heliosscribbles @beautifulsweetschaos @namelesslosers @partnerincrime0 @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @yawneneytiri @marbles-posts @imsolence @maidmerrymint @backyardfolklore @nimaharchive @anxiousdaemon @under-the-aspen-tree @amiraisgoingthruit @dd122004dd @randomdragonfires @jetblack4real @joliettes

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You watch her from the shadows of the dungeons, rusted iron, phantom echoes of falling water, chilling drafts that come from nowhere and everywhere. She has not yet noticed you. She is beautiful, regal, arrogant, even as she sits gnawing on crusts of bread and the gristle of chicken bones, scraps that Lord Larys throws to her like she’s a pig nosing its way through a trough, an animal that is clever and yet condemned. And if she is livestock, then what are you? A creature of darkness, of nightfall, lethal and treacherous, a wolf or a bat or a spider. You step forward and into a ray of light that cuts across the stones like the path of a comet.

Baela gasps and drops the tibia she’d been working on, cracking it in two, sucking out the dead-blood marrow. Her wide-set, almond-shaped eyes catch on you. She is not afraid; you have never known Daemon Targaryen’s eldest daughter to be afraid of anything. She is fascinated.

“I’m sorry,” she says, crawling across the floor of her cell. She grips the metal bars and peers out at you, kneeling there like she’s praying. You suspect Baela has never prayed to anyone or anything. “I didn’t mean to almost burn you. I didn’t realize you were standing on the steps with him until after I’d given Moondancer the order. It all happened so quickly.”

You cannot appear to be angry. You have no reason to be angry if you are Aegon’s captive. “I take no offense. I wasn’t harmed.”

“No one had any idea the Usurper was here,” Baela says. Still her eyes are bright, entranced. “We believed Dragonstone to be vacant.”

Good. You give her a dismal smirk. “No. Not so vacant after all.”

“Are you with child yet?”

A bolt shoots down your spine like cold lightning. “What?”

“That’s what he’s trying to do, isn’t it?” Baela says. “He wants an heir from you. His wife is dead, his sons are dead. He couldn’t get his claws on me or Rhaena. But you can give him a Valyrian-blooded prince.”

Aegon has never mentioned having children with you. You don’t know if this means he doesn’t want them, or if he does not wish to place demands upon you, or if he is indifferent, or if he believes it to be impossible. “I have nothing to show for his efforts.”

“Has it been unspeakably awful?” And if Baela seeks to console, this is secondary to her personal interest; she is curious, she is absorbed. Her fingers close more tightly around the iron bars. “He’s a drunk, a degenerate. He’s vile. He’s deformed. Has he tortured you? Has he violated you in a hundred different ways? Does he tie you down, does he strike you, does he cut and bruise you?”

And this is the Blacks’ story, one they could never begin to suspect might be fiction: that you are a martyr, that Aegon is a monster. In place of an answer, you give Baela the treasures you have brought her. You pass them through the gaps between the bars: a bottle of ink, parchment, a quill with a point like a blade.

Baela takes these objects, amazed. “You can help me send a letter back to Harrenhal?”

“I don’t know if I will be able to get to the rookery. But I’ll try.”

“The Usurper allows you this much free rein?”

He trusts me. He loves me. He’s bedbound and in agony. “He’s rather distracted at the moment.”

“He’s dying, hopefully,” Baela says. She has already begun to write. And there’s a reptilian sort of coldness that is snaking deeper into you, constricting around your bones, gliding through the blood-slick chambers of your heart, too much a part of you to ever rip out. But now Baela’s face softens. She looks up dolefully. “Moondancer, she’s…she’s gone, isn’t she?”

You bow your head as if this is something tragic. “She did not survive Sunfyre’s attack.”

“Fucking beasts,” she seethes, resuming her writing. “When my father learns of this, he and Caraxes will come to rescue us. And he will burn the Usurper alive.” She finishes her letter, rolls up the parchment, and hands it back to you.

“How will Daemon know that you authored this and under no duress?”

“My signature,” Baela says, grinning. “I end all of my correspondence to him with Your ever-obedient daughter. It is a joke between us. If it was absent, he would notice. His suspicions would be aroused. That is how I would signal if I was ever forced to write to him against my will.”

There is dark satisfaction like a spell shimmering in your arteries, nerves, the void-black pupils of your eyes. You return her smile. “Perfect.”

“Don’t fear,” Baela tells you, and reaches through the rusted iron bars to clasp your hand. You fight the reflex to tear away from her, this woman who certainly maimed Aegon and might have killed him. You find yourself studying her, measuring her height and weight, calculating how much milk of the poppy it would take to end her life. “Cregan Stark is south of the Neck now. He will move heaven and earth to possess you, everyone knows that. Soon we will have Northmen marching through the Riverlands with Caraxes and Sheepstealer safeguarding them from above. And after the Riverlands they will be in the Reach, and then finally King’s Landing to stabilize the capital. The Usurper and Sunfyre cannot fight. Daeron is scarcely more than a boy. The Betrayers are avaricious, overconfident drunks. The Greens will be vanquished before winter.”

“And what about Vhagar?”

“Together, Caraxes and Sheepstealer can bring her down.” But there is doubt in Baela’s voice, yes, a vacillation that is rarely heard from her.

“I hope so,” you reply, one of countless lies.

You take Baela’s letter to the rookery, open it, examine it carefully for the subtleties of her handwriting: slopes and dots and lines. Then you get a fresh piece of parchment and painstakingly draft a very different message. Not a plea for help, but an assurance that all is well; not a summons to Dragonstone, but a confirmation that the castle was found to be unoccupied and is now held firmly by Baela and Moondancer.

And you end the letter before tying it to a leg of the raven trained to fly to Harrenhal:

Your ever-obedient daughter, Baela Targaryen

~~~~~~~~~~

“Please eat something, Your Grace. I beg you.” Lord Larys Strong’s face is creased with servile, attentive worry. On the plate before you is fresh, warm bread and a dish of salted butter. In your bowl is a crab soup thick with vegetables, the broth tomato-based and red like Autumn’s hair, like blood.

“I can’t.”

“Would you like me to bring you something else? I could have the chefs prepare roast chicken, or duck, or boar…”

“No.” You push the bowl of soup away. You and Larys are alone in the Great Hall, seated at the high table which presides over a silent, vacuous chamber. The room was built to resemble a dragon lying on its belly; the entranceway is its mouth, two massive doors edged with stone teeth. There are dragons everywhere, these talismans of Aegon’s house, these creatures that are monsters to some and saviors to others.

Larys studies you closely. His voice is tender. “Your Grace, please. Can I do anything for you?”

You consider him, an enigma that is useful and subtle and dogged in his loyalty. “What is it that binds you so faithfully to Alicent and her children, Lord Larys? House Strong was so favored by Rhaenyra. Her heirs were your blood, no matter how much she tried to deny it. You could have risen high in the Black Council. Make no mistake, I am very thankful for your service to the Greens. I am glad to count you among the greatest of our fortunes. But what inspired you to turn your coat?”

Larys smiles at you. He has eyes like rain, the wavy abundant brown hair of his spurned family. His hands rest on the handle of his cane. “Your eldest brother is an acclaimed swordsman.”

“Yes,” you agree, caught off-guard.

“And so was mine,” Larys says. “House Strong, is it any wonder what we valued most? My father loved Harwin. He was so fiercely proud of him. He was interested in him, he understood him. They would whisper to each other all through feasts, all through tourneys, conspiring, chortling, enmeshed in this synergy that left no air for anyone else to breathe.”

“And your father never understood you.” Just like Bartimos Celtigar overlooks Everett, a son gifted with books and quills instead of horses and swords. “Never even tried to.”

“It is a terrible thing to be in the midst of your family and yet feel alone.”

“It is,” you say, remembering the Blacks’ festivities in King’s Landing.

“Now Lyonel and Harwin Strong whisper to no one,” Larys says, his smile widening into a dark, victorious grin. “And I am the Master of Whisperers.”

You remember the words that Otto Hightower spoke to you as he waited for his execution in the dungeons of the Red Keep: These dark, contagious facets of life change us all. They ruins us. Time, heartache, violence. You become capable of inconceivable things. You would scheme and deceive. You would murder. “Do you ever regret it?” you ask Larys softly. Becoming a sinner, a killer, a kinslayer.

“Never,” he replies. “Dowager Queen Alicent was the first person to ever truly listen to me. To make me feel worth something. Worth anything. To advance her interests in every way possible…that cannot be an injustice. It is the cleanest kind of loyalty. And I have no doubt my sacrifices will be repaid. If the Greens triumph, that is. When this war is over, Alicent’s son must sit the Iron Throne.”

“You mean Aegon.”

“Yes, of course.” But something mournful passes over Larys’ face like a shadow; he peers down at his hands to hide this from you.

He doubts Aegon will live. He foresees Aemond or Daeron inheriting the throne instead. You stand from the table, your chair squealing shrilly against the stone floor. “We should bring the king his supper,” you tell Larys. “He needs his strength.”

Aegon does not like you to be there when the maesters prod at him, scrub his wounds, rebandage his shattered legs. You were once his healer, yes, but now he believes you to be his wife. He does not want to be your patient. He does not want you to see him as a wounded man writhing in bed, as someone helpless, pathetic, weak, doomed.

The maesters are just finishing when you arrive with a tray of buttered bread and fresh soup, steam rising from the bowl of red like entrails that litter the earth once a battle has ended. The maesters are gathering up bloody strips of linen to be burned. Aegon is sobbing; his silver hair hangs in chaotic waves, both hands cover his face.

Your voice is hushed and heartbroken. “Aegon…”

“No, I’m okay,” he says, sniffling, mopping the tears from his cheeks with his bare palms. Then he reaches out to you. “Come here, come here, come here.”

You go to him, sliding the tray onto his bedside table until it clinks against the glass bottles there: rose oil, red wine, milk of the poppy. You climb onto the bed and Aegon’s arms circle around your waist, pulling you in closer as he buries his face in the warmth of your chest, your throat, covering you in hurried, imprecise kisses. Dimly, you wonder what he tastes when he breathes you in; you wonder what colors bloom in the sunless passages of his lungs.

“I missed you,” he murmurs. You can feel the dampness of his tears on your bare skin, the roughness of his scars.

“I was only gone for a few hours.”

“Too long,” he says. “Far too long. How’s Sunfyre?”

“He’s down on the beach, Your Grace,” Larys answers from the doorway where he has materialized like stars at dusk.

“Is he eating? Ambulatory? Wading in the water?”

��He’s…” Lord Larys hesitates. “He seems to be in a great deal of discomfort.” And yes, you know this to be true: Sunfyre the Golden’s wings hang in shreds, his wounds are inflamed with infection, and there is something wrong with him inside as well, a wheezing when he inhales, blood that seeps from his nostrils and his jaws. There’s nothing anybody can do for him. No one can touch him but Aegon, and Aegon can’t leave his bed.

Aegon says to Larys, low and sinister: “I want Baela dead. I want her burned.”

“She is far more valuable to you alive, Your Grace.”

“I am the king and I wish her to die.”

“Corlys Velaryon is her grandsire,” Larys implores. “If he discovers you executed Baela, he may recommit himself to Rhaenyra’s side. He may launch his own rebellion even after Rhaenyra is defeated. If you wish to win and keep the Iron Throne, I advise you to spare her.”

Aegon sighs and glares out the window that overlooks the Narrow Sea, his arms still linked around your waist. You begin to weave his braid for him. “Aegon,” you say gently. “We’ve brought you supper. Please eat it.”

“I’m afraid I’m too nauseated by my own inadequacy. Perhaps later.”

“You want to be well again. And you will be. But you have to eat.”

“I really don’t think I can.”

“Aegon, please.”

“Well…” He glances over at the bowl of soup and then gives you a mischievous smirk. “I suppose nothing tastes better than a crab, does it? Particularly when it is served in bed.”

“Or on the floor of a library.” You smile and kiss him: his pale face, his trembling lips. You finish his tiny braid like a silver chain and tuck it behind his ear. Then you pour him a cup of milk of the poppy, just one pearl-white splash, just enough to sand the serrated edges off his anguish.

“No.” He stops you, a hand on your wrist. “I don’t want to be useless again. I don’t want to be swimming in dreams. I want to be here with you.”

You shake your head. There are tears stinging in your eyes. “But you’re in pain.”

He grins, brushing your hair back from your face. “I’ve been in pain my whole life, Angel.”

And he manages to force down half the soup and two brimming goblets of wine before he sinks beneath the sea of his consciousness, while outside waves crack open against the rocks and Sunfyre leaks viscous threads the color of crimson, roses, flames.

~~~~~~~~~~

“You sent that raven a week ago,” Baela tells you when you bring her your offering, your clandestine kindness: apple cake, black tea. “More than enough time has passed for it to be received at Harrenhal and acted upon.”

You fill a porcelain cup with tea from the kettle and give it to her through the iron bars of her cell. “Perhaps the raven went astray.”

Baela ponders this as she alternates between unladylike chomps on a wedge of apple cake and slurps from the cup. “Maybe my father has been away from the castle. Maybe he’s out on the battlefield with the Stark men.”

Or maybe he believes you and Moondancer to be perfectly well and presiding unopposed over Dragonstone, and therefore not in need of his attention. What a welcome delusion to live under. I’m sure he’d rather be fucking Nettles anyway. You take the empty cup when Baela has drained it and refill it with tea. Baela accepts the nearly overflowing cup gratefully. She has had nothing to drink since she was taken captive except muddy rainwater that pools in one corner of each cell, guided by stone gutters that run along the outside of the castle. The tea is cloudy with cream and laced with sugar; still, her nose wrinkles a bit when she swallows it down.

“Bitter,” she notes distractedly.

“It’s made from leaves grown here on Dragonstone. Formidable, but not very sweet.”

Baela cackles; it echoes through the dungeon. This is the same voice that commanded Moondancer to brutalize Sunfyre, to send Aegon plummeting to the sand. Are her eyes already losing their viperish sharpness, is her heartbeat slowing? “Just like me!” She finishes her cup of tea and eagerly holds it out to you through the bars. You pour it full of the earth-colored brew once again.

You ask her as she licks apple cake crumbs from her fingers: “Why is Cregan Stark so determined to wed me?”

“He wants you. He considers you worthy of him.”

“But he doesn’t understand me. He doesn’t really know who I am.”

Baela shrugs indifferently. “None of us love anyone because of who they are. We love them because of who they make us believe we are.” She sips her tea and blinks groggily. “In any case, he will be your honorable savior, and you will be his illustrious damsel, and when the traitor dragons are dead he will spirit you away to Winterfell to bear his wolf pups. It’s not so bad a fate, I think. Not for someone like you. You aren’t ill-suited to matrimony. You are docile enough. A caretaker, a healer. You seem like the sort of woman who would be content with just one man.”

Yes. If he was Aegon. As you watch her kneeling on the stone floor of her cell, Baela sways and almost nods off, seemingly unaware that she is doing it.

“Burning might be too swift a death for the Usurper,” Baela says, smiling dazedly. “Cregan should have some of the Boltons flay him. They can all take turns wearing his hideous scars.”

“Yes. Skins shed, skins regrown, some of us change them over and over again.”

Baela stares at you inanely. She is beyond comprehension. Then she collapses to the stone floor, the porcelain tea cup spilling from her grasp and breaking into jagged white shards.

You take the key to the cell off the hook out in the corridor and unlock the door of iron bars. You step inside, still holding the tea kettle in one hand. You set the kettle down and drag Baela until she is propped upright against a wall. Her pulse is slow, but still present; she moans feebly as you position her. But it is all for a good cause; you must ensure she drinks the rest of the tea, the witches’ brew of leaves and cream and sugar and a fatal dose of milk of the poppy. Outside you hear a deep, prehistoric rumble as Vhagar flies over Dragonstone and scouts for a landing spot large enough to host her. Aemond is back again.

You angle the spout of the tea kettle between Baela’s paling lips and ply her with a small amount, less than a mouthful, then you rub her throat in just the right place to trigger her reflex to swallow. You know this trick well; you have used it on grievously wounded soldiers. You used it on Aegon after he was burned. You repeat the steps until the kettle is empty. Then you lay Baela flat again and watch her chest rise and fall slower, slower, slower until it stops. But still, you leave nothing to chance. You nick Baela’s wrist with a paring knife from the castle kitchens, until now tucked away in a pocket of your gown, emerald green silk to match the side of this war that you are pledged to. Her blood, unpropelled by the rhythm of a heart, dribbles sluggishly rather than spurts. She’s gone; she’s with her mother and Luke and Jace and the young sickly Viserys and Rhaenys, Otto and Helaena and Jaehaerys and Maelor and Autumn’s silver-haired son that she never had the chance to name. You wonder if the struggle goes on in the afterlife. Perhaps presently Otto and Baela are scratching and yowling at each other in a castle made of clouds.

Upstairs, Aemond is already in Aegon’s bedchamber. They are speaking in whispers when you enter, and you catch only pieces of the exchange: capital, Cregan, marriage, Daemon, crown. Larys stands in the corner of the room, his hands laced atop the handle of his cane. He gives you a reverent bow in greeting. He might not be so pleased to see you once he learns what you’ve done.

Aegon stops talking abruptly when he spots you and gestures for Aemond to go quiet as well, a commanding sweep of his hand. Aemond follows his brother’s gaze to the doorway. His lone blue eye climbs up and down you like a man on the rungs of a ladder. His hair is in one thick braid from his flight; stray white-blond strands that have been ripped free hang in disarray around his stoic, unreadable face. Aemond does not bow to you and never will. He only leers, a silver-haired wolf, a hawk with unhollow bones.

“Hello, Angel,” Aegon says, beaming or at least attempting to. He is frail and pallid and too thin and dripping sweat. There are indigo rings around his eyes like bruises. His legs are swollen, grotesque mountain ranges beneath the blankets. You rush to him and sit on the edge of the bed, feeling his forehead for fever and combing your fingers fondly through his hair.

Aemond sighs irritably. “Anyway, I’d like to torture her.”

“My prince…” Larys urges.

Aegon holds up a palm. “Now now, Lord Larys, let’s hear his proposal. Exactly how much do you intend to torture Baela?”

“Quite a bit,” Aemond says.

“To death?” Aegon asks hopefully.

“I don’t see why not.”

“My prince!” Larys says again. “Please, consider the possible ramifications, she is a prisoner of substantial strategic value, if your mother was here she would caution—”

“I’m afraid that Baela can no longer be interrogated,” you confess, and they all turn to you. There is a long, laden pause.

“And why is that?” Aemond says.

“Because she is dead of poisoning.”

“What?!”

“In her cell. Her body is there now. Feed her to Vhagar or Sunfyre, throw her in the sea, do whatever you wish with her. But she has paid her debt for the harm she inflicted upon us.”

Slowly, a grin splits across Aemond’s face. Larys shakes off his shock and resigns himself to it. But Aegon is neither proud nor reconciled. “You did that?” he says softly.

“You wanted Baela dead.”

“Yes, I did. But you don’t take life,” Aegon says, remembering what you once told him in King’s Landing. His oceanic eyes are stunned and fearful; not because Baela is was murdered, but because you were the one to end her. Because until now he was still able to tell himself that you could somehow escape this war unscarred, unruined. “You preserve it.”

“I preserve yours,” you reply. And when you offer him milk of the poppy—with no fear, for you know precisely how much it takes to kill a man—Aegon refuses it again, taking his suffering pure and sharp like the glass of a mirror.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What will happen to him?” Aemond asks you. You’re sitting on the stone staircase together under overcast midday skies, sipping wine and watching Sunfyre amble lethargically up and down the beach. You aren’t sure what’s made him so restless: his own dire injuries, Aegon in torment within the castle walls, something else entirely, some premonition that only beasts of ancient magic know. At last, Sunfyre seems to have exhausted himself and crumples onto the sand.

“I think Aegon will walk again. Eventually.”

“But he won’t be able to fight.”

You shake your head. “No.”

“Fuck,” Aemond hisses caustically, glowering out over the ocean.

You look at Aemond, needing to ask but terrified of the answer. “Can you win without him?”

“Can we win, you mean?” He smiles faintly, then sobers again. “I think so. Just before I left the Riverlands to come here, I received reports that Daemon had sent his lowborn little child bride away with Sheepstealer. He is trying to protect her from Rhaenyra’s assassins. My bitch of a half-sister has thus done us a remarkable favor. If Daemon is alone, I have no doubt that Vhagar can slay Caraxes. They say Daemon has fled Harrenhal. He’s hiding from me. I will find him, and I will burn him. I will end this war.”

“You need to be with Criston when his army faces the Northmen.”

“Of course,” Aemond says; but something in his face worries you.

There is a high-pitched shriek overhead, a glimmering flash of vivid gemstone blue. You startle and Aemond’s hand juts out, grabs you by the forearm, yanks you closer to him; then he relaxes when he recognizes who it is.

Aemond sighs loudly. “Why the fuck can’t he stay where he’s supposed to be?!” Then he stands, helps you to your feet while he’s at it, and heads down to the shoreline to meet Daeron and Tessarion.

The Blue Queen circles the beach several times, Daeron peering down as if struggling to understand something, his long white-blond hair whipping in the wind. At last Tessarion lands, her claws sinking into the wet sand, ocean froth bubbling around legs. Her long, swanlike neck stretches out towards Sunfyre, soft inquisitive squeals emanating from her jaws. Daeron leaps down from the saddle and strides to where Sunfyre is sprawled helplessly on the beach.

Alicent’s youngest child is clad in mint green—including a cape that billows out behind him in the seaside breeze—and glinting gold accents everywhere, buckles on his boots and the clasp of his cape and even a freckling of studs in his ears. He props both hands on his waist as he scrutinizes the crippled dragon. “Well, you’re not Moondancer.”

“He ripped Moondancer’s throat out,” Aemond says. “And then he ate her.”

Daeron whistles and gazes at Sunfyre admiringly. “I heard that Baela and Moondancer had taken possession of Dragonstone. I came to murder them. But now I see my services are unnecessary.”

“Baela is dead.” Then Aemond adds, nodding to you: “Here is the executioner.”

Daeron considers you, then laughs and assails you with a spirited embrace that nearly knocks you off your feet. “Welcome to the family, Lady Celtigar.”

“She’s the queen now.”

“Is she?” Daeron asks, eyebrows raised. “I was not under the impression that our brother was in any particular hurry to marry again.”

“His priorities seem to have shifted,” Aemond says.

“Can I see him?” Daeron looks around the beach and then up at the castle, shielding his eyes from the greyscale daylight. “Is he not outside with you? What is he doing in there? Not reciting prayers and composing poetry, I’d imagine.”

In Aegon’s bedchamber, Daeron cannot conceal his shock, his dismay; he gawks at the king like he is a three-legged dog, a blinded orphan. He stands thunderstruck at the end of the bed, taking in the vague yet horrifying outlines of Aegon’s shattered legs, the gauntness of his face, the fact that he is incapable of playing any meaningful role in the war for the foreseeable future. You sit on the bed beside Aegon, Aemond lurks by a window, Larys observes intently from a respectful distance, his eyes following every word as they flit through the air.

When Daeron recovers somewhat, he says: “I need to know what to do about Hammer and Ulf.”

“Why?” Aegon replies wearily. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Apparently, Mother once offered them the seats of House Costayne and House Merryweather as compensation for their efforts on behalf of the Greens, and they accepted. But now that’s suddenly not good enough. They’re asking me for the Riverlands and the Vale.”

Aegon turns to Aemond. “Is there anything left of the Riverlands these days? Should we find a new name for them? The Smolderlands, perhaps? The Everything-Is-Dead-Here-Now-Lands?”

“This is serious,” Aemond says flatly.

“I’m entirely serious.”

“Should I just tell them they can have whatever they want?” Daeron asks. “And then when the war is over and we’ve won…you know…pretend not to remember that conversation?”

“They can’t be given territory of any importance,” Aemond says. “They aren’t nobility.”

Daeron amends: “More relevantly, they are devoid of accountability and self-discipline. They drink all day and whore all night, and…oh, I mean no offense, Your Grace.”

“Fine,” Aegon says, preoccupied. There are fat beads of sweat on his bloodless face, glistening misery in his eyes. He gazes sorrowfully down at his left hand where he once wore his golden dragon ring before he lost it the same day he destroyed his legs. You pour him a cup of red wine and he drains it in seconds. You fill another.

“My point is that Hammer and Ulf are increasingly unreliable. I am only halfway convinced they could even show up for a battle before it was over. And yet we need them. Especially if Sunfyre cannot fight.”

“Agree to their requests,” Aemond says. “And if they survive the war, we will deal with them then. Rhaenyra’s faction is the greater enemy. We cannot risk the Dragonseeds racing back into her arms.”

“Lord Larys?” Aegon prompts dimly

“I could not agree more, Your Grace.”

“And on the subject of Rhaenyra,” Daeron continues. “Tessarion and I can take King’s Landing. Syrax is the only dragon in the city now, and Rhaenyra has never ridden her into combat.”

“No,” Aegon says. “We cannot risk setting the capital ablaze and turning the people against us. And Mother is there. Everett is there.”

“Everett?” Daeron looks around, baffled. “Who the fuck is Everett?”

“Angel’s brother. Not the firstborn son. The other one.” And as Aegon explains this, his chest is heaving and his eyes are glazed over. He tries to reposition himself in bed and has to bite down on his lower lip to keep from crying out, hard enough to draw blood.

“Is there anything else?” you ask Daeron and Aemond, a warning in your face. He needs rest. He needs to sleep, to heal.

“No,” Aemond says. He paces towards the door and snatches Daeron’s cape as he passes by him, hauling him out into the hallway. You follow after them.

As soon as he is out of earshot of Aegon’s room, Daeron tells Aemond: “He doesn’t look good.”

“He’ll be fine.”

“Aemond, I think you should prepare to—”

“He’ll be fine!” Aemond snaps.

“You don’t think I’m losing something too?” Daeron demands furiously. “You don’t think I want him to be well again? Of course I want that. But if wishing people to live made it possible, the world would be a very different place.”

“You are needed in the Reach,” Aemond says, and that’s all.

Daeron glares up at him, incredulous, defiant. “This will be over soon. I hope you’re ready for what comes next.”

Then he storms out of the castle, soars down the long stone staircase, meets Tessarion on the windswept beach and takes flight into the southwest where the earth is green but the nights are an inescapable, dreamless black.

~~~~~~~~~~

Aegon is weeping again; you hear him from the hallway. It is after nightfall, and the castle is illuminated only by firelight. Candles flicker; the hearth crackles and pops. In the shadows, Aegon lies with his dragonfire scars and his fractured legs and his useless hereditary magic, tears streaming down his face. You have a vision of what he will look like when he’s dead; you imagine the Stranger reaching up from underneath the bed to seize him with claws like a raven’s talons and drag him out of existence.

“I need it,” Aegon sobs when he sees you, grasping for the glass bottle of milk of the poppy. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to need it, but I do.”

“I’m here, Aegon. It’s alright. Let me help.” You pour him a cup of the bitter remedy, a strange gleaming white like pearl, opal, moonstone. Then you tilt the cup against his lips. Aegon gulps down the milk of the poppy and then falls back into his sea of pillows.

He murmurs, eyes closed as you graze the backs of your fingers feather-lightly over his unmarred cheek: “I wanted to start over with you.”

“You’ll still get the chance.”

“No,” he whimpers miserably. “I ruin everyone. Everyone I’m given, everyone I touch. Helaena, Jaehaerys, Maelor. We don’t even know where Jaehaera is, in Storm’s End, lost on the road, taken captive, dead. Otto, Autumn, Aemond, Mother, Sunfyre. And now I’m ruining you too.”

“You’re not,” you plead with him in a whisper. And not for the first time, you think: What do you require from me, Aegon? Wrath, compassion, healing, children? What can I do to give you hope again? Tell me and it’s yours. I’d do anything. I’d become anyone. “Aegon?” you begin, trying to ask him; but he is already unconscious. He’ll likely be out until sunrise.

You drink cup after cup of red wine and sit in the flame-lit shadows with him, in the quiet, in the liminal space between decisions, envisioned sins and prospective virtues. Then you leave the bedchamber like a ghost, a creak here and a tap there and no other trace. You wander down long, twisting corridors framed by dragons of iron and stone. And at the other end of the castle beyond a door you’ve never opened before is the lair of a very different breed of dragon: tall and lean and ambitious, his eyepatch removed and stowed away for the evening, his long silver hair hanging freely to his waist.

He is wearing cotton sleeping trousers but nothing else. He is seated at his writing desk and scrawling something onto parchment in black ink, a list or a diagram or a design for a new crown upon his ascension to the throne, you don’t know and you have no intention of asking. You have far too many things on your mind already. You feel nauseous and unsteady, you feel like you can’t possibly go through with this. You can’t imagine it. You can’t fathom what he would feel like, taste like.

Aemond steals a nonchalant glimpse of you, having no sense of your inner turmoil. “Can I assist you with something?”

“Yes,” you say simply, sipping your wine under the stone arch of the doorway.

He looks up at you again, his quill suddenly still in his hand. His two eyes are on you, one wide and river-blue, the other a soulless glittering sapphire in a tangle of ruined flesh. And now he understands. There are other Targaryens, he had said. “Take off your clothes. Sit down on the bed.”

You step inside his bedchamber and close the door behind you, setting your empty cup on the edge of his writing desk. You walk to his bed—dark green blankets, gold thread—and shed each piece of clothing you have on, a black gown and everything under it, not looking to see if Aemond is watching you, too anxious, trembling wildly. But you know his gaze is on you when you—standing naked and shivering in the firelight—begin to pull back the blankets and hear the sharp reprove in his voice.

“I did not tell you to hide yourself from me,” Aemond says. “Sit at the edge. Yes, there. Good.”

You perch on the bed and wait for him, your ankles linked, legs swinging restlessly, arms crossed over your chest. Aemond is staring at you from the opposite end of the room. You can’t look at him; you look elsewhere, at the tapestries of dragons hanging from the drafty stone walls, at the thick candles that drip white wax. And this won’t be like lying with a stranger, but it won’t be like lying with someone you want either, because you are profoundly uneasy and monstrously ashamed and perhaps even afraid.

Aemond is approaching now, firelight skating over his smooth, unsinged skin. He is undoing the tie at the waist of his trousers. He yanks them off, revealing himself to you. He is already hard, and he is massive, vast in length and width. The panic hits you like a breaking wave.

“Oh,” you gasp in alarm, unable to stop yourself. Then you explain so he won’t be offended: “I’m not going to be able to take you if I’m not ready.” You rest a hand on your bare thigh, slip it between your legs, begin to stroke yourself the way Aegon does, trying to relax, trying to think of him…

“No,” Aemond says, moving your hand aside. “Let me.”

Obediently, you rest your palms just behind you on the mattress, open your thighs for him, inhale sharpy as Aemond’s long, artful fingers touch you somewhere only one other man ever has. And you’re a traitor, the worst kind of traitor, because it’s working: you can feel yourself opening for him, hungering for him, coating his hand in slick warm wetness.

Aemond isn’t looking at your face. His eye is fixed on the place where his fingers are circling, where he is now pushing two inside of you, and while it happens abruptly and roughly enough to startle you it is not quite painful, or maybe it is, just the tiniest bit, but the pleasure eclipses the pain, the pleasure is a current you are powerless to swim against.

“You can tell me to stop,” Aemond says as he strokes you from the inside with his fingers buried to the knuckles, his breathing labored. “I don’t want you to. But if you tell me to stop, I’ll listen. Okay?”

You nod, and instead of an answer you give him a moan, stifled but unmistakable, dark treasonous forbidden ecstasy. And this snaps something in Aemond, it unleashes a part of him he’d been keeping tied up like an untrustworthy animal, one that could maul or maim or kill. He drops to his knees, hooks his arms beneath your thighs, drags you to him until his lips and tongue are on you with dizzyingly blissful pressure. You fall back onto the bed, one hand twisting into the blankets, the other in his waterfall of unruly silver hair, pushing him even harder against you as he licks ravenously. Aemond doesn’t seem to mind; with each roll of your hips and bitten-back plea his enthusiasm blooms, hums and triumphant chuckles spilling from his mouth as he swallows down the proof of your desire. It’s starting, that swift climb towards a high like nothing else on earth, something Aegon once taught you was possible. You are a betrayer, but with the very best of intentions; you are making a sacrifice, but it feels so much like a gift.

“Aemond, I’m ready,” you pant, your fingers hopelessly knotted in his hair. “You can do it now, you can…” And then you lose your words because instead of rising to his feet, Aemond stays right where he is, his tongue insatiable, his face drenched in your wetness.

He’s going to make me…I’m so close…

“Aemond, what are you waiting for…?”

His lips close around the spot where you are most sensitive and he sucks forcefully, and that feeling like a shuddering, irresistible unravelling strikes you harder and faster than it ever has before, so intense it is almost painful, sharp and commanding, not something he is doing with you but to you, and you know even in the golden haze of the climax that this is not about love but about power, pride, control, worthiness.

He doesn’t stop. He is licking you again, opening your folds with one hand, thrusting two fingers inside of you with the other. You are still feeling the pulsing, involuntary aftershocks of one high when the next begins building, building, building, and when you close your eyes all you can see are waves on the ocean in a storm, swelling to impossible heights and ungoverned by anything except the dubious mercy of nature.

“Aemond please,” you beg in a frayed whisper, bathed in sweat and guilt and frenzied lust. “I’m ready. Just do it, please…”

And then he wrenches you into another vortex and it takes everything in you not to scream, not to jolt awake the skeleton crew that tends to Dragonstone and its surreptitious guests. You are beyond complete thoughts, beyond sentences. You are boneless, your muscles have turned to mist and air, you are entirely under Aemond’s control and that’s where he has wanted you all along.

“Aemond, please, please, please…”

Unable to resist any longer, he stands—wiping the glistening, dripping sheen from his face with the back of one hand—and forces his cock inside you to the hilt. He does not slow down when he meets resistance, and you don’t tell him to. You moan in shock at the disorienting fullness, you cannot help it; it is a feeling on the knife’s edge between ripping agony and euphoric pleasure. It is something you would gratefully die of. He moves within you, deep and quick, his hands clasping your hips. Emotionally, you feel nothing but a razored, perilous, impersonal intensity; in your body, it is paradise.

Again? Again…?!

“Are you going to come for me one more time, Angel?” Aemond taunts you as he thrusts; and that’s Aegon’s name for you that he’s using, and it’s wrong, and Aemond knows that, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to break the spell he’s got you under, you can’t tell him to stop, you don’t have the will to, and if this is about power then you know who’s won out of the three of you, you know who has steel in his bones and lightning cracking in his veins.

It’s different this time, pleasure rising like the tide in your whole body, a peak that is not concentrated so clearly between your legs but everywhere: fingertips, spine, belly, heart.

“Come for me, Angel. I know you can do it.” And then for the first time Aemond leans in close to you, his pristine scarless chest pressed to yours, his lips traveling from your throat to the curve of your jaw, his tongue darting into your mouth before you can turn away, and he tastes like pure, mineral lust, and maybe that’s not just because of what he’s done to you, maybe that’s all he is all the way down, hunger that is never satisfied, a need to consume like fire burns flesh.

You whimper, a desperate vulnerable sound, a pleading for him to finish what he’s started and give you this one last high, just one more, just one, please, please, you’ll do anything.

“I’m better than him, aren’t I?” Aemond demands as he fucks you, and there’s no other word for it. This isn’t making love, this isn’t a meeting of souls, it is using someone else’s body to patch up all your hollows, all the pinprick voids you’ve been walking around with for years, losing yourself one blooddrop at a time until you pass by a mirror one day and think who the hell is that? “I know how to take care of you. I know what you want. I can do things Aegon never could. I’ll make you come again. I’ll give you a prince.”

And he coaxes it out of you like the memory of a dream, more like an ether than something you could name: a shimmering elation all over, a cry you can only muffle by biting down on Aemond’s neck as he pounds into you, and then he at last he surrenders what you came here for, but only after all the rest of it. He fills you with himself, so much of it that you can feel it pouring out onto the blankets, immense flooding wet warmth that gives you no satisfaction whatsoever.

I’m a traitor, you think, and for all the times you’ve changed your skin this is the very worst of them. I shouldn’t have done this. I wish I hadn’t done this.

Aemond lifts himself off of you and rolls onto his back, panting alongside you as you both stare up at the ceiling, drenched in each other’s salt and knowing things that were once so unthinkable. Aemond is gazing over at you. His clear blue eye is tracing your lips, your breasts, your hips, your folds that are soaked with his sweat and seed. You don’t want him watching you. You feel sick knowing he’s watching you. You get up from the bed and begin putting on your gown.

Aemond says: “We should probably try again tomorrow.”

You shake your head. “I can’t,” you reply quietly.

He sits up on the bed, his lone eye narrowed and suspicious. His hair is damp and now flows over his shoulders in disheveled silvery waves. “What?”

“I can’t do this again. I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“So that’s it,” Aemond flings. “Just this once and never again. Never again in our whole goddamn lives.”

“It feels like betraying him. It is betraying him.”

“And what if he can’t father any more children?!”

“Then I’ll be barren.”

Aemond glares, petulant, affronted. “I thought you wanted to help this family.”

“You didn’t do this for your family. You did it for you.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m a fucking monster.” He tears off the bed, tugs on his trousers, ties the knot with swift furious hands.

“Aemond, I didn’t say that, I don’t think—”

“You’ve done enough,” he seethes, pawing through a chest of clothing. He finds a shirt and pulls it on, gathers up his things, rages to the bedchamber door. He whips it open and disappears into the nightscape corridor.

“Aemond!” you call after him in a fierce whisper, as loudly as you dare to. “Aemond, where are you going?!”

“To take Harrenhal,” he pitches over his shoulder. And then he’s gone, and maybe it’s your fault, and maybe it isn’t, but either way you are wholly convinced that it is.

You bathe in one of the massive tubs heated by the lava that runs deep beneath the rocky earth of the island, scouring away every trace of Aemond, lathering yourself with soap scented with pine, rinsing, lathering again. Still, you can feel the way he moved inside you with such battering, rapturous force. Still, you miss him, you miss being able to talk to him and look to him and trust that he will protect Aegon in every way he can, for no matter how much envy Aemond is built of you believe his love for his king is stronger.

You return to Aegon’s bed, always so careful now not to jostle his legs, his shattered bones that are only just beginning to mend. You are petrified that he will know somehow—that he will see it on your face, smell it sweating from your pores—but Aegon has nothing for you but seeking hands and contented, drowsy sighs.

“Where’d you go?” he mumbles, still half-asleep, drawing you in closer. “I missed you. I keep dreaming that everyone’s gone. I watch you walk through the doorway and I’m left here in bed all alone.”

“Aegon?”

“Yes, wife.”

“Do you need children with me to be happy?”

He waits a long time before he answers. When at last he does, he chooses each word carefully. “I have never felt a calling to be a father. I’ve never been any good at it. Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, Maelor…they were mine, but they also weren’t, and I can’t explain it. I felt nothing for them except a vague sort of sympathy that they had the misfortune of being born to me. Now, did a lot of that have to do with my relationship with Helaena? Probably. And do I think things would be different if I had children with you? Yes, I believe they would be, to some extent at least. But I don’t need children to be happy. I just need you.”

You say with tears in your eyes and your voice splintering: “I’m so sorry, Aegon.”

He is mystified. “For what?”

“For not being a better person for you. For not being able to cure or protect you. For not being able to end the war.”

“Angel, nobody can,” Aegon says, fingers snarled in your hair, lips to your forehead. Then he smiles; you can feel the warm, playful curl of it against your skin. “Well, except Aemond, of course.”

~~~~~~~~~~

She is there to greet him when he arrives. She creeps out of the shadows like a spider, long limbs and volcanic-glass eyes, whispers like wind in brittle fall leaves and flesh that will never refuse him. She wears black, not for one night like you did but always; she has long dark hair that she never cuts or braids or ties back. Sometimes there are raven feathers in it, sometimes herbs or powders from spells, sometimes twigs and petals, sometimes blood. It all washes out in the cold cryptic currents of the Gods Eye. Once Daemon Targaryen was here, but he did not have a wound in the shape that she could fill, could walk into like a doorway and stitch herself into the velvet-gore lining of his lungs, his liver, his heart. But now Daemon is gone. And Harrenhal has a new king to reign over the city of bones and ashes.

She meets him under the starlight that trickles in through the ruins of Harrenhal, less a castle than an architectural graveyard, less a place of beginnings than of calamitous ends. Her fingernails trace his scar and she tells him it is the mark of a hero. She touches her lips to his sapphire eye and tells him it reminds her of a god. And thus the doorway opens, and Alys drifts through it, silent and resistless like smoke, like a plague.

Perpetual Resurrection, Aemond thinks. He knows they are the words of House Celtigar. He has studied the mottos of every noble house in Westeros; but none speak to him more than these.

She touches him and he sees everything he could be. He tastes her lips and drinks down the smooth intoxicating fire that burns the boy he once was away.

#aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii #aegon targaryen ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon x reader

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basilf1res · 1 year

Text

Project "GH05T"

For context, this is based on my last post

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

"Project GH05T is a go."

A pause.

"Oh shit."

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

Tim rubbed his hands over his face, this was going to be another long day. Firstly, this monster of a virus appeared and seems to be contained in the batcomputer. Secondly, every time he tried to purge the computer of GH05T's system, it always came back bolder than before. Thirdly, the stupid virus hopped from the supercomputer in the cave into his personal laptop and would not stop flirting with him.

So it was safe to say, Tim was rightfully pissed. This thing knew every way to make his hopeless Bisexual ass flush and it was starting to become infuriating, he'd be in the middle of finishing up his work as CEO of Wayne Enterprises and a little speech bubble towards the bottom of the screen would pop up saying something along the lines of:

"You free after work hot stuff?"

"I'd say I have a smokin' hot bod, but damn you take the cake and you weren't the one cremated."

And it would. Not. Stop.

He was ready to throw the laptop out a window, Tim had already replaced it three times over the course of three weeks and the virus always returned.

It was like his life was now a cringy "x reader" fanfiction and he did not have time for this.

A little bubble popped up on the corner of the screen.

"It's about time." Tim muttered, sending out the last email and finishing all his work for the day.

"So. Uhm."

Interesting, it seemed to be able to be able to express itself in ways other than death puns, witty remarks, and flirtatious texts.

"I see we haven't really introduced ourselves."

It didn't know who he was? Tim 'hmmed' in thought. "We haven't." He responded out loud, he was currently in his room at the manor.

"Well, hi! I'm Phantom, and you are...?"

Did it really not understand who's laptop it was in? Who was on the other side of the screen? Did Babs want to pull an elaborate prank of some kind?

"Tim Drake." He responded.

A little cartoon of a ghost in some black and white getup poked it's head and shoulders out from behind the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. As he floated up Tim noticed he had white hair and two electric green eyes, he had a lean body with a wispy tail instead of legs. He waved his hand, a speech bubble appearing right above his head.

"Nice to meet you, officially!"

The grin on the pale figure's skin was bright and cheery. Quite adorable.

Wait. "You're the virus?"

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

Should I continue this on AO3? I'm currently working on a different pre-written fic at the moment, so even if I immediately start posting this one it may be a bit of a wait in order to get prioritized tasks done.

This was fun to write tbh.

Tags: @frostedthroughghost @akikoyuii @spiteismymiddlename

#dp x dc #tim drake #red robin #danny fenton #danny phantom #danny is a computer virus #but only sometimes #danny fenton is a little shit #this is fine #:)

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stargirl-writes · 6 months

Text

[chapter one] the secret history of anakin skywalker

captured

pairing : assassin! reader x anakin skywalker

word count : 1.8k

series navigation | masterlist

sypnosis

you have only known one truth about this war, the republic and the seperatists are two sides of the same coin. but now, your master count dooku has disposed of you after your consequent failures. his betrayal fueled your thirst for revenge. and in the cruel twist of fate, you have found yourself with an arrangement with the enemy. general anakin skywalker is willing to do what it takes for the republic to win, even if it meant dealing with you, his nemesis.

chapter summary

your mission to secure umbara has failed. your master, count dooku would not have asked of anyone but you to deliver success. but as you stand amongst the pile of bodies of umbaran soldiers, the horror of your failure washes over you. and in the hopelessness of events, a jedi appears amidst the ashes of your city. one that did not hesitate to kill the jedi general krell despite his jedi order's honor.

tags : enemies-to-lovers, angst, hurt/comfort, mystery, espionage.

warnings : mentions of ptsd, mentions of abuse, war, mentions of a panic attack.

notes: centers around the same time of the clone wars season 4 episode 15

also, thank you all lovely people who have supported my first anakin fic here 😭, i'm very grateful for every interaction! so thank you for taking interest in this other thingy i have in the works. so without further ado, i hope you like it ! 🪽

likes, comments, and reblogs are highly appreciated !

Your plan has failed.

You stood over the tower overlooking ashes left in the Umbaran capital city. The republic has won. Your plan failed.

Your breath becomes uneven, the terror lodging in your throat as the consequence of this failure starts to dawn.

Your master, Count Dooku, will not take this failure lightly. Because he swore that if you provide anything other than success, then you will be dealt with the price for it.

And now you stand in horror at the sight: the smoke of what was supposed to be your defense taunted you of your imminent future.

Umbara is a crucial route to supply the Confederacy of Independent Systems. A recent attack by the Republic has made Count Dooku send you, his second.

And you have lost it. Many systems have been starving from the tight supply lines that your cause still held and losing Umbara would send millions into more famine.

Your hand twitches. A reaction that fails to conceal your trauma. Your body, already bracing itself for the phantom pain that was yet to be inflicted.

You blinked.

Even from atop this tower, you could make out the scattered Umbaran soldiers that lay lifeless, covered in their own blood.

You try to fight the guilt pushing up your heart, Umbaran people have volunteered to defend their land when you insisted that droids are more expendable than lives.

Your mission was to defend Umbara. Count Dooku wouldn't have asked anyone but you. You were the only one he trusted to deliver success.

You were Dooku's second. His apprentice. He had taken you in when republic forces made the sky fall on your home planet of Hapes.

Your resentment for the Republic began there: from witnessing your home being burned down. Then, Dooku taught you of the Republic's hypocrisy. How they are so deluded by their righteousness and yet leads with violence and bloodshed.

He taught you how to defend yourself. He was the one that made you realize that the Republic is only seeking to reinstate their power over the galaxy, completely disregarding the sole intention that created the Confederacy for Independent Systems.

Dooku took you in. And you feel indebted to his teachings.

Under his care, you became familiar with his ruthless and unrelenting methods. He'd tell you it was because as his apprentice, you couldn't afford the luxury to fail. It made sense, then. If you aren't equipped to be sharp, you'll die from this war. But you'd take notice how sometimes he'd contradict what he preached to you to secure a win. You'd watch him make decisions you wouldn't really find yourself agreeing to.

But, you were convinced he was doing it for the Alliance. You had to adapt. This was a war. Dooku was once a Jedi, so he had to have known something you didn't. Saw something you didn't understand fully.

He told you how the Jedi Council had lost their way when they got involved in politics. Your younger mind was more malleable in believing everything your master said. He told you many things...

He taught you how to wield a lightsaber and directed you at the right targets, making you his most effective weapon.

You allowed it all because it was for the cause...

And Dooku was fierce in teaching you the price of failure. 'Many will suffer for your incompetence' he used to say as he struck you down with his power, making you writhe in pain that felt like being on the brink of death but never having the release.

It was to teach you a lesson, you once believed...

Your faith has crippled since then.

Your heart was telling you it was wrong. A master should never have to go to such extreme methods to teach you a lesson. But then again, how else can your master express the severity of your actions other than how he does? There are so many people that you'd allowed to get hurt. You deserve an equal measure of pain.

You have grown to know so many allied leaders, like Mina Bonteri, who only ever swore allegiance to the cause in hopes of salvation of their people. They weren't evil. They only ever demanded a change in the republic, and now they are branded as Seperatists.

That was what kept you from leaving. Because you have learnt that the Republic and the Alliance were two sides of the same coin; just as corrupt, just as cruel. The war will rage on until one succeeds the other. But either side seems to have been in the war enough to realize the blood being spilled.

Now, you stand over the grave of the people you failed to defend. People, not droids. People that fought to the end, believing in something they were willing to die for.

And you will have to face your Master's disappointment.

You didn't know what felt heavier.

A commando droid appears from behind. "A call from Count Dooku, General" It opens up its hands to reveal the holocommunication device.

Your blood runs cold. You feel your heart thump and thwack so rapidly, you thought it could burst out of your chest.

You swallowed your fear, knowing you can't delay this call. You placed the holocommunicator down and pressed it.

Count Dooku appears in front of you and you straightened your back, masking your expression.

His eyes burn on your skin as he takes a moment to apprehend you. You sensed his frustration despite the distance. Your hand twitches involuntarily.

"Have I fallen short to remind you the consequence if you'd lose Umbara, my student?" His voice remained in that unnerving monotonous tone you despised.

"No, Master" you answered, your nails digging through the skin of your palms.

Dooku doesn't blink; you grow horrified. Be angry, be disappointed, show me something, anything. You hear your thoughts plead. For his composed expression was much more terrifying.

"And you thought it more important to leave the task to the Jedi General Krell?" Dooku says through gritted teeth.

"I had to find a way to reduce our losses" You defend your actions. Conspiring with General Krell had been your idea. You decided it'd be the most efficient way to poison the enemy. Having someone crippling the system from the inside had proved itself effective for you then.

And at the beginning, General Krell had met his end of the deal. You managed to tip the scales of battle, enough to let Umbaran soldiers recuperate before engaging in another battle.

"Krell is dead. Your tactic is comprimised" Dooku announces.

You felt your heart skip a beat.

Somehow, you have always believed the Jedi would never sacrifice their honor in exchange for a win. When Krell went missing, you thought maybe they only had him captured, waiting for a jurisdiction by their holy Republic.

They must really be desperate...

"You have failed me for the last time."

Your eyes widened at the finality of your Master's words. Before you could protest, you felt the force constrict around your throat, lifting you off the ground and cutting the air from your lungs.

"Kill her" Dooku orders the commando droid. And you felt your heart sink. The holocommunication dies. And you slump to the floor.

Adrenaline surges through you, you draw up your lightsaber, distraught, shocked, as the betrayal seeps.

You swing your weapon through the commando droid and it falls down your feet.

You master... ordered for your death. Once you no longer served purpose to him, he abandoned you.

He wouldn't even do it himself.

You started panting, and you held on to the control board to support your weight— tears were flooding your vision, and it felt like everything you believed in, everything you fought for came crumbling down.

Your knees buckled and you stumble backwards. Your body, it betrays— it trembles, it becomes paralyzed by the fear. Your mind is no longer in control, no matter how much you willed for the hyperventilation to stop.

Then you hear the elevator click. You turn to your heel and find the jedi, Anakin Skywalker standing with his lightsaber drawn.

Krell is dead. Anakin Skywalker was here. You put two and two together. It was not the first time you encountered the General, he always led with his men at the frontlines. And he'd always find a way to you.

You'd meet his agile attacks, and stand your ground. You were quite the duelist too. Barely, you'd escape Anakin Skywalker. But you did, every time. You heard the Jedi think it was dishonorable to flee from a fight, but you knew you'd serve your cause better alive than dead. At least something good came from your rigorous training with your master.

He probably ordered Krell's death. Which would be forbidden for his Jedi Code. And before you could wrap around the thought, he was already stepping forward. If he is able to throw away his honor, then he's here to kill you too.

His eyes bore into yours— he looked like he was sizing you up. You felt irked by his arrogance.

"Umbara is under the Republic's protection now, you've no choice but to surrender, Wraith" Anakin calls you by the title conducted to you by your enemies, flicking his chin to move his hair away from his sight.

The Wraith. The shadow. Always lurking, but never significant enough to be acknowledged as the actual threat.

The corner of his lips curled into a cajoling grin "Or run away, I seem to recall you seem to excel in that"

Your breaths leave vapor as your felt your grief transform into something more ravenous. And without hesitating, you charged forward.

Anakin instinctively blocks your offense, his expression of bickering quickly replaced by seriousness. This... this was familiar.

You swung relentlessly, and full of weight. Skywalker receives your attacks and finds his way around it.

The initial adrenaline was depleting, and you felt your muscles atrophy, it was breaking dawn and you haven't had a moment of sleep. Then, in a moment you were recovering from the sloppy emotion-drawn attack, Anakin had deflected, taking offense and you struggle to regain footing.

The fact that he had been so much taller didn't help you. Because you relied on your agility, not endurance.

In a swift movement, Anakin fiends a strike and uses his knuckle to bend your wrist, making you lose your lightsaber to the ground.

You look up to the Jedi in disbelief. You felt his torso pressing on your chest as held up both your wrists over your head with his bionic hand. Fierce and unyielding.

His chest rises and falls, and the ghost of his breath warmed the skin on your forehead.

"It's over." He says, his grip tightening.

You saw the faint glisten of triumph in his eyes before he steps backward and clasps your wrists behind your back and handcuffing them.

You had thought your master's betrayal could be the worst thing you could face. But now, captured by this Jedi, you knew a lifetime rotting in Coruscant is... unimaginable.

Your mind caved in.

Somehow, death seemed like kindness now.

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yuurei20 · 2 months

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Rook Info Compilation part 4: Archery and Hunting

Rook says that he excels at archery both as a competitive sport and as a method of hunting.

We see him applying this skill in Book 5 to inform Ace and Deuce that they have passed their VDC audition, and again in Book 6 to hit phantoms at their weak points with his magic. Vil says, “Rook never fails to his a target. His aim is perfect.”

Rook has a voice line about striking every target during an archery game at a festival.

Rook’s least favorite food is garlic as “foods with lingering scents are a hunter’s bane” and that hunting is not some activity that he can choose to engage in for a time and then abandon: “Those who hunt are always sharp-eyed, perpetually on the lookout for more prey.”

Rook says he makes it a point to memorize the species and height of every student on campus in order to be prepared. (There is a line in the EN adaptation where he says that the prefect’s height is unverified, but this does not exist in his original dialogue.)

Rook has lines about hunting Lilia, Malleus, ghosts and Kalim, in addition to offering to play tag with people in his gym class.

Rook seems particularly interested in Leona, saying that he would “make for fine hunting quarry” and that looking at Leona gets his “hunter’s blood boiling” every time.

He also purchases a souvenir for Leona during Glorious Masquerade.

Rook has multiple Beanfest-related lines about both Leona and Malleus, with Ortho commenting that the year that Malleus and Leona teamed up to take him down resulted in them exerting themselves to a considerable degree.

(Rook invites both Leona and Malleus to his birthday party and neither one appears.)

Rook intentionally infuriates Malleus in a vignette where he compares dragons to impalas, antelopes, lizards, crocodiles and monsters in an attempt to throw him off balance and ultimately invite him to play a game of tag. Malleus is not amused.

In a separate vignette Rook discusses Malleus with Lilia, but when Lilia asks if he truly intends to hunt Malleus, Rook responds “I am interested in him, to be sure, but right now it is you who has capture my heart, Lilia. No hunter would be foolish enough to pursue another quarry when they stand in the presence of your mysterious beauty.”

Malleus, practicing the long throw nearby, responds by sending a shotput so close to Rook’s face that he nearly slices off Rook’s nose.

Rook encourages Lilia to strengthen his grip on Malleus but Lilia responds, “I could not be more proud.”

On the subject of Rook, Malleus said that he thought him to be a boorish fool, but he cannot imagine that Vil would select such a man as his vicehousewarden.

Despite ignoring Rook’s invitation to his birthday party Malleus does join Rook in a song during Spectral Soiree, where he accompanies Rook’s singing on a pipe organ.

#Rook Hunt #twisted wonderland #twstrook #rookfacts #twstfacts

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void-of-unparalled-chaos · 5 months

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Fic Masterlist

Because Tumblr search features are shit. Fandoms, Fics, and Series are organized in alphabetical order. Each link will send you to the Tumblr version but there will be a link to the AO3 version within that post. If you would rather go straight to AO3, my account is linked in the post pinned on my blog.

Assassin's Creed:

Of Blades and Parchment Series

Tumblr tag: #Of Blades and Parchment

Altmal AU where Malik never became an assassin and instead works as a crippled bookseller. Series is in progress.

DPxDC

Here's Where You'll Stay (3082 words, 1 chapter)

Tumblr Tag: #Here's Where You'll Stay

"As John stared at the door preparing to get his face mauled, he couldn’t help but incredulously complain that this was not how he wanted his weekend to go. He had plans! He supposes that he would be willing to put them on hold for Phantom’s sake, but he wasn’t agreeable to the incoming face mauling. "

When Phantom comes down with Core Sickness it's up to John Constantine to save the ghost from fading.

Nothing Says "True Love" Like Being Given The Soul of Your Murderer (1510 words, 1 chapter)

Tumblr Tag: #nstllbgtsoym

Addition to a post by @nelkcats

"Another snarl caused him to lose his staring contest with the Bat. Nightwing was now standing between the two of them and appeared to be trying to placate the crime boss while Red Robin made the bloody stupid decision of trying to sneak up behind him. Red quickly paid the price for his folly, finding himself flat on his back pinned underneath Hood's boot while he honest to God snapped at Nightwing like a rabid dog.

"It's my gift! He gave it to me. Now fuck off before I m̶a̷k̸e̸ ̵y̶o̸u̶."

Yeah. Someone should probably interfere before they pissed him off anymore.

"You should corral your kids before one of em' loses a hand."

"Hngh." Batman leaves to break up the fight with Nightwing's aid. Hood scampers off to one of the corners of the cave, cradling the violet ball in his gloved hands as if it was the most precious thing in the world. It sounded like he was purring. John was suddenly very tired."

Rending Flesh From the Bone (3093 words, 1 chapter)

Tumblr Tag: #RFFTB

Dick wasn't so sure about Jason's "gut feeling", but what are brothers for if not to support each other during paranoia episodes? Now, deep underground in an abandoned subway tunnel, Dick is starting to have regrets as he watches the scene before him.

TW: Gore, Cannibalism, Vomiting, Zalgo Text

Unnamed fic (ghost chirps/unintentional ghost adoption au fic)

Tumblr Tag: #ghost chirps/unintentional ghost adoption au fic

Addition to a post by @starwrighter

Fic is currently a work in progress with only a minimal amount released to the public under the Tumblr post. Once it's completely written chapters will be posted and linked independently.

#Void's masterlists #my writing #of blades and parchment #ghost chirps/unintentional ghost adoption au fic #RFFTB #nstllbgtsoym #Here's Where You'll Stay

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frecklenog · 2 months

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actually i’m taking this out of tags. anakin skywalker grew up a slave. he grew up implanted with a bomb. even without supplemental material like comics and novels and even animated spinoffs, anakin openly discussed that this was a facet of his reality as early on as his first appearance in the phantom menace, during which he was nine years old. he also very clearly cared for the clones he commanded, even trusting rex with the secret that he was married despite the rules of the jedi order. he would not have been quiet about the fact that the men he served with were implanted with mind control chips, especially after one of them malfunctioned and tup died as a result. he should have been so much angrier about what fives uncovered, but he barely reacts in the first place, even after fives died too. hell, i don’t know that he even acknowledges the clones as the slave army that they definitely, definitely are. as much as i love the show star wars: the clone wars is a poorly written fucking mess and in this essay-

#yrah this is going in the main tags.#anakin skywalker #arc trooper fives #clone trooper tup #the clone wars #star wars tcw #star wars #shut up emrys

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fruitysoupy · 3 months

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100 years later I finally drew all of my AU Links

Say hello to my lads! They're going to be in a comic I've been scripting and planning for about a year now I think? I'm calling it Link and the Links, latl for short!

More info under the cut :]

(please don't tag as LU/Linked Universe!!)

The Plot

The Links find themselves in a mysterious forest that seems somewhat familiar to all of them yet none of them know where they are. Now they have to work together to find their way home. On the way they'll discover a thing or two about each other and grow closer!

The Cast

I could talk about these guys for hours, but to keep it digestible I'll make it short

A bit of info before I get into it - all of them are taken from different points in time after the end of their adventure(s)!

Birdie (Skyward Sword)

Roughly 6 hours after defeating Demise

The start of it all. Unbeknownst to himself and the others, the space they find themselves in was created out of his desire to meet the heroes after him. He feels terribly guilty about the curse and very much blames himself for the possible suffering of future heroes. His main goal is to check up on everyone and help where he can!

Grasshopper (Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask)

4 days after leaving Termina

Somewhat disoriented after his journey still, he tags along simply because he thinks Birdie is an idiot who would get lost without him. He doesn't talk a whole lot but he likes listening to other people's stories

Seagull (Wind Waker and Phantom Hourglass)

6 months after leaving the domain for the ocean King

He's a real genuine pirate, yarr!! Or so he'd like you to believe. He talks a great deal about his strength and bravery, but really is just afraid and terribly homesick most of the time. He wants to fit in with Tetra's and her crew's toughness so much he might go a little overboard on the act in a way that may or may not end up biting him in the butt.

Choo (Spirit Tracks)

6 months after peace returned to new Hyrule

He wouldn't call himself a hero, in fact he'd say it's a miracle he made it out alive. Self-esteem and confidence really aren't his strong suits, he often finds himself dragged along and unable to say no. He is very friendly however, and if you just give him a little space he might even open up to you.

Wolfie (Twilight Princess)

4 years after defeating Ganondorf

Left Ordon after intrusive thoughts convinced him he was a danger to his village, now works at Telma's bar as a waiter in exchange for a room. He's responsible well liked, though he's not too fond of himself. He has some complicated feelings about the whole turning into a wolf thing

Apple (A Link to the Past, Oracle of Ages/Seasons and Link's Awakening)

Just a few seconds after Koholint disappeared

From one dream right into the next (sorta?) he's understandably disoriented at first. He pushes that aside pretty much immediately though, much more interested in getting to know everyone. He's a kind and soft spoken, weirdly wise sort of guy and near instantly becomes the heart of the team

Wallflower (A Link Between Worlds)

4 years after wishing upon the triforce with Zelda

Bitter doesn't even begin to describe this uh.. Pleasant fella. After being bossed around for the better part of his life he doesn't take orders from anybody and is this close to quitting his job as a blacksmith. He hates being stuck here, he hates these strange people, really there's not much he doesn't hate. But that can't be all there is to him...

Puzzle (The Legend of Zelda and Adventure of Link)

1,5 years after waking Zelda II

Confused, disoriented, but still happy to help and ready for adventure. Though some of the others don't really like him around he's still just as friendly to everyone. Since he struggles to communicate he tends to stay quiet. He appears to be simple minded on first glance, but he'll prove to be a valuable member of the team.

Sprout (Minish Cap)

13 years after defeating Vaati

After his grandfather died he retreated into his house and dedicated himself to improving his blacksmithing skills to live up to his grandfather's name, he was quickly forgotten by his community and faded into obscurity. Now he may be the best blacksmith in Hyrule, so good that even the royal guard hires him, but among the general castletown population he's nothing more than a forest cryptid. He only leaves the house when he has to, carefully avoiding people. Not because they disgust him, he just has a major case of social anxiety!

Squire (Breath of the Wild)

3 years pre calamity

This absolute rascal couldn't be happier about his current circumstances. These unknown woods are his playground and all of these weirdos are his friends now! Though everyone's pretty sure he's a knight trainee, he insists that he's just a stable hand for the guard. His chaotic and carefree nature surprisingly doesn't get in the way of things as he's eager to help out wherever he can, seeing the whole journey as an impromptu camping trip.

Some funfacts :]

Most of them are neurodivergent in some way!

Birdie and Seagull have ADHD, Grasshopper and Choo are autistic, Squire gets the combo platter AuDHD and Wolfie has OCD

Additionally, Birdie has auditory processing disorder and dyscalculia, and Squire has dyslexia

A few of them also have speech disorders

Choo stutters and Puzzle has cluttering speech disorder

Apple has a weak voice, so after a while his voice gets tired and gets hoarse

Choo enjoys drawings and cartography, two skills that will be very important!

One of Seagull's hobbies is photography! He takes his pictobox everywhere

Wolfie also does entertainment at the bar from time to time! He sings or does card tricks

Sprout knows HSL (hylian sign language) because his grandfather was deaf

Seagull's piratey way of talking is 100% for show and painfully inconsistent

Wolfie speaks in a thick southern (in universe ordonian) accent but he's trying hard to mask it since he moved to castletown

Wallflower absolutely hates Puzzle

Squire's special interest is horses

Birdie is a bit of a doormat so he has the ideas but Wolfie is the one to actually get them through

A number of them are blood related (has nothing to do with the colours of their names in this post, I had to reuse some because there weren't enough orz)

That's all I have for you today! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! :]

If any of you have any questions about my Links or AU you'd like answered, my inbox is open!

Have a lovely day everyone!

#links meet au #tloz #legend of zelda #tloz fanart #tloz au #legend of zelda au #link #artists on tumblr #not lu #link and the links au #LatL au #my art #triangles #IT IS DONE FINALLY #Apologies for my handwriting also orz I tried #LatL #the lads

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otakusparkle · 20 days

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Identity V Stageplay Present

Episode 4 : "Phantom of The Monochrome"

Poster Preview

Story Plot

A four-on-one game of tag, if you win, your wish will come true. Whatever your "wish" is ...

In the mysterious game played by the survivors and hunters at the manor, "that person" who should not exist appears. "The phantom". Before long, both the survivors and the hunters started calling by that nickname. In order to solve the mystery, the "Prisoner" from the survivors and Wuchang from the hunters, each take action. In the process, they will come face to face with their own pasts.

For more information :

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trickstarbrave · 2 months

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WIP WHENEVER

HIIIIIIIIII im very excited to share this wip. im so mad i wrote this out of order bc i wanna post it immediately. im looking forward tho to finally being able to edit and post it on ao3 normally

i got tagged by @caliblorn and @your-talos-is-problematic and im taggingggggg @woundjob, @thescrolls-haveforetold, @wellthebardsdead and my roommate @soundwavefucker69

here is smth for moon and star. lots of lorkhan talk. some chim. some trauma. even some dagoth ur

literally i was like "oh yeah. its all coming together" writing this also its long im sorry

also here is my god!nerevar sketch. can be interpreted also as just how lorkhan appears to neht and the ppl around him

Malacath’s hand touched his chest and pain wracked his body. Nerevar could feel the blade cutting away his skin—cutting through the bone of his sternum and splintering it. It ripped apart and opened his ribcage, before that damn hand was then inside his chest. His anxiety spiked as he could feel phantom touches on his heart, a hand gripping it, long claws digging into the muscle as it continued to beat loud and sturdy. His whole body had gone rigid, nostrils flared and his breathing coming in quick pants desperate to get more air in his lungs.

He was terrified. More than terrified, in fact. It was like being killed in the heart chamber but all the more worse somehow. He was choking now, gagging on blood—thick, black blood that was pouring from his chest, bubbling up in his throat.

And then Nerevar was overcome with the urge to laugh. To laugh besides the terror coursing through him, to laugh even though he was gagging and choking on his own blood. He knew he would die; it had been a part of his plan all along. He hadn’t known what death would be like, but he had anticipated it, at least on his own terms. And yet here Trinimac was, killing him himself. Ripping his heart from his chest.

He had intended the first death to be slow and simple. A fading ember rather than a bright, all encompassing flame that destroyed everything with it. He had intended to bear the burden as the cause of the first death in their reality where death did not yet exist—was merely a theory. But here Trinimac was, unknowingly mantling that sin himself. A cruel irony he would be the one to blame for this. It was not his fault, but it would be his responsibility and duty.

He’d collapsed at some point, gasping, crying, and choking on blood as Voryn held him close. Voryn shouldn’t see him like this—not his beloved, sobbing and begging. He couldn’t hear his voice over the drumming of his own heart but he tried to speak despite all the gagging he was doing. His gorgeous, sweet lover, his beautiful hawk shouldn’t have to watch him die like this. Not when Nerevar knew this was coming, deep down. Not when he had doomed them both, sacrificed Voryn’s life on the altar just as much as his own. He was regretting it now, if only because he couldn’t apologize; how could he speak when Trinimac had already ripped out his heart? How could he explain he never wanted to hurt Voryn in truth? How would his beloved hawk even react to his death? Oh the fury he could bring down, how he could drown the world in blood and tears if he was pushed to the brink…

And what of Azura, his sister? His poor, vain, vindictive sister… She hadn’t agreed to help him, but he knew she would be in a rage over his death. And even the man killing him was sobbing and crying, apologizing despite his lord—Nerevar’s own brother—ordering his execution. How could he apologize to this man? To tell him he knew he didn’t mean for it, that Nerevar was the villain all along in this story? Would that soothe his grief? Trinimac, Kyne, Azura, all of the others… How would they fair without him? Tears were now spilling from his eyes not from pain but sorrow that he wouldn’t be there to comfort and love them. Ah, if only he could kiss his hawk one last time…

“Nerevar!” Voryn’s voice finally cut through, and a disconnect happened in the vision. He was untethered now, the sensation of falling back into his own body hitting him, and his ears were ringing loudly, a dizziness washing over him. There were no more feathers on Voryn’s face or on his cloak—why would there be? Voryn wasn’t… Voryn wasn’t a hawk, why would he call him that so fondly? There weren’t even tears streaming down his face like he had seen before, but his face was in a grimace, pained watching him writhe and flail choking on imaginary blood.

His hand came up to his chest as he felt around, but there was no gaping wound like he’d expected. Why had he felt it so clearly then? His whole body was still shaking from the terror and pain, unable to calm the trembling.

“Do you remember now, Lorkhan?” Malacath asked, still standing over him. Vivec and Sil were currently being held back by the numerous orcs, though they were swearing up a storm and desperately trying to fight their way closer to defend him. Even Voryn had a spell prepared as he cradled Nerevar close to his chest, posed with the ferocity of a wild animal protecting its young.

“I-I’m not…” Nerevar began, though it felt like a lie on his tongue. He could still taste the metallic black in his mouth, the unnatural blood he was choking on. His body felt hot now, his mouth dry making the metallic taste all the more nauseating. “Lorkhan is dead!” He shouted definitively. Lorkhan was a dead god—long dead before Nerevar had ever been born as a lowly half blooded chimer in that ebony mine.

“And yet, here you are, alive and in the flesh.” Malacath responded, his expression unwavering. “I would know that heartbeat anywhere. I would know how you battle more than anyone else.”

“Stop it!” Nerevar shouted, covering his ears, still shaking.

“Why you deny it is my only question for you.”

“I’m not Lorkhan!” Nerevar growled, teeth bared. His whole body felt like it was burning, just like in the heart chamber. That supernatural chanting from his dream came back too, at the edges of his senses, as he fought back the urge to vomit. “I’m not Lorkhan, just shut up, shut up, shut up!!”

The next thing he knew, everything went black, the last thing he heard being his own heartbeat pounding in his ears and Voryn calling his name.

Nerevar’s eyes snapped open. His hands frantically touched at his chest, once again checking for the wound, only to find nothing. Still, the unmistakable ache was there, however faint.

“Where…?” He found himself someplace… Bizarre. There was stone architecture, that much he knew, but it seemed… Foreign, though they were in a state of disarray. It looked like some kind of abandoned tower, the roof having long since caved in, vines growing over stone. In the middle, where Nerevar was laying was soft grass and a few wildflowers. He sat up, looking around even further, confused.

“Damn Trinimac, causing problems again…” Someone behind him muttered, and Nerevar quickly turned to see--

Himself?

He jumped, panicked. No, no he could tell it wasn’t himself. He looked a lot like Nerevar, and sounded a lot like Nerevar, but there was something off about his appearance. He was taller than Nerevar--around Voryn’s height maybe? His hair was much longer too, not to mention he was wearing long robes Nerevar would never wear given how complicated and annoying they looked. Not to mention the longer he looked at him the more his appearance seemed to change--subtle ripples you had to focus on to know. His eyes subtly changed shape, along with his other features, sort of at random in moments where if you blinked you’d miss them.

“Apologies for that.” The man said, walking over and plopping down to sit next to Nerevar. “I never expected his followers to summon him, nor that he’d do something like that…”

“Who are you?” Nerevar asked, his heart still racing in his chest. The other simply plopped his chin in his hand, staring back at Nerevar, amused.

“You and your lover--both just asking questions instead of even trying to figure it out for yourselves…” He tsk-tsked with a soft click of his tongue and a shake of his head.

“How the hell am I supposed to know who you are?” Nerevar snapped. “I don’t even know where I am!”

“Easy, no need to raise your voice.” He still looked amused, despite Nerevar’s anger.

“Why in Oblivion do you look like me?” Nerevar demanded an answer now; he was in no mood to play games at the moment. He felt his heart being ripped out by that damn orc god and now he had someone playing mind games with him.

The other sighed.

“I am Lorkhan.” Nerevar’s blood ran cold.

“What…?” Nerevar stared in confusion and shock. “But Lorkhan is--”

“Dead?” He asked with a smirk and a quirk of his brow. “Don’t I know it.” Lorkhan then laughed heartily. “But when did that stop the dead from interfering with the living from time to time?”

“Why are you here?” Nerevar asked, leaning away from him.

“I thought it would be only fair to show myself to you after that stunt Trinimac pulled.” He explained. “Though I imagine the fact you were stabbed through the chest once before only made it that much harder for you.”

Nerevar was trying to figure out the situation he was in, putting the pieces together the best he could. Several daedra called him Lorkhan, and here was Lorkhan looking remarkably similar to Nerevar. Was it possible people were mixing them up based on appearance? That didn’t seem quite right; it would make sense for Malacath and potentially Dagon, but Dagon didn’t call him Lorkhan initially, and not to mention it wouldn’t explain the nords. He doubted the elf hating people of Skyrim would so readily accept an elven appearance for their chief deity. Nor did it explain the strange, supernatural beating of his heart that drove him to accomplish strange feats out of sheer willpower alone.

“... Why do you look like me?” Nerevar repeated his question again.

“Come now, I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out.” Lorkhan laughed again.

“Answer me.”

“Well,” Lorkhan’s grin looked mischievous now. “It’s only fitting I look like you because I am you, don’t you think?”

This time a numbing tingle followed the chill in his blood. “Y… You…”

“Or well, I suppose it might be easier to understand if I say you’re a part of me.” Lorkhan continued. “You wouldn’t be the first mortal to be a fragment of me, anyways.”

“I’m not you!” Nerevar snapped, gritting his teeth. He did what he was best at: lashing out when he was truly scared and confused--when problems became too difficult to ignore or solve on his own. “I’m not you! I’m not Lorkhan!!”

Silence followed, the faint sound of birds chirping having vanished, the sky turning a stormy gray. He was panting from his outburst of yelling, but the screaming hadn’t really solved anything. Lorkhan was still sitting in front of him, looking at him with a serious expression, unphased. He was still in this crumbling tower, sitting in the grass.

How long could he run from this? Daedric princes called him Lorkhan. The nords called him Shor. The strange visions he received that only made sense if they were Lorkhan’s memories, not to mention his heart--

Nerevar curled up, hands moving up as he felt a pain in his chest, clutching his shirt tightly.

He was scared. He was scared and he didn’t know what was going on. He was terrified because ultimately, he didn’t know what this meant. He didn’t know what this made him.

Gingerly, two arms wrapped around him, pulling him up from the fetal position he curled himself into and into a warm embrace.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Lorkhan whispered, “Just let it out.” As soon as he said that, tears were flowing out of Nerevar’s eyes as he openly sobbing into his shoulder, holding onto him. Nerevar never really had a father--as the Nerevarine he was an orphan who didn’t really know who his parents were and as Nerevar his father was hunted down before the two of them ever met. But at that moment Nerevar couldn’t deny there was something paternal in the way Lorkhan held him gently, letting him cry and sob with arms that felt so much stronger than Nerevar could imagine. As alien as it was, he felt safe in his arms, the pain in his chest fading though he was still distraught and crying.

Eventually though, his tears died down to soft whimpers rather than open sobs, Lorkhan stroking his hair all the while.

“It’s alright.” He repeated, trying to reassure Nerevar.

“It’s not alright.” Nerevar countered. “If I’m just you that means I don’t really exist!” It was the truth; if he was just some shard of Lorkhan then he had no real identity of his own. He was just a piece of a larger whole, delusional in that it thought itself independent and separate. “No one really knows me. No one really loves me.” The person Voryn loved wasn’t even real, just a false identity of someone who denied who they truly were. Was the person Voryn actually loved just the pieces of Lorkhan that made up Nerevar? Lorkhan said there were other mortals like him--what if Voryn left him for someone who was a larger, better part of Lorkhan? “I’m just a part of you, an extension of you. I don’t have any thoughts or feelings of my own!”

“Hey now, that’s not true.” Lorkhan interjected. “If you had no thoughts or feelings of your own, how could you deny being me?”

“But--”

“You have thoughts and feelings and emotions of your own.” Lorkhan reiterated. “You have your own identity, your own history, your own relationships.” Lorkhan gently dried the tears on his cheeks, careful of the sharp nails on his hands. “You don’t have all the same traits as me, and likewise, how you act on things is entirely up to you.”

“But then how am I you?” Nerevar asked, apprehensive.

“Hm… How to explain this…” Lorkhan began, humming softly, trying to gather his thoughts. “... Do you know that sometimes people take cuttings from plants to make a new one?”

Nerevar did know that, though he’d never done so himself. He was bad at growing plants, but he’d heard of it a few times.

“When they take a cutting from a tree for instance, it was once a part of that tree.” Lorkhan continued. “One of the many, smaller branches of it. But with care and cultivation, it grows roots of its own, and then spreads itself deep into the soil as a little sapling, before finally growing into a tree itself.” Lorkhan then smiled at him. “You’re like a cutting made from me that grew into its own tree. We might be made up of the same things and bear the same fruit, but you might have different branches than me and grow in different ways.”

“... But what if someone only loves that tree because of its fruit?” Nerevar asked.

What if Voryn only loved him for the parts of him that were Lorkhan? What if, when Voryn found out, he became disillusioned? Why would he bother with having Nerevar as a lover if he was just a part of a larger whole? What if there was a better piece of Lorkhan out there to love, or he could simply worship the dead god in earnest to get closer to the source?

Lorkhan responded by pinching his cheek playfully, pulling Nerevar from his mental spiral.

“Then someone doesn’t really love that tree specifically, now do they?”

“But--”

“Trees are much more than the fruit they bear.” Lorkhan continued, cutting him off. “They provide shade in the sun, and shelter in the rain. They are homes for birds, and the wind whistles through the branches to make music, or even children play in the branches and leaves.” Lorkhan was still smiling at him warmly. “Even if they love the fruit it makes too, not just any fruit tree can be their tree. And if they only love the fruit, wouldn’t you prefer someone who really loved the tree to take care of it rather than someone who only cared about what the tree produced?”

Ah, Nerevar saw what he was getting at here. If Voryn only loved the parts of him that were Lorkhan and didn’t care about him otherwise, that meant he didn’t really love Nerevar. Nerevar’s hand reached over to caress the scar on his left shoulder gently, unable to really feel it through his shirt and armor, but comforted by the knowledge it was there nonetheless.

Would Voryn have really asked Nerevar to carve his name into him if he didn’t love Nerevar? Perhaps the rest of Lorkhan didn’t appeal to Voryn. Perhaps the other traits other mortals shared with Lorkhan weren’t the same as how Nerevar was. Nerevar wanted to trust Voryn with his heart and make this work--he shouldn’t be assuming once again that Voryn would be quick to leave him and replace him with someone else. Voryn committed to Nerevar.

“There we go.” Lorkhan smiled, seeing his stormy expression fade.

“... But I don’t know what any of this means.” Nerevar continued. “Why am I a part of you? What does any of this mean?” How was he supposed to move forward like this? How many other daedra would challenge him calling him Lorkhan? “How can I tell what’s my thoughts and abilities and what’s just yours? How can I tell if I’m even real?”

That was the part Nerevar was still grappling with. If he was called Lorkhan and acted like Lorkhan and did what Lorkhan was supposed to do… Didn’t that just make him Lorkhan? When he was the Nerevarine he slowly just assumed Nerevar’s memories, thoughts, and identity after he was sent back in time--or was going back in time not real either. “The future--what about my memories of the future? Are those fake too or--”

Lorkhan smiled softly, almost knowingly.

“Oh little star,” Lorkhan chuckled as though he was recounting something funny. “None of your memories of the future are real.”

“... Huh?” They weren’t… Real? “But Dagoth Ur--the Tribunal--” Didn’t Vivec have a vision of Nerevar being killed as king? That was in the future Nerevar saw as well.

“None of it was real.” Lorkhan was still smiling, but Nerevar was sent spiraling again.

It was all so real. Nerevar could feel it. He felt Vivec’s spear ramming through him. He could hear the hurt and betrayal in Dagoth Ur’s voice, along with the cold anger as he revealed he would never be able to trust Nerevar even if Nerevar had agreed to join him. Almalexia had attempted to kill him a second time as the Nerevarine, and he remembered fighting her after discovering Sotha Sil’s mangled corpse.

Panic set in then. If none of that was real then… Why did he not remember his past? Why had he dreamed up such a strange turn of events? Why--

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Lorkhan leaned in close, a devilish smirk on his face now. “I’m not real either.”

Nerevar blinked in shock, only to find Lorkhan was gone. In fact, everything was gone now, leaving Nerevar floating in an inky, black void.

Nerevar’s panic rose at that. It could have been Lorkhan just telling him he was a figment of Nerevar’s imagination and not actually the ghost of a dead god but… Nerevar knew that wasn’t the case. He could feel it, deep in the pit of his stomach, and the revelation was not a comforting one. He was left entirely untethered in this void, and looking down at his hands, he saw himself flickering in and out.

If Nerevar was Lorkhan, and Lorkhan didn’t exist, then that meant that he didn’t exist either. Really didn’t exist. It was so much more comfortable to imagine himself as a shard of Lorkhan, living and moving on its own, ignorant to the fact it was part of a larger whole.

A clawed hand touched his back and a sickening chill overtook him as he found himself in the heart chamber of Red Mountain once again. He was trembling as he continued to flicker in and out of existence. The heart’s rhythm was equally unsteady, stopping and starting at random, the sounds a disjointed mess.

If the heart of the world was not stable--was not real--then what did that make the world?

What did that make his friends? The people he loved?

What did that make Voryn?

A familiar voice called out to him, large, clawed hands gripping him tightly and pulling him in close.

“I told you once before,” Dagoth Ur began, “We are bound to the dreamsleeve together.” Nerevar knew that wasn’t right, but he didn’t know how to counter it either.

“I am the dreamer,” Dagoth Ur continued, “And this is all my dream, my sweet Nerevar.” Nerevar didn’t like the fondness in his tone. This was a twisted version of Voryn, corrupted and maddened, fully delusional. He preferred Voryn sane and warm, affectionate and protective. He didn’t want the delirious, maddened version of him that was Dagoth Ur.

Then, the two had changed locations. Instead of the heart chamber with the unsteady heartbeat echoing around them, they were in what seemed to be a rainbow colored river, all the different colors flowing in strange, glowing patterns. They moved up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards, swirls of color that flowed like incoherent water simultaneously both much thicker and almost syrupy than pure water, and also like it was barely there as they caressed his legs. Each movement came with a strange, fragmented thought, emotion, or memory.

“You are simply a part of my dream.” Dagoth Ur’s hands moved to the front of him now, caressing at his chest. “My most glorious, beautiful creation…”

Nerevar knew that wasn’t true either though. It was an instinctive knowledge, perhaps, but he could tell that was simply not the case. If there was a dreamer, it certainly wasn’t Dagoth Ur.

And then Nerevar looked to his hands to see he was a dunmer again, grey skin and all to match the equally grey hands on his chest. One of Nerevar’s hands moved to caress the scar left from corprus he got as a Nerevarine when he was forcibly attacked to infect him with it, sending him further in his quest, ironically. The scar was an ugly, messy thing--a gross mess of scar tissue trying in vain to form over an injury that wasn’t truly there, growing more mangled and grotesque by the day. Before he couldn’t remember where the attack was from Gares, as his memories of the Third Era faded more and more with his time in Resdayn like a hazy dream, leaving him unsure if it was on his chest, his stomach, his thigh, or his arm. But now he remembered it was--

All of them. He had been hit by the attack in all of those places, in different moments in time, in different versions of the same event. And in that way, it wasn’t one moment specifically but simply an event that could have played out differently, in a way bending and contorting around the flow of fate. And just as he realized it, the scar itself faded entirely.

“Nerevar, stop this.” Dagoth Ur warned, his voice concerned. Almost frightened if Nerevar was being honest, though he knew the other wouldn’t admit to it.

“It… Didn’t happen.”

“Yes, it did.” Dagoth ur stressed, but Nerevar stepped away from his hands, walking along the multicolored river. “Do you doubt your own memories? My own memories?” Dagoth Ur insisted. “Just as that was my dream, this too is my dream. A dream where we get to be together.” His voice took on a facsimile of warmth and affection. “A dream where nothing can keep us apart--”

“No,” Nerevar countered, his voice soft. “It happened and… It didn’t. Just how this… None of this is real either.” The thought wasn’t as scary as it was the first time around. In fact, the revelation seemed to almost bring some relief. He dipped his hand into the liquid that pooled around his thighs, running his fingers through it in what seemed to be an arbitrary pattern, relishing in the feelings that washed over him. Like this, he could make them seem coherent. Like this he could move them until he could faintly hear a song--

“Nerevar Mora, return to my side at once.” Dagoth Ur’s tone was threatening again. It seemed that Nerevar had gotten under his skin.

“You are not a god. I’m not a figment of your dream…” Nerevar could insist if anything he might be the one dreaming all of this up but… He knew that wasn’t quite right either. Lorkhan didn’t exist. Nerevar didn’t exist, so he couldn’t be the one dreaming. But he knew he wasn’t a figment of Dagoth Ur’s imagination, that was for certain. “... And you’re not a figment of mine.”

Dagoth Ur was in front of him again, clawed hands gripping his arms tightly while his teeth audibly grit from behind the gold mask. “If I am not the dreamer then you’re saying I don’t exist! Do you even understand what you’re saying?!” His hands gripped Nerevar’s arms even tighter, but Nerevar himself was unphased. “I exist because I say I exist. You exist because I allow you to exist.”

“Or have you forgotten your nightmares? The memories of me?” Dagoth ur changed gears now that he saw it wasn’t persuading Nerevar. “Have you forgotten the way you shuddered at my touch? Or the way I could make such sweet, passionate love to you that you forgot everything else?” Nerevar had to admit he did in fact enjoy those moments with Voryn; Nerevar loved nothing more than losing himself completely in Voryn’s body, of being unable to think about nothing else but how wonderful Voryn could make him feel. But Nerevar knew he couldn’t forget this whole mess even happened and fall readily back into Voryn’s arms, trying to delude himself that it was real. He knew he’d go mad even trying, unable to take joy from it as he tried to deny the reality he was confronted with before.

“Do not make me rip you asunder and remake you.” Dagoth Ur threatened, venom dripping off his tongue. But at the threat, Nerevar reached his hands out, cupping the golden mask in them, before throwing the mask off entirely.

His face looked like Voryn’s but so much older and more tired. His eyes were dead, glazed over and foggy, with only the third eye on his forehead seemingly capable of sight. His complexion was equally dead--ashen even for a dunmer. A dead sleeper who dreamed he was still alive, just as that wise woman said so long ago.

Nerevar leaned up, pressing a soft, gentle kiss to his lips. He didn’t like this maddened version of Voryn, but he knew he still loved him. He loved Dagoth Ur and mourned for him. As horrible as it was, it was a mercy for Nerevar to slay him as the Nerevarine. It was a mercy for things to return to the past so they could have a better future, one where Nerevar wouldn’t hurt him as cruelly as he did the first time around.

Then, just as the gentle kiss started, Nerevar pulled away, whispering softly. The words tumbled out of his mouth before he even realized it, but the truth spoken in them was more real than anything else he had seen.

“I already unmade you.”

Dagoth Ur stared down at him in shock, before, like ash in the wind, he faded. And Nerevar was left standing alone in the dreamsleeve.

Yet, something was gnawing at his psyche. If Dagoth Ur was not the dreamer and didn’t allow him to exist, then what was his purpose? If this was all a dream, then who was dreaming?

Dread washed over Nerevar again, overwhelming him as he felt like someone or something was watching him. Like he was a tiny insect crawling where he shouldn’t have, about to be crushed by the figure that finally realized he existed.

Yet, part of Dagoth Ur’s words made sense. He wasn’t real. None of this was real. Nerevar could either stand there and accept it and fade into the liquid around him and dissolve into nothingness…

Or he could insist he did exist. That he wanted to exist. That he wanted to continue on, in spite of how nonsensical it was.

“... I exist because I will it.” Nerevar knew he wasn’t the dreamer, but he existed in spite of it. He refused to vanish and become nothing more than a disjointed collective of memories free floating around him.

“Well done.” Lorkhan’s voice echoed, and Nerevar found himself once more in the black, inky void, outside of the dreamsleeve. “I was a bit afraid you might not be able to handle it,” He chuckled softly, “But I can see it was silly of me to worry. You already remade the world, you’d be ready to handle the revelation of the tower.”

“Was that… You?” Nerevar questioned, wondering if Lorkhan took on the appearance of Dagoth Ur just to help him along.

“No. What was in fact a remnant of Dagoth Ur, based on your memories.”

“My memories?” Nerevar raised a brow, as the crumbling tower and soft grass slowly came back into focus around him, real and present once more. It was more comfortable than just free floating anyways.

“Things can’t exist if nothing remembers them.” Lorkhan explained. “But you remembered him, so he continued hiding and lurking…”

“Would he…” Nerevar began, apprehensively. “Would Voryn have become him again…?”

“No.” Lorkhan’s voice was firm and confident, making Nerevar relieved. “Your beloved has already rejected that path.”

“Then how could he exist?”

“He existed outside of Voryn. A part of him and also not. Perhaps in a way also part of you?” It was a confusing explanation, but Nerevar supposed that was in line with everything else so far. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t exist anymore--not as he did just now.” Lorkhan hummed softly again. “Now he’s merely a memory, returned to water once more.”

“I… Don’t understand.” Once again, Lorkhan reached over to pinch Nerevar’s cheek.

“Yes you do, don’t lie to me about that.”

“I mean I get that he’s no longer a problem since I just saw him vanish but I don’t… Know how I did that.”

“He was mostly tied to you. It would have been very easy for anyone in those circumstances to cut him off.” Lorkhan clicked his tongue. “Then again, I suppose not everyone can be connected to the dreamsleeve and confront not existing as well as you did.”

“So I don’t exist?” It was a question, but not asking for an answer more so a confirmation that he was understanding it correctly.

“You don’t. And yet, you do.” Lorkhan confirmed, before elaborating. “All of us exist in that state. But I made Nirn in the first place because I realized it was impossible to move beyond that revelation and actually do something about it without real growth--growth that can only come from trial.”

“... What?” Now he was losing Nerevar. Go beyond the revelation of not existing? How would you even move past something like that?

“Dagoth Ur had a few things correct I’ll admit.” Lorkhan continued, almost rambling now given how little it made sense to Nerevar. “The trial of flesh is needed to overcome the dream…”

“Again, I don’t really understand.” Nerevar interjected, before Lorkhan sighed.

“Ah… Right. I’m getting ahead of myself.” He then reached over, pulling Nerevar into a hug once more. “We don’t have all day, unfortunately. Linear time still exists.” He gave Nerevar’s back a firm pat. “I would explain if I could but… Well, we’d be here for some time. I think your beloved is calling you.” A ringing was in Nerevar’s ears now, the rest of the dream getting fuzzier and fuzzier.

“Voryn…?” Nerevar asked, before his eyes cracked open.

He wasn’t in the grass, but laying on Voryn’s cot, blinking up in a confused daze. It was night, that he could tell from how dark it was in the tent. Beside him, he heard a gasp, as Voryn looked to him frantically.

“Oh thank gods,” Voryn looked close to tears. “Nerevar, do you have any idea how worried I was?” He cupped Nerevar’s cheek, his hand warm and familiar. It felt like Nerevar had been away for ages and also hardly any time at all. “I thought I almost lost you again…”

“I’m alright,” Nerevar sat up slowly, but his arms felt weak. “How long was I out for…?”

“More than a day.” Voryn explained, before helping support Nerevar’s upper body, settling Nerevar to lean against him. “Nothing we did could wake you up. We wanted to raze that damn orc camp to the ground,” He could hear the anger in Voryn’s voice. “But Malacath said his people would assist us and that you would wake up in time.”

Nerevar could tell Voryn hadn’t believed the prince--not after what seemed like an attack on Nerevar.

“I’m fine now.” Nerevar insisted, stroking Voryn’s face. “I’m--”

“Is he awake?” Vivec asked from outside the tent, and Voryn stiffened under Nerevar’s weight.

“He just woke up--” Voryn began, “Give him a few minutes to regain his senses before you shake him down for answers.”

Vivec entered the tent now, his brow furrowed. “You swore I could ask my questions when he awoke.”

“At least give him until the morning.” Voryn pleaded. Vivec looked between the two of them, and it seemed that Nerevar looked haggard enough for Vivec to relent, though he was unhappy about doing so.

“Fine,” Vivec scowled, leaving the tent once more. “In the morning I want answers.”

#wip #my writing #moon and star #moon and star spoilers #nerevoryn #indoril nerevar #nerevar #voryn dagoth

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darthfrodophantom · 9 months

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Heeeey, Darth!! Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💚

Hi Summers! What a great idea! I love this!

Here are the five favorite fics I've written, in no particular order (but maybe a bit of an order):

A Secret Uncovered Summary: When Danny's transformation is caught on tape, Danny has a whole new battle to face, including a press conference, Valerie, and, of course, school. But who is the mysterious ghost who set him up? And how much can he possibly mess up his life? Reason: This has always been my favorite of the pieces I've written. I poured so much love and work into this piece over (many) years. I'm so proud of it. I set out to tell a story of what it would be like if everyone knows (before Everybody Knows AUs became a thing and even before Reality Trip haha) and used it as a vehicle to show so many different reactions. I've had so much fun working on this. (And there may be a cross-post to AO3 very soon!)

Tortured Truth Summary: Danny's parents discover that the ghost boy is half human. Now that they've captured Danny, will he submit to torture and reveal himself, or is the revelation just the beginning of their problems? Reason: I'm starting with my old ones here! This is actually the first fic I ever shared with anyone, and it's also the first fic I've ever finished. While the torture is tame compared to today's standards, I feel like it has a great emotional payout and I enjoyed taking a micro-examination of the family unit's reactions and using Danny's illness as a way to force everyone to confront his powers.

The Red Vengeance Project Summary: With cameras strapped to their foreheads, Paulina and Star venture into the woods to bait the ghostly urban legend to appear in the hopes that Phantom will come save them. It seemed like a good plan in the light of day, but they get more than they ask for in the dark, claustrophobic, and dangerous woods. Reason: This was one of the first DP fics I'd written in a long time. It'd taken a break and just come back to the phandom to write this and another fic for Ectoberhaunt and I loved it. It brought me back to why I loved writing for this phandom in the first place. I picked this one over my actual first fic since coming back because I enjoyed writing this one more. I loved playing around with the different POV and I felt like it resulted in a really cool effect.

Micro-Unmasking Summary: Great timing prevented Danny’s secret from being revealed to Dash during their shared experience with the Fenton Crammer. But what would happen if his timing had been just a little off and Dash saw more than Danny wanted? Reason: This one's had a special place in my heart for awhile. I started it in 2009 and finally finished it in 2022! It was also just a fun topic that I enjoyed reading. I felt like I got to be a little witty in this one and I just really enjoyed writing it.

Prove That You Deserve the Answer Summary: After an argument with Jazz leaves Maddie feeling insecure about her role as a mother, she wishes she could understand her children better. She soon learns the dangers of making wishes around ghosts when she switches places with Jazz. But when this body swap allows her the opportunity to really talk with Danny, she realizes that maybe she can use this to finally see what's really going on with her son, and maybe find some way to fix their relationship in the process. Reason: I am so proud of this one. I sought out to finish a longer fic and I actually did it! I really pushed myself on this one, and I feel like it really paid off. I feel like the internal thoughts and monologues were so fun to explore and I loved writing from Maddie's POV.

And there are my five! This was a fun dive into my past works and really took some thought as to why they became some of my favorites.

Because this is a great idea, I'm gonna do some tagging! Maybe we can come up with a great list of reading recommendations from it by the end! I'm going to tag: @summerssixecho (you're not escaping your own idea lol), @underforeversgrace, @murphy-kitt, @nickelodeonstudios, and @lexosaurus

#danny phantom #danny phantom fanfiction #fanfiction #my writing #my fic writing #fic recommendation #self promotion #what a great idea

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lexosaurus · 5 months

Text

Twelve Hours: Chapter 4

Part 4 of 5 of my fic for Ecto Implosion, the DP reverse mini-bang (artists go first, writers go second)

read on: [ao3]

[see all chapters]

Characters: Danny Fenton, Harriet Chin, GIW (mentioned a lot) Tags: Identity Reveal, Flashbacks, Runaway Danny Fenton, Angst Chapter WC: 3961 Summary: When the GIW revealed Danny to the world, the only thing he could do was run. Run and run and run until he escaped to Chicago, trying desperately to disappear. Too bad it didn’t work.

****

“Although many operatives work within the Ghost Investigation Ward, you’ve been especially outspoken about one in particular. The same man we saw in the interview, actually,” Harriet said, weaving the conversation into a new topic.

He’d been expecting this, of course. Though he never connected the dots so blatantly to the public before, he’d made quite enough digs online and underhanded comments to the press that now any search related to the GIW was sure to result in at least one speculative title theorizing about Phantom’s relationship with one operative.

“Operative O,” Danny stated. “We have a history. Operative K too, even if I don’t talk about him as much.”

“And who was he to you, exactly?”

That really was the question, wasn’t it?

As much as he wanted to dodge the question just as he had done so many times before, he knew he had to metaphorically plant his feet and head straight into the incoming media shitstorm with his head held high.

At least he knew Jazz was backstage. She’d flown out for this, leaving her husband and two kids to fend for themselves in the meantime. And while he should have felt guilty for asking her to do this, overwhelmingly, he only felt relief knowing he had someone here. Danny wasn’t alone; he had someone to hold him and ward away all the darkness that was fighting to grab him with its acid-drenched claws and poison every vein in his body. Darkness that would certainly make its appearance later tonight while he was laying in bed second guessing every life decision that had led him to agree to do this interview at all. And when nightfall would come and Danny would be scrambling to call the station, begging them to please don’t air this episode, I’ll pay you whatever you want, this was a mistake, please don’t air it, Jazz would rip his phone from his fingers—smash it against the wall if she had to—and reassure him that everything was going to be okay. He just had to be brave.

He inhaled. Held. Exhaled.

Okay. He was ready.

“Operatives O and K were partners, and the main two operatives assigned to my case. They both seemed similar to the other operatives at first. Clean-cut, sticklers for the rules, dedicated to their jobs. But as time wore on…you know.” He tried not to squirm in his chair, and he failed. “I thought I knew what would happen if they caught me. I was just so sure I would never get caught that I didn’t think about it. And while I knew deep down that what they were showing me in public was just pretense, I wasn’t prepared for how—how—there’s no other way to say it, but how sadistic they truly were.”

“Both of them?” she asked.

“Sure, but O most of all. When they would punish me in the facility, he was usually the one to do it. Or he would order someone else to do it.”

“Did Operative K punish you at all?”

“Sure, they all did, but none as much as O. It was almost like…” He recalled how his lawyer directed him to phrase the next part. Stick to what happened. Stick to what the courts already know. “I could hear him laughing sometimes when he would punish me. He’d make comments, and he’d be smiling.”

“Do you feel as though he took pleasure from seeing you in pain?”

Yes, Danny wanted to shout. But he couldn’t. Legally.

Harriet must have known he couldn’t say yes, though. She wasn’t stupid, and neither were the other writers or producers for this program.

Realization dawned on him all at once. They were offering a conclusion without Danny having to say it.

“I can’t say whether he enjoyed it or not,” Danny answered professionally. “I can only tell you what I experienced.”

Smartly, Harriet moved forward. “Do you think the experiences you’ve had with Operative O and K have impacted your relationships with people moving forward?”

“Of course,” Danny said as if it were obvious, because it was. “The abuse I received from them has affected every aspect of every relationship, no matter if it’s family, friends, potential love interests—everyone.”

“Is it hard for you to form new connections now, would you say?”

Forming them was hard, but maintaining them was even more so the impossible challenge that he and his therapist were still working through unpacking.

But who could blame him, really? Not with the very real paranoia that crept up his spine every time he picked up his phone to send a text. Even though Tucker reassured him over and over that the app they were using was encrypted, Danny, it’s okay to talk in here, how could they be sure?

Especially after what happened before?

****

03:00:00

Danny stumbled off the train. He’d spent so long hopping from station to station he’d all but forgotten where he’d been heading in the first place.

Which the answer to that was…nowhere in particular. He didn’t know where most homeless people slept in Chicago, and even so, he still hadn’t decided if it would be a good idea to join them. If just one person got too good of a look at him, he’d be dead.

And in the modern day, even the homeless had cell phones.

But this neighborhood looked safer. Or, at least, less populated. The houses and apartments were run down, and Danny was sure there were more than a few unsavory characters close by, but it was dark, quiet, and therefore, a good place to try to hide.

Or, at least, he hoped so. He’d never exactly tried to sleep anywhere other than in his or his friends’ houses before.

He glanced up at the sky. Though it was dark, when he put a bit of ectoplasm into his eyes, he could see the rolling clouds layering on top of each other.

Unlucky, of course. Since when did luck ever try to be on his side? His first day sleeping outside, and it was going to rain.

He tasted the air, and while the acrid humidity had increased into the evening, it still wasn’t strong enough for Danny to be worried. It would rain, but not yet. He still had time to find a shelter.

Or, whatever shelter he could scrounge up.

His eyes, still alight with ectoplasm, shifted back in front of him, landing on a telephone pole some feet away. Ever unmistakable on the wood was that damn green sticker with the bird so neon it almost glowed back at him.

“Can’t fucking escape them,” Danny growled, whipping around to walk in the other direction. If that street was going to show its hostility so openly, then fine, he’d just go away.

Just like he always did.

He turned a corner, walking by a brick house that would have been lovely if not for the set of caved-in steps leading up to the door, or the window that looked like it had been shattered by a brick. Danny wondered if anyone was squatting there. Maybe he could hide in there, just for now.

But…what if someone else had the idea first? And then that person called the GIW on him? He could check invisibly, but what if people in Chicago were just as adept at feeling when a ghost entered their room as people in Amity were? It was too risky. He couldn’t do something so bold as go inside an abandoned house.

If not there, though, then where else? Where could he go? Was he forever barred from ever getting shelter, getting safety? Was he only destined to continue searching and searching, coming close but never finding a place to be like some sort of twisted version of Sisyphus? And if so, would the Guys in White be constantly at his heel laughing at him as they watched him get so close only to fail, over and over again?

Was this a game to them?

No, yes, oh Ancients, maybe. Maybe Operative O was so cruel, so sick in the head that he would relish the opportunity to toy with Danny’s mental sanity like this.

Danny’s hands flew up to knot his hair, yanking if only to quiet the shallow breaths and dull the spots that were beginning to dance over his eyes.

He stumbled on. He needed help. He needed Sam and Tucker. God, he couldn’t do this on his own. He’d never been without a home before—he didn’t know what to do! He couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t do this.

No!

His whole body stiffened, and cold dread splashed down his spine as he realized one of his hands had unwoven itself from his hair to free his phone from his pocket.

No, no, no. He couldn’t. He had turned it off almost as soon as he’d left the border of Amity Park. Well, actually, he tried to smash it against the pavement but failed. He wasn’t strong enough to completely cut himself off from his loved ones. Not physically, but…the other thing.

Mentally.

He was weak.

Too weak.

His hand trembled as it slid the phone back in his pocket and clutched a cold, metal bar before him. If he turned his cell on, then he could risk everything. He didn’t know if the GIW had the clearance to track his cell, but he wasn’t about to chance it.

He exhaled. He was okay. He took his fears, anxieties, and every twisted creature taunting him from the corners of his mind and shoved them back into their infinitely deep cage.

He couldn’t afford to break down. Not right now.

Unfortunately, in his distraction, he hadn’t noticed the footsteps closing the distance to him till it was too late.

“What are you doing? Get off my fucking gate,” a voice snapped.

Ice froze his sneakers to the ground, and he was slow, too slow to react.

Gate? He looked down, then up, then around. He’d somehow moved to stand in front of a different apartment, this one not abandoned. Sure, the front steps had caved on the sides, and a broken chair sat out front, but the house itself probably had a resident. And this resident, he guessed, was right behind him.

But…he was still on the sidewalk. Okay, maybe his arms were over a front entrance gate, and maybe in his panic it looked like he was trying to look into the house, but he wasn’t trespassing anywhere.

Were they even talking to him?

“Yeah, you, kid! I know you hear me!” The voice was closer now. “The fuck, are you deaf?”

Now, Danny turned as if he was fighting against a pool of syrup. Sure enough, the disembodied voice belonged to someone, though Danny wasn’t sure who because there were multiple guys in front of him. They were all at least several years his senior, and the shortest of the trio probably had at least five inches on him.

Oh. Fuck.

Danny made eye contact with the man in the middle wearing a baggy, unzipped orange and black jacket over an equally baggy hoodie with the hood up over his buzzed hair. He stared down Danny as if he were Satan himself sent here to personally deliver his reckoning, and wouldn’t that just be the ultimate irony of the century?

“Hi,” Danny said meekly.

“What’s good?” the guy in the orange jacket said, eyeing Danny up and down. “The fuck are you doing in front of my place?”

Danny’s eyes darted between the apartment and the clearly hostile dude before him. “I—I wasn’t—” whatever modicum of confidence he’d ever possessed today was clearly so gone that Danny wasn’t sure it had ever existed.

“You casing my fucking house, bro?” the man asked, stepping forward.

Danny wasn’t typically one to feel physically threatened by a human. Hell no, not when he’d faced ghosts ten times more dangerous every week. But for some reason, as he surveyed the three guys who all very much looked a second away from swinging at him, he felt like a little kid standing before Dash and his cronies without any ghost powers to call on.

He couldn’t afford to risk using ghost powers in front of these guys, and the bigger man to the right—the one in the pale blue beanie—was looking at Danny like he was trying to figure out where he’d seen his face before. Maybe that was why he felt so spooked. Or perhaps it was the way Danny knew that these guys weren’t Dash, they were strangers to Danny, they were three guys who’d clearly grown up on the streets of Chicago.

And as much as he understood the hierarchy of ghosts, he sure as shit didn’t understand the human social hierarchy.

He was scared, he realized. He was fucking terrified. He’d been terrified all day and now facing his first night on the streets alone, he was scared even more.

He stepped back and raised his hands, but the trio only advanced further on him.

“Casing my motherfucking house,” the guy repeated, though not to Danny.

Danny had no idea what the guy was talking about. Casing? What?

“What block you from, kid?” the big guy on the right asked. “I swear I seen you before.”

“You haven’t,” Danny said weakly, his voice cracking. “I’ve never met you.”

The skinny guy to the left sneered. “You gonna meet us now, bro.”

Danny’s back hit the gate, and his heart stuttered. “I wasn’t doing anything, I swear. I was just trying—trying to—”

His breath stopped. Trying to...what, exactly? Find shelter? Keep his sanity together? Not get discovered and kidnapped by the government?

All three?

“Shut the fuck up,” the leader said. “You know how many times I’ve heard that talk? Bullshit, man. You gonna get it in. Casing my fucking house? You gonna get it in.”

“Slap his stupidass, bro. Kid’s all doped out anyway. Look at him! Can’t do shit,” the skinny guy said.

“Where your homies at?” the bigger guy asked.

Danny could barely understand what was happening anymore, and he couldn’t stop the anxiety from rising in his throat like bile, spitting out in a flurry of, “I don’t have any! I’m alone. I just want to leave.”

Then, time slowed desperately and painfully. Danny saw the hand coming, in theory, but denial was too powerful of a drug, and no, this wasn’t happening right now. Except it was.

The fist connected with his cheek in a sickening crack. Pain erupted in his bones, and Danny’s head jerked to the side, his body falling onto the gate. He bobbed, clutching the metal bars for stability as he blinked stars out of his vision.

Oh, Ancients, he was doomed. He was going to get jumped by these guys, and there was nothing he could do in self-defense because the only things he knew involved using his powers.

The man closed the distance, landing his next fist in Danny’s stomach. He doubled over, fighting for air that seemed to have little intention of returning to him.

“Fucking kid,” the guy towering over him taunted. “You don’t fucking go in my fucking house.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” Danny whispered.

He didn’t know if the man heard him, but Danny didn’t think it would matter. His friends were whooping behind him, and the rush exuding from his skin told a tale of how little he intended to halt his quest to ruin Danny’s body tonight.

Danny tried to dart to the side, but without his intangibility, the man’s fist caught his jaw, snapping his neck back and sending a cry of pain into the sky. Not that anyone was listening, of course. The spikes from the gate jabbed painfully into his back, and all Danny could think about was how he was cornered, alone, defenseless.

The man took a step back, but Danny knew that meant fuck all. He was just giving himself space to wind up and sock Danny again, or maybe knee him this time, all while his two friends laughed and jeered, and Danny was fucked, he was so fucked.

Panic rushed through him, and he turned to the three men with eyes glazed in what he could be sure pure, unfiltered fear.

He wanted to turn intangible so badly and run, but he couldn’t. If anyone saw, if anyone noticed—

There was no incoming blow.

Danny ripped through the veil of dread clouding his mind, and that’s when he saw it. The big guy pointing to him, and the other two frozen beside him.

“What the fuck is wrong with his eyes, bro?” the skinny guy asked. “Ah shit, don’t tell me he’s possessed.”

“That’s the kid!” the big guy shouted, ignoring his friend. “The Phantom kid! That’s him!”

The skinnier guy rounded on his friend with a, “Who the fuck?”

“No fucking way,” the leader stepped back, falling in line with his friends.

“I ain’t playing, bro, that’s him.”

Danny blinked, and the simmering green disappeared from the edges of his vision.

Three.

Two.

One.

FUCK!

He didn’t wait for them to debate his existence in front of them. Three seconds and his decision was set. Invisibility cloaked him, then intangibility, and then he was past the men, running down the street like his fucking life depended on it, which wasn’t far from the truth.

His sneakers pounded on the pavement, his heart pumping in his ears as a slew of curses overtook his brain.

That was it. He was finished. He was done.

He turned a corner and darted down the sidewalk, not caring who heard him or whatever the fuck else people could be thinking at the sounds of someone sprinting with no body to match. Those guys had figured him out—they’d figured him out!

He was so fucking stupid for thinking he could blend in with anyone. He was a halfa. A freak. He couldn’t do this he couldn’t be here he COULDN’T.

His cell phone rattled in his pocket, and he sidestepped down an alley, accidentally knocking a trash bin over as he made for the back. There was a dumpster there, of course, and he jammed himself into the brick wall beside it, making sure he wasn’t visible to the street before dropping his invisibility and swiping his phone from his pocket.

It was slow—too slow—to turn on. Please, turn on turn on turn on!

He could feel the fringes of reality slipping from his mental hold like threads on a frayed blanket, and he didn’t stop them from leaving. It didn’t matter anymore. Any second, white vans would be surrounding this whole neighborhood and one sweep of an ecto-scanner later and Danny would be fucked.

The phone finally finished loading, and Danny’s shaking fingers only failed at entering his password once before he was past the locked screen and jabbing open his messages.

He had several missed calls, but he couldn’t bother himself with those right now, swiping the notifications away. Not when there was so little time and he was breaking, quickly, so quickly.

The phone hardly rang before a worried voice crackled to life on the other line. “Danny?” Then, the voice turned into alarm. “Danny!”

“Tucker,” Danny gagged. Not on bile, but on tears.

Was he crying?

The other number picked up as well with a barely restrained, “Danny!”

“Sam,” he croaked, clutching his phone like the fucking lifeline that it was.

“Wait, Danny.” Tucker’s tone was suddenly serious. “Listen, you shouldn’t—”

Sam’s voice overtook Tucker’s. “What happened? Are you okay? Please, where are you?”

“No!” Tucker said. “Don’t tell us. Listen, Danny—”

Danny closed his eyes, letting Tucker’s voice turn into a calming drone because so tired of fighting himself and running and it had only been a day, he couldn’t do this, guys, he couldn’t do this alone.

“—and don’t be an asshole, Tuck,” Sam was saying when Danny had the know-how to tune back in.

He didn’t know how long he’d been spacing out. Hopefully, only a few seconds.

“Danny, please, are you safe?” Sam pleaded.

“I—” His voice cracked. “I don’t know.”

“What happened?” Sam asked, her voice rushed. “All we know is that they ambushed you at the school, and then you escaped. We’ve both been getting nonstop questioned by investigators and the police since, but we keep telling them we don’t know where you are. Please tell us you’re somewhere safe, Danny. Please.”

He couldn’t.

Oh, god. How do you tell someone goodbye?

The words slipped out of him. “I was seen.”

There was a pause. Then, Tucker. “By who?”

“Some guys. They jumped me. Didn’t know who I was, and then my eyes…” Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. God, he was so fucking tired.

“You were jumped?!” Sam cried out.

“Okay, wait, listen. If they jumped you, then it might not be so bad. They probably won’t report you.”

“Yeah, violent people don’t tend to like talking to the cops,” Sam said. “You should still be okay.”

Danny’s incoming sob turned into a laugh, because of course! How could he have been so stupid? No Chicago resident trusted law enforcement.

His life wasn’t doomed. He was going to be okay, at least for today. Tomorrow was a different story, but they wouldn’t tattle, he was going to be fine.

“You should still leave wherever you are, just in case,” Tucker said. “You can’t tell us where you’re going, though. I mean it, Danny. We’re getting questioned too much. The less we know, the better.”

“I know,” Danny muttered, wiping his cheeks.

“You need to hang up and turn off your phone. We have no idea if they’re tracking your number. We could be sending off a beacon to them right now for all we know.”

“Yeah, okay,” Danny said, though he was still reveling in his bliss to feel any urgency from Tucker’s voice. “I’ll leave here when I’m done calling you.”

“Please do,” Tucker said.

“Danny, please be safe,” Sam interjected. “You know we love you. All of us, your parents included.”

His stomach jolted, and suddenly he felt like crying all over again.

They said that? Really? His parents?

Was that all they said?

He had so many questions swirling in his head, but there was no time to ask. Tucker was giving his sign-off, and despite the sudden lightness lifting his spirit from the depths of hell, he still felt the sudden urgency to say something.

“Wait!” He cut their goodbyes off. “I—I—you guys. I need you to know…” He swallowed, his vision blurring once more. “Thanks for always being there. You know, as my friends. Seriously, I don’t think I could have survived this long without you.”

There was a second of pause. Then two.

“Jeez, Danny, you don’t have to be so morbid—”

Sam cut Tucker off. “You’ll always be my friend, Danny. Seriously, always. I’m here for you.”

“Ditto,” Tucker added quietly.

Danny pressed the end call button, not trusting himself to break down sobbing with his friends on the other line. Thankfully, his tears waited until his phone was off and back in his pocket before they began to fall. Wretched and uncontrollably, tears spilled on his cheeks, down his chin, and onto the rancid alleyway pavement below as sobs ripped his throat raw.

It wasn’t a goodbye forever, Danny tried to remind himself. They’d talk again. Soon. They’d talk again, and they’d tell him about Jazz, his parents, his parents.

Soon, this would be all over, and Danny would be back in Amity Park in his warm home playing video games and laughing with his best friends.

But if that wasn’t their final goodbye, why did it feel like one?

****

previous / next

[read more of my fics here]

#danny phantom #ectoimplosion2023 #my writing #phicc #dp fanfic #twelve hours #chapter four

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

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Adventure: Hunting in the Ghostglade

Beyond the fortress city of Amaranth there is a wondrous and serene landscape where phantom animals wander among their flesh and blood counterparts, dissolving into light at the slightest touch. For generations hunters have ventured to these Ghostglades to sharpen their skills and engage in sport year round, all without fear of damaging the local game populations. Whether the after effect of some long forgotten conjuration or, as many locals believe, the concession of a wild god to protect their beloved beloved children... the sight truly must be seen to be believed.

-A wanderer’s guidebook to the cities of the basilisk coast, 6th edition

Hooks:

While conducting business in the city of Amaranth, the party gives offence to some minor noble who challenges them to a duel.. though local custom differs greatly from what the party might be expecting. The Amaranthine nobles consider themselves to be peerless hunters, and so settle matters of dispute by determining who’s bow arm and spear hand is truest: riding through the ghostglade and its surrounding forest at high speeds while trying to tag as many of the phantom animals as possible. Since their quarry dissolves into light and mist after being struck, these riders are also followed by a pair of neutral judges who keep tally of the competitors’ kills, deducting points for unsportsmanlike behaviour.

A foreign priestess of Corellon has journeyed to the edge of the Ghostglade seeking answers and would gladly pay the party in escorting her further. Many of her order have debated about whether this magical patch of nature might be a working of their god and thus a worthy site of pilgrimage, though they’ve had only the generations old accounts of dead sages to mull over. Seeking the presence of her god, this priestess will have the party follow her as she seeks to find the natural temples of these meadowlands, or atleast places where they might be built. Her divinations do not bode well: no specific god seems to hold claim over these wilds, and reaching out to touch the land’s magic seems to make the phantom animals glitch out and become erratic.

Not long after their first trip out to the Ghostglades, the party are approached by a fur trader who claims his brother has gone missing. Their family came up as trappers specializing in the mundane beasts that made their home in the strange landscape, and though the two of them have moved on to bigger and better things, his brother still considers himself a prime outdoorsman. At the end of the trail, the party find a very badly wounded merchant’s brother who’s doing his best to not be spotted by an eerily silent pack of phantom humanoids, faceless, but armed with bows and spears and far more resilient than any of the other ghostly creatures they’ve seen.

There is an artifact in the dead centre of the Ghostglades, hidden in a rather out of the way cave, an alien cube of unplacable metal with a surface that shifts imperceptibly like a puzzlebox made of sand. What this object’s origins are, none can say, but its purpose is to understand, to observe and replicate animal life in real time by projecting hard-light holograms throughout the region in an attempt to build a model of their behaviour. However long the mechanism has been operating, it’s only been a few hundred years since the city of Amaranth was founded and people worked up the courage to start poofing its holograms for fun, disrupting its careful calculations. It’s taking the intervening years for the device’s un-mind to create a working model of what sort of animal a “hunter” is, having only recently concluded that they are entities that stalk, chase, ambush and kill anything that moves. Over the coming days, more and more of these projections will appear in the ghostglades, searching for interlopers, posing a definite threat to any who make their living off the surrounding meadowlands and forests.

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alexagirlie · 1 month

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Close Your Eyes and Think of Caladan

(Masterlist)

A/N Here is the first part to the Close Your Eyes Series. I first write this 2 years ago. It has not been re-edited so i apologize for the grammar. I am very very mean to everyone. Please heed the tags. Part 2 will be posted soon! Thank you to @zaldritzosrose for the header!

Fandom: Dune

Pairing: Paul/Duncan (offscreen/implied), Paul/Trauma, Paul/Harkonnen(s)

TW: DDDNE. NON-CON. Canon Divergent. Banquet Scene AU. Major Character Death. The Baron is a Lecherous Animal. Angst. Hurt no Comfort. No Lube. Blood as Lube. Non Consensual Drug Use. Non Consensual Voyeurism. Non Consensual Touching. Non Consensual Oral. GangBang. Spitroasting. Murder.

Summary: "You are going to do everything that I say, everything." The Baron leaned forward in his seat menacingly, his shadow stretching down the table like a phantom. "If you do this and if I'm pleased with your effort I will allow your Father to live and he can join you and your witch mother in exile."

"Strip" The single word made every cell in Paul's body crawl, the reality of what he was about to do making him feel sick. But if his father had to go through the indignity of being drugged, helpless and naked in front of the enemy then so too could Paul. He could handle whatever needed to be done to save his fathers life.

Word count: 5.5K

Taglist: @valeskafics

Paul regained consciousness slowly as he was being dragged along the hard stone hallway outside his bed chambers. Rough hands wrapped around his ankles and animalistic laughter, deep voices speaking to each other. His hair caught and snagged on every little crack in the floor knotting the wild curls. The side of his face felt rubbed raw from sand and grit.

He couldn't make out the words of the conversation happening between the men dragging him. The effects of the sedative Dr Yueh had given him still pulled his mind down and made everything sound like he was underwater. All Paul knew was that he was in trouble and he had to get away. These men were not friends of House Atreides but enemies which had found their way into his room. Who knew who else they had taken, who else they had hurt.

Paul struggled to utilize all his Bene Gesserit training to drive the drug from his system. To fight and regain control of his body like he had been trained to do but it was no use. The drug was still too strong, designed to give him a full night of uninterrupted, dreamless sleep. He was uncoordinated, his limbs weak and not responding to the orders he gave them. He could move them just enough for his legs to twitch, for the men dragging him to notice that he was awake. They dropped him to the floor and two others stepped forward, grabbing him under each arm and continuing up the hallway. His feet kicking and scraping off the stone but he was unable to get his legs under him and stand.

They travelled for many minutes, down corridor after dark corridor that stank of blood, sweat and terror. The further they went the more Paul felt the effects of the sedative wear off and he tried to pull upon the powers of The Voice to aid in his escape. But he could not pull his focus enough to find the right pitch. Still he tried, over and over, voice getting louder and louder.

"Unhand me!"

"Let go of me!"

"You will not win, my Father will see your throat slit for this!"

Finally one of the Harkonnen soldiers grew tired of his words and he moved to strike Paul sharply across the face. It was hard enough to make his ears ring and blood dripped from his nose. Paul stopped trying, accepting now was not the right time. He needed to wait for the sedative to wear off further and his head to clear before he could try and use The Voice.

They turned the last corner before the Banquet hall and Paul could see the several Harkonnen soldiers which stood guard. And to his confusion he could see Dr Yueh. The Doctor was unrestrained and appeared to be unharmed though a look of panic grew on his face when he saw Paul being carried towards the door. Dr Yueh stepped forward and intercepted the men that held Paul captive. He began to question them in a hushed voice filled with barely restrained terror.

"What is going on? He is supposed to be with Lady Jessica. To be taken out into the desert and released into exile."

As Dr Yueh questioned the men, Paul came to the sinking realization that the House of Atreides had been betrayed. That the Doctor who had taken care of him for most of his life was a traitor and had sold them out to the Baron. Fury rose up within Paul, swift and burning in his chest, teeth clenched. Giving a sharp tug on his arms he managed to pull one of his arms free from the soldiers holding him. It granted him enough freedom to swing out with an open hand, slapped the Doctor across the face. The sound if flesh to flesh echoing down the hall.

"You traitor! You fucking trai-" His tirad was cut off by a hand that gripped into his hair and yanked his body back sharply. It pulled a yelp from his mouth and forced him down to one knee before it let him go. He glared up at those standing above him. Paul kept his mouth shut and waited to see what would happen next, mind spinning.

There was a long tense minute where no one spoke before one of the men finally answered the Doctor, "The Baron changed his mind, he demands to see the boy first before releasing him to his fate." The man stepped forward into Dr Yueh's space and met his gaze head on. "Now stand aside Doctor before you find yourself in need of fixing."

The two men stared at each other for a breath before Dr Yueh stepped aside without further comment. By now Paul was able to stand on his own, though his knees still felt weak. On wobbly legs he was able to move forward under his own power and no longer needed to be dragged.

They entered the room and Paul gaze locked onto a naked body sprawled limply in the chair closest to the door. Paul can feel his terror growing, his heart pounded, sweat gathered under his arms and in the small of his back. The soldiers led him further into the room and Paul could see that the body was his father, his eyes were open staring unblinkingly up at the ceiling. He could see his chest rise and fall so he was alive but he wasn't moving.

A voice sounded out from the far end of the room and pulled Paul's attention reluctantly away from his Father.

"Ah the young Paul, we meet at last" Seated at the other end of the banquet table was the most grotesque man Paul had ever seen. His bald head gleamed with sweat and his skin was an ashen shade of gray. His body looked misshapen under his black robes and his chin was covered in smears of food. There was a huge spread of food in front of him and he was stuffing his face. Handful after handful. It seemed he had found the time to raid the kitchen during his great siege upon House Atreides. This must be the Baron of house Harkonnen.

They came to a stop a few feet up the length of the table, the soldiers released Paul and stepped back. Left him alone to face the Baron. Paul tried to keep his disgust off his face, not wanting to make the situation worse, his mind whirled as he tried to come up with a solution the ended with his father and himself able to escape.

He considered a second attempt at using The Voice again but a glance around the room showed over a dozen. He would only have one chance to use The Voice and he wasn't sure if he would be successful with so many to control. Paul decided to save that skill for a time with a better chance of success, hopefully it would present itself soon.

"Such a pretty thing aren't you?" Paul can feel the Barons gaze like a caress, slimy and black as oil on his skin. Nausea built in his stomach at the implications behind the Barons comment. "Stand there quietly Child while we finish our business then we can get to know eachother better"

Paul felt bile rising up his throat and struggled to keep it down. He would not throw up, he was the son of the Duke, the son of a Bene Gesserit sister and he would not let his fear control him. He ran through the Litany against Fear in his head while the Baron conversed with the others around him.

'I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration" He could hear the conversation the Baron was having with Dr Yueh, it explained the deal they had made, the motivation behind the Doctor's betrayal. How they had his wife, how they promised to release her and reunite them.

'I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.'

Paul flinched at the slick wet sound of a blade being slid into flesh, a gurgle and a thud as Dr Yueh's body hit the floor. The traitor joined his wife in the release of death. The Baron turned his attention back to Paul, his beady black eyes swept over him from head to toe then slowly back up. A sick grin spread across his sticky, sweaty face.

"You are going to do everything that I say, everything." The Baron leaned forward in his seat menacingly, his shadow stretching down the table like a phantom. "If you do this and if I'm pleased with your effort I will allow your Father to live and he can join you and your witch mother in exile."

Paul stared at the Baron in disbelief, did he think Paul stupid? That he would just take him at his word and blindly agree.

"Why should I believe a word you say?" Paul asked "What's to stop you from killing us no matter what I do?"

The Baron let out a chuckle, humorless and menacing. The air seemed to drop several degrees, the sweat on the small of Paul's back cold enough to send a chill up his spine. Or that was the reason Paul had settled on, he refused to let his fear control him. He may have been deluding himself.

"Absolutely nothing," was the response "but you can count on me gutting your father like a pig if you don't." The threat rang with truth.

His night clothes were loose and comfortable, easy to take off. Paul pulled the fear-sweat soaked shirt over his head, dropping it to the ground at his feet. Next he pulled the waistband of his pants down over his hips and ass and let gravity pull them the rest of the way down to his feet. Stepping out of them he kicked the pile of clothes away. He wore nothing underneath, he had hoped for a visit from his swordmaster during the early hours of the morning.

Paul's face burned red with shame but he made no move to cover himself after he had finished getting undressed. Kept his arms firmly at his side, chin held high, he refused to allow the Baron to humiliate him. He had been naked in front of others before, during outdoor survival training back on Caladan.

"Good boy" Paul could feel the flush moving down his chest. This time part of it was fueled by anger, not just embarrassment. Only one person was allowed to call him boy, "Bend over the table".

Paul's blood ran cold and he froze in place, not even daring to breathe. He must have heard incorrectly, this was not what was about to happen. Next thing he knew he had been grabbed by rough hands and was forced face down over the table. He barely had enough time to turn his head to the side in order to avoid having his nose smashed into the hard stone. His head rang from the blow to his temple and he struggled against the hands which held him down by the shoulders.

The soldiers that held his arms pulled them out to the side so they were extended flat against the table and a third came up behind him. A booted foot roughly kicked his legs out wider while a hand came to rest against the side of his head to hold it in place. Paul had no leverage to try and get his upper body off the table and his legs were spread too wide to keep his balance enough to try and kick out.

The Baron waited until Paul was firmly in place before he rose from his seat. Lift repulsor buzzing as he glided down the length of the table, past Paul and came to a stop next to Leto's chair. He addressed his next words to the Duke directly.

"My men are going to reap the rewards of conquest, using your son's body however they see fit. If he lives by the end and has put on a good show then you will be released together into the desert."

His speech made, the Baron drifted back to the other end of the room and took his seat to watch the show unfold.

Leto had thought that being betrayed by one of his own trusted men, paralyzed, stripped naked and left prown was to be the worst part of his final moments. He was wrong. He had watched in horror as his Son was brought in, as he heard the Baron's words. Leto's freedom to be used as leverage against Paul.

The Baron lowered Leto's chin just enough so he could see his son, pressed firmly to the table just feet away from him. He watched as the first Harkonnen soldier, the one that stood at Paul's back, reached down with the hand not holding Paul's head down and removed bits of his armour and pulled his hard cock from his pants. He watched as that same soldier stepped closer to his son and forced his cock into Paul's unwilling body.

He watched as Paul let out a heart wrenching scream which cut off as he let out a sob. Tears ran down his face to puddle on the table top below. He was screaming, pleading with the man to stop but all he got was vicious laughter in response. His body jerked forward with each thrust, and with each thrust his pleader got quieter and his sobbing and screaming got louder and more desperate.

Leto screamed along with his son, only he could not get his mouth to move, to let the noise out. All he could produce was a high moaning sound, the drug still had a firm hold on his body. In his mind he begged and begged for the scene in front of him to stop, to not make him watch as his son was brutalized in front of his eyes.

Leto watched as the fight drained out of his son, watched as the first soldier's thrust grew more erratic and he spasmed, coming inside of Paul and let out a deep satisfied groan. He watched the soldier pull out, and in his wake a stream of blood and cum flowed down the inside of Paul's thighs. Another soldier took the first man's place and it began again and again and again.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl and half a dozen Harkonnens had taken their turn with Paul's body. His son no longer screamed, just made a high pitched pained sound each time the man behind him thrust in. His hips slammed against the stone table, and bruises had begun to form on his body. Finger shaped on his hips and upper thighs, bite marks on his back and shoulders. His eyes were glossy, red rimmed and unseeing, face pale and covered in spilled tears and snot.

The soldiers had exchanged jokes and crude remarks as they took their turns with Paul. Commented on how tight he was or how good he felt around their cocks. Leto had tried to ignore them until one comment grabbed his attention in the worst way.

"Heeey let's have a go at that pretty mouth of his, bring him 'round!" More laughter met those words and Leto felt a tear slide down his cheek as they manhandled his son onto the floor. Down onto his hands and knees. The soldier who made the comment moved to stand in front of Paul, slide a hand into his curls and pulled his face up.

He watched as the man forced his cock into Paul's mouth, heard his son gag and choke at the intrusion into his airway. Heard the horrible wet sounds they made with each thrust. Watched as a second soldier knelt down behind Paul and thrust inside him and Leto screamed.

"If I feel teeth I will knock them out of your mouth" The man spoke barely above a whisper but Leto heard him all the same.

Duncan awoke to the sounds of men yelling and distant explosions. He jumped out of bed, stopped long enough to pull a shirt over his head and grab his sword belt. He didn't wait to strap it on, he buckled it up as he sprinted out of the room.

Speeding down several corridors his heart sank as he took in the distant forms of Sardaukar soldiers and the fallen bodies of servants. The Emperor had taken a side, and it was not with the House Atreides.

He slips past the first group he had come across but soon his luck runs out. Coming to a fork in the hallway he sees a form up ahead in the dark. He pulls his longsword from his belt and moves to confront the soldier. Footsteps and panting breath from his left let him know there were more Sardaukars approaching. He drew his other blade and moved into action.

It was a matter of five, six strikes and the first three men were dead on the floor. A fourth fires a dart from up the corridor, Duncan barely blocking before throwing one of his blades at the man to halt his momentum. He takes a running leap driving his knee into the soldier's chest, driving him to the ground.

The man under him tries to get a hold on his shoulder but Duncan throws him off, bringing his other arm down to strike the killing blow. He gets up, collects his dropped blade and continues on to the Ducal family's sleeping quarters.

His first stop was to check the Duke room; he hoped to find Leto and Lady Jessica still safe in their bed. The room was empty when he arrived, sheets still warm to the touch.

Next Duncan raced to Paul's room, praying that he would not find the same. That he would find Paul safe, his parents by his side. Guards at the ready.

He jogged around the corner towards Paul's room and his stomach sunk. There were no guards and the door to Paul's room was ajar. He burst into the room and confirmed his fears. The room was empty.

"Paul…" His lover's name escaped his mouth in a whisper and he paused just over the threshold. The bed was unmade and one of the chairs had been knocked onto its side.

There was still a chance the Ducal family had made their escape. He would head to the hanger next, to try and steal a thopter and head into the desert. The protocol the Duke and his warmaster created prior to their arrival on Arrakis dictated that was his next move If Paul had escaped he would activate his beacon so Duncan could find him.

"I heard the Baron is letting us have turns with the little Duke. Apparently his ass is so sweet and he's a real screamer" His companion laughed and clapped the first on the shoulder.

He made it several corridors without seeing another living being. Hearing distant voices Duncan pauses and waits to see who was approaching. He watched another two enemy soldiers from the shadows, this time dressed in the armour of House Harkonnen. He was about to spring out for the kill when one of them spoke.

"Well then we must hurry so we can get a piece of that before the others ruin him".

Duncan's blood froze and his vision turned red before he sprung into action, both their throats slit before they could register that they were being attacked. Blood splattered across his face and chest but Duncan ignored it as he took off running towards the banquet hall, the most logical place for the Baron to be. Duncan operated purely on instinct while a single thought ran on repeat in his head.

'They have Paul, they have Paul, they have P-'

Duncan slows down to a silent crouching walk as he nears the hallway that led to the banquet room, the Baron would have the door guarded and he did not want to alert them to his presence. He peeked around the corner and saw that he was correct. There were two men guarding the door but Duncan could tell they were distracted. He could also take a guess at what it was that distracted them. The door to the banquet room was opened, just a crack, but that was enough for the noises from within to drift out into the hallway.

The sound of skin against skin and muffled whines and broken off sobbing.

He bursts into the room with a roar. In a matter of seconds he sees Leto naked in a chair at one end of the table, the Baron seated with a feast before him at the other end. Then Duncan see's Paul, on his hands and knees on the floor. One soldier bent over his back, hips moving at a punishing pace and another at his front, using his mouth. Tears were streaming down Paul's cheeks mixing with the saliva that glistened on his chin. Blood was running in a thin stream down his inner thigh, the red glaring against the white of his skin.

Duncan feels rage boil in his chest, hor and swift and before he even has a chance to think about what he doing he has rushed towards the door, killing the two guards.

Tears were rolling steadily down Leto's cheeks as the wounded noises coming out of his son continued to increase in intensity. There seemed to be no end to the Harkonnen animals lining up to take their turn with him. One would finish, take their leave and another would step forward. He wasn't sure how much more Paul's body could take before it simply gave out.

Leto briefly considered releasing the poison hidden in his mouth, in the tooth Dr Yueh had replaced. It would release Paul from his abuse but Leto couldn't be sure it would travel far enough to also kill the Baron and he had to kill him. This would all be in vain if he couldn't kill the Baron.

Suddenly Leto hears an inhuman roar, full of rage and hate and then Duncan Idaho bursts into the room. He can hear the thud of the two guards at the door falling dead as his swordmaster moves over the threshold. Sees the silver-gray blur of blades flying through the air, killing another two. They had not yet reactivated their shields after having their turn with Paul.

The last two Harkonnen soldiers had only just begun their attack on Paul's abused body when Duncan arrived on scene. They moved quickly to intercept the intruder, barely doing their pants up first. They met in a clash of swords just at the edge of Leto's peripherals. He could see Duncan strike, swift and brutal, easily overpowering them and ending the melee in a matter of seconds. Their bodies hadn't even hit the floor before the swordmaster was rushing to Paul's side.

He sees movement at the other end of the room and pulls his gaze away from Paul and Duncan in time to see the tail end of the Barons robes as they flutter out the door. The coward had taken the first opportunity to make a run for it. No doubt he would be sending reinforcements soon. Leto needed to ensure Paul's safety, and quickly.

Paul who has slumped to the ground in a pile of pale limbs and lays unmoving, eyes staring off into the distance. If it wasn't for the fact Leto could still see his chest moving with his breath he would assume his son was dead.

Duncan gutted the last enemy present in the room, the Baron having mysteriously disappeared during all the attack. He rushes to Paul's side, placing a discarded cloak over his naked form and pulling the pile of his shirt and pants closer. He reaches out to gently touch Paul's curls but freezes when Paul violently flinches away from his hand. Paul not yet recognizing that it was Duncan and not one of those animals that had raped him.

"I'm so sorry my boy… I need you to get dressed so we can escape" He explained gently, hoping a familiar voice will allow Paul to come back from wherever his mind had gone. He nudged the pile of clothes even closer and dared to breathe a small sigh of relief when Paul reached out with shaking hands to grab his pants. "That's it my boy".

Duncan watched as Paul got dressed then tried reaching out again. "I'm going to carry you now, okay Paul?"

This time there was no reaction from Paul. His mind once again retreating in the wake of his rape. Duncan takes the risk and wraps the cloak back around his shoulders, bundles him up and picks Paul up in his arms and carries him to his Fathers side.

"My Lord, can you move?" Duncan knelt by Leto's side, subtly giving him a once over, checking for injury beyond his nakedness.

The Duke could barely open his mouth to answer.

"..no.. you must leave me.." His voice was barely above a whisper, Duncan having to strain to hear his words, "get Paul… away…"

"It will be done"

Duncan closed his eyes and knew that he would not be able to save his Duke and Paul. Not if Leto could not yet move. He shifted Paul's weight in his arms and nodded to Leto to show that he understood. He would have to leave his Duke, his friend and knew that by doing so his life would be forfeited. The Baron would see to it.

Leto let himself feel relief as Duncan carried Paul away. He knew that the swordmaster would do everything in his power to see his son to safety. He did not know when it had begun but anyone with eyes could see that the two were in love. It was written in every interaction the two had. He trusted no one more than Duncan to look after Paul.

The feeling had only just begun to return to Leto's limbs when the Baron made his reappearance. Flanked by over a dozen of his soldiers. It seemed he was not willing to risk Duncan Idaho's blood lust after what had been done to his charge.

Leto can hear the whirl of his lift repulsors as he floats his way across the room. His robes dragged across the floor with a soft slithering sound. The Baron approached Leto's prone form when the duke saw him hesitate mere feet away. It seems his paranoia was showing and he activated his own shield before finishing his approach.

"For hundreds of years we’ve traded blood for blood. But no more. Your son is broken, he will not survive long in the desert. Your concubine is dead. Tonight the House Atreides falls…and soon your bloodline will end forever".

As the Baron was giving his speech he had been leaning further and further into Leto's space. This gave Leto an idea, an opportunity to finally utilize the poison tooth Dr Yueh had left him with. He opens his mouth just enough for sound to escape, he needs to draw the Baron in even closer.

"Here I am. Here I remain" Leto bites the tooth, opens his mouth and breathes the poison into the air.

"What did you say?" It seemed to work as the Baron closed several more inches.

Duncan carries Paul through the palace, keeping to the shadows and out of sight of any other person. As they approach the hanger area he finds a secluded corner just outside the entrance to set Paul down while he investigates. He creeps down the corridor and peaks his head into the entrance of the hanger. He counts roughly a dozen Harkonnen soldiers loitering around, more than he can typically handle in a single fight. He will have to come in fast and brutal, make a show of force and hope they think him not worth the effort.

Duncan makes his way back to where he left Paul, hoping he has roused on his own but he is still zoned out. He is slumped against the wall, eyes staring into the distance. Duncan risks reaching a slow hand out and running his fingers through Paul's hair, trying to detangle some of the knots. Normally Paul would find the action grounding, one common between them after a nightmare but Duncan gets no reaction.

Duncan says a silent apology to his lover and resorts to a single sharp slap across the cheek. He can see Paul's mind snap back into focus, a look of shock coming across his face. Duncan was glad to see some emotion on Paul's face, even if he did not like the method he had to use to put it there. His boy has had enough pain.

As an apology he cups Paul's face between his palms, one thumbs gently stroking across his cheek.

"Listen to me Paul, are you listening?" Duncan waits for Paul to nod in acknowledgement. "There are only a few stragglers in the hanger, I'm going to take care of them, then we are going to take one of the 'thopters. When I call for you, you need to be ready to move. Can you do that?"

Duncan holds Paul's gaze and waits for him to nod again "I need you to say it out loud my boy".

"I understand… when you call for me, I run" Paul recited back to Duncan, voice barely above a whisper, the sound strained and hoarse. Duncan's blood boiled at the memory of what had caused Paul's voice to sound like that, at the image burned into his brain of the Harkonnen animals taking him from both ends. The sound of skin on skin, the pained sounds that had escaped Paul's mouth even while gagged with cock. He fought with himself, with his rage, and shoved the feeling into a box to deal with later. He needed to focus on the here and now, on the men he needed to kill, on the job he still had to complete. They needed to escape Arrakeen and he needed to get Paul to safety.

"Good, stay close and be ready." Pulling his blades from their sheaths with a quiet hiss, Duncan leaned back around the corner into the hanger, just enough to double check their position before he moved in.

They stay low and against the wall of the hanger, circling around to the group closest to 'thopter. Using the Atreides battlesign Duncan tells Paul to stay put before springing out of the shadows. He kills the four men in quick order, they had stupidly left their shields off maling them an easier fight then expected. The scuffle had drawn the attention of another group a few feet away but Duncan saw them hesitate.

Together they climbed into the 'thopter, Duncan at the controls and took off.

He lets out a war cry, slamming his blades together, the sound of metal on metal ringing out. He stalks towards them, pointing his long sword in a challenge which they luckily do not rise to meet. He turns to motion Paul forward only to see the young man already most of the way to his side.

Paul felt empty, like someone had opened his chest and removed all things vital for life. He felt broken, his body screaming at him, to run, to hide, to wither away and die. He had allowed those men to touch him, to take what did not belong to them. What had only ever belonged to the man beside him.

To infect him and make him unclean. He could feel the mixture of cum and blood dripping from his hole, the seat of his pants wet with it.

His fathers absence salt on the wound. After all that he had endured they had to leave him behind. The Baron would never let him live.

The only thing stopping Paul from throwing himself out of the moving 'thopter was the knowledge that Duncan would not hesitate to follow him into death. He would live, to stay with Duncan, to find his Mother, to avenge his Father and himself. The Harkonnens would pay. Blood called for Blood.

#kirstin's chronicles #dddne #non-con #dark fic #dune #dune fanfiction #paul atreides #duncan idaho #atreidaho #paul x duncan #paul/duncan #angst #dune 2021

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