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airplanned · 3 years

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All the Trashy Novels Part 29

It’s a long one, because it’s the smutty climax.

Part 1...Part 28

***

Link pulled his horse to the side of the road as they were riding past the wetlands, right before the fork away from Zora's Domain. She stopped and waited impatiently as he crouched down in the tall grass and snuck towards the water. What was he doing? It was impossible to tell with him.

A minute later, he shouted, "Ha!" and stood up with his hands cupped together. He came up to her horse, lifted his hands for her to see, and uncupped them. Inside was a dragonfly.

"Oh!" She slipped off her horse to bow her head over the cave of his hands and peer inside. When it launched itself upward, she meeped and jumped back, laughing and pressing a hand to her chest as it darted off. At some point she had taken hold of Link's wrist.

He smiled at her and shifted, twisting their hands until hers was locked in his, and then pulling her off the road and towards the water. He caught her another dragonfly, and she caught him a frog, explaining its medicinal properties and how one day she would use it to run experiments on him.

"You're already running experiments on me," he said.

"No. You are assisting as I run experiments on myself."

"What experiments will you run first?"

"I need more data points. Duration and intensity of the glowing. I need a survey of the other factors that may be involved before devising a more strenuous set of experiments."

His mouth quirked, as if he were trying not to laugh at her.

She shoved him into the shallow water.

A second later, he'd grabbed her around the middle and pulled her down with him, and splashing and spluttering, she'd had to fight her way to sitting. He grinned at her, and she covered his face with her hand. He took the opportunity to lick her palm, and she shrieked and ranted about how gross he was all the way to the citadel.

There they stopped for the night: one last night sleeping in a bed in exchange for playing princess as the general gave a guided tour and then hosted them at dinner. But the tour turned out to be much more interesting than she'd expected. A team of Sheikah had brought in a handful of guardians with the intention of adding them to the citadel's defenses. They were a bit behind those from the Royal Tech Lab, and had to be aimed manually, but they still outstripped the cannons. The general and the Sheikah soaked up every word she said, and soon she was gesturing wildly with her arm half inside a guardian, her face streaked with grease.

"The general's in love with you," Link whispered as he walked her to her room.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Everyone here's in love with you."

"No, they're not. They're just too far removed from the castle and haven't heard the terrible gossip about me yet."

"Okay, but if you ever need a fake Akkalan boyfriend, I bet he'd volunteer."

"I do not require a fake Akkalan boyfriend." She paused at her door. "How is your fake townie girlfriend?"

"We broke up."

"Oh?"

"She didn't like that I was leaving town for so long. And she didn't like that I was going with you. She's very jealous of you."

"Well," Zelda said. "She should be. Everyone here is in love with me."

He nodded.

"Everyone at the castle will be disappointed."

"They'll get over it."

"What will you do the next time you get a bite mark on your neck?"

He lifted his eyebrows.

She lifted hers back. Then she closed the doors behind her and went to bed, smirking.

They reached the Spring of Power late the next day. As Link set up camp, Zelda ducked away to see the Goddess statue. She didn't change into her prayer dress or step into the water. She couldn't sort what she wanted into words that might reach the Goddess. She was out of practice praying. Instead, she bowed her head and clenched her hands before her, gathered all the worry and hope and pleading that tightened in her chest and mentally projected it into the heavens, hoping the Goddess would hear her.

Link gave her a cautious look as she returned. She realized that she usually left her prayers feeling lost and worthless and small. Link must have noticed. He must be expecting more of the same. But this time felt different. It wasn't a gladness that she'd heard others describe, but maybe the hope and determination that had pushed her on for the past few days was bolstered by the Goddess. Then again, maybe it was the absence of a sense of defeat. She gave Link as honest of a smile a she could as she accepted the bowl he passed to her.

"I'm alright," she said. "I'm going to figure this out."

"I know you will." He said it so easily that it disarmed her.

Because of the depression in the ground, the sun seemed to set earlier than usual. They ate in silence, and she pretended the warmth on her face was from the fire.

She snuck a few looks at him--his posture easy, the planes of his face lit orange in the light. He was handsome. She'd never thought about him that way before.

She blinked, handed back her bowl, and retreated to her tent.

She arranged everything to her liking. She had a comfortable bed roll and a number of blankets fit for a princess. She had a soft glowing lantern and a pocket watch and the Sheikah Slate and a journal with a pencil. She made sure the pencil was sharpened. She changed into a shirt with fine embroidery around the collar and a softness that belayed wealth, but it was also far too big for her, fitting a bit like a sack that barely covered her rear. She didn't wear anything else.

She was suddenly overwhelmed with nerves. But she took a shaky breath and stuck her head out of her tent. "I would like to run an experiment. If--if you have a moment."

He looked up from the fire, his interest piqued, and she ducked back into her tent before he could see how badly she was blushing. Once in her tent, she put on as much bluster as she could to hide her nerves, ordering him to remove his boots and his sword and his shirt. She thought about asking him to remove his pants, but that seemed a bit pushy. Maybe she needed to be pushy? "And your pants," she said. "But your undergarments can remain."

She then had him lie on his side on her mat. "You will observe and take notes," she explained, showing him were the pocket watch and journal were. She tucked her hair behind her ears, lay down facing him, and hooked her leg over his hip.

He looked mildly surprised, but went along with it. And that was weird, right? This was weird. She was taking advantage of how he couldn't deny her. She was royalty and possibly the key to saving everything he knew from destruction. Maybe should should find a way to--

"You're over-thinking it," he whispered. He'd made himself comfortable, resting his head on his arm and a hand on the small of her back.

She huffed. Then she closed her eyes and worked her hand down her body.

"Want me to help?"

"I don't want you to be too distracted to record your observations."

"Right. Good. Because this isn't distracting at all."

She pinched him with her free hand, and he laughed. It was soft and low and she could feel his breath against her face. It did more to arouse her than her own hand, which slid between her legs.

His hand moved to her bare hip, and once he did, she could feel how much she moved against him, how much her hips rocked. He didn't try to control her rhythm or hold her still, and she found her movements growing even more animated as the pleasure built around her. She bit her lip and breathed.

His voice was soft like his laugh when he murmured, "What are you thinking about?"

"What you would say if you were talking to me."

"What would I say?"

"'That's it, Zelda. That's so good.'"

Not missing a beat, he said, "You're so good, Zelda. The way you move, the way your whole body moves. You're so emphatic. In everything you do. Your whole body moves when you talk. And now, Goddess look at you, the way your shoulders move and your back arches."

Her shoulders rolled even more, her breath coming quick.

"Call me something sweet," she said. In her head, he called her darling, and it wasn't quite right. She always stumbled over it. She couldn't hear it in his voice.

He leaned in to kiss under her ear, sending a shudder down her spine. He whispered, "You're my peach."

She gasped, her hand picking up speed, a spike of pleasure rocking through her. His hands wandered inside her shirt, down her leg. Dizziness crept in around her edges.

"That's it. That's it. Let go. I've got you."

He had her. He would catch her when she fell.

"Look at me."

She tried twice to blink open her eyes, and when she finally managed, he was there, a heat in his eyes and adoration on his face. The rhythm of her hand stuttered, and then his fingers had replaced hers, picking up the rhythm she'd set as he pulled her fingers into his mouth. It all happened so fast that she thrust her fingers against his tongue a few times before realizing. His eyes darkened and then rolled as he moaned and sucked greedily at her fingers. The movements of his hand matched her own, except steady and sure when she faltered, when her body jerked, and her breath caught and caught and caught. Link would catch her. She threw her head back and grinned, riding every wave, letting herself fall. She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him into a kiss as she burned and burned and burned, still smiling against his mouth.

"Zelda?"

She blinked dreamily up at him, and there was a click as he snapped her picture with the slate. He turned it around to show it to her.

She was glowing. Her whole body surrounded by a halo, her skin golden as if she had become the sun. The picture smiled dreamily back at her.

"You've been glowing for two minutes and fifteen seconds and counting."

"You timed it?"

"Of course."

She beamed at him, and she could see from her hands on the slate that she was glowing more brightly. Beams of sunlight radiated off her.

She reached for Link's cheek and closed her eyes and reveled in the warmth in her chest, the shape of it, the pressure of it. It was like...happiness? A warmth of affection that had been there for a while, but had never before tapped into the power of her soul. She hadn't let it. She'd held it at bay. She had pushed it aside to berate herself and turn her insecurities outward. She'd thought the Goddess was spiteful, but the Goddess was love, and she rewarded those who loved. To protect her country, she first needed to love it.

"Link?"

"Yeah?" He brushed hair from her face.

"I don't hate you."

"You sure? That was a little fun."

"Only a little?"

"This is better."

She laughed and dragged him in to kiss her as she glowed.

***

Part 30

#Zelda #my fic #All the Trashy Novels

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fountainpenguin · 4 years

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Do you have any more information on the "Aspen incident" that's been mentioned in a few of your pixie fics? I'm kinda curious to find out what exactly happened but when I search the name Aspen on your blog nothing comes up

Ooh, Aspen’s fun. I worked it out and you technically have all the information you need to answer that question, but it’s all scattered across different pieces because you’re not supposed to know yet. We don’t get to Aspen’s plot for a long time.

I will not give the answer directly, but I will help you out by collecting some hints in this post. Aspen is someone who was associated with some pixies in an ambiguous pre-series time period. He is not alive yet in Origin or Knots, but we will see him towards the end (in both stories). Here are some things Sanderson mentioned about him in Prompt 14, “Minion”-

“I haven’t been forced from a gyne since the incident with Aspen.”

“Our arrangement would only be temporary. But then again, so is my arrangement with the Head Pixie.”

As I stripped away my shirt, I tried to remember who had planted such treacherous thoughts in my head. Were they all mine, or were they what was left of Aspen’s influence, acting up now that I was here in the Pink Castle again, the very place where I had come to know him so well? It seemed like Aspen would have been in understandable favor of Longwood over any other figure…

Here is what Longwood had to say about him in Pink and Gray:

“Dear dust,” he says, “I’m obsessed.”

“With yourself?”

“With children.”

Rosencrantz doesn’t know how to respond to this. Rosencrantz is pretty sure Longwood has confessed to something illegal.

“Not like that,” Longwood clarifies, always one step ahead of the younger pixie and gleaning his thoughts. With a thought and a twitch of the ballpoint pen he uses as a wand, he pings a small picture into his free hand. The frame is dented, the glass shattered long ago. It’s not even a real photograph–only a crayon drawing. A child’s crayon drawing. Longwood hunkers into the chair anyway, caressing the picture with his eyes while holding the shaking chocolate mug to his mouth. He says, “I’m obsessed with that–that shadowman you used to call a mentor.”

“Sanderson?” Rosencrantz presses him cautiously. […]

“I saved his life, Rosebud. You wouldn’t remember. It was long ago. Centuries before you were born, I traded the one I held most dear to save that snotlick’s life, and I pine after him even now. You didn’t know Aspen. But I did. I had the chance. I could have chosen to save what I wanted most. What does that make me feel?”

At this, Longwood bends his head, his wings jolting every few beats. He sinks a little closer to the sidewalk. “H.P., I–You owe me for Aspen.”

“I owe you for what you chose to do to Aspen?”

Longwood looks away. It’s an insult. He shouldn’t have asked.

“Sir, it wasn’t a choice. I had to. It was his fate. If I'd–If I’d tried to protect Aspen, Sanderson would have died. And…”

This pause is tenser.

“And that’s your fault. Isn’t it, sir?”

[…]

Longwood’s fists grow tighter, not looser. He does not raise his head. “I let go of Aspen for you, H.P.”

“Pretend that Sanderson is Aspen, and start enjoying his company,” the Head Pixie says. Stepping off the sidewalk, he circles Longwood and continues on his way.

“Sir,” he says, whisking after his boss, “please.”

“What’s the issue? Sanderson and Aspen have a lot in common. They both enjoy cheese and crackers. They both play with their food.”

Now it’s insulting. “Sir–”

“They favor gingertie wands. They do enjoy their music.”

“Please–”

“And this one’s a gimme, but you know how fond they both are of water.”

“Stop it!”

Longwood isn’t aware that his own ipewood wand is out of its sheath until it’s pointed at the back of his boss’s head. H.P. slows. He turns, the metal star on the dangling tail of his hat ringing out in the silent night like a bell on a bobtail. He’s amused, not upset. When his eyes glint, they seem to cast a sheen across his glasses as a whole. Longwood suddenly realizes his mistake, and jerks his hand down.

“Sir, I–I didn’t mean to–” He grabs for his face and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Ní larki… Please don’t make jokes about water at Aspen’s expense, sir. He gets night terrors. Calming him down is embarrassing. And if Sanderson ever knew Aspen was still…”

“I liked your singing,” Betty told him. “You sing very well.”

Longwood glanced over at her, pulling Kenny’s blankets up to his shoulder. “Thank you for your response. I wasn’t sure I would. It’s been centuries since I’ve sung to a child.” He picked a large plush shark up from the nightstand and tucked it under Kenny’s arm. Kenny snuggled up to it and instantly went right back to sleep.

“Do you have kids?” She hoped he’d say yes. She hadn’t seen any pixie kids yet. True, Sanderson said she and Gary couldn’t live in Pixie World forever or else they’d run out of air to breathe, but Betty hoped they’d visit enough that she could make friends with some pixie kids. Did her Earth friends think she was dead? H.P. had made it sound like they did, or would soon enough. She couldn’t go back to Kansas. No more friends. No more family. No more horses. No more softball. No more school. Betty was trying not to think about that.

“I… had a kid, yes,” Longwood said. “He’s gone.”

“Where does he live now?”

Longwood looked at her more seriously. “I mean, he’s gone. He isn’t ever coming back.”

“Oh. That kind of gone.” Betty looked again at the shark he’d given Kenny. “So is that a dead person’s toy?”

“Aspen’s not dead,” Longwood snapped, and Betty jumped at the shoulders. He inhaled through his teeth. “My apologies for startling you, but I always have to express my disagreement when people state that. Aspen isn’t entirely dead. He’s still in there. I can recognize tells of it sometimes. He’s just… not as alive as he could be.” He scratched his wrist, long nails scraping his skin. “I’m sorry. Aspen was my baby. I know it was highly unprofessional of me, but I grew attached to him.”

Kenny stirred in the bed, but didn’t get up. “I’d be so sad if anything happened to Kenny,” Betty murmured. “I’m sorry. Did someone kidnap Aspen? Or did he run away?”

“No. No, he didn’t run!” Longwood’s throat briefly strangled his voice. “He was so trusting. Sanderson cornered him, and he didn’t even–think–when I saw–No.” He shook his head. “No. You would need a full lesson in Fairykind anatomy to understand exactly what happened, Ms. Betty. It’s black magic stuff. I’m sorry. Anything involving Aspen is very difficult for me to discuss, and I would prefer not to breach the subject with a child I just met, you realize.”

(Note - Black magic is performed by doctors. It’s surgery magic.)

That’s all you “officially” know right now, but you’re about to get some really juicy stuff in Origin.

Solve For Aspen

More hints about Aspen’s identity and what’s coming in Origin of the Pixies:

- Technically you’ve already met “Aspen,” but he does not use this name in public. You’ve seen him in a lot of Prompts and some other stories, but not yet in Origin or Knots.

- The life-giving organ in Fae is called the core. It is left behind when a Fae dies (Think about Anti-Cosmo finding Fairy cores on the road in “Tangled Threads”). A firstborn’s core is different from the core of a second-born (It has extra layers of magic around it). Pixies are infected with the bacteria Wolbachia pipientis, meaning they are genetically identical; Sanderson, being H.P.’s firstborn, has a firstborn core.

- Cores take on shapes specific to the individual (For instance, H.P.’s is a laser cannon, Wanda’s is a radar, and Sanderson’s is a pencil sharpener).

- Longwood was born in the Year of Leaves on the Fae zodiac. Aspen was not. So why is Aspen named after a tree?

- Think about what Finley has around his neck. We see him wearing it as an adult in “All I Ever Wanted” but not as a kid in “Evolution Hopeful” or “This Is a Box.” What could it be and why would he start wearing this thing at that age? Why Finley? What’s different about his life compared to all the other pixies?

- Sanderson and Longwood got in an argument during the “Grooming” Prompt. What exact words does Sanderson use in this scene? Why do they affect Longwood so strongly and why does Sanderson feel guilty?

- Where was Sanderson in “Minion” when he started thinking about Aspen? What unique qualities do we know this location has?

- Think about some settings we’ve visited in Origin of the Pixies that explicitly have special qualities. I foreshadowed a location in Chapter 3 (“Love Struck Out”). It comes up again later. Why did H.P. go out of his way to visit in that later chapter and what did he want to do? Why did I think it was important enough to foreshadow?

HINT: It’s near the beginning because it’s also near the end

- Try to remember if there’s a Prompt that struck you as really, really odd… Something that described special location qualities.

- In that Prompt, there were four people who could sense something. One of them showed up late and did not volunteer the same information as the other three. Who was it and what can we not confirm because they stayed silent? What could be happening off-screen during that odd Prompt?

- Sanderson flinched when the Fairy Elder went to touch him in “Minion.” Look at that encounter and focus on what he’s saying. What does he look at and what do you know about that thing?

HINT: Cross-reference with what Anti-Cosmo says about the Fairy Elder in the Frayed Knots chapter “If She Hollers.” Take his words literally.

- Knowing what you know about Pixies and the Fairy Elder, what would you guess triggered the plot in the “really, really odd” Prompt mentioned above?

HINT: Sanderson uses a certain phrase in “Grooming” that also appears in the odd Prompt. What does he describe with that phrase?

- Just before H.P. and Sanderson meet the Fairy Elder in “Minion,” H.P. names a specific location. What is this location and why would I want you, the reader, to know that it’s there?

HINT: Who can get to it?

HINT 2: Don’t overthink it. What is this place literally called?

HINT 3: In several ‘fics, we see special magic keys. Where do you think such keys go and what is the significance of having keys made of different materials?

HINT 4: Why do Fairies not have “perfect memories?” Why do Anti-Fairies supposedly have perfect memories? Why would Fairies not want Anti-Fairies to know about and use these keys?

HINT 5: We will see keys in the 130 Prompt “Repeat.” What material are these keys and where do they come from?

- We now have a person, two places, and some items (and technically a time). How might this information change the way you read Origin?

- Longwood says only one thing in the Origin chapter “Snowflake.” What does he say? Why was Longwood mentioned in the previous chapter (“How to Yoo-Doo”)? Why do these details conflict? What conclusions can be drawn?

- In Origin’s Act 2 finale, “Fruitful Fruition,” H.P. and Sanderson have a conversation where H.P. makes verbatim reference to a quote in a Season 4 episode. What is the context of his talk with Sanderson? What can I do in a backstory ‘fic that sets us up for that episode?

HINT: It’s not a Pixie episode

HINT 2: The quote is VERY specific to that episode and the episode specifically draws attention to it

HINT 3: There is a detail about Sanderson that is easy to forget, so I brought it up earlier in this post. I specifically designed this part of Sanderson in reference to that episode

HINT 4: What was the context of the original quote in the episode? Above all else, the full quote and the context behind it is what Origin of the Pixies is about.

- Four books were recently stolen from the Pink Castle library. Judging by their titles, what information would you guess is in them? (The titles were named in “The Facts of Life” and “What Karma Is”)

- Why could no one solve the crime?

- Take your new information and read “Grooming” again. What does Longwood do at night? Does this remind you of another thing that happens at night?

HINT: Something referenced in this post

If you can answer all of the above, you should know who took the books, why they took them, what Longwood’s relationship to Aspen is, why Aspen is gone, and why Longwood believes Aspen is alive. Review the quoted text in the first half of this post and maybe you’ll realize why Longwood’s relationship with Sanderson is so complex.

That’s Aspen.

You can send asks here on Tumblr or PM me on FFN/AO3 if you want to share your thoughts, which I’m happy to talk to you about… or you can quietly watch it unfold. Up to you!

#Aspen #asks #Anon #We're Pixies!#Cedar toothpick #Sanderson is neat #I'm wasp dad trash #Pink and Gray #Origin of the Pixies #130 Prompts #Long post

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